afabulouskilljoy | Yeerk Aftermath

Poison sits in the window seat in his and Jack's room. He knows he shouldn't be such a recluse but ever since he came back to himself he's felt... awful. For a lot of reasons.

First of all, there's a dead slug-thing in his head. What the fuck is that going to do to him? Jack says nothing will happen, says his body might even absorb it or something, but the whole idea of it freaks him the fuck out and he's praying to whatever deities he knows that he can just forget that it's in there. Secondly, he knows what he's done. Even if the Yeerk was in the driver's seat, Poison felt like he'd been tied up and gagged in the back, watching it all and unable to get out. Only a few times had he been able to break through, and even then not all the way. But he managed to keep the fucking slug from making him say anything too awful, and he'd managed to keep it from attacking Jack or Girl when they figured it out, when they locked him in the bedroom.

Thirdly, he's having flashbacks of the way he used to be, before he was out in the desert, after the war and before the rise of the Party Poison, when he'd taken the pills and listened to the messages and tried to get along. He pushes his hair back and leans back against the window frame, shivering.

He knows he can leave the room now, knows that the door isn't locked and that Jack and Girl aren't guarding him. But he can't bring himself to move. What if this is an illusion? What if it's fake? What if the yeerk is still alive and pretending to be dead to get out and do fuck knows what?

Nope, he's just going to sit here in his sheep pajamas and Jack's hoodie for a while. Or forever.

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Poison leans against him, moves a little to try and wrap Krem up in the blanket too. "I know, I just-- this is so fucked up, man." He closes his eyes for a second. "It's still-- it's in my fucking head," he hisses. "It's dead and it's in my head."

Krem came, graciously, under the blanket, and sort of bowled them both over onto the bed. He stretched and curled and made himself comfortable, holding Poison against him.

"I know," he said, with the softness of intimate familiarity with the situation. "I know. No part of this isn't fucked up."

Poison snuggles up to Krem, eyes drifting shut. Then they snap open again. "Shit, man. How are you doing? I'm sorry I haven't come to see you." He sent a text after his yeerk died - and after Jack took the handcuffs off - but he hadn't followed up, too caught up in the realization of everything that had happened.

"Oh, I'm..." Krem lifted a hand and wobbled it. He was healing. There was no tattoo this time to gauge that, though he'd thought about it. He didn't know what he would get. So, instead, he was just doing whatever he wanted.

He smiled at Poison and kissed his forehead. "You're fine. Don't worry about me."

"Do you know me? Of course I'm gonna worry." Poison nestles close, staring at nothing. "It's really fucked up," he murmurs, shaking his head a little. "And we can just... be not okay together. What happened to you? Like, I don't remember seeing you after I got you infested."

"It is really fucked up," Krem agreed softly. He kept his arms around Poison, holding him close. At least they could commiserate on that together, because they'd both made some pretty unwise decisions that had let this happen to them.

He snorted. "The Iron Bull happened to me," he said. "Perks of him being a spy, I suppose? He knew in an instant. Locked me in my own closet."

"Jack locked me in here, then when the yeerk tried to break the window open he grabbed me and put me in handcuffs. So weird feeling it die." He shivers a little, trying not to think about it too hard.

"I dunno... I'm kinda glad we had people. Like. Even if it meant being stuck for a while. We were stuck anyway."

"I think I would have preferred the room," Krem said softly, looking up at the ceiling. Bull hadn't restrained him, hadn't needed to. The closet didn't open from the inside, and there's been nothing to hurt himself with in there. In the bedroom, he had his weapons.

But he nodded in agreement. "I don't know what would have happened," he admitted. "And I hate that more than anything else. That I don't know what...what that thing would have made me do."

Poison doesn't really like the idea of Krem being trapped in a closet, but he also understands the precaution: his yeerk had tried to go out the window, and there isn't even a fire escape on this side of the building.

"You would've done what I was doing: getting more people, trying to find shit out." He shivers a little. "This is the kind of shit I was rebelling against, fuck. Except instead of slugs it was medication and messages."

Krem ran his fingers into Poison's hair and held onto him. It was good to be able to, to trust in this moment, to be himself in his own body, alone in his thoughts. It hadn't been like Noah accidentally overhearing him thinking; no, the damn thing had been there, in his head, and it knew everything.

Krem wasn't sure if the whole experience, short as it was, was better or worse than the hellscape version of Darrow that had tormented him with his fears and memories.

Poison closes his eyes, enjoying the touch. It's something he realizes he'd missed all week: being touched. The yeerk hadn't been interested and kept its distance from the people Poison cares about. He breathes deep.

"Cassie says it could eventually just kinda... come out of my ear again. I'm not sure which is worse: it being in there, or the possibility of feeling it coming out and seeing it."

"You could just set it on fire," Krem said, speculatively. He hadn't spoken to anyone about it, about the fact that it was still in him, about what it had felt like to feel it dying inside him.

"We could have a setting-this-thing-on-fire party."

"I'm all about setting shit on fire at this point," he says. Poison reaches, gently tangling his fingers in Krem's hair. He just holds onto him like that. "Are you okay?" he asks, soft and private. Krem's already told him he's okay but Poison's not sure he believes that.

Krem thought about it. He didn't like feeling vulnerable like this--not with Poison, or anyone else. It was different than the vulnerability of trusting someone with his body; this just felt like weakness, somehow.

"I'm better than I was after the mirror-version of Darrow," he said after a moment. "But I'm not...I'm not well, no. At least it didn't get a chance to make me do anything."

Poison nods. "Yeah," he murmurs. "It-- it's gonna be okay." He kisses Krem's nose. He wishes he could say something better, but he means it. He tips his head to kiss Krem's mouth, lingering a moment.

Krem kissed back softly, in no rush to do anything more than hold each other, and relish the closeness. He couldn't think about all the what ifs that came with this, all the worrying. If he did that, he was never going to come out of his apartment again.

Yeerk Aftermath

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