Chapter Text
Early in the morning, before the sun had risen, almost no one was awake in the cabin. Most of the team was bundled in blankets, lightly snoring and fast asleep. But not Arasha. She sat in front of the fire, adding herbs to a pot boiling on the fireplace. She stirred the water a few times, let it come to a boil, then took it off the fire and poured a bit into a mug.
Arasha left the pot of boiling tea on the fire and took the mug as she went to sit on the bench by the window. She was lighting the candle on the windowsill, but she could hear the soft and careful footsteps behind her that she knew were Spencer and Alex. Arasha turned to see the pair walking towards the door, both wrapped up in their thickest clothes and some animal skin the group had fashioned into winter wear.
“Wait,” Arasha said, stopping them as Alex went to open the door.
She took a small bowl of ash from the windowsill and gestured for their hands. Both Spencer and Alex offered up their palms, Spencer more reluctantly than Alex. Arasha pressed ash into their palms with her thumb, then set the bowl down. She picked up a bundle of herbs and lit it with the candle next to her. She waved her bundle of herbs around the two of them, and Spencer rolled his eyes.
Arasha set the herbs down and grabbed her tea and a pin from her pocket. She pricked the tip of her thumb and swirled it in tea before handing it to Alex. Alex gave it to Spencer first, who sighed.
“This wicca bullshit isn’t doing us any good,” Spencer said to Alex.
Alex opened his mouth to respond, but Arasha did first.
“You keep coming back alive,” she said.
Spencer glared at her and took the tea from Alex’s hands. He sipped it and handed it back to Alex, who did the same before giving it back to Arasha. They both nodded a thanks to her and pulled their hoods up before heading out.
Arasha sat back down in front of the window and brought her finger up to the fogged glass. She copied that symbol that she had been seeing carved into the trees, the same one that was on the floor of the attic, onto the window.
~
After what the group assumed was noon, Ian had made his way out to the meat shed. He intended to only go in to cut up some meat they had left over to use for dinner, but since the team had decided that the best place to store Anthony’s body was the meat shed, Ian tended to spend a majority of his days there.
Although some part of Ian recognized deep down that the Anthony in front of him was only a figment of his imagination, he seemed unable to look at the dead body in front of him without hallucinating his best friend. Sitting on the ground, Ian watched as Anthony held his journal, playing a game of MASH for what was probably the tenth time that day.
“Okay, Hecox,” Anthony announced. “Your future is decided.”
As he crossed out or circled all the names and locations on the page, Anthony read out the game’s results.
“You’re going to live in an apartment,” Anthony said. “In Sacramento, as a stay-at-home dad, with a million dollars, and married to… Kimmy.”
Ian rolled his eyes, sinking into his seat up against the wall. “So, I’m basically just gonna become my mom. Great.”
“Come on, we both know your mom doesn’t have that much money,” Anthony replied.
Ian laughed at that. “Touché, asshole. Whatever, I don’t want to talk about the future anymore.” He grabbed the notebook back from Anthony’s lap. “I’m all about living in the moment.”
~
In the cabin, the team was scattered about as they waited for lunch to be ready. Shayne and Courtney sat at one of the small tables with chairs around it. They had found a flat rock and were using it along with sticks to play table hockey.
Courtney shot the rock puck off Shayne’s side off the table. She raised her hands in celebration, and Shayne smiled.
“You’re getting better,” he teased.
Courtney shrugged and scrunched the cuffs of her sleeves up. As she did so, Shayne noticed the red marks on her wrists. He gasped quietly, grabbing her by the forearm to get a better look.
“Is that from…?” He trailed off.
“It’s fine,” Courtney said. She wrenched her arm out of his grip. “It’s worth it.”
She shoved her wrists back into her sleeves to hide the marks from Shayne’s prying eyes. He glared at her nonetheless. Since Shayne had confessed to Courtney about his sleepwalking, she had volunteered to stay with him in the attic. She had also suggested tying their wrists together at night so that if Asleep Shayne decided he wanted to go roam about outside, it would wake Courtney up as well, and she would be able to stop him. Shayne did not like the idea, but Courtney didn’t give him any other choice. She had also convinced Ian to move downstairs so that she could sleep upstairs with him instead.
“I told you that you should just lock me up there at night,” Shayne hissed. “The others wouldn’t have to know.”
“Yeah, okay, Rapunzel,” Courtney said sarcastically. “It’s my decision to be up there with you, not yours.”
Shayne frowned, but didn’t say anything else as Courtney started the game of table hockey again.
Over by the fire, Olivia tended a pot of stew. Angela hovered next to her, providing very unwanted suggestions every few minutes.
“You should add more herbs,” Angela said.
Olivia glared at her, the herbs already in her hand and about to be dropped into the pot. “I’m about to.” She tossed the plants into the water. Okay, where the hell is Ian with the meat?”
No one responded to Olivia, all of them looking away at the mention of Ian out in the meat shed again. Olivia sighed.
“Seriously, we’re just not going to talk about him sitting out in the meat shed all day with dead-ass Anthony?” she asked.
“Leave it alone, Olivia,” Arasha told her. “He needs time.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “It’s been two months!”
“Arasha’s right,” Coach Chanse chimed in. “Ian’s still grieving. We should give him the space he needs to do that.”
“That or he’s gone full on Norman Bates,” Amanda said.
At the kitchen table, Tommy sat next to Keith and Erin. He was watching the conversation over at the fire with curiosity.
“I wonder what the fuck they’re talking about,” Tommy said to the pair at the table with him.
Keith looked over his shoulder to look at the group by the fire. “Gods of the dirt? Their dumb jock boyfriends? Who gives a shit?”
Next to Keith, Erin was playing with a string she had found, humming. As her humming became louder, Keith turned to look at her. He stared at her for a moment before he quickly realized Erin wasn’t going to look up at him.
“Erin,” Keith started. “Enough with the fucking singing. “You’re driving us nuts.”
“I wasn’t singing,” Erin said quietly. “I was humming.”
“Cool. Fucking stop.”
Erin stopped her humming and slouched in her chair. Tommy gave her an apologetic look from across the table, but she turned away to stare out the window to entertain herself instead.
~
“So,” Anthony said. “Did you ever actually love me?”
Ian rolled his eyes at the question. He chose not to answer.
“If you don’t wanna talk about the future, let’s dig into the past,” Anthony continued. “That’s probably why I’m still here. You’re holding on to me or whatever. That’s like haunting 101.”
Ian huffed. He continued writing in his journal. “Of course I did,” he answered.
“Then why’d you write all that shit about me in your diary?”
“It’s not a fucking diary!” Ian snapped.
Anthony frowned. He turned away, looking a bit like a sad puppy.
“I don’t know,” Ian said.
“Ugh, boring,” Anthony groaned. “You always keep stuff from me.”
Ian sighed. He closed his journal. “Fine, what do you want to know?”
Anthony lit up. “When did you start liking me?”
“Uh, I don’t know, junior year maybe.” It wasn't completely true; Ian had always felt some sort of way about Anthony, but junior year had been the first time the feeling had knocked the wind out of his chest. He was forced to accept it then, even though he would have been perfectly content living the rest of his life ignoring his more-than-platonic feelings for his best friend.
“Why did you hate me so much?”
“I didn’t hate you,” Ian replied, almost instantly. “I was just... Jealous, I guess.”
“When did you apply to Stanford?”
Ian paused. “Summer before senior year.”
“Why did you apply?” Anthony narrowed his eyes.
Ian shrugged. “I wanted to go.”
“But then why didn’t you tell me?”
“You wanted me to go to UCLA,” Ian said.
Anthony furrowed his brows. “You could have told me you didn’t want to go.”
Ian laughed wryly. “No, I couldn’t have.”
Anthony leaned back against the wall. “Yes, you could have,” he muttered.
“No, Anthony!” Ian said louder. “I couldn’t have! You wouldn’t have listened! You never do, you aren’t even listening now!”
“What?” Anthony teased. “Upset you can’t even control me when I’m a figment of your imagination?”
“Shut up!” Ian yelled. He shoved Anthony.
Anthony landed on the ground with a dull thud. Ian gasped, crawling over quickly to the corpse. He pulled Anthony up off the ground and set him on the wall again. As he did so, he found that the force of landing on the ground had caused Anthony’s ear to fall off. Ian looked down at the ground and found his ear there. He scrambled to pick it up.
“Fuck,” Ian whispered. “No, no, no.”
Ian tried to put the ear back onto Anthony’s head, but it didn’t work. Unsure what to do, Ian shoved the ear in his pocket. He got up, grabbed the plate of meat, and went back into the cabin, leaving the ear problem for later.
~
Trudging through the snow, it was all Spencer could do to keep his mind on placing one foot after the other. They had reached a less elevated part of the mountain, but it was still a hike nonetheless. Alex was a few steps in front of him, keeping an eye out for Selina. Spencer was mostly there to make sure Alex came back alive.
Alex stopped abruptly, causing Spencer to nearly bump into him. He looked up, seeing something in the distance, buried under the snow. He assumed it was what Alex was staring at.
“What is that?” Spencer asked.
Without responding, Alex rushed forward and began to brush the snow off of whatever it was. At the same time that Spencer realized that the thing buried under the snow was a fox's corpse, he realized with horror that Alex must have thought it was Selina.
“Alex!” He called. “It’s a fox!” Spencer ran over to him, trying to shake him off the dead fox. “It’s not Selina! It’s just a fox!” He managed to pull Alex off, and they both collapsed into the snow.
Alex was gasping for air next to him. He stared at the fox, a confused expression on his face. Alex looked up at Spencer and then back at the dead fox.
“Hey,” Spencer said comfortingly. “You’re good, it’s okay.”
Alex sat up. “Sorry…”
Spencer bit his lip and stood up. He offered Alex his arm to help him up. “Come on, we should be heading back. It’s gonna be dark.”
Alex allowed Spencer to pull him up. “We need to be getting up earlier and getting out farther.” He sniffed. “Selina could have found another cabin or something, I don’t know.”
Spencer nodded. “Yeah, we can probably get up another hour before sunrise. If Selina’s alive, then–”
Alex glared at him.
“I mean,” Spencer said. “Farther out makes sense!”
“We should head back, you’re right,” Alex said, ignoring him. “Not gonna help anyone if we get lost out here in the dark.”
Alex began to walk off, but Spencer stopped him.
“Wait, I’m gonna mark it,” he said. He pulled a red ribbon out from his pocket and tied it onto a tree branch before turning and starting to head back down the mountain.
~
After bringing the meat back inside, Ian went up to the attic to be away from everyone else. He paced around the attic for a bit before he sat down on the bench below the window and took Anthony’s ear out of his pocket. Ian stared at the appendage in his palm. What was he supposed to do with it?
Suddenly, Shayne’s voice came from downstairs. “Ian! Dinner’s ready!”
Ian shoved the ear back into his pocket again and made his way downstairs. As he emerged from the closet, Ian saw Olivia walk up behind Angela, who was stirring the pot on the fire.
“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” Olivia asked, her arms crossed.
Angela looked up at her and stood. “It's not like I’m going to poison anyone. Again.”
“You drew the four this morning, Angela,” said Amanda from beside Olivia. “You have to get the water.”
“But that’s not fair!” Angela protested. “I’ve been doing it everyday and it’s freezing out there!”
The girls just stared at her until she relented, sighing and rolling her eyes.
“Fine,” Angela grumbled. She stormed out of the cabin with the water bucket.
Olivia and Amanda laughed once Angela had slammed the door, Olivia stepping forward to take over Angela’s spot at the fire. Shayne came up beside Ian.
“Are you okay?” Shayne asked.
Ian turned his head to him. “Um, yeah. Why?”
Shayne narrowed his eyes, but didn’t say anything. He just walked away. Ian folded his arms and followed Shayne to the table, where Amanda and Olivia were dishing out food.
~
Outside, Angela was piling snow into the water bucket. She was haphazardly picking it up and tossing it into the bucket, her hands already frozen. Suddenly, she heard singing coming from the outhouse. Erin had come out, belting some musical theater song as she walked back to the cabin.
As Erin came closer and her singing became louder, Angela groaned. “God, just shut the fuck up!”
“Jesus,” Erin said, only now having realized someone was out there with her. “Sorry. It’s stuck in my head now. I had to go, and sometimes singing helps, so…”
Angela rubbed her hands together, trying to create some friction and warm them up a bit before returning to shoveling snow into the bucket.
“I know it’s annoying to people who aren't into the theater like I am,” Erin continued. “Every day I wake up and tell myself, ‘Erin, stop singing so freaking much. It’s driving everyone bananas.’ But then I don’t even realize that I’ve started singing again.”
Erin trailed off, and Angela didn't respond. While she returned to putting snow in the water bucket, Erin fiddled with her fingers.
“You should try it,” Erin said after a moment. “Singing, I mean."
Angela scoffed. “I can't sing.”
“No, everyone can sing!” Erin told her. “You just need a good vocal coach. I could teach you.” She gasped quietly. “Oh, my god, we could harmonize!”
Angela paused, a grin forming on her lips before she looked up at Erin. Maybe Erin could be her first real friend. God knew she needed it out there.
“Yes,” Angela said. “I would love that.”
~
Upon arriving back at the cabin, Spencer immediately went into the room off of the living room. Previously, it had been Coach Chanse’s room, but as Ian hit his third trimester, the coach had been kind enough to offer his room up. Chanse still spent most of his day in there anyway, so it didn’t make much of a difference.
“How’d it go?” Coach Chanse asked as he noticed Spencer enter.
Spencer sighed, slinging the rifle off his shoulder. “Great. Except for the part where we failed for the millionth day in a row. Oh, but we got this.”
He pulled the map he and Alex had made of what they had managed to cover that day and handed it off to Coach Chanse.
“Wow,” Coach Chanse said. “These are getting pretty good.”
Coach Chanse stood up and got the wooden board that they had been pinning the maps to. He pinned the paper Spencer had just given him in the top left corner, completing a rectangle map of the surrounding area.
“It's about what, six miles in each direction?” Coach Chanse asked.
Spencer nodded. “Ballpark. And absolutely zero game. Or Selina.”
Coach Chanse frowned and turned to face Spencer fully. “You know, at this point… I mean, there’s just no way.”
“I know,” Spencer said. “But you know Alex."
“Yeah.” Coach Chanse let a breath out and nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s gotta be tough.”
The two of them fell silent, and Coach Chanse put the board back where it had been leaning up against the wall. Spencer picked up the rifle and made his way back out into the living room.
~
Long after everyone had gone to bed, Alex and Spencer were sitting in silence in front of the fire. Both had blankets wrapped around them and blank stares as they watched the flames flicker and begin to fizzle out.
“You can go to sleep if you want to,” Alex murmured eventually.
“I will in a minute,” Spencer responded, not taking his eyes off the fire. “Really enjoying Stone Age TV right now.”
Spencer turned to find Alex already looking at him. In a moment of sheer impulse, he leaned in just a bit closer to Alex, his gaze shifting to his lips. Alex hesitated, sucking in a breath and looking away. Spencer shut his eyes in regret and moved back.
“I know you think she’s dead,” Alex said, his voice low and quiet.
With a sigh, Spencer looked up at Alex again. He was still staring off in the other direction.
“It’s been two months,” Spencer argued. “In this cold. With no food, Alex, I… I don’t know how she would have survived.”
Alex didn’t respond, and just as Spencer was about to ask why, he heard Alex’s breath quicken.
“Alex?” Spencer asked, his hand coming up to Alex’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
The sound of Alex’s hyperventilating began to wake the group up. Groggily, a few of them gathered around him and Spencer. Arasha quickly came over to his side.
“What’s happening?” Amanda asked.
Spencer shook his head lightly, keeping his gaze trained on Alex. “I don’t know, I think he’s having a panic attack or something.”
Arasha put her hands on Alex’s shoulders, one of them sitting right over Spencer’s. He quickly slipped his hand out from underneath Arasha’s.
“Alex,” Arasha said calmly. “Look at me. Breathe with me. You can do that, okay? My breath is the only thing in the world right now.”
Following her instructions, Alex nodded and copied her breath. It took less than a minute for Alex’s breath to be relaxed again. Next to them, Spencer crossed his arms. Arasha smiled at Alex, taking her hands off his shoulders and beginning to get up. Alex just stared at her dumbfoundedly.
“Oh, and…” Arasha kneeled down again. “Your sister is alive. I know she is.” She sounded incredibly certain. It made Spencer’s blood boil. “You should get some rest.”
Arasha got up and began walking away. Spencer glared after her, handing a warm mug of tea Amanda had quickly prepared off to Alex and standing up. He grabbed Arasha by the arm, stopping her from returning to her cot for the night.
“Can I talk to you?” Spencer seethed.
She nodded calmly, and Spencer all but dragged her off into the kitchen. Once they were no longer visible to most of the group, Spencer let go of Arasha’s arm and crossed his.
“What the fuck was that?” Spencer asked angrily. When she didn’t respond, he rolled his eyes. “We have no idea if Selina’s alive or not, but if we’re being honest, she’s probably not. Giving him false hope is just gonna make things worse, Arasha!”
“There’s no such thing as false hope. It's just hope.” Arasha countered.
“Did you read that in a fucking fortune cookie?”
Arasha shrugged. “What do you want from me, Spencer? I just said what I felt!”
“I want you to say less, Arasha,” Spencer spat out. “A lot fucking less.”
He walked out of the kitchen, nearly bumping Arasha’s shoulder on the way out.
~
Up in the attic, Courtney woke up to the soft feeling of kisses being pressed to her cheek, and then the side of her neck, and then peppered all over her face.
“Good morning,” she said groggily as Shayne kissed the side of her mouth.
Suddenly, Courtney felt a sharp pain, and it took a moment for her to process that Shayne had bitten her. “Ow! What the fuck?”
She sat up quickly, hand coming up to her now bleeding lip. Next to her, Shayne looked concerned.
“What happened?” He asked. “Are you okay?”
Courtney sighed, almost relieved. “You were asleep.”
“Oh, my god.” Shayne inched closer to Courtney, a tentative hand coming up to her arm. “Did I–?”
“No,” she cut him off quickly. “No, no, no, it’s fine. I’m okay.” Courtney smiled despite the fact that doing so made the fresh cut on her lip burn. She turned away so that he wouldn’t see the blood that she could feel on her teeth.
“I told you, sleeping up here with me was a bad idea,” Shayne said.
Courtney let out another sigh, looking back at him. “It’s not perfect, but–”
“This isn’t working,” he insisted.
“You think I can’t handle this?” Courtney asked, cocking a brow.
Shayne gave her a shrug, and Courtney pushed him back down into his pillow, lying down next to him on her side. She stared at him for a moment, and Shayne flipped onto his side so that he would be facing her as well.
“I’m not scared of you, Shayne,” she told him finally. “I’m never going to be.”
“Okay, well maybe you should be,” Shayne replied.
“And why is that?” Courtney asked.
“Because you’re bleeding!”
Courtney rolled her eyes. “You didn’t know what you were doing. This isn’t you.” She reached out and gently squeezed his hand. “This is just something that’s happening to you. Happening to us. Besides, you killed a wolf for me, which is about the most romantic thing imaginable.”
With a laugh, Shayne shook his head at her. “You’re nuts.”
Courtney grinned at him and then took her pinky finger, gathering some of the blood from her cut. Without a word, she used her blood to write out a crude I ♡ U on the softer side of Shayne’s forearm. When she was done, Courtney sucked her finger back into her mouth to clean off the blood and then looked up at Shayne, who was looking at her like she was insane.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Shayne breathed. He looked down at his arm and then back up at her. “I love you, too.”
Courtney leaned in to kiss him, knowing full well that he could probably taste the blood in her mouth and not really caring at all.
~
The morning after Alex’s panic attack, he and Spencer set out like normal to look for Selina, absolutely no mention of the night before. About an hour after sunrise, they had made it a quarter up the mountain that they had decided to tackle that day.
Alex was a few paces in front of Spencer, who, like he usually did, was keeping most of his focus on his feet as they hiked up the mountain. He was actually so focused on his footsteps that he bumped into Alex when he suddenly stopped in front of him.
Spencer stumbled back a step and then looked up to see Alex staring at a patch of moss on one of the trees. It was completely untouched by the snow. Alex reached a hand out to touch it.
“Weird,” Spencer said.
Alex nodded. “Well, come on.”
He continued walking up the mountain, Spencer following not too far behind him.
~
While breakfast was being made, Ian was up in the attic again, pacing. He had Anthony’s ear in his hand, still unsure what to do with it. He couldn’t bury it, not with the ground frozen solid from the snow. He couldn’t just leave it in the meat shed with Anthony; someone would find it. Maybe Ian could believe that no one else would notice the ear missing from Anthony’s head when they finally buried him in the spring if he did his hair just right, but that defense would only go so far if the missing ear in question was sitting right next to the body.
Ian circled the attic, not taking his eyes off the ear in his palm. He bit his lip. He had no clue what to do with it. Ian couldn’t risk anyone finding out what he was doing in the shed with Anthony, and this would be proof.
An idea dawned upon him, and Ian stopped in his tracks. He stared at the ear for another moment before he shoved it in his mouth and ate it.