#MY MORALS LEFT TO DECAY | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tobiosbbyghorl · 2 months ago

Text

pairing: scientist!sunghoon x scientist! reader

wc:10.5k

released date: 05.17.2025

warning: PURE FICTION!!

synopsis: In the quiet of her lab, Dr. Y/N, a skilled scientist, sets out on a risky mission to bring back her late fiancé, Park Sunghoon, who died in a car accident. Using his preserved DNA, she creates a clone that grows rapidly in just two years. When Sunghoon wakes up, he faces the difficult reality of being brought back to life and the moral issues surrounding Y/N's actions.

a/n: ITS HERE!! Hope you guys will love it as much as I did writing it! feedbacks,likes and reblogs are highly appreciated!

In the cold glow of my underground biotech lab, silence is sacred. Down here, beneath layers of steel and earth, the world doesn’t exist. No grief. No time. Just me. Just him.

The capsule glows in the center of the room—a vertical womb of steel and glass, pulsing faintly with blue light. Suspended inside, wrapped in strands of bio-filaments and artificial amniotic fluid, is the reason I wake up in the morning. Or stay awake. I don’t know the difference anymore.

Park Sunghoon.

Or… what’s left of him.

One year ago, he died on his way to our civil wedding. A drunk driver. A rainy street. A second too late. I got the call before I even zipped up my dress. I still remember the way my coffee spilled all over the lab floor when my knees gave out. I never cleaned it. It’s still there, dried in the corner. A fossil of the moment my world cracked open.

⸻

He used to say I was too curious for my own good.

That I’d poke the universe too hard one day and it would poke back.

Maybe this is what he meant.

⸻

Sunghoon and I were both scientists—biotech researchers. We studied regenerative cloning, theorized about neural echo imprinting, debated ethics like it was foreplay.

He was against replicas. Always. “A copy isn’t a soul,” he’d say. “It’s just noise pretending to be music.”

But the day he died, I stopped caring about music.

I just wanted to hear his voice again.

⸻

I had everything I needed. A sample of his bone DNA—collected after a minor lab accident years ago and stored under a pseudonym. His blood type, genome map, neural scan from our first brain-simulation trial. A perfect match, all buried in our old hard drives. He never knew I kept them. Maybe he would’ve hated me for it.

Maybe I don’t care.

I called it Project ECHO.

Because that’s what he was now.

An echo. A ripple in the void.

⸻

The first version—ECHO-1—was a failure.

He looked like Sunghoon. But he never woke up. I ran every test. Monitored every vital. Adjusted nutrient cycles, protein growth, heartbeat regulators. But something in him was missing—something I couldn’t code into cells.

A soul, maybe. Or timing.

He died the second I tried to bring him out.

I cremated and buried that version in the garden, under the cherry tree he planted the first spring we moved in. I didn’t cry at the funeral. I just stood there holding the urn and whispered, “I’ll get it right next time.”

⸻

ECHO-2 was different.

I restructured the genome to prevent cellular decay. Added telomere stabilizers to delay aging. Enhanced his immune system. This time, I built him stronger. Healthier. The version of Sunghoon that would’ve never gotten sick that winter in Sapporo, or fainted in the elevator that one night after forgetting to eat. That version who could live longer. With me.

But the rest—I left untouched.

His smile. His hands. The faint mole scattered in his face. The way his hair curled when wet. All exactly the same. It had to be. He wouldn’t be Sunghoon without those things.

I even reconstructed his mind.

Using an illegal neural mapping sequence I coded from fragments of our joint research, I retrieved echoes of his memory—dream-like reflections extracted from the deepest preserved brain tissue. It wasn’t perfect. But it was him. Pieces of him. The things he never got to say. The life he never finished.

⸻

It took two years.

Two years in the dark, surrounded by synthetic fluid and filtered lights, modifying the incubator like a cradle built by obsession. I monitored every development milestone like a parent. I watched him grow. I whispered stories to him when the lab was quiet, played him our favorite records through the tank’s acoustic feed, left him notes on the console like he could read them.

⸻

One night, I touched the tank and felt warmth radiate back. His fingers twitched.

A smile cracked on his lips, soft and sleepy.

And I whispered, “You’re almost here.”

⸻

Now he floats before me—grown, complete, and terrifyingly familiar. His chest rises and falls steadily. Muscles formed and defined from synthetic stimulation. His brain is fully developed. His body—twenty-five years old. The age he was when he died. The age we should’ve gotten married.

And now, he’s ready.

⸻

The console buzzes beside me.

“Project ECHO – Stage V: Awakening. Confirm execution.”

My fingers hover. The hum of the lab grows louder. My heart beats so hard I feel it in my throat.

This is it.

The point of no return.

I press enter.

The Awakening didn’t look like the movies.

There was no dramatic gasp, no lightning bolt of consciousness.

It was subtle.

His eyes fluttered open, hazy and uncertain, like the first morning light after a long storm. They didn’t lock onto me at first. He blinked a few times—slow, groggy—and stared at the ceiling of the pod with a confusion so human it made my knees go weak.

Then his gaze shifted.

Found me.

And held.

Just long enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

“Sunghoon,” I whispered.

His lips barely moved. “…Y/N?”

And then—just like that—he slipped under again.

His vitals were stable, but his body couldn’t process full consciousness yet. It was expected. I designed it that way. A controlled emergence. Gentle. Like thawing from ice.

He would wake again. Soon.

⸻

Phase VI: Integration.

I had the room ready before I even began the cloning process. A private suite in the East Wing of my estate, modified to resemble a recovery room from a private hospital: sterile whites and soft blues, filtered natural lighting, automated IV drips and real-time vitals displayed on sleek black monitors. The scent of lavender piped faintly through the vents. His favorite.

I moved him after he lost consciousness again—quietly, carefully. No one else involved. Not even my AI assistant, KARA. This part was just mine.

Just ours.

He lay in the bed now, dressed in soft gray cotton, sheets pulled up to his chest. The faint hum of the machines harmonized with his breathing. It was surreal. Like watching a ghost settle into a life it forgot it had.

I perched on the armchair across from him, the dim lighting casting long shadows over his face.

“You’re safe,” I murmured, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “And when you wake up… everything will be in place.”

⸻

I spent the next forty-eight hours setting the stage.

Fabricated records of a traumatic car accident—minor amnesia, extended coma, miraculous survival. Hacked into the hospital registry and quietly added his name under a wealthy alias. I made sure the media silence was absolute. No visitors. No suspicious calls. A full blackout.

I memorized the story I would tell him. Rehearsed it like a script.

We had been on our way to City Hall. A drunk driver ran a red light. I survived with minor injuries. He hit his head. Slipped into a coma. No signs of brain damage, but long-term memory instability was expected.

He’d been here ever since. Safe. Loved. Waiting to wake up.

And now—he had.

⸻

On the morning of the third day, I heard movement.

Soft. Shuffling. Sheets rustling.

I turned from the monitor just as he groaned softly, his head turning on the pillow.

“Sunghoon?”

His eyes blinked open again, more alert this time. Still groggy, but present.

“Y/N…?” he rasped.

I rushed to his side, heart in my throat. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

His brows knit together, voice hoarse. “What happened?”

“You were in an accident,” I said gently. “The day of our wedding. You’ve been in a coma. Two years.”

His eyes widened—just a little. Then flicked down to his hands. The IV. The machines. The unfamiliar room.

“…Two years?”

I nodded, bracing for the confusion. “You survived. But it was close. We weren’t sure you’d ever… come back.”

He said nothing.

Just stared at me.

Like he was trying to remember something he couldn’t quite reach.

“…Why does it feel like I never left?” he whispered.

I smiled softly. Forced. “Because I never left you.”

And for now, that was all he needed to know.

But deep down, behind those eyes, behind the half-forgotten memories and muscle memory that wasn’t truly his—

Something flickered.

Something not asleep anymore.

He was awake.

And the lie had begun.

The days that followed passed in a quiet rhythm.

He adjusted faster than I anticipated. His motor skills were strong, his speech patterns natural—so much so that sometimes I forgot he wasn’t really him. Or maybe he was. Just… rebuilt. Reassembled with grief and obsession and the memory of love that still clung to me like static.

I stayed with him in the hospital wing, sleeping on the pullout beside his bed. Every morning he’d wake before me, staring out the wide window as if trying to piece together time. And when I asked what he was thinking, he always gave the same answer:

“I feel like I dreamed you.”

On the seventh day, he turned to me, his voice clearer than ever.

“Can I go back to our room?”

I paused, fingers wrapped around the rim of his tea mug.

He still called it our room.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re strong enough now.”

And so we did.

I helped him down the hallway, hand in his, the same way I’d imagined it during the long nights of Phase II. His steps were careful, measured. But his eyes… they lit up the moment we entered.

It looked the same.

The navy sheets. The low lights. The picture of us by the bookshelf—framed and untouched. His books still on the shelf in alphabetical order. His favorite sweatshirt folded at the foot of the bed like I had never moved it.

He smiled when he saw it. “It feels like nothing’s changed.”

Except everything had.

I didn’t say that.

⸻

He asked about the lab a few nights later. We were curled together in bed—his head on my shoulder, our legs tangled like old habits finding their way home.

“How’s the lab?” he asked, voice soft in the dark. “Are we still working on the neuro-mirroring project?”

My heart skipped.

I’d gotten rid of everything. The pod. The DNA matrix. The prototype drafts. Scrubbed the drives clean. Smashed the external backups. Buried the remains of ECHO-1 under a new tree. The lab was as sterile as my conscience was not.

I turned toward him, brushing my thumb over the scar that curved above his brow. The one that hadn’t been there before the “accident.”

“It’s being renovated,” I said carefully. “After the crash… I couldn’t go in for a while. So I decided to redo it. Clear things out. Start over fresh.”

He nodded slowly. “Makes sense.”

He didn’t ask again.

And just like that, life began to move forward.

He followed me around the house again, stealing kisses in the kitchen, playfully poking fun at the way I never folded laundry properly. He rediscovered his favorite coffee, laughed at old movies like they were new, held my hand under the stars like it was the most natural thing in the world.

But sometimes—when he thought I wasn’t looking—he’d stare at his reflection too long. Tilt his head. Press his fingers to his chest like he was checking if something was still there.

Maybe he felt it.

The echo of what he was.

But if he did, he never said.

One night, wrapped up in each other’s warmth, he whispered into my neck, “I don’t know how I got so lucky to come back to you.”

I pressed a kiss to his temple, forcing a smile as my heart ached beneath the surface.

“I guess some things are just meant to find their way back.”

Even if they were never supposed to.

Time softened everything.

The sterile silence of the house began to fade, replaced by the quiet thrum of life again—the clink of mugs in the morning, the shuffle of his bare feet on the hardwood, the lazy hum of music playing from a speaker that hadn’t been touched since he died. I started to breathe again, and so did he.

Like we were rewriting the rhythm we’d lost.

—

Our first night out felt like time travel.

He picked the place—a rooftop restaurant we always swore we’d try, back when work kept getting in the way. I wore the same navy dress I had worn on our second anniversary. He noticed. His hand slid into mine under the table like it belonged there, his thumb tracing invisible patterns against my skin.

Halfway through dessert, he leaned in, grinning with chocolate at the corner of his lip.

“You still scrunch your nose when you’re pretending to like the wine,” he teased, eyes gleaming.

I blinked. “You remember that?”

He nodded slowly. “It just feels like… I always knew.”

I smiled, heart aching in that strange, quiet way it always did now.

“You’re right,” I said, brushing the chocolate off his lip. “You always did.”

Even grocery shopping with him became a date.

He pushed the cart like a child let loose, tossing in things we didn’t need just to make me laugh. At one point, he held up a can of whipped cream with the most mischievous glint in his eye.

“For movie night,” he said innocently.

I arched a brow. “For the movie or during the movie?”

He smirked. “Depends how boring the movie is.”

We walked home with one umbrella, our fingers interlaced in the rain, and the world somehow felt smaller, warmer.

He burned the garlic the first time.

“I told you the pan was too hot,” I said, waving smoke away.

“And you told me to trust you,” he countered, looking absurdly proud of his crime against dinner. “Besides, I like it crunchy.”

“You like your taste buds annihilated, apparently.”

We ended up ordering takeout, sitting on the kitchen floor, eating noodles out of the box with chopsticks, laughing about how we’d both make terrible housewives.

But the next night, we tried again.

He stood behind me, arms around my waist, guiding my hands as I chopped vegetables.

“You used to do this,” I said softly. “When I first moved in.”

“I know,” he murmured. “It’s one of my favorite memories.”

Cuddling became a ritual.

He always found a way to get impossibly close—sprawled across the couch with his head in my lap, humming contentedly while I read a book or ran my fingers through his hair.

Sometimes we didn’t speak for hours.

Just the quiet breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, his heartbeat echoing faintly against my thigh. Real. Solid. Present.

It was a miracle I could touch.

One night, as rain tapped gently on the windows and he was half-asleep on my shoulder, he whispered:

“I feel safe with you.”

I held him tighter.

Because if I let go—even for a second—I was afraid he might vanish again.

⸻

Love blossomed differently this time.

Slower. Deeper. Less like fire, more like roots. Tangled and unshakable.

And sometimes, in the quiet of our shared bed, I would watch him sleep and wonder if it was love that brought him back.

Or obsession.

But when he opened his eyes and smiled like the sun lived behind them, I told myself it didn’t matter.

He was here.

And that was enough.

For now.

⸻

I woke with a jolt, my heart pounding so violently it threatened to break free from my chest. The nightmare was still fresh, its vividness clinging to my mind like the smoke of a fire.

Sunghoon.

He was in the car again—his face frozen in the moment before everything shattered, his eyes wide with disbelief. The screech of tires, the crash. His body limp. The way I couldn’t reach him no matter how hard I screamed.

I gasped for air, my fingers clutching at the sheets, tangled in the panic that still gripped me.

My breath came in ragged bursts as I sat up, drenched in sweat. My chest heaved with the rawness of the memory, the terrible what-ifs that still haunted me.

A hand gently touched my back.

“Y/N?”

His voice, soft and concerned, cut through the haze of the nightmare. I froze for a moment, the world around me still spinning from the disorienting shock.

I turned, and there he was—Sunghoon—sitting up beside me in the bed, his eyes full of concern. The soft glow of the bedside lamp illuminated his face, and for a moment, it was almost as if everything had shifted back into place.

But only for a second.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his voice warm with worry.

I swallowed hard, trying to steady my breathing. “I… I just had a nightmare,” I whispered, avoiding his eyes. My heart was still trying to settle, and I didn’t want him to see the fear in my face. I didn’t want him to see how broken I still was.

Sunghoon leaned forward, his hands reaching out to cradle my face gently. He brushed a strand of hair away from my forehead, his touch so familiar, so tender.

“Nightmares are just that,” he said softly, his thumb grazing my skin. “They aren’t real. I’m here.”

I nodded, trying to pull myself together, but the knot in my throat wouldn’t loosen. There was something about the way he said it—so assuredly. So real. Like the past didn’t exist, like he had never been gone.

Like I hadn’t created him from fragments of grief and obsession.

He sat next to me, his arm around my shoulders as I leaned into him. The warmth of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest, slowly calmed me. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of him—the same as it had always been.

“I’m here,” he repeated, his voice a quiet lullaby.

But somewhere deep inside, I couldn’t shake the question that had haunted me since the moment I had revived him: Who was he really? Was this truly the Sunghoon I had loved, the one who had filled my life with light? Or was this just a perfect imitation, a replica of my memories? An echo of a man who would never truly exist again?

I wanted to believe he was him. I needed to believe it.

But as he held me, his warmth seeping into my skin, I couldn’t deny the doubt that gnawed at my soul.

“Y/N?” he murmured, sensing my tension.

“Yeah?” I whispered, pulling myself closer into his arms.

He tilted my chin up, his gaze intense as he met my eyes. “I love you,” he said quietly, with such certainty that for a moment, it almost felt real—like the love we’d always shared before the accident, before everything shattered.

And in that moment, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to forget everything else, to let myself drown in the reassurance that this was him—my Sunghoon.

But the ghosts of the past still lingered in the corners of my mind.

“I love you too,” I replied softly, my voice shaky but true.

And for a few minutes, we just sat there, holding each other in the stillness of the night.

But as I closed my eyes and let the warmth of his embrace lull me back to sleep, the doubt remained.

Would I ever be able to escape the shadows of my own creation?

As the days passed, the weight of my doubts gradually lightened. Sunghoon’s presence—his warmth, his voice, the way he smiled—reminded me more and more of the man I had once loved, the man who had been taken from me.

The fear, the gnawing uncertainty that had once been constant in the back of my mind, slowly started to fade. Each moment we spent together was a little piece of normalcy returning. He didn’t just look like Sunghoon. He was Sunghoon. In every little detail—his laugh, the way he tilted his head when he was deep in thought, how he always made the coffee exactly the way I liked it. His presence was enough to reassure me that this was him, in all the ways that mattered.

We went on walks together, hand in hand, strolling through the garden I had planted the day we first moved into the house. It was filled with flowers that bloomed year-round—just like the memories I had of us, blooming and growing despite the heartbreak.

We laughed, reminiscing about everything we had shared before. Sunghoon was never afraid to be vulnerable with me, and it felt like we were picking up right where we left off. His sense of humor, always dry and sarcastic, never failed to make me smile. And slowly, I began to accept that the man who stood beside me, laughing at his own jokes, was truly my Sunghoon.

One night, as we cooked dinner together, I watched him carefully slice vegetables, his movements graceful and practiced. It was simple, domestic, but it felt like everything I had longed for since he was gone.

“Don’t forget the garlic,” I reminded him, teasing.

He shot me a look, smirking. “I remember.”

I smiled, feeling the warmth of the moment settle into my bones. This was real. The way he made sure I was comfortable in the kitchen, the way we worked together without needing words—this was our life, reborn.

The more time we spent in the house, the more at ease I became. We cooked together, watched old movies, read books side by side, and held each other as we fell asleep at night. There were no more questions in my mind. No more doubts. Just the feeling of peace settling over me, like the calm after a storm.

Sunghoon never asked me about the lab. And I never had to lie, because there was no need to. The lab had been dismantled long ago, every trace of Project ECHO erased. It was as if it never existed. My obsession, my grief—gone.

In its place was this. A second chance.

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you, Y/N,” he said one evening as we sat on the couch, the sound of rain tapping against the windows. He held me close, his head resting against mine. “No matter what happens, no matter what changes… you’re the one for me.”

I turned to look at him, searching his eyes for something—anything—that might reveal the truth I feared. But there was nothing. Only love. Real love.

“I feel the same,” I whispered back, brushing my lips against his.

For a moment, the world outside disappeared. There was no past, no lab, no questions. There was only Sunghoon, here with me. And that was enough.

The days continued to pass in a peaceful blur of moments that I had once thought lost forever. With each sunrise, my doubts melted away, and with every touch, every kiss, I felt more certain that this was real. That he was real.

Sunghoon might not be the exact same person who had walked out of that door all those years ago—but in my heart, it didn’t matter. He was my Sunghoon, and that was all I needed.

Together, we built a life—one step at a time. And this time, I wasn’t afraid.

I wasn’t afraid of the past. I wasn’t afraid of the future.

I was just… happy.

Sunghoon’s POV

It had been a year since I came back to her, and in that time, I had slowly convinced myself that everything was okay. That what we had, what I had, was enough. That the woman I loved, the woman who had saved me—had done so much more than just revive me—wasn’t hiding any more secrets. But the past… it always had a way of creeping up, didn’t it?

I wasn’t snooping, not exactly. I was just cleaning up. I had offered to help her tidy up the office since she had been so caught up in her work lately, and well, I had nothing else to do. After all, it’s been a year now, and I’ve come to understand her more than I could ever have imagined. She’d been distant the past few days, and it made me uneasy. The kind of unease that makes you feel like there’s something you should know, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

It was as I was sorting through the boxes in her home office—one that she hadn’t allowed me to visit much—that I found it.

A video tape.

It was tucked behind a stack of old files, half-buried in the clutter. At first, I thought nothing of it. She was always meticulous about her work, so maybe it was just an old research document, something from her past. But when I saw the words “Project ECHO – Development and Breakdown” scrawled on the side, my heart stopped. I felt a sickening knot tighten in my chest, and instinctively, my fingers curled around it.

What was this?

My thoughts raced as I fumbled with the tape, my hands trembling just slightly as I slid it into the old VCR player she kept in the corner of the office. The screen flickered to life.

There I was.

Or… the version of me that had once existed. The first one. My mind was running faster than my eyes could follow the images flashing on the screen. I saw footage of my development, from the initial growth stages to the first electrical impulses firing in my brain, as well as my physical appearance being tested and adjusted.

My stomach turned as the video documented every breakdown of my body—every failed attempt to bring me to life. I saw the wires, the artificial fluids, the machines that I had been hooked up to before I had opened my eyes, before I had woken up in that hospital room.

But it was the last part of the video that hit hardest. There, in her cold, emotionless voice, Y/N narrated her thoughts, her failed efforts, her obsession with recreating me.

“I couldn’t get it right… not the first time. But I will, because I have to. For him. For us.”

My chest tightened as the realization hit me like a brick. She had known the entire time. She had created me. I wasn’t the Sunghoon who had died. I was a version of him. A shadow of the real thing.

The screen went black, but the words echoed in my mind like an incessant drumbeat.

For him. For us.

The pain of that truth was like a knife twisting in my gut. The woman I loved had spent years trying to recreate me, to bring me back—because she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t let me go. But she never told me. She never let me in on the truth of it all.

I was a lie.

I wasn’t real. And all this time, I had been believing I was the same Sunghoon she had lost. But I wasn’t.

I could feel the tears stinging my eyes as I reached for the nearby papers, pulling them out in a frantic rage. More documents. More of my development—charts, genetic breakdowns, notes about my failed memories, and even the procedures Y/N had carried out. Every page proved it. I wasn’t just a clone; I was the culmination of her grief and desire.

The door to the office opened quietly behind me, and I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The air in the room grew thick, suffocating. I could feel her presence like a weight pressing down on me.

“Sunghoon,” she whispered, her voice barely a murmur.

I finally turned to face her. She looked pale, her eyes wide, clearly having seen the documents I had scattered across the room. She knew. She knew what I had found.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I choked out, my voice raw. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth, Y/N?”

Her eyes flickered with guilt, and for a moment, I thought she might say something—anything to explain, to apologize. But instead, she took a step back, her hands wringing together nervously.

“I didn’t want you to hate me,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I didn’t want to lose you again. I—I thought maybe if you didn’t know… maybe we could have our life back. I just wanted to have you here again, Sunghoon.”

My hands balled into fists at my sides, and I could feel the tears building in my eyes. “But I’m not him, am I? I’m not the real Sunghoon. I’m just… this.” I gestured around at the papers, at the video, at the mess that had been my life. “I’m a replica. A copy of someone who doesn’t exist anymore. How could you do this to me?”

She stepped forward, her face pale with fear, but her voice was firm. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far. I just wanted you back, Sunghoon. I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t lose you. You were taken from me so suddenly, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t live with the thought that you were gone forever.”

I looked at her, the woman who had once been everything to me—the one who I thought had rebuilt me out of love, not out of desperation.

“Do you think I’m the same person? Do you think I can just pretend that I’m the man I was before? How could you think I wouldn’t want to know the truth?” My voice cracked, emotion flooding out of me like a dam breaking. “How could you do this?”

Her face crumpled, and I saw the tears well up in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sunghoon,” she whispered, her voice barely audible through the sobs. “I thought if I could just give you everything back, we could start over. But I was wrong. I—I should’ve told you from the beginning.”

I could feel the overwhelming ache in my chest, the confusion, the betrayal. But more than that, I felt the loss of something far deeper: trust. The trust that she had built between us was gone in an instant.

“You’re right. You should’ve told me,” I whispered, stepping back, my throat tight. “I need some space, Y/N. I can’t… I can’t do this right now.”

I turned and walked out of the room, my heart shattering with each step.

I paused at the door, the weight of her voice sinking into me like a stone. I didn’t turn around, not right away. The question lingered in the air, hanging between us, impossible to ignore.

“If I was the one who died, would you do the same?”

Her words were quiet, but they cut through the silence of the room with precision, like a knife through soft flesh. I could feel the tension in the air—the desperation in her voice, the need for an answer. She was asking me to justify her actions, to somehow make sense of everything she had done.

I clenched my fists at my sides, fighting the urge to turn and lash out. But I couldn’t do it—not when the pain of her question was a reflection of everything I was feeling.

“I… I don’t know,” I finally muttered, my voice barely a whisper. “Maybe I would. I can’t say for sure. But I don’t think I’d ever hide the truth from you. I wouldn’t keep you in the dark, pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t.”

Her soft, broken gasp from behind me reached my ears, but I couldn’t face her—not yet. Not when the anger and hurt were still so raw.

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love that much,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I couldn’t stand the thought of living without you, Sunghoon. I thought… maybe if I could just bring you back… we could have our future. But now, I see how selfish that was. How wrong.”

I wanted to say something—anything—to ease her pain, but the words stuck in my throat. The truth was, part of me still wanted to reach out to her, to hold her, to tell her it was going to be okay. But I wasn’t sure if that would be enough. Would it ever be enough?

“I need time, Y/N,” I said quietly, my voice cracking. “I need to think. About all of this. About us.”

The silence that followed was heavy, unbearable. And then, finally, I walked out the door, leaving her behind, standing in the wreckage of her choices—and my own shattered heart.

The days stretched on like a slow burn, each passing hour marked by the tension that filled every corner of our shared space. We were still in the same house, the same home, but it felt like we were living in different worlds now. The walls felt thicker, the silence heavier.

I moved through the house in a daze, keeping to myself more often than not. Y/N and I had an unspoken agreement—it was easier this way. She’d stay in the study or the kitchen, and I’d retreat to the room we used to share, now feeling like an alien space, void of the warmth it once held. We didn’t speak much anymore, and when we did, it was brief—polite, almost mechanical.

There were moments when I caught a glimpse of her, standing in the hallway, her head bent low, a soft frown on her face. Other times, she’d walk by without looking at me, her eyes fixed on the floor, avoiding my gaze as if she feared what might happen if she met my eyes for too long. I wanted to reach out, to say something—anything—but every time I did, the words felt inadequate, like they couldn’t possibly capture the weight of everything that had changed.

One evening, I found myself sitting in the living room, staring out the window at the moonlit garden. I could hear her footsteps in the hallway, the soft sound of her presence lingering in the air. For a moment, I thought she might come in, might sit beside me like she used to. But she didn’t. Instead, the silence stretched between us again, a reminder of the distance we had created.

I exhaled sharply, rubbing my eyes as frustration built inside me. The whole situation felt suffocating—like I was trapped between what I wanted and what had happened. I didn’t know how to fix it, or even if it could be fixed. There was so much to unravel, so many emotions to sort through. And then there was the truth—the truth of who I was now. Not just a man trying to find his way back to a life that no longer existed, but a clone—a replica of someone who once had a future, now burdened with a past he didn’t truly own.

The sound of her voice from the kitchen broke my thoughts.

“Dinner’s ready,” she called softly, her voice almost too gentle, too careful.

I hesitated for a moment, staring at the untouched glass of water on the coffee table. The empty space between us felt too vast to cross, but eventually, I stood up, making my way to the kitchen.

We sat across from each other, the dim light from the pendant lamp above casting shadows on the table. There were no small talks, no jokes exchanged like before. We ate in silence, the clinking of silverware the only sound between us. Every so often, I would look up, meeting her gaze for a fleeting second, but neither of us had the courage to speak the words that were hanging in the air.

The food was good, as always, but it didn’t taste the same. The flavor of everything felt hollow, like a memory that wasn’t quite mine.

When the meal was over, I helped clear the table, my movements stiff. The kitchen felt too small, the air too thick.

She turned to face me then, her expression unreadable, her eyes dark with something I couldn’t quite place. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her voice barely a whisper. “For everything.”

I swallowed hard, the knot in my chest tightening. “I know you are. I… I just don’t know what to do with all of this.”

Her eyes flickered with unshed tears, and she stepped back, as though the space between us could somehow protect her from the weight of the moment. “I never wanted to hurt you, Sunghoon,” she murmured, her words full of regret. “I thought… I thought if I could just bring you back, we could have another chance. But now I see how wrong I was.”

I nodded slowly, trying to process the ache in my chest. “I don’t know how to fix this either. But I know… I know I need to understand who I am now. And what we are.” My voice trembled, but I fought it back. “I need time.”

“I understand,” she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. “Take all the time you need.”

It felt like a farewell, and yet, we stayed in the same house. In the same life, but now it was something unrecognizable.

The next few weeks passed in the same quiet, empty rhythm. We moved around each other, living parallel lives without ever crossing paths in any meaningful way. There were mornings where I would wake up to find her sitting on the couch, staring at her phone, or nights where I’d catch her reading a book in the dim light.

Sometimes, I would linger by the door to her study, wondering if I should knock, ask her how she was feeling, but each time, I backed away, unsure if I was ready to face the answers she might give.

At night, I would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was how we were going to live—side by side but separate. I missed her. I missed us. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just a shadow of the man she once loved, and that was a weight I wasn’t sure she could carry anymore.

One night, as I lay in the dark, unable to sleep, I heard the soft sound of her crying. The quiet sobs seeped through the walls, and my heart clenched painfully in my chest.

I wanted to go to her. Hold her. Tell her everything would be okay. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have the words anymore.

And maybe, I never would.

The night stretched on, and despite the tension that hung thick in the house, I managed to fall into an uneasy sleep. The weight of everything—our fragmented relationship, the guilt, the uncertainty—had left me exhausted, though the sleep I sought felt shallow and restless.

It was around 3 AM when I was jolted awake by the softest sound—a faint, broken sob. My eyes snapped open in the dark, my heartbeat quickening. I froze, listening carefully, the sounds of her grief pulling at something deep within me.

It was coming from the direction of her room.

At first, I told myself to ignore it. After all, she had her own space, her own pain, and I had my own to deal with. But the sound of her brokenness—quiet and desperate—was too much to ignore.

Slowly, I slid out of bed, my bare feet padding softly on the cool floor. I moved silently through the house, drawn to the soft, muffled sounds echoing through the walls. When I reached the door to her room, I paused.

She was crying, the kind of sobs that wracked her body and left her vulnerable. I hadn’t heard her cry like this before—unfiltered, raw, as if the dam inside her had finally broken.

The light from her bedside lamp flickered weakly, casting long shadows on the walls. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head buried in her hands, the tears falling freely, like they couldn’t be held back anymore.

I stood there, frozen, my chest tightening at the sight. My first instinct was to rush to her side, to pull her into my arms and whisper that everything would be alright. But I didn’t. I just watched from the doorway, a spectator in my own home.

The sound of her pain made me feel powerless, as if I were too far gone—too far removed from who I once was to even be the man she needed. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. The silence between us felt like an unspoken agreement, a distance neither of us knew how to cross.

And then she spoke.

“I’m sorry… Sunghoon,” she whispered to the empty room, the words slipping from her like a confession she hadn’t meant to make. “I thought I could fix it. I thought… if I could just bring you back, we could be happy again. But I don’t know what I’ve done anymore. I don’t know who you are. Or if you’re even really you.”

Her voice cracked at the end, and I could hear the weight of her regret, the guilt, the fear of everything she’d done.

The flood of emotions hit me all at once—anger, sadness, confusion—and yet, there was something else, too. The overwhelming desire to reach out to her. To show her that I understood, that I knew how hard this was for her.

But still, I stayed frozen. Silent. The words that had once flowed so easily between us now felt like strangers.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but it didn’t stop the tears.

“I was selfish,” she muttered to herself, her voice barely audible now. “I couldn’t let go. I wanted you back, no matter the cost. And now… I don’t know if you can ever forgive me.”

That was when the weight of it all hit me fully—the pain she had been carrying, the burden she had placed on herself. The fear she had been living with, not knowing if I could ever truly forgive her for bringing me back.

I stepped forward then, unable to watch her fall apart without doing something.

“Y/N,” I said quietly, my voice hoarse, betraying the emotions I had kept bottled up for so long.

She immediately stiffened, her breath hitching as she quickly wiped her face, trying to pull herself together. “You’re awake,” she said, her voice faltering. “I didn’t mean for you to—”

“I heard you,” I interrupted, taking a few steps into the room. “And I’m not angry with you.”

She looked at me, her eyes filled with so much sadness, it was almost more than I could bear. “But I did this to you,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I brought you back, Sunghoon. And I don’t know if you even want to be here. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask to be—” She stopped, her breath shaky, as if even speaking the words caused her pain.

I knelt in front of her, my heart aching as I reached for her hands, gently pulling them from her face. “Y/N…” I said softly. “I am here. I’m here because I want to be.”

“But what if I’ve ruined everything?” she whispered. “What if I can never make it right?”

I shook my head, cupping her face in my hands as I looked into her eyes, searching for some glimmer of hope in her. “You didn’t ruin anything. You did what you thought was best… even if it was wrong. And I understand that. But we can’t live like this, hiding from each other. We need to talk. We need to be honest.”

She nodded slowly, tears still slipping down her cheeks. “But can we ever go back to what we were?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, filled with a quiet desperation.

I swallowed, my own emotions threatening to spill over. “I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice thick. “But I want to try. I want to figure it out. Together.”

There was a long pause, and then, slowly, she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against mine, her tears falling onto my skin. I closed my eyes, letting the weight of everything settle in.

In that moment, I realized that maybe there wasn’t a way back to what we once had—but that didn’t mean we couldn’t find something new. Something different. Something real.

And I was willing to fight for it.

I held her closer, whispering against her hair. “We’ll find our way. Together. One step at a time.”

The silence between us stretched out, thick with the unspoken words, the weight of everything we had been through. Her breath was shaky against my skin, and I could feel the warmth of her body pressed against mine, like she was finally letting herself soften, letting me in again.

I wanted to say more, to fix everything, but the words weren’t coming. I could only focus on the rhythm of her breath, how the vulnerability in her touch made everything seem both fragile and precious.

And then, almost instinctively, I pulled back just slightly, my hands still cupping her face, fingers brushing softly over the damp skin of her cheeks. I searched her eyes for something, anything—some flicker of permission, of trust.

The question formed in my chest before I even realized it, and before I could second-guess myself, it slipped from my mouth, quiet and uncertain but earnest.

“Can I kiss you?”

The words were soft, tentative, as if I wasn’t sure she would say yes, as if I wasn’t sure I even had the right to ask anymore. But something in me needed to hear it—to know if we could bridge that last distance between us, if the gulf of everything we had been through could be closed with something as simple as a kiss.

Her gaze locked onto mine, and for a moment, everything went still. She didn’t say anything. There was only the quiet sound of her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest under my palms. The world outside the room felt distant, irrelevant. It was just us now, alone in this fragile moment.

I waited. She could say no. She could push me away. But I needed to know where we stood.

And then, slowly, her eyes softened. She gave a slight nod, her lips trembling as if the simple motion of it took all her strength.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but it was there. It was all I needed to hear.

Before I could even think, my hands moved to her shoulders, pulling her gently closer. I closed the distance between us, hesitating only for a brief second, just enough to feel the weight of the moment.

And then I kissed her.

It wasn’t the kiss I had imagined—the wild, desperate kiss of two people who couldn’t control themselves. No, this one was different. It was slow, careful, tentative, like we were both afraid to break something that had just begun to heal. My lips brushed against hers, soft and uncertain, as if I were asking for permission again with every gentle touch.

She responded after a moment, her hands finding their way to my chest, clutching at me like she was trying to ground herself in the kiss, in the connection we were rebuilding. I could feel her hesitation, but I could also feel the warmth, the pull, the quiet promise in the way she kissed me back.

The kiss deepened slowly, our movements syncing, building, and for the first time in so long, I felt something stir inside me that had been dormant—hope. A fragile, trembling hope that maybe, just maybe, we could find our way back to each other. That maybe this was the first step in learning to trust again.

When we finally pulled away, neither of us spoke for a moment. We just stayed there, foreheads pressed together, our breaths mingling in the stillness. I could feel her heart beating against my chest, a steady rhythm that told me she was here. She was still here with me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice small, but it wasn’t the apology I had been expecting. It wasn’t guilt or regret. It was a quiet understanding. A promise, maybe.

“I know,” I whispered back, brushing my thumb over her cheek, wiping away the last remnants of her tears. “We’re going to be okay.”

And for the first time in so long, I actually believed it.

The air between us was thick with the weight of everything unspoken, but in that moment, there was only the soft brush of our lips, the warmth of our bodies pressed together, and the undeniable pull that had always been there. We moved slowly, cautiously, like we were both afraid of shattering something fragile that had just begun to heal.

The kiss deepened, an unspoken question lingering in the space between us. I could feel her heartbeat against my chest, fast and erratic, matching mine. It was as if we both understood that this was more than just a kiss—it was a reclaiming, a restoration of something that had been lost for far too long.

I gently cupped her face, tilting her head slightly, deepening the kiss as my hands found their way down her back, pulling her closer, as if I couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t get close enough. Her fingers slid up to my chest, tracing the lines of my shirt before pushing it off, the fabric slipping to the floor without a second thought.

There was no more hesitation, no more doubt. Just the raw connection between us that had always been there, waiting to be unlocked.

She responded with the same urgency, hands moving over my body, finding the familiar places, the marks that made me me. I could feel the heat of her skin, the way her breath caught when we came closer, when I kissed her neck, her jaw, her lips. The taste of her was like everything I’d been missing, the feeling of her so real, so tangible, that for a moment, it was hard to believe she was really here. Really with me.

Our movements grew more urgent, more desperate, but still tender, as if we were both trying to savor this moment, unsure of what tomorrow might bring, but desperate to make up for the lost time. I wanted to show her everything, all the ways I loved her, all the ways I had missed her without even knowing how much.

The world outside the room disappeared. There was no lab, no documents, no research, no mistakes. Just us—finding our way back to each other, piece by piece. I held her close, kissed her as if I could never let her go, and when the moment finally came, when we both reached that point of release, it wasn’t just about the physicality. It was about trust, about healing, about starting over.

When we collapsed against each other afterward, breathless and tangled in sheets, I felt something shift inside me. Something I hadn’t realized was broken until it started to mend.

Her hand found mine, fingers lacing together, and she rested her head on my chest, her breath slowing, and for the first time in so long, I felt peace. A peace I hadn’t known I needed.

And in the quiet of the room, with her beside me, I whispered softly, “I’ll never let you go again.”

She didn’t answer right away, but I felt the way she squeezed my hand tighter, her chest rising and falling against mine. She didn’t need to say anything. I could feel it in the way she held me.

And for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to believe that we could truly begin again.

The quiet stillness of the room enveloped us, the soft sound of our breathing the only thing that filled the space. I held her, tracing the curve of her back with my fingers, savoring the moment as though it might slip away if I wasn’t careful. The weight of everything—the doubts, the fears, the mistakes—was still there, lingering in the shadows of my mind, but for once, I didn’t feel like I had to carry them alone.

She shifted slightly, raising her head to meet my gaze. There was a softness in her eyes now, the guarded walls that had once stood so tall between us slowly crumbling. I could see the vulnerability there, but also the strength that had always been her anchor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but it carried all the weight of everything she’d been carrying inside. “I never meant to hurt you.”

I brushed a strand of hair away from her face, my fingers lingering against her skin. “I know,” I murmured, my voice thick with emotion. “I know. But we’re here now. We’ll figure this out. Together.”

She nodded, her eyes closing for a moment as if gathering herself. The air between us was charged with unspoken words, and I could feel the weight of the past year pressing down on us. But there was something different now—something that had shifted between us, something I hadn’t felt in so long.

Her lips found mine again, soft and gentle, a kiss that spoke volumes more than words ever could. It was an apology, a promise, a plea all rolled into one. And for the first time in so long, I allowed myself to believe in it fully.

When we finally pulled away, her forehead rested against mine, both of us still tangled in the sheets, the world outside feeling miles away. I could hear the distant hum of the city, the night stretching out before us like a quiet, unspoken promise.

“I love you,” I whispered, the words escaping before I could even think about them. But it felt right. It felt real.

She smiled, her fingers brushing against my cheek. “I love you, too. I never stopped.”

And in that moment, I knew. No matter the struggles we’d faced, no matter the secrets, the pain, or the mistakes, we were still here. Still us. And as long as we could keep finding our way back to each other, everything else would be okay.

We stayed there, wrapped in each other’s arms, the world outside fading into nothingness. In the quiet, there was only peace. The peace of knowing that, together, we could face whatever came next.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I finally let go of the fear that had kept me tethered to the past. Because with her by my side, I knew we could build a future. A real future. And nothing, nothing at all could take that away from us.

As the days passed, something began to shift between us. It was subtle at first, small gestures of kindness, moments of vulnerability that had been buried under the weight of secrets and doubts. But as we spent more time together, the trust that had once been strained slowly started to blossom again, like a fragile flower daring to bloom in the cracks of the world we had rebuilt.

Every morning, Sunghoon would make me coffee, just the way I liked it—strong, a little bitter, with just a hint of sweetness. It became our small ritual, something to ground us, to remind us that we were still learning, still growing. And every evening, we’d find ourselves lost in the quiet comfort of one another’s presence. Sometimes we didn’t say much, just the familiar silence that had always existed between us, but now it felt different. It felt safe.

One night, as we sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket together, he turned to me, his expression soft. “I’ve been thinking about everything. About what you did…and why. I don’t want to just forgive you. I want to understand. I want us to really move forward.”

I smiled, the warmth in his voice soothing the lingering worries in my chest. “We will,” I whispered, “We’re already on the way.”

Sunghoon gave me a small, genuine smile, his fingers lightly brushing over mine. It was a touch so simple, yet it carried all the weight of the world. I had feared this moment—the moment when the cracks would be too deep to heal—but instead, I felt something stronger than before. Something more real.

As the weeks went on, we found ourselves sharing more than just physical space. We started talking about the future—what we wanted, where we saw ourselves. There was no more fear of the unknown between us. Instead, there was excitement. There was trust, slowly but surely, weaving its way back into our lives.

I could see it in the way Sunghoon would ask about my day, genuinely interested, and how I would lean into him when I needed comfort, no longer second-guessing whether I deserved it. Our conversations had depth now, unafraid of the things we once kept hidden. We didn’t pretend anymore. We didn’t have to.

One evening, while we were cooking dinner together, Sunghoon turned to me with a teasing smile. “You’ve improved. Your cooking’s actually…not terrible.”

I laughed, playfully shoving him. “Hey, I’ve gotten better!”

He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me into his chest. “I’m proud of you.”

I could feel the sincerity in his words, the love that had grown back between us like something tangible. The fear and doubt that had once plagued me were nowhere to be found now. In their place was a quiet certainty.

We weren’t perfect. We still had our moments of miscommunication, of moments when the past reared its head, but with each day, the trust between us grew stronger. It wasn’t about erasing the mistakes we’d made. It was about learning from them and choosing to move forward together, no matter what.

And as I looked into Sunghoon’s eyes, I saw the same thing reflected back at me—the understanding, the acceptance, the desire to never give up on us.

In that moment, I knew that trust wasn’t just something that had to be given freely—it had to be earned. And we were earning it every day. Slowly, but surely, we were becoming something new, something even more beautiful than before. Something that could withstand anything life threw at us.

And for the first time in a long while, I allowed myself to believe in the future again.

In us.

Life had felt like it was finally settling into a quiet rhythm, like the calm after a storm. Sunghoon and I had been living together in peace for the past year, our bond mended from the cracks of the past. The tension had faded, leaving room for love, laughter, and domestic moments that felt so normal and reassuring. We’d shared so many firsts again—first trips, first lazy weekends in bed, first home-cooked meals. Everything felt right. Almost.

It was during one of these peaceful afternoons that I made a discovery. I was cleaning out the attic of our home, something I’d been meaning to do for months, when I came across an old box. It was tucked away in the corner behind some old furniture, covered in dust and cobwebs. The box was unassuming, wooden with a faded label that simply read, “Don’t Open.”

Curiosity got the best of me. I knew it was probably something from my past, but that label tugged at something deep inside me, urging me to open it. I hesitated for a moment, but then, with a deep breath, I lifted the lid. Inside, I found an old video tape. It was yellowed and cracked with age, but there was no mistaking the handwriting on the label: “For Y/N.”

My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t like me to leave things unexamined, especially if they seemed tied to my past. But this felt different. There was an unspoken warning in those words. Still, I couldn’t resist.

I brought the tape downstairs and found the old VCR player we kept for nostalgia’s sake. Sunghoon was in the living room, reading a book. I hesitated for a moment before calling him over.

“Sunghoon, you have to see this,” I said, holding up the tape. “I found something in the attic…”

He looked at me curiously, putting the book down. “What is it?”

I popped the tape into the player, and the screen flickered to life. At first, there was nothing—just static. But then, the image cleared, and I saw him.

The figure of a man in a lab coat appeared. His features were unmistakable—he was Park Sunghoon, the real Sunghoon, the one who had died in the accident years ago. But this Sunghoon wasn’t the one Y/N knew now. He looked younger, more fragile, and tears stained his face.

“I… I don’t know how to start this,” the Sunghoon on the screen murmured, his voice choked with emotion. “Y/N… is gone. She passed away. Leukemia. It was sudden. I—I couldn’t do anything. She was everything to me. And I… I can’t bear it.”

Y/N’s breath hitched. She glanced at Sunghoon, whose face had gone pale. He looked at the screen, wide-eyed, his expression unreadable.

“In my grief, I’ve decided to do something I never thought I would. I’m using her preserved DNA, the samples we took when we were researching regenerative cloning… to bring her back. I—I have to do this. I can’t live with the pain of losing her,” the real Sunghoon continued, his voice trembling.

The video cut to a series of clips from the lab: footage of the real Sunghoon working late nights, mixing chemicals, monitoring equipment, and seemingly obsessed with recreating Y/N.

“I’ve used everything we learned in our research. I’ll make her whole again,” the video continued. “But this is for me, I know. For us. I want to have a second chance. A chance to make things right. If you’re watching this, Y/N… then I’ve succeeded. I’ve recreated you.”

The video ended abruptly, and the screen turned to static.

It was strange, to know the truth about their origins—about the fact that their love had been recreated, in a sense, by science and heartache. But as Y/N lay in Sunghoon’s arms that night, she couldn’t shake the feeling that none of it truly mattered. What mattered was that they were together now. They had both fought for this. They had both fought for each other. And nothing in this world could take that away from them.

Their love had brought them to this point—not fate, not science, but love. It was a love that transcended life and death, pain and loss. A love that, no matter what had come before, had always been destined to endure.

They had started as two broken souls, unable to move forward without the other. But now, they were whole again. Their love, their memories—no matter how they came to be—were theirs to cherish.

And that, in the end, was all that mattered.

The rest, the science, the questions of whether they were real or not, faded into the background. Because, in the end, they were real. Their love was real. And that was all they needed to know.

taglist: @raavenarmy-blog @maewphoria @limerenceisserenity @honey-bunnysweet @crispysharkwizard @semi-wife @beomgyus11 @bambisnc @feymine @yujinxue @xoxorara @cyjhhyj

permanent taglist: @ijustwannareadstuff20 @hoonielvv @rjssierjrie @firstclassjaylee @morganaawriterr @rikifever @daisyintheskyewithdiamonds @kkamismom12 @pocketzlocket @semi-wife @soona-huh

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pawberri · 1 year ago

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The key problem with "proship vs anti" discourse is that the most extreme versions of each side, the ones who actually bother to identify with these labels, accepted each others worst takes as arguments they had to debate. "Fiction =/= reality" is, in practice, an absurdly reductionist, anti-intellectual, thought-terminating-cliche that dictates we can learn nothing about a person via art and that their fiction reflects no political or moral messaging worthy of critique. In response to this, the "puriteens" who are too young to possibly hope to articulate their discomfort, to untangle their position from what is often real trauma experienced online, simply argue "yes, fiction influences and reflects reality in a 1 to 1 capacity." They, and people who want to use the groundwork they laid to make bad-faith callouts, make bad arguments about how the action of engaging in problematic fiction is on equal ground to real life abuse, or is a clear indicator of interest in real life abuse. Both of these arguments are terrible, but each side seems to radicalize the other further and further into their own brands of anti-intellectual reactionary belief. "Proshippers" become libertarian absolutists about free speech and view all transgression as righteous and alternative and therefore leftist. They gain a reactionary nostalgia for the past, desiring a time when people didn't seem to care about the implications of art. "Antis" become authoritarian and hypervigilant for signs of moral decay, at their worst, willing to align themselves with government bodies that offer carceral solutions to the debate. They are willing to use harassment as a tool of punishment, which then leads to false accusations and a fear of openness that puts people at risk of being triggered via obfuscation. (That said, proshippers also take part in plenty of harassment.)

I will say that I believe both of these movements are equally sensitive to co-opting by right-wing forces. We see the authoritarian tendencies of anti culture in harassment campaigns and even the way Republican law makers co-opt "grooming." The proship/fic crowd has such extreme nostalgia for the past that I often see people align themselves with the cultures of 4chan or other happily right-wing websites. They so heavily reject the idea that a drawn sexual depiction of a child could reflect any desire that they are disinterested in analyzing what the motivation behind the depiction is. i.e If we track the history of lolicon in Japan we do find that is, yes, countercultural, but that counter culture is right wing, very misogynistic, and defensive of patriarchial Japanese culture as it is and was including its culture around rape and abuse. Plenty of fictional content works as radicalization material, and radicalization material needs to be ambiguous. There is a valid reason to be hesitant to trust people who consume this content, even if I do not believe most of them will ever be dangerous towards children. The mere presence of sexuality is not enough to make a movement left wing. This kind of thing can again be seen in right-wing libertarian movements in the US. (And even leftist movements can be bigoted and even "pro-pedophilia" or otherwise disinterested in social reform around abuse.)

Is all content with elements of age-play this way? No. But to me, that is why kink media deserves to be treated as art and analyzed, critiqued, treated seriously. It doesn't have to do anything to anyone to be worthy of a moral critique. Said moral critique just doesn't warrant harassment and cruelty and reactionary exaggerations of the person consuming said content.

Anyway, what's my point in saying all this? I don't know. I'm just begging you to tag your God damn content with specific tags instead of random and nebulous shit like "dead dove" or "dark content", and also begging you to stop harassing people who do tag their content so I don't have to guess what "dead dove" and "dark content" mean. No one will erase incest kink fics or people who feel sickened by the idea of them off this earth because we aren't god, but we could at least all be responsible about tagging, flagging, and age-gating our stuff.

#csa tw #long post #proship anti tw

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phyrestartr · 1 year ago

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Divine Favour | Sukuna x Kitsune!Reader (Pt.1)

W/C: 3.5k #full is NSFW, mild yuuji/reader, yuuji and gang are v early 20s, heian sukuna, male reader, typical kitsune shapeshifting, mentions of abuse, canon typical violence, morally grey reader, sukuna has FEELINGS but is BAD AT FEELINGS, unhealthy relationships, power imbalance, dubcon elements, soz if anything is clunky asdkjf; i can only reread the same fic so many times for editing sadge

A/N: Decided to separate this into parts since I'm dying to post some of it lol I've held it in a chokehold in the shadows of my WIPs for too long, some of it has to come out before I explode o(--( there is more to come!

tag: @nyanwko @kamote-kuneho @better-imagination-9

The scripture was incomplete, worn away by age.

…herein lays the God...imprisoned...by...Disgraced One…

Yet the society felt this, the coffin uncovered decades ago, could be an invaluable asset. The vessel was decrepit and ancient, yet still stood strong against the test of time and the wear of nature. Seal papers, no doubt left by a monk of sorts, covered the entirety of its surface, hiding away rotting wood and rusted bands of metal from modern sorcerer's curious eyes.

Few knew why the higher ups kept the vessel under lock and key. Fewer knew why they kept it at all; however, those few understood the importance of such a relic. They'd been the ones to seek it out, to steal it away before malicious forces took it for themselves, warping the supposed deity inside for their own, malevolent purpose, whatever that may be.

And with Ryoumen Sukuna's fingers being found one by one, they could not allow anyone to possess humanity's failsafe: you. A great being imprisoned by the devil.

“Anything?” Gojo trilled, patting Yuuji’s shoulders frantically as he stood behind him and beheld the wooden tub covered in sigils.

“Uh…” Yuuji tried to focus on Sukuna’s presence inside of him. He didn’t seem intrigued or frightened, nor did he seem too bothered with the idea of them trying to smite him down with a sealed god–he was, however, annoyed that Yuuji continued to poke and prod at him.

Piss off, runt.

“Yep. Nope. Sukuna doesn't care,” Yuuji sighed. “He's getting all pissy now that I'm bothering him, though.”

Gojo laughed and patted Yuuji's shoulders a few more times before all but twirling towards the bound box. “Well, that's a pretty good sign that he's not the one that did this, then! In that case,” he started, walking up to the seal papers keeping everything locked down, “let's pop ‘er open.”

Before Yuuji could even wonder if that was a good idea, the white-haired witch used an overzealous amount of cursed energy and disintegrated every scrap of seal paper.

Yuuji braced for impact. Surely something terrible like a bankai or a spirit bomb would send them flying once the coffin came undone. Surely they'd pay for this, for unleashing whatever godly spirit laid locked up for far too long, only to release it back into the modern age and–

“Huh. Weird.”

Yuuji cracked open an eye and saw the dull shine of tattered onyx fur, and his control slipped with a blitz of vertigo.

Markings flared across his skin as he stormed toward the coffin, heart howling with thoughts and memories crashing through a shared mind; a face he didn't know but knew so well bloomed at the forefront of it all, eyes framed in pointed scarlet, skin bathed in ancient, dappled sunlight.

They reached the edge of the coffin and gripped the edges, splintering the wood as they took in the sight; crimson and curse decay pooled around a figure, curled up and half-submerged. Several black, tattered tails spilled free from the tub, no longer crushed from the force of the lid sealing them inside, but they were bent awkwardly and matted with whatever tincture lay at the bottom.

Then there was the so-called god in the middle of it all–you. Still. Quiet. Curled up in a haori far too big for you. Eyes closed. Almost peaceful.

Confusion tore at Sukuna while nausea ripped through Yuuji; he couldn't bear to look at such a morose scene.

So, Sukuna pushed him aside.

[Heian Era]

You were never supposed to be anything more than a trinket.

You were a gift from some family trying to show off for Sukuna, so much so that they offered him a delicacy, something he surely didn't have yet–a yokai. A kitsune, to be more exact. One with peculiar black tails.

Sukuna found it interesting, and similarly desperate, to be brought such a creature as tribute. Certainly, it was meant to be seen as a high honour, yet somehow it felt…off. Why would humans give up something so powerful?

Unexpectedly, it'd be you who told him.

They submit me for the sake of convenience and mockery, your withering voice whispered where no one else could hear. You sounded weak. Tired. Maybe afraid, yet brave enough to reach towards the king and unveil the intentions of the men who brought you before him.

Sukuna's eyes flicked to you, his feigned interest in what the sorcerers said falling straight into dismissal. You were much more intriguing.

“Oh?” Sukuna asked, a smile creeping onto his face. The speakers ceased their jabbering and stared at your back with fierce intensity. Sukuna grinned wider. Oh, how he loved the way fear twisted mortal faces.

You didn't shift or crumple into yourself under the eyes of so many, however. You pushed on with what little energy and life you had, so intent on dragging that clan through the mud.

What I say is true, you assured simply. I expect to die today–

“Speak so everyone hears you, fox,” Sukuna commanded.

“--so I–I–” you coughed and cleared your throat, trying to rid your voice of the scratchy, weakness it struggled through. “I wish to not die with regrets.

"They have rendered me ill and unable to produce children, they see the black of my tails and regard me as an ill omen; yet they bring me to you, daring to spin sweet tales about the value of such an offering. But they lie,” You hissed. Your eyes glinted with molten malice, and Sukuna fell captivated.

“They throw me to you as they would diseased meat to dogs.”

The courtyard fell silent, and Sukuna basked in it. You really were such a little troublemaker. A quietly chaotic force of nature.

The king stood, rolling his shoulders as he did, and his pride flared as you dropped to your knees before him in respect. He walked to you and patted your head as one might a child's before appraising the sorcerers stood before him.

“What a disappointment,” Sukuna sighed, raising another hand. The couple took up position, pooling their cursed energy in hopes of fending off the monster standing before them. The effort was quite cute. “Here I thought your clan might actually earn my mercy.” His hand dropped as the two lunged. Then, the two clansmen fell, too, both in neat, vertical halves. Quite overkill, yes, but he had a point to make.

Where he expected a reaction from you, he got nothing. Only panting and poorly-stifled coughs came from you, racking through the entirety of your skin and bones frame. Sukuna could see it up close now, the way your body trembled from fatigue, the sickly greying of your skin, the scent of disease clinging to you.

That wouldn't do. Sukuna liked his things to be in good shape.

“Uraume,” Sukuna droned as he stared down at you, “fix this.”

It took some time, but you managed to recover. It was an unnerving experience, with the way Uraume tended to you with sincerity. Perhaps it was genuinity born from their devotion to Ryoumen Sukuna, but you greedily soaked it in, filling your stomach with the care they offered you.

Sukuna didn't bother much with you, not that you really minded; you were much more content to be fed and forgotten than hunted down by the creature that supposedly took ownership of you without enforcing it. If he didn't cause harm or good, if he simply existed somewhere else and forgot you breathed the same air as him, you'd still be at peace.

But he was more intrigued than you gave him credit for.

“Ho? So this is where you scamper off to,” Sukuna hummed, leaning over you as you dozed in the nice little spot you'd made for yourself in the garden, right under the crimson cover of a maple tree. You jumped the slightest bit, your daydreams and sunbathing interrupted by the brute’s silhouette eclipsing the sun, but you settled again quickly. The beast of a man wasn't a cause for panic in your little world, after all.

“Does it displease you?” You inquired, fixing your hair and straightening out your robes.

Sukuna held onto an overhead branch of the tree as he looked down at you. “Pets are supposed to play in the yard, aren't they?” He smirked as you pursed your lips and flicked your tail before calming it with hasty pets. “What, you don't like being my pet?”

“I would not refer to myself as a pet,” you countered as the man sat down with you and leaned against the tree. The king's presence calmed you. With him, you knew you were invincible.

“Pft. Then pray tell what your damn role is around here.” One set of arms folded behind his head while the other set crossed over his chest. “Pets are freeloaders. Pretty sure that's exactly what you are.”

You huffed. “Freeloader. Tch. How rude.”

“Lookit that. You're copping an attitude now that you're fat and fed. Used to be so much more polite.”

“Fat and–I am not fat.” You headbutted his side lightly, something that would make more sense had you been in your fox form. You grinding your forehead against him suggested this was more of a human move, however. “I am perfectly normal now. I was brittle and nonexistent prior to now. This is a grand improvement.”

Sukuna scoffed a laugh and looked down at your head pressed up against his side. “Thanks to me,” he boasted.

“Yes,” you agreed. You held onto his haori and looked up at him, placid and intense. “It is thanks to you. I would not be here if not for your mercy and intervention.”

Sukuna raised a brow as he regarded you. “Hm. And what will you do to repay me?”

“My very presence grants you luck, good fortune and fertility.” You tilted your head. “I already repay you by being here.”

Tch. But the gardens and surrounding lands did look more lush and lively since your arrival, he couldn't deny that fact. But he was a king; he could always ask for more and expect to get it.

“What more?” He prodded.

Your tail flicked as you thought. “What would you ask of me?”

“Something you haven't given another,” Sukuna replied. Ugh, your flowery, poetry-y, bullshit speak was rubbing off on him.

You stared at him, gemstone eyes glinting with earthen hues and shards of gold in the yawning afternoon sun. The leaves bristled just perfectly, letting in dapples of citrus sunlight as if trying to make this moment something special, as if to burn your ethereal presence into history for all eternity. All this, just while you thought of what to give him. Perhaps a riddle is what you wanted. Perhaps purple prose suited your fancy. Perhaps it was something else.

You sat up, carefully raising yourself onto your knees before leaning up towards the hulking king. He turned his face to you in interest, feeling a sort of natural energy begin to pool around the both of you, reaching from the far depths of the earth and the wide stretch of the sky to converge on your existence as you framed his face with gentle hands, and placed a chaste kiss on the corner of his mouth.

It lasted only a second. But a second was long enough to catch the scent of petrichor and petals on your skin, to indulge in the heat of wildfires raging in your soul, to feel the blasphemy of you against him; then, you parted.

“For now,” you murmured, and Sukuna swore he saw your single tail fan out into nine, “I give you my divine favor, Ryoumen Sukuna.”

You wondered if your favor was enough. He'd been gone some time, off to accept a duel from the snotty shitheads Sukuna had received you from. Apparently, having two of the eldest boys murdered rubbed them the wrong way. Sukuna was glad for it, you knew–the man lived and breathed for a fight.

Of course, you stayed put. Uraume assured you'd be fine on your own, and Sukuna reminded his staff they'd all be eaten alive by the king himself if anything uncouth were to take place in his absence. It was more so that Sukuna didn't like the idea of idiots touching his stuff than it was the notion you were important to him, from your understanding.

Regardless, the time alone left you restless. That king made you invincible. Without him, you were nothing more than the scared kit locked away in darkness, never to emerge lest your stubbornness trick them. But things were different here. Everyday was filled with unknowns and uncertainties when the two you'd forged fragile bonds with fell absent.

So, you thought of how to repay Sukuna. Your divine favor would only do so much, after all–you didn't think a man like that really needed the extra luck, but he seemed more than intrigued by the manner of delivering the blessing; you remembered how he looked at you, eyes half-lidded, shielding you from the inferno burning out of control. He grumbled something low in his chest, just loud enough that you heard:

You better be here when I get back.

“Ah–” The thrill those catastrophic words gave you nearly led to stabbing yourself with the needle. You tutted and regained focus, continuing to carefully embroider the sleeves of one of Sukuna's many plain black haori.

You learned how to sew and embroider from watching an elder from that clan work her magic on old, tattered clothes. She never spoke to you nor regarded you, but she never turned you away the rare times you watched her fix garments; you thought it was beautiful–the art of turning something mundane into something meaningful.

Though you wondered if Ryoumen Sukuna, the most powerful sorcerer, the most feared man alive, had a desire for anything useless and meaningful.

The answer came quickly. You'd found yourself void of confidence when the monarch returned to his palace after (obviously) winning whatever duel he'd agreed to; you weren't sure if you were to congratulate him, celebrate him or something more. On top of that, he'd eventually find that haori you'd slaved over for days, and you weren't sure you could take the heartbreak of dismissal.

However, those fears were quashed when, from a new little secret garden hovel, you spied the man donning the very haori you slaved over; it wasn't a flashy piece, you didn't want to subtract from the marvel that was the king of curses, so you opted for using black, shimmery thread to weave intricate twisting trees and blackened blooms along the sleeve. Only if the design caught the light would one be able to notice it.

But that was enough for you. Knowing he accepted such a meaningless gift was reassuring of your place in his world.

So, you finally let Uraume convince you to stay in the room they'd prepared for you.

“No need to be nervous,” you hummed, that undying urge inside you to take care of something helping you soothe the young woman's nerves. You fixed her hair, your deft fingers carefully slipping strands into place before sliding a decorative pin in to hold it all together. You took a step back to appraise her, Sukuna's latest concubine.

“I–thank you.” Sachiko blushed fiercely and bowed the slightest bit, not risking a deep bow for the fear of her hair falling loose. “I can see why all the girls love you.”

You laughed, low and warm. “Well, it's hard not to love someone who takes care of you, no?” Gently, you tilted her chin up and leaned in, carefully examining the red lacquer staining her lips. The colour matched her kimono and the gems in that exquisite hairpin keeping dark locks at bay. “But I'm glad. I know it's difficult to find respite in these times.”

Sachiko held her breath as she looked over the natural paint of crimson adorning your eyes. “I-I, um–yes, I do agree.”

You hummed and carefully fixed the smallest smudge on the corner of her mouth. “Mh. So I hope you do your best to please him.”

“I will!” Sachiko promised. “But–I wish to–may I give you something?”

“Of course.”

She gathered her kimono up in her hands and leaned up toward you. You leaned down, expecting a secret or hushed words, but perfect red lips pressed against your skin instead. And you were dumbfounded; you'd never been kissed before. You'd never had a lady show that interest in you.

Sachiko got down from her tiptoes and hid her mouth with her sleeve. “Just for good luck!” She squeaked before bowing and hastily running through the doors where Sukuna would no doubt be waiting for his woman for the evening’s events.

You looked at the doors sliding closed and caught a glimpse of Sukuna stood before the young woman, his frame swallowing hers as you looked on. And you caught a glimpse of his eyes, his stare of shock and utter vexation–clearly, he'd seen the short woman give you a kiss for good luck.

You turned away, choosing to abandon the girl to her demise as your fingers ghosted against your lips in wonder.

He showed up in your chambers later that night. You were still awake, quietly embroidering another haori; this time, it was for Uraume. They insisted they didn't want to burden you, but they crumbled under your more insistent insistence, and accepted the offer on the condition it looked subtle and muted.

Sukuna padded toward you, hardly bothering to announce himself or ask to join you (ugh, how annoying) before plopping himself onto the futon beside you, sighing as he laid down.

“I see you finished early,” you commented, jumping the littlest bit when large hands caught your flickering tails. He didn't hurt you, no; he was simply an overgrown toddler with a penchant for examining whatever wiggled before him.

“That woman kissed you,” Sukuna answered, unhelpful. “Ruined it.”

“Ah. Well. I didn't expect it either.” You cleared your throat, feeling an unexpected bubble of embarrassment rise in your chest. “I have…I've never been given a kiss before. Not from what I can recall, at the very least.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Sukuna grouched. “You planted one on me in the gardens.”

“Giving is not receiving,” you corrected, flicking your tail so as to hit his face. “I've never given a kiss on another's lips, regardless. Though I find myself wondering why I–”

You yowled when he yanked your tail like he meant to rip the thing off, and you whirled on him, eyes drawn into slits and chunky fangs bared as you dug your nails into his wrist in an effort to make him let go.

Yet the king looked unfazed. He sat up and tugged you closer by your tail, yank after yank, ripping an impressive collection of vexed noises from you until his broad hand caught you by the throat. You clawed at his wrist and forearm, scrambling to find purchase, idly wondering if he'd finally had enough of you and sought to put you down after dirtying one of his concubines–

But he kissed you instead. His lips were warm and dry, not quite soft yet not unwelcoming. Sukuna knew what he was doing, too; his tongue licked at your bottom lip before pushing inside to finally taste you and taint you from within just a little bit.

Your grip on him laxed the slightest bit, and you even eased into his hold as he, too, refused to harm you further. If you weren't aware of his malevolent spirit, you might've thought him gentle in that long, simple moment–a special brand of “gentle” that was wholly Sukuna's. Kind, but jagged around the edges.

He started pulling back, though, and you followed after his touch like a bewitched maiden chasing after the lips of a lover. You nipped at the air like that'd do something for you, but soon settled on leaning into the hand holding you still, even if your throat scratched and ached because of it.

You found Sukuna's calm stare watching you when you opened your eyes a crack. For once, you thought he looked content; the cruel, mocking lines of his face had smoothed and relaxed, and that annoying, cocky smirk he'd been born sporting had been replaced with a placid, normal lilt. Even the inferno blazing in crimson depths eased into pools of yawning embers–warm and spirited, yet contained.

The sight relaxed you despite the confusion it brought to your rationale.

“That,” Sukuna said, so odd and quiet, but powerful and judicial. “Is your first.” His thumb stroked against the side of your neck, pausing to feel the pitter patter of your heart thrumming under his mercy. “It'd serve you to remember that.”

You nodded shallowly. “Of course.”

Pleased, he let go of your quite breakable neck and moved like he was about to get up. You grabbed at his hand and pressed his palm to the side of your face like he was cupping your cheek. Your insistence on touching gave the beast pause, but he settled again, content to let you keep him hostage for as long as you wanted.

And you indulged in the simple favour. You nuzzled into his palm with a very fox-like chitter as a bassy, quiet trill of a purr lazily rolled through your chest, eventually reaching Sukuna himself. It somehow had him feeling content. Relaxed. Like he was basking in the warmth of the sun.

“I request another,” you chirped, and Sukuna quirked a brow.

“Another?”

“Kiss.”

Sukuna twitched a smirk. “It'll cost ya.”

“Oh?”

“Give me another blessing.”

And you agreed.

#sukuna x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna x male reader #sukuna x m!reader #sukuna x you #jjk x you #male reader insert #male reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen reader insert #jujutsu kaisen x male reader #jujutsu kaisen x you

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juliettejwnewinesa · 2 months ago

Note

Hi love your work I have a personal request I love our man Choi Hyun-Wook

So can you please make a D. P. Choi Hyun-Wook x reader .you can make it however you want including 18+ .I just need this Pacific one I cannot find it anywhere thank you.

Author's note: def not my best work but I was kinda freestyling it sorry,also I was sick over the weekend so I couldn't post it sooner

Title: White Coats & Bloody Hands

Pairing: Ahn Suho (Choi Hyun Wook) x Doctor!Y/N Setting: D.P. Universe Length: ~600+ words Themes: Violence, co-dependence, military corruption, slow burn tension, moral decay, power dynamics, explicit content (light)

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The first time she stitched him up, she didn't ask his name. He didn’t offer it, either. Just sat on the table in her silent basement clinic, blood slick on his jaw, knuckles split like ripped leather, and stared at her like he was trying to decide if she was real.

“You bite your tongue or someone else did it for you?” she asked, hands gloved and steady.

He grinned with too many teeth. “You should see the other guy.”

She didn’t smile back.

She stitched, wiped blood from his collarbone, and when she pressed gauze against his side, he hissed but didn’t flinch. “I don’t work for free,” she said quietly.

“Didn’t ask you to,” he murmured, and tucked a folded envelope under her tray with fingers stained red and black.

She didn’t count it. She didn’t need to. He wasn’t the first broken boy to wander in through the side entrance with his morality dangling off him like loose skin.

But he was the first one who came back.

Ahn Suho had stopped being a soldier long before he left the army.

Whatever was left of discipline had been beaten out of him with fists and ranks and silence. He didn’t talk about what happened behind the barracks at night. Or why he walked out during patrol with a rifle slung across his back and blood drying in his mouth.

Now he worked for people who didn’t ask questions. Drug debts. Enforced collections. Some underground fight rings. Sometimes he chased deserters—just like the D.P. bastards used to chase him.

The difference? He didn’t bring them in. He made sure they never got up again.

And when it went too far—when the job got messy—he came back to her.

To Y/N. The girl with surgical hands and predator eyes.

“You ever wonder what it makes you?” he asked one night, lying shirtless on her cot, blood soaking into the bandages she’d just tied too tight.

She arched a brow. “What?”

“You’re not saving lives. You’re preserving a weapon.”

He didn’t expect a response. Just stared at the way her fingers dipped into the basin to rinse his blood away.

“You think you’re the only one who got thrown out of the system?” she said finally. “I was military once. First aid, trauma, combat field. They didn’t like that I had opinions. Especially about how many bodies they were covering up in the name of ‘discipline.’ So I quit. Quietly.”

He watched her dry her hands on a towel. Her white coat was speckled with blood. She didn’t seem to notice.

“You’re not the only one who walked out,” she added, then tilted her head at him. “I just didn’t need a rifle to do it.”

His laugh came slow. Low. A little wrecked.

“Touché.”

They didn’t talk about feelings. Or trauma. Or what it meant to keep meeting like this—under the hum of old fluorescent lights, the smell of alcohol and blood thick between them.

But over time, there were patterns.

He came back scraped up and twitching with adrenaline. She cleaned him, scolded him, taped him together like patchwork. Told him to stop getting hurt like she gave a damn.

And somewhere between the third and fifth visit, he stopped bringing cash.

“I still don’t work for free,” she told him one night, when he tried to dodge a cracked rib with a cough and a grimace.

His eyes darkened. “What do you want then?”

She didn’t answer. Just reached out, gripped his jaw gently but firmly, and forced him to look at her.

“Obedience,” she said.

And to his surprise… he gave it to her.

It wasn’t love. Not really. It was something uglier. Something hotter.

Like a wound that refused to heal—raw, half-infected, addictive.

She didn’t kiss him. Not at first.

But one night, after a job that went too far and left him vomiting bile in her sink, shaking from a concussion and whatever pills he’d used to push through the night, she touched the back of his neck. Gentle.

He leaned into her palm like an animal.

When he looked up, his pupils blown wide, something inside him snapped.

And he kissed her like he needed it to stay human.

The first time they had sex, it was silent.

No soft music. No words. Just breathing, blood still under his nails, her coat discarded somewhere near the cabinet. She stripped him down like a patient, not a lover—touched every bruise, every scar, and mounted him like a declaration.

He’d never begged before. Not even in basic training. But when she rode him slow, controlled, hand pressed to his throat—not choking, just holding—he gasped her name like it was the only prayer he remembered.

And when he came, it wasn’t just release. It was surrender.

After that, things got worse.

Because now he didn’t just need her to patch him up.

He needed her.

And worse, she knew it.

“You’re reckless,” she told him, pushing gauze into a gash across his thigh.

“You’re obsessed,” he shot back, jaw tight.

She didn’t deny it.

“You keep coming back,” she murmured. “No matter how much blood you leave behind.”

He turned his head, lips near her ear. “Because you’re the only one who sees me and doesn’t look away.”

She faltered—just for a second.

Then her fingers tightened on the tape. “You think I’m here for you?”

“No,” he breathed. “But I hope.”

Jun-ho came around once. Suspicious. Curious. Not dumb.

“I heard you’ve been treating some unofficial cases,” he said, casually leaning on her clinic doorway.

She shrugged. “I treat whoever needs it.”

“Even deserters?”

She didn’t flinch. “You planning to report me?”

He looked at her, long and hard. “No. Just… be careful who you give your hands to. Some of them don’t come back the same.”

She didn’t answer. But when he left, she locked the back entrance. And double-bolted the basement.

One night, Suho didn’t come back.

Not for a week. Not for two.

She kept working. Pretending not to check the news. Not to look at every body that came in, every street fight report, every vague headline.

Then—midnight. A knock.

She opened the door to find him slumped against the frame, drenched in blood, barely conscious. One arm hanging uselessly. His shirt torn, lip split, collarbone exposed.

“Fucker used a blade,” he muttered.

She dragged him in herself.

He passed out on the cot before she even got his boots off.

The wound on his side was deep. Needed twelve stitches. He woke up on the eighth.

“You came,” he murmured, voice raspy.

She smacked his chest. “You took your sweet time, asshole.”

He grinned weakly. “Missed you too.”

She glared at him. But when she pressed her forehead to his, just briefly, he didn’t pull away.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes. “Not yet.”

Later that night, when he was clean and wrapped and resting, she climbed into the cot beside him. He didn’t protest.

He slid a hand to her hip, tentative. “You’re not supposed to get attached,” he whispered.

She kissed his throat. “You’re not supposed to survive.”

He turned toward her, mouth on hers, desperate and slow.

This time, there was no silence. Just skin and sweat, her nails in his back, his teeth on her shoulder. She let him take control—for once. Let him fuck the fear out of his system, rough and raw and trembling.

And when he came inside her, he buried his face in her neck like he could crawl into her and disappear.

They never said the words. But it was love.

The dirty kind. The kind born in blood and silence and bad choices.

He brought her bodies. Secrets. Men with scars and debts and stories she didn’t want to hear.

She kept his name off the records. Hid him when the wrong people asked questions. Told him when to run, when to fight, when to stop before he crossed a line even she couldn’t erase.

And he obeyed. Because she was the only line he hadn’t crossed.

Yet.

“You’re going to get me killed,” she told him one night.

He lit a cigarette. “I already did.”

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millermouth · 5 months ago

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Part 1 | Part 2 | masterlist

"Are you scared, little bunny?" Summary: You didn’t mean to be here. You didn’t mean to see this. The motel door had already been cracked open, a splintered frame, a hint of something wrong curling in the air. You should have turned around, left, pretended you never saw the blood on his knuckles, the way it was painted across his throat. But then he looked at you. Slow, unfazed. Like you walking in on his carnage was nothing at all. You didn’t know why your breath shuddered. You didn’t know why your fingers itched to touch. And you sure as hell didn’t know why you didn’t run. || DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT 🕊️ horror, Dark!Daryl Dixon, blood and implied violence, no walkers, motel room encounters, morally gray reader, predator/prey vibes, dubious situations and dubious consent (the reader whole heartedly consents they're just trying to reason with themselves that this is a terrible idea), serialkiller!Daryl, reader walks in on something she shouldn’t, fear-turned-arousal, misattribution of arousal, thanatos / death drive theory. || a/n: thank you so so so so much to my friend @dixonsdarkelf for beta reading & giving me the boost I needed to post this! Inspired by these gifsets x x

The drive home always dragged.

You let out a long, exhausted sigh, fingers tightening on the wheel as the road stretched endlessly ahead. This wasn’t how the weekend was supposed to go. You were supposed to stay with your family for two more days—grit your teeth through the small talk, sit through the passive-aggressive questions about your job, your life, your choices. Smile. Nod. Pretend. But instead, you were barely a few hours in before it all fell apart.

Dinner had started fine. It always did. But then one question turned into a pointed remark, then into something sharper, something meaner. The same fight, just recycled into different words, but this time, you weren’t in the mood to swallow it down. This time, you pushed back. Voices rose, tempers flared, and before you knew it, you were grabbing your keys, shoving out the door, leaving behind the half-eaten meal and whatever thin thread was still holding the conversation together.

Now you were here—alone on the highway, miles of darkness stretching in every direction, headlights carving a path forward.

Traffic jams bled into one another, each red taillight blurring into the next, the clock on your dash creeping past midnight. Eventually, the further you went, the emptier the roads became, until it was just you and the long-haul truckers, their rigs groaning under the weight of whatever cargo they hauled through the night.

Your eyelids grew heavier, dipping lower with every mile. You blinked hard, willing yourself awake, but exhaustion clung to you, thick and suffocating. It wasn’t just the late hour—it was the crash after the adrenaline of the fight, the weight of too many words you couldn’t take back pressing down on you.

You told yourself you’d be fine. Just another two hours to go.

Then a deafening horn shattered the quiet, and before you even realized what was happening, your tires veered across the lane. You gasped, jerking the wheel hard, the car lurching as you barely corrected in time. The highway was nearly empty, but that didn't matter—your heart was pounding, hands clammy where they gripped the steering wheel, the sudden shock of how easily that could’ve ended differently locking your breath in your throat. That was it, you knew you needed to stop, needed to pull off and find a place to get some rest before hitting the road again in the morning.

You took the next exit, into a town that was barely a town at all, just a forgotten smear of civilization on the side of the highway. The streets were empty, the buildings slumped and decayed, as if the place had given up on itself long ago. A gas station, a diner with its ‘Open 24 Hours’ sign flickering in and out of life, and a squat little motel, its vacancy sign buzzing weakly in the dark.

Pulling into the parking lot, your headlights washed over cracked pavement and weeds pushing up through the concrete. Only a few cars were parked outside, most of them old and rusted, as if they’d been sitting there for far longer than a single night’s stay. The only light came from the neon sign overhead and the sickly yellow glow spilling from the front office window, casting shadows that felt too long, too stretched.

You swallowed, gripping the steering wheel. Something about this place felt…off. Not in an obvious way—no shattered windows, no ominous figures lurking in doorways—but in a way that made your skin crawl. Like the air itself was holding its breath, waiting. These were the kind of motels in movies where you’d scream at the protagonist: Keep driving, idiot! Find someplace else!

But there was nowhere else, and you couldn’t risk driving another hour to find the next rest stop.

It wasn’t ideal. Hell, it was probably a breeding ground for bed bugs, or worse–the kind of place where people checked in but didn’t always check out. But the thought of curling up in your car for the night, stiff and vulnerable in an empty parking lot, wasn’t much better.

All you had to do was get the key, lock the door, and make it through till morning. You’d toss your clothes the second you got home, scrub this place off your skin like it never touched you.

It was fine. It would be fine.

The fluorescent lights in the front office buzzed overhead, their hum just a little too loud in the unnatural silence. The air inside was stale, thick with the scent of something overly sweet—like someone had tried to cover up years of cigarettes and mildew with cheap air freshener.

A small bell sat on the counter. You hesitated, then tapped it once, the chime ringing out sharp and hollow.

Nothing.

You waited, shifting your weight from one foot to the other, the feeling of being watched crawling up the back of your neck despite the room being empty. Just as you were about to hit the bell again, a figure shuffled out from the back.

It was a woman, older, her expression carved from stone. Stringy hair pulled back into a loose bun, a cigarette smoldering between two fingers, her nails yellowed from years of nicotine.

“What can I do for ya?” she drawled, exhaling a long stream of smoke. It curled thick in the air, stale and cloying. You forced yourself to breathe through your nose, ignoring the burn in your throat.

“One room, please. Just for the night.”

She tapped at the ashtray on the counter, knocking the embers loose without looking. Her gaze stayed on you, too steady, too knowing, as if she was peeling you apart one layer at a time.

“You travelin’ alone, honey?”

Your spine straightened.

“No,” you said a little too quickly. “My dad’s waiting in the truck.”

She hummed, dragging another long inhale from her cigarette as her beady eyes stayed on you. Like she could tell it was a lie, no matter how sure you tried to sound.

“So, two beds?”

“Just the one is fine,” you said, tightening your fingers around your bag strap “We’ll manage.”

"Cash or card?" she asked, watching, peeling away whatever confidence you tried to have.

"Card," you murmured, fishing it out with stiff fingers.

She slid it through an ancient-looking reader, her other hand tapping the desk with the long, deliberate patience of someone who had nowhere to be. Her name tag was smeared, almost unreadable, and the glass of the front desk window was covered in a film of grime.

She handed the card back, then a single brass key, its tag worn soft with age.

“Room one eighty,” she said, sliding it forward. “End of the lot.”

You took it quickly, fingers brushing against the cold metal.

The woman leaned back, taking another drag, her lips curling around the cigarette. “You let me know if y’all need anything, alright?”

You forced a nod, but something about her stare made your skin prickle. You turned toward the door, gripping the key so tight it pressed sharply into your palm.

Outside, the air felt too thick, like the humidity had climbed in the last few minutes, settling heavily on your skin.

Then, you felt it again.

That thick, crawling awareness pricking at the back of your neck. That quiet, animal instinct that told you someone was watching. You turned your head before you could stop yourself.

Across the parking lot, just beyond the neon glow of the motel sign, a man stood under a broken street light. At first, he was nothing more than a dark shape, half-obscured by the flickering light, his face hidden in the deep hollows of shadow.

He was just… standing there. Watching.

You didn’t recognize him, and he was too far away to make out anything but his built form, the broadness of his shoulders. But there was something in the way he stood, still as stone, his body angled just slightly toward you, his gaze locked and unblinking.

The look in his eyes, dark and unreadable even from a distance, sent a shiver licking down your spine.

You turned quickly, your nerves on fire. But as you made your way down the long stretches of rooms on the outer perimeter, the railing overlooking the parking lot, you began to hear signs of life. The sounds seeped through the walls, slipping under doors and filling the narrow stretch of concrete. A bass line thrummed from somewhere nearby, muffled by thin walls as it seemed to pound with the rhythm of your heartbeat. Somewhere farther down, men shouted, their voices rising and falling, drunken or angry or both. Laughter burst out, sharp and sudden, followed by the distant clatter of something knocking against a table or a wall.

When you turned around and looked back across the parking lot, the man was suddenly gone.

TVs droned from multiple rooms, the glow of static flickering through slatted blinds. Someone had left theirs too loud, a newscaster rehashing old stories like it wasn’t the middle of the night. A couple was arguing behind one of the doors you passed, their voices biting and loud, words slamming into each other with no space to breathe. Something crashed—glass, maybe, or a chair knocking over—and you picked up your pace without realizing it.

Anywhere else, maybe it would have felt normal. Just people awake too late, passing the time, waiting for morning. Here, it only set your teeth on edge. Something about it felt wrong.

The fact that so many people were still awake at this hour made the muscles in your back pull tight. You weren’t alone here. But that didn’t mean you weren’t isolated.

Then, a heavy thump.

It came from the room to your right, sudden and jarring, loud enough to shake the thin wall between you. Your breath caught as you flinched back, your heart hammering against your ribs. There was movement, the slow creak of weight shifting, but nothing else followed. No voices, no explanation. Just silence settling too quickly, like whatever had happened had stopped the second you reacted to it.

Your feet moved faster, a reflex more than anything, carrying you down the walkway before you could think too hard about it. The numbers on the doors passed in a blur—178, 179, and finally, 180—your fingers tightening around the key as your room finally came into view.

You fumbled once, just once, hands suddenly damp, but the second the lock turned, you pushed inside, slamming the door behind you.

The second it shut, you turned the lock.

The noises outside dulled, voices and music muffled the moment you closed the door and slumped your back against it, your chest rising and falling like you’d just run a half-marathon instead of walking across a motel lot. Your fingers curled into the fabric of your shirt, gripping at nothing, your pulse a frantic beat against your ribs.

You dragged in a breath, trying to slow the restless thrum in your veins. Just get through the next few hours, get some rest, and then you’d get the hell out of Dodge.

It was fine. It would be fine.

Except, sleep didn’t exactly come easy. You tossed and turned on top of the stiff bedspread, every shift of fabric loud in the silence, ears straining for any sudden sound beyond the walls. A door shutting, footsteps outside, voices carrying just enough to make you wonder if someone was too close to your room.

After what felt like forever, you gave up, flipping on the TV just to drown out the rest. The low murmur of late-night programming filled the room, casting weak blue light over the cracked ceiling, but it didn’t do much to settle you. You weren’t sure anything would.

The one thing you couldn’t ignore in favor of sleep, though, was the slow, gnawing ache of your stomach.

You should’ve stayed for the rest of dinner. Sat through the tense conversation, swallowed the words you wanted to throw back at them, and picked at your plate even if you had no appetite. At least then you wouldn’t be thinking about stepping outside again, not in the dead of night, not in the seediest motel you could’ve possibly stumbled across.

But the longer you lay there, the worse the hunger got.

Every motel had a vending machine, didn’t they?

You sighed, scrubbing a hand over your face, already hating where this was going.

You just had to be quick. In and out. Then you’d lock yourself in and actually try to sleep.

You knew it was wishful thinking to assume the vending machine would be easy to find. It was never that simple. You circled the building twice, passing the same cracked pavement, the same rusted-out cars, the same rooms with their curtains drawn too tight.

By the time you finally stumbled across the middle hallway, the glow of a single overhead light barely illuminating the space, you were already regretting this. The vending machine sat in the corner, humming under the flickering fluorescents, the metal frame dented, the glass fogged with fingerprints.

Your fingers hovered over the rows of snacks, barely able to focus on the choices, your body still on edge from the walk over. The motel felt alive, like every sound behind every door was something you weren’t supposed to hear.

The machine hummed under flickering light, the buttons worn down to the plastic. You fed it a couple of crumpled bills and tapped at one, then another, and waited. A loud mechanical churn. Then—nothing.

Great.

You smacked the side of it. Nothing again. Your stomach twisted painfully, a sharp reminder of just how long it had been since you’d last eaten. You sighed, rubbing a hand over your face, and turned to leave.

And that’s when you noticed it.

A door, cracked open at the very end of the hall.

The frame was splintered, like it had been forced open.

Something in your gut tensed.

You should walk away. Right now. Get back to your room, lock the door, and pretend you never saw anything. But something about it—about the stillness of it, the way the dim glow of a bedside lamp barely reached the threshold—made your feet stall.

Someone could be hurt. Or worse.

You swallowed hard, pulse in your throat as you crept closer, every instinct screaming at you that this was a bad idea. The air shifted the closer you got, thick with something you couldn’t name, something wrong.

And now that you were standing at the threshold, staring at the cracks in the doorframe, splintered from some kind of forced entry, your eyes drifted lower. Something dark and sticky was splattered on the ledge of the door, thick streaks leading onto the carpet inside.

Your heart stopped altogether. It was no longer rattling in your chest from fear, but fully frozen, skipping and halting as if trying to jumpstart itself while you stared into the dimly lit room.

At first, it was just shapes—shadows swallowing each other, the motel’s tiny lamp and the flickering TV casting everything into uneven light—warm and dark one second, sharp and cold the next. As your mind caught up to your eyes, it sharpened, the darkness peeling away, and you finally realized what you were looking at.

On the queen-sized bed in the center of the room, the bedspread was untouched, barely rumpled, except for the body laying perfectly still atop it.

Like someone had laid them there on purpose.

A mess of red had soaked deep into the fabric, fresh enough that the air was thick with it. The copper scent was overwhelming, clinging to the back of your throat, so metallic and sharp you could almost taste it. There was so much blood. More than you had ever seen in one place. Too much for it to be okay, too much for it to mean anything other than the obvious. You should have turned around. You should have stopped looking. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t do anything except stand there, heart frozen in your chest, as your brain worked double time, locking onto every detail like it needed to catalog the carnage in order to make sense of it. The body was positioned too neatly, arms at its sides, legs straight, head turned away just enough that it felt unnatural—like whoever had done this hadn’t just been brutal, but deliberate.

Your stomach clenched. The smell invaded your nose again, worse now, thick and nauseating, making something cold claw its way up your spine. You stumbled back a step, your hand flying to clamp around your mouth before you could decide whether you were about to scream or be sick. You needed to move. You needed to leave. You needed to call someone, do something, but your limbs refused to cooperate, locking up as if freezing in place would somehow make this all disappear. Your body was waiting for direction, for instinct to kick in, but it never did.

Then, the bathroom door on the other side of the room swung open, spilling yellow light into the dim space as a man stepped out.

At first, it was the fluffy pink robe that threw you off, a ridiculous contrast against the raw violence laid out before you. Your brain latched onto it, desperate for anything that made sense, anything that didn’t belong to the nightmare in front of you. But then your eyes dragged upward, and you saw it—the blood.

It was everywhere. Splattered across his throat, smeared up his neck, drying in dark, uneven streaks along his collarbone. His hand was coated in it, the thick, dried red cracked over his knuckles, like he hadn’t bothered to wash it off. Like he hadn’t cared enough to try.

Panic reared its head, shoving its way into your chest, squeezing your lungs tighter than before. It was one thing to stumble across a body, to witness a crime. It was another to look into the eyes of the man who had done it. Your body understood before your mind did—the liquid fire of adrenaline flooding through your veins, your muscles locking up in place, every nerve screaming caught, caught, caught.

His gaze locked onto you, heavy and assessing, and even from where you stood, you could tell his eyes were the deepest ocean blue you had ever seen. There was no rage in them, no madness—nothing that fit the sheer bloodshed he had left behind. He was unnervingly handsome, despite it all. Maybe because of it.

He inhaled, dragging another slow pull from his cigarette, letting the smoke curl lazily from his lips before shifting his weight, completely unconcerned.

Then, finally, he spoke.

“Well,” he muttered, voice rough and edged with disinterest as he let out a puff of smoke, “shit.”

You should have run.

You should have turned and bolted down the hallway, thrown yourself outside, screamed for help—something. But you didn’t. Your body wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t let you turn and run from the scene in front of you. Your limbs were locked in place, rooted to the motel floor like they had forgotten how to move, how to respond, how to do anything but tremble.

He seemed to notice, and flicking his cigarette, he made his way slowly toward you. He was so slow and careful it was almost predatory, like he was trying to camouflage into whatever normalcy was left in the room. Like he was trying to convince you that this was completely normal and he wasn’t some axe murderer in a pink fluffy robe.

“C’mon now,” he muttered, stepping toward you with zero hesitation, like your presence here was nothing more than an inconvenience. “Least shut the damn door.”

He moved with easy, unbothered confidence, reaching past you, pressing his palm against the motel door and nudging it inward. It swung heavy on its hinges, closing behind you with a soft, final click.

Your breath shuddered. You were really stuck here now, with him, and for some reason, the panic in your chest wasn’t flaring like before. You remained stock-still, frozen, waiting for him to make his move, to put you out of your misery for being a witness to his crime. What was his weapon of choice? Did he have a knife? A gun? Did he kill with his bare hands?

The man stepped in close, standing just in front of you now, close enough that you could see the uneven streaks of blood drying against his throat, close enough that you could smell the mix of cigarettes and sweat and something deeper layered with the metallic tang of blood.

He didn’t say anything right away. Just looked at you, head tilting ever so slightly, like he was turning over a thought in his head, working something out.

Then he exhaled, lifting a hand—slow, deliberate, like he was giving you a second to react—and twisted a lock of your hair between his fingers.

His touch was light, but it sent a bolt of something electric straight through your spine, and yet, still, you didn’t move. You should have pulled away. You should have slapped his hand down. But your body wasn’t yours right now. It belonged to fear.

He hummed low in his throat, almost to himself, turning the strands between his fingers, studying them with an unreadable expression.

“You’re real pretty,” he muttered, almost absentmindedly, like it was a passing observation, not something meant to soothe you. His voice was low, rough, dragging over the syllables like he didn’t use them often. “What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ in a place like this?”

Your throat locked up, lungs seizing against the flood of adrenaline. You weren’t even sure if your heart was still in your chest based on the way blood was roaring in your ears, drowning out every rational thought. He was teasing. Curious. And—God—flirty?

If you didn’t know better, if you hadn’t just stepped into this room, hadn’t seen the blood, hadn’t noticed the body stretched out too perfectly on the bed—you might’ve… you might’ve…

You swallowed hard, but your throat was too dry to get any sound out. Your pulse slammed in your ears, your heartbeat betraying everything you wanted to hide. He watched you for a moment longer, then let your hair slip from his grip, rubbing his bloodstained fingers together as if testing the softness.

“You’re shakin’,” he observed, mouth pulling into something that wasn’t quite a smirk, but leaned in that direction, like your fear was interesting to him… like it was cute.

His fingers twitched then, and after a pause, he reached up again after sticking his cigarette in his mouth—this time, just barely brushing his knuckles along your jaw. The touch was fleeting, but enough to make you tense even more.

He made another small sound in the back of his throat, mock sympathy edging into it.

“Like a scared little bunny.”

You should have been running. Screaming for your life. You should have turned and bolted the second you saw the blood. Why weren’t you fucking running?

The part of you that should have been shutting down, the part of you that should have been clawing for survival, digging its heels into your fogged, terrified brain to pay fucking attention—that part of you…

It was curious about him too.

You watched as his face changed then, watching your reactions like a predator tracking in his prey, eyes narrowing as they darted around your face, reading you, piecing something together. His lips twitched like he was amused, like he had figured out something you didn’t even understand about yourself yet.

“No…” he said, pulling his hand away, head tilting slightly before his face split into a grin, pulling the cigarette out between his fingers, “you’re not scared, are you, little bunny? You like this.”

“No!” The word ripped out of you, barely a whisper at first, but then louder, cracking in the dim room around you., “No.” Your breath stuttered as you tried to sound more confident, your whole body wired too tight, but the denial felt weak even to your own ears.

“Oh, there she is,” he said, watching you closely, pleased that he had finally drawn something out of you. “You gotta name, sweetheart?”

Your lips pressed together, your jaw tight, but your eyes sharpened, taking him in, really seeing him now. His blue eyes were dangerous and beautiful and terrifying all at once, cutting through the haze of your fear like a blade. There was blood splattered up his face, drying along the sharp structure of his cheekbone, disappearing into the strands of dark hair that hung loose in his eyes. It should have made him look monstrous. It should have made him unrecognizable as anything human.

But it didn’t.

It made you want to lean forward. Your mind flashed with the idea, and you did everything you could to keep your body from following, the idea that you wanted to trace the sharp cut of his jaw, to drag your tongue over the remnants of metallic blood he had missed along his lip and—

No.

No no no no no.

The thought seared through you like an open flame. Your breath caught, your skin igniting in humiliation, a flush so deep you wanted to disappear. You couldn’t believe this. Couldn’t believe your own body, couldn’t believe the way your stomach clenched, the way something hot and ugly was overlapping the sheer horror of what this man had done. There was fear, yes—a lot of it. But there was something else crawling underneath, something just as intense, something that made your pulse skyrocket as his hand moved.

His hand pushed the cigarette into the wooden frame, the hiss of the burning end snuffing out by your head. His fingers then found the strap of your shirt, curling around the fabric, dragging it down over your shoulder with his bloodstained grip.

“No name, huh?” he murmured, watching your face, watching every shift in your expression, like he was memorizing what you looked like when you trembled. His voice was lower now, quieter, dangerous in a way that wasn’t loud or obvious, but steady and unshaken. He leaned in closer, close enough that the heat of his breath ghosted over your throat.

“That’s okay, bunny,” he muttered. “I don’t got a name either.”

Your stomach dropped.

And then, to your utter horror, he kissed your shoulder.

Not deep. Not forceful. Just the slow, deliberate press of his mouth against your skin, his lips barely parted, dragging warm and rough over the place he had just exposed.

It sent a violent shudder down your spine. The sensation—the heat of him, the quiet intimacy of it, the way he didn’t move away after, just lingered there—lit something in your chest, something sharp and unbearable. Your nipples, the traitors, hardened underneath your shirt, poking through the thin fabric that stretched across your chest. A gasp left you before you could stop it, your eyes widening in shock.

The man huffed softly against your skin, something amused in the sound.

“You like this, bunny?” His voice was slow, edged with something almost thoughtful, like he was figuring it out as he spoke. His nose brushed the side of your throat, his breath warm as he tilted his head, inhaling the scent of your perfume.

“You like a man like me takin’ advantage of just how scared you are?” His hand tightened just slightly at your shoulder, his mouth ghosting along your jaw before he murmured, “That it, bunny? You like the fear?”

His lips brushed your pulse.

“The shame?”

His fingers traced along your collarbone, the metallic tang of copper filling your nose as his hand got closer and closer to your face again.

“You turned on by a little bit of blood?”

Your breath caught in your throat, fingers curling at your sides, and you knew whatever you said next would change everything. You should have lied. You should have denied it, should have shaken your head, should have shoved him away and run before it was too late.

Your mouth parted, your chest heaving like you had just surfaced from drowning, but before you could answer, his hand snapped up, grabbing the nape of your neck, fingers lacing in your hair. His other hand suddenly gripped your jaw, forcing your face to tilt toward him.

It was fast, sudden, a flash of violence that slammed through you like a bolt of electricity, it made you gasp sharply, eyes going wide.

His grip wasn’t bruising, but it was firm, unyielding. His fingers dug into your jaw just enough that it bordered on pain, enough that you felt the quiet threat humming underneath him.

His eyes narrowed, sharp, dark, and hungry, locking onto yours like a predator seeing prey for exactly what it was. His grip tightened for a split second, his thumb dragging rough over your cheek, the dried blood flaking slightly against your skin, crumbling like dust beneath his touch.

“Say it,” he rasped, voice still calm, still steady as stone, but something inside it had changed—harder now, more dangerous.

Your body locked up, trapped between the heat of him and the cold reality of what was happening, of what had been happening for longer than just that moment.

Because it hadn’t started when you stepped into this room.

It didn’t start when you saw the blood. It didn’t even start when you heard the body hit the floor.

It started long before that.

You’d always known something was wrong with you. The way fear didn’t keep you away—it called to you, wrapped around your ribs and had you in its grip. The way you’d always looked for danger, for the spike of adrenaline that made your heart hammer against your ribs, made you feel more alive than anything else.

You could’ve stayed at your parents’ house. You could’ve forced yourself to sit through another dinner filled with questions about your future, their expectations suffocating you like a cage you were never meant to fit inside. But you didn’t.

You left in the middle of the night, peeling away from their house like something inside you was clawing to be free, chasing an impulse you hadn’t fully understood at the time.

You hadn’t stopped driving until exhaustion forced your hand. And when you pulled into this motel, when you stepped onto that cracked pavement, when you heard the distant sounds of raised voices, of something heavy hitting the ground—your pulse hadn’t stuttered in fear.

It had spiked.

And while you tried to ignore it, ignore that pull, to force yourself to sleep, you couldn’t say no to that part of you that needed to see. You’d left your room, weaving through the shadows of the motel, passing this exact door. The vending machine hadn’t been the excuse you told yourself it was. It wasn’t hunger for food that had your stomach twisting, your body restless against the scratchy motel sheets.

It was hunger to know.

To see.

To find the blood, the body, and the man who did it.

And now he was standing in front of you, looking at you like he already knew all of it. Like he’d read the answer in your dilated eyes, in the way your breath had hitched when you first saw him, in the way you were still here, still trembling under his grip but not running.

Your mouth was dry, your body refusing to move, refusing to break free of his hold. Because the worst part wasn’t that you were afraid.

The worst part was that you liked it.

You made a small, broken noise, your fingers twitching, your whole body tight as a wire as you reached up, your hands sliding around his forearm.

“Yes,” you whispered. It was barely a sound, barely more than breath, but his eyes flickered, something shifting beneath them.

The pressure released all at once.

His grip loosened from your jaw, tracing down the side of your throat with something slower now, something more deliberate. You let your hands fall, reaching for him instead. His thumb dragged along your cheek, wiping away the remnants of old blood he had left there. His lips lingered, the warmth of them stark against your skin, a slow drag over your jaw as he exhaled. The scent of him—smoke, sweat, the faint metallic ghost of dried blood—was thick in your lungs, wrapping around you, leaving no space for anything else.

His lips barely moved as they traced your jaw again when he spoke, the words slipping against your skin, low and quiet, like they weren’t meant for the space between you but meant to sink into you, settle deep, curl around something inside you that you didn’t even have a name for.

“I know, bunny.”

It was soft, almost affectionate, but threaded with something deeper. Something knowing.

Like he had been waiting for you to admit it to yourself first.

His fingers, the ones still tangled in your hair, tightened slightly—not rough, but firm, keeping you in place, keeping you still for him. He turned your head just enough to guide you, slow, like testing a skittish animal, like making sure you wouldn’t bolt the second he took what you were already offering.

You didn’t know him. You didn’t even know his name.

And none of that mattered.

Your hands, trembling but restless, lifted before you could stop them, pressing against the warm plane of his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall beneath your palms. He was solid. Real. Your fingertips brushed against the edge of the pink robe he still hadn’t bothered to shed, the soft, ridiculous fabric clashing with the rough scrape of stubble along your throat as his mouth continued its path downward.

You felt the shift in him before you even saw it, the slight pause of his breath, the way his grip in your hair flexed before tightening further. His tongue peeked out from his mouth, tracing the vein of your artery along the column of your neck. You shuddered against him, eyes fluttering closed, and he chuckled, low and breathless against your skin, the sound of it vibrating against your pulse.

“That feel nice, sweetheart?”

You opened your eyes to look at him, and his were darker now, heavy-lidded, focused entirely on you, taking in every shuddering breath, every small twitch of your lips, the way your pupils had swallowed nearly all of your color.

Then, he kissed you.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was ravenous. Not just hungry but starved. The slow, intoxicating drag of lips and teeth and heat blurred every thought, every warning screaming in your head turning into static. You felt one of his hands skim lower, tracing the dip of your waist, fingers pressing into the thin fabric of your shirt like he was debating whether to rip it from your body or take his time peeling you open.

His mouth moved over yours like he already knew you’d open for him, like he had been waiting for it, waiting for this.

And God, you let him.

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kabuki-writes · 4 months ago

Text

Twin Suns

chapter: 8 chapter 1 | 2 | 3| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

pairing: emperor geta/emperor caracalla x acacius' daughter!reader

summary: With you being the wife of his brother now and therefore a part of the royal court, it gets increasingly harder for Emperor Caracalla to not seek your company. Noticing his interest in you, Emperor Geta sets up a twisted game to benefit from his twin's desires.

Note: I know, i know! It took me quite some time to get this chapter ready for you. Writer blocks are sadly a thing and i am not immune to that ughhhh! But this series will continue, even though it might take longer than i initially expected it to be. Also there are some new projects i'd like to work on, but they'll probably going to be one-shots. Stay tuned and thank you for your patience <3!

word count: 3.1k

Rome felt different during the summer days. It barely rained and the bright sun turned the city into a melting pot. The heat could become a torture, at least for the common citizens, who had to live and work in the dense streets of the Aventin or the other districts outside the Palatin hill. In the previous decades, fires caused by drought and bad luck were a common problem, especially in the districts of the poor. It was nothing that was new but it only added to the pile of other injustices, which grab around like a plague, being it hunger or the slow decay of any morals that were once held so high by the Roman elite.

The upper classes themselves however had their ways of dealing with those "problems". A lot of them left the city during those hot months as they owned homes in the countryside with the same amount of comfort they enjoyed in the capital. One of the most lavish and gigantic depictions of such a summer residence was the palace of the Emperors in Anzio, directly built at the coastline and a few miles south of Rome. This place was almost like a small city in itself, a symbol of Emperor Geta's and Caracalla's wealth, even though it was actually their father, who restored the old palace that once belonged to Emperor Nero. Emperor Septimius Severus modernized the old walls and equipped the residence to be a retreat for his family. Just as their palace in Rome, their summer residence had everything Caracalla and Geta expected in their roles as the most powerful men in the world. An army of servants rushed around to cook and clean up, take care of the garden, or simply do whatever was needed. Additionally, as always, the Emperors had their entourage of concubines with them, who stayed with the other servants and slaves in another part of the palace - ready to be called whenever they were needed.

Over the last passing weeks after your wedding with Emperor Geta, you'd tried your best to get used to all of this - to the luxury and the way all eyes were always set on you, ready to watch every damn move you did. You rarely got any moment for yourself, since it was expected from you to stick at Geta's side, smile and be at his service every second of the day. And he had used this situation over and over again. Your husband would say that this was just the way he offered you his love, but the reality was that he was a very lustful and demanding man. One that searched for your approval so desperately through all the touches, kisses and pleasures he viewed as a gift, but you only took them to preserve your pride behind a carefully crafted mask of adaption. You despised the lavish parties, the concubines, the twisted game everyone of the royal court seemed to play, so that they wouldn't end up crucified the next morning. And you knew so well, that just like your father, you were fighting to save your family too - not on the battlefield, but in the front of the Emperor and in his bed.

Letters from General Acacius were a rarity, when he was off on a campaign at the end of the Roman Empire. A messenger needed weeks, often over a month until he was able to deliver to the right person. Holding the papyrus paper in your hands felt like holding a godly present, when you read the written words that were only meant for you over and over again. Beginning with "My dearest, my beloved daughter", Acacius told her about the exhausting travel, the situation of his legions as well as his own, about the siege of Numidia - the last free city of Africa Nova and more. In his letter it was an upcoming and unavoidable happening, but given all the time between writing and delivering, the battle might've been over already.

Although it was a personal letter adressed to the Empress, given that he didn't know if anyone else would lay their eyes on it, Acacius deliberately left out the any critique about the Emperor's decisions to continue Rome's expansions. But you knew your father well enough to read between the lines of his text, which gave you a glimpse about how tired he was about this war and how much it caused pain in him to kill and enslave under the banner of a reign he saw as nothing but a tyranny. You were lost in between his words and the smell of the sea mixed with the one of the papyrus in your hand, when a little squeak caught your ears and pulled you out of your thoughts. Another soft screech and you looked into the buttoned eyes of Dondus, the small pet monkey of Emperor Caracalla, who sat in his tiny tunic on the table next to you.

"I knew i'd find you here!" You didn't even need to turn your head around, to know which of the twins suddenly approached you as you were still sitting on a bench in the Palace gardens, protected by the shdaows of the trees around, but with the beautiful view of the sea right in front of you. Still you followed the etiquette and stood up to greet your brother-in-law with a bow of your head. "My Emperor,..."

"Caracalla", he corrected you, before you could even speak further. "You're part of the family now, there's no need to make it complicate, right?"

The fact that you were his brother's wife still bothered him from the very first day on. A mere thought about his brother's possession of your heart could kick off a tantrum of Caracalla at any given time, especially when he was alone in his rooms and had to face all the thoughts what Geta probably did to you, when he had you in his presence. And it was rare, very rare to get a moment with you alone, one in which you were not with Emperor Geta or accompanied by his personal guard. Those that Caracalla was the only one able to send away since the Praetorians had to follow his orders in the same way they did with his brother's. They were twin Emperors all along. And although Geta took more of the leading responsibilities, they shared the power equally at the end of the day.

You nodded in response to his offering, even if it was still an unusual practice - you weren't this close with him. Actually you thought that he had tried to avoid you for quite some time, after your wedding with his brother, which made his sudden approach even more dubious. Nonetheless you put on the mask of a dutiful Roman woman, graceful and without any falter, as your mouth curled into a smile and your hand started to crawl the head of Caracalla's pet monkey, who suddenly jumped onto your lap. "So you and Dondus have found me. Is there something i can help you with or do you just seek the company of your sister-in-law?" Caracalla's jaw clenched, even if his eyes remained open in a stare and his lips still frozen with a smile. "Maybe both", he whispered, before his hand suddenly grabbed yours, a soft gesture, a caring one combined with his following words, but you knew very well it was inappropriate.

"I know that we haven't seen each other for quite some time now and as you know Geta and i are twins - so i know my brother better than anyone. Which is, why i am more than curious to know how you're feeling now that you're his wife? Given the ... circumstances of your marriage, it was probably difficult to adjust to the court life and the duties of an Empress, with your honorable father fighting for Rome's glory somewhere in Africa Nova." His jaw clenched, when he mentioned the man he saw as nothing more than a traitor and you were well aware of that, which was why you hid your anger behind a well-crafted but forced smile.

„I know what is expected of me. And I do my duty for Rome just as my father.“

"That was not my question", Caracalla quickly shot back with an unbothered grin on his lips, while he was slowly leaning closer to you. Your eyes didn't left him as you watched intensely what he did, while you could already feel his breath on your skin. There was a danger radiating from him, a twisted combination out of friendly words and ulterior motives you weren't able to grasp. An inappropriate chuckle escaped his lips out of a sudden, as if he had done enough to hide it. "Is he not capable to satisfy his Empress?"

Your eyes widened and your lips parted, trying to say something, but no words came from them, shocked by the misguided question. Why, by the gods, did he ask such a thing!? Slowly, you gathered your thoughts again, as you tried your best to not show any emotions that would give off how uneasy you felt. But it didn't help that his hand crept further, as he reached out with his fingertips to trace the exposed skin of your arm. A gesture that caused a shiver running down you spine. It was as if he suddenly felt a sense of boldness, knowing that both of you were alone – even though you were not.

"I don't think that you would like me to tell you how your dear brother takes his pleasure from his wife". The words came from your lips like a confession, while you slowly gained conciousness about his goal. "Isn't it so? When we were at the amphitheater back then, you told me that you see yourself as Nero... and on my weddingday, you presented me the crown of Empress Poppaea. It is ironic, don't you think? That we sit here in the same gardens, those two probably enjoyed themselves too?", you said without a tone-shift in your voice, before you whispered, as if you were telling him a secret. "But i don't belong to you."

Something in Caracalla's eyes shifted, while you spoke, a dark glimpse of something that was buried deep inside him. The way his fingers suddenly snaked around your wrist and pressed themselves into your skin, while his lips shuddere, gave away that it triggered him. Even though it was simply the truth, but you wanted to hear what was going on in his mind. And how to get answers better than by teasing Caracalla in a way his lips would instantly react faster than his brain.

"Soon, i promise!", his voice a muddled with promise, plea and anger. "My brother doesn't deserve to have you", he hissed in a low tone, while his face was close to yours as if he was just a short distance away from simply kissing your lips. It took you a lot to not slip from his grip to escape this madness. Geta was cruel, but Caracalla was insane and you were trapped with their tantrums from the second they'd layed their eyes on you. "He never deserved you, not you, not the Empire, all of this. I do. I do. Don't tell me that you've never thought about it, i know that you do-"

"We shouldn't-"

"Don't deny it! We both know that it is fate that brought us together – that brought us here. It is just another sign that we're here together, like Nero and his love." His voice became louder and almost cracked in his anticipation, while his grip on your wrist was so tight, it started to hurt you. But it didn't seem like he would let go either. You were helpless in a situation like this as every word you said, seemed to make it even worse as he just heard what he wanted to hear. Caracalla was in his own reality, his own world, and you were his Venus, his goddess, the pinnacle of his unrestrained desire.

"Caracalla, please. My Emperor, you need to calm down", you tried it with a soft tone shift, your free hand slowly reaching for his scarred pale cheek. The scars testaments of his mental state as he scratched himself, whenever he had a nervous outburst. If he would voice this nonesense even louder, it might alert someone and you knew that it might get yourself in danger too. The Emperors were untouchable, but you...? Geta were able to punish you, if he would hear this conversation – even though you didn't even wished for the attention of his brother, it wouldn't matter.

Your voice, your touch, whatever it was, it shifted Caracalla's mood. He calmed down like a puppy, who melted under the way your filigran fingers ran over his cheek. His cold-blue eyes still stared at you, but it was almost as if he feared he said something wrong. It was the very first time you experienced firsthand how much power you actually hold over a man, who could easily order your murder. The young Emperor leaned into your touch and suddenly nodded softly. "I- i am sorry, i didn't...– i didn't want to scream at you. It was just- no, there is no excuse, please, you need to forgive me–"

You took your time with him even though there were so many thoughts echoing in your mind, how you were trapped in a seemingly never ending tragedy with no way out. However with Caracalla, you might get a chance to play your own little game... so you used this opportunity. "I already did, no need to worry, Caracalla", you whispered in an encouraging tone, taking away all his fears with just a few words. "But you should go now, Dondus seems to need some rest. And we will meet again for dinner, right?"

Indeed, Dondus, Caracalla's little pet monkey, had already laid down on the table, resting in the shadows of the olive trees. A sad shimmer appeared on Caracalla's face, when he got up. But he didn't leave you without. taking your hand for a moment and placing a kiss on your knuckles. He didn't said a word after this, while he simply took Dondus up his arms and walked off. Silence, it was even stronger than any word now, while your eyes went to your wrists, where he had grabbed you out of desperation. He was pathetic, insane – yet he could become a tool to find a way out of here. Maybe you became to ambitious in this very moment.

----

"Did you enjoy the moment with my wife", Geta's voice hit Caracalla like a dagger in the chest as he walked down the aisle, which lead from the gardens back to the palace rooms. He stopped instantly and turned his head around only to see his twin standing there in his lavish robes and the golden laurel wreath on his short gingerblonde hair. For a second, Caracalla almost favored the thought of simply leaving by ignoring those provocative words. But the accusation between the lines, grabbed his mind and basically forced a reaction from him.

"I just talked with her. Am i not allowed to do this, brother? She seemed lonely."

"Ah yeah, lonely?" Geta simply recalled Caracalla's words, while he did a few steps into his direction, stopping right in front of him as his face turned moe and more red. Not because of embarrassment, it was clear that his twin hated to be mocked like this, although the tease was not completely without a reason.

"And you really didn't thought about anything else as you were just accompaning my 'lonely' wife? Don't fool me, brother, i know you since we've shared our mother's womb."

"Is this an accusation?", Caracalla hissed, his fists clenching together. Even Dondus on his shoulder sensed the emotions that cooked up in his owner, screatching in response. What was Geta playing here?

"An offering."

An offering? Caracalla's eyes stared at Geta for a long minute, visibly trying to make sense of his words. It sounded like a test, like a tease, but nothing in his twin's face changed, while he looked at him with a smile that was too genuine for a moment like this.

"You wouldn't like to fuck her, don't you?"

"Stop playing with me!? Why are you doing this!? What should all of that mean!?", Caracalla complained almost like a child, who was bullied by an older kid.

Geta suddenly sighed – as if he was even annoyed by the way his brother reacted to him and this only fueled Caracalla's anger even more. His hand ran through his gingerblonde hair, while his sky-blue eyes were still locked with his smaller twin, since Geta towered him in height. Slowly, he leaned towards Caracalla's ear and finally revealed, what he was thinking in more clearer words. And they revealed a twisted idea that had grew in his mind from the very first moment he'd seen his brother's interest in you.

"If you would like to get a taste of my wife, i will allow it. I couldn't deny my dearest brother a wish like this, because i understand how easily she put a spell on you like a siren. But–" he paused intentionally to give his words even more weight as he spoke out the condition for such a 'trade'. "Since she is my wife, i want to watch what you're doing with her." Caracalla's eyes widened more and more in response to his offering. An internal fight enrupted in him between the hunger that already burned for you and the shame he would feel to put you in a situation like that.

Whoever thought that Caracalla was the only lunatic of the twin emperors had never seen what Geta was really capable of. He just usually did induldge in his 'fun' behind closed doors. Even before he even met you, Geta enjoyed the brutality of the arena fights just as he enjoyed the wild orgies hosted in the Emperor's palace. It were those orgies with tons of whores and slaves, where he not only developed a love for dominating others, but he also formed a voyeristic lust. Seeing others exposing themselves in front of him and losing themselves in the heat of the act was like a painting for his eyes. He shared a lot with his brother, even their concubines – so why shouldn't he share you as well? As long as you were officially his, bound to him and only him in front of the gods, that was the only thing he needed.

"So... what do you say, Caracalla?"

____________________________

Tags:

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#gladiator 2 #gladiator ii #emperor caracalla #emperor geta #geta x reader #caracalla x reader #joseph quinn #fred hechinger #gladiator ii fic #kabuki writes

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kasunex · 3 months ago

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I wrote before about how Coffin subverts the traditional trajectory of stories about co-dependency by portraying Andrew's efforts to "escape" Ashley as misguided at best and manipulative at worst.

But I also think going into the ways in which it subverts those expectations is fascinating in of itself.

Let's start with how the story frames Andrew's relationship with Julia. Now let's remember that Andrew is in a toxic and co-dependent relationship with his sister that has already led to someone's death and is socially isolating both siblings.

Julia is Andrew's attempt to break free of that, to find someone he can love in place of Ashley. That their relationship failed is a tragedy, right?

Hahaha, nope. Andrew is manipulative, callous, and even fantasizes about abusing her.

And where does pushing Ashley away for Julia for over a year leave Andrew?

The whole thing is an exercise in futility. It's an emotionally empty, hollow lie.

The reverse side of this is how the game portrays Andrew and Ashley. Take this scene, which is in my opinion the most vulnerable we ever see Ashley. Alright, sure, she gets rejected and she's sad. Pretty straightforward. But actually think about this scene for a second.

Ashley just came on to her brother. Ok, full stop there, that would be enough for most stories to completely condemn this move. But also add that Andrew has a girlfriend, and of course that Andrew and Ashley's relationship has been shown by this point to be deeply toxic for both of them.

In any other story, this would be a moment that Ashley crossed the moral boundary. Andrew rejecting her would be portrayed unambiguously as a moment of strength. Here? It's portrayed as a tragic mistake. Andrew isn't shown as resisting the fangs of co-dependency, he's shown as rejecting Ashley at her most vulnerable.

You see the opposite side of things when they kiss in Decay's main route. The teasing between them, the soft and peaceful music, the laughing and hugging, it's all very warm.

I've theorized that the takeaway from Coffin is ultimately "Co-dependency destroys everything until all you have left is each other." The first part of that isn't anything unique. There's a ton of stories about why co-dependency is bad.

But the second part, the idea that people can truly be left with only each other, truly destroy themselves to the point they not only can't imagine life apart but genuinely and truly don't even want to, that they can burn all their bridges for one another and yet call the ashes home - that's a poignant twist.

#The Coffin of Andy and Leyley #Random Thoughts

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scarletdreamers · 3 months ago

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Hannibal, background music and what it tells us about Hannibal's feelings (Meta)

The background music in the erotic, dreamlike Hannibal point-of-view dinner scene wasn’t just chosen for that specific scene because it had a fitting melody.

For the number one fandom when it comes to analysing every small detail in a show, we have a surprising lack of background music metas floating around on this site. Not very strange, because most of the Hannibal soundtrack is creepy gongs and ping pong balls and every other weird sound except for a regular violin. However, sometimes the horror sounds are swapped with beautiful classical pieces that resemble Hannibal’s music taste. And while it's Bach most of the time, there's a few gems that are soooo overlooked in my opinion. Though today I only want to talk about the music for 2x10, Naka-Choko. The last scene of this episode is this very intense, very passionate dinner scene:

The background music of this scene happens to be a classical piece which is also the main theme of the film adaptation of the movie Morte a Venezia (1971). In English it is known as Death in Venice. The piece is called Symphony No.5 Adagietto by Gustav Mahler, a late Romantic componist. He made the soundtrack for the entire film.

For those who don’t know Death in Venice: It’s a novel from 1912 by Thomas Mann, which was later adapted into a film by Italian director Luchino Viscosi. The plot follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a writer (book) / composer (movie) who travels to Venice and meets a young boy (concerningly young, fourteen years old I believe, not entirely sure) called Tadzio. Aschenbach falls deeply and obsessively in love with Tadzio, even though he at first tells himself that it is merely for aesthetic reasons since the boy is incredibly beautiful. A bit of a The Picture of Dorian Gray scenario. Towards the end of the story Aschenbach dies from illness while watching Tadzio on the beach and realises that he will forever be enslaved by his passion for the boy.

The thing is, Death in Venice’s main themes are death, a struggle with morality (physical and moral decay), art, passion & love, beauty and its dangers and internal conflict. The story toes the line between ‘’conscious will and uncontrolled passion’’. Rational morality and passion (passion when it comes to art, beauty, or desire).

During the whole story Tadzio is described with countless mythical terms. Greek gods, heroes, tragedies and lovers, but always divine. We know that Hannibal sees Will the same way. The most obvious evidence is that he literally drew himself and Will as Pátroklos (Patroclus) and Achilles. All his sketches of Will are in a style that looks most like Renaissance/Baroque anatomy (Hannibal draws bodies like sculptors used to sculpt them, which is a very fascinating art style of itself). Two periods in which myths were the most depicted subject in art. Next to that, Hannibal considers himself something equal to God. He considers Will an equal, certainly in that dinner scene where no one is at the head of the table. Instead they are sitting eye to eye, mirrored, no one has more power than the other. Which would indirectly mean that Hannibal also considers Will divine. This dynamic is a bit different in Death in Venice, because Aschenbach and Tadzio are more like the worshipper and the worshipped. However, Hannibal’s love for Will could be called worship. I mean, he literally left his heart on a church altar. That’s an action that would usually be considered martyrdom.

Also, the book opens with a storm on a boat and a stranger with red hair. The stranger with red hair symbolises danger, evil, maybe even a devil/demon. They symbolise the nemesis in Aschenbach's story. Not a direct threat, but evil, anyway.

Now what’s funny is that during the dinner scene, Hannibal and Will are supposed to be eating Freddie Lounds. At least, that’s what Hannibal thinks, since Will lied to him. In reality, they’re eating Randall Tier’s flesh and the red-haired devil Freddie Lounds is still alive.

Another fascinating comparison is Aschenbach’s social status, his behavior and the way he deals with desire. Aschenbach comes from an academic and German powerful family. In his youth he was expected to repress any vulgarity, desire and unreasonable behavior included. Hannibal comes from an even more impressive family tree. His father was a Lithuanian count and his mother, Simonetta Sforza-Lecter, was a Sforza. The Sforza’s were a real aristocratic family that ruled over Milan during the Renaissance period. Their castle still exists in real life. Hannibal is completely blue-blooded. His name holds way more power than we realise, mainly because he’s the only living heir on both sides of the family. He was raised with a lot of expectations and standards. Hannibal’s need to be respected and for people to be as polite as he himself is isn’t just some personality issue he developed over years, he was born into it. He was forced to behave according to a book of rules when he was younger. He was restrained. Any expression of desire, lust, wanting, or romantic affection for anyone was forbidden, let alone for an American, grown up poor and unimportant, mentally unwell man ten years younger than him. This is the same with Aschenbach. Tadzio is young, male and Polish. His infatuation with the boy is an absolute disgrace.

Which is also what makes his need for Tadzio so strong. His obsession with the boy goes beyond everything he was ever taught, beyond everything he ever knew. He doesn’t know how to handle it. It’s primal, it’s raw, it’s unrestrainable and intense and it’s wrong. But it doesn’t feel wrong. To Aschenbach it feels like something from a dream. His fantasies about Tadzio are so strong that they aren’t just simple daydreams, but border religious visions. It makes him uncontrollable. He loses control of himself, of his feelings and actions. It messes with his idea of morality and love. He’s enslaved by his desire for Tadzio and it gets so intense that it ultimately becomes his end.

See where I’m going? Hannibal’s feelings for Will are the same. They go beyond everything he has ever known about himself. Hannibal feels things for Will he never thought himself capable of, and that frightens him. During that dinner he’s, for example, unable to hold Will’s gaze. He’s unable to stop looking at the same time.

His face is a literal open book with pictures that scream ‘’I want him and I don’t know how to deal with it’’ all over it. It makes him feel vulnerable, it makes him feel seen, it requires an insane amount of trust in Will for Hannibal to let it happen. For Hannibal losing control means surrender, and that’s an insanely valuable (rare) gift he’s giving Will. This is why he completely loses it when he realises Will lied and ‘’betrayed’’ him in Mizumono. Which is why he responded with his version of an emotional outburst: hurting everybody in the room in the hope he wouldn’t be the one with the most broken heart. He’s being held captive by his own feelings for Will, and when Will betrays him, he feels he has no other choice but to shoot with closed eyes and run. It’s his version of Aschenbach’s death because of love, which eventually extends to Will pulling Hannibal off the cliff.

It’s very smart that they chose that specific dinner scene to combine with the Death in Venice background music. That’s the dinner where Hannibal still believes Will is on his side, but he also realises how dangerous his compassion is to both of them. With the context of the music, this basically summarises his whole point-of-view. The music gives us an insight into the story and the feelings from Hannibal’s side.

Once again a round of applause for Bryan and the team because goddamn they really thought of EVERY detail

#hannibal #nbc hannibal #will graham #hannibal lecter #hannigram #hannibal meta #hannibal analysis #2x10 #hannibal season two

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xxsyluslittlecrowxx · 10 days ago

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Bride of the Last Dragon.

Chapter One — The Hundred and Tenth Bride

[ dragon!sylus x f!reader ]

They say a dragon’s fury is born of hunger, but I have seen the truth: rage takes root in the fractures of a heart that once dared to hope. The kingdom calls him a monster, striving to quiet his wrath with tributes of gold and the bodies of trembling brides. I was meant to be the latest sacrifice—just another lamb led to sate a legend. Yet in the mountain’s shadow, I discovered a creature who despises the fear that sustains him, who watches me with eyes older than the sun. We are bound by something deeper than duty, more dangerous than love. And as the world begins to burn, only I can choose what price mercy demands. Some stories are forged in fire; others, in quiet ruin. This is a tale of both. “Where love dares to bloom, destruction follows.”

ABOUT | 2.6k words. slow burn. doomed yearning. moral ambiguity. impossible choices. ancient grief. quiet moments before the storm. a sword raised in mercy.

TAGS | dark romantasy. monster x maiden. political decay. psychological tension. cursed love. final betrayal. moral ruin. fire and ash.

MUSIC : overcome // skott

INDEX : prologue ✧

Chapter One — The Hundred and Tenth Bride

I HAVE WORN MANY...

...dresses in my twenty years: silks cut for courtly dances, mourning blacks steeped in incense, linens stiff with the starch of duty. But never one like this. Never one that draped over my shoulders like an executioner’s hood.

The bridal chamber stood colder than the corridors outside, though braziers glowed with restless coals. Shadows gathered thick in the corners, silent witnesses to the fate prepared for me. Frost laced the leaded glass of the window, casting pale bars across the stone floor. Outside, dawn strained against a sky the color of slate—but here, within these walls, morning dared not enter.

I stood before the mirror, sleeves cascading past my wrists in drifting white silk. My hair lay pinned in perfect loops at my nape, not a strand astray. Every line of the dress declared purity, submission—my role as the kingdom’s final offering. Yet if they looked closer, they would see the defiance I stitched into each seam.

Silver thread wove along the cuffs, catching what meager light slipped through the fog. A mother’s superstition claimed it would ward off a dragon’s fire. Tiny charms nestled among embroidered lilies, each etched with sigils older than the castle walls—charms my grandmother pressed into my palms with eyes that refused to meet mine.

I smoothed the skirt, my fingers steady only because I forced them to be. A blade rested against my thigh, strapped in a sheath soft as a lover’s sigh. Its weight was a promise, cold and sure as the steel I prayed I would have the courage to wield.

The eyes staring back from the mirror looked like a stranger’s: wide, dark, alive with a mind careening between horror and resolve. I recalled every lesson, every threat dressed as wisdom. A bride must not cry, lest he taste the salt and know her fear. A bride must not scream, or he will hear her voice as a challenge. A bride must step from her horse with a spine of tempered iron.

But I was not a bride. I was a blade. And I would not forget.

Still, tracing the lines of my reflection, doubt wormed through the fortress of my resolve. I had memorized the maps of his mountain. I had studied his patterns, the legends, the words left by those who glimpsed him before vanishing into ash. Yet no tale taught how to stand before a god of flame and scales without trembling.

They said he devoured every bride. But if that were true, why did the kingdom still stand?

The candlelight shifted, glinting off the thin circlet waiting on the table—a symbol of royal blood, its metal glowing like the last flare of a dying star. My hands hovered over it, reluctant. The circlet was a cage, and wearing it would seal a vow I had yet to voice aloud.

I thought of children sleeping in their beds, of mothers who deserved mornings unbroken by screams. My purpose was not mine alone, but theirs—for every heart that beat in terror of wings blotting out the sun.

The final knot of my sash cinched tight against my ribs, squeezing the breath from my lungs until I remembered I still needed to draw it. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, counting down to the moment I would step into a fate written before my first breath.

A knock came at the door, soft as falling ash. It was time.

I lifted my chin, meeting my own gaze in the mirror one last time. A bride dressed in white stared back. A girl trained to kill. A storm waiting to break.

I would end him, or die trying. Either way, dawn would come for someone.

The door creaked open, and a colder breath swept through the chamber. The palace waited beyond, hushed and heavy, quiet as a crypt.

I stepped into the corridor. My footsteps echoed softly across the stone, each fall swallowed by the cavernous stillness. Silver thread at my cuffs caught pale glints of torchlight, but no eyes rose to meet mine. Guards stared fixedly at the ground, hands locked around spears polished smooth by generations of fear. A servant pressed herself against the wall, murmuring a blessing too faint to catch.

I kept walking.

The halls stretched ahead, longer than I had ever known them. Once, these corridors rang with life: boots striking marble, voices lifted in song or argument, my own laughter as I raced toward the stables. Now silence reigned. Dust dulled the mosaics underfoot, banners hung limp and faded to pale ghosts of their colors.

The great doors loomed ahead, carved with our house crest: a sun rising over jagged peaks. Beyond them, the world waited.

They swung open at my approach, hinges groaning under ancient weight. The courtyard lay cold and gray, wrapped in a morning fog that clung to the stones like a shroud. Beyond the walls, village rooftops peeked through the mist, thin spirals of smoke curling from distant hearths. Bells tolled faintly, soft as a memory dying with the dawn.

And there he stood.

My father—the king—wrapped in a heavy cloak, crown absent, forgotten somewhere in the hollow halls behind him. His face looked thinner, the frost in his beard more pronounced. But his eyes… they were as I remembered: the eyes that watched me learn to ride, that glimmered with pride when I dared the higher jump, that softened when I fell.

I stopped before him. For a long moment, we simply stood in silence.

He lifted his hand, as if to brush my cheek, but let it fall. His voice, when it came, was rough and raw. “You do not have to go.”

I met his gaze. “We both know I do.”

His shoulders tensed. The wind caught the edge of his cloak, snapping it like a banner above a battlefield. “If you turned from this path now, no man would name you coward.”

I thought of the bells, of the children sleeping beyond those rooftops, of the mothers who deserved mornings free from terror. “And if I did? Who would pay the price in my place?”

His eyes closed. When they opened again, they shone too bright. “I dreamed, once, of being the king who ended this curse. Instead, I am the one sending my daughter to face it.”

I remembered nights curled beside him under summer stars as he read stories of heroes, his arm warm around me, his voice low, the scent of leather and pine thick in the air. I had believed then the world was full of men like those heroes. I know now that heroes do not always come with shining swords or noble hearts. Sometimes they carry regret heavy as crowns. Sometimes they send their daughters where they wish they could go themselves.

“You taught me how to stand,” I said softly. “Now let me prove I learned.”

He swallowed hard. Then he stepped aside, clearing the path.

I crossed to the waiting horse—dark, silent, breath misting in the frigid air. I swung into the saddle, the weight of my blade against my thigh a quiet, familiar promise.

Then—his hand on the reins. A whisper, rough but steady. “Strike well. Strike true.”

My fingers brushed his. He let go.

I rode for the mountain. Behind me, the bells tolled, each note a mourning wail swallowed by the rising fog.

The road twisted from the palace gates like a pale scar across dark fields. My horse’s hooves fell in a steady, muffled rhythm—the only sound in a world hushed by mist. Frost edged every blade of grass, every crooked fence post, every bare branch reaching like a supplicant toward the wan sky. Fog curled thick and white at the edges of my vision, swallowing milestones and markers until only a ribbon of cold, unbroken earth stretched beneath me.

They once called the last dragon a god in the oldest songs—before fear soured worship into dread, before offerings of silk and coin gave way to the price of flesh. Some whispered he was a guardian betrayed by mortals, cursed to wrath until the last lie was buried. Others claimed he was born of storms to punish a world grown soft. My nursemaid used to hush me with tales of wings eclipsing the moon, claws tearing mountains from the earth, brides vanishing without screams, taken so swiftly they never felt the flame.

I had grown up tracing the names of one hundred and nine firstborn daughters in the margins of musty books. My father’s sister among them—her portrait still hung in the west wing, eyes bright and unbowed even in fading paint, veil brushed with silver thread. The hush that fell when her name slipped into conversation was louder than any answer. No one spoke of what happened after the storm bore her from the palace. Did he devour them, as the stories claimed? Or did the truth rot in shadows too deep for the living to find?

Charred beams jutted from ruined farmsteads on either side of the road, black scars where green fields once fed villages now emptied by fear. Lean-tos and hayricks slumped half-burnt and abandoned, brittle as old bones.

I thought of the children hidden beneath distant rooftops, of mothers singing lullabies that quavered with dread. I thought of my father’s sister’s portrait, and how every breath I drew carried the weight of her silence—and the silence of every bride before me.

My hand slipped beneath the folds of my skirt, closing around the hilt of the blade strapped tight to my thigh. Its cool steel poured resolve into my veins. A line from my father’s stories rose unbidden: True steel asks only the courage to wield it.

For a fleeting moment, I imagined turning west, riding until the mountain shrank to rumor, until dawn broke over fields untouched by a dragon’s shadow. The thought flared—and died like a spark in the dark.

If he was truly a god, could I kill him? Or would my blade shatter like glass against old divinity?

I straightened in the saddle, pressing my heels to the horse’s flanks. The fog parted ahead in thin, reluctant veils, revealing the jagged silhouette of the mountain—black and eternal against a bruised sky.

I chose the mountain. I chose this path.

A crack split the silence overhead, sharp as a whip. Pebbles rattled down cliffs, skittering across the path before vanishing into fog-choked chasms. The horse shied beneath me, muscles bunching in fear as if it, too, sensed we had crossed the threshold of the world of men.

I dismounted before he could bolt, boots slipping on loose shale. My hands slapped the ground, stone burning cold even through my gloves. When I rose, the horse had retreated several paces down the path, eyes rolling white. I left him there.

Each step on foot was a battle. I climbed switchbacks that twisted like a serpent’s spine, knees aching, lungs raw. The wind sliced between rock spires, carrying scraps of sound that skittered across my ears—half-sobs, broken prayers, a word I dared not trust as real: mercy.

For a breathless moment, the fog lifted, revealing black cairns hunched at every bend of the path, their stones slick with rime. Among them lay relics dulled by time: a child’s ribbon knotted tight, a shoe crushed beneath fallen rock, a scrap of white cloth fluttering like a ghost.

I pressed onward, pulse pounding in my temples, breath shallow and sharp. Clouds churned overhead, their underbellies lit by silent lightning. The scent of storm swept down the slopes—ozone, smoke, and something older, like the breath of deep, unlit caverns.

A distant roar shuddered through the stone—not thunder, but something deeper, more deliberate. The mountain exhaled a gust tinged with scorched iron.

I ducked beneath an overhang, pressed to the cold wall as pebbles hissed down from above. One clipped my shoulder, tearing silk, blood welling hot against freezing air—a reminder I still lived.

The rockfall eased. Ahead, the path ended at a sheer drop—until I saw it: a dark arch carved into the cliff face, black as obsidian, wide enough to swallow an army. Warm, fetid air rolled from its depths, thick with old smoke and something that made my hair prickle.

Lightning flickered, illuminating the cavern’s mouth—a ragged wound splitting the mountain’s face. Shadows shifted within, as if something enormous stirred.

I wiped blood from my arm onto my skirt, hand hovering near my blade. The mountain groaned low and knowing, as if it recognized the beat of my heart.

I stepped forward, knowing there was no turning back.

The air inside the cavern closed around me, thick and damp, clinging to my skin like a living thing. Each step echoed sharply off stone slick with ancient damp. The light behind me died within a few paces, swallowed by the dark.

The ground sloped inward, pulling me deeper. My fingers brushed the walls, tracing furrows too deliberate to be the work of water or time. Claw marks, deep and ragged—as if something monstrous had once tried to tear its way free.

The path widened into a hollow chamber so vast the far wall dissolved into blackness. Shapes littered the ground, catching stray glints of stormlight seeping through cracks overhead: a circlet dulled with rust, a shoe half-buried in gravel, a strip of silk stiff with old blood. The remnants of those who had come before me.

I stepped around them carefully, each relic a quiet accusation. Silence thickened with every breath, dense as fog, until even the sound of my heartbeat felt muted.

I stopped where the path ended at a pool of darkness deeper than night. The weight of it settled on my chest, heavy as a hand, each breath coming shallow and ragged.

I hesitated.

The resolve I had worn like armor cracked beneath the mountain’s ancient gaze. My blade, once a promise, now felt small.

I thought of the stories they told: of a dragon twisted by rage, hunger demanding sacrifice. But there were other stories—ones whispered late at night—of dragons who once loved humans, who taught them to shape fire, who guarded them as gods until betrayal turned devotion to ash.

What if the creature waiting in the dark had once been that protector? What if all that remained now was ruin wearing the shape of wrath?

My knees struck stone as I dropped, the impact rattling through bone. Cold seeped into my flesh, cruel and absolute, a reminder of how fragile I truly was. My breath fogged before me, trembling with every exhale.

I bowed my head, though no eyes watched. Though the gesture meant nothing to the dark. But the vow I whispered into that silence was mine alone.

Let this end with me.

Let this mountain take no more daughters. Let my blade strike true—not only at the beast, but at the curse binding us both.

A scrape like claws dragging across stone stirred beyond the black. Shadows shifted, faint and deliberate, as something enormous began to uncoil. The cavern exhaled, breath rolling over me—hot, fetid, thick with scorched iron and ancient smoke.

A single thought pierced the fog of my fear: If he spares me, will I still have the courage to end him?

I drew a slow, careful breath and whispered into the dark: “If he is the monster they claim, I will end him. But if he is not… I pray I am strong enough to do what must be done.”

The darkness pulsed, like the mountain itself drawing breath—as if it had been waiting for me all along.

to be continued...

♡ brides of the last dragon : @blessdunrest @otome-house @kestrelmando @cms399 @cutestnursingstudent @wakeupr41 @orcawholikeskrakans @crimsonlittlecrow @emowitchwithatwist @crowroses13 @typhloticassent

♡ Taglist is open.

If you wish to walk with me through this ruin—if you wish to witness each fragment as it falls—simply reply or send an ask, and I’ll add you to the list.

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peggyao3 · 4 months ago

Text

The Art of Empathy

PAIRING: Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen x Unnamed Ambiguous FMC

SUMMARY: After the fall of House Harkonnen, an innocent poison flower is planted in their evil heart to teach them the art of empathy.

TAGS: 18+, smut, she/her AFAB FMC, mixed POVs, Feyd-Rautha feels things, Angst, Fluff, Hurt and Comfort, Political Schemes, Morally Grey Everything, Giedi Prime Realness, Knife Play, Minor Character Death, Mentions of Violence, Slice of Life, Character Analysis, Feyd being Feyd, Vaginal Sex, Squirting, Porn with Plot, Creampie, Soft Feyd by the end of it, Can he be redeemed?!

WORD COUNT: 6.3k

A/N: I posted this one on ao3 ages ago but not on tumblr. I hope you enjoy <3

Reposted from Ao3 💕| Masterlist

Divider by @/saradika-graphics

After the fall of House Harkonnen comes the slow decay. A whole folk is left floundering and looks up to their new leader for guidance, Baron Feyd-Rautha, to whom the title is a slight. There is no use for the Baron of a powerless House. The Atreides should have annihilated them all. Instead they are humiliating them and calling it mercy.

And so, House Harkonnen rots, aimless and torpid. Violence festers in the streets, the military disassembles itself, the House’s spice stocks have been confiscated. And their new leader? He sits and stews in the family keep where Harkonnen and Atreides guards alternate and the latter keep a sharp eye on everything Feyd-Rautha does.

He is a man doomed who refuses to lead a House of shame.

All that remains is to distract himself and search for culprits. His uncle, yes, but his uncle is already dead. The Emperor, the Fremen, the Atreides. They’re all ripe for the killing but House Harkonnen can’t even provide for their own spice addicts.

And then one day, a new resident moves into the palace.

She is a gentle poison flower, planted by the Bene Gesserit. They had thought her a weak witch at first, with no poise and little use. She had only barely passed the Gom Jabbar test, crying and screaming like an animal, but she hadn’t pulled her hand out of the box, so they couldn’t dispose of her. Only much later did the sisters realize what a useful asset she could be.

De-Harkonnification is the word whispered off the record. A new era of breeding will commence, for the better of the universe. The experiment will start with their leader. It has to.

The suddenly useful Bene Gesserit woman has been chosen to teach Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen the delicate art of empathy.

To force him into bland lessons will bear no fruit. The new baron needs to think he’s discovered wisdom all by himself, only then will his skin peel away and make room for a fresh layer. The slow blade of curiosity will penetrate the shield and kill a Harkonnen, and let him be reborn as something new.

This new woman, she is so soft and… mundane.

With great irritation Feyd-Rautha takes notice of her moving into his palace where she occupies a medium-sized chamber that has been painted in all the warm colors that aren’t native to Giedi Prime.

“I know you’re a witch,” he tells her the first day, standing in her doorway like a beaten bull who is still ready to charge. “I have no business with witches.”

“I won’t force you,” she replies with a short smile which renders the new Baron momentarily speechless.

The next day, he returns with more anger and piercing eyes that won’t know peace until he finds the answers he seeks. “What is your purpose in my palace?”

“I am to live here,” she announces while sticking her finger into the soil of a gross looking potted plant with wide, green leaves to test how moist it is. Frustratingly, Feyd is unable to detect any deceit in her voice, even though she is a Bene Gesserit, so there must be deceit. He won’t be manipulated.

Throughout the weeks, Feyd realizes everything she does is boring. So boring that he finds himself returning every day and watching with blatant interest, wondering how anyone can live like that.

In her free time, this woman reads literature that has no educational or strategic value. She also says she enjoys naps and she considers having to do nothing at all a rare blessing that not many are free to relish in a world that is battered by politics and war. She reminds Feyd of a lazy housecat who cripples her own potential.

Her survival instincts are so meek, sometimes she won’t even wake up when he enters her room. Feyd is tempted to do a number of things to her sleeping body, but in the end he always just stands there, next to her bed, waiting for her to finally wake up and take note of the danger. With a blade at her throat he tries to teach her to be more attentive, relishing the naked fear in her eyes when she startles from her sleep and finds pain against her neck.

In those moments, she is such a fun toy and Feyd wants to thank whoever is responsible for sending him such a pitiful witch.

Another thing she likes is daydreaming, she says, and when asked to tell him what about, she just smiles mysteriously and shakes her head no, followed by soft laughter. Feyd assumes those daydreams must be about violence, because no human mind goes without violence. And so he smiles too, thinking to himself that he's learned a dirty secret of hers that takes away from her perceived purity.

There is at least one point on which they seem to agree, and that is their interest in good food and drink, though their ideas of ‘good’ differ.

“Do those… pastries you’ve got there strengthen your body?” Feyd peers at her over the table, licking bloody meat residue off his pale fingers.

“Hmmm. I don’t think so, but they’re very tasty.” And that again is something so mundane, Feyd can't wrap his head around it. “Would you like to try one?”

He hesitates, regarding the icing and powdered sugar on the tiny cake. “No. There’s no point in eating it then.”

“Aw.” The woman looks briefly disappointed but then resumes eating.

“Don’t you want your body to be strong and capable of attack and defense?!”

“I suppose that would be nice…” Feyd has noticed a while ago that she seems to have trouble looking him in the eyes and sometimes he thinks he has been deceived and this woman is no Bene Gesserit at all, but a stray that has been deposited in his palace because the sisterhood wanted to get rid of her.

“If I attacked you right now, what would you do?” Feyd stands up and grips her plate, pulling it away so she is left with only the cutlery in hands, looking a little helpless.

“I would scream for help.”

“And if no one came?” The idea amuses Feyd-Rautha and the corners of his full lips twist into an alluring smirk. The temptation makes his skin warm and his core tight.

“I could try to hurt you with this knife and fork,” she proposes and presents her weapons of choice, targeting Feyds clavicles with her mellow eyes.

“Wouldn’t you like to try it?” He purrs and slinks closer, rubbing his hand up her arm and shoulder, cupping her throat. He really could do anything to her and she’d have no choice, no matter which weapons are in her meager hands. His cock strains against the dark trousers he wears and she either ignores it or doesn’t notice in her endless languor.

“No, of course not!” She yelps with the high-pitched tone of an animal stupid enough to walk into a blatant trap.

“You bore me to death, woman! I wish you weren’t here.” Feyd rumbles and releases her throat with a punishing squeeze that knocks her backwards, then he sweeps her plate off the table so the pastries bounce across the carpet, leaving a trail of crumbs.

“Then don’t come and see me!”

His loins are left throbbing and he feels so strangely dissatisfied when he leaves that day and cannot help but picture the woman crawling over the carpeted floor, picking up the mess he’s made, and for some reason this image makes him unhappy.

In his churning mind, Feyd keeps wondering why she was brought to him and after enough twisting and turning, he commences an era of harshness in which he thinks she was given to him for his amusement, to be molded by him. The ways to torment her are as manifold as they are fun. Something as simple as twiddling with his knife can draw the warmth out of her cheeks and make her pull her feet under her body, as if fearing Feyd-Rautha might cut her toes off otherwise.

Now, if only he could make her see how enjoyable pain is. The cuts and nicks on her body tell stories of his attempts, as do those on his, when he guided her unwilling hand to carve lines and half moons into his pale flesh.

The assortment of her scars stop around the middle of her thighs, even though he could easily lift her dress higher and leave his marks of his ownership wherever he wants. There are desires left unspoken and he revels in her fear, because she knows it will happen, just not when.

But the worst thing undoubtedly he's ever done to her, is when he brings her to the former preparation chamber behind the deserted colosseum that was once his gladiatorial arena, when House Harkonnen still had pride and honor.

In the dark he shows her his assortment of blades, left untouched by the defeat of his House. He laughs when she nods and smiles uncertainly at the slave girls who stand gathered around with bowed heads.

“You’re a Bene Gesserit. You don’t need to smile at them.”

“But I want- Oh!”

With a swift thrust of the arm, Feyd swings his blade in a half circle and slashes two girls’ throats at once. Their willowy bodies drop to the floor, landing on top of each other with tangled limbs and inky blood dripping down their chests.

Feyd turns his head, tilts it slightly to the side and smiles at the woman who grows sickly frigid and barely manages to turn before she throws up as the overwhelming smell of fresh blood assaults her nose and gurgling last breaths her ears. She turns and runs, finding the door unresponsive to her pushing and pulling, so she backs away into the furthest corner and curls into herself, staring fearfully at the pale Harkonnen who still looks at her with an air of boyish fascination.

He lets her go after half an hour but soon learns a harsh lesson. When he seeks her out in her quarters that evening, she acts like a skittish rabbit and hides herself away in the bathroom. For some reason, this enrages Feyd so immensely, he can’t help the immediate tantrum that bursts out of him like gunfire.

For one whole week she doesn’t speak with him and Feyd finds absolutely no fun in that. This week is the worst of his life.

Desperately, he needs her to be the way she was again, the timid creature who peacefully lazes around all day and sleeps, unaware of danger. Now she won’t let him get close, glaring at him over the edge of her book whenever he loiters in her quarters like misplaced furniture, a black and white abomination in the warm, soft capsule she has created for herself on Giedi Prime.

On the seventh day, Feyd walks up to her awkwardly, like one ready to confess his sins, or a beaten puppy the size of a man. She stiffens in her bed and is fully aware of her defenselessness, fingers tightening around the book as the mattress dips under Feyd-Rautha’s weight. But he only crawls over her and wraps his arms around her middle like he would hug a slain opponent in the arena before letting them drop into the sand.

“I wouldn’t do this to you ,” he rumbles and finds his breath uncomfortably quick and his throat uncomfortably tight. He can’t look her in the eyes.

“But you did this to them ,” she whispers and Feyd is left speechless as to why she would care. Yet for some reason, she drops her book on the floor and hugs him back, hiding her sniffling face in his shoulder. Like a toddler walking his first steps, Feyd pets the back of her head until her tears diminish to a small trickle that is soaked up by his shirt.

Months go by and the woman’s chamber becomes a place of forbidden things. No servant ear must ever hear about what goes down in there, how Feyd stains his hands with softness and sleep, not because he is tired but because he feels like it, how he eats the pastries that are made for her mouth not his, how he reads the pointless literature that forces him to imagine places he’s never been to and people that aren’t real.

The woman doesn't even want anything from him in return and doesn't complain when he lays his head in her lap when he decides to sleep. She softly scrapes her nails over his scalp without being prompted and he never takes long to fall asleep. She could have plotted his death this whole time long, killed him now with a Gom Jabbar, and he wouldn't have cracked an eye open.

Feyd awakes in the late evening, though he can’t tell the hour of day through the ever-drawn curtains that block out the sun’s harmful wavelengths. Consciousness returns to him as a slow stream and he breathes drowsily against her thigh, listening to the seconds on the clock tick by. She has finished her book and placed it aside, now only focused on stroking his head.

“Do you sometimes think about me?” Feyd slurs, which leaves her wondering if he’s still half asleep.

“Of course, I think about you.” Her fingers curl around his jaws and the pad of her thumb finds the apple of his soft, pale cheek.

“Even when I’m not around?” He inhales the scent of laundry detergent and the subtle note of perfume that clings to the layers of her gown. The warmth of her lap perfuses the fabric and a light current of arousal flows through Feyd-Rautha’s awakening body. Hardness takes hold of his drowsy cock and he wonders when she will finally make a comment or do something about it. He finds himself wanting to hike up her dress and kiss the parts of her body that he has never seen.

“Especially when you’re not around.”

“So, you miss me?” Feyd’s voice becomes sharp like the cutting edge of a blade and his ears perk up. She only laughs softly upon that and curls both arms around his shoulders. Feyd is glad she can’t properly see his face now, ashamed of jumping to such a conclusion.

“You can’t go out there. It’ll make you sick.” Feyd stops the Bene Gesserit woman in the hallway. One half of her body is already bathed in brightness and one eye squints into the unforgiving sunlight.

Even though she seems to have been so very content in her quarters so far, a flash of disappointment washes over her face. “Not even for a short walk?”

“It’s not safe when you’re not Harkonnen. It’ll make you sick,” he emphasizes. “And there’s nothing out there. Only desperate people.” He curls his hand around the crook of her elbow and tugs her away from the light, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when color returns to her skin and hair.

The next day, Feyd is in for an unpleasant surprise.

The woman is found wandering in the sunlight without an umbrella, not even a protective shawl wrapped around her bare shoulders. A pair of Atreides guards spot her slumped over in the shade of a building, blinking disoriented into the light with a colorless rash of blisters on her exposed skin.

Half an hour later, she is back in her darkened quarters, tucked into bed with a soothing ointment applied to her skin.

Her eyes are glazed over with half-translucent milkiness as she stares at the ceiling above her bed. Her lungs still ache and wheeze from the residue toxins she had breathed from the polluted air and her temporarily blinded gaze flitters with silvery dots. Just barely she can make out Feyd-Rautha’s angry, white skull moving back and forth..

“This wouldn’t have happened if you read something substantial every now and then,” Feyd hisses, pacing in front of her bed. “If you had at least worn protection for your eyes and flesh.”

“It was so warm outside.” She tries to justify her lack of protective layers.

“Yes, because of the infrared radiation that cooks the atmosphere!”

She attempts to turn her head away so as not to see the flickering vision of Feyd’s accusatory visage, but he leans down and cups her face with both hands, drawing a whimper from her. The splitting headache turns every movement into agony.

“A few minutes later, and you would have gotten caught up in the sour rain.” Feyd’s voice quivers now. The sour rain brings cancer to foreigners and no one knows a cure for that.

“There was no sign of rain when I was out,” she meekly defends herself, cradled by two strong hands.

“The climate is turbulent on Giedi Prime and our storms are as ferocious as they are sudden. You know what the sour rain does.”

“I'm sorry.” Blistered hands carefully wrap around Feyd-Rautha's wrists, neither pulling nor pushing. Her fingers softly slip over the veins that coil over the back of his hand and between his knuckles.

“But you're a Bene Gesserit. You have control over your own cells, you could have reversed the damage, had it happened.” Feyd's gaze jumps from milky eye to milky eye, wondering why she isn't doing anything against this. “Right?”

She only breathes a soft sigh against his lips as he hovers impossibly close. “Feyd…”

Her lips brush against his as she speaks and a jolt of surprise prickles through the both of them. Feyd is suddenly overly aware of the weight of his own body and he cannot push himself away from the woman. A pull stronger than gravity tugs him down and his lips fall to hers, softly kissing, tasting her saliva and a note of ointment.

“Feyd, everything hurts.” The meek whisper is barely audible, even to her own ears. Her body yearns and arches, separated from him by thick layers of blankets.

“Kiss me now, before you get yourself killed out there and we don’t get the chance.” Feyd knows he shouldn’t. Even her lips are colored red with a rash, but her hands slip from his wrists to his cheeks, holding him close. Moaning, Feyd’s lips part and he moves his mouth and tongue with as much gentleness as he can muster, softly rutting against her hip over the blanket.

Feyd rumbles: “I should keep you on a leash for your own safety.” The idea makes his cock jump against the blankets and after so many months of thinking about so many things, his balls feel plump like ripe apples.

But they only kiss while sour rain slaps against the windows.

“Do you ever fight?” Feyd ponders while sticking his finger into the soil of the lush potted plant with wide, green leaves to test how moist it is. It could use a little water.

“You know what I do all day. Have you ever seen me fight?” The woman perks up, her skin healthy and her eyes clear again, like the lakes of Kaitain.

“Let me specify. Did you ever fight?” Feyd lets water from the can splash into the flower pot and the longer she looks, the more she gets used to the view of other things than weapons in his hands. She cocks a brow at him, no longer having so much trouble looking him in the eyes that are dark but usually glazed over with harmlessness when he is around her. “I’m only asking because you seemed so… bored, before the incident happened.”

Guilt drums against his heart with a soft pitter-patter that is like the droplets that soak the soil. He wishes he could offer her more. The longer she ponders, the more awful he feels.

“I sometimes fight with myself.” Her tone of voice indicates this is a big confession.

“How so?” Feyd is confused. He sets down the can and cautiously stalks closer with cat-like grace, head tilted to the right.

“It's a fight that I can't win, I can only delay it.”

“I don't understand that.” Slowly he blinks once, lowering his gaze, then lifting it again. The soft golden light of the glow orbs frays against his blonde lashes.

She pensively sighs. “Are you never angry with yourself? Or dissatisfied?”

“... No.”

She chuckles like she so often does, like he’s missing an obvious clue and Feyd angrily bends down, caging her on the sofa with both hands planted on the seat cushions on either side of her. “Don’t laugh at me, woman. I hate when you do that!”

“Then you know why I’m doing it, or else you wouldn’t hate it.”

“You’re not smarter than me.”

“I am indeed not.” Her eyes dig brightly into his and Feyd swallows. His jaws work and after a minute he pulls away from the intensity of her gaze, looking down at her chest instead. Softly, her hand cups his jaws and her fingers dance over his skin like feathers.

“But that’s not a real fight. You know that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about training and… gladiatorial games.” Petulantly, his eyes lift to hers again.

“How is self doubt not a real fight?” She tilts her head and Feyd swears she never did this at the beginning of their acquaintance.

“I… I didn’t want to talk philosophy, I just wanted to offer you a distraction from your boredom. I thought you might enjoy a fight.” Upon that, she giggles, something flustered in her voice, and Feyd grips the hand that cups his jaw, sliding it to the front so he can kiss her palm with plush, pouty lips. “Always laughing at me,” he grumbles and proceeds to kiss the inside of her hand until she wraps her arms around his head and locks her lips with his.

Much later, Feyd realizes he probably missed a hint.

The right moment is now! No. Yes. Another breath, another minute, another turn of the page while she caresses Feyd-Rautha’s face in her lap. With her Bene Gesserit awareness (Feyd still isn’t sure if she even possesses it), she can probably hear his labored breathing and quick heartbeat. His clammy palms occasionally slide over the blanket she had thrown over her legs before Feyd settled there.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yes?” Her thumb settles right over the point of his neck, between muscles and tendons, where his pulse hammers the hardest.

“I’ve been wondering…” Feyd twists the blanket and stares at the potted plant. “Are there other things you like to do just for the sake of it? Just like reading or napping…”

In his whole life, he has never had sex for any other reason than to demonstrate power, or the desire to hurt and be hurt. To think he could have some just for the mundane pleasure of it feels almost forbidden. Feyd is ashamed to ask plainly, but she can read the thoughts behind his boyish eyes.

She has been expecting this to happen and she is prepared, yet she is not. Before her stands a human now, with all the facettes one should have.

“Yes, there are…” Pensively, she looks down at her lap. A faint warmth has risen to her cheeks and Feyd-Rautha takes proud notice of her coy glance, raising himself on his hands on either side of her lap.

“Then why did you never…?” His question trails off into nothingness when he notices the petulance in his own voice. He attempts to sit in a way that hides the tent in his pants.

“Don’t,” she scolds him and places her hand on his pale wrist, curling her fingers around the curve of the bone. Feyd inhales sharply and allows her to peel his arm away from his body. For the first time, she actively looks at the bulge of his clothed cock and Feyd has never felt so scrutinized. In an instant, her hand is beneath his shirt, fingers splayed over his hard tummy below his navel. “Why didn’t you?”

She moves her hand as if wanting to slip away and abandon his scalding skin. “Don’t stop~” Feyd whispers, half-lidded eyes dropped to her wrist that disappears under his shirt.

A moment later, her fingers curl around the waistband of his trousers and his grip the laces of her gown and they tear each other’s clothes away with awkward impatience. When Feyd is naked before her, she sinks into the pillows with a meek sigh, swallowing when he climbs on top of her and parts her legs where her pussy sits flushed and wet at the apex of her thighs, waiting for his caress longer than her pride allows her to admit.

She marvels at his hard curves and planes of marble, so pale, so soft. So seraphic. His nipples harden when she slides her palms over each pectoral. For now, she avoids looking at his cock but she feels the ghost of its scalding touch against her soft thigh.

“You’re beautiful,” Feyd breathes, raking his eyes down her exposed skin, studying each mark, each fold, each dimple.

“I was never certain if you found me beautiful,” she whispers and Feyd picks out the insecurity in her voice. His tongue presses against the backside of his inky teeth, wanting to call her stupid for assuming he might not find her beautiful, but he realizes he is no better himself. Anxiety pricks against his stomach like ice shards.

The woman smiles and cranes her head to brush her lips against his, then giggles softly. “Yes, I find you beautiful too.”

The anxious knot unravels and Feyd bares his teeth, chasing after her mouth until he’s got her pinned against the pillow and steals her breath. His hard chest presses against the soft mounds of her breasts and his cock slides against her thigh, bending downwards so it is wedged between their pelvises. The essence of her yearning cunt coats its upper side.

Their kisses turn desperate and sloppy and they part for breath, piercing each other with lust-heavy eyes. Feyd-Rautha’s plush lips are swollen and a low moan escapes him when she presses her mouth against the underside of his gently curved jaw, nipping and smelling his skin while Feyd’s fingers slide from her knee down her inner thigh and brush against the tender, hot parts of her.

He never used to pay attention to how soft and hot and responsive a woman can be there, how willingly her hips jump against his hand when he circles the tender bud of nerves with his fingertips.

When he slides two fingers into her weeping slit, her mouth detaches from Feyd’s jaws and her head drops back on the pillow, eyes closed, spine arched. His fingers sink as deep as they can go, soaking in her essence that generously spills from her inner walls.

“Did you think of this often?” Feyd rumbles and the grating sound of his voice makes her jump. Her eyes snap open and her pussy squeezes his fingers. Leisurely, he drags them against her inner walls, curling them slightly, so her eyes gloss over and her wet lashes flutter. “You did, didn't you? You daydreamed about my fingers in your little pussy.”

She doesn't need to reply for him to know it's true. Her knees bend further up against her chest, angling her pelvis so he plunges into her cunt just right. As pleasure rises, her neck writhes from left to right, teeth on her lip, toes flexed. Feyd knows how to read the signs.

Mesmerized, he sits between her legs, watching with boyish fascination as his fingers sink into her puffy hole and come out glistening wet between her lower lips, how her essence dribbles down the cleft of her ass. His unoccupied hand sprawls over her lower belly and toys with her. With his thumb, Feyd pulls up the hood of her clit and marvels at the little nub that throbs for attention.

Her hips buck, fucking herself on his fingers while he lets a thread of drool drip down on her clit. She whines when the warm liquid drips over the tender bud, bending her leg even further. Feyd has never touched a woman so attentively. As soon as his thumb rubs over the lubricated little nub, she thrashes, moaning and clawing at his knees. But Feyd pacifies her with her soft circles over the maddening spot, turning her legs and brain into mush.

“Wait~”

Feyd doesn’t wait. Three splashes of wetness squirt against his wrist and the woman covers her face with her forearms, moaning and whining as her release rolls through her in hard waves. Mesmerized, Feyd regards the liquid that dribbles hotly down his skin.

Her limbs feel like putty, like a doll's that he can bend and fold as he likes. Feyd's fingers slowly slip out of her puffy hole which feels as ready as it can be to accommodate his cock.

She whimpers weakly, not ready to face reality and Feyd-Rautha's wet skin and the awe in his eyes with which he regards the glistening web between his fingers. Only when he nudges his cock between her boneless thighs, she stirs and dreamily eyes the pale, flushed monster that pokes needily against her cunt.

“Yes, take a good look at what I'll fill you with.”

The velvety head with its weeping slit nudges between her lower lips and her cunt yields almost too easily under pressure. Like a sheathe, she hugs him tightly, wetly squeezing inch after inch as he conquers her.

A wild touch of something possessive and dangerous flashes over Feyd's lust-struck features. This soft thing will soon be his entirely, once he places his ultimate, inky mark against her cervix. Whether she neutralizes it with her Bene Gesserit tricks or not.

A guttural sound escapes her when the thick length pushes against the apex of her channel. The woman's arms snake around Feyd's neck, pulling him in a sweet embrace with her entire body.

“Why are you here?” Feyd repeats the question from many months ago, softly rutting against her core.

“Because I was sent here.” She gasps, pressing her face into the crook of his shoulder.

“And how do you feel about that?” Feyd's nose brushes against her hair, inhaling the sweetness and the freshness of her soap.

“You tell me, Feyd-Rautha,” she softly sighs, arching her spine against his undulating body.

“You are discontent.”

Upon that, the woman's lashes flutter, tickling his shoulder. “Hah, n-no, I’m not.”

“You’re lying now, but you usually don’t. What are you hiding from me, my darling?"

“I’m not!” Her mouth stands agape and her back arches off the bed, pebbled nipples kissing Feyd’s silky chest.

“My darling,” Feyd repeats and she purrs like a little cat for him, wrapping her legs around his waist. So, she likes being his darling, Feyd notes with a skipping heart. "Why would you lie to me?"

“I didn't want to be here," she admits. Wet eyes look back at him when her head sinks into the pillow. "It’s not nice, being called useless.”

“Useless?! By whom?” Anger fuels Feyd's movement but the brief pain of nails digging into his shoulder blades soothes him and a soft moan curls around his lips.

“By my fellow Bene Gesserit sisters, of course. They had no use for me until the fall of your House.” The slightly quicker rhythm makes her hiss through her teeth. "They can rot and die for all I care."

Feyd's eyes grow wondrous and wide, hips stuttering as he regards his darling with endless fascination. Her violence is sweet like berries. How lucky he is to bear witness of it tonight, all the while her warm, sodden pussy holds his cock in a lover's embrace.

“I manipulated you,” she confesses under tears and thinks Feyd-Rautha will probably flay her alive now. “When I went out into the sun and made myself sick, I just wanted to see if you’d take care of me.”

“You sound like you think I’d be mad.” Avidly, Feyd rolls his pelvis. Pleasure flutters through his nerves with every heartbeat, sweet and wild. Her eyes meet his with equal fascination and her fingertips dip into the groove of his spine.

“When did you become so… so…?”

“So… gentle?” Feyd purrs, laughing softly like she did so many times. “You made me this way.”

“Yes, and it was wrong! What gave me the right?” Her voice trembles with anger now and she claws at his back like she wants to flay him, strip the layers of faux skin off so he may become what he was again.

Feyd chuckles louder now, lips pulling away from inky teeth as he ruts quicker into her cunt, making her groan through gritted teeth. “You just gave me something I didn’t know I missed.”

“But what if-”

“No.”

“What if I killed you?”

“Killed me?” Feyd’s dark eyes sparkle with humor. “You’re a funny witch. I’m still here.” His palm slides over her breasts and pebbled nipples, settling heavily on her clavicles before closing around her throat. Her cunt reacts in an instant, clenching around him. “I can give you more proof.” Feyd leers at the woman who lies beneath him in submission. “Do you want more proof?”

Eagerly, she nods, exhaling a soft, strained moan, lips parting as she struggles for oxygen.

"Would you like my knife against your throat and your tits?"

Heat rushes to her cheeks so they feel like two ripe apples, ready for the harvest. "Yes, please~"

“You’re so sweet when you’re worried for me,” Feyd giggles. His voice is like stones grating against one another as he reaches for the kukri in the sheath at his belt which lies discarded in the folds of the soft, crumpled sheets. Feyd brandishes it with a flash of painted metal. A soft shade of gold, because the world has been feeling lighter lately.

Still humored, Feyd raises himself high enough to create generous space between their chests, so he can brush the blade featherlight against his woman's nipple. "Would you like me to make a cut, to prove I'm still in there?"

Avidly, she nods, bare heels digging into Feyd's ass cheeks as she clings to his rolling hips.

Feyd slashes the blade over her breasts, one, two, three, creating shallow lines from which red droplets bead like tiny berries and meander down her sternum along convoluted paths. She moans sweetly for him, muscles in her neck flexing against his calloused hand. "There, now we're even. We both lied a little. I said one cut and made three."

Feyd's lashes cast long shadows over the glinting metal when he brings the blade to his mouth and gingerly laps up the red beads. The woman's hand slips over his hard, smooth shoulder and the muscles that ripple underneath. She circles his wrist to guide the blade away from his plush mouth, then plunges her thumb past his soft bottom lip, swiping over the wetness of blood and saliva.

"Drink it from the source then," she softly hums and Feyd obeys, dropping the knife and bending over her heaving chest. He laps the salt off her skin and then finds the stinging wounds with his tongue, tracing the hairline cuts from bottom to top, tasting iron. Feyd nurses nectar from his flower. Moaning, he peers up at her through feathery lashes as his body undulates against hers with increasing pace.

The drag of his cock shoots molten pleasure through her core and she clings to him with arms and legs, like he is the only soft and living thing on Giedi Prime. She moans his name and Feyd is swathed in a web of hazy bliss, raising his face from her chest. A little streak of crimson still clings to his smooth chin and she pulls him down to kiss the blood off his skin.

His fingers flex around her throat, rather holding onto her than strangulating her. She gladly lets him and regards the sweet despair in Feyd's eyes as he chases after his high in the warmth of her body, stretching her with each drag of his cock.

Feyd wonders if he should make her cum again, if that's what a lover would do, but his building climax coils like a snake in his guts and there is no space between their sweaty bodies for his hand to slip between her thighs and tease her bundle of nerves. Like roots slung around a tree trunk, her legs are wrapped around Feyd's hips, reeling him in, again, again, again. The rhythm hypnotizes him and he cannot fight against the pull of release.

His jaws go slack and his entire complexion softens when his climax rolls through him in long waves, each one pulling him deeper and deeper into the weave of his mellow darling's body and soul. While he still fills up her cunt with thick ropes of seed, blissful mellowness spreads through Feyd-Rautha like a touch of mercy.

Moaning, he slumps down and her body is his pillow. He's never shown a semblance of vulnerability after fucking a woman, but now fatigue pulls on his bones and he suckles softly on the soft spot between her neck and shoulder. His balls and pelvis are nestled against the woman's warm, full center and his broad chest against her breasts.

“My darling…” Feyd hums.

He crawls into her embrace and curls against her frame like an unborn against the womb, momentarily stripped of cruelty and all the black and white illnesses that fester on Giedi Prime.

Out of one gentle poison flower might yet bloom an entire garden, if nurtured with love.

FEYD TAG LIST:

@nostalgichoya, @forgedfromthestars, @sweetiee-o, @missbingu, @minedofmoria

@sebastianswallows, @charmingballoon, @flower-frog, @welliah, @aoi-targaryen

@coastalcowgirl35, @esolean, @szapizzapanda, @tatertooted, @sunny747

@ughdontbeboring, @meetmeatyourworst, @gravesdiggergirl

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hederasgarden · 6 months ago

Text

The Price of Survival

Summary: Rescued by a stranger from a dangerous situation, you quickly find yourself thrust into an even more perilous one, forced to depend on him for protection in a world where survival means trusting no one. Pairing: Lucius Verus x F!Reader Word Count: 2.6K Rating: 18+ only, mature themes. Modern zombie AU, references to attempted SA, brief descriptions of violence and murder, and overall dark/gritty themes. Lucius is a little morally grey (perhaps soft dark?) in this story but he is not a bad guy. A/N: I may turn this into a mini series if people are interested. Otherwise it can be read as a standalone fic. Thank you to @ryebecca, @writercole, @mayhem24-7forever , and @aliensupastar for their help! Please comment or reblog if you enjoyed this and want to see more. Or scream at me in my inbox. That always makes my day.

Gladiator Masterlist ♡ Masterlist

You’re making too much noise.

But you’re no longer concerned about the undead. The mindless, decaying monsters are a distant worry now. It’s the living men who are after you — the ones chasing you, the ones who want you back. Twigs snap underfoot, and leaves crunch with every hurried step you take. Your breathing is labored in the otherwise still air.

You push yourself harder, muscles screaming in protest. The scents of pine and damp earth fill your nostrils as the cold air burns your lungs. The zip ties around your wrists cut into your skin, tightening with each frantic movement, biting deeper the more you struggle. The blood beneath them stings, the friction leaving raw marks on your flesh. Still, you don’t stop. You can’t stop.

The voices of the men reach your ears, growing more insistent. Their words aren’t fully distinguishable, but the tone is unmistakable — hungry and malicious. They're closing in. You veer left, only to stumble as your foot sinks into an icy stream. Cold water rushes over your ankles, the shock of it halting your momentum for a brief, disorienting moment before you force yourself to continue.

As you run, the forest blurs around you, your heart pounding so loudly in your ears you can hardly hear anything else. You don’t see the figure emerging from the trees until it’s too late. You slam into them, the collision sending you both tumbling to the ground. A jarring pain shoots through your side where you hit the earth. You nearly miss the sharp intake of breath and grunt of surprise of the man beneath you. Though you’ve landed half on top of him, in the blink of an eye, he shifts, rolling you under him.

You try to scream, but his hand shoots out, clamping down over your mouth, silencing you before the sound can escape. Panic floods you and you twist away, instinctively trying to free yourself from his grasp. He holds you still, his body a solid weight pinning you to the earth. When you look up, the first thing you notice are his eyes: dark, intense, and unyielding amid the chaos of the forest. A sliver of moonlight cuts across his face, highlighting a rugged beard and wild curls. He’s not one of the men hunting you, but he’s still a man, and that fact alone gives you pause.

For a heartbeat, the two of you just stare at each other, the tension in the air thick. His eyes move over your face, quick and assessing, before he seems to notice the zip ties binding your wrists. He tilts his head slightly, a flash of confusion passing over his face before glancing in the direction you came from. His brows knit in concentration as he scans the woods and you both hear the footsteps of the men as they grow closer, louder. You can almost hear their voices, too, faint murmurs cutting through the stillness of the forest. The stranger’s gaze snaps back to you and he stares at you as though weighing his next move.

His grip on you loosens, but you can feel the tension in his body, the way he stays poised, ready to move if needed.

“Why are they after you?” he asks, quietly, so only you can hear.

His question catches you off guard. For a moment, all you can do is stare at him, the panic still rising in your chest. His eyes remain locked on yours, his gaze sharp, waiting for you to answer. The longer you stay silent, the harder his expression becomes, a subtle edge creeping into his features. You shake your head and slowly tug your hands away from his to touch the torn collar of your blouse. His eyes follow the movement.

“They want what all men want,” you murmur.

Your eyes lock onto his, searching for some hint of understanding or sympathy. You’re looking for something that might tell you what kind of man he is, whether he’s like them or not. His jaw tightens, and for a split second, his expression darkens in a way that makes your breath catch. He nods once, sharp and decisive, as though he’s made a calculation and found his answer. Then, without another word, he pulls you up by the arm.

“We don’t have much time,” he warns.

“Who are you?” you ask, wariness threading through your voice.

He looks at you, his gaze steady and direct. “I’m someone who’s not here to hurt you,” he says simply.

The part of you that clings to the idea of how things were wants to believe there are still good people out there, who will help you survive. But you’ve learned the hard way that the world doesn’t work that way anymore. Everything good and kind about people died a year ago when the dead rose up and cities fell. Governments crumbled and everything you knew was replaced by a brutal, unforgiving reality overnight.

You started out with hope in a small group of survivors bound together by nothing more than circumstance. At first, it was almost comforting — traveling together, sharing food, and looking out for one another through the chaos that had engulfed the world. But that hope faded, slowly, painfully. One by one, they were lost to raider attacks, the relentless and unstoppable undead, and illness. Your world shrunk and the people you once trusted slipped away like sand through your fingers. And now, the same men who had slaughtered the last of your group were hunting you.

You swallow hard, fighting the emotion rising in your throat. Trust is a weakness, a mistake you can’t afford to make again. But before you can find your voice the stranger is pulling you deeper into the trees, a firm hand locked around your bound wrist. He’s fast, moving with an efficiency you can’t match, his boots barely making a sound on the forest floor as he drags you along. You stumble after him but he doesn’t slow down until the brush opens to reveal a small, sheltered hollow between the trees. He pushes you into it and crouches beside you as his eyes scan the darkness.

“Stay low,” he directs, his hand firm on your shoulder as he guides you down onto the cold, damp earth. “And don’t make a sound.”

You nod, barely able to breathe as you sink into the shadows of the thicket, the chill of the earth seeping into your skin. The silence of the woods is loud, almost painfully so, but it’s shattered seconds later by the sound of heavy boots crunching through the underbrush.

A twig snaps. Another voice speaks, this time clearer. "She’s gotta be close. Keep looking.”

“I want the first crack at her, " a new voice adds.

Your eyes flick toward the man when he slinks forward slowly. For the first time, you notice the hatchet strapped to his waist, its handle worn from use, the blade gleaming faintly in the moonlight. He grips it tightly, his fingers brushing over the handle with an almost unconscious familiarity. Without a glance back, he disappears into the trees, a shadow among shadows.

A quiet rustling follows with a muffled thud, like something heavy hitting the ground. Your pulse spikes. Another noise, softer this time, a grunt, a brief, sharp inhale, then...silence.

Your heart races and your eyes dart to where he disappeared, your body rigid with fear. The men are closer now, their voices sharper, more urgent. One calls out again, “Where the hell is she?”

There’s another thud, followed by a sickeningly wet sound that makes your stomach churn. You can’t see what’s happening, but you don’t need to. You press yourself lower into the earth and try to make yourself as small as possible while the struggle continues. The smell of dirt and blood mixes in the air, filling your nose until it feels like you might choke. You can't move. You can’t even breathe properly, too afraid that a single sound will give you away.

A voice, closer this time, shouts, “What is that? Who’s there, who —”

The words are cut off by another thud and a gurgling noise. It doesn’t take long for the sounds to die down, and when they do, the silence rushes in, swallowing you whole. It’s an oppressive kind of silence, heavy and suffocating. The absence of sound is somehow worse than the chaos that preceded it. Every nerve in your body feels raw and taut with the tension of waiting for something – anything – to happen. Minutes stretch on, each one thicker than the last, until finally, the stranger emerges soundlessly. Although his clothes are streaked with dirt and blood, his posture is calm, almost detached.

The instinct to flee hits you with such force that you scramble back, your bound hands held out in front of you like they might somehow stop him. But you know they won’t. He stops an arm’s length away, crouching down. Before you can react, he produces a small blade and grasps your elbow, tugging you forward. He slices cleanly through the zip ties around your wrists and then releases you.

Your throat feels dry, the words caught somewhere between panic and disbelief. Finally, you manage to whisper, “You...you killed them.”

He doesn’t respond right away, but after a beat, he simply nods. Your mind swirls with a thousand questions you don’t know how to ask. One thing is clear, though. This man, for all his brutality, just saved your life.

“You need to go now,” he says, helping you stand. “Head north. That’s your best chance.”

Your mind struggles to keep up with the fast turn of events. Even though you were scared of him seconds ago, the thought of walking into the unknown, alone again, churns your stomach, and a cold wave of fear settles over you. You think of the endless days of running, of barely surviving, and for a brief moment, the idea of leaving him is terrifying. What little supplies you had were taken by the men whose camp you have no hope of finding in the darkness.

The stranger watches you, sensing your hesitation, and steps closer. His eyes are unblinking, focused on you. "There are worse things in these woods than those men." “The undead,” you begin, but before you can finish, he cuts you off, his lip curling back in a snarl that surprises you.

"The undead aren’t what you should be worried about." His words are sharp, and dismissive, as though they mean nothing compared to what really lies ahead. “Go. Now." he urges, his grip suddenly tightening on your arm, pulling you away from the shelter of the trees and into the open.

You stumble as he shoves you forward.

“Maybe we can stay together. I can be useful,” you promise him, the words leaving you in a rush. “I have medical training.”

A soft, almost imperceptible look crosses his face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared. His jaw tightens and his expression hardens.

“Leave,” he grounds out. “Before it’s too late. Before-“

His voice cuts off and he looks away toward the dark trees, scanning the distance. Whatever he finds makes his posture go rigid and his breath leaves his lungs in a harsh exhale. You step closer to him, afraid of what you can’t sense but that seems to agitate him more.

“My, my, Lucius, you’ve been busy. Macrinus sent you to hunt dinner, not men.”

The voice rings out from the edge of the trees where an unfamiliar man melds out of the shadows. Your rescuer, Lucius, tenses at the sound, and you can feel the shift in the air, the way the atmosphere thickens. He doesn’t respond to the man immediately. Instead, you watch his fingers move with practiced ease, slipping a slim, deadly knife from his belt. With a flick of his wrist, the blade is poised and ready.

For a brief moment you wonder if he means to kill this man too, but then, to your shock, two more figures emerge from behind the first. Lucius exhales through his nose, a quiet sound almost lost in the air between you, and you see the way he forces himself to relax. When you glance at his hand again, the knife is gone, as if it had never been there.

“Viggo,” Lucius greets curtly. “There are rabbits in the trap and a buck back by the stream. I did as he asked.”

The short but powerfully built man, Viggo, raises an eyebrow and glances at you, his grin widening.

“You certainly did that and more. Looks like you found yourself a little something too, hmm?”

“A pretty little fawn,” another man comments with a smirk, reaching out, his hand extended like he intends to touch you.

Panic surges through you, and you instinctively take a step back, but you don’t get far before Lucius pulls you behind him. You wince as his fingertips brush over the torn skin of your wrist.

“You know the rules,” Lucius growls, his voice low and deadly. “Take a step back if you want to keep your hand.”

Lucius’s stance doesn’t waver, still shielding you, but his expression softens for just a moment as he glances over his shoulder at you. In that fleeting look, you catch a hint of something else, regret or perhaps guilt? You blink and it’s replaced by a cold mask. You’re not sure what to make of him. Fear and appreciation tangle together as you consider his actions. You wonder what exactly he’s trying to protect you from, and why he seems so unsettled by the need to do so.

“Macrinus needs you back,” Viggo presses. "He’s waiting on the game. We can take her back to the settlement,"

“I don’t think so. I’ll bring her in,” he responds, jerking his head toward you, the motion sharp, dismissive.

The words hang in the air, but it’s not just the command that catches your attention — it’s the hollowness in his tone. The men don’t challenge him, but they exchange a brief look before leaving. Lucius remains in front of you, standing rigidly, staring into the blackness. You get the sense you’re still not quite alone, something Lucius confirms when he turns to face you. He raises a finger to his lips and the warning is gentle but firm. Don’t speak.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice low and filled with a grief that sends a wave of unease through you. He takes a step closer and reaches for the rope hanging from his belt, uncoiling its length.

"What…?" you breathe, but the question trails off into the air, unfinished.

You feel the panic rising in your chest as Lucius begins to wrap the rope around your forearms, the rough texture biting into your skin. Every muscle in your body screams to flee, to run from this situation, from him, but deep down you know that escaping would be futile. There’s nowhere to run, no one to turn to. The fear doesn’t stop you from trying, though, from taking a small step back, but Lucius’s grip on you tightens immediately, pulling you toward him again.

He doesn’t look at you as he works, lips pressed tight as he continues binding your arms, careful to avoid your torn wrists. When he finishes tying the knot, his hand lingers on the rope for just a moment, as though he’s second-guessing himself. Then Lucius shakes his head, a sharp, quick movement, almost like he’s clearing away his thoughts. His eyes flicker briefly to yours and he hooks his fingers under your new bindings, tugging you towards him.

“You should have left when I told you,” Lucius says solemnly.

Part 2

#lucius verus #lucius verus x reader #lucius verus x you #paul mescal #gladiator 2 #gladiator ii #zombie #The Price of Survival

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berryispunk · 1 month ago

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Don't Let You Go

Frankie Morales x gn! reader

It started with a grocery store crash and a terrible first date but somehow, against all odds, it became the love that makes you stay.

The way you met your fiancé Frankie couldn’t have been more random.

You literally bumped into him in the cereal aisle. He was standing there, all broad shoulders and bedhead, squinting at the shelves like they held the answers to life’s great mysteries. You, on the other hand, were barely functioning—still red-rimmed behind your sunglasses, still swallowing the bitter aftertaste of your last relationship, and still in the oversized hoodie you swore you'd only wear inside. You’d left your apartment with the noble goal of buying anything that wasn’t instant noodles. That’s as far as the plan went.

And then—bam.

You walked straight into him.

“Oh—shit, sorry,” you muttered, stumbling back a step and steadying your sunglasses.

He looked down at you, blinked, then tilted his head like he was trying to decide if you were a real person or a hallucination sent by his subconscious to mock him for being indecisive over cereal.

“You okay?” he asked, voice low and kind. “You, uh… hit me with the force of someone who just found out the milk went bad.”

You sniffled, trying to play it cool. “Worse. I found out my ex was sleeping with his ‘work wife.’ And apparently? I wasn’t even in the top five people who were surprised.”

Frankie let out a short laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Damn. You want to talk about it over a bowl of Cocoa Puffs?”

You eyed the box in his hand. “You were going to pick Cocoa Puffs?”

“I was considering it,” he said with mock seriousness. “It’s between that and Raisin Bran, which I swear I only like for the fiber, not because I’m over thirty and slowly decaying.”

You gave a weak, involuntary chuckle. “You can’t be sad holding Cocoa Puffs. That’s a scientific fact.”

“Exactly. That’s why I came here. Heartbreak and cereal. One of them’s easier to digest.”

There was a pause, awkward but somehow warm.

“You want to, uh…” He nodded toward the cart. “Team up? I’ll get the cereal if you grab the milk.”

You squinted at him. “Is that a pickup line?”

He grinned, all boyish charm. “Only if it works.”

And somehow, it did. You ended up talking in the parking lot for over an hour, cereal boxes sweating beside you in the heat. He made you laugh when you hadn’t smiled in days. You made him admit he sometimes talks to himself in grocery stores to feel less lonely. He gave you his number with a scribbled doodle of a cereal box and the words “emotional support snacks & other services”.

Your first real date with Frankie was... memorable. For all the wrong reasons, at first.

He was late—really late. The kind of late where you start double-checking your texts, wondering if you somehow imagined the whole thing. You sat there at the curb outside the little food spot he chose, scrolling through your phone like you weren’t half-convinced you’d been ditched. And just when you were about to call it, there he came—running across the street in the wrong shoes, hair a mess, breathless and apologizing with his whole body like he could rewind time if he said “I’m so sorry” enough times.

“I swear I’m not usually this guy,” he panted. “Well. Maybe a little. But not—not like this.”

You gave him a look that said you’ve got ten minutes to redeem yourself, and he smiled like he knew it.

And then—of course—the food place was horrible. Not even comically bad. Just sad. Soggy fries, music too loud, the kind of menu that tries to be everything and fails at all of it. You picked at your meal, both of you trying to act like you were fine, but the awkward silences kept stretching longer than the spaghetti.

But then, on the way back to his truck, it poured. Without warning, it wasn’t even forecasted. Sheets of rain, out of nowhere. You both ran for it, soaked through in seconds, laughing like idiots and slipping on the pavement. By the time you threw yourselves into his truck, dripping wet and breathless, something shifted.

He turned to you, rain still dripping from his hair, tracing down his jaw, his clothes clinging in all the wrong places—and somehow, he still managed to look impossibly handsome. Like a soaked golden retriever with those wide, hopeful eyes.

“Please don’t write me off yet,” he said, breathless, earnest. “I know this was a disaster, but I swear—there’s more to me than showing up late and picking a place with bad fries. Just… give me one more chance. Don’t blow this off before it even has the chance to be something real.”

You looked at him, really looked at him. Big guy, sure. Intimidating build. A jawline that could cut glass. But his voice? Gentle,honest. A little scared. He wasn’t trying to impress you. He was just asking you to see him. And somehow, that was enough.

The next date was the one that got you.

You parked out near the cliffs by the beach, where the town’s lights looked like fireflies in the distance. You sat on the bed of his old truck, wrapped in hoodies and too many layers, talking for hours. About everything and nothing. Music. Movies. That weird dream you had once that still makes you think. He didn’t try anything. Not even when you leaned closer. You felt the way he held back—how hard he was trying to be good, to be respectful. You respected him more for that than anything.

He got a good night kiss, soft and slow and just a little trembling when he dropped you off at dawn. And you were already falling—head over heels—for this man who looked like he could ruin you, but instead made you feel like you mattered.

It didn’t take long to learn he was fragile underneath all that calm. The things he’d seen. The things he’d done. His time serving had left scars, even if he rarely spoke about them. But when he did, it was in those quiet, vulnerable flashes that left your heart aching. He didn’t believe in himself much. Didn’t think he was anything special. And God, that hurt you.

So you tried—clumsily but fiercely—to show him how beautiful he was, even with all the cracks. Especially because of them. You told him the cracks let the light in. And he believed you, sometimes. That was enough.

You fell fast. It was messy and a little reckless. You signed the lease for your first flat together just weeks in. It was small and smelled like paint and coffee and hope. He asked you to marry him one night, tangled up in sheets, skin still warm, everything feeling too good to be real. And you said yes without thinking. Everyone warned you it was too fast.

You didn’t listen.

You moved into that tiny beach apartment with the leaky faucet and the crooked blinds, always a little messy—like the two of you. Clothes left on chairs. Takeout containers that stayed a day too long. Hair in the sink. Socks with no match. Two lives crammed into one, with all the noise and beauty that came with it.

And now?

Now it’s real, hard sometimes.

Because love is one thing. But living together—merging routines, wounds, moods, habits—it’s a whole new kind of intimacy. The kind where you fight about dishes and then kiss ten minutes later because someone said something dumb that made you laugh. The kind where his PTSD wakes him up and your anxiety keeps you up, and somehow you still hold each other through it. The kind where love isn’t always soft—but it shows up.

It was one of those nights when everything just paused.

The waves rolled in like a lullaby against the sand. You hadn’t meant to end up out here—barefoot, wind-tousled, sitting on the tailgate of Frankie’s truck parked just off the beach road. But after the long day, after the tension and the silence that followed one of those small, sharp fights that didn’t mean much but still stung—it was where you found yourself.

You didn’t need to talk anymore. Not tonight.

Instead, you reached for him. Gently. Like you were afraid to spook whatever fragile thing was opening up between you again.

Your hand found his—fingertips trailing up his arm, across the faded fabric of his shirt, to cup his jaw with a kind of reverence you weren’t even sure you meant to show. But you did. You always did, with him.

And that’s when Frankie’s breath caught.

Like you were holding something sacred.

And maybe, in a way, you were.

He leaned into your touch like a man starved for softness, like the world had always demanded he be hard and quiet, and you were the first one who’d ever said—you can rest now—without saying a single word.

His lashes dipped briefly, overwhelmed by the tenderness in your eyes, but he didn’t look away. He couldn’t. Because if there’s one thing he knows now—it’s that he never wants to miss the way you look at him when you’re sure. When you’re steady. When you still choose him, despite everything.

His hand found yours where it rested on his chest, then traced down slowly until his thumb brushed your ring. That modest little thing you both picked out more with hearts than wallets, when everything was still new and terrifying and breathtaking all at once.

Frankie twisted it gently between his fingers, eyes dropping to where it caught the last light of dusk.

“I’m gonna buy you something better one day,” he said quietly. “Something that shines like you do. You deserve nothing but the best.”

You shook your head, a soft breath of laughter caught in your throat, and reached up to cradle his face between your hands.

“I’ve already got everything I need,” you murmured, straddling his lap on the truck bed, knees bracketing his hips as you leaned in closer, forehead to his. “You. This. That ring? It’s not about the size. It’s about who gave it to me.”

Your thumbs brushed the stubble along his jaw as you looked at him—really looked at him. And in the fading blue of the evening turning into night, with the sky swallowing the horizon and the world going quiet around you, Frankie looked impossibly soft.

Vulnerable in a way he rarely let anyone see.

And God—you were sure you’d never seen anything more beautiful.

He held your gaze like it anchored him.

“What’d I do,” he whispered, voice thick and low and rough around the edges, “to deserve hands like yours on me?”

It wasn’t doubt, not really.

It was wonder.

A kind of awe that always lived right under his skin when you looked at him like that—like he was more than his past, more than his mistakes.

He lifted his hand again, fingers brushing your wrist, slow and reverent where your pulse beat steady beneath skin. Just to feel it. Just to know.

“You steady me,” he said, barely louder than the ocean behind you. “Even when I don’t know what the hell I’m doing—you make it feel like maybe I can figure it out.”

Then, that small, tired smile you loved. A little crooked.

“God, I love you.”

His voice cracked just slightly at the end.

“So damn much.”

And when you leaned in, when your lips found his again, he didn’t rush it. Didn’t deepen the kiss like a man trying to take—he received it. Held it. Let it wash over him like grace.

Let the way you were loving him rewrite all the ways he thought he was too broken to be loved like this.

thanks for reading 💌

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#frankie morales #francisco morales #frankie catfish morales #pedro pascal characters #berryfiction #fanfiction writer #frankie morales fanfiction #pedro pascal fandom #fluff #falling in love #the story of us #gn reader #frankie morales x you #frankie morales x reader #soft Frankie

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