Living With Monsters | Various SCP X Reader

SCP-035 x Reader (Part 2) | Benedick and Juliet

Much ado about nothing is my favourite Shakespeare play. Fite me.

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You had sat on the low wall of your balcony, it was only about waist high and although far above ground you had no fear of falling.
Your eyes fell on your grand garden. That's what you had. Grand everything, but it was so incredibly boring, and lonely.
Then out of the corner of your eye you saw a figure move.
"Holy shit!" you cursed watching the familiar masked man grow closer, donning a tragedy mask this time.
"She speaks!" he called, from the ground in a half sarcastic tone,"O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven."
Your nerves immediately settled and you giggled slightly at this dramatic display.
"Don't tell me you planned this out?" you questioned, with a grin, crossing your legs.
"Quite possibly, yes," he confirmed, leaning coolly against the nearest tree as he gazed up at you.
"Why are you wearing that mask?" you asked with a tilt of your head, leaning forward ever so slightly to get a good look at him.
He was much more casually dressed in a shirt and trousers. It was buttoned right up to his neck, a plain tie loosely hanging around his neck.
"All in due time m'lady," he mock bowed for her, hand placed over his heart in false sincerity. You found yourself wishing it wasn't.
"Don't tell me you're a hopeless romantic now," you laughed, not pressing the mask question any further, growing to know over the last meeting that the further you pushed him to tell you things the less likely he became to share that information with you.
"I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none."
You grinned a little.
"And how did that turn out for Benedick in the end, hmm."
The man tilted his head up to you in amusement, a common display of body language you had come to read well.
"Every one can master a grief but he that has it," you hummed with a soft smile.
The two of you elapsed into silence. You ended up staring wistfully into the night sky. There was so much you didn't know about this man. So much you wanted to know. Despite this you had already fallen head over heels for him in one night. You doubted he felt the same.
"(Y/N)," he said at last, lowering you gaze back to the ground below your trellis, where he stood, now having approached from the tree.
"You said you believed in... curses, yes?" his voice was softer and had a more serious tone to it than was usual.
You nodded slightly, your brow furrowing into a soft frown as he reached up to his mask. You half expected him to take it off but he didn't, just lightly tapped at the porcelain disguise.
"What do you think' under this?" he asked quietly.
This caused a soft hum to escape your lips, "You're making it seem like something from the Phantom of The Opera."
He chuckled dryly, "I certainly wish it were something manageable."
At this he loosened his tie further and started unbuttoning the shirt, causing your face to turn an extremely bright shade of red.
"H-hold on a second I don't th-" you were cut off upon seeing the skin of his upper torso, no, it wasn't skin. Whatever it was, it was black, tar black and wet looking it dropped down his neck and oozed onto his chest.
"What?" you didn't seem capible of forming full sentences and just stared as he buttoned the shirt back up, you weren't sure how the liquid didn't deep into the material. Perhaps it wasn't quite liquid.
"I'm a curse. I'm no human, I'm a mask who wears human disguises," he sighed deeply, assuring all the decayed skin was now concealed from your vision once more.
"I am the mask," he continued when you only stared in a confused silence, "Once a human puts me on I take over their body. A negative side effect is that their body will decay because of, well..."
"I feel like you've done something to me," he said quickly before you could respond, "I've never willingly told this to anyone. My original plan was to wear your father. Climb up social ranks. Have an unlimited access to human hosts. But you... you did something."
"Something," you questioned nervously, he didn't want your body now did he?
He chuckled slightly, turning his head away from you,"It's nothing to worry about."
After that he went silent, staring up at the sky a while before speaking.
"I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?" he hummed, turning back, now a grinning comedy mask.