Work Text:
Scott had never been in an underground crypt this big before. The ones back home were smaller—long winding tunnels akin to a cave system carved out long ago—but this one? This one was larger than the entirety of Tegrith. It spanned what had to be the size of the base of the entire mountain, from what he could see. Though they had similar architecture: shroom lights and overgrown corners, they couldn’t be much more different. Warm wind swirled down here, heated with residual mana from long dead occupants. Frigid winds had curled around him in the Folk crypts.
It'd been more comforting there.
It was dark here, for one thing, and so very decrepit. It was far more eerie than he'd thought it would be. Scott also didn’t like that he felt the corruption down here in his very bones.
The five of them—Scott, Pyro, Kitty, Boa and Ros—were standing in front of an entrance. It was the only way they could go, but Kitty was hesitant. "What if that door closes?" He says, fidgeting. "I'll run for help." He picks at the small tufts of fur around their wrists, the skin beneath going slightly red. They sounded so much more scared than Scott thought they'd be.
A lot of things were diverting his expectations right now it seems.
They all walk into the hall anyway, and, backlit by the shroom lights that cover damn near all the walls here, they get separated. Kitty goes further off into the maze of broken walls and barely lit torches while the rest of them stay back. This is apparently the wrong choice.
Scott's the one who spies the person stood staring into a pit of lava. They look familiar, but he can't tell who it is. Their hair is grey, then brown, short, then long. There are bruises up their neck, then there's blood down their back.
They almost look like—
"Pyro..?" The man in question hums, then stops. Scott's voice wavers as he speaks again. "Is that Tim?"
Pyro doesn't answer, taking a step into Scott's peripheral. Then they step back as Tim turns around. They hum an affirmative and their hands start to shake. Scott almost reaches for them, then the corrupted being—because he knows they're corrupt—changes.
Scott doesn't see Tim, anymore. He sees Bella. He sees her rearranged arm; black and mangled and made from the bones of animals, stuck together with strings of blood and viscera. He sees the blackened welts that cover her face—he remembers how she'd reached out to him. He remembers reaching back.
He remembers watching her get devoured whole—skin and bone—by that living, breathing thing in the ground under the snow. He remembers how it had taken a piece of him with it. He thinks that's how he can feel it move, now.
Her eyes are not bruised. They are bloodied. They stare at him as the body slashes at Ros. Scott calls her back. She listens. The thing takes a single step forward, knife raised to strike again.
They run.
The being chases after them. Scott slows it, Pyro lights it aflame. It does not die. It hits Scott once, a small nick in the side where he knows another scar lies. That is all it needs.
Scott can feel something digging into his skin and trying to take his conscience. He doesn't let it yet.
They continue out of the crypt and up the stairs, then down and back inside to get Kitty. Pyro runs into the haunted corridor to get her and Scott watches from outside. He is terrified.
He cannot bring himself to dive back inside after his lover, though. The thing continues to squirm under his skin. Boa and Ros ask him a few questions but their voices slowly fade into the recesses of his mind. He watches as his hands slowly dissipate, then his arms.
He hears them panic.
Then he is gone to the world and nobody knows where to.
Scott wakes to a void. It is soundless. It is clean. There is tar at his feet, staining his boots and the bottom of his coat black. He does not move. The tar slides around him silently. He does not interfere with its route. A sound echoes from his right and he turns.
He comes face to face with himself. His eyes are hollow, the whites the same purple as his irises. He is corrupted.
He wonders if this is a mirror.
Then Bella appears behind him. Then the wolves with black blood he'd killed. Then the singular injured Storm Raven he'd put out of it's misery. Then the guard he killed for laying a hand on Igna.
They all stare with bruised eyes and taught skin. Scott stares back with as much intensity.
One wolf steps forward, rounding Scott and growling. It nips at his calf. Scott does not move. He cannot get himself to even flinch. The guard raises her sword and swings. Scott takes the blow and laughs when it does nothing.
She hadn't fought back. She knew he'd seems the welts on her arms. She had let him kill her. They both had that understanding. He never would have succeeded had that not been the case. The copy of himself steps forward, a hand in hers. They tilt their heads in sync and Scott barely stops his body from reeling back. Somehow, that is what gets another wolf to pounce.
It jumps through him, baring its teeth in a facsimile of a smile. Scott doesn't find it as threatening as the two people before him moving as one entity.
The Storm Raven chuffs, feathers glinting rainbow with tar and oil. Scott still remembers finding it in the wilderness, struck down by a poisoned arrow to the stomach. It would not have survived. So, he'd slit it's throat with a flint knife and continued to find firewood. He hadn't thought about that again until just now. It was the first time he'd killed something for any reason bar hunting.
It bows its head to him and turns. The two 'humans' step forward and take both of Scott's hands. They speak with a voice of overlapping sounds, tones and volumes. It it terrifying. It is holy. It is everything Scott has known gods to be.
"You see what you should not." It begins. The corruption tilts its head. "How?"
Scott can't speak for a moment, ears ringing. His eyes water and he sees his hands begin to flake apart. Skin folds in on itself, muscles tear. Scott doesn't feel a thing. No blood falls. "You have a piece of me. I have a piece of you." Is all he says, words clipped and tense. It is hard to speak in the presence of a being so large and old.
The thing nods, like that is the answer it wanted. Then the guard's jaw unhinges and a piece of rotted flesh falls from it. Scott's vision swims as it speaks again. "You may have it back."
Scott stares down at the moulded piece of his skin. He can feel it now—the things inside slowly dying and being eaten by the rot. He in return digs a hand in his side, maggots and blackened magma come away from the scar he's ignored for years. He offers the pile to the thing. "And you, yours."
It smiles, too many teeth and too wide eyes glinting with shadows. It leans in, and both mouths bite his hand clean off. Blood drips from his wrist and he stares down for a moment. He stoops and picks up the rotted piece of meat from the floor, watching as it reattaches to his wrist cleanly. His hand returns in seconds. That is somehow less horrifying than he thought it'd be.
His side stays bleeding gunk. He doesn't look at it. The thing does, though, grinning all the while. "You are not mine. You never will be. Run now. While you can."
Scott startles. It's giving him a way out? Now? Why? It must know he'd never take it. Not when his family is on the line. The entity seems to understand this from his expression. It nods once, blinking quicker than humans should. Then the world melts away around him and Scott finds himself in the main hall of the academy.
Both his hands are still attached. His side is whole. There are no pieces missing from his body. He sinks to the floor in relief.
The room spins when he pushes himself back up after a few minutes. He has to lean on the railings, then the walls, to be able to make it back to his room. He finds Pyro laid in his bed there, two dragons curled into their chest. He smiles, then takes off his outerwear.
The second he is left in only sleepwear, he slips into bed and curls into his lover. He hopes the other had not been too worried about his disappearance.
He goes to sleep and prays to make it to morning.
Pyro shakes him awake the next morning, looking about as relieved as he will ever let himself get. "You're okay?"
Scott smiles sleepily, grasping one of Pyro's hands in his. "Mhm. Better than ever."
Pyro sinks into the mattress, and cards their fingers through Scott's hair. They stay there a moment before speaking again. "It's getting long…"
Scott laughs softly. "Want me to cut it?" He knows he has the equipment to do so—he'd cut Seapeekay's hair not long ago. He'd just need to find some kind of mirror set up to do it to his own hair and get it even. Pyro, ever the man they are, immediately stiffens at this.
"I like it long." They mumble, obviously not quite ready to be so casual about their attachment. Scott just huffs and leans into the hands still carding through his almost shoulder length hair. They lay like that a while, Pyro putting little braids in his hair and Scott almost falling asleep again.
"Where'd you go?" Scott makes a curious noise, not quite sure what he's being asked while so out of it. He is so tired. "When I went to get Kitty. Where'd you disappear to? Boa and Ros were so scared."
Scott knows Pyro had been scared too, just from the way their voice wavers. He debates his answer for a bit. "I don't quite know." He states, honest as he can be. "Somewhere dark. Nothing living there."
Pyro nods and takes the answer at face value. "Dead things?"
Scott nods, curling in closer to Pyro and putting his arms around the taller's neck. "Corrupted things."
Pyro's hands tighten and pull slightly, then drop to Scott's hips. "They hurt you?" Their voice has dipped into something darker that makes Scott's heart flutter.
He laughs. "Not at all." None of them had actually touched him. He'd been the one to offer it the piece of itself back. It wasn't its fault it harmed him. "They just watched." Pyro's eyes narrowed. Scott patted his chest gently. "I'm fine. I promise."
They grumble quietly, pulling Scott even closer and tucking his head into their neck. Scott giggles, but doesn't move. "You—" They choke on the words a moment. Then he coughs and continues. "You scared me."
Scott's entire body released its tension at that, legs tangling in with Pyro's, lips pressing against his neck. "I'm sorry. You were off to get Kitty. I felt something and just—was gone a second later." He runs a hand down their back. "But I'm here now. I'm okay." He whispers, cold breath fanning out on warm skin.
Pyro nuzzles into his hair, heated breath making his words sink deep into Scott's mind. "You're not leaving my sight again."
Scott laughs. "Not even to shower? Use the bathroom?"
Pyro pulls back, frowning at Scott like he used to when they were younger. He's so happy they're comfortable enough to do that here even if it is just the two of them. "We were just fine doing it well into being teenagers. I'm sure we'll survive."
Scot snorts, but doesn't argue, simply resting in Pyro's embrace. Their breathing almost begins to even out, then the distinct taps of Dragon claws on wood echoes in the room, quick and determined.
Cindy squeezes into their embrace, followed quickly by a panicked Aurora. She paws at Scott, claws not digging into his skin but also not quite comfortable. She yowls, then baps Scott on the nose. Pyro laughs, encouraging the little one's upset in the face of her caretaker disappearing suddenly.
Scott takes a while to calm her down, knowing she'd felt the odd exchange that had happened. Gods she must have been so confused, but it was obvious she was better now—maybe even better than she had been before. She seems more energetic now.
They stay like that a while, mirroring the way their parents used to curl around the two of them after nightmares at each other's houses. It's all Scott can do to try and ignore how similar it feels to him curling around Igna whenever she'd had a nightmare.
He didn't know if the corruption had gotten to her yet.
Maybe he never would.