44. Hit Points
Chapter forty-four
Hit Points
Ronan
It has been twelve days since Micah told his parents the truth.
I know that because I counted once, three days ago, and have managed not to count again since.
There is a difference between paying attention and monitoring someone so closely they begin to feel observed instead of loved. I know that distinction better than most people, mostly because being on the wrong side of it makes my skin crawl.
So I have not asked Micah how he is every morning.
I have not checked whether he slept unless there was an actual reason to ask. I have not followed him onto the porch every time he goes outside to smoke, or watched every expression after his phone vibrates, or asked who is texting him when he flips it facedown.
He has gone to work.
He has cooked dinner.
He has played two campaign nights, including one where he spent twenty minutes arguing that Dex's bard could not use Prestidigitation to make a severed head more aesthetically pleasing because the spell was not designed for cosmetic reconstruction.
He has gone to bed with Dex. Gone to bed with Cami. Gone to bed with Dex and Cami. Fallen asleep on the couch with Cami against him. Spent an entire Saturday afternoon helping Griffin fix something in the garage that I am fairly certain Griffin could have fixed alone.
He has laughed.
Not as much.
But he has.
He has also gone quiet in the middle of conversations when nobody said anything wrong. Once, I watched him stand at the kitchen counter staring at a message for almost five minutes before locking his phone and going back to chopping vegetables.
He did not mention it.
Neither did I.
Hit points are a poor metaphor for grief. Nobody gets to tell you how many you have left.
Grief does not become less real because someone remains functional around it.
Tonight, Dex is working. Griffin and Cami disappeared upstairs almost an hour ago after Cami announced loudly enough for the entire house to hear that she intended to make use of her husband, which Griffin accepted with considerably more composure than I would have expected from him a year ago.
Micah and I are the only two awake downstairs.
He appears in the doorway to my bedroom while I am halfway through reorganizing an encounter I already organized yesterday.
I look up.
He has changed out of his work clothes into black sweatpants and an old T-shirt. His hair is still slightly damp from the shower, and he is barefoot.
Nothing about him looks distressed.
That means very little.
“You busy?” he asks.
“No.”
I close the notebook.
He stays in the doorway for a second, then steps inside and shuts the door behind him.
That means more than very little.
I wait.
Micah does better when silence is not treated like something he has to fill immediately. Most people learn that about him eventually.
“I want a scene.”
The words are straightforward enough that I do not react outwardly, although my attention sharpens immediately.
“With me?”
He gives me a look.
“I’m clarifying.”
“Yeah. With you.”
“What kind?”
His gaze shifts toward the bookshelf behind me.
That hesitation makes me pay more attention.
“I want you to hurt me.”
There are several responses available to me.
Concern is not one of them.
Not yet.
Pain is not inherently evidence that something is wrong. I have spent enough years studying kink—and enough time around people who enjoy receiving pain—to know how insulting that assumption can become.
Context is what matters.
Micah's context currently requires considerably more attention than usual.
I lean back in my chair. “Come sit down.”
He does.
On my bed, angled toward me.
“Before we talk about what that looks like, I need to know why.”
“Because I want it.”
“I assumed.”
His mouth twitches.
I continue. “I need a more useful answer than that.”
Micah rubs his thumb along the inside of his palm. “I want something else to focus on.”
I nod once. “Distraction.”
“Yeah.”
“Punishment?”
His head comes up immediately. “No.”
There is no hesitation.
That helps.
“Do you think you deserve to hurt?”
“No.”
Still immediate.
His expression hardens slightly, not at me. “I don't think I did anything wrong.”
Something in my chest eases. “Good.”
“I think they did.”
“Also good.”
He looks at me. “I don't mean that in the sense that I'm pleased your family rejected you.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I assumed. Again, just clarifying.”
That gets another tiny movement at the corner of his mouth.
Then it disappears.
“I don't want you to beat the guilt out of me or some shit, Ronan.”
“I know.”
“I don't feel guilty.”
“I believe you.”
His gaze drops. “I just feel it all the fucking time.”
It’s not dramatic—Micah rarely is.
“My mom crying. My dad's face. Every time my phone goes off, part of me still thinks it might be one of them saying they've changed their minds, even though I know they haven't.”
He flexes his fingers once. “I don't want to think about any of it for a while.”
I study him. “What do you want to think about?”
His eyes meet mine. “Whatever you're doing to me.”
My body reacts before I have finished deciding what I think about the answer.
Not because I am aroused by his grief.
That distinction is important enough that I examine it immediately.
I am aroused by Micah asking me for pain.
By the trust in the request.
By the idea of taking his controlled, stubborn body apart carefully enough that he can stop holding himself together for a few hours.
Those are not the same thing.
I do not need them to be.
“What kind of pain?”
“Deep impact.”
That surprises me less than it probably should.
Micah has always been interested when we discuss impact. He asks technical questions during workshops. Watched closely when Jeremiah talked about tools. Understands spacing, rebound, safe placement, skin response.
I think all of us quietly filed that under things Micah wants to do to someone else.
Dom-leaning switch.
The first half became more visible, so we treated the second as theoretical.
That may have been our assumption, not his.
“How much experience do you have receiving?”
“Some.”
“How much is some?”
He exhales through his nose. “Hands. Paddle. Flogger. A crop once.”
“Cane?”
“No.”
“Strap?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Interested in either?”
“Both.” That answer comes faster.
Interesting.
I shift forward, forearms on my thighs. “Limits remain the same as our last full negotiation? No degradation. No humiliation.”
“Still hard limits.”
“Sex?”
He thinks about it. “Maybe.”
“That's not consent to sex.”
“I know.”
“It means I will not assume sex because you're naked, aroused, subspaced, or because you consented to something sexual previously.”
“I know.”
“I am still saying it.”
His mouth curves. “Of course you are.”
I ignore the commentary.
“Do you want marks?”
“Yes.”
“How visible?”
“I don't care.”
“That isn't an answer.”
He looks mildly annoyed.
Good. Annoyed Micah is cognitively present.
“Anywhere clothing covers.”
“Bruising?”
“Yes.”
“Welts?”
“Yes.”
“How do you feel about waking up tomorrow and still feeling what I did tonight?”
His face changes. “I want that.”
I hold his gaze. “And the day after?”
A beat. “Fuck… yes.”
There is more underneath that answer.
I can hear it.
“You want it to stay with you.”
Micah swallows. “Yeah.”
Not as punishment.
I believe that.
Something physical and chosen. A sensation attached to trust instead of rejection.
I understand the appeal.
“That changes how I approach this.”
“Okay.”
“Because leaving marks is not an incidental outcome anymore. You're asking me to create them.”
“I am.”
“And if I decide your body has had enough before you feel like your head has?”
His eyebrows pull together. “Then?”
“We stop.”
He doesn't answer right away.
I let him sit with it.
Eventually he nods. “Okay.”
“Your desire for more pain is information for me. It does not obligate me to give you more.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
His eyes narrow. “My wanting more doesn't mean you have to give it to me.”
“Good.”
Something else has been bothering him. I can see it in the way his hand keeps flexing.
“What else are you worried about?”
He glances away. “Does this ever feel…”
I wait.
“Like we're using you?”
That is not the question I expected. “Who is we?”
“Me. Cami. Dex.”
His mouth twists. “All of us keep coming to you when we want someone to take over our brain for a while.”
I sit with that longer than he probably expects.
Not because I need to invent the answer.
Because I’ve never even considered it and I want to make sure I give him the right one.
“No.”
His eyes return to mine. “No?”
“No.”
I lean back slightly. “If you expected me to regulate you constantly without asking whether I wanted that responsibility, that could become a problem. If you treated my dominance like a service I owed you because I happen to be good at it, I would resent it.”
Micah listens without moving.
“But that isn't what any of you do.”
I pause.
“Cami asks. Dex asks. You’re asking now.”
His throat works once.
“I enjoy control. I enjoy sadism. I enjoy the technical part of building a scene around someone else's responses. I enjoy being trusted enough that another person can stop making decisions for a while because they know I won't abuse the opportunity.”
Something warm settles into my chest as I say it.
“The fact that three people I love have independently decided I'm someone they trust with that is not something I experience as being used, Micah.”
His eyes drop.
“It is a privilege.”
He stays very still.
I give him a moment.
Then, because sincerity becomes uncomfortable when allowed to sit too long, I add, “Also, to be clear, I am going to enjoy hitting you.”
His laugh escapes before he can stop it. “Good.”
“I would be concerned if that disappointed you.”
“It doesn't.”
“Excellent.”
I stand. “Dex knows?”
Micah follows me with his eyes. “He knows I was going to ask eventually.”
“Does he know tonight?”
“No. He's working.”
“Cami?”
“No.”
“Griffin?”
“No.”
“Do you want them told?”
“That's mine to tell.”
“Agreed.” I hold out my hand. “Come downstairs.”
Micah strips to his underwear without being asked.