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Language:
English
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Published:
2025-12-09
Words:
1,621
Chapters:
1/1
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6
Kudos:
31
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If you want to, only if you want to

Summary:

Nemvevo has always been an energetic person, even under stress. So, when he suddenly started acting exhausted and unmotivated, Cave knew something was wrong.

title from if you want to by beabadoobee

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

For the past few days, numerous members of Infuse have been hunting me and Cave for unknown reasons. Well, maybe because we’ve been up to some mischief, however we didn’t expect the whole server to come after us.

There has been multiple times people like Squid or Expchan has found us, however we have always fought them off, and me and Cave haven’t had any crucial injuries.

We’ve have been sleeping in shifts to make sure we get enough sleep for battle, however to also make sure nobody finds us, which has been working well so far.

So, when I was awoken by Cave to take over, I wasn’t surprised, however I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t disappointed.

I knew that Cave has been feeling extremely stressed about our whole situation, I mean we didn’t even have a base, and we have to constantly move around. honestly I didn’t blame him, As much as I hate to admit it, Cave has been practically been carrying me.

When I heard a slight crunch from leaves in the forest a hour later, I didn’t wake Cave up. I doubted anyone was here, and if someone was here, I definitely could take a 1v1 to give Cave a break.

It was probably an animal anyways, right?

Wrong. I immediately got up and grabbed the sword leaning on the wall when I saw eyes staring right at me through the cave entrance. It was Dolphin. I walked out of the tiny cave opening, facing Dolphin.

Dolphin didn’t even speak before starting a fight with me. I knew I couldn’t win this fight, Dolphin was significantly better than me. This fight would be way easier if Cave was here, but I would rather die than wake Cave up at the moment.

So, I took the fight. The sound of swords clashing together and heavy breaths filled the air. I yelped in pain when Dolphin punctured my stomach, and Dolphin pushed me roughly to the ground.

I clutched my stomach with my hand. Dolphin pushed the sword away from my reach, so I couldn’t fight back. Fuck.

Suddenly, a loud shriek in the forest caught Dolphins attention. He had a frustrated look on his face. He mumbled a string of curses before running off.

I immediately crawl back to our set up, I grab the medkit and lift my shirt off. It’s ripped already from the fighting eariler.

My wound obviously needs sitching, however do I look like someone that knows how to sitch? I decide to wrap a bandage around my waist. It barely stays on, but it’s better than nothing.

I put my shirt back on. It’s honestly pretty cold, so I also put a jumper on to cover up the blood that soaked onto the shirt.

Cave is an extremely deep sleeper, and I’m a very light sleeper. I’m surprised he didn’t wake up.

I shake Cave’s shoulders, and his eyes slowly open. He looks up at me and wipes his eyes with his hands. He’s not happy to be awake.

“Cave. We need— to uh, leave.” I say, fidgeting with my fingers. I really thought I could take that fight, but i couldn’t.

“Why? Did someone come, are you hurt?” He asks, immediately sitting up. He’s always worrying about me, when I’ve told him he doesn’t need to.

“No, I’m not hurt, but I like heard some people– uh, talking. So we should leave before they find us.”

Cave gives me a look, however we start packing up. We have two backpacks, so all of our stuff have to fit in them.

I hope he doesn’t notice how I slightly whine whenever I have to bend over.

We leave the cave soon enough, and I follow him as we try our best to be quiet. I see him looking at his compass, before going a certain way.

The walk is relatively quiet, I’m normally yapping or making conversation with him, however at the moment I’m exhausted and I can’t be bothered to make conversation, and I don’t think Cave is feeling the best either, so I don’t want to bother him.

After an hour of walking, we hear a silent cheer behind us. Squids behind us.

I watch as Cave grabs his dagger out, I do to. Cave and Squid start fighting. It feels illegal to watch and not help, however It also feels impossible to jump in.

“Nem! Run North!” Cave says, his voiced panicked. I can’t tell who’s winning in this fight.

“What? No! I’m not leaving you, idiot.” I say, hes ridiculous! I’m obviously not going to leave him, that’s stupid.

“Go!” Cave screeches, and that’s them I decide to listen to him. I trust cave with my life, and he’s only saved my life, so the least I can do is listen to him.

I run. I’m normally a fast runner, faster than cave, however my stomach aches, making me a bit slower.

I run North for a while until I find a pretty good cave, it’s not huge but it’s not extremely narrow either. I go decently far into it, and I lay out all my supplies in my backpack.

I can only hope that Cave comes back soon, because without him I would’ve been dead two weeks ago, he’s the soul reason for my survival, and i can’t even help him in a fight, what kind of teammate am I?

I start to doze off, which is a horrible idea, especially when I’m alone, but I have an excuse, right? I’m injured.

I feel someone shaking my shoulders, and I wake up. Shoot. I wasn’t supposed to fall asleep. Thankfully, it’s just Cave.

“Are you good?” I ask him, scanning his face and body to see if he has any injuries, only some minor cuts and bruises, nothing much.

“Yeah. I’m fine. You?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I respond, trying my best to not sound panicked, because at the moment Cave is way too close to me and I’m extremely scared he’s going to find my injury.

Cave stands up and grabs the med kit out from his backpack. I sit in front of him and help him with covering his bruises and cuts. They aren’t as bad as my stomach.

If I can’t help him in fights, at least I can help him bandage himself.

“I’m sorry for not helping in the fight. I should’ve. I don’t know what happened, I just froze. I feel really bad.” I say once I finish bandaging his particularly bad cut on his leg.

“Dude. I’ve told you I don’t expect you to help me in fights anyways, you help me bandage myself and find us food anyways. We are equal.” Cave responds.

“Yeah but I just feel like I could’ve done more, you wouldn’t be injured if I just helped and didn’t run.”

“It’s just a couple of scratches and bruises anyways, you’re being dramatic. It’s better than only one of us being hurt than both of us anyways.”

I slowly nod. He still doesn’t know, and my stomach is only getting worse without stitches. Cave is the only one that knows how to do stitches, and I don’t want to bother him with a silly cut from a fight he doesn’t even know about.

It’s only midday, however it feels like midnight. This day has been so long and I can’t wait for it to be over.

We decide to get some food. There aren’t any animals around, so I decide to pick some berries instead.

Cave is helping me, however he doesn’t know which berries are poisonous or not, so I’m mainly doing all of it.

I get on my tippy toes to reach a fruit that is high up. Bad decision. My shirt and hoodie lifts up with that, revealing my bandage that is practically falling off my stomach.

We finished picking berries, and we go back to our cave.

We split our berries and start eating. We haven’t really talked. I normally fill the silence, however I’m too exhausted to talk, even though I’ve slept so much.

“Nem.” Cave says randomly.

“Yeah?”

“You’re so quiet. What happened?”

“What do you mean?” I ask. Honestly I haven’t really noticed the silence because it’s comfortable and not awkward, but it’s clear Cave has.

“Like, normally you’re more energetic and yap a lot or whatever, but your like, a whole new person. You’re completely silent.”

“Oh. I dunno? I guess I’m just not in the mood.” I say. I don’t really think much about this.

“Can you lift your shirt?” Cave asks. I look at him with wide eyes. Does he know?

“Why?” I ask.

“I know something’s wrong.” Cave says. He gives me a look and I lift my shirt and hoodie up.

He immediately tells me to take them off, so I do. He grabs the med kit and immediately rips the poorly put on bandage of.

“What the hell happened?l”

“Uh— like when you were asleep.. dolphin found us, but I felt bad because you’ve done everything, so i thought I could take the fight but I couldn’t.” I reply, anxious.

“Don’t feel sorry idiot. I’ve told you so many times.” Cave says. But honestly, I can’t help but feeling sorry.

“Can I give you stitches?” He asks.

“Only if you want to.”

“Of course I do, Nem.” He says in a matter-of-fact tone.

I bite my lip to stop myself from whining when he puts the stitches in because there is no numbing cream obviously.

Once Cave has done all of that boring and painful medical stuff, he lets me sleep first and after a argument, I finally fall asleep.

Notes:

This is my first fic 🥹✌️ I dunno if I’m ever gonna post again but lmk if u want me to post again 😓 (I need fic ideas 🥴)