Hoodie, Jack, Jeff, and Masky all stood around you, just silently watching. Your tears kept coming as the only thing your eyes could focus on was Jade. It was just like last time. You couldn't look away, and you felt so terrible. You had killed another person, and though you knew damn well if you hadn't managed to win, you'd be laying dead in her place. Yet you still felt overwhelmingly guilty. Your body was shaking and your mind tuned out everything but the sound of your sobs and sniffles. Your eyes were wide, red, and puffy and your throat already stung from your cries.
Everything hurt, but nothing would hurt more than knowing that you had survived this mess, and to do that, you had killed two people, your friends. How pathetic could you be? Letting your captors have so much control over you, letting them force you to kill your friends.
But no. That's not what happened. They couldn't truly force you. You could try to blame them as much as you wanted to, but at the end of the day, you'd always know that this was your fault. You didn't have to fight back. It was you that had decided your survival was more important than Sadie's and Jade's. It was you that had followed along with Hoodie's orders and allowed him to influence you. And it was you that had gotten you all stuck here in the first place.
It was your fault, and as you screamed this at yourself in your mind, you only cried harder. Your hands moved to your head and your nails dug into your scalp as you rocked back and forth. What the fuck had you done? What was wrong with you?
As hateful and guilt-filled thoughts swarmed your mind, your nails dug into your skin so hard you thought it'd draw blood. Yet you didn't even seem to care at the moment. You wanted the pain to stop, or at least switch to just physical. But you knew that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
That's when two gloved hands wrapped around your wrists and brought your arms down. You slowly looked up to be met with the red eyes of Hoodie's ski mask that at the moment only reminded you of the blood splattered all over your clothing. You tried to pull your hands away with a weak whimper as you switched your gaze down to the grassy floor. But then his grip tightened ever so slightly and panic wove its way into your thoughts, making you thrash around to get away. What if he had been lying? What if he was still going to kill you? You wanted to scream, but your heart and throat ached far too much to try. He wouldn't do that to you, he couldn't do that to you... right?
Hoodie let go of you with a sigh, and it was only then that you realized the other three had left, leaving the two of you alone. He glanced behind him before taking off his mask and stuffing it into his pocket. This admittedly managed to calm you a bit, though you couldn't help but dwell on the many what-ifs of this situation.
Hoodie looked to you with eyes full of sympathy as he gently spoke, "It's over, you won. Now just breathe, everything's going to be okay. I promise." But you didn't know if you could trust that promise.
You wanted to believe him more than anything, but you just couldn't bring yourself to. He could be lying straight to your face, and you wouldn't know until it was too late.
With another sigh, Hoodie held out his hand, "Come on, let's go inside. The others will clean this up and you won't have to think about it anymore."
You started at his hand with uncertainty. His hands were large and warm, and from the times he'd taken off his gloves you knew they were calloused from the various tasks his job required. They were the hands of a man who had ended the lives of so many. Whether he had strangled them, shot them, or hell, even bashed in their skull with a baseball bat. You knew who he was, you knew what he was, yet after only a few seconds of thought, you took his hand and let him pull you to your feet.
You wobbled slightly, but once you gained your balance he let go of your hand once more, seemingly trying to be considerate. Your tears had slowed by now, though they still rolled down your cheeks with every thought or memory you had of your friends.
You and Hoodie stared at each other for a few silent moments before you took a step forward, opened your arms, and without a word, wrapped him in a hug. This seemed to surprise both of you. Why did you just do that?
But when he hesitantly wrapped his arms around you as well and returned the hug, your worries faded and you relaxed. Like his hands, he was large and warm. Standing at just under six feet tall, he was taller than Masky yet shorter than Jeff and Jack. He was well built, which you had discovered quite some time ago, though it was far more apparent while in his arms. And lastly, his tan-colored hoodie was soft and provided even more comfort as you nuzzled into his shoulder silently.
As minutes passed the hug slowly got less tense until he crouched down a bit and just simply picked you up. You continued to hold onto him as he headed back into the mansion, not even caring at the moment to put back on his mask.
And because of this, you noticed the faint smile on his lips.
𓂂𐬹⊗☆☆☆⊗𐬹𓂂
Hoodie carried you into the mansion and past both the living room and the kitchen before bringing you down the steps leading to the basement. The adrenaline that remained pumping through your veins somewhat numbed the pain, but as the minutes passed, the cut on your arm throbbed as it bled. Its cells doing its best to repair what it could. Despite their efforts, the cut was obviously quite deep and it appeared to need stitches rather than just a bandaid.
The large door was pushed open, resulting in a loud creak that tore Jack's attention off of his current choice of horror movie. You didn't recognize what it was, but when he paused it and left it at an overly gory scene, you almost wondered if it wasn't just a movie after all. Only glancing at both the screen and Jack for a little over a second, you quickly hid your face back in Hoodie's shoulder.
Jack raised a brow upon seeing the two of you, "Is this meant to be the favor you won?"
Hoodie sighed and shook his head, a bit of annoyance making its way into his frown. "No, it's meant to be what we all agreed to in the beginning. If they get injured, you fix them up." He paused for a second to glance at you before focusing back on Jack and narrowing his eyes, "I'll ask for my favor when I need it."
With a sigh, Jack got up and headed to the medical area in his basement, waving Hoodie to follow. "It's just her arm right?"
Hoodie looked you over before nodding a bit, "I think so." You gave the fabric of his jacket a small squeeze to signal your agreement as you continued to cling to him.
At the moment he was all you had, and you weren't about to let him go. So when he attempted to set you down on the metal table, your grip on him only tightened.
Another sigh left his lips as he lightly pat your back, "I'm not going anywhere, but Jack has to patch up your arm so you need to let go."
You nearly shook your head in protest, but the more your arm hurt the more you understood it really needed attention. With a nervous frown, you hesitantly let go and looked up at him with teary eyes.
Before he stepped to the side to let Jack do his work, he gently pat your head, which you had to accept, at this point really did comfort you.
Jack calmly walked over to you and carefully picked up your arm before inspecting it closely. The wound was deep and oozed deep, dark, red blood. Its edges were visibly irritated as blood dried around it, but with its severity, a scab couldn't manage to form. Though Jack's touch was fairly considerate, you couldn't help but wince when he turned your arm a bit before setting it down.
He hummed softly as he walked to the counter and grabbed from the cabinets and drawers sutures, tweezers, saline, gauze, as well as a roll of bandages. He set everything beside you before getting a cloth and wetting it. Jack soon returned to your side before steadying your arm and gently dabbing away the blood that continued to leak from the cut. You roughly bit your lip and forced your eyes away as he cleaned the wound.
You were surprised by how little it stung, but then you felt the cold metal of a needle poking at your arm and you tensed up. Hoodie, who now stood behind Jack and to the side so that he could observe, frowned even more. Not that he'd let it be known to anyone, he didn't like seeing you in pain. Over time he had grown to somewhat care about you, and now that these new feelings had bloomed and broken through the cold, emotionless walls he had built up for so many years, he couldn't help but feel protective over you. And now that he had decided to keep you around, meaning that according to how things worked around here, you were technically his, this only amplified his feelings.
Without warning, the needle was forced through your still very irritated skin and a pained whimper escaped your throat, echoing throughout the room. Your eyes were squeezed shut and both of your fists were clenched into tight balls.
It burned as if it were on fire, but at least while you were blinded by physical pain, your mental state of turmoil wasn't even on your mind.
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