Chapter Text
A mixture of meat and something faintly sweet wafts through the cabin, awakening you from your sleep. You lie on your back for a few, eyes blankly facing the wooden beams of the ceiling as you slowly process. Groaning, you rub the tiredness out of your eyes and shuffle out of your and Mychaels' bed to put on a pair of knitted slippers. You smile to yourself when you put them on; the slippers were recently warmed from the nearby fireplace.
After a lot of convincing on your part a handful of months ago, you and Mychael decided to split ways during the weekdays so you could be a contributing member of society. On the weekends, however, you agreed to meet up at the edge of the forest to spend a few nights at his, and on rare occasions, he comes to yours. The first couple of times this new arrangement occurred, he was always surprised to see you walking his way, bag in hand and a bright smile on your face. It has now become a routine to greet him with a peck on the cheek that never fails to leave him flustered and stumbling for words. It’s a lovely routine, truthfully.
Walking past the familiar surroundings of the cabin, you shiver a bit, goosebumps riding up your arm despite the crackling fireplace. Looking out the window, glittery white snow is seen gracefully falling in patches through the gaps of the forest canopy. You grab Mychael’s extra cardigan from the coat stand on your way to the kitchen and put it on.
When you arrive in the kitchen, you hear the soothing sound of Mychael’s humming; the lullaby he always seems to hum while working on mundane activities. His tail swishes in time with the tune as if taunting you to touch it.
He turns his head your way, greeting you with a bright smile. “Good morning, firefly! Sleep well?”
You mumble a vague response, the grogginess still not out of your system. Shuffling closer, you slide your arms around his waist and inhale the earthy, yet smoky scent of him.
Poking your head from around his cardigan, you look at what he is cooking for breakfast. Immediately, your brain arises when you realize that the sweet smell is coming from the waffle maker you gave him a while back, and deer meat cooking on the stove.
“Waffles and venison sausage! We haven’t had waffles in a while, I was almost starting to miss it,” you muffle through the cardigan.
He laughs, placing the spatula onto the counter, and turns around, returning your hug.
“I figured we could indulge a little today since we need to go out hunting again. We are running out of deer meat,” he explains. “Would you like to come with? I know you mentioned wanting to hunt with me next time I went out,” he says as he smoothes out your frazzled hair.
“Yes, of course! I think I’m ready to handle something bigger than pheasants now.” You recall one day in particular when you let go of two deer and an elk in a day, letting guilt take over you. Mychael, ever so patient, then suggested going for large birds instead. Since that day, you have avoided going with him when he needed to hunt for larger game.
“Okay, we can go out once we finish breakfast,” he says, kissing the top of your head and breaking away to return to the food threatening to burn.
A few minutes pass, and breakfast is laid out on the table: golden-brown waffles with fresh fruit and juicy venison sausage as a side. The two of you chat about plans for the day while you eat, simply enjoying each other’s company.
Once you both finish, you offer to do the dishes while he clears the counter and table of dirty dishes. It’s only fair for the cook not to have to do the dishes. What a housewife, you think as you stare at Mychael with what could only be described as heart eyes.
He catches your gaze and playfully says, “Are you going to do the dishes like you offered, or are you going to stare at me instead?”
You turn back around and violently scrub at a clean plate.
—
The both of you walk towards the bedroom to get dressed, and you grab a pair of warm clothing to keep the chill out, as well as handing Mychael his go-to during the winter months. He nods in thanks, and you turn your back towards him for privacy, undressing.
It has taken a while, but he has gotten to the point where he is comfortable with taking most of his clothing off around you, considering his self-esteem issues. The dysphoria of seeing himself undressed, paired with you seeing what he calls “unsightly” or “ugly,” has definitely been a challenge for him to overcome. It was a silent agreement, though, that neither of you were ready to see each other without undergarments on yet. However, he did walk in on you showering once, and since then, a patterned light blue curtain now hangs above the shower. Nowadays, it has just become a peaceful routine to get dressed together.
Slipping into your undergarments and warm pants, you reach to grab your sweater, but you see from your peripherals that Mychael’s head turned swiftly away from you. You look towards him, and he is pointedly avoiding your scrutiny, but you can clearly see his large ears burning bright blue. Cute. Smiling mischievously, you decide to tease him for stealing glances at your backside. Making your way behind him, you put your mouth to his ear.
“Mychael?” you say, soothing your voice and lilting the last syllable.
“Y-yeah?” He pauses, the sleeve of his coat halfway on his other arm.
“Were you looking at me?”
No response.
You turn in front of him, your chest on display, and say, “Then why are you blushing?”
Mychael’s eyes flit to your half-clothed body and dart back up to your face.
“I-uhh… was. Uhmm,” he stutters.
“Yeah? Go on.” You step slowly towards him, causing him to walk backward.
“I wanted to know what a…collarbone looks like…?” He trails off, his sentence getting quieter and more mumbly.
You inwardly laugh at his comment, seeing as how his skeletal structure most definitely includes his own set of collarbones. “My collarbone isn’t on my back, Mychael.” His back thuds against the wall behind him, and you see his Adam’s apple move against his throat as he silently gulps, his breath shallow and eyes blown wide. You trace the outline of his collarbone and add, “If you wanted to see my butt, you need to only ask. Does that sound good? Hm?”
Moments like these are rare, so anytime you have the chance to tease Mychael like this, you jump at the opportunity to see him flustered.
His face gets impossibly bluer, almost reaching his neck, and his fingers grip the wall behind him. You catch a glimpse of his tail flicking back and forth incessantly at his heels, occasionally thumping up against the wall.
I think he’ll evaporate into thin air if I do any more teasing. You give him a quick kiss on the cheek, breaking the tension you’ve created, and turn your back on the flustered man. On your way out of the room, you throw on the sweater that was abandoned atop the dresser. Mychael is left frozen against the wall, coat still dangling from his shoulder, staring dazedly at your figure disappearing around the corner.
You pull your winter coat over your shoulders and walk out the front door, quietly laughing to yourself as you are met with a thick layer of snow underfoot. The faint sound of clucking catches your attention, and you remember that the chickens need to be fed before you and Mychael head out. Grabbing the chicken feed, you walk towards the covered pen, and Sunny greets you happily with Marmar and Rosie in tow. You dump some of the pellets over the ground and fill up their water jug while Sunny watches you with a blissfully blank look. Stooping down to pet her, you hear the sound of running water coming from inside the cabin. I must have made him very flustered if he had to rinse his face off. The ladies look at you in wonder as you laugh to yourself once again.
Standing back up, you close the pen gate and walk towards the garden, looking over for any blemishes on the leaves from the harsh chill of this year’s winter. The creaking of the door opening brings your eyes up to meet a grumpy, yet cute-looking Mychael.
“You did that on purpose, didn’t you.”
You give him a lighthearted chuckle and poke him in his side, making him flinch away from your attack. “Come, come, let’s hunt!” you say as you usher him into the forest.
—
You end up walking back to the cabin with an average-sized buck, thanks to Mychael’s encouraging words of marinated venison with truffled mashed potatoes for dinner, before you felt bad for the creature again and let it run away.
Looking up, you see the sun nearing the horizon, creating a beautiful pink and purple sky that serves as a lovely backdrop for the white-capped trees. Good, just enough daylight to get back home. You smile at the word home . The secluded cabin in the middle of the woods with no internet, no grocery stores, and no reliable plumbing system has become more of a home to you than your real house. And it’s all because of a pretty boy that you have grown to love and care for as part of your family.
You look back at the man in question and see him gazing at you as if you were the one who hung the stars that he sits under every night. If only it weren’t for the deer corpse he has dragging behind him and a crossbow in your hands, it would have made a perfect image with the sunset glowing orange across his skin.
“Huh?” you say dumbly. What a way to ruin the moment. You slap the part of your brain that controls your speech.
“Ah, I wanted to know if you… uh… never mind,” he trails off, facing the direction of the path.
“So you hate me and want me to die,” you deadpan.
“What? No? Why would I think that?”
You giggle and reply, “I’m kidding, it’s just a thing I picked up from my friend.”
“…Okay.”
Looking at your surroundings to gauge how close you are to the cabin, you notice that you and Mychael have gone slightly off the usual trail, distracted by the thought of food in your growling stomach and the conversation at hand.
“No, but seriously, what were you going to say, I am dying over here, Mychael,” you say after two agonizingly long minutes pass.
He looks at you with an eyebrow raised in confusion. A moment later, a flush creeps up his ears as he chews his lip, visually contemplating repeating his question.
Mychael turns to you and pouts, embarrassment clear in his eyes, “It’s harder to say it now that I’ve had time to think about it!”
“Mychael!”
“Fine! Fine.”
You give him a moment to regain his shattered confidence until he finally speaks up, a rare vulnerability evident in his tone. “I wanted to know if you would be okay with us going a little further.”
“Love, I’m going to need a little more information than that.”
He looks back towards the trail and veers to the left. You assume he noticed the lack of snowed-in footprints made during the walk from the cabin and is now headed to the correct path.
“In our relationship.”
You falter in your step, a million thoughts immediately running through your head, but you land on two? three? four? possibilities, one of which consists of hot breath mixing with the scent of bare skin and bedsheets rumpled, thrown halfway to the ground. Your eyes widen, and you feel burning heat rise across your face as you whip your head to Mychael’s.
He seems to notice your alarm and puts his hands in front of him, waving them wildly, dropping the antlers in the process. “No, no, no, that isn’t what I meant by that! Well, not exactly.” You look at him with utter confusion on your face. Not exactly??
“What I mean is that I think I am ready, unless if you aren’t, then I would be totally fine with not doing it,” his hands flail about, only succeeding in showing his nervousness. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything like that, I can wait until you are ready or, rather, if you are ready to–” He pauses his rambling and sighs. “…I want to kiss you like I see other couples do on the telee-vision.”
Despite his stumble over the foreign word, one which you would normally giggle at, your brain short-circuits. What has he watched on TV where couples kiss like that? I thought I kept things pretty PG-13 to somewhat save his innocence? I don’t know if I’m getting ahead of myself, but does he mean what I think he means?
Before you get a chance to respond, a loud, guttural sound that could only be described as an aggravated cow mixed with a lion roar is heard uncomfortably close on your right.
Mychael’s ears flatten as he snatches the crossbow from your hands and cocks the cable with a click, raising it towards the source of the sound cautiously.
“Moose,” he whispers. “An angry one, too. Stay behind me.”
You back slowly behind him as you see, presumably a female, appear from the foliage, a calf poking its head out to watch the drama. The moose stalks forward, ears laid back against its head and fur raised on its hind.
The two of you back off slowly, but Mychael utters, “It’s too close, I can’t shoot it like this.”
The moose continues its pursuit, visibly ready to charge at any moment. Its eyes dilate, staring the two of you down as it takes a step closer. It flares its nostrils, thumping its hooves on the ground. Thump, thump, thump.
Abruptly, the moose pauses, locking eyes with Mychael as if it had forgotten it was supposed to be intimidating the intruders, or rather, as if it were in a trance. You glance at him to gauge his reaction, and you can see him entirely focused on the beast. The moose grunts and walks backwards into the bushes, still locking eyes with him, baby in tow.
Your shoulders relax once you hear the rustling of the bushes eventually fade away. Mychael hands you the crossbow back and grabs the buck again, continuing on the path. He is unusually silent, even for a guy like him. Anyone would have something to say about an encounter like that.
“Well, that was odd. Is that something you can do as a… mushroom folk?” you ask. “Just will animals away?”
“Yeah.”
Silence. Too silent.
“Mychael? Is something wrong?”
He avoids looking your way, keeping his eyes downward and his hair covering his face. His free hand grips his satchel, turning his fingers white.
“Why won’t you look at me, love?” You jump in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. Drawing your eyes up to his lowered ones, you see terror in them, pupils as thin as slits. “Mychael, what did you do to that moose?” you ask, as things begin to click.
My cat.
His eyebrows scrunch up, and he walks around you, dragging the buck with him.
The sudden blackouts.
“Mychael. What did you do to that moose,” you follow after him. “Answer me.”
His adamancy in me staying.
“Mychael, did you use that same thing on me when–” You’re cut off as he snaps his eyes to yours, and you start to feel your skin prickle with an old, yet familiar feeling. What was I saying? We need to get this deer back to the cabin before–
“No, Mychael! You will not use that shit on me again!” you exclaim, wrenching yourself out of the trance. Tears start to form in your eyes, blurring your vision. Mychael has stopped, body tense and wild eyes darting about as if looking for an escape.
“I have always wondered why I seemed to oh-so-suddenly 'black out' so often, but now I know why!” Your words echo through the forest as you raise your voice at him.
You see his glossy eyes look back at you, seeming to have given up on fleeing. “I couldn’t let you leave me, firefly,” he says in a hurried, weak voice, shrinking into himself. “I was so alone, and you were the first person to see me as something other than a monster,” his voice becomes desperate, eyebrows drawing together as he places his hands on your shoulders.
You stare at him for a few seconds. “I can’t do this right now, Mychael. We’re in the middle of the goddamn forest, and I need to go to my house right now because I cannot be with you at this moment.”
Whipping around, you start to hurriedly walk back to the cabin to grab your things. But, not five steps later, he yanks your arm towards him and you meet his wide, crazed eyes.
Your vision goes black.