To Live without Fear [Jeff the KillerxReader]

10

Jeff's breaths were silent and slow as he crept across the dark, dusty room. His target snoozed on the couch, completely unaware of the dangerous predator drawing ever nearer.

Jeff leaned over her face, staring down at the sleeping girl and putting on his most derranged grin, enhanced by the fresh, red blood speckled across his cheek and the bridge of his nose. Soon her body began to sense Jeff's proximity, and she stirred. The Killer held his knife up, ready to strike, taking extra care to make sure it was fully visible as the (e/c) eyes slowly opened...

You yawned. "Jeff, quit it already." You mumbled, rolling onto your side. "I'm trying to sleep."

Jeff groaned.

"Seriously?! Nothing, again! I even put fake blood on this time!" Jeff whined. He tossed his knife across the room and rubbed the faux blood off his face with his sleeve.

"Better luck next time, champ." You pushed yourself up and stretched your arms over your head. "What's the score now? 50 to 0? When are you gonna give this up?"

Indeed, Jeff had been trying(and failing) to scare you for weeks now, ever since the two of you began living in this crappy, old, long-abandoned house two towns away from the site of your camping encounter. On that fateful day you struck a deal with the killer: You had no intention of going home, and Jeff's specialty was not getting caught. In exchange for the his assistance in this matter, you would A) Not drag his happy ass to the police station again, and B) Do the grocery shopping or whatever else required going into a public place, which Jeff could not very well accomplish with his hacked-up mug. Jeff, who had long given up on the possibilty of actually killing you, begrudgingly agreed.

The agreement had worked out pretty well so far; the house was a much better shelter than a tent, and Jeff was grateful for better food than that which he could shove in his pockets and run. You weren't particularly tight on money either. According to Jeff, it was pretty easy to pickpocket a corpse. On top of all this, even though you both would rather puke glass than admit it, a sort of unlikely friendship had formed between you. You often found yourselves sharing stories of adventures over bags of funyuns; like the time Jeff got mistaken for a Joker cosplayer and was dragged into a comic con with a Batman and a Harley Quinn, or the time you dropped your phone in a badger hole and nearly got your hand bitten off by an angry ball of fur and hate.

"I just don't get you." Jeff grumbled, pulling his hoodie off and tossing it on the back of the couch. Underneath he wore a black T-shirt with a washed-out band logo on the front. "I'm scary, godammit. But you don't even bat a fucking eyelash. You're killing me."

"Don't take it personally." You stood up and dusted off the top of the old rabbit-eared television set that sat across from the couch. Of course, there was no electricity in your lovely abode, so the thing sat dark and silent 24 hours a day, collecting cobwebs. A little spider skittered across the television and you caught it it your hands. You walked around the couch and flicked the arachnid at Jeff, who quickly ducked out of the way. "I'm just unspookable."

Jeff gave himself a quick once-over to make sure the spider hadn't landed on him before continuing. "Yeah, but-"

A loud static buzz came from the television, and you both looked at it with surprise. The screen was lit up, now displaying flickering pixels of red and blue. Before you could ask what was going on, Jeff grabbed your shoulders and shoved you down behind the couch. He put his fingers to his lips, signaling for you to be quiet.

You couldn't see what was happening on the other side of the couch, but the bluish glow of the television screen illuminated a section of the otherwise dim room. You could see Jeff's shadow cast against the wall, and then, suddenly, another one appeared. This shadow was much shorter than Jeff's, from what you could tell. The static sound abruptly stopped, and the TV went dark once again.

"Yo, Jeff." Said an unfamiliar voice.

"Why're you here?" Jeff replied, gripping the back of the couch. He seemed tense, like he'd been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to.

The newcomer must have noticed this as well. "It's pizza night, remember? Toby and Clocky are gonna be here soon with the...pizza...." You could practically hear the skeptical squint in his voice. "Whaaat're you hiding?"

"Nothing." Jeff spat, a little too quickly. He ran a hand through his hair. "Look, Ben, I'm not feeling very good so you guys should just go find somewhere else to go have pizza night...I was just about to, uh, go to sleep..."

"Bullshit. You look fine to me." The newcomer, apparently named "Ben", protested. There was a pause, and you heard a rustle of fabric. You suddenly remembered you had left your jacket on the couch. "Aha!" BEN proclaimed triumphantly.

"I stole that off one of my victims." Jeff fibbed. You were impresses by his ability to quickly and smoothly deliver his lies. "The cops were close so I needed a different colored jacket, to throw 'em off my scent."

"Uhuh. Really. You stole a woman's jacket. So then I guess you wouldn't mind if I just..."

"Ben, wait-"

Suddenly you were face to face with the stranger, whose head had phased through the back of the couch and left the rest of his body on the other side. He was pale and blonde, with red-on-black eyes and small, pointed ears. Besides the eyes, he was identical to Link from Legend of Zelda. He grinned snidely at you.

"Now what do we have here~?" BEN mused, phasing the rest of his body through the couch and drifting in front of you. Jeff rubbed his forehead.

"I can explain." He sighed, "This is (Y/N), she-"

BEN perked up, "(Y/N)?" The ghost leaned forward, his face just inches from yours. Being close to him, you noticed he smelled like a TV screen when you put your nose right up to it. Still, the electrical scent was far better than Jeff's unwashed odor. You were gonna have to wrestle that boy into a shower one of these days. The ghost looked you over, his grin spreading from ear to ear. "So you're the one who got away! Lil Jeffy was all bent out of shape about you."

You snorted and the term "Lil Jeffy" and the ghost floated upward to face Jeff. "Jeff, you bastard. Keeping a girl here all this time and not telling me." He teased, "I thought you said it 'wasn't like that'."

"It's not like that!" Jeff protested, clenching his fists. You could've sworn you saw red on his cheeks. Where was a camera when you needed one?

"Then why's she here?" BEN challenged smugly. You could practically taste the tension between Jeff's flustered rage and BEN's cocky confidence.

"She...she buys the groceries..." Jeff grumbled, crossing his arms and slouching so that his hair fell down over his face.

BEN cackled, floating on his back and holding his stomach with his hands. "Groceries..." He wheezed between fits of laughter, "that's priceless..."

You got up and brushed off your shirt. "Hate to interrupt, but who the hell are you?"

BEN forced himself to stop laughing and drifted forward to face you again. He held out his hand and you shook it. "Name's Ben. Ben Drowned."