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

~ Chapter 3 ~ Misunderstanding

Another night, another painting. Indeed, there's no end to the number of times he could worship your unhappiness. Clemens decided to visit some old patterns. He had been so infatuated with painting you to look like all these different emotions that he forgot his classic style is embedded in not feeling anything at all. He looked at his piece of art, slick paint glistening in the candlelight. Your face was painted blank as a fresh sheet of paper, and cold as a stone. It was beautiful.

'If only you were here...'

That thought kept ringing through Clemens' mind.

Clemens is never one to jump into an idea without thinking it over to the fullest degree. Finding a way to get you into his grip physically is different than doing so mentally. Mental manipulation was easy enough for him. People are like chess in that sense. Your choice determines their next move, and if they are easy enough, you can back them into a corner using your foresight and their naivete alone. However, once you're good enough at it, it becomes more akin to a chore than a game. That's exactly what it had become for Clemens.

People are so predictable that it's no longer interesting. However, you were strange in the way that he couldn't fully wrap his head around the way you thought. Truly, the world had been cruel to them all, but Clemens was stuck in the peculiar predicament of being almost heartless whilst the world fell around him and his family. It seems everyone here had their own way of viewing the world that was warped by their upbringing. Rudolph viewed the world on high guard, Claude viewed the world through anger and distrust, and Percy viewed the world through bloody rose-tinted glasses. Clemens didn't have that. He was emotionless. The facts were all that he looked at, or at least that's how he thought he was. Now the facts are saying something he has never considered before. He is not emotionless, but quite the opposite. All it took was a different perspective.

Countless sketches of your face were littered across his desk and some even drifted to the floor in his obsessive artistic haze, but nothing would ever compare to the masterpiece that would be you seated in his chair, face crushed with despair while he painted you in real-time, keeping those sights of your sweet distress all for himself. Clemens placed his brush down on the easel and took to his desk to start brainstorming the plan to get you in his clutches for good. You're already halfway there. Your mind is swamped with his face and your heart races in fearful anticipation with each room you enter. By all means, you're his psychologically, but now it's time to make that physically as well. He'll have to think about this especially carefully.

~Your POV~

It was hard going about life like nothing was wrong. People had been getting increasingly worried about your outbursts and sudden panic attacks out of nowhere. It got to the point where you would go completely silent with a dead stare, shallowly breathing as if you'd seen a ghost. Any conversation you were trying to hold would be sidelined by you glancing around with unease and choking on your words when you saw something out of the corner of your eye. Of course, it was all the same vision. Red coat, brown hair, amber eyes. Some of the wardens stopped talking to you all together. You remember their words before they left you for good...

"Darling, until you figure out what's wrong I'm afraid I can't do anything for you" Maximilian.

"You're being hysterical. More so than usual. Figure it out, then we can talk" Richard.

"I can assure you, I am not the source of your visions. I would never use that power on you, my dear. Unfortunately, I have work to attend to. Perhaps we'll talk another time" William.

One by one, your friends started to avoid you. It was hell all over again. Turns out, your friendships didn't run as deep as you thought they did. It seemed the only person who still stood by you was Bernard. Never once did he leave your side. If you were staring into space, he would bring you back and take you somewhere else. If you felt unsafe, he walked you back to your room. And if you wanted someone around, he would be right there, no questions asked. His big heart was one of the only reasons you weren't completely destroyed at this point.