Logan.
A small voice, big brown eyes, a tiny girl swallowed up in a plaid shirt.
She felt good this way. Skin so soft, legs wrapped around his waist. She was trembling and innocent. Beautiful.
He'd found her outside of a shitty bar in a shitty town almost a year ago. She was small and cold, and he wanted to get his cash and catch the next fight, but instead he took her back to his motel and let her sleep in his bed.
Because she wouldn't speak, because he knew nothing about her, because she wasn't saying no, he took her with him. Everywhere.
When they reached a new town, he'd find a motel where not too many druggies were hanging out, and drop her off. He'd get himself a fight at a bar and make some money. He'd head back "home," get her fed and washed up, and tuck her under the covers.
But he wasn't getting soft and he definitely didn't love her. He just felt bad. Some little girl, some pretty little girl, all lost and shit in the middle of Canada – he'd of been an ass for leaving her. Not like he wasn't an ass. He wanted to believe he was.
He wanted to believe he was strong, still angry and hard, but it was getting harder.
With every departure she would cry – afraid he'd be hurt in the next fight. She would cry and he would soothe her.
With every return there'd be a warm body waiting, so happy, hugging him and hugging him and hugging him and refusing to let go, until he finally broke down and agreed to get in the tub with her. To get under the blankets as well.
It was getting harder.
She wasn't speaking, unless to say his name or to ask for food or to plead for him to stay.
And he enjoyed his name coming out of her mouth too much. He was a lot of things, but he wasn't a pervert. And to want this girl, this girl whose skin felt so smooth, so soft in the bath, whose voice was sweet and southern and small, whose hair was so dark against that white flesh, definitely made him a pervert.
Which is what every receptionist at every shitty motel thought. But money was money and they weren't going to question the man who could've been a lumberjack with the girl who could've been his daughter, but surely was not.
And he was still thinking he was strong until he tasted her lips.
He broke.
Shattered into a million pieces with that tiny whimper.
And from then on there wasn't any leaving her in shady rooms during fights; she was seated promptly at a bar stool some fifteen feet away, watching him fight for their money. He was taking her home at the end of each night, bathing her and letting her bathe him, laying her down under itchy blankets and letting himself disappear into warm, quivering limbs.
He was such a weak man. Broken down by brown eyes and cherry scented hair.
Marie.