the prince's pet
By: Anonymous
Summary:
It was only a temporary kidnapping. Kim Dokja would return Yoo Joonghyuk back to his rightful place on the throne after exactly three months of captivity.

===============================
Of course, none of Dokja's plans were ever slated to survive exposure to the enemy.

Notes:
to absolutely nobody's surprise, not everything i write is all sunshine and rainbows lmao. in fact, whoever described my works as "mostly wholesome" is so sweet and kind but will prob get the shock of their life cuz umm i say this all the time but i'm originally an incorrigible whump-lover and whump writer. wasn't lying. so, this is a few degrees above "crazy" and a shade darker than my so-called "usual" (which just means i reverted back to the basics hahaha)...i literally had this idea in a fever dream...it was a trippy ride...

PLZ PLZ PLZ heed the TAGS and the additional CWs down below!!!! don't like, don't read; plz know your own limits if any of these topics trigger you.

ADDITIONAL !TW!s: being manacled/chained/collared/gagged/blindfolded, self-imposed starvation (self-harm), suicidal thoughts
*btw none of this is sexually implicit nor explicit. just the usual prisoner-in-captivity spiel. surprisingly tame, considering all these warnings ig

Work Text:
Kim Dokja's task in this world-line was simple. Delay the main protagonist's run-in with his female lead for at least three months.

Dokja thought over his assigned mission while slurping up a bowl of stew and humming thoughtfully, before lazily concluding: "Alright. I'll just kidnap the bastard, lock him up for ninety days, and then set him free. Piece of cake."

In hindsight, Dokja could've done better. At the very least, he could've bothered to read over the main protagonist's data and realize that the so-called "bastard" that Dokja planned to merrily hoodwink like a chump was, in fact, a very, very scary guy who would cause Dokja endless troubles and headaches.

In Dokja's defense, being assigned one's 21,764th mission (and knowing many more were to follow unendingly) tended to screw over anyone's long-term mindset. Burnout was basically a part of the job description for being an underpaid, world-hopping actor on-call, and Dokja had just unfortunately hit his state of "don't know, don't care" at a rather inopportune time.

In summary: Dokja could only blame himself for traipsing right into the odd predicament he had personally concocted. Staring down at a growling man, who had an iron collar shackled around his throat and his arms wrenched back behind him in a triple-layered lock. A long chain fettered to the man's metal choker trailed along the carpeted floor and was fastened to a steel ring in a far corner of the bejeweled room.

"...You should be happy that I'm setting you up with such a fancy suite," Dokja finally decided to comment as his opening remark. "I can't believe I wasted all of these gold sconces and diamond chandeliers and velvet curtains and body-sized cushions on a prisoner I won't even see after ninety days."

Predictably, all Dokja got in response to that was a feral snarl, a snapping of teeth, and a sudden lunge at his slender, vulnerable throat-but Dokja had calculated his distance from the man named 'Yoo Joonghyuk' very well. The long chain tethering Yoo Joonghyuk to the ground snapped tight when Yoo Joonghyuk got within a finger's width from Dokja's smug face, but Dokja's smirk disappeared when he caught sight of the brief flash of suppressed pain flitting across Yoo Joonghyuk's face when the chain yanked harshly on the iron collar digging into his throat.

Dokja felt something uncomfortable settle heavily in his stomach for a moment, but thankfully, Yoo Joonghyuk was quick to swiftly school his brutish face back into that familiar look of hatred, resentment, and murderous intent. Dokja almost preferred that savage look over whatever humane expression the other had made seconds before.

"Right," Dokja coughed, turning his gaze away from the blazing bloodlust in Yoo Joonghyuk's seething eyes. "I'll get you something to eat."

(And if Dokja, after that, changed Yoo Joonghyuk's iron collar to something equally durable, but made of a specialized material that shifted and slid over Yoo Joonghyuk's skin as to not leave any permanent marks nor cause undue pain, then that was entirely Dokja's own business.)

If Dokja was hoping that the rest of his eight-nine days would pass as (relatively) incident-free as the very first day, then Dokja was to be proven sorely wrong.

"You bastard, will you just eat your food?! It's not poisoned, I swear!"

Grumbling under his breath about how he would never stoop so low as to poison anyone without prior meticulous planning-and, let's face it, his half-baked plan to kidnap the crown prince of this stupidly overpowered empire was leagues away from the scheming Dokja usually masterminded-Dokja blew on the spoon, took a sip, then angrily thrust it back into Yoo Joonghyuk's perpetually-angry face.

"Eat!"

Yoo Joonghyuk spat at him instead. And then he almost bit off Dokja's fingers.

After that, Dokja took to muzzling the guy with a pink-flowered handkerchief just to be petty.

It was hunger strike day eight, and Dokja had decided to starve himself just like Yoo Joonghyuk. He wasn't even sure what point he was trying to prove anymore. He was just...tired.

"Come on, bastard."

Dokja poked Yoo Joonghyuk's cheek with the spoon filled with a meat casserole Dokja had spent painstaking ages making from scratch. (All the years he'd spent world-hopping had honed his cooking skills to as much of a 'T' as it was ever going to be.)

"Look, I made this especially for you. Eat it already. You can't escape without your full strength, you know."

Yoo Joonghyuk just gave him his usual look of uncompromising disgust and turned his head away to glare a hole into the wall.

Well, Dokja had come to expect nothing less of the sunfish bastard. As crown prince, Yoo Joonghyuk was not only far better equipped to outlast Dokja in a hunger strike (as he had grown up with a far healthier body than Dokja had), but his magical reserves as the empire's second-best mage could power him through several more weeks of starvation if Yoo Joonghyuk chose to go the hard route. Dokja, on the other hand, was just a regular human, albeit one who was conscripted to fight the everlasting struggle of hopping around world-lines doing aimless tasks. Dokja's fatigue would be never-ending.

"Alright," Dokja sighed. "I won't eat either."

As Dokja carelessly dropped his spoon into the casserole dish and then got up to leave the room without taking the food with him, Dokja missed the strange look that flashed across Yoo Joonghyuk's face.

The first time Yoo Joonghyuk spoke to him, without growling at him or snapping at him or spitting at him, was on the seventeenth day of his hunger strike (and the tenth day of Dokja's own hunger strike).

"You look terrible."

Dokja huffed, the sound of mirth falling flat as Dokja had no energy to spare being snarky for once. "Yeah? Somehow you look the same...perfect as usual, you bastard..."

Dokja used a spoon to prod moodily at the plate of pasta he'd set out in front of Yoo Joonghyuk. His hand trembled as he finally lifted up a spoonful to hold it up in front of Yoo Joonghyuk's face. For once, Yoo Joonghyuk didn't glare spitefully or look disgusted at the way Dokja tried to feed him. Instead, the man had a rare expression of inscrutable stillness on his chiseled face, which made Dokja feel deeply uncomfortable as the staring contest stretched on, and Yoo Joonghyuk refused to move his gaze away from Dokja's increasingly shifty eyes.

"...Are you going to eat?" Dokja finally rasped, his words scratching past a painfully dry throat. "Or not?"

Part of Dokja suddenly hoped Yoo Joonghyuk would continue to refuse, so that Dokja could also refuse. The other man, with his magical training and status, could still last for many more days. Dokja, however, was still only human. No magic, no status. His danger zone had already been breached, and it wouldn't be long until...

Yoo Joonghyuk suddenly leaned forward and swallowed the bite of pasta in Dokja's upheld spoon.

Dokja's mouth dropped open in shock.

Yoo Joonghyuk slowly lifted his head to lock dark eyes with Dokja's wide ones. "Your cooking is terrible."

Dokja worked on a whim. He'd contemplated escaping the world-line by slipping Yoo Joonghyuk's location to a few of the empire's most trusted imperial knights, right before he succumbed to death by starvation, because he'd started feeling increasingly uncomfortable every time he saw Yoo Joonghyuk's face.

Now that Yoo Joonghyuk had suddenly taken the first step to making peace(?) with Dokja, Dokja found himself at a distinct loss.

What was he supposed to do now?

"Keep up your end of the bargain," Yoo Joonghyuk spat back at Dokja when Dokja took a second too long to stare at the man.

"I don't ever remember striking any kind of deal with you," Dokja automatically retorted, even while his mind continued to cycle through all their past interactions.

Yeah, nope, Dokja couldn't remember a turning point. What was this bastard planning?

Yoo Joonghyuk gritted his teeth. "I won't take another bite until you do."

Belatedly, Dokja remembered that he himself had taken up a hunger strike in response to Yoo Joonghyuk's obstinance a while back. Right, that's why his thoughts were so sluggish.

Dokja looked down at the used spoon he held, then back up at Yoo Joonghyuk's face.

"I'll go get another-"

Yoo Joonghyuk cut Dokja off with a frighteningly dark expression. "If you dare use another spoon to eat, I'll consider that dish poisoned."

What the hell is this bastard saying? Why is he being so picky?!

Dokja rolled his eyes, too tired to argue further. "Fine, have it your way! Don't regret it later!"

Then, just to prove his point, Dokja scooped up an obscene amount of pasta with the spoon he'd used to feed Yoo Joonghyuk, before obnoxiously stuffing the whole mountain into his mouth. He made sure to chew loudly, and openly, with little regard for the pieces of slobber-covered food that fell back onto the spoon.

Dokja grumbled, "Habbom (Happy)?" before he was suddenly scooping up another spoonful and thrusting it back into Yoo Joonghyuk's face. "Your turn, bastard!"

Yoo Joonghyuk just mildly ate up the spoonful offered, without keeping his eyes off the gleeful idiot in front of him. Throughout the entire meal, Dokja missed the fathomless darkness that flitted across Yoo Joonghyuk's unreadable eyes.

Days passed by like this. Dokja slowly regained his strength as he ate alongside Yoo Joonghyuk, though oddly enough, there remained a latent lethargy in Dokja's bones that he couldn't shake, which only seemed to grow more pronounced as time went on.

And then, one unassuming night weeks later, disaster struck without warning.

While slumped against the door to Yoo Joonghyuk's bedroom (cell), Dokja was startled from a fitful slumber by a hand wrapped around his throat. He barely had time to recognize those familiar dark eyes before a burst of pain at his temple forced him into unconsciousness.

Another new servant hire, whose briefing on what absolutely not to do on palace grounds had unfortunately been rescheduled far too late, was brutally slaughtered by the crown prince's merciless blade.

"I thought I made it clear. Nobody is to come into my chambers without my explicit permission. Is that understood?"

"Y-Yes, of course, Your H-Highness. It was our mistake."

"I don't want to repeat myself. Don't let it happen again."

The heavy doors to the crown prince's chambers shut on the continued stammered apologies of the palace staff.

Yoo Joonghyuk slowly turned to face the dim-lit room, his emotionless eyes roving over the tapestries and rugs and patterned drapes, before finally stopping on a slender figure sitting cross-legged on a large cushion in the corner of the room.

The figure had thin wrists shackled together in the front of its body, with a pale throat encircled by a thick, enchanted collar that was linked to a long, steel chain embedded into the far wall. A blindfold was tied around its eyes, and this lack of vision was what prompted the nervous flutter in the figure's voice as it seemed to register something in the air flow of the room.

"Y-Yoo Joonghyuk? Is that you?"

Joonghyuk didn't make a single noise as he approached. He only watched as the figure swallowed, as the figure's fingers fiddled with the loose threads of the pillow it clutched tightly in its grasp.

Slowly, Joonghyuk raised a hand to caress Kim Dokja's cheek gently, and Joonghyuk watched with a fathomless gaze as Kim Dokja shuddered at his touch.

Yes. This was how it should be.

Notes:
(literally, the only reason why this fic exists is cuz of the last two lines. yup. that was the entirety of my fever dream, joongdok 4ever baby ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ )

for the record, kdj consented to being tied-up, sorta. more like, yjh caught him and leashed him to his side cuz he was afraid kdj would run away (yjh tells himself it's "just for revenge" but boi who is he kidding), when in fact, kdj could've escaped any time he wished to (his mission was deemed a complete success - yjh never met lsh in this world-line cuz he was so preoccupied w kdj - so technically, kdj is free to leave this world whenever he wants to) but kdj decided to stay and "play along" cuz he's gotten attached to yjh too. duh. cuz kdj's a smitten little shit.