Please, Kill Me (Jeff the Killer x Reader)

Chapter 26 ✓

The heavy silence of the infirmary was broken by the soft, rhythmic creak of the door closing. I stirred, the fog of exhaustion lifting just enough for me to realize he already woken up.

"You're awake..."

Jeff was sitting up in the hospital bed, his silhouette framed by the silver moonlight. I felt the weight of his hand resting gently on my head, his touch no longer hesitant. Despite his usual cold hands that is always tainted by blood from someone else.. this time its different. Its calm, warmth.. and unfamiliar feeling that makes my heart flutter.

"How long have you been awake?" I asked, pushing myself up to face him. His expression somehow different from his permanent carved face. Its oddly soothing.. even though I used to feel fear seeing his face before..

"I just woke up," he lied, though the intensity in his gaze suggested he had been watching me sleep for hours.

"Oh. Okay. You must be hungry, I should-"

Before I could stand, his fingers laced through mine, squeezing with a desperation that rooted me to the spot. "I'm not hungry. Just stay here. Stay with me."

I looked at him, surprised. This feels like the time back in my parents home when he hugs me.. in which I felt him wanting me for once in his life. I sank back into the chair I am sitting earlier, stunned by the raw vulnerability in his voice. Though hee looked away, and his free hand nervously scratching at the back of his head, his posture tense. "About earlier... I... ugh."

He is stammering? Is he going to apologize?

"Back in the woods? Jeff, it's fine. It's over."

"It is not just nothing!" he snapped, his head whipping back toward me. The manic light was gone, replaced by a terrifying clarity. "You almost died out there, Y/N! Because of me!"

"But that's what I-"

"What if I had done it?" he shouted, his voice cracking. "What if the voices had won and I cut you down? Do you think I'd enjoy that? Do you think I'd just move on?" He is confusing me again.. just like how my mind confused me sometimes---- embracing death, but leaving someone behind, haunts me.

"Jeff... I couldn't just stand by while you fought for me. I've spent my whole life running away while people I loved bled for me. I couldn't let it happen again." The memory of my parents surged up-the shouting, the crashing metal, the silence that followed. "I'm afraid to lose someone precious to me again. I can't handle that again. If it relieves your voices to kill me.. then I gladly sacrifice myself---"

He doesn't let me finish. He lunged forward, pulling me into a crushing embrace which is different from his hug before. This time it fels desperate as if to sure that I won't just vanish in his arms. "You don't understand," he rasped into my hair. "The pain I would think I'll feel. Its confusing me. But thinking I was going to lose you..." he shakingly said and tighten his embrace to me. ".. it was worse than anything those bullies ever did to me. I can't lose you. I'm nothing if I lose my only reason to stay sane."

I tried to pull back to look at him, but he only held me tighter, his face buried in the crook of my neck. "What are you saying? You promised to kill me, remember? You said at the end of the month.. you.." He didn't answer. Instead, I felt the fabric of my shirt grow damp.

The "Great Jeff the Killer" was weeping.

"You look at me like I'm still human," Jeff whispered, his voice cracking the heavy silence. "Even after the woods. Even after I put a knife to your chest."

"Because you are," I replied, no hesitatio. We are just both broken souls, the difference is how he molded himself as someone to be scared of instead of sulking and isolate yourself---like what I did. The familiar scent of antiseptic and the faint, metallic tang of blood clung to him, but beneath it was the warmth of a heartbeat-steady and real. "The voices are the monsters, Jeff. Not the one who's holding me right now."