"Jeffrey Woods."
A normal person would have not spoken the name of that psychopath, but Y/n spoke the first name she could think of when she thought about who could best protect her... And, at the moment, she wasn't exactly...'normal'.
Her face grew hot at the choice she made, knowing full well that it was more out of instinct than out of logic. She was sure Slenderman was somewhat taken aback in some way or another, but Slenderman didn't make it apparent.
"Very well," a small squeeze was given to Y/n's hand, the static in her head increasing, weighing on her mind. Her closed eyes squeezed even further, her brows knitting together in an uncomfortable type of pain, "I'll see you soon, Y/n."
The cool feeling around her hand, the one Slenderman held, was gone as it felt like everything spun around her. The grass she stood on moments ago felt like it had slipped out from underneath her feet, causing her to falter on unsteady ground. Her eyes snapped open and she steadied herself.
Just as she opened her eyes, she saw a hand a few inches away from her own shoulder, mid-reach. Her eyes trailed upwards to the figure before her with the stunned silence growing thicker by the second. Jeff looked just as shocked and confused as she did as his hand quickly retreated back to his side.
"What the fuck? Where are we?" He averted his attention away from Y/n and the situation entirely. Y/n straightened herself and turned her attention to the scenery around them.
They were in a house of sorts, closer to an apartment than anything. It wasn't entirely furnished, but there were the necessities scattered around. The two of them stood near the back of a worn couch, the unprotected lightbulb above them flickering oddly before keeping on, a faint buzz following after.
"Apartment?" Y/n offered her guess, suddenly finding her throat to be a bit dry. She swallowed hard, cringing at the feeling, "but why would..."
She was about to finish with, "Slenderman send us here?", but she came to the quick realization that he wouldn't have a clue on why (or where) the entity sent the two of them here. Maybe he didn't even want to be put in this situation...maybe...she just made her entire life even worse.
The h/c-haired female eyed the other carefully. One of his hands was slipped haphazardly into the pocket of his hoodie, no doubt toying with his weapon as he usually did. Jeff stepped into the small kitchen, opening the fridge before closing it and rifling through the drawers instead.
"Where were...you before this?" Y/n decided to ask as she actually had no clue about his previous whereabouts. Jeff's head craned to the side as he responded, attention focused on the items in the drawer he was currently looking through.
"Somewhere in the forest," he huffed with what she could only read as amusement, "was having a talk with Kagekao. Wonder what the look on his face is like," a laugh left his figure, shoulders shaking as he did so.
Jeff slammed the drawer shut and rounded the counter that the kitchen was built behind and finally looked Y/n over entirely. His features contorted into one of disgust, then a hint of concern.
"The hell happen to you?" He probably spoke before he thought about it because as soon as he said that and saw Y/n's face, he threw a hand up, palm forward, "actually, don't answer that, come here."
The dark-haired killer nonchalantly turned down the dim, narrow hall to his left. He first opened the door on his right and then continued down the hall to the next door. Upon passing the first one, Y/n peered inside and found that the room he had checked was a bedroom. One bed sat in the corner of the room. She continued on, heading to the next room where the door had been pulled open completely, white light flooding the hall.
Y/n stood at the entrance of the doorway, looking down at Jeff who knelt at the compartment below the sink. He was pulling things out, tossing them aside and across the tile until he found what he was looking for.
A first-aid kit.
She could feel the blood drain from her face and Y/n chuckled. To be completely honest, Y/n trusted anyone asides from Jeffrey to try and treat her wounds. She was also somewhat sure that he'd make them worse rather than better.
"Don't give me that fucking look," Jeff glared and reached out, grabbing Y/n's wrist and tugging her into the small-fit bathroom. She didn't exactly pull her hand away since his grip wasn't all that tight, but it was a surprising act of touch between the two of them that lowered her guard.
Jeff had her sit on the seat of the toilet and opened the first-aid kit roughly. The items inside weren't placed neatly, as if someone had used the kit before, but nothing inside looked recently used. Y/n watched him struggle with the items for a moment, digging through the small box until he found a few of the items he was looking for. A roll of bandages and a small bottle of antiseptic.
Y/n rolled up her pant leg, the area where her major injury was. Upon rolling away the fabric, the bandages loosened considerably. She also just noticed the blood that stained the blue of her jeans, as well as the tears around the area where the claws had dug into. Carefully, Y/n peeled away her bandages.
The wound was...not a pretty sight. It wasn't as bad as it was when she had gotten it, a large piece of the shattered pot stuck into her leg, but it was still dark and sore. Wounds the size of the pad of her thumb also dotted the area around the wound, with five marks in total from the claw. Dried blood had run down a bit of her leg as well from most of the wounds as well, but all bleeding had stopped.
The killer knelt before her, uncapping the small bottle of antiseptic and grabbing a fistful of cotton pads from the kit. His way of tending to her wasn't graceful in the slightest, pressing maybe a bit too hard onto the fresh wounds. She did her best to bite down on the words that threatened to come from her lips. The harder part was bearing with the sting of the antiseptic as it slowly stung her wounds.
After the pain had finally settled and he had finished cleaning enough of the wounds, he unraveled the bandages carefully. Jeff pressed the end of the bandages to a clean, unharmed part of her skin and began wrapping slowly with concentrated eyes. Y/n hadn't realized until now, but Jeff did actually seem to know what he was doing; she had just assumed that Eyeless Jack and Doctor Smiley were the most competent with tending to wounds and other medical ailments, but now her thoughts settled on all the killers and their knowledge on the practice.
"Too tight?" He then asked, lifting his chin slightly to meet her eyes. She paused, meeting his gaze with a flash of surprise before shaking her head.
"No," she murmured as he adjusted the bandages, wrapping them around three more times before finally tying the end together to keep the wound sealed. Then, he held out his hand.
Y/n stared at his hand for a moment before finally meeting his eyes again. His brows furrowed as he pointed his head down at her lap where she kept her hands, "your hand."
Oh, right. She had forgotten about the bandages around the palm of her left hand. They were already loosened after her panic attack back in the forest, so when she slowly flattened her palm out to him, he tugged on her fingers to bring her palm closer to him. The blood that had stained the outside of her bandages caused the man in front of her to raise a brow.
"Your blood or?" He asked as a smirk slowly made its way up his lips. It was her turn to glare as he began removing the bandages and cleaning her wound once more. His movements weren't as rough as before.
"Not mine," Y/n muttered, her brows knitting together, "someone...else's.."
Something odd crawled up her spine. Guilt? Dread? She had no clue.
"You looked like shit the moment I saw you, how about you explain that?" He snorted in amusement, the bloodied bandages now tossed somewhere across the tile. If this was his way of trying to get Y/n to get her mind off things...it wasn't exactly working.
"I'm not exactly in the mood, Jeffrey," Y/n spoke, immediately grimacing right after as Jeff's thumb and pointer finger squeezed the dip around the wound at the center of her palm. Tears gathered in the back of her eyes as she glared once more at the killer who kept the pressure on her hand.
"Too fucking bad." He wasn't irked by her reply, but the hold on her hand did tell her that he didn't care about what she wanted at all.
He was a killer, after all.
"I was in a fight, things got...crazy, okay?" She explained as vaguely as possible. Maybe she just wanted to see him annoyed, maybe it was the little care she had over her current situation, but Jeffrey didn't flinch.
"Clearly," he grinned, reaching up to her face with his free hand. He pinched a part of the skin on her cheek and could feel the grime where blood stuck to her face. Dried pieces of red dust broke free from her skin and dirtied the floor, "would've loved to see it."
Y/n watched Jeffrey wrap the rest of the bandages around her cleaned hand. It was refreshing to finally have some clean bandages around her wounds and not have to worry about infections and the like. The raven-haired male tossed most of the used items in the bin that was tucked near the corner of the toilet and placed the rest of the items back in the first-aid kit. He sat back, stretching his legs out as he examined Y/n for a short moment.
"Take it off," Jeffrey suddenly spoke up again, tugging on the hem of his white hoodie, his back pressed against the bathroom wall.
"What." Her own words were more like a statement rather than a question.
"The hoodie," he emphasized, sticking a hand into the dip of the pocket in the center of his own hoodie and slipping out the kitchen knife not so discreetly and placing it on the tile floor. For a moment, he stared at it, then flicked it with one finger, sending it skidding away towards the bathroom door, "take it off."
Jeffrey moved first, pulling his own hoodie with ease over his head. He had a black t-shirt underneath with some sort of jagged letters across the front, faded and worn over time. It was probably a band or graphic t-shirt at one point. He flashed her a look and gave a mischievous look.
"Unless you want me to do it for you?" Y/n inhaled sharply as he leaned forward, very much ready to do so if she didn't make up her mind. She decided to retain her dignity and take off the yellow hoodie she had worn for...how long? It was ripped and torn, very much dirty in various places and no doubt had a few unremovable stains in certain places. She had a black tank top underneath, a bit dirty as well, but nothing compared to what the gifted hoodie had been through.
Surprisingly enough, Jeffrey took one look at her and then turned his head. He held out his hoodie lazily, grabbing onto the one that she had just laid on her lap. Y/n's eyes slowly widened as she quietly took the hoodie from his one hand, deciding to allow him to take the other. She had a bit of an attachment to it, but nothing beat clean clothes.
"Thanks," she murmured with a slight smile. Y/n pulled the hoodie on. It wasn't bloody, surprisingly enough, probably new or deeply washed recently. Y/n couldn't help but think that it smelled like him...but would never say such a thing. It was creepy to think that way, right?!
While Y/n was lost in her thoughts, Jeffrey couldn't help but allow his eyes to wander.
Briefly, just briefly, he thought the way she was worn and torn...somehow bloodied looked...good. Of course, he had never thought she looked bad before, but something just flickered in his mind that she looked different than usual. Maybe he wished to see her covered in someone else's blood, killing someone else; just once!
Jeffrey placed a hand over his chest, then one over his mouth as he felt his heart accelerating. He took in the look of her wearing his hoodie, his hoodie, not that creepy bastard's...but his. It felt like he was a teenager all over again, feeling those teen hormones for the first time; feeling something for the first time.
"Fuuuuuck," he pushed a hand up over his face, his eyes darting to the ground, as he pulled back his unkempt hair, then back up as he found himself meeting her e/c eyes. Even with the dried blood smeared across her face, even with her uncombed, h/c hair, he still found her...wonderful to look at.
In a quick beat, Jeffrey reached out and grasped Y/n's arm. Not like before, when it was forceful, but gently, as if he'd break her if he pulled too hard. A small yelp escaped her lips as she felt herself being brought forward, slipping off the toilet seat and against the tile, sitting forward with Jeff oh-so-close to her.
The top of her head pressed against the wall of the bathroom and her face was dug into the male's shoulder. His other hand came to wrap around her lower back and she could hear a settled breath escape his lips as his own head came to lean down and rest itself against her own shoulder.
"Jeffrey?" She was nervous to even question him at this point, but the feeling of her heart pounding in her ears was not unfamiliar to her. The blooming of heat along her face wasn't either.
"Just a few minutes longer," he muttered, squeezing her tightly. She could feel the rumble of a chuckle vibrate through his body, "just a bit longer."
Y/n blinked a few times and then decided to bring her hands up, doing her best to wrap them around Jeff as well. Only one arm was successful in completely wrapping around the back of his shoulders, but it didn't seem like he minded.
Maybe she wasn't wrong in her choice after all. Maybe...it was he who truly wanted to keep her safe.
~
Epilogue completed.
[Up next; Masky]