#max i was unfamiliar with your clown behavior

[mistressemmedi]

"Your FIA mates" bro, MBS has George's picture on a wall and has been throwing darts at his face to relieve some stress while firing FIA staff

[slashthedice]

Gifts - Max Thompson Jr.

This is my (long overdue) half of a trade with @malokhim! I’m so thrilled to be doing this exchange with you, dear! Magg made this incredible piece for me, and I will cherish it forever (it’s currently my lockscreen on my phone). I love Max with all of my little heart, he deserves the world. Thank you for giving me a chance to write more about him ♥ This might be the only time that a killer face-camps out of love rather than hate.

“He’s here again.”

At the sound of Jake’s voice, you looked up from the gauze you were rolling into neat little bundles. You scanned the gloom that hung at the edge of the clearing, just outside the reaching fingers of firelight. Sure enough, there amongst the shadows was the sinister figure of the Hillbilly.

The others said that he had never been one of the usual monsters that stalked among the twisted trees and dry grass, watching them outside of the trials. They claimed that it wouldn’t be unusual to see the Shape or the Ghost Face, sometimes one might even spot the shimmering silhouette of the Wraith or hear the wheezing of the Clown, but never the crooked outline of the chainsaw wielder. This change in the killer’s behavior had apparently come about shortly after you had arrived in the Entity’s realm.

You remembered your first trial, hunted and cut down by the whirring chain of the mechanical saw. Delirious from pain and blood loss, you had hardly noticed when he picked you up, disfigured arm snug around your waist as he hoisted you onto his shoulder. You had screamed, and screamed, and screamed when the hook first pierced your shoulder. Only when your screams had died to whimpers and sobs did you notice that he was still there, standing before you, staring at you. He made no noise except for his gurgling, rattling breathing and his glowing eyes never left your pained, blood-splattered face. He was the last thing you saw before the Entity took you.

After that trial, you had spotted him out there in the dark. Those same glowing eyes boring into you from across the clearing. At first you had been scared, certain that he would kill you again, but your fears had been assuaged by the others, explaining that the Entity allowed the killers no closer than the ring of light provided by the campfire. Claudette was the first to note how unusual it was to see the Hillbilly there, but the others quickly agreed.

You wondered what it was you had done. The others said that sometimes killers grew to have a particular distaste for certain survivors. You had heard stories of survivors hitting, kicking, and even stabbing killers, but you hadn’t had the presence of mind to do so. You hadn’t been disrespectful, in fact he had caught you with a fair amount of ease. You were, afterall, unfamiliar with running for your life. 

Your confusion only grew when, upon encountering him next in trial, he merely followed you around the map. There was no heart-stopping growl of whirring chain, and he never once made to hit you with the bloodstained cattle hammer. He simply loped along as you ran for your life amongst the cornstalks. You escaped that trial, but frankly you weren’t sure how. It felt a lot like he had let you go.

You didn’t know how to broach the topic to the others. What could you say? That you thought a killer might be letting you live for some reason? Maybe he felt bad for you. Maybe he saw how much worse you were at surviving than the others, and thought you weren’t worth the effort of killing. Whatever his reasoning, you were thoroughly confused by it.

Slowly, you began to notice odd things showing up at the edge of the clearing near where you typically resided between trials. Small things like bottles of vegetable oil and spark plugs, or even the occasional primer bulb seemed to appear among the tall grass. You took them back to the others, hoping that maybe someone would be able to find a use for them, maybe one of the more mechanically inclined survivors would know what could be done with them. Yet the mystery of their origin remained unsolved.

You continued on as you had. Working with the others. Making offerings to the Entity. Going into trials. Living. Dying.

Eventually, the little objects you found began to change. A number of plastic cattle tags started to appear, littered in with the usual assortment of items. They were battered and often bloodstained, each one emblazoned with a worn number in black ink. Any other letters had been rubbed away with the exception of the occasional Coldwind Farm. Some of the others told you they used to find those around quite often, burning them as offerings tended to result in a trial on the decrepit farm. You held onto them. Just in case.

The mystery was solved suddenly and unexpectedly.

In a particularly brutal trial, you had been found almost immediately by the Nurse, and despite the most valiant efforts of your friends, had quickly met your demise. After the pain and the blackness, you found yourself awakening at the edge of the clearing. Awareness came back to you slowly, your mind sluggish in the wake of yet another death.

You realized suddenly that you were not alone.

There, only a handful of feet away within the shadows, was the Hillbilly. He was bent over, crouching beside the patch of grass in which you always found the strange items. He was frozen in place, eyes trained on you with apparent surprise. Despite the slow return of your faculties, you understood that he had not expected to see you there. You followed the length of his outstretched arm to his hand, where his fingers were wrapped around something that sparkled in the outer reaches of fire light.

You blinked a few times before opening your mouth to say something. What exactly you planned to say, you had no idea, but before you could even attempt to come up with something, he dropped what he was holding and ran. His twisted back turned to you as he hobbled deeper and deeper into the darkened forest, leaving you to gather your roiling thoughts

After a few lingering heartbeats, you leaned forward, parting the strands of long grass to find what he had dropped. A glimmer of silver winked up at you. As you reached for it, you recognized the shape of a little heart. When you picked it up, a delicate silver chain came with it. As you turned the necklace over, you realized that it was a fine locket. In the lowlight you could just make out “E+M” engraved in it. Had he left this for you?

You were nearly crushed under the weight of the sudden realization that the Hillbilly had been the one leaving all those things for you. You thought he hated you, why would he bring you things? Not just things, gifts. You wanted to ask him. Wanted to know why.

Which brought you to the situation at hand.

“I’ll get rid of ‘im,” David declared, rolling up his sleeves as if he was going to do more than yell obscenities at the killer standing there staring at you.

“No,” you said, standing quickly and catching his elbow. “I’ll handle it.”

David looked at you like you had grown a second head, and you could feel the eyes of the others on your back, but eventually the scrapper relented. “Fine. Have at it.”

You took a deep breath and squared your shoulders before marching towards the edge of the firelight. You could feel the comforting weight of the locket around your neck as you closed the distance between the Hillbilly and yourself. You wanted answers, and there was no time like the present to get them.