Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shards of glass scatter harshly across the floor as the… Nick? As the freaky-ass looking monster thing throws itself through the nearest window. The explosion of blood decorated the room like it was a bomb, and the group stand frozen as they listen to a strange double-voiced howl echo through the woods, luckily getting more distant.

None of them dare to move but then Ryan mentally shakes himself and remembers that Abigail was just thrown across a fucking room and into the wall. He walks over to her shocked visage, and gingerly takes her shoulder in hand, “Abi? Are you okay?” he tries to catch her eyes.

Maybe the question seemed redundant, but he needs to know if she is seriously hurt.

She slowly slides her eyes over to him and minutely nods before she seizes and says, “I killed him.” Her eyes quickly flit between everyone as she repeats brokenly, “I think I killed him.”

“No, Abi, there was definitely something seriously wrong with Nick before you shot him,” Kaitlyn pipes up looking at Abigail imploringly.

Ryan nods in agreement enthusiastically, still holding Abigail’s shoulder he asks, “you’re sure you’re okay? Like, physically, because you hit that wall really hard.” Abigail nods with more confidence this time and Ryan is satisfied with the answer as he lets go of her shoulder and turns to the other two. He sees Kaitlyn is now fussing over Dylan’s bandaged stump, Dylan resolutely stares at a blood-less spot on the wall. The soft sound of the rain and their breathing is the only thing that fills the silence.

“Do you think he’ll come back? For me—for us?” Abigail’s panicked voice cuts through jarringly, she begins to fidget and frantically look back and forth between the pool house’s windows. The others look up with renewed concern as they contemplate the possibility.

He needs to say something before everyone starts freaking out, first Dylan loses a hand and now Abigail is nearly killed by… whatever Nick is now. It’s up to him and Kaitlyn to figure this mess out now. He swallows before choosing his next words carefully.

“Okay…” he pauses, she may be right but he can’t afford to entertain the notion and incite panic, “I don’t think so, he was pretty desperate to get out of here, we at least have some time to think.”

Ryan can feel everyone’s eyes following him as he picks the discarded shotgun up off the floor and carefully hands it to Kaitlyn. “Can you check that? Make sure it’s loaded still,” she looks at him for just a moment and accepts the gun carefully, she takes it over to one of the benches and methodically checks it over. The air is heavy and Ryan notices Dylan’s uncharacteristic silence. He looks over to see Dylan staring at his stump, his expression lost, and Ryan feels his stomach drop a little. For the first time, guilt starts to roar through his mind. He almost wants to say something but he doesn’t know where to begin.

Dylan catches him staring, he momentarily looks in alarm at whatever he sees in Ryan’s expression, and immediately shifts to a more casual stance, “it—it’s okay. It,” a breathy laugh escapes him, “doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks…” A reflexive frown on Dylan’s face destroys whatever validity that statement had.

Kaitlyn has finished with the shotgun and looks over at Dylan, unimpressed. Imperiously, with one eyebrow raised, “that’s because adrenaline is probably blocking out most of the pain, but it only works for a little while,” her eyes shift over to Ryan accusingly, “and I don’t see a tourniquet, so we probably need to do something about that,” she finishes, her expectant gaze on Ryan burns.

Ah… fuck, she is definitely right. Ryan’s feels a flare of panic as her words sink in. There was a lot of blood on the floor of the radio hut, and it was all Dylan’s. Okay, they need to leave. Now.

He takes a deep breath, “Okay.” They all turn to look at him, “we need to get out of this pool house and somewhere actually safe, like the lodge.”

Kaitlyn immediately objects, “Ryan, we’re here because this hunter guy chased us out of the lodge! We didn’t just come up the path for no reason.” Dylan and Ryan share a look as Abigail nervously hums in agreement, she’d taken to standing away from the doors and windows.

Ryan sighs. Okay, he needs to convince Kaitlyn or this will fall apart. “The lodge has some first aid supplies, and we’re just not gonna find that stuff anywhere else,” he argues as he gestures helplessly towards Dylan, to which Dylan shifts around uncomfortably in response and mumbles unintelligibly.

She deflates a little, and he presses on, “plus, we have one shotgun still at least, so we’re not defenseless.” He raises his eyebrows at her, waiting, and she relents with a defeated sigh.

She huffs, “goddamnit, fine, we are just shit out of luck today.” She gets up and starts pacing around the pool house, hand tight on the shotgun strap.

Ryan nods to her thankfully and he’s momentarily buoyed by the victory, until he remembers that there’s at least two hyper-lethal unnatural animals out there. He steels his resolve. “Alright, Kaitlyn, you’ll take the lead and the shotgun since you’re probably better with it than any of us,” he declares to the group as the tension in the room starts to lift the more he talks.

Kaitlyn scoffs, “probably?” She tilts her head at him, but she’s smiling with her hands on her hips.

Ryan starts motioning for the door as everyone begins to gather around, he adds, “we’ll keep Abi and Dylan in the middle, I’ll bring up the rear.”

Ryan is not even remotely surprised when he hears Dylan’s shameless chuckle, “aye aye, captain,” complete with a mock salute. Something warm stirs in his chest as he stares at Dylan, unimpressed, while Dylan cradles his left arm to chest, smiling nervously and shifting from foot to foot.

Kaitlyn is nice enough to only roll her eyes while Abigail looks at Dylan with something like pity.

“Leaving,” Kaitlyn declares as she swings open the door and the air becomes properly heavy again as group filters out, with Ryan bringing up the rear.

The rain has kept on during their brief stay in the pool house, and it sets a dreary backdrop as they slowly traverse the path away from the cabins. Ryan can feel the chill settling in and he hugs himself for warmth, he looks over Dylan and Abigail and feels a pang of sympathy for their lack of layers. The pace they walk is agonizingly slow, especially considering there’s freakish bear-wolf things loose on campgrounds. But Ryan fears they’ll get lost in the dark and rain’s mist if they hurry, he can’t imagine what they’d do if get lost in these woods right now.

The rain lightly pitter patters against the leaves and foliage surrounding their path, some drops are louder than others and he cringes when he hears a particularly loud one. He trusts Kaitlyn to keep an eye on the path ahead, so he scans the trees in front and behind them obsessively. Every once in a while, he hears a weak twig snap and adrenaline spikes through his body, leaving mild pain in its wake and making his nerves overly energetic.

His mind wanders over to Dylan and he sees the tall boy awkwardly hunching in on himself, left arm held protectively to his chest. Like most intrusive thoughts, the sound of Dylan screaming his throat hoarse replays in his head unbidden. Guilt lances through him once again and he walks closer to Dylan to offer whatever meager protection Ryan’s capable of. He recalls their easy-going conversation from before, Ryan belatedly realizes that it took a life-threatening crisis for the both of them to be truly comfortable around each other. He only wishes it could have happened sooner, and under better circumstances.

None of them talk, for fear of drawing lethal unwanted attention, but Dylan notices Ryan getting closer and gives him a sheepish smile. Ryan lets himself give a small smile back.

The rain is gone, and heavy fog dampens visibility as the lodge comes into view. For the first time in Ryan’s long tenure at Hackett’s Quarry, the lodge doesn’t look so inviting with its dark windows and towering three floors. Kaitlyn, in the lead, raises her shotgun and begins to scan the surrounding area as the group approaches the building. The entire group jumps when the broken-down van rocks in place. Abigail swears under her breath and orients herself towards the back of the group as they all slowly circle around the van, Kaitlyn with her shotgun aimed at the windows. They all trade furtive glances with each other as they approach the driver’s side. Dylan motions towards the driver’s door and Kaitlyn nods at him. With his left arm tucked against his side, he begins to reach out with his remaining hand towards the door handle. Ryan gently puts his hand on Dylan’s arm and pushes it away, at Dylan’s confused look he motions for Dylan to get behind Kaitlyn. Dylan acquiesces, and Ryan steels himself, looks at Kaitlyn once and then swiftly opens the door.

Please don’t be a monster, he begs.

He quickly stumbles away as everyone screams in unison as a high-pitched scream emanates from the car, accompanied by some kind of spray clouding where he once stood.

“Oh…! Ryan?” comes the soft voice of Emma, she takes in the scene in front of her.

Ryan heaves a long-suffering sigh with his hands on his knees. Thank god, he was not actually ready for round two with any unnatural phenomena.

They must paint a pretty picture right now he muses, covered in a curious amount of blood, Abigail and Dylan both hiding behind Kaitlyn, who has dutifully pointed the shotgun at the ground instead of the car. Emma scrambles out of the car and eyes each of them with a shocked smile.

Ryan notices the air freshener still held tightly in her hand and he points to it wordlessly with a skeptical expression on his face.

“Oh! Right, this is all I could find in the van, I believe it must at least have the ability to mildly irritate the eyes of anything dangerous,” she trails off, shrugging.

“Alright, A for effort,” Ryan turns to address the others, “okay so let’s—"

“Uh, Dylan? Your—,” Emma almost reaches out tentatively to touch Dylan’s arm but decides against it. Dylan makes some aborted noise like he’s about to say something but then stops instead.

Ryan feels the need to jump in, but Abigail beats him to it, “a lot has happened, we should really figure out this lodge thing first,” she bounces on her feet and looks about before looking at Emma curiously, “wait—what happened to your clothes?”

Good question, now that Ryan thinks about it.

“I went skinny dipping and lived to regret it,” Emma lets the awkwardness of that statement hang and silently dared any of them, with her eyes, to address it.

Ryan makes the executive decision to get this back on track since they’re just standing around out in the open in this creepy-ass fog right now. Kaitlyn seems to be thinking the same thing too, they share a look, to which Ryan says, “the lodge? See if we can get that other shotgun back?” Kaitlyn nods her agreement. Emma looks confused but falls in line quietly with Dylan and Abigail. Kaitlyn leads once more with Ryan right behind her.

“Here, let me,” Ryan steps to the side of the door and carefully opens it, keeping himself clear of the frame while Kaitlyn stands ready. The doors swing none too quietly on their hinges and it is truly painful as they all wait with bated breath for a moment.

Nothing jumps out at them, nothing tries to rip their collective throats out, and murder hillbillies are nowhere to be seen… so far. But the lodge’s general darkness and quiet has never held more threat than it does now. He hears no creaking of wood, nor growling, and the quiet moment stretches further.

Emma ruins it by frantically shout-whispering, “can we please just go inside?”

Well, he can’t really argue with that, he really feels like a murder attempt probably would’ve happened by now. But, he’s not an expert on this bullshit, so maybe he’s wrong. “Okay Kait, let’s just find the other gun, you remember where you dropped it or…?”

“Yeah,” she sighs heavily. She leads the way forward as the shotgun’s flashlight clears some of the darkness. They quickly locate the discarded shotgun on the ground, moving together carefully and awkwardly about the dark lodge. Try as they might to be quiet, their footsteps feel cacophonous anyway. Kaitlyn makes sure the group stays behind her and they stick close to the walls. She hands Ryan her shotgun and begins checking the other one.

Ryan’s chest lightens as the weight settles in his hands, heavy and reassuring. Now that both him and Kaitlyn are armed, they aren’t utterly defenseless, although… the shotgun didn’t make such a huge difference at the radio hut… He cuts that thought off before it goes any further. He instructs the others to stick by the front door they just went through, telling them, “if you hear a shot go off, just run, preferably towards shelter,” he looks at them all to make sure they understand, they nod their assent and awkwardly hover by the front door while Kaitlyn and him methodically sweep the lodge together.

It takes time, and his nerves are alive the whole time, but eventually they check the entire lodge. Him and Kaitlyn walk confidently back to the others, and they visibly relax once they’re reunited. Kaitlyn practically drags Dylan off to the infirmary while Ryan turns to Emma and Abigail, “I cannot see shit right now,” comes Emma’s eloquent statement to break the silence.

Ryan agrees, “I think we have some candles in the attic, let’s just spread them out.” While Kaitlyn and Dylan are busy in the infirmary, Ryan and the others set about decorating the lodge in soft candlelight. By the end of it, the lodge almost looks inviting again except for the low warm lighting creating strange shadows. Ryan sits for the first time in hours at one of the tables and watches as Emma and Abigail are sitting on the staircase, bumping shoulders while Abigail begrudgingly smiles at whatever Emma just said. It almost… feels peaceful for just a moment.

“Good as new!” Dylan’s yell almost scares Ryan, he looks over to see him walking triumphantly with his arms held out, waving his stump about as if it were amusing.

Emma and Abigail giggle while Kaitlyn gently grabs Dylan’s left arm and affixes it to his chest, “I just told you, keep it above your heart.” She looks at him balefully, and he has the nerve to keep smiling at her anyway.

“Awwww, Kaitlyn, I had no idea you were so nice—,” Dylan begins to lean on her with his left arm hooked over her shoulder, his impish smile reaches his eyes.

She interrupts him, addressing the others with a put-upon sigh, “I gave him painkillers.” She leaves the explanation there and guides him to sit at the table with Ryan while sitting herself down.

Ryan feels an involuntary smile spread across his face as he looks back and forth between the two of them. Dylan washed some of the blood off his face, although his clothes are disturbingly still drenched. His grin is a little dopey and Ryan wouldn’t be surprised if he was still putting up a very strong act right now. Kaitlyn looks cleaned up as well, she has a defensive posture with her arms crossed, but there’s no mistaking the begrudging quirk of her lips at Dylan’s antics as she looks up at the tall boy.

It clicks in Ryan’s head that, here, in this kind of creepy and dimly lit lodge lies an opportunity to piss her off a little bit more. His grin widens and excitement leaks into his voice as he says, “So, since there’s actual scary shit running around, would now be bad time to talk about the Hag of Hackett’s Quarry?”

He barely has the sentence out of his mouth before Dylan’s wide eyes turn to him as he bounces excitedly, chiming in, “ooo! Yes! Tell her about the Hag of Hackett’s Quarry one more time!” Kaitlyn excuses herself from their combined presence as she pushes off the table dramatically, a genuine laugh is surprised out of Dylan and Ryan feels utterly compelled to laugh with him. She didn’t go far, but she glares at the two of them as if they are quite possibly the dumbest things to ever grace planet earth.

Settling into a role, Dylan slaps his remaining hand on the table and asks Ryan in a mock-serious voice, “Ryan, do you think the Hag of Hackett’s Quarry is the source of the strangeness we’ve experienced tonight?” Dylan raises one eyebrow inquisitively at him, his lips begin to twitch as Kaitlyn huffs once more. Ryan would take more pity on her if she didn’t make it so easy.

Before Ryan can say something hopefully witty in response, Kaitlyn interrupts him, “No, Dylan, that’s all you.” She lightly shoves his shoulder and retakes her seat. She looks flatly at Ryan, assigning the blame to him, as Emma and Abigail quietly laugh in the background.

Ryan feels some of the levity drain away as the energy dies down again, although he does note Dylan’s self-satisfied smile as Dylan looks over everyone.

Kaitlyn looks stern, but not unkind, as she says, “So, the van? We can take a look, see if we can get it working and maybe go get help?” The mood turns properly sober again as everyone falls quiet. Ryan folds his hands and leans forward, the two of them seem to have become the improvised leaders of this little merry band and he thinks hard before asking his next question.

“What about Jacob? Where even is he right now?”

She looks away, and he immediately regrets his question, but she answers, “I know. It’s dark as shit out there right now and he is absolutely one hundred percent lost in the woods somewhere right now.” She hunches forward, her eyebrows furrow harshly.

Ryan feels compelled to say something before this gets worse, “If we get the van working, we can bring help back as fast as we can,” he blurts out. She looks unmoved, he continues, “I know Jacob is… Jacob, but there’s a really good chance he’ll try to navigate back towards the lodge,” and she looks up him hesitantly as he presses on, “and if we can’t get the van working, we’ll be looking out for him to come back here.”

Dylan leans towards Kaitlyn, smiling softly he adds, “if a cute, half-naked, beefcake comes running out of the woods, I will be the first to let you know.” He playfully nudges her shoulder with his and she smiles back, her posture relaxes a little. Dylan gets up first, “okay, let’s do this.” Kaitlyn and Ryan follow suit, and they filter out of the lodge.

Ryan’s nerves are all the way back up to one hundred the moment he sets foot outside and is drenched in the humidity. The van sits harmlessly, but they’re all cautious as they approach it. Kaitlyn lifts the hood to inspect the engine, and Ryan pokes his head over the side. As Kaitlyn surveys the engine, Ryan quirks an eyebrow at it, uncomprehending. He looks over at Kaitlyn, impatiently asks her, “I don’t understand, what’s wrong?”

She doesn’t answer at first, she chews the side of her mouth without meeting his eyes and replies, “there’s a part missing, we need a rotor arm.” She nods to herself and closes the hood.

Ryan stares at her flatly and silence follows her statement.

Her eyes flit around, and they eventually land on him. In his peripheral, he can see Dylan looking back and forth between the two of them. Ryan breaks the silence, “it’s missing? Not broken o-or anything, but missing?”

Before she can answer, Dylan asks, “you guys think we’re in, like, a horror movie or something?”

They’re both so bewildered by his question that they both turn their confused stares towards Dylan. He seems unperturbed by it.

“I’m just saying, it’s a classic murder hillbilly move to cut off avenues of escape,” he finishes with a dry expression.

Neither of them deign to respond and Kaitlyn turns back towards Ryan before saying, “there’s a scrapyard up the road, we only need to replace one part, there’s a chance we could find another rotor arm there.”

Ryan decides to let the strangeness of the situation go and nods in agreement. “Okay, Kaitlyn, you stay here with Emma and Abigail,” she huffs at his bossiness but doesn’t object, “I’ll go and try to find this rotor arm thing. Can you describe—”

“Woah woah woah, alone?” Dylan’s indignant tone surprises Ryan and he looks over to see the boy looking at him with disbelief, his eyebrows drawn together derisively. “Dude, c’mon, can we please not be actual horror movie characters and start going places alone?”

“I need Kaitlyn to keep the lodge safe—”

Dylan turns his accusing gaze onto Kaitlyn, “why can’t you go with him?”

She curls a lip at Dylan, “okay, look, you didn’t personally tango with a giant asshole hillbilly. But I did,” her tone dips into hurt disbelief, “we can’t leave the lodge unprotected right now, Dylan.” Ryan looks between them, panicking. Alright time to do something.

“Dylan, buddy,” Dylan’s angry stare softens into concern as he looks at Ryan. For a moment he looks so scared that Ryan pauses to consider his words, “I volunteered, okay?” He hold his arms out placatingly, “plus, there’s no way of knowing the lodge will stay safe, all our options are dangerous no matter what we do, I’m sorry,” he says as sincerely as he can.

There’s a long pause as Ryan and Kaitlyn watch Dylan fidget. He hums in an irritated manner before looking back at Ryan squarely, “I’ll go with you.”

Silence follows as Kaitlyn and Ryan share a look.

“What? You two aren’t the only capable people around here, just so you know, and I don’t see Emma and Abigail jumping up to volunteer for more walking through the Nick-infested woods,” he gestures wildly around him.

Ryan doesn’t like this, this is not the resolution he intended. Although, he hasn’t liked any of this night since Abigail ran off into the woods in the dead of night. He pauses for a long time before he lets out a harsh breath and kicks one of the tires on the van, “oh jesus, fuck it, let’s just make it fast and get back here safe.” Dylan is the last person he wants to send out into the woods right now, but he can’t deny the other boy saved them both back at the radio hut, Ryan’s shotgun was terrifyingly useless back there.

“Okay,” Dylan says to himself more so than the two of them. “Right, let’s just hurry then,” Dylan begins to walk but then sheepishly looks back at Ryan, “uhhhh, I’ll just let the cute guy who is armed take the lead.” He grimaces a little at his accidental pun and falls quiet.

Kaitlyn reopens the hood to attempt to describe to Ryan what a rotor arm looks like while Dylan paces restlessly in the background. By the end of it, Ryan is ninety percent certain he still doesn’t know what a rotor arm looks like but he decides not to argue, it’s not like they have the time to hold a lecture, so he moves away to set off anyway. Ryan gives one last look to Kaitlyn, she gives him a cautious smile and then heads back into the lodge. Ryan spares a concerned glance for Dylan, who is bouncing on his feet and looking at the tree line, before they set off together towards the scrapyard.

They walk in companionable silence, although Ryan can’t quite appreciate it since he keeps waiting for some abominable creature to come tearing across their path. The fog and trees around them are suffocating, but the moonlight is strong and casts a soft glow on gaps in the canopy overhead. The ground is mottled with moonlight and it would almost be beautiful if Ryan wasn’t so scared.

Dylan looks towards the tree line and back to him before asking, “so what do you think they are?”

He gives a Dylan a strange look. But, he supposes it’s not a bad question. Dylan continues anyway, comfortable with Ryan’s quiet demeanor, “their hairless, which is actually really bizarre since it definitely gets pretty cold here…”

Dylan keeps hypothesizing and Ryan finds himself pleasantly distracted. He likes that Dylan doesn’t take offense to his brusque demeanor and often short responses. He doesn’t mind playing along with the teasing that Kaitlyn and the others like to do, but sometimes it feels like they barely know him when they talk to him, and he’s forced to revert to being stand-offish. Ryan didn’t expect to get close to anyone at camp, besides the Hacketts. He didn’t plan on getting close to Dylan either, but they’ve been through an alarming amount in a short amount of time tonight. It occurs to Ryan that Dylan’s joking and teasing all summer was probably a genuine attempt to get closer to Ryan. Insecurity flashes through him when he realizes that a lot of Dylan’s joking and flirting was probably just going over his head, his cheeks burn just a bit.

Dylan is still talking, somehow, and as Ryan watches him a wave of endearment hits him so hard it’s almost painful. It makes his chest tighten and butterflies fill his stomach. This crap is supposed to be romantic? He just feels like he might get sick and puke on the side of the trail right now.

Dylan’s question is kind of in his domain of interests, so he may as well give a serious answer.

“Wendigos,” Ryan answers, suddenly.

Dylan looks like he almost forgot Ryan was right next to him, “I’m sorry? What?”

“They kind of make me think of wendigos, a little bit. They’re hairless, hideous, and vaguely humanoid. I figure if we’re gonna give them some kind designation, why not wendigos?”

Dylan looks taken aback by his effort, he quickly recovers and throws Ryan an affectionate smile. “I was gonna say killer naked mole rat men, but you know what? I like your answer a little bit more.”

They share a quiet laugh that feels like one of the most genuine interactions he’s had all summer. The moment is only slightly ruined by the fact that Ryan is carrying a shotgun and Dylan is missing a hand.

They arrive at the tall gate of the scrapyard. The woods are dead silent all around, Ryan strains his ears to listen harder… no, no birds, no crickets. Nothing, there’s just nothing. The looming gate and the utter void of sound makes fear flare harshly within him like an inferno, and he almost loses his nerve until Dylan’s voice cuts through the unbearable silence, “oh! Looks like steampunk is back in.” Dylan smiles at his own joke shamelessly, although his grin starts to slip as he looks at Ryan. “Are you okay?” Dylan asks, turning more fully towards Ryan.

Ryan mentally slaps himself and refocuses, “yeah, I’m good. We should hurry,” he tersely responds, unable to shake the feeling they’re very unsafe right now. Dylan sobers up and follows Ryan just behind his shoulder. Some of the pressure of the situation eases, as Dylan picks up on his mood and mimics his caution.

Ahead of them is a maze of broken and rusted cars, and Ryan couldn’t be more annoyed with how claustrophobic the situation is, it makes his anxiety ratchet up further as he advances with Dylan staying close behind. The cars occasionally creak and groan around him, the wind whistles through their husks from time to time and his mind conjures up the image of a graveyard.

A deafening thunk noise cuts through the silence like a hot knife, and Ryan nearly has a heart attack while Dylan jumps about a foot into the air with a yell. A motion-sensor spotlight harshly lights a small radius around them. Dylan whispers just behind him, “fuck, I’m sorry, that one just really got me.” He’s momentarily distracted by Dylan whispering in his ear before he remembers to bring the shotgun back up.

He whispers back, “it’s fine, it got me too, just stay close.” Ryan feels a tentative hand come up to rest on his shoulder. He allows it, slightly comforted by Dylan’s presence, and uses it to ground himself once more.

They awkwardly meander through the twists and curves of walls of broken cars, Dylan’s hand on his shoulder tightens every time they round a corner. And every time they hit a dead end, Ryan has to wonder why is this scrapyard built like a fucking maze?

“Hey, look,” Dylan softly whispers to him and points just over Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan follows his line of sight through a wall of cars blocking them, and he can just make out a car suspended by a crane. He mumbles his agreement and, with renewed effort, attempts to navigate towards the crane.

They arrive at the crane unharmed, breathing a sigh of relief. Dylan’s hand dropping from his shoulder leaves it a little cold as they circle under the suspended car. “So, to get it down—” Ryan starts, but Dylan is already heading for stairs leading up to the crane.

“Leave that to the Grabber!” he bounds off excitedly and misses Ryan’s confused look, then he freezes with his hand on the staircase railing. “Uh, just watch my back, okay?” He looks back uncertainly for a moment.

That went without saying, in Ryan’s opinion, but he responds firmly anyway, “of course.”

Ryan steps back from underneath the car as Dylan settles into the controls. He’s scanning the area around him, the cold sweat returns, before music blares from the crane and he almost jumps out of his skin.

“Sorry! My bad,” Dylan yells down.

Well, shit. It’s not like getting this car down was going to be subtle anyway, Ryan guesses. His hands tighten on the shotgun.

To Ryan’s shock, Dylan gets the crane working and the car is carefully lowered down in front of him. “Alright, Dylan!” he praises, as he shoulders the shotgun and beings to lift the hood.

“The Grabber’s back!” Dylan cheers back at him.

Ryan decides to let it go and begins analyzing the engine before him. It doesn’t look too banged up, they must’ve brought this one in recently, he muses.

He’s fiddling with one of the parts when an obnoxious horn repeatedly sounds from the crane’s cabin and Ryan quickly backs out from the hood to look up to Dylan, anger swiftly flares within him.

Is he serious right now??

His anger is swiftly cut down when Dylan’s panicked voice reaches his ears, “t-there’s something coming! Hide!”

A peculiar howl somewhere behind him is all the motivation he needs to scramble into the car, he knocks his knee on the way in and drops the shotgun. The car begins to lift before he can get it back. Shit. He ducks down into the seat, maybe the monster won’t… see him?

The universe appears to find this thought amusing and he feels a weight collide with the suspended car, rocking his head into the steering wheel. Black spots cloud his vision, and that’s gonna be a banger of a headache pretty soon. He sits up and makes eye contact with the monster-wendigo currently making short work of the rear window. Fuck. Dropping that shotgun is now one of the biggest mistakes of his life. The monster’s tongue lolls around as it thrashes the window and shatters it, its bulging eyes squarely trained on him. Fear reaches hard into his chest and his voice goes up to an octave he didn’t think physically possible, “Dylan! Please—something!”

For a heart-stopping second, he’s terrified that Dylan has abandoned him, but then the horn sounds again. The monster paws at its own strange ears and switches targets, the car shifts as its weight transfers from the car to crane’s arm.

Ryan is fucking done being a human piñata in this thing, he kicks open the door and spots a large tire he can hopefully land on. He hesitates for only a second before jumping out, he hits the tire awkwardly and the shock reverberates painfully through him as he tumbles off to the side. He shakes off the disorientation fast and frantically searches for the shotgun. He spots it and scrambles to it, almost losing his footing as he swings with it upwards into a standing position.

The monster is clawing at the windows of the cabin and peels one of the windows aside easily. Oh, fuck. He doesn’t want to watch Dylan die.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Hail Mary, he thinks as he carefully aims for the monster’s back, trying to aim well clear of the cabin. The trigger clicks into place and the recoil kicks him hard in the shoulder, sending him to the ground. The monster’s strange vocals make a strangled sound and when he looks up he can see it staring balefully at him, as if the thing has some kind of bone to pick with him.

It jumps to the ground gracefully and begins to stalk towards him with its cat-like movements. Its lithe body begins to rear back, and Ryan has seen enough nature documentaries to know what this means. He quickly swings the shotgun level with the thing’s face and fires from his position on the ground, right as it leaps with arms outstretched. His aim is off, because of his awkward hold, and the pellets graze the side of the monster’s face, slowing it down but not stopping it.

It snarls as it settles for grabbing his leg, and he screams out as its hands grasp his ankle so tightly he thinks it might be breaking. He’s dragged roughly forward for a moment and then it sinks its teeth into his right calf. White hot pain races up his leg and he roughly takes in air as it hits him. His other leg kicks wildly and his hands scrabble the dirt as he searches for the shotgun, but his hands only find dirt and empty space. He barely registers his own panicked screams as the monster treats his leg like a personal chew toy.

The car slams back down on the creature with such force that the air knocks Ryan flat onto his back again. He’s dimly aware of Dylan calling out to him, his voice breaks and cracks as Ryan desperately pulls himself and his somewhat mauled leg backwards frantically. One of his hands lands on the barrel of the shotgun and he swiftly brings it level again with the creature, although… its form lies completely still.

Dylan races to his side and crouches down, breathing hard and running his right hand over Ryan while the stubbed hand hovers uselessly. He breathes out a broken of string of words, “oh god, are you okay? I don’t know—I can’t tell where it got you. Ryan?”

Dylan is leaning into his space, trying to catch his eyes when Ryan finally snaps to attention, he meets Dylan’s eyes. Ryan replies, “I’m fine. We need to—”

The creature under the car snorts and they both freeze.

“—go”, Ryan finishes. Dylan roughly hauls him up and the moment Ryan puts even an ounce on his right leg, the bite flares and he sees black spots.

He almost falls over again, but Dylan quickly shoulders his weight, apologizing as he swings one of Ryan’s arms over his shoulder. They quickly stumble back through the maze while Ryan keeps a tight hold on the shotgun and Dylan. Luckily, it seems that Dylan as the path back memorized, and Ryan is immensely grateful because he can’t fucking think right now with how much his leg hurts.

They make it out and leave that god-forsaken scrapyard behind. They both breathe harshly as they continue their panicked hobbling for several minutes, until Ryan steps wrong and nearly falls over. Dylan barely stops the two of them from hitting the ground, and just manages to drop Ryan into a sitting position on the ground. Dylan crouches in front of him and they both just stare at each other for a moment, breath heaving.

“Take your shirt off.”

“What? Dylan, now is not the—“

Dylan’s eyes roll and he waves his hand like he can erase what he just said, “no—no, not like in a gay way, I mean—“, Ryan can see his cheeks reddening as Dylan gestures towards Ryan’s leg, “for your leg, dude.” Dylan continues to ramble on, “I-I think there’s, like, an artery really close to where it got you, so we can’t just ignore it.” Dylan’s eyes are stern when they meet Ryan’s and he tilts his head coyly as he says, “besides, you’re wearing, like, a million shirts right now—”

“It’s two!” Ryan is flabbergasted but amused nonetheless as he stares at Dylan in disbelief.

He shakes his head and removes his top-most shirt anyway, the chilly air bites at him a little more as he’s left with just his white long-sleeve. He smiles and hands the shirt to Dylan, who smiles shyly in response and refuses to meet his eye for longer than a moment.

Dylan reaches with both his hand and stump to tie the shirt around the wound, he seems to realize what he’s doing and freezes. His mouth sets into a grimace and Ryan feels like an idiot for not remembering the missing hand. Ryan’s heart breaks a little at the hard expression on Dylan’s face and he attempts to remedy the situation, “hey, here, you’re right, I’ll just—” he grabs the shirt from Dylan’s limp hand and begins tying it around his injured calf. He hisses as he tightens it, whereas the pain was exquisite before, it's turned into more manageable waves now.

Dylan stands up and reaches out his hand for Ryan. Ryan takes the offered hand and grunts with the effort to stand, he favors his left leg. Dylan’s expression is lost, and his silence makes Ryan fidget. The scrapyard, the monster creeping towards him, and the car slamming down all replay in his mind as they stand there. The urge to cheer up Dylan compels him to say something.

“Hey, Dylan,” Dylan looks over at him somewhat morosely, but a hesitant curiosity is there too, “you saved my life back there.” Before Ryan can decide against this action, he puts a hand on Dylan’s shoulder and pulls the taller boy down into a hug. Dylan’s posture is stiff as Ryan wraps his arms around him, Ryan just hopes it’s shock and not offense.

“I think you technically saved me twice tonight, actually,” he says into Dylan’s neck. Dylan lightly shivers and Ryan is afraid he’s overstepped, but then he feels the other boy’s arms wrapping around him, hugging him tightly in earnest.

They stand there, holding each other. Ryan could stay like this longer, he knows that, but a wind picks up and the leaves rustle around him. He lets go first and leans back to look up into Dylan’s face, he’s relieved to see the small smile there. “Thanks,” it’s the softest Ryan’s ever heard Dylan’s voice.

The simplicity of his response strikes Ryan as a ‘Dylan Dylan’ moment. This may be one of the worst nights of his life, but he briefly wishes he could somehow save this moment or make it last longer somehow. But, they don’t have the luxury, so he bends down to put the shotgun on his shoulder, “Alright, ‘Dylan Dylan’, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Dylan’s small laugh feels like a victory, and he leans in to offer to shoulder some of Ryan’s weight. Ryan accepts, leaning on his reassuring figure as they briskly continue down the path to the lodge.

Chapter Text

All this walking is doing a good job of reminding Dylan that he lost, what looked like, a liter of blood earlier tonight. His left hand—no, his fucking stump is some unholy vortex of pain right now. The encounter with the monster had dispelled some of the effects of the painkillers, and now pain radiates from his left arm like a supernova, spreading up his arm and partially across his back. Self-pity infests his mind faster than he can stop it as he tries to imagine how he’s going to drive with only one hand, cook with only one hand—fuck, he’s got to stop doing that. He snaps himself out of it by changing the subject of his focus, namely to Ryan.

Ryan has since stopped leaning on him and walks comfortably next to Dylan, strangely at ease with his hand on the shotgun’s strap as they stroll through the monster-infested woods.

Well, that’s really fucking weird, Dylan thinks.

Ryan is scanning the woods around them while Dylan subtly side-eyes him. Ryan’s leg was definitely messed up. Dylan was there, he saw it, he put a hand on it and everything. The leg was torn flesh and viscera Dylan never wanted to see, there wasn’t bone or anything like that, but it wasn’t some harmless scratch either.

Oh god, his infatuation with Ryan must be impressive because normally he would be more argumentative about this. But, after everything they’ve been through, Dylan desperately wants to hold onto every one left. Well, especially Ryan since they’ve saved each other’s lives now at least once and it turns out that Ryan cuts down some of Dylan’s bullshit and Dylan can get the other boy to relax and open up.

He's still subtly staring at Ryan’s allegedly fucked up leg when Ryan says, “you’re staring.”

Oh.

His eyes race up to meet Ryan’s concerned look and Dylan attempts to cover up his surprise with a fake laugh, “yeah—yeah, I was just thinking of the—the attachments I’ll need to get this thing,” he waves his stump around a bit for emphasis, pain spikes and he hugs it back to chest. Because, fuck, for some reason that fucking hurt.

Ryan squints his eyes at him. Oh fuck, Dylan knows that look.

“No, try again.”

Fucking hell, Dylan should’ve known that Ryan being perceptive would be a double-edged sword for moments like this. Nope. No, he definitely doesn’t want to do this with the cute boy he likes. He doesn’t want to talk about how he’s worried that Ryan will go the way of Nick, possibly, maybe… Dylan feels sick at the thought of shooting down someone he knows like a dog, he doesn’t know how Abigail managed it. Although, Dylan muses, it probably had something to do with Nick throwing her into a wall and looking at her like he was going to fucking eat her right then and there.

Ryan is still looking at him expectantly, shit. Like he knows he can pull the truth from Dylan if he just asks nicely enough. Fuck, he probably can.

Ryan has the gall to stop walking and Dylan stumbles to a stop as he looks back at him in alarm. Maybe Dylan needs to spell this detail out. Monsters. In. The. Woods-

“Dylan, spill it,” Ryan holds his hands out placatingly, like he’s talking to a scared animal.

Dylan supposes he is, in a sense. “Okay okay, let’s just,” he moves to keep walking and Ryan reluctantly follows him, “keep moving, please and thank you.”

Ryan’s smug look makes Dylan want to say something catty to get off the defensive here, but there’s also… openness and trust writ plain across his face so overtly that Dylan almost looks away. Self-defeat punches through him and he sighs, “okay, the—the uh, wendigo thing,” a little breathless laugh flutters out of him and Ryan’s eyes crinkle just a bit, but he bulldozes the moment, “it got you like how it got—like how it got Nick,” his words settle like a weight.

Ryan’s eyes avert from his own. Dylan hugs his arm protectively and subconsciously hunches his shoulders forward. Inky blackness racing up his convulsing hand to the rest of his body invades his mind’s eye again.

He forces out a laugh and it grates against his own ears, “but, I mean, you know it was really really dark when I was trying to—well, when you—when we were looking at your leg.” He swallows before saying his next piece, “And, Ryan…” his tone catches Ryan’s attention, their eyes meet again.

“I’m not gonna cut off your leg. I’m completely certain that we would kill you by accident, even if we did everything right,” he puts quotes around the word ‘right’. Given their lack of medical knowledge, and the weird events of this night, he has no faith in their ability to administer anything beyond basic first aid.

“I know, I-I hear you,” Ryan resolutely stares ahead. A quiet moment passes and he seems content to leave the discussion there.

Well, Dylan doesn’t, so, “wellll, we should probably come up with a plan—”

“I know, sorry,” Ryan holds out a hand, “I wasn’t trying to… end the conversation, I was just thinking.”

Dylan goes quiet and lets the moment simmer. Realization dawns on him, that perhaps Ryan is more socially awkward than he thought. Ha! A significant enough flaw to put them on even ground. It’s kind of cute, actually. The moment drags and fatigue starts to grip him, it’s more noticeable when there’s nothing to focus on, and every step is starting to burn his muscles more and more. It feels like gravity is getting heavier over time. Crap, he really lost a lot of blood.

“If I start to, you know—,” Ryan’s voice wakes him up from whatever cloud was settling over him, “act really… weird,” murderous, Dylan’s mind supplements, “I’ll ask you to lock me in that creepy basement thing we found.”

“Not a bad plan, could use an amendment though,” Dylan smirks, he dreads just a little this next part, “if I think you’re acting weird, we lock you in, even if you don’t think you’re acting weird.”

He doesn’t regret being demanding, but Ryan’s silence has fear building in him like a boulder rolling down a hill.

“I think that’s fair,” Ryan interrupts his anxious thoughts and Dylan breathes a sigh of relief and feels a grin pull at his face.

“It’s an agreement then!” Dylan’s volume contrasts harshly with the quiet forest around them and they both cringe.

Dylan can’t help himself, he really can’t, he leans in to whisper conspiratorially, “so what should our safe word—”

It surprises a laugh out of Ryan, “oh my god, stop!”

Laughter shakes the tension out of them, and they walk a little easier to the lodge.

They make it to the lodge safely, small victories and all that. Everything and everyone is where they left it, and Ryan immediately pulls Kaitlyn to the side to talk. He overhears them talking about boarding up the lodge and Dylan starts to tune them out.

A fuzzy feeling is beginning to take residence in his head, and he goes off to one of the tables to sit down. Once he settles down, he believes that it’s quite possible he won’t be able to get back up again, he’s so tired.

Everyone is moving like a busy worker bee around him, Ryan and Kaitlyn are composers as they direct the action. But the words are just noise and Dylan’s stump has pain screaming across his nerves at this point.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring at the ground, but he suddenly thinks of his cat at home and starts to cry. He hiccups a little, he just wants to go home and feel her soft fur again, wants to run his hands—or, hand he guesses, through her fur as she purrs softly.

He sniffles, he feels ugly and alone and completely out of place. His eyes are probably red at this point, and he must be painting a sad picture as he hunches over himself.

He’s afraid to look up, but he does. He’s greeted by an empty lodge. Huh, the others must be trying to reinforce the upstairs somehow. This thought is confirmed by the groaning wood he hears above him. The soft candlelight has the odd effect of making him feel small and lonely, maybe because the shadows loom so large across the walls.

Well, this sucks. And crying really fucking hurts after a while, and he doesn’t want to add more pain to his list of bullshit he’s got to deal with. He pushes himself off the bench, which requires a disturbing amount of effort on his part, and decides to fall back on tried-and-true methods for dealing with trauma. A distraction.

He dutifully hugs his arm to chest; he figures Kaitlyn is probably right about this first aid stuff. He swallows a little at the thought that his stump might become an even more serious concern if he doesn’t get to a hospital soon. He rubs his eyes to clear away some of his ugly-cry face, unsuccessfully, and meanders about the semi-empty lodge.

He hears voices over his head, Kaitlyn’s voice rings out clear like a bell as she has some kind of argument with Emma upstairs about boarding up the upstairs. He can’t help the chuckle that escapes him at her fiery attitude. Kaitlyn and Ryan are kind of similar in that way, he supposes. He expects a lightning strike of jealousy at the thought of the two of them, but instead he just finds himself enamored at their similarities. Although, a little sting of possessiveness rings out at the thought of her pursuing Ryan. He brushes it aside, in the grand scheme of things, he just looks back at his ham-fisted attempts all summer to flirt with Ryan as simpler times.

He rounds a corner and, oh, speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Ryan is easily lifting one of the tables from the main lobby and stacking it against the door.

Hot, Dylan’s one-track mind supplies. But a little weird, the smarter voice in the back of his head retorts.

Ryan’s head inclines towards him before he even moves and Dylan’s greeted with an easy-going, “hey.” And a cute smile to boot.

Dylan moves closer, a distraction indeed. The candlelight is soft on Ryan’s features and Dylan knows he’s got it bad with the butterflies in his stomach right now. Dylan is about to say something witty and/or snarky when Ryan’s eyes widen as he properly catches sight of his face.

Oh, right, ugly-crier here.

Ryan moves closer and begins to reach out to Dylan, but then aborts the movement, looking uncertain. Dylan’s heart hurts a little at that, did he push too hard? Maybe the flirting was a little too aggressive. Dylan leans back a little, ah, this is a bad kind of distraction now, shit.

But Ryan is kind enough to look concerned, maybe even a little panicked at his response. “Dylan—You, are you okay?” Ryan winces at the redundance of his own question but Dylan appreciates the attempt anyway.

The open concern on Ryan’s face, eyes patiently searching Dylan’s, makes his face burn. He becomes acutely aware of how puffy his eyes probably look. Before Dylan can think better of it, he rambles, “oh—this is nothing,” he forces a casual shrug, “seasonal allergies is a bitch—”

Ryan huffs, annoyed. It makes Dylan wince guiltily.

“You don’t have to do that…” Ryan cuts himself off and visibly takes a moment to collect himself. His eyes soften again as he looks back at Dylan, “is it the pain? Is there—uh, anything I can do? What’s wrong?” he trails off uncertainly.

Dylan chuckles softly at the sweetness of the gesture. There’s a lot of snarky ways to answer that question, but Dylan can feel his humor draining away. An awkward silence hangs between them. Dylan quickly sobers up and eyes Ryan critically, searching for any sign that his question is disingenuous or half-hearted. Ryan looks uncharacteristically shy under Dylan’s gaze.

Some part of Dylan wants to be honest, but a nefarious part of his mind flashes scenarios of Ryan being apathetic or annoyed by Dylan’s fatalistic thoughts, maybe even brushing him off.

As Dylan surveys Ryan though, his concerned eyes tell a different story. Ryan waits patiently, like he knows he’s being judged.

Dylan folds, “I got upset—,” he looks away from Ryan’s patient eyes, scared of how they’ll change. “Thinking about my cat at home,” he hiccups a little, he cuts himself off before his voice can grate against his own ears any further. His eyes wander about the room, refusing to settle on Ryan.

A warm hand comes up to rest on Dylan’s right elbow. Dylan’s eyes snap over to Ryan’s warm expression. Ryan’s eyebrows furrow together in thought, he weighs his next words carefully, “I know what you mean,” he wets his lips, eyes darting away, “I need to get back home to my sister. I just—I’m scared of what happens if I can’t…”

Despite Ryan’s generally monotone voice, Dylan can clearly feel the weight of that confession. He gets the distinct feeling that Ryan doesn’t talk about this topic very often. Ryan’s trust makes butterflies flutter in his stomach. It makes him feel brave, brave enough to try to make Ryan smile, hopefully make him believe they’ll all survive tonight.

“Hey, so, when we get the fuck out of this godforsaken place,” Dylan mentally pushes forward before he can lose his nerve, “I can show you how to make some really kickass banana pudding.” He tacks on an impish smile that he knows annoys people. But Ryan just smiles warmly.

Ryan eyes search his for a moment, the candlelight has a funny way of making them flash gold when the flames around them flicker. He doesn’t know what Ryan sees in his face, but he feels Ryan’s hand slide up from its hold on his right arm to rest comfortably on the right side of his neck. Dylan’s face burns fiercely at the contact, his heart begins pounding. Ryan’s thumb brushes gently at his cheek. Dylan’s breath hitches involuntarily at the chills and something in Ryan’s face changes, becoming hungry.

Ryan’s eyes flicker down to Dylan’s mouth lightning fast and back up, his voice husky “do over?”

“What?”

Ryan’s hand shifts to gently grip the back of his neck before he’s pulled forward and down.

Their lips meet and Dylan is frozen, eyes comically wide, with Ryan’s hand anchoring him in place. Ryan’s eyes slide shut as his other hand reaches up to gently rub circles into the side of Dylan’s neck.

Ryan’s hands are like two brands of heat to his already burning skin and something uncoils within Dylan, he sighs into the kiss as his eyes drift shut, his heart has turned into a jackhammer. Ryan takes the opportunity to deepen the kiss as he greedily pulls Dylan down to his level further.

‘Dylan Dylan’ is all for this moment right now and his right arm comes around Ryan’s side to pull him closer.

For every second that ticks by, Ryan speeds up the kiss, becoming hungrier. He tilts his head to get a better angle, his thumbs press into Dylan hungrily. It almost feels like Ryan is trying to devour him and some quiet, too quiet, part of his brain squeals in alarm, but it goes ignored.

Ryan reaches a hand up to card through Dylan’s hair before tugging gently. Dylan’s face burns at the keening noise he makes in response. But then Ryan gently pushes his body forward until Dylan’s back hits the wall behind him, Dylan huffs between their mouths just a bit at the force of it.

Ryan’s sure body weight protectively braces around Dylan, boxing him in. Dylan shifts down the wall just a little to accommodate for Ryan’s height. His head feels blessedly empty as they breathe harshly against each other in between kisses. Every slide of Ryan’s thumbs feels like sparks along his nerves. Dylan’s legs begin to minutely shake from the fatigue of the night and the excitement thrumming through him like a drumbeat. He makes helpless little noises as he lets Ryan direct him this way and that like a puppet.

Dylan’s head is getting dangerously fuzzy, probably for oxygen related reasons, he muses. Dylan’s brain retains just enough function for him to pull back, eyes shooting open and gasping for air, Ryan chases him just a bit before giving up. They hold each other in that embrace for a moment. For once, Dylan has absolutely no idea what to say. They both stare at each other with mouths slightly ajar, gently panting for breath.

His wits are strewn about his brain as if a tornado has hit, but he gathers them anyway. “So, I guess—” he swallows around his frayed nerves, “I can take that as a yes to the banana pudding idea.”

“Yes,” Ryan reaffirms, warmth bleeding into his voice, “you can. And a couple other things…” Ryan’s voice is low and warm as he trails off. The implication has Dylan’s mind branching off into a million different possibilities, it’s honestly embarrassing.

Dylan has nothing else smart to say as he’s transfixed by the amber candlelight reflecting in Ryan’s eyes. He’s like a deer in the headlights with how much raw adoration Ryan’s eyes hold. And all of it is directed at Dylan. It makes him kind of clammy and he feels the flush on his face deepen, Dylan’s own right hand is resting on Ryan’s hip and he grips a little tighter for his lack of ability to speak intelligently right now.

A loud thump upstairs, followed by the sound of arguing, makes Dylan convulse in their joined embrace while Ryan just looks upwards, amused.

“I… think I need to help them before something bad happens,” Ryan’s voice is filled with infectious amusement and Dylan is smiling dorkily before he can stop himself.

“Yeah—you—yeah,” Dylan intelligently replies.

His response makes Ryan’s eyes crinkle, and they detangle from each other’s arms. Ryan steps away to deal with whatever is happening upstairs. But he pauses to survey Dylan, his reddened eyes, his flushed face, hair matted and drenched in… so many different fluids, but Ryan leans in to tenderly plant a kiss on the side of Dylan’s cheek before he pulls away again to look at him.

Warmly, he says, “you look really tired, try to find somewhere to rest,” he turns away but then adds, “oh, but be careful of the windows, we haven’t figured out how to barricade them all just yet.”

Dylan nods dumbly. Ryan seems satisfied before he walks away.

Dylan stays frozen, leaning against the wall for a moment, his lips still tingling before he finally pushes away. Well, successfully distracted indeed.

When Dylan returns to the main lobby, blue moonlight filters through overhead windows with such strength that the candles are reduced to small embers of light. He can hear furniture scraping the floor upstairs, the harried voices of his friends echo throughout the lodge. He’s a little transfixed by the ethereal glow of the lodge. Then his stomach growls, ruining the moment. It feels like a lifetime since he’s consumed food, so he begins to wander off to the kitchen to see what he can scavenge.

On his way over, he spots Abigail sitting on the bottom of the staircase, she’s engrossed in her sketchpad as her pencil moves erratically. Normally, he would bother her as a joke, but she’s had a really rough night, he doesn’t want to accidentally put her in a bad mood with some ill-placed teasing.

But then she notices him and pauses in her sketching to wave him over.

Okay, he can’t really help it, he points to own chest and looks around exaggeratedly in a ‘Who, me?’ manner.

“Dylan,” and her southern accent comes out just a little bit and Dylan’s endeared. He huffs a laugh and ambles over. He lowers himself somewhat unsteadily on one of the steps beside her.

“Yes, Abigail?” He says as coyly as he can, she’s so easy to fluster, it’s just not fair… for her.

She raises an eyebrow, unimpressed, but the quirk of her lips gives away her mirth at his general ridiculousness. She mentally brushes him off quickly enough and says, “you looked lost,” her eyes dart around nervously before they can settle on his, “I don’t know, I just wanted to check on you.”

Dylan looks shyly away. Shit, blasé Dylan honestly has no idea how to react to such naked honesty. The others were so busy trying to make the lodge safe that he felt like he was turning into sad background noise. And that’s fine, them being busy, but now he’s alone with his thoughts. His many many thoughts.

“And your eyes are kind of…” he looks back at her uncertainly as she gestures at his face.

He ended up on the back-foot here really fast. Maybe he can steer himself into safer waters, “Abigail, is this your way of getting out of moving heavy furniture around?” He looks at her with one eyebrow raised imperiously, looking down his nose her while he pretend-chides her, “because that’s not very Hacketteer of you—”

Abigail’s derisive huff cuts him off, “you look like you’ve been crying.”

He immediately deflates and frowns at her. His face twists a little, “jeez, okay, yes, what’s up with the third degree right now?”

Abigail looks a little chastised, but brushes it off quickly enough, her eyes are firm when they meet his, “you’ve been through a lot—we’ve all been through a lot,” she closes her sketchpad to face him more fully, “and the idea of you wandering around alone right now makes me kind of sad.” She folds her hands in her lap, she tries to look stern but her fidgeting ruins the image.

Dylan is sure his flabbergasted face looks ridiculous right now, he shuts his hanging jaw accordingly. It occurs to him that he barely made an effort to get to know Abigail over summer. He tries to ignore the fact that he kind of feels like an asshole as he says, “wow, you are really honest. We haven’t talked much, have we?”

“Not much,” she waves her hand dismissively, “the question you asked me at the firepit didn’t help though.” She smirks wryly at him, he briefly wonders if she just really enjoys making him uncomfortable.

He side-eyes her uncertainly, he has no earthly idea what she’s talking about—

And then he remembers, “oh—fuck,” he rests his head in his hand, “I’m so sorry about that Abigail,” his eyes flit to hers and away like a hummingbird, “that was kind of rough.”

He remembers Ryan stepping in to save her… not Dylan’s best moment. His face burns at the thought, his mouth a thin line. But, when he looks over her, her eyes are crinkled in amusement. Okay, she actually enjoys his despair.

She giggles, somewhat evilly, and her knee lightly bumps his. Her eyes hold a challenge, “you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

Oh my god, she’s fucking with him. He lets his mouth hang open this time, because holy hell he really should’ve given her the time of day sooner.

Alright, Blasé Dylan, take the wheel back, his brain eggs him on.

“Oh, I can take it, you don’t—”

Her joyous laugh interrupts whatever brilliant thing he was about to say. He stares dumbly before he finally puts two and two together, he groans melodramatically before her infectious laughter reaches him. He leans back against the staircase while he laughs helplessly.

For a moment, his many thoughts are blessedly quiet, and he lets the absurdity of the situation wash over him as their combined laughter echoes through the lodge.

Their laughter begins to peter out, Abigail smiles at him knowingly with her elbows resting on her knees.

“Alright,” he straightens out and holds out his hand defensively, “you win whatever the hell this conversation is.”

She nods gracefully, accepting his defeat with a twinkle in her eye.

Abigail looks away for a moment, face twisting in thought before she jumps up from her seat. She holds her hand out to him invitingly.

Dylan blankly looks at her hand like he doesn’t know what a hand is, then she shuffles impatiently, her voice raised, “let’s go find something—anything to do, instead of waiting around thinking about… you know…” her face falls a little.

Dylan’s heart twists at that, he gets an idea. He takes her hand. He pretends to smile shyly, and he makes a show of making his hand look as dainty as possible before she pulls him up somewhat unsteadily. He uses the momentum to lean into her space, the black spots swimming in his vision are unexpected and he quickly blinks them away while plastering an impish grin on his face.

“Would you like to see Mr. H’s secret voyeurism room?”

It has the intended effect of making her face redden, she scoffs and drops his hand like it’s something gross. She folds her arms, looking properly annoyed with him while he smugly shifts from foot to foot, awaiting her answer.

She dramatically rolls her eyes, begrudging smile on her face as she admits defeat, “okay, fine—”

He gladly interrupts her, “let’s begin the tour!” He spins around to start walking to Mr. H’s office, she misses the grimace on his face when the move makes the pain in his arm amplify. He breathes out, “hoo, okay, this way m’lady.”

He marches off. He hears her groan follow him and he smiles a little to himself.

When they reach the office and his hand hovers over the handle, his enthusiasm dies a little.

Well, the others checked the lodge so he has no reason—wait—little reason to believe that anything has changed since then. The pain lancing up his arm is an achievement in how tortured some nerve endings can be, nausea begins to lightly roll over him and he can hear Abigail shifting impatiently. Fuck, he really needs a distraction again. He bustles through the door before he can think twice.

He takes in the dark ill-lit scene as quickly as his darting eyes allow. Two candles on opposite sides of the room meagerly light the space, the view of the dark forest through the windows is making sweat break out across his back with its stillness. He waits a second, when nothing happens, he hears Abigail’s concerned voice behind him, “Dylan?”

‘Dylan Dylan’ is absolutely determined to keep this little adventure light-hearted though, he attempts to smile cheerily back at her, “safety first.”

Instead of being totally charmed by him, she just looks mildly concerned.

He plows ahead anyway; he passes through the frame and gestures for her to walk in, “as a responsible tour guide, I give only the finest tours of creepy secret rooms our camp leader has.”

He’s relieved when she huffs a little laugh, she plays along and looks about the room as if she’s impressed by what she’s seeing.

The tension in his chest uncoils a little, he gets another idea to try to make her laugh… or maybe just pity chuckle at him, either works.

He walks over to the trap door, her eyes follow him with a twinkle of amusement. He gestures with his right arm like he’s a magician in a show presenting a spectacle, “and this,” he taps his foot against the door, “is the secret sex dungeon.”

She looks properly unimpressed by his antics with her arms crossed.

He drops the pose after a moment, “but it’s off-limits right now, so the tour is moving on.” The windows behind him have his hairs standing up on end, he drops the pose and shuffles away. Before moving onto the primary exhibit, he leans towards Abigail and whispers conspiratorially, “I know you’re disappointed, it’s okay—”

“No,” she tries to sound firm, but a disbelieving laugh colors the word.

The tour carries on, the painful white noise from his left arm is growing louder even though he cradles it carefully, does his best not to upset it. He rests his hand on the door to Chris’s ‘private area’ before putting on his best mock-serious expression, “get ready.” The words come out a little more fatigued and wary than he intended and he internally grimaces.

He swings open the door carefully.

Ah, this is truly dark, shit, his mind helpfully observes.

The bathroom to his right is pitch black and the room to his left is softly illuminated by shafts of moonlight. He waits a little longer this time. The silence is painful and his brain spins out wild scenarios in his mind while he waits, he’s going to feel so bad if he accidentally discovers something scary. Abigail waits patiently behind him, she stands on her tippy toes to peak over his shoulder and observe with him.

His eyes fall on blue light filtering through the clothes in the closet in front of him, the secret door is still left ajar.

Huh, that’s weird. The power went out, so by all means this tour would have been rather anti-climactic in the end.

He moves forward through the closet, parting the clothes to be greeted by brightly lit monitors. Still active.

Abigail follows him quietly, she seems to have picked up on the change in the atmosphere.

“Here it is, the main exhibit in all it’s… functioning glory…” he trails off they both take in the brightly lit screens.

Maybe this whole setup just has an enormous battery or maybe there’s an auxiliary generator running the setup remotely, Dylan ponders. In case of emergency, his mind adds.

His brain halts. In case of emergency? What kind of emergency warrants that the supposed ‘trail cams’ must remain active at all times?

Probably has something to do with the nightmare-inducing wendigo things, his brain supplies.

Well, that really opens a can of worms in Dylan’s mind, because if the Hackett’s are weirdly aware—

Wait, no, he really doesn’t want to go down that road. If he survives the night, maybe, but definitely not now.

“Ryan was so wrong,” he mumbles, he’d love to rub this in Ryan’s face right now. Maybe he’ll drag him down here and do just that…

Abigail had been analyzing the screens, much like he had when he first saw them. She looks over at him curiously, “what?”

He steps forward to stand next to her, “this is just… weirder the longer I think about it, I’m surprised they’re still functioning,” he trails off thoughtfully. She gives him an odd look at his lack of joviality.

This is supposed to fun, his brain hisses at him.

Right. Tour. Jokes.

He looks over the cameras, surprisingly little activity is taking place, he blurts out, “hey, maybe we’ll spot a wild Jacob!”

He looks over at her expectantly with a winning smile, but she goes quiet and leans towards the screens.

Dylan’s brows furrow at her, a sinking feeling in his stomach he’s felt too many times tonight. He tries to follow her line of sight, then she goes stiff and blindly smacks his left arm to get his attention.

That small jolt to his arm has a truly impressive cascade effect of pain, white-hot, it reignites into something that makes him grit his teeth and immediately break out into a sweat. A tortured whine escapes him before he can stop it, but she doesn’t notice as she’s apparently been talking over him this whole time.

“—think I know that trail, I think he’s moving in the direction of the lodge!”

Dylan looks up, just for his stomach to immediately drop when he catches sight of the enormous mountain of a man headed their way.

Oh, and armed. With a rifle.

He swallows, a wave of vertigo hits him fast and furious like a tempest in his head. He leans on the desk with his good arm while his neck begins to tingle unpleasantly.

Okay, the two of them need to do… something. Something. Anything.

“w-we—the others,” his breath comes out harshly and he realizes that he’s breathing fast and hard, “the others need to…” His head begins to feel airy, he looks at Abigail desperately.

Abigail stares at the screen until the man moves off-camera, she notices Dylan leaning against the desk and her expression becomes mildly horrified as she looks him over.

“Let’s go,” she says decisively, she roughly grabs hold of his right hand and quickly leads them both out of the surveillance room.

She’s careful not to move too fast for him, but his awkward form stumbles after her anyway. His footing is getting harder to place as they move, his feet feel like they’re not quite listening to him all the way, like he’s moving through water. They’re both breathing like they’ve run a mile as they exit the office.

Even with the moonlight being so strangely bright, Abigail still navigates them as safely as she can without causing Dylan to trip on any obstacles they might miss. In the dark, all the objects around him are starting to blur like a watercolor painting, he holds tighter to Abigail’s hand. Dylan feels like he’s a half-animated ragdoll being dragged along by the time they make it to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the second floor.

The trek up the stairs is like climbing Mt. Everest for his legs right now. He nearly slips halfway up, but Abigail just about catches him in time before his face makes contact with anything. It’s a good thing she’s here, he thinks. He’s quite certain he won’t be able to get up if he falls. That thought fills him with no small amount of fear.

They make it to the top, miraculously. Distantly, he’s quite aware that, whoever that stranger is, might be right on top of the lodge at this point. She drags him by the hand more impatiently, he stumbles to keep up. She lets his hand go and props him up against a wall, Dylan forces his head up to see that she’s talking with Emma, Kaitlyn, and Ryan.

Good, well, they know now. Good luck to them, he thinks distantly. In his state, he’s completely certain that he cannot contribute a damn thing right now. He tries to focus on what everyone’s saying, he really does, but it sounds as if their words are meshing together into some unknown language to him. He’s vaguely alarmed by this and decides to do something about the wall of pain that is preventing is brain from working.

Before he pushes off the wall, he sees Ryan and Kaitlyn gesturing aggressively towards each other, he’s a little alarmed by the undercurrent of anger he can hear in the white noise. Kaitlyn is insistently pointing to the attic, her mouth moves and her countenance is bossy as she looks between all of them gathered in a semi-circle together.

So cute when she does that, good for her, he thinks suddenly. Huh, his problem might be bigger than pain right now.

He stumbles off, the voices don’t follow him, he makes good on his plan to get back to the clinic. At the top of the stairs he sways dangerously, he quickly leans his weight on the right railing with his good arm before something bad can happen. He leans heavily on the railing, almost over it so his legs can do the least amount of work possible. As he tortuously makes his way down, he glumly considers the fact that there could be other factors at work here, like blood loss. Maybe it’s even been long enough for his stump to get infected. He grimaces and makes a pathetic whine at that thought.

He stumbles to the bottom of the stairs, nearly falling. He’s jarred by the motion of it and feels a wave of vertigo tilt everything, it almost knocks him down again. His right hand darts out to the banister and grabs it before he can fall. He rights himself and continues shuffling towards the clinic.

Crap, he’s not actually dying or something is he? His plan is to hopefully find some painkillers and then curl up somewhere in the clinic and pretend he’s not there. He wants to make it back to the others but he’s not sure he’ll be able to in a few minutes. He thinks he hears his name being called, but he’s not sure, besides he’s almost there. Just a little further…

He stumbles through the door of the clinic, possible threats be damned, it’s not like he can run for his life right now anyway. He’s operating on a wing and a prayer here. His head lazily scans the room, in the darkness, on the far side of the wall he can just make out some cabinets and a first aid kit resting on the countertop. He decides to try his luck, it’s a clinic, there’s got to be at least one thing in here that can help him.

He blindly fumbles for the cabinets, his hand catches on one of the handles and he pulls it open.

Hmm, nothing useful.

His despair builds a little more, he feels sweat gathering on his forehead. His mouth is dry, rational thought is slipping through his fingers like water. Fuck, is he actually dying?

Oh fuck, I shouldn’t have left the others—

Glass shatters with an ear-piercing sound to his immediate left, little shards cut across his face and he barely has time to close his eyes before something grabs his throat.

He gets half a scream out before the hand around his throat turns it into a cough. He loses his footing and lands awkwardly on one of his knees as whoever has grabbed him maneuvers their way through the broken window. His right hand claws at the hand on his throat, but it’s like it’s made of stone, even as his nails dig in to draw blood.

From his position, he can vaguely see a pair of boots and the barrel of a rifle glinting in the darkness, he begins struggling in earnest at the sight.

At least it’s human, so he tries communication despite the tight hold on his throat.

“What—”

The behemoth holding him just grunts and shakes him like a ragdoll. A miserable sound escapes Dylan as the room spins wildly, his remaining hand is useless as he continues to pull on the hand around his neck.

Dylan hears a dull crackling sound somewhere above him. He hears the giant speak, his voice is unexpectedly mild, “Pa, I think I found one of the kids we’ve been looking for. Got quite a few of em’ here in the lodge…”

The words renew his panic like a flash fire, he misses whatever the voice responding says as blood roars in his ears. He still doesn’t understand what’s going on, but all he can do is get away from this potential murder hillbilly. Hopefully back to his friends. Although… he is quite fucked if none of them decide to intervene right now. A small sob rips out of him at the thought.

The giant begins dragging Dylan’s struggling form towards the door, his gait completely undisturbed. Oh god, where is he taking him? Is Dylan bait or something? Is the giant just looking for a more creative way to murder him?

Fuck, the horror movie character thing was a joke!

Adrenaline runs through his veins again like a river, spurred on by his fatalistic thoughts. His tries to get his legs back underneath him but the hold he’s in keeps him low to the ground and his shoes slip uselessly against the floor as he’s dragged.

Dylan waits for the murder hillbilly to drag him out the clinic, just past the door, before he hoarsely screams out into the open space of the lodge, “H-help! Please! Somebody!” His voice breaks into a sob a little at the end, tears spring anew.

Fucking FUCK. Survived most of this shitty night for it to end like this?

The giant just sighs exasperatedly, “you need to stop, you’re makin’ my job harder than it has to be.”

Un-fucking-believable… Dylan wants to side-eye whoever this creepy asshole is right now, but his awkward position doesn’t allow it. He settles for crying some more at how shit his personal situation is.

“Put him down!” Ryan’s voice rings out loud and clear, and it’s one of the most beautiful things Dylan’s ever heard.

The beefy hand on his neck slackens just a bit, not much, but enough for Dylan to crane is head and see Ryan standing opposite the hillbilly. The shotgun is kept steadily trained on the hillbilly’s chest. The giant stiffens but doesn’t make any moves.

Ryan’s eyes quickly flit over to Dylan’s face and they’re…

Oh. Oh, fuck.

Like two low-burning coals in the dark, Ryan’s eyes look hauntingly inhuman as they flit back and forth between Dylan and the murder hillbilly.

Dylan’s blood runs cold, sweat breaks out anew. Ah, fuck. We never picked a safe word, the stupid part of his brain informs him.

All three of them are frozen in the stand-off. Dylan has since ceased his struggling, afraid any movement will spark a shootout, but his right hand still tugs at the hillbilly’s hold. When things inevitably go south, he needs to create distance and fast.

The heavy silence allows Dylan a moment to observe. He can hear light rainfall just outside the quiet lodge, he hears no creaking wood, so the others must be hiding. His eyes desperately try to cut through the darkness to spot anyone else, but to no avail.

Dylan can feel the grip on his neck loosening just a little more as he continues to pry at it, or—shit, maybe he’s just imagining progress at this point. The giant’s voice rumbles above him, “My Pa sent me to help—”

“You can help by putting him down!” Ryan’s raised voice booms like his chest is bigger than it really is. That strange dual human-monster sound is unmistakable. Ryan’s breathing becomes audible in the lodge’s open space, he shifts restlessly, but still has the shotgun raised.

Chills race up Dylan’s arms and he renews his struggling with fervor, his breathing becomes frantic in the quiet space.

Oh, the irony is not lost on Dylan. First, Ryan is going to potentially save him. Then, Ryan is going to become a rage monster that eats nails for breakfast that brutally murders him. Dylan cuts the thought off before he can think of all the creative ways he’s probably going to die.

Ryan’s inhuman breathing becomes louder, he bounces restlessly on his feet as he keeps the gun trained on the giant.

“…Ryan?” Dylan can barely hear his own small voice over Ryan’s breathing, but Ryan’s orange eyes snap over to him for a heartbeat. Then, his angry eyes return to the hillbilly, he lets out an inhuman growl before he doubles over. The shotgun clatters to the ground.

Oh no. It’s happening again.

“Oh, no…” Dylan hears the giant holding him mutter.

And for the second time that night, Dylan is splattered by an incomprehensible amount of blood as Ryan is replaced in an explosion of blood.

Chapter Text

Dylan stares slack-jawed in horror at the nimble creature before him. Its lithe form and jackrabbit-like breathing suggest that it’s built for speed. Its tongue lolls hideously as its glowing orange eyes train on the giant.

It roars, and the vibration shakes through Dylan’s chest and head jarringly. That lit some kind of fire under Dylan, he’s moving before he even realizes what he’s doing. He scrambles his legs around, grunts as he places a solid kick into the giant’s knee. He hears a grunt and the hand, finally, lets him go. He drops on his back just as the creature lunges, a whoosh of air travels over Dylan. For a mad second, he thinks the monster’s teeth are about to dig into him.

Instead, the giant is sent flying into a wall. He crashes into the wall and an impossibly loud bang goes off, the flash illuminates monster-Ryan rushing towards the giant with a long arm raised before being resubmerged in darkness.

In the ensuing darkness Dylan can hear the sick sound of flesh tearing and grunting filling the lodge, a metallic smell floods the air.

Go. GO!

Dylan scrambles up, his feet slip a little as he frantically turns away from the gruesome noises. He nearly trips as he almost blacks out from the effort. He catches himself with his remaining hand and starts an unsteady sprint for the staircase.

His eyes are focused on the bottom of the staircase, illuminated by moonlight invitingly, like a spotlight is trained on it as he narrowly dodges tables in his sprint. His breathing is so labored he almost can’t hear anything else. But he does hear a gurgled scream behind him cut off suddenly. His sprinting footsteps thudding across the wood are cacophonous in the silence that follows.

He lets out a small sob as he crashes into the railing of the staircase in his haste. He climbs as quickly as his weakened body allows, his knuckles white on the railing. His blood runs cold when he hears heavy footsteps moving towards him, the floor boards behind him creak and inhuman breathing grows steadily louder. Black spots swim persistently in his vision, blinking doesn’t clear them away. He mumbles incoherently, half-crying as he gets about halfway up the staircase. He’s too scared to look back, he knows it’s bad.

A scream rips out of him as a bruising force grabs one of his ankles and pulls. He knocks his stump against a step as he crashes down. The pain blinds him and his right hand barely reaches the railing in time, he holds onto it tightly enough to strain the muscles of his arm and upper back as he’s suspended. The monster keeps pulling him, the burn in his muscles is excruciating, he grimly imagines them snapping any second. The monster behind him snarls, Dylan watches wide-eyed in horror as his own fingers begin to slip.

A deafening shot booms somewhere above him. Dylan hears the monster snarl gutturally before the vice-like grip around his ankle lets go. His leg falls hard against the staircase, he ignores the pain and scrambles up as quickly as he can.

“Dylan, come on!”

He instantly recognizes Kaitlyn’s voice. He looks up, his vision swims dangerously as he looks at her outstretched hand reaching towards him. His arm feels impossibly heavy as he reaches out to her with his shaky hand. She helps him stumble up the rest of the staircase, then she wordlessly takes his right arm and slings it over her shoulder.

He has never been more glad to know someone in his life, he thinks, as she struggles to support his taller form. They awkwardly stumble together down the walkway of the balcony. He has absolutely no idea what her plan is, but he’s going along with it no matter what.

They make it down to the end of the walkway, they continue towards the nearest hallway when the floorboards behind them creak ominously. Dylan can feel the reverberation in his feet. His stomach drops, his face goes slack, he really thought they would have a little more time. Him and Kaitlyn come to an uneasy stop.

The monster rumbles a growl and Dylan doesn’t think he has it in him to turn around. The decision is made for him, Kaitlyn lets him go and grabs the shotgun on her shoulder. They both turn around to see monster-Ryan towering over them, its burning orange eyes flit back and forth between the two of them like it can’t decide who to gruesomely murder first.

Kaitlyn begins backing away, Dylan is quick to mirror her movement. Monster-Ryan keeps pace with them, it tilts its grotesquely shaped head like it finds their behavior curious.

Dylan is one hundred percent certain that Kaitlyn’s shotgun is not enough for this thing. His breathing becomes erratic as the beast’s unblinking eyes loom large over them, they’re just playing for time. This thing is going to start killing one of them, and the other is going to have to run away. Now, grimly, Dylan thinks, it’s just up to who it picks. He hates himself for not being able to come up with a better plan than that, but he’s down a hand and he’s out of tricks.

His heel catches a little on the floor and he stumbles backwards before catching himself. Monster-Ryan’s glowing eyes flash over to him, it makes a curious rumbling that booms like a stereo.

Dylan is grimly transfixed by the horror before him as it continues stalking forward and tilting its head at him all the while. But, out of the corner of his eye he sees Kaitlyn raising the barrel of the shotgun, intent on using the distraction Dylan is providing.

Monster-Ryan notices at the same time. Its head snaps to look at Kaitlyn so fast it looks like a blur, its body coils like a spring lightning fast. Dylan sucks in a breath when he realizes what’s about to happen.

Before the poor girl can even pull the trigger, a monstrous hand slashes at her chest. The shotgun is knocked violently away, Dylan feels bile rising in his throat as he watches red bloom across Kaitlyn’s hoodie. The only sound that escapes her is a shocked wheeze.

Vindictively, the monster slashes at her a second time, this time she’s sent flying into a wall. The thud she makes unfreezes Dylan’s feet, he begins carefully backing away, he tries to step as lightly as he can so as not to make noise.

Oh, god. I can’t do this. I can’t—I can’t—

Monster-Ryan sniffs the air and begins advancing towards Kaitlyn’s struggling form. She’s sluggish in her movements as she tries to prop herself up against the wall.

Tears blur Dylan’s eyes as he continues to carefully back away.

God—Kaitlyn, I’m so sorry.

He chokes a sob and slowly turns away, there might be a chance for him to find a hiding place somewhere in this god-forsaken place. Self-hatred settles like a heavy blanket over him, every step feels like its own betrayal.

He makes it a couple more feet before he hears a small pathetic sound from Kaitlyn. He can’t tell if it was a cough, a word, or something else. It has him freezing in place, his mind thrown into violent indecision. Dylan can hear the monsters footsteps making progress towards her.

He has a split-second where he almost decides to continue with his plan to hide, but some small yet indestructible part of his mind forces him to turn around and look at the monster that is almost on top of Kaitlyn by now.

His eyes scan the hallway as rapidly as humanly possible. After what feels like an eternity of searching, his eyes land on a book resting on a nearby table.

Dylan feels like his right arm is actively fighting him as he reaches for it, his arm shakes as he grips it unsteadily in his sweaty hand.

He stares blankly for just half a second at the book in his hand, horrified by what he’s about to do, then he throws it as hard as he can at monster-Ryan’s back before he can think twice.

Dylan doesn’t wait for it to make contact, he stumbles a little as he turns away to start running as the book sails through the air.

Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Dylan’s already advancing as quickly as he can down the hall as he hears a thud. The roar the creature emits has fear travelling up Dylan’s spine like lightning, he can hear himself hyperventilating and it burns his lungs.

He nearly slips, arms flailing, as he harshly rounds a corner. He makes a small pathetic sound when he registers angry footsteps pounding down the hallway he just occupied. Dylan’s neck tingles with odd warmth as he hobbles towards the nearest door, there’s a very tiny chance he can barricade himself in one of these rooms if he’s lucky.

The candles around him flicker wildly, blurring past him in his rush. He can hear the creature’s angry breathing somewhere behind him as it gains on him. A barely functioning part of his brain notes that this must be his personal hell.

For a split-second, Dylan feels a breath gust against his neck. The creature grabs his left arm and he’s being yanked into the air. His rasping scream is cut short as he’s slammed like a ragdoll into the nearest wall, his world goes black from the pain and he goes limp with unconsciousness for just a second.

He sucks in air and reopens his eyes, the horrific face of the creature swims before him as it sniffs at him, letting out a rumble.

Dimly, he registers moonlight filtering into the lodge to his right. In his peripheral, he can see a curtain. Faster than he can think, he uses his free arm to blindly reach out. His hand brushes fabric, he bunches it into a fist and pulls as hard as he can from his awkward angle.

The curtain rod only breaks off halfway but the curtain still flies accurately into the monster’s face. It’s enough to confuse monster-Ryan into releasing its hold on Dylan. He drops to the ground unceremoniously as the monster bats at its own face in confusion.

Dylan is quick to scramble away. He almost loses his balance as he takes off into an unsteady run, the monster thrashes in confusion behind him.

He races over to a door not too far away, he might actually make it!

Dylan cries in relief when he fits his hand shakily around the handle. He twists and—

It’s locked.

FUCK.

He doesn’t have time to figure this out, the monster growls and Dylan can hear footsteps coming towards him again. Dylan hisses and pushes off the door hard to drunkenly run as fast as he can to the next nearest door.

His vision narrows down to this one door. Everything else he’s sensing feels so small in comparison as he watches it get closer to him in his mad sprint. There’s an odd sort of peaceful quiet to his mind as he nears it. Oddly, it feels as if the entire world is just comprised of this hallway and himself running down it. Dylan’s arm looks strange to him as he watches it reach out in slow motion towards the handle.

But the moment his hand begins to brush the texture of the brassy handle, his world zooms out again and sound comes rolling back in as he crashes through the door.

The thundering footsteps are right on his heels, maybe literally, and he spins to close the door. Next step would be to lock it and pray.

The door is almost snugly back in its frame when it bounces back at him. Dylan is sent skidding across the floor as the door bangs off the wall.

The creature has to duck its head down some to cross the threshold, arms braced on the slightly splintered frame as it enters the room.

Dylan’s vision clears, he looks up from his place on the ground into the eyes of the monster and feels all his limbs freeze in place, little tremors are the only movement in his body. He’s never felt more small and pathetic in his life, he sucks in a breath and it rattles his chest. He openly cries and holds his shaky hand out, as if this fucking thing can understand mercy.

Monster-Ryan tilts its head at him, tongue lolling around with the movement, it makes Dylan’s stomach turn, he sucks in a breath. It advances towards him with its arms held out, mouth salivating as it stalks towards him.

“R-Ryan—,” his voice shakes so hard he can barely understand himself, “please. Ryan, please.”

Now monster-Ryan looms over him, inches away from his face. Its breath puffs across his face, its orange eyes impossibly large. Dylan thinks he can almost spot the whites of its eyes, just peaking, he stares with his breath held as the beast stares at him.

Monster-Ryan’s lip curls and Dylan feels cold all of the sudden.

With a snarl, the monster violently grabs Dylan’s shoulders before sinking its teeth into Dylan’s shoulder with a crunching sound.

Dylan screams hoarsely for what feels like the millionth time. He knows that broke his collar bone, but all he can feel is some godawful venom bullshit travelling through his veins. He knows his struggling is pointless, but he tries anyway. He tries to reach up to dig his fingers into the monster’s eyes, but his arm’s mobility is limited because of the monster’s mouth on his shoulder.

His hand scrabbles uselessly against the monster’s side as its teeth sink in further.

A small, pained cry works up from his throat. Black spots work from the edges of his vision towards the center. His limbs become too heavy to hold up and gravity settles like an impossibly oppressive blanket over him as he goes limp.

Kaitlyn.

He hopes she got herself somewhere safe. He hopes she didn’t just fucking bleed out anyway.

He has just enough energy to cry, it’s pained and broken noises with the mouth around his shoulder sending waves of pain through him.

Dylan feels himself drifting off, the black spots have nearly completely consumed his vision as they work towards the center of his eye. He can barely see the godforsaken monster killing him.

The drifting continues peacefully, he’s surprised he hasn’t felt his head leave his body yet or something awful like that. It takes him an eternity to realize that the monster is awkwardly frozen in its murder attempt.

It’s about to be a successful murder.

Some part of Dylan’s brain is genuinely impressed that he managed to think something that stupid in his final moments.

Monster-Ryan’s teeth are still lodged in Dylan’s shoulder painfully, but it’s no longer ripping and tearing into him.

Dylan can’t lift his head, so his eyes lazily drift over to look into the face of monster-Ryan. He can see the thing’s nostrils flaring as it breathes in and out harshly through its freaky human-dog snout. Its brilliant orange eyes dart around before settling on Dylan’s face.

Dylan’s mind has never been more blank and empty of intelligent thought in his life as they stare at each other, its teeth still embedded in his shoulder awkwardly.

Their staring continues as the sound of gentle rainfall on the lodge’s roof fills the silence.

Dylan doesn’t move or even twitch for fear of somehow causing the murder attempt to resume. Monster-Ryan’s breathing starts to slow, its chest heaves a little bit less as the seconds pass. Eventually, the creature gently removes its mouth from Dylan’s shoulder. Dylan can’t help the little pained moan this causes.

Monster-Ryan drops Dylan’s shoulders and backs away as if burned.

Despite the danger, Dylan lies there, staring at the ceiling in disbelief. As his vision slowly starts to clear, he briefly considers playing dead, but he decides against it seeing as how the monster very deliberately let him go.

Dylan props himself up on his elbow with great effort, his mouth hangs open in shock as he watches the creature settle itself some distance away, looking restlessly about the room.

The pain pulsing in his shoulder is fiery and unnatural. It’s difficult to take his eyes off the creature, but Dylan forces himself to look down at the mess that is his shoulder. Brilliant vermillion blooms outwards on his stained t-shirt, underneath the mess he can just make out a strange blackness in his veins spreading out rapidly like tree roots over his body. His stomach turns at the sight, he looks away.

Dylan’s afraid to move but his head is still distressingly airy and fuzzy. He sits up the rest of the way, it makes his head swim. He slowly and gently presses his hand to his shoulder to staunch the blood flow, the broken collar bone hurts like a bitch and he hisses at the contact.

Monster-Ryan’s head swivels to him at the sound and Dylan freezes in place, holding his breath.

A tense moment passes as Dylan fears he may have broken this strange truce they have. Then, the creature goes back to scanning the room restlessly.

Dylan decides to stay frozen a little longer. He carefully only moves his eyes to look around the room they’re occupying. He spots a desk and some shelves carrying books in the darkness.

He sits there for a moment, listening to monster-Ryan’s breathing as the minutes pass. Since he can’t move without triggering some kind of reaction, Dylan strains his ears to hear if anything else is moving about the lodge. He only hears an odd creak here and there, nothing truly alarming for now. Well, nothing more alarming than a monster sitting in the corner of the room.

As Dylan carefully eyes monster-Ryan in the corner, time passes strangely, he’s not sure how long he does this. Without something to focus on besides the monster’s strange behavior, the pain thrumming in his shoulder starts edge in on his mind. Warm blood wells up between his fingers where his hand is placed on his shoulder, he feels a little light-headed as pulls his hand away to see that’s it’s coated red.

Fuck, this weird venom stuff is probably racing through his veins at this point. Anxiety and energy begin to return to him, shaking him from some of his stupor. Okay, he’s probably screwed, but the least he could do is wash the bite wound so his shoulder doesn’t have to keep marinating in that thing’s saliva.

Dylan braces his hand behind him, he almost gets up but then pauses. Fear returns to cloud his mind as he watches the creature continue to anxiously scan the room.

His hope that he’ll somehow survive this night blossoms in his mind once more, but with that hope comes a torrent of fear, it threatens to keep him frozen in place indefinitely.

The unpleasant warmth radiating from his shoulder starts to spread to his back and the rest of his chest, it’s all the kick he needs. Slowly, and as unthreateningly as he can manage, Dylan pushes himself to stand up with only moderate effort. Monster-Ryan’s ethereal eyes follow him the entire way, but it makes no move to attack him. Dylan breathes out a sigh of relief, he stands surprisingly steady.

Okay, next part is way scarier though. He takes one step towards the door, just a test. Monster-Ryan perks its head up in interest, but otherwise stays still.

He freezes in place again, it was only some odd ten minutes ago that this thing was trying to kill him. What if he reignites that murderous intent somehow? Grimly, Dylan swallows his nerves. He looks down at the ground, unable to look at the creature in case it decides it still wants to kill him.

He takes another step, nothing. He keeps his head ducked down, emboldened by his progress, he makes it to the door. He gathers the courage to look up, monster-Ryan is still staring at him, its breathing is still unsettlingly fast. At this point, the consistent staring is starting to increasingly unnerve Dylan. He briefly wonders if Ryan really is still in there somewhere, buried under whatever the monster before him is.

Well, as romantic as that thought is, he can’t really rely on it. He decides that monster-Ryan is probably still extremely capable of violent acts of murder, he slowly edges away from the door into the hallway. He’s pretty sure he remembers there being a bathroom up here somewhere, he ambles off down the barely lit hallway.

He’s barely out the door before heavy footsteps dog him.

Dylan reflexively cowers against the wall, arms raised to protect his head and neck, as the creature joins him in the hallway. It seems unperturbed by his behavior as it extends to its full height, its head nearly brushing the ceiling, to sniff at the air.

Dylan lowers his arms in shock as he stares at the creature’s towering form next to him. He wishes he could understand the phenomena of why monster-Ryan is allowing him to live right now, but he doesn’t have the luxury of testing those unknown limits. He continues with his plan to find the bathroom.

As exciting as it would be to study monster-Ryan, he’ll settle for locking himself in the bathroom and surviving the worst night of his life.

He makes it to the bathroom door, relief floods his veins as he reaches for the handle, this one better not be fucking locked this time.

Dylan’s halfway through the door before he nearly has a heart attack as monster-Ryan notices him and quickly wanders over, curious. Before he can close the door behind him, it has its ugly body halfway through the door frame.

Oh, Christ, it’s actually going to follow him around. Well, shit, that really ruins his ‘cry for the rest of the night in the bathroom’ plan. Dylan doesn’t want to push his luck, trying to shove monster-Ryan out of the door is unequivocally a bad idea.

He can at least clean his shoulder wound though. There’s no shower, so he grabs the nearest rag and runs it under some water. Monster-Ryan sniffs at the counter. Dylan side-eyes it, it seems content to just hover around him.

Dylan briefly wonders if he actually did die in the study back there, and this is just some convoluted purgatory right now. That thought unspools a particularly disturbing existential line of thought within him, he feels himself getting lost in it, so he shakes his head to clear it.

He looks up into the bathroom mirror and catches sight of himself for the first time in hours. He immediately recoils at what he sees, not recognizing himself. His own horrified face stares back at him, the creature’s glowing eyes behind him cement his horror as it tilts its head like he’s doing something peculiar.

Dylan gathers himself, he takes a breath and takes stock of himself.

His face is the most haggard he’s ever seen it in his life, covered in spatters of blood that may or may not belong to him. His hair is matted and wild, he’s vain enough to reach up and correct it a little bit.

But, it’s his eyes that steal the show. The dark circles under them exaggerate their new unnatural hue of soft amber. He continues to stare into them, oddly intimidated and horrified, he watches them widen slightly in horror as he stares at himself. The memory that his eyes are actually dark brown feels like a fever dream.

He looks away for his own sanity, he was getting stuck in some kind of feedback loop there. Dylan looks down at his shoulder, ugh, it gets more disgusting the longer he looks at it. He’s not a big fan of this next part, he’ll have to remove his shirt to clean it properly.

It’s awkward with only one hand, moreover he tries his best not to move his right shoulder at all as he wiggles his way out of the shirt. The process is surprisingly not as painful as he thought it would be. That’s just… weird, but his whole night has been weird so this may as well be par for the course.

When he sees the torn flesh of his shoulder, he has to swallow bile at the sight. He quickly grabs the rag and starts to wipe it down, hopefully get some of the saliva out of the wound.

Dylan freezes when monster-Ryan bends down it’s obscenely tall form to huff a breath against his head as it sniffs him curiously. He stays frozen, his hand with the rag hovers over his shoulder. The creature’s unnatural warm nose ghosts over his shoulder and its chest rumbles deeply as if it’s contributing something.

Dylan deeply wishes he could speak the language of monster-Ryan right now. He’d probably know why the fuck this thing keeps staring at him for extended periods of time, and probably also why it let him live. He’ll settle for a lukewarm truce though.

Once the blood is washed away, his shoulder doesn’t look quite as horrific. His collar bone is bent at an unnatural angle but it hasn’t broken the skin, and the bleeding appears to have stopped relatively quickly. There’s a part of his mind that finds that fun fact extremely odd, his equally odd amber eyes sweep over their own reflection, his face looks funny to him with its set frown.

He shrugs off the feeling, he really can’t figure this out right now. A part of him knows there’s something deeply and existentially wrong about this picture, but he’s too scared and tired to attempt to investigate. He’s pretty sure he can’t even if he wanted to. He washes the shirt too, blood swirls around the drain in the sink and he’s morbidly fascinated as the blood washing away reveals a ragged pattern of holes in the shirt.

He awkwardly wiggles the shirt back on, he hisses at how cold it is, it raises goosebumps painfully. Monster-Ryan seems absolutely content to continue its peculiar hovering. Dylan looks up at it warily, but a persistent curiosity moves ever forward through his mind the longer monster-Ryan lets their truce continue.

He'd rather not be stuck in this tiny space with a carnivorous monster, he decides to push his luck just a bit. He holds his breath and carefully squeezes past the monster, he tries to create as much distance as possible so as not somehow offend its unknown sensibilities.

Surprisingly, it lets him past easily with only a huff. Dylan looks back at it in confusion, the beast stares back. Its large orange eyes patiently watch him, its breathing has slowed to something much calmer than before. If Dylan didn’t know any better, he’d say that the creature is downright passive towards him at this point.

Despite the killing machine before him being what it is, Dylan find himself transfixed. Its hands look strangely human, but the image is disfigured by sharp overly long nails extending outwards. It stands in an almost awkward fashion, like a foal unused to its own long limbs. With pointed ears and a dog-like snout, Dylan supposes it might be a canine of some kind, or at least share some characteristics.

But most of all, the glowing eyes that watch Dylan in return hold a suspicious amount of intelligence. Some feeble part of Dylan’s mind feels hope bloom once more, maybe there’s a slim chance that Ryan is still in there… somewhere?

He looks away, disturbed by the unblinking gaze. He looks out at the dimly lit hallway, the silence of the lodge is deafening. The eerie silence is interrupted by pang of hunger so strong it almost makes him feel sick.

Fuck it, he may as well push the envelope a little more. He takes off at a steady pace down the hallway, monster-Ryan unsurprisingly follows him like a puppy dog. Dylan can’t help the little delirious chuckle that escapes him as the thing keeps pace with him. Dylan with his haggard appearance and missing hand plus the horror movie monster walking beside him must make a truly bizarre pair as they progress towards the balcony to go down to the first floor.

Dylan freezes in place when he retreads old ground, he spots Kaitlyn’s blood decorating the floor of the balcony still. But… no Kaitlyn in sight.

That’s good… right? He thinks, there’s no obvious trail, hopefully she moved off towards safety. He briefly considers searching for her, the urge to make sure she’s still alive is strong. But, monster-Ryan’s breathing besides him reminds him that he’d almost certainly get her killed if he did that.

New plan: Get food and lock away Ryan somehow.

Maybe if Kaitlyn’s still hanging on somewhere, he can ensure her safety somehow.

Monster-Ryan begins to sniff at the blood on the ground. It occurs to Dylan that this thing might have tracking capabilities. Alright, time to expedite this ‘lock away Ryan’ plan before something bad happens. He doubts Kaitlyn would choose to hide in the kitchen. If monster-Ryan has a strange fixation on him like Dylan suspects he does, then this might actually be an easy plan to execute.

Wow, something might actually go right tonight, he thinks. He immediately hates himself a little bit for potentially jinxing himself.

He sets off down the balcony, fully expecting monster-Ryan to follow. He almost wants to turn around and say something stupid like ‘come here, boy!’ but he decides against it, there is definitely an unnatural intelligence to this creature. As much as he loves telling terrible jokes, he definitely doesn’t feel like potentially dying for it.

Predictably, monster-Ryan follows once Dylan gets to a certain distance. It walks around on its two legs, its height is massive and it cuts an imposing figure as it appears to scout ahead of Dylan.

Dylan is going to need therapy for how much all of this is screwing with his perception of reality. He wonders, how many people can say they got to briefly co-exist with a horrific killing machine?

He makes it to the stairs, he takes the steps with ease, the pain in his body has slowly turned down to something much more manageable. Just more weirdness to ignore, he supposes. Monster-Ryan appears to be scouting out the first floor. Dylan realizes that the mercy he’s been granted may or may not be granted to the others, he speeds up to the bottom of the staircase. Luckily, the others are either gone or bunkering down somewhere because the lodge is dead silent.

He’s at the bottom of the staircase, he’s about to turn to the kitchen when the stench of blood hits him like a train. It’s so strong that he can immediately tell where it’s coming from. His mind flashes into panic at the thought that it might be Kaitlyn.

He follows the scent and trembles a little, his mind spins with possibilities.

Please don’t be Kaitlyn. Please don’t be Kaitlyn.

The metallic stench invades his senses as he fumbles further through the dark, he can just make out a strange shape against the far wall.

He gets closer, the shape is too large to be Kaitlyn and he breathes a sigh of relief. It must be the man who was holding him hostage earlier, or whatever that situation was.

His eyes adjust a little more to the dark, the shape comes into focus a little more. His stomach drops out as the twisted body becomes recognizable. The head and limbs of the stranger are just bent… wrong. Their flesh is ragged and torn where it used to be whole, the violent patterns of blood on the wall paint a vivid story. Dylan can barely tell that this was a fucking person.

Dylan starts dry heaving, turning away from the sight. Oh fuck, monster-Ryan did that to whoever the fuck that was. He rushes back over to the main lobby, to create some distance between him and the unfathomable mess lying against the wall.

Nausea rolls over him hard, a cold sweat breaks out at record speed across his skin. The image of the body replays mercilessly in his head, he steadies himself against a table and tries to take deep breaths.

The creature seems to notice him, it pauses in its patrol and stalks over to him to investigate. It makes a strange chuffing noise at him, Dylan takes one look at monster-Ryan’s face and proceeds to immediately throw up over the side of the table. He sags against the side of the table until the retching stops. Monster-Ryan makes curious rumbling noises all the while, Dylan flinches when its strange nose briefly pokes the side of his face. Even past the creature’s ugliness, he would find that endearing if he hadn’t just seen the result of this thing’s wrath just a moment ago.

Okay, back to the plan.

Now his stomach feels like painful bottomless pit, he shoves off the table to slump his way towards the kitchen. The creature dogs his footsteps like a terrifying loyal companion. As they progress towards the kitchen, it looks about as if scanning for danger within the lodge. As if it isn’t the danger in the lodge right now, Dylan thinks snidely.

Although, this monster isn’t the only one of its kind out there right now. Hunkering down in the kitchen is sounding pretty good right now.

He pushes open the kitchen door, the room is dimly lit by a few candles, but he can make out some of the darker corners surprisingly well. Monster-Ryan’s heavy footsteps follow him in, it immediately begins to pace the room as if searching for something. Dylan closes the door behind him, just in case doors confuse monster-Ryan, he’s not sure and is afraid to test that theory.

Dylan ignores it in favor of searching the cabinets for some heavily preserved food. He probably shouldn’t feel too comfortable turning his back on the creature, and he doesn’t, but he definitely can’t outrun this thing and it seems hellbent on following him. Hopefully it’s not just saving him for later, but that thought is easy to discard. If the beast wanted him dead, he’d be dead. The strange intelligence it harbors must be driving its odd behavior towards him, although, Dylan wishes the beast’s goodwill had extended to Kaitlyn as well.

He grimaces a little at that thought, hopefully she’s somewhere alive while Dylan distracts the monster in question.

The cabinets are mostly empty, eventually he happens upon a box of miserable granola bars. Not exactly paydirt but his mouth waters all the same. He takes a couple and settles on the floor, he makes sure to face the door and keep monster-Ryan within sight. The monster seems content to sniff curiously about the kitchen, it looks impossibly tall as its head periodically brushes the ceiling. But Dylan’s so excited to eat he doesn’t mind sharing the room with an actual horror movie monster.

He grasps the bar awkwardly in his remaining hand, his stub hovers uselessly. Oh… right, it’s incredible that he actually manages to forget that he only has one hand now. He stuffs down his negative thoughts, his single hand awkwardly fumbles with the wrapper.

Monster-Ryan settles into a corner near Dylan, its unblinking eyes occasionally search the room as it watches him struggle. A couple minutes go by like this, the silence is punctuating by his frustrated breathing.

He breathes hard; anger starts building in him like a tempest as his fingers continue to slip uselessly on the plastic wrapper, his mouth pursed in concentration. “Mother—fuck!” The words rip out of him as he throws the bar hard against the nearest wall, it smacks hard against the wall and makes a sad sound as it hits the floor. The only sound in the ensuing silence is Dylan’s hard breathing as he fists his hand in his hair.

Okay, okay, okay, don’t forget the killer monster in the corner, Dylan.

He fearfully side-eyes the beast, luckily, it seems undisturbed.

Dylan deflates a little, the resurgent fear taking some of the anger out of him. He grabs another bar from the small pile he recovered and tries again. This time, he uses his teeth to aid in the process. Great, he’s gonna have to open everything this way now, isn’t he? He chuckles humorlessly as he tries to coordinate his mouth and hand together.

He can’t help the yell of triumph as he finally tears the wrapper open like it’s the most impressive thing he’s done in a long time. Monster-Ryan looks up, startled. Dylan doesn’t care, his mouth waters and his stomach feels like it might actually turn into a black hole. He tears into the granola bar hungrily.

Dylan has half the bar in his stomach, then the sick sound of flesh tearing and the sight of the giant’s disfigured body flash viciously through his mind. He retches reflexively with a hand up to his mouth, the food in stomach suddenly feels wrong. He drops the granola on the ground, disgusted, and tries to get his breathing back under control.

He’s still starving, but he decides to give up on food for now in favor of huddling in on himself. The water in his shirt is ice-cold by now, shivers rack his body and he hugs his arms around himself. In his quietude, he starts to notice things.

Like how his heart beats frenetically within his chest, that by itself isn’t odd. However, the persistent sweat on his brow combined with the freezing cold confuses him, it feels oddly like a fever as if he’s becoming sick. He looks down at his stump suspiciously, the pain of it has receded significantly, it only exists now as a dull ache. He moves his shirt aside to inspect his shoulder, the collar bone is still bent oddly, but the deep gashes of before have faded somewhat to soft pink scars.

In the newfound quiet he easily notices how the soft glow of the candles has a strangely bright corona, it irritates his eyes.

Speaking of eyes…

His eyes fall on the metal cabinet across from him, its uneven surface bends his reflection oddly, making him look disfigured. He can see his hunched form curled protectively in on itself. And in the low lighting, like two full moons, his unnatural amber eyes glow softly in the darkness.

Ryan doubling over and transforming into the hideous monster replays in his mind. His chest tightens. Is Ryan really gone? Has he actually just been completely reduced to whatever this dreadful creature is?

The distorted shape of his glowing eyes stares back at him. Is that going to happen to him next? That’s what happened to Nick. Isn’t turning into a rage monster basically the same thing as dying? He’s never seen one turn back. What if it’s permanent? What if everything Dylan is will be just be erased in a matter of hours? Isn’t that the same as dying?

Dylan rocks back and forth, a hand in his hair, he pulls a little to ground himself. His breathing runs away from him.

Come on, Dylan. Come on. You’re not going to turn into a monster.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he starts breathing faster, he reflexively gasps every time he tries to take a deep breath.

He pulls his hair harder, as if it will snap him out of it.

COME ON, just take a deep breath! Just calm down!

But he can’t. His hyperventilating fills the room, tears prick at his eyes. He imagines himself screaming horribly, arching in pain as he explodes into a geyser of blood. All to be replaced by a monster with glowing eyes.

Dylan takes ugly hiccupping sobs and ducks his head into his arms, maybe if he does this long enough he’ll pass out?

His head gets fuzzy as the hyperventilating sends warm tingles across his neck and fingers. He vaguely hopes that his wish to pass out will be granted, but then he hears heavy footsteps approaching.

Oh, good. Maybe monster-Ryan will actually kill him, and Dylan won’t have to turn into a homicidal carnivorous monster that hurts people instead. Death either way. He keeps his head ducked down, his eyes tightly shut, he doesn’t really want to watch himself die.

Dylan shivers, he waits for teeth and claws to tear into his neck.

He gasps when an enormous warm weight settles behind him, it curls around him protectively. He tentatively lifts his head and monster-Ryan rests its hideous head on his uninjured shoulder. Dylan’s shocked eyes stay trained on the creature’s face, he stays still, not wanting to make any sudden movements.

He stays frozen. The creature’s breathing is steady, its body is like a furnace and Dylan stops shivering.

Eventually, he wills his muscles to unstiffen. He leans back a little and absorbs the warmth. A small, and irritating, part of his mind is just a little giddy with hope. For all intents and purposes, the creature appears to exhibit signs of intelligence. Maybe this strange behavior is sign that Ryan is still alive, in some way.

He turns his head just a little to study monster-Ryan. Its orange eyes stay trained on the door, like it expects someone to walk through.

Dylan’s existential crisis has turned down to background noise. He feels braver than he probably should, maybe it’s because he might just die no matter what tonight. Or, maybe it’s because monster-Ryan is coiled around him, its head resting gently on his shoulder, like it’s trying to protect him. Dylan would bet the creature will eviscerate anyone and anything that walks through the kitchen door right now.

Although, Dylan grimaces, he could really do without its weird tongue drooling on him. Alright, so… the plan where he locks away Ryan somewhere is technically successful except…

Dylan was supposed to leave Ryan alone in said room. Oh well, the plan probably wasn’t going to work anyway. He’s seen what this creature can do, it’s not crazy to think it could rip a door off the hinges if it can rip human bones out of their sockets. Dylan supposes he can just wait for monster-Ryan to fall asleep and then sneak away, a rescuer would be nice but Dylan highly doubts anyone is going to look for him. He feels a little cold at the thought the others probably have abandoned the lodge, or any efforts to help each other most likely.

He considers the beast coiled around him, everything in its body language is relaxed, except for how its gaze rests on the door. He thinks about how it let him go, how it patrolled around him much like a dog, and how it stares at him incessantly like it’s trying to communicate something.

He relaxes a little, a tentative idea gently pushes forward through his mind. He can’t really help himself, his voice is soft as he tests the waters, “Ryan?” He pauses uncertainly, “are you…?”

Dylan feels a little dumb when the beast doesn’t react. Well, he didn’t really expect it to anyway. It’s brilliant eyes hold some strange intelligence, but he doubts it understands language.

Well, Dylan feels like talking anyway. He’s used to his conversations with people sometimes being a little one-sided anyway. Dylan sighs, he’s glad his brain manages to still be insecure even when he’s suffered a metric fuck-ton of trauma.

“I really hope you’re still in there, Ryan,” his voice trembles a little. Dylan’s throat tightens a little against his will, his words come out strained, “I’m gonna be really sad if y-you’re just—,” his chest hitches before he can finish speaking. Tears blur his sight as he looks over at his unrecognizable friend. He looks at the beast’s face, he imagines Ryan’s light brown eyes instead of the unnatural orange ones. He imagines Ryan’s smug smirk instead of the creature’s terrifying maw.

Dylan’s tearful eyes dart around, he surveys monster-Ryan’s face as if some sign of Ryan’s existence will make itself known. Instead, the beast’s face remains passive and undisturbed. Its features continue to vaguely terrify Dylan, and its sharp teeth continue to be slightly reddened from human blood, some of it being Dylan’s own.

He looks away before he sinks any further into that line of thought, he can feel it attempting to drown him down to a place he can’t return from.

Dylan sniffles pathetically, okay time for a gear change.

Dylan huffs a little humorless laugh, “you know, you didn’t have to turn into a rage monster wendigo thing to get close to me,” he hiccups a little, speaking more quietly he adds, “could’ve just been doing that all summer…”

“You definitely could’ve been nicer to Kaitlyn too…” He trails off. God, he hopes she’s okay. The memory of her shocked face as she holds a hand to her bloody chest fucking makes his chest hurt. Fresh tears roll down his face, he wonders if he’ll ever run out.

“It was really cool how you saved me from the—,” the corpse of the hillbilly enters his mind, “the—uh, whoever the fuck that guy was.” This time his disbelieving laughter is genuine, “I actually—I can’t believe someone—you—actually came to help me. I thought that guy was gonna…” kill me, his brain finishes.

“I don’t know if…” he looks over at the beast’s face, “this fucked-up version of you understands how much I appreciated that.”

Monster-Ryan’s eyes occasionally land on Dylan’s face as its eyes survey the room. Dylan pretends it’s Ryan’s eyes looking at him, he can’t help his watery smile as he goes on, “that was so awesome,” his voice trembles a little again, “I don’t think anyone has ever done something like that f-for me.”

His smile fades as he catches sight of his own glowing eyes again.

“Well, looks like I might be joining you soon enough,” his laments to himself. More tears blur his vision, they make his head feel tight. His voice shakes like a leaf as he says, “I’m so sorry, Ryan.” His throat tightens painfully, his chest tightens in sympathy, “I’m sorry I wasn’t faster saving you from that thing at the scrapyard.”

He knows the creature doesn’t understand, but some desperate needy part of Dylan wishes more than anything that this thing somehow harbors Ryan under all the murderous bullshit.

He continues anyway, “I-I was so scared, that thing was in my face, I could barely think. And then, I just couldn’t move the car fast enough, it felt like the longest moment of my life…”

He remembers Ryan calling out for help, he remembers thinking he was going to listen to Ryan die. He remembers how it made him push the lever so hard he almost pulled a muscle in his back.

“We didn’t deserve this, Ryan,” his tone becomes somber, he feels some of his nervous energy drain away. “Whatever the fuck this bullshit night is, we definitely don’t deserve it…”

He leans into monster-Ryan’s heat, his head rests on his crossed arms. Dylan stares numbly ahead, the beast just continues to breathe steadily in the silence. Monster-Ryan has stayed curled around Dylan the entire time he’s talked, unbothered by his ranting.

Dylan smiles just a little. Sardonically, he notes this is usually how his conversations with Ryan go. Well, he may as well make light of this, a silly idea occurs to him, he might die and be reborn a rage monster soon anyways, he’s got to get some terrible jokes in before that happens.

He turns his head towards monster-Ryan. “Do you realize that you’re a glorified therapy dog at this moment?” No response from monster-Ryan, but that’s fine, Dylan makes his own fun.

He’s feeling brave, and more than a little doomed. But curiosity pushes him to test the limits of whatever this relationship is, he’s hyper aware of his hand as it slowly reaches up to rest against the creature’s head.

Its glowing eyes follow his hand and for a moment Dylan thinks that he’s fucked up. But then, he rests his hand against the beast’s forehead, and the creature just heaves a deep breath, its eyelids droop just the tiniest bit.

Dylan holds his breath as he swipes his thumb softly against monster-Ryan’s skin. The creature’s skin feels disturbingly human but a little rougher, or—maybe that’s a good thing? Dylan’s not sure. It’s uncanny how its skull looks and feels so human under Dylan’s hand while the face makes no attempt to match Ryan’s. Under his palm is a furnace of heat, the creature continues to run hot like there’s too much going on its blood. Despite this, it continues to stay as relaxed as it probably can under Dylan’s scrutiny.

He lets his hand fall away. Dylan supposes this is the most trust he can possibly have with this creature. He rests his head against monster-Ryan and lets himself relax, at this point, he’d be surprised if the creature had a problem with it. Predictably, it doesn’t.

He doesn’t know how long they sit there like that, but his heart races uncomfortably the entire time no matter how much he takes deep breaths. He sweats, it gathers along his forehead despite the chills on his arms. His pain is all but forgotten, it’s been replaced by some kind of itch under his skin that has him feeling on edge.

A distant howl cuts through the silence. Monster-Ryan instantly tightens its embrace of Dylan, its head perks up to survey the kitchen, scanning for threats. Dylan stiffens in anticipation, he’s honestly surprised he even has the energy to react to danger anymore.

A couple of tense minutes pass without incident as he stays caged in the creature’s arms. Dylan’s uncomfortable but he’s afraid to squirm around too much, monster-Ryan seems content to stay alert.

Luckily for Dylan, after enough time has passed it begins to relax again. It doesn’t really matter too much to Dylan, he’s been condemned to… some kind of fate tonight. He’s just not sure what it is yet.

After a while he lets his eyes close, he doesn’t particularly feel like seeing their ethereal glow all night. He slows his breathing as much as he can, his frantic heartbeat makes the task almost impossible. The strange fever running in his veins has his senses dialed up to 11, but he manages to relax as much as he can while listening to the creature’s breathing.

A hefty amount time must have passed, because the next time he opens his eyes the kitchen is bathed in a soft blue glow.

As his eyes lazily scan the room, he feels that irritating hope blossom again and his heart slows to something more comfortable as the sun rises.

Chapter Text

The sun’s rays begin to peak through the windows in earnest. Dylan feels like he’s in a dream as the room is steadily bathed in an ethereal glow, light refracts and chases the shadows away. He waits for himself to wake up to a dark room, but the moment doesn’t come.

Some birds singing echoes just outside, it draws an unreal contrast to the night he just had, makes it feel like a fever dream.

But the blood coating his entire body and the beast resting its head on his shoulder are quite real. Monster-Ryan had taken to gradually falling asleep on Dylan’s shoulder, its weight is pretty hefty, but Dylan does his best not to disturb it.

Sleep begins to beckon him, but not in earnest, his veins still manage to sing with anxiety and leftover adrenaline. He really should be trying harder to sneak off and find Kaitlyn’s hopefully very alive self, but detangling from monster-Ryan’s limbs is looking like a monumental task right now.

The beast’s breathing slows down to something like sleep, it rests its full weight on Dylan. Which, okay, actually kinda hurts, Dylan winces. He begins to stealthily wiggle his shoulder away from the beast.

Okay, here’s your chance, Dylan. Don’t fuck this up somehow.

He holds his breath and carefully lifts one of the creature’s arms away to free himself, he smiles a little to himself as he successfully sets the arm aside.

Alright, Grabber, now we’re getting—

A wet popping noise sounds behind him, blood spatters outwards wicked and fast like a bomb going off, coating the surrounding cabinets and his back in its warmth. Dylan noisily sucks in a breath like he’s been dunked in ice-cold water, his eyes widen in shock. His brain is utterly silent as he slowly looks down at himself, expecting there to be a hideous hand protruding from his stomach or something equally awful.

He finally looks down. And… nothing. It takes him an eternity of shaking and shocked surveying to realize that he’s… fine? He quickly runs his hand over himself, he—nothing feels or looks wrong, so…?

If not him, then…? Dylan hears a groan behind him. He twists himself to look back at the monster.

Dylan’s mouth hangs open in shock, because instead of a monster, he sees what looks somewhat like Ryan covered in gallons of blood. Dylan continues his undignified staring as Ryan wipes at his blood-covered face before squinting open his notably light brown eyes. Said light brown eyes scan the room in confusion, freezing when they spot Dylan.

The only sound is their breathing as they stare at each other, the air feels heavy as an anvil.

Ryan’s seemingly human eyes widen as he watches Dylan. It takes Dylan a moment to realize that he’s backed himself up against the adjacent cabinet in an effort to create distance.

Ryan looks around at the blood in confusion. Instinctively, Dylan’s body coils tight, ready to spring into a run. Rapidly, his mind runs wild with various scenarios of seemingly human Ryan lashing out like an animal towards him. He imagines Ryan tearing and biting at him much like the monster did. After last night, why would life be kind enough to return Ryan unharmed?

He watches Ryan’s mouth, waiting for fangs and an overly long tongue to reveal themselves. Dylan’s brows knit in confusion when he sees the mouth moving, as if to form words.

And, oh. Yes, apparently Dylan has been hearing words this entire time, he belatedly realizes.

Dylan notices for the first time that Ryan’s human eyes look shocked, his expression scared with his hands held out placatingly. That’s definitely not something the rage monster would do.

“-ylan, are you okay?” Ryan is sitting up now, poised like he wants to move towards Dylan, but he stays frozen in place with his hands out. In that profound look of concern, Dylan can recognize a familiar spark of warmth in Ryan’s eyes. Dylan was certain he’d never see that again. Want and hope spreads throughout him lightning fast, he’s scared to even breathe lest he shatter the moment.

His want wins out in the end. He wants to reach out and touch Ryan’s skin. He wants to feel his warmth and hear his familiar baritone voice. However, he only leans forward tentatively despite the torrent of desire to crush Ryan in a hug. He tests the waters, “you—you’re Ryan?”

Like, as in my Ryan? The Ryan who plays along with my terrible jokes and tried to save me from a murderous mountain of a man? His brain selfishly adds.

Ryan’s immediate look of bewilderment is almost comical, his concern is almost overridden by irritated confusion. “What? Yes. Dylan—please,” the panicked voice crack in Ryan’s voice makes Dylan’s heart seize, “are you hurt? Did I hurt—”

The words register and something in Dylan’s brain sings with hope like the sun rising, he moves with surprising speed to crush Ryan in a hug. Ryan makes a surprised little ‘oof’ sound as the force of it lightly slams Ryan against the cabinet behind him. Dylan’s uncaring of his missing hand as he wraps around Ryan’s chest as tightly as he can. Like this he can feel the quick rise and fall of Ryan’s chest, like this he can feel Ryan’s rabbit-fast heartbeat beating against Dylan’s own chest. He’s halfway in Ryan’s lap, clinging to him like a weed when Ryan’s arms carefully come up to wrap around Dylan in return.

Dylan doesn’t know why, but the return of the gesture makes something in his chest uncoil. He involuntarily hiccups, ugly tears roll down his haggard face. He wraps his only hand around the back of Ryan’s neck to pull him impossibly even closer while he buries his face in his neck.

Alive. Not erased. Not dead. Alive.

He doesn’t realize he’d said that aloud until Ryan shushes him. He’s slow to realize that Ryan is carefully running his hands along his torso to search for injuries.

Dylan’s brain is dominated by his need to account for various stimuli. He hears Ryan’s human mouth mumbling reassurances in his ear. He feels Ryan’s normally shaped human body radiate warmth while nervous shivers wrack Dylan’s frame. His body is anchored against Ryan protectively as Ryan tries to run his hands over Dylan searchingly, his effort is made more difficult since Dylan’s arms partially trap him.

Then, one of Ryan’s hands brushes Dylan’s right shoulder. Dylan can’t suppress the little yelp the pain causes, but he keeps his hold on Ryan tight. Some irrational part of his brain convinces him that if he holds onto Ryan, he can protect him from whatever all of last night was. Despite the sun’s warm rays, his brain spins with anxiety and fear. He imagines Ryan turning back into a monster somehow, or another one showing up to massacre one or both of them.

Ryan’s familiar baritone voice breaks his single-minded focus, “your shoulder—Dylan, that doesn’t feel right.” Dylan can hear Ryan’s panic mounting, “Dylan, I think you’re hurt. What happened to your shoulder?”

You partially mauled me, he answers internally. Ryan’s huff of irritation ghosts against Dylan’s ear as Dylan fails to answer. There’s really no easy way to say ‘you turned into a rage monster and mauled me a little bit’. Ryan tries a new tactic, he tries to gently pry Dylan’s arms open to get a better look at his shoulder, but Dylan holds fast like a particularly annoying octopus. Frankly, Dylan knows he’s overreacting, but every time he thinks of letting go it makes him think he’ll wake up to a dark room where his friend is still a lanky murderous killing machine.

Ryan goes limp in Dylan’s hold with a sigh, seemingly in defeat. But, it seems he’s only changed tactics as one of Ryan’s hands come up to cradle the side of Dylan’s face. Dylan’s taught muscles stiffen first before relaxing minutely as Ryan’s thumb caresses his cheek while fingers card through his hair slightly. His breath shudders a little at the familiar gesture.

“Dylan, please, look at me,” Ryan’s voice commands softly.

Even in his heightened state of fear, Dylan doesn’t think he can possibly ignore the request. After a long moment, he begrudgingly loosens his arms from their constrictive hold. He leans back in Ryan’s lap a little to look into his face properly. Dylan’s mouth twists a little as he takes in Ryan’s stare, something about it makes the events of the last few hours fall down on him all at once.

Something in Dylan’s expression must alarm him, because beautiful light brown eyes search Dylan’s face in shock. Little slants of sunlight fall across Ryan’s blood-covered face and Dylan stares. Dylan’s eyes follow the curve of his nose, they wander over to the shape of his lips. The sunlight reveals the tiniest specks of gold in Ryan’s irises.

Dylan is broken out of reverie by Ryan’s voice again, his voice is painfully soft as his scared eyes search Dylan’s, “what happened to you? What happened to your shoulder?”

Dylan swallows a little, suddenly he’s acutely aware of their proximity in a way he wasn’t before. Oh, fuck, it’s really hard to lie to someone when they’re literally two inches from your face. His eyes dart around Ryan’s face as he thinks of ways to gently and politely say ‘you tried to kill me’.

Ryan’s expectant eyes sear into him and Dylan can’t help but to look away. His eyes settle on a streak of blood on the cabinets they’re leaning against. It shines a little grotesquely in the sunlight, like molasses, it slowly runs down the side of the cabinet. The bright vermillion shining in the light makes Kaitlyn’s face flash through his mind.

Oh, Kaitlyn.

“Oh, shit, Kaitlyn,” he breathes out. Dylan quickly levers himself up from Ryan’s lap, adrenaline makes his limbs shake once again. Ryan’s confused what? goes ignored. Ryan tries to catch his hand, but he’s too quick, he absent mindedly grabs a frying pan and sets off for the door, his mind racing. Ryan is quick to scramble into a standing position to follow him despite his obvious confusion.

With an irritated huff, he sets the pan aside momentarily to open the door. As he pushes open the kitchen door, Dylan is acutely aware that the danger may still be present. But it’s been hours, Kaitlyn has waited for help long enough.

He steps out into the lobby, his knuckles are white around the handle of the frying pan as he surveys the room.

The tall east-facing windows shower the lodge in shafts of sunlight, its beauty draws a harsh contrast with the chaos of the barricaded doors. Dust motes swirl in the air around him, normally at this hour, him and the other counsellors would be having semi-decent eggs together while they tiredly try to crack wise. Instead, it’s so quiet he can hear his own heartbeat. Not to mention, the actual mutilated dead body lying against the adjacent wall really sours the image for him.

Dylan turns away to retch a little bit. Yup, it’s even worse now that he can properly see everything.

Ryan catches up to him. “Dylan, I don’t understand. What’s wrong with Kaitlyn?” Out the corner of Dylan’s eye, he sees Ryan freeze. Dylan looks over, Ryan’s sickly expression is frozen in horror as he spots the hillbilly’s corpse. “Who…?” Ryan’s question softly trails off.

Okay, Dylan really can’t go explaining that one. It occurs to Dylan that Ryan may or may not remember much of what the monster version of him did. A lightning bolt of alarm strikes through him, he can’t have Ryan realize what he did right now, especially not like this. Dylan purposefully obstructs Ryan’s view of the body. He feels somewhat ridiculous as his stump reaches out to grab Ryan’s shoulder but freezes halfway. He leans down a little to catch Ryan’s eyes with some difficulty, “hey, Ryan don’t—look, just don’t worry about that yet. We need to find Kaitlyn, yeah?” He nods at Ryan expectantly.

Ryan’s dazed eyes finally meet his, he nods along numbly. Ryan breathily responds, “right, okay, yeah… I don’t understand what’s going on. What happened to Kaitlyn?” Before Dylan can respond, Ryan is stumbling away to vomit on the floor, his hands braced on his knees.

Dylan feels a pang of sympathy at the awful retching noises Ryan makes, he can’t help feeling a little ridiculous as he uses his stub to try to rub comforting circles on Ryan’s back, his other hand being busy with his questionable choice of weapon. He mumbles, “it’s okay, mister, that’s a pretty universal reaction…”

Ryan catches his breath, he wipes his mouth on his arm before roughly breathing out, “okay, I’m good. Let’s just find Kaitlyn.”

Dylan breathes out a sigh of relief, if Ryan remembers, he’s not revealing it thus far at least. Definitely a problem for later. Dylan’s voice is relieved as he says, “yeah, let’s search this floor first, just don’t look at the—you know…” he shrugs and Ryan nods in agreement.

They don’t stray far from each other as they search the lodge, Dylan directs them away from the dead body. There’s no way Kaitlyn got very far, Dylan muses, she’s likely still in the lodge somewhere. Checking Mr. H’s office seems like a good bet, it’s got good number of hiding places. Despite being unarmed, Ryan approaches the ajar office door first, his stance wary. Dylan stays close behind him, his frying pan raised supportively. They search cautiously, but the office comes up surprisingly empty. She probably isn’t in the secret sex dungeon, seeing as how she was injured and getting down there involves a climbing a ladder.

They step back out into the lobby, and Dylan’s patience is just about running out. What if she’s dying right now? His mouth gets dry as his eyes dart around looking for a sign of where she went, something to save him time. She saved his life, it’s not fair if he can’t save hers in return. He stomps out into the center of the lobby. Alright, subtlety and horror movie monsters be damned, he’s gonna speed this up. “Kaitlyn! Call out!” his panicked voice is painfully loud in the silent lodge.

Ryan looks at him in alarm at first but then calls out for Kaitlyn as well. The lodge is dead silent in return, well, at least a wendigo monster thing didn’t answer. Dylan calls out again, he stands in the center of the lodge and listens hard to the deafening silence he gets in return every time. “Kaitlyn! Call out if you’re alive!” his voice trails off somewhat into a breathy hysterical laugh followed by a sniffle.

God, please don’t tell me I’m calling out to a dead woman right now.

His tired eyes sweep the lodge once more. He’s grazing over the scene of the mutilated corpse when he sees it just past the body further down the hall, the clinic door is… closed? Something clicks in his brain. He highly doubts the murder hillbilly closed the door behind himself. He spots a smear of blood on the handle that wasn’t there last time he saw it and his breath catches in his throat. He rushes over, clutching his fry pan tightly. Ryan is quick to follow him, sensing the change in atmosphere.

Dylan tries the handle, it’s awkward with the pan in his hand, but the door is locked anyway. His eyes are wide with hope as he yells into the door, “Kaitlyn? Are you in there? Please say something!” Dylan hears some kind of clatter through the door, but no words are spoken in return. Ah, fuck, she’s probably still hurt, this door is coming down… somehow. His mind races as he thinks of ways to get it open.

His eyes snap over to Ryan’s anxious face, Dylan barks out, “Ryan!” Ryan looks mildly startled, “is there a-a master key—or some shit Mr. H has to get these doors open?” his voice comes out harried and impatient.

“Uh, yeah, but I think he took it with him,” Ryan stammers out apologetically, his eyes scan the lodge as if he can find the solution lying around somewhere.

No matter, Dylan has been flying by the seat of his pants all night. May as well keep that theme going, he thinks. Dylan drops the frying pan and stands square with the door. He usually has more finesse than this, but… oh well. Without much preamble, he raises a leg and kicks towards the center of the door as hard as he can. The pain that blossoms in his ankle is immediate and exquisite as the door bends within its frame but is ultimately unmoved.

Dylan lets out a tortured wheeze as he bounces on one foot, cradling his ankle, “Oh—Fuck!” Embarrassed tears burn his eyes as he curls up on the ground and quietly whines, “it looks so easy in the movies…”

Ryan’s hands hover sympathetically as he crouches next to Dylan, his voice is soft as he says, “it’s okay—it’s okay, you almost had it. Here, let me.” Ryan stands in front of the door, he bounces a little in place before he delivers a solid kick to the door. With an awful splintering of wood, it flies open. Ryan races back over to Dylan to help him up with a supportive hand on Dylan’s arm.

Dylan re-arms himself with the frying pan, just in case. Ryan cautiously pokes his head into the clinic with Dylan impatiently hobbling after him.

Once inside, Dylan assess the room as fast as he can. He immediately spots a pale Kaitlyn lying on one of the clinic beds and his heart climbs up to his throat, but then he notices one her hands reaching weakly towards a metal tray on the floor. He drops his frying pan, it clatters loudly, and races over to her side. Ryan circles around to the other side of the bed, his hands hover uselessly as he takes in Kaitlyn’s state. She looks dazedly up at Dylan, he doesn’t see recognition in her eyes. Then, her mouth forms an ‘o’ in shock as her eyes sluggishly scan him up and down, her voice is froggy, “you…? You’re alive?”

Dylan cries a little in relief. He grabs her hand, it’s reassuringly warm in his hand but a little clammy. He squeezes her hand and breathes out a sigh, he can’t go into details in front of Ryan right now, so he forges ahead, “yeah, um—" he nervously hums, “I—uh, I saved your life. It was pretty cool…” his voice is involuntarily somber as he trails off. The sound of his own desperate crying and heavy footsteps chasing him echoes through his brain for a second, he can’t help his eyes darting a quick look at Ryan.

Kaitlyn’s eyes lazily wander over to Ryan. Without warning, she seizes in place. Her hand grips Dylan’s tight enough to hurt. Dylan’s stomach drops, his alarmed eyes flash over to Ryan’s confused ones darting between him and Kaitlyn.

Oh, no. She must’ve seen—she saw him change. Wait, shit—

“You. No! Dylan—please, get us away!” she begs, her voice reaches a pitch he hasn’t heard before. In her panic, Kaitlyn starts scrambling off the bed and into Dylan’s chest away from Ryan, he instinctively braces his arms around her to keep her from falling off the bed. Dylan looks up to see Ryan backing away slowly with his hands raised, his face is drawn in pained shock and Dylan panics. Oh, fuck, no no no, this is going to be too fucking hard to explain this time. The small room quickly becomes cacophonous as Kaitlyn half-begs half-commands Dylan to help her flee. Ryan almost looks like he’s on the verge of tears as he stammers out apologies. The situation is fucked but Dylan tries to fix it anyway, his voice cracks a little as he yells over Kaitlyn’s panicked voice, “Ryan, it’s okay! She’s just confused—"

But Ryan is already fleeing the room, he stumbles out an apology, “I’m sorry. I-I don’t understand—I’m sorry.”

“Wait! Ryan, wait!” Dylan yells at his retreating back but Ryan is well on his way out the door. Well, shit, that ran away from Dylan faster than he thought it would. “Don’t go far!” Dylan yells through the clinic’s open door with Kaitlyn still half-suspended in his arms. She’s hissing about how they need to leave immediately as he carefully deposits her back on the bed, mindful of her injuries. And it’s then that Dylan notices the haphazard job she did of wrapping her chest in bandages. And that’s also when he realizes she’s only wearing bandages, his cheeks burn in embarrassment and he’s about to look away until he notices splotchy red lines starting to bloom across the gauze.

Kaitlyn’s is still yell-whispering to him about how they need to get away from Ryan when he interrupts her, “Kaitlyn!” His tone comes out harsher than he intended but she finally stops to listen. Dylan forces his voice to something be something calmer as he says, “Kaitlyn. You’re still bleeding.”

She looks down at herself. A grimace twists her mouth and she says a little helplessly, “oh, damnit! Come on… it took hours to fix that!”

Dylan’s heart sinks a little as she makes a sad little whine with her hand held carefully to her chest. He, perhaps mistakenly, can’t help but feel a little guilty. She did choose to help him escape an unimaginable horror after all, he feels his chest tighten at the thought that she might regret it. His mind briefly flashes over to Ryan. Hopefully Dylan can use the confusion of the situation to smooth things over with Ryan, but… his chances aren’t looking good.

He brushes that thought aside for later, right now he needs to help Kaitlyn. She’s still mumbling to herself about how they need to leave. “Kaitlyn,” her eyes finally meet his and his brows raise helplessly as he implores, “I-I don’t know how to help. Tell me how to help.”

She seems to come back to herself at his attempt to hand over authority to her. She takes in a deep breath and instructs him, “I need to wrap this more, these by themselves aren’t good enough. I need to reinforce it with another wrap going over my shoulder,” she carefully gestures to herself.

She looks at him expectantly. At his blank expression she elaborates impatiently, “I need you to wrap the existing bandages with more bandages.”

Dylan feels properly chastised and bounces into action, he looks about the room for a roll of gauze a little aimlessly. Frankly, the place is a mess. There’s various cabinets and drawers left open, most likely in haste. There’s also a meager bed divider blocking the broken window, Dylan supposes that was the best she could probably do.

She cuts his awkward fumbling short when she points to the counter, “there’s a roll right there.” He grabs it and brings it over to her. He has to brace the gauze between his chest and left bicep while his remaining hand unrolls the gauze, he pauses to look at her expectantly. She draws a line from her right side to her left shoulder, “like this, it should look like a strap or something.” She gingerly pushes herself up to a sitting position to make it easier for him.

Dylan starts from her right side, she holds the end of the gauze in place while he arcs it over her shoulder to come back around to her side. His face reddens as he goes, first she gets attacked by a monster for him and now he feels like he’s making her uncomfortable. The silence gives him too much time to think about other things, so he blurts out, “I’m really sorry if this is weird.” She inclines her head towards him, confused. He can’t meet her eyes as he continues, “it’s just really unfortunate that the—” he halts himself, he doesn’t want to drag attention back to Ryan, he fumbles a little to cover up the mishap, “that—you know, you’re hurt right here.” He squints his eyes tightly as if that’ll somehow give her more modesty.

She looks at him incredulously for a second before erupting in a laugh, it’s cut short when she gasps a little. She protectively rests a hand on her chest before addressing him, “Dylan?”

Her commanding tone scares him a little but he look up at her, perhaps a little squirrely.

“Stop talking and get my other side,” she commands, gesturing to her unbandaged shoulder.

He nods self-deprecatingly before quietly adding, “yes, ma’am.” With some difficulty, he unrolls some more of the gauze and begins tying another wrap around her chest. Her smile is kind as she watches him work while she holds one of the ends in place.

When the work is done, she sits back against the bed. Dylan watches her patiently, he already knows she wants to ask him questions. While she gets comfortable, his brain frantically tries to formulate a strategy for some damage control. He’s grateful she doesn’t have the shotgun anymore, he’s pretty sure she would’ve shot Ryan just now if she did.

Kaitlyn breathes out a small sigh and then her inquisitive eyes settle on his face. Dylan suddenly feels as if he’s under a spotlight, he swallows just a little.

She starts the offensive with a tilt of her head before asking him, “how did you survive?” He shifts a little from foot to foot. He remembers the beast’s teeth, like so many knives, digging into the flesh of his shoulder. Most of all, he remembers its glowing orange eyes staring at his face while he accepted certain death. Hm, that’s a good question, he doesn’t say out loud.

She breaks him out of the memory as she continues, “I saw it tear after you. You can barely handle the fucking obstacle course.” Ouch, he internally agrees. “So, how did you get away from that fucking thing?” she gestures just beyond the open door behind him.

He needs to find a way to placate her, he doesn’t know how long Ryan will have a potentially foggy memory. He can’t shut her down, she’ll get even more suspicious. So, he may as well comply… but, like, maliciously. Well, every good lie skims close to the truth, Dylan supposes. He looks at her skeptically, he sets out the bait with, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

She looks at him squarely, unamused, “try me.”

Alright, Blasé Dylan, dramatize this bitch.

He crosses his arms and leans back and levels her with a perfectly sassy glare, “well, after I saved your life,” her face softens a little. He mentally congratulates himself, alright that’s a little guilt-tripping. Now, he just needs sprinkle in a little misdirection. He continues, “I got pretty far because I don’t suck at track,” she rolls her eyes, “and the plan of ‘run the fuck away and hide’ was going pretty well until…” he doesn’t need to fake the emotional vulnerability for this part, “until I tried to barricade myself in the first room I found but I couldn’t close the door in time…” he finishes a little somberly with pursed lips.

While he’s been talking, her scathing gaze has turned soft instead. She tilts her head at him in concern and he kind of feels like a douche for what’s he’s about to do.

Alright, now for the cherry on top, he prepares himself. With unnecessary showmanship, he mimes the beast biting into his shoulder, “and then it just chomped down on my shoulder and—uh, and I was like ‘oh, fuck! Ow! This hurts—a lot!’ and for a second, I thought I was goner,” he finishes with a nervous laugh.

The beast’s maw crushes his shoulder while its hands suspend him. Brilliant amber eyes watch him while salty tears stream up the sides of his face.

Kaitlyn’s face has morphed into bewilderment, he forces energy back into his voice as he continues, “and then, it just spit me out like ‘bleugh!’ and fucked off on its merry way,” he smiles cheerily at her dumbfounded face before adding, “it’s kind of interesting, actually, I can—um, personally attest even cosmic horrors have taste preferences. So…” he trails off, the silence that follows is deafening.

After a long drawn out pause, she shakes her head as if to clear it and says, “what the fuck, Dylan?”

Dylan eagerly seizes the opportunity to interject, “see! I told you you wouldn’t believe me.” He tilts his head at her coyly and raises his shoulders in a I told you so manner.

Now she just looks offended, she scoffs, “oh, please. That was bullshit. Why would—”

Dylan doesn’t want her to finish that sentence. More misdirection! His brain demands. He obnoxiously talks over her, “oh, please, Kaitlyn. Is it really that weird?” She’s about to interject, her expression flabbergasted, he cuts her off, “okay, miss ‘that’s so weird’, have you ever heard of how sometimes, like, a shark will bite someone and then let them go?” He doesn’t actually want her to answer, he bullies ahead before she can, “it’s a thing that a lot of animals do, even scary apex predators. Is it really outside the realm of possibilities that it would—you know, not actually desire human flesh?”

She stares at him, severely, for a long moment. He sweats a little as he watches the gears turn in her head, she definitely knows he’s bullshitting but maybe there’s a tiny seed of doubt. Maybe?

She finally sighs in defeat and Dylan is relieved. He’s not so obvious as to breathe out a sigh of relief, but he does lower his shoulders and forces himself to relax his defensive posture. They share a quiet moment that feels a little more amicable if a bit stilted. The sunlight begins to stream into the room in earnest, it falls across her face as she looks at him with something like pity and suspicion.

Dylan feels like she’s looking right through him as she takes his hand gently, she speaks to him as though he’s a scared doe, “Dylan, how do you know you can trust him? That thing wasn’t him.”

The beast curls around him protectively, brooking no escape but also no harm.

He stares back at her, his face uncharacteristically set in stone before he flatly replies, “I just do.”

Her face morphs into surprise and she lets his hand go. Without looking at him, she says, “well, I don’t. Keep him away from me. Away from everyone else.”

Dylan nods morosely before looking down a little guiltily, that felt like a serious conversation-ender, so he begins to walk away to go make sure Ryan isn’t guilting himself to death. He’s at the busted door frame when Kaitlyn calls out, “hey, Dylan,” he turns to her a little warily. But she just smiles a little and says, “thanks. For saving my life. I was really scared you were…”

Dead. Yeah, me too, he thinks. Instead, he says, “no problem, Kaitlyn. Anytime…” he tries to smile back at her reassuringly, but it comes out more as a grimace. She smiles back softly anyway before she settles down to lie down. He turns away to go search for Ryan.

Please don’t be sulk-crying somewhere that’s hard to find.

To his relief, Ryan is quietly sitting with his shoulders hunched at the bottom of some stairs in the lobby. Dylan only just now notices that his clothing is torn and tattered as it hangs on him, the violent transformation into a monster probably did that. A shotgun lies on one of the steps beside him, he must’ve gone back to reclaim it, just in case their problems extend into the light of day.

Dylan’s mind races as he walks up a bit cautiously.

Play it cool. Come up with some bullshit. People say crazy stuff when they’re suffering from blood loss, right?

He really should know something about this, it was happening to him only a couple hours ago. Ryan is staring sulkily ahead, his face unreadable as Dylan takes a seat on the stairs next to him. The sunlight falls across Ryan’s back and Dylan takes a brief moment to just watch him. Dylan spent hours thinking he was dead and now he’s just… softy breathing next to him while the sun continues to rise. Although, he does look pretty sad with his hunched shoulders and blank expression, so that kind of ruins Dylan’s euphoria a little bit. But not much.

In spite of Ryan’s sour demeanor, Dylan smiles at him easily, “don’t worry about Kaitlyn, big guy.” Ryan turns to look at him coolly. Dylan presses on anyway, “people say the darndest things when they’ve experienced blood loss… and are probably traumatized to some degree,” he trails off awkwardly as Ryan continues to stare... right through his bullshit, probably.

Dylan opens his mouth to say more nonsense, maybe he can actually confuse Ryan into thinking about something else, but then Ryan interrupts him easily, “the last few hours are… weird,” Ryan looks down at himself, “and I don’t know what the fuck happened to my clothes.” Dylan holds his breath in anticipation. Ryan tilts his head curiously, he stares at the ground like it holds answers, “I can’t—the last couple of hours are really blurry for some reason. But I feel like…”

Dylan, think of something! Now!

Ryan’s eyes suddenly dart to his and Dylan freezes in mortification, eyes wide as he looks sideways at Ryan. Ryan’s expression hardens before he says, “Dylan, what happened last night? Did I—”

A loud thud from one of the barricaded doors echoes throughout the lodge, and both their heads snap in the direction of the front door.

“Oh, come on…” Dylan whimpers to himself as Ryan quickly stands and levels the shotgun at the door.

They both flinch as the door thuds again, more violently this time, causing the shelf stacked against it to rattle. A distinctive male voice swearing can be heard from across the lobby, if a bit muffled. Ryan and Dylan share a concerned look. Dylan imagines another murder hillbilly like the last one breaking the door down and his mouth goes dry.

He gently rests a hand on Ryan’s shoulder in warning and Ryan inclines his head towards him. Dylan quickly stutters, “w-what if it’s a-another, um, giant murderous… man?”

Ryan gestures with the gun in his arms, “that’s what this is for. Plus, it might be—” another loud thud and the shelf finally falls over with a loud bang, “—something else?” Ryan finishes lamely. Dylan has to duck down a little cower behind Ryan as a man with his hands raised crosses the threshold.

Ryan’s voice booms out, “what do you want?”

“Hey! Guys, it’s me,” the man calls out. He steps into the light better and Dylan can finally make out his face. Chris Hackett stands before them disarmingly with his arms raised. Dylan is about to relax, but then he fully notices Chris’s disheveled appearance. His clothes look hastily put together, and most alarmingly, Dylan notices creases of blood in his skin on his hands and neck.

No. Nope. Red flags are here, and Dylan doesn’t ignore those. He feels a little ring of alarm blare through his mind as he notices Ryan moving to holster the gun out of the corner of his eye. Dylan squeezes his hand resting on Ryan’s shoulder to get his attention. When Ryan looks over, Dylan shakes his head minutely at him in warning. Ryan briefly looks at him in surprise before he looks back at Chris critically, the shotgun isn’t raised but it isn’t holstered either.

Chris’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise and he holds his hands out placatingly. “Woah, woah, guys,” he pleads, his voice going up an octave. He tilts his head sympathetically at their suspicious stares, he speaks lowly, “okay. I’m willing to bet that you guys had a really bad night.” His eyes scan them up and down.

That’s an understatement, Dylan wants to say out loud. Instead, he lets Chris continue.

“I don’t know what you guys have been through but, trust me, I’m on your side,” he steps a little closer to more comfortably hold the conversation. Chris’s eyes dart between their faces, his eyes widen suddenly before he blurts out, “wait—holy shit. There’s only two of you?” He looks about the barricaded lodge in open confusion. He freezes when he spots the mutilated body lying against the far wall.

Dylan feels some of his suspicion melt away into sympathy as he watches a quiet slow-dawning horror take over Chris’s face. His mouth forms a small shocked ‘o’ as his eyes look impossibly lost. He ignores the two of them, heedless of the gun, as he slowly walks over to investigate.

Something in Dylan feels sick as he watches Chris stop some ten feet away from the body. The man turns away, his eyes watery with a horrified hand over his mouth as a tortured sound escapes him. Ryan lowers the gun and holsters it. Dylan doesn’t object.

For a couple of minutes Chris just leans hard against the far wall, his head bowed. After a while, Dylan begins to feel antsy in the uncomfortable silence. He looks over at Ryan to see that he’s staring at the mutilated body some distance away, his expression intensely thoughtful. Dylan doesn’t know how the mechanics of turning into a rage monster and back into a human works, but he’s willing to bet that Ryan isn’t completely foggy on the details at this point. His stomach sinks at the thought.

Eventually, Chris takes a deep breath and pushes off the wall. It’s loud in the quiet space and they both look over at him expectantly. His eyes are red as he says, “okay. We really need to talk. But, for the love god, can we hold this conversation somewhere else?” His expression brooks no argument.

Ryan looks over at Dylan questioningly. It’s takes Dylan a second to realize that Ryan is asking for his opinion. He quickly gets over his surprise and nods. He needs to get Ryan away from the dead body anyway. While there’s definitely something weird about Mr. H right now, he did come to them unarmed for what it’s worth.

“Alright, let’s go,” Ryan affirms.

Chris mumbles a thank you before leading them out onto the balcony outside.

Once outside, some of the horror of the night is washed away by the sunlight. The sunlight filters through the canopy into little spots on the forest floor just like it always does. Dylan looks over and the fog glistens a little on the lake just like it always does in the morning. It’s beautiful. Almost unreal, he thinks. It’s hard to imagine these beautiful woods were full of unnaturally murderous monsters just a few hours ago. The light of day only brings comfort with its predictability though, Dylan’s not entirely convinced these particular monsters would be afraid of sunlight. His undercurrent of nerves is unaffected by the suns normally comforting rays as Chris gathers them in a semi-circle on a balcony overlooking the lake.

Chris heaves a sigh and turns to look at them, his hands are held out authoritatively, “first things first, help is on the way. My brother is the sheriff and he’ll help us sort everything out, because I’m sure you guys have…” he pauses uncertainly and looks at the two of them with a mixture of pity and guilt, “have probably had the worst night of your life…”

For moment, Ryan and Dylan just stare dumbfounded. Dylan has a lot of hard questions, he’s about to ask one when Ryan beats him to it. “What… were those thing running around last night?” Ryan asks, his voice has an ever so slight shake to it that Dylan’s never heard before.

At Chris’s hesitation, Dylan and Ryan wait with bated breath. Chris looks down at Ryan a little grimly as he says, “you look like you tangoed with one… shit…” he pinches the bridge of his nose with a long-suffering sigh. He looks up suddenly and says, “they’re werewolves.”

Oh. I was totally gonna figure that out, eventually, Dylan’s brain unnecessarily supplies.

In the silence that follows a statement like that, Dylan can hear the wind whistle a lonely sound as it rustles the leaves all around. Ryan and Dylan break the silence at the same time,

“That was a werewolf?”

“I knew it!”

Ryan and Chris turn to look at him simultaneously. Dylan wilts a little under their combined stares, his shoulders go up defensively, “what? It was like my second or third guess…”

That’s when Chris notices the missing hand, his eyes go wide in alarm, “when did this happen?! Why are you missing a hand?” Chris’s reaction makes Dylan panic a little, for some reason. Every time someone reacts to his missing hand, he feels like he’s lost it all over again.

Ryan shuffles a little guiltily before he speaks up, his voice rough, “one of the—uh, werewolves messed up his hand,” he looks at Dylan apologetically, his eyes dart quickly to Dylan’s shoulder and away, “and… we thought removing it was the best solution at the time.”

Chris breathes out a tortured sigh before looking over Dylan, “okay, well… if it bit you and you removed where it got you. You should be good.” Dylan becomes hyper-aware of his shoulder. He almost touches it self-consciously but stops himself.

He’s relieved once Chris looks away from him and back to Ryan. “But you… Ryan. Your problems are going to extend beyond last night.”

At Ryan’s uncomprehending stare, Chris begins to outline how the ‘werewolf curse’ works. He tells them how he’s a werewolf and that’s why he left them in such a rush. Dylan watches, quietly mortified, as the information and burden sinks in now that everything feels a little more calm. Chris and Ryan talk, but Dylan doesn’t catch any of the words. He thinks about the bite on his shoulder, how the bleeding stopped so fast, and how the inky blackness spread through his veins like fire. His mind wanders away from the conversation as he looks out forlornly at the lake.

Ryan’s hurt voice snaps him out of his daze, “So, you knew you were leaving us out here with frickin’ bloodthirsty werewolves for the whole night?” Dylan looks in alarm as he notices for the first time in the conversation how tightly Ryan holds the strap of the shotgun, and how his face and body are tightly coiled like a spring being pulled back.

Chris shakes his head defensively, his arms crossed, “I know we messed up, Ryan. But we’ve only been doing this for six years. You have to understand,” Ryan shakes his head in disbelief, “we didn’t ask for this, and usually we’re on top of this stuff every full moon.”

Ryan’s eyes are slowly reddening, he shifts restlessly and can’t look Chris in the eye as Chris peddles out more excuses. As he stares at Ryan’s face, Dylan suddenly remembers all the times he saw Caleb and Kaylee talking with Ryan. He remembers how he used to sometimes spot them walking together or just hanging out. He remembers how Ryan got oddly defensive when Dylan brought them up in what feels like a lifetime ago. It suddenly occurs to him that Ryan might’ve been closer to the Hackett’s than he originally thought.

Being left out as werewolf food overnight is a pretty big slap in the face.

Dylan’s heart breaks as he watches Ryan bounce in place with coiled rage, he can’t even look at Chris for longer than a moment. Alright, he should probably do something, the more Chris talks the more Ryan looks like he might punch him in the face. Chris is in the middle of saying some bullshit when Dylan interrupts him loudly, “what should we do now? Every full moon?”

Chris stops awkwardly midsentence to look at Dylan before he replies, “well, it’s more so what Ryan has to do every full moon now.” He turns back to Ryan, “Ryan, we can help you. Come the next full moon, you’ll need somewhere safe—”

Ryan throws his hands up, his voice is shaky and bitter as he says, “Nope. No. Fuck this,” he points an accusing finger at Chris’s shocked face, “what you’ve allowed—what h-happened last night,” Dylan flinches as Ryan’s voice suddenly booms out, “I can’t undo!” His voice breaks a little at the end, betrayal is writ so plainly across his face that it makes Dylan’s chest hurt to look at. Ryan takes one last look at Chris’s shocked face before he shakes his head and storms off.

The silence between him and Chris after Ryan’s departure has Dylan shifting restlessly. He momentarily forgets that Chris is there until he’s being addressed tiredly, “so… was anyone else bitten? Where are the others?” His voice reaches a desperate octave as he says, “oh, please don’t tell me it’s only you two—”

“No. Um—Kaitlyn, Emma, and Abi are in the lodge. Kaitlyn needs medical attention, by the way.” Dylan mimes like he’s checking off a list, “uhhh, Nick turned into an asshole werewolf and Jacob is missing—we haven’t seen him for hours.” He shrugs with an overly fake smile to top it all off.

“Okay, alright, I’ve got to take care of… so much,” he glances at Dylan semi-apologetically before walking back into the lodge.

Once he’s gone, Dylan leans against the railing heavily, his head bowed. Chris’s words replay in his mind, their implication for how the rest of his life will play out cuts a chasm a mile wide through him. He feels that abyss of circulatory anxious thoughts beckoning him to fall into its darkness. Dylan takes a harsh breath as he realizes he’s potentially the only person who knows that he also has this ‘werewolf curse’ bullshit.

He sinks down to the ground to lean against the railing, he hugs himself tightly as his heart races in his chest. He stares at his own feet, bouncing restlessly, tries to ground himself with it in the painfully calm silence around him. His eyes are wild when he suddenly imagines himself just… running away, escaping this entire situation somehow. Like he can outrun all the horrible things that happened to him last night. Like distance can piece his life back together… somehow. The yawning chasm within him howls with loneliness when he imagines himself exploding into a monster every full moon, ready to rip apart anyone unfortunate enough to be near him. How is he going to explain this to his family? Should he even bother? What’s the point?

Dylan sobs a little at that thought and his eyes dart around restlessly. Self-pity roars through him, it wipes his mind clean of any other thought and he breathes harshly. He stays like that for several minutes, his mind is just panicked white noise. Eventually, the hyperventilating makes him tired. He rests his chin wearily on his folded arms and spots Ryan some distance away, sitting at the bottom of the balcony’s steps. He looks oddly small with his head held in his hands.

He looks cold, Dylan suddenly thinks. It’s the first non-panicked thought he’s had in a while. Dylan really can’t trust himself to be alone right now. Now that he’s come out of his mental haze some, he realizes that Ryan probably feels just as alone as he does. Well, Dylan needs a distraction again. He gets up and navigates back into the lodge to look for a towel or blanket, something to make Ryan look a little less sad. Frankly, Dylan suspects that Ryan is becoming more than a distraction. Or, at least has the potential to be more than a fun distraction. He fetches a towel and briskly walks back outside.

He stands at the top of the staircase behind Ryan. For a moment, with his back curved, his clothes in tatters, and blood covering every inch of his body, Dylan is briefly reminded of the monster—correction, the werewolf Ryan was only a little while ago. He shrugs the thought off easily enough and walks down the stairs towards Ryan. Ryan doesn’t indicate that he hears him, but Dylan knows that he does.

Dylan playfully drapes the towel somewhat unceremoniously over Ryan, then sits beside him on the same step. Ryan looks over at him, one part exasperated one part affectionate with the towel hanging awkwardly off his head.

Dylan holds his hand and stump up mock-defensively, “I literally did the best I could.” It’s difficult, but he holds a straight face.

After a brief pause, a warm smiles worms its way onto Ryan’s face, he snorts at little and reaches up to properly wrap the towel around his shoulders. Dylan returns his smile easily, and he props his elbows on the step behind himself and lets himself relax. The air is slowly getting warmer as the sun rises, and in the companionable silence that follows, Dylan listens to the birds sing. He’s trying to distract himself by memorizing the song when Ryan suddenly turns on his seat to fully face him.

His face is suddenly set in stone, his eyes narrow a little. Dread crawls up Dylan’s spine at the look on Ryan’s face. Ah, here comes the other shoe, Dylan thinks morosely.

Ryan’s voice is cold as he asks, “why won’t you tell me what happened to your shoulder?”

Dylan briefly wonders how crazy it would be to run away from Ryan at this moment. But then, he remembers how willing Ryan was to cut off his hand with a chainsaw and thinks that there’s at least a decent chance Ryan is also crazy enough to chase him down. Dylan looks at Ryan sideways with wide eyes, his shoulders are hunched like Ryan’s question has actually physically attacked him.

Things are bad enough, Dylan. Lie. Lie your ass off.

His mind frantically tries to cobble together a believable story like he’s trying to catch a fish with his bare hands. He hates himself a little for not coming up with a story ahead of time. Ryan’s eyes boring into him makes his face hot, his stare feels like an actual weight resting on him. He swallows drily before stammering, “t-the uh… mountain man—guy—thing, he um… when he grabbed me—I-I think he—”

Ryan’s angry voice cuts him off, “dude. You can’t lie.” He faces Dylan fully, bracing a hand on the step directly behind Dylan like he thinks Dylan is a flight risk. Dylan’s brain grinds to a halt as Ryan points with his other hand at Dylan’s messed up shoulder, “Dylan, I saw tooth marks in your shoulder, before. When I woke up from… being a fucking werewolf.” Dylan’s mind flashes back to when Ryan was inspecting his shoulder in the kitchen, he must’ve gotten a better look than Dylan thought. “Did I do that?” Ryan’s voice shakes, “w-was it me?” Ryan’s eyes are lined with tears as he looks at Dylan pleadingly.

Dylan’s mouth falls open in shock, he gets the feeling that Ryan already knows the answer to that question. He can’t think of a single good way to answer that question, he decides to try pragmatism, “y-yes, but—”

Ryan immediately leans away from Dylan to bury his face in his hands. He heaves a shuddering sigh and Dylan reflexively reaches a hand out to comfort him before he catches himself, he feels like every attempt he makes to control the situation just makes it worse. In spite of that knowledge, he opens his mouth to speak anyways, “look—that wasn’t really you. Mr. H just explained all that supernatural bullshit to us—”

Ryan’s broken voice is muffled as he speaks through his hands, “I remember.” Dylan goes quiet, his hand freezes just above Ryan’s shoulder. Ryan’s breathing becomes shuddered like the words are torn out of him, “i-it’s blurry. But I remember how you looked at me…”

Dylan lets his hand fall, his eyes well a little in sympathy. There’s no way he has any idea how to respond to that. Ryan is a tight ball of agony beside him as they sit quietly for a while, the only noise is Ryan’s occasional shuddering breaths. Dylan hopes that his continued presence is a reassurance… somehow. Ryan hunches in on himself like he’ll disappear if he tries hard enough. Well, Dylan didn’t just survive that whole night with Ryan just for Ryan to hate himself in the end. He scoots over until his body is flush with Ryan’s, Ryan freezes in response. Dylan forges ahead anyway by circling his arm around Ryan and resting his hand on the junction between Ryan’s neck and shoulder.

For a moment, Dylan thinks that Ryan will be angry enough to shrug him off. But instead, Ryan relaxes with a deep sigh of defeat, whether he realizes it or not, he leans a little into Dylan’s side. They sit there like that for a while. Ryan’s breathing slowly starts to even out, he eventually lifts his head to look at Dylan.

They’re close like this. Dylan’s face goes red again. Dylan can’t help his eyes darting somewhat nervously as Ryan looks at him like he’s sizing him up. “…why? Why are you even near me, right now after what I did?” Ryan’ voice is so soft and confused that it hurts Dylan’s heart.

“Because… it was just a love tap,” Blasé Dylan jokes, smiling at Ryan nervously. It’s hard to keep looking at Ryan’s unimpressed face in the resulting silence, but he manages.

After a moment, Ryan’s face unfreezes, he pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. His voice is tired, “Dylan.” The utter disappointment in that word has Dylan dropping his hand from Ryan’s shoulder. Fuck, he always does this. He never knows what to say for intimate questions like that, and then this stuff happens. Dylan’s so busy stewing in self-hatred he almost misses Ryan’s next words. “I thought…” Ryan looks over at Dylan tiredly, “we were getting close enough for you to… you know, be relaxed.”

Dylan huffs just a little at that. There’s nothing relaxed or chill about his feelings for Ryan, Dylan thinks. The trauma they went through last night, the way Ryan trusted him, and the fact that Ryan saved his life more than once just made those feelings soar to new very un-chill not-relaxed heights. Ryan will probably get scared off by how needy Dylan is. His heart sinks miserably at that thought. Dylan purses his lips, he refuses to look at Ryan. Out of the corner of his eye, Dylan sees Ryan staring at him patiently all the while. Shit, apparently, he’s expecting an actual answer and just has the patience to stare at Dylan until he confesses things.

Well, Dylan doesn’t feel like embarrassing himself with how strong his stupid feelings are. It’s painful enough when it lives in his head, why would he bring that shit to life by saying it out loud? So, unstoppable force, meet immovable object, Dylan thinks wryly. Dylan lets the uncomfortable silence continue for a couple more minutes while he stares hard at the tree tops. He’s certain Ryan will give up eventually. He’ll get tired of his antics, get tired of Dylan.

In the ensuing silence, Dylan starts to get a little antsy. He’s tempted to sneak a look at Ryan to see if he’s bored of Dylan’s bullshit yet. It’s just a matter of time, Dylan thinks morosely. His nerves get the better of him, he subtly slides his eyes over to sneak a glance at Ryan and—oh—fuck, it’s like a jumpscare, Ryan is still staring at him. But now he’s holding his chin in his hand and looking at Dylan like Dylan is the biggest idiot in the world. Dylan’s eyes dart away to stare at some dirt, shamefully.

Ryan’s gaze burns into the side of his face. After about another minute of silence, Dylan’s discomfort reaches a fever pitch, he grits his teeth. Alright, fine, he’ll just say why. He’ll open the floodgates, and Ryan will get swept away in the not-chillness that is Dylan Lenivy.

Dylan nods to himself once, “okay! Alright,” he smiles a bitter overly-fake smile at Ryan’s victorious smirk. That’s okay, that’ll probably change to either bewilderment or discomfort pretty soon. He turns to face Ryan and look him square in the eye, “I can’t hate you for something fucked up werewolf-you did.” Ryan’s face morphs into quiet shock as Dylan’s eyes well up, that tell-tale cry-headache hammers at his temples. He uses his remaining hand to brush his hair back, he bunches it in his hand to ground himself, his eyes are a little wild as he says, “Ryan. For the record, I thought you were dead—” a hiccup interrupts him, “—f-for hours.” He starts to ramble, “I thought you were erased from existence! Gone!” A sob steals his breath, makes it hard for him to keep with his train of thought. Ryan looks like he’s about to reach out, but let’s Dylan continue.

He moves his hand down to his forehead in a subconscious attempt to hide his face, his face burns and he can’t look at Ryan as he says, “I just wanted you back,” he hates how his breath hitches, “like, shit, all I wanted was for us to get to go back home. Imagine my surprise when…” he trails off as he glances back over at Ryan. Ryan’s quietly stunned face steals Dylan’s breath away a little bit, he doesn’t know if that face is ‘oh my gosh, I had no idea you cared so much’ or ‘oh my gosh, you care too much’.

On the back foot, his emotions feel raw and exposed, he falls back on anger. “I’m perfectly capable of making decisions for myself,” he spits out, “so, don’t you dare do that ‘no one can get near me’ bullshit. Not after—” another hiccup interrupts him embarrassingly, “—not after everything we went through,” his finishes with a wobbly voice. He looks away, he doesn’t want to watch Ryan’s face morph into revulsion or pity for him. All the crying and anxiety makes Dylan’s body taut. He covers his red eyes with his hand and his shoulders hunch forward defensively. His foot bounces restlessly while his entire body is wired to hear Ryan either walk away or awkwardly brush off his feelings.

Suddenly, a warm weight settles against Dylan’s side while an arm snakes around his waist. Dylan involuntarily holds his breath in response, his brain goes blank. Ryan gently rests his forehead against the side of Dylan’s head, he speaks softly, “I’m sorry.” Dylan can’t help a small hiccup. Ryan’s voice is a little bitter as he says, “all I can really remember of when I was… changed… is how scared I made you look.” Ryan’s voice is the most insecure Dylan’s ever heard it as he says, “the way Kaitlyn looked at me… whatever it is I did that guy—” he cuts himself off. After a brief pause, he confesses, “I… just can’t believe you were thinking all that. About me. Especially after…” Ryan pulls Dylan just a little bit closer with a squeeze of his arm.

Ryan holds him tightly, closely, and Dylan feels some of his anxiety melt away in that embrace. He lowers his hand from his eyes and inclines his head slightly towards Ryan. Dylan lets himself relax and they stay nestled like that for a while. In that time, Dylan can feel his mind trying to reject the reality of Ryan holding him closely, like it wants to prove him wrong. Wryly, Dylan thinks, this Ryan isn’t so different from werewolf-Ryan who curled around him protectively for hours.

With that thought, he feels some of his confidence return. His slightly unsteady voice breaks the silence, “you know, you should take that as—um, a compliment then. Besides, werewolf-you wasn’t… always murderous—sort of. When werewolf-you followed me around the lodge, it was like a fucked up sitcom.”

Ryan leans back, but not far, to look at Dylan with amusement. His face is still only inches from Dylan’s. Ryan’s eyes widen in realization, “oh! That’s right, we—” Ryan cringes, “oh god—I only have flashes, but that was so weird—”

Dylan can’t suppress an evil chuckle, “oh yeah, you were like a fucked up looking guard dog.” His voice winds down in energy, “it was trippy as fuck…”

Ryan quietly chuffs a laugh, shaking his head at Dylan fondly. They fall quiet, sitting closely together and listening to the quiet breeze. Ryan’s expression sobers up, “Dylan.” Dylan inclines his head towards Ryan, curiously, at his tone. “I know you probably already know… but you know you’ve got the curse too, right?” Ryan asks, he says it slowly like every word has weight.

“I know,” Dylan jerks a nod.

“I didn’t want to mention it in front of Chris. I figured you should be allowed to figure out what you want to do…” Ryan’s eyes dart around, he can’t look at Dylan.

Dylan beams at Ryan’s apologetic face. He reaches his hand up to gently cup Ryan’s face, Ryan’s eyes finally land on his. Dylan’s voice is soft as he says, “thanks, really.” He affectionately swipes his thumb across Ryan’s face like he can wipe away the guilt, and Ryan relaxes a little. When he pulls his hand away it’s only a little more bloodstained. “We’ll figure something out—” Dylan self-consciously clears his throat, “I mean—if you want to figure it out—together, that is.”

Ryan playfully nudges his shoulder. “Of course,” he says it likes it’s completely obvious and that floors Dylan a little as he takes in Ryan’s smile, “you’re the smart one. I’m dumb as hell, I need you,” Ryan’s smile is unbearably smug as he takes in Dylan’s quickly reddening face.

Dylan knows he’s at least partially joking, but the words ‘I need you’ still make his heart skip a beat. He’s starting to wonder if Ryan is actually trying to embarrass him. Is this revenge for all the jokes? He jokes back with a mock-serious expression, “I’m sure we can fix you, Ryan. Nobody is hopeless… I think.”

I’m hopeless. Dylan tries to shrug off that thought to no avail.

The quiet laugh they share is relaxed, like the way late-night conversations in their cabins used to be. For the first time in a long time, Dylan doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence with nervous chatter. They sit with their sides pressed close together and Dylan sees no reason to interrupt that.

But there’s still that itch at the back of his mind, that he thought Ryan was dead not so long ago. Dylan can’t resist staring. His eyes greedily drink in the sight of Ryan’s chest rising and falling. Ryan turns to look at him curiously. Somehow, he’s beautiful in the sunlight even with mystery blood covering his entire face.

Before Dylan can think better of it, he takes one of the ends of the towel and starts wiping down Ryan’s face. Ryan reflexively cringes but doesn’t do anything to stop him. Dylan’s over the top mock-disgusted face makes Ryan quietly laugh as Dylan says, “dude, I can barely see that pretty face under all horror movie blood.”

Ryan reaches up to brush Dylan’s hair out of his face before saying, “come on, I could say the same about you.”

Dylan’s mortified by the weird little snort he makes at that. Ryan notices and his eyes crinkle. Dylan is desperate to change the subject. “Showers?” he asks too quickly.

Ryan is far too smug as he says, “yeah, sure. Just one thing.”

Dylan only has time to raise his eyebrows questioningly before Ryan rests a hand on the side of his neck and leans in to capture his lips in a soft kiss. Dylan makes a little surprised noise but is quick to settle into the kiss with a tilt of his head. This one is much calmer than the last as Ryan slowly draws it out. Dylan’s hand is wandering over to rest on Ryan’s side when Ryan pulls away to rest his forehead against Dylan’s.

Dylan gets his frayed nerves back under control, he absentmindedly licks his lips, “I think you got blood in my mouth.” Ryan’s wry grin makes Dylan’s heart flutter. Grimly, Dylan notes, there is potentially three different sources for that blood. He decides to not mention that to Ryan though.

Ryan moves to stand suddenly, and Dylan feels a little dumb as he continues leaning forward before correcting himself. “Luckily, we’re about to fix that,” Ryan says, taking off up the staircase. He doesn’t look back, he trusts Dylan will follow. And, predictably, Dylan does, try as he might to not look like an infatuated puppy-dog.

Chapter Text

He’s hot. Burning, even. The sheets underneath him radiate heat back at him, it makes sweat cling to his skin uncomfortably. He twists and turns restlessly in bed as his heart races, it feels like it’s trying to beat out of his chest. The cover on top of him is suffocating. In a fit of anger, he throws it off and stumbles out of bed to cool himself down. Even away from the overly hot sheets his body is still hot like a furnace. So, his shirt has to go too, he tears it off impatiently as he makes his way over to the bathroom. The handle makes an odd strained noise under his hand as he swings the door open. It bangs off the tiled wall loudly in the small space as he hurriedly flips the lights on.

He cringes when they partially blind him, but then his eyes painfully adjust. It takes Dylan a second to recognize himself. His face looks haggard and strange with his eyes dilated impossibly large, while the sweat makes his hair cling to his forehead. Heat rushes along his neck. He feels like his blood is on fire, so he impatiently turns the handle on the sink to get some cold water going. He cups his hands underneath it to splash his face and—

White-hot pain sets his hands on fire and he tears them away from the water with a surprised shout. He looks down to inspect his shaking hands. His palms are covered in angry red welts, he can see steam wafting off them slightly. That’s when Dylan notices steam wafting off his forearms as well. He’s afraid, but he decides to look at himself again. His entire body exudes steam as if his blood is literally boiling. Shocked amber eyes stare back at him. An incredibly sharp pain hits like a lightning bolt in his mouth, and he doubles over in pain over the sink. Dylan makes a sad moan and protectively holds a hand to his mouth. In his reflection, he can see that blood starts to seep through his fingers over his mouth, it mixes with the running water to turn it a bright red. He shakily pulls his hand away.

In the mirror, the moment his hand pulls away, an overly long tongue lolls out. It’s quickly followed by a set of bloody fangs protruding sharply from his mouth. Dylan pathetically whines as his hands hover around his mouth uselessly in horror. A deep rumbling suddenly echoes in the small space as it reverberates in his chest. Without warning, a clawed hand from his reflection grabs him by the throat. He doesn’t even have time to scream, he just braces his hands on the edge of the counter as his reflection snaps at his face with its unnatural mouth while it tries to pull him closer. The force around his neck is bruising and it takes everything he has to not be pulled within biting distance of the monster. Dylan tries to scream for help, but even as he belts out a scream, the only sound is the monster snapping at him.

Wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP!

Dylan wakes with a shout. He flails, his limbs flying everywhere, and then he hits the ground hard. He wheezes a little as it knocks the breath out of him. He frantically scans his surroundings. It’s dark. Where is he? Where is he, right now? It’s only when he sees light seeping underneath a nearby door does he realize that this room he’s in—it’s his own bedroom. He needs to get out. He needs to move.

He doesn’t think as he pushes himself up. He needs to get out of this dark room. He rips open his door and the light blinds him, his eyes painfully adjust. The darkness at the end of the quiet hallway intimidates him, he freezes for a second, but then he decides that he doesn’t feel like waiting for this fear to go away. It probably won’t go away without intervention. He advances down the hall with his hand braced along the wall, the texture of the paint is a little rough under his hand as he traces the wall. The darkness in his own home holds an unimaginable threat to him, he can’t stand it, he needs to fix it. He feels along the walls, jumping at every sound, as he flips on every light he can find. It isn’t until his house is bathed in light does he stop to breathe. He sinks to the floor, his back braced against the wall as he holds himself with his arms.

The house is dead silent around him. Nothing stirs. That’s when he belatedly remembers that his parents are both away on business. So, he’s the only living soul in this big—he looks around at the harsh lighting—empty house. Something about the ensuing silence starts to eat at his mind, it leaves him feeling like he’s waiting for something to happen. Like he’s waiting for a werewolf to break into his house or something. Or, like he’s waiting to turn into one.

He needs. He needs—he doesn’t know what he needs. He needs a dose of reality. A voice. A person. Anything. He resolves to go back to his room to get his phone. When he flips the light on in his room, it looks just as harmless as it always does, albeit the sheets are partially on the floor from when he fell out of bed. He grabs his phone from the bedside table and quickly leaves the uncomfortable space. He goes back out to the hallway and stops himself from stepping out into the living room. For reasons he can’t understand, he sits down on the floor, partially hiding behind the corner. For some reason, he can’t bring himself to stand in that big open space right now, even with the light illuminating all the dark corners.

Dylan half-fumbles getting his phone unlocked with his one hand. It’s been awkward getting used to only having one hand. And normally he’d be more upset with it, but right now his own house is scaring him, so he’s got bigger problems. He looks at his contacts list and freezes. Who… who would understand why he needs this, right now? For a second, he panics, but then he sees Ryan in his favorites and presses the call button before he can think better of it. It rings. It rings, and he can’t help but to scan his environment in the meantime.

“Dylan?” Ryan’s voice over the phone almost startles him.

Reality comes crashing back in all at once and suddenly Dylan doesn’t know what to say. Out of courtesy, he shakily replies, “um…”

“Do you know what time it is…?”

No, not really, Dylan thinks. Guilt lands on him, hard and fast. He stammers out, “no. I have no idea—I’m sorry. I—um, I didn’t realize you were sleeping.” He hates himself, he really does. He fists a hand in hair in an effort to abate his embarrassment.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” comes Ryan’s fairly awake-sounding voice.

“Oh,” Dylan freezes. Okay, he doesn’t know how to feel about this now.

“Dylan? Are you okay? You’re acting weird, and not like fun weird, more like weird weird,” even over the phone, Dylan can hear Ryan’s concern. Dylan imagines Ryan is probably doing that funny concerned squint he does, and he smiles a little at the thought.

Dylan knows he’s acting weird weird. He’s currently huddled on the ground in his own house because it’s so quiet and lonely you could hear a pin drop, and that’s killing him. He blurts out, “can you come over?” He immediately cringes at himself and hides his head in his arms. But he lets the question stand… just in case. This is gonna hurt so bad if Ryan says no.

Before that thought has room to spiral, Ryan’s confused voice says, “uh, sure, that’s fine. But can I ask why?”

I just don’t want to be alone right now, Dylan’s mind answers. Christ, he can’t say that. He’s more than aware that this habit is annoying, but he settles for a bad joke-excuse, “I—uh—wanted to hear your super sexy voice.” He cringes at himself, it’s a slow day in the joke department. He’s willing to bet Ryan can tell.

Dylan can hear Ryan moving around as his amused voice answers, “you realize you’re already doing that right now, right?”

And you’re supposedly the smart one, Dylan, he mentally chides himself. “I wanted to hear your rich timbre in person. Obviously,” he retorts, he tries to emphasize the sarcasm to keep the tone light-hearted.

Ryan’s small laugh on the other end of the line makes him smile, his chest relaxes a little. Dylan sits a little more easily with his back to the wall, he already feels a little less insane.

Their conversation takes a casual, if slightly stilted, turn for the better. Dylan can hear various traffic noises as Ryan talks about mundane things he sees. Dylan tries to respond with spontaneity and energy, but it feels forced. He’s pretty sure Ryan can tell if the not-so-subtle note of concern in his voice is anything to go by. Well, there’s also the fact that Dylan just called Ryan up at—he checks the time—two in the morning, and he feels guilty about that. He suddenly feels silly. Like he overreacted and now he’s gone and embarrassed himself. Now he’s made himself look like he’s someone who inconveniences other people all over an anxious whim. Why am I like this—

“Is your house the one with the little silver lunchbox out front?”

Ryan’s voice startles him out of… whatever that train of thought was. “Uh,” Dylan flounders a little before he recovers, “hey! That lunchbox is good for the environment… I think.”

Ryan’s unimpressed voice holds a note of amusement, “right. Okay, I’m pulling up now.”

Dylan’s suddenly self-conscious about how all the lights are on. Not just a lot of them. Every. Single. One. That probably looks weird, and not fun weird, Dylan thinks. He hears a car door closing outside and springs into action. He rushes around, flipping switches as he goes, to make it look less… like someone freaked out and turned all the lights on.

“Why do you sound like you’re out of breath…?” Ryan’s understandably concerned voice asks him. Dylan forgot he still has him on the phone.

“Just excited to see you!” Dylan hangs up before he can make it worse. He freezes as he considers his wording. Huh, he just had to go and screw up one more time, didn’t he?

It’s completely unnecessary, but Ryan knocks at the door anyway. Dylan pockets his phone. He can’t help but to reach up and fix his slightly sweaty hair. He looks down at his shirt and pajama pants critically, like they’ll somehow offend Ryan. Suddenly, he feels shy. He swallows his nerves and swings the door open. Ryan stands there expectantly, his countenance hesitantly warm. Dylan can’t quite hide the surprise on his face, the fact that Ryan answered and showed up in the middle of the night is just… crap, what does he say now? Dylan mentally slaps himself before putting on a cheery smile and pulling the door aside to let Ryan in, “right! Hellooo. Thanks for um—so, this is where I live,” he awkwardly gestures about as Ryan takes in the lonely scene. “And don’t worry about anyone freaking out. My parents aren’t ever really…” at Ryan’s mildly concerned look Dylan feels self-conscious. He’s quick to explain, “it’s just me and my cat, Maisie, here,” he looks around a bit, “although, I don’t actually know where she ran off to…” Crap, he probably scared her into hiding when he freaked out.

Ryan looks more relaxed than Dylan feels with his hands in his pockets, that’s when Dylan remembers he’s supposed to be, like, a good host and everything. He bounces into action, pointing out the amenities, expecting Ryan to follow, he does. Ryan politely listens, he gives Dylan side-long looks but doesn’t push him for answers as to why they’re currently doing this at two in the morning. When he’s done giving Ryan a tour, he can’t help but feel a rush of affection. Already, with Ryan just being quietly supportive, the horrors inside Dylan’s mind recede to the edges of his awareness. Although now… he does have to explain why he asked Ryan to visit him in the dead of night. Images of his own deformed werewolf-face snapping at him flashes by in his mind’s eye. Nope. That’s not a good conversation starter.

An idea occurs to him, he’s wanted to share some of his music with Ryan for a while. Unbeknownst to Ryan, Dylan has had an embarrassing number of fantasies of him and Ryan just sitting close and listening to some music. And right now seems like the perfect opportunity to make that fantasy a reality. Dylan can’t think of a better way to ride down a terrifying nightmare. He feels a little bit more like himself as he leans in towards Ryan’s ear, his voice full of barely-contained mirth, “this boring house is nice and all, but it’s time for something I’ve been dying to do for a while.”

Ryan’s bemused smile and easy-going, “sure,” is all Dylan needs. A stupid giddy smiles spreads across Dylan’s face and he grabs Ryan’s hand excitedly before setting off towards his room.

Once they’re in his room, he’s a little mortified by the state of his bed. He drops Ryan’s hand and rushes over to fix it, “ignore that.” Ryan just stands patiently while Dylan busies himself turning on various string lights, haphazardly throwing things about to make his room look more presentable. Once that’s done, the room is cast in a soft glow. Now he just needs to queue up his questionable taste in music for Ryan to either appreciate or laugh at, either works. “Alright…” Dylan breathes out as he flips through the options on his phone, after an unnecessary amount of deliberation, he finally picks one. The music starts to play softly in the background and he excitedly bounces back over to Ryan to explain, “so, the method to this one’s madness is that—”

He doesn’t get to finish that sentence as Ryan gently pushes him onto the bed. Before Dylan can say anything, Ryan is leaning down to kiss him with one hand cupping his jaw, and whatever thought he had evaporates. This isn’t exactly what Dylan expected to happen, but he’s not complaining and returns the kiss easily with his hand hovering out awkwardly. He’s so caught up in it, eyes half-lidded, he doesn’t notice he’s being guided to lie back until his back hits the bed and Ryan’s weight settles between his legs on the bed. Now, that does wake up Dylan a little bit more as his pulse quickens. Wasn’t he supposed to be subjecting Ryan to weird music or something?

He loses whatever thread of logic he’s chasing when Ryan sneaks a hand up his shirt to feel along his side. Ryan’s hand leaves a trail of hypersensitivity in its wake, he can’t quite suppress a shiver and Ryan squeezes his side in response. Feeling somewhat emboldened, Dylan anchors a hand on the back of Ryan’s neck possessively and nips on his bottom lip. He feels Ryan smile against his lips in response and then Ryan is pulling away to pepper kisses along Dylan’s neck. He sighs somewhat shakily and feels his body relax of its own accord. His legs are comfortably braced around Ryan’s hips, and he doesn’t particularly feel like moving. And so, Dylan settles into a comfortable haze of sensation as Ryan’s hands and mouth move against him.

Then, Ryan lightly scrapes his teeth along the side of Dylan’s neck. And Dylan horrifies himself with a surprised moan as his hips jerk a little in response. Ryan hums against his throat and settles his body more fully against Dylan. Oh crap, he’s not remotely prepared for this. Pleasure sings along his veins, but this is all happening a little too fast. And Ryan’s mouth and hands are quickly draining his willpower as they push every button they can find. He should probably say something now, then, before it gets any more difficult to think.

“I—um,” his breath hitches as Ryan finds another sensitive spot on his neck, “didn’t just call you up here as a midnight booty call.” Ryan pauses in his ministrations and Dylan gets a little anxious so he hurries to explain himself, “I can see why you might think that though,” he flashes back to some of his earlier word-choice and he internally cringes. For once, maybe being honest would’ve been better. Ryan lifts his head to look at Dylan in mild confusion. It’s difficult, now that Ryan is looking at him like that, but he continues, “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. I’m just not ready for…” he trails off, the more he looks into Ryan’s eyes, the more he can’t figure out what to say.

After what feels like an eternity, Ryan finally replies, “oh… I’m sorry.” There’s a note of genuine surprise that contrasts Ryan’s usual confident demeanor, he almost looks embarrassed as he eyes Dylan. But then a shy smile overtakes his face, and he recovers quickly enough as he looks down at Dylan with something like affection, “well, that’s okay,” with those words, Dylan relaxes muscles he didn’t realize he’d tensed. “I just wanted to see your face do that thing,” Ryan adds, cryptically.

Dylan tilts his head, “what thing?”

“The thing it does when I do something like this,” then Ryan ducks down to mouth at that sensitive spot on his neck while he cards a hand through Dylan’s hair softly. Dylan’s would-be snarky remark transforms into a weird breathy laugh and his face burns.

Then, Ryan suddenly pulls away to look down at him with a mischievous grin.

It takes Dylan an embarrassing amount time to get his wits back as he looks up at Ryan with a dumbfounded expression. When he finally does though, he intelligently proclaims, “you—it’s like you’ve—you make me stupid!”

That surprises a laugh out of Ryan. Dylan can feel it against his chest, and it makes an unbidden love-sick grin spread across his face as he looks up at Ryan’s mirthful face looking down at him. Honestly, at this point, Blasé Dylan and his fake chillness has left the building. Therefore, ‘Dylan Dylan’ feels comfortable squeezing his legs against Ryan a little tighter while his hand curls around one of Ryan’s arms resting by his head.

Then, a little bit of calculation enters Ryan’s gaze as he looks down at Dylan. And Dylan already knows what he’s going to ask. “So… why’d you really call me over?” he asks, his voice holds no small amount of caution, like he’s afraid Dylan will say… well, some dumb bullshit in response. Something about that reaches into Dylan’s chest and tugs. As Ryan’s concerned eyes search his, he’s suddenly scared of disappointing him. For once, no bullshit excuses float up in his mind and he says with surprising ease, “I had a nightmare…”

At Dylan’s surprisingly somber tone, something in Ryan’s face changes. He doesn’t say anything, but he watches Dylan patiently, his face holds no judgement. The silence that follows Dylan’s statement is strangely heavy with potential. Trust. Or, the potential to build trust floats in the air. Dylan sees that metaphorical tether floating in the air. A lightning bolt of need strikes him, and he decides to grab that tether. He wants to earn Ryan’s trust so strongly that the words come easily, “I was being attacked by myself. At the same time, I was changing into something… wrong.” Recognition enters Ryan’s eyes, and he can’t help but to tilt his head a little at Dylan in sympathy.

The fragility of the moment is unbearable to Dylan, but the thought of somehow ruining its potential is infinitely worse. So, Dylan continues, his voice quiet but steady, “I tried to scream for help, but no sound came out. You know how it is in dreams…” he trails off soberly. A little ball of anxiety forms in his stomach and he subconsciously curls his hand around Ryan’s arm a little tighter. He swallows his nerves, “when I woke up to this empty house…” unsteadiness enters his voice against his will, “its emptiness… the quiet…” Ryan’s face morphs into concern as Dylan’s eyes water, “it reached all the way into my mind and I just couldn’t—” it’s a physically difficult thing to hold Ryan’s gaze, but Dylan just manages. Like pulling teeth, he pulls the words from his own mind, “I just couldn’t handle being alone.”

The silence that befalls them after that statement is heavy, the soft music playing quietly in the background goes largely forgotten. Dylan doesn’t know how else to signal that he wants to be open and trusting. Frankly, what’s the perfect way to respond to that? Clearly, Dylan doesn’t know. He’d probably fumble it somehow. He feels hopelessly adrift while he waits for Ryan to respond. Dylan’s anxiety stretches time itself, it feels like an eternity goes by. But then Ryan is tilting his head curiously at Dylan, his expression serious, “you know, I don’t know if you’ll believe me when I say this,” Dylan opens his mouth to protest but Ryan speaks over him, “but, I would’ve come over if you had said that.” He looks away to give it some thought before looking down at Dylan, his eyes unwavering, “or, anything else, honestly.” Dylan can’t help but feel a little floored by how sincere Ryan’s face is as he looks at Dylan. What did he even do to deserve it?

Dylan hates how small his own voice sounds when he asks, “even if I had woken you up in the middle of the night?”

Ryan exhales a barely-there snort, he responds with quiet mirth in his voice, “I would’ve needed a little time to wake up before driving, but yeah…” He looks down at Dylan with an exasperated smile and Dylan returns the smile with relative ease. In those tentative smiles, Dylan feels that spark between them grow a little brighter, and it makes him feel a little heady with it. They’re still tangled together, Ryan’s weight settled between his legs is both too much and not enough.

Then, he remembers Ryan mentioning his prior awakeness and Dylan’s mind bumps on that detail. Ryan seems to be quite fond of grilling him, he thinks faux-bitterly. The least Dylan could do is return the favor a little bit. His brow furrows semi-suspiciously as he asks, in as friendly a tone as he can manage in his mentally fried state, “wait, why weren’t you sleeping when I called you? I’m pretty sure I called you at like two o’clock or something…”

Ryan momentarily looks away and Dylan knows that he’s snagged something with his question. Ryan detangles from Dylan to lie down shoulder-to-shoulder by Dylan’s side on the bed as he stares up at the ceiling a little morosely. Well, Dylan’s curiosity is officially piqued. He can practically feel the moment their roles reverse as he shifts up on his arm to look down at Ryan beside him. The air is still relaxed between them. But Dylan can’t help feeling a little pushy, in spite of that, he controls himself. He wants to needle Ryan, but… Ryan didn’t really do that to him so he should probably return the favor and just trust that Ryan will say something if asked.

The gamble pays off. Ryan looks at him uncertainly before admitting, “ever since that night,” and Dylan immediately sobers, he lets Ryan continue, “I just can’t really sleep most nights.” He kind of has a helpless ‘what can you do?’ smirk, but his tired eyes tell a different story to Dylan. He doesn’t need to go into detail, Dylan knows. They’ve had roughly a week to live with what happened to them. And in the dead of night, right before sleep, bad things tend to come back to you for another round. Not for the first time, Dylan wonders how much Ryan remembers of his time as a rampaging werewolf.

What if Ryan actually remembers more than he’s letting on? Dylan’s brain spins in the worst way possible, it churns out questions that Dylan can’t answer. Does Ryan remember tearing that guy apart? Does he remember hurting Kaitlyn? A pang of sympathy hits him hard enough to physically constrict his chest. Madly, Dylan wishes he could reach into Ryan’s mind and just extract those memories. All so he doesn’t have to witness the tragedy of self-hatred manifesting within Ryan when the topic comes up. His throat tightens at the thought, persistent tears prick at his eyes, and he swallows thickly to stop himself from crying. He’s semi-glad Ryan can’t seem to look at him, he’d only see Dylan’s pained expression as he struggles to keep his reaction in check.

Ryan suddenly speaks up and it startles Dylan out of his miserable thoughts, “I used to listen to like… supernatural documentary-style podcasts to fall asleep,” Ryan smiles a little but then it fades fast. He still can’t quite look at Dylan as he continues, his voice takes on a quality of wonder that Dylan’s not quite used to hearing from him, “these stories of crazy weird things… I used to love listening to the…” his expression sobers, “…possibilities.” Ryan darts a quick look at him, his eyes are uncertain like he’s scared Dylan is going to judge him. Dylan almost wants to laugh at the thought. It’s comical, the idea of Dylan mocking Ryan for having fantastical and weird thoughts is comical to him. But, maybe Ryan doesn’t know that? He edges a little closer, his smile is timid as he looks down at Ryan fondly. Patiently, he waits for Ryan to continue, Dylan doesn’t really know how else to effectively signal his support, his words aren’t exactly effective lately, he thinks sardonically.

After a moment, Ryan heaves a put-upon sigh, his voice is strangely small when he says, “I just wonder… what if all that silly stuff I listen to—” his eyes meet Dylan’s, and they’re oddly fearful, “what if other weird things are real too?”

Huh. Dylan’s brows furrow thoughtfully. He hadn’t actually thought of that yet. Ryan’s logic is pretty solid though, why would werewolves exist in a vacuum? He looks down at Ryan’s uncertain face thoughtfully. He could joke about this, but this appears to be a deep-seated fear Ryan has. A lame joke will probably just make him feel belittled, and that’s the last thing Dylan wants. It’s a bit of a hopeless effort, but the need to reassure Ryan is strong, so Dylan tries anyway, “you might be right…” his serious tone catches Ryan off-guard and he looks up at Dylan uncertainly. Dylan playfully nudges him, “but, come on. Give us some credit, dude. We survived a bunch of ugly-ass werewolves.” He widens his eyes for effect and Ryan begrudgingly chuckles, it makes the tightness in Dylan’s chest loosen a little bit.

Dylan’s hand moves of its own accord. He rests his hand against Ryan’s face, his thumb brushes Ryan’s forehead affectionately as he gazes down at him in concern, “so, you’re really worried about this?” he asks quietly. The fact that Ryan looks away thoughtfully and doesn’t immediately respond ‘no’ speaks volumes.

Something in Ryan’s voice is almost bitter as he quietly responds, “I wonder about everything, now, after that night.” His voice takes on an angry edge, “And I can’t go twenty minutes without some noise—o-or smell reminding me of that night,” he grits his teeth some, “I just—I just can’t stop remembering.” His helpless eyes turn to Dylan.

And Dylan wants to fix it. He can’t, obviously. As he looks down at Ryan, he realizes that he has no resolution, no satisfying answers for such pain. He tilts his head at Ryan consideringly before saying, “hey, it’s only been, like, a week. This first part is probably just gonna be really hard.” Ryan looks at him seriously like he’s actually weighing Dylan’s words. It gives him butterflies, makes him overthink his next words. “Besides, nothing is forever. We just need time, that’s all,” he doesn’t completely believe his own words as he says them, but he believes them just enough so he can hopefully be convincing when he says it. It appears to work, to some extent, as Ryan relaxes his tense jaw.

Dylan doesn’t really know what else he can do to convince Ryan, so he settles down next to him and they both stare up at the ceiling as the music continues. The silence that results is less comfortable than most of their silences. Dylan’s anxiety kicks up a little, should he say something? How do you convince your kind-of boyfriend to not worry about real scary things that actually go bump in the night?

He looks over at Ryan consideringly. Well, Ryan probably wouldn’t try to maintain a relationship with him if he didn’t, on some level, appreciate the dumb things Dylan says. Dylan plasters on a dumb overly-smug smile, for Ryan’s benefit, as he says, “when you think about it, since we’re werewolves now,” what a sentence, he can’t stop himself from thinking, “maybe that grants us like… supernatural immunity from other supernatural bullshit?”

Ryan props himself up to look over at Dylan. He looks one part curious, one part exasperated, and one part amused. Dylan considers it a success. Ryan’s voice holds untold amounts of exasperation as he quite simply repeats back to Dylan, “supernatural immunity…?”

Dylan smiles at Ryan’s confused expression. He feels a rush of affection, Ryan doesn’t have to play along, but he always does. Discussing silly bullshit is definitely in Dylan’s wheelhouse, so he gladly continues, “yeah! Like, we already have one curse, it’s not like you can have more than one curse—affliction—whatever at once,” he rolls his eyes in an excessively dramatic manner, like Ryan is being the dumb one.

Ryan’s face is an even mix of disbelief and amusement as he props his head on one hand and looks down at Dylan. “So, based on uh—nothing,” Dylan chuckles shamelessly at the accusation, “we’re safe from other potential supernatural phenomena because we’re kickass werewolves?” Ryan asks, his voice is full of mirth and it’s music to Dylan’s ears. It’s a nice change of pace, and Dylan would like to keep it going.

Dylan tilts his head in a mock-thoughtful manner, “uuuuhhh, I wouldn’t use the word ‘kickass’. Those werewolves were definitely not, like, super-wolves or something,” Ryan snorts at that, “more like… hideous, hairless monsters with really fucked up faces.”

Ryan settles down on his back next to Dylan again, a small smile on his face before he quietly adds, “I have hard time imagining your face turning into that of a hideous monster…”

Dylan doesn’t really think before replying, “I don’t.” It comes out much more sober than he meant it to, and Dylan internally cringes at the silence it creates. Ryan becomes a little uneasy next to him as his smile fades. Okay, maybe Dylan can try a little harder to keep the topic light-hearted. Besides, aside from life-long therapy, what the fuck else can they do to deal with the trauma?

Dylan turns over until he’s half laying on top of Ryan, he playfully props his chin on Ryan’s chest before holding up his stump, “speaking of unspeakable horrors, with the super-wolf powers, do you think this will grow back…or?” In reality, Dylan has already checked multiple times to see if there was any remote possibility that his hand is growing back, but all he’s done is disappoint himself every time he sees the same unchanged scar tissue. Still though, he can’t resist the opportunity to distract Ryan with his hysterics.

Ryan is entirely unimpressed with the question as he looks somewhat imperiously at Dylan with his hands folded behind his head.

This is familiar ground, Dylan knows that particular look from Ryan pretty well. As always, the temptation to double down on his silliness is irresistible. Unsolicited, he continues with an exaggerated air of curiosity, “wouldn’t it be sick if it came back as a little baby hand or something?” His mischievous grin is the perfect bait for a skeptic like Ryan, he thinks with no small amount of self-satisfaction.

Naturally, Ryan takes the bait with a dubious look towards Dylan. “Right. Are you sure you’d want that…?” Ryan asks, his voice is heavy with suspicion, but his eyes are amused.

Dylan pretends to look at his stump critically, “yeah… I guess not. I’d have to ask you to cut it off again,” he widens his eyes for emphasis. Ryan doesn’t find the idea super amusing, if his silence is anything to go by. Before Dylan can feel too bad, an interesting thought strikes him and he looks over at Ryan with a wry grin, “you know, do you realize how crazy you were for going along with that?” He can’t quite keep the laughter out of his voice, it dies a little bit when he notices Ryan’s closed-off expression.

Ryan can’t quite look at him as he says more than a little defensively, “I don’t know. I just trusted that—I felt like you knew better,” he finishes with a little defensive huff. The angry furrow of his eyebrows is adorable to Dylan, but he does feel a little bad for making him feel guilty.

Okay, it’s time to put his foot down on this ‘I’m guilty about cutting off your hand thing’, it’s really starting to annoy him. He shuffles up a bit on Ryan's chest and holds his head in his hand as he looks down at Ryan consideringly, “okay, look, I feel like if you feel guilty about this hand thing all the time, it’s really gonna upset our relationship dynamic.” Once he says it, the words sit a little heavier than he’d like as Ryan mulls them over with a somber expression. He’s mildly alarmed, he thought Ryan would say something reassuring or defend himself or something.

Little alarm bells go off in Dylan’s head. Well, it’s an issue now, apparently. He may as well try and address it, although, maybe with a little more finesse this time. Dylan doesn’t hold back as he bullshits, “okay, look buddy,” Ryan’s surprised eyes flash over to him at his tone, “I didn’t need your help there. I absolutely could have figured out how to do that by myself.” Dylan shrugs wryly like it’s the most obvious truth in the world.

Ryan’s shocked face stays frozen for a moment and Dylan briefly wonders if actually somehow just made things even worse. But then, Ryan suddenly bursts into laughter. Dylan looks down at him in mild alarm as the force of it jostles him a little from his position on Ryan’s chest. He levers himself up a little to look at Ryan critically. As Ryan continues laughing like Dylan just told the funniest joke in the world, he idly wonders if he somehow broke Ryan’s brain. Okay, it started as a joke but he’s actually kind of offended by Ryan’s reaction now. Dylan doesn’t bother masking his offense or confusion as he says, “hey, it’s not that funny. I definitely—” Ryan pauses his laughter just long enough to absorb Dylan’s words and then proceeds to laugh even harder. Dylan feels a weird mix of offense and amusement. Oh, for christ’s sake, there are actual tears rolling down Ryan’s face. This is ridiculous—

“N-no, no you would not,” Ryan can barely talk normally as he comes down from the laughter, but his certainty of that statement comes through just fine.

Quite frankly, Dylan is distracted by the novelty of a hysterical Ryan that he barely remembers to defend himself. But when he does, he retorts a little shrilly, “I don’t know what makes you think I can’t possibly have done that by myself. Honestly, I’m kind of hurt—”

Ryan’s surprisingly high-pitched voice interrupts him easily, “do you—,” he’s interrupted by his own giggle, “do you remember when Kaitlyn had to pick glass out of your hand?” Dylan looks away. Oh, god, he does remember. Ryan continues, his voice full of merciless joy, “and do you remember how you—”

Dylan shushes him before he can finish because, yes. Yes, he does. He remembers looking over while Kaitlyn was in the middle of pulling a small shard out of his hand and it nearly made him faint. Huh, he’s surprised Ryan even remembers that. Honestly, him and Ryan didn’t have a whole lot of opportunity for interaction until the last night of camp. Alas, his honor has been insulted. So he moodily rolls off Ryan with a little huff of indignation. He crosses his arms like he’s upset, but a small voice in the back of his head acknowledges that he’s glad that Ryan seems to be distracted from the whole guilt thing.

Ryan playfully nuzzles closer to Dylan’s ear, his voice is calm and low again as he says, “if it makes you feel any better, I like your song choice.” Despite his prior teasing, the admission sounds sincere, so Dylan hums his agreement in response. And Dylan is such a fool for Ryan that it actually does make him feel better, although he didn’t truly feel too bad to begin with. The silence this time is much more comfortable. There's something safe about how they're shoulder-to-shoulder like that for a while.

He can’t help himself from subconsciously leaning into Ryan’s warmth. They’ve been talking for a while and his eyelids are starting to droop of their own accord. Sleep beckons him and it feels inviting instead of dreadful with Ryan’s company. He’s grateful he picked one of the slower playlists, a wise choice apparently, since neither of them have been getting sleep. The lights are low, the music is soft, and with Ryan nuzzled into his side, he can feel himself settling into a nice haze. Eventually, Ryan’s breathing becomes deep and slow puffs against his shoulder, and Dylan belatedly realizes that he's fallen asleep first. As carefully as he can manage, he uses his free arm to pull the covers over the two of them. He settles for only covering them partially since he’s scared of accidentally waking up Ryan. Lastly, he protectively curls a hand around Ryan’s arm in return, something about the action makes some alert part of his brain finally truly relax. The meager warmth of the covers is just enough, and Dylan finally drifts off to sleep with Ryan breathing softly next to him.

Dylan’s knuckles turn white as he grips the wheel with his only hand. He almost looks like he’s about to throw up from anxiety alone as they continue at a steady pace down the road. Not for the first time, Ryan wonders if perhaps this is a bad idea. He can’t help but wonder if maybe they’re moving too fast. Probably literally, in Dylan’s mind at least.

”Are you… sure I should be doing this…?” Dylan darts the fastest of looks over to Ryan. He watches the road like he expects it to open up and consume the car.

As soon as they hit the highway, Ryan knew this would happen. He knows he can’t truly convince Dylan, but he has a response ready, “absolutely. We practiced this. You can do this.” The certainty of his tone doesn’t seem to reach Dylan, however, as his arm stays wired to the wheel like he expects them to crash at any moment. The radio plays music softly in the background. It’s supposed to be relaxing, but it paradoxically highlights the silence that’s been stretching between them for the last thirty minutes. Tall pines rush by as they make their way towards Hackett’s Quarry. The reality of that has got him in a fairly sour mood. But the next full moon is fast approaching in just a couple days.

Even more infuriatingly, in a way, this means Chris was right. In the end, they couldn’t quite devise a plan in time, at least for the impending full moon. And the only safe place they know is the quarry. But he tries not to let his sour mood spill over to Dylan, he knows Dylan tried his hardest to think of some clever way to safely lock themselves away. The other boy bent over backwards to plan a way out of returning to the quarry. He called Ryan every other day leading up to this moment, usually with a plan ranging from lukewarm to radical. But in the end, they both realized they simply don’t have the property nor the money required to create some kind of safe place to be contained, without hurting others or themselves.

Dylan’s nervous voice startles him out of his thoughts. “I mean, just going down the road is fine and all. But, what if for, whatever reason, we start crashing?” Dylan asks, he refuses to look away from the road and he shrugs a little miserably, “I’m just saying, it would be really ridiculous to act like this doesn’t have an impact on my ability to do things.”

Perhaps a little irrationally, Ryan can’t help a little flare of anger at those words. This has happened a couple of times now. Dylan will say something even mildly disparaging about his missing hand, and along with the usual ping of guilt, Ryan will feel the need to defend Dylan from… himself. He won’t lie, it’s exhausting and he often feels out of his depth when those instances happen. It makes him feel a little out of sync with Dylan. And sadly, today he’s feeling pretty cornered, what with them returning to a place that has irreversibly changed the path of their lives. He shouldn’t with how irate he is, but the words sort of tumble out of his mouth, “look, you’re being really unfair to you, right now. You have no idea if that’s true.”

And he immediately regrets the words when he sees the angry furrow of Dylan’s eyebrows. Dylan tilts his head angrily, and Ryan tenses, “Ryan, I can’t just think positively through something like this.” Dylan’s angry tone makes Ryan wince a little. That kind of stings and he leans defensively on the passenger door. He doesn’t understand, how else is he supposed to respond when Dylan says something like that? About himself? Ever since Dylan lost his hand, it’s like Ryan is suddenly aware of every instance now when a person says something rude about how someone is handicapped. Where he heard and saw nothing before, now he hears snide unhelpful comments everywhere. He wants to help, but he has no idea how. Miserably, he can’t help but wonder if sometimes he makes it worse like so many judgemental strangers who don’t know any better.

Dylan darts a quick look over to him before he lowers his voice apologetically as he continues, “look, I know your trying to help,” Ryan cautiously looks over at him, “but, I’m going to be realistic about this. It’s my problem, it’s changing my life whether I like it or not.” He says it with such finality that Ryan feels the fight in him deflate. Despite Dylan’s reassurance, it simply doesn’t make him feel better about the whole thing. They’re being railroaded into a certain life, and all he wants is to wrestle back a little agency. They didn’t deserve to have all of theirs taken away, he thinks bitterly.

He scans Dylan’s anxious face thoughtfully as they continue down the road in silence with the music going completely ignored. Deep down he knows Dylan is right, but it still rankles all the same. Ever since that night, there’s been an angry fire burning in him. Some days it’s higher, some days it’s lower. This is one of those days where it feels like an inferno, almost. But, Dylan is fast becoming one of the most important people in his life right now. He feels simultaneous hopeful butterflies and equal fear at that thought. He hasn’t said it out loud or anything, because quite frankly that’s a terrifying little realization he wants to keep to himself or a while longer.

The fire dies a little as he periodically looks at Dylan. The anger is easier to shunt aside when he considers Dylan. He wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what. Ryan wishes the correct words would simply manifest for him, but it looks like he’ll have to work for it. He kind of flounders but he tries to salvage the mood anyway, he nervously forges ahead, “I’m not trying to…” he searches for the right words, there are many options and he’s quite sure he’ll pick the wrong ones, “downplay the fact that you only have… one hand,” he hates saying it out loud, it never fails to make him feel guilty no matter how much Dylan reassures him. Dylan is quiet, it makes Ryan nervous but he continues anyway, just in case he’s somehow not saying the wrong thing, “I’m sorry, I just don’t like how we’re going to this fucking place right now,” he can’t quite keep the anger out of his tone, but he trusts that Dylan will know it’s not directed at him.

Well, at least he got it off his chest. The words just float between them, and for the first time ever he’s scared of how Dylan will react. This whole developing feelings thing kind of sucks sometimes, actually.

But then Dylan speaks up, “hey, come on,” his voice takes on a hard edge that Ryan isn’t used to, “this whole ‘going to the backwoods once a month to rage out’ thing is absolutely not going to last forever.” The anxious look on Dylan’s face is replaced by one of determination as he chances a quick look at Ryan before returning his eyes to the road. Dylan’s voice is uncharacteristically sure as he states, “I don’t know how yet, but we are not doing this bullshit forever. We’ll find a way, or make a way, I don’t fucking know. We’ll figure something out.” Ryan can’t help but be a little surprised at how unwavering his tone is. And there it is, that funny warm feeling he gets around Dylan sometimes. It’s scary and inviting in equal turns.

An imperceptible smile tugs at Ryan’s lips. He doesn’t quite know how to signal his appreciation, so he just says, “I know.” And because he can’t resist, he adds, “you’ll probably figure something out. I’ll just do a bad job of helping.” It has the intended effect of causing a little shy smile to spread on Dylan’s face. Some more of that addictive warmth blossoms between them, Ryan can already feel how comfortable he’s getting with it. With it, that angry fire dies down a little more within him. He watches the clouds outside and feels himself finally relax.

The rest of the car ride continues more easily. Ryan is almost in a good mood by the time they reach Hackett’s Quarry. They’ve arrived three days ahead of the full moon, because unlike the Hackett’s, they can actually successfully plan ahead of time. They planned their stay with Chris ahead of time, so Ryan only leaves a terse voicemail letting him know that they’ve arrived. When they finally park, Dylan heaves a sigh of relief. Ryan wants to say something like ‘see? that wasn’t so bad’, but he’s worried it’ll come across badly. So he settles for offering to take over for the drive back. At Dylan’s grateful acceptance, he realizes he made the right choice.

They get out to stretch their legs. And the reality of being back at camp hits Ryan full force when a gentle breeze rustles the leaves overhead. He’s snapped out of it when Dylan comes around to the back of the car and energetically proclaims, “alright, let’s make the best of this shit show.” He pops the trunk and begins to pull out some of the supplies they brought. When Dylan catches sight of Ryan’s guitar case he fake swoons before adding in an overly flirty voice, “and he plays guitar…”

Ryan usually leaves the guitar at home, he never wanted to be pressured into performing in front of everyone. But he knew full well that his guitar playing would intrigue Dylan, so he brought it along this time. He smiles easily as he hefts it out, “yeah, just not here. Usually…”

They gather up the rest of the supplies, it’s mostly clothes, alcohol, and some electronics. Dylan volunteered to help Ryan research some colleges to help pass the time. And Ryan actually feels… not completely terrible as they walk in companionable silence towards the cabins. Dylan wisely suggested that they completely avoid the lodge as much as they can for their stay. They walk along, and it feels surreal when the leaves crunch under his shoes just like they always have. He remembers how he used to explore the campgrounds with Kaylee and Caleb, but now he avoids contact. They don’t quite look at him the same way and he can’t stand it, so his relationship with them quickly fizzled out to something cold just like it did with Chris.

It’s used to be comforting to walk through these familiar woods, it was always an escape from his problems at home, every stay at camp felt almost like he was living a different life. Try as he might, he simply can’t conjure up those feelings of comfort again as he and Dylan walk along familiar paths. As they continue walking for a bit, they don’t spot anyone else. Ryan supposes the camp is still closed, the Hacketts must still be trying to sort out the mess the last full moon left behind.

They make it to the cabins, Ryan unlocks the door with the key Chris left behind for them. The routine of settling into the cabin with their belongings is familiar, a comfortable orientation he’s done many times. They’re both more relaxed as they put their things away, little jokes are traded easily and Ryan feels himself settle into a surprisingly good mood. Not for the first time, Ryan is grateful that he doesn’t have to do this alone. He imagines himself wandering around the campground for three days by himself and it makes him feel cold.

Once they’re set up, Dylan excitedly picks up a case of beer before nudging Ryan, “you know what’s happening next, right? I’ve met ‘Ryan Ryan’, now I’m dying to meet ‘I also play guitar Ryan’,” his giddy smile makes Ryan blush, but that was exactly the reaction he was hoping for when he brought it. He couldn’t hold back his smile if he tried as he reaches for his case.

“Alright, alright, let’s take this to the campfire then,” he puts up a show of being coerced but in reality, there’s pretty much nothing else he wants to do in this place. Dylan leads the way out of the cabins and onto the path. A little bit of time has passed since they settled in, and the first streaks of sunset stretch across the sky as they set off. A strange calm settles over Ryan as they walk. It almost feels like this is just any other stay at camp, albeit with significantly less people. He can almost forget the reason they’re here.

The air between them is companionable as Dylan chatters about random things. He doesn’t to seem to mind Ryan’s one-note responses too much, for which Ryan is grateful. He can’t help his mind drifting though. When he talked to Chris, he tried to ask about the wellbeing of the other counsellors. Frankly, he had no idea how they were doing since they hadn’t exactly kept in touch. Although, most of that might be his fault. There was no way he was going to try to maintain relations after everything that happened in that lodge. The reaction from Kaitlyn was enough to kill any desire to bridge that gap.

He quickly moves on from that thought, that memory often has the power to kill his good mood. As for the others, he has no idea what happened to Jacob. When he asked Chris, he admitted that he doesn’t know either. He never really liked Jacob, but that thought is a little sobering. The different implications for what that means disturbs him. At least the others seem okay though. As far as Ryan knows, Kaitlyn has cut contact, even with Dylan. Although, Abigail and Dylan still talk sometimes, he knows because Dylan goes out of his way to show Ryan things that him and Abi have found. The rest have a sort of scattered to the wind. Ryan can’t really blame them.

By the time they arrive at the firepit, the sky is a beautiful mix of orange and yellow hues. He never gets tired of seeing the sunsets at camp, despite the fact that he’s seen a couple hundred different iterations. They set their things down and Ryan immediately volunteers to get a fire going. Frankly, Dylan wasn’t good at that part even when he had two hands. It doesn’t take long with some flint he brought, and he nurses the fire until it rises high enough to be left alone.

By the time the fire is going and he can rest the sun is almost done setting. Dylan has already been sipping on a beer for a while when he holds out one for Ryan, the invitation is obvious and Ryan settles next to him on the same log. The two of them sitting together is an eerie parallel to that last fateful night at camp. But the mood here feels much more calm, even a little somber at times.

Dylan fidgets next to him, his nervous voice breaks the silence, “so, in a couple days, I’m gonna turn into a…” Ryan looks over at him and Dylan falls quiet.

The sun is low enough to make things dark now, the firelight across Dylan’s face make his eyes look a little amber. Ryan’s mouth twists a little, he can’t really lie to Dylan about how unpleasant it will all be, so he doesn’t, “yeah. It’s… not going to be easy.” At that, Dylan and him simultaneously take a long drink. He hates that Dylan is changed like him. Hates even more that it’s his fault. But some small selfish part of Ryan is a little grateful that he’s not alone in the struggle. His bad feelings towards Chris have Ryan twisted seven different ways, but he mentally notes that he needs to ask how to get rid of the curse. He hasn’t told Dylan, he doesn’t want to get his hopes up just in case it’s a dead end.

They sit in silence and listen to the fire crackle. Unbidden, memories of the lodge hit him again. He hasn’t told Dylan, but more and more details come back to him through dreams. Although he can’t quite tell which details are exaggerations and which ones are true. Either way, they all make his stomach turn at odd times. It makes him scared to sleep, in case he might accidentally discover more. He takes another swig of beer.

The mood’s gotten a little morose now, Ryan can’t but feel a little responsible. He’s grateful when Dylan leans into his shoulder and whispers playfully, “you know you can’t escape it.”

Ryan plays along, he raises an eyebrow quizzically, “escape what?”

He can’t stop himself from smiling when Dylan slowly leans around to look into his eyes critically, his face mock-serious. His voice is low when he says, “we both know you’re gonna play that guitar, it’s gonna be romantic,” Ryan actually can’t help a little laugh as Dylan leans in his space, “and it’s gonna totally complete your cute loner boy persona.” He tilts his head in a self-satisfied manner like he’s got Ryan pegged.

Ryan’s just playing for time, it’s fun to watch Dylan try so hard to get a laugh out of him, it makes him feel warm. There’s actually zero chance he won’t comply with that request, especially with how overt Dylan’s effort is. His voice is high pitched with laughter as he relents, “okay! Okay! Calm down, I’m getting it.” Dylan leans back with an entirely too self-satisfied smile as Ryan gets up.

Once it’s out of the case, he sits down to tune his guitar. He’s pleasantly distracted by the routineness of it. Dylan settles to his right, he seems content to just sip his beer and watch Ryan. When it’s finally done, he rests his hand over the strings for a moment, he suddenly feels shy. God help him, he’s actually nervous now that Dylan is watching him expectantly. Suddenly, Dylan’s gaze burns into his side and he looks away.

Okay, something easy, Ryan.

He can’t remember the last time he was this scared of screwing up the strumming in front of someone. Before he can stall any longer, he launches into a softer number that he usually plays only for himself. He gets a little more comfortable as he settles into the rhythm. Dylan just watches him quietly, Ryan is grateful, because he can’t seem to handle more than that right now.

As he plays, he gets more into it, he finds himself swaying with the song after a while. He looks over at Dylan, he just watches Ryan with a small smile. Something about that look makes Ryan almost mess up his strumming. He’s usually not nervous around Dylan, but something about that look makes him feel strangely shy. And he feels like Dylan can see right through him as he tilts his head at Ryan. He can’t help but wonder if Dylan somehow knows he’s got such embarrassing thoughts. He looks away to save himself. It’s been a long time since he felt this way.

The way Dylan can look at him like that, like he actually likes Ryan beyond the aloofness, like it doesn’t put him off. It makes nervous thoughts flood his mind. Suddenly he overthinks everything he says. Suddenly words can’t convey what he’s feeling. Suddenly, he has a fierce desire to protect whatever this thing between them is. So, he chose the easy song. Because, whatever this thing is, it’s making him nervous to do something he’s been doing for years.

The fire keeps crackling and Ryan gets his bearings. Despite how much this unknown with Dylan scares him, he feels drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He doesn’t think he could resist it even if he wanted to. And he really doesn’t want to resist, at all, he realizes. The realization settles in easily and he looks up at Dylan. He meets his gaze. Where normally Dylan can get a little nervous for intimate moments like this, instead it’s Ryan this time. Dylan’s face is devoid of shyness as he unashamedly admires Ryan.

He's almost to the end of the song. But then, with a wicked grin, Dylan leans in to capture Ryan’s lips in a kiss while one hand gently cups his face. Ryan returns it without a thought and his hands stutter in their playing, a mangled note plays out. Dylan smiles against his lips.