#angst sorta

A soft snore pulled you from your thoughts as you tugged Liam’s still sleeping form against your body, letting your fingers trace the rebellion relic around his wrist. A low groan left Liam, barely aware of the touch. Your finger traced up the mark, over his arm. It didn’t feel fair to make children suffer for their parents' choices. Liam shifted slightly, but you didn’t stop, fingers tracing higher. Liam tucked himself closer to you with another groan. Your body shook slightly with laughter. 

“Good morning, Mr. Mairi,” you teased.

“You should be sleeping right now,” Liam mumbled back, eyes still closed. “And don’t call me that.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Not that you could sleep much these days. Just because you had a decent chance with a dragon and blade didn’t mean you were free of the terrors that came with it. 

Liam responded by tugging you down beside him, pressing a kiss to your hairline. 

A tension you didn’t know you were holding in your body seemed to ease up slightly in response before you tucked yourself closer to him, tangling your legs under the sheets. The skin of your face tingled as you felt Liam’s breath fan over it. It was warm and inviting, while giving an odd sensation. A pause, Liam’s eyes still hadn’t opened. “We could get an early breakfast,” you suggested, cutting through the silence.

“I told you I was going to help you get more sleep, and that’s what I’m doing.” Liam responded. He opened his eyes for a moment, examining you carefully. 

You smiled before placing yourself closer to Liam. You wanted to say something, to fill the pause. It’s not that you completely disliked the silence but it was more time to run around in circles and for you to do something stupid like kiss him. Ask him what exactly all of this was. “Liam?” 

“Mmm?” Liam hummed out in response, eyes still closed, both arms around your middle. 

You chuckled slightly realizing you had nothing more to say. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to say your name.”

“Sleep,” was Liam’s only response.

It wasn’t that easy, but you would try. If not for yourself, for him. Liam was aware of the whittling he was doing with his carvings, just not the whittling he was doing to your heart. Carving out a Liam-spaced home. 

Liam’s POV

Liam often wondered if there was ever a day he didn’t need something patched up if he would still show up at your door, if you would even let him in. But they were Riders in training, there would always be something to patch up. That always seemed to occupy Liam’s mind. Walking to your room at night. Sitting as you patched him up. Falling asleep next to you. Waking up next to you. 

It was nearly his first thought when he woke up as you pulled him tighter against you. He groaned slightly, not feeling ready to be up, and wanting you to be asleep. Liam, too tired to actually say anything, decided just to let out a low groan. A graon meant to represent the earliness and his displeasure with you being awake. Liam felt your fingers glide up from his wrist, up his arm in intricate patterns. For just a moment he thought you were drawing a picture when he realized it wasn’t any sort of free form. You were tracing his rebellion relic again. He wondered for a few moments what it would be like to wake up in his own bed, no fingers tracing up the marking on his skin. Liam had grown so accustomed to waking up beside you. He just needed an excuse to come call on your meticulous healing skills every night. What would happen if one day he made it out without some injury to be taken care of? What then? Would he still be invited into your room, your bed? The first night you’d ever spent sharing a bed was the best night of sleep in Liam’s life. 

Liam groaned at the thought of losing this opportunity to share a bed with you, preferring your warmth. He curled his body against your’s slightly, as if doing that wouldn’t let you escape, or perhaps his warmth would convince you back to sleep—–which would let him fall back asleep. 

“Good morning, Mr. Mairi,” you said, a clear teasing in your voice. He hated when you called him that, like he was your superior. “And don’t call me that.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he heard you respond. 

Liam let out a faint grunt before selecting that asking you nicely was going to get you to try and sleep. He pulled you down so you weren’t sitting up anymore, his body pressed to yours. Liam gently pressed his lips just under your hairline, half expecting you to complain that you didn’t need sleep and you weren’t a baby, but it didn’t come. Instead a soft silence. Liam could feel you curl up against him, tangling your legs underneath the sheets. And for a split second Liam wondered what it might be like to fall asleep, legs tangled every night with you, no need for your healing skills beforehand. Just two people needing each other to sleep. Some part of that was scary, that he had to admit that he needed you as much as you needed him. That he needed you more than just for the night, he needed you all the time––alive and kicking ass. 

Your voice came echoing through Liam’s thoughts. “We could get an early breakfast.”

Liam would’ve shaken his head if you both weren’t tucked together perfectly like two puzzle pieces that would fall apart if one of them moved. “I told you I was going to help you get more sleep, and that’s what I’m doing,” he said with a huff. From a sliver of vision he could see you looking wide awake, but it was clear you needed to rest longer. He felt some relief as you smiled and managed to wiggle ever closer against him. 

If there was even an ounce of alcohol in his system Liam might’ve just kissed you right then and there, but something was stopping him. What if one day you didn’t need this? What if one day Liam would be turned away after you’d patched him up? What then? What if these feelings he felt for you weren’t mutual? 

“Liam?” There was your stupid, beautiful voice again, pulling him from his thoughts. 

He screwed his eyes shut, knowing if he opened them he’d just stare straight at those gorgeous lips of yours. Liam needed you to both shut up and get out of his sight and to always be talking, always be in his line of sight. You were maddening.  Stupidly so. Liam restrained a groan before letting out a soft, hum. He was convinced if he tried to do anything more a long trail of words would escape his mouth before it was too late. 

“I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to say your name.”

LIam chose to quickly mumble out, “sleep.” He paused a moment before cracking one eye open to see you had closed yours. His gaze fell to a few of the carvings he had mde for you a while ago. All of them scattered around your room. Your dragon, a small bunny placed beside each other. Liam felt you shift slightly, face tucking into his neck. His fingers tensed against your back for a split second before relaxing. He could do this. He just needed to clear his head. 

“Liam?”

He looked at you before he realized he was gripping your back tighter than he meant. His eyes followed your face as you lifted your head slightly. “Oh, sorry.”

You only shook your head slightly. 

Liam scanned your eyes then your lips. Your stupid, perfect, gorgeous lips. Liam swore your face got a few inches closer to his. Shit.

Suddenly a knock came at the door and Liam sat up quickly.

“I know you’d never forget about me,” Ridoc calls from the other side of the door.

Liam tenses, eyes scanning to you as you mutter a litany of curses, jumping out of your bed. Liam’s very aware of his hand resting on your lower back as long as it physically could before you were running around your room. 

“Sorry! Give me a minute!” You shouted from the door before glancing at Liam. “Told Ridoc I’d study with him.”

Liam nodded before realizing he ought to get out of your bed and leave, though he knew exactly what that would look like. He watched and waited as you dressed as quickly as you could before swinging the door open.

Ridoc stood there with a shit-eating grin before trying to stop it. “Good morning, Liam. Didn’t expect to see you,” an unnecessary pause as he scanned the both of you, “here.”

You stepped out of your room, smacking Ridoc’s arm in response. He winced, acting like a wounded puppy as you pulled at his arm giving Liam the space to leave. He quickly made his way to the door, unsure how to say goodbye to you. Normally he’d happily walk out into the hallway with his arm around someone’s shoulder. But not today, not this time. You were different. He had too much emotional attachment here. Before Liam could make any more decisions you pulled him into a hug. As you both pulled away from each other he felt that tension from earlier, the moment just before Ridoc was knocking on your door. Before he could think or act on it, Ridoc was half pulling you down the hallway towards someone else’s room. Liam didn’t stand around waiting to find out who, he just briskly walked towards his own room, hearing your laughter just as the door was shut behind him. 

He could still feel your warmth, see your proximity to him, feel how close he was to getting a taste of those lips. Liam shook his head. He needed to clear it. 

He couldn’t just let him stay.

He had been thinking about it for months. How Harold had never had any proper funeral or burial. How none of the campers had one.

So he went back.

It was a stupid idea, but he just had to, he couldn’t sit with the guilt.

He rode a boat up to the island. Fog covered the place that had once looked so great and held so many memories.

The memories were different now. The bad ones overshadowed the good ones. He stepped on to the rotting dock which probably wouldn’t be able to support the 22 campers who had once been there.

The entrance onto the island had police tape around it, but since when did Duncan care about that sort of thing anyways?

He ducked under the tape and began walking along the island, it was wet, probably because it had been raining. a lot of life had grown out due to the lack of people there. There was much more grass and wildlife than before.

He walked past the cabins to get a glimpse of something good, but trauma overlapped all the sweet experiences from before. He walked straight to the shed and slowly opened the door. The place stank like hell. He saw Harold’s body lying, the tv still on the poor boy’s head.

His body was decomposing for sure, It smelled horrible. Duncan swatted away the flies and took out his flashlight.

There were bugs eating at Harold’s skin and holes in his t-shirt from the decomposition.

Duncan wanted to throw up, but turned his head to look at the tv instead. Slowly, he tried pulling it off. It made a ripping sound as he could tell the head was tearing from the neck. He stepped back, choking on a sob. It was disgusting. But he had to do it. He needed to fix the boy.

He grabbed the old tv again and pulled it off slowly, trying his best to ignore the smell and the sound. 

Once he got the tv off, he looked at Harold’s face for the first time in what felt like forever. It was devoid of the color it once had, his ginger hair was mostly intact, his eyes glassy and lifeless, and dried blood stained his face, pouring from the dent in his forehead. 

Duncan found Harold’s glasses inside the tv and picked them up, they were shattered and dirty but still, he put them back onto the other boy’s face.

He picked up the body, which was light as a feather, and began walking into the woods. 

He passed by other victims as he walked and wished he could give them a burial too.

He passed by Courtney’s body, Jesus, Courtney.

He never really loved her, he needed everyone to think that so they’d never suspect what he truly was. Oh how he regretted that. He regretted pretending and regretted bullying Harold. He continued to walk until he found a clear spot out of the shade, so the sunlight could shine on Harold forever.

He gently placed Harold’s body down and began digging.

Though the air was misty and crisp, he still broke a sweat from digging.

He looked at Harold’s face one last time before placing him gently in the grave he had dug.

He used his shovel to spill the rest of the dirt to completely bury Harold. He walked around the island to look for some flowers to put with him.

Due to the growth in wildlife, it was easy to find pretty flowers.

The sun also seemed to be coming out, so it became easier to find Harold’s grave. Duncan placed the flowers by the grave and stood there for a moment, taking it in.

When he arrived on the island he never would’ve thought that in a couple of months he would be burying a boy he had some silly crush on.

But he was. And he stood by the grave of this boy.

No one deserved this, yet it happened. It was so unfair.

“I…” he swallowed. Biting back tears, “I miss you. I always have.” His voice cracked. He couldn’t say the words “I love you” he just couldn’t. He could never.

On his walk back he stopped by the cabins, which had bugs and spiderwebs everywhere and a little bit of plant life growing too. The rotting stench mixed with a smell of growth and they evened each other out in an okay way.

He sat on what had formally been Harold’s bunk. The wood creaked against his weight but he also heard a crackling sound, he looked under the pillow to see a sheet of paper, which was decomposing but a bit still intact.

“I’m probably going to die tonight.” It read, “I’m going to attempt something stupid but I’m going to do it for the sake of everyone.

I can’t sit around and watch bodies of people I know keep appearing. Thats not going to happen.

I’ve never been anyone and I know that, ever since I came here I’ve known I was an outsider, actually, ever since I can remember I’ve been different.

I’ve been picked on and beat up and I’m okay with that, I’m used to it now.

But I can’t watch people die. No matter how much mean remarks were made or how many times I’ve gotten punched.

I’m going to the shed to find weapons and hopefully kill the one who’s been doing all of this. I’m a bit scared if I’m honest. and, to be realistic, If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. I hope I died saving everyone, that’s what I would like. And if I didn’t save everyone then I died for nothing.

I just want to do the right thing for once. Not because I want respect out of it, because I want to see everyone else live. I want to see them live for the people here who died.

Well, I guess this letter is to whoever finds it. I hope I did something good. Who knows? Maybe I’ll succeed and find it in the future or something

-Harold”

Duncan started tearing up, his hands shaking, he placed the paper down on the bed and started to cry. 

They were all dead.