Chapter Text
Breathing is like—knives. It’s too painful. Alex tries to hold his breath but the gasp for air that comes a moment later is even worse. He tries to scream but all he manages is a tiny whimper. There’s pressure against his chest and when he opens his eyes to see what it is all there is is dark.
It reminds him of movies where people are buried alive. They always have a lighter with them, don’t they? Alex fumbles but his hands move wrong, like they’re half asleep.
The realization that he could die hits him, worn and familiar, and the faster gasps of breath hurt so hard that soon he doesn’t notice the pain at all. He flails up with his arms, determined to push at whatever’s on his chest, like the hero of the movie bursting through the grave dirt with one hand.
All at once it’s gone. Alex’s lungs fill with air, free of pain. Light stings his eyes and he covers them with his hands, plunging them back into temporary darkness.
The air is too cold. Alex rolls to his side and wraps his arms around himself. He doesn’t need to look to know he’s in the woods. He can smell the dirt and leaves and feels pine needles and rocks dig into his skin.
He opens his eyes. It’s darker than he expected, somehow. The sun is shining, hidden away by the leaves of the tallest trees, but looking too deep into the woods makes his head hurt. It’s too dark. He can’t find anything in there.
Where the hell is he? There are some wooded areas near his home, but this doesn’t look right. He searches his pockets, hoping for a cell phone, but comes up empty.
He’s supposed to be going over script revisions with Jay. He wants to switch some scenes around, alter a bit of dialogue. His head aches. Jay would get worried if he didn’t show, right? He’d call Brian or the cops and someone would find him.
Alex slows his breathing. He can’t have been here long. He just needs to stay put. Wandering doesn’t help—he read somewhere that people just walk in circles if they don’t have landmarks.
But it’s cold and Alex is nearly shaking from it. There has to be… something he can use deeper in the forest. This place feels… warm. And right. His head throbs and his body feels heavy. He could sleep here.
“Alex.”
The sudden voice makes him flinch and he finds his eyes have slid closed. He shakes his head and turns toward the direction of the voice.
His vision is blurry, either from exhaustion or lack of proper eyewear, but after a moment he finds the source. Brian is slumped against a tree, his legs shaking. He’s breathing hard and before Alex can even take a step toward him, his knees give out and he hits the ground hard.
That makes Alex come running, kneeling down in front of Brian and trying to peer at his face. “Hey. Hey. Are you okay?”
Brian nods slowly and looks up. His face is lined with pain and there’s a dark bruise on one side, swelling an eye shut, but Alex feels some strange bit of reassurance, looking at him. He still has soft-looking hair and a kind mouth. He doesn’t know why he expected different. “It’s hard to walk. But I saw you and I had to…. I don’t think moving that much was a good idea.”
“We’ll rest a bit,” Alex offers distractedly. He doesn’t see any sign of injury on Brian, but he remembers the pain he felt as he woke up. Maybe this is like that: he just needs some time.
But Brian’s breaths are shaky and his hands are trembling. Alex shifts closer, until they’re sitting side by side and Brian can put some weight on him.
“Do you know where we are?” he asks. Brian shakes his head. It’s odd to see him so exhausted; he’s the kind of guy who goes jogging in the morning and takes early classes and has actual enthusiasm for them. Now he’s resting his head against Alex’s shoulder.
“We need to find shelter,” Brian says after a while. He sits up properly, but Alex sees him wince. “And maybe start a fire. Figure the rest out from there.”
Alex nods slowly. Brian begins to stand and Alex slips his arm around him. Brian cries out in pain. Alex moves to release him, but Brian shakes his head and grasps his shoulder.
“We need to get you to a doctor,” Alex says. Brian doesn’t respond.
They don’t get far. Brian tries to hide his pain and Alex keeps the pace to a shuffle, but he’s clearly hurting. It’s only a few minutes later that Alex stops, helping Brian to the ground.
“I don’t think you should be moving,” Alex says. Brian is breathing heavily and sweat streaks his face. “Maybe I should look for shelter and come back for you.”
Brian shakes his head. “You won’t be able to find me again. We need to stay together.” He shifts, trying to find a more comfortable position. His shirt rides up a bit, exposing the curve of his hip and storm-purple discoloration. Alex grabs at his shirt and yanks it up. A dark bruise spreads over the entirety of his back and over his hips. There are gashes on his body, welts along his back.
“Oh shit,” Alex breathes, barely audible to even his own ears. Brian whimpers when he touches the bruise and Alex mumbles an apology. His heart is pounding. He knew Brian was hurt, but this looks bad. There could be spinal cord injuries, they could be making things worse by moving around.
“Who the hell did this to you?” Alex releases Brian’s shirt. Brian shakes his head.
“I can’t remember. The last thing I can think of is… going to that hospital with you. After that, it’s fuzzy.” He rubs his forehead, like he’s trying to shake away hazy afterimages.
“What hospital?”
Brian says something in reply—something about Tim—but there’s ringing in Alex’s ears and his head aches again. He claps his hands over his ears, but he can’t drown it out. Brian pulls at one of his arms.
“What’s wrong?”
“Can’t you hear that?” The ringing grows sharper at his words and he clutches his head again. Hands grab him—Brian’s, just trying to comfort him. Brian helps Tim through this sort of thing, doesn’t he?
The ringing stops. Alex’s forehead is pressed against Brian’s chest and Brian is rubbing circles into his back. Alex’s breathing evens and he rubs at his eyes.
“Are you okay?” Brian asks as Alex pulls away. Alex nods. The world seems too bright for a moment. He feels that pull inside him again.
“There’s something out there,” Alex says. He gets to his feet, even as his knees wobble.
“Maybe we should get out of here.” Brian struggles to stand. Alex reaches out to steady him, but Brian pushes his hand away. “I can—” He winces. “Okay, I can’t. Help.” Brian laughs, but it comes out hard and clipped. Alex lets Brian put an arm over his shoulder and he helps him stand, slowly.
“I want to know what that was,” Alex says once Brian finds his balance. He picks up a sturdy looking branch and offers it to Brian. “I want to at least see what that was.”
Brian shifts his weight onto the stick experimentally. “I have no clue what you’re talking about,” he says, “but sure. We can look around. Not for long, though.”
Brian follows as close behind as he can and even in his need to find what’s out there, Alex slows his pace so as not to lose him, pausing to clear things out of the Brian’s path or changing his route for easier terrain.
It only takes them a few minutes to find what they’re looking for, lying in the dirt and hat askew, struggling to wake up much as Alex had.
“Jay!” Alex sprints to him, shaking him gently. Brian draws closer, face pinched with worry.
“Is he hurt? Is he breathing?”
Alex looks him over, and nods shakily. “He’s okay, I think. Sort of pale and….”
Alex stares for a long moment. There’s something off about him. He looks older, somehow. A trick of the light.
Jay’s eyelashes flutter, his fingers twitching against the dirt like he’s trying to find a grip. He comes to slowly, taking in his wooded surroundings first before looking up at Alex.
He’s relaxed for a half second, then he’s pushing Alex away and scrambling back. He tries to get to his feet, but he collapses, coughing and griping his side.
“Jay?” Alex calls. The other man shoots him a glare but the venom vanishes a moment later.
“Brian?” He’s wide-eyed, like he’s never seen him before. Alex glances back at Brian, but he seems just as lost as he is.
Brian takes it in stride, wiping the stunned expression from his face and replacing it with a gentle smile. He steps forward, still leaning heavily on his stick, and gestures for Alex to stay put.
It takes a few hobbling steps, but Brian reaches Jay and sits down beside him, barely hiding a grimace. “You’re alive?” Jay chokes out. He looks like he’s seen the second coming of Christ, which is honestly ridiculous because handsome as Brian might be, he’s hardly divine.
“A little banged up, but I think I’ll be okay.” Brian’s still got that soothing smile, sitting there like he’d do it all day if Jay needs him to.
Jay’s eyes dart between Brian and Alex, then he scans the ground, twisting this way and that to get a full view of his surroundings. “Where’s my camera?” When he gets no response, his frown deepens. “Where’s Tim?”
That gets a surprised look out of Brian and he shoots a glance at Alex. That was the wrong thing to do, apparently. Jay tenses all over again, grabbing Brian’s sleeve.
“Is he okay?” Then he’s on his feet, looking around. “Are we in Rosswood? Doesn’t look the same….” Then he’s looking at Alex again, but more intently this time, like he’s trying to puzzle something out.
“Look, I know you’re scared but we’ve got to work together. We need shelter before night comes, okay?” Brian is still sitting, but his eyes are moving like he’s looking for something.
Jay finally looks away from Alex. “Tim could be out here. We need to find him.”
Brian nods. “If he’s out here, you know I want to find him as much as you do, but we can’t go running around without a plan. We need to worry about staying warm and finding water. We can build a fire, maybe the smoke will draw him to us, right?”
Jay stares at Alex again. If he was looking for something, he must have found it because he finally nods. “Okay. Shelter first, then we find Tim.”
Brian stands, but too quickly. He stumbles and clutches at his walking stick with a whimper. Jay startles, then moves as if to help. Brian waves him off. “Sorry. I—I think I took a fall. Need to remember to take it slow.” He cracks a weak smile and Jay backs off.
“Brian, how did you get here?” The smile fades and shakes his head.
Jay cautions a glance at Alex. He shrugs.
“Me neither,” Jay says.
They start walking after that. Brian stays between Jay and Alex, not that it’s needed given the wide berth they give each other. Alex doesn’t know how to take Jay’s sudden distrust. He’s always liked Jay. He’s a bit shy, maybe a bit weird, but he was a sweet guy—always tried to help out where he could. He always gave people the benefit of the doubt. He was good like that.
What changed? Something was off with him in the way he stood and the way he talked. Not to mention how concerned he was about Tim. They weren’t exactly close, but Jay was acting like they were buddies or something.
“Is that a house?” Brian gasps and through the foliage Alex can glimpse the paneling of a house, slate blue and too modern to be any random cabin in the middle of the woods.
They clear the trees and there really is a small, two story house sitting there, looking like it tumbled out of suburbia and into a forest. It’s not right. Houses like that don’t just appear with no one around, no trail to it.
It looks just like he remembers. Patches of paint on the porch are a slightly different color than the rest—an attempt to fix up peeling pain that didn’t quite hash out. There’s a wreath, crooked, on the door.
“Maybe someone is home and we can call for help.” Brian is already marching for the door, but Alex and Jay linger. They share a glance and whatever’s going on between them right now, they both know that something is wrong.
They follow as Brian is knocking on the door, grumbling under his breath about stairs and his back. Alex fights the sudden urge to giggle. He’s been worrying about finding his childhood home sitting in the middle of a forest, and here Brian is, sounding like a grumpy old man.
There is no answer. They wait several minutes, bang against the door loudly, and finally Alex just tries the doorknob. It is, of course, unlocked. They lived in a little rural town where everyone knew everyone else. They never locked the door.
He takes a step in and the nostalgia hits him hard. He hasn’t been here since… since the summer between freshman and sophomore year. Well, not here, but his parents’. They’re exactly the same, so much so that he finds himself staring at a little paperweight perched on the side table next to the door. It was made to look like a daffodil frozen in a crystal forever. He bought it for his mother’s birthday when he was still in high school. She had failed to cultivate a garden that spring and he had felt sentimental.
The thought of her makes his heart ache. He hasn’t seen her in…. No, it wasn’t that long ago, was it? He’s seen her since he moved out. On holidays, always hosted at some other relative’s house. Still, once he gets out of this forest, he’s going to call her. Maybe he’ll actually come home for a visit.
Even as he’s thinking of her, he glances up at the shelf on the opposite side of the threshold. They kept a family photo there, from when he was twelve and embarrassingly young-looking, but his mother loved it because they were all grinning and looking like a happy family. It was a camping trip or something. It’s not there anymore—a gap where it should be standing.
Brian pokes him in the back. “You wanna let us in?”
Alex hurries out of the way. Brian’s trying to hide it, but he can tell the pain is exhausting him. Alex shakes off the memories. There’s no bedroom on the first floor, but there is a couch that should be long enough for him.
“C’mere,” he says and leads Brian to the living room, just one room over. “Take off your shirt and lie down.”
“Trying to seduce me again?” Brian unbuttons his shirt and tosses it at Alex. He winces. “Maybe I shouldn’t throw things for a while.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jay gasps from the threshold. “The hell happened to you?”
Brian shrugs, or tries to. “Fell down some stairs?” He pushes some toss pillows onto the ground and lies on the couch, stomach down.
Alex stares at the mass of bruises and welts on his back. He doesn’t know how to treat this. He’d always just cover up bruises or put an ice pack on anything that swelled up. This was too much, to say nothing of possible internal injuries.
“Jay, uh, there’s a first aid kit in the bathroom around that corner. Could you…?”
Jay nods, features twisted in confusion, and takes off. Alex leaves for the next room over, the kitchen, and grabs an icepack out of the freezer. He wraps it in a towel and returns to Brian just as Jay does.
Brian snickers. “I think you’re going to need a bigger icepack.”
Alex rolls his eyes at him. “Jay, check for alcohol and bandages for, uh, the cuts and stuff. And anything else that might be useful.”
“Painkillers would be great,” Brian adds. “Especially if I can get a nice high off of them.”
Alex presses the icepack against Brian’s swollen eye gently. “Oh yeah, we’re in a creepy house in the middle of the woods with no idea how we got here. Let’s get stoned.”
Brian huffs, taking the icepack from Alex. “This is why everyone thinks you’re annoying, Kralie.”
“At least I’m not a conceited asshole, Thomas.”
“Your last name is Thomas? You have two first names?” Jay looks so utterly baffled that Alex starts laughing.
“Yeah and you know what they say about people with two first names: they can’t be trusted.”
Jay shakes his head. “This is surreal,” he mutters. He’s sat on an armchair, back too straight, and he looks like a disapproving mother and Alex has to agree—this whole thing is entirely too surreal. He hopes this is all just a dream he can wake up from.
Alex starts dabbing at the cuts on Brian’s back with an alcohol-soaked rag. Brian hisses, visibly fighting the urge to pull away. “The stoner has a point,” Alex says. “Can you check the medicine cabinet again? And there’s another bathroom upstairs, second door on the left. See if there’s anything we can use—there might be some Vicodin. This is going to hurt in the morning.”
“It hurts now,” Brian grumbles. “And you’re going to have to explain how you know your way around this place, Nurse Kralie.” Jay spares Alex another curious glance before scurrying off.
He comes back not long later with some ibuprofen and prescription Vicodin, which Brian happily swallows dry.
Their attempts at medical care are feeble. Jay raids the freezer for anything else that can be used as an ice pack: peas, ice in a Ziplock, even a pint of ice cream, though Brian says they should save it for later.
Once Alex declares that “uh, I think that’s all we can do right now,” he throws a light blanket over Brian and sits on the floor next to him. Jay takes a cautious seat a few paces away from him.
“So how do you know this place?” Jay asks. He’s looking right at the Vicodin bottle, though—of course he is. He had to have read the label when he was going through the medicine cabinet.
Alex grabs the bottle from him, displaying the label: Kralie, Sean for his friends to see. “This is my parents’ house. I mean, it’s not, but it’s the same. I don’t know.”
Brian makes a thoughtful sound. “I’m not sober enough for this,” he decides, and closes his eyes for sleep. Alex glances at Jay.
“You don’t look as surprised as I expected.”
“Hm? Oh!” Jay tries to arrange his features into a look of shock, but the effect is mostly comical. “No, it’s really strange!” Alex sighs. Jay’s exaggerated expression falls back to contemplation. “Something weird is happening.”
“You don’t say,” Alex scoffs.
“No, you don’t get it, I mean… there are no animals around. No birds or even any deer.”
Alex opens his mouth to say Jay is just being dramatic, but then he realizes: the forest is dead silent. He hasn’t heard a single bird. Even as the sun goes down, there are no crickets chirping. The only living things they’ve seen are each other.
Jay picks at a loose thread on his sleeve. “I wish I had my camera. At least then I’d know what’s going on.”
Alex shakes his head at that. He has no idea what Jay is talking about anymore—it’s like talking to a different person.
“I’m starving,” he says as he stands. Jay scoots back a bit. “I’m going to raid the fridge. Want anything?”
Jay doesn’t answer, but he does follow Alex into the kitchen.
“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to eat food from a weird house in a weirder forest, but nothing ventured nothing gained.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jay mumbles.
Alex pulls out a carton of Chinese leftovers (that raised even more questions that he didn’t want to think about) and a couple of sodas.
“You okay, Jay? I know this is weird, but don’t give up. We’ll get out of this.” He holds out a soda.
Jay stares at the drink for a long moment, like he expects it to bite him. The fridge door is still open, and Alex shivers at the cold. Jay takes it. He holds it like it’s an ancient relic, containing all the mysteries of the world. Alex thinks he needs to get out more often.
“Alex, how old are you?”
Alex tilts his head and smiles, bemused. He kicks the fridge door shut. “Um, twenty-one? You were at the party, man.”
Jay nods slowly. He cracks the can open and takes a cautious sip. “Yeah, I know, I just… couldn’t remember if your birthday had passed again.”
Alex raises a brow. His birthday wasn’t that long ago. Maybe Jay took some Vicodin when Alex wasn’t looking. Jay pretends not to notice his stare, but his cheeks have turned red in the dim light. He’s a weird kid, but he’s sort of cute when he gets flustered.
They don’t talk much after that. They heat up some lo mein and listen to Brian snore. They fall asleep in the living room, an unspoken agreement that there was safety in numbers.
“Alex!” Jay pokes him in the shoulder.
Alex responds by grumbling and rolling over. He gets another hard poke.
“Alex!”
“What?” he snaps as he rolls to face Jay again.
“There’s something scratching on the windows.”
Alex listens. There’s the hum of the fridge, the rasp of the heater, but whatever Jay’s hearing, Alex doesn’t—no, there it is, a faint scratching, persistent enough that it’ll probably keep him from falling asleep now that he’s noticed it.
Alex rolls his eyes. “It’s just the trees.” He sighs and pulls his blanket back up.
“Alex, the house is in a clearing.”
That makes him stop. At the same time, the scratching gets louder, longer against the window. Alex twists and shakes Brian by the shoulder. He grunts softly and keeps sleeping.
“I tried to wake him,” Jay says, “but I think the drugs have completely knocked him out.”
Alex hisses in annoyance. “This is how people die in horror movies.” He gets on his feet and goes into the kitchen, yanking open a drawer and drawing out a pair of flashlights. He hands one to Jay. “I guess this is the part where we split up?” He’s grinning too wide. His hands are shaking again.
Jay rolls his eyes. Then there’s another scratch and they flinch together.
Alex crosses the threshold and opens the front door, shining his light out. The darkness swallows up the beam. The night air is bitterly cold.
The scratching stops. Alex feels that pull again, that longing for the forest. He sets his jaw and slams the door closed. He and Jay share a long look. The feeling fades. Warmth returns to his fingers.
They walk in silence back to the living room. Brian is still sleeping soundly. Alex and Jay reclaim their spots on the floor, but neither speak. They spend the rest of the night in silence, wide awake.
Brian, however, is well rested and wakes beaming. “Any chance of waffles?” His grin fades when he sees the two sets of bloodshot eyes staring back at him. Once they fill him in, he looks concerned. “So… no waffles. I’m joking,” he says when Alex shoots him a glare. “Look, if something is out there, we need to look for Tim.”
He starts to sit up, but Alex pushes him back down—Brian hisses in pain at the pressure. “You need to rest. We’ll do the searching.” Alex forces a breath into his lungs and tries to smile. “After waffles.” Brian raises a brow. “I saw some in the freezer.”
After breakfast, Jay takes to doing the dishes while Alex checks Brian’s back.
The bruises have faded, still visible and deep, but not as dark as before. The welts have all but disappeared and the cuts are scarred over.
“I told you I was feeling better,” Brian says smugly. “I can help look today.”
Alex rolls his eyes. “Given that I’m apparently great at this medical shit, you’re going to listen to me and stay here and rest.” He sits on the coffee table and starts packing away the medical supplies.
“Hey, Alex?” Brian’s tone is quiet now and that makes Alex go tense. He’s been expecting this. “Look, I know that this isn’t really your house, but are you okay being here?”
Dishes clack in the kitchen. Alex hates that he trusted Brian those months ago, that he told him what happened, because this is not a conversation he wants to have. He doesn’t tell Brian that he had to fight not to flinch while they were making breakfast, when Jay moved out of the corner of his eye. He doesn’t tell Brian that the coffee table he’s sitting on is the same one that he fell against when his father shoved him for mouthing off. He doesn’t tell Brian that he had to change for P.E. in a bathroom stall for a month to hide the bruise.
“It’s not a big deal. Like you said, it’s not even the same place.”
Brian nods slowly. “Okay. Good. We’re going to get out of this, okay?”
There’s a break in his voice. It doesn’t show on his face, but Alex thinks he might be afraid.
“Ready to go?”
Jay’s standing in the doorway and Alex has never been happier to see him.
“We’ll be back before nightfall.” Alex promises. He goes into the kitchen and pulls out a small knife his father used to a variety of small tasks. “I’m going to mark the trees so we can find our way back. Even if we don’t find Tim, he might see the marks and follow them.”
Brian raises a brow. He looks like he wants to say something, but instead he just nods.
“Get some rest,” Alex says, and he and Jay are out the door.
Jay walks closer to him than before. Whatever had him on edge before is gone now, and he’s back to his old self. Almost, anyway. There’s something sharper about Jay than there was before. It doesn’t bother Alex, exactly, but it does make him wonder.
Jay’s choosing their path, straight west. Once the sun is over them, they’ll head back. They packed little sandwiches for lunch. It feels like they’re just going out hiking for the day, not looking for a friend in the middle of an unknown forest.
“This is sort of pointless, isn’t it?” Jay says after a while. “He could be anywhere. He could be dead.”
“He might not even be here,” Alex says. “I mean, what makes you think that he is?”
Jay frowns. His eyes are distant, like he’s trying to remember something. “We were headed somewhere together. I just… I can’t remember what happened next. But he has to be here somewhere. Really wish I had my camera right now.”
Alex watches Jay from the corner of his eye. He can’t help but feel like they’re having two different conversations, like Jay’s just dancing around what he really wants to say.
“Look, we’ll get out of here. If we don’t find Tim by then, we tell the police and they’ll find him.”
Jay shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. He trudges forward, eyes down. Alex searches for something to say.
“I hope we get out of here soon. Amy’s probably worried.” Jay slows. “I mean, Fridays are the only days that we specifically set aside for talking, but we text each other and stuff all week. She probably thinks I’m dead in a ditch or something.” Alex turns to give Jay a grin, but there’s something wrong with the look Jay has on his face. Alex feels sick. “What is it?”
Jay shakes his head, tries to mumble something about how, no, it’s nothing, but Alex grabs him by the arm. “Tell me. What is it? Did… did something happen to Amy?”
Jay stares for a long moment. Alex can almost see him making a decision. “I don’t know. I really don’t. All I know is… something happened to you. I tried to find you and then Amy was gone too.”
Blood rushes in Alex’s ears. “What do you mean, gone? Is she dead?”
This time Jay is silent for too long. “I don’t know,” he says again.
Alex lets him go. He paces, rubs at his neck. Jay watches him.
Alex turns to him again. “Well, you found me, right? I mean, I’m here, right? She could be here, too. Maybe she and Tim are together, maybe they’re fine.”
Jay nods slowly. Alex’s throat tightens. He pushes back a sob. His hands are shaking. He sits against a tree and tries to remember how to breathe.
“How long ago?”
“…I’m not sure.”
For the first time, Alex thinks he’s really telling the truth.
He presses his forehead against his knees.