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thesylenttreatment01 · 17 days ago

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Sylus Cares about you

Something I feel would be a really interesting dynamic to explore is how MC/ the reader approaches Sylus in terms of their mental health if they are struggling.

Just FYI, this DOES talk about mental illness and or just mental struggling, and maybe a touch of emotional manipulation (I would say to some extent).... oh and someone gets shot. That too. So be warned!

Like, I think we all know by this point that Sylus has NOT led a happy life up until this point (as if the thrown away bandages and bloody bullet casings from Alternative Darkborne didn't give us any indication). This man is constantly shot at, people attempt to take his life so often he approaches it basically like having a meal, and not to mention how everyone is scared of him.

That obviously might leave the reader/MC feeling guilty about having their own share of mental illnesses, trauma, or just general feelings of unease, not wanting Sylus to see them like this. Why? Because firstly, you wouldn't want to trouble him. He has enough going on as it is, he doesn't need your drama on top of it. Second, and maybe more primarily, you didn't want him to dismiss or minimize how you felt. This man has been through hell and back, and so you felt like he wouldn't take it seriously or would get irritated that he might not care since worse things could happen.

But I feel like he would quickly prove to you why you might be wrong.

You didn’t hear him at first.

Or maybe you did, but ignored it--too wrapped up in your own storm, the waves of your anxiety, irritation, and pain filling your lungs like water as you feel that all too familiar burning of tears ripping from your eyes once again for the third time that night. You curled up on the cold tile of your bathroom floor, back against the tub, trying to breathe through something that refused to loosen its grip on your chest. You held a towel to your mouth, shoving the cotton fibers further and further in as you bite down on the fabric as your whole body tenses around it like a ball trying to keep everything from spilling out all at once.

You wanted it to go away, but the waves of panic keep crashing over you like a little life boat stuck on the high sea storm. You were trying to stay quiet, trying to pull yourself together. You didn't have time to try and make your eyes less puffy. It would take too long for the swelling to go down and your eyes to return from their blood-vessel burst red color to white if you didn't stop now. You tense up even further, trying to physically choke the tears form your eyes.

You don’t know how long you’ve been there. Long enough that the floor has numbed your legs, every effort to circulate blood lighting your toes up with needle prickling pain. Long enough that even the silence feels deafening. Long enough to hope he wouldn’t find you like this.

But of course he does.

You don’t hear the door open. Not really. There’s a faint creak--quiet enough that you almost convince yourself it’s just the building settling. You’re tucked into the corner of your bathroom, knees hugged to your chest, lights off, letting the tile floor leech the heat out of your skin.

You felt him long before you see him.

Not footsteps.

Just… the silent weight of his presence . That weighted kind of quiet that only comes when Sylus is trying not to intrude, trying to give you space even as he slowly approaches, like a handler dealing with an injured cornered animal.

He doesn’t say anything at first. Doesn’t flick on the light. You know he’s there by the way the air shifts. By the soft thunk of his back hitting the the tub next to you as he slides down to sit just inches away from you.

a minute passes in tense silence.

"If I had known you’d be taking up residence in your bathroom,” Sylus says, voice low and casual, “I would’ve brought you a throw pillow and a blanket Sweetie. Maybe even a scented candle. Really lean into the ambiance of the space"

You huff a small breath of air. Barely a noise comes out.

You’re tucked in tight against the tub, knees to your chest, trying to stop your brain from running laps around itself. The lights are off. You thought that might help. It hasn’t. And now the one thing you were trying to prevent was happening.

His hand gently rests on your knee, you can tell he's forcing his hand to hover over your skin, not fully letting the full weight of his touch lay on your body.

Like he’s trying not to scare you off but remind you he's there, "Are you sure the bathroom is the best place for this, kitten? I’m fairly certain your apartment has more comfortable corners for spiraling. I can even offer a far superior sulking couch back at my base.” He offers.

You don’t respond. Even though you could tell Sylus was trying to comfort you, every word felt like mockery. Like a heavy sledge hammer beating away at your already crumbling pride.

"If it’s a privacy concern, I can promise to turn the plushies around. No judgmental button eyes as an audience."

You glance up at him. Just long enough to glare. Your voice is hoarse when you finally manage, "Go away, Sylus."

He doesn't say anything, sitting there unmoving just letting the silence pool between you.

“You always point out when I’m hurting,” he says after a moment, “Yet, you never seem to notice when it’s you.”

“I’m fine.”

"Yes, the same kind of 'fine' a house cat exhibits when its hiding in its own litter box I gather" He responds.

You press your palms against your eyes and groan, "Sy just go, okay? Just don't. Please let me deal with this and I'll be out in a little bit. I don't need you to fix this."

“I’m not trying to fix anything,” he says, quieter now. “I’m just trying to be here. You don’t have to make a report or explain yourself sweetie. You just let me care.”

You shake your head.

“I don’t want you to deal with this. With me--like this.”

His brows furrow, faint but sharp. “What, hurt?”

“Weak.”

Sylus doesn’t answer right away. You can’t bring yourself to look at him, but you hear the faint creak of his clothes as he shifts closer. You feel the warmth of his body settle beside yours, close but careful. You don’t move.

“No offense, sweetie, but if I only stuck around for the strong and emotionally stable, I’d be down one kitten, two henchmen. and one mechanically built bird”

Your breath hitches-not a laugh, but close. Almost.

His arm brushes yours, just barely. Testing. Asking silently for permission, not demanding a reaction. Just… offering.

You lean. Not much. Just enough that your shoulder rests against his. Just enough to feel the solid reassurance of him. He exhales, the sound soft and relaxing like your acceptance like the green light of a bomb that had been successfully disarmed.

Neither of you speaks for a while.

Eventually, when the ache in your chest stops twisting and writhing quite so hard, you mutter, “I still don’t want to talk.”

“hmm, I didn’t ask you to.” He tilts his head lazily toward you. “I’ll just sit here quietly. Like a houseplant. Just with better bone structure.”

You snort softly, and his fingers brush yours, gentle, unassuming.

And for the first time, you let him.

For a long while, nothing moves. The silence isn’t awkward or heavy.

it’s still.

The silence isn't deafening, or itchy like it had been before. Just for a moment, everything was calm. your brain was quiet.

And then, slowly, you move.

You shift closer, your shoulder brushing his. Then your knee. And finally, you lean into him, the side of your face pressing softly against his chest.

His arm rises only after you’ve settled, wrapping around your shoulders like it’s the most natural thing in the world. No comment, not sarcasm, not words to be said. Just presence.

His heartbeat is steady beneath your ear. Grounding. Alive. Your hands gently rub against his chest to the rhythm of its beat. Keeping your mind clear and focused. The streaks of salt on your cheeks dried in thin, tight lines, leaving your skin stiff and tender, like paper stretched too far.

His hand lifts, brushing gently through your hair. After a while, his voice comes, low and careful,“…Why didn’t you tell me Sweetie? Why... Why do you have to chew your own towel threadbare before you'll let me in?”

You stay quiet at first.

“Because you’ve lived through hell.”

The words escape like a breath you’ve been holding in for too long.

He stills.

You shift again, trying to turn your head deeper into his chest, hiding your gaze away from the eyes you can feel staring through the top of your head.

“You’ve survived things that should’ve crushed you. Things I can’t imagine. And you’re still here. Still you. Strong and terrifying and impossible to knock down.”

You shake your head.

“And then there’s me. Falling apart in the dark over things that feel stupid even to say out loud. I didn’t want you to see me like this Sy. Because what if one day… what if one day you do the math? What if you realize just how fucked up I am on the regular for what? Over nothing. Over myself. You realize that you’ve bled more, lost more, fought harder... and I’m still the one cracking open like glass.”

Your voice quiets as you falter.

“I don’t want you to look at me like I'm weak. Or worse… like I'm a burden you didn’t sign up for.”

“I didn’t want you to resent me for needing help when it probably feels like you've delt with worse.”

Sylus exhales through his nose, the hint of a tired laugh in it-- dry, perhaps a little tired, but not cruel.

“So because I’ve seen pain myself,” he says softly, “I’m not allowed to care when you’re hurting?”

You don’t answer right away.

His question hangs there, too sharp, too true, to dodge with a shrug or some soft-shelled half-truth. You lower your gaze, gripping the fabric of his shirt tighter.

“I didn’t say that,” you mutter. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

A beat of silence falls as Sylus tips your chin up to to meet his gaze, "Sweetie, do you remember that one mission you got shot? Right here through your shoulder right?" He asks

You blink, caught off-guard by the shift. What did that have to do with thig?

“I-of course I do.”

The memory rises as you start to feel the involuntary twitch of your shoulder. Although your try and suppress the memory, you couldn't forget the searing pain lancing through your arm, the hot, slick rush of blood, the panic thudding louder than your heartbeat. The weakness that followed. The cold. The way your breath kept catching like your lungs couldn’t quite remember how to work. You remember feeling a hot pit of acid building in your stomach like molten metal that forced itself up causing you to vomit. Even reflecting on it now left chills that ran down your spine.

Your voice shakes with fear and confusion as you manage, “What does that have to do with anything?”

Sylus doesn’t answer.

Instead he sets you down to the side as the black and crimson mist of his evol appear through the door in a mere second, carrying a handgun with a silencer on the barrel.

Before you can react, Sylus reaches for it, The metallic click of the slide snapping into place was the only warning you got as he chambered a round.

“ Sy what the hell are you-?”

Before you can finish the sentence, the muffled pop of the silencer breaks the stillness. Your breath catches in your throat as you watch him shoot himself.

Clean through the shoulder.

Your heart doesn't just drop...it plummets. Slams into your ribs, bounces, and splinters like glass under pressure of being contained in your chest. The sound of the shot is still ringing in your ears as the smoke from the barrel starts to dissipate, but all you can hear now is the blood pounding behind your eyes.

You scramble toward him, hands flying uselessly over his shoulder like you can somehow undo what just happened. Your voice cracks before it even fully forms, stumbling out of your throat in a panicked, breathless rasp.

“Sylus?!! Sylus! W-What what the hell is WRONG WITH YOU?!!”

You press your hand against his shoulder, warm blood seeping between your fingers. It coats your palm too quickly, too thickly. You know he heals. You know he heals. You can see the traces of his blood dissipating into the plumes of red and black mist of his evol. But seeing it, feeling it: the heat, the wet, the rawness of all of it overrides reason.

Your breath hiccups in your chest, shallow and sharp. You can’t tell if you're shaking from adrenaline or fear, only that your hands won’t stay still as you feel that same hot pit in the bottom of your stomach.

That same fear you felt back then.

“Kitten,” Sylus drawls, voice thin with pain but laced with familiar, biting sarcasm. “I seem to recall a certain hunter once shooting me and watching me heal five seconds later without blinking.”

He lifts a hand, motioning lazily toward the wound. The skin around it is already knitting back together, though his breath still comes fast, the pain still etched in the line of his mouth. “This?” he scoffs lightly. “This is nothing. Not like when you got shot. You were down for weeks. Rehab, physical therapy, an entire tragic montage of the pain you endured on your way to recovery.”

Then, softer, almost too gentle to be sarcastic, he lifts a hand and tucks a loose strand of your hair behind your ear.

“So tell me,” he murmurs, “if you've been through worse… why are you still this scared for me?”

You freeze, eyes wide.

And suddenly it’s not just the fear pounding in your chest, not just the anger bubbling under your ribs at how far he pushed this to make a point.

It’s the realization. The gut-deep understanding that he’s right.

This panic, this bone-deep ache in your chest, it’s the same one you felt when you were the one bleeding. The same helpless, terrified storm.

Sylus, moves his shirt to the side gently showing how the previously bleeding area was now completely gone, not even a scar to leave a mark to remember it by.

Your fingers tighten where they still hover near the wound, trembling with the leftover panic that hasn't quite bled out of your system. Your voice cracks before it finds volume.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” you snap, finally pulling back enough to look him in the eye. “You shot yourself?!? who does that?! Just to prove a damn point?!”

Sylus exhales a soft breath, something between a chuckle and a wince as he shifts slightly against the wall, the strain of healing still tugging at the edge of his composure.

“Oh?” he hums, tilting his head with mock surprise, “Isn’t it just maddening when your partner intentionally lets themselves hurt just to try and make a point?”

He raises his brows, voice smooth and a little too casual. “Weird how frustrating that must feel. Makes you worried. Makes you angry."

You blink at him.

“Strange,” he adds, “how I know exactly what that feels like.”

You stare at him, heart pounding. The worst of your fear has passed, but something raw still lingers in your chest, like you’ve run too far, too fast, and your lungs haven’t caught up yet.

You exhale, shaky and slow. “You’re a bastard,” you mutter. It doesn’t have venom. Just exhaustion.

Sylus lets his head tilt back against the wall. “Technically,” he says lightly, “I think the correct term is ‘emotionally manipulative war criminal.’” he chuckles a small laugh, a little quieter, “But I won't deny that either.”

Overcome with exhaustion, eventually, you sigh and lean into him again. this time not with panic or desperation, but something quieter. More deliberate. He welcomes you without a word, wrapping his arm gently around your shoulders as you settle against his side.

For a long moment, neither of you says anything, the only sounds coming from rushing water from the pipes being your bathroom wall with a low hum.

“I can’t believe you shot yourself,” you murmur finally, voice low and brittle.

Sylus hums, head tipped back against the wall. “Well, it seemed like the only language you were willing to hear.”

You don’t have the energy to glare at him. “That’s not funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” he states, “I was trying to make a point.”

You sit with that for a moment, the weight of everything between you heavier than his arm resting over your shoulder.

“You could’ve just… said something.”

“I did say something. You didn’t believe me.”

You feel a soft hand brush up and down your shoulder as he holds you close, but still trying to comfort you with soft circular movements, trying to relax your terribly tense shoulders.

“I’m not asking you to fall apart in my arms every time you have a bad day, Sweetie,” he says. “I’m not asking for reports, biometric read outs, or neat explanations.”

He looks down at you, his voice softening in a way that scrapes together a gently gaze and kisses your forehead

“I just want to be there. Not because your pain is convenient or justified or ranked high enough to matter. But because you are my partner and I decidingly don't enjoy seeing you in pain . That’s the only thing I care about.”

You blink, slowly. Your throat feels tight again, but for a different reason. Not because you were scared, or in pain. But... just that he would care.

He continues, a little quieter now, but with a hint of contempt laced into the almost casual words, “Oh, and if you’re going to make decisions about what I should or shouldn’t feel… maybe don’t do it without me. I tend to enjoy being apart of those conversations Sweetie."

You let your head fall gently against his shoulder again. You felt guilty knowing that, despite how he handled it (which was extreme) Sylus had a point. It wasn't right for your to presume his feelings.

“…Okay,” you mumble, so soft you barely hear it yourself. Sylus squeezes your arm gently, acknowledging that he heard you without speaking directly.

You’re quiet for a moment, your hand fidgeting with the edge of his sleeve.

“I'm...I’m sorry,” you murmur. “For assuming how you’d feel. For… deciding you wouldn’t care before even giving you the chance to.”

Sylus doesn’t say anything at first, just lets his thumb drag gently along the line of your arm.

“I was scared,” you admit. “ I still am, if I'm honest.”

His voice is warm, low. “I know Sweetie”

You nod, leaning a little further into him. But after a beat, you add, voice sharper than before, “But you still shot yourself. Like a complete idiot.”

That earns a soft chuckle from him. “Ah, yes. The world’s most effective argument strategy.”

You shift slightly to glare up at him. “I mean it, Sylus. You scared me.”

His expression softens, maybe a flicker of guilt? but more honestly a look of acknowledgment. “I know,” he says again, this time it carries the weight it should. “That wasn’t fair to you.”

You sigh, “No, it wasn’t.”

There’s a pause, but it’s no longer full of tension, just the awkward space of something too big to fix right away.

Eventually, Sylus nudges your arm with his. “I’ll add it to the 'fix-it list. Right under ‘stop weaponizing my immortality in emotionally fraught conversations.’ I'm sure if I can program Mephisto to periodically have the urge to see you, I can find some way to program morality into my heart”

You try not to laugh. You mostly fail.

“I’m still mad,” you tell him, but there’s no heat behind it.

“I’d be concerned if you weren’t, kitten. Emotional manipulation is no laughing matter”

You sit in the quiet again, and this time, it feels bearable. Manageable. Yours.

“Come on,” you murmur, finally pushing yourself up from the bathroom floor. “Let’s go do something normal. Lay down. Watch something. Pretend we’re not walking emotional disasters for like, five minutes.”

He rises with you easily, following close behind as you flick on a lamp in the living room and toss a blanket over the couch.

You settle in first, and Sylus slides in beside you, careful to give you space. He waits until you lean into him, and he wraps an arm around your shoulders like it’s second nature.

“…You’re still in trouble,” you murmur, half into his shirt.

“Duly noted Sweetie,” he says, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “But I’d shoot myself again in a heartbeat if it means you let me stay.”

You roll your eyes, but your fingers curl into his shirt anyway, anchoring yourself there.

For now, it’s enough.

Neither of you was perfect. In fact, you were both far from it. But for now, knowing that he cared, that he wanted to be there. That was more than enough to keep the voices at bay for now.

And when they popped up again? Well, you could figure that out later.

Together this time.

I honestly don't know where this idea came from TBH XD I feel like this is a genuine problem I could foresee in this kind of dynamic and would be curious how others might see it dealt with!

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