Deep Like Water (Yandere!BEN Drowned X GN!Reader)

You Won't Be Stranded, They Said

hello sorry this took so long my asthma suddenly flared up and is now giving me multiple attacks a day so im very tired (yes i have seen a doctor)

It took a while for you to regain your usual sleep schedule, but once you were back into your normal routine, you became acutely aware of the ghosts that lingered in the walls of the house.

Okay, they weren't ghosts in the literal sense, but there was something odd about the way the hairs on your arms stood to attention for seemingly no reason. You couldn't look in the bathroom mirrors, either, because for some reason, you were sure that you would lock eyes with something that shouldn't be there.

(It probably didn't help that BEN had forbidden you from leaving the house without him. Since no one had lived on the property since his death, he had no idea what lurked in the surrounding trees. Honestly, you weren't too bothered about not being able to go out, but the implication that something sinister wandered around the property was enough to fuel your paranoia.)

On the first day of being fully present and aware of your surroundings, you were quite happy to sit and play video games all day, with the TV on for background noise. You helped BEN organise the shopping that he had had delivered so neither of you starved to death, and you even helped to cook dinner. It was a day filled with quiet relaxation and soft domesticity, and you went to bed that night with a warmth in your chest that was growing more familiar to you each time it appeared.

On the second day, it felt blurringly similar, yet as time dragged on, you could feel yourself getting a tad bit restless. You couldn't decide which game to play and constantly switched between an FPS and the farming simulator. Like the day before, you helped to make dinner, and even stayed up watching a horror movie, because why not? It wasn't like you had a bedtime.

The third day was even worse, and by midday you thought, 'Fuck it, I'm gonna take some notes from my textbook.' The fact that you were doing schoolwork to alleviate your boredom was slightly concerning to you, but it would remove some late night anxiety over being left behind.

As soon as the PDF version of your textbook appeared on your laptop screen, you could feel some of the boredom and stress vanishing. It was odd, because you were in the middle of nowhere, with your only company being a guy who had whisked you away like life was a fairy tale (not that you were complaining). You had no memories attached to the house, so theoretically, you should have been the most relaxed person in the county, so why were you so stressed?

With your tongue sandwiched between your teeth, you forced your brain to focus on the personal life of Emperor Augustus—specifically his relationships with Agrippa and Maecenas—and forget about your own life. If you had been emotionally capable, you probably would have gone one further and forced your brain to forget that you even existed.

...To your legitimate surprise, you became enraptured by Augustus and Agrippa's relationship. Unwavering loyalty and trust in one another? One being named the successor to the other when he fell deathly ill? Ruling as co-emperors for nearly fifteen years before one died? There had to be more to things then just 'Agrippa was relying on Augustus for his connections'.

It wasn't long before you had ended up in a deep rabbit hole of Youtube videos, ancient sources, and essays written by people over forty years ago. All you could say was: thank God for the Res Gestae. Sure, some parts of it were straight-up lies, but it came directly from Augustus himself, so he must have considered it to be important if he wrote it down as part of his semi-autobiography.

By the time BEN sat down next to you, appearing from nowhere to effectively drape himself over you as he strained to peer at your laptop screen, your textbook had been pushed aside as you approached the end of a two hour long video.