Choked sobs, heavy breaths, and gasps lulled through the wall like a ghoul. Vile and terrifying in the darkness. Xenith rolled out of bed with a frown resisting the urge to cave into his anger and slam the door behind him as he begrudgingly scoots his sock covered feet across the wooden floors to the bathroom. He truly is one of few people who can say, their stalker lives in their bathtub… Maxceil. Xenith carefully opened the door with a frown of unrest and made his way to the sink. He cast his gaze to the blanch blue bar of soap next to the metal faucet and smirked as he tossed it at the man sleeping in his bathtub, tears rolling down his cheeks. Maxciel awoke with a gasp and smacked his head on the bathtubs faucet with a wince, momentarily covering the aching red skin with his palm. Maxciel took a moment to digest his surroundings and smiled letting out a sigh of relief as if he were Atlas himself, finally freed of the curse to carry the entirety of the world upon his shoulders. "I can't sleep when you're weeping like a little girl a room over with walls as thin as paper" Xenith frowned and lazily sat his lanky body on the edge of the bathtub. "Xen.." Maxciel breathed his name in like oxygen and hugged his face into Xenith's waist, the cotton fabric soaking up his tears like a sponge. "Get off me you clingy bastard!" Xenith complained and flicked Maxciel on the back of the head. Dark eyes, deep and abysmal, glittered red under the weight of tears. "Don't cry, you're a hero not a child" Xenith grumbled and uncomfortably patted Maxciel's back with a look of slight disgust. "Tell me, how can I shut you up? I'm tired and I can't sleep when you're crying like a fool. So tell me what's wrong with you. Other than well… everything. What I mean is, what's making you cry?" Xenith asked as he awkwardly cleared his throat. He'd never comforted someone before, not once in his 22-years-of-life had he ever needed to. "It's… embarrassing to tell you" Maxciel whispered as he laid his head in a horrified looking Xenith's lap. Xenith swallowed his pride, a bitter pill for a man like him and allowed it, lightly touching Maxciel's head in what he assumed was a comforting gesture. "Why so? I'm your enemy you've yet to defeat, isn't my existence already embarrassing enough? Focus on your current failures" Xenith replied. To which Maxciel smiled at the horribly oblivious man beside him. He must've spent his entire life isolated from people to be so…like this. "You're horrible at this" Maxciel smiled. "It's unkind to insult those troubling themselves for the likes of people like yourself! You should praise me for taking the time to acknowledge a feeble-minded imbecile such as yourself" Xenith scoffed. "To thank you, I'll tell you my troubles, Mr. Therapist" Maxciel did all he could to force back the smile desperately attempting to bloom upon his lips, lest he further offended Xenith. "I often have dreams, or rather, nightmares" Maxciel stated plainly. "Well, that I can tell. Just because you're a fool doesn't mean I am. Quickly now, elaborate" Xenith insisted. "Well, I often dream of all those I've…" Maxciel paused and bit down on his cheek not exactly struggling to string his thoughts to words, but more so, not wanting to. "All those you've what? You can't leave a sentence midway to completion like that. How can such janky literary skills allow you to pass even primary school?" Xenith complained with a prodding look as he poked his index finger into Maxciel's ruddy cheek. "I've…killed," he finishes. "Like myself, those people are those you've classified and regarded as immoral, correct?" Xenith began. Maxciel merely nodded in response to the question, which he genuinely couldn't tell if it prompted an answer or if it was rhetorical. "And those were people who'd harmed various others, and you know if possible, within your own heart, you would've kept those people alive had the circumstances allowed it. So why beat yourself up over deeds both you and the world deems to be good?" Xenith asked with a look of unfeigned confusion. "Well, because no matter what I've still taken lives, and no matter to whom that may be, murder can never be considered justified or good" Maxciel replied with a complicated look on his strict face. "You deeply care for my opinion, don't you?" Xenith began. "Because as you claim… you, well, love…harbor…harbor romantic attachment towards me as of now" Xenith finished with a deep flush of scarlet staining his cheeks finding those words strange on his tongue, outliers, words that shouldn't be used towards him. "I do, I love you Xen, no matter what I want you to think highly of me, not like my fans, or even some people I've saved, but as a man, as your suitor" Maxciel nodded and grabbed both of Xenith's hands and held them sandwiched between his own against his cheek. "Then, we'll consider my opinion to be the truth, alright? You are a good person and have done what is necessary" Xenith decreed, leaving no room for Maxciel to interject. "And fair warning, good people allow tired men, who are even, though unwillingly, are sharing with you their homes, to sleep. So no more crying alright, Maxciel?" Xenith asked, this time certainly rhetorically though his haughty nature always made it difficult to discern what should and shouldn't be answered. Maxciel could only nod as he felt a rush of embarrassment course through his bones.