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The sounds of a tunnel collapsing in on itself, of rock being torn loose and bringing more of the earth down with it, was terrifying enough without the echo of the cave magnifying everything and disorienting you further. You couldn’t even tell how extensive the damage was since every crash seemed to become more than a singular crash, the actual sound of stones falling made indistinguishable from the following echoes layering on top of each other becoming a cacophony of destruction.
But eventually, it stopped. It stopped and you could hear your heart beating again, no longer obscured by the falling debris, seemingly making up for lost time by beating so hard you could feel it in your teeth reminding you it was there and you were alive. The next thing you noticed was the heavy silence. Though maybe after being overwhelmed to the point where your ears were ringing, any amount of quiet felt stark to you.
It didn’t matter, because shakily you got up, you had to stop halfway as you rose to rest your hands on your knees and just breathe for a moment, but eventually, you stood straight and exhaled deeply, holding yourself for a second before looking around. Softly, you called out.
“Lanque?”
And heard no response.
Maybe it was too quiet, the fear of another cave in caused by you yelling probably stifled you from doing more than mouthing his name without any of the sound behind it. You build up your nerve and try again, louder.
“Lanque.”
You wait.
There was no reply.
Your heart had only just started to wane from its frantic beat and you were starting to worry something far worse was about to replace it.
You began to look around, hoping to see some sign of life or, you don’t know, maybe even get a little optimistic at not seeing any signs of death. Your footsteps are slow and deliberate as you move around and occasionally over debris. You have to actively try not to flinch as you do, fearing that the sound of any pebble being kicked was the start of another tremor. That or conceal some movement elsewhere or ideally some faint profanity.
But the only sound you manage to hear is the gravel crunching under your shoes as you continue on. Your vision isn’t doing much to help you either. It wasn’t completely dark. The bioluminescent cave fungus creeping up the walls acted as a source of light and kept you from stumbling too much, but it was cultivated by people made for cave dwelling and much more sensitive to light than you are. Still you keep trying. After a few minutes, something on the ground catches your eye and you squint harder trying to focus on it.
There was a puddle reflecting some of the light.
It just looked like an inky pool from where you were standing. For all you knew it could be water. It’s probably water or something that got knocked down during the chaos. Yeah. You really need it to be that and you keep repeating that to yourself mentally as you approach it like it would manifest into truth.
You stopped saying that when you see a massive broken stalactite was not too far away from it, streaked with jade. Current fear be damned, you now have a bigger one and you race towards it now. You run and remember you are capable of teleporting the moment you reach the exact distance that you would consider it not worth teleporting the rest of the way and keep going.
And see exactly what you feared.
Lanque was face down, his hair soaked enough with blood to lay flat against his head. A jade halo formed around him in a mockery of piety.
You momentarily step back in horror, hand against your mouth, trying to focus your eyes on him, trying to have anything else come into focus, but no. What you saw in the low lighting was correct.
But you’re judging this too quickly. Trolls are tough, adults even moreso.
You kneel down and roll him onto his back, which took a decent amount of effort with how heavy he was and how much you were avoiding looking at the back of his head. You brush some of the blood soaked hair away from his forehead. There was no heat to his blood. You feel for his pulse and then when that fails you feel for his pulse again and again hoping it’s thick troll skin or shakiness stopping you from feeling anything.
But it isn’t. You already knew that.
Lanque Bombyx is dead and died doing something he hated in a place he never wanted to be. You don’t know which of those things nauseates you the most. You feel for his pulse again, fighting against tears pricking at corners of your eyes and the tightness in your throat, when you had a thought, something you had forgotten in your grief and shock.
You knew exactly what you had to do.
Not contemplate the ethics of kissing corpses.
He lies there, motionless. You check his pulse again. Still nothing.
Fuck. You're really going to do this.
Steeling your nerves, you use the edge of your sleeve to wipe blood off of the corners of his mouth while avoiding his lipstick, like that was the part skeeving you out. Not the part that you aren’t getting into. Because even if you were to take a cursory thought at that, which you aren’t, you think you’d rather try it and it not work, because it's not like he is getting any deader. And if it does work, you’ll fess up, and you’re okay with him being so disgusted with you that he never speaks to you again. At least that would mean he was alive enough to be angry about it.
You’ve chosen the consequences you’re okay with and now it's just time rip off the band aid and by band aid you mean kiss a corpse which is exponentially worse than the action the metaphor is based on and oh fuck, you're really going to do this. You feel for a pulse again. And again.
You might be stalling. During the time you know nobody else is around to ask you what the fuck you’re doing or see you doing the thing you definitely dont want to get a reputation for. God dammit. Okay. Just going to go for it then.
After some remaining hesitation, your lips make contact with his, cold and motionless. You feel like a goddamn creep and you have no idea how long you're supposed to stay like this. Do you have to stop and repeat until he gets up or something? Fuck. Wait. You're thinking of CPR.
Okay, you know what? You're going to just keep your lips pressed against his and keep count in your head using the only tried and true method you know of.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
Three Mississippi.
You pull back. He doesn't move. You check his pulse again, hoping eighth time's the charm. No luck. There isn't a single trace of life in him and you're wondering if maybe that was a one time thing or maybe not all jades can become rainbow drinkers but all rainbow drinkers are jade? Like how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square? But with vampires?
You’ve already kissed him once, so you do it again before a second wave of disgust can hit you just in case this is actually like CPR.
But it isn’t like CPR. All you did was kiss a corpse twice.
Gross.
You wipe your mouth and look at him. Even with most of his face caked in blood, his expression is the most placid you’d ever seen it be in the caverns. The default tension he kept up between his brows was smoothed out and his mouth was no longer drawn down in slight annoyance.
You hate this. You hate that this is the only way he’d find it peaceful here.
The most you saw from him here was when you two were coming up with this plan to bust him off of his cloistered planet, trying to figure out where he would even be able to go. And maybe you shouldn’t have been drinking with him, but between hearing about what cloistered life was like and how the whole planet was a dry one, and but really, who were you to deny a nun? Especially a nun sharing his thoughts on mandatory asceticism.
When he passed you back your flask, you shook it, frowning. It was empty. Bastard drank the whole thing and didn’t even leave you a drop. You looked up at him only to find him dropping the rbf long enough to be smilingly wryly at you, your chagrin had him looking a lot more himself. The bickering after moreso. You were genuinely happy this seemed to be doing something for him, but you would’ve been happier if that didn’t require him being a prick to you to feel alive again.
Not that it matters now you guess. Slowly, you get up and begin to pace as you think. You have no idea what to do next or if there even is much of a point in looking for something to do next. If this was an errant thread in the timeline, well, it wouldn’t stay that way for too long and you could try again and maybe not go off of Lanque’s judgement alone the next go around.
Damn. You might just need to wait this one out. You’d rather not wait it out here if you can help it though, but you don’t actually know where anything here is or if there is much of anything for you in the main cavern.
Some other jades should have heard what happened. Someone would have to notice a whole ass tunnel collapse and you’re now guessing this area was sectioned off for a reason other than giving him somewhere dramatic enough to brood. But if Lanque’s hot and cold bit stayed constant, it might be a while before the length of time he’s been gone becomes concerning and even longer before someone actually decides to look in the sectioned off parts of the caverns for him.
You sigh. It's just you and his corpse now. You glance back at him wearily, and pause, staring hard.
He isn't there.
That is definitely where he was, the blood puddle is still there to prove it. You turned your back for just a second, just to think. You start looking around rapidly.
You feel so stupid. You are so stupid. You know not to turn your back on a body. You’ve heard it so many times. And what did you do? You turned your back on a body. But there is no way that someone could have busted in here and absconded that quickly with him. You would have heard it and from what you can tell the exit got blocked off during the cave in, so how c-.
A bright light suddenly shining in the periphery of your vision stops that thought.
You turn to face it, but it's hard to focus on it with how your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You squint, straining your eyes. It seems to get brighter. No. Fuck. It’s getting bigger, as it rushes towards you much faster than you could brace yourself or zap away.
A rock jabs into your shoulder as you’re pinned up and against a cave wall. You blink, eyes finally able to focus on what's in front of you.
And you are greeted with the luminous, bloodied face of Lanque Bombyx.
Oh shit. It actually worked.
Lanque was undeniably “a real one” because it definitely wasn't the dark that had you squinting now, not with how brightly he was glowing. And that’s basically the smoking gun of rainbow drinkerhood. Well, that and the blood drinking.
…
Oh. Oh yeah, the blood drinking.
Oh fuck. The blood drinking.
You know, you don’t do particularly well during extended silences and this was not proving to be an exception by any fucking means. The fact that he has been wordlessly staring at you this whole time like you were the last capri sun in the fridge was also not helping.
"Hey Lanque,” you draw slowly, unsure. “How's it going?"
He doesn't respond, instead remaining eerily still.
God that was weak. But you don’t know that saying he looked like he was feeling better was all that great either or do anything about his newly gained staring problem.
You’ve seen the way he looks at people, been on the other end of it too, as he scans a room until he finds something, someone that draws his attention and becomes fixated on his latest little curiosity. You’re sure you could make an extended prey metaphor here or something, but it would be very uncomfortable and heavy handed given where you are right now.
The look he was giving you had all of the same focus without any of the emotion. No malice, no amusement, not even that goddamn smugness that seemed to permeate most of everything he did. It was just a cold, empty scrutiny that had you unnerved like nothing else. Between the intensity of his light and his expression you’re finding it hard to think.
He finally moves, tilting his head to the side. It could be a trick of the light, but his fangs seemed to look sharper and protrude further. His chest rose almost mechanically as he took a breath and his blood felt tacky against you as his head brushed by yours. It's as he brings his mouth down to your neck that the sudden realization that he hadn’t been breathing until just now hits you and you are struck with a newfound panic that snaps you out of your daze.
You try to scramble back against the rock. Climbing up it or down it, you don’t know, you don’t care. Just away from here. But it doesn’t matter. His hands pinning you to the cave wall have you locked firmly in place. Your struggle doesn't seem to register to him at all. He just brings his knee between your legs and one of his hands tangles itself in your hair.
He pulls, exposing more of your neck and his cold breath on your skin sends a shudder down your spine and you flinch when his lips press against your neck. It would be a stretch to call what he was doing a kiss. He was more just applying pressure as he felt around, mouthing your neck as he looked for something. Without warning, a sharp pain let you know he found it, and you ball a hand in the still wet, bloodied fabric of his robe as you cry out.
This isn’t close to the worst pain you’ve been through, but considering you’ve died repeatedly, that isn’t actually saying very much.
At least you know for a fact you can handle it and are going to get through this just fine. You’ve had worse wounds. Easily, the worst part of this experience is the rock you feel jabbing into your shoulder muscle. Otherwise, this is extremely manageable. You try to stop tensing your muscles and relax. It’s only going to hurt more if you don’t. It’s kind of like getting a shot, except the other way around where instead of getting a small amount of something helpful injected into you, you’re having a decent amount of something very crucial extracted from you during what you just generously going to call an improv blood donation. Which you’ve done before. So really no need to get over dramatic about getting bitten by a rainbow drinker.
You start doing your breathing exercises, trying to manifest some chill thoughts in your mind that you can focus on over the swallowing sounds that feel like they’re right next to your goddamn ear. You are not skeeved. You are not rattled in the slightest. No. You’re just staying real fucking zen about alien vampires in general and specifically about the one seemingly taking his sweet time while having his drink for once instead of downing a few shots in rapid succession. Actually, you don’t want to know what the rainbow drinker equivalent of doing a shot is. This is probably the better option. Mostly for you.
God. Tagora is going to be so disappointed when he finds out the incredibly not sexy reality of getting bitten by a rainbow drinker. It could just be the ambiance here though. Better lighting not almost blindingly close to your face would probably improve the experience greatly. The corpse kissing was also kind of a mood killer. This is solidly a two star experience for you.
Which gets knocked down half a star when he pulls his teeth out without warning, a sudden heat replacing the pressure on your neck as you keep bleeding. He doesn’t stop you when you move your arm up and you pull the fabric of your hood forwards and use it to put pressure on your wound to stop the flow. Probably not super sanitary, but neither was the bite itself. He slowly exhales by the shell of your ear, breath noticeably warmer now. From your blood.
You definitely have antibiotic ointment in your first aid kit.
He doesn’t let go. He keeps breathing deeply and evenly far closer to your person than you felt entirely comfortable with. You’re not sure how long the two of you remained like that since the rock jutting into you was making everything seem to take a lot longer than it did, but its end was very clear. His breathing suddenly picked up and he stiffened, his grip tightening. He pulls away from your neck and looks at you. No longer blankly, but in disconcertment. He drops you on your ass in an unceremonious heap on the ground and staggers back away from you.
“Really?” you groan. “Really Lanque?”
He glances down at you. As disoriented as he looks, he is still cognizant enough to frown, before bewilderedly looking around at the cavern walls and the long shadows creeping up on them. You’re guessing trying to find the source of light. Eventually he looks down at his hands, still brightly glowing. He looks back at you again through wide eyes and softly, with feeling asks,
“What the fuck?”
A fair question.
“I kissed you and you’re a rainbow drinker now,” you say, trying to very casually hit two elephants with one stone as you brush gravel off of yourself and work through your dizziness to sit up.
He blinks.
"How's your headache?"
He touches his head, seeming to notice his hair being out of place more than any kind of pain if his immediate fussing over it was any indication. He starts putting it back into place when he gets to the back of his head and freezes. And slowly brings his hand down. He stares at the jade stains covering it, then looks back at you, much more perturbed.
“What the fuck?" he repeats loudly, with more feeling.
"You lost a fight to a stalagmite an-."
Wait. There’s a rhyme for this. Stalactites hold tight to the ceiling and stalagmites might try to reach them.
"Sorry. Stalactite," you correct, popping the "t."
He doesn't seem to appreciate your commitment to accuracy if his narrowing eyes is anything to go by. You might be his friend, but semantics clearly aren't.
"A stalactite fell on you and you died."
"I died?"
"Only for a little bit."
He pauses as he processes that, and then remembers the first part of your statement, "You said you kissed me?”
You suck in air through your teeth, "yeah."
He eyes you strangely, before his face twists in revulsion.
So he definitely worked out the timeline on that.
"It was to save your life," you add defensively.
"If I died, then you didn't exactly saVe it," he retorts venomously. He almost seems to brighten in anger.
Wow. Looks like semantics aren't your friend either. You know what? Fuck semantics. You and all your homies hate semantics.
"If you're here complaining about it, then you can't be that dead." You press your hand to your forehead before gesturing out. “Look, I don't just go around kissing corpses for fucks sake."
"OVerlooking the fact that that is What you just did,” he spits.
You look at him for a moment. The blood loss has definitely made you very cranky. The fact that you extremely didn’t want to kiss his corpse doesn’t change the fact that you did. Honestly, you would feel pretty violated in his shoes too. You inhale and exhale deeply, and try not to feel too woozy as you stand up.
He gives you a hard look.
"I'm sorry Lanque."
He seems to believe your remorse is genuine based off of his apparent dimmer function.
"Also you fucking bit me so I think we're even."
"I What?"
You pull your hood down a bite revealing your bite mark.
"You fucking bit me."
He eyes your neck longer than you think is strictly necessary as he takes that information in. You think this makes you legally entitled to make every single snack and thirst joke you want from now until the end of eternity.
“So it Would appear.” He states plainly before glancing back up at your face. “HoW did you knoW it Would Work?”
"I didn't actually know if this was going to work or not, or if you were just going to stay permanently dead," you admit. "I still don't know if all jades are capable of becoming rainbow drinkers or if only some of them are."
"And you still attempted it?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.
You nod. And understand the following silence as the two of you having a moment as he appears to consider your action and maybe even feel some weight behind it.
Until he laughs at you.
"That's embarrassing.”
Motherfucker.
As his laughter dies down, he shakes his head, the ridiculousness of the situation setting in and his voice takes on a sharper tone.
“So hoW exactly is this supposed to Work?”
“This being?”
“HoW often am I going to haVe to partake in drinking blood?” he clarifies, stressing each word slowly and patronizingly.
“I have no idea. When you get thirsty? Like normal?”
“Like normal?” he repeats, voice now devoid of any humor. He looks down at his hands, appearing to concentrate. "Is there a Way to turn off the gloW?"
"You're already over it?"
He glares at you.
"Yes. There is."
He waits for you to elaborate.
"I don't know how though."
"Fucking incredible.” He gives frustrated huff. "I see your Well of knoWledge has run completely dry."
“Well, it isn’t like your time on rp forums is any better. Like how would you think rainbow drinkers were made? Biting?”
"It Would make more sense."
"Fucking how? And if that's how it worked, there’d be two incandescent dipshits here. But there aren’t."
“Just a dim one,” he counters.
You narrow your eyes at him. The literal pain in your neck is only being exacerbated by the metaphorical pain in your neck that caused it and you seriously don’t have enough blood to play twenty questions.
“So this is probably just going to be a “fuck around and find out” kind of thing. It’s going to suck, no pun intended,” you add when you see how done he looks, “but maybe there’s some kind of information about rainbow drinkers out there. Something that isn’t saucy bullshit.”
“If there is,” he starts, disregarding your thoughts on the genre, “it’s locked up so tight that I doubt that eVen the head jades Would knoW about it, let alone share it.
“Damn.”
You think. It can’t just not exist. Even if it were restricted as shit, there had to be some kind of book or tome or whatever on rainbow drinkers out there. Assuming something like that wasn’t destroyed by the empire, it would either be sealed away deep in the caverns or in some private collection owned by someone getting their jimmies off on knowing more than others and collecting forbidden shit. But where would you eve-.
Oh.
Actually? You know just the place.
That realization must be showing on your face because Lanque side eyes you dubiously before sighing.
“Of course you’re about to tell me you knoW just the disreputable little shithole for the job.”
“Yes, I-, wait. No.” you sigh deeply. “Why do you think I just somehow know where all the seedy places are?”
“Because I can’t imagine any reputable establishment that Would let you in,” he sneers.
“And I can’t imagine any reputable establishment that wouldn’t kick you out.”
He looks at you unimpressed. You return it.
“If you have a better idea or want to go somewhere else after, we can do that. But right now, you’ve got nothing, and I think we have a pretty decent shot of finding something at a very specific personal jackoff bookhive.”
He crosses his arms. “And if there isn’t?”
“Well. He had a very extensive decorative bar that we can actually put to use.”
He exhales a laugh. “You should haVe led With that.”
“And, it’s private so no one’s going to be asking any questions about seeing a jade not being cloistered.”
“Not all jades get cloistered you knoW,” he informs you dryly.
“Really?”
You did not know that actually. Or much about jades outside of the brooding caverns. Since being there seemed like a bit of a sore spot for most of your friends in general, you didn’t really pry. You just kind of assumed they all ended up in the caverns at some point. Now you’re really wishing you had pushed for some elaboration from them.
“What do they even do?”
“I don’t knoW,” he responds knowingly, “Maybe you’ll find a book that can help you find out.”
“Maybe,” you reply, straining slightly, but determined to be the bigger person in the only way you can.
You extend your hand out to him and for a moment, he stares at you, completely unreadable. But then begrudgingly, he uncrosses his arms and takes your hand in one of his.
You zap, realizing something.
You are the First Guardian, and you think you might have just created a bit of a problem for yourself.