An Experiment in Independence
A charity commission for @spacyst who donated to an animal ambulance! Thank you so much and have fun reading :D
  Warnings: Yandere!Chrollo x Reader, fem! Reader, established relationship, gaslighting, kidnapping, unstable and insecure reader, fear of violence, mentioned NSFW, emotional neglect, 5k words
âAnd then, I swear, they looked at me like I was the problem, which is ridiculous because I was literally just explaining what happened.â You punctuated the sentence with a small wave of your fork before stabbing another piece of pasta. âLike, I know I can get carried away sometimes, but I wasnât even being dramatic that time. He called it abstract! It wasnât even meant to be.â
Across the table, Chrollo hummed, which was, technically, a response.
You looked up from your plate as your story had reached its conclusion, idly twirling your fork through the sauce as irritation settled a little deeper in your chest.
He looked unfairly good.
His black hair hung loose around his face, still slightly damp from the shower he'd taken after getting home. Instead of the crisp black shirts and tailored, custom-made coats, he'd pulled on an old graphic T-shirt from some obscure band he liked. It made no impact on how put-together he seemed.
That annoyed you almost as much as the fact that he'd clearly put no effort into tonight's dinner while you'd spent nearly an hour deciding what to wear.
More than that, though, his attention wasn't on you.
His gaze rested somewhere over your shoulder, unfocused, as though whatever occupied his mind was infinitely more interesting than the story you'd been telling for the last ten minutes.
Silence settled, broken only by the quiet scrape of silverware against ceramic as you pretended to enjoy the food.
You werenât going to make a scene. You werenât. "...Are you even listening?"
"I am," he said, smiling to himself. He had been doing that often today.
Fucking liar.
You slowed down eating, remembering the hour youâd spent on your make-up, doing it and then taking it off and redoing it. Knowing your high-strung mood was able to ruin the night, youâd begun the night much more casual, but when you realized he wasnât going to talk, youâd grown nervous and started talking like a blabbermouth.Â
Maybe your story didnât matter anyhow, especially to a man like him, but the fact he couldnât even scramble up the tiniest bit of interest was killing you here.
If you ranked on his priorities, it must not be very high.
You gave a small laugh, trying to brush it off, still sounding very hurt even to your ears. âYou donât even know what I said.â
A pause.
He blinked innocently, and held steady eye-contact, as if compensating for the rest of dinner where heâd stared everywhere except at you. You even wore a push-up bra tonight and a plunging neckline to avoid having this happen again, but it seemed the days where you could look nice and have his full undivided attention on you were done.Â
Now he came home, showered, threw on some fucking graphic tee-shirt- it bothered you greatly- while you were looking overdressed. âYou were talking about someone misunderstanding you. Someone from your watercolor class.ââ
You stared at him.
Watercolor class.
You werenât deaf. Youâd heard the slight derision heâd unintentionally added when saying those words. How lowly you were. Boring him with a story about being slighted at a watercolor class. He didnât care, he didnât care, he didnât care.
You picked up your fork, before immediately placing it back down next to your plate, and realized how this scene looked, how civilian, how boring. He had to be restless out of his fucking mind, sitting here with you. The fact heâd even deigned to show up, to grace you with his time, and here you were, starting a domestic dispute with ravioli in front of you.Â
You couldnât help yourself. âYou just guessed.â
He had the gall to sigh. âI didnât.â
âYou did.âÂ
"I didn't guess." Chrolloâs voice was patient. Similar to the way someone speaks to a child throwing a tantrum over nothing. Heâd been doing that often lately, and it only made a shiver run down your spine. "You mentioned it three times this week. The instructor who kept correcting your brushwork in front of everyone."
You opened your mouth. Closed it.
Had you? You couldn't remember. The online watercolor class was something you'd taken up back then to fill the hours when he was gone, which was often, which was most of the time, and when Chrollo came back smelling like places you'd never see and people you'd never meet, you talked. Filled the silence. Apparently about your brushwork and the people who couldnât appreciate it.
"You think it's stupid," you said flatly.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." You said, feeling the edges of your mouth pulled down. âItâs not hard to figure out. Your face practically screams it.â
Chrollo set down his wine glass with a soft clink. The candlelight caught the cross on his forehead, made it look almost holy, which was laughable, which was insane, but here you were, upset that your boyfriend (was he your boyfriend? He'd never used the word) wasn't paying enough attention to your cleavage at dinner.
"You're being difficult,"Â
"I'm not trying to be.â You said, looking in a different direction just so he wouldnât notice the twitching of your lips. If you cried, this night truly couldnât be saved anymore. He wouldnât touch you when you cried, and it wasnât like he fucked you as often as he used to. âIâm just a bit upset.â
"Is there any need to be?"
God, you hated when he did that.Â
Made you feel like you were the one being unreasonable when he was the one who'd disappeared for two weeks without so much as a text. Last time he hadnât even woken you up to say goodbye.
"Forget it." You reached for your wine and took a longer sip than was probably advisable. "Tell me about your trip."
He mirrored taking the wine glass, but took a much more modest sip. "You wouldn't find it interesting."
"Try me."
"No."
Just like that. No. Like the conversation was a door he could simply close, and you didn't have the key, had never had the key, would never be given the key because you weren't good enough, werenât smart enough, werenât in-group enough, werenât-
You weren't enough.Â
That was the thing, wasn't it? You saw it in the way he looked at you sometimes, when he thought you weren't paying attention. Like he was constantly calculating your value and finding the sum wanting. You tried to meet his standards every day, but like your adoptive mother back in Meteor City had repeated to you daily âthe stench of a gutter rat would always follow youâ.Â
Chrollo had managed to prove otherwise for himself, but he was an exception.
You werenât.
Just a gutter rat wearing perfume.Â
"You know what?" Your laugh came out brittle, sharp-edged. "Fine. No problem."
You turned away, fingers trembling as you fixed your hair.Â
"I have someone anyway," you said, the words arriving fully formed, if a bit higher than your normal pitch. "Someone who actually wants to listen to me."
When he didn't respond you added more bullshit.
"He's in love with me, fully. I didn't think you'd mind, since you're gona most of the time anyway." You weren't sure if you were going too far, but your mouth kept spouting out words. "We've... had sex. Here."
That got his attention. For a second you wondered if heâd get mad, furious, even. Heâd demand to know who, and youâd hold onto the lie for as long as it took for him to realize how much he treasured you. Or even if heâd just touch you and say kind things to you out of jealousy and greed, that was fine too. Just anything.
You heard the shift in his breathing.
And then he laughed out loud, a full-on enthusiastic noise you'd not heard come from Chrollo ever before.
"Who would your lover even be?" Chrollo said after a while, leaning forward, placing his elbows on the table. âCanât believe it. A sordid affair in my own house.â
You didn't turn around. Couldn't. "Does it matter? The point is, I don't need your approval. Not anymore."
It was theatrical, ridiculous. As if it was even possible for you to ever love someone other than Chrollo, but as it seemed Chrollo had forgotten about how important he was to you, or at least about how important you were supposed to be to him, you didnât care. Sometimes you had to be the gutter rat wearing perfume and own it, rather than apologize for the scent underneath.
Chrollo suddenly stood up and walked over.
"You know," he said, pulling out his necklace from underneath his shirt, "for someone claiming she doesn't need my approval, you spend a remarkable amount of time arguing with me."
You glared at him as he lowered himself beside your chair.Â
Had you been moving too much during the conversation? Vaguely you remembered that he wouldnât have accepted that at all at the start. He preferred you motionless back then, just in his lap and holding onto him. At least back then he demanded your attention, and you could hardly understand where all that desire had gone.
And then he grabbed the key attached to the necklace and⌠unlocked the cuffs keeping your legs bound to the chair.
WaitâŚ
âWhat?â You said as he moved on to your other foot, pulling loose the cuffs, the skin underneath raw and scarred in a way theyâd been for years. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
You could hardly believe what he was doing.
âWhy.. why would you..â
"Iâve decided that I approve."
The words were so simple that for a second you wondered if you'd heard him correctly.
"What?"
When you didnât remove your ankles from the cuffs even though heâd unlocked them, he took them both off personally and stood up, placing the iron cuffs on their respective place in the corner of the room. Itâd been⌠what? Six years since youâd ever been as loosely contained as you were now.
Chrollo smiled gently and pet your head for a few moments. "I said I approve."
"You approve," you repeated, staring at him.
"Completely."
His hand slid from your hair to your cheek, cradling your face with a tenderness that didnât match the humor you could see swirling around in his eyes. Grey eyes crinkled as he stared at you, though youâd never been good at accurately reading exactly what was going on inside him.
For one reckless second, you wanted to close the distance between you. Kiss him. Apologize for whatever invisible line you'd crossed. Fix whatever had gone so catastrophically wrong that heâd release your chains like it was nothing.
âOf⌠what?â
"Of this affair you've somehow managed to begin," he continued, his tone taking on an almost exaggerated nonchalance. "I must admit, I didn't think you had it in you."
His gaze drifted lower.
"And since you donât need me anymore, these..." He tilted his head ever so slightly. "Those cuffs are no longer necessary, don't you think?"
It wasnât difficult to know what you looked like right now. Restless, scared, and utterly lost. Was he cutting you loose?! Â
âYou're confused.â His thumb brushed lightly over your cheek before he withdrew his hand entirely, as if even that small touch had become unnecessary. âI understand.â
âNo.â You stood too quickly, your legs buckling. Your hands caught the edge of the chair before you could fall.
He didn't reach for you.
That, more than anything, made your pulse race.
He simply watched you stumble with an amused glint in his eyes.âCareful.â
You stared at him, waiting for the inevitable. For him to sigh, to pull you back into his lap, to remind you how fragile you were, how it was all just a joke, how heâd cut off your legs if you ever truly cheated on him. Instead he merely walked back to his seat and raised his glass of wine to his lips.When you just looked at him, utterly lost, he chuckled.
âYou're free to walk around, you know.â He said.Â
You narrowed your eyes. "...You're not going to stop me?"
âWhy would I?â
His answer landed with horrifying ease.
âYou've been unsatisfied, havenât you? I wouldnât want to keep you against your will, now, wouldnât I..â
"Iâ"
"So stand."
You did.
Your knees trembled violently.
Without consciously deciding to, your gaze drifted across the apartment until it settled on the front door.Â
You hadn't been outside in months ânot onceâand somewhere along the way you'd stopped thinking about the door altogether. It had become just another piece of furniture, another fixture of the apartment that existed without meaning anything. Now, all at once, it seemed impossibly real. It was only a few meters away, an ordinary wooden door with a polished brass handle, close enough that you could cross the distance in seconds if you wanted to.
If you wanted to.
Your eyes lingered there a heartbeat too long.
Chrollo caught the movement immediately.
"You may leave if you wish."
"..."
"I won't stop you."
Your heart hammered so loudly you were sure he could hear it.
"What game is this?" you whispered. âAre you trying to be funny?â
"There isn't one."
"You've never..." You laughed once, short and breathless. "You've never let me walk anywhere alone."
"And now I am."
"You chained me to a chair."
"I did."
"You told me I'd never survive without you." You cried out. âThat Iâd be dead before daybreak if I ever left.â
Chrollo shrugged. "I believed that at the time."
"At the time?" you echoed, and you hated how disappointed you sounded.
His expression remained infuriatingly mild.
"People change."
"No," you said immediately.âNo!â
"No?"
"You don't."
For the first time, something almost amused crossed his face.
He moved past you toward the bookshelf, selecting a volume with the same casual interest someone might have in deciding what to read before bed.
"If you've grown tired of living here," he said without looking at you, "you're welcome to find somewhere else."
Your stomach twisted, but your disappointment melted into rage when you saw him sit down and open his book. He was so full of shit. SO. FULL. OF. SHIT.
"Well, fine.â You said, seethingly, âIâm done with this.â
You took one step toward the door.
For the first time in years, the door was unlocked and you could walk right out. Right into the real world. Itâd be a little breezy, being late into July, and you werenât exactly dressed for that, so with quivering legs you walked towards your bedroom, got a jacket, and without even looking at Chrollo another time, you left the apartment.
Itâd been close to six months since youâd gone outside, and it was years since youâd gone outside unattended.Â
Thereâd been no need to. Your life was good here. There were rules, there was structure, love, central heating, food, and no need to fight.
Considering youâd expected to die long before youâd reach your twenties, every day had been a gift with Chrollo. Every morning, waking up in a warm bed, next to the love of your life, felt like youâd been reborn and given a chance few residents from Meteor City were ever given.
The Chrollo of today was sanctified, in your mind, yet realer than ever, considering youâd lived with him for years and had been allowed to see his more human side more often. Back then, when you were young and starving for anything real, heâd been larger than life. He always stood far away, giving speeches and standing at the forefront of every event that was worth anything in Meteor City. When the Troupe left, and became a point of pride for Meteorites, they were as good as celebrities.
And then he came back. And you met him. Talked to him. He remembered you. Remembered the colour your headband had been, the one youâd worn for years while watching the troupe perform their original plays.Admiration had turned into love, and you remembered the first time youâd made love to him with perfect clarity.
He sought you out whenever he visited.
A lot had happened since then, a turning point was when youâd come back to your small room back in Meteor City and noticed it was completely empty, with Chrollo sitting on your cot, explaining that he was moving you, saying it was something he âfelt like doingâ.Â
Considering youâd been close to leaving Meteor City yourself, to try your luck in the outside world and probably die in some gutter after having your organs stolen (the outskirts of Meteor City were always looking for stragglers no one would miss) this wasnât something that troubled you greatly.
It started to rain, and you pulled up the hood of your jacket.
The rain came down in that miserable, persistent way that never seemed to commit to becoming a storm yet somehow still managed to soak through fabric, collecting on your eyelashes and dripping from the edge of your hood as you wandered without direction.
Your shoes were splashing through shallow puddles that reflected distorted neon signs and apartment windows lit by people who had no idea how extraordinary your afternoon had become, how the entirety of your entire life had shifted because one man had decided that after years of insisting the world would devour you the moment you stepped outside, he suddenly couldn't be bothered to stop you from opening the front door.
Every few steps you glanced over your shoulder, not because you were afraid of the strangers moving around you with umbrellas and shopping bags and phones pressed to their ears, but because surely, surely, eventually you would catch sight of the familiar silhouette that had followed you everywhere your life had ever allowed you to go, the black coat, the measured pace, the neutral expression that would eventually harden into irritation before he took your wrist and informed you that you'd made enough of a scene.Â
Every glance was met with disappointment.Â
The first ten minutes were infuriating. The next ten became insulting.
By the time you reached a busier district where storefronts crowded against one another and people flowed continuously across crosswalks despite the weather, the anger had settled into something uglier than rage because rage at least implied there was someone standing opposite you to receive it, someone listening, someone reacting, whereas this felt like screaming into a pillow for no oneâs entertainment.
You slowed near a crowded intersection and deliberately remained there while the pedestrian light changed twice, refusing to move with the current of people.
Chrollo had hated crowds. Hated strangers touching you. Hated not knowing exactly where your hands were, where your eyes were looking, who had looked at you in return. He would've been beside you already, fingers wrapping around your arm with deceptive gentleness, steering you away while calmly explaining that if you insisted on behaving carelessly he would simply have to make decisions on your behalf.
You needed him to do that!
How dare he make you dependent on him, and then just⌠lose interest?!
Nothing happened, though you did receive an annoyed shove from a man that was sick of you standing still in the middle of the crowd.
You laughed under your breath, but it came out brittle, almost hysterical, because perhaps he was watching after all, perhaps he was hidden somewhere above the street or across it, comfortably invisible, waiting to see what you would do now that he'd granted you this ridiculous little experiment in independence, and if that were true then you refused to give him the satisfaction of behaving exactly as expected.
And if that were true, then you refused to give him the satisfaction of behaving exactly as expected.
So you did the opposite.
You crossed streets without checking as carefully as you should have, lingered outside bars where loud conversations spilled into the rain, wandered through narrow alleyways that instinct alone insisted were terrible ideas, and every time your pulse lurched with anticipation because surely this would be enough. This would be the moment he'd step out from the shadows with that soft, disappointed sigh that somehow always sounded more frightening than anger.
The longer he didn't show up, the bolder you became.
You started talking.
At first it was harmless. Small conversations with strangers waiting at crosswalks or sitting beside you on a bench, comments that drifted naturally into stories before either of you quite realized it. You spoke about the Phantom Troupe, watching their expressions shift as you calmly insisted they were real and casually revealed some names, some info, some confidential stuff youâd picked up over the years.Â
Sometimes the strangers humored you. Sometimes they looked concerned. Most simply excused themselves at the first opportunity.
You told them anyway.
You described their members, their abilities, the crimes everyone knew they'd committed and the ones no one else possibly could have known about, your voice growing steadier every time you repeated the story.
No one believed you. At least not to your face.
Which somehow made it even easier.
In a department store, while pretending to browse kitchen appliances, you noticed an unattended whiteboard set up to advertise some sale. Someone had left a handful of dry-erase markers beside it.
You hesitated for all of three seconds.
Then, with a grin that felt almost delirious, you uncapped one of the markers and began writing.
THE PHANTOM TROUPE IS CLOSE
Beneath it, you listed every member you could remember, adding the spider logo, fragments of information that made perfect sense to you and would look completely unhinged to anyone else who happened to walk by. You even scribbled a warning beneath it all.
IF YOU SEE THEM, RUN.
When you stepped back to admire your work, a woman pushing a shopping cart slowed beside the display, reading the board with growing confusion before glancing suspiciously in your direction.
You smiled at her and walked away.
Your heart hammered so hard it hurt.
By the time you stepped back onto the open street, the rain had dwindled to a light drizzle, and you carried yourself with the strange certainty of someone who had already died.
There was no version of this where Chrollo simply let it go.
He had never tolerated betrayal, unless it served him, and he despised half-assed plans like these. You had spent the afternoon telling strangers about the Phantom Troupe, writing their names where anyone could see them, scattering pieces of their existence into the world with reckless abandon. If he hadn't been watching before, surely he would be now.
Sooner or later, he would find you.
And when he did, there were only two possibilities.
Either he still loved you enough to drag you back home, lock the door behind you, and keep you alive at his side...
Or he'd kill you where you stood.
Oddly enough, you found yourself hoping for one of those outcomes.
Because the only thing you couldn't bearâthe only thing that made your chest tighten until you could hardly breatheâwas the possibility that none of it had mattered. That he had truly grown indifferent. That you could scream his secrets into crowded streets, carve the Phantom Troupe's name onto every wall in the city, and he still wouldn't think you worth coming after.
Death was terrifying.
But indifference was unbearable. You would not accept becoming forgettable.
The night had grown⌠cold.
Youâd been sitting on a park bench close to your home for a few hours now.Â
Waiting.
The realization began creeping in with nauseating slowness that he might actually have meant every word he'd said, because he simply...didn't care enough anymore to interfere, and somehow that possibility hurt infinitely more than the years of chains and locked doors ever hadÂ
Because captivity at least required some sort of attention whereas indifference required absolutely nothing at all.
If he cared even a little , he'd have to come closer now. He'd just have to go outside. He'd have to find you. You werenât even far. He could probably find you within a few minutes. It wasnât hard.
You waited.
Nothing.
NOTHING.
The absurdity of it ignited another flash of fury so hot that your vision blurred, and before you could stop yourself you began entertaining another set of increasingly childish, increasingly desperate ideas solely because they all shared one purpose: making him react.Â
You could walk into the nearest police station and tell them your âboyfriendâ had kept you imprisoned for years. You could flirt openly with some stranger, kiss the first attractive person who smiled at you, sit in their lap if necessary, just to see if heâd hear and care about it. You could disappear entirely, board the first train leaving the city without checking the destination, and wait to see whether he'd appear in the carriage before the doors closed.
Every fantasy ended exactly the same way.
With him not coming.
With him remaining exactly where you'd left him, comfortably seated with his book, turning another page while the apartment gradually cooled around him and the side of the bed where you slept remained empty for the first night in years.
You stood up from the park bench.
"...Come on," you muttered beneath your breath, staring at the wet pavement as tears fell down your face. "Come get me."
You lasted another hour before you decided to walk up to your own doom.
The freedom that had felt so impossibly vast when you first stepped through the apartment door had quietly collapsed into an exhausting absence of direction, every street asking you to decide where to go next when for years those decisions had simply... never been yours, and somewhere beneath the anger you found yourself wondering whether Chrollo had known that would happen, whether this entire miserable afternoon had been another one of his carefully arranged lessons whose purpose you wouldn't understand until long after it was over.
Having returned home, you stared up at the familiar windows for several long moments.
The front door opened exactly as it always had, and the dinner table welcomed you, the food still plated and cold. The candles were still burning, so you walked towards them and blew them out.
The apartment was silent.
The bedroom door stood open.
Chrollo was already in bed.
One lamp burned softly on the nightstand, casting warm amber light across the room, and Chrollo looked up only briefly as you appeared in the doorway. He was sitting upright, a book in his hands, his black hair loosely framing his face. Youâd feel better knowing heâd not just gone to sleep during your entire ordeal, but you could tell by how far he was in the book that heâd truly just sat down here and read.
"Welcome back," he said, with no real emotion behind it.
You pushed some wet hair back and walked towards your closet, grabbing some dry clothes. Better to act like nothing was wrong and postpone your own death. You'd rather be throttled in your sleep. "I came back."
The silence stretched.
You hated it, and silently took off your wet clothing, the cold having seeped through to your bones. It didnât matter. After youâd taken your pants off, you swallowed down some feelings as you placed the garment on the floor, not caring to walk towards the hamper. You were exhausted, cold, but still felt more awake than ever. Another deep breath, and you broke the silence. "You really weren't going to come after me."
His voice drifted through the darkness, and you could hear the cold amusement layered underneath his voice."You came home, didnât you?"
You didnât have to think about your response. "I wanted you to."
The words escaped before you had the chance to reconsider them.
You hated how small they sounded.
"I know," he said quietly. âBut I can tell you had fun, didnât you?â
Your chest tightened so sharply it almost hurt. God, he had to know what youâd done. And if he didn't yet, he would know soon enough.
Something inside your chest twisted painfully.
You fidgeted with the dry shirt youâd grabbed, putting it on so you could avoid looking at him. âIâm not cheating on you.âÂ
He huffed out a laugh at your attempt to change the subject, closing his book and placing it on the nightstand. âI know.â
Taking a deep breath, you suddenly decided that this was another hell in itself. Youâd returned, he probably knew about your misdeeds, thereâd be punishment (or not, you still couldnât figure out how he felt), but this half-and-half treatment walking on eggshells was horrifying.Â
You crossed the room before you could think better of it, climbing onto the mattress with movements that felt strangely unfamiliar after spending the entire day convincing yourself you wouldn't return, and for a moment you simply looked at him.
As you climbed on top of him, feeling yourself wear a determined expression, he merely met your gaze with impassive gray eyes.
At least he didnât push you away.
You leaned forward first.
The kiss was tentative at first, more a question on whether or not he was okay with this, your lips barely brushing his as though expecting him to turn away at the last second simply to prove that he could, but he didn't.
His hand rose slowly to cradle the side of your face, familiar enough to make your throat tighten, and he returned the kiss without any passion from his side, leaving you with the unsettling feeling that he was allowing you to choose every inch of the distance between you.
You kissed him again before the first one had truly ended, harder this time, closing the space between you until your bodies were nearly pressed together. Your fingers slid into his hair almost desperately, curling through the dark strands as you tugged him closerânot enough to hurt, only enough to erase the last few inches separating you, enough that you could convince yourself he was real, that he was here, that he was still yours.Â
When you finally drew back, neither of you spoke.
His thumb brushed once across your cheek before his hand fell away again.
You let yourself fall down beside him almost automatically, facing him, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing in the darkness while the events of the day refused to settle into anything that resembled understanding.Â
The room was warm, you were holding onto him, he wasn't leaving you or killing you, yet.
Itâd have to be enough, for now.
You wrapped your arms around his chest and pulled him as close as was physically possible, unaware of the fond glint in Chrollo's eyes as he watched you tear yourself apart.Â













