Work Text:
A small brown paw pinched the flame of a dripping wax candle. The hut darkened considerably at it's loss of light, the only remnants of fire being the small billow of smoke that made the rat's nose twitch. He sighed, putting down the feather he used to write on the parchment under his other paw. The cap to the ink bottle popped back on.
"Finally." A voice as smooth as silk came from one of the corners across the hut. Two squinted eyes stared at Ratau in impatience.
"Apologies, Flinky..." he shuffled off his rickety stool, letting the ink on his new writing to dry overnight.
"Preparing the next sermon. I feel the faith waning."
The owner of the voice let a grunt out through their nostrils, body beginning to move. Out from the shadow cloaked corner slithered out the long, green scaled snake.
"Let them disssssent. I'm craving follower meat y'know." Flinky winked subtly. The gesture was lost to the cult leader who was more focused on stretching out his arms and wiggling his paws free of cramps.
"You need a break."
Ratau's ears swiveled upwards, head tilting. "Say again?"
"You heard me," Flinky began to size his leader up accompanied by a gentle slither of scales against wood, "you need to relax my dear."
The rat shook his head, b-lining to his bed constructed from flowers, grass and clover. Flinky followed without a beat, tongue flickering out between his lips idly.
"Sssso you're just gonna ignore me?"
Ratau bled ignorance, scurrying up onto his bed and situating himself under the covers. Flinky rolled his eyes, moving closer to lay his head down on the foot of the bed. Eyes screwed shut to avoid the dreaded conversation he knew was on the horizon, he shoved his face into his pillow.
"Ah. None of that." Flinky took the thin tail of the rat into his hold, tugging him out from under his sheet. Ratau yelped, kicking his legs at the offender.
“Let go of me, snake!” Ratau bared his tiny fangs, slowly losing the will to fight a losing battle. He let himself go limp with an angry sigh, dangling like a ragdoll. Flinky hid a toothy grin, dropping the leader onto the floor with a loud thud.
“Assss you commanded, glorioussss leader.” The snake rolled his eyes, quickly going to coil around the rat while he was down. Ratau tried his damndest to hop out of his second in commands’ clutch but knew it was futile when Flinky’s boy tightened sharply around his midbody.
“Now…what I wassss saying before I wasss so rudely ignored,” Flinky’s squinted eyes stared directly down into Ratau’s annoyed furry face. “As your advissssor and mate, I do inssssissst you take tomorrow off…with me, of coursssse.”
Ratau growled again, wriggling in the tight coil. “You’re absolutely mad! I’m running a cult here if you couldn’t tell. I have to take care of fifty people each and every day. Do you know what would happen if I took a day off? Can you comprehend the chaos in that reptile brain of yours?!”
Flinky looked completely and utterly unmoved by the little ‘rat baby tantrum’ Ratau was having. It was gonna be a long night. The long reptile yawned, jaw unhinging and rehinging.
“Welp, if thatsssss how you’re gonna be…” Flinky coiled further, wrapping his upper body around the coil he made and resting his head down next to Ratau’s. He almost laughed at how hot Ratau was becoming, though he couldn’t tell if it was out of anger or embarrassment. Content, Flinky let his eyes slip shut with a wide, shiteating smile.
___
The moon began to fade behind dark clouds and the sun began to take its place in the sky. The sound of rustling tent flaps and soft chatter was enough to make the snake aware. With a gentle hiss and the flick of his forked tongue to smell the air, he began to open his eyes. His gaze shifted over to Ratau when he remembered about the struggle from last night, making sure he was okay. The poor thing was strewn over the side of Flinky’s coil, mouth hanging wide open as he snored comically loudly. Flinky felt a warm tickle in his upper half.
“Lookssss like ssssomeone tired themsssselves out.” His coils slowly loosened, taking great care in taking his mate into his tail and picking him up. Flinky ever so gently laid his leader down on his bed, basking in the comfortable aura of the morning as he tucked Ratau in. He took the moment of silence to take in just how damn tired this poor rat was. His fur was going every which way and the circles under his eyes were darker than last night. Not to mention the bandages that plagued his body from relentless crusades. Flinky’s mouth tightened.
What kind of mate was he letting his other half become so disheveled? It killed him. Every night he had to watch Ratau continue to destroy his body, whether it be finding Ratau out cold curled up on the floor from exhaustion or stumbling in tracking bloody paw prints…it was getting hard to pretend it wasn’t happening. Flinky hung his head in overwhelming shame, a soft sigh escaping him.
“Leader?”
Flinky shot up, scales instantly stiffening. He squinted, slithering towards the poorly made door of the hut. The rattle on the end of his tail shook twice, a signal that he was completely alert to whatever waited outside.
“The leader isss busssy.” Flinky spoke with a stern tone, hoping it was enough to drive away who was outside. Apparently, it wasn’t.
“Oh! Flinky! Hey, it’s Klunko! I’m with Bop!”
His guard melted down halfway, rattle dropping onto the ground and scales flattening back down. ‘Damned bird’ he hissed internally. Flinky knew Klunko didn’t take ‘no, you can’t come in’ for an answer since the one night Flinky and Ratau wanted ‘alone time’. They tried their best; locking the door and the two windows. Yet, Klunko always found his way in with the help of the everstrange worm that made its home on the top of the crow’s head.
“...Let yoursssself in. Pleasssse be quiet about it.” Flinky cringed at how fast Klunko was at opening the door, like he was hovering over the knob this entire time. The snake undulated back to Ratau, one eye keen on the new guest. He essentially just laid his body back into a coil in front of the rat’s bed to act as a wall between him and the bird.
Klunko quietly shut the door behind him, tongue clicking as he took in the scene before him. He smiled and nodded, gesturing that he was going to keep quiet. Flinky kept his stare locked on Klunko as the bird dragged over a well used pillow that had the tiniest bit of filling peaking through worn out thread. He plopped it right next to Flinky, oblivious to Flinky’s annoyance, and sat himself down with a light chirp.
“Why are you here?” Flinky sneered, coils tightening in agitation. He knew Klunko pretty well. He knew the crow would never hurt their leader no matter how vulnerable Ratau became, but the protective nature of the snake was overtaking reason. Klunko probably just wanted to hang out as he did every couple of days to keep from being lonely but Flinky wasn’t having it this morning. It took all of him not to hiss in his face and throw him back outside as it was.
“Well, I was gonna ask Ratau for a round of knucklebones buuuut…” He quietly gestured to the bed. Bop wiggled about and tapped his head down on Klunko’s head. The crow made a sound, looking up at the worm as if it was saying something.
“Ah. Bop told me you’re keeping him captive here for the day.”
Flinky’s eyes shot wide, “Wh-no! I’m not! Your worm sssspouts liess!” Klunko couldn’t help but laugh a bit before noticing how Ratau’s ears began to flick. He quickly quieted his chuckles, slapping a feathered palm up to his beak. Flinky worriedly looked over the rat, praying to the One Below that he didn’t wake up just yet. A few beats passed and the snores filled the room back up, leaving Flinky with a sigh of relief.
“I’m…He needsss resst. I’m having him ssstay here to do it. However, the cult needsss a leader for today in Ratau’ss ssstead,” he gave the sleeping rat a sad look. “But…I want to be able to sssstay with him. Help him relax for the day.”
Klunko nodded. It was the basic rule of thumb at the compound that if the cult leader was out of commission, the second in command had to take duties into their own hands until the crown bearer was back in action. Throughout his years of running the cult, Ratau had only had a small handful of instances where he truly couldn’t get up and run the cult as normal but those were under dire circumstances that the rat would probably wish to forget. But this was the first time he was barred from running his cult by force. Once he woke up, he probably wasn’t going to take it well. It was better if anyone stood by his side for the day to block the doors and windows from a relentlessly pissed rodent. That’s when the lightbulb went off in Klunko’s head.
“Now hear me out,” Klunko stood up quietly, a smile shaping his beak. “Shrumy and I can run the cult today.”
‘Idiotic’ is what Flinky would’ve yelled if Klunko didn’t wave his feathered hands infront of him to dismiss any rejection to his idea. “Nonono, I told you, hear me out. Bop knows everything…EVERYTHING…about running this place. He just has to tell me what to do and what to say. Shrumy can help with cleaning and harvesting.”
Flinky’s eyes bore into the avian, his deadpan look hiding the thoughts that swarmed his mind. His pupils darted down to the ground, around the hut, and then towards his mate. His look lingered on his other half.
Hell.
“Promisssse me you know what you’re doing.”
“Promise.”
A small wriggle came from the worm.
“And so does Bop.”
___
He felt so comfortable. A heat encased his body that made it feel like he was wrapped up a thousand times over in the fluffiest of blankets. He didn’t ever want to leave it. It felt so much like his home burrow he grew up in.
Then it hit him.
Didn’t he have a cult to run…?
Ratau shot upwards with a loud curse, paws twitching. Panting, he shoved the blanket off and quickly ran towards the door. Before he could even get close to the knob he was rudely blocked off by a slender green body.
“And where do you think you’re going, pretty boy?”
Just like that, the panic set into effect. He shook his head violently, the small knot in his throat tightening. He tried to scramble by but Flinky’s agility was on his own level. Everytime he thought he was about to win, the snake moved in front of him or whacked his small stature with his tail.
“You’re sssstaying here, love.”
“N-no!” Ratau shouted, “The faith is low! I’ll lose everything I worked for! I-I’ll take the day off tomorrow just-”
A rattle quieted his spiral, the snake’s tail slamming a few times against the floorboard accompanied with a loud hiss. Ratau instinctually shrunk down, tail going to wrap around his leg in a self soothing gesture. Flinky slowly stopped, lightly coiling around the rat.
“My dear, I cannot let you work today in good consciouss. Have you ssssseen yourssself lately? You look like a sewer rat.” He spoke in a feathery voice, gently leaving his head to rest on top of Ratau’s. The cult leader, still coming down from the high of his panic, shivered unhappily with ears pinned. He looked away, words lost on him. Flinky’s throat reverberated in a gentle hum.
“I mussst take care of you, my love. Jusssst for thisss one day. You’re ssso tired. Let me help you.”
Ratau was wiser than to fight with Flinky. Previous experience reminded him if he were to go further he’d get a teaspoon of venom injected into his shoulder and he’d be loopy for the rest of the day in the sake of ‘relaxation’. His face twisted in mental anguish, dropping his head, “Who’s taking care of my cult for the day then?”
Flinky cringed, “Klunko, Bop and Shrumy.”
“WHAT??!!”
____
“How do you like your tea, dear?”
“Two sugars. Lil’ bit of milk.”
After the small squabbles earlier in the evening, Ratau had been deposited back into his bed with a pillow to prop himself upwards. He sported a small pair of reading glasses and held open a leatherback book in his lap. Flinky could tell that Ratau was finally enjoying his down time and felt pretty damn proud about it. He dropped two blocks of sugar into the steeped beverage with his tail and took the small bottle of glass milk with his mouth and tipped it juuuust right so a light stream of milk hit its mark in the cup.
“Y’know, I’m surprised.” Ratau spoke up, folding the upper corner of the page he was on and shutting it closed. Flinky carefully put the milk down and gazed back over at him, tilting his head.
“I haven’t heard a peep from outside. No screaming, no fighting, no dissenting,” Ratau’s whiskers danced about. “The faith…it’s stable.”
Flinky’s shiteating grin made its appearance again, his rattle flailing to and fro. He slithered up onto the bed slowly, resting his head down on Ratau’s stomach with a gentle purr, “I told you so.”
Ratau rolled his eye, reaching his paw under Flinky’s hat to give him a few scratches to the tender scales. The rat leaned back into his pillow with a happy sigh. He began to consider the thought of having some more down days to rest his weary bones with the one he loved most.
That was, until there was an ear splitting explosion and volleys of screams that followed thereafter. Ratau and Flinky shared a wide eyed look before shooting out of bed. Smoke hit the duo in the face as soon as Ratau flung the door open. Red clad followers ran in all directions, some crying and some doubling over coughing.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Ratau yelled, the crown that sat on his head glowing a bright red in anger. The rat stomped out, waving clouds of gray out of his face. As the smoke began to clear, he was met with the sight of Shrumy and Klunko over the cooking station, the turtle waving his spoon towards the two.
“Hey guys! Don’t know why everyone’s freakin’ out. It’s totally normal with this dish.” Shrumy stuck his spoon back into the cauldron as he actively blocked out the screams of the cult as Klunko happily cut away at some strange eldritch ingredient to add to the pot.
Ratau whipped around, glaring daggers straight into his mate’s direction. Flinky inched back, nervously chuckling.
“If this happens again, I’m demoting you to outhouse duty.”