what have i done
Title: Come out of your shell
Rating: g
Genre: snail!au
Pairing: xiuhun? lol
Summary: Minseok is a snail.
written for xiukisses
WTF HAVE I DONE IDEK
Evenings like are tonight are perfect for Minseok. The soil is soft, wet and loamy, the plantations above him casting soft shadows onto the earth. Minseok makes his way out slowly from his hiding spot, inching laboriously over the ground in search of food. It’s not like there’s a shortage of it, but some days he prefers something dry and other days he’ll want something fresh and juicy. It doesn’t take him long to come across a delicious-looking leaf and he starts chomping down on it, his hundreds of tiny microscopic teeth chewing it into a mass he can digest.
Minseok is a snail.
He’s just a regular old snail of the garden variety, but he’s happy with his life of eating vegetable leaves and being a common garden pest in general. And this bak choy tastes fabulous.
Routine is a giant part of Minseok’s snaily life - crawling out between the cabbages, deciding what he wants to eat, actually eating it - and maybe afterwards he’ll go and see what the snails who live by the lettuce are up to, or slide back in his shell and sleep some more.
One of Minseok’s eyestalks pick up movement from behind him. For a second he thinks it’s the human who waters the garden but the back yard is empty. There is though, Minseok notices, a small snail that’s doing a really bad job of trying to hide behind the line of silverbeet planted across from the bak choy.
That’s terrible, Minseok thinks as he continues munching on his bak choy leaf, the human is going to find you and you’re going to die a most horrible death by salt.
He crawls over to the little snail to berate him. It takes a while. Going anywhere takes a while for Minseok and his species, but an entire forty minutes later at maximum speed he makes it to the silverbeet, and pokes the little snail’s shell with a tactile tentacle.
“Hey,” he says, “you know everyone can see you, right?”
The snail doesn’t reply and Minseok realizes that it’s actually inside its shell, the opening filled with the characteristic frothy mucus of a snail in distress.
“Hello!” Minseok yells, and to his complete surprise the snail pokes its head out of his shell. Its body is a pretty brownish-grey colour, glistening with a shiny and viscous coat of mucus, with two long eyestalks on its head and two smaller ones above its mouth. Minseok’s never seen this snail before. “Hello, I’m Minseok! Who are you? What are you doing?”
The snail shrinks back into its shell a bit. “My name is Sehun,” he says timidly. “I’m… I’m lost.”
Well, that made sense. Minseok eyes him curiously. “Where did you come from?”
“I came from the bushes. I went out to play this morning but I couldn’t find my way back.” Sehun looks positively downcast about it, but at least he’s not secreting his distress signals anymore. His eyestalks wave about, taking in the environment around them. It’s almost nightfall and there’s not really that much to look at. “Where am I?”
Minseok attaches himself to the trunk of the silverbeet and peers down at Sehun sombrely. “You’re in a vegetable patch. I’m sorry that happened to you; I was once a bush snail too.” He sighs wistfully.
Sehun appears next to him almost immediately. “Really?”
Minseok keeps crawling up the silverbeet. “I wandered too far from home one day, like you. It was a long time ago.”
“Can you take me back?” Sehun asks, eyestalks brimming with hope.
“I don’t even know which direction the bushes are in anymore. I think it would be nice to go back, although I’m happy here. You’re fully welcome to stay too,” Minseok offers brightly to the snail following right behind him. “There’s enough to feed a thousand of me in this vegetable patch. Have you eaten?”
“No…” Sehun looks downcast again. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re awful at being a snail,” Minseok remarks, and they chat while they climb the silverbeet. “I’m surprised the human didn’t find you while he was watering the plants.”
The human waters his plants at the same time every day, and also has a container of salt handy for any slimy pests he sees in his garden. Minseok has lost many a friend to an unfortunate demise.
“Will he exterminate me?” Sehun squeaks. Minseok checks back over his shell to make sure the tiny snail hasn’t retracted into his own shell again.
“Probably,” Minseok says, and then he has to deal with Sehun whimpering and flailing his eyestalks and excreting more frothy mucus in fear until they manage come to a compromise - with Minseok promising to ask around the other snails tomorrow for someone who can guide Sehun back home.
When they finally reach the leaves of the silverbeet Sehun is still leaking mucus uncontrollably while wailing his gratitude and Minseok is stuck with fending off the clingy snail from attaching himself to Minseok’s shell.
“So nice to me,” Sehun sniffs, or at least until he sets eyes on a delectable green leaf. “Minseok, I’m hungry,” he says in the kind of tone that makes Minseok want to baby him (and then fertilize his eggs when mating season comes).
Silverbeet is nice, but it’s softer than bak choy and nowadays Minseok only eats it when he feels like an old snail with bad radulae. He bites off a piece of leaf and offers it to Sehun.
The smaller snail looks at him with his eyestalks. Sehun just sits there, suctioned to the underside of the silverbeet leaf the two of them are attached to, and then he suddenly disappears back into his shell in a fashion that Minseok can only interpret as adorable shyness.
Minseok waits for him to come back out, and then sticks the piece of leaf onto the sticky surface of Sehun’s body.
They make their way back to Minseok’s hiding spot among the cabbages and curl up into their shells until the next evening, but this time Minseok awakens to loud noises and light outside the entrance to his shell.
“Dad, Dad! Look, I found some snails by the cabbages!”
“Oh, you did? Kill ‘em. Those scummy things are everywhere, eating all of your Dad’s veges.”
Minseok does what all snails do, withdrawing even further into his shell and hoping they’ll leave him alone. He’ll only get the salt treatment if he comes out. He can hear Sehun screeching in terror beside him.
“Huh? Kill them? But Dad, they’re just snails!”
“I’m teaching you how to look after a garden, son. If you don’t want all your leaves eaten then you gotta kill the pests. Just sprinkle a little bit of salt on them and they start bubbling up like the dirty rotten creatures they are…”
“Dad! Don’t be so mean to them! What if they’re just lost?”
There is a scoffing noise. “It’s a snail, for heaven’s sake, it can’t get lost.”
“I’m going to move them into the bushes, so don’t kill them, okay? Promise me!”
A deep sigh follows. “You’re a strange kid, Lu. Hurry up then, go put them in the bushes.”
!
Rating: g
Genre: snail!au
Pairing: xiuhun? lol
Summary: Minseok is a snail.
written for xiukisses
WTF HAVE I DONE IDEK
Evenings like are tonight are perfect for Minseok. The soil is soft, wet and loamy, the plantations above him casting soft shadows onto the earth. Minseok makes his way out slowly from his hiding spot, inching laboriously over the ground in search of food. It’s not like there’s a shortage of it, but some days he prefers something dry and other days he’ll want something fresh and juicy. It doesn’t take him long to come across a delicious-looking leaf and he starts chomping down on it, his hundreds of tiny microscopic teeth chewing it into a mass he can digest.
Minseok is a snail.
He’s just a regular old snail of the garden variety, but he’s happy with his life of eating vegetable leaves and being a common garden pest in general. And this bak choy tastes fabulous.
Routine is a giant part of Minseok’s snaily life - crawling out between the cabbages, deciding what he wants to eat, actually eating it - and maybe afterwards he’ll go and see what the snails who live by the lettuce are up to, or slide back in his shell and sleep some more.
One of Minseok’s eyestalks pick up movement from behind him. For a second he thinks it’s the human who waters the garden but the back yard is empty. There is though, Minseok notices, a small snail that’s doing a really bad job of trying to hide behind the line of silverbeet planted across from the bak choy.
That’s terrible, Minseok thinks as he continues munching on his bak choy leaf, the human is going to find you and you’re going to die a most horrible death by salt.
He crawls over to the little snail to berate him. It takes a while. Going anywhere takes a while for Minseok and his species, but an entire forty minutes later at maximum speed he makes it to the silverbeet, and pokes the little snail’s shell with a tactile tentacle.
“Hey,” he says, “you know everyone can see you, right?”
The snail doesn’t reply and Minseok realizes that it’s actually inside its shell, the opening filled with the characteristic frothy mucus of a snail in distress.
“Hello!” Minseok yells, and to his complete surprise the snail pokes its head out of his shell. Its body is a pretty brownish-grey colour, glistening with a shiny and viscous coat of mucus, with two long eyestalks on its head and two smaller ones above its mouth. Minseok’s never seen this snail before. “Hello, I’m Minseok! Who are you? What are you doing?”
The snail shrinks back into its shell a bit. “My name is Sehun,” he says timidly. “I’m… I’m lost.”
Well, that made sense. Minseok eyes him curiously. “Where did you come from?”
“I came from the bushes. I went out to play this morning but I couldn’t find my way back.” Sehun looks positively downcast about it, but at least he’s not secreting his distress signals anymore. His eyestalks wave about, taking in the environment around them. It’s almost nightfall and there’s not really that much to look at. “Where am I?”
Minseok attaches himself to the trunk of the silverbeet and peers down at Sehun sombrely. “You’re in a vegetable patch. I’m sorry that happened to you; I was once a bush snail too.” He sighs wistfully.
Sehun appears next to him almost immediately. “Really?”
Minseok keeps crawling up the silverbeet. “I wandered too far from home one day, like you. It was a long time ago.”
“Can you take me back?” Sehun asks, eyestalks brimming with hope.
“I don’t even know which direction the bushes are in anymore. I think it would be nice to go back, although I’m happy here. You’re fully welcome to stay too,” Minseok offers brightly to the snail following right behind him. “There’s enough to feed a thousand of me in this vegetable patch. Have you eaten?”
“No…” Sehun looks downcast again. “I’m hungry.”
“You’re awful at being a snail,” Minseok remarks, and they chat while they climb the silverbeet. “I’m surprised the human didn’t find you while he was watering the plants.”
The human waters his plants at the same time every day, and also has a container of salt handy for any slimy pests he sees in his garden. Minseok has lost many a friend to an unfortunate demise.
“Will he exterminate me?” Sehun squeaks. Minseok checks back over his shell to make sure the tiny snail hasn’t retracted into his own shell again.
“Probably,” Minseok says, and then he has to deal with Sehun whimpering and flailing his eyestalks and excreting more frothy mucus in fear until they manage come to a compromise - with Minseok promising to ask around the other snails tomorrow for someone who can guide Sehun back home.
When they finally reach the leaves of the silverbeet Sehun is still leaking mucus uncontrollably while wailing his gratitude and Minseok is stuck with fending off the clingy snail from attaching himself to Minseok’s shell.
“So nice to me,” Sehun sniffs, or at least until he sets eyes on a delectable green leaf. “Minseok, I’m hungry,” he says in the kind of tone that makes Minseok want to baby him (and then fertilize his eggs when mating season comes).
Silverbeet is nice, but it’s softer than bak choy and nowadays Minseok only eats it when he feels like an old snail with bad radulae. He bites off a piece of leaf and offers it to Sehun.
The smaller snail looks at him with his eyestalks. Sehun just sits there, suctioned to the underside of the silverbeet leaf the two of them are attached to, and then he suddenly disappears back into his shell in a fashion that Minseok can only interpret as adorable shyness.
Minseok waits for him to come back out, and then sticks the piece of leaf onto the sticky surface of Sehun’s body.
They make their way back to Minseok’s hiding spot among the cabbages and curl up into their shells until the next evening, but this time Minseok awakens to loud noises and light outside the entrance to his shell.
“Dad, Dad! Look, I found some snails by the cabbages!”
“Oh, you did? Kill ‘em. Those scummy things are everywhere, eating all of your Dad’s veges.”
Minseok does what all snails do, withdrawing even further into his shell and hoping they’ll leave him alone. He’ll only get the salt treatment if he comes out. He can hear Sehun screeching in terror beside him.
“Huh? Kill them? But Dad, they’re just snails!”
“I’m teaching you how to look after a garden, son. If you don’t want all your leaves eaten then you gotta kill the pests. Just sprinkle a little bit of salt on them and they start bubbling up like the dirty rotten creatures they are…”
“Dad! Don’t be so mean to them! What if they’re just lost?”
There is a scoffing noise. “It’s a snail, for heaven’s sake, it can’t get lost.”
“I’m going to move them into the bushes, so don’t kill them, okay? Promise me!”
A deep sigh follows. “You’re a strange kid, Lu. Hurry up then, go put them in the bushes.”
!