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Fifolet

Summary:

Fifolet

/definiton/
A bright light in Cajun folklore seen in swamp areas meant to misdirect or disorient those who perceive it as leading them to safety.

Notes:

This is really fun to work on!! I already have the second chapter finished, i'll update pretty soon.

Chapter Text

Blithe has, admittedly, the worst luck.

He’s a horrible, horrible klutz, tripping on literal air more than half the time. He probably trips a hundred times on average, and his legs are littered with Band-Aids and half attempted bandages. He can never stop thinking, and it’s partly his anxiety but it’s mostly just the fact that he can never stop day-dreaming. Anything can trigger it; The sky, the smell of coffee, a car honking, someone’s voice when he passes them on the street, laughter, looking at someone, waking up, going to sleep. He is in the constant motion of thinking and reflecting. His mom tells him he should start thinking more about the future, but he’s happy how he is.

So, maybe he’s been fired from four out of six of the libraries in the city because he keeps holding books overdue and never paying. Maybe he lives on a first-floor apartment with no lock and is a horrible coward, who thinks he could probably handle himself if it came down to it but will probably still get stabbed. So, he went to college for Weather Studies and he’s never used it, it’s his backup anyway. He’s happy, and it’s not his fault that he’s just someone things happen to. He stands still and moves in small, insignificant steps as the world rushes around him. He’s walking down the street to get groceries, even though he only has 15$ left and he can’t decide if he wants to live off only macaroni for the next few weeks or if he should pick up some soups too. He’s pretty damn near close to being fired and he thinks he’ll probably just move on to Barnes & Noble.

He picks up a variety of soups because they’re a dollar each and a couple boxes of macaroni which are much more expensive. He self-checks out because he's afraid of being in line and people waiting for him as he tries to pick up his change from the ground because his hands are too shaky, and he always drops them. He’s walking home and hoping to god nobody broke in while he was gone. He lives alone and that’s how he prefers it, really.

It all happens pretty fast. Or, maybe it was slow; so slow he could barely follow it and could only catch parts of it, like water spilling from his hands. There is a woman walking in front of him and he does not think anything about it. She is a pedestrian like him and she probably has a place to go. There is a black sedan, and the first thing he notices, for some godawful reason, is that it has an unmarked license plate. The second thing he notices is that it’s coming right at him. Specifically – at the woman. Who happens to be in his vicinity.

He is so terrified in that moment his knees buckle. He’s still walking, so he trips – and, coincidentally, he knocks over the woman. And, coincidentally, he takes the full front of the car for her.

And it burns.

If he could describe the main feeling in that horrible, split-second moment, it would be the burning. It seared itself into his brain – It hurt so significantly the only thing he could really say it was is hot. And then, he falls. And then there is screaming. And there is a car engine and the woman saying, “Oh my god.”

When he falls, he hears a crowd ooing, like if someone fails at doing something or fails a magic trick horribly and they’re all collectively wincing. It’s probably in his head, and he knows that. His mind goes from a mile a minute to nothing, and the crash of the thoughts coming back are what really gets him.

He just got hit by a car. And he saved a woman. And the car is gone.

He sits up, terrified. It hurts to breathe. When he looks down, there is soup spilled all over his lap, but he can’t feel it. It hurts to breathe. He wheezes, and it goes black.

 

…But he can still hear.

“What?” He hears himself saying. He is dazed and there is shouting and someone calling the police. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know if he’s dead. Maybe he made a mistake sitting up, and hurt something, and now he is dead. Being a klutz is forever going to be what killed him.

What?” He says again, hysterical. It still hurts to breathe. He isn’t sure if he’s breathing anymore.

“Are you okay?” someone says. It’s a lady’s voice. He feels a hand on his back.

Can he feel?

“I don’t-“ He hears himself sobbing. “I can’t,“

There are sirens and sobbing and doors being slammed open. There are people chattering but their voices are fading, kind of like they’re being pushed away. It’s chaotic. It’s loud. There is a ringing white noise in his head. There are shushes and a hand on his back and he desperately wants to shake it away. Everything is rushing fast around him and he feels slow. Slow, slow, slow.

“Alright move! move!” Someone yells, like they’re pushing people. The hand leaves his back and he doesn’t know if he’s relieved or if he wants it back. He’s panicking, and he runs all the drills robotically.

What does he feel. He feels the pavement. He feels himself crying. He felt the hand on his back, and he feels the pain of existing. What does he hear – He hears shouting and people and sirens and the thick accent of a man pushing people away. He tastes blood and tears. He does not see anything because he cannot see. He determines he’s probably alive; But he can’t see.

He can’t see.

There are different hands on his arms; firm. He can’t really describe it, because he’s a little more focused on the fact he can’t see.

“You’re okay – Hey, you’re okay. What’s your name?” The owner of the hand says, and he’s speaking loud and forcefully calm. It does Not help.

“Bli- It’s – Blithe,” He says, disoriented and blind. There are more hands reaching and one goes to rest their hand on his leg, and he jerks away and shouts from the pain. He’s curling into himself. He can’t see, and he can’t breathe, and he’d really, really rather be dead.

“Jesus don’t – M’am please step away.” The man shouts bitterly.

“But I-“ says the woman, the hand on his back. The comfort he still doesn’t know if he wanted or if he needed.

“Step. Away,” He says again, and there’s shuffling. Different hands. He is surrounded. The world is closing in on him and he’s inhaling more than he’s exhaling.

“We’re gonna pick you up, okay Blithe?” He says. He sounds sympathetic, like someone who would take you out to coffee or a restaurant after finding out you were dumped to make sure you were okay. Like they would show all the signs of caring, but never actually care. He doesn’t get time to respond, too choked and crying and hypersensitive to everything happening around him. He’s being picked up, hands on his back and some on his thighs (And not even for a second is he bothered by that; the pain overwhelms the embarrassment.)  and he can’t breathe.

The pain he was relieved was over in those small, significant milliseconds is back again. It lasts longer and his entire being screams. Hell, he does scream. “Fuck,” He sobs brokenly. He’s dragged onto stiff cotton and he holds on for dear life. He can’t breathe. If he isn’t dead already now he is dying.

“He’s going into shock, calm him down,” The familiar voice yells. He forgets. Medical. They keep themselves emotionally distant. “Gene,” He says cautiously.

There is a sharpness in his arm and a white-tight grip on it too because he is shaking badly.

“Here,” A new voice says. Different, somehow.

Whatever they stuck in him is hitting him in very large waves, and he feels dizzy and sick but high at the same time. He wants to throw up and he wants to nap at the same time, and it is undoubtedly the weirdest feeling he’s ever felt yet. His tongue feels weird in his mouth, tingles like he ate something he was allergic to. (Peanuts. Truly a curse.) He barely realizes they’re moving, now.

There’s someone shuffling behind him and he goes to turn to the sound, even though he can’t see, but cold hands cup his face. He gets goosebumps immediately, and whatever white noise clogging his head halts and stutters, for a moment.

“Blithe. Blithe, hey look at me,” The newer voice says. It’s this sweet sweet drawl. He feels loopy.

“Can’t,” he manages. His throat is horribly, horribly dry and he’s breathing in stuttered breaths. “See.” He explains, after a few seconds.

‘Gene’ sighs, worriedly. “Okay,” He says. He is worried.

He falls in love instantly.

And all he can think of is that one old song, Accidentally in Love. It is broken and loopy when he imagines the tune, the main chorus warped and demented. It sounds like sirens.

“Like your voice,” He says, tiredly. Someone laughs.

“Thanks,” Gene says blandly.

He doesn’t know how he went from going to get groceries because he is about as poor as a college student to sitting in an ambulance, drugged and smitten. He does not think about medical bills, but it crosses his mind briefly. Someone is pulling his shirt up and he lifts his hands cautiously.

“Woah,” He says. The pain is dull, and he has dignity. Someone laughs again.

“We’re not doin’ anything,” The first guy says. “Just checking your heartbeat, alright?” He lowers his hands.

There’s the cold of the metal on his stomach, and he flickers for a second, remembers where he is and what just happened, but then Gene’s thumb strokes his cheek and he’s back where he started all over again. He remembers, with a faint realization, that he can hear, and Gene is talking. It’s foreign and not English, and he can’t guess what he’s saying barely at all. He imagines he’s talking about all the places he’s been and all the things he likes. A joke he heard or what his friends are like or a book he’s read. He can feel his eyelids closing but it is still the same familiar darkness. His breathing feels easier, but it is tight, and he is breathless for multiple reasons.

“It’s an MI-“ Someone rushes hurriedly, and they’re all swarming around him a little quicker. He thinks he should be alarmed, but there is Gene and the pain is dull, and this is all he needs. His goosebumps are fading and he’s warming Gene’s hands, clearly, because they’re a little less cold.

“Stay with me,” Gene says clearly, a quick switch to English. Hi thumb moves to the soft skin under his eye, and he opens them. He doesn’t know if he’s staring right at him or not, and he weirdly hopes he is. He’s searching through the darkness for any sign of Gene’s features; wants to know the color of his hair and what kind of shape his face is.

“Almost there,” A voice behind Gene says. Driver. He’s in an ambulance, he realizes slowly.

“Aspirin-“ someone says, and a hand leaves his face. He blinks, worriedly.

“Goin’ give you some Aspirin, ok? chew first.” Gene says. He goes to reach up and grab it blindly from his hand, but it is promptly laid back down and he just lets Gene put it in his mouth. It feels foreign on his tongue, and he tongues it mindlessly as he thinks about what kind of person Gene is before chewing slowly.

“Fermi,” Gene says, although he doesn’t understand. “Good.”

When he swallows, the hand leaves his face again, and he waits for something equally as embarrassing. “Oxygen,” he says simply, and he sighs.

He places the plastic on his face, and the goosebumps on his arms rise again, and for a second, he is truly afraid he can’t breathe, but then the oxygen starts coming in loudly and suddenly it is too much air.

“Doin’ alright, Mouche a mielle,” He says comfortingly, hand going through his hair instead of returning to his cheek. It is a billion ways better in a billion ways he doesn’t know how, and he is self-consciously aware he has bedhead when his fingers catch and pull a knot. He would say this is the most at peace he’s ever been, but the drugs and the oxygen mask and the I Got Hit By A Car aspect weirds it out a little.

“Gene,” someone says. It’s faint. He’s straining his ears to hear.

“Yeah,” He says, fingers still pulling the knots from his hair. He wants him to do this forever. He wants to be in his arms forever.

“Might have to knock em out,”

“Okay,” he breathes. “Okay.”

“Don’t punch me in the face, Gene,” He says weakly, muffled by the mask.  There’s snorting and giggles.

“I like him,” someone says. It’s a different voice. Gene just rubs his thumb on his cheek.

That’s where it goes wonky.

He can’t remember anything really after that; he’s in an out of reality. There’s yelling, there’s Gene shushing him, and his chest feels empty. There’s silence and there is Accidentally in Love blaring so loud he deliriously keeps trying to cover his ears; but they always push them back down and he is stuck moaning in crying in Gene’s arms. He’s left to his own devices, then – he’s back to Just Blithe who is horribly unlucky and unconscious. He was thrown into this entirely different world with Gene in it – and suddenly it’s just him. Like the world is showing the difference.

He desperately wants to properly meet him. He wants to sit down at the shitty overpriced Starbucks in the Barnes & Noble which he will inevitably work at in the near future, thank him for every moment in the ambulance and learn as much as he can. He wants to exist near him. He doesn’t even want to hold him and know him; really, if he can just exist around him and be a friend, that would be good enough.

He is in a lull of peace, like falling asleep and barely getting enough reality to know that you were sleeping. That you are asleep. There is barely any sound but there are hands on his face, and he remembers that.  He feels like he doesn’t really have a body anymore, he is just something that exists. Like he’s been reduced to what he’s always been. He is something that does not move but is constantly moving. There is a sky above his head with unfamiliar clouds and someone is shaking his shoulder calling his name and hands rubbing his arms and something is whispering in his head too that he’s going to be okay -

And then –  and then it’s over.