🔪𝔇𝔬𝔫'𝔱 𝔉𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕽𝖊𝖆𝖕𝖊𝖗🔪

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 5

Rating: Explicit

Length: 2.3k

CW: murder, general Michael asshole behavior

To say that the next four days are surreal would be an understatement

For the first time in recent memory, you are cooking three meals a day. This does not mean you are eating three meals a day. You pick at your food as though some way, somehow, it has been poisoned.

Michael, on the other hand, eats his share and then some. You are not a master chef by any means. The most complex thing you have thrown together in this hellish week is chili made from the contents of various cans in the cupboard. But he devours each meal like it may be his last. He seems to have no favorites aside from a clear preference for food that has been properly cooked.

He does not trust you in the kitchen, surrounded by sharp objects of all shapes and sizes. He is worse than a screaming toddler or a begging dog. He is utterly silent, watching your every move, so close you nearly brush him with your elbows.

He does sit politely at the table, but never before you take your seat, and always positioned between you and every door in the house. His table manners are excellent and he even goes so far as to stack all of his dishes into a pile once he's finished. This baffles you before you realize he is accustomed to meals brought on trays to his room and then taken away.

You see other symptoms of institutionalization in the way he sleeps. He does not touch the beds, blankets, or pillows. He lies on the floor on his back in front of the closet, where you have started to tuck yourself in each night to save you both the trouble of him slinging you in like a box of Christmas decorations. You do not sleep much, or well, and from what you can tell through the crack beneath the door, neither does he. He does not toss or turn, and his breathing is ever steady, but in the wee hours of the morning you have heard it slip into near silence for only an hour or two at a time.

The first time it happened, the quiet was so final you thought maybe he had left. You listened, motionless, for nearly an hour. At long last, you stretched your hand toward the doorknob, hopeful, hesitant. Your fingers slipped on the metal, sought purchase.

The sharp and sudden thud of his fist against the door made you forget how to breathe and you scrambled back into the far corner so fast you knocked a bunch of clothes off their hangers. You did not try that again.

During the day, you clean obsessively. Your house has never been so spotless. You aren't sure what else to do with yourself and the act of creating a modicum of order in the chaos that has become your existence feels like gripping a lifeline in the sea of entropy.

And he watches you.

The sense of being completely exposed, naked and vulnerable under his constant scrutiny, has become almost familiar to you. You get the sense he is memorizing your patterns of motion and behavior. He does not move much or speak at all, but the thoughts behind his eyes are electric, roiling like thunderheads, dark and forceful and biding their time.

You, of course, cannot afford not to keep an eye on him. Sometimes you turn away, turn back, and find he has moved just a little bit closer. Sometimes he stands up abruptly for no apparent reason. Sometimes you find he has boxed you in against the counter, the end of the couch, moving so stealthily you did not even notice him inching towards you. He does not choke you again. The knife has been absent from his hand. Still, in these moments, you wait for him to snap your neck, and he watches you wait for this, and you are reminded that you are biding your time in close proximity to a wild animal. You are outmatched.

You are haunted.

He keeps your phone in the pocket of his coveralls. You know it is dead by now. The last text you sent was to your boss, letting her know you would be taking a few days to visit your sister. You don't have a sister. You've told your boss this before, but based on her encouraging reply, she doesn't seem to remember.