Beautiful Disaster (Jeff the Killer) [On Hiatus]

10*

     BEN laughs. "Oh my God, the look on your face! You're so gullible! It's hilarious!" He takes a few moments to regain his resting bitch face. I give him a look that says, 'Not funny, you little twat bucket.'
     He shrugs. "Nah, that was just a joke. The voice part, I mean. I just want you to teach me how to sign." He sits on the bed and leans back, sprawling out. I sigh and move to sit on the bed, smacking his knee to get him to get up so we can start. "Oh, now?" He nods. "Alright. Alphabet."
     After we go through the alphabet a few times, he seems to nearly have it down. I have him go through it a few times on his own. So far, he's only got problems with G and Q, then K and P. He's a surprisingly fast learner.
     "Children, it's dark out. Time for the Sunday dinner spree," Slenderman calls out from downstairs--probably the kitchen or the living room.
     'Practice'. I do the sign. BEN is clearly confused, so I spell it out.
     "P-pr... prah-ctissss... OH! Practice! Sure thing, chica. Let's go." I point to myself, my face and gesture clearly stating my confusion. "Well, do you wanna go?" BEN asks.
     I shrug as Slenderman scolds Jeff for scaring Sally downstairs. Something about morals.
     I walk down to the living room with BEN, not sure if I'm going or not. When we arrive, Jeff asks if I'm tagging along. I turn to Slendy.
     "Do you want to go, child?" He has a hollow--yet fatherly-- tone to his voice. I shrug, grab a knife from the kitchen--which Slender was not happy about, but he'll live--and then we leave.
     We head out, everyone having their own conversations. I smile slightly to myself as I see Sally giggling when EJ throws her up in the air and catches her, then pretends to drop her.
     I wonder if he was a big brother...
     My thoughts are cut off as we near the portal, and I become aware of everyone staring at me.
     'Do they know?' I think to Slenderman.
     'No,' he replies, only to me.
     'Then I guess this is as good a time as any for them to learn.'
     Everyone stares in shock as I walk through the portal effortlessly, the pain minimal. I hear Jeff's distorted chuckling as he stares at everyone else's faces behind me. He's the next to come through as everyone else regains their right of mind.
     "That was gold." He holds up his hand for a high five and smiles an actual smile down at me. I look up at him and smile as well as I reach up to give him the high five. Instead, though, his eyes and smile soften as he gently grabs my hand rather than brief contact. I look up a our hands, not scared or nervous, but... Calm. For the first time in a long time, I feel genuinely calm. Just as I think I see Jeff beginning to lean down the slightest bit, BEN flies through the portal. Jeff and I quickly separate our hands, acting as if nothing at all had happened before BEN came through.
     "Dammit, BEN," I hardly hear Jeff say under his breath as we begin walking ahead slowly. I hear everyone else walk through, and they herd around me. I take a step back, accidentally bumping into Jeff as I cower. Jeff quickly, seemingly without thinking, pushes himself in front of me and between the others, his knife out and ready. They all take a few steps back and mumble apologies. I look to Slender, and he begins to explain.

*

     After the explanation--and many, many questions--we hit up a few houses, kill a few people, and complete it by throwing guts at each other. Sally hit Jeff in the balls with a liver at one point and we all lost it, even drawing a chuckle or two out of Slender. We all regain our composure and decide to head back, as the sun will come out soon.
     Jeff and I trail behind by mistake, exhausted because of the amount of physical activity and laughter--more like silent laughing motions on my behalf. He sighs quietly, a happy sigh.
     "Did you enjoy tonight?" He asks, sure to ask a yes or no question. I nod and think I see him smile a bit out of the corner of my eye. "Good. I'm glad you did." We hear the muffled sounds of conversation about twenty feet ahead of us, as we'd slowed down quite a bit.
     There's a rustling in the trees on my left. As this was unexpected, I jump to my right and accidentally bump Jeff's left side. We pause the walking and just stand in place for a moment as Jeff looks down at me, a slight smile gracing his lips beneath the carved one.
     "You alright?" He chuckles quietly as I shoot him an apologetic smile and drop my head slightly. He laughs and drapes his arm over my shoulder and, unsure of what to do, I reciprocate and wrap my arm around his lower back, ad he's several inches taller than me. He tenses up a bit, but after a few seconds he relaxes.
     At this point the rest of the group is about fifty feet ahead, so we just give up on trying to catch up. All is well in this moment.
     "So, um... What's your favorite color?" Jeff asks, probably uncomfortable in the silence. I smile slightly as he realizes I can't speak, facepalming. I reach up and grab a strand of his hair and shake it a bit, causing him to look at what I'm doing.
     Black.
     "Black?" He asks, and I nod. "What about the other colors you like?" The rest go through the portal and the sounds of their conversation disappear. It's just me and Jeff now. I gesture to the deep crimson blood stains on his sweatshirt. "Oh, red?" I nod and he smiles. "Those are my favorite colors as well. Though, I like the shade of red your eyes hold the most." I smile shyly and put my head down a bit.
     "This is the portal." I nod. I hear Jeff take a deep breath and we step through, the pain almost nonexistent on my behalf. We still have an arm around each other, which helps to keep me warm--it's almost mid-winter and nearing negative degrees out at night.
     We walk into the house with our arms still around each other and head up the stairs, BEN making all these high-pitched lovey dovey noises as we pass the living room, empty apart from him.
     "BEN, I will rip off your genitals and shove them up your left nostril and out of your right eye," Jeff says, not a single fuck given as shown by his straight face. BEN groans downstairs, clearly picturing the image.
     We reach the second floor and head to Jeff's door. "Wait here." I nod and stand by his still broken door as he runs into his room, some scrambling around audible. He comes back into the hall shortly, wearing baggy gray sweat pants and a black tank top, showing white and pale pink scars on his back that I try not to stare at.
     Maybe I'll ask about them later. Somehow.
     We walk up the stairs to my room, and as we enter Jeff sits on the bed and opens up his laptop that I was too distracted to notice initially. I hold up one finger to him as I grab my pajamas and enter the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I see him nod just before the door closes completely.
     When I walk out of the bathroom with my hair in a messy bun and my pajamas on, I see Jeff laying on left side of the bed with the laptop open and the covers pulled back on my side of the bed with the pillows all propped up. Jeff smiles slightly and pats the space next to him on the bed. After I throw my clothes in the hamper, I join him in the bed, pulling the covers up over myself.
     Jeff angles the laptop towards me on his thighs, pulling up Donnie Darko. I smile and he looks over at me, smiling in return. Words can't express how much I love this movie and how hard it would be to get me to be tired of it.
     He presses play and we watch it together, me jumping slightly at the scarier parts. As the movie is almost over, I begin to feel a bit tired and notice that I've nearly nodded off. My body has started to lean towards Jeff slightly, so I position myself upright again.
     Jeff looks over at me, smiling slightly as he does. "Getting tired?" I nod. "We can turn this off if you want to, we can just finish it tomorrow. It's no big deal." He turns back to the computer and is about to turn it off, but I put my hand over his, pushing it back so that I can hit resume. He smiles slightly and glances over at me, as I haven't fully sat up yet. As he looks back to the screen he drapes his right arm over my shoulders, and I move myself closer to him. I smile a very small, almost unnoticeable smile as I rest my head on his right shoulder, feeling the warmth coming off of his revealed skin.
      The movie ends and Jeff yawns, revealing how far back the gashes in his cheeks go until they don't go through the skin entirely.
     Impressive... Beautiful.
     He shuts the laptop, unaware of my staring as he puts the laptop on the floor by the bed. Subconsciously, I reach out and lightly brush my index finger along a wide, white scar--clearly more healed than most of the others. He tenses up slightly, clearly not used to anyone touching--maybe not even noticing--them. After a moment, he relaxes.
     "Never turn your back in a knife fight against someone you didn't mean to hurt." His eyes shift and dim slightly, probably going back to an aged memory that he'd tried to bury.
     Seeing as how he doesn't seem to want to talk about it anymore, I rest my cheek on his back to try and give some comfort, but giving something that you've never received is not a simple task. I hear him sigh slightly, though not a sad or angry sigh. A relieved one. I sit up, moving to grab a drink from the water bottle on my nightstand. I turn to Jeff and tap my wrist.
     What time is it?
     He glances at the alarm clock on his side of the bed and laughs quietly as he turns back to me. "0433." My mouth opens slightly in a look of playful shock. What time did we even get back? How long was the movie? I smile slightly and lay down on the bed, and Jeff does the same. We face each other until we fall into an easy, dreamless sleep.