Oh man

The world is literally falling apart – death knocks at the door on a daily basis, a constant reminder of the impending doom awaiting. And yet, even with all of the horror and anxiety rippling through Middle Earth, there’s something to be said about finding the small bits of bliss that one can find in such dark times. Bliss that, it just so happens, is intimately and exclusively tied to you – their feelings grow that much stronger, that much darker, that much more inescapably desperate because you are quite literally the only thing that brings them joy.

And while it may feel sacriligious to expend so much energy on romantic pursuits during such dire times, they can't help it. You become a sort of drug to them; something light and wonderful and holy in this hellhole of a situation, and with each and every passing day they get closer and closer to snapping. They take another step toward complete dependence on you, their mental state beginning to hinge entirely on whether you’ve smiled at them that day, whether you’re still alive and breathing, whether you’d let them take a fistful of your hair and pull you into a kiss so eager and needy that it hurts. It’s unhealthy – and unproductive – and many of them even know it, but they simply can’t help it.

In a world desperate to strip away everything they know and love, how can they be expected to give up something so perfectly and overwhelmingly theirs?

And of course, the individual characters themselves are landmines of potential, too – ignoring many of the canonical relationship, of course. (Though some couples would be more than eager to let another into the safe haven of their love, even if the addition themselves is less excited. Less reciprocated. Less willing.) The main cast are such upstanding, valiant characters, and yet every angel loses its wings, some weakness in morality rearing its ugly head in the worst imaginable way.

And while each character displays these rather unsettling tendencies in their own unique manner, one thing unites them all: their ability to completely and utterly creep you out.

For Frodo, the Ring steals more than just his sanity and friendships. It starts to infect every relationship he holds - reaching into his most intimate feelings and thoughts with cold, bony fingers and tugging, leaving him disoriented and mistakenly redirecting the insanity and possessiveness brewing inside of him toward another target: you.

The sweet, gentle Frodo you'd come to know slowly morphs into a shell of the man you once knew, his eyes growing more sunken and his breathing becoming more irregular each time he sets sight on you. He's plagued by the Ring's whispers of how you're being stolen away from him, how you'll leave him, how you'll ultimately abandon him and leave him so, so terribly alone.

And while Frodo can initially fight it off, he loses the battle and slowly allows the thoughts to take root and bloom into something sinister, something paranoid, something grotesque.

Because what ultimately makes Frodo a creep is just how posessive the Ring makes him.

He'll confide in you, clutching onto you with trembling hands and teary eyes, murmuring about how he simply can't do this anymore, burying his face against your neck and nuzzling against the warm skin as you sooth him. You're murmuring words of encouragement, telling him that the quest is nearly over, that he's the strongest hobbit you've ever met, and suddenly he's stilling.

The praise strokes at something deep inside him, making his cheeks feel warm and his fingertips pulse, pleasure licking at him because oh, don't stop, tell him more more more. But then your words ring through his mind again, and something cold and ugly grips at him.

The strongest hobbit you've ever met? Just how many hobbits do you know? How many men have you been getting familiar with?

The teary eyed look is suddenly replaced with bared teeth and knotted brows, his hands moving from a frantic grasp onto you to sharp nails and firm muscles pulling you flush against him as he growls out a muffled 'm the only hobbit you know. Tell me I'm the only one you truly know.

Your sound of confusion isn't enough for him. He grips tighter, his skin hot against your own. Tell me you don't know any others. And if you do, I will rip out their throats for ever speaking to you.

His breathing is uneven at this point, his hearbeat practically pulsing through his chest, and you'll be left to meekly assure him that he's the only one you truly know, that you haven't been spending time with Sam, Pippin, or Merry, that he's the closest man in your life.

(He flinches when you say the names of his three companions, something like a hiss slipping through his chapped lips.)

It's only after a few tense, silent moments in which Frodo mutters incoherently under his breath that he relaxes slightly, his grip no longer digging his nails into your skin, his hug feeling less suffocating. He'll pull back, tearstreaks still fresh down his face, but the livid grimace and wide eyes are now replaced by a slight flush and a boyish, shy smile, his voice cracking slightly as he tells you that he's really flattered, that means - that means more than you could possibly imagine.

It's like whiplash, and with each and every day the Ring slowly grows to exert control over him in this fashion - leaving you to blindly agree with his words, saying anything and everything to appease him, even if your promises of devotion, love, and eternity make your skin crawl. But even once the Ring is no more than molten magma once more, the sense of bitter possessiveness never truly deserts Frodo - he may be more in control, but he hasn't been quite the same since returning to the Shire.

But oh, lucky him - you're there to keep him sane, aren't you? To keep him tethered to reality, to keep him from losing himself entirely. And aren't you just so very fortunate to be tied up in Bag End with Frodo? Completely and utterly alone with him?

In contradiction, Sam takes a different tact in letting his yandere tendencies show. He may have begun this journey with a woman close to his heart, but what is Rosie compared to you? You, the woman with whom he shares so much trauma and comradery, whose kind words, supprotive mannerisms, and determination have saved his life more than he'd care to admit?

And while you've merely quietly thanked him for his dedication to Frodo, for making frequent campside dinners, laughing at his one-off, accidental jokes, it's enough for Sam. It's enough because he's so far from home, so completely out of his element and faced with horror after horror that he's eagerly and frantically jumping at the few meager scraps of kindness and peace you provide him.

He blows your presence way out of proportion - becoming dependent upon you to brighten his day and keep him from losing all hope as Frodo declines, his very mood tied to what you've said to him in the last twenty minutes. And Sam, ever the chivalrous creature, feels that he must repay you somehow for all that you've done for him as his emotional anchor: he vows to become your personal servant, for lack of a better term.

He's so attuned to you that it's genuinely terrifying. He learns your every mannerism and habit, honey brown eyes keeping watch as you walk, sleep, talk, watching you from his bedroll to see how you act when you think the entire camp is asleep.

(He'd insisted on keeping his roll close to yours of course, because the wind brings the faint wafts of your scent close to him, the smell making his eyes flutter and his body feel suddenly too hot in his cloak.)

He learns everything he possibly can, and sets out to become as helpful as possible for you. He wants to ease your burden and make you as comfortable as possible given the nature of the quest, and will eagerly jump at the chance to aid you in any way he can.

You're hungry? Well, Sam's noticed how you ocassionally frown and lightly ghost a hand over your stomach. He's already unwrapping the packed snacks he keeps in his satchel, carefully handing the items to you (he's sure to let his fingers brush your own ever so slightly, trying to hold back the shiver that wracks his whole spine at the contact). You'll excitedly thank him, making some comment about how you've been starving but were too embarassed to say anything.

You're tired? Well, it's not too hard to pull Boromir or Gimli aside and make some vague comment about how you're exhausted but too shy to request that you stop early for the night. (And when Gimli remarks that it's still light out and thus too soon to make camp, Sam will only gulp, pushing the guilt down as he lies about how you're on her womanly cycle, you know, and I think she's putting on a real brave face but can't hold out too much longer... you understand.) It feels bad to lie, sure, but then Gimli's going bright red and nodding conspiratorily, loudly complaining about how he's tired of running and needs to rest for the night. Sam will float back to your side, watching out of the corner of his eye as you slowly sigh in relief, thanking Sam because you know he did something but you're not sure what.

It's sweet at first and feels nice to have someone so clearly attentive to your needs, but where this veers into creep territory is when Sam continues to push the bounds of what he notices. It's kind when he observes that you're hungry or tired, sure, but when he actually does notice that you've begun your monthly blood without you once mentioning it, it's significantly less endearing.

(He's at your side with extra leaves and cloth torn from his own clothing to offer you, a lopsided grin on his face as he tells you to be careful, to lsiten to your body, to take it easy and not push too hard. And when you try to discard the now bloody rags, don't fight too hard when he eagerly snatches them from you, promising to wash them in the next river. You see them poke out of his pocket at the next major body of water, still bright red, but it's best to not mention it.)

It's disturbing that he seems to know what you need before you vocalize it, really before you even realize it yourself, and soon you'll begin to feel as if you're under a magnifying glass, his gaze feeling heavier and incriminating the longer it goes on.

But what can you really say? He's so hellbent on being helpful, useful to you, and how can you complain that he's trying his best to accomodate you? What grounds do you even have to complain on? Perhaps you're just being too sensitive. Yes, surely that's it - irritability brought on by the stress of Orc attacks and dangerous roads.

You can endure it until the end of this nightmare. You must.

Though of course, it's not really over even after the Eagles deliver an unconcious Frodo and Sam from Mordor. If anything, it only grows worse - but how could you ever possibly be unnerved by the ever-sweet, ever-innocent Sam? You'd be a monster.

For Pippin, his lack of subtlty is exactly what makes him so creepy. Well, that and his belief that what's his is yours and vice versa. He builds up your relationship into something much, much greater than it is in his head, coming to the conclusion that his obsession is matched equally and that the two of you have begun a courtship of sorts, even if you've never officially confirmed it. All it takes is for you to laugh at a single one of his jokes and throw him a perfectly timed smile and he's smitten, his infatuation growing with every word you speak and speck of attention you throw him.

And this sense of shared belongings leads to a rather troubling development: Pippin procures a nasty habit of rifling through your stuff. There's a giddy, excited smile on his face as he does it, stopping and picking up each and every item of yours, turning it in his hands and scrutinizing every angle to try to discern its use, relevance to you, and any other significant qualities he can find.

He's looking for signs of wear and tear, trying to discern which items you use most regularly, running a thumb over the material and often bringing it up to his nose and deeply inhaling, letting his eyes flutter closed at the indescribable scent of you.

He genuinely means no ill intention with this habit. He's prone to interpreting your civil, friendly actions as something more profound, and is completely under the impression that you're attracted to him just as he is you. And as such, you wouldn't mind that he's curious about you, that he's touching your comb, that he's grabbing fistfuls of your undergarments and pocketing them for a later time.

(A later time that isn't exactly private - a later time that Pippin wouldn't be opposed to sharing with you, should you express the interest. And oh, how he wishes you would...)

But while this alone will leave you with a sense of betrayal at his blatant disregard for your personal boundaries, what truly clues you into the extent of Pippin's obsession is when he begins not only snatching away small items of yours, but donning them himself.

The extra broach you'd brought along as a reminder of home is suddenly missing from your small satchel one day, and one look over at the beaming hobbit sees the shining metal attached securely to his own cloak, resting right above his heart.

You can't find the ring you wear religiously as a keepsake of your parent? It's wrapped around Pippin's finger, gleaming in the light as he splays his fingers, admiring the craftsmanship and ocassionally bringing it up to his lips to leave a much-too-long kiss.

And very, very quickly you'll notice this behavior. He's not exactly subtle when he's humming and sorting through your meager bag of things, holding up fabrics to feel between his fingers, pulling out the strands of your hair left on the items and placing them against the thick wool of his cloak so that they stick against his chest.

You'll be very aware, having caught him numerous times and confronted him about it. But it's hard to get through to him when he only smiles bashfully up at you, his cheeks tinged a light pink from both embarassement and excitement that you're standing so close to him and looking at him, and it's like he doesn't even hear you. His expression doesn't change even as you tell him to quit poking around your stuff, even when you tell him that he's practically stealing from you.

He'll only laugh lightly, twirling the ring on his finger and reaching out to playfully nudge you. Come now, there's no reason to pretend.

He won't elaborate and instead only sends you a wink, walking off to join Merry, Frodo, and Sam and leaving you to stare dumbly behind him, total confusion at what he could possibly mean.

It isn't until much, much later that you get a clear answer: Pippin firmly and completely believes that by wearing your clothing and accessories, it's like a stake of possession over him. It makes him feel wanted, needed, a testament to your 'relationship' and a sign that you want the whole world to know that Peregrine Took is yours. It fuels his delusions and his infatuation, its claws sinking deeper and deeper into him with every passing day, but by the time you learn what his behavior is really stemming from it'll be much too late.

Because once you catch a very familiar bit of white, soft cotton sitting high on against his hip and dipping down between his legs, you'll realize that Pippin's attachment is much deeper and much more disturbed than you'd initially thought. He just loves you so, so very much - so much so that even your undergarments aren't off limits.

While it isn't necessarily creepy, as his obsession with you begins to take root and he spends more time with you, Merry will grow a nasty habit of telling you half-truths. He's never claimed to be the smartest nor most eloquent hobbit, but as his infatuation begins to become more and more ever-present and impossible to ignore, so too becomes his desperation to appear as desirable to you as possible.

It starts off as a genuine white lie brought about by a sense of pride and a blooming crush on you very early on into meeting him. He's with Pippin, chatting away with you and Legolas. Legolas had mentioned some off-handed comment about his surprise at hobbits having such high endurance, and Pippin had immediately puffed up his chest. We hobbits have got many talents you wouldn't expect! I, for example, hold the record for the most pints of ale drunk in a single hour back home!

And without thinking Merry's eyes are darting back to your face to see your reaction, panic prickling along his skin when he sees the way you chuckle a bit, rolling your eyes and saying of course, Pippin.

It's out of his mouth before he can even think it, some deep-seated desperation to make you look at him that same way washing over him. Actually I'm the true holder of the record! Pip just doesn't remember because he was already so drunk he'd passed out.

Pippin splutters at this obvious lie, an argument sprouting between them already, but your giggle and soothing if you say so, Merry makes his eyes flutter slightly, his knees feeling weak and his Adam's apple bobbing up and down harshly.

And it only builds from there - small things that seem to just spill out of him before Merry can even think about it.

You're walking beside him talking about how you've always been terrible on horseback? Merry's cutting through your self-deprication with I've got some skill myself, I've been told I'm the best hobbit rider there is.

(He's only ever ridden by himself once, on a small pony, and promptly fell off seconds after sitting down.)

You're both seated around the fire in the evening, Aragorn twirling the long roasting stick impaling a rabbit for dinner. It's quiet, but Merry is compelled to speak up with I'm a well-known cook in the Shire, you know, always getting asked to make things.

(Sam frowns at this and Pippin opens his mouth to mention that everything Merry touches burns, but Aragorn only faintly smiles at you, shaking his head. It's only when you nod at Merry and say we'll have to put your skills to the test that he panics, puffing his chest out and stuttering well - well, I don't have the right supplies on the road, you see, so I don't think it'll taste much the same.)

It's harmless at first, sure, but as time passes and Merry feels more and more pressure to see the amused, impressed look on your face, the lies get more and more elaborate. He's claiming that he's had loads of hobbit women swept off their feet by him, that he's always having to break hearts to keep himself available for the only special lady in his life.

(He's so eager when he checks your reponse to that, eyes scanning your face with a sort of frantic need to see any sign of jealousy cross your features, the disappointment he feels when there's none only spurring him on further.)

Then he's claiming that he's a prolific kisser, boasting about how he always leaves the ladies wanting more, licking his lips for good effect and holding very intense eye contact with you the whole time.

(His eyes only briefly dart down to look at your own lips, the sudden mental image of kissing you making his face turn beet red, his cloak feeling too hot and his ears ringing so loudly that he misses the way Pippin snorts and tells Frodo that's rubbish, that is, Frodo only half-smiling and shrugging.)

So while it's not insideous in and of itself, what makes this habit of Merry's uncomfortable is that the lies are only ever directed at you and only ever concern his ability as a partner. They're always claims of his romantic and sexual prowess, spoken too forcefully and with obvious holes in his stories. He'll contradict himself, saying anything he can that he thinks will impress you and lead you to develop feelings for him, and the sense of desperation oozing off of him in waves will be very tangible for you.

It's alarming, the level to which he morphs himself to what he percieves as your tastes and desires, and what will truly have your skin crawling is the realization that he holds absolutely no self-respect or dignity in the face of your attention and attraction. He's willing to change himself and become whoever you'd like him to be should it encourage your affections, abandonding core beliefs and values just to chase after a single smile or murmur of his name.

It's disturbing, and though you'll try to distance yourself from him, you simply won't be able to - because Merry's attachment has sunk its claws into you, grasping on and completely unwilling to let go, no matter how hard you try to pryor shake him off.

He just really, really likes you, and getting your pity is better than your inattention.

You never would have pegged Aragorn to be an oversharer when you'd first met him. Brooding and serious, with the pretty crystal carving perpetually sitting at the hollow of his throat, you'd always deemed him to be private to a fault.

And you hadn't been wrong, technically - he is reserved, at least with most aspects of his life. He's not parading around flaunting his vulnerabilities, nor does he share every single detail about his personal life.

But that's not to say that he's completely tight-lipped about it. He lets things slip, here and there. Words spoken into the darkness of long nights staring out into the open expanses of land, surveying for orcs or other similar enemies while his allies rest by a dimming fire.

Perhaps it's the sense of duty slowly beginning to outrun him as heir, or maybe even a desperation driven forth by the stakes of his quest to protect Frodo. Regardless, one thing becomes very clear to you as the weeks of journeying begin to blend together: Aragorn may be private, but he's not secretive.

The first time you hear Arwen's name from his lips, there's a small smile on his face and he's looking down at his hands. You're sitting across from him by the fire, Gimli snoring peacefully alongside Pippin off to the right, the rest of the company breathing deeply, soundly. You'd volunteered to help Aragorn keep watch for the night, insisting that the Ranger rest too, for fear that he'd collapse on the battlefield.

It'd been an innocent question, really - just something to get your mind distracted away from the anxiety gripping you with every slight rustle of the trees or squeak of an animal. It'd just been a simple inquiry of who this mysterious elf is that his heart beats for - just a request to hear about the woman who tamed the mighty Aragorn.

And he's telling you sweet things, too. He's murmuring about her strength, her sense of purpose and morality, her ability to be soft and hard simultaneously. It's poetic, really, the words slipping from his lips sounding akin to the lovesongs you'd sung as a child.

And the conversation only ends when he makes a single comment that you'd merely nodded and smiled at: she'd love to meet you, should your paths ever cross. Your agreement had been mostly sincere, a bit out of politeness. The topic drifted to elvish weaponry, and that was that.

But when you find yourself back in the same position four nights later, you're not the one to spark up the conversation by the firepit.

She's always held a certain fondness for the race of men, Aragorn started, running a finger along the length of his blade and glancing up at you. Arwen, that is.

You'd only nodded, a small twinge of confusion biting into you. Where had that come from? You'd been sitting in silence previous to that comment - simply enjoying the view of the stars.

At your silence, Aragorn had merely looked pensive, returning his gaze to his blade. Her compassion and love, though hidden beneath the layers of elvish social etiquette, leave room for many.

You'd only nodded again, piping up to ask whether he was familiar with any major constellations.

And while it's nothing groundbreaking in and of itself, as your journey continues the frequency with which he brings up his lover starts to rapidly incrase. And while it would be sweet to see the man so ardently in love with her, you'll start to notice some troubling facts: the conversation is always unprompted, Aragorn simply filling the space between you with some musing on Arwen's character or affinity for humanity. It's also only every directed toward you - you've never heard him speak a word of her to Frodo, Gimli, Boromir - hell, not even to Legolas.

And finally, there's something about his words and tone that make you feel as if they're an invitation.

To what, you're not quite sure, but the way he looks at you after each declaration of Arwen's beauty, intelligence, and fighting prowess leave you connecting the dots that he's trying to entice you. Brown eyes scrape through your every expression, analyzing your every word in response, noting and interpreting your body language. He's looking for something, you come to realize. A sign that you're interested, that you're just as awed by her as he is - a sign that perhaps you want her, too.

It's confusing and leaves you hesitant to be alone with Aragorn for fear of the same behaviors popping up, but it really starts to veer into creep territory once the contents of his words slip from romantic and awed to much, much too personal for your tastes. He doesn't betray Arwen's own personal matters out of a deep-seeded love and respect for her, but you learn way more about their relationship than you'd care to know.

You don't need to know the exact ways that Aragorn holds her in the hours of the morning, nor do you need to know the way he holds her against his chest and falls asleep to the slow rythym of her heart. (He looks at you with something akin to amusement when he quips of course elven beds are no small matter - there is surely room for a third occupant, should the need arise.

It's strange and uncomfortable and you'll soon be forced to acknowledge that Aragorn is trying to lure you into joining the two of them in some sort of strange three-way relationship. And of course you're not responsive to his attempts - after all, poor Arwen doesn't even seem to be aware of the sentiment.

(At least, you hope she isn't - there's no part of you that wants to step into what is clearly a very devoted, very serious love.)

But when you return to Rivendell along your journey and are greeted by a smiling Arwen who murmurs your name without any introduction, your suspicions feel dangerously unsteady.

And when she leans forward, inhaling deeply and letting a cold hand brush against the sensitive, exposed skin of your collarbone, you'll be forced to realize that perhaps Aragorn wasn't the instigator - perhaps he was the coconspirator, the messenger.

Perhaps you're the prize they both yearn for.

As his darling, it's often that Gimli exhibits behaviors that come across as creepy simply because the desperation that oozes off of him is palpible.

And perhaps desperation is a harsh word, but the unending, all-consuming desire to have your attention on him nearly knocks the wind out of his chest. It seems to have a life of its own; forcing his body to react before his brain has time to process that he's already moving.

It's so at odds with his dwarven pride, the notion of having to try so hard to get you to swoon making him bristle, embarassment eating away at him because dammit, why won't you just make it easier on him and compliment him on your own?

Because really, that's what Gimli's looking for. He's not insecure by any means, but it soothes the possessiveness that his obsession with you inspires about when you say such sweet things about him. It makes him feel giddy to know that you think so highly of him, and it strokes something deep in his gut to know that you're thinking of him enough to form this opinion, that you've noticed just how capable, masculine, strong he is.

And in the early days of his infatuation this is true. You're noticing, even without Gimli trying too hard, that he's able to slice down a number of orcs with his trusty axe, their blood spraying and his wild laughter ringing out in the aftermath.

(You come to him afterwards with a look that makes his knees feel weak and something hot stir between his legs, his words nearly a groan because oh god, he needs you to never stop looking at him this way. And your rather cheeky comment of you're not too bad with an axe, eh dwarf only makes his chest puff out further in pride, a comment sitting on the tip of his tongue about how he's better in more ways than you might expect.)

He's very caught up in your perception of him, and while these sorts of comments were a dime a dozen early into his feelings for you, they pitter out with time as you grow more familiar with the redheaded dwarf. Your undivided attention tapers out as the days go on, becoming accustomed to the dwarf's presence and finding other avenues to occupy your time and focus.

And Gimli is not pleased by this development - he needs you to keep lavishing him with praise, to flutter your lashes at him and smile bashfully, to say his name in a way that he swears is sultry. And so he panics.

You're no longer impressed by his natural acts of strength and bravery while in battle? Well, it's not hard to chop the firewood needed for that night's campfire, making sure to grunt extra loud and flex his muscles harder than necessary in hopes that you'll compliment his skills as a provider.

(You try to ignore the way his head is practically on a swivel when he does this, gauging your every reaction and waiting with baited breath to know how you'll feel. And while Gimli is many things, subtle is not one them - you will notice his staring, whether he likes it or not.)

You're chatting loosely with Sam a couple paces ahead of Gimli? Well, suddenly the dwarf's voice is booming as he elbows Legolas at his side, going on about how dwarves are the superior hunstmen to elves simply for their bravery and dedication.

(Of course Legolas can't help but quip back, thus starting an argument that is simply too loud to ignore. Gimli catches each and every one of your glances back, his breath hitching and his resolve hardening, the sensation of you looking at him making him grow greedier and greedier for more.)

He's doing everything he can to monopolize your attention, and in the end it's his clinginess that will make you loath to see him. It's creepy just how fixated he seems to be on you, how he can't seem to leave you alone, how his mood for the day seems to hinge on whether you entertain his pestering questions and bragging first thing in the morning.

It's exhausting, but the moment you stop giving him the response he's looking for, he only doubles down, becoming more and more unbearable with every passing moment. So really, it's best to just smile and agree with everything he's saying - it'll save you the headache, and the rest of the Fellowship can only thank anything that's listening that they won't be subjected to the secondhand embarassment of watching Gimli's behavior.

And with every instance of you giving into his ploys for your attention, Gimli's desperation and fixation on you only grow firmer, stronger - more impossible to reverse.

You'll find that Legolas, while well-meaning, is rather unsettling.

And it's really about the little things - things that you're pretty sure are a clash in his elvish mannerisms with your own human ones. Things you think are just simple cultural misunderstandings on both of your ends, perhaps. He's just not that well versed in human customs, after all, and it'd be rude to expect him to cater to your own standards of social etiquette.

And in the beginning of his infatuation with you, this line of reasoning works.

It is rather jarring when you catch those blue eyes staring at you from across the room, but you shrug it off. Sure, his gaze feels heavier than what's considered polite, but perhaps it's how elves function. Who are you to judge what's considered normal for his people?

(Even if the staring seems to really only happen to you - you've asked Gandalf about it before, trying to ignore the way Legolas's eyes bore into you from some fifty yards away, the weight heavy even as Gandalf purses his lips and shakes his head, voice faintly curious as he tells you the elves are private, to be sure, but subtlty happens to come quite naturally to them. You'll only frown but nod, pretending you don't hear the way too-light footsteps rush toward you as Gandalf departs.)

It leaves you sucking in a breath when he suddenly appears at your side unannounced, his arrival completely silent. You'll turn to the side and yelp slightly, the previously empty space occupied by platinum hair and a quiet, calm voice aking if you're feeling well.

(And while you initially laugh it off and are marveled at just how graceful elves can be, the more it happens the less fascinating it becomes. Because when you're simply staring out into the wild at camp, his presence is welcomed. But when you roll over in the mornings, eyes still heavy with sleep as you fitfully peel them open, you're significantly less excited to see the way Legolas is lying next to you, blue eyes twinkling as he watches you awake. He hadn't started the night there, but it becomes routine - you don't bother asking just how long he's been awake.)

But once it moves on from simple glances and easily misconstrued actions you'll truly begin to feel truly uncomfortable. Because once he sees that you haven't confronted him about any of his more indulgent behaviors, Legolas will assume that what he's doing is working - that you're enjoying the attentions he bestows upon you. That you're liking the way he's singled you out as his obsession festers deeper and deeper into his chest.

And once this happens, it leads to a rather troubling habit born of his ignorance to human customs and sensibilities: Legolas will move from simply staring to speaking. All of that intensive observation will rear its ugly head in the way that he starts being very, very candid with you - telling you all sorts of things that he's noticed, that he wants to do, that he finds enticing about you.

He's walking beside you and looking at the way you pace your steps, how your eyes jump around the scenery, how you grip the hilt of your weapon each time you hear an animal's noise. He's keeping his eyes on you, and will tell you that he wishes he could see inside your mind to know your deepest desires and fears. It's umprompted and gives you pause to snap your eyes over to him, unsure how to respond, but the angelic, concentrated look on his face forces you to bark out a very thin laugh, choosing to not further dignify the comment with a response.

He's watching as you slip off your cloak, rolling out your neck and groaning slightly as you stretch after a long day of travel. He lets his gaze pass from your face down to linger on the swell of your chest and hips, to the mud covering your boots and back up. I've been told human women are very soft. Would you find this claim to be true? You'll gape at him, suddenly feeling much too exposed, but Pippin's knocking into your side before you can process Legolas's words, offering you an apple and giving you a lopsided smile.

It's uncomfortable and hedges on harassment at times, and even if you were to scold Legolas and beg him to stop, he will only cock a brow at you, confusion twisting through him.

Why would you want him to stop? Is this not an essential step in the courting and mating rituals of men? Compliments and honesty? He's overhead numerous times from soldiers and drunkards of men that the women enjoy brazen truthfulness about sexual and emotional attraction - perhaps you're just shy? Maybe he isn't being clear enough in his intentions, then.

He doesn't understand but will nod regardless, giving you his word that he will stop mentioning topics that obviously unsettle you.

Instead, he'll choose new ways to compliment you - you don't like comments about how he yearns to feel the softness and pliability of your body, so perhaps he'll tell you about how well you fill out your clothes and how he can hear each inhale and exhale of your breath at night.

You'd like that, surely - surely his infatuation will be requited then, no? It has to.

You’d be hard pressed to find a woman who doesn’t admire Boromir at least a bit. Perhaps it’s charm, chivalry, looks, or – and certainly not least – his status as both a revered warrior and next in line for the stewardship of Gondor.

Regardless, he’s the perfect gentleman, sure to make anyone fidget and flutter their lashes whether unconsciously or not. And you’re no exception – at least, not until that façade of perfect respectability begins to crack. Until the edges of that gentlemanly behavior give way to something more sinister, something that leaves you pulling back slightly from his every outreached hand.

That is, Boromir comes to completely and utterly disregard your personal space time and time again.

It starts small – he’s walking beside you and there’s a crack in the cobblestone of Minas Tirith’s streets, his hand placed against your forearm to gently guide you away for fear of your tripping.

(And when you smile and thank him for keeping you safe, as you’d told him, he only gulps, brown eyes turning unnervingly serious as he tells you I always will, I swear it.)

He’s watching as you concentrate on threading a needle, or knocking an arrow, or getting your balance on horseback, noticing the way you slightly stick out your tongue and let your face scrunch up a bit. Before he can even think about it he’s reaching out and ruffling your hair, his booming laugh ringing in your ears as his hand lingers at your crown, slightly falling and moving to brush his knuckles against your cheek, his chuckling suddenly dying out and his Adam's apple bobbing.

He’s inviting you to important events for the high society of Gondor, keeping you at his side with your arms interlocked at the elbows, sipping at his wine and chatting with each and every man and woman he sees in the Great Hall of Minas Tirith, not letting you peel away for even a moment.

He’s coming with you to fill your plate up with the many delicacies against the hall’s walls, standing close beside you as you eat them, and it’s only when another man approaches the two of you that the touchiness amps up to a new level. The man’s eyeing you, lip curling as he openly scans your body up and down, and while it makes your skin crawl, Boromir takes a slightly different response.

His arm is wrapping around your waist, fingers open and splayed against the softness of your stomach, pulling you flush against his side and slightly inwards toward him. He’s using his other free hand to grab onto yours, bringing your knuckles up to his lips and leaving long, wet kisses against them, all the while maintaining heavy eye contact and murmuring she’s quite lovely, isn’t she? How fortunate that she is very soon to be my betrothed.

Your blood runs as bold as the chilly air brushing against the still-wet spots on your knuckles, fear settling deep into your heart because what could he possibly mean?

And even as the other man bristles and scrambles away, Boromir’s handling of you doesn’t change – even under the disapproving eye of Denethor, even at Faramir’s concerned glances.

So really, what makes Boromir a creep is that he’s just so, so very touchy in ways that, while not explicitly inappropriate, still leave you wincing in discomfort at his brazen disregard for your boundaries. Particularly given your relationship - you're not strangers, of course, but you're certainly not betrothed, and what kind of upstanding man does it make Boromir to be so freely touching you even if only in quasi-appropriate ways?

(That isn't to say that he doesn't want to touch you in more lewd, risque ways - by god does he want to grope the swell of your chest, to squeeze the softness of your ass, to reach between your legs and sink himself knuckle deep into you, but he holds back out of respect for your comfort and honor.)

And the terrible thing is that even if you tell him that his touch makes you uncomfortable – something that takes quite a bit of courage on your part, considering that he’s quite literally the next ruler of Minas Tirith and has the physical ability to slice your head clean off at whim – he’ll only chuckle and cup your cheek, nuzzling his face against the nape of your neck.

You needn’t play coy with me, my love, social rules be damned.

After all, there is nothing you can do that will dissuade Boromir’s belief that you are just as grotesquely, helplessly infatuated with him as he is you – your hesitation is just nerves, he's sure, because of his status, stature, and your own feelings.

And doesn’t that mean that you want him too?

Faramir, on the other hand, is nowhere near as openly affectionate, suffocating, and brazen in his treatment of you.

Perhaps it’s a sense of insecurity or a profound fear of your rejection, but he takes the opposite tact in indulging in his obsession with you: where Boromir is public, Faramir is private. Where his brother is loud with his yandere tendencies, Faramir nurses his feelings with stolen glances, longing daydreams, one-sided yearning.

And of course Faramir doesn’t feel good about following you like a second shadow, keeping his eyes trained on your figure as you walk around Minas Tirith, but it’s like his body is moving before he’s even consciously aware of it.

He’s keeping a respectful distance of about fifteen feet, leaning against walls and pretending to check the dullness of his blade as he watches you browse the market’s wares out of the corner of his eye, mentally taking note of which vegetables you pick up, whether you chat with the market seller (even straining his ears to hear exactly what you’ve said, overanalyzing each word for any hint of fondness towards the stranger, feeling his muscles tense when your voice turns more friendly than feels right to him), even how you bite your lip while you decide between two rather pretty hair clips.

(Of course Faramir will return to the stall later, buying the poor clip that loses this contest and keeping it in his pocket, thumbing at it and clutching at it when you’re not around, almost as if it’s the tie keeping you anchored to him. Eventually he’ll gift it to you, sure, once he’s gotten a little more confident in interacting with you – once he’s confident you won’t brush aside his earnest offering. But for now, it lives with him, constantly between his fingers, past his lips, clutched in his fist.)

His stalking tendencies don’t take long to develop and only grow worse with time, but what truly makes Faramir edge into creep territory is what he does with the information he gathers during these escapades. He’s extremely observant, noting down every little detail he can find in your behaviors and words, hungrily trying to learn more more more about you to satisfy the intense yearning he feels for you at any given moment.

And because there’s simply so much, Faramir takes to keeping everything jotted down in a notebook of sorts, a collection of papers with carefully written details of how you looked that day, how you seemed a bit frustrated, how your hair had been shining in the waning sunlight of the evening, giving you what almost appeared to be a halo.

A lot of it is genuinely innocent – simply noting down the colors you tend to dress in, what your resting expression looks like, which filler words you tend to rely on most when speaking to others.

But as the obsession grows deeper and his father grows more and more emotionally abusive, Faramir turns toward these compilations with less innocent intentions. He’s always enjoyed literature and scholarly pursuits more than those around him, and he takes inspiration as he begins scribing down the whirling, embarrassing fantasies he harbors of you.

Some of them are simple, romantic, wholesome – holding your hand and walking beside you rather than following you like some street dog begging for scraps of your attention, being able to interlace his fingers with yours and hear you breath out his name with a smile.

Others are… less endearing.

On nights where he’s spent the day with his father or in stressful conditions at Osgiliath, the fantasies are less sweet and more dripping with possessiveness, a raw desperation tangible against the paper. There’s accounts of how he wants to keep you tucked away from the world, perpetually clutching against his front so that he can blind you to the orcs, to greedy men, to anything and everything but himself.

There’s scribblings of fantasies about how, once he finally works up the courage to truly court you, you’d spend the days lounging about in your shared bedchambers, keeping his bed warm and longing for him until the moment he walks through the door, sweaty and splattered with blood.

How you’d care for him, dote on him and clean his wounds, letting your hands linger, your praise of his hard work and dedication to keeping your people – you – safe getting lower, sultrier, more sinful…

The sexual fantasies aren’t as prevalent as the others in the collection of papers he keeps if only because he does genuinely feel guilty and ashamed at having thought of you in such an inappropriate manner, but the redness of his face and the tightness of his trousers as he brings the quill across the paper again and again are telltale signs of the depth of his desire for you.

And should you ever discover these papers? Well, it’s really for your best interest that you simply leave them alone, for fear of discovering exactly how frequently and vividly he’s imagined what lies beneath your cotton dresses and how desperately he wants – needs – you.

While Éomer’s talents excel on the battlefield and in the saddle, he’s significantly less gifted when it comes to matters of the heart.

So much so, in fact, that much of his early contact and infatuation with you is spent feverishly trying to convince himself that he in fact detests you. It’s a coping mechanism, more than anything, because as his interest in you slowly begins to grow, everything in his life begins to slowly fall apart. His uncle’s losing the battle against Wormtongue, the people of Rohan grow hungrier, Isengard looms larger, his cousin’s prolonged absence gnaws at his heart, and the Worm’s sick fixation on his sister grows harder and harder to ignore.

He feels there’s simply too much on his mind for him to entertain a romantic interest in someone – which is why his immediate response as his heartrate ramps up when he hears your name is to scowl. It’s why he’s immediately snapping orders at his men the moment a thought of you crosses his mind, trying to distract himself with matters of patrol, war, maintaining the restless half-peace of his kingdom. It’s why he looks at you with cold eyes and accosts you with curt, biting words when he’s face-to-face with you, trying to not let his gaze linger on the way your own eyes start to mirror his hatred.

It’s all in vain, of course, because as time passes and he drives you further away, the desperation to be in your presence and to see you only grows unbearably stronger, leaving his mind torn in two.

That’s what eventually leads him to confide, rather awkwardly, in Éowyn, deeming her advice much more sound in the realm of feelings. The words come out angry, complaints about how you seem to ensnare him with your words, how you must be some sort of wizard with the way you’ve so completely infiltrated his thoughts, how your presence seems to command his body with a mind of its own.

And Éowyn will watch with wide and excited eyes, because for all the evil creeping into the edges of Edoras, here is her beloved brother, falling in love in his own stupid, angry way. And while her words are hard to accept at first, eventually Éomer gives into the idea that it might be acceptable to entertain the notion of courting you without interrupting his role in the war.

But almost immediately he’s confronted with the reality that he’s absolutely butchered any sense of warmth between you two, instead leaving behind only animosity that he is entirely to blame for. And this is really where his creepy behavior comes into play: he becomes so hellbent on atoning for his gross lack of judgement in pushing you away that he overcompensates by becoming the man he believes you would like.

That is, Éomer becomes very, very pushy. He dons this hyper-masculinity that begins to assert itself into every aspect of your life. He quickly becomes very controlling, always standing in your peripheral and keeping his eyes on you, still curt in his words but now telling you to eat a fuller dinner, for fear that you’ll go hungry.

He’ll look you in the eye and tell you to wear another cloak to avoid any unwanted attention (with his gaze briefly skimming down to the just-visible tease of your breasts against the neckline of your dress), gulping as he tries to refocus back on your face.

It’s still forceful, and though you can tell there’s something different in the way he treats you – for his gaze is no longer cold but very, very intense and almost burning, his fingers always twitching when they see you, his body standing much closer to you as if to jump in front of you at a moment’s notice. It’s just as off-putting, despite his best intentions.

Because where he was rude before, he’s now grown unintentionally patronizing. He doesn’t mean to insult your autonomy when he tells you to not leave your home unless he can accompany you, but it’ll still have you feeling indignant that he doesn’t believe you can survive on your own.

He doesn’t mean to insinuate that you’re oblivious when he tells you to not talk to any other men anymore, but you can’t help but feel as if he thinks you’re stupid and unaware of what men often want.

It’s frustrating that he sends one of his men to keep guard on you at all times when he’s away from Edoras for his duties, lingering like a shadow and insisting on being let into your home when you lay to sleep.

It's demeaning when he makes you swear to never pick up a sword or arrow as he prepares to leave for Minas Tirith's aid, his voice harsh and fueled by something akin to sorrow and fear. But he's clutching onto your shoulders and it's impossible to say no when he looking at you like that, when he's being so forceful and insistant and telling you in graphic detail of all the ways you could injure yourself.

And while he thinks it’s showing a sense of protectiveness and command to you, it doesn’t exactly seduce you as he’d hoped. Instead, it’s detrimental and will cause you to find Éomer even more insufferable than you did previously, but you’ll find that you just can’t shake him off.

And when he returns from the final battle at Mordor, adrenaline still swimming through his veins and frantic to find you and embrace you, to clutch onto you and feel your body heat against his own racing heart, you’ll find yourself even more trapped.

Finally, you start to get up—

"Did you have enough?"

Blade's hand is on your stomach, palm flat and pressing down. You look at him, and watch as he turns onto his back.

"What?"

"You're restless." His voice is soft, not demeaning yet it still implies accusation, "you keep shifting. What is it?"

You notice how warm he runs now. Where his hand nudges you to lay back down– the heat of his palm seeps into your stomach, heavy and warning, blood hot under his pale skin.

You lay down, slowly, "you were gone a while." You stay facing the ceiling, as his hand retracts, "I got used to having more space."

You stare – or try to – blinking lazily as sleep dances along your lashes, but never truly shuts them. Your gaze trails to where the ceiling meets the walls, where the light of the night lamp casts long shadows, and freezes when you hear Blade shifting.

This time, he was testing you.

You make a point to stay still. His hand wraps around yours under the cover, bandaged fingers weaving between yours.

You imagine how his hair looks as a distraction – The dark tendrils that splay over the pristine, soft sheets. How they slip between your digits like silk. The way they darken and swirl along the water currents when you bathe together.

When blade was away; you missed the odd parts. You hated him, but tending to his hair was the more normal part of your routine. Bandaging his wounds made him feel like he was a more human lover. And Kafka's perfume was a great trouble to you; especially when they clung to your sheets after she'd left – a pitiful attempt at restoring that normalcy, you'd imagine.

Blade smelled different. Of your shampoos and soaps, yes, but he smelled different.

He smells different – you knew it then, as you knew it now. The smell of his sweat, metallic and ancient, something like fragrant wood left to age. Like blade rusted with blood. He smelled of ages long spent, over the forgery of iron and something sweltering deep inside.

His cheek rests on your shoulder, his heavy arm resting across your midsection.

"Like before," he says, voice softer than before, "you'll get used to it."

"Like before." You repeat. Like before.

Like the early days when you'd started to settle in with these cosmic terrorists. Only back then – you did not have even a warmth to call home. True to what he wanted, Blade was ice cold to the touch, and he was horrible at physical comfort. Stiff and rigid, like the dead.

It was a few nights of struggle when you got very little sleep at all, that Blade somehow came up with the idea to tell you stories.

At night, his voice was soft. Perhaps that was his best show at love, behind the jagged cuts of his obsession and the trembling strings that were taut with lust – there was comfort in such a dreary thing as his voice. Baritone and low.

"..I have no stories to placate you," his thumb rubs soothingly where his palm lays heavy, "not ones that I haven't told you already."

You think about how there could be a more tolerable future. After all, if you survived him being marastruck and to the brink of insanity, what could you not survive?

If it had been your past self, they would not have even looked at you to curse you. But you know well and better than to ruminate.

You close your eyes, and tighten your fingers around where his hand had found yours under the sheets. You know well that you may aswell be already cursed.

"Tell me anyway."

you know the curse,

"I missed you,"

You know its name,

"Yingxing."

And you both know, he's a curse that mends itself.

Yandere MBTI

Claude is a RAMS:

Reverent

🕷️​Claude walks a very thin line between being reverent or cruel and he does so even more than Sebastian does. Then again, one would have a hard time assigning a demon morals comparable to those of humans. As his mate, Claude knows that you belong to him. Your objections thus hold no meaning for you work against forces far above what you are capable of comprehending. Nonetheless, at his core he too has vowed to cherish and protect you as a mate has a very special connection to even a creature like him. Differently from Sebastian though he can borrow attributes of the cruel archetype in a much quicker fashion as he is neither as patient nor as playful as Sebastian is. If you do not learn your place he is very happy to remind you of your place as you are still nothing compared to him. Pleasure he may derive from your fear afterwards too but ultimately Claude thinks of it all more as establishing who is in control - very much like humans tend to do with a disobedient pet. If you learn to behave though, he too is going to do everything to spoil and pamper you to the best of his abilities. Everything you wish for, he shall require and as a quick learner he is going to adapt all skills needed to guarantee your satisfaction.

Aware

🕷️​His senses have never lied to him. Aside from the five senses human possess - although much duller if compared to his - as a demon Claude has plenty of other senses too which allow him to basically detect the essence of souls. Whether corruption, fear or innocence lies within one's human soul, Claude is able to detect it all which in return allows him to manipulate accordingly. If you don't love him, he is well aware of it. A pity really as he is working rather hard to attain your affection. The fool he is not going to play forever though as his patience is limited and thus if he has reached its end, he is going to proceed differently. Whilst your love may have been a nice price to win beforehand, ultimately above all he desires to possess you. You may not know it but it is his right to possess you for your body and soul belong to him. So fear him for now if this is what your heart is telling you, there won't be any escape from you in either case. If he cannot bring you to love him by yourself, Claude knows how to help you so that things proceed the way he desires them to do. Once you are confined and kept in an area only he has access too, he is going to have plenty of time to take on your stubborn challenge of despising him.

Manipulative

🕷️​Manipulating the thoughts, the feelings and desires of people has been something he has been doing from the moment he was created. Claude is not one to argue against his demon nature as he embraces it with pride. Shame he has not for you see, humans are so easy to manipulate. The human spirit is remarkably weak for it is either sweet promises or simple fear that has them faltering and bend to his every desire and that often without them even being aware of it. With you it is not going to be any different as Claude is confident that he can shape your heart and mind as much as he has done so many times before. He has been interfering with your life long before he even locked you away, isolating you on purpose as you are going to have no need for anyone else besides him soon. He reads your desires and chooses his words wisely according to whatever your heart wishes for, guiding you down a path he has specifically built to lead you on. The manipulation stays after the abduction - only that you are now aware what Claude is trying to do. The knowledge alone won't save you though. What is it you can do against his demonic abilities after all, designed to tear apart your senses and install primal fear within your heart?

Strict

Yandere MBTI

Sebastian michaelis is a RAMS:

Reverent

🐈‍⬛​We are heading into an interesting territory as technically Sebastian expresses no interest of treating you as an equal for the undeniable truth is that he is a demon and you are a human. Humans are weak and easily led by lust and desire and those are facts he believes count even for you. Where you differ from others though is that you are his destined mate and therefore Sebastian is compelled to cherish you and treat you better than other humans who he views as nothing more than mediocre food to be consumed. Sure, some of them may have outstanding souls but nothing shall ever compare to your radiant soul which he is going to guard closely. Trying to compare a demon to a human and holding them up to the same standards is foolish for you will always be a being beneath any supernatural creature. There may be some aspects which may overlap with the cruel trait yet ultimately Sebastian doesn't think of you as another meal or a plaything to entertain himself with even if he can certainly still find entertainment in your humanity and your naivety. He thinks of you as his one true mate who is his by destiny and whom he shall protect and keep as his until the end of time.

Aware

🐈‍⬛What is awareness to a demon? Emotions have no value to him. Under every person's contract he has always been confronted with various emotions - every single one of them a tedious notion he never once had to concern himself with. As a demon he has learned to mimic emotions yet he has never truly understood them. The one thing Sebastian has only ever responded to is desire and it is by elicting the desire of other humans that he has always gotten what he has wanted. What he has learned to read over time is to read the body language accurately as it often indicates what a person is thinking and feeling. It is impossible for him to therefore not know what your feelings currently are as he can smell it on you and hear it from your singing heart within your chest. He is going to know when you don't like him which is going to attack his pride as he believes of himself as perfection naturally. However, the scary thing about Sebastian is that he doesn't need your consens in order to claim you as his. It would be much more sweeter as his pride may not initially allow him to take you until he has made you go crazy for him but ultimately he is a demon and takes what he desires. It doesn't matter whether you love him or not. You have been given to him and the two of you have all of eternity together.

Manipulative​

🐈‍⬛Is it not a demon's nature to manipulate everyone and everything so that he may gain the most out of it? You could ask him to name you one day where he hasn't been manipulative and lied to everyone and he would merely give you an amused smile and nothing more. His very name and existence are a lie as even the name you call him by as of now is only because you got to know him under it or because he just offered you a bunch of names he has already gone by and you happened to choose that one for his real name is something you still don't know. Once Sebastian has a goal, he works tirelessly towards it and commits all atrocities until he has what he desires. It is quite refreshing though that in your case he can act without needing to obey his master - either because he wisely never brings you up unless Ciel specifically asks him or because Ciel realises that this is the one thing he cannot command Sebastian over. Sebastian can instead freely lie to you and manipulate by using his demonic powers to gain your favor. What has to be noted is that the more stubborn you are, the crueler he is going to become with his manipulation until he may very well push you into paranoia and insomnia only to comfort you afterwards to make you dependent.

Strict​

Jordan Li —

⌞ Is always looking out for you. Jordan doesn't trust so much as 10% of the student population at Godolkin. Whenever they aren't busy they trail after you like you're paying them to be your bodyguard. It's what comes naturally to them. The easiest way for them to show they care without having to open their mouth and say the words. "I've got you." is safer to say than I love you. ⌝

⌞ Carries your bags for you. Any bags. All bags. If your hands are full they won't be for long. Sometimes you just hold things in your arms in the hopes it makes Jordan sense something has gone terribly wrong and come running. You're starting to think they have you bugged because the amount of times this actually seems to summon them is scary. ⌝

Nancy Downs —

⌞ She's not much of a hand-holder but when you're in a crowd her hand gravitates to your lower back or hip, cinching you in close and shooting people nasty looks — or curses, she's unfortunately not above doling out curses — if they bump into you. ⌝

⌞ If Nancy notices your shoe is untied she rolls her eyes but drops to one knee, smacking your calf until you prop your shoe onto her thigh so she can tie it for you. She stands back up with, "You're such a ditz." She can only be so sweet. A girl has to maintain her reputation. ⌝

Jennifer Check —

⌞ Picks out your outfits. She has superb taste, and yes, she thinks it's better than yours. It's far easier to go along with whatever outfit Jennifer laid out for you the night before than to try to go rogue (express a sense of autonomy as a grown adult). The only reward waiting for you down that road is an argument. "Oh, so you think I dress like shit?" No winning that one. Besides, she enjoys subtle couple outfits. Not one-for-one matching sets but looks that are complimentary when you're standing side by side. It makes her feel close to you… and it's like putting a collar around your neck: Property of Jennifer Check. Don't touch! ⌝

Victoria Neuman —

⌞ Speaks for you in situations that she knows you have trouble navigating. Why wouldn't she? Communication is part of her job as politician. It comes easy to her. ⌝

⌞ Even before you were dating she would pull out the chair closest to her during anything a silent but unsubtle demand for you to always be within reach. She never wastes the distance either. When you were just friends she'd smack your arm during a bout of laughter or touch your hand to get your attention during conversations with multiple people. Now, her hand often falls beneath tables to grip your thigh or knee. It grounds her to be touching you. You're practically a stress ball that she hauls around to state dinners so she doesn't kill everyone within eyesight. ⌝

⌞ Walks on the part of the sidewalk closest to the street. Just a small precaution. People drive crazy and she's invincible. You aren't. She'd rather have a blown cover than see you get hurt, or worse — lose you. Paranoid? A little. But she's seen too much to be any different. ⌝

Ginger Fitzgerald —

⌞ When you're sitting down sometimes she likes to just stand next to your chair and place her hand on the back of your neck. This is absolutely a wolf thing. If you could heal as fast as she can she'd be keener on sinking her teeth into the side of your neck to give herself the sense of security that you're hers and you know it and revel in the reality of that to the same extent she does. But you can't heal that fast so — hand on the back of your neck. ⌝

⌞ If you're talking and someone cuts you off Ginger interrupts the other person with a tone so evil it could curdle milk, "Fuck me. Are you deaf or just stupid? They weren't done talking." You appreciate the sentiment. However, this has turned many perfectly normal social interactions in to cold wars. ⌝

Patricia (Split) —

⌞ Pats her lap when she wants you to sit down. No words. You're a perfectly intelligent creature capable of interpreting what she wants, and what Patricia always wants is for you be within arms reach. Feeling you go limp when she coaxes you to lean into her totally is one of life's most darling pleasures. ⌝

⌞ Clucks her tongue when she catches you neglecting a proper sleep schedule. "Sleep deprivation has an accumulative effect, ducky. Must we hasten the inevitable decline of the body?" At first she merely sweeps you away to bed, assuming the trouble starts and ends with the inability to move to the appropriate area at the appropriate time. Then comes setting a time limit on the various activities you like to do instead of sleeping like reading or scrolling through your phone. She isn't above wearing you out to the point of exhaustion, either. If all the above fails she'll begin giving you a cup of chamomile tea every night. The tea is drugged. Drastic circumstances require drastic measures, and your health is no laughing matter. ⌝

Apple (Forbidden Fruits) —

⌞ Maintains eye contact during your conversations at all costs. How else will you know she's being an active listener if your eyes aren't locked together, huh? If she could be pupil to pupil and eyelash to eyelash without freaking you out she would. She doesn't let you drift either. If you duck your head Apple ducks hers too. When you look away she tucks her fingers under your chin — anything to keep you trapped in her orbit. ⌝

⌞ Keeps your life on a tight schedule (and leash). You'll start having trouble remembering things for yourself because Apple is always doing it for you. Doctor's appointments, shifts at work, assignment due dates — let her take on all that mental load. Isn't it easier? Don't you feel taken care of? "You were never any good at organization anyway, babes." ⌝

A/N: Don't mind me I'm experimenting with formatting. It's been awhile since we did the ladies, so long — in fact — that I have thrown in a new one. How are we liking the first glimpse of Apple?

if you enjoyed this drabble consider reblogging or leaving a reply. if you really dug it, check out my PATREON: slasherscream, for some exclusive content. this particular story was posted three weeks ago on the patreon, for early access. xoxoxo

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You don’t like this house. It’s cruel imitation of domestic typicality only adds to your torment, somehow, like the stage of a theatre, only good at masking the actors’ troubles when one is sitting in the audience.

There is no audience, here. Delight all they may in their other crimes Sorbet and Gelato have elected to take every care in covering all bases regarding your abduction, or so they say. They’re keen for you to know you don’t stand a chance of ever getting rescued from them. Not that you ought to want to, of course.

Sorbet is the more authoritative of your two ‘lovers.’ He is the one who seems to manage all of the major decisions regarding your care and the only person on earth who seems capable of reigning Gelato in. On the few occasions you’re allowed to leave the basement other than bathroom visits or the occasional kitchen treat, you most often find yourself seated in Sorbet’s lap as he discusses details over the phone of upcoming assassinations, with the other leading members of his team. It’s quite often enough to chill you to the bone.

And then, there’s Gelato. Enigmatic, impetuous Gelato. Sorbet terrifies you, very much. But if he can be likened to evil in the dark mind of a twisted author, then Gelato defies lettered description. There is no sense of purpose, reason or predictability to the way he behaves. He loves you, says it drives him mad, but you don’t need to doubt he’s been this way a very, long time.

Something tickles your neck and you flinch. The chain around your wrist pulls back as you scramble to your knees. Another bruise to add to your collection. You reach for the cold metal torch Sorbet gave you for nights, and flick it on to investigate the cause of your disturbance.

The basement around you is all as should be- in as much as the prison your captors have built for you can be considered normal, and usual, and right. Your sheets are a little sweaty from your restless turning. There’s something red on the sheets. You pick up a single, withering rose petal, and hold it close to you. Is that really all it was? A rose petal from your flower vase? Your situation really has shot up your nerves, but you suppose you can’t exactly fault yourself to it. You tuck the fallen petal back between the stalks of the flowers on your nightstand, fingers brushing against the decaying, sticky blood from where Gelato was holding it. He said he would get you a gift while on his mission. You didn’t expect him to take from the house of the victim itself.

The faint smell of blood and roses fight for domination of your senses. Burying yourself in your covers, you shut both out.

You think, you may have slept. Either that or the mind ran out of thoughts to entertain and lost their presence as a clock. Either away, you are suddenly snapped to your senses by a thin, yellow light struck across your body and the wall ahead.

Please, no. You thought at least at night you were safe.

Turning nervously to face the door you are met with the sight you were dreading. The yellow light of the upstairs house beams through, blocked only by the dark silhouette clung to the door. He tilts his head, and you can see the shine in his eyes.

“I hope you’re thinking of me,” Gelato says, tremulous and honeyed. He pushes the door open more and makes his way slowly down the steps into the cellar. “I’ve been thinking of you, you see. All night.”

“Really?” you say, trying hard to sound casual but failing to stop yourself from crawling back in fear. You whimper as Gelato kneels in front of you and takes your chin.

“Oh come now,” he pouts. “You’re not scared are you? You know we love you, right?”

“I’m not scared!” you blurt, in a voice of abject terror. Gelato’s face hardens and for a moment you debate if you should be trying to find a way to run. He tuts, and lifts your blanket, scooting beside you as he throws it over you both. “Wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m gonna sleep here tonight, I think,” Gelato answers. “Sorbet’s wonderful, and incredibly huggable, but he sleeps through the whole night which is just no good when I’m feeling restless. You’re more like me, aren’t you? You’re always awake when I come and check on you.”

Gelato manhandles you onto your side and puts an arm around you, burying his face in your hair.

“There, comfy?” he asks playfully.

“Um… yeah,” you affirm, knowing better than to shut him down in regards to things he’s excited about. Gelato gives a low giggle, squeezing you tight and then going still.

You sigh to yourself, tapping the wall rhythmically. At least he only came to hug you in the end.

“Gelato what on earth are you doing?” a deep voice calls from the stairway. You and Gelato both snap around at once to see Sorbet standing by the door with his arms crossed. “Gelato I told you to leave them alone when they’re sleeping!” he reprimands his husband, marching across the room to pull him out of bed.

“I only wanted to hold them, Sorbet!” Gelato pouts.

“Well they need to sleep,” Sorbet doubles down. “There’s a reason we’re keeping them here and not with us.”

“Okay,” Gelato sulks childishly, getting to his feet and following Sorbet out. “Wait, (y/n), one more thing!” Gelato entreats you “Tell me I’m yours. It’s all I want to hear.”

You go quiet. Sorbet tuts.

The mattress dipped next to your head. A cool, scarred palm pressed against your forehead, lingering for a moment before pulling back with a click of the tongue. Suguru. He’d started his mother-hen routine as soon as you’d admitted (stupidly, in hindsight) to feeling a little sick and had yet to give it up. Part of it must’ve been nostalgia. His daughters were in their late teens. It’d been years since he’d had anything soft and vulnerable to dote on. But, as you glared at him through watery eyes, you would’ve sworn there was something else there. An edge. A shadow. The slightest, barest hint of anger that there was anything on this planet that could hurt you other than him.

But then you blinked at it was gone, replaced by stoic neutrality as he snatched a bottle off the bedside table and twisted off the childproof cap. You felt something pressed being pressed against your lips and pursed them tighter, in response. Suguru sighed.

“It’s just medicine, sweetheart.”

 Yeah, right. You’d heard that one before.

Your voice was all grit. Driveway gravel lubricated with battery acid and strained through a sandpaper funnel. “…label.”

Suguru rolled his eyes, but handed the bottle over anyway. You forced yourself to sit up, lasting just long enough to scan over the bold-font logo and excessive use warnings that you would be gleeful ignoring before collapsing back onto your pillow and letting Suguru place the pill on your tongue. It tasted like chalk and misery, which was somehow still better than the god-awful herbal tea he gave you to help swallow.

Meanwhile, Satoru watched it all, unmoving and unblinking. He tended to do that whenever Suguru was pampering you – forget he was part of scene and relegate himself a silent, observant feature of the background. He only came back to himself when you sniffled, ducking your head to sneeze into your comforter. A smile pulled at the edges of his lips, one of his hands reaching up to ghost over the curve of your jaw. “You’re kind of hot like this. All helpless and whiney, I mean.”

He moved to cup your chin. Suguru caught his wrist. “Don’t even think about it.”

“That’s not fair,” he pouted. “How come som virus gets to be inside of her and I can’t?”

This question was swiftly and mercifully deemed too stupid to answer. Suguru pushed himself to his feet and Satoru sighed languidly, flopping onto the bed next to you. “It’s not like I’ll catch anything. World’s Strongest Sorcerer, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t get sick, idiot.”

“But what if it doe—”

You cut him off with a conveniently timed coughing fit. The ugly type – prolonged and hacking, forceful enough to leave you panting while your throat burnt. Satoru grinned. Before Suguru could stop him, he threw himself into you and licked a long stripe over your open mouth, then laughed as you groaned and swatted him away.

“See?” he asked, smirking at Suguru. “Nobody died.”

Suguru responded by pitching the bottle of pills at his co-kidnapper, nailing Satoru in the head with enough force to crack the plastic.

S-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 1. General look: How are they like? How do they behave around the darling? Are there any warning signs?

Oh, if you aren’t the most endearing thing he has ever seen. 

Sunday brings his hand to cover the lower half of his face. It’s an instinctual reaction more than anything, meant to conceal his expression even though he already habitually stifles the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth. 

Having just entered the Parlor Car from the Party Car’s side, the door behind him clicks shut and reveals his presence with the noise. He thought he heard some commotion from the other van over, and as he takes in the view, he finds that he was correct about the matter. With his Halovian wings tensing up, he takes in the sight of you on your hands and knees on the floor next to one of the wine red armchairs that has now fallen over. Right beside you, March, with her mouth open and eyes wide, stands with her arms outstretched towards you as if attempting to catch you. Judging from how the scene has played out, she wasn’t very successful in the endeavour: With the way your foot is still lodged against one of the chair’s legs, combined with the alarmed look on your features, it isn’t hard to deduce what has gone down mere moments prior. 

Your gaze flicks from your leg to the chair, then to March, and finally to him, and only then do you start apologizing. ”I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to!” you babble and proceed to scramble yourself back onto your feet, only to have to bend over immediately, hissing out in apparent pain. With your teeth clenched together in a grimace, you reach down to peel up your pant leg to find that there’s an angry red abrasion over your patella. 

March is by your side in a split second, already flapping her hands all around you, going in to check the wound like it was a public exhibition. She mirrors your expression, pinching her lips together as you share a troubled glance with each other. For a while, it appears as if neither of you are paying any attention to him at all, but after you have smoothed your clothes back in place and lifted the chair back into standing position, you clear your throat and finally turn towards him. 

You introduce yourself in a slightly awkward manner. It’s endearing, almost; how you’re visibly chewing on the inside of your lower lip before once more apologizing for the disturbance with a tiny, nervous stutter in your voice. 

Ah, Mr. Yang did mention that someone would be boarding the Express for a short trip. 

You’re not quite what he expected. The fashion you carry yourself in and the way you dress don’t exactly scream interastral traveller to him. It’s not to say that you couldn’t be one — in his position, he couldn’t afford to ever pass that sort of judgment on anyone — but he has always been a bit of a critical person and would be lying if he said that his first impression of you isn’t a little on the… less capable side. 

But, you also happen to be incredibly lovely-looking to his eye — it’s something he can’t simply bypass. While he’s no stranger to attractive people — he saw his fair share of beauties from all over the star system when he was still the Oak Family head — there’s just an immediately noticeable, charming quality about you that has a little warmth creeping down the shells of his ears. He has to avert his gaze for a hot minute.

The seconds tick by as he processes his own reactions, and he waits one too long in silence before snapping back to reality and responding to your initiative. As politely as ever, he rests his hand over his chest, introduces himself to you with formal terms, and even attempts to give you a little smile to top.

He notices immediately after that the exchange must have appeared terribly contrived on his side. However, he ends up deeming the interaction a success when you answer him with a beam and a nod just as March jumps in and starts gushing about him to you, proceeding to praise his reliability and intellect to the heavens and back to you. 

He can’t help the way his wings flap a few times in a jittery manner as he listens to how the girl blabbers on and on, saying “Sunday is this and that”, all the while you follow her words with interest and what he wants to believe to be a gleam of admiration in your gaze. He hardly registers the fluttering feeling in his stomach. 

However, he doesn’t get to appreciate the sight of you for too long as the door behind him clicks open once more. He looks over his shoulder to see that Dan Heng has made his way into the Parlor Car.

Quirking his brow, the man scans over the room before inquiring about the ruckus. As always, it is March who perks up and explains to him what went down just moments prior. Clearly resisting the urge to go on a tangent or two, she manages to introduce you and point out the injury in one, long sentence. You simply nod along, letting the girl lead the tale and only butting in to once more apologize for the commotion. 

Sunday can almost see the gears turning in Dan Heng’s head as it takes a moment for the man to grasp the situation. However, as Dan Heng then briefly turns his attention to him, and the two men share a glance, Sunday can’t help but take note of a strange glint in his eyes. 

It’s not something he’s used to seeing: His companion is on the more stoic end of the personality spectrum — that much he has learned during his time with the Nameless — but he doesn’t have to wonder about the look’s meaning for longer than a few seconds as Dan Heng then decides to take the reins over the situation. 

”Let me see that”, Dan Heng briefly rests his hand on the stairs’ railing before making his way down and over to you. Though your eyes widen and you appear a little taken aback by the sudden suggestion, you quickly regain your composure and sit down on the chair you tripped over just moments ago. Silently, you allow the man to then kneel down before you and carefully roll the leg of your trousers all the way up to the end of your thigh. With one of his hands holding your calf, he inspects the raw mark on your knee, brushing his thumb over the side of the abrasion as March watches by his side. 

Then, after what feels like forever in Sunday’s books, Dan Heng finally stands up and tells you that he’s going to get some disinfectant and a bandage for the wound. You blink a few times before thanking the guy, and Sunday’s gaze fixates on your face just in time to catch the way you stifle an eminently giddy grin.  

He feels a twinge in his stomach. It takes him a moment to understand what the sensation stems from, but as he brushes shoulders with Dan Heng when he once more passes him by, it’s not difficult for him to name the emotion blooming in his chest. 

The sensation makes him uncomfortable. It’s red-hot and ice-cold all at the same time, spreading from his guts to the tips of his fingers, urging him to ball his hands into fists. He wants to look at you, to look at him, to shield his vision from the view entirely; to forget it ever happened, to remember every single detail. 

Nevertheless, he simply settles for taking a deep, elongated breath through his nose. He feels the air flow into his lungs, raising his chest before streaming out in a slow, steady exhale. Next, just as he has always done, he forces the unwanted feeling back into the small box where he keeps such notions, sealing the lid with a single sigh and a swallow. Briefly excusing himself, he decides to leave the room before Dan Heng comes back. 

He falls quickly, is what happens, essentially. He isn’t typically the sort to be swayed by his own impulses, much less romantic ones, but having grown past his former, much more rigid self, he’s able to admit to himself immediately that he has developed a flash crush, so to speak: He finds you bewitching, and not only is it about your looks but the way you move, speak, interact — within seconds, you have occupied his entire mindspace. At first, he wants to think it to be but an innocent fancy, the sort that simmers down after a day or two of actually getting to know you, yet as he comes to fear after the realization, the affection towards you ends up blooming much more rapidly than anything he has ever felt before. 

You are to share a room with March, is the plan for the next eight weeks or so. It’s not ideal for either participant, but due to the Express’ room situation being a little dire, it’s the best solution you could come up with. However, from what he has understood, you’re more than okay with the arrangement, and so is March: She gushes over the potential two-month sleepover like a kid, and after she has spread out a mattress for you and you have successfully settled into the train, you appear to be in high spirits about the voyage ahead. He lingers in the background and watches you as you gaze through the window and wave at the shrinking silhouette of your planet of origin with a wistfully twinkling smile on your features. 

He isn’t quite certain about your destination — it’s a small planet a few systems away of which he has only heard in passing — but nonetheless, as much as he wouldn’t like to admit to doing it, he literally counts the amount of hours he’s going to get to spend with you. He’s a bit abashed by even having the notion pop in his head: He doesn’t even actually know you yet, yet the impact you have left on him feels like it’s going to have his guts twisting right out of his abdomen. 

For perhaps the first time since the incident, he feels the creeping helplessness in the face of his own emotions tapping at his resolve. Still, as he has done countless times before, he reasons his way out of the difficult thoughts and adjures himself not to get ahead of his manners. At this point in time, the idea of his infatuation eventually growing into what it ends up as doesn’t even cross his mind. 

However, that changes in a mere week and a half after you have begun your short journey amongst the stars. Integrating into the Astral Express’ lifestyle doesn’t take you too long, and as a side effect of sharing the same living space, you get a little more familiar with the rest of the train’s inhabitants — including him. You greet him in the hallways, sit next to him when the crew has dinner together, inquire about him and his past. Although it doesn’t require much, you end up being the more talkative party between the two of you, and while he enjoys that, he has to put conscious effort into listening to what you’re saying due to being bombarded with you. You’re sitting a little too close to him — closer than he would allow anyone else to linger, anyway — and he’s free to observe every little detail of your being without any rush. The shape of your jaw, the colour of your eyes, the curving of your mouth when you sound consonants. If he had the time, he would happily take a while to count each individual lash on your eyes. 

He sees the vivid image of you in his head when he goes to sleep on the Parlor Car’s couches at night: He could probably recite the exact coordinates of that one tiny mole on the side of your face or draw the form of your nose from memory even if he was woken up in the middle of his rest to do so. 

So he continues to spiral, yet he entertains you regardless. Though he normally prefers to remain on a strictly polite level with new acquaintances, he responds to your questions. He tells you all sorts of things about himself, what he likes to do, about his unnamed sister whom he adores oh-so much, about the cheerless history of his family. You take all the information in with the sort of attentive curiosity that makes him want to share more and more, and so he does. 

You begin occupying a larger and larger space in his thoughts. He has always been the type that has found solace in spending time only with what his mind has to offer him, but now, it feels like he has company even when alone. He has a fairly creative soul (albeit he doesn’t often get to utilize it), and it’s simply in his nature to wallow in his daydreams every now and then, but when he catches himself having woven scenarios of you in various romantic-idyllic situations with him for the past fifteen minutes, he has to acknowledge the fact that something is definitely bubbling beneath the surface. 

At first, the realization puts him in an uneasy state. The so-called panic mode he gets himself into isn’t nearly as volatile as it could be for he has vast amounts of experience in sorting through his emotions, but he suddenly finds himself with a certain harrowing feeling. It’s difficult for him to put into words, but it’s the same sort of tight anxiety he recalls having when he wasn’t able to achieve sheer perfection in his past duties, or when he couldn’t be there for Robin when she was having a hard patch in her profession. Ultimately, it boils down to the idea of not doing enough, of nothing being enough — one that he has had to suffer through for more times than he can count — only this time, he isn’t sure if the disquiet will pass. 

The days go by. By now, you’ve been with the Express for little over a month. You’ve long since gotten accustomed to every habit of the rest of the crew, he has noted, and if he were an outsider himself, he wouldn’t be able to tell you apart from a regular member of the train. In the time he has spent with you, he has gotten to know you on a deeper level than any of his peers: He remembers all your family members’ names, your hobbies, your favourite colour, food, animal, all of it. Committing details about you to memory has become a nearly compulsive habit for him, and soon enough, he recognizes that the time of day he looks forward to overwhelmingly the most is when he can have a chat with you. The more time he spends with you, the more time he wants to spend with you. 

No matter how hard he tries to keep his notions to himself, he can tell that his companions aren’t completely oblivious to what’s going on. He gets weird, suggestive looks from the Trailblazer, and he has once overheard March ask you about “what the two of you are to each other”. You and him happen to share a dishwashing shift suspiciously often, too. Although he would’ve liked to keep anyone from interfering with his relatively obvious pursuit of getting closer to you, he can’t deny that the meddling has proven to be beneficial to his aim. 

But there’s another person you get to know better, too. March is someone you obviously spend quite a lot of time with — he understands the appeal of mingling with one’s own gender — but Dan Heng. 

At first, he thinks he’s just overly sensitive towards seeing you with who he subconsciously considers a rival, but as days pass by, a dreadful idea settles itself in his mind. He tries hard not to let it get to him, but the more he looks, the more alarming signs he finds: He thinks he sees a tinge of blush on your cheeks while you talk to the guy, you tend to twirl your hair while he’s around, and you always have this dreamy sort of a smile on your face after he has kept you company. 

It’s at this point where the chasm’s bottom begins to gain depth. The sensation is unbearable, almost: He knows that the hopes he has built for himself are of his own doing, and that there’s nobody else whom he can blame, but it still hurts all the same. He’s not even sure if what he’s seeing is real: For all he knows, he could be painting his own walls black, yet in the state he has spiralled to, he would be none the wiser. Nevertheless, the strings in his heart grow tauter and tauter. 

The perceived threat adds to the haste, whether he wants to admit it or not. For the first time in his life, though he still partially holds onto the same principles he did when he was the Oak Family head, he finds a singular question growing in his mind. 

What about him? He knows, envy is ugly, one shouldn’t desire what isn’t rightfully theirs, but what about Dan Heng is better than him? 

He holds two entirely contradictory world views at the same time: He’s not much, he might not be nothing at all, but still, he’s patient, he’s diligent, he’s kind, he’s meticulous, he’s a good listener… Sure, Dan Heng is an awful lot of things, too, and in his rational mind, he can see that very clearly. Gentle, calm, dependable, benevolent… He doesn’t hold any ill feelings towards the man — the complete contrary, even — but it has always been difficult for him not to compare. 

Moreover, he wants to be morally just, he tries not to think inflexibly, but in the end, those very qualities end up being the basis of his deviant sentiments. It’s simultaneously the notion of “I am evil, I am fundamentally evil and beyond repair” and the budding idea that “this, this is the only evil thing I’ll ever do in this lifetime. His brain feels like it’s twisting in on itself. 

And the time. With each day that passes, he knows he’s running out of time to coax you to him. Though, even calling what he’s doing as ”coaxing” leaves a sour taste in his mouth: Referring to his subtler than subtle attempts at courting you as trying to actually woo you has him cringing, yet the more he thinks about it, the clearer the truth becomes. He’s lucid enough to understand early on that he has somehow grown an obsession for a person that he only met a mere few weeks ago, and that if he can’t ensure the fact that you’re going to remain by his side, he knows that the hole in his chest is going to remain unfillable for what might be the rest of his life. 

He feels utterly and truly caged, much like that little Charmony Dove him and Robin found in their adoptive home, and as the circumstances are as they are, his desperation reaches its zenith. Eventually, after recalling the bird’s plight with nothing but bitterness, the only option he’s is not trying to flee the cage anymore but locking you into the cage with him. 

The warning signs are all there, and if you were the sort of a person who takes zero risks, the only obstacle in between you and altering the course of your less-than-preferable fate is the fact that you’re locked in space with him, but if you were to request it early enough, the Express could drop you off at a different destination. If you were to pick up on his unusual behaviour without delay, you could pack your bags and make it out, and you wouldn’t ever have to fear for him coming for you ever again, but if you only grasp the situation when the rest of the crew starts acting strange, you’re already too late. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 2. Securing: How will they abduct their darling? When, where and how?

Sunday doesn’t know whether you’re just that oblivious or if you’re playing a reverse version of his game and trying to save his feelings by acting like you don’t recognize his affection towards you, but either way, no matter how he tries not to have his thoughts steer in that direction, he starts considering the possibility. Not in any serious manner, but rather just wondering what would happen, realistically speaking. He could abduct-, no, the Express could-... Ah, but the Express would never aid him in such a task, of course. But, if the Express did, he would abduct you, and you would stay with him, and you would be-... You would be crying. You would be crying a lot, is what you would be doing, to be precise, but you would stay with him, and... maybe he could try to make you happy regardless, and…

His thoughts are so loud in his head. He can barely recall how he felt for the first weeks after meeting you: The sheer, warm sense of belonging and the innocent wish to have more, but now, all he can think is what if. He can’t focus on you anymore — the only thing filling his mind is the crawling dread of either having to let go of you or commit one of the most heinous crimes against the universe’s order. To do that to another person, to divest you of your freedom and happiness, is something so incomprehensibly cruel that he wonders why Xipe hasn’t yet shot him down from the Heavens. 

Yet, no matter how he tries to curb his thoughts, how much effort he puts into keeping his head straight, the image of you no longer looks the same. The shape of your jaw distorts to the curved bars of an aviary, the hue of your eyes darkens into a murky, pitless black, and the words coming out of your mouth morph into take me, have me, love me. He still chases the feeling he used to experience, he wants to look at you and sense the utter contentment he did when he first saw you, yet now, all he can feel is a sickening mix of overwhelming trepidation and raw, unfiltered obsession. 

The wheels finally set in motion when he gets an iota too careless with his behaviour. The more he daydreams about the chance of you not leaving — him not allowing you to leave — the more his meticulously constructed façade falters. The tightness in his jaw, the unusual tenseness with which he clutches the book on his waist, and the way his brows flatten whenever you walk by are all signs that someone with enough acuity regarding the matter would notice. Namely, Welt catches on to what’s going on. 

Sunday swears he nearly takes a premature trip to see the light at the end of the tunnel when Mr. Yang asks him to have a chat with him in private one day. The two sit down at the Party Car, Welt gets him a glass of water, and a silence which seems to last a millennium for both of them ensues. The man whom Sunday has never seen show any signs of strain now nervously bounces his foot and gazes at the grains on the wooden table, patiently waiting for Sunday to take a few sips of the drink which he frankly seems to more or less be choking on. Yet, right when Sunday thinks that his rapidly hammering heart is about to give out if the pressure persists any longer, the quiet is broken. 

”I understand how you feel”, are the words that come out of Welt’s mouth, and like cord had been cut, the tension in the room loosens in an instant. At first, Sunday doesn’t think he heard the man correctly, but as the floodgates suddenly open and Welt starts spilling out a lengthy story about his past, there isn’t much room for misunderstanding. Frankly speaking, Sunday isn’t even in a state of mind to internalize half of what the tale tells — something about someone who he fell madly in love with and who nearly drove him past insanity because of it — but the message still makes it through. 

”If you wish, we can arrange something”, Welt tells Sunday. 

And Sunday crumbles right then and there. He lets out each and every single thing he has been holding inside him ever since he laid his eyes on your form, and Welt listens intently. It’s the twisted sort of man-on-man talk: Though both of them still remain their composed selves, it’s plain that the nature of the interaction has shifted from a simple venting session to something that should never even have seen daylight. 

They talk and talk, the minutes stretch into an hour, two, and in that time, the base frame of it all has been figured out. Sunday goes to bed that night with the weight in his chest simultaneously as heavy as lead and lighter than ever. 

If there’s one thing he has always been good at, it’s lying to himself. Or, rather, it can’t even be called conscious deluding if he at one point begins to think of the matter as the truth. While he’s much too lucid to claim that abducting you would be an inherently good thing, he quickly forms a definite, simple pattern of thoughts that he starts consciously affirming. 

It’s not morally correct, you won’t be happy about it, BUT with the Express, you’ll be safer, he’s going to treat you impeccably, you’ll have all you need and won’t have to fear for basically anything, and thus, it is actually good for you. He plants the sequence in his brain, and each time a stab of guilt pricks his chest, he goes through the same process of reasoning, and in that manner, establishes the justification for his deranged logic. And, after such ratiocination has been formed, he’s able to move on to the next step that ends up being the final nail in your coffin. 

It’s the point where the plan blossoms to be. Considering the circumstances, it’s clear that the abduction doesn’t have to be a flashy one. After all, you’re already where you ”need” to be: As long as you never make it out of the Express, the undertaking is as good as carried through. Moreover, by the point in time when he finally makes up his mind, it’s only a few days before your planned departure, so the only thing he essentially has to do is prevent you from ever getting to step out. 

The preparations are taken care of quickly, but the knowledge of what is about to take place stays in between him and Welt only. In an ideal situation, the matter would be shared, but in a mutual agreement, the two decide not to let even Himeko know before the event has already gone down. March and the Trailblazer are obviously ones who shouldn’t be let in on the scheme, and Dan Heng is someone who Sunday fears might purposefully foil the arrangement if on track about it, but Himeko could as well swing towards either extreme. That being the case, it’s ultimately settled that only the two need to know about your planned abduction until it has already gone down. As they say, it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. 

And, you, of course, will remain completely oblivious to his intentions until your very last moment of normalcy on the train. If there’s something he has always excelled at, it’s acting natural even under excruciating stress, and that’s precisely what he does for the last stretch of your planned stay. He talks to you like usual, entertains your questions, watches as you go about your day with no care in the world. Though, he can physically feel his stomach sink every time you bring up the topic of how you ”miss your family and your friends and how you can’t wait to meet them” after which you gush about how ”everyone has been so nice to you and you couldn’t thank the crew enough for being so welcoming”. At that point, he truly can’t help but wonder if this is what it means to jinx oneself, but despite how the guilt is just about to grow as deep as the giddiness of soon getting to have you all to himself, he keeps his cool. 

Until the zero hour strikes, that is. 

It’s the very last morning of your time on the train. Not only are you in high spirits, but the rest of the crew, similarly completely and blissfully unaware of what’s going to happen in a mere few hours, is helping you prepare for your egress. Sunday watches from the sidelines as March is helping you fix something with your hair while Dan Heng neatly stacks your luggage next to the exit. Himeko, having finally been released from the navigator’s duties for a little while, lingers by one of the tables. The Express isn’t docked yet, but the stirring anticipation of soon getting to step foot on your homeland emanates off of your form like rays of sunshine. The atmosphere seems to be enlivening everyone, save for him, for the only thing he wishes to do is take shade from all the gaiety around him. The tips of his fingers are icy cold, his mouth is dry, his entire body is awaiting for the moment which will shortly come to pass in the blink of an eye.

He watches you gaze out of the Parlor Car’s wide windows at the now nearing silhouette of a planet in the distance as March fiddles with your locks. You have a certain sort of a hopeful glint in your eye that he couldn’t ever have imagined a few days ago that he’s soon going to take away. 

The Express grows nearer and nearer to its planned destination. However, if one were to look closely, they would notice that the train’s course is a tiny bit off-centre when compared to the circular shape ahead. 

Welt gave him the liberty of pulling out at any moment if he suddenly found that he couldn’t go through with what he planned. Yet, as things are going now, though his very soul feels like it’s about to rip open, he doesn’t reach for his phone in his pocket. 

He shifts his attention to Himeko. It’s subtle, but he can tell from the woman’s expression that she has noticed the odd alteration in the train’s direction. Nearly identically as Welt predicted for her to, she promptly excuses herself into the other car over, most likely towards the locomotive’s cockpit. Dan Heng, catching on to the abrupt, uneasy energy in the room, sends a glance in your direction, then at Sunday’s. Both participants of the silent interaction are lucky that Dan Heng isn’t capable of reading others’ thoughts, for if he were, Sunday doesn’t think either of them would be the same after. 

Your home planet has now grown so close that one wouldn’t need a keen eye to find that the Express isn’t heading towards what it was originally supposed to. You seem to slowly grow aware of the same fact: Your brows furrow, and though he can’t quite hear you from where he’s standing, he can read the ”is that supposed to happen” off of your lips as you turn towards March. 

The round edges of the planet now entirely fill the view visible through the window — or would, if the train’s route wasn’t being led right past. Your unease is nearly palpable by this point, and the lustrous ebullience you emitted mere minutes ago has now been replaced by a chilling sense of foreboding. However, still managing to curb the soon-to-ensue chaos, March attempts to reassure you, saying that ”it’s unusual but it’s probably nothing to worry about” in response to your question. Convenient, he thinks to himself, albeit the naivety in the girl’s words twinges on his conscience. 

Dan Heng, growing equally concerned about the matter, makes his way to you to see the spectacle better. With an equally concerned expression, he glances at the door in the cockpit’s direction. Sunday watches him without a single trace of restlessness on his features.

If he wanted to back out, the last moment for it would be now. Yet, somehow, at that very second, any and all hesitation in him dissipates for good. 

He slowly walks over to where you and March have your attention glued to the view. He hardly pays mind to how his hand subconsciously reaches to hold the book on his waist as he joins the audience to witness the success of the abduction plan with his target right by his side. 

Together, all four of you watch as the Express flies right past your home planet. 

Your eyes are as wide as saucers and your mouth agape when you first whisk your face towards March, then Dan Heng, then finally him. Of course, you’re completely oblivious to the fact that he is the culprit behind the unfolding scene, yet be that as it may, you happen to ask a very fitting question nonetheless: ”Why?”

As expected, the one to finally let the torrent loose is March. However, just as he hears the telltale inhale that entails a loud inquiry or two, her jaw latches back shut as the power of his tuning takes over her mind in a split second. In a similar manner, right before you’re able to get a word out, a vibrant aura appears at the edges of your vision, and whatever thoughts you may have been holding dissipate into thin air. 

And, finally, he turns towards Dan Heng by his side, but instead of whatever he is expecting for his expression to look like — shock, betrayal, even fear — he finds that his companion’s countenance is entirely serene. It’s not to say that he doesn’t appear surprised: Rather, the look on his features translates closer to how one would seem after watching an unfortunate yet expected scene come to be. His hand isn’t gripping the Cloud-Piercer’s shaft, there are no hostile words — merely a tense, lingering silence. 

Without speaking, the two of them look at each other for a few moments, after which Sunday gives Dan Heng a final, acknowledging nod, gently takes you by the hand, and begins leading you towards the Passenger Cabin. 

Like discussed beforehand, he guides the mindless you into the other car over, past Dan Heng’s, March’s and Himeko’s rooms, before stopping at the final door. Out of habit, he holds the way open for you and has you walk through the frame and into Welt’s room. Slotting his hand in between your shoulder blades, he guides you to sit on the bed before he himself rests down on the sheets as well, pulling you to lie down next to him. Carefully, he manoeuvres your body so he can properly hold your head to his chest as he finally, finally gets to embrace you, to have his arms around you, and right there, he feels like he belongs; like he had just found something he had lost for a long time. 

He closes his eyes as he leans his cheek against the crown of your head and inhales your scent. Though you’re still under his spell and unable to voluntarily control a single muscle in your body, he can sense the distress radiating off of you. It’s small, but he’s able to hear the little part of your mind which he hasn’t occupied weeping, calling for help, confused and frightened. 

Sighing gently, he brings his hand for your face and moves a few stray strands of hair off of your forehead. ”It’s fine. You should rest for a while”, he tells you in a soft, quiet tone. Though he knows the words are but a hazy blur to you at the moment, he still repeats the consolation and caresses the length of your arm in a slow, soothing manner. Like that, he reposes with you and comforts you in your trance-bound state, patiently waiting for Welt to conclude the argument that must currently be taking place in the Express’ cockpit. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 3. Life: What is it like to live with them? How do they treat the darling?

The start of your new life would be a horrendous one even if you were to entirely skip over the fact that you’ve essentially been kidnapped and that Sunday now has a trembling, terrified, betrayed you in his hands. There are a few reasons for it: Firstly, you’ve freshly realized that the amount of people you thought you could trust have gone from six to zero in the span of a single day, and secondly, the fact that due to him lacking a room, for the time being, you’ll no longer be spending the nights beside March but with him in the Parlor Car’s couches. The first wave of shock isn’t even about the entire he-loves-you thing but the sense of being entirely unsure about what happens next. 

You’re scared stiff for the first few days. It’s hard for him to get through to you at all: You hardly eat or drink anything he offers you, you don’t talk to him or the other crew members aside from a ”yes” or a ”no” in response to important questions, and though you don’t dig your heels into the floor or anything, if possible, you seem to only want to stay in a specific corner of the van. Wide-eyed and hugging yourself, you either stare at the ground or have your gaze flicker between any and all moving objects in a panicked fashion. 

He sees your apparent discomfort and fright, and while he can’t say that it doesn’t affect him at all, he’s a forbearingperson. He allows you as much space as you want — at least for the first couple weeks or so — but he does make his best effort at connecting with you again. At first, it’s awkward for both you and him as he understands that he can’t just go ahead and talk to you like he used to, but for what it’s worth, he makes sure to ask you the same questions: ”How are you feeling?”, ”let him know if you need anything” and ”please don’t hesitate to talk to him” are what his topics of conversation can mostly be condensed to as he doesn’t believe he would be able to get anything more complicated out of you at the moment. As expected, you don’t really answer him aside from the occasional plea to ”let you go back home”. For the sake of both your and his sanity, he has decided not to pursue that conversation just yet. 

It takes a while, as in a few horridly uncomfortable nights on the couches, but it doesn’t end up requiring too much of the Express to answer the newfound need to free a room for you and Sunday to reside in the other car over. The space is small, barely sizeable enough to even be called a room at all, and the walls are lined with old boxes and whatnot from the Nameless’ earlier adventures, but as it’s enough to fit both of you in it, he’s satisfied. He can’t quite tell what’s going through your mind as you let your eyes travel over the dust lining the ceiling and the mattress that has been laid on the floor, but as you eventually step past him, take a seat by the bedroll and pull your knees to your chest, he supposes that the setting is at least acceptable. 

From that point onward, you won’t really ever be leaving his side aside from going to the bathroom or taking a shower. It’s not that he means to be overbearing or anything — it’s just that he wants to keep an eye on you, preferably at all hours of the day. It’s both for making sure that you don’t do anything stupid and seeing that you have everything you need, but aside from that, he doesn’t mind letting you go wherever you want on the Express as long as he’s with you. He basically becomes your shadow; or, the other way around if you take the dynamic into account. 

When it comes to your belongings, he lets you have all of it — even your phone. Though, he only allows you to use your electronic devices under his supervision, quite literally with him staring at the screen over your shoulder. He doesn’t even have to verbally let you know that he’s going to use the Harmony on you the second you open the messaging app — you’re smart enough to have figured out as much on your own — but if you just want to pass time by gaming, reading something, looking through your photos or scrolling the interastral equivalent of Instagram Reels, he’s ready to let you do that. The last thing he wants to do is to restrict you more than absolutely necessary: In his mind, it would be selfish of him to deny you from retaining at least a tiny sense of normalcy in the whirlpool you’ve been thrown into, and that being the case, you get to practice your hobbies and whatnot as best as you’re able with the resources available. 

Furthermore, he would vastly prefer it if you used your time doing something you enjoy, or at least have enjoyed. While he can’t promise to fulfil every request you might have — he has to balance in between trying to make you happy and taking care not to be a burden to the rest of the crew — if it’s something relatively small like books, art and crafts supplies or even an instrument that you’re missing, he’s going to do his best to get it for you. 

Then, you come to notice very early on that the guy sure likes his routines. He, as a person, is very orderly and particular about the structure of his day as far as he’s able to be in his living situation. For instance, he goes to bed at precisely the same time every night, and the hour before is always spent more or less the same. His habits extend to you too, of course: While he allows you to do your thing most of the time, you’re bound to fall into the same patterns as he does not too long after the start of your captivity. Before you notice it yourself, you have already begun waking up at the same time each day, chosen the same seat each morning at breakfast, sat on the same seat in the Parlor Car as you wait for him to be done with his duties. It’s perhaps best not to think about it if you wish to keep even a shred of your individuality.

When it comes to interacting with the rest of the crew, he allows you to have it whichever way you like. Of course, it would be ideal if you were to communicate with the others at least a bit: He knows that March misses your company terribly, and besides, he thinks that socializing could cheer you up a little, but ultimately, he won’t force you to. He’s empathetic enough to understand that you might not be feeling like talking to anyone for a long, long time. Still, he doesn’t really have any reservations in the other direction of the matter either, so if you wish to go talk his companions’ ears off, he’ll permit it — he’ll just linger within a touching distance of you the entire time. 

The closeness factor is no joke, seriously: It’s like you had a leash connected to him that forces him to go along with you wherever you decide to walk. You don’t really get what the point is as you basically never get a moment alone due to the other crew members in your general vicinity, but regardless, he appears to get a little anxious when you leave his sight. He has always had a nasty habit of wanting to control everything, and monitoring your activities is no different matter. 

Though he has his reasons for not being inclined to leave the Express much, he does his best to take you outside whenever he’s able to. His Halovian powers truly are a handy tool when it comes to leaving no eyewitnesses, and though it takes immense mental effort, it’s a hassle he’s willing to go through in favour of allowing you to get some fresh air. Obviously, he vastly prefers locations where there is no one around to see you and him, but taking the risk is worth the reward of getting a little more light in your eyes. If there’s any relatively remote spot you would like to visit, just say the word, and he might consider it. Though, don’t expect too much freedom, for you’re still going to have to bear his company the entire time: As long as you’re out of the train, your hand won’t ever leave his — the humble price for the privilege. 

However, despite the offered solutions, more often than not, you don’t really have to do anything during the days you spend with him. He doesn’t make you take care of any of the tasks that were your responsibilities on the Express before the circumstances unfolded as they did; he handles those for you. It’s a silent means of compensating for stealing your autonomy, almost: The last thing he wants you to think is that he — or the crew as a whole — were utilizing your presence as some sort of a slave. Though, if you expressed overwhelming excitement over getting to take the trash to the main bin, he wouldn’t exactly stop you.

The same goes for basically doing anything at all. If you’re clearly against it, generally speaking, he won’t force you to come out of the room even if it were for having dinner, for instance. Sure, if you’re not feeling like seeing anyone’s face, he can just bring the food there. Moreover, he has a hard time trying to compel you to take care of your well-being as a whole: He would much rather not use his powers to make you conduct basic living functions, but ifpush really comes to shove, he’s going to bite his lip and literally make you to eat, drink or sleep. That being said, going on a hunger strike or the sort isn’t really a good strategy with him. 

It’s not that often that he has to leave the train for a mission or the like, but when he does, you’re going to come along with him. The protocol is the same as with your outdoor walks in general: Hand in his, no talking to anyone, being complacent, and so on. If he’s feeling courageous enough, he might place his hand on the small of your back or further up your pine, treating you in a rather old-fashioned, gentlemanly way. It’s a remnant of how he was taught to treat the womenfolk when he was still in his former position, and old habits indeed do die hard. Though, he’ll quit it instantly if you point it out: Any bit of discomfort regarding physical contact is something he can’t help but be especially contrite about, so if you want his hands off of you, he will comply, save for the handholding. 

Lastly, regarding the previous point, if it’s something you’re distressed about, he doesn’t coerce you to let him cuddle you to sleep. Of course, he would like to — very few things in the world bring him the same sort of comfort as getting to hold your back against his chest while you lie under the covers — but at the same time, your comfort is a more important matter for him. Though the mattress you sleep on is quite narrow, and the room is a little chilly and the blanket thin, he would literally sleep on the floor and let you have the entire bedroll if you asked. 

Or, if he’s desperate enough, he might pull a sneaky one on you and wait until you fall asleep before he silently shuffles closer to you and gently rests his arm over your side. When you’re fast asleep, you don’t flinch away from his touch nor does your face contort in fright as he embraces you. He thinks that it might even offer you some sort of comfort in the dream realm: After all, when reposing, the human body isn’t really able to discriminate when it comes to pleasant physical sensations. 

Oh, and there's a relatively mundane but all the more sweet part about your morning routine that he rarely skips over. It’s only once in a blue moon that you open your eyes before him, and that being the case, he typically ends up rousing you from your sleep. He’s one of the straight-up psychopaths who begin stirring exactly five minutes before their alarm, regardless of the time, and that being the case, you get a bit of a gentler wake-up before one of Robin’s songs starts playing from his phone. 

He starts by calling out your name in a soft, hushed voice, bidding you a good morning and telling you the time, just to see if you happened to already be awake. When the only reaction he gets out of you is your face scrunching up the tiniest bit, he resorts to carefully setting his hand on the curve of your shoulder. That much is usually enough to pull you out of the sleep, and it usually takes you but a few seconds to recall where you are and eventually jolt away from his touch with a drowsy, stupefied expression on your features. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 4. Rules: What kind of rules do they enforce? How lenient are they? How do they keep their darling in check?

As uncomfortable as the thought makes him, Sunday starts sketching out the base of what to set as the rules early on, even before the actual abduction takes place. To avoid the sharpest edge of the chaos that is sure to follow when you begin trying to navigate the limits and freedoms of your new life, he takes care to have as little equivocality as possible in what he writes down. That way, he hopes that though not very remarkable of a comfort, you might be able to find some sort of solace in the clarity. 

Like most of his kind of yanderes are, he’s a little hesitant to restrict you with any sorts of regulations. Moreover, after the absolutely necessary ones like stating that you’re not allowed to start breaking stuff or hurting anyone, and that it would be ”most preferable” if you didn’t try to make your way into the outer space, he can’t think of many limitations that would actually be crucial. You can refuse to talk to him, you can insult him, you can yell at him, he doesn’t mind — under the condition that it doesn’t bother the rest of the Express, that is. 

In fact, the core of all his rules could be condensed into the latter. Under no circumstance are you to bother the crew’s normal living on the train if not strictly necessary. He himself still doesn’t quite feel like a proper member yet, even though he has been reassured of the fact time and time again, and the last thing he would like to do is stretch the privilege that has been granted to him by allowing you to be a nuisance to the others. He can stomach just about anything being thrown his way, but just... please, don’t bother others. Just don’t. 

Along such lines he makes the rules known to you. More likely than not, he writes the sparse list down and gives it to you just in case, much like his past self would have done, albeit he doesn’t have nearly as many points on the paper. For good measure, he finishes his speech by asking you to ”just be polite like you always have. You don’t have to do anything more”, after which he proceeds to stare at you in silence as you read through the sheet in a few seconds. Your eyes go from the list to him, then back to the list, blank and entirely uncertain what to think of any of it, yet all you do is swallow, fold the thing into a smaller square and drop it on the floor beside your luggage. The silence that ensues is the mutual understanding of the fact that neither of you want to ever see the list again. 

Then again, it’s really all there is to it, for the rest of what you might get up to is more or less prevented by the fact that he’s there with you at all times. It’s essentially what he does to keep you ”in check” — the weight of his gaze on the back of your head is enough to keep you from doing anything stupid. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 5. Consequences: What kind of punishments will the darling face? How do they punish different offences?

Sunday really can’t bring himself to punish you. There are a good few reasons behind his reluctance: First off, he couldn’t ever delude himself into thinking that taking even more away from you than he already has would be justified by almost anything you could do, and besides, he isn’t on a mission to make you like him less. 

That, and his upbringing and past endeavours haven’t exactly left him with an ordinary conception about actions and consequences. He was raised to be a highly self-exigent person, meaning that the first thing that comes to his mind when thinking about the term ”punishment” are things like physical discipline, harsh words and taking away basic privileges such as food and warmth and so on. Of course, none of the mentioned could ever even come into question as he now realizes in his post Penacony crisis clarity mind that they are completely disproportionate — he’s appalled at himself for even associating you with such things. Moreover, he’s not a violent person nor does he hold a single bit of malice towards you, so penalizing you for your misdeeds is something he struggles with. 

Though, sometimes, his indirect actions manage to serve as a punishment on their own. For example, he has an unfortunate habit of serving you half-unintentional silent treatment when you’ve crossed a line. As is fairly obvious, he already doesn’t really fit into the category of professional yappers, but if you pull off anything that’s past the limit of relatively minor according to his short set of rules, like deliberately breaking something, he goes entirely quiet. Instead of getting a response to whatever you might have asked him, you’re met with the sight of his drooping Halovian wings and a vaguely disappointed look without a single word spoken to you. Even yanking on his arm and yelling in his ear won’t get him to talk to you past a few words, and it’s only after he has had an hour or two to sort out his mind that he returns to normal again. As said, it’s only partly on purpose: He understands the effect his silence has on you, but he really just does need the time to get himself back in check. 

Then, another one of his underdeveloped discipline strategies is that if he has time, he might lock you in your shared room — with him in there with you, naturally. It doesn’t actually differ that much from your daily activities, and you occasionally don’t even notice that he’s attempting to punish you for your actions as he doesn’t behave too differently from his usual self, but the method proves a little annoying for you time to time as he doesn’t allow you to wander around the Express until he deems that the ”consequence” has run its course. 

Yet, his lack of drive to be any cruel towards you doesn’t mean that your wrongdoings don’t affect him greatly. No matter how inexpressive of a person he is, some things just pierce so deep under his skin that even his carefully crafted front cracks. 

It’s never preferable, but occasionally, there are instances where he has to leave you alone for a bit. Of course, ideally, there would be someone to keep an eye on you when he can’t, but he often can’t request that sort of dedication from his companions, and so, there are bound to be times when he resorts to hiding any and all things you could possibly think to use for escaping before cooping you up in your room for an hour or two. 

He has never once forgotten to lock the exit. He’s infuriatingly diligent and meticulous about everything he does with you, yet the one factor he has failed to consider in the equation is the true magnitude of just what you’re willing to do to get your freedom back. 

He has been gone for a mere ten minutes, but within that time, you’re certain that he and the elders of the crew have already made it to the other end of the train where he said they would have business at. Frankly speaking, you don’t have the faintest idea about what even is in the cars further down the spacefarer, but such matters couldn’t possibly interest you less at the moment as you focus every inch of your being on seeing your plan through. 

The door of the room is old and worn: Its hinges have rusted, and the varnish on the wooden frame is chipping off at the ends of the planks. Each time you take a few steps back and ram yourself shoulder first against the barrier, another layer of dust rains upon you from the ceiling. Despite the way the head of your humerus throbs and how purple blotches are surely already forming on the skin over it, you merely clench your teeth, force your tears back down, and go for another attempt. 

You don’t even actually know what you’re going to do. The Express isn’t docked, and there would be no way for you to simply walk out of the train. Still, you’re determined, your phone must be somewhere around, or there must be another means of communication available, there has to be a way for you to contact someone. 

You let out a yelp when you bash yourself against the door once more. You’re certain the endeavour is making copious amounts of noise even outside the general vicinity of your room, yet nobody has yet come to check on what’s going on. As far as you know, it was only Himeko, Welt and Sunday who left for whatever they did — Dan Heng, March and the Trailblazer you aren’t sure about, but with how much din you have caused, you’re fairly confident that they aren’t within earshot. At first, you loathed the fact that a van connector separates you from the rest of the crew — in normal circumstances, there’s nobody else to hear your cries for help but your captor — but now, the very same fact is proving crucial for the undertaking you’re occupied with. 

Breathing in the dust-laden air, you retreat towards the back of the room once more. You take a moment to will away the pain in your limb, raise your chin, turn your shoulder towards the exit, and charge towards the door. 

A deafening crack echoes throughout the vacant car. Splinters fall over you, nestling themselves in your hair and catching in your clothes as the lock finally lets in. Thrust forward by the momentum of the movement, you topple into the hallway along with what’s left of the ruined entryway. 

The impact of the fall has your head swimming. Your knees scrape against the stray pieces of wood as you scrabble around for a moment in an attempt to find your balance. A gross ripping sound echoes through the empty hallway as the sleeve of your top finally tears when you plant your hands on the debris-covered ground and rise on your feet. 

You’re well aware you have no time to waste. Without missing a beat, you rush into action. 

Making a quick scan at your surroundings, you find that there are three doors aside from the one you just broke to try in the car. Hardly even bothering to pat the loose chips of wood off of your clothes, you hurry towards the first handle. 

Locked. You run to the next one, yet the middle latch doesn’t budge either, no matter how you tear at it. The third, the third, you’re certain your luck couldn’t abandon you at a moment like this, but it’s no use. Locked, locked, locked. 

Tears are straining at your throat as your gaze darts all over the van, trying to find anything that could aid you in your cause. However, the only things left for you to try are the end gates of the car; one leading deeper into the Express and the other to the Passenger Cabin. With the sense of panic catching up to you, you run across the hallway and reach for the exit towards the tail of the train — the side on which your captor left in — but you know even before your hand makes contact with the handle that he wouldn’t be that careless. 

It’s like you can feel the hope slipping through your fingers and pouring down into a puddle at your feet. Still, fighting off the fear of what you might have to face after being found out, you take but a few seconds to gather yourself and bolt to the other end of the car. 

Anxiety chips away at your resolve with each stride you take towards the door — you know full well that what’s waiting for you on the other side is merely the Passenger Cabin. However, despite it all, you take hold of the latch, slide the double gates to the side as quietly as you’re able, and step into the next car over.

With a quick look around, you seriously start considering turning back on your heels and returning to your prison with your tail between your legs. Even from a distance away, you’re able to determine that the Databank room’s door is wide open, and for that to be the case, there has to be someone inside. 

Even though the adrenaline is dulling out the keenest edge of your rational thinking, you’re not stupid enough to think that you could ever hope to sneak past Dan Heng. 

Your hands ball into fists. The lump in your throat refuses to go down, you can practically hear the clock ticking in your head, measuring the time to when you’re inevitably going to be found out. 

You want to curl up into a ball on the floor, to curse the Aeons to the deepest pits of hell for maltreating you so, to shut down entirely, to just let the crew members find you in a pool of your own tears and do whatever they want with you. Finally, your desperation boils over. Yet, still, as you gaze at the sight of the empty hallway through the blurry sheen over your eyes, one last surge of resolve pushes you into action.

No longer paying any mind to how much noise you make when you take one step forward, two, three, you accelerate to a full-on sprint and head right towards the open Archives room door. 

Dan Heng sits in front of one of the smaller screens on the desk with his upper body already turned towards the intrusion. He seems to have heard you approach, to have expected someone, perhaps March, to pop by the entrance of his room, but as his eyes make contact with your wide, frantic ones, his typically expressionless face falls. 

He stands up from his seat just as you cross the threshold, reel across the floor, and stagger up the few stairs that lead to him. As always, he’s quick to react, to reach his arms out to catch you as if he feared you were going to fall over, yet you hardly give him any time to react before you seize hold of the lapels of his jacket. 

You don’t even know what you’re saying, really — the words just flow out on their own. Moreover, even the ever-reliable Dan Heng clearly takes a few seconds to comprehend what’s going on. He can barely make sense of half of the hysterical blur coming out of your mouth, but combined with how your knuckles are turning pale from squeezing his clothes, the message behind the ”please, please, please” is abundantly clear to him.

He doesn’t seem to know what to do. Although he isn’t usually one to react strongly to anything, he now appears completely frozen in place. You tear at his collar, you scream at him at the top of your voice, you beg him to help you — it’s hundredfold the most emotion he has ever seen you convey. A sheen of sweat rises onto his temples.

A noise from the exit’s direction causes him to briefly tear his gaze off of your form. You take note of the shift, but despite the frigid, soul-chilling shiver that tears across your spine and nearly strikes you off of your feet, you don’t turn around. Even as you hear the distinct sound of approaching footsteps, you don’t bother to lower the volume of your voice. 

”Help me, you need to help me”, you repeat to Dan Heng over and over again, entirely ignoring how your vision grows cloudy with yet another wave of tears spilling past your lashes. You block out the entirety of the world behind you — the sound, the sight, the feeling — and focus every inch of your being on the man whose jacket you’re clutching. You try to appeal to the soft side you know he has, to somehow get through to him, to connect with his very soul, to-

Someone rests their hand on your shoulder from behind. The grip isn’t all that tight, yet it feels just as icy cold and rigid as a metal shackle would. Dan Heng looks past you and at who stands at your back. 

Pure, unadulterated dolour washes all over your being as Sunday’s gloved hand comes into your field of vision, reaching past your arm and gently wrapping itself around one of your wrists. Soon, the other joins the effort, carefully attempting to pry your grip off of Dan Heng. You sense the impending doom, the callous touch of what you feel like is going to be the last thing you’ll ever know.

But, even then, you hold onto the last bits of your pertinacity, raise your gaze, and meet Dan Heng’s own. With an inhale that fills your lungs to the absolute brim, you muster up the pithiest, weightiest look you possibly could. For a moment, time slows down as you believe you have reached his very being. 

His expression is hard to read, but for once, you know that it’s not just indifference that hides behind his stony countenance. You see it in his irises, you feel the hesitation that emanates off of his form, you see it, you see it-

Dan Heng reaches for your hand clutching on his clothes. Your stomach lurches violently — in elation or in terror, you’re unable to figure out in the span of the fraction of a second — but as he carefully weaves his fingers in between yours and disconnects your grasp from his jacket, you lose it. 

You shriek out a noise so loud that whoever might be in the neighbouring cars of the Express surely hears it. Shaking yourself free of both Sunday’s and Dan Heng’s touch, you sink your nails into Dan Heng’s arm, stabbing into his skin and latching onto him for dear life. Your voice grows hoarse as you scream out ”you can’t do this to me, you can’t do this to me” over and over again in between your ragged breaths, you dig your claws into him, you cry and cry and cry. 

Still, despite the overwhelming commiseration you swear you see in his eyes, he merely clutches your hand and frees himself of your grip. 

Sunday slides one of his arms around your waist and begins dragging you backwards towards the door. You dig your heels into the ground, still repeating ”please, you can't do this to me, don’t do this to me, please don’t do this to me”, but it’s no use. You hyperventilate, you claw at your captor’s gloved hand like your life depended on it, you sound like you’re not getting enough air in your lungs. 

Then, your voice cuts off in the middle of your wails. In a heartbeat, a soothing, vibrant aura of colours appears at the edges of your vision. You suddenly remember nothing of how you surely must have felt mere milliseconds ago, and the only evidence that’s left of your rapidly burgeoning panic attack is the stinging sensation in your eyes. Your body falls backwards against Sunday’s own as your muscles grow entirely slack. 

It’s an odd sensation; to be completely under his mercy while simultaneously feeling nothing. It’s not necessarily something you could sort into positive or negative — it just is. You just are. As if you were observing your own point of view on a movie screen, you watch how the ends of your feet sway from side to side as you’re pulled across the hallway, back through the double gate separating the cars and over to where the remains of the door you broke through are still splayed on the floor. 

You feel drowsy. Even when you see yourself being dragged through the doorway to your room and carefully settled on your back on the mattress you share with him, you can’t bring yourself to react in any way. 

Only then, the fog over your mind disperses. The throbbing in your head is back, the all-consuming distress regains control over your being, the ache in your shoulder, the rapid breathing, the heartbeat hammering in your ears, the panic. Your darting gaze hardly manages to fixate on the silhouette looming at your feet as your chest jerks with each, much too short of a breath you force in. 

Yet, as quickly as you regained the sway over your lungs, they once more refuse to listen to your commands. You find yourself physically unable to breathe. For a hot second, you nearly pass out from terror as you think he’s attempting to suffocate you using your own mind, but after a moment, your midriff expands once again with a long, much more measured inhale. 

It’s the first time he has ever had to use his powers for a means like this. Looking at you now, he’s unable to find the words to describe how you appear to him: To see someone trying to overbreathe at the same time as he actively subdues that reflex is admittedly something he didn’t think he would ever have to witness in his lifetime. 

He watches as more tears draw their paths down your cheeks, he listens to your quieted sobs for help, his eyes stray to where your hands twitch in a futile attempt to free yourself from the song of Harmony, yet all you’re able to do is lie on the bedroll and suffer under the weight of your own heartbreak. 

He could bring you the worst pain you have ever experienced with a single, fine pitching of his powers. He could have you go through a hell you didn’t even know existed, he could inject such unfathomable amounts of anguish directly into your veins that you would never be the same again. It would be an easier effort than a snap of his fingers. His eyes grow glazed.

Still, though he knows his past self probably would have, he knows that he could never, ever bring himself to hurt you like that. He reads your state directly off of your thoughts, the most intimate part of your being, and he can sense just how terrified you are. It wounds him that you feel that way, it truly does, and as he watches your soul shatter into pieces, he feels his own doing the very same. 

Above all, the experience is psychologically scarring, for the lack of a better term to describe it. The sense of betrayal, both from your and his side, is something he doesn’t just expect you to get over with. He, as always, deals with his own emotions where you can’t see — it’s not something he would ever want to burden you with despite having grown past his stringent ways — but seeing your misery-drowned gaze doesn’t fail to sink him into the same hole for weeks on end. 

He might cry about it behind closed doors, too. It’s not a full-fledged breakdown by any means — he has always had the habit of managing without those — yet he still can’t help but shed a few tears when nobody’s there to see. He tries the same methods as always to console himself, trying to name the emotion, going through what went wrong in his mind and deciding what he’s going to do to prevent it from happening again, but this time, he simply can’t find a suitable word for the ache deep within him. He lingers in silence for a moment, recalling the image of your panic-stricken face, the purplish splotches on your contused shoulder, the way you held onto Dan Heng like it was the last thing you do. In the deafening quiet of the dark storage room he has hidden himself in, he slides his gloves off, sniffles, and collects the tears on his waterlines on the back of his finger. 

Thus, the worst punishment you can get out of him is the mental load of having to deal with both your own emotions and inadvertently his as well. He doesn’t intend to be seen that way, but though he’s gentle and calm, due to him lacking the same confidence that someone like Jing Yuan might have, the uncertainty about what will follow rubs off on you. He gets pensive, even more pensive than he already was, and having to linger in the atmosphere that’s constantly filled with gloom might just be as bad enough as a physical consequence. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 6. Emotions I: How do they show love? How do they attempt to make the darling love them?

Above all, Sunday shows his love and admiration silently. Though he actually is one that sometimes indulges in verbal means of expressing his affection, he believes that actions speak louder than words, and that being the case, he mostly leaves his sentiments to be read in between the lines. 

He likes the quiet in general. Not necessarily complete silence — he vastly enjoys listening to music, for example — but the sort of atmosphere where there aren’t any extra stimuli is where he thrives the best in. That being the case, most of the time, he just prefers to linger in your presence: It’s the soundless sort of closeness of having your hips be almost close enough to touch each other, yet still not quite so as to maintain the sense of safety and tranquillity in you. Of course, if you were to show any sign of willingness towards having his arm around your waist or such, he would come scampering to you like a lost finch, but due to his exceptionally advanced skill at reading the room, he most often lets you be. 

Though, when it comes to providing you with a pleasant sensory experience, he has a whole lot of subtle things he likes to do. At the beginning of your captivity, he strays away from touching you as he understands that it’s probably the last thing you would like at the moment, but after a while, he gets a little more daring about having his hands on you. 

It starts as very brief brushes here and there. He doesn’t want you to get startled by him or feel like he’s actively breaking your physical boundaries, so he carefully gauges your reactions to any and all things he does while doing his best to map out what you respond especially negatively to. He skims his hand over your shoulder when passing by, he grazes against your lower back when holding doors open for you, he settles down a piece of hair sticking out from the rest of your locks, that kind of thing. As said, he’s very cautious about pushing your limits, and if you jump, flinch or otherwise show aversion towards his actions, he stops right there and apologizes, even. However, his attempts continue, albeit on a milder level. 

Continuing in the same category, he, too, belongs in the group of yanderes who like doing your hair for you. It’s a serene practice, fairly intimate, and doesn’t evidently feel like that big of a violation to you. Robin has kept her hair long for as long as he can remember, and so, he has had plenty of opportunities to hone his skills in the area. He knows how to braid: Under, over, fishtail, twist, you name it, he can get it done with little to no fumbles. He’s also of the rare breed of non-tuggers when it comes to handling the strands — he weaves the tangles out of your hair like gliding his fingers through water. 

In a relatively similar way, he has a habit of bettering your appearance whenever he notices something off. It’s not an insult towards you by any means, he just notices little details here and there that could be fixed in a few seconds and discreetly goes for it. For instance, you might suddenly feel his gloves on the back of your neck as he briefly straightens your collar or slips the tag of your top back under the neckline, or he might pay note to a loose thread hanging off of your sleeve and promptly proceed to pluck it off. Though such things don’t really seem like anything special in your eyes, taking care of you in the mentioned manner is actually a quite important thing for him, so if that’s something you say no to, he does become a bit disheartened. 

More indulgent physical affection is something he reserves for closed doors, and more specifically for when you’re not actively resisting it. As talked about earlier, he only ever cuddles you while sleeping when you’re, well, sleeping. His own gifts for resting happen to be relatively poor, and thus, he tends to take much longer than you to drift off, meaning that he has plenty of time to wait until he dares to put his hands on you. It’s always the same position: His chest loosely pressed against your back and one of his arms draped over your upper body while the other is awkwardly lodged beneath his head. Frankly, the theoretical ideal would be for him to get to sleep in a corpse position with all the mattress space for himself, but the urge to hold you overrides what’s practical. It’s not often that you actually catch him in the act as he appears to have a sixth sense to tell when you’re about to wake up — he pulls away from you before you do — but there are bound to be a few times when you’re yanked away from your dreams to find that the guy has surrendered to his cravings. 

Though, seldom, you find that his embrace unfortunately holds benefits as well. The room you share gets a little cold from time to time, and while he isn’t exactly a human radiator, having him close provides enough warmth for you to be comfortable. And, while it’s a somewhat shameful thing to admit, occasionally it’s nice to just... be held. It’s the sort of a half-asleep thing where you don’t have energy to fight for your agenda anymore and just decide to let it be. Plus, there’s nothing substandard about him when it comes to being a prime cuddle partner: He’s gentle, attentive, and he smells very nice. 

On the same topic: You’re unfortunately going to have a similar sleep-related problem as you would with Dan Heng — it’s difficult to get a good rest while sharing a bed with Sunday. It’s not because of his sleep schedule or anything similar, but the fact that he’s a very light sleeper. He has never quite found a fix for the issue, it’s just something he has accepted and dealt with for as long as he can recall. More often than not, he wakes up a few times during the night, he tosses and turns, he adjusts the blanket, and no matter how careful he tries to be, due to already being uneasy, you frequently end up stirring nonetheless. It’s infuriating to say the least — so much so that you frequently have to curb the urge to swat at him whenever he ends up disturbing you — but there’s really nothing either of you can do. The quality of your sleep more or less plummets, and in consequence, you end up being prone to napping during the day. 

He doesn’t mind you dozing one bit — he would be entirely hypocritical if he were to restrict you from trying to catch up on the sleep that he’s ruining for you during the night — but please, by all means, utilize him as a cushion. There are times when he has to take care of the Express business with the others, and while he doesn’t want to hinder you from getting more rest, he would rather not leave you locked in your room all alone. So, though you’re yawning, staring into space, and still shivering due to the fatigue creeping through your body, he tends to drag you out of bed and into the public cars, and as luck would have it, you’re immediately gravitating towards the couches. Weariness is a curious thing to some, he muses, for it doesn’t take but a few poorly rested nights for you to be surprisingly amenable to the idea of continuing your sleep on him. 

While he’s always a little embarrassed and apologetic about the matter, the rest of the crew quickly grows used to the sight of you laying your head on his lap, eyes closed and shoulders rising and falling in a gentle rhythm. He explains the affair to the others, telling them that ”you have been having a little trouble sleeping”, all the while he gently pets your hair and makes sure that your neck isn’t going to be sore when you wake up. The latter, especially, is something you won’t ever have to worry about: He could as well have a college degree as a professional pillow. Furthermore, feel free to nap as long as you would like — he’s nothing if patient, and your needs are what guide his daily plans to a degree, so you could rest for a few hours and he wouldn’t mind. 

Relating to his instinct to fix your clothes, if it’s his lap that you’re napping on, he might spend his time sort of grooming you. Since you don’t seem to mind the physical contact at the moment, he takes the liberty of fiddling with your hair. He either starts weaving through your locks, finding split ends, and picking them off, or he may scratch and pick tiny flakes of scurf off of your scalp. It could be likened to an idle fidget, almost: It’s just that you’re right there, his hands are entirely unoccupied, and whereas he’s normally quite content at just sitting still and doing nothing, you awaken a certain sort of nervousness in him that’s difficult for him to ignore. Still, as is with the previous points, if you express distaste towards his propensities, he will restrain himself. 

Then, aside from the physical aspect, it’s not like he doesn’t want to or occasionally won’t open his mouth about things — it’s just not very often. The biggest block he has regarding verbal affection and such is that he knows he has a certain, very articulated manner of speech which can make him appear a little spurious, so to speak. That being the case, he fears that you would misunderstand his words as not genuine. He was taught to be very mindful about how he communicates, and it usually takes him a moment to find the right things to say, contributing to a slightly impersonal impression. In a way, words are a somewhat sensitive matter for him.

When he praises you, he mostly focuses on simple and relatively palpable things like your appearance or your hobbies. For instance, if you’re busied with something such as arts or crafts or anything of the kind, he might take a measuring look at the results and speak out a soft yet unfeigned ”that looks wonderful”, or if it’s your looks, he brushes his fingers against your arm, your hair, something light, and simply says ”you look most beautiful”. He doesn’t see the need to embellish his words much beyond the truth he sees so clearly. 

Ah, and though he generally appears a little aloof, he has his more mirthful moments, too. He often holds himself back due to fearing that you might find his amusement towards you to be in bad faith, but every so often, you catch him enjoying the view when he perceives something you do as particularly endearing. He has this very distinct, gentle way of smiling that has an iota of cheekiness in it, even, and it also happens to be the sort that evokes a little self-consciousness in you; the kind that makes your brows flatten and have you glaring at him with a bashful ”what?” slipping out of your mouth. He doesn’t make it that way on purpose, obviously — he just has a teeny-tiny, innate, mischievous streak in him. 

Cheeky, precisely, is what he could be described as in his best moments. It’s not the brazen kind of sassiness by no means — he’s a polite person to the core — but occasionally, when he feels that the timing is appropriate, he might engage in a little raillery. It’s usually over entirely trivial matters, yet it’s still all the more flustering when he softly sighs, reaches to tuck a stray piece of hair behind your ear and tells you ”what a disorganized person you are”. What he says is all in good faith, of course, but Aeons, it would be impossible not to get discomposed when the gloved tips of his fingers brush against your temple while he tenderly smiles at you with his eyes filled with nothing but fondness. 

In a similar manner, he may get a little bolder if the jibing is coming from your direction. He’s nimble-tongued, to say the least, and sometimes, if it’s clear that you’re trying to push his buttons for the mere sake of it, he might clap back with a little banter. Insults directed at his manner, his words, anything, just might be met with a ”oh, but do look at yourself, please”, spoken with his brows raised and a tiny, impish curve on his lips. Naturally, when you get warm in the face and start stammering out a defensive remark, he quickly follows up with a closed-mouth laugh and a ”my apologies”, giving a gentle pat to the crown of your head. 

Obviously, he never gets teasy if it doesn’t appear that you’re in a mood where you could digest a bit of badinage: As mentioned, he has a good eye for the general atmosphere of an interaction, and that being the case, he takes care that you don’t ever actually end up offended by his words. 

Finally, as a bit of a side note, much like with his previous version, you do have an advantage if anything even remotely related to music is your thing. It could be singing, playing an instrument, a melody-involving field of sports or art, or even something like mixing — he doesn’t discriminate one bit. He himself plays the piano, and if you were to show even the slightest bit of interest in that, he would entertain you without a second thought. He considers music to be capable of reaching emotions which words never could, transcending space and time, and a very sweet yet all the more heart-rending thing he might do is play you a song from your home planet. He goes out of his way to find the sheets for the piece and perform it to you. It depends on the day whether the act makes you hopeful or has you break down in tears. 

Moreover, and if you ever were to want to learn the art from him, he would be over the moon. He’s not used to teaching anyone, but oh, if the image of you sitting beside him on the stool, thigh to thigh, while he guides your fingers on the keys doesn’t have him swooning. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 7. Emotions II: How do they deal with the darling’s emotions? How are outbursts handled? How do they attempt to comfort the darling?

Sunday, if anybody, has seen his fair share of all sorts of emotions. Listening to people’s woes used to be his job, and he has had to witness everything from inundating rage to soul-crushing grief, so whatever feelings you might direct towards him will largely settle comfortably on the spectrum he’s used to dealing with. 

As mentioned, he himself is one to suppress his emotions until the very end and even beyond if he’s able to. It’s something he learnt to do from a very young age as that was expected of him, and even now, the same habit persists. It doesn’t mean that he would have a particularly hard time understanding yours, though: Whether it’s anger or sadness that you throw his way, he’s prepared to face it all. 

Your wrath, namely, he finds, is the easier of the two to deal with. It’s more linear, he would say: With anger, there’s the trigger, the storm, and the abatement. You don’t tend to shout profanities or try to injure yourself, him, or the environment that often as he has made it clear to you that it’s the one thing you would see consequences for, but every now and then, the pressure gets just enough for you to lose your temper. 

He’s annoyingly unaffected by it. No matter what you yell at him, he weathers it all with a straight face and doesn’t even attempt to get a word in until you run out of breath. Though, it’s only for a little while since allowing you to bother the rest of the crew with the noise is entirely unacceptable, and if he senses that the furniture is going to start flying around soon, he puts a stop to the tantrum with his Halovian powers. He doesn’t even give you a verbal warning before the trance takes you over, and just as quickly as your outburst started, your mood mellows down into a dull, serene state where you’re forced to simply exist with your thoughts. With your mind in his careful grasp, he makes sure to have you lie down for a while while he lingers in your vicinity just to make sure that you’ll be alright when he lets you out of the haze.

Then, on the other hand, your sorrow is a little trickier for him to face. It’s not that he didn’t mentally prepare himself for having to witness you in such a state — the cause-and-effect is quite obvious — but at the same time, it’s a little difficult for him to decide on the best course of action. After all, there are a lot of ways to go about trying to comfort you, and sometimes he doesn’t exactly know what it is that you would need the most. 

Above all, he puts his utmost into trying to prevent the depressive side of you from taking over. He’s probably one of the best listeners in the entire cosmos, and if you’re up for it in any shape or form, he would love to lend an ear to you. Whatever it is that you would like to talk to him about, he is ready to take it all even if it means that he’s going to have to get bashed verbally. It’s more convenient that way, too: Being an outlet for your emotions also means that he gets to monitor the changes in your state of mind in real time, making it easier for him to adapt his behaviour accordingly. Allowing you to vent, namely, is the method he depends on the most, and it’s also something he wishes you will utilize to your heart’s content. 

But, of course, you do end up resorting to crying your misery out at times. At its core, it’s merely a part of the body’s stress response: Certain hormones are secreted along with the tears you shed, thus achieving the effect of often causing one to feel better afterwards. As is with other outward displays of feelings, he isn’t really one to cry, but seeing you do so strikes him all the same. 

You tend to avoid weeping in front of him. He has a few educated guesses on what the reason behind such behaviour could be — he need to retain the one bit of vulnerability all to yourself, the shame of having been broken down to where you can’t help but sob, and the fear of what sort of a reaction he would have to seeing you in such a condition are all plausible explanations — yet it all boils down to you not wanting him to get to watch the show of mental anguish. You try to do it discreetly, often literally picking a time for when you’re going to break down so you can avoid being seen by him, but every now and then, he happens to walk in on the display nonetheless.

Maybe he took a little less time in the shower than he originally thought, and you believed you could be quick enough to manage to relieve your anxiety in the 20 minutes he told you he would take. He enters your shared room just in time to catch you in the middle of your chary sobbing session, face in hands and snot running down your upper lip. You gain the look of a startled animal on your features: Your shoulders jump, your eyes widen, and your mouth drops slightly ajar as he catches your teary gaze with his own. On the contrary, with his hair still damp and a change of clothes in his arms, the only reaction the unexpected sight awakens in him is a phlegmatic stare and a subtle raise of his brows.

More often than not, you don’t even try to properly conceal the evidence of what’s going on once you have been found out. You’re aware that you couldn’t ever hope to hide such details from him, but nevertheless, you still turn your back to him, wipe your tears on the back of your sleeve, and rush right past him and out of the door like a teen drama heroine. It’s only a temporary solution, however, for he’s merely going to let you get a few steps away before he follows right after you. He won’t try to prevent you from attempting to get out of his sight, he can allow you that much, but like what you’re used to, he’ll remain within but a short distance away from you. That being said, you’re almost always going to have an audience for your weakest moments, whether you like it or not. 

He knows you’re a little sensitive like that. It’s nothing he would like to change about you — he himself is a sentimental person at heart — but he does wish you would rely on him when you feel down. He has done his best to make it clear to you that he’s there for you if you ever need him, yet the only instances you allow him to properly comfort you are those when you’re bordering a full-on breakdown. 

He usually finds you balled up in a dark space, and he knows even before actually seeing you that it’s probably going to be ugly. The sounds you make are the distinct, heart-wrenching sort of disconsolate sobs and wails that leave very little to one’s imagination. At such times, you don’t seem to care who hears or sees you — it all has simply become too much, and your psyche has found no other way to cope with the strain. 

He approaches the situation carefully, taking care not to have his footsteps be too loud to worsen your alarmed state while simultaneously making sure to make enough noise so that you won’t be caught off guard. Cautiously, he monitors your response to him nearing you, and it’s only when you don’t make a single effort to push him away that he dares to completely close the distance between the two of you. 

His efforts always start in a little awkward manner. He’s aware that he has got a moderate case of a deadpan face, and so, he doesn’t try to offer any eloquent gestures of empathy. Instead, he slowly settles himself beside you on the floor, almost hip-to-hip. Making sure not to have his fingers get caught in your hair, he slides his arm around your trembling shoulders and gently nudges your head to rest against the crook of his neck. By this point, you don’t do anything to resist him, instead simply continuing to bawl your eyes out. For once, he doesn’t encourage you to talk to him about what’s on your mind — he’s thoughtful enough not to start prodding that topic just yet — but he does still mutter out a near silent, feather-soft ”what’s wrong?” to you. Though worded like one, the words are not so much a question than they are an acknowledgment of the fact that he perceives you’re hurting. 

Hence, he doesn’t expect an answer. Rather, he focuses on attempting to ground you with his presence, making sure that the closeness he can offer is precisely solid enough not to overstep your boundaries but still sufficiently loose to allow you to pull away if you would like. 

Moreover, he has a certain way with his touch that’s hard to describe in words. The sentiment has never quite made sense to him for he wouldn’t consider himself to be the most at-ease person inside, yet that very trait is all that translates to you via his actions nonetheless. It’s as if his fingertips hold a sedative within them, and the moment his gloved hand starts stroking up and down your quivering arm, you’re already a little calmer. 

He’s only able to catch a few glimpses of your expression from behind your forearms with which you do your best to hide yourself from his gaze, but from what little he’s able to catch, he can see the sort of a difficult look in your puffy eyes. You’re breathing in a heavy, choppy manner, yet with each caress, your exhales grow a bit slower. 

After a while, when you’ve evidently gotten over the worst of it, he gathers the rest of his courage and slips his free hand underneath your bent knees. With a little effort, he hoists you over and in between his thighs where he settles you sideways so that you can properly rest against him. He wraps one arm around your upper body while setting the other so that he can stroke the back of your neck in round, measured patterns. At first, the feeling of his gloved palm making contact with one of your most vulnerable spots feels almost unbearable, but within seconds, you sink back into the comfort he’s actively coaxing you into. 

Repetitive movements is what makes it, he has noticed. Without a single hurry in the world, he softly rubs your nape, feeling the shape of your vertebrae underneath the skin. If the position allows him to, his Halovian wings might come to rest atop of your head in an almost protective manner while he continues soothing you to the best of his ability. 

Then, if he still feels you flinching and sniffling after some time, he might resort to using the last trick up his sleeve. It’s something he distantly remembers his own mother doing whenever he was sad as a child, and though he finds himself a little embarrassed about the notion, he ultimately gets over his hesitancy. 

You can hardly believe your ears when you first hear the quiet humming coming out of his mouth. He’s nowhere near as talented of a singer as his sister by any means, yet he still holds the pitch skilfully. It might be a classical piece that’s not meant to be sung at all, or perhaps it’s a song you’re familiar with — maybe even one of Robin’s — but regardless, it only lulls you deeper into the sense of tranquillity. His chest vibrates along with the soft melody he sings, the tune seeps into your very being, the notes full of warmth wrap you in their gentle embrace, and eventually, as if he had used his powers on you, you shift to properly lean against him. 

The two of you stay as you are for as long as it takes for the strain in your muscles to completely dissipate. He holds you through it all even if it means that he has to sit down on the cold floor for hours on end. 

Though his heart aches for the sight of you at your lowest, he finds some sort of solace in being able to console you as he does. The notion is a discordant one, yet he can’t help the warmth that spreads in his stomach as he looks down at the eventually drying streaks of tears that adorn your cheeks. 

Finally, a perhaps endearing detail about him doing his best to prevent you from falling apart is that each time you have a bad instance, he gets you a little gift the next day. At first, you suspect that the gesture might have briberous undertones to it, but as time goes by and he still hasn’t come to you expecting any favours, you find that his intentions are indeed genuine. The present isn’t anything remarkable: Usually, it’s a little snack he knows you like, or maybe something small related to your hobbies, but nevertheless, you understand it to be a token of goodwill of sorts. 

Oh, and if you ever were to get yourself in a mental state so bad that he has to wonder if your psyche can endure the harrowing much longer, he might resort to using his tuning once more. It’s a tough decision as he understands that you’re obviously expressing substantial anguish and that there’s a reason behind your behaviour, but at the same time, he just can’t. Seeing your tears, hearing your wails, practically being able to feel the torment radiating off of you crosses the line of being too much for him to bear, thus impelling him to use the one method that rarely has failed him. He understands that it’s an easy way out, that the unmistakably familiar manner in which your expression falls blank is purely artificially achieved, yet still, when all other options have been extinguished, it’s the very last tool left in his box. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 8. Things to exploit: What are the darling’s best chances at escaping? Are there things which the darling can use to their advantage? How can the darling make things easier for themselves?

As is foreseeable, trying to escape from Sunday holds more or less the same dangers and advantages as in Dan Heng’s case. The state of affairs is very similar, yet there are a few key differences. 

Of course, the basic factors persist: You’re in space, most often in the middle of nowhere with nothing but emptiness outside of the train’s walls. Thus, you only have a few windows to flee every now and then, and they’re hindered by the Halovian staring at the back of your head every passing second. Similarly, the rest of the crew has an eye on you, making the effort all the more difficult. 

Still, March, for starters, is the obvious weak point here as well. Though Sunday is even more careful than Dan Heng about letting you spend time with her, if you manage to be left alone with her for some time, you might get the chance of fishing some information out of her. You have to be especially careful, though, as Sunday is on high alert whenever it’s not just him who is keeping you company, but slipping in a few questions when he isn’t listening is an entirely possible feat to pull off with a bit of situational awareness.    

Secondly, Himeko and Welt are all no-gos, albeit the latter is a potential shoulder to lean on. Himeko is purely on your captor’s side for reasons you have a hard time understanding, but Welt, surprisingly enough, is someone who spends time with you every now and then. He’s one that your captor trusts (as he was the one to bring a concrete start to it all), and if need be, he plays the part of your therapist, almost. Anything that you’re too hurt, scared or uncomfortable to discuss with Sunday you can share with him if you feel like it, and although he won’t ever help you escape and will put a stop to your attempts if he bears witness to them, he is one whom you can make the mental aspect of your stay easier with. 

Then, Dan Heng doesn’t really engage as he wants to remain respectful of what he deems to be Sunday’s territory in a way, but since your day one on the Express, even before the whole fiasco went down, you have gotten the image that he must have at least a little bit of a soft spot for you. Though subtle, he occasionally seemingly tries to help you get a little break from Sunday’s presence by calling him for some Express related responsibilities that you’re not allowed to hear or such. He isn’t one to rely on when it comes to escaping, but similar to Welt, he’s another one you can lean on if need be. Though, it’s a little difficult to read his intentions as sometimes you feel like he appears to be deliberately beguiling you to him. 

Setting the problem of the rest of the crew being present aside, your best bet left is going through your captor himself. It’s fairly obvious that the physical threat of him isn’t very noteworthy — crudely put, he’s the textbook definition of a skinny white boy — and since that is the case, you technically have a chance at overpowering him with brawn. The only issue with it is that he has his halo on his side, and he needs but a blink of an eye to put you back in your place if you try to act up, but if you really decide to put your all into it, it’s manageable. Though, it’s good to remember that he’s pretty much the only one out of the crew, save for March, who you could pull such a thing with, so the joy would likely be short-lived. 

Lastly, there’s the fact that Sunday truly isn’t stone cold of a person. He’s candid and lucid in a way that he can still experience guilt, and it’s precisely the most important thing to take advantage of if you’re planning to make your escape. As you already know, he’s conscientious to a fault, meaning that no door will be left unlocked and no detail overlooked when it comes to keeping you captive, but if you make him feel culpable enough, it’s almost as if he starts being careless. Suddenly, he forgets to close the latch to your room when he goes to use the bathroom, or he doesn’t seem to mind you having a sharp item or two on hand. You don’t know whether it’s on purpose or merely genuine negligence towards what he used to be so particular about, but whatever the case, it appears as if his own subconscious is actively fighting against him to get you free. 

When it comes to making things easier for yourself, there isn’t that much you can do since the convenient sides of being a darling are practically handed to you on a silver plate. Frankly, Sunday isn’t a scary yandere by any means: You can just be your normal self, go on about your daily habits as best as you’re able and occasionally allow him to touch you here and there, and everything is the best it could be. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 9. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes? What unique qualities do they possess?

As does his past counterpart, as brushed upon, he likes cleanliness, order, harmony and so on. Growing up in the circumstances that he had, he never knew any worse, and though the room you’re in is quite dusty and filled with stacks of boxes that contain who-knows-what, he still makes do with what little cleaning he can conduct in the cramped space. 

He makes the bed each time you leave the room even though he knows that you’re going to be resting on it a few minutes later again, for example. Or, if you leave things lying on the floor, you can be certain that if they sit as they are for more than a short while, he’ll sort them back into their place or slide them into your bag and clean the bag itself out in the meantime, too. It’s just a force of habit: What little he can affect, he will. It’s not necessarily compulsive even though it occasionally appears like it, and it’s nothing that hinders you in any way, but you do, admittedly, sometimes feel a tiny bit belittled when he has to clean after you. 

He’s all about appearances in other areas as well. He’s used to being content with relatively little, but it’s still important for him to keep up a sort of dignified manner about himself, and that includes you. Essentially, he wants to give the rest of the crew the impression that you’re doing at least somewhat good, meaning that if you’re going to interact with the others, he’s going to have you dress up not to look like a walking shell of a human being. He brushes your hair down, uses a handkerchief to dab tear streaks off your face, makes sure that you don’t have any obvious signs of distress on you, and only then does he allow you to walk into the communal spaces of the Express. 

Moreover, having you socialize with his companions without him in your immediate vicinity is a bit of an iffy topic for him. As mentioned, you’re allowed to talk to the others when he’s within earshot, but leaving you alone with his certain companions rouses mixed feelings in him. On one hand, he has never been one to take the chances, but on the other, he understands that depriving you of talking to anyone else but him would be absolutely detrimental to your mental health, and that there really isn’t anything that bad that could come out of leaving you alone with someone like March. No matter how diligent he is, he would never be able to patch off every single escape route you could take regardless, and it’s a reality he finds himself having a difficult time facing. However, after a bit of pondering, he decides that if you ever wanted to, he would allow you to spend a little time with the others without him looming right behind you. 

He would even leave you alone with Dan Heng if you expressed any interest in that. Though, he can’t entirely erase the tiny bit of distaste he has towards the interaction: He would rather not use the word ”jealousy”, for in his mind, it implies a more intense kind of an emotion, but it is exactly that, albeit on a much lighter level. He’s used to swallowing down the more unsavoury of his feelings, and to some extent, he thinks it’s his responsibility not to allow himself to go through them. So, if spending a while tête-à-tête with Dan Heng is something that would get you in a better mood, he won’t refuse your request. He’s probably going to sulk for a while, though.

Oh, but the Trailblazer he will not leave you alone with, and it’s non-negotiable. It’s not that he doesn’t hold them dear or that he has to fear for your general well-being when they’re around, but the fact that for one, they seem to be very, very nosey. Sunny’s affairs appear to be something they’re incredibly interested in for no apparent reason, which, of course, includes you more often than he would like. There have been several times when they have barged into your room without knocking and cut a tranquil moment short in the most abrupt way possible. Managing to fluster someone like Sunday isn’t a feat a lot of people can pull off, but goodness fucking gracious, if the menace of a person doesn’t excel in it. It’s almost like they deliberately try to catch you and him at the most awkward moments: You could be napping peacefully with no concern in the world, and then you’re torn away from your dreams by a bang and a consequent adrenaline surge as the Trailblazer swings the door open and theatrically gasps at the sight of Sunday secretly cuddling you. ”Ha-ha, Sunny likes her” seems to be the core of the enjoyment they get out of their antics. 

Also, it’s not like anyone ever really sees you and Sunday apart very often. Quicker than you would like, the two of you become a package deal, almost: Where you are, he is, and vice versa. To your discomfort, you realise that you must more or less have begun to already lose your identity in the others’ eyes due to them always seeing you glued to his side. 

One day, when there’s an urgent matter to be discussed, you no longer get to hear your and his names shouted out separately. Instead, knocking on the door of your room, Himeko calls for the two of you at the same time with an amalgamate formed from each of your names’ syllables, finishing her words with a brief laugh as if she hadn’t just aired the most psychologically damaging sentence that could ever have hit your ears. And, it won’t be much longer until March and the Trailblazer adopt the same manner, too. 

You despise it, and he knows you hate it, too, but at the same time, trying to view the matter through the rest of the crew’s eyes, you can’t quite blame them — the ones that didn’t play a part in your undoing, anyway. It undoubtedly and objectively mirrors what he has become to you. Whenever something is wrong — actually and acutely wrong — you don’t go to Welt, you don’t go to Himeko, not Dan Heng or March or, Aeons bless, the Trailblazer; you go to Sunday. And, each time, no matter how dire the problem, he always does his utmost best to help you. Reliable is what he is to you, you realize, and no matter which angle you try to look at it from, it’s a fact you can’t simply gloss over. Unaware of it, you learned to depend on him, and while he doesn’t show it outwardly, it’s one of the top reasons he gets out of bed every day. 

Moreover, every now and then, you wake up to remember the fact that you’re alone. Not literally, of course, as the Express is home to the rest of the crew and you get to mingle with them on a daily basis if you would like, but at the same time, you know that not a single one of them has your back. Whatever it is that were to happen, not a single one would take your side. 

Though your rationale screams at you otherwise, in your weakest moments, you can’t help but start questioning your beliefs, your own feelings. It’s as if the concept of morals itself had twisted itself inside out, and you were the odd one out in the grand scheme of things. You don’t have anybody to turn to, not a soul to bleed your feelings out on that would understand and actually aid you. The sense of isolation is on an entirely different level. 

Although, it could be worse. He does sometimes wonder how things would have been like if it wasn’t the current him that found you and took a liking to you. Seldom, when he has trouble sleeping at night and is lying on the narrow bedroll beside you, not yet daring to touch you in case you were to wake up, he entertains the harrowing yet riveting thought of what if. What if he was still the rigorous and obdurate Oak Family head who would spiral if something didn’t go exactly as planned? He can almost form a picture in his mind of him in the white suit with you standing next to him with a taut look on your face. 

The notion makes him feel a distinct sort of dread. While he knows it’s something that will never happen, and that he would never do any of the things to you that his past self would have, it’s also something he has nightmares about every so often. He’s nothing if not a habitual overthinker, but fortunately, whenever the scenarios in his mind grow too wild, he just has to feel the shape of your shoulder, your head, the curve of your back beneath his palm, and it will all be alright again. 

Finally, something that’s simultaneously incredibly relieving and equally as horrifying as you learn about it is that although he very well could, he doesn’t read your thoughts unless strictly imperative. He would be lying if he said that he isn’t occasionally tempted — not necessarily in a I-know-you’re-hiding-something way (albeit sometimes that, too), but just in general. He wonders what might be going through your head when you smile at something, or what you’re thinking about when you’re gazing out of the Express’ windows with your eyes glazed over. If he wanted to, the answer to his questions would be just a single trick of his powers away, but from the very start, he promised himself to allow you that much privacy. After all, there couldn’t possibly be anything more invasive than probing the world in someone’s brain, and that being the case, unless he has an exceptionally pressing reason not to, he will leave your thoughts alone. 

NS-FW

˗ˏˋ ★ 10. General look: How does their sexuality manifest? What does sex mean to them? How horny are they?

As much as he doesn’t like to admit it, he does have his urges. Due to his nature and overall personality, he doesn’t enjoy open and honest expressions of anything sexual, and even the most surface-level, scientific conversation around the topic is enough to make him moderately uncomfortable. It’s just how he is: He thinks that private matters should be private, and the carnal certainly goes in that category.

Yet, he gets unbearably horny at times. It’s not very common for him, and before you came around, he could probably count the amount of meaningful hard-ons he has had in his time with the Express with two hands, but now, even very little visual stimulation is enough to get his pants straining. 

Though, you would never be able to tell because he’s ridiculously skilled at hiding it: His eyes never linger, he keeps his hands to himself, and if need be, he excuses himself for a moment in the least suspicious way possible. That being the case, you can’t ever really tell what’s going on in his head regarding his more lustful desires, but he does get embarrassed about them nonetheless. Naturally, as was for his former self, the sight of your bare ankle is probably still too much for him to bear on occasion. 

Yet, he remains most respectful. His touches are always tasteful in nature, and though he sometimes steals glances at your figure, he makes sure that it’s not making you uneasy and that nobody else sees what he’s doing. In a way, he feels that desiring you makes him weak, and that he should be able to completely extinguish the urges he has towards you, but alas, the task proves impossible. He treats having the thoughts as a punishable offence, almost: The more desperate he becomes, the less he allows himself to touch you, but such practice only throws him deeper in the loop. At a certain point, he simply has to admit that there are limits to his strength of mind, and while that vexes him to no end, it doesn’t take him too long to come up with the thought that maybe, just maybe, there are alternative ways he could handle the matter with. 

Oh, and he has wild dreams. He’s very adept at controlling his thoughts in the waking world, but when his subconscious takes the reins, it’s a different story entirely. No matter how many times he promises himself that that night, he isn’t going to have anything explicit happen in his dreams, he needs but a single whiff of your scent in his half-asleep state, and he falls right into the same pattern. More than anything, waking up with a painfully rigid morning wood exasperates himself the most rather than you as he usually wills the problem away way before you start stirring, but the more frequent the occasion, the further his understanding of the fact that he can’t go on like this solidifies. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 11. Limit: How long does it take for them to have the darling? What is the first time like? Do they care about the darling’s willingness?

For Sunday to reach a point where he will take you, a whole lot of mental gymnastics has to be performed. 

In the first weeks of your captivity, he’s convinced that he’s going to be able to live without ever getting to touch you beyond the surface level, and he’s actually quite content with that. He doesn’t need much, and in a way, he feels like he doesn’t really deserve much either, but glossing over the implication, you get to enjoy your bodily autonomy for quite a long time compared to a few other, unnamed candidates. Truthfully speaking, if he didn’t ever happen to have a certain conversation with none other than Dan Heng, he would probably never get to the point where he starts considering taking you, but alas, very few secrets on the Express only stay with one person. 

The two don’t even converse with each other that often — unfortunately even less now that you’re in the picture — but one time, as Sunday has allowed you a while alone for once, they happen to stop for a chat. At first, it’s not about anything in particular: It’s the typical how are you, the Express’ next destination, what’s going to be had for dinner, all sorts of mundane stuff, but then, the talk starts steering in a much more sensitive direction. 

You, as a topic, aren’t really something Sunday wants to talk about all that much. It’s not to say that he wouldn’t have an infinite list of things he would like to gush about if he got the chance, but in a way, he feels like it would be a breach of your privacy if he were to. However, something about the interaction has him lower his guard enough for him to start sharing a few details. 

You’re on your period. That much is obvious to anyone who has two functioning eyes — or something is going on, at least. You’re constantly in and out of the bathroom with him naturally following you there and back, you’re sleeping a considerable lot more, you sit curled up into a ball, there’s a shadow of fatigue on your face. That, and Dan Heng, namely, doesn’t even have to look for such signs as he can quite literally smell the hormonal changes either way. It’s not anything he’s the least bit bothered about — he has had to share his living space with women for a long time now — but for one reason or another, he decides to bring the matter up with Sunday. 

The conversation isn’t a very in-depth one, of course. It’s more along the lines of Dan Heng suggesting a few things: ”If she needs any, there are painkillers in the Party Car”, ”March probably has a rice pad she could borrow”, and ”it’s probably best if she gets to sleep a little more than usual” — all quite innocent pieces of advice, all things considered. 

That is, until he decides to drop one last recommendation to go. ”And if you were to-, or if she were to... you know. That can be helpful for some. Both for the mood and the cramps”, Dan Heng makes a slight, circular gesture with his wrist to fill out the unspoken part of the sentence. He doesn’t present the idea in a suggestive way at all, simply stating what he knows and what might work, or perhaps insinuating that Sunday should give you a little more time alone. The answer he gets is a mindful nod and a few tasteful words of gratitude, but little does he know that the idea has already begun simmering in Sunday’s brain. 

It could be beneficial, is what pushes the boulder to roll down the slippery slope. If he was being frank with himself, Sunday would recognize that even before the chat, he was already subconsciously looking for just about any justification for getting to have more of you; he was just a tad bit too prim to admit it to himself. He’s both exceedingly selfless and horribly egocentric at the same time — the sort of contradicting juxtaposition he once was so deathly afraid of — yet now, the word that eventually comes out of his soul-searching is acceptance. It’s a rabbit hole he immediately dives into, and he dives deep. Suddenly, all he can think about is how taking you could potentially end up as a favourable thing in the long run after all, how maybe, things could end up being better. In the back of his warped mind, he recognizes that he’s wandering uncomfortably close to the extremist views he used to hold again, but ultimately, he decides that sometimes, true to the spirit of Trailblaze, choices just have to be made without looking back.

It’s not during your period when he initiates it — nowhere near, in fact. It’s not the time of the month itself that’s the hindering factor, inherently (albeit he would truthfully like to avoid anything... messy like that), but rather the fact that it takes him a long time to come to terms with what he intends to do. He lasts for weeks on end, even coming close to committing to the aim a good few times before chickening out at the last second, but eventually, he gathers himself and finally steps over the threshold. 

He’s skilled, so terrifyingly talented at masking his intentions that you truly don’t have any idea what is going to happen to you before the latch on the door to your room is already clicked shut. Even then, though he almost never locks the exit for the night, the first thought in your mind is a rational explanation for the unusual act. Maybe it’s because you’ve been acting up, or maybe he’s just feeling anxious, maybe he’s-, maybe he’s...

But it’s all written in his body language. Not the fact that he’s nervous or jittery in any way, but the fact that he’s not. He’s so eerily calm, so expressionless that the alarm bells in your head go off without you having the faintest idea about what they’re picking up. Wordlessly, sitting on the bedroll a few meters away, you look over at where he stands by the entrance. Instinctively, you drop whatever you’re doing, if anything, and focus your full attention on his form. Your heart rate picks up, and the lurching, icy cold sensation of dread settles itself in the depths of your stomach as your eyes lock with his. 

For a good moment, he can’t find the words. He planned ahead, of course, he thought about what he should say, but now that the situation is actually at hand, he just can’t get his voice out. The eye contact, stretching for seconds on end, pulls the atmosphere as taut as a violin string. He doesn’t have to utilize his powers to sense the trepidation practically radiating off of you, and though he doesn’t show it, he’s just as anxious; he can’t believe he’s doing this. 

However, just as he has done for his entire life, he pushes the feeling down, takes in a deep breath through his nose, and speaks out the damning words. ”I have been... thinking”, he begins, his voice rather quiet but as placid as ever. ”I believe it is time I should... we should perhaps be intim-”

In a fraction of a second, your eyes go as wide as saucers, you raise your arm in front of you, and his sentence is cut off in the middle by the sound of a sharp inhale preceding what would most likely have been an ear-piercing scream. However, just as your vocal cords are about to catch the breath, once more, the Harmony reaches you. Like a flame had been doused, the panic dissolves from your features without a second’s delay, and nothing but an odd, distantly perturbed look remains on your face. 

You can see, hear and feel it all, though. Through the colourful haze at the edges of your vision, you can see how he proceeds to close the distance in between you, then crouch in front of you, and rest his hand over your arm. With his mouth a tiny bit ajar, he observes your countenance for a moment. You swear your heart leaves a few beats out. 

”You’re going to be fine”, he says to you as he reaches around your shoulders. 

Gently, he rests you to lie down on the bedroll. The words spoken sound entirely foreign coming out of his mouth: It’s not like him to make promises, much less ones both you and him know he won’t be able to keep. 

Nevertheless, even as your blank eyes flood with tears, he can’t bring himself to stop. Letting out an inaudible sigh, he merely proceeds to withdraw a little in favour of ridding himself of his overcoat and his boots. Carefully, he folds the piece of clothing over his arm before laying it down beside the mattress, after which he works his gloves off. He performs the task almost mechanically, as if there wasn’t a single drop of emotional charge in the air. He keeps his gaze low, not once searching for yours. 

Truth to be told, he’s ashamed: Exerting control over you like this is the most cowardly, most heartless thing he could possibly do, yet wrestling you down isn’t something he could bear to commit to at a moment like this. Furthermore, no matter how harrowing the experience must be for you, he keeps the extent of his powers to a minimum, only restricting your bodily flailing and your voice. He makes sure you can still move your eyes, and after brief contemplation, he retracts more of his sway in favour of allowing you to shift the tiniest bit. 

Immediately, your face contorts to a distraught expression, albeit still faintly repressed by his tuning. Once more, you attempt to speak, to wail, perhaps, but nothing but a soundless, shaky gasp comes out. The amount of tears now running down the sides of your face looks almost disproportionate to how feeble everything else about you appears at the moment: It’s as if droplets of water had been mottled over your face to make it seem as if you were crying your eyes out. However, he knows it’s the very tears that are the only candid indication of your current state. 

He’s not certain whether he should try to talk you through it or if it would be more favourable for him to keep his mouth shut. Even now, he has to concentrate on keeping his own presence in check. Ignoring the sickening, gnawing feeling of guilt in his chest is taking a good chunk of his focus, and the rest is directed towards fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. Within a moment that takes all too long, he strips himself of his garments one by one until only his trousers remain, and only then does he turn his attention back towards you. 

With heedfully slow movements, he settles his knees on either side of your thighs, climbing over you. Silently, he observes the way your shoulders twitch along with your suppressed sobs, how your hands are fighting but not quite managing to clench into fists, how you close your eyes and desperately try to turn your head to the side not to have to meet his gaze. Looking down at you, once more, he wonders if he should just call it quits again, to save the bigger fright for another day when he has had the chance to process his feelings better, but at the same time, he realizes that you, nor him for that matter, will ever truly be ready for the leap ahead. Thus, he bites the inside of his lower lip and carries on. 

Carefully, as gently as he ever could, he sets his palm over your waist, slides his fingers beneath the fabric of your top, then realizes his hands are practically freezing, and immediately pulls away. A mean twinge of abashment causes his phlegm to waver as he promptly proceeds to rub his palms together for a while, after which he returns to the task. Slowly, he peels the hem of your shirt back all the way to the junction of your shoulders where he lets go of the article of clothing in favour of bending your arms up. Then, taking care not to rip anything, he slides the top past your elbows, your forearms, your hands. 

He’s faced with the sight of your bra. Slipping his touch beneath the curve of your back, he searches around for a moment before locating the clasp. The sense of red-hot shame almost catches up with him as he’s unable to fiddle the hooks open with one hand only, but after bringing the other to help in the task, he successfully manages to rid you of the garment. 

For a second, his head completely empties itself when your chest is bared to his eyes. For once, he stares, he truly stares without measuring the seconds that pass by as he takes in the view, completely and utterly speechless. It’s like his thoughts were jammed in place, like time itself had stopped for a moment. His eyes travel over the round shapes, the untouched skin, the goosebumps, all with a level of focus he himself didn’t know he was capable of. 

However, another gasp is what breaks him out of his thoughts. Glancing at your face, he is once more reminded of the weight of the situation, and thus, he promptly continues where he left off. With as much tenderness as he’s possibly able to muster, he lays one of his palms over your breast, then the other, and gently moulds the two around in a circular motion. He hardly even registers the throbbing in his pants as he repeats the action.

But you look so miserable. He’s not deep enough in the fantasy to forget about it — he could never be. Still, as if he could somehow hope to remedy the situation, he leans down to the side of your face and presses his lips against your temple. As soft as the melody keeping you docile, he plants kisses over your cheek, your jaw, down your neck, along your collarbone and shoulder, after which he settles for tipping your chin back the tiniest bit to be able to connect his mouth with the thin skin over your larynx. It’s in a worshipping manner, almost; with the sort of devotion believers dedicate to their respective Aeons. The taste of your tears lingers on his tongue, the sound of your toneless sobs grate his ears, yet he can think of nothing but the sheer rapture of finally getting to connect with you in the most primitive way. 

Soon, your bottoms follow the rest of your clothes. You can only watch your lower half be revealed to his gaze in a single, smooth motion as his fingers drag along your hips, your thighs, your legs. You can barely make sense of the image you see through the blurry sheen over your eyes, yet the unmistakable, lovesick glint in his own couldn’t possibly be missed.  

Silently, he stops to gaze down at what he’s working with. For the entire time, he has the same mantra on a loop in his head: It’s good for you, it’s good for you, it’s good for you. Each time his thoughts are about to stray towards the distraught, toneless sniffles and silent pleads that flow out of your mouth, he returns to the same notion. It’s good for you, it’s good for you, it’s good for you...

He planned a pattern for the act, and it’s what he follows meticulously. Before any sort of penetration takes place, you must be sufficiently wet down there, he recites his own instructions in his head, and if possible, entirely relaxed. Once more, he rubs his hands together to warm them up before telling you ”I’m going to be careful”, after which you feel something prodding at your bits. 

You would cry out if you were able to. It’s a strange feeling; to have your vocal cords constrict to form the sound but be entirely unable to let it out. You feel utterly, wholly violated, defiled. His touch, despite gentler than it has ever been, seems to sear your skin and corrode your very soul. The tears just won’t stop coming. 

Carefully, his gloveless middle finger slides in between your labia, glides past your clit, and stops at the slit of your entrance. His brows rise the tiniest bit, and his Halovian wings make a brief, fluttering movement. 

There’s not a single bit of dampness, he notes to himself as he draws his digits back to confirm the finding. Disheartenment pricks at his chest as he realizes that he failed to prepare any supplies to help ease the slide, but after a mere moment of deliberation, he decides that he has come a little too far to stop now. 

After gazing at his own fingers for a moment, he promptly brings them to his lips and dips them into his mouth. 

You close your eyes. Instead of subjecting yourself to the horror of having to watch him coat his appendages with his own saliva, you try to force your mind to hang onto anything but him. You focus on the feeling of the mattress underneath you, the distantly musty smell of the room, the hum of the Express’ engines, yet none of it is strong enough to block out the feeling of him once more brushing against your inner thighs. 

”It would be best if you didn’t clench”, you hear him say as two of his fingers push past your opening, gently prying your walls apart. 

You wish you had something to hold onto, something to bite on, anything to take away from the sensation of him invading you, but ultimately, there’s nothing left for you to do other than feel yourself be breached. The misery gets stuck in your throat. 

His free hand strokes along the length of your outer thigh as he drags his digits in and out of you at a slow pace, making sure not to prod against anything sensitive. He keeps everything calm, not building haste even when he momentarily slips his fingers out to draw a few measured shapes over your clit, sending warm, tingly constrictions up your stomach. 

For once, he almost falls victim to his desire to encroach on your thoughts. He’s curious, so terribly curious about how it all might feel to you. It’s not painful — that much he’s certain of — but he wishes to know just exactly how your most sensitive parts react to his caresses, how the light stretch at your canal gradually relaxes your insides, how each sensation on your delicate bits pushes you further down the path he has dragged you on. A rosy heat dances along his cheeks as he takes in the sight of your face. 

Despite every last fiber of your being having sunk into the inescapable depths of misery, tangible, mellow pleasure ripples in your abdomen. The feeling grows quickly, uncontrollably. How much of it is his doing, you’re not certain — if any at all — yet it’s simultaneously all you can focus on and so far out of your reach that you’re not even sure if it’s real. The pads of his digits press up against the malleable front wall of your insides, his thumb swirls over your clit every few moments, you can feel his laboured breaths against the side of your face as he leans down yet again, and it all builds up to the inescapable, tightening sensation in your stomach. 

It doesn’t take long for you to finish; so much so that he himself appears a little dazed when he feels the convulsions around his fingers. The trance-like state the room has fallen into shifts to disperse and make way to tender lassitude as the soft quivers rake your entire lower half. He watches you come down from the high, slowing down his movements in the same pace he believes the knot is coming undone in. 

His member throbs. The feeling is unlike anything he has ever experienced. The dreams he has had, the fantasies he has entertained — none of it comes nowhere close to what he’s contending with at the moment. 

At the start of the night, he surmised that just getting this little bit of you would suffice for the time being, but now, as his eyes rest on the view of your trembling, nude body, his resolution wavers. 

Like in a haze, his hands move down to his trousers where he rids himself of the last bit of clothing. Wordlessly, he folds his pants over to the side of the bedroll, takes a deep breath, and properly settles himself in between your thighs, climbing above your shivering form once more. 

He sets his elbows on either side of your head, careful not to tangle them in your splayed hair as he finds his balance. Tenderly, so harrowingly frailly that your heart could shrivel up right then and there, he cups your face with both of his hands and leans down to plant a weightless kiss on your ajar lips. You let out a toneless gasp in response, and though you’re unable to pull away, you still make a meagre attempt to reject the gesture. He closes his eyes for a moment. 

”It’s not going to hurt”, he vows to you in a voice no louder than a whisper. I believe, he wants to follow the words with, but as he watches the dimples beneath your collar bones deepen when you once more tense up and attempt to cry out loud, he decides that perhaps this once, it’s better to be economical with the truth.

He reaches down. Carefully, while his other hand caresses your cheek, he wraps his fingers around his member and guides its head to your entrance. He feels the way you constrict around the tip, he sees how you squeeze your eyes shut, how your entire body fights to tauten, but ultimately, he glides in without a single bit of true effort. 

It doesn’t hurt — you merely feel penetrated. You can feel the pressure of the intrusion, the warmth of him inside of you, yet the last bist of your dignity being ripped away from you is more excruciating than any physical pain could possibly be. 

Once more, he brings his hands up to cradle your face. His wings, feathery soft, come to rest on each side of your head, wrapping you in their tender embrace. 

”Please don’t cry”, he says, yet the words aren’t spoken with a plea — he’s asking, advising you not to shed more tears, as if the matter made no difference to him whatsoever. You crack your eyes open to see his own inches away from yours. His pupils have dilated, his mouth hangs slightly open, a heavy blush covers his features in a way that looks almost unnatural on him. ”Please don’t cry”, he repeats.

There’s no pain with him, no rough edges, no sudden movements or physical strain you should fear, but as he begins thrusting into you at a deep, measured pace, the reverberations of the act end up being all the same. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 12. Preferences: What is sex with them like? What sort of stuff are they into? What kind of kinks do they have?

Sunday, for one, doesn’t prefer to experiment much. Though he’s still a little uncertain at the start, he has a vague picture in his mind of how he thinks he would enjoy the act of sex — how he ought to enjoy it — and it’s what he uses to navigate the sexual realm. 

First and foremost, he seeks connection rather than the pleasure itself. With what happened in Penacony, he begrudgingly (albeit now fain) let go of his compulsive need for control, and he no longer wishes to impose any sort of power dynamic over the two of you as far as possible. Then again, he would be lying if he said that the thought isn’t at least a tiny bit intriguing, but as things are, bringing any sort of pain on you is entirely out of the question. Hence, you’re in for a relatively calm yet a little more vulnerable time, so to speak.  

- Very soft, very demure, very mindful

He's a yearner, through and through.

It’s just how he likes it. It’s the sort of intercourse that’s described in the mushy romance literature that people read, and though he understands that the fiction part of it is precisely what makes it so attractive, he can’t help but be drawn towards it. It’s the closeness, the experience of ”becoming one” that appears so holy to him, and that is what he pursues.

He never gets rough. It’s like he was physically unable to use any more than a little strength with you, and it’s also the reason behind why he uses Harmony and not his hands when he has to hold you down. It’s not that he wouldn’t be able to manage the latter — albeit lithe, he’s a man, and that in itself comes with a few physical advantages — but he just really would rather not bring any more strain into the situation. Of course, in an ideal world, he wouldn’t have to restrict you at all, but more often than not, as in always, you tend to disagree with his actions. So, after giving you a good few warnings that if you continue struggling, he’s going to have to-, and as your hand flies up to him to try to land a death grip on one of his wings, he decides that maybe from then on, a single admonition will suffice. 

When it comes to the act itself, everything he does is hasteless in nature. He takes his time undressing both of you, he puts effort into setting the mood with the correct kind of touch, words, actions, caressing your skin with measured brushes and kissing the most sensitive spots along your body. His favourite points to lay his lips on end up being ones where he can kind of hide himself: Underneath your jaw, on your inner thighs, and the bony spot right beneath your ear. The last of the three, especially, is one he’s fond of, and it’s also the place he gravitates towards when he reaches a stable rhythm for the act. No matter how many times you’ve gone through it, the way you can quite literally hear the way his mouth moulds against your skin never fails to have shivers tingling down the entire length of your neck and back. Each time, you know it’s coming, but the sensitivity and vulnerability of it all is still something you won’t ever properly get used to. 

He likes to kiss you quite a lot in general, the traditional way. Yes, it’s a little difficult with how you’re usually barely able to move your own lips, but it’s also a necessarily evil as he would prefer not to have his tongue bitten off in the middle of the deed. He’s not exactly one for the sort of kisses that are just a fancy synonym for exchanging a deciliter of saliva or seeing what the back of your throat tastes like — it’s more on the side of light brushes with pauses in between as he’s typically focused on other parts of your body at the same time, too. 

He’s also one for the sort of gestures that simultaneously have your stomach lurching while almost having you finish from a single touch. With him, the more dreadful part about the ordeal isn’t the actual things done to you but the emotional responses they evoke in you: Quite often, he starts the night by rendering your nude form motionless before gently picking up your foot and slowly kissing up the length of the limb. You can feel each brush of his lips against your shivering skin, the wet feeling the contact leaves behind, the soft breaths through his nose. It’s the kind of sensation that has your chest tightening with warmth, tears pricking at your eyes and strange places on your body suddenly tautening, yet all you can do is lie still and let him make his way all the way up to your hip before he picks up your other leg and repeats the same process. You don’t think even he himself understands how stupidly peerless he is at manipulating your nerve endings. 

And, of course, he does his best to reassure you throughout. After a few times of going through the same rigmarole, the sight of your tears doesn’t produce as big of a stress spike in him anymore, and he’s able to properly concentrate on trying to calm you down as best as possible. He isn’t all that vocal during, and the few words he tends to say are usually along the lines of ”it is going to be fine”, ”you’re in good hands” and an outright ”there is no need to cry”. It depends on the day whether or not his words have the intended effect, and sometimes, he has to resort to taking a moment to wrap you in a proper embrace before continuing the act. 

- Unintentional service dom

I made up an entirely new term for this purpose only: PSD, standing for pathetic service dom. There’s very little that’s truly dominant about his attitude, yet at the same time, some of his actions speak the language of someone who wants nothing more than to exercise their power over you in the most primitively humiliating way possible. It’s an odd equation. 

Nevertheless, his ultimate goal for the deed is to make sure that you’re ”being taken care of”. It’s a bit of an ambiguous objective, but to him, it means granting you ample amounts of gratification via bodily closeness and making it so that you fall right on the line of not having been pushed over the limit while not having to ask for more. You don’t ever have to beg or plead — he’s going to give it to you without any obligation to bind you. In his humble opinion and experience, you’re the most agreeable when you have been looked after both psychologically and physically. 

He learns the ins and outs of your body fast. Though it’s largely a trial-and-error process, and there are times when he prods at the wrong spot, he ends up getting the gist of it with only a mere few mistakes. His technique is simple and to-the-point while preserving the sense of quietude at the same time, and the result is basically a recipe for your undoing. 

He’s prone to focusing more on other things aside from penetration. Foreplay, namely, feels like it lasts forever with him. If possible, he would prefer not to use lube as he wouldn’t like to make the cleaning afterwards more of a hassle than it already is, so making sure that you’re adequately prepared is a top priority of his. Usually, he takes you through at least one climax before proceeding to push his member into you, whether that be with his hand, his mouth, or both at the same time. And, half of the time, he doesn’t even end up going inside at all. 

Fingering is a common act that he indulges in. The hand is the part of the body with the most precise motoric control, so it only makes sense that his digits would be the most practical pick for the task. Moreover, the rumour about pianists’ fingers seems to have truth to it: He’s precise, meticulous and oh-so gentle. 

After making sure that you’re basically spilling down there, it’s plain sailing for him to slide his appendages in. First one, then another, and then he starts sliding the two in and out while softly nudging against the front wall with just enough pressure. If his other hand isn’t already busy with your breasts, he might start circling your clit with his thumb just to ease the process even more. He takes it slow, carefully observing your reaction to each thing he does, making sure to keep his tempo stable and leisurely — as stated, there’s no rush for anything with him. 

The handy part about using his digits, namely, is the fact that the position isn’t as limited as it would be with any other body part. You can lie down on your back (which you most often do), on your stomach, or you could be resting on his lap with his chin on your shoulder. He doesn’t like to get that innovative with how you’re situated, but if you were to express any sort of opinion on the matter, he would be willing to listen. 

Then, using his mouth is also very much on the table, no matter which body part it’s latched on. Aside from the kissing part, he’s also particularly fond of spending time softly sucking your nipples while his hand is busy between your legs. At first, it’s something he’s a little hesitant to do as he fears that it could be a bit too intense of a sensation, but he caves into his urges before long. 

Naturally, oral is something he gladly partakes in. It’s not as often as it tends to require a bit more patience from both parties, but every few sessions or so, he eats you out. If there’s one thing he does that discomfits you the most, it’s the terribly probing way he goes about it. He settles down in between your thighs and leans down towards your privates, seemingly paying no mind to the way you’re clearly doing your utmost to fight the bindings of his song, evidently to no avail. Then, as carefully as if he was parting the pages of a book, he slides the pads of his thumbs in between your labia and reveals your vulva to his sight. 

With his face as blank as ever, he admires the view for a moment, taking mental note of where everything is. You can feel the gentle breeze of his breaths against your bits, the weight of his gaze is unbearable and leaves a fresh layer of tears stinging at your lashlines, but the moment doesn’t last for long as it only takes a mere few seconds for him to dive in. 

Lastly, as the cornerstone of all he does, he’s quite cautious with your climaxes. He has a decent understanding of how an orgasm is for the female body — he’s not clueless — but he would still rather be overly careful than end up going too far and overstimulating you. With a little practice, he’s able to find the sweet spot of continuing just long enough to bring you down from the climax smoothly, but every now and then, if you were to pay attention to it, you could find that he’s a tad bit too heedful with his ministrations. 

- Toys (in moderation)

At first, he’s appalled by the idea. What he would like to say he thinks is that bringing something as brutish as those into the bedroom would not only be counter-intuitive to getting you to not be scared and uncomfortable when he engages in his bodily desires, but it would also be something that would require him to steer away from his fixed views on sex to try. However, his own mind is much more complicated than that, he has to come to realize, and he simply can’t deny the intrigue he has towards what other means of bringing you pleasure could offer. 

Still, he would never entertain anything as... questionable as some others would. Anything that relates to the depiction of sex being something taboo and against the rules is off the table, and that being the case, he doesn’t want rough edges, obscenely shaped or aesthetically disagreeable items anywhere near him, you, or the bed. The chains and whips do not excite him — or, they perhaps would have in the past, he begrudgingly admits to himself, but he no longer harbours the same sort of compulsive need for control as he did back in the day. 

But, as he mulls the topic over for a little, he begins reconsidering his earlier, austere attitude towards the matter. You know, toys — they don’t necessarily have to be indelicate or unsophisticated in nature, he comes to see. Though he’s still horribly embarrassed when he begins looking into it, he can’t deny that his interest has been piqued. It takes him quite a while to mull over all the infinite options the wondrous world of the paraphernalia has to offer: Obviously, he knows which one is which — he wasn’t that shielded nor did he entirely lack curiosity before, but he still has to take breaks every five minutes due to being so mortified with himself. 

And that’s not all. Since he’s basically a fugitive, he can’t really go buy anything himself, and ordering something like that to the Express would be a hassle in the league of its own. So, the only method left for him to try is to conduct the most diabolical, soul-shattering walk of shame to Welt and inform him that ”the next time the Express lands, he would like for something to be bought”. After a quick, horribly awkward conversation, Welt agrees to fulfil the request, and in a week or two, Sunday has a nice, tastefully shaped, vibrating wand in his hand. 

At first, it’s tricky for him to figure out how to integrate the toy into the bedroom. Thoughtful as he is, his first instinct would be to ask you, but he’s quick-witted enough to figure out what your answer would be. Therefore, he finds that his best bet is to just pull the thing out whenever he decides to next indulge in your body. 

You’re not at all pleased about the revelation, of course. Lying beneath him on the bedroll with one of his hands at your sternum, pressed down and not under his tuning for once, already in a sensitive and vulnerable state, the reaction you grant him when he presents you with the pale blue anathema is a wide-eyed stare, a shaky gasp, and then a thin, plaintive ”please, I don’t want that”. He does pity you a little, and for a moment, he considers if he should just let you off with a scare and instead leave the trial run for the next time, but ultimately, he decides that it’s best not to have you dreading. 

Even though he pre-tested the device a few hours prior, he still flinches right along with you when the toy whirs to life at the push of the power button. He’s quick to turn the intensity down to the lowest setting, but you still recoil and meekly struggle against his hold as he edges the thing towards you. Truth to be told, he’s almost equally as lost as you are — he can’t say he has ever used one of these before — yet though you swallow thickly and whisper out more demurs, he proceeds with the act. Bringing the vibrating head of the toy to hover millimetres away from the side of your hip — so close that you can already feel the hum on your skin — he moves the hand on your chest to your shoulder. There, he gives the curve of your upper arm a few, reassuring caresses. ”It doesn’t feel painful, does it?” he states the rather obvious as he softly presses the toy against your outer thigh. ”Please stay still for a moment”, he adds, after which he slides the vibrator towards your nethers.

Your breath hitches in what he can only assume to be mental discomfort as the head of the wand tickles the area over your pubic bone. He doesn’t even need to use his powers to figure out that your hands which rest on either side of your head must be a single bad sensation away from lunging at his face, yet you appear to have understood that being free of his Harmony is an earned comfort: Despite shaky, you remain still. He sends you a brief, impassive smile before releasing your arm and instead moving his hand down to your bits. 

He’s most careful when he uses his index and middle finger to part your folds to reveal your clit to him. Then, as gently as he’s able to, he presses the head of the wand directly against the bud. 

Your entire pelvis jolts off of the mattress as you shriek when the all too intense, violently tickling sensation registers in your brain. Immediately, he pulls the toy back, glancing at you with slightly widened eyes and board-stiff wings, but it ends up taking him but a few seconds to figure out the error. ”I’m sorry”, he mumbles out an apology as he briefly inspects the intricacies of your cunt one more time, after which he proceeds to close in on you with the device yet again. 

This time, he settles for holding its head over the hood of your clit. Quite daringly, he makes an attempt to move the toy in gentle, circular motions, trying his best to utilize the knowledge of what he has learned about your body so far. As soon as he believes he has found a good spot, the fingers spreading your labia leave their place and instead settle for stroking along your navel in a consoling manner. 

It’s both a learning curve and a jump towards the unknown for him, but for you, it’s merely another way you have to weather his need to bring you physical rapture. From that point onwards, the vibrator makes an appearance periodically, especially during times when you’re having a hard time getting into what he refers to as the ”receptive state”. Though the implication of not being enough by himself does wound his pride a little bit, he takes comfort in the fact that it’s still technically him giving you the pleasure, and that ultimately, it’s a tad bit easier to get you to finish with suitable tools. 

Oh, but penetrative implements are not something he will ever dabble in. He considers them, sure, but in the end, the idea of using anything other than his own member to probe you is quite unpleasant to him. He wants to keep at least that much of the act in his perceived sacred category, and besides, he’s a tiny bit afraid that he would hurt you if he started prodding something like a dildo, he shudders, inside of you. 

- Sensory deprivation

Again, it’s not out of malice or the desire to dominate you — or so he claims, at least. Rather, there are a few benefits that come with restricting your senses: Namely, he doesn’t have to think about how he looks or sounds like, you don’t have to spend your time focusing on stimuli that don’t serve the purpose of the session, and consequently, there’s nothing else for you to concentrate on than him. 

He first gets the idea when he happens to bring his hand over your eyes one time when he’s getting it on with you. It’s not necessarily his intention to bring anything about with it — it’s just something he does from time to time when the heat of the moment gets a tiny bit too much on his nerves — but when he realizes that you get a little more reactive towards his touch when you’re not acutely observing what’s going on, he begins wondering if he should pursue the idea further. 

It’s either with his powers or with actual accoutrements; both will do. The latter, albeit, is something he won’t try to use on anything other than your vision as doesn’t find the image of earplugs very... tasteful in the context, but regardless, every now and then, he ties a sash over your eyes. In his experience, you appear to react to physical aids a little better than to when he relies on Harmony: His guess is that it has something to do with the fact that the human brain doesn’t respond very well to a mismatch of perceptions. Not something he could ever properly resonate with — Halovian as he is — but for what it’s worth, he prefers to use a blindfold or his hand most of the time. 

Naturally, he does experiment with abilities from time to time too. Looking at the matter from the practical viewpoint, simply taking your hearing and your vision away from you without the need for a single tangible item is far easier. In the blink of an eye, you no longer see or hear anything, and all that alerts you of his presence is reduced to his scent that lingers all around you and the way his fingertips slide along the length of your thigh. Suddenly, there’s nothing but him left in the room with you, and the only thing you can use to navigate the experience is his touch. 

It’s what he finds enjoyment in as well. When you’re in such a defenceless state, there’s nothing else for you to depend on other than the trust that he’s not going to hurt you, that he’s going to be gentle and merciful with you, that he’s going to take care of you — which he very much does. It makes him feel useful, trusted, reliable, and ah, the sheer joy of being able to convey so much with something as simple as a caress brings him such peace of mind that he can’t believe delight like this could exist. Of course, he still consoles you through it all, mouthing words he knows you can’t hear against your skin while stroking his hand up and down your arm, but nevertheless, though the physical sensation he chases is yours, the pleasure is all his. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 13. Punishment: What do their sexual punishments look like? What methods do they prefer?

Surprise, surprise, it’s not something Sunday does. In his eyes, turning the sexual into something inherently uncomfortable in favour of proving a point that could as well be put across with a few carefully selected words and a little tuning utilization would be beyond foolish. He doesn’t want you to associate sex with pain or any sort of discomfort as far as he’s able to control it. And, furthermore, he’s not one to lose his cool in almost any situation, meaning that you won’t have to fear for the sporadic sort of violent bursts that someone like Phainon would be guilty of. Overall, humiliation, pain, or anything of the sort are not the goal, so you’re free to do as you want without the fear of getting dicked down as a consequence. 

Though, it could be said that a few of his habits could go into the category. They’re not for the means of punishment, necessarily — just a manifestation of the frustration he feels when you behave difficult. 

For the most part, it’s just mild overstimulation and a little sullenness you’ll have to bear. Moreover, the occurrence is seldom enough that you don’t usually know what’s going to go down until he has dragged you to your room and already has you splayed on the bedroll. 

He gets a tiny bit more insistent whenever he’s irritated. Essentially, paying mind to your mental comfort becomes a secondary matter, and his goal shifts from ensuring that you’re as okay as possible during the act to just getting you to finish. Orgasms make you more agreeable and more pliant, is his thought process, and that being said, you’re going to have to endure a few rounds in a row. 

When it comes to the overstimulation part of it, it’s not the flat-out torture sort, but the ticklish tenderness is still present and notable. To his credit, he does give you a half a minute or so worth of a break in between out of courtesy, but after that, he continues without much of a regard towards the discomfort. It’s usually his fingers or mouth that he delivers it to you with, and on average, it’s three or four in succession that you’ll have to bear. The wand makes an appearance on occasion, too, and those are the times you get to witness what is essentially the worst he can offer you in the physical realm, which is not anything compared to what certain others could carry out, but uncomfortable nonetheless.

He gets a little pouty, almost: Though he’s exploiting the act of sex for purely practical purposes in this case, it’s still as intimate of a matter as ever to him. You could look up at where his face is hovering above yours to see that his lips are pressed together and his brows are flat in an expression you rarely see on him. He’s clearly concentrating on the task at hand, but at the same time, he looks a little annoyed. By the same token, he doesn’t really entertain any sort of verbal communication beyond a few one-word answers or commands here and there. 

His tuning trigger, so to speak, is also especially sensitive during such instances. He doesn’t really like using his powers on you as a means to make a point, but if you get exasperating enough, he might choose not to deal with your antics by quite literally just shutting you up with his fingers still halfway inside your bits. It’s also one of the few times he doesn’t see the need to explain himself regarding the usage. You may try to appeal to his softer side, to give him the most convincing, tearful glare you could ever have mustered up — he’s just going to respond to the look with a little but not enough sympathy in his eyes. 

And, the worst thing about it all is that it does work. Even though you wish you had the guts to give him an earful or tear a few plumes off of his stupid flappers, your mean spirit quickly simmers down: The body’s natural response to not being able to move is to slow everything down, and that combined with his fingers working to unravel you, there’s not much you can do aside from rest under or against him until the tight feeling in your abdomen gives way to the release. And, you get a little drowsy afterwards, too, taking a while to just lie on the bed with your chest heaving up and down even when he has already released you from his control. He deems the job well done before getting ready for the tears soon to follow. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 14. Aftermath: What does their aftercare look like? Is there any?

As is with his past counterpart, Sunday’s methods for the aftercare are thorough and very step-by-step, but the difference is that in the present, he’s exceedingly delicate with how he handles you. He listens, he observes, he pays attention to the details and puts significant effort into trying to help you through the myriad of emotions which rake your mind and body alike in the aftermath of it all. 

Peculiarly enough, he doesn’t prefer to linger in the afterglow for that long. Or, he perhaps would if you were in any state resemblant to serenity, but as the reality is what it is, he would feel terribly selfish if he were to prolong the torment for you in that way. Naturally, he lets you come down from your climax without a hurry in the world, taking care to slow the pace of whatever it is that he’s doing before halting his ministrations entirely and carefully pulling out of you. As mentioned before, he’s very mindful about not overstimulating you, and he tends to be so cautious with his movements that you don’t occasionally even notice that the intrusion has left you until you actually see him withdrawing. 

The first thing he opens his mouth for is to ask if you’re in pain anywhere, and it’s usually also the point where the scale tips and the relatively tranquil atmosphere in the room starts shifting towards desolation. It’s a question he hates asking: He’s unable to find the words to express it in a way that doesn’t sound dismissive of what you must be feeling, but at the same time, he needs to know. Furthermore, he seldom gets the answer straight as even if he were to phrase the question as an even simpler yes-or-no — “Does it hurt here? Or here?” — you’re in no state to do anything but go mute on him. It takes him a considerable verbal and physical effort to get a response out of you, but it’s also an effort he sees through every single time. No matter how he has to work to quell his own anxiety during, he goes one thing at a time, vowing that ”nothing further is going to happen tonight” to you while he holds each of your arms, and eventually, you end up sucking in a choppy gasp of air and giving him a tiny, weepy ”no” as an answer to his question. It’s only after that that he can properly move on to taking care of the mental side of things. 

You seldom end up not crying after he has concluded the session. It’s a habitual response more than anything, he thinks, and in a way, he’s glad that you do: The tears themselves are liquid distress that you’re discharging, and even if it’s only a fraction of the tension that releases in such a way, he often even encourages the reaction. By the time you’re done, there’s a great possibility that you’re already sniffling, but in case you’re still holding onto the last bits of your cracking poise, he needs but to give you a tiny push. Gently taking hold of your face with both hands, he brushes his thumbs over your cheeks a few times and speaks in such a tender voice that it doesn’t take longer than a moment for the flood barrier to break. ”It’s perhaps best to let it out”, he whispers, cradling your jaw while looking you in the eye despite being unable to entirely mask his own unease. However, as the first sob jerks your chest, his shoulders fall in relief, and a soundless gasp followed by a quiet sigh breaks past his lips. In any other situation, seeing you in such a condition would cause his heart to ache, but currently, finding that you’re emotionally responsive is an easing sight to him. 

He ends up embracing you for a couple of minutes. The pose is a little stiff — you’re on your back while he hugs you and has to hold his own weight up at the same time — but he aims to give you a bit of psychological first aid, so to speak. He attempts to talk you through the evidently growing panic by cradling you a little more firmly and reminding you to breathe in a gentle, even voice. Though, it’s a bit difficult to be convinced by his composed act as even in the midst of your rapidly swelling malaise, you can hear how he swallows periodically and how rapidly his own heart is beating. Each and every time, you have to wonder how either of you could be posed as a winner in the situation. 

Then, after he releases you from his hold after a while, if he could have his way, you would be in a state where he could give you a bit of a check-up. It’s not like he would find anything, really — he’s much too gentle with his touches to leave any sort of marks or the kind on you — but it would still manage to calm the slightly neurotic part of him. Alas, it’s also something that he most often ends up omitting as judging from your trembling lower lip and the glistening sheen over your eyes, any further prodding would do much more harm to your mental state than it would manage to placate his.

However, what isn’t negotiable is washing. He almost wishes he didn’t care as much as he does — that the sheen of sweat and whatever other bodily fluids have been discharged didn’t start bothering him the second his arousal subsided — but the idea of going to bed dirty is rather nauseating to him. That being the case, no matter how uncomfortable the situation might get because of it, he starts softly urging you to ”not fall asleep just yet”, wrapping a duvet around your nude form and helping you up. At these instances, he wishes for more than anything that he was sturdy enough to carry you all the way to the bathroom as having to make you walk through the hallway with only the blanket to cover your form and himself only half-dressed never fails to make him cringe, but unfortunately, it’s the only way he will get you there. 

There’s nothing sexual about the bath itself. He gets it over with quickly, washing both himself and you in record time. He doesn’t really talk while he’s at it — at most, quietly asks you to lift your arm or lean forward — and even when he has to dip his hand over to your chest’s side or in your private parts, he makes sure not to linger even a second longer than necessary. You tend to fall into a sort of a catatonic daze, both out of fatigue and the load of stress, he guesses, and you don’t really react to his touch in any way anymore, but every now and then, you’re still awake enough to want to do the washing yourself. In such cases, he won’t stop you, but more often than not, he’s the one to take care of it all. 

He pats your hair dry with a towel, helps you get your nightwear on, gives you another long hug for good measure as he reassures you (and himself) that ”it’s going to be alright” which you’re much too tired to challenge. Subsequently, he promptly takes you back to your room, sits you down on the floor for the couple of minutes it takes him to change the sheets, and finally, settles you and then himself under the covers. 

Sometimes you take but a moment to fall asleep, and other days you go through a further fit of crying — he’s prepared for both. Though his own nervous system is still wound up as well, he takes care not to let it show, making sure that he’s breathing in a measured, even pattern and that his hand isn’t trembling as he caresses the length of your back. He doesn’t talk, either: Even if you yourself were to initiate a conversation, the most you would get out of him are a few words and the silent cue that he would rather not entertain a chat at the moment. 

He’s going to wait for you to fall asleep, no matter how long that takes, before he closes his own eyes. Even if he didn’t feel like he was obligated to make sure you’re resting either way, he just wouldn’t be able to get a single glimpse of sleep before being certain that you have already drifted off. Other people’s emotions reach him quite effectively, and it’s only when you’ve laid still for a good while that he dares to join you in the dream realm. 

˗ˏˋ ★ 15. Further notes: Is there anything that sets them apart from the other yanderes sex-wise? Are there any unique aspects to them?

It’s no wonder that his upbringing and the consequent fall from grace are what play perhaps the biggest part in his attitudes towards sex. For the lack of a better word, he’s quite demure which is mirrored in a few of his more peculiar habits. 

Firstly, he only gets racy in the dark. He will quite literally refuse to partake in any sort of obscenities if the room is well-lit; like, he actually can’t bear the idea. Maybe it has something to do with his own insecurities, or maybe it’s just such a blaring disconnect from the rest of the ambience — he’s not really entirely sure himself, either — but without fail, the lights stay off, preferably completely. 

Moreover, even after the first few times have been crossed over, and he has attained some sort of a routine towards the deed, he still gets a little discomfited when penetration takes place. He considers the act sacred in a way, and partaking in it, he feels like he isn’t quite deserving of it even now. Of course, your reaction towards it all is also something that affects the experience for him, but even if you were to be all smiles, which he quite frankly can’t even begin to imagine, he would still get a little timid about it. In his eyes, it’s the apogee of the deed, mentally speaking, and it’s something he doesn’t want to mess up. 

A specific thing he refuses to do is take you in any other way than with the two of you face to face. Of course, some variegation is possible — although he would be entirely content with going for missionary for the rest of his life — but the thought of taking you from behind has him shuddering. It’s another thing that ties to his beliefs on the topic: He’s of the opinion that such a position is quite degrading towards you, and that sort of a message is the furthest from the one he wants to send to you via sex. That being said, it’s best to get used to the sight of his countenance. 

Making sure that you don’t feel like he’s trying to rob you of your dignity is important to him. However, it’s an aim he finds he has been unsuccessful in reaching — as much is evident in the aftermath of the act, both immediate and in the long run. More often than not, you appear to feel almost desecrated whenever he concludes the intercourse: You’re still holding back tears hours after, you’re subconsciously trying to cover yourself from his sight, and you don’t really hold eye contact with him. It’s something he mourns, in a way, and going further down the same train of thought, he starts feeling filthy; like he has tainted you, tarnished you. It’s one of the reasons that contribute to him not needing to have you all that often: He understands the importance of giving you time to think, to process, to grieve the loss of your bodily autonomy in peace. 

Alas, the influence of his world view doesn’t end there, either. The noise that’s made during the act is another factor that he attempts to curb to the best of his ability, as much as he would like not to. The little whimpers coming out of your mouth are a melody he could listen to forever and ever — if only there wasn’t a chance of there being other pairs of ears the song could reach. He’s very, very mindful about not wanting to bother the rest of the crew, and he can hardly think of anything more embarrassing than them knowing what he’s up to. So, whenever your wails, curses, cries and whatnot get a little too loud for his taste, he tends to cover your mouth. 

Obviously, he’s very gentle about it and makes sure that you can breathe fine and so on, but at the same time, it’s also a quite distinct non-verbal shut-the-fuck-up. He doesn’t intend for it to be that way, of course, which he attempts to convey with the  ”please, a little quieter” he phrases the sentiment as, but more often than not, you’re not very keen on abiding by his request. It’s a huge contributor to the amount of times he ends up restricting you with his tuning, unfortunately, but in the end, he prefers for his more private matters not to be heard outside of the room. 

Then, a very particular detail about him in sexual regard is that the act must always end in your climax, not his. That isn’t to say that you and him finishing together wouldn’t be the absolute ideal, but it’s also something that’s quite difficult to achieve. He can hold his own orgasm back relatively well, hence making the feat possible, but occasionally, he ends up coming prematurely. Nevertheless, no matter how drowsy his orgasm makes him, he always insists on bringing you to your peak as well, whether that be with his fingers, mouth, or another round.

Moreover, he actually doesn’t care all that much if he himself gets his fill or not. Naturally, there are also times when you end up climaxing before him, and since overstimulating you isn’t something he really enjoys doing, he can’t exactly just continue thrusting into you. Though getting to finish himself would have been the nicer outcome, he’s actually quite content with ending the act right there in favour of giving you a more pleasant experience. Yes, he’s practically edging himself, but for someone like him, postponing a simple dopamine high isn’t a very big deal, and besides, he already got what he sought out of the bout: The sense of attachment. 

Finally, an undeniable merit you get to have as his darling is that if you’re genuinely feeling under the weather, he won’t force you to do anything. Before everything else, he wants you to be in a position where you would be able to enjoy sexual acts, and such a thing naturally isn’t possible if your head is throbbing or if your stomach is acting up. He tends to make the notion clear whenever he’s initiating intimacy, hence granting you the possibility of bailing out early if there’s something wrong. Though, be aware that it’s not a card that you can use in just any situation as he unfortunately has the ability to fact-check you immediately. Proceed with caution. 

A/N

Wouldn't you like to know, weather bo-, I MEAN

No, but good guess, I didn't even consider that it could be interpreted as Phainon but it's lowkey the more reasonable conclusion for you to come to now that I think about it. I need to up my riddler game. But yeah, it is SUNNY-Sunny-Sunny, for a delicious character deserves two whole profiles ദ്ദി ˉ꒳ˉ )✧ I know this one was also asked back in like summer 2025, but better late than never, plus he's is finally relevant again. I've been a fan of his ever since I we first saw his freakass in-game, musically talented men have always been my weak spot, I'm afraid.

Gahhhh another long profile, oops. It's funny that both of the two most recent yanderes are ones that I would call "slower", and that's what I think is the cause behind the length, too. With someone like Phainon, everything was go-go-go, but with Sunny and Dandan, there's no rush in the world. I do enjoy setting the tone of each of the profiles in that way. Also, if I had a nickel for every time Dan Heng recommends for a darling to jerk off, I'd have two nickels.

Not related to the topic in the slightest bit, but is anyone of you also being plagued by the reels of the Lithuanian guy forgetting the lyrics to Sorry by Justin Bieber and hitting sick moves on a live show or is it just me. I need to know

Aaaand taglist (this time fixed up!), bling blong lovelies! Check the post in my pinned to be added (ʃƪ ˘ ³˘)♥(˘ ε˘ʃƪ)

@dyingsweetmackerel @walnutofthedead @salty-pigeon @loserworld @lem-hhn @anemochiii @chocoismasochist @sivisek524 @myjawsworld @mydeilver @celestialgirl777 @universallycupcakebanana @favv-sassy @darkpurplewind @leveyani @rinki-tinki @warmandkozi @magnificentkidclamclod @donthitmeillcry @nuriicata @bugzrcute @soutar @goldandlyre

So, we've already established how you found yourself as Sorbet and Gelato's darling and a few other snapshots of your life settling in with them. But here, we're going to go through precisely what happens between your abduction and finally making peace with your obsessive new husbands.

Partially to gage your resolve to escape, and partially for their own enjoyment, Sorbet and Gelato left you conscious for the entirety of your abduction. Once you're safely in your new home, however, they let you have the mercy of being drugged unconscious, letting you sleep peacefully until the morning, when they'll be better ready to explain to you the predicament you're in.

For the first couple months of your stay, you'll be sleeping in the basement. Callous as that sounds, they spared no expense in making the place as nice for you as possible, painting the walls in your favourite colour and furnishing it with a comfortable mattress, complete with enough blankets and pillows to bury a man with. You'll sleep well down here.

There's also a television to entertain yourself with (though they'll take away the remote if you've been bad) and a curtain to block your view of the rest of the room if needs be. At they end of the day they're still career assassins and the basement may become needed for... other purposes. They don't want you to have to watch anything that might needlessly traumatise you further.

You wake up in the morning no doubt in a great panic. Chained to the wall by your wrist, you're helpless to do anything until one of them finds you, which probably won't be long as Gelato has been awake all night with excitement. Once he and Sorbet are both present they reiterate the events of your kidnapping unless your trauma blanked it out (they aren't deceptive yanderes, they are very keen to be open with you about your situation). They also promise repetitively not to kill you.

Once you've had a couple hours to calm down a little and have had some food put in your system, they come to give you a more in depth explanation of what their motives are in taking you. They explain their love for you and the many reasons why pursuing you the normal way would never have worked out, and promise that as long as you are good for them, they're going to treat you very well. This is elaborated upon in your next, and final rundown of your situation.

At the end of your first day, once you are fully lucid enough to think, Sorbet comes down once more carrying a heavy bag of tools. He talks you through what they're going to do if you break the big rules they've set down for you, namely the ones about running away or attacking them. He holds the tools- switchblades, buzzsaws and pliers, against your trembling skin, to really hit home how much you do not want them to have to hurt you that way. Once he's done with his demonstration, Sorbet gives you a little kiss on the forehead, repeating that he's sure he won't ever need to do any of that to you, right?

Your first couple of weeks are very restricted, only allowed to leave the basement for a bathroom visit every few hours or so and a nightly bath. You're allowed to watch TV barring any bad behaviour (if you're good, Sorbet may even install a few channels from your home country to give some comfort) but it's likely you'll spend much of the time sleeping to escape from your fears. Gelato bothers you for affection whenever he gets a free minute, while Sorbet keeps his distance, preferring to let you come to terms with your new surroundings alone and see for yourself they have no nefarious intentions.

Something you learn early on is that the pair regard you already as their spouse. While you're under no obligation to treat them as such, they fawn over you insistently as their sweet little wife/husband/spouse. After all, they call themselves married, and treating you as any less would just be unequal. Look! They even bought you a ring, to match the pair they bought for each other all those years ago. If you take it off they won't make you put it back on as long as you don't throw it away, but seeing it cast aside on your night-stand their eyes seem... hurt.

In spite of your predicament you're certainly quite spoiled. Gelato badgers you constantly to know your tastes in food so he can make it for you, and pretty much anything you ask of Sorbet is granted as long as it isn't more freedom- that can only be earned. Little by little, you earn more time out of the basement, starting with just a few supervised minutes a day and stretching into hours.

Still, this laxness may renew your desire to leave. You know what the punishments are, god, you don't think you'll ever forget, but if you could just sneak out while Gelato isn't looking surely you can make it out in time? Unfortunately for you, leaping out of the window you find yourself in a woodlands wilderness. Getting out of here will not be easy.

You trek through the trees, certain that surely these woods must have an end, and surely your captors wouldn't be able to find you if you yourself are having this much trouble with navigation. A pity you're up against individuals trained in manhunting. You don't stand a chance.

As you cry in terror, the pair dragging you kicking and screaming back to their house, they give each other a look. They know what each other means. There's no way they could bring themselves to hurt you. After chaining you back up again they decree they've decided to let you off this once, but not to try something like this again. Instead of torture, you are sentenced to a few days left in the dark with less trips to the bathroom and verbal attention. Hardly a pleasant time, but a huge relief compared to what you were expecting.

Formaggio

How they Find Out

Formaggio might seem like he's got you firmly in his hold, but once you work up the courage to test your restraints you'll realise they're flimsy at best. The rope ties are poorly done and if you can't just slip out of them, you'll probably be able to reach across to your other limbs and undo them just like that. Formaggio never got around to setting alarms on any of the doors. When he comes home at the end of the day and finds the bed empty he is... disappointed. He really wanted to tell you about that story Illuso told him today! Ultimately however- he kind of expected this. Formaggio loves his thrills, and if you're going to be his, it wouldn't be right to deny you a few of your own! He sits down on the bed and plays with his phone for a few minutes. You might still be nearby, and he at least wants you to have a little time for your adventure.

How they Get you Back

Once he's packed some snacks for himself and has had a chance to stretch his legs, Formaggio heads out to hunt you down the good old fashioned way. He'll try checking all the obvious places first but once he's feeling stumped, he'll call up Melone to check on the DNA sample he gave him, just for some pointers in the right dimension. As soon as Formaggio spots you, he sneaks up on you from behind and shrinks down, climbing onto your shoulder. Then, he shrinks you as well, pulling you into the nearest crevice for a wet kiss. He asks if you had fun. He'll be reverting back to full size for the walk home, but you'll be staying the size you are for the time being.

What Happens After

Theoretically speaking, this could go down with no fallout whatsoever. As already stated, Formaggio wasn't at all bothered by your escape and is by no means an anxious yandere. He's not mad at all. However, it's fairly likely you'll be distraught enough from your failed attempt that he has to address it somehow. He'll spend the next day devoted to you, proving through some fun, easy time together that he really isn't angry. If you're truly distraught at the idea of being back here, he'll be willing to consider some changes. Maybe the ties can go, since as you just proved, they weren't doing any good anyway.

Illuso

How they Find Out

In the early period of your relationship there is only one way you can escape- and that's if you trick him into letting you out of the mirror world or he simply forgets to put you back. Confidant in his security it would never occur to Illuso he might have done this, and when he looks through the mirror and sees only himself he's going to completely panic. The first thing he'll do is run around the house calling for you- maybe you're just trying to prove a point, not really running! A minute later he's sat on the floor, head in his hands and breathing heavily. He looks up. This helplessness is doing him no good. He needs to find you.

How they Get you Back

Fortunately, Illuso did take the fail-safe measure of installing a doorbell camera onto his front door. He checks through the recorded exits and notes the time you left- if he only missed you by an hour or less he's going after you alone, but any longer and he'll bite his pride and call in help. Formaggio is the first one he'll bring in as despite their rivalry they are good friends and they make shit up about each other all the time, so nobody's going to believe him if they tell him Illuso lost you. Between them, they check every logical place for you to be hiding and pounce on you, restraining you through shear force alone until you either give up fighting or stumble into the vicinity of something reflective. Formaggio is promptly banished after this. Illuso needs to handle this alone.

What Happens After

First and foremost, you are back, and Illuso needs to remind himself of that. In a fashion almost ritualistic, you are cleaned and massaged (that scuffle probably left you with a few pains to complain of) and dressed in something pretty. Illuso does not let himself frighten you with external anger, but he does see it necessary to inflict some mild punishment to prevent future escape attempts. What he eventually settles on, your physical health permitting, is tying you up on your knees in fine silk ribbons, left to sit in that uncomfortable position for a few hours or until you can give a sorry enough apology. He'll check in on you frequently for what sounds like gloating, but is actually just way of trying to convey your important to him- that's why he went all that way to find you after all. Once you're let free, there are no more consequences as far as you're to be concerned. However, Illuso does find himself a lot more... compulsive in checking your whereabouts.

Prosciutto

How they Find Out

You'd be surprised to learn that Prosciutto's security is actually pretty weak, at least in terms of your own prospects of escape. This is, as everything Prosciutto does, by design. He appreciates that for you to trust him he has to give some trust back, and if that trust is too-early placed, then... well, so be it. With your pacing footsteps on the upper floor no cause for investigation, you'll have no trouble in flitting from room to room to gather whatever may be useful for your escape. Sure, anything immediately beneficial was moved to the lower floor, where you'll need more excuse to be found in, but a little creativity will help you immensely. A nagging feeling catches Prosciutto off-guard as your footsteps go quiet for a while, compelling him to check on you. Looking at the open window, the roped bedsheets still hanging freely, he takes a deep breath and lights a cigarette. Well, at least you chose to do this while he isn't busy.

How they Get you Back

For someone specialised in mass-elimination strategies Prosciutto is awfully good on the hunt, and he needs no stand or help to do it. There's no need to wait for his moment once he spots you; you'd be amazed how many bystanders would ignore a person's screaming if the cause of their distress is wearing a fine, clean suit. Prosciutto leads you somewhere private, hopefully a restaurant or cafe where the staff know to give him a private booth without question but if there aren't any nearby then anywhere will do. He lets you calm yourself first, staring quietly with his fingers steepled as you try and push yourself out of the corner he's backed you into. Once you're calm enough to listen, he calmly presses you to really think about the pros and cons of leaving like this, trying to make the choice to come back your own but ultimately making clear you can't stop him from forcing you. Either way, you'll eventually find yourself led back in the direction towards his home.

What Happens After

There'll need to be at least one more discussion about the incident later on once you're both calmer, but as long as you didn't do anything too reckless on the loose (break something important, endanger yourself or get into too much detail with any strangers about your predicament) there won't be any actual punishment. Well, beyond the necessary inconveniences of the new security measures, like the locked windows and removal of more things you could use to escape. At some point, Prosciutto does tell you he understands why you tried to flee. Of course you did, it's only natural. But someday, you'll also understand why he took you back.

Pesci

How they Find Out

How tight is Pesci's security? Depends on how he's feeling. Some days he's happy to let you roam the house as you please and he'll only check on you every hour or so, and others he can't relax unless you're shut away in the closet with a string around your wrist to sound the alarm if you've given him the slip. The good news is that this largely depends on your own behaviour as well, so as long as you're willing to bite your tongue and pretend to tolerate him you can expect a fairly long leash. And god forbid you ever look at him fearfully and say you're scared of being locked away alone, you can rest assured he'll never do that again. This is all the more reason why, when you run away after begging him for a few hours in an unlocked room alone, he's absolutely distraught. He can't even think straight until Prosciutto (who he immediately calls) has to shout at him to get it together. After that there's no time in his mind to form a plan- he's going after you right away.

How they Get you Back

Prosciutto agrees to tag along, purely because he knows it will be better for both of them to get you back in Pesci's shaking arms as soon as possible. They also call in Melone to track your DNA since it's the only way to convince Pesci something terrible hasn't happened. Once you're found, Pesci takes no chances and catches you with his stand, though only snags your clothes and not your skin since even now he would never hurt you. To save you from total pandemonium, Prosciutto brings some chloroform to knock you out with. He'll be gone when you wake up though- ultimately the boy needs to learn to handle you alone.

What Happens After

Melone

How they Find Out Melone was under the assumption it would be impossible to escape. He was very rigorous, keeping you in a windowless room with a multi-locked door, sound-proof walls and nothing that could possibly aid an escape beyond necessities. Slipping out will take a lot of creativity and planning, but that doesn't make it impossible. One option is to go on the offensive- ambush Melone with an improvised weapon just as he's opening the door. As assassins go he's quite weak on brute strength, and you can never go wrong with stuffing small metal objects into a sock. Once he wakes up on the floor Melone isn't mad about the attack (at this point his job is basically letting women beat him up) but he is incredibly startled you actually managed to pull it off. He'll need to get you back immediately before all his hard work can be done... though first he should probably at least check that jaw isn't broken. How they Get you Back Finding you is no chore at all with Baby Face to hand. More weary of your strength now, Melone sneaks up on you from behind and turns you into a small cabinet with babyface, which he then proceeds to pour anaesthesia over so you don't have to be conscious for this admittedly unpleasant experience. He takes you back at once, making a point while you sleep of picking up any stray metal trinkets that got dropped on the floor. Reverting you back to your human form he'll make sure you're comfortable, but comfortably restrained on the bed. What Happens After Now, that's a very good question. On one hand its imperative he prevent this reoccurring as you'll never learn to love him if you're so preoccupied with escape, but on the other hand, what can he actually do to punish you without cruelty? He can't remove your freedoms as what really do you have left? And he can't remove any of your comforts or entertainment because you already only have the bare minimum to stop you going insane. Maybe he has been approaching the situation wrong after all... at very least, perhaps its time he started to be more negotiating with you. It can't hurt to keep you in the loop a bit more.

Ghiaccio

How they Find Out At Ghiaccio's house everything is a bit haphazard. He didn't get a chance to plan out abducting you so there are no advanced security systems or anything beyond the normal common sense measures of someone in his occupation. When he did get around to finding some chains he could use as a long-term restraint method it just... didn't feel right. Holding something meant for prisoners in his hands for his lover made his stomach twist. The main barrier to your escape has always been Ghiaccio himself- so paranoid of you leaving he practically lives outside your bedroom door. But of course, he can't do that all the time. Escape is certainly possible, though whether you'll get far before he realises you're gone is another matter entirely. He's inconsolable, shouting and trashing the house. He's far more angry at himself than you. How they Get you Back He may not have a plan but he doesn't need to. With White Album's speed he can search the area in much quicker time than anyone else could without a vehicle, and the aura of cold it can bring from dozens of meters away will likely draw you out of your hiding place if he draws near. His first concern is to check you aren't hurt, whether by your escape or White Album's outburst, but after that he's angry. How could you do this when he's just trying to protect you?! Doesn't he mean anything to you? Won't you at least give him a chance? After you fail to give an answer, hands held up defensively, he hauls you over his shoulder and carries you home quickly. What Happens After Ghiaccio has always tried to conceal his temper from you but this is too much. He ties you to a chair and shouts at you for what feels like an eon. The silver lining is that it's less critical of you than it is defensive of him; at no point does he stoop to the level of outright insulting you. Once Ghiaccio is too tired to continue, he silently unties you and carries you back to bed. He doesn't usually join you in your room at night but circumstances considered, he sleeps at the foot of the bed, mostly watching you through the night. In the morning, he apologises. He knows he went too far in shouting at you. He has a new idea now which he would like you to hear: perhaps instead of fighting you could come up with deals together? If you don't try and run again for a week he'll give you... something. He doesn't know but he'll think of something. Something worthwhile. He owes it to you.

Risotto

How they Find Out Risotto is aware that he cannot guarantee you won't be able to escape while still giving you enough freedom for you to have any chance of happiness, and he has prepared for this both emotionally and in terms of his plan to get you back. There are alarms on the doors and the downstairs windows are too sturdy to ever hope to break, but he hasn't yet gotten round to doing the upstairs ones yet and there's always the chance you're intelligent enough to bypass the alarms (or brave enough to ignore them). Barring any obvious signs you might be in danger Risotto is not too panicked to find you gone, though he can't help the pang of anxiety that ripples through him. He is one of the few who doesn't leave to get you immediately, instead taking an hour or two to sit down, breathe, and think logically about his next steps. How they Get you Back

Risotto looks around carefully for trace tracks of your departure. Microscopic traces of blood you lost trying to brute-force your way out a window, footsteps in the mud, and little trinkets in the driveway you knocked over in your panic to escape. Barring that, he takes the most logical assumption that you would have followed the road- Risotto lives out in the middle of nowhere, and its unlikely you would have willingly risked getting lost in the woods or scrambling over the mountains that surround the Neapolitan area. Being so rural there aren't even that many forks in the road for a good couple miles, so there's a fair chance he'll catch you before even having to make that sort of guess. Regardless, once he's found you he follows with invisibility on until the best opportunity. He then knocks you out painlessly with Metallica, hushing you gently as you pass out in an attempt to stop you feeling so afraid when you wake up. What Happens After

Risotto changes you into your pyjamas and tucks you into bed. He holds your hand as you wake up, making sure the first thing you hear is that everything is okay. He explains to you how he found out where you were and what happened while you were unconscious, before sighing and telling you that he isn't angry, but there will need to be steps taken to stop this happening again. You can tell the sadness in his voice as he tells you you're going to have to go back to staying in your room for a while; he really hates locking you away like that, but he knows the more times you manage to escape, the more you're going to learn how to avoid him catching you. He cannot allow that to happen.

Sorbet and Gelato

How they Find Out

Sorbet and Gelato do something which no other yandere in the squad would, and that is threaten you with harm if you try to leave or hurt them. They try and be... nice about this, as far as that's possible, making clear this is only for those two rules and promising you can feel safe around them otherwise. The truth is, even in the limited situations they actually say they'll hurt you, they're lying about it. They would never mistreat you like that; it's a totally empty threat. Because of this, when they see your room empty and your chain basement, they immediately know they have a problem. You're going to fight tooth and nail to stay free from them. How they Get you Back

Like Risotto, Sorbet and Gelato have also chosen a very rural location as their home... perhaps even more secluded, since having been in the mafia so long they've been spoilt for choice on target's homes to appropriate. You're left with no choice but to run haphazardly through the dense woods in the hope of finding the way out, and against trained people-hunters like Sorbet and Gelato, you really have no hope. Taping your wrists behind your back and lifting you between the two of them is no difficulty, but listening to your frightened pleas, now that's harder. They are helpless but to shush you quietly as they carry you back home. What Happens After

The moment froze.

You still remembered the look that crossed his face then. Not anger. Something far more complicated. A flicker of hurt, swift as a bird’s wing.

“My lord,” you had whispered in horror at your own offense. “Forgive me. I did not mean…”

“There is nothing to forgive.”

He had said it softly, and even knelt, a Primarch kneeling, to lift the fallen cloth and place it back in your shaking hands.

No one had ever told you a Primarch could kneel.

No one had ever said they could look lonely.

From that day onward, you sensed that he had begun to notice you more often.

Sometimes it was only a greeting in the corridor, a question about your duties. Whether the quartermaster had enough hands for the inventory before translation. Whether your section had been given fresh heating coils against the cold of the lower decks. Once he paused beside you while you were trimming the spent heads from a vase of flowers in one of the decorative alcoves. He had then asked whether you liked roses.

You had nearly stabbed your finger with the shears, as your brain tried to come up with an adequate response.

“My lord?” you had muttered, confused and meek.

“The roses,” he repeated, smiling as though the question had been the most natural thing in the world. “Do you like them?”

You looked down at the petals scattered like drops of blood on the marble ledge. “They are very beautiful, my lord.”

“But do you like them?”

No one asked what you liked. Not really. And definitely not people like him. Most above you hardly even noticed your existence.

You had gone hot all over, suddenly miserable beneath the weight of his attention. “I… I think so, my lord.”

He had laughed then, not cruelly, but with genuine amusement, and selected a single bloom with impossible care. He had then held it out to you.

You had stared as if he were offering you a relic.

“For your quarters,” he said.

“I… I cannot accept that.”

“Why?”

Because if I took things from you, I would be stepping closer to an abyss I don’t know the bottom of, you had thought wildly.

Because gifts from demigods were dangerous.

Because your hands shook every time you stood within ten paces of him, and you did not understand why.

Because you could never meet his kindness in equal measure, and the imbalance frightened you more than harshness ever had or could.

You said none of it. You merely lowered your head and whispered, “I am unworthy, my lord.”

The silence that followed had gone very still.

Then he placed the rose beside your basket instead of into your hand.

“No soul is unworthy of beauty,” he said.

When he walked away, you remained there for a long time, staring at the flower as if it might accuse you.

Others would have swooned. Others did swoon. It was no secret that the Angel of the Ninth drew adoration as naturally as breathing. There were serfs who would have kissed the hem of his robe for one smile, adepts who would have wept from joy if he remembered their names, officers who felt their spines straighten when his gaze passed over them. He was grace made flesh. Grace with wings.

And you?

You were terrified of him.

Not because he was cruel; that might have been easier. Cruelty could be understood. One knew how to survive it: one learned its shape and kept clear of its hand.

His kindness was far more frightening.

Kindness from a being powerful enough to reorder entire worlds with a word had weight to it. It bent the air around you. It made the heart stumble into foolish rhythms. It made gratitude feel perilously close to devotion.

So, you avoided him.

You learned which corridors he favoured after war councils. Which meditation rooms he sometimes visited before fleet translation. Which terraces outside the grand apse were preferred by his captains. If someone said the Primarch would be passing through, you found work elsewhere. If his household chamberlain came with a message for the domestic wing, you let one of the older women answer. You prayed, fervently and a little absurdly, that the Angel’s attention would drift onward to worthier things.

Unfortunately… It did not.

He would find some reason to pause near your station. A passing inquiry about your health. A soft observation that the work baskets seemed too heavy for one of your stature. A request that the lamps in his private library be changed by your hands because, apparently, you were the only one who remembered he preferred them trimmed low in the evenings.

That last one was not even true. You had merely done it once.

Every advance of his was gentle. Every word, gracious. Every look, maddeningly tender. And because he was who he was, because his beauty could still a room and his voice could quiet a riot, every act of attention from him only made you more frightened.

He must have noticed. For he noticed everything.

Yet somehow, he mistook your fear for innocence.

He began to look at you with a kind of aching protectiveness that made your stomach knot.

‘This little one is too soft for this place’, his eyes seemed to say.

‘This one needs guarding.’

It would have been unbearable even if there had been no one else.

But there was someone else.

His name was Tobias.

He worked in the munitions inventory on the lower logistics decks, though he was often seconded to the domestic stores when loading manifests ran short-handed, as they often did. He was ordinary in all the ways that let a person breathe easy. Brown hair always falling untidily over his brow. A crooked grin that arrived before his courage did. Hands roughened by work. Shoulders narrow enough that he did not blot out the light when he stood near you. He stammered sometimes when embarrassed. Once he nearly walked into a bulkhead because you had laughed at one of his jokes and he had looked so pleased with himself that he forgot where he was going.

You thought about that moment more often than was wise.

Tobias frightened you too, at first. Men did. Attention did. But his sort of attention came wrapped in sheepishness and ordinary hope, and that was easier to endure than impossible tenderness from a being the entire ship worshipped.

He began small: asking if you needed help with a crate. Saving you a place near the heating vent during break periods. Bringing you a heel of sugared bread once from the kitchens with the solemn air of a man presenting the crown jewels of a long-lost kingdom.

When he smiled, he looked uncertain, as though he could scarcely believe his own boldness.

It made something shy and secret bloom in you. Something you didn’t entirely despise.

He started waiting for you near the turning between the supply stores and the domestic records. Never blocking your way, never forcing you. Merely talking. About trivial things. A crewman who had fainted during litany recitation because the ship had rolled under the reactor engine’s thrust. A cook who swore the Primarch’s sons could smell badly brewed tea from three decks away. His mother, long dead on a manufactorum world you had never seen, who used to sing while mending clothes.

You liked listening to him.

You liked that he made no claim on the air when he stood beside you, liked that his gaze did not leave you flustered and hollow-cheeked with nerves. Liked that he seemed to think you were worth courting in the clumsy way ordinary people courted, with smiles and lingering words and foolish bravery.

So of course, that had to be the thing the universe chose to sour.

It happened near one of the long observation galleries, where the stars stretched cold and endless beyond reinforced crystal. You had been carrying a folio case, and Tobias, sent up from the records annex, had fallen into step beside you. He had looked particularly determined that day. Pale around the mouth with nerves. Fingers flexing and unflexing at his sides as though wrestling himself toward some precipice.

You knew before he spoke.

“There’s a chapel recess off the western transept,” he blurted. “Small one. Hardly anyone goes there after second bell. I thought maybe, if you liked, perhaps we could sit there a while. Tomorrow. Or any day. Or not sit. Throne, that sounded strange.”

Despite yourself, you smiled. And his face lit with such vulnerable joy that you had to look away.

“Tobias…”

“I know I am not very smooth.”

A startled laugh escaped you. “No.”

“But I mean it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I like being with you. I think about you all the time which is probably a bit pathetic, but there it is. I wondered whether maybe, in time, you might let me court you proper.”

The words, simple and earnest, struck you with such force that you forgot to breathe.

No Primarch’s poetry. No impossible gestures. Just this. A young man in a work tunic, red-eared and trying not to trip over his own hope.

And because you were still you, timid to the bone, all your own feeling curdled at once into panic.

Someone could see. Someone might hear.

You were no one. He was no one. Even then, it felt dangerous.

“Tobias, you should not say such things,” you whispered.

His expression faltered.

“I only meant…”

“You should not be so forward with me.”

The words came out sharper than you intended, sharpened by fear rather than displeasure. He stepped back as if struck.

“I am sorry,” he said at once. “I thought perhaps…”

“No,” you said, more softly now, hating the hurt in his face and unable to reach past your own terror to mend it. “Please. It is better not to.”

He nodded, swallowing hard.

You did not notice the figure at the far end of the gallery. Not then.

You did not see the white wings half-shadowed against a pillar, or the stillness of a beautiful face gone suddenly unreadable.

You only hurried away with your pulse pounding in your throat, carrying the ache of Tobias’ wounded expression with you like a bruise.

After that, he stopped waiting at the corridor turnings.

Stopped saving you a place by the vents. Stopped glancing up when you passed through shared workspaces.

You told yourself it was for the best.

You told yourself this as the days stretched into one week, then two.

You told yourself this while a little private grief gnawed at you in the quiet hours.

And if, in those same weeks, you became dimly aware that the Primarch’s attention had changed, you could not have said how.

He was no less gracious. No less beautiful. No less gentle in speech.

Yet something in him felt watchful now.

Measured.

As though some private decision had been made behind those luminous eyes.

When days later, the Primarch’s chamberlain came at last with a direct summons, your blood turned to ice.

“The Lord Primarch requests your presence in his private apartments,” the man said, with the formal neutrality of one delivering a weather report.

You stared at him.

No direct summons had ever come before. Small tasks, yes. Passing interactions, yes. But never this. Never a call addressed specifically to you.

“Now?” you managed.

“At once.”

You obeyed and followed the older man.

The walk to his chambers felt like the slow progression of a dream.

The upper halls of his private wing were quieter than the rest of the ship, muffled by thick runners and the hush that wealth, power, and sanctity seemed to generate without effort. Candles burned in niches of carved stone. Stained panes threw diluted jewel-colors across the floor. Angels in relief watched from the walls with solemn faces. Your own reflection, pale and frightened, drifted now and then through polished brass.

Your hands would not stop trembling.

At the final doors, the chamberlain bowed and withdrew.

You were left alone before a pair of towering panels chased with gold leaf and ivory inlay.

When they opened, warm perfumed air spilled over you.

His chambers were beautiful in a way that would have made poets weep. And yet, your hair stood on end at the nape of your neck as you stepped into its confines.

Silks flowed from the high bed yonder inside, like captured dawn. Lamps of red crystal burned low, filling the room with a honeyed glow. Books lay open on carved side tables. A decanter of dark wine rested on a stand of hammered brass. The far wall had been opened to a private balcony screened against the void by Mechanicum artifice, so the chamber seemed to be bathed in starlight and incense together.

And there, upon a chaise lounge draped in cream and crimson, reclined Sanguinius.

You had seen him in armour. In council robes. In the simple white garments that he sometimes wore to meditate.

You had never seen him like this.

He was dressed in layered silks the colour of old gold and sunset, one broad shoulder bared where the cloth had slipped with apparent carelessness. His curls shone. His wings had been arranged with such exquisite precision that every feather seemed a work of art. One arm rested along the back of the chaise, long fingers loose and elegant. He looked less like a warlord than a god being painted by men already in love with their own muse and ruin.

Beside him stood a servitor holding a silver tray.

You barely noticed it at first.

“My little dove,” Sanguinius said.

The endearment struck you like a slap.

You dropped at once into a bow so hurried it almost became a stumble. “My lord Primarch.”

“Come nearer.”

You obeyed.

What else could one do?

As you crossed the chamber with your eyes trained on the patterns of the floor tiles in front of you, the skin between your shoulders crawled with a feeling you could not name. There was nothing outwardly wrong; his voice remained warm, his expression held the same luminous sweetness it always had. Yet dread gathered in you with every step towards him

“Lift your head,” he said.

And you did.

He studied you with such intensity that tears sprang to your eyes without warning. It was too much. Too much tenderness, too much interest, too much of him.

He rose from the chaise in one fluid motion.

Even prepared, you could never fully account for the scale of him when he stood. He seemed to unfold forever. Gold, silk, wings, radiance, impossible grace contained in the shape of a man and yet never truly man-sized. He crossed to you barefoot over the rugs, utterly silent.

When his hand settled on your shoulder, it was gentle enough to make your chest ache.

“You are trembling,” he murmured.

“I did not mean any offense, my lord,” you whispered at once, because terror always made you plead for pardon before accusation had even arrived.

His smile deepened with something like sorrow.

“There you are again,” he said softly. “Always frightened. Always expecting hurt from me. Have I truly failed so badly to make you feel safe?”

You could not answer.

He guided you, lightly, until you stood before the waiting servitor.

“Look,” he said.

It took a moment.

A dreadful, dragging moment while your eyes adjusted from the gold and silk and candle glow to the pallid human remnants hidden beneath augmetic fittings.

Then recognition struck.

No.

No.

The tray rattled in the servitor’s hands. Not from will. Some machine-tremor, perhaps. Its face had been smoothed by surgery into a blank visage of obedience that still wore the barest resemblance of the man beneath it. The eyes were wrong; too empty. Mouth half-slack. Shaved scalp threaded with ports and iron studs.

But the line of the jaw.

The shape of the hands.

The tiny white scar at the chin where Tobias had once told you he fell as a child.

A sound broke from you that did not feel human.

You stumbled back, only for Sanguinius’ hand to close more firmly over your shoulder and hold you upright.

“My lord,” you choked. “No… no…”

The servitor turned its head at a mechanical prompt.

Its gaze slid over you without recognition.

For one wild, merciful instant you thought perhaps that was all. That whatever remained of Tobias had been erased completely, and there was no suffering in that shell because there was no one left inside to suffer.

Then you saw the tear.

It gathered slowly at the corner of one ruined eye, trembled there, and tracked down the stillness of his cheek.

You made a broken sound and covered your mouth with both hands.

Sanguinius drew you closer.

“Do you know why I did this?” he asked.

His tone remained impossibly tender.

You could not stop shaking. “Please…”

“He troubled you.”

The room seemed to tilt at his answer.

“I heard him,” Sanguinius went on, his voice soft as velvet over a blade. “I heard the way he pressed you. The way you shrank from him. The distress in your voice when you told him he should not be so forward.”

“That is not…” Your protest dissolved into a sob. “He… he meant no harm…”

The Primarch’s thumb brushed the line of your jaw, almost soothingly.

“You are too gentle,” he whispered. “Too ready to excuse what threatens your peace.”

His gaze moved to the servitor, and for the first time you understood that there were abysses even in angelic faces. Beautiful abysses. Calm ones. The kind that looked at horror and saw only order restored.

“He will trouble no one now.”

You tried to pull away. His grip tightened just enough to make escape impossible.

Panic bloomed white-hot in your chest.

He felt it. Of course he felt it. And still he only lowered his face nearer yours until you could see the flecks of gold in his lashes.

“I wanted you to understand,” he said. “Everything I do, I do from love.”

The word turned your stomach.

Love.

Spoken here, with Tobias standing vacant and weeping by machine reflex at your side.

Your tears came in earnest now, blurring candlelight and silk into smears of colour. “Please,” you said again, though you no longer knew what you begged for.

Forgiveness. Mercy. Waking. The impossible restoration of a boy with a crooked grin and sugared bread in his pocket.

Sanguinius’ hand slid from your shoulder to your chin.

He lifted your face as though you were something precious.

You were close enough to feel the warmth of his body, the faint stir of air from his wings, the terrible tenderness in him. He looked into your tear-filled eyes with such devotion that, had the room contained no servitor, had there been no bloodless atrocity standing silent between you, another woman might have mistaken the moment for romance.

“I just want to show you how much I love you,” he whispered.

You felt yourself go cold all the way through.

Some part of you must have understood then that there was no appeal possible. Not to rank. Not to conscience. Not to goodness. Goodness had been the path by which he came to this. In his own mind he was protector, saviour, beloved. He had not fallen from grace. He had merely carried grace into a shape that suited his desire.

And that was the true horror of it.

If he had been brutish, if rage had twisted him visibly, your mind might have found somewhere to stand. A place from which to name him monster and yourself victim.

Instead, he remained beautiful.

Beautiful, and smiling, and sure.

He released your chin at last.

“Pour for me,” he said.

You almost failed to understand the words.

His gaze drifted toward the wine stand.

The servitor moved at once, tray held out in mute offering.

Somewhere far away, your own body crossed the room. Your hands reached for the decanter. Glass clicked against silver. The dark red wine within caught the lamplight like arterial blood.

The silence was unbearable.

You could hear your own breath hitching. The faint mechanical whir from the servitor’s neck ports. The whisper of Sanguinius’ robe as he turned and settled once more upon the chaise.

“Do not spill,” he said gently.

The command, so ordinary, nearly broke you more than the rest.

You poured with shaking hands.

The carafe knocked once against the rim of the goblet. A crimson bead slid down the side and stained your fingers. The servitor… Tobias… did not move. Save that one tear, already fallen, glistening on the slack ruin of his face, he stood a mute spectator to the horror within and without.

When you dared look up, Sanguinius was watching you over steepled fingers.

There was satisfaction in his expression. Not cruel amusement. Something quieter. Deeper. The look of a man who believed he had finally made himself understood.

“I have been patient,” he said. “I have tried gentleness. I have waited for your fear to ease. Yet still you flee from me.”

His eyes rested on you with aching softness.

“I could not bear the thought that you might seek comfort in lesser hands because you did not know what was offered to you in mine.”

Your fingers slipped on the stem of the goblet, as another sob threatened to break free from your throat.

He extended a hand, and you brought it to him because what else was left?! His touch brushed yours in the transfer, warm and careful.

“There,” he murmured, as though praising a child. “You see? There is no need to fear me, little dove.”

Behind you, the servitor who was once Tobias stood motionless, silver tray balanced with machine-perfect obedience.

The single tear had dried on Tobias’ cheek.

You bowed your head because if you looked at either of them for one moment longer, you thought you might scream and never stop.

Sanguinius sipped his wine.

Somewhere in the chamber the lamps crackled softly.

Beyond the shielded balcony, the stars burned on in their endless silence, cold witnesses to all the tender horrors men called love.

Aaaaand there you have it! I swear I felt sick the right kind of way writing this!! Our Sanguinius? Our bebeh boy?!!! Being EVIL?!!!! *GASP!!* (I'm now going to have to write a fluffy sanguinius ficlet to get back on track!)

I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The man’s presence wasn’t the not-nice part. (It was often nice when people admired the same things you did, because it meant they might ask you about them. And as many years as you had under your belt visiting these same paintings, these same steps, you knew quite a lot.)

The not-nice part was that there was a man standing in front of your favorite painting, and he was staring at (horror!) the wrong thing. 

As you trace your familiar steps, coming agonizingly closer, you can see that he’s not looking at the painting but the frame. The frame! Of all things! He’s got his head tilted just-so, looking at it this way and that. Like he’s admiring it. He stops only when your footsteps get close enough to make it clear that you’re about to stop at the same spot.

“The frame isn’t period authentic,” you say, perhaps a bit too loudly, “There’s no point in looking at it.”

The man hums. You half-wonder if he’ll snap at you, people sometimes do.. But instead he looks back at the painting, as if he’s trying to see what you mean. “What makes you say it isn’t period authentic?” 

His voice is low, a murmur. Out of respect for the museum, maybe, or he’s just embarrassed at being called out. You don’t bother trying to figure it out, because the question he asked is more than enough to have you ready to spill out the words.

“Well,” you begin, swallowing because you can already tell it’s going to take a while. “For one, it’s gilded with aluminum.” When he doesn’t respond, you smile, unbidden. “And of course, aluminum isn’t suitable for water gilding.” Your finger points to the frame (an unwelcome frame, in your opinion–but again, it was the painting, not the frame, that one ought to look at) and wiggles. “The era this painting was made, water gilding was the most popular. They certainly wouldn’t have used an inferior material like aluminum to do water gilding.”

“I see,” he says, after a moment. “Is that all?”

It is, naturally enough, not all.

“No!” You say, maybe too loud, because he raises an eyebrow. But you press on. “If it was just the frame material, that would be one thing. Not everything was water gilded, of course, it was just the most popular. But the real tell…” 

And you might be reading him wrong (you do that a lot) but he does lean in, doesn’t he? Because he’s interested in what you have to say. You think. It would be welcome, anyway.

“The real tell,” you continue, pointing here and there on the frame. “Are the fasteners. Especially around the joints..” You press on before he thanks you, because he shouldn’t thank you before you give him the really important detail here. 

“When the painting was made, they didn’t have keyed stretchers yet.” You point here, and there. “These made it easier to expand the frame, or make it smaller, simply by sliding the keys and tightening the screw. Before,” and there’s a laugh in your voice, “it was a pain when you wanted to take a painting out and swap it for something else. But with these newer ones, it was much simpler!”

There is a beat or two, and you wonder if he’s going to scoff and give you that smirky little smile people give when you’ve shared too much information that they apparently didn’t want. (Even if it was fascinating information, nonetheless.) 

But he doesn’t. Curiously, and it’s a pleasant sort of curiosity, his smile isn’t smirky at all–it’s pleased. Happy, even, if your guess was as good as gold. 

“Thank you,” he says, eyeing the frame–still the wrong part, you think–again. “I wasn’t aware that frames held such nuance.” He glances at you. “I appreciate your insight.”

Insight. Huh. No one has ever called it that before. Word-vomit, yes. Over-explaining, definitely. “Stuff no one cares about,” that one was pretty common. But insight–that was new. And it was, like his smile, perfectly pleasant. It made you feel almost fluttery. 

“Most people don’t appreciate it,” you admit, too honest. “But the frame isn’t the important part of the painting, anyway…” 

The next time he looks towards the painting he, thank goodness, actually looks at the painting within the frame. “Is this your favorite painting?”

“Of course.” The words come quick and sure.

“Why of course?”

Sometimes you wonder if other people have a switch that lets them choose when to hold back, 

and when to indulge in their words. Because you find it very, very hard. Especially when it’s something like this, something like a painting you adore, something like being asked to explain why it is your favorite painting.

But this stranger asked about it, so even if this mysterious switch did exist, you certainly would have slammed the “full speed ahead” setting without hesitation.

“Well…”

This stranger gets to learn about it all. About the artist (Henri Lamorliere) and why he chose the subject (a village scene in the winter) and who commissioned it (a prince who owned the land and later died from complications related, presumably, to his gout) and how it ended up here, in this city, of all places. (That was, indeed, a longer story–involving said potentially dubious origins that you were more than happy to indulge in, considering the stranger’s interest.)

As for why it is, of course, your favorite–it is because of all the tiny details, small things, inconsequential and silly to most, but details that keep you coming again and again. A child depicting playing in the snow with friends; a couple ice skating, with one leg clearly losing balance, forever frozen before the young man falls straight on his bum; a woman with a bucket, frowning, staring into a frozen water well; a farmer carefully draping warm blankets over his horses; a streak of mud revealed underneath the pristine snow as a cart of firewood is pulled along; and on and on. It’s not just a painting, it’s a frozen moment, people forever engaging in these mundane or delightful or simplistic moments.

When you are done (and you must admit, you talked for quite a while) the man doesn’t roll his eyes or sigh or say that he must be off, which is very often the case when you talk too much. 

Instead he, of all things, smiles.

“Thank you,” he says, and before you can ask why, continues: “How fascinating. I didn’t know the history of the piece as well I as I thought.” His eyes roam over the painting, the details you cling to. “And I never thought much about the scene being depicted.” He glances at you. “Not in the way you have, at least.”

It might be an insult. It might not. 

“When you come here as much as I do, you learn a lot.” 

He hums. Seems to consider something. And then, he asks:

“Would you like to share a coffee?” If you’re not mistaken, there’s a warmth to his voice. A bit of humor, too. Maybe he didn’t hate your diatribe about the piece, in the end. 

But–well. It won’t work out, at least not without a concession on his part. (And yours, too, not that he’d understand it.)

“I only get coffee after I see the rest of my paintings.” A pause, something heated piercing the apple of your cheeks. “Um. They’re not my paintings. I didn’t paint them. I don’t have any work on display,” you explain, as if he needs that clarification. “I think of some of them as mine, because I visit them when I come here.”

Sometimes, when there’s time to ponder on it, you liken actions to machinery. It starts with thoughts. They go through a certain process before resulting in an expression or a word. That’s what you think of, now, as you watch this stranger taking in what you said. His own thoughts are no doubt moving through the cogs, being sent this way and that on some conveyor belt, ending in his final action. 

Though it isn’t one you expected.

“Well then,” he says. “May I accompany you to see the rest of your paintings, so that I could join you for coffee?”

Huh.

It’s a break in the routine, sure. But he didn’t roll his eyes while you talked or quickly excuse himself to get out of hearing what you had to say. And if he was willing to listen, and follow your route, well–it might just be okay.

You don’t exactly plan to smile when you answer, but it creeps along your lips all the same.

“I suppose you could,” you say, and that smile quirks. “If you can keep up.”

“My name is Chrollo,” he replies, oddly, like it’s an answer. 

–

Chrollo does, in fact, keep up. More than that, he engages in conversation with you, offering counterpoints, asking questions, even going so far as to ask how you learned such-and-such a detail. 

Despite the interruption that he presents, it’s not unwelcome. It’s nice, actually, and as the afternoon goes on, you almost regret that there aren’t more paintings on your usual stop. But it’s not like the afternoon stops when you visit Boy and his Dog, one of the museum’s quirkier paintings; it is, yes, a Boy and his Dog. But the dog is wearing human clothes, and the boy is running wild on a broken leash. 

(The painting always makes you smile. When the stranger asks why, you’re almost–well, perhaps actually–rude when you explain: “Because it’s all backwards, of course.”)

After Boy and his Dog comes coffee. And if your newfound companion is relieved to have finally gotten to the part he asked you about earlier this afternoon, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he watches; he watches as you approach the counter and the barista greets you by name, already starting your familiar order before you say a word.

“You come here often,” he says, and it’s not a question.

You nod and eye the pastry case. “It’s tradition,” you say, not taking your eyes off the goodies displayed inside the climate controlled glass. If they have fresh cinnamon buns, you get one of them. If they aren’t fresh, you stick to the prepackaged cookies. “Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.” 

The glaze isn’t hard, but smooth, a bit of it still runny along the edges.

Fresh.

“One cinnamon roll, please,” you order. Then pause, because that isn’t quite right today, is it? “I mean, two.” But is that right, either? You eye Chrollo and something like a smile plays at the edge of his lips. “Er, well, if you’d like one, that is–”

“I would, thank you.” It’s a relief to not have to walk back the order, and the barista behind the counter swiftly bags them up.

Chrollo orders his own coffee before you can offer to add his to your tab, but that’s all right. At least you’re buying him the cinnamon bun. It’s nice to help others, especially someone who was patient enough to listen. (Not just listen, though, you remind yourself. Actively engage with you, which is far better. And more rare.)

You’re in the middle of your cinnamon bun–literally, fork stabbing the middle part first, which is the softest, gooeist part–when he speaks up.

“I enjoyed our conversation today.” Soft, almost as if he didn’t say the words often. Maybe, and this was perhaps too egotistical of you, he didn’t. 

“Mm,” you say, because you really did want to eat that middle part first, and the explosion of sticky-sweet cinnamon goodness in your mouth prevented further words for a few moments. Something about this seems to amuse him, and he places a hand over his mouth before he chuckles.

“What?” There is still some cinnamon roll still clinging to your teeth. 

“Nothing,” he murmurs, though it wasn’t nothing at all. “I was simply thinking that I might see you on Thursday. If that’s all right.”

Your mouth quirks. It’s not irritation that you’re feeling. Not really. But he was something new, a blip in your schedule. Still, he didn’t make a mess of things. He listened, and it was nice, actually, for someone to not shoo you away like some gnat the moment you got going on a favorite topic.

“It’s all right,” you say, mind still wavering, but voice already made up. “If you can still keep up.”

He snorts, and nothing more.

–

On Thursday, he’s there. Standing by your favorite painting. And staring, again, at the unimpressive, unimportant frame. Of all things–again! 

“You–” And it’s strange, how easily the indignation bleeds into your words. “But I already told you about the frame–”

But when Chrollo turns, he’s smiling, and it takes you a few slow moments to realize that he was kidding. Ah. It was… It was a joke. 

There’s a flush in your cheeks as you stuff your hands into your jacket pocket. “I’m not good with jokes,” you admit. 

He stuffs his own hands in his pockets and you can’t decide if it’s intentional mimicry or if he simply does the same thing in an awkward situation. (And which of these options is better, really?) 

“Nor am I, it seems.”

That, for some reason, makes you laugh.

Makes him laugh.

Makes the afternoon start off on a better foot.

Later on, after paintings and coffee, Chrollo insists on coming to the museum Saturday to see you again. 

You don’t protest.

–

It’s remarkable how quickly Chrollo becomes a part of your daily routine, and how swiftly he moves from being solely within your once-tidy museum routine to the outside. 

To things like asking you out to dinner, and when you explain that on Tuesday evenings after work you go home and make breakfast for dinner, he insists on taking you to a diner-style restaurant to maintain your breakfast meal while not intruding on your home life.

Which is considerate, you think, that he understands that you’re wary of inviting a relatively new acquaintance into your home. But–going out to eat is not what you usually do. At least he doesn’t comment when you fidget too much, when you don’t look in the waitress’s eyes as you order, and when you seem relieved when the check comes. 

You like him better for it. 

–

Chrollo doesn’t tell you that you’re doing things wrong. Which is nice. It’s not that most people tell you flat out that you’re doing something wrong, at least not since you’ve become an adult. But you can tell by their looks; pinched eyebrows and frowns, glances, murmured comments to their peers. 

Chrollo does none of this. 

Chrollo does, however, often forget how you like things; or rather, how you don’t like things. 

He gets too close. A hand that brushes your thigh when you sit together for lunch or coffee, his arm slung around your shoulder when the museum gets too crowded and you start to feel the crush of it crawling up your back. A term of endearment slipped in at the end of the night. Goodnight, dearest. 

Maybe it’s a lot to remember, or maybe he’s just forgetful. There are other options that sometimes sneak up in your mind–maybe he’s doing it on purpose–but they are swiped away so quickly. 

Because it’s Chrollo. He listens to you, he actually pays attention to what you say. He doesn’t mind that you sometimes have trouble making eye contact or that you get flustered in ordinary situations. 

More than that–

He’s your friend. Someone who listens, who has something interesting to say, who seems to actually care about you. He’s the first friend you’ve had in a long time, and you were willing to put up with his forgetfulness in order to keep that friendship alive and well.

Even if it meant having to bat his hand away from your thigh on more than one occasion. 

–

It’s Friday evening. 

Friday evening should be relaxing. The end of the work week, a time to grab a favorite frozen dinner from the freezer and relax in front of the TV with a show that you’ve seen a thousand times. 

Once it’s over, you’ll turn on the news and you might work on a puzzle or write in your journal or slowly make progress on an embroidery kit you picked up 2 years ago and have only ventured into a few times.

You might do these things, except–well. 

Except everything has fallen apart.

Your shaking fingers almost don’t manage to pick out Chrollo on your contacts, and it’s a wonder your phone doesn’t crash to the ground and break into a million pieces with how much your hands tremble.

“Hello?”

He barely gets the word out and you’re already blubbering into the phone, incoherent, words bubbling out with no time to make them more understandable. They choke out, stuttered and half-baked, before you finally beg for the one person who might understand your distress. 

“It’s–it’s–and–they–and–it’s–g-g-g-...Chrollo–please-come-over.”

He manages the trek in record time, impossibly fast, but you don’t pay attention. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s here and you don’t even protest this time when he sees your sobbing form and immediately scoops you into his arms.

It’s almost comforting, the way he squeezes you, gives you something to feel grounded. One of his hands inches a bit lower on your back than you’d like but even that doesn’t matter, doesn’t even register, because his presence has calmed you down enough to spit out the terrible truth:

“They stole it.” You gulp in a great, heaving gasp. “The Village in Winter. Someone… someone stole it.”

Chrollo’s body tenses. The news drones on in the background, but it’s moved on to something less important now. As if something could be less important than this. There’s a great big hole where the painting used to be, on the wall, in your mind.

Chrollo steps in or rather, steps back, placing one hand on your chin–the sensation makes something itch down your back, but you ignore it, because such things can be ignored in a time of great distress. “You are truly upset,” he says, finally, slowly. 

“Of course I am!” Your own hands come up now, grabbing the one on your chin, tugging it down so you can squeeze it with great abandon. Chrollo doesn’t seem to mind. “It’s all wrong–” It’s wrong, too, the way that other hand still rests far too low on your back. “It won’t be there. I love that painting. I love it and now when we go to the museum tomorrow, it won’t be there!”

Chrollo’s hand on your lower back begins to stroke. Maybe it’s soothing. Or meant to be; you have to give him credit, you think, for rushing over and trying to calm you down. 

“We don’t have to be there,” he murmurs.

Which does nothing to calm you down at all, because of course–

“We do have to be there.” Bitterness sets your jaw hard. “We do have to be there, and it will be all wrong.” The thought of all those precious details lost to you forever, the stories you’ve wound through again and again in your head. Even the new routine of admiring them with Chrollo, who always takes interest in the wrong part of the painting–that will be gone, too.

And it’s wrong, wrong, wrong. The world feels worse for it. What would be the point of going to the museum, when you’ve lost some integral part of yourself, all thanks to the work of some lowlife thieves?

Chrollo finally pulls himself away from you, a frown set on his lips. He glances around your living room, the disrupted Friday evening routine that is begging to be set back into place without all the pieces. 

“Have you had your tea? You always drink it while you watch the news, don’t you?”

You do. Yes. Not tonight, though. At least not more than that first sip before it was interrupted by the horror of the news report. 

“I was too upset to finish it,” you admit. “It’s on the counter.” But if you could finish it, maybe it would help. Now that Chrollo’s here to set everything back into order. It wouldn’t make things right–nothing could, except the restoration of that pivotal painting–but it’s a start. A comfort.

 “Could you…” 

He’s already on his way to the kitchen, a hand slipping into his pocket. “Of course. I’ll warm it up for you.”

“Thanks,” you force out, the word heavy on your tongue. Yes. Thank goodness Chrollo is here to set things into place. He knows what you like and need, wandering hands notwithstanding. So it comes as no surprise when he emerges from the kitchen with a newly warmed cup of tea and you stumble on shaking legs to the sofa.

Microwaved tea never tastes the same, and it’s no exception here. It’s almost too bitter now. But you choke it down anyway while Chrollo sits next to you, eyes on the screen, the flickering bar underneath the next program that repeats the news about the museum break-in.

Theft suspected to be the work of professional thieves. More updates on stolen paintings will emerge as staff inventory the losses. At least three security guards found dead…

The world spins. Literally, the world spins, and you reach out a hand and stand up on reflex with the anxiety that spreads through your chest.

“Chrollo?” He’s there, sitting next to you, but he falls in and out of focus as your vision wobbles.

“Yes, love?” 

“I don’t feel very…” The word never comes before everything goes black, and you only just register the awful sensation of falling and being caught in someone’s sturdy hands before you faint.

–

Someone has shoved cotton into your mouth. That’s the only explanation your mind comes up with when the world returns and all you can taste is stale dryness. Someone must have shoved cotton into your mouth at some point before the blackness and this bleary, foggy wake-up.

But why would they do that, and why does your head feel so fuzzy, and why does the world feel like it’s moving? There’s an awful sound underneath you too, almost like rushing and wheels mixed together, like heavy traffic or–or a train. 

Oh. Oh, no.

Air comes in great gulping gasps as you heave yourself forward and sensations assault your senses. A leather seat underneath you, the sun dimmed by drawn curtains, warm, stale air, the sound of rolling wheels and ground underneath you–and Chrollo. Chrollo sitting your opposite, on the same type of leather seat.

You’re on a train. You’re awake and on a train and Chrollo is sitting in front of you.

It’s a dream. Maybe. That’s what you think as you swallow up the cotton feeling, smacking your lips, craving the realization that this is nothing but a bizarre nightmare.

But nightmares don’t feel like this. This is real. It’s your body that feels sluggish and heavy, your eyes blinking away an awful, long sleep. Your voice that croaks out the words that half-stick to the roof of your mouth:

“Chrollo? Where… am I?” 

There’s another question that clings to the back of it–What happened?--but the low curl in your gut makes you avoid it for now.

Chrollo, for his part, looks appropriately serious for the bizarre situation you’ve woken up in. He leans forward, folding his hands together, as he scans your face. For what? An injury? Is that why you’re here? You fell and hit your head and the only solution was a specialist who is only available in the next city, so Chrollo booked you the first tickets on the next train and he didn’t have time to warn you before–

“Dearest.”

The low curling in your stomach squirms, too. He knows you hate those pet names. It was easier to ignore them back then. When the two of you were strolling through the museum or he was indulgently watching you reorganize your books. When you weren’t suddenly on a train, feeling like you got hit over the head with a hammer.

A strange place, a strange Chrollo.

An answer might come, but your mouth is still too sticky and Chrollo interrupts what you might have said, anyway.

“We’re on a train.”

After a moment, a slow word comes. “Yes.” You swallow. “I know that.”

Chrollo smiles. It might be indulgent, but all you can think is: has his smile always been so condescending?

“Do you know why we’re on a train?”

Well. It would be stupid to say “yes,” when you don’t know the answer. 

So you spit out the runaround thought from earlier, though even to your ears, it sounds more ridiculous with every passing word.

“I fell and hit my head and the only solution was a specialist who is only available in the next city, so you booked the first tickets on the next train and you didn’t have time to warn you before–”

He doesn’t call you an endearing nickname (thank goodness) this time but instead his smile widens, just enough to make it look like he wants to coo at you. It’s gross and sticky and you rub at your arms to make some of the feeling go away.

“Stop that. I’m not a child.” 

His smile doesn’t waver, which only sparks a rush of indignation. The world has stopped feeling quite so heavy and when you sit up, you move to pull aside the curtains, if only to find out where in the world you’re at. 

The countryside that’s rolling by isn’t remotely familiar. All lush and green and pretty. Are you even in the same region? The same country? 

“How… how long was I asleep?” No, that’s not the right question. “Why was I asleep? I don’t remember…” Falling asleep at all. And what you do remember doesn’t fit inside this puzzle. You’d been watching the news, and there was the terrible report about the theft at the museum, and then Chrollo came over, and you drank your tea. One plus one should equal two, not waking up on a train.

Chrollo hums, and the sound brings you back. The ground rolls heavy underneath you two, separated by the carpeted floor. 

“I drugged your tea,” he says, plainly enough. 

It can’t be what he said, though. You’re hearing things. Maybe you suffered a blow to the head. That might actually make things.

“You what… my what?” 

“I drugged your tea,” he repeats. Calm and clear and you’re certain that you’ve heard him right this time, only it’s still all wrong. Because this is Chrollo. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t. But he did. He said so. So the only thing left to wonder is:

“Why would you do that?”

“I enjoy your company,” he says, still leaning forward. “Very much so. And it was time for me to leave town, but the thought of leaving without you, well…”

Now, there are no “right” answers to this question. No one ever catalogs the proper responses to a hypothetical question about drugging one’s tea. Still, what he tells you doesn’t sound like the sort of answer one should give. 

Kidnapping someone for ransom, sure. Kidnapping someone because they found out some terrible secret and no one else can no, understandable. Kidnapping someone to kill them because you’re secretly a murderer, again, makes sense.

Kidnapping you because he likes you? 

It’s so wrong, so out of place, that you don’t answer. Can’t answer. There’s something sticky keeping your mouth shut and that something is Chrollo’s lack of common sense.

And then, of all things, he puts a hand on your shoulder. Firm. Irritating. A touch you want to shake but when you try, his grip keeps you in place. It’s too much. Too heavy and personal. It was something to be brushed off before, swept under the rug while you focused on what you liked about him.

But now? 

You must be glaring. There’s a moment where you take stock of your expressions. Your eyebrows feel low and heavy, so they must be furrowed. Your mouth is dry and open. And your eyes are… well. It’s understandable to cry. 

Worst of all, though, is that Chrollo’s hand goes from your shoulders to your cheeks, and it’s when he wipes at your tears that you finally fling your body backwards with enough force that the back of your head smacks against the wall.

It helps, this pain. This motion. So you do it again. Move your head forward and then back, feeling the firm smack of the wood against your head. 

Thump. Thump. Thump.

An ordinary person might look shocked. An ordinary person might cry out and tell you that you're hurting yourself.

Chrollo, however, simply looks like he’s admiring a painting. He takes in the details, his head tilting just so. 

“I packed some of your favorite things,” he says after a while, over the sound of your skull smacking against the wall. “Once we arrive at our destination, we can unpack some of them. It could help you calm down.” 

“I want to go home,” you reply, between thumps. “I want to go home.”

He doesn’t reply, which is as good as a “no.”

“I’m taking you with me,” he says, still calmly, like you aren’t trapped on a train, like you aren’t banging your head with increasing intensity against the wood.

“I don’t want to go with you,” is all you can say, helplessness straining your voice. “I want–I want–” And when you look around, all you can see are these walls, the window, Chrollo. There are a thousand things that you want right now, and none of them are here.

You want your old microwave with the 7 button that sticks so you have to push it hard every time, you want the pink flower rug in your living room that you’ve had since childhood, you want your pumpkin-shaped mug with the chip on the handle, you want your blankets and your bed and the alarm clock on the side table on the left side, so you can wake up and easily roll over to hit the snooze button–

It’s only when Chrollo says your name that you realize you’ve been saying all of this, to him or to yourself, you’re not sure. There’s something stupidly hungry in the way he looks at you. It’s in the way he listens, too. Like he’s hanging onto every word so he can pick them all apart, splaying them open to reveal something inside.

But what? And why?

He doesn’t tell you. Instead, he hums. It’s a low grounded sound. It makes you feel–and you hate it, it’s gross, this feeling–comforted. Almost. Sort of. The way it used to, when you were feeling out of sorts and he swooped in to get you off the ledge.

Only this time he’s the one who pushed you to it, first.

“I’m not taking you home,” he says with a finality that makes your body jerk. “But you can view me as your new home, if it helps.” The smile he gives is warm and kind and if you were sitting in the museum over a cup of coffee, maybe you’d believe it.

“But you can view me as your new home, if it helps.”

It doesn’t help.

–

Your upper arm hurts from the way Chrollo gripped you in the hotel lobby.

“Don’t try anything, dearest,” he’d said, on the way in. Quiet and calm and sticky on the dearest. He might as well have been telling you that he was ordering in for dinner. “I’ll kill everyone in this hotel if you do. I’d rather not have to clean up any messes tonight. I’m sure you understand.”

The words should have shocked you. Or maybe they did, and you’re still in such an inward frenzy that you can’t seem to react to anything within the freezing utter bewilderment of your present situation. 

So you didn’t say anything, though he gripped you hard all the same. And now you’re sitting on some oversized sterile hotel room bed that smells too much like sharp laundry detergent. There’s a mint on the pillow. You bet it tastes like soap.

“We’ll be staying here for a few nights,” Chrollo murmurs. The pair of suitcases he’d brought in are on top of the bed, and there’s a shock to your system when he unzips one of them and you recognize what’s inside.

It’s filled with your things–your hairbrush, a wellworn paperback copy of your favorite book, a bottle of your tried-and-true face wash.

Your clothes. (Well. Some of them.) Right down to your underwear, neatly folded on top. Chrollo had–taken them. Touched them. Been through your things, clearly. 

“You…” The word comes out all strangled, and heat rises to your cheeks for more than one reason. “You really…” You really kidnapped me, you really planned it out, you really went through my private things and plucked them up. 

He takes the pause in your thoughts to crouch down, peering into your face like he might yank the words out himself.

“Yes? What is it?”

“You... you…” And the words you want to ask are stuck between your teeth until you force them out. “Why did you do this? It’s not just… it can’t be just because you,” and your mind reels to remember what he said on the train. “Because you enjoy my company.”

Chrollo says nothing for a moment. A whole lot of nothing. Your mind is working too fast and you expect him to smile or grin, expect him to give some terribly wicked speech like a villain in a movie you’ve seen a thousand times.

Instead he blinks. Instead he frowns.

Instead his hand reaches out to grip your chin and you don’t have time to register the uncomfortable buzz from being touched when says something so softly that you have to strain to hear it.

“Oh, dearest. Don’t you know?”

When your chin does try to jerk away from his touch, it grows tighter, even as his gaze seems to soften. It’s a strange look on Chrollo’s face. Chrollo has looked contemplative, yes; contemplative and intrigued and annoyed, even, when some museum-goers were being too loud for your liking. He’s even looked sympathetic.

But soft? It’s new. It’s unwanted. And the expression stays on his face despite both of those terrible qualities.

“I care for you,” he says, repeating his earlier words. “Not just as a friend. But…” He turns your head this way and that. It makes you feel like a prized horse at auction. “I believe… as something more.”

Not just as a friend… 

Not just as a friend–

“Not just as a friend.” Your repetition comes out all stilted. Maybe because of the hand on your jaw. Maybe because the words seem to creak out of you, every syllable one step down the staircase you’d rather avoid descending.

Something like a film reel flickers through your memories. Little moments, brought back to the forefront with a disgusting clarity. Why had you brushed him off so often? Because you were lonely; because he was your friend. Or so you thought.

But the way he pushed past what you wanted so often seems calculated now. The times he sat too close and let his thigh brush against yours; the way he didn’t hear you, or so he said, when you’d asked him to please stop calling you those soft, sweet pet names. The times he claimed not to be hungry only to ask if he could share your meal afterwards–the way his fingers brushed against yours when he accidentally (or was it?) reached for a bite at the same time.

“The whole time,” you bite out, acid rising in your throat. Your fingers curl against your thighs and there’s a terrible urge to knock them into something. “Were you like this… the whole time?”

Amusement crinkles through the softness in his face. It’s just as grating as nails on a chalkboard. “Did you really not notice?”

Shame flushes through you, heating up your cheeks, your chest, the very air in the room. “Of course not,” you spit out, words sounding more stilted with every passing moment. “Most people wouldn’t notice–notice that.”

At some point, he’s let go of your chin, and you take the moment of the realization to scoot backwards on the bed. Away from him and closer to the dingy looking headboard, which might have been pretty once upon a time, but was now scratched and chipped.

“Of course they would,” he counters, climbing onto the bed like some sort of terrible cat. “And they have, with far less effort on my part.” He pauses, a smile. “Not out of any genuine affection, of course. Don’t worry about that. Only to get something I wanted.”

He’s closer, now. Too close. His hand cups not your chin this time, but your cheek, and there’s only a few moments in between his face and yours. What if he…? 

“Stop,” you say, desperate, helpless. “Don’t touch me.” He doesn’t stop. He leans in closer and you smack against the headboard. “Why aren’t you listening to me?”

What he says makes about as much sense as jello salad. Which is to say, no damn sense at all. “I am listening.” The almost-coo in his voice makes you want to hurl. “I’m hearing what you can’t say out loud, that’s all.”

But that’s not true. Is it? There’s too much going on. He’s too close and this room smells like soap and you ought to be home, not here, with yourself, not Chrollo. The muchness of it all has you aching to get away and make sense of it all, some way, some how.

“I always say what I want to say,” you manage, but you can’t hide the question in it. Isn’t that true? Isn’t that how it’s always been? It’s why people tend to look at you strangely sometimes. It’s why you were often too much for them, when it came down to it.

“You think you do, my dear.” His thumb rubs against your cheek. The touch is sandpaper. “But there’s something else inside you, I think. Something stuck that I’d like to crack open and pull out, if I could.” The fondness in his tone is out of place with the world around you. “If you’d let me.”

You need him to stop touching you. You need him to get away. You need this entire room to vanish, the sight of it, the smell of it, the feel of the unfamiliar sheets underneath you. A sound comes out, something short, stacatto–

“No.” 

And Chrollo doesn’t leave and his thumb keeps rubbing your cheek, so you bring your arm up, smacking him away. Only his arm doesn’t move at all. It’s like hitting a pole–sturdy and impossibly strong.

So you try again, and again, and the sensation of hitting his arm isn’t helpful or soothing. It only makes your breath come in faster, makes the world spin. His breath grows faster, too, and you can’t begin to imagine why.

“You’ll grow to like this in time,” Chrollo says, finally, a touch of a sigh in his voice. “You’ll grow to like me.” 

“No,” you say again, even though it doesn’t help. 

In response, Chrollo simply continues to stroke your cheek.

–

In his defense–not that you are defending him–Chrollo said nothing when you’d taken the first opportunity to abandon the bed and build something like a fort in the corner of the room. It wasn’t anything like the pop up tent you used to have as a child (then a teenager and, sometimes, in a pinch, as an adult) but it would do. A fort made from blankets and some of the bed pillows, despite the detergent stink.

Anything to avoid sleeping in the same bed as Chrollo. More than that, anything to be alone, or something like it. You rocked yourself to sleep and dreamt about the museum. 

In the morning, you wake up and remember everything in one great gulping heave. Your body tenses when you hear Chrollo walking around the room–the sound of the sink, the toilet, the rustling of clothes–until his footsteps stop outside your makeshift shelter.

He pops his head inside without so much as a warning.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

The glare he receives is enough of a response. He chuckles it away, easy as a gnat.

“I’d like to show you something. It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like surprises,” you reply, voice tired and dull. He’s going to show you anyway. He knows it, and you do, too.

He holds open the drape of your fort but you don’t have the energy to be grateful that he at least didn’t drag you out of it. Your limbs feel heavy and awful as you crawl out, and the hotel room in the daylight looks no better than it did at night. 

But Chrollo must have done some unpacking while you slept, because there are a few more things scattered around. His clothing, slipped into hangers. Toiletries–his and yours–on top of the chest of drawers.

And something set against the wall, covered in a plain black tarp. 

The surprise, it seems. Curiosity prickles at you. Maybe it’s a good distraction from everything else. Maybe you’re just genuinely interested in what could possibly lay underneath.

Chrollo’s smile almost looks youthful as he tugs at the edge of the tarp, and you see a flash of black as he pulls it away, revealing the treasure underneath.

The Village in Winter.

It’s all wrong. It’s naked, without the frame, propped up in some hotel room surrounded by chipped furniture and laundry smells.

There is no air left in the room, no water left in your lungs. You could cough up a thousand years of dust right now and still not run out.

“You stole it,” you manage to say. Chrollo simply nods and looks for all the world like he’s showing you something he’s proud of; and he is, you think. Proud of everything. The urge to fall down swims through you, and you grip the wall.  

“You were a great help,” Chrollo says, voice soft and confident and anything but assuring. “We were struggling with the best way to remove it without damaging the work underneath.” He tilts his head, just so, the same way he did that first morning in the museum. 

Nothing is the same as that first morning in the museum.

Perturabo:

He might be a petulant manchild at times, but when the mood strikes him Perturabo can be a bit softer. It helps that you're one of the few people he trusts, now that the two of you are so close. Though it may often be more trouble than it's worth, with how often his mood changes. Perturabo can go from lavishing you with Olympian clothes to sulking in his workshop for hours if not days, leaving you to eventually wander down there and find him, and bring him out of his petulant sulk. A gentle hand on his own, asking if he can explain to you what he’s working on tends to help. Perturabo also becomes very possessive of you, not long after he starts courting you. If Dorn, Sanguinius or Lorgar so much as look at you the wrong way, he's more than ready for a fight. He has one person in his life who hasn’t wronged him, who actually respects him, and he isn’t losing that. Those softer moments with him as he speaks of his plans for amphitheaters and bathhouses while you lay in his arms are worth it, however.

Lion’el Jonson:

Lion'el is, complicated. Part of him wonders how he even got here, something as frivolous as romance was never a significant part of his mind. But here he is. He can’t complain, as he’s become so used to you now that often times, his nose wrinkles anytime he’s away and casts sight on an empty bed. He doesn’t say anything about it, however. Part of him laments he isn't able to give you rides on horseback, as he's far outgrown the horses he rode in his younger years. Though he can walk beside you, even if his men think it's demeaning of his position. Is painfully blunt about some things, and extremely obtuse about others. He wishes to marry you? Blunt. You get a military parade dedicated to showing the galaxy the Dark Angels new Legion Mother with no warning. He wishes for you to wear the colors of his legion and match him so when you arrive on Terra everyone knows who you are with? Vague and obtuse, he will grunt about every option until you choose the one he likes.

Rogal Dorn:

As with all parts of his life, he's extremely stoic and at first, you don't think anything's changed. He's the type that listens to the things you talk about, and silently gives them to you. For instance as a newcomer to Inwit it's incredibly cold, but your current dress just doesn't cut it for the harsh wind and un-acclimated body. You find a new one on your bed three days later made perfect and exactly how you like it, but Dorn says nothing about it. Those few late night moments alone when he brings you into his office, and you sit at his desk while he works are some of his favorite. Dorn gets to feel you safe in his arms, and while he’ll never say it out loud, he is overwhelmed in his love for you. Does not tell any of his fellow primarchs about you. The day they realize Dorn has a beloved is a stressful one, they’re all sneaking around trying to get information about you, and Dorn almost has to lock you in his quarters and shoo them all away. Is surprising talkative in written word. His letters or anything else tend to be very long, talking about the ins and outs of his legion, and their current progress. You’ve never heard him talk half that much in person, it’s sweet. Though once in a while those letters can get a bit salacious; And Dorn is nothing if not detailed.

Leman Russ:

This man's declaration that he wanted to court you was as brash and blunt as he is. You're pretty sure he was half way into sleeping with how drunk he was at the time, a massive hand on your shoulder as he smiles with a red face. Granted when he sobered up he was far more, romantic about it. By his standards. He still stunk of mjød, but at least he held your hand. From that moment on however Russ isn't a man shy of showing off, and wastes no opportunity to plop you in his lap and give you a kiss, pick you up off the ground, or say something far too inappropriate for the current locale. Whether it's day two or day two hundred, he finds keeping himself off of you too much trouble. He’s the type to make others turn away with how overt his affection is. Every one of his kisses and hugs feel like he’s treating it as the last one he’ll ever do. Loves when you comb and braid his hair. It takes awhile and he has no patience for it, but he enjoys when you do it.

Ferrus Manus:

As a recurring theme with all of these, Ferrus finds it a bit hard to show how he feels. While he has moments where he cracks a smile, often times he’s largely stoic. As such, he never really asked you to be with him, it was something that simply progressed overtime. He doesn’t invite you into his quarters and his bed if you aren’t his beloved, he assumes it wouldn’t take a genius to figure that out. Late night workshop time is a must. Ferrus can spend days in there with no issue, and oftentimes you have to come and climb into his lap if you want any time with him at all. He doesn’t mind as as long as you’re quiet; Though over time he’s begun to enjoy explaining his plans to you if you aren’t asleep. If you are asleep, sometimes he gets a bit emotional and talks or thinks to himself. He never thought he’d have someone like you when he lived on Medusa, he just needed to survive. Is actually somewhat hesitant when you first are together. Ferrus is well aware of his size (both out and in the bedroom, or any other local where he deems sex a daring and intriguing idea), and often tries to be quite gentle. It took a bit of coaxing to finally treat you like you weren’t made of glass. You get surprise gifts from Fulgrim at times. Some are sweet; Some are… They’re hidden until Ferrus returns from where ever he’s currently away to at the time and you can surprise him.

Horus:

The same as Fulgrim; Excessive and grandiose, but unlike Fulgrim, there's a tad more subtlety to it. But only a tad. Horus still is eager to show off the love of his life (and so much more that he’s kept just in his head shh), but he’s aware that sometimes you require a bit more subtlety. For a primarch, he’s quite the romantic. Though there’s only so much you can do when you have thousands of gene-sons waiting on orders and don’t exactly get why their primarch is holding your tiny hand and helping you walk down the thunderhawk’s ramp. You can do it yourself, they think. He can also be quite a bit grandiose in the theoretical sense. Horus seems to have your entire future together planned, and he’ll speak it to you during very late nights with stars in his eyes. To marry you, to bring you into his legion as the mother of his gene-sons, to give you your own child one day. He’s more than a bit overwhelming, but it helps he’s so charismatic.

Angron:

I... I hope you're patient. Angron isn’t one that is fond of things like romance. For multiple reasons. One being that it brings him pain because of the Nails, and the other being that in many ways, he doesn’t feel like he deserves it. He’s a slave, he’s a monster, he’s a man who failed his people, men like him don’t get to have someone like you. But you stay anyways despite the fear of him loosing control of the Nails, and eventually Angron supposes that there’s more annoying people to have around. He’s far more applicable to this in his early days. The Nails haven’t degraded his mental state yet, and his legion is still fresh faced and eager to prove their worth. If Angron accepts you, they will as well then. The downside is that many of the primarchs worry about Angron’s relationship and subsequent attachment to you, and the danger it brings. Some for your safety, but mostly for the fact that now that Angron is so deeply attached, if something were to happen to you it would well be within the possibility that Angron would completely loose control of the Nails, and become an unstoppable threat that would have to be put down. On the other hand, it seems that you can calm him down a bit, as much as the Nails will allow, something that not many are able to do. A double edged sword, your love is to him. Often times you have to restrain him during anything, strenuous. It’s for your own safety, though it seems like Angron doesn’t hate it either.

Roboute Guilliman:

The most traditional out of them all. He follows the 'rules' so strictly you have wonder if he's following some sort of manuscript. Your relationship progresses at a very methodical pace, which is a bit odd but you find it oddly sweet he puts so much thought into it. He does little more than hold your hand, kisses and anything heavier are strictly private; If it wasn't for the longing, puppy dog look in his eyes, no one would guess you two were anything more. He's not overt about it like Horus or Fulgrim, but you are still absolutely smothered in gifts. From jewelry to clothing to weird purfumes he's been gifted by high lords attempting to earn his favor through you (Guilliman has made it very obvious that he's not the type to be swayed by gifts but they hope you are and will put in a good word with your beloved), you quickly find yourself constantly or the receiving end of some sort of lavish gift. Roboute is very much in love, it's just hard for him to admit it. As you come to understand his own little love language is the day he's a very happy man. On a bonus note: It is very easy to get this man to completely melt for you. If it’s been a stressful time for him and he’s stressed, giving him a bit of a hand will make him a bit bashful, but overwhelmingly thankful.

Sanguinus:

As kind as he is beautiful, Sanguinius is one of the more heartfelt ones around. Romance abound, the angel and you are the textbook example of star crossed lovers the moment he proposes courtship to you. It almost makes some of the primarchs jealous at how incredibly perfect your love for each other is, like your feet don’t touch the ground He loves to pick you up and give you a hug or a kiss, wrapping you in his wings. He always says it's just so you feel safer, but he also likes the bit of privacy, hiding you from the worlds in his arms. You also enjoy playing with his wings when you’re in private, as they’re quite sensitive. A side note; He thinks it's cute that you use his fallen feathers as bookmarks and quills, and he now gifts you a few of his fallen primary feathers every now and again for you to use. You’ll know about the Red Thirst eventually when you’re with him. Sanguinius won’t ever ask for assistance, but if you were to offer a bit of blood? He’s incredibly careful, but the blood of his lover is nothing short of ambrosia and he will dutifully treat you afterward for sating his appetite.

Jaghatai Khan:

As one of the more reasonable primarchs, Jaghatai is a steal to have as your lover. He’s personable and kind, and funny to boot. He enjoys making you laugh, something his sons have picked up on. Sometimes they’ll tease you (or more likely unsuspecting commissars) when you’re in their company. If he's not able to hold your hand, he'll have a hand on your shoulder or back, always close to you whenever you're both together. He’s extremely dedicated to Chogoris, and it’s incredibly important to him that you adopt some of the culture he grew up in. You don’t have to, but it would make Jagahatai an extremely proud man if you attempted to understand Chogoran. He’s also private; His fellow primarchs don’t even know of your existence let alone close relation to him until you’re well into your romance, and Jaghatai has thoughts for no one else but you.

Konrad Curze:

Konrad’s romance is as toxic as he is. But at the same time, it’s like a drug you can’t get enough of. Because you’re fucking terrified of him, but the man is obsessed with you. Not many of the other primarchs understand the soul crushing, teeth grinding obsession Konrad has for you. He’s willing to fall to his knees and submit to you as long as you tell him you love him, and that he's worth more alive. But if you tell him you don’t?… You don’t want to tell him you don’t. Konrad is painful. He holds your hand too tight, kisses you too rough, bites you too hard. He doesn’t mean it, you don’t think at least some of the time, but he’s so caught in this obsession with someone trying to save him that his martyr complex melts away for a bit and he’s this self-loathing, sad excuse of a man. You almost pity him as much as you love him. Making him happy has become an arduous journey for you. Is the exact opposite of the others in wanting to show you off. You’re hidden for ages, until the primarchs realize Konrad has someone at his side. They worry, but they know separating him from you would cause more harm than good, and you keep Konrad’s emotions a bit more in check. And in the eyes of a few individuals, your safety serves as a good threat to keep Konrad and his unhinged legion on a leash and working towards a desired goal. A note; Konrad is surprisingly selfless in regard to more intimate matters. And he likes to bite. Your thighs don’t get much reprieve from him.

Vulkan:

Sweet as sugar, no one is as good at a proper declaration of love or desire to romance like Vulkan is. No matter how much it breaks his back he’ll always hold your hand, give you a kiss, or pick you up to bring you with him across the Flamewrought or the Terran palace. Besides perhaps Sanguinius and Lorgar, no one is as star-crossed in love with you as Vulkan is.

He’ll do anything for you, if you just ask. He often paraphrases that he would shield you from any threat, but sometimes you fear he’d do it literally. Less seriously he loves to gift you various things, your favorite being a necklace. You never thought he’d be able to work at such a small level, but Vulkan is nothing if not skilled. He got quite the reward the evening he gifted it to you.

Is one of the quicker ones to get serious. Talks of marrying you, writing you down in the history of his legion as their Legion Mother, Vulkan is quite eager to tie himself to you, and you to him.

Corvus Corax:

Corvus is private, and also quite slow to trust. Even slower to admit he likes someone, let alone enough to express that he’s in love with them. Many moments with him are often spent in his private quarters or somewhere else alone, where only you have eyes on him.

Is one of the few primarchs conscious of the fact that he isn’t really meant to exist, and that he’s forcing it by being with you. Your body often bruises and aches if he isn’t careful with you, and it secretly pains him that the one person he loves is so easy for him to hurt. Finding out about this feeling he has swiftly turns you into a mess of reassurances that quickly overwhelm poor Corvus, and while he still feels it at times, he appreciate you trying to soothe him.

Loves to write you letters. He feels like it means more to put the effort into handwriting, and when you send him one back, it’s like he can feel your touch on the paper. One time you left a lipstick kiss on the parchment and the man was insufferable that evening from how pent up he was, unbeknownst to you millions of miles away. You paid for that transgression dearly one he returned.

Lorgar Aurelian:

Lorgar is yet another primarch who is sweet as sugar. He also has quite the way with words, though unlike Horus and Fulgrim, it isn’t intentional. He’s just very passionate and verbose. Is also very touchy. Loves to pick you up and kiss you, show you off to others. He’s so stupidly in love and everyone around him is almost annoyed by it. He just loves his tiny little goddess so much, you bring him light he didn’t know he needed. Lorgar is also very affected by his religious trauma. His self flagellation both emotional and literal has always been an issue. You’ve had nights where you’ve put ice on his back after he whipped himself bloody, crying over his wounds. If it isn’t bad he encourages you to not weep over him, and if it’s worse he often times is beating himself up over worrying you. Being with him is stressful emotionally, to say the least. In another path, he often time beats himself up over the idea of corrupting you with sinful thoughts. Though that doesn’t really stop him, especially if he comes to his quarters one evening seeing you wearing all white draped across his bed. Lorgar will sin alright, but he does it while speaking prayers to save his own soul as he worships you. He’s one of the quickest Primarchs to want to marry you, to make you his own and to bring you closer and closer to his side.

Mortarion:

Mortarion isn’t an easy one to love. He doesn’t really consider the emotion valuable until one day he suddenly realizes that you mean something to him, more than just another baseline human does. Like Ferrus in that he never does the official courtship nonsense, and just upgrades your relationship in his head overtime. Someone who isn’t his lover doesn’t spend hours in the Pale King’s study watching him work, keeping one of his hands in their lap while he uses the other. Is a bit of a pushover in some ways, and takes his self loathing a bit too far sometimes. You’ve learned that sometimes he needs you to kiss him and tell him you love him more than anything else, to get him to stop sulking. Everyone is extremely surprised he found sometime. Let alone someone so personable. Fulgrim jokes that Mortarion should just send you instead of himself to Terra when the primarchs meet up to discuss things, as you’re easier to deal with. Mortarion hates when things like that are said, and he’ll hide you from the world obsessively for awhile after. He loves you, but sometimes for him love and possess get intertwined in his head when he thinks for you.

Magnus the Red:

Isn’t the worst beloved to have, but he has his quirks. He can be a bit stuffy at times, and often times forgets that relationships needs nurturing to grow. Magnus often times gets stuck in his own head and forgets everyone around him, including you. Loves to show off his warp magic to you, especially if you show literally any interest at all. He’s so used to everyone fearing it, fearing him, hating psykers no matter what, that any interest by you gives him hearts in his eyes. You’ll be up all night listening to him read you tomes. Which you don’t mind, it often helps you fall asleep. Since Magnus can change his size, he knows exactly how to make your squirm. You know you’re in for a wild ride when your beloved becomes bigger than Ferrus and starts taking off his armor.

AlphariusOmegon:

The last letters you received really unsettled you. 

The two were vastly different from each other. One made you question each and every move you ever made in the past and the decisions you would make in the future. The second was an invitation you would have to turn down. While you're certain that particular sender would never trick you purposefully, the others could and would use it as a trap if they knew you were there. 

Now you were contemplating asking the staff for more assistance if you had to venture outside. While you hate to bother them when they were busy enough as it was, you feared going alone anywhere now.  For tonight, you would remain within the safety of Ramshackle and avoid any nightly excursions for the time being. That meant ignoring the invitation you were extended. At least you weren't entirely alone. Grim was always with you. 

Speak of the little devil. It seems like first thing this morning, he had decided to dig through the fresh wave of letters that had arrived. “Hey, you know how you said we can’t go to the cafeteria because those weirdos got nothin’ better to do but follow you?” Using his sharpened claws, Grim tore into an envelope that held a coupon for a particular on-campus lounge. There was only one person in the entire student body who would use coupons for free meals at his own lounge as a way to tempt you into opening the letter. In a way, it worked, as the feline snatched up the carefully printed coupons and at the same time a letter fluttered to your feet. 

“Absolutely not.” You answered, earning a quick grumble from Grim until you reminded him, “We have plenty of food and gifts that everyone sent. You know I won’t touch it, so it’s pretty much all yours.” You didn’t need to tell him twice, because he immediately went to dig around the pile for something edible again which left you with the message that came with the coupon. 

The letter was folded neatly in thirds but the sheet was tinged tan, reminding you of rolled parchment that formed contracts. Thankfully, there was no dotted line where you were expected to sign away your soul. The contents were composed of smooth cursive penmanship, the loops and lines like waves on the water that became choppy the longer it went on. 

A quick glance confirmed that it did not begin with requirements or collaterals or legally binding statements. Just formalities spiraling into begging and reverting abruptly back to formalities. Droplets stained the surface of the parchment, just barely visible as they had long since dried. Were those tears…??

To my dear player, 

I must offer the most sincerest of apologies for all my transgressions! 

When I should have welcomed you with open arms as I once had, the malfunction of your vessel had rendered me into a rather… shall we say, unsightly, state. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I must confess this much if I am to gain your favor once more. And in that state I now realize that the anguish of the mere possibility of your absence being permanent had blinded me to your very real presence. 

Well, this is my heartfelt attempt to amend my egregious mistake! You are welcome to visit the Mostro Lounge at any time you like. These doors shall always be open for you! Through rain or shine, should you want for something then I will be here to offer it to you. You needn’t concern yourself over closing hours, for I will still serve you even if you arrive in the dead of night. 

Yes, I too realize that a coupon for a free meal could not begin to make up for the mistakes that were made. I know you believe so too, given how you have yet to respond to my previous letters or anyone else’s. It’s only a small part of the whole that I could offer you. Given the debts that are owed to me, I have the power to fulfill whatever you desire, my pearl. Perhaps you would want these letters from the others to stop altogether, or maybe you desire something simpler like walking out in the day without having to worry about unwanted company. Have I piqued your interest? 

I’m not just offering a free meal. What I am offering is a chance to have peace returned to you once more. The coupon is an invitation, if you will. I’ve heard you receive an abundance of those from those pathetic and desperate for your return. This is not like that. I know you would not accept those sorts of invitations, and you know me well enough to estimate that this is more of a business-sort of venture. Consider it, won’t you? Come by the Mostro Lounge at whatever time best suits you, I will be here ready to welcome you with open arms as I should have, and we can talk business. 

I’m certain something can be devised and agreed upon, a deal highly beneficial to both parties involved. Normally, I would not offer such a valuable proposition to most but you are not just anybody. My generosity is boundless, but my fondness for you is far greater than that. You are much more than merely my most valued client, which is why I dearly hope you accept my proposal. Even if it’s just to make use of the coupon, or you wish to berate me for my stupidity, I would still welcome you. 

I will always welcome you. 

Everything has been prepared for your arrival at a moment’s notice. Please, allow me to make up for everything. I’m begging you. 

I’ll do anything. I can give you more than free meals and a peace of mind. I can make everything go away, everyone bothering you will be gone! If you want a sense of normalcy, I’ll see to it that no one else approaches you! If you want protection, you needn’t even ask, I will protect you! Anything, just name it and consider it yours! Just don’t leave me. I need you. Don’t leave me alone. Please––

I hate this! I hate your absence. I can’t take it anymore. I need you here. Every time I try to see you, someone else gets in the way! Someone who doesn’t deserve you! Without you I feel broken, pathetic, desperate, everything I can’t stand being reminded of. You made me feel like I was worth something. Each smile from you used to make me feel like a million madol. Do you know how hard I worked just for a few spare seconds of your attention on me? When I thought you were gone for good, it felt like I was drowning. It feels like I’m drowning. You’re the only one who could help me so–– 

It brings me great relief just to know you are safe and well in Ramshackle Dorm. Know that a deal I offer between us doesn’t necessarily require a complex written agreement. For you, I can pen something in plain-language. 

For now, I will eagerly await your response. Octavinelle is always an option to consider should you need to escape the confines of the old dormitory. Should you take up my offer, I will keep a spare room prepared for you and Grim free of charge. There is much to talk about, so many things to explain and tell, so I implore you to keep an open mind. You won’t regret it, I guarantee it. 

Just one word, and I will be there to extend my benevolence to you, my dear. 

Readily at your service, 

Azul Ashengrotto 

A rip like the tearing of paper echoed in the quiet. As you look over your shoulder, you spot Grim with an envelope in hand. The envelope had been ripped open, and its contents were scattered all over the floor in little pieces. 

"Grim!" It just seemed like an unnecessary mess had been made. 

Immediately Grim frowned, dropping the envelope like he was caught with a jar of cookies. "It wasn't me! I just opened it! Whatever letter was inside came like that!" 

The envelope was rumpled and creased with the opening torn. While you're certain Grim had at least opened it, the other details may not have been caused by his paws. Especially the mess of contents inside, more pieces fluttered out as you took it and turned it upside down. 

The letter was more like a jigsaw puzzle, with the torn pieces scattered across the floor. Some parts were far too ruined, like extra pieces from an earlier draft that wasn't even meant to be there in the first place. Those pieces were practically shredded like confetti. What was left and legible revealed the careless scrawl of a message. 

Heeyyy, Player, 

You still scared of me? 

Is that why you've been shutting out everyone like they don't exist? Probably. It's probably why you'll ignore this letter. It's annoying, and I hate it, but as much as I would want to force you to listen, I don't know if I'd actually do that to you. Maybe. I dunno. Probably not, especially if you start crying or screaming. I want to have fun with you like I used to, not traumatize you for a second time. 

What am I supposed to do now with you cooped up in Ramshackle all day? Everyone is so irritating. Some are stupid enough to actually think you would accept us back if we grovel and apologize and it makes me want to beat some sense into them. As if some lame 'SORRY' can make everything okay again.

I'll say sorry if you tell me that's what you want to hear, but that won't change the fact that I'm not really sorry about everything that happened. I'm sorry it was you, that's about all I'll apologize for. Because really if it was an imposter and I got my hands on them, I totally would've done all those things I said I would. ALL of them. Not even Azul or Jade would have been able to stop me. Nah, I think Jade would have joined me. It was like our way of getting back at them for taking you away from us and from me. Oh, but I'll say I'm sorry for scaring you if that makes you feel better. That's something I do mean!

Everyone's been insufferable. Azul kept going on and on about trying to put on a positive front, but it sounded like he was five seconds away from either yelling at us or crying about you again. So, most of the stuff you've gotten from me has gone under his radar. It pisses me off when someone tries to tell me how I should interact with you. I still wish I could tell you all this in person. It'd be faster that way and so I make sure you hear everything I say. Azul probably keeps telling me that stuff because he knows I would chase you just so you listen. He's probably as pissed off as Jade and I are about everything but he's still a crybaby deep down...

I'm not mad at you, just so you know. I'm mad at everyone else. I'm mad at the whole world for putting us in this situation. Yeah, I met you, but it was all wrong. It wasn't supposed to go like that. The day I actually met you face to face was supposed to be fun, you were supposed to laugh and have a blast with me. We'd hang out with Jade and poke fun at Azul. But that didn't happen. I'm mad that I can't even see you anymore. You're literally here, and I can't be with you. 

Everyone else is trying to get your attention–

So why is it bad when I try to do it too? That's not fair.

The guys at Diasomnia get to guard your place and chase everyone away, the two in Ignihyde are acting all secretive, and those fancy Pomefiore people are trying to make themselves more shiny and pretty in case they see you. That's not even mentioning Otter's sad attempt at another party which is obviously gonna be a bust.

Everyone gets all mad when I try to see you. How is that bad? You should see them, you know. They wanna protect you so bad, as if they weren't also the reason why you're hiding all the time now. At least I'm not delusional enough to believe that you're not hiding from me too.

You know the only reason I haven't tried to beat up everyone is cause I know that'd probably make you more mad at me, right? I know Jade has thought about it too, especially when he stares a little too long at people we know for sure hurt you. The other reason we don't do it? Because we know the others probably feel the same. They probably want to beat us up too for how we chased you and everything. I don't blame them. The only thing stopping anyone from going after someone else is the thought of what you might think of it. It's crazy tense. I probably would've thought it was fun before, but not so much now. 

Although if someone does try to make a move like that, I won't mind. Nah, actually, I hope they do it. That'll get you upset at them and then you can see I'm not that bad. My bet's on Urchin or Crocodile acting out first.

Hey, hey, I hope you actually look at my letter next time. I was thinking about ripping this one up and throwing it away too, but next time, I'll definitely write and keep the letter in one piece to be the first one to tell you if someone starts fighting. And! I can even stop it if you want. Stop the fighting, I mean. It's not like it would be hard. Or even if you want someone punished for what happened, I can grab them for you. Even if it's me. I don't mind. I just want to see you again...

I'll keep an eye out. Okay, that's it. 

Byeeee 

Floyd Leech 

They came in a pair, the Leeches. The paper you had used to organize the shredded letter on, happened to be from the other Leech. 

The envelope was blue like the deep dark oceans at night. Its secrets under the surface were concealed by thin gray string tied with stems of what looked like an herb and a flower. At least it smelled nice, but you didn’t know exactly what it was. 

The letter was very unlike the previous one, as this one was wholly intact. The penmanship is tidy, not too over the top nor too muddled. It’s simple, and that’s what makes you uneasy. All the written letters before had any urgency clear as day by the lines or it was composed so flawless that you knew the writer was hiding something. With this one, you couldn’t quite tell at a single glance. 

Greetings Player, 

I hope this message finds you well. 

I offer my most sincere apologies for everything that transpired. You must think me a foolish vicious sadist. Well, that is an accusation I’m in no place to deny after the events you bore witness to. It pains me to consider what you must think of me, but said pain is not as strong as the ache I feel in my chest when my thoughts dwell too long on how miserable you must feel all alone. At the very least, I know you have Grim as good company. I’m a tad jealous. 

Do not be alarmed by this attempt at contact. I only wish to soothe your woes and serve you to the best of my abilities. That has always been my wish, although I have proven to be rather lacking. Apologies. Perhaps, I can be of assistance in other ways. I know of many intriguing happenings, if you would care to hear them?

It would be an honor to see you and tell you all that I know. This sort of information is invaluable, truly. As a gesture of goodwill, I will brief you on the happenings in my own dorm. I need not explain what Floyd is doing, as my brother wears his heart on his sleeve and is not one to beat about the bush. The dorm leader, however… Well, you are likely now privy to his true feelings as Floyd discreetly switched one of Azul’s first drafted letters from the trash for the perfected one he meant to send. As you can imagine, Azul felt particularly mortified when he discovered the letter was not able to be retrieved once sent. He’s in quite the state. 

The same could be said by most of those you are familiar with. They are in a state. This is not a fact you need reminder of. The repetitive attempts by many of them, peers from every single other dorm, I find to be not only in poor taste but particularly grating. It is not just impossible to ignore, but it would be irresponsible to not warn you. There is much more to be said about them but as much as I wish to share, I simply don’t have enough ink to write about the details in length. What a shame. The secrets I have learned are far better shared in-person, I assure you. If you require more intel, that can easily be arranged. 

As I imagine Azul has invited you already to Octavinelle, I personally feel that it would be far more convenient for yourself should I drop by Ramshackle Dorm for a visit. However, I am not so presumptuous to invite myself to your abode and safehaven for a cup of tea. It is still an option should you desire company that is not just Grim and the resident ghosts haunting the halls of the estate you call home. It must get dreadfully boring. That is something I can amend, should you permit it. 

Admittedly, I have been quite lonely without your company. 

These days without your warmth have been rather dreary. I find myself longing for your presence, but the mere mention of you does nothing but fuel these thoughts. 

It’s very troubling. The only sort of reprieve that would ease my suffering must be from you. And yet, I can’t imagine that you would entertain the mere notion. Once I told you how I would regard someone who had betrayed me. You likely view this entire situation as something like a betrayal. In that moment I failed to recognize you, I betrayed you. 

You would not wish the same suffering upon me that I would upon a backstabber. No, you are far too kind for that. Such a forgiving trait is one I normally think to be extremely unpleasant––forgiving may be the wrong word. You aren’t going to forgive me right away, if ever. I know I wouldn’t. I would inflict far more suffering onto anyone who crossed me. Nevertheless, despite knowing this, I still want to serve you. I wish to invite you on a hiking escapade so you might experience a change of pace, share with you the wonders of land that I have come to learn of, and teach you of this world you have found yourself in. These are valid offers that will stand and should be considered by you.

In a way, it feels like you are inflicting more suffering upon me with your continued silence. While I find some attempts by the others to be loathsome, I do understand their desire to be seen by you in some shape or form. 

I would rather stand before you and accept a torrent of unmitigated verbal abuse from your own lips than not be by you at all. Even the concept of being binded and drowned beneath the waves or electrically shocked sounds far more bearable than having to endure this continuously. Every moment like this is far worse than any sort of torture my imagination could conjure. Which is why I bid you to reconsider. My offer still stands, I still wish to assist you in any way possible. 

I look forward to your response. 

Awaiting your command,