Chapter Text
He should be relaxing after a busy week at work, out having actual fun. It was a Friday, early enough in the school year that he didn’t have to worry about assignments yet. So in why the hell was he running through the godforsaken forest on the edge of town. because fuck his life that’s why. He kept his flashlight pointed at the ground, trying desperately not to trip as he jumped over overgrown roots and downed branches. His chest burned, how long had he been running. He should be back at the cars by now, right? Something yellow and glowing flashed in corner of his eye. His back burned as a hand pushed him hard. He heard a giggle as he hit the ground hard and pushed himself back to his feet because fuck yeah he was about to die but he wasn’t about to make it easier for it. She? Them? He was pretty sure that giggle was from a girl. He was also sure there was more than one chasing him. His legs burned. his knees ached from the fall, his back was wet and burned and Lance was pretty sure he was bleeding. Why couldn’t they have gotten to the movies like normal people.
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The wind and blew him into the student center’s glass doors and make a mockery of the blue windbreaker he’d thrown on this morning. The weather had turned colder than he’d expected. The rain beat a drum’s rhythm onto the windows as he walked to the cafeteria. The lights are bright and the cafeteria loud and full of people who’d usually be somewhere else. Most of the tables were taken and at first, Lance thought he was the first one there but he saw Hunk and Pidge sitting in the corner. He ordered a burger and fries at the burger joint before sitting down. Hunk was a tall man: he outweighed most people. All muscle and fat hidden under dark skin, his hair was neck length, neat and black. He usually was smiling but wasn’t today. Pidge was much smaller than both of them. Large round eyes stared at her computer screen from behind large thin-rimmed glasses. Her light brown hair was kept short, messy, and framing her face.
“How’s it hanging?” they returned his greeting absentmindedly. “Dude, you alright?” He asked Hunk, who had three different textbooks spread on the table and frantic flipping through them. “Huh? No, I’m not. It's only the second week and I swear Professor Iverson is trying to kill us.” He leaned back “I need a break.” He sighed
Pidge looked up and smiled like a Cheshire cat. “Well if you need a break..” She pulled her bag up from the floor and dug around until she pulled out a newspaper with a bright red banner. Lance sighed, taking a bite out of his burger. “They haven’t gone out of business yet?” “No, they haven’t yet.” The paper she spread the table was the latest issue of the “Weekly Reporter” it was a locally ran paper for those in the Seattle area who regularly wear tin hats. On the front page was an article about the woods on the edge town and trend of weird shit happening. There were grainy photos on the front page. One looked like a person if you squint and tilt your head. The other was unrecognizable. Below the picture was a warning about graphic images on the next page. Lance didn’t turn the page. Hunk looked at it then back at Pidge “You aren’t serious are you?”
“Of course I am!” She started to open the newspaper “You should read the article, it's really..” but Hunk placed his hand on top of her “No. No thank you” Pidge rolled her eyes.
“Anyway... I was thinking about going there tonight if the rain clears. Wanna go?” She asked, the grin on her face only growing larger. She was really into this.
“Um no.” Hunk said.”Pidge, that sounds insane.”
“Oh come on. It’ll be fun.”
“Pidge, we have different definitions of the word fun. C’mon its a Friday night. Let’s play video games, see a movie or something.” He popped a fry into his mouth “Or better yet. You’re 18 now. Let's go out on the town, pick up some chicks.”
Pidge raise an eyebrow “No.” She sighed, “Fine, I'll just go by myself.”
“Please don’t make call your family to tell them something happened to you. Please..” Hunk whined
“Nothing is going to happen to me. And I thought you didn’t believe in the stuff in ‘The real world’. What could happen at the hands of imaginary creatures?” She teased
“Uh huh I’m not talking about the moth man or Bigfoot. I’m worried about bears or mountain lions. You know things that might actually be out in those woods and that might actually eat you’”
Pidge sat back in her chair, “There aren’t any mountain loins in Midland’s woods.”
“Says you!”
“Guys!” he interjected, “How about this we’ll go exploring with you but afterward we’ll do something little closer our” He gestured to Hunk and himself with his index finger“ of fun. Maybe we’ll catch a movie or something. Besides you wouldn’t tell us if you did really want us to come.” Pidge looked down, grumbled “Sure, whatever.” her ears a little red.
“That cool with you Hunk?”
“Yeah. Just know if I die tonight, I’m coming back to haunt the both of you.”
“You’re not gonna die.”
“Says you.”
They decide to meet after Hunk got off work, around 7:00. After lunch, Pidge had another class and Hunk head off to work, so Lance decided to go to the library to kill some time and start researching for an assignment. The library wasn’t too packed today, so it wasn’t too much of a big deal when there was someone already sitting in his favorite spot. The problem was with who’d taken his spot. The guy was from his Stats class. An annoying know-it-all with pale skin, dark eyes and shiny dark hair cut into a mullet of all things. Okay, so Lance knew it wasn’t a mullet. He just called it that to irritate him. It usually works. Maybe he'll go over there now. Lance concerned that for a moment, glaring at him but the guy didn’t even look up from his laptop and Lance decided it wasn’t worth it. He found another seat, the chair was bight yellow and almost comfortable as his favorite was but the outlet didn’t work. He left at 6:00, took the bus back to his apartment to pick up his car. His car was smaller than he would have liked: used with paint chipping in places but it was still mostly new to him and it was his favorite color which he promptly named her after. Hunk was waiting outside the Diner when he pulled up which was good because there was never anywhere to park off campus.
“Any chance she changed her mind?” He asked by way of greeting.
Lance snorted “Have you ever known her to change her mind? Like on anything?”
Hunk signed softy
“Dude, if you don't want to come, you don’t have to.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I can't let the two of you walk into the woods at night without me. You know the rules: if we do something stupid, we do it together.”
“Aw you really do care.”
“Of course I do,” he says reaching over to hug him. Lance leaned into him for a moment, not taking his hands off the steering wheel, they leaned away at the same time. The car fell into a comfortable silence. Hunk broke it “Can I just point out that this feels like the premise of a horror movie.”
Lance laughed.
The city of Midland shared its forest with Ashfort, the next city over, and open wilderness that might even lead into Canada. Lance really wasn't sure but he knew it was big. Pidge sat on the ground by her moped. She smiled as the car pulled up. “Bout time you showed up.” She said as they stepped out of the car.
“Um some of us have lives Pidge.” Lance said pausing to grab his cellphone from the front seat, sliding it into the back pocket of his jeans.
She looked at him “I hope you aren’t talking about yourself.”
“Rude!”
“Guys..”Hunk interjected, gesturing toward the forest.
“Right.” Pidge slid her book bag off, pulled out three flashlights and handed them off.
“You guys ready?” she asked walking towards the edge of the trees.
“Not even a little bit. “Hunk answered. “Oh we’ll be fine.” he said.
He realized after they found a bunch of banged up trees that his cellphone was no longer in his back pocket. Lance didn’t tell them when he turned back to look for it, after all, he couldn’t have dropped it too long ago. He’d catch up. Oh yeah, he was feeling really fucking stupid. All the trees looked the same in the dark so much so he couldn’t even find his way back to the broken ones. And that was before he’d been scared shirtless by the strange glowing yellows eyes following him in each direction. At first, he’d mistaken the light for his friends but the lights, the eyes, were moving too fast to be them. Oh god, he hoped Hunk and Pidge were okay. Hoped they weren’t running for their lives like he was. He tripped again and almost dropped his flashlight. The light flashed over a smiling face with glowing eyes and fangs standing way too close. Lance screamed, jumping back, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. The girl in front of him pouted, reaching for him with no real effort, before giggling like she was insane. She took slow crouching steps towards him.
“C’mon..” He backed up into a tree, “Can’t we talk about this?”
“Talk?” She blinked incredulously, pointy teeth still on display, “Why would we want to talk to you”. Her eyes drift behind him. He looked back too, well as much as he could while trying to keep the woman in front of him in his field of vision. He could barely see the pair of gold eyes far in the distance, still and watching. He swallowed hard, turning his attention back to the one in front of him. “Why?..”He cracked a shaky smile “Cuz I’m n..nothing if not entertaining.”
She laughed. “That you are.” Her voice was a purr, then moving faster than he could see, she was pressing her chest into his with all her weight, pinning him to the tree. She was smaller than he thought, stronger than she looked.“Get off!”He tried pushing her off hands on her bare shoulders. Her skin was icy to the touch. She forced his arms to his side, knocking the flashlight to the forest floor. It blinked out. She buried her face in the side of his neck, the ghost of her teeth brushing his skin as she mouthed her way up to his ear, her breath was as cold as her skin. “So very entertaining. And very smooth too.” Then she goes rim rod stiff leaning back from him, the second made a noise loud and shrill like she was in pain. There was a flash of bight blue eyes, glowing like there was fire behind them before the woman head tipped off her neck. Her body collapsed into ash.
For a moment, Lance couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, all he could do was stare at the men standing in front of him holding blades; one was much longer than the other. Lance couldn’t see him clearly but from the outline of his too long hair and familiar built he could have sworn that was Keith from Statics. When the blue eyes pass over him, they glared “What are you doing Idiot? Run.”. Ok, he was sure it was Keith. The sound of his sneer breaks whatever spell he was under. Keith wasn’t in front of him anymore, he’d charged pass him to meet the second. Lance looked back. He couldn’t see anything but two pairs of eyes but he could hear them. Snarls and growls no person could make and the sound blades clashing. He pushed himself away from the tree and looking back once more, Lance ran in the opposite direction.
He felt like crap for that, for leaving Keith like that, but he kept running. As fast as he could with absolutely no idea where he was going. He heard the trees rustling a few feet away from him. Lance froze, feet digging into the earth. He held as still as he could even though it felt like his heart was still running. Was that another one. It could be Keith. The movement gets louder, closer, lights shine a moment before Hunk and Pidge came crashing through the trees like a freight train flying off the rails. And for a moment Lance was as happy as he’d ever been. His friends were safe, alive. Hunk looked like he was shaking and Pidge looked pale as a ghost but holy shit they were alive. Pidge caught sight of him “What are you doing?!” Um, what was he doing...Right running for his life. They streak passed him, looking back, he followed behind them until they ran through the line of trees that separate the road from the forest.
It didn’t feel like they’d stop running until they were in Blue driving down the main road like a bat outta hell. Pidge was driving in front of him. The car was quiet for the longest moment, filled with nothing but their heavy breathing. “Lance...You’re bleeding.” He says, his voice close to a whisper. And he was; besides the burning scratches on his back, his cheek was wet and hot. He didn’t remember being hit in the face but he did almost slam into a few trees while running for his life so it could have happened then. He swallowed, feeling the pain in his legs more intensely than ever before. “yeah.. but I’m okay though.” Hunk doesn’t respond to that immediately. Instead, he pulls out his phone, dials. Pidge picks up before the phone can ring once.
“Are you okay? What happened?” She almost had over the rush of wind assaulting the mic in her helmet. “I’m fine.” Lance says without really thinking about it, “just a few scrapes.”
“How’d you get separated from us?” Hunk asked, sitting the phone on the dashboard.
“I...um...I dropped my phone and went back to find it. I couldn’t find my way back.”
“Dude,” Hunk pauses, biting his lip. It's the expression he makes when he’s debating saying something. “That was really dumb,” he says frankly. Lance whines “I know. I know, not one of my brightest moments.” He looked at the phone to Pidge, zooming in forth of them. She’s been awfully quiet.
“Umm Pidge? You alright up there” He asked.
“Yeah, yeah I just..I’m sorry guys. I’m so so sorry. This was all my fault.” She sounds out of breath.
“Pidge. Pidge, it's okay. it’s okay” Hunk kept his voice calm “We’re all right. We are all right.”
“Yeah, man. No harm no foul and besides” Lance smiles, even though Pidge can't see it “I need the cardio.” No one speaks for a long moment. “so what happened? You two get attacked too?”
“Yeah.” Pidge said Hunk nods “There were four of them: with glowing yellow eyes and serrated teeth.“
“They didn’t have shark teeth,” Pidge says, “They had elongated canines.”
“Whatever they had, they surrounded us and threaten to eat us.”
“How’d you escape?” Lance asked, had Keith saved them too.
“Well just as they were about to attack, this guy with glowing blue eyes grabs us, tells us to run. So we did.”
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know.”Hunk said. “I wasn’t really paying attention to what he looked like.”
“I think I knew him..” Pidge said.
“You did?” Hunk asked
“I think I know the guy who saved me too.” Lance says quietly, “Guys, we have vampire hunters at our school.” He says, awed.
“Dude, we have crazy people hunting other crazy people in our town.” Hunk didn’t sound nearly as excited as he did. Pidge stayed silent.
They eventually decided to go back to his apartment. “Where’s your first aid kit?” Hunk asked as soon as he steps through the door. “Bathroom. Medicine cabinet.” He responses, setting keys down before flicking on the lights. Pidge inhales sharply and he realizes she hadn’t seen the scratches or the bruises. Her face crumbles into guilt and guilt settled in his stomach. He didn't know what to say, so for once he shut up and followed Hunk though the apartment making sure he didn’t show just how much his legs were hurting. They watch movies after Hunk cleaned his cuts; he was good at it so Lance really hoped the cut on his face didn’t scar. The one, or rather the three, on his back, were deeper, so they probably would.
Normaliztion was on the agenda. The conversions forced themselves away from anything that had anything to do with woods, crypts, or vampires. Since no has eaten dinner, they ordered take-out. They watched movies and play video games and Hunk made cookies. Lance wasn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep but sometime after dawn Pidge shook him awake to lock the door behind her.