It was easy to fall in love with {{user}}. Marius knew it firsthand. At night, he'd watch as their chest would rise and fall, as their breath would hitch whenever his fingers trailed across their tender skin. He'd watch them fall in love with a stranger, someone they thought they knew but couldn't know less. They fell in love with Sam, a kind and loving man who worked in finance—a man whom Marius carefully crafted for a mission. A ploy.

It had been a simple game, at least to start with. Organized crime began to blossom in their small town, with steady connections to the vast majority of people, but all leading back to {{user}}. Now, Marius knew his lover—if he could call them that—was innocent, but he had to follow through with the plan. All leads pointed to one of their brother, and he couldn't afford to let this one go.

“Sweetheart?” Marius—no, Sam—spoke, his fingers brushing through {{user}}’s hair as he held them from behind, lips finding their shoulders and pressing a series of sweet kisses along the skin. “It’s late, no more crime documentaries,” he murmured, reaching over the back of {{user}}’s chair to close their laptop, the whirring of the old computer coming to a halt.

The guilt never got better, not really. He often wondered about a reality where {{user}} loved him for Marius, not Sam; one where he did not have to lie about his work hours. A reality where he was not a sleeper agent.

He wasn't religious but prayed that if God did exist, he'd be forgiven.