A/N: Prompt for SoMa Week 2016. This is "Different Types of Kisses."


Before she was, kisses started everything.

When she was born, kisses were promises followed by happy tears.

When she was three, kisses were tickles lavished on her by Mama and Papa, peppered over round cheeks until they all collapsed in fits of giggles.

When she was six, kisses made her wrinkle her nose and stick out her tongue. Her parents did it too often for her liking, her Auntie Marie left lipstick on her forehead. Black Star tried it once on a dare and his black eye didn't fade for three days.

When she was ten, kisses betrayed. They were stolen, secret. Poison. Leaking into her life in whispered fights in the dead of night, crystal-clear through the thin apartment walls. Then Mama left, and the only kisses she wanted were nonexistent.

When she was twelve, kisses were pointless. She had kishin eggs to collect, a class hierarchy to climb, an overdressed weapon to wrangle. No room for anything so pedestrian. No sense risking poison.

When she was fourteen, kisses dusted her cheeks in pink. She averted her eyes from sweethearts, annoyed, snarky, scared. A spark ricocheted inside her soul and she dreamt of careful mouths shielding sharp teeth. Her skin prickled and she layered on more armor.

When she was sixteen, the lack of kisses burned. Like a flickering candle in a dark room, seeking something to illuminate. Her lips ached for it and it made her ashamed. Bigger things took precedence. The world went mad. She felt she might go mad along with it, if not for the music.

When she was eighteen, kisses were explosions in the star-scattered sky, finally igniting in the atmosphere again, again, again. Soulsong and awkward angles and cut lips. Fingertips and laughter and the joy of another day alive, together.

When she was twenty, kisses laced fire through every vein. Slow, practiced, all-knowing. Teeth and tongue. More than kisses, more than love, more than everything. Skin on skin, soul to soul.

When she was twenty-six, a kiss sealed a contract in a courthouse.

When she was twenty-nine, kisses were promises followed by happy tears and a tiny, new wail.

When she was thirty-five, kisses were home.

When she was fifty, kisses were welcome back, I love you, I'll miss you, I'm so glad you're here with me, goodbye. We're getting too old for this. Don't scare me like that again. We should go see the kids.

When she was eighty, kisses were soft and dry like old linen paper, lined with a lifetime of stories and sorrows and loves.

After she was, kisses were atoms scattered to the corners of the universe, finding each other over and again, until eternity came and went.