Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She’d been on the run for three weeks now.

She’d been free for three weeks now.

Tulip actually let her go. More than that, her old prime had managed to sever her from the chrome car so that she could actually leave. Go where she wanted to, explore the train on her own, without anyone holding her back.

It was hard to put into words just how much this freedom meant now that she had it. She couldn’t go back, nothing was ever going to make her. Not now that she knew what being able to make her own choices was like, being able to pick her own clothes, cut her hair how she wanted, sleep when she wanted to and leave when she wanted to and just exist on her own merits.

These damn flecs needed to get that through their heads. She wasn’t going back!

“Get away from me!” she shouted, breaking the leg off of one of the giant lawn flamingo around her and lobbing it at her pursuer. Mace blocked it with his sander, the whirring belt sending the projectile flying off with barely a pause. “Shit,” she yelped, turning and running further through the yard car they were in.

“There’s no escape sliv-” Sieve started to yell at her, but she didn’t let him finish. Grabbing one of those stupid metallic balls sitting up on a pedestal (damn thing was the whole reason they were here now) she chucked it hard at his head. His reflexes weren’t quite as sharp as his partner’s, the ball hitting him square in the chest and sending him crashing back into a lawn chair.

“Haha!” she laughed, turning back around and running full force again. She just needed to find the exit, it had to be around here somewhere.

Before she could spot anything the train jerked to a stop roughly under her. She shouted in surprise as the movement caused her to lose her footing, crashing to the ground and leaving a rough gouge of dirt in the freshly cut grass. “Damn it,” she muttered, pushing herself up some and shaking her head.

“Get back here sliver!” Mace growled, and he was closer now. He was using her fall to close the gap, and it was hard not to let the terror overtake her.

“No! Don’t you get it? I’m never going back!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet and running forward again, not bothering to look for the exit, or somewhere to hide, or anything. Just trying to get away.

She didn’t notice what was going on until she heard the flecks behind her gasping. Looking forward instead of constantly checking over her shoulder, she only saw the portal for a moment. A glowing yellow doorway, a long, twisting tunnel inside that almost seemed to be… glitching? The scene inside of it kept changing rapidly. A dark woods, then snowy mountains, a clear river, a small suburban home, a city street, a calm lake…

“Stop!” one of the flecs called after her, sounding panicked. She honestly did try to, although that was less because someone told her and more because she didn’t know what was going on. All she managed to do though was trip herself up, tumbling face first through the portal and out the other side again.

Looking back, she could just see the two flecks scrambling after her before a glowing approximation of those handle from the train cars twisted again, the portal closing behind her and disappearing as if it was never there.

Leaving her alone, at the edges of a lake at sunset.

“What the fuck?” she blurted out after a long stretch of silence. Pushing herself up some so that she was sitting instead of sprawled out, she looked at her hand. It was still blank, her own face showing in it instead of any glowing green number. There was no reason for an exit to appear for her out of nowhere like that.

Unless…

Well, unless Tulip managed to get her number down to zero, she supposed. If the train still saw her as a part of Tulip (and the thought immediately brought a scowl to her face, but there wasn’t much she could do about that) then it might have decided she needed to leave along with her former prime. She wasn’t really from the train after all, not in the way the other denizens were. The mirror world was something different, parallel to the prime world, and linked through the train.

It made as much sense as anything else, at least.

At least, that was assuming that this actually was the real world and not just another part of the train. Some more weird junk that, as much as she loved her freedom, she was honestly starting to get tired of.

Climbing to her feet, there was a moment where she had no idea what to do, still stunned from the sudden doorway.

Then she glanced down, and noticed her reflection looking just as confused in the water below.

“No!” she shouted, trying to back away and tripping up over herself again in the process. Her eyes squeezed shut in terror, waiting for the telltale warping noise of the flecs taking advantage of her confusion to jump out of the water.

But nothing came.

“Huh?” she asked, slowly opening her eyes to the same sight she’d shut them to, the lake calm and peaceful before her. No flecs trying to kill her, no one trying to drag her back to the mirror world. No talking animals or water salesmen. Just… a lake.

“I’m… not on the train?” she asked, slowly, cautiously edging back towards the water, peeking down at her reflection again. There was no one around to answer her, so she was talking to herself. She forced herself not to jump away from her reflection this time, needing to make sure it wasn’t some sort of fluke, that maybe those two jerks hadn’t also been too stunned by the weird door to think to jump after her again.

She kept staring down, and nothing appeared aside from herself. Looking out, it slowly became apparent that it was all just… too vast to be a train car. The world kept stretching on, too detailed, each little bit too individual to be a creation put together by orbs and programming.

“I’m not on the train,” she repeated, confusion replaced with awe, edging towards excitement. A laugh started bubbling up in her chest, still feeling blindsided by the abruptness of it all. She was out! Free! The flecs couldn’t get her here! She was in the real world.

Oh.

Shit.

She was in the real world.

What was she supposed to do now?

She didn’t have anywhere to go. She didn’t have anything other than the clothes on her back, and she certainly didn’t know anyone who could help. She didn’t even know where she was, but it didn’t look like any place Tulip had ever been. Those were mountains off in the distance. She’d never seen real mountains before. She hadn’t planned for this.

She still didn’t even have a name.

Taking a deep breath, she gave herself a determined look in the waters of the lake. She’d just have to figure it out. She escaped the mirror world, and now she didn’t even have to worry about the flecs anymore, as surreal as that still felt. She could handle this.

“Alright. Let’s do this,” she said, trying not to feel silly at having to give herself a peptalk, as short of one as it was. This was a lot to take in all at once, no one could blame her for having to take some time to ground herself.

Giving her surroundings another look over, she tried to form some sort of game plan. There were houses close to the lake, not far from where she was standing at all. She’d have to stay away from those, and probably from people in general. She was out, but she certainly wasn’t safe.

She would never be safe. She’d accepted that when she broke free from the mirror world. Safety wasn’t the point, having a life was.

Not wasting any more time, she started towards the woods, trying to move fast and thankful that it was starting to get dark. It meant she would hopefully have some time to figure out some sort of plan before there were too many people out and about. Still, it wouldn’t be too long, so she would have to stay focused.

She needed a place to stay. At least temporarily, maybe she could set up some sort of shack out in the woods, away from where anyone could bother her. That could be nice.

Yeah this…

This could be nice.

—

“They say a ghost moved into the woods by the lake.”

Jesse perked up at that, pausing in his effort to shove as many fries into his face as fast as he could. He was always starving after practice, they all were, so they made a habit of going to the pizza place down the street. Well, pizza and chicken and fries and wings. That was pretty much the whole extent of the menu, and that was fine by him.

“Bullshit!”

“Who says? Your mom?”

“Pics or it didn’t happen.”

Jesse didn’t join in the chorus of disbelief and jabs, content to just watch as Richard flipped the rest of them off.

“It’s true! They say there’s been noises. Sometimes at night you can see a shimmering form wandering through the trees,” he insisted, to more mocking laughter. “Jesse! You believe me, don’t you?” Richard declared next, turning towards him, and that was all it took for everyone to be looking at him. Quickly, Jesse shoved a chicken finger in his mouth to give himself time to think.

“I mean, what do you mean by moved in? Can ghosts even do that?” he asked, because it was easier to ask a question than take a side.

“Yeah! See, you’re just making this up. Even if there were ghosts, aren’t they bound to where they died?” Troy asked, seeming content to close the case on the idea completely.

“I’m not! It’s the ghost of someone who drowned in the lake, duh,” Richard huffed, to another round of boos and declarations of bullshit. During the commotion one of the other boys grabbed Jesse’s tray, taking the last of his fries. Which was annoying, but it wasn’t like his mom wasn’t making dinner, so it’d be fine. Nothing worth starting anything over, at any rate.

“Where’d you even hear this?” Troy asked, still rolling his eyes at the idea.

“My house is right by the woods. I’ve heard it myself, out there late at night chopping wood,” Richard said, and Jesse’s eyebrows raised at that. He didn’t think he believed in ghosts, but if his friend had actually heard something weird going on out there during the night, that might be something.

“Why would a ghost need to chop wood?” Derick asked, which was honestly a good point.

“I don’t know! Maybe it’s the ghost of some pioneer kid,” Richard argued.

“If it’s a pioneer kid, why is it only showing up now?” Troy pressed, which was another good question.

“Look, I’m telling y’all, it’s a real ghost!” Richard huffed, not backing down from this. 

The rest of them were finishing up their food now, which meant they’d all start to head home soon. As much as Jesse enjoyed hanging out with his friends, he was kind of looking forward to it. Between school and swim practice and everything, he was getting tired. He honestly wasn’t paying too much attention as they continued arguing over the existence of the ghost or not.

“Look, clearly there’s only one way to prove if this ghost is real or not, which it isn’t,” Troy said, ignoring the wadded up napkin Richard threw at him in response. “One of us is just going to have to spend the night in the woods.”

Jesse tried not to freeze up at that. He knew how these things tended to work out by now, but maybe it would be different this time. It was Richard’s ghost after all, and his house was right there.

“Jesse! You can do it, right?” Richard asked, and again all eyes were on him.

Dang it.

“I mean, shouldn’t you do it? It’s your ghost,” he tried, but he wasn’t too surprised when Troy was immediately shaking his head.

“He’ll just lie and say he saw it! You do it Jesse, that way it’ll be… shit, what’s the word?”

“Unbiased,” Derrick jumped in, the others quickly agreeing.

“I guess that’s a fair point,” he agreed reluctantly. It was pretty important to have someone who’d consider both sides after all, and he hadn’t been arguing one way or the other, so he couldn't fault any of the logic there. “I can’t tonight though. It’s a school night and I need to drop Nate off in the morning,” he said, not surprised by the chorus of annoyance and ‘lame’ thrown his way.

“Fine, tomorrow’s Friday. Just tell your parents you’re gonna spend the night at my place and then we can settle this,” Richard said. It was about as good of a compromise as he was going to get, so Jesse quickly nodded.

“It’ll give me some time to get everything to uh, look for ghosts too I guess? Without my parents noticing,” he added, and that seemed to appease them a bit more than him having to look after his brother in the morning.

“Good thinking Cosay,” Troy said, picking up one of the trays and taking it to the trashcan.

“My sister has an ouija board, I’ll steal it tonight,” Derrick said, and Jesse just grinned at that, trying not to show his nerves. Thankfully, they were all heading out after that, and Jesse quickly split off to run home. As soon as he was alone, he let out a long sigh.

It would be fine. He didn’t believe in ghosts, and the woods were so close to town that the most dangerous animals out there were probably the coyotes. Not the best thing to run into, sure, but he was pretty sure that as long as he didn’t mess with them, they wouldn’t mess with him.

It was just going to be one night. Richard was probably pulling a prank on the rest of them, if he was being honest.

There was no way he’d actually find anything out there.

Right?

Chapter Text

Jesse was trying to convince himself that this would be fun.

He’d gone camping with his dad before, and he’d enjoyed that. This was essentially going to be the same thing, just on his own. Also, he was trying to find a ghost, but he honestly wasn’t thinking about that part too much.

Looking through his bag, he tried to do a running check to make sure he had everything he needed. Flashlight, extra batteries for said flashlight, matches, snacks, he didn’t have any rope but they did have some thick ribbon that he’d grabbed, a little neck pillow that people use on airplanes, the battery pack for his phone, his actual phone already in his pocket. He also had a knife he’d stolen from the kitchen, just in case the wood chopping noises weren’t a ghost and were instead some ax wielding maniac.

It didn’t feel like a lot, but he was only going to be out there for the night. He certainly wasn’t going to change into his pajamas to sleep in the woods, and his parents would get suspicious if he brought a sleeping bag.

Deciding that would have to be good enough, Jesse took a deep breath before zipping up his bookbag and heading downstairs. His mom and Nate were both in the living room. From the looks of it, Nate was trying to walk their mom through some trading card game he’d gotten into lately, although Jesse wasn’t sure how successful he was so far.

“I’m gonna head out to Richard’s now,” he said, cheerful as anything. His mother nodded, taking a break from trying to hide her confusion as she inspected one of the cards to look at him.

“Alright dear, just call if you need anything. You’re sure you don’t want your father to drive you?” she asked, and Jesse shook his head.

“It’s only a few blocks over, and it’s a nice night out,” he said, because it was. He was thankful for that, it would have sucked if he was stuck out there all night in the cold or rain or something.

“If you’re sure. Have a good time Jesse,” she said, and he nodded at that.

“I will! Night Nate!” he said, waving as he headed out the door.

“Goodnight Jesse!” his little brother called out before he left, and Jesse was smiling as he started out from his house. For a few moments, he could pretend that he was heading out to spend the night at his friend’s house. As he made his way through the neighborhood and the last hints of the sun started to dip below the horizon, his smile started to dip as well.

He didn’t like having to lie to his family, and he certainly wasn’t thrilled at being volunteered to spend the whole night in the woods. Especially since there probably wasn’t even anything out there. He was pretty sure the grand culmination of all of this was going to be one long, boring, uncomfortable night out in the woods. He’d be a lot more excited if there was any real chance of him meeting a cool ghost or a vampire or something.

Jesse pushed that smile back onto his face once his destination came into view. They agreed to meet at the edge of the forest, just a little ways beyond Richard’s house, towards the lake. From the looks of it, everyone else was already there, and Jesse spend up a little to meet them.

“Hey! So, I think I’ve got everything I’ll need, and my parents think I’m gonna be at your place tonight,” he said, looking towards Richard with a grin as he came to a stop.

“Not everything!” Derrick said, shoving a large cardboard box into his arms. Looking down, it was indeed an ouija board like he had promised to get. “Oh, and this,” he added, reaching into his pocket and holding out a small item. Taking it, Jesse frowned at the strange, teardrop shaped crystal suspended on a silver chain.

“And this is?” he asked, pretty lost.

“Some weird crystal I took from my sister. It’s supposed to find ghosts or demons or something. She’s super into this spiritual crap,” he said with a shrug, before a frown fell over his face and he turned towards Richard. “Wait, is this whole thing just a way for you to try to get with my sister?” he snapped.

“What? No!” Richard insisted, rolling his eyes before suddenly smirking. “Why? She say something?” Instead of answering, Derrick shoved the other boy roughly. It might have escalated into something bigger than friendly roughhousing if Troy hadn’t spoken up.

“Last chance to admit you’re full of shit Rich,” he said, Richard glaring in annoyance at the rest of them.

“I’m telling you guys, it’s out there,” Richard insisted, which was a little disappointing. This whole thing would be so much easier if he gave up and admitted that he was making it up. Troy just grinned though, turning and slapping Jesse on the shoulder.

“Alright then, looks like you’re up Cosay! Time to put that camera happy habit of yours to use for once and bring back some proof that there ain’t shit out there,” he said, and Jesse nodded at that.

“You can’t prove a negative. Jesse, don’t let the ghost kill you with its ghost ax before you get some proof,” Richard said.

“Kind of planning not to get killed at all,” he said, stuffing the crystal in his pocket and putting the ouija board under his arm. “If anything happens with my parents cover for me,” he added, getting several affirmations from the other boys as he turned and started into the woods. It wasn’t long before he could turn around and not see any sign of the others, or the edge of the forest at all as darkness overtook him.

Stopping, he shuffled his backpack around, feeling inside for the flashlight and quickly flipping it on. It helped somewhat, sending a long beam of light out into the trees around him. Taking a deep breath, Jesse started forward.

He didn’t have much of a plan as he walked through the trees, mostly keeping the light aimed down towards the path so that he didn’t trip in the darkness. He wasn’t sure where he should be looking, or even really what to look for. Richard had said he heard wood being chopped, but right now all he could hear was his own footsteps and the rustle of small animals making their way through the underbrush.

“If there are any ghosts out there, it’d be really cool if you came out now so that I don’t have to stay out here all night,” he said, not expecting any sort of answer, so he wasn’t surprised when none came. Even still, he took a few random snapshots with his phone camera of the dark forest. It did look kind of cool, and that way his friends would know that he did actually spend time searching for this thing.

Jesse spent maybe an hour wandering around before he decided to take a break. Sitting down against a tree, he took off his backpack and set the flashlight on top of it. Putting the ouija board out in front of him, he figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least try it.

Once he actually had it out of the box though, Jesse couldn’t help but hesitate. It was just… even if he didn’t believe in ghosts, it was hard not to be at least a little creeped out. Ghosts probably weren’t real, but in the off chance that they were playing with an ouija board in the middle of the woods alone at night seemed like a really, really stupid move. It seemed like the kind of thing the person who got killed in the first five minutes of a horror movie did. He liked horror movies, so he knew how this stuff worked.

He would just tell the others he tried the ouija board and it didn’t work. That was one good thing about being out here alone, he didn't have to worry too much about what the others wanted. Quickly shoving the board back into the box, he managed to jam it into his bookbag and pulled out the little crystal instead. Holding it up in front of him, it was honestly kind of pretty as it dangled at the end of the chain, glinting in the beam of the flashlight.

The problem with the crystal was that he had no idea how to use it. Derrick hadn’t explained it to him, and he didn’t know anything about ghost hunting. Was it supposed to light up when ghosts were around? Was it more like a compass and supposed to point him in the direction of one? He had no clue.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Jesse let his head fall back against the tree behind him. It seemed like he was right about the night not amounting to anything more than boredom and discomfort. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he frowned in annoyance at the lack of signal he got out here.

He spent maybe an hour or so struggling against the junky internet connection. The time on his phone let him know it was a little past midnight when he started yawning. Jesse figured he wouldn’t sleep much tonight, but he might not have much of a choice if his body decided to just give out on him. He took a few more pictures before sending a message to the group chat, letting them know there was no sign of anything yet.

Jesse was debating on whether he should get the little neck pillow out or hold out another hour or so when he started to hear something. He wasn’t sure how long it took him to notice, because he’d honestly stopped paying attention. When he finally became aware of it though he froze, trying to be as silent as possible.

It sounded like someone walking through the woods. Well, more accurately it sounded like someone crashing through the woods, heavy footsteps and broken branches not making for the most subtle approach. He couldn’t tell if it was moving closer to him or not, but he could tell the direction. Somewhere off to his right…

Moving as slowly as possible, Jesse reached over and grabbed the flashlight, shutting it off before they could notice it. He doubted it was the ghost, he didn’t think ghosts stomped. That honestly only caused Jesse to get even more scared, because that meant there was something, or some one, out here with him. Once he had the flashlight in his hand, he reached into the backpack and made sure he had the knife in his other hand. He really, really hoped he wouldn’t have to use it.

The sounds were definitely getting closer, and steeling his courage, Jesse turned, switching the flashlight on quickly and shining it in their direction.

“Ah!” he yelped, not expecting the light to suddenly get reflected back at him. Whatever it was froze, giving him just enough time to blink past the surprise bright burst and get a look at it.

It was human shaped and human sized, wearing dark clothes. He couldn’t make out much more than that in his confusion, because wherever it should have skin it was just… shiny. Very shiny. The light from his flashlight still bouncing back at him in the darkness.

The split second of shock that caused the strange person shaped thing to freeze was over in an instant. Without a word it suddenly turned, running back off into the darkness of the woods.

“Wait!” Jesse shouted, any of the tiredness he felt before vanished as he scrambled to his feet, barely remembering to grab his bookbag. He didn’t know what that was or what it was doing, but he came out here to find something, and that certainly was something. “Come back!” he called, chasing after it. Them? It was impossible to tell between the darkness and shimmering way their body reflected his flashlight.

Running through the woods, he tried to light his path with the flashlight. Every so often it would glint across something that seemed to be almost metal, and between that and the crushing as it stormed through the underbrush he was pretty sure he was keeping on their heels.

Jesse wasn’t sure when he’d lost them, having to stop to catch his breath and trying to listen to the thing, whatever it was, tearing through the woods around him. He couldn’t hear anything other than his own labored breaths though, taking a moment to slump heavily against a tree.

He didn’t quite process what happened next. Something must’ve jumped out from behind the tree. All he knew was that suddenly he was on the ground, something hard and heavy on his back, pinning him down. Before he could even yell it was using his hair to hold his head back, and something metal was suddenly being held in the darkness in front of him.

“And just what were you planning on doing with this?”

The voice that growled the question at him was… higher pitched than he expected. It was dark, he had no idea where the flashlight tumbled in the crash, but he knew both his hands were empty now. It took his eyes a second to adjust to the moonlight, but by the time they did he already had an idea of what he’d be looking at.

“N-nothing! It was just for- for protection,” he stuttered out, more than a little terrified as the kitchen knife he’d grabbed was held in front of him. He could only see the hand of the person on his back, but it looked just as shiny as the knife, maybe even more so. “Please don’t hurt me! I didn’t think there was anything actually out here,” he pleaded, definitely nowhere near too proud to beg.

Jesse saw the hand tighten around the handle of the knife some, immediately whimpering and trying to shift away, not that it did any good. Before he could start to shout or anything though the person suddenly threw the knife hard off into the bushes. Immediately Jesse let out a sigh of relief.

They weren’t getting off of him yet though.

“Uh, can you… let me go now?” he asked after a moment, trying to wiggle his shoulders to get his arms out, but he wasn’t having much luck.

“Tell me what you’re doing out here first,” they demanded, and while before they just sounded angry (and scary) now it was harder to read their tone.

“I was trying to find a ghost? It was my friend’s idea, I just thought it would be funny,” Jesse said, because he really didn’t have much of a choice at this point.

“A ghost?” the person asked, sounding more confused than anything.

“Yeah, it’s- I’m sorry, can you please get off of me? This really hurts,” he begged, because it did. It felt like he was being held down by metal bars, digging into his legs and held across his back. He wasn’t sure what he expected them to do, but he was a little surprised when he actually felt that pressure leave him, this strange person finally climbing off of him. Immediately Jesse pushed himself up to his knees, rubbing at his shoulder before turning around.

It was still dark, and he didn’t know where the flashlight had gone. His eyes had adjusted in the time he spent face down on the ground though, so in the moonlight he was just able to make out his attacker. Without the flashlight beam glowing off of them, it was almost easier to make out details.

They were much smaller than their weight would have suggested, and young. Maybe even younger than he was? Their hair was shaved down into a short buzz cut, and their clothes were ripped. The most noticeable thing was still their skin, their whole body seeming to be made of shiny, reflective metal.

Jesse was surprised when he looked at their face and instead of anger or a fierce glare, they mostly just looked… afraid.

“Whoa…” the word slipping out before he could really think, awe in his voice. “What are you?”

“None of your business!” they snapped, taking a few slow, cautious steps back. “Stay away from me. If you come back- if you tell anyone about this, it won’t end well for you, got it? Leave now,” they insisted, and they sounded angry again, but it was hard not to hear the fear underneath now that he’d noticed it.

“Hey, it’s- I’m sorry if I scared you. I didn’t-” Jesse tried, but he didn’t get to finish his sentence before this person, whatever they were, turned on their heels and sprinted back into the forest. Quickly Jesse scrambled to his feet, for a few seconds debating on chasing after them.

That… really hadn’t gone well the last time though, and they were long gone before he could make up his mind anyway. After a moment he sighed, rubbing his sore shoulder again (did they have some sort of super metal strength? It seemed pretty likely to him) Jesse started looking around, trying to figure out where his flashlight had landed. After a few minutes he found it flung off in a nearby bush, letting out a sigh of relief as at least some amount of light returned.

Pulling out his phone, he brought up the group chat. Immediately he started to type up what had happened, because he actually found something. Yeah, he was pretty damn sure it wasn’t a ghost, but there was no way whatever that was wasn’t supernatural in some way.

He got halfway through typing up the explanation when he stopped, remembering the fear in their face. Their demand to not tell anyone about them.

Hesitating just a moment, Jesse deleted the message before writing up a new one.

JC: guys, I don’t think there’s anything out here.
JC: sorry rich, you might have just heard a woodpecker or something?
JC: if you guys don’t hear from me again tonight it’s because it’s really boring
JC: sorry to disappoint!

Chapter Text

They couldn’t believe this was happening.

They’d been living in the woods for about a week now, and they were right, it had been nice. It was peaceful, spending the days lounging about, exploring what bits they could away from human eyes. Doing whatever it was they wanted, without having to worry about puzzles or the next car or flecs. Honestly, a part of it was nice to just have time to sit and think. About the world. About themself, who they were. What they wanted.

It didn’t take very long for them to realize that they didn’t think of themself as a girl, especially with no one around calling them ‘she’ or ‘little sliver girl.' So, they decided they weren’t one. They didn’t need a gender, especially since they had no plans to go interacting with anyone anytime soon.

They had a name too. It felt good, even if it was only for their own satisfaction. Lake. It was simple, but it felt right in their mouth.

Of course, those plans of not interacting with anyone were apparently out the window now. They’d been going out at night because that’s when it was safest for them to gather up supplies and try to make their camp into something more than a tiny, shitty lean-to. It’d been just fine every other night.

But no, tonight had to be different. Tonight some dumb kid had to see them and then proceed to run after them with a fucking knife in his hand the whole time. They hadn’t been afraid, it wasn’t- like a knife would do anything against them. It was just the principle of the thing. Don’t chase people with knives. Don’t run around in a dark forest at night with a knife in your hand when you're all squishy flesh!

Whatever, it didn’t matter anymore. He was gone now, hopefully. They hadn’t stuck around to check if he’d left or not, but the point was they had gotten away. Had, fingers crossed, gotten the message across to stay the hell away from them, and wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.

They would have to be even more careful now though. Maybe they should move camp? That was- ugh, they had just finished setting up an actual shelter though, so that thought really wasn’t appealing.

To be safe, Lake took the long way to their camp, just in case that kid got it in his head to try and follow them, even after all that. Mostly that meant wandering around for a bit before finding the trail they’d subtly marked and making their way back. It was pretty late in the night by the time they finally arrived, immediately going and collapsing under the lean-to they’d built. It wasn’t much, but they didn’t need much. Metal bodies were a lot more convenient than flesh ones, at least as far as they could tell.

Lake tried to get some sleep that night, but honestly they weren’t all that successful. It was just frustrating. Even though they were out, they knew they weren’t ever going to be safe. Now they had to worry about dumb kids wandering around their woods, trying to pull stupid ghost pranks or what not. How did they even get to ghost? Ghosts were intangible and Lake couldn't get more tangible if they tried. So stupid.

It was a little after sun up when they finally decided they were too twitchy to sit around camp some more. They got maybe an hour or two of sleep at most, but otherwise they'd been tossing and turning the whole damn night.

Moving through the trees, they tried to be as quiet as possible. It was easier to be quiet in the day than it was at night, since they could actually see where they were going. They still weren’t the stealthiest, but they’d definitely gotten better.

If anyone had asked, they would have said they weren’t going anywhere in particular, but it wasn’t too long before they ended up back where they’d confronted that kid the night before. They weren’t scared, but it would be good to check that he was really good and gone. Even if he told anyone, chances are no one serious would actually believe him, right? They were… probably still safe enough. Not in big enough danger to have to leave immediately, at least not yet.

Looking around, they had been trying to find the knife that they’d taken from the dude. At the moment they’d only been focused on disarming him, but now that they had calmed down it could be a useful thing to have. They didn’t really have any tools, and yeah they could break shit pretty well with their fists, but precision wasn’t exactly their strong suit.

They did end up finding the knife, snorting a little when they actually got a good look at it in the light. It was just a kitchen knife, and considering how easily they’d managed to get the better of the kid even if they had been made of flesh, they got the feeling he was more likely to hurt himself with the thing than anyone else. At least the person who’d seen them was most likely an idiot, from everything they’d seen.

They hadn’t been looking for anything else, but they paused when they saw something shiny in a pile of leaves. Picking it up, it was some sort of cheap crystal on a decorative silver chain. It didn’t seem like it was a bracelet or necklace, there wasn’t any sort of clasp for that, but it was pretty. Shrugging, Lake shoved it into their pocket.

Maybe they were pushing their luck, but they started heading towards the edge of the forest. They were still trying to stay as stealthy as possible, but well… even if that kid had been an idiot, and no one should believe him, that didn’t mean for sure that they wouldn’t. Lake was just going to check, make sure there wasn’t some manhunt starting for them. It was still really early in the day too, so this would be the safest time to check.

Lake froze when they actually started to hear voices coming from the edge of the woods. It was still too far away to make out words, so once they were sure no one had noticed them they started creeping forward again. As soon as the edge of the woods was within sight Lake looked over the tree they were hiding behind, finding it sturdy enough before quickly and quietly climbing it.

Scooting forward, it didn’t take too much searching to find the group that was talking. They were pretty sure no one had noticed their approach, and as they spied on the group Lake supposed they should have seen this coming.

It was that kid. Of course it was him. He was standing with three other boys who all looked about the same age, with his back towards the forest so that Lake couldn’t get a good look at his face. Still, they were certain that it was him. They held their breath as they listened in on the conversation going on below them.

“I’m sorry guys, but the most exciting part was when I fell down a hill. I didn’t even take that many pictures because they weren’t turning out very good,” the kid said, sounding sheepish.

“Did you fall, or did the ghost push you?” one of the other boys asked.

“I fell. It was dark! It was hard to stay on a path, okay? Look, I can show you guys all the pictures I took, but there’s no glowy orbs or shadowing figures or anything like that,” the boy from last night continued, and Lake was frowning in confusion now. He wasn’t telling them what happened?

“Let me see that,” the other one asked, snatching his phone and starting to flip through it rapidly, a look of clear irritation on his face. The others seemed to mostly be ignoring him now though, apparently satisfied at the assurances that there was no ghost out in the woods.

“Jesse, give me my sister’s shit back,” another boy said, turning towards the kid that Lake had started to think of as their idiot, just to differentiate him from the group. They all seemed like idiots after all. Apparently his name was Jesse though. He quickly nodded, pulling his backpack around and rummaging around inside.

“Right, here you go,” he said, handing over some large cardboard game box Lake couldn’t quite make out. Then his hands went to his pockets, coming back empty as he started slapping at them and laughing nervously. “Uh, shoot I uh, I think I might’ve dropped that weird crystal when I fell? I swear it had been in my pocket before,” he said.

Moving slowly as to not be noticed, Lake pulled the small chain out of their pocket, letting it dangle in front of them for a moment. They would bet money on this being whatever it was he lost.

“Dude! My sister’s going to kill me!” one of the boys snapped, shoving their idiot. He stumbled back a few steps, putting his hands up defensively.

“Sorry! I’ll buy a new one before she notices it’s gone,” Jesse said quickly. The other boy was still glaring at him for a moment, before eventually shrugging.

“Fine, but you could at least try not to be such an airhead next time,” he grumbled. By now the one who’d been angrily scrolling through the phone photos had finished, shoving the thing back into Jesse’s hands as well. For his part their idiot just laughed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

“I’ll try,” he said, and Lake frowned at that. The conversation seemed to shift then, the other boys starting to rip on the one who they assumed had been the cause of this whole ghost rumor. They started walking away from the woods as they did, and Lake didn’t move until they could no longer see them and the coast was clear. As soon as it was, they let out a long sigh of relief. 

Climbing down the tree and heading back into the woods, Lake couldn’t stop thinking over the scene they’d just watched. So, no one was going to come for them. That kid, Jesse, whoever he was, was actually keeping them a secret. They’d threatened him, but not very well, and they hadn’t honestly expected it to work.

It kind of seemed like the guy was a bit of a pushover though, so maybe they were just lucky. Either way, it wasn’t their problem anymore, thank fuck. Lake was actually starting to feel relieved when they got back to their camp, certain enough at least that no one was going to come to try to find them again.

The rest of the day was honestly pretty peaceful. They used a small bit of vine to hang the little crystal off the edge of the lean-to, and it wasn’t much but it was the first thing that could count as a decoration. Something just for looking nice, and not surviving. They spent the rest of their time using the knife to sharpen twigs and cut larger vines, trying to improve their shelter some now that they had a tool. It wasn’t much, but it felt like they were starting to get somewhere.

By the time the next day rolled around, Lake was actually in a good mood.

So of course that couldn’t last.

They had stopped sharpening sticks and had taken to carving meaningless lines and squiggles into one of the large logs they’d dragged over to their camp. It was peaceful, and honestly not as boring as some of the other stuff they’d been doing. They were knocked pretty thoroughly out of that peace when they started to hear a voice off in the distance, followed by footsteps.

“Hey, are you out there? Metal kid?”

Lake nearly groaned as they recognized that voice.

They thought the idiot had gotten it through his head not to come back. He hadn’t told anyone, so what had gone and made him change his mind now? Moving quietly, Lake snuck through the trees and underbrush towards the sound of the voice. It didn’t take them too long to find him. He was wandering around, seemingly aimlessly, calling out quietly for them.

“Metal ki- ack!” as they watched from behind the tree he fell, tripping over some root or another. Lake rolled their eyes as he just laid there for a moment, rubbing at his head. As much as they wanted to leave him to his wandering, he was way too close to their camp for comfort. The last thing they wanted was for him to actually end up stumbling over it.

So when he looked up, they were standing in front of him, holding the knife out in a way they hoped was threatening.

“What did I tell you about coming back here?” they growled. Lake could see his eyes widen as they landed on them, although if it was in fear or just plain shock, they had no idea.

“You’re real,” he said, and Lake nearly kicked themself at that. They should have tried to stay hidden, they hadn’t considered he might have been doubting it even happened at all. His eyes then fell on the knife, but rather than looking terrified, he frowned. “Hey, that’s mine. Or, well, my mom’s,” he added.

“You think I care?” they snapped, because they really didn’t. He was the idiot that went and lost it, so it was theirs now. “I’m only going to ask you this once, what are you doing here?” they continued, still trying to sound as threatening as possible. They did not appreciate that this kid did not seem anywhere near as afraid of them in the daytime.

“Looking for you,” Jesse said easily, which, yeah okay that was the obvious answer. Even still Lake snarled at that, making him laugh nervously as he continued. “I just- I uh, I just wanted to apologize?” he said next, although it came out more as a question than anything else. Lake raised an eyebrow at that, a skeptical look on their face.

“Apologize?” they asked, the human boy nodding quickly.

“Yeah! For, ya know, chasing you? With a knife…” he said, which was fair enough.

“Alright then. Apologize,” they said, pulling the knife back. They’d made a little holster with some vines threaded through their pant loops and hooked the handle in it. The fact that it was a kitchen knife and not some cool hunting blade kind of killed the illusion, but it was still pretty damn cool looking as far as they were concerned.

“Right, I’m really sorry for chasing you through the woods at night with a knife. I promise I usually have much better first impressions,” he said, giving them a big grin and holding out a hand, presumably for a handshake. Lake very pointedly did not smile back and barely glanced down at the outstretched palm.

“Okay then. Bye,” they said simply, turning around and starting to walk back towards their camp. When they immediately heard the human idiot running after them again they groaned loudly in annoyance.

“Hey, wait up!” he called. Lake spun back on him fast, a glare on their face that seemed to stop him in his tracks.

“ You said you came here to apologize. You apologized. I already told you to leave me alone and to not come back here. Now go away before I make you go away,” they growled. Jesse nodded at that, an obvious debate on his face as he still didn’t turn to leave.

“Right, I uh, I guess I did actually have um, one more question,” he started, and from the way he was staring at them they knew exactly what the idiot wanted to ask.

“No.”

“No?” he asked, and Lake nodded.

“No, you can’t ask about the metal thing. Why do you think I’m out here? So that nosy jerks like you won’t ask me about the metal thing!” they snapped. Jesse quickly had his hands up defensively, shaking his head.

“I wasn’t going to ask about that,” he said, as obvious of a lie as there ever was one. Even still, Lake raised an eyebrow.

“Oh yeah? Then what were you going to ask?” they pressed, mostly wanting to see what possible alternative he would come up with. Jesse nodded, and Lake could practically see his brain jingling around for some topic that had nothing to do with the fact that they were a person made out of metal.

“How old are you?” he blurted out after a moment, which… wasn’t what they would have guessed.

“Huh?” they pressed, the boy nodded sharply, seeming satisfied with this deflect.

“Yeah, you just uh, seem pretty young to be out here all by yourself? I was only out here for one night but it got pretty spooky. Sure the most dangerous thing out here was you, um, attacking me, but yeah,” he said, rambling on slightly. There was a long moment where Lake stood glaring at him, debating on whether or not to even bother answering the question.

“Fourteen,” they said finally, because hopefully it would get him to give up and leave faster. Once again they weren’t going to wait and see, starting to walk back towards their camp without another word.

“That’s cool! I’m fiftee-”

“Uuugh!” they cut him off, because of course he was still trying to follow them. “I don’t care!”

“What do you care about then?” he asked, still not daunted.

“My privacy! And keeping idiot boys out of my business!” they snapped, hoping that would get it through his thick skull.

“Oh,” he said, and Lake nearly held their breath as it seemed that finally, maybe , he was starting to take the hint. “So uh, you’re not a boy then? Sorry, I don’t wanna be rude it’s just kind of hard to tell with th- aack!”

Lake watched as he ducked down, just managing to dodge the stick they’d thrown at his head. Before he could say another word they reached down, picking up another twig.

“Leave! Me! Alone!” they shouted, each word punctuated with another tossed stick. They were being kind enough that they weren’t trying to actually hit him too hard, and most of them were missing with the way he was scrambling back. “Ask me one more goddamn question and I’m throwing the knife next!”

Thankfully that seemed to finally do the trick. They tossed another stick or two for good measure, but Jesse was already running off, not seeming to look back this time. They stood there for a few moments once he was out of sight, just to be sure that he was really gone, before letting out a sigh of relief.

Maybe they should move camp. There was someone out there now who knew about where to find them, and who had very clearly seen them up close and knew something was weird. It would be the safest thing to do, and it would make sure that even if Jesse got it in his head to come back, they wouldn’t have to deal with him or his dumb questions anymore.

They were feeling stubborn though, and they didn’t want to have to pick up all their hard work because of one idiot. Especially one that, for all his irritation, seemed mostly harmless.

If they just kept throwing shit at him every time he showed up, he was bound to get the message eventually.

Right?

Chapter Text

So, it wasn’t a ghost out in the woods. It somehow managed to be a lot weirder than that.

It was a person, made out of metal.

And they… weren’t very nice.

Jesse had a frown stuck on his face as he made his way out of the woods and started back home. That had gotten him nowhere, although he had at least managed to confirm that it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks on him in the darkness. Whoever they were, they really did seem to be made of metal. Or coated in metal? Metal… metal skin? And hair? Were their insides metal too? He had no idea, but he sure had a lot of questions.

They did not seem very open to discussing any of those questions though, and well, he guessed he couldn’t blame them too much for that. It probably got old pretty fast. Maybe he should leave them alone, they had made it pretty clear that was what they wanted.

For his part, Jesse really did try to put the incident out of his mind as he got home. He went about his Sunday like he normally would, doing all the homework that he had put off during the rest of the weekend and/or week and then hanging out with Nate. Sundays were one of the few days where he didn’t have swim practice or some other club or event going on usually, so those were the days where he could take a small break to stay home and relax.

And for the most part, Jesse was able to distract himself. As soon as his mind started to wander though (which, being honest happened a lot) he would start thinking about that metal kid again. He didn’t think anyone could blame him for that, it was really weird.

They said they were living out there. Did they have food? Did metal people even need to eat? Was that why they stole his knife, so they could hunt their own food? Or was it just to threaten people? Jesse wasn’t sure which option was more unnerving.

Those questions and a whole lot more kept him up most of the night, which wasn’t fun when he had to wake up early as ever for school the next day. He tried his best to push past it enough so that no one would notice, and it seemed like he did a pretty good job. By the time he got to school at least it was enough of a routine that he could slip into it without much thought. It wasn't like people expected him to be particularly smart, so there wasn't any big worry there.

Jesse was able to get through the day without much issue, and the next day after that. His friends hadn’t even brought up the night he spent out in the woods all that much after the fact. He was pretty sure most of them were done with it now that he had ‘proven’ there was nothing out there, and Richard was being sore about the whole thing. Jesse honestly couldn’t blame him for that, since he wasn’t even technically wrong. There was something very strange and probably not entirely natural out there.

It had been three days since he last saw that metal kid in the woods now, and Jesse was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he wasn’t going to leave well enough alone. It was just weird and he was pretty sure he was the only one who knew they were out there and that seemed kind of dangerous? If they were actually living out there.

The usual swim practice he had after school on Wednesdays being canceled was what pushed Jesse to actually do something, instead of just spending even more time agonizing on if he should go back or not. It was definitely a sign and not just a doctor’s appointment their coach had warned them about three weeks in advance.

“Sorry guys, I promised my mom I’d head straight home today. See you all tomorrow!” Jesse said as he exited the school with his friends. He got a few disinterested responses as he ran off, which would usually bother him more than it did right now. Of course, right now he was pretty distracted. He had a mission.

He didn’t go home. Instead he first stopped by a gas station convenience store, taking a moment to pause in front of the bags of chips as he tried to figure out what type of food a metal person would like. He still wasn’t entirely sure that they could eat, but it seemed like a good enough peace offering as he could think of.

In the end he ended up getting a few different options. Two different types of chips, two types of snack cakes, and also some jerky. He also grabbed some soda and water bottles, since he wasn’t sure about that either.

Once he had everything Jesse started back towards the woods by the edge of the lake. Luckily it wasn’t a far walk from his house, and his parents would assume he was hanging out with his friends after school like he usually did anyway. It didn’t take too long for him to cut through the neighborhood and reach the tree line where the forest started, not hesitating to head straight in.

The first time he’d come back he had to spend a lot of time wandering around, not quite able to remember the exact way he’d come since it had been so dark when they met. This time he had a slightly better idea of which way to go, even if he didn’t know exactly where the metal kid was staying. They had to have some sort of camp set up, right? Maybe that was the chopping noises Richard had heard before.

“Hey, are you still out there? Metal kid?” he called, wishing he had used that one question he’d gotten before to actually ask their name. It had been kind of stupid not to, but he’d been panicking because he had absolutely been intending to ask them about the whole metal thing before they shut it down. “Come on, don’t tell me you left already! I brought snacks!” he continued, not sure in the slightest if that would actually lure them out. “Metal ki-aak!”

Jesse was cut off when something bounced off the side of his head. It didn’t hurt so much as surprise him, which made sense when he realized it was a pinecone. Looking over, the metal person was standing right at the base of one of the larger trees, another pinecone already in their hand and poised to throw.

“Wait!” Jesse insisted quickly, holding the plastic gas station bag up in front of him as he did. “I got you food, so stop throwing things at me,” he added. The very shiny person seemed to at least pause at that, although they were still setting him with a highly suspicious glare.

“Why would you do that?” they asked finally, looking ready to bolt at any notice.

“It’s a peace offering,” Jesse explained, waving the bag around a little, but the metal kid didn’t look as moved as he would have hoped.

“But why? What do you want?” they pressed, still being sure to keep their distance, the large pinecone clenched in their fist. Jesse couldn’t help but frown at that, not having expected to be questioned so much on this. Maybe he should have though, it was pretty clear this person didn’t trust anyone.

“Nothing, I just thought you probably aren’t getting a lot of food out here?” he tried, and they didn’t say anything at that. It was hard to tell if they believed him at all or not, and after a moment of silent judgmental staring Jesse broke. “I also thought it was my best bet to get you to talk to me without throwing more stuff at my head,” he admitted. To his surprise that actually seemed to do something, the intensity of their glare subsided as they gave the slightest nod.

“Fair enough,” they muttered eventually. Jesse watched as they walked over, snatching the bag out of his hand before backing up again, although not quite as far away as before. Almost immediately they were digging through the bag, looking through the packs of snacks. They tore open one of the chips seemingly at random, shoving a handful into their mouth before speaking again. “Just so you know, I’m not here to be a goddamn sideshow attraction. You can’t just pay me in food to get to stand and stare at the freaky metal person with their freaky metal skin.”

“Oh, that’s not- I didn’t mean it like that,” Jesse insisted, because he didn’t. Then he paused, because well… “I mean, the metal thing is definitely really weird, like I can’t really pretend that’s not a thing,” he admitted. They didn’t say anything for a moment at that, shoving another handful of chips into their mouth as they kept on eying him like he was planning on melting them down to make a candelabrum or something.

“At least you can admit it,” they grumbled finally. All Jesse could do was smile nervously at that, not sure if that was a good response or a bad one. Then they sighed, finishing the chips and shoving the empty back back in with the rest of the snacks before pulling out one of the snack cakes. So, the question on whether or not they could eat was definitely a yes. “So what now, you think I owe you a conversation now for gas station snacks?” they asked, and once again Jesse shook his head.

“I said it wasn’t like that, I was just…” he paused, looking them over again as a thought he’d been trying to push away since that first night came poking back at his brain. They were made of metal and that was weird. Really weird. It didn’t seem to be a trick of the light or a costume, even their eyes and the short fuzz of hair on their head were made of the same shiny material, no gaps or seams or peeling paint in sight.

It wasn’t normal.

“Are you safe? Like, out here in the woods?” he asked, immediately the frown deepening on their face.

“I beat you pretty handily. You said yourself I’m the most dangerous thing out here,” they said, an edge to their voice that Jesse couldn’t quite place.

“Okay, but you also said you were hiding out here and for me not to tell anyone about you. What if someone else sees you?” he asked, and at this they actually turned away from him.

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business. As long as you keep your word and don’t say shit then I don’t see a problem,” they said. Jesse pouted as he started following after them, because honestly that answer didn’t fill him with a lot of confidence.

“But like, you’re metal. Like I’m not seeing that wrong, you’re literally made of metal, right? Are you a robot? If someone finds you are they gonna like, try to take you apart? Did you escape the government?” he asked, because he couldn’t help but be worried. Even if they were a robot they sure seemed a lot like a person.

“I’m not a robot!” they snapped, not actually answering the main part of the question.

“Uh, an alien then? I didn’t think aliens would look so human and like, speak English though. I thought that was just in star trek,” he guessed next, getting a loud groan in response.

“No! Not an alien either, will you stop?” they huffed. He should probably let it go, but he’d started now and couldn’t give it up yet.

“Magic then? Uh, some sort of living statue or-” he started to ask, but before he could finish they cut him off.

“Holy shit Jesse just- just stop! It’s none of your goddamn business!” they shouted, and it got Jesse to pause. He actually stopped in his tracks, having to take a moment to process that. It seemed to get their attention, since they stopped walking away and actually turned back towards him with a look of confusion on their face. “What? I didn't expect that to work, if I'm being honest.”

“Uh, how do you know my name? I’m pretty sure I never told you,” he asked, ignoring the second half because that was definitely weird. Sure, everything about this was weird but he wasn’t planning for psychic powers to become a factor.

The question seemed to catch them off guard, which was followed by a look of realization that turned into what Jesse could only guess was the smallest bit of panic.

“What? No, no, I’m pretty sure you must’ve said it,” they insisted, trying to wave the whole thing off as they began almost speed walking further into the woods. From the way they were talking though, it only furthered Jesse’s certainty that he hadn’t told them.

“I didn’t!” he said, starting to follow them again. “You’re psychic too?” he asked, getting another groan as kept on not looking back at him.

“No! I just… heard you talking to your dumb friends. Back when you came here the first time,” they explained. That honestly did make a little more sense than a metal person who could also read minds, but at this point Jesse didn’t feel like he could throw any ideas out as being too ridiculous.

“Wait, so you were spying on me?” he asked, unable to keep from sounding a little bit offended at that. They huffed, crossing their arms as they seemed to walk forward without any real destination in mind, at least as far as Jesse could see.

“I needed to make sure you weren’t going to immediately bring down a witch hunt on me! I wasn’t going to just trust some random kid in the woods at night,” they said, and he couldn’t exactly blame them for that.

“So, you admit that a witch hunt is something that could happen?” he asked, getting an exacerbated groan from the metal kid. Jesse hadn’t realized how close they had gotten to the lake until they stopped at a grassy tree covered edge. It was large enough and shady enough that Jesse doubted anyone on the other side of the water could make them out clearly, if they noticed at all.

“I’ve dealt with worse. If too many people find out I’ll just leave again,” they said, edging the drop off above the lake with their foot and sending a few small pebbles falling into the water. They still had the bag of snacks hanging from their arm, but after the chips and snack cake they seemed done with shoving them in their face immediately.

“Is that something you’ve done often?” he asked, and they only turned to look back at him enough to shoot him a glare. Jesse quickly put his hands up in surrender again, “sorry, I know, none of my business,” he apologized.

He was probably pushing his luck with all the questions. He hoped he could get them to talk to him, but he was kind of surprised it actually worked. Or maybe more than kinda, very. Still, he couldn’t leave well enough alone.

“I do have one more thing to ask,” he said, getting another look of annoyance thrown his way. They weren’t actually throwing anything at him this time though, so it was an improvement.

“What?” they asked, a blunt tone to their voice.

“Since you know my name, and I didn’t even tell you it either, maybe you could tell me yours? I keep thinking of you as metal kid and fair warning, if I don’t get a name soon I’m going to default to Dracula,” he said. The irritated look on their face shifted to one of absolute befuddlement and disgust.

“Dracula?” they asked, and Jesse nodded with a grin.

“Yeah, Dracula!”

“Don’t call me Dracula!” they insisted, and Jesse shrugged noncommittally.

“Then you should probably tell me your name,” he said, the metal kid near about growling at that. For a moment he was worried they were going to start throwing things again, but then they paused, turning back towards the lake and staring stubbornly down at the water. They didn’t say anything for a long time, and Jesse was starting to wonder if they were planning on just… ignoring him until he left. It honestly wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried that on him. Usually not quite so blatant though.

“Lake,” they said finally, so quiet Jesse almost didn’t hear it but still managing to surprise him. And confuse him.

“What about the lake?” he asked, getting a frustrated groan in response. 

“No!” they snapped immediately, rubbing at their temples, their face somehow darkening which was… weird. He didn’t know metal people could blush. He supposed he didn't know much of anything about metal people though. “My name is Lake. My name is Lake. I’m Lake,” they continued, repeating that almost like they had to convince themself of it, growing a little bit more confident each time.

“Oh,” he said, before grinning and holding his hand out towards them. It hadn’t gone great the last time, but there was no reason why he couldn’t try again. “Well it’s very nice to meet you Lake! Uh, for a third time now I guess,” he said. Lake glanced down at the hand, still not looking very amused. “Do… do you not know what a handshake is?” he asked after a moment.

“I know how to shake hands,” they insisted immediately. “I just don’t want to,” they huffed with a pointed frown at his outstretched palm once again.

“Ah,” Jesse said, slowly pulling his hand back. “Worth a shot,” he added, slapping a smile back on his face just for Lake to roll their eyes at him.

“Whatever,” they grumbled, crossing their arms, their eyes flickering for a second to the bag of snacks they were still holding. “Are you done yet? Will you leave now?” they asked, and yeah he probably should have expected that reaction.

“I guess, um, are you sure you’re okay out here though?” he asked, and this time they didn’t sigh or glare at him, although they did still look rather suspicious.

“Why would you care either way?” they asked right back.

“Because I’m a nice person,” he answered quickly, and there was that glare again. “Really! And yeah you seem kind of… mean, but I doubt you deserve to be like, hunted and melted down to make silver bullets to kill werewolves or something,” he said, and that last part might have gotten away from him a little. Lake definitely looked more than a little confused about where that sentence went.

“I’m made of chrome. Not silver,” they said, which honestly was not the part he expected them to have problems with.

“Does that mean magnets stick to you?” Jesse asked, the question blurting out before he could second guess it. Almost immediately there was a sharp pain as Lake flicked his forehead with hard metal fingers. “Ow!”

“You were saying?” they asked, a clear warning tone to their voice. Jesse laughed nervously, rubbing his forehead.

“Nothing,” he said, because yeah, probably best to drop the whole magnet thing. Even if he would be thinking about it forever now. “I’ll go, I’ll go, but um, would it be okay if I came back sometime? Just to make sure you’re still here and no one’s tried to turn you into a hood ornament or something?” he asked. Lake opened their mouth to respond, but then they paused, seeming to think it over for another moment before actually speaking.

“I guess, I might not throw rocks at you if you bring more snacks,” they said reluctantly. Jesse grinned at that, surprised by that answer. It was a much better one than he expected. 

“Cool! I’ll see you around then?” he said, because even though he hadn’t been there very long it kind of felt like this was the best he was going to get out of this conversation, and he didn’t want to ruin it.

“I’ll be here if that’s what you mean,” Lake said. It wasn’t an explicit invitation back, but they weren’t telling him to stay away anymore either. Definitely progress.

“Alright then, see you later Lake! Hope you like the rest of the snacks!” Jesse said as he started heading back towards home. Instead of a proper goodbye Lake made some sort of noncommittal hum, but it was something. Hopefully soon they could be real friends, and then…

Well, he hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Then he’d be friends with the cool metal kid who lived in the woods. It seemed like they had a pretty good handle on staying hidden so that they weren’t caught and experimented on by the government or something, so it should be fine.

Yeah, Lake seemed to know what they were doing, so he was sure it would be fine.

Chapter Text

Lake would say it felt like they were losing control of their life, but that would imply that they ever had any control in the first place.

That annoying boy had come back, and they could have chased him off again. It had been their intention to do just that from the beginning, but unfortunately they were hungry. Even more unfortunately, he was offering them food, and was at least being upfront about the ulterior motives he had. They could handle some bribery in exchange for enduring a couple of dumb questions for like ten minutes. Especially since once he handed them the food they did still have the option of throwing shit at him until he left if it got too irritating.

Plus, they figured he wouldn’t be stopping by too often. Honestly, they were betting on him getting bored after a couple of visits and dropping off the face of the earth. That would be easiest.

Apparently ‘not too often’ was a pipe dream. It was barely a day later when they heard loud footsteps much too close to their camp again. Honestly, for a moment they thought it might have been some random hiker, they weren’t expecting him to come back practically back to back like this so soon. Somehow that would have been even worse, so they supposed they were lucky when after a few seconds frozen in place, trying to decide whether or not it would be best to run and hide, they heard a familiar voice calling their name.

“Lake? Are you still out here?” Jesse called. They resisted letting out a groan of irritated frustration, pushing themself up from their log. He wasn’t far off from camp, only like twenty or thirty feet, making keeping the exact location of it kind of pointless. They still had no intention of bringing him back though. It was the principle of the thing.

“Where else would I be?” they asked bluntly, coming out from behind one of the larger trees and leaning against it. They had been getting better at moving quietly, so Jesse actually seemed surprised by their entrance, quickly turning around. Almost immediately there was a bright smile on his face though, which Lake… wasn’t sure what to make of yet. They weren’t sure what his game was.

There had to be something, right? He was at least upfront enough about finding them bizarre, but that kind of fascination was sure to wear off soon. After that, they couldn’t be sure what he would do. They certainly couldn’t afford to trust him.

“I mean, you were the one who talked about being able to pick up and leave if something went wrong, so anywhere?” he said, which was kind of a fair point. Still, they just shrugged, trying to look as indifferent as possible.

“Whatever. You came back fast,” they said, and instead of a plastic gas station bag this time he was holding a brown paper bag in one hand.

“Yeah, I can’t stay too long this time actually, but I was hanging out with some of my friends after swim practice at this really good pizza place and I thought you might want some? It’s not pizza, their pizza actually isn’t that good, but their chicken fingers are nice and their fries are great,” Jesse rambled. Lake was only somewhat paying attention as they went over and grabbed the bag he was holding out. Checking inside, there was indeed chicken fingers and fries in there.

Which, it had been a long time since they had real food. The closest had been the gas station snacks Jesse had brought before, and then way back in one car on the train that had a macaroni stand. So, without much debate they quickly shoved a chicken strip into their mouth.

“How often do you need to eat? Uh, if that’s not rude to ask, I guess?” Jesse asked, and Lake thought it over for a moment before shrugging.

“Dunno,” they answered plainly, since that was the truth. It wasn’t exactly useful information, so it wasn’t like there was any problem with giving it.

“You don’t know?” he pressed, clearly perplexed, which was maybe fair. How often someone needs to eat was probably something most things knew about themselves. But Lake didn’t. It wasn’t like what they were doing was extensively documented.

“Nope,” they said, eating some fries and okay, he wasn’t lying. They were actually pretty good.

“How do you not know ?”

“I don’t know! I can go for a while. It’s not like every day like you squishy flesh people,” they said, because it wasn’t like it was this guy’s business anyway. They weren’t asking him to bring them food, they weren’t paying for it or anything like that. He didn’t need to bring them stuff every time they were hungry, they’d been managing fine on their own before he came along.

Sure, they were probably pushing it most of the time. It was weird, eating and sleeping wasn’t something they ever needed to do when in the mirror world. They could, or else it would have made reflecting Tulip pretty hard, but it wasn’t needed. They didn’t get hungry in the mirror world.

That had definitely changed once they escaped through the chrome car. It had taken a while for them to notice, and even longer to realize what exactly it was, but they were pretty sure they had this whole ‘eating’ thing down well enough by now. They already knew a good chunk of foods they liked and disliked, mostly from memories of reflecting Tulip.

“I guess that makes sense,” Jesse relented reluctantly. “Although we actually need to eat multiple times a day, not once,” he added, and Lake rolled their eyes at that.

“Yes okay I know that, I was just simplifying it,” they said, Jesse nodding quickly.

“So if it’s not every day is it like, every week then? Like a snake or something?” he asked, and Lake shrugged again, because that sounded close enough.

“I guess so. I'm metal so I don't think that counts as warm blooded. Either way that’s about when everything starts getting all dizzy and hard to think, so yeah,” they said, not sure why they were explaining this to him. Maybe they were a little more bored than they let on, and they weren’t going to drop their guard enough for this kid to use any of this information against them anyway.

Lake wasn’t sure what kind of reaction they expected, but it wasn’t the immediate immense look of concern they received.

“That’s… okay. You’re supposed to eat before you start getting really dizzy,” he said, and Lake frowned at that.

“No, that’s what hunger feels like,” they insisted, trying to hide the sudden doubt in the back of their mind. They mimicked everything Tulip did, but they didn’t feel the same sensations like being hungry or tired until they escaped. They weren’t about to admit any of that to this guy. Even if they might try and subtly get some things clarified if they could.

“Uh, no. Hunger feels like, uh, it’s like a pit in your stomach? Kinda achy? Sometimes it rumbles but if it’s really bad it feels like your stomach is pulling in on itself. That’s the best way I can think to describe it, at least,” Jesse explained. It was kind of hard for Lake not to make a face at that.

So that was what hunger felt like.

They were trying not to think about the fact that they’d been feeling that exact thing almost constantly since maybe a day after they left the chrome car, but they weren’t doing a very good job of it.

“Didn’t you say you couldn’t stay long?” they asked instead, changing the subject entirely. Lake was a little more thankful for the actual meal he’d brought them than they had been before though, not that they would admit it. The question seemed to take Jesse by surprise, who quickly nodded.

“Right! Sorry, I already had to stay out late because of swim practice. My mom’ll get worried if I’m too late for dinner,” he said, not that it was anything Lake cared about. “I’ll see you around then? And uh, you should probably try to eat more,” he added.

“Whatever,” they said carelessly, already turning to head back to their camp. It hadn’t been a problem before they knew what it was, and it wouldn’t be a problem now. Sure, they might actually listen to the advice and try to eat a little bit more than they had before, but they knew how long they could push themself before it became any sort of issue, and that was the most important part.

Jesse didn’t come back the next day, which was kind of a relief. Sure, it meant no fresh(ish) food, but they definitely didn’t want him to get in the habit of feeling like he could come talk to them every single goddamn day.

Lake had spent most of their time out in the woods trying their best to build up their little camp into something a bit more respectable. At the very least, something better than a bunch of big sticks loosely tied together with vines leaning up against a tree and a single large log they had dragged over to sit on. Unfortunately, Tulip had never been a very outdoorsy person, and even if she had been there weren’t a lot of reflective surfaces out in the middle of the woods.

So, they didn’t exactly have a lot of the know how on most of this stuff. They were figuring it out through trial and error and what made sense in their head, combined with the tiny bits of knowledge they had managed to gleam while a reflection. Like, they were pretty sure that mud was used to stick things together. Pottery was just a type of mud, right?

Luckily they weren’t interested in making pots. They got the feeling that would have required a bit more finesse than they had the patience for. Still, little by little things were slowly starting to come together.

They had to be careful, because the last thing they wanted to do was fall into the water while existing as several hundred pounds of solid metal, but they didn’t want to spend too much time at the edge during the day. Despite that, they managed to gather up enough mud to make a sort of roof for their little shelter, using it to plaster a bunch of big leaves on top. It hadn’t rained yet, and they weren’t sure how well it would actually stand up to something like that, but it was better than nothing.

Actually, they weren’t too sure how often it rained here. Mostly because they weren’t sure where ‘here’ was, exactly. It definitely wasn’t Michigan, and there were mountains in the distance, but that was all they could say for certain.

They supposed it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like they could actually go anywhere.

They’d been off the train for a few weeks now.

They’d been ‘free’ for a few weeks now.

Lake was trying very, very hard to ignore the way that every day passed made them feel more and more like they were still just as trapped as they'd been before.

Normally they tried to doze during the day, since they spent most of their time up and about at night, when people were less likely to see them. They couldn’t sleep today though. Today they were up and about, telling themself that they were looking for rocks to make something of a stone floor around their camp, when in reality they were just pacing around trying not to get too stir crazy.

They had at least been able to go to other cars while on the train. It wasn’t safe, there was always the chance for the flecks to show up, and ya know, kill them. Not even getting to all the dangers that inherently existed as a part of the train itself, not even specifically after them. Still, they had things to do, places to explore, new experiences. They could keep on moving forward, even if they weren't actually making any progress. An infinite climb to nowhere.

Now there was just a large patch of woods, surrounded by people who wouldn’t understand them even if they wanted to. Who, although maybe not as likely to try and kill them like the flecks had been, might be just as willing to lock them up again. To try and study the freak of nature and figure out how they ticked.

Maybe Tulip had just watched too much sci-fi, but Lake wasn’t willing to take that chance.

Somehow, they actually felt relieved when they started hearing someone walking near their camp, Jesse’s voice calling out for them shortly after. They still didn’t much care for or trust this guy yet, but it was something else to focus on.

“Lake! La- oh, there you are,” he said, a cheerful smile already back on his face. That seemed to be his default expression, which just seemed tiring as far as Lake was concerned. 

“You’re here early,” they said, because it was definitely a lot earlier in the day than he’d come last time. They tried not to think about the fact that they had gotten so worked up in such a short amount of time.

“Oh yeah, it’s Saturday, so no school,” he said, and Lake could practically see his brain starting to turn as uncertainty spread over his face. “Uh, do you know-”

“Yes I know what school is,” Lake butted in before he could even finish the question. “I just didn’t know what day it was, don’t really have a lot of calendars out in the woods,” they added, and Jesse nodded at that.

“I could bring you one if you want. I have a word a day calendar that I stopped using back in like, March,” he offered, and Lake rolled their eyes at that. They couldn’t say the fact that he had a word a day calendar or the fact that he’d stopped using it after only three months were surprising in the slightest.

“I’m good, thanks,” they said bluntly. Jesse didn’t seem offended by that at all, holding out another brown paper bag and drink for them to take. This one had a logo on it that Lake recognized though. Even still, Jesse started to explain.

“It’s just McDonalds, there’s one not too far from my school,” he said, Lake not making any move to show they were listening as they quickly looked through the bag. It looked like there were two boxes, one with a burger and one with nuggets, and a thing of fries. They couldn’t help but wonder if he’d gotten them more food because of that whole hunger conversation they had last time.

Ugh, they were going to have to tread this carefully. It was getting dangerously close to feeling like they might actually start to owe this guy.

“I’m not paying, so whatever,” they said, and when they looked back up they noticed that Jesse still had another bag in his hand.

“I got hungry when I smelled the food,” he said sheepishly, which was fair. Lake couldn’t fault him for that. “Uh, do you have like, anywhere we could maybe sit? If you’re cool with me hanging out some more, that is,” he added, and Lake’s first instinct was to brush the request off and start to try and clumsily eat their food while standing out of spite.

They kind of wanted a distraction right now though, and unfortunately this kid was the best one they were going to get. Definitely so far the one least likely to result in them being strapped to some sort of operating table. Sure, it was nowhere near a 0% chance, but low enough they were willing to risk it.

Instead of saying anything they nodded, starting off and figuring he would follow. They weren’t leading him back to their camp, that was still private, but they’d wandered around enough to know of another place that wasn’t too far. A couple of large rocks by the edge of the lake. They were pretty sure the only reason they weren’t a more ready hangout spot for random teens was because it was pretty out of the way, hard to get to if you weren’t looking for it, and there were probably a lot of better spots already that weren’t as much of a hassle.

Lake was actually a little relieved they had chosen to sit down to eat, because that meant they could put their drink down and inspect their burger. They weren’t surprised to find it had onions, and immediately made a face as they picked them off and flung them into the woods. Jesse must’ve noticed, pausing to watch as he got out his own food.

“You don’t like onions?” he asked, and Lake shook their head as they put the rest of their burger back together.

“I think I might actually choose starvation over eating another single goddamn onion in my life, if I had the choice,” they said, earning a snort from Jesse. He probably thought they were joking. Lake wasn’t entirely sure if they were.

It was quiet as they ate after that, which was a bit of a surprise. They hadn’t known if Jesse could be quiet, but maybe it only happened when his mouth was too busy with other things. Either way it was almost nice, and Lake hated to admit that things started to feel the slightest bit less terrible after they’d shoved some food into their face. Sure, it wasn’t by much, but an underlying bit of panic they hadn’t even been able to properly place felt like it had at least started to subside towards the back of their mind again.

They had finished their burger and most of their fries, and were munching on the nuggets when they finally decided to be the one to break the silence.

“I have a question for you,” they said, clearly taking Jesse by surprise. It seemed like he’d about finished his food as well, which wasn’t a surprise since he didn’t seem to have gotten as much as Lake had.

“Oh? Yeah, shoot,” he said, obviously trying to be casual about it. Lake could have rolled their eyes at that, but resisted.

“Where are we?” they asked simply instead, because it was starting to bother them. It clearly wasn’t the question Jesse had been expecting, a confused look on his face as his eyes glanced around, as if unsure suddenly.

“Uh, in the woods by the lake?” he said, and Lake sighed heavily.

“No, clearly I know that, dingdong. I mean like, city? State? Pretty sure this is still the United States, at least. I think I would notice if I landed in another country,” they clarified, which seemed to help.

“Oh! Okay, that makes sense. You’re in Flagstaff, in Arizona,” Jesse said, which… still didn’t mean much to Lake. Still, it was better than nothing, they could at least start to have an idea about this new place in the world they were dumped in.

“Alright, that’s… alright,” they said, not really having any other feelings for it. It could be anywhere for all it mattered. They weren’t even sure why they wanted to know so badly now that they did and it didn’t change a single goddamn thing.

“How’d you manage to get here without knowing the state you’re in?” Jesse asked, not seeming to think about the question as he asked.

“Extra-dimensional portal,” Lake answered as bluntly as possible. They didn’t want to tell anyone any more about themself than they had to, but they also kind of wanted to see what his reaction would be. The starry-eyed stunned expression on Jesse’s face was almost funny enough to be worth it.

“That’s so cool,” he said, awe obvious in his face. Lake decided to lean into it, upturning the last of the fry bits in the cardboard container into their mouth before nodding.

“Yeah, I’m pretty awesome,” they said.

“I mean, you also didn’t know what being hungry felt like until two days ago,” Jesse added, and Lake frowned at that.

Reaching over, they flicked him in the middle of his forehead.

“Ow!”

“That’s irrelevant,” they insisted, ignoring the complaint. 

“You’re mean,” he still whined, although it was hard to tell how genuine it was. Lake honestly wasn’t super good at the whole figuring out emotions thing. Either way they didn’t much care, shrugging casually.

“You can leave whenever you want,” they said, and Jesse just nodded.

“I know,” he said, not making any move to leave. Maybe Lake should have been annoyed at him continuing to stubbornly try and stick in their life.

It wasn’t like they had much of a life though, even free like this.

Right now, they would take anything that would let them ignore that little fact for just a tiny while longer.

Chapter Text

Jesse honestly hadn’t been expecting to actually get Lake to let him hang around like this. He still wasn’t totally sure if they hated him or not yet, but somehow something seemed to have worked. Probably the food. Food was usually a good way to get people to relax.

They were still kinda mean, but it seemed like some of that might be a joke. A little hard to tell, but he was fairly sure. At the very least, it seemed like that was their baseline for most interactions, so at least he could say it didn't seem like they were singling him out any. 

He’d finished up the McDonald’s breakfast he’d brought them a while ago, and it was honestly a nice day out. The conversation had kind of died down some, not that it was ever super strong to begin with. Lake didn’t seem like a super talkative or friendly person, but that was just how some people were. He could respect that too.

After a few minutes of staring out at the actual lake in front of them, Jesse couldn’t help getting a little bored, pulling his phone out again. There weren't any new messages in the swim team's group chat, and he wasn't all that interested in starting a conversation there right now anyway. Scrolling through the internet, nothing was really catching his attention. After a bit he was looking over at the metal teen again. They seemed to be in their own world, staring out at the other shore of the lake far in the distance.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” he asked, which he supposed was a question all on its own, but if Lake noticed, they didn’t comment on that.

“Can’t promise I’ll answer it, but sure,” they said, and then there was a slight pause as they seemed to think of something. “And I get to ask you something too. I haven’t been in this dimension long, I mean, I know a lot about it. I’ve… actually, not important. All you need to know is that it’d be nice to be able to get some straight information,” they said, and Jesse nodded at that. Even if a lot of it didn’t make sense and he was immediately curious about the part they cut out, he could at least try to be patient. 

“Oh yeah! It can be like truth or dare, but without the dare part,” he said, Lake rolling their eyes at that, but otherwise not looking too annoyed. Jesse didn’t let it bother him anyway, still smiling as he started asking his question. “So like, you’ve just been living out here in the woods, right? What do you like to do for fun?” he asked, going with the original question he’d been intending to ask instead of any of the number of ones that had come to him after they had started speaking. It was pretty obvious from the look on Lake’s face that wasn’t the question they were expecting. They shrugged, turning back towards the water and not looking over at him as they answered.

“I don’t know. I've mostly been building up my shelter, figuring out where it’s safe for me to go, things like that,” they said, and that was probably the kind of response he should have expected. It was still kind of sad though. Before he could comment on it or at least ask, okay, but what do you like to do though, not what you need to do, Lake started asking him a question.

“What do you think most people’s reaction would be to seeing a person made of metal? Honestly,” they asked, and it wasn’t like it wasn’t a fair question. Jesse actually paused, taking a moment to think it over.

“Well, I'm pretty sure most people would think it’s some sort of trick or costume? It sure doesn’t look like one, I have no idea how you would even start to do something like that, but I kinda think most people wouldn’t believe it at first. They’d think you were just a super awesome living statue or something,” he answered. Lake seemed to think that over for a moment, before finally nodding.

“Yeah alright, I guess that makes sense. I might be able to work with that,” they said, kind of mumbling and not seeming to care if Jesse was actually listening. It was probably fair, since he was pretty sure Lake didn’t think of them as friends yet.

“Can I ask another question?” he asked, and the metal teen raised an eyebrow at that.

“Are we just doing this now?” they asked back, and Jesse grinned as he nodded.

“I don’t see why not, do you got anything better to do?” he said, and Lake rolled their eyes at that, but he was pretty sure they didn’t seem actually annoyed.

“I can’t even pretend I do, sure, ask away. I get to veto any dumb questions though,” they said, and Jesse’s smile stretched even further at that as Lake leaned back, relaxing against the large rock they were sitting on. At least, they looked relaxed. It was kind of hard to tell if they still seemed stiff because they were made entirely of metal, or if they still didn’t trust him all that much. Or both, it could always be both.

“Fair enough,” he said, because he couldn’t blame them for not being alright with answering any and every question he had. “Um, am I still not allowed to ask about the metal thing?” he asked, because he still had a lot of questions about the metal thing. Lake seemed to think that over before nodding.

“No metal questions,” they confirmed, and it was hard not to pout at that, but well, it wasn’t actually that hard to think of things he was interested about that didn’t have anything to do with the fact that they were metal. It kind of seemed like everything about them was interesting.

“You said you came here through a dimensional portal, right? What’s your original dimension like? Hot? Cold? Uh, gooey?”

“Why would it be gooey?” Lake asked back immediately, and Jesse shrugged.

“I don’t know, it was the first other adjective that came to my head,” he said, and Lake rolled their eyes at that. They actually seemed intent on answering his question after that though, taking a moment to think over the question.

“Colder than here, and it’s pretty much the polar opposite of gooey. It’s all, ya know. Hard. Chrome,” they said, knocking the side of their head as if to emphasize that fact. Jesse could feel his eyes light up as he tried to picture it. It certainly made sense, considering the person in front of him.

“Metal world,” he said, surprised by the conflicted look on Lake’s face, even more so when they shook their head.

“Mirror. Not metal,” they said, which was more information than he expected. He also wasn’t too sure on the difference right now, but he wasn’t going to question it.

“Okay then, mirror world,” he corrected, Lake seeming to take a moment before nodding. Then it was clear they were thinking again, trying to come up with another question for him.

“Do you think anyone else has realized I’m out here yet?” they asked, and Jesse supposed he couldn’t blame them for using their questions for more survival things. It made sense, considering their situation.

“I don’t think so? I mean, my friend Richard was the only one who had any suspicion to begin with, and he’s pretty much let it go since I spent the night out here and told him it was nothing,” he explained. Richard had brought up the whole ‘ghost’ thing a couple of times since that night, but thankfully no one else seemed interested so he was slowly letting it go. Lake nodded at that, and it was hard to tell if they were any more relaxed by that or not.

“Alright, that could be worse,” they said, which was fair. Jesse was trying to think of what to ask next, to see if he could convince Lake to answer a few more questions, when he jumped as his phone began to ring loudly. Lake obviously startled as well, looking like they were a hair’s breadth away from chopping the cause of the sudden noise in half before realizing what it was.

“Sorry, sorry!” Jesse apologized, giving them a sheepish smile as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. They were glaring at the device, but didn’t object to him answering it. Glancing at the screen, he was a little surprised by who was calling. “Hey Troy, what’s up?” he asked, trying to sound casual. There was no reason to have to try, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He also wasn’t that great at keeping secrets though, and it was clear that Lake wanted to keep themself a secret.

“Jesse, where are you?” Troy asked, obviously irritated right off the bat. Jesse frowned at that, not sure what that was about.

“Uh,” he started, glancing over at Lake as he tried to think of an answer that wasn’t ‘hanging out with my cool new metal friend.' “I was just out grabbing some breakfast? Why?” he settled on, since that was pretty much true, even if they had finished eating a while ago. He was also trying to remember if there was something he was forgetting that he was supposed to do today, because it was weird that Troy was calling him out of the blue.

“We’re in the middle of something and we need some extra hands on deck, get over to the school,” Troy said, and Jesse’s immediate reaction was to jump up and say he’d be there right away. Instead he found himself pausing, glancing over at Lake, who was still watching the phone with suspicion.

“Uh, yeah okay, I’ll be there as soon as I… can,” he muttered, sounding a lot more hesitant than he intended. “What are you guys doing?” he asked, trying to figure out how urgent this was.

“Dude, doesn’t matter! Just get here already,” Troy huffed, and it was hard for Jesse not to flinch at the annoyance there.

“Okay, okay, I’m coming. I’ll be there in like, fifteen minutes?” he said, since it would take a minute to get out of the woods and all the way back over to the school. He had no idea why his friends would be there on the weekend, especially since it was one of the few days where they didn’t have swim practice. Still, he wasn’t going to argue.

“Good,” Troy said, hanging up without another word. Jesse let out a sigh, unable to keep himself from sounding the slightest bit annoyed. He tried to cover it up quickly, offering Lake an apologetic smile as he turned back towards him.

“Sorry, that was one of my friends. They need me for something? I need to go,” he said, brushing dirt and crumbs from the McDonald’s earlier off of his pants before standing up. Lake just nodded, not seeming particularly bothered by him having to leave suddenly.

“Yeah alright, it’s whatever,” Lake said, and it was hard to read their voice again. They didn’t stand up or anything, which was probably fair. He didn’t think they were all that eager to walk him out of the forest or anything like that. They didn’t need to either, Jesse could acknowledge that they weren’t that close as friends yet. If Lake considered them friends yet at all.

“I’ll see you around later then? Sorry to run off like this, I was really having fun,” he said, and it was the truth. He honestly didn’t want to go, and was more than a little irritated that Troy wouldn’t even tell him what was going on or why they needed his help.

“Sure, I mean, I’ll be here. Don’t really have anywhere else to go,” they said. It made sense, and it was stupid but Jesse’s first response was to offer for them to come along. That obviously wasn’t going to be an option though, which meant Jesse was left standing there for a moment, not sure what to do but not wanting to actually leave yet. After a moment he guessed Lake noticed his hesitance, turning back towards him and raising an eyebrow. “Do you need something?”

“No, sorry, it’s just- talk to you later,” he said, actually turning away now. Heading back towards the edges of the woods, he did glance back towards Lake once before they were out of sight. They were still just sitting there, staring out at the water and not seeming bothered at all by his sudden exit. Which was fine. They were still working on the whole friendship thing.

It wouldn’t actually take him all that long to get to school, but Jesse wasn’t moving quite as fast as he could have. He was just… annoyed. So he was taking his time, especially since they didn’t give him the actual reason why they needed him to meet up with them.

The school was empty when he walked up to the front of it, which made sense considering it was the weekend, and there weren’t any big sports or club things going on as far as he was aware. He didn’t see Troy or any of his other friends around immediately, and instead of searching around for them he pulled out his phone.

J: hey, I’m here.
J: what did you guys need?

There was a brief pause then, but thankfully nothing too long before a response came in. Jesse figured there wouldn’t be that much of a wait, since they had seemed pretty urgent when they called him over.

T: we’re in the back

That was all it said, still no real reason for why they wanted him or what was going on. It wasn’t like this was entirely new, this certainly wasn’t the first time they’d told him to go along with some sort of weird plan without much or any information. Letting out another sigh of annoyance, he tried to push it all to the back of his head before starting around to the back of the school.

As he turned the corner he was smiling brightly, not wanting to show any sort of frustration from before. After all, it wasn’t like they knew he was doing anything before this. He very specifically made it so that they didn’t know he was doing anything.

“Hey guys! What’s going on?” he asked, jogging lightly now to close the distance. It was Derrick, Richard, and Troy again, standing by an open door that led into the gym. He didn’t see anyone else around though, which was kind of weird. Troy and Richard turned back towards him, but Derrick was still sticking his head into the door to the gym. There was a large plastic container at his feet, opaque, so he couldn’t see what was inside of it.

“Took you long enough,” Troy said, irritation clear in his voice. Jesse gave an apologetic smile at that, trying not to let the comment bother him too badly.

“Sorry, I was a little busy. Is everything okay?” he pressed, glancing past them into the gym. He didn’t see anyone else inside, in fact it didn’t seem like any of the lights were even on.

“So, someone forgot to lock the gym doors on Friday,” Troy started, which wasn’t really what Jesse was expecting. He nodded slowly, not sure where this was going.

“Okay, and you needed me for…?” he trailed off, trying not to sound put off or anything that might make them mad. Lake wasn’t even really his friend yet. He shouldn’t be that annoyed at having to leave when it finally seemed like things were getting a little bit more comfortable, and again, they didn’t know about any of that, so he couldn’t blame them either.

“We needed someone to go inside, duh,” Troy said, and the smile on Jesse’s face did end up dipping the slightest bit at that.

“But, you were all already here? Why couldn’t you just go in? And for what? Did you guys forget something yesterday or something?” he asked, getting a groan of annoyance from the other three boys. 

“Come on Jesse, we thought you were down for anything,” Derrick complained, and Jesse quickly put his hands up in a placating motion.

“I am! Sorry, it’s- I was kinda in the middle of something when y’all called, so I’ve just been a little distracted. Focusing now, I’m focused! What do you need me to do?” he asked, plastering a big smile back onto his face, and that seemed to be enough to turn this around. Also thankfully, none of them seemed all that bothered to ask what he’d been in the middle of before coming here. He’d been a little hesitant giving out even that much, because Lake was trusting him and it seemed like some hard trust to earn. He didn’t want to screw it up.

He couldn’t say he was entirely surprised that no one was interested in asking what was going on, but he pushed that away too. They were just distracted with whatever plan they had going on, and if he was lucky they would forget he’d said anything afterwards and it would work out for everyone.

Said plan ended up being needing someone to sneak into the school with that plastic container that Derrick had. Glancing down at the box, Jesse tried to look cheerful and not nervous.

“What should I do with it once I’m in? Should I put it somewhere specific?” he asked, picking it up. It was surprisingly light, which meant there couldn’t be a lot of stuff in it, which was kind of a relief. He didn’t try to shake it yet though, but if someone didn’t tell him what was in it soon he was probably going to get there.

“Math, right?” Richard asked, the other two boys quickly nodding and voicing their agreement. “Yeah, put it in Mrs. Franklin’s room. Just put it in there, open it and close the door on your way out,” he said, and Jesse glanced back down at the box in his hands now.

“Sounds easy enough. What’s in it?” he asked, immediately getting snickers from the other boys.

“Don’t worry about it dude, nothing serious. This is gonna be hilarious, just trust us,” Troy insisted. Maybe Jesse could have pressed more, but he said it wasn’t serious, and like, his friends could pull the occasional prank, but it was all just supposed to be funny.

“Alright, you’ll cover me if anyone comes?” he asked, although really, it wasn’t far to the classroom they were talking about. Moving fast, he could be in and out of there in five minutes, tops.

“For sure, now get going already,” Troy insisted. Jesse nodded, running off for the class without another word. It was definitely a little weird being in the school with no one else around, the hall lights all off, the only light being what filtered inside from the windows. Sure, he’d been at school after hours plenty of times for sports and clubs, but that had a distinctly different air about it.

Thankfully, the door to the classroom he was looking for was unlocked, and it was easy to slip inside. Looking around, it would be suspicious and obvious if he left it in the middle of the classroom, so instead he headed over to the teacher’s desk, placing the bin behind there instead.

He couldn’t help feeling very curious as he opened up the bin finally, not sure what could be inside that would be a prank, but still be so light.

Jesse let out a high pitched shriek when he flipped the lid off, jumping back in surprise and fear as all he saw in the dim light of the classroom was scurrying inside of the box. There were a few bugs crawling along the bottom of the lid that he’d tossed away in his shock. He didn’t stick around to take a closer look inside of the bin, quickly booking it for the door.

He realized about halfway down the hall that he forgot to close the door to the classroom like the others had told him to, pausing for a moment and considering going back. He didn’t- he didn’t mind bugs, honestly. He could go back and close the door, it had just surprised him. Honestly though, there were big cracks under those doors. The bugs would be able to get out if they wanted to, so he decided that it wasn’t worth it, quickly running the rest of the way out of the school.

When he reached the gym he could see the other three boys waiting for him, all of them laughing.

“Man, was that you screaming, or was there a little girl hiding in the classroom with you?” Derrick asked, giving Jesse a shove as he joined them back outside of the school. Jesse just laughed, pushing him back.

“It surprised me! Maybe if you all would’ve told me what was in the box I would’ve known what to expect,” he insisted, getting more laughter from the other boys. It was all in good fun though, so Jesse told himself it didn’t bother him.

“Oh man, this is gonna be legendary!”

“I know, I might actually stay awake for class for once!”

“You think they’ll get into other parts of the school?

“Duh! They’re bugs! They’re gonna get everywhere.”

It was just a silly prank. All in good fun.

“See, I told you we could count on Jesse. Right dude, you’re down for anything?” Troy asked, and Jesse pushed down the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach as he grinned brightly.

“Oh yeah, for sure.”

Chapter Text

Lake didn’t think anything of Jesse having to leave suddenly. They honestly hadn’t expected him to hang around for as long as he had, or for them to be okay with him sticking around for that long. It was probably best that he had to leave, so that they didn’t end up getting too comfortable.

There was still no real reason to trust this guy after all, even if he was helping them. Logically, that was even less reason to trust him, since it could be very easy for him to be trying to use them, or get something from them. It would make more sense than him actually wanting to be friends with someone that by all rights was barely even a person. At least in a way that anyone else saw them.

Despite all of that, Lake was well aware of the fact that they were still sticking around, still came out whenever they heard the dork trouncing his way through the woods. Maybe it was the fact that Jesse seemed a little too genuine and dorky to be actively trying to trick anyone. The fact that he had lied to his friends when he didn’t even know they’d been watching also helped.

Still, it was clear that Jesse had his own life, and Lake, well, they were trying to have a life of their own too. There just wasn’t that much to it yet. They had time though, they would figure it out. There wasn’t any rush, or shame in taking their time to get their bearings and figure out what they actually wanted. It was fine.

Look, they spent a lot of time on that dumb therapy train. Sure, none of the lessons were intended for them, but they were still listening and paying attention, even back when they had been stuck to Tulip. There was no reason why they couldn’t start trying to apply some of that stuff to themself now. At least, all the stuff that fit.

Figuring out what they actually wanted was a lot harder than expected though. Like, Lake knew for sure some things they didn’t want, which they guessed was a start. They didn’t want to be a reflection. They didn’t want to do something just because the world decided that was the box they needed to fit in. They didn’t want to eat onions, or sit at a computer all day, or wear skirts.

The No section was easy, it was the Yes column that started getting a lot harder to fill in. A lot less concrete.

They wanted to be free. They wanted to be safe. They wanted to see the world and get to experience new things and to be treated like a person.

What that all actually amounted to yet though, Lake didn’t really know.

This time, they couldn’t say they were that surprised when they heard Jesse coming towards their spot in the woods the next day. It made sense, he had said that yesterday was Saturday, which meant he didn’t have school again today. Lake figured if he wasn’t going to turn them into the government he would probably get bored eventually, but for now him showing up when he had time on the weekend seemed almost inevitable.

They hadn't been expecting it, or looking forward to him showing up, they just figured there was a fifty-fifty chance that it would happen. Also, they were bored and so far talking to Jesse seemed like the benefits were outweighing the risks.

“Hey,” Lake said, catching Jesse’s attention before he started calling out for them. He turned quickly, looking kind of surprised to see them already out, but that surprise was replaced with a smile just as fast.

“Hey Lake!” he said excitedly, and there was a brief moment where he looked them over, and Lake could practically see the thoughts forming in his head. “Were you waiting out here for me doing that cool pose?” he asked, causing Lake to blink in surprise.

“What? No. I was just already out and heard you crashing through the woods with all the grace of a bulldozer,” they said, pushing off of the tree they’d been leaning against and uncrossing their arms, shoving their hands into their pockets instead. They didn't have any right to talk about being stealthy, since the metal really didn't make for light footsteps, but they ignored that. Jesse was snickering at them, not seeming to care about the glare Lake was shooting back at him. “Whatever! Did you want something or what? You know I don’t have to sit around here and entertain you,” they huffed.

“Oh right,” Jesse said, like he’d just remembered the reason why he’d come out here in the first place. Grinning brightly, he held out a bag he’d been holding behind his back that Lake hadn’t noticed yet. “I brought breakfast!” he announced, and Lake rolled their eyes.

“You know, that’s gonna get old eventually,” they said, although they were definitely not about to turn down any food. It looked like it was a regular grocery bag, and they couldn’t quite tell what was inside of it yet.

“Maybe, but I figure I can drag it out by bringing you different foods, and by then you’ll have fallen for my charms and we’ll be best friends,” Jesse said, the casual confidence of that surprising Lake, causing them to snort in genuine laughter.

“So that’s your plan. Gotta say, I can see some holes,” they said, and they were trying to object but there was a dumb smile making its way onto their face at the same time.

“Oh yeah, like what?” Jesse asked.

“That thing about your charms, for one,” Lake said, although the human boy didn’t seem all that deterred.

“I mean, I got you laughing, so I think I’m doing pretty good there,” he said, and Lake was not going to admit that he had a point. He definitely wasn’t quite as annoying as they figured he would be when they first met, but that wasn’t saying much. They figured he’d be real damn annoying, after all.

“How about you actually share that food and we can reassess the situation afterwards?” they suggested, sidestepping the whole issue. Jesse didn’t seem bothered at all, quickly nodding before glancing back over in the direction of the lake.

“Definitely! Uh, wanna go back over to the place we ate yesterday?” he asked, which was fair. It was easier to eat if they were sitting down, so Lake nodded. It didn’t take long to get to the spot, and as soon as they sat down Jesse was digging through the bag. Lake caught the bottle of orange juice he tossed at them, and they could see there was a box in the bag now. When he opened it with way more flourish than was necessary, there were donuts inside.

“Ta-da~” Jesse said cheerily. Lake rolled their eyes, but that didn’t stop them from immediately reaching over and grabbing a donut.

“Yeah alright, not bad,” they said after a moment, like they had made some big decision just now.

“Yes,” Jesse grinned, pumping his fist at his side before grabbing a donut as well. It was stupid, but Lake was almost smiling again. Maybe it helped that they honestly were feeling better with someone bringing them food on a somewhat consistent basis. That was probably it.

“So, did you figure out whatever it was your friends needed you for yesterday?” Lake asked, having finished one donut and quickly grabbing another. It didn’t matter to them, but there wasn’t that much else to talk about, unless they wanted to talk about themself, which yeah, not feeling much of that yet. It was a little unusual for them to be the one initiating the conversation, but they didn’t expect Jesse to look quite so surprised by the question.

“Huh? Oh, that. Yeah no, it… we figured it out,” he said, which honestly didn’t say much. The easy grin he’d had before had definitely dipped some as well, and despite themself Lake couldn’t help but feel kind of curious.

“Okay,” they said slowly, not too sure where to head next in the conversation. There was probably some way to approach things delicately, but they sure didn’t know what it was. “What was it?” they asked bluntly instead.

“They just needed some help with this, like, prank?” he said, which wasn’t what Lake was expecting. To be fair, they weren’t sure what they should have expected either. They honestly didn’t know much about Jesse or his friends.

“A prank?” they still asked, and Jesse nodded, letting out a sigh afterwards and pointedly staring out at the water instead of over at them.

“Yeah, it was… honestly kind of stupid? But they’re my friends, you know how it is,” he said with a shrug, and Lake paused at that. A small frown started to form on their face as they thought that over, before shaking their head slightly.

“No, not really,” they said, getting a confused look from Jesse.

“Not really what?”

“I don’t know how that is. I’ve never had friends. I’ve seen other people have friends, but I haven’t had any personally,” they said, which was a lot more than they needed to tell Jesse, or anyone for that matter.

Maybe they wanted to tell him though? It was still kind of hard to figure out.

“Oh,” Jesse said, and it seemed like he wasn’t all that sure how to react either, and honestly Lake couldn’t blame him for that. “Well uh, you’ve got one now?” he added after a moment, a hopeful tone to his voice as the words came out as a question. Lake rolled their eyes, but, well… it was tempting.

“Don’t push your luck,” they still ended up saying, even as they reached for a third donut.

“Ya know, for someone who says they don’t need to eat as much as a person, you really do eat a lot,” Jesse said. Lake hadn’t taken more than a bite of their third donut, but without breaking eye contact they reached over again to grab a fourth.

Jesse burst out laughing at that, taking one more donut as well before putting the box down to the side. Somehow, whatever they had done seemed to have put him back at ease, relaxing some as he turned to look out at the water.

“Really though, I’m pretty sure we’re definitely friends at this point. Woods friends!” he insisted, and Lake rolled their eyes at that. They still didn’t really… get all of this. They didn’t understand why this guy hadn’t decided to just leave them alone, especially when the first thing Lake had done was knock him to the ground and pull a knife on him. Hell, they still had the knife hanging off of their belt loop.

It just… it didn’t make sense to them.

“Okay, but why? I still don’t get why you wanted to be friends with me in the first place,” Lake said, finishing off their donuts and figuring at this point all they could do was straight out ask. For his part, Jesse looked genuinely confused by the question.

“Uh, I mean, I want to be friends with everyone?” he said, and that wasn’t the response Lake was expecting. They couldn’t help but frown slightly at it, annoyed despite themself.

“Well jeeze, you sure know how to make someone feel special,” they grumbled, and it was a stupid thing to complain about, but to be fair to them that was a stupid answer. Jesse at least had the decency to immediately look like he regretted it.

“No, that’s not- I didn’t mean it like that,” he winced. Lake looked about as convinced as they felt, which wasn’t much at all. “I mean like, I do want to be friends with most people, I like most people! I'm a people person, but like, regardless of all that, you seem really cool? Like, even ignoring the whole being all metal and from another dimension thing, which is super cool, you’re nice to hang out with when you’re not throwing stuff at me,” he said, rambling a bit.

A part of Lake wanted to call that into question. The fact that he thought they were nice to hang out with, not that he was a people person. That fact was pretty obvious. Despite the hesitance though, it wasn’t like they also hadn’t been having a kind of nice time hanging out with Jesse, even if they were trying really hard not to care or start thinking of any of this as permanent. There was no way to be sure that they wouldn’t have to get up and hide somewhere new at the drop of a hat, so there was no point in getting attached.

The point still stood that the last couple of times hanging out with Jesse had been… nice, so it was possible that he was having fun too somehow.

“Woods friends is still a dumb name,” they said after a moment, which was kind of off topic, but Jesse didn’t seem to mind, even if he did frown at the comment.

“Can you think of a better one?” he asked, and Lake could have told him that having a name at all was stupid. It felt like a challenge though, and it didn’t take them long to think of something.

“I mean, right off the top of my head, forest friends. It’s at least an alliteration,” they said instead, slightly annoyed when Jesse ended up grinning brightly at that.

“Okay, you’re right, that's totally better. Forest friends!” he said, saying the last part in a little singsong voice. Okay, this had backfired immediately.

“What? No,” they whined, not that it seemed to deter Jesse in the slightest.

“You thought of it, this one’s on you,” he said, Lake huffing at that.

“You tricked me. I still never conceded to the notion that we’re even friends,” they tried to insist, getting a pout from Jesse in response.

“I’ll have to bring something better than donuts next time then,” he said, and it was in such a serious tone of voice that it startled Lake, getting them to laugh again. “Or maybe I should bring something for us to actually do too,” he added.

“What? Did you have something in mind?” they raised an eyebrow, which was stupid because they shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought. Like, they were hoping nothing would break bad soon, that they would at least have enough time to recuperate from the train and adjust to being in a new world all over again, but the fact of the matter was there was no way they would get to stay here forever. Eventually, someone a lot less kind and accepting than Jesse would see them, and they’d be on the run again. They knew this, even if they were trying to ignore it for now.

So they really, really shouldn’t be letting Jesse act like they were friends.

“I mean, not really? But I figure you gotta be bored out here, right? I could bring over like, cards or something else for us to play tomorrow,” he said, which was kind of a dumb suggestion on top of all of this. Lake would blame the fact that they honestly were getting pretty damn bored on making them actually intrigued by the idea.

“Sure, why not? If it’s boring and all else fails I could just eat the cards,” Lake said, going for as deadpan a voice as possible. From the immediately distressed and confused look that fell over Jesse’s face, it was pretty clear that he had no idea if they were joking or not.

“Uh, you really shouldn’t eat cards. Should you? It’s- is your stomach metal too?” he asked, and normally Lake would get annoyed at the metal question, but they couldn’t blame him for letting this one slip out.

“No idea, and probably? Inside of my mouth is all metal,” they said, opening it wide for a moment to demonstrate. Really, if anyone tried to mess with them, biting was a very good option if they had to get away. Closing it back down to the normal amount, they continued. “Never tried to eat cards before, so we’ll see.”

“Or we could just not eat cards and not see,” Jesse tried to insist, and now it was getting fun.

“Nope, gotta now,” they argued, getting a worried pout in response. That pout was swiftly replaced by a look of realization, and then a much more genuine frown.

“Oh, actually, tomorrow won’t work,” he said, sounding disappointed despite himself. Like an idiot, Lake felt a brief flash of that same emotion as Jesse explained. “Tomorrow’s Monday, I’ve got school, and then swim practice. I can probably stop by for a few minutes afterwards, but my mom gets worried if I’m too late for dinner, and I promised Nate I would help him out with something for a play’s he’s gonna be in for school and we didn’t get as much done on that this weekend as I’d hoped, so like…” he trailed off, but Lake had pretty clearly gotten the message.

“Dude, it’s fine. I don’t actually give a crap,” they insisted, because they didn’t. Honestly, this was the better option. So they should leave it at that, hope that Jesse kept on being busy, since despite the fact that he’d shown up so much already, he really did seem like a busy person. Eventually he’d forget about them, or Lake would have to leave and he hopefully wouldn’t even notice for a while.

For some truly stupid reason though, Lake didn’t just leave it at that.

“You can just watch me eat an entire deck of playing cards some other time. It doesn’t have to be tomorrow,” they added. The smile almost immediately returned to Jesse’s face at that, and well, at least Lake was pretty sure he wasn’t pretending to want to hang out with them.

“Yeah, that’s true,” he said, a relieved tone to his voice. Something seemed to click in his brain then, and Jesse was quickly giving them a worried frown again. “I mean, yeah, we can hang out some other time. Not yeah, I’m going to feed you playing cards. You’re not eating cards,” he insisted, and for some reason the stupid argument got Lake smiling again. It was just- it was funny. They’d been running for their life not that long ago, they were still in very real danger in this world. There were so many things for them to be truly terrified of.

And Jesse was worried about them eating paper.

“Weak. I’m pretty sure I could eat a damn rock and it wouldn’t do anything,” they insisted, getting an incredibly distressed look from Jesse at that.

“Don’t eat a rock,” he said with a resigned sigh, and Lake was grinning now, slipping down from the large rocks they were sitting on to get to the shores of the water. “Lake?”

Lake didn’t respond, reaching down and picking up a pebble, quickly rinsing it in the water. They had no intention of actually eating the rock. Mostly, they just kind of wanted to see what he would do.

“Lake!” Jesse yelped, jumping down from their perch up above the shore as well. Holding up the rock, Lake opened their mouth up dramatically as if to drop it in. Before they could pretend to drop it, Jesse jumped at them, attempting to knock the stone out of their hand. He was taller than them, but they had a lot more experience dodging people, immediately slipping down and around him, closing the rock in their fist instead.

“Lake, gimme!” Jesse insisted, and they were full on grinning now. Jumping back even further along the shore, they were lucky for their boots offering up some actual traction. The metal reflections of Tulip’s shoes had been terrible for that, and they hadn’t even tried moving anywhere that was wet in them. They figured their own feet would be just as prone to slipping.

“Find your own snacks,” they said, their full intent to just mess with him at this point. Because it was funny and Lake genuinely couldn’t remember if they had ever laughed like this before.

“What? No!” Jesse huffed, making another dive for the rock again. This time when Lake moved out of the way, they saw the moment Jesse realized he’d made a mistake, the sudden nothing where he had lunged causing him to keep falling forward. There was a loud splash, and Lake doubled over laughing at the sight of Jesse frantically sitting up in the shallows of the water. They didn’t bother holding onto the rock anymore, letting it fall back to the ground.

“Mean,” Jesse huffed, not getting up and just sitting, pouting in the water. Lake supposed he couldn’t get more wet, at least not for the parts that were already submerged.

“Sorry, sorry,” they said, quickly getting a hold of their laughter but still grinning despite themself. “You said something about swim practice though, right? So, safe to assume you at least like water?” they asked next, and for some reason Jesse looked surprised by that.

“Huh? Oh yeah, normally I’m all for jumping right in,” he said, lifting one of his arms out of the water and picking a wet leaf off where it had stuck to the sleeve of his shirt. Lake figured it wouldn't hurt to take pity on him at this point, holding a hand out to help him up.

(It could hurt. It could hurt and was stupid and a bad idea but they’d never had a friend before and it wasn’t fair that they were finally free but they still couldn’t relax and do dumb things they wanted to do because sooner or later it would blow up in their face).

Jesse looked surprised by the offer, before smiling and actually reaching up to take their hand.

Then his smile got a lot sharper, too late for Lake to do anything as Jesse grabbed their forearm instead. Pulling fast, the surprise caught them off guard, their shoes failing them this time as they slipped and fell into the water as well.

“Jesse!” Lake shouted, and it was shallow enough here that they didn’t have to worry about sinking or anything. Now Jesse was the one doubled over in laughter, looking freshly soaked.

“Wow, that was a much bigger splash than I expected,” he said.

"Again, metal. What did you expect?” Lake asked, smacking a hand down on the surface of the lake to spray him again. He honestly didn’t seem bothered in the slightest anymore though.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” he said. Lake rolled their eyes, but the hadn’t actually managed to stop smiling for a while now. “So, how’s my plan working?” he asked after a moment, and it took them a moment to realize what he was talking about. Lake huffed, reaching over and flicking him in the forehead. “Ow!”

“Fine. You win, we’re friends,” they said, trying to sound more annoyed by that than they actually were.

They knew in the long term that this was a very bad idea. But well, it was hard to care about that right now. They just wanted to actually enjoy something for once.

And they liked hanging out with Jesse.

It was all going to go wrong, yeah, but they could burn that bridge when they got to it.

Chapter Text

Jesse didn’t end up staying much longer after they had both fallen into the water. He kind of wanted to, but it was starting to get later in the day, and he got the feeling that Lake was still pretty secluded and liked to have a good chunk of time off on their own. Plus, he still had a bunch of homework he’d put off from earlier in the week and he had promised Nate that he would help him out this weekend. Neither of those were things he could get done while hanging out in the woods with Lake.

Well, maybe the homework was. It was kind of a tempting idea now that he thought about it, but he wasn’t sure how interested Lake would be in letting him hang around while he worked on algebra or anything like that. He didn’t want them to think he was boring now that they were officially friends.

He couldn’t help smiling as the thought came back to him. They were friends, and it- it really felt like Lake meant it. They actually listened, and remembered the things he said, and asked him questions…

Not that his other friends didn’t do those sorts of things too! It was just… always groups with everyone else, either in the swim team or drama club or some other big meet up, so things tended to go fast. Sometimes people missed things, he was sure he did too, when everyone was talking at once.

It was easier to slow down with Lake. It was nice. Nicer than he expected. That didn’t mean any of his other friends were bad, it was just different. In a good way.

And if he was a little disappointed that he wouldn’t get to go hang out with them tomorrow, it was just because they could be surprisingly fun when they weren’t so grumpy. Even if they were mean and teased him by pretending to eat rocks.

When he got home, Jesse ended up pausing on the doorstep. They had ended up staying in the water for a little while, because well, Jesse liked the water, and Lake had seemed almost fascinated with it after a bit. Of course, that meant that by the time he left they had barely pulled their way up out of the lake, and therefore, he was still dripping wet and most of his clothes covered in mud.

Okay, he just needed to get to his room before anyone saw him. His dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway, which meant it was only his mom and Nate home right now. Honestly, Nate seeing him wouldn’t be that bad, he probably wouldn’t question him having fallen into the lake at all.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the front door and peeked inside. The living room was empty, so he slipped in, shutting the door with a soft click behind him.

“Is that you Jesse?” he heard his mom calling from further into the house, immediately wincing.

“Uh, yeah? You need something?” he called back, moving across the living room, trying not to drip too much as he tried to get to the stairs before anyone came in. He didn’t quite succeed though, his mom coming in through the doorway right when he was at the bottom of them.

“I was wondering if you could help me with-” she started to ask, and Jesse could see the exact moment she noticed the state he was in. She paused, not looking so much surprised as she did taken off guard. “What happened? You’re soaked,” she asked, and Jesse laughed nervously.

“I was uh, just hanging out with some friends and accidentally fell into the lake,” he said, and it wasn’t even a lie. Somehow though he was pretty sure it still sounded like one, which was incredibly annoying. His mom nodded slowly, a small frown on her face as she took in the explanation.

“Alright well, try to be more careful next time dear,” she said, and Jesse immediately nodded. “Now, go get changed before you drip any more water on the stairs. I could use your help in the kitchen afterwards if you’re not busy,” she added, and Jesse didn’t need to be told twice.

“Sure thing! I’ll be down in a minute,” he said, rushing up the stairs being just careful enough not to slip and fall. He’d reached the top right when Nate came out of his room.

“Hey Jesse- whoa, what happened?” he asked, and well, this was basically the exact opposite of what Jesse was hoping he would be able to do when he came home. Which was fine.

“I fell with Lake. I mean- I fell in the lake,” he said, not stopping to say anything more than that and shutting his bedroom door behind him before Nate could comment on the flub. It didn’t take very long for him to get changed into some dry clothes, and he would have to take a shower later to get all the pond junk out of his hair. For now though he settled on washing his hands before going down to the kitchen to see what his mom needed.

That ended up being help with lunch, which he wasn’t going to complain about. He let Lake eat most of the donuts he’d brought so he was starting to get kind of hungry again.

Between that, finishing up the pile of homework he had, and helping Nate out with the stuff for his play, the rest of the day ended up going surprisingly fast.

Really, with his mind preoccupied with trying to plan out what kind of stuff he could bring to the woods that Lake might be into, and actually getting to spend time with his little brother for once, Jesse had pretty much forgotten all about what had happened with his friends at the school.

Or at least, he had until he showed up at school on Monday and it all came rudely flooding back to him. He told himself it would be fine, it was just a joke after all. A harmless prank. It was totally possible that the bugs had dissipated so much that no one would even really notice.

It didn’t quite end up working like that. The bugs had dispersed all right, but that just meant all day classes were interrupted with surprised and fearful yelps when the occasional beetle or spider crawled across a desk or along the floor. Jesse guessed a part of it was kind of funny, especially all the kids who would jump up to try to get rid of the bug. By the end of the day though it was obvious that the teachers were getting fed up with all of the interruptions, and there was a lot of talk of getting an exterminator in. All Jesse hoped was that it didn’t manage to somehow slip that he’d been the one to bring the bugs in.

At the very least, his friends definitely got a kick out of the whole thing. Thankfully, not saying anything explicit to clue anyone in on their involvement until after school ended, when they were alone going to swim practice. They were even smart enough to keep quiet in front of the coach, which they weren’t always.

Still, it wasn’t until he got home that Jesse was able to relax and accept that nothing had backfired horribly this time.

He’d been right about not having any time to stop by and see Lake, but he told himself that was probably for the best. He knew they were friends now, but he didn’t want to push his luck and annoy them by hanging around all the time. Even though if it was him, he would have felt super lonely being out in the woods by himself all the time.

Waking up the next morning, Jesse didn’t take much note of the fact that it was all cloudy and overcast. It was starting to get into late fall now, early bits of winter sneaking their way in, so it wasn’t too unusual for the weather to shift.

When rain started to rap against the windows in his third period class, his first thought had been mild disappointment that the weather probably meant he wouldn’t get to go see Lake again today. Checking the weather on his phone when his teacher wasn’t looking, that definitely seemed to be the case. Rain all day, giving way to thunderstorms tonight.

For a few moments, Jesse was just trying to push the disappointment aside and instead think of what he could bring to make up for not stopping by when he said he was going to.

Then the wind outside kicked up, the rain hitting the window harder, and Jesse’s thoughts jumped from one to another very quickly. His brain tended to do that, making leaps to new topics before he could really process it. This one wasn’t even that much of a leap, just a quick string of thoughts that led to a realization that probably should have happened a lot sooner.

It had started as just noting that he would have to walk home in the rain, which made him remember that Lake was currently out in the rain. They had mentioned something of a shelter, but he didn’t know how strong or solid it was, since he’d never actually seen it.

Then the fact that Lake was metal came to him, and he was suddenly wondering how safe it was for a metal person to be outside during a thunderstorm. That couldn’t be safe, right? Like, the best he could figure it was like they were a living lightning rod.

By the time school was finally out Jesse couldn’t help but cringe with nerves every time he heard a low crash of thunder off in the distance. His original plan had been to go straight home, since it was pouring outside, and then make it up to Lake tomorrow for not being able to stop by. That plan had pretty quickly gone out the window, and instead Jesse made a beeline for the woods as soon as the dismissal bell rang.

He wasn’t paying much attention to see if anyone noticed or cared about why he was running out so fast, but he probably didn’t have to worry about it. Lots of people were trying to rush home to get out of the rain, and it wasn’t like his friends tended to stop him unless they needed something anyway.

Once in the woods, the canopy of leaves protected him from the rain somewhat, but what it mostly amounted to was having less raindrops fall on him, but the ones that did were much bigger.

He was getting around where he usually met up with Lake, and he didn’t see them out anywhere like normal. That made sense though, they probably didn’t want to come out in the rain. The storm must’ve made it harder to hear if someone was wandering around too. Still, he was pretty sure he knew the general area Lake tended to come from, so Jesse started off in that direction, starting to call out for them.

“Lake? Lake! Are you there?” he called, trying to figure out exactly how long he could spend out here looking for them before it started to get suspicious. Thankfully, it wasn’t actually that much longer before he saw some sort of structure in a small clearing not too far away. It looked like it maybe came up to his shoulders, but it was definitely a little man made building. “Lake! Hey Lake!” he shouted, quickly rushing the last bit of distance over.

He didn’t quite get there before he saw a familiar shiny metal head peeking out, Lake glancing around for a moment before their eyes fell on him. There was obvious confusion on their face, a frown as they took him in, which was maybe fair. Jesse wasn’t too sure what he looked like at this point, but he had to be soaked.

“Jesse? What the hell?” they asked, which wasn’t really specific, but he could understand what they meant easily enough. Before he could start to speak there was another low crash of thunder off in the distance, and he didn’t miss the way Lake immediately flinched, ducking back into their shelter the tiniest bit.

“Sorry, I just wanted to check if you were okay,” he said, which was the truth. Lake didn’t look any less confused by that though, and now that Jesse was standing right outside of it, he could take in the little shelter Lake had. They had to sit on their knees while inside of it, because it really did only come up to his shoulders, and the ‘roof’ seemed to be mostly leaves and branches and mud. He could tell that it was already leaking, the ground Lake was laying on wet and muddy.

“What? I’m fine. Dude, go home. You’re gonna get sick or something,” they insisted, which was fair. Jesse wasn’t planning on leaving just yet though, mostly because he wasn’t too sure if they were telling the truth yet or not on that first thing.

“Can you get sick?” he asked, and immediately they were frowning again.

“What? That’s- I don’t know,” Lake said, which wasn’t the answer Jesse was expecting.

“You don’t know?” he pressed, and Lake shrugged heavily. By now, Jesse was pretty soaked through, but at least he had a jacket on. Even under the makeshift lean-to, it was obvious that Lake was drenched already. He could hear the water pinging off their metal body. It was honestly a weirdly relaxing sound.

“Look, forget it. It’s unlikely, probably. Will you just go already?” they said.

“What about lightning?” Jesse asked, instead of actually listening to them and leaving. Lake immediately froze at that, and for once it wasn’t actually that hard to read the fear in their face.

“What about lightning?” they pressed, as if they hadn’t been flinching every time there was a crack of thunder off in the distance.

“You’re made of metal, right? Isn’t it dangerous for you to be outside during a storm like this? It’s supposed to go on all night,” he said, and he could see Lake hesitate before answering.

“I’m in a shelter. It’s fine,” they said, and honestly, Jesse didn’t mean to look quite as judgmental as he did as he scanned the jumbled stack of twigs and vines that made up Lake’s ‘shelter.' It was obvious that Lake noticed though, instantly giving a defensive huff. “I never built one before, alright? And I didn’t have any tools until you dropped that knife,” they insisted.

“I didn’t say anything,” Jesse said quickly, although Lake gave him a look that made it clear that he hadn’t needed to. Letting out a sigh, he continued. “Look, I’m just not sure if that’s the… safest place for you right now,” he tried.

“Right, right of course, sorry. I’ll just go to the house that I definitely have. Can’t believe I forgot about that, silly me,” they snapped, and Jesse winced at that. Another crack of thunder, this one louder than the rest, and he actually heard Lake yelp in fear, as much as they were still clearly trying to hide it.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he tried, because he hadn’t. He wasn’t dumb enough to not have realized that Lake didn’t have anywhere else to go, at least not like that.

“Whatever,” they muttered, curling their knees up to their chest. “I’ll be fine, alright? It’s not like I’ve got any other choice. Just go home before someone notices something,” they insisted, and well, he’d come this far. It wouldn’t hurt to at least offer.

“I mean, you could come with me, if you want,” he said, getting a startled frown from Lake.

“What?” they asked, the single word somehow blunt and sharp at the same time.

“I was just thinking, you could spend the night at my house, if being out here in a thunderstorm is too dangerous. I mean, even if it’s not that dangerous, I can’t imagine it’d be a lot of fun sleeping in the rain, so like, either way,” he offered. The look of disbelief didn’t fade from Lake’s face as he spoke, if anything it got even worse.

“Are you crazy? What if someone sees me? The hell are you planning on telling your parents? No it’s- I’m safer off trying to avoid being a lightning rod,” they insisted, but Jesse quickly shook his head.

“We don’t have to tell them anything. We can sneak you in without anyone seeing,” he said, because he already figured that Lake wouldn’t want to be seen by anyone. He couldn’t blame them for that, even if he was pretty sure his parents weren’t the type to hand someone over to be tested on by the government or something. He definitely would rather not test that guess, at any rate. Lake still didn’t look very convinced, but to Jesse’s surprise they didn’t immediately shoot down the idea either.

“How do you plan on doing that, huh? Just have me crawl in through a window?”

…

“You’re really having me crawl in through a window. Of course you are.”

“Look, it’s- this way no one will see you! You’ll be in my room and we can lock the door so that no one can come in without warning,” Jesse insisted. It was getting pretty dark now, even though it really wasn’t that late yet, due to the storm. “Just don’t start climbing until I’m at the window. I don’t want you to be stuck out here high up in case I get stopped by my mom or something,” he added, and a little reluctantly Lake nodded. Giving them a smile he hoped was reassuring, Jesse ran back around to the front of the house, letting himself in.

He was honestly surprised that he’d actually managed to convince Lake to come along with him, although he got the feeling that the weather had done most of the convincing for him. It had started to come down even harder than before, and with the wind and rain by the time Lake had relented, it looked like their shelter was about to come down entirely.

“Jesse? Where've you been?” he heard his mom call as he stepped inside.

“Hey, sorry I’m late! A friend needed help with something after school,” he said, keeping it vague. “I’m gonna go get changed! Do you need any help with dinner?” he asked, already heading towards the stairs. He’d like to spend most of the night up in his room with Lake, but he didn’t want to be suspicious either.

“No, I should be fine. Thank you dear,” his mom said, which was a relief. Jesse took that as permission to run the rest of the way up to his room, quickly locking the door before throwing his window open.

“Lake?” he called, trying to be quiet as he looked out into the backyard. There was a bit of roof that made it hard to see right next to the house, but that also meant that Lake would be able to climb onto the roof from a nearby tree and then just walk up to his window. No need to hang off the side of the house or anything like that.

“Down here,” they called up, and he could see them standing by the base of the tree he’d instructed them to use to climb up.

“We’re clear,” he said, and it was pretty obvious that Lake was still hesitant about all of this. He couldn’t really blame them, it was clear how nervous they were at the idea of anyone seeing them. Even barring all the weird stuff with them being made out of metal and from another dimension and stuff, it wasn’t like Jesse couldn’t get in trouble sneaking a friend in like this to begin with. It only got worse from there, he was sure.

Before the nerves could get the best of Lake and make them back out, there was a bright flash of lightning off in the distance, followed by a loud crash a few seconds later. That immediately got the metal teen moving, quickly climbing up the tree, edging along until they could get a hold of the roof. It was pretty impressive how fast and agile they were, despite the fact that they were made of metal. Jesse didn’t expect them to be able to get to the window as fast as they did, but he immediately helped them in once they were up.

His bed was right under the window they’d come in through, so they ended up seated there once Jesse shut the window behind them. They were both soaked from the rain, but Jesse was still grinning as he turned towards them.

“See? I told you it would work,” he said, watching as Lake very obviously took in his room, eyes scanning their surroundings. 

“You’re sure no one will get suspicious or anything?” they asked, which was fair. Jesse nodded, because he was pretty sure it would be fine as long as they were smart about this.

“Yeah, I mean, we should probably be kind of quiet? But there really isn’t any reason for anyone to suspect anything, so it should be fine,” he said, and a little reluctantly Lake nodded. Looking them over, it seemed like most of the rain water had dripped off of their metal form (and onto his blankets), but their clothes were still soaked through. Which, right, they were both very wet right now.

Jumping off his bed, he headed over to his dresser and started to dig around for something to change into.

“Do you want something to wear? Your clothes are pretty soaked,” he offered. Lake was sitting cross-legged on his bed at this point, looking unsure and kind of like they were avoiding touching anything.

“Uh, sure?” they said, and Jesse couldn’t blame them for feeling a little awkward. It didn’t take long for him to find an older pair of pajamas near the back of his top drawer. They would probably be a little bit big on Lake, because they were so skinny, but pajamas were more comfortable if they were baggy anyway. He tossed the outfit to them before grabbing something to wear as well.

“I’ll go get dressed in the bathroom,” he said, Lake nodding quickly at that. “You can lock the door while I’m out, I’ll knock so you can let me in,” he added, which seemed amenable to Lake. It didn’t actually take him all that long to get changed, but he took his time and fiddled on his phone some, making sure to give his friend plenty of time to get dressed. Things were already awkward and he didn't want to make them just unbearable.

Once he was sure he’d given them enough time Jesse made his way back to his room. Like he expected, Lake had taken the chance to lock the door. Giving a quick glance around to make sure Nate wasn’t watching from his room or anything, Jesse gave a quiet knock.

“It’s me,” he whispered through the door as well. There was no response, but a few seconds later he heard a small click of a lock unlatching. Opening the door slowly, Lake had already moved away from the door and seemed to be inspecting the content of one of the shelves he had up. They were wearing the pajamas he’d given them as well, a simple light blue top with snowflake pattern pants.

“So uh, now what?” Lake asked once the door was shut and locked again, which was a fair enough question. To be honest, Jesse hadn’t thought this far ahead, mostly focused on getting Lake out of the rain. He could still hear it pelting against the windows and roof, a steady drum that he found soothing.

“Dunno. I’ll have to go eat dinner in a bit, if I can’t sneak some up to you right afterwards I’ll grab you some tonight. Otherwise we can just sort of hang out,” he said, and Lake seemed to think that over before nodding.

“Yeah, alright,” they said, turning away from the shelf still looking a little bit on edge. It made sense, everything about them right now was just screaming how out of place they felt. Jesse wanted to ease the tension somewhat, but he wasn’t too sure how. He didn’t really have friends over a lot. Or ever. He went to other people’s houses, and things like that, but he didn’t tend to host, especially not one on one.

He’d asked people, but they were usually busy. Or something.

“Oh! Do you want to meet Dracula?” he asked suddenly, heading over to his closet before Lake could answer.

“Dracula?” they asked, obviously bewildered. “Isn’t that what you tried to name me?”

“Right, I almost forgot about that. But yeah, it’s the best name,” he said, not looking back as he tried to find what he was looking for.

“It’s- there is not a single category I can think of where Dracula comes out as the best name. It’s not even the best vampire name,” Lake insisted, and at least with the arguing they were starting to sound a little bit more at ease.

“What? No, it totally is,” he insisted, and ah yes, there it was. Grabbing the large plush, he was grinning as he turned around to face Lake again. “Dracula!” he declared, holding up the large stuffed seal. There was a brief pause where they stared at him, before suddenly breaking with a snort of laughter.

“Wow, you did it. You somehow found the animal least fitting of the name Dracula. I wouldn’t have guessed it was a seal, but here we are,” they said, and Jesse pouted at that.

“I don’t know, he looks like a Dracula to me,” he insisted. Lake had actually come over now, acting like they were inspecting the three foot long plus.

“Uhuh, sure he does. You can really see it in his cold dead eyes, alr-” they started to say, immediately cutting themself off and freezing when a voice came calling up the stairs.

“Jesse! Nate! Dinner!” his mom’s voice called, and he was pretty sure Lake wasn’t even breathing as they stood stock still again, all the nerves that Jesse had managed to ease out of them back full force.

“Kk, coming!” Jesse called back, because more than anything they had to act like everything was normal. It would just be for tonight after all, so that Lake didn’t have to be out in the storm. After that, well, they could figure out something more permanent later.

Glancing down at the large plush in his arms, Jesse held it out for Lake. The metal teen looked a little mystified, but took the stuffed animal nonetheless.

“You can hang out with Dracula until I get back, okay? Look around if you want, or you can just rest, whatever works for you. I’ll be back in a bit,” he said, and it was hard to tell, but he was pretty sure Lake’s grip tightened the slightest bit on the stuffed seal as they nodded.

“Yeah sure, I’ll look after your vampire seal, I guess,” they said, and Jesse smiled at that.

“See ya,” he said, because he really didn’t want to take too long and get anyone curious about what was taking him. Lake just waved, and once he was out in the hallway, it was only a second or so before he heard the click of the door locking again behind him. He couldn’t blame Lake for that, it was definitely the safest move.

Okay, they only had to hide them for one night. For now. At least, only when there was really bad weather like this. Otherwise, Jesse had no plans of making this a habit.

At least, probably not on school nights like this.

Chapter Text

The occasional loud crash of thunder from outside was the only thing reminding Lake that what they were doing wasn’t a huge mistake. Or well, maybe it was, but if it was then it was a justified mistake. At the very least, taking the risk to go with Jesse and hide out from the storm in his room for the night was worth it. Purely on a survival level.

They didn’t know how being out in a storm like that would affect them, after all. Like, even on a minor level, they were being honest when they told Jesse they didn’t know if they could get sick or not. Tulip had gotten sick, and they had definitely had to reflect that, so physically their body could do all that. They just didn’t know if it would if not being forced to, if things like germs actually affected them or not.

The thing was though that they could deal with that, if it was something that happened. It was the thunder and quick flashes of lightning that they couldn’t deal with.

It seemed like a reasonable thing to be worried about, having a body like theirs. Tulip had called it chrome, but Lake didn’t know how accurate that actually was. They were definitely some sort of metal, but they knew it also wasn’t exactly natural to the prime world. They were magnetic, and they could also do things like cry and eat, and there was no way to account for the way their body could move. Their best guess was that their metal was closest to mercury, but hopefully not as toxic. Probably.

So, they couldn’t be exactly certain of their ability to conduct electricity, but they really didn’t want to test it either. Hence, giving in when Jesse had showed up in the middle of a goddamn thunderstorm and suggesting they come with him.

And now they were just… here. Standing alone in Jesse’s room, holding a big stuffed seal.

After a moment the sound of Jesse’s footsteps making their way down the stairs faded and stopped, and Lake let out a small sigh. Okay, they were safe. Even if it didn't feel like it, they were. The door was locked, and from the sound of it Jesse’s whole family was down there eating dinner right now. If they believed him, no one would suspect anything, so they didn’t have to worry about anyone finding them just now. They could do what Jesse said, explore, or relax, or whatever.

Still holding the stuffed seal to their chest, Lake figured there wasn’t much else to do but look around a little. Jesse had given them express permission to do exactly that, so it wasn’t like they were invading his privacy or anything.

There were a couple of awards on some of the shelves, for an honestly pretty eclectic assortment of tasks. Most of them were for swimming, but there were a few for other sports, soccer and basketball and disk golf? Other things too, not just athletics. Some things that looked related to acting, a couple for singing, there was definitely at least one dance trophy in there. Some of them looked pretty old, like these were things he must’ve taken up as a kid and never stuck with, but a few were newer.

With this many hobbies, Lake could definitely understand when he said he was busy. They almost couldn’t understand where he could find all the time between school and such. Still, they could respect it.

Lake wasn’t sure what they would give to just try even half of these things. Sure, they had no idea if they would enjoy sports in the slightest, but that almost wasn’t the point. It was something new, something they never would have gotten the chance to do when stuck in the mirror world.

And still, probably not ever going to be an option. Because they had to stay hidden in order to stay alive. Because this world wasn’t made for them, no world was.

Pulling themself away from the shelves and those thoughts, they might have been clinging to the stuffed seal a little bit tighter now. This was still better than being stuck in that damn mirror. To being constantly chased on the train. It was better. They could live with just this. They could be satisfied with this.

Instead of digging through any more of his things, Lake went over and sat back down on the bed. Pulling a blanket tight around themself, still clinging to the large plush, there was a moment where they were almost overwhelmed by how comforting the sensation was. How much softer it was than being out in the woods, sleeping in a cleared out patch of dirt under their meticulously put together home of sticks and leaves.

They’d had a similar moment of surprise when changing into the clothes Jesse had grabbed for them. They liked their clothes, the ones they had picked out all on their own, that actually felt like them and not a reflection of someone else. Still, they could admit that after so long, they weren’t exactly the most comfortable or clean anymore. Definitely not when soaked through from the rain, at least.

So the clean, dry pajamas combined with snuggling up as much as possible on the bed left Lake with absolutely no desire to move anytime soon. It wasn’t the same as reflecting Tulip bundled up in the mirror world. There was no warmth to anything in the mirror world. Despite the appearance to a prime looking in, everything in there was that same cold, malleable metal.

But here the bed was soft, and the blankets were soft, and the toy in their arms was soft. They could still hear the wind rattling against the windows outside, the rain pelting down and thunder clambering in the distance, but none of it could reach them here. It all melted together into a dull drumming in the background, and before long Lake had closed their eyes.

They hadn’t intended to fall asleep. They hadn’t even intended to lay down all the way, but somehow both had ended up happening. They always slept so lightly, it didn’t matter where they were. On the train or out in the woods, there was always something that could happen upon them when they weren’t awake and alert. That would ruin everything they had worked so hard for, just the ability to exist. So they had to be prepared to be up and fighting at a moment’s notice, no matter how out of it they had seemed a moment beforehand.

That was the only reason why they managed to hear the soft knock at the door. There was a moment of panic, jerking awake confused and terrified, not recognizing where they were in the slightest. They could feel their heart pounding hard in their chest, trying to pinpoint the source of the noise that had woken them.

Then they heard Jesse’s voice whispering quietly, and the situation came back to them. The storm was still falling steadily on outside, and they had no idea how long they had been out for, the plush from before still clutched tight in their arms.

The whispering from Jesse was getting a little bit more urgent sounding now, and it was only then that Lake remembered why he wasn’t coming in. They had locked the door, right.

Quickly scrambling up, they still tried their best to be as quiet as possible as they went over and unlocked the door. They didn’t open it or say anything, but they hadn’t last time either. Moving away, Jesse slipped inside, shutting the door behind him and locking it once again. Lake had already moved to sit on the bed again at this point, pulling the plush back into their lap and wrapping themself up in a blanket again.

Maybe it looked a little childish, but they didn’t… they wouldn’t exactly get a lot of chances to be comfortable like this, so they were going to take advantage of it while they had it. If Jesse thought anything of it, he didn’t mention it.

“Hey. Sorry, I wasn’t able to bring up any food right now. I’ll definitely sneak down and grab you some after everyone goes to bed for the night,” he said, and Lake just shrugged. They had figured out by now that they were actually kind of hungry a lot of the time, but at least at this current moment it was enough that they could ignore it without much issue.

“That’s fine. How long were you at the door for?” they asked, because they were pretty sure that they had woken up quick to the knocking, but they couldn’t be completely certain. It would probably be suspicious if Jesse actually got locked out of his own room for any significant amount of time.

“Oh, only like, a minute? I just wasn’t hearing anything for a second and wasn’t sure if you could hear me,” he said, and okay, that wasn’t bad.

“I fell asleep, sorry,” they said, which seemed to take Jesse by surprise.

“That’s okay! Are you still tired? It’s fine if you want to go back to sleep,” he asked, and Lake considered it, but shook their head after a moment. They could get around to sleeping again later. They weren’t even sure if they would be able to relax enough to sleep with someone else around. It wasn’t something they had ever had to do before.

“I think I’m good for now,” they said, their eyes glancing back towards the closed door once again. “And uh, you’re sure no one suspects anything? This isn’t like, some habit you have that everyone is aware of? Sneaking people into your house when you’re not supposed to, or animals, or whatever,” they pressed, and Jesse looked more amused than anything as he shook his head.

“Oh, I’ve definitely never done anything like this before. Promise,” he assured them, and Lake couldn’t think of a reason why he would lie about that. They didn’t quite relax, but they at least believed that no one would be thinking of looking for them right now.

By now Jesse had come over and sat down on the other end of the bed, looking a little uncertain as he pulled out his phone and started fiddling with it. Lake couldn’t exactly blame him for not knowing what to do now. They had only just started to get comfortable with each other when they were in the forest. Being at his house suddenly like this left Lake feeling even more on edge than they normally were, which was saying something.

“So uh, I know you’re only here so that you don’t, ya know, die. But I was thinking we could still have some fun, like a sleepover or something?” Jesse asked after a moment, and Lake couldn’t say they were super surprised by that suggestion. Jesse always seemed pretty prone to looking on the bright side of things.

Instead of answering with words, because Lake wasn’t- they weren’t too sure how they felt about all of this yet, they just stared at him with a blank expression, slowly raising an eyebrow in question.

“I mean, um, do you know what a sleepover is?” he asked, and Lake couldn’t help but sigh at that.

“Yes. Never been to one, but I know what they are,” they answered, thinking back to Tulip’s experiences. She had slept over at Mikayla’s house before, a lot when her parents had started actually going through with the divorce and her dad had been in the process of moving out. Those tended to be some of the only times where Tulip could actually pretend she was still happy and fine with everything going on.

“Cool, that makes this easier,” Jesse said, which was fair. “What do you want to do?” he asked, and it felt like such an open ended question that it took Lake a few moments to come up with any sort of answer. They were still trying, struggling, not to get too comfortable, but well, it wasn’t like they weren’t stuck here for the night regardless at this point. They had already accepted the fact that Jesse was their friend. It couldn’t get much worse than that.

“I remember you saying something about cards?” they suggested, the slightest hint of a smile trying to tug at their lips. There was a brief flash of surprise across Jesse’s face at that, before a huge grin stretched across his lips as he snorted in laughter.

“I’m gonna regret not grabbing you food first, aren’t I?” he asked, already twisted around and digging through a drawer in his side table. Lake snorted at that, rolling their eyes and feeling pretty thankful that the sound of the storm outside was probably drowning out their voices somewhat.

“Hey, just because I live in the woods doesn’t mean I can’t be civilized,” they joked.

The first deck of cards Jesse managed to find was an Uno deck, so they decided to go with that. Lake vaguely knew how to play, and Jesse had ran through the pretty simple rules beforehand anyway. The game was ideally made for more than two people to play, but that didn’t really dampen it any.

It was actually fun. Really fun. With just the two of them, they were able to go fast, slapping down their cards one after the other, only pausing when they needed to draw more.

At some point, Jesse had stopped to look through his cards, trying to find one that would fit next. Lake noticed that he wasn’t paying attention, a stupid idea coming to them then. As quickly as they could, they let one of their cards slip into their lap, hidden behind the seal they had started leaning against at some point. When he looked up again, Lake could see him do a quick double take at their cards.

“Didn’t you have more than that?” he asked, and they shrugged as innocently as possible.

“Pretty sure this is what I had. Don’t pout just because you’re losing,” they insisted, getting a huff from Jesse in response. He drew another card before putting one down again. Lake immediately slapped down a draw four, getting a frown from Jesse. As he pulled the new cards, Lake let another one slip into their lap, and there was no way he didn’t notice the difference this time.

“Okay, where are your cards going?” he asked, and it was getting hard not to laugh as they shrugged.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lake lied, and they could tell that Jesse could tell that it was a lie. There was a frown and then his eyes widened as an idea came to him.

“Are you seriously eating them?” he asked. Lake tried to look offended at the suggestion, but they were pretty sure they weren’t doing a very good job.

“Of course not. Dracula must be taking them,” they said, not convincing Jesse in the slightest. He was still pouting, not looking away from them as he put down another card. It took a few more rounds before Jesse looked away long enough for them to drop another one into their lap.

“Uno,” they announced, only holding one card now and not bothered at all by how blatant they were being. Jesse huffed indignantly, still holding his own handful from the deck.

“Stop eating your cards!” he insisted, and Lake couldn’t help laughing now.

“I’m not! I told you, it’s Dracula,” they argued, and they were even mostly telling the truth. They hadn’t eaten any of the cards.

“Either way, it’s cheating,” he said, and Lake just shrugged.

“Don’t be a sore loser,” they teased.

They were surprised for just a moment when Jesse suddenly tried to reach over and grab the last remaining card in their hands. Lake was still too fast for him, leaning back and quickly holding it up and out of his reach. That didn’t stop Jesse from reaching over, knocking the remaining deck over as he tried to get to their card.

“Now who’s cheating?” they said, using the stuffed seal to block Jesse as much as they could while still holding their card out of reach.

“Doesn’t count! You cheated first!” he insisted, and it was kind of stupid how much Lake was laughing at this point.

That laughter died abruptly when a voice called into the room from the hallway.

“Jesse?” a woman’s voice said, the same one that had called him down for dinner earlier, that Lake could only assume was his mom. They both froze on the spot, Jesse leaning over them, looking nearly as terrified as Lake felt.

“Yeah?” he called back, and it was hard to tell if they were panicking or if Jesse actually sounded as guilty as Lake felt he did right then. Every part of them was yelling at them to run again, at the very least try to hide, but they didn’t want to move for fear of making any noises. It didn’t help that Jesse was still practically on top of them. The most Lake could do was cling to the stuffed animal in their arms and hope it hid how badly they were suddenly shaking.

“Don’t stay up too late, alright? You have school tomorrow,” Mrs. Cosay said through the door, and that- that sounded like a normal enough goodnight. Maybe she hadn’t heard them? The storm was still raging outside after all. Lake had gotten so into their game, they had nearly forgotten.

“Uhuh, I won’t. Goodnight,” Jesse replied, still not moving from where he had froze as well.

“Goodnight,” Mrs. Cosay finished, and they both stayed silent for a moment, straining to hear the sound of footsteps retreating over the rain against the window. A long pause seemed to be enough for Jesse, who let out a sigh of relief, moving back away from Lake to sit sheepishly on the other side of the bed. Lake sat up again as well, letting the card in their hand drop as they clung fully to the large plush, not looking directly over at Jesse.

“Hey uh, you okay?” Jesse asked quietly after a moment, keeping his voice near a whisper. Lake forced themself to nod, even if they didn’t feel very okay right now.

They were being stupid. They couldn’t keep letting their guard down like this. One of these times it was going to get the better of them, and then they would have to run and fight all over again.

“Maybe we should do something else, um, a little quieter. Just to be safe. Plus, I do have school tomorrow,” Jesse suggested, and Lake just shrugged. It wasn’t much of a response, but Jesse seemed to take that as a go ahead, starting to clean up the cards that had gotten spilled all over the bed once they started roughhousing.

Hesitating a moment, Lake pulled out the cards they had let slip into their lap, holding them out for Jesse to return to the others. It took a beat before he realized what they were, a small smile working its way back onto his face as he took them.

“Cheater,” he teased, a warm tone to his voice that nearly got Lake smiling again as well.

“Told you, Dracula was stealing them,” they said, feeling a little dumb blaming the stuffed animal, but Jesse just snickered at that. At this point Jesse had gathered all of the cards back up and shoved them into the little cardboard box again. “We can call that one a draw,” Lake added after a moment, still speaking quietly from the fear before.

“Fair enough,” Jesse said, not actually sounding bothered by the whole thing. Taking a deep breath, it didn’t do much to calm their nerves, but it was better than nothing.

“So uh, did you have anything in mind that’s quieter?” they asked, watching as a look of deep thought fell over Jesse’s face at the question.

“I mean, we could put some headphones in and watch a movie, or something,” he suggested, which wasn’t the worst idea he could have come up with.

“Sure, that sounds okay. If you’re not too tired, or anything,” they said, and Jesse quickly shook his head at that. He’d stood up now, walking across the room to grab a laptop off of his desk. Tulip had always preferred a desktop computer, so it wasn’t too bad when Jesse sat down next to her, opening the laptop and signing on.

“I’m good. I’m not gonna be sleeping anytime soon, and besides, I still need to sneak down later and grab you some dinner,” he insisted. Lake wanted to argue that he didn’t have to do anything for them, but instead they just found themself nodding. It was pretty obvious that Jesse was going to insist anyway.

So instead they watched as Jesse signed into some streaming site and started flipping through the options. Watching and paying attention to shows and videos had always been difficult as a reflection. Usually, they were being reflected in the screen, which meant they couldn’t actually see anything. Even when they were being reflected somewhere else, screens tended to be really hard to parse in the mirror world.

“Anything standing out to you?” Jesse asked, and Lake shrugged.

“Dunno, I’ve never watched a lot of TV before,” they said truthfully. They tried to think of what they wanted to see, now that they actually had a choice. It was a harder question than they expected. “Um, could we do like, something about nature? I guess,” they settled on finally. There was still too much about the world that they didn’t know, and more than anything they wanted to learn. Luckily Jesse didn’t see off-put by the suggestion, nodding and clicking onto another category.

“Sure, like a documentary or something?” he asked, and Lake simply nodded at that. It didn’t take them too long to pick out one that looked interesting enough after that, Jesse handing them one side of a set of earbuds.

It was surprisingly relaxing, even with how close they had to sit together to share the headphones. It was enough that after a while Lake’s heart was no longer threatening to beat out of their chest from fear, and the longer they sat without hearing any sounds from anyone else in the house, the more Lake was able to ease into the idea of not being found.

“I wonder if you could get closer to animals,” Jesse said after some time, more of a mumble than anything, but still catching Lake’s attention.

“Hmm?” they hummed, wanting to hear what kind of explanation he’d give for that question.

“Just, a lot of animals get curious about things they’ve never seen before, plus you’re so shiny. Do you think if you stood really still you could get wolves or whatever to come right up to you?” he asked, and honestly, it was a pretty fair question. It also was something that Lake had already tested, at least somewhat.

“I’ve gotten some birds to land on me. I haven’t really seen much else out in those woods, so maybe,” they said. They could almost immediately see the interest on Jesse’s face at that.

“That’s so cool,” he said, and Lake couldn’t help snorting and rolling their eyes at that. That response only got him to pout indignantly at them. “What? It is! You can’t pretend you’re not super cool,” he insisted. Lake couldn’t help smirking slightly at that.

“Hey, you said it, not me,” they said, more than a little amused at the flustered expression on Jesse’s face now.

“I mean, it’s true,” he muttered, definitely avoiding eye contact now. Lake snorted, a dumb smile stuck on their face. “ Anyway,” he continued, obviously trying to jump to just any other topic. “Everyone should be asleep by now, if you want me to go down and grab you some food,” he offered. Lake was only half paying attention to the documentary at this point, and honestly wasn’t about to pass up food at this point.

“I could eat,” they said, Jesse pausing the documentary at that and getting up. Lake followed to the door so that they could lock it behind him. Maybe it was a little paranoid, since when they last looked at the clock it was getting close to midnight, but they weren’t about to risk that. They didn’t bother to go back to the bed, instead staying by the door as they waited for Jesse to get back.

It didn’t take long, and Lake locked the door once again behind him as he came in. There was a plate in his hands that he quickly passed them, with some sort of tomato-y casserole. Sitting down on the bed so that they didn’t drop anything, Jesse sat down as well, having apparently grabbed a bag of chips for himself.

Trying the casserole, Lake felt their eyes widen as they quickly started scooping more into their mouth.

“Holy shit, the mirror world is probably to blame but your mom cooks so much better than Tulip’s parents,” they blurted out, not thinking as they spoke. It was true, and yeah a part of that was probably because flavors didn’t exactly translate well in the mirror world, combined with Tulip’s terrible preferences, plus the fact that her parents were both working all the time.

“Who’s Tulip?” Jesse asked, Lake immediately freezing at the realization of what they just let slip. He hadn’t asked it in any pressing way, simple curiosity in his voice. Lake shoved some more food in their mouth to give them some time before answering.

“Just… someone. I used to know before,” they managed, and now they were the one avoiding eye contact.

“But not a friend?” Jesse continued, which confused Lake for a moment before they remembered. They had told him that they’d never had a friend before. It wasn’t even a lie, really. They weren’t sure if Tulip counted.

“It’s complicated. We could have been friends, but I needed to leave, so we didn’t really get a chance,” they explained, which was honestly way more than they needed to tell anyone. For once though Jesse didn’t look like he was going to press them too much on this.

“That makes sense,” he said, and by now Lake had finished eating, Jesse taking the plate and setting it on his desk for now.

“You should probably get to sleep soon, right?” they asked, and Jesse looked a little disappointed at that. Even still, he nodded.

“Right, yeah I’ve got school. Wait here a second,” he said, getting up and quickly leaving the room. There was a moment where Lake wasn’t sure if they should run and lock the door again, but he came back before they could decide, a blanket and pillow bundled up in his arms. Lake shut the door as Jesse started kicking a space clear on the floor. Lake expected him to dump the stuff on the floor, but then he was digging through the closet again.

“What are you doing?” they asked, amusement tinting their voice the slightest bit. After a moment Jesse must’ve found what he was looking for, coming back out with a triumphant smile.

“Sleeping bag! I was thinking you could take it with you when you went back too. I haven’t used it in forever,” he explained, and Lake’s first instinct was to turn the offer down. They didn’t need the help.

But it might be nice…

“We’ll see,” they settled on. They ended up setting it up so that Lake was laying on top of the closed sleeping bag, using it as a mat, with a blanket over top of them. They might have also grabbed that stuffed seal again, but Jesse didn’t comment on it. Once they were both lying down Jesse clicked off the little lamp he had on the side table, plunging the room into darkness.

It was quiet then, the only sound was the rain still drumming along outside. It seemed like the thunder and lightning had eased up some at this point, just the occasional rumble off in the distance. It would probably be safe enough for them to leave in the morning again, but for the moment Lake was trying not to think about that.

“Psst, are you still awake?” Jesse’s voice came in a hissed whisper after a moment, and it was dumb but Lake was almost immediately smiling again, kind of glad that it was dark enough that no one else would be able to see.

“Yeah, why?” they whispered right back.

“I’m not tired,” he said, and this time Lake did end up snorting in amusement. They couldn’t even blame him, they weren’t super tired either.

“You’re gonna regret that in the morning,” they insisted, because that was definitely something they knew well from Tulip. Staying up way too late and then having to go to school never seemed like a good time for the girl.

“Maybe I’ll wake up sick,” Jesse suggested, and Lake paused at that. It was… more tempting than it should have been.

“Go to sleep, you dork,” they insisted.

“ Fiiine,” Jesse sighed heavily. “Goodnight Lake.”

“Goodnight.”

Chapter Text

Jesse immediately groaned when his alarm pulled him from his sleep. He was exhausted, even more so than usual in the morning, and he couldn’t remember why for a moment. Instead his brain could only focus on a desire to get that beeping to stop so that he could go back to sleep. Five more minutes wouldn't hurt.

Then he heard the whispering.

“Jesse? Jesse come on, come on! Wake up before someone comes to check on you, Jesse,” an obviously worried voice hissed close by, and suddenly he could remember exactly why he was so tired.

Lake.

He had actually convinced them to come inside for the night, and so he hadn’t exactly managed to get a lot of sleep. Sure, they had laid down kind of late, but around midnight wasn’t completely unheard of for him. No, he just wasn’t able to get much sleep afterwards either. It didn't help that he had set his alarm for even earlier than usual too.

“I’m up, I’m up,” he insisted, even if he still didn’t feel all that awake. Despite that, he managed to at least get himself to open his eyes.

And immediately found himself staring straight into shiny, reflective silver. In the dim morning light it took his blurry sleep-weary eyes a second to process the sight into Lake’s face, barely a few inches from his own. As soon as that realization clicked in his brain, Jesse felt his face heat up.

Yelping like he’d been burned, Jesse quickly scrambled back in his bed to get some distance.

“ Oookay, ha, good morning! Wow! Uh, how long were you staring at me for?” he asked, speaking at a slightly higher pitch than was necessary. He didn’t think anyone could blame him, it was very flustering to wake up to someone immediately staring you in the eyes with barely a couple of inches of space in between. Lake for their part also looked embarrassed, having quickly stood up and stepped back from the bed.

“I wasn’t- your alarm was going off and you weren’t waking up. I didn’t want someone to come and try to see,” they insisted, which, okay, that made sense. They had been really worried about getting caught this whole time, and Jesse couldn’t blame them.

“Oh, right, sorry. You were right about regretting staying up,” he said, and Lake just nodded at that. Rubbing at his eyes and checking his phone, he’d set it so that he had woken up earlier than he strictly needed so that they would have time to get Lake back without anyone seeing. Looking out the window, the sky was just light and gray enough to make out the morning. Everything was still wet, a few droplets of rainwater falling from where they had collected in the trees, but otherwise it seemed like the storm had passed.

Lake must’ve followed along with his gaze, noticing the turn in the weather as well and making their own conclusions.

“I should get going, before it gets too late and everyone’s awake. I- thanks again, for letting me crash here. I’ll figure out something more permanent for next time,” they said, and Jesse tried to hide the frown that immediately wanted to pull at his lips at that.

“Hey, it was fun. And like, if you ever need somewhere to crash again, window’s open,” he offered, managing to get a small smile from Lake at that. At some point last night they had hung their clothes off the back of a desk chair to dry from the rain, and Jesse watched as they went over and grabbed them again now. Which, right. Climbing out of bed, Jesse quickly started ruffling through his dresser.

“I’ll go get dressed in the bathroom again so that you can change,” he offered, hesitating before offering the next part. “If you’re cool to stick around for a minute, I could walk you back to the woods before school,” he added, definitely noticing the way Lake paused out of the corner of his eye.

“Do you have time for that?” they asked simply, which was fair.

“Yeah, I set my alarm kind of early,” he explained, Lake still looking a bit hesitant about the idea. He wouldn’t push it if they didn’t want him to, that was fine. It just seemed like a good thing to at least offer.

“What about your parents?” they asked next.

“I’ll just tell them I’ve gotta get to school early for swim,” he said, which happened often enough that he already knew his parents wouldn’t question it. There was still a part of Lake that looked unsure about the whole thing, but it seemed like their concern was more with being caught than not wanting to spend more time with him. Or at least, he hoped that was the case.

“You sure?” they asked finally, and Jesse quickly nodded, having settled on an outfit now as he moved closer to the door.

“Definitely. You don’t have a phone or anything, I wanna make sure you manage to get back okay,” he said, a small smirk tugging at Lake’s lips at that.

“I can take care of myself, ya know,” they insisted. Which was fair, they had clearly managed fine before meeting him after all. Jesse didn’t let that dissuade him any, just grinning and nodding.

“I know,” he said, slipping out of his room and into the upstairs bathroom. It was earlier than usual, which meant Nate wasn’t up yet. That was definitely a good thing. Jesse could manage little white lies and stretching the truth to his parents without much trouble, but Nate was better at telling when something was up. Or maybe Jesse was just worse at lying to him, or it was a combination of both things.

Making sure to give Lake plenty of time to finish changing, he knocked on the door so that they could let him in again. Giving a quick look around his room, he had spent a lot of time last night when he couldn’t sleep planning out the morning.

“You can roll up the sleeping bag while I get my bookbag together,” he said, getting a hesitant nod from Lake. It was pretty clear that they still weren’t too comfortable accepting help, but that didn’t mean Jesse wasn’t going to keep offering it.

He just- he just needed to show Lake that he could be a friend worth keeping. That he could help them and keep their secret. That being his friend wasn’t a mistake and he wasn’t going to let anyone find out and hurt them.

“Do you want a hoodie or something?” he offered, seeming to take Lake by surprise.

“Huh?”

“I was just thinking it’s getting colder. Plus if you had one you could pull the hood up and people would be less likely to notice the whole metal thing,” he explained. He could see them hesitate, weighing the pros vs accepting help.

“I’m not really sure how well our styles would mesh,” they said, and Jesse snorted at that. It was definitely one of the weaker excuses Lake could have come up with.

“Pssh, I’m sure I’ve got something that would fit,” he said, quickly flipping through his closet, not taking long before grabbing a specific hanger and turning back around. “Here! Red and black go together! You can still keep your badass metal punk look,” he said, holding up a bright red pullover hoodie. A little bit to his surprise Lake actually took the hanger from him, quickly inspecting the garment.

“You know… the benefit of wearing black is that it blends in. People are a lot less likely to notice you in the dark woods at night than if, say, you were wearing something super bright,” they said, and almost immediately the smile dropped from Jesse’s face.

“Right, shoot, sorry. I wasn’t thinking about that,” he said, reaching over to take the hoodie from them again. He was definitely surprised when Lake took a step back, pulling the hoodie out of reach

“I didn’t say no,” they said quickly, and Jesse was pretty sure they were blushing again. It was still really weird and kind of funny that they could do that.

“Oh,” he said, not too sure what to think anymore. Lake quickly threw the hoodie on over their short sleeve black shirt though, so he guessed it was a success. It was way harder than it needed to be to fight down the smile that was trying to worm its way onto his face now, at any rate.

“So uh, should I just go out the window again?” Lake asked after a moment, and right, they needed to get moving if Jesse actually wanted to get to school on time.

“Right, yeah you can get out the same way you came in. I’ll be out in like, five minutes? Just gonna grab some breakfast and let my parents know I’m heading out,” he said, Lake nodding at that. He made sure they had taken the sleeping bag before heading downstairs, using the strap to hook it over their shoulder. Once that was settled, he made his way out of his room, trying to look like it was any other morning. He wasn't surprised to see that his dad was the only one awake at this time of day.

“You’re up early,” he said, and Jesse nodded, heading straight to the kitchen.

“I promised some of the guys from the swim team that we would meet up before school today,” he said, which sounded believable enough. He was always staying after or going in early for swim. Today wasn’t a normal day he would, but it was starting to get close to state. They were gonna start spending more time at the pool soon anyway.

Shoving a muffin into his mouth, he wrapped two more up in a paper towel before shoving them into his jacket pocket. Not the most stealthy, but it was better than just having an extra bag of food.

“What time do you plan on getting home tonight?” his dad asked, which was probably fair, but also not something his parents had asked him much before. He guessed he was staying out a bit more, especially since meeting Lake.

“Uh, I shouldn’t be out too long. Might grab something to eat with some friends,” he said, wanting to give himself some room just in case. “Okay, talk to you later! Have a good day!” he added, starting for the door.

“Have fun at school,” his dad replied. Shutting the door, Jesse only paused a moment before slinking to the backyard. He wasn’t surprised to see that Lake was already out and waiting for him, or that they had already pulled the hood up over their head and had their hands jammed into pockets. It was big enough on them that from a distance, as dim as it was outside at this hour, he was pretty sure no one would immediately guess that they were made of metal.

“Breakfast!” he announced happily, pulling out one of the muffins and holding it out for them. Lake snorted, quickly taking the food and holding it close.

“I’ll eat once we’re away from all this,” they said, giving a quick glance around to the rows of houses around them. Jesse couldn’t argue with that, nodding and starting to lead Lake back towards the woods.

It wasn’t hard to see just how nervous being out, even at such an early time of day, made Lake. They were hunched in on themself, keeping as much of their form hidden as physically possible. They were also walking much closer to Jesse than he expected, practically leaning against his side.

Which was, um… something.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before they reached the edge of the woods. Once they were back between the trees, it was easy to see Lake’s form start to relax again, slowly uncurling as they moved to walk with a slightly more normal distance between them.

“Better?” he asked, the question seeming to take them by surprise for a moment. Understanding quickly fell over their face though, and they nodded, actually starting to eat the muffin Jesse had handed them earlier.

“Yeah, feels a lot less like all eyes are on me,” they said, and Jesse couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at that.

“We were the only people out there,” he said, because it was true. It was a little too early for people to be heading out to the bus or things like that, so the street had been quiet.

“Windows,” Lake answered, a certainty to their voice that made windows feel like a very real threat. All Jesse could do was nod, Lake glancing over at him out of the corner of their eye, a look of thought on their face. “You know, I can make it from here. You don’t have to walk me all the way if you need to get gone,” they added.

“I should have time,” he said, quickly pulling out his phone to check, just in case. “Oh yeah, I still have like, fifteen minutes before I should head out, we’re good,” he continued. Lake looked a bit surprised by that, nodding nonetheless.

“Oh, okay then,” they said, finishing off the last of the muffin. Without missing a beat Jesse pulled the second one he’d stashed away out for Lake to take, who seemed to grab it without a thought. It was only after biting into it did they suddenly pause, finishing the bite with a perplexed look on their face. “How many of these do you have?” they asked, and Jesse burst out laughing.

“That’s it, I promise,” he managed after a moment, sticking his hands into his jacket pockets to prove his point. Lake just snorted, definitely smiling around their food now, as much as they were probably trying to hide it. They weren’t walking for too much longer before Jesse started to recognize the area as close to where they normally met up. Even still, he was a little surprised when Lake stopped suddenly.

“What’s up?” he asked, glancing back over to them and immediately feeling concern start to bubble in his stomach. The smile that had been on Lake’s face before was entirely gone now, their expression almost completely blank.

“We’re here,” they said, voice just as carefully wiped clean of any emotions as their face had been. Jesse was full on frowning now, looking around at the clearing. He hadn’t seen much of Lake’s set up last time, more focused on keeping cover for the rain, but there had definitely been a shelter.

“Are you sure? I don’t see any-” he started to ask, pausing at the sound of sticks snapping loudly under his feet as he walked forward. Looking down, he immediately winced at what was left of the structure scattered across the ground. “Oh.”

“Looks like we made the right call,” Lake said, voice measured in a way that didn't exactly feel natural as they walked over and dropped the sleeping bag down on a nearby log. They still had the hood up, and facing away from him now Jesse couldn’t get a good look at their face. Making sure to walk around the pile of former-shelter, Jesse wasn’t sure if their hands were shaking or if it was just his imagination.

“Yeah, thankfully we got you out of here before it came down completely,” he said, trying to spin this positively and not sure if it was working in the slightest. “And it’s not that bad. It’s- I can help you fix it. It should go a lost faster if you’re not working alone, and we can try to make it sturdier so that it doesn’t collapse next-”

“Jesse,” Lake cut in, a sharp tone to their voice that immediately froze him in his spot. “Just… fucking , go to school,” they continued, the words coming out choppy and a little forced.

“I still have time, there’s no hurry,” he tried to insist, because well, it was clear as anything that Lake was upset now and he didn’t want to just leave them like this. There had to be some way that he could fix this. “You said you didn’t have any tools to build it last time, right? I could bring some,” he continued.

“Just stop,” Lake snapped, actually turning back around to face him now. The only good thing was that Jesse could at least see that they weren't crying. Their eyes were definitely even shinier than they normally were, a sheen of water coating them, but none of it had broken yet. “I said go. Just- just leave me alone, for once, ” they insisted, and this time Jesse nodded slowly, trying his best to ignore the way those words felt like a knife in the chest.

He didn’t say anything, because it felt like if he tried to he would only make this worse. Even still, he found himself hesitating slightly at the edge of the clearing. Glancing back, Lake wasn’t looking at him anymore, toeing around in the wet pile of twigs and leaves.

He should just go before he made them even more upset. They were finally friends, he didn’t want to screw it up already. Not when things had been going so good just beforehand. He was being too clingy. Of course Lake was already annoyed with him.

“Is… is it okay if I come back after school?” he still ended up asking. It- it was better to ask and get a no than to come later when they didn't want him around and make things even worse.

“You haven’t gotten bored of me yet? Figured the novelty would’ve worn off by now,” Lake muttered, still keeping their focus down on the ruins of their shelter.

“Oh, not even close,” Jesse blurted out, definitely a touch more sincere sounding than he intended. It was enough to get them to actually look over at him again, the surprise there clear. Jesse could feel his face decide to take this moment to heat up in a blush, and he quickly continued. “I mean, we’re friends now. The metal thing is really cool and all but that’s not why I want to hang out with you,” he said, and it was true.

He’d had more fun with Lake last night than he had with any of his other friends in… a while, and they hadn’t even done that much.

Some of the edges that had gathered around Lake seemed to ease at that, and after a moment they let out a long sigh before nodding.

“If you’re not busy, you know where to find me,” they said finally, the implicit permission in their words clear enough. Jesse couldn’t help but smile slightly as he nodded.

“Okay then, see you later Lake,” he said, just getting a hum in response, but it was better than nothing. Glancing at his phone, he had enough time that he wasn’t in any rush to get to school, especially since he hadn’t actually planned to meet up with anyone from the swim team today. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to get to school a little bit early. He did take the opportunity to run into a gas station and buy an energy drink though, because Lake had been right about him regretting not sleeping that much the night before.

He still ended up getting to school early enough to grab breakfast too, which, he’d had a muffin at home but he could definitely still eat. Sitting with some of the theater kids, he wasn’t super close to any of them, but they were fun to hang out with whenever he got the chance. Which would probably be less now as swim season started up in earnest, so he might as well take the opportunities while he still had them.

The energy drink had definitely been a good choice when it came to keeping him awake for the school day. It was definitely starting to be a struggle after lunch, once it began to wear off and the crash hit, but he tried not to let it be too noticeable. Otherwise, the school day had passed by relatively uneventfully, other than one or two more bugs from before still popping up in class. At this point though, most people seemed more annoyed and frustrated than scared.

By the time the final bell rang, Jesse just wanted to go, check in to make sure Lake was still okay real quick, and then go home and collapse.

So he was more than a little surprised and a tad irritated when this was the time that his friends called for him as he started to split off from the group.

“Hey Cosay! Where you going?” Troy asked, and Jesse quickly plastered a smile on his face as he turned back towards the group. He didn’t even really have to fake it, or at least, he shouldn’t have had to. His friends actually wanted him around, that was what he wanted. This just happened to be an inconvenient time for that.

“Sorry! I promised my parents I’d help with something after school,” he lied, going for all smiles and cheer as he gave a quick wave and then continued running off down the street. He would have to make it up to them later, he didn’t usually dip like that when they wanted to hang out.

Honestly, he probably would have stayed this time too, if he hadn’t left Lake in such an uncertain position in the morning. It was pretty obvious they were upset about their home getting destroyed in the storm, and he couldn’t blame them for that at all. He also really didn’t want them to think that he actually had gotten tired of them or anything like that.

So, visit Lake now, figure out a way to make it up to his other friends later.

Also, it wasn’t anything special, but Jesse still made sure to stop by a gas station for snacks on the way.

He had a pretty good idea of where to find them now after going there twice, so it didn’t take too long to find the right clearing. The area was still pretty damp from the storm, but according to the forecast there wasn’t any worry about it raining again tonight. Which maybe was a little disappointing but for the best if he wanted to get any rest at all.

It was probably a good thing that he had been able to find the clearing, because it didn’t seem like Lake was in the mood to get up and lead him to the right place. They were sitting down on one of the logs, which he could see now must work as some makeshift seats or benches they had pulled over. They were fiddling with something in their hands, although Jesse couldn’t figure out what from this distance.

The shelter was also in the same exact state as it had been when he left this morning. Or, maybe in worse shape. It might’ve been even more scattered than it was before, it was hard to tell.

“Hey,” he said simply, going and sitting down on the log next to them. Looking closer now, he could see what was in their hands, a little surprised when he recognized it. “I thought I lost that,” he said, watching the little crystal charm dangle from its beaded string. Lake just shrugged, letting it twirl for a moment longer before clutching it back into their fist.

“You did. I just happened to find it afterwards,” they said, which was probably fair. He still didn't get how it was supposed to be a ghost hunting tool, but it was pretty and Lake seemed to like it.

“Well, I already got Derrick a replacement to give his sister, so you can keep it,” Jesse said, and even if he hadn’t it wouldn’t make that much sense to finally return it now. Lake snorted at that, but despite it all Jesse was still having a hard time figuring out exactly how they were feeling right now.

“Thanks,” they said, in a way that Jesse couldn’t quite parse as sarcastic or not. They didn’t say anything else though, letting the crystal drop and simply watching as it spun again. Every so often it would catch the light in a way that sent little beams of rainbow sparkles across the ground and trees around them. It didn’t take too long before Jesse ended up breaking the quiet they had fallen into. He had never been all that good with quiet.

“Are you going to be okay here tonight? You know, you could stay at my place again, it’s not a problem. Like, just until you get your shelter back up,” he said, making the offer before he could second guess it. He couldn’t say he was shocked when Lake started shaking their head though.

“I’ve got the sleeping bag, that’s more than enough. Thanks anyway,” they said, and Jesse wanted to argue with that. Sure, they were made of metal, but there was no way that would be comfortable long term.

“Are you sure? It’s really not a problem,” he tried, even if it was actually at least a little bit of a problem, since no one could actually know about Lake. They sighed heavily at that, not appearing very convinced.

“Jesse, I’m fine. Trust me, I’ve slept in places a lot worse than this,” they said, and he didn’t doubt them. He didn’t have much of an idea of what their life had been like before coming here, but it was obviously something pretty fantastical, to have ended up in a totally different dimension.

“…like where?” he asked after a moment, and normally he wouldn’t press like this. He was curious though, and well, he wanted to see if they would actually answer or not. Glancing over at Lake, they looked surprised by the question for a moment, and then he could see a thoughtful expression fall over their face.

“There was, um, have you ever been to a beach where they have a bunch of those weird concrete shapes stacked up right on the coast? They’re supposed to help with erosion I think,” they said, which wasn’t what Jesse was expecting. Frowning slightly, he shook his head.

“Not really,” he said, pulling out his phone and typing in ‘concrete shapes beach’ and looking at google images. Lake pointed towards the first picture, of a bunch of weird, almost playing jack shaped pieces of concrete stacked up on a beach.

“Yeah, like that. Except it wasn’t on a beach. I just sorta crammed myself between a couple and passed out for a few hours,” they explained, and alright yeah, there was no way that Jesse could picture that which was even the slightest bit comfortable.

“My back hurts just thinking about that,” he said, getting a chuckle from Lake in response.

“Exactly. So believe me, I’ll be fine with this,” they said, and it sounded the slightest bit more believable this time. As much as Jesse didn’t want to leave it alone, he really didn’t want to push and make them upset again either, so a little reluctantly he nodded.

“If you say so,” he relented, grabbing the bag he’d gotten from the gas station and holding it out for them to take. They did, quickly inspecting the contents inside but not taking out any to eat yet. “I told my dad I wasn’t staying out too late today, but I wanted to stop by first,” he added. Lake nodded, setting the bag down on the other tree stump nearby. Which… he probably could have sat on, instead of right next to Lake. Whoops.

“Thanks,” they said simply, pausing for a moment with a conflicted look on their face. Before Jesse could figure out if that was it or not, they continued. “I’m… glad we’re friends.”

“Me too!” Jesse replied immediately, a grin automatically on his face at that. It only dipped the slightest bit as he remembered what else he was planning on saying. “I probably won’t have time to stop by tomorrow, but if I’m not able to on Friday I should definitely be free this weekend. Plus, if you ever need anything, you know where I live now,” he added, Lake nodding at that.

“Right, I’ll probably save that for emergencies only,” they said, and that was more than fair. Sneaking around in the neighborhood was definitely dangerous for them, they shouldn’t do it more than necessary.

Even if he was already wishing for another chance to hang out like last night again.

“Sounds good. Catch you later Lake!” he said, standing up and starting back out of the clearing.

“Later,” they echoed after him, and it didn’t take long to make the familiar trip back out of the woods.

And if he was still smiling like an idiot at what Lake had said, there was no one else around but him to see it.

Chapter Text

Lake managed to keep a smile on their face until Jesse was out of sight again. Their attempt at taking in a deep breath afterwards turned into a shaky sigh, and it wasn’t that late out yet but they started unrolling the sleeping bag nonetheless. They hadn’t done it before because Jesse had said he was going to come back after school, but he was gone now so there was nothing else to wait for.

They could sulk as much as they wanted.

It was so fucking stupid. There was no reason for them to be so upset right now, not over something they should have seen coming. Of course the shitty little lean-to they scraped together got demolished in that storm. That was part of the reason why they had agreed to go stay with Jesse for the night in the first place. They had really doubted its ability to remain a functioning shelter during that, and they were right, it broke.

There was nothing else to do but start to rebuild. If they were smart about it they would take up Jesse’s offer for some actual tools. Maybe even ask for some rope or something, just a hammer and some nails would do wonders.

The hoodie was a little big on them, so their hands were covered by the sleeves when they brought them up tight to their chest as they curled up in the sleeping bag. They could see the bag of snacks and drinks still sitting on the other tree stump if they bothered to look, closing their eyes instead of doing that.

They liked having Jesse as a friend.

They didn’t understand why he kept going out of his way for them.

They felt like they were counting the seconds until all of this blew up in their face and sent them running again. Because it wasn’t safe. Nothing was ever safe for them.

But well, they had said it before. Safe wasn’t the point. Getting to live a life they wanted was.

Last night they could hear the rain thrumming against the windows, trying not to laugh as Jesse leaned over the bed to say something stupid because he still couldn’t sleep and they had been wrapped up in an actual blanket clinging to some dumb stuffed animal with an ill-fitting name, and for a fleeting moment Lake actually had felt safe.

It wasn’t fair.

That was stupid to complain about though, because of course it wasn’t. Nothing had ever been fair, and it never would be because as far as he universe was concerned they weren’t a real person. The universe was wrong, but there was only so much they could do against it.

Like now, all they could do was huddle in the little bit of comfort their friend had gifted them and try not to have another breakdown like they had earlier. They had attempted to start rebuilding their shelter after all, but it was just- it felt pointless. It was just going to be destroyed by another storm. They would have to leave eventually, whenever things got too dangerous here. All of this was temporary, so what was the point in pretending to set up a home?

They were a rogue reflection that accidentally fell through a door that wasn’t meant for them. Who were they fooling, trying to pretend there might be a place for them to belong? Jesse would get tired of them eventually. Someone else would see them.

It was only a matter of time.

Jesse didn’t show up the next day, but he had said that he wouldn’t be able to stop by, so that wasn’t too much of a surprise. It kind of seemed like he’d gotten more snacks than usual this time because of it, which was just… another thing they didn’t understand. Sooner or later, he’d have to get annoyed with providing all this stuff for them, right? They didn't see what he could possibly be getting out of all of this.

The next day was a no-show too, and Lake wasn’t getting worried. He’d mentioned possibly not being able to get by until the weekend, and Lake knew how to pass the time on their own anyway. After a full day of sulking, they slowly started trying to build up a shelter again. They told themself that they were going slower so that they could think about it more, make it more resistant to storms. They couldn’t just hide at Jesse’s house every time it rained after all, they needed to be able to take care of themself. He wasn’t always going to be there to run to if they needed it. They couldn't forget that.

It must’ve been Saturday when Jesse turned up again. It was much too early in the day for it to be a weekday, although that was honestly the only tell they had. They really weren’t great at keeping track of time in any meaningful way.

“Lake, you there?” he called, and they slowly pulled themself up from where they’d been absentmindedly braiding some vines into something that could pass for a rope.

“It’s not like I’ve got anywhere better to be,” they said, and they could see Jesse now. They could also see the exact moment he caught sight of them, a big grin immediately springing onto his face.

“Hey! Sorry I couldn’t stop by yesterday, there was this whole thing with the swim team, and try outs for state are coming up soon. I’m actually not even supposed to be here now because I’m kinda grounded but I didn’t want you to think I was avoiding you or anything and you continue to not have a phone because you live in the woods so-”

To say Jesse was speaking a mile a minute would be an understatement. Every time Lake would think there was a moment for them to cut in he would continue with something else that would make their brain have to pause and process the words all over again. It didn’t take too long though before they finally managed to break through enough to speak.

“Jesse!” they snapped, maybe a little bit louder than necessary, but it managed to get him to stop.

“Yes?” he asked, with a grin just a little too innocent, definitely a little forced.

“I’m gonna need you to roll that one back for me,” they said, because even though he had spoken a lot of words, it didn’t actually amount to a lot of information. There were definitely some bits in there that were a little concerning, however.

“Tryouts for state are coming up?” he offered, and oh, it was going to be like that.

“No, after that.”

“Uh, oh! I have breakfast!” he said, holding up a bag with the Denny’s logo on it. Lake let out a sigh, trying to ignore the fact that they were actually pretty damn hungry and food was certainly a little distracting.

“No, you hadn’t even mentioned that part. The grounded thing,” they clarified, because it was obvious that Jesse wasn’t going to touch on it again until they flung it into his face. Immediately the smile there got a little more strained, not doing a good job of selling the way he quickly tried to shrug it off.

“What? Oh that’s- that’s not a big deal,” he tried to insist, but Lake could already feel themself start to twitch, hands wanting to start packing up every shred of belongings they had managed to gather and run off where no one could find them.

“Jesse, is someone going to come looking for you?” they asked, and only then did he seem to finally notice the anxiety running through them.

“What? No! No, no, Lake, I wouldn’t come here if I thought it was going to put you in danger, I swear,” he said quickly. Despite themself Lake felt some of the tension in their chest ease up at the reassurance. “I just… kinda got in trouble at school, so my parents told me I couldn’t go out this weekend. I snuck out sure, but if they do notice they’ll just think I’m over at a friend’s house. They have no idea you exist or that I’ve been coming to the woods, so no one will think to look for me here,” he continued, and a little reluctantly Lake nodded.

“Okay but you really shouldn’t stay here long anyway then,” they insisted, hating the disappointment they felt at that. At least on his part Jesse looked about as disappointed on the outside as they were on the inside.

“I know, I just wanted to bring you something to eat real quick. And also make sure you weren’t worried about me,” he added, and even as Lake rolled their eyes at that last part a dumb smile was trying to tug at their lips.

“I don’t think worried is quite the right word,” they said, and Jesse shrugged, holding the Denny’s bag out for them again. This time Lake didn’t hesitate to take it. When they went to sit down on their log, Jesse followed along. “I thought we both agreed you couldn’t stay long,” they said, getting a deep sigh from the boy.

“I knooow,” he whined, letting his head fall into his hands. “Just lemme rest my legs for a minute. The Denny’s is kinda a walk from here,” he added, and it sounded like more of an excuse than anything, one Lake couldn’t help snorting at.

“You did not have to go out of the way for Denny’s of all things,” they said as they started unwrapping the food Jesse had gotten them. It looked like some sort of breakfast burrito. They knew it certainly wasn’t anything fancy, but it smelled good enough that they weren’t actually complaining.

“You know what Denny’s is? You know enough about Denny’s to have an opinion on it?” Jesse asked, which was probably fair. Lake still hadn’t explained anything about how they knew so much about this world despite not having been here for very long. For his part, Jesse was doing a good job of not pressing all that much for the details.

“I have opinions on everything,” they ended up saying, which wasn’t actually an answer. It got Jesse to laugh though, and more importantly to drop the subject.

“That’s fair,” he said simply, and it was quiet for a moment then as Lake started eating. This time though, they were the one to break that silence.

“So,” they started after a few bites. “Whatcha do?”

In response, Jesse let out a wordless grumbled whine.

“Seriously, how’d a sweetheart like you get in trouble at school? You seem like the kind of kid to bring their teachers a goddamn apple every morning,” they pressed, because it was true. They certainly doubted that Jesse only acted like this to them, after all. When he didn’t answer Lake glanced back over at him. They were surprised when instead of avoiding eye contact like before, Jesse was looking right at them. “What?” they asked, not quite expecting the doofy grin on his face.

“Did you just call me a sweetheart? That’s so cute,” he said, and immediately Lake could feel their face heating up. “Ow! Okay, been a while since we did that. We were on such a good streak too,” he yelped when they flicked him in the forehead.

“Don’t distract and answer the question,” they insisted. Again Jesse sighed, and it was pretty obvious that he was uncomfortable, which was probably fair. It wasn’t like Lake was super into talking about anything personal, so they couldn’t blame him. Because of that, they were a little surprised when he actually broke without any more prompting.

“Remember when I had to leave the other day because my friends needed me for something? And it turned out they were pulling a prank and needed some help?” he said, and it had been almost a week now, by Lake’s best guess, but they remembered.

“Yeah, what about it?” they asked, even though they could make a pretty educated guess.

“I guess maintenance actually decided to go through the security cameras at school and uh, saw me? So I got suspended for coming into school without permission and leaving a bunch of bugs everywhere,” he explained. Lake had eaten about half of the burrito by now, pausing at that and raising an eyebrow.

“Bugs?” they pressed, and again Jesse groaned.

“I didn’t know it was bugs until I opened it,” he said, and it sounded like a flimsy excuse. Despite that though, Lake actually believed him, frowning heavily now.

“So, let me get this straight,” they started, “your friends called you and made you go to school so that you could sneak in, leave a bunch of bugs, didn’t tell you what you were doing, and then let you take the fall?” they asked. As they spoke they could see Jesse’s frown deepen, his brow creasing as he shook his head.

“No, that’s- it’s not like that. They didn’t mean to get me in trouble, it was supposed to be funny,” he insisted. Lake gave a very unimpressed look at that, not all that interested in whatever it was they intended for it to be.

“Did any of them get in trouble?” they asked, not super surprised when Jesse clearly hesitated before answering.

“Well, no, but… look, there was no reason for more people to get in trouble than needed. And like, I didn’t even get kicked off the swim team or anything, it’ll be fine,” he said, and Lake still wasn’t sure how much they believed that. If anyone asked them, it sounded like Jesse’s friends were a bunch of assholes.

No one was actually asking them though, and they could stay out of other people’s business.

“If you say so,” they relented, and Jesse just nodded. By now Lake had finished the breakfast burrito, feeling significantly less hungry than they had been before.

“Your new shelter is coming along well,” Jesse said after a moment, and glancing over at it, it wasn’t… terrible. Wasn’t finished either, and still pretty haphazard, but it was a bit sturdier than the first one they’d built. They were taking their time, and it helped to have the sleeping bag as a different place to retreat to.

“Thanks,” they said simply, before looking back over at Jesse again. “Shouldn’t you be heading out soon? You don’t want to get in even more trouble,” they added, getting a deep sigh from the human boy.

“Yeah, probably,” he said, obviously reluctant as he stood up. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to sneak back with me to hang out some more, could I?” he asked, the hopeful question taking Lake off guard. They quickly tried to push it aside, snorting and rolling their eyes.

“You’re grounded,” they said, getting a disappointed pout from Jesse. Lake kind of got the feeling that he already knew they would turn down the offer, because well, last time had been an exception. This wasn’t something they were going to make a habit of. It was bad enough they were already getting so comfortable with Jesse coming around all the time.

“Worth a shot,” he said, and Lake could help smiling a little at that. “I probably shouldn’t chance sneaking out again tomorrow, but hopefully I can convince my parents to let me start walking home again after a few days next week,” he added, and it made sense. He didn’t give a lot of details, but Lake knew well enough that getting suspended was a pretty big deal to a lot of parents. Of course they would keep an eye on him for a while.

Which was probably annoying for Jesse, but it didn’t really affect them. They were used to surviving on their own after all, they could go back to that for a while. They shouldn’t get so used to having someone around anyway. It wouldn’t last.

“Whenever you’re done with your lockdown, I’ll be here. Unless I’m not, but at that point I’ve got I’ve got bigger problems to worry about and you’ll probably never see me again,” they said, not too surprised when Jesse frowned at that.

“Well don’t jinx it,” he complained.

“Dude, get going before your parents catch you already,” they insisted, and this time Jesse stopped lingering.

“Fine, fine, I’m going,” he said, heading out of the clearing with a wave, which Lake actually bothered to return.

Yeah, Lake knew that this wasn’t going to keep, but at this point it was just dumb to not at least admit to themself that it was nice while they had it. 

It was back to being quiet once Jesse was gone, and there was a small part of Lake that regretted not going along with him. A larger part knew that was stupid and was able to push those feelings down, letting out a deep sigh before pushing themself up from the log they’d been sitting on.

There was no reason to keep sitting around moping. Their only real choice was to figure it out and keep moving forward.

The fact that they’d been stuck like they were, hidden in the woods back from the water to make sure no one would notice them was probably contributing to the funk they were feeling. They weren’t used to sitting still, not since they first escaped the mirror world.

So, they tried to busy themself, at least for the rest of the day. A lot of that amounted to gathering up sticks and vines to try and finish the shelter, which really, should be further along than it was. They weren’t procrastinating, and they knew having the shelter was important, even if it wasn’t permanent. They wanted a place to live. Somewhere they could pretend was home, even if only for a little while.

It was just hard to really get their heart into it.

Still, they managed to make some significant progress by the time the sun was setting. This one might actually stand up to a small storm or two. Even if they didn’t end up staying in it for said storm, it would be nice to not have to completely rebuild every time the weather turned south for however long they were going to stay here.

Jesse had mentioned that it was getting closer to winter, and Lake wasn’t sure what the exact date was, but they could believe it. The cold wasn’t all that set in yet, that wasn’t the issue. No, instead it was the way it seemed to be getting the slightest bit darker earlier in the day. Maybe it wasn’t even all that noticeable yet, but it felt like it was to them. They certainly weren’t tired enough to go to sleep by the time the sun started falling behind the horizon, especially when they tended to spend a good chunk of most days lazing about without that much to do.

It was a full moon out tonight, and Lake decided to take advantage of the modicum of light that provided, heading towards the water. They typically tried not to spend too much time at the shore, nervous that someone would spot them across the way and start to get suspicious. Mostly they only tended to go here when Jesse stopped by.

At this time of night they could easily see the lights from the houses on the other shore, shimmering reflections of them across the surface of the water. From the one time heading over they were pretty sure one of them was Jesse’s, but they had no idea which from this distance.

As they sat, Lake lazily tossed pebbles into the water below, watching the faint ripples just barely visible in the moonlight. It was relaxing. They told themself it was relaxing, and not just another thing they were doing to kill time until everything came crashing down again.

They weren’t sure how long they sat there for, watching as slowly the lights across the water started flicking off one by one.

Really, they could do this. Be happy with this. At least here no one was actively trying to hunt them down, and they didn’t have to worry about the dangers of the train, and they could figure everything out on their own. They could experience the world on their own, even if it was just a little patch of it for now. A tiny patch.

And it wasn’t like they had a choice anyway.

At that thought Lake felt a deep frown twist onto their face. Quickly pulling the hood of their borrowed jacket up over their head, they stood up with a note of determination.

They never had a choice back in the mirror world, and they didn’t have a choice on the train either. That hadn’t ever stopped them before.

Lake didn’t see any reason why it should now.

They weren’t planning on doing anything crazy. It was late and dark, and they had their hoodie now, which was actually quite a bit more comforting than they would like to admit. Just having something they could retreat to if they needed to buy themself a few seconds. Sure, they still didn’t get why Jesse had decided to give it to them in the first place, but as it was they couldn’t afford to turn down something so useful. They hadn’t been able to take anything from the train other than the clothes on their back and, surprisingly, the can of spray paint. They had kept it hidden in their camp, but they’d stuck it, along with the knife they’d stolen from Jesse, in the front pocket. There was definitely something comforting about having those both close at hand, just in case.

They were only going to walk around some. They hadn’t explored much at all beyond the woods and edges of the water, and sure it was for good reason. They hadn’t fought so hard to stay trapped all over again though.

So, they were going to take it slow. Stay in the dark, away from people, and not go too far so that they didn’t get lost like an idiot, but Lake wasn’t going to stay in the woods forever.

They started by passing Jesse’s house. They didn’t stop or anything, they weren’t going to risk sneaking in again, especially when he was already in trouble because of his asshole other friends. Mostly, they wanted to be sure they remembered where it was, in case of an emergency.

From there they kept going, and it seemed like the immediate area was mostly neighborhood. Quiet, not many cars out and so far no people. They must've looked suspicious as anything whenever a car did roll by, hunching in on themself and slinking as far into the shadows as possible. Thankfully no one had bothered to do anything about it, and Lake wasn’t planning on pushing their luck by going anywhere super crowded.

They weren't sure how long they'd been walking for, but the moon was high overhead by the time they figured they should start heading back. The later it got the safer it was for them out here, sure, but this was also their first time this far out and the last thing they wanted was to get lost and end up on the side of a highway or some shit. They were already reaching the edge of the neighborhood area from what they could tell, the picturesque little homes starting to give way to more nondescript brick buildings. 

Shoving their hands into the front pocket of their jacket, they turned to start heading back. Lake paused though, feeling their fingers brush against the can inside. There was a square red brick building across the street, and Lake knew conceptually that it was a dumb idea. They needed to lay low, keep out of sight, plus they needed the spray paint in case the flecks-

No. No, they didn’t need to worry about that anymore. They were free.

Quickly crossing the street, they pulled the can of spray paint out of their pocket. Every other time they’d used it, their goal had just been functional. Cover as much surface as possible as fast as they could. They never tried anything with finesse before, and in reality they couldn’t spend much time practicing now either. They didn’t want to be seen, even less so seen doing something illegal.

The end result was simple and sloppy, with jerky, uneven lines and drips of black paint running down the wall wherever they put too much in one spot. Despite that, when Lake took a step back to look at it in the low light of the nearest streetlight they couldn’t help grinning. 

Cracked

There were lines coming off of it, their best attempt at imitating a broken mirror. They weren’t too sure if anyone who wasn’t told that would be able to guess that was what they were going for though, the end result looking a bit more like a spiderweb, especially since all they had was black. 

It took them a second of looking it over before they realized what was wrong with their writing. Well, not wrong to them, but to anyone else who would try to read it. They hadn’t been thinking as they wrote, tracing the letters backwards like they would have when they had been in the mirror.

For a second they considered blacking the whole thing out and starting again. Trying to do it right this time. 

Pretty quickly though, they decided against it, giving one last look before putting the can of spray paint back into their jacket and starting their way towards the woods again. They’d never done anything the right way before after all.

They weren’t going to start now.

Chapter Text

Jesse let out a sigh of relief as he slipped back into his bedroom without anyone noticing that he’d left. At least, he assumed for now that no one had seen him leave. He managed to get back in through his window without anyone calling him out, and it didn’t look like his bedroom had been disturbed any since he left.

And maybe it was a stupid move to sneak out when he was already in trouble. He knew that, he wasn’t as dumb as most people thought he was, but he also didn’t have much of a choice. Not if he didn’t want Lake to think he’d gotten bored and decided not to come back or something, which super wasn’t the case.

He didn’t have to take any more dumb risks though, because now Lake knew the whole story. Or well, the important bits. There was no need to bore them with all the unimportant details, especially since it wasn’t even that big of a deal. His friends hadn’t meant to get him in trouble, and he hadn’t meant to release a bunch of bugs into the school.

His friends had meant to release a bunch of bugs into the school, and none of them had gotten in trouble. Jesse knew that they appreciated him though, and there was no reason for more people to be dragged into all of this if they didn’t need to. He meant what he told Lake, it was fine.

He was fine.

Slumping back onto his bed, Jesse let out a long sigh. He was bored was what he was. His parents were pretty lenient and understanding, but getting suspended was definitely not something they were going to let him brush off without any sort of consequences. So, he didn’t have his phone and he was only allowed to use his computer for homework right now. He had to be picked up from school and he wasn’t allowed to go out with any friends this weekend.

They weren’t going to make him miss tryouts for state or practice or anything like that. State tryouts were still a few weeks away anyway, but still. So, they were by all accounts being reasonable, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Or that he couldn’t be bored.

And yeah, inviting Lake back had definitely been a joke. He knew that was a bad idea and not something they should make a habit of, because it wasn’t safe. It most definitely wasn’t something they should do when Jesse was already in trouble and his parents would be on pretty high alert to strange sounds coming from his room, especially if he didn’t have a phone or computer to cover them up with.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t still a little bit disappointed that they had said no.

He was just bored, and Lake was fun, and he was annoyed that he wouldn’t get to hang out with them this weekend, even if it was his own fault. He could have just stayed with them that first time when his friends had called, then he wouldn’t have gotten dragged into all of this.

Still, there was nothing he could do about any of that now, other than behave and hope that he was able to smooth it all over with his parents sooner rather than later.

So that was what he did, even if it meant the rest of the weekend was excruciatingly boring. He finished his homework early for once and then there wasn’t much else to do but sit around and read. Most of the time he spent wondering if any of his books would be things Lake would like. He was pretty easily bored, so maybe it wasn’t as bad for them, but after a few days stuck in his room he was so ready to be out. He couldn’t imagine what he would do with all that time stuck sitting in the woods alone.

Well, he guessed they weren’t just sitting, they often insisted that they had a life outside of when he was around, and there was obviously the shelter they built. Still, they had to run out of things eventually.

And none of that changed the fact that they were still alone out there.

Jesse was very thankful when Monday rolled around and he would at least get to go to school again. Thankfully the suspension hadn’t lasted longer than the end of the week, or else he really would start to lose it.

He tried to ask his mom if he could walk home from school, but the answer was still no.

Luckily, Tuesday he had swim practice, and his parents did agree to let him come home from that on his own. Jesse was pretty sure that was mostly because it would be kind of a hassle to pick him up then since Nate would be home and his mom already probably started on dinner and his dad had work until late. Still, whether it was for convenience or good behavior Jesse didn’t much care.

He practically sprinted out of the locker room after practice, hair still wet and he shouted over his shoulder that he was still grounded. Which was technically true, his parents wanted him to go home right after practice, and he was going to.

He was just also going to tell them that practice had gone a little long. It was a lie, yeah, but he really wanted to check on Lake. He even told himself he wouldn’t be long. It would just be counterintuitive if he made his parents too mad after all.

“Lake? Hey Lake, you there?” he started calling as he closed in on their camping spot. Mostly he just didn’t want to make them panic if they heard someone coming by and didn’t realize it was him.

Even still, he was a little surprised by how fast Lake showed up, even more so by the bright grin on their face when they came out from between the trees.

“I was beginning to think your parents had locked you up completely. That or you had some crisis and got sucked through a wormhole,” they said, Jesse pausing some at that.

“A wormhole?” he asked, the metal teen quickly waving away his concern.

“Don’t worry about it,” they said, and it seemed like the kind of thing they weren’t interested in elaborating on, so Jesse let it go. Instead he tossed them the paper bag he had, Lake catching it out of the air very effectively.

“It’s just more chicken strips from the place next to my school. I told my parents I would go home right after practice, but I figured you probably miss hot food,” he said, and for once Lake didn’t deny it, instead nodding as they opened the bag and immediately shoved some fries into their mouth. He hadn’t gotten any for himself this time, since there would be food at home and he also wanted to make sure Lake got as much as he could manage. Plus, he wouldn’t have time to sit down and hang out with them while they ate, so that kind of ruined it.

“I’m getting spoiled thanks to you,” they said. If Lake’s idea of being spoiled was getting a hot meal once a day a few times a week, that was… well, it was honestly kind of concerning. Hopefully they could try and adjust that at some point. He didn’t press it now though, because as far as he could tell Lake was actually happy to see him and he wasn’t about to mess that up.

“Oh don’t worry, there’s more,” he said, pulling his bookbag around. Lake started pouting immediately, although they didn’t actually stop eating their food any, which just made for a funny image.

“Oh no, what now?” they asked, curiosity definitely mixed in with the played up dread in their voice. Jesse stuck his tongue out at them, finally managing to grab a hold of the books he’d shoved in there this morning before he left for school.

“I just thought you might be bored. I know you said you were fine but I spent the whole weekend without my phone or computer and I was so bored. I have no idea how you’re managing out here,” he said, and he still felt like it was a fifty-fifty chance of Lake rejecting the books outright. So, he was a little surprised and definitely relieved when they shoved the bag of food under their arm to cautiously take the small pile from him. There were only three, and none of them were exactly door-stoppers, but still. “I had no idea what kind you would like, so I tried to pick things that were really different. I don’t actually have a lot of books, but if there’s something you like I could run to the library for you,” he added, Lake slowly nodding as they flipped through one of them.

“I don’t know either,” they muttered, and Jesse could see the conflict playing across their face for a moment. He didn’t know how to get Lake more comfortable with people being nice to them, but maybe he could just brute force it.

“I probably won’t have a lot of time this week, like I said I need to go back home soon, but I figured you could borrow them in the meantime,” he said, and Lake actually nodded at that.

“Borrowing works. As long as you won’t be too bored. I’ve got coping mechanisms out here. Or something like that,” they said, which Jesse kind of wanted to question, but instead he just nodded.

“Oh yeah, my parents are letting me have my laptop back now, so I’m good,” he said, a little surprised when Lake made a face at that.

“Computers are the worst, I’ll stick with these, thanks,” they said, motioning with the books before carefully adjusting their hold so they could start eating again.

“What do you have against computers?” Jesse asked, raising an eyebrow at that. In response, Lake scoffed like it was a ridiculous question.

“What’s it to you? You’re not one of those coding nerds are you? Jesse I’m sorry but if you’re one of those coding nerds I’m just not sure if this friendship is gonna work out,” they said, and he was pretty sure they were joking, but he wouldn’t exactly say he was certain of it. Far from it, actually.

“You’re in luck, I don’t understand coding at all,” he said, getting a grin from Lake at that.

“Good,” they said, a finite tone to their voice. Like it hadn’t actually been a joke. Even still, Jesse couldn’t help but smile too, and all he wanted to do was hang out with them more and watch them read so that he could see their reaction.

But he really needed to get home before he got in trouble again.

“Hey, so I probably need to get going now,” he said, the reluctance obvious in his voice. The smile that had been on Lake’s face faded at that, their expression turning back to the serious, somewhat stoic one they usually wore as they nodded.

“Right, you’re still in trouble because of your dumb friends,” they said, Jesse immediately feeling a ping of defensiveness at that.

“They’re not dumb,” he insisted, not that Lake looked very convinced. “We’ve all done stupid things, alright? I was just the one it backfired for this time,” he tried, pretty sure he could see Lake waver a little at that before finally shrugging.

“It’s your life,” they said finally, which seemed to be the end of it. “If something happens before you get back and I need to flee I’ll try not to throw your books into the lake,” they added, nonchalant and blunt as they jumped from the previous conversation.

“Well I would hope so!” he huffed, not actually mad, and it managed to get a small smile back onto Lake’s face. “I’ll try to see if I can stop by again on Thursday, yeah?” Jesse added, and they nodded.

“Sounds good,” they said, which was honestly more positive than Jesse expected from them. He couldn’t help but grin as he nodded, reluctantly starting off back towards his house.

“Catch ya later Lake!” he called.

“Later,” they replied, and with that Jesse started to book it out of there, not wanting to take his time and make himself even later than he already was. Checking the time, it wasn’t that bad. Between ordering the food and going out of his way he was maybe a little over half an hour later than he should have been, which wasn’t unheard of.

“I’m home!” Jesse called as he came in through the front door, having taken a moment to catch his breath before heading inside so that it wasn’t quite as obvious that he’d been running.

“Did practice run late?” his mom asked, stepping out of the kitchen to greet him. He could smell dinner cooking as soon as he walked in, and oh he was hungry. He nodded, taking off his jacket and backpack, hanging them both up on the banister at the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, state’s coming up soon and coach really thinks I have a chance of making it, even though it’s my first year on the team,” he said, which was all true. He was honestly really excited about the idea, which was the only reason he hadn’t skipped practice altogether. Hanging out with Lake was fun and he really wanted more time with them, but he still loved swimming.

“That’s nice dear,” his mother said, and she certainly hadn’t said anything explicit, but Jesse could still hear the slight edge of suspicion in her voice, which… wasn’t unearned. When she walked back into the kitchen he followed after her.

“My friends also uh, wanted an update afterwards,” he added, his mom nodding, not looking very surprised by that. “We didn’t go anywhere, just talked some after practice,” he continued, hoping that might help his case some. She didn’t seem mad, pulling out a cutting board and some vegetables. There was a pot on the stove, so he walked over and started to slowly stir it. He wasn’t sure if it was actually helping, but she didn’t tell him to stop so it probably wouldn’t hurt.

“I appreciate you being honest, Jesse,” she said, and he just nodded at that. He was being as honest as he could be without putting his friend in danger. That had to count for something, surely. He didn’t have to feel guilty about lying if the alternative was big black cars with tinted windows and government agents coming to try and take away Lake, right?

“Where’s Nate?” Jesse asked after a moment, because he hadn’t seen him since he came in, which was a little unusual.

“The bedroom, he said he needed to use the computer for a school thing,” his mom said, glancing into the pot he was stirring for a moment before continuing. “Dinner should be done soon, could you go get him for me?” she asked, and Jesse nodded.

“You got it,” he said, handing the spoon over to his mom before heading to his parent’s bedroom, where the desktop computer was set up. He had his own laptop so he very rarely ever used it, but Nate just had his phone. Jesse was pretty sure their parents were planning on getting him a tablet for his next birthday, but that was still a few months away.

The door was mostly open when he got there, but Jesse still knocked on the frame as he stuck his head into the room.

“Hey buddy, mom says dinner’s gonna be done soon,” he said. The computer desk was kind of old, which matched the desktop. He’d offered to help his parents pick out something a little more up-to-date, even if he didn’t actually know that much about computers, but they both insisted it was still perfectly functional. The whole set up was in the corner, jutting out from the wall to almost make the area a little office space cut off from the rest of the room. Because of that it was actually kind of hard to see Nate over the monitor, but he could just make out the younger boy nodding.

“Kk, hey Jesse can you help me? I can’t find a good one,” Nate said, and Jesse wasn’t sure what he was trying to choose from but he nodded anyway, walking into the room fully.

“Sure thing, what are you trying to do?” he asked, coming around the desk now. He could see on the screen a long numbered list of questions as Nate started to explain.

“They’re doing a science fair at my school and my teacher is making everyone in fifth grade enter something. I don’t know what to do,” he said. Jesse started reading over some of the questions, which made a lot more sense now as something to experiment on in a science fair, rather than just like, having to answer them all for homework.

“How does the tension in a violin string affect its pitch?”

“I don’t have a violin,” Nate said, which was very true.

“How does the amount of air in a tire affect how long it’ll take for a bike to break? Do you have to break your own bike for that?” Jesse asked, frowning some at the idea.

“I don’t want to break my bike,” Nate replied, Jesse nodding in agreement. It kinda seemed like you would need to break multiple bikes for that one.

“Does the color of a terrarium affect a lizard’s skin color? Oh, do you think we could convince mom and dad to get you a lizard?” Jesse tried next, his little brother looking very intrigued by the idea.

“That would be a pretty hard sell,” he said finally, which was unfortunately probably true.

“I guess getting a dog to see if it prefers tap water or refrigerated water wouldn’t work either, huh?” Jesse joked, getting a snort out of Nate, who quickly shook his head. “Do fans really make you cooler or do they just make you feel like you’re cooler? Wait, is there a difference?” he continued, getting distracted by another question on the page. Nate just shrugged, which was fair. “You don’t want to just do a volcano or something?” he asked next, because that seemed like the easiest solution.

“Everyone’s gonna do that, it’s boring,” Nate insisted, “also, our teacher said no volcanoes,” he added, which made sense.

“Okay, well how about we go eat dinner and see if we can figure out a good one afterwards,” Jesse suggested. Nate seemed alright with that arrangement, nodding and jumping out of the computer chair.

Nate had been right about not being able to convince their mom to let them get a lizard or a dog for a science fair project. In the end Nate didn’t end up figuring out exactly what he wanted to do that night, but they did manage to narrow it down between two. Finding the melting point of different types of chocolate candies and seeing what types of birds were attracted to specific bird seeds.

Now Jesse would have definitely preferred the one that didn’t involve a lot of staring into their backyard, just in case anything happened with Lake again. of course he couldn't actually say that. Instead he just mentioned that chocolate tastes a lot better than bird seed does. He wasn’t sure if it was enough to convince Nate yet though.

The next day Jesse didn’t even bother asking if he could walk home on his own, since he didn’t want to push it. That seemed to be the right choice, since when he asked if he could stay a little late again after swim practice on Thursday, this time he actually had permission. Which meant he could stay for even longer.

“Hey Lake!” Jesse called as he came up on their spot. “I don’t have to be too fast today, my parents said I could hang out with some friends after swim practice!” he added, and he could see Lake now.

“Make enough sad puppy eyes at them I presume?” they asked, Jesse chuckling a little at that. He was also holding a pizza box, which Lake immediately grabbed from him, taking it and setting it down on another log. He was pretty sure it was a new addition, acting as a little table. It was clearly slow going, but there was no doubt that their set up was getting more elaborate, little by little.

“I guess so. Not enough to get them to actually get me a puppy, but it’s progress,” he said, Lake raising an eyebrow at that, already stuffing their face full of food.

“You tried to get them to get you a dog while you were grounded?” they asked once they were able to talk again, and it was definitely a fair question.

“Technically I tried to get my little brother a dog, and he hasn’t done anything wrong,” he said, taking a slice of pizza as well. He wasn’t planning on eating any more than one, since he had food at home, but he was pretty hungry after swimming. Lake didn’t seem to mind either way, instead just rolling their eyes at the dog explanation.

“Well, it’s a regular mystery then how that didn’t work,” they said, a teasing tone to their voice that Jesse couldn’t blame them for.

“I know, right?” he still joked, Lake laughing at that. “Oh! Did you read any of the books yet?” he asked next, because he’d been pretty curious about their reaction since he loaned them. Lake nodded, and Jesse was immediately grinning. “Which one? What did you think? Unless you finished all of them. If you finished all of them I can bring you some more tomorrow,” he asked, speaking quickly.

“No, uh, just one. I haven’t finished it yet,” they explained, twisting around some and reaching towards their shelter. Jesse could see the three books stacked very carefully on top of a large rock next to it, Lake grabbing the one on top. “This one. It’s good so far, I think. The dude is definitely a vampire, right?” they asked, and Jesse paused a little bit at the question before nodding.

“Yeah, that’s… how far did you get?” he asked back, because the vampire thing was an early twist. It’d been a while since he read that one, but it was one of his favorites and he definitely remembered the vampire twist being pretty early on. Like, maybe chapter three or so.

Instead of saying anything, Lake just held the book up so he could see it better and notice the leaf they were using as a bookmark. Jesse couldn’t help but frown a little in disappointment when he saw the fraction they had read so far.

“Oh, you know you… don’t have to read it if you don’t want to, it’s fine,” he said, trying to hide his disappointment and not doing that good of a job. Lake was immediately shaking their head though, looking a little annoyed at the suggestion.

“What? No, I’m reading it. What makes you think I don’t want to read it?” they snapped, which wasn’t the reaction Jesse expected. It took him a second to figure out how to actually word his answer.

“You just… didn’t get very far, so I figured you didn’t think it was interesting,” he explained. Lake huffed at that, taking a moment to very pointedly not look at him as they grabbed another slice of pizza. They mumbled something, but Jesse wasn’t able to actually understand them. “What?”

“I said that’s as fast as I can go,” they repeated, just clear enough that he could make it out this time. Suddenly what Jesse had thought was irritation was reading a lot more like embarrassment.

“Oh! That’s okay. You can take your time,” he said, trying not to push the subject any more. Lake just nodded, not looking much happier. For a few moments it was quiet and awkward, the two of them eating without speaking, but not in the relaxing way it usually was with Lake.

“I’m not stupid,” the metal teen blurted out, breaking that awkward silence.

“I never said that,” Jesse replied quickly, not that it seemed to reassure Lake any.

“You were thinking it,” Lake insisted.

“No I wasn’t.”

“Yes, you were.”

“No, I wasn’t. Lots of people have trouble reading, that doesn’t make you stupid,” he argued, because it was true. “I mean, you’re from another dimension, the fact that you can speak and read English at all is kinda crazy. Like, I've accepted it, but it still doesn't actually make any sense,” he added, Lake slowly starting to ease up some from the coil spring tension in their body.

“It’s just… backwards,” they said, Jesse raising an eyebrow at that.

“What is?”

“The words. Everything is backwards from what I’m used to, so it takes a while,” they explained, and Jesse could feel the look of understanding that fell over his face at that.

“Oh jeez, yeah, that sounds like torture. I probably would have just given up at that point,” he admitted, and he wasn’t even exaggerating. He’d never really fallen behind in school, but he wasn’t exactly one of the gifted kids either.

“I’m very stubborn,” Lake said, definitely a hint of pride in their voice at that. Jesse was smiling again, definitely a little relieved that they weren’t mad at him anymore.

“Still don’t get why you’ve got a Wisconsin accent though,” he added, mostly to tease them. Also because it was weird.

“Minnesota.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a Minnesota accent, not Wisconsin,” Lake corrected, definitely not the reaction Jesse was expecting. There was a moment where Jesse didn’t say anything, before he could burst out laughing. At that, Lake threw a handful of pine needles at him. It was getting easier and easier to tell when they weren’t actually mad though, and now was one of those times.

“I’m sorry, I still don’t get why you have a Minnesota accent,” Jesse corrected, getting a casual shrug from Lake in response.

“Because it’s where I grew up. Er, kinda, for lack of a better word,” they said, which didn’t make any sense.

“But you’re from a different dimension?” he asked, Lake nodding like that all made perfect sense.

“Yep.”

“Is this a like, you were born in another dimension but moved to this one when you were a baby situation?” he asked.

“Nope, I never set foot on earth before like, I don’t know, a couple of weeks before we met? At most,” Lake said, their tone indicating that that was probably all the detail they were going to give on the matter. It was a tiny bit annoying, because Jesse had so many questions, but it was also very funny. He couldn’t fault them for that.

“You’re really weird, you know that?” Jesse said, a not small amount of fondness in his voice.

“I’d be offended if you thought I was anything else,” they assured him.

Looking out, Jesse could see the light through the trees starting to fade some, the sun starting to dip under the horizon. He knew he should be leaving soon. His parents told him that he could hang out with some friends, but he shouldn’t push it. He was still on pretty thin ice.

A few more minutes probably wouldn’t hurt though.

Chapter Text

Lake tried to tell themself that they still had full control of the situation. Nothing had really changed after all, and if it felt that way that was only because they were finally getting their footing in this world. That was a good thing. It meant next time it would be even easier.

Because there was going to be a next time. They hadn’t forgotten that, and they weren’t going to let themself forget. Sooner or later, but eventually, they would have to pick everything up and leave once staying here got too dangerous. Realistically, they should go before it ever got to that point, but well, it was kind of hard to judge. They had never done this before after all, and for now things seemed safe enough.

“And then just… yeah, you got it.”

“I hope you know I’m not going to remember any of this. What’s the point of this?” Lake asked, a smile on their face that they were trying very hard to ignore. Jesse had started coming over again more often, apparently having gotten back on his parent’s good side and insisting that there was nothing to worry about. It was a relief, purely because it meant the chances of getting caught were a lot lower if Jesse wasn’t having to sneak out here all the time.

“It’s a secret handshake!” he insisted again, like that explained everything. It hadn't the first time he'd said it, and it didn't do anything for them now either.

“I still think you’re making this up,” Lake insisted, still letting Jesse run them through the incredibly over-complicated handshake once again. He looked offended at the suggestion, shaking his head sharply.

“I don’t get how you can know about things like Denny’s and card games and vampires but you don’t know what a secret handshake is,” he said, which was probably a fair question. It certainly was a little confusing, especially with the small bits and pieces Lake had started to let slip here and there.

“Okay, but why is it a secret?” they pressed, because it wasn’t like it was anything they’d ever seen Tulip do before. Of course, Lake got the feeling that Jesse and Tulip ran in pretty different social circles, but there was no reason to bring up any of that yet. Or well, ever.

“I don’t know, it’s just more fun that way,” Jesse said, and it didn’t seem worth it to argue with that. “Anyway," he continued once they finished with the sloppy handshake, "I kind of wanted to talk to you about something." There was a more serious tone to his voice than Lake was expecting and they paused, absently grabbing one of the novels Jesse had lent them and pulling it into their lap. It had been about a week and a half since he first started bringing over books, and they had managed to finish one of them in that time. It wasn’t bad, and it did help to keep them entertained.

“What’s up? If it’s about swimming I really need you to understand that I can only offer bad advice. Because I am made of metal,” they said, joking because they could and it helped to keep from getting more nervous. Also because Jesse had been talking about his whole swim thing a lot recently. Apparently tryouts for state or something were coming up soon. All Lake knew was that more often than not his hair was plastered down and wet whenever he showed up after school this week.

“Huh? No, it’s not that, although actually thinking about it I would love to hear you try to give me swimming tips,” he said, amusement at the idea clear in his voice. Jesse didn’t stay on that thought long though, quickly continuing. “No, I was just, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to come back over to my house tomorrow?” he finished, which wasn’t the question Lake had been expecting.

“What?” they blurted out, the surprise in their voice evident. Jesse clearly noticed, immediately grabbing his phone and starting to explain.

“I’ve just been keeping an eye on the weather since the last time. I know it’s too dangerous for you to come over for the fun of it, but it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and I didn’t think you’d want to be stuck out here again,” he said, holding up his phone to them. They could see the forecast for tomorrow that he’d pulled up, and there was indeed a little rain cloud there.

“I… uh,” Lake hesitated, having to take a moment to actually read all the little details. They were definitely getting faster at reading backwards, and Jesse didn’t comment on the pause as they took it in. Okay, possible light showers all morning and then getting harder in the evening. “I can’t just hide every time the weather turns shitty,” they managed finally, although they were pretty sure they didn’t come across nearly as confident as they would have liked.

“It’s not hiding, you’re just going somewhere safe. That’s what everyone tries to do when the weather’s bad,” Jesse insisted, and it wasn’t like it didn’t make sense. It was that logic that got them to go the first time after all, but that had been when they were already in the middle of the storm. It felt… better, if it was a spur of the moment thing where there weren't a lot of options. Planning to go ahead of time felt too much like an active risk they were taking.

“Don’t you have school tomorrow?” they asked, having gotten a pretty good idea of the days at this point. Jesse hesitated at the question, looking back at the forecast on his phone again with a frown.

“It’s not supposed to get really bad until the afternoon. I’d be fine if you wanted to hide in my room while I’m at school, but if you don’t want to be there alone I can come pick you up after I get out,” he offered, and at least some of the choices here were easy. Hiding in Jesse’s room at his house all alone while he was at school? Hell no, way too risky without someone else there on their side. Afterwards though? That was harder to turn down.

“I don’t know,” they muttered, flipping the book over in their hands. Jesse had taken the one they finished back, but that meant they still had two more. They joked about throwing them into the lake, but it would be a shitty friend move to actually let them get destroyed, right? “Let’s just play it by ear. Water isn’t going to hurt me, but I guess if it starts to look like it’s gonna thunder and shit by the time you get out of school I could hole up at your place until it passes again,” they finished.

“Yes!” Jesse immediately cheered. The nerves that had been there before left pretty damn quickly at that, Lake unable to keep themself from smirking as they raised an eyebrow. The embarrassment on Jesse’s face was near about instant as he continued sheepishly. “I mean- ya know, hopefully it doesn’t get too bad, but- uh, if it does…”

Lake couldn’t help it, snorting in amusement. It was enough to get Jesse full on grinning again, slipping his phone back into his pocket before standing up.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked, an obviously hopeful tone to his voice. Lake couldn’t help but sigh, rolling their eyes so that there was a better excuse to avoid eye contact as they shrugged.

“Sure seems that way,” they said simply.

“Cool. Catch you then!” Jesse said, Lake giving him a halfhearted wave bye as he ran off back home.

And as soon as they were alone Lake let out a loud groan, slapping the book down hard in their lap as they leaned back as far as they could on the log without tipping over and falling off completely.

They still had complete control of the situation. They were still prepared to pack everything up and run the second things broke bad. Scratch that, they were prepared to just run the moment things broke bad. No hesitation, no looking back. That was their life, and it wouldn’t change, but at least it was a life. It wasn’t just a reflection of someone else’s choices.

And sure, Jesse was their friend, but that didn’t change the facts any. Jesse knew that too, they’d been very upfront with the fact that someday they would have to leave. If he had a problem with it, well, they wouldn’t be around to hear it anyway.

So it didn’t matter if all they could feel after Jesse had left was a stupidly persistent excitement about tomorrow. It didn’t matter if they spent most of the rest of the evening staring up at the sky, looking for any hint of a turn in the weather. It certainly didn’t matter if they kept having to push away unwanted excuses that insisted on popping into their head, pointing out other half-baked reasons why they could go to Jesse’s house.

None of that mattered because, as Lake needed to remember already, none of this was permanent. They were tired of having to just exist , so yeah, they weren’t pushing Jesse away anymore. They were letting themself have fun. That didn’t mean they’d forgotten the basics though.

And if anyone asked, Lake was definitely not excited when they felt the first few drops of rain starting to fall the next day. Irritated and inconvenienced were much more realistic emotions to have in this scenario, so those were what they felt, absolutely.

It wasn’t exactly a downpour by the time Jesse showed up, but it was heavier than it had been at the start of the day and seemed pretty insistent on staying that way.

“Hey Lake! How’re you holding up?” he asked as he came into their clearing, dropping the umbrella from above him despite the fact that it was still very much raining. Honestly though, considering how often he showed up with wet hair from swimming, he might not even notice it anymore.

“Could be worse, I guess,” they said with a shrug, because it wasn’t that bad yet. They could probably risk staying out here all night if they needed to, it didn’t seem like a super rough storm. At least, not as bad as the last one.

“Right, right, but uh, still bad enough that you don’t want to be out in it all night, right?” he asked, a hopeful tone to his voice. Which, it was stupid how that made Lake want to smile.

“Ugh, yeah that doesn’t sound fun,” they said, some fondness definitely leaking through their voice. Jesse was grinning brightly, and well, at least it made Lake feel a little better about the way they were totally not super excited to be going back to Jesse’s house.

“Should we get going then?” he asked, swinging the umbrella back up over his head again. Lake nodded, before pausing slightly and rushing back to their small shelter. They had stashed the books in there, in the driest area to keep them from getting rained on. Grabbing them both, they headed over to Jesse again.

“Sure, if you think it’s safe to head over there so early,” they said, holding the books close to their chest to keep them from getting drenched. They figured that was why Jesse started holding the umbrella up over them, at least.

“Yeah, between your hoodie and the umbrella and the rain, we should be good,” Jesse assured them, which made sense. There wouldn’t be a lot of people out in the rain, at least not as many as normally would be at this time of day. That didn’t actually do much to help with the fear that started picking at them as they started out of the woods. That was the only reason why Lake clung so tightly to Jesse’s side during the walk over.

“Okay so,” Jesse said as they got close to his yard. “Same thing as before, but uh, just make sure you stay near the tree on the side of the house. Same one you used last time. Nate set up a bird feeder in the backyard, he shouldn’t be watching it since it’s raining but either way as long as you stay there until I give you the signal it should be fine,” he said, speaking quickly as they dashed along the side of his front yard.

“Wait, what?” Lake asked, definitely feeling anxiety starting to bubble up at that new information. “Jesse, you didn’t say anything about that before. Jesse!” they hissed, feeling the slightest bit trapped as that dumb human boy started back towards the front yard.

“Just wait out here. I’ll go inside and then call up from the window once I'm sure it’s safe,” he said, turning and running off fully before Lake had any time to argue. Instead they were left standing there, staring dumbly and still holding the umbrella up over their head. They weren't even sure when Jesse had passed it over to them fully.

There was a brief moment where Lake considered leaving. The rain wasn’t too bad, it wasn’t thundering and lightning like last time, at least not yet. They could wait it out back at their shelter. Jesse had even left his umbrella with them, so that might help. They could just leave.

For some reason though instead of running off the second they got the chance, Lake took in a deep breath, pulling the umbrella down low over their head. Leaning back against the side of the house, they were pretty sure no one on the street would see them unless they were looking. That should be good enough for however long it would take Jesse to get up to his room and give them a signal that it was safe.

That ended up being longer than Lake would have liked. Probably not actually that long in the grand scheme of it, like ten or fifteen minutes, but hell it felt like an eternity. Lake was about ready to say screw it and head back to the woods when they finally heard the sound of a window opening above them and Jesse’s voice hissing their name.

Lake didn’t bother answering back, instead closing the umbrella and starting to pull themself up the tree as fast as they could.

“Lake? Lake can you hea- oh, hey,” Jesse said, thankfully smart enough to stop calling them when he saw them starting to pull themself up onto the roof. He was also smart enough to get out of the way so that they could climb in through the window, shutting it behind them so that too much rain didn’t get in.

“We’re good?” Lake asked, glancing at the door and hoping Jesse remembered to lock it as they passed him the umbrella. He took the item from them with a grin, nodding as he did.

“Oh yeah, we’re good. Sorry about the wait, I gotta hide this real quick,” Jesse said, holding up the closed umbrella for a moment before pushing himself off the bed and heading over to the closet. Lake couldn’t help but pause at that, trying to keep their footsteps as light as possible as they headed over to watch him shove the umbrella into the back of his closet.

“Why do you have to hide the umbrella?” they asked, Jesse laughing sheepishly at the question.

“My mom noticed I didn’t have it when I came in. I told her a friend didn’t have one and so I lent them mine, which hey, is true!” he explained, which, yeah, it wasn’t wrong. It was definitely an easy enough solution to hide the umbrella and pretend Jesse got it back from his friend tomorrow or something. Glancing around the room, it was pretty much the same as they remembered last time.

“Hello again Dracula,” Lake said, spotting the seal stuffed animal and picking it up to go sit on Jesse’s bed. Which, right, beds were nice.

“Oh alright, I see how it is. You just came here to visit Dracula, not me,” Jesse said, giving an exaggerated pout.

“Right, definitely here because I couldn’t stand to be away from Dracula any longer. Nothing to do with the storm raging outside,” Lake teased, a smirk stuck on their face as Jesse came, flopping down on his back next to them.

“That’s okay, Dracula is pretty awesome. I completely understand,” he said, Lake snorting quietly. Even still they nodded, leaning forward and resting their chin on the stuffed animal’s head. “So, I was talking to my mom a little bit. She said dinner won’t be for like another hour, so we’ve got some time to chill,” Jesse added.

“Sounds good,” Lake said, glancing back over at the window. The rain was coming down steadily still, and it was a decent reminder. The only reason they were here was because it was marginally safer than being out in the weather, and that was it. Getting to hang out with Jesse more was just a perk, and one that wouldn’t be there forever.

“Hey Jesse?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m… glad I met you,” Lake said, taking the moment to get a real good look at Dracula’s fur. Which, maybe it was a stupid thing to bring up, but it was true and them and Jesse were friends. Friends told each other that sort of stuff, and Lake was going to be a good friend, even if it was only ever going to be temporary.

And Lake expected Jesse to respond in kind, probably tease them while all stupid big smiles like he usually did.

Except he didn’t. Instead there was a long stretch of silence, and when Lake finally looked back over at him he was still lying there, except now he was staring at them with a dumbfounded look on his face.

“What?”

“What, what?” Jesse echoed, looking lost and still pretty surprised. Lake could feel the embarrassment flare across their face, quickly turning away again.

“Nothing, forget it,” they huffed, suddenly wondering if staying out in the woods was still a terrible idea.

“No, sorry! I just- you surprised me,” Jesse insisted, not that it helped all that much. Or at all, really. “Did you… mean that?”

“Why would I lie about that?” Lake asked right back, unable to keep themself from sounding offended. “Look, I’ve never had a friend before, so I’m not good at this stuff. I know it’s obvious but you don’t have to point it out every goddamn time,” they snapped, Jesse quickly shaking his head.

“Huh? No, that’s not what I meant!” he insisted, Lake rolling their eyes at that. Jesse noticed, continuing before they could argue. “I didn’t! You’re a really good friend Lake,” he said, pushing himself up so that he was no longer lying back.

“Okay, no need to exaggerate,” Lake muttered, although it didn’t seem to deter Jesse any.

“I mean it, you are,” he argued, and really, Lake wasn’t even sure why. They still didn’t understand why Jesse continued to stick by them and go out of his way on their behalf all the time. Just the amount of food he’d lugged into the woods for them was something they weren’t ever going to be able to pay back.

It must’ve been obvious on their face that they didn’t believe him, because after a moment Jesse sighed.

“Look, I was just surprised because… no one’s ever said that to me before,” he muttered, that last part nearly unintelligible. Lake caught it though, and now they were the one staring in surprise.

“What?” they asked, just getting a shrug from the boy.

“All I’m saying is I’ve had friends before, I have lots of friends. From like, totally different groups and stuff,” he started.

“Show off,” Lake grumbled.

“No, that’s not- what I’m trying to say is you’re a really good friend Lake. I’m glad I met you too,” Jesse said, and for some stupid reason it was taking Lake a few agonizing moments to find their words. Thankfully when they did, it was a scoff, reaching over to shove Jesse with the large fluffy seal.

“Well you could’ve just said that from the beginning instead of being all weird about it,” they complained, a smile teasing at their lips despite that. At least Jesse was laughing now too, trying to shove the seal away and not doing a very good job.

“Sorry! Sorry!” he tried, before switching from trying to push Dracula away to grabbing him, clinging the stuffed animal to his chest where he was useless to Lake, sticking his tongue out at them for good measure. It was stupid, and Lake couldn’t help snorting in amusement, Jesse grinning brightly again. “Looks like you’re actually better at this whole friend thing than I am,” he added.

“Unlikely,” Lake replied immediately, because yeah, they doubted that was what was happening here.

“I’m just saying, you’re a fast learner,” he said.

“That, I won’t argue with,” they relented, getting another small laugh from Jesse. Then he held out his hand, to which Lake stared at blankly.

“You’ve already forgotten the secret handshake, haven’t you?” he asked.

“I told you I was already forgetting it as you were explaining it to me,” they insisted, as blunt of a tone to their voice as they could manage.

“Okay, gimme your hand,” Jesse said, trying to sound resigned as he took their hand, and not doing a very good job of it. “Okay, so again, we just start with-”

“Jesse?”

Lake froze, immediately stuck in place at the sound of someone knocking on the door and calling Jesse’s name through the thin wood. For his part, Jesse also looked momentarily paralyzed, staring at the door with wide eyes. It wasn’t his mom, instead sounding much younger, which really only left one option.

“Yeah buddy? You need something?” Jesse asked back, not moving from his spot on the bed. It was hard to tell if he sounded super suspicious, or if Lake just felt really goddamn paranoid right about now. They weren’t sure, but at that moment Jesse must’ve realized they’d stopped dead while holding hands, quickly letting go like he’d been burned.

“I’m bored,” Nate said, and immediately Jesse winced at that answer.

“Oh uh, I’m pretty busy tonight. I’ve got a lot of homework, maybe we can hang out tomorrow instead,” he called through the door. To Lake it sure felt like Jesse wasn’t the best at lying, but from what they’d heard from him his brother was pretty young. Maybe he would buy it.

“Can I hang out in your room? I promise I won’t bother you,” Nate asked, and it was hard to emphasize how much of a bad idea all of this felt like right at that moment. They never should have come to Jesse’s house, it was too much of a risk. They didn’t even know for sure if lightning would actually kill them. They had no clue how their weird metal body worked after all, it was all basically magic. Magic things probably couldn't be killed by lightning.

Jesse glanced over towards them at the question, like he was wondering what they thought. Without thinking twice Lake started to emphatically shake their head.

“Sorry Nate, I just really need some alone time tonight. Tomorrow we’ll hang out, for sure,” Jesse replied.

“Oh, okay,” Nate said, and frustratingly Lake could already feel the guilt settling nicely in the pit of their stomach.

“Tomorrow buddy, I promise,” Jesse called to the door, neither of them saying anything as Nate gave a quick affirmation back, instead listening as the soft sound of footsteps slowly faded away from the other side of the door. It wasn’t until they were absolutely certain Jesse’s brother was gone again did Lake speak.

“Sorry,” they blurted out, immediately getting a confused look from Jesse.

“Huh? What, no, you don’t have to apologize,” he said, but that didn’t feel true.

“You’ll get in trouble if anyone finds out about me,” they said, although that only felt like a small bit of it. Even still, Jesse waved the concern away, not looking very bothered.

“I don’t mind getting in trouble if it means helping my friends,” he insisted, a soft smile on his face, and Lake couldn’t even argue with that. It was pretty obvious Jesse was willing to put himself out there for his friends, even for the smallest things.

Lake wasn’t sure if they still looked bothered, or if Jesse was also feeling guilty, but after a moment he looked back over at the closed door and sighed.

“I’ll make it up to Nate later. It’ll be fine,” he added.

“If you say so,” Lake said, because it wasn’t like they had any idea what it was like to have a little brother or whatever. The only framework they had for families at all was Tulip’s, and they knew enough to know that wasn’t the best. Plus, Tulip was an only child on top of everything else.

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” he insisted, before giving Lake another smile. “Anyway, we should still have some time before I have to go eat dinner. I was thinking instead of card games this time, have you ever played Jenga before?” Jesse asked, digging around in a pile of junk by his bed until he pulled out a long rectangular box. “My other suggestion was gonna be video games, but you said you don’t like computers and I didn’t know if that counted,” he added.

“Yes to Jenga, hard pass on the video games, for now at least,” Lake said, finding themself smiling again.

“Works for me,” Jesse said, dumping the wooden blocks down onto the bed as he started explaining how to play the game. Lake already knew, but they let him tell them anyway, since he seemed so excited to.

They weren’t ever going to be able to repay Jesse after all.

They might as well try their best to be a good friend while it lasts.