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The Mycelium outbreak was sweeping the world. Countries were failing and faltering, standing up on foundations that were plagued and then crumbling. A castle in Austria, one of the last bastions of science, housed one of humanity's last chemists: Frederick Krieburg who had amassed a small team. Their synthesis of a cure was the best shot on the planet, but it was thankless back-breaking work from all of them.
For the third night in a week, Frederick pulls his head back from the microscope that was making his head pound in the familiar patterns of a headache. Slides upon slides of the disease are set beside the instrument and labeled. Dye had been dropped into each, all in an attempt to better pattern through the phases- the whole thing was being done under a fumehood- all so he could avoid breathing or touching any of it. Filtered and chemical air burns his lungs as he seals the glass and pulls his mask off his face.
It was late. He was supposed to be at the lab with Luchino, who was doing God knows-what somewhere in the confines of the Kreiburg's castle. But, for the time being, it seemed to just be him.
Discarding his gloves, Frederick takes a moment to stand up from the stool. His eyes wander over to the examination chair- which he figures might fix the feeling of soreness in his back. Frankly, he could even lower it down and stretch out. Nobody would know... and he could tweak that sore spot hiding under his shoulder.
It takes up space in a dedicated corner of the room. He got it last year, knowledgeable on the fact that he wouldn't have any guests visit it. That thought was proved wrong this year. Qi and Luchino both occasionally had to use it for a blood draw here and there. It was nice, and molded to the shape of the user's body, keeping them level with soft fabric. It was a pretty penny and was comfortable enough for him to crash on. With an added blanket and couple pillows, it was more than tolerable. Add his jacket for warmth and he would be out like a light.
Just as he was getting comfortable, the sound of a door opening has him jumping up and straightening his spine.
"Frederick?" Luchino steps in, calling before his eyes find the chemist. The tension in his eyes eases but doesn't disappear as he sees Frederick. The door shuts and he takes off his mask- Frederick feels as though he's been pushed back a month to the first time he finally met the scientist in person just to dose him with an anti-contagion. "Were you catching a nap? A little stress relief? Ah... it really is a shame to bother you- unless you'd let me watch- but I've got news."
Luchino, as the closest specialist for this strain of the disease readily filled the shoes of a doctor for the sick. The fact that he wasn't calling him by the assortment of nicknames that he has collected raised warning flags. Walking forwards a couple paces, Luchino meets him halfway. A hand quickly guides him him back over and down against the chair. "One of our assistants, Annette- who claimed that she was careful when she moved those riddled clothes- wasn't. She breathed in a spore and now I have to consider finding a surgeon to remove the node from her lungs. If she dies fast enough I won't have to, but that'd be a pain as well. And," he looks at Frederick. Deadpan as he says:
"You should really pay me more for all of this, Princess."
He wasn't paying him. But whatever.
The staff had been dismissed or chosen to stay and help the efforts of the royal family. Hearing that he might be potentially losing another one of the people that he grew up with, Frederick winces. "I had lunch with her yesterday- and didn't wear my mask."
"Obviously, you needed to eat. Can't do that through the air vents, huh?" Luchino's mouth curls up in a smile, but the poorly-masked worry in his eyes causes it to fall flat. "Let me have a look at you. If the Mycelium's taken root somewhere, I'll find it. One way or the other."
Frederick obliges. With his gloves already placed into the sterilized tray beside the chair, his large coat soon follows alongside his jacket underneath. Left in a white turtleneck and a pair of slacks, he shivers in the cooler air. He's unwilling to take his shirt and pants off. Lest anybody walk in, he was certain the marks on his skin and the situation here with Luchino would spread more rumors like wildfire.
"I can draw the blinds." Luchino comments as if he knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Ah. Yes, that would work. Lock the door too."
Snorting, the scientist rounds on his foot but seems to oblige anyhow. A click sounds by the door and then he returns- smoothly pulling the screens that had been repurposed from Lady Kreiburg's chambers. Giant cream screens that had been for dressing were now here, tucked into each other and then expanded like an accordion. They hide the prince well.
Well enough for him to fish his hands in his shirt and anxiously send a glance sideways at Luchino who seems to be unable to move his eyes off of him. "Well?"
"I'm not turning away unless you really want me to. It doesn't make sense because I'll just turn around in fifteen seconds and you'll still be naked- and I'll have missed the show. I've seen it all before, Princess. I'll see it again soon enough." The nickname leaves his lips in another attempt to help appease the scientist. Yet, from the way Frederick inexplicably relaxes, it seems to have worked.
Flicking on the low heating feature that the chair has, Frederick cozies in. Against his skin were the normal wine-pink marks. They're easy enough to hide, but that expectation has made him struggle. Devil marks. Winning a fight against the disease was a demonic influence to his family. That wasn't the only loss as the disease stole away the humanity that once colored him. His color-sapped eyes flick up to see familiar green, and then back down again they go- he folds his pants expertly into the tray as well.
"See? Easy enough."
Luchino makes him stand and turn around a humiliating two times. "Can you do a pirouette?"
"No." The joke was confirmation enough that the infection hadn't progressed on his body long enough to show signs yet. Both good and bad.
Luchino tugs the first pair of gloves off his hands before washing up and sliding on a new re-sterilized pair. They were black. It was something he was insistent on if he had to take up the role of playing doctor. He'd said something about needing to have all the swag in the castle. Fortunately, Frederick bent to his will after a conversation and let him dig up the few boxes from his medical cabinet. Luchino knew that he definitely stroked his heart- and dick, admittedly- the right way. Plus, Frederick sourly admits, he should have fun sometimes.
Gloved fingers find his first rib and Frederick listens as Luchino quietly counts up each bone under his breath. As he does, Frederick rustles up a small bottle of antiseptic on the tray beside the chair. Washing his hands with it, he pulls on a pair of gloves. It's all to touch the man who he'd grown to care for.
Frederick worries his thumb against Luchino's thigh as he listens to him count his ribs that he poured over earlier that week to better position his stethoscope. Something about being immuno-compromised from beating the infection- and that somehow affecting his heart. Frederick frankly can't say. Luchino has been using him as a base of reference for the cure and so he's been treated like gold in his hands. It could be confused for doting and care, and he wonders if it's a slight excuse for Luchino to fuss over him.
He finds he doesn't mind it. Not really.
"Everyone's different." Luchino says aloud as he reaches for the stethoscope draped over his neck like he'd been knighted by it. Frederick muses that if the crown somehow ended up on his head after all of this, he'd knight the man himself. "The books don't prepare you for the fact that everyone's built differently and I just have to deal. And for fuck's sake, Frederick, you don't have to wear your gloves. I can't catch this shit again and get worse than I already am, so don't bother."
"So why are you wearing gloves?" Frederick prods, raising an eyebrow. He holds him to the same standards as he does with himself- he's intimately familiar of the standards that Luchino either skirts around or jumps over. Dodging and avoiding- he is incredibly difficult to pin down. "And don't say something like 'oh they look nice.'" He rolls his eyes.
"Swag."
That earns a sound of defiance from the prince.
"It's also for your comfort and it's good to get me into the habit. Now shut up," the amused look in Luchino's eyes adds a 'please.' His fingers trace back down from Frederick's shoulder and stop at his sternum. Here. Pressing the diaphragm of the stethoscope against wine marked skin, he rubs his thumb against his sternum as he listens. The familiar motions with Frederick were relaxing. Like taking off shoes at the end of the day, laying down, and easing into an environment where he could breathe.
It was an easy existence for the man on the chair as well. Being under Luchino's tender touch was something undeniably nice, even if it had to come through sugar-coated excuses such as these. Frederick frankly doesn't even know if he lied to him earlier just to have an excuse. He'd ask soon.
"Am I making you nervous? Wait. Hold that thought." Luchino teases behind a smile.
The cool diaphragm against Frederick's skin causes small shivers to run through his body. They are familiar feelings, these paths that he carves against him. They're the same ones that Luchino traced when he first pulled out a dusty book beside his computer and straddled him. Entirely similar to the way he walked him through each bone, different regions, and the only thing Frederick could parse through was how much he enjoyed being around him. He's certain the other man noticed it. In pauses, they'd kiss, tease, and oh, Luchino's hands would roam.
Underneath his leather jacket, against his skin, he'd been insistent on Frederick's unknowing. The prince simply didn't know what he looked like beneath it all- he had felt him, and the unmistakable feeling of inhuman metal and glass objects woven into his skin kept him from asking questions.
So he lets him care, because some days, Frederick feels like he is sole man Luchino manages to give 'two shits' about. A horrendous quality for a doctor, but beggars cannot be choosers and in an apocalypse, they certainly didn't have the resources or the willpower to drag another vested doctor from another safe house.
Up he sits, prompted by a gentle hand. The full mark against Frederick's skin can finally be seen. It starts somewhere behind his left shoulder blade and curls over his ribcage just to end against his right abdomen. It looks like one of the nobles knocked over a glass of wine on him as a baby and the mark never really came out. Compared to his skin, it seems to flush a heady pink, complimenting the same shade of color that gives life back to his face.
"You do not make me nervous," he quips. Shifting his seating posture, Frederick throws one knee over the other as he takes an inhale. The urge to give a shout just to see what would happen to the other man comes and goes. "If I was nervous, I wouldn't stay here. I'd excuse myself and you would see the last of me because I'd have you pack your bags and-"
A kiss on the back of his neck dries the words on his mouth. "Luchino," he murmurs in a half attempt to correct him. "That's an unsafe lab practice. You can't just do that. What if I'm.."
"Contagious? After you've proven yourself to beat it once?" A warm hand pulls him back down. "I was checking your temp, anyways. You're warmish. Although that's probably because you really do get nervous- and when you do that, you get all flustered- you know, you're such a bad liar when it comes to me."
Back meeting the chair once more, Frederick looks up just to see a grin. "Then you just pretended to follow protocol." His words end with a grumble. "Prick me already, you asshole."
Rolling his eyes, he holds out his hand.
Luchino takes it, unfurling it from the glove. Pressing kisses against the back of his knuckles, his eyes dance. "Mi amore." He purrs. "You don't have to treat me that way. I'm just trying to help."
"Sure, if that's your definition of it." Wiping down his arm himself, Frederick barely holds himself back from moving when he feels Luchino poke him a small lancet. It clicks as it does so. At least he has the decency to immediately treat the small wound, despite it's miniscule size. "You need more practice with it. Less force. You could learn how to draw blood instead of calling me each time, if you like."
He laughs. "Why would I stop calling you?"
Fair point.
Frederick's eyes follow Luchino as he takes the sample and places it onto another slide- and uses a microscope that wasn't in the fumehood. Good. It was shoddy practice at best and malpractice at worst, but it was enough to give the prince ease as he relaxes into the warmed chair and enjoys the low heat it emanates.
Frederick settles against the fabric. Minutes tick by, and he finally shifts his legs. Calmed down enough, he ignores the rouge warmth on his cheeks. It was just from the chair's warmth. That's all.
A whoop of excitement startles him, and he barely turns his head in time to see Luchino push aside one of the screens. "You're clean." That grin of his extends, pushing the boundaries of his mouth as he rushes over and dips his head down.
Tilting his head up, Frederick kisses him. It's hungry, the way that he kisses, and yet still restrained in the only way he knows. He needs more. So, naturally, curling his fingers against the arms of the chair, he pushes himself up to the scientist. Halfway there, Luchino meets him. Gloves fall onto a pile in the ground, a stray leg kicks the tray table away, and there's a distant clatter as it bumps into the wall. It's hard to hear over the sound of their joined breaths and sweet gasps.
"So that wasn't a lie?" Frederick questions as he raises his hips. Luchino work his underwear off for him with gentle hands. A half-mast greets their eyes and Frederick tries to pretend that it's a surprise.
The scientist laughs. "Ha. It was. You did get exposed to the mycelium, just not in the way you think. And- you really get turned on by all this? Because really, if you told me you had a kink like this- I would've been so much happier studying everything."
The words make the man on the chair shiver. "Now you're just teasing." Furrowing his brow, he shifts his hand from the back of his neck into his hair. Running his fingers against the tight braids, he reaches behind head. Out the ponytail comes and waves of white hair fall over his shoulders. Two dark grey streaks show near his ears, almost like tiny wings sprouting from the mind. Luchino had never known him when he had his old hair color back, and those pictures don't feel like him anymore.
He doesn't dwell on it.
"Maybe," Luchino breathes over him before he re-gloves with a snap. A tender hand reaches down and splays against his thigh in thought. "But we both know how this ends."
Frederick's gentle touch extends to Luchino's crotch just to see him stiffen. The chemist hums, nearly satisfied. "I think we do. I propose an exchange."
"And I was just about to suck your dick for free."
"Quiet." Frederick's smile widens. His hand slips down around Luchino's wrist and he pulls him closer to his cock. "You've done a good job... finish me off, and I'll gift you sleep. I know it's not something that I should even be putting in a conversation like this one, but this is for everything this week. Not just now, not just today."
If Luchino's breath catches, he's good at playing it off.
Luchino's eyes widen for a touch as he understands exactly what Frederick is promising him. His hand stays hovering near Frederick's length, hard and flushed. "You'd drug me? After I've been practically begging you for a night of good sleep? What, a week of hard work and then playing doctor makes you change your mind?"
"Were you even listening? You haven't slept in a week. I know that. You're near collapsing, not to even bring up everything you're currently battling with... physically." Frederick watches his words, his tongue gentle, "with the current state of affairs of the mycelium, I need you far more awake."
"What's the catch?"
Because there's always one.
"This isn't an official drug." Usually, nobody would dive into a chemical analysis within an inch of being given a hand job, but Frederick Kreiburg was a unique man. "I've given you a small dose of propofol before, and you identified the same sensation as an experience at your old job. It came with some nasty side effects. I agreed with you at the time: you need something better. So... this anesthetic isn't made with a soybean oil base, and... I don't think I'll tell you what it is."
Luchino starts to complain, but Frederick cuts him off with a small whisper. "It's our little formula. Another one of my various cures for you." They were both possessive in their unique ways. Frederick showed his hand with his cures, dosages, drugs. Slanted recipes, chemical compounds- all of them were his domain and tilted perfectly for his scientist.
It was as if he didn't have to finish the thought and Luchino's lubed thumb was already stroking over the head of his cock. A shudder runs through the chemist and his head falls back. Satisfaction glazes his eyes. "Mm. Luchi," a nickname held for him, sweet on his tongue breaks his lips.
"I have a theory," Luchino begins as his green eyes parse over Frederick's face. "You wanted a break."
Frederick's hips roll forwards once, twice, and then he feels a comfortable hand pin him down with a hand on his stomach. "Whatever does that mea-nh?" He's coated in a thin layer of sweat, and the lighting on the walls of the lab catch the sheen. The dividers glow from the scone lights of a bygone era. They glow around Frederick like they hid a utopia just behind them, like heaven was just beyond.
Luchino's blind to it as he snorts. "Everyone wants a break, Princess. I just forced you to take one."
Maybe he was right. Frederick did feel it, had felt it, still did. The warmth in his chest and stomach that comes not just from the heat of the moment and the feeling of Luchino's gloved hand working him with known flutters. No, it was the beast that hunted the cure in his chest finally resting. It was the tender exploration of every bit of himself, held entirely open to the only person he allowed to see him in such a state. It was comfortable, and by God, he'd enjoy it.
"Maybe-" Frederick groans, watching his vision drop to half-lidded sights. "I think you did manage to get me relaxed. I didn't even realize it myself, not unti-"
Two fingers slide into his mouth. "I love your voice, but that doesn't sound like relaxing. Suck." It was the last trick Luchino had to get him to shut up. Thankfully, it worked like a charm. Frederick all but melted against the chair, jaw relaxing. Luchino felt it- the way he spoke with his tongue, ran it against his fingers just to try and get him to twitch. It was working, but he didn't stop his motions.
Not when he looked so pretty.
Luchino traces veins, wanders his hand, and really takes his time with the man. If they were both giving each other a respite, then it was his due diligence to ensure he has one. Caresses blend with the slipping time and god, he really focuses on what makes his breath catch. His hand teases, wrestling little symptoms of pleasure from his body and then putting them to rest. Again and again, he nearly works him up, just to pull his hand away and stroke him with a single finger.
Frederick's sweating and panting around Luchino's fingers by the time he decides he can't handle more. Short gasps have his head pulling sideways. A string of spit ties Frederick's mouth to his gloves, and he has to look up and away. Up, up, into those blue eyes as he musters language around a groan. "Mein Gott- Luchino- please, I'm-"
"And I was having so much fun too! You sounded awfully nice around my fingers, Frederick. But I suppose I won't go against you..." something cruel flashes in his eye as he speeds his hand up just to see the man arch. "Pretty."
Frederick's hands scramble against the arms of the chair and he whines, searching for relief. "Please-"
"Now you're begging? We should really do this more of-"
"Luchi."
It's desperate, begging, and Frederick sounds like he's been entirely worn down between kindness and cruelty. His voice breaks over his name. "Luchi," he gulps, "I need it."
"Then you shall have it." Leaning down to kiss him, Luchino devours the chemist's sounds and pleas with his mouth. The kiss is more gentle than he anticipates. It works his mouth open to lick and bite- all until Frederick jerks forwards and buries his head against his chest with a pleasured cry.
White hair presses against a leather jacket and Luchino can only place kisses as his hand gradually stops against his length. "How was that?"
It takes him a long handful of seconds to pull away. Dizzy, Frederick falls back against the chair. Release shines on his abdomen as he grunts a sound: "good."
Newly-gloved hands help clean him off. "Thank you," he manages as Luchino helps him dress again in fresh layers which wick sweat away from his body like they were never there. It's with warmth in his stomach that he finds himself walking away from the chair on legs that somehow work. Soft directions from his lips settle Luchino against the couch, directing him to keep his head up.
Rolling on a stool in a sort of dreamland, Frederick soon sits by his side. Now it's his turn to look down at him and dote. "I see why you like the perspective. It is rather nice."
Luchino lays against the pillow with furrows in his brow that speak to mock annoyance. He's only playing, and he knows Frederick will let him. "Hurry up?"
"I was asking you that at the very start, and what do you say? No?" Laughing, his voice is breezy as a wayward bunch of hair falls over the side of his face.
Warm fingers tuck them back over his ear. "Sooner I'm out, the sooner you can curl up here with me. C'mon." He adjusts the way he lays, with the arm that tucked his hair now lolling off the side of the couch, practically in an invitation for the man. Luchino knows what he's asking for- hell, he knows what he's allowing. Frederick wanted to test on him, and he sure as hell would let him. He hadn't died so far, and he figures this wouldn't be too bad of a way of going out- under the tender touch of his... prince's hand, and just an experiment gone wrong.
That's what he was, wasn't he?
"Come back to me." Frederick's voice pulls him out of his thoughts.
"'mhere." Murmuring the words, he raises an eyebrow at the chemist. "Ready or not?"
"Ready."
Luchino's eyes slip closed.
Frederick's hands are the most gentle in the world as he feels the needle slide into the crook of his elbow. He barely can tell when the chemicals are pushed in. All he knows is to tip his head up to meet his lips in a kiss when he's done, and- take note of the gentle rubs the bastard was giving his cock through his pants. A breathy sigh that he doesn't register as his own leaves his mouth and he starts to feel his consciousness slipping. The hand pauses, draws away, and he distantly hears the chair rolling.
Somewhere, sometime later, it could be seconds or years, he feels a warm weight settle against him.
To Frederick, Luchino remains as the man who showed him glimpses of life.
To Luchino, Frederick is the one who promised they would have a tomorrow to see.
Maybe they found the true cure in each other all along.