Chapter Text
Lillium heard it before he saw it, the sickening crunch reverberating in his mind as his feet sprinted to where Iris now laid. Chaos was erupting around him but the only thing he could hear was the echoes of a fatal blow and the tangy, iron scent of blood.
The feet between Iris and Lillium seemed to stretch for eternity, like the Lily would be trapped in this moment forever. He might as well have been; time stretched infinitely as he saw Iris' body lay still in the disturbed soil. As soon as his knees hit the ground next to Iris, sound came flooding back in as others fought and yelled, each voice clambering over one another, all while Lillium was only focused on him. His Iris.
"Come on, stay with me, please," his voice sounded muffled, even to him, but his heartbeat was deafening. Every moment spent with Iris' eyes closed was another drop in his chest, like stones being lowered onto his ribcage. Lillium couldn't breathe, his hands shaking where they grasped the black fabric of Iris' shirt.
Pale pink eyes tentatively met black ones, Iris' eyelids fluttering up in a daze.
This moment, and this moment alone, was all that mattered to Lillium. Nothing else.
People fought around him, people that Lillium would have gotten up already to help if the body laying before him wasn't Iris. But it was.
"Hey, hey- please just," Lillium was breathless, not even knowing what he was asking Iris to do: this moment that felt like an eternity had finally caught up to him, his hazy mind reeling with the task now set before him. He looked up to see demiflora finishing off the last of the spawncampers and the man who had hurt Iris dead, only a few feet away. Danger was past them--for the most part--so now it was just fixing. Fixing- everything.
His hands shook as he feverishly searched for the wound staining Iris' shirt and was met with a sick, terrible looking gash. It spanned almost the entirety of Iris' torso, sprawling from his left hip to the middle of his sternum. The fabric peeled off of him and blood soaked Lillium's hands. He was wasting time. Lillium's seen injuries like these- he's seen them on corpses.
"PLEASE, Please, someone!" he screamed, looking around frantically as demiflora crowded, "He's hurt, please!"
Lillium couldn't catch his breath, his head was so faint, and the light was dimming, and goddamn it, there were people pushing him away-
"Hey! Stop, Lillium-" strong hands grasped his shoulders as he hyperventilated, "you have to calm down, okay? If you want to help him, you have to calm down." The blurry face of Dan came into view as his heaving breath receded. Immediately choosing to watch Iris instead, he saw a collective effort full of gauze and medical supplies. They were helping him, but there was nothing he could do, and that was almost more painful than being by his side.
What was most painful was hearing the pitiful sounds that poured out of Iris as more and more hands pressed into wounds. Lillium's ears burned listening to every half-awake whimper and groan, hands and fingers itching to do- something. Anything.
In a moment of lucidity, Iris jolted, and screamed.
Lillium forgot any ideas of standing back and rushed through people to get to the smaller's side; his hands cradled damp, black hair. "Please, please p'please, I'm sorry I-I'm so sorry I won't-" Iris choked out pleading words in between terrible, wet gasps, "I won't leave again please- PLEASE just stop-"
"Shh, its okay, Iris- It's..." his words trailed off, frantically staring into the glassy black eyes staring through him. Iris wasn't there right now, he knew that for certain. "Please," he tried, "it's just you and me, okay? No one else. Just-" tears started falling down onto Iris- Lillium's tears. "Just don't leave me, okay?"
Small strangled gasps left his lips, but black eyes that were once staring through him and into some unseen place now focused on him, pupils dilating to accommodate. Iris mouthed something: something that could have been a plea, or an ask- something that could have been Lillium's name. But, he wouldn't know what Iris was trying to say as his eyelids reluctantly slipped closed.
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"Lillium. He's going to be fine. So, if you could stop-" Heather waved her hand around in his general direction, "-doing that, that would be really helpful."
Lillium stopped pacing for a second to look up, "Doing what?"
The rest of the demiflora in the room who were packing up medical supplies sighed, some stifling giggles at the usually so stone-faced Lillium. "Can we get some privacy?" Heather rolled her eyes, watching as the last of the medical crew shut the door. They were in a small room in Dan's house, one that overlooked much of Goose Lake Valley. A small hum could be heard from the overhead light and the sound of people milling about a floor below. Other than that, it was the shallow breathing of Iris, laying much too still in a white bed.
"You're. Different." Heather said, vaguely. Lillium sighed and plopped down into the wooden chair next to Iris. His brows pinched as he watched the slow rise and fall of the smaller man's chest.
Looking back up, Lillium expected some kind of elaboration, but was only met with Heather's studying gaze. "What?" he sighed.
"I don't know, just- different. Ever since your Las Vegas trip, you've been..."
"-Different?" Lillium scoffed, filling in her silence, "How very specific."
Heather looked up, relaxing more into the plush chair she had taken residence in, "It's not a bad kind of different- I just think you've changed."
Lillium looked back down at Iris and reached a tentative hand out to his unconscious face. He pushed back a black strand of hair and huffed as it found its way back to the same position.
Silence hung in the room. Just the sound of Iris' breaths, a sound Lillium could see himself taking less for granted.
"You used to not care about anyone or anything," Heather mused, standing up from her seat, "now- well, I think you would tear apart every spawncamper if they hurt that Iris. You used to be so distant." Lillium didn't respond, just absent mindedly ran his fingers through black hair.
"Anyway," she continued, "the doctors said that he should stay here for the time being. His injury is serious, obviously, but most Irises are said to heal pretty fast, for what it's worth. Just make sure to take care of yourself in the meantime."
Lillium looked up as she made her way to the door, "Thanks."
Heather hesitated, sending one last glance to the both of them, "I mean it, Lillium. Iris probably doesn't want to wake up and see you sick as well, so-"
"-Yeah, yeah, I know," he waved her to leave, "go take care of important business, or whatever. I'll keep your advice in mind." Heather smiled and left, the door softly clicking as she left.
Lillium deflated as she left, like a puppet no longer held by its strings. The past few hours had been sleepless and worry-filled for his friend, and now that the adrenaline and activity was gone, he was crashing. He looked at Iris who, for all it was worth, looked peaceful. Sleep was treating him well, Lillium supposed, since none of the usual worry lines on his face showed, just the smooth expanse of relaxed muscles.
Sleep sounded nice. Maybe just a little bit. Only until Iris woke up.
Lillium's eyelids drooped as he looked out the window on Goose Lake Valley.
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"Ah, Lil-" Iris groaned, "ouch."
Lillium flinched and held Iris a little farther from his chest, taking great care to be stable as he walked up the hill to their shared trailer. He was carrying the black haired man bridal style, which seemed to be the best option, but was still a painful position to be moved in. "I know, I know, just- like 3 more minutes," he sighed, "I mean, it's crazy how much of this hill is inaccessible to wheelchairs. We are not ADA compliant."
"What?" Iris groaned softly, his head falling back to lay limply.
"Uh, it's like," Lillium watched as Iris gritted his teeth in pain, "nevermind, not important. Just hang in there, and I will cook anything for you when we get home, okay?"
Iris chuckled, the use of the word 'home' not lost on him. "Anything?"
He watched as Lillium's face screwed in concentration, "Well... Not anything, per say- it occurs to me that I don't know how much groceries are in the fridge, actually. H-Hey! Don't laugh, you'll pull some stitches!"
"Hah! I," Iris giggled, "you just looked so serious!" He smiled as Lillium mumbled something about being ungrateful while kicking open the door to their trailer. With so much care, the pink-haired man set him down on the gray couch in the living room space, face pinching when he noticed Iris' discomfort. Iris tried to hide it as soon as possible, biting his tongue to keep out any gasps of pain. "Ah, sorry, just some-" his breath caught "-I'm fine, check what's in the fridge or whatever."
"Iris," Lillium's face fell into a serious concern, grabbing and pulling the hem of Iris' shirt up to check the gauze wrapping around him. Iris flushed, grabbing the demiflora's hand with his own. He couldn't actually see if blood was seeping through, but figured it was probably fine when Lillium tentatively let go.
"Geez! You're babying me right now, are you the same Lily I was rooming with earlier?" Iris joked, trying to lighten the mood.
Lillium sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well. If someone hadn't gotten himself injured-"
"-Hey! It's not like I tried to get hit!" Iris griped, weakly punching Lillium's arm.
"-then I wouldn't have to baby him!" Lillium shrugged, standing up. "Besides, I may be giving you the princess treatment now-"
"-princess?"
"-but later I'm going to make you do aaallllll of the chores to make up for it," Lillium continued, sticking out his tongue as he made his way out of Iris' sightline, presumably to the kitchen area. Iris took that moment to let go of a breath he had been holding in, letting the pain wash over him in privacy. Lillium knew he was hurting, but if it was up to Iris, the man wouldn't know the true extent.
It felt like how it felt when he was- when he was cut up, and Iris didn't really know how to deal with it. Part of him wanted peace and privacy and another, much larger part of himself needed Lillium to not leave him alone. He was... Very conflicted.
For now, he would just try to not pass out. Or throw up. Or cry. Or do all three of those things at the same time, even though all of them were not out of the range of possibility.
"'m gonna take a nap," Iris murmured, hearing the hum from Lillium confirming that he heard what Iris said. Can't pass out if he's already asleep, he reasoned.