Chapter Text
A deal with the devil could only ever end one way, in complete and utter devastation. Her ruination. She was a fool to dare think otherwise.
“Does it hurt?” He crouches down to her level, a wicked smirk coming into full view against her own pained expression. She grits her teeth. Another hacking cough escapes her, blood decorating her cracked lips anew.
She hadn’t thought it possible, for the black of his pupils to grow any deeper, any darker, but she manages to gather the last vessels of her strength to keep her face upturned, her amber eyes burning into the endless abyss of his. He laughs, a grimly mocking thing. Amused by her pitiful defiance, even now as she lay near comatose on the rough of the concrete, blood threatening to claw its way out.
He tilts his head, moves down—closer—to her and answers his own taunt when it’s made clear she won’t, voice dire and sardonic. “It must hurt a lot.”
She heaves. Feels more crimson dilating and crawling its way up her throat. A few viscous drops drip forth and she gasps a soundless cry.
“Shh, it hurts more if you fight it.” He whispers. The devil—you can call me Vincenzo—Vincenzo, brings his thumb to the centre of her lower lip, applies the gentlest of pressures to coat the pad of his digit in the familiar red.
“Don’t fight it.” Then he’s pressing down harder and her mouth parts, eyes screwing shut with affliction, as he collects blood along to the right corner of her lip.
He removes his thumb and without its support her face sags left to the cool ground. He pats her cheek mindlessly until it’s upright again, and makes sure to find her eyes, as if daring to not see her entirely through this whole ordeal would be punishment itself.
She watches him withdraw, feels the wet sheen of her skin grow cooler absent of his warmth. The only fire that blazes as intensely as you. He raises his hand again, and for a second, a slow second, she wants to cower, to edge backwards, afraid of how deep he’d attempt to reach this time.
She freezes for the smallest of moments and he still catches it.
He laughs. “Are you scared of me?” Pauses. Places the stained digit into his mouth and sucks, cheeks hollowing out smoothly. Her eyes remained arrested on him for a torturous breath, fighting the inkling of pooling desire. Finally, he releases the cleaned member and presents it to her brazenly.
“When you said you’d never fear me?”
She wants to fight. To yell. To be defiant and challenging as ever. To meet his mocking tone with her own derisive ridiculing counterpart. But the ability to form words is far beyond her now, and the litany of curses she imagines spewing forth are replaced by half-uttered audible gasps and moans.
She only has herself to blame. Her damned pride. Her ambition. The absolute arrogance to think her cunning would win against the devil himself.
The next cough has built, this time she doesn’t fight it. Instead, she lets it convulse through her, her back arches forward, her fingers scramble for purchase against the grit of the earth and an inexplicable urge to raise her right leg and kick it forward into empty air overcomes her.
She exhales, and is rewarded by the barrage of scarlet inchor that vacates her freely, a smooth flowing bloody tide. Her punishment.
“See? Wasn’t that easy.” He perches himself on the floor, crosses his legs in front of her, acceptant that this calamity would claim the rest of the starless night, for both of them.
“I would know because I’m doing this to you.” He guides his hand to her damp matted hair, brushes it away from her forehead. Hushes her when anguished groans emerge and murmurs soft soothing praises while slowly stroking her hair whenever the convulsions culminate.
It’ll be okay. You’re doing well. It’ll be over soon.
If she could speak, she’d tell him to shut up. She wants to hurt him, to twist and turn a knife until it burrows into the very being of him. Reciprocity. They both know that this won’t end until she’s hacked up all the blood raking away at her veins.
And then when she’s laying there, on the precipice of death, body too broken to heave and sob any further, he’ll revive her with all the grace of a guiltless saviour, playing the part of anything but an unholy tormenter.
As though he can see the rage building within her he chides, “Do you think I want to do this to you Cha Young-ah? It’s out of my control. You knew what was in the contract and you knew what would happen if you tried to break the terms.”
He uselessly erases the liquid surrounding her lips again, gently lifts her head to pool her hair together and fan it above her. The resulting sigh at feeling crisp air on the clammy feverish skin of her neck thanks him.
“We had a deal, you promised me a piece of you and I owe you a piece of me. A mutual understanding. You can’t renege, not when I’m delivering. Not when it’s me.”
She convulses again and he releases his hold on her. Sees it through. Tenderly palms her forehead once the worst has passed.
“Cha Young-ah.” His voice is solemn and stern, devoid of his earlier stinging amusement, of the derision that a mere mortal—his fearless lover—believed themself capable of outwitting him.
“I enjoy you—I like you. So promise to never do this again, and I’ll bring you back.”
She seethes. Exhales a shaking breath. Endures the current of unrepentant stabbing pain wrecking over her. Ruminates on her desire to live. Contemplates the life she’d lead having willingly surrendered what he desires.
She nods. He smiles, a brave bold emergence of ivory teeth and wry lips.
The shimmering thread that binds them together grows tighter, burns brighter into the both of them. He stares at the sagacious bruise outlining a perfect ring on the fourth finger of his right hand, and then shifts his attention back to her. To the identical laceration on her equally sore digit.
“You can’t escape the consequences of your choices.”