miscellaneous knifan one shots

stargazing

fan's breath hitched, his arms flailed and fell over his face as he tossed and turned. mumbling nonsense, he let out quiet, strained sobs and whimpers. his vision faded until his eyes shot open. he stared at the ceiling, panting heavily and gripping his blanket, which was twisted and tangled all around his body. he curled on his side, an unknown yet familiar feeling of fear and grief hitting him like a freight train. he hardly recognized or understood the feeling in his half-asleep state, but it overwhelmed him nonetheless. it took over his sense and senses, and he laid and cried as his body registered its consciousness.

his breathing gradually slowed, and his muscles finally began to relax. his tired eyes were fixated on the drawer of the nightstand handle until he was fully awake. he sat up, holding his head, and facing towards his roommate's bed. thankfully he hadn't woken up paintbrush. they hadn't been getting very good sleep lately and fan's frequent sleep-mumbling didn't exactly help with that. it'd often wake them up, but fortunately that wasn't the case tonight. though, in a way, it was funny that two insomniacs got roomed together, inconvenient as it was - at least he thought so.

despite his exhaustion, he felt too wound up to go back to sleep. with a sigh, he decided to get some fresh air, hoping a small walk would clear his head. he grabbed his blanket with weak, shaky hands, draped it around himself to keep warm, and made his way outside.

after a minute of hyper-focusing on staying quiet as he slipped out of the room, he was left in the dark, silent hallways, once again alone with his thoughts. incomplete flashes of his dream appeared in his head as he sleepily trudged down the halls. he noticed his breath shorten, then the tension in his muscles, then his clenched jaw. taking a deep breath, he observed the hallways. he saw brown doors on either side of him, he heard his own voice through his breathing, he could smell carpet cleaner and brief whiffs of house plants he walked past. and as he opened the front doors of the hotel, he could feel himself slowly calming as he took a deep breath of the crisp midnight air.

before he made it on the show, he'd spend all day inside staring at his phone or laptop or some other screen, but all that time participating gave him a sort of fondness for the outdoors. he still spends a good chunk of his time in front of screens, its simply in his nature he would say, but sometimes when his brain needed a reset he'd go for a walk. he liked to see the different shades of green in the trees and grass; he liked to feel the breeze on his face or the sun on his paper skin, or in this case bask in the moonlight. sometimes he'd walk the contestant grounds and reminisce about his time on the show, how much he'd changed, and how much he'd accomplished after he left. there was a sort of bittersweetness to reliving his most exciting experiences, along with his most painful ones, but he enjoyed it. silly as it was, it made him feel like the star of his own show. and he was only able to reexperience these feelings to their fullest on his walks. he wouldn't consider himself the camping type, or even remotely an outdoors-y person, but from time to time he'd relish in the sensations that being outside would give him.

he could only walk so far before his body began to slow, his weariness catching up with him, so he decided to set his destination for the docks. it wouldn't take him long to get there, but this time he could make out a figure sitting at its edge. from a distance he could make out a long blade that shined in the dim light of the moon, and a dark grey base. as he approached he could see smaller, rounder silhouettes that flung towards the water.

knife.

they'd talked before on the show, some interactions more pleasant than others, and only knew each other at a surface level, but word was getting around that he was much more than the abrasive tough guy everyone assumed him to be. before he got eliminated, suitcase had mentioned knife's influence on her while they vlogged. disastrous as the ending was, his advice after the bucket challenge changed her, and came from a place of genuine concern. fan had even heard his encouragement to balloon that same day. keeping this in mind, his last direct interaction with knife definitely held the same care as everyone else's, even if he took it for granted at the time. hell, if it weren't for knife implying that fan had nonobservant tendencies - at least when it came to the world outside the game and egg - fan never would've been sent on his path for growth. spiteful as it was, fan's hyperfocus on noticing things in the mining challenge would ultimately change everything inside and outside fan's world, for better of worse. and personally, he liked where he was now.