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One night, changing the bandages on his arms, it occurs to Cellbit that he might die like this. Not hurt but tired. Alone and seeing things. The past several days have been like this: hard, like he’s getting more and more lost in foggy territory. Somehow, it only hits him fully now. This is the bed he has made and lain in and now however many spawns he has left will always put him back here. Working for the Federation. Hated by all his friends, fighting them at every turn, going back to his castle alone after. Seeing things that aren’t there, hearing voices he can usually sort away, tasting blood on his tongue when there’s nothing there.
He doesn’t want to die like this. He doesn’t think he will for sure, the plan is still strong; and he is learning things, the closer he edges into the Federation’s sphere of trust. It’s a good plan – well, maybe not good, but worthwhile. It’ll keep the eggs safer; keep everyone safer. Maybe he’ll even get Felps back.
It’s just, Cellbit also has to face that he might die. Every plan entails risk; this one especially. And if he fucks up, or if Cucurucho catches on, or any number of demons that feel more present than ever descend onto him, well, this would be how the last days of his life feel. He looks at his arms. The only way out is through. He wonders how many more times he’ll have to change the bandages.
“I want you to be happy,” Cucurucho had told him, written in his big paw handwriting. Its smile was eternally cheery, its white fur cuddly and pristine. It never had a drop of blood on it.
Richarlyson is sleeping in the saferoom several doors down. The walls are reinforced, the alarms are activated, and he never wakes up at this time of night anyhow. Cellbit thinks of him and feels dismal. If he dies, Forever will look after him. And the others too. He won't be as safe as with Cellbit, but he'll be happy. The thought should be a relief. It is, a little, but mostly, it's just terrible. The idea of Richarlyson, missing a father. The idea of never being able to see him again. To play with him, or build with him, or go on little missions with him. Like partners in crime.
He’d miss Richas. He already misses his other partner in crime, his best friend; and everyone else. The only way out, he tells himself, is through.
Cellbit blinks. There’s no clock in here but he thinks some time has passed. His skin is drier now. The tap is still running; he turns it off.
He decides to take a few minutes before going back to work, just a short break, just until he can focus again. In the little bathroom, he sits on the toilet and takes out a book and quill, and he starts writing to Forever. Not to give to him now. Just in case.
Cellbit manages a few pages, writing down what he really thinks, telling Forever how sorry he is. He’s not at his most coherent but it’s a good start. He puts the book away back in his workroom, in his locked vault. He stares at his arms.
His skin is red and hard, right around the gashes, where it's not pink and squishy – not infected, just unpleasant. Slow to heal, perhaps. He should be sleeping more. When he looks closely, the shape of the wound, the borders of the red and pink skin, seem to shift like worms. The Federation could have put anything in him while he was in the hospital – but he knows he’s just seeing things. Still, he lets out a breath when they’re covered up by bandages again. He leaves the book in his locked vault. (He has filed away most of himself, doubts and sharp teeth and comfort and ragged wounds, for the sake of fitting into the Federation suit. Now even Cellbit doesn’t remember what he had.)
Now he can sink back into his work. Push away all of this malaise for some time. The only way out is through. When he works, doing little encryptions for Cucurucho, his brain is too busy to fret and the gouges in his skin fade into background noise. He works as gray morning light seeps into the castle above him. The sun breaks, and he hasn’t slept. Everything is alright.
Fresh out of a cell and with blank pages in his memory, Cellbit rethinks a lot of things very quickly. Like, fuck the Federation, for real. He won't stop fighting. But he looks at Felps (alive! safe!) and his friends (here! for them!) and he thinks, fuck, I also kind of want to be happy.
It’s the kind of bold, audacious plan that Cellbit is known for – maybe his grandest yet. His best move was his first: he asked for Roier’s hand.
Roier is his fucking angel, salvation, light in the darkness, whatever. He’s made some mistakes in his life, Cellbit has. He has fucked a lot of things right the way up. He has also made some really, really fucking good calls.
When you live with someone, there’s less you can hide from them. Roier is hot and charming and funny and so, so sweet to him, and Cellbit loves him and sometimes he feels sick about it. His head is missing days. His only tools are broken.
“Please don’t leave me,” Cellbit begs, late at night. He’s only muttering it quietly and into his arm, but he knows it’s begging. Anyone can tell.
“I’m right here,” Roier says, stroking his hair. They’re both wearing pajamas, but they can’t go to bed because Cellbit is crazy. Normally when Cellbit is being crazy, it’s only him who can’t fall asleep. But this is what marriage means, right?
“I know,” he says, “but, like, tomorrow. Or after. Please, I just…” He shuts up because he knows he can’t ask this. He can’t stop himself either. His whole body hurts and if Roier walks away from him, his life will go up in flames, like a skeleton in sunlight.
“Stupid. You’re stupid. I’ll be here tomorrow. And the next day? Right here. Day after that? You’re not gonna believe this…”
“You shouldn’t be,” Cellbit tells him, wretchedly. Roier will die one day and it’ll be his fault.
“Cellbit, you are such an idiot,” Roier says. It feels like permission, and Cellbit sighs and shuts his eyes.
“I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m afraid. We’re gonna fucking be here forever and things will just get worse. I’m being an idiot.”
“Eh, you’re my idiot, though. Don’t worry, gatinho. You can be smart later. And if you’re too stupid then, I will rescue us all with my schemes… But like on a different day. It’s too late now.”
“Okay.”
“Are you hurting?”
“Yes,” Cellbit says. He only gets like this when he’s in pain.
“That won’t do. Do you want some tea? A hot bath?”
“Nooo. I want to go to sleep.”
“Well, can you?”
“No,” Cellbit grouses.
“I’ll get you a potion.”
“It’s not that bad. Don’t bother.”
It’s not usually this bad. Cellbit can still run, mostly, he can still build and fight. Still, sometimes the pain is so bad he can’t move. He’s noticed something about the inconsistency of it, and the timing of the inconsistency, that he doesn’t like.
“Are you sure – ”
“We have almost no regen as is,” Cellbit reminds him. “We need to save it. It’s not that bad. I promise.”
“Ugh,” Roier sighs. He’s already pulling Cellbit’s worse arm into his hands, his lap, so he can get at the muscle. He pauses. “Is this okay?”
“Yeah. ...Back is worse.”
Hands find their way to his back. Remarkable.
“Don’t golden apples give you regen?”
“Yeah, but we don’t have a gold farm either. I mean, we have a lot, but… It’s not renewable.”
“Okay,” says Roier, instead of fighting him on it. “We have a lot, though. On the server. If it gets real bad, you’ll eat a golden apple, though, right? For me.”
“Yes,” Cellbit says, honestly, because he has, and he will again. Touch-drunk, with Roier’s voice like that, he almost doesn’t even feel bad about it. Almost. He groans as Roier finds a particularly sore spot and works at it. “You – you know it wouldn’t do anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not damage. There’s no damage for a golden apple to heal. It just hurts for no reason now. Regeneration has, like, the physical effect, okay, which is the important one, and then also on top of that, it’s a painkiller. But I’m only like this now because I saw Cucurucho earlier. He didn’t even do anything! But now just from that I’m going to feel like shit. Until I get distracted or something, and then I’ll be better, until something else happens or that piece of shit shows his face again and – it’s in my head, you know? Not here.” Exhaustedly, he wiggles his limbs and torso, what he thinks of as the rest of him, the body, though that’s dumb. “Somewhere in my brain has decided that something’s wrong and it’s making sure I don’t forget it. But. Nothing. Is. Wrong.”
“Gatinho,” says Roier, “That’s dumb as hell. If you’re in pain, something’s wrong.”
“I mean, it’s not good, obviously. But it’s not… a problem, like – ”
“I understand you! Listen to me. Okay, yeah, it’s different than if you were bleeding all over the place. But you shouldn’t hurt either. Look, you hate it and it makes it harder for you to think, right?”
“Yeah. Obviously.”
“Well then it’s a problem, alright? We need your brain for cryptography. ...And for keeping up with Richas, and for telling me how pretty I am. These are all critically important. So who gives a shit about the details? You deserve to not be in pain. Or less pain. Whatever we can get. You know?”
“Yeah,” Cellbit sighs. “Yeah, no, I guess. I don’t know what to do.”
“Mm. Well, we’ll figure something out. … Do you think we could ask the Federation for regen, just for painkillers? Or just ghast tears or blaze rods or something. We could specify 'no combat use' if they want. I, I don’t know if they’d go for it.”
“Guapito,” says Cellbit, slowly, not quite ready to lift his head but now comfortable tilting his neck up so as to partly-look at Roier, “do you think it’s a good idea for Cucurucho to be in charge of our medicine supply?”
Roier stares, distracted by his husband’s face. Then his face twists up and he giggles nervously. “No, uh, I didn’t think of it that way, no, hmm, maybe not.”
Cellbit can’t help but giggle too. He lolls back into the pillow. Roier’s hand moves up to the back of his neck, squeezes, and that’s not really where anything hurts but it feels warm and good, so Cellbit’s not going to say anything.
“Maybe not,” he agrees. He indulges in another moment of weakness because he knows Roier’s a consummate optimist, and all of his restraint is pooling in the sheets around him and he’d really like to hear someone say it: “...Do you really think we can find something?”
“Yes,” says Roier, forcefully, on cue. Cellbit wonders if he believes it.
“...I know it’s you and Forever’s platform,” Roier adds, “But honestly, whoever wins the election will probably make a big push to open the Nether. They might close it again but we could still grind a lot of potions first.”
That’s a pretty good point, Cellbit admits. Obviously, all the candidates have a vested interest in expanding their options.
“And even if that doesn’t work – I mean, yeah, we got a lot of smart people here, a lot of people who like to solve problems, you know? It’s not just you. It’s a big island. I think, if we try.”
Cellbit wants to say something about ‘Yes’ turning into ‘I think’. He supposes that any solution will be temporary, their lives in the hands of the alien Federation, their existence on this island at the Federation’s leisure. Maybe he should be downing golden apples every day – not for any shortage of apples, but for a shortage of days. But he doesn’t want to make Roier sad by voicing any of that.
“That feels better,” he says instead, finally willing to roll onto his side. “Thank you. Thank you, holy shit. That’s nice.”
“That’s good.” Roier smiles. “You gonna take it easy tomorrow?”
Cellbit winces.
Roier tries sweetening the pot. “Maybe do something fun? Something nice?”
That’s more like it. “I could start a new project,” Cellbit muses, sleepy. “That would help. I think I need a new project.”
“Don’t you have projects already?” asks Roier, confused.
“...I have seven projects.”
“Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought.” Roier pats his head. “Go to sleep, Cellbo.”
“Mm. Lay down with me?”
Roier’s face lights up, which is weird of him, because nothing about this is new, but – Cellbit won’t complain. He strains to intercept Roier with a kiss, short, sweet, and then they’re nestled together, Cellbit’s arm roped around him, face in his hair. Cellbit’s limbs tingle in a way that is not unbearable. Against the lingering ache, he falls asleep; both of them do, without fanfare.
Back while he was pretending to side with the Federation, Cellbit spent the most time poisoning the well he shared with Forever. It was the obvious choice: Forever who was his best friend, Forever who loudly and viciously hated the Federation as much or more than Cellbit. Richas was the perfect conflict between them.
In doing all of that, Cellbit had been forced to consider life going forward without Forever. Not just in the fucked-up doomsaying mindset he’d been in towards the end, but for the very real possibility that Forever wouldn’t forgive him afterward.
It wasn’t the hardest thing in the world to turn on Forever fully, spit vitriol at him. Hate him with all his guts. The more he’d spat, or bitched about him to Quackity or Cucurucho or anyone who would listen, the easier it had become. Forever was his best friend, yes, but he was opinionated and irritating and chaotic, and a bad influence on Cellbit, not to mention the eggs and everyone else around him. The two of them were too similar. Maybe that’s why he thought nothing much would change without him. Maybe Cellbit was just being dumb. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or the misery talking.
Whatever it was, he was wrong as hell, because reconciling with Forever is the greatest fucking thing. Forever’s heart is enormous, and he has the same kind of motor-always-running that drives Cellbit, and most of all, Forever gets shit done. That’s exactly what Cellbit needs right now. With Roier now – it’s not as though Roier isn’t opposed to chaos or adventure. But when it comes to Cellbit, well – sometimes Roier says Let’s go to sleep, and Forever says Let’s grind dungeons all night. When Cellbit puts on his armor to leave, Roier simply says Okay gatinho, be careful out there, and sleepily kisses him goodbye. Out in the desert, Forever says So the Federation is running this corrupt election, do you want to run with me and topple it from the inside?
Fuck yeah!
They analyze the political situation until late, about their options and what they know about the Federation. In between that, they’re tackling dungeons – brutal and slapdash and satisfying. It reminds Cellbit that they’re cut from the same cloth. As the night deepens, the intricate political talk fades away as both of them flag and get stupid and emotional. Forever curses out Missa and Fit and Bad, all for different reasons, and gets bitten by a spider. Cellbit falls in a well. It doesn’t matter. The rest of the world fades away. He feels like one of a pair of wolf brothers, prowling. It’s always a party, with Forever.
Back on the surface, enemies sneak up. The nearest archer is mounted. Cellbit accidentally throws his sword on the ground, and Forever, distracted and looking the other way, magicks it up. He doesn’t even realize. Before Cellbit can get out a word of explanation, the bowstring twangs – an arrow lodges through his armor. It grazes his ribs; near other scar tissue. He grimaces.
He checks his inventory. The most weapon-shaped object: a chainsaw, with a little durability left.
Hm.
With barely a moment of decision-making, all he is afforded – Cellbit abandons the chainsaw. He sprints and lunges at the archer. He hits it with his torso and it topples from its horse.
The rest of Cellbit, meanwhile, slams into the bone wall of the skeleton horse. Lightning shoots up his side, and he grunts, but he’s not dissuaded. He shoves upright and dives under the too-calm undead horse, tackling the rising skeleton back down, takes another arrow to the gut, and punches it. A sharp jab to the arm snaps it and it loses its control over the bow.
Skeletons aren’t like zombies or animals or people, no fur to claw fistfuls from, no guts or muscles to brew up trouble in but – there’s a satisfaction in simplicity, when a hard enough hit makes old bone collapse in like florist’s foam. The skeleton’s tenacious in undeath; keeps biting with half its jaw punched in, claws when its fingers fall off – just uses hand bones to the same end and goes on. Still, Cellbit has it trapped under him; he knows how to kill with his fists, easy as riding a bike. His knuckles are scraped to shreds. If he were to bite down, he might break his teeth, but there might also be the most luscious crunch.
The skeleton’s head disintegrates. A diamond axehead in front of him, flat, shiny and bright like a computer screen, shakes Cellbit from his trance.
“My god, man,” Forever is saying. “You can fucking ask for this back next time, you know that, right?”
The handle of Cellbit’s sword waves in front of him. He takes it, grateful. His vision’s hazy, so he decides to take a second before standing up. Forever continues to berate him.
“What was that for? Did you want to prove yourself? Against a big scary skeleton? No one but me here to show off to, you dumbass – bit of a waste of time.” He laughs. Cellbit stands but sways; Forever grabs him by the arm without a second thought, even if Cellbit’s still braced for a fight. “Shit, how bad did that get you?”
“Just a little – fuck. Maybe let’s, uh, let’s get back to a base.”
“Don’t you want the horse?”
“No, it’ll be slow.”
“It’s rare, though.”
“Do you want it? You can have it.”
“Fuck yeah!” Forever whoops. Rooting through his backpack, and then from within that a second larger backpack, he finds not only a lead but a saddle. He works on adjusting it and saddles the horse while Cellbit leans heavily against its hip. Neither of them mentions it. Once the horse is dressed and led and Forever has cooed over it some more, he gestures to Cellbit. “You want to ride it?”
“Why?” says Cellbit. “It’s your horse.”
“Yeah, but it’s gonna be my favorite pet from now on. What I’m thinking is that I’ll never let anyone touch it again. And I’ll build a shrine for it. And years down the line you’re gonna think, aw fuck, I’m so old now, I wish I had ridden Forever’s cool dead horse when I had a chance.”
Cellbit snorts. “Sure. Fine. I’ll review the experience for you.” He climbs, labored, into the saddle. He complains about how slow it is and how sharp the ridge of its back is to sit on, although its uncanny stillness and deliberation of movement means it doesn’t take much active work to ride. Cellbit won’t say it, but bleeding and battered, it beats walking.
Forever argues back, defending the horse’s grace and efficiency. He takes it by the lead so Cellbit doesn’t even have to steer.
Back at Forever’s base, Forever first makes them stow the horse in his living room, where it stands around looking like a demon. Which is to say, pretty cool, actually. Maybe Richas would like one for his summoning room.
Then Forever takes them to his kitchen, sans horse, and makes them hot chocolate and cake. Cellbit sits at the table, and, taking the hint, cleans his bleeding cuts as best he can. The snack heals them up all the way.
He double-checks: No new scars. No bruises left. That’s the way of things here, or the power of good food, or something, isn’t it? He still aches, and it's getting worse now that he has nothing to do. He wonders how Forever will feel if he spends all night just sitting at his kitchen table. Maybe Forever has coffee. Forever would have to make it, though. Cellbit’s not sure he can stand.
“Are you good?” Forever asks, taking his cup to refill at the stovetop. “I can make more. You did do a pretty dumb thing.”
“No,” Cellbit waves it off. “Sorry. I have food too. It’s just, I don’t know, sore. It’s okay.”
“Is this the thing where it still hurts sometimes?” Forever asks. “Leftover from when Cucurucho cut you up.”
“Jesus, don’t say – yeah, it’s that, okay! It’s that.”
Don’t make him say it, he grouses internally. Wounds aren’t supposed to hurt like this. Even if there are scars. He knows how this is supposed to work.
But there are exceptions, right? It’s been months and Philza’s feathers aren’t growing in. (Okay, Cellbit doesn’t actually know much about feathers. But they’re supposed to grow back, right?) Fit’s arm hasn’t regrown (although that was surely lost long ago, somewhere with different rules, and Cellbit has no idea if he’d want his old one anyway). The eggs haven’t healed their cracks (although Jaiden has pointed out, quietly, that scared as the eggs are, eggs aren’t supposed to heal – they’re supposed to crack. Maybe that’s meant to be.) And now there’s Cellbit, scars stiff and dark on his skin, still feeling gouges that have long since healed over.
“How bad?” Forever asks.
Cellbit takes stock of the situation. “Pretty bad,” he admits. “Fuck, man.”
“Okay! I have something for you.”
“Yeah?”
Grinning, Forever fishes around in non-Euclidean backpack hammerspace, and pulls, triumphantly, a bowl of soup. He doesn’t slam it down, so the soup doesn’t spill, but you can tell from his attitude setting it on the table that if he could have, he would.
“I’m not hungry,” Cellbit says, confused. It looks like mushroom?
“Hey, try it anyway.”
So he takes a bite. It’s pretty good, with a bitter herby flavor on top of the mushrooms, and then the effect kicks in.
It’s like the demon wrapped about him sheathes its claws. It’s not the same intoxicating rush of a golden apple, but it is regen, and suddenly Cellbit finds it much easier to breathe. He rolls his head back. Particles float around his eyes. “Oh my god!”
Forever whoops. “Suspicious stew, man! Eat up. We can make as much as we want.”
“What? How? How’d you know that? And what do you mean, as much as we want?” He thinks. “Stew is mushrooms… bone meal…”
“No no. Mooshroom cows. So Roier told me – well, he and I were talking, about you. And I got to thinking, who needs potions? We don’t need potions. So we got a breeding stock of mooshrooms. And Fit has a trident. We wait for a lightning storm – boom! Brown mooshroom. Very strange creature. Feed it daisies – Richarlyson made a flower farm. Daisies for days. Soup for days. Regen – regen for days! How’s that?”
“Oh shit. …He made a flower farm?”
“Yeah, uh, I didn’t say any of this to you. He wanted to surprise you. I mean.”
Cellbit eats some more soup. He doesn’t think the direct effect will last long, but the residual painkilling effect should go on for a while. “You’re such a bad influence. I don’t want to lie to our son. That’s fucked up.”
“Okay!” Forever throws up his hands. “Okay, fine, but you gotta let him show you the flower farm. It’s cool.”
“Yeah, of course.” Cellbit hefts the soup bowl, mostly empty. “It doesn’t stack when it’s full,” he notes. “Problem with soup.”
“Get a soup backpack,” says Forever, flatly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Christ, were you born yesterday? Fill it with soup. You could say thank you, you know.”
“Thank you,” says Cellbit. “Oh my god. Uh, it’s a little weird because I didn’t tell you about this and you were going to make a whole spectacle. But I’m not actually upset. You get it? I, this is really nice, I mean, this is a game-changer. Like holy shit. It’s infinite? You have infinite?”
“Just takes milking a cow. That’s the hardest part. …Although, you know, with Create, maybe you can automate…”
“Shit, man!”
Cellbit licks the bowl clean. Forever, nonchalantly, gives him five more, and Cellbit sweeps them into his pack. “You know,” says Forever, fastening his backpack shut, “I – it’s your prerogative, not to say anything, that’s fine, you know. But if you had, man, we could have done this way sooner. Has it been like this the whole time?”
Cellbit feels the shadow of a twinge, at that. He shakes it off. “I hadn’t thought you’d just get a cow struck by lightning and build a flower farm! I didn’t think of that! Sorry! If I had, I’d have asked, alright? I didn’t think there was anything you could do.”
“That’s what I’m saying! It took Roier and I to think of it. I knew you were kinda going through it still but didn’t know regen helped. …Listen, we just want to help, yeah? We’re not dumb. We’re in this together.”
“I, uh... Yeah. Thank you,” says Cellbit. He hops to his feet. He's delighted by how easy it is. “I’m gonna make coffee. Do you want coffee?”
“No, because it’s the middle of the night and I’m not a fucking maniac,” says Forever. “I gave you hot chocolate.”
“Just a little coffee. You’re missing out,” Cellbit tells him. He heats water and grinds beans and then sits down again while it steeps, grateful for the distraction and the chance to think. “I know you’re not dumb. And – and I wouldn’t be running with you if you were, or if you didn’t care, it’s just… It’s kind of a lot but I am grateful.”
It’s not really a lot. Something is wrong with Cellbit, as usual. Forever watches him futz. His expression is soft, not pointed. “Listen, I’ll tell you something private I know, in – in compensation for knowing your thing. How’s that?”
“Okay,” says Cellbit, immediately mollified, because he doesn’t actually begrudge Forever anything and he loves secrets. He settles the coffee grounds with cold water and pours himself a cup, and sits back at the table with it. “Yeah, alright. Tell me your secret.”
Forever leans in, serious as the grave. “Gegg is Slimecicle.”
“What.”
“He is,” Forever insists. “I have proof, he transformed right in front of me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“God, you’re just like everyone else. If I sit down with SOFIA I can download the memories out of my brain and show you...”
“You’re fucking crazy, man.”