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Pain.
Staggering, blinding pain.
Randy’s world becomes agony as blood-slicked fingers scrabble desperately for purchase.
He’s going to die.
There’s no peace in the knowledge, no resignation when it comes to the inevitable.
Just the overpowering need to live.
The knife is ripped from his flesh, raised high above a ghoulish leer shrouded entirely in black and Randy knows he’s going to die.
He’s not Sidney Prescott, survivor extraordinaire.
He’s not a final girl.
He doesn’t want to die.
He needs to move.
He kicks blindly; his heel connects with flesh, and then the killer is grabbing at his leg. He kicks again, this time connecting far more solidly if the grunt is anything to go by. At the same time, he throws his arm out, flailing for the door handle.
He finds it and pulls.
The door pops open and he spills out, falling into an ungainly heap on the concrete, expecting at any second to feel a knife buried to its hilt in his back.
He doesn’t.
His breath escapes him in little gasps, reedy whimpers that pass between clenched teeth.
And he runs.
He picks himself up off the ground, ignoring the way it pulls at his shoulder, biting with a vengeance, the way there’s a bloom of red slowly spreading down his front that surely isn’t good, because he needs to get away from here, and he runs .
Catching the killer- stopping the killer- has become second place to basic survival.
He collides full on with a solid body and panic grips him. There are hands on his arms and a voice is speaking, but none of it makes any sense to Randy.
He flails, fist connecting with something soft in a glance blow. A grunt follows this and then he hears, “Randy!”
The park comes into focus and with it the face of Gale Weathers. She’s staring at him, a mixture of wariness and concern etched across her features. She’s just barely hovering, keeping a safe distance from his flailing arms.
Just behind her is Dewey, cupping a hand protectively over his nose, eyes screwed shut with pain.
“Dewey?”
Gale’s posture slumps immediately.
The adrenaline is wearing off, the pain is catching back up to him- it’s like a fire has been lit just under his skin- and he’s shaking.
He doesn’t even realize he’s going down until Dewey grabs him, keeping him upright. His finger brushes just the wrong spot and Randy’s vision goes white.
When his vision clears, he’s folded over himself, wheezing. “Holy shit. Fuck.” He screws his eyes shut and tries to think of every breathing exercise he’s ever learned because therapy has to count for something. Which isn’t a lot. “ Fuck!”
Getting stabbed hurts a lot like getting shot did.
Which is quite a fucking lot.
“Randy?” Gale touches his elbow, tone urgent. “Where is he? What happened?”
“News van,” he gasps. His shoulder isn’t on fire but it sure feels like it is. “Hiding inside it. Took me by surprise. The rules. Should’ve remembered the rules.”
He’d been caught up in the moment, allowed himself to get careless. He’d strayed too far from the relative safety witnesses provided.
It had almost cost his life.
…he might be sick.
Gale pulls out her phone before he actually can be sick. “I’ll call 911.”
Dewey pats Randy on the shoulder- his uninjured shoulder this time- and nods. “I’ll go after the killer.”
“ Later, Dewey.” Gale grabs his arm before he actually can. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? Besides, the killer is long gone by now.”
Dewey pulls back, suitably chastised. “Right.”
Gale huffs, but the operator picks up before she can say anything further. “I need to report a stabbing.” A pause. “Gale Weathers,” she snaps, “and I…”
A touch from Dewey and she takes a deep breath, listing off the college campus, the park, and the situation.
Randy stares at his hand. There’s so much blood. It’s staining the front of his shirt. Did all of it come from him? He’s feeling lightheaded and he’s starting to sway again…
“Hey.” Dewey grabs him, keeping him upright. “Stay with me, okay?”
“I think,” he manages, “I’m gonna be sick.”
He isn’t sick.
Instead, the world goes gray around the edges and then he’s falling forward. He hears Dewey’s voice, laced with panic, and then he knows no more.
/
He wakes up in the hospital.
He’s alone, which is… which is… It’s something…
His head is feeling pretty stuffy and his vision keeps blurring around the edges, things fading in and out of focus. His brain refuses to form half a coherent thought- they must have him pumped full of the good stuff then.
His head falls back into the pillows and he lets the darkness take him once again.
/
The last time he was in the hospital, it was for a gunshot wound to the shoulder and the killers had already been dead.
A matching set of battle scars.
Maybe someday, he’ll consider it bragging rights.
Wounded twice by a kook in the same bad halloween costume and he somehow survived both times.
That has to be some sort of record.
Now, though, he’s too on edge to take any pride in that.
The killer- or killers- is still prowling about campus, uncaught, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t more than just a little uneasy.
He feels like a sitting duck.
Sure, hospitals are supposed to be safe and all, but he’s seen this one before.
Visiting Hours.
1982.
All it really takes is a killer clever enough to slip through whatever cracks are there.
They won’t even see it coming.
There’s someone standing in the doorway and Randy’s heart just about bursts out of his ribcage, because- holy shit, he’s going to die and--
“Randy?”
He falls back against his pillows, relief making him weak, because it isn’t… it isn’t… It’s just Sidney and…
“Sidney!” And then he’s sitting up straighter, wincing when the movement pulls at the wound in his shoulder.
Her eyes are red-rimmed and glassy and… oh, he probably just made her feel worse, didn’t he?
“Sidney, I…” Didn’t expect this. He stops because Sidney is clearly struggling to maintain her composure and… what exactly does he say? I’m sorry some psycho decided to uproot your life once again, but don’t worry, it’s not your fault? I know I got stabbed, but, look, it’s all good.
“Hey, Randy…” Sidney carefully lowers herself into the chair next to his bed. She offers him a shaky smile and he can tell she’s trying so, so hard to be strong enough for the both of them when he’s the one who put his back to that van.
“Hey, Sid…” He aims for reassurance, but Sidney cuts him off.
“I am… so sorry, Randy.” She inhales deeply, voice unsteady. “If I hadn’t… If you’d actually…You shouldn’t have been caught up in any of this.”
“What?” Randy stares at her in disbelief. “Do you actually… think this is your fault?” He blinks. Then he blinks again. “No, never say that again.”
She shakes her head, clearly determined to shoulder the blame regardless. “But…”
“No.” He’s not going to let her go far. “You, Sidney Prescott, are not allowed to take the blame for this.” He gestures to himself, then does a little loop with his finger. “Any of this. There’s one person- and one person only- who’s behind this and it’s that psycho under the mask.”
That gets a smile out of her, at least a small one.
She loops her arms around him then, mindful of his stab wound, and hugs him as tightly as she dares.
Randy stills, taken aback, but then he’s hugging her back, of course, because what else is he going to do?
And maybe he holds her a little longer than he ought to, but after what they’ve been through, he never wants to let her go.
He kind of wishes it could stay like this.
Just the two of them against the world. Preferably without a killer in a ghost mask.
That’s wishful thinking.
“I’m glad you're alive, Randy,” she whispers into his shoulder.
“Yeah,” and if he chokes up, just a little, who’s going to say anything? “me too.”