⊹The MacMillan Estate⊹

Though the last one didn't matter. As he always said, he didn't need to be fast, since they were just speeding right into his traps anyways. But it was still another bruise to his ego. As was every survivor that escaped. Every pallet stun. Every flashlight save. Every time he stepped in his own traps like an utter boob.

And with this event? It was happening so much more often. And the only thing he got to counteract the survivors' new abilities were... poison bottles. Like fucking Kenneth's. How insulting was that?

And he did understand. He understood that the survivors got these abilities to boost morale, give them some small shreds of hope so they don't go completely numb and Void themselves, but with this shit? Evan seriously wondered how the fuck he hadn't been voided yet.

His anger, like the kind gradually growing inside him as he went through these trials - back-to-back ones - was probably the answer.

With every failure, his blood boiled in his veins, until he was sure he had to be hot even to the touch. He started to get more aggressive, less patient, spending less time setting up and more time carving flesh with a rusted cleaver and feeling the familiar heat of blood spatter across his crusted skin.

Whenever someone got caught in his trap, he didn't just lift them out like he normally did - he instead ripped them out, the meat of their ankle sliding off of the bone as the serrated teeth dug in and tore. Their screams were satisfying sounds, as was the squelch of flesh as he carelessly tossed them onto the hooks.

He didn't get many kills that way either, but it was at least cathartic.

But even his anger didn't carry him very far. Not anymore. And especially not when The Entity was just throwing him into trial after trial after trial. He'd come out of one just to get tossed into another. Hours after hours spent walking around, spilling blood, with no moment to just rest. He hadn't stopped moving in what felt like forever.

He was starting to get worn down, exhaustion wearing at his already fucked bones. Jesus H. Christ, can't he just sit down for a moment? Murder is taxing, you know.

It did know.

So, eventually, it decided he'd finally done enough, and when the Fog enveloped him after one trial, he braced to be dumped into another, but wasn't. It looked the same as every fucking thing, just another forest, but he could feel that this wasn't a trial anymore.

Evan let out a loud groan, head tipping back in weary relief. A hand still drenched in blood rose to his face and dragged tiredly down the new horned mask he'd been given, along with a whole new outfit, for the event. He wasn't sure if the blood he'd just smeared on it was even visible, blood-red as it already was.

He wasn't quite sure what to think of said new outfit - it was very flashy compared to his usual - but he did like the mask, even if it wasn't his typical style.

But that didn't matter right now. What did matter was sitting the fuck down.

Lumbering through the muggy woods until he found a good, thick tree to rest by, he lowered himself to the dirt, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees, setting his cleaver in the grass beside him. He leaned forward so his back didn't really touch the tree, because having things touch the hooks and rebar embedded in the skin of his back and shoulders was very much not fun, he'd learned.

Raising a hand to prop his chin up, he let out a deep, heavy sigh, and shut his eyes - just sitting there, enjoying the rare quiet, and the gentle brush of a soft, cool breeze against his bared skin.

Finally, he could breathe.

... Fairfield sounded thin. Like a threadbare cloth - worn until it withered away. Not too different to a working man's boots, slowly falling apart under extensive abuse. Though usually those were loved to death. Dwight just seemed... plain dead. No love involved. That wasn't really a thing here.

But he looked worn, too, looking at his face - the man having taken off the mask to allow such.

Evan wouldn't return the favor.

But the both of them were haggard, beat down to the bone. That was something the two could share, if not faces.

He scoffed and turned his head. "Surprised you even had to ask."

His voice came out unintentionally rough - a bit moreso than usual. It had been a hot moment since he'd really spoken. He'd always been a rather quiet man if he wasn't fired up about something, and there wasn't much to talk about during trials. Not with most people, anyway. Some made for a good quick chat while he had them over his shoulder. Fairfield included, sometimes, even if it was mostly just exchanges of a few words.

Most of which tended to be insults or swears.

He cleared his throat, then visibly looked Fairfield up and down a moment, gaze raking over the gilded red fabric. "... Keen suit, kid," he commented blandly, but at least semi-sincerely. It did look good, after all.

...Did everyone have metal snakes wrapped around them, or was that just him and Dwight? Evan couldn't recall - he didn't often pay much attention to what survivors wore besides being able to identify who was who in a trial.

Maybe he'd have to start doing that.

Typically, people stayed as far away from him as possible. But not Dwight. He hadn't done that for a while, now. Sure, he was always cautious - he'd be a dilly if he wasn't - but he hadn't really been scared of Evan for... years.

It should irritate him. It irritated him when the other survivors weren't afraid, when he was treated like a joke, like something they needn't worry about, like a killer they entered a trial with and went 'oh thank god' about. But it was different with Fairfield.

He'd known this man longer than anyone else here. Even before Philly and Max, and Dwight's friends, Claudette, Meg, and Jake. It was brief, but there had been a time it was just the two of them. They'd been the first living thing the other saw when they'd entered this pseudo-Hell.

He figured Dwight knew him better than any other. The mite knew he was unlikely to be in danger right now.

Evan turned his gaze back up, watching the survivor with his head tipped back, willingly baring his throat. Freely making himself vulnerable and giving Evan the chance to lunge forward and swipe the blade by his side across that slender neck. Or to do it himself. His hands, though they felt little, itched to reach forward, to grab it, and to squeeze. To deface and ruin and break it just because he could.

He'd always broken things just because he could. Objects, people... it never mattered to him. He'd broken his knuckles on brick just as much as someone else's bones.

And here Dwight was, baring his throat, always unsure but currently fairly certain that he'd be fine, at least for long enough to rest here with little worry.

Focused intently on that display of vulnerability, Evan tore his gaze from it and instead looked back down at his twitchy hands. At the red liquid that was starting to dry and add another layer to the numerous that were caked atop his already red gloves. This red wasn't quite the same color as the blood the way his mask was. Just a smidgen more vibrant, allowing it to stand out.

... Evan wiped them off on his pantlegs and sighed, coughed, then counted blades of grass that weren't real.

. . .

But eventually, he lifted his head again. "This whole thing's bullshit," he abruptly spoke up after a long, comfortable, somewhat awkward but peaceful silence between the two. The statement was vague. General. About the anniversary event, but also everything ever.

“‘S a selfish fucking thing.” He agrees with Evan, his voice made a little breathy from the position of his throat. “Entity’s just pleased Its kept Its little experiment going this long. From our perspective, at least. Not like It really… processes time the same way we do.” He finally looks down at his own hands with a sigh- clasping them over his knees as he pulls them up to his chest. Red leather gloved fingers lace together with ease, like he’d already broken them in to fit his hands perfectly. He probably had. Lots of work on the generators and all. “Probably feels like everything passed by in a heartbeat to It.” he growls- bitter, low. …Then resigned. The brief fire of anger in him flickers out with as little fanfare as it had appeared with- and he perches his chin on his hands and knees too, as his head starts feeling too heavy. As everything feels too heavy. “...And so here we are. Dressed up for Its little victory lap.” He shuts his eyes again, takes a long, bracing breath- and then looks back up at the sky, lifting a middle finger to It, glaring. The same kind of look (and same exact gesture) he’d give the Entity’s claws whenever he walked up to them blocking a generator. 

“It thinks It’ll live forever." he hisses, "-That It finally found the key to beating the void. That It can celebrate about it and shove it in our faces. I say fuck that, and fuck It. I hope It chokes eating Its own pride and goddamn dies.” Ah. Hope.

Evan had, obviously, never read them, and he never would. If telling anyone about his... struggles... wasn't the single most embarrassing thing he could think of, he might have asked Dwight to read them to him. Help him understand the thing he hadn't really tried to, but still understood better than most.

Fairfield was smart. He looked smart, he acted smart, he did smart. Evan hadn't really thought to make notes like that, but he couldn't anyway. That could be left to Dwight.

But the weight of The Entity was clearly crashing down on the little man. As it crashed down on Evan as well. As it crashed down on everyone.

Sometimes it was more bearable. Sometimes it was the only thing in existence, aside from your own suffering.

Evan watched Dwight curl in on himself and close his eyes, so small and fragile. There would be no better time to kill him than right now.

Evan stood up. He wiped his hands on his pantlegs again.

Then he approached, closing their distance-

But left his cleaver in the dirt and came near, empty-handed. Not that he needed a weapon to kill Fairfield, but he figured it'd be more reassuring for him to not have one.

The Trapper plopped himself down next to Dwight - not too close, but close enough so that if he moved about a foot further into him, his knee would knock into the man. His head was turned to Dwight, watching him with dull eyes as the weary survivor sank further into the pits of misery that this place liked to toss its inhabitants into.

Evan knew those pits better than anything else.

The weak and the weary will never survive, his old lessons piped up in the back of his head, but given how much Dwight has survived - not the trials, but still being here despite them - he'd long since deduced that they were at least partially wrong. Especially since, by that rule, Evan, worn down as he was, was also destined for death.

... Though, maybe that part was true.

Slowly, both to telegraph the movement and also from just plain hesitance, he raised a large hand and tentatively set it on Dwight's shoulder - weighing heavy on him, but not as heavy as The Entity and Its Realm, and much more present, despite Evan's lack of ability to feel Dwight beneath his palm.

"I mean and how," he responded blandly with an eye roll, turning his gaze to the gilded red fabric of his... robe thingy, which he started idly tracing the pattern of with a finger he couldn't feel either. "Though given the lack of throat, I don't think it can. Tragic."

After a second, he took his hand back off Dwight's shoulder, not wanting to linger and make things even more awkward.

Though the last one didn't matter. As he always said, he didn't need to be fast, since they were just speeding right into his traps anyways. But it was still another bruise to his ego. As was every survivor that escaped. Every pallet stun. Every flashlight save. Every time he stepped in his own traps like an utter boob.

And with this event? It was happening so much more often. And the only thing he got to counteract the survivors' new abilities were... poison bottles. Like fucking Kenneth's. How insulting was that?

And he did understand. He understood that the survivors got these abilities to boost morale, give them some small shreds of hope so they don't go completely numb and Void themselves, but with this shit? Evan seriously wondered how the fuck he hadn't been voided yet.

His anger, like the kind gradually growing inside him as he went through these trials - back-to-back ones - was probably the answer.

With every failure, his blood boiled in his veins, until he was sure he had to be hot even to the touch. He started to get more aggressive, less patient, spending less time setting up and more time carving flesh with a rusted cleaver and feeling the familiar heat of blood spatter across his crusted skin.

Whenever someone got caught in his trap, he didn't just lift them out like he normally did - he instead ripped them out, the meat of their ankle sliding off of the bone as the serrated teeth dug in and tore. Their screams were satisfying sounds, as was the squelch of flesh as he carelessly tossed them onto the hooks.

He didn't get many kills that way either, but it was at least cathartic.

But even his anger didn't carry him very far. Not anymore. And especially not when The Entity was just throwing him into trial after trial after trial. He'd come out of one just to get tossed into another. Hours after hours spent walking around, spilling blood, with no moment to just rest. He hadn't stopped moving in what felt like forever.

He was starting to get worn down, exhaustion wearing at his already fucked bones. Jesus H. Christ, can't he just sit down for a moment? Murder is taxing, you know.

It did know.

So, eventually, it decided he'd finally done enough, and when the Fog enveloped him after one trial, he braced to be dumped into another, but wasn't. It looked the same as every fucking thing, just another forest, but he could feel that this wasn't a trial anymore.

Evan let out a loud groan, head tipping back in weary relief. A hand still drenched in blood rose to his face and dragged tiredly down the new horned mask he'd been given, along with a whole new outfit, for the event. He wasn't sure if the blood he'd just smeared on it was even visible, blood-red as it already was.

He wasn't quite sure what to think of said new outfit - it was very flashy compared to his usual - but he did like the mask, even if it wasn't his typical style.

But that didn't matter right now. What did matter was sitting the fuck down.

Lumbering through the muggy woods until he found a good, thick tree to rest by, he lowered himself to the dirt, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees, setting his cleaver in the grass beside him. He leaned forward so his back didn't really touch the tree, because having things touch the hooks and rebar embedded in the skin of his back and shoulders was very much not fun, he'd learned.

Raising a hand to prop his chin up, he let out a deep, heavy sigh, and shut his eyes - just sitting there, enjoying the rare quiet, and the gentle brush of a soft, cool breeze against his bared skin.

Finally, he could breathe.

... Fairfield sounded thin. Like a threadbare cloth - worn until it withered away. Not too different to a working man's boots, slowly falling apart under extensive abuse. Though usually those were loved to death. Dwight just seemed... plain dead. No love involved. That wasn't really a thing here.

But he looked worn, too, looking at his face - the man having taken off the mask to allow such.

Evan wouldn't return the favor.

But the both of them were haggard, beat down to the bone. That was something the two could share, if not faces.

He scoffed and turned his head. "Surprised you even had to ask."

His voice came out unintentionally rough - a bit moreso than usual. It had been a hot moment since he'd really spoken. He'd always been a rather quiet man if he wasn't fired up about something, and there wasn't much to talk about during trials. Not with most people, anyway. Some made for a good quick chat while he had them over his shoulder. Fairfield included, sometimes, even if it was mostly just exchanges of a few words.

Most of which tended to be insults or swears.

He cleared his throat, then visibly looked Fairfield up and down a moment, gaze raking over the gilded red fabric. "... Keen suit, kid," he commented blandly, but at least semi-sincerely. It did look good, after all.

...Did everyone have metal snakes wrapped around them, or was that just him and Dwight? Evan couldn't recall - he didn't often pay much attention to what survivors wore besides being able to identify who was who in a trial.

Maybe he'd have to start doing that.

Typically, people stayed as far away from him as possible. But not Dwight. He hadn't done that for a while, now. Sure, he was always cautious - he'd be a dilly if he wasn't - but he hadn't really been scared of Evan for... years.

It should irritate him. It irritated him when the other survivors weren't afraid, when he was treated like a joke, like something they needn't worry about, like a killer they entered a trial with and went 'oh thank god' about. But it was different with Fairfield.

He'd known this man longer than anyone else here. Even before Philly and Max, and Dwight's friends, Claudette, Meg, and Jake. It was brief, but there had been a time it was just the two of them. They'd been the first living thing the other saw when they'd entered this pseudo-Hell.

He figured Dwight knew him better than any other. The mite knew he was unlikely to be in danger right now.

Evan turned his gaze back up, watching the survivor with his head tipped back, willingly baring his throat. Freely making himself vulnerable and giving Evan the chance to lunge forward and swipe the blade by his side across that slender neck. Or to do it himself. His hands, though they felt little, itched to reach forward, to grab it, and to squeeze. To deface and ruin and break it just because he could.

He'd always broken things just because he could. Objects, people... it never mattered to him. He'd broken his knuckles on brick just as much as someone else's bones.

And here Dwight was, baring his throat, always unsure but currently fairly certain that he'd be fine, at least for long enough to rest here with little worry.

Focused intently on that display of vulnerability, Evan tore his gaze from it and instead looked back down at his twitchy hands. At the red liquid that was starting to dry and add another layer to the numerous that were caked atop his already red gloves. This red wasn't quite the same color as the blood the way his mask was. Just a smidgen more vibrant, allowing it to stand out.

... Evan wiped them off on his pantlegs and sighed, coughed, then counted blades of grass that weren't real.

. . .

But eventually, he lifted his head again. "This whole thing's bullshit," he abruptly spoke up after a long, comfortable, somewhat awkward but peaceful silence between the two. The statement was vague. General. About the anniversary event, but also everything ever.