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suguruswife · 1 year

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I hope you dont mind me writing more of this timeline? Scenario? I have a few more ideas for this version of the reader and ghostface, not all in chronological order, though i’d place this one after my first writing. If there’s interest in this series I’d love to expand on it

These and Other Lucky Witnesses

WARNINGS: off-screen murder, still fairly descriptive

DANNY “JED OLSEN” JOHNSON / THE GHOSTFACE

You didn’t expect anything for your anniversary. Both of you worked, had to, to consistently scrape by. Danny picked up every project he could, whether or not it was manageable with his already swamped wordload. You were thinking of taking on another job, since your current one was so resistant to giving you more hours. In short, the two of you had loaded plates and waning time together, even one year into living with each other.

Even knowing this, there’s a deep disappointment as you whittle away at your last hour of work.

The holidays mean an influx of customers at work in your tailor shop. Velvet dresses brimming with foamy lace, pristine suit jackets, matching dress pants, carefully embroidered button ups, all divided cleanly and safely in sheets of plastic on color coded hangers. No one ever picks up their items on time; instead, they love to wait until the last half hour before closing to all rush over and come stampeding in like loose cattle, typically requiring you to stay open an extra twenty or so excruciating minutes.

Today, that works in Danny’s favor.

He had been stressing. He hadn’t planned on taking on another victim this week—it was shaping up to be a slow one, and he was very much ok with that. Nearly getting unmasked in a skirmish a month ago had sent him into a period of hiding and reminded him of his humanity. It was weird to say he was rattled by the experience. That is all to say the night was meant to be uneventful. Money was tight, as it always seems to be around the holidays, in time for the blinking assault of green and red lights and the spray of white paint in shop windows to imitate a snowy landscape.

The two of you had agreed you wouldn’t be able to do anything particularly fancy today, no extravagant gifts or pricey restaurant trips. He had been saving, even still, with the hopes of buying you something. He had never been great with picking out gifts, given that he had never been on the receiving end, either, so he had struggled to find something meaningful. Not to mention, a medical bill all over a few stitches had eaten through his last couple of paychecks (only cementing the idea to him that he ought to learn how to close up a wound on his own).

A nice dinner at home is planned for the evening. It won’t be anything spectacular, he reminds himself, but he’s insistent to show that he’s remembered. He’s been so caught up in his other identity, only recently breaking from this character to wonder if he’d been neglecting you. Danny knows he’s too involved in orchestrating the script of Ghostface, it’s an all consuming aspect of his person, he’d never be able to part from the persona he’s drained so much thought into—there’d been incredible hesitation from the get go when he met you and things advanced further than expected. Inevitably, between you and the Ghostface, one would end up untended to, and your recent sourness suggests that has been you.

That’s why this display seems too insultingly minor. A nice dinner and time spent with a loved partner should communicate appreciation, but Danny was never great at operating interpersonal relationships. It would be naive to say they scared him, rather it’s like handling an exotic animal. That’s his problem—Danny performs, directs, coordinates, he doesn’t truly live, does he? Everything is a value he wants precedence over. He earns a look from a passerby when he scoffs out loud.

He’s off early, headed to the grocery store, admittedly bitter thinking about the trek back on foot, but there’s a delightful little change in plans when he sees her.

Gold, curled hair, with gleaming green eyes and cakey foundation that flakes at her deep smile lines. She’s a beautiful woman, no doubt about it, but his attention is fixated on the hand clutching her purse; some forgettable designer brand, presumably, but he looks further at a finger wearing a glittering ring (he didn’t think or care to check if it was her ring finger, his mind was set.) It’s gorgeous, a gentle gold that’s not overwhelmingly yellow—rosey is the word—curling delicately around a gleaming gem. It’s undeniably opal, with how the light on it shifts in a kaleidoscope of colors, not diamond, but he thinks he prefers it. Everyone does diamond, anyways. His mind is made in that moment.

The lady nearly shoves past him, too entrenched in a loud conversation with the man next to her, decidedly not a partner, given the many feet of space between them. Danny stops for only a second, not letting himself stare, but he feels his heart thunder.

He thinks. But not for too long. He listens to their voices fade until they’re unintelligible before he stops again, thinks again, purses his lips and pretends to pat desperately at his pockets, making a show of sighing and throwing his head back, frustrated, before turning on his heel and starting down the sidewalk in the direction the two had disappeared. There had not been anyone else around, something he had eventually begun to note subconsciously whenever in public, but he’s practiced the display so much it was almost subconscious itself.

She never thinks to look back. Not once. Not after parting with her friend, not after taking a shortcut down a considerably darker street, slipping only infrequently under the weak shower of light from buzzing street lamps. It’s too perfect, he almost wonders if he’s being led into some elaborate trap. In hindsight, it would have been smart to keep track of the street names, but he’s just a little clumsy tonight.

He must practically be stepping on her heels when she finally tenses and flips around, eyes already wide, a misty gray in the dark gradient of the night. So wide. This might be the only instance where he’ll remember the color of a victim’s eyes. She goes for her pocket knife, only, at most, the size of her hand outstretched. He goes for his own knife.

He didn’t think about the clean up that would follow, or about the time. Fuck, fuck, he wants to kick himself, get a good, solid punch in there that would make him stagger back. He has to hope the ring will fit you as he tries to screw it back and forth, inching it off her finger. In increasing desperation, he’s attempting to wrench it off, something crunching. If he waits too long, the joints will go rigid and he might then have to saw the digit off entirely, and it wouldn’t be too pleasant of a gift if the ring came with a knifed finger attached. He wished he would’ve just reverted to his high school ways of petty robbery, but his face is bare to the pungent, stinging night, no usual robes to conceal himself.

That’s not what the Ghostface does, anyways—theft at knifepoint. The papers would mischaracterize him after all the careful, deliberate consideration gone into his depiction, both on Ghostface’s and Danny’s parts; for Ghostface, the victims, chosen not irregularly on a whim (randomly, to any outsider) with no connections or immediately discernible motives. He loves to make them really think, so much of the threat is built in the wildly intense imagination of the public. The playfulness and the brazenness and how they intersect in shameless pictures, taunting notes and evidence left purposely. For the latter, nights of writing and rewriting paragraphs, descriptions, careful word choice to hammer in the threat that the next victim could be anyone, could be the reader. The Ghostface never has to kill, he wants to and does so without reason, that’s what makes him so unnerving, Danny thinks, scowling to himself. He finally twists the glimmering ring free from her limp finger, almost taking the skin with it as he digs his fingernails angrily beneath the band. He lets himself laugh once in triumph, a single, full exhale like he’d been struck in the sternum.

His work gets sloppy when he gets frustrated. He reminds himself of this as he turns the ring over in his palm, finally free. He thinks about your delighted face and his expression finally softens.

Danny massages his forehead and the lines that are certain to form there with all his grimacing and scowling. How late is it? He looks up to the darkening sky like the moon itself will reveal the time engraved onto its surface. This might be the first time he’s killed in plainclothes. He thinks he should remember something like that, but all the bodies, different as they were, mold together in his memory. Every face, the ones he can visualize, overlay each other. There won’t be a fancy dinner for the two of you tonight, but he’s decided this is much better.

He lifts his arm just to watch the blood on his hands travel down his wrist and then down his forearm, two thin, winding snakes.

He could risk rushing home and pray to every God from every doctrine that you’re not there yet, or wait out the night and return home late, praying, then, that you’re deep in sleep. It’s your anniversary, though—he imagines he could live with you believing he’s cheating on you over you finding out, but he must be going soft, because the image of you waiting all evening, alone, perking up at every noise outside at the possibility it’s him at the door, it makes him feel like someone has his guts in a fist. Plus, the Ghostafce is out and about, it’d be stupid to leave you on your lonesome.

You have no idea what he does for you.

He stands outside your house, streaked with browning stripes of blood, disheveled, empty-eyed, probably appearing like an intruder. He still has no idea what hour of night it is, but the lights in the house are off, and for once he is unsettled by the sight of it, a cold dread that spider webs under his skin, drastically unlike the flush of relief as he might trudge up the same pathway after a cruelly long day of work.

Finally he forces himself up the steps of the porch and snags his key from his pocket (and now there’s blood on it, too), essentially slamming it into the lock and twisting it open while he clutches his bloody shoes by the heels in the other hand. He careens inside, pulled along by the tilting weight of his own body, finding himself hoping that the neighbors assume him to just be deeply, profoundly drunk should they be watching at this time of night. He slams the door and the house shudders with it then moans in relief as it settles. Fuck, darling, I’m so sorry if I kept you waiting, I actually, really fought tooth and nail to get you this gift. Haha. Like it was the last one, some other guy had the same idea, Christ, we got in a scuffle and nearly got kicked out. Ah, my nose hurts, is it bleeding? I didn’t notice. He’s vomiting words in his head louder than the voice that berates himself for his carelessness (he might even be saying these things aloud, expecting you to be there, horrified). You’re not there. He should be unimaginably relieved, but his stomach only tightens and he can feel the burn of bile stirring at the bottom of his throat.

Danny can’t bring himself to turn on the light, to douse himself in sudden vision and see the red that he nonetheless feels wet on his chest. He’d never been too disturbed by the sight before, or even the tangy scent that seems so oppressively pungent now, but at the moment he just doesn’t want to think. He really does start to feel like an intruder. He shoves the door closed with his elbow (had he touched the knob with his hands when he opened it?) suddenly silencing the whisper of crickets humming behind him.

Finally his eyes fly to the clock on the oven, artificial red painting out the numbers 6:04. You get off at 6:30, and usually arrive home fourteen after. Fuck. This time he does kick, his target the gray loveseat in the living room. Carefully, he turns on the light with the back of his left hand, the one kindly less bloody.

In an instant he’s ripping a pan out from the kitchen cabinets and tossing in a cup or more of water, setting it to boil. The ring will go in there—for his poor work shoes, though, he’d just gotten them, and they’re genuine leather. They’re not fancy by any extent, but comfortable, and again, a pretty, toffee-colored leather. He throws them in a wash bin for now. He peels off his uncomfortably wet socks, stained from the night and damp from the lawn. Gross, whatever, he can make himself part with those. He tries to tell himself the same for his shirt as he rips down the buttons (he’s got a closet with nearly a dozen more indistinguishable dress shirts, bought in bulk from an acquaintance’s department store). Necessary sacrifice, his internal voice barks, ever cold.

His eyes never leave the clock, and then when they do, the harsh lines of the digital numbers are seared into his eyes like the blackened letters of a branding iron, and are just as blistering.

It’s 6:13, as he lets the ring soak in a bowl of steaming water, standing to the side, using a toothpick to carefully pick the blood out from under his fingernails. 6:14. The minute had gone by in the length of a second. There’s no candle in the world strong enough to mask the searing smell of bleach-based cleaning products, but he still steals one of yours to light. At 6:22 he nearly breaks down crying. Five minutes are spent glaring at his reflection, looking for traces of blood, staring so long and without blinking that he begins to see red where there is none. 6:30, he breaks down, but into disbelieving laughter.

It’s past seven when you do get off, bursting out of the tailors shop like a bird trapped indoors, tugging on your jacket and feeling for your keys as you jog around the building to the side parking lot, your car the only one left. The pulsing lights of neon shop lights are your personal holiday display, speckled and frosty as they’re reflected on the sidewalk glossy with rain. Your breaths are accentuated in white foam, dissolving quickly into the oppressive air of winter nighttime. You scan the parking lot to confirm it is as vacant as it looked upon first glance. You find yourself staring out into the darkness just outside the chain link fence enclosing the parking lot, picking up tens of silhouettes in the dark treelines.

You hurry into the driver's seat, key in the ignition immediately, no idling like you may have earlier this year. Danny has never been especially worried about the killer ever-present in the headlines, never a degree that seemed appropriate. You’d snapped at him once about a little joking comment and he’d been quick to protest that humor is how he tends to deal with tension, but you still worry he doesn’t take it all entirely seriously. You’ve been begging him for what must be a week by now to stop walking home. There’s only one car between the two of you, and you’re the one to end up with it most days; Danny’s work is closer to your shared home and in a more well-lit, populated part of town, in between an intersection of office buildings and cafes and sleek looking restaurants. Your job at the tailors is nearing the very outskirts of the town, where the roads broaden, much less busy as they wind through collections of strip malls and perpetually open gas stations. The walk back home, on foot, would be half an hour with few witnesses, so therefore you end up with car privileges most shifts.

The car rattles to life. You go to turn the knob for the headlights, watching out the front windshield, imagining he’ll be there in the beams of light when they blink awake.

You and Danny both have knives. A variety. He jokes he’ll never need to use his, but brings one whenever leaving the house, as is the same for you (in addition to the pepper spray he’s persistent you keep on your person). Your hand crawls towards your jacket pocket, feeling the concealed shape of it to confirm its presence. The Ghostface isn’t standing opposite of you when the headlights do power to life, but you don’t waste any more time before you reel out of your parking spot and onto the main road.

The drive home doesn’t seem to happen at all, glides by mechanically until you’re stepping out of the car and onto pavement and staring at your own house. You blink, eyes all smudgy from viewing stop lights from a foggy windshield. It only really takes the walk up to the door to reawaken all your muscles and remind yourself you're alive, thankfully, pushing open the door just as you realize the doorknob is slightly dewy, and unlocked.

The warmth of your kitchen is unearthly, or heavenly is the right word. You smell something heavy and hearty, intersected by the less pleasant stench of an assemblage of cleaning products (a smell so progressively common in your household your only hope is you’ll become used to it).

Danny appears from the hallway, or had been standing there already, and smiles tiredly. Poor thing. You can only imagine he’s worked himself to the bone, maybe with you on his mind. He always tells you how you’re his driving motivation, that he has to remind himself of you when work is additionally cruel.

You’ve yet to say a word to each other, something not entirely necessary; his arms are around you already, drawing you in tight.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” you huff, but he shakes his head quite intently.

“No worries, not a single one,” he replies honestly, finally pulling away to meet you face to face. You had presumed he was going to heckle you a good deal for being late, just given the tension around the city and recent crime, but it never comes up. He only rubs the sides of your arms with a twitching smile.

Danny steps back fully, but still guides you, ringing you in from the entryway over to the kitchen.

“No fancy dinner, like we agreed,” he starts, obviously alluding to something that has you a little worried—not unpleasantly, really, but a tight feeling in your side that is likely guilt. He’s the sort of guy to say he won’t get you anything but go ahead and do so anyways; a part of you knew you weren’t gonna shake that from him this year, but with money a concern, you had hoped he would swallow his pride and resist.

“I got you something else, though,” Danny continues, smiling more genuinely, nearly relieved. He retrieves a brown satin pouch from the dinner table, something only the length of his palm.

He instructs you to extend your arm out so he can place the pouch in your hands, and now that almost wince of a smile is genuine.

“I really work so hard for you,” he laughs, but cuts himself off quite suddenly. Something like shame twists at his expression. “I don’t want you to feel guilty, though, no—I’ve just been saving up for a little something.”

The smile is wider, now with teeth.

“Jed,” you say, low. He shakes his head, dismissing you before you can object.

“I really do love you.”

It’s genuine when he says this, but also not his fault that you always react perfectly. He really is so fantastic as a director, and you as the set piece.

Dinner might have to wait.

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