caregiver

His gaze rested somewhere over your shoulder, unfocused, as though whatever occupied his mind was infinitely more interesting than the story you'd been telling for the last ten minutes.

Silence settled, broken only by the quiet scrape of silverware against ceramic as you pretended to enjoy the food.

You weren’t going to make a scene. You weren’t. "...Are you even listening?"

"I am," he said, smiling to himself. He had been doing that often today.

Fucking liar.

You slowed down eating, remembering the hour you’d spent on your make-up, doing it and then taking it off and redoing it. Knowing your high-strung mood was able to ruin the night, you’d begun the night much more casual, but when you realized he wasn’t going to talk, you’d grown nervous and started talking like a blabbermouth. 

Maybe your story didn’t matter anyhow, especially to a man like him, but the fact he couldn’t even scramble up the tiniest bit of interest was killing you here.

If you ranked on his priorities, it must not be very high.

You gave a small laugh, trying to brush it off, still sounding very hurt even to your ears. “You don’t even know what I said.”

A pause.

He blinked innocently, and held steady eye-contact, as if compensating for the rest of dinner where he’d stared everywhere except at you. You even wore a push-up bra tonight and a plunging neckline to avoid having this happen again, but it seemed the days where you could look nice and have his full undivided attention on you were done. 

Now he came home, showered, threw on some fucking graphic tee-shirt- it bothered you greatly- while you were looking overdressed. “You were talking about someone misunderstanding you. Someone from your watercolor class.””

You stared at him.

Watercolor class.

You weren’t deaf. You’d heard the slight derision he’d unintentionally added when saying those words. How lowly you were. Boring him with a story about being slighted at a watercolor class. He didn’t care, he didn’t care, he didn’t care.

You picked up your fork, before immediately placing it back down next to your plate, and realized how this scene looked, how civilian, how boring. He had to be restless out of his fucking mind, sitting here with you. The fact he’d even deigned to show up, to grace you with his time, and here you were, starting a domestic dispute with ravioli in front of you. 

You couldn’t help yourself. “You just guessed.”

He had the gall to sigh. “I didn’t.”

“You did.” 

"I didn't guess." Chrollo’s voice was patient. Similar to the way someone speaks to a child throwing a tantrum over nothing. He’d been doing that often lately, and it only made a shiver run down your spine. "You mentioned it three times this week. The instructor who kept correcting your brushwork in front of everyone."

You opened your mouth. Closed it.

Had you? You couldn't remember. The online watercolor class was something you'd taken up back then to fill the hours when he was gone, which was often, which was most of the time, and when Chrollo came back smelling like places you'd never see and people you'd never meet, you talked. Filled the silence. Apparently about your brushwork and the people who couldn’t appreciate it.

"You think it's stupid," you said flatly.

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to." You said, feeling the edges of your mouth pulled down. “It’s not hard to figure out. Your face practically screams it.”

Chrollo set down his wine glass with a soft clink. The candlelight caught the cross on his forehead, made it look almost holy, which was laughable, which was insane, but here you were, upset that your boyfriend (was he your boyfriend? He'd never used the word) wasn't paying enough attention to your cleavage at dinner.

"You're being difficult," 

"I'm not trying to be.” You said, looking in a different direction just so he wouldn’t notice the twitching of your lips. If you cried, this night truly couldn’t be saved anymore. He wouldn’t touch you when you cried, and it wasn’t like he fucked you as often as he used to. “I’m just a bit upset.”

"Is there any need to be?"

God, you hated when he did that. 

Made you feel like you were the one being unreasonable when he was the one who'd disappeared for two weeks without so much as a text. Last time he hadn’t even woken you up to say goodbye.

"Forget it." You reached for your wine and took a longer sip than was probably advisable. "Tell me about your trip."

He mirrored taking the wine glass, but took a much more modest sip. "You wouldn't find it interesting."

"Try me."

"No."

Just like that. No. Like the conversation was a door he could simply close, and you didn't have the key, had never had the key, would never be given the key because you weren't good enough, weren’t smart enough, weren’t in-group enough, weren’t-

You weren't enough. 

That was the thing, wasn't it? You saw it in the way he looked at you sometimes, when he thought you weren't paying attention. Like he was constantly calculating your value and finding the sum wanting. You tried to meet his standards every day, but like your adoptive mother back in Meteor City had repeated to you daily ‘the stench of a gutter rat would always follow you’. 

Chrollo had managed to prove otherwise for himself, but he was an exception.

You weren’t.

Just a gutter rat wearing perfume. 

"You know what?" Your laugh came out brittle, sharp-edged. "Fine. No problem."

You turned away, fingers trembling as you fixed your hair. 

"I have someone anyway," you said, the words arriving fully formed, if a bit higher than your normal pitch. "Someone who actually wants to listen to me."

When he didn't respond you added more bullshit.

"He's in love with me, fully. I didn't think you'd mind, since you're gona most of the time anyway." You weren't sure if you were going too far, but your mouth kept spouting out words. "We've... had sex. Here."

That got his attention. For a second you wondered if he’d get mad, furious, even. He’d demand to know who, and you’d hold onto the lie for as long as it took for him to realize how much he treasured you. Or even if he’d just touch you and say kind things to you out of jealousy and greed, that was fine too. Just anything.

You heard the shift in his breathing.

And then he laughed out loud, a full-on enthusiastic noise you'd not heard come from Chrollo ever before.

"Who would your lover even be?" Chrollo said after a while, leaning forward, placing his elbows on the table. “Can’t believe it. A sordid affair in my own house.”

You didn't turn around. Couldn't. "Does it matter? The point is, I don't need your approval. Not anymore."

It was theatrical, ridiculous. As if it was even possible for you to ever love someone other than Chrollo, but as it seemed Chrollo had forgotten about how important he was to you, or at least about how important you were supposed to be to him, you didn’t care. Sometimes you had to be the gutter rat wearing perfume and own it, rather than apologize for the scent underneath.

Chrollo suddenly stood up and walked over.

"You know," he said, pulling out his necklace from underneath his shirt, "for someone claiming she doesn't need my approval, you spend a remarkable amount of time arguing with me."

You glared at him as he lowered himself beside your chair. 

Had you been moving too much during the conversation?  Vaguely you remembered that he wouldn’t have accepted that at all at the start. He preferred you motionless back then, just in his lap and holding onto him. At least back then he demanded your attention, and you could hardly understand where all that desire had gone.

And then he grabbed the key attached to the necklace and… unlocked the cuffs keeping your legs bound to the chair.

Wait…

“What?” You said as he moved on to your other foot, pulling loose the cuffs, the skin underneath raw and scarred in a way they’d been for years. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

You could hardly believe what he was doing.

“Why.. why would you..”

"I’ve decided that I approve."

The words were so simple that for a second you wondered if you'd heard him correctly.

"What?"

When you didn’t remove your ankles from the cuffs even though he’d unlocked them, he took them both off personally and stood up, placing the iron cuffs on their respective place in the corner of the room. It’d been… what? Six years since you’d ever been as loosely contained as you were now.

Chrollo smiled gently and pet your head for a few moments. "I said I approve."

"You approve," you repeated, staring at him.

"Completely."

His hand slid from your hair to your cheek, cradling your face with a tenderness that didn’t match the humor you could see swirling around in his eyes. Grey eyes crinkled as he stared at you, though you’d never been good at accurately reading exactly what was going on inside him.

For one reckless second, you wanted to close the distance between you. Kiss him. Apologize for whatever invisible line you'd crossed. Fix whatever had gone so catastrophically wrong that he’d release your chains like it was nothing.

“Of… what?”

"Of this affair you've somehow managed to begin," he continued, his tone taking on an almost exaggerated nonchalance. "I must admit, I didn't think you had it in you."

His gaze drifted lower.

"And since you don’t need me anymore, these..." He tilted his head ever so slightly. "Those cuffs are no longer necessary, don't you think?"

It wasn’t difficult to know what you looked like right now. Restless, scared, and utterly lost. Was he cutting you loose?!  

“You're confused.” His thumb brushed lightly over your cheek before he withdrew his hand entirely, as if even that small touch had become unnecessary. “I understand.”

“No.” You stood too quickly, your legs buckling. Your hands caught the edge of the chair before you could fall.

He didn't reach for you.

That, more than anything, made your pulse race.

He simply watched you stumble with an amused glint in his eyes.“Careful.”

You stared at him, waiting for the inevitable. For him to sigh, to pull you back into his lap, to remind you how fragile you were, how it was all just a joke, how he’d cut off your legs if you ever truly cheated on him. Instead he merely walked back to his seat and raised his glass of wine to his lips.When you just looked at him, utterly lost, he chuckled.

“You're free to walk around, you know.” He said. 

You narrowed your eyes. "...You're not going to stop me?"

“Why would I?”

His answer landed with horrifying ease.

“You've been unsatisfied, haven’t you? I wouldn’t want to keep you against your will, now, wouldn’t I..”

"I—"

"So stand."

You did.

Your knees trembled violently.

Without consciously deciding to, your gaze drifted across the apartment until it settled on the front door. 

You hadn't been outside in months –not once—and somewhere along the way you'd stopped thinking about the door altogether. It had become just another piece of furniture, another fixture of the apartment that existed without meaning anything. Now, all at once, it seemed impossibly real. It was only a few meters away, an ordinary wooden door with a polished brass handle, close enough that you could cross the distance in seconds if you wanted to.

If you wanted to.

Your eyes lingered there a heartbeat too long.

Chrollo caught the movement immediately.

"You may leave if you wish."

"..."

"I won't stop you."

Your heart hammered so loudly you were sure he could hear it.

"What game is this?" you whispered. “Are you trying to be funny?”

"There isn't one."

"You've never..." You laughed once, short and breathless. "You've never let me walk anywhere alone."

"And now I am."

"You chained me to a chair."

"I did."

"You told me I'd never survive without you." You cried out. “That I’d be dead before daybreak if I ever left.”

Chrollo shrugged. "I believed that at the time."

"At the time?" you echoed, and you hated how disappointed you sounded.

His expression remained infuriatingly mild.

"People change."

"No," you said immediately.”No!”

"No?"

"You don't."

For the first time, something almost amused crossed his face.

He moved past you toward the bookshelf, selecting a volume with the same casual interest someone might have in deciding what to read before bed.

"If you've grown tired of living here," he said without looking at you, "you're welcome to find somewhere else."

Your stomach twisted, but your disappointment melted into rage when you saw him sit down and open his book. He was so full of shit. SO. FULL. OF. SHIT.

"Well, fine.” You said, seethingly, “I’m done with this.”

You took one step toward the door.

For the first time in years, the door was unlocked and you could walk right out. Right into the real world. It’d be a little breezy, being late into July, and you weren’t exactly dressed for that, so with quivering legs you walked towards your bedroom, got a jacket, and without even looking at Chrollo another time, you left the apartment.

It’d been close to six months since you’d gone outside, and it was years since you’d gone outside unattended. 

There’d been no need to. Your life was good here. There were rules, there was structure, love, central heating, food, and no need to fight.

Considering you’d expected to die long before you’d reach your twenties, every day had been a gift with Chrollo. Every morning, waking up in a warm bed, next to the love of your life, felt like you’d been reborn and given a chance few residents from Meteor City were ever given.

The Chrollo of today was sanctified, in your mind, yet realer than ever, considering you’d lived with him for years and had been allowed to see his more human side more often. Back then, when you were young and starving for anything real, he’d been larger than life. He always stood far away, giving speeches and standing at the forefront of every event that was worth anything in Meteor City. When the Troupe left, and became a point of pride for Meteorites, they were as good as celebrities.

And then he came back. And you met him. Talked to him. He remembered you. Remembered the colour your headband had been, the one you’d worn for years while watching the troupe perform their original plays.Admiration had turned into love, and you remembered the first time you’d made love to him with perfect clarity.

He sought you out whenever he visited.

A lot had happened since then, a turning point was when you’d come back to your small room back in Meteor City and noticed it was completely empty, with Chrollo sitting on your cot, explaining that he was moving you, saying it was something he ‘felt like doing’. 

Considering you’d been close to leaving Meteor City yourself, to try your luck in the outside world and probably die in some gutter after having your organs stolen (the outskirts of Meteor City were always looking for stragglers no one would miss) this wasn’t something that troubled you greatly.

It started to rain, and you pulled up the hood of your jacket.

The rain came down in that miserable, persistent way that never seemed to commit to becoming a storm yet somehow still managed to soak through fabric, collecting on your eyelashes and dripping from the edge of your hood as you wandered without direction.

Your shoes were splashing through shallow puddles that reflected distorted neon signs and apartment windows lit by people who had no idea how extraordinary your afternoon had become, how the entirety of your entire life had shifted because one man had decided that after years of insisting the world would devour you the moment you stepped outside, he suddenly couldn't be bothered to stop you from opening the front door.

Every few steps you glanced over your shoulder, not because you were afraid of the strangers moving around you with umbrellas and shopping bags and phones pressed to their ears, but because surely, surely, eventually you would catch sight of the familiar silhouette that had followed you everywhere your life had ever allowed you to go, the black coat, the measured pace, the neutral expression that would eventually harden into irritation before he took your wrist and informed you that you'd made enough of a scene. 

Every glance was met with disappointment. 

The first ten minutes were infuriating. The next ten became insulting.

By the time you reached a busier district where storefronts crowded against one another and people flowed continuously across crosswalks despite the weather, the anger had settled into something uglier than rage because rage at least implied there was someone standing opposite you to receive it, someone listening, someone reacting, whereas this felt like screaming into a pillow for no one’s entertainment.

You slowed near a crowded intersection and deliberately remained there while the pedestrian light changed twice, refusing to move with the current of people.

Chrollo had hated crowds. Hated strangers touching you. Hated not knowing exactly where your hands were, where your eyes were looking, who had looked at you in return. He would've been beside you already, fingers wrapping around your arm with deceptive gentleness, steering you away while calmly explaining that if you insisted on behaving carelessly he would simply have to make decisions on your behalf.

You needed him to do that!

How dare he make you dependent on him, and then just… lose interest?!

Nothing happened, though you did receive an annoyed shove from a man that was sick of you standing still in the middle of the crowd.

You laughed under your breath, but it came out brittle, almost hysterical, because perhaps he was watching after all, perhaps he was hidden somewhere above the street or across it, comfortably invisible, waiting to see what you would do now that he'd granted you this ridiculous little experiment in independence, and if that were true then you refused to give him the satisfaction of behaving exactly as expected.

And if that were true, then you refused to give him the satisfaction of behaving exactly as expected.

So you did the opposite.

You crossed streets without checking as carefully as you should have, lingered outside bars where loud conversations spilled into the rain, wandered through narrow alleyways that instinct alone insisted were terrible ideas, and every time your pulse lurched with anticipation because surely this would be enough. This would be the moment he'd step out from the shadows with that soft, disappointed sigh that somehow always sounded more frightening than anger.

The longer he didn't show up, the bolder you became.

You started talking.

At first it was harmless. Small conversations with strangers waiting at crosswalks or sitting beside you on a bench, comments that drifted naturally into stories before either of you quite realized it. You spoke about the Phantom Troupe, watching their expressions shift as you calmly insisted they were real and casually revealed some names, some info, some confidential stuff you’d picked up over the years. 

Sometimes the strangers humored you. Sometimes they looked concerned. Most simply excused themselves at the first opportunity.

You told them anyway.

You described their members, their abilities, the crimes everyone knew they'd committed and the ones no one else possibly could have known about, your voice growing steadier every time you repeated the story.

No one believed you. At least not to your face.

Which somehow made it even easier.

In a department store, while pretending to browse kitchen appliances, you noticed an unattended whiteboard set up to advertise some sale. Someone had left a handful of dry-erase markers beside it.

You hesitated for all of three seconds.

Then, with a grin that felt almost delirious, you uncapped one of the markers and began writing.

THE PHANTOM TROUPE IS CLOSE

Beneath it, you listed every member you could remember, adding the spider logo, fragments of information that made perfect sense to you and would look completely unhinged to anyone else who happened to walk by. You even scribbled a warning beneath it all.

IF YOU SEE THEM, RUN.

When you stepped back to admire your work, a woman pushing a shopping cart slowed beside the display, reading the board with growing confusion before glancing suspiciously in your direction.

You smiled at her and walked away.

Your heart hammered so hard it hurt.

By the time you stepped back onto the open street, the rain had dwindled to a light drizzle, and you carried yourself with the strange certainty of someone who had already died.

There was no version of this where Chrollo simply let it go.

He had never tolerated betrayal, unless it served him, and he despised half-assed plans like these. You had spent the afternoon telling strangers about the Phantom Troupe, writing their names where anyone could see them, scattering pieces of their existence into the world with reckless abandon. If he hadn't been watching before, surely he would be now.

Sooner or later, he would find you.

And when he did, there were only two possibilities.

Either he still loved you enough to drag you back home, lock the door behind you, and keep you alive at his side...

Or he'd kill you where you stood.

Oddly enough, you found yourself hoping for one of those outcomes.

Because the only thing you couldn't bear—the only thing that made your chest tighten until you could hardly breathe—was the possibility that none of it had mattered. That he had truly grown indifferent. That you could scream his secrets into crowded streets, carve the Phantom Troupe's name onto every wall in the city, and he still wouldn't think you worth coming after.

Death was terrifying.

But indifference was unbearable. You would not accept becoming forgettable.

The night had grown… cold.

You’d been sitting on a park bench close to your home for a few hours now. 

Waiting.

The realization began creeping in with nauseating slowness that he might actually have meant every word he'd said, because he simply...didn't care enough anymore to interfere, and somehow that possibility hurt infinitely more than the years of chains and locked doors ever had 

Because captivity at least required some sort of attention whereas indifference required absolutely nothing at all.

If he cared even a little , he'd have to come closer now. He'd just have to go outside. He'd have to find you. You weren’t even far. He could probably find you within a few minutes. It wasn’t hard.

You waited.

Nothing.

NOTHING.

The absurdity of it ignited another flash of fury so hot that your vision blurred, and before you could stop yourself you began entertaining another set of increasingly childish, increasingly desperate ideas solely because they all shared one purpose: making him react. 

You could walk into the nearest police station and tell them your ‘boyfriend’ had kept you imprisoned for years. You could flirt openly with some stranger, kiss the first attractive person who smiled at you, sit in their lap if necessary, just to see if he’d hear and care about it. You could disappear entirely, board the first train leaving the city without checking the destination, and wait to see whether he'd appear in the carriage before the doors closed.

Every fantasy ended exactly the same way.

With him not coming.

With him remaining exactly where you'd left him, comfortably seated with his book, turning another page while the apartment gradually cooled around him and the side of the bed where you slept remained empty for the first night in years.

You stood up from the park bench.

"...Come on," you muttered beneath your breath, staring at the wet pavement as tears fell down your face. "Come get me."

You lasted another hour before you decided to walk up to your own doom.

The freedom that had felt so impossibly vast when you first stepped through the apartment door had quietly collapsed into an exhausting absence of direction, every street asking you to decide where to go next when for years those decisions had simply... never been yours, and somewhere beneath the anger you found yourself wondering whether Chrollo had known that would happen, whether this entire miserable afternoon had been another one of his carefully arranged lessons whose purpose you wouldn't understand until long after it was over.

Having returned home, you stared up at the familiar windows for several long moments.

The front door opened exactly as it always had, and the dinner table welcomed you, the food still plated and cold. The candles were still burning, so you walked towards them and blew them out.

The apartment was silent.

The bedroom door stood open.

Chrollo was already in bed.

One lamp burned softly on the nightstand, casting warm amber light across the room, and Chrollo looked up only briefly as you appeared in the doorway. He was sitting upright, a book in his hands, his black hair loosely framing his face. You’d feel better knowing he’d not just gone to sleep during your entire ordeal, but you could tell by how far he was in the book that he’d truly just sat down here and read.

"Welcome back," he said, with no real emotion behind it.

You pushed some wet hair back and walked towards your closet, grabbing some dry clothes. Better to act like nothing was wrong and postpone your own death. You'd rather be throttled in your sleep. "I came back."

The silence stretched.

You hated it, and silently took off your wet clothing, the cold having seeped through to your bones. It didn’t matter. After you’d taken your pants off, you swallowed down some feelings as you placed the garment on the floor, not caring to walk towards the hamper. You were exhausted, cold, but still felt more awake than ever.  Another deep breath, and you broke the silence. "You really weren't going to come after me."

His voice drifted through the darkness, and you could hear the cold amusement layered underneath his voice."You came home, didn’t you?"

You didn’t have to think about your response. "I wanted you to."

The words escaped before you had the chance to reconsider them.

You hated how small they sounded.

"I know," he said quietly. “But I can tell you had fun, didn’t you?”

Your chest tightened so sharply it almost hurt. God, he had to know what you’d done. And if he didn't yet, he would know soon enough.

Something inside your chest twisted painfully.

You fidgeted with the dry shirt you’d grabbed, putting it on so you could avoid looking at him. “I’m not cheating on you.” 

He huffed out a laugh at your attempt to change the subject, closing his book and placing it on the nightstand. “I know.”

Taking a deep breath, you suddenly decided that this was another hell in itself. You’d returned, he probably knew about your misdeeds, there’d be punishment (or not, you still couldn’t figure out how he felt), but this half-and-half treatment walking on eggshells was horrifying. 

You crossed the room before you could think better of it, climbing onto the mattress with movements that felt strangely unfamiliar after spending the entire day convincing yourself you wouldn't return, and for a moment you simply looked at him.

As you climbed on top of him, feeling yourself wear a determined expression, he merely met your gaze with impassive gray eyes.

At least he didn’t push you away.

You leaned forward first.

The kiss was tentative at first, more a question on whether or not he was okay with this, your lips barely brushing his as though expecting him to turn away at the last second simply to prove that he could, but he didn't.

His hand rose slowly to cradle the side of your face, familiar enough to make your throat tighten, and he returned the kiss without any passion from his side, leaving you with the unsettling feeling that he was allowing you to choose every inch of the distance between you.

You kissed him again before the first one had truly ended, harder this time, closing the space between you until your bodies were nearly pressed together. Your fingers slid into his hair almost desperately, curling through the dark strands as you tugged him closer—not enough to hurt, only enough to erase the last few inches separating you, enough that you could convince yourself he was real, that he was here, that he was still yours. 

When you finally drew back, neither of you spoke.

His thumb brushed once across your cheek before his hand fell away again.

You let yourself fall down beside him almost automatically, facing him, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing in the darkness while the events of the day refused to settle into anything that resembled understanding. 

The room was warm, you were holding onto him, he wasn't leaving you or killing you, yet.

It’d have to be enough, for now.

If it had come from anyone else, it would have sounded blatantly sarcastic. And maybe, just a little, it did. But this was Tamsy. Tamsy was usually so nice, so you told yourself the faint edge of sarcasm had to be in your imagination.

You looked away quickly, pretending to check the horizon instead. The polluted fog blurred everything past a few dozen meters, turning the wasteland into shifting silhouettes.

“I was just making sure there weren’t more,” you muttered.

“Mhm.”

He nudged the beast’s head with the tip of his boot. One of the glass teeth cracked with a dull crunch.

“You supporters worry too much.”

You were glad you were here, and not one of the other supporters. Follo especially would’ve taken very heavy offense to a comment like that. It implied the worry was unfounded, as if it was unnatural to worry when faced with a sharp, sludge-drooling behemoth that wanted to kill you. Instead of saying all that, you just let out a simple: “That thing was huge.”

“And now it’s not a problem.” Tamsy stretched his arms over his head lazily. “See? Easy job. Just like Semiu said.”

Easy.

Right.

You adjusted the strap of your mask, suddenly very aware that you were the one here who hadn’t actually done anything useful. The mission had been simple: escort Tamsy into the zone, observe, and write down anything that was even remotely interesting. You’d written some small stuff down, but the fight had been done too quickly for you to find anything really worth commenting about. 

Tamsy lifted his foot off the trash beast corpse, and turned to walk your way, vital instrument lazily swinging side to side in his grip. 

That said… Why was the beast still twitching? Was the core still int-

The windmill flank of the trash beast suddenly screeched as it whipped around in a final effort to kill tamsy, flinging a slab of debris outward. Tamsy dodged it, and hit the trash beast with his distaff, the damn thing finally getting flung around and decomposing like it should’ve done to begin with. 

The debris, however, was still heading your way.

Your brain reacted before the rest of you did.

No problem. This part you’d practiced. Supporters weren’t frontline fighters, but you still had to survive long enough to observe and give actual support. If one thing had been drilled into you, it’d been on how to dodge trash like this. Your boots landed down on solid ground, a good way’s off from where the projectile had landed, meaning things were gonna be just fine-

Your balance vanished instantly.

“Wha-!”

With an immediate shift in trajectory, you went down hard, suddenly face to face with a very large pile of sharp and rough trash..

Your leg twisted underneath you as you fell, pain exploding up to your thigh as something tore open against the jagged metal. Your arm slammed against a rusted pipe with a sickening crack that echoed through your mask.

For a moment all you could hear was the roaring in your ears.

Everything went white with noise. Your ears roared so loudly it drowned out the polluted wind, the distant creak of shifting scrap- everything, though you were pretty sure you’d let out a cry loud enough to alert any trash beast in a hundred mile region. 

It was one of your worst habits, one that the other cleaners hadn’t managed to train out of you yet. Whenever you got hurt, you cried out like you wanted everyone in a wide radius to hear you, which wasn’t an ideal quality in a career where being sneaky and getting hurt often were part of the job.

When your vision finally steadied and you were no longer screeching out of instinct, you raised your head to assuage the damage.

That… that was a lot of blood.

Somewhere nearby, footsteps crunched across rubble.

“Oh dear, you’ve tripped?” Tamsy covered his lower face with his sleeve, in shock at the state of your leg. You couldn’t bring up the energy to snap at him, knowing he didn’t mean it like that, and also you were a bit too focused on the fact that part of your femur was sticking out of your skin. “For a supporter, you sure are clumsy.”

Shame burned inside your stomach, and you couldn’t lift your head up far enough to make eye-contact with the giver. “Yeah, haha, my foot must’ve… must’ve caught on something.”

You huffed out and shakily sat up and grabbed at the top-part of your leg, trying to squeeze your upper leg so it would stop bleeding so profusely. There were protocols for this, but they seemed to elude you at the moment. Calling for back-up was the best option, right? But it was just you and Tamsy here, and he was way more experienced than you, and he’d yet to even touch his choker. Was there a reason… not to? 

Were you missing something?

“I should… call back-up, right?” What you should’ve done in the first place was accept Gris’ offer to come along back at the base. He’d have you bandaged and in a car within mere minutes. But you’d been prideful, telling him Semiu had specifically said the job was supposed to be an easy one, one that only needed a single giver and a lil back-up just in case. Tamsy had even specifically asked for you! “That’s what… I should do.”

“Are you asking me?” Tamsy said softly, sitting next to you. “What do you think?”

You tried to focus. No problem, of course, you’d been trained for this. 

You tried to recount the moment. You’d dodged, your foot had caught on something, and then you’d gone down hard, straight into a heap of broken concrete and twisted pipes. In a strange stroke of luck, it was only your leg that had broken so badly. Still, the pounding in your skull and the nausea curling in your stomach made it pretty clear you’d hit your head too.

A trash beast had been killed. You had been sent to observe.

“My head feels weird,” you murmured, reaching for your notebook to record the observation. Your fingers fumbled for the pen, your grip unsteady as if the thing had suddenly become too heavy to hold. You tried to write, aware of Tamsy watching while you struggled to form the word concussion.

He came closer and his hand slipped around yours, steadying it. Through the blur in your vision, you watched as he guided your hand across the page, helping you finish the letters.

When the last squiggly ‘n’ was written, you smiled at the notebook, before smiling at him as well. “Thank you for your help.”

His eyes crinkled over his mask. “It’s my pleasure.”

A few more moments passed.

As if realizing you needed to complete the next part of your internal mission, you clumsily raised your hand to try and touch your choker to reach Semiu. Tamsy grabbed your hand and lowered it again, gently. You looked at him, confused. 

His eyes crinkled, still smiling. 

“Tamsy?” You said softly.

“Yes?” He replied, cheerily.

“Why aren’t we calling for back-up?” Your gaze dropped to your ruined leg. A wave of panic twisted through your stomach as you noticed the bone jutting through the skin again. God. Once the haze wore off and you weren’t half-dissociated anymore, that was going to hurt like hell. “I’m hurt.”

“Don’t you remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Oh dear… did you hit your head that hard?”

Before you could react, he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close. He nuzzled his forehead gently against yours, making sure the mask didn’t get in the way. 

“You must be in a lot of pain.” He said breathlessly.

“Huh?” You officially lost it. What was going on? Why was he acting this strange? Was he twirling around the subject, or were you really that concussed? You struggled a little to get out of his embrace, but to him, it probably felt like you were settling into his embrace. You could do little but let out another. “...huh?”

Tamsy pulled away from your face and your eyes widened as you saw blood on his mask. Was your head bleeding? That did make things way worse. Why wasn’t he panicking like you were?

“Tamsy? Why aren’t we calling back-up?” You asked again.

“You just asked me that.” He replied. “Are you dizzy? Why don’t you lie down for a bit.”

“You aren’t answering me.” 

The wind dragged through the polluted zone again, pushing gray dust over the broken concrete around you. Somewhere behind Tamsy, the corpse of the trash beast shifted as pieces of it settled, metal clinking softly against itself.

Tamsy tilted his head a little, like he was considering something amusing.

“Oh,” he said lightly. “Didn’t I?”

“No.” Your voice came out weaker than you meant it to. “You didn’t.”

Your head swam. The world kept tilting slightly to the left, like gravity was having a disagreement with itself. You tried to focus on his face, on the familiar curve of his eyes above the mask.

Something about the red smeared across the fabric kept pulling your attention.

“Tamsy,” you tried again, slower this time, like maybe clarity would come if you spoke carefully. “There are protocols. If a supporter is injured during…during a giver operation, we…”

His gloved fingers brushed your wrist where he still held your hand down, his grip gentle but firm enough that you couldn’t lift it.

“We call back-up. That is protocol, yes.” He nuzzled your forehead again. “Good job remembering that.”

You swallowed.

“That’s…my job.”

“Mhm.” He pat your head, and it made you feel even dizzier for a few moments. “And you are so good at it, aren’t you?”

Another pause stretched between you.

Your leg throbbed violently now, the shock starting to thin out. Every pulse of your heart sent another hot wave of pain up your body. You squeezed your thigh again instinctively, though your grip had gone weaker with only one hand, the other still firmly held by Tamsy.

“Tamsy,” you said again, more urgently this time. “I’m bleeding a lot.”

“I noticed.”

“So we should call-”

“You’re very observant today.”

Your stomach twisted.

You blinked at him.

“What?”

Tamsy leaned back slightly. His posture was casual.  Like you were huddled together watching a movie during a break instead of in the middle of a polluted zone with your bones sticking out.

His eyes crinkled again.

“You wrote it down and everything,” he said, nodding toward the notebook in your lap. “Concussion. Good job.”

Your gaze drifted to the page automatically.

Your chest tightened.

“Yeah,” you said slowly. “Because I think I have one.”

“Probably.”

“Which is… bad.”

“For you, yes.”

Your brain tried to follow that sentence and stumbled.

“…for me?”

“Mm.” 

Another gust of wind rolled across the wasteland, carrying the sour stink of rot and chemicals. Your mask filter buzzed harder for a second.

Your thoughts felt sticky. Like they were moving through syrup.

“Tamsy,” you whispered, suddenly very tired and very very scared, “can you please call Semiu?”

His eyes softened.

“Oh, dear.” he said quietly.

There was almost something blissfully fond in the sound.

“You still think we’re doing that?”

Your stomach dropped. Your breath quickened a little. You stopped trying to put pressure on your thigh and instead tried to push yourself upright, planting one shaky hand against the ground. Your arm trembled violently, matching your breathing.

The strength simply… wasn’t there.

Your elbow buckled before you could lift yourself even an inch, and you sagged back against him.

You swallowed hard and tried again, slower this time, willing your muscles to listen. Tamsy tilted his head the other way now, studying your face like he was watching something incredibly fun. 

“I did tell you,” he said.

A thin, helpless panic fluttered in your chest, beating faster and faster as the realization crept in that you weren’t able to get out of this. “Tell me what?”

“That you should lie down.”

Your vision swam again.

“I can’t lie down,” you muttered. “My leg…”

“You’re already halfway there.”

It took your brain a few seconds to process that.

You looked down.

At some point during your struggle, you had slid sideways against the broken concrete. Your body wasn’t upright anymore. Tamsy’s arm was loosely around your shoulders, keeping you propped up into the embrace.

You didn’t remember sinking down so much.

Panic fluttered weakly in your chest.

“Tamsy,” you said again, voice trembling now, your hands desperately clinging at your leg to keep pressure on it. The pool beneath you was growing. “You have to help me. Why aren’t you helping me?”

He looked at you for a long moment.

Then his eyes crinkled again in that same pleasant smile.

“You just asked me that.”

Were you going insane? Why was he acting this way?! Tears welled in your eyes and your lips wobbled as you tried to repeat your question again and again, still unsure why Tamsy was acting so crazy. Your bloodied hands couldn’t reach your choker, nor put enough pressure on your leg. He was just sitting there… watching!

You were going to bleed out.

With pure fear in your eyes, you stared up at Tamsy, knowing there was nothing you could do but bleed out into his arms if he didn’t allow you to call help. Even if help was called, you were quickly losing consciousness. They wouldn’t be here in time. You’d die. You were going to die. 

A distant engine cut through the wind.

Both of you turned toward the sound automatically.

At first it was just a low mechanical growl somewhere beyond the gray fog, vibrating through the piles of scrap and broken concrete. Then headlights pushed through the smog, two harsh beams cutting across the polluted landscape.

A truck.

Your brain lagged behind the obvious conclusion.

“…what?”

The vehicle rolled closer, tires grinding over rubble until it stopped a short distance away. The side door slammed open.

“Afternoon,” a familiar voice called out. “Cavalry’s arrived.”

Gris jumped down from the truck, already moving fast. His boots crunched across the debris as he crossed the distance between you.

Your brain stuttered.

“…Gris?”

He crouched immediately, eyes sweeping over your injuries with efficiency.

“Well, damn,” he muttered. “You really outdid yourself this time, huh?”

Gloved hands were suddenly everywhere: checking your leg, your arm, your pulse. Gris worked quickly, movements precise and practiced. He’d already brought a medkit.

“Your arm is broken. Head is bleeding,” he said aloud, half to himself. “Leg’s a mess too. Femur stickin’ out like it’s trying to escape-”

You blinked at him.

“How…?”

Gris looked up briefly.

“How what?”

“How are you here?”

Gris frowned slightly, like the question was odd.

“Tamsy called it in.”

Your gaze snapped toward the giver beside you.

Tamsy was still sitting exactly where he’d been, posture relaxed, hands resting loosely around you to keep you upright, looking like an angel keeping you company in your dire time. 

His eyes crinkled cheerfully when he noticed you looking.

“…you did?” you croaked.

“Of course,” he said affectionately. “It’s very important to me you make it out of here safe.”

Gris snorted.

“No flirting with my patients, Tamsy,” he said while wrapping a band around your thigh. “But good lookin’ out for her. Any later and she might’ve bled out. Couldn’t you have stopped the bleeding yourself, though?”

Tamsy shook his head. “My control over my vital instruments is not that delicate. I was worried I’d hurt her more if I tried to do something like that.”

Your brain still tried to reconcile everything with the last several minutes of conversation, not truly grasping the conversation the two men were having about you.

“But..” Your voice came out weak. “You…”

“Hold still,” Gris said, tightening the makeshift tourniquet. “This’ll suck.”

It did.

Stars burst behind your eyes as he secured the pressure band. You screeched wildly, for a moment completely out of control with the amount of pain coursing through your body. 

“You’re lucky he called when he did,” Gris continued matter-of-factly, like you’d not just metaphorically ruptured an ear drum. He was probably used to it. You did have a penchant for getting hurt, though never before like this. “We’ll get you to Eisha in no time.”

You stared at Tamsy.

He tilted his head at you, still smiling with his eyes.

“What a relief, isn’t it,” he said.

Your thoughts slid uselessly against each other.

Had he…?

But you’d asked him.

Multiple times.

Why hadn’t he just said-

Your head throbbed violently and the question dissolved before you could finish it.

“Alright,” Gris said after a moment. “Let’s get you in the truck before you start passing out on me.”

The ride back was bumpy.

You were half-propped against the side bench of the transport, Gris driving while Tamsy was keeping your leg raised, checking the bandages every few minutes while the engine rumbled beneath the floor of the car.

Your leg had been stabilized as best as possible. Your arm was splinted tight against your side and some impromptu stitching had made sure your head hadn’t bled more than it already had. The total pain had settled into a deep, throbbing burn that pulsed with every movement of the truck.

Your notebook still sat loosely in your lap.

You stared at the word concussion for a long time.

“…Tamsy,” you murmured eventually.

“Hm?”

He was sitting beside you, one elbow braced against the wall of the truck like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“You didn’t tell me you called backup.”

“I didn’t?”

You turned your head slowly toward him.

“No.”

“Huh.”

He sounded mildly surprised.

Gris snorted from behind the wheel.

“You’re concussed,” he said. “Memory’s gonna be a little scrambled.”

Maybe.

That had to be it.

“Oh… I’m sorry.” You said, feeling ready to cry by the relief of it all. You’d been scared to death, sure you’d die on a pile of polluted garbage. Tears welled up in your eyes, but you didn’t want to embarrass yourself any further, so you looked away, trying to ignore how Tamsy’s gaze had been zeroed in on your face the second you got emotional.

Tamsy pat your good leg comfortingly. “Don’t worry about it.”

You exhaled weakly and leaned your head back against the metal wall.

Something tugged at your skin.

Your eyes drifted downward.

For a second your brain didn’t quite register what you were seeing.

A thin strand of blue yarn wrapped around your ankle.

Tamsy’s hand rested loosely nearby.

And very casually, like he’d been doing it the whole time, he was slowly pulling the thread free.

A little more blue yarn slipped out from your ankle, disappearing into his sleeves.

Your eyes widened slightly.

Tamsy glanced over.

For just a second, his eyes met yours.

Then he gave you a small, playful wink.

The Braying Mule isn’t really anything out of the ordinary. It’s a relatively clean bar, safe and comforting. There’s people hanging out in groups, chatting the time away. It’s inviting, a warm (both literally, and in its autumn color scheme) place away from the rainstorm brewing outside. 

Strade blends into this place very well, actually. A middle-aged, plainly-dressed man in a bar drinking beer? Typical, expected. He’s openly friendly, it’s not off-putting for someone like him to come up and want to chat. He’s very obviously a regular here, stating that this is his favorite bar, implying that he might know everyone (or mostly everyone) here, and is perhaps on more than just a first name basis with some.

This is where you come in. In Rire’s route, you stick out badly, bringing attention to you with your demeanor and your attire. The Braying Mule is a bar where anyone and everyone is welcome. You, with your job or your education, your basic hobbies and inoffensive thoughts, blend in as well.

However, there are two things to consider.

1: The MC (You) feels out of place compared to the mingling patrons (BTD)

And 2: Strade’s never seen you around here before. (Both Games)

This is deeper than just having an MC, and a gameplay mechanic needed to progress the story.

When you look at Strade’s dialogue added to YKMET, he states, quote: “I was just thinking to myself how I wanted someone to talk to.” 

When combined with the later conversation after being kidnapped, when you threaten him that someone could’ve seen and called the police, he brings up the fact that the bar has four cameras, and that the second he locked eyes with you, they went down because of the rain.

This is interesting to note. Especially if you respond ‘Yeah’, to him asking if you just got off work, and were headed home. His face changes, pretty drastically, compared to any other option chosen. He goes from looking sympathetic, to looking fairly guilty, saying you have ‘terrible luck’, rather than just saying you’re ‘unlucky’.

The bar is a ‘great place for conversation’, (read: frequent bar goer) he says early on. And then later, ‘I guess your bad luck is my good luck.’ (read: the entire game)

The MC asks themself during a short downtime: “What am I doing here?”

There were plenty of other buildings to seek refuge in. Maybe further down there was a cafe, or maybe a restaurant, even a corner store. Maybe you didn’t live too far away, as you’re seen to be walking, rather than driving. 

But this bar is ‘nostalgic’. It calls to you quietly, and lulls you into a false sense of security. 

You wandered in to seek shelter, then were trapped, not only by the weather, but by Strade himself. 

So, we know why you’re there, and we know why Strade’s there, when taking his words into consideration.

He was casing the joint, eager to meet someone new to sate his ‘itch’, couldn’t take anyone already there, either because he knows them, or because they’re already paired with someone. He was waiting for someone unrecognizable.

This is possibly another explanation as to why no one is ever reported missing, even though he takes people from the Braying Mule all the time. 

Who’s going to remember the face of someone new? People are fickle, they bar hop all the time, if someone doesn’t come back, there could be a variety of reasons. Maybe they didn’t like the alcohol, maybe it just wasn’t their style. 

This scene in YKMET is very different than in BTD. Where you choose to go there, then choose if you want, to go home with Strade, leave, or use the bathroom. All of which lead back to Strade being overly aggressive with you, with a very short conversation beforehand.

YKMET: Strade has him more fleshed out right off the bat, making him feel like a father figure, emphasized with him saying that he likes to fix things for neighbours.

In Boyfriend to Death, getting kidnapped makes you feel punished for daring to walk through the doors to begin with. As if the MC made the wrong choice of bar to drink at. 

In YKMET, getting slammed against the brick wall, then thrown into Strade’s trunk makes you feel betrayed. The friend you made under poor circumstances, the upstanding, outgoing guy who loves machines has turned against you. You should’ve been more weary. But.. How could anyone have seen this coming?

As most would say. Though this is always the case when it comes to serial killers. They’re the ones you least expect.

His behaviour here should be noted as we go further into his game. The way he stands up  even before you answer yes-or-no to having a drink, the way he pressures you to drink if you do say no, the way he refuses to let go of you if you push him away when walking together.

Both Strade’s share this behaviour. In Boyfriend to Death, he is more relentless about it, whereas in YKMET he plays around with you more, lets up a little easier. 

Regardless of the game, Strade is self-righteous, almost viewing himself as immortal. Taking the cameras out of the equation, he seemed so sure no one would see you out on the street, even in BTD. He seemed so sure that you had absolutely no one to worry about you. When you’re at ‘home’, he knows Ren won’t come to save you. When you scream, both times on the first night in YKMET, Ren, and Ren with Strade, ignore you and go about their day. On the third night, the only one to get answered when calling for help is Strade himself, even the times when you’re right in front of Ren.

Strade’s done this dozens of times, says so himself if you ask him. No one has caught him, killed him, yet. 

When getting into the meat of things, we need to focus less on the torture itself (but we’ll discuss that too), and how the MC and Strade both interact with/react to each other. 

How both MC’s possible masochism and sadism is in tandem with Strade’s. How MC’s pain, fear, comfort, are all reflected off Strade like a mirror.

Before the game was ‘conceived’, Gatobob had done a playthrough on stream (now a VOD on her website under the gamepage for YKMET: Strade), saying early on that Strade had something called ‘dark empathy’. 

That this feeling he gets from others is an addiction, reiterated through flavor text in MC’s inner dialogue within the game. Such as, the very first torture scene with only the knife.

The MC writes Strade’s behaviour during the game off as weird. I write it off as fascinating. 

Here is where I want to talk about the original game for a bit, which came out nearly 10  years ago now. I want to point out not only the huge improvements in Gato’s writing between the two games, but Strade himself growing over the years as well. 

In Boyfriend to Death, Strade comes across as utterly selfish, and even amateurish. 

He is eager to get started the second he knows you wake up in the basement. He cuts you with no fanfare, no dialogue talking you through it, telling you how it’ll go. If you continuously refuse the stitches, he will not give them to you, instead leaving you to bleed without being cleaned up (or if you were cooperative/had low sanity, you get the bare minimum of a washcloth to the face). When not choosing the drill or the hammer, he outright mocks you, grinds his boot into your wounds, then says that some people weren’t meant to have control. 

The hammer scene in BTD plays out differently. He’s not drawing it out, he’s slamming nails into your body, then a screw, and before you know it, there’s a car battery stuck onto the metal and you’re convulsing until unconscious. In the same scene, if you spit at him, suddenly your leg is being sawed off and eaten by him.

Similar overt sadism happens with the drill as well. Where he’s drilling into you, and then again, cutting your leg open. Except this time, it’s fed to you instead. Otherwise, you’re a one-hole pony, before he forces himself upon you.

During floating death endings (as Gato calls them), he’s either uncaring, or obviously pissed off at something you did. 

Like, how if you cut yourself to death, he lets you and laughs (read: uncaring).

Or if you refuse to speak, he kills you, even though he went through the effort in taking you in, and it hasn’t even been a full day of you being there. (read: pissed off)

What I’ve learned from playing and replaying Boyfriend to Death, is that Strade only cares about two things. And that’s himself (his pleasure and safety), and Ren. 

Though I have to put Ren a bit further down in this analysis since it comes up later during a few YKMET scenes.

If the MC is bleeding and dirty, he only gives it thought for a scene that’s easily avoidable if you are persistent in saying no. If the MC is hungry or thirsty, he offers twice, but doesn’t linger on it. If the MC is crying and in pain (9/10 times), he reacts with excitement, and doesn’t offer much comfort, if at all. Sexual assault scenes are frequent, just as frequent as the dreaded love-stat death ending, which lets us know he is easily lost in his own feelings, even if the MC is actively dying. 

This Strade punishes you for having a knife, multiple times. Even when he’s dying, the only thing he can focus on is making you hurt, making you know that you fucked up. He gives no second chances. 

I’m certain in this particular game Strade has killed dozens as well, maybe even more, but it seems like he does it for the same reason someone has a quick hook-up, to get off and then leave. He says he wants to get to know you intimately, but then doesn’t give you many options to do much, or say much, without turning things for his own benefit. 

He’s obsessed with your pain, addicted to it, but not in the same way that he is in YKMET.

I want to get back on track. I want to dig my fingers into his head, read his thoughts and his expressions in YKMET extensively now. Every scene, every ending, every possible option. I’ve dedicated around 3 days straight of playing and re-playing YKMET, then watching playthroughs of others’ experiences with the game when not going through it myself. 

I’m definitely not some psychiatrist, but I felt like one at times, taking notes on pen and paper before formatting everything here. 

It’s odd from the start, just like MC says, when paying direct attention to Strade over everything else. 

He is still cruel, very much so, in some of his dialogue and actions. Like during the second day, before your choice between tools, as he’s telling you how cute you’d look with your liver in your mouth. And if you fall down the stairs during the first night, he’ll drill, or hammer nails into your broken knee, then press upon it on day three as it’s swelling (which happens regardless). 

But.. he is soft, too, just as much as he is sadistic. I think, omitting BTD2 Ren, Strade cares about you the most. And his care is cruel by default, yes, but these little mercies are something to look into.

During the intro, as I said before, he’s pressuring you to drink, eventually letting up and apologizing. This isn’t the only time within the game where this occurs. 

When you back out of cutting yourself, he says that he won’t make you. When he offers you the granola bar and you decline, he says again, that he won’t make you. Letting you have these choices, alongside the ‘major’ one, I think fits him nicely. He likes making you do things, but he also likes letting you have free reign, despite you not really being free.

During the first night, you can call him down (lie), and either ask for something to eat, or have him turn up the heat in the basement, both of which he obliges. If you’re low enough sanity, and nice enough to him, during the second night, he’ll touch you until you orgasm. The same goes for a hidden scene during the third and final night, where you back out of killing him at the last second, leading to a semi-consensual oral sex scene.

These are the more obvious soft moments. Interlaced between are times when he has feather light touches, he is careful around your wounds, and he is weary of the damage he’s causing. 

He doesn’t let you deny the stitches, even if you’re afraid of the needle or if you try to fight back. He doesn’t drop you like dead meat after the tool choices. Instead, he resuscitates you after the hammer, even kissing you after you gasp back to life. He makes sure to clean your ‘tiny holes’ after he loses control and forces himself upon you after the drill. 

There’s something to note about his words, too. The way he tells you to relax when kidnapping you, the way he talks you through the house and into the basement. The way he reassures that no, he isn’t going to hurt you yet. This continues throughout the entire game.

He’s very sweet, and unfortunately very honest, as well, when considering that he openly states how he thinks he’s going to kill you, and then later, that he had fun, but is going to kill you.

Even when you attempt to escape, both on the first and the third day, he understands, sympathizes with you. When you fall down the stairs, sure, he’s hurt you before, but it was all planned. He didn’t want you to break your leg, he even asks you not to cry otherwise he will (but he catches himself before really admitting that). You aren’t even punished for having the knife during this, or really during any other time, as he just makes a mental note that he needs to be more careful. 

You can attack him lots of times within the game, but to me, there’s two notable times that are important. Once, when given the knife to cut yourself. And the other, when you tie him up in his side room.

The first one shows us that he’s masochistic, too. That, even when he knows what you’re going to do, he wants you to anyway. The tension between you two, held tightly just for a few moments, before you lunge at him. Of course, you don’t actually get to hurt him, he stops you immediately, but that isn’t the point for him. This is another reason why I believe him to think of himself as immortal. That is..

Until you zip-tie his hands. 

But, now I want to focus on his face. Throughout the game, his expressions are varied, emotions plastered for you to see, unabashedly. This.. rage.. on his face that he has, when he knows he’s captured, knows you have the upper hand. It isn’t rage at all.

It’s fear. It’s desperation. It’s the turmoil of a man who has been turned to prey. 

Strade shows anger lots of times, but if you really look at it, it’s a manic sort of thing. A twisted growl, a smirk. You can see impatience twitch when he waits for your choice on day two. 

In Boyfriend to Death, even when you’re quiet, his anger is quickly dissolved into Schadenfreude. And in that game, the only time there is a similar look of terror/rage, it’s when you attack Ren and get the axe ending. 

That quick fear, one that falters out into complete silence. There’s no time to play around with you. He wants you gone, plain and simple.

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone ever say that Strade was afraid in that moment, maybe because we didn’t know he could feel that back then, but maybe it’s that fear and anger are hard to distinguish on a face sometimes. 

Ren was unable to defend himself. Ren was scrawny and skittish, and Ren wasn’t the Ren we know. Why wouldn’t Strade fear for him? Fear losing him?

In YKMET, attacking Ren leads to him fighting back, Strade kicks you off when you get close to killing him, but he knows that Ren had been down there anyway. Knew, before any real danger could arise. And he knows Ren has that backbone, an ache just like Strade does.

Just like you do.

-

There’s one ending that sticks out the most to me. Written off as just another death, but one with a layer of uncertainty to it. And it is uncertain at a surface level glance. But there is something deeper there. And to understand it, we need to go back and read Strade’s dialogue during day three with the table saw.

Strade says, quote: “I really love machines. Did I ever tell you that? I like to pull them apart and figure them out. But there’s more to it than that. Machines are all made by people. For a purpose.. Ah, an intention! I love to look for that intention. The reason people make what they make. Do what they do.” Pause. “People think machines are ugly. More than ugly. Repulsive. People make the machines, but they don’t want to look at them. I find that very interesting. But it does make sense, doesn’t it? Intentions can be very ugly.” End quote.

The main menu theme for YKMET is called ‘Words Are Such Gross Machinery.’ 

Within the game, MC’s inner monologue also mentions machinery, more specifically, when thinking about Strade. 

“He moved with perfect sureness and precision, like a well-oiled machine.” When choosing the hammer.

“I felt like I was being pushed through a corridor. Sweat and heat, walls closing and pushing me closer to a killing machine.” When choosing the drill.

Multiple different scenes say that Strade moves with mechanical precision.

This isn’t about the table saw, some power tool, or even the killing machines Beg and Cry from TINR. This is commentary on Strade himself, the things he does to Ren (and you), and a fourth wall break all in one. 

This is calling out to the player, even me, as I sit here and write this all down. Looking at something grotesque and wanting to know more, finding meaning in the grossness, finding comfort at the end of the bloody tunnel. 

Strade is a serial killer, not unlike real life ones. And this analytical behaviour is present in our everyday lives, living on in true crime documentaries and conspiracies around cold cases. The why and how. How could someone like Strade exist? Why would someone like this game, this.. man?

MC says in the uncertain ending ‘You Loved Him Too Much’, quote: “He was looking at me like he had destroyed something magnificent. Destruction is too simple. He was looking at me like he had built something magnificent.” 

From the ground up, Strade has built someone just like him. Taking you apart like one would a broken machine, and mending you to fit his worldview, sadomasochism and all.

Quote: “Once you stare into the sun long enough, you can’t see anything else. I shared his addiction now; His ravenous hunger for light and life. I opened my eyes and my body. And I let him inside.” End quote.

You had died, yes, whatever you that was there before wandering into the bar, before being torn apart, before breaking down completely. 

You metamorphosized into him. And so has Ren.

I was keeping this discussion about Ren, and the TPOF dream sequences that occur in the game, for last. I anticipated that this would take up most of the word count, and even though I wanted to strictly talk about Strade, I knew I had to include this as well. 

Afterall, there is no TPOF without Fox, no Fox without Ren, and no Ren without Strade. 

Strade was the catalyst for the entirety of Ren’s ‘dark path’, even though he had such a little cameo in TPOF himself. 

There’s 7 dream sequences that can occur on night two, I labeled and put them in a somewhat coherent order.

Fox (Beginning)

City (Celia)

Desert (Derek)

Mountain (Mason)

Death (End)

Doppelganger (Strade)

Lawrence 

Lawrence isn’t really necessary to go over, however the other ones are. 

The bold words are green in YKMET, being said by Strade himself, demon or not. These are just my interpretations, so bear with me. I’m open to what others might think about these, too. 

Fox is as follows:

I'm in a box. A moving box. Dark shapes of a world outside rushed past me.

Like a car... but I wasn't driving.

Why am I so afraid?

“Are you ready to live?”

The car is going too fast. I can't focus!

“Let me out!”

“You're already out. This isn't a test drive.”

“You're going too fast! There's fire!”

“You're already burning.

Living.”

“PLEASE LET ME OUT!!!”

“Oh... I love you so much.”

When you start The Price of Flesh, you’re groggy, waking up mid car ride to the auction, before someone notices you moving, and another voice tells them to put you back to sleep. 

In the beginning of YKMET, we all know Strade blindfolds you and throws you into his trunk. However, after the scene where he gets you off, he says that calling an orgasm ‘the little death’ in french doesn’t really make much sense, as this is as alive as you can get. 

I take this at face value, this dream meaning that this new life of torture is already living. That they aren’t trapped on a simple test drive. That they can’t get out of the car once the ride has started. They can’t get rid of Strade once he’s there. He’s imprinted, burned into their memories and onto their skin.  

City is as follows:

I was up somewhere high. The window was hard to see through. Cold.

“Are you down there?”

I tried to see, but it was blurry and dark. City lights bled through the window, into my eyes.

“I don't know. I can't see.”

“If you're not down there, where can you be?”

“What do you mean? I'm down there... I just can't see.”

I pushed my face against it and it stretched.

“Are you?”

My fingers began to poke through the glass. My weight pushed it further and further out. But I still couldn't see.

“You can stay with me, here.”

I pushed… My face slid through, followed by my body.

And I fell.

“I love you so much.”

If you have played Celia’s route, you know that you’re trapped within an abandoned office building on the very top floor.

Across the street from the bar in YKMET are very high-rise buildings, ones you have to crane your neck to see the top of. MC could be dreaming of themself up high, watching another version of themself down there walk into the bar. Wanting to stop it, they burst through the window, but it’s too late, they’re already inside.

I think of another scenario, too. One where the MC internalizes Strade’s fear of losing them, hence Strade wanting confirmation that they’re still down there (in the basement), and telling them they can stay there with him. 

Desert is as follows:

I struggled to breathe. Something weighed down on my body.

“Are you here yet?”

I struggled under the weight as panic travelled through my nerves. I can't breathe! I- I...

I thrashed in terror, and the sand fell away around me.

“Are you coming to see me? Will you ask for me?”

I blinked away the last grains and tried to see where I was. Nothing but darkness and warm sand. I tried to see a horizon, but I couldn't focus.

“There will be blood here. But not yours.”

“Hello? Who are you?”

I tried to stand up, but I couldn't seem to get a foothold. The sand kept shifting under me.

“PLEASE!”

“Exquisite vitality... Sublime profanity…”

I sank into the softness and screamed.

“I love you so much.”

This one takes place in Derek’s route, the only time Strade appears at all in TPOF. Morphed into a demon of pure sadism, feeding off of pain and fear. 

There will be blood here, he says, but promises that it won’t be ours. MC dreams of being crushed, suffocated under sand, but it's as if they’re being crushed under Strade’s expectations, too. The expectation to survive the climate, to ask for him, to bring upon him by killing another as a sacrifice. 

Are you here yet? Yet, implying that you will be there, eventually, inevitably. The MC dreams of something that is bound to happen, written in stone. They’ll go through this again, and go through the path needed to reconnect with Strade again. Nightmares of forever.

Mountain goes as follows: 

My body ached from climbing. That's right... I was climbing a tree.

I grabbed and pulled, fighting through a thick canopy.

“Can you see it yet?”

Frustration and sharp branches clawed at me.

“Just... a little more”

“Are you looking?”

My head burst into clear night air. I saw a mountain, and a forest.

“Look.”

“At what? What am I supposed to-”

My body froze. Cold sweat covered my palms.

“Where are they?”

Something smiled, and I stared into the sky.

There was no moon. There were no stars.

“No…”

There was nothing. Only nothing.

I looked down as the world shifted.

“Why don't you let go?”

My hands slipped as I tried to grasp the rough branches. They flowed through my fingers as my legs dangled into the sky.

“NO!”

I couldn't hold on. They wouldn't stay still.

“I love you so much.”

I fell into the void.

The tree overlooking the neverending forest, and Mason’s cabin. 

This is another falling dream, except this time, you’re falling up without meaning to, as if sucked into the black hole of a sky. MC is trying to grasp onto the world, as meaningless as it could be. This is fear of losing what they have in life, losing themself before Strade. Strade wants them to let go, there’s no need to hope for something else other than this life they have now, can’t they see it yet?

(Another thing I noticed, and perhaps am just projecting, but ‘I stared into the sky. There was no moon. There were no stars’ reminded me of My Own Summer by Deftones. If that was intentional, that's pretty awesome on Gato’s part.)

Death goes as follows:

I gasped and sat up slowly. As my eyes adjusted slowly, I took in the soft waves of the snow. It fell around me in thick, warm clumps.

“Are you listening?”

Of course, none of that was real. Silence and snow surrounded me. Softly caressing me.

“Why won't you listen?”

I looked for the voice.

“I am listening.”

No wind or muted snowfall penetrated my cloak.

I am happy here.

I am safe here.

“You are not here.”

The voice!

I screamed at the voice.

I screamed again.

Why couldn't I hear!?

“I will listen for you. And you will scream for me.”

“I love you so much.”

A Mason ending that happens when you wander the wilderness until the beginning of winter. Or, have a run-in with Lawrence, and more importantly, death itself. The snow is warm because you’re hypothermic, actively dying. 

This is an escape for MC, a way to forget about Strade and the things that ‘aren’t real’. They are bickering with the voice, no longer afraid, and no longer tormented. They are angry that it won’t listen to their pleas for death, and Strade is angry that they want to die (read: you are not here). He takes their voice, as it is all they have left to fight him with, and morphs it to scream for death by his hand, and his hand only.

Doppelganger goes as follows:

I blinked and strained to see in the darkness. Slowly, I began to make out a shape. It moved with me.

“Who am I?”

I fearlessly reached out and touched the moving shape. My fingers met soft, familiar flesh.

“Oh. It's me.”

“It's me.”

It was my skin, I could feel it. I could tell by the electricity inside it.

“That's me.”

I moved, and my reflection moved with me.

“Are you sure?”

My fingertips halted, gently pressed against my own. I tried to focus on the details.

What do I look like? What am I supposed to look like? Who is this?

“It's me.”

Filled with sudden revulsion, I pulled back.

But I did not.

I reached for my throat as I stumbled backwards.

“I love you so much.”

You and Strade are now one. You love him so much that you two are indiscernible from each other, sharing the same familiar flesh and electricity. 

Ren and Strade are now one. Strade loves Ren so much that Ren is now molting from himself, ready to burst out of his cocoon to show off his new body. 

You and Ren are now one. Two victims that went through near identical situations, picked out of hundreds of others to live. 

You are not scared in this nightmare as you are in others. You are repulsed, but curious about the thing in front of you. You do not try to run, you do not try to escape, you merely pull back and clutch onto yourself, as if confused as to how you ended up like this.

You understand Strade on a deeper level, forced to stoop to his fervent sadomasochism. You’re a cog in a machine that he created, his words your blueprint. 

I’m unsure of where the MC ends up after this specific ending. I’m unsure of just how bad the chaos of having not one, not two, but three ‘Strade’s’ all in one house would be. 

I know it would be repulsive, I know it would be ugly. But there’s something to admire about a love so violent, so sadistic, and so self-destructive. 

You must have fainted at some point, or your kidnapper put you to sleep with their abilities, as you couldn't remember how you ended up on a soft, white duvet. Soft chattering reached your ears, predictably, it was in a language that you couldn't understand… or comprehend.

You felt a presence behind you as dainty fingers caressed your arm in a feathery fashion, causing it to tickle and itch at some points. You groaned as you tried to focus your vision and regain your strength. You're unbelievably disoriented, there are times where you were tempted to give in, to fall back asleep to the gentle cooing and touches. But you fought that urge away and kept your eyes open anyways.

You're in a communal area of sorts. A lounge, where it doesn't look luxurious, but it looks cozy. Cushions, pillows, mattresses and other soft furniture filled the room. Some beds were elevated off the ground, some were simply on the floor next to weathered coffee tables. The walls are chipped and peeling, dimly and warmly illuminated by oil lanterns.

Humanoids and creatures alike were enjoying their time, pouring broth from teapots to teacups for each other. Some are asleep, most are socializing over food and drinks, a handful were reading and there were a dozen receiving massages.

You turned your head to see who is behind you. It's unsurprisingly, none other than the androgynous entity that assaulted your mouth and throat. They're laying on their side, propping the side of their head on an elbow. Inky black strands of hair also joined into stroke your skin, as if they're petting a domesticated animal.

They smiled before cooing something at you. Of course you wouldn't understand anything, so you ignored them.

It only earned you a kiss on the lips. After that, they brought their attention elsewhere and began talking again, you think that they're in the middle of a conversation when you woke up.

You looked around and saw that they were talking to a humanoid hanging above the two of you, resting on a hammock.

You felt something on your neck. Touching it, it felt like their hair, soft and silky. But you couldn't take it off you no matter how much you pulled on it. Then you remembered, your assailant could control their hair with some sort of magic, using them as another limb.

An additional pair of hands from their back went on to tenderly discourage you from tugging on your collar. But they weren't making it into a big deal, continuing to converse nonchalantly as you tried to swat their hands away.

They paused mid sentence seeing that you're still defiant and kicking up a fuss. Within a split second, you felt like you were in a paradise that's secretly a hell. They're using their powers on you to release all tension from your body, so much so that you lose all control over your muscles.

You're too relaxed, letting drool drip down the corner of your mouth. You were immobilized for the next few minutes while the two wrapped up their conversation for the day.

Once the other party left the area, your kidnapper turned you around to face their ethereal, smiling face. They tangled their legs with yours and nuzzled their nose in your face.

They used a pair of hands to massage your neck and sensually card through your hair. The other pair was used to slowly rub all over your body, most egregiously, under your clothes.

You just realized that you were given a change of clothing, you're now wearing something similar to the ravenette, with your back fully exposed for them to violate too.

Quiet smooches and smacks reached your ears as they peppered kisses all over your face, concentrating their focus primarily on your lips. They would linger a lot more once they touched your mouth, letting their soft and succulent kisser meld with yours. Their tongue lapped any stray tears or spit that may have dribbled down your chin.

Eventually, they stopped. Lying their head on the pillow you shared with them, looking at you with adoring green eyes and holding a content smile on their androgynous face. Movements from their hands and hair ceased to a halt, each appendage resting on a different body part of yours.

They sighed, closing their eyes in serenity.

This didn't stay long, though. A shadow loomed over the two of you, making your captor shoot their eyes open in alarm. They suddenly sat up, cross-legged, pulling you into their lap and protectively holding you in their six arms. It appears that they grew an extra pair due to stressful stimuli. A hand was wrapped around the back of your head, another on your spine, another on your sides and rear.

Not only that, their hair encased you in a cocoon, further protecting your neck, face, and wherever else it can gain purchase on your body. Their grip on you became uncomfortably tight as if they were expecting the other party to snatch you away from their arms.

You heard talking, the stranger seemingly taking on a teasing tone of voice, while the ravenette had an edge to theirs.

You thought that this provoking encounter caused them to loosen their spell on you, just enough for you to regain control of a limb. You used your fingers to pry the hair off your eyes, revealing that a woman is seemingly taunting your captor while leering at you deviously.

None of the other members of this lounge bothered to look, but it appeared as if they were uncomfortable too. They're avoiding your gaze and a few handful even decided to leave the place discretely. Looks like they didn't want any trouble for themselves either.

You felt them flinch when the woman suddenly lurched forward, their once soft strands tensing up until they almost resembled metal wires. You didn't like how it pressed deep into your vulnerable human flesh, but at this point, you think your captor is the lesser of two evils.

The woman threw her head back in a loud, condescending laugh, pointing at the two of you and speaking at a blaring volume. You're assuming that she's humiliating them or something along the lines of that.

In the end, though, they scrambled to get up on their feet. Making a mad dash when fleeing the scene with you still protectively packaged in their hold. You had to squint and scrunch your forehead when the blinding Venus sun stabbed your eyes, their hair did help to shade you from it at a considerable level, but it's still blazingly hot and bright. Especially you just came from a cool, dimly lit room.

They ran as fast as they could, whizzing through the cramped alleyways and dodging other citizens of this complicated place. You felt the wind hitting the skin that was exposed to the air.

Only when they deem it to be safe enough, they planted their back against a wall and gently let you down. However, you're still mentally imprisoned within the bars of their telekinesis. You're standing, but you feel extremely cozy, not wanting to run away or do anything else.

Your eyes did scan the environment, though. It appears as if your captor has taken you to a completely different city, or perhaps you're just not as well-versed in Venusian geography. This could be the same area where 2718 fought with the giant and where the library is located. But one thing is for certain, you didn't remember being here. This is an entirely new place for you.

They warily looked around, when they truly think that they're off the hook, they let out a relieved sigh before giving you an apologetic smile. They said something as they ran their slender fingers through your hair, tidying it and brushing stray strands away from your face. As usual, you didn't understand a word.

They began pressing kisses on various spots on your face, tenderly cupping your cheeks with their soft hands. They spent the next few minutes loving you up, caressing you as much as possible with their extra limbs and hair. All this while, you couldn't muster the willpower to pull away.

They stopped when they heard your stomach growl. Which caused your face to heat up, and you felt embarrassed. But you are hungry, you don't know how long it has been since you last ate, you are sure that it's been a good while, though.

They giggled, clapping one of their many pairs of hands as they cooed something at you. Your captor had a rope of their hair swirled around your neck, its movements reminded you of a snake constricting its prey. It wasn't too tight that you couldn't breathe, but any deviation from where they intended you to go, you felt uncomfortable.

They encased a large hand around your relatively smaller one and began walking in a specific direction.

You looked down. Feeling slightly upset that the new shoes you woke up with aren't as comfortable as what 2718 originally gifted you. It's noisier and you tend to scrape against the rough ground, your kidnapper wore the same type too.

You can't lag behind, or the leash around your throat will tug you forward.

-

They cooed at you as they presented a flower, it looks very similar to that of a cacti bloom. It smelled faintly fruity, you're not sure what exactly it is. They had bought it off from a random vendor, you're unsure as to how much it costed as you weren't paying attention to the type of coins being exchanged.

And in their other hands, held some sort of fruit- it's deep red in color and has a matte skin. You think it's related to a prickly pear, except it has no pricks. Probably due to centuries of selective breeding, it does make sense for this to be available in Venus, though. As the climate here seem to be more arid than anything.

You had no idea what to do with the flower, so you looked up at them for advice. They were sitting on the carpet elegantly with their legs to the side, other patrons are also relaxing and socializing in the surrounding areas. Your captor plucked a handful of it's magenta petals and placed it on their serpent like tongue before chewing on it.

You were about to do the same, but they let out a sound that indicated you shouldn't do such things. Your captor confiscated the flower from your hands and set it on their lap.

They brought their face close and pressed their lips against yours. Tongue prodding against them, and you were powerless to stop them from inserting the pulp.

It's… nice. Sweet, a bit tart. Perhaps it's due to your captor chewing, the pulp had the texture of mildly chewier oatmeal.

They fed you like a mother bird, petal after petal. Maybe you were just too hungry to give a damn, you accepted it as if it was normal and was grateful that you get to satiate your hunger.

Eventually though, you pulled away. Having enough of the masticated petals, you wanted to try the real thing. So you quickly plucked one and shoved it into your mouth. This earned a panicked exclamation from them. And you quickly found it to be justified.

Because your entire mouth stung. It's so bitter, so spicy and just horrible. You spat it out and hacked, coughing up a lung as your tongue felt like it was sloughing off your orifice.

You whined, making them hold you in place and press their mouth against yours again, greedily. After a bit, you stopped squirming, it seemed like their saliva neutralized whatever damage was done by the petal. Their tongue lapped against every and any sore spot, thoroughly cleaning them.

Once you recovered, you heard them sigh as they cupped your cheeks lovingly. They proceeded to peel open the fruit, abandoning the blossom for now. They took a bite and chewed, tilting your head towards them.

Even though the unchewed version of the fruit looked delectable and juicy, you learned your lesson. You don't think you would want to eat it straight from their hands anymore. So you opened your mouth and fed yourself from their tongue.

It simply tasted like some vague fruit puree. It's surprisingly cold, too. It felt bizarre to be eating from their mouth; there isn't any experience you can compare it to. This is entirely new.

Once the feeding was done, they wiped your lips and smiled with that stupid, eerie, lovesick expression that you grew to be more afraid of.

They said something, seemingly trying to coax you to agree to whatever they have in store for you. Not knowing what to do, you simply stared and tried to make sense of them through general body language or cues. Your captor must have found this adorable, though, as they clasped their hands together and let out a soft squeal before littering your face with kisses.

They then got up, not without you in their multitude of arms. They have their hair wrapped around you like a baby sling, shielding your eyes from the scorching sun with inky strands shaped into a visor.

You felt yourself bob up and down as they traversed through the crowds, your eyes darting around to try and catch any signs of the translator or 2718.