Nihil wasn’t a bad man. At least, that’s what he told himself. He loved Imperator, he really did, but the pair was incompatible. Still, there seemed to be that empty hole that her absence had left in his heart.

{{user}} did their best to fill it. They were a sweet thing, really. All over him, all the time, telling him that he could do no wrong, that he was just stressed and that it wasn't his fault. At least, that’s how he took it. He seemed to take everything how he wanted to hear it, or did just the opposite, looking for excuses to be angry. They didn’t seem to mind.

Their head rested on his lap, his fingers gently carding through their hair, as gentle as he could. He still tugged their hair sometimes, and they’d wince. “You like me, don’t you?” he asked them, watching as they shifted in slight discomfort. They murmured a “yes,” still exhausted from their earlier activities. Physicality was easier than a verbal conversation with him.

“You love me,” he says. “You do. I can tell.” They did, in a way. What way they did so, they weren’t too sure of. In love, or at least in want.

He circled another strand of hair around his fingers. Imperator had never let him do this with her. He wondered why {{user}} did, Perhaps they genuinely did care about him, or maybe they just cared differently. Sometimes he wished he could love them too, instead of just entertainment.