2020-01-26 - Memory Dream: The Wild Things

It’s summer vacation, 1991, and the area around Gray Harbor is in bloom. The heavy drone of bees fills the air, and wildflowers are everywhere, all the way down to the water, which has a couple of charming lily pads. And lots of algae. It’s a popular place for the youth of the Harbor to hang out during the long summer days, chasing each other over the bridge, swimming in the pond (regardless of parental disapproval), and playing various games on the grass. Kids venture into the Firefly Woods during the summer, too - although often towards the evening, to catch the luminous insects that give it its tourist-approved name - but usually in groups.

Usually.

Not far in the woods from the public areas, there’s a run down little shack. Around that shack, someone has spend days building up a wall of green sticks and briars, except for certain, strategic points of entrance and exit. Stuck on the outer edges of those walls are pages from a notebook, on which attack plans have been meticulously drawn. Not just plans: a childish hand has recreated a half dozen Wanted posters: Bugsy Malone, Al Capone, James Dillenger (sic), ‘Baby Face’ Nelson, and more. Crude faces that scream ‘bad guy’ are stuck on thorns all over the place around the shack. The one responsible for all of this?

Alexander Clayton. At this point in his life, he’s eleven years old, skinny and perpetually injured from fights with other kids at school, or - so rumor has it - self-inflicted injuries due to his ‘illness’, as the adults put it. Kids normally just call him crazy, and keep a wide distance. He doesn’t talk much in school except to adults, and once school’s out, he runs out to go follow cops around, if any will let him. But today, he’s here, huddled behind the wall with a pair of binoculars, staring at the shack and talking into a dead walkie talkie. “Bernard, do you have eyes on the suspect, over?”

Nobody tell him that the 30s didn’t have walkie talkies. It will break his heart.

At ten years old, Pat is a half-decade away from growing into the Patrick Addington we all know and love. He's a plump kid that used to have a host of maladies that kept him out of school, but that's mostly behind him now - only the occasional missed days here and there, more than average but far less than it used to be. A teacher's pet, but not in the pestery, underfoot way; more in the 'smarmy little suck-up' way (it helps to be able to fuck with the emotions of the people in charge of your life, ngl). As for friends... well, even at ten years old, that name still tends to mean he doesn't have friends so much as people that are nearby him.

He's definitely not supposed to be in the woods by himself. But there's really nowhere in this fucking town that he's allowed to go by himself, so you know what, grown-ups? He's gonna take his chances today. Along he comes, with a back-pack on, a Mason-jar in hand, and a sudden stop when he rounds a bend in the path and is confronted by a freaky fortress out here in the middle of nowhere. He immediately does what any red-blooded American kid with psychic powers would do under the circumstances: Assumes Alexander Clayton is involved.

And the other thing any red-blooded American kid would do: Fuck with Alexander Clayton. Pat ducks behind some convenient tree, backpack visible on one side, sneakers on the other, he's just the worst hider. The dead walkie-talkie crackles with nearly-credible sounding static, and a tinny voice answers through the speaker, "Copy that, breaker breaker, ten-four, over and out." Yeah, his squawk-talk could use some work.

1991, and it's the hey day of no cell phones and super soakers for everyone! And Yule is no exception, having come out to the woods that are close enough to the trailer park that his family calls home. He's on the smaller side for his ten year old class, though only by a couple of inches, only just now starting the growth spurt that creates a gangly appearance of arms and legs.

Whatever he'd been out doing with that super soaker hefted over his shoulder, he is taking a break now as he heads through the forest, only to round into that make shift fort just a minute after Patrick. He doesn't bother to hide himself, instead giving a poke at the wall with the tip of that water gun before he slips around to one of the entrances to peer inside. "Hey!" Up his voice lifts, though it cuts off when the walkie talkie goes off, and his eyes fall on Alexander himself. "You do all this?" It's half accusation, half amazement, though all dubious given the reputation of this particular kid he sees, even if he hasn't spied Patrick yet personally.

"AAAA!" Alexander is, generally, pretty easy to fuck with at this age, because he has even less chill than he does as an adult. So that scream echoes through the trees as he throws the walkie talkie away from his ear like it just sprouted legs and tried to crawl inside his brain. And then he sees Yule, and screams again, scrabbling backwards on hands and knees until he bonks his head on a trunk. Thunk. "I didn't do it!" Not exactly the question Yule was asking. "You...no, you couldn't have done it. You're one of the Christmas kids, from the trailer park." His eyes narrow, and rises to crouch up and stalk over towards the hiding Patrick. He's also not very stealthy, though, so he can be clearly heard crunching through the trees towards the younger boy. "Who are you! I see you!" He doesn't, but he feels him, and that's about the same, right?

He's making a lot of noise, and his arms are flailing about like he's going to thrash the Addington boy when he finds him, which may be why the other two don't notice subtle changes in the world around them. Namely, that those carefully made bramble walls are extending themselves, growing longer and taller whenever someone isn't looking at them, bit by bit, cutting off the paths. Alexander notices, but immediately assumes, "Why are you guys messing with me?? Leave me alone!"

The (kid hiding behind the) tree giggles delightedly at the first sound of a scream, snorting through his nose in an effort to keep that laughter from becoming totally audible. Which means the snorts are totally audible. As yet unaware of the trees doing their tree-things, Pat happily continues playing with the walkie-talkie, which chirps away with some completely nonsensical beeps. It's like what Morse code sounds like on old war movies, just beep-de-beep with a background of static.

He also totally gets what he deserves when he zaps himself on accident, going "OW!" and dropping his Mason jar with a loud crash of broken glass. It serves to help keep him from noticing that the forest is about to lock them up and destroy them for sure. 🙁

"Jesus. We have NAMES," Comes Yule's ever so mature response towards Alexander when he is called one of the Christmas Kids, just glowering at him for a few long moments. "I am YULE," Comes his answer to Alexander's question asking who is who, even though it wasn't aimed his way. He doesn't know that. "And I'm not messing with you, I'm asking you a question." A beat of a pause, and it comes ever so close to having an added on 'dork' that the boy manages to strangle back.

Yule? He doesn't notice at all that the pathway he had walked through is now cut off behind him, so focused is he on the weirdness that is Young Clayton. Only when that jar hits the ground with a loud crash that isn't from the one that he sees does he whip off that super soaker from his shoulder, aiming it in the general direction of Patrick's tree. "Who is there!" Ok. Now he gets Alexander's question, but he sure won't fess up to that fact! Pump pump pump goes the handle, until the poorly made seals are dribbling with water!

Alexander sort of crumples at the glower, folding in on himself, and apologizing, "Sorry. I know you have a name. Yule Duchannes." He doesn't pronounce the last name correctly, but there's an earnestness about his regret. "I shouldn't mess with people's names. They're important."

But before he can say how, there comes that exclamation of pain, and Alexander's attention goes back to the tree. He glances at Yule and the pumping gun, and his eyes light up. In the excited screech of someone who has waited his WHOLE SHORT LIFE to say this, he shouts, "We've got guns trained on your position, you criminal! Surrender and come out with your hands up!" Okay, so there's one gun, and the forest is about to eat them, but he is living his best life right here in this moment.

It's a shame that the forest is slowly changing around them in a way that is gradually impossible to miss. The trees are larger, the shadows darker, the canopy so thick that only a few emerald-shaded shafts of sunlight manage to get through. The bramble walls become thick, tangled undergrowth that looks like it could take a kid and hold them forever. Or cut them apart slowly, slowly, with a thousand knife-like thorns. Even the smell is different, cool and loamy, with a musky undertone that's hard to place, but smells just a little like rotten meat.

"You'll never take me alive!" proclaims the boy that was just squeaking a second ago, shoving his back up against the tree and kicking a spray of broken glass over toward the fortress. (What? Addingtons play dirty.)

You know, until the darkening forest becomes a thing that Patrick can't not see. While he stands there plotting his next move, the forest changes in a way that makes his heart race, his palms sweat, his stomach drop out from under him. "Oh God," he begins, teeth chattering, leaving him frozen in this spot and staring at the terrible sharpness of those thorns, his eyes enormous in his plump little face. Words adult Patrick would never say: "I'm really sorry, Alexander. So just cut it out, okay?! I have an artichoke in my pack, we can split it!"

One might think that after Alexander yells this? The glee in Yule's eyes means whoever is behind that tree is going to get shot regardless of how they decide to surrender, or not. "That's great!" Yule quips back when Patrick proclaims his desires to fight until the wet, soaking death. The trigger is pulled, splattering against the tree, but then Yule? He sees the trees.

And unlike them, Weird Stuff isn't something he is even remotely used to. That poor water jet starts to trickle down, and has he looks around, it sprays around everywhere. The fort, Alexander, the forest. "Uhhh. Hey. Is like, the sun going down already or something?" Cause that has to be the reason the trees seem so much larger, and the forest so much more spooky and scary, never mind the actual time of day it is.

"Hey! No glass!" Alexander calls out, flinching back from the kicked shards. "That's not f-" and then his attention is brought back around to the forest and its changes, and it becomes apparent that Alexander spends way, way too much time eavesdropping on cops, because what comes out of his mouth isn't 'fair' but a quiet, "Fuck."

"I'm not doing it," he tells the boy behind the tree, his own voice going shrill with apprehension. And now he's heard enough of the kid's voice to have a pretty good idea of who it is. "Patrick, come out. We need to. Um. We need to stick together! And find a place to hide." He looks back towards the shack. But it's gone now, replaced by a thicket of primordial brambles that doesn't look inviting at all.

Alexander bends down and grabs a sturdy branch. "It'll be okay," he lies to the other two boys, his voice wavering like puberty's come early. "Just stick close, okay? And don't let it tell you things that aren't true." He doesn't elaborate...but maybe that's because, from the shadows on Patrick's side of the tree, there's a low, bass rumble of a growl, and two green eyes, glowing faintly in the darkness, appear. Something makes its way slowly towards Patrick, and although he can't make out the shape, it is large, and there's a waft of that rotten meat smell that washes over him, warm like exhaled breath.

Through the chattering teeth, Patrick calls, "What if I just hide here instead?" There's a particular emphasis on the verb, and - for a moment - the sneakers sticking out disappear, just two little stones that make perfect sense in the forest, nothing to see here but an absolutely normal tree. He holds his breath and effectively vanishes from sight.

Which works great till that noise and those eyes break out of the darkness, and he yelps again. "We're gonna get in trouble, so much trouble, definitely getting in so much trouble," is the mantra that sets his feet into motion. So he closes his eyes and bolts toward the sound of Alexander's voice, more likely to plow right into still-shrimpy Yule than to brake in time to avoid a collision.

At first, Yule eyes his water dubiously, "Did like, some of the other kids put acid in their water? Cause, that," Yeah. He's now looking towards what should be a shack, and his voice wavers, a quiver to it as he just stares as the brambles, "doesn't look right. None of this looks right. What are you DOING here, Alexander Clayton?" He can use full names too!

A large gulp comes from the man, as the squeak squeak squeak of his weapon being 'reloaded' comes, and it is the steps closer towards Alexander that shows even if he thinks the other kid has something to do with it, he sure feels like togetherness is the best part of the plan that he has been told. He so clearly sees something that is out there, even if he can't tell what, and it has his mouth working, trying to form words, but they never do. Thankfully, he hasn't lost his mind so much as to forget about Patrick, and when the two collide? He catches it just in time to barely keep on his feet. "W-w-what is that?"

"This isn't my fault!" Alexander exclaims, but his voice wavers. "It never happens when I'm with other people! It's not my fault!" He brandishes his branch like a baseball bat, and poor Patrick almost gets a face full of it when he comes barreling around that tree at the other two. He manages NOT to whack the poor kid, but does reach out with one hand to try and grab the two somewhat younger kids and push them behind him. "It's something bad, Yule. We gotta go." He starts trying to push them to back up, step by step, away from the green-eyed thing.

Which steps around the tree and into what passes for the light in this dark forest. It's easily seven feet tall, with green, feline eyes, and hunched shoulders. Shaggy fur, covered with moss, is over most of its body, except for the massive hands tipped with curved, black claws. Its face is almost human, although far too wide - like someone took a human skull and face and just stretched it on the horizontal. Its grin is also too wide, and stained teeth are crammed in there so tight that a few are sticking out at odd angles. "Lookit what I found," the monster rumbles, green eyes alight. "Little visitors, come to play. We like visitors. And we love to play."

So Yule doesn't fall over and Alexander doesn't hit him in the face with a baseball bat, but neither of those things prevent Patrick from stumbling after the collision, landing on both knees and skinning those right up, yay. "It's a Bad Guy," he tells Yule seconds after Alexander says roughly the same thing, like this is imparting some great secret, his voice all hoarse and watery on account of he's trying to swallow tears and choking on them. And his hair's all standing up on end, like he's been rubbing it with a balloon.

All this, and he hasn't even seen the thing yet, his back still to it while he scrabbles around on his hands and knees. The monster starts speaking, so he very valiantly crawls over behind Yule's legs, only then daring to peek around at the thing. "Hit it with something!" He's helpful.

Yule stands frozen in sheer terror for a moment, and so he thinks of the worst fate imaginable his ten year old brain can summon up. The holy wrath of... "Your mom is calling you! She is gunna whoop you good if you don't go home!" And then his finger trigger clicks the squirt gun, sending a stream of water towards the 'Bad Guy' that Patrick proclaims it to be.

And then he promptly screams. "RUN AWAY!" Which Yule turns to promptly do... only to see Patrick right behind him. To his credit? He doesn't trip over the other boy. But this obstacle is the most impenetrable thing Duchannes has encountered, apparently, leaving him stumped as to how to start moving. "I SAID RUN AWAY!" That'll fix it. This may well be the easiest meal this beast thing will ever have in its life.

Alexander's shaking all over as the monster makes its way around the tree trunk, but his grip on the branch is firm. "Just back up! Don't split up or we might get MORE lost!" See? He's trying to be the older, responsible kid here, but then Yule squirts the thing with his water gun and starts shouting about his mom. The water hits the dense mat of fur over its chest, and doesn't even seem to penetrate.

The monster's teeth don't gleam, but as it leans towards Yule, the boy can see tiny bugs scurrying in and out of the grin. "I'm gonna eat YOU first, I think. And then the plump one." His finger, tipped with its horrible claw, comes out to point at Patrick. And then? Then its mouth gapes and it vomits a stream of something horrible at Yule. He's able to duck away - and a good thing, since it immediately starts eating its way through the tree trunk behind them.

"Nonononono," Alexander babbles, then jumps forward and swings his tree branch upwards with all his pre-adolescent might between the creature's shaggy legs. Wonder of wonders, he actually seems to hit something that causes the monster to grunt and stagger, caught off guard for a moment. Alexander immediately turns. "Come on! Running is a good idea!" He tries to herd them along - into the deeper darkness. But hey, where else are they gonna go?

This is a problem he is going to have for the rest of his days: Patrick gets given the best piece of advice there is under the circumstances (run away), and his response is to shout right back at Yule, "YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!" At least this serves to have him scrabbling to his feet, the hand pushing himself upward mere inches from the spew of nastiness that starts dissolving the scenery. He withdraws that hand quickly, flailing it to try to catch hold of something that might actually help him stand up - like Alexander.

He snags a handful of the older kid's shirt, yanking it to help haul himself to his feet. "Run where?! Into the big giant thorns? Okay, lead the way!" Sarcasm is timeless. Also, he's sorry if he keeps zapping Alexander a little bit where he's yanking on his shirt, but he can't help it.

Yule leans down to try and help Patrick get up to do said running, and that? Is why the glob of OMGJUICE goes flying over his head. "Did you see what he did to that tree?!" Yes. Alexander is now on board with the running plan, but once Patrick shouts that back? Whatever help he was going to get is drawn away, leaving him flailing for Alexander. "Jesus. Fine. YOU STAY HERE."

And then Yule is off and running into the darkness, because where else are they going to go? Not that he's being super stealthy about it, "Did you see that things teeth? It had bugs in it! I bet his teeth are like, cave worms. We are going to die to a cave worm monster!" A glower is cast towards Alexander, and then Patrick, as if somehow this is all their fault.

"Nobody's staying here!" Alexander shouts it at the top of his lungs. "I am the oldest and I am definitely the boss! Shut up and run, Patrick!" At first, he doesn't resist Patrick yanking at him, since it's getting the kid to his feet, but then he's being ZAPPED and he shouts, "Ow! Stoppit, or I will throw you to the monster!"

"Yesssss," the monster says, having recovered from its momentary stun. "Throw him to me. We'll have so much fun!" It starts to lope towards the children as they run for their lives. Alexander is very good at running for his life. One might think that he'd had a couple of years practice at it. He even grabs branches and things to throw in the monster's path to slow it down a little. He and Patrick are able to stay clear and stay ahead of the beast.

But Yule stumbles. He stumbles into one of those nasty bramble patches and gets caught, the thorns reaching out for him and trying to hold him in place so that the monster can reach him. And it is so close that its horrible breath washes over Yule again, and he can hear the chuckle down in his bones.

It's hard to insist that someone isn't the boss of you while letting that person drag you along through the haunted forest, but little Pat does it commendably well, his feet stumbling over things while his mouth keeps on blabbing. "You're not the boss - " He drags to a sudden halt, shaking off Alexander's grip with one last shove toward the imprisoned Yule, leaving him to clap his hands together and make a wonderfully horrible looking arc of electricity spark between them. " - of me!" Now all he needs is that mofo to come his way, and he grabs on to the hairy body with both super-crackly hands.

It would be so epic if he didn't have his eyes squeezed closed as hard as he can the whole time, sheet-white and this close to peeing himself. Worst case scenario, he'll zap the thing and then cling for dear life, and maybe buy time to liberate Yule from the Evil Thorns [tm].

It's screaming that comes from Yule, throwing everything he can verbally at that beast. "GO FIND A MINT TO CLEANSE YOUR CAVE WORMS. They smell SO bad. What do you use for toothpaste, poop?" And then he's throwing the supersoaker towards the beast. If he had put in that much effort in trying to get out of the thorns? He might have escaped them. As it is, wriggle and writhe as he might, he just can't quite seem to get the last couple of clinging bastards off of him, grabbing as they are at the back of his shirt. "ALEXANDER," Those brown eyes go so big and wide, a hand held out to try and have the other boy yank him free while Patrick is... wait. What is Patrick doing? Yule doesn't know. Doesn't care. He'll worry about that sometime never, at this rate!

"OHmygodPatrickdon't--" And then Alexander stops for a moment, staring at the arc of electricity. His eyes widen. "That is so cool. I wish I could do that--don't TOUCH IT!"

...too late. Patrick grabs onto the thick pelt of the creature and unloads his electricity - the beast goes POOF as every stinky hair it has stands on end, and it bellows horribly into the night, flailing and dancing and trying to shake off the horrible little child who won't just STAND there and BE EATEN like he should.

It's Yule's panicked voice calling his name that jars Alexander out of watching this with something like awe. He drops his branch and jumps forward to help. Mostly by just grabbing the smaller child and yanking hard until his shirt tears and they both go stumbling away. "He's free! Patrick, he's free! Let go!"

Patrick is holding on for dear life, as previously mentioned. There's no finesse to this, no skill, just his plump self bouncing all over the place, getting a whole host of bruises and while he grabs for new handfuls of hair whenever the old ones get sizzled. "Let go?!" he repeats frantically, and drops one hand away from the thing, which means the other one immediately comes unlatched.

He half-falls, half-flies off the beast while it's mid-flail. There's no graceful tuck-and-roll for him. He hits the ground with a thud, skiiiiidding toward where Alexander and Yule have just managed to get the Duchannes kid untangled. "Hey, but don't leave me!" Stumbling and crying and desperately trying not to look over his shoulder at the monster, he chases the other boys. "...so much trouble..." He'll just keep panting that endlessly as he hustles.

The back of Yule's shirt gets shredded, leaving pieces behind on the thorns, and he doesn't need to be urged on to start running again. "LET GO," He repeats for Patrick, even as he doesn't look back, the panic now clearly and deeply set into his voice, "Or it is going to eat us and it will smell SO BAD while he is doing it! SO BAD!" He'll worry about trouble later, like how he is going to explain to mom a lost super soaker and a ripped t-shirt, but hey, boys do these things, right?!

"What did you DO to that thing? I'm," Yule wheezes, just barreling on down into the darkness, hoping that there is some method to the madness that they are all in, "not sure if it smells even WORSE now with the burnt hair odor. I am going to be so SICK."

"We're not leaving you, Patrick! Just run!"

Alexander means what he says, but when he reaches back for the kid, he misses his grip, and his running sprint takes him and Yule away from Patrick. Enough that there's a noticeable gap between the two boys, and the last one. Which the monster immediately picks up on. "They're gonna leave you," it growls as resumes the chase. "They're gonna leaaaaave you Patrick, and then I'm gonna eeeeeeaaaat you, and they'll get to go home because they leeeeeeft you for meeeee."

With that, those shaggy legs gather themselves and it makes a leap, intending to pounce on Patrick and start the feasting. But this seems to be JUST the incentive needed for Patrick to put on an extra burst of speed - with a grace and agility he won't see for another few years again at least, he leaps out of the way of the monster's pounce. "This isn't working," Alexander screams. "It's gonna run us down and eat us! Like a cheetah!" Someone watches too many nature shows.

But it's a valid point - the monster has a lot more stamina than three adolescent boys. But Yule notices a dark tunnel in one of the huge thorn thickets - it looks like it could JUST about fit them, and certainly that big creature could never get in there, and the thorns should keep it from trying to tear its way through. Maybe.

"Oh my god, you're leaving me!" Patrick does himself no favors by sobbing out the obvious, wasting perfectly good breath that he could be using to run faster with his whining. And also with trash-talking the monster, 'cause he sputters back at the thing, "If you eat me, I'll electrocute all your guts from the inside, then I'll wear your whole dead body like a big hairy monster suit!" The trash-talking is good for his ego, it helps him kick into high gear and make up some of the ground between him and Alexander-and-Yule right before he actually gets eaten and has to test this theory of his.

"Or like a moose! Mooses are super-dangerous," he contributes breathlessly, huffing and puffing and all out of ideas. "I can't zap any more, by the way."

"We are not going to leave him!" Yule shouts, even as he keeps running. He'll figure out that part at some point, but thankfully? Patrick finds the after burners to fire off and start closing the gap at just the right time. "IT doesn't run fast enough to be a cheetah, and mooses are BEAUTIFUL," Yule explains, ever the scientist even at this young age, "It's more like a hippopotamus waiting to get you if you get too close. Or maybe,"

But then he sees that spot, and he dives into it, body crawling past it, "GET IN HERE NOW. The Hippo is too big to follow us!" He does stop just within, casting a glance back and a ready hand to drag either of the other two in if they need the extra help.

"It's MOOSE. There's no 's' at the end! And they're not beautiful. They're funny-looking and smelly! And super dangerous." Ageless wisdom from Alexander here, who apparently cares a lot about proper plurals for things, even at this age. Speaking of things he cares about, he throws back at Patrick, "You can't electrocute us if you can't zap, and a skin suit wouldn't even fit you! That's why you have to make them from different pieces of different people. God, don't you two know anything??"

But his exasperation at being a whole few months older than the other two doesn't stop him from shouting, "Good idea, Yule!" But he waits for just a moment, shoving Patrick in ahead of him before jumping into the tunnel himself.

Or, at least...he tries. But the monster covers the distance with terrifying speed, and suddenly, before Patrick can quite wriggle inside, one of those massive paws shoots out and grabs the kid by one ankle, starting to pull him out of the safe haven. "You won't get away, little morsel! I'm going to eat you all up, starting from the feet!" It gnashes its horrid teeth.

"I was talking," huff puff, "to the monster! Who would wanna wear an Alexander Clayton suit?" This is the argument to have right now, boys. It's obviously super-critical. Patrick plucks at his very nice but very dirty shirt, side-eyeing Alexander's poor-people-clothes. Probably it's this wee delay before wedging himself into the tiny space that results in the thing grabbing his ankle.

He reaches out with flaily hands toward Yule, scraaaaaaping backward across the ground inch by terrible inch. "Hey, but if it eats me? You gotta tell my aunt I just wandered into traffic or something, okay? She'll kill me if I die from monsters," are what he thinks are going to be his last words. He tries some kicking at the big teeth, then it's back to squeezing his eyes closed and waiting for the horribleness to happen. He will be a shockingly delicious morsel, at least?

"SEE? HIPPO. As in, hungry hungry HIPPO. Do you hear what it's saying about morsels? It's just like that board game," Yule counters, even as he tries to grasp Patrick's hands to help pull him into the thorn tunnel. At least he doesn't have to deal with the mouth of the thing, or that horrible breath, "and is it moose? Huh. I guess you are right."

It's the talk of electrocuting people, and skin suits and, what is Alexander saying?! "Jesus. This is exactly why no one talks to you at school, cause when someone does, you tell them to make a suit out of multiple people, Alexander!" It's probably wise advice, really all things considered, but it comes out far more as yelling at the moment given the heat of the situation. And then his hands clasp onto Patrick, and he looks right at him. "I am not going to let you go, cause I don't WANNA have to talk to your aunt." And then he pulls so hard, that the poor monster hasn't a clue how he has a delicious kid leg one moment to snack on, and absolutely nothing to show for it the next.

"I'm just trying to help," Alexander shouts at both of them. "If you're gonna do something, you should do it RIGHT. That's ALL! Stop being assholes," he adds, breaking out the Adult Swears, because he's the OLDEST damnit!

And then Patrick's getting snatched up and he screams. He reaches around to grab another stick, but Yule's quicker, and yanks the other kid back out of the jaws of chompy death.

Mostly. When Patrick kicks his feet towards those teeth, they lunge forward and go CHOMP! Patrick tumbles into the tunnel with one less shoe and the bottom of his sock torn open, and Alexander follows after in a dive that sends all of them in a tangle down the tunnel. Down, because just inside the lip of it, the ground drops abruptly from underneath them, and they go into freefall. The thorns bite and claw at their skin, tearing through cloth with ease, and making it impossible to grab for anything to slow their tumble.

They land, in a heap on top of each other, legs and arms sticking everywhere, covered in scratches and blood, on the crumbling 'yard' before the shack Alexander had been playing in. It's a beautiful summer day, filled with birdsong, gentle sunlight, and the smell of green, growing things.

Since he thinks he's gonna die anyway, Patrick asks, "Are you sure the plural of asshole isn't just asshole?" And then Patrick is getting snatched up, and those are what he thinks are going to be his last words. Which would actually be super-fitting, knowing what we know all these years later.

Instead of dying, though, he just loses a shoe to the chomping teeth, which leaves him surging forward and tumbling into the tunnel (where he's also still sure they're all going to die)... then down some sort of tunnel that has all kinds of thorns in it... then plop. Right out into the front yard of Casa de Clayton, with Alexander on top of Patrick and Yule on top of Alexander. "SPEAKING OF ASSHOLES," he grouses from the bottom of this bloody, battered pile of boys.

Down they tumble, and at least Yule gets the benefit of being in top, landing on the pile of the other two kids. "Jesus," he concludes as his head lifts to look around at their now quite normal surroundings. "That was the Worst. Game. EVER. I'm going home," A beat of a pause as he considers it, "Yeah. It is assholes." He might be calling them that just for good measure. Or he's concurring with Alexander being right on the pluralization of it.

Yule pushes himself up, giving one glowering look down towards the two of them, "AND I lost my super soaker. You two can... talk about skinning people or whatever, but I'm going home." He repeats, and then making it seem like all a 'he's going cause he is ready to go' rather than he's ready to pee his pants, which is in fact closer to the truth, Yule turns and marches off, the poor shreds of his t-shirt fluttering behind him.

Alexander is squished in the middle, and makes a pathetic groaning sound, flailing weakly until Yule rolls off, so that he can do the same. "You know it's not," he mutters to Patrick. "You're being sarcastic." He makes that sound like a bad thing, as he staggers upright. He does, still, try to offer Patrick a hand to stand up. "It wasn't a game," he says, shoulders hunching. "But you saw it, right? You both saw it? It happened?"

The look he gives them both is wide-eyed and yearning, begging for someone to back him up on this. "I mean. If you'd just say that. Tell my mom and dad that it happened..." a sidelong look towards Yule. "I'd buy you a new super soaker! I have an allowance!" Of course, for Yule in particular, this is already starting to feel like a weird daydream. Was there actually a monster, or did they just do something stupid and fall in a bramble patch? Monsters aren't real.

"Me, too." With the going home. Patrick oofs once when Yule climbs off the pile, then again after Alexander extricates himself, then he hoists himself to his feet for the umpteenth time this scene, letting Alexander haul him upright. He hobbles more than walks, having lost one shoe and part of a sock. "You're wasting your breath," he says sadly to Clayton, and does what grown-up Patrick never would: pats the poor kid on the shoulder, there-zap-there.

"Go home, Alexander. That's what I'm gonna do. If anyone asks..." He just shrugs, looking after the tattered remains of the departing Yule, then down at his own none-too-tidy self, then across at Alexander. All the way to Wherever the Addingtons Live, he quietly debates the merits of just running away from home.

Maybe tomorrow, Pat.