A/N: This is in the same AU as 'Waldensamkeit', set before it. Featuring: chance meetings, people who are not yet bros but still don't try to kill anyone, shaky relation to timeline (although it is AU, so, eh), and trees.

Warnings for: mention of blood.

Dépaysement

/

Sarah had only known the boy who was like her (but not all the time) for a short while when she found him in the forest spitting blood.
It'd been almost midday, the heat in the air not quite a physical wall. She'd taken off her gloves but left her hood up; any shade appreciated. A bright splotch of unfamiliar colour out the corner of her eye had made her pause in the middle of a dirt path. A second later she'd left it for the underbrush, crackling through thick overgrown grass and old branches until she stopped at the edge of a barren meadow.
The boy was flat on his stomach in the middle of it, no camera, no outward injuries, red seeping from his mouth. And awake. As she watched, he rolled over and looked across the clearing- directly at her. She knew it was him, then, and not the other one, because he didn't yell when he saw her not-face.
(Her mask. She meant her mask. For some reason her thoughts slipped away unless she concentrated. Losing words like so much else. It would scare her but fear was one of the things she'd lost first.)
Instead, he'd pushed himself up on his elbows as she approached. His mask was shoved off awkwardly to one side, covering his ear; the elastic that held it together pressed a red line on his forehead. He eyed her warily as she crouched about an arms length away from him.

She looked him over, considering. He seemed like he'd been dropped here. By the way he kept glancing around, flinching at every noise, Sarah had an idea how. (Nothing, nothing, nothing.)
Didn't matter how, at this point. He was here. And clearly he wasn't used to this place. She slept here but he had somewhere else to go at night, somewhere else he left the woods for. Not this meadow or anywhere else with trees. It would be better for everyone if they were all in their own places, she knew. (Knew. Certainty. Sarah didn't know where it'd came from, didn't question it.) The boy would have a hard time finding his way out by himself. And time was quick enough as it was.
She stood back up and offered him her hand.

The boy kept his arms stiff while he walked and looked at everything they passed like it could be hiding terrible secrets. Aggressiveness boiled out from him. He spat bloody saliva on the ground every so often- but not pure red anymore, she noticed. Whatever had been bleeding inside him had stopped.
She kept her hands in her pockets, walking behind him when the way was narrow and behind him to the left when the pathway was wide. He'd be able to see her without turning his head too much, but she was out of reach. Safer that way.
When she led him out to the edge of the trees that faced the featureless asphalt of the Rosswood parking lot, he paused. Surprising. He looked guardedly back at her, waiting. There wasn't any reason that she can think of for him to do that... except that she was the only one like him. It was better not to be alone.
After a moment she joined him again.

Both of them removed their masks when they hit a busy road. In case they attracted attention. She stuffed hers in her pocket, he clenched his in his left hand hard enough the plastic creaked.

The way into town was full of empty space and sheer buildings with windows like eyes. Wind blew loose dirt and dust from the side of the road. Sarah brushed her hair out of her face and then kept her hand near her uncovered (unsafe) eye. Not-not noticing how she was starting to shake a very little bit. Being away from the closeness of the trees and the tunnels and the creeks... unnerved her. It wasn't even night, when she could easily pick a shadow and disappear through it.
If the boy noticed her shoulders tightening, he didn't say anything. He did look back at her every so often, making sure she was there- or that she hadn't gotten any closer.
Eventually, they reached the backyard driveway of a one-story whitewashed house that Sarah assumed was his- or the other one's. The back porch was a concrete-floored area right next to the house. It was boxed in by a screen door and a couple of tall screen windows covered with crosshatched fence, blocking any view inside. The floor was strewn with bikes, dead leaves, dented trash cans, boxes, a old washing machine set up beside the back door. A lone string of unlit Christmas lights straggled over a dusty window. (Something surfaced in her head as she looked at them, then disappeared as quickly as it came.) Nicks and scratches peppered the door itself.
He tried the knob and it swung open, easy as anything.

Done. She checked that her mask was still in her pocket, turned to leave. Thanks was not something she expected; he'd gotten to where he needed to go, now she'd return to where she needed to be. But there was silence behind her, suddenly, when there should have been the dorm slamming and the spring-screech of the screen door falling back into place. She paused. Looked back.
The boy had stepped away from the now-open door and was meeting her eyes directly, without masks filtering everything. His eyes were very brown, the black in the middle blown up. He nodded once, a small jerk of his chin. We're even.
(And. A simpler recognition of her, maybe. Of both of them sharing the same space. We're alike. He'd waited for her for a reason.)

Either way. Sarah nodded back, keeping studying him. As she watched he stepped into the house and close the door solidly. A lock clicked into place. A couple seconds passed and the boy (who was like her now, but maybe wouldn't be for much longer) walked by the window, a blurry shadow through the glass.
Sarah looked at the Christmas lights for a moment and then turned and went down the driveway, the tiny rocks in the ground crunching unfamiliarly under her shoes.
The trip back to the woods took a while. She made a point to remember the way.

/