St*ffing Drabble!

Posted this on tumblr as well, as a bit of a test to see if my writing is worth a patreon pledge to anyone bahahaha.

Includes stuffing and mentions of starvation/nausea!

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Despite the agony of the entire situation, the first day he was free again after being rescued was by far the hardest. Over a week trapped without more than a literal crumb of bread a day had ruined his body’s entire system.

Manet’e didn’t eat more than one meal in a day anyways; fasting was an integral part of working for the temple. After years of practicing it intermittently, he was used to not eating much. Gorging himself was seen as disrespectful- so he simply didn’t, even if he was more hungry than usual.

But… Manet’e could have easily eaten an entire mowl and not been full after the week he’d had. Doctor Trar’ro had been kind enough to offer him a meal upon his arrival to Wella’j, all while checking his vitals and making sure he hadn’t been injured too gravely.

Being much too used to turning down food offered to him, Manet’e declined the meal (having only accepted a glass of water because he was instructed to hydrate), which was stupid of him- truly. He was too starved to think straight, simply sitting out the painfully empty feeling in the pit of his stomach during his ride home to Relc’t. The long ride home. He just wanted to be back in the safety and privacy of his house, away from any prying eyes.

It was cold inside when he finally arrived home, the smell of it pervasive to his senses now. He locked the door tightly and, against his usual judgment, went straight for the pantry. Manet’e was always strict about keeping himself professional and collected, needing to be a firm influence to the selts visiting the temple and purchasing his works. But there, alone in his house, he had no one to witness him act out.

He pulled everything he could manage from the front of the shelves that didn’t involve cooking, fighting through the initial wave of starved nausea to put any food in his stomach at all. The second he managed the first bite, he couldn’t stop. That was probably for the best, he truly needed it. But it was quickly more food than he was used to. He was making up for almost starving to death; eating not only until he wasn’t hungry, but until he was full wasn’t that frowned upon. Not usually.

The unripe fruit he had recently stored in the far back of the pantry in the cool shade had perfectly ripened in his absence. They were the most tempting to eat out of everything, though he was wary of the fact that he was already fuller than he usually could stand to be. After only the first piece of fruit, his stomach started to feel tight under his shirt.

He ran his hand over the hint of swelling, feeling it just barely poke through the fabric. His brain, of course, demanded that he stop. He was full- he was going to make himself sick at that point. But his heart begged for more. His stomach had felt so concave earlier, the bump was a more than welcomed feeling. His heart overruled his brain, happily convincing him to finish the fruit he’d pulled out. Which were three pechets, a bundle of habs, and a single apple.

If he was unsure if he were truly full before the fruit, finishing off the fruit sobered his food-desperate thoughts. His stomach strained painfully under his hands as he laid back across his bed, and he had to worm his hands down across the base of the distension to ungracefully unbutton the top of his pants. It was a halfhearted attempt at releasing the pressure, as the majority of the sensation was in his upper stomach. He truly had never been as turgid as he was at that moment.

With every sick groan his stomach made, he practically mimicked with his voice; groans of discomfort and queasiness that he was unable to control. He settled his hands up against the top of his belly, feeling his fruit filled organs pushing back into his palms with every shallow breath.

Though he was uncomfortable, he was much happier to be unbearably well fed than starved. It took an awfully long time for the cramps to die down before he could sleep, but he was grateful that he would be back to normal by the next morning’s work schedule. …If normal meant he would be tucking himself into something oversized to hide the painfully obvious remnants of a full belly.