Chapter Text
Sylvie fucking hates her new stepfather.
She has every reason to, thank you very much. The moment her mother comes home one day, flushed in a way Sylvie hasn’t seen in years, talking on and on about some new executive at her company, it puts her on edge. There’s a long list of evidence to prove that her mother’s taste in men is questionable at best and downright ridiculous at worst.
Exhibit A: Sylvie’s father, gone before she even made it into the world, and subsequently nonexistent to either of them.
Exhibit B: Keith, stepfather number one, who fucked the nanny within the first year of marriage - because it’s just her mother’s luck that she’d attract a literal nanny fucker.
Exhibit C: Dave, the boyfriend from when Sylvie was eight years old, who she’s pretty sure never showered and looked every bit the greasy rat he was at heart.
There’s more to add, but Sylvie’s confident enough to rest her case after the first three.
So when this… this Loki (and what kind of a name is that, anyway?) appears on the horizon, she thinks a little suspicion is in order.
Meeting him only confirms that.
He comes to dinner one night, arriving at their tiny two-bedroom in a car so over-the-top Sylvie refuses to believe he actually owns it. He brings flowers and a bottle of wine, and he shakes her hand with a smile. He compliments her mother’s cooking and doesn’t seem taken aback by the rundown state of most of their furniture, or the coziness (read: crampedness) of their house.
Sylvie hates his guts immediately.
He’s all smarm and charm and pretty words, made prettier by the poshness of his accent. He wears an all-black suit that fits him like a glove and a watch that’s probably worth more than Sylvie’s entire existence. Everything about him screams fancy upbringing, fancy schools, fancy living.
So what the hell is he doing here, with a working-class woman and her grumpy teenage daughter?
No, she decides quickly, eyeing him over dessert. He’s a snake. A well-dressed, well-spoken snake. A much more dangerous animal than a rat.
Sylvie hates his good manners, the ease with which he keeps the conversation going. The way her mother swoons at everything he does.
She hates the smell of his cologne most of all, because it won’t leave her alone even after he’s gone.
At night, she curls up in her bed, listening to the faint sounds of traffic filtering in from the street, and she hopes she’ll never see him again.
***
Loki asks her mother to marry him after eight months of dating.
Sylvie probably should have seen it coming, but the diamond on her mother’s finger still flashes too large, too bright, too soon. Obscenely large. It makes everything around look dull in comparison. Their house with its faded wallpapers, their life with its never-overdue-but-sometimes-close bills. Sylvie herself, with her baggy T-shirts and unevenly chopped hair.
She goes out to the abandoned field near the train tracks after school and screams at the sky.
The ceremony is a lush affair filled with black ties, flowers and top-shelf champagne. Sylvie, in her too-tight maid of honor dress, watches her mother glide down the aisle in a flurry of white, Loki waiting on the other side of the altar. His eyes meet hers for just a split second, and he smiles at her.
She hates his smile. She makes sure to spend the rest of the wedding staring blankly at the stained-glass window on the other side of the church as Loki officially becomes stepfather number three.
By mutual agreement she and her mother never talk about stepfather number two, still in jail for tax evasion or fraud or whatever the fuck it was.
The house she grew up in is abandoned in favor of Loki’s riverside penthouse - two floors of wood and chrome and strategically-placed lighting and floor-to-ceiling windows. A museum of modern architecture more than a house. She refuses to even entertain the idea of considering it a home.
The room she’s given is bigger than their old living room and kitchen combined, an empty canvas of white paint with a fucking marble bathroom that she loathes all the more for how she can’t bring herself to truly hate it.
“You can decorate it however you want,” her mother says. It’s tentative, almost hopeful. Sylvie can tell how desperately she wants to make this work. Finally, a good man, a rich man at that, has come their way, and Sylvie’s being unnecessarily difficult. After all, who wouldn’t be grateful to live in a place like this?
She leaves the room almost empty, save for basic furniture. A pristine chapel of minimalism, her the only black speck in the middle of it. The only imperfection in the happy family portrait her mother is oh so desperately trying to paint.
The morning after they move in, she comes down to the kitchen to find it stocked with her favorite breakfast cereal. The kind Loki saw her eat whenever he stayed over at their house for the night.
He’s sipping an espresso at the kitchen counter, reading the morning news on his phone, and Sylvie slowly closes the cabinet and goes back upstairs to her room.
This time, when she screams, it’s at the empty white ceiling of her too-big, too-luxurious bathroom.
***
Sylvie hates how much he tries.
He’s a snake, she’s sure of it, even though the more time passes, the less evidence she has to back it up. He makes her mother happy, nauseatingly so, keeps up a steady stream of gifts and exotic holidays and flowers, as if he’s gunning for some kind of a perfect husband award.
At first she thinks it’s a smokescreen, a way to lull them both into a false sense of safety before he shows his true face, but after a year, she’s not so sure anymore.
Maybe her mother really caught herself a white whale at last. The more time passes, the more it chips away at her doubt.
She clings to it harder, searching for a flaw, something wrong with him that must be there. Something that will tell her she’s been right all along, that the hate burning in her lungs like smoke is justified.
She tears page after page from her sketchbook when the figures she’s drawing start to look too much like him.
The worst part is that, the harder her mother tries to make them a family - family dinners every night, family outings, family holidays - the more Loki seems to respect her space, never pushing, taking away another potential reason for her to hate him, and that makes her hate him all the more.
The truth is, she’s not sure there’s enough space he could give her that could take away the choking feeling in her throat.
Even when he’s downstairs, walls and doors and floors separating them, she can hear him watching TV, or cooking dinner - because of course he fucking cooks, and it’s always something complex and gourmet and infuriatingly delicious, too - or playing the grand piano in the corner of the living room. The music worms its way into her ears, soft and beautiful.
Sylvie puts her earphones in and drowns it out.
But she can’t avoid him forever. Sooner or later, she ends up staring at him across the table at dinner, only half-listening to the conversation. She studies the sharp angles of his face, his knife-like jawline, the blue of his eyes as they catch the light. Since she can’t find a single blemish on his character, there must at least be one on his appearance.
The frustration when she fails to spot any always tastes bitter on her tongue.
It’s bearable enough while he ignores her, but then, without fail, he asks her something - usually perfectly vague, like how her day has been - and she gives her usual perfectly vague answer, and the hate in her belly burns bright like molten steel.
He gives her space, but he tries, and she can’t stand it.
Like when he catches her drawing the view from the living room one evening. She’d emerged from her room while the house was supposed to be empty, a silent cavern filled with symmetrical furniture, giving her space to breathe. The river glimmering in the setting sun with the skyscrapers around it made for a compelling subject. The angle from her room wasn’t right, prompting her to take a seat on the ginormous white sofa, the pencil in her hand making quick work of the image in front of her.
And then there he is.
He always works from home on Tuesdays, and she’d forgotten it like a fucking idiot. By the time she becomes aware of his presence, it’s too late to retreat.
“Gorgeous view,” he remarks, stopping next to the sofa. His voice makes Sylvie want to snap her pencil in two.
She makes a noncommittal sound in response, keeping her eyes trained on the water below. Maybe he’ll go away if she refuses to engage. It’s worked fine for them for the last year and a half.
He doesn’t leave. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him take a sip of the amber liquid in the glass he’s holding. The expensive scotch he keeps in a decanter on the side table.
“May I see?”
It takes her a moment to realize he’s talking about her sketchbook. The one with half of its pages torn out. The one with a singular still prevailing drawing of his profile in it.
There’s a No on her tongue, biting and acidic, but then she makes the mistake of glancing at his face fully. The way it looks illuminated by the setting sun.
She hands the sketchbook over before her brain can fully comprehend what she’s doing.
Loki flips through it slowly, taking time to examine every single page, and Sylvie can hear a scream bouncing around in her head like a ricocheting bullet. This is not what their relationship is like. It’s small talk over dinner and her trudging along on whatever ridiculous trip her mother has come up with. It’s not supposed to be sitting in a rapidly darkening room, waiting with bated breath for his verdict on her drawings.
It’s not supposed to be sudden, desperate, pathetic yearning for approval from the man she has nothing but hatred for.
Her sketchbook is mostly filled with things she sees on her way to and from school. A pigeon bathing in a puddle in the park she usually walks through. A woman reading a book on the subway. The dreary corridor filled with lockers she did as a quick exercise in perspective. Some doodles she drew in class, bored out of her mind. A countdown to graduation, now in double digits.
He lingers on one page in particular, and she knows it’s the one with his face on it.
When he gives the sketchbook back, Sylvie grabs it too quickly, their fingers brushing together for a fraction of a second. She snaps her hand back.
“These are excellent,” he tells her.
She hates him.
“Have you thought about going to art school after graduation?”
She hates, hates, hates him.
“If I can pay for it.” It’s a curt reply, something he should be used to from her by now. The implication is clear. Do not fucking offer to pay for it.
He doesn’t. Instead, he takes another sip.
“A talent like yours shouldn’t go to waste,” he says finally.
He leaves her alone after that, retreating to his office, and she listens to his footsteps until the door on the other side of the apartment clicks shut.
She hates him.
Her hand still tingles as she resumes her drawing.
***
She spends a week holed up in her room when she catches a nasty flu mid-February. Her mother tuts in concern, tells her to go back to bed, and then she’s off to work. They have a practiced routine at this point, ever since Sylvie was old enough to heat up canned soup for herself and take cold medication. She chugs some Tylenol and wraps herself up in blankets before falling into a feverish nap.
What she doesn’t expect is a knock on her door some hours later - her phone is lost somewhere among the layers of fabric, and only her growling stomach tells her a significant amount of time must have passed - or for Loki to enter with a tray.
Is it Tuesday? She’s not sure.
“It’s just some soup and tea,” he tells her, approaching her bed, but it’s a bald-faced lie, because he’s also carrying an extra pillow and a giant bottle of water, somehow balancing all of it without spilling a single drop of anything on the tray.
Before she knows it, she’s propped up into a sitting position, a steaming bowl of chicken soup in her lap. Noodles and pieces of meat float around in the golden liquid. Sylvie stares at it emptily.
She can’t remember the last time she had chicken soup that wasn’t from a can.
“Thank you,” she hears herself say to his retreating back. He stops in the doorway.
“My pleasure. Let me know if you need anything else.”
The door closes behind him, and she returns her eyes to the tray.
She hates him.
The soup tastes fucking delicious.
***
One day, there’s paint in her room.
Sylvie looks through the nondescript box left on the floor, filled with tubes and brushes, the fancy kind she’d never buy for herself. She’s never been much of a painter; has experimented a little with cheap supplies in the past, but never taken to it the way she has to sketching. She can sketch anywhere; painting is messy, requires much more prep, too much fuss for her liking.
There’s a note buried at the bottom, tucked in a corner. She almost misses it.
I thought maybe you’d like to add some more personal touches to your room. Feel free to paint on the walls if you’d like. L.
His handwriting is full of neat little loops. The one on top of the L curls like that lock of hair that falls over his forehead, always returning when he brushes it away.
She unpacks the box one item at a time, until it’s all spread out on the floor for her to see, lined in neat rows. Color after color arranged into a rainbow.
The walls are empty and inviting, their pristine perfection begging to be ruined with a little chaos. She can imagine the way the paint would seep into them, rich shades mixing and mingling, until there was not a sliver of white in sight. Until the space was claimed in a way she’s been refusing to do since she moved in.
She almost forgets to remind herself that she hates him before she picks up the brush.
***
When she wakes up at night with a parched throat and sneaks down to the kitchen for a glass of water, the light is already on downstairs.
It’s just one of the lamps over the kitchen island, leaving most of the open living space bathed in darkness. A lone silhouette occupies the middle of the three chairs. His hands are playing mindlessly with the glass of scotch in front of him, but his face is outside the small ring of light, his expression unreadable.
“Can’t sleep?”
She can feel his eyes on her back as she pours herself water from the fridge dispenser. She hates the weight of his gaze.
She hates the goosebumps on her bare legs, clad only in shorts, that have nothing to do with the temperature in the room.
A shrug is the only thing she can think to offer in response as she drinks in small sips, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Is Mom not back yet?” she asks instead once her glass is empty. Her ankle itches, and she scratches it with the toes of her other foot, shifting her weight.
A pause. Too long. “No. Not yet.”
Sylvie grips the glass, overcome with a sudden urge to crush it in her fists. To feel the broken shards dig into her skin, the warmth of her blood dripping around her fingers.
“Another work dinner?”
He takes a sip of his whisky. That too is too long, leaving his glass just as empty as her own.
“It would appear so.”
Another dinner that goes on until well after midnight. Another instance of her mother coming home boozy and giggly, her hair just on the wrong side of too mussed to be explained away by the wind or dozing off in the taxi.
Her mother caught herself the white whale of her dreams, and apparently that wasn’t enough.
The silence stretches like an elastic band pulled too taut, ready to snap. Sylvie can just about make out the line of his mouth in the shadows, unpleasantly tight.
She hates him.
In her mind, it sounds more like a question than a statement.
The hate she feels for her mother at that moment is much more solid.
***
Summer comes, and she gets a job at McDonald’s.
She does it to spite her mother more than anything, to spit in the face of her expectations that she let Loki pay for school. Loki, who still keeps her mother around for whatever fucking reason, even though her “work dinners” happen most days of the week now. Loki, who stayed out of the explosive fight that followed when Sylvie refused to comply. Loki, who had the good sense not to bring up the idea afterwards.
He tried. She can tell. He knocked on the door to her room for no reason, asking if she was okay, and then he opened his mouth again only to promptly close it when she pulled her best murderous scowl.
So she works at McDonald’s, and everything is just fine.
Except the job sucks, and her pay is shit, and at this rate she won’t save up for anything anytime soon, much less any kind of a respectable education. But the alternative is doing exactly what her mother wants her to, and she’d rather be stuck working twelve-hour shifts for the rest of her life.
Then the heatwave comes, with its sticky humidity and unrelenting sun, and whatever sorry excuse for an AC they have at work promptly breaks down, so she spends her days sweating through one company-issued polo after another, the fan set up on the counter offering only brief moments of relief.
She comes back to the penthouse only to shower and crash into bed, and she hates everything, most of all the plate of food he leaves for her in the oven.
Finally, after eight weeks of pure hell, she gets unceremoniously fired after punching a customer that screamed at her for forgetting his barbecue dip. He had it coming, and the satisfaction at his scream of pain as her fist connected with his nose is enough to push down the dread at the upcoming I told you so that her mother will definitely not pass up.
When she gets back, clammy from the glaring sun, it’s only late afternoon. The door to the penthouse opens when she turns the key in the lock, and the first thing she hears is music coming from the living room speakers.
Loki is in the kitchen, cooking something that smells good enough to make her perk up a little. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing his forearms, and Sylvie tears her eyes away from the bare skin, chugging a bottle of water. He doesn’t look surprised to see her back so early.
“I got fired,” she says after a few minutes of watching him chop vegetables. She doesn’t know why she offers up that piece of information. Maybe a part of her is curious about his reaction.
He only nods in response, eyes still fixed on the carrots in front of him. For some reason it makes her annoyed.
“I punched a guy," she adds, and this time she’s sure the corner of his mouth quirks up a fraction.
“Did he deserve it?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters if I’m going to have to bail you out of jail,” he replies easily, as if the prospect of that doesn’t trouble him in the slightest. He throws the carrots in the pot simmering on the stove. “Did you hurt your hand?”
Her knuckles are bruised and aching, but she only gives a half-shrug in response. “A little.”
“Show me.”
Before she knows it, he’s holding her hand up, examining the bruises carefully. The light touch of his fingers feels cool on her overheated skin.
She hates it.
She doesn’t want it to stop.
“Let me get you some ice for that.”
When he hands her an ice pack, wrapped tightly in a dishcloth, Sylvie lets out a strangled moan of relief at the cold sensation soothing the soreness in her fist. She’s fairly sure Loki freezes for a moment before returning his attention to the potatoes on the counter.
“I’m going to have to find another job,” she says after awkwardly clearing her throat. The AC in the penthouse works perfectly, but the air still feels thick and heavy like syrup.
He hums thoughtfully in response, and Sylvie almost thinks that will be it in terms of conversation.
Then, with slight hesitation coloring his voice, he asks, “Do you really think that’s the best idea?”
It’s not an I told you so.
It’s close enough.
“What,” she starts, annoyance boiling under her skin and threatening to spill out until there’s nothing left inside, “you have a better one?”
He sighs, and she immediately feels like a petulant child. It only makes the anger burn brighter. “I didn’t say that.”
“Well, if you think I want handouts, think again,” she bites out, tossing the ice pack into the sink. “I don’t need charity from some guy my mom screwed until she got bored and moved on to someone else.”
He visibly flinches at that. The feeling that has taken up residence in her chest starts to morph into guilt.
She storms out of the kitchen and up the stairs before he can reply.
It’s too hot, even in the coolness of the expensive high-ceilinged space, and she feels sweaty and disgusting, and she hates everything, but that hurt look on his face most of all. She throws herself on the bed and screams into the sheets.
It’s too hot, and she can still smell his cologne from where he stood so close examining her hand.
It’s too hot, and the memory of his bare forearms has her other hand sliding into her panties before she can think better of it.
She’s done this before, even if she’d never admit it. Got herself off thinking of his eyes, his jaw, his impeccably tailored suits. Thinking of the smile he’d give her every night when she begrudgingly sat down for dinner. Thinking of his hands holding her sketchbook, his long, lean body lounging on the sofa, his fingers on the keys of the piano.
The rhythm of her thumb on her clit grows frantic, her hips bucking of their own volition, desperately searching for release. She just needs a few more minutes to get him out of her fucking system, and then everything will be fine.
It won’t, but she mastered the art of lying to herself a long time ago, after the first time her mother brought him to the house.
“Sylvie?”
Two things become clear at once.
One, that she didn’t close the door properly on her way into her room.
Two, that even the slight force of his knock is enough to push it ajar.
Time seems to slow down to an unbearable crawl as their eyes lock through the crack in the door, her hand down her pants on clear display.
Seconds trickle by like drops from a faulty faucet. Sylvie waits for him to back away in embarrassment, or possibly for lightning to fucking strike and kill her on the spot. The latter would be preferable.
Neither of those things happen.
Instead, Loki pushes the door open wider and takes a step forward.
“Oh, you poor thing,” he says gently in a way that reminds her of a house cat purring right before it jumps on its prey. “Is that why you’ve been so frustrated?”
She’s never heard this tone of voice from him before, so low it melts into her bones, and it sends a shiver down her spine.
He takes another long stride into the room. Closing in, eyes focused on the waistband of her jeans. Her heart thrums in her chest, a hummingbird trying to break loose.
Another step, and he’s at the foot of the bed. She has no idea how he crossed the vast space of her room so quickly.
His hand snakes around her ankle. His fingers are long enough to wrap around it with ease and pull.
Then he’s right there, hovering over her, and the hummingbird stops completely, her breath catching in her throat.
“I suppose we’d better sort you out then, huh?”
He’s so close, closer than he’s ever been, one knee on the mattress as he cages her in, and his smell envelops her like a heady blanket, making her eyelids flutter.
His breath ghosts over her ear. “Do you want me to make you feel better, Sylvie?”
A choked sound escapes her when his fingers brush the skin on her stomach. It’s too hot, and he’s cool to the touch, an oasis she wants to drown herself in.
“Please.”
It comes out croaky and broken, but it doesn’t matter, not when he’s here, pushing into her space and filling up the void she’s never been able to patch up on her own.
He hums against her skin, and then his lips are on her neck, and his fingers are inside her, so much bigger than her own, and her mind is filled with nothing but white noise.
It’s bliss.
He finds all the places she can’t reach herself, all the spots that make pleasure curl her toes and starbursts explode behind her eyelids. He licks the sweat from her collarbones like it’s something to be savored, and when he rubs her clit in small, tight circles, she sobs into his shoulder, mindless with the rush of her upcoming orgasm.
When it hits, a tidal wave of feeling, she cries out so loudly it echoes in the room, clinging to his shirt for dear life, his fingers fucking her through it until she’s limp and spent under him, turned to a puddle of sweat and wetness damping her panties and the palm of his hand.
Somehow, her brain remembers how to breathe before she blacks out, but it takes her a moment to focus her eyes on him again. His face just inches from hers, grinning.
“Better?”
She struggles to think of a coherent reply. She feels small under him like this, completely helpless. A mouse being eyed by a wolf.
The press of his lips when he kisses her forehead makes her whimper.
“Maybe we need to work a little harder, then,” he whispers before kissing her nose. “We need to fuck all that frustration out of that pretty little head of yours, don’t we?”
Yes. Fuck, please, yes…
Her jeans and panties are halfway down her legs when he stops and raises an eyebrow at her. “Use your words, darling. Do you want me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” she manages, and it’s a high-pitched whine that doesn’t sound like anything that’s ever come out of her mouth. “Please, Loki.” She shivers when he tugs the fabric lower. “Please, Daddy.”
Every muscle in her body tenses up as soon as the word leaves her mouth, and she screws her eyes shut, feeling embarrassment flare up hot and red in her cheeks.
Too far, you absolute idiot.
His thumb slides under her chin, tilting her head towards him. “Look at me.”
He’s blurry through the tears that gather in the corners of her eyes. She feels him wipe them away with a tenderness that makes her want to die.
“Are you going to take Daddy’s cock like a good girl?” he asks, so soft, and she’d do just about anything to hear him talk like this to her forever.
“Yes,” she chokes out.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
With a final pull, she’s completely bare from the waist down, and the room finally feels cool enough. When he climbs onto the bed and spreads her legs to settle between them, Sylvie arches her back, hips grinding desperately onto his thigh.
“Aren’t you a greedy little thing?” he murmurs, unbuckling his belt and freeing his cock from the confines of his pants. “My little girl, so wet for me.”
She watches him stroke himself lazily up and down, and sudden anxiety blooms like poison ivy in her chest. She’s only done this once before, with a boy from school who was finished before she’d even had a chance to get into it. This… this is different. And the cock in front of her doesn’t look like something that could remotely fit in her body.
“Daddy,” she whimpers when he notches at her entrance.
“Yes, darling?”
“It’s not… it’s not going to fit.”
A hand comes up to tangle in her hair. “I’ll make it fit.”
When he pushes her legs up, folding her nearly in half, she’s spread wide open for him to push inside, inch after impossible inch, and Sylvie throws her head back onto the pillow, an incomprehensible string of syllables on her lips. The burn and stretch as he buries himself to the hilt drives every single thought out of her head.
She never imagined there was so much space inside of her, and he claims all of it, every last bit, fucking her in long, slow strokes. His nose brushes hers as he sets a steady rhythm.
For the first time, she feels at home in this place, with Loki hip-deep inside her, driving her to a second orgasm with every thrust.
“Come for me, sweet thing,” he says when her moans turn into cries, nails digging into his back. “Come for Daddy.”
He fucks her faster now, ramming into her until she can’t breathe, and the climax that rips through her feels like so much more than she’s ever thought possible. It builds and builds and builds, and when it finally crashes down on her all at once, her body thrashes against his, the pleasure maddening in its intensity.
“Good girl,” he praises her through it, and it coaxes another orgasm out of her, before the last one has properly subsided, and this time she’s fairly sure she does black out, if only for a few seconds.
When she comes to, he’s moving lazily inside her, and she realizes he must have come too, the hotness of his spend coating her insides.
For the first time in a long while, her mind is quiet.
“Better now?” His voice is smooth as honey, tingling her ear.
Sylvie opens her eyes. “Better,” she croaks out. The look in his eyes is soft as he brushes her hair from her face.
“Then why don’t you take a shower,” he says quietly, right against her cheek, “and I’ll make you something to eat. And then we can talk about you letting me pay for art school instead of looking for another ridiculous job.”
There’s no anger left in her, only hunger. For his food, for his touch, for his voice. She nods silently.
“Good,” he praises again, pulling out of her. The emptiness he leaves behind almost makes her mewl in disappointment. “I’ll take care of you, Sylvie. If you just let me.”
I’ll take care of you.
She wants to be taken care of.
“I’ll wait for you downstairs.” Another kiss on the forehead, and she fists the front of his shirt, holding him closer. He turns around to glance at the opposite wall, covered nearly completely in splashes of purple and green and orange. A hazy, strange landscape she's been painting for months. Something that may have vaguely come to her in a dream, though at this point she can't be sure where the idea originated. "By the way, I really like this."
When he leaves the room, she stares out the window. The evening summer sky is the color of strawberries.
She hates him.
Nothing has ever felt better.