Nadir ◈ Seungjin

30 ◈ Amalgamation

Forewarning: Descriptions of blood/a bite scene about halfway through. I tried to be easy with it but it ended up vaguely homo so

Seungmin adjusted the windbreaker to sit properly on his body, pulling the fabric taught against his skin dragging his shoulders down to a shallow depths of the way down low, only allowing his grip to release from the pull when he was assured the jacket wouldn't slide off of him. Behind him, the door of the guest room clicked shut. His attention then turning to the few scattered around the room; Chan occupying himself with scrubbing the golden retriever's belly, his voice pitched up easily in mimicry of an adoring mother celebrating how adorable that wiggly dog was; Felix, busied with watering his lively plants with a pouted frown on his lips and a furrow to his eyebrows while he concentrated on the upkeep of those living animals, a half finished painting sat drying on the coffee table while he couldn't pay any mind to it, and...

And of course, Changbin.

Changbin who cut off mid-sentence to notice Seungmin entering the room, a timid smile acknowledging his presence. An expression he quickly tried to hide behind the concealing curl of his fingers, elbow balanced on the arm rest of the couch, his legs tucked up easily on the cushions.

The human sent his own fast upturn of his lips back to him.

I shouldn't.

Though the expression sunk away as Changbin returned to chatting lightly with Felix while he rejuvenated the vibrant green of his multiple houseplants.

Not if he's the Mimic.

He turned away from the three, wandering to the front door to slide his shoes on and snatch the house keys up from the cat box hook. Telling them as he shoved the keys into his pocket, "I'm going out for a little. Ten minutes or so. Not long."

With a gentle dread beginning to ease itself deep within his writhing gut, teeth gnawing down on his intestines as that discomfort squirmed through his veins anticipating the coming minutes, Seungmin slipped through the doorway. Ensuring the threshold didn't contain any cracks before locking the other three inside. His movements slowed, lethargic in reluctant ways as his muscles struggled to move against the same decrepitation mold growing on his nerves. Fungus which spored and leaked poison into his blood, seeping from him to join the swampy sludge his trudging steps waded through as he left the apartment behind, viscous muck which collected on the fabric of his pants, sloshing with slick squelches, gooey as their desperate tenderness tried to drag him beneath the water as well.

That awful feeling never subsiding. Regardless of the week or so that had passed since the group of detectives decided to take a break from their investigations, allowing enough time for Seungmin to finally rest through the migraines building in his exhausted mind bundled up into a splitting mess, to finally give solace to the budding bruises on his skin to fade back to their neutral tones sitting underneath his skin, and to finally sleep as long as he was able to. Some nights coming with restless tosses and turns as his nightmares kept him awake, some nights sleeping for a few hours before becoming unable to slip back into a fantasmal world of dreams, others longer, but never enough to sleep the full midnight hours away to the dawning sunrise. Though, that night happened exactly once in the multiple days which passed.

The Mimic seemed to have quieted down as well. Cases involving anything remotely related to the one behind the bone mask completely dissolving away to petty homicides and the onslaught of mind numbing stacks of paperwork having to be typed away on the screen of their laptops to report on. Jisung went silent as well. The human occasionally popping up to throw a piece of trash at Minho's head before scurrying away at the speed of fractured lighting, or leaving small gifts of snacks at the doorstep of Felix's apartment, once sneaking up behind Seungmin to lick his ear, he was otherwise unheard from. Few words exchanged to tell whether or not the human was lingering within their vicinity simply to bother them as much as possible, or if he was truly up to something sinister.