Old Love: Four Dead Fairytales on Mosher Mag

There’s a special hell reserved for people still in love with the ones who destroyed them.

Not the kind of destruction that makes a good breakup ballad. No, this is the long, slow rot. The nights where you sleep on the bathroom floor. The mornings where you can’t tell if your ribs hurt because of what they said, or what they didn’t.

And that’s what we’re talking about here.

Four fairytales, cracked open and gutted.

Four sick little romances everyone pretends ended clean.

They didn’t.

Because old love? Real old love? It doesn’t fade. It corrodes.

Knight x Princess: The Saviour Complex from Hell

They tell it like this:

He rode in, gleaming. She was locked in a tower. He killed the dragon. She cried. They kissed.

Bullshit.

Here’s what really happened:

The knight needed to be a hero. Needed it like a junkie needs a vein. He saw her, a girl in a cage, and thought 'This is how I’ll matter.'

So he killed for her. Bled for her.

Stood in front of her enemies and screamed her name like a war cry.

But the dragon? She raised it. Fed it. Slept beside it.

She wasn’t trapped. She was bored.

She wanted someone stupid enough to break the rules.

And when he came?

Oh, she loved it. She loved the chaos, the blood, the fire.

She loved being the reason he burned the world down.

But the moment he laid the sword down, said, “I did it for you."

She flinched. Because love like that doesn’t feel safe.

It feels like being drowned in gold.

So she made him her champion. Her pet. Her wrecking ball.

And he played along. Because being useful was the closest he’d ever felt to being loved.

Now?

She rules with ice in her veins. He guards her gates, more statue than man. They meet in secret. Strip off the armour and the crown.

He touches her like she’s still sacred. She bites his lip until it bleeds.

She whispers, “Do you still love me?”

He lies. “Always.”

That’s the thing about this kind of love, it doesn’t die.

It just turns into a ritual.

Into ghosts fucking in candlelight, pretending they don’t hate themselves for staying.

Ten years later and the armour doesn’t fit. The metal’s rusted, and so is he.

He lives in the castle now, more servant than knight. The sword hangs over the fireplace. Decorative. Useless. So is he, mostly.

A ceremonial husband. A bodyguard with an empty bed.

She’s still queen. Still brutal. Her eyes are colder now. Her voice, sharper.

They haven’t kissed in five years.

They don’t fight, they’ve evolved past that.

Now they perform. Dinners. Appearances.

The occasional soft lie in public about “our journey.”

He still remembers the taste of her skin. She still remembers the sound he made when he cried in her lap after killing a man for her.

Neither says it out loud. They can’t.

But once a year, the night before her birthday, he comes to her chambers. They drink in silence. They undress like strangers. They make love like liars.

The next morning, she says, “Thank you.”

He bows.

And it starts again.

Nurse x Soldier: Trauma Bonded and Terminal

She found him in pieces.

Chest blown open, eyes already halfway to hell.

He said nothing. Just bled.

She didn’t flinch. She pressed her palms into his chest and dared him to die. Not on her watch. Not today.

He lived.

That was the real tragedy.

Because now? Now he owes her something he can’t name.

She saw him at his most broken, and he mistook that for love.

She didn’t fall for him. She fell for the fix.

The control. The ache. The illusion of purpose.

And he? He became addicted to her mercy.

To the way she said “you’re safe now” like a spell.

But the war followed him home. It always does.

He still flinches when doors slam. She still wakes up at 3AM to check his pulse.

Their whole relationship is a battlefield. Every fight is a reenactment. Every touch is triage.

They’ve tried leaving. Tried fucking other people. Tried silence. Nothing sticks.

Because when you’ve watched someone bleed out and then made them breakfast the next day, you don’t stop loving them.

You just hate them more clearly.

And still, they keep coming back.

They tried therapy. They tried divorce. They tried forgetting.

They failed all three.

They live in different houses now, five blocks apart. Still in the same town, because neither can bring themselves to leave the other’s orbit.

He remarried. A quiet woman who never asks about the night terrors.

She adopted a dog. Calls it “Captain.” Pretends she doesn’t still sleep with one hand on the pillow where his head used to be.

They don’t talk, not really.

But she still gets the call when he relapses.

He still gets the text when she can’t breathe.

They meet in parking lots and hospital hallways.

Say things like “you look well” and “I’m proud of you.”

Then they drive away screaming inside.

Once, just once, they met in a hotel room. No words. Just old skin and old scars. The kind of sex that doesn’t heal, but at least feels familiar.

They swore never again.

They’ve broken bigger promises.

Mermaid x Pirate: Salt, Teeth, and Sex That Tastes Like Revenge

She should have drowned him.

That’s the only regret she carries.

He pulled her up in a net, all blood and seawater, called her “beautiful” like it was a threat. She hissed. He laughed. She kissed him with her mouth full of broken shells.

They didn’t fall in love. They fell in debt.

He gave her fire. She gave him eternity. Neither of them meant it.

She took him below, showed him secrets no sailor should survive.

He whispered sweet nothings like a man who lies for a living.

They danced on deck while their crew mutinied. They carved their names into a coral reef. They drank poison together and dared each other not to blink.

It wasn’t love. It was madness. And it felt like godhood.

Then he left. Because of course, he did.

He always said he hated staying in one place too long.

She wasn’t a place. She was a storm. But he ran anyway.

Now she watches the horizon. Still.

Not for him, no. But for the version of herself that believed he’d stay.

If he came back?

She’d wrap him in seaweed. Drag him down. Kiss him while he choked on regret. And still, still, she’d cry when he stopped struggling.

That’s what love looks like when you’re cursed:

You don’t want them back. You want them to bleed first.

He washed up years ago, older, thinner, missing half a leg.

The sea took it. So did his pride.

She found him on the beach. Didn’t speak. Just stared.

He said, “I missed you.”

She said, “You should have drowned.”

But she helped him. She always does. Took him in. Cleaned his wounds. Let him sleep beside her one more time.

Now, he lives in a shack above the tide line.

Drinks too much. Writes poetry he never shows her.

She visits sometimes. Not out of love. Out of obligation. Out of rage.

They walk together in silence.

He reaches for her hand. She lets him. Then pulls away.

They both know it’s too late. But still,

Still, she listens for his breath when he sleeps.

Still, he looks at her like she’s the only god left.

They are not lovers anymore. They are not friends.

They are proof that some people survive shipwrecks just to drown slower.

Princess x Jester: Punchlines and Poison

He was the joke. The fool. The pretty mouth with nothing to lose.

She was the crown. The power. The girl who had everything except freedom.

They were never supposed to look at each other.

But oh, he looked. And she laughed.

And the whole kingdom missed the moment they started to fall.

It was subtle, at first.

A joke that cut too deep. A glance held a second too long. A hand brushing hers beneath a banquet table.

She wanted something real. He wanted something forbidden.

They never talked about love. That would’ve ruined it.

Instead, they talked in riddles. Touched only when drunk. Fucked like spies. Loved like addicts.

The court whispered. Of course they did. And one day, it caught up.

She had to choose. He had to disappear.

Now he rots in a tower somewhere, or a hole. Who knows.

She keeps his mask in a locked drawer.

Sometimes she opens it. Just to remember.

Not the sex. Not the laughter.

Just the moment she realised she’d never laugh like that again.

He was executed.

Not officially, of course. He “vanished.”

She never said a word. Never looked back. Not in public.

But ten years later, she still avoids the throne room on festival nights.

Still hears laughter where there’s none.

She married a prince. Boredom in human form. They have a child. A girl. She tells her stories about jesters who told too many truths.

The girl laughs. She doesn’t.

In her private wing, there’s a room no one enters. Locked. Quiet. Dusty.

Inside: a mask. A journal. A letter that says only:

“You were the only thing that made me real.”

She reads it every year on the day he disappeared.

Then she burns a candle.

Lets it burn all night.

And whispers: “I’m sorry.”

But it’s too late. It always was.

These aren’t just stories. These aren’t fairytales. They’re autopsies.

And if you’re still reading, it means one of these hit a little too hard.

Good.

That ache in your chest? That’s the scar. That’s proof you made it out.

Barely. But still.

These are dissections.

Of people who couldn’t let go.

Of people who called dependency  “destiny.”

Of people who tried to fuck the poison out, and only ended up more infected.

Ten years later, they’re still haunted.

Ask yourself this: Are you ten years before the end? Or ten years after?

Because if you’re not careful, you won’t just read these stories. You’ll live them.

And no one walks out of these clean.

For the freaks, by the freaks.

Thanks for reading. Stay strange.

✦ moshermag.com