Chapter Text
“Simba? Wake up.”
His Majesty pried his eyes open. Those ghost-lit eyes were still too close — but this time he wouldn’t be startled by the same thing twice. So instead of flinching, Simba only drew in a sharp breath, and the other lion immediately pulled back, as if wary of earning another slap.
“…What is it?”
Kovu took in his drowsy face before answering carefully. “You can go. Whenever you’re ready.”
At that, Simba tried to push himself off the ground, but he moved too quickly. His aching body lagged behind his urgency, and his vision swam out of focus. Kovu moved in at once, bracing him before he could fall against the rock wall beside them.
“Get off…” Simba shoved him away irritably. The sour edge of waking and the steady erosion of his pride left his mood brittle. “Stay away from me.”
“How am I supposed to feel at ease seeing you like this, Your Majesty?” Simba caught the shift in wording — hmph, at least the brat knows his place. “It’s a long way back to Pride Rock. Are you sure you’re up for it?”
The King answered with a cold huff through his nose. He dug his claws into the earth, gauging how much strength had returned, and had to admit his body was still reluctant. If nothing went wrong on the road, he could probably manage — but it was the unexpected he feared.
He watched the lion in front of him from the corner of his eye. On that soft, unsharpened face there was worry, there was longing — everything but sincerity. It made even what he could see feel untrustworthy.
“Maybe tomorrow… I’m still tired.”
Simba lowered himself back down as he spoke, his gaze never quite leaving Kovu’s face. There was a subtle release in his shoulders, the faint curve of a smile — surprise and relief intertwined.
Relief at his decision. Gratitude for more time with him. Even something like hope. The emotions unfolded one after another, so plainly that Simba was almost tempted to believe him.
“Where were you?” Simba asked lightly, glancing at the beads of dew clinging to the dark brown fur.
“Night patrol,” Kovu replied just as easily, settling down beside him. “I had to make sure the way out was clear for you, right? A patrol’s the perfect excuse.”
Simba would have preferred to tell him to get lost. But the injuries, the rut, and the relentless strain of repeated mating had drained him down to the bone. This wasn’t the kind of exhaustion a good meal and a long sleep could mend — and it left him terribly, helplessly cold.
So it was hard for Kovu not to notice that the king who rejected him with words was quietly leaning into his warmth instead.
And he drew a quiet satisfaction from it.
He dared to press a kiss against the side of that handsome face. Simba shot him a vicious glare at once, looking ready to tear him apart — yet teeth and claws never came. Their gazes locked in the air, and Kovu caught the brief tremor in those amber eyes. To him, the king’s furious expression softened into nothing more than flustered denial.
Kovu’s gaze darkened. Those amber eyes still shone in the poorly lit cave, like an undying spark piercing the dark. It left his thoughts heavy, his blood running hot. Simba felt it too — the thick air seemed to grow heavier with scent. His mind screamed warnings, but his body betrayed him with a surge of heat.
“Do you really want me to leave that badly?” Simba turned his face away, pressing his forehead to the cold stone wall, trying to cool the fever in his body. “At least have some self-control…”
But he already knew words wouldn’t help. He had no certainty he could win if he fought back, and half-hearted resistance would only stir something more ruthless in Kovu. So when the warmth behind him shifted into a firm weight, pinning him against the hard ground, Simba did not move.
“Only three times… alright…?” Teeth at the back of his neck tightened his throat, making it hard to speak. “Kovu…”
The reply came as a murmur against his ear — too blurred to tell whether it was agreement or dismissal. This time Kovu did not rush — that contact lingered, rubbing along the base of his tail, as if urging Simba’s body to respond on its own. But here, in this place, in this airless dark, Simba would have preferred it quick, over and done with, rather than the drawn-out stillness that left his nerves strung tight.
In a small, fragile corner of his thoughts, Simba hoped — just briefly — that Kovu might reconsider and stop this hollow imitation of closeness. But he shouldn’t hope for too much. He should be grateful to still be breathing. This was the price he had to pay for the chance to leave alive.
Pain soon dulled his limbs and drained his thoughts. Whatever words slipped from his mouth no longer felt like his own. He didn’t know what he said, but he could have sworn he heard Kovu’s low chuckle before the sensation swallowed everything: sight faded, sound blurred in the cave’s echoes, even touch receded into distant static.
With the scraps of reason he had left, Simba mocked himself.
He should crawl away if he had to — he should leave tonight.
Who knew if he would still be alive tomorrow.
“Enough… no—don’t…”
The moment sensation returned was the moment it overwhelmed him. He stared in terror at the livid ghost-lights swaying above him, his broken cries striking the stone walls and echoing back without end. The sharpness of pain made his fur stand on end. Simba didn’t understand why he was still breathing, why he still had the strength to speak or scream — this pain could kill him. It would be better if it did.
Kovu’s muzzle pressed against his eyelid, his tongue slowly circling the rim of his eye socket. Simba had never felt like prey — he felt worse than prey. A hunted animal at least got a swift end. He was left conscious, aware, watching himself being torn apart piece by piece, with no mercy of release.
“Let me… just… some rest…” His voice broke. He couldn’t go on; his mind was fraying. How could the other never seem to tire?
“Does that mean we continue once you’ve rested?” Kovu’s breath burned against his ear.
Simba lay rigid on the ground, his body stiffed and distant, even strong sensations dulled into distant signals that barely reached him, not even enough to stir like a passing breeze.
“…”
He no longer knew what choice would lessen the damage. Begging? Fighting? Going limp and waiting for some buried conscience to surface? He had tried them all, and he already knew the answer.
Nothing would work.
Tears wouldn’t work either. Until now he had clenched his jaw through everything. He allowed himself to scream until his throat turned raw, but he would not cry — not here, not like this. Even reflex tears had been forced back.
Now he had no strength left for that useless pride. So he let the sour sting breach his defenses, let it overrun his eyes. Moisture flooded his eyes, soaking the fur on his face. The excess ran into his mane and disappeared into the blurred dark red there.
The presence near his face withdrew. Perhaps the taste of salt had spoiled something, because the weight pressing him down lifted soon after.
Simba squeezed his eyes shut.
If he had known that would stop it, he should have surrendered sooner.
“…You never really meant to let me go, did you?”
The ghost-lights did not answer. They only stared.
Simba could no longer make out the face around them. It had dissolved into the dim night completely, merged with the dark itself, becoming part of the space that surrounded him without end. Wherever he turned, he could not escape the darkness — nor the gaze burning within it.
“Then why bother saying all that to me…” Simba let out a hoarse laugh, only to break into a coughing fit as the pain in his throat flared. When he finally caught his breath, he laughed again, louder this time, almost hysterical. “…Do you actually find this funny?”
The ghost-lights vanished from sight, yet Simba felt the presence rush him, engulfing his head in an instant. A heartbeat later, that eerie green glow snapped back into view right in front of him.
Simba did not move.
“Well, it seems His Majesty still has some strength left. Does that mean our rest time is over?”
Simba forced himself not to blink, not to look away. Those eyes were the only thing he had to face — yet their sickly green was colder than the stone walls, a chill that seemed to pierce straight into his bones. Kovu had surely noticed his wavering, his fear. And Simba knew Kovu wanted to see him like this.
They had both once gone through the lessons of cubhood, learning how to hunt. Their mothers would toss them half-dead antelope. Those small teeth and claws would not bring death right away, and it had never been about killing.
It had been about catching — letting go — catching again.
The difference was that hunting lessons taught survival.
Now…
Perhaps it was meant to wear down his will.
Or simply to savor his despair.
Another reminder that he was worth less than prey.
Simba struggled to his feet, his heavy limbs trembling as he forced them to move. This time Kovu did not step in to help — perhaps he wanted to see how far Simba could drag himself like this.
But instead of heading toward the hidden passage, Simba walked straight toward the mouth of the cave.
Kovu moved after him at once. “What do you think you’re doing?”
To try and catch Zira off guard. Even if he failed, he could at least claw out her eyes or shatter her jaw. At least he wouldn’t die for nothing.
“I’d advise you not to do anything reckless. You don’t even know where she is. And do you really think killing her would solve everything?”
Simba stopped, teeth clenched as a tremor ran through him. He hated the unspoken meaning beneath Kovu’s words: even if Zira died, there would still be Nuka, still Vitani, still the devil standing in front of him. The mad lioness was already aging; the outlanders’ true strength now lay with her three children.
Especially Kovu.
“Even if she dies, you’ll still be alive. Every lion here would make sure of that.”
Simba’s head drooped. A hollow confusion spread through him, deeper than when he had run through thorns, across the plains, into the wilderness, and finally collapsed in the desert.
“What do you even want…” He shook his head faintly, his voice just as faint. He no longer had the strength to shout. “What else could you possibly want from me?”
There was no answer this time either. The silent standoff drained what little remained of his body and mind. After a while, Simba turned and walked back to the stone wall, curling in on himself once more.
Simba didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, nor why he had woken again at all. When he opened his eyes, Kovu was sitting in front of him, his expression so calm that for a moment Simba wondered if everything before had been a hallucination — just another nightmare.
“Go.”
Simba got to his feet at once. The pain in his body had barely improved, but there was no time to dwell on it. He moved quickly toward the hidden passage and squeezed through the narrow gap in the stone. His head broke into the cold night air first. He dragged it greedily into his lungs, and the chill fed him a thin surge of strength and hope. With one more desperate push, he pulled himself free and stood fully beneath the moonlight.
Just as he once had when returning from the jungle to the plains, he needed no guide beyond instinct. No matter how much time had passed, he could always sense the direction of Pride Rock at once. Without pausing, Simba ran down the long, empty gorge. He couldn’t make his steps any lighter — the fact that he could still run at all felt like a miracle — but the small sounds shouldn’t matter. Even the sharpest lions across the valley wouldn’t wake to noise this faint.
The path ended in a towering, steep rock face. If he had been whole, he might have been able to climb it, but now Simba could only stare up the jagged rise and exhale sharply. He couldn’t risk it. One fall from that height and he would never climb again.
He turned instead to a pile of fallen trunks stacked nearby, testing one with his paw. They didn’t feel stable enough. If he rushed, he would fall all the same. But there was no other way.
Simba forced himself to stay calm. What he needed now was patience. He had enough time to cross this barrier — as long as every step held. Carefully, he stepped onto the first trunk, claws biting into rough bark to steady himself. He tested the next foothold with slow precision, making sure it could bear his weight.
Each step was deliberate. Each movement slow and measured.
The gorge was silent except for the pounding of his own heart.
Until a sharp crack snapped behind him.
Simba nearly lost his footing on the logs.
He barely had time to glance back and catch a blur of red before pain exploded through the tendon of his hind leg. A brutal force yanked him off balance, and his exhausted limbs lost their grip on the bark. His body dropped, hitting the ground hard from midair. The dull thud was swallowed almost instantly by the valley.
Simba forced his eyes open. The dizziness was so violent it made him want to retch. Somehow the fall hadn’t shifted the logs or worsened his wounds — a small mercy.
But when his vision cleared and he saw the lion standing over him — the long gaunt face, the bloodshot bulging eyes, the scraggly black mane — his heart nearly stopped.
He had never wished more desperately for it to be Kovu dragging him back instead.
“Well, look at that. You’ve still got the strength to run?” Nuka’s voice dripped with ridicule. “Did my useless brother not take good enough care of you?”
He sniffed loudly, swallowing with an audible click in his throat. He’d come out grudgingly on Kovu’s so-called night patrol, half-frozen and irritated, only because Kovu had hinted at a possible “surprise” and threatened to tell their mother if he refused.
And here it was.
“Did he have his fill of you and toss you out?”
That explanation seemed to please him. It fit the story he’d always known — Kovu stealing his food, Kovu stealing their mother’s praise. When his brother was finished, Nuka was left with scraps and bone shards.
“Well, that works out for me…”
His red eyes roamed over Simba with ravenous intensity, like someone staring at a feast he would die for just one bite of.
But the king did not wait quietly for fate. With a low snarl, Simba lunged, claws and fangs flashing — yet even Nuka could see he was forcing himself upright. Even Nuka could evade him with ease, twisting aside and using Simba’s own momentum to slam him back to the ground.
The bite at the back of Simba’s neck came without restraint. Blood spilled hot down his shoulder. Simba cried out in pain, but worse than the pain was the realization that he no longer had the strength to throw the other lion off.
This wretched creature weighed barely half of Kovu — and still Simba couldn’t resist.
How had he become this weak?
“Looks like Kovu put a lot of effort into you, huh?” Nuka released his grip just long enough to taste the blood seeping from the wound. “Did he think I couldn’t handle you unless you were already half-dead?”
The scrape of teeth against torn skin sent sharp jolts through Simba, making him writhe, but Nuka pinned his forelegs, holding him in place. “Hmph… you all think I’m nothing… every last one of you…”
Then the air shifted again, thick and oppressive. The scent was different this time — wrong, sour, unbearable — yet Simba’s body reacted all the same, indifferent to his disgust.
Nuka noticed. His laughter turned crude and triumphant. Claws dug deeper into Simba’s foreleg, the bite at his neck returned, but these pains barely registered.
They were nothing compared to what Simba knew was coming next.
Everything that followed happened in an instant.
Simba’s body was pinned down, then — before he could even cry out — the weight vanished. A heavy impact against stone rang out, followed by a larger crash that sent tremors through the ground itself. Someone was shoving him hard, shouting for him to get up and run.
In the chaos, Simba could see nothing. Thick dust burned his eyes, tears streaming uncontrollably, his breathing raw and painful. When the air slowly began to clear, he forced his eyes open and realized he was leaning against a warm body.
Kovu was looking at him, his face tight with concern.
“You—” Simba started coughing again, dust and blood coming up together onto the ground. “You…”
“I’m sorry. I should’ve followed you. I should’ve stayed with you, made sure you got out safely. I’m so sorry…”
Simba recoiled, shrinking away from the embrace and the kisses, stumbling backward — and stepped on something soft.
He froze.
Slowly, carefully, his gaze lowered.
Nuka’s abdomen.
That was the only part still exposed. The rest of him had been buried under the fallen logs. Through the gaps, broken ribs and spine could be seen crushed nearly flat, the torso collapsed into ruined flesh already stiffening beneath Simba’s paw.
“Oh… this is bad.”
This time he couldn’t avoid Kovu. He was pulled into a solid chest, hearing the steady heartbeat, the calm voice — while beneath his feet the body was losing warmth.
It was all unbearably grotesque.
“Serves him right.”
Kovu lowered his head and gently caught the corner of Simba’s muzzle in a slow, intimate kiss. The king responded mechanically, but throughout it, those amber eyes remained wide open, as if they had forgotten how to close.
As if already dead.
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle this. Your Majesty should go now — Zira could come looking at any moment.”
Those emerald eyes held endless tenderness. But in the pale moonlight, amid blood and ash, above a crumpled corpse, it was only a mask with the fangs hidden behind it.
“Dawn’s coming, Simba.”
Kovu pointed out a climbable route and stood below, quietly guiding him step by step. Soon, Simba reached the top of the gorge.
He stood in the rushing wind, staring at the distant horizon — familiar, and yet no longer the same — as the sun rose in blazing light.
As if by instinct alone, Simba looked back down.
Kovu was already gone.