Archive of Our Own

Oliver Bearman is a human weeping willow.

To be fair, Kimi is also a crier. They are both dramatic, though in different fonts. And the problem is that they operate in mutually empathetic resonance. A doomed feedback loop.

If they have a genuine argument, which is rare, it is usually catastrophic and involves a lot of slamming doors plus aggressive dishwashing. Ollie will inevitably be the first to fold. His face will crumble, his shoulders will hunch forward, and tears will track down his cheek.

The moment Kimi sees those tears, his rage is instantly extinguished, replaced by a crushing wave of guilt.

Seeing Ollie cry makes Kimi cry.

And when Kimi cries, Ollie’s own guilt multiplies. So Ollie then cries harder, which, in turn, makes Kimi sob even harder, because his boyfriend is in distress.

Within minutes, the argument is completely forgotten, and they are stuck in the feedback loop of purgatory. They will collapse onto the living room rug, clutching and weeping into each other’s shoulders like two sinners during the rapture, apologizing for things they didn't even do.

The loop only breaks if one of them gets a headache first and decides to order takeout.

But Kimi can confidently state that Ollie cries more often.

Ollie is so… in touch with his emotions. Which makes him insanely attractive. He is a man who walks through life with his heart exposed, bleeding over the slightest provocation.

It started with the TikToks.

They were lying in bed. Kimi was reading, and Ollie was mindlessly scrolling through his phone, resting his heavy head against Kimi’s tummy. Suddenly, Kimi felt a rhythmic hitching against his stomach. He looked down to find Ollie’s dark eyes swimming with tears, his lower lip trembling violently as he stared at the glowing screen.

"Oliver, what is wrong?" Kimi asked, immediately dropping his book, his heart rate spiking with panic.

Ollie sniffled pathetically and turned the screen toward Kimi.

On the screen was a highly saturated video of a tiny, shivering puppy abandoned in the rain, which was then rescued by a passing motorist.

"Look at him, Kimi," Ollie choked out. "He was so cold."

Kimi squinted at the screen.

“Oliver," Kimi said flatly. "Look at the dog’s fuckass paw. It is AI slop. It does not exist."

"Don’t say that!” Ollie wailed, burying his face into Kimi’s clothed abdomen, immune to logic, mourning for the cold fictional dog that had been generated in a server farm somewhere.

Then, there was the breakfast incident.

Ollie had mentioned, offhandedly, in a moment of homesickness, that he missed a proper homemade English breakfast. Kimi physically cringed at the concept of a can of beans being “homemade.” But for love, Kimi dragged himself out of bed at seven on a Sunday to recreate the plate of abomination.

Kimi stood in their tiny kitchen, heated up baked beans from a tin, fried unseasoned eggs until the yolks were hard, and burned thick slabs of bacon in a pool of oil. He plated the disaster alongside a piece of butter-drenched toast, feeling as though his ancestors were weeping from the heavens.

He carried the plate into the bedroom and placed it on Ollie’s nightstand.

Ollie woke up to the smell. He blinked the sleep from his eyes, looked at the plate of beige food, and then looked up at Kimi, eyes immediately filled to the brim.

"You made this for me?" Ollie whispered, his voice cracking horribly.

"I just assembled it," Kimi muttered, embarrassed by his own act of service. "The beans are from a can, Oliver."

Ollie didn't eat it immediately. He pulled Kimi down by the waist, buried his face into Kimi’s stomach, and actively wept into Kimi’s sleeping shirt, overwhelmed by the effort his boyfriend had made to give him a taste of home. Kimi stood there, awkwardly patting Ollie’s shaking back.

There were also the childhood pictures.

Kimi’s mother had sent a Google Drive link of restored photo albums. Kimi was scrolling through them on his laptop in the living room when Ollie walked up behind the couch.

Ollie stopped dead. He stared at a photo of a five year old Kimi Antonelli, a blonde mop of hair bigger than his whole head, missing a front tooth, and holding a half-melted gelato cone on a sunny beach in Italy.

"Oh my god," Ollie gasped.

Kimi turned around to see Ollie’s massive hands fly up to cover his mouth, his dark eyes instantly shining with fresh tears.

"Ollie, please," Kimi groaned, slamming the laptop shut. "It is a photograph of a child eating ice cream."

"You were so small," Ollie sobbed, stepping around the couch to pry open the laptop. With his face so close to the screen, he gasped, "You were so tiny, my precious. Look at your little knees! Were they scraped, Bambi? I wasn't there to protect your little knees!”

Kimi does not know how to process the volume of Ollie’s feelings. So, he pokes Ollie’s tear-stained cheeks, calls him a giant baby, and occasionally takes unflattering photos of Ollie’s face to use as blackmail leverage. It defuses the tension, grounds Ollie in reality, and protects Kimi’s own fragile emotional borders.

But as of late, something has shifted.

Just last night, while sitting on the couch watching Ollie weep over the ending of an incredibly mediocre romantic comedy, Kimi came to a terrifying realization.

Oliver Bearman is a pretty crier.

Kimi had been preparing to make a sarcastic comment about the predictable ending, but when he turned to look at his boyfriend, the words completely died in his throat.

When most people cry, it is an ugly affair. Himself included. He knows for a fact that he looks like a drowned angry rat.

But when Ollie cries, it’s a beautiful play in contrast.

Physically, Ollie is imposing. But when he cries, his skin develops a soft flush high up on his cheekbones. The tip of his nose turns a faint shade of pink, and the final blow is his eyes.

Ollie has impossibly long eyelashes, and when they get wet, they clump together into dark, heavy spikes that frame his eyes like a painting of a tragic saint. His dark brown irises, usually so warm and puppy-like, become glassy and impossibly bright, swimming in a pool of unshed tears that catch the light of the living room TV.

And his mouth. Ollie has a bad habit of biting his lower lip to stop it from trembling when he’s overwhelmed. It causes his mouth to pull into this soft pout that betrays his physical size.

And right now, Kimi didn't want to laugh. He didn't want to mock him. He didn't even particularly want to console him.

Oh my god, Kimi thought as he watched Ollie quietly sniffle and wipe his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. I like it.

It was a horrifying epiphany. Kimi was a monster. He was a sociopath. Every time Ollie cried over something Kimi did, or something Kimi showed him, it was an intoxicating injection straight into Kimi’s ego. It was visual proof that this man was completely, helplessly soft, and entirely at Kimi’s mercy.

The descent into moral depravity does not happen overnight. It is a slow, insidious slide, paved with good intentions and the intoxicating thrill of power.

Once Kimi discovered that he held the remote control to Oliver Bearman’s tear ducts, he simply could not stop pressing the button. It was an addiction. Kimi had become a psychological tear-farmer, and boy was the crop bountiful.

He didn't orchestrate relationship-shattering arguments. He would never actually do anything to genuinely hurt Ollie. Instead, Kimi began deploying small, “ethical” micro-manipulations, weaving them seamlessly into their daily domestic routine.

And this time, to be fair, the purchase itself was not born of ill intentions. When Kimi saw the item sitting on the vendor’s folding table, he had not bought it specifically to make Ollie cry. He had seen it, recognized the immense joy it would bring to his golden-retriever boyfriend, and genuinely wanted to buy it for him. It was in the name of romance.

But the delivery... well. He understood the impact of narrative framing. Why simply hand over a gift when he could construct a tragic monologue around it?

Ollie was sitting on the floor, his broad back leaning heavily against the couch between Kimi’s knees. Kimi’s long fingers carded rhythmically through Ollie’s hair, enjoying the comforting weight of Ollie leaning against him.

It was the perfect environment for farming.

"Oliver," Kimi murmured, his voice soft, keeping his tone perfectly level so as not to betray his diabolical intentions.

"Mm?" Ollie hummed lazily, his eyes already slipping shut under the soothing rhythm of Kimi’s hands.

"I was at the vintage market today," Kimi said, his fingers gently massaging the tense muscles at the base of Ollie’s thick neck. "Between classes. Just killing time."

"Did you find anything nice?" Ollie mumbled, leaning his head back further into Kimi’s lap, completely unguarded.

"I did," Kimi said. He paused, letting the silence stretch just long enough to build the narrative tension. "I found the 1994 Italian national team warm-up jacket. The exact blue one I have been trying to track down online for seven months. Mint condition."

Ollie’s eyes fluttered open. He tilted his heavy head back to look at Kimi upside down, a bright, deeply supportive smile breaking across his face. "Bambi, that's brilliant! Did you buy it? Show me!"

"I didn't buy it," Kimi said smoothly.

Ollie frowned, his thick eyebrows pulling together in genuine confusion. "Why not? You’ve been talking about that jacket since October. Was it too expensive? I could have transferred you some money, Kimi. You know I don't mind."

"It wasn't the money," Kimi said softly. He trailed his fingers down from Ollie’s hair to trace the sharp line of Ollie’s jaw. "It was because there was a ceramic stall. And right in the center, next to the teapots..."

Kimi slowly reached down beside the sofa, his fingers wrapping around the crinkling plastic of a shopping bag. He pulled it up, reached inside, and withdrew the object, holding it out in the space between them.

"...was Percy Pig."

Ollie’s breath hitched violently.

Hook

Ollie stared at the mug. It was large, pink, with the tail as a handle, and featured the cheerful, cartoonish face of the iconic British gummy candy. It was completely stupid to Kimi. But to Oliver Bearman, it was a precious relic.

Ollie slowly brought his hands up. He took the pink mug from Kimi’s grasp, holding it so gently, so preciously. He cradled the little ceramic pig ears between his palms, his dark eyes wide and fixated on the smiling snout.

"I only had enough cash on me for one of the items," Kimi continued, his voice dropping into an intimate register. "And the stall owner didn't take cards."

"Kimi," Ollie whispered. The glassy sheen was already beginning to pool rapidly over his dark irises.

"And I realized," Kimi said, delivering the final blow to Ollie’s fragile emotional state, "that I could wear the jacket and look cool for a few weeks. But if I bought the mug... you could drink your milk out of it every single morning. And every time you look at his little pink face, you would feel at home."

Line

Kimi watched with the likeness of a mad scientist as Ollie’s internal emotional dam began to fracture.

Ollie tried so incredibly hard not to cry. He really did. Kimi watched the brutal internal war wage across Ollie’s face.

Ollie swallowed thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing sharply in his throat. He took a deep, shuddering breath in through his nose, expanding his massive chest in a desperate attempt to physically contain the overwhelming surge of devotion. He squeezed his eyes shut for three seconds, biting down so hard on his lower lip that the skin turned entirely white, trying to physically punish the tears back. He even tilted his head up toward the ceiling, praying to gravity to keep the moisture inside his eyes.

But the gravity of Kimi’s fabricated sacrifice was simply too much for his heart to bear.

The dam spectacularly collapsed.

Sinker

It was instantaneous. The soft pink flush bloomed high and bright on Ollie’s cheekbones. His eyelashes fluttered rapidly, clumping together into heavy, wet spikes as the tears welled up, entirely overflowing the rims of his eyes.

"You- you didn't buy the jacket?" Ollie choked out.

"I brought Percy home, Oliver," Kimi said softly, offering a sad, incredibly brave little smile.

Ollie let out a broken sob. He abandoned his position on the floor, scrambling upright and taking extreme care not to drop the mug. He set Percy securely on the coffee table, then threw his massive arms around Kimi’s waist. He buried his face directly into the crook of Kimi’s neck, completely crushing Kimi back against the couch cushions.

"You are the best thing that has ever happened to me," Ollie wept, his body physically shuddering, his tears actively soaking into the collar of Kimi’s shirt. "You gave up your jacket for Percy. I love you so much, Bambi. I don't deserve you. I'm going to drink his milk every single day."

Kimi winced. "Okay now." Kimi lay there, entirely pinned beneath a sobbing, emotionally destroyed titan of a man.

He let Ollie weep into his collarbone for a few seconds before gently pushing back against the giant's broad shoulders, forcing Ollie to lift his head.

Because here’s the thing about Kimi’s newly developed addiction: The Consolation.

Kimi adjusted his posture, with the grace of a benevolent deity, and reached up to cup Ollie’s tear-streaked face.

Kimi loved the physical sensation of consoling Oliver. He loved the contrast of his slender fingers pressing against the cut of Ollie’s jaw. He loved the way Ollie’s eyes fluttered shut as he leaned his heavy head into Kimi’s palm, seeking the warmth like a starved animal. Kimi traced the soft, pink flush high on Ollie’s cheekbones with his thumb, catching the tears before they fell, whispering sweet, grounding reassurances while internally basking in the symphony of his dark orchestra.

It's power trip in its purest form.

He wrapped his arms securely around Ollie’s broad, shaking shoulders once more, pulling him back down to press his face into Ollie’s hair. He inhaled the scent of cedarwood and let out a quiet sigh of satisfaction.

He had the Percy Pig mug. He had the highs of consoling his boyfriend’s beautiful tears. He had also secretly put the 1994 jacket on hold and paid for it via a bank transfer, securing both items with zero actual sacrifice.

But Ollie didn't need to know that.

If Oliver Bearman was going to be this impossibly pretty when he cried, then Kimi Antonelli was going to continue giving him beautifully petty, meticulously crafted reasons to do it.

But a habit, left unchecked, eventually becomes an unconscious reflex. And that was where Kimi made his fatal error. He got sloppy and deployed his tactics in front of an active audience.

It was a Thursday afternoon. The plumbing in Flat 3B had decided to combust, sending a geyser of rusty water out of their shower drain. While Liam was frantically attempting to negotiate with the building’s absent property manager over the phone, Arvid had simply packed up his art supplies, walked across the hallway, and silently claimed the corner of Kimi and Ollie’s living room sofa.

Kimi didn't mind. He had realized that Arvid was essentially a very large, very intelligent, incredibly low-maintenance house cat. Arvid didn't require entertaining. He didn't make small talk. He just sat on the cushions, entirely absorbed in his charcoal sketches.

Ollie, meanwhile, had just returned from a long session at the university gym. He was showered, dressed in a soft pair of sweatpants, and craving sugar. Which brought them to the current crisis in the kitchen.

Kimi and Ollie were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the open freezer. There were exactly two pints of ice cream left.

One was an artisanal pistachio gelato. It was Kimi’s absolute favorite, but Ollie also adored it. The other pint was a heavily frostbitten, half-empty tub of generic lemon sorbet that had been lingering in the back of the freezer since forever.

The problem was this: It had been Kimi’s turn to do the grocery shopping yesterday. A task that Kimi had completely forgotten. By all laws of domestic fairness, Kimi had forfeited his right to the premium gelato. He should have taken the sad lemon sorbet and accepted his punishment.

But Kimi really wanted the pistachio.

Ollie reached his massive hand out, hovering hesitantly over the pistachio pint. He looked down at Kimi, his dark eyes wide and accommodating. "Did you want this one, Bambi? I can have the lemon."

Ollie was offering. He was being a gentleman. But Kimi could see the quiet, lingering disappointment in Ollie’s expression. Ollie wanted the pistachio.

Normally, Kimi would have just engaged in a debate before ultimately taking the pistachio anyway, because he was spoiled. But Kimi’s brain, after being overexposed to hit after hit of dopamine rushes, instinctively bypassed logic and opted for a subtle micro-manipulation.

It was just a gentle, calculated tug on Ollie’s heartstrings, a way to secure the ice cream while simultaneously making Ollie feel like a heroic provider. Kimi found the burst of protective affection overwhelmingly cute. And so-

Kimi let out a soft sigh.

He reached out and placed his hand gently over Ollie’s wrist, physically stopping him from grabbing the sorbet.

"No, Oliver," Kimi murmured, his voice dropping into a register of sweet martyrdom. He looked up at Ollie, softening his eyes into wide pools of resignation. "You take the pistachio. You had a grueling session at the gym today. Your muscles require the high-quality macros."

Ollie frowned, eyebrows pulling together. "But... it's your favorite. And you had that awful thesis session today with Mr. Russell."

"Do not speak of that Detroit Become Human Android,” Kimi cut in, shivering at the thought of those dead blue eyes condescendingly telling him that ‘-this phrasing here, Mr. Antonelli, is a bit too enthusiastic’.

“But yeah, it was so, so hard," Kimi agreed, looking down at the frosty shelf. He reached out and delicately picked up the tragic tub of lemon sorbet. "I was actually daydreaming about this pistachio gelato all through his session. It was the only thing getting me through the afternoon, aside from imagining hanging George Russell by the back of his stupid turtleneck over the Thames.”

Ollie’s breath hitched slightly. His golden-retriever instincts were immediately activated. "Bambi-"

"But," Kimi interrupted gently with a sad little smile. "It is my own fault. It was my turn to restock the freezer yesterday. I am a terrible, forgetful partner. I will eat the sorbet. It is a fitting punishment."

It was flawless. Kimi wasn't demanding anything, he was punishing himself, which Kimi knew for a fact, was the one thing Oliver Bearman physically could not tolerate.

Ollie’s eyes softened into a puddle of devotion. The idea of Kimi, his beautiful, stressed-out boyfriend, eating freezer-burned sorbet as a form of self-punishment over a minor grocery error was simply too much for his heart to bear.

"You are not a terrible partner!" Ollie gasped, genuinely distressed by the accusation. He snatched the lemon sorbet out of Kimi’s hands and shoved it back of the freezer. He grabbed the pistachio gelato and pressed it firmly against Kimi’s chest.

"Oliver, I couldn't-" Kimi protested weakly, looking up through his eyelashes.

"You are taking the pistachio," Ollie ordered, his voice thick with overwhelming affection. "You work so hard, Bambi. You had to sit through a psychological torture session with your advisor today. What did you call it? The weekly descent into the ninth circle of academic hell?"

"It was a program review, Oliver, but yes," Kimi sighed, "George Russell is an android sent from Oxford to destroy my self-esteem."

"Exactly!" Ollie said fiercely, his protective instincts entirely overriding his sweet tooth. "You survived the android today! Eat the gelato. Please."

"Are you sure?" Kimi whispered, tilting his head slightly, projecting an aura of innocent hesitation. "We both wanted it."

"I don't even want it!" Ollie lied unconvincingly. Then, a determined light sparked in his dark eyes. He suddenly backed away from the freezer, vibrating with newfound purpose. "Actually, don't even worry about it. I'll just run to the corner store!"

"Right now?" Kimi asked, suppressing the victorious smile threatening to break across his face.

"Yes!" Ollie was already turning around, stumbling clumsily over his own large feet as he scrambled toward the entryway. He grabbed his wallet off the counter while attempting to shove his massive feet into a pair of unlaced sneakers. "I'll get another pint! I'll get three pints! Just sit down and eat your pistachio, Kimi! I'll be back in ten minutes! Wait for me, okay, darling?"

"Okay, Oliver," Kimi called out softly. "Be safe."

"I will!" Ollie yelled, ripping the front door open. "And when I get back, you can sit on my lap and tell me what a pretentious, passive-aggressive dictator Mr. Russell is! We can roast his stupid quiff and fountain pen for an hour!"

He bounded out into the hallway, overflowing with the frantic need to provide for his perfectly capable boyfriend. “Don't miss me too much!”

The front door clicked shut.

Kimi stood in front of the open freezer, holding his premium pistachio gelato. He closed the freezer door with his hip and allowed a soft, self-satisfied little smirk to bloom across his face. He felt powerful. He felt cherished. Ollie stumbling over his own shoelaces to buy him more dessert was the cutest thing Kimi had ever seen.

Humming a quiet, cheerful tune, Kimi turned around to walk back into the living room.

He froze.

Sitting on the far end of the sofa, was Arvid.

Arvid’s sketch paper was resting flat on his lap. The piece of charcoal was hovering idly between his long fingers. He was no longer working. He was staring directly at Kimi.

Arvid’s dark eyes were unreadable, but they possessed a sharpcalculating intensity that completely shattered the sleepy illusion he usually projected. He looked like an apex predator observing a particularly fascinating, highly toxic insect.

Kimi felt a sudden spike of panic drop into the pit of his stomach.

"What," Arvid started, "was that."

Kimi took a defensive step backward, crossing his arms tightly over his chest, using the pint of pistachio gelato as a physical shield. His cheeks flared up to protect his exposed ego.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," Kimi deflected. His voice was clipped, vibrating with highly defensive energy.

Arvid did not blink. He tilted his head a fraction of an inch to the side. He didn't raise his voice. He just delivered his analysis calmly.

"I have been sitting here for forty-five minutes," Arvid stated slowly, "You two could’ve shared the pint. You have spoons. That performance was completely unnecessary."

"Don’t judge our love language!" Kimi hissed, his eyes darting toward the front door as if Ollie might suddenly reappear.

"I didn’t," Arvid replied, entirely unfazed. "I’m just pointing out that you have just manipulated your boyfriend into abandoning the flat to run an errand."

"I am not a manipulator!" Kimi insisted, though his voice lacked its usual commanding authority. "Oliver loves doing errands! And I adore him! I worship the ground his massive uncoordinated feet walk upon!”

Arvid squinted. He leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on his knees.

Arvid probed, "You didn't just want the pistachio, Kimi. You could have asked for it, and he would have surrendered it immediately. But you didn't ask. Instead, you played the martyr. You purposefully induced guilt. Why? What did you gain from watching his face fall?"

Kimi’s mouth opened. He tried to formulate a defense, a brilliant piece of rhetoric to justify his actions, but his brain completely stalled.

"I..." Kimi stammered. He looked down at the gelato in his hand. He looked back at Arvid. The defenses were crumbling. The truth was bubbling up, "He just... his face."

"His face," Arvid prompted flatly.

"It is not my fault his face does that!" Kimi suddenly burst out, his hands flying up in frantic exasperation, nearly dropping the ice cream.

The weeks of moral dilemma and mounting pressure exploded unstoppably. "Have you seen him?! Have you looked at him when he is sad?! He is massive, Arvid! But when he gets upset, his eyelashes clump together! His nose gets pink! He does this... this devastating little pout! Is it a crime to appreciate aesthetics?!"

Arvid stared at him. The silence stretched for three agonizing seconds.

"Aha," Arvid drawled softly, sitting back against the cushions. "So you’re a sadist."

"I am not!"

"You like the visual payoff of his distress. You were edging him just now. Emotionally."

Kimi froze.

The words echoed in his skull, bouncing against the walls of his consciousness with the devastating force of a wrecking ball. He visualized the last three weeks. He saw the Percy Pig mug. He saw the soft, vulnerable puddle of devotion Ollie melted into every single time Kimi expertly pressed the button.

Okay, Kimi’s internal monologue whispered, a quiet, terrified realization finally dawning in the utter darkness of his psyche. Fuck. He is right.

Kimi’s knees suddenly buckled. The illusion of his own righteousness, his carefully constructed identity as a benevolent romantic partner, shattered into a million pieces across the hardwood floor.

He stumbled forward, crossing the living room in three frantic strides, abandoning the pistachio gelato on the coffee table, and collapsed onto his knees in front of Arvid’s sofa.

Arvid didn't flinch. He just looked down at Kimi, his impossibly long eyelashes casting dark shadows over his sharp cheekbones.

"Arvid," Kimi whispered, his voice trembling with genuine panic. He reached out, fingers hovering just inches from the sleeve of Arvid’s oversized grey sweater, desperate for salvation, for a cure to his own twisted neuroses. "Arvid, please."

"I am not a priest," Arvid murmured, his tone lethargic and entirely devoid of mercy. "Do not confess to me."

"I am sick," Kimi hissed, his dark eyes wide and terrified, staring up at the man. "I am sick in the head. You are right. I am a toxic behavioral addict. I am a monster."

"You just have a superiority complex and a severe lack of impulse control," Arvid corrected dryly.

"No, you don't understand the depth of my insanity!" Kimi wailed, grabbing the edge of the sofa cushion, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the fabric. "It started with a Percy Pig mug at a vintage market! I constructed a fictional sacrifice to make him cry, and I liked it, Arvid!”

Arvid let out a long, exhausted sigh, sounding exactly like a man who was deeply regretting his decision to seek plumbing refuge in the flat across the hall.

"Arvid, please help me," Kimi begged, staring up at his stoic neighbor. "You understand the brain! You understand molecules and synapses and stuff! What is wrong with my wiring?! Do I need to be institutionalized? Arvid, tell me the truth..."

Kimi swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a terrified, desperate whisper.

"...do I need therapy?"

Arvid blinked slowly. He looked at Kimi’s panicked face, and with casual apathy, Arvid shrugged.

"I don't know, mate," Arvid murmured, his tone entirely devoid of the gravity the situation demanded.

Kimi’s jaw dropped. The sheer anticlimax of the response hit him like a physical blow.

"What do you mean, you don't know?! You just deconstructed my entire psyche! You called me a toxic behavioral addict!"

"I made an observation based on available data," Arvid corrected lazily, picking at a stray piece of charcoal dust on his thumb. "I cannot diagnose you. You asked if you needed therapy. I said I don't know."

"But I am a monster!" Kimi insisted, refusing to be denied his tragic villain arc. "I just purposefully induced a state of emotional distress in the man I love for my own gratification! I am sick! I am twisted!"

Arvid rested his chin on his hand, watching Kimi’s rapid-fire emotional oscillation with the mild curiosity of someone watching a tennis match.

"I just... I just love him vulnerable with me," Kimi pleaded, his voice dropping into a whisper. He was trying to articulate the chaotic depth of his own heart. "You have seen him. He walks through the world and people expect him to be strong. But he isn't. And when I press that button... He just melts into me. He trusts me enough to fall apart. Is it so terrible that I want to see that? Is it a crime to want to hold his cute little face and know that I am the only person on earth who gets to see him that soft?"

"Okay," Arvid repeated, leaning forward slightly, "You want him vulnerable."

Kimi nodded frantically, incredibly relieved that someone finally understood his dark, poetic genius. "Exactly. It’s about trust."

"But," Arvid interjected, holding up a finger, stopping Kimi’s vindication dead in its tracks. "How would you know?"

Kimi frowned, his dark eyebrows knitting together. "How would I know what?"

"How would you know you aren't manipulating him for bigger things?" Arvid asked.

Kimi froze.

"Right now," Arvid continued, "it's a jacket. It's a pint of pistachio gelato. It is, as you say, harmless. But you have conditioned him to associate your distress with his own emotional release. You have proven that you can make him do exactly what you want simply by adjusting your voice."

Arvid tilted his head, his dark eyes locking onto Kimi’s terrified expression.

"So," Arvid said, dropping the hammer. "If you ever actually needed him to do something massive. If you ever needed him to abandon a friend, or drop a class, or move to a different country... you already know exactly how to make him think it was his own idea to sacrifice it for you. You'll want to test the limits of your control. And that... would be entirely fucked up. Which is too bad. Ollie’s a good guy."

Kimi stopped breathing.

The blood roared in his ears. The horrific truth of Arvid’s hypothesis painted a terrifying portrait of the future. Arvid was right. It was a slippery slope. The power was too intoxicating, rush too addictive. Today it was ice cream. Tomorrow, it could be the complete, systematic isolation of Oliver Bearman from the outside world. Kimi Antonelli was a supervillain in the making.

Kimi stared at the floorboards, his chest heaving.

"I have to leave him," Kimi whispered, his voice trembling. "For his own good. I have to pack my bags and disappear into the night before I destroy his life."

Arvid let out a loud groan.

"Man, what the fuck do I know," Arvid declared. "I make fuzzy rugs for fun. I am not Sigmund Freud."

Kimi snapped his head up, experiencing a violent case of emotional whiplash. "What?"

"I’m just playing devil's advocate," Arvid said, waving a dismissive hand. "You are highly strung. Oliver is a codependent golden retriever. You two are disgustingly obsessed with each other. You aren't going to turn into a manipulative sociopath, because the second you actually hurt him, you will spontaneously combust."

Kimi blinked, his brain completely short-circuiting. "Then why did you say all of that?!"

"Because it’s fun to watch you spiral," Arvid admitted with a deadpan delivery. "You like edging your boyfriend emotionally. I like edging you intellectually. We all have our hobbies."

Kimi’s mouth fell open, speechless. He had just been out-manipulated by a fucking rug maker.

"However," Arvid continued, "if you are genuinely concerned about your new tear-farming addiction, there is a practical solution."

"What?" Kimi asked warily.

"Just tell him," Arvid shrugged.

"Tell him?!" Kimi shrieked, scrambling up from his knees and sitting back on his heels. "Are you insane?! He would be horrified! He would think I am a psychopath!"

"Eh, he wouldn't," Arvid shrugged mildly, grabbing his sketchbook. "He would probably just cry about the fact that you find his red nose cute. He is weird like that."

Kimi paused. He considered this. It was probable.

"But," Arvid went on, his voice dropping into a low, completely casual register, as if he were discussing the weather rather than delivering a nuclear payload of relationship advice. "If you tell him you like it when he cries... maybe he can just cry for you in other ways."

Kimi frowned, tilting his head. "Other ways? Like what? Cutting onions? Watching documentaries about the Titanic?"

Arvid finally stopped sketching and slowly looked up. He met Kimi’s deeply confused, innocent gaze.

"Pleasure can also make some people cry, Kimi," Arvid murmured.

The words hung in the air.

Kimi’s brain processed the syllables. It connected the concept of 'pleasure' with the concept of 'tears,' and applied it directly to the physical form of Oliver Bearman.

Kimi’s brain went completely blank.

He was suggesting that Kimi could achieve the exact same aesthetic result, the flushed cheeks, the glassy, blown-out eyes, the desperate, needy whining, the complete and total physical surrender, by utilizing the privacy of their own bedroom and pushing Oliver right over the edge of physical ecstasy.

Arvid said, “Edge him.”

Kimi let out a sound that is so high-pitched, akin to a strangled mouse.

"I- you- we are NOT like- like that!" Kimi stammered, his hands flying up to cover his whole body.

Arvid chuckled. It was a sound of pure amusement. He snapped his sketchbook closed, tucked his piece of charcoal into his pocket, and stood up from the sofa.

"I'm going to go check if Liam has stopped the flooding," Arvid announced, stretching his long arms over his head. "I don't know, bye. Good luck with the gelato."

Arvid turned and began to shuffle toward the front door, his heavy combat boots dragging slightly against the hardwood.

"Wait," Kimi called out, his voice sharp and demanding.

Arvid paused, his hand on the doorknob. He looked back over his shoulder.

"How would you know?" Kimi asked, his voice dropping to a cautious, highly suspicious whisper.

Arvid simply tilted his head. He looked Kimi dead in the eye, and with a voice so casual, he dropped the final bomb of the afternoon.

"Liam’s a crier," Arvid said.

Kimi’s jaw unhinged.

"I get you. Pretty, aren’t they?" Arvid added softly.

He offered Kimi a single, deeply solemn nod of solidarity, one tear-farmer recognizing another in the wild, before he turned the handle, pulled the door open, and slipped out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him with a quiet click.

Jesus.