Did I just write almost 2000 words of fic for a fandom that is as dead as its characters... yes, yes I did. Oh well, enjoy

You wear those scars like proof
That you have lived the truth
Cause we are meant to fade
It's what we're made of

He dreams of his parents sometimes.

He barely remembers their faces now, months of nightmarish adventures and near-death escapades have all but wiped them from his mind. And it wasn't like he saw them much before anyway.

Hours wandering the hallways of their estate and talking to himself to fill the silence, heating up leftover food in the microwave to eat by himself, or sitting in front of the tv with some video game or another because there was nobody there to send him to bed.

And it had been like that on that night, hadn't it? He had gone to sleep way after his bedtime and that was why he hadn't woken up properly when his father came to his room, shook him with sudden motions.

(And there had been a gun in his other hand but Ivan didn't notice then)

He was dragged from the sheets, hurried down the broad staircase in their hallway and his mother was there, talking in an urgent voice which his father silenced with a few curt words. They had gotten into the car- one of their cars but Ivan didn't remember which one.

He was so tired. Maybe that's why he didn't protest about still being in his nightclothes. Or why he didn't notice that he wasn't even wearing any shoes. Or that he had left his glasses on his nightstand.

Maybe that's why he didn't put on a seatbelt.

He had just pressed his forehead against the cool window of the vehicle and let the combined efforts of the humming engine and his parents' hushed whispers lull him back to sleep.

He doesn't remember what they sounded like.

He just remembers the collision. He remembers his mother screeching, high-pitched and sharp and then cut off by the overwhelming sound of metal grinding against metal. He remembers knocking his face hard against the back of the driver's seat, hands outstretched to catch himself but finding nothing. He remembers vividly his father had cursed, pulling on the steering wheel, trying in vain to keep the vehicle from doing what it was inevitably going to.

Then a feeling of weightlessness and catching a glimpse of the view outside, streetlights turned upside down and the pavement coming up to meet them in a sickening way.

When he opened his eyes again, vision blurry and unsteady, he was lying on his back, looking at the floor of the car, the seats pointing downwards menacingly above him. There was broken glass stuck in his hair, warmth and stickiness pooling all around him.

(A broken rib puncturing a lung)

He opened his mouth but coughed instead and there was a rusty taste on his lips he couldn't quite explain. It took too much effort to turn his head.

His parents weren't moving. Red leaking everywhere.

There were voices outside, men speaking in a language Ivan didn't understand at all, couldn't even place, and he didn't move a muscle, held his breath and waited.

There was the smell of gasoline on the fresh night breeze.

They leave eventually, and he relaxes slightly but still doesn't move or climb from the wreckage. He isn't sure he can either.

He's so tired, after all. Dead-tired.

(or just plain dying)

So he closes his eyes instead, wipes the blood off his face, and waits-

And then he had woken up in his bed without a second thought, though it didn't quite go away, did it? Maybe he had just pushed it to the back of his mind, locked it there for safe-keeping, something to be examined in detail later but ultimately pointless and irrelevant to their current predicament.

But it came back, everything came back, an ouroboros of suffering that always looped around and time had turned out to be circular, death had turned out to be circular, and them the mice that ran in their little wheels for the amusement of some cruel gods that take pleasure in the suffering of children in limbo.

And so, Ivan dreams of his parents sometimes.

(Other times he dreams of cold dark water rushing up to engulf him, the hairline fractures on a frozen lake cracking under his feet and the ice coldness below swallowing him completely, sinking into his hair and skin and clothes, dragging him down relentlessly. Lungs straining to keep in absent air but finding themselves unable to do so, failing him, burning with the effort.

His final breath leaving him in a sudden burst of bubbles and then the stillness and darkness that comes afterward.)

He wakes up, gasping, cold sweat drying clammy on his skin. He fumbles for his glasses, mind hazy as he tries to recall where he discarded them this time. It's not like he can possibly lose them anymore anyway.

They don't stay gone. They're a bit like him, in that way.

Terry is sound asleep in his corner of the tent, curled up almost into a fetal position with his teddy tucked under one arm and the blissful look of dreamless sleep on his face and Ivan sighs, pulls the blankets a bit tighter around the 5-year-old.

Ivan's other side is suspiciously empty and it isn't hard to guess why.

He crawls out of the tent, careful not to stir the sleeping child. The night air is lukewarm, but there is a fire crackling a little ways off. Dodzi is using a fallen tree trunk as a seat as he sits staring into the embers.

"You're still up?" It's not so much a question as a statement, an observation, and the other boy looks at him with eyes as dark as the water from his dreams.

"I guess. I'm not tired."

"As long as you don't fall asleep while driving the car tomorrow."

Dodzi hums in agreement, picking up a stick to poke at the flames. "Leila is driving anyway," he says. "She's better at it than me."

He scoots sideways to make room, and Ivan sits down with a small sound of contentment, basking in the beating heat of the fire to chase away the aftertouch of frigid water creeping into every pore.

"Don't tell her I said that," Dodzi adds after a beat, throwing him a sideways glance and Ivan almost but not quite smiles.

"I wouldn't dare."

They sit in silence for a bit, listening for the far-off sound of an owl in the woods, the small noises in the undergrowth. The forest seemingly alive and if that isn't irony, Ivan wouldn't know what is.

"What about you?" Dodzi asks eventually, using his stick to poke at the leaves and earth, making indiscernible patterns. "Why are you awake?"

"I couldn't sleep." There is an almost chilly breeze and Ivan leans in closer to the fire, closer to Dodzi. Their arms brush against each other and it's nice. "You know me, my mind is too chaotic to rest. Even death couldn't quiet it down at all."

Dodzi laughs, unrestrained and pure and not at all like with the others. But it's just the two of them now. "Thank god for that mind of yours. It's been pretty darn helpful so far." He studies Ivan's face, a steady and calculating gaze that can probably see right through him. Like he is measuring his next words very carefully. "Dreams again then?"

Ivan makes an evasive sound, half a shrug which could mean anything and Dodzi frowns, using the stick to tap against his leg, asking for his attention.

"You have to tell me, you know. I'm your husband after all."

And Ivan snorts, covering it up with one hand because the others are still sleeping for now and this moment is all they'll get, the two of them, so he has to savor it. "Don't remind me, please."

"So tell me then. It's your marital duty and all that shit."

"Is it?" He leans an elbow on his knee and rests his chin on his hand, fiddles with the lengths of his hair, down past his shoulders now. "I don't think that ceremony was official or anything. I'm too young to get a divorce."

Dodzi stares at him, at his hands, mind caught on something else entirely. "It's getting long. Are you going to tie it again or do you want me to cut it this time?"

"Do you seriously think I will let you anywhere near my face with a pair of scissors, Dodzi? Over my dead body."

The joke lingers for a second, two, then they both burst out in subdued giggles. The other boy grasps his elbow tightly, trying to get him to stop laughing. "Dude, that's fucked up-"

"I know."

That's exactly what they are maybe. A bit fucked up.

"I'm happy though," Dodzi adds after a second, catching his breath. "I like it this way. It looks nice."

And surely it is the flickering of the flames which makes the heat rush so suddenly up Ivan's face. Dodzi hasn't let go of his elbow yet, touch lingering and it's comforting, familiar.

"Thanks."

Sometimes Ivan dreams of his parents. Sometimes he dreams of the lake.

Sometimes he dreams of Dodzi, broken and mangled with a hole through his chest and the crows feasting on his flesh. Ivan had helped with digging the grave, hadn't he? And the earth had still been beneath his nails when Dodzi came back.

"What is your chaotic mind thinking of now?" The grave asks, except it is actually just Dodzi, voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm thinking I don't want to ever leave you guys." Maybe he's just an idiot for always telling the truth.

"I don't want to ever leave you either," Dodzi mutters in response.

There is sunlight peeking through the branches, a faded gloom on the horizon. His fingers are splayed against the bark, digging into the crevices and Dodzi is holding his elbow still.

They don't need to say anything else at all.

"Do you want to go back to sleep?" Dodzi asks at last, dropping the stick on the ground and leaning back and the moment is gone, melted into the ensuing light of day like it had never happened. "There might still be time before the menace wakes and starts his ruckus."

Ivan smiles softly, throwing a glance at their tent as if just noticing it was there.

"I don't think so," he says then, after a moment's consideration. "I'm not tired at all. You?"

Dodzi shakes his head. "I'll sleep when I am dead."

Another bout of chuckling, warm and real and not at all like the breath gets stuck in their lifeless lungs.

"We need to stop with that- Camille doesn't like it," Ivan chides half-heartedly and Dodzi nods in agreement.

"We'll stop. It's not even that funny..."

But when morning comes they will still be dead, laughing about it.

And these scars are proof that we were here
That we were young and free of fear
And we grew old enough to find out
What we're made of

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