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strawberry-eden · 3 months ago

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violence solves (most) problems — danny johnson x reader

↪ summary — you're relatively new in the fog, having been here just long enough to get a hold on the working order of this place when you catch the unfortunate eye of the most obsessive man on the planet, who decides that you're going to be his newest plaything.

or, your first encounter with the notorious ghostface killer goes very poorly.

↪ tags — canon typical violence, swearing, crack treated seriously, blood & injury, obsession at first sight, gender neutral pronouns/description for reader, no use of y/n, and danny's weird way of flirting

↪ word count — 2.4k

a/n: i wrote this originally way back in february but i found it again and figured i would share with the class. inspired by a cool piece of art i saw on twitter that ended up spiraling from there. enjoy!

The cold air of Mount Ormond ski resort bites angrily at your bare face, your shallow breaths manifesting in puffs of white fog as you fight to keep giant spidery talons from spearing through your torso. A low, guttural growl sounds from all around you and nowhere all at once, your arms shaking from effort as a particularly hard shove from the entity forces your hooked shoulder to shift, sending a ripple of white-hot agony through your body. “Fuck!”

This is your first match of the day. Not a single generator has been done and none of your teammates have been hooked yet. If anybody is coming for you, you can’t see through the cage the entity’s talons have created around you, itching to close in and take you back the campfire. You’re half tempted to let her do it.

You barely register the second pair of hands that appears and bats her away until they’re gently pulling you down from the hook by your armpits, holding you up until you’re steady on your feet. You blink away a few stray tears to look up at the face of your savior. “No offense, kiddo, but you look like shit,” says Bill.

You almost shrug instinctively but stop yourself last second. “A little bit taken. I feel like shit,” you mutter. He shoots a cautious glance over his shoulder, then takes you by the arm and leads you away from the hook towards a safer spot to patch you up. You can’t help but flit your gaze all around the area, searching for that haunting white mask or floating strips of leather, wondering if you’re being watched from somewhere.

Bill catches your paranoid expression and frowns. “Christ, what’d you do to him?”

Unable to hide your frustration, you round on Bill with an exasperated cry, “I don’t know! He just—” You make a vague gesture. “Set his eyes on me and decided he wanted me dead! I haven’t even touched a gen yet, for fuck’s sake.”

Bill pulls you behind a boulder secluded somewhere in a corner of the resort. You squint at the shape of the killer shack some ways away, trying to get your bearings. Bill whistles lowly. “Maybe he’s just trying to get an easy win, then. Lord knows it’s working. The rest of us are struggling to keep up.”

You collapse into a bloody pile into the snow, leaning against the rock and pressing a hand against your wounded shoulder while he pops open his medkit. “Yeah, well. I’m still pissed about it.”

“Oh, we all are,” he replies. “Nobody likes being down a teammate this early on. You got anything to help you out?”

Your face scrunches in confusion. “What?”

He raises a grayed eyebrow. “You know, like that trick David pulls to endure pain, or how that girl Laurie hides glass in her sleeves. They teach you any of that?”

“Uhh… No?”

Bill curses under his breath. “You’re kidding, right?” He curses again, louder this time when you shake your head. He digs into one of his many pockets, pulling out something that he clutches tightly in his palm, then motions for you to extend your hand. He places something smooth and warm into it, closing your fingers around the object. “Hide it well, okay? If he sees it, it’s game over. And make sure you don’t. Miss. That was my second chance, and I’m giving it up so you a better shot. If you end up fumbling, I’m never gonna let you live it down.”

Bill holds your gaze until you give a slow nod, retracting his hands as he returns to rustling around the supplies in his medkit. When you open up your fingers, you are greeted by your own reflection looking back at you from a small, sharp piece of glass. It’s almost shaped like a knife if you turn it right. “What do I do with it?” You ask curiously.

Bill wheezes out a laugh. “Stab him with it, obviously.” You bite back a painful hiss when he begins stitching your wounds back together, which he apologizes for under his breath. “But don’t just swing it around all willy-nilly, you gotta wait until he isn’t expecting it—like when he’s got you slung over his shoulder like a sack of meat thinking you’re gonna be an easy kill. Then, you take your opportunity to prove him wrong and stab it right into his shoulder. Always shocks ‘em so bad they drop you then and there. Gives 'em a taste of their own medicine, which they don’t like too much, y’know?”

You stare thoughtfully at the shard. If it’s such an effective tactic, then why in the world hasn’t anybody told you about it? You can’t help but feel a bit betrayed.

“Doesn’t always work, though,” he says, pulling the question straight from your mind. “After a while, they start to expect it, which means you gotta change it up. Start playing stealthier, like Zarina or Jake—the guy’s got an iron will. Real impressive. I have no idea he’s even hurt until I realize he’s left a streak of blood halfway across the map.”

This is all too much information to ingest when you feel about five seconds away from dying via blood loss. “Got it,” you mumble breathlessly.

Bill blanks at you. “You didn’t retain a thing I just said.”

"I got all the important parts."

“Sure you did,” he huffs. He starts opening up some gauze, when all of a sudden, his head shoots up and his whole body goes rigid. Bill’s wide eyes find your alarmed ones, and all that he’s able to get out before all hell breaks loose is, “Run.”

There’s an almost imperceptible rustle of clothing that doesn’t reach your ears. You’re frozen in place, barely given enough time to register the command as you watch him jump to his feet. “What?”

“God damnit, kid, I said run—!”

“There you are,” a third voice purrs, and you barely get a glimpse of the knife that glints maliciously at you just before it’s buried in Bill’s back. The hoarse scream that’s torn from the older man’s throat echoes hauntingly in your ears as it digs in deeper, forcing him against the ground. Dark red splatters across the snow when Ghostface violently wrenches it out of him.

Your shoulder cries out as you feebly scramble backwards, every little cut and bruise on your body flaring in pain as you awkwardly clamber back to your feet. Ghostface steps clean over Bill, who groans in pain on the ground, and the shard in your sweaty hand suddenly feels a thousand times heavier.

You can hear the simper in his voice when he says, “You didn’t forget about little old me, did you?” He wraps his gloved fingers around the bloody knife, wiping it clean with one swipe. “Oh, darling, I’m hurt.”

You’re running before you even know it. The cold air stings your lungs with each intake, your muscles burning with every step. You don't have a clue where you’re headed until you’re tearing through the killer shack, narrowly avoiding crashing into the generator that sits in the middle. You don’t need to look to know that he’s right behind you if the sounds of crunching snow and throaty laughter are anything to go by, and when your bare fingers find the splintered slab of wood sitting against the doorway, you waste no time throwing it down behind you.

You stop and turn to shout obscenities towards your assailant, but he’s nowhere to be found. You blink, and a knife is suddenly jammed between your ribs. “You should really look behind you sometimes,” Ghostface says coolly, pressing the blade deeper in emphasis and relishing in the way you whimper in pain. “Maybe you would have actually seen me go around the side of shack. Kind of embarrassing to fall for that, you know.”

“Fuck you.”

He tsks, ripping the knife out of your side and effectively taking away the only thing keeping you upright, letting you fall to the ground in a bloody heap. You look up at him through hazy eyes, looking like a dark mist against the pale gray sky, the screaming white mask being the only thing to come into focus. “You know, I don’t usually do this—”

You watch as one of his hands dives underneath his cloak, searching around for something for a solid five seconds until he pulls out a small handheld camera with a muted A-ha!

“—but I like you, so I’m willing to make an exception.”

“An exception?" You spit out a wad of blood and saliva. "What the hell are you—”

The air is unceremoniously knocked out of your lungs when he plops himself down on your stomach, knees caging you in and pinning your hands against the snow. You flinch when the glass shard hidden in your sleeve pinches the skin of your wrist.

Gloved fingers firmly grip your jaw and force you to turn toward the camera lens as he leans in close, the scent of cheap cologne assaulting your senses and filling up your head. You swear the smell alone would kill you before he ever could.

“Smile,” he breathes into your ear, and you’re blinded by the flash that goes off when he clicks the camera. You’re busy recoiling in the aftermath while he gazes quietly at the picture in the viewfinder, blinking away the green and purple splotches in your vision. Still gripping your jaw, he forcefully turns your head to show it to you.

The picture looks about exactly how you’d expect it to turn out. You're staring wide-eyed at the camera in shock and fear, blood seeping from your various wounds and soaking into your clothes. His mask takes up the entire left side of the photo, but if you look hard enough, you think you can spot a pair of dark eyes staring into the lens—they’re squinted at the edges, like he’s actually smiling underneath it as he casually holds up a peace sign.

"Say, you weren't a model or anything before this, were you? 'Cause damn." He lets out a low whistle. "This one’s definitely going in my collection.”

He takes one last, long look at the picture before tucking the camera back into his coat and stands, allowing the blood to resume flowing through the veins in both of your arms again as they’re overcome by that numb, prickly feeling. Too hurt and exhausted to resist, you limply allow him to maneuver you into a sitting position, his arms wrapping tightly around your waist as he effortlessly hauls you up onto his shoulder.

"Alright, playtime's over," he huffs. "Duty calls, blah blah blah, you know how it is. Ain't no rest for the wicked."

Something smooth and sharp slides into your palm from the depths of your sleeve. Catching a glimpse of your reflection in it’s surface, you let out a gasp that Ghostface assumes must be from the sight of the giant meat hook that appears at the corner of the shack, because he gently pats the backs of your thighs in what you assume is meant to be reassurance.

"Now, don't you worry, sweet-pea," he says, “the next time you and I get matched up, I promise I’ll play nice. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll even let you escape, yeah?” He laughs, and you can feel it vibrating through your ribcage. “After I kill your friends, of course.”

You grip the glass so tight in your palm, it digs into your fingers, drawing blood. You see your own eyes staring back at you through a thin stream of red, wild and angry and terrified, Bill’s words bouncing around in your skull as you raise the shard and slam it hard into the back of his shoulder, digging in viciously and twisting.

He inhales sharply, hands immediately losing their grip on you as he drops down to one knee, letting you slide off of his shoulder and land face-first in the snow. You push yourself up to your hands and knees, then to your feet, and glance nervously over your shoulder.

You meet those same eyes that had peered gleefully at you in the picture, no longer hiding behind that wretched mask as it lays by your feet in the snow, but they’re not squinting like they were before. They’re wide, pupils shrunken into tiny pinpricks as they bore into you, nostrils flaring and lips curling into a grimace as he reaches behind him and rips out the glass. Blood sprays from the wound in an arc, a fury so deep and animalistic roiling in his guttural tone as he ...

... Laughs.

Something dangerous glitters within his irises as he turns to face you. What catches you most off-guard, though, is that he's actually handsome underneath the mask—he's younger than you thought, with long lashes and full lips. A tiny scar marks the corner of his mouth, and it stretches slightly as he bares his teeth in a wide, manic grin.

"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" He drops the glass shard and stands, and you're screaming at your body to move, but you can't. You just watch as he slowly reaches out to collect his mask and knife, refusing to take his eyes off of you even once. It's like it's just his gaze keeping you pinned. "The gift that keeps on giving?"

A loud buzzer sounds from somewhere in the distance. You flick your gaze away for just a moment to check which direction it came from, and by the time you look back, he's already secured the mask back in place.

"I'll tell you what," he begins, tilting his head at you curiously. "Let's make a bet. If you can last until your friends get alll the gens done, I'll let you go."

You swallow thickly. "And if I can't?"

Silence. You don't need to see his face to know that he's smiling. "You wanna find out?"

Strangely enough, a part of you almost does.

He lunges then, but you’re already on the move, adrenaline as well as an odd cocktail blend of terror and exhilaration pushing your body past its limits in a last-ditch effort at escaping this trial with your life.

You probably won’t, but you’re definitely gonna give him a run for his money—you figure that you've earned at least that much.

#divider credit: cafekitsune #ghostface #x reader #ghostface x reader #dead by daylight #scream #danny johnson #danny johnson x reader #reader insert #dbd x reader #reader then proceeded to have a five gen chase and t-bagged the killer at the exit gates with the rest of the team (real)#don't ask what the other two teammates were doing while reader and bill were fighting for their lives #i'm also so sorry if i mischaracterized bill at all i have literally never played left 4 dead #this is the average solo q game #getting tunnelled while nobody does gens

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