#waaait

After a mission, reader is patching him up and in the quiet motions of pulling out bullets for him and bandaging wounds, they confess in a whisper "I was never afraid of you, not in the way you think."

He stays quiet, pretends that admission doesn't wind him like it does.

"I wasn't afraid of the blood, the ruthlessness, the deaths or the power; I can trust a powerful man to be ruthless, to be harsh and bark orders, beat his employees for incompetence and barely blink when they're competent. It makes it easier to kill them when they make so many enemies that they fall at the hands of one, easier to stay detached and move on."

And Sylus listens, quietly pays attention. Not just to their words, but their actions, the steadiness of their hand, the calmness of their movements.

"No, what I was scared of was your kindness, the compassion, your care. You treated me like I was more than a tool, you treated me with respect, cared for my wellbeing under thinly veiled disinterest."

You get up, start cleaning up the mess, putting the bloodied tools into the tray and getting everything else back into place.

"I was scared of what that would mean for me. What you would mean to me. I was afraid of what it would mean to get attached."

"I'm not good with attachments, you already know this, you've seen it first hand. How I hide, how I stay quiet and bite my tongue, swallow back the words, drown out the feelings and avoid the issue until I can't anymore."

Sylus has seen the emotion in their eyes many times over, but he mistook that for something else. Now, as they reach for his hand, with theirs being shaky and inked with his own blood, he understands it for what it is; longing.

"I wasn't terrified of you being violent with me," you nuzzle your cheek into his palm, like you want to syphon the warmth from it, "I was terrified of what your kindness would mold me into, of the warmth."