A/N: Not dead yet! But ooooh boy, I got hit HARD with dialogue block, and I had to rewrite a part of it. My brain is thoroughly fried. X(
Sooo, I'm just gonna put Dallin's and Fleem's parts up seperately, since this took forever to get out and I'm sick of keeping y'all waiting. Hope you still enjoy it though, hehe...
Dallin:
Time began to stretch out.
Everyone left in the cave had gone silent. Meechee had curled up on a couple of rocks and gone to sleep along with Fleem and Brenda on her chest. Kolka paced anxiously. Dr. Laker stared at the ceiling while Percy sat next to him, occasionally looking over the makeshift bandage, a ripped sleeve of Dr. Laker's shirt.
Dallin found he couldn't stay asleep for very long. Unwelcome chills passed through his spine as he glanced around the cave, and not from the cold. The darkness didn't help at all, only giving his mind more room to play through his memories of the last cave he'd explored. They left a hollow pit in his belly that wouldn't leave, even as he tried to distract himself.
The sooner they could leave this creepy place, the better.
Slowly, darkness began to press in more and more as the night continued, and soon Dallin was surrounded by pitch black. He stiffened as he heard a shuffling on the rocky floor, but it was just Kolka. "I'm going to make a fire." she announced.
Dallin nodded, though she couldn't see him. "Good idea." It would give a little light, and also help dry off Fleem's still damp coat.
Orange and yellow light sprang up by the far wall, making him blink. That was fast.
Kolka dusted off her hands and sat down against the wall with a relieved sigh.
A moment later, she was asleep too, as were Dr. Laker and Percy.
Dallin was now completely alone with his thoughts.
And it was excruciating. He'd never imagined silence could be so loud.
He pressed himself against the wall and tried not to think about where he was. But the intruding and overwhelming memories and thoughts refused to be dismissed, filling all empty spaces in his mind.
He wasn't sure how much time passed, but eventually, Dallin just couldn't take it anymore.
He found himself standing up and heading straight for the cave entrance. Maybe he could find Tania, or Migo, or someone. He felt guilty for not telling Meechee and Kolka, but they'd certainly try to stop him. Besides, they would probably guess where he was when they woke up. He paused at the mouth, watching the storm. It was still snowing, but it had lessened considerably.
Good. The worst was over. Maybe Dallin would be actually able to see in front of himself this time.
He took a deep breath and moved to step outside. A familiar high pitched voice made him freeze and he spun to face Fleem's smaller form, illuminated by the fire light. Dallin couldn't understand what he was saying, but his eyes said, where do you think you're going?
Dallin shifted from foot to foot. "I was just…"
Fleem shook his head, looking exasperated and shivered as he rubbed his bare arms. Dallin smiled uncomfortably. "Yeah, you probably shouldn't stand there. Maybe you should go sit by the fire." He pointed behind Fleem at the dancing flames.
Fleem huffed and stayed right where he was, continuing to, Dallin assumed, scold him. Dallin gave a soft groan. "Listen, I'm going insane in here. I had a bad experience with a cave once, and the memory is just festering the longer I sit there."
Fleem squinted in the fire light, and opened his mouth to keep talking, but something in Dallin's face must have made him stop. He stood a little straighter, still shivering, and furrowed his brow.
Dallin stared back at him, uncertainty tugging at him from both sides. Was Fleem….worried? "You're gonna follow me if I go out, aren't you?" Dallin said warily. At the same time, his body screamed at him to go run home, to the city and hide.
Fleem took a step forward, watching him closely. Dallin took a step back, feeling his foot sink slightly into a mound of snow. "Don't you know what that would do to you, Fleem? Don't you care, even a little?"
Fleem shuddered as he continued to walk after Dallin. He looked up defiantly, straight into Dallin's face.
Dallin sighed in defeat and held up his hands. The message was clear. "Fine. You win. I'm coming back inside."
He was eighty percent sure Fleem wasn't bluffing. If he was right, he'd have to answer to all of the S.E.S if Fleem got lost in the snow. And Tania too.
That still didn't make it easy to go back inside though.
Absent-minded, Dallin gently picked up Fleem, and headed for the fire. Maybe there would be a chance to escape him later.
Fleem pushed on Dallin's hands until he put him down, and plopped down on the nearest rock.
Dallin slowly sat down across from him, careful not to disturb Kolka, and stared down at the fire to keep from looking around the cave again. "Just a campfire. Part of every camping trip. I like camping." Fleem raised an eyebrow at his unintelligible yeti words and reached to smack the dirt and pebbles off his socks.
Dallin rubbed his hands together. "All we need now is a bag of yeti sized marshmallows, and it'll be just like a regular old camping trip." He swallowed hard. "Outside, under the stars."
Fleem folded his arms and watched him with an unreadable expression. Not quite unfriendly though, as he had been at first.
Dallin forced an uncomfortable smile. "So, does this mean you forgive me for stealing your body?" He meant his tone to be light, but it wavered over those last words.
He took in the dark hair and youthful face he had seen in the mirror just days ago. "You kinda stole mine too though, so…" He broke off. Seeing his own face from the outside so much had slowly made it seem like someone else's entirely.
Fleem blew out a cloudy breath and turned to let the fire warm his side. He prodded his blue coat splayed on the rock next to him with a finger and frowned in dissatisfaction. Bringing his knees up to his chest, he glanced enviously at Dallin's fur.
Dallin shrugged sheepishly. "I'd give it back if I could." Fleem just shook his head, laid his head on his knees, and closed his eyes.
Dallin stared at the yeti-turned-human. He was the only one available to talk to. "I hate caves." He blurted out without stopping to think. Fleem opened one eye.
Dallin cleared his throat. "I hope you don't mind if I just keep talking. Otherwise, I'm going to be completely stuck thinking about caves, and then I'll go insane if I don't run out screaming first."
"Really? You seemed fine at the headquarters." Dallin jumped. He'd forgotten Kolka was sitting right there. How long had she been awake?
He looked at the cave floor. "I guess I was a little distracted." He mumbled. "Waking up as a yeti tends to completely take over your thoughts."
Kolka chuckled softly. "Fair enough. But that effect seems to have worn off now."
Dallin nodded and turned to face her while keeping Fleem in his line of sight. "It's not really the cave itself. I know it's just a cave. Nothing special about it. Just a big hole in a big rock."
He paused. "But so was the last one."
Kolka waited without interrupting for him to continue.
Dallin took a deep breath. "I was in scout camp at the time. I'd been the year before, and I thought it was alright. But this year, my group got a new leader who wanted to kick our activities up a notch. He had a few years experience with spelunking, and convinced the other leaders to take us."
Kolka tilted her head slightly. "Spe-lunking?" Fleem glanced between them both with confused exasperation, and in gibberish, demanded a translation. Dallin couldn't help but laugh at him a little, annoying him into a grumpy silence.
Movement caught his eye, and he turned to see Percy approaching the fire. He sat tiredly next to Fleem and yawned. Brenda wasn't far behind, and neither was Meechee, gently setting Dr. Laker next to her knee.
"Spelunking is like cave exploring." Dallin explained to Kolka. "With plenty of crawling through small tight spaces."
"Oh." said Kolka.
"Anyway, we decided to get right to it the first morning. At first, I was actually excited, since I'd never seen a cave. But it...didn't go as smoothly as I hoped."
He ran his fingers through his arm fur and looked down at the cave floor. "We got a little lost just before we found out that our new leader had never been through this cave before. None of our leaders had. So we were just wandering around, not knowing if we were headed towards an opening, or deeper into the cave system."
Dallin stared at the fire again. "At some point I twisted my foot on a rock and had to sit down. But our new leader didn't want to stop for anything. That caused a fair bit of arguing with the other leaders."
He grimaced. "In the end, it was decided that our new leader would wait behind with me while everyone else made some progress. Then they would call back to us with the walkie talkies and wait for us to catch up."
Kolka opened her mouth, presumably to ask about 'walkie talkies', but decided to let Dallin keep talking. Thankfully, Meechee followed suit.
"We did that a couple of times. Then one of the other leaders called and told him something had happened. So he took off and left me there alone, without even a walkie talkie." Kolka gasped softly.
"He was gone long enough for my headlamp to run out of battery. So I just had to sit there, in the dark, and the silence. No idea where I was. No idea where my group was." Dallin shrank into himself as the cave he was in now pressed in on him, just like the last one.
"I was more scared than I've ever been. When no one came back after a couple hours, I thought I was going to die down there."
Kolka blinked solemnly. "But someone found you eventually, right?"
"Yeah. Eventually. It felt like hours and hours. Then we all got out and back to camp." He looked down. "But I've never been able to see caves the same way after that."
In the following moment of silence, he glanced desperately over his shoulder, eager for an excuse to escape for a bit and catch a breath of fresh air. "Oh look, I'm gonna go check the storm and see if it's settled down enough for us to go find everyone else." He stood and broke into a jog before Kolka could say anything else.
A high pitched shout told him Fleem was trying again to follow. Hopefully Kolka would hold him back.
Dallin stopped just outside the cave and looked up. It was still snowing a little, but stars were visible in a few small gaps in the clouds.
The storm had passed amazingly fast, but left behind what looked like many layers of snow on the ground.
Dallin sighed in relief at sweet freedom before the snow suddenly gave way under him, and he sank to his waist with a gasp. Once again, he was grateful for his borrowed yeti fur. He hadn't been cold once since the swap, not even during the worst of the snowstorm.
"Dallin? Are you okay?" Kolka called, sounding worried. Dallin was too distracted to answer. He glanced up at the rest of the mountain over the cave. Snow coated it like a layer of icing on a cake, leaning dangerously over the side. Holy smokes, that's a lot of snow!
And it seemed to be slipping right towards the cave mouth.
Dallin grunted and struggled free from the snow. "I think we should go now! There's a lot of snow out here, and it looks like it could avalanche and block the cave entrance at any moment!"
There was a pause. "Okay." came Meechee's reluctant reply. "Fleem, you'd better put these back on. Yes, I know the coat is still a little bit damp, but it's better than nothing!"
Fleem's complaints were loud enough that Dallin could hear them clearly.
He looked anxiously back up at the snow. Hopefully not loud enough to test the accuracy of movie avalanche logic.
But the two yetis got Fleem bundled up without mishap, put out the fire and appeared with all four humans in their arms. Kolka promptly sank to her knees in the white powdery snow. "Oh my….that is a lot of snow!"
Meechee shifted her hold on Percy and Brenda so one hand was free, and pulled on Kolka's arm until she was back on her feet.
"We'd better find Migo and everyone else as soon as possible." Meechee said with a frown. "This crazy night isn't over yet."
Dallin looked in the direction Tania had led him from. Good thing it wasn't too far. The other returned yetis would probably need some help.