Thinking about yandere!injured man that you rescue.
cw/tags: yandere, m!yandere x gn!reader, isolation, codependency, kidnapping, sfw but account is 18+/MDNI
You see him one night on your way home, collapsed in the street. You almost don’t notice that his shabby clothes are soaked through with blood because of the rain pouring down on him.
You should keep walking. Everyone else does. You barely have enough coin to feed yourself, and who knows where he came from. He could be a criminal, fled from the kingdom cells. He probably won’t be able to attack you in this state, but who knows.
He looks young. Around your age, a man grown, but still. He looks so downtrodden, so miserable, his light brown curls falling over his face like he’s a poor little kitten.
It’s stupid to take him in, but it’s evil to leave him to die. You’re a fool and a bleeding heart, because you drag him halfway across town to your tiny home. The area is even rougher than where you’d found him, but he should be safe inside, as long as he makes it through the night.
Mercifully, he does. The man doesn’t wake up, however, but his fever breaks, so the dressings you’ve put on his wounds and the concoction you gave him seem to be working.
He sleeps for two days and pulls a kitchen knife on you the first time he wakes. He can barely stand, let alone fight, and he drops it and passes out immediately after. You consider kicking him out. You can’t bring yourself to do it.
He looks peaceful while he rests. Gentle, almost, his bangs falling over his smooth, olive brown skin. You find yourself thinking that he looks like a pretty sculpture, lying there in your cot. He is slender but not starved like most in this town, so you figure he must be the son of a merchant or trader.
He’s calmer, the next time he wakes. You’re in the middle of cooking some stew when he does, and it takes a few minutes before you feel the eyes on your back.
“Hello,” he says. His voice is smoother than you imagined.
You turn to face him, hands against the counter. You’re close enough to grab a knife if you need it. You hope you won’t. “Hi. Know what happened to you?”
He pauses for a moment, looking around. Your home isn’t very big, so there isn’t much to look at. The cot is practically in the kitchen, which is also next to the door. “I was running. How did I end up…here?”
He motions at your raggedy place.
You resist the urge to roll your eyes. “Running, huh…I found you, across town. People were stepping over you.”
The man tries to stand, but groans and immediately sits back on the cot, gripping the sheets. The next words come out pained. “You nursed me. Why?”
You almost laugh. “You looked like a kitten.”
He furrows his brows. “Most men wouldn’t enjoy such a comparison.”
“Apparently. Would you like something to eat?”
You have to feed him spoonfuls, and he looks spiteful at his own body, but he lets you do it. He’s quiet, mostly, but not ungrateful. He says his ‘pleases’ and his ‘thank yous’ without fail, although he won’t mention where he’s from or where he’ll go.
You notice now, with him staring at you, that he has purple eyes, the kind reserved almost solely for the bloodline of the royal family. Most common people know nothing of the lords and ladies who govern, but everyone knows the royals have purple eyes.
A wayward prince or two has been known to sire bastards in the towns closest to the capital, like your own. You wonder if this man had been housed by his lord father and now cast out at the behest of his lady wife. It would explain him being well-fed with nowhere to turn in his injured state.
There’s been turmoil in the capital recently, although not much news gets to you here. You don’t much care for the royals or their ongoings, so it doesn’t matter if one brat or another sits the throne. You only care if there will be enough grain to feed you for the upcoming winter.
You don’t bother asking him. Most bastards are touchy about their parentage. Not like orphans. You never knew your parents, so maybe that was why. He’d had a taste of a life that was just out of reach. You couldn’t even imagine such a thing.
You figure he wouldn’t tell you, anyway. You don’t know what any of the royals look like, aside from the eyes, but they seem confirmation enough. You wonder if he looks like his father. He is pretty. The bard who sings at the local tavern says all princes and princesses are pretty.
His recovery is slow but steady. You have to leave most days to fish or sell your herbs at the market, but he manages himself.
Some days, you force yourself to stay in. When the red cloaks flood the village, it spells nothing but trouble. You wonder what they’re here for. Sometimes they look for criminals, but most times it feels like they’ve been sent only to strike fear into your hearts.
The man looks worried when you tell him they come; you desperately hope he’s not the one they’re searching for. It would be a swift execution for you, harbouring a criminal. Especially one important to the crown.
You don’t ask. He doesn’t tell you.
He does tell you his name, after the you start calling him “man” to his face. He tells you to call him Indra.
He doesn’t leave and you don’t ask him to.
You and Indra begin a life together, against the odds. You bring home fish and he cooks dinner. When he feels well enough, he comes into the forest to collect herbs with you. The two of you eat every meal together.
It’s…nice.
You’ve been on your own so long, you forgot what it felt like to come home to someone at the end of your day. He listens when you tell him about the rude merchant or kind older woman you encountered. He asks about where you’re from and if you’re happy in this life. He doesn’t pry when you shrug. He smiles when you tell him that it’s better now that you have a companion.
His face is even prettier when he smiles.
He sings to you when you can’t sleep, his voice pretty and soothing. He tells you stories you’ve never heard before, tales from far away lands. He laughs at your jokes, and tells you he enjoys your way of life.
He gets upset when you tell him about the tavern: the drinks, your friends, the men and women who approach you flirtatiously. You suspect he’s envious of your freedom.
You ask him to come. He refuses. You don’t pry. Your life together goes on.
It seems natural, the first time he kisses you. You put your hand on his chest and he gasps and you think you’ve caused him pain until he pushes himself entirely against your body.
The sex is only another part of your life together, after that. He is gentle, but passionate, when he touches you. His kisses litter your body and his flesh is always hot against your own.
Soon, you spend less nights meeting up with friends at the tavern and more sleeping with him. Some days it feels like all it takes is for his robe to dip from his shoulders, and your plans are abandoned.
It’s been nearly half a season when you notice his roots begin to grow in. A dark, raven colour.
This time, you ask. He doesn’t answer.
You fight and you yell and remind him that you never ask for anything. You share your home and your body and you only want him to be honest with you.
He doesn’t yell. He leaves. You don’t know where he goes.
You don’t sleep that night. You wonder if he’s gone for good. If you’ve squandered the only good thing fate has ever given you.
He comes back the next morning, before you plan to leave. He’s written you a letter, he says.
You tell him you can’t read. He reads it for you.
He hugs you. You apologize. You never get your answer.
You let it go.
This life is enough.
Your friends seem to disappear entirely. You haven’t spotted even one of them recently, and when you ask around, most have said the same. Your neighbour tells you they probably fled, because of how much the red cloaks have been brutalizing the village. She tells you that you should leave too.
You can’t. What if he doesn’t follow?
You want to stay here. To stay in this small house, with your companion. You wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Even when you know nothing about him.
It starts off small. An irritation like a fly buzzing around your head. It grows. It burns in your brain. You don’t know where he was born or who his parents are. You don’t know how he became injured or ended up on your doorstep. You don’t even know if Indra is his real name.
He is a stranger here and he will remain a stranger until he flees. You know it to be true.
You don’t ask him not to leave. He doesn’t tell you he won’t.
You don’t have anyone else left. Even your neighbour packs up her things and goes. She tells you the town is full of ghosts that she cannot escape.
One day you return, and he’s not there. It’s a good thing, you tell yourself. He lies. He brings trouble to your doorstep.
You search for him anyway.
You see him out in the sunlight for the first time.
He speaks to a red cloak. When he notices you, he turns and points straight at you.
You have only a moment for the betrayal to sting before you start to run. He will tell them you stole him away at worst, helped him at best. Perhaps he will say that his crimes are your own. It won’t matter. The neighbour’s son had been hanged last year on this very street for less. He may have been a bastard, but he still had royal blood.
You were no one.
It isn’t the red cloaks that find you in the forest. It’s Indra.
He doesn’t ask you not to run. You don’t tell him you won’t.
“Where are you going, my dearest?” He asks.
He chases you through the forest, his purple eyes wide and wild. He’s healed enough for it now. You sprint for a different path toward the edge of town. An armoured hand reaches out and grabs you, leaving you to tumble to the ground.
“Handle them with care,” Indra yells as he catches up to you.
The red cloak pulls you up onto your feet. “Yes, my prince,” he says.
You look at Indra. He looks at you.
He is a stranger. A prince, apparently.
You try to run. You should have done it months ago, the first time he lied or hid himself away. The red cloak doesn’t let you.
Indra asks you to behave. You don’t agree.
He tells the guard to bind your wrists. He apologizes. You ignore him.
Indra doesn’t bother to let you take anything from your home. He coos at you and promises that it’s unsafe.
His uncle tried to usurp his throne, he tells you. He had to pretend, to hide away for some time. His uncle is dead now, but his supporters still run amuck. You will return to the castle with him.
He apologizes for deceiving you.
You tell him to let you go. He ignores you.
Indra is different, the next time you see him. He is dressed in lavish purple silks, a hibiscus flower in his hair, now fully dark. He carries a sword at his side.
The man who cooked dinner for you and told you of his favourite fables is a distant dream.
Indra is a stranger.
He won’t let you go.
You are given a room that you cannot leave. Food at every meal. Nothing but time to stare out the window and look over the city.
You feel your muscles atrophy.
You want to fish. You want to walk the forest and gather your herbs. You want to sell them at the market, to speak with your neighbours and visit friends at the tavern. You suspect most of them are dead, now. How long has he been ordering his red cloaks around?
You want Indra to cook dinner for you. You want to eat it in your small, ramshackle home.
He doesn’t eat with you now.
A member of the royal family takes his meals at court. A peasant isn’t allowed anywhere near there, even someone favoured by the crown prince.
Indra visits you as much as he can.
He talks to you. You ignore him.
He won’t let you leave.
He sings you to sleep. Watches you as you do. Presses kisses to your head that feel like burns.
He keeps you here. His own pet, caged in his castle.
He goes free. He is a prince. He is not your Indra. He is a stranger.
He tells you he loves you.
He won’t let you leave.
