#but it's being swallowed out by people who want to start diving into race science or blame deflection and that makes it.... so much harder

[rotzaprachim]

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[greenninjagal-blog]

Let Me Hear You Scream pt2

Ready for more spooky vibes? If you missed the first part you can find it [here!]

Summary: Upon waking up in a forest he doesn't recognize, Roman vs a Bear Trap goes almost exactly how you would think it goes.

Words: 6374

TW: Bear traps, blood, violence,

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

Roman has always had an unusually high pain tolerance. He had to, being twin brothers with Remus and all that. The sheer amount of danger the two of them got into as kids delegated that if he was anything less than completely indestructible, he’d be dead the next time Remus started a conversation with “I bet you won’t…”

He remembers that summer when Remus dared him to ride his bike down the concrete stairs, and he remembers how the wheels pitched him forward and his helmet cracked on the sidewalk, his knee skidded on the concrete, and his arm went snap with pain so white hot that Roman actually thought that the whole thing had popped right off his body entirely.

He remembers lying on the ground so shocked that he couldn’t even breathe, much less cry, and he remembers Remus laughing in the background, “I didn’t think you were going to actually do it! Oh shit, Ro? Roman! ROMAN!”

He remembers it so clearly.

“REMUS!” Roman shrieks into the forest, with tears rolling down his cheeks. “THIS ISN’T FUNNY, YOU FUCKER!”

His ankle burns. He can’t feel his toes, he can’t feel his ankle, he can’t feel anything, but there’s blood all over his hands and he can’t look down in case he faints.

His hands are trembling as they blindly work over whatever the fuck he stepped on. He can feel the slushie that he last ate, swirling in his stomach, boiling and bubbling until he feels it corroding his back molars. His fingers fumble around the… the metal teeth, oh god he’s going to vomit. His ankle screams in pain when his fingers prod too close to his actual limb. His ears echo with the painful awful SNAP of the jaw mechanism like its seared right into his soul.

“Remus,” He sobs, “I’m going to fucking kill you--”

Because there was a line here; Yeah, Remus dared him into a prank war with one of his stupid “I bet you wont, you prissy goody two shoes…” and Roman poured glitter into Remus’s laundry once, then Remus replaced Roman’s toothpaste with mayo, then Roman put white hair dye in Remus’s shampoo, and Remus swore he would get some type of revenge, even though he loved that look so much that he kept a stupid white streak in his hair. At least Roman thought he did-- He did, right?

Remus wasn’t the type to keep it to himself if he was upset. Neither of them were: Roman had perfected the art of loud sighs and dramatic monologues into a microphone and Remus had set things on fire to make people pay attention.

He didn’t-- wouldn’t--

He wouldn’t drag Roman into the middle of nowhere and make him walk into a bear trap for hair dye that would come out in another few weeks.

((Wouldn’t he?))

Everyone said Remus was insane, through whispered rumors and gossip that dissipated the moment that Roman walked into the room. Roman hadn’t ever seen the insanity himself; he grew up with Remus chasing squirrels in the park and diving into dumpsters for cool treasures and it was normal. Remus had always found humor in strange and weird things and as they had grown up those things had become less real and more abstract and Roman still didn’t think it meant that Remus would do this.

The forest is dense around him, stupid, dark; Roman isn’t sure he could recognize it even if he had a map in front of him, but then again Remus was always the more environmentally aware person of the two of them. He doesn’t know where Remus went the fuck off to either-- he’s brain is fuzzy at everything more than a few seconds ago when he blinked opened his eyes and took one step forward into a metal death trap, but he… he thought Remus had been right beside him, so close that… that…. His head is singing with pain and the backs of his eyes are melting.

“Hey!” A voice calls out and Roman flinches so hard that the metal spikes dig into his ankle and his scream strangles him.

Roman blinks back his tears just in time to see a figure stumble right out the thickets nearby, with the grace of a new born fucking dear. Roman swears in every language he knows and then some he doesn’t as the person scrambles back to their feet and zeroes in on him with an expression that Roman usually associates with the memory of his science teacher right before she demonstrated how to break a frog's ribcage for their dissection.

“No,” Roman says, “No, back off--”

He tries to scoot back and agony shoots up his leg so bright and violent that his vision whites out.

“Don’t move,” the person says, holding up their palms up suddenly to show they were unarmed or something. Roman isn’t sure what that’s supposed to do when he knows that Remus himself has never needed a weapon to be a lunatic. “I’m going to try to help.”

“Do not fucking come near me,” Roman snarls. “Who are you? One of Remus’s fucking little friends--”

“I assure you I don’t know a Remus, but you are in pain and believe I am qualified to help.”

“Fuck off!”

Roman swears that the pain is getting to his head, meddling with his thoughts like alcohol except not fun and Roman would not suggest anyone repeat this experience. The stranger-- Remus’s friend or whatever-- is staring at him with a patient impatience: like his mother waiting for him to finish his story before she runs off to answer a call on her work phone. They’re older than Roman, by a year or two, with sharp cheekbones and back framed glasses of a stereotypical nerd but a height that makes it hard to even imagine anyone looking down on them. Their eyes are colder than ice, and frost wafts off their breath. They’ve got a sweater vest on, with a tie, and converse dotted with glow in the dark paint in the shape of space nebulas.

Between his teary eye lashes Roman thinks that this guy looks incredibly tame for someone who associates with Remus and he fights the urge to vomit.

Is his leg supposed to be feeling cold?

Oh god, was he going to lose his foot? His breath swells up in his lungs, like a balloon pressing against his ribs. He wouldn’t be able to walk without a foot-- He wouldn’t be able to move or leave these woods or get help-- Remus and his psycho friends could easily cut up the rest of his body and let the wolves get him and then at school when someone would ask what happened to that dumbass who used to make dumb jokes on air during the football games, everyone will be like “Who?” and “didn’t Remus used to have an annoying twin? What happened to that guy?” and no one will ever find him because no one would car--

“Please,” The Doctor Who-ever says, in a faux calm tone as Roman nearly swallows his tongue. “I have medical knowledge, and you are clearly in distress.”

Agony races up his leg and Roman whimpers again. He swears he can hear the sound of metal grinding against his ankle bones, biting in deep and forcing the marrow to crack and shatter and explode until it's just a bunch of broken glass-like fragments under his skin. His head feels light and he frantically breathes deeply because he is not going to pass out, he is not going to make it that eas--

He’s cut off by a sudden crashing from behind behind himself: snapping of branches like a wild animal is tearing through them, the crunch of dead leaves steadily getting louder and heavy and deadlier, the swearing that are all tell-tale sounds of Remus crashing directly into someone and both of them eating the dirt as they barrel through the thickets and roll to a stop a few feet away.

Nerdicus jerks back like they were expecting anything less of Remus’s spectacular grand entrance.

Roman bites down on his tongue to stop himself from outright whimpering. Remus, his twin, his mirror image, rolls back to a sitting position like a possessed doll coming to life, untangling his limbs from another crumpled, groaning form that must be some other friend of his, and snapping them back in place because what are limbs to a maniac like him? The setting sun paints him in an eerie light and Roman’s skin itches with equal parts rage and terror at him, for dragging them out there, for putting out bear traps, for doing all this as pay back for a stupid little prank in a prank war he fucking started--

Remus’s laughter is obnoxious as always and Roman tries not to flinch at the sound of it alone, holding back a white wash of fear with just his force of will.

His other friend is another person that Roman hasn’t seen before-- not that he spends a lot of time getting to know the faces of the delinquents that his brother hangs out with. They’ve got on black jeans and a black T-shirt with one of those reversible sequin designs in the shape of a skull. Their blond hair dances in the last dregs of the evening, even as they pull a leaf from their bangs and yanks their dirty yellow beanie back over their head.

“Holy shit!” Remus says, spitting out dirt from his mouth. “Is that a bear trap?”

“Remus!” Roman whimpers with a tight throat. “This isn’t funny!”

“Au contraire! I left you alone for like five seconds and now you’re in a bear trap!” There’s a glint in Remus’s eyes and Roman recognizes it from those times when Remus climbed too high in the trees back at home, when he stared at a growing flame of a match too long, when he reached across the console and yanked on the steering wheel, screaming Roman’s name--

Roman brain pulses to the point where he can feel it knock against his skull and that hurts almost as much as ankle and he swears he sees stars on the backs of his eyelids and he does not want those to be the last stars he ever sees.

Remus swoops towards him and Roman flinches back, nearly screaming when his leg jostles.

“Chill out, Prince Charmless,” his twin says, rolling his eyes. “I’m gonna get it off. What’s your range of movement?”

“Do not come any closer to me, you asshole!”

“You can’t get that thing off yourself,” Remus says.

“And whose fault is that?” Roman snaps.

Remus freezes, tilting his head slightly to the side. His rat's nest of hair creates an unearthly silhouette as he looks down at Roman, something straight out his Halloween horror films, and Roman bares his teeth in warning. He’s not thinking about how Remus’s foot can stomp down on his injured, trapped leg, he’s not thinking about how there’s no one around for miles, he’s not thinking about how there’s nothing and no one to stop him from straight out fratricide--

“Why am I suddenly getting the feeling you think I know what the flying fuck is going on here?” Remus asks.

“Don’t you?”

“No!” Remus says, delightedly, happily, cheerfully and his voice makes some distant bird caw. “I thought you snapped and took me to the woods to kill me yourself! This is much more boring now that I know I haven’t managed to break your last shreds of sanity.”

“Why would I--”

“This is ridiculous,” Glasses McGee cuts in sharply, adjusting said glasses with their index finger. “We need to remove your foot from that trap now.” They look at Remus and the other person. “Are either of you knowledgeable about the mechanics of bear traps?”

Remus throws two thumbs up, and Roman remembers vaguely a rant from a year or two ago about unethical bear hunting and steel jaw traps and how animals would step in and then lay there for days suffering as their mangled limb held them captive regardless of them trying to chew it off for freedom and oh god he’s going to be sick--

“Roman,” Remus says somewhere beyond the screaming in his head. “Oh shit.” It sounds like he’s far away and distant, or maybe underwater and Roman is drowning. He can’t seem to breathe anymore, like the teeth biting into his ankles had wrapped around his chest and was slowly crushing him.

People are moving around him, faint voices talking and then suddenly burning blinding white hot pain that shoots all the way up to the back of his eyes.

He screams and bites down only to find there’s something in his mouth-- fibers and the unmistakable taste of wool and Roman nearly gags on it. He blinks back the foggy pain and finds that he’s leaning on Remus and Webster Dick-tionary is pressing a multicolored sweatshirt to his leg delicately with the bear trap fully closed a few feet away, tethered to the ground with a heavy metal chain coated in a red paint that makes Roman’s vision sway all over again. The slushie claws back up his throat and he gags.

There’s someone new standing just behind the nerd: a very pretty person in a pretty skirt and headphones with cat ears on them around his neck. The splash of freckles and the round glasses makes them look a bit younger than the rest of them, but that could also be Roman’s brain twisting things around the moment that they wince in sympathy as the nerd prods part of his ankle.

They’re magnificent, Roman decides with a dizzying certainty. They’re the sun in the middle of this dark and dreadful forest, the stars in the night sky, the lighthouse in the storm guiding Roman back from complete devastation with just those shiny eyes behind cracked lens.

The other person, the one in the black skull shirt, Sid from Toy Story come to life, is standing just behind him and Remus, looking on distastefully from a good distance away. It takes Roman a moment to realize he’s biting down on the guy’s beanie, and gross. He spits it out at the same time as the nerd presses too close to where the trap had caught him.

“Son of a Witch!” He hisses. “A dragon witch, a fucking---”

“Oh, boo,” Remus says. “He’s alive.”

“He was not in any immediate danger of dying,” Space Case says firmly. “And isn’t he your brother?”

“Looks like someone is an only child,” Remus says. The person in black reaches out and snatches back his beanie, his entire face curling into some disgusted expression as they hold the part with Roman’s saliva away from themself.

“Wonderful,” they say in deadpan and stuff the beanie in their back pocket.

Roman blinks, struggling to sit up by himself. He scrubs his face trying to get rid of his tears, and buries that boiling humiliation being the center of attention like this. Of course, he has to be grievously injured for anyone to care about him, for anyone to take a moment to look at him, for anything--

Remus lets him go, stretching up and yawning like nothing about this is weird or strange or scary to him.

Part of Roman is reassured by that. Like, of course Remus isn’t terrified out of his mind; what is there to be scared of when he’s the most terrifying thing in a 100 mile radius? When he handcuffed himself to the doors of the city history museum to protest its demolishment even though the wrecking ball was right there, when he wore a mini skirt to school to protest the dress code even though he’d been beat up for less before, when he marched into the Governor’s office when he was refused a meeting about the rescinding of the pollution standards in the the county and laughed in the face of the armed guards that told him to leave.

Remus had an endless supply of guts and determination and Roman had wished for so long that his reckless bravery could be contained, controlled and banished, but now it kinda felt like Remus slipping a familiar jacket over Roman’s shoulders and telling him to relax.

Google.com-- Roman is seriously running out of names for them-- leans in and tears the new holes in Roman’s jeans further-- Roman grimaces at the thought of having to buy another pair to make up for this, but the nerd expertly uses the excess fabric to tie up his wound with a professional precision.

“Alright, Doc Oct,” Remus says while they work. “What is the diagnosis? Amputation? Do I need a body bag?”

“I just said that he was not in danger of dying,” they say, finishing the knot which only causes Roman to grunt a little bit. “And my name is Logan, if you must know. I am not a full medical doctor by any means, but I believe that he will recover fully; the trap broke skin and there will likely be a nasty amount of bruising deep in the muscle tissue, but he will recover in a few weeks of rest. It will probably be best to keep weight off your foot as much as possible.”

“See, drama queen?” Remus says to Roman, shoving his shoulder. “You’re fine.”

Roman gives him double middle fingers for his trouble and tries not to shake too hard with relief. He stares down at his leg, forcing a steady breath through his lungs and out his nose, and wonders with a dizzying amazement how his leg was not only in one piece but recoverable, after all the pain. He isn’t sure that it’s not just the placebo effect of someone saying that everything’s going to be okay, but he wiggles his toes and swears that the pain only wracks his limb moderately this time.

Even closed, the bear trap looked menacingly at them: Roman’s blood on the jaws that were curled into a ghoulish grin, just waiting for someone to get close enough to open and bite down on. He’s not sure how Remus and the Doctor Doolittle-- Logan-- managed to get it off him.

Logan turns and offers the sweater to the person in the skirt. “Ah, sorry, I’m afraid the blood has…”

Roman sucks in another breath at the sight of it: the bright splotchy blobs of red that bled through the pastel tye dye design that would likely never come out and eternally remain a reminder of how Roman put his foot directly in a bear trap like an idiot-- What would he have done if there was no one around? Died? His own stupidity had ruined such a nice piece of clothing and--

“It’s okay!” The angel says with a somewhat cartoonish voice. Roman blinks in surprise at the sweetness of it, tasting sugar even as the words hold over the air. He swears he can envision their I’s dotted with hearts; a soft and kind tone despite the fact that Roman had ruined their sweater. “I’m much more relieved he’s going to be okay!”

“Let’s not get too excited,” Doctor Doom says, causing Roman to stiffen and Remus to glance back curiously towards them. They’re turned away from the rest of the mismatched, miscellaneous group, looking into the trees with a gaze that makes Roman’s stomach roll over and not in any way that is even remotely good.

“What?”

They glance back at them with an expression something that Roman can only call shifty. Like a snake before it strikes, they’re poised on the balls of their feet, coiled with the power to move at a seconds decision. Untrustable, Undependable, Unkind-- and Roman squares his shoulders just to prove to himself that there isn’t actually a dagger point about to plunge into his back.

The person’s voice is silky smooth, but Roman can’t find it in himself to be jealous when the meaning of the next words hit. “I don’t suppose any of you remember just exactly how we came to be here, do you?”

The woods echo with a strange emptiness, like the trees themselves are holding their breaths. The silence is eerie-- Roman’s never been a forest this quiet. He’s never been anywhere this quiet. The hairs on the back of his neck raise up.

Logan and the shining, shimmering, lovely vision share a look and the former shrugs, occupying their hands with tying their sweater around their waist.

“It’s fuzzy,” they admit, thoughtfully. “I was leaving my dorm...and then…” They grimace, which is downright awful to witness: Roman doesn't think anyone deserves to look so uncomfortable, and certainly not a beauty like them. “...then I was here.”

Logan makes a sour face like he managed to misplace a decimal twenty seven steps back in his math equations. “I was uncharacteristically late to class, but I seem to have some form of amnesia surrounding the hours since then as well; It was just past two.”

Dr. Facilier-turned-teenager turns to Roman, their eyes asking a question they already know the answer to. And part of Roman wants to snarl at them, tell them to knock it off with the creepy aura and better-than-you-expression, explain to them exactly how they ended up all here together because there’s a logical, causal explanation.

But Remus is already laughing. “Oh come on! We were…. What were we doing again?” Remus freezes for a moment, some of the smile leaving his face. “Ro? Where were we…?”

Remus is dressed in another one of his ripped T-shirts, the Save the Turtles one that he wore to that protest a few months ago and when he volunteered to clean up beaches for the weekend. His sleeves are ripped off to show off the endangered Tiger tattoo on his shoulder up to his neck, and his jeans are the recycled ones that he bought second hand and begged Roman to repair rather than buy a new pair and “give his money to the capitalists that are trying to kill us all”.

In comparison, Roman is wearing his letterman jacket, with his name engraved on it that he got for being the announcer for the football team three years in a row. He’s wearing his announcer uniform too-- his hair is styled and his colors are coordinated to the white and red of their school, but Remus never comes to the football games anymore.

Or well, he’s not allowed to come to the games anymore after he stole the tuba from the band players and charged into the field during the game back in their freshman year.

Still he-- remembers… he thinks he remembers... They were in the car together, Remus needed to go somewhere and Roman had to drop him off and then speed off to the game, right? Remus' feet were up on his dashboard, mud flaking off into his freshly cleaned car, his air fresheners weren’t working, they were fighting over the radio, Remus’s hand reached out, latching on to the wheel and a scream--

“Fuck,” Remus says, rubbing the side of his head like Roman had slapped him. “Did you crash our car out here?”

“Me?” Roman says, incredulously.

“Yeah!” Remus says. “Did you get brain damage in the crash too? Are your brains going to fall out? You were the one driving, dumbass.”

“You grabbed my steering wheel!”

Remus snorts. “What? No, I didn’t?”

“Yes you did!”

“No way!”

“Yes way!”

“I wouldn’t get anything out of--”

“Boys!” Skeletar says, clapping to get their attention. “Less arguing, more answering the question.”

Remus looks at Roman and Roman glares right back because he did not crash the car. Between the two of them Remus was more likely to crash a car-- proven from how he totaled their green Ford Fiesta nine months ago and now even around the pounding headache he can still remember the feeling of surprise as Remus’s sporadic movement jumbled through his own, the yank that caused him to lose control, the-- the--

He doesn’t remember what happened after that, but he knows that then Roman had opened his eyes out here, taken a step forward, and nearly lost his foot to a bear trap.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Logan says. “Even if perhaps you happened to have a car around here, that does not explain how the rest of us came to be here. And likely from the events that you are describing the car is not in functional condition-- although I’m unsure how your persons would have come out of such a thing without a few visible injuries…”

“I didn’t crash the car,” Roman says firmly.

“Oh, like you didn’t step into a bear trap?” Remus asks innocently antagonistically.

“Why are there bear traps out here anyway!” Roman hisses. “Isn’t bear hunting or whatever illeg--”

Roman almost doesn’t hear it: it starts so softly and then it raises in pitch and suddenly it's ringing in the air like cracks in the fragile glass silence. He feels his breath disappear right out of his chest, his body tensing and everyone jerks towards the direction the sound comes from, like they’re expecting to see something out there.

Roman remembers hearing people yell at Remus to get out of the way of the wrecking ball, remembers hearing the teachers snap at him to go change into his gym clothes, remembers the armed guard spitting on Remus’s face, his own shouts turning to something just above an animalistic growl when he told Remus to knock it off, you’re making me look bad.

And still he doesn’t remember hearing anything sound so horrified. So desperate. So despondent.

It is the noise that causes Roman to break out in goosebumps, electricity dancing along his skin causing all of his hairs to raise, and himself to find it suddenly very hard to swallow. Roman is scrambling back before he can remember that his foot should not be moving and he bumps into Logan as he does.

It cuts off short and disappears like someone took a pair of scissors to the sound itself, snipping the scream for help away before it reaches the end.

And Roman doesn’t think anyone is breathing anymore. His heart pounds in his chest, waiting for the rest of it.

The trees cast shadows so deep and dark that not even the moonlight will touch them. Somehow without Roman noticing, the temperature had dropped until the air feels like frostbite licking his exposed skin. Roman doesn’t dare move another inch-- doesn’t like the idea of what might happen if he reminds the rest of the world that time is still passing.

“I…” the person in the skull T-shirt says, in a very low, strangled tone. “I don’t think bears are what's being hunted.”

“No,” Roman says, “No.”

“Oh god, I’m gonna be sick,” the person in the skirt says.

“No!” Roman says, throwing out his arms before his thoughts can catch up. “This is not--”

“We need to leave,” Logan says, face pale. “Now.”

“I think I saw a gate,” Remus said, no hint of his unhinged grin. He thumbs the direction that he and Kaa came from. “I pulled the switch but it didn’t open. I thought about climbing but there are no holds and barbed wire around the top--”

“It’s likely lacking a power source then,” Logan says steadily calm and Roman feels like he’s losing his whole goddamned mind. “Let me take a look at--”

“We are not being hunted right now!” Roman blurts out.

The others stare at him for a solid, endless second and Roman’s stomach threatens to crawl up his throat. He waits for them to agree with him, waits for them to laugh and call it a joke, waits for Remus to tell him he’s so easy to scare, come on Ro, did you really think there was a murderer in these woods? This is grade school level effort!

Roman gets the feeling that he’s going to be waiting a very long time.

“Guys,” Roman says, slightly more wobbly than he means it to, slightly more softer than he means it to, slightly more terrified than he means it to. “We aren’t being hunted for sport, right?”

Because-- Because he’s seen horror movies. And he remembers once how Remus poured a bag of popcorn over his head and said that if they were ever in that situation, he’d leave Roman to rot, maybe even toss him to the killer himself, laugh as Roman screamed and begged and cried.

He doesn’t look at his foot. He doesn’t look at his foot and think about how he can’t run. He doesn't look at his foot and realize that they’re going to leave him behind and no one will ever know what happened to him and no one will care--

Remus is suddenly right in front of him, offering a hand right into Romans face. Roman blinks back the burning tears on his cheeks and looks at the limb with a trembling lip.

“Come on,” Remus says. “You’re a little bitch when you ruin your mascara, Ro.”

And Roman tries to articulate the billions of insults he has in his brain, but all that comes out is a whimper as Remus latches on to his wrist and pulls him to his feet. He stumbles the moment that he tries to put weight on his foot, flickers of pain echoing in his brain although it's not nearly as bad as he was expecting. Remus pulls Roman over his shoulder with his injured leg raised between them and all of his weight on Remus’s shoulders.

“I’m not leaving you behind, dumbass,” Remus says.

((Why wouldn’t he?))

“We need to help them,” the person in the skirt, the good and just and wonderful person in a skirt, says suddenly.

“I don’t think they need our help,” Hans Gruber-minus-the-German-accent says. “In fact, I don’t think they need anything, anymore.”

“How could you say that?!”

“Easily,” they respond, shortly.

The person in the skirt is shaking, Roman realizes. They’re shaking and hugging themself and they look slightly green in the face.

“I came from over there,” they say from behind trembling hands. “I-- I didn’t hear anyone else over there but they must have been there and I-- I can’t--”

“They’re dead,” Dr. Jerkyll says clinically, like a surgeon with a knife. “Us rushing towards that area is only going to get us attacked next. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die, thank you very much.”

“We can’t leave them!” The other argues.

The person in the skull shirt steps towards the other and grabs their upper arm to spin them back to the direction the scream came from. Then with a derisive and terrible sneer, they shove. The cutie in the skirt stumbles forward, nearly face planting on the uneven ground.

“Then you go help them,” they say, with streaks of faint and awful moonlight painting them in a pale halo. They wave back to Logan, Remus and Roman, and Roman feels very much like he doesn’t want to be included in this group all of a sudden. “Don’t drag the rest of us into it.”

“Hey, don’t be a dick!” Roman says, stepping forward and hissing when he places a slight weight on his foot. “What if it were you out there?”

They scoff. “Me? I would never let myself get caught by a psycho murderer in the woods. But if I did, the last thing I would want is my valiant savior to come charging to my rescue and then get slaughtered right beside me like an idiot!”

“I’ll keep that in mind, you slimy snake,” Roman says.

“I bet you will, Hiccup,” they shoot back. “The gate is this way. Try not to step in another bear trap, won’t you?”

“Damn!” Remus says, “You’re a bitch! What’s your opinion on plastic in the sea?”

Roman slaps Remus’s arm and gives him a glare because really? Right now? They’re in the woods, someone just screamed and probably got murdered, they don’t know how to get out, Roman’s injured, and Remus is doing one of his weird flirting attempts.

Great.

The person in the skull shirt at least looks slightly thrown by the question, narrowing their eyes and shaking their head as they turn away as if they can brush off the rest of the group. “The sea turtles are dying.” They say blandly, without a hint of actual emotion. “Oh no. Next time I see one I will give my condolences about it’s mother.”

Remus’s mouth pops open for a retort that Roman knows is going to be bad, but before he can get the words out, there’s a loud sound of cracking branches from behind them. Remus drags Roman back from the area, planting himself in front of Roman like some kind of human shield and Roman wobbles, without anything to put his injured leg on.

“Jesus Christ!” A new voice screams, as they trip over a thicket and fall into the clearing.

They move like a blur; barely more than a shadow with the ungodly amount of black they’re wearing. Roman can make out a pale face, dark bangs and terrified eyes, before the scramble back in the ground leaving… leaving smears of deep red on the ground in front of them. Their flashlight goes flying off to Logan’s feet, but they don’t seem to care as much about that as moving away from whatever is behind them.

The air tastes like metal, like copper, and Roman swears the world sways under him. His heartbeat blares in his ears almost louder than the newcomer’s hysterical sobs.

There’s a thud. And another.

And the trees themselves seem to shake and draw from the shadow that takes form. It peels away from the others, massive, hulking and distorted in all the wrong ways: at some point it must have been human, Roman thinks hysterically. It has two legs and two arms and a torso and a head, but it's elongated towering over even Logan at his ridiculous height. Its skin is covered in soot and dirt, layers upon layers to the point where Roman almost thought that it was wearing some kind of leather armor. It has rubber overalls on, strapped...strapped to its body with metal hooks that catch the thin moonlight peeking out of its bulging bare shoulders in a way that looks…looks self mutilated. The patchy ugly skin is healed around the metal, molded to it, absorbing it. In one hand is a cleaver, cobbled together from various metals with an unfinished touch and dripping scarlet all the way down the handle to its massive hands. Roman thinks that with one hand it could easily crush one of their skulls.

But worse than that, than the blood, than the stench coming from the thing, than the bloodlust that's echoing out of it: worse than all that is the mask welded to its face. A pale white skin that nearly glows in the darkness, framed with jagged sharp edges of bladed teeth in a terror inducing smile. Soulless orbs exist where eyes might have once been: now there are empty voids without a human behind them.

In a slow, almost robotic motion, it raises the cleaver in its hand. Blood rolls down the handle onto it’s hand and Roman watches the bulb of red drip down into the grass right between the newcomer’s sneakers.

Oh, Roman thinks suddenly very clearly without any room for a single doubt, This is what death looks like.

“NO!” The person in the skirt screams and suddenly they shove forward and throw themselves in front of the swing of the cleaver. Roman isn’t sure who screams louder at that: him, the person in the skirt, or the person on the ground bleeding out.

His brain is on fire, every atom in him is screaming so loud that he can’t hear his thoughts. His own breath flees his lungs with abandon that Roman’s brain somehow hadn’t gotten because instead of running away he’s running towards the monster. His blood boils in his veins and he pushes through Remus with the sort of reckless abandonment of sanity he never would have thought he’d ever make.

His vision locks onto the kid on the ground and his fingers latch on their left shoulder and he hauls them back.

The air next to his ear whistles as the cleaver misses them by centimeters and the person in the skirt screams as they fall to the side, and specks of something wet and warm and sticky flings through the air like its a water fountain; Roman feels it splatter across his face and his brain heart thuds in his chest.

Remus appears on his other side, grabbing Roman’s hostage by their other arm and they both pull them to their feet, ignoring the way they scream in pain. Their torso drips ruby into the dead grass at their feet and Roman-- Roman--

The hulking monster in front of them gives his cleaver a shake and drags it over its own arm to wipe away the blood, like it's nothing more than a hindrance. It turns its entire body towards the person in the skirt, the gorgeous selfless angel of a person that Roman hasn’t gotten the name of-- of someone he isn't going to get the same of because the abomination raises the cleaver again.

Roman screams because he does not want to watch someone die, please he doesn’t want to be in this nightmare anymore, wake up wake up wakeup--

There’s a brilliant white light that explodes at the last second. Roman himself jerks away from it, but that’s nothing compared to the inhuman howl that the creature makes as it stumbles back to the edge of the forest, covering its beady eyes with its massive hands.

Logan flicks the flashlight off and grabs the person in the skirt by their uninjured arm and looks back at them only briefly with an air of finality.

“RUN!” He says.

And Roman does.

[snappedsky]

Fanatics 55.2

Squee manages to get out of Mussolini's trouble with a little help from his friends. Previous! Next!

The Past Returns: the Rereturning Part Two

             Squee stares at Mr. and Mrs. Casil with wide eyes and his jaw hanging open. He feels sick. He can’t believe this is actually happening. He hasn’t seen them in years and suddenly here they are, standing right in front of him.

           They stare back at him. They seem confused. Do they not recognize him? Or did they just completely forget about him?

           Squee closes his mouth and swallows hard. He has to be careful. If he doesn’t handle this properly everything could be ruined. His life with Johnny and all his friends could end. He just needs to buy some time.

           He takes a deep breath and turns to face Mussolini. “I don’t know these people.”            “What?” Mussolini questions.

           “Yeah, like I have no idea who these two are,” Squee says, “I’ve never seen them before.”

           “Don’t lie,” he snaps, “they’re your parents. I know it!”    

           “I never knew my parents,” Squee grunts.

           Mussolini scoffs and looks at the Casil’s. “Mr. and Mrs. Casil. Isn’t it true that you had a son named Todd?”

           “Yes,” Mr. Casil nods, “but he had to put him in a mental asylum. Then after a year he disappeared.”

           “Doesn’t this boy look a lot like your child?”

           They cock their heads as they examine Squee.

           “I mean…maybe…” Mrs. Casil shrugs.

           “They both have brown eyes and black hair,” Mr. Casil nods.

           “Todd had brown eyes?” Mrs. Casil asks, “I could’ve sworn they were green.”            “How would he have had green eyes?” he asks, “both of our eyes are brown.”

           “I don’t know, I just remember them being green.”            “How would you know? You spent most of those years high.”            They argue amongst themselves, completely oblivious to the rest of the room. Squee rolls his eyes and glares at Mussolini.

           “This is a waste of my time,” Squee growls, “I have to get back to Skool.”

           “You’re not going anywhere,” Mussolini snaps, “all I have to do is match your DNA with that of Todd Casil. You won’t be able to deny science, will you?”

           One of Mussolini’s men plucks a hair from Squee’s head.

           “Ow, hey!” he snaps as the thug walks out of the room.

         “It will only take a few minutes,” Mussolini says, “then you’ll really be in trouble, Todd Casil.”            Squee’s heart beats even faster. He forces himself to breathe slowly. He has to stay calm. Panicking now won’t help anything. Just keep up this tough guy, apathetic charade.

           He sits in a chair and flips open his notebook.

           “What are you doing?” Mussolini asks.

           “Homework,” Squee replies plainly, “I was planning to do it during study hall but since it looks like I’m gonna miss it, I guess I’ll just do it here.”

           Mussolini glares at him then smiles at Mr. and Mrs. Casil. “Please, take a seat. This will only take a few minutes.”        

           They sit at the table hesitantly. They’re watching Squee curiously. He tries his best to ignore them as he writes in his notebook.

           He makes it look like he’s writing a lot but most of it is just gibberish; except for a quick note in the corner of the page. When no one is looking, he quickly rips it off and sticks it in his mouth. He swallows it and shudders as it slides down his throat.

           A few blocks away, the Night Terrors leap from building to building like monkeys across trees. Sickness looks back and sees Zim, Dib, and Pepito chasing after them. They’re a ways away but keeping up.

           “Those kids are relentless,” she comments.

           “What do you expect?” Reverend Meat shrugs, “they’re Squee’s friends.”            Mr. Fuck and Psycho Doughboy gasp when they feel something plop out of their hats. They take them off and each remove a ball of wet paper from off their heads.

           “Another note?” Reverend Meat asks.

           “Yeah,” Eff nods as they open it up.

           “What’s it say?” Sickness asks as they crowd around each other.

           “One of you, find Zim and tell him to erase all files relating to Todd Casil from the city records. Also get any physical files,” D-boy reads, “everyone else, find me at Mussolini Banks head office.”

           “Uh oh,” Reverend Meat comments.

           “Alright, I’ll get Zim,” Sickness says, “you guys find Squee.”

           They nod and split up: the boys keep racing across the rooftops while Sickness jumps to the ground.

           Meanwhile, Zim, Dib, and Pepito race down the snowy streets, their eyes glued to the rooftops. They’ve been running for minutes on end, trying to catch up to the Night Terrors. But they’re so fast and nimble and don’t slow down at all.

           “We’ll never catch them like this,” Dib pants, “can’t we hitch a ride on your spider legs or something?”

           “My PAK doesn’t work as well in the winter,” Zim replies, “the cold and moisture screw with the mechanics.”

           “That’s kind of a huge flaw, don’t you think?” Pepito asks.

           “It’s not fault!” Zim barks, “that’s just the way Irken technology is!”

           They all slide to a stop and shout with surprise when Sickness suddenly lands in front of them.

           “Which one of you is Zim?” she asks.

           “I am,” Zim states like it’s so obvious.

           “Squee needs your help,” she says, “can you hack into the city records and delete any files about Todd Casil?”

           “Todd Casil?” Pepito exclaims.

           “Of course,” he replies proudly, “but why? And who’s Todd Casil?”

           “We don’t have time,” Sickness snaps, “Squee could be in a lot of danger.”            “Okay,” Zim nods, “but we have to get to my lab.”

           “Wait,” Dib says, “Zim can delete all the electronic files, but what about any physical files?”

           “Leave that to me,” Sickness smirks before she hops to the top of a building and leaps away.

           The boys stare after her for a second before looking at each other.

           “We better hurry to my lab,” Zim says. Dib and Pepito nod and they race to Zim’s house.

           Meanwhile, back at Mussolini’s head office, Squee is having a hard time staying calm. All of this waiting is making his nerves worse. He’s trying not to show it, but he’s have a hard time not fidgeting.

           He’s doing his best to ignore his parents, but he can feel them watching him. They’re whispering to each other. He can’t quite catch what they’re saying but he hears ‘Todd’ a lot.

           Squee looks at the door and nibbles his finger nervously. He hopes his Night Terrors get here soon.

           At the same time, a few floors down, one of Mussolini’s goons marches down the hall to the elevator. He’s carrying two folders: one contains Squee’s DNA results, the other contains Todd’s.

           “Mr. Mussolini is gonna be really happy with these results,” he smiles.

           He stops and shivers when he’s hit with a blast of cold air. He looks over and sees a window he was passing has just opened. But how? Nobody else is around and they’re on like the fifteenth floor.

           He walks over to shut it when he gets a sudden chill down his spine, and not because of the cold.

           He turns around and sees nothing but a flash of purple before he’s pulled out the window. Even the security cameras don’t catch what just happened.

           Back with Squee, Mussolini is starting to get impatient. He incessantly taps his fingers on the table before getting to his feet.

           “Carson!” he barks.

           “Yes, sir?” Carson squeaks.

           “Go see what the holdup is!”

           “Yes, sir.” Carson scurries out of the room like a little mouse.

          “Mr. Mussolini,” Mr. Casil says as he stands up. “You said this would only take a few minutes. It’s been well over a half hour.”            “Patience please, Mr. Casil,” Mussolini replies, “I promise it will be worth it.”            Squee glares at him for a second before eyeing the window behind him. He needs to start formulating an escape plan should things go south. Would he be able to jump from this window to the building beside them?            Carson arrives a few minutes later. He looks worried.

           “Ah, um,” he stammers.

           “Spit it out, Carson,” Mussolini snaps.

         “The labs sent someone up with the necessary files,” Carson explains, “but he…disappeared.”            “Disappeared!?” he barks.

           Carson nods. “No one’s sure what happened. The security footage just shows him kind of falling through an open window…with uh…the necessary files.”

           Mussolini struggles to stay calm. “Well, run another DNA test on the boy and match it to the records we already of Todd.”

           “I thought of that, sir,” Carson says, “but um…all of Todd’s records have disappeared.”

           “What!” Mussolini shrieks.

           “A-all of our files and even the online records,” Carson clarifies, “they’re all gone.”

           Squee has a hard time not smiling excitedly. He takes a deep breath and hops to his feet.

           “I knew this was a waste of time,” he scoffs, “I don’t know what shoddy business you’re running here, Mussolini, but I’m not gonna humour it any longer.”

           “The boy is right,” Mr. Casil nods. “I have work to do. If you will excuse us, Mr. Mussolini.”            Mussolini snarls angrily but doesn’t say anything as the couple leaves. Squee watches them for a second before looking at Mussolini.

           “I’ll be leaving too,” he says as he turns.

           Two thugs suddenly block the doorway. Squee flinches and glares at Mussolini.

           “You’re not going anywhere,” Mussolini growls, “I don’t know how you did it but I know you’re behind this. And if you think I’m going to let you get away with it, you are sorely mistaken.”

           “Face it, Mussolini,” Squee snaps, “you got nothing on me. You can’t keep me here.”

           “I’ll do whatever I want!” he retorts, “you think you can fuck with the most powerful man in the city? I’ll make you regret even being born! You and Johnny! Just you wait.”

           Squee glares at him then notices something flash by the window outside. He blinks with realization.

           “Grab him,” Mussolini orders.

           His two thugs advance. Squee stays still and waits until the last second, just before they grab his shoulders. Then he races across the floor at top speed. He jumps onto the table and runs towards Mussolini.

           “What do you think you’re doing!” Mussolini barks as he starts to draw a gun.

           Squee ignores as he grabs a nearby chair, spins, and whips it across the room. It sails over Mussolini’s head and crashes through the window.

           “Wha-?” Mussolini starts to turn around when Squee plants his hand on his head. He slams his face into the table as he leaps over him. He lands on the floor in a crouch then dives through the open window before anyone can fully comprehend what happened.

           Someone grabs his hand and pulls him up against the wall. He smiles as Eff wraps his arm around his waist. He’s hanging off the building like squirrel. D-boy and Reverend Meat are with him. All of three of them leap off the wall and onto the roof of the neighboring building.

           “This isn’t over, Squee C!” Mussolini shouts through the window as they hop away. “You won’t have a single moment of peace! I will have my revenge!”

           “Who shouts ‘I will have my revenge’ through a window?” Eff scoffs, “talk about a B-grade villain.”

           “Yeah,” Reverend Meat agrees, “and what’s with that hokey peace line?”

           “Eh,” Squee shrugs, “I don’t have much peace to begin with.”

           Sickness catches up with them a few blocks away. They stop on a random roof and Eff lets Squee go. Then D-boy reaches into his hat and pulls out Squee’s bag. He grabs it quickly and makes sure everything’s inside. He grabs Shmee and sighs with relief as he clutches his stuff to his chest and lies down on the roof.

           “God, that was so stressful!” he cries, “I thought my heart was going to explode. I can’t believe I actually made it out of there.”

           He looks at his Night Terrors with an exhausted but sincere smile. “Thanks, you guys.”            They blink with surprise then look away, smiling bashfully.

           “Ah, it was nothing,” Eff says.

           “Piece of cake,” D-boy adds.

           “No big deal,” Sickness says.

           “Anything for our little boss,” Reverend Meat concludes.

           Squee smiles and sits up.

           “So what now?” Reverend Meat asks.

           “Take me to Zim’s,” he replies as he dusts off the snow.

           Squee climbs onto Reverend Meat’s back and they leap away across the rooftops.

           Meanwhile, at Zim’s base, Zim and Dib are grilling Pepito in the kitchen.

           “Talk, Pepito,” Zim demands, “who is Todd Casil?”

           “I don’t know,” he replies quietly, looking at the floor.

           “We know you do,” Dib says, “we can tell by that dumb look on your face.”

           “I always have a dumb look on my face.”

           “Yeah, but this one is especially dumb,” Zim says.

           Pepito moans with exertion before exclaiming, “ah! I can’t tell you! It’s not my place! It’s Squee’s personal business and if he wants to keep it a secret, I have to respect that.”

           “Why would Squee keep secrets from us?” Zim pouts.

           “Well, I can’t speak for him,” Pepito says, “but if I had to guess, I’d say those memories are really painful. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell you, it’s that he just wants to forget it all together.”

           Zim and Dib look at each other, concerned. They all flinch when the front door suddenly opens and spin around as Squee walks in, his Night Terrors in tow.

           “Squee!” they exclaim and rush up to him. They want to ask him tons of questions but before they can say anything, Squee throws his arms around Zim and hugs him tight.

           “Ziiiiiiiim!” he exclaims gleefully, “thank you thank you thank you thank you! You have no idea what you’ve done for me! I owe you my life! I swear I will follow you anywhere!”

           Zim is completely rigid, his arms stiff at his sides. “G-great, Squee,” he says, “then could you stop hugging me?”

           Squee quickly lets him go. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I just got really excited.”

           “You can hug me like that anytime,” Pepito says.    

           Squee smiles and gives him a tight hug.

           “Squee, what’s going?” Dib asks, “are you okay?”            “I am now,” Squee replies as he lets Pepito go. “Thanks to you guys.”

           “Well, mostly thanks to me,” Zim says proudly while Dib and Pepito glare at him.

           “I know,” Squee nods, “I hope my request wasn’t too much trouble.”            “Ha!” he scoffs, “not even enough to make me sweat. Hacking into the city records is easy. I can do it in my sleep.”

           “So who is Todd Casil?” Dib asks.

           Squee’s face drops and he looks away nervously.

           “Uh, if you don’t wanna tell us, that’s fine,” Dib adds quickly.

           “No. It’s okay,” Squee says, “I-I can talk about it.”

           He takes a deep breath and looks at his friends. “Todd Casil was my name before I started living with Johnny. Pepito knew me; we went to elementary school together. Then my parents abandoned me in an insane asylum. I broke out after a year and then…a bunch of stuff happened. After that Johnny took me in so I changed my name to Squee C.”

           “Wow. So you had like an entirely different life when you were a kid,” Dib says.

           “Kind of,” Squee nods, “the way I see it, Todd Casil and I…we’re not even the same person anymore. I would’ve liked to forget about him all together. And now, thanks to Zim, he doesn’t even exist anymore. At least as far as the city is concerned.”

           “You’re welcome,” Zim beams proudly.

           Squee smiles gratefully.

           “So why’d you need Zim to erase Todd Casil’s records?” Pepito asks.

           “Mussolini tried to connect me to Todd Casil since he’s wanted,” Squee replies.

           “Mussolini? That same dick who had his goons beat the crap out of you?” he growls, “we should kick his ass.

           “No,” he says sternly, “he’s the most powerful man in the city. We can’t do anything to him. Besides, when it comes to getting revenge, he’s kind of useless.”            “Well, as long as you’re okay now,” Dib shrugs.

           Squee smiles and nods.

           “So what now?” Reverend Meat asks, “want us to take you back to Skool?”

           “Nah,” Squee replies, “there’s no point now. But um there is something I would like to check out.”

           “Sickness, let me see those files,” he says as he points to the folders sticking out of the neck of Sickness’ dress.

           “Oh, yeah,” she chimes as she takes them out. “Forgot I had those.”            Squee takes them and flips open the one labeled ‘Todd Casil’. He skims it quickly until he finds the bit about his parents. He rips out a small section and closes the folder back up.

           “Gir!” he calls. The robot jumps in from seemingly out of nowhere. “Want a treat?”

           “Yeah yeah yeah yeah,” Gir nods excitedly.

           Squee tosses the folders up. Gir catches them in his mouth and eats them like a shredder.

           “What’s that?” Pepito asks, nodding at the little scrap of paper in Squee’s hand.

           “Closure,” Squee replies.

           His friends cock their heads curiously.

           “Take me there,” Squee orders as he hands the paper to Reverend Meat. He and the other Night Terrors look at it then at each other.

           “Okay,” they shrug.

           “I’ll see you guys later, okay?” Squee waves goodbye to his friends as he climbs onto Reverend Meat’s back. They wave back as they watch the Night Terrors hop onto the rooftop and leap away.

           “You know,” Shmee says, “I couldn’t help but notice you blatantly left out the whole part about you fighting the Nightmare; the whole reason you ended up living with Nny in the first place.”

           “Yeah, well,” Squee mutters, “there are some things they don’t need to know.”

           They arrive at the address and stop on the roof across the street. It’s a small house in a quiet neighbor in the South End. It doesn’t seem very interesting.

           Squee watches it for a second before tapping Reverend Meat. “Take me down.”

           He hops off the roof and lands in an alley way and Squee gets off his back.

           “Wait here,” he orders before racing across the road. He goes to the side of the house and peeks through some of the windows. He stops when he spots who he’s looking for and ducks down. He can hear them fairly well through the glass.

           “God, what a strange day,” Mrs. Casil comments.

           “What a waste of time,” Mr. Casil grunts.

           “Do you really think that boy was Todd?” she asks.

           “I don’t know. I guess they do look a lot alike,” he replies, “but so what if it was? Do you want him back?”

           “No,” she says without hesitation. “I don’t miss him at all.”

           “Me neither.”

           “So what do you want for dinner?” Mrs. Casil asks.

           “Whatever you wanna make,” Mr. Casil replies.

           Their voices drift off as they walk out of the room. Squee remains where he is, crouched in the snow.

           “You okay?” Shmee asks.

           “Yeah,” Squee replies, somewhat surprised. “They’re better off without me, and I’m better off without them.”            Shmee smiles proudly.

           Squee hurries back to his Night Terrors. They watch him curiously.

           “Take me home,” he orders.

           They smile and nod.

           A few minutes later, they drop him off outside his house before leaping away. Squee heads inside quickly. Johnny is just putting on his jacket as he goes in.

           “Hey, you’re home early,” he comments curiously, “I was just gonna come get you-.”

           He stops abruptly when Squee hugs him tight, burying his face into his belly.

           “Squee?” Nny questions, “you okay?”

           “Yeah,” he replies, “I’m just really, really happy to be here with you.”

           Johnny blinks with confusion but rests his hands on Squee’s head. “Well…that’s good I guess.”            Squee smiles and nuzzles Nny’s stomach. He has never felt more happy or more at peace than at that moment.