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Mumbo could practically feel his skin burning the longer they stood out here.
Grian had dragged him out of the house to show him and Scar something. Mumbo had barely managed to grab his jacket on the way out, but his hand had slipped trying to grab the parasol from where it sat in its holder next to the door.
He stays quiet as Grian rambles on, trying to cover his exposed skin a bit. He buttons his sleeve cuffs, scrunching his arms and slipping his wrists into his sleeves. He pulls his shoulders up, trying to scrunch himself in enough to have his jacket cover his exposed neck.
His ears and face he couldn't do much about. He tries to stand facing away from the sun to protect his face a bit, but he can feel his ears burn.
Sunburns were a lot worse for him than humans.
His skin actually fully burned. It would smoke and leave proper burns like he had just pressed it against the stove burner. Normally, he'd use lots of sunscreen and his parasol to stop himself from burning too badly, or just go out at night.
He hadn't had time to grab his sunscreen either. And this definitely was not nighttime.
Maybe he should've just stood up for himself and told Grian to stop and let him grab his things. But at the same time, he had let Grian do stuff like this hundreds of times before, never mentioning to the man just how badly the burns were later, drinking healing potions like they were water and trying to sleep the worst of the pain off.
Scar nudges him, and Mumbo blinks a few times before realising the two were staring at him.
"Hm? Could you repeat that, I seem to have missed it" He shifts a bit, trying to make how he's standing look normal.
"I asked if you were okay. You're standing a bit strangely.. is your jacket uncomfortable or something?" Grian repeats. The two are way too patient with him, he doesn't understand how. If he had to deal with himself, he would have left himself behind years ago. He got distracted too easily, had way too many weaknesses as a vampire, and could be found once a week with a blood mouth and a couple dead animals heads in his inventory.
"Yeah I'm okay!" He does his best to give a normal smile, like his ears weren't in way too much pain. "My jacket is a bit tight, think I grabbed one that is a bit too small, but that's alright, I'll be fine!" He lies so easily, hating the thought of his friends seeing him as weak from how easily he burns.
"Maybe you could take it off?" Scar suggests.
For a few seconds, Mumbo is kinda tempted to reach over and strangle Scar, wrap his hands around the other's throat and force him to respawn. He knows Scar only means the best and is just trying to offer a helpful solution but that is probably the least helpful solution possible right now.
"Yeah! I'll do that" He says anyway, because he is going to stick to his lie now. He'd feel bad if he didn't, feel so guilty for lying to his best friends.
He strips off the jacket, tying it around his waist. Immediately there is pain in the back of his neck, and his fangs draw blood from the inside of his cheek as he bites down on it. Grian is back to speaking, Scar joining in. He should probably try and involve himself in the conversation, do his best to see normal, but he feels frozen right now, the pain is too much to really think. And this is just his ears and neck burning.
Grian starts to move away, motioning for them to follow as he walks to what he wants to show them next.
Mumbo wants to cry when he realises that now he's forced to face the sunlight. He grits his teeth and does it anyway, wanting to cry as his face starts to feel the warmth, joining the parts that are burning. He feels like he's being cooked over an open flame, like some sort of chicken or something.
His eyes are slowly watering, his body starting to cry from the pain. He blinks fast, trying to push away the tears. He glances down at his hands, noticing how they're smoking slightly. He's sure his face is too.
Scar is nudging him again. He looks over, and is greeted with a face of confusion and concern. Scar grabs his arm, making him stop walking, and calls out to Grian, who had walked way ahead of them.
Or at least, Mumbo thinks he calls out to Grian. His head throbs, ringing in his ears. The burning areas were in so much pain they were going numb, his ears and fingers feeling like they're gone. The tears are slipping down burning cheeks, and god that hurts just as much as getting burned.
There's sudden shadows over them, and Mumbo blinks a few times as his teary eyes recognise those shadows as Grian's wings, acting like an umbrella blocking the sun. The two are speaking, checking on him, but he can barely hear them over the ringing in his ears.
It hurts, it burns so much, he's crying, his skin is still smoking, he wants the pain to stop-
A potion is pressed into his hand and he's drinking it without even checking to see what it was. He was hoping it was a sort of healing potion, practically begging to any god that it was. But instead, he recognises the sour scent of just spider eyes. Weakness potion.
His legs wobble under him and he's caught, scooped up. His eyes feel heavy as he's moved towards a building. For a second, he wonders why they had given him a weakness instead of anything helpful, but as the feeling of floating fills his head, he understands.
Maybe they didn't have any healing on them. They couldn't heal his wounds, but weakness could leave the user in almost a state of floating, too dazed to focus on their pain.
By the time they were inside, pressing an actual healing potion to lips too weak to hold themselves closed, he was out, fast asleep in his friend's arms.
--
He wakes up warm.
One of the first things he notices is how warm it is. Blankets are wrapped tight around him, he's tucked into a nice and warm bed. The second thing he notices is how his skin feels. It aches, feeling less like a proper burn and more just sore. It hurts enough to earn a whimper from tired lips, which is shushed by someone in the room.
He feels the bed dip as someone who was already sitting on it moves, the tip of a bottle being pressed to his lips. He drinks without hesitation, not even opening his eyes to check if it was something good or another weakness.
His body fills with a warm sort of feeling, the aching in his skin fading away. Healing potion, thankfully.
Mumbo opens his tired eyes, noticing that the other person on the bed is Grian. Scar is asleep on the bed on his other side, curled up and passed out. The two seemed to have been waiting for him to wake up, but maybe Scar had gotten a bit too comfortable and fallen asleep.
Grian looks worried, face scrunched up in concern as he inspects Mumbo's hands, trying to make sure the burns have healed properly. Mumbo wants to speak to him, assure him he feels better, but the weakness potion from earlier must be still working, because he feels so sluggish and tired.
The most he can do is pull Grian towards him a bit, weak hands gripping onto Grian's. Grian's eyes widen a bit, but he lets himself be pulled over, moving to lay next to Mumbo.
"I'm sorry for making you go out, I didn't mean for you to burn, I should have tried to keep you in the shade.." Grian whispers, voice filled with guilt. In all honesty, Mumbo doesn't really care for that apology. He knows Grian didn't mean to, it's nobody's fault but his own for staying quiet as his skin burned.
He lets out an incomprehensible mumble, but as he squeezes Grian's hands in his own weak ones, the message is pretty clear. He forgives him.
He can see a small smile grow on Grian's face, and he gives a little smile back before he lets his eyes close again, and he falls asleep.