Work Text:
The wind rattling through the maple leaves promised months of sweet syrup, cold snowballs, and secretly rubbing other's fingers when someone wasn't looking. But to Senku, it meant harvest was nearing, and this year's wasn't nearly as promising as the village had hoped. They'd used bat guano, supplemented with animal manure, and he was pretty sure someone had even snuck in some "night soil" against his orders. They'd planted the seeds the perfect distance apart, and the villagers watered them when the rains missed a few weeks. It didn't make sense.
"Tch, this is just barely enough to last until spring. We won't have enough to store in case of emergency or if we need to travel," he grumbled. It wasn't even worth mentioning that most of the grain they did have was at best, unrefined, and would take hours to process. Hours of work that they'd have to recoup by eating more. Plus all the work to make the process more efficient in the future through science...
It was at this moment that Gen popped up, with that vague smile of his.
"Hello, mentalist. Can't you see I'm thinking?" Senku rubbed the bridge of his nose, wondering how long it would be before he developed the "fuzzy disease."
"Perhaps, but I suspect you'll want to know about this. Have you ever been interested in finding the mother tree?"
"No, I'm 10,000% sure I never cared about that new-age nonsense."
"Ah, you say that, but I think this particular French-Canadian lumberjack has something to teach you. As I recall, she found that... hmmm, how did she put it, planting mycorrhizal fungi and different plants nearby causes them to grow faster and better? Especially in hot climates as we find ourselves after not undoing global warming?"
"How do you know that?" Chrome interjected.
"I saw a book by a French-Canadian tree-obsessed lesbian that was supposed to be her life story. Sue me if I thought it was targeted towards magic users like me." Gen disappeared with a quick flash of petals, and Senku was already plotting out where to plant nitrogen-enriching, antifungal, water-retentive, and shading plants and fungi. But all through the conversation, the arrangements and rearrangements, Chrome just kept ruminating: Gen knew what he was talking about.
In a society where he could easily sway people to his side with just words, he had chosen to step back. From what Chrome understood of Gen's background, he had been very popular three thousand years ago, so popular that everyone they met already knew who he was. So why didn't he simply take the village, the world away from Senku?
But that was simple--for the same reason he shared his hut, his samples, and his village with the guy. It was so easy to get wrapped up in the genius of Ishigami Senku that you forgot you were a genius in your own right. He found Gen later and tried to thank him.
The mask was immediate. "Oh, it's nothing. Just a silly little book I remember from the past. I'm surprised you guys even found a use for it." Don't call attention to it. Don't call attention to me. "Honestly, you guys did all the work anyway."
"Obviously. Still, you should know you're smart too, Gen."
"And beautiful. Everyone always forgets that." Another quick flash of petals as Gen turned away to go back to something else, but Chrome saw that he'd allowed that mask to drop for a millisecond. That moment of hurt and pride and joy and sadness was... well, he could see why maybe it would be best for him to allow them to talk tonight rather than stick around.
"I saw what you did there." No answer.
They were using the telescope to look at animals in the treeline, trying to spot subtle changes in the speciation. Well, Senku was. Gen was trying to organize his thoughts into some kind of eidetic structure. Senku had never believed in them, but then again, he'd never met anyone else who could retain so much information. Maybe it made it easier to keep track of all the lies he told, though his lies seemed... half-truthful much of the time. He turned around after realizing that the oncoming naval twilight made it simultaneously too dark to observe wildlife and too bright to observe the most interesting astronomical objects.
"So, can you tell me anything else about that book?" Gen sat back on his hands, smiling idly up at the ceiling as if he'd been expecting this question.
"What's there to say? Woman enters field of forestry, discovers a groundbreaking idea, takes decades to prove it despite all the men being against her, divorces her husband, and marries a woman. And in doing so, accidentally discovers that not only are different trees talking, they're sending each other nutrients and water so no one suffers."
"Sounds sentimental and gross. Totally unscientific." There was something vulnerable under the scoffing, as if his heart wasn't in it.
"Maybe it was. But you have to admit, with all the books lost, it's nice to know that at least trees are... talking in some mysterious way under our feet. That they're still telling stories."
"Now that is gross and sentimental, stop it," Senku laughed, hitting him with a pillow.
"Okay, okay," Gen laughed, "Maybe so. But it was a very serious book--Dr. Simard went out of her way to explain the details of all her experiments, and to try to make them accessible to the reader. You could learn a thing or two." He smacked Senku with his pillow.
Lying on their backs on the floor, they suddenly stopped laughing. Gen had to consciously stop himself from filling the silence with something vulnerable. I know you'd send me something if I was sick, but do you know we'd do the same? Do you ever wonder how humanity would fare if we just gave up tomorrow? Do you ever feel selfish for wishing the world was different, that you were a famous genius, and that I was some celebrity you'd never met? That you weren't my only friend?
If he said anything, it would disrupt Senku's train of thought. He needed Senku's brief moment of vulnerability instead. Focus. Breathe. Be vulnerable when you are alone, in the water or at the fire, or just... somewhere else in your min--
"What are you thinking about, mentalist?" Senku turned towards him, pupils dilated. "It's okay if it's sentimental or weird, it's... it's been weird lately... the last few years, huh?"
"Just about how all of humanity is relying on us, a couple of teenagers and villagers, to save it. It feels like an anime, except in an anime, you can just turn off the TV if it gets too scary. We have to go on living."
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me... Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." Senku turned back onto his back, leaving a hand towards Gen, who took it and squeezed.
"I don't think the Bene Genesserit were right. I think we evolved fear to keep us safe. The problem is that we're afraid all the time since we've already died. Our bodies can't calm down." Gen shifted. "How about this: 'The world is full of painful stories. Sometimes it seems as though there aren't any other kind and yet I found myself thinking how beautiful that glint of water was through the trees.'"
"I don't know that one," Senku whispered as if the quote was conjuring the image into the cold air.
"Parable of the Sower. Octavia Butler was writing for a world winding down, only to have it end suddenly with us instead." He laughed bitterly. "Anyway, it's filled with instructions for surviving the end of the world. I don't know why I read it really--" needed to feel safe in a world that was always spinning more and more out of control, even as we advanced "--but I just remember that God is Change, and the forest is beautiful."
"Silly mentalist, there is no God," Senku said flatly, "And I know you remember more than that. But it's not important now, is it? You want me to talk, don't you?" An expectant silence. "Alright. It is a lot to think about. I can't pretend I didn't throw some of my ropes down a ravine at night, only to have to hike to get them in the morning. That I didn't wish I'd died some nights instead of waking up. That I don't regret leaving Byakuya all alone in the world. He adopted me while he was still in grad school, did you know that? But I'm still here, and I have all of you. And I have to go on, no matter what it takes."
Gen squeezed his hand while allowing the silence to stretch out a little bit. "It's... well, I'm sure you know what I'd say if we were normal people. So how about this instead: I have every faith that you're right and humanity will survive, no matter what happens."
If one of them was tearing up, they weren't going to mention it. "Why don't you tell me what you'd say if we were normal? And I'll tell you how I'd reply. You know, just for fun."
"I guess I'd say that while... while we're just barely adults, we're going to make it okay. That your father would be so proud of everything you've already done and that you will do. Even if we can't resurrect everyone, we're going to bring society back. But obviously, I couldn't do that, because it would be weird."
Senku kept pointedly staring at the ceiling. "Right. And I guess, I guess I'd remind you that while our community is small, I'm glad that we both have friends." Yeah, I guess so. Gen's mood lifted a little. "And that while I don't like to mention it, that I have someone who's willing to listen to me, even when I don't know what I'm talking about. But obviously, we can't say that stuff."
Gen kissed his hand. "No, I guess we can't. At least, not around other people. But either way, I think it's dark enough to stargaze now."
But instead of immediately going to the telescope, they continued to lay on the observatory floor together, holding hands.