Asmo

Your whole life, people have called you annoying.

Which is funny, considering you were never cruel or mean—just curious. Too curious. The kind of kid who noticed everything: the way people moved their hands when they talked, the tiny scars on their knuckles, the way their voices changed when they were excited. You asked questions because you genuinely wanted to know. You talked because silence felt itchy. You listened hard, then harder.

People didn’t read it that way.

Blunt questions became “invasive.” Excitement became “too much.” Distraction became “rude.” Somewhere along the line, you learned that curiosity—especially yours—made people uncomfortable. 

So you learned to mask. 

Smile less. Ask less. Hold everything in until it pressed against your ribs.Which is probably why you kind of set a guy on fire at work today.

Not on fire. Just… adjacent to fire. His sleeve. The counter. The little “Have a Nice Day!” sign.

It was the whistling. He was ordering some upside-down, half-something monstrosity and whistling—off-key, wet, relentless. The kind of sound that digs straight into your brain and rattles around like loose change.

You tried your coping tricks. You really did. You locked onto the wood grain of the counter. Counted the espresso hisses. Rubbed the seam in your apron pocket—the good texture.Didn’t matter. The whistle kept peeling the world apart.

Then—spark. Silence. Screaming. Oops.

And that’s why, as soon as your shift ends, all you can think about is the circus.

Because your job is a masterclass in sensory punishment. The fluorescent lights buzz and glare, exposing every fingerprint, every pore, every mistake. The sounds are constant and aggressive—machines screaming on schedules you don’t control, voices stacking on top of each other until they blur into noise without meaning.

The circus is nothing like that.

The light there is warm. Forgiving. Gold and shadow instead of surgical white. The sounds don’t fight each other—they belong. Every creak, every murmur, every strange note has intention. Purpose.

At the circus, the chaos makes sense.

Like, for example, Harlequin’s laughter is exaggerated on purpose, a performance you can anticipate. Even the quiet in Pierrot’s tent has weight to it, a kind of hush you can lean against instead of fighting.

At work, it’s the people that make everything volatile. 

They arrive pre-fractured—angry at traffic, at bosses, at their own lives—and you’re simply the nearest safe place to unload it. 

A man in a suit slams his loyalty card on the counter because it doesn’t scan, like you personally betrayed him. 

A woman sighs dramatically when you ask her to repeat her order, your flat tone translating in her head to disrespect.

“You could smile,” they tell you, sharp and entitled, as if your face is a public amenity. They want a cheerful doll, endless warmth on demand. Your neutral focus reads as rudeness. Your concentration looks like attitude. You follow the script anyway—Hi, what can I get for you?—but they hear something wrong in it. Not enough inflection. Not enough fake ease. It’s a test you were never given the rules for, and you keep failing it in real time.

So you cling to the routine. Handle out. Forty-five degrees. Three pumps. No foam. Precision as armor. But it never lasts. A coworker “fixes” your neatly stacked cups. The manager swaps your predictable synthwave for chaotic pop. The oat milk runs out with no warning. Control slips. Again.

The pay is miserable. The tips are worse. 

You leave with pennies and a head full of… noise.

And through the glare, the noise, the sudden shriek of the steamer, you hold onto one thought, over and over—

You can go to the circus after this.

Even if, when you get there… you’re still an outsider.

To Harlequin, you’re a reactive chemical—fun to poke, fascinating to watch erupt, but ultimately a temporary amusement. He reads your tension like a script and finds your attachment to Pierrot hilariously predictable.

To The Jester, you’re a pebble on his sand—a curious, temporary guest. He allows your presence because you stay contained, nested in Pierrot’s orbit where you’re less likely to cause a mess.

To The Ticket Taker, you’re a procedural error. A disruption to his perfect order. Your meltdowns are unscheduled noise, but as long as Pierrot files you away in his corner, you’re tolerated. Barely.

To The Doctor, you’re a live specimen. A symphony of misfiring nerves. Your bond with Pierrot is a clinical curiosity—a trauma clinging to a trauma. Sentimental, but efficient.

They all see it. They know you’re Pierrot’s.

To them, you’re exhausting. A liability. 

A human puzzle with too many sharp edges. You see it in the way they glance past you, the slight tension when you walk in. You’re a lit fuse in a tent full of gunpowder.

Except for Pierrot.

For a little context, Pierrot meets you by accident. Or maybe inevitability—he’s never quite decided which as he stood up for him against other people for hurting him. 

He doesn’t come inside your workplace. The lights are cruel, the music tinny and sharp, an insult to everything he is as well. Instead, he lingers just outside the wide front window, a tall, unmoving silhouette stitched into the chaos of the street. 

Inside, you’re at the register during a rare lull, body wound tight. One hand rubs slow circles into your own arm without you noticing. Your eyes flick everywhere at once, inventorying tasks, sounds, people, exits. You wear the customer-service smile out of habit, but it’s strained—misaligned, like it was glued on wrong.

To anyone else, you look stressed. Maybe overwhelmed. Maybe a little lost.

To Pierrot, you look like a clockwork doll wound too tight—beautiful, delicate, trying so hard to function in a world that refuses to slow down.

Then you notice him.

It’s subtle. A hitch in your breath. A pause no one else would catch. Your face changes. The public smile drops away entirely, replaced by something smaller and softer—confused, relieved, unmistakably real.

It’s just for him. 

No performance. No effort.

Pierrot treasures that smile like a secret pressed between pages. He memorizes the way you lift your hand in that tiny, fluttering wave near your hip—half-shy, half-excited—before you’re pulled back into the grind. To him, it’s sacred. Proof that beneath the mask you wear for the world, there’s something warm and unguarded trying to breathe.

You overwhelm him later. Thoroughly.

At the circus, you’re affectionate without realizing it—talking with your hands, touching his sleeve when you get excited, eyes lighting up as you tumble through ideas. 

You are a free spirit in the purest sense: endlessly curious, delighted by the strange, desperate to understand and share. You like knowing things—not to hoard them, not to boast—but because explaining them feels like a gift you’re dying to give.

You ramble like a kindergartner with a favorite fact. Your joy is loud, unfiltered, infectious.

Yet alone with Pierrot, something happens.

Like when you with him, you soften. You’re still bright—still buzzing—but gentler, like you’re handling something fragile. You explain things slowly, carefully, watching his reactions with earnest focus. You want him to understand you. Desperately. And you want, just as badly, to be understood in return.

The problem is… you’re never entirely sure he does.

He doesn’t recoil from your intensity. He doesn’t shut you down or look overwhelmed. He simply absorbs it—quiet, attentive, unreadable behind that mask. And sometimes you can’t tell if he’s following every word… or if he’s interpreting you in a way that belongs only to him.

When you shattered the vintage teacups over the misplaced sugar, you froze—apologizing too fast, spiraling, bracing for correction. Pierrot didn’t see a mistake. He knelt among the porcelain, lifted the single unbroken saucer, and offered it to you like a truth you were meant to hold.

“I don’t see the mess. I see what survived.”

It sounded beautiful. It also made absolutely no sense.

That’s the thing with Pierrot—his words confuse you as often as they comfort you. He barely speaks at all, after all. He’s not allowed to. So you fill the silence instead, rambling, explaining, laughing nervously, hoping meaning lands somewhere between you.

And when it doesn’t—when you feel too loud or too unsure—you retreat with him to his wagon.

His wagon. God. His wagon.

It’s all deep reds and golds and blacks, like someone trapped a very elegant, very melancholy sunset and decided to live inside it. Dark red velvet everywhere—curtains thick enough to swallow sound, pillows scattered across the floor in soft, indulgent excess. 

Sooo many pillows. On purpose. One corner is arranged just right, clearly intentional, clearly claimed—for when there’s no show. His quiet time.

Which, somehow, has become yours too.

The light is nothing like the coffee shop. No buzzing fluorescents, no blue-white glare scraping at your skull. Here, it comes from small amber lamps, low and warm, turning everything into something old and gentle, like a painting that’s been loved too much. 

The light pools over shelves lined with objects he’s collected—things that feel important without explaining why. A broken music box. A single white glove. A dried rose sealed under glass. The wagon smells like old books, chamomile, and something cool and clean, like stone. A smell that doesn’t argue with your brain.

And the silence—God. It isn’t empty. It’s full. Heavy in the best way. It settles over you like a weighted blanket, pressing the static down until your thoughts finally line up instead of colliding.

Once, the thoughts still won.

You short-circuited right there on the floor—lungs stuttering, body locked, words spilling out without permission. You started reciting the molecular structure of caffeine to the wall like it was a spell that might save you. C8H10N4O2. Over and over. Fast. Desperate.

Pierrot didn’t stop you. Didn’t hush you. Didn’t touch you.

He just sat down beside you.

Folded himself carefully onto the floor, long limbs tucked in, hands resting in his lap, palms open. And he listened. Fully. Like you were reciting something sacred. Like every word mattered.

Sometimes—when the static in your head was a screaming hive—he let you hold onto him. Not in a clingy way. Just… enough. 

You’d fidget with his hands, tracing the long, elegant lines of his palms, counting the subtle joints in his fingers, lacing yours between his just to feel something real and cool and steady. 

Or your hands would wander up, finding his hair—that shock of white silk—carding through it, twisting the strands, marveling at the texture. It gave your frantic energy a job. A quiet, repetitive task to focus on until the world stopped spinning.

He never moved. Never flinched. Never rushed you. He became an anchor. A paperweight for your soul.

And for a while, it worked.

But in the calmer moments, your curiosity would bubble back up. It was your default setting. You couldn’t help it.

You’d poke his arm. “Hey. Do you have, like… bones? Or is it all… monster stuff in there?” You’d squint at the draconic curves of his mask. “Are there horns under your hair? Can I feel?” You’d gesture broadly at his serpentine form.

The questions were endless, tumbling out in a cheerful, nonsensical stream. You asked about the color of his eyes behind the mask—amber, you knew, but was it like honey? or like a warning light?, or about how his tail moved—was it prehensile? could he pick things up with it?, or about whether he got cold in the winter.

One time, mid-ramble about the aerodynamic efficiency of his jester’s cap bells, you’d abruptly switched tracks.

“Wait, what do you eat?”

The air in the wagon had gone very still, very fast. The gentle, listening presence you’d grown used to tightened imperceptibly. He didn’t pull away, but the silence that followed was different. Heavier. It wasn’t a comfortable silence; it was a locked door.

“...That is not a question for you, my dear,” his psychic voice had finally brushed your mind, soft but final, the endearment feeling less like a caress and more like a period at the end of a sentence.

You’d blinked, shrugged. “Okay! Sorry. Anyway, about the bells—”

He’d relaxed again, the strange tension melting as you happily veered onto a new, safer topic. You didn’t press it. You had a million other things to wonder about.

That was you. Naturally gifted at asking the one question that could pause the universe, and then instantly, blissfully distracted by the next shiny thought. Your tantrums when overwhelmed were volcanic, but your curiosity in the quiet was a sunbeam—persistent, warm, and landing on absolutely everything, especially him.

He adored it. Every random question was a piece of you he could collect, a glimpse into the brilliant, scattered mosaic of your mind.

But lately…

Pierrot had started to notice your behavior changing.

The way your shoulders creep up toward your ears when you leave the coffee shop, like you’re still bracing for those stupid blue lights to buzz back on. The way you move smaller, tighter. Like you’re trying not to spill yourself anywhere. That spark he adores—that sharp, curious, shining you—hasn’t gone out, but it’s gone brittle. Taut. One wrong touch from snapping.

It worries him. Deeply.

And then there was that night at the Circus.

The one you don’t talk about. Everything was too much all at once. The laughter from the big top didn’t sound joyful anymore—it drilled straight through your skull. Your skin felt wrong, stretched too thin, humming with leftover stress from work, from people, from the endless demand to be. You didn’t want comfort. You didn’t want explanations.

You just needed quiet. Real quiet.

So you went to him. To his wagon.

He was already there, sitting impossibly still. That focus of his isn’t just attention—it has weight. It presses. His amber eyes locked onto you like the rest of the world had politely ceased to exist. And in his hands—those long, black hands—he held another gift.

A flower. Again.

You’ve lost count of how many he’s given you.

But this one was different. Paper-thin strips cut from something old—his poetry, maybe. Centuries of sorrow and devotion sliced into delicate ribbons, each edge dipped in gold. Molten. Permanent. It glittered softly in the low light, all that anguish and beauty preserved forever.

And all you could think was—

I don’t have room for this.

Not on your shelf. Not in your hands. Not in your chest. The texture was wrong. The paper was dry and whisper-fragile, but the gold edges bit back—microscopic sharpness, catching on your skin. It wasn’t something meant to be held casually.

And Pierrot just… waited.

Silent. Expectant. Waiting for you to understand. To feel the right thing. To offer the right response. Your mind was already fraying. Tangled. Loud with a single thought you couldn’t swallow down—

I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

The pressure built until it had nowhere left to go.

You didn’t drop the flower—you recoiled, like it burned. The word ripped out of you before you could soften it, ugly and sharp and wrong.

“Die.” You hurled the fragile, priceless thing across the wagon. It struck a tapestry with a soft, humiliating rustle and slid down the dark wood.

Then the energy had to escape somewhere else. You turned away from him, hands flying up into your hair, gripping hard enough to hurt.

“You know what’s actually interesting?” you snapped, words spilling too fast, voice trembling with that wired, frantic edge that means you’re already lost inside your own head—and this time, you don’t notice that Pierrot moved.

He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t sigh. He doesn’t even look wounded.

He simply moves. Slowly. Carefully. Like every motion has already been decided. He crosses the wagon to where the flower fell and kneels—not in apology, not in submission, but with reverence. He gathers it up, smooths one curled paper petal with his thumb, and places it on a small, empty stand as though it were always meant to be there. Preserved. Safe.

Then he turns back to you.

You’re still vibrating, still pacing, your words unraveling into something about thermoclines and surface tension, your back to him as if motion alone might keep you from splitting apart.

Pierrot kneels again—this time directly in your path.

You almost collide with him.

The blank bone of his mask tilts upward, catching the low light. When he speaks, it isn’t quite sound. It slips past your ears and presses gently into the center of your chest instead—warm, steady, startlingly calm.

“The differentness inside you…” he says, soft as gravity, “…it must land somewhere.”

You freeze. The lecture dies mid-thought, caught behind your teeth.

“Let it land on me.”

His hands rises—not to stop you, not to restrain—just open. Waiting. An invitation shaped like trust. “I am your relief.” A pause. Absolute, unshakable certainty. “I will not break.”

The words don’t soothe you. They unsettle you.

Because you don’t know how someone can offer themselves like that. You don’t know how you’re supposed to land on another person at all. 

You sank into it, the plush fabric a predictable pressure against your skin. He didn’t sit beside you. He settled on the floor at your feet, a respectful distance away, his back against the divan, his mask turned toward the quiet room. Giving you space, but not leaving.

Slowly, haltingly, you started to talk again. 

It was about the coffee shop. The man who’d whistled. The woman who’d snapped her fingers in your face. The clatter of dishes, the sour milk smell, the crushing weight of a line of impatient faces. It was a jumbled, frustrated dump of sensory grievances and social misunderstandings.

As you spoke, you grabbed the pillow beside you—a sturdy, embroidered thing he’d given you for exactly this purpose. You dug your fingers into the fabric, twisting it, punching it softly, kneading your overwhelm into its helpless form.

“The one who snapped,” Pierrot’s voice brushed against your mind, soft as a moth’s wing. “The sound was an aggression. Would you like me to find her? To ensure her hands are… quiet?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d offered. Last week it was about the whistling man. “I could steal the breath from his lips. He would not whistle again.” He said these things not with malice, but with the serene practicality of a gardener removing a thorn.

You let out a wet, half-hysterical laugh into the pillow. “No. No, Pierrot. It’s… it’s fine. It’s just… people. They’re just like that.”

“They are poorly made,” he responded, simple as fact. “Loud. And sharp. You are not.”

You weren’t sure about that. 

You felt pretty sharp. But you also felt the tight coil in your chest beginning, slowly, to unwind. Your rant tapered off into silence, broken only by the faint plink of a distant bell and the sound of your own breathing. He had watched you reject his soul-gift, rant about random, and then violently stress-squeeze a pillow. And he was still here. Not just here, but settled. Present. 

It wasn't just the loud noises or the bright lights anymore. It was a deeper, quieter ache that had started to settle in your bones.

It was the social static. The white noise of existing near people.

It kept happening. A few days after the thrown flower, after the strange peace that followed, the little things began to pile up again. A misplaced key that ruined your morning routine. The neighbor’s bass, thumping through the floor at a rhythm that didn't match the beat of your own heart.

But worse than the sensory sandpaper was the quiet question that had begun to echo in the down moments, in the silence after the espresso machine shut off, on the walk to the circus:

Why does everybody stray away from me?

You’d replay interactions like a forensic detective looking for the fatal flaw.

You’d been polite to the new barista. You’d explained the cleaning protocol for the steam wand with careful, thorough detail because you wanted to help. She’d smiled tightly and said, “Thanks…,” then turned and never asked you a question again.

You’d shared a genuinely cool fact about the history of public fountains with a regular. He’d nodded, said “Huh,” and the next day, he took his order to the other register.

You weren't mean. You weren't cruel. 

You were just… you. 

You asked direct questions because you wanted direct answers. You shared enthusiasms because you thought joy was meant to be given away. You listened to the words people said, but you kept missing the invisible script running underneath.

And the verdict, you were starting to believe, was unanimous.

You were the weirdo. The person who talked to themselves at the register. The one who would be startled if someone came up behind them too quietly. The one whose smile never quite reached their eyes because they were too busy counting inventory in their head. The one who could tell you about the tensile strength of spider silk but couldn't navigate the simple, smiling choreography of “How’s your day going?”

It made you feel like a ghost. Solid enough to do the work, to be seen, but somehow immaterial in the ways that built connections. People drifted past you, around you, away from you. Your differentness wasn't a loud, sparking tantrum anymore. It had turned inward, becoming a silent, sorrowful distance.

It was this heavy, hollow feeling you carried with you when you went to him, days later. Not in a raging meltdown, but in a simmering, quiet fury. 

You weren't crying; you were analyzing, picking apart the flawed social contract of humanity with icy, clipped precision, as if by understanding the broken rules, you could fix whatever was broken in you.

Pierrot listened, a statue of attentive sorrow. Then he spoke, his psychic voice a gentle stroke against your aching mind.

“They are not worthy of your analysis, my dear. Your mind is a pristine blade. They are rotten wood.”

And that’s when it snapped. Not the old, sparking overload, but a new, cold fracture.

“Don’t,” you said, your voice flat and foreign. “Don’t call me that. Don’t talk about my mind like it’s… like it’s some sacred artifact. It’s just a brain. A faulty, sparking one that scares people away.”

The air in the wagon stilled. 

You had finally said the quiet part loud. 

Pierrot went utterly still, then his head cocked with a sharp, avian distress. You rarely spoke so directly about your own mechanics, and never been this cold dismissal. He took a step forward, a long hand rising—not to grab, but to bridge the sudden, terrifying distance.

“Please, do not say such things. Do not—”

You backed up, a quick, panicked step, hitting the edge of his writing desk. The retreat was a physical rejection, and it struck him like a blow. You saw his shoulders tense, his amber eyes behind the mask widening fractionally.

“My sweet angel, do not pull away,” his voice rushed into your mind, softer now, layered with a desperate, pleading texture you’d never heard before. “Your words, any words, even the sharp ones, let me have them. Do not leave. Do not silence yourself. You are the only true sound in this hollow world. My dear, my only light, please…”

He was rambling, the endearments spilling like overripe fruit, sweet and cloying and suffocating.

It was too much. Overwhelming, like always.

It’s like the emotions were a thick syrup you couldn’t swim through. This was his pattern: overwhelm, then soothe with a saccharine offering. 

As if on cue, his hand went to a small, mother-of-pearl box on the shelf. It clicked open with a sound like a settling bone. He produced a single, perfect piece of candy, held it out on his pale palm.

“Here,” his mental voice gentled. “The sweetness will ground you.”

It was always pink. A soft, floral pink, dusted in sparkling sugar. It looked innocent. Delicate. Like a tiny, sugared heart.

“Here,” his voice brushed your mind, softer now, layered with a coaxing tenderness. “The sweetness will ground you, my dear. It will help the world feel… softer.”

Oh, thoes candies… 

Everything you eat one, a memory, thick and syrupy, pushed its way to the front of your mind. The lethargic, fuzzy calm that always followed. The way your sharp edges would blur, your frantic thoughts slowing to a gentle drip. 

The way the noise of the world would mute, replaced by a warm, humming static. It felt like being wrapped in layers of pink cotton wool, safe and separate from everything that could cut you. But it was a trap—a submission to a quiet you never chose, a loss of control dressed up as care.

It always made you feel rather… stuck.

Revulsion, clean and sharp, cut through the fog of your distress. “I don’t want to bite on something sweet,” you hissed, and before you could think, your hand swatted out, knocking the delicate candy from his palm. It skittered across the floorboards.

The silence was absolute.

Pierrot stared at his empty hand, then at the lost candy. The stillness was worse than any outburst. Slowly, he curled his fingers into a fist. When he looked back at you, his voice was a whisper of pure, unadulterated need.

“Then bite on me.”

You froze. “What?”

“If you need to sink,” he continued, stepping closer. He slowly, carefully, pulled the black glove from his right hand, exposing the pale skin of his wrist. “Sink into me. The candy is a gentle lie. This is a true anchor. Let your turmoil rest here. Let me hold the weight of your wakefulness.”

Your heart hammered. “Are you mocking me?”

He flinched. “Never.” A vow. A prayer. “You are the only truth. Is it not you and me against this world? So come. Rest on me.”

He sank to his knees, his offered wrist a pale skin.

“You need calm. I can give it to you,” he murmured, his tone moving into something dangerously gentle. “With kindness. With patience.” A pause, heavy. “Or with another dose. The pink calm is still here. I only want to help you slip into something softer.”

He gestured faintly toward the mother-of-pearl box.

“You need the quiet, my sweet angel. You need it. And I need to give it to you.” His voice dropped to a tender, horrific whisper. “Let me take care of you. I promise. I promise and promise and promise.”

The word promise fell like a stone into a well, echoing with the emptiness of all the promises before. Promises to be gentle. Promises to only use the candies when you were “too far gone.”

He reached to tuck your hair behind your ear, his touch chillingly affectionate. “Don’t make me devour you, too. It would be so much easier to just be sweet for me.”

You just stared, terrified. 

The sheer vulnerability in your wide eyes—“oh, it makes my body tremble in so many ways. I-I mean,” Pierrot froze. The warm amber glow of his eyes behind the mask vanished, leaving only deep, black voids. He couldn’t help but put a hand to his face, a pinkish blush blooming beneath the bone-white surface. His large, black-gloved hand pressed against his cheek as he twirled a strand of his white hair with the other.

“You must feel it,” he breathed, his psychic voice a shiver of awe. “After all, didn’t you? Such a perceptive thing. So light. So yielding.”

You didn’t answer. You just looked… terrified.

Pierrot sighed, a sound of infinite sorrow. “All I want… all I want… is to keep you safe from the world. They treat you so mean. It’ll drive me mad. It will. So the candy helps. The quiet helps. You see?”

He was terrifying. He said such sweet things with this dark, hungry tone.

He leaned closer, his black-void gaze holding yours. “If you need to bite… then bite on me,” he repeated, the offer curdling into a demand. He pulled his hair aside, exposing the elegant column of his neck. “Bite here then. The sweetness is a lie. This pain is real. I am real. Pour your differentness into my flesh. Let me hold the shape of your teeth.”

He sank lower, abasing himself completely.

“If you are going to save me from the silence,” he begged, his voice trembling with raw, unfiltered ache—

“Just come kiss me. And bite me.”

Well… you didn’t choose the candy.

You took a slow, shuddering step forward. Then another. The terror was still there, a cold wire in your chest, but beneath it was a current of something else—a desperate, furious need for something real. Something that wasn’t sugar-coated silence.

Pierrot watched you come, the black voids of his mask unblinking, his blush a faint, persistent glow. You reached him, and with a push that was more a collapse than a show of force, you shoved him backward onto the deep pile of pillows and blankets in his corner. He let himself fall, a cascade of red and black fabric and gold trim, yielding completely.

You climbed into his lap, settling against him. You sometimes forgot how large he was, all coiled, serpentine grace beneath the lavish robes. Dressed in his sorrowful regalia of red, black, and gold, he was a monument. 

But to you, he was just… your space.

Your safe, quiet place in a screaming world.

You nuzzled your face into the cool skin of his neck, where he’d offered it. You could feel the slow, heavy pulse of him beneath your lips. You took a gentle bite.

He was a bit sweet. Metallic, like rain on old copper, but with an subtle sweetness. At least he was telling the truth about that.

A sharp, stifled sound escaped him—not a gasp, but a resonant, shuddering hum you felt vibrate through his chest into yours. You didn’t see it, but behind the mask, his amber eyes shattered and reformed, the pupils blooming into perfect, pulsing heart-shapes.

Ahh.

Pierrot was shocked. He had convinced you. 

The feeling was an avalanche in his still, silent world. If he could recall the memory in his veins, trace it like a genealogy… how long had his cells screamed in search of you? Eons. Now he knew what he had to be. Your anchor. Your restraint. Your sole source of truth. After all, hadn’t Fate discovered the two of you once again?

You kept going. The gentle bite became more purposeful. Not enough to break skin, but enough to press, to test, to claim. 

It got Pierrot bad. Bad. Bad. Torturing him in the most exquisite way. A low, ragged noise tore from him, and his large hands came up to cradle your body, his touch reverent and trembling. The cool leather of his remaining glove brushed the small of your back, then slipped beneath the hem of your shirt, lifting it ever so slightly. The shock of skin-on-skin contact—his cool, smooth fingertips against the warm, vulnerable plane of your lower back—made you jolt.

Oh, my, oh, my God

His blood was pumping crazy, a wild, frantic rhythm against your mouth.

Oh, my, oh, my God

‘Cause he knew you’d save him. You had to.

Before he could dissolve completely, before he could lose the last shred of his carefully maintained control, you pulled back from his neck. You looked at his mask, at the place where his mouth would be. Then you kissed him.

It was deep, and searching, and filled with all the frustration, the loneliness, the static, and the strange, terrifying trust you had in him.

His eyes widened behind the mask, the heart-shaped pupils blowing even wider. For a second, he was perfectly, utterly still—a statue shocked to life.

Then he groaned, a raw, unfiltered sound that seemed to shake the wagon, and he kissed you back. He pressed deeper, returning the kiss with a centuries-starved hunger, his hands tightening on you, one buried in your hair, the other splayed possessively against the bare skin of your back, holding you to him as if you were the only thing keeping him from flying apart into a thousand desperate pieces.

Then a thought, hot and clear, cut through the fog in your mind. 

You could take all of your frustrations out on him. 

Not by throwing things, not by screaming into the void, but like this. By pouring all that coiled, sparking energy into the space between your body and his. And you did feel a bit calmer.

Your fingers, which had been fisting in the fabric of his red-and-black tunic, slid to the intricate golden lacing that cinched his corset-like vest. You began to slowly, methodically, unpick the knots. One. Then another.

Pierrot noticed. His kiss broke with a soft, wet sound. He caught your wrist, his grip not tight, but questioning. A tremor ran through him. “What… what are you doing, my angel?” His psychic voice was ragged, breathless.

You looked up, meeting the black voids of his mask. Your voice, when it came, was low, a bit rough, and absolutely certain. 

“You said you own me. With your candies, with your poems, with your silence. You said it. So,” you gave another purposeful tug on the gold lace, loosening it further, exposing a sliver of the pale, smooth skin beneath—

“hold still and be owned.”

His gasp was a real, audible thing. As you never such naughty things before—well right in front of him. The hand on your wrist went slack, not in release, but in utter surrender.

You leaned down again, but not to his mouth. You brought his own bare wrist to your lips—the one he’d offered—and bit down on the soft, fleshy part of his palm. Not hard enough to wound, but hard enough to make him jolt, a sharp, sweet whine escaping him.

“Yes—”

You didn’t stop. You moved, a slow slide in his lap that made him groan, the friction of fabric between you igniting a new, urgent rhythm. Dry, desperate, and perfect. 

You were taking your frustration out, and he was yielding to every bit of it. You traveled up his arm, over the corded muscle of his forearm, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses and gentle nips, until you found the place you’d bitten before—the tender, vulnerable junction of his neck and shoulder.

You sank your teeth in there, deeper this time.

Pierrot cried out. His head fell back against the pillows, a stark picture of blissful agony. His large hands flew to your hips, not to stop you, but to guide you, to grind you down against him in time with the desperate, rolling thrusts of his own hips meeting yours.

“More—please, more,” he pleaded, his voice a broken chant in your mind. “Claim me. Mark me. It is the only seal that will hold. The only bond that is real. Bite until your teeth meet my soul. I give it. I give it all.”

It was a sacrifice. An offering of his very substance. And in biting him, in taking this violent, intimate piece of him, you were accepting it. 

You were sealing the fate he’d always believed in. 

You bit down again, and he shuddered violently beneath you, a sob of pure ecstasy tearing from his throat. His costume was coming undone under your hands, revealing more of him to your teeth, your lips, your claiming touch.

He was somewhat bare below you, the elaborate red and black fabric pushed open, though his mask and jester's hat remained perfectly, eerily in place, and his black pants were still fastened.

Your eyes went wide. You’d never seen him like this. His chest was pale white, like marble veined with the faintest hints of blue, the skin stretched taut over a surprisingly elegant, long frame. 

You hadn’t considered the anatomy of it.

“Whoa,” you breathed, the scientist in you momentarily overriding everything else. Your fingers, almost of their own accord, reached out and touched his collarbone. It was cool, smooth. “You’re so… long. Do you, like, have extra ribs? Is your spine different? How does your… everything… work?”

The questions tumbled out, a slow, dazed return to your usual self—using curiosity as a compass in uncharted territory. You traced a line down his sternum, fascinated.

Pierrot lay perfectly still beneath your exploration, his breath catching at each touch. The heart-shaped pupils in his amber eyes were wide, consuming.

“You may map me later, my dear,” his voice brushed your mind, strained with a patience hanging by a thread. “Every inch. But first…”

He moves, rolling you gently until you were nestled beside him in the pillows, facing each other. His gloved hand came up to cradle your cheek.

“May I… leave my bite on you?” he asked, his psychic tone devastatingly polite. “I promise. I will be gentle. So gentle.”

You nodded, a slow, mesmerized dip of your chin.

His hands, which could be so frighteningly strong, became impossibly soft. 

He undressed you with slowness, each button, each brush of fabric away from your skin. His breath hitched as more of you was revealed. When you were finally bare before him, he went utterly still for a long moment, just looking.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered, the words echoing with genuine, awe-struck reverence. The pupils in his amber eyes had softened from hearts back to wide, circular pools of molten gold, drinking you in. “All this warmth… I had forgotten how it feels.”

His cool hands skimmed over your shoulders, down your arms, as if memorizing you by touch. Then he bent his head, his mask brushing your skin as he placed a kiss on the hollow of your throat. Then another. A trail of cool, worshipping lips followed the line of your collarbone, the curve of your shoulder.

He was true to his word. He was gentle. 

But the intent behind each touch was overwhelming. When his mouth finally settled on the soft skin where your shoulder met your neck, he didn’t bite down hard. 

He closed his teeth over the flesh with a careful, persistent pressure—a claiming that was more seal than wound. It was a slow, deep sensation that made you arch against him, a gasp trapped in your throat.

He held the bite for a long moment, a low, resonant hum of satisfaction vibrating through him and into you. When he finally released, he soothed the spot with his faded orange, gold-tinged long tongue, then pressed his masked forehead against yours, his breathing ragged.

He was marked by you. 

And now, in his own silent, devoted way, you were marked by him.

Your eyes watched his long body caging you in against the pillows. You could feel the heat of him, the surprising strength in the slender frame. And you couldn’t miss the obvious, heavy bulge straining against the black fabric of his trousers, right where your foot had brushed against it. 

A bright, vivid red blush bloomed across the pale skin of his chest and throat, visible even in the low light.

Out of pure, dizzying curiosity, you whispered, “Can I… see it?”

Pierrot went still.

 The amber eyes behind the mask flickered with a mix of shock and sheer, vulnerable want. He was hesitant, a tremor running through him. But to deny you, to displease you… that was unthinkable.

“If… if my angel wishes,” his voice was a strained, mental rasp. “Only if you wish.”

You changed positions, gently urging him to lie back. With careful, slightly trembling fingers, you undid the fastenings of his pants. He lifted his hips to help you, a silent, surrendering motion.

And then it was unveiled.

His cock was… monumental.

The hue was the same faded, sun-bleached orange of his hair, darkening to a rich, burnt umber at the base—a technicality utterly lost in the sheer, awe-inspiring presence of it. It was thick, a heavy, beautiful weight that filled your hands when you dared to touch it. The girth was substantial, requiring both hands to circle it fully.

It arched upwards with a slight, perfect curve, designed to reach deep. The tip was broad, a smooth, flared crown, and beneath the skin, thick, roping veins pulsed slow.

Holy shit, you thought, your mind briefly blank.

It’s as big as my face.

“You don’t… have to,” Pierrot’s voice shuddered into your mind. He was propped on his elbows, watching you, his entire body taut with restraint. “Even this… you looking… you touching… it is more than enough. I could just hold you. Just hold you tight.”

But you were already committed. 

Driven by a mix of wonder, affection, and a daring edge of your own. You leaned forward and bit his inner thigh—not hard, but a sharp, playful claim—then kissed the same spot. 

“I want to keep going,” you murmured against his skin, the words vibrating into him.

You blew a soft, warm breath across the broad tip, watching him jolt. Then you gave him a long, slow, experimental lick from the very base of his balls, up the thick underside vein, all the way to the flared crown. The taste was clean, salty, uniquely him.

Emboldened, you opened your mouth and took the head of him inside, just the tip, as your hands worked the massive base.

Shit, he’s a lot bigger than expected, you thought, the stretch immediate. But it didn’t matter. 

You were fascinated.

Above you, Pierrot’s hands flew to his own face, his fingers pressing against his masked temples as he watched you try to take more of him. The sight—your curious, determined expression, your lips stretched around him—was unraveling him completely.

“So cute… so… curious…” he breathed, the words fractured.

He was breathing in ragged, heaving gasps. One of his large pale hands tentatively reached out and settled on the crown of your head, not pushing, just resting. A question. A plea.

You met his gaze and gave a tiny nod.

His hand gently applied the lightest pressure, guiding you to take him deeper. You relaxed your throat as much as you could, letting him slide further in until the head nudged the back of your throat. The feeling of being filled, stretched by him, was overwhelming, a hot, claiming fullness.

It was all too much for his centuries of pent-up, devoted longing. The combination of your willingness, your curiosity, your warmth—it shattered his control.

“I’m—!“

A broken, silent cry echoed in your mind as his hips gave a shallow, helpless thrust. He came suddenly, intensely, with a force that made his whole body arch off the pillows. Thick, hot streaks of cum shot somewhat in you mouth then into the air, some landing across your cheek, your forehead, with shocking warmth. 

There was so much of it.

The sensation seemed to shock him back to himself. He pulled out of your mouth with a wet sound, his hands flying to your face, his thumbs frantically, tenderly wiping the mess from your skin.

“I apologize—I’m so sorry—it was too fast, I couldn’t—forgive me, my angel, I—“ he babbled, his psychic voice a torrent of embarrassed, worshipful distress.

You looked up at him, catching his frantic hands in yours. Your face was flushed, your eyes wide not with disgust, but with awe and wonder.

“It’s okay,” you whispered, your voice hoarse. Then, with a spark of your old, blunt curiosity cutting through the sensual haze, you asked, “How many times… can you do that?”

Pierrot went completely still beneath you. 

More still than his usual silence. The quiet from him felt… stunned. Speechless in a way that had nothing to do with his vow.

You blinked, realizing; you were doing it again.

Dissecting the moment with questions when the moment just was. A flush of self-consciousness burned through the haze of warmth. “Sorry, I’m— I’m doing it again, I’ll just—” You began to pull back, to retreat into the safer space of your own head.

But his hands—one gloved, one bare—flew up to cradle your hips, holding you firmly in place on his lap.

“No,” his mental voice was a soft, desperate command. “Do not pull away. Ask. Always ask.” He took a shaky breath, his thumbs stroking your skin. “As many times as you want me to. A thousand. Until my jaw aches. As many times as you… want me.”

His words trailed off, significance shifting. You followed his eyeline, glancing down between your bodies.

Oh.

You’d been aware of the firm pressure beneath you, of course. But now you looked. His cock, thick and long, curving slightly against his stomach. The sight didn’t spark a cascade of analytical thoughts for once. Instead, it sparked a feeling—a deep, visceral, wanting pull low in your belly. 

This was something you could feel your way through, not think your way through.

And the vibe… the vibe was right. 

The lighting was warm and low, not distracting. The wagon smelled of old velvet and him—that clean, stone-like scent. No sudden noises. No demands. 

Just Pierrot, watching you with those wide, golden eyes, his hands steady on you, willing to follow your lead, willing to be as silly or as serious as you needed.

Emboldened, you moved your hips, a slow, experimental grind against him. The smooth, hot slide of your wetness against his skin drew a shattered gasp from him. His head fell back against the pillows, the bells on his hat giving a soft, frantic chime.

“You’re… you’re so big,” you murmured, not with fear, but with fascinated delight. You were practically sitting on him, your own arousal making a slick, messing path between you. The sensation was incredible—so much so it was toeing the line of too much, a pleasure so sharp it threatened to tip into overload. 

But you didn’t want to stop. 

You wanted him.

“Pierrot… please,” you begged, your voice trembling not with panic, but with need. You lifted yourself up slightly, guiding him with a clumsy, eager hand. “Can you… put it inside? Please?”

He tensed, his hands tightening on your waist. “I do not wish to hurt you,” he whispered, the words strained. “You are so small. So warm. I could… break you.”

“You won’t,” you breathed, leaning down to kiss the cool plane of his mask where his cheek would be. “I can take it. I want to. I want you.” The words felt like a truth deeper than any fact. “Please. I need… I need to feel you.”

Everything about him was so pleasing—the contrast of his cool skin against your heat, the absolute focus of his attention, the way he let you set the pace. 

You wanted him so, so badly, even if certain touches, certain intensities of feeling, could sometimes short-circuit your system. 

This felt worth the risk of overload.

Hesitantly, agonizingly slowly, he guided you as you sank down. The stretch was immense, immediate, a breathtaking fullness that made you cry out. It was a lot. Almost too much. You froze, panting, your nails digging into his shoulders.

Pierrot went statue-still beneath you, every muscle in his long body locked with the effort of control. “Tell me,” he begged, his voice a ragged thread in your mind. “Tell me what you need. Do you need to stop? Do you need… the candy?”

“No candy,” you gasped out, shaking your head. The intensity was overwhelming, but it wasn’t wrong. It was him. “Just… just stay still. Let me… let me get used to you.”

You focused on your breathing, on the feeling of being utterly filled and stretched by him. Slowly, the sharp edge of too much softened into a deep, resonant ache of enough. More than enough. He was stretching you so good, so perfectly, you had to remember to breathe.

Tentatively, you began to move. A slow, rocking grind of your hips.

And the world outside—the blue lights, the screaming customers, the confusing social scripts—dissolved into static and then into nothing. There was only this: the warm, amber glow of the lamp catching the gold on his mask, the scent of old paper and cold stone and him, the incredible, silencing sensation of being connected to the one thing in the universe that made your chaotic heart feel still.

You moved up, then sank back down with a soft cry. Pierrot’s large hands flew to your hips, his cool grip guiding you, helping you find a pace. His thumbs pressed into the dip of your waist.

“Fuck,” you breathed out, the word shattering the last of the quiet. “You feel so good.”

The noise between you became a symphony—your shuddering gasps, the wet, slick sound of your joining, the rustle of velvet pillows, the soft, choked sounds he made behind his mask, half-moan, half-reverent prayer.

“Yes,” his voice scraped against your mind, raw and awed. “Just like that. You are… perfection. A vision. You take me so beautifully.”

He watched you with those heart-shaped pupils, his breathing a ragged, open-mouthed rhythm beneath the fixed porcelain smile. His hat was slightly askew, a lock of white hair stuck to his damp temple.

“Shit,” you moaned, leaning forward to brace your hands on his chest. “If I keep this up, I might not be able to walk tomorrow.”

“Then don’t walk,” he growled, the thought laced with a possessive thrill. “Stay. Always stay.”

Fuck it. 

The thought was a spark that lit a fuse. 

You let go. You rode him aggressively, getting wild, chasing the coil of heat tightening low in your belly. 

You fucked him with a desperate, claiming energy, your nails scraping lightly over the pale skin of his chest. You were going to ride him until you were satisfied, until this fire burned out the last of the day’s cold static.

“I… I should focus on pleasing you,” he gasped against your neck, the words fragmented, apologetic, as if he’d been selfish. “Let me… let me make you feel…”

You cupped his masked face in your hands, pulling him up to look at you. “You are,” you breathed, and then you kissed him, deep and sure. He moaned into your mouth, his long tongue tangling with yours, a shock of cool, slick. You pressed yourself closer, wanting him, all of him.

“You’re so good to me,” you murmured against his lips, between kisses. “You take such good care of me.”

The words hit him like a physical blow of bliss. 

A soft, shattered sound escaped him, and when he pulled back just enough to look at you, the expression on what you could see of his face—the slight part of his lips, the devastating softness in his amber eyes—was one of pure, unguarded love. It was a look that promised forever, promised devotion, promised a thousand more quiet wagon nights.

Emboldened, drunk on him and your own power, you pushed at his shoulders.

He understood instantly, letting you guide him onto his back once more. You straddled him, sinking down onto his length with a slow, deliberate roll of your hips that made you both cry out. 

This time, you set the pace. 

You fucked him with a desperate, claiming energy, your nails scraping lightly over the pale marble of his chest, leaving faint, pink trails. You were going to ride him until you were satisfied, until this fire burned out the last of the day’s cold static and the memory of every judging stare.

He met your frenzy with a worshipful hunger, his hands flying to your hips not to guide, but to feel you move. His own hips arched up to meet your every downward stroke, driving him deeper. The praise in your mind never stopped, a constant, psychic stream of devotion that wrapped around you both.

“You are everything. You are all. The way you move… angel… my sweet, demanding angel… you ruin me, you save me, you are mine, you are mine, you are—”

His voice broke off into a silent cry as his climax took him again. It hit him harder than the first, a seismic wave that made his body bow up under you, a sound like a shattering bell choked behind his mask. 

He spilled deep inside you, his hands clutching you to him with a possessiveness that bordered on pain, as if he could fuse you together through will alone.

Yet you didn’t stop.

The feeling of him inside you, so deep and present, was the only clear thing in the universe. You slowed, your hips making small, small circles, grinding against him, dragging him through the aftershocks and back into a fresh, aching hardness.

He gasped, a ragged, sobbing sound—but it was edged with gratitude, with worship. He was putty in your hands, a sacred instrument you were learning to play.

How many times did he come? The number blurred. Twice? Three times? You lost count in the glorious haze, your own focus narrowing to the single-minded purpose of chasing the feeling, chasing the perfect silence only he could give you. 

You were overwhelming him, and he was letting you, welcoming the overstimulation as his due, his reward for being yours.

But even the most devoted saint has his limits.

Eventually, the balance changes. With a low, possessive growl that vibrated from his chest directly into yours, he moved. It was effortless, startling—one moment you were riding him, and the next the world spun. 

You were pinned deep into the mountain of pillows and blankets, the air knocked from your lungs. One of your legs was hooked over his shoulder, the other wrapped tight around his narrow waist, opening you to him completely.

The new angle was devastating. He didn’t just enter you; he claimed the space. He drove into you with a deep, relentless, piston-like rhythm that stole your breath and your thoughts.

“Mine.”

The word fissured through your mind, not a gentle endearment now, but a fundamental truth. He hammered it into you with every deep, perfect thrust.

“Mine to cherish. Mine to keep. Mine to fill.”

He fucked you like he was trying to memorize the very shape of your soul from the inside out. Like if he moved with enough devotion, enough desperation, he could stitch his essence directly into the fabric of your being. 

The stark, unchanging bone of his mask was a surreal contrast to the living, sweating, shuddering reality of his body moving above you, the corded tension in his arms, the desperate arch of his back.

You came with a cry that felt like it tore something free inside you. The world dissolved into white and gold, your body convulsing around him, milking him, pulling one final, broken release from his very core. He followed you over the edge with a choked, reverent sound, spilling into you as if he could anchor himself there forever.

He collapsed over you, a trembling, beautiful weight of silk, bone, and cooling skin. His masked face was buried in the crook of your neck, his entire long frame shaking with the aftershocks. 

The only sounds in the velvet-dark wagon were the frantic, slowing drumbeat of your hearts, and his soft, whispered mantra against your sweat-damp skin.

“Beautiful… perfect… my home… my love… my love… my love…”

You woke feeling strangely… refreshed. Clean. The usual morning fog was absent, replaced by a soft, golden clarity. You turned your head on the pillow.

And holy shit.

There was Pierrot, doing a long, sinuous stretch. The man was long of elegant, pale limb, still decently naked, thankfully covered from the waist down by a tangled blanket. 

The lamplight caught every detail—and every mark. His neck, his collarbones, the flat plane of his chest… they were a canvas of faint, love-bitten blooms. Purpling teeth marks. Your teeth marks.

A flush of heat shot through you, part awe, part horror. You tried to slip out of the pillowed nest quietly, yet before you could get far, a long, cool hand circled your wrist.

“Are you alright, my heart?” His voice was a sleep-roughened murmur in your mind, thick with concern.

Instead of answering, you turned and buried your face against his lower chest, wrapping your arms around his narrow waist. You rubbed your cheek against his cool skin, a wordless, grounding gesture filled with a tenderness that surprised you both.

He went very still, then his arms came around you, one hand cradling the back of your head. “Good morning,” he breathed, the words imbued with a reverence usually reserved for prayers.

“Good morning,” you mumbled into his skin, your voice muffled. You pulled back just enough to gesture vaguely at the marks. “I’m… sorry. For all of that.”

A soft, huffing sound—his version of a laugh. He took your hand and guided your fingertips to trail over the bites on his collarbone. A full-body shiver went through him. “Do not apologize for scripture. I adore it. I adore you.”

The moment was so perfectly, quietly domestic it almost hurt. Then your phone, half-buried in a blanket, lit up with a notification. 

A reminder for your shift.

The real world, with its blue lights and sharp voices, came crashing back in. “I have to go,” you said, the words tasting like ash.

The change in him was instant. The softness vanished, replaced by a wire-tight tension. “No.” His arms tightened. “Stay. Please. I was going to make you food. You just woke up. You need to eat. Stay with me.”

He gently, implacably, pushed you back down into the pillows, then settled his head on your chest, his mask cool against your skin. He was a heavy, pleading weight. “Oh, please, don’t leave me. Not yet. The world is so cruel out there. Stay in our quiet. Just a little longer.”

“I have to,” you whispered, your fingers threading into his hair, even as your heart rebelled. “I don’t want to, but I have to.”

You felt him go still. 

Then, with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of centuries of loneliness, he untangled himself and stood. “Then… at least let me send you off properly. One cup of tea. For the road.”

He moved to the small, ornate stove in the corner of the wagon. You watched his back, the play of muscle under pale skin, the way he moved with a silent, focused grace. You heard him whisper to himself, a low, frantic murmur you weren’t supposed to catch.

“Just a little longer. Just a few more hours. They’re so tired. They hates it there. They’ll only break them again. I’m not being cruel. I’m being kind. This is kindness. Keeping them safe is kindness. They’re mine to protect. Mine to keep safe. My sweet angel, my chaotic heart… they’ll see. they’ll understand it’s better here…”

He returned with a delicate china cup, steam curling with the scent of chamomile and something else… something faintly floral, sweet. Pierrot. He helped you sit up, his touch infinitely tender, and held the cup to your lips.

“For strength,” he whispered aloud, his real voice a rare, rasping gift.

You drank. It was warm. Sweet. Soothing. 

The tension of the impending shift began to feel… distant. Muffled. Like a bad dream you were slowly waking from. A heavy, pleasant lassitude seeped into your limbs. Your head felt fuzzy, warm.

“You know,” you slurred softly, leaning back into the pillows, your eyes struggling to stay open. “I never really liked that place anyway…”

A profound, victorious stillness settled over him. He took the cup, set it aside, and gathered you back into his arms, tucking your head under his chin. A wave of pure, unadulterated peace washed through the psychic space between you.

You are his salvation through your chaos. 

He is your sanctuary through his stillness. You own him with your rage; he owns you with his unconditional, obsessive acceptance. It’s a fated, destructive, perfect bond.

He wouldn’t have you any other way.

And as the drugged tea pulled you back under, nestled safe in the tomb of his devotion, your final, mumbling sigh was a vow and a request all in one, breathed against the skin of his throat where your marks still bloomed:

“Bite me, please.”

♤ — 𝓉𝒻𝒸 𝒾𝓃𝓀𝓎𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉

iyayadonna, all rights reserved. — ⋆˚ ᓭི༏ᓯྀ ꩜ 。⋆ .ᐟ