pairing: hillwalker brothers x androgynous reader
word count: 4.0k+
summary: after escaping from the Hillwalker house, you do your best to settle down after the night you had. Unbeknownst to you, the brothers followed you out, and they’re antsy to put you down for good.
trigger warnings: mentions of violence, mentions of blood
author’s note: wuuh new fic 🤞 ik they died but I thought it’d be fun to write what would happen if they followed us back to our house 😍
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Your hands grip over the steering wheel, fingernails digging into the cold leather. Your eyes stare at the familiar address ahead of you—your address. The headlights of your car illuminate the home you thought you’d never see again.
You practically tear open the car’s console, digging through it to find your keys, as well as your forgotten phone. They’re just where you left them—thank the lord. You snag the chain—as well as your phone—and throw yourself out of the car. You stumble to your front door, fumbling with the lock, cursing your shaking hands. When the key slots into the lock, turns, and unlocks the door, you hesitate to push it open. For the last few hours of what now seems like a hazy nightmare, all you’ve been thinking about is getting back home. It was your sole motivator—other than simply keeping your life, of course. So now that you’re here, standing stiffly at your doorstep, you’re afraid. What if it’s not what you were expecting? What if your relief isn’t as palpable as you’re hoping?
You shake it off. You don’t care about whether returning home is as satisfying as you’re hoping, because it doesn’t matter. You escaped. You escaped, and you live to tell the tale. Who gives a shit if stepping inside doesn’t ‘meet your expectations’, because your expectations an hour ago were to stay alive.
You turn the handle and push open your front door. The smell of home hits you like a wall. Warmth shakes you to your core, the heat from your basement greeting you kindly. To think you always found your lowest floor cold before you took a wrong turn. If anything, it’s a bit overwhelming now.
Your knees buckle as you step inside. You shut the door behind you, locking it with a click, bolting it with a clack. The outside world is gone now. You’re in your home. And you’re warm.
You drop your keys into a nearby bowl, the sound too loud for sensitive ears.
“Holy fuck…” Everything’s so surreal now. You’re safe, actually safe, and you’re not used to it. There’s no whining, mutant animals trying to bite your head off, no thumping or heavy breathing from your perpetrators following you, no pungent smell that makes you gag back vomit, no puzzle to solve, nothing. All you have to do is get ready for bed, and that feels weird. You hate how that house rewired your entire brain in just a few hours, but you’re somewhat glad for it. You’re leaning against the door of your home with a beating heart, and you’ll be ten times more cautious from here on out, so at least there’s that.
Finding the strength to push off the door, you make your way upstairs. The moment you step into your living room, you crash. Your body recognizes you’re finally safe, and your adrenaline crash is borderline lethal. As your knees buckle and exhaustion blooms through your limbs, you decide that crashing on your couch is your best idea yet. You feel gross, and you’d love to haul your ass upstairs and wash up, but your body physically won’t let you. You’ll collapse before you make it up three steps. At least you find the strength to plug your phone in at a nearby outlet.
Your body gravitates to the couch, and you let it happen. It almost tips back with how hard you slam into it, but you’re too tired to care. You sink into the cushions with a sigh of relief, tipping your head back and looking up to the ceiling. You never thought you’d appreciate the white of your roof, but with the horrors you’ve seen and been through, you’ll be thankful for just about anything.
You close your eyes and just breathe. Your lungs fill with the scent of your home, the warmth of the room settling in your lungs. It doesn’t smell like rot. It doesn’t smell like copper. It doesn’t smell like dirt. It doesn’t smell like death. You’d considered ripping your nose clean off in that forsaken house—since every breath you took there triggered your gag reflex—but you’re glad you didn’t. How else would you appreciate the satisfaction of fresh air?
You slip into a half-asleep state. Something dreamless. You’re too boneless, too exhausted, to conjure up a story. But you’re glad for the silence your brain’s giving you. You seriously need a break, so staring at a void of nothing is gratifying. The world around you is just an afterthought. Everything is muted, muddled.
That is, until you hear a dull thump to your right. You think you’re just paranoid, too keyed up from the night. It’s plausible your brain is making up sounds with your spiked nerves.
But you hear it again, and it sounds a bit more intentional this time. You try to open your eyes, but it feels like weights are tied to them. You force them open with your hands, rubbing the tired away. As if you’ll sit idly by with noise outside your house. Even before your recent hours, you’re still smart enough to get suspicious. You immediately look toward your window, and seeing as you were too tired to notice your curtains being open, you immediately spy out the glass. You see nothing but the night sky, but you’re not taking chances. Chances are for people who are 100% certain they’re safe.
You force yourself up, almost crumpling forward when you put your body weight onto your feet. Your soles ache, but you’re not concerned with how you hurt.
You take a look outside, but you don’t find anything noteworthy, but that’s not exactly a good thing. A lack of evidence is evidence in itself.
You push away from the glass, but you never take your eyes off it. Something’s off, and you’re not going to play dumb about it. You have a strong feeling as to what’s making noise outside, but you want to refuse that idea. No way they’ve already caught up to you. No way they even survived that stupid fucking barn fire. And even if they had lived, you were at least expecting a night to yourself. Come now, and you’ve barely gotten 10 minutes? It curls your blood. Why can’t they just leave you alone?? Instead of grieving their farm, mourning their mother, just burning in that fucking fire—they followed you out.
At least you believe so. But what else could it be? If it were an animal, you would’ve seen prints through your yard. Maybe the first thump can be excused, but the second one, coming immediately after, is unnatural.
So much for getting sleep. You groan, moments before cussing out the world. But before you can, a window behind you shatters. Your curses slip to a horrified whine as you whip around. You don’t even see a face—just a tanned hand gripping the inside of the window sill. The window they’re coming from is in the direction of your kitchen, so you’ll have to grab a weapon later.
Like muscle memory, your brain kicks into high gear. You race upstairs to make as much distance as possible, stumbling away with a terrified scowl. You feel vulnerable without the heavy guns slung over your shoulder, and because you’re not a fucking degenerate, you don’t have any weapons like that lying around. At least you have a territorial advantage this time. A few hours away from home doesn’t mean you forgot where all the nooks and crannies are.
You turn into a study room and duck behind a large desk. You refuse to trap yourself in someplace you can’t run from. Better to be out in the open than stuck in a tight place. Inside closets and under beds are out of the question. This type of space gives you room to scramble.
Light yet heavy footsteps trail upstairs, the sound of that walk engraved in the creases of your brain. The faster pace of their stride seals it for you—Jackson was never the patient one. The thrill he gets from this sick type of hunt keeps him too jittery to keep a slower speed.
The sharp of a blade juts into the wall, tearing through the wallpaper and leaving large lines of scrapes to show who was here.
“Come now, friend,” Jackson says oh-so sweetly. Hearing his voice again makes you shiver, but you center yourself quickly. Maybe fear keeps you safe, but it also slows you down, and time is everything.
“We can do this real easy if you just come on out,” Jackson says. If you had a gun, maybe you’d retort, challenge him and put a bullet through his head. You wish you’d done so earlier. Maybe they wouldn’t care so much about their mama if they met her in Hell.
The scraping halts. The hall goes quiet, save for Jackson’s incessant speaking. “You thought it’d be that easy? That we wouldn’t follow you out? I never thought you to be a fool, with how far you’ve gotten, but…times change.” He says. You grit your teeth. You wish you could ask if they had anything better to do, but you know they don’t, since their farm is currently in ashes.
“Come now, lamb,” your stomach squeezes. Lamb? “I ain’t leaving til I see this through. The Lord wouldn’t have led me here otherwise.” And there he goes, referring to his ‘Lord’. His own little deviation from Christianity—a figure to excuse his monstrosities. His lord’s ’guidance’ is bullshit. How could they guide him if all he had to do was tailgate you?
You hear his footsteps nearing. You see the shadow of his figure step into the room, and you shrink into yourself. He scans the room with his eyes first, then actually starts to walk around it. He runs deft fingers along the wall, letting his fingertips glide behind him as he circles the room casually, making his way over to you. You watch him drag his cleaver absent-mindedly over the desk you’re crouched behind, eyes trained on the opposite side of the room. The point tears up the beautiful wood of the thing.
He slows to a stop, fingers curling tight around the handle of his weapon. Abruptly, he yanks his cleaver out of the wood just to slam it back down. You can see the blade pierce through the desk and pop out from underneath.
“I’m getting real sick of chasing you, y’know!” Jackson shouts. “Isn’t much fun when we keep playing hide n’ seek… We’ve had hours to do that!” He says. “So come on out, give me something real! Can’t hide forever!”
You roll your eyes through your fear. At least he makes it easy for you to keep a level head with his childish requests.
Grumbling at your lack of response, he tosses his head back with a groan. Re-curling a hand around the handle of his cleaver, he yanks the blade out of the wood. He brushes splinters of wood off it with utmost care.
“What are you doing?” William asks from the doorway, frame blocking your chance of slipping out of the room.
“Dusting off my beloved. Can’t you tell?” Jackson asks.
“Why aren’t you searching the house?” William asks, tone beyond aggravated.
“I was,” Jackson rolls his eyes. “But they aren’t in here. Promise, I was just about to move on.”
“Did you even look?” Jackson nods. “I find that hard to believe.” William pushes off the doorframe. You duck further under the desk. While this traps you slightly, it gives you an easier path to the door. You eye the brothers wearily, waiting for an exit. Jackson, being the unhelpful ass he is, simply stands in the middle of the room now, arms folded and watching his brother search. You can’t stay in here forever, since William’s actually checking under shelves and opening compartments throughout the space. He has the patience Jackson doesn’t, so he’ll check the ends of this room, and your position under the desk isn’t exactly a revolutionary hiding spot.
You wait until Jackson’s eyes are far enough from the door before making any moves. With William’s back to your escape, you crawl out from under the desk and bolt to the door. The sudden movement catches Jackson’s eye, and he tries lunging for you.
You slam the door behind you, shoulder to the wood, locking it shut. “Come fucking find me,” you practically growl, baring your teeth to no one. The door’s protection doesn’t last long, as Jackson tears his cleaver through the wood, forcing you to jolt back, face inches from silver. You don’t linger on your near-death experience, since your time at the Hillwalker house was just filled with those. Close-calls like those feel watered down, if anything.
You skitter off and run downstairs. You immediately round into the kitchen, snagging a knife from the chef’s block on your counter. It’s a far cry from the heavy-duty shit you used to have, but something’s better than nothing.
You hear the crash of a door breaking down. You turn and flee to your basement before they can see where you went. You find this wasn’t the greatest idea, since the only hiding spots that actually obscure you also serve to corner you. You settle on crouching behind random junk under your staircase.
You hear footsteps above you, loud and antsy. “If you’d actually searched properly, we could’ve killed them by now.” You hear William scold.
“Well, this only gives us a real chase to look forward to!” Jackson replies optimistically.
“Only if we find them.” William deadpans. “Split up, and actually look this time.” He says, Jackson punctuating his words with some smarmy muttering.
The footsteps near close to the steps, “Huh,” you hear Jackson huff. “Looks like they’ve gotten this far. They were smart enough to snag a blade.” He notes. Of course, the knife-obsessed freak would notice one missing, despite not even being in his own home.
William’s eyes turn to the cracked-open basement door. “You search up here.” He declares. Footsteps with some weight to them start to make their way downstairs, one foot coming down heavily after the other. You swallow your nerves, clutching shaking fingers over your knife. When he comes into view, you find William doing something similar, except his handle over his wrench is much stronger than yours. It looked like his veins were trying to make a statement as they outlined his arms.
“There’s nowhere to hide!” William says to an empty room. He has a strong feeling you’re down here, so it’s only a matter of finding you now. His eyes drag along the room, swiping over you and simultaneously scaring the shit out of you. The dark of your basement luckily hides you, but it’s your only saving grace. Though you’re sure William’s last thought is to turn a light on.
He keeps quiet as he searches the room. He’s practically ripping your basement apart—shoving furniture to the side and toppling items in his way. The contrast between his and Jackson’s scouring is throwing you for a bit of a loop.
A minute or two passes, and William is still oblivious to the nook under the steps. He leans back and scans the room with a downturned lip, back cracking as he straightens up. You’re running out of time. If he even lays eyes on your hiding spot, you’re fucked. So you wait for him to turn his back to you again, and when he does, you slowly stand and try to shimmy your way back upstairs. You’ll figure out how you’ll get past Jackson once you’re up there. For now, your main goal is to just get to the second floor.
Just as you step out from under the stairs, he catches you in his peripheral. He immediately locks onto you, and you scramble for the stairs. You stumble up a handful before being pushed onto your back, spine slamming into the wood, hard and painful.
“Fucking finally…” William breathes. His fingers readjust and curl over the handle of the wrench as he gets a proper grip on it.
He swings, but you roll to the side right before it hits. His weapon breaks through your steps with the sheer force of his swing, getting stuck. Instead of prying it out and wasting time, William opts to wrap a hand around your throat, pressing you down farther into the stairs.
“Get off of me!” You shriek, though it’s strained with the pressure at your neck. You try to push him off of you, but to no avail. William leans in closer, as if he wants to watch the light drain from your eyes. You turn your head to the best of your ability, snarling something inhumane in your throat as you grit your teeth. The stench of copper filters down what little airspace you have in your windpipe, but the smell is gone as quickly as it came, as William presses down harder.
Your hand tightens over the blade in your hand. You want to aim for his neck, but you’re not sure if you’ll be able to make your mark without him stopping you, so you take the safer way out and put it through his arm.
His reaction is instant; he hisses and lets out a scream, lifting his hand and setting you free. The moment he leans back, you kick him farther off you with a foot to his jaw. He reels back and tumbles down the stairs, head just shy of cracking against the wall. You cross your fingers, hoping that knocking his head against the floor would be enough to finish the job. His pained breath squashes all your prayers.
“William?” Jackson calls from the top of the steps, eyes widening as he takes in his injured brother. You use his shock to try and catch him off guard, racing toward him with your knife secure in your hands. He blinks out of it just in time.
He stops you just short of his neck, hand snatching your wrist and pulling it back behind his head to reel you in close. He presses his cleaver into your neck, where fingerprints begin to bruise, “What did you do to him?”
“Sure, act stupid,” you snarl. “Don’t go stabbing yourself with another death in the family! And so soon?” You pout at him, knowing full well that William isn’t dead down there. God, you wish he were.
The cleaver digs harder into your neck, making a solid cut and puncturing flesh. “Got nothing to live for? No mom, no dad, no brother, no farm. Just you and the blood on your dirty ass hands.” You mock.
Something dark flickers in Jackson’s eyes, but you give yourself no time to name it as you knee him in the gut. He hunches over with a groan, and you tear away from his grip.
As you flee, you realize that this is a losing game. They won’t stop pursuing you until you’re dead, or if you kill them first. You’ve put up too much of a fight to die now, and you’re not sure if you can overpower both of them.
You spot your phone in the living room, and you sprint to it. You don’t have to be alone, you figure. The police are actually trained to deal with shit like this. And they have guns. God bless America and their guns.
You snatch your phone, unplugging it and hastily dialing that three-digit number. As it rings, you see the brothers quickly recollecting themselves.
William presses a hand over his stab wound, blood bleeding through his fingers, staining his skin red. There’s a small bruising on his chin from where you kicked him, but overall, he seems to be dealing with his injuries quite well. Once Jackson notes his arm, he tears one of his own sleeves off and uses it as an impromptu bandage to patch William up, though it’s a bit half-assed.
“911, what’s your emergency?” The operator’s calm voice rings out. Both of them visibly bristle, shoulders tensing up.
They’re on you in seconds, closing in on the little distance you had. You scream your address into the receiver, deciding to get that out of the way first. Your panic should be enough for the operator to send someone.
Speaking of, the woman on the phone calls for you worriedly. You don’t hear her as you run from the brothers, circling tables and ducking under furniture.
Her voice only gets more panicked—or at least shows the most panic she can as a 911 operator—once she hears the sound of you clattering to the floor.
“Fuck—get away from me!” You scream, scrambling back with your arms and legs. You get back up just before they can lay any hands on you. You race back upstairs, spotting a small table at the top of the steps. You need all the time you can get, so you drag the table in front of you and kick it down the steps. You’re not sure what it does, since you turn away and run off, but the shocked yelp gives you some hope.
You turn into your bedroom and slam the door. You’re well aware that a simple lock won’t hold them forever, so you push your dresser in front of it, since your door swings inward. While you continue to pile things onto and around your dresser, the operator’s voice gets past the ringing in your ears.
“Are you alright?” She asks.
You finally acknowledge her, “Yes, sorry—“ You shriek at the large bang at your door.
“What’s happening?” She asks.
“There are people in my house,” you say steadily. “They’re trying to kill me.” Point blank and straight to the point. There’s no shaking in your voice, only pure adrenaline.
“Can you get somewhere safe?” She asks, typing something into her computer.
You see Jackson’s cleaver puncture the door once more. “No.” You put your back against the wall, eyes narrowed and trained on the hole in the door.
“Police are already in the area,” she says, “they’ll be there in five minutes.” You glance at your phone with a small light in your eyes. Hands claw their way through the wood of your door, tearing it down chunk by chunk.
“Do you hear that?” You call out. “Five minutes!” You exclaim. You’re sure they can get the door down in that time, and you’re certain they can snap your neck in seconds, but that doesn’t mean you won’t save face. You look toward a nearby window in your room. It’s a three-story drop, but it’s survivable. If you figure out a way to land properly, you could run off and keep your life.
But the fussing at the door stopped. You furrow your eyebrows, stalking up to the door. You peer through the hole, and they’re gone. For all the shit they’ve done, they’re too cowardly to stand up to the cops?
You stay in your boarded-up room and wait until you see the red and blue flashing of a cop car. Once you do, you push the furniture aside and make your way downstairs, wearily looking around the room with your knife at your side. When the cops knock, you answer them immediately. You tell one officer what happened while the others search the house. They question the blood on your knife, and you answer honestly. They take the blade from you, but they assure you it’s just for evidence.
The multiple signs of struggle around your house have the cops believing your story. Once they secure your house and leave, you’re far too amped up to fall asleep like you want to.
Instead, you snatch your car keys from the bowl in the basement, phone in hand, wallet in your back pocket. You walk out of the house with directions in your phone: a 15-minute drive to a 24-hour store that sells guns. Should the brothers come back, you’ll have a bullet in their heads before they can get a word out.
You hate how the Hillwalker house has changed you, but if this type of action is what keeps you alive, then so be it.
A small part of you hopes they never return, but a large part hopes they do, for you wish to feel the serotonin of giving the brothers the death they deserve.
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