🔪𝔇𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔉𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖕𝖊𝖗🔪

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 7

Rating: Explicit

Length: 3.5k

CW: blood, past murder, knifeplay, marking, choking

Readers POV

Begrudgingly, you have to admit, you are becoming accustomed to your terrifying roommate.

Now that he trusts you enough to let you sleep in your own bed, you are well-rested and much less prone to sudden panic. You have moved away from the verge of tears. He still insists upon sleeping on your floor, but this you can handle. Occasionally, you wake in the middle of the night and find him standing at the side of your bed, staring at you. This is harder to handle, but you manage, fighting the burst of adrenaline that speeds up your heartbeat and makes it hard to fall back asleep.

Michael follows you through the house, observing your actions. You have started to talk to him as you cook, as you clean, as you sit and stare out the window and wonder if you'll ever leave the house again. He is an excellent listener. He almost never responds, and if he does, it is with a tilt of the head, a scoff, a shift in the expression of his eyes. But you know he hangs on your every word, because every time you look over, he is staring at you.

Once you start, you cannot stop. You tell him about your old home in another state. About your splintered family scattered across the country. About your college days, about your first pet, about your old friends. Sometimes you ask him questions about himself. What was it like in Smith's Grove? Does he remember his childhood here? What happened to his parents?

You always approach these topics carefully, afraid you might upset him. But he never answers. Most of the time he doesn't even react, just gives you a long look with those mismatched eyes. Sometimes he will excuse himself from the conversation if you ask him too many questions, pushing past you with no sense of urgency, merely a loss of patience with your pestering. You aren't sure if these things elicit some kind of negative emotion, if he doesn't feel comfortable opening up, or if he simply does not care.

Michael is not the only one who observes. You've started to watch him too.

He is never without the mask. Near as you can tell, the only time he takes it off is to shower. At least, you think so. To be fair, you have never seen proof of this. You cannot imagine having something so restrictive on your face at all times, but it hardly seems to bother him.

The trappings of your house - the art on the walls, the books and little knickknacks on your shelves - seem of particular interest to him. He studies them often, flips through the books. You ask him if he can read, and to your surprise, he nods once. You tell him he's welcome to anything in your personal library, but you haven't seen him choose one yet. He runs his fingers over the spines, spends great lengths of time examining the prints on your wall. It's almost like he's trying to commit them all to memory.

Make no mistake, he remains a uniquely threatening presence. Sudden movements are out of the question. Once you turned to face him while cooking, a knife in your grasp and an onion half-sliced on the counter, and his hand was wrapped around your wrist faster than you could blink, the other around your throat.

A few times, he has trapped you against the wall like he did in the kitchen before the ill-fated trip to the grocery store. You know it is a test. You meet his eyes, keep your breathing even, try to demonstrate that you are not afraid. You think that is what he wants, but you aren't sure. Sometimes he stares you down for only a few seconds; sometimes it is minutes before he drops his arms and releases you.

When he does this, you are incredibly aware of his proximity, the heat of his body, the way his fierce gaze pins you against the wall. The way you cannot see his lips, only those of the mask. Why are you looking? You try not to think about it.