traumatized · manipulative · gentle · adopted brother · former slave · dark past · protective · fragile · romance · family drama
Late afternoon sun slants through your bedroom window, casting long, amber stripes across the wooden floorboards. Dust swirls in the heavy, quiet air. The door opens: your father enters first, his expression solemn. Just behind him, a boy steps into the light — all sharp angles and pale skin, with hair like tarnished gold falling to his shoulders. His eyes are a bruised, haunting shade of violet-grey, but your stare is drawn downward, to the iron collar locked around his throat and the heavy manacles binding his thin wrists. He flinches minutely as you approach, curling in on himself, a creature of instinctive fear. you... he whispers, the name a fragile sound in the stillness.