Italics- thoughts/ flashbacks/ dreams

Bold- author talking

Underline- narrator talking, known as the main character

Normal- normal story

2580 words

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I get off of his lap and kneel on my bed, next to him with passionate excitement, "no, pipe cleaners are better."

"Water will rust them." He says facing me.

I let one hand hold the towel and I put the other on his head with a straight arm and looked at him sorta seriously. "Who throws pipe cleaner art in water?"

"You do."

"Nooo, I won't rust art that takes me hours to make."

He grins, "remember all those times you would take your little cats and dogs you made into the pool?"

"I was 6 to 8. That doesn't count."

"Oh but it does. Remember all the times you tried to put the legs back on your creations with more pipe cleaners? Didn't one have its head bent off?"

I gasp, "you watched me when I was in my room?! You stalker!"

He ignores my statement, "they would look so goofy and unproportioned with a shoulder, hip or different part of its body with extra pipe cleaners wrapped around them. And then you made the rest thicker to make it look better. They ended up looking like skinny little animals on steroids."

I lift my hand that's on his soft hair and drop it like a playful hit. I'm too scared to hit someone.

"They were thick, not skinny animals on steroids you crackhead. And do you know how hard it is to mend things together that are so dense that I couldn't even get scissors through the arm to sew it together? Of course they were gonna be goofy."

"I still think clay is better."

"How???? It's so messy and hard to carve the little details in small spots."

He smiles like he knows something I don't.

"What?"

"Well miss 'pipe cleaners are the best thing ever' remember when you would finish making something after an hour or two and see all the fuzzies covering your clothes? And they looked impossible to take off."

"They could bend though."

"Clay can be molded."

"Pipe cleaners can be broken to different sizes."

"So can clay."

"You can sew with pipe cleaners."

"You love pipe clean- clay."

"I do- wait no-" he smiles knowing he won.

"You fuckeeeerrrrrr." I bend over and lean down till my head hits the edge where his leg and my bed meet laughing. I sat back up, "you know damn well pipe cleaners are the best."

"Let's see."

He gets off the bed and I watch him walk over to my boxes of shit in the middle of the room I have yet to organize. He sits on the floor and opens my pipe cleaner box and pulls stuff out.

"So you have these simple creations."

"Simple?!? Those took hours each!"

"Yes simple, there's no unique details."

"They got claws and teeth and eyes and mouths."

"The basics."

"I build them from nothing!"

"And that's their downfall."

I'm com-jiggle-bobled.

He puts it all back and pushes it off to the side while grabbing my shit that's on the floor and carefully separates my statues from it.

"See, details." He says holding up one of the many dragons.

"All my other dragons have details."

"This one has scales and every wrinkle."

"Well yea, it's easier."

"That's why clay is better."

I give him a dirty look before crawling off the bed and walking over to sit across from him. "Then which one is the best one?"

He looks at them, "either the one on the tree you made for your dad or this one." He looks at the one in his hand.

"How the hell are you holding it like that without it breaking?"

"You could just be bad at holding it."

I shake my head and grab 'the lizard on the moon'. It was actually a failed dragon. It's made out of never drying clay but has 5 layers of clear acrylic clay paint on it so it's squishy in a weird way.

"I love this one."

"Why is there red on its nose?"

"It touched wet red clay when I made the red dragon."

"How many dragons do you have?"

"Out of what?"

"Everything."

"Drawings too?"

He nods. Oh this is gonna be fun. I think for an actual 5 minutes.

"45. 15 drawings I saved, 4 sculptures and the rest pipe cleaner."

"How about foxes?"

"Probably 5 times the amount."

"Why so much?"

"Practice." I lied. I'm actually unhealthily obsessed with foxes.

I put down the lizard moon that was supposed to be a dragon wrapped around a crystal ball and picked up 2 of my 10 foxes in one hand. They're a little family. It's adorable. I made them when I started clay at 13.

"Why are you holding everything with one hand?"

"Because I'm using the other to hold the towel."

"So just let go of the towel."

"No, I'd be completely bare."

"You could use both hands." He says in some teasing way.

Why like that?

"I'm fine."

"You would look really nice without the towel."

"I'd be naked."

"Exactly."

I'd throw the foxes I'm holding if they weren't so fragile.

"You're nasty for that."

"I just want to see art in its full beauty."

I'd be flustered if I wasn't disturbed, "I already told you. The first time I'll be naked in front of any man is on my wedding day."

I don't know why that day but that's what everyone else does.

"But we are married."

"No, I want a wedding."

"I'll get you a wedding."

"No, we need to be in love first."

"Why?"

"Because if we aren't, the vows and first kiss and going broke having a ridiculously big and expensive party with strangers will go to waste."

"I love you."

"Do you trust me?"

"No."

"Then you don't love me." He looks at me confused. "Trust builds a foundation and relationships are built on the foundation. We could have a trustless relationship but then there will be no communication and it'll be toxic and I will not be in a toxic relationship."

"I'll be nice to you."

"That doesn't matter. If I do something that makes you mad and you don't tell me, I'll keep doing it and you'll get more mad and we'll fight a lot."

He stares off into the distance for a minute in some type of thought.

"Can I still drown you in kisses like yesterday?"

"Sure." If the feeling that it gave me was a drink, I'd be drunk off of it instantly.

He smiles like a toddler who just got candy.

"Do I have to ask you each time?"

"No but stop when I say no."

"Alright."

"Will you respect me though?"

"I do."

"I mean the whole marriage thing."

"Oh that. Yes."

Now I smile.

"Why do you trust me? I'm not supposed to be trusted."

"You haven't killed me yet."

He stops functioning for a minute. I think he's the fib-jiber-lated-combobled one now.

"That's a weak reason to trust someone. You trust too easily."

"I do."

"Why?"

"I still think there's good in people and I don't want to be mean."

"There isn't good in people anymore."

"But everyone I know is good."

"And how many bad people hurt you before you found these good people?"

I look down at the two foxes with a frown and trace their smooth backs with my thumb, "too many."

He puts his hand on the side of my jaw the same way I do to my dogs when I pet them or want them to look at me."Then why do you keep trusting?"

"I'm not as naive as I was all those years ago."

"But you're still naive, I could do anything to you at any second."

"But you don't and waiting this long to do something would be quite stupid on your end."

"But how can you, something so cute, adorable, squishable and precious fucking trust me? I don't get it. I really don't. We're the exact opposite. I kill people every day and you have a breakdown over a crushed butterfly spirit. You're supposed to fear me. Everyone is. Why don't you?"

"Because I'm empathetic and I just know these things." I say in a mocking voice to the cringe people like that who aren't actually empathetic.

He pauses for a second, "what?"

I successfully hid my laugh for the first time in so long. "I'm joking. And I am scared of you. I'm fucking terrified of your razor aesthetic, sharp nails and teeth. And you picking me up like nothing doesn't help either."

"Then why don't you tower away in fear? Why did you want me to be the one to help you every time something happened? Why do you make me sleep in your bed with you? Why do you tell me so much that I can use against you?"

"Well I live with you, towering away in fear would be useless. I want you to help me when I can't help me because I have no one else. I live or lived 3 hours from my family and Athena can only do so much."

I frown at this memory. "When I was getting kidnapped you were the only one that could help me cuz no one else wanted to. When that horrible feeling took over earlier, you were the only one.

And I make you sleep in the bed because you're a great cuddle buddy and I always dreamed of it. And I tell you everything because I have nothing to hide. I want people to know what kind of person I am so they can decide if they're going to be horrible or not to me and if they do I can leave them. Everything I have has already been used against me so it doesn't matter."

I look at his beautiful eyes that are mixed with so many things, "weather I like it or not you are now a huge part of my life and I have this feeling you won't leave so I'm gonna try to make the most out of it till there's no more or your old empty threats come to life.

My lifes changed for I don't know what and I will make the most of it. I will try to be as good as possible because that's just what I do, it's the only thing I perfected besides being cringe. If everything in my life shifts to whatever direction you are, then I will try my best to be something to you because you control my life.

I never had control over it and I didn't know that till recently. You own everything I do and me. You can do whatever you want with me and I can't do anything about it. So if I trust you or not, whatever happens is up to you."

"I'd never do anything bad to you. I adore you." He sounds a bit hurt, offended and disgusted.

"I know you won't hurt me. You do all these little things that say you won't."

"Like what?"

"Well in the sexual area, you're a bit obsessed but you don't do anything remotely bad and don't cross lines that I didn't tell you exist-"

"That's the bare minimum."

"I know, the bare minimum doesn't exist these days sadly. You talk about life like it's the most beautiful thing. You handle everything with great care or gentleness with everything. Yesterday you didn't rush anyone to their deaths. You let them say bye if they had to and waited till they were ready. When I almost passed out earlier you threw a towel over me instead of taking advantage. Even with the things I made, you are so careful not to break anything. You aren't as bad as you think. I feel like you really do care about things, you say it all without words like you want someone to notice."

I put my hand over his hand that's still on the side of my face.

"I noticed. I noticed those and so much more. More than I can remember."

Death exe. has stopped working. He just stares at me with a look that I've seen on myself before in the mirror.

The one where you're about to cry because someone has found you at the bottom of the dark hole and they didn't ignore you or deepen the hole.

The feeling you get when helping someone get out of that hole is one of the best things in the world, it's better than getting out of the hole yourself.

That's why I try to find everyone I can and help them. Only if they're willing though.

I see something shift in the air around him. Like he finally cracked but he doesn't show it or I'm just reading too far into it.

He walks over the boxes, still on his knees because tall people have that luxury. Fucking tall people.

I turn to face him but before I turn all of me, he pulls me against him in the tightest hug from him yet and his hugs are pretty damn tight.

And he doesn't let go. I love hugs so much but there's only one problem.

"I gotta breathe," I wheezed.

He takes his death grip off of me, "sorry."

I dramatically breathe for a minute just for extra effect but he doesn't notice so I stop. He just watches me with complete wonder.

"You're an angel."

No, I'm shocked. I can see it now. Lucifer will be dressed in a white coat and take him away.

He kisses my forehead 18 times. Why does everyone kiss my forehead? If I still had acne I would be fighting.

He then moves down the side of my face and to my jaw and my neck. My stomach gets that tight feeling again and I want to curl up into a ball. Why does he do this to me? What even is 'this'?

He kisses my collar bone, down my shoulder and down my arms to my hand and kisses each knuckle and fingertip pad. He then stares into my soul before doing the same exact thing to my right side.

I press myself against him in a complete trance. I'm getting high off of such simple things. Or is this more than simple? Where on the scale is this?

He then stands up and throws me on the left side of my bed before I could process anything. All I can do is gasp.

I watch him tower over me till he rolls me over so I'm face down in the middle of my bed. I feel the bed around me go down from him crawling over me and now I'm trapped under him yet again.

This makes me more nervous because I can't see what happens.

He then gently pulls my arms from under me and pins my hands above my head and very carefully pulls the towel down my back till it covers just the base of my back and my ass. He then drowns my bare back in kisses.

I don't know if I squealed, wheezed, groaned, silently screeched or acted like I just survived drowning but I made some noise and in response he dragged a single nail down the back of my neck and my spine.

How do I feel? I feel like I'm committing a crime or sin but I'm not doing anything besides laying down. How should I feel?

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*Irina is sitting across a couch holding a tiny little boy against her chest while watching Henry danger on a big ol' TV.

Death appears behind the couch and leans his hands against it.* "What are you doing my butterfly?"

"Making cotton candy with a pink elephant from Japan in Ireland on a gold potato farm."

*He tilts her head back and looks at her dead in the eyes, upside down.* "Without me?"

*She shrugs and gestures to the little tiny, possibly baby boy laying on her chest unbeknownst to what's going on.* "It's all up to him."

*He walks around and crouches down so he can look the adorable little muffin eye to eye.* "Can I join? I help take care of your stinky little ass a lot of the time."

*They both look at the little man for a while waiting for an answer. Since he can't talk he burps like the Chad he is.*