Are you real
Dark!Bobby X Reader
Summary; Before the Backrooms your biggest mistake was refusing to give Bobby a chance. Now, trapped in an endless nightmare of empty rooms and things that shouldn't exist, you would give anything to go back and change it. TW: Psychological Horror, Obsessive Love, Emotional Manipulation, Captivity / Imprisonment, Paranoia, Delusions, Mental Deterioration, Monster Mimicry / Doppelgängers, Injury Suffocation / Choking Scene, Dark Romance, Tragic Romance, Bobby Needs So Much Therapy, Situationships Are A Public Health Crisis, Local Man Develops Separation Anxiety, Local Man Has Lost His Mind, Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss vs Psychotic Breakdown Malewife, Malewife To Kidnapper Pipeline, Fear of Abandonment Speedrun Any%.
WC: 6K (wrote this in four days so if it's shit don't blame me)
The first thing you registered was warmth. A slow, honey thick warmth that had nothing to do with the pale sunlight trying to bleed through the cheap blinds. This heat was specific, localized, and moving. It was a mouth. Soft, barely there pressure planting a lazy trail up the knobs of your spine.
You kept your eyes closed, breathing in the scent of stale weed, faded cologne, and something that was just clean skin and sleep. Bobby. A hum vibrated in the back of your throat, a sound caught between a sigh and a moan, as his lips traced a path to the space between your shoulder blades. His warm hand splayed possessively over the dip of your waist beneath the rumpled sheet. The only thing you wore was the memory of the night before, a pleasant, heavy ache in your limbs and the faint impression of his teeth on your lower lip. You were both naked, tangled up in each other and a mess of charcoal grey cotton.
You felt the mattress shift, the lean, solid weight of him pressing a little closer, and then his lips were on your shoulder. It was a wake up call you’d become dangerously accustomed to.
Finally, you stirred, a sleepy sigh escaping you as you shifted onto your back. The sheet slipped, and the cool air of the room was a shock against your skin. You blinked your eyes open, and he was right there, propped on one elbow, looking down at you. The weak morning light caught the angles of his face, that highly defined, angular facial structure that was too sharp to be just pretty.
“Morning,” he murmured, his voice a low, sleep roughened rasp. His nose brushed against yours as he leaned in. His hair was a tousled mess, falling forward onto his forehead.
“Morning,” you whispered back, your voice still thick with sleep. You didn't fight it when he closed the distance. The kiss was slow, deep, a lazy exploration that tasted of sleep and the last, faint ghost of mint. His full lips were soft, patient, a perfect counterpoint to the hard, sharp lines of the rest of him. When he finally pulled back, just a fraction of an inch, his eyes were still closed, his lashes dark gold crescents against his cheekbones. "Was starting to think you were going to sleep all day."
"Tempting," you murmured, already feeling the pull of the real world, the mental checklist of assignments and shifts waiting for you. “I’m so tired,” you hummed, the words a barely audible vibration against his jaw. You didn’t want to think, didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to do anything but dissolve back into the sleepy, satiated haze. You turned in his arms, presenting your back to him again, and grabbed his arm, a silent, demanding gesture. He understood immediately, wrapping it tightly around you, his hand coming to rest on your stomach. He let out a short, soft laugh, a puff of air against your hair. "Okay, okay. Message received." pulled you flush against his chest, tucking his knees behind yours. You were encased in him, a small spoon in a shell of sharp bones and lean muscle. You closed your eyes, letting the steady thump of his heart against your spine lull you. This, you told yourself. This was the part you liked. The quiet after, where he was just a warm, solid presence, and all the complications of your lives were held outside the door.
For a while, there was only the sound of your breathing and the distant, irritated chirp of a bird outside the window. His thumb traced idle, meaningless patterns on the soft skin of your belly, a gentle, almost hypnotic motion.
“So,” he said, his voice a quiet rumble that vibrated through you, “how’s that project been going? The big one. The one that’s been making you bite everyone’s head off.”
You groaned, the sound muffled by the pillow. “Good, I guess. It’s just… stressing me out. Feels like it’s taking over my entire life.” You didn't mention that your increasingly frequent escapes with him were the only thing keeping you from a full blown meltdown.
"That sucks, baby," he murmured, and the word 'baby' sent a tiny, treacherous thrill right through your middle. His hand, the one that wasn't pinned under you, moved. “Well,” he murmured, and you felt him smile against your hair, a slow, knowing curve. “That’s why I’m here, right?” His hand slid from your stomach, fingers trailing a light, teasing path down to your thigh. He gave the bare flesh a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Stress relief.”
You snorted softly, a sound somewhere between amusement and deflection. You didn't take the bait, just continued to trace idle patterns on the back of the hand you were holding. He ran his palm in a slow, soothing the curve of your thigh, his thumb tracing a lazy, circular caress on your skin. The touch was meant to be comforting, but it was also a test, a quiet probing to see if the mood of the night before could be rekindled.
“You know,” he continued, his tone shifting, becoming a touch more casual, the way someone does when they’re trying to mask something that actually matters to them, “we could go out this weekend, y’know. A change of scenery. I could take you out to dinner. Someplace that’s not a drive-thru or your kitchen.”
And there it was, the other game. The one he kept trying to play, and you kept refusing to learn the rules to. The bubble of sleepy contentment popped. You forced your eyes open, staring at the slice of light on the wall. Your body, which a moment ago had been liquid and pliant, began to tense.
“Dinner?” you repeated, as if he’d suggested a trip to the moon.
“Yeah, dinner. It’s a thing people do. They eat food, at a table, and they, like, talk.” His voice was still light, but you could feel the new tension in the arm wrapped around you.
This was the point where you always started to pull away. You shifted, gently disentangling yourself from his grip. This time, he didn’t fight it, his arm falling slack as you sat up, keeping the sheet clutched to your chest. You swung your legs over the side of the bed, your back to him. The floor was a warzone of discarded clothes, your jeans tangled with his black t-shirt, a lone sneaker by the door.
“I… uh, I’m pretty busy this weekend, actually,” you said, your voice coming out a little too flippant as you began to reach for your things. “College stuff. You know how it is.”
“Right. College stuff.” His tone had changed completely. The teasing warmth was gone, replaced by a flat, clipped edge. You heard him sit up behind you, the rustle of sheets. “You’re always busy with ‘college stuff.’ Except, apparently, when you’re not too busy to hit me up at eleven o’clock at night.”
You flinched, the accusation hitting its mark with sniper like precision. You grabbed your underwear from the floor and started to pull them on under the sheet, the movements jerky and hurried. “That’s different.”
“Is it?” You could feel his gaze on your bare back, and you imagined those striking blue eyes had lost all their post sex softness, sharpening into that intense, unblinking focus. “What’s so bad about going on a date with me, Y/N? Huh? You always do this. Every single time I try to… to just be with you outside of a bedroom, there’s an excuse. An essay, a shift, you’re tired, you’re just about to wash your hair. It’s a greatest hits album of brush-offs.”
You stood up, pulling on your jeans with sharp, angry tugs. “Because I just don’t want to date, Bobby! That’s not what this is.” You zipped them up, the sound final and loud in the suddenly quiet room.
You could feel the question coming before he even spoke it, a deadly, fragile silence that expanded to fill the entire apartment.
His voice, when it came, was quiet. Dangerously quiet. “You don’t want to date anyone? Or you don’t want to date me?”
You finally turned to face him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed now, the sheet pooling around his hips, leaving his torso bare. The morning light carved his body out of light and shadow, accentuating the lean, defined muscle. He was a work of art, all sharp angles and fair skin. The look on his face was one of pure, frustrated hurt, his strong jaw set, his full lips pressed into a thin line. The intense brow was furrowed, and his eyes, they were fixed on you with a vulnerability that was almost too painful to witness.
“Come on, Bobby. Don’t act like this,” you said, your voice softening despite yourself. You hated this part. You hated feeling like the villain. “Let’s not act like, before this arrangement of ours, you didn’t have a different girlfriend almost every other week. You were the king of no strings attached. The whole reason this works is because we’re on the same page.”
“It’s not the same,” he said, his voice rising, cracking with an intensity that froze you in place. He stood up, not caring that he was naked, and took a step toward you. His hands were clenched into loose fists at his sides. “Those other girls? They weren’t… it was just something to do, a way to pass the time. You’re different. You’re so different, Y/N, and you know that. You’re smart, and you’re funny, and when you’re not biting my head off for trying to be nice to you i can't stay away from you. You can’t tell me you don’t feel it.” He was right in front of you now, close enough that you could smell his skin, see the small, pleading furrow between his brows. “Just give me a chance. One real chance. That’s all I’m asking for.”
His plea hung in the air, raw and honest. It would be so easy. So terrifyingly easy. You could just say yes. You could let him take you to dinner, let him hold your hand on a street not littered with your own clothes. You could let your carefully constructed walls down for a guy who was always a little bit high, a guy you’d written off as a fun, temporary distraction, but you knew the look in his eyes. You’d seen it before on other faces, right before everything went to hell. The look that preceded “I love you” and was inevitably followed by “Who were you with?” It was a trap, a beautiful trap.
You were done picking up your things. You had your bag slung over your shoulder, your keys clutched in your hand. You had an armor of busyness and cynicism, and you put it on now like a shield. You reached up, placing your hands gently on either side of his face. His skin was warm, the stubble rough against your palms. You felt the tension in his jaw muscles as he looked at you, waiting.
“Bobby,” you said, your voice soft but final. You looked into those crystal blue eyes, a color so vivid it seemed manufactured. “I like what we have. It’s easy. It’s fun. Let’s not overcomplicate it.”
You saw the light in his eyes die a little, the hope crumbling into a resigned, weary disappointment. He knew this script. You’d made him rehearse it a dozen times.
“I’ll see you,” you whispered, and then you pressed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. It was a full stop kiss, a seal on the conversation, a goodbye for now. You didn't let it last pulling your hands away before he could respond, before his full lips could part and say something that would completely undo you.
___
Time didn't work here, that was one of the first things you'd learned, one of the many cruel rules of this place, you'd been navigating by the sickly, jaundiced light that hummed from the fluorescent panels on the ceiling, a constant, maddening buzz that had burrowed into your skull and made a home there. You slept when your body collapsed, woke when the adrenaline spiked, and walked. You just kept walking. Endless, repeating rooms of damp, yellowed carpet and wallpaper the color of old bruises.
You'd gotten good at hiding, at holding your breath. At pressing yourself into the corners where the buzzing fluorescent hum was loudest, hoping it would mask the sound of your hammering heart. Some of them looked almost like people, if you didn't look too closely. A woman in a stained dress who turned and had three noses clustered on her face like a grotesque flower. A tall, lanky man shape with four perfectly blue eyes, blinking out of sync, who had passed within feet of your hiding spot, his head swiveling on a neck that was too long, too smooth. You'd stared at the damp carpet and not breathed, not thought, not existed until the sound of its dragging footsteps faded. Other things were worse because they were utterly alien. Scuttling, skittering shapes glimpsed at the end of long corridors. The sound of something large and wet breathing in a room you decided not to enter. The screaming. Sometimes, in the deep distance, you heard screams that were unmistakably, horrifyingly human, and they always, always sounded like him.
Bobby. His name was a wound you kept touching, a raw nerve you couldn't stop probing with your tongue. Every time your exhausted mind drifted, you heard it again. The sound he'd made when that thing had seized him. His scream had echoed down the endless corridors, a sound of pure, primal terror that had shattered into wet, choked gurgling. Begging. He had been begging for help. The sound of your name, torn from his throat, you cried every time you thought about him. At first, it had been violent, gut wrenching sobs that left you curled on the damp carpet, gasping for air that tasted of mildew and old dust. Now, the tears came silently, a hot, steady leak from your eyes that you'd wipe away with a grimy hand as you kept walking. You replayed the last morning in the real world on a constant, torturous loop. The warmth of his bare chest against your back. The desperate plea in his voice. You're different, Y/N. The way you'd placed your hands on his sharp, beautiful face and kissed him goodbye like he was a problem to be managed instead of a person who was trying, so earnestly, to love you. The guilt was a physical thing, a sharp, acidic lump in your throat that you couldn't swallow down. You'd give anything, anything, to take back that morning. To say yes to the damn dinner. To tell him he mattered. Because he did. He had. And now he was just a fading scream and a trail of blood.
On this day—was it a day? the lights never changed, the buzz never stopped—you were moving with a purpose born of pure, desperate stubbornness. You were trying to find the wall. The spot where you'd all come through. If you could just find it again, if it was still there, maybe you could get out. Maybe you could find help. Maybe you could wake up from this.
You were in a long, wide corridor you didn't recognize, lined with doors that were just painted onto the walls, fake promises. The carpet squelched slightly under your worn sneakers. And then you heard it. Footsteps. Fast, erratic, a stuttering, uneven rhythm. Not the dragging shamble of the entities. Something running, human.
Your body reacted before your brain did. You dove behind a protruding wall, pressing your back against the cold, slightly damp surface. Your heart, that traitorous organ, slammed against your ribs like it was trying to escape your chest. You clamped a hand over your own mouth, stifling the ragged gasp of your breathing, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, peered around the corner and the world stopped.
It was Bobby.
He was there, maybe thirty feet away, moving fast down the corridor with a limping, frantic gait. His crop top was torn, a long, jagged gash across the front, and the sleeve had been ripped off completely, used as a makeshift bandage wrapped tightly around his forearm. The white fabric was stained a dark, rusted crimson. There was blood on him. Dark smears on his exposed torso, a streak of it across his sharp jawline, matted into his hair. He looked battered, hollowed out, his already sharp features now gaunt, the high cheekbones cutting even more severely against his fair skin. But he was moving. He was on his feet. He was alive.
Tears were spilling down your cheeks before you even made the conscious decision to move. A choked sob, a mangled version of his name, tore from your throat. "Bobby...?" It wasn't a yell. It was barely a whisper, ragged and raw, the fear of alerting the entities overriding the sheer, overwhelming shock of seeing him. You were already running, your legs moving before you could think, propelled by a relief so profound it felt like being unmade and remade in the span of a single heartbeat.
He stopped dead. His head snapped toward you, and you saw his whole body go rigid, coiled like a wounded animal that had just heard a twig snap. His blue eyes, those intense, focused eyes you'd memorized a thousand times over, found you. For a long, suspended moment, he just stared. His full lips parted slightly. His brow, furrowed in something that looked less like recognition and more like... confusion.
Then you crashed into him. Your arms wrapped around his neck, your body slamming into his with a force that made him stumble back a step, his bad leg buckling slightly. He was solid. He was real. He was warm. The feel of him, the scent of sweat and blood undid you completely. You sobbed against the bare skin of his shoulder, your fingers digging into the fabric of his torn shirt, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had dissolved into nightmare.
"Oh my god, oh my god, Bobby," you were babbling, the words tumbling out between heaving, ugly sobs that shook your entire body. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. I heard you scream, I saw the blood, and I ran, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." The apology kept spilling out, a dam finally breaking. "I thought about you every second. Everything I said that morning, it was all bullshit, I was just scared, I was so scared of how much I—" You cut yourself off with another sob, pressing your face into the curve of his neck. "I'm so happy to see you. I'm so happy you're alive. I'm never leaving you again. Never."
His arms, after a long, suspended beat, came up and wrapped around you. It was hesitant at first, almost mechanical. Then his grip tightened, his hands fisting in the dirty fabric of your shirt at your back. He held you so tightly it was almost painful, his body trembling against yours. You could feel the frantic, rabbit fast beat of his heart against your chest.
"Can't believe you're real," he mumbled, his voice a hoarse, strange rasp, scraped raw. It was so different from the low, teasing murmur you remembered. It sounded like he'd been screaming. Or maybe just not talking at all. "Can't believe... you're... no."
You pulled back just enough to see his face, to touch him, to prove to yourself that this was actually happening. You cupped his face in your hands, your thumbs tracing the sharp, prominent ridges of his cheekbones, smearing through the grime and dried blood. His skin was clammy, a cold sweat sheen on his forehead, but it was his skin. His eyes. God, his eyes, that beautiful, piercing light blue, they were darting back and forth, scanning your face like he was reading a document he'd been trained to distrust. There was a wildness in them, a fractured, feverish light that hadn't been there before.
"I'm real, Bobby. I'm here. I'm right here," you whispered, your voice cracking with the force of your emotion. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you ever again. I swear. I swear on my life."
You leaned in and kissed him. It was a desperate, tear salted kiss, a frantic press of lips meant to communicate everything you'd been too scared to say in the real world. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I need you. I think I— You poured every ounce of your relief, your guilt, your desperate, terrified hope into that kiss, your hands sliding from his cheeks into his matted hair, and he kissed you back.
At first. His lips, dry and cracked, moved against yours with a kind of stunned, automatic response. His hands on your back tightened. Then his grip shifted. His fingers slipped under the hem of your shirt, finding the bare skin of your waist. They pressed in, hard. Not the familiar, possessive squeeze of a lover. Something else. Something searching. Palpating. Like he was trying to feel the bones underneath, the muscles, the solid architecture of a human body. Verifying.
"Can't believe it," he mumbled against your lips, the words vibrating with a strange, unhinged intensity. "You're real. You feel... you feel real. But you're not. You can't be."
"Bobby," you gasped, pulling back slightly, your hands moving to his shoulders. A flicker of unease, cold and sharp, cut through the overwhelming relief. His hands were still under your shirt, his fingers digging into the flesh of your waist with a bruising pressure. "Bobby, stop. Hey. Look at me. It's me. It's Y/N."
"Y/N," he repeated, but the way he said it, it wasn't a name. It was a word he was testing, tasting for poison. He shook his head, a jerky, birdlike motion. "No. No, I've seen you. I've seen you so many times. You're never real. You're one of them. You're another trick."
"What? No. Bobby, no." Your voice was rising, the unease curdling into genuine fear. Not fear of him—no, it was fear for him. You could see it now, the full, horrifying picture. The wild, unfocused dart of his pupils. The way his jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. The tremors wracking his lean frame. He hadn't just been injured. He'd been alone. Alone in this nightmare, hunted, terrified, his mind slowly grinding itself down against the endless, buzzing silence. "It's really me. I'm not a trick. I'm not one of those things."
"That's what the last one said," he hissed, his voice dropping to a ragged, paranoid whisper. His hands on your waist tightened, his fingers pressing so hard into your skin you knew there would be bruises. "The one with my mom's voice. The one that had Kat's face. They all say they're real. They all feel real, for a second, and then—" He broke off, a shudder running through him. His striking blue eyes, those eyes you'd spent so many mornings waking up to, were fixed on you with a desperate, shattered intensity. "Prove it. Prove you're real."
"How?" you whispered, your own tears still streaming, mingling with the grime on your cheeks. "Bobby, how? I don't know how to prove it. I'm just me. I'm the me who thinks about that morning every single second I'm in this place and wishes I could take it all back." Your voice broke, a sob hiccuping through the words. "Please. Please believe me. I'll say yes. To the dinner. To everything. I'll say yes, I promise, just please—"
Something flickered in his eyes. A crack in the paranoid wall. His brow furrowed, and for just a moment, he looked like Bobby again. The Bobby who'd kissed you awake. The Bobby who'd asked, with his heart in his throat, for one real chance. His lips parted. His hands on your waist loosened, just slightly.
"Y/N?" It was a question this time. A real one. Tentative.
"Yes," you sobbed, reaching up to touch his face again. "Yes. It's me. I'm here."
But the moment shattered as quickly as it had formed. His eyes darted to something over your shoulder, a flickering light, a shadow that wasn't there and the walls slammed back down. His face twisted, the paranoia surging back with a vengeance. "No. No, you're doing it again. You're all doing it again. Making me believe. Making me—" His voice cracked, a sound of pure, anguished terror. "You're not taking me again. You're not!"
His hands seized you. Before you could react, before you could even draw breath to scream, he moved with a desperate, wiry strength you didn't know he had. His arm locked around your neck, not in an attack, but in a panicked, desperate restraint. The crook of his elbow pressed against your throat, his other hand clamping down on the back of your head, holding you in place.
"Bobby—" you choked out, your hands flying up to claw at his arm. The pressure was immediate, terrifying. Your airway constricted, a high, thin wheeze the only sound you could make. You kicked, thrashed, tried to twist in his grip, but he held on with the unyielding strength of pure, animal terror.
"Stop moving," he snarled, his voice ragged in your ear. "Stop it. Stop pretending. Stop being her. I won't let you. I won't let you trick me again."
Spots were blooming in your vision, dark flowers unfurling at the edges of the sickly yellow light. Your struggles were weakening, your limbs growing heavy and uncoordinated.
—
The first thing you registered was the buzzing. That damned, eternal fluorescent hum, drilling into your skull, pulling you up from the black depths of unconsciousness. The second thing was the pain. A dull, throbbing ache in your throat, a raw tenderness that flared every time you swallowed. The third thing was that you couldn't move.
Your eyes flew open, and panic, cold and immediate, flooded your veins. You were lying on a bed. A real bed, with a thin, stained mattress and a metal frame that creaked when you shifted. It was pushed against a wall covered in that same sickly, yellowed wallpaper, and the room around you was small, almost claustrophobic, lit by a single, naked bulb dangling from a wire in the ceiling. But you couldn't move. Your wrists were bound to the metal headboard above your head with strips of torn fabric, your ankles similarly tied to the foot of the bed. The restraints were tight, digging into your skin, but they weren't painful.
You thrashed, a surge of animal terror overriding the pain in your throat. "Help—" The word came out as a broken croak, your voice shredded. "Help!"
"There's no one to help."
The voice came from your left. You turned your head so fast a sharp pain lanced down your neck and there he was. Bobby. He was sitting in a wooden chair pulled up to the side of the bed, just a few feet away. He'd changed his clothes somehow—or found new ones. A plain grey t-shirt, a little too big, hanging off his lean frame. The bandage on his arm had been replaced with fresher fabric. He'd washed the blood off his face, he was just sitting there. Watching you. His eyes were fixed on your face with an unnerving, unblinking focus. They were red rimmed. Exhausted and utterly, terrifyingly calm.
"Bobby," you breathed, the relief and the fear tangling into a sickening knot in your stomach. "Bobby, it's me. It's Y/N. Please. Please let me go."
He didn't move. Didn't blink. His full lips, chapped and pale, were set in a flat, unreadable line. He tilted his head slightly, like a dog hearing a strange noise. The motion was too fluid, too detached. It wasn't him. It wasn't the Bobby you knew.
"You look like her," he said quietly, almost to himself. His voice was a hoarse, ragged thing, stripped of all its old, teasing warmth. "You sound like her, too. The last one sounded like her. But it wasn't. It tried to... it got close. Got too close before I knew."
"Bobby, please, I'm not a trick," you said, your voice cracking. You tugged uselessly at the restraints, the fabric burning your wrists. "It's really me. I swear to you. I swear on anything. I'm real. I'm Y/N."
He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes never left your face. "Are you real?" he murmured. "Like her?"
He turned his head, looking toward the corner of the room. Your eyes followed his gaze, and your blood turned to ice. There was a figure standing in the corner. A woman. It was you. It had your face. Your hair. Your body, dressed in the same grimy clothes you were wearing. But it was wrong. The face was doubled, two versions of your features laid over each other at a slight, sickening offset. Four eyes blinked out of sync, wet and staring. Two mouths, one slightly above the other, hung open in a slack, vacant expression. Two noses, a confused jumble of cartilage and flesh. It just stood there, perfectly still, its arms limp at its sides, staring at nothing. Staring at you.
A scream clawed its way up your throat, but all that came out was a strangled, wheezing gasp. You jerked against your restraints, your heart slamming against your ribs so hard you thought it might crack bone.
"I met her two days ago," Bobby said, his voice still that low, detached monotone. He was looking at the thing in the corner with a kind of weary familiarity, like it was a stray cat he'd decided to tolerate. "She found me. I thought... I thought it was you. At first. She doesn't talk. Doesn't do much of anything, really. Just stands there. Watches." He turned back to you, and his expression flickered, a crack in the calm mask. Something desperate and broken swam beneath the surface. "She's kept me some company."
"Bobby," you whispered, your voice trembling, tears spilling down your cheeks. You forced yourself to look away from the monstrosity in the corner, to focus on him. "Bobby, look at me. Please. Look at me. That thing... that's not me. That's a monster. I'm me. I'm the real one. Please. You have to believe me."
Something shifted in his face. A muscle in his jaw jumped. His brow, that strong, defined brow, furrowed deeply. For a moment, just a moment, he looked like Bobby again. Confused. Hurting. Lost.
"Why did you reject me?"
The question came out of nowhere, quiet and raw, and it hit you harder than any blow.
"Bobby..."
"No." He stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor with a harsh screech. He began to pace, a short, agitated track back and forth at the foot of the bed. His hands came up, raking through his hair, pulling at the light brown strands. "No, you don't get to just—you don't get to say my name like that and make it all—" He broke off, a frustrated, guttural sound tearing from his throat. He wheeled on you, and the calm mask was gone entirely, replaced by a raw, bleeding anguish. "Why did you reject me? Every time. Every single time. I was right there. I was right there, Y/N, and you just... you kept pushing me away like I was nothing."
"I didn't—I didn't think—"
"Exactly!" The word exploded out of him, and you flinched. "You didn't think! You didn't think about me. You didn't think about what I wanted. You just decided. You decided I wasn't serious. You decided I was just some—some stoner, some fling, some guy who wasn't good enough to be seen with you in public."
"That's not true," you sobbed, the tears flowing freely now. "That's not—I was scared, Bobby. I was scared that if we got together, I'd end up like the other girls. Just another week. Just another face. I didn't think you were serious about me. I thought I was just... I thought I was just convenient."
He stopped pacing. He stood at the foot of the bed, his chest heaving, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The thing in the corner didn't move. It just kept watching with its four unblinking eyes.
"You're lying," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, trembling whisper. "You always lie. You lied that morning. You lied every time you said it was just casual. You lied every time you said you didn't feel anything. It's your fault." His voice cracked, splintering into something jagged and broken. "It's all your fault. You're the reason I'm here."
"That's not true," you pleaded, pulling uselessly at the restraints. "Bobby, that's not true. I kept telling you not to go. I told you it wasn't safe. I told you to stay away—"
"I did everything for you!" he shouted, and the sound echoed off the close, yellow walls. The entity in the corner twitched, its doubled mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Bobby didn't notice. His eyes were wet now, tears tracking down his cheeks. "Everything. You think I wanted to work at that stupid furniture store? You think I wanted to follow Clarke around with a camera filming his bullshit? I did it for you. I did it so I could be near you. Because you wouldn't let me near you any other way. You wouldn't give me a chance. You refused. Every time. And I just... I kept trying. Like an idiot. Like a pathetic, desperate idiot."
The guilt was a physical weight on your chest, crushing the air from your lungs. "Bobby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I was so wrong, okay? I should have said yes. I should have given you a chance. I wanted to. God, I wanted to. I was just—I was a coward. I was terrified of getting hurt, so I hurt you instead. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
He stared at you, his face a wreck of conflicting emotions. Rage. Grief. Exhaustion and underneath it all, a desperate, flickering hope that he was desperately, furiously trying to smother, he moved closer, his body casting a shadow over you as he stood beside the bed. His hand came up, trembling violently, and touched your face. His fingers were cold, rough with grime and dried blood. But the touch was gentle. So gentle. His thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, the same way you'd traced his a thousand times before. A shiver ran through you, your breath catching in your throat.
"You're so soft," he murmured, almost to himself. His voice had changed again, the raw anguish smoothing into something quieter. Darker. Possessive. "You've always been so soft. I used to think about it all the time. The way your skin felt under my hands. The way you'd sigh when I touched you. I thought about it every time you left."
"Bobby..." you whispered, your heart hammering against your ribs. This wasn't relief. This wasn't the reunion you'd imagined. His hand slid from your cheek down to your jaw, his fingers tracing the line of it with a slow, reverent pressure. He was looking at you the way someone looks at a painting they've stared at for too long, searching for flaws, for proof of forgery. His thumb brushed across your lower lip, and you felt the slight tremor in his touch, the barely contained violence of his desperation.
"I held her," he said, his voice still that low, detached murmur. He didn't look at the thing in the corner. He didn't need to. "Your copy. The first time I found her, I thought... I thought it was you. I held her. I talked to her. I told her everything. Everything I never got to say to you." His jaw tightened, the muscle jumping beneath his fair skin. "But it wasn't the same. She didn't feel right. She didn't smell right. She didn't... she just stood there. Empty. Like holding a doll. Like holding a corpse."
"Bobby, please, you're scaring me," you breathed, the tears still streaming down your cheeks, soaking into the dirty mattress beneath your head.
He didn't seem to hear you. His hand moved from your face, trailing down the side of your neck, his fingers light, almost exploratory. You flinched, a fresh wave of fear coursing through you. He paused, his eyes flicking up to meet yours. That intense, focused gaze was back, but it was wrong. It was the focus of a man who had been broken and rebuilt himself around a single, obsessive point.
"I kept thinking of you," he continued, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. "The whole time. When I was running. When I was hiding. When that thing had me and I thought I was going to die. I thought of you. Your face. Your voice. The way you'd wrap your arms around me and pull me closer in the morning, like you didn't want me to know you needed it. The way you'd always leave anyway."
His hand reached your bound wrists, his fingers curling around the fabric restraints. He didn't loosen them. He just held them, his thumb pressing against the frantic flutter of your pulse.
"I won't let you leave me this time," he said, and his voice hardened, the broken anguish giving way to something resolute. Something unhinged. "You always leave. You always find an excuse. An essay. A shift. You're tired. You're busy. You don't want to date. You don't want me. But you're not leaving this time. You can't. There's nowhere to go. There's no door. There's no morning. There's just... this. Just us."
"Bobby, I'm not going to leave," you said, your voice cracking with desperation. "I told you. I'm not going anywhere. I want to stay with you. I want to be with you. That's what I was trying to say before. I was wrong. I was so wrong. Please. Please just untie me and we can—we can figure this out together. We can find a way out. Together."
He stared at you for a long, suspended moment. His face was a ruin of warring emotions, hope and suspicion, longing and terror, love and something darker, something that had grown in the dark, empty spaces of his fractured mind. Then he smiled. It was a small, sad, terrible smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"You say that now," he whispered. "But you'll change your mind. You always do. As soon as you're free, you'll run. You'll find a reason. You'll find an excuse. You'll leave me alone again. Alone with her." He jerked his head toward the corner, toward the silent, watching thing with your doubled face. "And she's not you. She'll never be you. But I won't let you go. Not this time. Not ever again."
He leaned down, his face inches from yours. His breath, warm and slightly stale, ghosted across your lips. His hand tightened on your bound wrists, his knuckles white.
"I did everything for you," he said again, the words a mantra, a wound he couldn't stop pressing. "And you're going to stay. You're going to stay right here. With me. Until you prove it. Until I know. Until I'm sure."
"Until you're sure of what?" you whispered, your voice barely audible.
His full lips brushed against your forehead, a mockery of a kiss. It was cold. Possessive. Nothing like the lazy, teasing kisses he used to plant along your spine in the morning.
"Until I'm sure you're real," he murmured against your skin. "Until I'm sure you love me. Until I'm sure you won't leave."
