never love a wild thing.

( time stops; her heart slams into the back of her rib cage and freezes.   all she can see are the ways she loses him, the ways they come rushing   to his room after a firecracker in the middle of the night, after feodor’s   horrified screams fill the air and her oldest son is gone.

  it’s not as if he doesn’t know how to handle firearms, they all do, but he’s   never had reason for his own, never had to hide it from her.

  until now. )

   I took it. Dad didn’t notice --

( eyes stare down at the floor, away from her.   he doesn’t want to look at her right now and    have to see the expression on her face; he    knows that he’s hurt her and made her afraid. )

( she doesn’t want to be afraid of him.    that’s the hardest part of it, she thinks,   that she can allow herself to not be so   frightened of so much, but she can’t do   so for him. 

  still, she lies. )

     Yeah. 

( she doesn’t know all about what   happened; the dirty details of it,    at least. he doesn’t think he ever   really wants her to know and to    have to think about it like he does. )

( there’s a burning in her eyes and she fills her   chest with air to restrain the urge to let them spill. 

  it’s a yes. he wouldn’t evade her if it was anything   less. )

   It’s a fucking gun! 

( he snaps it out, loud and harsh. he’s   never spoken to her like that. )

( something seizes in her chest – fear, now,   sharp and real – before she can stop it. 

  no, she wants to say, but it would be a lie,   the same she’d told to natasha. i’ve never   been afraid of you. i’ve never been afraid.   not once, not ever. 

  maybe, she thinks, if she tells herself the   same thing over and over again, repeats it   in the mirror the same way she tells herself   that she is not afraid of her shaking hands,   it will be true. )

    I don’t know.

( her chest cracks, floods her bloodstream with ice. )

     --- what if it was?