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Thaumo was at a serious crossroads in his relationship with you, and it was about time he admitted that.
At first, he felt complete, the long search to find his salvation was finally over. Sure, there would be frequent times when his overwhelming need for attention and affection from you would never be satisfied, there just weren’t that many hours in the day. But… he had you, he belonged to you. Everything was perfect, wasn’t it?
The only things Thaumo truly wanted out of life were two things: to love, and to be loved. Nothing else mattered after that.
Well… he still loved you, of course, that was never going to be the issue. Ever. Lately, he was just getting a nagging feeling that you didn’t quite see life the way he did, which was fine, you didn’t have to. You truly don’t need to understand anything about him.
On a purely basic level, he understood your priorities. In a way. You had a job, you had an apartment and you had friends. He had all of those things too, minus the friends part, but it just wasn’t the same.
All of those things, to him, were in the service of something greater. He had a job at Orca Finance to find you and conveniently have a reason to follow you at work, he had an apartment right next to yours so that he could see you and bump into you everyday, whether it was convenient for you or not. He even just barely managed to at least hide his violent demeanour around your friends, but you always rewarded him for it.
And so, it was all worth it in the end.
But… you didn’t do that. You weren’t like him. You had all those things because you simply liked them as they were, they weren’t a stepping stone for you. There was no greater goal with you. You showed up at work because you liked your job, you returned to your apartment because you liked your apartment…
You showed up for your friends because you liked your friends.
Nalis and Tremo weren’t an obligation to you, at least not in the way they were for him. Everything else was an obligation to him, except for you of course.
But eventually he started to realise that he was that one obligation.
He was your obligation.
You didn’t like him. He was your stepping stone.
After about a solid… five hours of tears maybe? Thaumo cradled you tightly in his arms again, his hands resting behind your head in order to properly pull you into him. You were sleeping right now, and so he didn’t want to wake you, no matter how much he really needed you when his thoughts got like this. He wasn’t going to hear any soothing words leave your lips, no matter how simple they were. So he would just have to comfort himself by squeezing your body as tightly as he could, without waking you in the process.
It was really starting to bother him though.
When you first met him again, he already knew that he was bound to confess everything way too quickly. He just couldn’t lie to you, at least not for very long. He didn’t want to either. What was the point of being loved if it wasn’t at least tiny little fractions of the real him that you were loving?
It was, admittedly, a complete relief when you found him in the alley. If you hadn’t seen that, the pretending would’ve been pure torture for him. Having to act as if it didn’t practically rip him in half whenever you politely excused yourself from his presence. Even if that incident made things a little harder in the weeks that followed, it was ultimately easier.
Just like he wanted to, he spilled everything for you.
It wasn’t the first time you’d met, he had a deep pit inside of him that needed to be filled with any love you would offer, and also he was desperate enough to follow you for more than a decade in order to jump at the chance.
He decides to take a break from his thoughts, for only a moment. God, you’re so beautiful. So beautiful that it hurts. So still and peaceful, even with him wrapped entirely around every part of you that he could get his hands on. Your arms lay limp at your sides.
You had told him once that you didn’t need to hug him back, that there was no point in it since he already covered your entire body all by himself. According to you, he had what he wanted apparently, so why was he complaining? It didn’t make sense to him, even if he technically had done what he wanted to do, that isn’t what mattered. He offers his love and he is met with nothing but indifference. As if you could take it or leave it, and remain unchanged. Take his three hearts, observe them individually, then drop them all. Carelessly, by your feet.
He loved you, more than anything, but that hurt.
Thaumo didn’t just want to love you. He didn’t just want for you to let him.
He wanted you to love him too.
“What is so wrong with me?” He sobs, rubbing his cheek against your scalp the way that a cat would. A shaky breath leaves him as he melts into your torso again, the uncontrollable mass of tears flow down his face and soak into your clothes.
“Why can’t anyone love me? Not even you?”