Chapter Text
“Welcome to Hell,” Oikawa reads as they pass the sign at the edge of town. “You know, that seemed a lot funnier when it wasn’t pitch black and pouring down rain in the middle of the scariest forest I’ve ever seen. It seemed a lot funnier at home.”
“It said, ‘Welcome to Hell Lake,’” Suga corrects him. “It’s just a name.”
“Yeah, but they didn’t call it ‘Pleasant Lake,’ did they?” Oikawa says. He really did think the name was funny – hysterical, even – when they booked the cabin two weeks ago, slightly drunk on both the end of their last final exams ever and also on beer. And he still thinks the name is funny. Or, he will, once they actually find the cabin and the thunder starts sounding a little more distant and a little less like one of these massive trees looming over them on both sides of this narrow dirt road has finally given up the ghost and is coming down, hard, right on top of them. Oikawa doesn’t want to die by tree. That would be horrifically embarrassing.
“I think the turn is coming up,” Akaashi says, leaning forward in the shotgun seat to peer out the windshield, as if getting closer to the glass will allow him to see through the torrential rain.
“How can you tell, Kei-chan?” Oikawa asks. “It all looks the same.”
“We passed a bait and tackle shop a few minutes ago,” Akaashi says, “and the turn is supposed to be the first right after that … I think.”
“You don’t know?” Oikawa demands, feeling less and less pleased with Suga’s “executive decision” to make Akaashi the navigator. “You’re the navigator!”
“We aren’t lost,” Akaashi says, somewhat defensively.
“So you know where we are?” Oikawa asks.
“Approximately,” Akaashi says.
“Approxi–!”
“Wait, turn here, turn here!” Akaashi suddenly shouts.
Suga throws the wheel hard to the right, the car sliding on the wet road as he tries to make the turn that Oikawa can just barely see as a break in the trees.
If they hydroplane and die, Oikawa is going to come back and haunt all of their families. Mostly Akaashi’s.
Oikawa reaches out and grabs onto Kenma, clutching his hand. Kenma immediately tugs his hand back without even looking up from his Gameboy. Oikawa frowns at him. He’s been glued to the thing since they got in the car eight hours ago. It’s a wonder he isn’t carsick – especially with Suga’s driving.
“You should be nice to me, Ken-chan,” Oikawa tells Kenma, “in case we die in a car crash. You’d hate to die with your final act a denial of comfort to one of your best friends, wouldn’t you?”
“We aren’t going to die,” Suga says. He has straightened out the car after his ridiculous turn but the look of intense concentration that Oikawa can see reflected in the windshield doesn’t exactly fill him with confidence.
Neither does this road. The trees are even closer together, looming over them, now that they’ve turned off the main dirt road and onto a smaller, shittier dirt road. And the rain is still coming down hard.
“We just have to find the sign for Hell Cabin,” Akaashi says. He has the directions they printed out from the booking website spread across his lap, squinting at them in the light from his phone. If his efforts at navigation thus far are anything to judge by, they aren’t going to do him much good.
“Again, the name was a lot funnier in our living room,” Oikawa says. “I thought the woods were supposed to be nice and peaceful.”
“‘Tranquil’ is the word a lot of people use,” Kenma offers helpfully, still without looking up.
“This is not tranquil,” Oikawa says. He gestures out the window at the dark and stormy night. The trees look ready to kill at any moment. It’s so dark out that Oikawa can only see past his own reflection in the window every minute or so when bright lightning fills the sky in flashes.
“It will be tranquil once we get there,” Suga says. His voice is calm and cheerful in an only slightly forced kind of way but his grip on the steering wheel is white-knuckled. They’re all pretty stressed. This has not been the easiest road trip in a lot of ways, and now this storm has put them all – even peppy Suga and Zen Akaashi – on edge. Akaashi’s awful navigation skills haven’t helped. It seems they have found the one thing that beautiful, unflappable Akaashi is truly terrible at.
“I think this is the road right here,” Akaashi says, leaning forward again to read the sign that is swaying ominously in the harsh wind.
“‘Hell Cabin,’” Oikawa reads out. “That’s the place. Home sweet home for the next week.”
“Good,” Kenma says, finally glancing up from his Gameboy to look out his window as they turn down the rutted road. “My battery is almost dead; I need an outlet.”
“There’s no electricity at the cabin,” Suga reminds him.
Kenma’s expression goes flat. Oikawa had forgotten about that little detail. No electricity hadn’t seemed like a big deal when they booked it; it sounded quaint. But, again, they were a bit drunk.
“There, there,” Oikawa comforts him. He drapes an arm around Kenma’s shoulders and leans their heads together. “We’ll just have to talk to each other like uncivilized folk,” he says.
“We talk all the time,” Kenma says. He shifts, resting some of his weight against Oikawa. He must have reached the end of a level, because the screen of his Gameboy is dark and the device is held loosely in his lap.
“We don’t talk in the woods, though!” Oikawa says. “Around campfires – just think of the campfires, Ken-chan! We’ll have glorious campfires.”
“Once this rain lets up,” Suga says.
“It should pass through by morning,” Akaashi says. He is still leaning forward, watching the thick woods beside the road as Suga drives very, very slowly. “Here,” he says, lifting a hand to gesture to their left. “This looks like it.”
Suga turns down the drive for their cabin, which is marked by another “Welcome to Hell Lake” sign, this one in an even worse state of disrepair than the others they’ve seen so far. As they drive past the sign, a thunderclap sounds out just as a flash of lightning illuminates the shaking trees that loom over them.
“For the record,” Oikawa says cheerfully, squeezing Kenma’s shoulder, “this is how horror movies start.”
“If Jason comes for us, I’ll send him your way,” Akaashi says drily.
“Mean, Kei-chan!” Oikawa gasps, clutching his chest with the hand not wrapped around Kenma.
“Are we there yet?” Kenma asks. His eyes are closed, Oikawa can just barely see, and more and more of his weight is pressing against Oikawa by the second. Any minute now, he’ll be asleep.
Oikawa is not carrying him inside the cabin, no matter how cute he is.
“Stay awake, Ken-chan,” Oikawa says, singsong, nudging him. “We’re almost there.”
“Wake me when we get there,” Kenma mumbles.
“Wake up; we’re here,” Suga says. The relief in his voice is audible. Oikawa seconds that emotion.
“Thank goodness,” Oikawa says loudly, stretching out his arms, intentionally jostling Kenma so that he has to sit up. Kenma grumbles but pushes himself upright, grabbing at his Gameboy as it nearly slides off his lap. Oikawa leans forward, between the driver and shotgun seats, as Suga parks the car. “What a beauty,” Oikawa says, staring at the cabin. He can barely see it through the heavy sheets of rain – which is going to make unloading the car so much fun – but it looks every inch the perfect set for a horror film. There’s even a half-caved-in porch on the front of it.
“If we wanted a nice place, we would have had to pay for it,” Suga says, ever reasonable. He is also staring at the cabin. His cheerful tone does not match the doubt in his face.
“And besides,” Oikawa says, “with a place like this, whatever happens is sure to be an adventure!”
“That is one word for it,” Akaashi says.
“Just think of the campfires, Kei-chan,” Oikawa tells him.
“This place does look ready for a campfire,” Akaashi says. “And by that I mean that someone should have burned it down a long time ago.”
“Don’t be rude, Kei-chan,” Oikawa says. “I’m sure it’s very nice on the inside.”
The cabin is not nice on the inside. The harsh light of Akaashi’s phone flashlight is not kind. Then again, Oikawa doesn’t think even the gentlest light could help this place. The wallpaper is peeling in large swathes, revealing bits of newspaper under it. The floorboards are, in many places, warped – probably from water damage, because the roof is leaking steadily, noticeably, as they stand in the entryway and stare.
“Well,” Suga says. He does not add anything else. It seems to sum things up.
“Well,” Oikawa echoes him.
“Lights?” Kenma asks.
“There are candles in the living room,” Suga says, pulling out the printout for the cabin and his phone. He turns on the flashlight on his phone to read the printout, leading the way further into the house, all of them dripping as they go. It’s a good thing, maybe, that there’s already so much water damage – Oikawa doesn’t have to feel guilty about tracking water everywhere.
They find the candles in the “TV cabinet,” which is an odd thing to call it because there is no TV in it. Oikawa wonders if there once was a TV in it which was removed when the cabin’s owners decided to cut costs and only rent to broke college kids who can’t afford electricity. There are, at least, plenty of candles.
“Now it looks like the part of the horror film where the stupid kids decide to perform a demonic ritual for funsies,” Oikawa says, looking around at all of the candles they have lit.
Kenma, who is huddled on the couch and has not helped set up their demonic ritual at all, mumbles something into his knees. Akaashi strokes his hair from where he is sitting on the arm of the couch.
“I can’t believe what we’re paying for this place,” Akaashi says.
“We’re paying almost nothing,” Suga says. He lights the last of the candles with a flourish and then whips the match through the air to extinguish it.
“And it’s still too much,” Akaashi says.
“There isn’t even Wi-Fi,” Kenma groans, the words barely intelligible. Akaashi pets his hair again.
“We could hardly be more in the middle of nowhere,” Oikawa agrees. “Which is what makes this the perfect place –”
“No,” Akaashi says.
“– for an alien abduction!” Oikawa finishes, ignoring Akaashi. He waves one arm around in a sweeping gesture, indicating the house and the creepy woods surrounding it. “Isolated,” he says excitedly, “remote, and there’s even a nice big lake for them to land on!”
“How would they land on the lake?” Suga asks.
“They can travel hundreds of lightyears through space but they can’t land on water?” Oikawa says. He scoffs. “Get with it, Kou-chan.”
Suga hums. “Well, I’m going to light the stove,” he says. “It’s freezing in here.”
From the couch, Kenma makes a noise of agreement.
“The wood’s in the kitchen, right?” Akaashi asks, already getting up and moving in that direction.
“Yes,” Suga calls after him. He crouches down by the cast-iron wood-burning stove and tugs at the handle. It takes a few pulls before the door opens.
“I wonder if you can make some kind of crop-circle equivalent on a lake,” Oikawa says. He drops onto the couch next to Kenma, who immediately curls into him, seeking warmth. Kenma has always run cold. Oikawa wraps an arm around him and rubs his hand up and down over the thick wool of Kenma’s sweater. No one responds to his posed question, but that’s okay. They have a week to figure it out.
Akaashi comes back with an armload of wood and sets it on the floor next to Suga. Suga is squinting at the cabin printout, flipping back and forth through the pages. His hands are covered in black soot and so are the papers. Akaashi grimaces at the dirt on his hands from the wood and immediately turns around and heads back to the kitchen.
Oikawa strokes Kenma’s sweater and stares out the windows. That is one nice thing about the cabin – the entire back wall is glass, giving them an excellent view of the lake, presumably, when it isn’t dark and storming. Right now, all Oikawa can see is darkness except when the lightning gives him a quick peek at the scattered trees and sloping lawn that lead down to the lakeside.
The next flash of lightning illuminates something far more unusual, though.
Oikawa jumps off of the couch, staring, wide-eyed, out at the lake. “Did you see that?” he asks, looking from Suga to Kenma and back to the window. Kenma moans, probably because his personal heater left him, but he doesn’t look up. Suga stares at Oikawa.
“No?” Suga says. “See what?”
“In the lake!” Oikawa says. He’s shouting, he is aware of this, but this is a shouting matter. He looks back at Suga, then back at the lake, then back at Suga again. Suga is staring at him, bemused. “There’s something in the lake,” Oikawa hisses, dropping his voice. “I saw it!”
“Okay,” Suga says. He turns back to the woodstove, shoving firewood into it.
“No, I swear,” Oikawa says. He knows he can be a bit dramatic at times, and that he has an awareness of the preternatural that his friends lack – their loss – but this isn’t like the time he thought a helicopter was a UFO and dragged them all out of bed and onto the dorm roof at 3 a.m. This is serious.
There is something in the lake.
“Kou-chan,” Oikawa says, somberly, “I swear. I saw something in the lake.”
“Like a bird, or a turtle?” Suga says. “There’s supposed to be a lot of wildlife around here.”
“Like a thing,” Oikawa says. He waves a hand at the windows, in the direction of the lake. “It was a big, dark shape on the surface of the lake. It looked almost like a person, but it wasn’t.”
“Could it have been a log sticking up out of the water?” Suga asks. He isn’t even looking. He’s still focused on the stupid woodstove. They have bigger problems here!
Oikawa drops to his knees beside Suga and takes his face into his hands. Suga looks at him, his eyebrows drawing tight in the beginnings of annoyance. Oikawa shakes his head a bit, trying to impart the seriousness of the situation.
“Kou-chan,” Oikawa says, “there is a monster in the lake.”
Suga opens his mouth to respond, probably to continue to doubt Oikawa, the beautiful narrow-minded fool, but he is interrupted by a shout from the kitchen. Oikawa and Suga both turn to stare as Akaashi storms back into the living room. He is holding one of his hands to his chest and scowling.
“The water taps are backwards,” Akaashi says. “I turned on the cold water and it wasn’t running very well, so I waited a moment for the stream to kick up, and when it did and I stuck my hand under it the water was scalding.”
“Did you burn yourself?” Suga asks. He stands, leaving Oikawa on the floor by the woodstove, and goes to examine Akaashi’s hand.
Akaashi shakes his head, letting Suga take his hand and check it over. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Or, if I did, then it isn’t a bad burn.”
“The cabin is cursed,” Oikawa says with growing realization. He feels a thrill of fear. All of his jokes about horror movies are suddenly a lot less funny in light of this new information. “First a lake monster, and now this.”
“What?” Akaashi asks.
“The first aid kit is in the car,” Suga says. “I can go get it.”
As if to inform them of what a bad idea it would be to leave the cabin, a thunderclap rattles the windows. They all jump.
“It can wait until morning,” Akaashi says. “I’ll just run some cold water over it.”
Suga nods and, still holding Akaashi’s hand, leads him into the kitchen. Oikawa follows them.
“Or maybe it’s aliens,” he says, thinking it over. This is the perfect place for aliens to land. If they’ve set up some kind of base of operations here, of course they don’t want anyone nosing around. Rigging the cabin to kill anyone who stays in it and letting a monster loose in the lake would only make sense if you wanted to protect your alien hideout from prying eyes.
Suga turns on the tap marked hot, mindful of what Akaashi said about them being switched, and waits a moment as the water stutters and then begins to run in a steadier stream. He tests the water with a quick flick of his fingers before he moves Akaashi’s hand under the flow.
“If this place is being actively monitored by aliens who chase off any wandering humans by any means necessary,” Oikawa says, “then it’s no wonder it was so cheap.” He leans against the counter, setting his chin on his closed fist. “Kou-chan,” he says, “how many deaths have been reported at this cabin?”
“Just the one, why?” Suga says, keeping his attention on Akaashi’s hand.
Oikawa jerks upright again. “What?!” he shouts.
“Wait, what?” Akaashi says, staring at Suga along with Oikawa.
Suga looks up at them. “Well,” he says, “someone did die here, but it was years ago and it was just an accident on the lake – nothing weird.”
“What kind of accident?” Oikawa asks. Suga is a darling and an intelligent man, but he often misses the subtler clues that indicate the presence of paranormal and extraterrestrial activity.
“A boating accident,” Suga says. “It didn’t even happen in the cabin, it happened on the lake, but they were staying in the cabin at the time so it came up when I researched the place.”
“And you didn’t tell us?” Oikawa says, scandalized. This is hugely important information! Clearly, they are not the aliens’ first potential victims!
“I knew it would only freak some people –” Suga glances at Oikawa with a disapproving frown before once again setting his attention on Akaashi’s hand “– out, and we came here to relax. I just want us to have a nice time.” He reaches out and shuts off the water. As the water drains – the drain must be clogged; the sink is half-full – Suga looks at Oikawa and Akaashi. “Now that we’ve graduated, we don’t know where we’ll all end up,” he says. “We don’t know how much we’ll get to see each other. You three have been my family, my only family, since I met you. I just want this week to be wonderful.”
Well, now Oikawa feels a bit shitty. Suga is very good at that – at the gentle guilt thing. He will make someone an excellent mother someday.
“We all want that,” Kenma says from right beside Oikawa. Oikawa jumps. He didn’t hear Kenma walk over from the living room. The boy is stealthy as a cat. Kenma leans against Oikawa's side, once again clearly seeking warmth but also, Oikawa thinks, offering comfort. “I think we’ll see each other a lot after this week,” Kenma says, “but I know what you mean, Koushi. You guys are my family, too.”
Oikawa pulls Kenma closer against his side. He loves Kenma. He loves Suga. He loves Akaashi, too, even though he can’t navigate for shit. None of them had families – or, not ones they were close to or could rely on – when they got to college on a blend of scholarships and life savings they’d earned by working their way through high school. Then they found each other. Oikawa and Suga were roommates, Kenma and Akaashi were lab partners who somehow convinced their roommates to trade rooms under the table so they could live together, and then Oikawa met Akaashi at that party and the rest was history. By the end of that year, they were inseparable. Now, they are family.
“Seconded,” Oikawa says, grinning around at the three of them. “We’re family. And this will be an unforgettable week … and not just because of the lake monster and the aliens.”
“Oikawa –” Suga says, sighing, but he is interrupted when the sink makes a sudden and loud rushing, gurgling noise that sounds like some kind of terrifying nightmare creature dying a painful death and desperate to take everyone else with it. They all turn to stare at the sink, which, after the initial burst of sound, quiets to a sucking growl.
Oikawa glares at the sink as it growls away, quietly threatening. Even Suga looks a bit uncomfortable as the sound persists for a somewhat alarming amount of time before finally, at long last, finishing with one last slurping shudder that makes the pipes in the walls groan in sympathy – or in shared murderous intent.
But, no, the cabin isn’t out to kill them at all. And neither are the aliens.
Tobio watches the growler arrive with keen interest. It’s a little difficult to see through the rain, but he counts four dudes as they get out of the growler and run towards the cabin. Once they go inside Tobio can’t see them for a while, but, before long, the cabin begins to glow.
He hasn’t ever actually met any dudes. He’s seen them and heard them when they come to the lake to shout loudly on the beach and build their campfires, but he always hides. They’re so loud and rough. They scare him. It’s fun to watch them, but he’s never tried to talk to any of them. He’s never talked to anyone, but he wants to. The dudes he’s seen seem to like talking to each other – though Tobio would never try to talk to any of them – and Tobio often talks to himself or to the fish in the lake, so he thinks he’s ready to try talking to someone who can talk back to him. It seems like a good idea, but the dudes he’s seen on the lakeshore so far have not been … safe.
These dudes seem much quieter.
Once the cabin begins to glow, he can see them inside of it. He likes how they move with each other. They aren’t jumping around with the quick, violent movements that put Tobio on edge. Or, they mostly aren’t doing that. One of them seems a little jumpy, after a bit. Mostly, though, they seem to touch each other gently and to move more slowly than the loud dudes Tobio is used to seeing. Tobio likes that. He thinks these would be good dudes to try to talk to.
After a while, they disappear, walking away from the part of the cabin that’s glowing so he can’t see them anymore. Tobio sinks back into the lake, watching the glow of the cabin from beneath the surface.
He’s glad they’ve come. He’s excited to try to talk to them. Maybe, if he does talk to them, and if they really are as safe as they look from here, these dudes can be his very first friends.
Tobio smiles. His tail swishes excitedly. He can’t wait for tomorrow!