Inspired by the Love Potion AU from Amphibia
The pink liquid shimmered.
Ruby smiled as she held the vial in her fingers. Love potion. That was what it was. A secret spice, the key to the heart of the one she loved.
And now she would have it.
She smiled. It looked so pretty in its glass, pretty and pink and glowing in the dim light around her. She giggled. Weiss was in her heart, and now with this, Ruby would be in hers.
Goodness, it was just like the fairy tales, wasn't it? So sweet and innocent in her hands. She always was a sucker for the romantic tales of old, sue her.
She tipped the lip of the vial into the plate of food before her. A single drop left the vial and tapped onto the food. It glowed a gentle pink before fading away.
That would be enough.
Ruby picked up the plate and delivered it to Weiss. She smiled as she watched her partner eat it without a second thought.
Now all she had to do was wait.
Ruby could see no change in Weiss.
There were no sudden looks, no flushed blushes, no hidden touch of the hand or thigh. Nothing.
Ruby was starting to think that something had gone wrong. Maybe the potion didn't work? Shame.
She'd soon get her answer.
Weiss seemed warm.
Uncomfortably so, even. Did she have a fever? The redness of her face seemed to say so as Ruby climbed down from her bed to see her partner writhing and squirming in hers. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead. Her eyes were scrunched closed.
Ruby was confused. Was this a symptom of the love potion? Strange, but she wasn't going to start panicking over it. It might be normal for it to do something like that.
Instead, she clamped her hand around Weiss' shoulder in an effort to comfort her, and Weiss' hands suddenly shot up and clamped around them.
"Stay," she muttered drearily.
Ruby paused, before smiling and nodding.
They stayed like that the whole night.
The night turned to day, and something turned in Weiss.
She became just a little clingier, a little more affectionate. Stray touches of her hands or sides, a blushing face whenever their eyes met. Small things like that.
Ruby smiled. The potion was working.
The small little gestures began to grow bigger and bigger. Holding hands. Red faces. Closeness. Soft eyes and softer expressions. Even the littlest things - a wave here, a smile there - were enough to set Weiss off into a blushing mess.
Ruby's friends and teammates all looked to Weiss and Ruby's newfound interactions with smiles and raised eyebrows. The smiles she understood, the raised eyebrows she did not.
But that was nothing to worry about. Not compared to what happened next.
Weiss confessed her love to her.
Ruby said yes.
They were met with thunderous applause.
The days turned to nights and back to days again.
Each night, Ruby and Weiss would hug and share their love through words. No kisses, no anything else. Not yet. Weiss seemed to be eager to get to those stages, but Ruby wasn't. Not yet. She didn't feel comfortable enough yet.
Weiss was alright with that. She seemed to be very open to suggestion now. Weird. Maybe it was a lingering effect of the potion. It would fade in time, surely.
(Surely?)
Weiss hugged Ruby. Ruby hugged her back and-
Hm?
She pulled something out of Weiss' hair.
A pink petal? How did that get in there?
Weiss' eyes seemed to be a shade pinker.
Ruby was sure she was just imagining it, but they did seem a little less blue now. She did seem tired, though. Ruby ordered her to get some more sleep.
Another petal fell out of her hair.
Ruby searched up and down Beacon for any signs of a tree with pink petals. There were the red trees of Forever Falls, but no pink petal trees. No pink petal trees anywhere in Vale, even.
She tried the flowerbeds next. There were pink flowers there, but Weiss and Ruby had never been down to the flowerbeds. She should know. Weiss had been at her side ever since their relationship had begun. There was no way that she could've got any rose petals in her hair from here.
Ruby sighed as she wormed into her bed and drifted off to sleep. She had questions without any answers. The worst kind.
The next morning, Ruby woke up with a soreness between her wet legs. It made her feel incredibly uncomfortable, and she had no idea what to make of it.
The petals continued to fall from Weiss' hair. She began to grow sick. She was suffering from a fever.
She was transferred over to the infirmary. Ruby fretted over her constantly.
When it was time to change her sheets in order to prevent any possible infection from spreading to the rest of her team, Ruby's eyes widened at the shocking discovery.
Flowers.
Pink flowers, blooming from the sheets as if they were being grown from them.
Dozens of them.
Ruby plucked the flowers and burnt the sheets.
Ruby kept the flowers close to her, studying them and trying to understand what was going on.
Her teammates seemed to be a little tired. They must've caught whatever it was that Weiss had caught.
Pink flowers. Pink flowers. What the heck had caused-
The love potion!
Ruby darted into the kitchen and pulled open the drawer, pushing aside all the spices and stuff that she had used to hide it and-
The shimmering pink liquid was gone.
Ruby ran up and down the school, trying to find where the love potion had got to.
She had come up with nothing.
She was panicking. She had no idea where the love potion had gone, who had taken it, and why.
The air in Beacon smelt funny.
Yang and Blake had taken ill as well. Pink petals were falling out of their hair. They were coughing and spluttering.
They refuse to get into separate beds. They clung to each other like their lives depended on it.
Maybe it did.
The smell was beginning to worsen. It was sweet, yet with something else hidden underneath it.
Pink flowers were beginning to bloom.
More people were taking ill.
Ruby's crotch and thighs were sore again.
What was going on?
Yang and Blake were rutting each other in the bed. They wouldn't stop. They couldn't. Ruby couldn't sleep from the noise. When she tried to tell them to stop, they didn't listen. It was like they couldn't hear her.
They didn't even notice her as she pulled the covers off of their nude forms and-
Blisters ran over their bodies. It was like their skin was splitting open like flowers. Fleshy pink petals dripped off their bodies like they were shedding skin. The scabbing flesh in the middle of the ruptures hardened into flower buds that leaked blood. Their bodies were smeared in sweat and red.
Ruby screamed. Neither of them noticed.
She ran down the hallways of Beacon. Students were taking ill. Some of them were rutting each other in public as their skin ruptured, blossomed, and leaked blood. Others were slump down on the floor or against the walls, leaving red stains behind them. None of them were dead, but at this point, anything could happen.
She made her way to the infirmary and pried the doors open. The nurses and doctors were in the same positions as the students. The patients were in their beds screaming and writhing. Red stains covered everything as growths covered their bodies.
She turned her head to Weiss' bed. She wished she hadn't.
Her body was covered in fleshy pink flowers. Tree like growths grew out of her body and reached the ceiling as sickly-looking bark covered her skin. Pores covered them as the flowers let out some kind of pheromone. That must've been the source of the strange smell. Them and the pink flowers.
Weiss sat upwards. A bloody print was left on her bed. She turned her head to Ruby and opened her eyes. They were a deep, dull pink.
Ruby dropped all pretences and asked her where the love potion had gone.
Weiss smiled. She said that she wanted everyone to feel the same love she did.
A dozen hands grabbed Ruby.
She screamed again.
Ruby ran through the hallways once more, a panic to her. The smell in the air was getting stronger and stronger and she felt weaker and weaker. She kept going regardless.
She barged into JNPR's room to hide from the dozen people following her.
In the middle of the room was Jaune at a table, writing something into what must've been a letter. Or a will. His clothes were red with his own blood. He was panting intensely as his skin blistered open like flowers. He looked so sick. Ren and Nora were in the corner clinging and moving against each other. They looked like they were merging. Someone was banging on the bathroom door.
Ruby asked Jaune what was going on. He laid hunched over the table as he got out that Ren and Nora hadn't stopped clinging to each other. He was pretty sure they were moulding into each other. Pyrrha had tried to... do things to him, so he had locked her in the bathroom. Blood leaked out from beneath the door into a pool. He was barely clinging onto his mind as it was now. Writing his thoughts down helped him cling to what little of his mind he had left.
He was pretty sure he was dying.
Ruby cried. This was all her fault. This was all, all, all her fault. Jaune asked her what was going on as he whimpered from his eye splitting open like a flower. So did one of his teeth. He coughed up a bloody pink petal.
"I... gave something to Weiss."
"?"
"I... I wanted Weiss to recognise my feelings for her, but I... I didn't know how to but- but then I came across something! A love potion! Something that would make sure that she really fell for me like I wanted her to!"
"Ruby."
"I-I didn't know that all of this would happen, I just- I just wanted Weiss to see me like I see her, and she did! She did, after I gave her the potion!"
"You drugged her?!"
"I- no! It was a potion, not a drug! It was... it was a potion!"
"Ruby, how- how could you? You wanted to get closer to the love of your life, so you decided to date rape her?!"
"It's not-!"
"You drugged her and forced your feelings onto her without her consent! That's the definition of-"
Jaune screamed. He fell to the floor. His skin splattered blood.
"Can't... can't..."
"J-Jaune?"
"Ruby, you need to... get away from me."
"I can't just-"
"Ruby, my mind is breaking, and I can't- I keep... feeling things! Things I don't want to do, things that I'd rather die than do, and if you're still here, then you need to go before I... before I do something horrible."
The door to the bathroom broke down. Pyrrha stepped out. Fleshy bark and wooden twigs protruded from her body as it blistered like flowers and wept blood onto the floor. Her teeth and eyes were split open. Her voice was all snarls and growls. She was an abomination.
"Go."
The thing that was once Pyrrha threw herself onto Jaune and dug its claws into him. It tore up clothing and began to peel the flesh from his body. Jaune screamed as he lost the last of his mind, and Ruby ran.
In a panic, she locked herself in her room. Jaune's screams echoed through the walls alongside a chorus of others. She didn't want to think about what was happening to all of them.
The bunkbeds had collapsed. Fleshy rungs of trees and flowers were spread across the walls and floor. It all seemed to pulsate like a body.
Before Ruby could even collapse and cry, she realised her mistake.
Two bodies emerged from the fleshy trunks, as if they had merged with the flesh itself and had just come out of the womb. Yang and Blake. Their skin was mottled with bark and flowers. Tree limbs protruded from their backs. Their eyes were pink, and their bodies smeared with their own weeping blood. Their feet were connected to the flesh beneath them. The room was suddenly filled with a pink pheromone.
Ruby tried to escape, but the trees and flesh beneath her wrapped around her body and held her still. Behind her, the door was pulled open. The thing that was once Weiss, now covered in chitinous-like bark and bloody, blistering flowers, and a wild grin with cracked lips that let loose worming roots punctures by bloody skin flower buds. Her eyes were a solid shade of pink. No iris, no pupil, nothing but pink. She was crying blood.
The branches around her began to push themselves against her skin. They were like needles. They made her flesh crawl.
Weiss' mouth opened with, and Ruby was confronted by a salivating maw of sharpened teeth, broken and bristled like claws. Yang and Blake opened their mouths to the same. Ruby suddenly realised why her legs had felt so horrible before.
She screamed and squirmed, but the branches just kept holding her down. Two of them held her mouth open and began to spread roots and growths down her throat and through her body, wrapping around her heart like a vice. She cried as she felt the inside of her mouth begin to bristle and blossom into flowers, from her tongue to her teeth. Her mouth began to fill with blood.
The thing that was once Weiss leant over and raked a clawed hand across her cheek. It left a trail of bloody scars behind it.
"LeT Me ShOw yOu mY LovE, rUby rOSe."
They sunk their teeth into her skin. The branches around her burst into her flesh like knives.
Ruby screamed, and the world went pink.
THE PINK WORLD SHIMMERED.
EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE THAT WAS ONCE IN BEACON WAS NOW JOINED TOGETHER. UNITED TOGETHER. HELD TOGETHER. THE ROOTS OF LOVE AND THE FLOWERS OF PASSION NOW BLOSSOMED AND BLOOMED ACROSS THE OLD ARCHITECTURE AND TOWERS, SPREADING THEIR LUSTFUL POLLEN ACROSS THE REST OF THE WORLD IN LOVELY CLOUDS OF ROSE.
EVERYONE STOOD TOGETHER, UNITED AS ONE. THEIR MINDS MELDED INTO ONE SINGULAR CONSCIOUSNESS, YET THEMSELVES AS INDIVIDUAL AS EVER. THEIR SOULS WERE POINTED TO ONE GOAL IN THE ROOTS OF THE GREAT TREE, THEIR CONSCIOUSES LINKED TOGETHER TOWARDS THE UNITY THROUGH LOVE THAT THEY ALL WISHED TO SHARE THROUGH THE NECTER, THEIR POTIONS.
AT THE TOP OF THE TREE SAT RUBY AND WEISS, THEIR HANDS AND BODIES AND BEINGS WEDDED TOGETHER, SHARING A BODY AND MIND AND HEART WITH SO MANY OTHERS, THEIR LOVE SPREAD OUT AND SHARED WITH ALL.
THEY LAUGHED.
THEY LOVED.
Ruby cried.
THEY WERE AS ONE.
FOREVER, AND EVER.
...Well, that went in a direction that I never expected it to go.
For real though, I hope you all enjoyed this twisted little tale. As said before, this one-shot was inspired by the 'Love Potion AU' from the Amphibia fandom, though with my own little dark take on it.
(I almost said 'Owl' instead of 'Own'. I've also been getting into The Owl House recently. I've been sucked into two fandom rabbit holes at the same time. Send help. And a ladder. I can't get out on my owl- own. Goddammit.)
Seriously though, this fic went in a whole different direction than I had originally expected, but I had always wanted this fic to be a horror thing. The reason as to why is because I was recently thinking to myself:
Love potions are really creepy.
Like, seriously, in anime and old stories, love potions are always depicted as this really romantic thing and treated as the secret gateway into a person's heart. But when you put some thought into it, you're essentially drugging your love interest against her will and consent, pushing your feelings onto her, and then engaging in relations with her which she would never have consented to in the first place.
Date rape, essentially.
Yeah, love potions are seriously fucked up when you really consider it.
So, this was my little way of applying a bit of that horror into the concept of love potions. Deconstructing the entire idea of love potions, I guess. Not sure if I was successful in that regard, though. Again, this went in a whole different direction than I had originally planned - my hand just kept typing and typing, you know how it is - but you know what? I still like it. I'm still going to keep it.
And if it comes out just in time for Halloween (as of the time of writing this), then all the better.
If I had to write it any other way, I would've had Weiss going yandere over Ruby and killing everyone that got close to her, from Yang to Blake to Jaune and so on. A real 'Be careful what you wish for' scenario. But you know what? If anyone else wants to pick that idea up, then please do. I encourage you - hell, I implore you.
But anyways, with all of that said and done, please favourite and leave a review, stay safe, stay healthy, have a wonderful Halloween, and I shall see you all next time!
Titanmaster 117 out!