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Again, Warning: this fic is dark. Don't read it if you feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable.

You’re not quite sure how you end up with the knife, but it is an oddly reassuring weight in your gloved hand, and all of a sudden your vision clears and the pounding in your head recedes, the violent haze from earlier disappearing in a blink.

So you look down at the man groaning on the road at your feet with a strangely cold brand of calmness that should be disturbing but somehow isn’t.

There is a choice you must make: this creature is lesser than scum, undeserving of life, of that much you are sure. But you’re not quite certain that it is your right to decide whether your attacker lives or dies.

And yet here you stand, with the power to act as executioner, and the throbbing memory of cruel hands crawling over your body, the smell of a chloroform-drenched handkerchief pressed over your nose, the scratching and biting and kicking of the ensuing struggle.

Maybe there is no choice after all.

You lean down, and take your assailant’s wrists in your hands, barely managing to suppress a gag at the feel of that coarse skin against yours again. His eyes flicker open as you press the cold metal edge against that very same skin and you hold the man’s desperate gaze as you slice, firm and unwavering.

The metallic smell of blood hits you all at once and you drop his hands, and the knife, as if they burn. The knife’s clatter as it hits the ground is not as loud as you had expected, or perhaps that is because it is drowned out by the man’s yelling.

He screams, and he screams, and you reach into his left pants pocket to take his phone, and ever so slowly, you dial the numbers.

“911. What is your emergency?”

The words are barely audible to you over the dying noises the man on the ground is emitting. You place the phone by his convulsing body, stretch a little to pick up your wallet from where he had dropped it during the fight, and stand, barely breathing.

He will die, you think, as you walk away. You have left it to chance, in a manner of speaking, an ambulance might arrive in time, but somehow you are sure, he will die.

X

It’s the smell that gets you in the end- cheap cologne and blood and dirt, seemingly seared indelibly into the very fabric of your skin. And you rush into the shower, turning the water up so hot that it stings. You ignore the sensation and stand still under the falling water until your skin is almost raw and the water runs cold.

Afterwards, you wait in the living room for your lover to come home and pass judgement on you for your actions.

You have crossed the one line that you know he would never cross- done the one thing he has struggled with more than anything else. Killing a person is anathema to him, and here you are, having done just that, you who hold his heart, and you feel no remorse for the deed itself.

The choice you had made was the optimal one—not truly a choice at all—of that much, you are absolutely certain. Because you could not have let that man go, free to do to someone else what he had been attempting to do to you, free perhaps to come after you for getting away.

You don’t expect that Matt will forgive you, but you wait, because you want to explain exactly why you feel you must leave him. You owe him that much, before you go.

He comes home late—you have had to wait an entire hour— and the first thing he does is approach your curled up form on the sofa to press a kiss to your lips and immediately, you feel as if you have tainted him.

You barely manage to stop yourself from flinching away from his mouth on yours and his hand at the base of your neck- you would dearly like one last kiss to remember him by. But of course, that does no good, he catches your aborted movement, and he pulls away immediately, his brows drawn into a frown.

“Something’s wrong,” his tone is hesitant as he sits beside you, but you can tell that is only because he is not sure how to broach the subject, “___. What is it?”

For a split second, you consider refusing to answer, keeping your decision secret. If he doesn’t know what you have done, maybe you won’t have to leave. It’s the most fleeting of thoughts, because you could never do that to him, never live with yourself if you did.

So you tell him everything. In broken sentences punctuated with laboured breathing and stifled sobs, the whole story comes tumbling out.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t interrupt. But his frown deepens, and he clenches his hands, and his mouth twitches with displeasure. And even after you have said your piece, he remains silent, breathing hard.

You have had this conversation in your head a million times, played it out a million different ways but you had never accounted for his silence. This is the one thing you are not prepared for, and so you panic, your mind jumbled and incoherent, sheer terror—of what exactly, you do not know— clouding everything.

“Say something Matt,” you whisper finally, your voice breaking on his name, and you let the fear consume you whole, “Please.”

Every taut line of his body screams anger and you think for a minute that he is going to walk out on this conversation, on you. Yet he stays, motionless beside you.

And just as you begin to think that he will say nothing, that you will have to leave without even a farewell, he lets out a long sigh, and reaches for you, pulling you into his embrace, giving you no room for excuses.

“Shh, it’s okay, ___, it’s alright,” his hands on your back are gentle, tender, soothing, as if he is scared that you will bolt, “You did nothing that was unnecessary. And I think you know that too.”

His words make their way directly to your heart, hitting you with the force of a knife to the gut and the inky blackness that has been eating away at all your senses is turning into a burning crimson and some distant, detached part of you wonders if this is the way he feels all the time.

You practically rip yourself from his arms, launch yourself off the couch, and spin around to face him.

“No, it is not okay,” you burst out, “I killed a man! I could have left him alive, but I killed him instead!”

He remains silent, unrelenting.

“And do you know what? I would do it all over again without a second thought. What does that make me?”

“I know that you would,” he replies simply, ignoring your vehement demands.

He is so calm, so composed, that it makes you want to scream, to yell at him until he understands exactly what you have done because you are certain that if he truly did understand, he would not be so forgiving.

“So tell me I’m a monster, tell me to get out of your house, tell me to leave!!”

“I’m not going to do that!”

“Matt,” you whisper, and defeated in the face of his stubbornness, you finally give up, sinking to the floor as you feel your strength leaving you.

“What do you want me to say ___? That I forgive you,” and now you hear some of your frustration in his tone, “there’s nothing to forgive, you only did what you had to do. And what you did- it doesn’t change who you are, you’re still a good person.”

And even before he finishes speaking, you are shaking your head vehemently, hands trembling at your sides as you lose all measure of control. Because you cannot stomach his acceptance of you and your actions, not yet, maybe not ever. Because this feels too close to absolution, a relief of which you are not deserving.

“No,” you gasp out finally, “Matt, don’t.”

“Then tell me what you need ___, let me help you!” he seems to realize that he is almost shouting, and with a visible effort he calms down again, “Please ___, don’t leave me, not over this.”

Maybe it is because he has finally addressed what you had been planning to do, or maybe because he is so clearly begging- but in that single instant, you know, you know that you can’t leave. So you sigh, and you make your decision.

“Then make me forget, Matt, just for a little while at least. I don’t want to think about this anymore,” you beg, and you know that he can hear the whirlwind inside your head in the vibrations of your voice. And he can tell exactly what it is you are asking.

He sighs, and nods, breathes out an “Okay” and complies.

You are surprised that he has given in so easily, is this really the effect you have on him? Do you blind him to everything, including the moral compass that is one of his defining characteristics?

But you do not have too long to think about this because true to his word, he sets about chasing all coherent thought from your mind. In one fluid movement, he surges forward and lifts you to your feet. Then his hands are on your waist and you are pressed so tight against him that there is no space left between the two of you.

The kisses you exchange are rough, and open-mouthed, every single one a fight for dominance that you ultimately let him win.

No words pass between you, no endearments, no confessions of love as his hands slide downwards and he lifts you off your feet, and you cling to him- legs wrapped snug around his hips and arms encircling his shoulders, making their way into his hair, tugging insistently, as he stumbles forwards, knocking something—the table, a chair?—aside as he goes.

And for the first time, you can feel some of his strength in his touch: in the grip of his hands on your hips and in his weight pressing you back against the cold bricks of the wall. But you don’t mind a single bit, no, because that is exactly how you want him in this moment- rough, and desperate, and with every ounce of passion he can muster.

Because come morning, some dark, improbably twisted, part of you will look at the marks on your skin and think of them as penance for your actions- or rather, as penance for corrupting him.

You know this just as you know what will follow.

He will kiss every bruise, every scratch, with smiling lips, his skin warm and glowing gold against yours. He will tell you that he loves you, he will say that you are his world, he will tell you that you’re brave, and beautiful, and still good, still one of the best people he will ever know.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll feel deserving of it all again.