vestigechat | inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

Entry tags:

!tdm

inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

				
				VESTIGE TEST DRIVE MEME

WHAT IS THIS?

Vestige

The Box

invite-only

horror jamjar

Good Quality Suffering™️

ongoing

no official start date

literally nothing but this TDM

all powers intact

items

Intro + Friending

EDIT 5/20:

DISCORD SERVER

 PROMPT 1 ► just your ordinary cabin in the woods 

⬛ARRIVAL + GENERAL PROMPT

 PROMPT 2 ► who's up for some fighty-fight, kids??

⬛MONSTER HORROR.

packed

A child's drawing, of what appears to be... shit, what even is that? Is it a bat? Is it some kind of... reptile? We just don't know. (result! warnings for gore/violence.)
A light-blue paper face mask, the sort used in hospitals for patients who have a cold. Maybe you guys should've brought masks too. It sure would keep all this dust the hell out of your nose... ( result! warning for body horror! )
A buzzsaw blade, dusty but intact. ( result! warnings for gore/violence. )
A music box, covered in faded yellow flowers. I wonder what music it plays? ( result! warnings for gore/violence and Alarming Children. )
A funeral urn. But... It seems that someone glued it shut around the edges? I guess that's one way to make sure nobody spills grandma. ( result! )

 PROMPT 3 ► congratulations, you fucked up

⬛SURVIVAL HORROR.

easy

smoke

here

 PROMPT 4 ► "escape"? never heard of her.

⬛PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR.

try

The first time your character ventures into the fog, they're just turned around and sent back to the cabin.
The second time, they hallucinate things that they don't want to hear. Something they fear, something that hurts them, something that stresses them the fuck out. Maybe a character's worst fear is wildcats and they hear one growling just out of sight in the mist. Maybe instead they hear a loved one crying for help back in the direction from which they've come, drawing them back to the cabin. Or maybe they hear the voice of someone they admire berating their cowardice or stupidity or something, for running away from the cabin in the first place. The goal is to psych them out and send them running back to the place where the action is happening.
The third time, it's the same but full-blown visual or even physical hallucinations. Basically anything that might lure, scare, emotionally wound, etc. them into going back to the vicinity of the cabin.

 THE LOOP ► a note on replayability

left unbothered

sunrise

burnt

fall unconscious

reawaken in a perfectly undamaged cabin

CODE BY TESSISAMESS (patreon)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Slowly, numbly, Ian shifts himself off the bed. Edges around toward the window - somewhere off left of the frame proper, in case something punches through the goddamn wood and snatches him by the throat like a horror movie.

His heart rate spikes. Breathing goes a little short. All from a fucking knock.

His mind's eye can see the vacuum of space, a receding door getting smaller, four doctors over top of him cutting him open while the rest of him cracks like glass. Fuck, shit, fuck, now is not the time. Keep it together.

Mace no sooner pries out the first nail than a polite knock comes from the window right before him. Ian jerks, startled and jumpy, to peel away from it with his hands tightening around the handle of that screwdriver.

There is no banging. The door does not suddenly burst open the way it had that first day. No rattling on the hinges, no creaking to indicate they're somehow pushing the nails through.

Just the knock, and then the quiet. ]

[ Well, fuck. But in a way, Mace should've seen it coming; if he had to close in on somebody, he'd do it the same way. Trammelled in on both sides.

Out of the corner of his eye as he continues to pry out the next nail, this time with a growing scowl on his face due to the realization that there is one of those fuckers on the other side, he catches a glimpse of the way Ian startles. It's more than just out of surprise, of course it is; it's dread and panic and the memory of the last time they'd heard these knocks, and what had happened afterward.

Mace pauses, taking a step back and to the side, so he's closer to Ian. Doesn't look his way just yet because he's thinking hard of what's the best way to do this. Either way it'll be bloody; his job is keeping Ian out of the mess as best as he can.

Through the door means being trapped in with no exit. Window's the lesser of the two evils, because at least that way, they have somewhere to fight their way toward. ]

Ian, I need you to make a small bottle of tequila. Can you do that?

[ In an undertone, stepping up close so he can say it right into his ear; low and steady, almost calming, his free hand going out to grip Ian's shoulder bracingly. ]

[ He thinks - and it isn't a great leap to make, frankly - that he might have some deep issues developing. Post traumatic stress disorder, something involuntarily seizing control of his bodily responses despite his mind's frantic effort to stay calm. Stay in that level place of rational decision-making. It's beyond choice, though, beyond control, the way his breathing's picking up and the panic's flaring bright and the way it's making him lightheaded.

Fuck, fuck. Deliberate breathing. Concentrate on your breath. Slow inhale, slow exhale, do not pass out, do not throw up.

Mace's body blocking out the room is a welcome, grounding thing. Familiar smell, trusted shape, easy low voice that pulls him out of his head for a second.

Small bottle of- ]

Are you gonna fuckin' molotov them?

[ He breathes, incredulous.

Well, why the fuck not, right?

Palm up. Dim blue glow. Slower this time than before, because the glass has to come first and then the liquid sifts between the glass's molecular structure --

More than one component is time consuming, but he manages it. Twisty cap and everything. ]

Good man.

[ That is precisely what he had in mind, and Mace's fingers squeeze down in appreciation this time, adding a reassuring little shake at the end as he searches Ian's expression intently, before he moves back to the window.

He wishes there were more time on hand for him to stay with Ian for a second, to firmly lift him out of the mental quicksand his body's fear response is pulling him into, but out of everything else, it's time they're strapped most for. Time that's gonna make the difference when he pulls down the plank and lobs a burning bottle at whatever the fuck is on the other side.

Hopefully a task to concentrate on, something palpable and immediate, work that he can do with his hands and push the focus of his mind toward, will help ground Ian in the present.

Last thing to do is tear a scrap of cloth from the sheets to douse into the tequila, and there's just two nails left to pull when Mace turns back to the corner Ian's in, holding up the plank on either side. ]

Done?

[ Mouthed out, with a hand out to tell Ian to stay where he is. Fuck, even worse than the knocks is the expectant, looming silence that's now on either side of them, at the door and window both. ]

[ He nods, mostly because he doesn't trust himself to speak. It helped a little, kept him from getting blurry around the edges of his vision. Kept his hands steady while he worked, dousing the thing and plucking up his pack of matches. He fists them tightly, and though there's a set to his shoulders it's pretty clear he's out of his depth.

He has never, in any daydream, ever thought he'd have to fucking molotov something. He's ready to pass them over the second Mace makes it clear he'll be doing the chucking instead of Ian.

Convinced himself he's gonna fuck up and drop the matches somehow in the moment of truth or something equally as devastating.

But he's ready.

They're ready.

On three, a nod, a silent countdown, and--

There's nothing on the other side of the window. Not a goddamn thing but open space and trees and undisturbed mud. ]

[ The foggy emptiness that greets them outside stumps Mace for about as long as it takes for him to scan the area as thoroughly as he can without sticking his head out the window. Nothing. Not even right underneath the sill.

So, trying to psych them out, then. Or a diversion from the main threat, which might still be behind the door. Lull them into a false sense of security.

Leaves two options, and he lifts the plank back up to the window, holding it in place with the hammer as he leans toward Ian and says, softly: ]

Can go either way with this. We hammer up the window again, face the door next, second verse same as the first — [ Meaning, they square up with their molotov cocktail at the ready for whatever's behind the door. If there's anything behind the door. ]

Or we exit right now. Out the window.

[ There's a third option, but it's not one that Mace even tries suggesting — splitting up. One person outside, one on the inside. There's no way he can leave Ian on his own, not like this. Not unless there was something that forced his hand to do so. ]

[ He cannot for the life of him understand what the game is here. What the strategy is. The door, the window? There's nothing going on behind them, the dresser is still in place, it's still nailed shut. There are no signs of life outside, no indication that there's ever been. Is it meant to convince them to open the door? Is it meant to get their anxiety up? Remind them that the aren't safe?

He doesn't fucking know, and the more he tries to assign logic to it the more circular his thoughts become. Looping, unresolved spirals.

He'd shoot down any plan to separate them with absolutely no shame and no quarter. He can't do it. He won't. Not again, not after the last time - nothing to do with the hands on his throat, everything to do with that misery he felt hearing Mace's voice on the other side of the door pleading for help.

And his own selfish fear.

His hand glows blue. Fabric knits itself slowly together while he answers: ]

Window. Grab anything we have left and let's go.

[ Any remaining food. A simple, unimpressive bag finishes forming after he wraps his hands around the strap. It's not sturdy, not strong, it's a cross-body affair with a deep pocket and nothing else. Big enough that he can tug the quilt off the bed and shove into it, and still have some room left.

He can do bags. Blankets are harder. Easier to take it, and they'll probably be thankful for it later. ]

I can make clothes. Basics.

[ Since he's in a fucking robe and Mace is in a towel. Should've grabbed clothes from the laundry after all, but no time to think about that now. ]

You want them now or after we clear the treeline?

[ He can't prioritize. His sense of urgency is whacked out. His adrenaline, his stress, they're saying get the fuck out now. Scramble over the broken glass and bolt. ]

[ Window it is. Mace thinks he wouldn’t have minded the other option either, because the part of him that’s been getting steadily pissed off at whatever game was being played at their expense might’ve liked a little blood at this point — but no, the risk to Ian that way would’ve been too high.

That is, if there was anything behind them at all, and not just another arm of this MD-funded psych op. It was entirely possible that the cabin would be empty, which might give them something of an edge, what with the actual pants out there in the laundry, and more supplies to grab in the kitchen.

But. Window, and more importantly, the rising panic he can see in Ian's face, in the set of his shoulders and jaw, even as he magics together an impressive-looking bag out of thin fucking air. Not that he blames him, hell no. It's just ... ]

Treeline. Ian, hey. Look at me for a sec.

[ He crosses the distance between them in two strides, not reaching for his shoulder this time around, but his face. Cupping it in his hands, holding his gaze with a sudden intensity. His eyes lower to Ian's mouth and it's probably obvious that what he wants to do is kiss him, one last time under this goddamn roof.

Instead of that, though. ]

I am so glad you're a wizard.

[ Fervently, with a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. It's not wholly a joke.

And then he's off toward the bed, toward their supplies, to finish up so they can leave. Yanks off a pillow-case and starts stuffing it full of whatever essentials he can grab from their stash. A split second's pause and then he's grabbing the little box of Nescafé three-in-one, too.

Then it's back to the window, and he spreads the other pillowcase as a sort of protective layer over the broken, jagged edge of the glass before turning to Ian. ]

Toss the bag first, then you, then the supplies. I'll bring up the rear.

[ It's like he can read Ian like a book. Like he's somehow incorporated the science of what makes him tick into his aerospace engineering degree. The if, then of Ian Fowler. If he's having a panic attack, then gently grab him by the face and snap him back into the moment. Give his mind a fighting edge over his body, the advantage he needs to take back control over himself.

He'll eventually get there. Through sheer exposure alone, through experience, he'll become desensitized to this fear. Probably. Maybe. It's just gonna take more than three days, is all.

His lips twitch up at wizard.

God damn it, James.

They're ready to go. He's ready to go, and never see this fucking cabin again. The bag goes out, five or six feet to the grass below. Ian's next, easy enough because this isn't the kind of physical he struggles with. Doesn't take much core strength to pull himself up into the window ledge and then transition himself over without lingering too long on glass.

He drops easily, gracefully down. Plucks up his bag again, slings it over his shoulder.

Feels anxiety clench at him almost immediately, leftover from the last time they weren't in the same room together. ]

Hey, c'mon, please. Now. No last minute grabs, just come on.

[ Seriously, he's got that creeping fear that something's going to keep Mace in and seal him out, or the goddamn earth will swallow the building up whole and leave him behind alone.

It's fostering codependency. He's gonna start struggling to be outside of arm's reach before you know it. He's not proud of it. ]

[ Mace had been prepared to give Ian any sort of boost he might’ve needed, including lifting him up and bodily lowering him out of the window if required, but turns out Ian’s got this covered.

Even before Ian hoists himself up after the tossed bag, though, Mace can see it in his face — how ready he is to get out of this place once and for all. The panic had receded a few moments before, when he’d held Ian’s face in his hands, seen the little quirk of his lips in response. But he can sense that it’s starting to lap at the shores again, and it comes as no surprise to hear Ian’s voice from outside, telling him to hurry up. ]

Not grabbing nothing, I’ll be right out. Step back, I’m gonna throw the hammer.

[ In hindsight, maybe not the best idea to announce his intentions in a voice that strong or that carrying, but there’s something in him that wants to reassure Ian before anything else, do something about the anxiety in his voice that seems to go beyond just negative association with the cabin itself.

Like he's spooked.

He ties a knot in the supplies case and then tosses it out of the window, the hammer inside — nothing else in there that he needs to be particularly careful with — and then gets ready to swing himself over the ledge.

Barely gets a hand on the sill when something grabs him by the fucking ankle and wrenches him backward.

It's with such force that he hits the ground with a deep, echoing thud, his face exploding with pain as it slams into the hardwood cheek first. Completely winded for a horrible second. The sheer shock of it keeps him from uttering a single sound, not even a curse making it past his lips. Fuck. Fuck, what the fuck grabbed —

Something starts dragging him back, and Mace half-gasps, half-snarls, reaching forward blindly to grab the only thing he can — a shard of window glass in the corner, turning around with every intent to slash —

— the … bedsheet. Wrapped motionlessly around his ankles as if he'd accidentally pulled it with him, and fucking son of a bitch, Mace knows the sheet hadn’t been there before. It hadn't. But then, how the —

His breathing picks up and goes unsteady as he stares behind himself uncomprehendingly, and then he’s scrambling back onto his feet and swinging out onto the grass below without even looking to see where he lands. Miraculously, the towel's still around his waist.

When he gets to his feet, his face is paler than before, with the exception of a shiner clearly popping up under one eye. ]

[ There's a shout on his lips the second Mace disappears from view. It doesn't make it much farther than that. By the time Mace is upright again looking out the window, Ian is gone. It's too fast, it's almost instantaneous, there before he fell and not there after, not even in the distance. There's nobody, no footsteps, no blue masks, no doctors in the trees.

Nothing but a scattered trail of supplies leading toward the woods, random haphazard distances between things dropped like a hole cut into a bag of grain, dragged out for yards and leaving seeds to mark the way. His bag. A can. Instant coffee. A screwdriver. A rumpled blanket. His robe.

He's pulled back with that same sucking force as he'd been ripped from the airlock. It's exactly the same feeling, with the air ripped from his lungs and the devastating certainty he's going to die. The cabin rushes away from him - or so it looks like from his perspective - followed by trees shooting by on either side. Branches whipping against his bare back, snapping thorns and twigs and leaves until he's deep, dark, who knows how far away from everything.

(From Mace.)

It lasts until his back slams into a tree, then abruptly stops to allow him to crumple to the ground gasping ineffectually. The wind knocked out of him. Black spotting his vision.

When he finally pulls down a wheezing gulp of air, when he finally recovers and stands, he's surrounded by fog, fucking naked, alone. ]

[ It’s not just coffee that Mace doesn’t feel much of anything about. No drugs, no smoking; even drinking was for the social aspect of it, because anything that altered his experience of reality was unnecessary.

So, going through a psychedelic trip — because that’s what this has to be, he thinks numbly, looking around to find that Ian’s gone, that his bag is gone, that even the fucking cabin is gone when he turns around — this is his first time, and he realizes he has to orient himself without any prior understanding of what’s possible, what isn’t. If there'd been hallucinogens seeping into the room while they slept ...

There could’ve been somebody in the room with them the whole time, and they wouldn’t have known. Could’ve been the reason why Ian was so much more on edge than Mace had been, even with his past trauma taken into account; his other senses picking up on something that he couldn’t see, some predator in the dark, watching him. Watching them.

Entirely possible that the cabin is exactly where it was, and he just can’t see it.

He and Ian could end up walking right by each other and not know it.

Mace pinches the bridge of his nose, closes his eyes, and focuses on absolutely nothing for exactly thirty seconds. When he opens his eyes again, the catastrophizing he’d been inching towards is gone, and he’s staring at the trail of scattered supplies leading into the woods with a calculating expression.

All right, what does he know? Ian can: make water, can make a weapon. Make matches, can knit together something basic to wear, anything made up of simple components. What is it that Ian can’t do? Protect himself. What’s Mace’s remaining function, because without food and water and any physical protection from the elements, he has about seventy-two hours before he loses all efficiency?

Provide backup, protect Ian indirectly. Which means no aimless wandering and calling out Ian’s name, giving away either of their positions and thereby putting Ian in danger. His toes dig into the soil underneath, almost literally grounding himself, and then Mace is moving forward because that's the only thing left to do.

The trail up ahead is as good a lead as he's got — starts with his hammer, which he picks up — and he follows it into the woods, into the fog. ]

[ It's cold. He doesn't remember what season it was, he realizes suddenly. It's like grasping at water, it slips through his fingers even though he thinks for a second he's got a hold on it. He doesn't remember if it was winter or summer, but he knows right now that cold is seeping into him like those middle days of fall.

It isn't dangerous yet. It isn't frigid. It is enough for him to disregard all thought, all panic, and focus instead on glowing himself clothes. One set of briefs. One plain white shirt. One extremely simple pair of jeans - it takes longer, denim is hard for him and he never could figure out why. One flannel shirt, the only one he can make, one he's made over and over again identically since he was seventeen and really into Kurt Cobain. Socks.

Shoes take the longest. They're surprisingly fucking complicated, he's learned exactly one pair and it involved practically doing goddamn surgery to get it right. There are layers you don't even think about. A mix of four or five different kinds of material.

He settles down on a tree root to do it, dipped beneath a layer of fog that floats up densely at chest height when standing. Keeps his back to the bark, with his eyes snapping up every few seconds to search the minimal distance he can see. For once, his glowing forearm isn't reassuring - it feels like a beacon, like he's raising a red flag despite the fact that no eyes - animal or human - would be able to make it out from ten feet away.

It wasn't animal or human that dragged him out here. Ripped his robe off in the process.

Do they know what he can do? Surely they must. Do they know it was pointless, that he can make the things he needs to survive? Maybe, maybe that's why they ripped him away from Mace. To make them both more vulnerable while alone. To punish them for plotting an escape.

Ian gets no protection while he's wounded, nobody who knows how to actually fight rather than his panicked under-trained "stab them if you can reach them" approach.

Mace gets no resources. No water, no food, no tools, no shelter - nothing, save what he can pick up scattered on the earth or harvest from the trees.

What's the fucking point, though? It could obviously kill them, whatever's doing this. The only rational explanation is simple and incredibly unfair.

Someone just wants to watch them suffer. New and unique ways of it, considering present circumstances.

His high-tops are barely tied when he hears the first cracking branch break off of a tree some ten yards away. His head snaps up, his throat catches, and there's a long, long debate over whether or not that could be Mace. Whether he should go toward or run away from the sound. Frozen again, because apparently he always freezes now.

(And cracks apart.)

The second breaking branch is what decides it for him - closer, close enough that he can make out over the fog the way the entire god damn tree is spasming back and forth like something great and terrible is swaying it.

He bolts in the direction he was dragged, barely mindful enough not to go tripping over tree roots. ]

[ The only silver lining to this mushroom cloud is that it’s not fucking snowing. Or raining. The chill that hangs in the air is damp and clinging, and Mace knows by nightfall he’s gonna be feeling it for real, especially in his extremities and his chest — but it’s not the kind of cold that can really bother him anymore. Not after the coolant tank, although he finds he has a new, special hatred of it precisely because of that.

Right now, though, there’s something more immediate on his mind. Keeping track of time is one of the most futile things he could attempt to do, but from what he can tell, it’s been well over a goddamn hour, and nothing. Not even the rustle of leaves, or the sound of small animals — there's a heavy stillness lying over the entire forest that’s setting his teeth on edge.

All around him, the grey malevolence of the fog remains the same, a perpetual near-dusk.

What Mace is keeping track of, however, is his step count. For one thing, it’s telling him how far he’s travelled — about a mile and a half, going by his usual brisk pace. For another, it tells him that the distance between each scattered thing he finds is irregular. Random. Ian's robe, which he’d slipped on. The quilt, which he’d rolled up into a ball and left by a tree stump, in case they could retrace their steps. A sad, crumpled packet of instant coffee that he’d pocketed into the robe immediately, without letting himself think about why.

No pattern. Not intentionally dropped. Pulled out of Ian’s grasp, maybe, when he’d been dragged —

Fuck, he doesn’t want to think about that. Can’t think about that. The one thing keeping him going, the one thing he has, is the hope that Ian’s out there, alive. He’s gotta hold onto that and not let go.

If something had happened to Ian — he’d know. He knows he’d know, because whatever the fuck was doing this to them would waste no time rubbing it in his fucking face, making it clear to him that he had absolutely nothing to keep fighting for.

Less than five hundred steps later, he hears something go off in the distance, a crack like a gunshot, and freezes mid-step.

It’s not a gun. There’s something in the trees, and it’s moving — it’s moving fast, and by the sound of it, it’s headed right in his direction.

Mace has barely enough time to make a judgment call of what he should do before he’s cursing and grabbing onto one of the low-hanging branches of the tree next to him, a great, sleepy beast of an ash tree. He swings himself up to the second branch and then goes still as he listens hard. For anything.

What he hears instead, is.

Is.

His blood runs cold, and then an angry heat suffuses him, chest to throat to face, knowing whose voice it is that he's hearing. That these fuckers are making him hear, because there's no way. No, this is a fucking distraction, or a trap. Like when they'd made him see a surgeon instead of Ian, trying to get him to attack — to kill. Or just a way to derail him so that he loses his focus and misses Ian passing right under his goddamn nose —

Mace's face hardens and his hand goes white-knuckled around the hilt of the hammer, the other tightening around a branch so hard that it creaks, wood cutting into his bruised palm. ]

[ He can feel breath on his neck. He can feel something breathing down it, sweet and teasing and sharp and threatening - it's not a phantom sensation, his hair moves beneath the weight of it, strands fly forward and into his mouth. The fear in him is beyond anything that can be described in any way other than primal. It's that bone-deep built-in survival mechanism, that thing in humans that just knows things and those things save their lives. It's what drives children to nightlights. It's what renders people speechless and immobile before predators and deadly snakes.

He knows that if he turns around and sees it, it will fucking kill him. Really, really, he knows. Not even just turning, if he catches a peripheral glance, if he sees a fucking reflection, he knows it'll be the worst thing he's ever felt.

And he knows he's not going to outrun it. That it will follow him. He knows that it's that making voices ring through the trees around him that are familiar, sometimes Mace, sometimes his mother, sometimes threats and pleas and gentle encouragements. Sometimes just his name, a sharp and sudden sound like I found you, please look, it's me, I'm over here.

He is fifteen years old again. He's a fucking kid, dodging around trees like the time he saw someone's severed finger rolling across the stained and water-softened wood of a dilapidated house. Knew then that the rest of the body was nearby, he thinks, and that's why he bolted.

It's Mace that makes him stumble - not the phantom sound of him, not distant screaming or haunting voices. It's spotting him on a low-hanging branch, and the devastating fact that he doesn't know. That he's searching the fog, deliberately searching it.

He's gonna have to apologize later.

Momentum carries him forward, a fallen tree makes for a push-off point, and it's with that he grabs him by the ankle to yank him down off the tree. ]

Shut your eyes-

[ It claws its way out of his throat, and god hopefully Mace recognizes him this time because there's not a single second of pause before he's clamoring over Mace's body, whether or not it's injured, whether or not something's sprained or bleeding, it doesn't matter, whatever it takes to get him close enough that Ian can slap a hand over his eyes to keep him from seeing whatever it is that breaks through the treeline behind him. ]

[ Whatever’s coming his way, the speed’s picking up in a way that has Mace suddenly doubting that it’s Ian. The unease of that thought cuts through the anger swirling deep in his chest, through the echoing in ears from the voices he’s trying his damnedest to ignore, and it has him suddenly straining to see it through the fog.

The branches across from him start moving, and he knows it’s only a matter of minutes. Something shapeless wavers in the distance behind the trees, and —

And then a warm, human grip wraps around the foot that’s lowest on the branch, and Mace doesn’t even get the chance to yell before he’s being pulled down like a bunch of grapes.

Second time he’s been grabbed by the ankle in as many hours, but it’s not the yanking that hurts him this time — it’s his own damn self, the wood tearing into the flesh of one hand as it rips free of the branch through sheer momentum. The hammer’s still in the other, and he swings it out in a wild attempt to catch himself on something as he’s wrenched down.

Ends up cutting into the tree instead with the sharp end, and there’s a hideous, grating pressure on his shoulder as the hammer drags along the trunk on his way down, pulls it right out of its socket. And that’s what gets a sound out of him, finally; raw and agonized, muffled in his throat as a body clambers over him, his own struggling back and forth underneath the weight of it before he realizes that it's —

Jesus Christ.

It’s Ian. Except.

Shut your eyes, and the blind, animal terror in Ian’s voice somehow manages to pierce even the white-hot veil of pain clouding his head. Nothing like he’s ever heard out of him before; it’s a fear that calls to something instinctive and primeval in his hindbrain. Evolutionary memories of predators stalking the mouth of the cave, just beyond the firelight. The worst kind of danger.

It’s contagious; his eyes are squeezing shut even before Ian’s hand fully covers them, and Mace tenses up beneath him, gritting his mouth closed for good measure, every sense on red-alert despite the pain radiating out of his face, his hand, his shoulder.

Everything’s gone quiet. His heart thuds hard and quick in the silence, and he can feel Ian’s heartbeat pressed against his — can’t even fully feel the relief that comes from that sensation because whatever the fuck it was, it’d scared Ian bad enough for him to be reduced to this. Had it hurt him? ]

Ian? [ Tightly and through his teeth, without his lips even moving; low as he can get it without whispering, because whispers carry. ]

[ That sound, he knows it's his fault he knows it's pain, he knows he caused it - he doesn't have enough processing power to devote to it right now. He'll apologize, he'll feel bad later, when his mind isn't blaring alarms of panic. When he isn't operating on sheer instinct, adrenaline, two steps too fast, living in exactly the present moment as it happens sharply and too aware of reality.

Too aware of everything, too alert, absolutely fucking terrified.

For both of them.

Protective, in the way his body's covering Mace beneath him. In the way his hand stays clamped down tight, refusing to budge. In the way that he's curled just a little over Mace's head with his shoulders, tucked in, shielding.

His chest rises and falls so rapidly it's a wonder he's not hyperventilating to the point of passing out.

He listens, sharp, like a fucking watchdog.

Soft rustling in the trees, could be the wind. He knows it isn't.

Mace's voice beneath him, real. ]

Don't look, don't open your eyes.

[ Urgent, whispered low and fast.

Then, from the quiet, the voices start up. Both of them can hear it now, probably - the whispers. Familiar voices, almost perfect. He can hear his own calling out for Mace. He can hear his own screaming. Begging. Why won't you look at me.

He can hear their version of Mace start up, threaded in between his own tones. His fingers tighten up on instinct, one of them twisting in the robe Mace is haphazardly wrapped in.

It must not understand, must not get why they aren't looking when they're stacked on top of one another like this.

And then he hears his mother, the way she sounded at the end. Hoarse. Barely able to carry a word out because her lungs were dying. Because she couldn't catch her breath even with an oxygen tank pumping air into her.

Look at me, Baby. I don't have a lot of time. I need you to look at me. I need to tell you. I'll tell you who he is. Please let me see your eyes.

He ducks down to press his forehead into the hand over Mace's, frustration lacing everything about it. ]

Fucking bitch.

[ Again, the warning to not open his eyes. The same tone, the same fear, mixed with a new exigency as Ian’s hand stays implacable and firm over his eyes. Mace couldn't see even if he tried to like this, can’t even move where he is beyond a few wriggles and the freedom of exactly one bleeding hand, the other still uselessly clutching the hammer.

With his shoulder incapacitated, he’s little more than a pinned butterfly underneath the weight of Ian’s body, if butterflies wore bathrobes. That doesn’t mean Ian can’t see, though — or that he hasn’t already seen, or at least sensed enough to know what it is that’s after them. The danger that lies in looking at it.

He’s gonna fully trust Ian's call on this one, and Mace makes a soft hum of acquiescence, but it’s barely audible to his own ears. Nothing more than a vibration, his limbs still wound up tight like a spring, waiting for —

Whispers. Again. Fucking closer this time, echoing from every goddamn direction as if they’re being reined in by a circle of them, and his body gives a sudden, jarring wrench at the sound of Ian’s voice added to the mix, even as he hears his Ian swear sharply overhead. Screaming, fuck. Ian held hostage right in the middle of it all, only a few feet away while Mace —

The force of it judders through him, almost hard enough to dislodge Ian in its urgency, and Mace has to remind himself, it’s not him.

It’s not him. Right? It is Ian holding him down, isn’t it, it’s —

Mace turns his face in a tiny, almost entirely ineffectual movement that nonetheless accomplishes one very important thing. The tip of his nose just brushes against a lock of nearby hair, and the sweet, faint scent of sandalwood hits him.

Relief ripples through him, properly this time, and even the sound of his own voice doesn’t disturb it.

The sound of his father’s, however.

A muscle shifts in Mace’s jaw and he has to actively fight the taste of acrimony that rises up like bile at the all-too familiar sound of rage, right out of his childhood. It burns the back of his throat, bitter and sharp. First Cassie, now this. No wonder. No fucking wonder Ian was in this state; Christ only knew who he was hearing, what significance the whispers targeted at him held.

His hand gropes blindly at Ian's back, the palm patting between his shoulder blades as Mace realizes Ian’s folded over him tight and protective, a little ways up. Means his reach becomes a little clumsy as he cups the back of Ian's head, fingers curling into his hair. ]

Not real. It's not. Ian. Okay?

[ A staccato mumble into the soft patch of skin that he thinks is right below Ian's ear. ]

[ Ian's not hearing his and his alone, not trapped in his own private bubble of whispers. It's all there, aired out, these private sounds made audible to him. He can hear Mace's father, a raging storm - doesn't know how he knows that's who it is, it just sounds like... it sounds like it fits, it sounds like the kind of bad-father energy he's heard before. Students with bruises. Students with black eyes. Students that are over the age of 18 so there's no real legal recourse, but he pulls them into his office to softly talk about their options anyway.

It'd be a lie to say his attention didn't shift almost immediately back to his mother.

I miss you, baby. I miss you so much. I just wanna see those pretty eyes one more time. Ian, I love you. Ian, why won't you look at me?

Mace's voice startles him, a sort of abrupt spasm that suggests maybe he'd been getting a little lost in this. A little coaxed, a little goaded. ]

I know.

[ He manages, hoarse. A little wrecked. Certain, but shaky. ]

I know, I know it's not, it can't be, she's dead.

[ But so were those doctors, weren't they? Dead and walking. Dead and chasing. Dead and performing fucking surgery, so why couldn't they bring her back too?

The thought disgusts him, the visceral wrongness of it. The thought of her frail and emaciated body, eyes sewn shut, some horror that isn't his mother anymore.

(But at the same time, he misses her so fucking much...)

Twigs snap around them, the sound of footsteps. The sound of something pacing, fast and irritated, back and forth. Agitation in the cadence of it. The whispers get louder, a gaggle of voices to a cacophony of shouts.

Fucking look at me, if you don't look at me I'm going to tear your fucking head off, if you don't turn around right now I'm going to cut you open and take you apart, fucking look at me.

It's not any voice he knows. It's not the way any human ought to sound. It's wrong. He shakes, a shudder in his resolve, foundation cracking and fraying a little at the seams. The hand on Mace's eyes, however, is steady as a fucking rock. Neither Mace nor god nor the thing at his back could peel that off him right now.

At some point, he doesn't know when, he started talking. Started muttering like he's trying to drown it all out with his own words, started speaking to convince himself, or maybe- not even that, he doesn't even fucking know why he's doing it, how long, how to stop, just a barely-audible litany; it's not real, it's not fucking real, if it could do anything, if it could do that it would've done it already, fuck, I just wanna go home, god fucking damn it, it's not real-- ]

[ She’s dead, and Jesus, the way Ian’s voice comes out ragged and shaking … it solves the identity of the woman pleading to see Ian’s eyes, the wording so intimate and tender that it had already been narrowed down to only a couple possibilities, even as Mace tried not to listen to it. Tried to afford Ian some sort of privacy, despite the fact that there was none to be found.

I’m sorry, Mace thinks, maybe whispers it. Doesn’t know because he can’t hear it. His hand tightens in Ian’s hair, knows he’s probably messing it up with blood and traces of bark, and doesn’t care. If he had the leverage to curl around Ian right back, wrap both arms around him — cover both Ian's ears with his hands —

But it’s Ian who’s determined to protect him this time, and he's doing it in more ways than he’s aware of, beyond the unflinching grip of his hand across Mace’s eyes.

Mace wouldn’t be able to ignore the whispering and screaming this easily without Ian’s presence centering him again, holding him down as surely as the weight of his body. It wouldn’t have been right away, maybe, but sooner or later it would start getting to him, burrowing into his brain like an evil worm. Cassie's voice, not whispering, but fucking hissing at him. I got rid of it because it was yours.

The sudden echo of footsteps around them have Mace twitching hard under Ian at the restless, implicit threat in them. Back and forth, like a monstrous cat pacing inside a cage. Or outside it, trying to get at the prey inside. And then drowning them out, a voice rising to a distorted, demonic howl —

The hairs on Mace’s neck and arms stand straight up because it’s not human and it’s not even fucking pretending to be, the syllables mutilated and discordant in a way that strikes a nauseating and alien fear in the pit of his stomach. There’s an answering tremor in his body at the way Ian shudders over him, and an ugly, creeping dread starts to coil itself around his lungs.

Then he hears it. Something right in his ear. Ian’s voice, except it’s not — not the thing at the outer edge of the invisible circle around them. It’s Ian, talking to himself, the same words over and over, talking himself into a dizzying circle that sounds increasingly desperate. I just wanna go home, and that —

Pulls Mace right back out of where his mind was headed, and the fury that floods him this time is cold and steadying. What the fuck is he doing? No, really, what the fuck is he — ]

Got my first — my first real six-string, bought it at the five-and-dime. Played it til my fingers bled.

[ Quiet but growing louder with each halting word, he tries to sing where his face is held almost immobile, near the crook of Ian's neck. Tries to do something to help drown out the hell wagons circling them, tighter and tighter.

It probably sounds beyond fucking stupid. The first song that comes to mind, and he's barely holding the tune together through his gritted teeth, because Mace isn't big on music. Mace isn't big on anything that isn't tangible and practical and nailed-the-fuck-down, but this is something that became a part of him when he was small, and the world was still new. ]

Ain't no use complaining when you got a job to do. Spent my evenings down at the drive-in, and that's when I met you. Standing on your mama's porch, you told me that you'd wait forever. And when you held my hand —

[ I knew that it was now or never. He trails off, because there's a sudden dead silence around them, not a thing rustling, nothing creaking. Nothing howling. ]

[ Ian's voice falters, tapers off, surprised into silence by Mace, singing. It's the absurdity of it, maybe. The fact that it comes from nowhere, that he's never heard Mace sing before, that he's doing it now over the sound of something at his back threatening to rip his spine out and drag him into the dark. It's the fact that he knows the word, that it's summer of '69 and he doesn't... understand...

It's silent. It's still. There's only the sound of Ian's shaky breathing, too loud even to his own ears let alone Mace's probably, considering his mouth his close to ear. Three or four or five absolutely silent seconds pass.

The tight grip on Mace's eyes loosens a little. His breathing gets quieter. He starts to tentatively shift, and--

--abruptly, the blue glow from his wrists and his hands starts up, probably bright enough to make it through Mace's closed eyelids, a little. He's not summoning anything, not tangibly, nothing except fucking knowledge but that's not how his gift works. That's not how it's ever worked before.

But it does something now, and he knows with sudden certainty: ]

It's a trick. It's still there.

[ The tightening of his hand, the defiant setting of his shoulders, the words more accusatory and decisive than afraid.

It earns a new sound. It's as profound and as all-encompassing as the silence. It's as expansive, as big. It's a scream that distorts from organic to inorganic. It turns itself into a low tone like a singing bowl, but a thousand times too loud. The kind of loud you can feel in your chest, the kind of loud ringing you get when you're too close to an explosion or a firing gun.

Temporarily deafening, legitimately, so that for a second when it stops Ian isn't... sure, because he couldn't hear anything over it and now he can't hear anything in general. Not his own breathing, not the rustling, not Mace below him.

But the blue's faded out, and the atmosphere changes. Less heavy. Less occupied. Less charged.

Slowly, he peels himself back. Lifts himself off of Mace's body and onto his knees instead. Flicking his eyes to the treeline on instinct, even though it- even though the idea was not to look. Has to remind himself of that, and turn his attention to the guy below him.

He says, you're bleeding. He can't hear it, only knows he said it because he feels it in his throat. ]

[ Stupid though it might’ve been, that off-tune, prosaic attempt at singing does the trick. Pulls Ian’s attention away from the maelstrom of sound around them, from the spiral of his own words, and once that’s accomplished, Mace falls back into his own silence. This time, able to better keep an ear out for whatever’s in the background, punctuated intermittently by Ian’s harsh breathing.

The grip he’s got across Mace’s eyes starts to go lax, just a little, and Ian stirs atop him. Mace keeps his eyes closed, just in case, his hand tensing where fingers are loosely tangled in Ian’s hair — uses the temporary lack of vision to heighten his ability to feel what’s around them without it, something extrasensory and out of reach of the big five.

There isn’t movement. There isn’t heat. There sure as hell isn’t anymore sound, but there’s something telling him to keep still, a presence he’s picking up on that Ian’s probably also —

It’s still there.

Blue light flares behind his eyelids, dim but entirely noticeable, and Mace has to stop himself from flinching. That promptly goes out the window in the next second as what feels like an unearthly tsunami of sound washes over them, seemingly envelops them as it goes down a steep, hurtling drop in octaves, the vibrations somehow going through them and around them at the same time.

Like a sonic boom, like a gun going off next to your goddamn ear, and it has the same effect. Goes past ringing in the inner ear and straight into completely soundless territory, and isn’t that just fucking great, being blinded and deafened at the same damn —

It’s only when his eyes open of their own accord, that Mace remembers he’s not actually blind and deaf. Or, well. Not the first one, anyway, because he can see Ian kneeling right next to him, see his lips moving as he speaks.

Disorientation’s left him unable to read them, though, and he just shakes his head blearily as he pushes himself up with his uninjured arm. Finally lets the hammer drop from his other hand, which —

Fuck, the other shoulder — it needs to be popped back in, and Mace’s hand goes to his forearm automatically, trying to alleviate the weight of it. Okay, he can do this. Reducing a dislocated shoulder. Just gotta. Take a minute or so to do it, because without the use of his dominant arm, he's about as useful as a three-legged horse. ]

Ian, I gotta ...

[ Oh, right. Ian wasn't gonna be able to hear him either. He holds up a finger instead, and then picks up the hammer to pass it to Ian first — well, one of them needed to be armed. Yes, pun intended. ]

[ Mace shakes his head, Ian doesn't try again. Yeah, he knows, him too. No point even trying to mouth it right now, they're both too fucked up. A shade shy of the same kind of disoriented they were the day Mace choked him out, a little too unfocused to pick up on morse code. Same dance, different song.

It's only once he sees Mace's limp arm, the way he sports it, that he remembers what he did. Ripped the guy down from a fucking branch, it's a wonder it's only his arm he hurt. That he didn't break his nose on the branch too, that Ian didn't give him a concussion, that his head didn't slam into it or into one of the many rocks and branches on the ground around them.

He takes the hammer, and there's a pretty clear, slightly distressed look of apology on his face. Discontent, flickering from Mace's eyes to the shoulder he's triaging.

He panicked.

I'm sorry. ]

[ He can’t read lips just yet but the look on Ian’s face when he passes him the hammer, that reaches Mace clear enough. It’s not a good expression, and his attention is diverted to the rest of Ian’s body for a second, taking in his posture and looking for signs of injury or bleeding.

Finding none at the moment, his gaze sweeps back to Ian’s, mystified. Which is when he catches the way Ian’s eyes are going from his shoulder to his face and back again, and …

Another head shake, firmer this time, followed up by a thumbs-up. It’s okay, and it really is. Or will be, once he pops it back in, which is the lesser of any number of evils he might’ve fallen prey to if Ian hadn’t pulled him out of that tree in time. His own fault for reaching out to catch himself with a fucking hammer, of all things. Then again, if he hadn’t, he would've broken the fall with his face. Which is already swelling up thanks to Casper the unfriendly fuck, back at the cabin.

A deep breath, a moment to reach behind him with his arm angled toward the opposite shoulder, reaching for it with his elbow at a ninety-degree flexion. On the count of three, except you did it on the count of two so that your body wasn’t expecting the — ]

Motherfucker.

[ It hurts almost as much on the way back in, and Mace focuses on rotating it gingerly for a moment, trying to see his range of motion. His other hand reaches out to absently pat the closest part of Ian he can reach, glad that it's covered in fabric, that Ian hadn't been wandering vulnerable without it. ]

[ Jesus, there's just something so absolutely fucking absurd about getting a thumbs up from a man in a robe with a dislocated shoulder in the middle of the fucking woods while they're both deaf. A huff of a laugh escapes him, obviously neither of them hear it. And then another, and then another, and he's got to turn around so Mace doesn't think he's a goddamn lunatic.

He loses his fucking shit. Hysterical laughter that shakes his shoulders, that tips his head back, a mess of filthy bloody curly hair the only thing that hides his expression probably.

God fucking damn it, this is insane. This whole thing is insane. He's losing his mind. Mace is wearing a fucking robe. They're gonna die and Mace is wearing a fucking robe.

That hysteria, that dark and wild amusement, it's still in his expression when the touch makes him compose himself. Makes him turn around, one hand passing over his mouth to try and hide it.

Okay.

Alright.

Time to focus.

He gives Mace a nod, then touches the skin of his chest for all that it can communicate - bare skin.

His hand glows blue. Making you a shirt.

He offers the hammer back out with his left while his right knits together the same plain white fabric as what he's wearing now.

It only comes in one size: his. The's got broad shoulders, though, and a wide chest. Should be alright.

The shoes on the other hand - his eyes dip down to Mace's feet, to compare. ]

Edited 2020-06-11 01:49 (UTC)

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