#wendigo fic

[l1av]

-squeals over Wendigo- So good!!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wewerenotthefirst]

2p Canada (2p CanAme, wendigo fic) -- to escape what's inside of me

He wakes up hungry.

Admittedly, Matt is usually hungry. It’s a deep-set sort of gnaw in his belly, an all-consuming festering ache that never quite goes away no matter how much he eats. And he eats a lot. He eats between full course meals, on the way to work, during meetings.

Powdered sugar under his nails. Croissant flakes on his tie. Bacon between his fingers as he goes to meet with his boss because he has a baggie of it in his suit pocket.

Matt’s licking a smear of grease off his thumb, nodding along to his Prime Minister’s words. He’s thinking about picking up more steaks in the evening, throwing two onto the grill and saving one for breakfast. He’ll need eggs, too. And another loaf of bread, probably, because he’ll be out in a day or so.

“Just hungry.” He shrugs. His boss frowns, for a moment, and starts to rummage around in his desk.

He eventually finds a granola bar and hands it to Matt. “It’s a good sign, right? You’re a growing nation.” And he smiles so wide, so proud, and Matt can just duck his head and blush, rising out of the chair.

--

At home, he cooks his steak in a pan. First one, then the other, on the off chance he’s not hungry enough for both.

But the first doesn’t quell the raw ache, and he turns up the heat on his sputtering stove. Idly scratching at the thick hair just below his belly button, Matt frowns and prods the slowly cooking steak.

He tries not to go for a handful of chips while he’s waiting.

(He ends up slicing the forgotten cucumber in his fridge after cutting off the squishy parts and eating it while he waits.)

--

Matt has always eaten a lot, a habit after the long cold years of his youth where there never seemed to be anything to eat. He doesn’t like remembering that time. For him, any time without Arthur isn’t worth remembering, no matter what Alfred insists.

But Matt has never eaten this much. And, it starts to make him nervous when he wakes up, feeling like his stomach is rending itself in two. It’s the middle of the night; he rolls over into the moonlight stripes on his bed and groans, broad palm pressed against the tense plane of his stomach.

He lives on the tenth floor of a high rise, but when Matt looks up to check his clock, he swears he sees black trees rising up around him, menacing branches and naked boughs.

There are no trees for miles, Matt knows.

He worries.

--

It doesn’t go away, and, in fact, his stomach starts to hurt worse.

Matt starts to dry-heave at his desk, barely makes it to the trash bin before his stomach gives out.

At some point, he slides to the carpet from his chair, his hulking form suddenly bent over the trash bin. He’s hidden behind the desk, so his Prime Minister does not find him until he comes up to the desk and sees the red of Matt’s uniform, the sprawl of his arms across the carpet.

Of course, he gets sent home.

--

Of course, Alfred comes up within the afternoon. He’s got arms of brown paper bags filled with Tupperware, and he builds towers of them on Matt’s kitchen table.

“I’ve got, like, five types of casserole and salmon and rice and chicken pot pie and—“

Matt raises his beer to silence Alfred’s babble. Then he rubs absently under his eye, frowning at the, no doubt, bruised skin there. “I’m not hungry.” He says, firmly, quietly.

Alfred just looks at him, shoulders slumping. He looks frustrated, almost nervous, and Matt just presses his lips together and takes another sip of beer.

“You should go back to Washington.” He suggests, at length. “I think you’re more needed there, anyway.” Matt tries to say it as kindly as he can when all he wants is for Alfred to leave.

But Alfred just glares at him and then starts transferring the Tupperware to the fridge.

--

“You just don’t take care of yourself.” Alfred sighs after a few minutes of silence. “You keep filling yourself with all this crap.” He holds up a back of ketchup-flavored chips for emphasis. “And all that red meat. And beer.” He bends down to peer into the fridge again. “Are those canned pears?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s pear season, damn it, Matt!”

“You’re such a fucking nag.”

“Go fuck yourself, you fuck.”

--

Alfred’s a good cook, so no matter how much Matt wants to blame his churning stomach on the tuna casserole, he can’t bring himself to utter the phrase “food poisoning” when Alfred is holding back his hair, his fingers trembling as Matt retches into the toilet.

“Fuck, Matt.” Alfred takes a deep breath. “Fuck.”

“Water.”

And Alfred is on his feet, already bounding down the hallway. Matt shudders, wipes the corner of his mouth on his wrist, and then flushes the toilet. His head bursts between his eyes, and he groans softly.

Through it all, he’s still starving.

--

Alfred comes to check on him in the middle of the night, but Matt is awake. When Alfred comes to sit next to him, red eyes catching moonlight, moonlight catching the downturn of his mouth.

“You worry too much.” Matt shifts, raises his arm for Alfred to lie next to him but Alfred doesn’t move. “What do you want?”

“I just wanted to make sure you’re in bed.” Alfred shifts. Matt reaches over to touch his bare knee, fingertips sweeping down his skin. “You sleepwalk. I found you in the kitchen.” He pauses, hesitant, catches Matt’s hand on his thigh. “Matt…you were eating raw steak.”

Matt blinks. “That could be what’s making me sick.” But he says it tonelessly.

“Yeah.”

When Alfred goes to leave, Matt pulls him down, and arches up for a kiss.

Alfred only hesitates for a moment.

--

He goes back to work after driving Alfred to the airport.

There’s a niggling hollow ache behind his heart, magnifying when he thinks of the uncertain way Alfred had eyed him from the gate. Like he didn’t want to leave, but Matt knew he also didn’t want to stay.

Alfred turning away from him hurts more than Matt could have imagined, but at the same time, he can't blame him. He knows.

He knows.

--

He gets thinner and thinner, until his uniform hangs at his elbows and he tucks more into his trousers before tightening his belt.

He wakes up outside, in his office, in the kitchen, and, then, in South River.

Matt wakes up, on the shore of a lake, feet in the water, looking up at the cloudless sky.

There’s no noise. Even the water is quiet, the lake a placid sheet of glass under a raging sun.

Behind him are the tatters of a red and blue tent.

Under him, the ground is red.

Matt just decides not to go back.

He can't.

--

His heels burn and the wind whistles in his ears, but he keeps heading north, the ache building and building in his chest until it might burst. Metal and lightning under his nails and in his mouth, and Matt flees.

He flees.

[wewerenotthefirst]

2pCanada (wendigo fic preview) -- we'll be counting stars

He wakes up hungry.

It’s a familiar feeling, something Matt is certain he might never forget. It is something he grew up with. Forever it haunts him—that feeling of hunger—from time to time, coming to him in the darkness of his room, that all-consuming, festering ache in the pit of his stomach. He’s older, but he still remembers.

But nowadays, burnt eggs and black toast usually take the edge off, soften the sharper pangs and keep Matt fine until lunch.

This morning he works his way through half a loaf while waiting for the steak to cook on his sputtering stove.

Out of eggs and hungry, Matt prods the steak, turns up the heat, and wonders if there any muffins are left from Arthur’s last visit.

--

It doesn’t go away, and, in fact, his stomach starts to hurt later.

Matt starts to dry-heave at his desk, barely makes it to the trash bin before his stomach gives out.

At some point, he slides to the carpet from his chair, his hulking form suddenly bent over the trash bin. He’s hidden behind the desk, so his Prime Minister does not find him until he comes up to the desk and sees the red of Matt’s uniform, the sprawl of his arms across the carpet.

Of course, he gets sent home.

--

[wewerenotthefirst]

wendigo!fic is hard to write. shout-out to the babes who've totally done it

The lake gleams like glass under the stars, casting moonlight into the shadowed recesses of the forest. His name echoes in the wind. He trembles.

“I thought you couldn't see magical creatures.” Arthur says, voice faint, quiet under the coaxing wind in his ears.

“Usually I don’t.” Alfred replies, quiet, shotgun in his lap. “I haven’t in a long time. But this one isn’t really magic and it’s not a creature.” He nestles under the blankets thrown over his shoulders and looks at Arthur with something like pity in his gaze. “Just remember: this isn’t Matthew.”

“He had bl—“

“Not Matthew.” Alfred repeats, stubborn, leaning forward. “Say it.”

“It isn’t Matthew.” Arthur manages to keep the desperation out of the end of his sentence. “Matthew would not…”

Matthew would not massacre a family of five.

(Their bodies are still across the lake. Arthur can see the dying embers of their campfire.)

Arthur trembles.

--

At dawn Alfred does not move. He looks across at Arthur, expression grim.

“You really shouldn’t have come with me.”

“I haven’t seen Matthew in months.” His voice is raw, and Arthur’s head aches. Even during the few snatches of sleep he managed, all he could hear was Matthew’s voice whispering into his ear, feeling, still, that warm mouth with wet blood against his skin.

“You picked one hell of a time to remember him.” Alfred sighs, stretches out his legs. “He won’t like that you saw him like this.”

“He knows?”

“Of course he knows.” Alfred snorts, giving him a flat look. “He turns into a skeleton monster that eats human flesh every few years or so. That’s not the sort of thing you forget after waking up covered in blood.”

“You knew?”

At that, Alfred looks down, at the leaf-strewn ground. “Yeah.” He admits, voice quieter, shoulders hunched. “He crossed the border. I got there. Next thing I knew, I was covered in my own blood on the dead earth. I think he ate my liver.”

--

 and then i gave up