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Cronus is starved for touch, for attention.
Sweeps upon sweeps of cold-shouldering and neglect has made him desperate for any kind of contact, anything at all. It's both hilarious and sad, to watch him follow you around like a lost puppy, trying to give you space but too scared to let you out of his sight at the same time. It's like he's afraid you'll get sick of him, if he hangs around you all the time.
You can't think of anything less true.
The more time you spend around him, the more you learn, the more he lets you see. You discover parts of him you never knew existed, parts of him you know he's never let any one else set eyes upon, just because if he had, you don't think he would have been shunned near as much. He's just so… sweet.
You grimace. It's a stupid word to use, and it makes no fucking sense when used in context with Cronus of all people, but he is. He's sweet, he's awkward and graceless and just endearingly, falteringly affectionate. He tries too hard to make you stay when you had no plans on leaving in the first place, but you suppose he doesn't know that. Even if you do sign it to him every day, he has no reason to believe you. You'd left him once before, after all, abandoned him in the face of stress and danger, cast him aside to focus on people less infuriatingly complex and difficult to understand.
Because there's layers to him, layers upon layers upon layers that you have to continuously work to pry away because if you stop for even a second he starts piling them back on again. Loner, creep, otherkin, human, greaser, playboy, all one on top of the other until he's so buried in personalities and affectations that you're not even sure he knows who he is anymore.
But you've been working, working without stop, and you think you see more and more of him, of Cronus, every day. Small glimpses here and there, a genuine smile, a book left lying on your couch, a day without that nasty, sticky shit he slicks his hair back with. Little pieces of what you hope is him, really him and not just another layer because you are as red for him as red can be but you are sick of layers.
The only times you're sure you're looking at him, looking at the real Cronus, is when you're pailing and when you're just… touching. When you just sit on the couch with him in your lap, in your arms, and he purrs for you, humming in the strange, lyrical language you learn is sea dweller tongue, or when you curl up with him in your coon and feel the coolness of his skin pressed against yours, or when you lay together on your platform but don't go any further than just running your hands over every inch of him.
You know this is him, this touch starved, heartbreakingly pitiful wreck who soaks up any contact like it's the last he'll ever have. He craves it so much, more than anything else, just your hands on him, and you think that he'd take them in whatever form you decide to give. Somehow, the image of him submitting to your fists as easily as he submits to your lips is one of the most disturbing you've ever had the displeasure of dreaming up.
No, you don't want to cause him pain, you don't want to hurt him. You want to peel him apart layer by layer with kindness and pleasure, not violence. You want to expose his very essence, his very being, but you want to do it with soft touches and gentle hands, not fists and claws.
You press your stitches to his forehead, and he sighs and leans into the touch, fins twitching.
You're holding him in your arms, and he's sleeping soundly, unplagued by the nightmares you know haunt him when he tries to sleep anywhere else but here, with you. He thinks you don't know, but you do. You know what he sees almost almost every night, hideous, dark visions of hopelessness and suffering, and you know that he finds relief only in your grasp.
You've offered your coon and your comfort to him on multiple occasions, but he doesn't always accept. Sometimes, you wonder if he puts himself through the nightmares on purpose. If he thinks he has something to atone for. You don't know, and you refuse to ask.
Instead, you console him when you can, and you make sure he knows he is welcome here, with you. You try to make it clear that he always will be, but you aren't sure you've gotten it through to him yet.
He knows some sign language, the basics, enough to understand short sentences and simple ideas, but you've been teaching him how to read and sign the more difficult stuff. He honestly wants to learn, but for you, it's just another excuse to touch him, to mold his hands into the correct shape, to fold his fingers into words you know by heart, and teach him through example how you feel about him.
You run your hands over his face, tracing the shape of his lips, the bridge of his nose, the line of his brow and the thick, deep double waves carved into the side of his head. You know the scars still pain him on occasion, giving him unbearable headaches and fucking with his eyesight, and you rub the tips of your fingers against them lightly, letting your lips twitch up into the faintest smile when he murmurs your name in his sleep.
Physically, he is strong, capable of protecting and defending himself, and under different circumstances, you could see yourself as his rival, his match, his fated kismesis… but he's so emotionally fragile. He's so emotionally stupid. He's so used to being slighted and shunned that now, now that you've acknowledged him, now that you haven't ignored him and treated him like shit, he's attached himself to you and now you have the power to rip him apart, shatter him, with just a few words. Just one misplaced comment.
It's almost heady, sometimes, the amount of power you have over him, until you remember how utterly incapable you are of using it. You could never hurt him. You would never hurt him. He is too precious to you, to important to waste on such trivial things as satisfying your idle curiosity and seeing how little it takes to break him. You already know. You've been inside his mind, you've seen all the things he tries to hide, you've seen how utterly desperate he is for your love, for your attention, and it makes your chest ache with pity. It makes you curl around him even tighter, pressing every inch of his frame to yours, cradling him to your chest and wrapping his small body in a cocoon made of your limbs.
He murmurs your name again, soft, content, and nuzzles his head up under your chin. You rub your cheek against the top of his head and he relaxes, falling back into deep, untroubled sleep.
He trusts you so much. He trusts you with his body, with his mind, with everything he is, he gives it to you freely and trusts you not to wreck him, not to rend him to pieces with the knowledge you glean from your own short glimpses into his psyche. He trusts you to keep him safe, to keep him whole, to give him what he needs and not use his weaknesses against him, and that is almost as much of a rush as the power you could hold over him.
He trusts you.
He has let you see him at his weakest, when he wakes up in the middle of the night inconsolable, sobbing into the soft pillows littering your platform for reasons neither you nor he can explain. When he's curled up on the soft grass, picking out tunes on the instrument as dear to him as his very afterlife. When he's wracked with pain, unable to even open his eyes, he lets you in, lets you tend to him, care for him, and trusts you not to use it against him, hurt him.
And yet, he's still so afraid of fucking up. Of you leaving him. So afraid that every touch is the last, every brush of your fingers is the end, that every time you fuck it will be the cessation of your relationship. That you're just waiting for one mistake, one misstep, to throw him out, to toss him aside like a used toy. He responds to every touch like he's drowning and you're throwing him a life preserver, like you're a breath of fresh air in a room full of poisonous gas, and it hurts to see him so pitiful when you know part of it is your fault.
You try to make up for the sweeps of neglect by showering him in affection, and it seems to work. He stops acting like you're going to hit him, anyways, but you're not sure if the clinging is any better, because it still means he's scared of you.
He's still scared of you, scared of you leaving him, scared of you deciding he isn't good enough even though you never will. You love him too much to let him go, too much to ever let anyone else have him. He's yours, all yours and no one else's.
He trusts you and he's scared of you and he needs you so, so much.
He needs you almost as much as you need him.
You rub your horns against his, and he croons in his strange seadweller tongue, hands tangled in your shirt.
You need him just as much, if not more, than he needs you, because he's filled a hole in your heart you didn't even know you had. Now that you're aware of it, now that you've felt it plugged, you don't think you could handle ripping it open again. He's necessary, desired, yours, and you refuse to let him go.
You allow your eyes to fall shut and just listen to his breathing, the soft little sounds he makes in his sleep, the little bubble-wheeze of air through his gills, and you're soothed, calmed by the noise. By him, his presence, his existence, his body pressed against yours, his cool weight in your arms.
You hold him close and allow yourself to be lulled to sleep by the sounds of your matesprit simply being.