Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You woke up to the phone ringing. You frowned and reached for the caller ID.

… Odd. The number was still blocked.

You sighed and let it go to voicemail.

“You sure you don’t want to pick that up?” Derek called from the kitchen as you stretched and groaned.

“Life’s too short to waste it picking up every phone call I get. If it’s important, then they’ll call me back or leave a message,” you sighed as he came into the bedroom with a hot cup of coffee, no milk, two sugars. You accepted the cup and paid him with a kiss. “In any case, good morning to you.”

“Ditto,” he said before going in for seconds.

“Anything I should be aware of happening today?” you asked.

“Uh, Dewey wants to get lunch after your therapy appointment,” he said.

“Is Gale gonna be there?” you asked, wondering how guarded you would have to be for lunch.

“I think he said she’s got work.” You nodded. Derek held your gaze with his. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Do you have a way back to a quasi-happy existence?” you asked.

“You know what, I think I might,” he smirked, before kissing his way down your body.

You laid back and closed your eyes, wishing that you could lose yourself in the pleasure he gave you.

But it was never enough.

The clock ticked away, with each tick representing another 3¢ down the drain. Still, you couldn’t help but stare at your therapist, refusing to be the one to break the silence. Dr. Loomis sighed.

“So, are we going to talk about it today?” your therapist asked.

“Talk about what?” you questioned vaguely.

She glared at you over her glasses. “It’s been a year since Tatum’s death. And we have spent the past year skating around it because-”

“We have a deal,” you reminded her. “You don’t talk about her or Ghostface and I don’t tell authorities you violated my right to privacy as your patient-”

“You do understand that you are effectively holding us both hostage,” she interrupted. “You can tell me to help you all you want, but if you refuse to open yourself up to change, there is nothing I can do to help you.”

“How have I not opened myself up to change?” you asked. “I am taking the meds, I am doing the breathing exercises, I am dating someone completely different-”

“Dating in extremes will not be productive to understanding how your previous relationships failed,” Dr. Loomis stated.

“… You think Derek’s a rebound,” you said.

She exhaled heavily. “I think you’re still hurting. You’re trying so hard to move past it, but in the process, you didn’t actually let yourself mourn what you lost-”

“If I stopped to think about that, I’d kill myself,” you stated.

Shit.

Weren’t supposed to say that part out loud. 

You glanced at your therapist, trying to gauge her reaction; mouth in a thin line, but her eyes seemed unsurprised to some degree. You slowly gathered your belongings. “I don’t think this is working out. I’ll be looking for alternative care.”

“If you feel that’s best for you,” she said evenly.

Whelp, she was definitely calling mental health services on you.

You left the appointment feeling worse than you had upon arriving. But then, what else was new?

At least you felt something.

You sat in your car after the appointment.

Had you jumped into a relationship with Derek too fast?

No. No way.

Lots of people date soon after a breakup.

Besides, you and Ghostface hadn’t been dating. You’d been dating Jed but that had been a lie.

You didn’t even know his real name, it’s entirely possible - likely even - that he’d lied about everything else.

Your watch alarm went off and you snapped back to yourself.

Right.

Time for the other meeting of the day.

“Things are going well. My therapist says I’m making good progress,” you lied while across the table from Dewey Riley.

“That’s great!” he smiled.

“Yeah, and uh, I'm seeing someone. Derek, he was one of Steve’s fraternity brothers. He's a nice guy, no apparent psychotic tendencies,” you assured him.

“I’m glad. I just worry about you, that’s all,” he said. Your stomach churned uncomfortably.

“How are you doing, how’s physical therapy?” you asked, hoping to turn the conversation away from you.

“Still the same,” he shrugged. “My arm will never be what it was, but it seems wrong to focus on that when…” he trailed off.

“You don’t have to justify yourself, Dewey,” you said gently. “You almost died, and you lost so much, you have every right to still be struggling.” Dewey was now working as a security guard at the University of Florida; despite the Ghostface’s attack leaving him with a severed nerve and a weak arm, he could still help de-escalate situations on campus and investigate disturbances. “How’s Gale?” you asked.

“She’s good. Keeps meaning to invite you over sometime for dinner when she’s not busy,” he said.

“She’s a journalist, she’ll always be busy,” you joked. Still, you hadn’t expected Gale Weathers to stick by Dewey through his physical therapy and couldn’t help but respect her for it. The only problem was that she knew you were more involved with the Ghostface than you admitted, meaning she would still try to catch you in a lie every time you talked. Your only defenses were her lack of solid evidence and Dewey’s defense of you every time he caught her in the act, though the latter also made your stomach turn with guilt.

Dewey looked at you sadly. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine, Dewey,” you lied again.

Maybe if you said it one more time, you’d both believe it.

When you got back home, you put on a random record and poured yourself a generous glass of wine. You had work in the morning, but the hangover was a problem for future you and present you needed this.

Derek was at his place tonight, meaning you had the big empty house to yourself.

Honestly, you probably should have moved but despite Jed / Ghostface no longer being in town, the housing market continued to suffer from his killings. It didn’t help that you were legally required to disclose the double homicide that had happened on your property. (God, even a year and a half after their deaths, Casey and Steve were fucking you over.)

You briefly attempted masturbating but quickly grew too angry and frustrated to continue.

You laid back on the couch, staring at the ceiling, occasionally lifting your head for a sip of wine.

The phone rang.

You frowned but leaned over to check the caller ID.

Jed Olsen

You froze.

You stared at the phone as though it were a shaking rattlesnake until it eventually stopped.

You took a deep, steadying breath, just like your therapist taught you.

RING!

The phone rang again, as loud and insistent as the first.

You considered your options.

Call the police?

They’d never make it in time.

Call Derek? Dewey? Gale? Lucy? Grace?

He definitely wouldn’t make it. All of them were on the other side of town.

Ignore it? Unplug the phone?

You knew from experience how he hates being ignored.

So, reluctantly, you picked up the phone with a shaking hand and asked: “Hello?”

At first, the line was silent.

You frowned. “Hello?” you repeated, leaning more into the phone.

And then you heard it.

Very faintly, there was a whispering on the other end. You couldn’t make out the words, but it disturbed you.

You hung up.

It wasn’t him. He wouldn’t have passed up on the opportunity to tease you.

Unless he really had moved on and left you behind.

You sighed angrily. It was so unfair how he had ripped through your life with the force of a hurricane and left you to pick up the debris.

Sometimes, you wished you could have been like that; that you could have left town and everyone else here with no fear of the consequences.

Let someone else pick up the pieces of your disaster.

… Whelp, that was definitely self-destructive talk. But hey, maybe talking about that at the next session would get Loomis to loosen up.

You felt minor pangs of hunger, so you went back to your old standby snack and brought out a pan of Jiffy Pop. You had just put it on the stove when you heard a noise outside. A rustling of your bushes. You immediately turned the back porch light on and surveyed what you can from the window. The bush next to the window rustled, and you were about to reach for the kitchen knife when out popped a crow.

“Oh great, you again,” you huffed. You couldn’t really tell the difference between the crows, but this one with the white horizontal stripe on its beak seemed to be your lead stalker. It cocked its head at you. “Well, what are you gonna tell me? Is Timmy stuck in the well?”

The crow cawed at you before flying off.

Good riddance.

You relaxed and went to get your wine glass from the living room when you stopped.

Your front door was wide open.

You hadn’t left it like that.

Had you?

You stumbled backward, not sure if you were reaching for the phone or the knife-

You were grabbed from behind, a cloth over your nose and mouth.

You still try screaming, elbowing, kicking, fighting to get this fucker off of you.

Still, you felt yourself losing the battle, not just with the assailant but with staying conscious.

Chloroform.

Motherfuck…

…

…

…

You jolted awake in the trunk of a car. Or at least, you’re pretty sure it was a trunk; it was dark and metal and you could hear and feel the movement of a vehicle.

Your arms and legs were chained. Not duct taped or tied, chained like you were headed straight to a dungeon. And not the sexy kind.

You struggled a bit, but it was clear that there was no getting out of the chains, not without breaking bones or dislocating something. Even if you managed to get out, you doubted this car had a release latch you could reach.

You tried to think about your options.

Run.

Fight.

Scream, beg, cry, bargain.

The car slowed, and you slid in the trunk from the change in acceleration.

They’d stopped.

You heard car doors slam, the sound of boots crunching in the brush. The footsteps stopped nearby and you could make out murmuring, though not the words themselves.

The trunk opened and you were blinded by light. You closed your eyes against the industrial-grade flashlight being shined on you, though it was so bright, you swore you could see the veins of your eyelids.

“You’re sure this is the one?” one voice said.

“Positive,” stated the one holding the flashlight, still shining it in your face.

“Well, I supposed there’s no accounting for taste,” the other shrugged.

The second man finally put the flashlight away and you opened your eyes, blinking to rid yourself of the black spots in your vision, desperate to identify your kidnappers.

They wore black hooded robes… but they weren’t like the shroud of the Ghostface. Their robes were more like those of Medieval monks. You heard a rattling and looked down to see a variety of items hanging from their waist chains: Hand woven wreaths, oak branches, a purple bottle of murky liquid, and a black wooden skull.

The two men hauled you out of the car, laying you on your side, still bound in the chains. You tried rolling or wiggling away, but one of the men kicked you in the diaphragm. You wheezed through your gag, hoping you wouldn’t hurl and choke on your own vomit.

“Careful. This one needs to be in one piece,” said the one who hadn’t kicked you.

“Why? She’ll get put back together once it’s done-”

“It’s not your place to question the process,” the leader interrupted sharply.

The one who’d kicked you grunted but didn’t argue.

The leader leaned down and removed the gag from your mouth.

“Whatever the fuck Ghostface is paying you, I’ll double it. Triple it!” you begged. No way this was unrelated, this had to be his doing.

“You think we’re doing this for money?” the one who kicked you laughed.

“What, are you some knockoff Manson family looking to go on a killing spree?” you prodded. They didn’t respond to you, but the one who had kicked you extracted a knife, which he proceeded to sharpen as his partner opened a book. You tried to struggle away, only for the one with the knife to press you into the ground with his boot. “Tell me why I’m gonna fucking die!”

“Whether you die tonight depends on you,” the more senior one said, not looking up from his book. Finally, seemed to find the page he wanted as he bookmarked it before kneeling next to you. “Do you want to live?” he asked.

“Is that a trick question?” you asked.

“Oh, it’s funny,” the other laughed. “She’ll like that.”

The elder didn’t react, but he reached for something in his robe. You flinched, only for him to extract a key and unlock your bonds.

Before you had the chance to bolt, he dragged you to your feet and turned you to face the woods, barely visible in the light of the full moon, the brightest thing being a dense wall of Fog about a half mile away.

“The game is simple. You run. We chase. If you make it to the fog, you live. If not, you die.”

“Am I really supposed to believe that?” you spat.

The younger one groaned impatiently. “Let’s just kill her. Hang her out for the crows to feast-”

“No,” the Elder said sternly. “We have our orders. She has to choose.” He turned you back to face him, his partner, and their wretched knives. “So, what will it be? Shall we kill you now or will you run for your life?”

“… Why should I trust you won’t kill me?” you asked.

The Elder clenched a fist to his heart. “I swear to my goddess: if you reach the Fog, you will not be harmed by our hands or weapons.”

Something about his wording bothered you. Still, what choice did you have? You nodded curtly.

He shoved you forward. “10… 9…” he counted and you took that as your cue to run.

Turns out, running in the woods - when not on a well-cultivated nature path - was hard. There were all kinds of underbrush, mud, roots, and sticks. It didn’t help that you were running in canvas shoes, made for walks in the park and average errands, not running for your life.

But screw it, if there was a chance of you getting out of this forest, it meant running as fast as you could and ignoring all of the cuts and scrapes you were receiving along the way.

But it didn’t stop you from catching your ankle on a raised root and eating the dirt not five feet away from the fog. You tried crawling, but one of the cloaked men stepped on your hand.

“Too slow. But you wouldn’t have lasted long anyway if that’s the best you can run,” the younger man jeered, drawing his knife.

Fuck that.

You didn’t survive the past year of bullshit just to die like this.

The robed man raised his knife in both hands and plunged it down at the same time you managed to lift your left hand into the path of the descending knife.

It pierced your hand, the tip of the six-inch steel blade only two inches from your sternum.

The man pressed down more, but you braced your arms to prevent it from further descending.

Screaming like a banshee and summoning the last of your strength, you kicked him in the groin and pulled the knife from your hand, stabbing it into his thigh. He screamed at a pitch even higher than you. You withdrew the knife and raised it to finish the job but were stopped by the sound of something flying overhead (knives? Darts? Definitely not bullets, you would have heard the crack of a gunshot, felt it in your very bones). Instead, you threw yourself toward the Fog and crawled through the brush to avoid the projectiles, his knife still in your bleeding, shaking hands.

You didn’t look back until you’d crossed into the Fog and your heartbeat in your ears died down. You turned onto your back, wielding the knife in case any of them dared to pursue you past the point of no return.

But you didn’t need to. True to their word, the moment you were covered in the mist, the black cloaks stopped. They seemed to vanish from your view entirely. You could neither see nor hear them. You scanned the fog for any sign of them, but there was nothing.

Just dark forest for miles.

Except it wasn’t like the Everglades you were used to, or like any of the few genuine forests of Florida.

This was a dark, wooded forest. The kind you see in fairy tales.

Or nightmares.

You jumped at the sound of a crow.

Ugh, had they managed to follow you here?

You shook yourself off and started searching for the moon, hoping to navigate your way home based on it.

But there was no moon that you could see.

No north star to point your way home.

Wait, no.

There was a light.

It was distant and faint, but definitely there.

Fluorescent light from the looks of it.

Was that a campsite? A rest stop? Hard to say.

Surrounded by shadowy silhouettes that you could barely make out. People?

Hopefully not the same ones you’d just escaped from.

But you could feel the adrenaline wearing off. You were losing blood.

In any case, finding other people would be worth the risk.

Keeping pressure on your hand, you began to limp toward the light.

Chapter Text

The longer you walked through the Fog, the better you felt. By the time you came to the light, your hand was neither hurting nor bleeding.

It also turned out, you were correct.

It was an electric light.

Specifically, one attached to a generator that was merrily chugging away.

A generator.

In the middle of a forest.

With nothing to power from what you can see.

Still, if there was a generator, there had to be a person who put it there.

So, desperate for help, you yelled as you walked, “Hey, is someone out there? Can somebody help me? Plea-EEE-”

Your screech was both caused and cut off by a hand wrapping around your mouth. You were quickly dragged behind some rubble by a young woman.

“Are you crazy, you’ll bring the killer right to us!” the woman whispered furiously as she uncovered your mouth. She had a hint of a French accent, big natural hair, and designer clothes covered in dirt, oil, and blood.

“Killer? You mean the guys with the cloaks?” you asked, trying to mentally recover from the whiplash of this woman’s clothes and the perilous situation.

She looked at you strangely. “No, not them. Something worse… Listen, just, go to the main building and help Dwight on the gen, he’ll show you the ropes.”

“Main building?” you asked. She pointed out the building you hadn’t noticed yet, some kind of 19th century building that quite frankly looked condemned.

“The gen will be upstairs,” she said.

“Is it safe to enter?”

She scoffed. “Trust me, you don’t need to worry about the buildings being unsafe here.”

You heard a distant screech and suddenly your heart began to beat faster. What the-

“ Merde . Go, now. Keep low and don’t let her see you.”

With that, she took off running. You heard another screech and your heartbeat slowed.

You took her advice and slowly crouched into the ruins.

The building looked like it had been set on fire at some point. In fact, some of the beams still seemed to be smoldering with embers and smoke.

Then a bit of writing on the wall caught your eye. You brushed a sign, attempting to discern the words fading with time and grime.

Cr_tus P_enn A_yl_m

…

Hold the phone.

How could you be all the way in Pennsylvania at the infamous Crotus Prenn Asylum?!

Had you been in that trunk longer than you thought?

No. Your kidnappers had definitely dropped you off in a Florida forest.

But how could you get from Florida to Pennsylvania in barely a second?

You heard some kind of engine on the upper floor and carefully climbed the stairs, keeping both hands on the banister in case they gave out. You got upstairs to find two men working on repairing a generator, just like the one you’d found earlier.

“Hey,” you called, and they looked up.

“Oh shit, a newbie,” the one with glasses cursed. Nevertheless, they beckoned you closer and you followed.

“Hi, uh-”

“Introductions later,” the bespectacled man stated. “You can work on this side closest to the hole. The instructions to repair it will be on the flap. If you feel the generator’s about blow, connect these wires, it’ll keep it from backfiring. We’ve only got three left so we should be-”

“Wait, why are we doing gens-”

“It’s the only way to get out.”

“Get out of where?” you asked, mind still not comprehending.

“Look, we’ll explain later, just please work on the gen,” he said, before going back to his work.

You blinked rapidly but did as he instructed, going to the other side of the generator, right next to a hole in the floor. Swallowing hard, you kneeled down and got to work.

“I’m Adam, by the way,” the young black man working on the other side of the generator said. “The guy between us is Dwight.”

“Y/N,” you responded trying desperately to figure out these instructions. You could barely change a tire, now you were suddenly expected to learn the mechanics of pistons and wiring?!

And what did they mean by ‘blowing up’-

The generator exploded.

You don’t know what happened exactly, but it exploded in your face, sending sparks flying and you flinching back.

Dwight gave you a look, but Adam hissed at him something that sounded like, ‘… first trial.’

You tried to relax, but your heartbeat suddenly skipped, increasing in pace and force.

You heard a screech and the next thing you knew, a woman in white appeared before you, screaming like a banshee and wielding a bone saw. She swung at you, but Adam lunged forward and took the hit. “Run!” he cried.

You didn’t think twice, just listened and ran out of the room, down the staircase, and as far from the building as you could get.

You tried looking behind you as you ran, desperate to see if the ghost was following you, when you ran headlong into something.

You bounced back and looked up to see a… pole?

No.

A meat hook, standing solo in the middle of this forest, still dripping with blood.

What.

The fuck.

CAW!

You jumped only to relax in disbelief upon seeing another one of those damn crows, perched atop the hook in question.

“Figures you’d follow me out here,” you muttered. It tilted its head at you. “You don’t happen to know the way out by any chance?”

The crow righted itself before cawing again and taking off toward a small shack.

“I can’t believe I’m following a bird,” you muttered to yourself but followed it inside nevertheless.

It was a shabby little side building with no doors, though it had some lockers, a window, and another generator.

You glared at the bird, not perched on the generator. “I said ‘show me the exit,’ this isn’t an exit.”

The crow cawed again, before taking flight and… vanishing mid-flight.

… How much mindfuckery would you be going through tonight?

You briefly considered hiding in a locker but decided, screw it, might as well try to fix the generator.

Taking it as slowly as you could, you connected the wires, occasionally reading over the instructions on the panel.

You heard more screaming in the distance; some of it was from the ghost that was clearly haunting / hunting you all, but some was from them. Your fellow… prisoners? Captives?

Survivors , something whispered in your ear.

You shuddered and tried to focus on your work, ignoring the creeping chill of the Fog that lay over everything in this place.

You were just about to finish the generator when Adam stumbled into the shack, bleeding profusely from a slice on his back.

“Oh my god you’re bleeding,” you cried, rushing to help him but he waved you off.

“I’m fine, let’s just work on this gen-”

“What do you mean you’re fine, that gash is going to get infected, oh god, wait, maybe I can stop the bleeding with my shirt-”

“No, I promise, I’m fine-”

Another screech and your heartbeat raced again, followed by the ghostly woman appearing again. She swung her bonesaw and Adam fell to the ground with a scream.

You ran, not sure what else you could do. You checked behind you, only for her to appear in front of you, shrieking and swinging. She slashed you with the saw and you screamed, changing direction, hoping that maybe you could lose her in the building.

You failed.

She struck you down moments later.

It was only then, partially paralyzed and bleeding on the ground that you got a good look at the woman.

She had red hair, pale skin, eyes covered by a blindfold, and wore a Nurse’s uniform from the 1890s.

A horribly familiar uniform that you recognized from a single newspaper picture of a catatonic spree killer, bundled up in a strait-jacket after being found at the scene of the mass murder.

… It couldn’t be.

“Sally Smithson?” you murmured, remembering the book Ghostface had given you about the massacre at Crotus Prenn. She wheezed heavily as she stared at you even from behind the blindfold. “No fucking way.”

The next thing you knew, she was lifting you over her shoulder. You tried to fight as best as you could, but made the mistake of looking over your shoulder at where she was taking you.

She was headed for the meathook.

Your struggling increased, with you fighting with everything in you to prevent yourself from being hooked, screaming and begging all the while: “NO PLEASE DEAR GOD DON’T DO THIS TO ME I’M SORRY WHATEVER I DID I’LL DO BETTER JUST PLEASE LET ME G-”

All for naught.

The hook pierced your shoulder and your world turned red and white with pain.

You’d broken bones before, but this pain was all of those times a thousand.

All of your weight was suspended from a single hook, now buried deep in your shoulder, the hook itself resting under your scapula and ensuring it wouldn’t just rip through the flesh of your back.

And there was something… behind the pain.

A creeping dread unlike any you’d felt before. Like a black hole, eating you from the inside out.

You whimpered and moaned, carefully bringing your hand to the hook. You had to get off this hook, you had to get away from this pain, from this feeling.

Maybe, if you had the strength, you could lift yourself off the hook.

You gritted your teeth and lifted, only for your hands to slip in the blood. It doubled your agony and for a moment, you thought you’d pass out from the pain alone. (You were amazed you hadn’t already.)

You gave yourself a moment to breathe when you noticed something materializing around you.

They looked like… claws.

Were you… were you hooked up to something alive ?

… You had to get out.

You tried again, putting all your strength and will into your grip on the hook.

They slipped again.

The claws fully materialized and lunged. You screamed and held them back, desperate to keep them from impaling you.

The claws felt… strange, somewhere between those of a crab and a praying mantis.

You felt yourself losing the fight against the claws when someone grabbed your waist and roughly lifted you up and off the hook, away from the claws. It was the man with the glasses from earlier. (Dwight?) “Why would you try to kill yourself on the hook?!” he whisper-shouted at you. You blinked, amazed you were able even to stand after the pain you’d just gone through.

“K-kill myself? I was trying to-”

You stopped as you stared at Dwight; he looked ready to yell but just exhaled and muttered something about ‘just a newbie, just a goddamn newbie.’ He shook his head at you. “Don’t do that again. You have to wait for us to come get you.”

“Wait for-”

Your heartbeat raced and you heard the screech again.

You didn’t even have time to run before she swung and had you back on the ground.

Only this time, instead of picking you up, she was on top of you, with her hands around your neck.

This wasn’t erotic asphyxiation, like when Ghostface put just enough pressure on your neck to heighten every sensation.

No, this was her strangling the last breath from your lungs.

You were dying.

You clawed at her hands, at her arms, her shoulders, her blindfolded face, but nothing relieved the pressure from your neck.

You felt something snap.

That was the last thing you ever felt.

And then you woke up at a campfire, which was surrounded by a few dozen people.

“Welcome to the campfire,” a red-headed young woman with pigtails said. You blinked at her.

“Wh… what?” you asked, mentally resetting as you tried to remember how you got here.

“I know. Dying sucks, but you’ll get used to it,” she joked, punching you on the arm none too gently. Not that you felt it; your brain was still rebooting.

“Used to… dying ,” you repeated.

“Yep. It’ll clear up, promise. I’m Meg. What’s your name, new girl?” she asked.

You were about to answer when a horrifically familiar voice called: “Y/N?”

You looked up.

And there they were. Casey and Steve, looking just as alive and hateable as they had in life. A bit more on the dirty and bloodys side, perhaps, but still well and truly them .

You exhaled angrily. “I’m in hell, aren’t I.”

“A type of hell, yeah, what gave it away?” asked a man with sunglasses and sleazy smile.

You glared at Casey and Steve. “Lucky guess.”

Casey winced, Steve bristled, but in the end, neither said a word. You turned away from them.

“So, tell me more about this place?” you asked Meg and the sleazy guy.

“Well, you just died in what we call a trial. Basically, at random times, four of us will get snatched up from the campfire and sent off into an arena where we either escape or die.”

“And the only way out is to do the generators-”

“Which power the exit gate.”

“Or you can use the escape hatch if you’re the last one left alive. It’s rare, but it does happen,” the man said. “I’m Ace, by the way, and I’m gonna guess from your getup that you were some kinda nurse?”

You frowned and looked down at your clothes, shocked to see that you were no longer in your casual clothes but instead were wearing your nurse’s scrubs. They were already smeared with dirt and oil and had a few fresh blood splatters.

“Yeah,” you said slowly.

“Well, they’re nice. Practical. And very flattering,” Ace smiled. You rolled your eyes at him as Meg knocked him upside the head.

“They’re back!” someone called and you looked behind you to see three figures emerging from the Fog.

“So I take it from the newbie’s early arrival that the trial did not go well,” Meg said, slinging her arm around Dwight and hauling him toward the fire as he leaned on her.

“It was the Nurse, it was never gonna go well,” he sighed.

“What!”

“Holy shit.”

“The Entity must really hate the new girl if it gave her the Nurse in her first trial,” the others cried.

“You mean Sally Smithson?” you asked. Everyone else stopped and stared at you as though you were the one who’d killed everyone. “What?”

“You know who she is?” the French girl said.

You shrugged. “I’ve read a few books about serial killers. Sally Smithson was the nurse who killed 50 patients and staff at Crotus Prenn Asylum. I don’t know if it’s her for sure but-”

“No, you’re right. That’s her,” said another girl in grungy clothes.
“Oh. Um… So, is she a ghost now?” you asked.

“Sorta?” Dwight said. "We have a couple types of ghosts, though ironically the one who calls himself a ghost isn’t one-”

“We’ll break down the specifics but basically, the killers like her are the ones we have to survive against,” Meg explained. “There’s about 27 that you really need to know, but some are rarer than others.”

“I’m sorry, there’s HOW many?!” you cried.

“We’ll talk about that later,” the French girl said. “Right now, we establish the basics. I’m Élodie, by the way.”

“Y/N,” you repeated once again.

“Nice to meet you, sorry it had to be here,” she said. “Now, would you mind telling us how you were taken.”

“Let me guess?” Meg interrupted before you could say a word. “You were just going about your daily routine, maybe taking a quick shortcut through the woods when a black Fog came out of nowhere and snatched you up.”

“Not exactly,” you frowned. What was it with this place and fog? “A couple of guys in cloaks kidnapped me and told me that I had to run into the fog or they’d kill me.”

Everyone went silent.

“Guys in cloaks…” a blonde man repeated.

“The Black Vale,” Élodie said solemnly. She and the blonde man shared a knowing glance.

“What, what does that mean?” you asked.

“It means you’re in for a rough time. The Entity chose you specifically.” She leaned forward, studying your face. “Can you think of any reason why a god of violence and death might find you interesting?”

Your mind went to your hundred nights with Ghostface and the bloodshed that came of it. “… I can’t say that I do,” you lied slowly.

She frowned. She didn’t believe you. But the blonde man at her side shot you a sad smile and said, “Well, let us know if it comes to you.”

You nodded.

She and her friend Felix broke it down for you: the generators, the gates, the hatch, the pallets and windows and how to use them on the different killers. Your mind blurred, ears buzzing as your brain disconnected from your body.

This wasn’t happening.

This wasn’t real.

In the back of your mind, you knew that you were either disassociating or having a panic attack. Either way, you were basically dead to the world.

Maybe you already were.

It felt like hours later when you finally came back to yourself. The other survivors had stopped trying to snap you out of it and had gone back to whatever they were doing before. Only two hovered nearby; Adam and Élodie.

“I’m so sorry. I know it’s a lot, but I promise, it will make a weird kind of sense in time,” she assured you. Suddenly, she began fading in and out like a bad photograph. “Oh shoot. That’s my cue. Adam, you can take it from here, right?” she asked. He nodded as she faded completely.

“How are you?” he asked. “And no pressure on you to actually answer that, being overwhelmed is basically the norm here. But if talking about it does help, I’m happy to listen.”

“I’m… still finding the words I think,” you agreed. “But I do want to thank you for helping me. You didn’t have to take that hit for me-”

“It’s no problem. I’m just sorry we couldn’t get you out,” he said.

“From what I understand, it was my own fault for trying to save myself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with needing a little help every now and then,” he said. You silently agreed, using the break in conversation to scoot closer to him.

“So, uh, how long have you been trapped here?” you questioned.

“A while. I think about four years. Time works differently here and we’re not all from the same decade.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Most of us are from the 2010s or 2020s, but there are a few who are from the 90s and 70s.”

“I’m from 1994 myself,” you said, mind sort of melting as you considered all the implications of effectively knowing the future.

“Oh god, it won’t be too much of a culture shock for you. We occasionally get people from different centuries.”

You whistled low.

Adam chuckled a bit.

You noticed Steve and Casey pretending not to look at you and decided to broach the subject.

“So uh, what do you know about those two?” you asked, doing your best to point him toward Steve and Casey without actually pointing.

“Steve 2 and Casey?”

“‘Steve 2’?” you asked.

“Sorry, we uh, had this joke about how we already had a person here who’s named Steve so we made them into Steve 1 and Steve 2,” he explained. You snorted; that had to rub Steve the wrong way.

“So who’s Steve 1?” you asked, wondering if it would be worthwhile revenge to flirt with the Superior Steve.

His face fell. “He, uh… he’s not around anymore.”

“… Oh.”

Silence.

“But yeah, uh, Steve and Casey came here together a few years ago,” Adam explained. “They were a couple for a while but they broke up after a bit. Did you, uh, know them?”

You glanced at them just in time to see Steve look away. “Not really.”

He clearly understood that there was some kind of history between you two, but he didn’t push it, which you appreciated.

You shivered, not sure if it was from the cold or just the fear of this place. Adam noticed and, without saying a word, shrugged off his coat and offered it to you. You accepted it, making sure to shift closer to him and stay there even after her wrapped you in the coat. You locked eyes with him; he was sweet. A genuinely good man. A lot like Derek.

Everything you should want in a guy.

It was impossible to tell who kissed whom first.

It wasn’t a slow-lean in, nor was it quick and passionate. It was something inbetween, curious but cautious.

You tried to deepen the kiss, but Adam clearly preferred gentle intimacy over fast passion.

You could work with that.

“You wanna go somewhere more private?” you asked him when the two of you came up for air.

He nodded and you walked off hand in hand.

You took note of Steve and Casey watching the two of you leave the campfire, but you paid them no mind.

Let them watch, for all you cared.

You strayed far enough away from the group that their chatter was lost in the wind, leaving just the stars, the Fog, the too-large moon, and the two of you.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. You hid your face in his neck, kissing at the small amount of skin that wasn’t covered by the collar of his shirt.

“Please, Adam. Make me feel good,” you purred.

“Okay,” he relented.

You kissed him again, this time more softly and he responded better.

The two of you slowly undressed each other. Just as you were figuring out the logistics of fucking against a tree, he laid his white coat on the ground for you, which you appreciated. You laid back and stretched out before rising just enough to pull your scrubs shirt over your head. Your bra quickly followed suit as Adam took off his own vest, shirt, and tie. You were about to pull down your pants when his hands stopped yours.

“Let me,” he asked, and you allowed him to be the one to strip you of your scrub bottoms and panties.

He leaned down and licked you, leaving you a moaning wreck. You did your best to reciprocate, reaching down to wrap your hand around his cock and work him just as well as he worked you. You were close to climax when you two finally broke apart.

“Wait, wait, do you have a condom?” you asked, wanting to be safe before you continued any further.

“Sorry no, but you don’t have to worry about that here,” he said and you blanched.

“Uh, I need this, but I am not doing this without protection-”

“No, I don’t mean like that, I mean… there’s no pregnancy or STDs here,” he stated. You stared at him, disbelieveingly. “Girls don’t get their periods and it seems like us guys can’t make the stuff needed. The Entity effectively neutered and spayed us.”

“Can it do that?” you asked cautiously.

“Don’t think about it right now, but honestly, there’s not much that the Entity can’t do. Some of us survivors and killers were dead when we were taken. That’s why we say ‘Death is not an escape.’”

“Well… I guess we should try and make the most of the life we have,” you said.

“My thoughts exactly,” he said before capturing your lips in another kiss.

From there, you were wet enough that he slid in easily, but he still insisted on taking things slow, giving you long and heavy thrusts. It was frustrating to a certain extent, but it also made you more aware of every touch, every drag, every sigh of pleasure.

You wrapped your hands around his neck and back and held him to you, nibbling on his ear in hopes of wiling him up, to no avail. The man was as steady and methodical as ever.

He came before you but made sure to eat you out, sending you over the edge with his tongue inside you.

The two of you held each other, sweat cooling and hearts drumming happily, as you pointedly ignored the crows staring at you.

You cleaned up as well as you could before returning to the campfire. Adam and a few others got called to trial not long after, leaving you alone at the campfire… with Steve and Casey. You rolled your eyes but strode over to them; clearly, the confrontation was inevitable, so might as well get it over with.

Casey spoke first: “Y/N, we-”

“You know, seeing you two alive has somehow been the least crazy thing to happen to me tonight so I’m just gonna say this once: You do not know me. You will not interact with me. We will do what we have to do to survive and nothing more. Okay?” you stated more than asked.

Casey swallowed. “I get that. But we wanted to warn you: Ghostface is here.”

Your heart stopped. “He is?”

“Yeah. We figured you knew he killed us,” Steve said. You laughed harshly.

“Oh, he must have loved seeing you both again,” you noted. Casey winced.

“Yeah, uh, let’s just say, Steve and I don’t last long against him. Steve’s taken to killing himself on hook every time he faces off with him,” she noted.

“‘Killing himself on hook,’ why do people keep saying that? What does it mean?” you asked.

“Someone will explain that to you later,” Steve said.

“Offloading the work to someone else, you really are Steve,” you snarked. Steve glowered at you before storming off, leaving you and Casey alone.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but I want to say I’m sorry,” Casey said. “I’m so, genuinely sorry . And I’m going to spend the rest of eternity making it up to you.”

“What do you mean, ‘eternity’?”

“Like they said. You’re in a type of hell. It’s just not one of fire and brimstone.”

You chuckled harshly. “Well, I did say I’d probably see you in hell.”

“When did you say that?”

“Your funeral,” you said.

Her eyes widened.

“You went to my funeral,” she repeated.

“For your parents, not for you,” you snapped. She flinched and the smallest part of you had the impulse to comfort her, the part that remembered the high school heartbreaks she comforted you over, back when fog was just fog and you’d never heard the name ‘Ghostface.’

Casey moved to leave, turning back at the last second. “I won’t tell anyone about our history. But I meant what I said.”

“So did I,” you stated.

You left it at that. You spent the rest of the night staring into the campfire, half hoping it would consume you and burn away this nightmare, even if it took you with it.

Chapter Text

You accepted your new reality faster than you thought you would.

You didn’t exactly have a choice; denial wouldn’t stop the chainsaw wielding maniac from mowing you down.

That was perhaps the strangest part; you’d seen so many horror movies and now you were trapped in one.

Except this one didn’t always have a final girl.

If anything, most of the trials seemed to be an all or nothing deal; either all of you escaped or none of you did.

Not everyone thought that way, of course; there were a few men and women who seemed to be out for their own survival, only helping others when it suited them.

The others didn’t hold grudges against them for it, which you didn’t understand.

“What the fuck, Yun-Jin, you could have easily saved me before escaping!” you raged at her after a bloody trial that left her as the only survivor.

“Trickster wasn’t going to let us both escape, it was you or me, and I know who I’m saving,” she said as she dropped her toolbox off at her chest of items and outfits.

“You’re a goddamned bitch, you know that,” you spat.

She turned on you with a withering gaze that uncomfortably reminded you of your least favorite middle school teacher. “I have been called worse by people who were a lot more important to me than you.” She brushed nonexistent dirt off her hands before standing before you, somehow making you feel like the short one despite her small stature.

“Now, I’m going to give you some slack because you’re new but let me be clear: you are responsible for yourself and no one else. You chose to go into the basement and save Adam. Maybe when you’re a bit smarter, you can pull a risky save like that. But right now, you are a liability that brings the rest of us down and I’m not going to risk myself to baby you. You want to survive? Learn to play smart. Go get some lessons from someone willing to teach you. I’m not going to waste my time.”

She brushed past you without another word. You stewed in frustration for a moment, softening as Adam approached you.

“I wanted to say thanks for what you did,” he said, but you waved him off.

“No problem. I’m sorry Yun-Jin wouldn’t-”

“I want to talk to you about that,” he interrupted. You frowned but followed as he led you a little further from the campfire. The moment you were out of earshot, Adam continued: “Yun-Jin knows Trickster. She was his manager back in the real world and was almost killed by him.” You blanched. “Not everybody here knew the killers, but some of them did. And generally, those killers will do anything to see them dead.”

“… I didn’t-”

“I know. But I felt you should know.”

You swallowed hard. “Who else knew the killers from before?”

“Laurie knew the Shape, but she doesn’t like to talk about it. Quentin was the one who brought Freddy here. Jeff and the Legion went to school together, Sadako killed Yoichi’s parents, there’s a few others but those are the major ones,” Adam explained, subtly directing your attention to each of the survivors in turn. “And uh, Casey and Steve knew the Ghostface.” You tried not to react but still felt your jaw clench at the reminder. Adam looked at you oddly. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” you lied.

Adam clearly didn’t believe you, but didn’t push it, which you appreciated. The two of you headed back to the camp. You briefly considered apologizing to Yun-Jin, but her glare made it clear she didn’t want to deal with you.

You hated to admit it, but she was right.

You had no idea how to run away from the killers and until you figured that out, that was gonna get you - and everyone around you - killed.

Everyone was acting weird this trial.

Steve and Casey usually acted a bit cagey whenever they were paired with you (Casey was always quick to heal and rescue you while Steve seemed reluctant to touch you in any way).

But this was different from that, as Nea was also in on it. The three of them seemed to be taking turns running interference, speaking in code and ‘secret’ glances that you could clearly see, even if you couldn’t parse out the meaning. It was as Steve and Casey traded off working on a two-man gen with you that you finally snapped. “Okay, what is going on?! Why are you all acting like this?” you whisper-shouted, not wanting to attract the killer who you still hadn’t seen but also wanting to make your displeasure apparent.

The two glanced at each other and Steve nodded. Casey sighed through her nose before saying: “I’m sorry, Y/N. It’s Ghostface.”

You felt the blood drain from your face. “What?”

“Ghostface. Our killer and you’re the obsession. Look, we wanted to run interference, some of these guys get weird about their obsessions and we wanted to give you time to adjust-”

You didn’t give her the chance to finish.

You rushed out into the middle of the forest, sneakers splatting on the wet ground, as you screamed at the top of your lungs: “Hey! Hey, you son of a bitch! I know you’re out there so come out, you coward .” You didn’t hear or see anything, despite screaming so loud, you were startling the crows from their roosts.

You searched for him, waiting, until you felt the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. You turned around. There he stood, not even trying to hide. He was covered in fresh blood and had new streamers to his killing clothes, that floated around him like the limbs of an octopus. You took a shaky breath, before calling to him: “You want me, don’t you?” He just stood there. Staring at you. “Well, don’t you!” you repeated. After a moment, he nodded stiffly. “Then come and get me!” you shouted before taking off into the Fog, him chasing after you a second later.

This was different than the other chases. There was still the adrenaline, the anger, but more so than anything, you were pumped up and ready to show him the mistake he’d made in bringing you here. He’d try to crouch around loops to catch you off guard, but you’d just slam the pallet down on his head or arm, reveling in the angry sigh that he emitted every time. You could hear his breathing get heavier and heavier. Of course, you couldn’t keep it up forever and made the mistake of trying to hide in a locker mid-chase.

“Okay, you got me. Now what?” you asked as he stabbed the knife into the locker, an inch from your face. He didn’t respond, only heaved you onto his shoulder like a sack of flour. You kicked at him, not expecting the silent treatment to continue for so long.

“Hey I'm talking to you, why won’t you-”

He dropped you to your feet, only to shove you against the wall. You stared up at him, eyes narrowed as his hands clenched around your arms. You considered kneeing him in the crotch but then he dropped to his knees and-

He held you.

Arms around your middle, mask buried in your stomach. Like he had to hold you or else you’d vanish.

Those floating tendrils on his shroud seemed to be caressing you, curling around your arms and shoulders and waist to keep you close. One wrapped around your eyes and the next thing you knew, your pants were being pulled down your legs.

“Hey, what do you think you’re- oh.”

He licked up your slit like it was the sweetest lollipop he’d ever tasted, before absolutely devouring you, burying his face in your cunt, nose on your clit, tongue in your hole and you had to cover your mouth with both hands to hide your scream.

Your toes curled, eyes closed, head thrown flat against the wall, the only thing keeping you from sliding down was his hold on you.

Anyone could walk in here at any moment oh fuck.

Your cunt clenched at the thought and you heard him humm in approval and god, you had missed the sound of his voice.

You’d missed all of this.

It was the best you’d felt since you got here.

“Jed,” you moaned. He pinched your thigh and you were confused for a moment before realizing what he wanted. Really ?!

He licked you again, long and slow, and you keened, giving in to both of your desires.

“Ghostface,” you sighed. You felt him smile against your cunt before digging back into his work with even more enthusiasm than before. Two gloved fingers in your cunt, his lips and tongue lathering attention over your bud. It was everything you needed and more. You didn’t bother trying to cover your mouth, just screamed in ecstasy as you rode the riptide of your pleasure. You shook so hard, it felt like you might shake to pieces, rocking back and forth against his face, hands, buried in the hood of his shroud. You could vaguely feel him smile against your cunt, before kissing your thighs. His hands were the only thing keeping you standing as the tendrils of his outfit released their hold on you. Slowly, your heart slowed and your breathing evened out and you sighed together in satisfaction.

“Well, this is one helluva reunion,” he smiled. You smacked him on the shoulder and pushed him away from you as he laughed, the mask falling back into place on his face.

“Fuck off. Don’t do that again,” you said, trying your best to recover your dignity as you pulled up your pants.

“What, are you gonna try and say you didn’t like it?” he said incredulously.

“It doesn’t matter if I liked it, what matters is that you’re a fucking bastard and I oughtta kill you myself.”

You couldn’t see his face, but his body language read as confused. “For what?”

You stared at him in disbelief. “For killing my best friend?! For not killing me? For bringing me to this hellscape? Take your pick.”

“I didn’t bring you here-”

“Bullshit-”

“I didn’t.” Then he surprised you and took off the mask, staring you dead in the eye. “Listen: I swear on my father’s grave that I didn’t bring you here.”

Everything about him, from his tone to his expression, read as honest… but your face hardened as you remembered the last time you’d seen his face. “Like you haven’t lied to my face before, Jed,” you sneered.

“Danny,” he said.

“What?”

“My name - my real name - is Danny Johnson,” he stated, letting the confession hang in the air.

You blinked. “You do realize you’re proving my point.”

“ Or I’m making a point to be honest with you from now on,” he said.

“There is no ‘from now on.’ You murdered my best friend. And then you didn’t have the guts to finish the job and kill me,” you said, brushing past him.

“I am not going to apologize for not killing you,” he called after you, and you rounded on him furiously.

“Then do us both a favor and stay away from me.”

“That’s not gonna be up to us, babe.” He wasn’t smug as he said that, more matter-of-fact.

“Why? Because you won’t allow it,” you mocked.

“No, because the Entity won’t.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“You being brought here almost three years after I was taken, it-”

“Three years?” you asked.

“Yeah, I think. Time is weird here; we have to go by the number of nightly rituals and trials we get. Why, how long was it for you?”

“… Less,” you said, not wanting to share that yet.

He frowned but didn’t push it. “Point is, if the Entity wants us to cross paths, it’ll make it happen.”

“Well, then I guess I’ll just have to treat you like every other killer I go against,” you said. Your statement was assisted by the sound of the final three gens popping all at once.

Ghostface cursed under his breath at the sound of it, turning his gaze toward the now-active exit gates.

By the time he looked back to you, you were long gone.

You’d just finished fixing yourself when you found Nea opening one of the gates.

“You alright?” she asked, one eyebrow raised as she looked you over, from your ruffled hair to your wrinkled scrubs.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” you asked before remembering you were supposed to have been chased for three gens by the Ghostface. “Oh right uh-”

“It’s okay, I saw,” Nea said.

“You… saw,” you blinked.

Nea nodded. “Look, you don’t need to feel ashamed about it. It’s an unspoken truth, but we’ve all traded favors for the hatch at some point. Usually, it’s an item or a favor but sometimes it’s… And anyway, you guys already seem to-”

“It won’t happen again,” you assured.

“Well…” Nea trailed off.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just, if you need someone to divert his attention, just tag me in,” she said.

You bristled. “Thanks, but I can deal with him.”

“If you’re sure-”

“I am,” you said shortly.

At that, you left through the gate.

You didn’t want to risk seeing Ghostface again.

Notes

She’s here. The new girl the others were talking about, it’s her.

I can’t believe it, it’s a dream come true.

Literally, I’ve been dreaming of her nonstop for - Days? Months? Weeks?

It’s hard to tell in this place.

This place… it’s alive, it literally knows what you want more than anything and taunts you with it. Like the carrot on the stick.

For a while, I was content with the repetitive hack-n-slash, cutting down the survivors like fields of wheat, interviewing the killers (some of them being my literal idols, the greatest mass murderers and serial killers in history!). But as time passed, I kept thinking of her.

I dreamt of her when I slept, found myself imagining what the rest of her life would be like without me in it. Would she break the cycle and find someone good for her or would she find another Steve? Or another me?

I hated the thought of being replaced, of her leaving me behind, of her forgetting about me.

I guess the great spider-crab heard what I wanted and decided to give it to me. Though for what reason I still don’t know. From what I can tell, survivors showing up alone is rare and, usually, they’re powerful or experienced like that Ash Williams guy or the witchy bitch with the dumb boons. My professional pride wants to chalk this up to being a favorite, but again, nothing is free in this place.

Still, you know what they say about gift horses and all. And frankly, she could have a creepy third eye like Maurice the circus horse and I’d still be happy to fuck her again.

Holding her felt like holding everything I’d ever wanted. I have the job, the recognition, the fear, and now her.

And she tasted even better than I remember.

Part of me didn’t want to let her leave at the end, but the Entity doesn’t take kindly to dragging out matches too long.

And she’s still a little ticked about how we left things off.

I’m not too worried.

I have forever to make it up to her.

Chapter Text

The Ghostface was right about one thing; the Entity wouldn’t let you two be apart for long.

You had more trials with him than any other killer. Which was great for you as he never seriously tried to hurt you.

It was less great for your teammates.

You felt especially bad when you got paired with the teenage survivors. (Seriously, what was wrong with the Entity, feeding on traumatized kids, weren’t there enough adults in the world to snack on?)

They assured you it was fine, that they were used to it. In some ways, they were; Laurie, Cheryl, and Quentin were some of the most efficient survivors at the campfire, running literal circles around most of the killers.

But there was an exhaustion in their eyes that twisted your gut.

You only caught it for brief moments; Quentin pausing after searching a chest and finding only a broken key, Cheryl glaring at the Entity’s tendrils blocking a generator, Laurie’s thousand-mile stare.

What made it worse is how they apologized to you.

“I’m sorryI’m sorryI’m sorryI’m sorryI’m sorry,” Laurie repeated as she backfired the generator. As though you hadn’t already blown up that same gen thrice already.

This was your sixth trial against Ghostface thus far, and he’d already hooked everyone twice at 3 gens.

Everyone except for you, that is.

You’d somehow managed to avoid him, thus far.

“Laurie, it’s okay, we’re fine,” you tried to assure her. You failed.

“No, it’s not, we were so close to getting it done but now he’s gonna come over here and it’s all my fault and-”

“I’ll handle him,” you said before you could really comprehend the promise.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“I’m sure,” you lied.

She handed you your flashlight and you took off.

Now, how to get his attention?

Luckily, you found an already dropped pallet in the workshop above the bathroom where one of the completed generators was. You tried not to focus on the cot not far from it.

This would work.

You vaulted over it. Quickly. Repeatedly. Loudly.

It didn’t take long for him to come running, though it took you longer than you wanted to notice he’d snuck up on you.

“Well, look who wants my attention now that your team is struggling,” he crooned. It was strange to hear Ghostface’s words in Jed’s voice, no voice changer or deception. But you didn’t let it phase you.

“Shut up and chase me, Danny,” you spat as he sauntered up to your pallet, the piece of wood the only thing separating you.

“I’d love to, but I know a distraction when I see one. And I happen to know all your little friends are ripe for the slaughter so-”

“Do you want me?” you asked bluntly.

He stopped.

You waited.

“Will you let me have you?” he asked.

“… I’ll go down on you if you let me,” you offered casually.

He scoffed. “Is that what this is? You make yourself a martyr for your little team and convince yourself that you’re only doing it for them.” He shook his head. “Nope. You don’t get to do that. It’s all or nothing. Either I get to have you every way or no way at all.” He turned back toward the gens-

“How about this?” you called. “If I can outrun you before the next three gens are done, you let us all leave. If not, I participate in whatever… thing you want. Eagerly and enthusiastically.”

He tapped exaggeratedly on the chin of his mask as he hemmed and hawed. You rolled your eyes at him. Finally, he leaned across the pallet as far as he could. “… Ten. Nine. Eight-”

You ran for it. There was another pallet between two tables, as well as two next to the basement below, and a vault point in the surveillance room but apart from that, you were running blind. You managed to get to that other pallet, only for him to Expose you.

Shit.

You dropped it, hoping to maintain distance between you two, only for him to break the pallet a bit more quickly than usual.

Double shit.

What perks was he running?

You ran up the stairs to the monitor room, hoping to vault the window, only to feel his knife pierce your spine right as you made the leap.

You fell to the concrete floor, hard, not bothering to crawl or recover. You heard his boots hit the concrete as he followed you through the window.

“I think that’s a new record for fastest down,” he joked.

“Ugh, just kill me and get it over with,” you groaned.

“Uh-uh, we made a deal. And I’ll keep up my portion if you keep up yours,” he said, hauling you up into his arms despite your pained groans of protest. “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up, I don’t mind the blood, but I want you conscious for this.”

He laid you on the bed in the workshop before opening your medkit and carefully extracting the gauze bandage inside. You whined as he lifted your shirt just enough to see the wound on your back. “Come on, Night Nurse, let me see.”

You stared at the walls, at the drawings of the different death traps, knowing that if you looked at the wound, you were liable to faint.

You would never understand it, how you could go from debilitated by pain to completely well in a matter of seconds. Still, you couldn’t bring yourself to complain, not now. Not with the way he was touching you, trailing his gloved fingers up and over your spine and the small of your back as he wound the gauze around your middle. You shivered, arching into his touch.

“There’s my girl,” he cooed.

“Not your girl,” you corrected, though the breathy tone weakened your argument. He immediately pulled away.

“Oh? Well, maybe my attention would be better spent on those kids-”

You grabbed his hands and pulled them back to your body.

He was still smirking as he drew one hand away to lift his mask. Still smirking, he kissed you just as deeply as he’d eaten you out the first time you saw him here. You kissed him back, wondering what was taking the kids so long to get the gens done.

They weren’t all working on the same one, were they?

The thought, and all others, was quickly wiped from your mind as he rolled you on top of him.

“Come on, you wanted to be a distraction, didn’t you. Distract me.”

“Really gonna make me do all the work after you stabbed me,” you snarked, shifting to make yourself more comfortable.

“Just get me inside of you, then we’ll see who’s really working.”

You rolled your eyes at him but trailed a hand down his chest to the bulge in his pants anyway. You pulled down the zipper and released his cock, the organ bouncing merrily in greeting. You leaned down to give it a kiss, swallowing it down just long enough to whet him for you.

From there, you shimmied your scrubs down your thighs and over your shoes, knowing you’d need all your mobility for this. With your knees surrounding his waist and your right hand lining up his cock with your cunt, you dropped yourself onto him, forcefully taking him in one stroke.

“Fuck… ugh, you never do things by halves, huh, babe,” he sighed, head thrown back as you ground on his lap.

“This is what you wanted,” you said, bouncing up and down on him. “The Fuck-Buddy experience.”

“I’d prefer the boyfriend experience,” he said, hands on your ass now moving you more slowly.

“That’s not on the menu,” you snapped.

“Pity.” He took that as the cue to thrust hard and fast. You gave the bare minimum of reciprocal effort, but it was still as good as it had ever been.

“Holy shit babe, you’re so warm and tight, ugh if I’d known how good it would feel without the condom, I would’ve-”

“Shut up before I change my mind,” Still you couldn’t help but agree with his sentiment. Everything was felt more vividly, like going from smelling food to tasting it, savoring it, feeling its texture on your tongue. You felt every ridge, every flutter, every slide of flesh-on-flesh and you reveled in it.

“Fuck, you want me to cum inside you, don’t you. You wanna be my good girl.”

Yes, that unfortunately insatiable side of your brain cried, but you knew better than to voice it. Instead, you kissed the cheek of the mask and whispered, “I think you’re the one who wants to be good, don’t you, Danny.”

He groaned. “Say my name again.”

“Which one, Jed?” you asked innocently.

“Are you really doing this now?”

“You wanted me. I’m here. I never said I wouldn’t put up a fight.”

“Ugh, fine, what do you want?”

You clicked your tongue as you pretended to think about it. “We keep this trade up. I fuck you and you let the other survivors go.”

“Not happening.”

“Come on, I know you don’t have to kill all four of us to feed it-”

“Yeah, but it’s happier when I do.”

“So, you care about the Entity more than you care about me?”

“… When did you get so manipulative?” he asked. You just blinked at him slowly, prettily, like you had with Steve in the early days of your relationship when you wanted him to pick up the tab.

Ghostface sighed. “I’ll let you go. The others can stuff it.”

“Me and two others.”

“You and one other. That’s the best deal you’re gonna get.”

You considered the proposal for a moment, before shucking off your shirt and bra. You could feel his gaze immediately go to your chest, even as you brought his hands to your breasts.

“Most people seal deals with a handshake,” you noted, before leaning towards him so you could murmur: “But we aren’t most people, are we?”

He grabbed you and held you to him, thrusting even harder and faster than before. Oh, god, why does he feel so good-

You vaguely heard the sound of one, two gens being completed, followed by the siren that signaled the exit gates. But at this point, you were both too engulfed in each other to care.

Ghostface reached down and circled your clit, making sure you had just enough stimulation to finish before him. You dragged him over the precipice of orgasm, the two of you shuddering and gasping as he spilled inside of you.

For a moment, you lay on top of him, panting and sweating, but as he stroked your hair, you jumped up and swiftly started pulling your clothes back on.

“So that’s it? Good old ‘love-em-and-leave-em’?”

“You want aftercare, then you let all of the other survivors go,” you said, pulling your sports bra over your head.

“…Okay,” he shrugged before pulling you back down with him.

“I just said-”

Then you stopped. He was holding you. Your back his chest, his unmasked in your head and neck.

More importantly, he wasn’t going after the others.

So, you relaxed. You let him hold you.

You hated to admit it, but it was nice to be held. To just have a moment without fear or worry. Even the campfire was fraught with the anxiety of being pulled into a trial at any moment. It was technically safe, but it never felt that way.

Not that way you felt here and now in his arms.

Thankfully, Quentin had the foresight to only open the exit gate most of the way which gave you a little more time to clean up and make yourself presentable.

Your shirt hid your bound-up wound, but you still had to fight a wince and clench your thighs as you felt Ghostface's cum drip down your leg.

“You alright?” Laurie called as you limped towards them.

“Fine. Got a little banged up but nothing serious,” you lied.

“Thanks for taking aggro. I thought we were gonners,” Quentin said.

“No problem. I need to get better at chase anyway,” you said. (Technically, that wasn’t a lie.)

“You managed pretty well for a newbie,” Cheryl said, though it didn’t exactly sound like praise.

“Yeah, did Kate teach you her perks yet? Those might help you a bit, if you need them,” Quentin asked.

“I’ll look into them, thanks. But we should probably head out before the Ghostface comes back.”

“Fair enough.”

Quentin opened the gate the four of you headed to the barrier separating the trial grounds from the safety of the campfire. You stopped a moment before passing through and looked back to see the Ghostface staring at you. He gave you a little wave. You flipped him off and followed your fellow survivors, telling yourself the heat in your cheeks was anger.

This was a temporary thing.

Just until you got better in chase.

Then you’d leave him in the dust where he belonged.

Chapter Text

“Alright, we’re gonna be doing another one of our classes, anyone who wants to join in!” Jill Valentine called out to the others.

“What’s the class?” you asked.

“Self-defense lessons,” Meg explained. “We might not be able to hit the killer with anything but a pallet or locker in a trial, but we can still teach each other the best ways to deal with killers if we run into them outside of the campfire.”

“Why would we leave the campfire?”

“Scavenging, searching for a way out, general boredom, take your pick,” Meg said. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to-”

“No, I want to! It’s great. I went to some self-defense classes at my college, but that was mostly about using the buddy system and ‘don’t drink anything you didn’t see poured yourself.’”

“Well, this is less that and more, ‘how to throw off somebody who’s three times your body weight and four times your strength.’”

You grinned. “Sign me the fuck up.”

Most of the teachers were survivors with military or law enforcement experience before arriving, but there were a few more civilian types among them:

Claudette was surprisingly adept at a lot of the grapples. “I took Judo in college,” she blushed as everyone applauded her, as Yoichi struggled to get up.

Laurie taught everyone how to break out of a chokehold. (No one dared ask how she knew.)

Unfortunately, your knowledge was more on the theory side. You knew a few pressure points that when hit or stabbed could be debilitating, but how to hit those spots was outside your area of expertise.

When it came time for practicing, you and Quentin paired together. You felt a little bad since he was just a kid, but he reminded you this was for both of your benefit.

“Believe me, I’d punch Krueger if I could,” he said as you practiced together.

“Who is Krueger to you?” you asked, knowing that they knew each other before but not knowing the exact how.

Quentin paused for a moment but steadied himself quickly. “Freddy Krueger was a gardener at Badham Preschool. My preschool. As time went on, our parents started to realize we were coming home with a bit more than the usual cuts and bruises. They killed him. But it made him into something worse.”

“So you’ve been dealing with him for most of your life,” you realized.

“Not exactly. I didn’t remember what he did to me for the longest time. But when he came back… I remembered. And he hasn’t let me forget it since,” he said, unable to keep a touch of bitterness out of his voice. Your heart went out to him. “Don’t get me wrong, I dragged him here and I’d rather we both be here than him be out there, hurting all the people I love. But if I had the power to kill him for good, I would.”

“Trust me, I’m not puritanical when it comes to vengeance,” you said. “Can you keep a secret?” He nodded. “I almost killed Ghostface before I came here.”

He smiled. “How?”

“I, uh, got the drop on him, he wasn’t expecting it. But honestly, I wasn’t in a good place mentally. If I had gone through with it, I would have offed myself immediately after,” you confessed.

“He who seeks revenge should dig two graves,” Quentin quoted.

“I guess it’s just a matter of deciding who the graves are for,” you said. “Now come on, I wanna master Jill’s somersault.”

Every day might as well be Halloween in the Entity’s realm, but it still felt the need to get into the spirit of the season. The trial grounds were decked out with glowing jack-o-lanterns and strange plants unlike any you’d ever seen before.

You’d gotten closer to examine one, only for Claudette to grab your wrist.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna handle these plants without gloves,” she said, waving her own gloved hand.

You watched as she harvested a vial of glowing liquid from the plant. The moment she was finished, the flower withered before your eyes.

“What is that?” you asked.

“Pustula plant. We use the nectar to make serum. It’s a safer version of the stuff the Blight uses,” she explained as you two worked on a generator together.

“What do you mean, ‘safer’?”

“… Well, nothing’s 100% safe, especially not here. Let’s just say, I would be a lot less willing to use this stuff if we were in the real world. But-”

“When your body gets reset every trial, why not?” you extrapolated.

“Bingo. Now let’s-”

The two of you were suddenly exposed and Claudette fell to the ground with a scream.

You jumped back, thoroughly terrified, but somehow even more shocked when you realized who it was.

“Ghost?” you asked. The figure looked like Ghostface. He even wiped the blood off his blade in the same way. But he looked like an Edvard Munch painting, his mask melting into his body, batwings sprouting from his shoulders, his breath heavy and wheezing. “Ghost, what are you-”

He stabbed you.

Hard.

You collapsed to the ground, shocked and in pain, staring at him as he lifted Claudette onto his shoulder and carried her off.

Thankfully, Adam was nearby and was able to pick you up before Ghostface came back.

“What’s wrong with him?” you asked once you were far enough away to talk and heal.

“He’s fine, this happens-”

“In what world is thisfine ?!” you cried.

“In this one,” he explained. “Look, it happens to the killers during Halloween. The Entity sprouts the pustula flowers and the killers get a power-up. It’s temporary. But for the time being, he’s not who you know.” There was something about his tone and the way he was avoiding your eyes that bothered you. He tried to pull you towards a generator after he finished healing you, but you shrugged him off.

“What else aren’t you telling me?” you asked suspiciously.

Adam tensed but eventually admitted: “… We think the Blight is experimenting on them to find a way out.”

You furrowed your brow, the pieces slowly coming together. “A way out? Like escaping for good?”

“Yeah. We found the notes of someone named Vigo, he worked on finding an escape. Blight found his lab and was working on the same thing until one of the vials turned him into… that thing. Vigo disappeared so that either means he found it or…”

“The Entity stopped him before he could,” you finished for him.

“Either way, that means he was onto something- AH!”

Adam cried out as Ghostface appeared again, striking him to the ground. You were so shocked that Ghostface managed to get a hit on you before you started running.

This wasn't the Jed Olsen you knew or even Danny. This was Ghostface as most of the survivors knew him, a single-minded killer who was focused only on killing as efficiently as possible.

You were his obsession and he seemed to take that literally, focusing almost entirely on you, only hooking the others once before going back to you. Desperate and out of options, you held up your hands and spoke to him like one of your most distressed patients.

“Ghost! Look at me!” you pleaded. He cocked his head at you. “I know that there’s something wrong with you. But you’re still you.” You slowly approached him. “You still have a choice. You’re not just a killer, you're so much more than this.” You were standing face-to-mask with Ghostface. “Danny-”

The last generator sounded off the alarm. The next thing you knew, you were on the ground and Ghostface was climbing on top of you and everything was pain and there was blood in your mouth and oh god, you didn’t want to die again.

The last thing you saw was a flash of light. Then everything went black.

“Welcome to Halloween time in the Fog,” Meg said as you awoke at the campfire. “It sucks just as bad as any other time but at least we get candy.” You groaned, still recovering from the phantom pains of dying. “Who was it?” Meg asked.

“Ghostface,” you moaned.

“Ooof. That’s your first time getting mori’d by him, right?” she asked.

“ … Maybe. Why?” you asked her.

Meg held up her hands. “No need to get defensive. It was just a question.”

Still, there was something in her tone and body language that you didn’t appreciate. You thought about responding but your attention was drawn away by your teammates’ return. Claudette, Adam, and Feng Min all manifested at the campfire, all of whom seemed pretty disappointed.

“Thanks a lot, noob,” Feng Min spat at you.

“Me, what did I do?” you asked.

“1) you fell for the obvious Rancor play. 2) he had Remember Me AND No Way Out, which meant the gates took forever after you died, leaving the rest of us at his mercy. What were you doing anyway, selling us out to him?”

“Min, we’ve all fallen for tricks like that before, give her a break,” Claudette said. “And Y/N would never sell us out. She distracted him long enough for us to get the gates done.”

“Whatever,” she huffed. “You guys can cradle the noob all you like. I’m gonna look for new items.”

A couple of survivors joined Feng, following her as she headed out beyond the safety of the campfire.

“How do we find where we’re going when we leave the campfire?” you asked Meg as you watched them leave.

“You just focus on what you need to find,” Meg said. “Items, addons, offerings, and usually you’ll find it. But try not to think about the killers or locations themselves, if you think about them then you’re more likely to end up at their places.”

“And we wouldn’t want that would we, Meg,” Claudette teased. Meg shoved her playfully as Claudette giggled.

You paid them no mind. Your eyes were firmly set on the Fog.

You waited until Adam, Claudette, and Meg were in a trial before you left the campfire, striding into the forest with a purpose. Your thoughts were single-mindedly focused on Ghostface.

The Fog turned so thick, you couldn’t see your surroundings. When it finally lifted, you were outside the Lerys.

Ugh. Not a great place to look for a stealth killer.

Still, you pressed forward, carefully looking around corners as you searched for him.

Eventually, you came to the treatment theater, which was filled to the brim with a dozen killers, all of whom were glowing gold with those strange syringes embedded in their backs.

Huntress had sprouted literal fur, with a lice infestation to match.

The Doctor and the Spirit had grown new eyes.

The Legion had all somehow combined into a single body, the faces of the three non-host members twisted in agony. If you listened closely, you swore you could hear some of the faces moaning or crying.

You surveyed them from the observation rooms above the treatment theater when you were shoved against the wall facefirst. Your assailant turned you around, revealing herself to be the Pig, her retractable blade to your throat.

“Where’s Ghostface?” you asked without hesitation. She cocked her head at you.

“Really? That’s why you’re here?” she asked.

“I need to see him.”

“God, you really are into him, aren’t you.” Nevertheless, she slowly lowered her weapon.

“Something was wrong with him-”

“It’s not just him. Trust me. It happens to most of the killers during Halloween.”

“How did you avoid it?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “Not much rhyme or reason to it. The Nightmare doesn’t exist in the same world as most of us so he’s got an out. No one has ever managed to sneak up on the Shape. I’ve got security cameras all around the Gideon Meat Plant, I can’t use them in trials but any other time, no one can get inside without me seeing them. The one who got closest was your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you stated.

“Uh-huh,” said.

You frowned. “Look, I don’t know what he’s told you-”

“It’s not what he’s told me, your actions speak louder than anything he could tell me,” she said. “I mean, he has said a lot about you.”

You fidgeted. “… What did he say?”

“Now that would be telling,” she said. She took the Pig head off to reveal a normal-looking woman under the mask. “Name’s Amanda. Nice to meet you, Y/N.” She offered her hand, the one with the retractable blade. Still, you shook it. “Now, if I understood correctly, you’re a nurse. Which means you might be able to help me with these people.”

“I just came here for Ghostface-”

“I get that. But Carter, Sally, and I have our hands full trying to help these killers. They have to be in enough pain to motivate but not so much that it’s debilitating.”

“Why would the Blight do this?”

“Entity’s orders, revenge for how we hunted him. Hell, maybe the rumors are true and he’s trying to help us escape,” Amanda laughed. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that there’s work that needs to be done and you can help.” She opened a locker and pulled out an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform with a chatelaine of medical tools. “So, are you gonna stand there and die or are you gonna work?”

You stared at her for a moment… before taking the outfit.

It fit a little too well.

The nurse’s hat, the heels, the stockings, and the bustle skirt made it feel more like a historical costume than a uniform. Oh well. At least this one had gloves, a face mask, and protective eyewear, unlike your usual scrubs.

“Ms. Young, I require assistance-”

“Way ahead of you doc, look who came by and volunteered to help,” she smiled as The Doctor entered the room.

“Doctor, I-” you froze as you saw his mutations in all their gory glory.

“Pick an eye, Ms. L/N, you cannot physically look into all of mine at once,” he giggled.

“I, um… I guess I’m here to help.”

He somehow grinned even wider. “Excellent. We’ll start immediately.”

You measured out morphine to help the killers who were the most in pain (which were far too many). You bandaged their open wounds, careful to not get any of the golden liquid on you (you couldn't tell if it was blood, pus, or just pure serum but you didn't want to find out). You gave Huntress a lice treatment, using tweezers and oil to suffocate the mites and pick out their eggs.

The Cannibal, the Pig, and the Deathslinger would occasionally have to hold someone back from hurting you and some (mostly the Plague) refused any kind of treatment, but for the most part, you managed to help them to the best of your ability.

“The gold stuff seems to have almost replaced their blood,” you noted as you ran tests on the Trapper, looking at his blood under a microscope. “Theoretically, a clean blood transfusion or a dialysis machine might be able to cure them, or at least reduce the effects.”

“I’ll look around. This place is so old, it’s hard to tell what they’ll have,” the Pig said.

“Dialysis was invented in the 40s, they should have at least one around.”

“If this were a normal hospital maybe,” she snorted, but went off in search of a machine nevertheless.

You stared at the hooks of the Lerys, noticing the blood bags hanging from them.

“Are those blood bags functional?” you called out.

“Oh yes, I frequently run blood tests on the survivors to see how the trials affect them physically,” the Doctor said from another room.

“Could we use that to help some of the most affected killers?”

The Doctor smiled. “Now there’s a worthwhile experiment."

Ghostface arrived at the hospital, one of his best hunting grounds. But he wasn’t hunting, not right now. He wasn’t needed. He had served IT well and it was repaying him with relief.

“Mr. Olsen!” the Doctor greeted. “How are you feeling today?”

Ghostface just continued to breathe heavily. 

“Well, if you’ll just step right through that door, we’ll be able to… treat you.” The Doctor chuckled again, with that too high-pitched laugh.

Still, he walked into the next room.

There she was. His obsession. It had felt so good to kill her earlier. He’d licked her blood from his blade earlier. She tasted like fruit and all the other sweet things that no longer existed in this world. She jumped when she noticed him. He loved seeing her scared.

“Ghost! I, uh… how are you?” she asked. “Ghost, it’s me. You remember me, don’t you?”

He gave no answer. Usually, words came easy to him, when he was the other man. But as Ghostface, silence spoke louder.

“Right… Uh, if you could sit on the bed right there, we can get started,” she said. He obeyed, curious to see what she had planned for him. She held her stethoscope to her ears before pressing it to his chest, where his exposed stomach and ribs jutted out. She moved it from his heart (beating so fast, it always beat so fast around her, chasing her, watching her) then to his ribs over his lungs (he was breathing, faster, heavier, and it wasn’t just because of the blocked airways). He leaned forward and inhaled, desperate to smell the fruity perfume. Orange. That’s the name of the smell.

She smells like oranges.

“Well, your vitals seem a little above normal but that seems to be normal for these mutations,” she said. She looked up and frowned, before pressing one hand to his face. “That mask is impeding your ability to breathe. Maybe if I-”

She drew a syringe and held it to his face. He didn’t move, too busy watching her, trying to smell her. She injected the localized anesthetic before carefully bringing out a scalpel. With the barest of cuts, she opened the mouth-hole of the mask, allowing him to breathe again, using small stitches and butterfly tape to stem the gold bleeding from the cuts.

He inhaled deeply, taking in as much of her smell as he could.

“Good, that seems to have relieved some of the pressure. Now I just need to- WOAH.”

Ghostface wanted more. Smelling her was amazing but he wanted more, needed more.

He grabbed her by her hair and pulled her onto the bed with him, pushing her face-first into the bed. He climbed on top of her and buried his face in her neck, her hair, and smelled. Good, but he needed more.

He pulled out his knife and left a thin slice on her back and shoulder. The batwings on his shoulder flapped as he pressed mask-face into the cut and smelled her blood. Even her whimpers of pain were lovely.

His bulge was growing. Like all things, it had been changed by The Serum, but it still grew to a hard point for her. His clothes were still fused to him, but a few cuts with his knife changed that.

Her own clothes camp apart easily with his knife and hands. She whimpered and whined but also thrust back against him. She wanted him too.

He slid inside her, blood and serum adding to her slick, and he pounded roughly into her. Hands gripping, leaving bruises on her hips, her shoulder cut still bleeding freely, he thrust and thrust and thrust. She tried to lift her head but he pushed her down by her neck, ignoring her muffled pleas.

She felt so good, so tight, her breath hitching in her throat. He wrapped his hand around her throat, feeling both her heartbeat and her breath fluttering through her skin. He could smother her now if he wanted.

Something hit him in the back of the head and everything went black.

Danny Johnson slowly roused himself, a headache blooming on the back of his skull.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” the Doctor said. He was still sporting his Blighted mutations, which Danny realized were missing from his own body. His mask was on his face but no longer a part of it.

“What happened?” Danny asked, mind still fuzzy from the aftereffects of the putrid serum.

“You got a little too excited during intercourse with Miss L/N. Miss Young walked in on you smothering the girl and hit you in the back of the head with a bedpan. We kept you sedated during your blood transfusion which seems to have cut down the affliction significantly-”

“Y/N?” Danny repeated before his eyes widened in remembrance.

“Yes, she came here looking for help and Miss Young persuaded her to help us with the other killers.”

“Where is she-”

“Ms. Young is back in her realm-”

“Not her, Y/N!”

“Rest easy, Mr. Olsen, your lover is safe. She was a little shaken up, but Ms. Young tended to her injuries after she showered. She’s doing inventory for me right now-”

Danny leaped to his feet and rushed around the hospital, searching for you. He found you in a side room, doing inventory of the hospital’s supplies. Your hair was damp and loose down your back, a gray towel around your shoulders. Your eyes snapped to him as you entered the room and rushed forward.

“Y/N, I-”

You flinched and stepped back when you saw him.

You’d never flinched at him before, not like that.

“ … I’m so sorry,” Danny said.

“… It wasn’t you,” you said. “Not entirely-”

“But still, I- I don’t ever want you to fear me like that,” he said. You swallowed hard. “Did you really come here for me?”

You nodded.

“I’m so-”

“Don’t,” you said. “I’m a nurse, I know how bad things can be when a patient is on drugs.”

“But still, you came here for me, and I…” he trailed off.

You worried your lip between your teeth before stepping forward. “So, this only happens during Halloween, right?”

“Yeah.”

You looked at him before giving him the slightest smile. “That’s a pity. I was hoping to get one more round in.”

You kissed him on his mask before leaving Danny standing there, stunned.

Chapter Text

You spawned into a trial at Badham Preschool, exhausted. And not exhausted as in unable to run away. No, exhausted as in micro-sleeping. Quentin had explained the phenomena to you as being so tired that your mind forced itself to sleep. And there was only one killer who could make survivors fall asleep where they stood.

You’d only gone against Freddy Krueger once before and that had been one too many times. And that was before you knew of what he’d done to Quentin and the Badham Preschool kids, how he was so much worse than a child killer.

Even worse, Quentin was in the trial with you. 

“I’ll handle him,” you told Quentin the moment you both heard that familiar lullaby.

“You sure?” he asked. “Krueger’s a sadist, probably one of the most sadistic ones in this place.”

“I’m sure,” you said. “Better me than you.”

It didn’t take long to get Krueger’s attention. You ran through a few of the pools of blood he left behind as traps, which quickly made the dream demon turn toward you, rather than Quentin and the generator.

“Oooo, what do we have here?” Krueger cooed, waving his finger blades at you as he caught up to you at a pallet next to one of the many cars around the map. “Ghostface’s slutty little girlfriend.”

“God, he really does kiss and tell,” you said, hoping that talking back would keep Krueger’s attention on you.

“It’s the little shit from the Legion that really got my attention.” You cringed, not proud of that particular encounter. He laughed. “So it’s true . You’re working your way through the killers. Well, I’ll be making myself the next notch in your belt.” He lunged and you barely managed to slam down the pallet on his head.

“From what I heard, I’m a little old for you,” you spat as he cursed and recovered from the blow.

Unfortunately, he grinned wider at that. “Everyone has their preferences. You got no room to judge, Legion’s barely legal. I checked.”

You bristled. “People tend to look a lot older when they wear a mask and have a knife to my throat,” you said. “And it’s a mistake I won’t be making again.”

“Pity. But I still want a taste,” he said. He broke the pallet and you took off running. You vaguely registered the whooshing sound coming from somewhere but didn’t realize what it meant until you stumbled across the generator spewing blood, Krueger slowly emerging from the spray. He sliced you with his claws and you yelped, scrambling away from him as well as you could. “Where ya goin’, babe? I could make all your nightmares into wet dreams if you just stay still.”

Shit. You should have known better than to get his attention like this, though your efforts were rewarded with the sound of multiple gens popping. Two gens. You could run him for two more gens. Right?

Krueger caught up, slicing down your back, your injured spine ceasing feeling in your legs and crumpling you to the ground.

Apparently not.

You tried to crawl away but could feel Krueger’s presence coming behind you. “Where do you think you’re going? I’m not done playing with you.”

It was then that noticed Quentin hiding in a bush not far away. And he had a flashlight. You tried to shake your head subtly, but he just held a finger to his lips.

Krueger lifted you onto his shoulder and Quentin shined the flashlight in his face, blinding him and forcing him to drop you.

“You little shit!” Krueger raged. “You want my fucking attention? You got it, Bitch.”

You did your best to cover for Quentin, but Krueger was relentless in his pursuit. Eventually, you both went down, halfway across the map from the opened exit gates, and neither Yun-Jin nor Feng Min seemed likely to come back for you both to do, what to do?” Krueger smirked. Holding up one finger blade, he pointed at you: “Eeeny.” The blade shifted to Quentin. “Meeny.” Back to you. “Miny.” Quentin. “You.”

To your surprise, Krueger proceeded to pick you up and slam you on the hook. The world faded amidst the pain, but you could still hear Krueger laugh. “Pity. But we’ll play the next time I see you-”

You kicked him. It barely knocked him off balance and hurt you a hell of a lot more than it hurt him. But it injured his pride and that was something. He sliced at you on the hook, not that you could feel it much when your body was more focused on your shoulder.

Still, he turned back to Quentin, smirking. “You and your little friends are trapped here. This is my world. And you don’t get to leave.”

“You might want to check on that,” Quentin smirked. Krueger frowned and looked up at the gate; the exit was blocked but Yun-Jin and Feng Min had already left.

Krueger snarled, slashing Quentin across the face in fury. “So they escaped. That just gives us a little more… privacy .” Quentin spat blood at Krueger, who licked it up without pause.

You saw Krueger’s hands going lower than they should and decided to take action. “Krueger!”

“You’ll have your turn later.”

With a desperate prayer to any and every deity listening, you grabbed the hook and pulled. Whatever was listening apparently decided to give you a small amount of grace and you jumped off the hook. You were so shocked you just stood there for a moment, Krueger and Quentin both staring at you.

“RUN!” Quentin shouted, only to get backhanded again.

You listened to him.

You knew the gates would still be blocked for now so you focused on keeping Krueger as far away from Quentin as possible.

You vaulted a window and sprinted off to a far corner of the map. With all the generators done, he couldn’t teleport ahead of you now.

Thankfully, there was still an excess of pallets on the map and you were all too happy to slam every single one on Krueger’s burned, bald, fedora-wearing head.

When he finally did down you, it was in the lower level of the preschool.

“Cute. Very cute,” Krueger sneered. “But I’ve still got plenty of time to play with you and-”

Quentin recovered, standing up again without you needing to heal him.

“Whoops. Your draw became a 1-kill game. I think that means ‘you lose,’” you teased.

Krueger left you there to bleed out, cursing under his breath.

You were about to settle in and let yourself die, when you noticed Quentin making his way toward you rather than the exit.

“Don’t do it, kid,” you murmured. 

Too late.

Krueger found him.

You closed your eyes and turned away.

Nothing you could do now except wait to die.

Before you could bleed out, a massive claw of the Entity burst through the Earth, impaling you, crushing you, breaking your arms, legs, neck-

It all went black.

Quentin shrugged it off when you approached him at the campfire (“He wasn’t able to do much anyway” he said “The endgame collapse killed me before he could draw it out”).

But that trial stuck with you.

This place was hell, but the way that Krueger got to torment Quentin didn’t sit right with you. Quentin was one of the most altruistic survivors, always willing to go above and beyond for the sake of his teammates. He deserved to have someone else watch his back in the same way.

So, you braved leaving the campfire and found yourself back at the Lerys Memorial Institute.

Hoping that your actions during the Hallowed Blight had won you enough favor, you entered the institute and searched the halls for the Doctor. Your hair standing on end announced his appearance before anything else. “I know you’re there,” you called, hoping the phrase would make you seem more confident than you were.

The Doctor giggled and stepped out to see you. “You must truly have a death wish to come here without your beaux.”

Despite your racing heartbeat, you stood tall and proud. “I want to make a bargain.”

He laughed again. “You may appeal to other killers, but I will not be swayed so easily.”

“That’s why I brought this,” you said, tossing him a ranger medkit, the most coveted of all.

His grin widened. “You have one minute to make your case.”

You took a deep breath. “You have access to medical supplies. That includes drugs, right?”

“If you’re looking for anything recreational, or a form of birth control or Viagra, I-”

“Not what I need,” you assured him. “I need drugs used in chemical castration.”

“Trouble in paradise?” he inquired. 

“Not everything I do is because of Ghostface,” you said sourly. Had you really become so defined by him? He looked at you to continue. “Krueger has been hurting the kids. Especially Quentin. Someone needs to make him pay.”

“Chemically castrating the Nightmare? Sounds delightful. But what’s in it for me?” Before you could respond, he interrupted: “And don’t think you can spread your legs for this.”

“I’ll let you kill me in trial,” you offered.

He laughed. “I’d do that without your assistance.”

“Then what do you want?” you shouted, tired of playing mental games and beating around bushes.

His eyes sparked with curiosity. “I want answers. Our mutual friend has always been a bit cagey whenever I ask questions about himself and you. So I want to know everything about your relationship, what you know about him, everything.”

“Why?” you asked.

“I want to see what made you two different. Men like Jed Olsen don’t make themselves vulnerable willingly. But with you, he is like any other foolish man courting a woman.”

“We’re not court-”

“You can tell me all about it when I give you what you need,” he interrupted once more.

“So you can get it for me.”

“I can. It will be on you to use it, but I can procure it easily enough.”

“Alright. It’s a deal then.”

“Shall we shake on it?” he said, extending his massive, charged hand.

You debated it for a moment internally. Shake his hand and likely receive a shock strong enough to fry you? Or snub him and risk him breaking off the deal?

You did your best to keep your face neutral, the knuckles of your left hand clenching as you clasped his electric hand in yours.

You felt the current flow through you, your hair standing on end, but you couldn’t let go of his hand. The Doctor cackled.

You could feel the heat and energy vibrating you, making your teeth crash, your joints convulse, your hair burning from tip to scalp.

You don’t know when exactly it killed you, but the next thing you knew, you were at the campfire.

“Welcome back,” Meg said. “Why’d you leave the campfire this time?”

“Looking for supplies,” you groaned. Technically, it wasn’t even a lie.

“Ah. That sucks. Did you find anything?” she asked. “Sometimes they spawn at your chest even if you die.”

“Thanks for the tip,” you said.

“Remember that next time we’re in a trial together,” she smiled.

You rolled your eyes but more out of affection than annoyance. You went to your chest and opened it to find a syringe, but not an anti-hemorrhagic or a vaccine. It was labeled with a note in truly horrific handwriting that said, A down payment for services: Use wisely

You held it close for a moment, flashing back to Krueger’s disgusting tongue wagging and general leering at you.

Then you noticed Quentin, barely staying awake at the campfire, and quietly approached him. “Can we talk?”

He nodded vaguely, standing and moving just far enough away that the others wouldn’t hear you talk. “You don’t need to apologize, it’s Krueger’s fault, not yours-”

“It’s not that. Well, not just that. It’s just… I might have a way to help keep him off your back,” you said.

Quentin blinked, more awake now. “How?”

You paused before showing him the syringe. He frowned. “Stick him with this and he won’t be able to get it up. It’s not much, but it’s a way to hit him where it hurts at least.”

Quentin stared at you. “How did you get this? What did it cost you-”

“Look, do you want it or not?” you asked him shortly. He recoiled and you groaned, annoyed with your lack of patience. “Sorry. Long night. I just… please let me help you.” He hesitated for a moment, before reluctantly taking the syringe. “I don’t know if you’ll need an offering to keep it in your hand, but it’s worth a shot,” you noted.

“Thank you. I don’t know how you did this but… it means a lot,” he said, eyes red with tears rather than exhaustion.

“You suffered more than most,” you said. “I’ll do what I can to help you with that.”

Even if it means making some morally questionable deals.

Whatever.

You’d cross that bridge next when you came to it.

Chapter Text

Official Transcript of Doctor Herman Carter Interview #1 with Y/N L/N

Y/N L/N: Is this really necessary?

Doctor Carter: Keeping records is essential to the process. Now, Ms. L/N, how did you meet the Ghostface?

Y/N L/N: He interviewed me after murdering my fiance and best friend.

Doctor Carter: Interviewed? So he was a police officer?

Y/N L/N: Reporter.

Doctor Carter: Ah. Much more fitting. How did your relationship progress from there?

Y/N L/N: He started stalking me. Eventually, he broke into my house and… offered to sleep with me.

Doctor Carter: And you agreed?

Y/N L/N: I was depressed! And horny and angry and not thinking clearly. It turned into a semi-regular thing. I tried to break it off once but he started dating me as the reporter.

Doctor Carter: *giggles* Perhaps your body was telling you what your mind had not accepted.

Y/N L/N: You sound like a bad romcom.

Doctor Carter: Hardly. Love is a matter of chemistry, timing, and choice more than it is about soulmates finding the mythical “one.” I merely mean that while the mind has power, it can also trick itself or deny what it knows to be true.

Y/N L/N: And what do you think is true?

Doctor Carter: … The Entity brought you here years after he arrived here. How long was it for you?

Y/N L/N: … A year.

Doctor Carter: *hums* Much less time. How well had you moved on in that time?

Y/N L/N: You sound like my therapist.

Doctor Carter: Ah. Not well then.

Y/N L/N: He killed my best friend. The one who DIDN’T sleep with my boyfriend.

Doctor Carter: … Interesting. What did you do when you found out?

Y/N L/N: … I’m getting called to a trial.

Doctor Carter: No matter. Here is your payment, as agreed upon. Come back at your earliest convenience to obtain the next dosage. And don’t think I won’t forget how you avoided this question.

Y/N L/N: You’re not angry?

Doctor Carter: Information extraction is my specialty. And it’s been so long since someone had information worth extracting. Believe me: avoiding the question will just make it more satisfying when I receive the answer. Until next time, Ms. L/N.

You knew he was watching you.

You’d gone against him so often that you could feel his gaze on you. Could hear the subtle flutter of his cloak from half a mile away.

Still, you let him watch as you crouched next to the generator tucked between the snowbanks of Mount Ormond. And if your ass was poking out a bit more than usual, well…

Ghostface lunged from his hiding spot and pressed you into the generator. “Surprise, Y/N,” he crooned in your ear. He was wearing another one of his strange outfits, this one ice-themed, with literal spikes of ice extruding from him a bit like Trapper or Spirit.

“Not much of a surprise if it happens every time we’re in a match together,” you grinned.

“I must be getting predictable,” he said, before he began hiking up your skirt, even though you were both out in the open.

“What are you doing-”

“Come on, Babe,” he cooed in your ear. “The rest of the survivors are across the map, there’s no reason for them to come here. And I’ll make it so good for you.”

You groaned as you felt his ice-cold fingers trace your folds through your underwear. The cold made all your senses heightened. You couldn’t wait to feel how other parts of him felt inside you.

And his cloak did blend in with the snow…

“… Okay, fine, just keep it quiet,” you whispered.

“Always,” he cooed in your ear before pulling your panties down and getting to work, one hand delving inside as the other pinned you to a gen.

You keened, only for Ghostface to cover your mouth.

“Better keep quiet unless you want the others to see you like this.” He leaned even closer to whisper, “Maybe that’s what you want, for the others to see you like this.”

“Nooooo…” you groaned, despite clenching around his fingers.

“No? Then you better be good for me and keep quiet, or I’ll have to-”

Ghostface was interrupted by someone outright tackling him to the ground. Without Ghostface pinning you, you collapsed to the floor, trembling and confused.

“Get the hell off of her!” the attacker cried, trying to go for another hit only to be shoved away. It took you a moment to realize who it was.
“STEVE, WAIT-” Ghostface, of course, recovered quickly from the attack and quickly dodged the next blow, slicing Steve with an icicle as he went in for another hit. “Danny, stop it!”

“Hey, he hit me first-”

“He didn’t know any better-”

“What the fuck are you two talking about?!” Steve yelled, clutching his bleeding arm.

“… He doesn’t know?” Ghostface asked you. You winced.

Steve didn’t seem to understand. “Know what, that you’re a creep and a rapist-”

“He didn’t-” You sighed. “Steve, he wasn’t hurting me.”

“… What?”

You squirmed. Despite your general hatred for Steve and everything he’d ever done to you, the look of betrayal on his face was discomforting. “Look, we all know I’m shit at running from the killers. This is my way of keeping him… distracted.”

He had the gall to look at you as though you were the one that hurt him. “You’ve been sleeping with him? He murdered me and Casey!”

“Do you think that for even a moment I would have considered sleeping with him if you hadn’t betrayed me first?” you raged. He went as pale as Ghostface’s mask. You exhaled, seething. “You were dead. And I was so angry, but I had nowhere to put the anger. Hate me all you want. I would have taken a knife for you before all this happened. Now, I wouldn’t spit on you if you were dying of thirst.” You turned away from him, not wanting him to see the furious tears in your eyes.

“Y/N-” he moved to go after you, but Ghostface stepped between you and Steve.

“I wouldn’t do that, pretty boy. Not unless you want me to kill you again .”

Steve bristled. “You’re loving this, aren’t you. Killing me wasn’t enough, you also had to trick her into sleeping with you.”

Ghostface snorted. “You majorly overestimate your importance to me, Steve . I wanted her because she was exciting. It had nothing to do with you.” You should not be flattered by that, you know as much. But your heart still leaps at the confirmation. “Now, Y/N and I were clearly in the middle of something, so unless you want me to gut you like a fish, I suggest you go finish the generators like a good little survivor.”

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but you just said: “Steve... Don’t .”

He looked between you and Ghostface’s blade and finally walked away. Ghostface was immediately on you once more, wrapping his arms around you from behind.

“Haven’t you learned your lesson about exhibitionism yet?” you asked.

“Not in the slightest,” he said, before turning you around and shoving you into a snowbank. “We can just do heavy petting until your lover boy leaves, I’m pretty sure he’s still watching from a corner.”

“ … Let him watch,” you said, staring into Ghostface’s eyes, barely visible behind the mask.

Ghostface paused to look at you before burying his mask in your neck. “God, the things you do to me-”

“Shut up and fuck me,” you said, unbuckling his belt and unzipping his pants.

“As you wish,” he crooned, before moving aside his mask just enough to attack your neck, sucking a ridiculously large hickey into your skin.

Despite your insistence, he took his time with you, his frozen fingers piquing your nipples and playing with your clit. You reached for his cock, hoping it would spur him along, but he grabbed your hand and pinned it to the ground. “Ah-ah, be good. I want to take my time with you, it’s been too long since I got you alone like this.”

You didn’t bother stifling your moan. Let Steve watch as Ghostface fucked you better than he ever did.

And fuck you he did, using the temperature to his advantage. Despite its appearance, Mount Ormond was never any colder than any of the other realms, which at least meant you wouldn’t get frostbite on top of broken bones. However, Ghostface’s icy protrusions and frozen knife were chilling and he made full use of them, trailing the frozen blade over your skin and sending goosebumps pebbling up and down your flesh.

“Ghostface, please ,” you keened loudly.

“Please what ?” he asked. “Use your words. You used them often enough.”

“Please fuck me!” you cried.

“Then get me ready,” he growled in your ear, and he stood, brushing aside his cloak to extract his cock. Thankfully, it had no frozen spikes embedded in it, but it was as cold as the rest of him. You didn’t let it bother him as you closed your mouth around him.

It was like deepthroating a salty popsicle. You took special care to cover your teeth as you sucked him down, hollowing your cheeks. “Jesus, fuck , you’re gonna drain me dry before I get inside you.”

“I guess we better get a move on then,” you said as you came up for air, blinking prettily as snowflakes landed on your lashes. You lay back in the snowbank, raising your skirt over your hips as he pulled your panties down your legs, removing them entirely.

(You didn’t say anything as you noticed him pocket them.)

He stroked his cock twice more, before sliding inside, feeling as divine as ever.

“UGHN!” you yelled. The temperature and teasing had set your nerves alight and now your body was on fire with sensation.

“That feel good?” he asked, louder than normal.

“Yes!” you cried, just as loud.

“God, you feel so good,” he said, thrusting inside you with long, hard strokes. “You got me at the edge already!”

“Cum inside me!”

You felt him twitch at that and with one hand cupping your face and the other lifting your hips to get just the right angle, he crooned in your ear, “Only once you cum.”

Then he mercilessly stroked your clit, icy fingers making everything better.

“Oh god, I’m gonna- I’m gonna-” Your breath hitched in your throat with every move, you couldn’t get the words out.

“Say it, babe, unless you don’t really want it,” he said, his frozen thumb leaving you truly overstimulated.

It was so hard to force the words out, but right as you reached the peak, you screamed, “I’m gonna cum!”

“Then do it!” he shouted before biting down on your shoulder.

You both came at the same time, both of you shuddering and shivering, but not (just) from the cold.

Even his cum felt cold as it filled you.

Ghostface gasped and sighed but was careful not to collapse on top of you. Instead, he rolled to the side.

“We should fuck in front of Steve more often,” he joked. You hummed in agreement but frowned as you noticed the ice pressed to your skin had turned unbearably cold now. Ghostface noticed you staring at the ice on his skin and moved so the ice wasn’t touching you anymore.

“Does it hurt?” you asked him.

“The ice?” he clarified. You nodded. He held up his right hand, which was covered in ice, for both of you to examine.

“It did at first. Made my skin prickle and pinch,” he said. “But it's not as bad as the Blighted stuff.”

“That was bad,” you agreed, remembering how heavy his breath was with the mask fused to his face.

He stared at you. “I never really thanked you for helping with that, did I?”

“Not really,” you said. “I mean, it was a bit of a whirlwind.”

“Still… you came to find me after I hurt you,” he said. “No one’s really done that for me.” You shrugged. He lay on his side to face you. “Hey… I know now might not be the time, but if you want to get away from the campfire, you can always come to my place?”

“Your place?” you inquired.

“I have a spot at the MacMillan Estate. A house all my own. You should come by,” he said.

“Why?” You knew why, of course, but wanted to hear him say it.

“I want to thank you for helping me properly. I got booze. And some other fun things that I can’t bring into trials,” he said, one hand trailing down your waist to your ass.

You pursed your lips as he stared at you expectantly. “… Give me ten minutes to get cleaned up once I get back to camp. Then I’ll come.”

“Yeah you will,” he said. You punched him in the shoulder.

“Don’t push your luck, Ghost. I’m the one who has to deal with Steve’s passive aggressiveness.”

“Remember, I’m always happy to kill him for you.”

“You’d kill him if I wasn’t here.”

“Yeah, but I can really draw it out if you like.”

You groaned. “Don’t tempt me.”

Still, you pressed one more kiss on his mask just as the last gen finished. “Better get a move on.”

“Don’t worry. I got a plan. Hatch should spawn at the shack if you want to wait there,” he said, zipping up his pants and adjusting his belt as he headed for the exit gates.

Turns out, he had Rancor and Steve was the obsession.

Ah well.

Sucks to be him.

“I cannot believe you!” Steve raged once you arrived at the campfire, having waited for the hatch rather than go for the exits.

“Oh shove it up your ass, Steve .”

“What is it this time-”

You were about to tell everyone to mind their own business, but Steve decided that everyone deserved to know his issue: “She’s sleeping with Ghostface !”

You punched him across the face as hard as you could. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very hard.

Still, it was enough to bruise your knuckles and make him press a hand to his face.

“Y/N…” a voice behind you said. You turned to face Casey. “Is this true?”

You frowned. “Don’t look at me like that.” She flinched. You turned to face the other survivors, all of whom were looking at you with varied looks of shock, resentment, and disgust. “We all know I’m shit at running from killers, especially stealth killers. We made a deal, that’s all.”

“Except he’s not the only one, is he?” Yun-Jin said. You shifted uncomfortably. “I heard what Krueger said to you. You’ve slept with that boy from the Legion. How many others-”

“I haven’t slept with Trickster, if that’s what you’re implying,” you snarled. “Though maybe I should since I can’t count on you to help me survive against him-”

“Okay, time-out,” Dwight said, waving his hands and coming forward. “Everyone is fresh off a trial and we shouldn’t be talking about this right now-”

“We shouldn’t be talking about this at all!” you cried. “None of you understand what I’ve been through with him, none of you know the history I have with him-”

“Really, none of us understand what it’s like to have a serial killer stalking you?” Laurie asked incredulously.

“I didn’t mean that, I mean that-”

“What, what could you possibly mean?” Laurie raged.

You struggled for words, only for Elodie to fill in the blanks. “… You were sleeping with him before he came here.” Your face must have revealed the truth because she continued. “That’s why the Entity chose you. You’re his fucking ex.”

“I’m not his ex because it was not a relationship!” you denied.

“So you were sleeping with him!” she maintained. “Did you know he was a serial killer?”

“Sorta?” you offered reluctantly.

“The fuck do you mean ‘sorta’?!” Steve raged.

You winced. “I slept with him as a serial killer and when I tried to break it off I… unknowingly dated his alter ego.”

“Oh my god,” Casey said, shaking her head and sitting on a log, one hand on her temple.

“How could you do this, he’s a killer!” Elodie shouted. You scrambled to put your reasonings into words, even as half a dozen survivors yelled at you.

“I’m sleeping with Huntress!” Meg suddenly interrupted. That seemed to shock a lot of the older survivors, except for Claudette, Dwight, and Jake.

“… Really ?” Nea asked her. Meg shrugged.

“She’s lonely. I’m lonely. And anyway, have you seen her arms?”

“You’re both crazy-”

“No personal insults at the campfire-” Dwight tried to interrupt, but Yun-Jin cut him off.

“How can you all be sleeping with people who kill us?!”

“Look, a lot of them are just as trapped as we are. Some of them didn’t even want to be killers,” Meg defended.

“Yeah, but Ghostface and Huntress sure as hell seem to be enjoying themselves here.”

“Okay, fine then, how many times have you all died in a trial against Ghostface while I’m there?” you shouted.

Silence.

“Well? Any answers?” you emphasized. Still no response. “Because I promise you, when I’m there, he’s not focused on doing his job.” The others still looked unconvinced. “Feel free to complain all you want. But I’m surviving in my way, just like all of you are surviving in yours. As long as I’m pulling my weight and not throwing anyone else under the bus, I don’t see the problem beyond personal distaste.” From there you turned your glare to Steve. “Put a scarlet letter on me for all I care. I’m done trying to defend myself.”

You brushed past him, knocking him aside despite him being taller than you.

You headed for the campfire's edge, letting out a scream of pure rage the moment you were far enough away. It helped somewhat, but you were still shaking when you finished. You sat on the hard ground and just held yourself, trying to stop the shaking.

You got five minutes of solitude before someone approached you. Thankfully, it was Meg.

“If you’re gonna scream, you’re gonna need to go further out if you don’t want anybody to hear you,” Meg said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you said dryly. Still, you knew she was only trying to help, so you softened as you continued: “Thanks for the backup.”

“No problem. I guess us killer fuckers have to stick together, right?” she joked.

“… Sure.”

“Just… he’s not hurting you, is he?” she asked. “If he’s forcing you to do this or if-”

“No. We made a deal. And as much as I might pretend otherwise, I’m getting the better deal than he is,” you stated.

You heard a branch break and rounded on the noise, ready to chuck a rock at the potential intruder, only to realize who it was.

“Quentin, hey! Sorry, just a bit jumpy right now,” you said, dropping the rock quickly. He just stared at you. “Were you there for all that-”

“I was.”

“… Oh.”

Silence. Meg headed back to camp, giving you two a bit more privacy to talk.

Quentin waited until she was a ways away before he began: “I just want to say… I’m thankful for everything you’ve done to help me. But if you're making deals with a killer to help me then-”

“It’s not him,” you assured him. “Ghostface, he’s not the one I’m getting the stuff from-”

“Let me finish,” Quentin stated. You were surprised but let him continue. “Whoever’s helping you, if they’re a killer… they can’t be trusted.”

“I know.”

“I’m not sure you do. You’re playing with fire. And if you get burned, we all suffer for it.”

You considered his words for a moment. “Okay.”

“Thank you for helping me. But I’m gonna need time to come to terms with everything,” he said, moving to leave.

You rushed after him. “Take this before you leave,” you said, offering him another syringe. He stared at it for a moment, before shaking his head.

“Keep it for yourself. You might need it.”

Then he left you to your solitude.

You left the campfire.

Wandering the Fog, for all its danger, seemed the preferable option to going back to the glares and sneers of your fellow survivors.

Eventually, you found yourself in the deep blue woods of the MacMillan Estate. But in front of you was a house unlike any you’d seen before on the estate. It looked like one of the houses on Lampkin Lane.

Then you noticed the slightly ajar door and the trail of flower petals leading inside.

You couldn’t help but smile as you followed the trail inside and up the stairs to a bedroom lit by candles.

The door quickly shut behind you and you found Ghostface standing behind you, masked and in a maroon smoking jacket, no longer impaled by spikes of ice thankfully. “Welcome to Casa Del Johnson,” he greeted.

“It’s nice,” you offered.

He cocked his head at you before taking off the mask. You turned away, still so uncomfortable with seeing Jed’s face with the mannerisms of Ghostface. “What’s wrong?” 

You shrugged. “Steve told everyone. They’re not happy.”

“Well, fuck ‘em. Their opinions don’t matter.”

“Maybe not, but it makes them less willing to help me in a trial,” you noted.

Danny cursed. “Right… forgot about that.” You sat on the bed and he sat next to you. “Uh… anything I can… do to help?”

“… Could you just hold me? I’m not feeling in a very sexy mood right now,” you said.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course,” he said.

The two of you lay on the bed, fully clothed, his arms around you.

He didn’t pull away.

He didn’t look at your face

He didn’t try to kiss you.

All he did was wrap you up in his arms and hold on tight.

And for one beautiful moment: you were any other woman being held by her lover in bed.

Notes

She came over today.

I hoped having her over to the recreation of my childhood home would be a bit of a nicer night for both of us. A bit of hide-and-seek followed by us fucking in every room, perhaps?

But Steve ran his mouth and now her fellow survivors know why she survives every trial against me.

And unlike my game, hers requires cooperation.

I feel bad.

I don’t feel bad often, but she is here because of me and just as she was learning the game, this happens and now she won’t be getting much help.

And this is a problem I can’t fix with killing.

So what do I do?

I could kill Steve again but that won’t change what he did.

She could always come live with me, but she’ll probably say that would prove the survivors right.

Guess I’ll just have to wait and see (and look into how the Entity feels about giving survivors to killers).

Chapter Text

The Daily Ritual

Article by Ghostface

Announcing: This Season’s Killer Mixer

In honor of Lunar New Year, the Sweet Darkness has given her killers the gift of a party! (Attendance Mandatory)

Enjoy punch (and not the kind with hands in it) and social interaction with your fellow killers!

Reminder, no violence is allowed; save that anger and bloodshed for the trials!

-

Mors Ambitio: Shape, kill 1 survivor by your own hand.

Rite of the Nightmare: Nightmare, force survivors run through your dream snares 4 times.

The Way of the Light: Y/N, successfully open an exit gate 1 time.

-

Note: Maurice the Three-Eyed Horse is still missing. If found or seen, please contact Jeffrey Hawk / Kenneth Chase at Father Campbell’s Chapel in the Crotus Prenn Asylum.

(Underneath the missing poster text is the poorly drawn picture of a horse)

To Ghostface, work mixers at whatever newspaper he was working for were mostly ways of sussing out if anyone suspected him.

He’d never been one for workplace interaction, not wanting to risk anyone seeing his mask slip with inane talk of ball games, spouses, children, and the weather.

But here, in the Fog, he was rubbing elbows with the most legendary killers of all time: Evan MacMillan, Max Thompson Jr., Sally Smithson, all were the stuff of nightmares, were the killers he aspired to be like. And now, he was one of them, forever cemented as a legendary killer.

The others were certainly no slouches either, offering a strange look beyond the veil at what was possible in the ever-expanding omniverse.

Not all of them made for good conversation, but it was still fun to see the Nemesis and the Red Pyramid arm-wrestle at the Saloon.

“So, what ‘r we havin’?” the Deathslinger asked, serving as ‘bartender’ at the mixer, due to it being his realm and all.

“I don’t suppose the Entity gave you any ice this time?” Ghostface asked, still masked and in his work clothes, a contrast to most of the killers who had unmasked for the evening.

“Ya’d think that an all-powerful bein’ of darkness would be able ta lend us some ice but naw. No ice,” Quinn said, spitting his chewing tobacco right onto the floor of the saloon.

Ghostface shrugged. “Straight whiskey is fine.”

Quinn handed him the whole bottle. “Help yourself.”

From there, he made his way over to the poker table where Amanda Young, Evan MacMillan, Herman Carter, and Ji-Woon Hak all sat.

“Care to deal me in?” he asked as he moved to sit at the table, only for Amanda to put her boots on the chair.

“You know the rules, Ghost, you don’t get dealt in unless you take off the mask,” Evan said, not bothering to look at him. MacMillan’s own scarred face was unmasked for all to see.

“Aw, c’mon, Evan, I’m not even that good at bluffing,” he lied.

“It’s MacMillan to you,” the eldest killer growled. “Just because you’re the Entity’s favored doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“I thought you were the poster child,” Ghostface teased.

MacMillan stood, towering at least a whole foot over Ghostface, who stood his ground despite straining his neck to look up. “I’m its Enforcer. That doesn’t mean I’m the favorite.”

“Seriously, Jed, just take the mask off. I don’t know how you and Myers can stand wearing those masks all the time,” Amanda said, running a hand through her tangled hair.

“It helps when they’re not made of an actual pig’s head,” he teased. “I forgot, was it the decision of the Entity or of Kramer to make you wear a pig’s head and a bright red robe?”

Amanda glowered but didn’t rise to the bait for once. Pity. He could have used a verbal sparring match, especially since physical blows weren’t allowed.

“I’m surprised you didn't bring your little girlfriend,” the Trickster said. “What’s her name again? Y/N?”

Ghostface’s face twitched beneath the mask, but his voice was casual as he played off the question. “Yeah well, this isn’t really her scene.”

“It could be. She’s got a bite to her that you don’t see too often in their kind,” Amanda said.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it,” she said, leaning forward. “The girl’s got some real anger in her heart.”

“She’s a nurse. Her whole thing is ‘do no harm.’”

“Never stopped Smithson or Carter,” Trapper said, taking another drink of his brandy.

A subtle lullaby of children singing filled the saloon and the killers collectively groaned as the Nightmare joined them.

“Why can’t he just skip these things like Myers?” Amanda asked, throwing back her non-alcoholic drink as though it were a real one.

“Myers doesn’t skip them, he just watches from a distance,” Ghostface said.

“… Shit, really ?” she asked, looking around for any sign of the masked man.

Krueger took no note of the change in atmosphere, heading straight to the bar, only for Quinn to immediately plant his harpoon gun on the bartop. “We’re closed for the night,” the bounty hunter sneered.

“You expect me to attend a dumb mixer without mixed drinks, Slinger?” Krueger growled.

“I expect you will turn around and leave before we string you up from the gallows ourselves,” Quinn stated.

Krueger snarled and lunged at Quinn, only for the Entity’s claws to emerge around the bar, shielding Deathslinger from harm. The bounty hunter chuckled and went right back to serving drinks to everyone else as Krueger stalked away, cursing up a storm.

Still, the Nightmare brightened up as he noticed Carter sitting at a nearby table.

“Doc! You’re a man of means in this place-”

“What do you want, Krueger?” Doctor Carter said, much more curt than usual.

“Viagra. Or whatever off-brand shit you’ve got in this place.”

“I have no such thing,” the Doctor said, turning his back to Krueger, only for the Dream Demon to suddenly appear in front of him.

“Come on Doc, I’ll trade ya offerings. Nothing works anymore, not even anything from my little black box-“

“I do not need to know the details of your one-sided sex life,” the Doctor said stiffly.

“Can you at least take a look at it? This has never happened to me before-” 

“Hehe, now your dick is actually child-sized, creep,” Frank chuckled.

“Careful, Frankie, unless you want me to haunt your kindergarten nightmares,” Krueger cooed. The Legion all immediately stood from their seats, ready to dogpile on the monster that threatened their leader-

“I already know what happened to you, Krueger, and I don’t care to help you fix it,” the Doctor said, interrupting the fight before it could start.

Krueger immediately focused back on the Doctor, eyes narrowed and lip curled in a sneer. “What do you know?”

The Doctor swirled his scotch around in his glass as he grinned at Krueger. “A survivor came into the hospital and made a deal with me, in exchange for the ability to render you inert. And before you ask, no, it was not the sleep-deprived teenager you obsess over.”

“Yooooo, Krueger got castrated by a survivor!” Joey cheered and the killers couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony.

Krueger growled and slammed his gloved hand through a table, the wooden fragments vanishing like the broken pieces of a wall or pallet in a trial. “ Who was it, Doc? Tell me-”

“Or what, Krueger? The Entity is just as tired of you as the rest of us, why else do you think you’re seldom brought to trial anymore? The only reason the Entity hasn’t thrown you in the Void is because you motivate the boy and everyone seeking to protect him. The moment the Entity finds a better version of you, you’ll be cast aside.”

“Kinda like how you were once the Cenobite came along?” Krueger sneered. The Doctor’s eyes sparked, but he said nothing otherwise. “Let’s face it. The Entity has her favorites. But you can’t beat a legend like me.”

“Legendary for what? Failing to kill teenagers after victimizing them as toddlers?” the Pig said.

Krueger growled and suddenly, everyone was in the dream world, surrounded by ashes and echoing voices as he declared: “I am the Nightmare! I am fear itself and while you play ring-around-the-rosie with the survivors, I warp reality to my design. I will haunt the dreams of Elm Street’s children for the rest of eternity. None of you can compare to my power!”

“… Okay, Boomer,” Susie said, borrowing a phrase she’d learned from some of the survivors.

The other killers laughed, more at the blatant disrespect towards Krueger than Susie’s remark. Still, it was enough to make Krueger vanish in a puff of smoke and ash, clearly having enough of the humiliation.

Even Ghostface chuckled at the show. When he first arrived, he’d treated all the other killers with the reverence and respect he felt they deserved, as the greatest of the greats. But now that he’d been here long enough, he knew that having a big name was only part of the game.

It didn’t mean shit if you couldn’t live up to it.

He glanced around the room, taking stock of the other killers: Doctor and Deathslinger drank at the bar, ruminating on Krueger and how long it would take before he tried getting into their dreams for some kind of revenge. Trapper, Pig, and Trickster continued with their Poker game, Trickster subtly trying to look at the Doctor’s discarded hand. He saw Myers on the upper level, staring not into the saloon, but out into the distant ruins of Glenvale. Ghostface frowned behind his mask.

All this action and yet Myers is looking away from it all. Why?

Ghostface turned his own gaze in the direction of Myers’ stare and felt the blood freeze in his veins.

Y/N.

Hiding in one of the bushes but still visible through the window of the saloon.

What the actual fuck were you doing here?!

Never mind.

He had to act fast or else you’d be minced meat for the Cannibal’s next pie.

Danny carefully got to his feet, moving toward the door, taking care to bring out his lighter and pack.

“You don’t need to go outside to smoke anymore, Ghostface!” The Legion called to him with their own blunts lit.

“And give everyone a good look at my face?” Ghostface said. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself!”

Ghostface pushed through the swinging doors of the saloon without another word.

Your eyes fell on him as he exited the saloon and you relaxed slightly, offering him a casual wave, though your eyes betrayed your true panic.

He swept over to you, pulling you behind a building and out of Myers’ view.

“What are you doing here?!” Danny whisper-shouted.

“Beats me!” you whispered just as furiously. “I jump through the hatch to get away from Krueger’s Blood Warden, the next thing I know, I’m on the outskirts of Glenvale instead of back at the campfire.” You were shaking and it’s only after he placed both hands on your shoulders that you could take a few deep breaths and calm yourself. You blinked up at him, slowly. “Care to show me the way back?”

“I would… but attendance at this thing is mandatory,” Danny said. Then an idea strikes him. The Entity wouldn’t let this happen unless it wanted to. So why not give it what it wants? “Do you… wanna come in for a drink?”

“A drink? With the killers ?” you emphasized.

“Yep. Can’t guarantee any sangrias, but we got most of the hard stuff and some basic beers. And the other killers can’t hurt you-”

“Not while you’re here?” you interrupted, your tone clearly mocking.

“No. Killers can’t hurt each other at these mixers, it’s against the rules.”

“Must be nice, not having to worry about being murdered.”

“Do you want the drink or not?” Danny snapped.

“… I want a smoke too.”

He smiled behind his mask, bringing out the pack of cigarettes. “All yours.”

You grabbed the whole pack and put one between your teeth.

You were about to ask for the lighter when he presented it, already lit and ready. You smiled slightly as he lit the cig for you and you breathed in.

You thought you’d be out of practice after so long without a smoke, but your body had clearly remembered and reveled in the relief it brought.

All the while, Ghostface just stood there, watching you smoke.

You looked relaxed. A bit like how you looked after a good fuck, though a little less sweaty.

“So how are things at camp?” he asked.

You exhaled the smoke heavily. “Yun-Jin has sorta come around but a lot of other survivors are way more willing to leave me behind now.”

“I’m sorry,” Danny offered.

You pursed your lips. “I was about to say it’s not your fault, but it technically is.”

“I mean, it takes two to tango, babe.”

“‘Tango-ing’ is what got me in trouble in the first place.”

“Tell you what, next trial, you can take charge. Do whatever you want to me,” Ghostface teased.

“What if I only get myself off and leave you wanting?” you asked, grinning wide.

“I’ll survive.”

You leaned forward, blowing smoke in his face. Even with the mask shielding him, he couldn't help but cough a little.

You smiled. "I'll hold you to that."

Ghostface swallowed hard.

What had he signed up for?

Ghostface wished he had his camera ready when you walked in on his arm; the unmasked faces of all the killers were a glorious mix of emotions: shock, disdain, disgust, delight, confusion, all as plain as day.

Even the totally not haunted player piano stopped playing.

He could feel you tense and get ready to run, but Danny gave your hand a reassuring squeeze and pulled you further into the saloon.

“And what’s your poison?” Deathslinger asked with genuine curiosity as you both approached the bar.

“Anything that’s over 10% alcohol,” you answered.

Slinger smirked as he handed you a bottle of Gold Creek Whiskey, which you then opened and took a swig from with minimal reaction. “Rough trial?” he asked.

“Aren’t they all?” you said. “But yeah. Krueger thought he could pull a fast one on me with a last-minute Blood Warden play. As if it’s not the most obvious thing in the world.”

“Hey, Ghostface, aren’t you gonna introduce us?” Frank Morrison asked as he and the Legion crowded around the bar.

“I’m thoroughly acquainted with all of you, thanks,” you smiled forcefully.

“Trials don’t count, that’s business.”

“And was it business back in the upper floor of the Ormond Lodge?” you shot back.

All the blood drained from Frank’s unmasked face as Julie asked, “What do you mean by that?”

“Ask your ‘leader,’” was all you said before turning away and letting chaos unfold.

“Cute,” Ghostface said as he watched Julie pull Frank away for a ‘discussion.’ “ … But uh, what did he do?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you said coolly.

He didn’t like that non-answer.

“So the Entity’s letting anyone come to these things now?” the Doctor asked as you took another swig from the whiskey bottle.

“All I know is that it dropped me in here, you got a problem with me being here, take it up with the Entity,” you said.

“Of course not. It’s wonderful to see you outside of a trial, though don’t think this gets you out of our deal,” the Doctor smiled.

“… What deal?” Ghostface asked.

“It’s private,” you stated.

“ … Holy shit, are you the one castrating Krueger,” he said.

“Wait, really?!” Amanda said, finally getting up from her chair to come over. “That was you?”

“I will neither confirm nor deny my part in any hormonal castration.” Still, your gleeful tone made it clear you were involved.

“Get this woman another drink for me, Quinn,” Amanda called.

“Already on it,” Deathslinger said, pouring some of Trapper’s special brandy.

“Make it a double from me; Good to see you again, Aein ,” Trickster called from his seat.

You flipped him off.

“What’s that about?” Ghostface asked once again.

You shrugged.

It continued as thus for most of the night; despite the killers being killers, you had somehow developed a strange camaraderie with many of them. One that Ghostface couldn’t help but be both fascinated and disturbed by.

Your dark sense of humor, your apathy to violence and depravity, your fearlessness, and your ability to drink and banter, plus whatever hidden history you had with certain other killers, had made you a novelty amongst their kind. Practically a pet.

And Ghostface… didn’t know what to think.

Technically, he’d known you would be interacting with other killers by being brought here.

But part of him hadn’t thought that you would fit in with them so well.

You were his, damnit!

And while it had been cool to show you off, that was meant to make him an object of envy.

Look at how cool my girlfriend is; bet you all wish you were with her.

He hadn’t expected that you would be open to their attention. Even responsive to it.

You took a puff of the Legion’s blunts, you played poker with Trapper, you drank with Doctor and Deathslinger.

All while he stood on the sidelines, holding your drink like a total cuck.

“You doing okay there, Ghostface?” Amanda asked as you laughed with the Legion over their terrible taste in horror movies.

“Fine,” he said, eyes focused entirely on you.

She gave him a look, before also turning her gaze to you. “… Take it from someone who’s been there; jealousy is acidic. It will eat at you until there’s nothing left if you don’t stop it.”

“Well, how do I stop it; it’s not like the Entity will let me chain her up in the basement,” he said.

He should know, he’d already asked (more out of genuine curiosity than desire, but still).

“… You can’t control her. So let her have her fun. But make yourself the one she comes home to no matter what,” Amanda said, before heading for the door herself, taking her Pig mask from where it was hung on a coat rack made of meat hooks.

All Ghostface could do was stare as you laughed with killers who weren’t him, the gnawing in his heart only growing with every passing moment you laughed with someone other than him.

“That was surprisingly fun,” you said, walking hand in hand with Ghostface as you tried to find the campfire.

“I’ll admit, it went better than I expected,” Ghostface said as neutrally as possible.

Still, you noticed his tone and commented on it. “So wait, were you expecting them to attack me?”

“I was expecting them to try and get stopped by the Entity.”

If you had been the same person you had when first arriving in the Fog, you probably would have raged at him for putting you in danger. As it was, you shrugged it off like you shrugged off debilitating injuries: “Fair enough. I guess they’re warming up to me.”

Ghostface grunted in response.

All too soon, the campfire’s glow came into view. “Well… here we are,” you said, not knowing the goodbye etiquette for your serial killer boyfriend dropping you off at a place where his victims lived.

“Right… um… thanks for humoring me,” Danny said.

“Thanks for asking me to come,” you said. You dared to step forward and move the mask just enough to expose his mouth, planting a solid kiss on his lips. “Well… see you next trial,” you teased, eager to receive your end of the deal.

“… Wait-” Ghostface said, hurrying after you and stepping ahead just before you crossed into the safety of the barrier. “Do you… want to come back to my place? Spend the night?”

“And do what?” you asked mischievously.

“Whatever you want,” Ghostface said. Something about him, his voice, his body language, made every word of his feel more sincere. “I’ve got more beer, cigarettes, and the best collection of horror movies in the Fog. Everything from Nosferatu to Pearl .”

“What’s Pearl ?” you asked.

“Oh, the Entity gives me horror movies from all throughout time. That one’s from 2022,” he said. Then, an idea hit him as he remembered the one film he knew he had to show you. “And uh, now that I think about it… I could show you the film about us.”

You blanched. “What?”

“Yeah, Gale Weathers wrote a book about the Roseville murders, then made it into a true crime movie, and you and I were basically the stars.”

“The stars or the villains?” you asked.

“Does it matter? All publicity is good publicity.”

“Really. Is that what you thought of the Urban Farce ’s segment on you?” you laughed.

Ghostface froze.

“How did you know about that?” he asked.

“I have my methods,” was all you said. He knew you meant it as a joke, but it just added to how much he didn’t know about you. Just when he thought he’d figured you out, you revealed things like this that reminded him he could never have eyes on you 24/7, even in a place like this. You looked back at the campfire and he noticed your face harden ever so slightly before you turned back to him. “Fuck it. I could use a movie night.”

Grinning like a schoolboy behind his mask, Ghostface offered you a hand. Playing along, you curtseyed before taking it, the two of you running off into the Fog, like love-struck teenagers sneaking out after curfew.

Maybe that’s what you were.

Slaves to your hormones, giving in to the taboo despite everyone else’s judgment.

(Or maybe because of it?)

Ah well.

You were effectively immortal.

Might as well enjoy it.

Chapter Text

You were distracted from the movie by the realization that Danny had a shower.

Not the pitifully dripping, moldy, rat-infested showers of Lerys Memorial Institute, but a real shower that had hot water.

You immediately turned it to full blast and stepped inside washing your clothes as much as your skin (even though you knew they'd just get dirty again).

You inhaled the steam and reveled in the warmth, slowly stripping yourself to properly wash.

You heard the door creak open.

“If you even think about recreating the Psycho shower scene, I swear to God, Ghost-”

“Relax, babe, that’s the furthest thing from my mind,” he said, pulling back the shower curtain to reveal he too had undressed.

“Liar,” you smiled. Still, you moved over enough to let him step into the stream, though he clearly had priorities other than washing if his already hard cock was any clue.

He pressed his face into your neck as his front met your back, the warm water trailing over both your bodies. “I never thought I’d miss the smell of that orange body wash so much,” he said.

“Hey, don’t knock my orange body wash.”

“You have to admit, it was a little on the strong side,” he said, kissing your pulse point in your neck.

You allowed him to lavish you with kisses, only for him to take it further and lift your leg to wrap it around him, leaving you to precariously balance on one leg.

“We are going to slip and break something if you try to fuck me in here,” you said, clinging to him to keep balance.

“That’s what the bar is for, isn’t it?” he said, gesturing to the tiny bar over the soap.

“Yeah, if you’re the size of the demon baby,” you muttered, reluctantly thinking of the ‘little brother’ of the Twin killers.

“What-”

“Never mind,” you said.

Instead, you let him lift you off your feet and press your back to the tiled wall.

It was rare that the two of you had sex with him unmasked, even now that you knew his face.

Now, you could see every flicker of his eyes, every lick of his lips, every little tic that he kept hidden behind that false face.

He looked just as desperate as you felt.

Maybe even more?

You couldn’t help it; you kissed him.

He returned your affection tenfold, lathering languid kisses all over your lips and face and flesh, one hand tangled in your drenched hair, the other delving between your legs.

“Oh god,” you moaned again, happy to be feeling so good.

He bit into your neck as he slid inside, him groaning into your neck while you sighed vocally.

“Say my name, babe,” he whispered.

“Danny,” you keened.

“Louder,” he said, adding more pressure to your clit.

“DANNY!”

You clenched hard around him as you came. He responded in kind, clutching you to him and growling a drawn-out “Fuck” into your hair as he spilled inside you.

You both slowly untangled, him sliding himself from between your legs as his cum spilled from your slit.

“Good thing we’re in the shower,” you hummed happily.

“Good thing we don’t have to worry about the water bill,” he smiled in turn. 

You chuckled at the joke, more out of satisfaction than amusement. “Alright, now leave, I want to actually shower,” you said, grabbing the soap to wash properly.

“And if I want to shower too?” he asked, coming up behind you to kiss at the bite mark he left on your shoulder. 

“Then wait your turn because I know you and if you stay in here, we will be doing the opposite of showering,” you said, pulling the curtain back to let him out.

He reluctantly listened, but right as you turned away, landed a quick smack on your ass before retreating. “Danny, you little-”

You finished showering without further incident.

So, freshly fucked and cleaned and with a newly opened bottle of wine, you and Danny settled in his home theater to watch Stab (1996).

“What a title,” you laughed, taking a drink as the title card appeared to a cacophony of screams and phone chimes.

You almost spat your mouthful of Pinot Noir when the film opened on a near exact recreation of your house. Or rather, what it had looked like before you’d upped security in response to Ghostface’s stalkings.

The blue shutters, the slightly unkempt shrubs, even your neighbor’s skeletal tree filled with crows.

What followed was a somewhat disturbing recreation of Casey and Steve’s murders. The fact that the actors barely resembled your former fiance and ex-best friend didn’t change that you were ultimately watching them betray you and then be murdered.

Danny noted your apparent distress and put his arm around you, pulling you closer.

You let him, even returning the affection by cuddling into his side.

From there, the story followed your and Gale Weathers’ reactions to the crime, which then branched off into two plotlines. Gale’s was the investigative plot, where she interviewed suspects, snooped around crime scenes, and researched every lead she discovered, Dewey and Tatum helping her along the way. Jed was obviously on the suspect list, with Gale and Tatum honing in on him from the start.

“Did you ever talk to Gale Weathers?” you asked him as the film portrayed Gale and Jed / Ghostface’s first meeting outside of Steve’s funeral.

Danny shrugged. “Once or twice. I didn’t think she was that smart, but I knew well enough that talking to her was inviting trouble.”

“She was definitely smarter than either of us gave her credit for,” you admitted.

“The movie exaggerated a lot though; I also have the book she wrote if you want the words directly from the horse’s mouth.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Then came the second plotline; your plotline.

Obviously, Gale Weathers’ hadn’t known too much about the exact nature of your relationship with Ghostface so it was mostly speculation: what the movie did portray was Ghostface having a fascination with you from the start, killing Casey and Steve as a perverted attempt to clear the way for himself, followed by introducing himself as Jed the Roseville Gazette Reporter. Then came the phone call, the stalking, murdering poor Kenny, and him finally getting together with you.

Jed was portrayed as a creep who wouldn’t take no for an answer from the start, coming by your house unannounced, refusing to leave you alone and taking advantage of your grief.

“God, you come off as such a creeper in this.”

“Yeah, I try not to take it personally. Your opinion is the only one that matters.”

“I mean, I think you’re a creep, but that’s for different reasons.”

“I’ll have you know that there’s important distinctions between being a creep and being a pervert.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep. I should know, I’m certified in both.”

“How many hours do you have to have logged as a stalker to earn those certificates?”

“Hundreds.”

You were portrayed as equal parts tempestuous and broken; Gale Weathers’ had notably kept in you punching her at Steve’s funeral (though she’s also changed her own comments that led up to said) but had also noted that you were treated unfairly by Roseville Police when you were arrested for Steve and Casey’s murders (again changing her own comments on the matter).

You also couldn’t help but feel weirdly sexualized, as every single one of the actress’ outfits (including the hospital scrubs) was very fitted and always worn without a bra, their tightness accenting her generous bust and small waist (you tried not to feel discomfort, especially since the actress was skinnier than you). You were also very uncomfortable with the sex scenes of you and Jed and the realization that thousands, if not millions, of people knew you’d slept with him.

The best and worst part of the movie was Tatum; for all of Gale Weathers’ faults, she had done an excellent job at balancing Tatum’s empathy with her ‘take-no-bullshit’ attitude. Tatum was surprisingly active in the investigation, especially after you started dating Jed.

That made it all the worse when the film recreated her murder.

Ghostface had gone after Dewey in an attempt to stop the investigation, stabbing him once in the back right as Tatum arrived at Dewey’s home. Her brother barely had a moment to scream at her to run before Ghostface was on her.

She put up a hell of a fight, hitting Ghostface with everything in reach, including the fridge door and beer bottles he’d mentioned.

But it wasn’t enough.

“We can skip this part if you want,” Danny said, pulling you closer to him. You shrugged him off.

This is what happened after all; skipping the scene wouldn’t deny that it happened, especially when it was the scene that set off the climax.

At first, the film seemed like it would have a ‘happy ending’; Gale Weathers stormed your house with Dewey’s gun, barely stopping Ghostface from killing you, landing a single gunshot on him before he retreated into the night. Gale briefly considered going after him but prioritized getting you medical attention for your injuries.

The true ending skipped to a year later, with you getting lunch with Dewey AND Gale on the anniversary of Tatum’s death. You arrived home, only for the Ghostface to emerge from the shadows lunging at you not with a knife, but with a rag soaked in chloroform.

The film closed on Jed Olsen’s wanted poster side-by-side with your missing persons’ poster, a chilling reminder that yes, this had all happened.

And now you were here.

Beyond the help of any good samaritan.

“So… whatcha think?” he asked as the credits rolled.

“Honestly… I’ve seen better,” you admitted.

“What?!” he cried, disbelieving.

“I mean, it’s cute, but it’s no Goodfellas or Bonnie & Clyde ,” you said.

“Yeah, but it’s about us!”

“It’s not us, it’s how everyone sees us. You get to be the creepy ass killer and I get to be the dumb victim who was manipulated and kidnapped.”

“How would you have done it?” he asked.

You paused. “… There’s not really a good answer to that. I’m not a perfect victim, but I’m not some scheming temptress either.”

“Could have fooled me, babe,” he whispered into your hair. You shrugged him off, he laughed but stopped as he saw your expression. 

“What?” you asked.

“You got your serious face on.”

“I have a serious face?”

“I spent the best part of seven months watching you. Plus however long it’s been here. You think I can’t tell when you’re being serious?” You gave a humorous exhale at that. “C’mon, what’s on your mind?”

“… Dewey probably mourned me.”

His face fell. “Ah.”

You turned back to the screen that was still playing the credits. “God, he lost Tatum, he lost his arm, then he lost me. And he probably blames himself.”

“I may dislike Gale. But I hope she’s still with him. If nothing else, he really loved her.”

“Hey. Don’t spiral on me,” Danny said, turning your face towards his. “I know this is a lot, but it’s in the past. Nothing anyone can do to change it.”

You nodded. He was right. No point in wishing on stars.

All you could do now was make the best of a bad situation.

Danny kissed your hand. “Wanna spend the night? No funny business, I promise.”

“Really?” you asked in disbelief. “No funny business whatsoever.”

“Well… if you wanna-”

You jumped on him.

Like you said.

No changing the past.

No future to look forward to.

Might as well enjoy the present.

Chapter Text

Something that you quickly learned about the trials: whether you were a survivor or killer, chances were that you had at least one ridiculously impractical outfit that the Entity loved to put you in for whatever reason.

Dwight was usually forced into being a Christmas elf from November to January (or whatever counted as such in a land beyond time).

The Clown would often be dressed as a purple elephant or a chicken.

Even someone like Myers wasn’t immune, getting dressed in a mental patient’s gown with bare feet.

But this… this was going too far.

“Oh my god,” Casey said as you appeared at the campfire in the one outfit you wished you would never wear again.

Steve was similarly awestruck, his eyes as large as silver dollars. “Is that-“

“Yep,” you said, exhausted after having already thrown a fit over the pouffy white dress. “My wedding dress.”

Steve flushed. You hadn’t let him see it, hadn’t ever given him a hint of what it looked like. And now the Entity had dressed you up in the full ensemble, with your cathedral length veil and your updo adding a good few inches to your overall height. Steve cleared his throat. “You, uh… you look-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” you snapped at him as Nea appeared alongside you three. Seems like you all would be in a trial together. Yippee.

“Yikes. Running in that is gonna be a pain,” Nea winced in sympathy.

You grunted. “I don’t suppose you can spray paint it to make it darker.”

“Uh, I could, but I really shouldn’t spray paint it while it’s on your body-“

“Spray paint won’t kill me, but wearing bright white will,” you noted.

“Right. I’ll, ummm… ah shit,” she cursed as you all disappeared into the fog.

When the Fog cleared, you were at Father Campbell’s Chapel. 

“Great. Might as well go hook myself,” you sighed, heading for the center of the map.

Unfortunately, Steve was already there when you climbed up the stairs to the generator in the Chapel. Not wanting to waste more time by walking away, you got to work on the gen with him, not staring at him or acknowledging him.

That didn’t stop him from staring, of course. Openly. You tried to focus on your work but it was hard when your ex-fiance was openly ogling you so you turned to face him: “Will you kindly stop looking at me?”

He blinked. “Sorry, it just… really draws the eye.”

“No, you’re just thinking about what would have been if you’d been able to keep your dick in your pants.”

“It wasn’t just sex you know,” he huffed.

“Oh here we go,” you rolled your eyes and stopped working on the gen entirely to scowl at him. “Please. Go ahead and tell me all of the ways that I made you cheat, it’ll make me feel so much better.”

“I don’t mean it like that, what I mean is I loved her like I loved you. But you were still hurting from your parents’ deaths and I didn’t want to hurt you more.”

“Well you did a great job with that,” you spat.

“I was weak. I was a coward. What more do you want out of me?”

You stared at him before sighing. “… nothing. I don’t want anything from you. If I had it my way, you would vanish and we would never speak again.”

So you took the initiative and walked off… right into the blade of the Shape who’d been waiting around the corner. He downed you with a single stab.

“Fucking Christ,” you cursed, doing your best to kick him as he lifted you into the air and impaled you on a hook once again.

Whatever.

At least you could get out of this dress after you died.

You were stuck in that dress for the next five trials, each as bad as the last.

Your fellow survivors had mostly expressed sympathy, with a few of the others attempting to take off their jackets to help you camouflage your top half at least.

(The Entity refused to let them, of course.)

All the killers had different reactions.

The Nurse looked at you like she’d seen a ghost. It was the longest you’d ever been able to run against her, a whole 30 seconds.

The Clown had a laughing fit that devolved into a coughing fit.

The Legion Girl (Susie?) offered to cut off sections of the dress to make it easier to run in, which you let her do. Surprisingly, she did as she said, not even trying to injure you in the process.

(The dress didn’t stay that way once you inevitably died, but it was the thought that counted.)

But then came your inevitable trial with Ghostface.

You were hiding in a locker, hoping Steve would let go on hook so you could get the hatch, when the doors were thrown open suddenly. You barely had time to shriek before Ghostface’s knife was an inch from your face. But instead of dragging you out and onto his shoulder… he froze.

He stared at you. Or more accurately, at what you were wearing. The layers upon layers of satin and lace, the beadwork on the bodice, the veil that caught on everything.

“Dude, you cool?” you asked.

“... Yeah. Yeah, just… was this-”

“Yep.”

“Ah… Well, I know you probably don’t want to hear it… but you look great,” he said. His tone was neither teasing nor complimentary but almost… dazed.

“I look like a melting cupcake,” you said. Your words rang true especially now that the dress was thoroughly battered and blood splattered, your hair barely staying on top of your head.

“Why is that a bad thing, who doesn’t like cupcakes?” he said as he stepped into the locker, hands on your waist.

You groaned, even as your face blushed with the compliment. “Look, I appreciate the ego boost, but I really just want to take this thing off-”

“I can help with that,” he said, his hands going from your waist to the lace-up back of the dress, his mask going into the junction of your neck and shoulder. Despite his offer, he made no attempt to actually remove the dress, instead his hands were exploring every aspect of it, tracing the patterns of lace and beading. He even went so far as to take his gloves off just to feel more of the fabric.

“I never figured that you would have a wedding dress kink,” you hummed as you enjoyed being felt up in a locker.

“I didn’t think so either,” he murmured into your ear. “But I don’t think it’s just the dress. I think it’s you. Seeing what Steve would have seen if I hadn’t rescued you from that.”

You pulled back to stare at him, almost laughing. “Oh, is that what you did? Are you my knight in leather armor, saving me from my wretched betrothed?”

“Are you saying you would have been happier if I’d let you marry him? If I’d let you be a blind fool?” he noted. His hands were everywhere, tickling your sides, grazing the edges of your breasts, skimming over your bustle where your ass would be. You closed your eyes as he whispered in your ear: “Can you imagine what it would have been like to walk down the aisle? Surrounded by his family and your friends, Casey standing up there in your bridal party. Do you think those two would have been sharing secret glances all the while or would they have been unable to meet each other's eyes, knowing what they know. Imagine finding out after. Imagine if you’d already had kids -”

“Danny,” you stated. He stopped and pulled back enough to see your somber face. “Please.”

His expression was hidden behind the mask, but he gently lifted your chin with his ungloved hand. “… You’re right. You’ve suffered enough. You deserve to feel good in that dress.” With that, he lifted you, not with his usual over the shoulder carry but in his arms, bridal style.

“Danny, what are you-”

“Come on, Princess, you deserve a proper wedding night,” he smirked.

“With you?” you asked.

He didn’t respond. Instead, he dragged you up to the Skull Merchant’s Base, which was admittedly the nicest accommodations you’d seen in this place. The billionaire (billionairess?) had a rack of refrigerated champagne and wine, a decent sized kitchen… and a California King sized bed.

It was so big that when Ghostface threw you onto it, your dress splayed out, fully, not needing to be scrunched up due to lack of space. He quickly leapt atop you.

“Danny-”

“Shhhh… let me make you feel good,” he said. Reluctantly, you laid back and allowed him to continue. Again, his hands went to all the places he knew were the most sensitive for you, murmuring as he traveled down your body and under your dress: “Imagine if I’d told you. We could have planned his death together. Imagine the two of you coming home for your wedding night, only for the two of us to take turns gutting him like the pig he is. And then I’d take you in this dress as he bleeds out on the floor.” 

“You’re way too into this. What are you doing under there anywa-a-ay,” you stammered as you felt him press his unmasked face into your crotch, his warm breath inches away from your own warmth.

You felt a pull on your left garter and it was only then that you realized he was pulling it down your leg with his teeth.

You let him work, let him trail his lips, teeth, and tongue up and down your leg as relieved them of your stockings and panties.

The insides of your thighs, the backs of your calves, all were subject to his worshiping.

Suddenly, he resurfaced and rolled you both over with you suddenly on top. Not that you minded. The dress was still heavy but with its weight supported by the bed, it felt a little lighter. 

He quickly worked his own pants open, with you pumping his half-mast cock to full-hardness.

From there, entry was easy, his teasing having left you dripping and wanting for him and every ounce of pleasure he could give you.

You threw your head back as you rode him, his bare hands on your hips helping keep you upright.

You weren’t much for symbolism but your white dress over his black leather shroud did things to you, as though throwing into sharp relief the differences between you two: The widowed bride and the grim reaper.

Unfortunately, the heavy dress also exhausted you twice as quickly. The weight and the heat, combined with your arousal, had you sweating through the satin and lace.

Thankfully, he took notice. He drew his knife and pulled at the front of your dress, hesitating just long enough to lock eyes with you. You batted your eyelashes up at him, daring him to do it.

With that, he dragged his knife down, separating the fabric and revealing the push-up bra the Entity had put you in.

He let out a low whistle, eyes hungrily looking up and down, as you shrugged your way out of the tattered remains of your gown.

All that was left of your ensemble was your hair and veil, which he then had you throw over the both of you, as if that would prevent you from being seen by prying eyes.

From there, you got to your usual song and dance of sighs and thrusts. You closed your eyes, surrendering to the waves of pleasure. You opened them when you heard the sound of a camera shutter clicking.

“Really, dude?” you asked, giving his camera an exhausted glare.

“What? You look great and I want to be able to look back on this,” he said.

“If anyone else sees those pictures, I’m strangling you with your own floating ribbons,” you threatened.

“I promise, no one sees these pictures except for me,” he said, but put the camera away regardless.

From there, it was smooth sailing, his hands on your lace-covered chest, yours on his leather-clad thighs as you ground and rode him like it was the first and last time.

When you both finally came, it was with loud, theatrical sighs and groans, like from a pay-per-view porno.

You collapsed on the bed beside him, allowing him to hold you afterward.

(You didn’t want to admit it, but you wanted to be held too.)

“Did you ever want this?” you asked.

“Hm?” he hummed into your neck.

You turned to face him. “Did you ever want to get married? Have a house in the burbs with 2.5 kids?”

He blinked. “Honestly… I don’t know. I was never exactly normal, and not just in the ‘oh I'm so dark and deep’ way, but like in the ‘probably needed the Ludovico technique’ way.” He leaned back, staring off into space as he remembered. “I was in college when I met Maureen. I think I probably would have been a coroner or mortician or something.”

“And now?” you prodded.

He laughed. “Now? I’m doing a job I love and get to have sex on the clock with the girl of my dreams. I wouldn’t change this for anything.”

“Of course you’re loving this,” you sighed, not knowing why you expected any different. He turned your face back toward his.

“Hey. I know this isn’t what you wanted, but sometimes, making the best of what we have is all we can do.”

“I know. It’s what I’ve been doing for most of my life,” you stated, none-too-bitterly. Your eyes went to the fridge and turned mischievous. “Think we can pop open some of the champagne?”

He grinned. “Let’s find out.”

Chapter Text

The other survivors were acting weird around you. Weirder than normal. You could feel them looking at you when you were hanging out at the campfire, they didn’t even really look away when you caught them staring. Sometimes you would come back from a trial and they would go quiet.

It wasn’t all of them, just a select group that hung around together a little more than most.

It didn’t bother you too much; you were too old and too tired of petty gossip to confront them over their high school aged behavior.

What you hadn’t expected was for them to break the silence first.

It was after a particularly brutal trial against Blight that had ended with you pumped full of serum (lovely). You had taken some water from a communal barrel to wash the phantom taste out of your mouth when Haddie, Felix, and Élodie all approached you.

“Rough trial?” Felix asked, his German accent still very pronounced despite him having been in the Fog for years longer than you.

You shrugged. “No more so than usual,” you lied.

Felix nodded. “The Blight can be particularly difficult to run against. He was the first killer I faced when I arrived. I can help you with some tips, if you like.”

You blinked at him. “Okay, what is this about?”

“What?” Felix asked, seeming pretty shocked at your attitude.

“I mean, you and I have never held a conversation before and now suddenly you’re chatting me up just because? No. Be honest about what you want, I don’t have time for games.”

Felix stammered for a reply, but Élodie stepped in.

“You want answers? Fine. We need something from you. But it’s easier to show you than to explain.”

Élodie then strode away from the campfire, Felix and Haddie close behind, and motioned for you to follow them.

Curiosity won out and you let them lead the way, past the campfire to one of the small shacks that lay scattered around the outskirts of the survivors’ domain. You expected to see the usual chests and lockers where survivors would store their clothing and items when not in a trial, but this one was instead filled with newspaper clippings, drawings, photographs, scrolls, stone tablets, tomes, and scribbles of indeterminate languages.

“Welcome to the Archives,” Élodie said.

“What is this?” you asked, looking around at everything.

“The collective memory of all survivors. We’re keeping records to try and find the way out,” she said, leaning against a wall absolutely covered in sketches and notes.

“That’s why you kept asking me questions about why I was taken?” you asked.

Élodie and Felix nodded.

You looked at all the notes they had on you, and the red strings they used to connect your story to the sketch of black cloaked cultists, just like the ones that had kidnapped you. “So why involve me? I’m happy to help, but I don’t think I’d be too useful in the grand scheme of things,” you said. You passed nursing school through caffeine and grit, not because you were a natural scholar.

Élodie glanced at Felix who simply reminded her: “It was your idea.”

You frowned. “What was your idea?”

She sighed. “… We want you to try and get information from Ghostface. See what he knows about escaping.”

Laughter. It took a moment to realize it was coming from you. But you couldn’t help the sardonic chuckles. “ Wow . You get mad at me for sleeping with him to survive a trial but now you want me to sleep with him when you directly benefit-”

“We’ll all benefit from this!” Élodie insisted. “Are you telling me you’d rather stay here forever-”

“Of course not-”

“Then help us!” she cried.

“… He’ll never go for it. He loves it here.”

“That’s why you do it covertly. You ask him and any other killers who you… interact with,” Elodie said.

You shook your head. “You do understand that this is a big ask, right? If they find out what we’re doing, it’s my neck on the line.”

“We wouldn’t ask if we weren’t desperate.”

You covered your eyes, hands dragging along your face before pressing at your pressure points, trying to relieve the budding headache.

Downside: If the killers find out what you’re doing, you’re dead and whatever tenuous partnerships you’ve created will vanish.

Upside: Permanent Escape.

So you sighed and reluctantly, turned to the others who waited with bated breath. “Alright, fine.” Felix pumped his fist in the air and Elodie looked like she might kiss you. “But I want our deal in writing. I do this and we agree to be civil and help each other in and out of trials, right?” you said, extending a hand.

“Agreed,” Élodie said, shaking it heartily.

“Alright. So what do you want me to ask about specifically?”

You admitted that you almost laughed aloud upon seeing Ghostface’s newest look; you understood that it was meant to look like a bird’s skull, but the eyes made it look a little too goofy in your opinion.

“Polly want a cracker?” you asked after he ‘caught’ you in a locker at Dead Dawg Saloon. 

“I’m a raven, not a parrot.”

“I’m not hearing a no,” you still teased. Ghostface of course, responded by throwing you over his shoulder and carrying you up the stairs to the bedrooms of the Saloon.

“Personally, I’m looking for some sugar, not crackers,” he said, tossing you on the bed. He moved to get on top but you sat up before he could.

“Uh-uh, I want something different today!”

“Different how?” he asked, laying on his side next to you.

You responded by straddling his waist, eyes hooded as you surveyed him from above. You leaned down, breasts accentuated by your tank top, and murmured, “You remember our first time? I crawled into your lap and made you pant for it.”

“I remember a lot… uh, mutual panting,” Ghostface groaned as you ground down on him.

You smiled at the stutter in his words but it faded when you looked to his face and saw only the ridiculousness of the birdbrain mask.

“Danny take the damn mask off, I can’t kiss you with it on.”

He paused but did it without protest: his hair was messy, half plastered to his forehead, eyes shining with desire as he looked at you, perched atop him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You kissed him, slow and deep, giving a few teasing bites to his lower lip whenever he tried to push a little more. You did give him a little relief, delving into his pants to take hold of his half-hard cock and giving it a few tender strokes.

The gens were half done (your teammates had gotten in the habit of 99ing them against Ghostface, when you were there to “distract” him) by the time you pulled your shirt over your head. Despite this being the hundredth time he’d seen your breasts, he still had that self-satisfied smirk as your bra vanished.

Thankfully you’d had the foresight to wear a skirt, but the panties ended up an unfortunate victim of his enthusiasm; he didn’t bother sliding them off or even moving them aside, he just ripped them off and stuffed them in his pocket.

“I’m not getting those back, am I?” you said.

“Fuck no.”

He thrust inside you without another word. You groaned and did your best to take control of the pace, lifting and dropping yourself onto his cock at your pace, even as his hands on your hips tried to make you go faster and deeper. You responded by pushing him down and putting your weight on your knees, allowing yourself to hover over him, his tip barely staying inside you.

“Holy shit, babe-”

“Down, boy,” you hushed, brushing his sweat-slicked hair from his forehead, before letting your whole weight drop on him.

“Entity, you are a fucking sadist -”

“Of course I am, I have to keep up with you .” You placed a teasing kiss on the tip of his nose before ‘pining’ his hands at the head of the bed.

He let you have your way, though he would buck into you every now and then, throwing off your rhythm. You would respond with a teasing smack, but continue on.

You held out as long as you could but by the time you were close to the edge, your thighs were trembling, your breathing heavy, and your pulse rapidly beating through your chest. 

“Babe… please… please,” Danny pleaded, clearly in the same boat.

You both caved to the release, you practically collapsing on top of him in a mess of sweat, skin, and leather. The textured feathers on his cloak tickled your bare chest but you didn’t let it bother you. He stroked your hair with one gloved hand as the other traced up and down your back, your cheek over his racing heart.

Apart from the distant rumble of a finished generator and the creaking of the old saloon, it was about as quiet as it had ever been in a trial. Your gaze moved to different items in the room, the vanity with a shattered mirror, the ancient and dusty wardrobe, the Ghostface’s newest mask.

“Why a raven?” you asked as you stared at the discarded mask.

He huffed in amusement. “Have you not seen all the crows around this place?”

“Yeah, what’s that all about?”

“The Entity’s chosen messenger. Some of the other killers think that the Entity uses crows to spy on people in the real world.”

“The crows…” You paused. How long had those black birds been following you? Had it been something else all this time?

He chuckled. “You noticed those crows too, huh?”

“I thought I was going crazy,” you said, as Ghostface wrapped his arms around you, hugging from behind.

“Cheer up, Alice, we’re all mad here!” He pressed a kiss to your head, the cherry on top of the phrase.

“Funny. So, uh, what do you do when I’m not around?” you said. Might as well use the time to probe him for information. Lara was searching chests, Tapp was breaking Totems, and Sable was doing… something… in the basement. No one seemed to be in a rush to get to the next trial.

“Oh I waste away, I can barely function.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Who says I’m not?” he said. You just gave him a look and he smiled at you before laying back on the bed, staring at the middle distance as he explained his life outside of trials: “I stalk the survivors. Not just you but the others. Steve keeps trying to pull his shtick on other girls, but he seems to be striking out. Casey’s sticking to herself, doesn’t seem to have many friends here, shocker. David has a thing with Jake. There’s a sect of survivors who are trying to figure out how to leave.” The blood froze in your veins.

He knew.

“Which ones?” you asked, keeping your tone curious but calm.

“I think their names are Adam, Zarina, Felix, Élodie, Haddie, and Yoichi. They’re the main instigators, but I think most survivors contribute in some form.”

“Does the Entity know this?”

“Probably. I’m not too worried. Finding a way out in this place is like finding a pin in a pile of needles; Sure, it’s out there, but digging through that mess to find it is more trouble than it’s worth. Especially for me. I got everything I want right here.” He punctuated that phrase by trailing kisses over your neck and shoulders, sending a shiver up your spine.

“I stalk the killers too,” he admitted. That piqued your interest.

“Really?”

“I have to be careful, of course. Amanda has cameras all over her place, Trapper and Hillbilly don’t take kindly to trespassers, and Myers and Wraith might be only two fuckers who are as sneaky as I am.”

“ As sneaky?” you teased.

“Don’t get me started,” Ghostface said, only to continue: “I mean, who needs some bell to make themselves super fast AND invisible?! That’s just excessive. And Myers, talk about a mouth breather.”

You laughed at his apparent frustration. Still, you were careful to lather him with physical affection to soothe his ego. It was only after he relaxed into your touch that you posed the question: “Can I come with?”

“You want to try stalking with me?”

“I figure I might learn something about the killers I can use.”

“Not dressed like that you won’t be,” Ghostface said. “Don’t worry; I got just the thing.”

Chapter Text

“Uh, this doesn’t feel very stealthy,” you said as you crouched and stretched in the black leather catsuit Ghostface had procured for you. This private fashion show was taking place in the bedroom of his home, in front of the clean, intact mirror that you’d seen in the realm. “I can hear the leather squeaking.”

“No fabric is completely silent, babe,” Ghostface said. Even while masked, you could tell he was staring at your ass as you crouched down as much as you could.

“Uh huh, and the corset?” you asked, hands on your hips as you straightened up, chest protruding thanks to the support of the garment in question.

“Protection. The steel boning will protect against knives if we do get caught.”

“Oh, is that the reason?” you smiled at him in the mirror. You had to admit, you looked good. Like an expensive dominatrix. All you were missing were some high-heeled patent leather boots and then you’d be Michelle Pheiffer’s Catwoman. Instead, you were in much more sensible combat boots, which you personally were thankful for. You could walk in heels without breaking your neck, but running in them was an entirely different matter. You still had no idea how Yun-Jin and Ada Wong managed it.

“Of course. I take my work very seriously. No fooling around,” he said, chin of his mask on your shoulder as his hands trailed over your corseted curves.

“Not even a little bit?”

“Well… I guess I’m technically off the clock,” he said.

You turned to face him; as he moved to pull the mask off, you took the chance to shove him backward. Tripping on the edge of his shroud, he fell flat on the bed, and you leapt atop him.

“That… was cheating,” he said, mask askew but still in place.

“Like you play fair.”

Still, you eased his bruised ego by grinding on him. He was already hard.

“Someone’s eager,” you teased.

“You’ve been a little distant lately. I missed this.”

“Sorry. That movie just… wasn’t what I was expecting,” you admitted.

“Yeah, no one likes a cliffhanger ending. And the rest of the world will never know what happened to you.”

You leaned forward, hiding your face in his hood.

“What if it didn’t have to be that way?” you whispered in his ear.

Ghostface went rigid under you.

“What?” he asked. His tone was balanced yet very weighted. Like he was reading your reaction as much as you were his. You tried to stay that way, but he grabbed you by the back of your neck and dragged your face back into his line of sight.

“I just meant… I’ve heard rumors that people have escaped.”

“That is propaganda by a cult of survivors who are trying to keep people hopeful so they stay alive.”

“But if-”

“If they found a way out, the Entity would close it before anyone could use it. And anyone with knowledge of how to do it would be tossed in the Void.”

“So the info would be in the Void,” you said.

“Are you not listening to me? It’s not happening. It’s impossible.”

“We’re in a hellscape ruled by a blood god. Everything about this place is impossible so why are you acting like it’s not?!”

“Enough!” Ghostface pushed you off his lap, pinning you to the bed by your throat, knife out and raised over his head. “I don’t know where you got this idea, but you will never escape me! Understood ?”

For about 8 seconds, you thought you were about to die right then and there. But then you noticed something in his voice. Something… deeper. There was the underpinnings of something that wasn’t him.

But if it wasn’t him, then…

You dared to reach out with a hand and remove the mask. There was Danny, face twisted in a terrible scowl, but there was something else.

His eyes were red. Not like a brown that bordered on red, but red and glowing.

“Danny?” you asked.

The thing wearing Danny’s face leaned in closer. “Danny’s not here right now, babe. And if you’d like him back, I’d suggest you mind your manners and remember this discussion you think there’s ever a chance of you escaping me.”

“… Understood.”

“Good girl.”

Not!Danny pressed a kiss to your lips, his mouth tasting not of cigarettes and chewing gum (his usual taste), but of blood and ash. When he pulled back, his eyes slowly faded back to their natural brown and he relaxed his grip on your throat.

You two just laid there, blinking at each other. Eventually, he re-sheathed his knife and rolled onto the bed next to you, staring at the ceiling in unison.

“Does that happen a lot?” you dared to ask after a few minutes of listening to each others’ breathing.

“Not to me.”

Slowly, you dared to snuggle into his side. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed.”

He groaned. “Yeah you shouldn’t have.” Still, he threw an arm around you and brought you in close. “But if you can forgive me for having my boss breathing down our necks, then I can forgive you for pushing this.”

You nodded.

“So uh, about us going stalking together-”

“I cannot believe I’m saying this but I’m actually too tired to stalk. Tomorrow work?”

“Yeah. Can’t guarantee when I’ll be in trial but we usually get a break after three deaths in a row. I’ll come by after that.”

“I guess that means you’ll really be dying to see me.”

You punched him in the shoulder. Not hard, he laughed it off, but it was hard enough to make your annoyance known.

Still, he walked you back to the campfire with no complaints or attempts to draw out your time together with detours or scenic routes.

You dared to press a kill to his mask once more before taking your leave. “See you in the Fog.”

He nodded stiffly.

You left it at that.

It was only upon approaching the campfire that you realized you were still wearing the catsuit. Specifically when Ash Williams and Ace Visconti started whistling in appreciation.

Elodie stared at you wide eyed. “What are you-”

“Don’t ask,” you cut her off, heading for your scavenged sleep mat. You paused when you realized something. “Actually, can you help me get the corset off?”

Thankfully, Elodie helped without question, even putting it in your trunk for you.

You didn’t bother to take off the catsuit, just slipped off your boots and collapsed on your mat. Restful sleep was rare in the Fog, especially with Freddy lurking in everyone’s dreams. But you needed to try. Your body was exhausted, even as your mind fought rest. Was the Entity truly always there, in the back of his mind? Could it really take control from him so easily?

If that was true, then you’d never really be able to include him on escape plans. Assuming he’d want to leave in the first place.

But what other option was there? Stay here and slowly be eaten by the Entity until you ended up in the Void?

You cared for Danny, but even you weren’t suicidal enough to let your soul be consumed for him.

As your eyes drooped, you swore you saw Ghostface’s mask peering out from the Fog.