Delusionshipping (Pandora x Catherine)

. . .

"Hey...babe...can I come in...?"

He jolts upwards, scrabbling across the counter for his mask. He's only just managed to get it on when the door cracks open, and one single eye peeps through.

"You can't even wait for me to say anything?" he snaps, and her face twists briefly

"Sorry," she says, but she doesn't look very sorry. She pushes the door the rest of the way open, biting down on her lip and smearing the lipstick a bit. She looks nice, he thinks. She's done her makeup very carefully, and she's in that red dress that always was his favorite. He has to stop a moment just to stare at her, and she smiles just a tiny bit. She's got one hand behind her back, as though she's hiding something.

"I just wanted to see...what was up," she says. "You haven't let me in for a while."

He ducks his face back towards the table of his vanity, hands trembling in his lap. She's—she's so beautiful...but him...? Behind his horrible mask, his face is...

The image of his own face appears in the back of his mind, all acid scars and webbed burns, and he groans, hand moving up to his head.

"Babe, are you okay?"

Catherine's voice shakes a little as she moves towards him, free hand outstretched.

He doesn't know he's done it until he has, and she flinches back, her eyes wide. Her hand hangs in the air along with the echo of his slap. He's hit her hand away from him—he doesn't want her to see...doesn't want her, beautiful, perfect her, to see what horrible thing he's become...

"C-Catherine," he says, his voice cracking. "Catherine, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

There are tears in her eyes as she steps back, shaking her head. He gets up so quickly his chair almost falls over, and she flinches again, her eyes getting wide and her face going pale under her makeup.

"No," she says, mumbling it over and over again. "No, no—Panda..."

The nickname hurts, like a whip cracked over his face.

"Cathy," he breathes, and he tries to step forward again.

Tears leak out of her eyes and smear her mascara as she jumps back. She flings something at him, the thing she was hiding behind her back, and the bouquet of red flowers smacks him in the face.

"This is the second time—this is the second time you've hit me, Panda," she sobs as he pulls the flowers out of his face. "I can't do this anymore. I can't."

"Cathy—Cathy!"

But by the time he's finally gotten the flowers out of his face and on the floor, she's already retreated, disappearing through the door and slamming it behind her. He smacks into the door just as it's closed, hands clawing against the wood.

"Cathy! Cathy, baby, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, please, Cathy!"

But she's gone, and the door is shut between them. His nails dig into the wood as he slides down against the door, crying into the wood.

The flowers...she brought him—she brought him flowers.

He crawls back from the door to the fallen bouquet—it's a little crushed, he must have stepped on it when running after her. There's a card attached to it—it's red and shiny and shaped like a heart. Happy Valentine's Day, Panda, it says.

He smashes his face into the flowers and breathes in so deeply that he chokes.

He almost hopes that it kills him.

. . .

A/N: that got feelsy. Next is Delphishipping (Ishizu x Kisara).