Chapter Text
The new apartment sat several floors higher, and with every meter that separated him from the earth, the air seemed to grow more sterile. The twenty-third floor. It featured panoramic windows coated with a one-way mirrored film; the city below had been transformed into a silent anthill, incapable of peering inside. The electronic biometric lock blinked with a steady blue light. Adela had personally vetted every service contract, every courier, and every cleaner, compiling dossiers that would have made a professional detective envious. Vil stood in the middle of the empty living room, where the faint smell of fresh paint still lingered from the stairwell, and thought that the cleanness of these walls was a lie – because the filth he had been running from was not on surfaces. It was in people.
He could only hope that this tower of glass and concrete would become his private island of peace.
The first week passed in a silence that was dense and viscous, like molasses. There were no letters, no calls, no envelopes signed with that strange, cloying adoration. Vil had almost convinced himself that the incident with the bracelet had been the final accord of someone else's madness. He set about organizing his space anew: a grand bed draped in an enormous violet coverlet, a plush peach-colored rug, and flowing chiffon tulle that softened the harshness of the shadows outside the window. In this meticulously curated design, only one element stood out as discordant: a garish vase with loud, clumsy patterns that Rook had brought him. Vil would look at it and could almost see the unpracticed fingers of his hunter tracing those crooked lines. It never failed to lift his mood.
Two weeks in, his phone chirped briefly in the dead of night.
Unknown number: “The curtains were a poor choice. You look better in dark tones.”
Vil read the message three times. Then slowly, without turning on the light, he walked to the panoramic window and looked down. Twenty‑three floors. The city below looked like a toy, lifeless. In the evening glow of the streetlamps, people were no bigger than pinheads. No living soul could see into his windows without special equipment.
But someone already knew the colour of his curtains.
It took Vil a full minute to force his clenched jaw to relax. He told no one. After this he checked the door, double‑checked the biometrics, and changed the lock code before going to bed. It was progress: before, the stranger had crept almost right up to him; now he was forced to settle for watching from outside. If that could be called progress, rather than a slow descent into paranoia.
The messages kept coming. Vil blocked the numbers, but each new notification arrived from a fresh identifier. Soon the messages became a ritual: a morning greeting, a midday observation, an evening blessing before sleep.
"You looked tired today. You need more rest."
"I will make sure that soon you no longer have to wake up in anxiety."
"You work so hard for them. I am proud of you. They do not deserve even a shadow of your beauty."
That day, the rain began even before noon. It wasn't a downpour, just a gray, stubborn drizzle that made the whole city look as if it were trapped under cloudy glass. The studio was stifling, smelling of hairspray, hot spotlights, and something sweet, too cloying, that started to give Vil a headache. He sat before the mirror while the makeup artist dusted away excess shine from his cheekbones with a soft brush, and the stylist behind him straightened the collar of costume. His phone, lying face down, vibrated for the fourth time in forty minutes.
Vil didn’t flinch. It was almost comical how quickly a human can adapt to their own private hell, provided it is served in measured doses. Only at the fifth signal did he pick up the smartphone and slide his finger across the screen.
Unknown number: “Did you sleep poorly? Do not let them use you like this. You were created for adoration, not exhausting labor.”
Then, a second message followed almost without pause.
Unknown number: "Red again. They chose a good suit for you. But that man in the grey shirt should not have touched you. No one dares to touch you with their hands."
Vil’s heart stopped for a second. He slowly raised his eyes to the mirror. In the reflection behind him stood an assistant in a gray shirt. A young man, nervous and harmless, with a measuring tape around his neck. The very same man who had adjusted his collar a minute ago. Vil did not reply. He locked the screen and set the phone back down. His stilled heart resumed its rhythm, steady and calm.
“Monsieur Schoenheit?” the makeup artist called softly. “Shall we touch up the hair before you go out?”
“We shall,” he replied. His voice did not waver, and not a single muscle in
he shoot followed its usual script: lights, cameras, several takes, a comment about the angle, a retake. Vil moved flawlessly, even as everything inside him was pulled tight by an icy wire, and every stranger's gaze from the darkness of the studio seemed to belong to that very person. By the end of the shift, he wanted only one thing: for the day to end so he could call Rook. Rook would surely say something poetically silly, admire some trivial thing like the shape of a cloud, and that would help dissolve the sticky tension that had settled on his skin.
He returned to the dressing room after most of the crew had left. The hallway was unnaturally quiet – even the distant laughter of assistants had died, as if cut off by scissors. Vil pushed the door open with his shoulder, walked in, picked up his phone out of habit and scanned his notifications. Another message.
Unknown number: "Do not ignore me. I am only taking care of you."
Vil exhaled through his nose. For a fraction of a second, as he leaned toward the mirror, he hallucinated the sight of someone else's fingers on his own neck: ghostly, translucent, pressing into his skin. A delusion. Nonsense. A sleep‑deprivation hallucination. He blinked, and the vision vanished. He turned away, reaching for a bottle of water, and only then did he notice something foreign on the sofa in the corner.
An album.
A thick, dark cover with a slightly worn corner. Vil knew it. He knew it too well to be mistaken. It was Rook’s old album, pulled from a dark past, evoking frightening and somewhat shameful memories—the kind Vil had spent so much effort trying to amend and forget. One of his worst deeds. One of the days when he had lived through a personal hell and descended into its lowest circle himself. With cold fingers, Vil picked up the album and opened it. He stared at the images without blinking. For a moment, it was hard to tell what hurt more: the fact that the album had appeared here at all, that Neige was inside, or that among the old photos were new ones. Fresh photo in pages, carefully glued in, glossy, reeking of chemicals. It was as if someone hadn't just reached into an old wound but had pried its edges apart with filthy fingers, reached inside, and squeezed his vitals in a fist. On the last page, tucked between the photos, lay a folded note. Vil knew he didn't want to open it, and yet, he did.
“He loved beauty. Not you. I worry that such a man will break your heart.”
For several seconds, Vil stood motionless. Then he slowly sank onto the edge of the sofa, as if someone had extracted the one bolt that held the whole structure together and if he made one sharp move now, he would simply turn inside out. He read the note again. Then once more. And at some point, he caught himself thinking: What if this isn't a lie, not some damn mind control. What if this man is right? The thought was so foreign, so sickeningly convincing, that he wanted to claw his skin off. The phone vibrated again.
Unknown number: “I hope you liked my gift. You deserve to know the truth. Only I truly look at you alone, my god.”
Vil abruptly hit the lock button. His fingers were shaking, and he hated it. He hated that anyone could bring him to such a state. Lost in thought, he didn't hear the quiet knock on the door or the sound of it opening.
“Vil?” Rook’s voice rang out before he had even fully entered. “I finished early and...”
He trailed off. One look was enough to understand everything. Vil sat there, clutching the album, pale to the point of a painful, otherworldly beauty with a hollow, glazed stare looking somewhere through him. Rook walked over, took the note lying in the album, and read it. For the first time, Vil saw Rook's face change so drastically. All the softness and slyness vanished from his eyes, leaving behind something quiet and very dangerous. The way snipers look before pulling the trigger.
"How interesting," Vil said quietly. "Did you notice it was missing immediately, and that’s why you arrived so early?"
"Vil –" Rook stepped closer, realising that his beloved was clearly not in a state to discuss this calmly.
"No, really. I'm curious." Vil turned a page and jabbed his finger at one of the images. "Is this an old one? Or have you been updating your collection as occasion demanded?" A short, lifeless laugh, not a trace of a smile in his eyes.
"It's old," Rook said softly. "But yes, there are new ones as well."
"Thank you for your honesty. How refreshing." Something flickered in Vil’s face, and he failed to hide it.
Rook carefully lowered himself to one knee in front of him, trying to be at eye level, making no sudden moves the way one approaches a wounded animal that might sink its teeth into your throat at the slightest wrong intonation.
"Look at me," he said quietly.
Vil reluctantly raised his eyes.
"I was not stalking him in the sense you are thinking right now."
“Oh, of course,” Vil`s voice dripped venom. "You were probably engaged in artistic observation from a distance. Why didn't I think of that myself?"
"Vil. Please take a deep breath."
"Don't you dare interrupt me, Rook."
Vil stood up too abruptly, and for a second the world lurched; the room began to swim as if in a bad dream. Rook immediately moved toward him, but the actor stepped back, threw the man a tired, almost fading look, and held out his hand, palm forward.
"Your suspicions hurt me. I would never do that to you."
“I know,” Vil replied too quickly. And both knew it was a lie. It wasn't that he didn't trust Rook. He did. Но the stalker had hit exactly where it was intended. The seed of doubt now sat inside him like a shard of glass under the skin, twisting deeper with every movement. Rook understood this by the way Vil's lashes trembled.
“Rook, do you even realize how this looks?”
“Yes.”
"No, you don't." Vil clenched his teeth. "For weeks now, someone has been writing to me, calling, watching, crawling under my skin – and now I'm sitting here with your album from the past, thinking that maybe I –" He faltered, unable to find the word.
Rook came closer, barely touching his beloved's shoulder and in the next second received a sharp, stinging slap, like a gunshot. Vil’s hand froze in the air, a slight tremor racking the actor’s body, betraying all the tension he had so carefully hidden.
"I'm sorry," Vil breathed out. "Take it. Just... get it out of my sight."
"It's alright, mon cœur," Rook did not waver, only gently took the album from Vil's fingers and put it in his bag. Then, very quietly, he asked: "Do you want to go home now?"
Vil looked at the floor for a few more seconds. Then he nodded.
"Yes."
Inside the car, it was dark and quiet. The rain had intensified, turning the windows into distorting lenses through which the city looked like a blurred watercolor smeared across a canvas: the streetlights fragmented, flowing down in long, glowing streaks, as if the streets were bleeding neon. Vil sat by the window and did not move, staring into the murky abstraction. At one of the traffic lights, when the red light flooded the cabin with the color of clotted blood, Rook finally spoke softly.
“I will check everything. The cameras, the passes, who was on the floor, who entered the dressing room block.”
Vil didn’t turn around.
“Mhm.”
“And if it is someone from the staff...”
“Rook.” Vil’s voice was level to the point of ringing, like a taut string. “Not now, alright?”
Rook always understood Vil better than Vil could understand himself. And this state of his queen quiet, detached worried him far more than open rage ever could.
“As you wish.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence, listening only to the rhythm of the wipers and the wheezing whisper of the rain.
At home it was warm, but the warmth felt artificial, like a hotel room. The apartment still felt like a stranger's. Expensive, secure, yet uninhabited empty to the point of a ringing in the ears. Vil removed his coat in silence, tossed it onto a chair without looking, placed his phone face down on the coffee table, and without a word, went into the bathroom, leaving Rook in the hallway. Hunt watched his shining Moon depart, whose sorrowful appearance cast a shadow over her perfect image, yet still made his heart beat with overflowing tenderness and fury: tenderness for him, and fury at the one who dared to extinguish that light.
Vil stood under a nearly scalding shower for a long time, until his skin began to redden and the air in the bathroom grew heavy with steam. Hot water had always helped before – it washed the tension from his muscles, cleared his thoughts. Today, it merely streamed down his shoulders, changing nothing. At some point, he heard the front door click shut, and he smirked sadly to himself. Well, it was hardly surprising. After the things he had said and that mindless cruelty. Perhaps he himself would have left, if he were Rook. Those photographs still floated before his eyes the fresh pictures, neatly pasted into Rook's album. As if someone had devoted time, attention, tenderness not to him, but to a past that belonged to someone else, a past that still stubbornly followed along. And the ugliest part was not even the jealousy; it was that the stalker had struck exactly where he needed to into the crack that Vil himself had carefully skirted, pretending it did not exist. He leaned his forehead against the tile, feeling its coolness against his hot skin, and closed his eyes.
When Vil came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a dark silk robe, his hair still damp and smelling of something floral and cold, the apartment was quiet. But the light in the entryway and the kitchen was on, casting long, trembling shadows on the floor.
Rook stood in the kitchen in a dark shirt with his sleeves rolled up. His hair, still slightly wet from the rain, clung to his temples; the shadows from the lamps sharpened his features. He looked tired but composed, like a blade that had just been sharpened. On the table stood two steaming cups, and on a beautiful plate lay several small desserts. Beside them was a bag from Vil’s favorite pâtisserie.
"I made tea and brought your favourite fleur d'oranger croissants," said Rook, and his voice sounded so domestic that Vil's throat tightened for a second. He looked at him for at this man who had recently received a slap from him, whom he had emotionally accused of betrayal, who should have been angry with him but instead had silently gone to fetch desserts and now stood here. And then Vil did something that Rook, despite all his phenomenal powers of observation, clearly did not expect: he walked up and hugged him. Him. First. Silently, he pressed his forehead into Rook's shoulder, into the curve between his neck and collarbone, where it smelled of rain and something familiar, warm, and singularly right. Rook froze for a fraction of a second. Vil Schoenheit did not initiate hugs – it was an unspoken law of their relationship, empirically derived over years of living together. He could allow himself to be hugged, could respond, could in rare moments of vulnerability move closer in his sleep. But to initiate contact himself was such a rare occurrence that it felt almost like a violation of the laws of physics.
Rook carefully wrapped his arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer, burying his nose in the damp hair.
"Mon chéri..." he whispered.
"Don't say anything." Vil's voice was quiet, muffled by the fabric of Rook's shirt. "Just... stand like this for a while."
Rook stood. He would have stood for an eternity if Vil had asked. A minute, two, perhaps five – neither of them counted. Somewhere far away, beyond the glass, the city lived its own life; neon signs blinked, rain flooded the dark streets, but here, in this bubble of warm light and silence, only the two of them existed. When Vil pulled back, his eyes were dry, but they held a weariness that does not come from simple lack of sleep.
"Neige was beautiful back then," Vil breathed out, looking somewhere past Rook, at the dark window where the rain was weaving a solid grey curtain. "He was... simpler. Softer. And I know perfectly well that you –"
"I was in love with an image back then," Rook interrupted very quietly but firmly. "With an idea. With something unattainable and one‑sided, that existed only in my imagination. It had nothing to do with what I felt for you – then or now."
He took Vil’s face in his palms, forcing him to look into his eyes.
“I do not love you simply because you are beautiful. Though you are breathtakingly so, and that is a separate trial of my own. I love you because you can appear cruel, yet never wish harm on anyone. Because you pretend not to care, yet only fall asleep if you hear my breathing beside you. Because you do not eat sweets, yet sometimes you yield and savor the taste anyway. Because you are the proudest and strongest person I know, and yet you stand before me, doubting yourself for such a monstrous, unfair reason.” Rook stroked Vil's cheekbone with his thumb. “And because it is you. Not someone before. Not someone after. You, my only star.”
Vil closed his eyes. The rain outside turned into a downpour, drumming against the glass with the monotony of a metronome; somewhere in the kitchen, the forgotten kettle began to hum softly. Then Vil opened his eyes and looked at Rook as if he had been holding on by his last thread.
"I feel pathetic," he said, almost in a whisper. "That's the most humiliating part. Not the stalking, not those damned photographs. But that some psycho wrote a few messages and here I am, standing here wondering if I'm good enough. He wants me to be afraid. But I'm not afraid of him, Rook. I'm afraid of what he's doing to me. This... this isn't me."
"You are still you." Rook kissed the top of his head, barely brushing his lips against the damp hair. "Fear does not make you weak. Fear is just a signal. It makes you alive."
“What poetic rubbish,”
Vil smirked, and lifted his head to meet Rook's gaze. So close that he could see every fine line that had appeared around his eyes over the years. "Thank you for being here. I'm not... it's hard for me to say things like this. You know that."
"I know." Rook ran his thumb along his cheekbone, tracing the perfect line. "And I don't need your words, mon roi. I only need you."
Vil closed his eyes. Rook's warm breath touched his lips – teasing, almost unbearably close, so that the distance between them disappeared, collapsed to zero.
"Then take me," Vil breathed out directly against his lips.
And Rook kissed him.
Slowly, languorously, with that tormenting, almost burning tenderness that made Vil feel, each time, like the last hope of a dying world. One of Rook’s hands buried itself in Vil’s hair, cupping the back of his head, while the other rested on the small of his back, drawing him closer, closer still, until there wasn't a millimeter left between their bodies.
Vil did not resist. He allowed himself to melt in those arms for the first time in days, weeks of absolute control. They moved toward the bedroom without breaking contact, never letting go for a second, and in those stumbling, blind steps there was something desperate, almost wild. As if letting go now would mean the nightmare waiting beyond the threshold would pounce, break through, and devour them.Rook lowered him onto the bed carefully, almost ceremonially, as one lays an offering on an altar. In the twilight of the bedroom, lit only by the flickers of streetlamps piercing through the rain, Vil seemed carved from moonstone pale, exquisite, with strands of hair scattered across the pillow. The sight of this tragic beauty took Rook’s breath away. Vil pulled him down, fingers clutching the fabric of Rook's shirt.
“Don’t let go,” he said hoarsely.
“I won’t.”
"Even if I behave disgustingly."
“Especially then.” Rook’s voice dropped to a low, vibrating whisper, and something dark and possessive surfaced within it. “I am prepared to know all of you, my beautiful Vil. To taste all your beauty, with its despair and its pain. Every facet. Every fracture. They are all mine.”
Vil tangled his fingers in Rook’s hair and pulled him closer. Their breaths mingled, and for several long minutes, nothing existed in the world but the warmth of hands and the quiet, nearly inaudible sounds they both usually stifled, but now finally allowed to escape. Rook moved slowly, carefully, with the concentrated tenderness of a musician playing an instrument he knew by heart. He kissed Vil's temple, the corner of his mouth, his closed eyelids, whispering fragments of phrases in French, sweet foolishness that would have sounded vulgar in any other language but from him, it seemed like a prayer. Vil arched toward him, his fingers digging into Rook's shoulders, and he pressed his forehead to Rook's, feeling him with his whole being from the inside. He hated losing control, but here, with Rook, losing control felt not like falling, but like flying. Every time, the same dizzying trust that he could not have given to any other living creature on earth.
"Regarde‑moi," Rook whispered, almost demandingly, and the darkness in his voice blended with tenderness into an explosive cocktail.
Vil opened his eyes.
They looked at each other, and in that gaze there was such nakedness, such absolute vulnerability, that no lens in the world could have captured it without destroying it. The rain lashed against the glass, shadows trembled on the walls, the city outside drowned in darkness but here, in this tangle of bodies and souls, its own unquenchable light burned.
"Rook..." Vil breathed out, and his voice broke on that single syllable, turned into a moan.
"Je suis là, mon amour. Je suis là."
Vil squeezed his eyes shut, and his body arched in one final, convulsive movement, then went limp, trembling and released. His fingers, which had been gripping Rook's shoulders, slowly loosened and slid to his face, cupping it like a chalice. Pulled him closer for a soft kiss almost chaste, full of gratitude.
They lay intertwined, damp, quiet. Vil did not let him go, pressed against him with his whole body. For the first time in days, weeks, months, his body finally belonged to him. Not to the audience, not to the cameras, not to the phantom observer in the darkness. Only to him and to this man, whose breath tickled his neck.
"Rook."
"Oui?"
"You're lying on my hair."
"Oh, pardon." Rook lifted himself up, freeing the long strands. Vil carefully gathered them, tossed them onto the pillow and then, quite unexpectedly, laughed. Quietly, sincerely, with that rare softness that transformed his face almost beyond recognition.
Rook looked at him with an expression that people wear when they have witnessed a miracle.
"Stop it," Vil said, trying to recover his usual expression, but the smile still lingered at the corners of his lips. "You're creepy staring."
"I adore you."
"That's not news."
"And yet every time it is true. The truest truth in the world."
Vil rolled his eyes, but moved closer, settling into the curve of Rook's body, laying his head on his chest so that he could hear his heartbeat. Rook pulled the blanket over both of them and began to absently stroke Vil's shoulder.
The film premiere is soon, and after that, I’m taking a vacation,” Vil said quietly, looking into the darkness where rain streaks danced against the window. “I want to go somewhere for a couple of weeks.”
“Where?”
“I don’t care. As long as there is no one there but us.”
Rook kissed the crown of his head.
“I know a place. A hunting lodge in Harveston. Stone walls, an old fireplace, forest for miles around. Not a living soul.”
“Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie.”
“It’s alright, there is nothing to fear. So close your eyes and trust me.”
Vil remained silent. Then, barely audible, he whispered:
“Reserve it”
That night, Vil slept soundly for the first time in two weeks. Rook lay beside him, embracing him from behind, his breathing steady even and warm a metronome marking out safety. Vil did not see how, a while later, the phone in the living room came alive.
The screen lit up in the darkness. Once. Then again. And again.
Rook did not move at first. Then carefully, millimetre by millimetre, he slipped out of bed so as not to disturb the sleeping Vil, and moved silently, as a hunter should, into the living room. The phone lay screen‑up, and the notifications flashed one after another. A hidden number. The messages came in succession, like a madman's pulse.
Unknown number: "Now you are dirty ."
Unknown number: "I will clean you of this traces."
Rook froze. His face became utterly blank. He scrolled further.
Unknown number: "Didn't you receive my gift? That bastard is not worthy of you! You must shine alone only then will you be truly beautiful."
Rook slowly lifted his gaze to the dark window, where the rain streamed down the glass like tears down a city's face. Then he looked at the front door locked, biometrics and alarm active, the blue light blinking steadily. No one could have physically entered. But this someone was already here inside the phone, inside their life, inside Vil's head.
This was no longer mere stalking. It was a methodical, calculated torture. And the intrusion into Vil's peaceful life, into the equilibrium he had rebuilt with such difficulty. It was a crime that Rook had no intention of forgiving. His face remained impassive, but deep in his green eyes a cold, calculating fire ignited.
A good hunter is obliged to protect the peace of his beloved. And all those guilty, who dared to harm his queen, would surely fall by his hand. He would find this person, wherever he hid in whatever digital or physical shadow he lurked.
The man silently turned off the sound.
The screen went dark.
Darkness returned to the room.