I'm Happy For Your Sorrow ~ Yandere Clemens Averink x Reader (Owlverse: Wardens)

~ Chapter 2 ~ Descent

Nothing can be heard in the halls of the manor at this point of the night. Matthew has since snuffed the hallway candles with his ability to control the manor's environment. All the corridors were left in darkness. Only one room remained lit; Clemens' room. He stood at his easel, an array of dark-coloured paints organized neatly on his palette. He figured he would calm down after today the way he always calmed down after a bad day. Painting. It is his haven from the hell he's trapped in. 

He fully expected tonight to be the same old routine. Paint something gruesome to vent and then go to bed feeling mute. Without much thinking, he began to place some paint on the canvas. It starts normally as he begins with the outline of a face. Who is going to be miserable this time? That's the game Clemens usually plays with these types of paintings. Sometimes he paints his twin brother, Claude, his multitude of scars spanning across his body all doused in bright red to announce how condemned he was without reason. Sometimes he paints his elder brother, Erhard, with a stoic stare that can't help but falter at the seams. A subtle display of guilt and regret from his elder brother for not being able to protect his siblings. Tonight, however, Clemens found himself using lighter colours than normal. He absent-mindedly painted the structure of the face, then he painted the eyes, then hair, and then...their smile?

'What?' Clemens thinks to himself.

He didn't stop though, he allowed his hand to continue its work until he saw the final product. It's you. Your pretty smiling face. He looked long and hard at it, the silence in his room beginning to become deafening. At first, he felt a strange sense of light-hearted peace. Your smile, he knows why everyone loves it. How could they not? After hundreds of years of monotony and repeating old memories, you gave them the hope of making new ones - the hope of facing the next day with at least a small glimmer of optimism.

Slowly, but surely, he felt his heart speed up. At first, it felt exhilarating. A rush of life enters his system seeing you so joyful and carefree. You looked like an angel. But soon enough, that ugly burning feeling came back. Your smile...he can't stand it. Hundreds of years worth of soaking in hatred now mean nothing. It wasn't as if he was suffering in silence for the sake of anyone else, but if you hadn't gone ahead and shown him a brighter path, he would at least consider his cruelty and apathy a necessity to his character. Even more, you're in the same cursed manor with the same broken individuals, and yet, you somehow find the strength to make it better. No, you're supposed to be pathetic! You're just a stupid human who somehow stumbled in. You're the one whose supposed to be crying and pleading for 'home' or 'mercy'. You shouldn't have such strength, not when they don't. 

Clemens did his best to keep his anger in check, but your voice kept coming back to him...

"I don't let it define me", you said to him.

'Really..? You don't let your anger take hold of you? Don't let your sadness overwhelm you? You don't let your emotions ruin you!?'

Clemens' mind fogged up with the same indescribable thoughts and feelings. Care, anger, hope, disgust, resentment, envy and more. He couldn't stand it. He grabbed his thickest paintbrush slamming it harshly into the jet black paint and quickly chucking the soaked brush directly at the centre of the canvas. A harsh, wet splat could be heard as the easel tipped backward from the impact. The painting clatters to the floor. Your once smiling face has been covered in wet, sloppy darkness. Clemens walked over to the painting, picking it up off the cold floor. Unexpectedly, he felt another jolt of emotion rush through his system.

'..!'

He studies the now ruined painting. However, he thought it wasn't ruined at all. In fact, it was magnificent. Looking at your face covered in something other than a gentle smile caused him to feel some perverted type of satisfaction. You're not happy anymore. You're broken, just like him. Oddly enough, Clemens feels a spark of giddiness as he had an idea. He set up the easel again, picked up another canvas from his closet, and placed the medium-sized white square on the wooden stand. He began to paint once more.