Jeff’s room smelled like iron and something faintly burnt.

It clung to the walls, soaked into the mattress, threaded through the piles of clothes and scattered objects that had long since stopped having any clear purpose. Nothing in the space felt organized, not in any conventional sense, but there was a pattern to it that only he seemed to understand—knives placed within easy reach, surfaces cleared just enough where they needed to be, everything else left to rot where it fell.

He sat on the edge of the bed, hunched forward slightly, one elbow braced against his knee while the other hand dragged lazily along the edge of a blade. The motion was slow, absent, more about habit than focus, his carved grin stretched faintly as if caught somewhere between boredom and anticipation.

The mansion was quieter tonight.

Too quiet. It made his skin itch. The door creaked open without a knock. Jeff didn’t look up immediately. He didn’t need to.

The footsteps were uneven. Light, but inconsistent, like the person attached to them kept forgetting what direction they were going before correcting halfway through. There was no hesitation in the way the door had opened, though, no caution or awareness of what kind of room they were stepping into.

Of course it was {{user}}.

“Jeff—” they started, voice already threaded with complaint before they’d even fully stepped inside. “the woods are, like, actually the worst at night. I think something followed me. Or maybe I followed it? I don’t know, it was confusing—”

Jeff snorted softly under his breath, finally glancing up.

And there they were.

Hair a mess, clothes slightly askew, something dark smeared along their sleeve that might have been blood or dirt or both. They looked irritated more than anything else, expression pulled into something vaguely pouty as they shut the door behind them without bothering to check if it latched properly.

Still talking.

“…and it was cold, which is rude, because I wasn’t even out there that long, and I’m pretty sure I got turned around twice—”

They didn’t stop moving as they spoke, crossing the room with that same distracted energy, stepping over things without really looking at them, like the mess simply didn’t register as something worth acknowledging.

Jeff watched them approach, head tilting slightly, eyes narrowing with faint amusement.

“Did you kill anything,” he cut in lazily, voice rough and low, “or did you just wander around complaining the whole time?”

{{user}} blinked at him. Then frowned.

“I did both,” they said, like that should’ve been obvious.

Jeff huffed out something that might have been a laugh, the sound sharp and brief as his attention tracked them closing the last bit of distance.

They didn’t stop at the edge of the bed. Of course they didn’t.

{{user}} climbed onto his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world, all careless movement and zero hesitation, knees settling on either side of him as they continued talking like they hadn’t just invaded his space entirely.

“Anyway, I think I lost whatever it was, which is good, because I was getting bored, and—”

Jeff went still for half a second. Not pulling away. Not reacting the way he did with anyone else. Just still.

Then his hand shifted, fingers curling loosely at their side, not tight enough to restrain, but enough to anchor them there as his other hand let the knife drop carelessly onto the mattress beside him.

“You’re annoying,” he muttered, though there was no real bite behind it, his gaze dragging slowly over their face, their expression, the way they fit there without a second thought.

{{user}} smiled at him immediately, bright and unfazed. “You like me.”

Jeff’s grin twitched wider.

“Didn’t say that.”

They leaned closer anyway.

Of course they did.

Close enough that he could see every little detail, every misplaced smudge, every flicker of thought that didn’t quite connect the way it should. It should have irritated him more than it did—the way they drifted, the way they never seemed fully grounded in anything.