twisted wonderland one-shots (requests CLOSED! for now)

malleus x scared!gn!reader

synopsis: reader is scared of nothing except for demons, so when they see malleus they're like. um. no thanks! but ofc malleus doesn't get it and keeps trying to talk to them and keeps getting rejected. lilia and sebek attempt to help in their own way (they kidnap the reader to force em to talk to malleus). after that fiasco malleus and reader get paired up in class and malleus keeps trying to confess, badly, but eventually he gets there

Of all the people to visit Ramshackle, why did it have to be him?

You'd gone inside as soon as you had seen the green firefly-like lights, not even willing to say hello to your guest before he appeared. Honestly, you wanted nothing  to do with Malleus.

It's not that he was rude to you or anything. Much the opposite, actually; he was very polite, even if he was a bit strange at times, and had sought you out on multiple occasions to attempt his hand at small talk. He'd never crossed any boundaries or tried to force you to do something you didn't want to and was always full of smiles and kind greetings.

You were just plain scared of him.

It was ironic that your fear of demonic and grotesque entities would prohibit you from approaching the tall student after having gone through six different overblots plus countless different instances of incidents that didn't leave the best taste in your mouth.

It wasn't your fault that you had a fear of demons! It's not like you could entirely control what you were and weren't afraid of, anyways—that includes other students, especially the ones with fucking horns on their head.  Polite or not, you wanted nothing to do with Malleus. Ever.

Unfortunately, Malleus didn't feel the same. He found you intriguing and somewhat mysterious, which only fueled his curiosity—which Lilia, as always, quickly picked up on.

"I can help with that," says Lilia one day after watching Malleus fail at another attempt to talk to you. "It's nothing I can't take care of."

"Really?" asks Malleus, looking a bit brighter. "You can get them here?"

"Of course! Just give me a day and I'll have them here in no time," says Lilia with a smile. Unfortunately, what completely slipped Malleus' mind was that Lilia was never one to do things in an orthodox manner—in fact, it was as if he consciously chose the worst option and then left before he had to face repercussions for it.

You knew that there was nothing good in store for you when Lilia approaches you with a smile that's a little too wide and much too dangerous and Sebek following him, looking much less friendly. You proved yourself right when you wake up tied to a chair in the middle of Diasomnia's common room with Lilia, still grinning, in front of you.

The rope digs deep into the skin of your wrists. You try to jerk out of it, but the only thing you succeed in doing is rubbing your wrists red and raw.

"Is this  really the human that Young Master wants to talk to? They don't look anything too special to me," comes Sebek's voice from behind you and you can feel your heart rate spike because oh fuck  no, not Malleus!