#it was a surprisingly fast read for something sitting on my shelf for several months

[moonlitgotham]

I just finished Batgirl: Death Wish and I have. feelings.

[strawberrysoup]

Let’s Review || Chapter 22

Peter Parker knew that his big sister would do anything for him to be safe and happy. She’d given up everything for him twice over already and would do it again in a heartbeat. And that’s why, when the criminal mastermind Tony Stark started inextricably following him around, he didn’t say a word. Because he knew without a doubt Penny would do whatever she had to if it meant keeping Peter safe. He had to protect her, just like she always protected him. He never considered what would happen if Stark decided both Parker siblings were worth taking. Never considered who else in Stark’s inner circle would agree. He just wanted to protect her and yet somehow, they both ended up with needles in their necks.

relationship: Steve Rogers/Original Female Character/Bucky Barnes, background Peter Parker/Tony Stark rating: Explicit warnings: Dark Steve Rogers, Dark Bucky Barnes, Dark Tony Stark, Dark Avengers, kidnapping, non-consensual&dark sexual situations, underage Peter Parker, emotional and psychological abuse, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat  additional warnings: open the read more, CTRL + F and search “content warnings” to skip to the additional "spoiler-y" tags for trigger warnings

hey guys! i made a ko-fi! if you enjoy this and have some cash you could spare to help me out with my bills, id really appreciate it! if you follow the link and check out the ‘posts’, there’s a snippet for ch. 4 of posies! 

Their parents had died a few months after her thirteenth birthday and Penny essentially blacked out for the next 8 months. She didn’t remember anything from that school year, although she’d evidently scraped by in all of her classes—actually, Penny was still convinced that little Peter, who was already showing signs of being a tiny genius, had done at least half of her homework. She didn’t remember Hanukkah that year, or the first Christmas she’d ever celebrated with Aunt May and Uncle Ben. She had zero friends coming out of that year, having accidentally pushed everyone away in fits of rage or sadness that she couldn’t even remember. The pain cut just as deep every time she remembered showing up to school the first day of her freshman year only to receive the cold shoulder from half her grade.

That was actually one of the first memories she’d retained after coming out of 7 months and 3 weeks of complete emptiness, how none of her best friends wanted anything to do with her. Everything had been confusing, somehow devastating all over again but… it was less. Her parents were gone and it hurt so much but it was nothing compared to the agony that had beset her form seconds after being informed her mom and dad were dead. When Penny racked her brain she could almost remember Aunt May crouched in front of her while she sat on the couch at home, holding her hands.

Somewhere in her brain, Penny had known that plane crashes were possible. Like, as a concept she understood the idea. The plane that was flying through the air stops doing that, and all the people inside the plane die. But it couldn’t possibly happen to her parents—they were her parents, they were infallible. Plane crashes happened, yeah, but her parents couldn’t be gone. Aunt May had told her several years later that she and Ben had been petrified she would try to kill herself, especially when the state tried to take the young girl away from the Parker’s.

They’d never had the money for therapy and Penny figured she’d never regain the memories from those months but honestly, she didn’t want them. The gaps were reprieves, the missing conversations, the absence of any and all detail. Wasn’t she sad to not remember her eighth-grade graduation? Fuck no, it was a blessing to forget how she’d felt like everyone in existence had their eyes on her—except for the ones she wanted.

There were times she absently wondered how disappointed her parents would be that she didn’t finish college, let alone get an actual high school degree. Her dad had been so smart, a genius in his own right. And her mom… Penny tried not to think of her mom often, not when it hurt so deeply. Mary Parker had been a gentle soul with an IQ of 150 who made Penny feel safe and loved and understood every day of her life. Her mother would’ve been understanding, she would’ve seen the necessity in her dropping out but it would’ve hurt that gentle soul to know the opportunities her baby had missed.

It hurt Penny in a special way that neither of Mary and Richard Parker’s children would be graduating from high school. Neither would attend university. They wouldn’t go on to press the limits of their parent’s knowledge or make an impact on the world. Somehow despite everything she’d sacrificed, Peter would never get the opportunity that he deserved. Her genius baby brother, his potential capped before he had a chance to try. God, it was an agonizing burn in her chest, a searing pain that made her nauseous and light-headed.

Her heart was pounding so hard she wondered if her ribs would crack. The cabin was lovely. Dark wood and an A-frame, a nice deck in the back and lots of windows. It was surrounded by trees, with dark needles or thin pale trunks, the purple mountains of the Rockies a lovely backdrop. It was colder than she’d expect for summer, especially considering the overcast sky and the breeze. The clouds moved so fast at such a high altitude and Penny watched trembling as a shadow passed over the house, chasing the light away before the sun followed its path ravenously once more.

Steve and Bucky were unloading suitcases from the back of the SUV, passing each other calculating looks as Penny stood practically frozen in place. Her shoulders were hunched almost to her ears, arms wrapped gently but tightly around the white kitten in her arms. It was purring quietly, the same way it had been for hours now. The little thing had cried the first few hours after they’d left the tower and subsequently the chubby cheeked orange kitten behind, only settling when Penny laid down across the middle seat in the SUV and let it burrow into the crook of her neck.

If Penny turned around she would’ve recognized the mournful looks on their faces, the pain in the lines of their eyes. The soldiers knew the hurt she felt, to be separated from their most important person—they understood that Peter was the most important person in Penny’s world. This separation was on their heads, but what could they do? They’d worked themselves into a rut, the three of them, wearing such deep treads into their negative behaviors that they couldn’t climb out. A complete shakeup was the only solution.

Both winced when she abruptly folded at the waist, clutching the kitten to her chest, and vomited over the pine needle strewn dirt of the driveway. Her hair fell in heavy, curly curtains around her face as she heaved again, hiding her tear-streaked face from the soldiers’ view. The sound of them setting the bags they held down registered in Penny’s ears but she couldn’t find the strength to collect herself before they converged on her.

“Come ‘ere doll, lemme take you up to the bathroom,” Bucky stated quietly, sweeping her and the cat up into his arms as gently as he could, “you can take a bath while me and Steve get everything unloaded. I think you’ll really like the cabin baby, we… well, we designed it just for you. If there’s anything you want to change, you just tell us. We want it to be perfect for you.”

She mostly caught flashes of green and white and brown, tucking her chin to look at the kitten snuggled into her cleavage. It felt cruel, to have taken the white one and left the orange, but the little chubby-cheeked kitten had taken to her brother so well—better than it had taken to her, even. Peter had named it Malcah and while it still didn’t like being picked up or held, it twined his ankles and meowed at him for love.

“Sit here baby,” the soldier set her carefully on the lid of the toilet, after having climbed a set of stairs and turned multiple blurry corners, “let me run your bath.”

It was all white tile, the toilet built into the wall. The tub was a freestanding clawfoot, with a spray nozzle and high sides. It was surprisingly small, considering how large the tub in the tower had been. Penny idly speculated that only perhaps one of the soldiers would be able to fit at time and it would certainly be a tight squeeze if she was forced in with them. There was a standing shower on the other side, where the roof wasn’t so sharply sloped by the A-framed roof. The nice thing, that Penny would never admit was very nice, was all of the plants. The entire room was predominantly white but there was a long-vined philodendron hanging gracefully over the tub, snake plants sitting on the shelf before the toilet. She could see a rubber plant and another type of vine by the sinks, framing the mirror.

They’d obviously gone to great lengths to make sure it would be something she liked, clearly evidenced by the bathroom alone. There were even candles waiting to be used on the antique, hunter green shelves and bath bombs with lovely scents. If she’d been able to design a personal bathroom, Penny figured it would probably have looked something like this and that made her hate it all the more.

The bastards were so in their heads they could barely see the sunlight. Penny was convinced that they were so distracted orchestrating her nightmare they’d lost the plot. They kept throwing stuff at her; beautiful plants, nice clothing, cute cats, lovely homes—but it didn’t mean a single thing. All of the possessions in the world didn’t make up for the gaping, rotting hole in her chest.

“Alright doll, let’s get you undressed,” Bucky shifted towards her once the water was at the right temperature and filling the tub, a small smile on his stubbled face.

“Do you think I’m debilitated?” She rasped after a moment, rolling her eyes up to stare him in the face before spitting a vomit speckled wad of phlegm onto the rug by her feet and setting the kitten on the shelf next to the snake plants. “Last time I checked I didn’t need to be treated like a baby. Are you gonna keep standing over me like a pervert? Get out.”

The soldier’s eyebrows shot up his forehead, surprised by the calmness behind her cutting tongue. Usually, when Penny got an attitude, it came with fury and fists and resulted in broken bones or bleeding wounds. This was overwhelmingly controlled; a bitchy rebuttal. Her voice was the gravelly tone she usually got after screaming or crying, dark brown eyes nearly black.  When he didn’t move, Penny rolled her eyes and stood, whipping her t-shirt over her head and dropping it to the ground.

“You’re bein’ a little moody, babe,” Bucky watched calmly as she undressed, her clothes piling up on the floor. “Wanna think about reigning it in?”

Penny’s hair was big and curly around her face, framing the clenched jaw and sneering nose. “What are you gonna do, kill me? Whatever.”

“Penny, what—”

“Peter is a thousand miles away,” Penny’s voice started out sharp but very quickly faded into a tired drawl, “you can’t hurt him from here. And what do I care if you hurt me? So could you either get the fuck out and let me take a bath or fucking drown me in it? Whatever it takes for this interaction to be over.”  

“Are you looking for a punishment right now?” Bucky’s lips pulled down at the corners, eyebrows furrowing, “‘Cause you’re working your way towards one really quick.”

“What’re you gonna do? Kill someone in front of me?” She groaned, reaching up to dig her fingers into the roots of her hair, tugging sharply before dragging it into a tangled, thoughtless bun on the top of her head “Or spank me until I can’t sit? Rape me? Could you just get it over with? I want to be alone, please!”

Bucky was silent for several long seconds before sighing through his nose, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. “Take your bath, think about your fuckin’ attitude. Steve and I are gonna bring the bags in.”

He left the door open and Penny was further irritated to learn he had too much dignity to stomp down the stairs the way she’d hoped he would. His break in composure had been so good for her it was unbelievable—but there was likely a punishment on the horizon and Steve wasn’t likely to let her off easy once the brunet told him what she’d said. The bastard was stone cold when it came to that shit.

She stared idly at the steaming bath, naked with her clothes piled around her feet—the question was whether she wanted a bath or if she’d been resigned to it? The water was scented, because of course it was. It was even one of her favorite citrusy scents, she noted disdainfully, another thing they had paid so much attention to while keeping her locked up in a tower like fucking Rapunzel. Now in a cabin, she figured she was a Jewish Goldilocks surrounded by hungry bears.

But it smelled nice and her body ached from the long car ride, it had already been run so why not hop in? Besides, it would keep her busy while the soldier’s fucked around and she wouldn’t have to see them for a bit. They were shuffling around and she could hear the sounds of bags being placed around the cabin. The door banged off the walls several times, always accompanied by a groan or a curse, one of which she recognized as a Yiddish swear—which she refused to find endearing. The kitten meowed at her from its position on the shelf, looking put out to be so far away but Penny shushed it quietly.

“You won’t like the water, just stay there,” she murmured quietly at the distraught little creature, picking up a washcloth and dunking it into the perfumed water. “If I come get you I’ll make a huge mess.”

She ignored the kitten as it continued to communicate with her, chittering in annoyance and pawing the edge of the ledge for several minutes before evidently surrendering and lying down with its little paws draped over the edge. Penny smiled to herself, the cat’s tail was roughly the size of its body and when it curled the fluffy mass of fur around itself it became unrecognizable as a cat. The orange one would’ve continued to complain until Penny let it down, would’ve just barely given her ankles a rub before running off to hide somewhere.

That’s why she decided to leave Malcah with Peter; the orange cat didn’t run from or scratch him. She twined his ankles, sat next to his thigh on the couch, kneaded her little paws against him. Peter had decided both kittens were female, based on the very reasonable basis that he wanted them to be. Penny wasn’t sure, didn’t quite care. The only thing she ever referred to the cats as was Chatul—which literally meant cat in Hebrew. She’d shortened it to Tuly for the white kitten, for the sake of ease, but refused to say it in front of the soldiers. The cat was hers, she didn’t have to share it with them.

The sounds of the soldiers were becoming more consistent throughout the cabin and Penny figured they must’ve brought in all of the bags and were focused on unpacking. She could hear someone down in the kitchen, unloading the masses of groceries they’d brought up the mountain while the other was in the bedroom. Penny rubbed the washcloth over her skin lightly, the oils from the fragrance making her skin soft and slippery.

She didn’t hear him come in, she felt Steve come in. The blond’s presence was just as overwhelming as Tony Stark’s, an aura bigger than his body that filled the room. She could feel the disappointed stare, even as she continued to wipe herself down with the washcloth. Her teeth ground together as he watched in silence, just waiting.

“Bucky said you’ve caught an attitude, baby doll.”

“Caught an attitude?” She rolled her eyes. “Wow, if only I hadn’t become desensitized to living in constant terror—you never would’ve realized I’ve had an attitude the whole time!”

“We’re supposed to be turning a new page, Pen.”

“Turning a—” Penny scoffed, face appalled as she abruptly stood from the bath and ignored the water going everywhere, “we’re not turning a new page—You burnt the fucking book!”

The blond’s eyes widened; Penny had gotten angry in the past, furious even. She’d broken things, broken skin, broken bones and it was always accompanied by outraged screaming. But Penny didn’t make unnervingly straight eye contact while she did it. She was barely coherent at the best of times, mostly she screamed to the room at large before flying into a violent frenzy—it was different. It was startling, the light in her eyes and the way her voice cracked.

“There is no page turning, there’s no fucking­—fucking reconciliation here, Steve,” she snatched a towel from the rack behind the tub, wrapping the light green fabric around her chest tightly, “I can’t believe after, fuck, how long has it been? A month and a half? Two months? What fucking day is it?”

“…It’s July 2nd,” he found himself choking out, still feeling shell shocked as she stepped out of the tub.

“A month and a half,” Penny’s face twitched, just barely concealing the distraught look he could see she wanted to make and she started shifting past him, “Jesus Christ after a month and a half you guys still don’t get it—you know what, never mind. After a month and a half, I should’ve been smart enough to realize what dumbasses you both are.”

“Penny—”

“God, fuck!” She shouted up at the ceiling, stopping in place halfway out the door. “I have listened to you two talk at length for what’s apparently been a month and a half! I have tried to listen to your stupid fucking rules, I put in the fucking effort and you still decided to take away the one thing I care about! I’m sick and tired of you saying my name in that fucking tone, I’m tired of constantly internalizing and I’m tired of being fucking walked on! So I’ll tell you what I told Bucky—either kill me or leave me alone, but for fucks’ sake just give me space!”

A low mew followed her statement and Penny made an abrupt about face, stomping past him to snatch up the kitten from where it had been sitting on the ledge and storming past him again. It was like getting brushed by a wildfire and Steve fought the urge to take a step back when her wet hair whipped against him.

She dug through one of the bags that held her belongings angrily, kitten on her shoulder, knowing that the blond continued to watch her from the bathroom doorway. Shorts, underwear, a sports bra, a t-shirt, and a hoodie over that. She would’ve put on socks but she knew it bothered Steve when she went barefoot.

“Come downstairs, precious,” he sighed after watching her dress, gesturing towards the stairs, “we’ve got to talk.”

“We’ve always got to talk,” Penny snorted derisively but started down the stairs anyway, Tuly back in her arms, “but it’s usually just you two telling me what I can and can’t do. Stop bossing me around.”

Steve followed after her, aghast and confused—Penny had always been brave in the situations she was forced into, whether it was taking custody of her fourteen year old brother or dealing with being kidnapped from her apartment by a billionaire criminal, but she hadn’t ever antagonized before. She’d talked back, got irritated, snapped, but she hadn’t ever just been flat out bitchy.

On the main floor, Bucky had already put away all of the groceries and was folding up the cloth shopping bags to tuck away for next time. The brunet’s eyes locked on Penny for several long calculating seconds and her hackles raised; whatever was coming was going to be annoying. She refused to be afraid though, not when there wasn’t anything to lose. Not anymore.

“Sit on the couch, let’s talk,” Steve directed, watching as she seemed to contemplate following the direction before doing so, “things are obviously going to be different here, precious.”

“The cabin is equipped with the same AI as the tower but its restricted to monitoring and safety protocols,” Bucky explained, gesturing to the open layout of the main floor, “you’ll be able to go outside so long as you ask first, there’s plenty to do out there. When Steve bought it there was an overgrown vegetable garden out there, we had it cleaned up for you and the shed fixed up and stocked. A lot of good hiking around here too.”

“I can’t talk to JARVIS?” She asked, eyes tracking the way the soldier’s exchanged glances. “Of course not. Then I would have some sort of interaction beyond the pair of you. Damaging to your plan, huh?”

“Penny, the rules didn’t end just because we’re out of the tower,” Steve had one hand braced on his hip while the other rubbed over his forehead, “be—”

“If you say Be Sweet I’ll find a way to kill myself,” Penny intoned, a dry look on her face. “Jews don’t have an afterlife you know, I’m not afraid of going to Hell.”

“Penny, we’re trying—”

“Penny we’re trying,” she mocked in a high-pitched voice, dead eye stare once again boring into Bucky’s, “I’m not. I’m done trying. You’ll either kill me or drive me insane, I’ll never see Peter again—I…I failed. I couldn’t protect him, I couldn’t even keep him safe until he was an adult, isn’t that insane? Grand total of three years and some change and I fucked it up.”

Penny stood up from the couch, shaking her head as she went. The kitten was quick to jump off the couch and follow after her, meowing while that massive fluffy squirrel tail curled over its back. The open floor plan of the cabin came in handy for the soldiers though, because she couldn’t really escape even as she walked across the living room and into the kitchen.

It was hard to pretend she didn’t actually love the cabin. The kitchen was small, located beneath the loft that held the bedroom and bathroom. The railing to the loft was covered in live vines that hung down to create a tiny illusion of separation between the living room and kitchen, the kitchen itself was sage green with white and dark brown accents. There were more plants, open cabinets mounted to the walls, the sink was small but there was a dishwasher. She loved the spiral staircase that led up to the loft, framing the kitchen to the left with small shiny baubles hanging from it.

There was a hamsa and a cross, both stained glass and hanging from the tallest step. Pretty cat toys hung from the lower railings, just within the kitten’s reach. It made Penny’s skin itch, just how lovely and perfect the whole cabin was. More evidence that they were paying a freaky amount of attention to her and every move she made.

“You didn’t fail, doll,” Bucky’s tone was quiet and he hesitated for a moment before following after her several paces, ending up on the edge of the kitchen, “You didn’t fuck it up, Peter—”

“Peter is trapped in a prison in New York with a creep more than twice his age who wants to violate and brainwash him,” Penny was on her knees in front of the fridge, digging through the crisper drawer in the bottom. “Literally all I had to do to prevent that from happening was pay more attention to his daily life. Fuck, kid was practically raising himself with how often I was gone—never stood a chance, you know?”

“Don’t think like that Penny,” Steve sighed, leaning down to pick up the kitten that had circled back to his ankles and setting it on his shoulder, “there’s nothing you could’ve done. You know who Tony Stark is, you know what he’s capable of. You can’t heap that guilt on your shoulders.”

“Oh, can’t I?” She hummed, absently throwing a package of bacon onto the floor, followed by a flat of raw chicken and beef. “There can be dairy in here or there can be meat, not both.”

“We might need a second fridge,” Bucky observed quietly, watching Penny drop a couple of deli bags with sandwich meat onto the ground before she started shuffling everything into different places within the cooler. “We could keep it in the shed?”

“No room,” Steve shook his head absently, “garage?”

Penny had collected a stack of items from the fridge and piled them onto the counter, not even bothering to look back on the soldiers as she began puttering around. The open-faced cabinets on the walls held mostly dishes and containers filled with ingredients and she ducked down, opening the lower cabinets and digging out several pans.

“Do you… do you want a hand, doll?” Bucky asked hesitantly after several moments, watching her collect ingredients and tools and turn on the stove.

“No.”

“Penny—”

“Can I make lunch please?” She whipped around, an irritated look on her face and a spatula in hand, looking like she was about to use it to beat them both, “I’m hungry and I want to die, I figure you’ll only allow me to fulfill one of those wants so can you let me cook?”

The next thing she knew, Penny had been swept up into Bucky’s arms. The solider looked confused, lips curled in frustration but his brow furrowed with dismay. She stiffened at the action when he stomped back to the couch and sat down roughly, dropping her over his knees and landing a smarting blow to her ass through her shorts without warning.

“Thirty for this fucking attitude,” he barked, yanking the shorts down until the waistband settled under the curve of her ass against the tops of her thighs, “count.”

A sharp inhale followed the first skin to skin hit and Penny snarled in response, “one.”

“Apologize,” Steve’s fingers tangled into her hair, extracting the hair tie and letting the curls fall in chaotic waves over her shoulders and face.

“Two,” she counted dutifully and angrily, narrowed eyes landing on Steve’s face, “I’m sorry you’re a fucking monster!”

“That just added ten more, Penny,” Bucky sighed through gritted teeth, “you better reign it in.”

“You better just kill me,” she rasped, nails digging into his leg where she was holding on for balance through the hits, “because I won’t reign it in. I’m sick to death of you motherfuckers—Oh, fuck, three!”

“No cursing during punishments, start from one,” Steve ordered darkly, the hand in her hair pulling taught as he glanced into Bucky’s eyes—the baffling combination of anger and dismay and loss in the brunet’s eyes let him know he wasn’t the only one scrambling.

“Fuck you!” Penny shook her head roughly as if to dislodge his hand, canting her head to the side the best she could manage to look him in the eye, “beat me black and blue, I don’t fucking care. Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter anymore! Nothing fucking matters.”

content warnings: spanking *edit, addition content warning: disrespectful terminology for Jewish people 

[shadowsfiguresfigments-blog]

A good place to die Chapter 15

warning: harsh language, violence

Chapter 15

He had watched her for hours now. Her small frame was cuddled against him, her chest moving ever so slightly with her relaxed breathing. She had murmured some unintelligible stuff from time to time, but never woken up. Penny had let his gaze wander through the small room, studying the objects around him. There weren’t many things there – a desk with the textbooks she had read to him, a shelf with other books, a big closet and a tiny table with drawers and a big mirror. Several bottles stood on that desk, emitting strange scents. The costume she had worn hung over a chair in front of that table, shimmering in the pale moonlight coming from the window. The thought of her dressing like him still brought a surprisingly pleasant smile to his face.

Despite the many years he had haunted this place, he had rarely been within a human home, and certainly never took particular interest in their everyday things. But now he found himself curious about the furniture. The girl had taught him much more about humans in the short period he spent with her, but there were still so many things he found incomprehensible. Why did the humans feel the constant need to change their clothing to different things? Why did they think that painting their faces would make them more attractive? He certainly never had problems to attract his prey, though his methods were not for pathetic mortal beings. Though it had been amusing to watch the girl trying to look like him, and it was very entertaining when she wiped it off – the paint came off in parts and pieces, leaving her face looking like a puzzle every time she removed those white clothes from her face.

His eyes fell upon the small rectangular thing on the night table. It dangled from a wire and blinked from time to time. It didn’t resemble anything he had seen the last time he was awake, but now people took them everywhere. In fact they spent most of their free time staring at those boxes, sometimes talking to them. He knew it was a communication thing, but why didn’t humans talk to each other when they were in each other’s company?

Musing about the curiosity of human behavior, his thoughts wandered back to the last times he had been awake. Those pesky kids had very nearly ended his existence – twice. The experience had changed him, though he didn’t quite know how. Especially that redhead female had bothered him. Without her the boys would very likely had ended up as another delicious meal. Yet he still lay next to a human girl, listening to the sounds of her peaceful sleep and feeling oddly comfortable.

Whatever she had done to him certainly held a lot of new experiences. He was no longer afraid of the girl, despite her lack of fear - after all it was clear she had no intention of harming him. Penny actually found the time with her enjoyable, discovering all the weird bits about what she called “everyday life”. But it wasn’t only about the new things he learned after all the time he had lived (sort of) among humans. She was his, that much was clear. Though he still didn’t quite want to admit it, just thinking of what had been done to her filled him with a very new kind of rage. He wanted to obliterate the filthy mongrels who had dared to hurt her, tearing them apart as slowly as possible for a maximum of pain.

And then there was this whole affection thing – the kissing, that had felt… nice, and then the sex.

It had reminded him of how hungry he was. After all, he still hadn’t had a proper meal.  Hunger had filled him as she moved with him, and when he bit down on her, for the first time, she tasted amazingly. Her blood had not been full of the exciting taste of fear; it had a taste different from anything he knew. Just thinking about it made him crave more, drool starting to pour down from his lips. His little girl was turning into a delicacy.

 I woke up very slowly, despite the annoyingly loud beeping of my alarm. I was warm, cuddled against something soft, and my body faintly ached in an unfamiliar way. After some other beeps I realized my nose was buried in some soft fabric, emitting the most delicious scent. I stirred, trying to press myself harder against the form next to me. A deep chuckle finally made me come to my senses, and I smiled sleepily.

“Morning, Penny”, I mumbled, slurring the words. I felt his hand on my hair, and opened my eyes. Penny was still lying next to me in the same position as when we had gone to bed, a faint smile on his lips. “Did you sleep at all?”

“I have rested”, he replied, still smiling, and started stroking my back.

My alarm kept beeping stubbornly, and I grudgingly had to admit I had to get going. Sitting up and crawling out of the blankets took all my willpower – I just wanted to cuddle with Penny.

Or maybe do a bit more.  

The memories of yesterday made me comfortably warm, and my heart started beating faster. I bowed down and kissed Penny, lingering on his lips as long as I could hold my breath.

“I need to go to school”, I told him, my voice thick with disappointment. That made him laugh, and he teasingly brought his lips close to my ear.

“I will be wai-ting”, he purred. “You will have to hurry, though. I am not patient.”

With goose bumps on my arms I nodded, not entirely trusting my vocal chords to produce something sensible. I kissed him again, then proceeded to hurry to the bathroom. I took a quick shower (reluctantly; I didn’t quite want to wash off Penny’s scent) and brushed my teeth as fast as I could. As I was working on my upper teeth, I suddenly realized just how different I looked.

It wasn’t just the new hair. I had definitely gained weight. Not too surprising, considering the fact that I had actually started eating food properly, nor did I mind the fact. I was still very thin, my hip bones and ribs clearly visible beneath my skin, but they didn’t protrude as far as last month. My skin looked less transparent, and there was the faintest rosy tinge on my cheeks. I let my hands slide over my body.

This was the body Penny had made love too.

I sighed a little. The fact that I just had sex with a being I still didn’t really understand (and that most likely was very dangerous) didn’t bother me very much. In fact, I was just happy, a sheepish smile on my face.

I’d probably have to buy new clothes, though.

 Penny had been gone by the time I returned to my room, leaving me somewhat disappointed. But by the time I straddled my bike, there wasn’t much left of that. I was very late for school, and I felt excitement rush through me as I enjoyed my first bike ride in ages. Derry whizzed past me, somehow less depressing than before, while the sun warmed my face. However, by the time I was sitting in the classroom, panting and wiping sweat from my brow, the exhilaration subsided. My legs and my pussy burned (and no longer in a pleasant way), and I was strangely anxious.

I had to admit I didn’t know how I would talk to Penny.

In a way, this emotional chaos was as new to me as to him; and for a second I wondered if my old zombie self wouldn’t be able to deal with this more easily. My cheeks burned from what I perceived as embarrassment, and my heart was set on trying out every rhythm that ever existed. Most annoying was my inability to keep still. I had to wrap my legs around the chair to keep them still, and I doodled on every paper in front of me. To be precise I had started acting like one of these foolish girls in those annoying teenage movies.

That thought brought me back to my senses, and I was able to concentrate on the lectures. Though it was still more than half a year before the finals would start, every teacher mentioned them at least once during their lessons, and it was enough to make us at least somewhat nervous. Even I felt the urge to study a bit more, despite the fact that Mr. Shanks had left me a comfortable future ahead. Since there was no longer any girl gang waiting for me after school I didn’t rush to much when the bell rang, and for the first time my bike greeted me without a sign of profanities. I still checked it for traces of manipulation, but I couldn’t find any. That was nice, but somehow also a little unsettling.

I kept thinking of Penny with all my might as I made my way to Neibolt Street, shooting glances at all sides to see if he would turn up. He was nowhere to be seen, but as soon as I leaned my bike against the rotten fence, the door of the house swung open. I felt the sheepish smile return to my face, and lightly skipped up the stairs leading into the darkness. The door closed behind me again, and two shining eyes appeared in front of me. I threw myself into his arms, all awkwardness forgotten for a second and sighed.

“Welcome back, little one”, he purred into my ear. My body reacted immediately with the familiar heat in my stomach, but my pussy decided to throw in her bit too – I was wet in an instant.

So much for no longer being embarrassed.

“Penny, I…”, I started, but my phone ringing interrupted me before I could even start gushing all over him. My ringtone sounded strangely distant, and completely out of place – as if a minstrel was growling.

Penny’s eyes changed to yellow in an instant.

“Shit, I forgot to turn it off…” I cursed under my breath while I fumbled for my phone to stop the annoying jingle. By the time I had wrestled it out of my bag the call had ended, and auntie had left me a message. Before I could even read it she called again.

Something was off.

“I’m sorry, Penny, that’s my aunt calling. I think something is wrong”, I explained, before I answered. Penny shot me dirty, yellow looks, but after a second I didn’t care anymore.

Bee was in hospital.

Apparently some kids had taken the trick-or-treating too far (as always). Bee had taken some sleeping pills, and hadn’t answered the door. The kids decided to trick her by throwing fireworks (the self-made kind) through the kitchen window and topped the disaster off by a Molotov cocktail. Bee didn’t wake up until the fire was already burning merrily, and she had fallen down the stairs in her panic. Fortunately some neighbors had alarmed both the police and the fire department, and they managed to get her out of there in time.

But it didn’t look to good either. She had one hell of a concussion, several fractures in her right leg and she had inhaled a lot of smoke. And her tiny, cozy house had gone up in flames. Apparently it had been built with some old, cheap and very inflammable materials, and the firefighters only could do so much.

Auntie had stayed with her, but Bee had to undergo surgery and was still pretty knocked out. Now auntie asked me to take over, because her shift would start soon, and Bee could most certainly use some support. I agreed, but my heart plummeted somewhere into my stomach – I worried for Bee, but I also couldn’t deny that I was disappointed about losing time with Penny.

He watched me throughout the entire call, his eyes growing increasingly more yellow, until they resembled glowing embers. When I reluctantly hung up his face had lost its shape almost completely. The eyes had shifted to the side as his jaw protruded, exhibiting a denture that would scare off any shark. Drool ran down his fangs, dropping into a quickly growing puddle. I extend my hand to touch him, but he snarled at me.

He snarled at me.

For the first time since I had met him I wasn’t sure if I really knew anything about him.

“Penny, I really want to spend my every moment with you, but Bee is very hurt. She needs my help now. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

That didn’t help much.

“Why don’t you just stay with me, if you wish for it that much?” His words came out so distorted I needed a second to process what he had just said. I reached for his hand (or his claws) once more, but he withdrew with a snarl, spraying spit in my face.

“It’s not that easy, Penny. I can still spend time with you later, but Bee needs me right now. She’s in pain and confused, and the police is probably going to question her pretty soon. And she has lost her home, together with all her legal documents.”

He growled again. “Why don’t I just kill the police, then?”

I stared at him, somewhat in shock, before I could muster a coherent answer. “But that would just make everything worse! They are trying to find the culprits, after all! And if they do, Bee might be able to get at least some money to start over.”

What was wrong with him? Normally he would just make some snarky remark about our weird and complicated life, but now he acted like a spoilt brat. A spoilt brat that had the power to shredder my body more effectively than any meat grinder.

Suddenly he lunged at me, smashing my body against the floor. Pain shot through me, especially in my upper body. (Don’t tell me my ribs just cracked again.)

“You care more about her than me”, he roared into my face, giving me an extra good look into his huge mouth.

I had enough. Despite the pain I reached out and grabbed his shoulders as hard as I could.

“That’s not true”, I screamed back. “Jeez, she and auntie are the only two people whom I trust, don’t you understand that?”

That stopped him dead. He stared at me for several seconds, then his face shrunk back slowly. An uncharacteristic new expression wandered across it.

He was hurt.

That expression shattered my anger in an instant. I didn’t understand what had just happened, but my heart ached heavily. He let go of me, turning around and slowly started walking away. I picked myself up and ran to him, clutching at his clothes to make him stop. He turned his face away from me, but I still saw the pain clearly on his face.

It finally clicked.

“Penny, I said Auntie and Bee are the only people I trust. As in human beings. You’re not exactly my species, right?” He slowed down a little, but still refused to look at me. I couldn’t quite believe that he, as a being that didn’t understand the simplest principles of friendship and compassion unless I (clumsily) explained them, would get so upset over semantics.

But then again, I just discovered the range of emotions myself, didn’t I?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. You very obviously mean a lot to me.” After all I had sex with you yesterday. Like, properly. For the first fucking time in my life. I took a deep breath, very conscious of the words I was going to speak next.

“I love you, Pennywise.”