Chapter Text
It wasn’t a shock to Flame when he got sick only two days after Lomedy died.
At the time, he had turned his grief to anger for everything that had been going on. Truthfully, he was angry at himself. He could’ve been with his best friend on his farm if he had just stopped fighting like Lomedy requested all those years ago.
Instead he stubbornly refused, too prideful to give up his title which led to more death and eventually the break of their friendship. Then just when he got his best friend back, he lost him again to the same thing he had lost him to in the first place.
Flame thought he’d changed after the war, realized how much he valued friendship and that he would give up fighting. But he just kept going, kept skirmishing and now Lomedy was truly gone for good, forever.
He knew he should have been reflecting on what he did wrong to cause this and how to fix it. He should’ve realized it was because of all the clashing he did with every player, that he not only put himself in danger but also all his acquaintances. But he was shallow, and without Lomedy to guide him, he had channeled every emotion and feeling he ever felt into practicing.
He struck every straw dummy, disemboweled the stuffing from every mannequin. He hit them with the same amount of ferocity he felt towards the suffocating thoughts plaguing his mind. For what he knew, it made him feel better even though he knew Lomedy would be against it.
But fighting was like his own hand on drugs, allowing him to feel a temporary sense of comfort and happiness, only to leave him in his own shaking form of detoxification. The adrenaline wouldn’t leave and he couldn’t stop moving, like an in-and-out system that never allowed him to stop. He would practice for hours on end, never stopping for the first day and only pausing briefly on the second.
Eventually, all that nonstop movement took a toll on him and he collapsed onto the field with a wheezing breath. He’s never felt so weak in his life. Not just physically, but emotionally too. He chuckled weakly, thinking of how it was his own sort of cruel punishment inflicted on himself.
He should’ve been looking for his best friend instead of already giving up on him, but deep down, he knew there was no point. He knew Lomedy had died and that there was no point in bringing his pitiful, sorry self to continue a search that would lead to more bloodshed.
He felt his face twist into something he couldn’t describe, something in between a grimace and a soft smile. His lower lip trembled and he tucked it under his teeth as an attempt to prevent what was happening, but he couldn’t stop destiny. Just like how he couldn’t stop Lomedy’s death.
He couldn’t help himself but ugly cry towards the sky.
Even after all the time he spent recollecting his thoughts and rethinking on how he could’ve done something better, he still turned to his own drug. He had been clean from fighting for the sense of a title for the longest time, but now he turned back to it and was feeling the withdrawal.
With some sick sort of familiarity, he sought comfort in the ache in his limbs and cuts on his skin. Each bruise and slit grounded him and gave a sense of high he couldn’t stop. But eventually, even that high came crashing down and he could feel the sting of the wind against his wounds.
Every hiccup and sob didn’t help ease the pain, but just left his chest hollow for something that couldn’t be filled. Originally, the tears were being soaked up by his blindfold, but eventually they started dripping down his face from gravity. His breaths came in fast and his throat choked up when he tried to take a deep breath. They kept slipping from his scrunched eyes down his red face. His shoulders quivered and shook with the intensity and his chest heaved for air he couldn’t get.
Flame kept going in an unstoppable loop of hiccups and tears, until it was broken by his exhausted body.
It was long after dark when he collected himself enough to pull his sore body into a sitting position. It was half past three when he stood and stumbled into a cave where he had set a temporary base for practicing.
The cool, stone ground chilled him through and he shivered weakly, his breath coming out as a mist in the dark. And just like that, he crumpled onto the floor again, except this time he knocked himself out cold and slumped to the ground.
He doesn’t know when someone entered his base and stood awkwardly at the entrance. He doesn’t recall when they propped him up by a cave wall and cursed at his temperature. And he doesn’t remember when they swaddled him with blankets and started a fire.
When he cracked his eyes open, he was met with the pleasant crackling of a fire and a familiar lavender scent. The light seems to filter through his retinas faster than the usual pace he was used to and he was confused momentarily before realizing it was because his blindfold was off.
He sat puzzled for a minute, attempting to search through his memories for any event of him taking off the black film and starting a fire. The constant probing pain in the back of his head didn’t quite help, but eventually, he came to the conclusion he had never done any of the actions. But he was too worn out to care and his body sagged. Besides, what should it matter when he was warm and safe?
Feeling slightly clearer in the head now, he wearily scanned the room for danger out of habit, noting the lilac hair in the room with piercing periwinkle eyes. It doesn’t hurt to say he didn’t care his rival and ex-teammate was in the same room as him right now. In fact, if anything, he felt comforted by the said presence.
He gave a curt nod to the other, vision burring momentarily from the movement. Even such a small task felt Herculean to his drowning head.
The lavender head nodded back, but continued to stare at Flame curiously, as if questioning what he would do next.
Flame didn’t do anything rash. Rather, he didn’t quite care about anything at the moment. The only thing he could recognize was the relentless pounding in his head and how he needed sleep. He didn’t want to sleep with a stranger in the room, but eyelids betrayed him and he drifted off to an uneasy dream.
When he awoke, fever racked his body with tremors; he was so cold, yet so hot at the same time. His head pulsed and his ankle throbbed. Honestly, Flame felt like he was dying. He couldn’t even pull himself out of the cocoon he had woven himself into, much less take a deep breath. A little nagging voice in his mind wants to call him pathetic, but his head hurts so much he can’t even hear it.
His eyes were glazed over and head stuffed with cotton. His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth, like he was too thirsty to speak.
He wanted to move, to do something, or tell someone how he felt; but at that moment, even that simple action felt impossible and beyond his reach. He felt paralyzed and numb, so feverish he couldn’t even pull barely see straight.
His body ached all over and he wanted to just close his eyes and disappear, but he couldn’t.
The throbbing in the gash along his side had only grown. His migraine intensified by the moment.
Suddenly, a yellow-headed farmer barged into the makeshift base and stomped over to his limp body curled into a ball on the ground, covered with a sheen of cold sweat, and shivering despite the thick blanket he had on, freezing when he sees the state he was in.
Flame shifted towards him slightly, eyes puffy and red from crying the night before. He stared at his best friend, feeling tears rise up into his eyes despite his efforts at attempting neutral.
He tried to croak out a response on how he wasn’t real and for him to stop haunting him.
But then, as if breaking out of trance, Lomedy rushed towards him, placing his hand on his forehead. Flame instinctively leaned into his touch, intoxicated by the comfort it brought him. He closed his eyes briefly, letting the solace and relief of the cold hand seep through his skin and ease the pain.
“Oh my poor, poor Flame, why did you not say anything?” He murmured quietly, allowing Flame to not get disturbed further, running a soothing hand through his hair.
Mustering his strength, he chokes out—wheezing with the lack of air he could suck in, “I know you’re not real Lomedy; you’re dead.”
“Oh Flame, you were just having a nightmare. I’m not dead, of course I’m not. Otherwise, how could I be helping you right now?” He coos gently, frowning at how hot his forehead felt to the touch. His delirious mind processes the information and he hums as a response, swallowing a lump in his throat barely holding back a barrage of tears from falling out of his eyes.
He was on the verge of breaking, just too stubborn to admit it and too broken to stop it.
Lomedy shifts and sits down on the side of the cool, stone floor, pulling his head into his lap and carefully brushing the hair out of his eyes.
Flame felt tears rising threatening to spill out of his pathetic, worn body. He had really thought Lomedy had died, yet here he was. His best friend.
Then he asks the one question that truly breaks the dam, the one he had been subconsciously waiting to hear.
“Did it hurt?”
He knew the question wasn’t about him. And so he muffles a groan as a hot tear involuntarily slipped out from his eyes. He didn’t even say anything or nod for any matter, yet the other seemed to understand perfectly fine.
“Flame…”
He awoke with a shudder feeling as if he was on fire in a heater.
His forehead burned and he was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep if he had been waiting for a thousand years.
The light from the fire was already dim, but still too bright for his fever-stricken eyes. Wincing as he made a failed attempt to get up, his hearing suddenly returned with full force.
“Flame?” He could hear someone suddenly say, shocked. He hummed, or more realistically, hoarsely rattled in response.
Sitting next to him in his bed, holding his face like something fragile, they spoke again, softer this time, “Are you awake?”
Attempting to open his eyes and see Lomedy’s face, Flame cracked open his eyes and looked up to a worried face above him.
He couldn’t bring himself to speak, his mouth not only sealed shut from fever but also the disappointment sitting in his chest. The tackiness in his mouth didn’t help with the situation, only making Flame feel more muted than before.
Lomedy hadn’t lived. He had dreamed of him being there and helping him, but he wasn’t alive.
Tears filled his eyes again.
With every breath, he could feel a rawness in his throat he didn’t want to confront. Briefly swallowing, he felt the saliva slip down the sharp edges of glass he was tethering on. How such a simple action pained him was beyond his hot head and teary eyes.
His cheeks felt damp and his lashes framed with tears. It then dawned on him, he had been crying.
Everything was quite literally a blur after that. The vague fragments his mind provided fluttered away as quickly as they came.
He could recall he was half-asleep when an angel came in. The cool hand of the purple-headed demon, which had cusped his red-tinted cheeks reluctantly let go to greet the man who had just entered.
He could hear the muffled voices of the two conversing and the bits of conversation flowing through his ears.
“He’s talking in his sleep…”
“No, Egg, I don’t know what he’s saying!”
“-omedy?”
“Let me try…”
His eyes drooped low as they continued talking, but he could never quite relax to the point of sleep—always staying on edge, somehow.
Someone’s tan hand dropped onto his head, then, a glowing blue hue of healing wrapped around him. It felt like the grace of God upon him. Just as the hand removed itself from his head, a curtain fell over his eyes and knocked him unconscious, into a state of dreaming.
“He should be better now.” Egg says, breathing unevenly. Wemmbu had urgently asked for him to come to a random pair of coordinates. When he had seen the sickly sheen of sweat on Flame’s face, he immediately questioned what had happened.
According to the demon, he had been doing a late night stroll with his elytra when he passed by a cave with blood littered all around it. He had landed quickly to investigate and found his one and only rival, unconscious on the floor.
He had a multitude of open wounds and cuts. Most of the wounds were self-inflicted in training, but a specific nasty one on the side was already on its way to being infected. In fact, Flame’s head was already burning by that point and he was on a track to certain death.
Wemmbu had no idea on how or why Flame would possibly be in that state, but he panicked and tried to patch him up the best he could.
Unfortunately, it quickly spiraled out of control and Flame’s wound was far-beyond Wemmbu’s expertise. That’s when Flame started hallucinating and sleep-talking. The demon had tried to wake him on multiple occasions, but the netherborn kept asking for his dead best friend, and Wemmbu felt too guilty to let him realize Lomedy was already gone.
Then Flame’s fever had become too high and Wemmbu scrambled for his communicator and called Egg.
Egg and Wemmbu watched on as the strongest player slept peacefully after a near-death experience.
The vulnerability of him and the true heartbroken expression he wore confused the pair. The tears he had shed and cries for the dead man only confused them further. This wasn’t the heartless man they had thought they knew, but rather a whole new side they haven’t seen.
But maybe this softer side wasn’t so bad.
Wemmbu sighed tiredly. They sure need to talk when he awakes, but for now, they’ll let him sleep.