Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ze’s POV:

It was supposed to be a fun trip. Just the six of us. Shubble was the one coming up with the idea to go on vacation together. We all had been friends on Twitch and we would play video games together. But it would actually be the first time that we would be in the same room. Well, I had met some of the people before. I mean, Chilled and I had been best of friends for ages. I lost count of the times we had shared a room, be it at somebody’s place or at a hotel for a convention. Chilled always joked about how we were totally a couple. I would then either chuckle and play along, or tell him jokingly to fuck off. Not that I really minded these jokes, I thought to myself.

As we were deciding where to go, I came up with the idea to go to British Columbia, Canada. People always believed that I was born in Canada, but the truth was that I only had Canadian citizenship. I totally grew up in sunny California. But Canada stuck out to me because it was a place we could easily travel to and yet be so removed from civilization. Most of us were actually pretty burned out from keeping up with streaming, social media, the whole internet personality business. If we went to a place without any access to the cyberworld, we could focus on getting to know eachother better, while also being able to relax. And besides, winter sports were totally in my blood.

And so it was decided. About a month later, the six of us sat in the truck dropping us off at a cozy cabin in the middle of nowhere. Tay had fallen asleep during the trip and had to be woken up.

“Gruhh… where are we?” her groggy voice muttered. Toast pointed at the wooden cabin from through the window, reminding her of where they were going to in the first place. I smiled at Chilled sitting in the seat next to me, happy that we finally arrived. We all got out of the truck to pack our bags and luggage from the back. The landscape was completely covered in untouched fluffy snow. Our warm winter boots leaving footprints, disturbing the blanket of snow.

“Brr… it’s so cold, I cannot wait to warm up at the fireplace!” Shubble said with an excited tone in her voice. Her nose and cheeks were getting red from the cold already. As we stepped inside of the cabin, we were greeted by a large fireplace in the middle of couches. It was not burning yet, as we figured. Next was a stove with a dining table just enough to fit six chairs and the staircase that would lead to the three bedrooms upstairs. Rugs on the floor and on the wall made of deer and moose pelts gave the cabin a jägerhütte-like feel. With a plop, Toast dropped his bag on the couch, not wanting to carry it for longer than necessary. I cleared my throat to get everyone’s attention.

“So, we have three bedrooms. I thought of me bunking with Chilled, and have Tay and Shubble share a room. Which leaves Toa-“

“Why do I get Cheesy?” Toast interrupted unamused. The younger blond with frizzy hair started laughing.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You always fuck me over in video games, like hell I trust you!” It sounded more like a deprecating joke than an actual insult.

“Well, I agree with this arrangement, right ladies?” Chilled said while looking over at Tay and Shubble nodding. That settled it then. I rubbed my hands together.

“Alright, let’s pack out guys and heat up this place.” Chopped wood for the fireplace was neatly stacked in rows in a nook in the wall. This would get us through a few days. A few minutes later, the soft crackling of the fire and a warm flow of air started to fill up the cabin. Soon, everybody had forgotten the cold of the outside world and started to settle in. The bedrooms upstairs were not particularly big. The gabled roof made the ceiling uneven. I sat down on the bed that seemed too small to be a queen size, throwing my bag with spare clothes behind the night stand. The plane flight had made my head a bit wobbly. Damn turbulence. I rubbed my eyes, my hand going through my curly brown hair. I felt another hand on my shoulder.

“Hey, you okay buddy?” Chilled asked, sitting down next to me. I gave him a smile.

“Yeah I’m fine. Thanks for asking though.” I looked over at the other side of the bed where Chilled would have to sleep. “Are you even going to fit in here?” Chilled then held up my hand and interlocked his fingers with mine.

“Ofcourse I will, Ze! I fit perfectly on top, like we always do,” the Italian said with a fake seductive look.

“The fans can’t even hear us, you silly.” I freed my hand and pushed him. He did not put up any resistance at all and let himself fall with his back now on his bed.

“You know what we should totally do tomorrow?” Chilled asked, still on his back.

“Well?”

“Operation Old Yeller snowball fight with Cheesy. That sicko will come up with something, I tell you. It’s payback time after he shanked me like that in Among Us last week.” I just gave a chuckle and answered with a “sure”. Yep, this was our ChilledChaos. Either a complete paranoid or pulling the strings when it came to video games. But mostly a paranoid. And I either fully got his back… or sussed him to no end. But in real life, he knew that I would never drop him. He knew that I would take the bullet for him. And I knew that he would do the same. I just knew it. I lay down on my back too, us both now staring at the wooden ceiling. I could just unpack later, as I was exhausted anyways. It had been a while since Chilled and I got to share a room, as PAX was cancelled last time. It just brought happy memories of our shared past. We didn’t say anything to eachother, as we didn’t really need to. This trip was to relax and have fun after all. I scooted over a bit so that my legs were at the footboard. Chilled’s broad shoulders slowly brushed against mine. I didn’t mind that at all. The touch was actually pretty warming…

“Hey lovebirds, care to join the rest of us for dinner? We’re all waiting on you.” my eyes shot open from the sudden voice coming from the door opening. I quickly sat up and looked Toast in the eyes. Did I just fall asleep?

“Is it that late already?” I looked at the window past Chilled, who was already sitting up. The sun had indeed set already.

“Oh yeah you totally fell asleep Ze. Pretty cute I must say,” Chilled laughed. I scratched the back of my head as I got up, my head a little wobbly still. The dinner table was already occupied by Cheesy, Shubble and Tay. The latter blond had her plate already filled up with food. The three of us placed ourselves in the empty chairs. I sat in between Chilled and Toast and reached for the spoon to scoop up the pasta. We knew there was no eating place or supermarket nearby, and with the heavy snow they for sure wouldn’t deliver food, so we had packed enough food with us so survive the trip. Sure, it was mostly canned but convenient to make. Chilled made the expected remark on how the food was not true Italian pasta and that he would take everybody to the best restaurant he knew the next time they were together.

“Honestly I feel honored I was invited to go with you guys…” Toast began as he put down his fork with a smile. “You guys are all amazing friends.” Shubble, who was sitting next to him, ruffled through his short dark hair.

“Let this trip be a celebration on how much we’ve all grown together,” she chirped. Yeah, despite everything… this year was still very successful for all of us. We held up our glasses.

“Cheers!”

I felt like nothing could stand this week in the way.

Chapter Text

It was later that night. The wind could be heard howling against the wood of the cabin. It was a good thing that the insulation was actually functioning, or we would have had a very hard time falling asleep. Not that any of us were sleeping yet. An internet life just naturally came with a fucked up sleep schedule. The fireplace downstairs was still on, supplying heat through the floors upstairs. It was decided that the last one awake would put it out. I believed Toast and Tay were still downstairs. Chilled was occupying the bathroom. He was the evening shower kind of guy. It gave him the advantage of not having to fight over the shower in the morning, he said. And given the time he had been showering, confirmed to me that we had normal access to warm water. It already told us on the booking site, but when there was no access to electricity, you never knew. The house could have been off the grid for all we knew. But on the other hand, if there was normal plumbing, there should have been water as well, right?

I picked up my phone that lay on my nightstand. 12:15 am, it said, brightness turned all the way down. No Wi-Fi-connection, no mobile data, not even normal signal. Still functioned well as a clock, though. Chilled had turned off his phone. There was no way to charge a phone here anyways, and Chilled really wanted to have his phone working just in case ours all died. We needed to keep track of the days and the time the truck would pick us back up next week.

The shower in the bathroom next to our room turned off. I guessed that he was done. That would actually be neat, because I needed to brush my teeth anyways. A few seconds later, the tall Italian entered the door, wearing only his boxers with small turtles on it, and a white towel around his neck. His black hair was going everywhere around his face. He smiled sheepishly.

“Thought I had everything, but apparently I forgot my tank top.” He started going through his pile of clothes to grab a black tank top. As he was putting that one on, he looked at my PJs and commented on my slippers.

“Ah, you’re wearing the fluffy bunny slippers I got you for Christmas. They look cute on you.” He chuckled in a friendly manner. Yes, I was wearing my bunny slippers. But how could I not wear them when they were a gift from my best friend? And besides… they were warm. The rest of my clothing consisted on grey plaid pants and a dark red shirt. Pretty casual for the occasion.

“Is the bathroom free now?” I asked him, to which he nodded.

“Great, thanks!” I said as I jumped up and got to brush my teeth.

1:00 am. The rest of the crew had also gone to their rooms at this point. The warmth slowly disappeared for a chilly night air. The thick covers provided the only warmth to sleep. I was cold. Especially my hands, feet and shoulders. Chilled on the other hand, didn’t seem to have that problem at all. He was sleeping with very light clothing, his natural body heat radiating all out. Lucky son of a gun. His breath was controlled, and I couldn’t figure out by the movement of his chest whether he was actually sleeping or just quietly awake. It was very dark after all. No streetlights shining through the window, no traffic leaving playful dancing lights on the ceiling. I tried to turn around, but instead shivered involuntarily. This caught Chilled’s attention, something that I wanted to avoid. I wanted to just let him sleep. A dark silhouette turned to face me.

“Hey… Steven, are you so cold?” he whispered, the first time during this trip that he used my real name instead of my nickname. Something usually reserved for more private and deep conversations. I let out a small sigh.

“Maybe… a little bit… but I’m fine, don’t worry.” I tried to play it off that the cold didn’t phase me, but the clattering of my teeth told him enough.

“I know you are lying, lemme feel.” Before I could react, he took my hand. He was warm. The warmth slowly traveled through my skin into my finger bones, and also to my cheeks. His touch was also very delicate, as if he were afraid my hand would shatter like glass if he pinched too hard. If it were less dark in the room, I would probably have been greeted by his stern look. And he would have seen how flustered I was. I must have looked beet red from the bit of warmth evaporating from my cheeks.

“You are so cold!” Chilled said, a hushed exclamation and a tone of worry. “C’mere…” His hand let go of mine, and instead he pulled my entire body closer to his into a hug.

“A-Anthony?” I gasped in surprise. He replied with a soft reassuring shush while holding me close. This was awkward and weird, but also good? My cold was suddenly no issue anymore. His shins warmed my feet, his arms around my shoulders, my cold nose resting on his shoulder. But was this too close? Was this right? I was hugging my best friend in bed. My betrothed friend, for god’s sake! And yet a small voice in the back of my head told me to never let him go, to pull him closer, to hold on tight. But no, this wasn’t the way to go about it. He probably just wanted to help me with my cold, as a friend. Just a platonic friend, like how we always treated each other. ZeRoyalChaos was just a joke, right?
Chilled must have picked up my confused feelings, because he reassured me again with a shush.

“It’s okay… you need sleep… it’s okay.” He whispered in my ear. I sighed again, my mind trying to calm down again. Then I nodded, though I was unsure if he even could see it.

“You’re right. Goodnight Anthony.”

“Goodnight Steven.”

I fell asleep, my head resting on his chest.

Chapter Text

It was the next morning. The sun was leaving a warm golden glow on the snow. The sky was a sea of cerulean, no cloud in sight. The windows of the cabin were foggy from condense. The fireplace was just starting to really get going. The other source of heat was the stove.

I was still the only one awake. I put some butter in the frying pan to make pancakes. The pancake mix sizzled when it hit the molten butter. Concentrating was pretty hard with all the thoughts going through my head. I remembered waking up, my arms all wrapped around Chilled and my head resting on his chest. Even though it was keeping me warm in the cold room, I got scared, panicked and got out of the room as fast as I could. I didn’t want Chilled to wake up with us like this, didn’t want to have to look him in the eyes and see his reaction. The thought scared me. What if he got angry at me for getting too personal? Was I violating his personal space? Would it upset Jess if she knew? I knew nothing really happened other than us cuddling for warmth, but still. Cuddling, you just had to use the word “cuddling”. Way to go Ze, you made it even sound more romantic than it was. You just wanted it to be true. You just wanted Chilled to like you, hug you, kiss you. No, I didn’t. Fuck off…

A feeling that I could only describe as confusion, topped with guilt started to take over. It was making a twist in my stomach. Only the sweet bakery smell of the pancakes was keeping me from throwing up there and then. I knew that feeling really well. It had been creeping up regularly over the past years, but this year it just had become stronger and more frequent. I didn’t know if it was the fact that I was getting frustrated from the lack of physical contact with others, the lack of being in a stable relationship, or just that my mind was trying to be more true to myself. Or a combination of all three. Lying to myself was easier and less painful anyways. If I pretended nothing was wrong, then I couldn’t hurt others, then I couldn’t hurt Chilled. I could just hope that if I kept pushing through long enough, the feeling would eventually go away. And then no one needed to know about it. Problem solved, right?

“Oh hi Ze. Good morning!” I jumped in surprise from the greeting coming from the other side of the room. It flung me back to reality. It was Shubble in the doorway. “Sorry if I surprised you.” I only then remembered what I was doing in the first place. The pancake… I took the spatula and flipped the pancake over. The other side was a very dark brown. Shit…

“Ah don’t worry I’m fine,” I tried to get myself together and laugh it off. “The first pancake is always a disaster.”

I put the pancake on a plate and started with making more for the rest of the crew. Shubble helped with setting the table. Slowly, the other started pouring in the living room as well. When Chilled entered the room, I decided to act as if nothing had happened that night.

“Hey Chilly Willy, are you excited to go skiing today?” I ask Chilled with a smirk. The latter just laughed sheepishly. “No, but you’re gonna make me anyways.”

“It will be fun, I promise!” I laughed, placing the final pancake on the pile, signaling that breakfast was ready.

(time skip)

Everyone was equipping themselves for the snow. The shed behind the cabin was full of skiing and snowboarding equipment. I hoisted myself in skiing pants and put on thick socks. Jeans would be way too cold. Chilled borrowed my cousins winter clothes, as he didn’t have good ones himself.

“Since when are there both left and right socks?!” Chilled exclaimed as he had put the wrong sock on the wrong foot, indicated by the little L and R on his socks.

“That’s because the material is different depending on what part of your sock gets more pressure. For comfort!” I had gone skiing a few times when visiting family in Canada. And if Chilled’s skiing would be anything like his ice skating, I’d have a lot of fun teaching him. I still couldn’t believe how I convinced him to do this in the first place. A few years ago he’d swear that skiing would result in his death. But that was back with the Derps, and to be honest, Tom would have been the only other one not being reduced to a dangerous projectile on snow. The synthetic material of our poofy pants were rustling with every step we took. I took my red parka from the coat rack and threw the other one at Chilled. Our parkas were the same bright red color, with the only difference being the fur trim on the hood. Mine being white and his being black. Going outside without a coat for even a few seconds would be a nightmare.

“Let’s get our shoes and meet up with the rest,” I said to Chilled as we walked out of the door to the shed. A wooden bench in front of the shed was occupied by Cheesy and Toast. Shubble and Tay were already fully equipped. Shubble wore a bright yellow parka and wore a fluffy knitted white hat, a pair of black skis and poles in hand. Tay’s parka was a snowy white and she was holding a purple snowboard. Both girls had Chrome-colored goggles for the snow. Toast and Cheesy were still tying the laces on their snowboard boots. The former in a cyan and orange parka, the latter in a dark blue one. I opened the door to the shed and looked for boots in my and Chilled’s size, as well as what kind of skis they had. The equipment was a bit old, but I managed to find two neat pair of carves. Since Chilled was so tall, these skis would probably be a little short for him. But that wasn’t really too much of a problem.

“Ze… what are those?” I heard a small tone of anxiety in Chilled’s voice as I plopped down his pair of boots in front of him. The hard plastic casing made a loud thud on the ground.

“Your boots. If you need help putting them on, then I can help you.” I sat down on the same bench Cheesy and Toast were on and put on my skiing boots with relative ease. I saw how Chilled tried to pry his foot into the boot.

“Ow ow ow! It’s not working. My foot won’t go in!” I heard him yell. Yeah, your foot needed to make a weird angle to step in. I knelt down before him and pulled the tongue of the boot, to hopefully give him a little bit more wriggle room to step in.

“Here, try again. Make your foot as flat as you can,” I advised him. “Oh, and it helps when you’re standing.” I held the boot in place as I felt him using my head to balance himself.

“Ow! Ow! Ze, I’m breaking my ankle this way. I’M BREAKING MY ANKLE!” at this point he was screaming.

“Trust me you won’t, just use a little more pressure,” I reassured. His foot suddenly sank in and I heard a groan in relief. He sat down again, huffing and puffing, now with one boot on.

“Fuck… why do they make these like this…” he looked over at Cheesy, who was snickering at this point, and pointed at his snowboard boots. “Why don’t I have boots like those! Those look a lot more comfortable.”

“Since I knew you had no experience with either sport, I figured you’d want to try skiing first. You’re less likely to fall on your butt all the time.”

“Not fair…” Chilled pouted at me. With a little bit of struggle, he also managed to put on the second boot. As he finished strapping his buckles and put on his gloves, I handed him his pair of skis. Toast had gone inside again to grab a red jerrycan of fuel for the ski lift. He had also found six walkie-talkies in one of the drawers and gave each of us one so we could communicate. Mine was now safely tucked away in my pocket.

It was a small 5-minute walk to the main slope. According to the reviews the slope was a few hundred meters long. A small motorized handle tow ski lift would give us a way back up to the cabin. After refueling the engine and a few tries, we got it to move. Awesome!

“Everyone ready!!” Cheesy shouted as he fastened the second boot to his snowboard. Everybody cheered and Shubble pointed her ski poles in the air in excitement. Tay hopped with her snowboard to the edge of the slope.

“Last one down has to give everyone a gifted sub when we’re back!” she teased and was the first one to go down, be it a bit wobbly. Toast, Cheesy and Shubble immediately followed. I was also about race down, show them the inner Norse in my blood, until I looked over at how Chilled was doing. Oh no… All the blood had vanished from his face, even though the cold usually gave everybody healthy pink cheeks. He looked absolutely terrified. I stopped in front of him.

“You okay, buddy?” I asked him. He gulped and sighed.

“I don’t know Ze…” he stammered. “I didn’t want to show it to the others, but I’m honestly scared…” I skate-walked up the hill again until I was standing next to him. I poked my poles into the snow, so that I had both my hands free.

“Hey, it’s okay if you’re scared. I’m gonna teach you and we’re gonna go down together, okay?” I rubbed circles on his shoulder to make him feel better. He just nodded at me.

“The most important thing is knowing how to stop. If you think you’re going too fast, you do this…” I brought the fronts of my skis together. “It’s like making a slice of pizza! Broccoli pizza if you want. Try it out.” I watched as he slowly copied my movement.

“Like this?”

“Yeah, like that. If you never forget about the pizza slice, you will be alright.” I smiled at him. I took both of my poles hand again and slowly rutsched backwards. My other hand was reaching out to him.

“Follow me, okay? We’ll go slowly.” I kept sliding backwards, my skis in a reversed pizza slice, occasionally looking where I was going. Chilled’s skis were now moving away from the horizontal plane that they were on and started to be affected by gravity. His eyes were wide open, his arms flailing around a bit.

“Steady… steady… keep your hands out like this” I hold out my stretched arm, my poles in my fists. Chilled followed and his movements got less erratic. He was following me, all his muscles seemed to concentrate in holding the pizza slice pose to not accelerate too much.

“Heh yeah! Look Ze, I’m skiing!” his voice was mixed with both enthusiasm and anxiety. His tense face looked pretty cute, not gonna lie. It really brought out his muscles. No Ze! I quickly shook my head. But then realized I probably looked like I was disapproving of his hard work. I was making a mess of it… just smile!

“Wow, awesome Chilly Willy!” I just said. About halfway through, he seemed to have a bit more confidence and picked up speed. Something that I hadn’t anticipated. His skis crossed over mine. The sudden change in material from the thick snow to the smooth plastic caused both our skis to lose friction. Before I could react, we both lost our balance and fell to the ground. The only thing that I did was clamp the nearest big object within reach, which in this case was Chilled. Clack clack! The impact had triggered the bindings and had sent our skis flying off. We slid down another three feet before stopping in the snow. At this point, I was holding Chilled, and Chilled was pinching my arms in return. He was basically sitting on my lap now. This… was getting awkward. It was visible in his eyes too. He quickly scooted over away from me.

“See? Falling doesn’t hurt as much as on ice now, does it?” I decided to joke. It took a second for Chilled to answer. “I give you that… it is pretty soft.” He then smirked. “Your crotch that is!”

“I can’t say the same about your butt, you ass!” I teased him back, standing up to shake the snow off my pants. Chilled did the same. Our skis were about a few meters away and had come to a halt due to the snow brakes. I tapped the snow away from under my shoes and stepped back into my skis. Then I helped Chilled hold his balance while reattaching his skis under an angle. Slowly but surely, Chilled continued making his way down the hill. This time I was slowly tailing him. Then I saw the rest of the gang waiting where the slope ended in a valley. I could have easily sped past Chilled, but I knew how insecure he was about this whole ordeal. So, I slowed down and had him finish first.

“Yeessss! Chilled!” everybody was cheering on. I stopped next to them.

“Guess I owe you guys a gift sub! I finished last!” I exclaimed, smiling and then winked at Chilled. Then everyone made their way to the tow lift. I was the fifth in line. Before I got the chance to grab a hook, I felt a hand on my shoulder holding me back.

“Thank you… for that…” it was Chilled, outside of hearing range of the rest. I put both my hands on his shoulders and smiled, before whispering.

“I got your back, buddy.”

Chapter Text

(Time skip)

The warmth of the fireplace was tickling my chin. The orange flames sparkled in Chilled’s eyes. He took one of my hands. I wanted to move my hand, but my entire body was frozen in place. I wanted to say something to him, but no sound came out of my mouth but a hoarse whimper.

“Ze… I need to talk to you…” he said in a low calm voice. “I know you want to tell me something… and I think I know what you wanna say.” As on cue, I regained control over my body. I felt how I gripped Chilled’s hand tighter. Small pearls of sweat appeared on my forehead.

“Chilled… I mean Anthony… I… I have f-feelings for you.” The words just flew out like that. I didn’t know why I just admitted it. Chilled’s other hand stroked the brown curls out of my face, while pulling me closer to him. His face seemed relieved.

“I do too, Steven. I do too.” He leaned forward and kissed me. I closed my eyes as I made contact. My stomach made a twist as I felt the softness of his lips, his facial hair brushing against mine. I gasped for air in between kisses. His hand on my face slowly trailed down to my hips, pulling me even closer, until we were basically pressed up against eachother.

“I want you… I need you… I felt so lonely…” I muttered out, my eyes pleading to his. His hands held my hips tighter as he went back for a second kiss.

When I closed my eyes, the feeling of his lips and arms slowly dissolved into a void of nothingness. I was in a different room, not standing close to Chilled anymore. Instead standing in the corner of a dimly lit room. The man who was in my arms a few seconds ago, sat on his knees on the cold ground. His hair was a complete mess, his college hat was torn. His eyes were bloodshot and he was crying. The sadness in his eyes quickly turned to resentful anger.

“Look what you have done to me!” he screamed. My body was frozen again. But it still hurt to see him like this. He grabbed the damaged hat from his hand and slammed against the ground multiple times.

“Jess hates me! She left me, because of you!”

Silence.

“It’s your fault! If you didn’t fall in love with me, this wouldn’t have ever happened!”

Tears welled up in my eyes.

“You ruined my life!”

“I HATE YOU!”

I shot awake, in a puddle of sweat and gasping for air. The dark ceiling of the cabin bedroom made me realize that it was just a nightmare. Chilled’s voice still echoed through my ears. The tears that had welled up in my dream were now rolling down my cheeks.

“Hey… you alright?” I heard a sleepy voice say next to me. I sat up and realized that I was once again entangled with Chilled’s arms. I quickly removed myself from his grasp. I didn’t want him to know about my dream. I would hurt him… just like in that nightmare.

“Sorry, I just had a nightmare,” I quickly said. “I’ll be back in a bit… gotta pee and drink some water.” I didn’t know how quickly to jump out of the bed. It made purple spots appear in my vision and I stumbled towards the door. The quicker Chilled was out of my view, the earlier I could empty my head. The bathroom was dark, making it even more difficult to navigate. I took one of the washcloths and soaked it in water. I wetted the palms of my hands, which made my nausea subside. Then I rubbed the cool damp cloth all over my face and neck, removing the sweat that had formed. It was refreshing. I took a deep breath and thought about the events in my dream. That dream must have been a sign, telling me that all the weird thoughts and feelings around Chilled were truly there. It was perhaps a warning too. Something that could happen if I wasn’t careful, wasn’t considerate. Fortunately, the events weren’t real. The dream wasn’t real. The images of my dream became less and less vivid every time I told myself that it was just a dream. That so far nothing had ever happened between Chilled and I. That I would never get in the way of his happiness. That I would become the best friend to him I could ever be. Even if that meant never having my feelings returned. I sighed. I was in love with Anthony “ChilledChaos" DiMarco. That had become clear to me. When I was finished, I filled a glass of water to drink. My throat had become dry, and the cold of the day had split my lips. After doing my business, I returned to my bed. Apparently Chilled was still awake.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine, but thanks.” I said, climbing back under the still warm sheets. Chilled might have taken the hint that I really wanted to have some personal space, because he turned around, making sure we weren’t touching our backs in this small bed. Now that I had turned around, I closed my eyes again and drifted to sleep.

The next day, everybody had made great progress in the snow. Especially Chilled, because he could now make it downhill on his own without falling all the time. It might have still been a bit wobbly, and sometimes he would miss the hook on the tow lift. He would then have to hang on clamping his hands on the cable, screaming how his muscles were burning. Cheesy had become a bit cocky with his snowboarding abilities, and decided to race both me and Toast. I had warned him to not mess with a Canadian Viking warrior, but he didn’t back down. Ofcourse, I won, Toast second. Cheesy had given it all at the finish, and ended up crashing face-first into the snow.

“What did I tell you Cheesy?” I said to the snow-covered blonde, a big smirk on my face. He shook his head, trying to get all the snow out of his messy hair.

“I guess you were right all along. I admit my defeat.” He knelt down before me. “Oh great Prince SkiRoyalViking, I humbly ask your forgiveness as a snow peasant.” That nickname was very cheesy (unsurprisingly) and stupid, but ah well. Then he kept on worshipping my skills. At this point I was laughing at his remarks.

“Blowing up his ass won’t get you anywhere Cheesy,” Toast responded with his sassy remark. Toast then gave me a fist bump for winning.

For the rest of the afternoon, I was crowned winner. After everybody’s legs were starting to hurt, we made our way back to the cabin. About 500 feet before the cabin, someone took my hand and twirled me around.

“Hey my snow prince, are you still looking for a snow princess? They don’t call me Chilled Chaos for nothing?” Chilled said in a bad pick-up-line voice. I gave him a small push and chuckles.

“Ofcourse, Princess Chilly Willy. Please aid me in my conquest to defeat revolting peasants.” I grabbed a handful of snow, packing it into a ball, and nodded at Cheesy just a few feet out of hearing range.

“Operation Old Yeller?” Chilled almost whispered, also grabbing snow for snowballs.

“Yes, operation Old Yeller.” Within five seconds, two perfectly aimed snowballs hit Cheesy in the back of his neck. Before he could turn around, a third one hit him square in the face.

“HEY!” he yelled, spitting out the snow in his mouth. “This means war!” he went to grab snow, but was pelted again. This time by Shubble. Quickly, four teams had formed. Me and Chilled together, Toast and Tay together, Shubble alone and Cheesy. I had said four teams, but it was mostly three teams against Cheesy, while occasionally aiming for a different team.

“Shubble you are a sicko!” Chilled wheezed after she had a few accurate hits. She simple laughed in return, trying to cackle evilly but just ended up sounding adorable. While Cheesy had “died” in the snow, I was having a 1v1 against Tay. In the end, we were all completely white from the snow. The snowballs were melting, with cold water starting to roll down our parkas into our shirts. It was getting cold, so we all decided to call it a day and warm up at the cabin.

Once inside, we started up the fireplace and changed to comfy clothes for the rest of the day. After having dinner, we gathered around the small table for some old-fashioned card and board games. Cheesy had brought a copy of One Night Werewolf. At first it was getting used to the roles, as I was so used to the Town of Salem roles. But we started to get the hang of it. Deception games were one of my favorite types of games. We were all seasoned liars, especially with the recent success we had with Among Us. The day phase had almost come to an end, and everybody was pointing their fingers at Chilled, whose story had been inconsistent and whose role had been counter claimed. He jumped up in excitement.

“Haha! Call an ambulance! I was the jester!” He flipped the Tanner card, and everybody groaned as they realized they had lost. After the last game, we were all heading back to bed. Being outside in the snow for a few days really did exhaust you in the evening. All our legs muscles were burning. Maybe we should start a little later tomorrow, or else our legs would completely die.

We said our goodnights to the others, brushed our teeth and hit the hay. It was not even midnight, and yet I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing. Hopefully tonight would be a little more peaceful. As Chilled and my backs faced each other’s, I fell asleep.

Chapter Text

A few days had passed. And while everybody seemed to be able to calm down and relax during their vacation, I kept being plagued by these nightmares. Every night, I woke up exhausted, sweaty and ashamed. The dreams seemed to get worse and worse every night. It would start out nice between Chilled and I, but then everything would go downhill. At first it was just Chilled being angry and sad, but then others started appearing as well. Jess screaming, everyone at the cabin turning their backs on me. The people I considered to be my closest friends; John, Steven and Tom, shaking their heads in disappointment. The whole world seemed to hate me.

This particular night was the worst of them all. I woke up to the image of Chilled screaming he hated me with a gun pointed to my head. I knew dreams weren’t real, but they still hurt. God they hurt so much. All the pent up emotions had finally gotten to me. I couldn’t help but burst out crying. My breathing was hitched as I sobbed into my pillow, fully aware that the person behind these emotions was lying next to me. I didn’t care anymore if he could see me. Chilled wasn’t stupid. It should have been obvious to him that I wasn’t doing well. I didn’t care, as long as I didn’t have to tell him. Or else everything I was afraid of, could come true. I felt two hands on my shoulders, trying to pull me up.

“Shhh… it’s alright Ze. If you need to let it out, that’s okay.” His voice stayed calm. Even in my vulnerable state, he tried to be there for me. A sob turned into a cough when I tried to control my jagged breathing.

“I’m a mess…” I slurred out. The Italian reached to the tissue box on his night stand and handed me a tissue paper. “Here.” He wiped down my eyes and then I blew my now runny nose. Chilled put one of his hands on my shoulder and the other one under my chin. He made me look straight into his dark brown eyes. He looked worried.

“Ze, you’ve been waking up like this all week. There is something going on that prevents you from enjoying this vacation like the rest of us. It hurts me too seeing you like this. But you seem to always dodge the situation. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours. So please, please tell me what’s bothering you. You cannot go on like this!” He softly shook me to emphasis his seriousness. I fumbled and really wanted to look away, but his intense stare prevented me to. I let out a shaky sigh.

“I’m so sorry Chilled, but I can’t tell you… for your sake as well.”

“I’m your best friend! You can always tell me everything, you know that!” I shook my head.

“No, I’m afraid.”

“But look at yourself! It is obvious that you are absolutely miserable right now. The others might buy your distracted mind as a sign that you’re happy, but you cannot fool me. I promise, whatever you want to tell me, I will keep a secret. For realsies this time. You will feel better if it’s off your chest.” After a few seconds of silence, Chilled seemed to change his strategy. He made a pouty look with his lips.

“Don’t make me beg and use my Italian charm on you to tell me.” He gave his best puppy dog eyes. Damn, he was determined. And he knew that I become soft like butter if he did that. Handsome bastard! One more look in his eyes and it would break me.

“Okay okay!” I caved. Chilled seemed to light up in relief, but he might have been a little too fast. “Please, can I piece my mind together first? I don’t feel ready like this.” I never liked being put on the spot.

“Take the time you need, but don’t wait too long okay? The sooner it’s off your chest, the better. I’m sure of that.” I tried to smile, but I was also a bit nervous. Then I got an idea and jumped up from the bed, grabbing my skiing pants that was drying in the room.

“I think I’ll go for a small hike in the snow. You know, take in the fresh air and morning sun.” Chilled then smiled at me.

“Sounds like a plan. It’s still pretty early, so you will have the open fields all to yourself. Want us to wait in the cabin till you’re back?”

“Whatever you guys feel like.” I went to change into my winter clothes. I put the red devil knit hat on, slid the walkie-talkie into my pocket and put on my snow boots. Chilled, still in his PJs, waved at me with a smile.

“Good luck and have fun out there.” He said his goodbyes to me. I opened the door and stepped into the frosty morning outside.

The sun was on a low angle. The sky above me was still blue, though here were a lot more small clouds than the beginning of the week. Frrp, frrp, frrp. The snow under my boots rustled. Instead of going south where the slopes were, I decided to go northeast. The cabin was located at the midway point of a hill, with the area behind it being made up of a flowing valley-like landscape. There was a big forest of evergreens nearby. The green trees were painted white by the snow. There were also a lot of open spots with rocky formations, as well as small frozen lakes. I had taken my ski poles with me in case the terrain would get difficult.

After about 10 minutes of taking in the new scenery, my mind started wandering to the predicament I was in. Today was the day I was gonna have to admit my love for Anthony "ChilledChaos" DiMarco. The man who I considered to be my closest friend. The man who was engaged to a lovely woman named Jess Bubger. Who I truly wished to be happy with her, and I despised that I was wishing him to be with me instead. Our fans over on Youtube, Twitch and other social media would be thrilled to hear me say this. They had been shipping us for almost a decade. But it wasn’t so simple as they made it out to be. I was afraid that I was gonna ruin our friendship. And not only our friendship, but my friendship with other people as well. Not because they wouldn’t accept me for being non-straight or whatever I would be classified as. But because I was putting my own happiness above that of him. Falling in love with your best friend in a relationship was the biggest faux-pas there could be.

“ZeRoyalChaos is fucking true…” I muttered to myself in defeat. There was no way out anymore. I was going to tell him. I was going to be as honest as possible. I was gonna make it clear that I had no intentions to harm anyone and that I would be fine if he declined. That would actually be the better option, even though it would hurt like a knife, because it would make me feel a lot less dirty. Then I would take a warm shower and move on. Maybe I could sleep soundly again and be energized for the final day. Then we could go back to our homes and record again as if nothing happened. Yes, that course of action would probably give me the most peace out of this.

I didn’t know how much time had passed. The blue sky had become overcast. The sun that had given me a little bit of warmth on my back had disappeared. The wind had picked up a little bit. It made my scarf flutter around and snow whirl up into my face. It got caught in my beard. I looked up at the sky. Over in the west, some dark clouds had formed. I couldn’t remember snow being forecasted when we checked before leaving. It looked like it would be a lot of snow too. We were truly lucky with the weather the entire week, so it was expected that not every day could be as pretty. I decided it was a good idea to head back before it would start to snow. I got to think about my issues, and even though I didn’t think I would ever be ready to tell Chilled, I thought it would be now or never. I turned around and followed my own footsteps back. I had apparently created the perfect track back home. It would be a while before I would be back home. I had gone to an entire different valley than the one the cabin was located at. And I had passed through a forest trail too. Wow, the amount of environmental detail you forgot when in deep thought was astonishing. My hands had gone a bit cold, so I was rubbing them together through my gloves to hopefully warm them back on. That warm shower started to sound more and more inviting.

Rustle rustle. I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard noises coming from the trees. Was something there? The forest was very thick that way, so I couldn’t really see. A small blue jay escaped from the tree, calling as it flew away. I didn’t know why that had scared me, so I continued walking to the open plain a few yards away. But the feeling I was being watched didn’t go away. I wasn’t in bear territory, was I? I picked up my pace just to be sure. The cabin was probably still a few minutes away. The rustling returned, this time followed by the sound of several padded feet striding rhythmically in the snow. Turning around, my heart shot in my chest as I was greeted by three pairs of yellow eyes. Wolves! Three large grey wolves were approaching with great speeds, their low aggressive growls sending adrenaline through my system. I tried to run backwards, my poles acting as a barrier between me and the canines. But they were faster than me, way faster. The only thing I could do was brace myself for impact as one of the wolves lunged to grab my arm at the fabric of my parka. I yelled out as I stumbled, trying to keep balance. But the second wolf was already at my legs. Whereas the first wolf had grabbed just my fabric, I wasn’t so lucky this time.

“AARGGH!” two rows of sharp teeth sank through the synthetic fabric of my pants, breaking skin underneath. It yanked backwards, adjusting its grip on my feet and dragging me to the ground. My heart was racing, the burning pain in my leg traveling up my spine through my entire body. With all my might, I was kicking my other foot in the direction of the wolf. Then I saw the third wolf making a leap for me. As on reflex, I positioned my poles horizontally in front of my face. The wolf had gone for my jugular, and instead bit down on the metal ski poles. Its weight asked everything out of my body to throw the wolf off me. I needed to fight with everything I had. At this point I was kicking around, my foot finally hitting the nose of the wolf going down on my shin. It yelped and had to let go, before growling in anger. These ski poles were everything I had. I tried stabbing at their noses and eyes. They were grabbing onto the metal. With all my might, I awakened the ancient warrior in me and made the loudest war cry I had ever made. Swinging my arms around, trying to hit them and scare them off. When I poked one of the wolves in the eyes, the three of them started to get skittish, trying to see if I had an opening to attack. With all the adrenaline, I had fury in my eyes. I kept letting out loud screams, trying to scare them away. They made about two lunges at me, before thank god deciding I wasn’t worth it anymore.

I was shaking. I was covered in snow and sweat. My leg was burning in pain. The inside of my pants felt wet and warm. My leg must have been covered in blood by now. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t put any weight on my injured leg. It only sent a wave of pain through my body, making me groan. I needed to get back. I was all alone and injured. My hands were trembling, which made it almost impossible to open the zipper of my pocket. I needed to call for help. With great struggles, I fumbled the walkie-talkie out of my pocket. Out of exhaustion, I lay down on the snow, the device against my lips.

“Help. I… need help…” I said between pants. Ten agonizing seconds of silence. A terrifying thought of them not having any radios on them flew through my head, until I heard the static noise of a reply.

“Ze? Where are you? What happened? Guys Ze needs help!” Shubble was the one responding.

“Got a-attacked… wolves… northeast…” my sentences became less and less coherent.

“Ze! We’re gonna get you buddy, just hold on!” Chilled replied, panic in his voice.

“Chilled and Toast are gonna get you, just keep talking to me okay?” Her soft caring but worried voice was something I really needed. Like a 911-responder.

“I… tracks… my leg… I’m i-injured…” I wanted to help guide them to my location, but I couldn’t formulate the rest of my sentences. The cold of the snow had penetrated through the back of my parka, into the rest of my body. I didn’t dare to look how my leg was doing. I was desperately hoping the skiing pants and high socks would somewhat contain the wound. I was alone right now without medical help. This could become dangerous really quick. I was desperately trying to remember where I put the coagulants, must have been in the cabin bathroom.

“Ze! We’re on our way, try to call out so we can hear you!” Toast answered. They had already gone. All I could do now was wait. Oh the waiting was so agonizing. About every few seconds, I would yell loudly in the direction of the cabin. Shubble made sure to have me report in on the radio every minute. Me answering was an indication that I hadn’t lost consciousness yet. Not that I felt like slipping away, the adrenaline had made me hypervigilant of my surroundings.

After what felt like an eternity, I heard noise in the distance.

“..e..” I faintly caught the last part of my name and gasped. They were here.

“HERE!” I shouted, signaling my location.

“ZE!” Two men were sprinting as fast as they could in my direction. I was so relieved to see their faces. As the two came closer, I noticed that they were armed: Toast was carrying a large wood axe and Chilled a sickle. They must have brought it with them in case they needed to fend off the wildlife. I tried to stand up again to go in their direction, but once again my foot wasn’t having it.

“Oh jeez lookout!” Toast exclaimed. Chilled was the first to arrive. He threw his sickle in the snow and set his backpack on the ground.

“Oh god Ze, we’re so happy we found you. Attacked by wolves, holy shit!” His breathing was jagged too from running. He quickly opened his bag and reached for the med kit inside.

“Chilled… Toast… thank you.” I said. “Can’t walk… my leg…” I nodded at my injured leg. Both men knelt down in the snow. Chilled took a roll of bandages out of the kit while Toast slowly zipped open the side of the synthetic pants. It burnt so bad that I fell backwards in the snow and closed my eyes.

“Oh wow that looks bad dude,” Toast said.

“I know I know. Hold his leg up like that, I’m gonna wrap this around. Or else he’d be dead before we reach the cabin.” Chilled ordered Toast around as the two tried to patch me up temporarily. After a few minutes, they washed their red hands in the snow. In the meantime, it had started to snow lightly.

“I hope that at least contains the damage until we’re back. You must be freezing here, so let’s take you back.” My pants were zipped back up and four hands helped me up. My arms around the two’s neck, I started to limp back home. The snow was thick and uneven, making it very difficult for all of us to maintain balance. Something I didn’t have the energy for anymore.

“Sorry…” I apologized as I was clearly a burden for the both of them. Chilled took most of my weight over from Toast, handing his sickle to him. The taller man laid me on the ground temporary, before picking me back up in a princess carry. “Don’t worry, I got you.”

When we finally arrived back at the cabin, the rest of the crew was waiting for us. They all had worried looks on their faces. As soon as the warmth of the cabin hit my face, a wave of relief passed over me. I was safe now. I had made it back. All he adrenaline that had tensed up my muscles, was slowly subsiding.

“He needs his meds,” Chilled said sternly to no one in particular as he laid me down on the couch. Cheesy, who had gone pale, stormed upstairs to the bathroom. With the tension being lowered slowly, it gave way for exhaustion. My feet hurt, my muscles hurt, everything hurt. I felt how a glass of water and a metal strip of pills were shoved into my hands. I obediently took them. Even though I was still in my outdoor clothes, I wanted to rest then and there. Even with five pairs of eyes being locked onto me.

“Okay guys, let’s let him rest, he looks absolutely wrecked right now,” Tay said. The others broke eye contact, lowering their speaking voices. The last pair of eyes I saw were the dark brown eyes of Chilled, before I closed my own and slipped away.

Chapter Text

I opened my eyes. The couch that I fell asleep on was replaced by my bed. I was also no longer in my coat and outdoor clothes. It seemed like I had been changed to a sweater and sweatpants while I was asleep. As I sat up, my head was feeling very light. It took a few seconds for my vision to return to normal. The image of Chilled sitting on the side of the bed. He seemed to light up in his eyes when mine met his.

“Hey buddy, how are you feeling?” he asked, gesturing to my leg. It was wrapped in bandages and my foot was raised on top of my suitcase. I rubbed my eyes, then my temples.

“A little dizzy, but I’ll manage.” My toes felt cold and were tingling from their raised position. The off-white bandages were showing crimson blood stains underneath.

“I changed your bandages a few minutes ago.” He said as he saw me assessing the condition my leg was in. His expression then turned very gloomy.

“I’m sorry…” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“I’m sorry that I was so pushy. I shouldn’t have bothered you like that and pushed you out of the cabin. If I knew what would have happened…” He stopped midsentence for a pushed back sob. “When I found you… like that. I don’t know… at that moment I… was afraid.” I noticed that his eyes were pinkish red as he was looking for the right words. Had he been crying over me?

“I was afraid I was gonna lose you…” he finally spat out. I sat up and tried to give him a pat on the shoulders to signal that I was alright, but it was difficult when I wasn’t supposed to move my leg. As I was reaching for him, Chilled reached forward and took me in for a hug. His knees at either side of my upper thighs, making sure to not disturb the wounded area of my leg. His arms were clinging tightly around me, his chin resting on my shoulder. He was sobbing. With the years we had spent together, he has seen me injured several times, but the idea of not having medical services nearby must have done it for him. He really was one of the few people who could actually have helped me in this situation. The comforting feeling of the taller man all over me and the thought that I was saved by his hands had me return the hug and bury my face in his shirt. I took in his natural scent that I had gotten used to over the years. It was familiar and comforting. Holding him like this was something I had desired, something that I had longed for for months. The thought of that made my heart beat faster and louder in my chest.

Then the realization hit me, and it scared me. No… this was wrong! Before I knew it, I had pushed myself out of Chilled’s grasp. It left the Italian a bit shocked, probably wondering what he did wrong.

“Oh uh… sorry. I got carried away there.” He tried to save the situation, clearly embarrassed. The guilt in me sank deeper and deeper. I took a deep breath and clenched my fists.

“No. I should be the one apologizing. I endangered myself by walking off alone like that. I worried you sick by having my stupid blood condition. And I was the one pushing you away just now as well. I am a shit best friend who is gonna ruin your whole fucking life!” I slammed my balled fists on the bedsheets, but one of them missed and sent a wave of pain through my leg. I winced. Good, I probably fucking deserved that too.

“Ruining my life? Ze, what makes you want to think such a thing?” Chilled asked in disbelief. The cat was now out of the bag.

“I’m ruining your life because I’m in fucking love with you!” I almost shouted. Chilled looked taken aback by my confession. Was he surprised? Offended? Disgusted? The room was filled with silence for ten seconds. And it made me feel even shittier than before. I knew this would be a bad ide-

I felt a pair of lips forcefully meet my own. My eyes grew as I realized what I was feeling. Chilled, was kissing me! This was bad, very bad! I pulled away instead of kissing back. Realizing the lack of consent, Chilled also pulled away.

“No, we can’t!” I panicked. This was cheating. This was disgusting. I couldn’t believe he just threw himself to me like that! I had never thought kissing the very man of my dreams would leave me feel so dirty.

“Shh shh… it’s okay,” Chilled said and went to brush his hand over my chin, but once again I slapped him away.

“No! It is not! Think about Jess, she gives you everything you want.” I started to get angry, furious. “And you just throw yourself onto me as if she doesn’t even exist?!”

“No Steven, listen…” he stammered, probably thinking of some lame excuse.

“I’d never pegged you for such a floozy, Anthony!” Chilled forcefully grabbed my hand.

“Steven. Listen.” His voice was now stern, demanding to explain himself. Once again the room went quiet.

“She knows.” He slowly let go of my hand as I tried to process the words he just said. “That’s why I said that it was okay. To be completely honest I’ve been feeling a lot of confusion over the past few years. Because every time I see that goofy smile of yours I feel weak inside. I’m not completely sure, but I think I might be bi for you…”

“Wait… really?”

“I talked a lot with Jess about it. She absolutely loves you and trusts you. So she gave permission to y’know, figure things out with you whenever I need to. As long as we don’t go too far…” At this point, the both of us were blushing, staring awkwardly at eachother. This was not the outcome I had expected at all. Jess was a sweet woman, but I had never even dared to think that she would be this cool with it. The nightmarish images that I had been seeing all week during the nights of them hating me dissolved before my eyes. There… was actually hope for us. And everybody would be happy ever after.

“Chilled, you madman, I absolutely love you!” I just exclaimed, pulling him closer. With the newfound confidence I had gained, I took him in for a longing kiss. My hand reaching for the back of his neck, I closed my eyes. Chilled quickly returned the kiss. I saw this as an opportunity to claim dominance. I knew he couldn’t fight me back. His tongue was tied. He couldn’t French kiss me, but I could French kiss him. ChilledTops, hell no sir. As I advanced my moves on him, I felt him bite down on my lower lip. I whimpered in pain and for a moment lost my cool. He shifted his body, pushing me down with a great force. He was heavier than I was, so I couldn’t throw him off. His lips broke contact with mine.

“Didn’t think so mr. RoyalViking,” he teased with the diabolical smirk I had grown to recognize. “Thought you’d have that one in the pocket? Well guess what you’re gonna be bottom bitch anyways.” I muttered a playful “fuck you”, unable to move. Chilled took the “compliment” in stride, having now also pinned my hands above my head. He made his way to my neck. This… feeling… was everything I had ever asked for. His lips felt exactly like I thought he would feel. His facial hair brushed just the right way on my skin. It took all my might to not let out any sound. I might as well have died to those wolves, because I thought I was in heaven.

“Hey Ze, how are y-OH MY GOD!” we heard as the unlocked door to our room flew open. It was like lightning had struck my chest. Chilled quickly scrambled off of me and I saw a shocked Cheesy in the doorway. Time for the “this is not what it looks like” face.

“Cheesy!” Chilled exclaimed. “Don’t you know not to run into someone’s bedroom? Weren’t you supposed to be still out skiing?” The blond just chuckled awkwardly in return.

“Well…. It started snowing really hard and Tay got cold and moody, so we’re back early. But eh… I’ll leave you two be then…” Before he could close the door, Chilled interrupted him.

“Cheesy. This. Secret. Okay?” He pointed with two fingers at his eyes and then pointed them at Cheesy’s. The latter simply nodded and slowly closed the door. From the creaking of the wood, he was running downstairs real fast. Chilled then turned his attention back to me.

“So, where were we?” he said with a seductive smile.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t even thirty minutes since Chilled left me alone in our room to rest, and I was already getting impatient. They all meant well when they said that I should stay on bed with my injuries, but it made me feel useless. I wasn’t a type to sit around and do nothing while only collecting pity from others. I wanted to be downstairs, be part of the fun too. Besides, I needed to pee anyways. And if I could make it to the bathroom, I could also make it downstairs.

Determined, I put my “good” leg next to the bed and hoisted myself up. Making sure not to put any pressure on my injured leg, I started to limp to the bathroom. Sure, I wasn’t very fast right now, but I got all the time in the world. After I was done, I decided it was a good opportunity to change my bandages again. It would probably still take a few hours before the wounds would really start clotting. With the roll of bandages in the cabinets and rubbing alcohol, I treated my injuries. It stung like crazy, which made me squint my eyes. But this was for the better. I still needed to get it looked at by my doctor, perhaps request some shots. God, who knew what these wolves could have been carrying? Rabies? That would be the first item on my to-do list once I got back home after some good night sleep. There, all patched up again. I threw the blood-soaked bandages in the small bathroom trash bin and washed my hands.

Thump. Thump. Thump. My strong leg made loud thumping noises on the wooden stairs as I hopscotched down. I was fully prepared for the lecture I was about to receive from Chilled, but I didn’t care. He couldn’t really be mad at me. Especially not after the displays of affection he showed me there, I chuckled to myself. Butterflies in my stomach fluttered around when I remembered him so close to me. The noises of people chatting and the crackling of the fireplace started to get louder. Most of the others’ faces were already in my direction as I met their gazes.

“Ze! What are you doing here?” as expected, Chilled was the one to speak first.

“I’m bored and lonely up there. I wanna be with you guys!” As I was waddling towards the couch, Chilled pulled Cheesy off it to make room for me. I helped myself to the couch, setting myself between Shubble and Toast. Their hairs were covered in small waterdrops from the molten snow.

“Hey, are you alright?” Shubble asked next to me. “It looked really scary when you were dragged in like that.” I shrugged it off.

“I’m doing pretty fine really. I’m sorry for worrying you guys. Anything I missed?” When Cheesy disturbed our intimate moment, he mentioned something about heavy snowfall.

“It’s a fucking blizzard out there,” Tay said, huddled closely to the fireplace. “I couldn’t see shit from all the snow.” I looked over at the window. It was all white. The door was even barricaded by one of the animal pelts to stop the icy cold draft from entering the cabin.

“Oh yeah it was very cold out there,” Shubble huddled closer in the blanket she had wrapped herself in. I heard the whistling of a kettle on the stove and Chilled got up from the ground next to Cheesy and walked to the small kitchen isle.

“So one tea and three hot cocoa… Ze, coffee?” Chilled asked as he poured boiling water in five mugs. After I gave him the thumbs up, he filled up the sixth mug as well. Coffee sounded really good right now. Even if it was the cheap instant coffee we brought packets of. Within a few seconds, our steaming hot beverages were placed on the table.

“Anyone up for games?” Toast suggested. “Since we can’t really do anything else.” This made Chilled smirk. He walked to one of the drawers of an oak cupboard to reveal a large flat white box with a red trim.

“They’ve got very old Monopoly here,” Chilled said excitedly. A small collective groan emerged from all of us. This man, with his Chilled Chaos Consultancy Firm, was the absolute devil when it came to this game. From all the times I had played this game with the Derp Crew, I couldn’t even remember a single time where I won against Chilled. He even had a winning streak that lasted years. But because we had a lot of time to kill, we reluctantly agreed to his idea.

An hour later, Tay was the first to bankrupt to Chilled. And I wasn’t in a good spot either. I already had to mortgage my properties and was about to enter a corner of death with oranges and reds from the man himself. One wrong roll of the dice and I was out as well.

“Free parking could save you,” he reassured me and brushed his hand against mine. Yeah sure. He almost choked on his drink from laughing as I rolled right into his property with hotel. My eyes shot in his direction. There was no way he could charm himself out of this.

“That’s it, you sleep on the couch tonight,” I handed my cards and paper money to him with a little bit of salt. Why was he always winning this game?! Cheesy let out a chuckle from my comment. He had a notebook and pen with him to keep track of all the investments he had made with people. With the two of us dead, the remaining players started trying to cuck Chilled’s plans. Tay cheered on Shubble for her to win. Their efforts would be futile though. I placed my hand lovingly on Chilled’s upper leg under the table. His voice was shaking for a second when I did that.

Another hour passed, and Chilled’s financial empire kept growing. Slowly but surely, he killed the other players.

“Am I evil?” he asked for the twentieth time to me when he finally bankrupted Shubble, ending the game. I smirked at him.

“Very evil,” I said with a taunting voice.

Everyone except for Chilled was left exhausted after the game and we decided to just laze around for the rest of the day. This was our final full day here. Tomorrow, the truck would pick us up and bring us to the airport. Then, everybody would go back home. Fortunately, Chilled and I shared our plane flight to Austin, so we had a bit of extra time together. Then, everything would go back to normal. Chilled and I would become just friend again to the rest of the world. We would continue to upload our videos and streams as if nothing happened. A week without internet really did wonders sometimes. I did not think about what to do for my channel once. Yeah, I did worry myself sick about other things, but in the end it turned out well.

Walking was slowly getting easier. I was still limping and trying to not pressure my injured foot, but I felt a lot more mobile now. Chilled had taken my hand and walked us back to our room. The sun had set. The blizzard outside however, had not settled down at all.

“I told you you will feel better if you spill the beans,” he said, taking off his shirt to change into his sleepwear. I decided to do the same.

“Yeah crazy huh this whole week is? Tom won’t believe m…” my sentence was cut off by Chilled pulling me into a kiss. My eyes closed as I leaned back in.

“Mmm… Anthony…” I softly moaned his name. His arms around me slowly pushed my back onto our bed and he climbed on top of me. He was a very passionate lover. The fire burning in his eyes, the rapid breathing. His grasp was tight on me. He was the hunter, and I was his prey. All his attention went to me. The way he kissed me, the way he brushed up against me. Maybe being the bottom in the relationship wasn’t too bad after all, as he was pampering me with his love.

We quickly decided not to take it further than what we were doing right now. We both felt that it wouldn’t have been right. Instead, we just huddled up for the night. The cold was setting in and I felt like freezing. And unlike the previous nights, I didn’t worry about it. I had Anthony with me to warm me up. No guilt, no panic. Our chests were moving in sync. Tonight, I would sleep soundly. God, could all nights be just like this.

“I love you, Steven,” Anthony whispered. I gave him a peck on his cheek.

“Love you too, Chilly Willy,” I added my pet name for him.

(time skip)

It was now early in the afternoon of the next day. Everybody had slept in to rest up for the journey back. Most of the rooms were already emptied and our bags were downstairs. According to our phone, the truck would pick us up in two hours.

“I really hope they make it through the snow like that,” Toast said while peeking out of the window. It seemed like the blizzard had gone worse than yesterday.

“They have thick snow chains, they’ll be just fine!” Cheesy reassured. I was emptying out our kitchen cabinets for the leftover food we had brought with and put the items in one of the bags. Shubble came running downstairs.

“Hey guys, is it alright if we all take a selfie? As a memory for us and as a souvenir for our fans on Twitter!” She pulled out her phone. We all grouped together in front of the fireplace and smiled as Shubble took the picture. She scrolled through her phone.

“Looks amazing guys!” she said cheerily. We all took a look at the picture. If we ignored my wolf incident, I would say the vacation was a success. I was grateful to have such amazing friends.

“Let’s do this again next year, okay?” Toast said. “Though maybe in a more populated area.”

We all laughed and agreed on the idea. As the pickup time got closer and closer, we peeked out of the window for a sign of life. Everything was packed up nicely. The skiing equipment was put back in the shed. All we had left were a bunch of bags and our coats.

But the time continued, without any vehicle approaching. I looked up at my phone screen.

“Hey, it was supposed to be at 2 pm right?” I asked just to be sure. The rest nodded at me, also looking at their phone screens. Maybe they were delayed a bit because of the bad weather? As long as we could make our flights, it would be no problem.

But an hour later, we still hadn’t been picked up. Nor two hours later, or three, or four.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

“We’re stuck.” Cheesy was the first to say what we were all dreading. It was way past the time we were supposed to be picked up. My flight was scheduled to depart in one hour. Even if the truck were to knock on the door right now, there was no way we could make it back in time to the airport. Feeling defeated, I turned off my phone. It was at 20 percent battery. When I fumbled my phone back into my pocket, I looked up to see everybody just staring at each other. The mood in the room had gone down by alot. I contemplated speaking up to break the silence. This was not the end of the world per say right? The storm probably made the road too dangerous.

“They will probably pick us up tomorrow after the blizzard,” I tried to say with a smile to still hope into the others. Suddenly, I felt two strong arms shove me backwards. One of the bags on the floor caused me to trip and fall, landing on my tailbone. That did hurt.

“Ouch, what the fuck was that for?!” I looked up and saw Toast standing in front of me. His eyes were on fire.

“It’s not the time to all happy and optimistic. We’re stuck Ze, in the middle of nowhere, without communication!” he ranted at me. Cheesy tried to calm him down, but the younger man got shoved away too.

“Great job, now we’re stuck and arguing. If I knew this would have happened, I’d have said fuck you all,” Tay huffed with crossed arms. So it was my fault now for organizing this huh? We all agreed on the same idea. Feeling frustration boil up deep in my stomach, I got on my feet again. I was fighting back giving them a piece of my mind. My eyes made quick contact with Shubble, who had gone very pale.

“I… just missed my flight…” she muttered, grabbing the attention of Toast off me who had gone and yelled something at her. She looked like she was about to cry. Oh please Shubble, don’t…

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” the sharp loud voice of Chilled drowned out everybody else’s. He stepped in the middle of our little circle, breaking up the fight. I saw in his eyes that he was about to get serious.

“Fighting leads us nowhere. Yes, we’re stuck. We don’t know for how long, but we need to stay together or else we will all die of cold and starvation.” No one of us dared to interrupt him. When Chilled knew he had the floor to himself, he cleared his throat.

“New ground rules. No one leaves this cabin alone. Groups traveling outside of the cabin have to report their purpose to at least one member staying behind. Everyone carries a radio on them at all times. Every member leaving this cabin has to have a way of defending oneself in the form of tools and weapons.” Chilled was always a good leader when he got serious. His loud voice boomed like a general speaking to his soldiers. I applauded him for having such calmness in his voice. I had actually imagined him to freak out a little bit more.

“Everybody, go unpack your bags. We will most likely stay here for a few more nights.” He then turned to me. “Ze, there is a very old radio in the cabinets next to the pantry. Try if you can get it to send out a distress signal.” A radio huh? I had never seen a big radio in the cabin, only the small walkie-talkies. I would have to look around a bit and see what I could do with it. I nodded at him, letting him know that I understood his orders.

“Tay, you’re our food expert. Count all our left-over foods. Try to estimate how long we can survive of them, think about a rationing system if necessary.” Chilled then shifted his gaze to Shubble.

“Shubble, the other important resource is heat. Count the amount of dry firewood we have left to burn and try to estimate how long it takes before we have burnt through them.” Next in line was Toast.

“Toast, dig through the shed behind the cabin. Note down anything useful for survival and escape.”

“And what about me?” Cheesy immediately asked. Chilled then put a hand on the kid’s shoulder.

“We’re gonna scout the area, look for civilization,” he said sternly. With everybody now having received order, he dismissed us. Our small mumbling filled the room. I picked up my bag from the ground and walked behind Chilled up the stairs. Welp, time to start unpacking again. I sighed as I looked over to our bed that we left neatly made. Quickly, I put my clothes back in the closet and my toiletries in the bathroom. It was a good thing I packed some spare clothes, or else I might end up having to put my underwear inside out. When I was about to put the last item of clothing on my bed, being my PJs, I got pressed up against the wall, my hands above my head. I blushed when I saw that it was Chilled, having a playful smirk on his face.

“I guess we can be together for just a little longer huh?” he said excitedly. I squirmed a little. My lips met his. And even though he couldn’t do a lot with his tongue, he asserted his dominance with the sheer amount of force on his lips. It left me gasping for air. He then broke the kiss, allowing me to catch my breath. With a satisfied look on his face, he let go of me.

“Are you this rough with Jess too?” I asked out of curiosity. Chilled laughed out loud.

“No, she wears the pants and calls the shots. You however, are great to mess with.” So that’s how it was huh? That handsome bastard. I liked to think that I was pretty good in touch with my masculine side nowadays. I guessed I was wrong then. Still blushing from before, I walked out of my room. I had to keep my mind straight and work on the radio or else we wouldn’t be getting out any time soon. Downstairs, I opened several cabinets. I didn’t know which cabinet Chilled meant, as I didn’t even know we had a big radio in the cabin. He must have spit through everything during the week. That is also why he found Monopoly.

“Let’s go son,” Chilled said to Cheesy and they both left the cabin. As the door opened for a few seconds, I felt the icy cold wind crawl over my back. I shuddered for a moment. The next cabinet contained exactly what I was looking for: an old-time radio. I pulled it out and inspected it in the light of the fireplace. With the door having been opened, I could use some warmth too. Curious how an electronic device like this radio was stored in this cabin without electricity. Which meant that it could probably run off the power grid. I checked the underside for a battery compartment. It was screwed in place. The batteries were long dead, if there were even batteries inside. If I could get the radio to work in the first place, maybe, just maybe I would be able to reverse the signal. Have it send out waves translating to S-O-S in Morse code and hope for the best.

In order to work on the radio, I made my way to the smalls shed for electronic tools and a screwdriver. Toast gave me the cold stare as I walked in. He was clearly still frustrated. The floor being littered with tools and other items and trinkets at least gave me the reassurance that he was doing what Chilled asked him to do. I took the hint that he didn’t want to see me right now, so I didn’t take longer than I needed to.

It didn’t take long before Cheesy and Chilled returned from their trip. It had gotten dark and both men were shivering from the cold. With their arrival, we all saw it as an opportunity to report our progress. With Chilled taking up the role as our leader, he was the first to speak.

“Traversing in the blizzard is really hard,” he started. “You’re chilly to the bone within a few minutes, so long hikes are completely impossible! However, there seem to be uninhabited hunter cabins nearby. They might have supplies or some sort of landline.” His voice sounded hopeful, but I wasn’t too sure. He was thinking about breaking and entering those buildings, and I didn’t like the idea of that. Thinking about the state of the radio, it was clear that we needed additional parts to make it work. So in the end, we might not have another choice.

“I checked our supplies, and there is nothing out of the ordinary. Ski and snowboarding equipment, equipment for ski and snowboarding maintenance, standard tools and some scraps which are already in Ze’s possession. I will help strip those buildings clean if you want. We basically got nothing.” Toast crossed his arms. It looked like he used his time to vent out anger and was now slowly calming down.

“Ze, how is that radio thing looking?” Chilled asked. I looked down at the radio and then back at Chilled and Toast. It was a complete wreck, with parts rusted and decayed. The batteries had leaked, having made the battery compartment stuck.

“I might need to replace quite a bit, and the batteries are dead. Nothing I can’t fix with the right materials and some time.” I had said that with more confidence than I actually had. There was a lot of work to do. And it was also the questions if the right materials were even available.

“Great work Ze,” Chilled complimented me extra. “Shubble, how is our firewood?”

“We have enough for a few more days, maybe a week. If we start early with the chopping, we can dry the wood in the cabin first too,” Shubble reported in. Her voice was also getting more positive. The only person not having reported in yet was Tay. So naturally, everybody was looking a her, waiting for her to speak up.

“Tay?” Chilled asked the blond after she hadn’t said anything after a few seconds. She sighed nervously. Her green eyes expressed some great distress.

“Problem. We only got enough food for tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

That evening, everybody had retreated to their rooms. After the realization that we were running out of food faster than we had both anticipated and most likely needed, the aura in the cabin had gone down. There were no games being played, no stories being told, no laughing. My stomach was rumbling. I only had a small handful of cooked rice, unable to sustain my hunger. It made me feel tired and desperate. It was also very humbling, as I was always fortunate enough my family and myself had enough money to eat. One thing was clear, the next few days to weeks were gonna be rough.

“I hate this situation so much,” Chilled sighed and just plopped down on the bed next to me. “Jess is probably still at the airport waiting for me. She’ll probably worry herself sick.” Our plane would have arrived in Austin by now.

“Tom was supposed to pick me up too. I hope they don’t wait on us for too long. At least they’ve got eachother.” The idea of our friends and loved ones back home finding out we never arrived made me feel sick in the stomach. Especially since there is no way of communicating to them. I hated having others worry about me. That’s why I needed to escape this place as soon as possible, or die trying. Knock knock.

Both me and Chilled looked at the direction of the door when we heard knocking. After a few seconds, Shubble poked her head around the corner.

“Euhm… I think Tay is feeling very upset. She won’t let me into our room, so is it alright if I stay here for a bit?” she asked.

“Sure, come in Shooblay,” Chilled said, using the funny pronunciation of her name. The dark-haired girl sat down on the small bed next to us. I felt pretty bad for her, not being allowed access to her own room. Sure Tay could feel bad, honestly most of us did, but that didn’t give her the right to hurt Shubble too.

“You look like a wreck too,” Shubble commented on the dark circles under my eyes and restless expression. Then she turned to Chilled and gave him a weak smile.

“You seem to be doing surprisingly well, I admire that.” Chilled just shrugged it off.

“I figured you’d be crying like a paranoid baby,” I joked.

“Hey! Watch it you!” I felt a soft punch in my shoulder that I might have deserved. But it was true. In the past Chilled could freak out over the smallest of things going wrong. Shubble rested her head on the bed. She did look extremely exhausted, without being able to go to her own room. Chilled and I looked at eachother and then at Shubble. She needed this bed more than either of us did.

“Would you like to stay the night here? Ze and I can just sleep on the ground?” Chilled offered. Shubble weakly nodded and smiled in gratitude. And not even one minute later, she was sound asleep in our bed. The cold of the night was creeping in.

“Tay is gonna get a stern talking to tomorrow…” Chilled whispered and huddled me close for warmth. Hungry and tired, I rested my head onto his shoulder, sitting on his lap. It was weirdly romantic, only being able to get warmth from the other. No blankets or any complications. Shubble might have been in the room, but she would never judge us if she were to see us in this position. That was reassuring too. Slowly, my eyes were able to close.

(Time skip)

The next day, I was walking through the snow. The wind of the blizzard blasted snow particles in my face. It felt like a stream of glass was hitting my face every second. The goggles I wore was the only reason I could see open my eyes without being blinded. The vision was really bad, only being able to see yards in front of me. The only thing I could make out where the silhouettes of Chilled and Cheesy directly in front of me.

“Last time it was around here,” Chilled shouted on top of the howling winds. At first they didn’t allow me to come with. Chilled insisted that it was too dangerous for me outside and that I was still recovering from my previous injuries. But I needed to come with. Everybody had push through. I needed those materials for the radio. So reluctantly, Chilled let me join him and Cheesy.

“Chilled, Ze! There’s a building here!” Cheesy pointed with his trusty pitchfork at a small blur in the distance.

“Let’s open it, let’s open it!” Chilled commanded while rushing towards a possible shelter. It was a small wooden building. It looked barren, old and abandoned. But maybe there was still something to salvage. There was not a single window we could break, so Chilled examined the door. He beckoned me.

“I’ll need your help here,” he said. I was the one who brought a crowbar from the shed. Having recently ordered one as decoration back home, I knew how to handle it. With a few tries, I was able to force open the rotting wooden door. The inside of the building wasn’t warmer than the outside, but at least we were protected from the wind.

“Radio check, we opened a building,” Chilled reported to the other party, Shubble and Toast.

“Nothing yet, we will try for another 10 minutes and then return to the cabin,” Toast reported back. His voice also echoed through my own radio. We needed to return too after having gone through this building. Hypothermia was something we were all scared off while exploring outside. Without wasting any more time than I had already done, I started ravaging through the building. Chilled and Cheesy combing out the side rooms. It looked like it was used as a storage shed for a farmer in the summer. Lots of old and partially rusted equipment was scattered on the floor. Anything electrical could be of potential use to me. As expected, there was no landline to just call from. There were some machines that used lights. Tearing open some of the parts, there were cables running through. I took the backpack from by back and started stuffing it with cables. I didn’t know exactly how to use them, but maybe some soldering needed to be done. My heart jumped up in excitement when I found a still working flashlight. This contained batteries. And if the batteries were the wrong size, then at least we could use the flashlight as is. Quickly, I put it in the backpack too. One thing that was less fortunate, was that there was no food. There were animal hides, which I tore from the wall to use as potential insulation when traveling outside, on top of our thick coats.

The backpack had been stuffed to the max. It had gotten so much heavier than it was before. My neck was a bit sore from sleeping while sitting, so the extra weight was putting extra strain on my body.

A sudden tap on my shoulders made me look up. It was Cheesy. His eyes were big and he looked both scared and excited at the same time.

“Did you find anything?” I asked him.

“Well… Chilled,” he started. “He… found a shotgun.”

Chapter Text

“Chilled found a GUN?!” I shouted at Cheesy.

“Yep, looks like it’s used for hunting!” Chilled chirped excitedly as he entered the room again. And they were not kidding. A large gun was hanging on his shoulder. He took the radio out of his pocket again.

“Hey guys, I found something really interesting that could solve our food problem,” he teased.

“Alright, we got no luck. We’ll see you at the cabin. Bye Chilled!” Shubble answered this time. I couldn’t believe I was thinking this, but with the current situation, I was glad Chilled was the one in possession of the firearm. He was proving to be a good leader and a surprisingly level headed one at that too.

“Let’s go boys,” Chilled hummed while Cheesy and I started carrying back our loot filled backpacks. I’d say that we made a lot of progress today. If we kept up like this, maybe we could go home within the next few days. Then we were out of this icy cold hellhole. The parkas had stopped providing warmth a while ago, so I was longing for the warm fireplace and hot shower back at the cabin. That warm thought kept me from freezing to death on the way back. In the meantime, I was eyeing some fruit-bearing bushes in the snow. Unfortunately, they all looked poisonous. About halfway through we rendezvoused with Toast and Shubble. Both of them looked shocked when Chilled casually strolled up with a shotgun on his back.

Back in the cabin, Tay gave us a warm welcome with warm beverages. Her mood seemed to have improved greatly since this morning. That was a relief.

“Oooouhhh, fancy gun you’ve got there,” she commented happily at the sight of Chilled. “We could totally go hunting together.”

“We came across fresh moose tracks today too,” Toast commented. “If we’re lucky, we can catch some animals and live off their meat.”

“Ex-actly,” Chilled said with the chef’s kiss hand sign, happy that others understood his idea. I did understand where he was going too…

“But guys, what about Ze?” Shubble exclaimed worried. Five pairs of eyes shot in my direction, putting me on the spot. I was vegetarian, had been for years, and everybody knew that. I sighed deeply.

“Look, you all know that I don’t eat meat, but I’d rather not starve and die either. Do I really have the luxury of that choice right now? No, I don’t. So don’t you guys worry about me, I’ll be fine.” I lied about that last part. Eating meat would totally fuck up my body, but at least that was better than dying.

And so it was decided. The early next morning, Chilled, Tay, Cheesy and Toast had gotten ready for their hunting trip. We didn’t have any other choice. We ate the last of our food yesterday night. We had no breakfast this morning, only living off the tap water in the cabin. Shubble and I had asked to stay home. It didn’t feel right to help in the killing and butchering process. I would only eat the meat to survive, and go back to my old diet once we were back home. Shubble couldn’t bear the idea of slaughtering an animal either.

“Good luck everyone!” I waved at the others as they left the cabin doors, leaving only Shubble and I behind. Instead of going with them, we had the plans to chop down some of the nearby trees. The wood would last us through a few more days, but the wood needed to dry as well. Toast and Tay had left their axes behind for us to use. I once again slipped into the parka that kept us a little bit warmer in the snow. My thick gloves gripped the wooden handle as I opened the door. The wind was still howling and drumming against the door of the cabin. With Shubble right behind me, we made our way to the nearest set of trees.

“Let’s start with this thinner one,” I patted the trunk of a particularly scrawny pine tree. As much as people told me I fitted the lumberjack aesthetic, I had no experience in chopping down a tree. Placing my feet further apart on the ground, I raised the axe. Whack! The sharp edge was embedded into the side of the trunk. Some wood chips flew in all directions. It took quite a bit of force from my arms to pull the axe out again. Then the cycle started over again. Raise, whack, pull. Raise, whack, pull. The process was extremely tedious, the dent in the trunk not even being halfway. I looked over at Shubble, who was having a lot of trouble swinging hard enough. The frustrated groans as she hit the wood showing how serious she was about her job.

“I thought this would be easier,” she panted from exhaustion.

“Yeah true,” I replied, slightly out of breath too. My muscles were getting sore. I wished I had gone to the gym more often than I did. With every swing, the tree started to lean more and more backwards. I started to get at a point at which it couldn’t take long before it would fall anymore.

“Watch it Shubble, it’s gonna fall soon,” I warn the dark-haired girl next to me. With some final hits, the tree finally crashed to the ground. With this tree we could probably live another week or so in warmth.

Seeing how Shubble was struggling cutting down her own tree, we decided to only focus on the chopped tree on the ground. Shubble was swiftly cutting down all the annoying branches leading off the main trunk. And I focused on the trunk, chopping it in smaller pieces. It probably took us about two hours, but I couldn’t really tell without a clock. With the smaller blocks of wet wood, we returned to the cabin. The warmth of the fireplace was a warm welcome. We lay the wood to dry in front of the fire. Shubble took a shower while I changed back to my comfy attire. With nothing else to drink, I just boiled some tap water as a desperate substitute for coffee. No sign of the others in the meantime. Not even an update on their radio. Not wanting to maybe disturb any animal by chance, I decided not to report Shubble and my progress on the firewood.

“So Ze, what is the deal with you and Chilled?” Shubble suddenly asks out of nowhere. I choked on the water which sent me into a coughing fit. I hadn’t even heard her come back downstairs and I certainly didn’t expect that question so soon. My already rosy cheeks were warming up even more.

“Chilled and I… cough,” I started my sentence, but I didn’t know how to continue. What even were we?

“I don’t know how to explain it. We’re together, sort of, but also not? And Chilled’s fiancée is fine with it too?”

“So like an open relationship?” Shubble asked. “It’s okay if you don’t feel comfortable labeling it anything.” She put her hand on my shoulder. A small relieving sigh escaped from my mouth. She was just so caring and considerate. I didn’t feel comfortable trying to put Chilled and me in a small box. We… were just we?

“Thank you Shubble.” A small smile appeared on my face. My blush started becoming more apparent. “Were Chillend and I that obvious to you?” Shubble started giggling.

“You two were cuddling like teddy bears the other night!” She yelled laughingly.

“Bros hug too!” I tried to protest. This made the short-haired girl laugh out harder.

“Oohh you were definitely not bro hugging there!” I put both my hands in my face to try to hide the embarrassment. I remember that Chilled had snaked his hands all around my waist and I had pressed my head close to his chest. Oh god that must have looked so obvious!

“Well, at least you discovered it this way. Cheesy uh…walked in on us when it was way worse,” I admitted.

“He did not!” Shubble gasped in disbelief, but I nodded at her confirming that it was true.

“But can you keep it a secret from the others until we’re ready?” I ask her. Shubble immediately made a zipper sign with her mouth.

“You won’t hear from me,” she reassured and patted my back.

“Thank you Shubble. You’re so supportive, I don’t have words for it,” I stumble a bit.

“If you need someone to talk to in the future, I’ll be here for you,” she winks.

Not even five minutes later, the front door swings open. We both jump up from the couch, our blankets falling onto the ground. Chilled was in the doorway. My heart started racing and my adrenaline rose when I saw him. His face and clothes, it was covered in blood!

“Chilled, wh..” I started.

“YEAHH!!! WE GOT M BOIS!” Toast busted in after Chilled, his clothes stained similarily. Tay was dragging a large bag.

“They killed a freaking moose!” Cheesy exclaimed enthusiastically. A wave of relief passed me. It was just animal blood. They actually caught something. Part of me didn’t actually believe that they would succeed, but the bag in front of me proved me otherwise.

“Fire up that stove, we’re gonna cook up this bad boy,” Toast mused as he tossed off his coat and revealed large pieces of dripping, freshly butchered meat. Finally, our starvation would come to an end.

Chapter Text

3 a.m. in the morning. Or at least that’s what I thought the time might have been. The flashlight on the ground was the only small source of light in the bathroom as I was slumped half-conscious over the toilet. My mind could only focus on the painful twist in my gut and the sour taste in my mouth. Even though the bathroom tiles and porcelain were cold, my back was drenched in sweat. The food had absolutely wrecked me. I wasn’t prepared for fatty, gamey meat, especially after starvation.

“Hey buddy, you okay?” I faintly heard Chilled’s voice and the door creak open. I murmured something in responds, not feeling well enough to formulate whole sentences. Then I felt myself slowly being scooped up by two large arms and placed into the shower tub.

“You’re a mess, lemme clean you up before go to back to bed, okay?” he softly reassured me. Was this how he treated me black-out drunk as well? My dirty shirt was pulled over my head and thrown across the room. A towel soaked in warm water and soap carefully wiped down my whole body. When Chilled tried to pick me up again, I tried to hoist myself up, no longer wanting to bother Chilled.

“I think I can stand again, thank you for looking out for me,” I said as my trembling legs were barely keeping me upright. The taller man pulled me into a tight embrace.

“I got your back, buddy,” he repeated what I had told him a few days ago during skiing. After a touching minute, we slowly made our way back to our rooms. All the other residents unaware.

(time skip)

Several days had passed. The blizzard was howling outside as always. We had found a way to keep ourselves alive. We had water, wood for the fireplace and game to eat. And yet it felt like we were going nowhere. No one had picked us up, even a week later. And we were pretty sure that no one was going to pick us up soon either.

At first, most of our days consisted of traveling outside, opening sheds and buildings together and gathering materials for a possible escape. Our small cabin shed was filled with all kinds of materials and fuel, all supposedly to fix the cabin radio. It was my task to repair it. The cabin radio was so old and damaged that it felt impossible to work on it. Nothing that I tried gave me the impression that I was making progress. The pressure of the others that this was our means of escape, was mentally exhausting. Every day without progress felt like I was letting everyone down.

Most of us were getting tired, I could feel it. It was like our focus was shifting from escaping to surviving. Not everyone would leave the cabin every day anymore, rather staying warm and conserving energy. Cheesy had started making logs in his notebook to keep his sanity up. If it weren’t for him, I would have forgotten which day of the week it was. Toast kept himself occupied by making sure the amount of firewood and food was enough. Being the most physically strong out of all of us, he would mostly help with chopping and hunting. However, he refused to do anything else. Shubble was taking it very hard mentally. She would try to help me with the radio sometimes, but it never led to anything new unfortunately. She also looked very nervous sometimes. I couldn’t make out if it was anxiety of our predicament, or that she was hiding something. And then there was Tay, who locked herself up in her room most of the day. From what I heard from Chilled, she had said that she felt sick. I suspected that she was afraid to show that she was afraid or feeling hopeless.

Even more days later, and I started to serve double duty. The radio repairs were going nowhere, and since most of the others didn’t wanna go outside anymore, I put on my boots every day, trying to find more buildings. If there was any building unexplored left, I would try to open it. Maybe, just maybe, one building in this forsaken winter landscape had a landline. There were many moments where I felt like storming off alone, to just do it myself.

“Ze, don’t go outside alone. How many times do I need to tell you that?” Chilled pulled me back at my parka at one of those moments. My boot was already outside of the door, so he caught me just in time.

“I feel like we’re getting nowhere. Can you at least help me then?” I snapped, but immediately softened my tone when I realized how rude it would sound to Chilled.

“We’ve tried looking almost everywhere now, but if you really insist…” he grabbed his own parka from the coatrack, “I am willing to far north with you if that makes you feel better.” I gave a sigh of relief. Of course he would have my back. I felt stupid forgetting about that in the moment. Although tired, he kept pushing through for the sake of the group, always concerned about everybody’s safety.

“Let’s go north then,” I said as we both left the cabin.

(time skip)

Our haul for the day was not very good. We only came across an old wrecked airplane, long rusted and half buried in the snow and rocks. From the looks of the model, it was probably used during WWII. We had broken into the cockpit, but everything inside looked already robbed long ago. Today, we would return with empty hands, just like the day before. Because we were so far north, we were the last to arrive. Actually, today was supplies day for the others. I couldn’t remember who was doing exactly what, but I knew that a group was out hunting and another was out gathering wood. So, when we expected to come home to a stack of wood and freshly killed animals, our jaws dropped when we heard screaming bloody murder in front of the cabin.

“What the fuck is going on?!” Chilled yelled as we both sprinted as fast as we could towards the cabin door. We say Tay, grabbed by Toast and Cheesy, being dragged outside of the cabin and thrown onto the snow.

“YOU FUCKING TRAITOR! DO YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING CLUE WHAT YOU DID?!” Toast was screaming.

“It doesn’t fucking matter anymore what I did! Let me back inside now!” Tay was shouting back, trying to push away Cheesy. “Cheesy step aside now!” The young boy didn’t budge. What was this talking about treachery? And where was Shubble? Oh no, did something happen to her?

“Go on then Tay, explain to Chilled and Ze what you did!” Cheesy egged her on, just as the two of us were within reach.

“What’s all this commotion for?!” Chilled pulled Tay away and I did the same with Cheesy.

“She sabotages our food supply!” Toast shouted. My gaze shot towards Tay in confusion. She did what? “We walked into her cooking RICE just now. She’s stacked our food for herself ever since we stranded here!”

Chilled had given her the order to count her food on that day. She came back saying we had only enough left for one day. I knew we had packed more! And that time she kicked Shubble out of her room that night, she was obviously eating! I let the thought sink in, and my blood started to boil.

“You’re saying that we were starving for NOTHING?! And that I got sick and threw up the food that we did get for NOTHING TOO?! All of this could have been AVOIDED?” A strong force inside of me tried to keep me from punching her then and there.

“Guys, we need to discuss this. Tay, you were very selfish by keeping the food to yourself,” Chilled said angrily. “Someone get Shubble, we need to hold a vote.”

“For what?” Tay interjected. A dark look appeared on Chilled’s face.

“Whether we let you back inside, or leave you alone in this cold to die.”

Chapter Text

Not five minutes later, everybody was gathered outside of the cabin. At this point no one cared that they were starting to freeze in the blizzard. Tay was in the firm grasp of Toast. Shubble was shoved around by Chilled, tears on her face turning into ice.

“How long did you know?!” Chilled had said sternly when me and him barged into the cabin to find a shocked Shubble on the couch.

“I wanted to tell you when I discovered it, I really really did,” was Shubble’s answer, looking utterly defeated. “I only knew since last week. But she had told me to shut it… and so I did.”

Back outside, Shubble didn’t dare to look at me, feeling deeply ashamed to be part of this sabotage despite not being involved in it herself. Tay on the other hand, was struggling.

“You’re overthinking this guys!” her voice and mannerisms started to become more and more frantic. “You can’t throw me out of this. I’ll die out here. We’re all friends remember? Let me go back in!”

“A true friend is not selfish to the point of others suffering,” Toast said. “I vote that we kick her out.”

“No, Zach, no!” Tay shouted.

“Bye Tay.” Cheesy said coldly. It was frightening, hearing the cold in the voices of people I was such good friends with. Tay started begging for mercy, screaming and crying simultaneously. It was a very sad sight.

“That will make three and therefore the majority. You hurt us, but especially hurt Ze,” Chilled spoke up before Shubble could protest by voting no. Cheesy and Toast were about to fling the wailing girl down the slope. This was going very wrong. I didn’t know how I would feel coming out of this alive knowing we were responsible for the death of our friend. No, I had to stop this!

“No Chilled!” I shouted, gaining the attention of everyone.

“But Ze…” he interjected.

“I am angry for what she did. I am so angry, but I won’t kill her. I won’t let anyone in here kill her.” My words must have turned cogs in the others’ brains, because they were silent for a bit. Chilled let go of Shubble, who he had still in his grasp.

“You’re right…” he finally admitted. Toast and Cheesy awkwardly let go of Tay, who was shaking from fear and cold. “Go inside.” She didn’t need to be told that twice as she ran to the door. The rest of us calmly followed. We were chilled to the bone from our meeting outside. Maybe being stranded really started to take a toll on us. Maybe it started driving us insane, driving us apart. Were we really just about to leave our friend on her own against the impossibly harsh nature? When our rescue would come, would we have had to leave with one person less? Would we have had to explain what happened to the thousands of followers and subs what happened to their streamer? What about her own family? The thoughts haunted me. Even though I was cold, I needed to wash my face in the bathroom sink to get myself back together. When I just finished changing back into my hoodie, which I had worn for 9 days at this point without washing, Chilled entered our room.

“Hey buddy, I really let myself go there, didn’t I?” he said with a certain insecurity in his voice. I took him in for a warm embrace. He had been warming up at the fireplace so he radiated warmth all over his body.

“Ze, I’m scared…” he then let out with a small tremble in his voice. I closed my eyes and hold him tighter.

“Me too Chilly, me too.” I admitted too. “But at least we got eachother in this.” I didn’t know what was in store for us either, and it was scary. But I knew that I had at least Chilled to lean on. Whatever would happen, it would not taint the bond I had with Chilled. The taller man let go of our hug to stare outside of the window.

“We need to get out of here soon…” he said with a mournful tone and a trembly sigh.

The food scandal seemed to be just the beginning of our difficult times. It was another week later with no progress. And even if we had stored wood and food, and access to water, there were just other things that we realized we could not live without. Most of us had packed clothes and other items to get through our week. But not that we were here for weeks on end, more issues started emerging. With nothing but hot water and hand soap, we tried rinsing our clothes to excuse us to wear them again. At this point I had worn all my underwear both sides. One morning Shubble broke down crying from what I later heard from Chilled that she ran out of hygienic pads.

Tay was mostly ignored by the others, not having fully forgiven her for her actions. On top of that, she was not allowed anymore to stay with just one other person in a group or at the cabin. On a positive note, she hadn’t tried to do anything shady yet. I thought we had enough to worry about as it was, but soon I would have more worry than ever.

It was another hunting day. As usual, me and Shubble stayed behind in the cabin. The others had left in a fairly good mood. I suspected shooting the shit out of wildlife must be releasing some tension from the others. Shubble put another block of wood into the fire. The resin made crackling sounds in the fire.

“Hey Ze, could you maybe move in the next stack of wood to dry? They’re just outside next to the shed.” She pointed at the dwindling stockpile next to the fireplace.

“No problem,” I gave her a thumbs up and changed into my outdoor attire. I slipped one of the radios into my pocket and made my way outside. No matter how long we were stuck, I would never get used to the icy slap in the face of the blizzard when stepping outside. There were no tracks left of the others that left the cabin an hour or so ago, so quickly did the snow cover the ground. Just as Shubble had said, there was a neat pile of chopped wood next to the small wooden shed. A blanket of snow adorned the top. The snow under it had turned a little reddish brown from the wood pulp. I took as many logs as I could carry in my arms and dropped them just behind the front door. Two trips should have been enough to last us a bit, I thought as I returned to the pile. This was also the first time I noticed a small heap of pine branches placed in a weird spot. They were not the result of lumbering either, so it was as if they were placed there deliberately. I decided to investigate further despite already feeling cold. With my boots, I brushed some of the branches away and I noticed something neo-orange slightly buried. Confused to what object with that striking color could have been, I brushed the snow away and picked it up.

“What the…?” I whispered to myself. In my hand lay a small bottle. It was made of a dark brown glass and had a bright orange cap. It was no ordinary bottle either, but a pill bottle. Trying to furiously remember who in our group took medicine or supplements, I checked the label. Strangely, part of the white label sticker was peeled off around the parts were personal information would have been written. The name of the medicine was fortunately still readable. But unfortunately, I lacked the medical knowledge to know exactly what it was used for. It didn’t seem like a standard B12-supplement or any of the blood-related medications I was used to. The thing that concerned me was the fact that someone clearly wanted to hide this bottle. No one in our group would judge anyone to begin with too.

But my thoughts got interrupted when I heard static noise coming from my radio and multiple people shouting.

“Cheesy! He got attacked by a bear!”

Chapter Text

I felt my blood run cold, even colder than it already was from the icy winds. Multiple people were talking simultaneously on the radio, all screaming about Cheesy and a bear.

“Is he alive?! Is he alive?!” I shouted as well, incredibly concerned. Through the voices, I heard a rain of gunshots. Even in the blizzard, I heard faint muffled shots from afar being fired echoing through the mountainous terrain.

“We’re coming back, he’s alive but injured!” is what I could make out of Toast’s voice in between the chaos. I couldn’t see what exactly was going down, and it was driving me crazy. Cheesy was in serious danger! Quickly I fumbled the pill bottle in my pocket. That problem was for later. Now I had to prepare for their return. I stormed back into the cabin, greeting Shubble who had a horrified look on her face and a radio in her hand. The medkit should be in the bathroom still, I was the one who last put it there. With a force, I grabbed the case from the cabinets and dragged it downstairs to open. There was still a roll of bandages left, fortunately. I would have felt really guilty if I had hogged all the bandages after my wolf encounter. I didn’t know what I would do if we were to lose Cheesy, with all his weirdness but kind soul.

The door swung open with force and the others rushed in. They were all carrying Cheesy, with Chilled holding his shoulders and Tay and Toast his feet. The young man was crying and howling out in pain.

“Zoe… please… let me see her again,” he sobbed for his girlfriend. “I don’t wanna die!” A puddle of molten snow and blood started staining the wooden floorboards Cheesy was placed upon. Carefully, but still quickly as possible, his jacket was removed. Chilled was shakingly prying Cheesy’s arm off his sides where he had been forcefully pressing his wound. His shirt was torn in several places and colored crimson.

“Shh shh shh… you’re not gonna die, we promise,” Chilled whispered and he took the roll of bandages out of the medkit. I had soaked some cotton wool in rubbing alcohol. Cheesy, who was now shirtless, was quivering. He had a very nasty bloody gash on his side. When I rubbed the wound with the cotton wefts, Cheesy twitched and groaned. Tears were still running down his face.

“Sorry Zach, I know it’s stinging…” I sighed as I disinfected his wound. From what I could see, the wounds were luckily not deep enough to have caused internal damage. Our only concern was stopping the bleeding and making sure that it didn’t infect in the future. With the wound dutifully cleaned, Chilled and Toast wrapped Cheesy’s torso up in bandages.

“What happened exactly?” Shubble asked when Cheesy wasn’t in danger to life anymore and placed upon the sofa. He had passed out but was stable.

“We were up in the woods, quite a bit away from the open valleys. We were following some animal trails in the hope of finding food,” Toast started. “I don’t know how, but Cheesy got a bit ahead of the rest cause he heard something…”

“He started screaming and calling for help so suddenly, so when we got through the bushes, we stood eye to eye to an adult grizzly, he was so big!” Tay continued. “And Cheesy lay there on the ground at its feet, screaming.”

“How did you get out of there alive?” Shubble asked with big eyes. Tay looked over to Chilled.

“We were all pretty shocked and didn’t know what to do, but Chilled drew his gun and shot the bear down. It was a bit scary seeing Chilled so serious, I think he emptied most of the shells we had on that bear until it was beyond dead.”

“I couldn’t let anything harm my boy… I would have killed ten bears if I had to…” Chilled muttered, but then looked hopeful at Cheesy. It was no secret that Chilled had become a sort of a father/big brother figure to Cheesy. He was, after all, quite a few years younger than us and a bit young of mind as well. There was even a running joke in the Among Us community that Chilled was Cheesy’s adoptive father. So I didn’t fault Chilled at all for feeling so protective.

“Shall we bring him upstairs to rest? He might be out of commission for a few days,” Chilled asked me. With a little bit of effort, we were able to transport Cheesy upstairs. Fortunately for us, Cheesy was very lightly built. We placed the cleanest towel we could find between the place of the wound and the bedsheets in case of leaking. Then Chilled tucked the blond under the sheets like a real parent. With his wounds covered, it looked like he was just peacefully asleep. His glasses were placed on the nightstand. As I got up, I felt the pill bottle in my pocket press slightly on my leg. I was suddenly reminded of my finding, after I was completely distracted by the bear attack. I looked over to Chilled. I had to tell someone about it. A worried thought went through my mind that Chilled could have been the one to hide the bottle and I contemplated not telling him about it. But I brushed it off instead. Chilled would not have kept that a secret from me. And besides, he had been one of the most reasonable people here. I tapped him on the shoulder, grabbing his attention.

“Could I talk to you for a second?” I whispered and gestured to the door of Cheesy and Toast’s bedroom.

“What’s up?” he asked when we were back in our own room, with the door closed and no one around able to hear us.

“I found something that I think you should know about,” I started and took off my parka. Chilled did the same. Then I fished the brown bottle with neon orange cap out of my pocket. Chilled’s facial expression changed to intrigued.

“Where did you find that?” he asked. Subconsciously I tried to listen for some sort of suspicion or upset in his voice, but couldn’t make out if I heard it or not.

“This morning near the wood pile. Someone tried to hide and dispose of it is what worries me. You don’t happen to know who this might belong to?” I handed Chilled the bottle, who looked it over for a few seconds.

“Hmm… looks to me like they’re mood stabilizers. I don’t think there is much to worry about.” He threw the bottle back to me. I was too surprised and only managed to awkwardly catch it.

“You don’t?” I asked in disbelief. Chilled shrugged.

“I think it’s from one of the girls. You know how bad PMS can be sometimes. Jess know quite a few friends who take those. They were probably too embarrassed to tell, which I don’t blame them for. What did you think? That someone is secretly a sicko here?” Chilled started laughing.

“Well…” I stammered.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got more important things to worry about. Like that radio that needs repair so we can get out of this mess.” Chilled stood up and smiled at me. “If that was everything you wanted to tell, I’ll be off cooking. Everybody’s counting on your radio repair Ze, so you better get back into the game!” And with that, he left the room. Did I really worry so much about nothing? Chilled sounded very confident in his answer. I fidgeted the pill bottle in my hands and looked it over once again. Did this bottle belong to Tay or Shubble, just like he said? If it was indeed for some minor mood issues, then it was possible that they didn’t bother telling anyone. But why didn’t they just keep the empty bottle in the girls’ bedroom? Something still wasn’t feeling right to me. How in the world did Chilled know from the top of his head what this medicine was used for? Did he even know it in the first place, or did he come up with something to ease my mind? If it was the latter, then he hadn’t really succeeded. If someone in this cabin was having serious troubles, who would it be? Person by person, I considered the options. It couldn’t have been Chilled or myself. And I couldn’t really see Shubble doing anything either. Toast used to be a firefighter, so I would presume he’d be tested during training. Then again, I never fully knew the reason he left in the first place. That left Cheesy and Tay. The latter caught my attention, immediately thinking back on the time she lied and kept most of the available food to herself. Could she be? And then there was Cheesy. Cheesy definitely did some weird shit every once in a while, like eating chalk, but there was just no say whether that was just him being himself or something more. I shook my head, trying to empty my brain. There was no use trying to make out a possible psychopath in our group. Maybe Chilled is just right. Stupid brain. Am I seriously getting more paranoid than the man ChilledChaos himself?

“Ze, less pondering more radio repairing!” I heard the Italian’s muffled voice through the door. I groaned and got up.

“Yes, coming.”

Chapter Text

I sat on the side of my bed. It was night again, but I hadn’t been able to sleep soundly. Rubbing my eyes, I looked at the man next to me. He was tossing and turning, sweat pouring on his forehead. Chilled was having a nightmare.

“N-no… please A-Adam,” he pleaded in his sleep. He sounded terrified. I personally couldn’t help but chuckle a bit that he was dreaming about SeaNanners. The years of GMod betrayals must have been imprinted into his brain. But with his moving and talking, he was keeping me awake. I had no idea what time it was, but the sun hadn’t risen yet and no one else was awake. Not bothering to change into other clothes, I put on my bunny slippers and made my way downstairs. After lighting the fireplace, I sat down behind the wooden table where I had been sitting every day for the past week. The cabin radio was still placed on top of it from yesterday evening. Parts and wires were littered everywhere. The light of the fire wasn’t enough to illuminate the part I was working on. The flashlight next to me was turned on. It was the flashlight I had found on one of the early expeditions. Initially I had planned to use the batteries, but they proved useless for the cabin radio.

No matter how much I worked on it, I felt like I was getting further and further away from repairing it. Every time I opened up another part, it created another problem. There were no working batteries, there was no electricity, almost every part was rusted and the spare parts we found were never quite the right size or shape. And yet, I was sitting behind this desk every hour of the day. The others had assigned me this task, and I didn’t want to disappoint. No one had gone outside anymore except to hunt or to collect wood. These were all the parts I had, and it wasn’t working.

“You better repair this Ze!” Chilled often told me.

“You’re the only one who can get us out of here.”

“It’s just waiting on the repairs and we’re set.”

“Are you having progress, Ze?”

Everyone was counting on me. The only time people were talking to me was to ask for updates on the radio. Dark clouds were hanging over my brain. I knew I was disappointing everyone. I just couldn’t fix it like they said I could. And every time I tried to carefully mention that this entire project was a failure, they just brushed it off and said that I would find a way. I furiously hoped every day that this dreaded blizzard would stop, but it seemed like we entered the largest death blizzard British Columbia had ever seen.

I heard footsteps on the first floor going to the bathroom. From the sound of the gait, it must have been Chilled who finally awoke from his nightmare. Maybe it was finally time to admit defeat. Maybe there was no other option than to wait out the storm and then leave ourselves. With a creak, I pushed back my chair and made my way back upstairs. I found Chilled in the bathroom. For a second I forgot my worries when I saw him. He had no shirt on, and his entire body was shining from sweat droplets.

“Oh eh… looking good as always,” I awkwardly complemented him. Apparently Chilled hadn’t noticed me in the doorway, cause he jumped up.

“Woah Ze! Didn’t see you there, buddy!” he said but then laughed nervously. Even in this barren times, he was very handsome. Wrapping my arm around his neck, I whispered.

“Do you need a hug? You were having a nightmare after all.” I was about to kiss him when I felt a slow push.

“I’m fine,” Chilled answered and moved away. He had just stopped me from kissing him. Something shattered in my chest. Did I do something wrong?

“Are you okay?” I asked again just be sure.

“Yes, I’m fine!” he repeated, a little louder. “Just a little tired that’s all…” I took a step backwards as well. This conversation was not going as planned. Part of me wanted to scream at him that the radio repairs were going dreadfully. The other part screamed at me instead that this was not the time to discuss such things and that I would have better luck a little bit later. With a hazy feeling in my mind, I stormed out of the room, leaving Chilled alone again. He’d never refused any romantic advancements from me ever. What the fuck was I doing wrong? Back downstairs, I slammed the cabin radio against the wooden table out of frustration. I couldn’t repair it. It was useless. I was completely done with it. Springs and bolts were flying everywhere, leaving the radio in an even more battered state than before.

Secretly I had hoped that Chilled would have talked to me afterwards and apologized, saying that he wasn’t in the right mind space for romance at that time and would try to make up for it the next night. That he would have reassured me that things were still unchanged between us. But that moment didn’t come. It seemed like not just Chilled, but everyone was becoming increasingly distant to me. It was like the icy and cold atmosphere from outside had finally penetrated the wooden walls. Feeling agitated myself too, I had stopped working on the radio. I was done wasting time. We had food, water and warmth and that was all we needed right now. Our clothes were dirty, but I honestly couldn’t care anymore.

In the meantime, I kept a close eye on Tay. The chat I had with Chilled a few days ago had never put my mind at ease. My suspicions were that she was hiding something. At one point I wanted to talk to Chilled, wanting to know what was going on. But when I asked him if I could have a private conversation with him, Tay had stopped me.

“Don’t you see he doesn’t wanna talk to you?” She had spat at me. It was like she didn’t want us to talk. Maybe she was afraid of what I wanted to tell him, locking down on my suspicions.
The nights were even worse than the days. Even though the nights were very cold, Chilled and I slept on opposite sides of the bed, trying to not touch eachother. There was no hugging, no kissing, no sweettalking. Only the increasingly more common nightmares Chilled started suffering from.

It was a day just like any other day. Our day was mostly spent in front of the fireplace. Little conversation was held. There was just nothing to talk about anymore. Not even Cheesy, who until now still had endless stories to tell, was saying anything. Shubble had gathered wood and was taking a shower to warm back up. My eyes glanced at Chilled for a second. We still had not made up. At first it was hurting me, but just like the others I felt like letting it go was easier on the mind. Maybe he, too, finally started to run out of positive energy. The silence in the room got interrupted when we heard a scream.

“Shubble?” Tay asked and turned her head to the stairs. Toast had sat up a little straighter in the sofa and Chilled was back on his feet. Not a minute later, the dark-haired girl was running down the stairs, her hair completely wet as if she got dressed in a hurry.

“Is everything alright?” I asked her.

“The water! It’s the water!” she shouted. “The pressure is gone!” She didn’t have to say that twice before almost everybody jumped up to check the shower and sinks.

“No! What the fuck?!” Toast shouted as he turned on the tap but no water got out. I felt like I had a heart attack.

“The pipes… they’re frozen…”

Chapter Text

The news that our water supply was cut off, hit like a bomb. The silent room of a few minutes ago had transformed into chaos.

“That’s it, we’re gonna die!” Cheesy was lying on the ground, defeated. Shubble was shivering in front of the fireplace. Just before the water pressure dropped, the temperature had dropped as well, leaving her very cold. Tay and Toast were just shouting at eachother about how bad our predicament was.

“Chilled, you must have an answer, right?” Tay asked him with desperation in her voice. The latter mumbled something soft.

“Say again?” Tay asked, a little more frustrated.

“Meeting in five minutes,” he said, audibly this time. The others gathered around the fireplace on the ground and on the couches. It was then when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Grab your bags,” Chilled whispered in my ear so I only could hear. Grab my bags? Why? Wanting to hear the meeting first, I didn’t listen. If he wanted all of us to leave, he would have announced it publicly.

“Fine then,” Chilled continued with a hint of frustration when he didn’t see me move and stood in front of the fireplace to grab everyone’s attention. The noise died down again. We were all looking at Chilled, wondering what he would say.

“Everyone’s aware that we are facing a big problem. We don’t have a source of clean and warm water anymore. We cannot drink, boil or wash anymore. It will be a matter of time before we dehydrate. We are at a standstill together, and I suspect foul play from one of you…” when Chilled finished the sentence, Shubble gasped and everybody looked at eachother.

“What happened?” I asked in disbelief.

“Someone in here is preventing us from leaving.” He stepped forward until he was removed two inches from my face. He didn’t did he…?

“And I believe that someone is you… Steven…” he said straight to my face, his eyes focused and serious. I started to feel nauseous in my stomach as I heard four gasps around me.
“Ze?!” Cheesy shouted. I just couldn’t believe the words Chilled just said to me.

“I didn’t do shit!” I tried to defend myself. These accusations were nonsense. “Why would I prevent us from leaving?”

“You have sabotaged the cabin radio. It should have been fixed weeks ago.” Had Chilled gone mad?

“That’s true! And last I checked the radio was destroyed too!” Tay added.

“We left him with all the necessary parts and tools, and yet here we are. A little strange huh, Viking?” Toast spat. He had stood up and was also standing right in front of me. This was getting ridiculous. I had put all those days and nights into that goddamn radio, explored every building in the area while the others were staying nice and warm inside, and this is how I got my thanks?

“I have been trying to fix it the whole time, but like I told you, it’s impossible! I’m not sabotaging anything. I’ve been the only one in this goddamn cabin trying to get us out of here. It’s you guys who are the problem!” I was getting heated. But their yelling drowned out my voice. No one heard my plea of innocence.

“Exile this man!” Toast shouted. “He’s a danger to our group!”

“No, you’re all wrong!” I was shouting at this point. “It’s Tay! She has sabotaged our foods and she is ill. She hid a pill bottle and didn’t want us to find out…” A collective gasp emerged from Shubble and Cheesy. If I was getting thrown out, the cards better be all on the table.

“What did you just say about me you little shit?!” Tay shouted at me. I felt knuckles collide with my jawbone, sending a wave of pain through my skull. The blonde had punched me. “How dare you to accuse me of such bullshit!”

“What the hell Ze?” Cheesy commented about my remark. “You can’t just say that about her.”

“FINE!” I screamed. “Exile me!” I gave up. I was the only one still thinking straight. If the others didn’t want to believe me, then so be it. Chilled gave me the most disappointed look I’ve ever seen.

“I’m sorry that it had to happen this way Steven. I give you five minutes to pack everything you need before we send you off…”

And with that, I went off. I put on several layers of clothing, my skiing jacket, my scarf, gloves and hat. I grabbed a backpack and put some personal items such as my phone and identification in it. I also took a piece of leftover cooked meat and put the flashlight into the backpack. Finally, I placed the little radio from my pocket onto the table. It was silent when I got downstairs. Five pairs of eyes were slowly following me.

“This is my goodbye,” I said as I opened the door. One more time I looked everybody in their eyes. And finally, I looked at Chilled. Tears were prickling in my eyes, but the cold wind immediately froze them. The door closed with a bang. The only thing left before setting foot into the storm was grabbing a sickle from the shed. I needed it more than they did now. So be it, I thought as I ran away.

I had never felt so cold in my life. The vision was very limited from the snow blowing everywhere. My eyes couldn’t hear anything but the wind. This was something I had to get used to. There was no going back anymore. I chose an unspecific direction and walked. Where this would lead me, I wouldn’t know. Any path would eventually lead to civilization. At first, the little hunting sheds appeared that we raided for supplies. Which meant I wasn’t far at all yet. The snow was very difficult to navigate in. With every step, I sunk inches into the snow. This made walking feel very heavy.

Slowly, the open valley made way for forests. Unfortunately, the trees provided little protection from the harsh winds. I had been walking so much that I couldn’t feel my legs anymore. And my hands were completely numb from the cold as well. The snow hit my face like glass shards and I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was bleeding all over. What time was it? I didn’t know. I knew that I was developing hypothermia. How long would I even have left? Everything around me was white, grey or blue. It was an area I had never gone to before. The cabin should be a long way behind me.

Eventually, my sides started to sting and I was getting out of breath. I needed a small break to regain strength. But where could I hide or find shelter? There was nothing nearby. Only the trees of the forest. Giving up on finding something better, I grasped the nearest tree trunk and started panting. I couldn’t sit or lie down. That would cool me down too much. With my arms still around the tree, I squatted on my knees trying to catch more air.

Even though my body wasn’t completely caught up, I decided to continue my travels. What at first had been running, had turned into a steady walk through the snow. The scenery around me looked unchanging and unmoving, every tree looking the same as the next one. There was no sign of life anywhere, just me. I had never felt so lonely in my life. It felt like I had lost my last friends. They were probably the last people to see me alive. Going back home was a hopeless dream. Would the others have moved on when we never came back? Would life continue like normal? Would there be nothing of me left except for an archive of my past self on my channel? My final Twitter post, happily talking about the vacation as a final impression of my life? With every step I took, I reminisced more about my life. Ice was growing on my cheeks from the tears that escaped my eyes.

There was no visible sun to tell the time. Only the darkening grey clouds were telling me that it was getting late. Every muscle was hurting. I was getting hungry, thirsty and most of all, so so cold. My gate had changed from forceful steps to unstable waddles. I had failed. I couldn’t find anyone or anything. I was all alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I needed a place to rest. Behind the next patch of trees I found a small deserted concrete building. It looked the most like some kind of unused bunker. I fell down on my knees and crawled to the wall. The building was the only protection from the wind. Finally, I took the time to open my bag and retrieve my flashlight and the piece of cooked meat. Outside it had gone completely dark and the flashlight was now the only source of faint light. The snow under me was conducting cold throughout my entire body. It was almost unbelievable that I could feel colder than I already was. The meat was very cold as well, but yet I gorged it down as fast as I could. I was starving. Hopefully this would last me just a little longer. After I had fully worked the piece of meat to the bone, there was nothing else to focus my attention on.

Slowly, I hummed the Interstellar main theme. I had always found that theme very beautiful. I just wished I was able to see the starry night to accompany it. My voice was creaky from the cold. With every minute, I felt an internal need to go to sleep. At first it was like a small voice in my brain, but it was slowly shutting down my entire body. The melody I was humming got more and more out of tune and slower. My eyelids were getting heavy like lead. I had heard before that dying from cold was very peaceful. That you would just fall asleep and be gone. I knew that if I decided to close my eyes, there was no turning back. If I didn’t have any lingering needs in this world, I could have chosen at that moment to end it…

No! If I wanted to die I would have thrown myself off a cliff by now! I hadn’t come this far just to give up! I slapped myself a few times in the face to keep me awake.

“Just… move on!” I shouted to myself and got back on my feet. My entire body was giving up, but my mind was strong. I forced my legs to walk. If only there was a miracle. With the bunker-like building behind me, the forest made way for a clearing. I shone my flashlight into the direction in front of me and found a structure made of metal. And behind it was another, and another. The closer I got, the faster my heart started to beat. These were… these were…

Power lines.

Chapter Text

Powerlines. These poles were powerlines. My heart started beating faster. As cold and hurting as I was, I felt a rush of adrenaline. If there were powerlines, there was civilization or communication nearby. I must be close. I decided on following the direction downhill of the cables. On top of the blizzard, the temperature had dropped even lower than before now that it was night. My hands felt like little cold stumps. My lips were completely cracked. There were small icicles growing on my eyelashes. But I didn’t care anymore. I would be out of this snowy hell very soon now. Unlike the others, who were probably still in the cabin. Maybe they were boiling snow on the fireplace to survive. The thought of water made my throat hurt with every swallow. I hadn’t hydrated in hours now. Just a little more and there would be all the food and water in the world Ze, I thought to myself.

I only now noticed that little red dots were slowly blinking on top of the powerline poles. And from afar, it looked like multiple were stacked on top of eachother. Thinking this could be something else than powerlines, I trotted through several feet of snow. This structure was different, judging from the lights. It was very narrow but tall. My heart jumped up when I shone my flashlight on it to see it better. It was a red and white tower, adorned with disks and antennae.

“A… Radio Tower!” I shouted, my eyes so big and bright as if God Himself stood before me. My rescue was eminent. This place would have phone services. I could call for help. I threw my bag and sickle onto the floor and knelt beside it. With great difficulty, I fumbled the zipper open. My hands and fingers were completely stiff from the cold. I had to retrieve my phone and quickly too. Finally, I found the small device at the bottom of my bag. My gloves were too big to press the on-button, so carefully I took my hand out. My fingers were a dark purple and the rest of my arm completely white. It looked quite nasty. No longer protected from the wind, the icy particles cut into my hand. It took a lot of muscle willpower to press the button. I waited, holding my breath. My phone still should have a little bit of battery left, but you never knew. The logo appeared. Yes! It was turning on. Now just my PIN-code… I put the numbers in as fast as I could. It unlocked and my trusty wallpaper and apps appeared on the screens. In the top of the screen, there were bars of service. And the battery, dangerously low at 5 percent. With no time to lose, I went over to the green telephone icon and punched in 911. I heard the dial tone. With my heart beating as high as my throat, my call was answered after just a few seconds.

“911, what is your emergency?” I heard a female voice.

“I’m lost in a blizzard. I don’t have shelter, warmth or resources and have been walking for hours now. I don’t know exactly where I am, but somewhere in Flagstone Falls Recreational Park, British Columbia. I’m at a radio tower.” I quickly told the facts I knew like rapid-fire.

“Noted, I will send a team to pick you up okay? Are you injured?”

“N-No… currently only hypothermia and dehydration I think. But there are five others too, not here but near Polar Point Cabin in the park. We have been stranded for weeks without communication, please help them too!” As much as I hated them for throwing me out, I couldn’t bear the thought to leave them behind to eventually die.

“It’s going to be okay. Are you capable of looking for a serial number on the tower to pinpoint your location?”

“Eh… yes one second…” I walked over to the pole and gave the responder the number on a small plate.

“Alright, I will deploy a helicopter to pick you and your friends up…” But then I heard something behind me, movement. With the phone still at my ear, I looked around and it was like my worst nightmare had become true. There was a pack of wolves closing distance to me. They looked hungry and extremely shabby. They were starving. And I recognized their intent to kill in their eyes.

“Wolves!” I then shouted through the phone. “Wolves are gonna attack me!”

My sickle was a few feet away on the ground. Currently I was completely defenseless. Their barks and growls were getting louder and I was frozen in place. For a moment I was back a few weeks in my memory, lying on the ground in a bloody puddle after the last attack. I only heard the voice of Chilled telling me it’s okay and not the voice through the phone. His worried dark brown eyes looked at me scared. He was holding a medkit in his hand. Only the first bite brought me back to reality. I fell on the ground and my phone fell out of my hand.

“Ahhh!!” I cried out in pain. “Help! Please send medical h-help ah!” I felt sharp rows of teeth nipping at my clothes and my skin. “Please… I have hemophilia A,” I cried in the direction of my phone to warn the 911-responder. But then the screen went black. The battery was dead. There must have been at least ten wolves around me, all taking turns to bite me. They went for my arms, my legs and my throat. My now free hand was grabbing for the sickle next to me. When my arm clutched around it, I swung it so hard that I cut one of the wolves’ face. It yelped and howled in pain, but then refocused its attention to me. Tears and shreds were formed in my clothing. The white stuffing of my coat was flying along with the heavy snowfall. Skin was breaking on several places and I had to slash as much as I could to stay alive. My red coat was starting to catch blood. My blood that was dripping from my wounds and the blood from the wolves that got sliced by my sickle. I got bitten on several places before I downed the first wolf. Instead of turning back like they did the last time, it seemed like the injury of their brethren only agitated them more. That helicopter needed to come quickly, or else I’d be dead. Another attack, a wolf lunged at my shoulder and pushed me to the ground. The sickle in my hand flew away from the impact.

“Noo! Ahh!” I screamed. I saw a pair of yellow eyes stare at me, ready to kill. Closing my eyes, I expected the final bite to come soon.

Bang! An ear-shattering gunshot, followed by a squeak. A heavy lump of fur fell down on me like a ragdoll. I heard more wolves around me yelp and growl. Then another shot in my vicinity was fired and a second body dropped. I couldn’t see what was going on. With pain and effort, I shoved the dead and bleeding wolf off me. I sat up slowly. The surviving wolves were fleeing. There was blood staining the snow everywhere. Then I looked at the source of the gunfire. It was very dark, but there was a silhouette of a man. A tall and broad-shouldered man, holding what looked like a shotgun.

“W-who…” I started, but as the man came closer, I started to recognize his features. My eyes widened and I gasped loudly when I realized who my hero was.

“C-Chilled?!” I called. It really was him! I was bleeding and hurting all over, and yet I felt as happy as could be. He must have followed me after I got exiled. He must have cared after all to come running after me. I was so glad, if he hadn’t found me who knows what might have happened. We were going to get through this together. Were the others also here?

“You really saved me, buddy!” I said happily. “They’re gonna pick us up soon.” But Chilled hadn’t said anything audible in return. In fact, he kept mumbling things I couldn’t understand.

“Chilled?” I asked him. He was still holding his gun. Did he expect another attack?

“I’m a good noodle…” he answered in a hushed voice with an audible tremble. “P-Please… I’m a good noodle…” It wasn’t like he was talking to me at all. Was he alright?

“Buddy?” I asked him again, a bit more worried this time.

“Y-You’re gonna hurt me too, aren’t you? You’re gonna hurt me…”

He pointed his gun to my direction, my brain finally realizing what was about to happen.

“WAIT NO!” Too late.

Bang!

Chapter Text

My eardrums shattered and the most intense pain I had ever felt in my life eminated from my shoulder. The bullet nestled deep within the tissue. A fountain of blood stained the snow and I fell back to the ground. Chilled had shot me. I let out the loudest scream of pain I could make. However, Chilled was making noises that sounded like an eerie combination between a cackle and a hyperventilated gasp.

“W-Why…” I managed to speak out, coughing up a bit of blood afterwards. Tears were rolling down my frozen cheeks from the pain.

“H-He said you were gonna hurt me… and if you didn’t he would…” Chilled’s gaze went from me to an empty space next to him. My mind was getting a little hazy, but before I could react, Chilled continued

“…he’s here… since Adam’s out of prison he’s been following me… telling me to do things like he did in the past…” Adam? SeaNanners? His sentences weren’t making any sense.

“What’s with A-Adam? He was not in prison?” I asked, trying my bet to get through to him despite the white hot pain in my shoulder. I had to rest my head on the ground and slump my arms on the snowy ground. Chilled’s voice got louder and more serious.

“That’s what he wants the world to think. But I know, and so does Max! Two years ago, he got arrested for drug related crimes…”

“You’re talking nonense. He’s not here.”

“HE IS HERE! AND YOU DON’T KNOW HOW HE HURT ME!” Chilled screamed, his voice shrill and of extreme emotions. My head was getting colder and colder. All the final warmth in my legs and arms slowly disappeared. Only the fresh blood created a warm spot on my shoulder. I wanted to scream at Chilled that he was delusional, that he was killing me, but I couldn’t produce anything more than a breathy groan.

“…my mother never loved me. And there he was, arms wide open for me. How naïve I was…” Chilled continued his monologue, tears streaming over his face as well. He batted no thought to the fact that I was bleeding out right before him.

“…forced me to be his runner boy. I’ve done horrible horrible things…” His sentences were uncoherent and he told parts of an awful story I had never heard before. Then my ears started ringing and suddenly it was like Chilled was talking with a sack on his head.

“…he’d punish me and forced me to test them… threatened I would end up like my brother…” at this point Chilled was sobbing loudly. It was like my thoughts couldn’t take it in anymore. Things were fuzzy and cold. And there was only pain left. So much pain. The corners of my vision were getting dark.

“…I’ve seen the needle scars on your arms, you’re with them! YOU’RE WITH THEM!” Chilled screamed and had his gun pointed back to me. The pain was getting unbearable. Purple spots were appearing on my eyes.

“P-Please… end me…” I stuttered defeated. I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the final shot, betrayed by my best friend and lover.

Bang!

I faintly heard the gunshot, but I didn’t feel the impact. It missed.

“Ze! ZEEEE!!” I heard Chilled scream my name sounding terrified. My head was slowly lifted up from the snow. One last time, I reopened my eyes. I only saw a pair of dark brown eyes. They looked lost and scared. I had seen no eyes in my life that scared. As more and more spots were covering my vision and making it impossible to see, I felt myself go limp and I reclosed my eyes. A faint light was coming through my eyelids, getting brighter and brighter. Muffled voices were faintly heard. And then, the last thing I felt before slipping away into darkness…

Warmth.

Chapter Text

It was like my brain was put through a washing machine and then sent to the bottom of a deep lake. Everything was spinning around. The only thing I noticed was a strong chemical smell. I really wanted to go back to a deep sleep. I dove back to that lake I came from.

It felt like only a second had passed, but my conscious came back. From the way my head was feeling, I must have passed out again. This happened a few times before my mind felt strong enough to try and fully wake up. At first I couldn’t feel anything, but slowly I regained control over my limbs. First my arms and legs, then my hands and feet, then my fingers and toes. I had forgotten how it felt to be warm. Everything around me was warm and soft.

Slowly, I opened my eyes. At first the light was hurting my eyes, but they slowly adjusted. I woke up in pristine white sheets. The smell of disinfectants and cleaning agents were pungent. It didn’t take long before I realized I was in a hospital bed. My head was slightly raised up above the rest of my body. After looking around the empty room, I focused my attention to my arm. It was hooked up to an IV-drip. My shoulder was wrapped in layers of bandages.

After 5 minutes of carefully checking my surroundings, the door slowly opened and a nurse walked in. He seemed delighted by my awakening.

“Hello Steven,” he greeted with a kind voice. “I see you are awake now. How are you feeling?” At first only a creaky squawk escaped my mouth, but after clearing my throat my raspy voice returned.

“I am… okay, I think?” I answered, feeling unsure. “Am I okay?”

“The doctor is positive you will make it. He actually wants to talk to you soon to explain everything we did. Would you like a glass of water?” He offered. I politely declined.

“I expect your doctor to visit within the next hour. If you feel extreme pain, there is a strip of acetaminophen next to you. I’m sorry we cannot prescribe you anything stronger.”

“I understand. I can’t have NSAIDs so that does make it a bit complicated,” I nodded and sighed.

“Please do not strain yourself. I will leave you to your own again. If there is anything you need, please press the red button next to you and one of us will come. In the meantime, some of your personal items are on your nightstand.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said and the nurse left the room. Now alone and fully awake, some of the previous events started playing out before my eyes. The one in particular where I saw the fear in Chilled’s eyes and the moment he shot me. I had never seen Chilled like that in my life before. It was clear that he was seeing things that weren’t there. Slowly, it all started clicking together. Chilled was the one that hid the pill bottle. He was suffering from some kind of delusions and paranoia. That was why he was so confident when our situation got so barren. That was why he was getting distant, why he was dreaming about Adam and why he suspected there be a traitor among us. It all made sense. I was just so focused on Tay. Chilled had planted that seed in my mind. He knew the truth and lied to me. He once told me he was seeking help for burnout symptoms. But I never thought he was hiding more than that.

The story he had told me on how he was abused by Adam didn’t sit right with me. Was this just a part of his delusions? Or was there some hint of truth in there? As far as I knew, Adam had left social media for two years to pursue his newfound dream of real estate and carpeting. He wasn’t really secretly in prison wasn’t he? I would ask Max about it later, as he supposedly knew it too. Chilled had it wrong about the needle scars in my arm which he should have known was my hemophilia treatment, so the other things he said were very shaky too.

I wondered how the others were doing. Were they alive? Were they here in the hospital too? I looked next to me and saw my phone on the nightstand, as well as a bouquet of flowers and a few cards. How long had I been here? The cards and flowers were from my family in Canada. They wished me to get well soon. To my great surprise, one of the cards belonged to a fan. How did they know about my location? Deciding to investigate further, I took my phone of the nightstand. It had been neatly charged to a 100% battery. As soon as I unlocked the screen, it was like a bomb had gone off. The screen kept getting notifications and my phone was buzzing for the next minute.

“What the…?” I asked confused when I saw that I had 99+ notifications on Discord, What’s App and Twitter. What did I miss? At first I checked my calling history. It looked like I had been called almost 20 times by Tom, then Jess and Junkyard and Vikram and more. At first the messages from Tom and Jess were asking me if where I was and if everything was okay. Exxzy asked if I was alright too and was clearly worried when Tom got home without me. Suddenly I remembered how I must have missed so many Among Us lobbies. Junk and Vikram must have tried to contact me when I never showed up. After having checked my What’s App, I opened Discord. Noticing the status of my profile going from offline to online, I immediately got pinged by almost all my mods. They were all asking if I was alright or how I was feeling. The message from Tyler was currently on top of the screen. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, I quickly typed that I was alive and I would elaborate more soon.

We’ll wait on you bro. Also stay away from Twitter, it’s bad.

What happened on Twitter? Before I could try to think what would have been written on Twitter, I received a link to a news site from Kitty with the message We were so scared for you when we read it. I opened the link and was greeted by the headline:

Six Missing Influencers Rescued from Blizzard, Ends in Bloodbath. The curiosity got the better of me and I couldn’t help myself from reading further.

The six social media influencers that went missing in early January are found. What should have been a vacation ended up in a battle against nature. Sources confirm that they had been stranded for weeks in Canada’s largest mega blizzard of the last century without communication. One of the influencers had managed to contact emergency services. When the rescue vehicles arrived, they were faced by the aftermath of a bloody drama. A delusional 29-year-old American man was arrested and is currently awaiting charges of illegal possession of a firearm and assault. The 27-year-old Canadian victim was taken into hospital in critical state with shot wounds.

The influencers had gained a lot of popularity on the streaming website Twitch.tv for playing video games, garnering tens of thousands of fans…

I stopped reading. Tears were forming in my eyes. Chilled… arrested? While he was feeling so low? He needed help, not isolation!

My phone got overloaded by messages again. I had to know what was happening. Against advice of my mods, I decided to check Twitter. It was like all the air was sucked out of my lungs. I… was trending… we were trending…

#ChilledChaosIsOver

The name of the tag was already enough to know. The news had gone out that Chilled was held accountable for almost killing me, and people were not taking kindly to it. My heart broke at the cancel messages I read. So many people being angry, so many people thinking they knew how I felt. Chilled’s twitter account had been privated, and so had Jess’s. The only one trying to hold ground and diffuse the situation was Chilled’s mod Tiffany. A creeping feeling of guilt overcame me. Even though I knew I shouldn’t feel that way. Chilled had hurt me so much, he had betrayed me, but I couldn’t bear seeing the emotional retribution he got from it. I realized he was already haunted too much by his own demons. This just wasn’t fair…

The door to my room opened again. This time the man who I presumed was my doctor entered. I needed to talk to Chilled right now! He needed to know I was okay!

“Good afternoon Steven…” he started calmly. But I wasn’t calm. I sat up on my bed.

“Sir, I need to talk to Anthony!” I exclaimed.

“Mr DiMarco has been taken into custody. I can assure you he will not be able to harm you. Our officers are professionals after all,” the doctor tried to sound reassuring, but it was having the opposite effect.

“No! You don’t understand!”

“Don’t overexert yourself. It’s important to your recovery that you keep calm,” he interjected sternly. “It’s not nothing what happened to you after all.” I reluctantly let my head rest back on my bed.

“What’s my situation, doctor?” I asked.

“Well, the first of our concerns were your hemorrhages, especially in combination with your Hemophilia. We extracted the bullet from your shoulder and closed the remaining wounds. A blood transfusion was necessary to keep you alive, but your body luckily seemed to accept the foreign cells. Finally you were hypothermic and dehydrated, so we have been giving you fluids.” I listened carefully to the story.

“…and we have updated your medical dossier for your main physician in Austin, Texas…”

“Is there an estimate when I will be able to leave?” I finally asked.

“There were no complications during your procedures, but we still need to monitor your body as it recovers. We would like to keep you here for a week. If everything is well, you may leave.”

“Thank you, doctor.” I nodded. Shortly after, the doctor left the room, leaving me alone with the torment online again. I knew this week was going to be lonely, but my thoughts kept going to Chilled. I just hoped he was okay.

The next few days were both uneventful yet nerve wrecking. I received the message later that day that I would be asked for a witness rapport on Chilled once my judgement couldn’t have been altered by medications. The situation online was getting worse. Word got out that I was online again and people were hanging on my lips to tell the story. The others, except for Chilled, had been seen online as well, but nobody had said anything about the trip. Due to the witness report, I couldn’t explain what happened online yet. And it was breaking my heart. People were grasping at straws and drawing conclusions themselves. The topic of Chilled’s “attempt to murder me” was garnering a lot of attention from the commentary youtubers’ community. The first minutes of those videos already proved to me that they didn’t have any first party sources to explain the situation and that they were compiling a lot of rumors and newspaper coverages. It was sickening. On a positive note, I received a lot of warm messages from other content creators I often played with. Sometimes cute fanart of me in a cast and lots of hearts and the best wishes was shared on my timeline, proving that people were still caring instead of spreading hate and drama.

Slowly, I was allowed to leave my bed more often to get fresh air. Moving my shoulder was still very painful, but it didn’t seem to get worse fortunately. Outside, the sky was blue and sunny. It was good weather for the time of the year. The blizzard had apparently died down only two days after our rescue. I was on my way back from the little cafeteria to get a cup of Tim Horton’s when I got greeted by two police officers and the nurse that had been taking care of me.

“Mr. Viking?” one of the officers asked in a stoic voice.

“Yes, that’s me. You’re here for the rapport?”

They led me to a small room not too far from my hospital room with a table, a computer and a few chairs at either side. The two officers sat down at the opposite side of me. They first asked me for my personal data for verification. Then they started with the usual questions about the relationship between Chilled and I. I told them everything. How long ago we met, the years we had been friends and made content together, that I will be his best man at his wedding and how we were recently romantically involved.

“And could you tell us, from day one until you woke up in the hospital, what happened?” he then asked. And then I started telling. From the plans we had made to celebrate our successful year, where and how we booked our vacation. How we travelled, met up and arrived at the cabin. How I was attacked by wolves and how Chilled and Toast saved me. How we didn’t get picked up and how we ran out of supplies. How we had to live off the land and desperately tried to look for contact. How I found the pill bottle and discussed about it and how finally the water supply was cut off. The other officer was typing furiously on his computer, documenting my story.

Then I hesitated for a second. The misery that I had experienced online for Chilled was burnt into my mind. I took a deep breath of courage and my heart started pounding quicker.

“There was a panic, and I ended up running away. I walked for hours in the cold, I had no water, only a bit of meat and no warmth. Then, I found power lines and the radio tower. I called 911 with the little battery I had left on my phone, but the call got cut off when I got attacked by a pack of wolves. I was sure I was going to die, but then Anthony arrived…”

I took another breath. This was going to be my story…

“He… he tried to help me. He had the gun we found and had used to hunt for food and he aimed at those wolves to get them off me. He hit a few of them, but then something went wrong. He… accidentally shot me.” At this point my voice was a bit shaky. Telling the story was difficult when it felt like a tennis ball was caught in my throat of anxiety.

“DiMarco confessed to us that he tried to kill you after we took him into custody,” the officer interjected.

“He didn’t mean to. He started to panic and I think it must have triggered something. I think he truly blames himself for the accident. He started seeing things that were not there. He must have believed that it was entirely his fault when he confessed… or that’s what I think. He needs help. He didn’t mean any harm.”

“Thank you mr. Viking for your detailed rapport. There is this other question I need to ask you. Do you want to press charges against Anthony Jeremiah DiMarco for assault?” I shook my head.

“No, officer.”

“Are you sure? You would have been dead if paramedics arrived just one minute later?” the second officer asked in disbelief.

“I am absolutely sure. But please give him the help he needs,” I pleaded. The officers seemed to accept my witness rapport with no further questions. The story might not have been completely the truth, but their safety was more important to me. With the wolf bites and the dead carcasses in the snow, it would have been a believable scenario. I had also left out the part where I was pushed out of the cabin by the other people and made it look like it was my own choice.

After I was escorted back to my room and needed to await another checkup, I took my phone and opened Twitter. This was the story I was sticking by, and I needed to clear Chilled’s name. I started typing a summary of what I told the officers. It took at least four Tweets to write my whole story, but I didn’t want to write a Twitlonger. Finally, I took a selfie with my bandages to prove that I was hanging on just fine. My face was rougher than the last time I had made a picture. My beard was wilder and my dark curly hair was longer than it had ever been. The new truth was now published to the rest of the world. Not wanting to see the comments flooding in, I closed my phone again.

You’re welcome, Chilled, I thought relieved.

Chapter Text

My final days at the hospital were quite peaceful. The internet had bought my explanation and accepted it. Then, the others had slowly started posting again too. Cheesy showed off his bare chest with a scar on his side from his bear attack, weirdly proud of it. The others had received some basic medical care after their rescue and had been placed in a nearby hotel until their flights back home. There had been no serious injuries apart from the mine.

After I was let go, I decided to spend a few weeks with my family. They had been worried for me as well and were relieved to see me alive and well again. It had also been over a year since I had last seen them, so I definitely owed them a visit.

Shubble had promised her to tell her story in a story time video when the time was right. She was back home and distracted herself by playing with The Crew. I later heard that she got into a relationship with Lucas, or Speedy as we knew him online.

Tay and Toast were still playing games together. They were convinced the booking company could be held accountable for the barren situation we got ourselves in. They had the opinion that the company should have warned emergency services to pick us up. A lawyer was brought in and they sued the company for neglect. They would keep me updated on the outcome of the lawsuit.

Cheesy seemed to cope well too. He and Zoe soon moved from Oklahoma to Austin to further pursue his career as a streamer. He found a soulmate in Cameron, better known online as UneasyPeasy and even adopted a puppy together.

Chilled had been released from custody and transferred to a closed ward of a mental hospital. He was estimated to be let go after 30 days. The day after I gave my witness rapport, I got a call from Jess. She was crying, happy and relieved that I wouldn’t press charges and that I stood up for Anthony. She also apologized on his behalf that he had never told me about his issues and that she was glad to have me as his friend. Ofcourse, I was invited for a grand meal once we were both back in Texas.

It was a few weeks later. I had been back home for a few days now. I survived this whole ordeal with just a few scars on my legs and my shoulder. It could have been worse. It could have been so much worse. My roommates were happy to see me back and had thrown a small party when I arrived to celebrate my life. It felt good to be back. To sleep in my own bed or to look at the funny portraits in our living room. When I felt good enough to resume streaming, I was welcomed warmly by Kara’s and Ozza’s Among Us lobby.

Knock knock.

It was a lazy Saturday without plans. Not knowing who would unexpectedly show up, I opened the door to my house. Not one second later after opening the door, I got caught by two large arms embracing me with all force.

“Ze! Oh my god it’s you!” I heard the very familiar voice of my best friend.

“Chilled…” I stammered. He squished me even tighter, afraid to let me go.

“I am so glad that you’re alive. I missed you so much…” he started. Then I noticed Jess was standing behind him with bags of food.

“We’re here to say thank you,” she said with a smile. Chilled let go of his hug and put both of his hands on my shoulder. Tears were forming in his eyes.

“Why did you stand up for me and safe my butt? Why did you let me go scot free?” he asked, tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. I hugged him again, placing a small kiss on his cheek.

“I got your back, buddy.”