☆ cas / kennedy ☆

The mask stays on.. at first atleast. Now don't come for me with this, this is only sometimes, those times where he's a bit more shut off, just enough it drives you to the edge, but never distant, or simply wants to toy with you. Other times? You’re the only one he lets see him without it. And that’s your cue to ruin him. When it comes off, he's yours—no persona, no theatrics, just raw want and fevered eyes, whispering your name like a prayer that shouldn’t exist.

“Take it. Take all of me. Make me forget where I end and you begin.”

He is that feral but worshipful kind. Higgs likes it mess, loves it when you grab his hair and make him behave, even though he never really does. He’ll pin you to every surface, hands on your throat or hips, but he always pauses to check your eyes. That bastard’s heart pounds for your pleasure.

Now, he talks filthy like its poetry, and more than anything it’s the tone—low, teasing, reverent. He’ll call you “his angel of entropy,” “his god/goddess of the edge,” whilst saying something so obscene your knees go weak and he lives for it every time, if there were a kink for just that, well that'd be it.

And on the lines of talking, the most tender moments come from when he talks to you in that drawl when he thinks you’re fast asleep. He’s already stroking your back as your eyelids are heavy murmuring things like, “What the hell you doin’ here with me darlin’.. don’t deserve it.”

Speaking of kinks, he marks you up like it’s art. He likes to press his tongue over bruises he’s made with his hands or his teeth hearing you hiss, “Look at that. Proof you’re mine.” Another one of his? Overstimulation, hands down. Seeing you weak, like as said before, bare before him, and just for him even he gets overwhelmed at the thought. He'll see your trembling thighs, the weak whimper from your throat, and just grin.

“Oh no, no no, baby… what gave you the idea we were done?”

You glance back over your shoulder, dazed—only for him to grab your hips and thrust deep, dragging a cry from your throat like a confession. Your spine arches with your cheek presses to the cold table and you’re panting through your teeth, body jerking forward with every punishing snap of his hips.

“You wanted to play, right? Thought I was just gonna take it like a good dog?”, “Now you’re gonna suffer for every smug little look."

Not to mention he gets clingy after sex, like some sleepy golden retriever with a god complex. He wraps around you, face in your neck, talking a whole bunch of nonsense and twitching slightly when you run your fingers through his sweaty hair. Because that protectiveness? It’s instinct. Not only that, but he’s big on aftercare afterwards, especially after going hard— his voice stills and he’s checking you over, now it’s just Higgs, Just your Peter. The one who’s all cracked breath and guilt-sweet murmurs, already reaching for you. His hands leave your hips only to gather you up, arms wrapping around your waist and chest as he pulls you back into him and onto his lap, cradling you in that half-naked sprawl like you’re something holy. Like a miracle he almost broke.

You’re tucked into him, face hidden in the crook of his neck, your leg clicking softly with every uneven step against his metal one. His arms lock tight beneath your thighs and back as he lowers you onto soft sheets, like letting go might undo you entirely. “Easy sweetheart, I’ve got you.” He’s got you in the bed with him, checking you over carefully, “You good?”, “Did I hurt you?” And you’re shaking your head before he can say anything else, and he kisses your forehead harshly in silence before he’ll tug one of his shirts over your head—it hangs off you like a flag of surrender—and lies down behind you, curling you into his chest like a shield he’s afraid to lose again. And then, only then does he sigh and ease down.

You could be walking together, taking a few quiet moments or running away from people altogether, he’ll always keep you on the inside of the road, swiping you by your waist to move you slyly when you wander slightly. Or you could be doing your thing, trading away some crap you found to get by and he’s lingering whilst shining up his gun, flashing the other person a quick look before his eyes landing on you— smirking.

Higgs brings you trinkets, don’t ask, it’s not like he does anyway, but they’re weird ones too. Like broken pieces of BT handprints and shiny buttons, or a baby shoe he insists “has a nice vibe.” He’ll drop them in your lap like a cat with a dead bird and go, “It’s yours now,” without another word and just slink away.

He hums your name rather than just saying it, and not in a creepy way—okay, maybe slightly off putting at times —but it’s kind of a lullaby, like it’s more sacred than anything else he could speak. Sometimes it’s taunting, sometimes it’s playful, others it tender and half of the time he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, it comes as second nature, but he always pushes for your reaction.

The way he confesses love is like a crime, it’s a rarity often in moments after he’s angry or at a loss, or one of you two is in danger. His voice is low and his eyes darting around until they find you, like it hurts him to admit it. “I shouldn't love anything. But I do. And it’s you.” His hands wrapping tightly over yours, “I’d let this world burn if it meant keepin’ you from the ashes.”

And going alongside this? He’s a romantic at heart but he’s flirting and playing dirty any chance he gets. He once pulled you in and kissed you in the middle of a battlefield. Full on tongue, hand in your hair as you were surrounded, Mules and BTs closing in. Before he broke the kiss with a growl—

“Let’s finish this. Then I’m finishing you.”

Or when you were crouched in position, arm stretched as you check out the view ahead of you, as your armoured leg (with the mechanics he had built for you do course) braces into the rock, about to sprint before Higgs’ voice from somewhere below you echo—

“Nice view from up here, sugar.” beat, “That new upgrade on your leg? Shiny. Bet it wraps tight ‘round my hips, huh?”

"Wouldn’t know. You’ve never lasted long enough to get me to wrap ‘round anything." You bite back without a look, a smile pulling at your lip.

And he just chuckles, appearing beside you, “Cmon Sugar you know it’s about five minutes or so— hey six if you count foreplay.”

Or when you make a move on someone, often murdering them in your own right, or them taking enough damage that leaves you walking away unscathed but breathless. His mouth drops open everytime like he’s seen something holy, “You keep flirting with murder and marriage in the same breath. It’s so you— So hot.”

And coming from one of my mutuals that mentioned how he’d pop up anywhere? Oh it’s true. You’re out and about, and when you weren’t looking he’d already disappeared, annoyed enough to leave you grumbling about him being a dick, and suddenly, the comms cut out. Your only form of communication until he decided to show back up, gone— and you can only think of who.

You're moving solo now, storming further through the barren land and you can hear voices from further away, and the air grows thick as you pause. Pausing in your step as you gaze around, going silent, until—he teleports behind you mid-pause, grabbing your waist so you don't slip into a crevasse and your back hits his chest with a thud.

And there he is just right in your ear, “Surpriiise, darlin'." You elbow him, hard.

Degradation and begging king all the way around though.. because whilst he’s getting off on your hits and the way you spit your words at him after he’s riled you up. You know later he’s bending you over all pressed underneath him, with his hands at your shoulders and breath sneering at your ear “Listen to you. Pretty little brat all cracked open. What happened to your pokerface, huh?”, “Tell me who you belong to, sweetheart. Say it.”

You choke on your own breath. Maybe you try to resist. Maybe you whisper, “Fuck you.” Either way his hand snakes up to your throat, slamming into you again, and again, until the words fall from your lips like holy scripture, “You. I’m yours. Higgs—fuck, I’m yours—” And he’ll do it over and over again, to the point you don’t even realize you’re crying until his thumb is there, swiping the corner of your eye with unexpected tenderness.

And then? Just to break your brain?

He leans over and kisses your shoulder gently. Like an apology, like love. “That’s my honey, always was.”

This has been spoken about in passing before but his fear of loss and those insecurities are immense, and when they show things can get ugly, but there is a softness behind them. And it’s a big one, the big reason why he clings so hard because he’s already been abandoned enough— that’s why his love is possessive, obsessive, and sometimes destructive more than he’d like to admit, he tries to keep you from it but sometimes he just can’t and it kills him. If there’s a joke that doesn’t land or you pull away hard at times he snaps and panics, “Don’t you dare, don’t you leave me too.”

He loves those scars and flaws of yours, he’s found comfort in them in the most broken things since he built himself from the ground. Anything that’s remotely imperfect which in his eyes is in everything? Let alone about you, he thinks it’s gorgeous, and he’s loud about it— and not in some performative way, it’s genuine. The way survival clings to you and how you wear it as it comes it ties to his own fixation with that ruin and beauty all in one, and you hold every bit of that for him. More than anyone.

Those quiet domestic moments wreck him, it’s few and far between nowadays, but when he finds you stalking around, humming while cooking, or reading a book you found— or that he found you. It makes something twist in his chest, and he’ll just pause it doesn’t matter what he’s doing before. Someone could be talking to him and he’s waving them off to be closer to you. And Higgs in romance is like holding fire. You get the warmth and protection and everything in between but you’ll burn a little when he gets too close.