Curious to know what rotten meat Will does when he wants to reprimand Mia 👀
When she was little, he didn’t, he couldn’t. She was so quiet, so gentle, that there never seemed to be a need. He’d watch her, the sort of gaze that saw everything and missed nothing, and she would melt under that, no need for words or punishments.
But things changed as she grew. She became feistier, testing the edges of their strange little world, and that’s when the looks started. Will had a way of glancing at her that could still her in her tracks, that flicker of disapproval in his eyes enough to set her heart to trembling.
When looks no longer held her in place, he turned to his voice. A low tone that cut through the room like a knife. He never shouted, not really, but the weight of that voice was enough to bend the air around them.
If that, too, failed, he would reach for her arm, fingers digging in just enough to remind her who he was.
The final recourse, the one that left the air in the house brittle and cold, was the denial of affection. That was how he truly punished her, by turning away, by withholding the warmth she’d grown to crave. He would lock her in her bedroom, yes, but it was the absence of his touch, the absence of those murmured words at night, that cut the deepest.