#this is how i imagine living shadow spawning when i slam the button in game btw

[lavampira]

I love you more than you’ll ever know. Be well.

[phyripo]

46 and robul?

46. “Hey, have you seen the..? Oh.”

Uhh… That looks like a humorous prompt, so have something… Creepy? It’s a mix of the fact that I played some Rusty Lake games again combined with the fact that I’ve started listening to Welcome to Night Vale again that spawned this, soooo… I hope you like it, sorry for the long wait!

Dragos is Romania, Stefan is Bulgaria, aaaand Luca is Moldova

Send me a pairing and a number and I’ll write you a fic

There was nothing unusual about the mist.

It had rolled in across the lake as it oftendid on spring mornings like these, greying out the little island Dragos livedon. The familiar trees were looming shadows in the fog, the old well a blurrymystery. But it was just mist, and the shadows were just shadows, so Dragoswasn’t sure why he felt so unsettled whenever he looked out of the windows.He’d lived here for years now, in this little refuge he and Stefan had built onthe island. It was safe.

“Stupid mist,” he grumbled at no one, shakinghis head and going to the next line on his typewriter with too much relish. “Ishouldn’t read so many books.”

Still, he was relieved when Stefan returnedhome after his work on the mainland, where he ferried wood back and forth. Hisshape was familiar in the fog, and he smelled comfortingly of the forest whenDragos kissed him quickly as he kicked off his heavy shoes.

“It’s cold out,” Stefan said, running a handthrough his slightly damp hair.

“Looks cold, yeah.” Dragos took his coat. Themist had lingered throughout the day, seemingly not lessening at all, althoughit must have—the news on the radio reported sunny weather on the shores of thelake. “It’ll probably clear out by tomorrow.”

Stefan hummed absently. Of course, he hadn’tbeen stuck in the middle of the white haze all day; he wasn’t as unsettled. Heusually wasn’t. Dragos was more prone to that. There was a reason they’d movedto this island, where no one could judge them because there was no one elsehere.

“Please tell me there’s something to eat, Dra,”Stefan was saying, walking further into their cottage.

Dragos laughed, going after him.

“Of course there is.”

The evening was pleasant in its ordinariness,spent listening to a record and reading or writing or filling in crosswordpuzzles. Dragos closed the curtains against the pressing darkness the mistbrought with it, and had nearly forgotten all about it when he went to sleepwith his arm draped over Stefan’s upper body.

It was all the more surprising when he woke thenext morning to an, if possible, even greyer world.

The fog curled against the small windows of thecottage as if asking to be let in, like a ghost knocking on the door. Dragosdrew the curtains again and told himself not to think about it, not to imagine thathe didn’t know the shapes outside or the muffled sounds of the water and theforest. He typed, ripping sheet after sheet out of his typewriter because thewords wouldn’t listen to him. They curled into unfamiliar shapes, his fingersstraying from the right keys without his permission.

When Stefan came home in the late afternoon, hestartled Dragos from a haze of terribly non-productive writing and brought agust of cold, damp air with him.

“It’s dark,” he said, quizzically, and made toopen the curtains over the dining booth.

“It’s—” Dragos leaped up from his chair andflung himself in front of him. “It helps me work.”

He gestured at the heap of paper lyingscattered on his desk, bathed in lamplight. He wasn’t sure what he had written, certainly not his next novel, but at least itlooked like he’d been doing something useful while Stefan worked.

“Alright,” the man said slowly. His eyes werebright in the gloom, their deep forest green a comforting color after nothingbut the grey outside, the orange of the walls, and the black and white of wordson paper to keep Dragos company over the course of the day.

It had been sunny on the shore, Stefan toldhim, taking his jacket off to reveal short sleeves underneath it. The slightestof tan lines were visible on his pale skin, if Dragos squinted.

There was nothing unusual about the mist.

Weird weather phenomena were not unusual,Dragos mentally repeated like a mantra when they went to bed, later, staring upat the whorls in the wood of the bedroom ceiling. His imagination wasoveractive and it would pass. It would all pass, and their island could go backto its usual unusualness—which was mostly just Dragos himself.

The next day was a Saturday, which was Stefan’sday off, and also the day Dragos’s younger brother always called, so that was agood excuse not to go outside no matter what Stefan said about Luca alwayscalling after three, which left them plenty of time to do something together,never mind the mist, Dragos, it’sjust water.

“I thought you were the smart one,” Stefan saidjokingly, shrugging on his jacket. He hadn’t shaved today, and his stubblescratched Dragos’s jaw when he leaned over to kiss him, when he laughed againsthis mouth as Dragos tugged him down to deepen the kiss.

While the ensuing tussle was playful and funand quite pleasurable, it only delayed Stefan’s going out into the ever-presentmist by half an hour, because he thought they would need more firewood soon,and the wood would need to dry if it was to be of any use.

“You’re a strange man, Dra,” he told himwonderingly. Dragos ran his hand through the man’s mussed hair, biting his ownlip.

“You love me.”

“Never said I didn’t. Guess that makes me alittle strange, too.”

Smiling despite himself as Stefan untangled hisbody and stood, Dragos replied, “Very strange. Be careful, alright?”

He gave a jaunty little salute and was off intothe fog, where he was nothing more than a shape no more familiar than thegnarled trees. Dragos frowned at it through the window for too long, but themist hurt his eyes and his head, so he pulled the curtain mostly shut again,leaving a strip of light to spill outside.

Just in case Stefan forgot his way back.

The phone rang promptly at three, and Dragoswent to pick it up in relief, leaning against the wall in the hallway where ithung.

“Hey, Luc!” he greeted.

There was a long, staticky silence in reply.

“Hello?” Dragos tried, his heartbeat ratchetingup.

More static. A sound like a voice speakingbackwards. Dragos bit his lip so hard it started bleeding, clutching the handsetwhite-knuckled.

“What’s going on?” he asked, voice unsteady andlouder than he intended.

The voice continued, pouring unintelligiblesounds through the telephone line. If the mist had a sound, Dragos imagined itwould be this, creeping around in his head, just syllables without meaning nomatter which way he turned them.

He slammed the handset back on to the base andwas on the verge of ripping the whole contraption off the wall, when the phonerang again.

“Get out!” he yelled into it, on the verge oftears. Something was wrong here, andhe hated it.

“What?” replied a seemingly perplexed Luca. “Dra,is that you?”

He swore. “I’m so sorry, Luc. I’m sorry.Something weird is—sorry.” The plastic of the handset creaked in his grip, sohe tried to ease it a little.

“Are you alright?” Luca asked. Dragos leanedhis free hand against the wall and hung his head.

“God, I don’t know.” He tried to breathesteadily. His mind felt fuzzy, but the feeling was subsiding little by little. “Probably.”

“That sounds reassuring.” Luca laughed alittle. “Is Stefan alright?”

“Possibly. He’s out.”

“Well, I hear the weather’s good for it over th—”

The line cut in a flash of static. Dragosdropped the phone.

He scrambled to grab it where it swung againstthe wall, bouncing. It was difficult to press the little buttons with hisfingers shaking, but he managed to dial his brother’s number from memory.

“Luca?” he whispered, and when there was juststatic in reply, he slammed the handset back down again and tried again.

Stefan found him sitting with his knees drawnup to his chest in the hall, the phone dangling next to him and his fingers inhis messed-up hair.

“Well, this doesn’t look good,” he said,kneeling down in front of Dragos. Tiny water droplets clung to his hair, hiseyelashes. His eyes were curiously mossy, and Dragos pressed himself tighter againstthe wall.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked.

“Out. I got firewood, remember?” Stefan reachedfor him, pushing wispy strands of light brown hair out of his tear-streakedface with cold fingers. “Maybe you should come outside for a bit, it’d do yougood.”

Terrified, Dragos shook his head as hescrambled to his feet.

“I’m not—I’m not going anywhere. Jesus Christ, Stefan, what is going on?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” hereplied calmly.

“Stef, Stef—” Dragos put his hands on the man’sjaw and searched his gaze, and he couldn’t even say what was wrong, but something was, and the front door wasopen behind him, which was wrong. Heleaped towards it, slamming it shut on the mist. As he leaned against it, hecould feel himself shaking.

“Hey, you should lie down,” Stefan was saying,carding his fingers through Dragos’s hair again. “I’ll get some food going,alright?”

Dragos wasn’t sure how he got from the hall tothe couch, but once he was there, he couldn’t bring himself to move, or even thinkabout what the hell was happening on his little, safe island. Against all odds,he fell asleep.

When he woke, the room was dark, but that didn’tmean anything with the curtains drawn and the mist most likely still heavyoutside. Silently, he sat up, cracking his neck and stretching his arms beforewalking over to the window and peering into the forest.

The trees stood silent in the fog. It mighthave been evening or it might have been morning. Dragos honestly had no ideahow much time had passed. He turned back to the room, flicking his desk lamp onand finding a sandwich sitting next to his typewriter. On the paper currentlyin the machine, a short message was written.

Dragos, you lookedlike you needed the sleep. I hope it helped. I’m going outside, find me if youneed me.Stefan

There was no indication of when the message wasleft. It was six, according to the grandfather clock over the desk, but Dragoscouldn’t say whether it was evening or morning. He felt rested, although stillwary.

Eating the simple cheese sandwich, he went overto the radio to turn it on, hoping to find out the time, but the speakers onlyblurted out more static, shot through with maybe-human sounds. With shakinghands, he tried to tune into a different channel, but everything else justbroadcast the static that was normal—they didn’t get great reception out hereand were usually only able to receive the one channel.

One channel that was now garbled nonsense.

He put the remainder of his sandwich away andwalked quickly to the bedroom. The bed looked unslept in, but Stefan’s radioalarm clock displayed a time of a quarter past six in the morning—the radioitself was broadcasting the garbled static.

Dragos swore.

“Stefan!” he called through the house,flinching at his own voice. There was no answer, and he wasn’t surprised.

This wasn’t to say that he wasn’t terrified.

Unable to swallow past the lump in his throat,Dragos paced back to the living room, then changed his mind and rooted throughthe bathroom and the kitchen, where he found nothing out of the ordinary. Thetelephone was still dangling from its cord in the hall, spewing static, andDragos shivered.

Was it cold or was that him?

He peered through all of the windows into theunforgiving white and grey that was the forest. Nothing moved.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chanted, dragging his hands over his face.

He’d have to go outside.

Although his heart was trying to beat out ofhis chest and his breath was too high to do any good, he managed to find hisboots, his duffel coat. He threw the sheets of paper that he filled with hisnonsensical words yesterday into his shoulder bag along with—he didn’t knowwhat he was putting in there, he had no idea what he was doing. Closing the clasps of the bag proved difficult with hisshaking fingers, but he fumbled until they were shut.

After one last desperate sweep of the cottage,Dragos took a deep breath and opened the front door.

The mist—felt like normal mist. It was cold,and damp, and clung to Dragos’s eyelashes and wispy hair.

Somehow, he felt the urge to hold his breath.He went back into the house and found a scarf to wind around his head, coveringhis nose and mouth. It felt marginally better.

Trying to be silent, he made his way frommemory to the shed where Stefan sometimes worked. Nothing out of the ordinarythere, either.

The trees were still as he walked past the oldwell, but he couldn’t shake the feeling they were watching. Maybe not him inparticular, but watching all the same. Sometimes, something seemed to move inthe distance, but he couldn’t tell whether it was human and didn’t know if hewanted to know.

The island was small. Dragos must have beenwalking in circles or time must have stretched out in weird ways, because itfelt like hours before he saw a familiar shape among the grey. Stefan wasstanding motionless between the trees, and although the trees were motionlesstoo, they had all stretched their branches towards him as if they wanted himfor their own, like Dragos had wanted him for so long now, like Dragos hadgotten him.

He was Dragos’s. This island was Dragos’s, mist or no fucking mist.

Trees didn’t move. Trees had never moved.

“I’ve never seen a tree move,” Dragos said tohimself, his voice barely a whisper but there. He took large steps towardsStefan. They couldn’t take him away from Dragos, nothing could.

Stefan stood silently, slowly resolving intoseparate colors as Dragos neared. His green, short-sleeved shirt, hisbellbottom jeans, the dark of his hair. His back was to Dragos.

“Trees don’t move,” he repeated to himself. Andthen, “Stefan, have you seen the— Oh.”

Because he turned, and his eyes were not theirusual, comforting forest green.

Dragos stumbled back, catching his heel on atree root that may or may not have been there before and flailing to keep hisbalance.

“Stefan?” he whispered, but he knew, as certainas anything, that it wasn’t Stefan. The man—being—looked like Stefan and heldhimself like Stefan, but his eyes, his eyeswere a terrible haze of barely-there green. It was as if the mist had settled insidehim, pulled itself over his eyes.

“Hey, Dragos,” not-Stefan said, and his voicewas a wisp.

Dragos ran.

He tripped over swirling roots, and the mistthickened until he couldn’t see his own feet carrying him across his island. Heran blindly, scrambling up when he fell, pushing his scarf over his nose. Hisheartbeat rang in his ears, or maybe it was the island’s heartbeat, the treesin their terrifying unison.

Eventually, the trees gave way to sand, and heknew he’d reached the shore of the island. He couldn’t see anything out on thewater, so Dragos followed the sand until he found the dock and could scrambleonto it, his boots slipping on the damp wood.

The boat, he needed their boat.

“Dragos!” he heard Stefan, or not Stefan, callfrom the edge of the forest, louder than he should have been able to when themist dampened everything. He panted in almost-sobs, trying to squint along thedock for the little boat.

“No, no,” he whispered when he couldn’t findit. He dropped to his knees to feel along the dock for the rope.

Footsteps crunched through the sand behind him.

“Dragos!” Stefan called again. He soundedclose. Dragos’s numb fingers grappled uselessly against the scaffolding. “Nothingis wrong, Dragos! Come, I’ll take you home!”

Dragos heaved a sob through his scarf.

Footsteps on the dock.

A dull, roaring sound farther away. Somewhereon the lake. Oh god, what was out there?

“Dragos,” Stefan said. His voice sounded ashazy as his eyes had been. “It’s just mist.”

The roaring became louder, and then the mistwas breaking open at the end of the dock to allow Dragos to see that what wascausing it wasn’t something even worse, wasn’t the lake itself rising up againsthim as well.

“Luca!” he yelled, leaping up and runningtowards the motorboat his brother was driving towards the shore. “Don’t dock!Turn around, now!”

“What—” Luca started, and behind Dragos,footsteps clattered across the dock. He didn’t dare look.

“Just turn! Fast!”

Luca stared at Dragos or what was behind himfor a long second before he abruptly steered the boat in the oppositedirection, racing back along the dock. Dragos kept running, and he didn’t evencare if he was going to miss the little boat altogether—he dove towards it thesecond it shot by close enough, crashing against the wood and rolling along sofar that they almost capsized, but Luca kept going until they were clear of thedock, now just a shadow in the mist.

“Where’s Stefan?” he yelled, but Dragos couldn’tspeak, his voice was stuck somewhere in his chest. He breathed in sobs, curlinginto himself on the dirty floor of the motorboat. “Should we go back?”

Dragos shook his head. There were tears on hisface, and they were scorching hot.

They broke out of the mist and into brightmorning sunlight as suddenly as if it had never been there. Dragos still didn’tdare look back.

“I thought I’d check if you were okay,” Lucawas saying. “What’s—what just happened?”

“I don’t know,” Dragos choked out. “I just… I justdon’t know.”

He looked over his shoulder, and there wassunny lake as far as he could see, from the coast to the mountains. His heartbeatrang in his ears.