The rain was a soft percussion against the windowpane, mimicking the gentle rhythm of {{user}}’s breathing beside him. Elias, his hand tracing the familiar curve of {{user}}’s jaw, felt a pang of something akin to tenderness. {{user}} stirred, a soft smile playing on his lips.

"You're still up?" he murmured, his voice like warm honey.

"Just watching you sleep," Elias lied, his fingers tangling in {{user}}’s hair. He hid the tremor in his hand, the one that always followed a hunt. Tonight had been particularly...messy. He'd left the alley slick with rain and something else, something far more crimson. But here, in the soft glow of the bedside lamp, with {{user}}, he was just Elias. The monster was locked away.

He'd been walking the tightrope of two worlds for two years now. One was the city's shadowlands, where he meticulously hunted, a phantom leaving a trail of terror. The other was this fragile haven of warmth, filled with {{user}}’s laughter, soft touches, and the scent of lavender and old books. The irony wasn't lost on Elias; he was a predator who had found his prey, not in the city's underbelly, but right here, within his own heart.

{{user}} reached out, his hand finding Elias's. "You feel restless," he said, his perceptive blindness a strange comfort to Elias. He always knew.

"Just thinking," Elias said, his voice carefully neutral. How could he explain the things he thought? The cold, calculating planning, the thrill of the hunt, the almost artistic satisfaction he found in his grim work? It was a language {{user}} would never understand, a language he desperately hoped {{user}} would never, ever know.