Roots and Oxygen

Chapter 23 - Epipremnum Aureum

Sage woke on his side, facing his silk cushions, with odd thoughts in his head. He rolled onto his back and something moved next to his bed. Sage's head snapped up immediately. Taro sat on his bedside table, tapping the ends of his fingers and frowning down at him with worry.

"Tell me about your dreams," Taro said as Sage sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"My dreams?" As sage yawned, strange thoughts of green moving tattoos popped into his head, then vines streaming from Taro's fingers, then Taro turning into a plant. "I had the most ridiculous dreams." Sage then noticed the peculiar setting in his room. Taro sat on his bedside table. "Wait." Taro wore a golden shirt with rolled up sleeves, showing vine tattoos wrapping around his forearms.

"They weren't dreams," Taro said, linking his fingers. "I think you know that."

Sage started pacing. He didn't speak for a long time. Taro's doubtful green eyes followed him back and forth until Sage paused by his window. He looked beyond the green fields and to the distant line of a blue ocean. He moved from foot to foot, then paced again.

Taro offered no explanations, but Sage didn't need them. He had seen him transform with his own eyes. He had seen the vines grow from his arms, he had witnessed the supernatural glow and the way the plant transformed back into his Valet.

"What are you?" he asked when he caught Taro smirking.

"You look peaky." Taro jumped from the bedside table.

Sage slumped on a green armchair by the window, though he teetered on the edge of the cushion, unable to relax. "Explain to me how you're able to... to..."

"Turn into a Devil's Ivy plant?"

Sage nodded. His brows twitched uncomfortably as Taro neared him and sat on the windowsill.

"Well, technically you're alien on our planet, but now is not the time to talk about our histories. First, you just have to accept that I can be a plant as well as a human."

"But why?"

"You just have to accept it."

"I can't."

Taro tilted his head. "Explain to me what you saw me do."

Sage took his time, thinking over and over about the tattoos and the way Taro changed. Every time he tried to say something, he struggled. But Taro waited patiently. Eventually Sage said, "I saw your tattoos move. I saw you change into..." He dropped his head. "I saw you change into a plant." He rested trembling hands on his knees to keep his body up.

"You gonna faint?"

"I don't think so." Sage then frowned as his stomach flopped. He bolted to his bathroom and threw up in the toilet. He slammed the door shut before his Valet entered to witness such a state. "Leave me. I need to think about this alone," Sage yelled.

There was no movement on the other side. Sage held his stomach and pressed his forehead to the dark wood.

"Don't tell anyone," Taro said eventually.

"I won't." They wouldn't believe me if I did. Sage sank to the tiles. Just the thought of the colour green was making him queasy.

"Are you sure you want to be alone?" Taro asked through the large keyhole. "I have answers to your questions. I can help make this make sense- I think."

"How? You're a... you're a fucking plant."

"Not right now I'm not."

Sage rested his head into his palms, thinking of home. He missed his own bed, having some sort of a purpose with his Prince duties, and helping out in the garden. "Does Mrs Beecham know who you are?"