[ ✔ ] ᴀᴄᴇ - ᴊᴛᴋ

Part 37

                                 ACE (Jeff X Reader)~ The Death Card

                                                                  ( ͡     ͜ ʖ ◉)  

After all that, the girl couldn't even remember what had happened. She'd felt too tired and sulked to the couch. She didn't care where Jeff went, as long as he wasn't in the same room she was. 

Smile had come along with her, layed beside her on the couch in dog form. Meanwhile EJ.. 
EJ was somewhere in the world. Maybe with Jeff. The girl didn't care about them either.

She focused herself on smoothing the wild strangs of fur on Smile's head, while he stirred and blinked his eyes, dazed from sleep. A few seconds later, his eyes went wide open, full of alert. But his ears were flat down. He transformed to his half-human-half-dog form and fell of the couch.

Smile made a whimpering noise. "I thought that was still a dream. I guess it wasn't huh," Smile said, refering to the earlier event that had happened. 

The girl nodded in response. "Yeah, it wasn't a dream though." 

"Then what do you call it?"

The girl stared at him. 
"A nightmare."

•-*–*•

Dead leaves sprawled across the forest floor, the wind swirling, messing up Jeff's wild hair. He yanked his hoodie back so hard that he thought it had almost ripped. He continued his way, somewhere, anywhere away from the house, to take a breather, kicking the dead leaves out of his way, that always seemed to make their way back to him again.

He could hear the faint huffing and panting sounds of EJ who was trying to catch up with him from behind. 

"Dude," he heard. "Slow down." 

Jeff ignored him and continued his way, passing by a tree until he heard a whizzing sound near his head which he instinctively moved his head away. He turned around to see a small sharp blade sticking out of the tree's bark. He turned around and glared at EJ who was a few feet behind him.

EJ held his hands up in defense. "That's the only way I could stop you." 

Jeff stared at him for a moment, not saying anything, and turned away, still walking as if nothing had happened. 

He stopped again once he heard EJ shout, "You should apologize, you know." 

Jeff let out an annoyed sigh, which turned into a thin visible breath that slowly evaporated into the sky. It was cold, and he dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his hoodie. 

"Great. You're also on her side?" Jeff asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance. 

"I don't see why I should be on your side." EJ said calmly. "She didn't do anything wrong, did she? She at least protected your cover. She could've exposed you to the police. She could've gotten out of that place, away from you and from us." 

EJ walked towards Jeff, yanking the small blade from the tree bark along with him. He stopped once he was near Jeff. "But you know," he continued, quietly. "she didn't."

Jeff tried to cut in, but EJ made it first.

"I've been wondering why." He mumbled, his empty black sockets stared into Jeff's wide eyes. "You know why, Jeff." He said, staring at him.

"I don't kno-" Jeff began.

EJ cut him off, surprising Jeff. "Bullshit." EJ cursed. "Utter nonsense. You know why. Stop pretending like you don't know it. And once you do, I hope you get your shit together, because you need to step up and apologize."