he’s always thinking of you, buying you little trinkets or treats he thinks you’ll enjoy while he’s out and about— your friends note that when he meets up with you, he never shows up empty-handed. your friends don’t mind him tagging along on your hangouts at all; he doesn’t complain or even mind when he’s holding dozens of bags, and he’s actually a fantastic person to gossip with.
when he drops by for a surprise visit to your house, he brings food for you— and enough for your whole family. your mother adores him, how sweet he is to you and how sweet he is in general. your father appreciates the extra help around the house, and even if he won’t admit it, is happy to monopolize alexis’s muscles by getting him to do some yard work that he’s been meaning to get around to. your sibling even meshes well with him, getting to see more of alexis’s snappier side in the banter they often exchange with him.
alexis is the perfect boyfriend— and you’re the perfect partner for him, given the way you turn a blind eye to his more… concerning behaviors. (maybe even more than that, with the way you feed into them, at times.)
if anyone asks how you two got together, you tell them the practiced and memorized tale of how alexis had very shyly confessed to in one of the campus cafes while offering you a pastry he’d bought just moments before.
it made for a better, more acceptable story than the truth: he’d been stalking you around campus for months, nearly an entire year.
you’d noticed, of course, but only after a while; you had no idea exactly how long he’d been watching you, only that you were aware of it for about a year. it probably should have disturbed you more than it did, but you didn’t particularly mind; alexis was more than just easy on the eyes, and you found his flustered state around you very endearing, and so you allowed his little obsession with you to fester, figuring it harmless.
and then, one day, you found him hiding out in your closet, taking photos of you through the slats in the door.
while you’d been masturbating.
anyone else would have, understandably, freaked out. screamed, thrown things at him, called the police. done something, anything other than what you did.
you, with a few screws of your own knocked loose, had gone up to him and traced a tantalizing finger down his chest. with your head tilted the size, you fixed wide eyes on him and asked, “do you want me to pose for you?” he’d had to stifle a moan when you leaned closer to him and whispered, “i’ll even let you dress me, if you want.”
things had escalated very quickly after that, in terms of both that moment and your overall relationship.
(he made you feel so good that night.)
your relationship with alexis is perfect, so long as no one knows about the little things: the bottomless collection of photos he has of you, the near-suffocating way he dotes on you, the location he’s constantly tracking, the way he has every little detail about you memorized, the way he’ll sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and you hold you tight, too tight, and ask “you won’t leave me, right? not like my family? not like him?”
maybe there’s something more than just a little wrong with him. there’s certainly something a little wrong with you for being okay with it.
but you’re keeping each other happy, and that’s what matters, right?
[yan! michael kaiser x fem! reader, childhood friends au.]
synopsis: your grandfather once cautioned you against feeding strays. it’s a lesson you wouldn’t fully learn until many years later.
words: 4.6k
cw: yandere themes - obsession, possessiveness, implied stalking, slight dubcon (no nsfw).
a/n: [head in hands] this was supposed to be a drabble
“You be careful with that, now.”
At the sound of your grandfather’s voice, you glance over your shoulder, fixing your attention on the man standing in the doorway, propped up against his cane. Your knees and face are smeared with mud, as any seven year-old’s would be.
You turn back around, cooing gently at the scraggly kitten that eats the canned tuna out of the palm of your hand. You lift your free hand to scratch at its head, smiling as it nuzzles into your hand before going back to the food.
“Why?” You ask innocently. “It’s so cute.”
“It’s a stray,” your grandfather says, voice dripping with disgust on the last word. “If you feed it, it’ll keep coming back.”
You frown. Would such a thing be so bad? If the poor little guy was hungry, you would happily indulge it; after all, withholding such a vital thing to its survival would be cruel.
“But it’s hungry,” you whine. The kitten polishes off the rest of the tuna before looking up at you and meowing loudly, bumping its head against your palm. Your heart soars at the endearing action.
“I’m serious,” your grandfather snaps at you in the tone that tells you you’ll be in trouble if you don’t listen. You give the kitten one last pet before reluctantly retracting your hand. You bite down on your warbling lip and blink away tears when it meows at your sudden absence in confusion and protest.
You walk over to your grandfather, and he takes your small wrist into his hand. He takes in your crestfallen expression and sighs, shaking his head.
“It’s for the best,” he says softly. “You don’t want strays getting attached to you.”
You look up at him with big, watery eyes. “Why not?”
“Because no matter how much you feed them, they’ll always be hungry, and then they’ll never leave you alone.”
Despite your grandfather’s warning, you continue to feed the kitten.
You’re careful to do it somewhere he won’t catch you, though. It’s summer, so you’ve been spending a lot of your time in the park that’s only around the block from your house. Turns out the kitten has been spending lots of time sunbathing there, too, so you make sure to start sneaking out some canned tuna with your packed lunch.
You walk past the swingset and toward the large, twisting slide that you’ve gotten used to finding the kitten under this time of day. Your small purple lunch bag bounces against your leg as you skip happily, swinging your arms animatedly. The tune you’re humming gets stuck in your throat and dies as you duck under the play structure and find a small figure already huddled beneath the slide.
A boy in a black hoodie two sizes too big for his frail body sits criss-cross on the floor. Bruised hands gently pet the kitten, which is curled up in his lap and purring softly. He can’t be that much younger than you— probably only by a year— but he seems far smaller than the kids in the grade below you at school, concerningly so.
His head snaps up as your feet come into his line of his vision, wide, impossibly blue eyes locking onto yours. He flinches so hard that the kitten yowls and jumps out of his lap, startled. He curls in on himself defensively and his breathing becomes labored, yet his wide eyes never leave you, tracking your every movement.
You blink in confusion at his reaction. “Um,” you start to say, but you’re cut off by a loud meow cutting through the air.
You turn to the kitten, which has now settled at your side and is pawing at your lunch bag. You giggle— of course, it’s already come to know where its next meal is coming from. You pick up the bag and unzip it, producing the canned tuna from inside it. You grunt as you tug at the tab a few times, but finally it gives way and comes off cleanly. You place it down, and the kitten eagerly prances up to it and starts eating out of it.
After a long moment of watching it eat, your eyes drift back to the boy across from you. His eyes are locked onto the kitten with such focus that it’s concerning.
Then, you realize he’s not looking at the kitten— he’s looking at the tuna sitting on the floor.
You reach back into your bag and take out a sandwich secured tightly in saran wrap. You unwrap it then split it in half, extending your arm out to offer it to the boy.
His eyes dart down to the sandwich and back to you, but he doesn’t make any move to take it.
“Here,” you say, waving your arm up and down in emphasis. “You can have some, if you want. Mom always packs too much for me, so I’m okay sharing with you!”
He glances back down at the sandwich and hesitates for just a moment more before his hand shoots out, snatching it out of your own and quickly bringing it to his mouth. You avert your eyes back to the kitten as he eats it, slowly working through your own half of your lunch.
When you’re done, you peek into the bag to see what else your mom packed for you. There’s a small bag of chips, an orange, and a banana. Maybe it’s a little selfish to keep the chips for yourself, but the boy seems to be just as eager when you set the fruits in front of him, so it’s probably fine.
He finishes eating before you do, and slowly, he inches closer toward you and the cat. He begins petting it again, stealing glances at you when he thinks you’re not looking.
Finished with your snack, you crumple the bag up and throw it into your lunch bag before zipping it back up. You brush your hand off on your pants, leaving a smatter of chip dust behind that your mom will probably chide you for later.
You look up at the boy, who is already staring at you. He flushes red and is about to look away when you hold your hand to him and introduce yourself.
You tilt your head toward him with a warm smile. “What’s your name?”
Michael waits for you under the slide the next day, and the next, and the one after that.
Days bleed into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. You become permanent fixtures in each other’s lives. You bring snacks and books, bandages and a gentle touch and an unspoken oath to never ask, never pry. He brings nothing but himself, but for you, that is enough.
Your mother never asks why you pack extra food, or where it’s ending up. She likely just chalks it up to you being a growing girl, and for that, you are grateful.
There are some days, though, where you’re being looked after by your father, who chides you for taking more than you need and makes you put the extras back in the pantry. On those days, you apologize to Michael for the smaller portions you both have, but he simply brushes it off. He says he couldn’t care less if you show up with no food at all, so long as you show up.
At some point, it stops being about the food, you just fail to realize it. Michael never breaks his habit of trailing behind you like your own shadow, and he’s not exactly a sociable person (in fact, his glare alone scares off any other kids your age who try to approach you two), so you figure there’s still something he wants from you. And because of your upbringing, hand-holding and leaning against each other and hugging is something so normal to you that you cannot even begin to suspect that there is something much different he’s actually after.
You’re fourteen and he’s thirteen the first time he kisses you.
It’s a sunny day, but not too hot; there’s a nice breeze in the air that keeps you cool as you sit in the grass, idly popping grapes into your mouth as you watch Michael kick a ball into a wall over and over again, as is customary for you two these days. As always, he eventually wears himself out and finds his way over to you, collapsing beside you and leaning his full body weight against your side as you complain and futilely try to push him off.
“Micha, get off,” you whine, shoving at his shoulder. He doesn’t budge, and instead sighs in irritation and wraps his arms around yours to stop your attempts. “You’re heavy!”
“Your fault for feeding me so much,” he mumbles into your shoulder, prompting you to roll your eyes. “Seems like oversight on your part.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have if I knew you’d grow up to be this annoying.” Your words lack heat, of course— you don’t really mean it, and even if it wasn’t evident by your tone, it’s evident in the way you relax into his embrace. “Seriously, though. You’re all sweaty. It’s gross.”
Michael gives one last aggrieved sigh before releasing you. He reaches for the water bottle set beside you and drinks from it, and you go back to your grapes.
A comfortable silence settles between you two as you observe the other people in the park. It’s summer, so it’s busier than usual, which means Michael will probably leave sooner rather than later.
You turn to look at him, but as always, he’s already looking down at you.
You tilt your head to the side. “Do you need something?” You ask playfully.
Michael stares at you a moment longer, the wind rustling his hair into his face. Then, he leans down so quickly that you can’t react before he presses his lips to yours.
It’s soft, gentle. It’s barely there, his desire contained by a hesitation you haven’t seen within him in so long.
When you don’t respond, he pulls back, his face carefully smoothed over into a blank canvas, but you know him better than that. Fear dances in his eyes, fear that he’s overstepped and swung a sledgehammer straight into your friendship.
You blink rapidly, trying to pull yourself together. “Oh,” you say, smartly, and then feel yourself flush red as you fully process what just happened.
“Sorry,” he mutters under his breath. It sounds wrong coming from him, and you reach out to grab his arm just as he starts to withdraw into himself.
“Hey, look, it’s fine. I just— you just caught me by surprise. That’s all.”
He looks back at you, and you feel your breath catch in your throat. His blue eyes are shining, but there’s something dark in them that you haven’t seen before, something you can’t quite place.
“It’s fine?” He echoes in question.
You feel your face grow hotter.
“Yeah,” you whisper back, “it’s fine.”
When he leans down this time, you respond in kind.
You’re always the one to break off the kisses shared between you two.
At this point, you’re convinced he’s not human, given the way that lack of air never seems to be a problem for him. If anything, he seems more annoyed by the fact that you’ve stopped kissing him than the fact that he’s nearly panting from how long he’s gone without taking a proper breath.
He’s insatiable, you quickly find out. Shockingly, for a few weeks following your first kiss, he spends more of his time kissing you under the slide than playing football. When you get tired or want to take a break, he just opts to hold you in a tight embrace until you’re ready to kiss again or have to leave.
Eventually, his initial enthusiasm dies down, but his way of kissing you never changes. Shallow, rapid kisses swapped between inexperienced middle schoolers, but he never lets up, always eager to meet your lips again and take in your breath in place of oxygen.
You never put a name to whatever’s happening between you two. You’re not friends anymore, that much is clear, but you two don’t have the means of going out on dates, either.
Regardless of what you are, he becomes clingier than ever following the shift in your relationship, and a small part of you can’t help but feel like you’re suffocating.
“Micha.”
He looks up from the ball at his feet, skillfully dribbling it despite the fact that his focus is elsewhere. It’s impressive; hopefully, one day, you’ll be able to see him play professionally.
Your heart sinks to your stomach and sits there heavily. Would that be the next time you see him? On some screen, miles away from him, years from this moment in this time?
You’re moving out of Berlin. Your father’s being suddenly transferred to an office in Cologne, and you have just five days to get all your stuff packed up and ready to go for the train ride on Sunday. You have a shitty starter phone— your parents aren’t keen on you having a smartphone, yet— but Micha has nothing. You suppose you could write to him, but that would put him at risk if his father got to the mail before he did.
When he catches the look on your face, he settles the ball at his feet and locks his full attention on you. “What’s wrong?”
You swallow, averting your gaze to the ground. “I’m moving,” you mumble.
A thick silence settles between you two. The soft breeze is sharp in your ears, like deafening static reverberating through your head.
His voice comes out sharp, digging in a way you’ve never heard it before. “What?”
“I’m moving,” you repeat. “I’m leaving. Dad’s job— we’ve got to go to Cologne.”
He doesn’t respond for so long that you finally force yourself to look up at him. His face has gone completely blank, and there’s only something dark in his eyes, something completely unreadable to you.
His voice is tight when he asks, “When are you coming back?”
“I—” You sigh. “I don’t know. I don’t think I am. I think the transfer’s permanent.”
He looks down, seemingly mulling over your words. When he looks up again, his gaze goes is cold, and he hums, straightening out. “No.”
You blink, confused. “No?”
“You’re not leaving.”
You furrow your brows. “What?”
He looks down at you derisively, seemingly irritated that he has to repeat himself. “I said you’re not leaving.”
“I can’t just not leave,” you spit out. He’s starting to be ridiculous, and his condescension has never been something that bodes well with you, having only been on the receiving end of it so few times. “I’m not gonna have any family here.”
He jostles the ball between his feet as if this is another one your shared mundane conversations. “So we’ll just run away together.”
You narrow your eyes at him in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself right now?”
He slants a side look at you. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“Oh, sure,” you say, voice getting higher with each word, “just two teenagers running away and figuring out how to make ends meet. Can you please take this seriously?”
His foot comes down on top of the ball, hard. He flicks a finger between you two. “I am the only one taking this seriously.”
“This,” you echo, incredulous. “A stupid relationship.”
He kicks the ball to the side and turns to face you fully, and that’s how you know you fucked up. Each word bites as he asks, “Is that all this is to you?”
“You know I care about you, Micha,” you say carefully, “but asking me to throw away my family to stay with you is insane.”
Something shutters in his expression, but it’s gone before you can even register it. “I knew it,” he spits, “you’ve never cared about me as much as you’ve led me to believe.”
You grit your teeth. “Are you serious?”
He shrugs. “You obviously don’t value me as much as I value you.”
“Oh my god,” you snap, “you are fourteen. Get the fuck over yourself.”
“You think this is meaningless because we’re young?”
“I think,” you hiss, “that we have our whole lives ahead of us. I wouldn’t ask you to stay by my side if you had bigger and better things ahead of you.”
He continues to stare at you in icy silence. You sigh, frustrated.
“If it’s meant to be, it’ll work itself out,” you say.
Michael tilts his head, as if considering this. His eyes wander your face, committing every bit to memory. Then, he walks over to you, seizing your wrist in his hand. You step back, a bit thrown off, but he lightly tugs on your arm, pulling you back toward him.
“It will work out,” he says, eyes boring into yours. “I’ll make sure of it.”
He leans down and presses a familiar, gentle kiss to your lips.
“Then you won’t have to leave me ever again.”
This time, when you pull away, he lets you go. Seemingly without a care in the world, he turns around and picks up the ball, heading toward the trail that he takes home.
You return to the park the day before you leave, but you don’t see him. You wait for hours, but he never shows.
The unease twisting in your gut doesn’t unravel until the train speeds away from the station, leaving Berlin behind you.
You’re about to turn eighteen when you see him again.
Not in person, but on a screen like you expected. The name Michael Kaiser sits in a scrolling bar across the bottom of the screen which plays footage of him playing on Bastard München’s youth team, his long golden hair flowing behind him beautifully. The news anchor says something about him being one of the most promising players of the new generation— not that that’s something you need to be told.
Your friend says something from across the table, ripping your attention from the screen. You don’t notice how tense you’ve gotten until you relax again.
Despite the lingering feeling of unease his memory leaves you with, you’re still glad he made it, after all.
“Who’s this?”
You’re back home for the holidays during your second year in university. Your studies have taken you back to Berlin, albeit a part you hadn’t grown up near and is still new and fresh to you. “Home” might not be the right word, though— you’re spending Christmas Eve at your grandmother’s house. She’s been hosting your entire family the past couple years since your grandfather’s passing forced her to relocate to a smaller house, an attempt to fill the empty home with warm presences.
Currently, she’s playing with a small, bedraggled dog that has wandered onto her porch. It’s wheezy and staggers when it walks, indicative of its old age.
“Oh, just a sweet little thing,” your grandmother replies as she pets its back. “You know, your grandfather always hated it when I would feed the strays. I did it a lot back at the old house on the other side of town, but there’s not too many animals on this side, so I don’t really do it anymore.”
You consider the dog. Its fur is matted, but nonetheless, its tail wags so hard from your grandmother’s attention that its whole body shakes with it. It sneezes pathetically.
You shove your hands into your coat pockets. “So this is a new one, then?”
“Well, not quite.” Your grandmother chuckles. “I first met this little guy back at the old house. I’ve been feeding him since he was a puppy! Seems he found his way back home on his own.”
“Huh.” Your eyes snap back to her. “I didn’t think they could actually do that.”
She laughs some more. “The most determined and loved ones can.”
You retreat back into the house. Your younger cousins jump on you immediately, demanding you play whatever nonsensical game they’ve thought up this time. You shed your coat, and with it, your lingering distress at your grandmother’s words.
“Oh my god, do you have a secret admirer?”
Your roommate’s voice pulls you out of your shocked state. The dread freezing your veins gradually thaws out, and you kneel down to pick the bouquet of flowers off the floor in front of the entrance to your shared apartment.
Blue forget-me-nots, with some blue roses interspersed throughout.
It’s October now. Just under a year has passed since Christmas, but your grandmother’s words are fresh in your mind, as if you’d heard them just yesterday.
You fumble around with the bouquet, movements becoming more frantic when you can’t find what you’re looking for. “There’s no card attached to this.”
“Well, duh,” your roommate says. “That would defeat the purpose of a secret admirer.”
Except, it’s not a secret who sent you these. You might have been able to brush it off if it was just the forget-me-nots, but the roses speak for themselves.
You flick your wrist out to the side, shoving the bouquet into your roommate’s chest. She grabs onto them, so you let them go in favor of getting the door unlocked.
“Figure out what to do with them,” you say as you enter the apartment.
She trails in after you, hot on your heels in incredulity. “Wait, you’re seriously not going to keep them?”
“You know I’m not interested in a relationship right now,” you say breezily, feigning a calmness that contradicts your racing heart. “It’s a sweet gesture, but I don’t want them.”
“I mean—” Your roommate stammers a bit before her words peter out. She sighs, then starts rummaging in the cabinet beneath the sink. “Alright, whatever you say.”
She ends up arranging them in a nice glass vase you weren’t aware you two even own and sets them in the center of the dining table. They mock you until they wither and die, and you can finally dispose of them.
By the time February rolls around without any further incidents, your guard has lowered significantly, which is, of course, your first mistake.
You’re lounging on the couch in the common space when there’s light knocking at your apartment door. There’s mostly college students renting in this unit, so it’s not uncommon for someone to stop by and invite you to some party or other, and with Valentine’s around the corner, there’s sure to be plenty.
You set your laptop down on the coffee table and get to your feet, sliding your feet into your slippers and crossing the room to get to the apartment entrance. You reach up and begin to undo the locks without checking the peephole, which is your second mistake.
You pull the door open, and immediately, everything freezes in place.
His eyes are as blue as the day you met him, only his gaze is far sharper than they were even on the day you left.
The television and billboards really don’t do him justice. He’s fully grown into his figure now, the diet and training regimen of a professional athlete filling him out in ways that the portioned-out food fed to him from your hands could not. His hair is choppy, but a face that gorgeous can make anything work. It’s pulled up into a messy bun made to look regal by the glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. The blue rose on his neck is stark against his skin, and you eye the thorny vines that trail down and disappear beneath his shirt.
You meet his eyes again, apprehensive. His face is impassive, but the intensity of his gaze betrays him and keeps you pinned in place.
You clutch the doorknob so tightly your knuckles go white.
“Michael,” you say softly, and he frowns slightly at that. “What are you doing here?”
How did you find me? The unasked question hangs in the air between you two, but neither of you reach for it.
“Who’s Michael?” He asks airily. He steps forward, and hooks a finger under your chin before you get the chance to move away from him. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten your Micha already.”
You swallow thickly. “I haven’t,” you mumble.
He hums. His thumb brushes against your chin lightly as his gaze trails over your body. When it lands on you again, his eyes swallow you whole. “You look good.”
Heat floods your cheeks in spite of the dread settling in your stomach, and you look to the floor again. “Thanks.”
You attempt to step back, but there’s a hand that finds its way to the small of your back before you can. The hand on your chin tilts your head up, up, until you’re forced to look at him again.
“I spent so long waiting for you, liebling,” he says. “Is this how you greet your boyfriend?”
“Boyfriend?” You sputter. “I don’t—”
His thumb presses firmly against your lips, quieting your protests. “Friends don’t make out, do they?” When you don’t respond, he adds, “We never did break up, you know. I’m glad to see you haven’t cheated on me in my absence.”
You finally reach your breaking point, all the agitation and unease within you spilling over. You shove at him as hard as you can, but if he didn’t budge all those years ago, he certainly wasn’t budging now. You shove at him again, this time trying to use the movement to push yourself away rather than push him, but he swiftly grabs hold of both your wrists and tugs you back toward him. Caught off guard, you careen forward and crash into his chest. His arms snake around your waist, an iron cage holding you firmly against him.
“Micha,” you hiss, “let me go.”
“Now, liebe,” he coos, releasing his hold on you just enough for you to shift and properly look up at him. “You know what that will cost you.”
You glare up at him, but to your chagrin, he seems perfectly content to simply hold you and gaze down at you. As seconds bleed into minutes trapped in his hold, you crack under the pressure.
You tilt your head up fully, and Michael lowers his head just enough to be within your reach. You close the distance between you two, intending for the kiss to be short, shallow, and sweet, just like your first.
You honestly should know better at this point. One of his hands comes up to cradle the back of your head, and he pulls you back in just as you’re about to get away.
The next kiss is deep, far more passion behind it than anything you two shared before you left. He bites at your bottom lip, and forces his tongue in when you startle. A whimper leaves your throat as he continues to lick into your mouth. You reach up to try to shove at his chest, but he places his other hand over it, rubbing his thumb against your knuckles in a mockery of a soothing gesture.
You gasp out when he finally breaks for air. Your lips sting from the sudden release of pressure, and a thin trail of saliva lines your bottom lip. You stumble back, but firm arms are there to catch you again.
You look up, and his pupil-blown eyes cause that unease to settle over you once more.
Gently, he brings your hand up to his lips and ghosts your knuckles over them.
There’s a glint in his eye as he asks, “Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”
Never satisfied. Insatiable, and now, somehow finding his way back to you.
You should have listened to your grandfather when you had the chance.
ness will find a new obsession once kaiser leaves bastard and signs to re al.
you’re a distraction at first, something to fill the void kaiser left behind. a placeholder to fulfill his need to fret over someone, a thing to project his stalkerish tendencies onto.
it doesn’t stay that way for very long.
it’s easier to hide the… scale of his obsession from you than it was for him to hide from kaiser. for one thing, you’re far more removed from ness; you don’t live in the same place, occupy the same circles, and have a career completely outside of sports. it’s far too easy to appear somewhat normal to you— if a little off-putting, but in an endearing way.
it’s easy to get a first date with you, then a second, then a third, until finally he earns the shiny title of boyfriend. he’s sickeningly sweet, and the endless affection and attention you afford him is addictive.
even when you do start to see the cracks in his facade, even when you do come face-to-face with the sheer volume of his obsession and desperation to keep you, you find you don’t mind it. all you have to do is love him, your sweet little alexis, which is what you’ve been doing the whole time.
please just stay with me, he’ll tell you, as if you’ve ever considered leaving him when he’s so good to you.
nothing good lasts forever, though.
you start backtracking when kaiser transfers back to bastard from re al, because while ness welcomes him back with open arms, you did not sign up for whatever’s wrong with that freak.
kaiser had broken things between you two off rather suddenly and volatilely. after a year together, he'd changed his mind, cruelly telling you that you simply weren't what he was looking for, weren't worth keeping around. with that condescending smirk you'd only ever seen used full force on the pitch, he discarded you to the side with a brush of fingers against your temple and whispered reminder that he could have anyone in the world— why would he want someone as plain as you?
you'd been shattered. you'd given him everything you had. he wasn't an easy person to love by any means, but you were determined to do it anyways, because you saw through his many masks and into the broken, beaten boy that lay beneath it all.
(and maybe that's why he left: he couldn't handle it, the way you always saw him for what he was and stayed despite it. because of it.)
your friends, the few you have, tell you it's for the better. they tell you that the relationship was making you weary, that you were hard to get ahold of, that anytime they did see you, you looked like you had just gotten all the blood and energy sucked out of you, the tired smile you wore doing nothing to hide how exhausted you were.
(because you kept smiling. you never stopped smiling, no matter what.)
and maybe they're right— maybe you were losing yourself, but it was a necessary sacrifice you were willing to make. a shard of you in exchange for a fragment of trust. a piece of yourself pulled into the darkness as a means to expose a part of him to the light.
nobody else understood, but you didn't expect them to. they hadn't seen his smile— the genuine one— in those rare moments when he was too sleepy to play off how much he appreciated your humor, your company. they didn't see the quiet trepidation, the soft tremble of his hands in yours when you kissed him, gripping onto your wrists like he didn't know whether to push you away or keep you there as you pressed your lips softly to his until he finally melted against you, slumping forward into your embrace like he was boneless, nothing more than your arms and your love holding him up and together.
but none of that matters anymore. you've been rebuilding yourself, scraping the pieces of yourself back together and cleaning them off, arranging them back into the version of yourself that hadn't poured so much of itself into another person.
it's been nearly four months, and you're finally starting to feel okay.
it's friday night. you're fresh out of the shower, cozy in your pajamas and ready to wind down by catching up on your favorite show after weeks of throwing yourself knee-deep into work to keep yourself distracted. you've just pulled some cookies out of the oven, and you're pouring yourself a cold glass of milk to go with them when there's a knock at the door.
with a raised eyebrow, you put the carton back in the fridge and shut it. strange— you're not expecting anyone, but it wouldn't be the first time one of your friends stopped by unannounced to crash your party for one.
you pad across the room from your kitchen counter to the door of your apartment, your slippers scuffing against the wood floor as you drag your feet. you peek out of the peephole— you can never be too safe.
there's a package sitting on the floor, no one in sight.
you undo the locks on the door, pulling it open. though uncommon, it's not unheard of for the front office to distribute packages in the tailend of the evening, not late enough for it to be concerning, but right around the time they'd be closing up.
you pick up the package, turning it over in your hands and inspecting it. your brows furrow. the box isn't labeled, and there's no return address— hell, your address isn't even on it.
then, there's movement in your periphery.
you look up just in time to see someone pushing themselves off one of your neighbor's doors further down the hall. your heart gives a painful lurch as the hallway lights catch familiar blonde hair that bleeds into blue, and you take a step back, positioning yourself more inside your apartment and gripping the door in a white-knuckled grip.
you swallow thickly as you meet his eyes. they're no less beautiful than the day he left you, but somehow, far more intense.
"kaiser."
his face twitches at that, pulling like an agitated muscle. something dart flits across his face before it smooths back over into perfect blankness. "liebling."
you purse your lips, retreating further into your home. "you shouldn't call me that," you say, but he just tilts his head at you in response. "what are you doing here?"
he comes closer, moving so slowly across the hallway that your brain is screaming at you that you're in some kind of danger, that you need you shut the door and lock it before it's too late.
you grip the knob tighter and move the door so you're half-hidden behind it, but don't shut it completely.
his gaze rakes over you, and the hairs on your arms stand on-end. he moves even closer— too close now. he stops when you close the door even more, leaving only a sliver of yourself visible.
"we should talk," he says in a disarming tone. it only makes the anxiety bubbling in your stomach worse.
"i'm not ready to talk to you," you answer.
he sighs at that. "i know i hurt you," he says, voice deceptively soft in a way you've never heard before. "let me make it up to you, hm?"
the door creaks under the force you hold the doorknob with. "you can't."
his eyes narrow slightly. "i can't?"
"you can't," you echo. then, before you can stop it from slipping out, "goodbye, kaiser."
you should have just shut the door.
mere centimeters before it clicks shut, there's another force pushing against the other side of the door, far stronger than you have any hope of resisting. a surprised shriek leaves you as your feet skid backward, the door pushing open more and more as kaiser forces his way inside.
with one last shove, you fly backward and drop the decoy package. kaiser steps inside, quietly shutting and locking the door behind him.
he moves toward you, and you scramble backward.
"stop," you hiss, panicked and frantically backing up like a cornered animal. your back slams into the corner of the kitchen counter and you yelp, flinching forward as the pain momentarily overrides your instincts and causes you to slump forward.
kaiser reaches you in record time. he catches you by the waist, and you gasp as his hands squeeze your sides, grasping at you with a bruising grip. a strangled noise leaves you when he hoists you onto the counter and forces himself closer to you, settling himself in between your legs as you straddle his waist.
"st—" the command dies in your throat when he presses his lips to yours.
it's gentle. he shakes with visible restraint, but it's still the softest he's ever kissed you.
it's fleeting, but you're still breathless when he pulls away.
one hand pressed flush against your back and holding you against him, he brings the other up to your chin to tilt your head upward.
his pupils are blown, the blue of his eyes little more than a thin ring around them.
your breath hitches. your hands fist into the end of his shirt as your eyes search his face, and he sighs, leaning in even closer to you, pressing your chests together.
"kais—" you start, but he quickly swoops in and bites meanly at your lower lip before pressing a few placating pecks to it.
he pulls away, and you try again. "micha."
he hums, content. he leans down, positioning himself at the junction between your neck and shoulder as he breathes you in. you whine softly as he begins mouthing at your neck, rubbing soothing circles into your back as he does.
this time, he cups your whole cheek with his hand when he drags your gaze back toward him.
he whispers your name against your lips before pressing another chaste kiss to them. then, "i'm home, meine liebe."
i actually think kaiser would be infinitely worse with a childhood friend.
you both came from nothing— shitty, abusive households, treated terribly and abandoned by those who were supposed to care for you and love you. you clung to each other growing up, serving as the only light and solace in the other's life.
a case could be made that such a tender friendship could have changed the outcome, produced a softer version of himself, one that knows love in at least some shape.
but his mentality gets more... twisted, contradictory. he has to be the best, has to secure his legacy because if he loses everything and falls back down to nothing, then surely even you will leave him, too, right?
yet at the same time, your love is damn near an expectation at this point. oh, he's being too difficult? too suffocating? demanding? it doesn't matter. you've seen him at his lowest, and stayed with him even then— this is nothing, and he'll be damned if he allows you to give up on him when he has everything, when he can give you anything you could possibly desire.
and you can forget about forming any bonds with colleagues, friends, and— god forbid— a partner. you only needed each other as children, and there's no reason for that to change now.
he holds on tight. too tight. he has one good thing, and he's not gonna lose it, he'll never lose it, not if he can help it.
You'd gotten away with it. No one had any reason to suspect that all those deaths were related murders, or murders that could be traced back to you, for that matter.
But The Butcher had figured it out.
[ronin beaufort x gn! reader.] (yandere if you squint.)
words: 7.2k
cw: mild gore, descriptions of corpses, briefly referenced past child abuse, SA, and transphobia
a/n: ronin brainworms won this round against indefinite hiatus
"You'll never get it out, you know."
The figure hunched over the lake jolts in shock, clearly startled by your sudden appearance.
They're even more a mess than you initially thought— long black hair tangled with the tips drenched in blood. Their expression is set in a blissful, almost euphoric expression, but their trembling frame, wide eyes, and ragged breathing betray them.
A knife rests on the ground, by their thigh— shining a pristine silver, cleansed of the blood staining the white blouse they've been frantically scrubbing in the lake water.
The first time's always the hardest.
"It's likely set into the fabric already," you elaborate. "White's a bitch of a color to clean, anyway."
They continue staring at you, so you stare back at them. They can't be much younger than you, a couple years at most— maybe fourteen or fifteen. With the blouse off, you can make out heaps of KT tape peaking out from beneath their tank top, where the sleeve holes hang too low.
You've heard of this kid before, his existence spoken of by your parents alongside foul, derogatory comments that leave a sour taste on your tongue.
He's gone still. His fingers twitch and inch toward the knife.
"Save it for someone who's a threat to you," you say, and his hand freezes in place. You nod toward the soaked blouse being clenched in his other fist. "Go toss that downtown somewhere. Too much shit happens there. It'll never get back to you."
"Fingerprints?" He asks with a barely-there voice.
You snort. "No one's running prints on something found in a dumpster around there. Just wrap it up in a grocery bag or something so you can't immediately see the blood. It'll be fine."
His eyes narrow at you in distrust. Or suspicion. Probably both.
A smile plays at your lips. "You keep my secrets, I'll keep yours, alright?"
You don't get an answer— just more staring and icy silence.
You turn around, walking to your little garden a few feet away. You reach into your hoodie pockets, producing a pair of medical gloves and a ziploc bag. You slip the gloves on and kneel down, carefully observing the innocuous mushrooms at your feet before plucking them from the ground.
"A few words of advice," you call out as you look over your shoulder. The kid's moved closer to you, knife in hand, yet hesitating.
You hold the mushroom up, twirling it around in your fingers and flaunting it. "Use poison next time. Saves you the time and effort of a crime scene and a body to dispose of."
You stand up, depositing the mushrooms into the ziploc bag and sealing it shut. You ball it up in one of your hands as you shove them into your hoodie pockets, painting the perfect picture of nonchalance.
You give him a once-over. "Or just wear black next time if you like the mess." You shrug. "Can't help you with the bodies, though. They're usually not my problem."
His eyes widen slightly. You laugh.
You salute at him before turning your back on him once again, heading back toward the forest's paved trail. "Be smart. Don't get caught."
You don't think you get a response, but if you do, the gravel crunching beneath your feet drowns it out.
"Read it and weep."
You groan as your friend slaps down a red plus two, giggling at your misery.
"You suck ass, seriously," you mutter as you draw eight cards— whoever invented stacking is going on your hitlist. "After everything I've done for you."
"All is fair in love and Uno, my friend."
"Not your fucking friend right now." You slap down a red skip, ignoring your other friend's loud what did I do? that follows it.
"Oh, how awful," she mocks, "I'm going to be on bad terms with you right before you leave."
Something unpleasant twists in your gut at her words.
It's not her tone or even the statement itself that bothers you— no, you don't really have a problem with moving away. Sure, you tend to keep to yourself, but for whatever reason people see you as approachable, so it's pretty easy for you to make friends.
No, it's the place itself. Elysium is a fairly typical town; neither too small nor a sprawling city, not crime-ridden but having just enough suspicious characters to make visiting certain parts of it after sunset inadvisable.
It's also too close to home for comfort.
But Elysium's coroner's office is the only pathology residency offer you've got where you'll be doing what you want to be doing— examining bodies. So you're deciding to bite the bullet and move back to the midwest, in a state closer to the Bible Belt region you grew up in.
You force a laugh. "I'd be careful if I were you."
You hold up a plus four card, grinning.
"I know how to keep a grudge."
"So what's it looking like, Hensch?"
You and Dr. Hensch— a sweet, bespectacled man who likes to ramble about his newborn grandson in the break room— both give the sheriff an exasperated look.
"You need an expert to figure out that the cause of death is—" He cuts himself off, grimacing at the body. "—blunt force trauma?"
This is the third body of its kind that you've seen since starting at the office two weeks ago: skull caved in from taking a beating, various bruises and woundslittered across all parts of the body, face slashed to the point of disfigurement, and limbs snapped and twisted into odd angles.
It'd been jarring the first time, an impressive feat considering that there isn't much that can rattle you. Almost immediately, Dr. Hensch had sighed and solemnly said, "The Butcher."
It's quickly become apparent to you why Elysium's coroner's office would be willing to take on students needing to fulfill their pathology residency— The Butcher's work makes up a not-insignificant amount of the bodies that turn up, which means those qualified to examine bodies aren't exactly willing to work here long-term. While Hensch's office isn't in Uptown, it still sees its fair share of The Butcher's victims, as the serial killer seems to hop back and forth between districts, stringing his victims up for display wherever he pleases.
"I know that much," the cop mutters, "I meant to ask if you think this is his work."
Dr. Hensch looks even more vexxed. "I think we've both been around long enough to know the answer to that."
Without further discussion, the doctor pulls the cover back over the corpse— a pastor at a local church, one who your coworkers say had been caught cheating on his wife with a high schooler the previous week.
You don't feel sorry for the bastard.
Dr. Hensch clears his throat and makes his way out of the storage room, you and the sheriff trailing after him. "You have my official statement that the victim was killed by a blow to the head and it was the work of The Butcher. I'll perform a more thorough autopsy and have the front send you the records once I'm done."
"Sounds good, Hensch." The sheriff nods at both of you. "Appreciate you for always handling this."
As the sheriff disappears down the hall, Dr. Hensch sighs and mumbles, "What choice have we got?"
He then turns to you, and with what appears to be pity, says, "Unfortunately, you'll have to help me with his victims if you're going to be here the next few years. Do you feel up for it tonight?"
You'd be lying if you said that a morbid little part of you didn't light up at the idea of getting up close and personal with a notorious serial killer's work.
Faking a nervous smile, you say, "Well, what choice have I got?"
The crooning of some pop-punk singer abruptly cuts off as you kill the engine of your car and take a long swig of your coffee, relishing the warmth that coats your tongue.
Two cups in hand, you step out and shut the door with your foot, examining the shop before you. It seems a bit beat down, but in a way that adds charm rather than being a question of the quality of service.
Apparently, Dr. Hensch is having some car trouble this morning and had to have the vehicle towed to the mechanic. It's not that surprising to hear— the man drives a classic car, a bright blue '54 Chevy that he calls his "baby" and parks on the far end of the lot, away from the public's eyes and any other cars that could potentially do any damage to it. Deciding to do him a solid, you offered to stop by the shop and drive him to the office, which he happily took you up on.
You take a brief look around. There are four garages, but only one is open, and you can hear Dr. Hensch's hearty laughter— overlaying what you're pretty sure is death metal— pouring out of it.
The garage is interesting, to say the least. There are macabre posters hung up on the parts of the walls not holding tools, images that are disturbing to the point of being unsettling, but not quite visceral enough to upset customers and warrant a formal complaint to the shop manager. A further look around, coupled with the music blaring from a speaker tucked away into a corner, tells you more about the posters' presence: various animal and human skulls and fake, foam replicas of intestines and inner organs— the likes of which you would use for Halloween— are used as decor, livening the place up in a peculiar way. The yellow overhead lighting ties it all together, casting a dingy hue that leaves you feeling like you just stepped onto the set of a 90s slasher film.
Hensch's beloved Chevy sits in the center of it all, hood propped open as the mechanic tinkers with something inside. Immediately, your eyes are drawn to the blasphemic tattoo plastered onto his forearm, trying to make some sense of its meaning.
Hensch calls your name, snapping you out of your momentary distraction. "Ah, you made it!" He gets up from the metal chair placed beside where the mechanic's working and crosses over to the garage's entrance. He eagerly reaches for the cup you hold out to him, exclaiming, "And you brought coffee!"
You give him a smile that's getting less polite these days and more genuine. "Of course," you say, handing it off to him. "How's your, uh, baby?" You peer around him to look at the car again, trying to catch a glimpse of what's happening beneath the hood, and promptly freeze.
The mechanic is staring at you, rather intensely.
Before you can even really register it, his features have smoothed over, and whatever emotion was lurking in his eyes is guarded behind a smirk.
Hensch gestures to the car, beaming brightly as he does. He's far more energetic here than he is at the office, but you suppose that might have to do with the lack of corpses. "Just a little problem with the transmission, but she'll be as good as new tomorrow morning!"
"That's good," you say with a nod. "Will you need a ride tomorrow, too?"
"Oh— for the next few days, if it's not too much trouble for you! Wouldn't want to make Tilda call in late the whole week." Hensch turns to the mechanic, eager smile still fixed in place. "You said you'll have her fixed by Friday, right, Ronin?"
The mechanic— Ronin— grins lazily, spreading his arms wide across the hood.
"'Course I will," he says, answering Hensch but still eyeing you. "She's got some problems, but she'll be good by the weekend."
The doctor glances between you two, then lets out a little "ah!" before clearing his throat. "Where are my manners?" He gestures enthusiastically to the mechanic, saying, "This is Ronin, the best mechanic in town. Only person I trust my baby with."
He then turns back to Ronin, giving him a formal introduction to you. He ends it by placing a gentle hand on your shoulder, humorously saying, "This is my partner-in-crime for the next three years."
"Crime, huh?" He tilts his head slightly, drawing your gaze to the mess of dyed magenta hair framing his face. "You must be really into dead bodies like Doc, then."
You scrunch your nose— that's not quite how you'd put it, but to each their own. You look pointedly around the room before answering, "Based on your, uh, decor, I could say the same to you." Your face falls a little bit. "Very tame compared to the real thing, though."
There's something sharp in the smile he gives you. "Touché."
"Yes, well, I'm very grateful for that. I see enough viscera as it is," Hensch mutters. He then turns to Ronin, sheepish. "Not that I don't appreciate our chats."
Ronin shrugs it off. "Happy to help ya get things off your chest, Doc. Can't be good to keep all that to yourself."
You look to Hensch with a raised brow. "You don't seriously tell him—"
"Hey, hey, it's fine!" Hensch quickly defends himself. "Ronin's into all that slasher horror gore stuff and the like." He chuckles. "All you young people are these days!"
You frown. You're pretty sure that it's pretty illegal of him to be recounting the autopsies of The Butcher's victims to his favorite mechanic, but you suppose it's not a huge problem. The guy is probably just a forum freak who's a little too into true crime.
"If you say so." You glance back at Ronin, still feeling slightly unnerved by his gaze. "Nice meeting you."
"Pleasure's mine, darlin'." He smiles a bit wider, canines glinting in the lighting. "Don't be a stranger. Any friend of Doc's is a friend of mine."
You huff out a laugh. "I'm not hoping for any car trouble, but I'll keep that in mind."
As you and Hensch get situated in your car, the doctor grins at you, something a bit teasing evident in it. "You should stop by again," he says in an almost sing-song way, reminiscent of the way a school girl would talk to a close friend. "I think you two would get along just fine."
You hum noncommitally, flicking the radio back on. "I'll consider it."
It's far too early for this.
You yawn into the back of your hand as you throw your car in park and step out into the cool morning air. It's 4 in the morning, and the office had blown your phone up just about 40 minutes ago, stating that they need both you and Hensch to come in immediately.
Apparently, The Butcher had a mini-spree last night; three bodies were found in the local park at around 2:30 in the morning, and the cops want the autopsies and official reports as soon as possible. According to a leading detective, the cause of death might not be The Butcher's norm of blunt force trauma or assault by sharp object, but they need an expert opinion to confirm it.
Hensch sidles up beside you as you make your way toward the entrance. "Well, I wish I could tell you this doesn't happen often, but I'd be lying."
You pull the door open, holding it for him. "Early mornings, or The Butcher spicing up his MO?"
"Early mornings," Hensch says. Something passes over his face, and a bit despondent, he asks, "Am I a bad person for looking forward to examining these bodies?"
If the detective is right, it'll be the first time in a long while that The Butcher has decided to shake things up— you can't blame him for being excited over it, especially when he's been dissecting and analyzing the killer's work for years now.
"I wouldn't say so," you answer. "Enthusiasm means you'll do a better job. Consider it doing right by the victims' families."
Hensch gives a terse laugh, but doesn't agree with you or comment further.
You two are flanked by some senior cops the second you set foot in the office, three of them trailing you and Hensch as you make your way toward the morgue.
"Detective Juano says the usual beatings aren't severe enough to have actually killed the victims this time," one of them speaks hurriedly, catching Hensch up to speed. "She's pretty sure it's something else this time."
Hensch hands you a pair of gloves as you reach the morgue entrance, slipping on a pair of his own. "What else could it possibly be?"
The cop shrugs. "That's why we called you, Doc."
He huffs. "Well, yes, I suppose so."
The bodies are already laid out on three tables when you enter the morgue, covered by the same thin plastic white sheet you've gotten used to seeing over the past two months. Hensch approaches the one nearest to him and carefully pulls the cover back until the whole body is exposed.
Without further investigation, you're already raising an eyebrow.
The detective is right— the lacerations and bruises littering the body are far tamer than anything you've seen from The Butcher before, and many of them seem to have been done post-mortem.
But what catches your attention is the hue painting the victim's skin yellow— jaundice, a common symptom of liver failure.
Hensch uncovers the other two bodies, revealing them to be in the same condition.
"Curious," the doctor says, shaking his head as he peels back an eyelid, revealing shockingly yellow eyes. "We'll have to run toxicology. Are these victims significant in any way?"
"Not in the community, but maybe to The Butcher. Juano's looking into it."
"Of course," Hensch says distractedly, still examining the bodies. "She's always been on top of things."
You walk up to one of the bodies, observing the dark rings around the wrist and ankle area.
"Seems they were bound," you say to Hensch, then turn to the cops. "Have any other victims ever been held over a period of time?"
"Never," one of them answers. "That's what has us thinking it's personal."
You scrunch up your nose. Hensch had joked about hoping The Butcher was taking a vacation when no new corpses turned up over the weekend— turns out he was just toying with his victims this time around.
Hensch inspects the bodies, turning the limbs this way and that. "Injuries were likely acquired when they were initially kidnapped, to keep them restrained," he says to the room. "The lacerations, on the other hand, were carved post-humously."
"Standard," one of the cops mutter. "But why are they yellow?"
"Jaundice. Liver failure," you answer, poking at one of the bodies yourself. "We'll have to wait for the toxicology report to see exactly what it is, but—" Your words abruptly cut off as your hand brushes against the man's coat pocket, feeling something inside.
You look up at the cop to your left, slightly alarmed. "Something's in there."
With furrowed brows, the cop pulls on a glove and reaches into the pocket. Growing even more confused at whatever he feels inside, he pulls out his hand to reveal whatever is inside.
The hairs at the back of your neck stand on end as you stare at the item he twirls around in his hand.
Surveying the room, he asks, "A mushroom?"
"Amanita phalloides," you murmur, the name stirring the pit of your stomach. "Better known as the death cap, the deadliest mushroom in the world."
The cop pales and stares at his partner with wide eyes.
"I'll go get an evidence baggie from the car." She points at him. "Put that down and scrub your hands real good."
The male officer looks between you and Hensch, frightened.
"You should definitely wash your hands, but it's only deadly if ingested. You'll be okay," you reassure.
The officer nods and strips the gloves off his hands, rushing off to the sink in the corner of morgue.
Hensch peers down at the mushroom, now sitting by itself on a sterile tray. "Peculiar. He's never played around with poison."
Bile bubbles at the back of your throat. It's a coincidence, but one that grinds on your nerves nonetheless. "Guess there's a first time for everything."
The other officer returns, baggie in hand. "Did a quick Google search outside," she says as she hands the bag off to Hensch, who carefully tucks the mushroom inside. "This strain isn't native to this part of the U.S."
You hum and shake your head. "Would it be so surprising for a serial killer to be buying poisonous mushrooms off the dark web?"
She sighs. "No, I guess not." She nods at you Hensch. "I'm gonna run this back to Juano. This changes things, big time. We'll be back in a few."
"Toxicology will be back by then." Hensch waves them off. "See you soon."
As the door slips shut behind them, you ask, "What do you think, Doc?
He scans the bodies, eyes glimmering with concern and excitement. "I think it's indeed personal. If not the victims themselves, certainly the method."
A chill runs down your spine. You reach for a clipboard to get the report started, muttering under your breath, "Let's hope not."
"Fancy runnin' into you here."
You look up from your phone as someone slides into the empty stool beside you. Slipping off his hoodie and draping it across the back of his chair, Ronin greets you with a devilish grin.
"Hensch's favorite mechanic," you say, setting your phone done on the counter in front of you. "To what do I owe the honor?"
"Insatiable hunger." He reaches for one of the menus stacked up on the racks. "Five-car collision on the freeway today and bossman gave 'em all to me. I'm fuckin' starving."
You whistle low. "Tough. How's Hensch's baby, by the way? What was wrong with her?"
"Fine now. Found an engine leak, but there was also a problem with the electrical. It's 6-volt so gettin' the parts was a real pain in the ass. I told him he should just switch over to an alternator already, but he—" Ronin pauses when he sees the stark blank look on your face. He leans forward teasingly and asks, "You gettin' all that, darlin'?"
You huff out a breath and turn away from him, trying to hide your flushed cheeks from his view. "I don't know why I asked," you say, reaching for your drink. "I don't know anything about cars."
He props his arm against the counter and rests his cheek in the palm of his hand. His body is fully turned toward you, and having his undivided attention would probably be a little more flustering if you didn't find his gaze so unnerving— and familiar, in a way you can't quite place.
"Let's talk about somethin' you do know about, then. How's Doc doing?"
You laugh at that. "Fantastic. Having the time of his life."
"What's the occasion?"
You side-eye him. "I'm not big into the business of discussing the autopsies of murder victims with strangers."
"Who said we're strangers?" Humor glints in his eyes, but you don't know what's funny. "He already blabbed to me about The Butcher switchin' things up. That what you're talking about?"
You sigh. If he's gonna hear it from Hensch anyway, you suppose there's no harm in him hearing it from you.
"Yeah. Keeping his victims for a prolonged period of time and using poisonous mushrooms on them now." You swirl your straw around in your drink. "Cops think it's personal, but there's no link between the victims, so." You shrug, taking a sip.
"What do you think?"
"What do I think?"
"That's what I asked."
You blink at him. "I'm not into criminology or psychology or anything like that. I don't have anything to say about his MO or why he's switching it up."
Ronin clicks his tongue. "Surely the ones up close and personal with the bodies have somethin' to say. Doc always does."
"Hensch has been doing this a lot longer than me. I haven't been around long enough to really comment on the sudden interest in toxins."
"Bummer." Ronin nods at the waitress as she sets a cup of coffee down in fron of him, then focuses back on you. "Doc said you know a lot about the poisons being used."
"I did a report on poisonous fungi in my final year of undergrad," you lie with ease. "There were a lot of wild mushrooms where I grew up, so it's always been an interest of mine."
Something in his gaze shifts, and you feel a chill run down your spine. The unease from the garage has returned full force. "Yeah? What kind of poison is he using?"
You look up, pretending to think as an excuse to break eye contact. "Amanita phalloides, the death cap; conocybe rugosa, the fool's conecap; and amanita bisporigera, the destroying an—"
Your breath hitches. You hadn't given the mushrooms used too much thought, given that they were all commonly known poisonous mushrooms, but saying them together, in order, finally has the pieces snapping together in your head.
Ronin tilts his head. "Something wrong, darlin'?"
You shoot to your feet. "I, uh, I'm not feeling well." You shove your hand into your jacket pocket and toss some cash out on the table to cover your meal and the tip. "Sorry to cut things short. See you around."
You turn around abruptly— and crash into a waiter briskly walking toward a table across the room.
You gasp as a grape soda tips off the tray in his hands and spills all over your shirt and part of your jeans. The waiter scrambles to balance the tray before more glasses or plates can slip off of it.
You pick the plastic cup off the ground and put it back on the tray. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't watching where I—"
The waiter smiles, and you relax a bit. "It's fine don't worry about it." He gives you a once-over, and hisses through his teeth. "Sorry about your shirt."
As the waiter heads back to the kitchen to fetch another soda, you look down at your shirt and sigh. Unfortunately, you'd decided to wear white today.
"Damn it," you mutter. "This is one of my favorites, too."
Beside you, Ronin laughs. You're not sure if it's just because you're already on edge, but it sounds different from the other times you've heard it— a little more edge to it, maybe even a little manic.
"Yeah, that's gonna leave a pretty nasty stain. Might have to throw it out." His dark eyes gleam under the diner lights.
"White's a bitch of a color to clean, anyway."
You feel like you're going to throw up.
The moment you'd been anticipating for days was finally upon you: The Butcher's next victim had just been transported to the morgue, and it was time to see what mushroom he'd selected this time.
What you'd realized is that, thus far, the mushrooms and the order in which he'd used them lined up with the ones you'd used for your own spree nearly a decade ago.
Amanita phalloides. Slipped into a salad and used to poison the person who'd relentlessly bullied and beat you since kindergarten.
Conocybe rugosa. Blended into your abusive father's morning veggie smoothies over the course of several weeks.
Amanita bisporigera. Shredded finely into stringy bits and slipped into the soup a teacher who'd gotten far too touchy with you had packed for lunch.
Galerina marginata. Ingested by a boy you'd liked in high school, one who you found out was just sleeping with you as a joke and saying horrible things about you to his friends. You two had been out on a "date" in the forest, and you'd started the game of daring each other to eat the random leaves, berries, and mushrooms around. He had no idea that you'd personally grown what you dared him to eat, and being the idiot that he was, he'd eaten three of them to "impress" you.
He died in the emergency room three days later.
He hadn't told his friends he'd be seeing you that day, so the police concluded that he was just a stupid teenager doing something ill-advised.
Angelwood's hospital and nearest medical examiner weren't the most competent, so the only other person who's declared cause of death was mushroom poisoning had been your father. But because he was an "organic" health nut who often drank unpasteurized milk, the doctors and police chalked it up to him not doing proper research on the newest addition to his diet.
You'd gotten away with it. No one had any reason to suspect that all those deaths were related murders, or murders that could be traced back to you, for that matter.
But The Butcher had figured it out. He hadn't started using poison in his murders until you showed up, and it was in the specific order you'd used them, too.
Lightheaded and nauseous, you watch as Hensch pinches the corners of the white blanket draped over the body and peels it back.
Your heart falls through the floor.
The man lying on the table is around your age, but bears a striking resemblance to the boy you'd kissed and killed in high school. His lifeless eyes are yellow and his wrists and feet appear to have been bound like the rest of the recent corpses. The lacerations and carved symbols typical of The Butcher litter the entire body.
What immediately has you, Hensch, and the cops in the room recoiling is the man's face. The skin of his face and part of his neck are a bluish-purple. His jaw has been snapped out of place and hangs low, stretched down to the middle of his neck. Various mushrooms have been shoved into the gaping hole that is his mouth, likely going all the way down his airway.
Hensch clears his throat and shakes his head. "Well, seems this one might be asphyxiation, but we'll still get a tox screening done." He turns to you. "Any idea what our fungus friends are this time?"
With a trembling voice, you answer, "Galerina marginata. The funeral bell."
One of the cops laughs humorlessly. "Fitting."
A hand comes down on your shoulder, startling you. Detective Juano offers you a kind smile as she pats your shoulder soothingly.
"Why don't you step out for this one?" She asks. "This can be a lot for anyone, and you're still just starting your residency."
"N-no, I—" You clamp your mouth shut when you voice breaks, and swallow thickly, trying to steady yourself. "It's fine. I've been okay the past three months, I'll be fine now."
"It can catch up to you." Juano sighs. "Look, there are times where even I have to hand this case off to someone else for a few weeks to save my own sanity. No one thinks any lesser of you for taking a breather."
"Please feel free to step out." You turn to Hensch, who is watching you with pitiful eyes that make your skin crawl. "This was a lot for me in the beginning, too."
You take in a shuddering breath and realize you're on the verge of hyperventilating. Stripping off your gloves and tossing them into a bin, you nod. "Yeah, sure. Alright. Thanks. Sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry about, dear." Hensch gives you a sad smile, then picks up a pair of scissors and starts hacking away at the corpse's shirt. He's dressed in all white, and the parts of his clothes which had stuck to his lacerations are stained pink and red.
White's a bitch of a color to clean, anyway.
Ronin's words echo in your head as you step out of the room. Sure, you'd heard him say it just the other day, but had you heard them somewhere else before?
Your brows furrow as you drop into a seat in the break room and bury your face in your hands. Had you heard them before, or had you said them?
"Be smart. Don't get caught."
You slowly lift your face from your trembling hands as the memory of the lake, the rushing water, the body, and the boy come back to you from the depths of your mind.
"Who said we're strangers?"
You're fully hyperventilating now.
Keeping your steps as quiet and controlled as possible, you peer around the corner. The window slit on the door to the morgue shows that Hensch, Juano, and her team are all still preoccupied with the most recent victim.
You turn around and rush across the hallway toward Hensch's office. You know he has a drawer filled with business cards he's collected "just in case" he's in need of a specific service— you'd say there's pretty good odds that he has one for his favorite mechanic.
Stumbling into the room, you rush for the side of the desk with four drawers and reach for the smallest one sitting on the top. You pull it open and curse under your breath when you're met with a sea of cards, haphazardly tossed inside the drawer and unorganized.
Eyes rapidly looking between the drawer and the door, you begin rifling through it, pushing cards you've already glanced at to the side and flipping through the rest.
A black card with a skull on the front of it catches your attention. You pick it up and flip it over, reading the contact info on the back.
Ronin Beaufort, Mechanic
You drop the card back into the drawer and slam it shut.
Your father's voice carries across time, ringing through your head. "And stay away from that Beaufort kid. Don't need you getting any funny ideas about degeneracy."
"Oh my god," you wheeze out, pressing the palms of your hands against your eyes. "Fuck. Fuck."
Juano is down the hall. You can tell her the identity of the man she's been hunting down for years now. You can get him arrested, get him locked up before he can get to you—
But you don't have proof. You don't have proof unless you confess to your own crimes, and even then, it's all hearsay at this point.
You sob into your hand. Your heart is racing in your chest, and the noose around your neck is getting tighter and tighter by the second.
You need to leave Elysium. Tonight. You'll email Hensch, telling him it was all too much for you and you're probably gonna look for a coroner's office near a retirement home. You don't care if you have to repeat a year of schooling— you won't live long enough to get your degree and certification if you stay in this hellhole.
You step out into the hallway. There are still voices coming from the morgue, so you rush out the back entrance, sucking in a deep breath of the cool night air as you shove the door open.
In a haze, you rush into your car and turn it on. As you peel out of the parking lot, you spiral further. Is it even wise to go home? Who's to say he's not waiting for you there right now?
You grip the steering wheel tighter and abruptly switch lanes. New plan: you'll go to the bank, pull out some cash, and drive the whole night until you can find a place to crash. It doesn't matter what you have to replace, you're not going back to your apartment ever again.
The stoplights and headlights blur together as you drive to the bank. It's an odd hour in the early morning, but Elysium never really sleeps. There are a few cars that pass by here and there, but not enough to have you feel the safety of being in the public eye.
The sound of your car choking snaps you back to reality.
Your eyes go wide and you throw on your hazards as your car begins to jerk, sputtering to a stop. Heartrate picking up again, you look down at the dashboard.
Your check engine light is on.
"No." You turn off the car and turn it on again, punching the gas to no avail. You repeat this process, growing more hysterical as it continues to fail. "No, no, fuck, come on. Come on."
Slamming your hands on the steering wheel, you bite down hard on your lip to prevent yourself from openly sobbing. You bury your face into the wheel, taking deep breaths to steady yourself and figure out what to do next.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Your heart freezes in your chest.
Tap. Tap.
Barely lifting your head from your hands, you peek at the rearview mirror.
Someone in a hockey mask is standing behind your car.
Tap.
Nearly ripping the thing off its hinges, you open the glove compartment and take out the pistol tucked away inside. You scream and fling yourself out the door as something slams into your back windshield and shatters it.
You take off running down the street, clicking off the safety as you go.
The footsteps behind you are heavy, but rapidly approaching. As you reach an alleyway, you turn down it then spin around to face the entrance, raising your gun.
The figure rounds the corner, and you fire.
Click. Click.
With trembling hands, you pull the trigger again.
Click.
It's jammed.
Your pursuer starts laughing, and it crescendoes until the manic sound echoes throughout the whole alley.
Ronin pushes his mask half to the side, slinging his crowbar across his shoulders as he starts approaching you at a leisurely pace. His visible eye catches the light, and the same euphoric expression from all those years ago is still present, only honed into something far more sinister a decade later.
"Car fact for ya, darlin'." He says, gaze lazily following you as you scramble away from him. "Putting diesel in your car can clog the injectors and make it stall once it runs out of gas."
"Get away from me," you utter in response, arm falling pathetically to your side.
He laughs again, a low chuckle this time. "Sorry, sorry. Was the last one a little too much for ya? I might have gotten carried away with the jaw, but the guy was just screamin' way too much and I had to shut him up."
"You—" You stumble over a pipe. "You're insane."
"Pot meet kettle." He moves to point the end of his crowbar in your direction, and your heart skips a beat as he starts to take bigger steps. "You're the one who told me to not wear white or get caught, babe. Or did you forget about little old me?"
You laugh, hysterical and frightened. "I am nothing like you. You're a goddamn serial killer."
"Pretty sure more than three constitutes a spree. Shall I welcome you to the club? Throw you a little party?"
"Oh, fuck off," you snap. "I didn't kill innocent people!"
"Is anyone truly so virtuous to be completely free of sin?" The crowbar is dragging against the ground now, and the set of shoulders screams danger. "Everyone's got something festering beneath the surface. You'd know."
You back up some more, and to your horror, your back meets a wall. Sucking in a sharp breath, you blink away the tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. "What the hell do you want from me?"
"Want ya to humor me." He taps the ground a few times as he walks, then says, "You stopped."
"Stopped?"
"Poisoning people."
You roll your eyes. "Yeah, 'cause I'm not a lunatic who gets off on killing people for no reason."
Ronin chuckles again. "I've got just as much a reason as you do." He's close now— too close. "Y'know, when you showed me your little garden that day, you looked so fuckin' giddy."
He stops right in front of you. He lifts the crowbar and presses it against your throat and leans in.
"I wonder," he murmurs into your ear, "if you had the same look on your face when my first gift to you turned up."
Gift. Your stomach drops.
"Doc said you were real excited," he continues, and you wish with everything in you that he wouldn't. "Maybe even more than him."
You'd been excited over the opportunity to flaunt your knowledge to the man overseeing your residency, to hopefully secure yourself a paid position after completing your schooling. You weren't excited to see another murderer putting the methods you'd once used into practice. The stomach flips and racing heart you experienced were nerves at how similar the killings had been to your own, not excitement at the sight of yellowing skin and memory of the bone-deep satisfaction you felt watching your father flatline or looking down at your fling's corpse at his public viewing. It was not a smaller, dimmer version of the euphoria you'd glimpsed on Ronin's face all those years ago.
"I wasn't, I just—" You clench your hands into fists, digging your nails into your palms. "Hurting the people who hurt me is what made me happy. It's got nothing to do with just hurting people."
"But it fascinates you, doesn't it? The way it passes for a stomach bug, deceptively making someone feel like they're gettin' better while it destroys them from the inside." He giggles. "Others might not have noticed, but I did. You followed Adam around a lot the day before he died. You got off on it, didn't you? You reveled in knowing he was dying and had no idea."
You ignore the thrill that zips down your spine at the memory. It's just a shiver, because you're trapped in an alleyway with a serial killer— it's nothing else.
"It's just because he hurt me," you whisper weakly.
"Far less than the others," Ronin prods, "and long after them, too. Did you actually resent him that much, or were you just looking to scratch that itch one last time?"
"Shut up." You screw your eyes shut. "If you're gonna kill me, just fucking do it already."
"Kill you?" Ronin giggles again, finally taking a step back. "Nah. Us Angelwood kids gotta stick together, right?"
You narrow your eyes. "But I know your identity."
"If you were gonna snitch to Juano, you would've done it before you tried leaving." Ronin's smirk stretches into a wide, disquieting smile. "You take me down, you go with me. Ain't that romantic?"
You shove at him, but he doesn't budge. "Then what do you want?"
"I want ya to stick around." He moves the end of the crowbar to rest under your chin, and uses it to tilt your head up, your eyes meeting his directly. "I'll tell you what, darlin'." Something shines in his eyes with the madness. It's not bloodlust, malice, or anything of sort.
It might be something like hope, and somehow, that's even worse.
[yan! alexis ness x gn! reader x yan! michael kaiser]
synopsis: your boyfriend’s best friend is an oddly prominent figure in your relationship. [university au. implied poly.]
cw: yandere themes - implied stalking and obsessive behavior.
wc: 1.4k
a/n: if you ever find me caught between these two, don’t help me… i’m exactly where i need to be
you’re not fond of how… involved michael is in your relationship.
he’s studying abroad the year you and alexis get together, but even so, you’re aware of how important the man is to your boyfriend; it’s hard not to, given that michael draws attention every time he enters a room, and before you entered the picture, alexis followed him around like a second shadow. you know about their close friendship going into the relationship, but it proves to be a problem in a much different way than you expect.
alexis's friends warn you that he tends to be a pushover where michael is concerned, and that you’ll always be second to the blonde, even if it’s you alexis is actually dating. of course, you don’t pay their words any mind in the beginning, given that michael is on the other side of the world, both out of sight and out of mind while you and alexis get cozy with each other.
when michael returns to campus the following year, both your and alexis’s friends joke that he’ll drop you now that his real lover is back. at first, there’s some truth to what they’re saying; alexis spends so much of his free time catching up with michael, which means he isn’t really seeing you, since you make a point to avoid the blonde like the plague.
at some point, alexis must realize you’re pulling away from him, texting him less frequently and not bothering to ask if he’ll be at your apartment that night— no, you already know where he’ll be. so roughly a month after michael’s return, alexis rushes back into your arms, apologizing for neglecting your relationship and swearing to make it up to you.
and he does… kind of. he splits his time more evenly between you and michael, and though it aggravates you that the other is as much of a priority to your boyfriend as you are, you give him some grace— it’s his best friend who was away for a year. for a blissful two months, you accept this delicate balance alexis is managing as the new norm, and eventually any irritation you feel over the matter has dissipated altogether by the time your lovely boyfriend decides to knock you off your axis once again.
he wants you to meet michael. after all, who doesn’t want their best friend and significant other, the two people most important to them, to get along?
the thing is, you’ve met michael already— in freshman year, and you think it’s odd that michael hasn’t mentioned this to alexis. you sat next to him during an introductory writing course you both took to fulfill a general graduation requirement, and unfortunately for you, it was a class where the professor forced you to discuss the content with your neighbor on the daily. only half way into week two, you’d snapped at him, fed up with his holier-than-thou attitude and calling him out on how his condescension did little to mask his apparent insecurities with himself.
perhaps you should have known that someone like him would only view your words as a challenge. you’d dug your own grave at that point, and michael only got worse after that, using every class period as an opportunity to get under your skin and discover what makes you tick. he seemed far too gleeful every time you bit back an insult in the name of keeping your cool, and by the time the semester ended, you wanted absolutely nothing to do with him— a sentiment you conceded when you got with his best friend, but the point still stands.
even after that wretched semester, though, you’d still notice michael in the peripheral of your life. sometimes you’d catch him staring at you when you were in one of the dining halls laughing with your friends, or in the library slogging through your mountain of assignments. you always met his blank stare with one of your own, never giving him the satisfaction of a reaction.
your hatred may have simmered down over time, but you still want to keep him as far away from you as possible. you cannot fathom how someone so loathsome could keep the company of someone so sweet, but there were still facets of alexis’s mind that you were working at comprehending.
so you agree to meet michael, and to your surprise and suspicion, it’s fine. you don’t know if he’s just playing nice because you’re with alexis and it’s going on a year now, but you’re not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. you allow this delicate civility to settle between yourself and michael and agree to spend more time in his presence, more for alexis’s sake than for your own.
but by the time your decision to let him in catches up to you, it’s far too late. give him an inch, and he’ll take a mile; it hits you like cold water one random day in the second semester of the year that you and alexis haven’t really had a moment alone together in months. save for the bedroom, every second you’ve spent with your boyfriend has also been spent in michael’s company. you don’t even know how it happened, just that you had somehow gotten so used to him being around that this little fact managed to slip under your radar.
the minor detail nagging at the back of your mind evolves into a loud, blaring siren the weekend after midterms. you got together with alexis and some of his friends for a celebratory drinking session following a slew of exams and essays, and now, you sit slumped over the table in one of alexis’s hoodies, a delightful buzz making you feel lighter, but not bumbling. alexis is making sure a very drunken erik makes it back to his dorm safely, leaving you alone with michael in their shared apartment.
the blonde is reclined in the seat across from you, eyes half-lidded as he fumbles with a deck of cards left out from the night’s events. he’s had more to drink tonight than both you and alexis, and it’s evident in the way his guard seemed to be lower than you’ve ever seen it. he laughed more— openly and warmly, with his friends rather than at them— and he was even, dare you say it, pleasant to be around.
so naturally, your guard is down, too, when he looks at you with a hint of a smirk on his face and asks, "you know you’re wearing my hoodie, right?"
you snort at him. “what are you talking about? i got this out of alexis’s closet.”
“i’m sure,” he agrees. there’s a glint in his eyes, one that reminds of why you wanted to keep your distance from him in the first place.
“alexis and i share everything.”
something about the way he holds your gaze with such intensity has your stomach flipping over. you haven’t felt like this around him in a while— uneasy, uncertain— but maybe the alcohol has him acting bolder, or rather, has him forgetting to put on the carefully crafted mask that he’s had on around you for the past few months.
the suffocating tension snaps when you hear the sound of the front door clicking shut and alexis kicking off his shoes at the entrance. you quickly spring up from your seat, heading into the other room to ask if erik’s alright, and then get ready for bed. you don’t step out of alexis’s room to bid michael good night, the lingering feeling of his gaze still sending icy pinpricks down your spine.
he starts flirting with you after that. he starts flirting with you in front of alexis, who does absolutely nothing about it. alexis, who just laughs at michael’s antics like his best friend isn’t actively hitting on his significant other. alexis, who doesn’t bat an eye when michael’s touch on your shoulder lingers just a little too long. alexis, who starts forcing you into the middle of couch between him and michael when it’s the spot that he usually takes.
alexis, who approached you first. alexis, who seemed to already know everything about you when you first started dating, who always knew exactly what to say or do to make you head over heels for him. alexis, undoubtedly in love with you, but undeniably devoted and loyal to michael. alexis, prancing around in sheep’s clothing and leading you directly into the jaws of the wolf.
it’s far too late to even try to untangle yourself from their web, and that makes the realization all the more awful; from the start, you were never meant to be just alexis’s.
[yandere ghostface duo kaiser & ness x fem! reader.]
synopsis: everyone around you— friends and foes alike— is dropping like flies, and it all seems to be at the hands of your shitty boyfriend. but are you certain that your best friends have your best interests in mind and are innocent as they seem? is trusting them essential for your survival, or guaranteeing your demise?
wc: 6.1k
cw: major character death. light gore. yandere themes: stalking, obsession, possessive behavior.
a/n: we are SOOOO back
now playing: "final girl" by chvrches
act i. “swallowing the seeds of sins we sowed into the ground”
“Did you hear that they found Anna’s body last night?”
Your movements slow to a halt as you pick up on the gossip behind you. You’ve known Anna Woodard since you were both in middle school, and she latched onto your insecurities early as a young teen and has tormented mercilessly in the years since then. Finding out that she was going to the same university as you wasn’t pleasant, but it hadn’t been all that surprising; though large and prestigious, the campus was still close to home, and you and Anna had been in the same advanced courses all throughout high school.
She’d stopped showing up to your shared sociology class last Wednesday. It’s unlike her to skip class, even now, as a junior college, so naturally suspicion was raised once she still hadn’t shown up to any of her classes on Friday. Now, on a bright and early Monday morning, you’re hearing news of her death.
“Dude, what?” You risk a glance over your shoulder. You recognize the speaker— Karasu, who you’ve chatted with at a few parties. “You mean, like, she’s dead?”
“Yeah man,” his friend, Otoya, answers. “Campus police found her body out by the old baseball field. Gutted her like a damn fish. I heard it was brutal. They had Tamara ID her and she couldn’t stop crying and vomiting.”
Chills run down your spine and the hairs on your arms stand on end. Sure, you loathed Anna’s very existence and complained about her endlessly to anyone who would lend you an ear, but that didn't mean you wanted to see her dead— and brutally murdered at that.
With a shudder, you gather the last of your things into your backpack and sling it over your shoulder. As you head toward the exit of the large lecture hall, you open your phone’s browser and type Anna’s full name into the search bar.
STRAIGHT-A COLLEGE STUDENT FOUND BRUTALIZED ON CAMPUS
The headline sears itself onto your eyelids, the bold blocky letters dancing in front of your vision every time you blink. You scroll through the article, your eyes rapidly skimming it. You only manage to pick up on small details, but they’re enough to make you feel nauseous: found strung up to a tree, intestines spilling out and mouth sewn shut. The brutality of it all left bile burning at the back of your throat and tears stinging at the corner of your eyes.
You startle as you collide with something both firm and soft. A pair of hands come down to settle just above your hips and steer you backward as you look up to apologize to the person you just ran into.
Alexis’s signature soft (and somewhat unnerving) smile immediately melts into concern when he catches sight of your ghastly expression. “What’s wrong, schatz?”
You’ve been friends with Alexis for a long time— since you moved to his neighborhood from your previous shitty impoverished one when you were ten. He’s always been good to you, sweet and supportive and endlessly doting. It could be suffocating at times, and maybe even feel a little demeaning to be so coddled, but you never hold it against him since you know he only has good intentions.
You can’t really imagine a better person to have run into at a time like this. Choking back a sob, you pull Alexis into a hug, which he immediately returns. His arms wrap around your midsection, his hands finding your back and rubbing soothing circles into it.
“Anna’s dead,” you whisper, just loud enough for him to hear.
He stiffens in your hold for just a moment, asking, “What?”
You pull away from him gently, swiping at your eyes before looking up at him. He’s distressed, his lips pursed and eyes pinched at the corners.
Alexis looks off to the side and for a moment, something complicated that you can’t quite place flits over his features. It’s gone as soon as it appears, though, replaced by sincere concern.
He places a gentle hand on your shoulder in comfort. “I know you didn’t like her, but that’s still awful.”
You sniffle, struggling to keep yourself together and avoid breaking down in the middle of the hallway. “Nobody deserves that.”
Wordlessly, Alexis shakes his head in agreement. He gently tugs on your shoulder, and you allow yourself to be wrapped in his warm embrace once again.
You’ve got your face pressed into the fabric of Alexis’s knit sweater when another familiar voice calls out behind you, “You two better cut that shit out before Erik throws another hissy fit.”
A twinge of affectionate annoyance runs through you as you pull away from Alexis again to face the newcomer.
Kaiser leans against the wall beside the two of you and gives you a once-over the second you turn around. He’s not one for direct consolation the way Alexis is— never has been— but his lips pull down slightly at the corners when he catches sight of your puffy eyes. He raises a single eyebrow in question, glancing between you and Alexis in silent demand of an answer.
Alexis responds for you. “Anna was murdered.”
Unmoved, Kaiser just raises his eyebrows more. “So? I thought you hated her.”
You bristle, scowling as you snap, “Micha.”
He hasn’t been “Kaiser” to you like everyone else, or even “Michael,” in a long time— truthfully, he never has been. You two grew up on the same street before your dad got custody of you when you were ten and moved you into his house, which was next door to Alexis’s. Before all of that, Kaiser was all you had. He’s been “Micha” to you for as long as you can remember.
The blonde rolls his eyes at you. “She was a piece of work and you know it.”
“That doesn’t mean she deserved to get—” Your words peter out as the gorey descriptions of her body flooded back into your mind. You bite down on your lip and look away from him, staring at the floor and willing yourself not to burst into tears again.
Kaiser sighs in exasperation, but moves to stand beside you, anyway. The hand he places on your back pats you in a way that’s the slightest bit condescending in a way Alexis’s wasn’t, but you got used to Kaiser’s poor attempts at sympathy a long time ago.
“There, there,” he says. “It’ll be okay.”
You roll your eyes, but laugh despite yourself. “You’re so fucking bad at this.”
He smirks down at you, eyes gleaming as he teasingly leans closer to your face. “But you’re smiling now, aren’t you?”
Before you can reply, a harsh voice cuts through the hallway. “Hands off, Michael.”
As if a switch was flipped, Kaiser’s entire expression falls, giving way to annoyance and something else a bit more volatile. Across from him, Alexis’s own face goes eerily blank, save for the polite grin on his face.
Erik Gesner, your boyfriend of nearly half a year now, steps into view. Mustering up as much of a smile as you can, you move away from Kaiser’s touch and walk into your boyfriend’s waiting arms.
Erik frowns down at you as he takes in your state. “The hell, these two pushing you around again?”
You huff out a laugh. “No, Erik,” you say, shaking your head. “I just heard about
Anna.”
Erik hisses out a breath between his teeth. “Yeah, that sounded brutal.” He loops his arm around you, facing you away from your friends and beginning to guide you down the hallway. “But I’m here to keep you safe, alright? Nothing’s gonna happen to you.”
You bite back a laugh at that. To be completely honest, Erik isn’t a great boyfriend in any capacity. He likes to flaunt you and make a show of affection in public, but he isn’t exactly emotionally available. Not that that’s a problem for you— you both agreed to something casual and low-commitment. Even if others often tell you that you deserve better and could certainly get better, you’re okay with your arrangement for the time being.
That being said, Erik isn’t exactly a shining paragon of chivalry. You wouldn’t be surprised if he fled and left you behind at the first sign of danger.
Tossing a look over your shoulder, you wave goodbye to your friends, feeling a slight ache in your heart as you’re dragged away from them once again.
act ii. “don’t wanna find your daughter in a body bag”
Hana Kimura is dead.
You’d gotten along with her— you’d taken a math class with her back in freshman year and often shared study guides and notes with each other. You grew apart after that class ended, but you still shared polite smiles and waves in passing even after you started dating Erik, who she’d had a short fling with at the beginning of sophomore year.
Erik, who was being implicated for her death, along with the others.
Anna was a coincidence, but you started feeling a little nervous when the body of a guy who relentlessly harassed you after you’d rejected him freshman year turned up floating in the campus pool a week later. It shook you up a bit that the both victims were people with some sort of direct connection to you, but when you started freaking out about it one night, Alexis calmed you down and said it was nothing more than coincidence. Anna wasn’t exactly nice, and the other guy was just an awful person, so both of them likely had lots of enemies on campus.
Hana wasn’t someone you had any bad blood with, but her death still shook you, as you knew her a bit better than the other two.
It only shook you more when people began connecting the dots and pointing fingers at your boyfriend.
Shidou, one of your group members for lab, had outright asked you if you thought it was strange that all the victims so far had ties to you and Erik. Chigiri, your third member, had smacked him upside the head for being insensitive, but at your request, Shidou elaborated.
He’d counted them off on his fingers. “I mean, everyone knows about your and Anna’s beef, Otis was a fucking weirdo to you, and Hana is his ex-situationship.” He raised an eyebrow as he said, “Sounds like he’s got a motive for all of them. Didn’t like the way the first two acted toward his girl, and maybe he just never got over Hana.”
Chigiri frowned. “That’s contradictory. Why would he kill for her if he’s not over Hana?”
The conversation had turned into Shidou and Chigiri just arguing the reasoning behind Erik killing Hana, most of which you tuned out. You don’t honestly believe Erik did it, but the fact that all of the victims were tied to you in some way nagged you to no end.
Now, you’re in one of the many dining spots on campus, seated in a booth tucked away into a far corner of the room.
Isagi, who you’d forged a close bond with after being on the same floor freshman year, sits across from you, picking at his fries with a troubled expression on his face.
With a sigh, he pops one of them into his mouth and mumbles, “I mean, I just don’t think Erik would kill for you.”
“Neither do I,” you quickly agree.
“So…” Isagi pushes his food around some more. “Is there anyone that, uh, you think would?”
“Would what?” When he just stares at you in silence, you baulk. “What, kill for me?”
“I mean—” He shrugs. “Isn’t that what’s at the root here? The fact that all the victims are tied to you?”
“Well, yeah, but there’s no one out there that would kill three people for me!”
Isagi purses his lips at that. He averts his eyes, poking at the fries some more.
“What?” You demand. There’s something doubtful in his expression. “What, you think there’s someone that would?”
“I didn’t say that,” he mutters around a mouthful of potatoes.
“Your face said it,” you challenge.
“My face is very interested in these fries,” he says.
“Isagi,” you snap, exasperated. “Who do you think would kill for me?”
The boy sighs and pushes the plate away from him. When he finally meets your eyes, he appears more serious than you’ve ever seen him.
“I just think it’s too obvious,” he explains. “The first two victims are people who were awful to you, but the third is one of Erik’s exes? It doesn’t make sense. Someone is clearly trying to pin it on him.”
Unease settles in the pit of your stomach. “And who do you think that is?”
Isagi hesitates. Staring at his hands where they’re placed in his lap, he finally settles on an answer. “I don’t know. It could be anyone. Most people don’t know their stalkers. You should still be careful and… vigilant, though.”
He looks up at you again, eyes gleaming.
“Sometimes they’re closer than you think.”
act iii. “so i need to get out now while most of me is still intact”
“Come on, babe!” Erik is shrieking, but in your frenzy, you can barely hear him. “Do you seriously think I did this? That I would kill someone? Kill four people?”
You didn’t think that he would, not originally. But that was before Grim was brutally murdered in front of you just moments ago— and Erik had shown up not even three minutes later.
Right after the two of them had gotten into a massive fight, no less.
Grim had gotten drunk off his ass at a frat party and started chatting with you and Alexis on some creaky couch that had certainly seen more than enough action while Erik was in the backyard playing beer pong. Grim had started talking shit about everyone he knew until he eventually reached Erik himself.
“He’s just in it for the sex, you know,” Grim muttered drunkenly.
You sighed. It was a conversation you’d had many times. “I don’t care. We both agreed to casual.”
Grim scoffed. “Casual or not, you can still do so much better than him. Like, in a boyfriend, and in a bed.”
Beside you, Alexis snorted. You elbowed him lightly before turning back to Grim. “Maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t. This is just what’s convenient for me. No strings attached.”
Grim sighed heavily. “Whatever you say. Just hit me up if you want me to match with a guy who can show you a much better time.”
“What the fuck, man?”
It’d been chaos from there. Both were drunk and upset, and there’d been yelling and poorly thrown punches before Alexis and Mensah broke them up and separated them so each one could cool down.
Erik stopped talking to Grim after that. You could tell it hurt him— both the comments that had been made, but also the silence. He’d been friends with Grim a long time, long before he met you, and it sucked to see him miserable without his close friend.
Grim had reached out to you earlier that week asking if he could come over and talk to you. You figured it was about what he said at the party and that he probably wanted your help smoothing things over with Erik, so you agreed.
The two of you had been talking things out over pizza in your dorm’s lounge when your cell phone rang. There was no caller ID, so you sent it to voicemail— twice. By the third call, you figured it might be someone you know from a payphone or something, so you excused yourself and stepped a bit away from Grim.
“Hello?” You said, uncertain. “Who is this?”
“A friend,” a distorted voice said on the other end. It sounded as if they were using a voice modifier. “I just want to talk with you, doll.”
Something between a scoff and a laugh left you. “Listen, I don’t know if this is a prank or something, but I have a boyfriend—”
“Boyfriend?” The voice cut you off. “Is he the one with you right now?”
A chill ran down your spine as you spared a glance at Grim, who was still seated on the couch and scrolling through his phone. Frantically, you’d looked toward the large windows overlooking the courtyard, searching for someone outside. “What?”
“Do you know what they did to traitors in England under Tudor rule?”
You blinked, thrown off. “What did you say?”
“How they executed traitors under Tudor rule. Drawn, hung, and quartered. Dragged through the streets, strung up, then beheaded. Quite the show. But my emperor prefers the more uncommon method of executing traitors.”
You looked back out the window, but there’s still no one there. In a trembling voice, you asked, “And what’s that?”
“Disembowelment.”
Grim had screamed in agony behind you.
It was all a blur to you: the masked figure, the struggle which had ended with Grim’s innards spilling out of him, and the ferocity with which you’d defended yourself before fleeing and calling the police. You’d made yourself a suspect by virtue of being there, but given how shaken you were and that you’d sustained a minor injury— a shallow stab wound in the shoulder— the lead detectives doubted you were the culprit and escorted you home instead of placing you in custody.
They had asked if you believed there was anyone who had it out for Grim, though. With the phone conversation about traitors fresh on your mind and Hana’s death lingering in the back of it, you couldn’t help but let Erik’s name slip.
Now, you watch mournfully as he’s cuffed and dragged off campus.
“I didn’t fucking do it!” He yells at the cops as they shove him in the back of the car. “Someone’s framing me! It’s so obvious, use your damn heads!”
The door slams shut. You exhale shakily, shutting your eyes roughly and willing yourself not to cry.
An arm wraps around your shoulders. You lean into the touch and allow yourself to be guided into an embrace, burying your face into the other person’s chest.
“It’s okay,” Alexis murmurs softly, “he can’t hurt you or anyone else anymore.”
When you eventually pull away from him, Kaiser wraps his own arm around your shoulder and walks you toward his car.
“You can stay with us tonight,” he says, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. “If it would make you feel better.”
You nod, resting your head on his shoulder.
“Yeah,” you answer, “I’d like that.”
act iv. “sifting further through the wreckage, i think you just have to laugh”
“I mean this in the nicest way possible,” Isagi says slowly, “but you are not more important to Erik than his best friend.”
You’re sitting with him in the same booth, only now, you both look far more exhausted and frazzled than two weeks ago.
You swallow thickly. “Apparently I am.”
Isagi calls your name so sternly that it snaps you out of your haze. His face is doing something complicated, like he’s clearly frustrated about something, but he still does his best to ease you into whatever bread crumb trail he’s picked up on.
“Look,” he starts, “Grim’s death is just like Hana’s. It’s meant to implicate Erik in something he did not do.”
You avert your eyes. “Maybe it seems that way, but apparently they’ve always had problems with each other. If he really did kill Anna and Otis, it’s not surprising that he’d kill Grim for telling me I could do better than him.”
“Apparently,” Isagi echoes, eyes boring into you. There’s no food at the table this time— just you, and his undivided attention that settles like a weight on your shoulders. “And who told you that? Ness? Kaiser?”
You reel back a bit. Defensive, you snap, “What are you trying to say?”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with him,” he says matter-of-factly, “since this all started. Since Hana died and you started distancing yourself from Erik. Especially since Grim died. You know, he never did like that you were sleeping with him.”
Appalled, you hiss, “Are you implying that Micha is killing people?”
Isagi shrugs. “I mean, you said it, not me.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “I know he’s not a good person, but he’s not a fucking murderer, Isagi.”
“He’s in your head is what he is,” he mutters under his breath, but still loud enough for you to hear and scowl at him. Isagi sighs and brushes a hand through his hair before trying again. “You say there’s no one out there who would kill for you. But who else would kill people who treated you like shit? Who else would try to take the guy you’re sleeping with out of the picture while they’re at it?”
You grit your teeth. “He’s not a murderer.”
Isagi leans closer, and one look in his eyes tells you that you’re not gonna like whatever he’s about to say next. “Tell me again how Kaiser reacted when you first told him you were sleeping with Erik.”
Your stomach bottoms out, and a wave of nausea washes over you.
Barely finding your voice, you croak out, “That’s not relevant.”
Isagi tilts his head to the side. “It’s not?”
“It’s not,” you repeat, but your voice is small, hollow.
It’s like a fog in your head has been cleared, but oh, you wish it hadn’t.
You’ve never forgotten the look on Kaiser’s face when you had off-handedly mentioned you started sleeping with Erik. He’d gone completely still in the kitchen of his apartment, the whisk in his hand slowly dripping batter back into the bowl as it stayed suspended in the air. His back had been turned to you at first, every single muscle tight when he’d been so relaxed just a moment ago.
He turned around slowly to face you. Though his face was devoid of any emotion, the sharpness and intensity of his gaze pinned you in place, prompting the hairs on your arms to stand up as a chill ran down your spine.
“Micha?” You’d croaked out after a long moment of silence, once he started stalking toward you.
He threw the whisk to the side. Hard. You flinched as it smacked against the wall and clattered into the sink, leaving a smear behind.
“Erik,” he said, voice deceptively calm. “That piece of shit is worth your time?”
“Don’t call him th—” Your words died in your throat when he grabbed you by the chin. It was a mockery of the usual teasing way he did it, a little too tight and a little too forceful when he tilted your head up.
“Look at you,” he cooed, all condescension and no fondness. “All grown up and experiencing new things. You think a bastard like Erik can keep you safe?”
You reached up and wrapped a hand around his wrist. “Micha, let go.”
“Never, schatz.” He tugged his arm backward, dragging you forward with it. “People should know not to touch things that belong to someone else.”
You’d been about to sneer something at him in retaliation when Alexis had walked up behind him and placed a gentle hand on his bicep. He was smiling, but it didn’t meet his eyes— or the rest of his face, which was too serene, too strained.
“Let’s not do anything rash, Michael,” he’d said calmly, steering the other away from you and back to the forgotten cake batter on the counter.
A heave wracks your entire body and your arm flies up, clapping a hand over your mouth. You gasp out shakily, shutting your eyes and struggling to both stabilize your breathing and fight down the vomit threatening to spew out of you.
“Hey, hey, hey.” Isagi rushed out of his side of the booth and slid into yours, rubbing your shoulders in a soothing manner. “Breathe, just breathe. It’s gonna be okay.”
Isagi stiffens beside you. Slowly, you exhale before peeling your hands away from your face.
Kaiser stares at you critically— or, rather, at the hands that were rubbing at your shoulders, now frozen in place.
Isagi quickly but calmly moves away from you, shifting toward the other end of the booth and putting some space between the two of you.
“Panic attack,” you croak out. “Haven’t been sleeping well since…” You trail off and make a vague gesture in the air, expecting Kaiser to know what you’re talking about.
It’s not like you’re lying; you’ve been getting little to no sleep every night since the cops detained Erik, and it’s something both Kaiser and Alexis can attest to. After all, you’ve been staying with them in their apartment since it happened, feeling much safer knowing they would be around in the event that Erik managed to slip out of custody or, worse, that he wasn’t the killer at all and they came for you next.
Needless to say, that arrangement would be changing in the very near future.
Kaiser side-eyes Isagi one more time before looking back at you. It may not be noticeable to anyone that doesn’t know him well, but you can see the way his face softens the slightest bit. “You’re too stressed. Let’s go home, liebling.”
Your heart pounds against your ribcage, threatening to rip itself out of your chest and save itself. You shake your head, careful to make the action less frantic than you feel. “No, that’s alright,” you decline softly. “I’ll stay with Isagi until the house party.”
The side-eye morphs into a full-fledged scathing glare that Isagi, impressively, does not waver under.
When Kaiser refocuses on you, the familiar impatience and disdain have returned. “If you’re not feeling well, you should come home. And not go out tonight, either.”
“It’s alright, Micha.” You smile half-heartedly. “They’ve got Erik now, so there’s nothing to worry about, yeah? I could use something to take my mind off things, anyway.”
When he opens his mouth to refute you again, you cut him off again by getting to your feet. “I’ll see you there, okay?” You turn and nod at Isagi. “Let’s go. I want to try that dessert place you were telling me about.”
Isagi nods back and rises as well. Kaiser doesn’t budge when he tries to leave the booth, forcing the other to get uncomfortably close and meet his eyes as he exits.
When you do the same and try to brush past him, he catches hold of your arm, his grip not too tight, but tight enough that it pulls you back.
Steeling yourself one more time, you force another smile and place a gentle hand on top of his. “I’ll see you,” you repeat, “I promise.”
Deep blue eyes bore into yours, completely unreadable.
He lets go— and unbeknownst to you, you’re a little too eager to slip away.
act v. “there’s a final girl / does she look like me?”
The phone is ringing.
You can hardly hear it over the buzzing static in your own ears. The entire house reeks of blood, the scent of rust stinging your nostrils and prompting bile to come bubbling up your throat.
But it’s the scene at your feet that might actually bring you to vomit.
There’s a puddle of blood, far away and removed from the gore and viscera littering the rest of the house. You don’t even know whose house you’re in, you’d just shown to get drunk out of your mind and forget, even for just a moment, what your life had become over the past few weeks.
In the puddle, shredded and torn, is the hoodie Isagi was wearing back at the campus diner.
Isagi himself is nowhere to be found.
The phone is still ringing.
Hesitantly, you pick the phone up. Flashes of Grim getting slashed at come to your mind as you hiss out, “What the fuck do you want?”
“Poor little lamb,” the altered voice croons into the receiver. You grit your teeth in an attempt to stifle your own sobs as they continue, “Where’s your shepherd gone?”
“Listen, asshole,” you mutter, “I don’t know what you think you’re getting out of this, but if you seriously think blood and guts is the best way to woo a girl, your mother did a shit job raising you.”
A burst of distorted laughter explodes from the receiver, and you recoil away from it slightly.
“Aw, that’s cute,” the voice trills.
“What’s cute?” You snap. “The fact that I’m a normally programmed human being?”
“The fact that you think my mother raised me,” the person drawls. There’s a humming noise, then they add, “That, and the fact that you think you have a choice.”
You creep over to a nearby drawer and rummage through it. Relief and adrenaline flood your veins when your fingers brush over what feels like a pocket knife. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m well aware of how to be a gentleman, sweetheart,” the person says, chuckling. “Do you think this is me asking nicely?”
You press down on the latch, and the blade comes swinging out from the hilt. Balancing the phone between your cheek and your shoulder, you brandish the knife before you and creep across the living room, toward the cracked open garage door.
“Well, you’ll have to forgive me if my rejection is a bit harsher than usual,” you say sweetly into the phone.
You pause in front of the door as another laugh pours in through the receiver. “Give me your worst, angel.”
The door bursts open, and you slash at the masked figure before they can even make a move at you. The blade, small but sharp, cuts cleanly through their shoddy costume and across their chest, leaving a thin but deep wound behind.
You leap back while you have the upper hand. The other person is much larger than you and could overpower you easily— assuming it’s who you think it is, he has in the past, albeit playfully and meaning no real harm.
Such is not the case in this situation.
Your heart starts pounding a little faster when they take out their own knife, twirling the hilt between their fingers effortlessly as they take their time crossing the room and closing the distance between you two.
If you weren’t so tense, you would’ve rolled your eyes. Even in such a high-stakes moment, he can’t help but be a show-off.
You adjust your grip on the knife and hold it out before you as you back toward the opening leading to the hallway and kitchen. In a shaky voice, you call out. “Cut the shit, Michael.” You’ve never said his name with such loathing in your life, and it makes him stop dead in his tracks. “I know it’s you.”
He twirls the knife one more time, then charges at you.
In a flurry of movement, you slash at him again, nearly tripping over yourself as you run backward, struggling to keep some distance between you when he’s closing it so fast. You grunt when your lower back collides with the kitchen, but grab hold of it to kick your legs out and ram them into his chest as hard as you can. It’s not enough to bring him down, but he stumbles backward a bit, the wind knocked out of him.
You waste no time sliding off the counter and making a mad dash for the nearest door, but you’re simply not quick enough. He’s on you in an instant, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you back into his chest. You flail wildly in vain.
A scream rips itself from your chest when he sinks the knife into your thigh.
He shushes you, and without the voice modifier, there’s no more questioning who the man behind the mask is. “Stop fighting and it’ll hurt less, hm?”
He brings his free hand up to your face, placing his palm over your mouth and gently stroking your cheek with his fingertips. Your scream is muffled this time as he takes the knife out and plunges it into your other thigh. Tears pour down your cheeks as you writhe around, the searing pain making you more desperate despite the fact that you have no hope of escape.
“It could have been so much easier, you know,” he whispered against your ear as he traced the knife along your arm. “All you had to do was look at me. But even when Erik was gone, you’d already found someone else to latch onto. And Yoichi of all people.” He adds pressure to the blade, causing you to wince as it shallowly pierces the flesh of your arm. “But that won’t happen anymore, will it, liebling?”
A sob wracks your body as you shake your head.
Kaiser hums in approval. “Good.”
There’s a loud shout somewhere behind you, and before you can process what’s happening, Kaiser is cursing and slumped over on the floor, his hold on you going slack.
You rush away from him, scrambling and crawling along the floor. You scream when someone reaches for you, clawing at them with your nails.
“Hey, woah! It’s just me!” You stop, snapping out of your frenzy. Isagi stands before you, a metal bat in his hand. “It’s just me.”
Another sob leaves your body. “Holy shit,” you whisper. “You’re alive.”
Isagi smiles down at you. “I’m alive,” he says, then kneels down and holds his forearm out to you. “Let’s get the hell out of here, yeah?”
With both hands, you grab onto his arm, pulling yourself into his chest and trying to stand and steady yourself despite your wounded thighs. Your vision is obscured like this, but Kaiser is still on the floor, and you feel safe with Isagi.
And then, you hear him scream.
Isagi collapses to the floor, taking you with him. The back of his knee has been slashed at, and a masked figure stands over him, already plunging a knife into his chest.
A masked figure that is not Kaiser, who is still struggling to get to his feet.
A horrified shriek leaves you when the new figure goes to stab Isagi a third time, and your hands shoot out before you know what you’re doing. You catch the blade, another pained scream ripping itself from your chest as it cuts into your fingers mercilessly.
The other masked person retreats back, but gently reaches a hand out toward you, seeming remorseful for harming you.
In your desperation to save Isagi, you’d lost sight of Kaiser, something you realize when a hand grabs a fistful of the back of your shirt and drags you away from Isagi.
“Stop!” You cry out, thrashing as your bloody legs glide across the tile floor. “Stop, don’t kill him! Please, just let him go!”
“Execute him,” Kaiser growls above you.
Without hesitation, the other figure resumes plunging the knife into Isagi’s chest and midsection. Your own screams and sobs drown out his. At some point, his body goes completely still, his thrashing and fighting back fizzling out until the only movement is caused by the ferocity with which the other person is stabbing him with.
“Stop,” you murmur, curling in on yourself. “Stop. He’s dead. He’s already dead.”
The sound of squelching flesh stops suddenly. It’s replaced by heavy footfalls, and you bury your face into your hands more when they come to a stop in front of you.
A hand cards gently through your hair. “It’s over now, schatz,” a soft, familiar voice says, and you go completely still. “I’m sorry you had to go through all that, but it’s over now.”
Bloody gloved hands wrap around your wrists and guide your hands away from your face. You watch in terror as Alexis’s kind face comes into view, pristine and clean now that mask is removed.
You hiccup, a new round of sobs starting despite you having no more tears to shed.
As Alexis gently cups your face in his hands, Kaiser presses a kiss to your thrumming pulse, before moving his lips to the shell of your ear.
