#illumioc

You can read it here

"I held onto the only one that mattered---Illumi Zoldyck. And he, having never been held this way before, embraced this unknown marvel and stilled as if anticipating this love to bloom like snow drifting down on the river bed. He surrendered himself to the lull of the waves and the pull of my devotion, something he nor I thought possible, and waited for me to carry him away." - Psyche Moiraio

LINKS:

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32521429/chapters/80663479

ffnet:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13912379/1/Where-Shadows-Touch

Letter from Chapter 1: The Heir 

Illumi is quick to recognize other people's faults, and is aware of the hurt committed against him by his own family. But he is simultaneously so brainwashed to whole heartedly believe that every horrific thing that has been done to him serves a greater purpose, and cannot be abuse if it was all done out of love. Despite it being possessive and controlling and unbearably suffocating.

Illumi doesn't know that:

Love shouldn't hurt.

Love shouldn't make you constantly sneak out in the middle of the night and return in the morning without anyone knowing.

Love shoudn't make you doubt who you are, disregard your own reality, or cast blame on yourself.

Love shouldn't force you to constantly change who you are to appease everybody else.

Love shouldn't make you hyperviligant of anything that you could say or do that would 'set off' your family member in a fit of rage.

Love's true meaning shouldn't be twisted and warped to make sense of everything that is done to a child that is born into the Zoldyck Family.

Here is a snippet from the newest chapter of my Illumi DID fanfic. This chapter is very trauma heavy (Kikyo does not look good in this chapter. No one in the Zoldyck Family is blameless.) Illumi continously disregards all the evidence that he has been dissociating for years. He is heavily brainwashed, blindsighted to his own trauma, and denies the existence of another identity who had the courage to break through to Illumi and speak directly to him. (AMNESIA BARRIERS BETWEEN THEM ARE THICK!)

"There was blood underneath Illumi’s fingernails. He killed someone. 

Presumably. 

Spilled blood was an assassin’s tell-tale sign of hands unmistakably soaked in death, but this time…an incessant doubt lingered in the back of the young Zoldyck’s mind as he stared absentmindedly scraping away the dried up blood with a sunken, hollow gaze. That thought alone wasn’t enough to frighten him like it ought to. Occasionally killing a target and not clearly remembering the act of whose life he ended, how or when or where, didn’t bother him. Some kills were hazier than others, but getting the job done was all that truly mattered to him, and he always carried out every kill with lethal efficiency. He told himself that it wasn’t necessary to remember every one of his target’s final moments of last screams, helpless pleas to spare their lives, or every panicked attempt to persuade him to change his mind. All of these were meaningless details that never concerned him and were better off forgotten.

Illumi was the eldest son of the infamous White Wolf, Silva Zoldyck, and his education was expected to be nothing less than brutal, cutting edge, and disciplinary, which quickly accelerated him into becoming one of The Bureau of Deadman’s shining protegees rising above his generation. He accelerated through his studies at a very young age and began working in his Family’s generational and deadly trade. They called him a born genius, but Illumi called himself a molotov cocktail where tireless ambition meets iron discipline. Volatile and exceptionally brilliant. He had an ingrained level of flawless accuracy that he was only able to achieve through extreme and vigorous training. Though the training of the infamous Zoldyck assassins remains unknown to the outside world, it is known that they are taught never to fail, for even the slightest mistake on their part could mean certain death. Perfection was absolute, and by the tutelage and guiding hand of his father, Illumi was molded into the perfect assassin."

Fanfic on AO3 : Where Shadows Touch [LINK]

Illumi fell asleep beneath the flower garden again, but that doesn’t stop Psyche from watering her flowers.

I think it is generally undisputed that Illumi is a character who has endured a horrendous amount of abuse that shaped him, his beliefs, morals, mental health, and many other aspects of his life. For me (this is just my headcanon) he is also a character case study of a boy displaying a complex dissociative disorder.

Here is a snippet from the new chapter I'm writing about how his trauma did not leave him unscathed. He began to more obviously notice his dissociations when he turned 18, despite him having these symptoms (and others) since early childhood:

"A white fog clouded around Illumi's peripheral vision when he was suddenly startled by what ambushed him across the glass. Not what, but who. Illumi’s mouth twisted downward at the sudden reflection of a strange boy. The boy had an unfocused, vacant stare that seemed to look beyond Illumi and into somewhere far off in the distance. The boy’s stare was frozen, and possessed a horrified emotion, which was foreign to Illumi, lurking in its depths that should have never remained permanent. The blackness of his large eyes created a disturbing and stark contrast against his white scleras as well as his snow pale skin. His long, pitch black hair was slick and swept down to his shoulders with its edges curling up slightly at the ends, orderly with the exception of his tousled bangs and loose strands falling across his forehead, resembling cracks in marble. There was only one other color that painted his face. Red. An unsettling bruised red stained the boy’s lips and around the rims of his eyes, making him look sickly rather than well-nourished like he ought to be. The features of the boy’s face were so glaringly angular and could have been carved from stone, that Illumi was afraid one touch alone would cut him deep. The boy was also lifelessly still, bordering catatonic. If it weren’t for the occasional blink to break the monotony, Illumi would have been convinced he was staring at a corpse. The boy tilted his head when Illumi tilted his head. The boy blinked when Illumi blinked. They mimicked each other in perfect unison, unclear of who was the puppeteer that pulled whose strings. The boy in the glass stared back, as if he too was appalled by the strange reflection in front of him. Illumi gulped down his growing panic, reminding himself that logically it could only be him. He knew he had to be the boy, there was no other truth, but all his reasoning could not erase the deep unsettling tremor inside him. He was unable to convince himself that the stranger staring back at him was himself and was equally horrified to see him.  

Illumi Zoldyck could not, for the life of him, recognize his own reflection."

...

*Illumi Zoldyck going back through the McDonald's drive thru because they got his wife's order wrong*

this is a joke but he might actually do this