Chapter Specific TW's: ableism/ableistic language, body horror, talk of things under the skin/in the body that shouldn't be there, unresolved conflict
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"Ow! Shit.."
Grian hissed as he clasped a hand to his forearm, gritting his teeth slightly. The young college student was sitting cross legged on his bed, wearing a soft red sweater, blue jeans, and black socks, having just been scrolling through his phone until the sharp nick had scratched itself along his arm.
He carefully parted his fingers as the pain soothed itself into a gentle throb. Already, a small green stem pushed through his skin from a faint mark, a soft white rose blooming a second later.
"They get hurt again?" His roommate snickered from across their bedroom, watching the flower bloom as well. He sat cross legged as well, a textbook in his lap and papers spread out all around him. He wore just a simple yellow t-shirt and blue jeans.
"Shut it, Tango." Grian huffed, launching his pillow at his roommate's face. Tango quickly ducked out of the way, throwing his own pillow back at Grian and successfully nailing him in the face.
"Shit!" Grian cursed as he tossed the pillow away, scrambling for his nightstand to grab a tissue, stuffing several of them against his now bloody nose.
"You're gonna fuckin suffocate them now, are you happy?" Grian huffed again. He knew his soulmate definitely had some sort of respiratory issue due to how often his own lungs, throat, and nose regularly got stuffed up with flowers, leaves, stems, and vines.
"Yeah, well, at least you didn't nearly kill your soulmate with a high school science experiment." Tango laughed, holding out his arms to remind Grian of the scattered burns and scars along his arms, both of them knowing more lie below his t-shirt, all along his front, from his shoulders, down to his hips.
"Yeah, yeah, we know. I'm sure everyone on campus knows how you've nearly killed your soulmate." Grian grinned around the tissues, snickering softly, "Surprised you haven't found them by how much you blab on about it."
"God, I wish I could find them already." Tango sighed, picking up his open textbook and looking down at the pages, "Yet, I'm still stuck here doing Calculus."
Grian laughed softly, pulling the tissues away from his nose and gently touching the bottom of his nose with his free hand to ensure the bleeding had stopped before leaning over to toss the tissues into the trash can sitting next to his nightstand.
"You and me both." Grian spoke, grabbing his own textbook from his backpack as he sat back up, flipping it open and grabbing his notebook and pen from his nightstand.
The two roommates worked in relative quiet for a while, Tango quietly humming whatever he had gotten stuck in his head most recently, jotting down equations in his notebook while Grian worked through his own problems.
A soft alarm broke them out of their trances about an hour later, Grian reaching over to grab his phone from his nightstand and silent the alarm.
"Fuck, it's 8 already? I still need to shower.." Grian huffed, tossing his notebook and textbook back into his backpack before standing up from his bed.
"Damn. I still haven't eaten either.." Tango and his stomach grumbled as he closed up his textbook, tossing it onto the floor somewhat near his own bag.
"Mmh, sounds like your soulmate is digesting flowers then." Grian laughed as he locked his arms together above his head and stretched backwards, his back popping several times with the action.
"Feels like the only thing they've eaten too.. I'm fucking starving." Tango spoke as he stood up as well, grabbing his jacket from the back of a chair by his closet, as well as a pair of shoes from the floor.
"Hey, if you're going out, could you bring me back something to eat?" Grian questioned, now bending over to dig through his clean clothes basket for a pair of pajamas and a towel.
"Sure, but you owe me for lunch tomorrow. Anything specific?" Tango questioned, pulling his jacket back on before sitting on the edge of his bed to put his shoes on.
"Nah," Grian shrugged, "Surprise me."
"Bet." Tango grinned and Grian huffed, knowing he was fucked.
"I'm going to shower. Please be back before 11." Grian spoke as he turned to walk out of their shared bedroom to head down the hall to the bathroom.
"Not a single promise on that!" Tango called after Grian, stepping out of the bedroom a moment later, though turning the other way down the hall to head towards the door.
Grian sighed and rolled his eyes as he headed into the bathroom. He hung his towel on the hook on the back of the door, setting his pajamas on the edge of the sink counter. He knew there was a pretty good probability he wouldn't see his roommate before midnight tonight, but he had food here if he had to make some.
~~ ~ ~~
Twenty minutes later, Grian was out of the shower and dressed in his red and white Christmas themed pajamas, drying his hair with his towel as he stepped out of the bathroom.
"Caution back there!" A familiar voice that was definitely not his roommate called from their living room area, "We've come to raid your house!"
"A message or warning before would've been appreciated, Bdubs." Grian spoke as he walked out to the living room, tossing his towel onto his bed as he passed his room.
"That takes the fun out of the raid." John- more commonly called by his nickname, Bdubs, in the group- spoke from where they were sprawled on the couch with their soulmate, who was just known to Grian by his nickname, Impulse. Impulse had scruffy brown hair framing the sides of his face, tanned skin, and soft brown eyes and was wearing black jeans and a semi-formal black shirt, his usual sunglasses hanging from the 'v' of his shirt. Bdubs, who was curled up in his lap, had short but curly brown hair and dark skin, a scruffy beard covering the bottom of their face, and dark brown eyes. He wore his usual fluffy green jacket over his usual white tee, blue jeans, and boots.
"And you couldn't have at least brought Tango back with you?" Grian sighed as he took a seat in the rocking chair across the room.
"We didn't see him out there." Impulse spoke, wrapping his arms around Bdubs' middle, pulling his soulmate closer to him.
"Wouldn't be surprised if he was off soulmate hunting again." Bdubs chimed in, leaning their head back to look up at Impulse.
"God," Grian sighed, leaning his own head back against his chair, "That man was supposed to bring me dinner, not run off for the night.."
"Or for the next week.." Bdubs added softly.
"Don't remind me of that. Scared the shit out of me, him disappearing like that.." Grian sighed, closing his eyes for a few moments. He'll give Tango another half hour or so before grabbing food for himself. He couldn't afford to stay up much later than that.
"With how much you worry about him, you'd think he'd be your soulmate." Bdubs joked with a grin on their lips.
"I get flowers way too many times with him doing nothing directly in front of me for him to be my soulmate." Grian spoke, nodding his head towards the small rose that still rested on his forearm.
"Ooo, they really nicked you this time." Impulse grinned before holding up his hand, showing the small bunch of violets that sprouted from the side of his palm, Bdubs following suit and showing his hand with bandages around the same part of his hand, "Dumbass here cut themself in the kitchen today."
"On accident!" Bdubs retorted, a pout appearing on his lips.
Grian laughed as the two bickered before sighing softly.
"I think, if you were to dissect me, you'd just find flowers in my bones. I feel like I'm just stuffed full of flowers and plants." Grian spoke, shifting to sit cross legged in his chair.
"Is it that bad?" Impulse questioned, looking over at Grian.
"Some days it is.." Grian spoke with a shrug. "I mean, considering from age thirteen to eighteen I was consistently having flowers in my lungs, throat, and nose, and I still wake up stuffy every day, I think it's kinda bad."
"Geez." Impulse winced in sympathy.
"He could be disabled." Bdubs piped up with a shrug.
Grian stared at Bdubs, the sudden realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. How- in the past ten years that he's been having these issues- had he never even thought about the fact that his soulmate could be disabled? I mean, Grian himself wasn't in peak physical or mental health but still?? A disabled soulmate?
"You have got to be kidding me." Grian deadpanned before rubbing his hands over his face.
"I mean, sounds possible if you've been having plants growing like that for a while". Impulse spoke softly.
"Noooooo!" Grian groaned loudly, nearly yelling, "I can't! I can't deal with that! I can't take care of them! I can barely take care of myself because of them!"
"It can't be that bad-" Impulse tried to calm Grian down.
"I feel like I can't walk some days because of them!" Grian shouted back before tucking his head down so that his chin was pressed against his chest, his hands now curled in his hair, tugging at the strands.
"And how do you think your soulmate is doing then?" Bdubs suddenly snapped back, "If you can barely walk some days, how do you think they're doing? They probably can't walk most days."
Grian huffed, internally knowing- somewhere- that Bdubs was right. He just didn't want to accept it. So, instead:
"Get out.." Grian grumbled, still boiling with anger at the thought of his soulmate, but not wanting to take it out on his friends.
And, knowing his friend well, Bdubs didn't push Grian, knowing he needed to calm down for a bit, and instead stood up, offering a hand to help Impulse up. Impulse took his hand and pulled himself up, silently gazing at Grian before turning to follow Bdubs to the door.
As they opened the door, Grian heard Bdubs, "Oh- Hey, wait, don't-" And then the door shut after them, muffling the voices out in the hallway.
Grian simply collapsed in his chair, letting out a big sigh. This was going to take a lot of processing..
Around five minutes later, the front door slowly creaked open as someone stepped inside, slowly walking over to Grian.
Grian glanced up to see who it was. Tango.
"Look, it's not even 10 and I didn't forget your food either." Tango tried to cheer him up with a weak grin on his lips.
Grian sighed but offered an equally weak smile back, "Thanks.."
Tango stood where he was for a moment before setting the bag in his hands on the coffee table and then sitting down on the couch where Bdubs and Impulse had been.
Tango was quiet. Grian was quiet.
Surprisingly, Grian was the first to move, reaching to grab the bag of food. McDonald's. Not the best, but it was food. And it was still warm.
Tango waited patiently as Grian opened the bag and grabbed the wrapped sandwich from within. He waited until Grian had seemed to relax a decent bit and had eaten a few bites.
"You still don't know what they're like." Tango offered up after a minute.
"I don't want to talk about them." Grian spat back, glaring over at Tango, who defensively put his hands up.
"Understood. Backing off." Tango stood up, his hands still up, "I'll be in the bedroom. I'll be awake to talk if you wish, but feel free to just go straight to bed."
And, with that, Tango turned and headed down the hall, Grian quietly listening to the opening of their bedroom door and then the soft click to let him know it was closed again.
Grian sat and ate, finding half a container of fries in the bag as well, snacking on them before cleaning up the mess. While he was in the kitchen, he chugged a glass of water before heading to the bedroom.
Grian didn't even bother to give Tango a 'goodnight' like he usually did. He just crawled into bed, the lights already out, and rolled over to face the wall.