hi there fam. if you're one of the people who followed my account back when I was writing absolute megatons of trash on a very regular basis, hi, yes, hello, i am back with more, hopefully higher quality. i am going to include a brief list of tags and trigger warnings before we begin in the interest of not wasting your time if you strongly oppose any of them or perhaps retaining it if any of these are faves of yours. they are mine, which is of course why i wrote this utterly self-indulgent concept. feel free to skip warnings, tags, or both at your leisure or avoid spoilers. just scroll a few lines until you see the line.

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TW/CW: domestic violence, sexual content, discussion of religious content, character(s) with disabilities, discussion of disabilities, potentially offensive language, drugs and/or alcohol, canon-typical violence, discussion of mental health issues

Tags: (Temporary) disability in an OC, slutty i hope, soulmate concept, time and/or dimensional travel, OC with an advantage, LGBTQ, season II does not fucking exist; it was all a very unpleasant dream, fan service, closer to manga canon than anime, ciel likes some good fucking food, more may be added.

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this concludes a longer than average author's note… I shall endeavor not to ramble on in the future. hey, look! it's a lil line break! continue on spoiler free.


Cameron didn't go hiking.

That's not to say he wasn't able—he'd heard of a blind man climbing Mount Everest. Certainly he was capable of traipsing through the woods, if not much else. It just… wasn't to his enjoyment. Like… holding a book, or visiting the Grand Canyon. Could he do it? Absolutely. Had he done it? A time or two. It just didn't exactly do it for him the same as it did for so many others.

So if you'd told him a few years ago that his life would be permanently altered on a impromptu hiking trip with a bunch of college buddies, he'd have laughed in your face.

Indeed, if you told Cameron the very same morning the trip was to begin, he'd still have looked at you strangely. True, he'd probably be a little tired and dirty. His feet would probably hurt, but he'd be in excellent company, and it was only supposed to be a two-day trek. The weather forecast wasn't bad, just a bit warm for the fall, and the only vaguely dangerous animals in the area were a small population of black bears, which the locals knew weren't truly a danger at all.

Still, it was times like this that he truly regretted not having a dog. Of course he would take his cane, for all it was worth on some beaten down hiking path with no sidewalks or asphalt in sight, but he had to guess that a well trained dog would be better for navigating rougher and less predictable terrain. Hopefully his friends would also help, but he knew not to be too hopeful. Even the most well meaning people seemed to forget sometimes that not everyone is built the same.

So he'd packed his supplies, very light given the nature of the hike, into his normal bookbag, and had selected one of his most-comfortable-yet-most-beat-up pairs of sneakers. Since he was a last minute recruit, the person who dropped out had offered up their camp mat and sleeping bag, so his friends should have that. Food, too, would be covered—more importantly in someone else's bag. But he did carefully stock up on bottled water, and freshened up his cat's food and water before leaving.

Being a graduate student, he'd taken a hard pass on student living and had moved off campus as quickly as possible shortly after graduating with his bachelor's degree. That meant it was more than a short walk to meet up with his friends, but luckily one of them was supposed to be picking up. He wasn't sure which one, but judging by the fact that Cameron had been standing awkwardly on the sidewalk beside the parking lot for quite some time, he thought it might be Katelynn. She was chronically late—or "fashionably late", as she'd often say in her defense. So when he heard the telltale grinding sounds of her trademark million-year-old truck, he wasn't surprised and opened the passenger door without hesitation.

"Gonna sit in my lap, Cam?" said Landon, who was apparently also present. That did surprise him.

"Fuck you," Cameron replied reflexively, shutting the door and switching to the backseat. The truck was old and small enough that the backseats were just these foldable things, like movie theater chairs with seat belts. He was pretty sure that the center console/armrest thing in the middle also folded into a chair, but it was even smaller and these were already kid-sized. Luckily he was kind of a small guy. Still, he had to shuck off his bookbag to sit down and buckle up.

"At least buy him dinner first," commented Katie from the driver's seat.

"I'm doing you kids a favor. He can buy me dinner," Cameron grumbled. "How many undergrads does it take to pick up one cripple, anyways?"

"Just the two of us!" Katie said cheerfully.

"Doing us a favor, huh?" Landon laughed. "Poor Cammie, having to get some exercise."

Cameron kicked the back of his seat just enough to jostle him as the truck roared—sputtered, really—back to life. "You were just at the gym with me yesterday, you brat. Don't you have any respect for your elders?"

"You do act like an old man all the time," Katie remarked with an audible smirk.

"I feel old around you guys sometimes," he confessed. In his group of friends the youngest person was nineteen, a freshman, and there were really only a few years between them. It felt like a much larger gap than that sometimes, especially when it was brought to life how radically different their experiences of life were. "I hope y'all plan on walking slow enough for me to stay caught up."

"We're not gonna ditch you, Cam," Landon said cheerfully, but he at least sounded genuine.

"Yeah, we'll be around to help," Katie agreed. "You know, we did some research. Google says it's fine. And we even met with the leader of the Biology Club and the Students With Disabilities Office to see if we needed to do anything special to make it work before we invited you."

"Wow, thanks," said Cameron, genuinely surprised that they'd gone to such extensive effort. "What's Bio Club got to do with it, anyways?"

"Apparently they hike this same trail pretty often in the spring to look at moss or something," she answered. "Plus, they know you."

"Oh," Cameron answered, feeling a tiny pang of hurt.

Katie sounded sympathetic. "Don't worry, Cam. It really sounds like he just didn't think you'd want to come. It just never occurred to them or Professor Radkin to invite you."

That's the problem, he thought, but didn't say anything. His energy would be wasted on bitterness, even if it stung to suddenly realize that he'd been left out of a normal part of club life on purpose.

"And now they will!" she continued. "So if you like this hike you'll just have to go with them next time."

"Google says plenty of blind people hike," Landon said, apparently detecting the need for a change of subject. "Especially with seeing eye dogs. Why don't you have one, anyways?"

Cameron laughed, feeling suddenly cheered. "You know, I was just thinking about that."

"Getting a dog?"

"Well, not really. But I was thinking about how this hike would be easier if I did."

"Why not, then?"

"They're expensive," he replied. "That and I already have the Dark Lord."

Katie snorted. "I'm still not believing that you got a white kitten with blue eyes and named it 'The Dark Lord."

"It's not like I could see him," Cameron replied cheekily, and Katie sputtered. He smiled. Mock offense: truly one of the greatest tools in the disability toolbelt.

"Don't you have a lot of money?" Landon asked, returning to the topic at hand.

"Well, yeah," Cameron admitted, scratching nervously at his head. "But I'm using it to pay my expenses so I can do school full time. I don't want to waste the money."

"Saving it for retirement?" Katie mused.

"Please," said Landon, "you think anybody in our generation'll get to retire?"

"It's not like it's a bad idea," Cameron said. "Imagine trying to save for retirement on a teacher's salary."

"Dude, you're loaded," Landon shot back, amused. "You could probably retire now and live it up if you wanted to."

Cameron snorted derisively. "That's an exaggeration. Also, I'd be bored out of my mind."

"Not if you had a dog to play with!" Katie sang.

"Are you guys trying to get me to drop out?" Cameron said, amused.

"Nope, we're still on the dog thing," answered Landon.

"Okay. Well, like I said, they're expensive. But even if I wanted to spend that money, there's a lot of demand and very little supply. The closest training schools around here have years-long waitlists, literally. It's not a really easy process to go through. And my relatives are, uh, long past helping me."

Sympathetic noises were heard from the front seats before Katie continued. "Maybe the Students with Disabilities Office could help."

"I'm sure they would. But by the time a guide dog was available for me, I'd be graduated anyways. Plus… I just don't really want one."

"Really?" Landon sounded a little surprised.

"It's not that I don't like dogs!" Cameron rushed out, a little defensively. It wasn't exactly true; while he wouldn't go as far as saying he disliked dogs, he didn't exactly go out of his way to interact with them. "I think I just don't like the idea of having a needy pet. I like my alone time. At least cats have boundaries—I respect that."

Landon laughed at him. "Well, if that's how you feel, we won't get on your case about it."

The last few minutes of the drive passed in comfortable silence until the truck slowed to a stop. Hearing the chatter outside, Cameron unbuckled and grabbed his bag.

"What are you doing?" Katie asked, and only then did he notice she still hadn't killed the engine.

"… Getting out?"

The door directly opposite him opened, and he heard two other people climbing inside. Then a third, even though there were only two open seats in the cab, including the center console.

"Katie's driving," explained one of the new people—Adnan.

"I thought a bunch of people were coming," Cameron replied, brows furrowed.

Perhaps in response to his look, Lydia responded, sounding slightly closer than Adnan. "Don't worry," she told him, "I'll fit fine here on the floor. And Jamie's little so they can fit in the booster seat."

"Hey!" Jamie, from the sound of it, had already settled in between Katie and Landon.

"And Drew and I are riding in the back," said Alexis from outside.

He took a moment to process. "By in the back, you don't mean the bed, right?"

"No, the bed is right," said Drew from his boyfriend's side. "We were hoping to catch some Zs anyways. We stayed up late cramming for the psych exam this morning."

"That's really unsafe—"

"What, cramming?" Alexis interrupted sarcastically.

"—and illegal, I'm pretty sure. I mean, it's bad enough that Lydia's on the floor. If we get in a wreck you're all gonna go flying."

"Are you telling me you don't trust my driving?" Katie joked. The door closed on his friend's chuckles and he heard the squeaking and felt the adjustment as they both hopped in the truck bed.

"No, just wondering why we're not renting a van or something."

"Well, this baby has four wheel drive," Katie said, fondly slapping the steering wheel. Judging by the sound it made, she probably had one of those ridiculous furry covers on it, which really did make him question her driving.

He raised a delicate eyebrow. "I didn't realize we were off-roading."

"It is a hike," Adnan snarked from the other backseat as the truck started moving again.

Cameron rolled his eyes. "Not on foot, idiot."

"My minivan is in the shop right now. The transition just went out again," Lydia offered from the floor.

"Transmission," corrected Landon.

"Whatever."

"We didn't have the extra money," Landon explained, ignoring her.

"That's crazy. Weren't you guys just telling me I'm loaded? I could have paid for a rental."

"If we asked you to help with the money thing, you'd think we only invited you because of that and then you'd get all sad and hurt but pretend not to be and refuse to talk to anyone about it," Katie cut in.

"It's true," said Adnan sagely.

"Is not," Cameron argued back childishly, though he knew he was blushing and, more importantly, lying. Sometimes he hated his sensitivity and emotional vulnerability. It felt like something he'd learned as a small child and never unlearned, even though it set him apart from other guys and felt like an even more pervasive weakness than his congenital lack of vision sometimes. He knew, logically, that suppressing his feelings would be real toxicity and weakness; emotions, however, are often not logical.

"Cameron, could you hold your bag in your lap so I can move your cane over here? It keeps poking me in the leg," Lydia asked.

"Oh, shit," he said, hurriedly picking it up by the strap. "I'm sorry, Elle, I didn't even think of that."

"I was starting to think that either the bag or the cane would take me out before Katelynn's driving even had a chance," she joked.

Katie fake-gasped, and everyone laughed, the mood lifting even though things had gone a bit sour for a moment.

"Surely you jest," Adnan teased.

"Never!" Lydia proclaimed.

"I wasn't joking," Cameron said, thinking of Alexis and Drew lying down in the bed of the truck.

"We know, Grandfather," Adnan shot back, and they all laughed some more.

Still, Cameron suddenly couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling that something was going to go terribly wrong. So he made every effort to laugh along with his friends and think less about it, for all the good that did. It wasn't a long drive, really. It wasn't even a long backpacking trip. Things could only go so badly… right?


Surprisingly, the drive did go well. Miraculously, Drew and Alexis had actually managed to fall asleep on their unrolled camp mats for the whole bumpy ride, all two hours of it.

The hike even started off really well. As promised, the group was moving at a leisurely pace. Cameron was using his cane, which was actually less troublesome than he'd expected on an unpaved walking trail, and in addition Katie had a guiding hand hovering so close to his elbow that he could feel how ice cold her hands were.

He was beginning to realize that this was probably the type of trail you could hike in one day if you really wanted to, and that his friends had probably done this more in the interest of catching up than doing any serious hiking, which was more than fine with Cameron. After all, it was kind of hard for them to all get together often; they were all full-time students, some of them working, and the ones who lived on campus left most weekends to visit their families. Lydia especially was tricky because of her clinicals.

And it was nice to hear them all talking, filling the silence of the woods with sounds of life. It felt at home here, with this found family of his. Though he couldn't exactly see the sights, he was enjoying the country air and the walk more than he'd anticipated, too. Maybe I will join the Bio Club next time after all.

Indeed, it came to an end for the night almost too fast. His friends explained that they wanted to finish the food and hang up the bear bag before it got too dark, as well as setting up camp.

"So what are we eating?" he asked.

There was a shuffling of fabric and then a quietly crinkling noise. "Hot dogs!" Landon said.

Cameron stared blankly at him. "Were those just… in your bag the whole time?"

He sounded vaguely offended. "I had an ice pack in there."

Cameron sighed. "Oh well. What's a little food poisoning in the grand scheme of things?"

Lydia snorted. "They're hot dogs. Do you know how processed those things are? I don't think they really go bad."

"Don't worry, Adnan," Katie said. "We got vegan ones for you. The Kroger brand."

"I'm not vegan, though," Adnan said, confused.

Then Katie sounded even more confused. "Aren't hot dogs, um, halal?"

"Haram. Halal is good," corrected Landon.

"Those are Nathan's," Adnan said. "They're beef."

"Oooooh," Katie said.

"I'll eat the vegan ones," Cameron volunteered.

"Wow," Adnan said. "Really branching out today, aren't you, Grandfather?"

Feeling a bout of silliness brought on from the front of the day, Cameron stuck his tongue out in Adnan's general direction.

And that's how the day came to a close—some idle chatter, some goofing around, and plenty of face-stuffing. Setting up camp was easy enough, too, since "camp" apparently meant "laying your camp mat on the ground".

Like usual, though, Cameron struggled to fall asleep. It always felt as if his internal clock was a little bit off. His doctors had always explained that this was a by-product of his blindness. Apparently, people with complete blindness—no light perception—often suffered circadian desynchrony because being unable to accurately perceive natural sunlight and darkness caused his body to operate out of the usual 24-hour cycle, and it never really produced melatonin at the right time. He had to supplement melatonin for it, and his antidepressants were supposed to help him sleep too. Unfortunately, in spite of all the care he'd taken in packing water and clothes, he'd forgotten his daily medications at home, but brought with him a whole vial of T and syringes even though he wasn't due another dose for a week.

As such, he spent quite a while tossing and turning, sighing loudly, and adjusting his position in the hopes that he would begin to feel tired. Even after everyone else had fallen asleep, he was still wide awake. And without their talking, he realized how eerily quiet it was.

That was… concerning. Shouldn't the birds have been chirping, or even the spring peepers be making a racket? Even some wind blowing through the trees would have been nice. He was pretty sure that this was the kind of eerie silence that swept over a summer camp in a horror movie before the ax-wielding maniac showed up to chop everyone to bits.

And in real life, he often heard stories of people who encountered predators or fire or bad weather, and they often described an unnatural silence, too. The tropes had to come from somewhere.

Fortunately, the silence was filled soon enough when he realized that two of his friends were still awake. Initially, he was a little caught off guard, but then he realized that it was Drew and Alexis, both of whom had slept for a couple of hours on the road. They'd been tired then, but now it was jacking up their sleep.

"Is everyone else asleep?" Drew muttered quietly.

"Nope. Don't tell me you didn't hear Cam tossing and turning over there."

"So sorry for disturbing you," Cameron simpered insincerely at Alexis.

"Psh. Sure. Hey, we're gonna explore a little. Want to come with us? We're not going far."

"Sure."

"Really?" Drew said. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," he confirmed. "Why not?"

"Because it's the woods, at night."

"I'm already sleeping in them," Cameron joked. "Anyways, it looks the same as it did in daylight to me."

Alexis snorted loudly.

"Just let me grab my backpack and cane. Bet I can get around faster than you."

"Hah! Yeah, you should be an expert at navigating in the dark by now."

"Technically, we're cheating," Drew pointed out. "We'll have a flashlight."

"Aw, don't tell him that! We had the advantage!"

"Technically you still do. Anyways, it's too late—I heard it click on like five minutes ago."

"Buzzkill."

"Me or Drew?" Cameron asked as he drew closer to the sounds of their voices and restrained giggling before they headed out.

"Obviously you, Cam. I'd never say something so mean to the love of my life."

"Glad I could be there to take the hits for you, Drew."

"I owe you for my very life!" Drew proclaimed dramatically.

They fell into a very tight pack as they went on. Drew and Alexis were even touching him at his sides. It was a little grating when people did this—assumed he needed help without actually offering it first—and if they weren't his friends, it would have been very grating. Cameron had no trouble admitting that his blindness was a disability; even though he wasn't immune to occasionally feeling burdensome, he wasn't ashamed of his blindness in and of itself. It wasn't like he'd done anything wrong—he'd been this way literally his entire life. Whatever had caused his blindness happened before he was born. For all he knew, it was his parents' fault… like so many other things.

Acknowledging that his blindness was a difficulty he hasn't signed up for unfortunately didn't come as a package deal with easily accepting constant aid and blows to his pride. Sometimes it still stung. Sometimes it still bothered him that he could never fully master self-sufficiency.

But he'd feel like an asshole for bringing it up now, since the path was narrower and harder to navigate with his cane. In this case they really were helping, and they meant well. Drew and Alexis weren't patronizing people.

They'd doubled back a little to one of the many offshoots of the main trail, just a lazy fifteen minute walk from camp. It was clearly less well traveled, and as they walked, Cameron noticed that it, too, was eerily devoid of sound. If it bothered either of his friends, they didn't mention it. Or maybe they hadn't noticed, being deprived of only one sense instead of two. Maybe they were just that focused on telling him about how they had probably passed their exams, how their most recent dates went, and asking advice about apartment hunting. They wanted to live together, without roommates, for their last year before graduation.

For Cameron, once he'd noticed, he couldn't stop noticing. The feeling of dread from earlier that day had already returned.

"Guys, are we completely off the trail now?" He stopped briefly but almost had to keep going because of their close proximity, and then suddenly they had a slight grip on him. As if they were of the same mind, Drew loosely intertwined their fingers and Alexis held the opposite upper arm from behind.

"Sorry, Cam," Drew said. "I guess we didn't really think about how that might throw you off."

They were quiet for a minute, all moving forward and one of them with growing unease. Then Alexis's voice cut into the stifling silence. "How could you tell?"

"The ground in front of us has been bumpier and more uneven… I keep swiping my cane through piles of dead leaves. At first I thought it might just be because this path is less trafficked than the main loop but I've been feeling the grass brushing my ankles for the past few minutes now. The designated trails have been dirt until now… it's not like this one is brand new."

"Huh," his friend remarked, "that makes sense. You know, if I was blindfolded I don't think I'd be able to come up with that."

Cameron chuckled a little. "If I was a sighted person wearing a blindfold I doubt I would either. But I've been using a cane like this for more than 20 years now. That's a lot of time to learn how to take full advantage of it."

"Is it true that your other senses get stronger if you lose your vision?" Drew asked, then seemed to realize he might have overstepped. "Sorry. You don't have to answer that."

Cameron shook his head. "You're not being a dick about it. And we're friends. I'm happy to answer a question that's asked in earnest. Just… let me think about it."

"Of course."

So he contemplated the question for a moment. It wasn't that he'd never been asked that question, but it was more that every person warranted a slightly different answer. Many people asked that sort of question to hint to him that they were in the know and others asked mostly just to fill the awkward silence between them and their New Blind Lab Partner™ and not out of genuine interest. His impression was that those people didn't really warrant a response of any depth and they didn't really want one. They already had their own ideas about what his disability was like and whatever he said was very unlikely to deeply impact their worldview. Still others were genuinely curious but not super invested, which was at least understandable, so he'd keep his answer sincere but general in the interest of brevity. Other people would launch into a hundred other personal questions, which always struck him as pretty intrusive and nosy, especially when some of the answers were a single web search away. But it was a little different between friends who genuinely cared and who'd bothered to establish a relationship with him before expressing their interest. In that case, he reasoned, they may actually appreciate some detail.

"That's probably a little more complicated than you expected it but I'll do the best I can to answer well. To start… I don't think I really can answer your question completely because I didn't actually lose my vision. It's congenital—my eyes didn't respond to light when I was born and later testing showed that I had no light perception whatsoever. So I didn't even have low vision and then lose that—I just started off with nothing."

Alexis made a noise of surprise, and when Cameron glanced over at him, he started, "I guess I just didn't realize that. I mean, I kind of assumed—Well."

"Go on," Cameron said.

Alexis sounded embarrassed. "I assumed that you maybe had a head injury or something a long time ago."

"Can I ask why?"

"I—I—Um. Okay. Thinking about it now, I don't have any super compelling reasons… I mean for a while I thought there might actually be something wrong with your eyes because you always wore those sunglasses. So I guess I thought maybe your eyes were injured or, uh, deformed somehow?"

This was an interesting and surprisingly common assumption. He could remember all the way back in elementary school when his parents had pleaded with the principal to make a dress code exception for him, back when he'd still been under the impression that failing to wear his sunglasses in public and even at home, where his parents found him to be a walking representation of some kind of deep moral failing, was actually some kind of blind person faux pas. In fact, he couldn't remember if he'd been under the impression that something might at least be unusual about his irises; he only knew for sure that his eyes were obviously still there and there was no scarring or other blemish around his eyes that he could identify by touch. Back then kids seemed to think that he had no eyes or had been horribly burned or something, and they'd rip them right off his face out of sheer curiosity. Even some adults had done it. It baffled him then, before he realized that blindness in the media was usually the consequence of a violent injury or serious illness; maybe people who were born blind and lost nothing weren't as compelling to sighted audiences.

"But then I saw them and they're just… normal. I mean, kind of an unusual color but not super weird. So I thought that whatever happened must not have happened directly to your eyes, and they must have been collateral damage. I knew it must have been a long time ago because the whole time I've known you you've been so, um…"

"Well-adjusted?" Cameron guessed.

"Yes! That. So obviously you're used to it. You can do basically everything a normal person—"

"A sighted person," Drew cut in.

"—sorry—a sighted person can do and it didn't seem to bother you. And obviously there's some skill involved, which takes time…" Cameron imagined that Alexis might be unusually flushed, or look very ashamed, based on how he sounded. It was atypical for his friend, who was good-natured but a bit brash at times. "I'm sorry. I should have kept that to myself… what a foot-in-mouth moment."

"You do have those," grumbled Drew, giving his hand a comforting squeeze she must have thought Cameron needed after hearing his rambling word vomit.

He waved his free hand dismissively. "It's fine. I mean, I asked, right? I was curious too. And I really appreciate you answering honestly. The truth is lots of people think that way, but they usually don't tell me that in a setting where it's appropriate to wonder why. It's, ah… I'll admit that used to bother me a lot."

"I'm sorry," said Drew, squeezing his hand again.

"Don't be. Seriously. You guys are good people, and kind of a part of my found family here. So… it matters to me." He laughed a little awkwardly then. "I know that's corny. Would you like me to go on in regards to the original question?"

"As long as you're okay with it," Drew said, and Alexis concurred, sounding more like himself already.

"Absolutely. So, I can't really tell you what happens if you lose your vision. Not from my perspective, anyways. Objectively, it's something that's been studied, and it doesn't seem like there's any substantial increase in response to the same or similar sensory input between the blind and the sighted, except obviously vision. I can speculate why, if you'd like?"

"Please," Alexis answered immediately.

"Alright. So, this does involve my perspective, obviously. From my view I've never thought that my senses were stronger than anyone else's. I think it's important to note that sensory input is something you can receive passively. So, for example, the grass brushing my ankles that I mentioned earlier. I'm sure you've been feeling the same thing—"

Drew chuckled suddenly. "Well, no, actually. Everyone else is wearing long pants."

"Oh," he replied stupidly. "Well… I guess if you were wearing shorts, you'd have still felt that grass. But because you can see everything in front of you, you don't have to rely on that to know we're not on the walking path anymore. It was obvious to you the second we stepped off of the marked dirt trail and onto the ground alongside it. That's true for a lot of things. If you can see what's going on, some of the other things you're picking up on probably don't stand out as much because they're just confirming what you already knew to be true. It's extraneous information and most people kind of just dismiss it."

He paused, and they both made affirming noises. "That makes sense," Drew said encouragingly.

"Great! So, for someone who can't see what's going on, it's not extraneous anymore. It's all I've—all we've got. I think the way you guys learned to pay attention to what you see, I learned to pay attention to everything else, because I need all of those tools in my toolkit to perceive the world. And I'm told visual cues can be pretty overwhelming sometimes… so maybe it's also easier for me to notice everything else because I just don't have the same distractions that you do."

"Okay. That makes a lot of sense, actually," Drew mused. "So… you have to learn better observational skills, because you're starting off with less data than most of us."

"That's a good way of putting it," Alexis said, his hand leaving Cameron's arm for a moment, presumably to pat Drew on the back or something before it returned.

"It is," Cameron agreed. "Way more concise, too. I like it. And in the same way I learned to observe the world different from the start, someone who loses sight has to learn to take more notice of their other senses before, so their perception isn't totally incomplete. It's not that blind people have extraordinary hearing or anything like that; it's just that we're conditioned to listen better so we can interact with the world with minimal difficulty. Even if we're hearing, smelling, and feeling all the same things, I'm more likely to need to know all of that to understand what's going on than you are, because you can rely on your sight."

"Isn't that kind of scary, though?" Drew asked.

"I'm sure it can be for someone who's lost their vision recently. It has to be a big adjustment. For me… it's all I've ever known. I'm not saying it's always easy or anything but for the most part I haven't landed in any really sticky situations specifically because I couldn't see. And I'm sure there are some things that are really frightening for sighted people but not blind people… like when I visited the Grand Canyon. I remember lots of people were absolutely shitting bricks to go on the Sky Walk because of how high it is, but to be honest, it didn't really do much for me."

At that, they all laughed.

"So, um, about your eyes," Alexis said, "since there is nothing wrong with them, why do you wear the sunglasses all the time?"

Cameron noted that this was the perfect moment to say, Actually, I can't see, but graciously refrained. "Right now? I like the aesthetic."

"Oh." Alexis sounded surprised again, but not unpleasantly. "So… is that not really something that blind people do?"

"I feel like this is kind of the answer to most things you could ask, so I'm sorry about that, but it's kind of going to depend based on the person you ask. Like, some people do want to hide their eyes from people. There's a lot of pressure on blind people to make sighted people comfortable with us so that we can fully engage with society. So maybe someone who is worried that their eyes are unattractive will want to cover them up. Some other people might worry that their eyes could unsettle people in other ways. Like, sometimes it's really hard to maintain eye contact or some blind people have an issue with staring, so they'll wear shades to avoid upsetting anyone around them accidentally. Growing up I kind of fell in that camp. My parents told me that it was polite for me to wear them, so I did."

"Did they maybe think it would kind of flag that you're blind to people so you could easily get help when you needed it?" Drew suggested cautiously.

Cameron shrugged the question off with possibly unnecessary aggression. "I can't say for sure, but to be honest, I don't think so. They weren't exactly proud of it… or me." He coughed slightly. "Um. And since 'blind' can actually be a variety of things… for some people sunglasses are a tool that they actually need to accommodate for health problems. Like, I have no light perception so I can't see anything. But some people do have light perception so they can see light and darkness and maybe even shapes. That's called 'low vision' but it's still considered blindness. They might use sunglasses to prevent eye strain. Like… imagine if you went without your glasses or contacts for a day."

Alexis gently nudged his shoulder. "Neither of us wear glasses, Cam," he teased. "How long have you known us again?"

Cameron rolled his eyes. "Wow, that's crazy, since I've never seen you without them."

Alexis booed, and Drew was so startled that she snorted rather loudly. "That was terrible."

"I'm here all night," Cameron answered with satisfaction.

"Well, don't quit your day job," Alexis said after another round of booing.

"Tough crowd," he commented in exchange. "Okay. Imagine if you were wearing the wrong size shoes all day. And not just a half size—two or three. Even more, maybe. Your feet are gonna hurt after a while, right?" He waited until he heard them both hum their agreement. "It's the same for people with bad vision. If your brain is really struggling to process what you're seeing all day, it can damage your eyes even worse, or even give you migraines or make you dizzy. A good pair of shades or maybe corrective lenses can help a lot with that my either fixing the problem so that you have better information to process or by eliminating the input entirely."

"Oh," Alexis said. "Huh. That makes a lot of sense. More sense than wearing something you don't like just to make other people comfortable."

Cameron understood that more deeply than Alexis would probably care to know, but didn't say so. "I agree. Unfortunately it's just the reality of things… plenty of people feel like they have to accommodate for things they can't really help and that's just an easy way to do it."

"But that's not why you do it," Drew recalled.

"Yeah, not anymore. I went pretty quickly from stage one to wearing increasingly goofy sunglasses to provoke my parents to genuinely enjoying them as an accessory and kind of reclaiming it. I think sometimes that actually has the opposite effect; someone who's visibly blind and not embarrassed or trying to hide it can make people pretty uncomfortable. They just don't know what to say, but I don't think it's my problem."

"'Cause it's not!" Alexis whooped.

"Which reminds me. You guys do know where we are, right? Because if we're lost off-trail in a state park that is my problem. And yours, actually."

Alexis laughed. "We do, I promise. We were looking up some things to do at the park and I saw some people on Reddit talking about seeing some interesting things off the beaten path. I took notes so we could check it out."

"From Reddit?" Drew asked, a little weakly. "I don't think you mentioned Reddit."

"It's fine!" Alexis protested. "I took notes. Look: 'walk a few hundred yards and then you'll see a lone trunk from a fallen tree. On the trunk at about eye level someone carved an arrow. Walk in that direction and if you head that way for a few minutes you'll eventually find the Thing."

"The Thing?" Cameron echoed. He'd shockingly been enjoying their conversation before and had all but forgotten the uneasy feelings from before, but they were quickly back.

Luckily Drew rushed to put him at ease. "Apparently there's a graveyard from an old settlement of something."

He felt vaguely disappointed. "Oh."

"It'll be cool. I think even you'll be able to appreciate it. We even brought some paper and graphite sticks so we could do rubbings of the gravestones. Maybe you'll be able to feel out the text."

Well, he could at least hope for that. If not, he'd have thoroughly enjoyed the walk by the time they got back, and maybe would even be tired enough to sleep. "Alright, sounds good to me."

So they walked a while further, until suddenly coming to an abrupt halt. "Okay, I think this is it," Alexis said.

Cameron loosely swept his cane right-left-right-left a few times until he felt it hit something hard. It wasn't very high of the ground, though, and judging by the sounds of the rocks moving at the very light touch, it wasn't in great condition. "No rubbings of this one," he wryly commented.

"Uh," Drew answered, "no rubbings of any of them actually."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," said Alexis. "It kind of looks like they fell over and the largest pieces of the monuments got stolen or something." Cameron privately thought he had no right to sound so cheerful about it.

"Really?"

"Yup." Alexis was still so chipper. "Well, at least we can still drink as planned."

"Huh?" Cameron's brow creased.

"You didn't notice?" Drew asked mischievously.

"Notice… what?"

"All that talk about being observant and you didn't even notice there was a whole bottle of Jack in your bookbag!" Alexis crowed.

At that Cameron actually laughed out loud. "I can't believe y'all dragged me all the way out her just to drink."

"Wellllll…" Drew lengthened the word dramatically. "We can't exactly party while all the others are sleeping."

"Ha! Dibs on the first drink, then. You kids owe me for your little act of deception!" he declared, crossing him arms once his bag was placed safely on the ground.

"Ooooh! The return of Grandpa Cameron!" Alexis sing-songed in a loud bellow that absolutely would not have flown close to camp.

"Only if Grandpa's about to get completely shitfaced," Cameron replied as he shuffled through the bag. The bottle was buried within all the water bottles, which kind of explained why he hadn't noticed it before. They must have shoved it in there while his was still trying to sleep, or maybe even way back when they were unloading the truck, with the intention of "borrowing it" later. He wasn't exactly thrilled about it since his phone was zipped in there and it was his lifeline, but he supposed it was all paying off in the end. "Speaking of, are we 100% sure this is a good idea? I mean, we'll still be able to find our way back, right?"

"Well, we won't get completely shitfaced," said Drew as she watched Cameron open the bottle and take the first, long draw. "Maybe just a little. Jesus, Cam. Must not be that worried."

"What? I'm just pregaming," Cam said, handing the bottle off to the younger student. And she was right, too—in the moment of calm and easy fun, he'd completely forgotten the feeling that there really was something to be worried about.


They carried on that way for a while, boisterously laughing and joking as they treated the bottle between shots. Just when Cam started to suspect that they might be overdoing it, Alexis placed the bottle back in the bag and threw them each a water (for which they were all now very grateful). "Let's sober up a little," he decided. "Then we can head back."

"Well, in that case," Cameron began, rolling his shoulders, "what really drew you out here?" There was a moment of silence. "Come on. You don't seriously think I believe that you came all this way just to see those headstones, right? You didn't sound too surprised when we got here, Alexis. So what gives? You found it in a Reddit post, right? I bet there was a photo and you already knew the headstones were gone. And sure, we couldn't party too close to the others, but we didn't have to come this far."

He thought they might be exchanging glances, and finally drew sighed. "Okay, Cam. You're right. We didn't see any pictures, but I got the feeling Alexis didn't think it would be all that. We mostly came for the other thing."

"The other thing?"

"When we saw how disappointing the graves were I kind of assumed the other thing was bullshit too," Alexis explained. "But I thought we could still have a good time."

"Okay, but what's the other thing?" Cameron asked with increasing curiosity.

"I'd hate to disappoint you again," Alexis said, sounding the the cat who got the cream, or more accurately the owner who already had the cream and was holding it over the cat's head.

"Better take him there before we talk it up," Drew said, bumping their shoulders.

Cam groaned dramatically. "If you insist! I have to know."

"Better get that cane then, Gramps. There you go. Wait, you're bringing the whole bag? What for?" Alexis asked.

"I have the weirdest feeling that if I don't keep it on me I'm gonna lose it."

The other two laughed. "If you insist," Alexis mocked as they dragged him along, barely even allowing for the use of his cane. "Come in, it's meant to be close."

And it was. Even dragging their feet and stumbling slightly, Alexis had the general direction on his phone and dragged them there almost within a minute.

"Okay," he said, regaining his balance, "so what is it?"

This time, even Alexis sounded disappointed. "It's… a circle of rocks."

Cam blinked. "What?"

"It's a circle of rocks."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Drew sighed in frustration while Cameron reached out his cane and carefully walked the outside of the circle, feeling the delicate movements in his hands as the cane's tip bounced across the uneven surfaces. "It was supposed to be some kind of witchcraft thing."

"Maybe it's a fairy circle," Alexis suggested.

Sure enough, Cameron noticed as he made his way around, it was a circle. Nearly a perfect one, perhaps eight or nine feet in diameter. "I think they're called fairy rings," he pointed out, "and they have to be mushrooms. This is obviously manmade. And those things aren't real, witches or fairies."

"Well, yeah, of course not. But it would still be some people in the 1600s doing creepy shit in the woods. That's the legend anyways."

"We kind of just thought it would be cool too goof off in the same spot where a bunch of people people danced around naked and pretended they were summoning the devil," Drew admitted. "And the more I look at it the more I think it really is kind of creepy."

"Yeah," Alexis agreed, matching his quiet tone. "It's not, like… silly spooky the way I expected it to be. It's actually got kind of bad vibes."

"Bad vibes," Cameron repeated flatly with a single raised brow. "How, exactly?"

Their discomfort was becoming more palpable by the minute. "It's just… I mean, it's obviously been here for a long time. But there's no moss on the rocks. No insects… and all the vegetation inside is completely dead. As in, dried to a crisp. I mean, I guess it's the season… but the grass right outside it is green, and the leaf litter is colorful. All fresh, you know?"

Alexis was quick to back up his boyfriend. "And immediately inside it's completely shriveled up and brown. There's not a single color. Not one blade of grass. It's almost like…"

"Like what?" Cameron was starting to feel slightly amused, but was more overwhelmed by frustration.

"Like nothing dares to live in there."

Cameron snorted. He was vaguely aware that he was being rude, and also vaguely aware that he might have had a bit much to drink after all in such a short time on a mostly empty stomach. And with no chasers or really any dilution at all. Hmm. "Y'all just watched me walk a circle around it and touch every stone. I didn't get any bad vibes. They're just rocks. Someone probably dumped a bunch of herbicide in there or something. Life avoids that stuff like the plague, it's crazy toxic."

"Maybe," Drew said. He heard some soft crunching from the direction of her voice, drawing neither closer or further away.

"I bet whoever posted it on Reddit just wanted someone to come here and see this so their post would gain more traction. Imagine the likes. Uh, upvotes, I mean."

"Maybe," Drew said again. There was a very soft rustling sound this time, still stationary, like the sound of someone rustling through the leaves.

"Go on," Alexis told him, "throw it in there. Maybe he's right and we're getting freaked out over nothing."

You are, Drew, Alexis—both of you, he thought with increasing fury. Hadn't they drawn out their came long enough?

The rustling started again, the softened quickly. Cameron imagined a handful of leaves floating softly in the nonexistent breeze before settling gently on the ground within the ring. Maybe they were bright spots of color among the poisoned remains of whatever laid their before. Or maybe, as Cam was beginning to suspect more, they would blend right in the the grass and leaves that were already there. In the quiet, he had no reason to believe either of these things were untrue.

But the sounds of his friends' breathing had gone silent, and then in a split second they cried out. "Holy shit, did you fucking see that?"

"What the fuck?" They were so in hysterics that it was actually difficult to distinguish who said what.

"Oh my god, we have to go. Please come on, Cam! We shouldn't be here." That was Drew, at least.

"Are you guys serious?" It was taking real effort nkt to ball his hands into fists. They were A-list actors, he'd give them that. "I've been here the whole time. I haven't felt any bad vibes and I haven't noticed anything off at all except you two. Didn't we literally just talk about this? I'm blind, not stupid." He hoped he sounded angry, but controlled. He didn't appreciate being made fun of and genuinely at his expense. He hadn't done it to them. He thought he'd been a good friend for years now. The confusion was almost more upsetting than the anger; what could I have done to deserve this?

"Are you calling us liars?" Alexis said, his irritation at the thought only convincing Cameron that the whole thing was a well-executed prank that just… hadn't landed how they expected.

"Maybe this is like Grand Canyon," Drew cut in, suddenly sounding serene, like he'd had a very enlightening thought. "You have to see it to experience it."

And that was it—the breaking point. It dawned on him suddenly that he'd been tricked, not by their stupid joke but in a much worse way. He'd been mistaken, perhaps for ages, about their genuine friendship, and it had all lead up to one night in the woods, a frank and vulnerable discussion in which he'd trusted them not only to be in earnest but to share in some personal thoughts and feelings… trust that had been sorely misplaced.

For a moment he felt like a puppet whose strings had snapped, but he didn't allow it for long. After the moment of weakness and devastation passed—through sheer force of will—he took several deep breaths. "Experience it," he said finally. "Yes, you're right."

Drew breathed out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank goodness! Alright, let's g—"

"I should experience it," Cameron went on, like he'd not spoken at all.

"What?" Drew answered in shock, reaching out just in time to watch Cameron take a calculated step back towards the stone ring. "What are you doing?"

"He thinks we're lying, Drew," Alexis relief with equal parts shock and outrage. "Are you serious, man? We came out here to have a good time with you!"

"Huh?" Cameron smiled icily, like he was in on the joke. "Are we not having a good time now?" Holding his cane loosely underarm, he slid both his hands into his shorts pocket, leaning casually into the weight of his backpack where it hung from his left shoulder.

"You fucking asshole!" Alexis snapped. "You're calling us liars, really? Fucking look at you. Your whole life is a lie."

Yeah. Misplaced trust indeed. "Alexis, please!" Drew pleaded.

"You know what?" Cameron said. "Yeah. I am. You're full of shit, and this joke isn't funny."

Alexis's voice was ice cold. "Maybe you're right, then. You do need to experience it."

Crazy, how fast he'd gone from "genuinely scared" to completely outraged. "Experience what?" Cam goaded, teeth bared in a menacing smile.

"Alexis, stop it! He's just upset—we all drank too much. Let's just g—"

"Experience this."

Cameron heard him move, tasted the alcohol on Alexis's breath in his face, felt the encroachment on his personal space as the taller man grabbed him by the collar, but wasn't quick enough to react. And then he felt it happening again, in slow motion, cut clearly from the dream he'd had just the night before as he grunted from the release and the impact of a forceful shove, and then he was falling

and falling

and falling

and falling

and someone was screaming—two someones, maybe—

And the fall stopped just as suddenly, and with horrible intensity.

Suddenly nothing was clear anymore, not where he was, or what had happened, and certainly not the dream from the night before. He groaned, reaching up to his head, and felt his hand brush against a stony, wet surface. Though his eyes were mostly closed, for the first time in many years, he saw Light with his own eyes.

He screwed them shut, groaning loudly and rolling away from the stone. Nooooo. That wasn't supposed to happen.

"Oh my god! He's bleeding! Alexis! Look what you did!"

"Fuck—shit—I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"Please, Cameron! Are you okay? This was just a mistake… we'll get you help! We'll run back and get the others."

He groaned again, weaker this time. There was no more light but he nevertheless nudged his glasses aside to cover his eyes. "Lyd—Llll—Ellllle," he slurred, finding it increasingly hard to make out what his friends were saying.

"Right! —'samistake… tell them… we'll fix this!"

"Stay—kay? We—right back, Cameron—promise.

"N't m'vnnn," feeling very relaxed all of a sudden.

"—run—whole way!" They sounded so far away already… were they both leaving?

"Nnnnoooo… stay," he pleaded with the empty air. But he heard nothing else. He wasn't even sure if he'd actually said anything aloud. He was aware of a deeply uncomfortable heat. He was aware of retching, burning alcohol. Then he was aware of nothing else.


Somewhere, more than just miles away, a very particular butler was aware of a disturbance.


oh hey it's me again. so here's the deal: please do not anticipate that most chapters will be over 8000 words. in my previous experience writing this kind of forces the pacing of chapters to be very inconsistent because sometimes there is just not that much to say before the chapter reaches its appropriate ending. personally i would prefer to put out better, shorter chapter more often instead of feeling tied to a specific length as i have in the past. my original intention was to split this chapter into at least two smaller ones, but i didn't really find an appropriate breaking point to make that happen, and i also don't want to subject you to lengthy exposition before introducing the characters you know and love. after all, it is very much in the style of the source material for exposition to be relevant and intertwined in the story.

this is not really a self insert because i'd bawl like a baby if i got stuck in black butler... i am also not blind so please excuse me and offer gentle correction if i have gone terribly wrong.

expect a chapter soon, as in tomorrow or the day after. till next time 10.07.23

ps: title is a work in progress for now i just really want to post this ;u;