⸸♱ 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 ♱⸸
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Synopsis - "Pony Express Correctional Centre", the most infamous supermax prison, and who better to hold than the infamous serial killer himself, Jimmy Zare. But what happens when a curious, young woman sends Jimmy a letter? And what happens when he gains an obsession? And what does she do when he breaks out of Pony Express? Warnings - POS Jimmy, serial killer, delusional Jimmy, age gap, 40yo Jimmy & 20yo Reader, DDDNE Themes - Serial Killer x Innocent, Enemies to Lovers, Yandere Jimmy, Criminal x Reader I've been obsessing over Hush </3
This is part 2 of my series!! Find part 1 here
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Life had been chaotic. Responsibilities blurred the days as autopilot sent you through the new adult life without much ease. It'd been a week since you cut contact with Jimmy, his presence in your life still fresh in your mind. You weren't sure how he'd take it, not well, you presumed. But what's done is done. He was behind bars, and you were managing life as a 20-year-old in a small town.
A part of you felt guilty. He had a way of making you feel like you were the only thing he had in his life, and that might've been very well true. But you just couldn't do it anymore. The constant neediness, his aggression that only grew worse if your responses didn't satisfy him, and his invasive questions that pried into your life. Jimmy became surprisingly open about his origins: shitty parents, shitty school life, social outcast, and a brother who got everything he wanted. He was the black sheep of his family, shunned by all (or so he'd portray). But it seemed his openness wasn't about honesty; it was about exchange. Suddenly, he wanted to know everything about you, refusing to take 'no' for an answer.
Where were you from? Who were your friends? Any boyfriends? How old were you? Did you live nearby? Would you ever visit him?
You did your best to avoid them, a simple answer that didn't reveal too much. But Jimmy was never satisfied with a simple answer: he wanted to know everything.
But that was over now. You were free. Pony Express was swift to put an end to Jimmy's letters. You didn't even bother to open the last letter he gave you, slipping it into your bedside drawer until it was buried beneath whatever you carelessly tossed inside. Now, you were at home. Your shift had just ended, the satisfying shut of your laptop sending a smile to your lips. God, you loved remote work. You brewed yourself a warm coffee, contrasting the cold rain that poured outside. You had grown accustomed to the constant wetness of your new home, the thunderstorms so common that it was unusual to not hear distant grumbling. You could smell the incoming rain from the storm coming your way, lightning rolling off the mountains in bright, white flashes.
You kicked your feet up onto the couch, socks pooling at your ankles as you curled into your cozy blanket, sipping on your fresh coffee. The TV was playing some new show, nothing really good, but it was nice to watch absent-mindedly, and you weren't critical of a little fun. Time passed quickly, your eyelids growing heavier as your early morning start began to catch up to you. You rested against your couch pillow, yawning and nodding your head as your vision blurred. Before you knew it, you'd fallen asleep, drifting into a timeless abyss of black hallucinations.
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You awoke in a cold sweat. Your coffee mug had fallen to the ground, a small crack formed in the rim as its black paint reflected the blaring blue light from the TV. What time was it? You struggled to sit up, head dizzy as you scrambled to untangle yourself from your sheets. Something felt off. You couldn't explain it, couldn't understand why, but the shadows cast through the pitch black of your home felt as though they hid something evil, like a whisper in an empty room. You looked around cautiously, glancing at your old-timey house clock to see the thin hand ticking along each small dot, following it to the thicker, black lines: 10:46pm. Odd. It wasn't too late, and yet it felt as though it was early morning. The stillness made even a single breath feel too loud, like you were in the midst of waiting to hear something horrid. Why had you awoken so suddenly? In a cold sweat nonetheless. It couldn't have been the heavy storm that had finally hovered over your house; the crashing thunder and bright beams of light were something you no longer awoke to. No, it was something else. Your hand slammed on top of the remote, mashing a set of buttons beneath your palm and reawakening the TV, a news broadcast now displayed clearly on the screen.
"A Pony Express Inmate is on the loose. He's been missing since 5am today. Police urge anyone with information to come forward immediately."
You perked up. Pony Express? That was...no, you pushed the thought from your brain. You kept watching, reasoning in your mind that any connection you had to that dreaded place was now long gone.
"We are advising that anyone in the local area remain inside until the suspect is caught. Make sure to lock your doors and don't let anyone in whom you aren't familiar with."
Shit, this was serious. Well, obviously, it'd be serious if someone escaped from a supermax prison, but this was just sending chills up your spine. You anxiously glanced at your front door, the thick, wooden frame untouched and the warped glass windows reflecting nothing but the blackness of the night. You sighed, but no relief came. You'd be fine, you reassured yourself. The prison was 70km away. What were the chances they'd happen to take the direction to your house?
And then the prisoner's face flashed across the TV, a face you were now all too familiar with, violating your screen with his angular face and struggled stubble. It was the man you'd made the foolish mistake of contacting, the man you had avoided for nearly a week now. The stone-faced, ruthless and egomaniac himself: James Zare.
Jimmy.
The rain slammed against the roof harder, the realisation daunting on your sleepy form, which now burst with adrenaline. You jumped to your feet, staring at the screen with wide, shaky eyes. There's no way...how did Jimmy escape? Your stomach twisted into knots, a strain in your muscles as you felt your body tense. It's okay! He didn't know where you lived; you had made sure to never tell him. Still, the knowledge of his newfound freedom uneased you to no end. You glanced at your landline. Should you call the police? It only made sense, right? But what could you tell them? 'Oh, I sent this guy letters and now he's free'? You held the old-timey device in your fist, knuckles numb from the tightness of your grip when you heard it.
Tap, tap, tap
You froze. That had to be the rain, right? Maybe the wind was knocking a tree branch against your roof. But that'd never happened before...
Tap, tap, tap
That wasn't the rain. It was too...sharp. You were as stiff as a statue, breath trapped in the confines of your lungs as you turned your neck achingly slow to look in the direction of the sound. Your window. Your living room window. It was completely black, the blaring light from the TV the only illumination in the room, making it impossible to see outside. You squinted your eyes, swallowing dryly as you reassured yourself. That was...nothing. Had to be the rain.
But that hope was soon squashed.
Through the drops of rainwater racing down your window and the thick winds blowing harsh gusts against the glass pane, you saw something shiny emerge. It was a long, silver line, the angle of the object making it hard to interpret. You stared in horror, lungs hollow as you struggled to suck air in, mouth agape in sheer frozen horror. A calloused hand wrapped around the black handle, the glistening silver growing closer to the pane of glass when you heard it again.
Tap, tap, tap
You didn't need to see who it was. You didn't need to see the object in his hand to know exactly what it was; you didn't care about the origins of the knife or how he got it, just terrified that it was his hands that held it. You stepped back, sucking in short, unnecessary gasps that did nothing to fill your lungs. A weight formed on the weakness of your shoulders, which could collapse under any pressure. Why was he here? How was he here? A sudden flash of lightning cracked through the shadows outside, illuminating the one person you prayed it couldn't be.
Jimmy Zare.
You made a noise of fear, stumbling back until you nearly tripped on your blanket. This had to be a dream, a caffeine-induced hallucination that was a manifestation of guilt and regret. Because if it wasn't, then you'd be sick.
Darkness flooded the outside, boarding your window with black shadows as you stared at the frame in shock. You waited with bated breath, frozen stiff as though you were invisible and any single movement would give away your position (even though you were very clearly illuminated by the glow of your TV). A loud crack of thunder burst over your house, making you flinch violently. Then silence. The rain still hit against the roof, the thunder still grumbled quietly, but there was no noise from the window. Maybe you had imagined it. Maybe there really was nothing there. But you knew that was a lie, a lie shrouded in the false hope that you were safe. And that hope was quickly shattered by a silhouette behind the glass, looming in the rain. You knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that it was Jimmy.
How had he found you?
His figure stood there, staring into your dim house as the rain hammered against his back. His prison uniform, tattered and dirty, clung to his body, outlining every dip and curve of his toned build. The downpour had soaked into his bones, wet hair clung to the sharp angles of his stony face, eyes sunk into his skull with a tiredness far beyond anything you'd ever seen. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, pupils shaky as they stared directly at you, cutting through the very fabric of all things worldly. His stubble, which had grown out just enough for prickly hairs to protrude, outlined his cutting jaw, shifting slightly with each bob of his Adam's apple after every strained pant that slipped past his chapped lips.
He looked animalistic.
Like a beast carved from the ground, dragged through the depths of hell and trapped inside of a man's suit. Jimmy was hunched ever so slightly, enough for you to see the way his shirt collar peeled down his collarbone, revealing the deep curve and protruding veins that peeked through his tanned skin. His chest was rising and falling in sudden bursts, his breath hitting the window and sending condensation trickling down into the rain droplets. His eyes were like black voids, his bushy eyebrows casting a deep shadow across his weathered skin, leaving only the white's of his eyes and unsteady pupils to your gaze. His eyes had too much depth to them, a story that wisped around him, something you could see, something you knew was there, and yet something you couldn't grasp - like smoke wafting through the air, untouchable and yet so prevalent. Even with the bursts of lightning, you couldn't see much of his expression; your only indication of the man's expression was his crazed eyes and the wide smirk that stretched his skin like elastic.
He was fucking ecstatic.
You couldn't believe your eyes, blinking a million times as though this was a mere trick of the light, a dream within a dream, anything but reality. After all this time, all those letters exchanged, all those months of daily communication that illusioned his presence to be a thousand miles away, he now stood at the base of your living room window. His presence was unnatural in its certainty, as though the space between you that you were certain was an act of security in itself was nothing more than a barrier of air, now broken with a single tap. The grin on his face only perturbed you - it was like he knew this was destined. Like he knew he'd get to you eventually. Star-crossed lovers now doomed to fate.
Jimmy stood there, staring into your house, eyes locked onto you. He was vibrating slightly, whether that was from the cold or the excitement coursing through his veins was unknown to you. But he didn't utter a word. The storm brewed around him, angry and harsh, rain slamming into the ground like bullets and yet his stare never wavered. He focused on you: Only you.
How long had he been out there? How long had he been watching you?
Time slowed around you, your pulse rapidly pumping as the scene set before you. Your ears rang as silence set in, blocking out the growls of thunder and drumming of rain. This wasn't just a simple game of cat and mouse - this was a determination of your fate: the difference between surviving and living. It was an undercut to the shallow threat to your life, a haunting certainty that this was not a hunt to escape, but something much deeper that you had yet to realise. As an unintentional exhale shakily escaped your lungs, you choked on the tension between you and Jimmy, thickened by the bond you'd forged, and then silently tore.
This wasn't a delusion. This was real. He was here.
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Mwahhh sorry I haven't updated this is a while lolll but I hope you guys like it!! I'm not gonna lie, Hush was a major influence in this fanfiction and I'd love if you guys watched it!! It's super good and the actress Kate Siegel did a fantastic job :)
If you want more Jimmy or Mouthwashing fanfics pls let me know!!
Xoxo, ♡ 𝒜𝓎𝒶𝓃𝑒 ♡
