Work Text:
Jeff’s trembling grip around the gun is tight enough to pale his knuckles, the muzzle trained on the back of his son’s head.
Max is hunched over Nugget. They’re embracing one another, Max’s quiet sobs making his shoulders shake. The chainsaw lay discarded like a piece of trash in a dark corner of the room.
Jeff's ears are ringing and his heart is hammering against his ribcage. He can’t breathe. He’s going to blow his baby boy’s brains out. His son, his Maxwell. Jeff’s finger ghosts over the trigger. (It’s a miracle he hasn’t dropped the gun yet with how much he’s shaking. He does not want this.)
There is nothing else he can do, he tells himself. For as long as Max lives, that demon, that parasite–whatever it is that has burrowed itself deep inside Max’s mind–it will keep taking control of him to devour, and devour, and devour. (It didn’t start with Nugget–he can assume from the umber splattered and crusted all over the walls–and it probably won’t end with Nugget).
It is a choice between Max and the rest of his family, and Jeff will not jeopardize their safety–
–and, still. Still, Jeff hesitates when Nugget catches Jeff’s gaze from over Max’s shoulder. Nugget’s eyes widen in panic, and he begs Jeff not to do it with frantic no’s and an outstretched paw.
Jeff wants so badly to listen to him. He wants so badly to let the gun clatter to the floor, to comfort his son and tell him that everything is going to be okay, rubbing circles in his back. Just like how he comforted a little Max who hardly reached Jeff's knees when he would wake up from a nightmare. He wants so badly to believe that if he didn’t take the shot, tomorrow he wouldn't find his family’s throats torn out by his son’s bloody fangs.
But no matter how much one wants to believe something’s true, that doesn’t always mean it is.
So, Jeff pulls the trigger.
There’s a loud, echoing bang, and Max jerks back. The left side of his face blossoms in glistening ropes of blood, dribbling and leaving a sickening, wet sound on the ground.
Nugget’s holding Max up, staring in pure shock at the side of his face that’s intact, frozen in a mix of despair and horror, and Jeff just breaks. His knees buckle from under him and he screams.