MCYT One-Shots and Drabbles

Wither and Decay [Skephalo]

Summary: Bad is dying to the flowers in his lungs

Kinda vent/comfort

...

What would you do, if the person you love did not love you anymore? If they did not love you because their mind had been warped by the egg you follow?

What happens when you, a god—in your painfully mortal body— dies?

Bad first noticed this, long before he was able to free Skeppy—by the few red petals that erupted from his lips. They were beautifully and sickeningly crimson—like the rose bushes they planted in their mansion. He wondered why this was happening with his partner.

It fueled his fear, and he became more desperate to save his dearest friend.

Most folks of the DSMP teased Bad about loving Skeppy. He supposed it was true. He didn't care what they thought. Their relationship was a close bond of friendship—a bond that had no definitive characteristics that made it strictly romantic or platonic by society standards.

Perhaps those boundaries broke when you've been immortal for a very long time.

They've cuddled, bickered, held hands, and did any other things that could both be either a sign of close friendship—or something deeper. But they have never crossed a line of intimacy.

They both preferred it that way.

And then the Egg snatched it all away, and Bad can't help but feel like it was all his fault.

As he went his way to create the Eggpire, the roses grew in his chest and threatened to spill through his teeth. It didn't help that Skeppy was so cold. His colors, now bright and red and passionate—yet he held none of that brightness and passion. He only became as cold as the diamond material on his skin.

Nothing like the roses he coughed up—thorns and all.

How many regeneration potions did he drink again? Bad doesn't remember. Soft new flesh regained from the potion is immediately torn by his lungs heaving for air—thorns poking and stabbing and sticking into the soft pillowy flesh that is his lungs.

(He remembers the answer to the last question: he cannot truly die until Skeppy does. He's not sure if he should be happy to be forced to take in breaths—even after the disease long overtakes his lungs.)

It's fine. He can bare with it.

Bare every wheezy inhale. Bare every coughing—hacking exhale. Bare the glares, the painstaking cold. Bear the tears that burn like a thousand thorns prickling into his eyeballs. Bare the roses that bloom in his esophagus, in the chambers of his lungs—until they are forced off the stem from his constant hacking.

"Bad? Are you okay?" Ant asks.

Bad nods, with a smile full of red. His trembling tall frame says it all, with dull white eyes to match.

"I just need to lie down." He rasps, trudging towards the Egg.

Every visit kills him. But he doesn't mind it.

Because he would choose to, again and again, just to feel the shell of what was once his dearest friend and partner.

Skeppy's nostalgic presence is strangely assuring, like how his presence is an invisible sun feeding the flowers that grew inside of Bad. How his cold gaze sends a rasping shiver down the demon's spine—as the roses grew and grew, tearing into his flesh in vain attempts to reach for the one Bad loved.

Bad remembers dying. How he gasped for breath, choking in his own blood and spit until his body twitched and stilled. He lay on the cold floor of what was once their mansion in the dead of night.

Then, life racked into his ragged and worn lungs again—and the demon nearly dies right after. He remembers coughing so harshly for air, how raw his chest and throat felt. Withered red flowers spill into pristine floors.

Roses. Red roses.

True love, his mind whispers—weakly supplying its meaning of his partner.

Bad knew of its meaning. Despite the usual interpretation of romantic love—his and Skeppy's affection was nothing more than a platonic bond of the strongest kind. A love strong and true.

And here it had eaten him alive—tore him apart.

With withered flowers, it wouldn't be long before he would be strangled by its thorns again. Already he could feel his chest shudder from each shallow breath. In the short time he had passed, the flowers withered but not the thorns.

No. The thorns will remain to torment him until the end.

...

His first true death was agonizing.

The lava burning Skeppy that day feels so hot against his skin. Bad truly understood the feeling of lava burning flesh that day. He screamed in agony, falling to his knees and sobbing as he shoved his hands into the lava to try and save any remains—screeching his throat raw.

He vomited into the pool, the smell of burnt blood making him nauseous. He can vaguely hear the Egg's voice—tone incoherent. His cries rung into his ears as his tears tore apart his eyes.

It all blurs red.

And then he finds himself disillusioned of a dream where they were happy again.

...

The roses barely bother him again. Or perhaps he was so far in between his thoughts and reality, that he barely noticed. It was like watching a movie screen as the red banquet occurred.

Then he was running. He ran on two legs until he hunched over from the thorns tearing up the remains of heaving lungs; ran on fours until he vomited blood; crawled until he could barely will himself to climb onto the boat.

Each strain of muscle screamed as he rowed, every time his lungs exhaled—he gasped.

It was like every time he breathed—the remains of the organ collapsed—threatening to kill him again and again. But he will not die. He will not die a true death until Skeppy does.

At least without Skeppy's presence—the process of torture slows. Only with the thought of his partner do these roses grow.

And Bad, poor Bad, thinks of him plenty.

During the rowing, he stopped to stare at the moon—midway across the sky. It bathes the world in silver and brought forth monsters that wrecked havoc in this world.

Yet here and now, with pain in each breath—he is in awe of its fullness tonight. So pure and white, like the edges of his robes. So white, so pure, so true.

Like the love he held for his partner, his life source.

He's not exactly sure how he ended up in the water, lungs forcefully taking in all the liquid. Maybe he had stood up and tipped the boat over. Maybe he simply decided to drown.

Still, in the water did his body try and force out red flowers.

Bad let's himself sink, watching the light of the moon goes further and further away. He thinks about Skeppy and now his smile could light up the whole world.

Bad closes his eyes, feeling the pain in his chest explode.

A trident sunk into his chest.