Work Text:
“Stop playing with it.”
Infume looked up, momentarily vaguely disgusted by the word choice, and caught Fein’s shit-eating grin. That had been the point.
Scowling, he dropped his head again, poking and pinching vaguely at the deep burn on his arm. He had others. That was what he got for tossing lava around without thinking. He’d had to complete the run like this, too. It had hurt.
“Hey. Stop it.”
Fein was crouching in front of him, now, and Infume was ignoring him. Pointedly. He wasn’t going to get pushed around. He wasn’t going to do anything. He was going to do exactly what he always did, and still lose, by those few stupid seconds he should have been more aware of.
He blamed having an audience. He never messed up like this when he was alone. Never. Not even when he was tired, and numb, and out of it, and just wanted to sleep so he could imagine the darkness could last forever, like the Void itself-
“Infume.”
Infume looked up, vaguely, wiping his eyes without a thought with the same hand that had been curling nails into his burns. It was sore. Such a strange texture for skin to be. Smooth, yet raw, and so, so painful to the touch.
“I can tie your hands.” Fein suggested it cheerfully, still bent at the knees a little, enough to rest his hands on them like he was addressing an excitable puppy. “If that would help you listen for once.”
That annoyed him. It irritated something raw inside him, too, and Infume found himself glaring up, almost pouting, because he was the only one meant to poke at his own weak points. He listened. He listened to everyone, almost all the time. Except Fein, now, because he felt wrong even being here, disconnected and out of time with all his friends who didn’t let themselves get distracted, even for a few moments.
That was why he kept poking at it. If Fein was even interested. It felt like something, when he felt like nothing. So much nothing it was hard to think. To move. To listen to Fein, and it all came full circle like that.
“So you are listening?” Crouching down a little more, Fein managed to force eye contact on him, and Infume felt like his brain was being eaten by termites from his eye sockets backwards, but he wasn’t going to be the first to look away. “Because it doesn’t seem like you’ve been.”
He should never have told anyone anything. They had no right to make him feel things. To know his buttons, even if the information had been freely given at the time. Infume regretted ever letting anyone see how to pull him around like a puppy on a string.
“Yellow.”
If Fein was going to play like that, he was too. Even if it was a dick move to safeword out of nowhere, Infume just wanted to enjoy the dull nothingness of blank concrete against his back, and feel everything melt out of his head until the rot set in.
“Infume…” Fein sighed, and he didn’t move away, and Infume felt something off, for a brief moment. He looked up, properly, eyes a little wide in fright. “Hey. No. I’m listening, too. I heard you. But...”
Fein scratched at the side of his own chin, then nearly mimicked the gesture on Infume, running his fingers back through his hair and smoothing over some of the rougher edges of his apathy.
“Red if it’s really a no, ok? But I’m not just letting you stay here.”
Infume stared at him, blankly, not sure if he should reach for his scripts for betrayal or relief. Fein’s eyes were deeply, deeply worried, watching him closely, flicking back and forth behind his wraparound glasses, and it was kind of hypnotic, really.
Giving up, Infume just nodded, and went back to staring at his knees, feeling Fein’s touch linger on his head. It had been nice. Colourful, more than he felt right now. He felt grey. In all the worst, boring, awful ways.
“Whatcha thinking about?”
Fein appeared to have given up on standing, or Infume had just been ignoring him for so long that his legs had gotten tired. He sat down, crossing his legs, far more relaxed than Infume’s hunched, huddled ball. He looked so relaxed. Infume was envious.
“Grey.”
“Is that how you’re feeling?”
There was such genuine curiosity in Fein’s eyes that Infume almost wanted to cry about it. Or- not cry, actually, because his breath came short once, twice, and this would be a stupid thing to break down over. They all were.
He held it together, and offered a small shrug. The best path forward seemed to be curling further into himself, the pads of his fingers pressing down like clamps on his burns. It hurt so bad. He wished he could properly feel it.
“I said stop it, Fume.”
Sighing, Fein finally stepped in, and Infume hadn’t even realised he’d been waiting, but let his hands go limp anyway, easily tugged away from his arms. His fingers felt sticky. His burns felt gross, now. Maybe he’d gotten germs on himself.
“Okay? You really are listening, right?”
A small nod. That was the most Fein was getting out of him. Maybe ever. Infume felt like he’d be like this forever. Stuck. Waiting. Miserable, but not the kind of misery that deserved a cure. Just quiet awfulness, blooming inside him bitter as a fruit already rotten.
“I want five other colours. Not grey. You can look around.”
Infume was stupidly, stupidly grateful, for those last few words. He needed the command, firstly, to even think about moving. It felt like so much, just to lift his head. Flakes of lead were drifting down onto him, poisoning him and weighing him down bit by bit.
And he couldn’t remember a single colour. Yellow. His eyes snagged on someone’s sleeve, catching his gaze through the small crowd sitting across the room.
By that point, he was done with gratitude. He felt sick. It wasn’t Fein’s fault, but Infume didn’t want to be reminded that there were other people here. It made him feel even further away. Stuck in his little corner, watching from the outside.
“…yellow.” Infume looked up, searching for validation, almost begging for it, at this point. It would almost feel like something. “The- colour.”
“Good one. Four more?”
Fein wasn’t even following his gaze, focused solely on him. Infume could make it up. He wouldn’t know. He was just being trusted, to actually take his cues from the world around him. Or maybe Fein knew he didn’t have a hope of remembering any colours without visual cues.
“Blue.” Infume found himself staring at Fein, the closest thing. The least effort. “Pink. And… white?”
Those were colours. All of them. He’d done it, and he’d done it right, and surely that was it, now? Fein could let him wallow in numb misery in peace, until the world faded around him.
“Is that because of me?” Fein was grinning, cheekily, but there was a purpose in his eyes. “Can you still hear my voice?”
“Y- yeah…”
Infume was wary of where this was going. It didn’t sound like he was being left alone.
“Ok. That’s good for the colours. Can you hear anything else?”
“The- others…” Infume winced, a little, glancing over, and nearly catching Couri’s eye. It made his cheeks heat up, and he shifted backwards, minimising himself as a target for any human emotions. “You can go. I’ll be fine.”
“Who in particular? Just a couple more, I promise.”
Fein was so believable. When Infume looked up at him, all puppy eyes and dejection, it was easy to think that he’d really be free to erode himself into darkness just once he did this one, tiny thing.
“Couriway…” Carefully, Infume dropped his eyes from Fein’s face, trying not to look like he meant anything by it. He could hear Couri’s voice. That was all there was. “M- Mime? And… Hax.”
“Good.” Fein ruffled his hair, and suspicion spiked in Infume’s throat, directly proportional to the worry he hadn’t realised was rising, and was now dipping back down, relieved, in some way, that Fein wasn’t moving an inch. “You can feel this. Two more.”
Way, way too late, Infume realised what this was. Fein was grounding him. It was… something he couldn’t name, something that wedged like a pill in the back of his throat, something that made him feel nauseous and adored in a way that Fein would probably never understand.
Still, now he could make an effort to try. They were heading towards the end, of this, even if he no longer wanted this over with sooner rather than later.
“I… can feel my burns.” Infume heard his voice get small, instantly, worried Fein wouldn’t like him drawing attention back to his little act of self-destruction. “And I feel hungry.”
“Food, hm? We can manage that.” For a terrifying moment, Fein seemed about to yell across the room to someone, and Infume tensed, ready to simply bolt if any more attention landed on him. But Fein turned back, smiling. “You’re doing great. You know what’s next?”
“Smell?” With a small nod, Infume gained confidence, even if he no longer trusted what Fein would do once this was over. He wanted to be left alone. Not dragged into some other scheme to cheer him up. “Someone’s… eating pumpkin.”
“Correct.”
“And you smell like the Nether.”
Infume pulled a face, trying to make a joke out of it. It coaxed a laugh from Fein, at least, which was a victory he could let hum through his chest as he settled into apathetic satisfaction.
“Fair. That- that’s fair, dude, but I think we all need a shower. Taste?”
“Lava.”
Fein’s face fell, for a moment, but it might have just been Infume’s empty delivery. He was slipping again, so quickly, as he could feel Fein about to move away.
“…You don’t need to think about that, okay?” Fein’s hands were on his, his stupid hands that had crept back to the rawest parts of him, or the rawest parts they could reach, because something buried in his chest yowled every time Fein touched him. “No lava. No burns. We can get you a potion, if that’ll help.”
Helpless, Infume shook his head. They were his injuries. He’d earned them, and yes, maybe he’d continue to poke at them, long after Fein had drifted back to the crowd.
Or that would have been the plan, if Fein’s hands hadn’t found a grip around both of his wrists, and Infume found himself tugged to his feet, supported by his back against the wall and a steady strength holding him up by his forearms.
He stared, blankly, his knees trying their very hardest to give out under him. Fein’s eyes were worried, but trying to hide it. Maybe he knew the grounding had barely worked. Infume was here, now, at least, but he was still miserable. He was just miserable and aware of his existence in this world.
“Come on. You’re okay.”
It was strangely easy, to just follow Fein’s footsteps.
What was less easy, was the realisation that they were nearing people.
Infume made some small, pitiful noise, yanking away as best he could with full intentions to bolt as soon as he was free. But Fein’s grip just tightened, until he was being pushed in front, and firmly to the floor, with a sofa right beside him to lean on.
“Hey, guys.” Fein sat just beside where Infume was sitting on the rug in sheer confusion, and leant down to run those same comforting fingers through his hair once again. “What are we talking about?”
They just… weren’t even going to address him. That was ok, actually. More than ok. Infume relaxed, a little, with a wary look around, and caught something blossoming up his neck, growing from the lump that must have been a seed and planted itself in the back of his throat. It made his lips twitch, or maybe just shake a little, as he leaned backwards beside Fein, glancing up to make sure he, at least, was still here.
He was. It was ok. He wasn’t entirely numb anymore, he really could see them, hear them, feel them all around him. Even if the scent of fire lingered on the back of his tongue.
Infume relaxed, a little, letting the conversation wash over him like so many cooling waves.