Chapter Text
When did the mycelium begin to grow?
His amnesia didn't really help, but he was sure there never were always fungi roots in Florian's fingernails. He could barely hold their hand anymore, because well, fungi wasn't the most comfortable to hold, but he ignored the icky feeling that went through his body whenever they made contact with them because he loved them. He pitied their deteriorating body, what else could he really do?
He was leading his poor lover across a barren highway, cracks left like fungal roots and cars left carelessly. Time left an impression here, and it's not like he could remember alot of things anymore, but he know the horrors left an impression on him and Florian aswell.
The only noises you could hear from the two were Kasper clearing his throat occasionally, and the poorly hidden heavy breathing from Florian. Kasper had learnt a few days before that the other had a sinus infection, and that breathing through their nose was near impossible because of the amount of the mucus that had built up.
He really wished he could something to help Florian other then give them a sweet kiss on the cheek sometimes, or giving their hand a comforting squeeze, but nowadays there wasn't a lot he could do anymore.
“Kasper..?” A quivering voice spoke up from behind him. He stopped walking, and turned to face Florian.
“Hm? What is it, my love?” He asked softly, with a gentle smile.
“I can't keep going,” They managed to breathe out. “I need— we need to..”
“Oh— it's okay! It's alright dear, I understand.” Kasper rubbed their back, and led them away from the road to behind a car, and sat them down onto the sandy terrain.
They closed their eyes and began heaving, and Kasper watched with a frown as he sat down next to Florian.
He waited until their breathing calmed down, then he took off one of his gloves and felt their forehead. He immediately retracted it, as it was scorching.
He waited until they were only lightly panting, not just gasping for air, before taking one of his gloves off and gingerly touching Florian's forehead. A startled yelp left Kasper's mouth at the overwhelming warmth, and he quickly retracted his hand.
“Shit, your fever..” He bit his cheek nervously, then spoke exasperated. “What happened? Did you overdo it? Why didn't you stop us earlier?”
“I'm sorry,” Florian groaned. “I just.. ugh—”
“It's– it's okay.” Kasper said, caressing their cheek. “Do you want something to eat?”
His partner leaned into his unnaturally cold touch, but shook their head.
“I.. I think it's fine now. We can— we can go. Can you help me up?” Florian managed to mutter.
Kasper hummed and nodded, and stood up. He reached under their arms, and pulled them up.
“Ugh— fuck.” Florian groaned in pain. Kasper kept a few arms wrapped around them.
“Hey, Flori, it's okay.” He attempted a comforting smile. “You should take it easy, we don't have to go right now.”
“Not like it matters, huh?” Florian spat, a grin appearing on their face. “There's nowhere to fucking go anymore. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die.”
As quickly as their eerie smile appeared, it melted away as tears pricked their eyes and they buried their head in their hands.
“What?” Kasper breathed out, distraught as he put two of his arms on Florian's shoulders. “No— don't say that. Please don't say that, you'll be fine.”
“Don't lie to me!” They cried out, a sob being choked down. “I can't do this, I—”
They began to cry. Kasper was unsure what to do, and for a moment he just watched Florian cry. Then he pulled them to his chest, and stroked the back of their head.
He let them cry. It would probably be best for them to let it out anyway, and he'd let Florian dip into his own water supply either way.
After a while, maybe ten minutes or so, Florian stopped crying so much, and pulled away from Kasper.
They were both silent for a moment. Florian's eyes were red, and as a stray tear dropped down from their eye, Kasper thought they were so beautiful like this.
Kasper's arms went from their shoulders to cupping their cheeks, and their lips went clumsily clashing together.
A wry chuckle escaped Florian’s mouth, and they put their hands around Kasper’s waist as their lips pressed harder together.
Kasper was taken aback. Florian had never been this intimate with him, and after his sudden breakdown (or something) he was slightly baffled.
This brief confusion meant the boy hadn’t seen his partner’s body begin to convulse, and a loud rip tore through the air.
Some sort of liquid began to pour, and he didn't have time to push Florian away before something slipped down his throat.
Kasper's eye twitched in discomfort, and he shoved the other away harshly.
As their body hit the floor, Kasper looked into their throat and saw a pool of black, almost bubbling and leaking down from the corners of their lips.
It took a moment of processing, until he realised they were dead. Kasper shrieked and threw them on the ground, stepping back in distress.
Kasper blinked in confusion from their immobility — usually they'd have spat an annoyed comment at Jim because of the push.
But Florian was quiet, and Kasper knew why as he saw their still chest.
His face went pale as it settled in his head that his dearest was dead, right in front of him. All breath in his lungs left in a long huff as his legs gave out and he collapsed onto his knees, hands shakily holding his cheeks.
The still warm hands from Florian's fevered face then squeezed harder as he realised something did scurry into his mouth, and he shuffled away from Florian as be groaned in disgust.
He stuck his pointer and index into his throat, twirling them around and choking a few times as tears pricked to his eyes. He was almost overjoyed when he finally threw up.
And yet his face darkened when he saw wriggling around in the green liquid, black slugs. Lots of them, like weird little tentacles. Blood had also came up, but compared to slugs? Very good.
His body shivered, and his green eyes narrowed as he looked at Florians corpse.
“Fucking arsehole,” He whispered. “If I see that girl again, I'm going to apologise and gift her your teeth.”
He stood up and took Florian's jacket to wipe off his vomit, then threw it back onto their face and kicked them so they were lying on their stomach.
Then he turned around, went onto the road and began to run.
Kasper wasn't sure how long and far he ran. Since he was a decently fast runner, it would be obvious he got far, but the smell of blood and vomit from the previous scene that he was convinced he barely went anywhere.
He had nowhere to go exactly, and he wasn't quite sure if he was even running the right way. As long as Florian was out of sight, that was fine. The stench of blood and bile was constantly in his nose, and there was an overwhelming screaming in his head to go back to Florian and slit his belly open, but now it was too late to run all the way back.
He had lasted quite a bit without having to stop for breath, and when he went to do that some man jumped him and tried to stab his throat. Kasper had to suffocate this dude to get him off, and as reward he took his jacket and left to continue his journey.
The theory that he went far proved true though, since eventually he came across some.. place, he couldn't really describe how it looked.
The theory he'd travelled far away was true, when he had noticed the difference in terrain from ages ago. He also found a sort of grey building, cracks everywhere on the buildings, with some corners being filled in with plaster and some had brown plants falling from them.
He would've laughed at the argument on paper on the front door, with person 2 lecturing person 1 on their horrible handwriting. Kasper wasn't the best at reading and stuff, but he could tell there was a very clear difference in the unknown people's language skills.
While circling around, he noticed a window boarded up with wood with a small hole, covered up with a curtain from the other side.
And immediately, he had already began to crawl in. If his head fits, he fits. Easy.
When he left the room he landed in, and then walked through the hallway into a random room, he noticed it was in pretty good shape so he assumed someone was already living in here. That's fine, he didn't really care about dying anyway.
It was very bright too. Glasses, vials, knives and spikes were throughout the room. Okay, what absolute maniac is living here?
His thought process was interrupted by a peculiar neon green liquid entering his view, and he was attracted to it.
His eyes drifted from the weapons to the wall of chemicals, and he went up to it and carelessly picked it up, reading the label.
‘Aleam, stay away from this or I'll make you drink it’
He blinked.
That label isn't helpful at all. Totally unprofessional, but now he has an idea.
Maybe.. he can scare this creature out. Y'know, with such an unstable, unhealthy and unwell host you'd surely detach yourself and find something else.
It was a foolproof plan! Or so he'd convinced himself.
Definitely a foolproof plan. But really, what else was there to do at this point? He was freaking out.
Using pure adrenaline and mania, he bit off the lid and splashed it over himself.
He took a deep shaky breath, and pulled off the cork with his teeth. He then splashed it on his face.
He hissed in pain, but all he could really do was keep pouring some liquids onto his skin and laugh like a moron.
Even as his skin melted, he ran around the room grabbing whatever he could and pouring it on himself while.. giggling. Fortunately, for us, this fiasco didn't go on for very long.
Even as patches of his skin probably melted, he kept dousing himself in any liquid he felt worthy of hurting him. He felt really fucking stupid, but he knew it was too late for him to go back now.
Someone threw open the door, causing it to slam into the wall and startle him, causing him to drop all the glass vials and containers cradled in his arms.
Suddenly, the door was thrown open and it slammed into the wall, causing him to yelp and spin around.
The acid had burnt his bare feet too, sure, but the woman that greeted him's eyes could also shoot his brains out with the amount of rage in them.
“Hey! What the fuck do you think you're doing?!” She yelled, gripping an axe at her side.
He didn't have time to analyse her before he panicked and chucked a chemical bottle at her.
She shrieked in a rage, and caught it, angrily setting it down with a slam and rushing towards him.
Thankfully, she took mercy on him and decided not to split his head in half, then flipped the axe so she was holding the metal.
She swung it at his head, wood colliding with his head, and he blacked out.
Soon, he blearily opened his eyes, almost immediately closing them due to the overwhelming whiteness of the room.
A few things to note was that he was completely unaware of what time it was or where he was. Another was he was in horrible, terrible agony, most sources of pain being from his face and arms.
And the other thing was his aforementioned in-agonizing-pain arms were not moving— the culprit being the straitjacket was in.
Speaking of arms, when he looked down he noticed a lack of them. And when he realised he wasn't originally wearing a white straitjacket, he could figure out where they've gone.
Was that woman actually serious? A straitjacket. He's been in one before, and compared to that, this surely couldn't of been so bad that he'd have to be constrained!
He couldn't see too well, everything was blurry and his hair was covering one of his eyes, but he saw the unmistakable ginger hair of that woman.
He huffed, and spoke with annoyance. “Right. Why've you kidnapped me?”
He heard the woman let out an exasperated scoff. “Shut up! You broke into my lab, I have the right to treat you how I want. Also, do you know the mess you left? I have to clean all of that!”
“Tragic, really. I think I'm crying.”
“Right.”
The woman chose to remain in silence after that, a very awkward, unfortunate silence.
“..Well, this is shit,” He said after a while. “What's your name?”
“And what makes you think you deserve that?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Well, it's polite. What if you make me cry?” He pouted, earning a grimace from her.
“How old are you to even suggest talking like that?”
“Older then you, probably. Go on! I won't judge!”
She huffed and crossed her arms. “My name is Wren.”
“Like the bird.”
Wren shrugged, which caused him to frown.
“You're really boring. Are you a doctor? Is Vladri your last name? I saw that last name somewhere around here.”
“I'm not a doctor, I'm a scientist.”
He tilted his head. “I thought they became doctors.”
“That's if a scientist manages to get a doctorate, and I didn't.’
“Tragic. Anyway, back to your name—”
“It's not as bad as Nikolai, huh? One of the most common fucking names.”
He blinked in confusion. “That's not my name?”
She was still for a second, before furrowing her brow. “Is it not? That was the name on the label in your jacket.
“No, my name's..”
He blinked a few times as he tried to remember his name, ignoring Wren shuffling away from a potential madman. Well done for knocking the lights out of an amnesiac, Wren. Real smart move.
Then, ‘Nikolai’ shrugged. “Actually, Nikolai's fine. Nikolai Kokonov, hm?”
“It's like a plain cheese sandwich, how basic. You should give Aleam a call sometime.” Wren said sarcastically.
“Are they hot?” Nikolai grinned.
“You're actually disgusting.” Wren fully backed up to the door, then turned to open the door.
“Ah, I was joking! Don't—”
Then the door was shut, and Wren was gone.
He huffed, and slid down the wall, so he was laying on his back. What could he do now that Wren was gone, wait?
And now he was thinking of that Aleam guy, and why he had such horrible handwriting.