Work Text:
Foolish huffs out a breath, sitting up on the long spruce beam he’d been laying on and casting a critical eye on the ceiling panels. He wipes some sweat off his brow- he hadn’t even been working that long, but he guesses the mansion is pretty warm now with all the torches. He squints- what was he doing again? Ceiling, ceiling, wood panels!! Right, right!
“Those line up well,” he says absently. “The spruce looks fine against the andesite, another line of panels would look tacky…”
Foolish yawns, jaw-cracking and revealing his two jagged rows of teeth, and scoots over to his scaffold. He casually slides down the side of his scaffolding with one hand and foot, thumping against the glossy-finished birch floor. That’d taken so long to get right , he grumbles internally, casually stretching a shoulder, and makes his way to the doorway. He doesn’t even need to look: it’s time to head over to Kinoko Kingdom and work on paving streets, he’d already done his portion of mansion work for the day. He scratches at his wrist a little.
“Uh, Foolish? Hello?”
Foolish screams and jumps in place. Ranboo shuffles, an awkward expression on his face.
“Ranboo! Ranboo! Hi! What’s shaking,” he laughs, leaning back against the outside wall. “I just finished mansion work for the day, so if you have complaints they’re gonna have to wait. Time waits for no shark- totem- ...thing.”
“Uh, no no, that’s all fine, man, but I just wanted to check in? You seem…” A pause. “Not great.”
Foolish blinked and scratched his neck. “What? No, no, I’m totally fine.”
Ranboo’s lips purse, but he slowly nods and steps back. “If you’re sure. Remember you can always take a break, Foolish, there’s no deadline.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he dismisses, already pushing off the wall and summoning his trident. “I gotta go, mushrooms don’t build themselves.”
As he propelled through the waves between Snowchester and the main lands with his trident, though, he frowned to himself. He had been a bit more scatter-brained than usual today… Maybe he should sacrifice the Karl muppet for a little extra juice. He hadn’t expected to do it until later though- and a sacrifice would be so time consuming, and he was late to Kinoko as it was (not that anyone else was keeping track).
He shakes off the sea water and lays the trident against a shoulder. Agh, Ranboo had distracted him. He couldn’t even remember what he needed to work on in Kinoko, he needed to get back into build mode or he’d never get anything done. He sets down the Prime Path, trying to upgrade to a brisk walk but not quite managing it. The red vines are still coiled ominously around old structures, and he keeps skirting farther off the path than he realizes trying to avoid them. Lately they seem to have started hissing, which is weird.
He breathes a sigh of relief as he cuts through the courtyard of Eret’s castle. As joyful as its decorations are, it’s usually a quite solemn place, but at least there are less red vines. Foolish wonders when Eret decided to take up monarchy over adventuring- seems a bit sedentary for her. He hadn’t seen her since their last discussion, when she was acting strange and forgetful. It hadn’t been that long since he’d adventured with Eret… he thinks.
Foolish smiles as the large red mushroom breaks over the horizon, with the warm spruce and mushroom buildings not far behind. Good work so far, if he says so himself. Although it reminds him of how empty the courtyard in front of the library is, and really the mushroom needed a better connection with the rest of town too. Oh, right! Street paving! That’s what I wanted to do. He cracks his knuckles: there’s lots to do.
He clambers up the side of the large mushroom, checking its growth. The magic that held structures together seemed to be holding strong, but (un)living things could be more resistant to it and it never hurt to check. He runs a hand down the stem, humming lightly, and can feel a slight resonance as it recognized his claim over the undying.
“Foolish!”
Foolish jerks back- and pinwheels his arms as his feet slip off the stem. He slams down flat on his back, wheezing. His ears ring and he can’t even see what’s above him for a second, vision blurring. The dirt crunches as someone blocks the sun just overhead, and through the dizziness he thinks they’re saying something. He groans, forcing himself up with a webbed hand.
“-olish, man, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?” Eret says, and their form clears up as Foolish shakes off the disorientation. Eret holds out a hand.
“Urrghh, you rat,” he grouses without any heat. He gratefully lets Eret pull him to his feet, and ignores him fiddling with his sunglasses and biting his lip. “Jeez, what are you doing here? People don’t come by my building sites much. Or, I don’t think they do, but I get really in the zone so it's hard to tell.”
“I wanted to see what you were up to out here- your builds are amazing, man. And… well, it doesn’t matter right now. Are you sure you’re okay? That was quite a fall.”
Foolish squints, shaking his head lightly again and already absently drifting towards the collection of chests and barrels that held his building supplies. “Yeah, I’m good, I’m good, just need to get back to the grind, wo- hoo! My building sustains me,” he jokes, laughing a little weaker than he intended.
Eret follows, hovering slightly off of his elbow and looking… concerned. Still. Foolish runs a sharp set of teeth over his lip and then shakes the creeping unease off. (Usually this wouldn’t disorient him for so long… He’s tougher than this. And he’s been so much more flighty and forgetful-) But he’s got building to do, gotta focus, gotta focus.
He blinks, tugged still by her arm. “Uh, Eret? Can you let go of my arm? I got stuff to do, mushrooms to grow, you know how it is.”
Eret pauses a moment, then tugs him a step closer and lets their hand slip off. “Foolish, you should rest for a minute. You took a crazy fall and you still seem kinda spacey. Sit down for a minute?”
“I’m fine, I’ve had worse than-”
“Please? For me?”
Foolish goes quiet. The worry in his friend’s white eyes, even concealed by his new sunglasses… He smiles, small and fond.
“Man, just as much of a mother hen as I remember. Fine, fine, but just for a minute, okay? Building waits for no totem!”
Eret looks a bit startled for a moment, but sighs in relief as Foolish plops onto his butt and crosses his legs. He sighs exaggeratedly, wanting to sway back and forth for comedic effect but instead just droops against the cliff with a pout. Maybe he will arson the muppet, if only to do something productive. He has to be still for building, quite a bit actually, especially when he’s judging symmetry, but something squirms uncomfortably on his skin at the lethargy. He rubs at his wrists, only jolting a little when Eret settles next to him.
Eret offers a water bottle, which Foolish again pouts at but dutifully sips, but then his communicator buzzes with a message. He perks up as he reads it- Niki asks: Foolish? Are you busy right now? I could use your help with my city.
He quickly types back: no, I’ll be there in a min!! Let me empty my inventory.
Eret stands up with him as he starts emptying stacks of material into their respective chests, shaking out his limbs a bit to try and help perk him up. “Foolish? What are you doing?”
“Niki needs help with her build, so I'm going to head over and give her a hand,” he says distractedly.
“Foolish, you need to rest. It hasn’t even been three minutes since you sat down, you need to slow down,” she argues back, squeezing one of his shoulders- their hand feels weirdly cold, he notices.
Foolish brushes her hand off, and pats her shoulder in goodbye. “I’m fine, Eret, stop being such a worrywart. I’m a totem god, I’m made of tougher stuff than that! You’d know.”
“...Alright, well, call me if you need me, okay? I’m worried about you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
He didn’t think his golden skin could look anything but pristine, but it must not if Eret was still so concerned. Well, he can deal with it later- he’s got another project now it seems. Maybe a new project is just what he needs to reinvigorate himself.
Niki is waiting at the bottom of the stairs, worrying her hands together, but despite the old-looking dark circles under her eyes she seems lighter than she’d been in a while. “Foolish! Helloo. I wanted your advice on how to build a waterfall over here, in the wall.”
She leads him over to a great carved out hollow in the stonebrick of the walls, that drifted down to a still pool of water. Foolish hummed, eyeing the space. Small so far, probably should dig it out more- if he knows anything about building, it’s go big or go home- but a good spot. He’d never made a waterfall before, but he’s seen plenty, and he could mimic it well enough. Maybe he’d add some greenery to tie it to the artificial field she’d made in the center of the room.
“Yeah, I can work with this. Lemme dig it out a little more, and then I can get the water in. So you wanted a big waterfall or a small one?” he says, erecting a stack of scaffold in one smooth movement.
“A small one’s fine, I think. Thank you, Foolish, I appreciate the help a lot,” she says, tucking a lock of pink hair behind her ear and smiling. “Do you want me to get some materials for you? I have a bunch down here.”
“Yes, absolutely!”
And he opens the crevice into a cave holding a tiered pool of water, which he hauls the water up for himself (he blinks stars out of his eyes, unsure why he was even dizzy, and doesn’t even hear Niki’s alarmed question), and now he hovers his webbed hands over the trunk of a tree, willing life into it. As the palm leaves unfurl and the tree roots solidly in place on the ledge, he huffs out a breath, wiping his brow. Man, the mushroom tower hadn’t felt this bad earlier, maybe he should… take a break…
Foolish sways once, twice, and then finds himself on his knees on the raised pathway between rooms, Niki holding his shoulder and ears ringing. “-ish? Foolish are you alright? Can you stand up?”
“Don’t- feel so poggers,” he slurs, and then falls forward onto his hands with a drawn out groan. His vision swims, so he squeezes his eyes shut, and he moans again as his skin crawls.
Niki screams. “FOOLISH, THERE ARE- THERE- the vines! Oh god, how do I get them off?! Foolish!”
Creeping out from under his gauntlets, his boots, his shark hood, are little thorny red vines. They twist and wrap around his limbs, slowly encircling them, and Niki feels a dull heat emanating from them as she reaches towards one, her hand flinching back. She swallows, hands flicking back and forth over his fallen form uselessly, and then hauls his arm across her shoulder.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m going to get you in a bed, Foolish, I’m- I’m going to help you, I promise.”
Foolish whined a little at the loss of the cool stone, his skin crawling still- that’s weird, that’s weird, that doesn’t happen- and feverish. Niki’s voice is muffled like he’s underwater, incomprehensible for all he muzzily tried to pull together his shattered focus. Niki lightly patted at his cheek, urging him to… something… his attention drifts, static sharply rising in his ears and he blankly realizes he is laying down now. The bed is cool though, unoccupied, so he curls into the sheets and weakly rubs his itching arms and legs against it. It was so warm, why was it so warm? He ran cold, he’s part shark.
Niki fumbles for her communicator and opens it to global comms: i need help!! something s wrong w foolish i dont knwo what to do, please come to my city asap
Foolish tosses and turns in the sheets, weakly pawing at the slowly coiling vines on his arms. The static rises, then lowers, and then sharpens into something he recognizes, after a few delirious moments, as words.
alone alone alone everyone fears you in the end not like the rest too strong too wild too much you force yourself to be weaker but we can help you we can--
Niki sees his blank eyes and pats his cheek again desperately, calling, “Foolish? Foolish, can you hear me? Eret and Ranboo are coming, okay, we’re going to figure this out. You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay.” Her face crumbles a little at his incoherent muttering, but he leans into her cool hand so she bites her lip and says, “Foolish, I’ll be right back, I’m going to get you some ice, okay?”
She hurries out of the room, glancing again at her comm.
“...not scared, they’re not scared of me,” he murmurs, twisting to paw at the vines along his shoulders.
Through the whispers, he hears a muffled thunk like metal, and the incomprehensible mush of someone talking, and then the coldest thing he’d ever felt was laid on his forehead and he cries out at the shock. He immediately rolls over, pressing his warm forearms to the spot, but then it’s laid on his arms with someone’s hand pressing them still, and he squirms. So cold, it’s gonna burn me, Niki, Niki, stop-
“Foolish, you need to cool down, I don’t know what’s wrong but you’re burning up,” she pleads. “It’s not burning you, it’s water.”
He groans, and doesn’t say anything else intelligible, just squirms, and just as suddenly he curls in and presses as much skin as he can reach on the cold washcloth, whining desperately. Niki blinks quickly a few times and swallows, feeling her lungs squeeze in slowly rising fear. He doesn’t… He’s so incoherent. What if Foolish…?
Footsteps slap down the hallway, and Eret bursts in, leaning against the doorframe. “Niki, I came here as fast as I could, what’s wrong with- oh, Foolish..!”
Eret crosses over to Foolish’s bedside, and their lips curl at the angry red vines curling up his forearms and skin. Ranboo hesitantly slinks in, too, waving with a weak smile at her and winces at the sight of the shark totem. He worries his two-toned hands together as Eret sinks to his knees next to the bed.
“I-I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t think it was something like this. I tried to get him to take a break, but…” Eret says, voice low and grave. Eret looks up, firmly meeting her eyes through his sunglasses. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, he just- collapsed, and the vines started growing everywhere, and he’s burning up. I’ve barely seen those huge red vines around the main area, I-I’m not sure what will help him,” Niki says, tugging a little at a lock of hair along her jaw.
“Well, I think his temple helps him?” Ranboo offers, a little subdued. “We had a spat a little while back about his work, and he hadn’t taken a break in a while, but once he sat in the light of his beacon for a little bit he got way more relaxed.”
“But that won’t get rid of the vines, will it?” Niki says uncertainly.
“The big vines burn with blue fire- that’s what Foolish and I did,” Eret says with a little guilty twist of his lips. “But we can’t throw him in a pyre, can we?”
“We might have to,” Ranboo replies.
For a moment, it’s quiet as they all look at the totem writhing on the bed, the red vines slowly enwrapping him further and further. Eret presses her lips together and then nods, once. She reaches into a pocket and pulls out a flint and steel. “...I’ll go get the soul sand.”
Niki reaches out and takes the wet washcloth, dunking and wringing it of water as Foolish whimpers and reaches a weak webbed hand for it. She runs it across his forehead gently and then tucks it around his neck. Little wisps of steam raise from the vines. She and Ranboo share a look and swallow.
“..no, no, I don't want that. I want to build, I want to… to...”
Foolish’s eyes drift shut as his mumbling breaks off into vague noises. Ranboo glances at her again. “Uhhh, what is he talking about?”
“I don’t know, he said a little bit before, but I can barely understand him. It’s the fever, I think.”
“Or it’s the Egg,” Ranboo said grimly, and neither of them know what to say to that.
Eret returns with a lit pail of soul sand, and deposits it next to the bed. “I think we’re gonna have to start with some of his clothes. Those gauntlets do not look good.”
“Are you sure we can’t just burn it all off at once?” Ranboo says hesitantly.
“No! That could kill him, Ranboo,” Niki cries. “It could cause much worse damage.”
“Enough,” Eret commands. “We can’t afford to fight right now, those vines haven’t slowed down at all. Help me get his boots and gauntlets off, and then we’ll turn him over to get his hood.”
Eret reaches forward and starts to tug off his gauntlet, and grunts as it resists, the vines clinging to his arm. He pulls harder and it pulls off with a snap, and the broken vines quickly curl closer to Foolish’s skin, interweaving together again. Eret looks at the pulsing mass of red on the inside of it and curls her lip, dropping it into the soul fire. Niki does the same with the matching one, but Ranboo suddenly blurts, “Uh oh, uh oh, uh, that’s not good.”
He’d tugged off one of Foolish’s shoes, having met no resistance… because the vines encased his ankle and up his shin, not connected to his boot at all. Ranboo meets their eyes, red and green eyes wide and panicked. Eret frowns deeply.
“If the vines are rooting into him, we need to-” a bare hesitation- “to rip them out.”
“I will, um, hold him still,” Niki says softly.
She brushes a hand on Eret’s shoulder, then kneels on the bed and grips Foolish’s shoulders, carefully avoiding any of the grasping vines. Eret presses a bent leg over Foolish’s other boot to hold his leg down, and pulls out a pair of shears, which he hovers over the red mass. It’s radiating heat, and pulsing a little. It almost looks like it clings closer to Foolish’s skin… but that would be ridiculous- right? Eret thinks uneasily.
Eret nudges up the shears as close between Foolish’s skin and the vines as he can. He snips, hard.
Foolish lets out a bloodcurdling scream.
Niki gasps as Foolish tries to launch up, pushing harder down on his shoulders and hissing through her teeth, “Foolish, it’s okay, we’re helping you, you need to sit still.”
Ranboo reaches towards Foolish’s face- to feel his temperature? To tap his cheek?- but Foolish snaps his double rows of shark teeth at his hand, skating across the skin. Ranboo snaps his hand back, cradling it to his chest in shock. They all stare at each other, pale, a thin line of blood leaking from Ranboo’s hand, as Foolish starts to shake more.
“I'm not that person anymore!” Foolish cries out. “I’m better..!”
Eret swallows, and says lowly, “Ranboo, help Niki hold him down,” and snips another loop of vines. And another, and another, while Foolish screams at the top of his lungs. Eret uncomfortably watches the cut vines wriggle in their grip, then drops each chunk into the flames. The shears scrape against his skin, clearing the skin but leaving wounds from both the blade and from uprooted vines. He realizes they’re lucky they didn’t burrow deeper.
When Eret finishes his legs, Ranboo and Eret swap places, with Ranboo sitting on top of Foolish’s legs to prevent him from kicking, while Eret reaches to the vines around his upper arms and neck. Suddenly, Foolish’s eyes open, glazed but present, and he grips Eret by his shirt tightly.
“Eret, Eret, pal, what’s- what’s… everything hurts,” he whispers, suddenly flagging, and his grip loosens and eyes drift shut. “I won’t join you, I will never…”
Eret brushes a palm against Foolish’s cheek, very carefully watching his teeth. “It’ll be over soon, Foolish. Sit tight.”
Foolish’s words fade into nonsense again.
Most of the vines on his arms had been rooted in his gauntlets, but the rest seem to be rooted in his sharkskin and somewhere on his back. Eret nods at Niki. She quietly counts down- 3, 2, 1- and flips him over, pressing down hard into his shoulder blades. They flip back his sharkskin hood, wincing at the ball of red vines in the back.
“His sharkskin is pretty big, I don’t think we have enough soulfire for it. Can it even burn?” Ranboo says doubtfully.
“It’s fireproof,” Eret says automatically, then blinks behind the privacy of his shades. “We can throw it in a pyre in the main room, but let’s just get it away from him for now.”
Niki tenses in preparation, in case Foolish struggles again, but when she loosens her grip so Ranboo can slip off the sharkskin he just curls into himself more, hugging his arms underneath him and bending his legs closer.
“I’m not afraid,” he whispers, like a secret.
“We know,” Niki says sympathetically. “We know. It’s okay, Foolish. Almost done.”
The cluster on his back isn’t as dense as the ones on his legs, but they stretch up to curl around his neck, and they seem to cling tighter now that the rest of the vines have been disposed of. Niki pauses and loosens her hold, then lets go to slip the washcloth from under him. She dunks it in the cold water again and gently brushes it against the vines, which hiss with steam. Foolish shivers, breath catching a bit. He’s covered in sweat and little burns and cuts.
Ranboo, fidgeting and standing at the end of the bed, abruptly says, “I’ll go make the soul fire for the hood. Um. You guys have this covered.”
“Thank you, Ranboo,” Niki says, as he swiftly grabs the end of the shark tail and flees the room. As the shark skin drags out behind him, eyes dead and still, her breath catches at the vision of Foolish looking the same, dragged out of the room, as dead as his sharkskin. She jerks her gaze back to Foolish and rests her hand on a scaled bicep. He’s alive, he’s still breathing, he’s going to be okay, she reminds herself. Foolish… Foolish would never be that still. He’ll be dancing in no time. Next to her, Eret lets out a slow breath and readies the shears.
“This is going to hurt,” he mutters, and then Foolish lets out a choked gasp and screams something that makes them all flinch.
“ERET, Eret stop, please, you’re hurting me! I’m not bad, I’m not bad, I’ve changed I swear, I s-swear-” and his words break off into a sob.
The shears drop from his hand onto the bed as Eret cries back, “No, no, Foolish you’ve done nothing wrong! I’m not- I’m not trying to hurt you, I promise, Foolish.”
Niki takes up the shears quickly, and presses a hand onto Eret’s shoulder. “Eret, he’s feverish, he doesn’t know what’s going on. I’m sure he will forgive you, okay? I can finish,” Niki says firmly, ignoring the little shiver that goes through her hands as she opens the shears again to cut.
She brushes off the last cut vines for Eret to dispose of, and she hardens her heart, hesitating only a moment, as she cuts the next. Foolish screams again, and cuts off into pleading, voice hoarse and raw and stumbling over itself in its rush.
“I’m n-not going to join you, I’m not, I’m not, please stop please stop,” he sobs, digits clawing themselves into the sheets.
Eret looks, in a word, heartsick. Niki forces herself to keep looking at the vines, mechanically chopping them off even when blood wells up, even when the vines move like something alive, and brushes the cuttings into the pail. Eret, silently, slips a hand underneath where Foolish’s is clawed into the sheet, and lets him squeeze it tightly. They lay their other hand on top, their thumb brushing lightly against the webbing between his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” he wails.
“Don’t be,” Eret says back, squeezing his hand.
Niki snips off the last tendril, and Foolish’s crying fades. He slumps into the sheets, letting out a heavy breath, hand going limp in Eret’s. The room quiets, silent but for the crackle of the soul fire. The air is light without the weight of his screams.
“Is he... okay?” Ranboo asks, anxiously peering out from around the door frame.
In the hush, they easily hear the soft whuf of his breathing. “Yes,” Eret confirms, slumping tiredly against the bed frame. “Yes, he’s okay.”
“Let’s get him home,” Niki says, letting out a huge sigh and running a hand through her hair. “And dump this garbage into the lava sea.”
“I’ve got him,” Eret sighs, but doesn’t stand up. “Just… just give me a minute.”
Niki skirts the bed and sits down next to them, leaning her head on their shoulder. They sit in the quiet, listening to Foolish’s breath and the fire crackling, and breathe.
Eret looks up at the wide courtyard and stairs leading to the pyramid and groans. “That’s so far! Why did he make this so huge?!”
“Well, you know Foolish,” Ranboo said, amused. “Why build something large when it could be gigantic?”
Niki giggles behind her hand. “Yes, I noticed that with my waterfall.”
They trek past the looming statues and the grand sphinx, the sun beating down on them. Eret had Foolish unconscious over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, since Ranboo was crazy lanky and Niki was too much shorter than Foolish to carry him comfortably. The salty breeze sweeps off the ocean and tousles their hair, and seagulls call raucously above them. And as they finally ascend the long steps to reach the entrance to the pyramid, a gleaming emerald eye of horus framed over the doorway, they see a faint glow coming from the dark room. They exchange glances.
Eret grunts and adjusts Foolish on his shoulder, and they make their way down the dim passage. It opens into a huge chamber, with large braziers lit in every corner and designs of totems covering the floors. In the center, in front of a large Anubis head statue cloaked in intimidating darkness, rises a small platform lit by four more braziers, and a glittering green beam of light rises out of the darkness.
A hush naturally falls over them in this room, under the dusky light and the energy of the beacon. They quietly congregate on the platform in a rough circle, and Eret heaves Foolish off her shoulder to the ground just outside of the beacon’s light, sighing in relief and rolling her shoulder.
“So this is the beacon you mentioned?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Ranboo confirms. “Foolish said it rejuvenated him when he sat in it.”
“Then here we go,” Eret says, sliding Foolish over into the beam.
At first he seems the same: unconscious, covered in cuts and abrasions, breathing softly. But then the warm green light settles into the seams of him: around his eyes, the totem-like lines on his cheek, gleaming off his shark skin. The little wounds across his limbs and back soak in the light and scab over, and Foolish lets out a deep relieved sigh.
His eyes blink open, and for a moment, he feels suspended in the air, surrounded by the calming energy of the beacon’s light as he is. He feels light, almost floaty. But something’s wrong with that: his back, it’s cold- like… like metal, or gemstone. And his skin, it’s scratchy and burns in places, like he’s hurt. He reaches a hand up to his head, groaning- his head, his head is killing him.
“Foolish? Are you awake?”
He shifts his head to the side. Just outside the light of his beacon is his old friend, Eret, still in their new shades and crown. He looks a bit haggard for some reason. “Eret?”
“Foolish!” several voices cheer, and suddenly two people are on top of him, crushing his breath out. Is that- pink hair- Niki? And ducking his head into the beam with a little wave is- hm, black and white, black and- oh, Ranboo!
“What’s going on? Why are you guys here?” he asks, wrapping his arms around the two.
Niki pulls up from his chest to look at him. “You came to help me with my build and passed out, Foolish. And these horrible red vines were growing all over you!”
Red vines...? He furrows his brow. He thinks he remembers… heat, overwhelming heat, and a voice, echoing in his head and distorting his thoughts like fog. Telling him things, he thinks. Promising things. (He cuts off that train of thought.)
“You were really out of it, Foolish. It was scary,” Eret says softly into his shoulder. “We had to burn the vines off of you, with blue fire, and you passed out.”
Eventually, Eret doesn’t say. After screaming your lungs out.
Foolish feels- something at that, he’s not sure what, and he doesn’t want to think about it, so he forces himself to sit up. “Welp, haha, all’s well that ends well, I guess! Uh, where’s my sharkskin? I’m gonna need that back, that’s kiiinda important.”
“Yeah, it’s still at Niki’s house burning in the soulfire. It had vines growing in it,” Ranboo confirms. “But I’m sorry, all’s well that ends well? Foolish, how did that even happen?”
Foolish shrugs, hoisting himself to his feet and swaying at the headrush. Three pairs of hands instantly come to his aid, holding him in place, and he can’t help the flutter of warmth in his chest. He glances away, looking around and appraising the chamber. Same old, same old.
“I don’t know! I mean, I guess I was feeling weird for a while, but I was deep in the grind, the build grind,” he says, bouncing from foot to foot.
“You were exhausted,” Eret corrects, sounding pained. “And I only saw you earlier today! I can’t imagine how long this has been going on for. You fell off a building, Foolish.”
“You surprised me!”
“You moved straight between the mansion and Kinoko for days,” Ranboo adds, narrowing his eyes. “You stopped going home, Foolish. And you’re saying you don’t know what happened?”
Niki reaches out and takes his hand, furrowing her brow in open concern. “Foolish, if you’ve been so busy, why did you come help me with my project? I was so scared when you passed out.”
Foolish fidgets and rocks on his feet, feeling more on the spot than he expected. “Well, I love to build! It’s my drug, Niki, I hear about a new build and I can’t stop myself!”
“And that means you can’t take a break once in a while?” Ranboo shoots back. “You and I have talked about this before, and we don’t want to see you running yourself into the ground just because. ”
Foolish pulls his hand from Niki’s and paces back and forth along the emerald floor. “I know, I know, I just- I don’t know.” He pauses, then says quieter, “I don’t know.”
Eret moves in front of him and stops him, placing her hands on his shoulders. “We’re all your friends, Foolish, and we care about you. If you ever need our help, or a second set of eyes on your build, or just someone to hang out with you, we’ll be there. Okay? Just talk to us.”
Foolish blinks the rising warmth from his eyes and smiles a wavering toothy grin at him. “I- Okay.”
Foolish turns and looks out at the dark chamber, rubbing his head and not meeting their eyes. “I, um, I guess I… do know what happened. I was getting overwhelmed with all my projects, but usually when I get overwhelmed, I build! So I just… doubled down. And the progress felt good! I was getting so much done! I knew I was getting tired, and I guess my skin had been feeling kind of itchy for a while, but it seemed under control. Until it wasn’t, I guess.” He laughs sadly. He meets Eret’s eyes again, then Niki and Ranboo’s. “I’m sorry for worrying you all. I’ll take better care of myself; I promise.”
Their faces all break out into wide smiles, and Foolish has some energy back so he wraps the three of them in a tight bear hug, lifting them a touch off the ground. They splutter and laugh, and Ranboo wriggles too much so Foolish tips and they all tumble to the ground. They insist he check in with them later, to which he proclaims he’s a strong independent totem who can take care of himself (“yeah, okay,” he says, pouting at their stern looks) and when they bid their goodbyes, and all is quiet, he doesn’t get to work on a new project. No, instead, he settles cross-legged in the bright beam of his beacon, and he rests.
In the morning, he is not tired. He is more energized than he’s been in days. And when Niki and Eret invite him to a hangout, he doesn’t think about his projects for even a moment before he says yes.