woo, so this is something i shit out late at night. its kinda gross and theres small mentions of blood. its a comedy (or attempt at one) though, so its not graphic or anything. just a heads up. also important: this is very headcanon heavy. in this fuuta is non-binary and i used they/them pronouns in reference to them in story. also fran is a trans boy, and this is slightly referenced. neither headcanon has any real ""relevancy"" to the story, but i wanted to include them so i did lol. dont comment telling me you dont like my headcanon, i dont care lmao. there's also slight mention of a female oc, but she isnt relevant. at least, not in this story lol
"C'mon Lambo, it's not that bad." I-Pin said, stomach twisting at the obvious lie.
She couldn't tell her friend the truth, though. It'd shatter him; he's been staring at the mirror since they woke up this morning, eyes completely fixed on one point on his forehead.
Lambo had a zit.
"You're lying; you know I can tell when you're lying." He's distraught, close to tears yet again. His fingers prod at the tender, red skin surrounding the pus filled bump.
"Stop touching it." I-Pin swats his hands away from his face. "It'll just get worse. C'mon, just wash your face and cover it with your bangs, no one will notice."
He pouts a bit but does as he's told, brushing his bangs to cover the spot as soon as his face was dry. He blinks at his reflection. "Maybe... maybe people really won't notice."
She smiled and grabbed his shoulders, squeezing a little courage into them. "Of course they won't, it's such a tiny little thing. And we're on break anyways, it's not like anyone from school will see you."
"You're right." Lambo smiles, allowing his best friend to lead him out the restroom and downstairs for breakfast. "And I guess no one in the family will make fun of it. Right?"
"Right." I-Pin says firmly, squeezing his shoulders again. "You're home, with your loving family that would never make fun of you for your physical appearance. You've got nothing to worry about."
She releases her grip on him and heads into the kitchen ahead of him. "Uh oh."
Her arm flies out, preventing Lambo from taking a step into the kitchen and stares at the familiar bent figure digging around in their fridge.
Finding something that pleased him, the figure straightened up, revealing a head of green hair.
"Lambo," I-Pin whispers, pushing him back with one arm. "Go back upstairs."
"You're right."
He turns to sneak up the stairs but is stopped by Fran lazily calling out to him. "Not gonna say hi?"
Lambo's lip quivers. "Please, Fran-"
"Shut up and turn around." There's a sick smile spread on Fran's face, cold delight in his eyes.
"Don't be too mean, Fran." I-Pin gives him a warning glare that he ignores.
"C'mon, Lammypoo, turn around; let's see it." Fran orders, placing his elbows on the back of one of the chairs at the dinner table, swirling a bottle of Fuuta's favorite marble soda in his hand.
Lambo clenches his fists and turns around, eyes trained on the floor. He takes a deep breath and looks up, moving his bangs just as Fran took another swig from the bottle.
Fran spits out his drink.
"Holy fuck, what kinda mountain is your face giving birth to?" he says, as he wipes a mixture of spit and soda off his chin with the back of his hand.
"Shut up!" Lambo's eyes are watering, he stomps his foot in frustration, hands flying up to cover the blemish. "I-Pin! You told me it wasn't that big!"
"It's not; I promise!"
"No, no, it is big. God, that thing is fucking magnificent." Fran sets down his half-empty bottle of soda to come around the table and cup Lambo's cheeks, moving the other boy's head to get a better look at the object in question. "It's like a work of art. It's right where Harry Potter's lightning scar is."
Fran let out a fake gasp. "You're like an alternate universe Harry where Voldemort is living in his head instead of Quirrell's."
"He does have the hair and eyes for it." I-Pin mutters.
"Both of you leave me alone!"
"Lemme pop it for you." Fran offers suddenly, one of his twitchy little hands moving towards Lambo's forehead.
"NO! You'll make it worse!"
"I pop Fuuta's all the time. C'mere, let your dear brother Franny get that for you."
"You're not my brother." Lambo's nose wrinkles with disgust.
Fran's lips pout, but it doesn't fit the rest of his otherwise inexpressive face. He puts his hands on his chest, acting like a heartbroken mother. "Wow. Am I not part of the Family?"
"You're only Varia, that's not enough to treat you like a brother." Lambo slaps his cheeks a bit, glad to be out of Fran's grasp. "You'll have to marry into the main family or fix your attitude for that. Both of which are impossible."
Fran thinks for a moment before glancing at I-Pin. "Care for a quick marriage of convenience?"
"Hell no."
"Then," he glances up the stairs behind Lambo. "Fuuta, marry me."
"Maybe if things don't work out with Cassie." they reply as they reach the bottom of the stairs, adjusting the athletic bag on their shoulder.
"Fuuta, don't encourage him. He's being mean to Lambo." I-Pin protests.
Fuuta sighs. "What's going on no-Oh my God!" their worn out reply is cut by their own worried crooning. They gently cup Lambo's chin and tilt his head up. "Oh, you poor thing, that must hurt, it's a big one."
"Fuuta!" Lambo shoves their hand away and starts crying.
"Aw, don't be upset, Lambo." they squeeze his shoulder before pulling out their phone. "Fran and I are meeting friends at the pool, but when I come home we'll put some astringent on it, okay?"
I-Pin looks at Fran and his thin, white shirt, disliking how flat everything looked. "You're going to the pool?"
Fran covers his chest with his arms and sniffs at her. "I've got a swim top on underneath. It's not like I'm getting in the water, anyways."
"What? Then why are you coming?" Fuuta asks, opening the front door for him.
Fran snatches his soda off the kitchen table and makes his way through the door. "To cockblock you and Cassie."
Lambo's playing The Sims on the living room couch when his vision suddenly goes black.
He grabs around where his face should be and feels more than a couple somethings in what appeared to be a plastic bag. Pushing it away, he tilted his head and looked up at I-Pin, who smiled back down at him. "Can I help you?" he asked.
"No, but I can help you." She easily hops over the back of the couch and lands neatly beside him. She sets down the shopping back in between them and starts digging around in it. "I looked on the internet for ways to cure acne and found a whole bunch of DIY face masks we can try together. I got all the stuff for it."
Lambo looks in the bag and wrinkles his nose for the second time that day. "Is that milk?" he asks, sticking a hand in the back and rummaging through it. "A tomato?"
"I hear it works wonders!" I-Pin grabs the bag of 'goodies' in one hand and lightly smacks her friend's arm with the other before jumping onto her feet. "Let's do it; we have the kitchen and house all to ourselves with Bianchi out on a job and Mama on vacation."
"Alright, alright." he turns to save his game and notices his whole Sim mansion was on fire from the pancakes Sim-Lambo was trying to make. Sim-Lambo's husband, Oki, was not able to make it out due to a dirty plate on the floor. "Fuck! I-Pin, you made me kill my husband."
"That's not my fault." she says breezily, walking towards the kitchen. "You were a negligent spouse."
After mourning his husband for a good 10 minutes and taking an hour to create a new one, they get straight to work.
Lambo's sitting on the countertop, butt numb and back aching from not having moved in a couple hours.
"I-Pin, are we almost done?" he whined, straightening up and sighing in relief as he felt his back pop.
"Just one more mask!" She cuts a tomato in half and scoops a bunch of its guts up with her hand.
Lambo looks at his best friend, wary. Around the fourth or fifth mask, she stopped applying them to her own face. He was a little peeved he'd be the only one smelling like milk and spaghetti, but he doesn't whine (too much) because he knows she's just trying to help.
He reminds himself, over and over, that I-Pin is just trying to help as she slaps a glob of tomato on one side of his forehead before spreading it onto his face child.
"Simmmmbaaaaa." she whispers, earning herself a kick on the knee.
"I knew it; you're just playing around, aren't you."
"No, just because I'm having a little fun doesn't mean I'm not taking this seriously." She rubs her elbow on her laptop's mousepad to wake it up and squints at the home remedy site they were using.
She smiles, pushes away some stray hairs in her face with the back of her hand, and heads towards the sink.
"You keep that on for just five hours and then we just have to rinse it off."
Lambo threw his head back and groaned, wincing only a little when he smacks his head on the cabinet. "What am I supposed to do for 5 hours?" he asks, sliding off the counter.
I-Pin shrugs, wiping her hands with a dish towel. "We can play games, watch a movie, maybe bake something?"
She tosses the dish towel and grabs a disposable shower cap from the finally empty shopping bag. She holds it up to his head, eyeballing some kind of measurement, and cuts the top off with some kitchen scissors left behind from mask #37.
"We've probably got until Fuuta get back, hopefully not with Fran, so we should probably start with cleaning the kitchen."
She pulls what's left of the shower cap over the top of his head and snaps the band right where his eyebrows start, making a weird plastic sweatband.
"Figures, you torture me and then have me clean up the evidence."
I-Pin smiles even brighter, grabbing the rest of the tomato and dropping it into Lambo's hands, before chirping, "That's how a good assassin works."
When Fuuta (and, unfortunately, Fran, who immediately runs into the kitchen to rummage through the fridge and cabinets) return, Lambo and I-Pin are curled up watching the Lion King, I-Pin's head in Lambo's lap because she doesn't want her hair to be anywhere near his forehead at the moment.
"You two look comfy." Fuuta comments, though their eyes are locked onto Lambo's tomato-band. "I don't know if I get the new look you're going for with that headband, though."
Lambo yawns, blinking away some sleepy tears. "It's a face mask. Or, at least, that's what I-Pin's been telling me."
I-Pin rolls over onto her stomach to welcome Fuuta properly. "We're on treatment hour four right now. The website says it's supposed to stay on for five."
"No it doesn't." Fran walks in from the kitchen, balancing I-Pin's laptop on his arm and a popsicle in his mouth.
"Hey, get off my laptop, you nosy-" I-Pin rolls off the couch onto the floor and scrambles over to reclaim her laptop.
Fran holds it just out her reach. "It says you only have to have it on for five minutes. Do you not have your contacts on or something?"
Lambo jumps up and snatches the laptop out of Fran's hands. There it is in black and white: "Let it rest on the affected area for five minutes before rinsing."
He drops the computer, and I-Pin barely has time to snatch it out of the air. He's frozen, screaming a bit on the inside. Fuuta pulls him into a hug.
"I'm sure leaving it on longer won't make it worse." They bury their face in Lambo's curls and sniff a bit. "And, if it makes you feel better, you smell a little like Mama's special lasagna. It's a good smell."
Lambo cries in Fuuta's arms.
"Will this really work, Fuuta?"
"No." Fran answers from his place on Fuuta's bed, not looking up from the magazine in his hands.
"Yes." Fuuta sends Fran a glare before returning to their work, dabbing an astringent soaked cotton ball on what Fran has 'affectionately' dubbed Mount Fuji Junior. "Yes, it will. I use it on my zits all the time."
Lambo sits with his back against Fuuta's bed, his forehead still stained orange and his hair still smelling like Nana's lasagna after thirteen baths and one very hot shower.
He's exhausted. His face, aside from the patch of skin surrounding Junior, tingled from being scrubbed so much. Lambo wasn't in the mood for any more nonsense or lies.
"Fran says he pops them for you."
"Puddin', you're not supposed to tell people that!" Fuuta snapped, glaring at Fran who still couldn't be bothered to look up.
Fran drawls as he takes a quiz on what kind of cupcake he is, "Shy about your zits, Starboy? Are you being a good example for this impressionable and insecure baby boy here? You were just telling him that no one's going to care about a little pimple."
Fuuta coughs a bit before turning their attention back on Lambo, their ears burning. Quickly, they put on their most adult face and continue dabbing astringent all over Junior. "Because it's the truth, no one cares about a little pimple-" Lambo wonders if they care about a giant one. "-like this. And I don't let Fran pop mine. He does it himself when I'm not paying attention."
"God, I wish the two of you weren't paying attention right now." Fran flips the page in his magazine and studies a page on hot yoga. "Junior's looking pretty ripe right now."
"Fran! I told you not to name it; you'll get attached." Fuuta scolds him as if they're talking about a stray animal and not a growth on their baby brother's face.
The astringent feels weird on his skin. Hot and cold, a little tingly in a manner different from how the rest of his face is tingling. Lambo tries to poke Junior with his finger, but Fuuta swats it away.
"Don't go touching it now that I've put the astringent on." they say, screwing the cap back on the bottle of astringent and setting it on their desk. "Go to sleep right now, it'll be gone in the morning."
"And if it's not I'll remain hideous forever." Lambo moans melodramatically. Fuuta rolls their eyes and flicks his nose.
"You're not hideous because of some zit. Everyone gets zits-"
"Fran doesn't."
"Okay, everyone who doesn't make deals with cosmic entities and various demons gets zits sometimes. It's just a part of life and growing up and all that dumb gross stuff." Fuuta says, waving their hand a bit at the 'life' part. "No one's ugly for it. And anyone who makes fun of you over something perfectly natural is a real jerk."
They give Fran a pointed look. Fran just shrugs, already knowing he's an asshole.
They roll their eyes and take Lambo's hand, squeezing it. "It'll be gone by morning. And even if it isn't, no one in this house will make fun of you for it."
"Promise?" Lambo asks, squeezing back. He feels a bit like a baby, clinging to Fuuta's hand like this, but he needs the comfort.
"Promise." Fuuta says, letting go of Lambo's hand and ruffling his hair. They don't stop until Lambo starts laughing.
Placing a quick on the top of Lambo's head, they swat his back, signalling him to get up. They smile at him as he moves to the door and they move towards the bed.
With one quick yank, Fran's sprawled on the ground and Fuuta's tucked under their covers, shooing Lambo away with a warm look and a single word. "Bed."
Lambo smiled back, hopeful, and made his way out.
He closed the door behind him, saying goodnight to Fuuta just before shutting it completely.
Lambo stares at the mirror, blank faced.
It's still there. Not only that, but it's bigger, filled with more pus. He swore he felt that part of his face pulsate, like the thing was just itching to blow.
He's disheartened to the point that he can't even cry.
He washes and dries his face, noticing how red the skin around Junior was, before steeling his nerves and walking downstairs.
"Good morning, Lam-" Bianchi stops mid sentence to give Lambo and Junior an expressionless stare. She hadn't seen him since four days ago and seeing he had such a large new 'friend' was a bit of a shock.
She sets her spatula down and turns off the stove gas, and they both just stare at each other and have a brief moment of silence. Neither of them are particularly religious, but they both send a quick prayer for him, knowing Fran was probably upstairs right then waking up with a fresh mind ready to talk a lot of shit.
"Lambo, did your zit go-" I-Pin immediately shuts her mouth when she slides in front of Lambo and sees his face.
She joins them in prayer.
Lambo hears Fuuta and Fran leave Fuuta's room before they even make it to the stairs and quietly seats himself at the breakfast table. I-Pin follows suit, sliding into the seat in front of him.
Fuuta and Fran are joking about something when they're coming down the stairs, but they're caught in the dreaded silence as soon as they entered the kitchen.
"Dear God, who fucking died in here?" Fran asks as he moves to get a drink from the fridge behind I-Pin.
Fuuta takes the seat beside Lambo and sighs when they see Junior still present on his face. They clear their throat, readying it yell at Fran at any moment's notice.
Fran slams the fridge shut with Fuuta's favorite milk drink in hand and turns around, meeting Junior's gaze.
He tears his eyes away for a moment and locks eyes with Fuuta before screwing his eyes shut.
"I'm not going to say anything." He seats himself and just sips at his drink.
That's when Lambo wails, covering his face with his hands.
"L-Lambo, he didn't even say anything!" Fuuta doesn't understand what's happening anymore, and they pull a bit away from Lambo, worried he'll go back to his childhood coping mechanisms and fire the Ten Year Bazooka or throw a grenade.
"Exactly. It's so big and ugly that even Fran has nothing to say about it."
He slams his head on the table and something Squish, pop!'s.
He freezes, going silent in an instant.
Everyone knew what just happened.
"Oh. My. God." Fran whispers into his drink.
Lambo lets out a labored breath as Fuuta comes around behind him and places their hands on his shoulders.
Swallowing their spit, Fuuta pulls Lambo into a sitting position. A mix of blood and watery pus Pop!'d as Lambo's skin was pulled from the table, a nasty red puddle the size of a baby's fist sat where his forehead once did.
I-Pin gagged and pushed away from the table. She looked at her best friend before echoing Fran's words. "Oh. My. God."
Junior sat on Lambo's face, half-flat and leaking.
They all were silent for a while, just staring at each other, at Lambo, at Junior.
Fran, of course, is the first one to speak. "Well, now you have to let me pop it."
"No." Fuuta lets go of Lambo's shoulders to rush around the table and pinch Fran's cheeks. "You were mean to him yesterday, so now you don't get to pop the big zit. Bianchi can do it since I-Pin looks sick and I have to keep you away."
"Bianchi doesn't want to mess with something that gross. Just lemme do it." Fran's words slurred from the way Fuuta's tugging at his cheek.
"No, I'll do it." Bianchi says, cracking her knuckles as she walks up to Lambo. "The pus may make a good ingredient."
I-Pin darts out the kitchen towards the bathroom. She could handle the stench emitted from Gyouza Ken; she could handle being an assassin and taking the lives of many, their faces burned forever in her mind; but she could not handle the thought of someone eating Mount Fuji Junior.
As his best friend threw up in the bathroom and Fran and Fuuta argued in the corner and Bianchi milked Junior into a small bottle, Lambo sat in thought.
'Next time,' he thinks to himself. 'I'll cover it up with makeup.'
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