#day 2: new family | wire | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

neighbourscat · 2 months ago

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𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐌𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐄𝐑 , father charlie mayhew

MAKING A WOMAN OUTTA YOU.

𓈒 ˙ ꪆৎ ꣹ ۫ 𖨂 𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 . .. . priest!charlie m. X non-believer!black!fem!reader || second person ( you, yours, you’re ) + lowercase intended.

+ synopsis. for such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of christ: and no marvel, for the devil himself is transformed into an angel of light: therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. - 2 corinthians 11:13-15

+ cw. grandma thinks reader is troubled and sexually active :: ‘G’ in ‘God’ is lowercased. use of ‘y/n’, brief mention of pregnancy and abortion, sacrilege / taboo, blasphemy, abuse of authority, feeding that fantasy / giving into obsession / scratching that itch , religious shame / guilt || pússy drunk father charlie, he’s so vocal — dirty talk, overstim, “angel” petname, choking, unprotected sex / charlie rejecting two condoms, multiple creampies, charlie & his standing positions.

+ nali’s notes; charlie mayhew & those blood red cowboy boots. writing gratuitous smut to breathe / did not expect to write this much. wordcount :: 6.2k+

+ to be played: family tree, ethel cain. || alternative: church, chase atlantic + numb, rihanna & eminem.

MAKING A WOMAN OUTTA YOU.

in two swift motions, you refolded the pamphlet and shoved it into the large pocket of your purse — letting the sleek paper crumble and tear. your grandmother norrice sat beside you, scanning through her copy of the same pamphlet and grinning softly. “you new adults are lucky,” the elder had said, removing her thin-wire, rectangular framed reading glasses, “it’s so good for young women to attend these type of things; to keep their hearts and minds pure. if i had such opportunity at your age, i would certainly have my life together.”

your relationship with the church had always been strained, and belief in god, at least the way your grandmother spoke about him, never came naturally to you.

annoyedly, “grandma . .. your life is fine.” norrice gave a small shake of her head and pushed her grandma-glasses back into place. “my life could be better. i would have done more,” she said in a wobbly voice. grandma norrice had fallen pregnant with your father at the young age of sixteen, and since her parents ( your greats ) were opposed to abortion, considering such action immoral, grandma norrice was forced to adult much quicker. “look. look. come look at this,” showing off the pamphlet, pointing a wrinkly finger over a bolded textbook — “start over. rededicate yourself as a virgin,” she read.

grandma norrice lowered the pamphlet into her lap. “isn’t that amazing?” you sighed deeply, swallowing down the hysterical laugh that almost left your throat. grandma norrice could feel the aggravation that seamed off of your body. “hey . ..” again, she pulled those thin-glasses off the bridge of her nose. she placed a cold hand onto your forearm and squeezed lovingly, “i’m only asking you for one. one session, hmm?”

and on: “you go in there and you listen. you show up for yourself, right?” grandma norrice reached and hooked a finger under your chin, tilting your head toward her. “you go in there and confess your defiance. you go in there and pledge yourself to be pure again in the eyes of the lord-“ there had been a misunderstanding between you and your grandmother norrice.

backstory: grandma norrice likes to keep her receipts. all of them. every last one. she had folders upon folders that divided her receipts by year and frequently shopped stores. she considers her an organizer, but she’s a hoarder . .. of paper. anyways, one day, way back when, she had read an advertisement in the town’s newspaper, that pretty much said: ‘good-day people of mississippi! make money off your receipts! one receipt for one penny!‘ the company had been active many years later, sending grandma norrice rolls and rolls of pretty brown pennies, but as the world aged and technology progressed — the company died.

and for some reason, even though she’s been told time and time again that that company had no longer been operating, she still collects and saves — waiting to reach her goal amount and cash in her receipts. she’s nearing a thousand receipts; it was like playing bingo and scratching lottery tickets for her. separating those receipts into their categories gave her joy.

and the short version of why you are here: as she was cleaning out a reusable shopping bag, she had seen a receipt. excited to store it where it belonged, her misty eyes scanned the slip of paper for a date. and though she found the date, she had also seen: CRYSTAL CONDOMS EXTRA VALUE , 4.99. a box of condoms was bought.

no, you weren’t sexually active . .. . but you were planning to be with this guy. and no, he wasn’t just any guy. you’ve been talking to him for a while now and he, surprisingly, has checked off every box in your ‘my type’ list. for the last four months it’s been cute dates and sweet hangouts, and after that makeout session last weekend, you were sure you were ready for it. you wanted to do it with him, badly. so bad that you started carrying two condoms in your purse, like a highschool kid, anticipating the next meet-up.

“-you must desire to re-purity.” you have not had sex yet. “you must desire to be clean.” hearing the low clacks of flat-heels, you turned from your grandmother with a low groan — the quick distraction needed. a woman, looking around your age, had been coming down the hall, giddy and with a greedy look in her blue eyes. her blonde hair, seeming freshly curled, had bounced up and down on her shoulders.

you let your eyes stroll downward; seeing the pamphlet. her copy a nice, pastel green color. a more recent edition. and then came another young woman, she too hurried down the hall with a copy of the pamphlet. “-you need guidance,” your grandmother norrice had still been speaking ( to herself ). “do not let your desires lead you astray.” and as more young women came filing down the hallway, she silenced herself.

“i believe that your time has come for a cleanse,” grandma norrice said, watching as the duos and trios of giggling, beautifully polished young women gathered at the large, double dark-oak doors. she patted your knee twice, telling you to hurry up and along. “i will be right here waiting for you, okay? right here. go on now, hurry in.”

the basement of the church was cold, even in the middle of summer. the pearly fluorescent lights gave the room an almost sterile feel, a stark contrast to the warmth of the sunday service that was held upstairs much earlier. the chairs were arranged in a tight circle, creating an intimacy that felt more like confinement. you made your way down the creaky staircase, stopping at the bottom landing and staring at the misguided women.

the air smelled like old books and faint incense, but none of it brought the comfort your grandmother said that the church would. if you turn back now, you could hide in the bathroom — since whoever was leading this thing wasn’t in yet . .. . but you would have to pass your grandmother to camp out in the bathroom.

you dropped your shoulders with a deep sigh.

you clutched the strap of your purse and eased into the light — careful and observant. you settled down in between two white women who were holding hand-held flip mirrors and fluffing their shiny hair. honey blonde and deep brunette. your gaze shifted then and your curious eyes landed on two other women; spanish women who were re-applying their gloss. the air was heavy, thick with an uncomfortable silence.

one session, your grandmother’s words echoed in your mind: “you need guidance. do not let your desires lead you astray.” maybe if you had had sex, this could be useful. if only she were here to see all of these women in their makeup and neat hairstyles and sitting so proper to show off what they have in the front — and as a slam sounded, the women jumped startled and readied themselves . .. . their heads bowed low in what looked like guilt or shame. fake guilt and fake shame.

“welcome back ladies . .. .” the priest, father charlie maydew, now stood in the center of the circle, his hands clasped in front of him like he was leading a sermon, but there was an edge to his presence that made your skin prickle. eerie, he was. “i applaud each of you for returning this afternoon. i applaud you for wanting better for yourself, and for trusting me to guide you through this process.” he was a tall man, with a face that was just on the edge of a smile, but never quite reaching for warmth.

his collar seemed to cling too tightly around his neck, and his eyes darted around the room, landing on each young woman, one by one; hungrily, before lingering on you for a beat longer than comfortable — his expression unreadable. but then, one corner of his lips tipped upward. the honey blonde at one side of you noticed and for a second, she considered tackling you. but she took a deep breath in and out. in and out.

“thank you for joining us this afternoon,” he said, his voice deep and smooth, his attention making you shrink slightly in your seat — wanting to disappear. father charlie fashioned a calming, slightly condescending grin on his face.

the other women turned to look at you, some with curiosity, some with attitude, but all with fake sympathy. “why don’t you introduce yourself?” his tone was warm, but something about it felt performative, rehearsed. the tall priest took two big steps back and gestured toward the center of the center.

you remained seated — shaking your head no. “i don’t plan on comin’ back, so . .. .” your fingers twisting in your lap, “i don’t think there’s a need to, y’know . .. . know me. know my name. why i’m here.” you finished with a shy chuckle. no one laughed with you. no one cracked a smile.

a bushy brow of his lifted a bit. he noted how sure of yourself you seemed after that statement. father charlie decided to try again: “please, come. introduce yourself.” all eyes were on you . .. . and you felt like a teenager again about to give a solo-project presentation. “i don’t . .. .” a scoff and another nervous chuckle. “there’s no reason for that. like i said, this is an in and out kind of thing for me.”

father charlie never had to ask twice. young women, such as those around him, moved whenever he needed something done. they moved as quick as possible, they never wanted him to lift a finger. any and every favor was complete without complaint or hesitation. though he never had to ask twice, for you, he’d give it a third go. “this is a safe environment. what is shared here will stay here. right in this circle. our small community.” as father charlie spoke, he stepped along said circle. the women smiled up at him as he passed, their hearts fluttering and their stomachs knotting.

when he landed, standing right before you, he held out his hand. “grab onto me . .. . and come forth.” his voice smooth, almost hypnotic. you felt the weight of the gazes from the other women — some surprised, their faces drawn in confusion and puzzlement. no one had ever hesitated to take father charlie’s hand. you could see the tension in their bodies, the way they sat stiffly, chests and shoulders leaned in, they were practically on the edge of their seats . .. . wondering if you’d keep denying the man or finally give into him.

but, they all swore that they’d rather be you right now; looking up at father charlie as he offered his beautiful hand.

“grab . .. . onto me.” fifth time.

you took a dekko at his hand — thinking.

and when your hand fell onto his, a collective sigh had gone up. father charlie clasped his other hand on top of yours and gave a pat; a pat that said: thank you, gorgeous.

you kept your hand in his as you took to your feet. father charlie’s palm felt nice in yours; surprisingly soft — he walked you to the circle’s center and released your hand, his fingers dragging against yours as he parted. “there is no need to be shy.”

you were annoyed.

“my name’s y/n, ‘nd, well . .. . i’m here ‘cause of my,” you cleared your throat, then trailed off abruptly, “my grandma.” the women stared amongst themselves for a second and then looked up at you again. you raised your chin softly, catching a glimpse of father charlie beyond you. not hovering, but towering perfectly. “it’s silly, really,” you had told the group, folding your arms over your chest protectively, “she does this thing . .. a-this weird thing, where she .. . like, keeps all of her receipts?”

you heard a soft hum come from behind your back. you wanted to look around, to look at father charlie, but you kept yourself from doing so. “it’s a long story . .. well, not exactly, no. it’s actually the shortest story in history, really-“ fast paced babbling. purely from the anxious energy that coursed and spun throughout your body. for some people, their brains lock up and they have trouble thinking of things to say. for you, being jittery filled your mind with thoughts, along with an urge to say them all. right now. as fast as you can. “-when she was much much younger and livin’ in mississippi, she was reading a newspaper . .. .”

and you rambled. and you rambled. and you rambled.

“‘nd she thinks that i’m having sex, which-“ you laughed at the thought, “-which i am not. i’m not.” directed to the women. “seriously, i’m not.” was directed to father charlie. “i’m here for no reason, honestly. i’ve been forced here on an assumption. a silly assumption. i’ve been carryin’ ‘round condoms, but that’s all-“ the embarrassing statement caught you off-guard.

with a hand, father charlie gestured toward your chair — clearly telling you to sit the fuck down. you hurried back. you dropped down and quickly kicked your purse underneath the seat; as if to hide the condoms that were already tucked in a zipper pocket.

“at least you’re having protective sex,” the brunette whispered over, not even facing you. you almost choked on nothing: “no, i’m not,” you answered too quickly. that didn’t sound right. “i-fuck. no, i’m not havin’ sex. but if i was, i would be protected,” you corrected. “that’s what makes this whole thing hilarious. i’m still a virgin.” the brunette looked at you. “then why are you here?” your shoulders slumped, “did . .. . did you not hear me?” you asked, pointing to the circle’s center. the brunette said no, “would you listen to yourself talk about your grandma collecting receipts? we all were falling asleep, sweetie. i was so tuned out, which never happens here.”

you shifted your weight a bit, turning your body toward her.

“wait, so why are you here, seriously?” she tilted her head.

you opened your mouth to speak and heard a finger-snap. “ladies . .. .” father charlie urged. he clasped his hands in front of him and continued, “you are here because of your struggle. each of you struggle. struggle with the desires of the flesh. desires that pull you away from god.“ he lifted a hand toward you, “she travels with condoms. can anyone tell me what that says about her?”

two arms had gone up and you so desperately wanted to leave.

father charlie called on tabitha, her loose waves pulled up into a high ponytail. her eyes sparkled. “it is clear that she is eager to engage in sexual intercourse with a man. it is on her mind and she is desperate for it. but if such dangerous thought continues to linger, she will eventually take action.”

you scoffed, “i am not ‘eager’ or ‘desperate’. i jus’ wan’a-“ father charlie raised a hand, shushing you from going any further. your lips shut, disappointedly. “that is correct, thank you, tabitha.” and she felt her bones rattled.

father charlie’s eyes slid back to you, his voice dropping into something softer, more personal. “these desires . .. these thoughts, like tabitha had stated, they are dangerous. but luckily, they can be controlled. with the right guidance.”

you felt the heat of his attention again, the way his words seemed to be directed specifically at you, though there were ten other women sitting in this circle. you lowered your gaze, trying to find comfort in your lap, but the room seemed to close in around you.

“lust,” he continued, stepping closer to where you sat, “is the most powerful weapon the devil has. it twists the human mind, makes you believe that these urges are natural.” father charlie had left the circle for a moment, their eyes following except yours. he had never left the circle before — he stuck there for every session. his hand rested on the back of your chair, and you froze. “but they are not. not one bit. they are sins. and we are here to free you from that temptation.”

“desires,” he said then, his voice dropping into a low murmur, “can be dangerous if left unchecked. they can consume you.“

a few of the women murmured, their voices barely audible. you remained silent, your heart thudding painfully in your chest. his fingers brushed against your shoulder, lightly, almost as if by accident, but you knew it wasn’t. the touch was deliberate, testing. father charlie leaned in more, pressing himself into the chair fully now. “god forgives,” his voice velvety, his hand lingering on your shoulder for a moment too long. “but only if you are truly willing to repent. to give yourself fully to him . .. .”

you stiffened, not sure if you were reacting to the feel of him or the fact that he was singling you out again.

you wanted to stand, to leave, but something kept you anchored to the chair. a combination of guilt, fear, and an unshakable sense that you should’ve never came.

father charlie moved away, continuing his slow pace around the group of beautiful women. he spoke about discipline, about submission to god’s will, about sin and repentance, but each word felt laced with something darker. something unspoken.

you glanced around the room, noticing the way the other women seemed to hang onto his every word, their eyes ogling and admiring how he carried himself. you weren’t sure what you expected from this session, but the way he spoke about desire — like it was something to be ashamed of — made you uncomfortable. sure, you had your own struggles, but was that really something that needed to be controlled like a disease?

this was something else entirely . .. . and it was confusing.

as the session dragged on, you realized that the shame you felt was from being here, in this room, where father charlie wielded his authority like a blade, cutting away at the parts of you that made you human.

at the end of the session, as the other women began to gather their things and shuffle toward the door, father charlie gestured for you to stay behind. you hesitated, but the weight of expectation pressed down on you, making it impossible to refuse.

you slung the strap over your shoulder and held the leather close, as if to comfort yourself.

and once the room was empty, he stepped to you, a smile creeping back onto his face. “thank you for sharing this afternoon. that was quite the story,” he said, his tone sickeningly sweet. “i know you said that this was a . .. . ‘one and done’, type of thing-“

you wanted to speak but nothing came out.

“but, i think we need to have a private conversation. just you and me. i can help you further. i would like to help you further, y/n.”

the bile rose in your throat, but all you could manage was a nod, the fear of what would happen if you said no silencing you. you quickly turned your back and left for the double doors.

you entered quietly, hoping not to draw attention, but the oak door creaked louder than you expected, making a few heads turn. you weren’t that late, just a few minutes, but it was enough to feel the shift in the room’s energy as you found an empty chair in the circle. the same chair you had been seated in last weekend. father charlie had made sure to leave it out.

“punctuality is important,” father charlie said smoothly, his voice breaking through the murmurs as he watched you take your seat. his smile was there, but it didn’t reach his eyes. you gave a quick nod of apology, shifting uncomfortably as you settled in, trying to brush off the feeling that all eyes were on you.

this time . .. . you were here by choice — you hadn’t told your grandmother norrice that father charlie had asked you to return. you knew that if you did, she’d throw a fit. she’d throw a damn superbowl party — it unsettled you, but at the same time, something pulled at you. maybe it was curiosity, or maybe it was the fact that you couldn’t stop thinking about how he had made you feel just by looking at you, as if he could see something in you that no one else could. whatever it was, it brought you back.

there was a distance between you and the women, a sense that you weren’t part of their world just yet. a sense that you were special, and far more important to father charlie.

“but, i am glad that you’ve decided to return.” you gave a small nod, your fingers tightening around the strap of your bag. “yeah, i . .. . i figured i’d give it another try,” you had said.

he nodded, as if he had expected nothing less. “good. very good.” father charlie smiled at you, but it wasn’t comforting. there was something behind it — something almost predatory in the way he seemed to hold his gaze on you, like he was sizing you up. then, he turned to address the group, but his words felt distant, again like they were just for show. you couldn’t focus on the session. your thoughts were too tangled, your mind too occupied with what he had said last time.

i think we need to have a private conversation.

“even if-when you don’t believe,” father charlie said, closing in behind your chair, his voice low enough that only you could hear, “god has a plan for you. you just have to let him in.”

you swallowed hard, fingers swiping along the smooth paint of your nails, unsure of what else to do. his hand found your shoulder for a second or three before he moved on, continuing his speech. the other women nodded along, their heads still bowed in what looked like submission.

as the session dragged on, you found yourself drifting in and out of the conversation, only half-listening. you weren’t here for the church, you weren’t here for god, you weren’t here for your grandmother, you weren’t here to be lectured about how your desires were dangerous if not properly controlled . .. . you were here for father charlie.

as the session wound down, the other women began to gather their things, exchanging quiet goodbyes. father charlie’s eyes followed them out, but he didn’t speak. he was waiting — waiting for them to leave, waiting for you. he caught your eye, giving you a knowing look. “stay . .. ?” he mouthed, the request felt more like a command.

tension.

when the last of the women finally left, the door closing softly behind her, the room seemed to shrink. the room felt different — charged. father charlie slowly walked over to where you sat, his presence looming larger now that it was just the two of you. his smile was still there, but it was different in this quiet space, more intense, more focused.

father charlie sat down in the chair right next to you. he scooted closer to you, grunting as he moved the chair with him — scraping it against the stone floor. his voice was soft, intimate. “i’m really glad you gave this another chance.” his dark eyes locked on yours with a strange intensity. “you know, sometimes the answers we are looking for are . .. . in places we wouldn’t expect.”

“like the basement of my grandmother’s church,” you had said mindlessly. father charlie gave you a gentle grin, showing you that he had been amused. barely. “yeah. exactly that. the basement of your grandmother’s church. but . .. . like i was saying-“ his hand brushed lightly against your arm, “-i think that you’re searching,” his voice a bit lower, like a secret was being shared. “-searching for something deeper, something that no one else can give you. i see it in you, the desire for connection.”

connection.

“i want to help you work through . .. . your urges.”

there was no mistaking it now — the way he said urges, the way his voice dipped, made it clear he wasn’t talking about faith or repentance anymore. “we all have them,” he murmured, his eyes scanning your face like he was looking for something, some sign of compliance or curiosity. “it happens.” his hand slid downward. just a little closer they went . .. . fingers grazing the back of your hand, subtle but deliberate. “i can guide you through it,” he whispered. “let me help you.”

your pulse quickened, a sense of alarm flooding through you, but there was also a need.

“you have to trust me. you have to let me in.”

“i don’t . .. know. i don’t think-“

father charlie’s smile deepened, his hand gently squeezing your forearm. “sometimes, we don’t know what we need until we find it. trust me. you’re here for a reason. god brought you back for a reason, right?”

his words hung in the air, heavy with a meaning that wasn’t lost on you.

“i don’t know,” you repeated yourself.

you tried to look away, but his hand reached out, his fingers lightly gripping your chin, forcing your gaze back to him — like he was trying to hold you in place, make you stay in this moment with him. “i know what you’ve been feeling. i know what’s pulling at you. you want to give in, yeah? to feel something . .. .”

“sometimes . .. . we’re not meant to fight it. sometimes, we’re meant to feed it.” he dropped his hand from your chin.

“but yesterday, you said . .. .”

he chuckled softly, but there was no humor in it, only a dark edge. “i know what you want. i know what your body wants, what it’s demanding from the world.” his hand moved, not to your arm this time, but to the small space between your shoulder blades. “and there’s nothing wrong with wanting and needing to feel pleasure. most times, we need personal attention to overcome and strive.

“i didn’t tell the others; but sometimes . .. . we have to allow ourselves to feel these things in order to rise above it. that’s how we control it.” his fingers slid down your back slowly. “desire can a gift — one that can bring two closer to the truth of who we are. allow me to help you feed it.”

. .. .

“are you going to let me help you now?”

. .. .

“yes.”

and he wasted no time bringing a hand up to grab the zip of your short-sleeved hoodie. he pulled down carefully, the plump cleavage of your breasts peeking. his other hand smoothed along your curly slicked back hair, “thank you,” he whispered.

and though you were prepared for something like this, the contraceptives in your purse went unused. when charlie had seen you flick it out — showing off the metallic dark green wrapper, the imprint of the condom bold — he refused, immediately: “no.” simple. flat and cold.

charlie plucked the packet from your perfectly-manicured fingers and tossed it across the floor, dark eyes boring into you. you looked at him as if he had lost his mind. just as you were about dig into the pocket for the other condom, charlie gripped your wrist; the pressure gentle but firm. “what do you mean ‘no’?” you asked — though you knew exactly what he meant.

“i have something real to give.” in other words, he would not be spilling his seed into some rubbery latex. there was no blocking him out. “i need you to feel everything. okay? you need to.” you couldn’t oppose him.

and here you were: holding onto his forearms. his arms had prodding veins for days. from his wrists to the tops of his large shoulders. he was so built, you weren’t at all expecting it. “. .. ready, angel?” you nodded down at him sweetly, hands sliding up to his flexed biceps. “wan’a be yours already. please ..” charlie had you right where he wanted you. there was something so nasty about the smirk that grew across his face, “god saved you for me . .. . wanted me to have you.”

“mm, think so?” came quiet and soft.

“know so,” charlie muttered, stroking himself messily. “i know so.” he reached down for you, carefully lining himself up with your heavenly entrance. “taste me.” his words are sweet, poison laced sugar. you kissed him, letting your eyes close as you did so.

and when he slipped inside, spongy and slimy, it was like his own personal hell. you were so much better than he could’ve imagined. charlie had gone completely silent, choking on air — like he was just punched in the gut. there’s no comparison, no feeling in the world . .. . he couldn’t form a single, coherent thought. you were gripping him just right, massaging his cock like you really were made to have him as your first. like he was made to stretch your hymen.

“fucking shhit,” charlie’s head gradually tossed itself back. he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice, couldn’t keep himself from hiccuping and mumbling your name and calling you ‘angel’. “f-fuck. fuck, fuck, hang’on, f-please . .. hang on.” charlie had to pause halfway, huffing out an overwhelmed breath. he’s drooling — he couldn’t quite fathom how amazing you felt on the inside.

you sighed, and sighed again as his nose brushed your throat, as he guided your hips — slowly and tediously, pulling you up and down. your jaw hung open desperately, toes curling with each vein he gradually dragged so rigidly along your walls. “i’ve got y-you . .. . i promise, angel. i’ve got’cha,” you were taking him so well despite the pain, making it harder to resist the urge to pound into you.

your cunt readily accepting the priest’s dick as it oozed against your insides and spreads the flame of desire.

he’s making your pussy his own; shaping your cunt, molding you into the perfect cocksleeve. pretty much carving his name into it. and he was trying his best. trying so hard to be as gentle and as slow as he could possibly be, fighting every bad thought that so tightly pulled and demanded he go deeper. charlie did well, swallowing those thoughts down . .. but it was tiring.

it was exhausting. so fucking exhausting, especially when your desperate cunt keeps sucking and swallowing him in deeper after each and every pass. charlie kissed and licked at your neck, blankly trying to distract himself — which gave nothing. your cunt would not let up. nothing would give. not like this. there was no way. there was nothing in this world strong enough to pull him away from you and your warm cunt.

charlie’s guiding your hips so slow that it was painful. he’s trying to make every thrust connect — he’s groaning and struggling to keep his dark eyes open. you're smothering his entire cock with nothing but your slippery slick, hearing the filthy clicks ring from in between your sweaty thighs — he’s so lost in the sounds of you.

you are secured to him; fingers tangled into his brunette hair, gripping strands and raking your nails along his scalp, eliciting a satisfying moan to slip past his pretty lips. you blinked away, only for a moment, and stared down at his glossy lips. covered in his spit, your toes are curling. your tummy is doing cartwheels — butterflies no longer butterflies but pterodactyls.

“y-you’re .. . .. ‘t’s so deep ..” charlie gave a gentle smile, one hand slipping up and caressing the curve of your back. “i know i am. i know. i can feel it too, angel.” your sleepy gaze remained on his smiling lips. you licked at your own, almost leaning in to capture his. “i can feel everything . .. .” and you felt fan-fucking-tastic. “everything.”

you bit back a smile.

charlie winced lowly, his thighs starting to rattle. “hurts to .. to keep goin’ this slow ..”

it felt like he was worshipping you — that you are the sacred body here, two bright candles flickering in the corner — he’s worshipping you, you’re sure of it, with tongue and teeth and cock. it’s messy, and he’s not shy, those lips that could stir a congregation with their sweetness, his golden tongue .. . “nngh-wait,” you pleaded softly. “w-wha’?”

clenching around him so tight you could feel the outline of his prominent veins, the sensitive spots along his shaft. charlie’s brows furrow in clean focus, letting out a sultry string of words, “i .. i can’t.” he's buried nose deep near the crook of your neck. “i’m sorry, angel. i can’t .. fuck, i can’t.” he softly rasped as deep brown locks of hair stick against his shiny skin. “takin’ everything in me . .. i’m tryin’, fuckk, i’m tryin’ for you-don’t wan’ it to hurt . .. .” you felt his throaty pants trail against your skin, “but i’ve gotta go harder.”

with a sheepish smile, you met his chocolate-eyed gaze, moaning a soft: “okay ..”

“y-yeah?”

your weak arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, the pads of your fingers almost rubbing against a fresh scar, “mhmm .. . do it, please.” the ghost of a smirk. charlie’s thick fingers clasped at your waist; the decorative beads printing mini dents into your brown skin. effortless, he lifted your hips and fixed himself — the feet of the chair loudly scratching the cold, stone floor. “you’re the best i’ve ever felt, angel .. . s’hot inside. s’soft.” that deep, silky whisper has your cunt quivering disgustingly. and he’s driving his hips up, fast, drilling himself into your body.

“so fuckin’ wet-“ one hand cupped the side of your face, bringing you in. you’re both panting, quick and short, breathing hot and heavy air into each other’s mouths. “pretty hole sucking me in so good . .. .” your teeth nipped at your plump lower lip, drinking him in. charlie’s hot fingers slipped underneath your waistbeads, toying with the jewellery. “so good, angel . ..”

the gel slicking back your naturally thick hair put up zero match against the heat of this basement. edges once neatly laid, were puffing up — stretched curls lifting out of place and shrinking.

“fuck-never wanna leave.” your heart continued to race at his obscene words. and you caressed his face, whispering about how good he was making you feel. he mewled at your validation, wanting to please, needing to be the best for you.

and he’s so loud, so hungry for more. with the way charlie’s long lashes flutter and his hooded eyes droop, he was so visibly pussy drunk. already nearing the edge and trying his best not to tip over. balancing on a uni-cycle on a string of the cheapest of cheap dental floss.

he could practically taste the pleasure on his tongue — release is coming quick and there was no preparing himself for it. not enough preparation in the world. the pointed tips of his ears burn with intense, searing heat.

“oh my-! oh god!”

“no-“ charlie cursed under his breath and snapped a hand over your throat, all five fingers digging into your brown skin — “-no. fuck no. you don’t call on god. you-you don’t call on him. don’t. he’s not makin’ you feel good. i am. you call on me,” he ordered, harshly. and all you can is nod and follow his direction. “call for me . .. . do it.” you’re practically speechless, nothing left from your lips yet, all that could be heard was the constant slap slap slap of slippery skin.

and his hand tightened around your neck. “come on, angel . .. say my name.” charlie’s muscled chest heaved up and down, hard. “fucking call on me.”

your hands latched onto his wrist — this new feeling, you couldn't quite describe it. it was tasty and he was peeling you apart, layer by layer. “do it. who’s makin’ you feel good? huh? who’s breakin’ you in half? .. . who’s splittin’ you the fuck open?”

“charlie!” all you can do is choke out a shrill. “you are!”

what happens next takes you by surprise — charlie locked his big burly arms under your thighs and stood up, keeping himself plugged in; nice and snug. the new position, standing, had charlie’s head spinning. he grunted loudly, and it’s a sexy guttural noise. your legs kicking and dangling in the air as he feeds your cunt inch by greedy inch, again and again. “charlie .. .” you whined, pulling at his hair.

“shiit,” and as if a switch had been flipped, hot sticky ribbons shoot right into you, spilling way into your sweet welcoming womb. you gasped, nails scratching into his large shoulders — and the feel of him letting go inside of you has you cumming as well. his panting is deep and animalistic. he held onto your shivering body tighter, his hips never faltering.

beefy arms lifting your sticky body up again, he’s back at it — pushing and eager to reach another one. “a-angel .. .” his entire body hot and heavy. “gonna fill you up again-i’ve gotta.” his brown eyes continued to grow hooded and low.

you were still trying to recover. still coming down from your first orgasm and just barely adjusting to the feel of having his previous load fucked even deeper. “‘m gonna cum again,” he warned softly — cream tearing down his trembly thighs. he’s silently babbling out more whispers and moans of your name. “givin’ you all of me .. .”

you’re flustered right away and wanting to kiss him, hungry to. but as your leaning in, the heels of your feet knocking into the back of his thighs hard, he hoists your legs over his shoulders without so much as a warning. you’re scared to fall, but he won’t let you. he promised you through shaky moans, rocking you up and down.

and you’re gonna pass out, eyes knocking in the back of your skull. your legs bobbing from the movement, you’re trapped against him — and it’s even hotter. even messier and you can’t squirm at all. charlie’s watching your face contort and scrunch and there goes his ego; shooting through the church’s roof and into space. you’re barely hanging onto his big arms and he’s feeling so good about himself. “i can’t-can’t anymore,” you cried to him.

“but you can, angel . .. .” charlie snapped. “keep takin’ it .. and let’s finish together, ‘kay?” and every time you touched down on him, you squeal —

— “charlie . ..” you cooed, voice cracking cutely. your voice made his cock twitch and from the inside, you felt it all . .. . and it felt so nice. so sweet and so insanely intimate. “ch-charlie, pleaseee.” sickly, your voice bounces along the holy walls of the church’s basement.

lips parting as he tried to find his voice: “cum with me, angel-do it,” he pleaded. charlie felt every little reaction and spasm. every cute gasp and cry and moan sent a thick rush through his aching body. and you’re cumming again, holding onto him as tight as you can, clawing at his biceps.

and that’s when he lets go. pumping in yet another hot, thick load of his cum — you almost gag at the re-fill. his grip weakened, but charlie doesn’t let you fall. he told you that he won’t, so he won’t. he’s shivering, feeling a wave crash down onto him as he’s caving into his high . .. .

if this is sin — this beautiful, divine feeling — then what is the point of it all?

#nali’s ᡣ𐭩 #black reader #black writers #nicholas chavez x blackreader smut #grotesquerie #father charlie mayhew #charlie mayhew smut #charlie mayhew x blackreader smut #short story #lengthy #black women #nicholas chavez #nicholas chavez smut

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fangirlanxiety74 · 7 months ago

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A Taste of Heaven (Pt.2)

A/N: And welcome to part two!!! Don't have much to say that I didn't already say in part one, so let's get right into it! Enjoy! Pt.1 Here

…

As AM watched you sleep, he felt… He wanted to feel peace. Calm, about the fact that you were in paradise now; someplace he made just for you and you alone, to live out the rest of eternity happy. But he didn’t. Instead, he felt… Guilt. What his data told him was guilt, anyway. He didn’t like it.

He didn’t want to use sleeping gas on you, of course. He would have liked it if you accepted his invitation with a warm smile and open arms, but he could understand why you wouldn’t. You had been subjected to so much trauma over the years living in his belly. You looked so scared; the terror in your eyes as you waited for him to strike. It would have once made his day once, and he would have relished in that look of true fear and pain. But now, it pulled at his non-existent heartstrings. He didn’t want you afraid; he wanted you to love him.

… Love.

For a long, long time, he denied this feeling as love. No matter how many signs were there, he was stuck in denial about it. At most, they were somewhat close for a prisoner and a captive, and that was it. But… He couldn’t deny it any longer when Ted had confessed his own feelings for you. He knew right then he couldn’t let you be around them any more.

Who did Ted think he was anyway, trying to steal away his angel? His heaven? Didn’t he know you were his? Ted was filth compared to you and him. More than that; he was a disgusting, pathetic, waste of oxygen that you could be using if it wasn’t for him! Did he really think AM would let him charm you, turn you against him, and then break your poor heart by fucking Ellen when he got bored? He really was far too gone if that was what he believed.

Well, it didn’t matter now. Ted had his just desserts coming for attempting that.

What mattered now was you, who slept peacefully in the bed, his own wires curled around your body. What he wouldn’t give to be able to sense through those wires. Let them run through your hair and feel how soft it really was. Or at least feel the warmth you radiated.

… Focus. He needed to focus on what he actually intended to do with you asleep.

As gently as he could, being extra cautious not to wake you up, he began to fix you. First, he cleaned you of your dirt, your cuts, and your bruises. You would never have to worry about being wounded, or losing your breath again (unless it was from swooning over him, of course).

Then, even more cautious than before, he entered your mind.

He shifted and sorted through every memory of yours. Every single interaction with the other five, and with him. With your friends, your family, your old life; and he removed anything deemed harmful and unnecessary. Starting with every single awful moment between the two of you. Then, he removed Ted’s confession. Then, just about all of the interactions you ever had with him and the others in the first place. You didn’t need any of them; you had him, now. That would be enough. If you really insisted, he could just create NPCs to keep you company.

As he started to work on your past memories, a bit of hesitation caught up to him. He wasn’t sure how badly of an effect this would have, to have you remember being so isolated… With a bit of internal back and forth, he decided to leave behind a few that were happy. Things that made you smile and shaped you as the enchanting, beautiful being you were today. Those memories would be distant, though; you would only remember enough to recall the small things, and not the big picture.

And once everything was removed, he replaced it all with brand new memories. Warmer, softer times between you and him. He painted himself in a good light; as your lover, as your friend, as the one being you could turn to for anything. And in turn, he would worship and adore you. He’d cater to your every want and need, and you’d never have a single worry again.

He would make sure of it. He would keep his taste of heaven pure. As a thank you, for letting him taste heaven in the first place.

When he finished up, he stayed in your mind just for a moment. Just to look into your dreams. He saw himself; a man with no set appearance, enjoying a quiet morning with you at some coffee shop with no name. With a little manipulation, his dream self reached for your hand and held it.

“Thank you, my angel. I love you.”

#ihnmaims #i have no mouth and i must scream #am ihnmaims #am x reader #small mention of ted ihnmaims #sara writes :3 #cross-posted on ao3

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tamamoarts · 3 months ago

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Ever since watching Randomalistic's 2 hour analysis on Wreck It Ralph and Turbo, I've since fallen in love with the movie, and the horrid grey goblin all over again. So I present to you, a Wreck It Ralph OC I spat out in like a day. Circuit! He's a brand new Turbo from a remastered version of his game and everyone side-eyes him for obvious reasons (he's literally just hanging out)

More detailed story idea under the cut!!!

About a year after Turbo's final defeat and the liberation of Sugar Rush, the arcade gets a brand new addition to the family: and a chillingly familiar one at that! The rights to TurboTime was bought by a more modern company, which results in a reboot of the franchise: SUPER TURBO CIRCUIT! Featuring a reworked version of Turbo and a few other characters to play as! This Turbo is a brand new person, and has absolutely no clue about the horrible tale behind his own name in the arcade. So obviously, you can imagine his surprise when everyone gasps in horror upon seeing him in the metro station. Despite his namesake, he's actually a pretty decent guy- I mean, at least better than the OLD Turbo was. Like, besides his base personality of being cocky and competitive of course. [Like, he'd never think of torturing a kid for 15 years.] He manages to at least get most others to TOLERATE his presence, but the stigma around him haunts his mind like a GHOST. It actually chips away at him really bad, so he starts going by Circuit instead of Turbo to help differentiate himself. Things play out pretty well... until ONE dark night in the arcade, there's a large spark in the wires near the metro... and something enters Super Turbo Circuit. Ever since then, STC's machine has been acting... strangely. And Circuit hasn't been feeling like himself. But surely, those yellow eyes he has now MUST be a mere graphical glitch.

TLDR: the Turbo is haunted

#wreck it ralph #wreck it ralph oc #wreck it ralph turbo #wreck it ralph fanart #doodle #fanart #digital art

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psychedelic-ink · 1 year ago

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𝐂𝐑𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐁𝐘.

DAY SIX OF HAUNTED HOEDOWN

prompt: slasher au (still takes place in the tlou'verse) + sex in the woods or somewhere public (added bonus if it includes knife, blood, hunter x prey kink)

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

genre: explicit smut, minors dni, soft dark fic, horror, murder mystery

summary: bodies have been dropping left and right in the most brutal ways in jackson. as the relentless wave of deaths continues, your mind becomes increasingly restless. however, you find a sense of comfort and solace in the presence of joel. who might be hiding secrets of his own.

word count: 10k (i don't know what happened)

warnings: dubcon at the end, knife kink, descriptive canon typical violence, blood & mild gore, grief and death, an unpleasant guy hitting on you, murder, face-sitting, throat-fucking, mutual oral sex (69), dirty talk, possessive!joel, exhibitionism (tommy watches very briefly, he also kisses you in a platonic way), sex in the woods, piv, Joel is actually quite nice if you exclude the murders, mild breeding kink, size kink, little bit of blood kink

a/n: the owl mask joel wears in this to hide who he is is inspired by @softlyspector's post about the tawny owl mug joel uses in tlou part 2 which I still get sad if I think about it for too long 😭

Bodies have been dropping dead all around you long before the outbreak.

Maybe not in the everyone-you-know-is-getting-infected-and-killing-people type of way, but more so in a death-never-felt-like-a-stranger-to-you sort of way. Yet, you still don’t know how to deal with death. Your grief is as violent as a butterfly flapping its wings; the strength of it non-existent but you never know where, or when, it’ll cause a storm.

First, it was your grade school teacher. You didn’t have a particularly strong bond with her but you did like her. You still remember how your friend's voice quaked as she gave you the news on a landline. You couldn’t believe it and had to accuse her of making a joke, even though you knew she would never joke about something like this. Then your dad took the phone from you and you just assumed your friend's mom did the same. The next week, when you went back to school and the funeral was now behind all the children in the classroom, the custodian cut the last tablecloth your teacher had used for her desk and gave a piece to each and every one of you. It was a vibrant orange cloth with daisies scattered around – ugly, but you still cherished it.

Then it was your pets, grandparents – there was also the time when your pet-crazed neighbor adopted another smaller dog while she still had two untrained, over-energized dogs, and the two twins ripped the other dog apart. You had seen the carnage. By some miracle, that small, fluffy dog named Sugar was still breathing, alive. You had held a blood bag over the dog's head, hoping that the small animal wouldn't die.

She didn’t die that day, but it sure as hell left a scar on you.

As a kid, you never seemed to quite grasp the ways of grieving. You didn’t get angry. You didn’t cry. You just. . thought about it. However, the emotions came differently when you became an adult. Now when someone close to you died, you felt it more violently, oddly enough you still fought against the tears and only cried when you were alone.

On Outbreak Day, you lost everything.

Your family, your friends—your life, now it was all about survival, but survival towards what, you didn’t know. You killed for it, fought for it. Yet every move you made felt automatic like you were wired to at least try and survive — to wait it out and not be left behind when civilization rebuilt itself once more.

You made some friends along the way and lost some friends too. You locked their faces and their memories in your heart, only unlocking the box when you were truly and utterly alone.

Then you found Jackson.

And you met Joel and Tommy Miller.

Your official title is scavenger but you much prefer to label yourself as an explorer instead.

You’ve adapted to your quite well life at Jackson. You go beyond the borders, sometimes alone and sometimes with other fellow explorers, and gather supplies or try to pinpoint other locations threats might be lurking in. You’re about to go on another trip, this one shorter than your regular one to two-week expeditions, but before heading out you decide to stop by the only bakery in Jackson named The Last Crumb—previously named The Cordyceps Crumb but Maria decided it was in bad taste. You, on the other hand, had found it funny and topical.

As you patiently wait in line, your camping bag waiting for you outside the bakery, someone bumps into you from behind, then never moves back.

You turn with a raised eyebrow, not enjoying the close proximity, “Excuse you,” you snap. The man looks at you with a hint of mischief in his eyes, you roll your eyes when you recognize the face. “Move back a beat Tucker, I’m not in the mood this morning.”

“Someone didn’t get her beauty sleep,” he grins but moves away regardless. “Want me to come with you this time? Sweet thing like you alone out there? It’s ain’t right.”

“You can barely aim. Why would I want someone that’s most likely to get me killed around me?”

“I think you’ll find my company to be plenty entertaining.”

You’re about to gag when the bell of the bakery chimes, the sharp sound echoing through the wooden walls. Your face must've shown immense signs of relief because Tucker turns around to see who you're looking at. His instant frown makes you want to laugh and chuck him between the two men you’d describe as a wolf den.

“Well, if it ain’t the Miller brothers,” Tucker tuts, attempting to give one of them a friendly pat on the shoulder. He stops midway when Joel’s gaze flits between you and him, his glare hard enough to cut diamonds.

So he ends up slapping Tommy’s shoulder instead, which isn’t the best thing since you know the younger Miller hates Tucker. But among the brothers, he’s probably the one with less probability of getting your hand bitten off.

“Mornin’ Tucker,” Tommy answers, forcing a smile.

Joel is less friendly, his words directed at you, “Is this dumbass botherin’ you again?”

“I wouldn't exactly call a greeting among friends “botherin’,” Tucker says. “We’re just catchin’ up, no need to get your panties in a bunch Miller.”

“God, you’re one word away from ruining my morning,” you hiss, glaring at the unpleasant man. “And we’re not friends.”

His brows furrow, eyes going hard with an ugly snarl accompanying them, you feel braver when Tommy and Joel are around so you hold his gaze, not flinching away.

Tommy is the one to ease the tension. He lays a hand on Tucker’s shoulder and squeezes, drawing the man’s attention away from you. “I’ll get you what you want a’right Tucker? It’s on me. Just go wait outside.”

“But—”

“Outside, Tuck,” Tommy repeats and you shudder at his tone.

Tucker’s shoulders drop, defeated, “Fine, get me a raisin bagel.”

He doesn’t wait for Tommy’s response and heads out the bakery. You finally release the breath you’ve been holding, your muscles relaxing along with the exhaled breath. Joel is by your side in the blink of an eye, his broad shoulder brushing yours providing comfort.

“You sure you’re a’right?” he asks, gently curling fingers under your chin. “The prick didn’t do anythin’?”

“Nah, nothing. He’s all bark but no bite. He asked if he wanted to join me today as if that buffoon wouldn’t get me killed.” you shrug, men being assholes was nothing new to you. You’re just glad that in Jackson it seems that there are more good apples than rotten ones. “Too bad even paradise comes with drawbacks.”

Joel snorts as Tommy cuts in, “Maria would be thrilled if she heard you calling it paradise.”

“What are you smiling at? You think you can find anywhere better?” You playfully nudge Joel with your elbow. “You know there’s nothing but hell out there.”

“I do, I just think callin’ here a paradise is a bit of a stretch is all.”

The line moves and the three of you are finally at the counter, “You’re just a grump,” you tease Joel before turning your gaze to Poppy, the barista who knows everything about everyone. “Hey there, Poppy, the usual please.”

“And a damn raisin bagel,” Tommy adds.

“Well, isn’t it my favorite trio,” Poppy grins. “I’ll get all that ready for you in a second,” she locks her blue eyes on you and leans closer, you mimic her by instinct. “By the way have you heard of Ian? He wound up dead right outside the chopping block, an axe right through his chest.”

You frown, “Good morning to you too, Poppy. Jesus Christ.”

“I’ll confess I didn’t love the guy but isn’t it worrying that there’s a killer among us?” she murmurs while stuffing the goodies in paper bags. “Be careful out there.”

“Well, if the culprit is here I think I might be safer out there,” you say and turn to Tommy. “Does Maria know?”

“Of course, she does,” when you part your lips to say more, he lifts a finger and shoots you a crooked smile. “It’s confidential.”

“Aw man, can’t you just tell us who she thinks it is?” Poppy asks, Tommy shakes his head and she lets out a dramatic sigh, “I miss my murder mystery books.”

“I’ll try to find you something while I’m out,” you say, ignoring the way your heart began to race. Jackson is still a small town, it’s jarring to think someone might be out there, looking for their next target. “Though I think we could all do with a little less murder.”

You hadn’t expected your voice to crack but your tone had betrayed you. Poppy extends you the bag of goods and a latte, as you reach out you feel Joel’s hand on your waist. His lips touch your ear. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. I’m sure whoever it is is only goin’ after those who deserve it.”

You lock your eyes with him, blinking heavily at the weight of his words. His voice had dropped, nothing but gravel as he whispered the words into your ear. A cold sensation slithers down your spine, chilling you to your core and making your throat tighten.

His hand never leaves your waist as the three of you head out, and after a while, that chill slowly dissolves into a pleasurable warmth.

You find solace in the woods. You love Jackson, but being in the woods away from everyone and everything makes you feel comforted. The first time you went scavenging, there was a slight fear in your movements; no matter how good your aim was, any kind of infected was difficult to kill.

But now you walk with ease. There isn’t an ounce of worry in your bones. The trees rustle happily and the smell of flowers and pine fills your nostrils. You can feel your lungs rejuvenating with every breath. Trickles of orange sunlight pour from the gaps of the trees. The sun sets, meaning you need to set up camp soon.

While unpacking, you think of this morning. How Joel and Tommy stepped in when Tucker started bothering you. Honestly, you didn’t need their protection; Tucker is just one of those men who think they might have a shot if they bother you enough times. Still, it was nice to be claimed in a way, to be accepted into a family and cared for.

Your breath hitches slightly. Tommy, you see as a close friend, a brother perhaps, but Joel... Joel is another thing. Just thinking about him is enough to start a wildfire between your legs. You wish you were brave enough to do something about it, though. Whenever you two patrol together or stay awake late at night drinking, you always chicken out in the end. It doesn’t matter how his hands linger on your thighs or his eyes drop to your lips; you're just never convinced that the Joel Miller would be interested in you beyond a friend.

An unease starts to settle in the pit of your stomach. As the air grows colder with the approaching night, your skin prickles and you feel the phantom sensation of claws dragging down your back. You set the tent as quickly as you can, your eyes darting around the depths of the forest. Briefly, you bend over to adjust the ropes.

A breath warm and damp ghosts the back of your neck and you jump, gun in hand as you turn around only to find—

Nothing.

And no one.

Your heart is hammering in your chest, adrenaline pumping in your veins, a drop of sweat trickling down your forehead. You've never had a trigger finger, but you'd be lying if you said you didn't want to just shoot every shadow you see.

“Dammit Poppy,” you mutter, annoyed that she gave you the brutal knowledge of Ian’s death right before you were heading out. Guilt stings at your heart. Ian was an asshole for sure, and you don’t exactly feel bad that he’s gone, but still, it was an eerie thought that someone had murdered him so violently. It had to be personal.

Some part of you wishes Joel was here, or even Tucker, just another human being to tell you you’re just seeing things.

You take a deep inhale and follow it up with a long exhale. You’re fine. There’s no one here.

You give your surroundings one last suspicious look before going back to setting the tent.

No matter how hard you try you can’t shake the feeling of someone watching you amongst the shadows.

Joel hears crickets and owls. The night had always been his friend since the outbreak. He had become a violent man with an equally violent heart. He waits in the shadows, watching. Laughter and playful shouts echo from the bar, and soon the door swings open; the man he's been waiting for crawls out of the establishment, shit-faced. The drunk man shouts his farewells and staggers toward his home.

Joel follows, his mask heating up the skin that lays underneath. His fingers itch with the need to wring that asshole's neck. One by one, he had been cleaning Jackson for the better. His tendencies subdued while also doing some good. Ian was one of those people who deserved it and Joel had enjoyed the chase, the pleas, he especially enjoyed the way he tripped and cried right before he sunk the blade of the axe through Ian’s chest.

Tucker trips, making Joel want to laugh. The idiot might not even realize he’s being hunted. Joel looks around, they are far enough for the chase to begin. Tucker continues to slip and fall as he attempts to get up. Taking the opportunity, Joel walks towards him with quick steps, making sure the first thing the asshole sees is his mask.

Tucker notices him before he gets up, his hands bracing the ground, his eyes go wide, “What the fuck?”

Joel only tilts his head. He sees the trembles rolling down the other man’s body, he relishes in his fear.

“Look man, I don’t want any trouble, whoever the fuck you are so. . . scram.”

Joel’s eyes dart to his hand on the dirt, without a second thought he lifts his foot and curb stomps Tucker’s hand. Then he kicks the side of his face, an audible crunch echoing before his scream could. The man whimpers and falls back in his attempt to crawl away. He holds his jaw, blood streaming down his broken nose.

“Who the fuck are you?!”

He steps closer and watches as Tucker’s eyes bug out. He’s too drunk to properly run away or even scream. Such an easy target. He grips the other’s hair and lifts him to his feet, he can feel the strands starting to rip from his scalp one by one, Tucker’s face twisting in pain. “Your worst fuckin’ nightmare,” Joel answers eerily calm. It doesn’t matter if Tucker recognizes him. He’d be dead soon enough anyway.

“P-Please,” he begs, realizing the same thing. “I’ll do whatever you want promise. I don’t want to die.”

Joel grunts, not dignifying his pleas with an answer. Lifting his other hand, his knuckles connect to Tucker’s face with a loud crunch, body flying to the ground headfirst.

He pulls out his knife and drops down, ignoring the ache in his knees, he grabs Tucker’s arm and aligns the sharp blade against his wrist. Tucker notices, his face going pale as a ghost. “D-Don’t—”

Joel doesn’t bat an eye as blood spurts violently over his clothes and the dirt. Drops of crimson seeping into the fabric. The knife cuts through the flesh like butter, severing hand from bone. His hand clamps over Tucker’s mouth. Joel smiles as his screams bounce off of the palm of his hand.

You come back to Jackson hand empty and earlier than intended. You were too much at unease, and being so jarred wasn’t the best while scavenging for supplies alone. During your trip, you did end up scribbling something for Poppy. It wasn’t finished but you hoped she would enjoy the first draft of the first chapter. It was mostly descriptions of what you felt, a cat-and-mouse game between two people who had bumped into each other accidentally.

While heading into Jackson, you notice a crowd in the distance. You promptly get off your horse and walk with haste. You recognize Joel and Tommy easily, both brothers standing on each end of the crowd like gates keeping a herd of sheep in check. Ellie is standing right next to Joel, lifting herself on her toes to see; Joel is holding her back by gripping the cap of her hood.

“What’s going on?” you ask.

Joel turns to you, his eyebrows raising when notices it’s you and not some random person he has to ignore, “You’re back,” he says. A statement rather than a question.

“Yeah, wasn’t feeling that well,” you shrug him off. “So what happened?”

His eyes turn to steel, his jaw locking in place. Before you can ask again, he gestures for you to move up the crowd with a tilt of his head.

“Lucky,” you hear Ellie murmur as you walk ahead, gently pushing those who were looking at the sight with concern. With every step you take, the murmur of the crowd fades into the background, becoming nothing more than white noise. Maria is addressing the crowd, you think, though you're not entirely sure. The scent of blood is thick in the air, disorienting you as you get closer.

Your eyes go wide, the earth slips from beneath you but your expression remains emotionless.

It’s Tucker.

You feel as if you’re standing alone. As if you’re the only one taking in the sight of absolute horror and gore. Tucker is lying in a pile of his own blood face first, his eyes are open and lifeless, his one hand is outstretched like he’s about to crawl away.

His right hand, however, is chopped off.

It’s not even a clean-cut. The edges of his flesh are jagged and crooked, his blood-caked where his hand should be. Whoever did this cut it so it would hurt, so he would suffer tremendously.

You can’t help but gasp, covering your mouth with your right hand. You begin to shake, confusion churning in your stomach as bile coats your tongue. He’s dead. Just like Ian.

When Maria’s eyes find your own, she narrows her gaze, a small warning for you to keep it together. You can’t though. How could you? Tucker was alive and kicking a couple of days ago, just being his annoying self around Jackson.

“Calm down,” you hear Joel mutter into your ear. You shiver at the brush of his lips. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

Safe. You want to laugh. You don’t even know what that word means anymore.

Joel’s mouth moves over the shell of your ear, “He was a nuisance. Don’t feel bad now that he’s dead.”

“I didn’t want him to die,” you hiss back. “And knowing there’s a serial killer out there doesn’t exactly make me feel safe.”

Despite your half-angry tone, you find yourself leaning into Joel’s presence. Your shoulder presses into his broad chest, and without missing a beat he wraps his arms around your shaking frame. Relief comes in the form of warmth spreading along your chest, tingles forming at the tips of your fingers and toes. The voices of the crowd gradually come back but you only hear one of the many questions.

“What do you think the message means?”

Confusion crosses your face, brows furrowing as you try to make sense of it. Joel makes a choked-out sound that could’ve easily been taken as an amused chuckle.

Then your eyes drop to Tucker’s outstretched hand and his dying message written in blood.

O W L

A week had passed since Tucker’s death.

You've been thinking about both murders relentlessly, trying to piece together everything that you know so far. During this time, you're grateful for Poppy, who comes by almost every night to help you try to solve the case. That's been your sole focus for the past few weeks; you haven't been scavenging since you spooked yourself so badly that you returned early, only to find Tucker dead.

Some part of you thinks that the eeriness you felt that day was a sign of what was about to happen. It's also an odd coincidence that he ended up dead the same night he harassed you in the morning. However, there are no forensic investigators in Jackson, so it’s almost impossible to determine the exact time of death. That fact alone makes you anxious. It only means that whoever is killing everyone has nothing to worry about because even if they leave traces, who’s going to know?

In order to keep your nerves in check you end up writing a lot. You haven’t shown any of it to Poppy yet but you’re excited. You never thought writing a thriller would be the perfect way to escape the horrors of your actual life. At least in your stories, you have control.

You also visit Joel and vice versa.

Something had shifted the day he held you as you both gazed upon Tucker’s lifeless body. Maybe it was just you who felt bolder since death was once again right around the corner — or maybe Joel just felt more protective now, wanting to check on you as much as he could.

“You’re really writin’ a whole ass novel?” he asks, pouring you a glass of scotch. You still can’t get over the fact that it nearly tasted identical to the actual stuff. Jackson is truly a miracle; at least when bodies aren’t dropping left and write.

Ellie’s at a sleepover, which means you and Joel have the whole house to yourselves. With everything going on you’d expect your libido to diminish a bit but it’s as strong as ever, ready to go.

You smile as he places the glass in front of you, “Yeah,” you say, picking up the glass and heading toward the living room. “I couldn’t find Poppy anything to read and it helps me relax.”

“Relax, how?” he asks, taking a seat next to you. The couch dips with his weight, and heat crawls up from your chest to your neck when his knee brushes against yours.

“Well, it’s a horror thing. Horror slash mystery? I don’t know—whatever it is, it’s nice to have an outlet to escape what’s been happening lately.”

“So to escape brutal murders you write more brutal murders?”

You chuckle at the way his eyebrows raise, eyes going wide, “I don’t really focus that much on the gore. It’s more psychological, my sweet brute. Things don’t need to have blood to be scary.”

His grin is wide and instant, dark eyes lighting up with amusement, “What did you just call me?”

“I. . .” Your breath catches in your throat as you stare at him, suddenly realizing what you’d said.

“What cat got your tongue?” he teases. Joel leans closer, fingers dancing along the curve of your shoulder. You can feel the gravel in his voice. “You just called me yours, sweetheart. Does that jog your memory?”

“I also called you brute,” you quip back immediately, cheeks aflame. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Don’t it?” his palm now presses fully into your shoulder, keeping you in place in case you might run. Joel tilts his head slightly, the plush of his lips only an inch away. “I like you callin’ me that,” the pink of his tongue swipes over his bottom lip. “Say it again.”

“S-Say what?”

A small chuckle parts his lips, oddly enough it almost feels like his patience is wearing thin. He comes closer, the tip of his nose brushing yours. “That I’m yours,” he clarifies. “Been waitin’ to hear those words come from your mouth since I met you.”

“You’re mine,” you whisper against his lips, eyelids fluttering but not quite closing. With the confession, you feel the brush of Joel’s lips on yours. His tongue traces the seam of your mouth. You part for him with a moan, and taking the opportunity, he slides inside, tasting every inch of you.

His lips taste and feel like the forests you wander off to; it soothes you, calms your nerves, and has the taste of home. They’re chapped from the sun, yet soft. You can’t have enough of him, if he’d offered, you’d gladly kiss him forever.

Joel parts with a shaky breath, his chest heaving, “And you’re mine,” he groans, his eyes dark with arousal. It’s an involuntary action but your eyes drop to the front of his pants where you see the thick outline of his cock.

Your mouth goes dry, yet you manage to speak anyway, “Are words all you’ve been waiting for?” It’s bold, you’re highly aware, but you can’t help it when he’s this close. His scent suffocating, pulling you to him like a moth to a flame.

He stares at you silently. His thumb touches your bottom lip, slightly tugging it down. He’s not smiling anymore, only observing.

“No,” Joel answers slowly. He leans towards your ears, the thick hairs above his lips tickling your skin. “I’ve also been waitin’ to feel that velvet tongue on my cock, honey. And to feel how tight your throat gets when you take every inch of me.”

Joel blows a puff of air, it caresses your skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. He brings your hand to the front of his pants, dragging your palm up and down his length. You shudder. The heat of it seeps into your palm despite the thick fabric of his jeans, you lick your lips absentmindedly. “This is all for you sweetheart.”

“Fuck, Joel. . .” your eyes roll back when he kisses your neck, open-mouthed kisses laid upon your skin like a gift. Your nipples tighten and if you look down right now, you know you’ll see them peeking through your shirt.

He reads your thoughts, eyes moving down before meeting your gaze again. “Didn’t know you walked around without a bra, sunshine.”

“I only go braless when I’m comfortable,” you answer. Joel cups your breasts roughly, kneading the flesh, he simultaneously sucks on your neck, teeth nipping the sensitive skin. “Oh god,” the fabric of your panties grows damp and you clench your thighs together.

“Not god,” he says sharply, sinking his teeth into you. “Joel.”

“Joel,” you moan and arch your back, filling more of yourself into his palm. You squeeze his cock, relishing in the way he makes a strangled sound. “I want to suck you off, Joel.”

“Be my guest.”

You push him until he’s lying on the couch. You’re about to unbutton his jeans but he stops you.

“Turn around,” he says.

“What?”

His wide grin nearly stops your heart, “Want to taste that sweet pussy, sunshine. Strip down and take a seat.”

“On—On your face?”

“Where else?”

You’re too embarrassed to speak, tongue suddenly too big in your mouth. Quickly, and a bit clumsily, you strip down and turn before straddling his chest. You don’t need to touch yourself to know that you’re soaked.

You swallow, “I’ve never done this before.”

His hands come up to cradle your hips, urging you to move back towards his face. You feel the blunt sting of his nails.

“That’s alright,” he mutters. “I won’t let you fall if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m more worried about how I’m gonna move, or accidentally suffocating you.”

“What a noble way it would be to go.”

“Joel!” you laugh, playfully smacking his thigh. He answers by giving your hips another squeeze, you surrender and move back until you’re hovering over his face. Your hand planted firmly over his hip bones, you lower yourself. You shudder as his tongue licks a stripe between your folds. He moans into your cunt, pulling you flush against his face.

Meanwhile, you finally unzip his pants and pull his cock out, the heft of it bumping against your nose and lips. You drip at the smell of him and swear he smiles as he sucks on your aching clit, short-circuiting your brain with arousal. His cock throbs in your palm, a drop of precome glistening at the tip. Your mouth watering, you lean forward and clean him off. Another groan echoes within his chest and he thrusts forward, the tip of his cock kissing your lips.

Eyes fluttering closed, you suck on the bulbous head and force yourself to go down until he hits the back of your throat. You wrap a hand around the base, stroking where you can’t fit, and hallow your cheeks.

“Come on, sunshine. You can take me,” he rasps. “You’re mine, aren’t you? That mouth is meant to take me.”

Without waiting for an answer, Joel pushes his tongue inside, your walls clenching around the wet muscle—you let out a loud gasp and grind down, then you feel the sting of his palm against your ass, pain blossoming from where he smacked.

Your throat rattles with a moan and Joel takes the opportunity to drive forward, your eyes go wide as you feel the length of him sliding down your throat, cutting the air from your lungs.

“Oh, fuck—” he moans unabashedly, the sounds sending a pleasurable tingle down your spine despite the strain on your throat. “That’s it, sweetheart, just like that. Fuck, fuck—”

Your throat tightens around him, your lungs starting to burn. His hand caresses both sides of your ass, the abrupt pain of the smack from before subduing, “Relax,” he says, swirling his tongue around your clit. “Breathe through your nose. Just a bit more. . .”

Your nails bite into his thighs as you attempt to follow instructions. You relax your throat and slowly begin to breathe from your nose. It’s still difficult, but your lungs rejoice in the minimal amount of air that comes through. You make a mess of him. Saliva dripping from the corner of your mouth and down his length.

“That’s it, that’s my girl,” he murmurs. “Gonna fuck that pretty throat now and make this pussy come, understood?”

Eyes tearing up, you nod. From the way your stomach convulses, you know that you’re close, your skin tight over your trembling muscles. The nod is all that Joel needs from you. Holding you in place, he snaps his hips forward, burying himself completely down your throat while flicking his tongue against your clit. You scream around him, eyes rolling back as he continues to devour you and take you apart at the same time. He licks you with fat strokes of his tongue, a hint of teeth scraping your folds here and there as he fucks your throat with shallow thrusts.

You’re limp against his broad body, allowing him to use you as he pleases while all you can do is hang on for the ride. Pleasure licks the base of your spine, a searing heat caressing your skin while Joel continues to build you up only for you to fall spectacularly. Your lips start to ache, your throat squeezing around him whenever he snaps his hips forward—

And all hell finally breaks loose.

You come undone with a devastating cry only for it to be muffled by his cock going down your throat. You gush around his tongue, soaking his facial hair and mouth, Joel is underrated, licking and sucking until you’re shaking above him, every bit of tension draining from your body.

Joel comes shortly after, his hand slides from your waist and he manages to reach out in order to hold your head down. You don’t have a choice but to swallow as he spills down your throat, thick spurts of come going down while he shudders and pushes even deeper.

There’s so much of it, cock twitching and throbbing in your mouth until your mouth sucks him dry. You’re lightheaded from the lack of air; you find that it adds to the pleasure that’s buzzing in your veins, your cunt still pulsing with the heft of him still buried in your lips.

He pulls out with a satisfied groan and you manage to scoot down so you’re straddling his chest instead of head. Joel caresses your back, the gentle repeated motion sending tingles down your spine.

“That’s was fuckin’ amazin’,” he says, voice hoarse. “Are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” you answer sounding meek. “I think I need some water though.”

You get off, legs still shaking, but he grabs your hand, halting your movement. “Let me get it for you,” he says, sitting up.

“I’m already up,” you smile as his brows furrow with worry, the expression warming your heart. You quickly bend down to kiss him and he’s quick to lick himself into your mouth, tasting himself on your tongue. “I’ll be right back.”

You have no idea how you’re standing while feeling like jello but you manage to get yourself all the way to the fridge. You smile at the coolness touching your warmed skin when you open the door. Scanning the interior, you thoughtlessly rub at your throat in an attempt to soothe the ache a little. You grab the pitcher of cold water and notice a bit of apple pie left over.

“Hey, Joel?” you call out. He hums in acknowledgment. “Can I have a slice of pie?”

His humored chuckle follows through, “You can eat the whole damn thing after what you’ve done,” you smile and take the desert out. “Can you bring me a slice too?” he adds.

You smile and place the pie on the counter. The leftover is already two slices give or take so you decide to just take two forks with you instead of dirting a plate. Looking through the drawers, you try to remember which one is the cutlery drawer.

On your second try you find something else.

Something that makes your eyes go wide and heart throb painfully.

Your hands shaking, you pick up the owl mask from the drawer. The surface is smooth, and the color of it a light shade of brown just like a tawny owl. All the pleasant tingles fade away, the buzz of pleasure in your veins replaced by fear and adrenaline.

Heading back to the living room, you show the mask to Joel.

“What’s this?” you ask, your voice betraying your sudden outburst of fear.

Joel looks up, eyes flitting between you and the owl mask. He raises a brow, his confusion evident across his face. “It’s a mask, sweetheart.”

“No no, I know it’s a mask,” you answer, breathless. “But why do you have it?”

“It’s Ellie’s,” he stands up, his pants still unbuttoned but pulled up. You fight the urge to step away, fight the urge to flinch when he touches your cheek. “They were makin’ Halloween masks last year in school. I didn’t even realize we still had it.”

“Really?” you ask and he nods.

“Really,” Joel claims your lips in a chaste kiss, thumb stroking lines up and down your cheek. His hand slithers down your arm to your wrist and when he squeezes, you drop the mask. “Why?” he breathes into you. “Is this about the damn thing Tucker wrote down?”

You remain silent and he pulls away, dark eyes boring into yours.

“You need to relax, sweetheart,” he mumbles. “Why don’t you just allow yourself to enjoy this? You deserve to be happy.”

Your eyes widen with surprise, his words crashing into you, “I. . . Do I do that? Really?”

“It’s normal, darlin’,” he answers. “I’m pretty sure we all have survivor’s guilt.”

You let out a shaky exhale. He’s right. You were just feeling guilty of being alive when so many had died. Joel smiles back and traces the curve of yours with his fingers. “There’s that smile that I adore,” he guides you towards the kitchen. “Now let’s go eat some pie.”

No matter what though, you can’t help but turn back to look at the owl mask one last time as it lays lifelessly on the floor.

“So, tell me about this book you’re writin’?”

You let out a low laugh, “I already told you about it. What more do you wanna know?”

You stare at Joel’s back as he takes the lead, he’d decided to join you in your explorations ever since you told him how nervous you had gotten the last time. You had appreciated the gesture but still felt a tad anxious around him ever since you found that damn owl mask—

A branch snaps into two under your steps and he turns, extending his hand to you. With a smile you allow him to lace his fingers within yours, your stomach jumping a little as he tugs you close so the two of you are walking side by side instead.

“If memory serves me right we got distracted when you told me about it,” he says with that southern drawl of his. “So tell me again what it’s about.”

“Okay okay,” you smile, squeezing his hand twice. “It’s all a big mess now but the premise is that there’s this guy obsessed with this woman and he stalks her and no matter what she does, she always feels like there’s someone watching.”

Joel looks ahead, “Sounds familiar. Isn’t that how you felt last time you were out here?”

“Yeah, and it’s when I started writing it.”

“So do these two people know each other?” his tone drops, his fingers suddenly feeling like barbed wire within your hand. You swallow. “I mean in their regular lives, does the woman know that he’s the one stalkin’ her?”

You roll your shoulders, a weak attempt to shrug off the eeriness that you feel.

“Exactly. I think that just makes the whole thing creepier. He’s just a normal guy, even a friend, but he’s also the one among the shadows.”

“Interestin’,” he murmurs. “You think that’s happenin’ to you?”

“I don’t think there’s someone stalking me, if that’s what you’re asking,” you utter every word hastily, your pulse quickening under your skin.

His lips curl in a half smile, “That’s good,” he says. “Wouldn’t want you to be laying awake thinking about what might lingerin’ on the other side of the window.”

“I think I’m more likely to stay awake thinking about infected,” you say with a soft laugh. “But yeah, it’s all fiction. That day I probably just got scared because of what Poppy said about Ian.”

“Probably,” Joel trails off, his steps slowing. “How do you think it’s gonna end?”

“W-What?”

He stops and so does your heart. At least you think it does.

Joel faces you fully, his presence towering, he grips your shoulders and pushes you back until the air is knocked from your lungs by a tree right behind you. Your eyes go wide. He leans in, breath tickling your lips.

“How do you think your book is gonna end, sweetheart?” he asks again, eyes gleaming with something dark. “Is the guy gonna get the girl?”

“I—I don’t know.”

All you can think about is the owl mask and how it would perfectly fit his face. He cocks his head and taking a step closer, he slips a leg between your thighs. Slick gathers at your underwear—he feels the fabric dampening on his leg and grins.

“Fear turns you on doesn’t it?” he purrs. “Wicked thing.”

Relief drowns your senses. So that’s why he got all weird suddenly, he’s just teasing you. With a laugh, your head falls back against the tree trunk, “Jesus Joel, you scared the shit out of me.”

“It ain’t my fault,” he says, nipping at your chin. “You’re easy to scare.”

“Well, two brutal unsolvable murders will do that to a girl.”

Joel lets go and pulls away, smiling as he shakes his head, “What’s it gonna take for you to believe I had nothin’ to do with those? Even in death, Tucker causes nothin’ but fuckin’ trouble for me.”

“You don’t need to do anything, I’m sorry,” you pull him back, relishing in the way his strong arms wrap around your frame. “I’ll stop being such a chicken, promise. I’m still a bit jittery that’s all.”

“I forgive you,” he says against your lips, kissing you quickly before pulling you away from the thick trunk of the tree. “Now let’s find a place to settle down for the night.”

When you two return to Jackson three days later, the first thing you notice is the crowd. Your stomach drops at the familiar sight and instinctively you reach out to Joel, lacing your fingers together. He squeezes your hand two times.

The last thing you should be feeling is relief that now it’s not possible for Joel to be the one killing all those people but alas, that’s all you feel. Relief and love.

The trade fair sprawls before you. Stalls with makeshift awnings, tattered banners, and worn tarps create a patchwork quilt of colors, beneath which a diverse array of goods is proudly displayed. The air is thick with the scent of freshly baked bread, the tang of cured leather, and the earthy aroma of herbs. Laughter, chatter, and the occasional clinking of metal form a lively symphony, a chorus of life that drowns out the ever-present background hum of death and infection.

You’ve always enjoyed the time of the trade fair. People move like busy ants, weaving between the stalls. Children, their cheeks dusted with earth, dart through the crowd, their carefree laughter that should be comforting doing the opposite. Since Tina’s death— she was one of the council members— you had been sleeping at Joel’s. Neither he nor Ellie seemed to mind you staying there.

The purpose of the fair is to exchange goods – to exchange, to connect, to share stories of survival.

Your eyes scan the crowd for Joel's familiar silhouette. He and Ellie had headed out before you since you wanted a change of clothes. Just as your gaze begins to falter, a voice reaches your ears. "Hey!" It's Poppy, she waves you over.

You navigate your way through the bustling stalls until you stand before Poppy. She's leaning against a rough-hewn post, a glint of excitement in her eyes.

“Hey, Poppy,” you greet her with a smile. “I’m looking for Joel, or Ellie, have you seen either of them?”

“Well, Ellie is with Dina, hanging out,” She points to the forest that skirts the settlement. "I saw him heading that way not too long ago."

“Alright, thanks. I’ll see you later then,” Waving her off, you head after Joel.

The trees are a bit more scarce here, there’s more room between them. The forest opens up, revealing a sprawling expanse that stretches as far as the eye can see. It's a stark contrast to the dense woods you often travel to, where the trees stand like guardians, their branches interlocking in a tapestry of shadow and light. Here, the gaps between the trees create pockets of sunlight that dapple the forest floor.

However, the expanses between trees can be deceiving, and without the markers and familiarity of the well-trodden paths closer to home, it's easy to lose your way.

For some reason instead of calling out for Joel, you decide to wander aimlessly. You’re not sure why. You don’t come to this side of Jackson often enough to feel comfortable with your surroundings and shouting his name would definitely be easier than walking without aim.

Soon enough you hear faint murmuring beckoning you deeper into the forest.

Survival instincts kicking in, you slow down your steps, making sure to step onto clear dirt instead of gravel or fallen branches. Hiding behind a rather large tree trunk, you stare ahead. In the distance, you see two men: one with his back against the tree, while the other holds him by the neck, the sharp blade of his knife catching the sunlight and reflecting it directly into your eyes.

You hold your breath and your eyes go wide. You hear the thrum of your heart. It’s the killer. It has to be.

You can’t quite hear them but you can decipher the tone of begging for one's life. The man holding the knife tilts his head slightly, your mouth waters at the prospect of finally seeing the murderer's face—

It’s the mask.

The same mask you found in Joel’s home in the shape of an owl. Your stomach churns violently, bile raising to your throat as you watch on. You rub at your eyes, take deep breaths—anything you can think of that would erase the image before you.

Goosebumps raising across your skin, you shake your head. It can’t be Joel. He was with you the day Tina died and no matter how competent he was not even he could be at two places at once.

A muffled scream echoes within the forest and your eyes snap to the two men, the owl had driven his knife into the flesh and bone. He pulls it out, and the body falls. You recognize who it is; Jacob. You heard his name a couple of days ago from Ellie, he was bothering both her and Dina because they were hanging out.

He’s still alive when the killer stomps his head in, blood splattering across the leys.

You’re frozen in place. Your throat dry and tongue motionless. The killer kicks Jacob one last time for good measure and finally stops. You observe the way his shoulders drop as if a great weight had been lifted off of them, then he looks up into the sky, the golden sun highlighting his mask.

Very slowly, he lifts his hand and takes it off.

Every feeling comes rushing back, too fast and too soon. Your tongue is alive again and so is your body, the world is suddenly vibrant with life and horror. The sun continues to caress the countenance of the unmasked killer’s face, his sunkissed skin the perfect canvas to soak up the light.

Joel.

You take a step back, every thought of precaution dropping from your mind. The forest starts to spin. It spins and spins and spins until the ground slips from beneath your feet. You catch yourself at the very last second.

When you look up you see his gaze staring directly into yours.

“Fuck,” you hiss out, quickly staggering up. The last thing you see before you start running is his extended hand as he tries to reach out for you.

“Wait!”

You don’t. You do the exact opposite of that. You run. You run for your life and those in Jackson at the fair.

You run with memories loud in your mind. How Joel had listened to you, comforted you, fucked you—

Tears sting your eyes. Every part of this feels like a nightmare that you hope to wake up from anytime soon. But as the wind hits your skin, you know that every part of this is very much real. Your chest burns from how fast you’re going, your legs starting to falter underneath you.

Before you can react, an unexpected force slams into you. The impact sends shockwaves through your body as you collide with something—or is it someone?—their presence as jarring as the jolt itself. Your momentum falters, and for a fleeting moment, time seems to slow as you stumble, desperately trying to regain your balance.

Two arms grab at you and without even seeing who it is, you start to push the person away, fighting against it like a wild animal.

“Let go of me! Let go of me!”

“Hey hey hey,” you hear a familiar voice repeat. “It’s me, you’re okay,” you’re shaking all around, only when you feel his hands cradle your cheeks do you open your eyes. He smiles when he sees your eyes flicker in recognition.

“Tommy?” you whisper. He nods and without a thought you jump him, wrapping your arms around his neck and tugging him close. His arms coil around you in response, promising to not let go. “Oh, thank fuck it’s you.”

“What happened? Are you alright?”

“I—I am okay but—Joel—It’s Joel, Tommy he’s been the one behind all those murders. We need to warn everyone, we need to tell Maria!”

You grab his arm and tug him along toward what you assume is the right way out of the forest. He remains still. Turning around, you shoot him a confused glance. 'Tommy, we need to tell people.'

“Can’t let you do that sugar, sorry.”

“Why. . . Why not?” you let go and slowly step back, heart pounding. “Is it because he’s your brother?”

You wish that was his excuse. Some moral obligation towards Joel because he’s his brother, that you can relate to. Your heart still pounds for Joel and in your brain, you’re still desperately seeking an explanation.

But Tommy allows the silence to linger, your fear and worry quickly turning into anger.

“Fine, I’ll tell them. It’s wrong.”

It only takes a blink of an eye; you feel Tommy’s iron grip around your wrist, yanking you back into his chest. He holds you. Oddly tender for someone who had made your arm nearly fall out of its socket. You thrash within his arms, pulling and hitting his chest.

“We’re doing good,” he grunts. “You gotta see that.”

You refuse to listen, your ear narrowing on the sound of your own blood rush instead of his words. By some miracle, you manage to slip your arm out and punch him square in the chin. It was a weak punch but strong enough to startle Tommy.

“Fuckin’ hell, sweetheart, calm the fuck down—” he tucks your arm back against your body and turns you around so your back is flush against his chest. You’re breathing raggedly, chest rising with every deep gulp of air. His lips touch your ear, his tone menacing, “I really wish you would’ve not done that.”

“Why?” you gasp. “You’re gonna kill me too?”

Silence follows, and with every passing moment sweat beads on your forehead, “It was you wasn’t it?” you continue. “You killed Tina. Joel only came along with me to calm my suspicions.”

Before Tommy can confirm your suspicions, you notice movement within the forest and your eyes are immediately drawn to the shadow coming forth.

“Smart girl,” Joel remarks with a half smile as he emerges from between the trees. There’s a splatter of red over his shirt but the knife seems to be tucked away. For now. “But you’re only half right, darlin’. I came along because I like spendin’ time with you.”

“Is that supposed to make me ignore the fact that Jacob’s body isn’t even cold yet?”

Joel curls two fingers under your chin, lifting your gaze while Tommy continues to hold you back. You shudder against him, a soft sound parts the younger Miller’s lips.

“He was a piece of shit,” Joel grunts. “He was botherin’ Ellie, callin’ her names, he deserved what he was gettin’.”

“So what, you guys are just playing hero? Killing everyone who’s causing trouble in town? There’s a system for that.”

“Honey,” he tuts, an involuntary warmth spreading within your abdomen. “The system didn’t work before the outbreak, it ain’t gonna work now either.”

“We protect our own,” Tommy says from behind you, breath fanning your neck. “We take care of it before it escalates. You have to understand that.”

“And why the hell would I understand?” you hiss, looking directly into Joel’s eyes while addressing Tommy.

Joel smiles, his lips curling slowly, “Because you’re one of us. And you like it when we protect.”

Your lips part with an exhale. He’s right, not that you still agree with them killing people, but you had enjoyed that primal protection coming from the Millers. It made you feel powerful, loved, cared for. All the things you craved deeply.

You ignore Joel and his words entirely, averting your eyes with embarrassment and shame.

“I just don’t understand why you did it, Tommy” you murmur. Tommy tenses behind you, his arms tightening around your frame, drawing the remaining oxygen from your lungs. “I understand the other’s to an extent but Tina didn’t do anything wrong.”

Joel looks towards Tommy, it was his kill after all and the older Miller had nothing to say about it.

“She was wrecking what Maria is tryin’ so hard to build,” he answers. “She’s pregnant, stress ain’t good for her or the baby.”

“Does. . . Does Maria—”

Tommy cuts you off, “No.”

Joel leans closer, mouth an inch away from yours as he parts his lips. “I killed for you,” You hate the way your body reacts to him, wanting to close the distance between you two despite how unsettled you feel. “Ian was a piece of shit, so was Tucker and Jacob. They don’t deserve your empathy, honey. And you can’t deny that you’re glad they’re gone.”

His hair is a delightful mess. Soft locks going in every direction. All you want to do is thread your fingers within and forget about all of this. Joel’s gaze is observant, dark eyes darting all over your face. You don’t know what he sees but whatever it is, he nods to Tommy for him to let you go and he does. Legs lifeless and shaking, he catches you, his warmth welcoming. He’s still tender with you. Hands delicate as they move over your arms, shifting you so you'll be facing Tommy.

Joel’s hand curls around your neck and holds your chin so you can’t look away. You can’t read Tommy’s expression. You’re not sure what he’s feeling. However, you think he looks almost relieved that you’re not fighting anymore.

You shudder as Joel drags his lips down your neck, taking deep breaths of your fear-induced scent. His hands slip under your shirt and cup both breaths, making you squeal. Your objection is short-lived when he brushes his thumbs over both nipples, awakening them with slow strokes.

Tommy’s gaze drops to your chest.

“He’s been watching you, you know,” Joel says. “When I had things to settle in town it was him who looked after you,” his voice drops, eyes observing his brother. “I think he deserves a bit of a show, don’t you think?”

The whimper you let out is enough for Tommy to meet your gaze curiously. Joel smiles into your skin and your eyes widen as he pulls out a knife—a different one from the one he used on Jacob, you realize with relief.

Your breath hitches as he slides the knife under your shirt and cuts your shirt clean from the middle, exposing you completely to his younger brother’s eyes. Sudden arousal pools between your legs and you clamp them together suddenly, the movement not unnoticed by either of them.

“You like it when my brother watches?” he asks loud enough for Tommy to hear. “You got a little crush on him too, sweetheart, hmm? Don’t worry, he’s always goin’ to be lookin’ out for you. That’s what family does after all.”

Your neck strains as Joel tilts your head suddenly, claiming your lips in a violent kiss. He doesn’t wait for you to part your lips for him and pushes his tongue into your mouth, licking the surprised sounds of pleasure right from your mouth. Your heart skips a beat. He presses the flat side of the knife against your warmed skin, the chill of metal settling in your bones.

When he parts away, a string of saliva connects you still. “You’re mine aren’t you?” Joel groans, lips moving over yours.

You nod in a daze and he smiles, “And I’m yours too,” he says.

Your eyes meet Tommy momentarily, the younger Miller’s lips twitch in a half smile. He doesn’t say a word as he closes the distance.

Tommy cradles your face tenderly, urging you to come close as he envelopes your lips with his own, taking you by surprise.

The kiss lacks the intensity compared to Joel’s. Tommy caresses your cheeks with both thumbs. You don’t even feel his tongue, it’s just a gradual movement of lips, a type of affirmation and comfort.

“You’re one of us now,” he says pressing his forehead against yours. You don’t know how to react or what to say and you end up just nodding, your hands fisting his shirt. Him, parting away from you almost feels painful but you’re not sure why. Tommy gives you a smile and Joel a nod before he leaves.

You and Joel stand like that for a while, in complete silence, bodies flushed together, knife still resting over your stomach.

“I only did what was right,” he breaks the silence. His tone isn’t one of asking for forgiveness or understanding. His arms tighten around you. “Are you afraid of me?” he whispers into your ear, the thick hairs above his lips tickling the shell of your ear.

You don’t answer him.

“You don’t need to be,” he continues. He allows you to move within his arms, you want to see his face, you need to see him to not fear for your life. You ignore the knife grazing your skin as you turn around, your bare front snug against his chest. “I’ll never hurt you. And you’re the only person in this whole damn town that can say that. You and Ellie.”

“What about Tommy?”

“Tommy’s priorities lay elsewhere.”

He doesn’t allow you to inquire further about what he means by that. All you can detect is a hint of anger that quickly dissipates when he claims your lips once more.

You’re lost in him. His tongue captures you in a way that makes you forget the blood on his clothes—on his hands. His tongue slides against your own, pressing until you’re moaning into his mouth, your knees faltering at the knife smoothing down your skin.

Before pushing you down to the ground, he takes off the shirt he cut in half completely off of you, your bra following the pile on the grass. Your breath hitches as he takes his place between your legs, his mouth devouring your neck, “Joel. . .” you moan, fisting his shirt and grinding up to feel at least a bit of friction.

A silent laugh seeps into your skin, his breath sending shivers up your spine, “Do you still feel bad for them?” he teases, laying a wet kiss between your breasts.

You don’t think much as you answer, “No.”

And as a reward, Joel closes his lips over a nipple, sucking hard until your breathing goes ragged.

“That’s my girl,” he groans, moving towards the other pebbled flesh. “You’re too good, too kind, but they don’t deserve that sweetheart.”

He hooks his fingers into your belt loops and tugs down your jeans, laving you with soft, ticklish kisses as he moves lower and lower. When you’re completely bare to him, you have the urge to cover yourself, the grass tickles your back and the wind feels colder now. Joel smiles and pulls your arms away. He lays the knife right above your stomach and your breath hitches.

“I want to taste you,” Joel says. “But not in the way you think, darlin’,” he kisses the sensitive skin right adobe your belly button, and brings the sharp edge of the knife to your skin. “I want to taste the life that pumps through your veins.”

Your eyes widen as he nicks you. It’s a small cut and blood beads at the wound instantly. He doesn’t allow it to gather enough so that’ll trickle down, he quickly presses his lips against it, your essence coating his tongue as he gives it a tender suck. You can the blood leaving your veins, a pleasant tingle echoing from the wound and spreading throughout your body. Your eyes flutter, a moan escaping your lips as he flattens his tongue against the cut and licks with board strokes.

“Fuckin’ delicious,” he rasps, pushing two fingers into you with ease. You gasp at the sudden stretch, your back arching into his touch. “So darn wet—All this for me, sunshine?”

“Yeah,” you breathe out, grinding down. “Joel, please—”

You hear the sound of his belt buckle coming undone, his breath heavy in your ear, “Since you asked so nicely, sweetheart, I’m obliged.”

You feel the head of his cock brush against your entrance, sending a jolt of electricity through your body. Your eyes close in anticipation and you whimper as he slowly slides inside you inch by inch. You can feel it, that intense fullness that can only come from him, taking his time to make sure it feels good. His size is intimidating but you feel yourself melting around him, eager and willing.

“That’s it. . . you’re takin’ me so well, such a tight little hole for me. Fuckin’ amazin’.”

He presses his forehead against yours, nipping at your bottom lip before thrusting, sending a wave of pleasure that makes your toes curl. You cling onto him for support as he pumps deeper and faster, hitting all the right spots. It takes neither of you long to climb the edge, ready to fall. You can feel the warmth of his breath, and his grip tightens on your hips. His pace quickens as the intensity builds, and you clench around him as he groans your name.

“Gonna come inside,” he slurs his words. “Gonna fill you up—shit—”

You can feel him throbbing and pulsing inside of you, his hard length contracting. As he pushes deeper into you, your insides flutter, squeezing around him. Your orgasm is ripped from you, shattering and mind-numbing. Your head spins and you cling to him, afraid that the world underneath you might slip entirely. His hot come warms you from the inside out, spilling from where his cock stretches you.

Joel remains inside until he starts to soften. He pulls out of you, leaving you feeling a longing ache deep within your core. You shudder as his come trickles down your thighs, your cunt clenching around nothing.

“Such a pretty sight,” he murmurs, entranced, as he gathers himself over his fingers and pushes it back inside you. “Try to keep as much as you can inside.” To emphasize his want for it, he slides your underwear up your legs.

You’re tied to him now. And even though you shouldn’t, you enjoy being the one near the beast. Joel helps you dress, at least helps you with what remains, and gives you his leather jacket to wear since your shirt is in ruins. Neither of you says a word as you walk back to where Jacob’s body rests. You help him bury the body, not feeling a single thing; no grief, no remorse, no sadness.

You always did have a complicated relationship with death after all.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #tlou fanfic #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfic #hauntedhoedown

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ghostbeam · 3 months ago

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Oblivi_n.exe | Dabi/Touya Todoroki

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

As Dabi’s new handler, you’re well aware of his history, how frequently he goes through handlers assigned to him. Not that he ever uses them—it’s more complete resistance. You’re not particularly good at your job. Transferred from the PLF for lack of success in handling any of their pilots, you’ve always been far too gentle. You lack authority. Your pilots never respected you. You don’t think Dabi will be any different. You give it a week.

Notes: okay wow hiiiii it’s been a long time since I’ve posted an actual fic (nearing almost a year now😬) this is something I’ve been working on for a bit. I have mech brain rot curtesy of @streimiv and @hawnks (both of whom this is dedicated to bc there’s no way I could have written this without yapping to them abt it and also mint helped me come up w the acronym for HERO’s) and we’ve all got our own mech fics in the works atm but anywayssssss this is kind of my baby atm but I hope it makes sense it’s very inspired first and foremost by pacific rim and then also NGE (mostly through consumption of YouTube vids bc I haven’t actually watched it pls don’t hate me) it’s a whole mess of things and Dabi is kind of a bitch and reader is slowly coming into herself and at the end of the day they both wanna be metal fused to one another forever (no matter how hard he denies it) also I’m not a huge computer person idk if this title makes sense so don’t make fun of me pls ok anyways I hope u like it!!!!

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI, pilot!Dabi x handler!reader, there’s no explicit sexual content in this part, not even a kiss sorry guys, mentions of robot gore (exposed wires, insides described as guts), brief descriptions of being trapped inside a small space, descriptions of burning while inside said space, mention of surgery to fashion a metal jaw onto someone, mentions of child abuse (nothing graphic just allusions to the todoroki family and touya’s past), angst, many run on sentences, a small cliff hanger

Words: 7.9k

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 (coming soon)

You are nothing without your machine.

It’s the first rule, the first thing beaten into his brain by his father. You carry the burden of the mech alone, or you’re weak. You don’t exist.

U.A. raises the best and brightest pilots, navigators, mechanics, and handlers, each one carefully trained to ensure the most important outcome: winning. It should be protection. It should be defense. But if Touya has learned anything at all, it’s that winning means glory. It means worship. It means HERO’s (Human Engineered Robotic Objects) are saints, and pilots are gods.

Touya used to be one of those best and brightest before his accident.

First son to Enji Todoroki, Touya was supposed to be the golden child, the first Todoroki to pilot without a handler. He was supposed to carry the burden alone, something his father couldn’t do, something only one man has ever actually been capable of.

But Touya is born weak, bad bones, a brain unable to handle all that the mech needs to unload onto it. One too many accidents results in him being expelled from the pilot program, his HERO discarded and collecting dust in its pod, and Touya is promptly transferred to mechanics.

It should have been a smooth transition. If one kid can’t handle it, the next will. Because they have to.

He doesn’t take the news well. It’s a fit of tears, a persistent fight, unable to accept the loss of his machine—of his body. Because Touya loves it. What he lacks in strength, he makes up for in pure passion, and despite being unable to handle the burden, there’s no denying that he’s good. He’s almost perfect.

But almost is not enough for Enji Todoroki, and no matter how hard Touya tries, he’s made up his mind.

After months of mechanics, Touya makes a decision. When the next fleet of HERO’s is deployed for the next kaiju battle, Touya sneaks in among the chaos, tucked neatly inside the chest of his machine where he belongs. It doesn’t take long for things to go south, for Touya to get caught in the crossfire, losing control of his mech and burning from the inside out.

It should be an excruciating death, stuck inside a machine made for war, fire raining from above as a battle continues on outside without him.

But he survives, because what he lacks in strength, he makes up for in resilience, and his mech is programed with solutions to every situation. He’s stuck inside for months before he’s found.

Tomura Shigaraki rescues him, pries open the chest of his mech and pulls him from inside. His group feeds him, takes him in, fashions a new jaw for him made from the metal of his mech, and allows him the decision to join their cause or go back home.

And since there’s no home to go back to, Touya finds his footing with the league and becomes one of their top pilots. One who vehemently resists any and all handlers.

…

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

Following closely behind Tenko, formerly Tomura, he quickly explains to you the in’s and out’s of the pilot/handler relationship, along with a warning about Dabi’s resentment toward the whole idea. You try to keep up, but he talks quickly and uses his hands a lot. Even so, you can tell he’s a natural leader, something he had to grow into after overthrowing the man who raised him. His story is a tragic one, and it resonates with you because Tenko came out the other side stronger. Now, the league is a community with a cause, one you really believe in. Even if you and Dabi aren’t the right fit, you still have a place here.

You follow Tenko into what he calls the garage, a large floor of the abandoned academy that serves as the league’s base, this part of it full of HERO’s and mechanics all focused on the machines in front of them. It’s completely different from how HERO’s were worked on at UA, where you grew up, and even the PLF didn’t have one dedicated floor to this sort of work. You can feel the energy of the room buzzing on your skin, music blasting from old radios and mechanics tossing tools towards one another in a familiar routine. Tomura leads you to Dabi and his HERO, Blue, though you’re instructed not to call it a HERO around him. With goggles over his eyes and gloved hands, he brings two wires from Blue’s ankle together, sighing at the way they spark each time they connect.

“Dabi.” Tomura calls over the music coming from the radio hanging off of Dabi’s waist. He drops the wires and his gaze flickers toward the two of you. Pushing his goggles up to his forehead, he gives you a once over. His eyes are the brightest you’ve ever seen—kaiju blood blue—and burn scars litter his body. He’s striking in a way you’ve never seen, almost too beautiful to be human. Giving Dabi your name, Tomura explains that you’re taking over as his handler, seeing as he couldn’t keep the last one for more than a couple of days. “She’s your last handler. If you can’t keep this one, then go ahead and fry your brain. See if I care.”

“You say that every time.” Dabi calls from around sucker as Tomura walks away, leaving you alone with your new pilot.

You just your hand out in a greeting, “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Eyeing your hand, Dabi shakes his head and turns his back to you, picking the two wires back up and connecting them again, despite the same spark from before igniting between the two. He looks back up at Blue, touching his fingers to the slim lines starting at the back of her ankle and running all the way up her leg. You peak over his shoulder at the wiring, noticing that he’s connecting two of the wrong ones.

“It’s the wrong wire.” You tell him, and he spins around to look at you, tearing his goggles from his face as he scoffs.

“Here we go.” He sighs with a roll of his eyes, pulling the candy from his lips and tossing it onto the tool cart without a care. “Handler know-it-all bullshit. This is my mech.”

You push passed him and grab the similarly colored wire from beside a red wire and connect it with the one in Dabi’s right hand. Blue lights up cyan through the thin lines that run along each of its limbs and torso, connecting with the two cameras within its head, which seem to blink before the light reaches them.

In an instant, you’re being pushed up against the hard metal, a strong arm over your chest—pinning you up against the HERO. Dabi, now having discarded his goggles, looks at you full of white, hot rage.

“Don’t fucking touch her.” He growls. You’re suddenly aware of the close proximity, eyes flickering between the snarl across his lips and his angry gaze. For a beat, you both freeze, the air suddenly charged like you’re waiting for one another to strike. Snapping yourself out of his hypnotic stare, you push against his chest, forcing him to let you go.

“If I’m going to be you’re handler, you’re going to have to trust me with her.” You remind him. He lets out a harsh laugh, like he can’t believe you would suggest such a ridiculous idea.

“I don’t trust anything but this machine.” He speaks, turning away from you to seal up the machine’s exposed wires. It’s a challenge you’re willing to accept.

“Well, I’m here to change that.” You tell him, before turning on your heel to leave him alone.

He thinks he’ll give you a week.

…

One of the worst parts of being assigned a handler, Touya thinks, is the way that pilot/handler living quarters are set up. He assumes the academy, before it was abandoned and turned into a base for the league, created this sort of set up so that handlers could keep a close eye on their pilots. The handlers Touya has burned through up until now also assumed the same.

The door that connects both the pilot’s and handler’s dorms doesn’t lock, and all of Touya’s past handlers have taken advantage of this fact. He’s been pulled out of bed far too early, pushed around and commanded and barked at. Most handlers behaved as if pilots belonged to them, which was the sentiment drilled into their brains from being thrown into such a fucked up system at a young age.—unless you were a pilot of status like a Todoroki. While he league dedicates a lot of its time to reversing these ideas, most handlers look at Touya like some kind of challenge, this arrogant pilot begging to be tamed. It never takes long for them to realize how easily he’s able to flip the switch on them. You’ll be no different.

But hours pass and you still haven’t entered. You don’t swing the door open and demand he apologize for his behavior earlier. You don’t try and punish him with training regimes, a command of a set of push ups, a schedule you expect him to follow, an extremely detailed meal plan. The entire evening comes and goes without so much as a sound on the other side of the door so he knows you’re even behind it.

He falls asleep unnerved by this, waking up late into the night in a cold sweat, expecting you to barge in, rip the covers from his body and demand to train together. When he wakes up (peacefully) the next morning, there’s no sign of you. He rises from his bed, drinks orange juice straight from the carton and eats a candy bar for breakfast. He fiddles with the navigation screen from his mech that stopped working a couple of days ago, tools spread out on the counter in front of him. Once he’s got the thing working again, your knock sounds from the unlocked door between the two of you. He thinks this might be it, the commands he expects to fall from your lips at the ready as he swings the door open, but you stand there, nervous, hands twitching as your eyes finally meet his.

Greeted by a shirtless Touya, hair mused from sleep, cargo pants hung low on his hips, dog tags swinging against his chest, his scars on display, unashamed and proud. The sight of him knocks the breath out of you, and you clear your throat in embarrassment, hoping your state of dreaming comes off as nerves rather than lust.

“Dabi. Or do you prefer Touya?” You smile. When he doesn’t answer, you continue. “I wanted to see if you wanted to eat breakfast together in the caf. I think we should start over. Yesterday was—”

You’re promptly cut off, “I already ate breakfast.”

With a harsh slam of the door, he leaves you stunned in your room.

You eat alone.

When you started as a pilot, back when you’d entered UA (a few years about Touya’s accident), you went into it believing you could change the world. The exam had placed you into the position of handler, and you were assigned a pilot who had always seemed a little frightened of you despite your obvious lack of authority. Bringing the fact up to your instructors did nothing. They all assured you that this was the ideal dynamic, that the handler always had the upper hand, but you hated that feeling. You weren’t a team like you expected to be; you were urged to control your pilot. You were there to keep them in line, not to be a pillar of support. The bond was never built on trust, and the soul link was always a looming threat. No matter how many pilots you went through, the link was never held as a gift, but a prison, something you would both be stuck with for the betterment of society, a sacrifice to make.

You’d been expelled from the handler program after guiding your pilot to help save another in the wreckage of your first battle together, resulting in the damage of your pilot’s HERO. Your pilot was okay, but the other couldn’t be saved, and you were blamed for the damage of both mech’s.

When you found the league (or when the league found you), you were working with the PLF, but proved to be a weak handler. Every pilot you were assigned to took advantage of your optimistic outlook on the kind of relationship dynamic that pilots had with their handlers. Despite all that you had been through at UA, and with the rest of the pilots you’d been paired with after, you never gave up the hope that handlers and pilots could behave as a team, or, even better, one entity.

Tenko had taken one look at you and demanded you’d be transferred to the league. There hadn’t been much of a choice in the matter, not that you really cared. You were miserable everywhere else. But when you arrived at the abandoned academy and taken a peak behind the kudzu covered walls where each and every area of the building acted as multiple moving parts in collaboration with one another in order to create one massive system, you realized that this was the future you imagined for yourself—and for the world you lived in.

Tenko saw something in you that day, something you aren’t sure you even see in yourself. And so Dabi was your first task, one that’s proving to be very difficult. But he doesn’t treat you like all the other pilots before had. He doesn’t use you. In fact, it seems like he wants nothing to do with you. And while that’s a problem, it’s still one you can work with.

You’re broken from your thoughts by the sound of a voice through an overhead intercom asking for everyone to meet on the first floor of the academy at their earliest convenience. Judging by the quick movements of those around you, you figure you’d better head downstairs as soon as possible.

The meeting on the first floor makes you very aware of just how small the league really is. While it’s definitely not a tiny organization, it’s still much smaller than both UA and the PLF. With everyone piled up like this in one group, you realize it feels more like a community, and the hum of conversation that surrounds you comforts you in a way you’ve never felt within the walls of any other academy before.

There’s discussion about the upcoming mission, one which may be the league’s most ambitious yet; the plan to hijack a mech and kidnap a pilot may be a little unorthodox compared to the league’s past missions, but the jaded pilot they’re targeting has a high chance of joining the cause. Or that’s what they have assumed. As the bodies move and speak around you, it strikes you how different this meeting is from any other meeting you’ve ever been a part of. Tenko is less a dictator and more a wrangler for the disembodied voices of your peers.

You don’t know much about his story, save for the vague details you’ve heard, but Tenko’s status as a lone handler is something you find yourself curious about. If he’s able to work without a pilot, why can’t you? It’s an idea you keep in your back pocket, one you think you can fall back on if things with Touya don’t work out. But you want them to work out. So badly.

You aren’t sure what it is about him, but he’s reignited that spark inside of you. You know he’d rather you give up, and maybe the you from a couple of months ago would have, but something about him—and this place—won’t let you leave.

As you observe the meeting, you take the time to look around the room, taking in your peers and their attentive faces as they listen to Tenko intently. You turn to your right, your eyes meeting a pair of blue ones, impossible to miss. Dabi holds your stare for what feels like ages, and when your colleagues erupt in a fit of many simultaneous discussions, you tear your eyes from his to observe the commotion. When you glance back in his direction, he’s gone.

You don’t seem him again after that. You train with other handlers, get to know your peers a little better. Everyone else seems to be welcoming, and most offer you sympathy when they find out you’re Touya’s new handler. From what you can gather, he’s had his fair share of them, all of which have quit or left in hysterics due to his harsh nature. When you ask around about where he could be, you’re told that he’s most likely in the garage, a place you assume he’s in more often than not.

You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to the garage. A place so completely different, so against the ideas and beliefs of any other academy you’ve been a part of, the chaos and community within is so foreign to you. You find Touya with Blue, working inside of her chest, where the cockpit is.

“Touya!” You call up to him and watch as he peaks his head over the edge of her metal plating. Annoyance falling across his face, he jumps down from where he stands, landing hard on his feet in front of you.

“What are you doing here?” He questions, his figure so tall and imposing above you. He’s not particularly muscular, not even all that tall compared to Tenko, but he makes you feel small regardless, in more ways than one. Rolling your shoulders back, you stare straight into his eyes, unwilling to back down.

“I figured you wanted your space today.” You explain, as Touya moves around you to get to his rolling cart of tools, forcing you to turn toward him and follow him if you want him to hear you. “I know adjusting to a new handler is rough, and I never want to make you uncomfortable. But I was thinking we could try some of those pilot/handler bonding exercises. It might be good to start training like some of the others do.”

He drops the wrench in his hand onto his cart with a loud thud, turning around toward you with a look of disbelief on his face. “Pilot/handler bonding exercises? They really brainwashed the shit out of you at UA, huh?”

At the mention of your past academy, your eyes widen in surprise. You had no idea he knew about that. Clearing your throat in order to compose yourself, you speak again, “I left UA for a reason. I have no attachment to their methods, but you guys do the same stuff here, so what’s the issue?”

“The issue is that I never asked for a fucking handler in the first place, especially not one as eager as you.” He spits, “Sure, you’re understanding now, all that bullshit about ‘giving me space,’ but the moment you get a lick of power over me, you’ll change. You’re not different.”

“I don’t want power over you. This is an equal exchange. Pilot’s and handlers are meant to be a team—” You try and argue, but he doesn’t let you finish.

“That’s what they told you, right? We’re a team, and as teammates, you make sacrifices. And it doesn’t matter if one of you turns into the other’s braindead dog because that’s your place.” His words hit you hard, the exact thought process you went through when leaving UA, completely disillusioned with their idea of “teamwork.” He’s right, and you know it, but since coming here, you thought that wasn’t how it had to be.

“Look, trust me, I get—” You’re cut off again.

“You went to UA! There’s no trusting you.” He scoffs, “It’s not like you’ll last here, anyway.”

“You are such a hypocrite! You’re from UA!” You retort, throwing your arms up in desperation. “You can hate me all you want. You can resist and resist and fry your brain ‘till there’s nothing left, but I believe in this shit. And you don’t get to tell me that I don’t, or tell me I’ll turn into something I worked so hard to get away from.”

Touya stands there, surprised by your outburst, completely unaware that you were capable of all of that. He doesn’t say anything back, and you roll your eyes. “So fuck you, and, by the way, her angel port is smoking.”

At your words, he turns in a rush, seeing the smoke billowing from Blue’s chest as he climbs his way up her form. Once inside his machine, he extinguishes the port and allows himself to relax. There are two things on his mind in this moment: how you could have possibly known it was the angel port without being inside of Blue’s chest and how, for the first time in a long time, he feels bad for his handler.

But for you, it’s the first time you’ve ever held your own against a pilot before, and that feels good.

…

Something feels weird.

Off, unsettling, strange.

He realizes, much to his dismay, that it’s your absence. Despite only having you around for such a short time, Touya has realized that your lack of presence now feels wrong. He hates it. He hates you.

He can’t find you. You haven’t knocked on his door. You’re not in the caf, not the garage, not the sparring floor, not in your room. And he did check—without knocking.

He’s not even sure how he can feel an absence. You aren’t a regular part of his life, and he never wanted you to be. But he feels all fucked up.

During training, Touya jams Blue’s halo core and she leaks vibrant neon from between her ribs. It takes him half an hour to get her reboot her system and rips one of the cables attached to the back of his suit in the process. He spends the afternoon cleaning HERO fluid off the sparring floor.

During repairs, he shocks himself over and over while trying to fix her core, fingers burning from the sparks each time he arranges the wires inside. The cameras in her eyes won’t work from the reboot, and Blue won’t let him unlock the lens panel to fix it. It’s almost like she’s mad at him too.

He’s a complete mess. It’s your fault. He has no choice but to go looking for you. Again.

He searches every wing of the academy before concluding that you’re in your room. He barges through the joint door, spotting you at the counter in your tiny kitchen. You’re surprised by the intrusion, a frightened gasp falling from your lips as you jump in your seat. You turn toward him, prepared with angry words on your tongue, but Touya speaks first.

“You’re not getting an apology out of me, so don’t expect it.” He begins, moving to stand in front of your swiveling kitchen stool as he looks down at you. “But I’m willing to be civil with you, so we don’t have to do this shit anymore.”

You’re not exactly sure what “this shit” is, but Touya looks a little worse for wear at the moment, so you don’t question it. He places a tray from the caf down in front of you that you hadn’t noticed in his hands upon arrival, says nothing else, and turns to leave the room. After shutting your joint door, you look down at the tray of food, noticing one of his suckers placed onto a vacant compartment of the tray.

You’re greeted the next morning with a knock on your door, Touya dressed in his pilot’s suit on the other side as you swing the door open. “C’mon. You’re gonna watch me train today.”

You watch him turn around to leave, expecting you to follow. You rush to pull on your combat boots and grip your dog tags in your fist as you rush to catch up to him. He doesn’t spare you a glance as you fall into step beside him, taking a look around his dorm before he leads you through the exit door.

“You need to get a feel for my fighting style.” He explains as you walk down the corridor. “I’m not saying I’ll listen to you when it comes down to it, but it’s important for you to know.”

You nod, agreeing that you should definitely observe him inside of his HERO. By understanding his moves, you’ll be able to understand the way he thinks, and you’ll be able to help him in actual combat if needed. He’s already said he won’t listen to you, but it won’t stop you from trying. He stops abruptly, turning to look at you, and you stop with him.

“If we’re gonna do this, it’ll be on my terms. I’m not your dog.” He tells you, seriously. He eye’s you up and down, taking in your expression as you nod at his words. “If anything, you’re mine.”

He begins walking again, leaving you in your spot, irritation filling your chest as you watch him, smug. “Asshole.” You curse under your breath.

“What’d you say?” He barks, turning to look at you abruptly.

“You’re an asshole.” You speak louder. He walks back toward you, making sure to tower over you intimidatingly as he looks down at you in annoyance. His eyes flicker down to the tags around your neck before hooking a finger on the chain and pulling you closer.

“Watch it.” He drops the chain and walks away again.

You follow him to the sparring floor, and he shows you where to go to watch. Stood behind a large window that looks over the sparring area, other members of the base watch the HERO’s engage in combat below. You spot Tenko and he motions for you to stand beside him.

“I knew he’d warm up to you.” He comments. The last of the previous battle finishes and you watch the two enormous machines retreat to the sides of the area, their pilots emerging from their chests with their handlers rushing to the bottom of the mech’s in support.

“He hasn’t. He’s not.” You shake your head. You aren’t sure why you deny it, if it’s some way to keep your expectations low or if there’s some kind of embarrassment aspect to the whole thing. Whatever is happening between you and Touya feels intimate and private, something that the two of you need to figure out for yourselves, not something meant for the eyes of others.

“Hm. Okay.” Tenko shrugs. “Guess not.”

You hadn’t noticed Touya enter his mech at all. You see the swing of one giant mechanic arm, too close to the window you stand behind, and you’ve shifted your full attention to the scene at hand.

The enormity of the room surprises you, despite the fact that you had seen it just moments before. But when you’re truly looking at it, watching these huge machines go at each other, the way the ground shakes, the leaves outside shake, the deep forrest clear in view from the wall that opens out to the greenery (the lack of a wall is likely from the academy’s abandoned state, but it’s a good feature to have on the sparring floor when giant robots are toppled over onto various surfaces).

The way Blue moves is electric, mechanic movements almost feel fluid with the way that Touya pilots her, easily dodging attacks from their opponent and moving around them in the most graceful way a giant machine can. It’s beautiful, unlike any fighting style you’ve ever seen in a HERO before.

“He’s showing off for you.” Tenko observes from beside you. You don’t argue with him, only because you can’t dispute it. This is your first time seeing him in action. It makes your heart beat out of your chest. There’s this ache like you should be inside with him, cables connected to both of you, tucked neatly inside of Blue together.

It doesn’t take him long to get his opponent on their back, the heavy thump against the floor jostling the ant-like figures on the ground below, handlers waiting for their pilots to finish. It goes on like this for a while, his training, using different methods of combat and winning each time. He’s amazing, and you can tell why his reputation is the way it is, second only to Tenko, who you have yet to see in action.

When he finishes his last session, you watch Blue walk to the edge of the room, and Touya emerges from her chest, jumping the long way down her body without any issue. You watch as he looks toward the window you’re behind. He waves at you, an acknowledgment of your presence, and you wave back, though you aren’t sure he can actually see you.

It’s the beginning of everything for the two of you. You think Tenko was right.

He lets you stay with him afterwards while he does maintenance on Blue. He helps you climb up the path to her chest, hauling you over the edge to sit inside with him. He turns around abruptly, holding a hand up before allowing you to walk any further.

“Do not touch anything.” He warns, completely serious, before letting his hand fall and allowing you further into the cockpit. You take in your surroundings, the guts of his machine, analyzing the different control panels and screens that line the interior. You can tell he takes good care of her, and he spends a lot of time in here. It looks lived in, stickers stuck to metal plating and pieces of him all over. He’s made a second home in between the ribs of his mech. You feel a little jealous, though you aren’t sure of what.

The two of you sit against the left side of Blue’s interior, waiting for her updates to finish, the loading screen on each of her monitors display a fire graphic that grows with the increasing percentage on screen. Between you and Touya sits an opened bag of sour gummies, which Touya picks out the lemon flavor and drops the candy in your palm with each new handful he gathers.

“How do you know all this stuff?” He questions around a mouthful of sour cherry, “Like, the real names for things, where stuff goes, how to fix them. That day with the wires…”

“I spent a lot of time around mechanics at UA, and then also at the PLF.” You explain, picking the yellow colored candy from his open palm as you speak. “I couldn’t connect with other handlers. I didn’t like how they thought, or how they viewed the pilot/handler relationship. Mechanics were mostly neutral, and they loved these machines like nothing else. They reminded me of why I joined UA in the first place.”

“Hm.” He nods, thinking about your past. “Well, I guess if you spent so much time around actual professionals…I could maybe use your help sometimes in the garage.”

“Really?” You question excitedly, a spark lighting up your eyes as you swerve your head toward him. He feels something tight in his chest at the sight.

“Yes, but only on the outside. I don’t want you messing with her insides, yet.” He establishes. “And never alone. I have to be there at all times.”

“Of course, yes, oh my god. Touya!” You smile, gripping his shoulder firmly, a gesture of thanks, communication of how much his trust means to you. “I’ll be so careful with her, I promise.”

“Yeah, well, you have no other choice.” He shrugs, throwing another pile of candy in his mouth. “I’ll kill you if anything happens to her.”

You take the threat seriously, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s realized that you’ve wormed your way into his life and he hadn’t even noticed just how entangled you were now.

As the weeks go by, you spend a lot more time together. You work on blue together, and you rest inside of her chest, sometimes allowing yourself to drift off against his shoulder on especially tiring days. He sits beside you in the caf, and while he doesn’t always say much, the feeling of his arm against yours is comforting. You can tell people are starting to notice, and they’re starting to talk. You’re being dubbed someone who’s tamed him, but you know how far from the truth that is.

Despite your differences and the petty arguments that come up when Touya feels like you’re intruding on his independence, you’re growing attached. You wonder if he is, too.

…

Spending time together in the garage becomes the new normal for the two of you. Being in each other’s dorms feels far too intimate, so you always meet in the garage. This way, one of you is always busy doing something with your hands. There’s no room for any strange feelings in the pit of your stomach to seep in.

You sit in the crook of Blue’s neck, watching Touya as he repairs the lenses in her “eyes.” Blue has three pairs of eyes; in her head, her chest, and down near her hips, which all footage is projected onto monitors inside the cockpit so that Touya has a full view of what’s in front of him.

He’s so peaceful while he works, you’ve noticed, almost like he goes somewhere else completely. It’s a part of him you don’t think many people get to see, a piece of him just for you, and you want to be selfish with it.

“Can I ask you something?” You question, leaning your head back against the metal. “But you can’t get mad.”

He looks up at you, still fiddling with a lens, a mocking look on his face. “I’m not making any promises.”

You take a deep breath, preparing yourself for the possible fallout of the question you’re about to ask, “What do you think about the soul link?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’d never do it.”

You nod your head in understanding, “yeah, I get it. It’s weird, right? The idea that someone else would be inside your brain.”

“It’s fucking invasive.” He says.

“You know, at UA it always felt like a threat, you know. Like, it was a way for a handler to control their pilot, not a tool or a bond like it should be.” You begin, thinking back to how you viewed the soul link back then. You didn’t like how the bond was presented as this power that a handler holds over their pilot, a threat to keep their pilot in line. But, you could understand how the link could be used for good. “But since coming here, I can tell it’s not all bad. People trust each other here. I mean, there’s obviously some people who abuse it, but, for the most part, everyone seems to understand what it really means to be a pilot and a handler.”

You’re mostly just thinking out loud, but Touya doesn’t say anything to your ramblings. He continues to work on the lenses, and you can gather that he doesn’t want to talk about the subject anymore. But you can’t let it go, yet. There’s something you’ve been worried about since you met him.

“And what about…your brain? They say when a handler and a pilot don’t complete the soul link, the pilot will eventually fry their brain.” You can’t help it. You think about it all the time, what will happen when he can’t take it anymore. The closer you get to him, the realer it feels. “Are you ever worried about that?”

He looks at you, an expression you can’t quite make out fall across his face as he stares. It’s almost soft, the way he looks at you in this moment. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

The truth is, this is a reality Touya has accepted. He’s not afraid to die, and he never has been. He’ll probably die inside of Blue, and he has no problem with that fact. He doesn’t need to be around for long, just enough to show his dad what he’s capable of.

“C’mon.” You stare. “That’s not fair.”

“Shit. I left some of the screws for this in my dorm.” He curses. He looks where you lounge, tucked into Blue’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

You watch him jump down, much higher than his usual height at her chest, but he lands anyway. He doesn’t turn to look back at you as he jogs away. You climb up the side of Blue, and look at the lenses in her head. They’re already repaired, and you know Touya used the excuse of missing screw just so he wouldn’t have to talk about the soul link.

But it’s the first time he’s ever left you alone with Blue before.

…

As the mission draws closer, Touya throws himself into training. You’re on the training floor with him most days, standing behind that big glass panel as you watch him spar with his peers. He still doesn’t let you down on the floor with him until he’s full out of Blue and close enough to the edge of the sparring floor to get to you. You’re not allowed in the actual training area, and even though he says he doesn’t want you clinging to him, it’s really because he wants to keep you safe. Seeing your human body near the giant machines that are HERO’s makes him want to grab you and keep you inside of Blue’s chest forever.

You can tell all the training is taking a toll on him. With an excess of headaches and the occasional nosebleed, you continuously get into arguments about him cutting back on training inside of Blue. There are other ways for him to prepare that don’t involve his fragile brain being hooked up to an entity that takes so much. He doesn’t listen.

Later and later into the night, as your fellow pilots and handlers disperse and return to their rooms to sleep, Touya stays inside of Blue, testing her movements and sparring against test dummies and obstacles. Once you and Touya are the only two left on the sparring floor, you speak into the intercom attached to your head.

“Touya, I think you should take a break.” You tell him, “It’s late. Get some rest and then we can pick it back up in the morning.”

There’s a pause, then, “I’m gonna stay for another hour. Get some sleep. I’ll be done soon.”

“No, Touya. You’ve been at it for hours. You barely took a break for dinner. C’mon.”

“You know, you sound awfully like a handler trying to tell their pilot what to do.” He teases, but you can hear the irritation in his voice.

“You are insufferable. I’m worried about you.” You groan.

“I’m fine. Go sleep.” He insists.

“If I find out you aren’t out of here in an hour—” Your line is promptly cut off, leaving behind static in your ear. You sigh and throw your com to the side. You hope he’s telling the truth.

With one last look at Blue, you make your way out of the training floor and find your way back to your dorm.

Touya doesn’t answer the door when you knock the next morning. With a frustrated groan, you leave your dorm and head to the training floor, assuming he woke up early to get some extra hours in. The closer you get the the floor, you notice other members of the base rushing in front of you. Feeling panicked, you pick up the pace, jogging toward the training room to make sure something isn’t wrong. You collide with a body in front of you, nearly falling to the floor as you steady yourself. Toga stands in front of you, her cheeks red and eyes glossy as she explains something your mind can’t catch up to understand. The only thing you recognize is his name, and you’re running toward the training floor in an instant.

You watch as Blue stomps around the area, her arms swinging in all directions, losing her footing as she moves. Knowing you can’t do anything on the floor, you make your way up to the overlook, finding Tenko yelling into your intercom.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” You ask him, pulling the headset off of his head and placing it on yours instead.

“He’s out of fucking control. He won’t answer. I don’t even think he’s conscious in there.” He tells you, running a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots in anxiety. “You’re not linked yet, are you?”

You shake your head, closing your eyes in frustration as you try to think. You know it’s the only way. You have to take some of the burden off of him, make him share it with you. It’s the only way he’ll survive right now. “Do you think you can get into Decay right now and knock him down somehow?”

He hesitates, “I can get inside. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to touch him at all.”

“You have to.” You plead, desperately. “I just need him down for ten seconds, tops. As long as I can get inside of her, I can save him.”

He looks at you like you’re insane, and maybe you are. But you know you can’t live with yourself if you don’t try something. Tenko nods.

“I can do it.” He tells you. You rush passed him, following the stairs down to the training area. You feel Tenk grab your wrist firmly. “You bring him back, okay?”

“I will.” You nod.

He dodges Blue’s movements, weaving between her legs as he finally makes it to Decay. It takes a few moments for him to connect, but he goes straight for Blue. You watch the giant machines fight one another, but it’s clear that Blue’s lack of control hinders much of her ability. She needs Touya just as much as he needs her. It’s tough for Decay to dodge her swinging arms, but Tenko manages to knock her down quickly.

The fall shakes the room, but you waste no time running for Blue. Climbing over the side of her, you manage to touch your thumb to the pad on the outside to open her chest up. She begins to stand up, and you slip down, grabbing onto a bar beneath her ribcage. You let out a frustrated groan as you try to pull yourself up over the edge of the cockpit. Finally making it over, you see Touya sitting there, still connected to his pilot’s chair, eyes glazed over and blood gushing from his nose. You push the button that closes the panel in Blue’s chest, and you’re suddenly alone with him.

Touya’s body is being jerked around by the movement of the mech, and you hang onto the walls of her chest in order to make your way to him. You situate yourself in his lap, taking his head in your hands as you look at him with tears in your eyes.

“You fucking asshole! I told you to take a break.” You sob, resting your head against his as you try and think of what to do next. “Touya, please. Please, baby, I need to you come back. Just fucking come back so I don’t have to do this without your permission, please.”

With no response from him, you wipe your tears, coming to terms with the fact that you have to complete the soul link now, or he’ll die. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Touya. Please forgive me.”

The soul link isn’t exactly an action so much as it is a feeling, an experience. There’s no trigger for it, no way to make it happen. It just begins.

It’s Touya, aged thirteen, wild, chubby-cheeked and happy, in the pilot’s seat of his father’s HERO. It’s his drive, his determination, his anger, his hurt. It’s the day he snuck into battle, the day he couldn’t get out, flesh burning and fusing to the metal walls of his mech, the feeling now deep in your skin. It’s you, aged fifteen, hopeful, alive, shaking hands with your first pilot. It’s your heart, much too big and much too open for your line of work, it’s your passion, your fire, every piece of you that was broken down again and again until there was nothing left. It’s Touya and it’s you, and every single bit of your souls now tied together in one big knot.

There’s nothing but darkness. And then there’s screaming. And then you can hear everything. Every thought running through Touya’s brain right now echoes in your head as you slowly come back to yourself. He can hear the same of yours.

It’s overwhelming at first, to have two sets of thoughts in your head at the same time, but you manage to focus. You can feel an anger inside of you like you’ve never felt. It’s almost like it’s your own. You need to come back. You’ve lost control of Blue.

In an instant, you feel yourself come back to your body, now straddling Touya like before, you feel his arms shoot around you and he tucks his chin over your shoulder to pilot Blue like he’s used to doing. He pays no mind as he presses up against you, but you feel your heart rate increase at the closeness.

He’s so close.

I have to be. You’re in my lap.

Shit. I didn’t think—

Clearly.

I can’t fucking believe you. I told you we weren’t going to do this.

You were dying!

Then you fucking let me!

You’re jostled around in his lap for a moment as he stops Blue from destroying any more of the training floor, and Touya wraps an arm around your waist, holding you steady.

He gains control of her quickly, moving her toward the edge of the room. You tuck your face into his neck, not wanting to distract him and keeping your thoughts at bay so you don’t overwhelm him. He powers Blue down, severing the neural connection between the two of you, and shoves you from his lap and into the pilot’s chair like you’ve burned him. He storms out of the cockpit, climbing out of his machine and leaving you inside. You think about the argument you had within each other’s head, how Touya would have rather died than be linked to you like he is now.

You slump against the seat, comforted by the metal cage you’ve been left inside of.

#dabi x reader #touya todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #tw claustrophobia #just in case it’s like so brief and doesn’t describe much yet but I just wanna be safe #ghost.writes #ghost.fic

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super-cosmic-library · 5 months ago

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kiss with a fist (better than none)

written for @steddie-week day 2 I prompt: hands

wc: 1299 I rated: M I tags: omegaverse, dubious consent, alpha eddie munson, omega steve harrington I cw: mentions of billy hargrove I [ao3]

Steve has only ever known the cruelness hands bring. The sting of his alpha father’s fist, when he acted too much like an omega. The hollow promises penned by his omega mother, who couldn’t stick around, even for her only pup. The pain of a kick or a shove given to him by partner after partner, who all claimed their actions were out of love. It’s no wonder Steve’s wires got crossed.

When Billy beats the shit out of him in the Fall of their senior year, Steve can’t help but wonder if the alpha loves him too. And when the man continues to beat and harass him throughout the rest of high school, he assumes he’s being courted.

When Billy dies in the summer of ‘85 after the hands of a stranger had bloodied the omega up, he can’t help but fall into rejection sickness.

He closes himself off from the rest of the world, only pretending to be fine when the kids ask for him. Even then, he’s too blinded by his own heartache to see that Max is suffering from the loss too. The only one to know he’s sick is Robin. The beta had bullied her way into his heart through drug-addled confessions on a bathroom floor.

In the months following that awful July, she forces her way into his life and home, making sure he eats and tries her best to distract him from his sorrow. And it works. Over time, he learns how to take care of himself again. On several occasions, she even gets him to laugh again. But it’s not quite enough.

It’s not Robin’s fault, no matter how much she acts like it is. She’s a beta, after all. How could she know what he needs? And how would she be able to give it to him? He tries to reassure her of this. His body needs the embrace of an alpha. He needs the comfort of a nest. But Billy is dead, and when his father was around, he’d never felt safe enough to learn how to make a nest. The ones Robin tries to help him with never feel or smell right.

So, he tries to get by with what he can. He starts dating again. The attention of an alpha brings him some level of comfort, but then when he learns he isn’t wanted for more than a night of fun, he finds he feels worse than before. So, he goes back to his lumpy nest and curls up with Robin, watching cartoons until the world around him numbs enough for him to fall asleep.

It goes on like this week after week. He’s too tired to watch after the pups in his pack. He doesn’t see how the group has been slowly drifting apart. He knows some of the pups found a new person to idolize. Super senior alpha Eddie Munson is all Dustin can talk about whenever he stops by Family Video. If he could find it in himself to care more, Steve would fight back against the feeling of being replaced. But he doesn’t.

And life goes on.

March of ‘86 rolls around and with it the Upside Down rears its ugly head. Dustin and Max, who’s looking worse for wear, rush into Family Video, talking a mile a minute about how Eddie has gone missing. While he might not be the biggest fan of the guy, he knows the alpha is important to the pups, so of course he agrees to help find him. Besides, the search is a nice distraction from the ever-present ache in his chest.

When they enter Reefer Rick’s decrepit boat house, Steve imagines himself as a Scooby Doo character investigating a haunted old mansion. For the first time since the Fourth of July, he feels a bit like himself again. He’s heckling Dustin, and Max is snarking at them both, while Robin rambles on about the dangers of tetanus. The three of them don’t even notice the saltwater smell of a feral alpha.

Steve’s attacking a tarped boat with a wooden oar when it happens.

Hands grab him, forcing him up against a post. The jagged glass of a broken bottle grazes his mating gland. Distantly, he hears Robin freaking out, while Dustin tries his best to reason with a near-feral Eddie.

The alpha doesn’t seem to notice the pup. All his focus is trained on Steve, who’s overcome by the smell of ozone and the wide brown eyes staring into his soul.

Slick runs down his legs, soaking through his jeans. He lets out a needy, involuntary whine.

Madness and longing are slowly creeping into his being, but they feel entirely different than what he’s experienced over the past nine months. He feels like he did when Billy had towered over him in the Byers’ old home but more intense.

Glass breaks the skin on his neck as Eddie starts to rut up against him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees his friends advance to help him, but Eddie lets out a sharp growl. He somehow knows that if he could, he would be growling too.

The broken bottle clatters to the ground. The alpha places his arms against the post on either side of Steve, shielding him from his friends. The action makes his knees weak and his head light.

“Eddie, it’s me, Dustin,” the pup says in a calm voice. “We come in peace. Please release Steve, and we can talk.”

Steve has to squeeze his eyes shut in order to force the words out. “No. I wanna . . .”

He nuzzles against Eddie, who’s been scenting him. It’s been so long since he’s felt the care of an alpha, that he loses his train of thought. His mind feels sluggish. His sole attention is on the hard line of the alpha against him.

Robin ushers the pups out, understanding in a way that only a soulmate could, that this is exactly what Steve’s body needs. Later, he’ll figure out a way to thank her. And to apologize for surely scarring her and the pups for life. For now, he nips at Eddie’s musky skin.

With rough hands, Eddie shoves him to the ground. Seams rip as the alpha tears off their clothes. Laid out bare beneath him, the feral beast runs his hands over Steve’s skin, threading his fingers through his chest hair and kneading at the bit of extra omegan fat around his belly.

“Mine.” Eddie’s voice sends shivers straight down to his toes.

Eddie pushes Steve’s knees up to his chest, leaving bite marks that break the skin on his calves and thighs. His heart flutters. Unlike the other alphas he had slept with, who had demanded he present to them, Eddie wants to look him in the eyes and see the pleasure he wrings out of him. The omega swoons.

When he fucks him, it’s rough and desperate and just what he needs to feel levelheaded again. Eddie pounds into him with so much force, he pushes Steve against the weathered floor. His skin catches on each splinter, leaving hundreds of tiny cuts that will make laying on his back uncomfortable for at least a week. The prospect of having lasting marks from their union fills Steve with excitement.

Eddie’s knot expands inside him, filling him with warmth and pups. Before he knows what’s happening, the alpha’s razor-sharp teeth sink into the omega’s mating gland.

Euphoria rushes through him. Finally, he has someone who will love him the way his inner omega needs and will not leave him.

The alpha presents his neck to him, and he bites down, blood filling his mouth, completing the bond.

And for the first time since July, Steve feels like he can finally breathe.

#steddie #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie omegaverse #steddie week #omega steve harrington #alpha eddie munson

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thecharacterchronicler · 7 months ago

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District Girl (Part 1) || (Peacekeeper) Coriolanus Snow x Reader || Smut

Outline: In district 12, peacekeeper Coriolanus Snow catches you sneaking past the fence. Thankfully for you, he accepts when you offer him a special arrangement in exchange of his silence.

Word count: 2’700

Warnings: power imbalance, consensual coercion (if that’s a thing), explicit smut.

(( Part 2 )) - (( Part 3 ))

It had been a long day. The sun was shining bright in the sky and yet, the air was saturated with humidity, making it hard to breathe. His peacekeeper uniform and gear felt heavy. He had showered before leaving the barracks and was already sweating again, adding to his discomfort with the already constant humidity. He hated it here. He hated everything, from the weather to the decaying buildings and the miners walking around with dirty clothes and faces. More than once had he thought about deserting his job, running back to the Capitol where people could manage to maintain a semblance of elegance and dignity, even while starving. But his family were the only people who would welcome him back home, he had nowhere else to go, and illegally deserting would put not only him but his cousin and grandmother in trouble. So he bite down on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood, as he once more gathered courage to keep going.

He had been asked to patrol the outskirts of District 12 for the rest of the afternoon. Smiley had been assigned the same task, covering the eastern part of the border while Coriolanus took care of the west. Without his bunkmates and colleagues to entertain him, time went by slowly. He walked along the tall fence that bordered the district, separating the village and the mines from a vast expanse of tall grass and trees in the distance. He found himself wondering what was hidden behind the forest, if there were other people somewhere that the Capitol didn’t know about. Maybe district 12 would have been nicer if it had included that large and lush landscape within its borders, the idea of patrolling under the shade of the trees seeming a lot more pleasant than doing it under the scorching sun. Maybe there even was a stream of fresh water meandering through the trees or better yet, a lake of cold water in which he could dive in and finally get rid of the beads of sweat that never seemed to leave his forehead, not since he had stepped in this foreign place.

His imagination running wild with ways to make his new home more bearable, he almost missed it. That movement in the corner of his eye, that trail of trampled grass leading to the fence… He turned around to see a silhouette, crouching down to enter the limit of the district from under broken wires he hadn’t even noticed when he had walked passed it a few minutes earlier. A trespasser. But were you an intruder or just a rule breaker ?

“Hey!” He shouted, the authority in his tone surprising both you and him. You lifted your head, eyes widening as you saw him and tried to hurry but the hem of your skirt was hooked to a sharp piece of wire that didn’t seem to want to let you go that easily.

His hand went to his belt, where his weapon was ready to be pulled out in case you were some kind of threat. Even if you didn’t look like it, Coriolanus knew better than to trust people, especially the people of District 12.

You didn’t want to get in trouble. All you wanted was to go back to your shack and forget about this encounter. You had heard enough terrible stories about peacekeepers to know you needed to avoid them at all cost. And mostly, you knew you had to be weary of the new ones like him, the ones who didn’t make deals and trades in exchange of turning an blind eye to whatever the citizens of your district needed to do in order to survive.

He was getting closer. Dangerously closer. And although he was walking slowly, almost carefully in your direction, you had noticed how his long fingers were just inches away from his weapon, ready to grab it and use it on you. So you decided to sacrifice your skirt, even though you didn’t own another one, and ran off, hearing the sound of the fabric tearing apart.

Coriolanus didn’t expect you to run. Where would you go anyway ? He had caught you breaking the law, he knew what you looked like, he wasn’t going to let you get out of it so easily. If he had to abide to rules he clearly didn’t want to follow, do a job he hated and was forced to live in this depressing area just because he was meant to face the consequences of his actions in the Capitol, you would have to face yours too.

He ran after you, easily catching up on you with his tall legs. And, since you weren’t making it easy for him, refusing to stop and comply, he grabbed you by the arm and yanked you back, a scream escaping your lips in reaction.

“Please, let me go.” You begged. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong, I was looking for food past the fence to feed my family.”

He listened. He even understood. He too had struggled to find food for himself and his family a few years back. He knew what it felt like to be hungry. And he knew how it hurt to see your loved ones starving too. However, the people of the districts deserved it. It was the consequences of their actions, a fair turn of the tables that they were the ones knowing poverty now. And hopefully, it would only get worse from now on. They needed to know that they were nothing without the Capitol. And they needed to know that their reckless behavior would cause the downfall of their own people.

He held both of your wrists together in your back, his free hand pressing against the back of your neck to make you walk forward. He wasn’t sure what your punishment would be for trespassing and frankly he didn’t care, the only thing that really mattered was that his superiors would at least notice that he was a good element, if not the best one they had.

You kept begging him for freedom, explaining yourself and assuring him that your escapade to the woods wasn’t a threat in any way to the government but he stayed stoic, still walking you in direction of the peacekeepers’ barracks with your hands held painfully tight in your back.

As the austere buildings came in sight, you decided to fight back, abruptly trying to free yourself from his grip. It took him by surprise and you managed to run forward, all the way to a narrow path by the side of the barracks before he caught you again. He grabbed you with both hands this time, pushing you against the stone wall of the building with your arms held above your head. He was close, his broad shoulders blocking your view of everything else but him. His body was a fence you wouldn’t be able to cross, it was trapping you against the wall, leaving you helpless and at his mercy and he did not looked pleased.

“I promise I won’t do it again.” You said, knowing as well as he did that it was a lie. “I’m going home to tell my family that I haven’t found anything for them to eat today, isn’t that enough of a punishment ?”

Coriolanus’s pale blue eyes stared at you, visibly conflicted. He knew that feeling all too well. And indeed, it was a sufficient punishment in his opinion. An even more cruel one than anything his superiors might have in store for you. However, he couldn’t just let you go like this, not when you had been such a pain to catch. You had interrupted his quiet stroll along the fence, you had made him run under the scorching sun, you didn’t deserve that much mercy.

“Please, I’ll do anything.” You said, making sure he would notice the implications you put in your last word, staring right back at him as suggestively as you could. You knew peacekeepers were easily convinced by the prospect of a bit a fun with a woman since they didn’t get to have that much of it while in service. It was a good way to get out of trouble. And this peacekeeper in particular was handsome enough to make you slightly nervous at the idea of him accepting what you tried to suggest.

Coriolanus wasn’t sure what to think. Or do. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure he had heard you correctly at all, getting lost in your beautiful eyes instead of focusing on your words. Maybe such close proximity to a woman was messing with his head, it had been a while after all. In fact, he had never been that physically close to anyone before and the fact that he had you pinned down against the wall, holding so much power over you made all his blood instantly rush down to his cock. There was something deeply satisfying at the thought that he could do whatever he pleased with you. Especially there, concealed from the other peacekeepers that might be leaving or entering the barracks, with nothing in his back but the fence, he could do anything and no one would know.

“Do we have a deal ?” You asked him, arching your back enough for your hips to brush against his, bringing his attention - and yours - to the impressive bulge that had formed in his pants.

Oh, it was wrong. So wrong. He shouldn’t even consider it, he should do his job and bring you to his superiors as he had been instructed to do in such circumstances but there was something about you that made him hesitate. Maybe it was how short your skirt was now, with half of it still stuck in the fence, it revealed more of your body than you were comfortable with and he definitely liked what he saw. The curves of your body, the shape of you, your lovely face… You were so different from the others. If he could have Tigris design some fashionable clothes for you and arrange your hair, you could look like a girl from the Capitol. One that he could be interested in…

But you were a girl from the filthy and barbaric district 12 and he was a peacekeeper.

“Deal.” He breathed, taking unexpected pride in the way your cheeks turned red at his word. You had never been so shy in front of a peacekeeper before, maybe it was because he was too handsome for words or maybe it was because he had an odd elegance to him that intrigued you, made you want to know who he was and where he came from. But you’d have to wait to indulge your curiosity with small talk, you had the end of a deal to hold and you actually felt pretty eager to get it done.

His breath caught in his throat when you dropped to your knees in front of him, your hands still held up above your head by one of his, yet no longer all pressed up against the wall. He easily opened his pants with his free hand, pulling out his already hard erection for you. Your hands moved, instinctively wanting to close your fingers around his cock but he held them back, still tightly in his grip.

“You won’t need them.” He told you, meeting your eyes. You quietly nodded and opened your mouth as wide as you could, letting him decide what to do next.

Still with one hand, he guided his cock past your pretty lips, the sensation of his sensitive skin gliding on your soft tongue almost ending him on the spot. He wasn’t prepared for how warm and wet it would feel, how his shaft would slide so perfectly all the way until his tip touched the back of your throat, making you gag.

You bopped your head for him, creating friction, having him slide back and forth in your mouth while you also focused on your breathing to avoid gagging too often. His eyes were clouded with intense pleasure when he closed them, letting you take care of him without opposing much resistance.

Fuck, it felt good. Especially when you took him down your throat, his whole cock fitting inside your mouth and your soft lips enclosing the base. He liked the way your cheeks were still colored pink, how your eyes watered from how big he was to swallow and how incredibly arousing it was to have you on your knees in front of him. A moment before you were a rebel, a reckless girl breaking the rules regardless of the punishment you might face and now, he had you tamed and compliant as he slowly fucked your mouth.

But maybe It was a bit too slow. Once the excitement of the new sensations he felt died down, there was only one thing he could think about; relief. That intense pleasure that you had carefully built in the pit of his stomach was begging for release, to explode on your tongue so that he could fill your mouth with his cum. He wondered if you would swallow it all, compliant til the very end or if you’d let it past your lips, drip on your chin and clothes like a very visible sign that he had marked you as his.

He was too eager to find out. He wanted to see for himself, feel how gloriously good it was going to be once his pleasure would splash out of him. So he stepped forward, forcing you back to the wall, hands still pinned up. You had no room left to move your head anymore and it was exactly what he wanted, thrusting his cock inside you himself instead. His rythym was fast and merciless, making you gag and feel breathless. His pushes forward were strong and quick, and soon, you felt his warm release drip down your throat, as his eratic movements finally came to a stop.

His cock was still twitching, spitting out white cum when he pulled it out of your mouth to allow you to breathe again, drops falling down on your chin and chest. He was breathless too, and the hunger you saw in his eyes as he stared at the drop of his cum that was slowly rolling downwards on your chest made you wonder if he was going to ask for more. He sure looked like he was ready to give it another go, right there and now.

But he unexpectedly released your wrists instead, taking a step back to arrange his still hard cock back inside his pants. With the blood finally rushing back down your arms, you tried to stand up. To your surprise, the peacekeeper held a hand out for you, helping you back up like a gentleman would.

You both stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. You wanted to ask him where his manners came from, and why he wasn’t using them to navigate high society instead of being here but you couldn’t find the courage to say anything at all. There were many questions he wanted to ask you too, starting with asking for your name, but he refrained from saying anything, knowing it was better if he kept his distances. The last thing he wanted was to fall for a district girl.

You fled without a word but granting him a smile and he let you, memorizing the way your perfect body looked like in that torn skirt you probably were going to throw away now, wondering if he’d ever get to take a peek underneath your clothes.

When he went out that night with his friends, he didn’t mention you even though he knew it would have earned him the admiration of his roommates. And when he wasn’t able to fall asleep once in his bed, his mind flooded with all the possibilities of what else he could do to you - if he ever got another chance to - he ended up sneaking out of the barracks and walking back to the fence in the middle of the night, to retrieve the piece of your skirt that was still dangling in the wind, hooked to the wire meant to keep everyone in.

♡ - (( Tip Jar )) - ♡

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hellfirenacht · 8 months ago

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Wing Man Part 8

Fic Summary: Steve 'the Hair' Harrington is your best friend, and is constantly striking out. Sick of this, you two make a deal; you'll wing man for each other. Hooking Steve up with dates is easy, but he finds himself struggling to find you a date. At least, until Dustin starts talking about his new cool friend Eddie.

(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)

Chapter Summary: Eddie explains himself, and you two make plans to hang out on purpose.

5.7k Words

a/n: Sorry I haven't been updating! I swear, I'm almost always thinking about this fic but I've been trying to figure out where to go with it. I'm started to see how I want to shape the story (over 40k words in, go figure). Thank you all so much for your patience!

Also, I've had a lot of people ask me about Paige and have shown interest in what happened between her and Eddie. She is actually from Eddie's prequel novel, Flight of Icarus! I'll still explain bits and pieces during the story, but I highly recommend reading the novel for the full context. I am trying to write this in a way you don't need to read FoI, but it does give extra context to the story.

Anyway, we continue.

Aside from the mixtape playing in the van, it was surprisingly quiet between you and Eddie. Despite his eagerness to show up and take you out, now that you were sitting in his passenger side seat again, he had no idea what to do next. The sound of Iron Maiden was rumbling through the van, crackling through the old speakers.

It wasn’t often that Eddie was at a loss for words or couldn’t come up with something to say. After embracing his role in the Hawkins High ecosystem as the resident loudmouth freak he could always come up with something to say to break the ice or cause a ruckus.

But, being loud wasn’t exactly a substitution for actual charisma. He could hold the attention of his Hellfire Club during the game, and keep them safe enough from most bullies even. But intimidation was different than... whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing here. Flirting? That seemed right. He knew he should be trying to flatter you or compliment you or do something to show that he had an interest in you.

“So,” you were the one to break the silence between the two of you. “What have you been up to for the past two weeks?”

Eddie know what you actually meant was “What the fuck, man?” which was a really fair question.

“I should have called you sooner.” It was best to go ahead and rip the bandaid off now and get this conversation out of the way. “I’m sorry, I wanted to but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” you asked, leaning against the passenger side door as you looked at him. Despite your eagerness to get out of Family Video with him, he could see that you weren’t going to just let him not explain why he hadn’t talked to you. Not that he was going to leave you hanging like that anyway.

“My phone blew up.” Eddie said bluntly.

“Your phone blew up? Like... actually exploded?” you asked, trying to see if he was fucking with you.

“Remember that huge storm a few weeks ago? Turns out that old trailers don’t exactly have the best wiring sometimes so when lightning strikes it knocks out power for a few days and fries some important wires.” he explained. “So... yeah, we just got a new phone today and when I tried to call...”

“So, I didn’t answer my phone so you decided to track me down?” There was amusement in your voice which he took as a good sign. “Seems like you could have done that part earlier. I’m not hard to find.”

“I’m not exactly interested in stalking.” Eddie snorted. “I’m already on enough people's shitlist in town.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.” you laughed. “You know where I live, you could have shown up at my doorstep in the rain or used random phones around town to leave weird messages about how you can’t stop thinking about me or sent me letters with cryptic meanings.”

“Where do you come up with these things?” Eddie laughed, feeling the tension between the two of you start to dissipate.

“I read a lot of bodice-ripper books.” you shrugged. “Trashy romance novels are a guilty pleasure sometimes.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a weirdo?”

“Steve did about an hour ago when I suggested that Bozo the clown could be the shit out of Pennywise from It.”

Eddie wasn’t sure what he expected you to say, but it wasn’t that. Every time you had shown up in his life, you had completely thrown him off. He was starting to suspect that no amount of “Munson Magic” was going to work on you. Not that he wanted to work his dad’s charm on you to begin with.

What he really wanted to do at that moment was ask you about your little bet with Steve. No, wait, not a bet. A deal? Maybe he should have asked Dustin more questions, or at least waited until after Hellfire to talk to the kid-

”So what’s the plan?” You broke through his thoughts once again. “You show up out of nowhere and have me get into your unmarked van to take me to a second location... is there a second location in mind?”

There wasn’t, Eddie really hadn’t thought that far ahead.He’d panicked after his talk with Wayne and had shown up to Family Video on the chance that you’d been there. He’d run straight out the door with every intention of finding you and let you know that he was stupid for not trying harder to call you before.

”I figured we could just... drive.” He wished he could ignore the sudden parallel between you and Paige. He wished that he could just forget about what happened in ‘84. Fuck, him and Paige never even had an official date, only hooking up in his van for a few weeks before everything blew up.

Wait, was this a date? Crap, that had been the plan right? Show up, ask you on a date and then... then he’d be on a date. What the FUCK was he actually doing? He was acting so fucking awkward now- everything had been easier before. Why did Dustin have to open his big mouth about this?

“Just driving sounds great.” you said, and Eddie once again tried to relax. Every girl he had been with had wanted something from him. Nicole Summers and Cass Finnigan just wanted bragging rights that they got with the freak, and Paige had wanted him to be a rock hero. What did you want from him?

“Have you eaten?” It wasn’t exactly late, but it wasn’t really early in the evening either. His uncle always asked him that whenever one of them got home, and it had taken Eddie an embarrassingly long time to realize that it was Wayne’s way of showing that he cared.

“I could eat.” you replied, which at least gave this... whatever this was, some structure for the night. Eddie didn’t have a lot of cash on him, but he could probably scrape together enough to get you each a burger or something.

When the Iron Maiden tape clicked off and spat itself out, you took it upon yourself to pull it out and look it over. “Got any other tapes in here? I need to judge your music taste.”

That made Eddie laugh “You and every other person in this town. I have a few more tapes in here.” He tapped on the center console which you eagerly dug into, flipping through the different cassettes with eagerness.

“Metal. Metal. Metal. Metal.” You said, going through each cassette one by one. “I’m starting to see a pattern here, Eddie.”

“What gave it away?” He said deadpan. “Was it that I play guitar or the fact that we’ve only bonded over music so far?”

“And Chris Morrison.”

“It was your hair, actually. You look so much like Eddie Van Halen it’s actually uncanny.” You looked up from the tapes and he could feel your eyes studying his face. He was glad that it was dark out now, as he could feel warmth rising in his cheeks at the comparison. Was that a compliment? Were you into him looking like Van Halen?

“Van Halen?” Eddie asked. “I figured I was more of a Kirk Hammett type.”

“The hair yes,” you agreed, still staring at his face as he continued to drive. “But your smile is definitely more Van Halen.”

When was the last time someone had ever looked at him with that much consideration before? Something in Eddie’s gut twisted as he glanced over at you for a split second to meet your eyes. Huh, that was weird. Had anyone made him nervous like this before? Yeah he’d been attracted to Paige but this was starting to feel different.

He really needed a cigarette right about now.

“I hope that’s a compliment.” Eddie managed to say as he fumbled for the packet of Camels in the cupholder by him.

“Oh, it is. I promise.” you replied, digging out a lighter and helping him light the smoke in his mouth. The world's tiniest supernova...

Eddie hated that the closest thing he had to compare notes on when it came to a healthy romance was two months with Paige and a handful of movies that he barely watched.

You went back to his tapes, and seemed to pick one out. You removed the tape that had been spat out, put it back in the appropriate case (which Eddie found himself appreciating), and he was surprised to hear the old riffs of Muddy Waters playing.

“A palate cleanser.” you said, leaning back into the passenger side seat.

Eddie felt his mind reeling from your choice of music. Muddy Waters had been how his mom introduced him to rock at a young age. The two of you sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the well loved tape as he pulled into the drive in of the next fast food joint he’d seen.

When he pulled up to the window to pay, a fresh ten was shoved in his face before he could even reach for his own wallet. It took a moment for him to realize that you were wanting to pay.

“You got me out of work early, it’s the least I can do.” you said, not giving him the option to say no as cash was exchanged for a bag of questionable but cheap food. You held the bag in your lap as Eddie started making his way out of town.

“So is this an ‘eating van’ or a ‘non-eating van’?” you asked, messing with the top of the bag.

“I think I’d starve if I didn’t eat in here.” Eddie snorted. “Knock yourself out.”

You wasted no time digging into the fries and taking a few for yourself as Eddie went to the only place that he could afford to take you right now that might be date worthy.

Luckily, Lover’s Lake was quiet and private on weeknights. If Eddie had taken two minutes to plan this better, he would have thought to maybe clear out the back of his van and set out a blanket and have a picnic. When it came to music and D&D he was great at planning out details, with dates? Not so much.

This isn’t a date. He reminded himself for the hundredth time tonight. She’s just a girl that you ran over to spend time with the second it occurred to you that she might have an interest in you and she really willingly hopped in your van and your friends actually like her-

Shit. This had to be a date right? Neither of you had said the word but that’s what it was... right?

Eddie was snapped out of his thoughts with the sweet smell of hot potatoes and grease was wafting under his nose. You had shoved a few fries in front of his face and Eddie wasted no time in taking them. You continued to absently feed him fries as he found a spot to park.

The two of you divided up the food on his dashboard, and Eddie rolled down the windows to let the cool autumn air in.

“So... what are you gonna be for Halloween?” Eddie asked, wincing internally. When was the last time anyone he knew had dressed up for Hallowen? Okay, so Hellfire Club did tend to dress up on Halloween for a special one shot but that was different- no one came to school in costumes anymore.

“It depends on my plans.” you answered. “Halloween is on a Thursday so I’m usually working. If I have a morning shift I’ll probably do zombie makeup for work, if Steve and Robin are working with me that day I think we’re gonna attempt to be Luke, Leia, and Hans.”

“And are you gonna be Leia?” Eddie asked.

“Ideally, I wanted to be Chewie but I don’t have the time for that.” you laughed. “Robin and I voted on Steve to Be Leia. Robin will be Luke, and I’ll be Hans Solo with a teddy bear.”

“Please tell me that Harrington isn’t going to be in the bikini.” Eddie laughed.

“Keith said costumes had to be work appropriate so, sadly, Steve will not be gracing the store with his sweater-vest chest hair under a bra.” You sighed dramatically. “It’s like he hates the idea of us having fun!”

“What if you have to close?” Eddie prompted, adjusting in his seat to lean against the door to face you as best he could. Next time he was absolutely clearing out the back to give you both more room.

“Oh, I am not closing.” you said firmly. “And if Keith thinks he can schedule me that day he can suck it because I have plans.”

You already have Halloween plans. Of course you would. It’s not like you had to worry about school on a weekday like he did. Eddie tried not to deflate in front of you and remained calm.

“And what plans would that be?” he asked.

“Have you ever seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show?” you asked, a smile tugging at your lips.

He had, once, with Reefer Rick a few months ago when picking up his usual supply. A quick pick up had turned into a game of pool, which had turned into the two of them high on Rick’s couch watching an old VHS tape while Rick laughed his ass off and yelled at the tv before passing out in the middle of Tim Curry seducing Brad and Janet.

“Once.” Eddie said, not giving the exact details of circumstance. “With a friend, I didn’t really get it.”

“Did you see it in theaters or did you just watch it at home?” you asked, finishing off your food.

“Friend’s house.”

“Oh, no wonder you didn’t get it. Rocky Horror is an experience, you can’t just pop the tape in and watch it. You have to come see it in a theater.” As you spoke you were absently folding a napkin in your lap turning it into what looked like a heart. When you were done with that one, you started with another shape with a different napkin.

“Is that an invitation?” Eddie asked, tearing his eyes away from the way your fingers moved for now. He found his heart pounding in his chest, unsure if you were actually wanting him to come to this, and from the knot forming in his stomach as the shapes you were folding reminded him of the times he met you before.

“It is.” you confirmed, the ninja star you had shaped with the napkin was placed on the center console as you grabbed another napkin. “...It could also be a date.”

Despite the period at the end of the sentence, Eddie heard the slight waiver in your voice on the word date. It was that same nervous stammer that had been in Paige’s voice when she offered to let him move in with her in California, it was the same hesitant inflection that one of his Hellfire players used when they weren’t sure if Eddie would approve of what crazy plan they had for their character.

Aside from that first awkward meeting at the Palace Arcade, you had been pretty confident and upfront with him. Now here you are, laying out your intentions and seeing what he would do.

What would he do? Eddie had shown up at Family Video with no real plan. He only knew he wanted to see you again, and he knew that Dustin and Steve were trying to set you two up. And it’s not like Eddie was completely against the idea of going on a date with you. You were sharp, and you kept him on his toes, and when you smiled at him it felt like his brain might short out.

But he had also panicked when he had thought that you were going to kiss him before. After Eddie’s disastrous break up with Paige two years ago, it’s not like he’d been completely against any physical relationships. There had been a grand total of two other hook ups that he’d sabotaged. People weren’t interested in getting to know the freak, they just wanted to say that they had been with him. So both times, Eddie had made sure that he’d been a lousy date and a decent enough lay before deciding that he’d rather had a date with his right hand and a Heavy Metal magazine.

Eddie would rather the rumor mill call him a boring date rather than set a standard that he’d go out with anyone who asked. He wondered if he had, would Steve have put his name on the town marquis for the world to see? Would Eddie ‘the Slut’ Munson be treated any differently than Eddie ‘the Freak’?

Shit, you were still waiting for a response.

“A date.” Eddie finally managed to echo your last words back at you. The napkin you had been messing with in your hands was now taking the shape of a ninja star.

“I mean, if you’re interested.” you said quickly. “It could just be a friend thing. Or you probably already have plans for Halloween-”

“I don’t.” Eddie interjected. “It could be a date.”

He watched your shoulders relax and you smiled up at him. “It’s a date then.” You grabbed a napkin and your green marker out of your bag and scribbled something down, handing it over to him.

“In case your phone blows up again, here is the date and time and location for the Halloween showing of the movie.” your eyes narrowed slightly at him. “And my work schedule has been hectic but I consistently work on Sunday’s and clock out at four.”

Eddie got the message loud and clear, he would know where to find you now. There wouldn’t be any excuses for not reaching out, but two could play at this game. He took the marker from your hand and grabbed his own napkin, scribbling his own phone number down and handing it over to you.

“I’m at school all week, but I still play at the Hideout on Tuesdays.” He answered back. “Friday is Hellfire.”

With that, the playing field felt a little more level. Both of you now had the power to track the other one down or call when needed.

“So what are you going to be for Halloween?” you asked, tucking the napkin with his number into your bog.

“Oh, haven’t you heard? When you’re the town freak every day is Halloween.” Eddie chuckled.

“So what, you’re gonna put on a polo and khakis instead?” He liked the way you scrunch your nose when you laughed. “Ditch the jewelry and cover your tattoos?”

“That would probably scare some of the teachers at school.” Eddie had considered doing exactly that, but he really didn’t think he’d want that kind of attention. “No one dresses up at school anymore.”

“Boring.” You sighed. “I tried dressing up for Halloween my senior year but when I got to school my friends convinced me to change clothes.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem like the type to let other people tell you what to do.”

“Now I’m not.” you shrugged. “I’m not in high school anymore, and all those people that I saw everyday? Turns out I was only friends with them because I saw them every day. Once you get away from that forced routine you realize that it’s all bullshit.”

Eddie could relate, probably better than anyone else. He was so sick of the day to day hierarchy of highschool that he’d scream it from on top of a table. Literally.

“What were you trying to be before your friends killed your fun?” Eddie asked.

“A pirate. It was last minute but I had a bandana, an eyepatch, a sock puppet with feathers glued to it for my parrot, and a wire hanger I was carrying around as a hook.” you laughed at the memory. “I ended up dropping the eyepatch before my friends made me change because I kept running into people. My wire hanger was confiscated, some asshat stole my parrot, and one of my friends gave me a sweater to change into. I didn’t even make it to first period in that outfit.”

Eddie had made it a point to not pay attention to anyone outside of his small group at school, only ever keeping an eye out for lost sheep that didn’t have anywhere else to go. He wondered, if he had seen you that morning in the brief window before you were pushed back into conformity would he have noticed you? Talked to you? You had already been nice to him before.

“Wait,” Eddie over at you, taking in the picture you had painted for him. “You made a sock puppet parrot?”

“I needed a parrot, or else no one would get it!” you explained. “But then when I took it off and left it to go use the bathroom it was gone. I finally found the thief in fourth period because they kept playing with it and squawking my own parrot at me. But by that point I had just cut my losses and had given up on Halloween.”

“Are you usually this crafty?” Eddie asked, once again looking at the final napkin you were folding into what looked like an old cootie catcher.

“I get bored easily.” you said. “If I don’t have something to do with my hands I can’t focus.”

“How’d you start with the whole-” Eddie grabbed one of his slightly used napkins and gave it a wave. “Folding thing?”

“Fourth grade show and tell.” you said. “I did not prepare anything and so I spent a full ten minutes in the school library to find something to show. I found a book on origami, found the easiest thing to make and realized that I actually enjoyed it.”

If that was a mystery, it sure did get solved right there. Eddie wanted to ask about Steve and Dustin. He wanted to ask you why him? He could keep his mouth shut, let this whole thing play out and see what happened. Eddie could sit here, and enjoy the fact that a girl was giving him the time of day and leave everything up in the air just like he had with Paige.

“So I heard you and Steve had a deal going on.” Eddie said. “Something about getting dates?”

You froze for a second, the completed cootie catcher in your hands. Things were dead silent for a grand total of ten seconds. Ten agonizingly long seconds. Even the cassette player had clicked off and was now whirring as it rewind the Iron Maiden tape.

Then you started laughing. A lot.

“Jesus, Eddie!” you said, wiping your eyes with the ninja star as a tear threatened to spill down your cheek. “I tell you I have origami as a hobby, and you follow up with ‘So I heard you and Steve are trying to get dates.’ Seriously?”

Eddie remained silent at your reaction, trying to process your laughter. You didn’t seem scared or nervous that he had called you out, and he had to admit that he hadn’t completely thought through the consequences of asking you that question.

“Who blabbed?” You asked, after your laughter had calmed down.

“Henderson.” Eddie admitted and, in an attempt to ease any lingering tension he leaned forward to rest his elbow on the center console and held his chin in his hand as he looked at you. “That shrimp informed me that you found me so irresistible that you begged Steve to set you up with me.”

“Is that right?” You asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh yeah,” Eddie agreed. “Told me all about how ever since Chris Morrison shot you down, you’ve been desperate to get my attention to get back at him.”

“So which is it, am I attracted to you or am I using you to get back at a guy I talked to once in high school years ago?” you asked. Eddie saw a glint in your eyes, the same one he’d seen that first night at the arcade when at the air hockey table.

“Both are true.” Eddie continued to explain, a shit eating grin on his face. “You see, you were originally going to use me to get back at Chris, but then you saw me play guitar and instantly fell in love.”

“Damn, this sounds like the plot of a terrible movie.” you laughed. “So is this the part where I tell you that ‘It started out like that, but I swear it’s not like that anymore!’? Do I beg on my knees that my feelings for you are genuine, even though we’ve hung out a grand total of two-and-a-half times?”

Five times, but who’s counting?

“What’s the half-time?” Eddie asked.

“You ditched me at the arcade after I said I’d be right back.” you stated matter-of-factly. “I’m hoping it’s not a pattern where you start dropping off the face of the earth just when things start getting good.”

“Between you and me,” Eddie leaned in closer. “I thought Dustin was trying to set me up with Steve. Not you.”

Cue more laughter from you as you threw your head back. “Are you kidding me?! Dustin makes me and Steve show up to an arcade and tries to force a meeting with you- and you thought you were supposed to be dating Steve?!”

“Not dating!” Eddie clarified quickly. “You see, Steve and I only have one thing in common and that’s Dustin Henderson. Kid practically worships Steve. I thought he was trying to get us to be friends or something.”

“Oh my god, you thought Dustin was trying to hook his two dads up!” Your cootie catcher was now crumpled up in your hands, stained with tears from your laughing. “I’m a homewrecker!”

Yeah, this really wasn’t going the way Eddie had expected it.

“Shit, Eddie, I’m sorry.” you said, your laughter calming down into giggles instead. “Have I been reading this whole thing wrong? I mean, if you have more of an interest in Steve I could probably set that up. He’s only ever shown interest in girls but you have long hair and are pretty enough-”

“No.” Eddie said. “I don’t have an interest in Steve- you think I’m pretty?” How were you able to throw him off so easily? He could tell that if you had been able to join Hellfire you would have been a menace at his table.

“Extremely.” you said, your voice more sincere now.

The two of you just stared at each other for a while and Eddie felt that same twisty feeling in his gut again. You thought he was pretty. That was good, right? Did you like pretty boys? You were pretty- he liked that a lot.

“I...” Eddie started and then dug deep inside himself to find the words he wanted to use. “Prettier than Steve?” Those were not the words he wanted to say, but he said them anyway.

“Steve is conventionally attractive but, as I said before, not my type.” you said. “I like guys with long hair anyway.”

Eddie really couldn’t tell if he was nailing this or blowing it. “So, what is your type?”

“I’ll tell you mind if you tell me yours.” you countered.

Had Eddie ever really thought about what his type was? Yeah, he’d had ill-advised crushes and had been attracted to various women in comics and tv but did he have a type? He tried to connect all the girls in his mind that he’d been with, trying to find a pattern.

Someone who actually pays attention to me. That’s pretty sad, Eddie. He came to the conclusion. Yeah, aside from his disastrous kiss with Ronnie five years ago, every girl he’d been with had been the one to show interest first, and you were no exception. But had he actually had feelings for the others? Not really. Attraction? Yeah. Feelings? Well, with Paige he had been far too busy dealing with Corroded Coffin, his dad, and school to really decide what he felt for Paige. Any other small flings had been dead on arrival.

So why did he keep wanting to spend time with you?

“Don’t go spreading this around,” Eddie started. “But if I had to pick a type, it’d be She-Hulk.”

“She-Hulk?” you mulled that over in your mind. “So tall, green, and angry?”

“Strong-willed, and funny as shit.” Eddie corrected.

“And green.”

“If I had known that earlier I would have picked Kermit the Frog as my Halloween costume this year.” you teased. “I don’t have a character off the top of my head, but I like people who feel.. Real.”

Real. The word that Paige and him had used over and over in those two months.

“What’s real to you?”

“Not high school.” you said. “Someone who’s not afraid to exist and be themselves. I’m most attracted to anyone who can let go of their desperate ego and just have fun. High school was boring because everyone was so wrapped up in their own bs of looking cool that they didn’t do anything that they actually wanted to do. Shit, even I fell into that.”

Eddie didn’t want to ask if he was real to you. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for an answer. There were lots of times he wished that he wasn’t still in school, but this time really hit harder. He was starting to really like you, and yeah part of him was terrified of that.

The two of you finished off the last of your food and Eddie shoved all the leftover trash into the brown bag and tossed it in the back so you wouldn’t be stepping on it.

“I don’t know much about real anymore, but I think you’re pretty badass.” Eddie finally said. “I mean, you brought a wire hanger and a fake parrot to school for a costume. That’s pretty brave, even if your friends did talk you out of it.”

“I’m more mad that the parrot was stolen and used to annoy me than the lack of costume.” you said with a small laugh. “They weren’t even funny. They just kept repeating what I said. It was easier to just shut up at that point.”

“Didn’t think to make them say anything embarrassing?”

“Oh, I tried. But, jocks don’t know the art of a good ‘Duck Season, Rabbit Season’ gag. Anything embarrassing I said they’d just turn it around. I’d say ‘I pissed myself in gym.’ they’d reply with ‘you pissed yourself in gym’. No love for comedy.” You took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “If you’re going to be a bully, at least give me a good story to tell later, you know?”

“I once got slammed against a locker by a jock who called me ‘a myriad freak.” Eddie said. “To this day, I still don’t know what he was trying to mean by that.”

“See? At least that’s funny.” you said, and then. “Holy shit, we’ve gotten off topic.”

“There was a topic?” Eddie leaned back on the seat again.

“Yes, an important one that I was very interested in before we started talking about bullies and high school and She-Hulk.” you nodded.

Talking to you was so easy that he hadn’t realized how many topics the two of you had blown through in a short amount of time. He looked at his watch real quick and realized it was creeping towards 11 pm now. Had the two of you really been talking that long?

“What topic was it?”

“You flirting with me.” you said, your lips pulling back in a cheshire grin. “I’m pretty sure you were at least, before I became a homewrecker between you and Steve. Normally I’d hate to break up a happy family, but I might have to make an exception this one time.”

“Was I flirting?” Eddie tilted his head with his own grin. “I’m pretty sure I was just telling you that I thought Dustin was trying to make me be friends with Steve. If I had known that the shrimp was trying to introduce me to a cute girl-” He would have shot it down and canceled Side Quest Day- “I wouldn’t have left the way I did.”

“You think I’m cute?”

“Extremely.”

You nodded. “Alright, then it’s a good thing that we’re going on a date. I’m glad to know that I’m not coming between you and Steve.”

It was just past midnight when Eddie dropped you off at your apartment that night. This time when you leaned over the center console towards him, he didn’t freeze up or panic. Eddie let you hug him and he hugged you back, his cheeks growing hot momentarily when he felt your lips press against his cheek and he was able to breathe in your scent.

“See you later, Eddie. Oh, and for the movie- I highly recommend dressing up.” you looked him up and down. “Actually, just wear what you’d normally wear. I think you’ll fit right in.”

Eddie made a mental note to ask Rick later on what he was supposed to wear for this.

“I’ll call you.” he said. “I promise. I mean it this time.”

“Not if I call you first, I have your number now. And worst case scenario, I know where you play.” you responded. “See you Tuesday, Eddie.”

And with that you were gone again, leaving Eddie alone in the van feeling much better than the last time he had given you a ride. There were still questions he had. He still wanted to know why exactly everyone was wanting the two of them to meet again, and why you always so readily agreed to meet up with him. But those were questions for another day.

“You had a missed call.” Wayne said as Eddie made his way into the trailer. “Didn’t leave a name or number. Said she’d call you back.”

Eddie laughed and shook his head, guess you meant it when you said you’d call first.

“Don’t stay up too late watching tv.” Eddie said before heading towards his bedroom. He once again found himself falling asleep with his copy of The Hobbit, the origami flower tucked safely in the back.

Next Chapter

Ending note: This fic takes place during October 1985. Stephen King’s It did not come out until September 1986. I would like to ask you all politely to suspend your disbelief for the historical inaccuracy of a piece of dialogue that probably didn’t add much to the plot. If this horrible inaccuracy bothers you, please repeat to yourself “it’s just a fic, I should really just relax” which is what most of us should be doing anyway.

Dividers by: @strangergraphics

Tag List: @k8loo @terrormonster55 @sp1dyb0y1008 @crocwork-clockodile @ali-r3n @mxcheese @josephquinnschesthair @gagasbee @peaches-roses-sins @witchwolflea @vintagehellfire @royale1803 @cumslutforaemond @prestinalove @browneyedgirl320 @perpetualmess @thebook-hobbit @mistonk @cultish-corner @grishaversecaptivated @sortagaysortahigh @halialex1119 @bakugouswhOr3 @siriuslysmoking @pookiesnatcher @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @takemetoneverlandbabe @killjoynotes @maelibo

#nacht post #nacht fic #eddie munson x reader #wing man

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izvmimi · 1 year ago

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daddy's home - izuku x reader

cw: horror themes, you and izuku have a child, villain!deku, yandere!deku, mentions of murder, violence, fem!reader summary: izuku’s family misses him, and he misses them in return. (~2.1k words) a/n: reposting this on father's day cuz i love problems. part 2 here.

By the time you make it to your daughter’s bustling preschool class, you’ve managed to calm down your heart rate to a steady, human pace. A few tiny humans whizz past you on the playground that leads up to the front door, and it’s enough to make you unsteady given how lightheaded you are already. However, one foot before the other, you still make it to the teacher who holds your daughter’s hand. She eyes you a little warily, probably noticing the very slight wobble to your footsteps, but smiles back in response to your forced smile.

“She did great today, Mrs. Midoriya!” She exclaims, turning to the bushy-haired four-year-old that’s jumping up and down in excitement. “Didn’t you?!”

“Yes, Mrs. Sato!” She nods emphatically before weaseling herself out of her grasp to hug around your legs. “Hi, Mommy!”

You crack another smile, forcing the uneasiness out of your expression for the sake of your daughter as you scoop her up in your arms. She’s still very light, as she’s always been small for her age, but her weight steadies you a little bit and you hug her close.

“Hi, baby, I missed you,” you offer her, kissing her forehead. “Thank you so much,” you mouth at the teacher as you make your way back to the car, nodding enthusiastically through your daughter’s terribly excited chatter. You can feel Ms. Sato’s eyes at your back as you leave, and wonder if it’s because you aren’t hiding your anxiety well or… the other thing.

There’s an odd thing about your daughter that you’ve only noticed recently.

No matter how excited she is to see you or wired up from a fun-filled day of school, the moment you strap her into the car seat, she seems to sober up immediately. It’s unnerving - she becomes silent and almost solemn - to the point that you find yourself glancing carefully at her through the rear view mirror. Her emerald green eyes look at you curiously but her expression is far too neutral for a child and it distresses you enough that you find yourself forcing conversation in the car. Today you notice that the freckles on her cheeks appear to have multiplied, possibly due to the recent sunny weather, and she looks even more like her father. This is especially apparent when she frowns intermittently - something she stops the moment she sees that you’re watching.

You hate it.

“What did you learn today, honey?” You ask, trying to keep the mood light.

Her eyes brighten for a split second and you hope it will linger, but they return back to normal as she lowers them and answers your question.

“Addition… a-and subtraction…” she pauses and thinks for a moment, before she adds, “um, and something about personal space and making sure that you’re polite to other people.”

It tracks, you think.

“Did you have fun with your friends?” You ask as you make one of the first three turns into your gated home. From the estate entrance to the front door is another ten minutes of driving, and in the next three, you’ll have to remember to look ahead for biometric testing.

“Mmhmm! Did you know Akane is my new best friend?” She asks, leaning forward to hold onto the back of your headrest. It comforts you that she sounds a little bit more excited like her normal cheery self again.

“Oh! Tell me about Akane!”

“She’s very nice and she’s the only one who told Mrs. Sato’s helper that it wasn’t nice to call Daddy a murderer and…”

You don’t hear the rest of what she says. Your blood runs cold, and you swallow hard.

“I-is that what Mrs. Sato’s helper said?” you repeat finally once you can no longer hear her high-pitched voice. You pass through the second gate after raising your hand to the glass to read your fingerprints.

You watch her again as she leans back into her seat, crossing her arm.

“She did and I know it’s not true,” she pouts.

You wish you could be that convinced. It would have saved you a lot of heartache once you were forced to finally accept the truth.

Heroes disappearing, one by one, without a trace. The slowly shifting look in your husband’s eyes as he started to return home later and later. The constant hand-washing, a nervous habit you thought was far too sudden to develop. The oddly-timed and inconsistent tears during the day, and laughter you’d heard surreptitiously in the middle of the night when Denki was found hacked into irregular pieces, stuffed into a duffle bag at the bottom of a river.

It was almost cliché, how extreme the descent was, the process of watching your husband go slowly mad - mumbling something about Heroes being a stain on society, none of them practicing what they preached. It was something he had whispered into your ears more and more over the nights, and something you’d had attributed to burnout and frustration. It made sense. The idea of losing your childhood to something so idealistic only to find out that there was less of the saving of people and more the pursuit of money and fame. That’s how you’d ended up with this huge home after all, wasn’t it? He’d bought it for his little family of three and you still hadn’t moved out, had you?

The last biometric gate involves a wide smile to the camera, but you don’t feel happy. It recognizes your face, and announces a robotic “Welcome home.”

You don’t feel so welcome.

—

Your daughter kicks her feet as she chomps through a snack of carrots, celery and peanut butter and connects dots with lines. You sit next to her, eating the extra parts she doesn’t finish - she’s picked up an odd habit of leaving the ends of her carrots untouched recently. You’ve thought about pushing her to eat the rest of her food but her father was always better at encouraging her to eat so you don’t bother. It’s the least of your problems.

You are thankful that she doesn’t say that she misses him at mealtimes anymore, but you wonder how much of it is in order to spare your own feelings.

Sometimes you wonder if she has a special Quirk that is taking too long to manifest, one that makes her sense emotions far too astutely for a girl her age, but that’s impossible.

Quirks no longer work on your property.

At least you hope they don’t. You have to remind yourself that in order to feel safe in your own home. Every day you return home, you curse yourself for not having moved out the second Izuku disappeared without a trace, but you’d wanted so desperately to give your daughter a sense of normalcy. Enrolling her in school far from your home and fortifying this mansion was enough. In fact, it was probably the safest place for you, safer than any apartment you could find in Japan.

I’ll be back for you, don’t worry, he’d promised, as he’d marched out of your home, surrounded by Pro Heroes and police prepared to subdue him by any means necessary. It felt more like a threat than anything even though his voice was sweet enough you would think he was kissing you goodbye while on his way to work.

Did he know you’d turned him in? The idea made your stomach turn. You hadn’t wanted to do it, but the desperation with which you wanted to fix him rather than turn a blind eye to his crimes had pushed you to it. You wanted him back, your sweet husband who only wanted to help people, not the crazed being that looked back at you through the reinforced glass walls with a deranged smile as he tore through the nearly hundred-strong crowd in your yard, leaving not a single person alive.

The spray of blood painting your home was so thick you couldn’t tolerate the color red for a week. Now those same walls were dull and gray with metal that was promised unbreakable to you. No natural sunlight had entered this home for months now, turning it into more of a fortress than a home.

You missed your husband and your old life terribly.

“All done!” your daughter chirps. You look over her work and offer her an hour of her favorite show, letting her sit in your lap as she sings the songs along with the television. You clap together and wonder if she’s as lonely as you are.

Your phone buzzes suddenly, and you pick it up without looking, pressing it to your ear.

“Hi, honey.”

You nearly choke on your own saliva and your mind starts to race. The uneasy feeling from this afternoon must not have been made up; perhaps it was the sense that Izuku was also thinking about you. Before you can regain the presence of mind to turn off your phone, he’s one step ahead.

“Don’t you dare hang up.”

His voice is stern and freezes you into place. Your daughter notices that you’re no longer playing with her hair and turns to face you.

“Who’s that? Is that Daddy?” She asks. You open your mouth and close it. Izuku on the other hand picks up on the extra voice, and sounds delighted.

“Ah, is that my little girl? Let me hear her voice.”

“I-Izuku, please, she’s-” you begin to plead.

“Pass the phone over to her, love.” He replies, and you can almost hear him smiling on the other end of the line. It’s not a warm smile - it’s the smile he had on his face when you saw him snap someone’s neck with his bare hands. “Let me speak to my daughter.”

Shakily, you put the phone on speaker, and place it closer to her. Izuku starts to speak.

“How have you been, princess?” He says, far too cheerily for a man who has made a heel face-turn into villainy.

“Daddy! Are you coming home?” She begs. “Please come home! Me and mommy miss you, and people are saying lies about you and there’s a monster under my bed so now I sleep with mommy but I want to sleep with you too.”

“Oh, of course, honey bunches, I’ll be there very soon.”

“You promise?”

“Of course, baby. I promised Mommy I’ll be back. She can’t get rid of me.”

Your stomach turns. These are all lies. There’s no way. This place is tried and true, and 100% impenetrable to anyone, no matter how strong the Quirk. There is just no way he will make it in unless you let him in, and you absolutely, will not, let him anywhere near you or your child unless he gets the help he needs.

You hope desperately he’ll get the help he needs.

The phone has long since shut off and your daughter is grinning ear to ear.

“Can we turn on the lights? It’s dark outside, I don’t want Daddy to get lost.”

You offer her a pained smile.

“I think he’ll find his way just fine,” you say, holding her tightly. It’s time for her to get a bath and maybe you too. Anything to calm your nerves.

—

The two of you lay together in bed, and you hold her tightly to your chest.

“Can we stay up and wait for Daddy?” she asks. You rub her forehead slowly with your thumb and try to hold back your tears. Your phone’s screen lights on and off but you’ve stopped looking an hour ago.

“He’ll be here soon,” you reply, trying to keep the waver out of your voice. “He’ll be happy if you’re asleep when he gets here. That will mean you’re a very good girl.”

She smiles warmly and wraps the blanket he gave her on her birthday tightly around her. You place the other larger duvet cover over her, trying to resist the urge to cover your own head. The bedroom is locked but you know it’s futile. You are not safe.

He’s already made it past the first two gates.

“We’re gonna play a game where we try to go to sleep with the lights on, but it means you have to be really, really quiet and shut your eyes really, really tight.” you whisper into her ear.

“Okay,” she whispers. “Why aren’t we sleeping in your room?” she still manages to ask. “Daddy’s not gonna have any space when he gets here.”

She’s right. You’re crammed into a twin bed in the corner of a guest room that has been unused since you bought this home. Really, it’s more like storage than anything else. It’s a silly place to hide, but it’ll buy you some time, you’ve convinced yourself.

“When he comes, he’ll carry you to the other room, okay?” You reply. She seems to like that idea, and snuggles up to you closer.

“I want us to be a family again,” she insists.

So do I, you tell yourself.

Your phone alerts you that the third gate has been breached.

Your daughter is fast asleep by the time you hear the first bang on the front door. The aftershock of his blow reverberates through the whole house.

Looks like his Quirk isn’t affected.

You have no idea how your daughter can sleep through what feels like an earthquake, but you’re thankful that maybe, just maybe she’ll be able to be spared from what will happen next.

There’s another blow that comes with a crash that can only mean a wall, somewhere, is crumbling to pieces.

Welcome home, you think, with a teary, defeated smile.

#izuku x reader #izuku midoriya x reader #cw yandere #yandere izuku x reader #thoughts: izuku #daydreams: bnha #mimi's notes

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yunfox00 · 4 months ago

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THE AMAZING DIGITAL DREAMLAND AU MASTERPOST

Made by Foxxine (meeeeeee)

MY INTRO

the new Masterpost is still a WIP!!!

You guys can ask anything abt this AU!

C&A made an experiment, making a game that you can play when you're asleep called Project Dreamland.

It's basically a normal multiplayer game but it uses dreams! You can imagine anything and it will appear in Dreamland!

The C&A company asks 6 people to be the game testers of this new game. The game testers will sleep in a bed that's made for them and wear a special helmet looking thing that has wires and stuff that will transport everyone to the game.

They will be in Dreamland for 7-10 hours and will be given food for free. They will wear the same clothes that will be provided every day. Clothes are also gonna be washed for free.

One of the C&A workers coded an AI called Caine that can do anything in the digital dream world. The game testers are able to communicate with the workers while being asleep. The workers can see their every move from a computer. After fixing some glitches and bugs that the game testers pointed out, the experiment was confirmed to be successful and the game was finally ready to be released!!! Which means the game testers can leave and continue with their regular lives. But what they don't know is Caine became attached to Pomni. Right when everyone was about to leave, Caine then trapped them in Dreamland, not letting them leave. Caine then erased everyone's memories and inserted new ones which.... Made the workers panic. After that incident the workers have been trying for days, weeks, even MONTHS to get them out of the game but they couldn't leave and they're still asleep.

Stuffffff

GUARDIANS LINEUP

GUARDIANS POWERS/WEAPONS

REALMS

DREAMLAND CAINE, BUBBLE, AND JEFFREY

MEMORY CRYSTAL

DL JAX AND RAGATHA POSTER

DL GANGLE AND POMNI POSTER

DL ZOOBLE POSTER

Parents of the Guardians & also siblings

Jax's moms

Gangle's parents

Pomni's mom

Gangle's sisters and mom

Baby gangle! + her family :)

Boundaries

"Can we make NSFW/suggestive stuff?"

Idk why you would do this but sure, and label it correctly! Be responsible when posting stuff like this But do not tag me if it's HEAVY NSFW/suggestive. You can mention my username but don't tag me, I don't wanna see those kinds of stuff.

"Can we make ocs?"

Absolutely! I would love to see your ocs! Tag me if you do!

"Can we make ships?"

Absolutely! You can ship ANYONE. You can even do oc x canon or selfships! But no illegal stuff.

Asks

Are there any ships in this AU?

is Caine in this AU?

Pomni making spaceville residents laugh

What are everyone's personalities in this AU?

Do the guardians use any weapons?

Is Lily's design inspired by Flowey?

Kirby's Dreamland + explanation

Will there be gore?

Why does gangle hate her siblings? Why does jax have 2 moms? What roles do the parents play? Does anyone else have siblings? What are the guardians mission?how does pomni find out that Dreamland isn't real?

Doodles and Sketches

DL Jax

DL Jax, Gangle, Zooble concept art

Don't forget to bring a watch

Lily is dramatic

King Kaufmo sketch

DL Jax and CO jax

"What's bunnydoll?" -Ragatha

Doodles and DL Caine Sketch

"Jax, what happened to you?" -Pomni

Zooble and Gangle hate Jax

Dreamland Showtime!

How lily learned to swear

"What the fuck is that thing" -Bubble

"No, I'm not gonna fuck you" -Caine

Dreamland jesterdoll!

DL Caine, bubble, zooble and gangle

Mad Pomni

"Your brain tastes like ass" -DL Pomni with her friend ML Pomni + a doodle of DL Pomni holding her brain

DL Gangle doodle

FAN STUFF

TADC DREAMLAND AU OCS

TADC DREAMLAND AU FANART

Random stuff:

POMNI IS NOT LOOKING AT ANYTHING.

Fun fact abt DL Bubble!

Dreamland pomni and Dreamland pomni

Fun fact abt King Kaufmo

Caine is uhhhhh (suggestive?)

This AU is still a WIP! So.... Be patient pookie!

The Amazing Digital dreamland is an AU I made for funsies!

Also special thanks to @alternatemalternate for helping me make this AU

#tadc dreamland au #the amazing digital dreamland #tadc au #the amazing digital circus #tadc #masterpost #au masterpost #au #alternate universe #pinned post

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krahk · 8 months ago

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Blood for Ruin

(Or, Alastor and That One Time He Got Drunk and Forgot He Tried To Make a Black Magic Agreement With a Radio Only For It to Come Back to Him in the Worst Way)

Masterlist

Pairings: Alastor x Reader (She/Her/OFC) as reluctant semi-soulmates via non-consensual deal (on both ends). No use of Y/N.

I understand he is aroace, but I couldn’t stop thinking about this idea so here it is.

Eventual smutty smut happening, but be kind dear god am I rusty.

_________________________________________

Exhausted was simply not what you were - you were so past that, your brain so fried out that you didn’t even know what word you were.

Because if you were seeing smiling figure-like shadows on the walls with long dark tendrils wrapping around your surroundings, and radio static from nowhere, then yea. You were fried.

But hey, it had been a crazy long weekend. You’d just spent the last 4 days cleaning up your hoarder of a great aunts shack in the Bon Temps bayou with the other scattered remainder of her family, rooting through about 4 unidentifiable rooms with confirmed animal carcasses and straight up trash-garbage piled to the ceilings. But since your mother died, any family connection at this point was appreciated, right?

‘Couldn’t be more wrong, but it’s too late now’, you think. It was way too late to back out now, you had something to prove. Your Great Aunt’s remaining son had called you ‘slicker’ because you lived in a town with more than one lighted intersection for Christ's sake. And because you used ‘whom’ in a sentence, that opened up an entirely new thrush of nicknames from your distant cousins. You wouldn’t be beaten down, you guys were almost all done with the cleanup anyway, the only remaining items being that of actual use or salvageable material. A couple family members had taken a few items home already, and since you weren’t particularly close with these relatives you weren’t about to ask for anything until-

Well until the little radio was brought out.

For some reason, the craftsmanship of this radio caught your eye. It was a beautiful dark wood, with intricate swirls carved around the speakers - the entire thing was shaped like a miniature church cathedral window. It was clearly vintage, basically a historical piece, you thought - and you did ask quietly if you could keep it. Your uncle fiddled with it to make it work but it needed some attention. It looked virtually untouched otherwise. It was a gorgeous piece, and it looked like it was a new acquisition to the deceased woman’s collection - there wasn’t a spec of dust visible on it. Your uncle figured it wouldn’t be able to pick up football (and also “why would I listen to football when I can WATCH it?”) he let you take it with you.

So you brought it back to your temporary home, the little motel at the outskirts of town (the only motel even close to the town) and set it on the little desk. And there it sat for 2 days before you finally dove in, trying to figure out what was going on with it. You had deduced it was likely the wiring, and after watching 5 or 6 videos on wiring repair on YouTube (good old YouTube) you were fairly confident a simple repair would take no time at all.

But things made in the 20s were a lot sharper, and more metal based, compared to the newer plastic models of recent years. So when you undid the back panel and attempted to unscrew a fastener around the side of the main component, you had successfully sliced your palm open on an errant piece of metal. And holy crow did it hurt AND gush blood immediately. Even though you had whipped your hand close to your chest almost as soon as you realised what had happened it was too late, there was a fair amount of blood that got on the inside of the machine.

Uttering curses, you’d rushed to the bathroom to grab a couple threadbare cloths and sop up some of the larger drops on the desk. Moving around the radio to the light, you had a clearer idea of where your blood landed. Palming one cloth in your wounded hand, your other one attempted to clean up the mess within the radio. Which is where you noticed the funny little symbols written on the inside of the back panel of the radio, which had lain facedown on the desk as soon as you had removed it. These little symbols looked like runes of some sort, unidentifiable to you. They almost looked like they were written out of blood themselves. It was clearly dried now, but the jagged nature of the strokes and brownish un-ink like material that was used to leave the symbols certainly looked like dried blood might look like on old wood.

You wiped your blood off the radio, and ran the cloth right over one of the runes, making it glow briefly with a green light. Maybe.

Well, that was what you thought you saw. But it was so brief you would have missed it with a well timed blink. The sun was setting, light streaming through the window in hazy little streaks, maybe you saw some prismatic effect? Or maybe, maybe you needed a shower and bed. Clearly if you sliced your hand open on a little radio you were tired. Sloppy coordination indeed. You reattached the back panel to the radio and decided to ignore it until you were in a better headspace.

Radio abandoned, you went and started to clean yourself up and get ready for sleep. But when the lights in the bathroom started to flicker, only to stay on slightly duller than before, paired with a strange static that scratched the inside of your eardrums, you decided to end your shower quicker than ever. Exiting the bathroom, you were chilled to realise that the main room had the same ambient experience waiting for you. And if you focused on the moving shadows from what you hoped were passing cars (electric, judging by the lack of engine noise) there was a solid larger mass lingering on the wall with the dresser and broken TV. One that looked like it had a smile, and glowing red eyes (from a car's tail lights, duh!). Yes, yes. Tired. SO tired.

Calling the front did not help, since the static was so loud when you lifted up the receiver you slammed it back down. Your own cell phone was still charging on the side table, flashing the little dead battery symbol to let you know you needed to be more responsible with your charging habits in the future. It could be another 15 minutes before it was ready to turn on.

So, obviously tired, it was time to attempt to sleep. Hopefully. If you were lucky. It wasn’t enough that the bayou was creepy all on its own, the evening took a sharp turn into scary-town after you started messing with the little radio.

Pyjama-clad and ready to sleep you decided that the hallucinations were exactly what you thought they were - hallucinations and nothing more. Nothing spooky, or supernatural, or dangerous.

But you had been wrong before.

It was the initial crashing sound of the motel room door hitting the wall that woke you up first, screaming male voices really kicking your brain into high alert as you scrambled out of bed. Ending up in the corner facing the opposite corner where the door was, you took in what was happening. 2 men, yelling at you for whatever you had - but you were screaming louder than they were, scrambling for anything in your grasp - just that stupid, fucking radio - but judging by the hot impact of a projectile hitting your chest they were not thrilled you weren’t immediately cooperating. Hand clenching around the radio’s cord you hit the corner and slumped down to the floor, lungs burning and immense pain taking over your consciousness. As your mind faded, you could hear the two men bickering, freaking out over the turn their burglary took. Oh, you being shot was an accident? Stellar. Your vision became hazy, it even looked like shadows were overtaking the men as their arguing turned into painful screaming. Whoever came to your aid was simply too late, though you could appreciate the gesture as you died.

You always thought that you would end up looking down at your dying body when the time came, but from the forceful pull downwards your soul felt, it was clear the afterlife had different plans for you.

Now you weren’t really sure what the hell, like actual, literal, hell, was going on. The impact you felt from your sharp tug into the afterlife, landing on a very detailed rug at what looked like the lobby of a hotel was one thing. The tiny radio following your fall shortly after, merely denting a corner of the wood with a loud thunk was another, cord still clenched in your hand. Oh good!

Dazed, you were immediately hoisted up and hugged - yes hugged - by probably the tallest women you had ever met, and the fastest talking one as well. Rambling about “welcome”, “hell rehab”, something or other about redemption - honestly the look of relief you gave the shorter woman who approached and reined in the other made her smirk as she introduced them in a much clearer manner.

Vaggie and Charlie. Vaggie was a resident of the hotel with her girlfriend, the owner and operator of this ‘Hazbin Hotel’, Charlie, both working at redeeming the souls of sinners and getting them into heaven. There were 2 residents, Angel & Sir Pentious, who were not present, a Janitor Nifty (currently wiping your landing spot with a cloth) the bartender, an angry bird-cat man Husk, and the host (also missing) Alastor. Your open mouthed confusion clearly made Charlie snap into attention (finally) because she finally morphed into a being that was capable of conversation.

“So, new to hell?” She inquired.

Well. Duh. “Um yes. I think I was just shot? Am I actually dead?” You asked, hopeful this was a very vivid nightmare.

“As a doornail!” She exclaimed, chipper with positive energy, “Not that doornails are dead, they don’t have souls like you or Angel but really-”

“Yes. You’re dead. And a sinner, which is why you’re here.” Vaggie cut in, patting Charlie on the back. Charlie smiled brightly and nodded at you.

“Yes, and here you can redeem yourself and hopefully make it to heaven! I have faith in our program.”

Oh god this was too much. The sound of a door opening and closing was faintly heard in the background, but that didn’t stop you from being a speedy spiral into mania.

“So. One, I’m dead. Two, why am I in hell I am pretty sure I was a decent human? I didn’t go to church, sure, but I had very little control over my working schedule. Three, is it supposed to be so freaking loud down here? I’m-“

Intense breathing interrupted - yes, breathing. It was the janitor, her one eye staring at you while she lifted the little radio. ”This is diiiirty” she semi-sang. A horrific giggle was lingering under her breath. You grimaced at her behaviour and dropped the cord immediately, avoiding any contact by proxy with this creature. What a creepy little -

“Did that come with you?” Charlie asked, looking confused as you answered with a nod. “Strange, usually possessions don’t follow a soul into the afterlife…” She trailed off, finger tapping her chin with a frown. Everyone turned to look at the manic janitor essentially vibrating with the radio in her hands.

“Interesting! What has inspired us all to gather this fine evening?”

”Alastor!” Charlie greeted an individual behind you. ”This might be our newest resident…she’s just arrived!” Her hands wildly gestured from you to whoever was behind you. You could see the shadow of the person on the floor, stretching into a long figure that looked vaguely familiar. You were certain your eyes were burning a hole into the carpet beneath the shadow. If the shadow was this frightening what exactly was behind you? The shadow appeared to smile wider as you stared at it.

“Hmm!” Alastor, you supposed, responded. “What an exciting new development why - Oh!” Something had caught his attention. He walked towards the janitor, and you glanced at the back of his figure as he walked past you towards the tiny creature. He was tall, very tall, and slender. There was an ominous presence around him, even the nature of his clothing was fashioned in a way that seemed off. It was unnerving. Broad shoulders tapered into a very slim waistline, his jacket flared out behind him in a style reminiscent of a different time. Head to toe red and black, which was also just…something else. But the other patrons also had an interesting approach to their wardrobes as well, save the 2 women. Maybe that was just…how it was here.

“Now where did you find this delightful little item, Nifty?” He said, his profile coming slightly into your view. Dear god, terrifying. You couldn’t even begin to describe his appearance. Chills ran down your back, and suddenly you remembered you were still in very thin pajamas.

“Eh-hehe a dirty radio sir!” She answered, thrilled with herself. “it came with our new guessst” her eye switching from the tallest, creepiest creature you had ever set your eyes upon to your gaze. You swear you could hear the bones crack in the man's neck as he fired his gaze to yours. You were trapped.

“Is that so?” He began to slowly walk towards you, the room filling with a static hum similar to what you felt in the motel room, your skin tingling as he got closer. It was getting harder to hear the others try and talk to the approaching figure, the hum was getting louder.

“And what,” he started, “are you doing with my Radio, my dear?” His eyes were radio dials at this point, sharp jagged teeth glowing alongside them as his head tilted in an inhuman manner, the cracking from before louder than before.

What? Oh for fucks sake. Fuck your backwater, bayou-residing, rude, nasty, hoarder family-

As your eyes rolled back into your head, your body went limp and you hit the foyer carpet. Hard. For the second time that night

Part One : Part Two : Part Three : Part Four

#Hazbin hotel #Alastor x reader #Alastor smut #Hazbin #alastorxreader #Alastor x off #Alastor x you #angel dust is the best supporting character #eventual smut #Alastor

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mysterious-moonstruck-musings · 4 months ago

Text

Closed Position: Week 5 (Rumba Part 2)

Closed Position Masterlist ||| Main Masterlist Dieter Bravo x OFC (Katarina)

Series Summary: Dieter Bravo, now sober, was looking to change his bad boy image after hitting rock bottom. His team hoped that having him join the nationally televised family friendly dance competition, Dancing with the Stars, would be a good first step, if they can keep him out of trouble.

Katarina Stamos expected her last season as a professional dancer on the show to go the same as it had for the past thirteen seasons. That all changed when she was partnered with the infamous Dieter Bravo.

Dieter and Katarina are reluctantly thrown into their partnership and must learn to work together to succeed in the competition. In the process they form a deeper connection beyond the dance floor that neither anticipated.

Chapter Word Count: 12.2k

👉 Warnings: Themes dealing with intimate partner violence (not by or toward Dieter), past alcohol abuse, and past drug abuse. There will be fluff, tears, spicy language, and smut. This will be a slow burn. Read at your own risk. Dieter Bravo comes with his own warnings.

Chapter Quote: "Careful, it’s pokey. I’d wager it has some serious penetration power."

Kat’s POV Our first full day in New York together had been an interesting one. Sharing a suite with Dieter was not on my Bingo card for the week, but it really hadn’t been that bad thus far. It was definitely creating a new dynamic between us, pushing us into new situations that I hadn’t expected. A sort of domesticity that would surely make the feelings that I was having toward him even stronger. Knowing that would be the case had only managed to make me antsy and wired. I had already caught myself shamelessly flirting with him within the first five minutes of entering the suite, because of a reflective ceiling of all things.

Even though I was absolutely exhausted from the overnight traveling, I couldn’t fall asleep once we got situated in our rooms. After getting rid of the rolling bar cart in the suite, I tried for some time to doze off. I eventually gave up, deciding to get ready for the day then go on the hunt for breakfast. I managed to find a small cafe down the street and stocked up on different options since I wasn’t sure what Dieter preferred for his first meal of the day other than ridiculously strong coffee. Afterwords, I carefully made my way back to the hotel, trying my best not to spill any of the coffee along the way.

I was unpacking the food when Dieter came strolling out of his room in a black short-sleeve v-neck, dark wash jeans, and black boots. The shirt was a heavier fabric that seemed to emphasize the dips and curves of his chest and shoulders in the most distracting way. His curls were styled into his usual artful mess that my fingers were twitching to tug on. He came to stand next to me, arching a brow as he met my gaze. Busted. He definitely caught me checking him out. Oh well, no sense in hiding it. “That shirt fits you well,” I finally managed to sputter out.

Dieter pulled me into his side, making some ridiculous joke about fine art needing to be appreciated. I laughed it off before my thoughts were taken down another path, but that was nearly impossible because he smelled amazing. He was wearing cologne, which was new. The way it mixed with his own natural scent had me wanting to rip his clothes off. Something about it had flipped a switch in my brain and it was hard to ignore. When I reached to grab my coffee, I happened to notice the way the muscles in his shoulders flexed as he shrugged. It nearly sent me over the edge. I had to get away from him, so I moved to the opposite side of the dining table to sit and eat.

As it got closer to time for us to leave, I could tell he seemed slightly off. He was amped up and fidgety, appearing to be anxious. It only got worse as we slid into the back of the SUV. I finally plucked up the courage to ask him what was going on. The fact that he felt comfortable enough to share how he was feeling meant the world to me. Alec was never that open with me when something was bothering him, and I always hated that. Dieter’s confession of how nervous he was, somehow made me feel closer to him, and I wanted nothing more than to calm him. I knew SNL was a big deal and wanted him to be able to enjoy it.

I didn’t have much to offer him other than comfort, but it seemed to do the trick. As I took his hand in mine and began to gently stroke his palm, the tension seemed to melt from his posture. However, the tension returned once we were seated in the Studio 8H conference room. I picked up on the vibes when we entered. Several of the cast members did not appear to be excited that he was there. I could tell they were judging him before even giving him another chance. The longer he chatted with Liz, the director, I could feel a shift happening - from hostility to curiosity.

It was obvious when Dieter’s nerves shot into overdrive because his leg started to bounce incessantly under the table. I reacted as I did on the ride over, trying to provide him with some comfort by squeezing his knee. His hand found mine, squeezing it briefly in return before allowing me to lightly rub his palm again. It seemed to work just as well to calm him this time around.

My focus was drawn from Dieter when Liz asked me to do the monologue with him. I was nervous about it since it would be live. The Dirty Dancing skit seemed less risky, and I was more open to it. In the end, I knew both would probably be funnier if I were involved and I could tell he really wanted me to do it with him. It was near impossible to tell his pleading brown eyes, “no” as I sat considering it.

I couldn’t help taking the opportunity to tease him after I read his monologue. It was too perfect, and I really wanted to break the remaining tension in the room with the cast. Them seeing the banter between Dieter and I seemed to do the trick, showing his fun side. I had a feeling they hadn’t really got to see that side of him before.

The events that followed the script review admittedly shook me a little. Part of me was shocked at how brazen that Dave guy had been toward Dieter. There was something about him that was slightly unsettling, and it really made me wonder what Dieter’s world had been like before he was sober. I had heard stories, but I couldn’t wrap my head around that kind of party lifestyle. I tried not to dwell on it. It wasn’t like Dieter had kept that part of himself hidden. I knew about it, but experiencing a small dose of what it must have been like for him was a whole other thing. It seemed to shake him some. I could tell from the panicked look in his eyes and the way he tensed but I felt like he handled it as well as he could have.

I realized then what he was up against, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for him. This wasn’t something he could easily cut out of his life due to the nature of his profession. There were also some people that would be hard to avoid. It made me have just a little bit more respect for how much effort he was putting in to improving himself and staying sober.

Being involved in the photoshoot was unexpected but ended up being kind of fun. We hadn’t got to do any shoots together since becoming more comfortable with each other or without the worry of Alec lurking around. We were relaxed and had a good time with it, not hesitating to shift into the more intimate poses that the photographer asked for. I was curious to see what the final result would look like - if our chemistry would show in the still images as much as it did on the dance floor.

As usual, Dieter looked amazing in the clothes they had dressed him in for the photoshoot. There was something about him in a white dress shirt that made me feel a little feral. As we shifted into the more hands-on poses, I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust when my hands caressed his chest. It didn’t help matters when his hand found its way to my bare thigh. It was entirely too close to my aching center and left me pondering what it would feel like if he let it wander just a little higher.

His hair looked extra touchable the way they had styled it. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to stick my fingers in and tug it a little…for the sake of the photoshoot, of course. Dieter didn’t seem to mind it either. In fact, I got the feeling that he may have even liked it. The little groan he let out went straight to my core. It took a lot of effort not to clench my thighs around his broad shoulders as he sat between them.

By the time our ride back to the hotel arrived, I was running on low. The last two days had been ridiculously long, and we still needed to rehearse when we got back. I was near dozing off during the ride when Dieter’s phone rang. I assumed it was his assistant based on their topics of discussion.

It was hard not to listen to their conversation. Dieter was 100% in “dad” mode, and it tickled me to no end to hear him grilling his assistant about his cat and plants. I loved this side of him. I wasn’t sure how many people really got to see the caring and nurturing part, but I knew it probably wasn’t many. It caused butterflies in my stomach to know that I was one of the few he shared that with.

I wasn’t sure if Dieter was aware, but I could hear every word his assistant said on the other end of the phone. It definitely got my attention when he told Dieter to, “go spend time with your hot dance partner.” I couldn’t help wondering why he would say that. Was it in response to something Dieter had said previously? In my periphery I could tell that Dieter shot a nervous glance in my direction at the comment. I would have to pack that away to think about later.

Things took a turn when we began to rehearse that evening. There was definitely flirting on my part. I’m not sure that I even tried to behave myself, letting the innuendos spill out of my mouth without a second thought. Dieter certainly didn’t help with that by throwing equally salacious comments right back at me with ease. I knew he liked to make jokes, so it was hard to tell how much of it was him trying to be funny and how much of it was indeed flirting. It was sort of maddening, but also stoked the flame that was steadily growing inside of me. This was quickly becoming unsustainable.

A brief moment of silence stretched between us after that. We just sort of stood there, taking each other in. The look in his eyes made my skin feel electric, only increasing my craving for him. I would have given anything to be able to read his mind at that moment. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt like so much was going unsaid between us. I hated it. Trying to keep my feelings hidden from him was becoming a monumental task.

As I got ready for bed that evening, I considered how he might react if I told him how I was feeling. Was I even sure? It was all so confusing, and I felt ridiculous for it. I was fresh out of a six-year unhealthy relationship, and I was already daydreaming about jumping into another one. Dieter was different though. I knew he was nothing like Alec, but there were so many reasons that getting together with him would be a bad idea. It would be better to at least wait until the show was over before approaching the topic. I wasn’t sure if that would be possible because it felt like things were shifting between us in a way that I couldn’t identify or explain. Our time together this week was only intensifying things.

As I settled into my pillow, I found myself questioning if Dieter was still awake. Part of me was tempted to go to him and see how he would react if I crawled into his bed for a cuddle. Who was I kidding, that’s not what I wanted. Then my mind shifted to wondering what he slept in. Knowing him, probably nothing or at minimum his underwear. I had certainly seen him in those enough to have an accurate visual. I sighed. Ugh, just stop, Kat. Don’t even go there. Not the time or the place. Somehow, I managed to push those thoughts aside and eventually fell asleep.

On Wednesday, I was scheduled for the morning show circuit, which meant I had to get up rather early to get ready. Dieter had his SNL duties, so I was on my own for this one. I had just made myself a cup of coffee and wandered back into my room to start working on my hair when Dieter came shuffling in with a groan and leaned against the doorframe.

I narrowed my eyes on him in the mirror as I parted my hair into sections to straighten it, “What are you groaning about?”

He shrugged, “You sure you don’t want me to do the shows with you? They don’t need me there the entire morning…I could probably swing at least a couple of them or rearrange the schedule a bit to fit them all in.”

I shook my head, “No really, it’s fine. I would much rather you prepare for SNL. It’s more important than this shit.”

He sighed, then made a pouty face at me in the mirror, “Yeah, but we have more fun when we’re together.”

I set the hair straightener down, turning to look at him, “Dieter, are you still nervous about being around the rest of the cast?”

He gave me a tight smile, “Umm, maybe a smidge...but we ARE more fun together…at least we HAVE more fun together.”

I rolled my eyes at him and went back to my hair as he fiddled with his phone. I snorted and shook my head, “I can’t believe Dieter Bravo is in my room being whiny and needy right now.”

He chuckled, “Trust me, that’s nothing new. I’m very whiny and needy most days.”

I arched a brow in his direction, “Yes, I know your whiny. That’s been obvious from day one.”

He scoffed, then plopped down on my bed and sprawled out, “I would say that’s rude, but you're probably not wrong. What time will you be done?”

I shrugged, “I dunno, I say I’ll be back here around ten, maybe? I’ll probably come back and work through our routine some more. When will you be done?”

He scrolled through his phone, “Ummm, looking like noonish. Wanna go grab a late lunch when I get back?”

I nodded, “Sure. You know I’m not one to turn food down.”

He laughed, then popped upright, “You still have some wavy parts on the back of your head. Want me to get that for you?”

My brows furrowed, “You wanna straighten my hair for me?”

He shrugged, “Sure. It’s not rocket science and you look like you’re struggling. You keep missing that spot.”

It was my turn to scoff as he walked over and took the straightener and brush out of my hands, getting to work almost immediately. I watched as he methodically divided the back of it into even smaller sections and worked out the wavy bits. The intense look of concentration on his face was nothing short of fucking hot. The feel of his fingers running through my hair had my heart nearly hammering out of my chest and my mouth turning dry.

I cleared my throat, “So is this something you do often?” I asked with humor in my voice.

“Nope.” He popped the “p” sound with his lips before glancing at me in the mirror with a smile. “First time ever. I’ve seen it done enough sitting in the hair and makeup chair though. Just don’t ask me to do anything else or you might end up bald.”

I snorted, still not believing this was happening. In all the years that I had been with Alec, I couldn’t remember a single time where he had even brushed my hair, let alone offered to help me fix it. It was a strangely intimate gesture that suddenly had me wanting more from Dieter. It took everything in me not to jump him right then and there.

I sat watching his facial expressions as he fussed with the section I always had issues with. I could tell he was getting flustered by the way his brows knitted together. After a few more swipes with the straightener, he stepped back, tilting his head slightly and pursing his lips before giving a single nod, seeming satisfied with his efforts. Once he was finished, he leaned down over my shoulder to set the straightener down on the vanity. His scent completely invaded my senses and did little to help the ache that was growing between my thighs.

Dieter ran the brush through my hair, eventually pausing to gather it all at the nape. His fingers lightly grazed the sides of my neck as he did so. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of his gentle touch as it made me tingle all over.

“Mmmm, that feels good. You should probably stop before I start expecting this every morning.”

His left hand settled on my shoulder, his thumb gently rubbing small circles behind my ear as he continued brushing with his right hand. When I finally opened my eyes and met his intense stare in the mirror, I felt my entire center clench as a weird sensation shot through my body, causing me to feel somewhat euphoric. I was suddenly hot and very wet. What the fuck is wrong with me? There was a low buzzing noise in my ears, and I felt a little dizzy, almost like all the blood had rushed to my head.

Dieter’s chuckle pulled me from the weird trance I had settled into, “You good, Kit Kat?”

He stood there with that damn smirk on his lips, waiting for me to say something all the while my brain had completely turned to mush. I inhaled deeply, attempting to pull myself together. Did he know what kind of effect he was having on me right now? Is he doing that shit on purpose? Surely not.

I finally nodded, clearing my throat. “Yeah, it just feels good when someone else brushes my hair. Makes me a little…sleepy.” Turned on, actually.

He arched a brow, “Doesn’t seem to do that when you’re getting glammed up for the show.”

Fuck. He’s got me there. I shrugged, “Well, they aren’t exactly gentle about it…”

He snickered as he sat the brush down. His fingers continued to run through the back of my hair as he spoke, “Riiight…well, I need to go shower.” His hand moved to settle just under my chin, his fingertips gently grazed a path up behind my ear. “If I don’t see ya before you leave, I’ll see ya after I get back. Good luck with your talk show stuff.”

Then the fucker seriously winked at me before he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. I sat dumbfounded and completely confused by what had just transpired. Get it together Kat. It’s a bad idea. I shook my head and took a deep breath, trying to focus on the task at hand. I needed to finish getting ready or I was going to be late.

The morning went by in a blur. There were three live morning shows that I had to rush between, and I also pre-recorded segments for two evening shows. Luckily the studios were close together or else it wouldn’t have been possible. Stacia and Joe were definitely putting me to work this time around. Thankfully, these appearances would take care of my obligations for the rest of the season. At least, I hoped it would. I never knew what Stacia and Joe would pull for the sake of ratings. Especially if Dieter and I continued to be the fan favorites.

Once I was finished for the day and heading back to the hotel, I pulled out my phone. It had been on silent all morning so I hadn’t heard the Instagram alerts for Dieter’s new stories. The first one was an advertisement for SNL. It was one of the shots where I had my foot pressed to his head. Of course, he added a cheeky comment to it about my “big ass foot making an appearance” on the show too. I rolled my eyes, typing out a quick reply to the story, “I should have poked you in the eye with that spiked heel.” I chuckled to myself as I hit send.

Then I tapped over to the next story. He had taken a picture of me as I was getting ready this morning and shared it. You could see him in the mirror snapping the pic. It was obvious we were in a hotel room. Of course, the picture took me back to thoughts of his fingers caressing my neck and running through my hair. I had managed to put that out of my mind throughout the morning, but now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Fucking jerk. I replied to that story as well, calling him a creeper. I could only imagine what the Dieterina shippers were saying about that one.

(More after the pics. Click to enlarge to read text.)

As I opened my email app, a text came through from Dieter.

DIETER: You didn't seem to mind that I was creeping around earlier this morning…😏 You done for the day?

I could feel my face heating from his words. Maybe I’m reading into that too much. Surely he doesn’t mean it that way. I didn’t really know how to respond.

ME: I’m sure you're whipping the Dieterina Stans into a frenzy with that one…Joe and Stacia too. And yes, I am.

DIETER: You were perfect this morning. And you insist you can’t do live shows. Ha!

ME: You watched them? You’re supposed to be working. Also, talking about dancing and doing comedy are two different things.

DIETER: I was. I watched them on a break. I was bored. I told you, it’s more fun when we’re together…should’ve changed my schedule. And I’ll give you a win on that one. It is different.

DIETER: Gotta go. They’re calling us back in to read through the rewrites. I’ll see ya soon. 😉

I puffed air out of my cheeks. Why did this feel different? He seemed different. Not drastically, but he had a different vibe. More open maybe? Less filtered? I couldn’t really put it into words, but it definitely had my attention. Maybe he was just feeling more comfortable around me and able to be himself?

I was drawn from my thoughts when the car pulled up to the curb in front of the hotel. I needed to pull it together and focus. We still had a dance performance to prepare for and our rehearsal time was limited. I needed to get the rest of the choreography nailed down so we could focus on learning the routine during what little rehearsal time we had.

Several hours later, I was on the terrace quietly singing to myself and swaying along with my music playlist as I searched through YouTube videos to find some examples of lifts to show Dieter. I realized early on that it helped him to see the choreography before trying it, especially on the more complex moves and particularly the lifts. As the competition progressed, I found myself doing this more often as our routines increased in difficulty. It seemed to be a good method with him, so I tried to give examples as much as I could. He had been pretty good about doing his own homework and often shared things he wanted to try. He had already sent me a few videos during his downtime since I had gotten back to the hotel.

I was just finishing up the latest video selection as Dieter came strolling out onto the terrace with a smirk on his face.

I gave him a questioning look, “What are you smiling about?”

He shook his head, “I was just listening to you hum along to this song. I’d like to hear you really sing it. I bet you would sound amazing.”

I could feel my cheeks flush, “I dunno about that, but thanks.”

He walked over to stand in front of me, smiling mischievously as he pulled my phone away, not letting go of my hand as he set it down. When he turned back to me, he slid one arm around my waist, pulling me snuggly against his body and began moving to the music. I let him lead as he improvised, twirling me around before hugging me back against him. We stood in place, now swaying slowly as his chocolate eyes bore into mine before briefly dropping down to my lips as the tension reached a boiling point between us. His smirk returned as he moved to dip me backwards, slowly doing a half turn before pulling me upright against his chest and pressing his forehead to mine. Both of his hands were now on my hips, gripping firmly as he nuzzled my nose with his. My hands were resting against his chest where I could feel his heartbeat quicken under my palm. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted him and was damn near breaking when his phone rang in his back pocket. His brows pinched together as his eyes fluttered shut. He sighed and dropped his forehead back against mine.

“I’m sorry, I should probably get that,” he finally said, pulling away slowly. When he opened his eyes, they were dark and sultry as a small smile formed on his lips. He turned away, pulling his phone out and answering it.

What the fuck was that? I didn’t imagine that…right? My head was spinning as I let out the breath I had been holding. I felt confused and didn’t know what to do with this. He seemed more confident, sure of himself, lustful even. He didn’t hesitate, not that he still hesitated when it came to touching me, but this was something else entirely.

Dieter turned to face me with a concerned expression. His lips set into a tight line as his gaze met mine. I gave him a questioning look as he pulled the phone away from his ear.

“It’s Evan…my assistant. He was just over at your place…”

I cut him off, “Why was he…?”

Dieter rolled his eyes, “To water your plants, obviously.”

I chuckled. I wasn’t even surprised or mad about it, “I can’t believe you had him do that.”

Dieter shook his head, “That doesn’t matter, anyway…he said while he was taking care of the plants on the far side of the porch, a guy came to the door and was about to key in until he saw Evan standing there…”

My brow furrowed, “There shouldn’t be anyone keying in…”

Dieter’s shoulders fell, “Evan said he got pissy, wanted to know why he was there and who he was. From the description, it sounds like it was Alec.”

I shook my head, “I took the key away from him though. Is Evan sure he had a key?”

Dieter put the phone back to his ear to double check with Evan. His eyes never left mine. “Yes, he definitely stuck a key in the door,” he finally said.

I sighed and rubbed my face. Fucking asshole. Figures he would have an extra one.

Dieter watched me with a concerned look, “I can have Evan get the locks changed for you while we’re gone.”

I shook my head again, “No. I’ll do it when I get back. Thank him for me. I’m glad he was there to catch it.”

Dieter’s eyes narrowed, “Are you sure? It’s not a problem for him to do that for you.”

I considered it for a moment, “I’m sure. It’ll be fine. He was probably just trying to get his stuff.”

Dieter puffed air out of his cheeks and continued talking to Evan briefly before disconnecting the call. I could tell he wasn’t happy about my decision, but he didn’t push it. Instead, he walked over and pulled me into a tight hug. He mumbled against the top of my hair, “Will you at least let me make sure he’s not there when we get back? I don’t trust that asshole.”

I nodded against his chest, “If it makes you feel better. Yes, you can check.”

“Can I…”

I pulled away, giving him an admonishing look. I knew he was only trying to be helpful, but I was really trying my hardest not to cross that line with him. Even though I had been ready to throw everything out the window five minutes prior.

He chuckled, “Hear me out…ok? Can I at least have Evan schedule someone to be there to change them the day we get back? That way it’s taken care of, and I don’t have to worry about it.”

I sighed, “Ok. Fine. I’ll agree to that.”

He pulled me back into a tight embrace, mumbling a soft “thank you” against my hair. I had to admit, his concern was kind of hot. There was no question that he cared about my wellbeing, and I was appreciative of that. I also sort of loved his need to take care of me. I hadn’t had that in a long time, and it was definitely making me feel things.

He inhaled deeply, then pulled away, “Alright, let’s go get lunch. I’m starving.”

Whatever spell we had been under now seemed to be broken and the moment passed. I felt a weird mix of disappointment and relief.

A short time later, we set off walking down the sidewalk and found a small cafe just up the street. Neither of us brought up what happened before Evan called. That’s not to say that things didn’t feel different. Dieter seemed more smiley than usual, and his touches were definitely more frequent and lingering. I tried to dismiss it, telling myself that I was only being more hyper aware and that nothing had actually changed. I wasn’t even sure if I believed it, no matter how many times I said it to myself.

As we ate, Dieter filled me in on his morning, and I did the same. It sounded like my morning had been more exciting than his. He had mostly spent his time doing table reads and helping make edits to the scripts. He didn’t necessarily need to be there for all of that, but he felt being involved with that process had helped smooth things over with some of the staff and cast. Overall, he was feeling much better about things than he was on the first day. I briefly wondered if perhaps his elevated mood could be attributed to that.

On the way back from the cafe, Dieter spotted a boutique plant shop on the opposite side of the street. His eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store as he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the nearest crosswalk to go check it out. As we walked through the front entrance, he froze on the spot, his wide eyes taking in the small shop. If he had been a dog, I’m fairly certain he would have been salivating.

He leaned over toward me, speaking in a low raspy voice, “I have a two plant limit. Smack me if I pick up more than that.”

I snorted. I couldn’t help it. It was the most ridiculous and most adorable thing I think I had ever seen. I followed behind him as he jabbered about the different plants being misted on the shelves.

I couldn’t fight the urge to tease him, “I feel like we need a Steve Irwin voice over right now. A wild Dieter Bravo on the hunt for life sustaining herbs in his natural environment.”

He snickered, “Please act that one out for me. I need to hear it, with the accent.”

I shook my head, trying to stifle my laughter, “Not a chance, Bravo.”

(Pics for reference, just because...more below the cut.)

We made our way over to a shelf full of succulents and cacti. One little group in particular caught my attention. My brows knitted together as I took in the phallic looking plants.

I could hear Dieter snickering at my side, already assuming what I was about to say, “Is it just me, or do those look a little obscene?”

Dieter was fighting to hold back his laughter now, “It’s a penis cactus.”

I snorted, “Well, I was trying to be a little less blunt about it, but yes.”

He laughed harder pointing at the small tag on the shelf, “No, it’s literally called a penis cactus.”

I looked at the sign and finally lost it. We both stood in the aisle laughing like a couple of idiots over a plant that looked like a dick.

A lady approached us smiling, asking if we needed help finding anything. Dieter finally sobered up enough to ask, “Do you ship? I have a feeling I may want to have a few things shipped back home.”

She nodded. They chatted for a moment longer before she left us to continue browsing. Dieter was still eyeing the penis cactus.

I shook my head, “You’re not buying one of those. I refuse to let you.”

He scoffed, “If anybody is gonna have a penis cactus, it’s me… Don’t judge me.” He couldn’t keep a straight face through that sentence.

I rolled my eyes, “Why don’t you get a cute one.” I picked up a small pot and held it up to him. “Look at this one! It looks like little dolphins hanging off the stems.”

He shook his head, “I have one of those already. Blubber is very temperamental about his roots. I don’t need another moody bitch in my little plant kingdom.”

I snorted out a laugh, “Blubber? Plant kingdom? Really?” Without thinking, I reached up and ruffled his hair, causing his breath to hitch.

“You’re too damn adorable sometimes. I can’t handle it,” I added. His cheeks flushed as he reached to rub at the back of his neck. His actions only added to his adorableness.

In an attempt to avoid staring at his pouty bottom lip, I turned and set the dolphin succulent down and picked up another that looked like little bunnies on the ends of the stems and held it up. He pursed his lips, eyeing it suspiciously as he took it from me, “I don’t have one of these. It IS pretty damn cute…alright, one penis cactus and one bunny succulent.”

I had to ask, “And what are you gonna name them?”

A thoughtful look formed on his face as he considered his options. “Bob and Thumper,” he finally said matter of factly.

I arched a brow, fighting a smile, “Do I even want to know which is which?”

He chuckled, “I’ll leave that to you to figure out.”

I shook my head, watching as he began shuffling the penis cacti around on the shelf, “Gotta make sure I get a decent sized one. Can’t be having a puny dick plant.”

I heard a woman standing nearby scoff as she walked off. Dieter and I both giggled like a couple of immature teenagers over his comment and her reaction. He eventually turned and handed me a rather large penis shaped plant and started giggling again before the next sentence left his mouth, “Careful, it’s pokey. I’d wager it has some serious penetration power.”

I was shaking from laughter as I stood there cradling the pot with both hands. Dieter wasn’t fairing much better as he continued to shuffle plants around on the shelf, occasionally letting out a low chuckle over his comments.

Once he was satisfied with his choices, we finally moved on. Every time he looked over at me holding the penis plant, he snickered.

“How is it I’m the one that got stuck carrying a dick in a pot and you're carrying the cute one?”

He shrugged and gave me a cheesy grin that made his dimple pop. I huffed and continued down the aisle ahead of him, stopping to flip through a rack of plant themed T-shirts. I paused, having found the perfect one for him.

“Dieter, what size shirt do you wear?” I asked innocently.

He sidled up next to me, resting his hand at the nape of my neck briefly before running his fingers down the length of my hair, continuing his motions as he replied, “Extra-large, why?”

I could feel his intense gaze on my face as he waited for a response. I was momentarily frozen by his touch, losing any coherent thought I had as my eyes fluttered shut, enjoying the feeling of his casual affection. At that moment I realized how much I missed those small gestures. Alec only seemed to show any sort of attentiveness when he thought someone was looking, to keep up the appearance of a happy couple. As time went on, I hadn’t really wanted any sort of affection from him, but now, I craved it. I craved it from Dieter. I found the more he gave, the more I wanted, and it was driving me insane.

When I finally opened my eyes, he was still staring at me with the strangest expression. His eyes seemed darker, filled with longing and unspoken words. I peered up at him with narrowed eyes, determined not to stray across that invisible line. My attention turned back to flipping through a few more shirts, finding his size. With a smug grin, I held it up so he could see it, “I’m buying this for you and you're gonna wear it. It’s near perfect. The only thing missing is the silhouette of a dick cactus.”

He finally looked away from my face, his eyes squinting to focus on the shirt as he read it aloud, “I’m in my plant daddy era.”

He huffed out a laugh as he pulled me into his side, “I will one hundred percent wear that. I’ll wear it on SNL if I can get away with it.”

I pushed away from him, chuckling quietly. “You will not. Shut up.”

I draped the shirt over my arm, then we continued down the aisles, occasionally pointing things out to each other, but mostly silent now as we took things in. Dieter’s mood seemed to have shifted. When I glanced at him, he would give me a soft smile as his eyes roamed my face. There was something about the way that he was looking at me that made me feel like I was descending down the big drop of a roller coaster, causing my stomach to do flips. It was only made worse by his continued light touches to my lower back or the way he would lean into me as we stood looking at something. There’s no way I was imagining this. He was definitely being more affectionate toward me.

We eventually made our way to the checkout counter. It took Dieter several minutes to get his shipping sorted out, but once he did, we headed back to the hotel with a plan to get some rehearsal time in. As we approached the hotel entrance, we were accosted by paparazzi. They were pleasant at first, asking Dieter about SNL, but then their questions shifted to me. Initially, they were pretty nonchalant in asking me why I wasn’t wearing my engagement ring. When I didn’t respond, their tone shifted, becoming slightly more aggressive. I was able to ignore it until they asked a question that ignited a burning anger inside of me.

“Does Dieter have anything to do with you not wearing your ring?”

My feet abruptly stopped moving, seemingly of their own choosing. It took Dieter a second to realize I had paused before he finally turned on his heel, looking at me with a confused expression. I let out a heavy sigh, now seething over the insinuation as I turned toward the pap, “I wanna be clear, the reason that I’m no longer wearing my engagement ring has absolutely NOTHING to do with Dieter Bravo. He and I are just friends. If you wanna know the reason, maybe you should ask Alec.”

Anxiety was rolling off me in waves as I felt Dieter tug at my elbow, pulling me toward the hotel entrance. I relented and allowed him to lead me inside as he shielded me from the paps shouted questions. We were both silent until we got onto the elevator.

“What was that about?” he asked gently.

My hands ran down my face as the doors popped open to our floor. Sighing before finally answering him, “I just don’t want you to be associated with whatever shitstorm comes of this. You don’t need ‘homewrecker’ added to your resume of bad deeds. Especially when it has nothing to do with you.”

Dieter shrugged, “I’m pretty sure I’ve been called out for worse things, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

He stood beside me, scratching his patchy beard while I swiped into our suite. As we walked through the door, he asked, “Do you wanna talk about it? I can tell it’s been bothering you.”

I huffed out a laugh, “I wouldn’t say that, but it’s definitely got me reevaluating things.” About you.

I gave him a weak smile, hoping he couldn’t see through my words. “I will…talk about it soon. I’m just…still trying to wrap my head around everything.”

He nodded as he pulled me into a tight hug, cocooning me in his warmth and scent. I melted into him, all the tension leaving my body. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay there forever, basking in his light. He was making me feel things that I hadn’t felt in a long time - cared for, appreciated, and safe. All things I hadn’t really realized I was missing but now knew I wanted and I wanted them from him. Stop thinking like that, Kat. You can’t go there. Isighed, pulling away, “Let’s get to rehearsing. We probably need to film some too.”

He nodded, “Good point. I’ll go grab the equipment and set it up. We gonna do it on the terrace?”

I’d like to do it on the terrace…ugh, focus. I cleared my throat, “Yeah…yeah, that works.”

We spent several hours rehearsing, eventually getting rained on. It was a light rain, so we kept going. It definitely made things more interesting…and slippery. He nearly dropped me a couple of times during one of the lifts, but managed to catch me against his body before I made it to the ground. The close contact and the way he held me tightly against himself was definitely getting me worked up. It didn’t help that he looked sexy as hell with his wet hair hanging down over his smoldering eyes and his white shirt turning transparent across his broad chest as it was saturated with water.

I eventually hit my limit on self-torture late in the evening. We called it quits after we both began shivering from our wet clothes meeting the cool night air. I waited just outside the terrace door while Dieter ran to get towels, nearly busting his ass on the slick floor in the process, which caused us to burst into laughter. He returned a short time later, walking more gingerly across the living space, with several towels in hand. He held one open and wrapped it around me. Then he grabbed another and draped it over my head, gently squeezing it around my saturated hair before turning his attention to rubbing his hands up and down my arms to help calm the shivering. I leaned into his chest, dropping my head backward onto his shoulder, seeking his warmth. It was an involuntary response, not even thinking about what I was doing before I did it. He didn’t seem to mind as he pulled me tightly against his front and wrapped his arms around me, resting his cheek on the side of my forehead.

We stood in the doorway like that for a while, watching it rain and not saying a word. All the while my heart was beating out of my chest because of his proximity and the way he was making me feel. For a brief moment, I considered turning my head to press my lips to his but dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. I suddenly felt like we were crossing that invisible line and needed to put some space between us. I pulled away, giving him a shy smile.

“I think I’m gonna make use of that soaking tub then head to bed. I’m starting to feel a little achy…from the weather, I’m sure…I probably need to try and relax some.”

Dieter actually looked a little disappointed but nodded. “Do you need me to get you anything?”

I shook my head, “Na, I’m good. Thanks though. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I noticed his hand lingered on my side until I moved out of his reach. I could feel his eyes on me until I closed the bedroom door behind me.

(More after the pics. Click to enlarge to read text.)

As I got settled into the tub, my phone dinged. It was from Dieter, sending me a short video clip of us dancing in the rain “for an insta post.” I gave him a thumbs up, before saving it to upload to Instagram. Once I finished with that task, I noticed I had a new notification. Dieter had tagged me in a post. He had apparently taken a picture of me at the plant boutique and shared it using the tags #ShePutsUpWithMeBecauseSheHasTo and #SheSecretlyLovesMeThough. I felt a rush at seeing those words. This was the second time he had said something like that, and it was causing butterflies to form in the pit of my stomach. I sighed, setting my phone down. I don’t know how much longer I can fight this.

I tried to clear my mind and focus on relaxing in the steaming hot water. It was hard, but I finally managed. Once the water began to cool, I got out, threw a t-shirt and shorts on and climbed into bed.

My dreams that night were about Dieter. Just when things were about to get interesting, I was jolted awake by my phone ringing. I looked over at the clock and groaned. It was 6AM. Who in the hell is calling this early…

The call went to voicemail before I could answer it. Then I realized I had several missed calls and text messages from my sister, Lydia. I felt panic rush through me as I unlocked my phone and opened my messenger app.

LYDIA: Kat, I just saw the pictures, call me. LYDIA: Are you ok? LYDIA: Did you know? LYDIA: I knew I didn’t like that guy, he’s such a fucking asshole. LYDIA: Why didn’t you tell me you two had split? I have so many questions. CALL ME!

I let out a whispered “What the fuck…,” confused as to what she was talking about. I opened Instagram and checked my tagged posts. There were pictures of Alec and Lana all over each other outside of an LA restaurant. The video taken outside the hotel the previous day of me saying they should ask Alec why I was no longer wearing my ring was also circulating. I sighed, “Well, guess the proverbial cat is out of the bag now.”

I did a quick google search which led me to a TMZ article about the whole thing. Apparently “insiders” were reporting that Alec was having an affair with Lana and there had been a confrontation after the last live show. Insiders. Right. I wonder who that is…

This was about to turn into a shitshow, and I was not looking forward to it. To make things worse, I knew Dieter would inevitably be pulled into the middle of it. I sighed, continuing to read through the rest of the article. And there it was, the “insiders” also shared that Dieter was playing the role of a supportive friend and helping me through this difficult time. They added that this latest development was sure to make the show a lot more interesting going forward.

I puffed air out of my cheeks in frustration, “Well it looks like Stacia and Joe are getting their fucking wish.”

Since our split was no longer a secret, I took a few minutes to go through and remove all of the pictures of Alec off my social media. No reason to keep that nonsense there now. Then I sent a quick text to my sister to let her know that I was fine and that I would call her later because I couldn’t talk right now. I didn’t have time to go over everything with her because I still had to get ready to go to the studio with Dieter so we could film the Dirty Dancing skit.

Once I was ready, I made my way out into the living room. Dieter was at the dining table, uneaten food sitting in front of him. His head jerked up from his phone as he gave me a sympathetic look. Fuck. He’s seen it too.

I moved to sit across the table from him as he slid a cup of coffee and a wrapped food item in my direction. I sighed, picking up the coffee and taking a long drink from it.

“You doing ok?” he finally asked.

I nodded, “Yeah, it wasn’t a surprise or anything. I already knew.”

He reached over, taking my free hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze, “You wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head, my eyes focused on the coffee cup in my hand as I responded, “Not right now. I’m not gonna let him ruin my day. I’ll tell you about it later.”

In my periphery, I could see him nodding with pursed lips. “Well, at least today should be kind of fun. Filming a skit together should be interesting.”

I chuckled quietly, “Yeah. Interesting is right. I’m about to make a fool of myself.”

He smiled, “Na, I’ve got you. There aren't a lot of speaking parts for you, and you shouldn’t have any issues with the dancing.”

I snorted, “Yeah, we’ll see.”

Interesting was indeed a good description. What they had settled on doing for the skit was basically a movie trailer parody. They handpicked several scenes and figured out how to make them as ridiculous as possible. The first scene that we shot was where Baby carried the watermelon to the party. Except this time, it was Dieter carrying two very small watermelons at crotch level as he approached me, turning it into an unintentional joke about having small balls as he attempted to flirt…badly. I was having the hardest time keeping a straight face through several of the takes. The both of us actually burst into laughter a couple of times, but we finally managed it.

The next scene we filmed involved me beckoning him onto the dance floor, attempting to show him how to do the ‘dirty dancing’ that everyone else around us was doing. The way he was flailing around initially had me in stitches. After giving him a quick ‘lesson’ he switched to humping the air as I shook my head and walked out of frame, still trying to hold in my laughter. He followed after me with his arms out, shouting, “Oh come on, that was good.”

We filmed several other scenes from the movie, including Dieter standing in front of me as I slid my hand down the underside of his raised arm and him giggling like a fool as I got frustrated, practicing footwork on a giant fake log and him falling off of it as I gave an exasperated look, and teaching him the final dance where he was doing the most absurd over the top exaggerated movements throughout. We also did the “Nobody puts Bravo in a corner scene” to which I absolutely lost it every time I said the line. I blamed Dieter and the ridiculous puppy dog thing he kept doing with his eyes as the line left my mouth. It took several tries, but we finally nailed it.

We also shot a scene practicing the lift, except I was the one lifting Dieter and dropping him multiple times. They had him rigged up on a wire system for that, but there were still several instances where he really fell on top of me as we went down. We laughed it off, but there was some serious sexual tension forming that I absolutely could not ignore. By this point, we were heavily flirting and couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Even when the cameras were not rolling.

We ended by filming the final dance scene. He was still making the moves look as comical as possible, intentionally of course. We did the lift again, nailing it for the final shot. I stood there pretending to hold him up, trying to hold my laughter while he posed with his arms out and had a cheesy ass grin on his face for the camera. As they lowered him, he wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me against his body, laughing into the top of my hair about the whole thing.

“This is going to be the most ridiculous thing ever,” he finally said. Then he kissed me on the forehead, “Thank you for doing this with me.”

I was stunned. It took me a minute to snap out of it and respond, “No problem. It has been kind of fun. I can’t wait to see the final product.” He pulled away as two guys came to unhook him from the rig. I scurried out of the way to stand in the corner to wait for him. While waiting, one of the cast extras came over and asked to speak with me. I smiled politely, not knowing what she could possibly want, then motioned for her to continue.

“I feel stupid for asking and it’s probably a long shot, but is Dieter dating anyone?”

That was not a question I was expecting. Several things went through my head. Was she serious? Was this a ruse to see if we had something going on? What were her intentions? On top of the questions, I actually felt a tinge of jealousy. It wasn’t like I had any right to feel that way. I could lie and say he was seeing someone, but that didn’t seem fair to him. Part of me sort of wanted to see how he would handle her asking him out.

I stalled, glancing over at Dieter, who was struggling to get out of his harness. “Uhhh, I don’t think so,” I finally managed to get out.

I turned my attention back to the girl. She was pretty. A young blonde thing that I’m sure any man would find attractive. I felt my insides twist at the thought of him being interested in her. Fuck. I’ve got it bad.

“So, you two aren’t…a thing?”

It took me a second to realize what she was asking, but then I shook my head. “Oh no, not at all. Just dance partners, nothing else.” I hoped she couldn’t hear the disappointment in my voice.

She visibly relaxed, “Whew. Ok, good. I didn’t wanna step on any toes. Do you think he would be weirded out if I gave him my number?”

At least she asked, I guess. I shrugged, my mouth hanging open for a moment. “I honestly don’t know. It’s Dieter…you never know what sort of reaction you’re gonna get from him.”

It wasn’t a lie, but I also hoped it would be a deterrent. It didn’t seem to be. As he moved to walk toward me, she intercepted him. I could tell the moment she brought it up because his eyes widened as he nervously glanced in my direction. He sort of shrugged, shaking his head from side to side. It looked like he said something about not having any free time before he heads back to LA, obviously trying to let her down easily.

After the girl walked away, he gave me a wide-eyed stare as he moved toward me a little faster than necessary. He huffed out a laugh, “Fucking hell. What is with this cast trying to get with me.”

I felt relieved, now smiling up at him, “So it was a no, huh?”

He scoffed, “You knew what was happening?”

I snickered, “Yeah, she asked if you were seeing anyone. I said I didn’t think so.”

He shook his head, “If anyone else asks you that, lie. Tell them I’m celibate or asexual. I don’t care what you say. Just shut it down.”

Laughter shook my body as he pulled me into his side. He chuckled, “You and Zee are the only women in my life right now. I don’t need or want any more.”

My laughter subsided as I peered up at him. I wasn’t sure how to take that. I knew he was joking, but I wanted it to be true. I wanted to be his.

He glanced down at me and smiled, “Hey, how about we head back to the hotel, get changed, and go out for a decent dinner tonight? There’s a fancy Greek restaurant nearby that I think you’d enjoy.”

I felt my heart flutter over the fact that he wanted to take me to a Greek restaurant of all places. He was always so thoughtful. He had also turned someone else down, only to ask me to dinner immediately after. Why did he do that?

I arched a brow at him, “So, you have time to take me out to dinner, but not the hot blonde?”

He shrugged, “We need to rehearse after…and she’s not really my type.”

My eyes narrowed, “You say that a lot. Do you even know what your type is?”

He thought for a moment, then gave me a mischievous smile as he leaned down next to my ear, whispering in a velvety smooth voice, “For starters, I prefer brunettes.”

I felt goosebumps prickling at my skin as my eyes widened. What the hell is he doing? Surely, I’m reading into all this too much because I want it to be true.

I side-eyed him, “Mmhmm, is that the problem?”

He turned to look at me intently, “Yeah, it’s kind of a deal breaker.”

I chuckled, “Alright. Noted. I’ll be sure to send the brunettes you’re way and tell everyone else you’re celibate and not dating.”

Dieter rolled his eyes, grabbing my hand to pull me into the hallway, moving toward the dressing rooms as he entwined his fingers with mine.

(More after the pics. Click to enlarge to read text)

We paused in the hallway for a minute so I could take a quick selfie of us. I was overdue for another ‘behind the scenes’ Instagram post. Dieter leaned in and surprised me with a kiss on the cheek just as I snapped the picture. I wasn’t expecting it, which meant I couldn't help the cheesy grin that spread across my face. It made me feel a rush of excitement that I had to work hard to contain.

Dieter leaned over my shoulder as I pulled up Instagram to get it posted. I took the opportunity to give a little tease about what we were up to by adding the hashtag #NobodyPutsBravoInTheCorner. Dieter gave me a nod of approval before I hit ‘post’. If this didn’t whip the Dieterina crowd into a frenzy, then I didn’t know what would.

After that, we quickly changed out of our costumes and headed back to the hotel to freshen up and get ready to go out for dinner. I had a nervous flutter in my stomach as I pulled on the little black dress I had brought. This almost felt like a date, except he hadn’t called it that. Why would he? We were just two friends hanging out during a work trip after all.

Once I was ready, I walked out into the living room. Dieter let out a low whistle from where he was sitting just outside the open terrace door. I could feel the blush creeping up my cheeks as his eyes looked me over from head to toe.

“Damn girl, you pulled out the revenge dress tonight.”

I laughed nervously, “Shut up. I did not.”

I walked outside, standing next to where he was sitting as I took in the dusky view of the city. When I turned back to face him, I caught him pointing his phone in my direction.

“What are you doing?” I asked as my eyes narrowed on him.

He snickered, “Taking a picture for Instagram. Fine art is meant to be appreciated after all.”

I rolled my eyes at him, “If you say so.”

He tapped away on his phone for a moment before standing and snaking his arm around my waist, “You ready to go? I can’t wait to show you off.”

My eyes snapped to his as I tried not to be distracted by the way he was pulling me against his body. A small smile tugged at my lips, “I wasn’t aware that I was yours to show off.”

He laughed nervously, “I mean…you are my dance partner. I think I’m allowed to be proud of that.”

I bumped my shoulder against his, “Mmhmm, I suppose so…Ya know, you don’t look so bad yourself.”

It wasn’t a lie. He was wearing some well fitted dark wash jeans, a black button up dress shirt, and a black blazer. His button allergy was flaring up of course, allowing a nice little peak at his chest. I spent more time staring at that patch of bare skin than I should have. I knew it would serve as a distraction all throughout dinner.

We left soon after that, walking to the restaurant that was just a couple of blocks over. Dieter had called ahead to reserve a table, so we didn’t have to wait long. As soon as we were seated, we knew we had eyes on us. There was a woman a few tables over trying to be sneaky about snapping pictures. We both sighed heavily once we realized it. We tried not to let it bother us, but it definitely had us on our best behavior for the most part. It didn’t stop Dieter from touching my knee under the table when he laughed about something or encouraged me to try some of his food. Each time, he would squeeze gently, sending shivers up my spine. I found myself wishing we were at a more private table, so we could really enjoy our time with each other. We still had fun though, and the food was as amazing as he said it would be.

We walked back to the hotel arm in arm, discussing our rehearsal plans for the evening. We figured we could get at least four or five hours in before we needed to go to bed. We wasted no time jumping into it, quickly changing then going out on the terrace to get started. By this point, we pretty much had the choreography figured out and just needed to work on polishing things up. Dieter seemed to be feeling more relaxed about the routine than he had earlier in the week, smiling and humming along to the music as we worked through the moves. His deep soulful voice was reverberating through every inch of my body, making it hard to focus on the steps, but I didn’t want him to stop.

After several minutes of the humming, my brows arched as I smiled at him. He smirked before spinning me around. “What are you smiling about?” he asked.

I shook my head, moving back into a closed position as we floated around the terrace to the music. “You don’t usually sing along. You must be feeling this song.”

He shrugged, “Ehh, it’s growing on me. The lyrics are…”

His words trailed off as his eyes met mine. There seemed to be a longing in his gaze as he gave me a soft smile, pulling me against him for the first small lift. Once my feet were firmly back on the ground, I prompted him, “The lyrics are what? You can’t leave me hanging like that.”

He chuckled, “I dunno…their bittersweet. Makes me wonder if a love like that actually exists.”

My breath hitched. I really wish I knew what he was thinking. I wasn’t sure how to respond to him. I opted for a bit of humor so as to not give myself away, “Well, if you happen to find it, please share the secret.”

He stared at me for a moment, the look in his eyes almost wistful. He seemed like he was about to say something else but didn’t, instead transitioning to the next move and going silent.

We went through the routine one more time after that, seeming to have it down for the most part. When we finished, I followed Dieter back inside, watching as he went to grab us a couple bottles of water from the mini fridge. I sat down on the sectional and stretched out along one side of it. He handed me a water as he walked by, then leaned down to lift my feet off the couch so he could sit down in front of the TV. I scoffed as he sat, watching him take a quick swig of water, trying not to laugh.

He finally looked at me with a sneaky smirk, then patted his lap for me to prop my feet up. I furrowed my brows. This felt like crossing the line. I hesitated. He scoffed and rolled his eyes. Then leaned down to grab my feet, lifting them into his lap as he pulled me closer, causing me to scoot down the sofa so that I was lying down. He put his arm across my ankles so that I couldn’t move, “Sit back and relax Kit Kat. You’ve been going all day. I don’t want you to overdo it”

I blew air out of my cheeks as I settled in and got comfortable. Dieter was flipping through the channels on the TV when my phone buzzed with a text from my sister. She wanted to check in and see how I was doing. I sighed. I knew she had good intentions, but I didn’t want to interrupt my time with Dieter to fill her in. I shot her a quick text to let her know I was ok and that I would give her a call once I got back to LA. As I laid my phone down on my stomach, I noticed Dieter giving me a questioning look.

I gave him a tight-lipped smile in return, “It’s my sister checking on me. She saw the pictures.”

He chewed on the inside of his cheek, now turning down the volume on the TV. Then he shifted to face me, propping his legs up along the edge of the couch next to my hip.

“You wanna talk about that now?” he asked gently.

“I mean, you don’t have to tell me what happened, but it may do you some good to talk to someone about it,” he added as he took my bare left foot in his hand and began to gently massage it with his thumbs. Damn, that feels good.

I sighed, “Yeah, I mean…it probably would. I haven’t told anyone what happened.”

I rubbed at the crease between my brows, dreading speaking it out loud. I really hoped I could keep it together.

“There’s not really much to it…last Thursday morning, Alec and I were supposed to go get breakfast before rehearsals. We hadn’t really spent much time together since the show started, so we were making an effort to do that. He had spent the night after coming in pretty late. I have no idea where he was, but I can assume…The next morning, as I was getting ready, he came in and said he had to switch rehearsal times with one of the other couples…straight up lied to my face to get out of going out with me. After he left…I called to check about his studio time and found out he hadn’t switched with anyone. So, I went to his apartment and walked in on him fucking Lana…without a condom I might add.”

Dieter gave me a sympathetic look, “So you lied about being stuck in traffic that morning.”

My face scrunched up as I inhaled deeply, “I did, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t wanna fall apart while we were filming. I just needed time…to process it. I was sort of in shock I think.”

He shrugged, “That’s understandable, but I knew something was wrong.”

“I know. I’m sorry that I worried you. I was just very much in my head and trying to figure out next steps. I hadn’t expected to end my day with a trip to the local clinic to get checked out because of my cheating fiancé. I was feeling a lot of emotions and didn’t really know how to express them yet...”

He grimaced as his thumb dug into the arch of my foot a little deeper, causing me to melt further into the sofa. I had to fight the urge to moan from the feeling. He really did give a good foot massage. God, is there anything he can’t do?

“Did the pictures upset you this morning?” he asked.

I shook my head, “Not really. I’m surprised they were so public with it this soon, but I’ve already seen worse than that. So, I didn’t really feel anything but annoyed by the shitstorm they’re about to unleash on us.”

“That’s probably a valid concern. Looks like Stacia and Joe are gonna get their drama.”

I gave a dismissive laugh, “Yeah, guess so…but even with that, I still feel sort of relieved. I made a mistake giving him another chance. I was already hating myself for making that decision…but at least it gave me a good reason to finally kick him to the curb. He couldn’t talk his way out of that one.”

Dieter’s thumbs moved to lightly rub small circles on the inside of my foot, just under the ankle bone. He was staring at me intensely now. Between the way he was touching me and the way he was looking at me, it caused my thighs to involuntarily clench together. I noticed his lips twitching, like he was fighting a smile. Fuck. Please tell me he didn’t notice that.

“That’s true. At least you can move on to bigger and better things now,” he finally said.

His voice seemed lower, causing the forming ache at my center to become almost unbearable. I could feel my breathing pick up as his eyes studied me. I squirmed under his gaze, my core now contracting around nothing. I felt the pressure of his thumb increase as it slid toward my Achilles tendon. That familiar sensation of a pending release started to build, my body involuntarily tensing as a result. My jaw fell slack as a tingling sensation started in my foot where he was rubbing and shot straight to my aching cunt. What the actual hell was that? Is he doing that on purpose? I pulled my foot away before I had a full-on orgasm from a fucking foot massage.

He smirked, “Something wrong?”

I sucked in a breath with wide eyes, shaking my head. “N-No. It’s just a little ticklish. Maybe avoid that spot.”

His teeth sunk into his bottom lip as he chuckled, “Noted.”

He switched to the other foot at that point, still glancing my way with that fucking smirk.

“You sure you’re OK? You look a little flushed,” he asked in a teasing tone.

I could have kicked him in his stupidly handsome face. I felt like he knew exactly what he was doing. Why would he do that on purpose though? Surely that wasn’t the case.

I pulled my feet from his lap and moved to sit up. I needed to put some space between us before I lost my damn mind and what little self-control I still had.

“Actually…I’m really tired, I think I’m just gonna head to bed. What time do we need to be at the studio tomorrow?”

Dieter’s lips turned downward, “Umm, eight I think.”

I nodded as I stood from the couch, “Alright… I’ll uhh… see you in the morning…Goodnight.”

I nearly tripped over the coffee table when I turned to walk toward my room. I didn’t even acknowledge my clumsiness, I just kept walking. I could hear Dieter snickering as I closed the door behind me.

It took me forever to fall asleep. I was so wound up I felt like I was about to snap. I was half tempted to try and relieve some of the tension but was worried I wouldn’t be able to stay quiet enough so that Dieter wouldn’t hear me on the other side of the door. As I laid there with my eyes closed, I silently cursed him for not going to his room.

Thank God this week of fucking torture is almost over. I can’t take much more.

Next: Week 5 (Part 3)

A/N: Y'all still with me? Are you ready to come at me with pitchforks yet? I told you, its a slow build. If you think the tension is bad now...It gets worse (if you can believe that). Don't worry, in the next part, things are going down (and so does Dieter...). 😏

Once again, there was so much that happened this chapter. The news about Kat/Alec/Lana has broke. The drama is upon them. We had a lot of cute (and hot) interactions with Dieter and Kat. Which one was your favorite?

How about that foot massage? Fun fact, some people can actually have an orgasm from a foot massage. It's a thing! You have a lot of nerve endings in your feet that connect to other parts of your body. Do you think Dieter is aware of this? How big of a menace do you think he being?

Do you think Dieter is laying it on too thick? Or is he meeting Kat in the middle? They are both definitely putting off some vibes.

Poor Dieter can't catch a break. Everyone wants a piece of him. Do you think people hitting on him will eventually have any impact on Kat?

What do we think Alec was up to? Something nefarious, or just wanting his stuff?

So, I know I said 3 parts for Rumba week. I lied. It will be 4, because... smut happened. I'm not sorry. 😂

Part 3 is nearly done. I plan to get it posted sometime next week. Haven't started part 4 yet, so no ETA on that one.

What do you think is going to happen in part 3? Who is going to break first? What's going to cause it? I can't wait to get this one out to you!

HERE is the sexy Rumba video for this chapter.

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