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“Well, I believe in the ancestral tried and true system of eating a chunk and finding out,”
“If you try it on that one you sure will be finding out, Prince Perfect,”
“You will be finding out if you keep on calling me that,”
Still, how bad could one little mushroom be, Nikolai wondered as he kept examining the white fungus, glancing back at the basket Mal was still carrying.
“I’m pretty sure they are the exact same ones you’ve been picking, though,”
Surprisingly, mushrooms were not as straightforward as popular culture led him to believe, with poisonous ones being bright red or really weird. Hence having to tag along with Mal, the resident smart one who instead of ruining his life at university like their entire friend group had done, had become some kind of borderline-hippie forest worker who organised nature classes for children. Not that those mushrooms would be eaten, probably, but according to Mal simply touching the wrong thing and then putting your fingers in your mouth (as he kept repeating like he was five, but then again his usual students were five) was enough to guarantee you a bad time.
Trekking into the forest searching for mushrooms was what happened when one of your best friend (here, miss Alina Starkov) was:
- An art student
- A weirdo
- A hair away from burn out
- Currently dating a very bossy physics student who had taught her how to delegate tasks. Here: picking mushrooms for one of her final projects.
Bless you Alina, fuck you Morozova, all that.
“No, look,” Mal started, crouching down beside him and picking one of the safe mushrooms from his basket. “Field mushrooms have wider caps. But this one is a yellow stainer. You can’t see any on this one but here…” he flicked his knife out of his pocket and pointed at a nearby mushroom that did sport a sickly yellow stain on its white cap.
You could really tell Mal spent more time traipsing in the forest than rotting away in a library, as his fingers were quite callused. Nikolai supposed it didn’t mean much, he was a student but had calluses all over from sailing, but still. For all that he spoke to him like he was a child ready to eat the first leaves of nightshade he would spot, Mal was clearly experienced and knowledgeable in what he was talking about.
“Asking for a friend, would these mushrooms kill someone then?”
“No, but it might kill their toilets. Why, you have someone in mind?”
“Well, I do have a family dinner coming up…”
Mal snickered. He had met Vasily, once, that was usually enough for people to agree he should be poisoned in some way.
“Or, if you’d like,” Nikolai started again. “We could put them in a weird spot in Alina’s flat, and when Morozova comes over to her place again and his clean-freak instincts kick in, he’ll touch them to move them…”
“Tempting,”
Nikolai himself had nothing against the guy, they went along quite well actually, but Mal’s animosity was no secret. Nikolai himself had once been on the receiving end of that when he had tried to court Alina (it had gone very well, of course, and she hadn’t rejected him in front of about fifty people at a party, not out of meanness but simply because she had been completely clueless to his very obvious advances, no sir). Some sort of not-quite-brother-brotherly instinct, or something. He couldn’t relate, the only protective instinct he felt whenever Vasily dated someone knew was toward the poor soul on the receiving end.
They got back up after one more minute of contemplating poisoning people and started walking again. Mal clearly knew where he was going, and Nikolai trailed a couple of steps behind, taking the time to look at things around him. He was more often on the sea than in the forest, getting the sailing club’s boat out whenever he had a free week-end, and the change of scenery was nice. He hardly minded Mal’s company either, though he’d keep that for himself. He did always like people who could answer his questions, and so far, in his domain at least, Mal was impossible to stump. Of course he told him it was because he had a lot of experience with answering questions from simple basics to wild tangents, which had to be his way to compare Nikolai to a five-year old again but fine, he wouldn’t take offence at his curiosity being compared to a child’s.
“Don’t,” was the warning he got as he simply approached some flowers.
“It’s flowers,” he protested. He could still touch flowers, no? This was Ravka, for the Saints’ sake, most things couldn’t be poisonous.
“It’s digitalis,” at the tilt of his head, Mal continued. “Foxglove,”
Nikolai gave his attention back to the bell-shaped bright pink flowers that grew likes grapes, pursing his lips.
“I don’t think a fox would wear gloves like that,”
That got a snort out of his companion, making him smile as well. Mal had been in a whole mood recently, as it seemed more and more certain that Alina had found The One, regardless of whether that one was satisfactory to her almost-brother or not (and Nikolai even heard Morozova and Mal were cousins? He had tried to get the information out of either one but it was like pulling teeth), so he took the snort as a personal victory. See, when a man was blessed with full lips like that, it was just a crime to be sulking constantly. Although the pout could be cute, if cute was an adjective that could be used for a man that was a solid two inches taller than him and built like— well, pretty appropriately for someone who spent so much time outdoors.
Mal droned on about the dangers of foxglove, Nikolai frankly didn’t hear a word of it as he decided that, yes, maybe cute could be used for him.
And maybe he didn’t mind the chore of mushroom picking. To be fair, he hadn’t even understood why Alina asked him to come along, it hardly felt like a two guys job, and he didn’t know the first thing about mushrooms, so he was utterly unhelpful (very rare, of course, he was brilliant usually), but maybe she didn’t want Mal to be lonely.
“Would you like to go at sea one of these days?” he blurted out without thinking, realising too late that he had just cut off Mal in the middle of his rant. “Sorry— I was listening,” He had tried to before getting distracted, that counted for something. “Nevermind, continue,”
“I— It’s fine, don’t worry. I thought only the sailing club’s members could go on the boat?”
Ah, that, right. Nikolai shrugged.
“I’m the president, it’s fine, what’s power without a little abuse of your privileges,”
“Lantsov through and through,”
“You’re getting that foxglove down your throat, Oretsev,”
“You don’t even know what it does,”
He would have if he had listened but unfortunately he had gotten distracted, and he couldn’t even be blamed for it. He had always had this curiosity for people with buzzcuts, he did read that it felt very nice to the touch. Tamar had refused to let him touch the shaved sides of her undercut for science, but maybe Mal could be convinced, if it wasn’t such a weird thing to ask someone you weren’t trying to flirt with.
Which he wasn’t.
“Maybe Alina needs, I don’t know, clams too. I could show you clams,”
That wasn’t flirting.
“Are there poisonous clams, at least?”
Mal started walking again and Nikolai jogged back to him, this time walking by his side, having to squint a little as he looked up, the sun behind right behind the other man.
“Well, not really, especially here, but you’re going to love this one shellfish related disease that can cause amnesia,”
“Now you have to tell me more,”
“For non-nefarious purposes, of course?”
“Purposes of public utility, I can assure you,” he smiled innocently.
“Sounds like you have to accept my offer, then. Next saturday?” he grinned back.