Chapter Text
The sound of Jeff's pained grunts paired with the constant noises of shuffling, punching, and Toby's ecstatic yelling was enough to have shaken anyone awake for miles.
And unfortunately, a Mansion -home to several proxies- was between the range of those miles.
Suppose it was a bad night; Tobias and Jeffery had gotten all riled up at each other over something stupid like Jeff mocking Toby over an embarrassing tic. Toby didn't care when people made jokes about his behavior, but when it came to Jeff it was different. Jeff didn't know how to shut his mouth, so he always found a way to overstep Toby's moral limits. And knowing Tobias, he'd go in for a fight out of sheer, angry impulse.
"Ge-Get Off! Yyy-yyou sss-stink!" Toby was flattened under the weight of Jeff holding him down against the dirt-rock ground, painless pebbles were digging into the skin on his back, which said alot about the force being used since he was wearing his usual thick hoodie over himself.
"For you to try swinging at my face again?" Jeff reels back his fist and sends it down hard, snapping Toby's goggles crooked across his face, "Get me off, Freak!"
Toby's nose starts to pour. He couldn't feel any sort of sting or pain, but it was akward for him to just lay there and let Jeff punch the shit out of him. "okay! o-ookay!! I'mm ss-ssorry! I''m sorry" Frantic words that stumbled out of Toby's mouth in a struggle to get out of this. He couldn't breathe.
Jeff stares down at Toby with unbothered eyes, he could feel the way his chest struggled to rise and fall beneath him. Tobias had managed to land a really hard hit to Jeff's face not too long ago, and Jeff took it way too personal, obviously. His digits were plowing into Toby's shoulder with bruising force. Then he smiled, a wide sadistic grin that spread from ear to ear. "See? You're not a proxy." He gets up with a brute shove to Toby's shoulder. "You're just a pussy." Then he lets out his infamous fucking laugh, wiping at his split lip.
Toby lays there in silence, head snapping violently to the side, his anger flaring just a little.
"Can't save your own ass for the life of you," He scoffs, "fuckwit."
Toby finally sits up, realizing his nose was messed up after feeling something warm running out of it all faucet-like. He rubs at it, involuntarily soaking his fingers with sticky, runny blood.
Jeff crouches down somewhere, feeling the ground for his knife, all while smearing the dirt with his bloody palms. When he finds it he pockets it brusquely, shoving both of his hands into the pockets of his white, blood stained hoodie. "You're boring," his smile falls.
Toby can't come up with a better insult. "F-fff-failed m-mmm-murdere-"
Jeff kicks at a mound of dirt violently before Toby could sound out the last of those words, and Toby doesn't turn his head away quick enough, which makes him cough and sputter. Jeff thinks about saying something back but he just rolls his eyes and walks away, leaving Toby sitting there all alone, spitting out chunks of saliva, blood, and dirt collectively. This went on for a while before Toby was able to see clearly and get all the muck out of his system.
When he's sure that Jeff was far enough away, he pushes himself up off the ground with quaking legs and fumbles for his his goggles in the dirt. He brushes them off a little, putting them back onto his ruffled, dust filled head.
His mask was torn up and soiled. Maybe he'd ask Hoodie or Masky to help him patch it up later. Masky would no doubt run him out the moment that he saw his bloody face knocking at his bedroom door this late at night, with consideration that Toby's little dispute with Jeff must've woken half the mansion straight out of their beauty sleeps.
Still, the thought of his—the closest he could call—friends made his eyes water a little, but he drove his wrist against his face and mercilessly wiped whatever pathetic tears were trying to form away. Maybe it was because he needed someone or something to be here with him. Though he'd never admit it out loud. Or was it because what Jeff had said about him actually bothered him a little. Not that he was hurt (he was butthurt), he was more angry than hurt.
. . .
Fuck this, being in his room consumed by his own solitude was better than sitting out in this dump stretch of woods letting that ass Jeff get to him. He was a proxy. Proxy's work in an orderly fashion (most of the time). They don't have the privilege of being Feeble or weak. And Tobias wasn't weak.
But he also made sure to walk back slowly so he wouldn't catch up with Jeff accidentally or something.
***
As soon as Jeff entered the Mansion, he made sure to drop his tough guy facade after realizing that he still had the same stick-up-his-ass expression plastered all over his face from previously. He functioned better with his getting under people's skin facade.
But frankly, he didn't feel like any of his facades tonight. He felt like a sack shit. And if he was lucky, nobody would poke their annoying heads out their room's asking what all that noise earlier was about, which was rare since no proxy ever associated with another proxy unless it was to scorn and humiliate each other.
Thankfully, nobody came out to question him, and he slipped down the dark hallway toward his room in silence. Unfortunately for him, Toby's room sat directly along the way, and he couldn't help but stealing himself a glance. He was the one that had provoked Tobias after all. He didn't feel bad about it, he wasn't going to act like he hadn't started that fight. Jeff couldn't help himself, it was in his nature. He didn't care about others. And he wasn't going to care.
Getting to his room was a drag. He'd always have to behold the same filithy, unwelcoming mess. The clutter, the smell. Then again, who's fault was that? He shut the door behind him, dropping onto his matress like he hadn't just let a proxy bleed out all alone in the woods.
Jeff fidgets with the knife in his pocket, "not my fault he showed up with his horrible face," he grins taking a breath, "and got in my way." There's a long beat of silence before a raspy laughter fills up Jeffery's room. Nothing was funny, it was out of impulse. But Jeff Didn't care. The walls in the Mansion were thin, so anybody in a two room radius heard his hysterical laughing.
"SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE!!" A familiar voice came down from the floor above. Masky by the sound of it.
Jeff just raised both of his hands up into the air and flipped off the roof above him, "Fuck you!! Come do something about it creep!!"
"Piss off!"
He wanted to continue laughing, just to pull at Masky's leg, but the dude's complaint killed off his mood. Jeff decided that he'd let sleep take him easily just for the night, while his gaze unconciouslly stayed locked to his door, watching to see if the hallway light would turn on and pour into the crack beneath it.
For no reason, no reason whatsoever.
***
Toby decided he wouldnt head straight for his room when he got to the Mansion like he had originally planned, what if that prick Jeff was waiting there to stab him to death or something uncanny like that? He was positive that he'd gotten back at least ten minutes after Jeff, which was a good thing. He made sure to stay quiet, except for the small ocassional croaks that came out of his mouth every seven to ten seconds, but they were inaudible most of the time. Not a single light was switched on as he made his way to the longue. The moonlight would be enough to illuminate his way.
Toby was holding onto his nose the whole time, afraid that he'd stain blood all over the boss's dark, oakwood floors. At this hour, he would've expected everybody to be in their rooms undisturbed-
"Damn. He did you up, Tobes."
Toby's heart raced a little, before settling back down after realizing that it was Hoodie.
"Whh-whats w-with yyy-yyou.." Still gripping onto his nose as his shoulder jerks up a tad.
"Huh? What's up with you? You look rough."
Toby doesn't answer. Talking is the last thing on his mind right now, so he decides to scratch the lounge idea and risk going down to his room.
Hoodie slumps, "I heard all of your bitchin' outside. Was it Jeff-"
Toby doesn't try to hear him out or respond, he just turns the other way and starts down the hallway.
"Hey, you dick, I'm talking to you." Hoodie counters, though he held no actual malice behind his words.
"Ffff-ffuck o-off!"
"What's your deal kid-" Hoodie grabs for Toby.
Toby uses the arm that isnt holding his nose together to shove Hoodie back with offensive force. His whole body is lurching, and it's clear that he's angry at something.
Hoodie just stands there, not upset in the slightest that he was pushed. He doesn't quite have anything to say. "really?" Is what comes out.
Toby's already halfway down the hall leading into darkness, which means Hoodie was running out of time to say something to him.
"Fine by me, go die in your fucking sleep Toby!!"
Toby rolls his eyes, his head spasming to the side as he grips onto his nose. He was walking down the hall as fast as he could, being as he was extremely loud just now and risked waking up his tormentor. Finally, he makes it to his room and opens the door, shutting it behind him, resting against it for a bit with a hollow exhale of relief; which kinda compels a huge amount of blood to come shootin' out of his nostrils.
He lets go of his face for once. It's his bedroom floor and he didn't care if he got it dirty. But to his confusion, it wasn't leaking nearly as bad anymore. Maybe his body had at last run dry of blood. Toby slams his knuckles against the wall, searching for his light switch to check and see how much was pouring out in clarity. When he finds it and flips the light on-
"Nice nose job." It was Jeff. Jeff sitting on his bed.