Dawn Chorus (Proxies x Reader)

Cooling Bodies

Hoodie revels in the contact. His body almost seems to hum as he roughly grips my wrist and leads me through the forest. Those shadows-not-shadows rush and swirl around us, staying in my periphery. They deepen the unease and nausea living in my stomach.

I know this section of the woods. I can trace the loops I made. Certain knots and broken branches in the trees tell me where I am. I listen for streams, for territorial birds, look out for signs of small wildlife on the ground between the leaflitter and needles. I have to walk fast to keep up with Hoodie, but my feet move along the ground with ease, picking out every divot and rise, everything that could trip me or roll my ankle. More than I should know from one walk. I feel woozy. My vision dips and sways every now and then.

The pace is hip-poppingly brutal. Anyone in the woods will hear the clack of my hip bones before we can get close. I should take comfort in that. They'll have time to get away. Despite his excuse to drag me along being that I know where the people are, Hoodie is leading the way. I can't see anything in his movement or positioning to track down the 'intruders'. It's as if he just knows, and I'm questioning just how human he is. Images of his mask melting into his face, locking on and never coming off flood my vision, like a premonition, a waking nightmare. I shake my head. I'm already having a hard enough time seeing. I glare at his back. He is a shapeless block with the bright hoodie on, the fabric thick and loose over his body. I stumble into his back when we abruptly stop. His grip on my wrist keeps me from falling.

Those red cloth eyes stare at me over his shoulder.

"What are you?" Impatience is thick in his tone.

He must be done waiting. Weeks ignoring me. Weeks tracking my healing. Weeks flying by with no progress beyond my mild complacency. It can't even be called cooperation because they haven't had me do anything since catching BEN. I wonder where BEN is now, if he is free again. Hoodie yanks me forward. I have to dig my feet into the dirt to not bump into him again. I rub my arm that should be broken but isn't, spare side glances at the ferret and cat like forms slinking through the forest. They coil most densely in the trees behind Hoodie, like they are drawn to him. Except, they aren't real. I've lifted my head to look at them, strained my neck craning up. I jerk back to look at Hoodie.

What am I even supposed to tell him? Everyone is convinced I'm something that I'm not.

"I'm just a normal person," I say, my voice more pleading than I mean for it to be.

My voice starts to crack as exhaustion and fear and grief roll over me. What have I gotten myself into and how? I've seen monsters that have eluded me for years, been taken by men who work for something that shouldn't exist, touched a ghost, healed faster than I ever have before in my life, and those fucking things, so like it growing up, keep popping up. Like my grief over Mason, reality finally catches up to me, crashing down like a storm wave.

"I'm just a human," I choke out before the tears can start. "I have no clue what's going on."

Hoodie turns and stoops down to my height, face way too close. He tilts his head and raises a hand to roughly grab my chin. My head gets turned and tilted. I try to keep my eyes locked on his face despite the movement.

"You don't know. You don't care to know," he says.

I'm not sure if he is talking to me or himself. He drops my head and steps back. The forest around us feels darker, his bright clothes like a sun in the thickening shadows, a sun blocking me from sprinting despite the desire running up and down my nerves, twitching in my toes. A silent expectation is being placed, but I can't read him the way they all read each other. I need space. The air is too thick, too charged. I shuffle back from Hoodie, as far as I can before his shoulders start to rise and he places more weight forward in his feet.