The nausea wore off a few hours later. It still lurked somewhere deep inside, but he wouldn’t throw up again. So he pulled his bits back down the floor with him. He swallowed each of down best as he could. He could feel them slip down until they each settled somewhere in the pit inside of him. He could feel everything start to settle again. Bones shifted back in place. Growing in ways that he also didn’t want to understand. Feathers scattered on the floor as he grew until he was sitting in a pile of them. He kept scarfing them down until he was normal again, full again.

Or mostly full. Though, how his body knew that some of his organs were never coming back was not something he ever would ever understand. Did it just accept that his spleen wasn’t coming back? Threw it away as a lost cause? But, again, not something he even wanted to understand.

Rohan half propped himself up on his elbows. His arms shook like they were much more interested in collapsing down than holding up weight at that moment. Alex couldn’t blame them. His limbs felt weak too, and he wasn’t sure if it was the lack of movement or the effort of… well, you know.

“What time?” slurred Rohan.

“Early. I think it’s around six?”

Rohan groaned. “Should leave soon.

Alex said, “I thought they had you on night shifts?”

“Alternating between night and morning.”

“Wow. Assholes. Don’t they know that they are dealing with the greatest witch of the century.”

Rohan snorted into the pillow. “Clearly not.” He brought the pillow closer, clearly not planning on moving any time soon.

Alex said, “I’m going to go wash out my entire mouth. Do you want me to bring back some coffee?”

“Coffee,” Rohan moaned. Literally moaned. The embarrassing kind that really did nothing but give Alex second hand embarrassment, so he left before he could do anything embarrassing too.

Alex spent way too long swishing mouthwash until his entire mouth felt tingly. There was no way he could taste anything after he spit it out. That was a nice change from the ever present bloody taste he had to deal with earlier.

Wendy had clearly been down already because the entire kitchen smelled like baking bread. But that also meant there was a layer of lukewarm coffee in the coffeepot. He poured it all into a cup, blasted it in the microwave a second to be slightly less lukewarm, before sneaking it back up to his room.

Rohan hadn’t moved from the spot on the bed. Alex dipped his finger into the coffee and pressed it on Rohan’s lips. Rohan immediately shot up gasping. The look he gave Alex was equally murderous, equally sleepy hamster. Alex managed not to laugh.

Barely, but he did.