Chapter Text
“Aviiiiiiiiiid! Avid, come quick! Look what I found!” Shelby cartwheeled into town, screaming at the top of her lungs.
Avid tore out of Merp Manor and nearly collided with the rapidly spinning cyclone of activity. He grabbed her legs on the upswing, barely keeping himself from tumbling down to the ground.
“IS IT VAMPIRES?!” He yelled down at her face where she stood in a handstand. He abruptly dropped her at the sudden embarrassing realization that her skirt was no longer covering the necessary areas of her body.
Shelby fell with an “oof” and a small complaint before scrambling up. Avid glanced around, hoping nobody noticed her indignity, and breathed a sigh of relief to find no one else nearby.
She adjusted her glasses which had somehow not been flung off through the force of physics. “No, it’s even better than vampires. It’s Bigfoot!”
“What— Bigfoot? Shelby, nooo.” Avid placed a hand to his temple, “Bigfoot isn’t even real, probably. Unless you found some kind of proof?”
“Oh, I have proof alright.” They leaned in close and lowered their voice, “Out in the woods, I found some for real tracks, Avid. They’re huge. It’s really Bigfoot!” They punctuated the last claim with a shake of his shoulders.
Avid’s headache grew just a little more as she rattled him about, “Wait, are you sure?”
“Come take a look!” She clung to his arm and began to bodily drag him out of town.
“Whoa, hey! Stop pulling—” Avid struggled against the force of her pushing him along and vaguely wondered if she’d always been this strong or if the power of Bigfoot was giving her strength. “How big are we talking with these tracks?”
Shelby dropped his arm and held up her hands in the way proud fishermen often do to say ‘it was thiiiis big!’, and she said “They’re like, this big!”
It was not a small amount of space, although smaller than he would have expected if Bigfoot were real. It could be just about possible for a human with extraordinarily large feet. Or, he supposed, a Bigfoot that had been called mean nicknames in school, like ‘Smallfoot.’
Avid crossed his arms and scrunched his nose deep in thought. Anybody could have placed fake tracks as a prank on the unsuspecting woman. Including the woman herself. Could this be an attempt at a hoax?
“How do I know you’re not trying to pull a fast one over on me?” He asked.
“Hey!” Shelby pouted, “I’ve been mostly supportive of all your vampire stuff. The least you can do is take a look before you go denying everything.”
“Ugh, fiiiiine.” Avid allowed himself to be swept along and out into the forest. The further they went the more her infectious energy rubbed off on him like a disease that he didn’t want to admit he had. When they got to the clearing they were both running and giggling, hand in hand.
“There they are.” Their arms swept out in a dramatic flourish to indicate the divots imprinted into the soft dirt, “What do you think?”
“Whoa.” Avid breathed.
The two of them peered down at the first imprint. The foot wasn’t just long, it was also wide. It looked more like an incredibly large dog’s print than anything resembling the tales of Bigfoot. Avid tensed, eyes fixed on the long marks sat at the tips of the toes that looked like lethal claws.
“Shelby…” He placed a trembling hand on her shoulder.
“It’s exciting, right?! I’m right! I was always right, and now I finally have the proof! Now everyone back home have to believe me. They’ll finally take me seriously and I won’t be the crazy one anymore.”
“Wait, Shelby, what if…” He struggled to formulate the nicest way of explaining his fear in the face of their bouncing exuberance.
Shelby stilled, her bright yellow eyes wide and concerned. “What? Is something wrong?”
“Like ripping off a band-aid,” He muttered to himself. Aloud he said, “Uh, yeah Shelby, I hate to say this but like… What if Bigfoot is, um, really mean? And tries to attack you— us. If we find him.”
“Oh, I like to think Bigfoot would want to be friends with us.” Shelby dismissed.
“Okay, but what if he isn’t? Like, until a few minutes ago I wasn’t even sure I believed in the possibility of Bigfoot, but now there’s this? What do we do if he really is real and we find him? What if he was out here in the middle of nowhere on purpose and doesn’t want to be bothered and is going to be mad at us for invading his territory?”
“I mean, he’s probably lonely, right? Everyone needs a friend. Even a supernatural being that lives in the forest by himself. And even if he isn’t happy with us, I believe we can just show him what great people we are and he’ll understand that we’re not a threat. We can bring him presents and he’ll become friends with us.”
“I dunno. If he gets violent, I’ll have to protect you.” Avid gripped the stake stuck through his belt loop.
“NO!” Shelby yelled, “You can’t kill Bigfoot!”
“I’m not going to kill him! On purpose.”
“Get rid of that thing.” Shelby literally hissed at him. He’d never heard her make such a sound before but it was unnerving.
“It’s just a precaution!” He tried to explain.
She lunged for the stake.
The two became a flurry of fists and too-sharp nails and name-calling sprawled out on the ground. They kicked up dust into the air and Shelby didn’t even notice when she rolled Avid over on top of the footprint, smudging it beyond all recognition. They pinned his wrists to the earth on either side of his head.
“Why are you like this?” They yelled, “Can’t you just let me have something nice?!”
“I’m worried about you!” Avid tried to wriggle out from under her, “I just— I just want to—”
“I can protect myself.” She huffed “Please, Avid. I’m not as helpless as I look. See?”
She leaned down, and gently pressed her forehead to his. Her hair settled down around them, giving her a fire-tinted halo. She must have been holding her breath, because he could not feel the gasps of air that should mirror his own from the tussle.
An intense feeling of déjà vu flooded through Avid. Hadn’t Elle said and done exactly the same thing once before? He shook it off, but the feeling persisted even when he turned his head away to hide the emotion pricking at the corners of his eyes.
He had to admit that Shelby had a point. He was clearly outmatched against her raw strength, wherever it had come from.
Avid sighed, “Okay, I get it.”
“Do you promise not to hurt Bigfoot?”
Avid nodded mutely. Shelby went slack and flopped over onto the ground beside him. She grinned at him, blind to the tear that he swiftly wiped away.
“Whoa that was stressful.” She laughed, “Glad we got that worked out.”
“Ha, yeah…” Avid suddenly sat up, “Wait, the footprint!”
Shelby made a small sad sound at the sight of the no longer footprint. It was just scuff marks in the ground, a testament to their argument.
She sighed, “It’s okay, there’s a couple more. I wish you hadn’t messed it up though, any proof is good proof.”
“I messed it up? Excuse me, you’re the one who pushed me into it!”
“Did not.” She denied.
“You did too! Or do I need to remind you who was winning that fight?”
“Definitely not you.”
“Yeah, okay! Just rub it in, why don’t you!”
Avid got to his feet and helped Shelby up. They both dusted themselves off and Avid pointed out that the band-aid on her leg had come unstuck and was looking really gross hanging half off the knee. In return Shelby pointed out a bit of dried grass stuck in Avid’s hair and how silly he looked.
“What do we do now?” Avid asked.
“We go searching for Bigfoot, of course.” They said.
“Maybe we should make some kind of a plan. It’s getting kinda dark out, too…”
Shelby frowned mutinously at the setting sun, as if their feelings could prevent it from going down.
“We can come back tomorrow?” He suggested.
“Sure… Wait, before we go, help me pick up sticks!” Shelby sprinted off around the clearing.
“Why?” Avid still obeyed the request, albeit slower and with more confusion.
When they had gathered a sizable amount, Shelby started to drive them into the ground around the remaining tracks. It looked like multiple porcupines had done a really bad job of grooming.
“It’s to prevent anyone or anything from messing them up.” She explained, “Then we can come back tomorrow and take notes. Maybe do some sketch renditions so we can preserve the memory of what they look like. Oh, do you think we can make some plaster molds of the prints? That would be so awesome. Imagine if I go home with something like that. Plus, it would be super cool to display in my house, you know?”
Avid nodded along to her rambling. He still pressed one hand to the stake that had been returned to his side after it had been snatched during their scuffle. Luckily Shelby hadn’t decided to make it a part of the porcupine pack.
Shelby noticed the movement.
“You promised, remember?”
“Yeah, I know.” I just don’t want you to end up like Elle. He didn’t speak the worry out loud.