One-shot

From the moment he laid eyes on her, he knew. Perhaps he couldn't identify this realization right away, but he knew. It wasn't her undeniable beauty that caught his attention. It wasn't the amusement their conversations offered him. It wasn't the challenge. It was what he saw in her eyes. Her glasses, her white jacket, the words she had read from some meaningless books…

It was a mask. It wasn't the real her. He saw it very quickly. Was he crazy and psychotic, yes he was, but he was also dangerously perceptive. What he saw in her eyes made him smile. It made the voices in his head laugh. He could have spent hours simply looking at her. His gaze made her uncomfortable at first, he could tell. She didn't look at him. Really look at him.

It was too much for her. She felt safe behind her mask. She had been taught her whole life that she needed to wear it. No-one had really seen her. No-one except him. He saw her and she was magnificent. A goddess walking among meaningless mortals. His goddess. The one he had never thought he would be able to find.

Yet here she was, right in front of him. She bit her bottom lip, she was nervous. Not because she would have been scared of him. She was nervous because some small part of her knew. He wanted to tell her to look at him. He didn't. She wasn't ready for that yet. She needed to see for herself. She needed to take her mask off; he couldn't force her to do that.

He would wait; she was most certainly worth it. She blinked and looked at her notes. He waited. He smiled. He savored the anticipation. Slowly she looked up. In that moment he knew that she saw it too.

She saw herself in his eyes.

The goddess behind the mask.

Quickly she lowered her head. She wasn't ready to see. Not yet. He laughed and leaned back on his seat. He was ready to wait, no matter how long it would take. One day she would be his.