Charles crumpled his latest attempt tight in his fist, cursing his inability to express his feelings.

He'd tried to confess before, but he'd frozen up and ultimately decided that a letter would be a more forgiving medium to demonstrate his affections.

He was sorely mistaken.

It'd taken him three months to finish obsessively consulting templates he'd found online and solidify a rough draft of the typical things people wrote about when they were in love.

His search yielded nothing more than typical, cliche advice. The subtle jabs he'd gotten from his friends hadn't served him much better, so he'd disregarded it all and begun again from scratch.

After a minute or two of bumping his head against his desk in self-imposed agony, he reluctantly opened the sad excuse of a letter he'd spent the last hour slaving over and steeled himself to reread whatever monstrosities he'd written with fresh eyes.

A single sentence awaited him.

You incapacitate me.

He groaned loudly, slamming his head into the desk with a sharp thud.