Not Yet Corpses. Still, We Rot.

February 22nd, 2024.

“My dad’s going to kill me.” Finn said, looking into the mirror and touching the hickeys on his neck. “You are nineteen years old, it does not matter what your dad thinks.” Alain said through brushing his teeth. Finn shoved him. “You don’t get it.” He said, rummaging through the cupboards to try and find some concealer. “What, because I don’t have a dad?” Alain smiled, spitting out his toothpaste and cleaning out the sink. His dad left before he was even born, so he did not miss the guy. His mom completely ignored the fact that Alain even had a dad, never bringing him up. He gets it though, if a man knocked him up and left he would be pretty pissed as well. “You know that’s not what I mean, you dick. I mean your mom is super like, sex positive. I’ll get grounded, whilst you’ll get a sticker.” Finn said, having found his summer concealer and realizing he could use it for contour right now. “I wish I’d get a sticker.” Alain laughed. Finn looked at him, eyebrows raised, before walking into his room. A minute later he came back into the bathroom, sticking a sticker onto Alain’s chest. “What does that say?” Alain tried to read the sticker upside down. “You’re a star.” Finn clarified, patting the sticker. “Why’d you pat right on my tit?” Alain inquired, before reaching out his hand to hover over Finn’s boob and pretending to honk it like a horn. He even made the ho-hi noise. Finn cracked up, not really expecting that to happen. Alain in response, put his hand on Finn’s cheek and said in a soft voice; “Your smile hasn’t changed.” This in turn confused Finn. “Why would my smile have changed? And since when? We have only known each other since like October.” Finn pus his hand over Alain’s, and Alain shrugged. “Just, I don’t know. Your smile hasn’t changed.” He leaned in and kissed Finn on the forehead, and Finn looked up at Alain through raised eyebrows. Finn was going to have to keep wondering though, as he didn’t have any time to inquire further before he heard the front door open. He quickly shot away from Alain, locking the bathroom door. “Shit.” Finn whispered. “My dad is home.” He quickly continued looking for his winter concealer, also known as his summer highlighter. He had rarely been using his makeup, as it made him feel even more insecure recently, so he had no idea where anything was anymore. “Do you have anything to cover this up with?” Finn whispered in a panic. Alain raised an eyebrow. “Darling.” He began, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m about ten shades darker than you. No I don’t have any concealer that would fit your skin.” Alain looked at him sarcastically concerned, and Finn just buffered for a second, realizing that, one, Alain was indeed half Congolese whilst the only thing whiter than Finn’s dad was the chicken he ate. And two, WHERE WAS HIS CONCEALER? He must have put it somewhere, he rationalized, but then he thought he might’ve thrown it away. “What do we do? Also yeah that was a bit dumb, but what do we do?” Finn slightly shook Alain around, and Alain started thinking along. “What if we just kill the guy? Then you can’t get grounded!” Alain joked, and Finn sat down on the ledge of the bath tub. “Nah, I love him too much for that. Also then I’d be an orphan.” Finn said, crossing his arms in thought. “Well we can’t have that, you might turn into batman.” Alain smiled, and Finn giggled, being taken off guard. “Oh god that would be catastrophic.” He said silently. “What if…” Alain said, not actually knowing what to do yet, but simply hoping the thought would come up right as he spoke. And it did. “What if we just slip out of the house and go to mine? I’m pretty sure my sister’s may-or-may-not-be-girlfriend is over, and she has about the same shade as you. It’s that or a turtleneck.” Finn hesitated. He hated the sensation of turtlenecks. Right now though, he felt as if there was not much of a choice. “Let’s take a turtleneck with just in case, but let’s try the foundation route first.” He said, listening at the door to figure out where his dad was. He could hear the TV on downstairs, since his dad always had the volume up too loudly. That’s the con to being in a rock band in the nineties, your children will always know when you’re watching something. Finn quickly went and got a turtleneck before dragging Alain out the front door. He made a zipper movement to his lips to show Alain so shut up for the moment. He put his hand over his neck as of he was scratching it and quickly ran into the living room to grab his keys from the key drawer. His dad didn’t look up from his show, so Finn just quickly closed the hallway door before actually getting his attention. “I’m going to Alain’s!” He shouted, and he heard a vague grunt of acknowledgment coming from the living room. He took that as a sign and he quickly went out the door, shoes still in hand.
“SOPHIE!” Alain shouted, nearly breaking down her door instead of opening it. Inside, Sophie and Sophie’s girlfriend were both sprawled out on the bed, watching videos separately. Sophie looked up from her phone, clearly annoyed. “What the fuck do you want?” She almost shouted at Alain, before noticing Finn stand there too. “Oh, hi Finn, how are you?” She followed up, with no trace of the annoyance she displayed at Alain. “I’m doing well, you?” Finn replied, fidgeting with his hands. Sophie was cool, but Finn was even afraid of talking to himself in fear of saying something wrong. “That’s good, me too.” She replied, turning her phone on again. “Sophie, we’re not here for you. We’re here to see if your girlfriend has some foundation we can borrow.” Alain said, looking at Sophie’s girlfriend. “She has a name, you know.” Sophie muttered, before hastily adding; “And we’re not dating, asshole.” Alain just cocked an eyebrow, and Sophie’s (not)girlfriend got up and grabbed something from her bag whilst Finn realized he, in fact, did not know her name. He thought that asking would be too awkward though so he kept his mouth shut and stared down at his shoes. “Here.” unknown-name-girl said, “This should be around your shade.” She handed a tube of concealer to Finn. “I’m guessing this is for you at least.” She followed up, sitting back down on the bed. “Thank you.” Finn said simultaneously with Alain’s “Thanks!” Before he dragged Finn out to his own room, leaving the door opened.
Sitting on the bed, Alain was applying the concealer to Finn’s neck. It roughly matched, but Finn’s dad was not the brightest in the ways of makeup, so he guessed it’d be fine. “And.. I’m done. D’you wanna do my nails?” Alain said, putting the concealer on his nightstand. “Sure.” Finn said, before yawning, which made Alain yawn too. “Tired?” Alain asked, handing Finn a vial of black nail polish. “Kinda.” He responded, taking the nail polish and sitting in a more comfortable position. He took Alain’s hand and put it on his own knee, for easier access. “Should we talk about last Sunday?” He muttered whilst starting on Alain’s nails. “Probably.” He muttered back, being slightly traumatized by the whole ‘growing several new limbs in the span of about two minutes with no time to take paracetamol’ experience. He knew that communication was important though, and maybe talking about what happened might help him process and accept it. “So.. that sucked, right?” Finn began, his communication capabilities clearly showing.  “Yup.” Alain responded, also being unsure of how to start this conversation. An awkward silence fell, for maybe the second time since they had met. Alain always had something to say, so his silence was unnerving to Finn. “I think we have to go back.” Finn said, keeping his eyes strictly on his boyfriend’s hands. Alain looked at Finn, hoping he was joking. “Are you serious?” He asked after a couple of seconds. “I think we should explore the caverns more. It might tell us something about what happened to us.” Finn responded, unsure of whether Alain was agreeing or not. Looking up at his face it became clear Alain in fact did not agree. “Hell no. I don’t want to go to that place ever again. I’m ignoring that that ever happened and moving on with my life.” He said, slightly irritated at the suggestion. “You were the one who wanted to know what was in there so badly.” Finn responded, immediately realizing how unfair that was, but he didn’t have time to apologize. “Oh I’m sorry.” He said sarcastically. “I didn’t fucking know that would happen! It was literally the most traumatic thing I’ve ever been through! It fucking hurt, Finn. Don’t act like I wanted that to happen!” He said, raising his voice a bit. “And you think it didn’t hurt for me? I was fucking torn apart and put together again, I don’t even know if I’m still me! I was just fucking suggesting it.” His eyes started tearing up. He didn’t want to fight, but anger took hold of his heart and squeezed it with all it’s might. “Then why the fuck would you want to go back there? What if it happens again?” Alain’s voice shook, his vision also clouding with tears. Finn put the nail polish away, having finished all ten fingers. He got up and leaned against the closet, needing a bit of physical space between him and Alain. “I know, I just.. I.. I don’t think I can let this go without some sort of closure.” And then the tears started coming. He scratched mindlessly at his arms, and he just wanted to curl up and die. “Out of all people on this fucking planet, you know how terrifying that was. You understand I can’t just let that go, right?” Finn followed up, his voice cracking. Alain fell silent, and he too started crying. He did understand, he was just scared. Before he could formulate that into a sentence though, he looked over to his boyfriend and saw his arms scratched so hard they might bleed any second, and more importantly, he saw Finn float. Scared, he froze for a second, before he felt his shirt almost rip and, looking down, he saw movement underneath it. In a panic, he took off his shirt, and Finn, who had not yet realized what exactly was going on, started getting a bit annoyed at that. “You know, Alain, this is really not the time to try-” He cut himself off, seeing Alain growing two more sets of arms yet again. This time though, Alain was not screaming, which surprised both of them. “Are you okay?” Finn said, more surprised than worried, and Alain stood there for a second before responding, also seemingly very perplexed. “I- yeah. Are you?” He inquired back, and Finn looked slightly perplexed. “Why wouldn’t I be?” He said, a smile cracking through. He thought Alain was just trying to make small talk for some reason. “Because you’re floating? Also,” He stepped a bit closer, “your eyes are all galaxy-y?” Finn looked down, not really knowing what to do. So, he just said; “Galaxy-y? That’s not a word, darling.” Alain softly punched Finn in the arm and smiled before sitting back down on the bed. “So we won’t relive the horrors. I don’t want to go back to the caverns until I’ve talked to my therapist, at least. After that we can go. I was just.. scared, I guess, that we would have to relive that whole ordeal.” Finn sat next to Alain on, or at least above, the bed. “I get that. It sucked. I really didn’t want to make it seem like you had to come with me. If you don’t want to go to the caverns with me, that’s fine. It’s your choice. And I’m sorry for acting like it was your fault. That was unfair.” He rested his head on Alain’s shoulder, having to float up a little bit to do so. “And I’m sorry for not hearing you out. I get that you don’t want to pretend like it never happened. I shouldn’t want to pretend it never happened either.” Alain said, resting his head on top of Finn’s. “Pinkie promise we’ll communicate better next time? I don’t want to do this ever again.” Finn said, holding out his pinkie finger. “Me neither.” Alain said, interlinking their pinkies and shaking them. “I love you.” Alain blurted out before he could really think about it, immediately scared that Finn wouldn’t reciprocate. Finn smiled and closed his eyes. “I love you too.”