Fanfiction- Feed
Title: Feed
Fandom: Dracula
Characters/Pairings: Lucy/Arthur
Summary: Lucy inducts her betrothed into their new life.
Challenge: 30 Day Dark Fandom Challenge
Prompt: Cannibalism
Warnings: See above.
Where did Sawney Bean come from, his wife and their clan? Who would follow their husband onto the path of the devil, rear their children to eat nothing but the skin and meat of unwary travellers, and sleep peacefully in the night all the while? What dark urge could subsume conscience and warp one’s mind until only that of a beast remained?
Love.
“For some, it is easier to start this way. You will come to feast upon blood soon enough, but food is what you know. Meat. Taste it, and see what our marriage shall hold for us.”
Arthur sat at the long table beside his darling bride. Somewhere in the shadows their master watched them, but he was kind (or simply curious) enough to give them the false semblance of privacy for Arthur’s first meal. Lucy was wrong- a simple bite on the throat was far easier for him to conscience than what she had provided, but he would not say no. Once he had agreed to go with her, there was nothing he could ever say no to again.
Monsters prey upon the weak, and for Lucy that had turned her into a poisonous, devouring mother. At least she had already murdered the child she had placed upon the table before him, the poor thing she cut into with a knife like a roast boar. None for her- she had long since grown past the need- but for him it was a test. Not that she would say it out loud, but before he ceased being a hostage and became a wild creature, he would have to prove his loyalty. Would he do as he was told, or try to run? Would he be the devoted slave, or try to challenge his betters for dominance? How deep into the abyss would he hurl himself for the woman he loved?
How could they even question him?
Lucy placed before him a plate of something he refused to think about. She was no cook (something they’d once been fond of joking about) and the thing he was expected to eat was raw. His hand shook as he picked up the fork, and when he pushed it into the flesh he thought he might be sick. As steady as he could, he cut off a small piece with his own knife, and his eyes stung at the smell- or were those tears he had to hold back? She was watching him, he knew, and faltering in his path could not be tolerated.
He brought the fork up to his mouth and took a bite of what it held.
Later on, he would not remember what it tasted like. It made him nauseous, but that could have just as easily been the circumstances under which he fed. The first bite showed willingness, but when he looked up at Lucy, she still was not satisfied. Of course she wasn’t- he could always decide that what he’d done was too monstrous to continue and attempt to flee. The second bite would be what demonstrated loyalty, a sign that he was theirs forever.
Arthur took a second bite.
At that, he felt Lucy’s hands upon his shoulders, and when he turned to her, her expression had softened into one of indulgence. She leaned down her mouth to his throat, and Arthur waited for the sweet engulfment that meant he would never again be sickened by feeding.