Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

• This guy does not swear in normal conversation or says any words that’re unseemly or indecorous at all. Not even when he’s quoting someone. He’s an emperor after all, he’s got appearances to keep up in the name of his empire. Even if that empire’s long since disintegrated. The only exception to the rule is when shit hits the fan. It’s pretty rare considering his defensive and tactical genius, but hey. Things happen. If you call him out on this, he’ll flush a bit and apologize for his behavior. Though it really won’t change much, honestly. It’s just how he is.
• He’s got a kind of aura about him that scares away the hoes normal people. It’s the kind of vibe you get when you encounter the important big shot you’ve only heard about through your coworkers. He enters the building and a person immediately books it from the lobby and starts popping into various rooms saying “He’s here! Everyone, act natural!” and everyone races to get their shit together. It’s that kind of aura that he gives off. The contrast between that and how he portrays himself is starker than blood on snow, dude. The funniest part is that he doesn’t even know that he has this aura in the first place, which means he’s constantly left wondering why everyone’s so stiff around him despite no one knowing who he is (in a normal HGW scenario). It’s hilarious. Poor guy just wants to be normal for once. In Chaldea it’s significantly less noticeable thanks to the amount of eccentrics, literal gods, and fellow emperors. So, in that scenario, you’d probably be just as clueless as him concerning its existence.
• If you have a close relationship with Constantine, especially one that has potential to become a romantic relationship, then get ready for your Rider to be on you about your health. Both of his wives died within a year of their marriage because of a sudden illness and three of his siblings died from the plague when he was a kid. There’s no way that he doesn’t have some form of trauma regarding either of those events. The closer you are to his heart, the more paranoid he is about you getting sick. That said, here’s what you can expect:

I. He constantly checks the weather. If you give this man a phone, then he will check the weather for any changes on an hourly basis. He does this so he can be prepared to wardrobe check you if you’re planning on going out. If it’s cold, he’s already putting a jacket on your shoulders. If it’s hot, he’s making sure you’re not wearing too many layers and that you have water on hand. Constantine is a stubborn mule in the clothes of an emperor, so you are going to adjust your outfit according to the weather. No complaining!

II. On the topic of phones, you can bet he’s using it to look up stuff about modern medicine. He’s pretty amazed at how far the world’s come. So many debilitating ailments from his time are either completely extinct, curable, or at least manageable in some regard. But that doesn’t stop him from getting worried anyways. And so, he’ll still be taking stock of your medicine cabinet and asking you if you took your vitamins and such. Don’t even think about trying to dance around telling him or hoping he’ll forget. He doesn’t.

III. God help you if you actually get sick. He already gives you looks when you cough, and trust me, it only gets worse from there. Constantine will not leave you be for any reason. You think you can just walk this cold off? HA! That’s a good one. You are going to be bundled up in your comfiest blankets and you are gonna like it! He will actually go find or purchase a rope to tie you down with if you refuse to comply. He is that serious about it. Yes, he knows he’s being a little bit too over the top concerning your recovery, but it’ll all work out! And hey, if anything, you should take this experience as just another incentive to stay healthy! You have to think positive, my friend.

IV. Alright, but that’s just a cold. What about some real shit like the flu or one hell of a fever?  Obviously, he’s taking care of your needs and giving you your meds. That’s a given. The more interesting part is how Constantine is dealing with this on his end. You see, it’s times like these that makes our emperor’s calm and collected veneer begin to crack. Your hazy headache riddled head might be blurring all of the details, but you can see his smile strain and his hands fidget with his sleeves as he watches over you at your bedside. He isn’t talking as much as he normally does, opting to just… sit there and stare. Had you a clearer mind, you’d notice that his gaze isn’t actually looking at you, but beyond your feeble form. To a time long before you, where the ambience of the ocean’s waves surrounds him and a fishy smell permeates the air. As you phase in and out of consciousness, you feel your hand being gingerly taken. He clasps it in his, struggling to not squeeze the life out of it and cause you more pain. He needs something, anything to hold on to because he feels like he’s slipping back into an all too familiar territory. Right now, he’s done what he needs to. You’ve taken your medicine, he put the cool wet rag on your head, and he made sure that you drank more than enough water. And thus comes the most dreadful part of the process…waiting. He hates that his efforts haven’t gotten you back to shape yet and the more time passes, the more those dreadful thoughts start sounding real. Constantine shakily takes a breath and does exactly what he did the last time he had to wait for someone he cared for to get better. He prays. Your head is swimming, your ears are plugged up and popping every time you swallow, but you can hear bits and pieces of words you can’t quite understand hastily whispered. 

…Your hand feels wet.

V. And finally, some advice. If you are a master lucky enough to have Qin Shi Huang, then you might recall one of their Valentine’s Day gifts being the actual elixir of immortality. What ever you do… Do not let anyone know you have this. Especially not your trusted, kind hearted and reliable Rider. Constantine is paranoid about your health, we know this. He will do whatever is necessary to make sure that you live a very long time, or at the very least that you outlive him. So… if by some margin, some chance that you happen to say… have something that could eliminate the potential of you suddenly falling ill and dying… Well, he’d much rather beg for your forgiveness for the rest of eternity than watch you wither away and die before his eyes. He will find where you put it and he will get you to drink it somehow, whether you know it or not. After all is said and done, you’ll find that Constantine is much lighter on his feet than usual. Since it was the Qin Shi Huang (the one that actually achieved a form of immortality) who gifted the elixir to you, he’s confident that it’ll at least have some effect in keeping you safe. Though, being the realist he is at heart, he still has his doubts. The paranoia has lessened considerably, but hasn’t gone away entirely. Constantine will still give you that look when you cough, he’ll still check the weather and check you before you leave just out of sheer habit. So on and so forth. All in all, it’s best that you don’t tell anyone about the elixir. Otherwise you may find it mysteriously empty one day and that fatal wounds no longer matter. But hey! At least you have Constantine by your side for the indefinite future! I just realized that that last statement makes him sound like a yandere and, while you’re not wrong for thinking that, I feel like Constantine as I view him is just overprotective. Nothing more. A Yandere!Constantine would not have just stopped there, he would’ve gone MUCH further.

• Constantine doesn’t listen to music all that much. In fact, he much prefers sitting in silence more than anything. His whole life was mostly a massive cacophony of noise, so he greatly appreciated the few quiet moments he could get. The stuff he does listen to in his off-time either doesn’t have much going on or is closer to ambience more than anything. He’ll vibe with a piano recital and maybe a small ensemble, but you won’t catch him at the orchestra hall. Choirs are also a solid pick too, a nice bit of reminiscence for the times he visited the Hagia Sophia back in his day. The antithesis to his music taste are songs like “Action Winter Journey” by Nero’s Day At Disneyland, “Untouchable” by Golemm, and most certainly “anybody can find love (except you)” by hkmori. Seriously, he hates that stuff. There’s way too much going on, it’s incoherent, and most importantly it’s just way too loud for his liking. You might be able to sell him on specific songs with those vibes, but I bid you good luck on that front. Really, you’re better off with songs like Lilium (Elfen Lied), Majula (Dark Souls 2), Reflets dans ‘leau (Debussy) and 0354 (Koronba). Those are good examples of what he enjoys, so it’s best to hang around in that ballpark. 

P.S. He’ll stomach a live concert provided you have met the following requirements: 1. You and him are really close bond wise, 2. You have next to nobody who can go with you; if you do have someone then you better have a damn good reason as to why they can’t go instead, and 3. you both leave the moment it feels like it’s getting too much for him; no questions and no persuasion as to the contrary. Constantine will be hating every single second he’s there and he’s not hiding it that well, but he will hold out for as long as he can for your sake. Seeing you smile and enjoy yourself is a balm to his soul, and he supposes he kinda owes you some for all the times he’s tortured you in chess and checkers. So...y’know. What’s some loud music and even louder people on all sides anyways? Constantine’s experienced worse both in and out of his lifetime, so surely a few hours of auditory pain is nothing to Byzantium’s last emperor, right? …Right?

• Constantine allows you to call him Micheal. He knows his name is kinda long and doesn’t really roll off the tongue that well either (in his mind anyways). Calling him anything along the lines of ‘emperor’ or ‘your majesty’ just makes him feel too stiff, so that’s not really an option in his books. As for how he got the idea for the nickname, he heard from a few servants that you and him had apparently met before, and thus he looked into the CBC records. And boom. That’s where he got Micheal from. Do keep in mind that he’s only letting you, his master, call him by that name. Everyone else has to either call him by his name or his title, no more and no less. His empire may be gone and the guilt from that weighing heavily on his back, but his imperial pride is still there. Practically ingrained into him since birth and that’ll never change.
• As we know from his My Room lines, he likes playing chess and shogi but dislikes Mahjong due to how much luck is involved. Therefore, I think I can say with confidence that he enjoys strategy games in general. I also say with the same amount of confidence that he’s quite good if not exceptional at games that involve military strategy. Think Diplomacy. Speaking of which, a game between him, Vlad, Chen Gong, and Nobu is never not entertaining. Seriously. It’s a treat to watch when all four get together and the crowd standing around the table cements that fact perfectly. On another note, he brightens up like a Christmas tree when you walk up to him asking to play a game and he’ll brighten up even more if you ask him to teach you. There’s something just so wholesome to him about showing you the ropes on a game he enjoys, watching you ask questions and slowly grow to become better and better. It really makes his day and it shows via the smile adorning his lips. It’s so gosh darn sweet that it’s giving you tummy ache from looking at him too long. Oh, and one more thing. Due to the fact that you have expressed an interest, no matter how minuscule, in strategy games… You are now going to have to deal with Constantine bringing in wacky shit like 4D chess to your room from time to time solely because he wants to spend more time with you, along with him playing chess or checkers with you quite a bit during your downtime. A keen eyed master will note that he seems to ask you to play with him more than anyone else. Huh…wonder why.
• There are rare times when Constantine will call you George. Not as a joke or an endearment, but simply as an accident. He’s quick to pick up on his mistake and will swiftly apologize for it. The whole thing just happens so fast that you’re left wondering if he actually said that and his composure is certainly lending credence to the idea that it didn’t. But, should you question him on it…well, he’ll tell you that George was someone he knew. Oh, by the way. Did you see what happened in the simulator today? I saw that Van Gogh and Hokusai— Yep, Constantine will give you a dry barebones answer and then change the topic from this ‘George’ person to something about his day that he found interesting, anything to keep you from pressing him on the subject. Curious masters may look into Constantine’s life and discover that the ‘George’ he was referring to might be George Sphrantzes: his best friend and retainer. Maybe he misses his old pal and sees him in you sometimes, hence the mistake. Or maybe you just look like a George to him, who knows? Constantine won’t tell you if you ask and you can bet he doesn’t bring it up on his own. So really, it’s anyone’s guess. You just have to sit tight and hope that he’ll be comfortable enough to tell you.

Chapter Text

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.....Are they gone? Great! To everyone who's here, I'll kick this off by saying that Micheal was fuckin' robbed!

I was so hyped to use my grailed 10/10/10 Constantine against Kōnstantînos like I used my Lancelot against the KoTR in Camelot only to find that he was ganked by Tametomo in a cool cutscene. My wheels were watered, my kings were burgered, my taters were totted—You get the point! This post is a product of both my recent (at the time, since this a repost) gacha salt and copium and I hope you enjoy it.

Here it is...What Kōnstantînos XI’s bossfight could have looked like!

Enemy Composition

Right off the bat you'll notice that Kōnstantînos has a ton of back up, a four digit number kind of back up. The composition will be reminiscent of Zhang Jue's bossfight in the sense that you have the boss surrounded by 5 adds. The difference is that Zhang Jue has to manually summon his puppets to the battlefield while Kōnstantînos has his Reinstatement Realm Servants already behind him to fill the holes in the formation. Not only that but his adds are a lovely mixed bag of all 7 classes, meaning that you can't just bring in your Douman to cheese this fight like you did Zhang Jue's. You have to put a bit more thought into your comp this time. Next up is...

The Break Bar (At a Glance)

A nice and easy 300k purple bar that increases to a nice and easy 400k cyan bar that increases to a nice and easy...790k?! Yep, he's a beefy son of a gun who certainly isn't going down easily. Just like in the lore. I'll get into the specifics of the buffs on their respective bars, but for now, I'll leave you with the fact that like most Riders, Kōnstantînos has a 5 charge bar.

His and His Adds' Buffs (1st Bar)

300k HP

Tapping on Kōnstantînos' break bar will reveal the following buffs:

???: Apply DEF Up and Damage Cut to self at the end of each turn.

???: Immunity to Mental Debuffs

???: State where, upon use of Noble Phantasm, convert all DEF Up and Damage Cut to ATK Up and CRIT Strength Up for 3 turns at the end of the turn.

Tapping on any Reinstatement Realm Servant's HP bar will reveal the following buffs:

???: Immunity to DEF Down

???: Apply Charge at the end of each turn

Defense is the name of the game here, folks. Much like Demeter, Kōnstantînos turtles by stacking a shit ton of DEF Up and Damage Cut until he fires off his NP, then that DEF Up and Damage Cut will convert to ATK Up and CRIT Strength Up. Meaning that he'll have five stacks of DEF Up and Damage Cut at the beginning of turn five and he'll have 5 stacks of ATK Up and CRIT Strength Up at the end of turn five. I should mention that the buffs applied by his NP don't count, so that's nice. Oh, and one more thing. Könstantinos will only use his second skill "Empire's Decline" on this break bar, meaning that he'll raise everyone's ATK and Buster Card effectiveness for three turns.

That's the 1st break bar experience.

His and His Adds' Buffs (2nd Bar)

400k HP

Tapping on Kōnstantînos break bar will reveal the following buffs:

???: Apply DEF Up and Damage Cut to self at the end of each turn.

???: Immunity to Mental Debuffs

???: State where, upon use of Noble Phantasm, convert all DEF Up and Damage Cut to ATK Up and CRIT Strength Up for 3 turns at the end of the turn.

???: Resistance to Buster, Arts, and Quick Cards

Tapping on any Reinstatement Realm Servant's HP bar will reveal the following buffs:

???: Immunity to DEF Down

???: Apply Charge at the end of each turn

???: State where, upon Death, apply Damage Cut to Kōnstantînos XI

Ladies and gents, it has now gotten worse! Carelessly killing his adds could, theoretically, give ya boi 5 stacks of damage cut in a single turn. Meaning that just spamming an AOE NP could speedrun your run when his NP hits and converts all that juicy Damage Cut into CRIT Strength Up for the next turn. You'll also have to watch out for him now using his third skill "Demise Privilege" to give 1 charge and apply CRIT Strength Up each turn for three turns to all his allies but decrease his charge by 1. Constantine havers will note that this is not how his third skill works. But, in Profile 3 at the bottom it says that "it takes much more magical energy to wield what privileges he does have.....he was able to pass these privileges onto others." So, with the Holy Grail backing him up, this skill manifests as Kōnstantînos taking a small hit (the grail is covering most of the cost) to his magical energy reserves and bestowing his team some neat buffs.

And that's the 2nd break bar experience.

His and His Adds' Buffs (Final Bar)

790k HP

Firstly, you'll notice that his charge has gone down by one (4 Charge), so that's worrying.

Tapping on Kōnstantînos break bar will reveal the following buffs:

???: Apply DEF Up and Damage Cut to self at the end of each turn.

???: Immunity to Mental Debuffs

???: State where, upon use of Noble Phantasm, convert all DEF Up and Damage Cut to ATK Up and CRIT Strength Up for 3 turns at the end of the turn.

???: Resistance to Buster, Arts, and Quick Cards

Guts: Upon Death, restore 250k HP to self, 2 Left

Tapping on any Reinstatement Realm Servant's HP bar will reveal the following buffs:

???: Immunity to DEF Down

???: Apply Charge at the end of each turn

???: State where, upon Death, apply Damage Cut to Konstantinos XI

???: State where, upon Death, apply DEF Up to Konstantinos XI

???: Incapacitate after 3 Turns

It's the final stretch! The Reinstatement Realm has their back against the wall, so it's all in! His adds will kill themselves at the end of the 3rd turn to give him 5 stacks of DEF Up and Damage Cut so he can hit like a bus on turn 5 (‘Cause his NP now fires at turn 4). As a cool thing in battle after that timer hits the first time and they all die, the text box where the skill name pops up will read "..What?" And then the second time will read "Stop!" Then he'll use his third skill "Hagia Sophia's Prayer" to apply target focus to himself along with CRIT Strength Up for 1 turn. After the third time it happens it'll read "...Please..." and then the fourth time "……" Johanna's definitely not gonna like this. Kōnstantînos is shaken to his core that his own men have started killing themselves to make him stronger and he is begging them to stop. You could just picture the horrified expression he has on his face the first time as he pauses for a moment to process what he just saw.

He'll eventually get 'used' to it and put on his poker face for the rest of the fight, but if he wins then he's not going to be sleeping for a long time thanks to the guilt. It'll haunt him for the rest of his days, man.

Angst aside, Kōnstantînos is beefier than ever, taking less and less damage and having two stacks of Guts that heal a chunk of his HP. You won't have to worry about his adds so much since they're just gonna die anyways, so that's a plus. But largely it's same old same old.

That, folks, marks the end of Kōnstantînos XI's theoretical bossfight.

Chapter Text

Why is Constantine XI so difficult to romance?

It’s his self loathing and fear combined with the resulting denial that’s holding him back here. Let’s first talk about the loathing. Despite having the prestigious title of Roman Emperor to his name, Constantine doesn’t feel all that great. In fact, he feels as though he’s pretty underwhelming compared to his predecessors. Now, if you’re aware of the history of Byzantium, then I don’t need to tell you what kind of shape the empire was in even before our boi was born. Even so, even with reality staring him in the face, Constantine will never attribute the fall of the Roman Empire to anything or anyone but himself. He not only failed his empire, but he failed everybody. Past, present, and future. He failed the holy progenitor, he failed his predecessors, he failed his dynasty, he failed his people, he failed his mother and father, he failed his siblings, he failed George and most importantly, he failed all of the would’ve-been Byzantine emperors that could’ve come after him if he didn’t drop the ball so damn hard. Because of that ever hanging feeling of shame, Constantine doesn’t feel worthy of you or any affection you give him. He feels like you’re better off with someone who actually did something as opposed to a guy who couldn’t do the most basic thing required of him. This, of course, doesn’t hamper his ability or confidence in being able to defend you.

The fear I mentioned comes from the superstitious belief he has that he’s cursed. Three of his siblings died of the plague when he was younger. Both of his wives perished from illness within a year of being married to him and around the time they were going to birth his child. Too many deaths with similar causes happening close to him (with decades in between the former and the latter), surely this can’t be a coincidence. There’s no way to explain it, he’s cursed! Thanks to the wonderful 2 for 2 on his romantic partners, Constantine has the idea firmly jammed into his head that anyone in a relationship with him is going to die real quick after the fact. The logical conclusion to this belief is that Constantine is going to stay far far away from romance. ‘Cause, y’know, he has a heart. Ain’t no way that our man’s going to suffer another loss like that and he certainly doesn’t want your life to end because of him. The only bright side is that this time at least he’ll die with y— Oh, wait. Independent Action C++, that’s…a little more than 24 hours left to live after being cut off from a source of magical energy. Yeah, no he’ll probably return to the Throne. He can’t live with that kind of guilt, especially since he has nothing else to live for outside of serving you, his master. So, in essence, Constantine is not only not looking for love but is actively avoiding it.

So, with feeling like a loser and being cursed (allegedly), where does denial fit into this? The river in Egypt comes in as a self defense mechanism when he starts feeling feelings for you. He’ll be dusting a shelf one day and a simple thought like “Hey, I like being around Master. They’re a nice person and we share many interests and they make me laugh. Being around them makes me feel good, better than usual actually— Wait. Fuckfuckfuckfuck” And that’s when the denial sets in. Constantine is your friend, your wingman even, perhaps your best friend if you really like him. That’s all he is. That’s all he has been and that’s all he will be. Your friend. And there definitely isn’t a small voice in the back of his mind calling him a liar. Because that’d be weird. The denial is so strong in this one that any hints that you’ve given that you like him that way has been mentally retconned to you just being more affectionate than usual. Oh, you’ve given him a bouquet of his favorite flowers? Thank you, my friend, he’ll be sure to press a few into a bookmark or two later. Oh, you’re inviting him to eat with you at a really expensive restaurant and you’re looking particularly cute this evening? It’s always good to go out with your friends, so just give him a sec to swap to his first ascension real quick and you two’ll be out for grand old time, as friends. Wow! You just reconquered Constantinople (Istanbul, not Constantinople) and the Peloponnese in his name and have set up his coronation in advance, thus reviving the Byzantine Empire he loved? That’s awesome, buddy, he’s really flattered by your heartfelt act of friendship. He’s glad that his friend is so kind. …Eh? What about a spouse to rule at his side and sire his heir? Er…Uh, he’ll adopt one! Yeah! The times have changed so his heir doesn’t have to have his blood. There’s no need for him to sire an heir, absolutely not. The denial goes deep guys, real deep.

As his feelings will, inevitably, grow stronger the more time he spends with you, the less he can he deny that these feelings exist. When the jig’s finally up in his mind, then comes the tug-o-war.

You see, Constantine thinks he’s perfectly content sitting on the sidelines of your life, watching you be happy and find love and shit. But he’s not and he hates himself for it. He hates that he wants to be the only person who can touch you affectionately. He hates that he wants to be the one you hold as you fall asleep. He hates having these selfish desires. It’s a genuine tug-o-war between his heart’s desire and his rational (superstitious) self loathing mind, a constant push and pull between letting you in because it feels right and pushing you away because it is right. This is where the frustration comes in thick on your end. Some days he’ll happily hold your hand with his gloves off of his own volition and will even hug you when he’s feeling brave, and other days he’ll be allergic to touching you in any capacity. He’ll be sitting in the armchair, when normally he’d be sitting on the couch, to avoid being physically close to you because his heart starts beating too fast and he’ll crave holding your hand as you both sit and watch TV like you two used to. He reminds himself constantly that this is for your own good, that you have no idea what’s going to happen to you if he lets you in. This is just another way he’s protecting you. Constantine would love to tell you the truth, he really would, but he knows damn well that your heart is going to bleed for him and that you’ll say that you’re willing to take that risk. But you know what? He’s not. He’s going to keep pushing you away until you get tired of his shit and move on. Because that’s what best for you.

Alright, alright. This is real daunting, seems impossible even. But. The fact that hot and cold tug-o-war is a phase that is not only obtainable, but is inevitable, means that you have a chance. You just have to believe! That said…

How does one romance the Constantine?

Patience is a given considering what I just said earlier, determination too, so let’s talk about having a keen eye for detail. What I mean by that is having the ability to pick up on the little tells Constantine gives off as to how he’s feeling. Our favorite Byzantine emperor has some A Rank composure, he’s not one to outwardly express his internal strife and agony to anyone. If he cries, it’s going to be in a locked room away from everyone else so he can cool off and walk out pretending like he shook whatever made him cry off like it was nothing. Why? Because emperors don’t cry. Constantine is the guy you look to for guidance, defense, and strength, he’s your rock! He prides himself on being the guy you can always cling to in stormy weather, the guy you can comfortably place your faith in that he won’t let either of you drown. If he lets you see him being vulnerable—being weak—then you’ll realize how fragile he really is and you’ll never hold onto to him again. And that’s a scary thought for him! If you can’t trust in his ability to protect you or safeguard your wellbeing, then why is he here? What purpose does he serve at your side? What can he do? You’ll give him an existential crisis if you don’t reassure him that your trust in him is just as strong as it always been.

But I digress, he’s not gonna let you get a read on his feelings so easily which leaves the task up to you. You gotta pay close attention to his expression and his hands, that’s where you’ll find the minute tells he gives. Take that and ponder the current situation or any recent events that you feel may be responsible for any strange things he might have done. Like avoiding you. Then, you talk to him. Corner him if you have to, but talk to him. Gingerly approach the subject and gingerly let him know that you know that he’s going through something and that he can talk to you about it. Offer the idea of venting his problems in a very vague way to at least get something off his chest. If you do this wrong, he’ll try even harder to clam his real feelings up to not worry you. Eventually, as you wear him down, he’ll open up more. He’ll fess up about being worried that he’s not enough for a certain someone he cares about and that he feels that he should let his feelings for them die for their sake. Now, you might be thinking that this is a great time to say: “Oh, Constantine. You’re more than enough for me!” But that’s a HORRIBLE idea. You, my friend, just revealed your hand. He now knows that you know that he likes you. The alarm bells in his head are going off because he clearly has been doing a shit job of keeping you safe from your impending doom if you’ve not only pinged his feelings for you, but also reciprocate them. So congrats, your progress has been reset and you’re now playing on New Game+. Remember, this is still the tug-o-war phase, his rational brain is trying very hard to keep his ‘irrational’ heart at bay and it’s anyone’s game. Don’t give the rational side of him more ammunition to beat his heart. It’s only going to make this more difficult.

Alright, what about life or death situations? While they do give him gray hairs, he’d be lying if he didn’t say that they were all bad. It’s an opportunity for him to prove himself as your protector to you and it reassures him that your trust in him was not misplaced. For a moment after the dust settles, Constantine won’t feel like as much of a loser as he usually does. But this is if and only if you aren’t flagrantly disregarding your safety all willy-nilly and not listening to him in those situations. If you’re just running around tactlessly starting shit to get yourself killed then a whole other Constantine might come into existence and trust me, you don’t want that. Nobody wants that.

In a vacuum, this could take years. So patience and determination are your strongest allies. But as we know, life is not a vacuum. Which brings us to what will definitely speed up the process for you…

External Factors.

Operating under the best case scenario, living in Chaldea, we can see romantic intervention at its finest. Here are your two greatest allies on your quest for the Byzantine Emperor’s heart, as well what they do to help.

Mehmed II:

Unexpected, no? The man who broke through the Theodosian Walls to take Constantinople and was indirectly responsible for the death of Constantine is undoubtedly your greatest ally. Ah, but not in the conventional sense, you see. The sultan is no supporting character in this romance, he is the antagonist. Mehmed already playfully antagonizes and pranks Constantine for his own amusement, but now that he knows that Constantine is pining for you? Oh dear lord, he’s cranked that shit up to 200. He’s now sweeping you off your feet with grand gestures of affection right in front of Constantine. Roses and shiny trinkets, some sweets, the smoothest rocks on the beach— he’s stealing you away like he stole Constantinople. He even jacked Constantine’s weekly board game time with you by getting to your room early and playing poker with you. Y’know, a luck based game. Something Constantine doesn’t enjoy much, which leaves him with choice of getting destroyed at poker in front of you or sitting there watching you two have fun. With how much Constantine hates Mehmed, witnessing the sultan eat into his time with you makes his blood boil more than anything else. Ironic, since he’s been trying to avoid you to keep his feelings for you in check. Jealousy will set in real quick and it will overtake his self loathing, finally getting Constantine to make a move. Which is exactly what Mehmed wanted. After Constantine finally confesses his love for you and all that jazz, you’ll soon find Mehmed wanting to talk you alone about something serious. This is when he explains himself. Mehmed was never trying to steal you away from Constantine, he just got real tired of seeing the guy staring at you from a distance like a sad puppy. So remember to send him an invite to your wedding, ‘kay? He deserves it after all the shit he went through to get you two together.

Nero Claudius:

There’s nothing the Rose of Venus hates more than watching someone willingly forsake life’s joys as a result of some wack superstition. Curse? Schmurse. Roman emperors do not get cursed, that’s absurd. Rome and her rulers are far too great to be cursed, fool. Constantine regrets telling Nero that he feels like he’s cursed because she brought every single religious authority figure in Chaldea over to bless him since he remained unconvinced by her initial argument. Georgios even gave him a lock of Bayard’s mane to help. But obviously that didn’t assuage his fears much. So it’s time for a different tactic. Instead of disproving that the curse is real or erasing it entirely, how about proving that love overcomes all? This is how you get random instances of rose petals softly blowing in from somewhere, the lighting hitting you both just right, and unprompted invitations to watch plays at her Golden Theater together. On the tickets are classics like: Amélie, Beauty and The Beast, Pride and Prejudice—hey, wait a minute! You see, where Mehmed was using subtlety and disguising his motives with antagonism towards Constantine to achieve the end goal of you two getting together, Nero is entirely overt and throwing that shit out the window to reach the same conclusion. She’s manufacturing romantic situations for you two to be in. She’s figured out how to alter the weather so that it’ll rain suddenly, forcing Constantine to shed his blazer and cram you both under it to avoid the rain. She’ll invite you both to a party she’s hosting and will have her plants on the dance floor corral you both to the middle so that, when the cliché slow dance music comes on, Micheal can’t run away forcing him to dance with you. She will trip you as you’re walking so that Constantine will reflexively catch you and then, oops! He somehow falls over too and now you’ve been accidentally kabedon’d by Constantine on the floor. Feel free to imagine any other classics, but you get the point here. She’s forcing Constantine into these situations so that he gets what he’s forcing himself to miss out on and those crumbs of something more with you will entice him to get it together and confess.

In essence, Mehmed gifts Constantine the realization that he, in fact, does not want other men flirting with you (because that’s his job) and Nero forces him to confront his feelings and realize that he can’t keep confining himself to this misery of being without you. The two servants work separately and, for a good amount of time, had no idea that the other was doing what they were doing. Which led to some hilarious overlap with Mehmed crashing Nero’s plans and pissing off Constantine thus killing any air of romance. A fist fight almost broke out at the Golden Theater when our favorite sultan sat down next to you, put his arm around your shoulder and offered to feed you popcorn. The wonderful production was forgotten as Constantine swapped seats with you and had to restrain himself from strangling Mehmed because he couldn’t stop talking the whole time. Yeah, Nero definitely wasn’t happy that’s for sure.

So now we FINALLY get to the meat and potatoes, the real reason why we’re here. After all the denial and the self hate, the frustration and outside intervention, we get…

-Relationship Headcanons: Constantine XI-

Hey theeeereee…I hope you don’t mind that I’m cutting out how he confesses. ‘Cause that’s a whoooole other rabbit hole that’s long enough to warrant its own post. So, we’re now operating under the assumption that Constantine has confessed to you and you reciprocated in kind. We’re far past the denial phase, left the tedium of the tug-o-war phase, and we’ve made it to the acceptance phase. Constantine has accepted his romantic feelings towards you and is more than ready to make up for his foolishness from earlier and show you some love! Final stretch, here we go!

• He’s really physically affectionate. You saw hints of it during the denial phase where he had to sit in an armchair to resist holding your hand, and there were other things he had to retrain himself from doing too that for the sake of brevity (ha, good one Redline) were left unmentioned… But now that things are official, he can really let loose. He hugs you at least once in the day, he holds your hand when he can to not only keep his cold hands warm but to have an excuse to keep you close, and when there’s an empty couch you just know he’s pressed next to you. In life he didn’t get much physical affection outside of the hugs and kisses his mom gave him and what little he had with his two wives. So he’s definitely aching to give and receive smooches. Er, but only in private though, more on that later.
• When it comes to canoodling, cuddling as they say, he’s content being either spoon. They’re both good in his mind and he enjoys them equally. So it’s mostly up to you to choose your spoon. When he’s the big spoon, Constantine gets to enjoy wrapping his arms and legs around you in an embrace that really scratches the protective itch in his brain. He melts holding your warm self in his arms, almost getting drunk off the feeling. His brain is mush and he won’t say much, he’s just…really focused on the sensations he’s feeling and burning them into his brain for safe keeping. For the times when you’re away from him or for when he can’t hold you because you’re injured, he’ll close his eyes and remember what you felt like in his arms. If he could, he’d hold you like this forever, where you’ll be safe from the world in his cold strong arms. When he’s the little spoon, he gets to enjoy a little bit of what he gives to you. Even the protector needs to be protected too, y’know? For him it feels nice to take a moment to clear his mind and to stop searching for threats to your safety for once. In this situation, he likes to rest his head on your chest, right where your heart is. The sound of your heartbeat and the feeling of your chest expanding and contracting remind him that this isn’t a dream, that this is real and that you’re right here with him.
• Dude. I just had an epiphany. His love language, physical affection aside, is protecting you. How did I not realize this sooner It’s baked into everything he does because that’s what he is as a Heroic Spirit, that’s how he was molded by humanity after his death. His thing is and always will be defending Constantinople from the Ottomans. Have you heard about Constantine’s time as the Despot of Morea? Or that time he got his horse killed under him and he almost died? Probably not. Because humanity mostly recalls that Constantine Dragases Palaiologos XI was the man who stubbornly held onto to his crumbling empire until the very end and knowingly fought a losing battle against the Ottoman Turks and went out as a tragic hero. That’s why he has a borderline obsession with the concept of protecting, because he can’t be anything else. …Ow, my kokoro.
• Constantine in the first few months of your relationship will accidentally refer to you as his fiancée (fiancé). This is because our boi Micheal here is from an era where boyfriend and girlfriend weren’t words yet and typically, when you said ‘lover’ it either meant your spouse, your soon-to-be-spouse, or the person you’ve been having trysts with. Thus, his default setting romantically is that you two are currently engaged. Don’t worry, he knows that people don’t just get married right away these days and he’ll get into the habit of not calling you that. Just gently correct him and it’ll be cool.
• Alrighty, you know how I said he’s super duper affectionate but only in private? Well, let’s get into that. When it comes to PDA, Constantine has a firm line that he doesn’t cross. He’ll hug you for a few seconds and give you a chaste kiss on the forehead or hold your hand, but that’s as far as he goes. He has a reputation to keep as an emperor after all and that comes with a certain level of propriety in public. Don’t get him wrong, as much as he’d love to be able melt into you wherever he wants he’s a representative of both Rome and Byzantium. He’s gotta make sure that people see him as a proper authority figure and not a lovedrunk fool who folds faster than a house of cards when his lover enters the room. Don’t worry, he’ll be sure to make it up to you however you like if you’re feeling particularly ignored. Just make sure you don’t have any prior commitments, ‘kay? You won’t be in a condition to do much after he’s done with you.
• Dates with Constantine are pretty relaxed, nothing too exciting or groundbreaking. Picnics out on a grassy hill somewhere with just the two of you, goin’ out to see a movie, taking a stroll— basic stuff. One of the more fun ones, however, is going to the beach with him. Not only do you get to see your boyfriend shirtless, but you also get to see him engage in one of his favorite activities when he was a kid and that’s building sand castles. When he was small, he always wanted to impress his mom and dad by making the Theodosian walls out of sand, but it almost always got swept by the waves or destroyed by his brothers. His mom would always tell him that they looked beautiful and his dad would tell him that he eagerly awaits the day he makes a good one. …He never did get to do that, so it’s a real treat for him to be able to fulfill that small childhood dream. In spite of not having made a sand castle in over 30 years (he died at age 49), Constantine’s actually really good for a beginner and you can attribute that to his enthusiasm. He’s so into this that he even summoned the phantoms that he uses in battle to come help him and they’re just as hyped as he is, it’s adorable. There’s something so wholesome about watching 6 grown men, 5 of whom are in full armor, building a sand castle with colorful plastic tools all with childlike glee. When he’s done, he firstly high fives the phantoms who helped and then asks you to take a picture. Go out and bring Romulus or Caesar to look at his work, it’ll make his day when they praise him for it. After his achievement of building the Theodosian walls from sand, he’ll move on to trying to recreate the rest of his city. But he’ll quickly learn that making a sand city within sand walls is very hard and that he’ll have to make the city first next time. Right when he and his phantoms give up trying to make the Hagia Sophia, tragedy strikes! A small black beach ball hits the side of the wall, making a huge hole! Boisterous laughter can be heard in the distance and when you turn to face the source of the noise it’s… it’s…!

“Surrender your city to me now, Emperor Constantine!”

Mehmed II! He stands tall with his usual smirk, surrounded by similar looking black beach balls, he tosses the one in his hand up and down as he gazes down at you, Constantine and his phantoms. The emperor rises to his feet, golden shimmers obscure him and his attire changes to that of his 3rd ascension. He stands proudly in front of the replica walls, sword placed firmly into the ground, he proudly replies.

“Over my dead body. Men! Defend the city with your lives! Don’t let him near these walls.”

And that’s how the battle for Con-sand-tinople happened. Mehmed slowly inching closer and closer, throwing beach balls to try and destroy the wall while Constantine and his men stand in front and throwing back everything Mehmed gives them. It’s truly a sight to witness and you can tell that both sides are having fun, it’s a rare moment where Constantine can set his grudge against Mehmed aside, so don’t take your eyes off this legendary battle. It’s just too good. Though, I do recommend that you at some point end the fight, because if you don’t then—

“No matter how many invasions there may be, nothing shall overcome our faith! Theodosius Kōnstantînos!”

That will happen. Constantine will use his noble phantasm to protect his work which will prompt Mehmed to use his noble phantasm to destroy the actual Theodosian walls to get to the sand Theodosian walls. And it only escalates from there. So please, for the sake of order and peace on the beach, please stop these two at some point. Don’t fall into the temptation of wanting to see what happens next! You have to stay strong!

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• The best gift you could ever give Constantine is a pair of bluetooth noise cancelling headphones. Seriously. We know this guy hates too much noise and that’s why you’re most oft to find him in quieter places in Chaldea, but if you gave him these? Dude. You’re a lifesaver, genuinely. Now Micheal doesn’t have to psych himself up to pass through certain areas or have to leave a room he was comfortably chilling in. It’s great. You’ll see him with those on his neck all the time and he’ll even have the charging cable on him and the wire for when it dies and he can’t charge it. Just, uh, don’t be too mad when you have to put effort into getting his attention sometimes, ‘kay?

• I sorta mentioned it in passing within previous posts, but Constantine is cold to the touch. He’s so cold that he can just hold an ice cube in his hand until it fully melts without squirming or even feeling it for that matter. Now that’s not to say that he NEVER gets cold, but it takes quite a bit to get him to shiver. The first Lostbelt is the obvious example. The reason why our man is so GODDAMN COLD is because of the legend that floated about after his death that he’s a marble statue in a cave under the Golden Gate of Constantinople. Statues get cold and underground caves are really cold, hence how low this man’s temperature is on main. He never really noticed it until you held his bare hand for the first time and felt that you were really warm. He mistakenly took it as you being sick but he quickly found out that your hand isn’t really warm because you have a fever or something, he’s just cold. Man’s not sure what to think of this since he doesn’t remember anyone telling him in life that he was frigid to the touch. Strange.

• So let’s say, hypothetically in a Normal!HGW AU, that you both win and things are cool and good. The lesser grail manifests and over the course of the grail war, you and Micheal have gotten kinda close (romantic or platonic, doesn’t matter.) If you say, oh I dunno, casually mention in passing that he’d be a pretty cool dude to exist with and that you’re gonna miss him a lot when the war ends, then our emperor might be compelled to wish on the grail to be a person again. You know, like a certain Grand Caster we all knew and loved. And that’s like, a segue into a whole other list of headcanons about your life with him and all the stuff you’d do together. So I’ll, uh, clip that there.

• He’s no prude, but he’s not the type to frequent those kinds of places or sleep around. He doesn’t feel comfortable baring himself out to others so easily and will only do so if you’ve known him for a long time. While the likelihood of it is low considering how much Constantine masks his issues or is in complete denial of them, there is a chance that he would accept an offer to be friends with benefits. The only caveat is that you don’t tell anybody about it. Y’know for the sake of his rep. …And because he’s slightly embarrassed to admit that he has those kinds of needs.

• Just like with concerts, parties aren’t really his scene either. The noise level is already bad enough, but being jammed into a room with a bunch of people AND very loud music? Get him outta there, he’s not going to last! Well, he is. But he’ll be in a sour mood afterwards. Another reason why Constantine doesn’t really enjoy parties all that much is…well, what’s he gonna do? Dance? The only dancing Micheal knows is waltz and that ballroom shit he was forced to learn when he was younger. There’s no way you’re going to see him bust a move, not even when he’s drunk. He’ll be standing with you in the corner of the room holding a red cup of punch and’ll talk with you the whole time until it ends. If you’re honestly gonna call Micheal to go to a party with you, it’d probably be as a bodyguard or a chaperone. It’s what he excels at and he’d be more comfortable that way since he’d have a defined objective instead of the very vague “have fun” that implicitly comes with being invited to be a partygoer.

• Speaking of drinking, how does the last emperor of Rome hold his liquor? Quite well actually despite not drinking that much on his own time. You can thank his pops for that (headcanon). He can out do a fair few people before getting tipsy himself and even then he can can drink with the best of them…until either his self-restraint kicks in or you and Johanna drag him out that is. That being said, he won’t get into too many drinking competitions. Just a few to let everyone know that he’s no lightweight, he’s learned his lesson from fucking around (not literally) in his youth with George. Now that we know his abilities, one has to wonder what kind of drunk he is. Does he laugh? Cry? Talk nonstop? Maybe get…saucy? No, no, no, and no. It’s so much worse than that. Constantine is a philosophical drunk, but not the ‘lasagna is just spaghetti flavored cake’ kind. I’m talking the psychologically damaging kind. That man will make you question your belief system and your reality if you make the mistake of indulging in conversation with a drunk Constantine. He will deadass rewrite your principals and grill you about folding so quick as to let him do this. If you start to weep, he’ll just sling an arm over your shoulder…and continue lowering your sanity by talking some more. If you record the conversation with him in that state and show post-hangover Constantine he’ll flush beet red and put his head in his hands, groaning. He’ll apologize to you and kindly ask you to delete the recording. He’ll tell you to not take any of what he said to heart, those are a drunk man’s words after all. Can’t trust what them drunk people say. And, uh, maybe don’t talk with him when he’s like that? Please? …With some of the things he says, you can’t help but question his mental health. Can you really say he’s okay when he’s calmly going off like this without even stuttering or pausing to think? Is this really just a drunk haze or is it a peek into the mind of your good friend Micheal? Who knows.

Note: Sober Mehmed and drunk Constantine are a crossover that the world just isn’t ready for. So maybe you should prevent this from occurring as best you can. These two could theoretically go on and on for days if Constantine doesn’t sober up or pass out and Mehmed has his schedule cleared. I’m dead serious. Micheal has a ton of shit on his mind that he never gets to talk about because George isn’t here and the alcohol has hoisted that treasure trove of opinions and thoughts to the surface. Mehmed fucking lives on not only talking (or yapping as the youth say) and debating his ideas and beliefs but also this is the golden opportunity to talk with Constantine without him writing him off and ya boi is going to milk the everliving shit out of it because it may never happen again. For the sultan, this is going to be a very interesting and enlightening conversation and for Micheal… well, he’s drunk so who knows what he’s getting out of this. And don’t worry about Mehmed’s sanity, he’s resistant to pale damage seen and heard some shit in his day, so he’ll be fine. You should really worry about yourself and not listen too hard into the conversation… or you might hear something you wish you didn’t.

• If you give Constantine a bouquet of flowers, he will take at least one—usually a few—and press them near the time that he receives them. Y’know so that they’ll always look as pristine as they did when he received them. He has a nice set of acrylic tiles on a wall in his room that’s just a bunch of flowers he’s pressed in the past. He’ll smile when you point at one and he’ll happily explain how he got the flowers in the tile. Hell, he’ll be glad to explain every last one of them to you if you’d like. If not a tile then he’ll press them into a bookmark he uses. Man’s got a rotation going and a specific set per genre for his bookmarks so that they all get used equally. He might one day, if you show enough interest in this small hobby of his, press some flowers into a tile or a bookmark for you. The kinds of flowers one should expect are…The red rose, the aster, the white carnation, the anemone, the calendula, the echinacea, and lavender. One can also expect this for any bouquets he might give you—eh? Some of those flowers have a romantic connotation? Pfft, no! The red rose symbolizes Rome! Of course Constantine is gonna give you some of those and, uh, don’t worry about the other ones. They just…look nice, yeah. ANYWAYS, he has seen those videos of people making beautiful custom chess/checker boards with acrylic and he 100% wants to make one himself. He’s just stumped on what the aesthetic should be. Like, should it have a Roman aesthetic? Or should it be more focused on flowers since that’s what most of his acrylic doodads are about? Maybe he should try something new and make it like a beach? So many choices…

Note: He’d be so thrilled to receive anything like that from you, even if it looks and functions like ass. Oh, the bookmark has jagged edges that cut up the pages and his fingers? Nah, it’s fine. He’s learned how to finesse it to where it doesn’t happen anymore. Please ignore the band-aids on his fingers, they came from elsewhere. No, he refuses to elaborate. Stop asking.

Another Note: People do, in fact, commission him to make bookmarks and acrylic stands. The first time it happened was when Osakabehime came to him with a piece of printer paper and asked him to make a stand of the character on the sheet. Apparently, the stand in question was a Comiket 55 exclusive and the ones on the eBay run for about…600 to 1,000 dollars. After seeing the sheer despair on her face, he took the paper and made a stand. Batty was so happy with results that she told her friends, then they told their friends. And that, my friends, is how Constantine ended up with a side hustle making acrylic stands and bookmarks. It does decently well as a business if he does say so himself.

• Constantine, to an extent, knows how to do small architectural repairs on a building. To explain this, allow me to give you a watered down history lesson.

In the year 1204, the 4th Crusade happened. Stay with me on this. Previously, Jerusalem was taken over by the Ayyubids after the 1187 siege along with a ton of crusader land; the 3rd Crusade took back most of it except for—you guessed it—Jerusalem. And that’s motive for crusade number 4. After the gang gathered their forces and had gone through some financial disputes with each other, they set off to Zara to get some moola to pay off a debt via taking the city. They took the city and stayed the winter in Zara. Now, the gang decided to go Constantinople—their fellow Christian country—because the son of the recently deposed and subsequently blinded ex-emperor, Alexios IV Angelos sweet talked the crusaders into going there to overthrow Alexios III Angelos for cool shit like: money to pay the debt, tons of troops, their navy—fuckin’ you name it, he’d give it. The broke crusader army gleefully accepted and then they did that and Alexios IV was emperor, yay. Turns out that keeping ridiculous and frankly desperate promises is very hard and often leads to having to make serious and embarrassing concessions which then leads to bad things happening as a consequence, who knew! Thanks to rebellions caused by his subjects, Alexios IV was killed and replaced by the leader of the anti-crusader gang in Constantinople, Alexios Doukas (How many of them are there?). Anywho, the crusaders were pissed that their guy was killed and ‘politely asked’ the new guy to uphold the deal and ya boi told them to fuck off. War happens and the cards just weren’t in Byzantium’s favor leading to the city of Constantinople getting sacked for three days. The destruction was on another level my friends, it was so bad that it never fully recovered under the Byzantine Empire and the 57 year long Latin occupation really didn’t help either. I’m pretty sure you can see where I’m going with this.

In Constantine’s bond 5 profile, third paragraph, it states that Constantine lived ‘in a small, only barely habitable section” of the palace. It also states that they—Constantine and his family—were powerless to stop it from crumbling. Now, it’d be quite sad and perhaps a bit silly to believe that they didn’t at least TRY to stop their home from falling apart, and that’s where this headcanon comes from. In his youth and the times when he was home away from the Morea, Constantine pitched in as much as he could to make the palace better to live in, not only for himself but for his family too. Thus a young Constantine would sometimes be found—either with George or his brothers and sisters—clearing out dirt from collapsed sections or reinforcing the little supports to keep another hall from caving in during his free time. Of course a bunch of kids and teens trying to keep a building up with zero knowledge of how architecture actually works is a recipe for failure. And while I’m pretty sure that Constantine was smart enough to realize that himself, I still think he took it hard when that hall caves in despite his best efforts. No one blames him for it; he gets a few pats on the back from his two sisters for at least trying, his brothers tell him that they just have to do better next time, his dad shrugs it by saying that there’s more important things to be worrying about and his mom tries giving Constantine hope by saying that someday things will get better and they’ll be able to build a brand new and big palace on top of this old one. That all this Ottoman business will blow over someday and everything will be fine. He just has to have faith.

Later, when Constantine would be emperor and the nightmare scenario is unfolding right in front of his eyes, I’d like to think that Constantine was there—whenever he could be—to help fix the holes in the Theodosian Walls. As we know, despite the might of the Ottoman’s artillery, their reload time betwixt volleys was absolute ass. It was so ass that it allowed the Byzantines to reliably patch as many holes in the wall as they could before the next rain shower, hence why this siege lasted for as long as it did. It was a phenomenal effort to be sure, an effort that would go down in history, no doubt but as we know, the walls did come down in the end.

In Chaldea, or more specifically out on rayshift, if you’re camping out in an abandoned building then you’ll find Micheal patching holes in the roof and walls as best he can. If asked why then he’ll tell you that it’s to keep everyone from getting sick thanks to the draft and the elements. It’s best not to go digging too deep into this line of questioning as the roots of it all are deeply personal and riddled with the loathing of his believed personal failings. So just let your buddy do a lil’ housework—hell, maybe pitch in! I’m sure he’d appreciate the help.

Note: I feel like Constantine might have had a small childhood fear of the roof coming down on him while he sleeps. Like, a stone just slipping out of place and icing him while he’s snoozing or the whole ass roof, either scenario kept him awake at night some of the time. And, while that fear has mostly fallen to the wayside thanks to the wonderful losses he experienced in life, he does once in a blue moon wake up in a cold sweat after having a nightmare of his noggin getting rocked. And worse yet? He has a nasty headache when he wakes up.

Chapter Text

Alright, post agonizing slow burn we have a Constantine who no longer has his head up his ass. Great. So, this is the part where he confesses immediately and everything’ll be all hunky dory and this list of headcanons is gonna be a short one. …Is what I would say if things were that easy.

Let me ask you something real quick. We all know that Constantine had two (2) wives, yes? Well, can anyone tell me how he proposed to them? Was it: A. He visited her home country and proposed in person and discussed the deets there, B. He spent ages writing the world’s longest letter as a proposal, or C. It just happened, fuck if I know, why are you asking me this, Redline?

If you picked any of these options then you are wrong. His first marriage with Theodora Tocco in July of 1428 happened because her uncle, Carlo I, got his ass beat by Constantine’s older brother, John VIII, and had to give up some of his territories along with marrying his niece off to Constantine to seal the deal. Micheal had jack all to do with this aside from helping his brother take Mystras and beat up Carlo.

His second marriage with Caterina Gattilusio in 1440 was the result of his wingman George doing the negotiations. The only part Constantine played in that whole thing was deciding on who he was going to marry.

Now why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this to inform you that Constantine has virtually zero experience in this field. He had John and George pull it off for him and even then the marriages were political in nature so there likely wasn’t any feelings to confess in the first place. Now, he may have grown feelings for his wives during their short time together but honestly, we have no idea. So it’s safe to err on the side that he’s got nothin’ since it does not require proof of any kind to hold this position.

This means that it isn’t a stretch to say that Constantine has no idea what he’s supposed to do or how he’s supposed to go about this. The only confessions this man has probably ever made were at church and even then it’s unlikely that he poured his heart out to whoever was listening on the other end thanks to how clammed up he is in regards to his own feelings, so this is new territory to say the least.

Yes, yes. He does know that a confession of one’s romantic feelings for another person is basically at its core just saying “I love you.” But HOW does one say “I love you?” It’s not that simple. It can’t be that simple. Constantine already feels pretty bad for being an idiot and making you put so much time and effort into romancing him, so he can’t in good conscience just give a plain old confession and leave it at that. It needs to be something more. It has to live up to your expectations and then some. It has to be perfect.

…And that kind of thinking is why this is going to be much harder than it needs to be.

The Planning Phase:

Instead of getting stuck on the words he’s going to say as that will certainly leave him hopelessly chained to his desk for far too long, Constantine decides to plan everything else first to be efficient. Namely: the time of the act, the location of the act, how he’ll get you into position alone without cluing you into his true intentions, and countermeasures for if things don’t go as planned.

…If this sounds to you like he’s planning your assassination then you aren’t too far off the mark concerning the angle he’s attacking this from, no pun intended. Constantine is framing this alien situation in a way that’s closer to the ballpark he’s more familiar with: violence. You may find this rather easy to forget and I don’t blame you for it, but this man is from the 1400s and his bread and butter is military affairs. Not a slight to his ruling capabilities, but Constantine is said to be a soldier at heart. We already know that Constantine not only has zero experience in the way of romance but also hasn’t exactly been one to make such direct statements about how he really feels. So it isn’t unreasonable to say that he would frame the issue in a way he can comfortably work with, it’s just that this angle only makes sense to Constantine and anyone who isn’t him looking at his notes would think he’s genuinely trying to end you. Which is NOT the case.

Anyways, let’s get into how Micheal plans what time he should kill you. Ideally, this should take place at a time where there aren’t many people out and about but he also has to account for the victim’s schedule so as to not make this seem like a premeditated action with a defined purpose. It has to look natural and based on a simple whim. It has to look like an accident. After he goes through what he already knows about you—whether you’re a night owl, a morning person or neither—he picks his time and hinges the rest of his plan on the chosen timeframe. The location must be open within the timeframe and it must be normal or at least not unreasonable for people to be there at the chosen timeframe. Ah, but it can’t be when there’s too many people and it can’t be when you’re likely to get called for something either. It’s a delicate balance to be sure but trust the emperor here. He’s got it in the bag now that he has this framed in a way he understands and excels in.

With the time chosen, the location is next on the dock. The ‘where’ of it all should be a location that, ideally, is large enough for him to comfortably steer you away from any potential witnesses or unwanted third parties and has the adequate cover to obscure the both of you to, again, keep away witnesses. It can’t be a place where it’d be strange for a group of people to be based on the chosen timeframe and the nature of the location. There’s plenty of choices no doubt, so let’s rule out a couple obvious locations that wouldn’t fit the bill.

Your Room. One would think this would be the ideal location. There isn’t a need to worry about third parties since this is a personal dormitory for one singular person: meaning that more likely than not, it’d just be you in there. Plus time is not that much of a concern since it isn’t necessarily strange for a person to say, be up at midnight in their own room. And this would be the premier location for the crime—er, confession had it not been for one thing. Servants have a strange and frankly rude tendency to barge into your room for literally any reason. Everything from having a strange dream to stubbing their toe is on the table for reasons to open the door and walk-in. Hell, he’s even heard of someone just walking in and sleeping on your bed without even asking first. With such ridiculous and wholly unpredictable occurrences being the norm, calling this location ‘unsuitable’ would be an understatement. Your room should be a potential contingency for terrible luck at best.

The Cafeteria. Hiding in plain sight is the name of the game for this one. The ideal timing would be during either breakfast, lunch, or dinner to reap the main benefit this location offers. The room would be filled to the brim with people conversing on and on at their respective tables, meaning that no one would actually be paying attention to him or looking for him at all as they’d be too focused on their own food and chats with others. It’s the perfect cover so long as no strange physical actions or particularly loud statements are being made. Not a problem for someone as naturally low-key and conspicuous as Constantine XI. The only variable he’d have to account for is your reaction. …At least that would be the only variable in a vacuum. The problem once again has something to do with you. You are the master of nearly every single servant in Chaldea. You are the first person they meet and your bond with them is tight from the word go. You are, in no uncertain terms, everyone’s friend. And that begets a variation of the previous problem: people being inclined to walk up to you for literally any reason. The ‘in plain sight’ buff that this location boasts only really works if both parties involved have the same level of notoriety as your average Joe or Jane Doe. If you saw Keanu Reeves, Marilyn Monroe, or Wendy Carlos sitting down to eat at your local burger joint wouldn’t you walk up to them to say a few words? Even if you’re not the type, the same can’t be said for everyone else. You are, as the Master of Chaldea, famous in a strange way and that fame brings with it many, many people in public spaces.

Your notoriety is the problem that rules out several locations and forces Constantine to—in general—get a bit creative. This is and should be a private affair between two parties, no more and no less. …Ah, but I should mention now, as I see the proverbial written corner in the distance, that I can only keep this vague façade up for only so long. I can only generally make passing comments about the details of this plan for so long. Constantine’s plan is based on what he knows about you as a person and thus the brass tacks ultimately comes down to exactly that. So, in the spirit of staying detailed, I’m apologizing in advance and politely asking you to step into the shoes of a slightly defined person. I hope you don’t mind.

Picture yourself a morning person. A morning person who isn’t one to hang outside of their room during non-work hours because you’re just that tired from running around farming all day, and that exhaustion sticks around even when you wake up in the morning. The timing in this scenario would be—obviously—bright and early in the morning and the location would be in the library when it first opens. The library has plenty of cover in the form of its several floors and towering bookshelves, giving it a good sense of privacy. With the timing being early in the morning, Constantine won’t have to worry about making it before closing time nor about witnesses since—while there are presumably a good amount of morning people—not many would just head to the library first thing. Plus, the library isn’t a place where you’d be inclined to refuse since it’s a low energy type of location with rather simple activities to do there, y’know like reading or watching old educational films. It’s perfect.

See how the brass tacks of knowing you fits into things? There are several different answers and plans Micheal could cook up based off of surface level info—just imagine if I painted a full person instead of a tabula rasa with a small wash. We could be here for hours. Our boi has definitely been writing for that long and then some with the several crumpled up paper balls in his trash bin of scrapped locations and times, the sorta-kinda accurate maps drawn from memory with lil’ X’s indicating potential positions and notes on the pros and cons of them. This is some serious business, you know?

Getting back on track with generally describing the planning process, let’s talk about how he’s going to get you alone without you catching on. Most of it is just him keeping his composure and acting natural, any excuse will work so long as he doesn’t give anything away. Besides, it’s not THAT hard to get you to hang out with him anyways. You’ve been hanging out with him for ages at this point (because the whole romance thing wouldn’t have happened otherwise), so just asking for your time and saying something along the lines of “I just felt like hanging out with you” if you ask why will do the trick. I mean, what are you gonna do? Interrogate him? Why? You’d have zero reason to since—from your perspective—there isn’t any reason to suspect an ulterior motive. As long as he doesn’t visibly panic or fumble his lines, everything will be fine.

That’s how he gets you to follow him to the location, as for how he gets you away from witnesses…Well, we’d have to get into brass tacks again. Please recall the previous example. Early in the morning, library. This one is actually pretty simple. Lure you to the film room, quietly lock the door behind him and go in for the kill. Easy. You’ll be bleeding out before you know it!

Now. You may have noticed the words ‘pre-planned conversation.’ Yes, the man is planning and leading the conversation you’re going to have with him and is planning on having at least 15 different backups in case the conversation veers into the wrong direction. The last thing Micheal wants is for you to say something like “Man, that mochi Muramasa made a while ago really hit the spot. Hey, actually, let’s stop by and see what he’s making today!” and you head in a completely different direction, throwing the entire plan out of whack. He’s also going to write a script for his confession, but that’s a brand new animal to be studied after…

The countermeasures. The old adages: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” and “If it simply cannot go wrong, then it will anyways” are words Constantine lives by. Considering the nature of the universe this is taking place in, the scope of how things can go wrong is much, MUCH larger than you think it is. So. Let’s get into the most riveting ways that things could go horribly wrong.

The Apocalypse (Again):

It’s highly unlikely that an apocalypse could occur considering the state of the earth at the moment, but honestly. When have constraints like these ever stopped anyone from pulling insane shit ever? Maybe there’s a new Beast that slipped under the radar and has decided that now—just when Constantine decides to shoot his shot—NOW is the time to I dunno, evaporate the earth, atom by atom, with a black hole or something.

There isn’t much that can feasibly be done by our friend here. It is the apocalypse and he is, at the day’s end, just a man. So, the ‘countermeasure’ is really just postponing the execution and waiting for things to cool down before striking again.

Assassins:

Not the class, but actual assassins that are trying to kill you. One may think that it’s next to impossible for anyone to break in unnoticed, but if Koyanskaya can poison a cake (Lostbelt 3) without anyone noticing then enemy assassins breaking in to kill you is a possibility. It’s low, but the percentage is nonzero.

That in mind, the solution is just to kill them. Easiest decision he’s ever made. The difficulty comes in with HOW he’s going to kill them. You getting involved is a distraction that could potentially lead to you calling for backup and boom! Him getting you alone will be much more difficult since he has to get these people away from you without cluing them in on the plan. It’d be nice to be able to assume that everyone would dip after the job gets done, but there’s always that nonzero chance that even one could just so happen to ask to join. So really, it’s best that you are unaware of the dangers lurking in the shadows.

Constantine’s planning would hit a dead end here since the hypothetical assassins in this situation could appear at any point between him getting you to the location and him exiting the location and parting ways with you, hell, the hypothetical assassins could strike literally the moment he turns away. This means that, instead of planning a kajillion different ways to stop hypothetical assassins from killing you at various different points, Constantine would rather rely on his quick thinking and flexibility to resolve the issue.

If this frankly absurd scenario were to come to pass, then it’d end up being like that scene in The Amazing Spider Man 1 with Stan Lee jamming to some classical, completely oblivious to Spider-Man fighting The Lizard behind him with the room getting totaled in the process. It’d be hilarious, so much so that I’d recommend turning right back around and pretending like nothing’s happening for the sake of the bit if you end up seeing it.

That Asshole Sultan is Meddling Yet Again:

Ooh, you just know that Constantine’s fuming while drafting this section in his notes. From his perspective, Mehmed has been doing nothing but flirting and trying to steal you away from him. Hell, he even had the audacity to slip a letter—wax seal and all—under his door, written in Byzantine Greek that basically said “You know you can come to me for advice on romancing Master, right? I have a lot of experience in the field of romantic affairs so—” and the letter was promptly torn to shreds and burned. Who does he think he is?! And just what is he playing at here?! It’s almost like Mehmed is trying to seriously help Constantine here and is being sincere for once! Hah, as if that’d happen in a million years. Don’t worry Mehmed, you’ll get him next time.

If Constantine is unlucky enough to catch Mehmed on the way to the planned location then he’ll straight up just turn around and cook up an excuse to take a different route there. Maybe he forgot something, maybe he wanted to get a snack from the vending machine; whatever the excuse, he’s going to avoid Mehmed at all costs and is crossing his fingers that Mehmed didn’t notice the two of you.

If the sultan does notice, then that iconic yet infuriating smirk will crawl onto his lips as he saunters over to the two of you. And the moment he speaks to you, the whole thing goes bust. Mehmed is an unpredictable variable of the highest order and Constantine wouldn’t be shocked if Mehmed was some sort of plant who’s sole purpose in life is to piss him off and ruin his plans. There’s no telling how Mehmed will derail the whole thing or how salvageable the situation will be after the fact, so the best countermeasure is more preventative than anything. Head on a swivel, eyes peeled and fully prepped to make a 180º turn to a different route. If that fails, then Micheal will save it for another time.

Enemy Love Interest:

While this concept warrants its own list of headcanons, for the sake of this exercise I’ll skip to the end so to speak. Off the bat, I’d like to start by saying that I believe that Constantine would have noticed way early in the game if someone was pining for you. He may not have any real romantic experience, but he’s not dense. He can read people fairly well and he’s heard George gush about his wife enough to know what a person in love looks like. At this phase in the game, Constantine isn’t as worried as one may think. In fact, he’s pretty confident. You were the one to go out of your way to stick around him no matter how purposely stiff and awkward he was being. You were the one who tracked him to the most obscure places in Chaldea to hang out with him specifically. You were the one who put up with playing 4D Chess and Chinese Checkers because you knew that he liked those games. It’s safe to say that you do like him that way and the enemy has nothing on him. Constantine already has your heart and he knows it, he also knows that it’s highly unlikely that his opponent will change your mind if they do confess. So their really isn’t a reason to be hasty about it.

The solution is to simply go in for the kill, he’ll shoot his shot with you and that’ll be that. His opponent who, for as long as this has been going on for, has done jack all to sway you onto their side. There is no tangible threat here, there is nothing to be worried about. The only reason Micheal feels compelled to move fast is because he feels bad for making you wait. The opps can do as they please but it will amount to nothing in the end. And if they keep trying after Constantine confesses…well, let’s just say that the devil doesn’t hold a candle to a legitimately angry Micheal and leave it at that, ‘kay?

…Whew. That was a lot of words, huh? Well fortunately—or unfortunately depending on your perspective—we’re only halfway through. We still have Constantine writing what he’s gonna say and the execution of his plan. So strap in because I’m not letting you leave just yet!

The Scripting Phase:

This is the definitive hard part for our friend here. He can no longer frame this as something he’s vaguely familiar with, now he has to actually tackle this alien issue as it is for what it is. A matter of opening the door and proudly showing what is inside, as all people do. For a man drenched in denial and secrecy, to call this daunting would be an understatement.

After some deliberation and tossing a ball at the wall for about an hour, Constantine manages to break this task down into smaller pieces. In order for one to confess one’s feelings, one must know how one feels about the other person. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a confession in the first place. It is from putting words to the sensations felt by one for another that a confession would bloom naturally in one’s mind as an explanation for red faces and bashful words. That is what a confession is at it’s heart, no? An explanation for behavior that serves as an admission of romantic feelings.

Constantine sighs, he’s getting ahead of himself here. Simplify it into a few words. Understand feelings, define feelings, ruminate on now defined feelings -> write down thoughts, refine thoughts = Confession.

Seems, at its surface, simple enough. Self introspection is something that Constantine is familiar with, something he knew well from life and knows still after death. Close ‘friends’ they are to this day, meeting clandestinely when sleep runs late and distractions flaking when needed most. Yet here and now, in the sanctuary of his room, Constantine calls for an emergency meeting. Thus begins a long undefined period of intensive pondering.

He rises from his seat and lays down on the rug, its soft yarn soothing the aches in his spine from hunching over his desk for the past couple days. He closes his eyes. Start from the fundamentals, understand them, and the rest will follow.

The first question that must be answered is: “what are his feelings concerning you?” Admiration, something that is considered platonic at its base, is the first feeling that comes to mind. He doesn’t care, anything to get the ball rolling is good enough at this point.

To be plucked from normalcy into the world of the strange and mystical is something that most would buckle under the pressure from. Coupling that with the responsibilities that come with being humanity’s last hope makes for an ordeal that only few can truly stomach and even fewer can thrive in. Your rise to the occasion and continuance to persist with your goals in spite of the weight on your shoulders is deserving of high praise in Constantine’s eyes. But what deserves even higher praise is how true to yourself you’ve been throughout this journey, something that begets tinges of envy in the former emperor.

Tragedy after tragedy has befallen you and your comrades with parting words as common as their opposites, yet even with this awful state of affairs being your undeniable reality, you still have tears to shed each and every time. As tender as it was the day you set foot in Chaldea, your heart hasn’t changed one bit. No callouses, no scabs or scales; simply a raw, colorful mass in your chest beating and bleeding as it does, uninterrupted and unchanging. You’ve matured, became more knowledgable and wise but those changes have not brought the frigid chill that desaturates the lives of many. You’re still you. Kind, heartfelt, and honest you. This is a fact. A fact that Constantine can’t help but envy.

To be true to himself and to be honest about his feelings—to remove the hardened paper covering the tender heart shaped thing in his chest would undeniably be a show of weakness. Something an emperor cannot afford, no matter the era. He is supposed to be the paragon of strength and resilience, wise beyond his years and unflinching for his empire. He is the face of it and is often one of the first things thought of in relation to it. He is the person often attributed to its achievements and its failures. To show weakness would be not only an invitation for invaders, but an insult to everything his empire and people stand for. So he swathes himself in denial and lies to mask the truth of his composition, in hopes of one day being the man he’s supposed to be. When that day comes, he’ll be true to ‘himself’ and the loathing will come to an end. But for now, he’ll play the role he covets and stand at your side, envious yet admiring.

The second feeling that comes to mind is peace. The whiplash from distinctly recalling his cracked ribs, sprained wrist and the blood blinding his eyes to the calm of the present era was immense. Your nonchalance concerning the state of the world, however, hit him harder. It took a long time to get used to your calm disposition and it was in large part spending time with you that made the initial tension dissipate. The grand majority of your time with him was not spent conducting exercises or sorties into the battlefield, but rather recreational activities and dealing with the week’s Wacky Incident™ when it occurred. Somehow he found himself playing checkers with you weekly and somehow he found himself holed up with you in his room late at night to help you with the history homework Mehmed II tossed your way. It was a normalcy that was odd for the current state of affairs, but not unwelcome—no, it was sorely missed for the former emperor. When was the last time he had played checkers? Before his coronation…? No, maybe further back? Either way, to have these moments as a constant rather than a fleeting dream was perhaps the greatest gift you could have given.

This is not Rome and it never will be, his family is gone and so are all the people who knew him personally, yet while those things sting tremendously…it doesn’t hurt nearly as much when he’s with you. Your smile, your gentle fleeting touch, your eccentricities or perhaps lack there of, the conversations you two have had; they’re something akin to a campfire. Bright, beautiful, and most notably…

Warm is the word that comes to mind. Ever since he materialized in this paper colored world, he was cold. A fact that he didn’t quite register until he held your hand in his one day. Ever since then, he longed for warmth. Blankets, mittens, and jackets—they all served their purpose nicely, but that was all. They provided nothing more than an artificial way to retain the little heat his body gave. But even so, Constantine yearned for something more.

Another time, you hugged him. At its face it was nothing special, simply a gesture of gratitude for aiding you in getting out of having to do extra push-ups. The moment lasted for less than a minute, yet it’s presence lingered for long after. Through his extra layers, the blazer and waistcoat, he could feel it. Warmth, but of a different kind. It was something much more full and hearty, intense. It was you and it was overwhelming for the short duration that it happened, a burning sensation. What lingered thereafter kept the all too familiar chill at bay, and Constantine couldn’t help but feel bereft upon its disappearance. He wanted more.

Not too long after, Constantine found himself with burns from you again. But this time was different, you hadn’t even laid a finger on him. It was a discussion shared in his room. You had come to drop off a letter from Don Quixote but ended up sticking around for longer than intended. A point of interest on the walls. A single acrylic tile containing various flowers sat above his bed. At the time, his room wasn’t fully decorated nor nearly as organized as it is today, thus casting a spotlight on the lonesome, colorful square. You inquired about where it came from to which he happily explained. The flowers came from several people at several different points in time for several different reasons. The roses were from Nero as gift for helping her put together a concert, the chrysanthemums were from Miss Crane for New Year’s, the dandelions were from Paris and Asterios—so on and so forth. The conversation then turned into how the tile came to be, the trials and tribulations of creating something of this nature for the first time. He paused midway through after not hearing you respond for some time to check on you, only to have your visage set him aflame. Your expression at that point in time was unforgettable, something he’d think back to frequently. Your eyes shimmered with curiosity and attentiveness, your lips curled into a small smile—both zeroed in on him and him only. You hadn’t once spaced out during his, admittedly, long winded explanation and it showed in the way you were patiently waiting for him to continue. The burning sensation left him stunned, so much so that he almost didn’t catch you asking if he was alright. He managed to catch his breath and continued his explanation once more, his face several degrees hotter than normal.

With the raises in temperature you brought lay the signs of something under the surface. Something that Constantine had been ignoring just fine until one innocuous look backwards in time. Constant thoughts of you, wondering when you two will hang out again and being excited at the prospect, noticing things you’d like or would need and the subsequent desire to give them to you, the warmth he feels because of you…They all pointed to a disturbing conclusion. One that made him reject his feelings down to the very circumstances of their existence.

Then he felt cold.

Constantine opens his eyes. Admiration, a touch of envy, peace and warmth: these are the most notable feelings that Constantine feels around you. The second one, for obvious reasons, should be omitted from his confession. Admiration feels too platonic, too general—not romantic enough. Peace and warmth are what’s left.

To explain even a fraction—an iota, even—of the peace you have brought him during his materialization would require opening another door and showing what is inside that one as well. That prospect is less than pleasing as what lies within is not only unimportant to who he is now, but would most likely change your perception of him for the worse. To shatter his current veneer could quite possibly sour your taste of him, leaving an unsatisfying conclusion to the months of frigid misery he had carelessly inflicted on you and himself. It’d give you a strong reason to give him exactly what he ‘desired’ at the start of this mess.

No. No, it’s far to risky to make an opening like that. He can’t make a play like this at such a critical moment, it could ruin everything. It’s not…It’s not integral for you to know. It’s just supplementary information, stuff you can infer based off of the events that took place in his lifetime. He doesn’t have to confirm anything, not for now at least. It’s best to leave this be for another time.

What remains is warmth, something he has no qualms speaking of. The only thing to be weary of is to not sound like a madman or a wraith when he does. It’s very clearly romantic both as a concept and as a feeling. Only you have brought his temperature up like this and so consistently too.

The importance of the time when you held his hand and the time you hugged him could be attributed to his lack of touching people in general, that he will readily concede. It’s a strange thing to not only invade another person’s space but to go so far as to touch them as well. Why would someone do that? Is it to check if they’re real? Or is there simply no reason at all? Does there have to be? It’s weird. It’s a weird thing to think about. And it is also a divergence from the topic at hand. Constantine squints, trying to find his original train of thought.

Ah, right. Warm. That is how you make him feel. This should be the focus of his confession. He could add tiny bits of prose on how cute you are, but ultimately no more. The objective of this task is to—in written form—rip his heart out and serve it to you on a silver platter, not his eyes. It would be nothing short of superficial and insulting to the complex and charming sort of person you are. And Constantine would much rather snap his own wrist off than to give you the impression that he not only sees you on the surface level, but desires you that much too. He could wax poetical all day and night about how he could look at you forever or something but it’s just a nice bagatelle in comparison to the bigger picture here. Really, if one day your skin melted off and your hair went with it, so long as you carry your same warmth and remained yourself, then Constantine would love you all the same. It’s just a minor difference at the end of the day.

A hand slaps his cheek, it’s his own. This line of thinking will certainly lead to places too dark for the task at hand here, so he pivots and walks back a little bit of the way he came. …Right here should be good. Yes, this is where he’ll start.

Constantine gets up off the floor, sits back at his desk and begins writing. It starts off as disjointed paragraphs with only a barely tangible through-line but as time goes on, it becomes more coherent. More…straightforward. No more beating around the bush, no more forcing you to have to guess his thoughts and feelings; just clear and direct statements.

To have let you stumble in the dark looking for him while he sat curled up in a ball nervously peering at you through the gaps in his fingers is something he regrets deeply. How many bruises have you sustained from bumping into things unseen? How many times have you tripped and fallen over your own shoes? He couldn’t put a number to it even if he tried, not that he wants to anyways. It already hurts knowing that he put you through this unbearable limbo without even stopping to consider your feelings, imagining your pain through it all would only make his eyes sting.

So he writes and he writes and he writes and he writes—draft after draft after draft after draft with minor changes in between. There can’t be any misunderstandings here, so he continues ironing out even the tiniest of wrinkles in the fabric. The process is quite time consuming, so while we ‘wait’ for him to finish, I’ll answer some questions you might be having.

“If Constantine was so utterly lost at the beginning, then why didn’t he watch romance movies or read some romantic novels? Surely those would’ve gotten the gears in his head turning faster than making up an assassination plan and the subsequent marinating in his own thoughts.” And you’d be correct, it would have sped the process up significantly if Constantine simply took notes from various romantic media. But with that comes the potential for confusion.

At the beginning, Constantine only had a vague understanding of what he felt for you as result of the heavy mental censoring and retconning he subjected himself to in the early phase. His feelings at that point were an undefined, multicolored and shapeless thing that he just knew was love. So, if he were to just study fiction’s romance and shape his confession around that, he’d be left with various words that don’t fit quite well with his actual feelings. They’re not necessarily wrong, they’re just… The definition is… I-It’s actually…AGH! It’d either lead him down the path that he has already taken or cause him to use those words anyways in a janky mess based off what he’d think you’d want and what is commonly accepted. It wouldn’t be sincere. It wouldn’t be enough and he knows it.

“With all the writing he’s doing, wouldn’t it be easier to just send out his script as a letter? He could just skip the whole plan and rest easy knowing that he doesn’t have to worry about holding his composure or fucking up his lines and stuff.” And you know what? You’d be correct on that count as well. It WOULD be so much easier if Constantine just converted his draft into a letter and slipped it under your door someday. It WOULD be less hard on him to hide away from seeing your initial reaction. But you know what else this method is? Cowardly. It’s a coward’s way of confessing his feelings.

Constantine already uses several negative adjectives to describe himself: selfish, good-for-nothing, unfit, undeserving, weak—the list goes on. But one he will never ever apply to himself is coward. He’s the guy who stayed in his crumbling empire, ripped off the one thing that id’d him as himself and rushed into battle—not as himself—but as just some dude and died fighting for what he believed in as just some dude. He could have ran to the Morea then—hell, he could’ve ran years before the siege. But that would have meant forsaking everything he cared about, and that was something he couldn’t bare. This scenario is infinitely less intense and arguably less important, but is still deserving of that same attitude, that same passion. So no, he’s not going to chicken out of confessing in person and that’s based on principle.

The other reason is that you deserve better than just a simple letter. He, again, really regrets putting you through what he did and wants to make up for it. And being a coward is a terrible first step in that direction. This confession has to be something special, something that will stand out in your memories for years to come and act as a satisfying resolution to the struggles of these past few months. This confession needs to be something more than what it is. It has to live up to your expectations and then some. It has to be perfect. Constantine refuses to start with anything less.

Oh, hey. Would you look at that? Constantine’s finished writing his final draft. Let’s see here… It’s number… Fifty-three. Yeesh, I can’t imagine writing that many drafts since I mostly do everything in one doc and rewrite everything as I reread it. But I guess this is just a testament to how serious he is about this, huh? Fifty-three drafts, the first starting off a stream of consciousness and drastically changing until the last twenty which only had a few words replaced between them. Really, the only way you’d notice the changes is if you had the whole thing memorized beforehand. In his mind, a single word could change the meaning of the entire paragraph, so somewhere in the middle of this he got up to grab the dictionary and thesaurus from his bookshelf to just be sure. It’s not enough to know the general vibe of a word, you gotta know the definition too.

Contrary to the planning of how he’ll ‘kill you,’ Constantine hasn’t thrown away any of his papers. Not a single draft has been crumpled and sent to the graveyard next to the mahogany structure he writes on. The reason for this being is that these drafts symbolize his growth. Before this mess, Constantine wouldn’t have even given the idea of confessing anything to anyone—you especially—a glance, let alone writing his thoughts down at all. Writing these drafts was nothing short of monumental for our friend here, so he elects to keep them within the locked drawer of his desk for safe keeping. A memento of his first step in the right direction.

Someday, in the distant future, he’ll show them to you. He’ll read each draft one by one to you and you’ll both look back at this point in time with joyful nostalgia.

But that era does not exist yet, so I’ll leave it at that.

What comes after the final draft and a long break outside of his room is practice. The repetitive process of repeating the same set of words over and over again is intensely dull, so there isn’t much to be added here. Just know that he’s practicing a lot to make sure he won’t fumble his lines. Oh and he’s also going over the conversation he’s going to have with you on the way to the location where he’ll confess. But all that was in the previous phase, so I don’t need to repeat myself here.

After practicing a lot and feeling comfortable with the material, Constantine decides that it’s time to go through with his plan.

A Minor Interlude:

Hey. Do you recall all the way back in the Planning Phase what I said about brass tacks? No? Ah, well I don’t necessarily blame you if you forgot since that was…what? About 5,000 words ago? Anywho, I’ll restate it here.

The Planning Phase had two sections that relied on Constantine knowing you, so I couldn’t quite continue on with the same level of detail as I normally do without applying a definition to who ‘you’ are. That was when I painted a small wash on the tabula rasa known as ‘you.’ The brass tacks in the example scenario I am going to present to you are: you’re a morning person and the confession will take place in the library, early in the morning. Why the library? Scroll back up and find out! Nothing wrong with a lil’ rereading, right?

With that in mind… Final stretch, here we go!

The Execution:

“Deep breaths… Breathe in… and breathe out… Breathe in… and breathe out…”

These are the words that the subject of our observation had been mumbling to himself for the past twenty minutes, his body trying and failing to follow his mind’s commands. He is tense and has been for longer than his time leaning against the wall in the dim reserve lights of the hallway. But his initial tension tripled the moment he attempted to set foot outside of his personal sanctuary. His legs seized up and refused to move past the doorframe, his feet were comparable in weight to blocks of lead too. Getting here was a slog to say the least, but admittedly nothing he hadn’t seen before. He had been through worse and he knows that. The oddity this time around is that the situation at hand doesn’t even hold an ember to his past experiences. So why is his body acting like it is?

He supposes that this situation, in the back of his mind, holds that weight to him personally but not objectively, if that makes any sense. Constantine XI will not die today as a result of mishandling the situation, this is a fact that cannot be denied. But it holds that same weight since the change that would come as a result of his failure is, arguably, on par with if not more terrifying than death itself. Or at least that’s what it feels like right now, even though it wouldn’t affect him much outside of his feelings. Which Constantine himself hadn’t taken much stock in until recently, mind you.

This whole thing is ridiculous from start to finish, something he is painfully aware of, but he knows he can’t deny these feelings. Doing so would put him back on the path he walked on for so long—the path that led him to create this whole mess.

It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? To just walk back to his room, or anywhere else for that matter and forget that this ever happened. He could retreat back into the safety of denial and wait for this to die its slow and agonizing death. Hide in between the lines of non-answers and excuses so that he never has to confront you directly about anything and force the responsibility of ending this onto your shoulders. The pain will subside for the two of you eventually and will be forgotten quickly after the fact, this is something Constantine was sure of at the time. But his recent introspection made him question if this was really the right method of achieving his initial goal.

There were originally two ways to go about your romantic advances in the early phase. One would’ve been to accept your feelings and the other would’ve been to reject them. Neither option was appealing. The first would have ended in your eventual demise and the second would have him snap your heart in half with his own two hands. In Constantine’s eyes there was no lesser evil between the two as they both ended in a form of misery, one by his direct action and the other by something he cannot control.

The first one couldn’t be spun in any direction to sound appealing. But perhaps he’s missing something in his views. Perhaps he has to look at things from a different perspective to find the solution. Maybe he can have his cake and eat it too.

Death comes for everyone. This is an immutable fact that no one can deny nor fight against, it’s the inevitable. With that in mind, does it really matter when that end comes for someone? Dying in 5 minutes, dying in a week, or dying in 30 years; does that really make a difference in the grand scheme of things? Under a darker worldview it doesn’t, so why should he deny his and your happiness when he clearly can’t do anything to stop your demise? So long as the short months you have with him are priceless and enriching, surely sealing your fate isn’t as much of a crime as originally thought since it was just going to happen regardless.

…As if. Death may be inevitable, but that isn’t a reason to condemn an innocent person to death for the sake of being happy. That’s not right. Nothing is worth killing you for and no amount of so-called ‘hard truths’ will ever persuade Constantine to believe that. You have an entire life left to live, cutting it short before you even see the fruits of your labor would be horribly selfish at best and demonstrably cruel at worst. To be the person that stole your happy ending would utterly crush this man’s heart to pieces. Something he knows for a fact that he can’t live with.

The only other option that remained was rejecting you, but thinking on it more made it clear at the time that he couldn’t bare that either. The undefined feelings he held for you made Constantine a little selfish, you see. He enjoyed being the person that you hung out with frequently. He enjoyed being one of the first people you came to for assistance. He enjoyed having a piece of your schedule all to himself and he enjoyed having that spot so close to your heart. Were he to kill things off here, then you would most likely begin to drift away from him and move on to greener pastures. You’d find someone else and they’d make you happy, much happier than a man who couldn’t even do the bare minimum of what was asked of him so long ago. The thought of that, much to his own confusion, brings the bitter taste of jealousy. He should be happy for you in that scenario, right? …So why didn’t he feel that way? The answer would not be found until his introspection months after.

Both options led to a form of misery, neither of which he wanted to bring upon himself or you. So what’s left? The third option, a secret option, was to not do anything at all. It sounded infinitely better than killing you or losing you.

Silence is also an answer to a question, a lackluster one to be sure but an answer nonetheless. If he simply ignored your advances, then eventually the situation would resolve itself. He could frame his inaction as ignorance and prevent the scale from moving either way simply by doing nothing. He could still be as close to you as he is and not squander his chances with you break your heart. It’s the perfect solution.

…Not.

Those few months were the most miserable he’s been since he materialized and as he stands here outside of your room, he can say with absolute certainty that he never wants to go back. It’s that reaffirmation that shakes off most of the desire to turn around and keeps his shoes planted where they are.

Constantine lets out a long sigh, reminiscing isn’t going to do him any good at this phase. He needs to be here in the now and focused on what’s to come. Nothing will change if he doesn’t. He starts from the top, and—

“…Hm?”

Constantine flinches and whips his head in the direction of where the voice came from. His eyes catch their identity, but doesn’t stick around. His gaze averts to the wall behind, stealing glances from the safety of his periphery. He knows exactly who this is.

“Oh hey, Constantine. What’re you doing at this hour?”

It’s you, clad in your pajamas with a water bottle in hand, standing in the direction of the exit. From what he could guess, you had come from the cafeteria to get some water to help you sleep. No matter how exhausted you were the day previous, you always woke up on time. A blessing for your duties and a curse for yourself.

Constantine moves to stand up straight to greet you properly, raising his hand in a small wave. It takes him longer than he’d like to form a genial smile, and if he had to guess his own reflection then he’d say that this was on the lower end of his forced smiles. That said, it doesn’t take him long to respond.

“Good morning, Master. I see you’re well?”

Beside your head was the white wall everyone was well acquainted with. Mostly a metallic white and a nice blue section off at the bottom to spruce things up a bit design wise. Though I suppose depending on who was asked the color was more akin to a pine green, which Constantine disagreed with. On another note, a noticeable pause hung in the air before your reply, he’s sure that you shrugged.

“…Eh. Deathly exhaustion aside, I guess I’m alright. But pleasantries for the sake of pleasantries isn’t your style, so I have to ask…Why are you standing in front of my room at five forty-something in the morning?”

You never did miss a beat, did you? That’s fine. Constantine came prepared.

“Well, I was resting a bit from my walk. I didn’t sleep very good last night, so I’m trying to tire myself out by doing a few laps.”

“…”

“Uh-huh…”

You made zero effort to conceal the fact that you were unconvinced. You probably had your eyebrows raised and your arms crossed too to add to that, if he had to guess. In other, more ’important’ news…There was a bit of a dent in the wall just a few feet away from your shoulder. It was barely noticeable, even for someone who was scanning the walls it’d have a decent chance of being missed on first blush.

Whilst Constantine was staring at the wall, you dropped your two cents.

“Well, good for you on exercising, I guess. But that stuff only makes you more energetic. Just go lie down and read An Elementary Treatise on Determinants. It’ll put you to sleep in minutes.”

Constantine shook his head. As good of an idea that was, he’d probably focus too hard on understanding what he’s reading than letting himself sleep. Plus, mathematics reminds him of a certain four-eyed bastard and he really doesn’t want math related dreams either.

“A good suggestion, but the book would have to be something like how water boils or the history of paper clips. …I’d rather not think of math before bed.”

Constantine hears you chuckle and unscrew your water bottle, in the corner of his eye he sees you raise it up to your face.

“I feel that.”

You pause for a moment and lower your water bottle.

“Well, that Lewis Carroll book aside, I can’t really help you. So, I hope your walk goes well. Good ni—”

Constantine immediately rushes to cut you off, the distance between the two of you cut by over half.

“A-Actually…! I…I’d like to ask…Would you mind accompanying me? We haven’t seen each other in some time, so I thought I’d—“

“Sure.”

“I know you’re tired, but—“

“I said sure, stupid. Now where are we going?”

Your hand connects with his elbow, a playful love tap he presumes was to reorient him back in the now and away from what’s in his head. He takes only a second to silently appreciate the gesture, before giving you an answer.

“The library. It’s about to open soon and I heard that a few films and radio recordings have been added to the archive as well.”

“Oh yeah, War of The Worlds is one, right? I read about that one back in school. I still don’t believe that people thought an alien invasion was going on just because some dude on the radio said so. Y2K made more sense.”

“Well, why don’t we listen and find out why they might have thought that way? I’m sure that it wasn’t just an average reading that frightened them to that extent.”

“I’ll believe it when I hear it, Micheal.”

So far so good, if he had to say so himself. Aside from a few hiccups on his end, the conversation went exactly where it needed to and he’s pretty sure you haven’t caught on to his plan yet. After all, that initial awkwardness would most likely be attributed to the fact that he’s been avoiding you, not that he was going to confess. He just has to keep steady.

The walk to the library was, fortunately, uneventful. Thanks to the time, not a single soul crossed their path and there didn’t seem to be anyone shadowing them either. The tranquility and the ease of everything made Constantine wonder if he wasted time with planning as thoroughly as he did. The conversation between the two of you flowed so naturally that he didn’t need to pull out any of his backups or redirect it any way. In fact, it was so smooth that it felt just like old times, before this mess happened and before he realized what that fluttering feeling in his chest was.

This nostalgic feeling pushes him forward and takes out a good chunk of the tension in his shoulders. This is what he wants to return to and if he succeeds then he will have this and much more along with the ability to give that much back to you. The prospect…makes him feel warm.

You both walk into the library to which the daytime librarian, Murasaki Shikibu, greets you both and kindly asks if you two need help looking for something. You asked where the new radio recordings were being stored and Murasaki gladly told you their location: Film Room C. They were in a box on one of the tables since the night shift librarian forgot to put them away yesterday.

The film room—or more accurately rooms plural—was located on the second floor. There were three separate viewing rooms, each with their own: projectors, phonographs and gramophones, old timey radios, and one of them even had a pianola! All of which were either donated, made, or were here from the ‘beginning.’ The biggest contributors to the whole shebang being Thomas Edison, Antonio Salieri, Marie Antoinette and, surprisingly enough, James Moriarty. Er, the younger one, specifically.

The shared interior of any one of the rooms is difficult to describe if you haven’t been inside, but I will do my best.

The layout can be simplified with two shapes. Picture a vertical rectangle and, in the middle of the southernmost line, draw a small square. The square is the projection booth and the rest of the rectangle is the auditorium. One exits the projection booth from either one of the side doors. At the northernmost line would be where the projection screen is, and in front of that would be three rows of seats clustered to the front. The rest of the auditorium is devoted to holding the various records, cassette tapes, and film reels. In the gaps left between the wall and projection booth are shelves for these things, and those shelves move along the wall some more and stop at the middle of the room so as to not block the light of the projector. In front of each one is a wood table that seats six people. The aesthetics of the room, such as the wallpaper and flooring are the same as the library, so I need not waste time recounting it here.

Constantine led you to Room C, the room next to the one with the pianola. He opened the door and stepped aside to let you pass first as he usually does. As soon as he stepped in after you, he gently closed the door and reached behind him to turn the lock. This is it…after this radio broadcast will be his confession.

It didn’t take long to find what you both were looking for. The 1938 CBS broadcast was stored on a small cassette tape with the barely legible note: “Ask Tesla for…” something or whatever. Clearly the person who wrote this was very tired at the time of writing since the ink was smudged beyond recognition on the latter half of the message.

You placed the tape down on the table and Constantine could feel your gaze settle on him.

“So. Do you want to play this on one of the cassette players with some headphones or use one of the radios?”

“Hmm…I’d like to use the radio for immersion’s sake…but I’d imagine that they don’t take cassettes.”

“Wrong. They do take cassettes, look here.”

You reached over to one of the radios on the table and pulled the top half off to reveal…a cassette player. You make a hand gesture towards it and speak once more.

“Edison wasn’t too happy with the fact that we had a bunch of records and tapes, but nothing to play any of them on. So he made it his personal mission to make the phonographs and cassette players for them. After that he made these radios for playing old broadcasts more ‘realistically.’ So that’s how we got these. Pretty cool, right?”

“Huh…I had no idea that Thomas Edison felt so strongly about these sorts of things.”

“Contrary to popular belief, lionhead has a life outside of one upping Tesla. Shocking, I know.”

You huffed.

“But that’s neither here nor there. Take a seat. The runtime on this is about an hour so if we don’t start now then I’ll pass out on your shoulder twenty minutes in.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Yeah, well it’ll be your last if you don’t shut your trap already.”

Constantine couldn’t help but chuckle at your crabby remark. You may be fully awake in the mornings but that didn’t mean you were happy about it.

“Huu huu huu. Keep laughing and I’ll strangle you with your own tie.”

The sounds of your unceremonious shoving of the cassette echoed throughout the small auditorium, and the tape began to play in all of its crunchy glory.

What followed for the next hour was a surprisingly quality reading disguised as an actual news broadcast. There were some portions of the dialogue in the beginning that were a bit too descriptive for normal conversation or reporting and the immersion shattered to pieces with the time skip near the end of the professor at Princeton recalling his memories of the martian invasion and how the world is after the fact. It did make sense since this broadcast WAS supposed to be just a dramatic reading of the H.G. Wells book of the same name, so that’s not really a dig at the people at the radio station. All in all, a solid use of a single hour.

Constantine could see you stretch out of the corner of his eye as he put the cassette back where he found it. Next came your voice.

“Well, I’m officially convinced. The people who tuned in after the beginning announcement definitely had no idea that they were listening to a reading, not with the quality of the voice acting and sound effects.”

“Agreed. Though there are some lines that do sound as though they’re from a book, it did sound mostly real. …Until the end that is.”

“Yeah, that time skip was way too jarring. I think they should’ve cut the reading off earlier.”

“…………”

“…………”

The legs of a chair scrape for a few seconds and the chair, he assumes, hits the desk. The soft pitter patter of your slippers inch closer to his location before stopping a comfortable distance from himself. You cut through the silence.

“Hey…”

“…………”

“…I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I really…”

Oh… Oh no…

“…Are you alright?”

“I’m fi—”

“………”

Constantine manages to cut himself off from playing that automated message. He can’t start off with a lie, no, he has to be honest. You deserve better than lies. Well, really, you deserve better than him but your pursuit for his heart lasting for as long as it has must mean that you’re okay with that. That you’re okay with settling for someone like him and that…Well, that boggles the mind, doesn’t it? But he’s not complaining. No, he’s glad. Very glad. And he’s finally going to let you know that.

“You know what, Master? I-I’m not…”

Constantine takes a deep breath and forces the statements from his mouth. The amount of effort it took to dislodge the words from his esophagus left him feeling a bit tired, but…

“I’m not alright. I haven’t been alright in a while, actually.”

Relieved. Constantine is feeling relieved. His shoulders have gotten lighter and his throat doesn’t feel as closed as it used to. Hehe… Maybe this isn’t so bad.

“It’s not because of you, or anything. No, this… This is all my fault and I take full responsibility for everything that has happened between us recently. And… There aren’t many words I know of that can accurately describe how utterly apologetic and regretful I am of these past few months. Ugh…”

Constantine was slouched over the table with his head in his hands. He wasn’t quite ready to look at you yet and your vague blob-like appearance in the corner of his eye was beginning to make him nervous because, ironically, he isn’t sure how you’re taking this. Which is exactly why he didn’t look at you in the first place. You could be very pissed right now for all he knows and the fact that he doesn’t know if that’s true or not is both making him feel better and worse at the same time.

Regardless, he continues, hoping that you can hear him through the wall he put in front of his face.

“I haven’t been this miserable since…since a while ago and I-I don’t want to go back to that.”

Constantine pries his hands off and lets them hit the table with a bit more force than necessary. He stands up straight and exhales. This is it. This is everything he’s been working towards. Just stay calm and recite the script.

“Which is why I need to tell you—”

Finally, after about and hour and a half of purposefully avoiding your countenance, FINALLY does Constantine look you in the eye. And what he sees gives him pause.

It’s you, clad in your pajamas and fluffy slippers with an empty water bottle in hand, bedhead on full display. That makes sense since you weren’t really expecting him or what he’s dragged you into. The sight, in the initial few seconds of him registering it, brings to mind a potential—no, near future that you will share. Someday, maybe very soon, he’ll get to see you like this everyday when he wakes up. But that’s if and only if he can get the words out.

Which he can’t.

Your expression stole the air from his lungs and suddenly the room feels much smaller. On your face sat that same look that you gave him that set him on fire. Your eyes shimmered with curiosity and attentiveness, your lips curled into a small smile—both zeroed in on him and him only. You weren’t angry or anything of the sort, no you seemed… You seemed happy with him and that, well, that’s amazing! That means that he hadn’t lost you yet.

Ah, that face… That beautiful expression… It’s positively strangling his ability to recall just what he wanted to say. Not a single word of any of what he wrote is coming to mind, but maybe… Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe this is how a confession is supposed to be.

Constantine, after a moment, chuckles and simply lets the words fall out as they go.

“Haha…Master… I had planned this meeting from start to finish, but it seems to have fallen through at the most critical moment. I should have expected as much, really, with the way you affect me. …While not ideal, I’ll move forward anyways. I have to. For your sake… And my own.”

It’s a great feeling for one to speak their mind like this after ages of keeping everything under lock and key, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. Not even after getting the foot in the door. The embarrassment of forgetting his heartfelt and perfect confession is already enough to drag him back to his room, but the real thing Constantine has to contend with is the rather incessant fear of what you’ll say to him when he’s finished. That face, for all he knows, could be a mask for what you’re truly feeling at this time. And that idea scares him to his core.

Constantine takes a step forward, removes his gloves and places them in the pocket of his blazer. Hesitantly reaching to grab your hand from your side to hold in both of his. This is not a gesture of affection. Just like how he locked the door soon after entering, this too is his way of forcing himself to go through with this. At least that was the initial idea. The man sighs upon feeling the warmth of your hand, he can’t help but consider falling into the temptation of placing it on his cheek like he had pictured so many times before. Mm, maybe later. The elation of feeling the warmth he had missed after so long of denying himself of it being enough for him for now. Constantine can feel his face getting hot as he musters up the courage to continue talking.

“I… I have so many things I want to say to you… But the words disappeared the moment I look you in the eye. Holding your hand isn’t making things better either, but I can’t seem to let go. The feeling of both… Is—it’s so… How do I put it? It’s… It’s warm. You are warm. You keep the cold away long after we part ways and every time I think about you… I feel as though I’ve been set ablaze. Not literally, of course! I-I mean it in more of a metaphorical sense. You don’t set me on fire, it’s just…”

Constantine raises one of his hands to cover his face, though it only really obscures his eyes from you. He knows the way his lips are pursed and the red on his face will give away what he’s feeling at the moment. Flustered. An emotion that he’s certain that you’ve seen on him before, but not as strong as it is now. He breathes a long sigh before speaking once again.

“Master. Your feelings for me… I reciprocate them in full. I know that may be hard to believe due to my…recent actions, but I do feel this way. I do cherish you deeply and I find myself thinking of you a lot in my off time and I… I…”

“………”

The thing about change is that it does not happen overnight. No matter how hard a person tries, you just can’t build Rome in a single day. It takes time. As commendable as it was for Constantine to take his first step into being more honest with you emotionally, that is all he can do right now. Take that first step, I mean. He can spare nothing more as forcing as much of his feelings out as he did left him drained. This is not his default state, after all. The amount of energy it takes to commit an action like this is twice if not thrice more than normal, leaving him now with not even fumes left to burn.

It’s important to pace yourself and find out what your limits are, but ultimately one will never know where their limitations lie until they push them. And right now, it seems Constantine XI has found his and, at the supposed moment of truth no less.

His mouth not complying with his mind causes his already high stress levels to increase, his legs beginning to shake in response. Constantine wants to start this off right and petering out at a time like this would only serve to force him to play catch up with you when he could be spending that time joyfully on equal footing.

This is, of course, under the assumption that you’ll accept…whatever this is.

Luckily for him, he doesn’t have to worry about that for much longer as he feels something warm touch his face. It’s your hand resting on his cheek, your thumb slowly drawing circles.

“I know.”

“What…?”

“I already know, you don’t have to tell me.”

Astonished, flabbergasted, and stunned: these words are close but simply not enough to convey his feelings upon hearing this revelation. Those two words have done no less than recontextualize everything that has occurred during and perhaps a bit before those few months. It makes much more sense now that he’s been made aware of this. But the newly formed ideas rattling around in his skull are, as of now, assumptions. In order to be sure, he does what any slightly confused person would do. He asks you to clarify.

“Since when?”

“Hm?”

“When did you know?”

“Ah…”

You place your free hand up to your chin in contemplation for a few seconds before sighing in what appeared to be defeat.

“Well, I’ve had a bit of an idea that you did a long time ago… But it wasn’t really confirmed for me until that time we watched Pride and Prejudice together a few weeks ago.”

Constantine felt the visceral desire to cringe upon recalling that night. He had always prided himself on being the bigger man in most situations, but something in him—which he now understands to be jealousy—just wasn’t having it that night when the Father of Conquest decided to sit next to you and sling his arm on your shoulder. The whole thing ended in Constantine swapping seats with you and throwing a punch after not being able to resist the very normal urge to punch people you don’t like.

Oh, of all the ways for a person to figure it out, WHY did it have to be the one time where he couldn't keep it together in front of you? Just…why?

“Hehe… Don’t look like that, Micheal. I thought it was pretty cute.”

Shaking his head free from the cringe, Constantine swiftly moves the topic onto something that doesn’t make him want to bash his head against the wall out of shame.

“Another thing, if you knew already then why didn’t you tell me?”

You simply shrugged.

“I just thought you needed time and space. You’ve always been the type to keep to yourself and deal with stuff on your own, so I didn’t want to butt in on something you weren’t ready or wanting me to see. So I waited.”

Yep, that’s exactly what he assumed. Ever the considerate person, you patiently waited for Constantine to get comfortable enough to act on his own. You weren’t worried since you had the knowledge that he liked you that way and you likely were confident that you were clear about your feelings. All that was left to do was to wait for him to make a move.

You chuckle.

“Guess I made the right call considering that you look like you’re going to pass out any second now.”

“Do I really?”

“Yeah, you’re sweating bullets and your legs are shaking real bad. I think you should go to bed, I know I want to.”

A tempting offer to be sure as he is feeling rather exhausted, but he knows he can’t leave just yet. He still has to say at least those three words before he can call this a successful confession. But the moment he opens his mouth, you pinch his cheek and cut him off.

“Don’t. If you have to try this hard to say it, then maybe you aren’t as ready to say it as you think you are. Telling someone you love them should be easy, almost as easy as a slip of the tongue but more genuine than that. It should be like saying the sky is blue or that fire is hot or that Emiya’s cooking is top notch—y’know like stating an obvious fact. That’s what that should be.”

Constantine attempts to respond only for you to gently shake his face a little and cut him off yet again. If it were any other person, he might well have been pissed for their audacity to treat him so disrespectfully. But your adorable pout contrasting your no nonsense attitude—plus the fact that it was you doing this—was melting his heart down, leaving him neither wanting nor able to do anything about it. You huff and add onto your previous statement.

“I’ve already waited for you once, and I’ll gladly wait some more if it means I never have to see you like this again. I don’t like seeing you struggle this hard just because you think I’ll hate you for something as ridiculous as not saying ‘I love you’ out the gate. Besides, it’s not like we’re on a time limit either, so we can take this as slow as you want. So no more of—”

You wave your free hand around in the air.

“—this because you look like you’re going to keel over. Okay?”

“Haha… Sure, sure. I’ll pace myself.”

“Great. Now that we have that sorted out, can we please go to bed? I can barely keep my eyes open.”

“Er… We?”

“Yeah, we. If you’re not comfortable with it, then that’s cool, but I want to take a nap with you. Again, only if you’re okay with that.”

After months of barely seeing you, the answer was obvious.

“Sure, just give me a moment to change when we get there.”

You nodded, taking your hand off his face since it didn’t seem to you like Constantine was going to say something silly anytime soon. It rests at your side for only but a moment before being taken by Constantine, who—despite the awkward way he went about it—was smiling to himself and looking off to the side.

This whole thing was messy from start to finish but it was a success nonetheless. That in and of itself is something to be proud of and no amount of stutters and stiff phrasing could take that away from Constantine. Sure his preparation was ultimately a huge waste of time and perhaps an unconscious stall on his part, but it got the ball rolling in how our friend here was going to go about this. A long winded warm up if you will.

He hasn’t told you everything and fumbled in forgetting his explanation as to why he avoided you for months. But maybe that’s for the best. It took Constantine a tremendous amount of effort to tell you the surface of his feelings for you, explaining what happened over a decade ago to make him do this is probably going to be like pulling teeth. And it’s not like he’s necessarily gotten over it either, but he is less worried after thinking about it more rationally during that long introspection he had before today.

It’s the modern era with modern technology and modern medicine, leaps and bounds ahead of his time. Dozens of debilitating illnesses are extinct, curable, or manageable. That being said, does he really have to worry about you suddenly falling ill and perishing when you have legendary physicians at your side? Probably not. Plus you’re not his spouse, so maybe the curse isn’t after you yet. Maybe he’ll have much more time with you than he initially thought.

But thoughts like those are for a different time. For now, Constantine is content holding you in his arms as he drifts off to sleep. His last coherent thought being:

“Why didn’t I do this sooner?”

The Aftermath:

HAHAHAHA! What? Did you really think I’d make it that easy? That I’d let this all wrap up nicely with a neat bow and call it a night? Absolutely not! That’d be unrealistic.

The floodgates wouldn’t just open up all the way just because Constantine decided to change and be more open about his feelings. Things don’t work like that. You know why? Because the hinges have rusted over, not only from disuse but also from Constantine himself adding water and salt onto the hinges themselves for years. He had not nor did he ever desire, in the past, to have the proverbial floodgates open completely, let alone as much as they did now. Really, he preferred to have the gates open about…hm. About three inches. Just enough to let a little bit of water through and just enough to deceive you of the water’s color. After all, water in a glass appears colorless, but water in a lake appears a deep blue. See what I’m getting at here?

Due to Constantine’s own self sabotage—which he didn’t think it was—made it so that he just couldn’t get the words out even if he wanted to. He’s been like this for years, decades even. There’s no way that he can just up and force the floodgates open all the way on a whim. No, it would have taken extreme circumstances to have that happen right now, like you dying in his arms or something similar.

Now, don’t think that the proverbial floodgates and their rusted hinges are something akin to the Theodosian Walls in terms of strength because they’re not. He has broken down before—the mounting pressure of everything that happened in his life has caused the gates to fly off their hinges and after a quick breakdown alone somewhere, Constantine fixes it and pretends like nothing happened.

That’s how he’s been and the damage is far too extensive to simply be resolved with a single day’s determination. Though, I should say that his efforts now are a damn good first step in the right direction.

Ultimately, it’s going to take Constantine a while before he drops the ‘l’ word and perhaps a bit longer before he explains himself as to why he avoided you. It’s also going to take a few hiccups along the way with Constantine regressing a bit into his old habits of keeping his pain to himself. Change isn’t linear just like it isn’t swift, the bastard takes the scenic route that makes most people hurl from motion sickness and doesn’t apologize for it in the slightest. That’s kinda what it’s like.

But he’ll get there someday and when he does, he’ll look back on this whole thing and laugh about it with you.

Until then, it’ll be slow moving forward.

Chapter Text

How The Hell Did This Happen?

There is a specific kind of master who would drive our friend here off the deep end simply by following their heart. That very specific kind of master would be none other than…a hero of justice. The type of individual who values the lives of others more than their own and will stop at nothing to save everybody, that is the master who would end up with this version of Constantine unintentionally.

Constantine, after losing everything a very long time ago, has but only one thing to live for and that is none other than you. You are the most important person in his life right now, not only because he needs you to stay materialized, but because of what you represent. You are one of the last humans on earth, you are the one who’s going to save the world and humanity’s future. You are, in no uncertain terms, proof that there is hope in this paper white nightmare. If Constantine can help you achieve your goal, then maybe…just maybe his people, his family—God even, can forgive him for what he did all those centuries ago. It’s a selfish reason to put in his a-game and he knows it, but you don’t have to know that. You don’t have to know that he’s using his newfound contract with you to obtain forgiveness for his sins. But fear not. As time moves forward and he gets to know you, he realizes that his initial reasoning has been outshined by a fondness for his master and a desire to see you well—to see you happy, and such affections are what twist the knife when it comes to your way of being.

Your heroic personality, while coming from a good place, is something that often leads to you getting injured. Almost to the brink of death at times. And try as he may to prevent it, you just can’t help yourself but tackle one of your servants out of the way when the ‘need’ arises. He’s been on the receiving end of one of your rushes more times than he can count and he feels just as terrible and confused as the first time it happened. He just doesn’t get it. Why is someone as normal and weak as you on the frontlines putting in their everything when you have such powerful servants to fight for you? Why are you trying so hard to protect them when it’s you who’s liable to die if the wind so much as blows the wrong way? Why are you denying him his purpose—his chance at forgiveness and throwing it right back in his face by letting yourself get hurt like this? He doesn’t understand it. Fuck, the more time he spends with you on the field the less he thinks he understands you as a person.

Eventually, he’ll get so sick of having to practically carry your limp form to the infirmary all the time that he’ll grip you by the shoulders one day before you go out and sternly tell you to stay behind him or there will be consequences. This is the most bold and stern he’s ever been with you since his summoning, so you bet your ass that he’s not playing around this time. Now knowing ‘you,’ you’re probably going to at least give the idea the good old college try before saying fuck it and reverting back to your old ways. We wouldn’t be able to continue otherwise.

This is the starting incident, this is what you can point to later on and say “Ah, so that’s where it all went wrong.” Granted, this is not the point of no return. You still have time to get out and back onto the right track. Just know that Constantine won’t be letting you pull this kind of shit as freely as you used to and so long as you genuinely try to get better, then this scenario will not come to pass.

But getting better is not what we’re here for, so let’s talk about what happens after this incident. After you’re taken care of, Micheal heads back to his room to ruminate on things. He starts asking himself the real questions like: “Why are you like this? What happened to you to make you think that this is okay? Is he the problem? Is he not doing enough? Do you not think he or anyone else is capable of protecting you?” So on and so forth until he gets tired and decides to sleep on it.

The next day is when he pulls you aside to have a serious conversation addressing three of those questions. Depending on the master, the answers could be any number of things. You could be someone who lost their loved ones and are coping with the survivor’s guilt by throwing yourself in front of anybody you can find to assuage your guilt. You could be someone who never had a family or friends to begin with and found that love here at Chaldea which prompted you to hold every last person here as close to your chest as you can in fear of losing that warmth. Maybe you were raised by someone with such values and this is the only way you know how to do things, leaving you unable to fathom the idea of being saved. Or maybe… Maybe you’re using this ‘hero of justice’ thing to obfuscate your true intentions. Maybe you just want to die but don’t have the heart to do it yourself or be held responsible for it, so you play up the guise of a self sacrificing hero to accomplish that goal without taking any of the blame. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Whether you disclose your reasoning or not is, ultimately, irrelevant for this scenario. It’d be heartwarming for you both to have a moment here and for him to allude to his own struggles to help you feel like you’re not alone. To tell you that you have him at your side and while he may not either know or completely understand what you’re going through, he’s here for you and he’s struggling alongside you all the same. He’s here when you need him, in any capacity that you need him. That would be such a nice ending, wouldn’t it? Dare I say it’d make for an excellent longfic. …But that’s not what we’re here for. So, let’s take whatever moment you did or did not have and forget it because it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to change, and that’s what pulls us forward.

Time passes and Constantine can only find himself helplessly watching you slowly whittle yourself away. After the inciting conversation, he had tried several times after to talk to you and to get you to see his everyone else’s perspective. He tries telling you about how much it hurts him others to watch you get hurt like this all the time. How he everyone is constantly worried about you and he’s they’re terrified of the day that you’ll crumble in on yourself. Notice how he never directly tells you about his own feelings, he frames all of his statements as coming from everyone else with the barest implication that he feels the same. This isn’t the Confession Headcanons scenario where he wants to be a more honest person, Micheal still has his head up his ass and refuses to let you see the true extent of how much you’re hurting him. The man himself doesn’t see anything wrong with this, but you with your lacking knowledge of the man’s inner workings don’t see the why behind it. Instead it comes off as him being self-righteous and lecturing you about something he seemingly doesn’t care for considering how he never references himself. It looks like he’s talking out of his ass about shit he knows nothing about and is nagging you for the sake of nagging you. A more keen eyed master would call him out for being a hypocrite since he does the same thing that you do but for some reason believes himself to be in the right since he’s a servant and that this is his job. With such harsh words and misunderstandings, the friendship between you two is beginning to strain. But with Constantine’s attachment to you as a person and his original ulterior motive, he isn’t giving up on you just yet.

If he can’t get you to change of your own volition, then he’ll just have to change you himself. This is where the yandere part begins coming to fruition, though it should be noted that this all started with good intentions. The plan was to get you to realize that it’s not a bad thing to rely on others by forcing you to accept his assistance. Once he’s gotten you to realize that it’s not only okay to allow it but that it can also feel good to have that weight lifted off your shoulders it’ll, in turn, warm you up to letting your servants and himself protect you, thus minimizing the amount of injuries you receive on sorties. Like I said, good intentions.

But the proverbial snowball has already started rolling downhill, gaining mass and speed. While this is not the point of no return, if things don’t change substantially on your end then you can kiss the true ending goodbye. That being said, let’s continue as though such improvements never happened.

His plan starts off small. He waits for you outside your room in the morning one day and walks with you to the cafeteria to eat breakfast. You grab your tray and he grabs his, the two of you walking over to get your respective meals. Normally you two would've split off, but today is different. Constantine walks with you to wherever you’re going and just when you’re about to reach for what you want, Micheal beats you to the punch and puts it on your plate. He does this for every item and upon questioning, he simply smiles and tells you that he just felt like it.

Slowly but surely, Constantine starts doing things for you. He was already helping you out before with small things like holding the door for you or helping you carry things, but it’s never been this…invasive. Thanks to the time you two have spent together, Micheal has a decent grip on being able to predict your next move or what you’d want. He’s not nearly as observant or looking nearly as hard at you as a certain sultan does, but it’s enough for his little plan to function in the beginning.

But as time goes on and you remain unchanged, still tactlessly throwing yourself to the wolves, Constantine ups his game a bit more. He slowly starts encroaching into your routine, popping up out of the blue to assist you with things you never once asked for help for. Thus you see him much more often than ever before and he learns more about you, your strained friendship seemingly starting to heal in your eyes with how kind Constantine is being. What you don’t realize is that you’re slowly being boiled like the frog you’ve heard so much about in that one analogy. This isn’t healing, this is something twisted and it’s slowly encircling you.

On Constantine’s end, he’s surprisingly having a great time. While he didn’t think that it’d be a chore to pull this off, he also didn’t think that he’d be enjoying himself as much as he is either. There’s something about getting you food everyday, helping you fold and hang up your clothes, and walking you to places that stirs something within his heart. It makes him feel warm and fulfilled but try as he might, he just can’t put a name to it. But I can, and the word he’s purposefully ignoring—because that would mean admitting that he has a problem—is domesticity. There’s an inherent domestic quality to those actions and it scratches the itch he’s had for decades, his desire for a family. If he doesn’t see you as the spouse he misses dearly, then he’ll see you as the child he never got to have.

His chance at being a husband and a father were ripped from him twice over, and to add salt onto the wound his best friend got his own family with none of the agony that Constantine had to go through. He’d sit there burying his fingernails into his palms in envy as George would talk on and on in glee about his wife and his kids, unknowingly rubbing Constantine’s loss in his face. But don’t get it twisted, Constantine did feel happy for George and was all around thankful that his best friend didn’t have to lose anything, hell, he was even the godfather to George’s kids and pitched in to take care of them when he could. But there was an underlying envy all the same and now that he’s getting the domesticity he’s been dreaming of, Constantine can’t help but want more.

So he takes it.

The word encroaching no longer suits his actions as he’s practically inserting himself into your routine so thoroughly to the point where every part of your schedule involves him in some capacity. At this point, you’ve probably already gotten used to Constantine constantly being around you, so you barely notice his increased presence. This is no longer about helping you learn to accept aid from others, this is now an attack on your independence. The sweet allure of having, in an entirely roundabout way, the life he could only dream of has made him selfish. Constantine’s new objective is to make you dependent on him for nearly everything. This way he’ll always have a place by your side and he’ll never be pushed aside in favor of something or someone else. He’ll take care of you, just like any husband or father would do and you’ll always be loved by him. You’ll never want for anything ever again because you’ll have Constantine and that’ll be all you’ll need, plus he’s sure that you’re all he needs too. So you’ll never have to worry about being replaced. This is his twisted idea of a domestic life that no one can take from him, a domestic life that’s for him and him alone. A nice ‘happy ending’ that was long overdue, but was achieved through forcing you to be dependent on him for everything and suffocating you with his presence. How sad what Constantine has become and what he’s turned you into.

What Kind of Yandere is He?

What I would first like to reiterate and clearly state for the people in the back is that Yandere!Constantine is entirely preventable. This is not the inevitable conclusion to his character in relation to you but rather a direct result of your actions or lack thereof. The consequences—the quencies even, to your actions if you will.

That being said, Constantine XI as a yandere is not one of the worst to have but definitely not the best. You’d live pretty comfortably…to an extent. Your personal freedom, independence and free time have all been commandeered by Micheal but at least you’re not locked in the basement or dealing with broken bones. On the bright side, at least you don’t have to put much effort into anything thanks to Constantine’s suffocating presence. So lazy masters can rejoice at only having to put only half of the work into things. Plus, with the way he goes about changing your life, you might not even notice it in the first place! So, uh, take those wins where you can get them.

As for what he is as a yandere… Well, for the sake of having a direction, I’ll state the archetype he’d fit under and elaborate further. He’s the overprotective-possessive type of yandere who starts off not that bad but has the potential to get so, so much worse. Let’s start with the first half of that statement.

Constantine before this scenario was already a protective man, it’s practically baked into his Spirit Origin for crying out loud, but it’s cranked up to an eleven here. The way that he sees things and other people has been twisted by his decline in sanity thanks to none other than you. He hurts so bad when you push him out of the way to take a hit that was meant for him and the repetition of this happening along with the fact that he’s consistently failing to protect you is what got the ball rolling in the first place. So. In an effort to prevent that scenario from happening, Constantine has gotten much more brutal in battle. He always had an air of class and elegance in his fighting style that befit his title of Roman Emperor, but now? Now he’s fighting like he’s going to die in five minutes and is trying to take as many people as he can down with him. He also talks significantly less as a result of this change, only breaking his silence to bark orders or check to see if everyone’s okay. If anyone comes up to him after the dust settles and asks what’s up with him than he’ll ‘sheepishly’ apologize and state that he’s just taking things more seriously now, so don’t take it too personal, ‘kay? …This shift, as time goes on, will also apply outside of battle but not in the way that you’d think.

Let me give an example to illustrate. Say Constantine was heading to your room to get you something you forgot and in there he finds…oh, I dunno, Kiyohime? Really, any person who’s in your room when they’re not supposed to be works... But anyways, he finds her and in the event that she doesn’t leave when he asks her to… Well that’s when things get ugly. Instead of gently dragging her out or calling for aid like he’d normally do, Constantine immediately engages her. And the resulting fight is a mess with Micheal not holding anything back and Kiyohime presumably doing the same. The battle will only end if Kiyohime flees, Constantine gets his ass beat, or a third party ends it for them. If an outsider were to watch the scene unfold, they’d think Constantine was really trying to kill her.

His brutality on the battlefield has leaked into his time off it with the way he treats everyone in relation to you. Bad influences, dangerous people, nosy and peeping toms—they all get the axe equally, which would make one question if he really sees his fellow servants as allies or not. …Which they aren’t, of course. They’re either problems he has to ‘correct’ on a daily basis or your subordinates who he fights with occasionally. They pale in comparison to you, the unfortunate subject of his obsession with the life he never got to have. This dehumanization is something that comes slowly and the man himself doesn’t quite realize how he’s drifted off from his friends and acquaintances. But that’s fine. He has you and he only needs you, likewise that you have him and need only him, right?

Sooner or later, Constantine’s usual paranoia regarding the fact that you might die soon will have morphed into a general distrust for anyone that isn’t himself or you, and that manifests in several different ways but namely…

Possessiveness. There are quite a few servants who boldly proclaim their undying love for you and it makes him sick with jealousy. How dare these people who barely know you act like they’re a better fit for you than him? He’s your protector, your wall and the one you cling onto at all times when you’re in distress. The only person who is allowed to have you is him because he earned it and you prefer him over everyone else anyways, right? …Right?

While anyone could be the source of the green in his eyes, there is one servant who he constantly curses because they are for you what he is not. And that servant is none other than your kouhai, Mash. She is your first servant, your closest friend and has been with you since the very beginning. Your tight bond with Mash and the implicit trust that comes with it far outshines what he had with you in the beginning and has with you now. Even if everyone else in your life despises you or you despise everyone else (which he’d like very much), there will always be a spot for Mash. Mash will always be there for you and the profound impact she’s had on you cannot be understated. Bad as that is, he also envies her for her class and what that class represents.

Shielder. The physical embodiment of protection, the ultimate bulwark and the class that specializes solely in defense. That class should be his and yet here Constantine is as a Rider. His final years on earth were devoted solely to saving Rome and he put his everything—blood, sweat, and tears into it. Yes, he did fail in the end but that shouldn’t disqualify him from being one! …It’s not fair. It’s not fair that Mash was handed this class on a silver platter (not true) for doing nothing (very not true) while he’s stuck as a Rider for doing everything he could and failing!

Needless to say that Constantine, despite knowing deep down that it’s not possible, will be trying to drive a wedge in between you two and his deep envy for Mash is making him less subtle about it. He’s visibly stiff and passive aggressive around her, not even sparing your kouhai a glance. The tension in the room could only be cut with a saw due to the difference in how softly he treats you versus Mash. It’s awkward for everyone involved and Micheal hopes that this awkwardness is enough to get you to give up on her. He is all the protection you could ever need, just look at his Noble Phantasm. How many servants do you know who can break through it? Not that many.

There is also something to be said about how his usual denial is doing in this scenario. See, not once did the thought that Constantine may be hurting you or making you worse ever cross his mind. Constantine’s actions come from a genuine place of love and care, a desire to see you happy and well. That has not changed and will never ever change. Seriously. He loves you to an extremely unhealthy degree and cannot imagine being without you or hurting you. …That being said, he doesn’t think himself to be the bad guy in this scenario. He’s so deeply entrenched in the euphoria of having a spouse again or a child that his morality and conscience were eroded in record time. This ‘domesticity’ has made his denial so bad that nothing he does to you is a bad thing and is beneficial for you in his mind. Constantine is a good man, always has been and always will be. Forgiveness? For what, he can’t quite recall. Though that word does invoke a rather strong sense of melancholy for reasons that our friend here doesn’t care enough to look further into. He has you, and that’s better than any forgiveness he could receive from anybody.

What is Expected?

Since there is a section ahead specifically addressing the romantic aspects of this scenario, I’ll be focusing on the more general ones here since Constantine as a yandere can be platonic.

Let’s start off by listing what we do know so far. He’s virtually glued to your hip, he’s coddling you to high hell and back with how he’s barely letting you do anything yourself, he’s low-key menacing people away from you, and he’s mauling anything that even remotely threatens your safety or his bond with you. That’s…well, it could be worse. No basement and all that, but again it’s not that good either.

The more time that passes, the more Constantine’s stuff ends up in your room. Like, he’ll give you a blanket, you’ll take it back to your room and when you give it back he’ll just tell you to keep it so you won’t be cold. Then he’ll be chilling in your room another day playing chess with you and when you pack up the board and hand it to him, he’ll just tell you to keep it there since you’re his chess partner and it’ll be more convenient in the future. Constantine frames this as him helping you, which he does truly believe, but really it’s just his subtle way of telling anyone entering your room that he’s the one with the privileges and his spot is right next to you and there is nothing they can do about it. You and him are really, really close is the message that he wants to send.

It’ll get to a point where your room consists of 50% or more of Constantine’s stuff. An outsider could easily mistake you two for roommates because of how natural it looks. Not only that, he’ll also start being in there more than in his own room and the sleeping bag on the floor proves it.

Now, while I have been saying that Micheal is with you all the time, he does have the inherent decency to respect your personal space and wishes as long as they don’t involve him being too far away from you. You could ask him to face away from you and not look at you, he’ll comply. You could ask him to hide under the bed to at least give you the illusion that you’re alone and he’ll comply. You could hide in the closet or the bathroom and so long as he knows you’re in there, he won’t bother you. …At least until you need to eat or do stuff and even then he won’t be sour about it.

The sleeping bag also proves that he respects your space because, while he never asked to sleep in your room, he never laid on your bed or even considered sleeping in it in the first place. He just assumed that you wouldn’t want him there. Now, if you offer it to him and say that you’ll sleep on the floor instead, he’ll deny you immediately. He says that he’s accustomed to sleeping on hard surfaces, as any military official should, and that the bed is better for you. Now, if your bed isn’t bolted to the floor, then he wouldn’t mind getting a bunkbed if you’re really feeling guilty about him on the floor. Just…don’t call dibs on the bottom bunk. He doesn’t feel comfortable being so close to the ceiling.

In terms of being coddled, independent masters are going to be in hell. He feeds you your food, he helps you put your coat on in the morning, he’ll cut you off when you’re halfway through writing a report and tells you to say what you were going to write next so he can write it for you, he insists on being the one to push the crosswalk button and he’ll hold your hand as you both cross the street—hell, this is a living hell for the self-sufficient because you are almost always going to be helped with something whether you like it or not. The first time you decline him, well he’ll just think you’re being cute and he’ll insist. The second is when he tells you that you don’t have to be shy, he’s happy to help. The third is when he tells you that there’s no shame in accepting help—ugh, so on and so forth. He’ll just keep gently poking and prodding you to give in and accept his help, not a grain of anger in sight. It’s so unintentionally patronizing that you’d almost want him to actually lash out at you so you don’t have to hear any more of his self-righteous cooing. And the worst part is that he genuinely believes that you’re just being super cute and shy about it. This isn’t an act, he’s being sincere and he’s loving every single second of this. This invasive and suffocating form of doting and care comes from a twisted mix of his Acts of Service love language and his desire for the domestic life that was stolen from him. After all, what’s more domestic than a father or a husband taking care of their loved one?

I’ve already gone into it in the previous section, but I’d like to add that Micheal is fully capable of murdering any of your servants and depending on who’s in your roster, he’d probably get away with it. This is, of course, a last resort. For all his madness, Constantine is still himself. He takes no joy in harming others and it brings him pain. But, you and his continued bond with you is worth the lives of an innumerable amount of people in his eyes. So if there really is a substantial threat to that, then he isn’t going to hesitate in removing that person from the mortal plane. Easiest decision he’s made, the weight of which will be lifted when he returns to your side once more.

It’d be comical how he destroys any slight threat to you if he wasn’t so utterly cold and ruthless about it. There is barely anything left of whatever tried to attack you, just a pool of blood and some chunks to indicate that there was, in fact, a pile of meat there. It’s a far cry from how he normally fights things and his usual ‘scaring away the hoes’ vibe that normally goes unnoticed in Chaldea has intensified to a degree that’s on par with the atmospheric shift in the second section of “What it Means to Protect You.” It’s THAT bad. To make things more unnerving, the moment he turns to look at you when the dust settles, he’s back to his ‘usual’ self and that aura has disappeared completely. He’s giving Okita a run for her money with how effortlessly he swaps from being Emperor Constantine XI back to your friend Micheal.

Now, if he detects that you’re starting to become afraid of him (and after seeing that who wouldn’t), then he’ll tone it down as best as he can. The denial is strong, but not strong enough for him to not be aware of the fact that he might be scaring you. In that event, he’ll gently grab you by the shoulders and swear to you that he’ll never ever hurt you like that. It’s just for your enemies and your enemies alone. …Whether this is a true statement or not ultimately depends on what the future holds.

How Do You Deal With Him?

This is surprisingly very easy. Just go along with it. You don’t have to love him back, you don’t have to coddle him in return, you just have to play along with his fantasy and you’ll be fine. Er… By you, I mean to say the people around you. See, Constantine will never attribute the fault to you and especially not to himself. It’s always something or someone else’s fault that anything bad happens. So. If you’re constantly acting out and trying to avoid him, it’s 100% someone sabotaging him and manipulating you. And when he finds this person, they’ll either be afraid of interacting with you in any capacity beyond work or they’ll be dead by the end of the month. The worst part is that the ‘culprit’ may not even exist and he just picks whoever has been pissing him off the most recently and applies the crime to them instead to have an excuse to get them out of his way. While denying that he’s murdering someone for petty reasons, of course. Does it make sense? Absolutely not. Is is supposed to? Absolutely not. We’re too far into the bad end route to be applying rationale to Micheal’s actions, he’s not sane and his composure is an illusion to hide how volatile he really is. That’s just the reality of this scenario.

So, as a general piece of advice, try not to hang out with the people you like the most because they’ll be one of the first on the chopping block when that scenario happens. Just roll with it and nobody has to get hurt or die. …From your direct actions, at least. And a bit of rebellion isn’t that bad anyways since it’s incredibly hard to piss him off for real. Like, you’d have to know some incredibly deep cuts on Micheal to actually pierce through that thick rose tinted pane covering his eyes to make him angry. But even then it’d just lead to him sulking in the corner for an hour before the denial kicks in and he just blocks out the memory of what you said to him. So you can’t even have that for yourself either.

What is the Best Case Scenario?

The best case scenario is just the two of you living out your lives together. Somehow, you’ve managed to balance keeping your loved ones close enough to be in your life still but not too close as to warrant Constantine icing them while you’re sleeping. If you know Constantine’s tells then you can ping when he’s starting to feel jealous and pivot away from your pals in time to make the save. Our friend here will notice this and, while not directly expressing it, he’s glad that you’re being considerate about his feelings. So do expect him to be softer afterwards, which before this one probably wouldn’t have thought it possible for him to get any softer than he is.

What is the Worst Case Scenario?

Oh-ho-ho-hoh! You can’t see me right now, but I am rubbing my hands sinisterly. I have been waiting for this and I hope to be able to properly convey just how terrible things can get with our boi.

I’ve stated from the very beginning that this is all your fault. You brought this onto yourself and you are now lying on the bed you’ve made, absolutely none of this had to come into fruition. A 100% bonafide preventable tragedy. However… The one thing that ISN’T a direct result of your actions is the Worst Case Scenario. This Worst Case Scenario is caused by none other than the world around you and once it happens, there is no going back to the way things were. You’ll have well and truly lost the path to a better ending as you have reached the logical conclusion to Constantine’s line of thinking.

The game has acknowledged—to my knowledge—very subtly that time has a potential to be fucked. For example, Oberon has a summoning line for before LB6 is cleared, Qin Shi Huang has a line for before LB3 is cleared and so does Koyanskaya of Light for Tunguska Sanctuary. Now, why am I pointing this out? Well, in truth, the Worst Case Scenario doesn’t have to occur in Part 2. This could be reached as early as the 7th Singularity if he’s there. So really, it could be anytime when it happens and that’s the scary part about this scenario. You have no idea when it’s going to happen or how or why, it’s just going to happen and there is nothing you can do to prevent it. So for the sake of putting you in the shoes of this poor soul, allow me to simply show a watered down play-by-play of an example and I’ll add my commentary after.

Yet another close victory for humanity with the fall of the sixth Lostbelt, but fate is nothing if not impatient. The alarm sounds and the next target is in Tunguska, Russia. Everyone, staff and servants alike, rush to the Command Room for answers. Before Da Vinci and Sion can brief everyone on the situation, they notice that someone is not among them. Usually, this person is one of the first to get here in times like these but for reasons unknown, they aren’t. Upon closer inspection, another person is also not among them as well.

Mash and a few others split off to go find them but they come up empty handed. The entire base is turned upside down, but no sign of either person is found anywhere, it’s as though they both had vanished out of thin air. What they do find is in the room with the Klein Coffins, which before today was taped off for maintenance in accordance with renovations.

It’s a complete mess. Every control panel and screen was smashed into pieces with several Klein Coffins in an even worse condition than both. …Save for two, of course. The light on the inside told everyone what they needed to know.

Two people ravaged the room and two people somehow rayshifted despite the systems being down for maintenance. No one quite wanted to believe it since it was so…out of character for either person. They wouldn’t just run off like this, would they?

Thus, in an effort to manifest a different answer, the loudspeaker rings out in the halls:

“███████ and Kōnstantînos XI report to the Command Room immediately. ███████ and Kōnstantînos XI report to the Command Room immediately.”

…But no one arrives.

To find out where you and Constantine went, one need only look back several hours into the past.

You were in your room, going over what materials you were going to farm tomorrow for the new arrivals you had summoned. After finishing writing down that list, you walked over to the door to set out for a late-night snack. Upon opening it you see a familiar, yet surprised face.

“Ah! Thank goodness you’re here. I was worried you were already asleep.”

It was your close friend Constantine and he was looking out of breath. He was in his second ascension and carrying with him a satchel that reminded you of Nightingale. The look on his face was…well, it was normal on him usually but something about it tonight was off. The small smile on his lips was something you saw often and felt comfort from, but now? Right here and right now, it was disconcerting. You brush it off and greet him as you usually did before attempting to move past him. He unexpectedly grips your forearm, not enough to hurt but enough to tell you to stay put.

“Ah… Master, I’m sorry to cut into your plans but miss Kyrielight has called a meeting in the Command Room for a mandatory training exercise. Apparently she’s worried sick about our performance concerning the previous campaign. Follow me.”

He moves his grip from your forearm to your hand and starts speedily walking in that direction, dragging you with him. You didn’t question the sudden exercise, the way he practically had to spit out your kouhai’s name, or how pushy he was being. This was Constantine, after all. He’s one of the most trustable people in Chaldea, right up there with Mash.

Thanks to the time of day, that being the wee hours of the night, neither of you bumped into anyone and you both reached the Command Room and the adjacent room with the coffins.

He grabbed the handle and pulled the door back, taking several steps aside to do so. He gestures with his hand for you to enter first, like he always does.

The room would have been pitch black had it not been for the lights of the coffins and various pieces of technology dimly shining in the dark. This lack of light did well to obscure the yellow tape and sign on the floor that was removed only a few minutes before Constantine had met up with you, and you were none the wiser to the truth of the situation. The Rider behind you being the reason why your internal alarm bells have rusted over.

You walked in, expecting Mash to be hiding in here somewhere only to find…a sharp pain on the back of your head. Your knees buckle from the shock and pain of receiving such a blow, your limp body being caught mere moments after by a strong arm. You feel a pinch in your neck and just before your consciousness fades to black, you hear a familiar voice whisper.

“Sleep well, Master. I’ll be here when you wake.”

There it is! He did the thing—the yandere thing! He actually fucking kidnapped you. Hehe, my excitement aside, let’s get into what happened.

So. As we’re all aware, LB6 was the biggest shitshow to date. Thus, after having been put through the wringer himself, watching you run around like a chicken with its head missing after being separated from Mash and then getting put through the wringer yourself, Constantine had officially reached his limit with Chaldea.

In hindsight, he’s not sure why he didn’t remove you from that horrible place earlier. Sure, it was basically your home and it had everyone you cared about, but is that really worth everything you’ve had to go through? Is that really worth your life? Obviously not. Constantine knew that but decided to let you be anyways and he’s drawing a blank as to why. What his tunnel vision is obscuring from him is that he had friends there too and he stayed there for them. Vlad III, his predecessors, Don Quixote and Sancho, Saint Martha, Jeanne, Saint George, Charlotte Corday, Johanna—all of the new friends he’s made compelled him previously to stay.

…But that changed upon the realization that the family he yearned to have was right in front of him the whole time. Slowly, people faded into the background and became as colorless and indistinct as the landscape outside. His time with his friends lessened and lessened until the only person he’d seek out willingly was you. Everyone else was either a set piece, a necessary evil or just in the way of his time with you. Friends? What are you talking about? George isn’t here, Constantine has no friends. But he does have a family and that consists of you—as either his spouse or child—and himself. There is no one else present, they’ve been dead for centuries. But that’s okay! A family can be two people. He just has to make it work. Dedication is all it takes, after all.

So. You wake up a little bit woozy and the first thing you notice is that your dominant hand feels lighter than usual. Not a good start. When you lift that hand to inspect it, you are greeted with the horror that your dominant hand is missing and all that’s left is a bandaged stump. Now, missing hand aside, the key take away is that your Command Spells are now gone. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Before you could start panicking at the fact that you’re missing a hand, Constantine and… Constantine? enter the room. The former practically bursting in and rushing to your side with the latter tagging along behind him in slight confusion. The former pulls you into a hug and tries to calm you down while the latter looks at you from his spot at the foot of the bed with an unreadable expression.

When you do calm down, your vision clears and you get a better understanding of what’s going on. The man that’s holding you has short black hair and that red armor you’re familiar with, plus he’s talking to you in a very familiar manner and calling you ‘Master’ so you can deduce that he’s your Constantine. The man at the foot of your bed has longer hair and is dressed in more comfortable yet regal clothes, he hasn’t spoken a word since he entered, so he’s probably past Constantine. So. If there are two Constantine’s in front of you, then that means that you’re in the 1400s. Judging by the fact that these two look exactly the same, save for the length of their hair, means that the year is somewhere close to the end of Constantine’s life since the other one doesn’t look younger than your Constantine.

That’s all the deduction you can get before your Constantine starts explaining things.

Why’s your hand missing? Your dominant hand was developing necrosis due to overuse of your Command Spells and Constantine had to amputate it to prevent you losing your whole arm.

Where are you? In Constantinople in 1449. He was told by Da Vinci and Sion to rayshift you as far away from Chaldea as he could get you because they were fending off a raid from the last Crypter, Daybit Sem Void.

Who’s that over there? His living self. He managed to convince him of his identity by answering some very personal questions and enlightening him about the future. He’s agreed to let the both of you chill here as long as Constantine pitches in with his knowledge of the future to send the Ottomans away.

Anyone who’s been paying attention will immediately know that Constantine told the truth in the first half of his second answer before lying through his teeth in the second half about why you’re here. His first answer has a grain of truth lodged in their with the poor condition of your hand but the necrosis part was a lie. The third answer is the whole and complete truth.

What really happened to your hand was—and The man himself is too far gone to admit this to himself, let alone register that this was the real reason—Micheal cut it off because he didn’t want you using Command Spells to boss him around or force him to kill himself in the event you realize that he’s been lying to you. That’s why, right after you were hit on the back of your head, Constantine pulled a syringe from that satchel he had with him and plunged it into your neck. That was anesthesia to null the pain for when he’d amputate your hand. And for anyone who’s wondering, no, he didn’t saw it off. He had one of his phantoms (the ones you see in some of his attacks) hold your hand up and he took his sword to cut it off in a single strike. Cmon’ he may be off the deep end, but Constantine at least has the decency to make it quick.

Anyways…you’re basically trapped in the Great Palace of Constantinople with your servant, Constantine and his living counterpart. For the sake of clarity, our Rider friend will be lovingly referred to as Micheal until this section ends. Basically…not much has changed aside from the fact that you’re now on an indefinite vacation and your dominant hand is missing.

Constantine, when he has the time, summons you to his side and tries to get to know you. When Micheal first got here and had convinced his past self of his identity, he told Constantine that you are very, very important to him. Now, depending on how he sees you, Micheal will either refer to you as his spouse or his adopted child which intrigues Constantine. He basically wants to see what’s got his future self so enamored and after he spends a few months with you, he does see what Micheal’s getting at and is feeling similar but not nearly as twisted feelings. While not nearly as bad as his servant counterpart, Constantine is very protective of you. He did lose Caterina (his 2nd wife) and his unborn child seven years ago, so while the wound isn’t fresh, it still hurts. He also dotes on you in his own way which may seem like not much but it’s the most he can do without attracting rumors.

Your room is the comfiest and least damaged, the servants and staff are ordered to treat you with the same amount of respect and attentiveness they would a foreign ambassador because of the fact that you are with Constantine’s ‘body double’ Micheal, gifts with no name attached end up in your room at random times and a prosthetic for your missing hand is in the works. Not bad. While he does have to maintain a heavy amount of imperial decorum, Constantine does care a lot about you and makes sure to let you know that in the rare times he gets alone with you.

Now, you might be asking: “Hey, wait a minute. Isn’t Micheal going to get jealous of Constantine like he does with everyone else?” And the answer is surprisingly no. Micheal isn’t jealous of himself and Constantine likewise, they’re both the same dude so in their minds there’s nothing to be worried about. Plus it’s much more beneficial to have two rather than one.

So, in summary… Chaldea is in shambles trying to repair the other Klein Coffins to find you in time before Koyanskaya does her thing, Micheal kidnapped you to 1449 Constantinople and cut off your hand while you were out, you have two Constantine’s doting on you with the living one being more stable and normal about you than the other, and finally Micheal and Constantine are working together to rewrite the future and save Constantinople from the Ottomans.

…Welp, I hope you weren’t too attached to the modern era because your goose has a very high likelihood of being cooked. Have fun living in the 15th century! …At least you won’t have to read Tunguska.

Another iteration of the Worst Case Scenario, Worst Case Scenario B, could occur in the middle of a rayshift. Since I’ve already dropped the fact that he kidnaps you, there isn’t a need for a dramatic buildup this time. So I’ll make it quick.

Essentially, while you and the gang are camping out for the night, Micheal would wake you up late. He’d tell you that he found something and that you should check it out. It’s his shift for night watch, so there’s no one awake to see the two of you slip out and away from camp. Once you two get far away enough, that’s when he clocks you in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword and plunges the syringe in your neck. Truth be told, Micheal had been planning this for a while now but had put it off for reasons he…can’t quite recall. But whatever events have recently occurred flipped the switch in his head that Chaldea is not a safe place for you and the people there are going to get you killed. Hence the kidnapping.

You wake up and same shit: you find out that your hand is missing, Micheal rushes to comfort you and he lies to you. The big difference this time is that you’re not trapped in 15th century Byzantium, you’re trapped in his Noble Phantasm. Walls aren’t just for keeping people out, they’re also for keeping people in. Buddy, you’re never leaving. Not on your own at least.

Thanks to the fact that his NP is basically a part of himself, Micheal has an acute awareness of where anything is inside of the walls. Meaning, that no matter where you are, you can’t hide from him. That’s the only reason he’s not glued to your side now, because now you two are completely alone and he knows exactly where you are. But hey, look on the bright side. In this iteration of the Worst Case Scenario, you have a much higher likelihood of being saved. So it’s not all bad.

What Are The Warning Signs?

To reorient ourselves back into a less depressing scene, let’s discuss how one can tell he’s going yandere. Assuming that you aren’t a mind reader and Constantine hasn’t opened up to you at all, here are the warning signs for this route from ‘shallow end where you can bail quick’ to ‘one foot in the basement’ type signs.

He's not completely there/is spacing out often:

This is before the inciting incident with him having a serious conversation with you and it's mainly him trying to troubleshoot what's wrong with his actions in battle or your team comps.

He's constantly lecturing you about not getting hurt and how much 'everyone else' hates to see it:

Post-inciting incident, it's just him begging you in an unclear roundabout way to stop.

Don't mistake it for self righteous nagging, he's just being stupid about not communicating his feelings. Typical Micheal.

He's much more brutal in battle/doesn't talk much in battle:

Already gone over this, but you should know that fights are ending much faster thanks to Constantine's shift. Although, this has the unintended side effect of your other servants and himself getting hurt more often which may lead you to do more of those self sacrificial plays. That will, in turn, cause Constantine to be more ruthless in battle to compensate and the cycle will feed itself. Somebody's gotta stop and it's not going to be Micheal.

He's around you a lot, lot more than usual:

Ya boi puts a lot of weight and has a great respect for alone time but he's sacrificing that by being around you more and more. First is to enact his plan to make you as codependent on him as he is you make you accept help for once and because he genuinely enjoys being around you. There's an almost euphoric glint in his brown eyes that hint at something far deeper at play when he's around you.

He starts doing things for you more than usual:

Already have gone over this, but he’s basically coddling you to make you useless. His invasive care for you is a way that he’s showing his twisted love and you’re going to accept it whether you like it or not.

He gives you his stuff to keep in your room:

His jacket, his blanket, the case with his chess and checker set—just stuff that’s easy to get you to take in the beginning. That’ll warm you up slowly to the idea of living with him for… future endeavors.

He talks shit (in a fashion befitting a Roman Emperor) about the people around you frequently:

Constantine has nothing but subtle insults for the people you hang out with or choose to deploy for battle. You’d have squeeze even the smallest of compliments out of him and even then it’s backhanded with a side of passive aggression. He nitpicks the hell out of people in an effort to get you to see them the way he does, as unreliable and untrustworthy. He’ll ‘counsel’ you on better choices and that really just means that you’re benching the people who’ve been making him jealous recently.

He completely tunes out when you talk about Mash/is passive aggressive towards Mash:

For reasons already stated, Micheal wants nothing to do with your kouhai. You can see in real time when his eyes gloss over the second he pings that you’re talking about Mash. Not a single word of any worth will come out his mouth as he just nods his head and waits for you to finish. He doesn’t ever tell you to not talk about her because he knows that you wouldn’t be happy with him and that thought just pisses him off more.

Mash will come up to you, in the rare occasion that Constantine ISN’T at your side, and will ask you if you know if she slighted him in some way. Apparently he’s been super cold and curt with her as of late. Hmm… Wonder why.

Frequent musing to you about how you’d fit right in with his family and what life would’ve been like if you were around when he was alive:

It sounds innocent on the surface, doesn’t it? You two are such close pals that he’s talking to you about his family and how much they’d like you. How you, him, and George would be getting into all sorts of shenanigans and stuff. But the frequency he brings it up almost gives the impression that he’s testing the waters for…something. Well, it doesn’t matter what your opinion is, it’s probably going to happen anyways.

Freudian slips referring to you either as his spouse or his child:

Exactly as it is on the tin. There are times when he’s talking about you or referring to you in conversation that he’ll slip and call you either his spouse or his child depending on if this is platonic or not. Not much else to say here.

Him practically sharing your room with you:

Listen. If you haven’t seen any red flags until now then your goose is already locked in the oven, man. It’s over for you. Like, I have doubts that you’ll be able to make the turn around necessary to get out of this because ya boi has probably coddled you into a predictable and helpless creature. He’ll immediately ping when you’re starting to get suspicious of him and he’ll just dote on you more to get you to forget about it. And at this late in the game, it’ll probably work! So, if you haven’t even noticed this, then you’re toast.

How to Avoid This Shit-uation in the First Place.

The answer is so, so simple. Don’t be an idiot and try and get yourself killed. That’s what started this shitshow in the first place. If you take care of yourself and demonstrate that your self preservation instincts are functioning, then this’ll never happen. You’ll be on the normal route and you can move to get the true ending.

For the heroic master I described way back in the beginning, this is like asking to turn a plastic glove into hot sauce. Seemingly impossible, but is actually so with the right amount of effort and dedication.

It almost seems too easy, but it really isn’t. It’s just that simple.

How External Factors Come Into Play.

Up until this point, I’ve been writing this in a vacuum. Now, in this section, let’s get into the person who is most likely going to be your savior.

Mehmed II:

Just like in the Romance Headcanons, the Father of Conquest is your greatest ally. He’ll be the first person to ping that Constantine isn’t well thanks to how observant he is of people. The only issue is that Mehmed can’t quite confront Constantine on anything since Micheal hates him and wouldn’t listen to a word he says. Thus, our favorite sultan goes to you and asks you if you know what’s up with him. If you answer that you are aware of what’s up with Micheal, then Mehmed will leave you to your own devices since, much to his disappointment, it’s ultimately none of his beeswax. This is a decision he will come to regret.

If you answer that you don’t, then the sultan will consider stepping in but ultimately won’t actually make a move until Constantine’s plan is well under way. If there ever had to be a person devoted to personal freedom, then it would be Mehmed II. His entire life from childhood to death was put into being the sultan, and while he doesn’t necessarily regret putting his everything into it, he does regret not spending time doing what he wanted to do. So, when Mehmed sees the beginnings of a cage slowly forming around you, that is when he decides to act. Remember, he sees you as a reflection of himself, so the last thing Mehmed wants for you is to be trapped in the same gilded birdcage he was in since birth.

Ya boi’s aid pretty much amounts to getting you away from Constantine as much as he can. He can’t confront Micheal directly because of previously established reasons and because it might turn you away from him and potentially push you towards Constantine. By forcing you to have space away from Micheal, Mehmed provides you the opportunity to consider the previously mentioned red flags and the support you’d need to get to the bottom of this. You are not alone and Mehmed will do whatever he can to make sure that you’re free to do shit yourself.

In all honesty, he’s absolutely disgusted with Micheal in this scenario. There’s nothing our favorite sultan values more than personal freedom and anything that threatens that is high up on Mehmed’s hit list. He just can’t fathom what possessed Constantine to do something so utterly cruel to an innocent person like you and he’s finding himself to be disillusioned with Micheal as a result. Now, when Mehmed does hear Constantine’s motives for doing this during the Worst Case Scenario, either by the man himself being forced to admit it or Mehmed figuring it out, he’s more sympathetic but he’d ultimately without hesitation cosign killing Constantine off for your safety. Hell, he’ll even do it himself.

Sure, losing your family, your wives and your unborn children, your best friend, and your empire would mess a person up to a high degree, but in Mehmed’s mind that is not an excuse to use you as a vehicle to fulfill such selfish desires. He’s a guy with a strong sense of justice and believes in following the law and rules to a T. It doesn’t matter who’s committing a crime or why, someone has to answer for this and when Mehmed finds them they will be spared no quarter. In this case, he’d be the first to propose executing Constantine XI for treason and would also add that if no one else wanted to, then he’d do it himself. That’s the kind of person he is, as ruthless as that may sound.

Now, if everyone believes that Micheal should be given a chance to redeem himself and get better, then… First would be complete and utter shock, what kind of crack were these people smoking to think that this a good idea? Constantine could be using his second chance to bide his time and wait for the perfect moment to kidnap you again for all they know. Second would be pure fury, Mehmed would be beyond furious that they’d let Constantine live after he very clearly demonstrated that he has little to no regard (in Mehmed’s mind) for you. He kidnapped you and cut off your hand, they should all be thanking whatever god they believe in that Micheal didn’t up and decide to amputate your legs too, or your own head for that matter. He’s also up in arms about the fact that, in his eyes, Constantine is getting off scot free for committing a crime of the highest order. That man should be dead, not just because it’s what he deserves for everything he did to you but also to serve as an example to anyone else who has similar plans as Micheal. Mehmed already has issues with the fact that Chaldea seemingly has barely any rules and no accountability, hence his shenanigans and subsequent run-ins with Astraea, but this is beyond ridiculous. What will it take then for someone to actually get what they deserve? Chaldea getting raided again? Obviously not considering the continued existence of a certain someone with a head of fluffy white hair. Will it take your death? He hopes not and he will continue to fight tooth and nail for Michael to be punished for his crimes, even going so far as to assassinate the man himself.

All in all, Mehmed is the first person to espy Constantine’s mental decline, he’ll aid you in getting away from Micheal, and if worse comes to worse then he’ll kill him for hurting you.

On another note, in the Worst Case scenario, you may be wondering what will happen when Chaldea fixes the Klein Coffins or notices that you and Constantine are missing from camp. And I shall answer.

If Chaldea manages to fix the Klein Coffins in time, figures out when and where the two of you went, and rayshifts to 1449 Constantinople, then it’s pretty much over for Constantine. It’ll essentially be a Hydrogen Bomb v. Coughing Baby type of situation since the only powerful person on Constantine’s side that could fight a servant is the man himself and Chaldea would be throwing down their top G’s to find you and that comp includes none other than Mehmed II. The only thing Micheal has going for him is that he’d maybe be able to hide you but that’s if and only if he knows that they’ve arrived. Otherwise Chaldea has the drop on him and with a guy who knows these streets like the back of his hand, it’s not going to take them long to find you. So hooray, you’re saved! Micheal will get his ass beat and depending on how the fight goes and your intervention, he could die right there. But ultimately, the incident will have reached its conclusion with you and your missing dominant hand going back to Chaldea either with or without Constantine.

Now in the alternative, depending on who’s in your singularity or Lostbelt party this may be a more difficult situation to handle on Chaldea’s end. Constantine’s NP is really, really strong and there aren’t many who can break through it. Charlemagne and Mehmed II are the obvious choices due to their connection with Byzantium, but Johanna may be able to force the gate open using her mojo or Odysseus with his ‘wooden horse’ can probably pull it off too. I may be blanking on others but you get the idea, one does not simply break through the Theodosian walls. It takes exceptional people to do so, hence any 3-star teams or regular folks are going to have to get creative.

It’s not like there’s—to my knowledge anyway—an invisible wall preventing one from scaling the walls or flying over them. So. Servants with exceptional agility like Medusa or Ushiwakamaru can scale the walls or Tomoe Gozen could throw someone over them (you’ve seen her NP, she could throw you to the moon), or Paul Bunyan and Protea could drop people in thanks to their size or dare I say it: Arash Airlines 2 or Sky High Rider Buster Justice Bomb 2. The only issue is dealing with Constantine once they get over as he will be ready for them. Depending on how things roll, he could very well drop his NP, grab you and run. But considering the names I’ve dropped so far, I doubt he’ll be going very far. So if he hasn’t killed any servants yet, you may just be saved.

But if there isn’t anyone who can do any of that then worry not, there still an opening. NPs consume mana, Constantine’s very existence consumes mana, thus when mana’s running low, Micheal will drop his NP and saddle you onto his horse with him to run off in a random direction. This is where the opening lies. Any servants who have a horse or are a horse themselves can catch up. Servants like Georgios, Mandricardo, Red Hare or Alexander will clutch this for you. So if you have no one else, then I hope you have them.

Otherwise you might just be on the run forever.

About the Romantic Side of Things…

Alrighty~ We’ve already seen the platonic side of things, so let’s discuss what your new captor husband is like!

• For starters, he’s a lot more upfront and bold with his affections behind closed doors, almost always touching you in some fashion. It could be as small as locking pinkies or him resting his head on your shoulder, but he HAS to be touching you. He was already aware of the fact that he craved affection of some kind, but his mental decline and the ‘realization’ that he can have that domestic life with you as your husband has made him deathly aware of just how much he needs it. This leads to him clinging onto you as much as he can, whenever he can. You are the eucalyptus tree to his koala. (Koala-stantine? Eh, not good enough.) But if you don’t straight up tell him, then he’s going to be holding you and cuddling you constantly when you two are alone. And that shit goes double for the Worst Case Scenario. If he’s got you rayshifted into 1449 Constantinople, then you get Micheal AND Constantine being on you with the latter only on the rare occasions he gets alone with you. If you’re trapped in his NP, then he’ll just be hugging you, holding you, resting on top of you and all other manners of just being on you for nearly all hours of the day. So do let him know if you don’t like being touched that much so he can tone it down. …At least when you’re awake, that is. While you’re sleeping is fair game for him to spoon you (in his mind) to make up for all the time he can’t touch you while you’re conscious. And if you’re a light sleeper, he’ll find a way and if you wake up early and sleep late then… well, he still has several leftover syringes of anesthesia and a few bottles of hard alcohol to put you out with if he feels like he needs more time. He was really preparing for you to wake up mid-kidnapping or during the moment he amputated your hand, hence the copious amount of ‘sleeping tools.’ The alcohol was also taken if you ever felt residual or phantom pain from losing your hand, so that’s mighty considerate of him.

• He’s also more verbally direct about his feelings. The positive ones, I mean. He’d still rather die than admit he’s feeling bad about anything. His filter is almost gone and he’s not afraid to tell you how he feels about you. He tells you that he loves you and that he’d move mountains for you if it’d mean that you’d smile. That he’d protect you from anything and all things: liars, traitors, madmen, gods, friends, family—nothing could ever get to you with Constantine by your side. And while the sentiment is…nice if you ignore the blatant threat to your loved ones, the fact of the matter is that he isn’t as reserved as he normally would be. And that lets a bit of the madness peek through some of the time when he muses to you about his family and how he’d LOVE for you to meet them! How you’d be an excellent monarch at his side and how he’d show you all of the ropes, get you his old tutors from when he was a kid, and how you’d look so beautiful in regal clothing from his era and— you get the point. Like I said previously, the way he talks about these things is so frequent that one may suspect that he’s cooking something and the manic glint in his eye definitely isn’t making it any better.

• On another note, returning his affections will pull him deeper and deeper into his delusions. He gets almost giddy when you hug him back or let him rest his head on your lap and card your fingers through his hair. As far gone as he is, he does have a level of shame left in him that prevents him from acting like a love-drunk fool in public and a level of shame that prevents him from acting too much like the codependent fool he really is in front of you. Just a baseline level of composure and elegance to fool you and himself into thinking he’s still the well adjusted and reliable Roman emperor he thinks he is.

Now, if you were to go out of your way to show affection—and do note that you don’t have to—but if you do, then oh boy. Let’s say…hm. Let’s say in Chaldea, before the Worst Case Scenario happens but you’re in deep enough to where he’s sleeping in your room, let’s say you roll out of bed one night and you lie next to him on the floor. He’d be surprised by your sudden action and would ask why you’re down there. You then move in to wordlessly hug him, pulling his sleeping bag closer to you and resting your head on his chest. Micheal will be shaken. He doesn’t know why, not consciously anyways, but he’s really surprised that you’re holding him like this. And when you stay like that for longer, that’s when you hear…sniffling? You move your head to look at Constantine’s face only to see his hand covering his eyes and and his teeth clenched. His shoulders begin trembling and you can just barely see a glint of something rolling down his cheek. Is… Is Constantine crying?

You move your hand to his face to wipe away the tear stains and that’s when Micheal completely breaks down and starts sobbing. He immediately pulls you into his arms and squeezes the life out of you, shaking and weeping into your hair. He rubs your back and you can barely make out what he’s mumbling to himself.

“Finally… Finally… Finally, I… I finally have…! Ahhhh… I’m so happy… I’m so glad that you’re… ahhh…”

The rest is incoherent and a jumbled mess of words, so you can’t quite tell what he’s on about. But what you do know is that these tears are definitely not ones of sadness.

…It should be noted that this scene can also occur in a platonic scenario.

What Micheal breaking down in front of you means is that he’s so overwhelmed by the fact that you have just soft confirmed that you love him too (even if that’s not what you meant) and that basically puts whatever tiny piece of rationality he has left to rest because you clearly (uh-huh) want this too. Buried under layers and layers of denial, grief, and a starvation for affection and a family is Constantine’s self awareness. Very deep down he knows what he’s doing is morally reprehensible and is harming you, but it’s been shoved so deep down thanks to the euphoria of getting what he’s wanted and now that you’ve—in his mind—confirmed that you’re okay with this, that self awareness has died. It’s not coming back and you’ve basically locked Constantine into his delusion by proving to him that you love him too. And the consequences of this action are accelerating the path to the Worst Case Scenario: the logical conclusion to his line of thinking and Constantine being more liable to harm others to protect you and your relationship with him. If you’re not careful then people are going to start dropping like flies under ‘mysterious circumstances’ so you better tread lightly because any small indication that someone likes you ‘too much’ or that you like someone else is going to get them killed. You know… ‘cause they’re clearly trying to hurt you and are manipulating you. Don’t question it, Micheal knows best, obviously.

Does He Sober Up or Not?

Yes and no. If by ‘sober up’ you mean that he realizes the error of his ways and seeks to right his wrongs, then allow me to bluntly tell you that it’s impossible for him on his own. The euphoria that he receives from caring for you and coddling you and loving you (plus any affection you may give to him) has his vision dyed in a rose tint. The tiny rationale and self awareness he does have is buried deep in him and isn’t going to come out in any meaningful way ever. Your actions at the very beginning of this (remember?) have pushed him off the deep end and his sanity is at a low value, this is the bad ending route and depending on where you are in the timeline and what you do, then you probably can’t salvage this either. If you want to get him to sober up, the you’ll have to change your ways early on and avoid this route altogether.

Now. If by ‘sober up’ you mean that he has occasional moments of clarity then, yes. Yes he does have occasional moments of clarity. And those, unfortunately, only come out in Worst Case Scenario B when he’s all alone with you in his NP. With things as…not good as they are and you not having shown him any affection of your own volition, you get to wake up to something special sometimes.

With no warning, you may wake up to the sounds of loud sobbing, arms and legs squeezing the life out of you, and a very wet shirt. Constantine is crying into your chest and frantically apologizing to you. He’s sorry. He’s so, so sorry for trapping you here, he’s sorry for your hand, he’s sorry for hurting you, he’s sorry for taking your friends away, he’s sorry. Don’t bother trying to talk to him because in this state he’s inconsolable and hysterical. He’s not listening to a word you say and no matter how many times you tell him that you forgive him, he’ll continue to apologize. Kicking him or pulling his hair isn’t going to do anything either so don’t bother. All you can do is try and go back to sleep or wait until he exhausts himself and falls asleep. When you wake up, the only sign that he was like this are the tear stains on his cheeks and your moist shirt. He won’t ‘recall’ any of what you’re talking about and’ll just liken the moisture on your shirt to him drooling, which he’ll apologize for. The tear stains are something he’ll refuse to acknowledge no matter what you say or do, so don’t bother with that either.

You’re okay and he’s okay. That’s all there is to it.

Chapter Text

Would Constantine notice Micheal’s off behavior?

Yes and no. Normal!Micheal, the one we’re all familiar with from before this route happens, is already Not Okay™ and has been masking the fact that he has unresolved issues for ages. Almost no one at Chaldea has even an inkling of how deep his issues run because Micheal has been acting Okay™ for a very long time, way before his death. After all, emperors and despots are not weak, and neither is Constantine Palaiologos XI.

Thus, while Yandere!Micheal’s sanity has been ground down into a fine powder as a result of ‘your’ actions, he’s still got his imperial composure on glued. There’s just a few small cracks in his facade now that he’s obsessing over and loving you.

Said cracks are: Micheal generally being disinterested in other people (excluding his family and George) to the point of forgetting names and faces, him perking up immediately when you come up in a conversation, how he has nothing nice to say about anyone that isn’t you (excluding his family and George), and his overprotectiveness of you.

What Constantine, living and breathing Constantine, sees of Micheal is the mild mannered intellectual that we’re accustomed to who’s been through a lot. He views the differences between himself and his servant self simply as change. Micheal is four years older than Constantine and a lot can happen in four whole years. Thus, Constantine views Yandere!Micheal’s off moments and general oddities as either natural change or him still reeling from recent events.

In essence, Constantine DOES notice but there’s a more logical and simple explanation in his mind with the information that he’s given from hearing from Micheal and observing him, that he doesn’t pick up on the truth of Micheal’s composition. 

…Not that the man is going to give him any hints to begin with.

The Ottoman shit-uation outside his front door is also doing an excellent job of stressing Constantine out and smoke screening Micheal’s rare slips and whatever his attendants are saying about him. So Constantine doesn’t even have much time to really marinate on what his new friend is like anyways.

Did Micheal tell Constantine the same lies he told you to explain why you both are there?

Yep. Micheal has his story straight and thought this whole thing out to the point where he can answer all of Constantine’s questions with either a full blown lie or a half truth and not have it conflict with what you know. He explains stuff about the Crypters and the bleached earth as ‘you escaping a war or conflict happening in your country and being pursued by a secret group of assassins known as The Crypters for your magical abilities.’ Interesting tidbit is that, for masters from the Americas, he’ll either attribute your home country (since the New World wasn’t discovered until 1492 if I’m not mistaken) to England, France, Spain or Portugal. Whichever one fits your native language best and whichever one you hate the least.

Micheal explains his servant abilities—the phantoms he summons, the rave party that’s going on sometimes in his attacks, the catapult (or trebuchet?)—as him receiving blessings from god and magic from you. Micheal makes sure to let you know about how he explains your ‘situation’ to Constantine, so you aren’t left in the dark.

Now you may be asking: “Why doesn’t Micheal just tell it like it is?” And to that I say, he would if he could. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough wacky mystical shit happening in the world right now because this isn’t a singularity or a Lostbelt, it’s Proper Human History. Shit’s mostly normal and operating under non-mystical circumstances. Hence why Micheal can’t admit that he’s a servant, the world has ended, there’s a Foreign God claiming to be the President of the Earth, and Chaldea’s existence. Because that’d be insane.

As for how you two time travelled, and Micheal made sure you’re aware of this too, god had seen what became of Constantinople after the Ottomans captured it and sent Micheal and you back in time to save it while you were passed out from the pain of a rotting hand being amputated.

That’s basically how it rolls. Micheal lies to Constantine and passes some truths about his lies onto you and makes you an accomplice in upholding those lies.

How complicit is Constantine in Micheal’s plan?

Oh poor Constantine. He’s Micheal’s unwitting accomplice in keeping you trapped with him forever. He genuinely thinks he’s doing the right thing by hosting the both of you here and he couldn’t be happier with the help he’s receiving from his future self, Micheal, concerning the Ottomans. And that’s just in the beginning.

As Constantine spends time with you, he starts seeing what Micheal was on about with just how adorable and great you are. This compels him further to keep you safe and well here, especially from those damn assassins trying to kill you! He’s a bit sad that he can’t be open with his affections, lest a scandal come to be, but he can make do with loving you from a distance and he knows that Micheal is more than making up for his share.

He’ll fight tooth and nail, believing the lies that Micheal told him, for you and to keep you safe here with the two of them. After all, you’re a part of his family and be it spouse or adopted child, he’d die a thousand times over if it meant that he could get even a slice of that domesticity that was ripped from him twice over.

How would Constantine react to finding out the truth?

There are two ways we can go about this.

Scenario A, you and Constantine espy Micheal’s true intentions:

This scenario within a scenario within a bad ending route, largely depends on you. Constantine is unaware of Micheal’s true nature and intentions, so it’s up to you to get the gears turning in his head by pointing out the stuff you find weird about Micheal. 

Meeting up with, being around, and talking with Constantine is a pretty sobering experience when it comes to Micheal as a whole since, well, it reminds you of who this man used to be. It reminds you of the Micheal you met in CBC and later summoned to your Chaldea. Of the respectfully distant, always helpful and kind man who got along great with everyone and took care of you as best he could.

Thus with that refresher, it’s easier to see that Micheal is not well when you compare him to his younger self. When you bring it up to Constantine, he’s not quite sure what you’re talking about. Micheal’s a stable man with a good head on his shoulders, a kind one too. He was even pretty composed when he brought you to him with that bloody stump for a hand—ah.

While your words don’t immediately set off alarm bells, Constantine will think about it and the more he does… The more that the man with the shorter hair and the same red earrings looks like someone else. Not only that, but he finally sees what his attendants are getting at when they mention that ‘one of them hasn’t been seen in a while’ and asking him to ‘check’ with Micheal.

The realization hits him like a ton of bricks all at once. The servants that have gone missing were ones that had the job of tending to you and supposedly they had good relations with you too, those who were still around seemed rather stiff when Micheal was in the room and avoided looking at him or you in any capacity, one even flinched when Constantine pat them on the shoulder for a job well done.

Constantine really, really doesn’t want to believe it and he chooses to put the revelation away in the back of his head in favor of work. Those are just…coincidences. Yes, just coincidences. Correlation doesn’t equal causation and all that. But you aren’t going to let Constantine run away from the truth and you keep pressing him on it when you can. This leads to our emperor friend here caving by saying that he will conduct a test to see whether your theory is correct or not. 

One night, Constantine distracts Micheal while his best friend and wingman George goes to your room and tells you to pack some stuff to go stay with him and his family for a few days as a break from being cooped up in the palace. All without telling Micheal. What ensues the next day is a sight that made Constantine want to crawl into a hole and die.

Micheal was panicking. Visibly panicking. In public no less. Emperor Constantine Palaiologos XI does not panic, he gets worried sometimes, but he never panics. Ever. His imperial pride and the weight of having to be the unshakable and stalwart leader his nation needs in these troubling times would never allow Constantine to show that kind of weakness in front of other people.

Apparently, Micheal had been shaking the whole palace down to find you, even disturbing piles of rubble to see if you were there, to find you. Not a single person had been able to talk to him since he’d already be halfway across the room when they had opened their mouth to speak.

Upon seeing Constantine, Micheal had beelined to him and shakily asked him if he knew where you were and the way he spoke of you sent chills down Constantine’s spine.

He spoke of you as though you were more important than anything in the world, life itself even. Nothing could ever amount to you and he needed you like a human needs air. Micheal’s current state was very clearly implying that he’d only get worse the more time he spent without you which places Constantine in a very precarious position.

You were right, absolutely right and with the way Micheal was behaving and his recent revelation told Constantine that you would not be safe with Micheal. But, if he wanted his future self’s help with fending off the Ottomans, then it’d do him well to tell Micheal where you are and let him go to you since, should Micheal find out about Constantine’s test, he could withdraw his support and let fate do its thing.

Ultimately unable to choose between endangering you or risking his country, Constantine plays dumb and tells Micheal that he has no idea what happened but will aid in the search. When he gets time alone, he calls for a messenger to be sent with a red colored paper folded into a boat to George’s home.

If he plays his cards right, then Constantine could keep you safe and away from…himself and he could save his empire while he’s at it.

The results of his plan have yet to be seen.

Scenario B, Chaldea shows Constantine the truth:

This is the alternative where you don’t do anything. You could be suspicious of Micheal or perhaps know everything already, but simply choose not to tell Constantine possibly for fear of him alerting Micheal. Or maybe you believe Micheal’s lies and you’ve just been chilling in the 1400s under the impression that Chaldea is either dead or is coming for you once they fend off Daybit. Either way, this facade ends now.

The whole thing comes crashing down once Constantine sees and hears the situation unfurl before him. Micheal holding you back from a group of people he had never seen before, both arguing fiercely. It eventually comes to light that none of what Micheal had said was true, and that the man had done something terrible. No, he did many terrible things and worse yet he has the audacity to claim that it was all for you. Your missing hand, the bump that was on your head, your arrival here… All of those terrible things were for you. 

The scene was utterly surreal and Constantine couldn’t quite believe that Micheal and him were the same person. He couldn’t fathom that the two of them had the same roots, came from the same family, lived the same life, endured the same losses and ended up loving the same person. He just couldn’t grasp it. 

Who is he, the man with the short hair and the red armor? Who is he, the man who speaks so familiarly to you and calls you ‘Master?’ Who is he? Not Constantine XI, surely not. Because Constantine would never hurt the people he loves. He would protect them from any and all things as best he could, even from themselves if need be. That man isn’t Constantine. …He’s something else. He has to be.

The emperor does nothing about the situation and says nothing so long as no one addresses him, he simply watches things unfold because he hasn’t the energy to do much else. Not that he’d know what to do anyways. So, when the time comes for you to leave—with or without that…thing—Constantine quietly stops you before you go by blocking your path.

The emperor, with a shaking hand and flat expression, reaches gingerly for yours and limply holds it. He then sinks down onto one knee and speaks in a voice that almost belied his inner turmoil.

“My good and dear friend, from a time and place I know not. There are no words in any language, past or present, that can properly convey the shame and regret I harbor in my body and soul. And there is nothing I can say to give you or myself any peace. …But if I—if I have done you any good, brought you any comfort or joy, then please… I beg you. Please find it in your heart to forgive me and forgive the man I will become. Please… Forgive me. I haven’t the heart to forgive myself for my sins anymore.”

How would Constantine react to the realization that he is capable of turning into Micheal?

Constantine is scared shitless about the possibility that he could become Micheal and that he is capable of doing such things to a person that he loves and cares for without even a shred of guilt after the fact. 

It’s so viscerally disturbing to him how Micheal just brushed off the fact that he cut off your hand and the nonsensical reasons he uses to justify that action as being beneficial for you. How Micheal had seen himself as righteous enough or with the authority to remove a person from their home and drag them to wherever he saw fit for his own selfish desires. How he had taken to removing anyone who had given you even a modicum of joy for no other reason than feeling threatened. It makes him want to throw up just imagining that man with his face doing these things—thinking and believing these things.

After you leave, Constantine finds that it’s even harder for him to sleep than usual. He just can’t stop thinking about that guy, Micheal. If he truly is himself from four years into the future, then what happened to him? What happened from the years of 1449 to 1453 to make Micheal into the man he is? What kind of unspeakable, horrific events could have made his personality, his morals and principals take such a dive? And what does that mean for Constantine? Who or what is he going to lose in these next four years?

Any number of answers crop up and they only serve to make him feel worse. He’s already lost Theodora and Caterina with the last year taking his little brother Theodore and his oldest brother John, his father has been gone for a while too… Is his mother next? How about his two sisters? George? Will he find someone new and they will be taken from him too? Is that why Micheal turned out that way?

These thoughts follow him and they tire him out, almost to the point where he can’t keep up that imperial facade of strength. Almost. George, his best friend and wingman, notices. Of course he does. They’ve been friends since childhood and there wasn’t a thing that one didn’t know about the other, mostly. George could see the incident with Micheal and you weighing his lord’s mind and he sits down to have a talk with him.

The conversation mostly consists of Constantine venting about how he’s terrified of hurting his loved ones, terrified of losing himself to temptation and selfishly smothering them to death with his desires, terrified of becoming a different man. George, after seeing Constantine out of breath from finally airing out his concerns, slings his arm over his lord’s shoulder and pulls him in for a side hug before giving him his take on what happened.

“My lord… That man, his actions were wretched and unbefitting of his station. There is no denying it. But one cannot ignore the place from which his motives were derived, that being love. He loved that person dearly and wanted to see them well, and wanted them to be loved to the fullest extent. He did not wish for any evil of any kind to befall that poor soul and he had taken arms to ensure that they may sleep soundly knowing that not even the devil could touch them when he was near. But what he failed to account for was himself. He had placed all of the world’s sins and evils unto the people around him, but forgot that he too is capable of such deeds and that was what led him down that dark path.”

“………”

“My lord. Your fortitude and your stoicism in the face of adversity, whilst a most splendid display of Rome’s strength, are not you in your entirety. You are a good man, twice as good as the best of us, blessed with a soft heart that is filled with love. That will never change no matter how many years pass and how many losses you bear. What does change is how you see the world and her people, how you see fit to deal with them. These coming years may very well show you the worst of what humanity is, but you must remember no matter what happens that it is not evil and you are not pure. Forget that… And you will surely fall into the same trap as that man.”

“………”

“But we all make mistakes, I know that. Which is why, so long as I breathe, I will pick you up should you fall. No matter how deep you are plunged into such delusions, I will hoist you upwards and I will not let you drown in grief, my lord. Even if I must beat your wits back into you.”

George pat Constantine on the shoulder and nodded his head upwards.

“So raise your head high, my lord. You are Rome. You have always been Rome, you will continue to be long after your passing. And Rome is good, as you know. So long as you not forget yourself and I draw breath, that future shall not come to pass.”

George retracts his arm and stands up from his seat, taking a few steps towards the door before looking back at Constantine.

“Now, come. I know you haven’t been eating as well as you should and that you have not been sleeping well. Thus, I have cleared your schedule for tomorrow and I have made your meals much larger to compensate.”

Constantine blinked in shock before sputtering his response.

“G-George, that isn’t necessary. Your counsel has put a great many things to rest for me and I am feeling much better. There isn’t a need to—!”

“My lord will not be the first emperor of Rome to die of exhaustion and malnutrition! Besides, my cousins have worked very hard in cooking some of the recipes that person had gifted them and the results, so far, have been quite amazing. The butter cake specifically is my favorite.”

“Oh? That’s something I hadn’t heard of.”

“That person said it was a recipe from the days of Babylon and they had learned it from a friend. But that isn’t the point! I’ll tell you more when you come down to eat!”

And thus, with a lighter heart, Constantine had followed after his friend. Things may not be great and the future may look bleak, but with his wingman at his side… Then everything will be okay. That he’s sure of.