( the entity plays games. everyone that exists under the weight of her sprawling thumb knows this, including danny. especially danny. if it wasn't for that hollowed-out feeling deep in his guts, his insides scooped clean of everything that made him hers, he would've thought that this — appearing here alone, no familiar face in sight — was just another one of her dirty fucking tricks. maybe it still is. maybe she pawned him off to another mysterious eldritch entity, relinquished him with a finger-wiggling wave and a cheeky your problem now. maybe something bigger and meaner took him by force. there are more things in heaven and earth. hamlet had no fucking idea.
then, hours in, while chummily knocking elbows with strangers at the largest dinner table he's ever sat, he sees it: a familiar face, haggard and fidgeting, squirreling food into his pockets from his dinner plate before he promptly disappears out the nearest door. danny doesn't stare. his heart ricochets off his ribcage, but he neatly cuts his food and says his pleases and thank yous the way his mama taught him and finishes his dinner.
it's him. it's him, it's him, it's him, it's him. i found you. got you, bitch.
predictably, dwight handles the festival as well as he seems to be handling everything else: like shit, one wrong shoulder bump away from a full-blown panic attack. danny tracks him through the crowd. later, into the woods, where dwight seems to be temporarily living, huddled over his knees around a flickering campfire. there's no fog here to hold danny back from approaching him, no series of convoluted rules he needs to follow at the behest of the entity, but he leaves dwight alone for the night, and the next night, and the next.
on the fourth day, hours before nightfall, danny cuts a noisy path through the woods to dwight's campsite, branches snapping underfoot. he clutches a bundle of fabric to his chest — warm layers, a blanket, a waterskin, dried jerky wrapped in cheesecloth. gifts for his lone survivor.
when he's close enough to catch dwight by the eye through a thin thicket of trees, he stops, all tentative uncertainty, swaying his weight from one booted foot to the other. )
Sorry, don't mean to intrude on — ( he passes a scanning glance over the campfire, as if to say whatever the fuck this is. he knows what the fuck this is: old habits, dwight carving a safe space made from flame and tinder into the unfriendly dark. ) I've seen you out here a few times. I thought you could use some of this shit.
( he lifts the bundle. )
You mind, man? ( his heel knocks a nearby boulder, a handful of feet away from dwight's position. ) I can leave it here if you want.
wildcard 💦 (cw: stalking, voyeurism)
then, hours in, while chummily knocking elbows with strangers at the largest dinner table he's ever sat, he sees it: a familiar face, haggard and fidgeting, squirreling food into his pockets from his dinner plate before he promptly disappears out the nearest door. danny doesn't stare. his heart ricochets off his ribcage, but he neatly cuts his food and says his pleases and thank yous the way his mama taught him and finishes his dinner.
it's him. it's him, it's him, it's him, it's him. i found you. got you, bitch.
predictably, dwight handles the festival as well as he seems to be handling everything else: like shit, one wrong shoulder bump away from a full-blown panic attack. danny tracks him through the crowd. later, into the woods, where dwight seems to be temporarily living, huddled over his knees around a flickering campfire. there's no fog here to hold danny back from approaching him, no series of convoluted rules he needs to follow at the behest of the entity, but he leaves dwight alone for the night, and the next night, and the next.
on the fourth day, hours before nightfall, danny cuts a noisy path through the woods to dwight's campsite, branches snapping underfoot. he clutches a bundle of fabric to his chest — warm layers, a blanket, a waterskin, dried jerky wrapped in cheesecloth. gifts for his lone survivor.
when he's close enough to catch dwight by the eye through a thin thicket of trees, he stops, all tentative uncertainty, swaying his weight from one booted foot to the other. )
Sorry, don't mean to intrude on — ( he passes a scanning glance over the campfire, as if to say whatever the fuck this is. he knows what the fuck this is: old habits, dwight carving a safe space made from flame and tinder into the unfriendly dark. ) I've seen you out here a few times. I thought you could use some of this shit.
( he lifts the bundle. )
You mind, man? ( his heel knocks a nearby boulder, a handful of feet away from dwight's position. ) I can leave it here if you want.