(Ronin Beaufort x GN mentally ill Reader)
☠︎︎ Self-harm & Heavy writing
⋆₊ Psychological manipulation, word “cunt” mentioned
✃ Eating disorder, Depression, Bipolar, Self-Harm, Panic Attacks / Hyperventilation, Catatonia, and Suicidal Ideation.
♱ Based on personal experience. Please do not repeat or romanticize.
𓆨 Not proofread. + established relationship
Ronin Beaufort here is a total asshole and might act out of character
• Please correct me if I made any mistakes. Thank you.
You think you are alone in the world you built to feel something that rhymes with “safe”… until he is there, dragging every bite, every breath, every ugly thought. He calls it care. You call it necessary. Quite ironic, isn’t it?
Do you really want to breathe… for a while?
To make your body move for something, even as your heart aches for nothing?
The voice in your head didn't scream, it uttered with a slow, heavy warmth flow. It whispered exactly what you already knew: you were a clown, a joke. A waste of breath just using your skin to hide whatever was eating you from the inside out. The thought of death didn't even scare you anymore—it just felt like a warm embrace, making you feel more alive than you had in years, even your skin and flesh are crawling out of you, how funny, but—
YOU DON'T HAVE TO PRAY FOR EVERYONE BECAUSE THEY ARE OUT OF YOUR SIGHT.
The air in the apartment was thick, tasting of cheap tobacco, and the sickening scent of the bleach Ronin used to keep the place looking like a clean room, as if the bloodshed didn't happen here.
He was slumped in the armchair, a glass of dark amber liquid cradled in his lap, watching you. His eyes were heavy, his annoying voice dragging through the silence like a blade over lovely soft skin.
"You look like a fuckin’ skeleton, darlin," he slurred into the back of his throat. "I’ve seen more meat on a stray dog. It’s gettin’ tiresome, really, watchin’ you melt into the floorboards just to see if I’ll notice."
You didn’t look up from your lap. The hunger was nothing, pounds heavily ache under your thin intestines, but the thought of swallowing anything felt like ingesting a shattered shard deep in your throat, enough to cut and vomit. "I'm not doing it for you, Ro."
"Aren't ya?" He stood up, his movements fluid, but slightly unsteady from the scotch. The suffocating, cheap stench of the whiskey hit you, always making your empty stomach turn before he even moved, making your throat tighten. He walked to the kitchen, the floorboards creaking under his weight. He pulled a chair out, the screech of wood on tile ringing like a scream.
When you didn't move, he was suddenly behind you. His hand, rough, scarred, and warm, clenched the back of your neck. It wasn't a caress—it was a rough guide heavy on your nape, as if he were steering a piece of shit dog.
His steps went to your dying body, to the table, and forced you down. On the plate was a piece of toast, heavily buttered, glistening under the harsh lights.
"Eat," he commanded, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous hum.
He sighed, a sound of deep, worn-out disappointment. Then, his demeanor shifted. He took a breath, trying to smooth the spiked edges of his temper.
He sat across from you and picked up a piece of the bread. His hands, usually so heavy when he was correcting people, looked clumsy as he tried to bring it to your chapped lips.
"Lo’k at me, darlin'. Look. At me." he murmured, his voice forced into a terrifyingly unnatural softness that doesn't suit him with every scar on his body.
It was the sound of a devil trying to mimic a lullaby.
"I’m tryin’ to be patient, love. Truly. Open up. Just a bit. Do it for your Devil, yeah?"
The gentleness was disgustingly worse than the mockery you heard in your head. It felt like being hunted by something that was smiling at you. When you clench your jaw shut, his eyes flashed, a spark of the devil behind the mask in his deep, rotten soul. He pressed the bread against your cracked lips, smearing grease on your skin.
"Don't be a difficult cunt," he snapped, the softness dying instantly. "I’m sittin’ here playin’ nursemaid because I don't want to bury you yet. Eat the fuckin’ bread."
You pushed his hand away, the toast hitting the floor with a wet thud. That was the blow to his patience.
He lunged forward, his fingers clamping hard around your jaw, forcing your mouth open as he leaned his weight into you. "I'm trying to fucking keep you alive!"
You clawed at his wrists with your fragile fingers, your voice choking out past his grip. "I don't feel like it! Why the fuck are you forcing me?!"
He didn't let go—instead, he shook you once, rough enough to rattle your teeth, his slurred voice vibrating violently right against your face. "Because you’re forcing yourself to fucking starve, so why the fuck wouldn't I be?!"
"You don't fucking get me! You fucking asshole!" You tried to shove him off, but of course your baby bones couldn't handle his fucking weight. He didn't even budge. Pathetic. He just pinned you down harder under the massive shadow of his frame, trapping your useless hands against your chest.
You were furious, and the worst part? You couldn't even cry. You didn't know why, but the anger was better than the heavy shit feeding into a chest that ached for absolutely nothing. Hate was better. Pain was better. You would rather feel angry than empty, because it is easy to understand.
You started hitting him, fists blindly throwing themselves against his chest, screaming like a wild bitch into his face. He moved instantly to restrain you, his heavy limbs trapping yours, holding you down hard enough to bruise.
Your heart hammered against your ribs—too fast, a frantic, too much as your brain short-circuited, desperately forcing itself to find through every possible way to break free of his suffocating grip.
The argument was a blur of crashing porcelain and Ronin’s voice rising into a jagged, slurred roar. Every word chopped short in a disgusting rhythm that spats out like a blade traveling deep until it reaches your aorta. He called you ungrateful, a "hollow little doll," a "waste of his fuckin' time."
He towered over you, his shadow concealing the light that reflected on your skinny cheeks, his hands, dirty and bare, beating with a dark, masculine bloodlust that threatened to drop the very identity he had carved himself out of the dirt.
He had ripped himself out of nothing, and he couldn't understand why you were trying to crawl back into the rotting bones.
You broke. You ran. The bathroom door slammed—a sharp crack cutting through his annoying, slurred rambling. The lock clicked home. It was a laughable, tiny, pathetic sound, but in the silence of the bathroom, white-tiles it echoed like a hammer.
Inside, the silence was deafening, a heavy pressure pressing down until your bones ached to snap. Your skull sat low and heavy in your beautifully decaying body. Your paper-thin lungs were crushing the air out of you.
The only way to swallow the anger and panic was the cold, mesmerizing metal in the drawer. You loved the quick, sharp sting that forced your vision to stop spinning, even as it made a beautiful mess of your sleeves.
Ronin didn't pound on the door. He didn't scream. He waited. He knew the silence meant you were working. He went to his room to find his toolbox, grabbed it, and headed back to the door.
When Ronin finally used a screwdriver to pop the lock, the room smelled like copper and the usual metallic shit.
You were slumped against the tub, blood soaking your wrists in a wet, heavy dim flickering light, your breath coming in ragged, wretched hitches.
Ronin stood in the doorway, his shirt unbuttoned, his own fucked-up surgical scars even he never got it from an actual hospital. The faint lines across his chest where he’d shed his past, bare in the light.
He didn't look disgusted. He looked satisfied, in a dark, twisted way. "There she is," he whispered, his American accent thick, slurred with a grim sort of pride. "The real you. No more hidin' behind the moods and the starvin'. Just the blood."
He walked over and didn't take the blade. He just watched you finish the last shallow swipe. Only when you dropped it did he move. He sat on the closed toilet, pulling your arm onto his lap.
He reached for the drawers next to the toilet and grabbed the first aid kit that was already in the room. "You think this scares me?" he asked, his voice low and raspy as he pressed a cold, antiseptic-soaked cloth to your bleeding arm.
You hissed in pain, and he leaned in, his breath smelling of peat and smoke. "I’ve cut more out of myself than you’ll ever manage to bleed, sweetheart. This is just... art."
He began to wrap the bandages, his movements efficient, almost clinical, as if he had done this before to himself. He didn't offer a sorry. He didn't tell you it would be okay. He just handled your ruined skin like it was his favorite doll.
Later, the lights were low. You were tucked into his bed, the weight of the episode leaving you hollow and shivering. Ronin climbed in behind you, his large, solid body a loud fire you didn't deserve. He pulled you against his chest, his chin resting on the twisted part of your head.
"Ronin?" you whispered, your voice quiet and weak.
"I'm such a mess. Why do you even bother? Why do you love me when I'm fucked up like this?"
He let out a dark, gravelly huff of a laugh. His hand, heavy and possessive, slid over your stomach, his thumb tracing the hipbone that poked out too sharply.
"Because perfection is f'r losers, darlin'," he murmured, his slurred voice vibrating through your spine.
"I didn't ruin myself t'be a saint. I’m a devil, luv. An' devils don't want angels... They want somethin' they can recognize."
He nipped at your earlobe, a sharp, stinging little signal that he was there, that he was real, and that he was in control.
"I love it... how you're always lookin' for a soft spot. Like a blade, darlin’. Tryin' to see if ya can finally slit me open." he whispered, his eyes closing as he inhaled the scent of your hair and the faint metallic tang of the bandages.
"So go ahead...rip it out. Break down. Rot. I'll be the one holdin' ya still while you're decayin'. You’re mine, darlin'. Even the parts of you that are shuttin' apart."
He let out a breath that reeked of peat and old mistakes. "It doesn't matter." He grunted, the words convulsing against your ear. He grasped you just a little too tight, the pressure almost bruising, making sure you knew you weren't going anywhere.
"Now sleep," he grunted. "We’ll try the eggs in the mornin'. An' if you fight me... I’ll just find a dozen more ways to make you swallow 'em. I’ll feed ya like da rreck ya are... s’gonna be messy, ‘n you’ll p’obably hate me for it—bu’ you’ll still be breathin’ ta complain t’morrow."
The days that followed were a blur of cold sunlight and the annoying smell of recovery. Ronin didn’t change into a saint overnight—he simply adjusted his way. He became the God of your survival, handling your ruin with the same disgusting, filthy hands he used to fix his own shit.
In the mornings, he’d sit at the edge of the bed, his bare chest revealing the flat, scarred, light marks along his ribcage, a fixed reminder that he was a man who had survived the death of his old self. He’d hold a small bowl of something soft, something easy to swallow, and he’d wait.
"S’good, darlin’," he’d murmur, his voice thick with sleep and scotch, the slurred British lilt dragging over the words. "Look at that. Actually swallowin’ it. There’s my flesh. You’re doin’ so well for me, in’t ya?" The praise felt like a drug. It wasn't warm, but it was heavy. It was the reward for a well-behaved property.
When you finished, he’d lean in and press a bruising kiss to your forehead, his thumb tracing the hollow of your throat. He didn't tell you that you looked healthy, because obviously you were not there yet, he told you that you looked his. Then came the usual of the bandages. He didn’t hide them. He didn’t lock the medicine cabinet like a panicked parent.
Instead, he sat you down on the vanity and laid out fresh, sterile rolls of gauze and medical tape like they were jewelry. "Keep 'em clean, sweetheart," he’d say, his eyes hooded and remorseless as he watched you touch the white cotton.
"f you’re goin’ to carve into what’s mine, at least have the guts not to let it rot. I like the scars, but I don' 'fuck a fever."
He handled your fucked episodes like he was holding the leash of a storm at sea. When the wave hit, when your heart was frantic and begging to erupt, your tongue moving so fast your chest couldn't keep up, he didn’t try to douse the fire in you. He simply stood in the center of the mess with you.
He’d let you scream, let you break things, his arms wrapped around you from behind like a straightjacket made of muscle and scarred skin.
"Go on, en'." he’d whisper into your ear while you thrashed. "Explode. I’m right here. I’m not goin’ anywhere. Blow us both to hell, darlin’, I’m already under."
And when the crash came, when your mind finally exploded and left you a shivering, weeping mess on the floor, unable to even lift your head, he was there to pick up the fragile pieces.
He’d carry you to the bath, his large hands washing you with a terrifying, silent patience. He didn't tell you to get over it.
He didn't ask when you’d be "normal."
He just sat in the dark with you, his presence a suffocating, grounding weight. Weeks of this, the highs, the lows, the starving, the feeding, and the world outside the apartment began to feel like a distant, faded dream.
The devil who knew exactly how much pressure to apply to keep you from shattering. One night, the emptiness was particularly thick, a suffocating dark coffin.
You were curled against his side, your head on his chest, listening to the slow, steady beat of his heart.
Your arm, freshly wrapped in the bandages he’d handed you earlier, felt heavy.
"Ronin?" you whispered into the silence.
"You're making me want to breathe more... in this hell," you said, your voice cracking.
It was a terrifying realization that his kind of twisted, sick, and confusing warmth was becoming the only thing keeping your heart beating against your ribcage as it beat slowly and violently.
It was masochistic, completely ruined, but it felt better than any soft stuff like therapy or some healthy coping mechanism. You didn't need someone to help you or fix you just to feel like you existed.
You didn't need help to be seen—you needed to be understood to be seen. And under his dark, annoying gaze, he understood you better than anyone else ever could.
"I'm staying alive just to stay in this nightmare with you."
Ronin shifted, his arm tightening around your waist, pulling you so close you could feel the heat of him through your clothes.
He let out a low, gravelly huff, a dark trace of a laugh.
"That's the point, sweetheart," he slurred, his lips grazing your temple.
His voice was a dark, possessive silk.
"You’ve got me all wrong, darlin'. Never the saint. I never wanted to save ya. I just wanna drag you into my hell... keep you right here in the dark where no one else can see how beautifully mucked up you are."
He tilted your chin up, his eyes black and utterly devoid of regret.
"I love the mess. I love the decay. And I’m never lettin’ go of it."
He kissed you then, a deep, desperate, and slightly sadistic kiss that tasted of iron and tobacco. It was the kiss of a man who had claimed a ruin and intended to live in it forever.
As sleep finally began to pull at you, his last words drifted through the haze—a final, throbbing comfort.
You didn’t expect to find beauty in it. But you did.
"Sleep now, darlin'. We’ll see what you manage to ruin t'morrow."
(note: the more I write, the more ideas keep coming😽😋😋)
