Laertes nods a little, and lets him go. He's grateful that at least he's not managing both a migraine and that steep fall that comes sometimes after being owned; he thinks that the two together would surely crush him. He turns his head into the pillow, but it smells of soap so heavily that nausea bubbles up in his gut.

Sometimes, a migraine will be a low, rumbling headache for hours before it whips itself into a tempest--but today, the tempest is bearing down on him from a cloudless sky. He can feel it pushing at his brain, crowding out pleasure, making even the soft cotton of the blankets almost too much to bear.