Chapter Text
A hushed chatter filled the camp, stirring Felix from his restless and futile mimic of sleep. Slowly, he pulled himself to his feet, pushing open the tarp that functioned as his tent's doorway.
"It's David. The Entity didn't heal him." Kate said frantically, making way for the Brit who was bracing himself between Ace and Tapp's shoulders in order to stand. There was blood everywhere... on his lips, on his hands, on the gaping wound from his shoulder that was unmistakably from a hook.
"Okay... Okay, bring him here — quickly!" Claudette barked out orders, the noise bringing multiple survivor's attention to the scene at the edge of the woods.
"He needs to lay down now — Felix! Your tent is closest. We'll put him in there." She ordered again, already pushing through Felix's tent flap, with Tapp and Ace carrying David in quickly after.
"Dwight... Where..." David spoke out through a cough of blood that bubbled in the back of his throat, barely blinking his eyes as the two other men set his body down on Felix's makeshift sleeping pad.
"Shh, it's okay. He's in a trial, he'll be back soon." Kate offered the comfort, taking David's hand as Claudette feverishly worked around the wound.
Felix stood still, almost too stunned to do anything but watch it unfold in front of him, a knot building in his throat that he couldn't quite swallow.
"Which killer?" He heard his voice say, staring glassy-eyed as Claudette tore open David's shirt at the shoulder to gain better access to the wound — leaving the male to groan in pain as blood continued to pool out of it.
"Ghostface." Ace answered, repeating the name when he was met with Felix's confused expression, "Ghostface? If you had him in a Trial, you'd know. Takes pictures when he kills us."
"Pictures?" Felix felt his blood run cold.
"Yeah. No idea how he found a camera in here." Ace scoffed, glancing back at Felix who had gone completely white.
"I don't get it." Tapp muttered, his arms crossed, "David wasn't even the obsession. I was."
The next few moments moved like a blur. Somehow, he got pushed out of his tent, stumbling backwards, making way as Meg slipped through the flaps with her best medkit. His vision was spinning. He could almost taste Danny in the back of his throat.
"Felix? You okay?" A voice questioned him — it could have been Jake... it could have been Tapp, or even David, or anyone. He was too dizzy to tell.
Someone gripped his shoulder, and he felt himself getting led to the ring of the campfire. He collapsed to a sitting position, back against the rough bark of the log, staring blankly into the flames. Someone was clutching his shoulder. Another form knelt bedside him, a hand on his knee. It was probably Cheryl, he thought.
When Dwight returned from his trial, he rushed to David's side. Felix watched him from the campfire, bursting into the tent, his voice breaking with a cry.
They had all seen blood. This was different. Somehow, it was different.
Felix waited patiently though. When Meg finally emerged, she relayed that David was too weak to move and if he needed to rest, permission was given for him to sleep in the pair’s now empty tent. Dwight had insisted on it. How could he refuse?
Felix approached David’s shared tent with caution, pulling open the flap, he ducked inside, his stomach turning in a knot at the sight of a bedding area, clearly created for two. A pair of glasses with cracked lenses rested on top of a stack of medkit tins — it was half opened, bandages were spilling out and a small glass vial nestled in the middle of it. The glass looked old, like it had been sitting out in the rain for seasons on end. Trinkets and offerings were arranged neatly on one side, and more haphazardly on the other. Felix chose the latter of the two sides.
He laid down on the thin mat, letting out a deep sigh, rolling over to find something white peeking out from under the bundled tarps that served as a pillow. Some kind of paper? Since when did they have access to paper? Drawn by curiosity, Felix squinted his eyes and looked closer, pinching the paper and drawing it into view.
Written in dark ink and scrawled across the margin, read a simple message:
Better than playboy.
Love, Ghostie.
Felix's entire body seized with horror, as if every survivor's eyes somehow peered through the cracks of the tent at that very moment.
Captured in the photo was David, sprawled on muddied, forest ground, blood coursing in heavy streams down his chin, head lifted by one bearing the unmistakable scream of a hollowed, white mask.
It wasn't possible. There was no way a killer could get this close.
In an instant, he felt his body carry him, sprinting towards the campfire's glow, not letting his breath escape his lips until he could feel it's warmth and he knew everything in his surroundings was lit with the warm light and there was no way the cloaked man could come close without risk of being revealed.
The sound of a twig snapping made Felix instantly jump, whipping around to face the direction of the noise, his body visibly relaxing when he recognized the form emerging from the tree line.
"Jake?" Felix called out, and the dark haired man's head trained in his direction, his expression unreadable in the shadows of the trees, "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, yeah. Just clearing my head." Jake answered distantly, picking up his pace in the direction of his tent, "Rough trial today."
Somehow, Felix knew he was lying, but he was in no position to pry.
Before he could turn back to the fire, he felt his breath being pulled out of his chest, the tips of his fingers growing numb with pins and needles.
"Verdammt… Not now." Felix's voice tightened with anguish as the familiar, rhythmic pull built in his chest — a dark calling that only ended in blood.
But his eyes flew open just as his vision faded and the campfire melted before his eyes.
The picture.
He left it in the tent.
——
Halfway into his next trial, Felix knew something was wrong. It wasn't just that the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, even when he was sure he was hidden between a grove of pine trees... It wasn't that the first gens finished without a cry of pain echoing anywhere throughout the forest. Something felt... off.
Then one scream tore through the woods. And another after that. All in succession, unrelenting, until they quieted once again. Someone has been hooked, he was sure of it, but he held fast to his position, listening as another generator spurred to life in the distance.
Keeping his head down, he pressed against the wires of his generators, adjusting and reorienting them as he had been taught, just like the others.
"Hey blondie~" Purred the voice directly over his shoulder.
The generator erupted in a spark of electricity as Felix felt himself, weightless, being torn from his position and thrown over the shoulder of his attacker. That heavy smell of a musk of cologne filled his sinuses, face pressed against the heavy fabric of the ghost's shroud.
"No— No!" Felix felt his voice tear when his mind finally caught up with what was taking place, beating his fists on Danny's back as he fought to escape the right grasp.
"Aww, don't be like that." Ghostface teased, carrying the survivor with ease through the thick underbrush of the forest, "It'll only hurt a helluva lot."
Throwing Felix on the nearest hook with ease, Ghostface stood back, admiring how the blonde writhed against the metal.
"I could let all your little survivor friends escape." Ghostface's voice began to drip, tracing the tip of his knife down the middle of Felix's chest, "Then I can fuck you slow and you don't have to worry your pretty little head about being too loud."
"They'll — come for me..." The blonde gasped out in pain, the tearing sensation of the hook flooding his mind with so much agony the edges of his vision faded in and out.
He heard the killer laugh coldly, the black tendrils curling lightly around his shrouded form.
"Yeah... Sure. One gen left and they'll totally come for you." Danny smirked, but his attention immediately shifted, "Speaking of which, I need another hook. Wouldn't want Her to miss out on a good run."
Felix felt his throat tear in another groan of pain, head sagging with a wave of exhaustion. A pit was growing in his stomach now, dropping down all the way to his heels.
Why him? Why couldn't it have been anyone but him?
Eyes snapping upwards at the sound of footsteps, he watched as someone approached from the brush.
"I'm getting you out of here—" Laurie whispered as she lifted him off the jagged hook, "Feng powered the gate. We need to run for it."
As if on cue, the very ground beneath them split open, sizzling with searing orange gashes that flowed under the tremor of the landscape. Without thinking, Laurie grabbed a hold of his hand, pulling him in the direction of the webbed fingers on the ground. He could bleed later. His heart was pounding in his ears.
"Come on! Come on — hurry!" He could hear Feng's clear voice as they rounded the corner of the nearest house, the familiar arch of the opened exit gate just within the distance of a sprint.
A cold split of metal raked down the length of the back, sending him sprawling to the ground, reeling as his vision pulsed with pain.
"Go!! Go!" Felix cried out, watching a look of horror contort the two women's faces as he fell on the stone.
The pressure was enough. The moment Ghostface took a step closer into the gate, they both turned, leaping through the barricade that promised safety. The third survivor had already left — the blonde was sure of it, now that the whispers in his mind taunted him with the ethereal echo of the hatch. Danny stood, watching them go, wiping Felix's blood off of his knife.
"See? Told ya." He shrugged, turning back to Felix who was now struggling to pull himself up out of his own pool of crimson stain. "Looks like it's just you and me."
Slowly, almost painfully so, Danny squatted down beside the downed survivor, resting his arms leisurely on his knees, head tilting just slightly as his shrouded eyes traced Felix's form.
The blonde was broken... not just bleeding. Not just cut. There was something that had changed. He had to get away… he had to run before the killer could —
"You'd make a pretty portrait right about now, blondie." Danny cooed, flipping his knife casually in his hand as if he had practiced a thousand times.
Portrait.
And then, the realization hit him.
"The picture! You went after David... on purpose."
Danny's posture changed, as if his whole demeanor brightened at the connection.
"You're welcome, by the way. I bet your bed's gonna smell like him after." The killer's voice was stained with a smirk.
Anger. Burning. It was beyond anything he had ever felt — beyond any hate he had ever been capable of. It set his soul on fire.
"No. No, you don't get to do that... Not to him." Felix was shaking his head, words beginning to spill from his lips despite how they threatened to twist on his copper tasting tongue, "This is between us."
"Ahh, so there's an us now?" Danny snorted, lifting his foot to push down on Felix's shoulder, forcing the male to continue to cower, "I'm getting some serious mixed signals here."
"You want me to hurt, don't you?" Felix spoke through his teeth — somehow gaining enough courage to feign defiance, "Then hurt me. Just me."
"Tempting. Really. Especially when you're shaping up to put up a hell of a fight." Danny smirked, picking up Felix's body with ease and tossing the survivor over his shoulder, "I'm stuck here, same as you. You know, She trusts me. I gotta make you all hurt, not just you..."
Danny's footsteps slowed for a moment in hesitation, as if his own words even put a halt to his steps, gripping Felix a little tighter around the waist.
But the blonde was ready for it. It was in that pause... That breath of hesitance. He waited. Then he struck.
With all his might, he drove his hidden glass shard into the killer's back — it cut surprisingly cleanly through his thick cloak — and the killer cried out in pain, immediately loosing his balance and letting the blonde pull free of his grasp.
Blood pounded in his ears — the edges of his vision blurred, and all he could hear was the killer's frustrated snarl and the sound of his own heart beat.
But somehow... for some reason, he didn't run. Felix held the glass shard tighter — he could feel it cutting into his palm.
It didn't matter. Something in him snapped.
Again. The blonde brought down the makeshift blade, toppling them both to the ground in a heavy collapse.
Again. Warmth welled between his fingers with each strike.
Again. He could taste blood in his mouth. It wasn't his.
Again.
With bloodied hands, Felix reached for the screaming mask, tearing it off and throwing it to the ground. Beneath it, was just a man. A man with eyes as grey as steel and dark, dripping with a sadistic sense of calm.
"That's it. Right there. That's the Felix I saw." Danny breathed, his breath audibly hitching, and Felix only set his jaw more when he realized the other's dark eyes were locked on his lips.
There was a hunger the killer brimmed with, an indescribable lust that burned — darkening his eyes and poisoning his wide smile.
Felix felt himself stumble back, the crimson stained shard of glass falling from his palm and clattering loudly on the floor, looking in horror at the gore that stained his hands and splattered over his sleeves.
"No... No — I didn't..." The blonde stammered, "I didn't mean —"
"You learned that from Laurie didn't you? She's stabbed me, fuck, more times than I can count." Danny's voice was weak, but he was grinning with crimson teeth, "But you... You wanna kill me."
"No. I don't." Felix repeated, but the more he spoke, the more he realized he was lying, "I am not like you."
"Baby boy... Don't you think we're past the stage of lying and getting away with it.." The brunette winced heavily as he tried to prop himself up more, dark eyes stained with his smirk as he looked up to the other.
"No lies? Fine." Felix panted, anger bubbling in his chest again as he knelt in defiance, eye to eye with the bloodied killer, "Then tell me. Why me?"
"Why what, darling?" Danny flashed a smile, but his face contorted in pain when Felix reached forward, pressing his thumb into one of the stab wounds, "S-Shit! Okay — damn! God you remind me of Frank—"
"Answer! Now!"
"I've studied people! Okay? I've watched them for hours — doing things... evil things when they think no one's watching. I've had 'em confess every one of their dirty little sins when I let them bleed out slow." Danny's voice grew hushed, his eyes had a glazed look, but still, he did not blink, "I know people. You're not what you seem, Felix. I know it."
"I never told her, and now we’re getting married. Is that what you want to hear?" Felix's voice tightened, guilt knotting in his throat, "I lied to her for years. I gave her a child."
"No." The killer smiled, "Not that."
A sickening crack. The killer's body went limp — Felix pulling the blade of glass from between the rib cage. A rush of blood passed through his head, causing him to stumble and loose his balance, everything growing cold and hot and melting all at once until his vision cut out like a light.
When he opened his eyes, he wasn't at the campfire. There were no tents... no ruffle of a breeze through evergreen needles. There was no drifting melody of an acoustic guitar... no deep low of David's voice.
No. When he opened his eyes, the walls began to bleed.