#jouren

(heads up for mentions of death and some quickly discussed gore)

[It’s rare, lately, that Jouren feels that bone-deep pull back to Mawris. Discos said they all get it, but knowing that doesn’t make it any less unsettling to find himself drifting off into a daze and coming back to his senses in a field of scattered mushrooms, staring down old cellar doors, the sun-bleached paint chipping and wearing away with the sweeps. 

It feels like waking up again, when he breathes the stale air inside. Mawris is sat cross-legged on the floor, their eyes closed, and they lift their chin in a small nod to him. He’s not sure if they’re smiling for him, or if they’re just like that, anymore. 

And for comparison

The pain is an all-encompassing burn, that carries with it waves of nausea and disorientation, seemingly at random.

All this over a mushroom he didn’t expect to end up with to begin with.

It couldn’t have been enough to lose him a friend, maybe more; it couldn’t have been enough to have to carry the uncertainty of his fate- no.

It was an easy thing, breaking it off at the stem. Mushrooms aren’t terribly durable, and this seems to extend to the kind that cultivated undeath. An easy mistake to make, easily enough tossed into the trash before the consequences could reach him.

He’s still greeting the people that come to the door- of course he is, he craves something enjoyable of this holiday… he’s not going to let himself squander all of it for the sake of sitting with things that can’t be undone. He’s putting those years on the stage to use, smiling and chatting away with anyone that knocks, and if they notice something’s off, at least they have the decency not to say anything.

He hears knuckles against the door again, far sooner than he hoped. Digs his fingers into his scalp another moment as he rallies himself, and takes a breath to stand…

…And the door opens. Shit, he didn’t… he didn’t think Jouren would come back tonight. They knew he’d be here all night… he’s been trying to make it easy to avoid him, they’ve been through enough as it is…

He stands too quickly, intending to tuck himself away into his room as long as needed, but… he can’t move that quickly, right now. He can’t even catch himself on the way back down-

His meeting with the floor isn’t as jarring as he expects it to be, but a shoulder suffers for it, a firm grip around his arm, and another hand coming around to his ribs on the other side, all but carrying him to the couch to sit down proper. It’s more than he’s bothered to do for the past few hours, for sure.

“What happened? You’re, um… you don’t look great.”

Jouren trails off into mumbling for a moment, or maybe Ophioc just stops listening while he gestures vaguely, eyes falling closed once more.

“I’m a dumbass, don’t worry about me… it’s. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

He doesn’t have to look to see the face Jouren is making at him. He knows the sigh of it well enough on its own.

“Come on, work with me a little bit. ‘D’you eat somethin’ that didn’t agree with you, or…?”

Ophi starts to shake his head, just enough to regret it, leaning into elbows on his knees while he tries to catch his breath again.

“…No… no, it’s just… dumb mushroom shit, ‘s my own fault…”

The words take too long to get out, and his voice shakes too much, it’s too telling, Jouren shouldn’t have to deal with this…

Their hand on his jaw is gentle, just lifting his head enough to look him over. Ophi opens his eyes and all, some attempt to prove that he’ll be fine, and he catches Jouren’s wince as the man’s eyes fall away from his face, down and to the side a bit… it takes him a moment to fill in the blanks of the mushroom he broke off, and that Jouren would understand better than maybe anyone else, here.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the olive beats him to it.

“Yeah… that’ll do it. Don’t think I’ve been this bad for it yet, but… yeah, no. Stay here, I’m gonna get you a drink-“

“Jouren, no. No, don’t let me- go have fun. Do halloween, you had plans-“

“Shut up.”

All his attempts to rally fall away again with a stern word and a harsh point, but the look in their eye is… soft. Something kind, something… not quite pity, but he hasn’t got the brainpower to find the match for it.

“You’re gonna stay there, and I’m gonna get you a drink, maybe call in some food, and grab some movies, and I’m not going anywhere ‘till all this lets up some. Then we can go get Mawris to smooth it over a bit, and can go from there, alright?”

Jouren closes his eye and takes a deep breath, rubbing at his eye. He forgets, sometimes, how loud the little guy is. It makes his eye socket itch. Or maybe that’s just regret from staying up yesterday.

Despite it all, he raises his hand in a small wave and offers forth a smile.

“Ophi, been a while. Aurrel get you with whatever Junie was sick with?”

He mostly ignores the elbow to his ribs, planting a hand on Aurrel’s face to muffle whatever he plans to shout next. Familiar routes, and whatnot.

Ophioc is quiet, moreso than usual, and he looks pensive when Jouren opens their eye to look at him. Distracted. Not that any of them are immune to that, especially this early.

The response comes, some time later than expected, and with… something to his voice that Jouren can’t place.

“Yeah, um… something like that, yeah.”

Jouren would be more than happy to sit with the silence- Ophioc has always made for nice silence- but Aurrel almost seems allergic to it. Not that it’s anything new, just… he forgot. There’s a lot Jouren had forgotten.

“So, what, you come back in fuckin’ style? You looking to impress someone- the fuck’s with your hair, man? What time did you get up for all that shit? Don’t you just have fuckin… class today?”

Aurrel’s still going, but… Jouren stops listening. There’s… something in how Ophioc is looking at him. Staring. He feels it under his skin, like the fungus that’s spread through his muscle, through his veins. He forgets to breathe, holding that gaze, until he finds he needs the air to tell Aurrel to shut up.

“Ophioc… you alright? Did I do somethin’, or…?”

There’s the creeping certainty that it’s because of what he is. What he’s become. That Ophi had met someone else like this… Carver or Mawris or someone else as unnerving about it. He’s glad, for once, to lack a heartbeat, because he’s certain he’d be unable to escape the feeling of their racing pulse under his thumbs, in his wrists, his thighs where they meet the bench.

Ophioc smiles, tilting his head a little as he nods, and Aurrel goes still.

He’s sure he does, too.

He can only see it for a moment, the jagged scarring running up the side of the troll’s throat, and where it splits to give way to something, pale and stringy like a miniature willow tree, before it’s obscured once more by hair that settles back into his face, over his shoulder.

Jouren is hardly a mushroom expert, but he can feel it well enough to be sure. The same hum in his bones that he gets with Mawris, or when Discos comes over…

He wasn’t ready for this. Not here. Not when he was starting to feel normal again. And, evidently, neither was Aurrel-