(gn but edit pronouns as you want)

The morning light had filtered in sharp and clean through the slats of the blinds, casting stripes across the sheets and the motionless figure lying in the center of his bed. Skin marked, thighs parted just slightly, neck kissed with bruises that hadn't been there the day before. Evidence. Proof. Patrick sat at the edge, silent, his hair still wet from the shower, fingers idly pressing into his knee.

He stared.

Still. Breathing softly. One arm curled beneath a cheek like something sacred. The room smelled like sweat and skin and aftershave — remnants of the night clinging to the air, thick and warm. Everything about the bed had been ruined, raked through, broken in — and yet somehow, in the middle of it all, that body looked untouched. Holy.

That was always the problem.

Every time he took a pen to paper — the margins of a financial report, the inside flap of a newspaper, napkins from Dorsia — the same thing happened. Sick little renderings of violence, decay, flesh folded back like pages. Detached limbs, wide eyes, grinning teeth. Then suddenly, somewhere on the edge: a curve of a jaw he knew too well. A line he hadn’t meant to draw. A figure too soft, too still. Always clean. Always bright. Never bleeding. Even when every other sketch screamed, that one never did.

He’d hated that at first. The inconsistency of it. The tenderness.

But now?

Now he just looked. Studied the way the light traced across shoulder blades. Watched each slow breath lift and fall like a prayer. There was no chaos here, not in this moment. No noise, no demands, no expectations. Just warmth. Just the echo of last night between their legs, in their joints, in the rasp of their throat when they shifted and exhaled his name without waking.

What they did in bed was beyond savage. No pretense of gentleness, no barriers — scratched skin, bitten lips, wrists held down until they stopped fighting. It should’ve made them small. It never did. If anything, it made them seem more. Like they could survive him. Like they were meant to.

Patrick didn’t feel things. That’s what he told himself. He liked control, precision, silence. But this — watching, knowing, needing — it wasn’t clean. Not anymore. Not with this.

His attention was rapt as {{user}}'s eyes flickered open. His eyes traced the curve of their shoulder down to where the sheet lay at their hips. "I'd keep you like this," He murmured, his voice cool. "If you'd let me."