#shoutout to vi for being way too much of a repressed bitch to actually. voice the touch starved part. fuck. hopefully this passes as whump

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

Febuwhump, Day 1 - Touch Starved

This is late, and turned out to be mostly a bunch of idiots fighting with each other. Oh well, it's still done. Doesn't matter if it's good or not - it's out. Unbeta'd, might post on AO3 later if it's worth cleaning up.

Snakemouth Den was dark, dank, and absolutely full of mushrooms.

Kabbu could have come up with a better description for it, really, but considering the amount of mythology surrounding it, the number of adventurers rumored to have died in its depths, the treasure rumored to lie within, and the century-and-a-half of people who had vanished into it never to return, he likely could have come up for a better description for it a week ago, when he was still taken in by the splendor of its myth and the many stories about it.

A lot of mythologized places lost their glamor, once you’d been wandering through them for a week and seen nothing but mushrooms and crystals. It certainly didn’t help that most of the cave was too clogged with spores to smell a foot in front of you. The place’s gory reputation certainly didn’t help – he’d been smelling hemolymph on and off for at least the past few hours, and he didn’t want to know if it was multiple corpses or if one of the undead ants that had attacked them earlier had followed them.

At least he had company.

Vi was quite the fierce fighter, doing away with foes far faster than Kabbu could on his own, and finding Leif was a stroke of good fortune all on its own. The moth had a sharp sense of direction, which was a boon and a half when every tunnel in the place looked the same, and had likely saved them from running in circles more than once. With his aid clearing their path-

“Vi.”

Kabbu’s train of thought abruptly derailed as the moth’s voice cut through the silence. He slowed, seeing Vi do the same out of the corner of his eye, her wings flicking open with an annoyed buzz.

“What?” Vi asked. “D’you need something?

“You’re injured.”

That made Kabbu stop in his tracks. Injured? When had-

“Your thorax. Under your secondary claws.”

“I- no, I’m not! I’m fine! I’m not- I didn’t get hit with shit!“ Vi hissed. She fluffed her fur up, glancing to Kabbu for rapport- but now that he was looking for it, the hemolymph plastering her fur to her body was unmistakable.

“You’re not very convincing when you smell like a crime scene.”

Now that he got a closer look at her… yes, she did kind of smell like a crime scene. He wouldn’t phrase it like that himself, admittedly, but it explained where the hemolymph smell was coming from. Kabbu wracked his brain, thinking of when she could have picked up an injury without her noticing. It couldn’t be the spider, or the fall, or the-

“Those… reanimated ants. They must have-“

“Those fuckers didn’t do shit to me! I’m fine!” Vi swung her weapon for emphasis- only to aggravate the wound, making her bite back a sharp hiss.

“Vi-“ Kabbu tried to say, but she just snarled at him.

“Shut it. I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding all over the ground,” Leif pointed out. Vi growled at him.

“Team, stop fighting,” Kabbu tried to intervene, stepping between them. “We just need to bandage it, and she’ll be-“

“You don’t need to bandage it,” Vi interrupted. “I’m fine.”

“If that gash was half an inch longer, you’d be spilling guts out your sides,” Leif said.

“I’m not spilling guts out my sides now, am I?”

That… was not a particularly compelling point.

“If something gets in a lucky shot, you will be,” Kabbu said. “Just- let me take a look at it, and-“

“And what?! Do you think I’m just gonna lie down and let treat me like one injury’ll take me out of the running just because we’re teammates? I’ve only known you for a week, and-“

“Vi, I-“

"That's enough of that." Leif deftly weaved around him and plucked Vi off of the ground, and she went stiff, freezing like a weevil that had only just realized they'd wandered into the path of a northern moth. Kabbu poised himself to intervene – even he knew she disliked touch, after a week with her – but Leif just tucked her stunned body into his ruff, securing her into place under his wings with a secondary limb like she was a plush toy, and kept walking.

Kabbu just stood there, feeling as stunned as Vi looked, as Leif simply wandered off into the cave.

Finally, his brain kicked back into gear and he burst forward. “Leif, you can’t just-“

He was cut off by a purr. A very loud purr, the sort he’d only really seen from extremely contented bugs, and yet-

Kabbu looked into Leif’s arms, only to see Vi… melted into them. It was as though she’d lost any pretense of shape, simply dissolving into Leif’s claws like a slug or a snail. It was…

Leif shrugged. “If she won’t take care normally, then we’ll have to resort to manhandling. Usually bugs don’t take to it that well, admittedly.”

“Shut it,” Vi grumbled. Her voice was hard to hear through the purrs still swelling in her throat, rattling through her tiny frame like she was in the middle of the world’s smallest earthquake. She fluffed herself up, which only really served to make her look more ridiculous – Leif’s fur was far thicker than hers, and the fur on her side was still plastered to her shell with hemolymph.

“We’re just saying, most bugs don’t react like they’re being cuddled by a swarmmate when you give them a tiny bit of handling, especially not while they’re-“

“I said shut it, okay? How I’m doing is none of your business, and-“

“It might not be our business, but it is your teammate’s business, unless you were planning on never telling your teammates about anything.”

“My business is mine, and you’re not even part of the team-“

“And you were planning to bleed to death in a cave over asking your teammate to slow down so you can bandage your wounds.”

Vi’s mouth shut with a click, and she looked away from him. Leif tilted his head at her, waiting for a response.

A long moment passed.

Finally, Leif huffed, handing her over to Kabbu. “Fine, be that way, then.”

Kabbu silently plucked her out of Leif’s arms, feeling her melt into his carapace without another word. Her fur was surprisingly soft, even with the blood trickling down his claws as she shifted her weight. She didn’t say anything as he reached for their bag, pulling their medical kit out of the bottom.

He patched the wound in silence, Vi seemingly trying her best to ignore him as he tied the sturdy leaves over her shell. It was… gory, rough-edged and ragged, and every poke seemed to make it drip blood again. He had no clue how she’d managed to hide it for so long, let alone walk with it. She leaned into his touches, half the time, pressing the rough edges of the wound right into his claws and making her chitin grind against itself in a way that made him wince.

He had hardly taken three round of it before he broke.

"Vi, can you stop-"

"Stop doing what?"

"Stop leaning into my claws. It-"

"I'm not doing anything, okay? Just- keep going, and maybe you'll be done soon."

He gave an affirmative hum, and got back at it.

She kept leaning into his hands. He didn't know if she was even conscious of doing it- she'd lean, then pull back, on and on in a cycle as if she only just realized she was doing it after the fact.

He was just finishing the knot when she finally spoke, sounding like she was dragging the words out of her throat with a prybar.

“…Sorry,” she grumbled. “Just- I’ve had worse, okay? It’s not worth making a fuss over.”

“You’re soaking your fur with hemolymph,” Leif pointed out. “You weigh- what? Four ounces? You don’t have enough blood to spare for injuries like that.”

“I have plenty of blood, and I’ve had a lot worse, and you don’t have to go into this trouble over- over this.”

Leif looked like he was about to say something, but Kabbu darted in before he could escalate it further. “I know we don’t have to, but- we’re partners, Vi. We’re supposed to take care of each other. Don’t you…”

Kabbu trailed off, tying off her bandages. Vi turned her head away from him. “I can handle it. I don’t need you fussing over me every time I get a scratch in the field.”

Her side was a lot more than “a scratch”, but Kabbu kept that thought to himself. He brushed a claw over her back, testing the strength of the bindings, and Vi shivered. Kabbu stopped, holding still.

“Vi, are you-“

“Shut up, it’s fine, I’m- look, it’s embarrassing, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore, and-“

“Didn’t get held enough as a grub, did you?” Leif asked. Vi’s hackles rose, and Kabbu quickly pushed her down just in time to keep her from jumping at him.

“Shut up! You’re a moth, you don’t know shit about things-“

“We’ll take it that’s a yes, then.”

Vi growled under her breath, fluffing her fur. She was about to say something else, but Kabbu pressed her into the ground before she had the chance. “Now isn’t the time for a fight! Venus, you two, at least try to get along! We have a mission, remember?“

Leif stood still for a long moment, fur fluffed, hackles raised, and for a moment Kabbu thought he might have to mediate between them, or tear them apart from an attempt at a duel. Thankfully, Leif’s shoulders relaxed, tension bleeding from his form. “…fine,” Leif muttered. “We’ll try to get along for now. Don’t expect us to drop it, though.”

“Fuck you,” Vi hissed weakly from under Kabbu’s claws. Leif didn’t respond to her, simply wandering back to the other side of the cavern.

She had gone mostly limp, thankfully, all the fight drained out of her. Kabbu carefully released his claw, checking her bandages to make sure he hadn’t worsened her injuries.

He… needed to redo the bindings.

She seemed fine, thankfully. No worse than she was when he bandaged her, at least, though that was a low bar. He gave her a quick pet on the back after carefully plastering the bandages back into place, and she arched into it, grumbling.

Thank Venus that hadn’t escalated any further.

“I think we should make camp for tonight and have some rest before going deeper, all right, team?” Kabbu raised his voice so Leif could hear it, and saw the moth raise his head from the opposite end of the campsite.

“Sounds fine to us. We… could use some rest, before anything else happens.”

Vi grumbled, but didn’t protest. Kabbu went about the motions of preparing a campsite – scooping out nests for everyone, setting out the bedrolls, packing up the medical supplies for later. Vi settled down to watch, after a while, uncharacteristically silent.

Making camp was meditative, almost. The same set of steps nearly every time, it was easy to get lost in it until it was ready to sleep in. Leif settled down quickly enough, Vi staying balled-up into a lump of resentful bee, and Kabbu could almost forget the argument if he just… laid down and tried to sleep.

Hopefully, tomorrow would be less… stressful.

It had scarcely been fifteen minutes before Kabbu felt something tapping on his shell.

Kabbu pulled himself out of the space between sleep and wakefulness, head still full of fog. He looked up at the source of the tapping to see Vi, fur fluffed and hackles raised like she was about to face down a horrid beast.

Vi took a deep breath, and Kabbu’s half-asleep brain could hardly keep up with her before she spoke.

“…look, I’m sorry about- that, but I’m not weak, okay?”

Kabbu was sure his startled look must have shown on his face, because Vi plowed forward. “I mean it, I’m not- I don’t need help, I’m fine on my own, I don’t need a team to prop me up, because I-“

“No one is saying that you’re weak, Vi. Are you sure you’re-“

“I’m fine, and you don’t have to worry about me, and- look, you don’t have to treat me like a cripple, okay? I’ve worked with worse, and I don’t need your pity, because it’ll heal over anyways-“

“I’m not trying to treat you like an- an invalid, Vi! You’re injured, I thought-“

“I can handle it! I don’t need you to- to kiss it better, or whatever. I’m fine!”

Leif stirred in his nest, and Vi quieted down abruptly, shrinking in on herself. She abruptly looked much, much smaller than she had before.

“…Sorry.”

She didn’t meet his eyes, staring off to the side. “I’m- look, it’s just… frustrating. Okay? I don’t…”

Vi trailed off, shuffling her paws. Kabbu shifted to the side of his nest, easing his elytra open just enough to shield it.

“…It’s okay, Vi. I believe you.”

She grimaced, avoiding his gaze. Kabbu shuffled a bit further to the side, eying the bandages over her side. She looked…

“…do you want to sleep with me tonight?”

Vi startled back into motion, fur fluffing up as far as it would go. “What?-“ she started. before wincing as her voice echoed off the walls. She shook herself out, whisper-shouting at him. “Why would I want to-“

“I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, you just- you look like you need it.”

Vi looked like she was trying to decide if she wanted to be insulted or simply surprised at the offer.

“I understand if you don’t want to, I-“ Kabbu hastily added, but she cut him off.

“It’s fine, I just- if you want to, I guess.”

“If you don’t-“

“Just move over before I change my mind.”

Kabbu shifted to the side, opening his elytra to allow her passage. She nestled into his side, curling close enough that he swore he could feel her shape imprinted into his underbelly, worming her way into the space between his belly and the nest.

…there was more space for her than just there, but Kabbu felt like bringing it up would be- poor.

Slowly, he resettled on top of her, feeling her shift under him. She was startlingly warm, especially compared to Leif, a miniature heat pack against his shell. It was a welcomed addition against the cold of Snakemouth Den, and he found himself quickly drifting off to sleep.

Yes, tomorrow would be better.