#unknown mm

call him smol.

pipsqueak.

little guy.

I’d ruffle his hair and give him the most condescending forehead kisses.

he’d rue the day he chose me as his assistant.

He was used to being alone but he wasn’t alone anymore. That was because you were here with him. You, he paused that thought, spinning his chair around to face you. You had fallen asleep on the couch on the other side of the room, the fabric from your shirt bunching up and revealing just the smallest bit of your abdomen. 

You shivered, likely from how chilled he kept the room. 

Oh, he made sure that things would never overheat, but he liked to work in the cold. It kept him awake and it kept him from overheating whenever he needed to do his elixir or when the need for it burned at him so badly he wanted to claw his flesh to feel any sensation again. 

Sighing, he rose from his seat to come to your side, he shrugged the jacket from his shoulders and laid it over you. He wouldn’t hear the end of it if you got a cold or something. The last thing he needed was an assistant with a cold. That wasn’t going to benefit paradise. 

Nor was it going to help him with his work that needed to be done. Though, as he leaned over and brushed the hair from your eyes, a strange thought crossed the back of his mind. What would it have been like if the two of you had met in far different circumstances? Not that it mattered, fantasies like that were foolish and nothing he took part in. 

But, the thought persisted strongly, what would it have been like if he had been an average guy who you merely find yourself getting involved with? Would you even be interested in him at all? It wasn’t like you had much of a say in meeting him, he picked you and didn’t take no for an answer. 

Scowling, Unknown turned away from you. There was a painful itch inside of him that told him to stop becoming soft. He wasn’t like this. This wasn’t who he was, and he wouldn’t be any different than he was. 

He was the strongest man in this place and his place would be cemented when he crushed all of his enemies to dust underneath his heel.

He grit his teeth.

“Boss...” your small voice came from behind him.

Unknown looked back at you, but you were still fast asleep. If this was who he was, then... 

What did that make you?

It would be putting it lightly to say that it was a few, because damn near every night when he gets some sleep if he didn't work himself in an exhaustion so heavy that he's fortunate enough to get a dreamless sleep. He will toss, turn, scream, cry, you name it, it's highly likely. It's not something that he wants people to know about, but as his assistant, you're privy to information that not everybody else can know. As long as you don't say anything or bring it up, Unknown will act like nothing happened the next day and never bring it up. He doesn't even show weakness, and he doesn't let people think for a second that he's bothered by anything.

You, however, can see through the cracks of his facade. Your feelings about him are a bit uncertain. But, nobody deserves to wake up screaming for mercy and pleading with an invisible figure not to hurt him, not to beat him, not to touch him-

You sit down next to him every night.

You start very small with this, whispering comments of reassurance to him, but getting more assured of your actions when his thrashing calms a bit, you start holding his hand next. He grips you tight, like a lifeline, but some of the fear in his face starts to calm down. You spent nights doing this time and time again trying to make things a little easier for him. He never says anything. There's one night in particular where the status quo changes, where he sits up and his eyes are filled with tears. He looks at you in that moment, so scared and so desperate for help, and you wordlessly wrap your arms around his torso.