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You wandered more or less aimlessly through the forest behind your cabin, it was dark, and even with a flashlight, it was hard to navigate the wooded area you’d slowly been introducing and familiarizing yourself with. Jason hadn’t come home yet, you heard distant screams that spooked a few of the night birds with every shrill cry. You knew he was going about his business with some group of idiot stoner teenagers, and therefore wouldn’t come home until he has finished off every last one.
That didn’t stop you from worrying yourself sick and eventually heading out to look for him. You knew he was supposedly unkillable, and could very well hold his own, but you also knew that Jason could still feel pain. He may have acquired a strong tolerance to the human weakness, but it still hurt you to see him in pain. You just needed to make sure he was okay.
You know you shouldn’t be out here, Jason would throw a fit once you found each other. He was incredibly protective of you, and would never let you go outside at night without him escorting you and without it being for a reasonable cause.
But you couldn’t help it. You were stubborn, always had been. And that was just not going to change, you wanted to make sure your lover was still in one piece and then you’d willingly go back to your cabin when he freaked out. It was a simple concept, but… whenever you expect simplicity you tend to get the opposite. And you didn't realize just how complex your nightly lesson was about to become, so, in your blissful ignorance, you strode past trees and vegetation of every sort. You could hear the tiny twigs snapping and the occasional pinecone crunching under your flip-flops.
You froze to listen when you heard some faraway sounding voices echo throughout the forest. Your eyes widened when you noticed that the panicked voices were getting closer, thinking quickly you covered your flashlight with your palm to dim the intensity of the light and stepped over a broken branch to lean against the bark of a tree. Two female voices and one older, and much deeper one came quite close to your location, they were chattering amongst themselves, probably trying to come up with a plan to escape while running. You smiled half-heartedly at their determination, they actually thought they’d be able to get away from Jason. You knew better.
All of a sudden their brainstorming switched to horrified screams, you heard their heavy footsteps take off in the opposite direction of your hiding spot. You cringed slightly at the wet sound of a blade meeting flesh and the distant cry of agony from what you thought was one of the girls. You waited until you couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary before stepping back out into the open, you removed your sweaty palm from your flashlight and continued to walk. At least you knew the general direction to go to find him.
Your thought was abruptly cut short when you felt your foot fall onto a metal piece, and couldn’t even process what had happened before you heard a loud ‘snap!’ and felt the shocking pain of a bear trap closing around your shin, just barely missing your ankle. You yelped at the excruciating pain that shot up your entire leg, you quickly cut off the rest of your noise though in an involuntary impulse to keep quiet. You fell forward into the hard dirt, white-hot shocks of almost unbearable stabbing pain overwhelming you in an instant, you made small, sharp intakes of breath as your eyes watered and then began to drip hot tears down each side of your face.
You tried to breathe, tried to take your mind off of the trap around your burning leg. If you panicked and tried to squirm or pull out of it it would only cause more damage. You breathed rapidly through your nose, making tiny whimpering noises into the back of your forearm, each sound muffled by your flesh. In the back of your mind you worried about what would happen if Jason found you out here stuck in his trap, he was going to be so upset!
And then you are overcome with a much bigger concern. What if Jason didn’t find you? No, he’d find you, but how soon? You whined into your arm and silently begged for those teenagers to give up, it was an awful thought and it would have normally eaten away at your conscience had you not been in so much pain.
You had no way of telling how much time it would take for your lover to find you, he would go home first, and then realize you weren’t there. You could only pray to whatever deity you found sensical that he would come before you passed out. And it’s not like you can scream for him. You slammed your fist down into the ground in frustration, a pained grunt tumbling out of your throat. You felt dumb for coming out here, in the dark, after Jason who could take care of himself. You never considered yourself necessarily prideful, part of the reason you were mute, but this was hard to swallow.
About fifteen to twenty minutes passed by like hours, you wanted to say the pain has dulled or even started to numb, but it still hurt so much that it was hard to tell. You laid there for awhile fiddling with your flashlight in an attempt to distract yourself, you had stopped crying a while ago, and your face was a bit gross-feeling with streaks of dried tears. It was getting to the point where you were losing hope of ever being found, and you were getting tired too.
And just when you were about to just accept your fate, accept that you’ll likely be out here all night, you hear those heavy footsteps that are unmistakably Jason’s. They were quick, and you heard the rustle of bushes and the crunch of leaves being stepped on almost aggressively. He was panicking.
You almost cry again as a wave of relief washes over you, you prop yourself up onto your arms with effort whimpering when you accidentally moved your shin and caused a sharp shudder of pain to shoot back up your leg. The footsteps came to an abrupt stop, Jason must’ve heard your tiny noise because a moment later he steps— no, runs into the small clearing where you are laying. You look up at him with glossy eyes and can’t help but smile weakly despite your agony, you were just so happy to see him.
Jason is at your side in seconds, kneeling down and grabbing your face in his hands, he’s breathing hard and he makes a worried whimper in the back of his throat. You place one of your hands over his larger ones and you share a brief conversation with your eyes, Jason releases your face and immediately works on reversing the trap to release your leg from it. Once the jaws of the heavy bear trap pull out of your bleeding flesh you crawl forward and remove your leg from it. You maneuver yourself into to sitting position that doesn’t agitate your wound as much and inspect the damage, Jason ignores re-setting the trap in favor of helping you and kneels at your side.
You let him bend your knee and look it over himself, you can tell he is beating himself up over this already. You could see it in the way he was looking at your wound like he had been the cause of it. You reach forward and place a hand over his shoulder, your expression one of sympathy and also reassurance. You stretch your arms up obediently as he stands up, ignoring your attempt at comforting him. He lifts you up and off the ground and gathers you in his arms with one hand under your knees and the other supporting your back as you link your arms around his thick neck.
Jason carries you back to the cabin with haste, he would have broken down the door if you hadn’t reached down to open it yourself. He places you on the countertop of your small kitchen, tapping your knee and pointing one finger to you and to the floor, telling you to ‘stay put’, and this time, you listened.
You helped Jason treat your wound, disinfecting it with an antiseptic you kept handy in the medicine cabinet and wrapped thick layers of gauze around the entire expanse of your shin and ankle. Stopping the blood flow was a challenge, but with a few hiccups, you managed.
Not wanting you to walk even a little bit after all of that, Jason lifted you from the counter and carried you to your shared bedroom, placing you on the bed and helping you change into your night clothes when you needed it. Once you were finally snuggled up together on the mattress, you sighed, nuzzling your face into Jason’s chest. The large man in your bed kept your injured leg propped up over his stomach to keep you from moving it in any way that would cause you pain. Jason wouldn’t be getting any of his version of ‘sleep’ tonight, and this became very clear when he kept brushing his fingers over your knee, he was too anxious.
You propped your chin onto your palm, using your elbow to support your upper body to look at him. You cupped his masked cheek to draw his guilty eyes to yours, you could see the faint sign of wetness under his lower lids that told you that he was crying. You didn’t want him to cry for you, this was your fault. And you did your best to convey that to him through your eyes and slight movements of your hands, pointing at yourself. You even mouthed ‘my fault’.
Jason shook his head stubbornly, using his own hands to gesture towards himself. But you stopped him, you placed your hand over your own heart and then over his. That was how you said ‘I love you’ to each other.
Jason sighed and mimicked your gesture, pressing the fiberglass mask to your forehead. You smiled and slid the shield from his face to look at your teddy bear, your hero.
. . .