I’m so cold Baekhyun thought, trying weakly to move and finding himself unable. It hurt to breathe, his ribs were tight, and strained against every rise and fall. Had he been holding his breath? His lungs burned and his head pounded from lack of oxygen Where was he? The last thing he remembered was driving home from his most recent solo camping trip. Let’s see… he had gotten into his car and driven down the near pitch-black road from the camp site for 10 miles or so through the wooded outskirts of Kepler, West ia, then… it’s blurry… Had something run out in front of his car? Yes, yes something was there, on the side of the road. It was tall and thin, and moved like some kind of bipedal spider. It jumped out in front of his car. Baekhyun tried to hit the breaks or swerve out of the way, but he hit a patch of wet asphalt and hydroplaned, he careened straight into the trees and then-

Baekhyun sat up with a ragged gasp, the air stringing as it passed through his dry throat. Everything was so bright, and loud. Baekhyun clutched his head in attempt to will the feeling of the ice picks being drilled into his temples. He was nauseous, and empty. His joints creaked and groaned when he moved. His eyelids felt heavy, threatening to fall closed as Baekhyun squinted at his surroundings. Was he in a cave? Was he dying? Was he already dead? Baekhyun spotted the mouth of the cave about 50 feet away, the cool light of early morning shining in and pooling on the stone floor. Baekhyun stood up to run, to get help, to do anything at all. But his legs failed him, buckling underneath him, and sending him tumbling forward. He shut his eyes and braced for impact.

But it never came. Baekhyun slowly opened his eyes, looking down to find a pair of pale, bony hands holding him up by the shoulders. Someone had caught him, a man. Baekhyun slowly began to look up at the man. He was wearing a pair of more than beat up black high-top Vans, black scuffed up jeans, clearly too short in the legs, a faded Ramones t-shirt with a very oversized grey hoodie, and a mess of leather bands and twine wrapped around his thin wrists. Baekhyun’s gaze finally crawled its way up to reveal a very inquisitive face. He was white as a sheet, with messy black hair tied into a half ponytail with a piece of twine, loose pieces and frizz stuck out, framing his face. He had big, dopey ears and a single dimple in his left cheek. Resting atop his nose, was a pair of wildly oversized red sunglasses. The man tipped his sunglasses down, revealing a set of enormous eyes with fully black scleras.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, his voice soft and raspy.

Baekhyun looked at the strange man with his strange eyes and felt his head begin to swim before letting himself fall fully into his arms as his vision out from the outside in.

 

**

 

Baekhyun took in a slow deep breath, everything hurt less. He almost felt well-rested. Maybe that was all some weird dream. He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, disappointed to see it was the slate gray stone of a cave.

“Hello?” A timid voice said, mere inches away from Baekhyun’s face.

“Oh, what the -” Baekhyun sat bolt upright and scrambled backwards against the smooth, cold wall.

“W-wait! Please don’t pass out again! Please!” The strange man stood quickly and backed away, waving his hands in front of him in an effort to appear non-threatening.

Baekhyun took a few more deep breaths and looked the man over again. He was slim and kind of gangly with joints that bent at odd angles. He looked well over 6 feet tall, even hunched over with his shoulders up near his ears. The man stared back, his hands clutched close to his chest, anxiously playing with his fingers.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said, looking at Baekhyun with his huge, black eyes. “Your head doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?” He closed the distance between him in a blink of an eye and curiously touched the top of Baekhyun’s head with a timid, shaky hand. “You were pretty banged up when you, uh, when I…”

Baekhyun relaxed slightly, realizing that whatever this guy was, he didn’t want to hurt him. He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the spot the strange man had briefly touched. Beneath his fingers was a fully healed scar that had definitely not been there before.

“Um, no, my head… doesn’t hurt. Why would-” Baekhyun shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “Wait, where am I? And who are you?”

“Oh!” The odd man stood up a bit straighter, “My name is Chanyeol, but, uh, I think most people call me the Mothman.

Baekhyun deadpanned, “I’m sorry, what now? You’re the Mothman?”

“Yeah.”

Baekhyun stared at Chanyeol with a mixture of confusion and concern.

“Alrightalrightalrightalright, hold on, uuuhh, check this out,” Chanyeol slipped out of his oversized hoodie and dropped it in a pile on top of a worn-looking bean bag chair. “Check this out,” He did a couple of large circles with his arms, then him out to his sides in a T pose. With a loud flap, a set of feathery, taupe wings exploded from is back.

“HOLY , YOU WERE SERIOUS?! I FIGURED YOU WERE JUST SOME CRACKPOT WITH A PAIR OF FUNKY CONTACTS IN, BUT YOU’RE THE GODDAMN MOTHMAN!”

Chanyeol gave Baekhyun an endearingly lopsided grin, and two fuzzy antennas sprang up from the top of his head, further messing up his already loose ponytail, “Yep, tada!” He gave Baekhyun some jazz hands, “Cool, right? Oh! And this my house!” Chanyeol gave a grand sweep of his arm, showing off the interior of his weird, little home. It was the size of a small studio apartment, with a ton of glowing lanterns, a couple of worn, hand made-looking bean bag chairs in front of an iron fireplace, a woven rug, a pile of blankets, a wooden desk covered in loose papers, random wooden and metal bowls of varying sizes, bits of plant life and other debris, and a large trunk with the lid propped open, revealing a mess of books, small jars filled with dried plants, cool rocks, and other trinkets.

Definitely a place where a moth would live, Baekhyun thought to himself.

“Okay so,” Baekhyun calmed down, easing back into a comfortable seated position on the makeshift bed he was sitting on, “How did I get here?”

“Oh. Uh,” Chanyeol looked down at his shoes, appearing somewhat forlorn, “About that…”

Chanyeol came closer to Baekhyun, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him and peering up at him with his huge, black eyes. “It’s my fault, I’m really sorry. You see- I- I saw your car driving down the road and I- I saw that one of your headlights was out and you were about to speed right through a patch of water and I didn’t want you to get hurt so I tried to get your attention so you would slow down but I’m kinda weird looking and it was dark, so I just scared you and you ended up-”

Chanyeol took a deep breath and searched for somewhere to put his hands, settling for tying and untying his shoelaces. He looked up at Baekhyun with sad eyes, “You… died…”

Baekhyun blinked at the strange man sitting in front of him, trying to process what he had just said. He looked at his hands, turning him over to assess whether he was real or not.

“Oh! You’re not dead now, though,” Chanyeol interrupted, trying to be reassuring.

“But I was dead?”

“Yes.”

“So, how am I not dead now?”

“I brought you back!”

Baekhyun gave Chanyeol an incredulous look.

“With magic! Uh- necromancy, to be specific.”

Baekhyun considered this for a second. Surely the concept of necromancy being possible couldn’t be that outlandish if he was sitting in front of the literal Mothman.

“You do necromancy.”

“Yes!” Chanyeol sprang up and zipped across the cave to the messy desk covered in papers, “I used this stuff,” He held up a handful of herbs and things, “It was a spell! And I can’t believe it actually worked. I mean I’ve practiced this kind of stuff before, like I’ve brought back small birds and things but never a full human. My uh, mentor, the scientist that made me, taught me how to do all this stuff.”

Chanyeol quickly placed his items back down on his desk, suddenly getting an idea, and zipped quickly back over to Baekhyun, “Are you hungry? You’ve been dead for 6 months, so you’ve got to be hungry, right?”

“I’ve been dead for 6 months!?” Baekhyun stood up to quickly, swaying slightly, suddenly lightheaded.

Chanyeol quickly grabbed him around the arms to keep him from falling, “Yeah, uh, necromancy is a lot of work, and I wanted to get it right, so you didn’t end up a zombie, so you were like, asleep… for a while.”

Baekhyun steadied himself and Chanyeol cautiously let go of his arms but didn’t back up.

“So, are you hungry? I have uh… rats?”

“You eat rats?!”

“Well not all the time- it’s fine, I’ll find you some people food,” Chanyeol folded his wings back and slipped into his oversized hoodie, “I’ll be right back!” He waved at Baekhyun and jogged out of the mouth of the cave with all of the coordination and grace of a marionette come to life.

He’s all elbows and knees, Baekhyun thought, laughing to himself.

In the absence of his host, Baekhyun took to wandering around the cave, investigating the surroundings. It was surprisingly homey for the cave of a weird man who was half insect. It was just cold, really cold. Baekhyun walked over to the pile of blankets and picked one up, a grey and white knitted afghan, and wrapped it tightly around his shoulders. Baekhyun wondered if Chanyeol had made it himself, giggling quietly at the thought of that gangly dude trying to coordinate a set of knitting needles. Baekhyun snooped around a bit more, examining all the sparkly knickknacks and chachkis littered on every surface between the brightly coloured lanterns, flickering softly, casting the cold cave with a warm, sunny light.

A while later, Baekhyun turned to face the mouth of the cave, hearing the clumsy flapping of wings. Chanyeol landed awkwardly, holding a Subway takeout bag tightly in his left hand and held it out to Baekhyun, “I found food!”

Baekhyun smiled wide, “Dude, where in the hell did you get Subway?”

“I flew over into town to look for food and I don’t really have any money, so I just startled some guy on the street so bad that he dropped his lunch and ran away, I feel kinda bad about it, actually.” Chanyeol held the bag out to Baekhyun, “I don’t know what kind it is, sorry.”

Baekhyun thanked him and unwrapped the sandwich, it was a pizza sub. Score. Baekhyun ate the sub entirely too quickly, suddenly feeling the effects of not having eaten for half a year. After he had finished, Baekhyun settled into a bean bag while Chanyeol made a fire. Once the fire was roaring consistently, Chanyeol joined his new friend in the adjacent bean bag.

“Why do you live in a cave?” Baekhyun suddenly asked.

Chanyeol laughed, “I mean, look at me. I don’t think most people would be cool with some spindly dude with wings just casually standing in line at the bank or something. I’ve heard the stories people tell about me. They don’t like me, I think,” he looked sad.

Baekhyun gave him a sympathetic look, “You don’t get a lot of company around here, huh?”

Chanyeol shook his head, frowning slightly, and pulled one of his long legs up so he could wrap his arms around it and rest his chin atop his knee.

Baekhyun considered him for a moment. It must be pretty lonely out here with no friends.

“Do you want to be friends?” Baekhyun said hesitantly.

Chanyeol’s eyes grew even wider, ‘Really? You’d be my friend?!”

Baekhyun laughed, seeing how excited Chanyeol had gotten, “Yeah, dude. We can like, hang out and stuff.”

Chanyeol gave him a wide, crooked smile, “You don’t think I’m weird? Or creepy? Or scary?”

“What? Just cuz you’re some super tall guy with wings and black eyes the size of dinner plates, who steals people’s Subway sandwiches? Absolutely not. I’d love to be your friend, Mothman. You saved my life after all, though you did kiiiiinda kill me…”

Chanyeol laughed, stood up to his full, ridiculous height, and did an awkward victory dance, “I’ve got a friend!”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes at this display and stood up next to him, “Alright, alright, calm down. Come help me find my car, I gotta get home and try to figure out what to tell my boss when I get back.”

Chanyeol deadpanned, “Oh, yeah, your car’s totalled. I’ll uh- I’ll walk you home.”