Rating: Explicit
Warnings:
✔ Graphic Depictions Of Violence
✔ Major Character Death
Fandoms: EverymanHYBRID
Categories: Gen
Relationships: Jeff (Everyman HYBRID) & Original Male Character(s)
Characters: Jeff (Everyman HYBRID), Original Male Character(s), HABIT (Everyman HYBRID)
Additional Tags: Hurt No Comfort, Heavy Angst, Blood and Injury, Implied/Referenced Torture, HABIT Being HABIT (Everyman HYBRID), Romantic If You Squint, :D Attic, my boy got murdered and for what, being gay probably
Summary
"How long did it take for his brain to register that it wasn’t Evan? A part of him wanted to believe it was right away, that the glint in his eyes wasn’t quite right, or that his smile never looked like that but another probably didn’t accept it until the very last moment. A small part of him wanted to believe that it was all some sick joke until the second Evan’s foot crushed one of his ankles."
Or: Daniel Novak, the man, the myth, the legend, dies a horrible death all because he had a crush on a man.
A lone message illuminated his phone screen: “Come over. Vin and I finally got something. Wanna show you.”
One message, enough to send him putting on his shoes and dashing out the door to Jeff’s place. It has been days since he’s seen either of them, days since he left his home really. It was hard to pretend things were normal anymore, their high school days were long forgotten, the lives they knew crumbled. Alex was gone, Harvey was gone, Evan didn’t pick up his calls anymore and Jeff was just barely holding it together the last time they spoke, hiding the tears in his eyes. The only person, strangely determined, was Vinny, still carrying around that camera, still pushing for something. But what were they even chasing anymore? Why did Daniel stay through all of it? Perhaps irrationality was just a permanent part of their new lives now.
The driveway crunched under his shoes as he made his way to the house. It was quickly getting dark and the streetlamps came on, casting the walls in an orange hue. Daniel furrowed his brows a bit. The house looked to be empty, all the lights were turned off, and there were no signs that would suggest someone was inside. Only once coming close did he realize the front door was already cracked open. His stomach tensed.
“Jeff? You in here?” He pushed the door fully open, his palm lingering on it while he hesitated on the threshold. A memory flooded his mind. The first time he was here, the warm air and the taste of cheap beer in his mouth. The four of them seated around a TV as it whirred with VHS tape rewinding and laughter making his cheeks ache. Now, the house felt alien.
Finally daring to take another step, his foot met the floorboard with a creak. “Jeff!” He called out again, louder, his voice echoing through the space. He found the light switch and the ceiling light came on with a click. It didn’t seem to help the eerie atmosphere at all.
The ground floor seemed barren of any human activity so he took to the staircase and climbed towards Jeff’s bedroom. As the door came into view at the end of the hallway he could nearly imagine it opening to Jeff’s smiling face, a simple explanation to the whole ordeal, good news following the flood of comfort of his presence. It didn’t.
He knocked, knuckles against wood like a drum, and took a breath as if he was readying to plunge his head underwater. As he turned the doorknob he only faced more darkness. Silence so disheartening he felt his gut sink.
Barely one step into the room his thoughts were overtaken with the sudden presence of sharp pain shooting through the side of his head. He hardly registered the feeling of a hard object colliding with his temple before crashing to the ground, his vision spinning and going black.
When he came to again and the feeling returned to his limbs he became awfully aware of his surroundings. The cold floor ate away at his body heat, thin limbs awkwardly pressing against the hard surface like a newborn deer on an asphalt road. He felt his ankles and wrists restrained and tightly bound - his arms wrenched behind his back. He let out a mumble only to gag at the feeling of cloth shoved into his mouth. He stirred and groaned when a familiar voice broke through the darkness, a glimmer of depleting, broken hope.
“Dan?” Jeff called out, weary and shaken.
Daniel lifted his head just enough to look into the room and see Jeff seated on a tiny chair - a humiliating display, his legs rigidly bent and hands clutching a slowly dripping wound. Daniel scrambled to try and get up before slamming back to the floor. He let out a low pathetic whine.
“Hey- hey, it’s okay. We’ll be alright, Vinny he- he knows where I went he’ll come looking for us.” He spoke again in some desperate attempt to sound reassuring. He didn’t, his voice thick with fear and pain. He sounded… small, whatever that thing did to him showing its ugly mark.
He tensed in his chair a bit, as if straining his muscles while preparing to get up but for some reason, he hesitated despite being granted the privilege of having his limbs free. As if on cue the door clicked and swung open and Jeff slumped back onto his seat.
Evan… no not Evan, something stood in the doorway, its face cast in shadow as it took heavy slow steps towards them. Daniel tried to inch away but froze at the sight of the long knife it held. Jeff was motionless, eerily so.
“Am I interrupting?” It spoke. Its voice was wrong somehow, still sounding like Evan but mangled in a way that made it sound like it wasn't coming from his mouth. It seemed to claw past his lips like a rabid creature craving to escape.
“Let him go.” Jeff said and Daniel would've yelled for him to shut up if he could manage more than a muffled grunt. “He has nothing to do with this, you want me anyway.” He continued.
The thing smiled. “No can do, I'm afraid,” it moved over to Daniel and crouched next to him, peering into his wide, teary eyes with a sneer. “Danny here is the star of the show right now but don't worry,” it grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him to his knees. “You'll have your time to shine in a bit.”
Daniel tried to struggle but it just laughed.
“Woah you're a feisty one,” it moved its hand to grab his hair and forcefully wrenched his head back to look into its eyes. Some uncanny mirage of Evan's face grinned back at him. “Let's see how long that lasts.”
It was dark. Or maybe his eyelids were glued shut with blood, he wasn’t really able to tell, nor did it matter. He took small breaths through the pool of blood in his mouth. It was thick and he could feel it dripping down his throat and lungs like liquid iron. The voice he could hear before finally went silent. It was Jeff, he knew it was him, through all the sobs and screams his voice was still resonant but now he went quiet. He must think I’m dead, he thought. It might’ve been for the better, between all the blood and guts he spilled he probably should be. But no, not with that thing around, prancing about wearing their friend’s skin. It must be keeping him alive. For what? He’d rather not know
How long did it take for his brain to register that it wasn’t Evan? A part of him wanted to believe it was right away, that the glint in his eyes wasn’t quite right, or that his smile never looked like that but another probably didn’t accept it until the very last moment. A small part of him wanted to believe that it was all some sick joke until the second Evan’s foot crushed one of his ankles.
And now he couldn’t move at all and still, he would rather believe it was anything but reality. When something hard cracked his skull, when a blade split his stomach open, when he felt himself being picked up and dragged across the floor like it was nothing. A terrible nightmare. The one thing that truly anchored him to reality though was Jeff. How funny that after everything he believed the one thing even his mind couldn’t conjure up in some twisted dream was him pleading and in so much pain. That had to have been real.
His body felt as if it had already begun to rot, blissfully unaware of his consciousness still hanging on by a thin thread. But maybe the human body wasn’t meant to live through anything like this, God knows this was anything but natural. He felt his insides in his hands, felt all the blood draining from his wounds, fragments of his skull falling in a splash of brain matter across his face, he could feel each second of his ankles being contorted and shattered like it was nothing. To it, it was nothing. It just laughed when he cried when he begged. It laughed as he choked and gagged on bile when he finally crumbled to the ground and gave up on moving. He lay waiting for something to kill him - be it blood loss or some divine intervention. All he could smell was decaying flesh.
"Oh come on, why the long face?" He heard the thing growl lowly at what he assumed was Jeff. His heavy boots circled around him and stopped for a moment before he grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him back upright, showing his bloodied body like a hunting trophy. "I so graciously bring you a friend and you don't even appreciate it."
Jeff didn't respond except for a small stifled sob escaping his lips against his will. The habit grumbled and let go of him again, letting him drop back to the ground.
"You're no fun."
He felt his mind slip suddenly, the same he’d felt right before falling asleep. All the pain started to dissipate and all he felt now was cold. That must be it, that must be what dying feels like.