Devotion, Dirty at the Edges
Pairing: Farleigh Start x Madonna-Whore!Reader
Warnings: Internal obsession, toxic romantic idealization, psychological manipulation, intense emotional conflict, dark themes, sexual tension (non-explicit)
Oxford was all golden mornings and old stone secrets. A place for well-bred futures and carefully restrained sins.
Farleigh Start never restrained anything for long.
He lived in the margins of privilegeâuntouchable, unbothered, and utterly bored. Until he met you.
You were polite to a fault. Fresh-faced. First year. All sweaters and long skirts, books clutched to your chest like a shield. You apologized when people bumped you. You cried at poetry readings. You quoted Rumi without irony.
Farleigh wasnât supposed to notice girls like you. Girls who looked like they prayed at night. Girls who still thought love was something that saved.
And that was the beginning of the rot.
You smiled at him after lecture onceâsoft, sweet, shy. Like he was the sun, not the flame. Like you didnât know what boys like him did with girls like you.
âYou write the most beautiful things,â you said quietly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. âThey always sound like theyâre about to break.â
He stared. No one had ever said that. Not the girls who clawed at him in dark stairwells. Not the ones who liked how cruel he could be when he was bored enough.
You didnât want to tame him.
You wanted to understand him.
That was the first crack.
âDo you think everyoneâs capable of terrible things?â he asked one night, lounging across a velvet chaise at some party you didnât belong at.
You hesitated, twisting your necklace between your fingers. âI think most people are just afraid to admit it.â
He tilted his head. You werenât afraid of darkness. You just hadnât walked in it yet.
âYouâre fascinating,â he murmured, circling you like prey he didnât want to devourâyet.
You blushed. âIâm not.â
âNo,â he said. âYouâre worse. Youâre pure.â
That was the second crack.
You started spending more time around him. At first, always in daylight. Always public.
But you were drawn to the decay of his world. You didnât belong in his flat with its ashtray stench and records that sounded like sin, but you came anyway. Sat on the edge of his bed with your hands folded in your lap like a sacrificial lamb.
âI donât belong here,â you whispered once.
âExactly,â he said, lighting a cigarette and exhaling smoke toward the ceiling. âThatâs why I want you here.â
You tried to keep yourself clean.
Tried to keep your kisses light and your hands still.
But Farleigh made you feel like everything good in you was begging to be wrecked.
âYou know what your problem is?â he said one night, looming over you, fingertips just brushing your waist.
You shook your head, breath caught in your throat.
âYou want to be worshipped,â he said softly. âBut you also want to be ruined.â
You looked at him like he was prophecy. Like heâd spoken something forbidden out loud.
Because that night, when he kissed youâfinallyâit wasnât soft. It was possession. Salt and smoke and something you werenât ready for but took anyway.
âYouâre not like the others,â he said against your throat.
You clutched his shirt like a prayer. âI donât want to be.â
God help you, you meant it.
Later, Farleigh watched you sleep in his bed, curled like a question mark. Still in your cardigan. Still untouched in all the wrong ways.
You didnât know what youâd done to him. You didnât know that he looked at you and saw something holyâand wanted to desecrate it, just enough so no one else could touch it without tasting him first.
He lit another cigarette and smiled at the ceiling.
And when the last bit of innocence finally burned out in your eyesâwhen you looked in the mirror and saw his fingerprints on your soulâhe knew he wouldnât need anything else.
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
areudirty
ellievsbear
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto
jacobvanloon
