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[powerhungry]

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[powerhungry]

[ And then there's this: the fact that she treats him like something precious, as much father as the last cog needed to make an engine purr, a toy as beloved in adulthood as it had been when she was still a child. Something— someone worth treating affectionately and holding close. Granted, he's always known that to be the miracle of her love. It doesn't sand her sharper edges down so much as it provides a lens into the bright colors of her existence, those soaring highs and lows the only possible explanation for the depth of her feeling and the wild spread of its according blast radius. Not destruction but new life, even if she doesn't see it that way.

For a moment, she's all there is. The warm weight of her in his arms, her fingers spidering over the front of his shirt. His own wander — through her hair, over her cheek, through the gaps in her dress, like he's mapping her out. ]

To us, [ whispered against the bridge of her nose. A necessary echo. Then again, like he hadn't registered it the first time, ] To us.

I'll be—

[ He pauses — to drink her in, to adjust the shape of his mouth to words he's not used to saying, the same way he's learned to adjust the way he moves around her. More open, more tender; clearer, to give her what she deserves, to leave less room for miscommunication. His hand finds hers, holding it still over his chest. When he steps back, their fingers are still intertwined, tugging her gently toward the couch.

He thinks, I love you. He says, ] I'll always be good to you.

[smudgy]

[ To us to us to us. Agreement. Adulation. The partner she’s always needed but never had. Balancing her high energy with his low menace, her outbursts with his steadfastness. The splay of his fingers in the slats of her dress, sinewy, only calloused where he holds his pen. More obviously rough where she feigns softness. Maybe he couldn’t see it before, but surely he sees it now: That unlike the flimsy butterflies in the club who pretend to be tough, to be dangerous, she’s the real deal. He made sure of it.

For the first time, she wants to tell him everything she did. That she killed half the damn council. That she sent their toxic gas back the fuck up where it came from. It wasn’t on purpose, really, but it still matters. She didn’t let it die with him. But he says, I’ll always be good and her thoughts scatter like ash. How long is always, for a dead man? What’s good to monsters like them? One hundred childish questions in her mind, plaguing her heart, and she voices none of them, following the pull of his hand to the sofa.

Instead, she lilts— ]

You think I mind when you’re bad?

[ when he fights for control, for her, that means she’s worth the trouble. The shouting, the attention, the troll of a babysitter (Sorry, Sevika). She fights for him, too, even when it isn’t necessary — as if she has control of any of it, like the impulse now, to push him to the cushions and climb atop his lap. Thought, then done, in a violet blur. ]

S’not like I know how to be good.

[ All she knows is this, the crush of their mouths, the drag of her nails on his throat. She can only be sweet for so long, at least with him. ]