Forever Together (MaxTul)

23- Death threats

Max sat up, looked suspiciously at the heavy envelope Tul handed him, and took it. He looked at Tul with questioning eyes, but Tul said nothing, seemed lost in thought.

Just as he was about to open it, Tul brusquely grabbed his hand and stopped him. He took the food that was beside them and placed it further away from them. He sat up behind Max and hugged him tightly.

"Hum, I still have to tell you that the contents of this envelope will make you very angry and sad, so promise me you'll take it easy...okay" Tul knew very well that anything about him could set Max off. The contents of the envelope would surely make him angry. He remembered how he acted when he was jealous, so he was afraid he would explode.

Max looked at Tul behind him, who was hugging him tightly and frowned. "Tul, what are you doing? I can hold myself, you know," he laughed mischievously.

"I know, honey, but we never know... Open up first," Tul added, a little worried.

Max opened the envelope and took out the contents; as he slid it out, a load of pictures fell out of the envelope, right onto Max's lap. Looking at them his eyes grew wide, "What the hell is this?" Max growled, taking one of the pictures as if to confirm what he was looking at. It was a picture of Tul painted with what looked like blood? Max quickly took the other pictures and they were all practically the same. It was Tul in different places and all the pictures had a cross painted with blood! "You were being stalked? I ... I didn't know that! Who's the fucker who did this?" Max was already angry, his hand was firmly on the picture. Tul just held him down and didn't say a word!

"since when did this start?" Max asked in an icy voice!

"Hum... just ... It's been a while now..." said Tul softly, stroking Max's back to calm him down.

Max swallowed before taking the other contents, they were letters, he already had an uneasy feeling about the contents of those letters, the images already gave him goosebumps, it was obvious that Tul had been followed for a long time, there were so many letters, almost fifty of them. Fear and anger grew in Max as he read the letters one by one.

At first, the threats weren't really alarming, they were like any threat an actor might receive from anti-fans or obsessed fans. But in the tenth letter, things got ugly, they were kidnapping threats, death threats and some of them also contained information about Tul's family, it was really an alarming situation, you could feel while reading the letter that the sender had a high level of hatred towards Tul and in the last letter he received, the sender's intention to arm him was real and disturbing, it even contained a threat of sexual violence.

Max couldn't take it anymore, because in all the letters the sender was threatened by Tul because of him! To sum up the contents of the letter was, "Get away from Max's side or I will hurt you. He is only mine!". He was angry, but also very sad. Sad because he didn't know Tul was going through this kind of situation, he even started blaming himself because it was all because of him.

"Don't blame yourself ... it has nothing to do with you ... okay?" Tul sensed the change in Max's mood and guessed what he was thinking.

"I know ... still, it's because of me ..." Max said as he broke free from Tul's embrace and turned to face Tul. "How long have you been going through this?" asked Max dejectedly.

"Is it really that important to know when it started?" Tul replied and looked away, he could already sense the anger, sadness and disappointment in Max.

"I'm asking when it started!?" Max asked again, but this time his voice was commanding and his eyes cold, Tul felt the pressure that even scared him a little and frowned.

"Shortly after the fan meeting of Together With me, the one with the Versace on the floor performance..." Tul said quietly, looking down, Max's eyes making him a little uneasy now, he knew he was about to ask him why he hadn't told him about it.

Many emotions were going through Max's mind and heart, he was angry, he wanted to kill the person who put Tul through all of this, but he was also sad because Tul had suffered silently for so long, he felt useless because he couldn't see the fact that the person he loved was going through a hard time because of him and he was disappointed because Tul didn't see fit to tell him, he didn't give him the opportunity to be there for him, to comfort him and protect him.

"So you kept me in the dark for almost five years while you suffered yourself - was that also to protect me?" Max asked slowly, looking directly into Tul's eyes "You know what... now I really feel like shit, do you maybe enjoy making me feel like this... like I'm just a useless person in your life like I don't deserve you?" Max looked straight into Tul's eyes, in which he could read all sorts of emotions. The eyes told him that he was sorry, but that he didn't regret it either.