An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Cramped Wood
Frederick has a flashback
Frederick didn't have time to question anything. He was just following the flow as the entire club slowly descended into total chaos. A squirrel had fallen out of a tree outside, which spooked Monika and caused a series of events that had now resulted in small tennis balls all over the floor, several princesses hiding, and many others scrambling as to not get hit by the tennis balls that were still airborne.
Frederick was one of those princesses.
He sort of just stood in place, not knowing which direction to move. Should he just run in random directions, should be move into the hall, should be hide under a table-
He was anticlimactically shoved into a very cramped closet by Thermidora bumping into him.
He got the wind knocked out of him, but after only a few seconds of shock, he took a few more seconds to figure out what to do. He decided on moving out into the hall until the screaming stopped, at least. The sound of yelling set off his fight or flight response.
Speaking of fight or flight response, he couldn't get out. That wasn't good.
He tried to kick the doors, but they wouldn't budge. They had locked themselves.
Frederick tried to move his arms, but their was wood in the way. The smell of it seeped into his nostrils. The smell of wood was usually comforting, but here it was too strong. Like some kind of gas, restricting the air in his lungs.
He couldn't breath. He tried breathing faster and faster, but his lungs wouldn't cooperate, he tried to sit down, curl up in a ball where he didn't have to look at the dark space around him, but the coffin refused, not even having room to bend his knees. He couldn't move, he couldn't breath, he couldn't think! The voices in his head started getting louder. They stopped calling him loser and started calling him sunflower.
That nickname... The sound of it set off the warning bells in his head. He tried to clutch his head, make them stop, but his arms couldn't move through the walls of the coffin. Said walls started to shift around him. They looked like they were moving closer, and closer, and closer, and until they constricted his lungs even more than they already were by the disgusting smell in the air.
But then, the chest's door opened. Frederick toppled out, almost face planting the floor, before something caught him. At the touch, he flinched violently, and he pushed itself as far away as he could.
They were bullies. They smiled, but they didn't smile how Gwen smiled. Those bully's smiles were wretched, twisted smiles, that squirmed across their faces like worms. Frederick looked up into their eyes, and saw what he had nightmares about. Their eyes weren't cold. They were full of emotion. They were full of joy. The joy a lion has when it sees an injured zebra. The joy and eagle has when it sees a rabbit off guard.
The joy a predator has when it's about to rip apart it's prey.
But, they were different, when he stared. He saw care in them. The more he looked, the more that twisted, sadistic joy looked more like a cloth covering the caring, concerned eyes underneath. Gwen's eyes.
This wasn't real.
Frederick closed his eyes. Tried to take a steady breath. He failed. He tried again. He failed. He tried a few more times, and it got a bit better. All until the hallucinations disappeared.
Frederick opened his eyes. He was looking at his hands. They were quivering, like a leaf in a storm, one more bad wind away from breaking off of it's branch. Gwen hesitantly put her hand next to it. Frederick nodded, and she put her hand on his.
Prez was next to Gwen, Frederick realized, when she crouched down to meet his eyes, Frederick immediately looking the other way.
"Kiddo, that.. wow. I.. I haven't seen an attack like that since..." The woman trailed off, slowly looking over to her right, where Nell was standing.
Frederick followed her gaze. Nell looked just as shocked as the other girls. But on her face was something else. A shocked.. recognition.
They met eyes, and after a moment, Nell ran up as fast as she could, and she hugged him.
She hugged him tightly, like she really got it. Like she never wanted him to go through that again. Like she understood.
She...
understood?