#dollface fanfic

[sassykattery]

Dollface, Pt 10

We are nearing the end... what will she choose?

CW: MC is afab, uses she/her pronouns. Smut: piv, multiple rounds and creampie, breeding kink (but no mention of offspring), size difference, f! receiving penetration. Passion/romance driven sex. Hair pulling. Explicit mentions of male and female genitalia.

The main character is afab, uses she/her pronouns. This story is meant to be somewhat curvy/plus-sized reader insert, but the main character is given a physical description, but it's not crucial to the story or mentioned often after Part 1.

Characters: Main Character. Diavolo. Mammon. Satan. Beel. Belphie. Levi. Asmo. Lucifer. Barbatos.

Themes: Romance. Magic. Adventure. Sex. Smut. Diavolo x fem! MC.

Minors and ageless blogs DNI

18+ only

Masterlist

Enjoy

Diavolo got up from the master's cabin on the plane. He remembered waking up briefly as his human lover came to bed late in the night, but his bed was empty when he woke. Curious, he looked around the rest of the cabin, still finding the rest of the brothers scattered around as they slept. It was only when he reached the far end of the plane that he found her sleeping on Lucifer's lap. He was surprised, to be sure, but he merely stood there for a moment, watching. There would be most certainly a conversation later about this, and he quietly snapped a picture on his D.D.D. to remember, and to refute any sense of denial.

"I have always wanted to go to Japan, I'm excited," she replied to Diavolo as he helped her down the steps off the plane. He nodded and smiled.

"Well, I'm happy to be the one to take you," he replied. He then leaned down and whispered into her ear. "I'd be happy to take you to all the places your heart desires. Anything you want is yours, my heart." She received a kiss on the temple as he stood straight and escorted her to the fleet of black cars waiting for them.

"Wait! Why don't we get to ride with her?" Mammon griped as he saw Diavolo helping the woman into the car. He noticed it was a much smaller one only meant for two. Diavolo merely smiled and Lucifer shot a glare towards his younger brother as he walked by to the next car in line.

"Stop whining," Lucifer snapped as he got in. Mammon groaned and stepped into the same one, with all the brothers getting into the other cars.

"Wow," the woman rasped as she craned her neck back, gazing upon the towering hotel across from her as Diavolo helped her out of their car.

"I love seeing your expressions..." Diavolo murmured. "You're truly an adorable being."

She turned her head to look up at Diavolo next. "You said this is yours?"

"Indeed. I own the Corvo Hotel franchise," he explained, walking her into the front lobby. The footman bowed to Diavolo and his partner as they walked in and proceeded to take their bags without a single word exchanged. Her brows raised, and she was quickly seeing the power Diavolo held at work. The Demon Lord continued to escort her into the hotel lobby, and she was stunned by the interior design and architecture. She tried to keep her mouth from being slack as she looked around. The ornate designs and modern touches definitely appealed to her, and Diavolo happily bathed in the awe and pleasure she radiated.

Once up in the penthouse, Diavolo showed her around. There were several bedrooms, bathrooms, a gorgeous gourmet kitchen, stunning dining and living areas, and an unbeatable view of the city below. She walked along the wall of windows in the living room, looking out into the beautiful scenery. However, she still listened carefully as the other guests moved throughout the space. She heard the various baritone and tenor voices talking or arguing about their spaces and occasionally looked over her shoulder as the demons moved about the area.

They really are like a family, she thought.

Looking back out the windows, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder followed by the familiar scent she'd become accustomed to as a sign of comfort. Diavolo leaned down and murmured in her ear, "There's someone I'd like you to meet."

Slowly, she turned as Diavolo slid his arm around her shoulders. Before her stood a tall but slender man in traditional-looking robes. His skin was ivory with dull green hair that had a bright turquoise ombré to the ends. His eyes matched his hair, and they glittered with repose under the lights. He was the epitome of class and refinement.

"Hello, my name is Barbatos. It is lovely to meet you, my lady," the man stated, coming closer and placing his hand on his sternum as he bowed.

"Oh," she murmured, her brows raising. "It's... it's wonderful to meet you too. Diavolo told me a lot about you and... I felt like it was important to meet someone so prominent in his life," she replied.

"My master is too kind," Barbatos answered. "I was looking forward to meeting the young woman who charmed my lord into submission. After all these millennia, I obviously still cannot get him to stay in one place, as much as I would like and have asked him to. You'll have to tell me your secrets."

Her eyes widened further. "Oh um, no I–" she started to stammer, and Diavolo laughed heartily at her reaction.

"She is rather special, Barbatos," Diavolo stated in a cheeky tone. "I think you're right. No one quite has a hold of me like she does." He then turned to look at her more. "He means that I tend to get into some trouble even when attended to. He's impressed you've kept me in check for this long." The blush splashing her neck and chest was rather obvious to her thoughts. "Well, in the way you're thinking... he would be incorrect," he added with a suggestive edge to his voice.

"I think you're flustering the poor girl," Lucifer said as he walked by with a suitcase, disappearing again.

"Indeed. Might we sit and talk?" Barbatos suggested. "I've made tea and cookies."

Diavolo nodded and guided the human woman to sit as Barbatos brought over the snacks. The prince sat next to his lover, across from Barbatos.

It was the beginning of a very long explanation as to what happened to Diavolo. She was impressed by how little the butler's expression changed as they spoke. Occasionally, his brow or the corner of his mouth would twitch more than anything.

"My lord, while I appreciate that you've been able to relax and find peace within mortal living, I do have to urge you to return to your duties as soon as possible. It has been a task and a half to keep everything going in your absence. While it's not hard to run things, I can only keep dignitaries and the nobledemons at bay for so long before they start to spread rumor of an unoccupied throne," Barbatos explained, setting his cup down. He then looked to her. "And what of you, my lady? What are your plans?"

She sat there in silence and thought about it. "I haven't decided yet. I wanted to come meet you and visit with you all a little longer before I did," she answered softly.

The butler nodded and sighed. "I suppose that's fair. At the latest, we must all return to the Devildom within three days. That gives us time to finish our tasks in the human world, and hopefully enough time for you."

She slowly nodded in agreement wordlessly, feeling apprehensive about a three day deadline. Barbatos bowed his head and stood, collecting the dishes.

"Please feel free to ask anything of me, my lady," the butler added before walking away.

Diavolo looked down at his partner and felt his own smile fall. He didn't like the sullen look on her face, so he took her hand as he stood.

"I'd like to show you something," he murmured, gently pulling her to her feet. She followed him quietly, past all the doors in the penthouse until they reached the end of the hallway.

Once inside, he led her in and she looked around the master bedroom. It was as grand as the rest of the penthouse, if not more so. The windows on the walls went from floor to ceiling, the Alaskan king bed was on a platform with lowlights, and the floors were a brilliant marble with comfortable rugs scattered around. He then led her to another door in the room and simply gestured his hand toward it. She opened it and gasped when she entered the walk-in closet big enough to be a living room filled to the brim with clothes, shoes, handbags, suitcases, jewelry, and accessories. It wasn't just Diavolo's things, like the suits and loafers clearly suiting his tastes. There were gowns, power suits, heels, clothes with name brands she'd never dream of touching.

"Who's is this?" She asked a little skeptically, drawing closer to the women's clothing. She didn't want to assume, but then why else would he bring her?

"Mine. Yours. Ours," he murmured, coming up behind her and placing his hands on her hips.

She reached up and found everything still had tags on them, and upon closer inspection they were all her size.

"I told you I would repay you for your kindnesses. This is just the start. I had everything custom ordered just for you," he explained, looking up at his work and then back down at the top of her head. "You deserve so much more, and I plan to give it to you."

She was quiet as she took it all in. After a few minutes, she finally turned to face the prince.

"You didn't really have to go through all the trouble. I mean... we're together," she tried to explain.

"I did need to, and I will continue to do so. Darling, I want to take care of you. I see how you deny yourself the pleasure and comfort of luxury... yet you crave it," he purred to her. He sank to his knee to be eye-level with her. "It's a noble thing, to be sure, to be so modest, but... with me, you can indulge. You can have what your heart craves. You don't have to deny yourself when you're with me. You can have everything."

Her heart was pounding with his words, her mind racing with contradicting thoughts. She nearly felt sick from how excited her body had become. But then Diavolo pulled her closer and cupped her cheek.

"I know it's a lot. I know I am a lot. But I tell you all of this so you don't feel as conflicted in your decisions. When it comes to your desires, they are as much yours as they are mine. Whatever it is you choose, I'll make it work. Whatever you want... I'll make it happen," he further stated. Tears pooled in her eyes, and he clicked his tongue while smiling and wiping her tears as they fell. "I love you."

"I love you... and thank you," she replied.

He nodded and leaned in for a kiss. She instantly reciprocated by deepening the kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck. His lips curled into a smile, and he gripped her waist in his large hands, pulling her in closer. Carefully, he detached from the kiss and pulled her into an embrace as he reached behind her for something. She felt his shoulders moving around her head, and when he pulled back to look at her, he was pulling around the pendant of a necklace he clasped around her neck. She looked down and saw a beautiful Y-shaped diamond chain with a rather sizeable pear-shaped diamond pendent at the end.

"My dream is to bathe you in my riches and love..." he murmured, looking down at the necklace as he still knelt before her. "As I said, I know this is a lot, and please don't feel like this is a bribe to sway you in my favor. But know you'll lack nothing with me. Beyond the riches and clothes, you'll always own my heart, and there will never again be another like you for me."

She brought her hand up, much smaller than his, to gather the necklace into her palm and bring it up to look at it. It was clear this was no average necklace. The weight alone told her this was worth more than the house she lived in with her parents.

Diavolo saw the look on her face as she inspected the piece of jewelry. "It's not wrong to want these things, my love. You're allowed to want a certain lifestyle for yourself." He then bent his index finger and took the knuckle beneath her chin to raise her gaze to his. "I'm more than willing to give you that life or any life you want. You can be my princess or simply mine, no title necessary. If the royal life is too much, then you won't worry about it. But... if it's something you might be interested in, I'm happy to share it with you. Just know you have options as well. Loving me and choosing me won't mean you're stuck."

It was still several minutes before she reacted to everything he'd presented to her. He could tell she was thinking very deeply about everything, to which, he was glad. Diavolo wanted this to be her decision and her decision only. He was happy with whatever he could do for her. She looked around the closet and then back at her prince. He waited for her; he'd wait a thousand years for her because the truth was, he'd already waited this long for her... his entire life, that is.

Finally, she nodded and kissed him again, wrapping her arms around his neck again and beginning to sink downward. He wrapped his arms around her waist as he brought his second knee down to the floor, pulling her to straddle his lap.

The sound of fabric moving and soft moans and sighs filled the room as they started to undress each other. As much as they felt the need to make this a quick and needy fuck, simultaneously, they didn't. And for this time, they took it slower.

Using his suit jacket, he balled it up and placed it beneath her head. He was much more tender this time, placing gentle and slow kisses across the span of her chest and up her neck. She refused to spare any caresses for him and stroked his internal inferno in the way only she knew how. Their hands worked in tandem to bring each other greater pleasure and a little teasing, too. Her soft, small, delicate hands worked his inhuman sized cock, while his giant hands carefully worked to stretch her out on his fingers.

After a few looks of unspoken but clear approval and consent, he helped support her back by sliding his arm beneath her rear and lifting her hips up. He knelt in front of her with his legs tucked beneath himself as he pulled her thighs up and around his hips. Guiding his leaking cock into her entrance, they both groaned with little shame. He gave a few slow and deep thrusts followed by softened grinding to truly stretch her out, and she was squirming and writhing with pleasure in mere seconds.

"Are you comfortable?" His question came out in a murmur. She focused for a moment on his gaze and finally shook her head, no.

He snapped his fingers and swept her up into his arms. She was in awe of the grace and strength he had to pick her up from laying down all the way to his feet to carry her, all while keeping her sheathed on his dick, over to the black velvet settee that appeared. He laid her back with her head on the decorative matching pillow.

She sighed and smiled as her back and hips relaxed again, and Diavolo could feel it in the way she melted with him. Keeping one foot planted on the floor and the other tucked beneath him while sitting on the settee, he began rocking his hips back and forth with his hands back on her waist, smiling and groaning. "There's my girl. You feel so good every time for me," he murmured, nearly in a trance from being pussydrunk.

"Mm, Diavolo," she moaned his name, and he swore no one could be more worthy to say it than her.

His gaze fell back to hers, and he took in the whole scene before him before the corner of his lips curled up. "I believe this is the most beautiful I've ever seen you look: naked, on my cock, and dripping with diamonds," he stated breathlessly. He left the necklace on her and realized, indeed, he wanted to cover her body in gold, silver, platinum, rhodium, diamonds, rubies, whatever he could get his hands on and she would accept from him. There was a certain pride he felt in looking down at her like this. Never again would there be a soul and vessel quite like this.

And to her, she could see all of these thoughts and emotions as she gazed into his eyes. The deeply profound desire and love he held in his expression made her heart melt and core throb. He could say the same with how she looked at him, always so eager yet tender, downright debauched but always loving. Every fiber of his being wanted to explode with all the feelings and sensations, but all he could do instead was use that energy into making love to her. His thrusts became slower and deeper. His hips rolled with precision. He slung her leg over his elbow and leaned in to press deeper.

"D-Dia!" She whined as he started to reach that deep spot inside her. The head of his cock began tapping that spot and she saw stars burst in her vision as her orgasm came on so quickly. "Oh fuck!" She screamed out. A rush of her release flowed out, drenching his dick and flowing down her ass.

"That's it, that's my baby," she heard him grunt, his own brows pinched as he fought to stave off his own orgasm but continue to deliver hers. The pleasure was so immense he even moaned louder, his eyes squeezing shut. "Fuck..."

"Where'd the lovebirds go?" Mammon asked, looking around the living room where his brothers all sat. Levi, Beel, and Belphie all watched the giant flat-screen television mounted above the fireplace while Lucifer and Satan read quietly. Asmo was doing his nails at the coffee table.

"I saw Diavolo take her to the master suite a little bit ago. She looked a bit tired," Lucifer answered. Everyone paused and glanced over at the eldest, but he chose to ignore their questioning gazes.

"Ooo, I bet they're having sex now–" Asmo chirped, finishing the top coat.

"Asmo," Lucifer warned, rolling his eyes.

"I mean, they've been quiet. Maybe they did take a nap," Satan mused, turning a page in his book.

Belphie finally looked around as well. "Shouldn't we be preparing to go home? Why would Diavolo be napping?"

"I mean, what's the rush? It's nice here," Mammon quickly tried to steer that conversation in a different direction.

"No, Belphie is correct. We ought to be making arrangements for home," Lucifer answered with a sigh, folding his papers and setting them down. He stood and began walking toward the main hallway of the penthouse, and his brothers began to follow.

"Yes baby, cum inside me again!"

All seven came to a halt, stunned by what they heard coming from the end of the hall.

"... Maybe they did not, in fact, take a nap..." Satan deadpannned, walking away immediately.

"So they are having sex! I knew it. I bet they're so hot together. I just want to–" Asmo started to rejoice until Barbatos grabbed his outstretched hand that was heading toward the doorknob to the master suite.

"I highly suggest you not act so impulsively, Asmodeus. You would embarrass her and disturb both my lord and the young lady," Barbatos explained tersely.

"Oh, but Barbatos!" Asmo whined fruitlessly as the butler dragged him away, the rhythmic pounding of the headboard fading.

Diavolo huffed as he ground himself deeper into her. This was their third consecutive round, and he wasn't quite used to going this long with her. It was a happy surprise, to be sure. Sweat was building in his hair, a slight sheen forming across his muscular body and glimmering below the lights of the room. He moved them to the bedroom for more comfort after realizing that even she wasn't quite done after just two rounds on the settee.

"My sweet love," he groaned, feeling the ache and fire swirling in his abdomen. "You'll be the death of me." His head was next to hers as he laid on top of her, his body practically covering hers. Both her legs were laid over his inner elbows, only giving her the deepest thrusts. He barely pulled back before thrusting forward deeply and grinding the head of his cock against that sweet spot all the way back. His kisses were sloppy yet sweet against her face, neck, and shoulders.

But so long as she wanted to keep going, enjoying every pleasure he had to offer her, loving every orgasm she was brought to, he wouldn't stop. He felt the overwhelming desire to keep going even longer than that, but at the end of the day, her pleasure is all that mattered to him.

However, he didn't anticipate his thoughts starting to wander as he made love to her. He didn't expect to start doubting their moments together. It was eating at him until he finally chose to speak up.

"I can't be apart from you, my love. I... I can't give this up," he murmured in her ear. He lifted his head back and looked at her with a painfully serious expression. "I... I love you too much. To not have this... to not have you, I wouldn't be complete. I can't live without you. If I go back home without you... it won't be home to me." He looked up at her, his eyes all glassy with emotion. "You are my home, love."

"Oh honey..." she murmured, cupping his cheek. They stopped moving and held still as they gazed at one another.

"My love, I will respect your decision no matter what, but... please don't stay. Come with me. I want you at my side," he pleaded with her. He propped himself up on an elbow, caressing her face and neck.

She chewed on her lip and looked askance. "I... I'm just scared," she confessed. "I don't know what it's like and... I'm not naive, Diavolo. A place full of demons isn't exactly a place for someone like me, is it?"

"I'll make a place for you, at my side, my heart. You'll have the protection of me and the seven brothers. But, you're right; the Devildom is not the best place for a human right now, but I have dreams to make it hospitable to anyone who comes into my domain. This includes you. I want to share my home with you," he answered, all the fondness and love in his eyes for her.

"But... I won't live forever," she added as well. He shifted and nodded, knowing this was another valid concern.

"I know that, my love. That's what makes every moment so precious with you. I cherish every minute of our time because it's far more valuable than anything else I'll have possession of," he replied. "And... we can discuss that more when the time comes."

She sat there with what he had said for several minutes. At the end of it all, she knew he was sincere. She knew he'd take care of her, treat her well, and protect her. Everything he'd said so far, at her core, she was convinced he could do. She was just so afraid of the unknown, the uncertain, that it made her hesitate. But... when she looked up into his golden gaze, she couldn't deny herself, or him, in this moment. All she found was love and honesty in his expression.

It was enough for her.

"Dia..." she murmured. He froze a bit, looking down at her when he heard the serious tone she used. "I'll go. I'll come with you."

His eyes widened, and he looked almost taken aback. "Y-You will?" He stammered, his pitch high. "You will?" He asked again, this time regaining composure.

"Yes... I want to see your home. You got to see mine and experience it. If we're going to be together... I want to experience your life and your home too. And if it means I stay with you... then I'll stay for as long as I can," she replied.

Diavolo searched her eyes, nearly in disbelief of what he heard. He was astounded by it all. She could scarcely believe it herself, to take such a leap of faith to leave all that she's ever known for a man, a demon man, who started as just a doll but became so much more: a friend, a lover, a soulmate.

He kissed her passionately then, his lips hard and forceful on hers. His arms slid under her back to pull her upright as he rose to his knees on the mattress. She could feel how hard he was breathing and more of his unparalleled strength as he held her upright. When she was low on oxygen, he rasped and pulled back. "I can't thank you enough. I promise, you'll have everything," he finally answered back.

The prince sat back onto his rear and helped her to straddle him properly and more comfortably, all while still sheathed on his now throbbing cock. "Just one more," he muttered, taking her arms and looping them over his shoulders and around his neck. His own hands landed on her waist and he began guiding her up and down on his dick, making them both moan together. The obscene schlick sounds coming from her pussy running rivets of sticky arousal between their joined bodies came back that much louder.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his hot breath fanning her face. "I love you, my treasure. Thank you for being mine," he murmured, sounding strained with pleasure.

The woman merely nodded as she clung onto him, moaning louder with every bounce. His hands greedily ran all over her body as she took over the rhythm and movement, and he squeezed, groped, and gripped onto every inch available. From her the tops of her shoulders to the fat round globes of her ass, it was his to lay hands on.

"Fuck, I love you, sweetness," he grunted. "You're going to make me lose myself."

"Then lose it," she rasped. She rolled her head backwards and arched her back deeply as she rode his cock.

He growled and placed one hand back in her waist while the other went up into her hair, grabbing a generous amount of it in his fist. She moaned softly at first, and then much louder when he gave it a good tug. They increased the pace together as fast as she could go until he could see her energy finally starting to wane. Quickly, he shoved her onto her back on the mattress again and began pounding into her.

"I'm never letting you go," he rasped in her ear. "You're mine. For eternity."

She gasped, and a vibrant shudder ran down her spine in response to his sudden possessiveness. She turned her head up to look at him, seeing determination and deep-seated desire in his eyes. He was all she could see in this moment, her view entirely comprised of his face and upper body.

"Close, baby?" He asked, feeling her walls start to clamp down and more of her slick sliding over his cock. She nodded immediately and clutched him tighter. He grinned and cradled her in his arms while he continued to thrust deeply and gaining speed. "Let go for me. Give everything you have, and give it to me. Lose yourself in me and only me."

Her breathing started to quicken, and her claw-like nails were digging into his back. "Fuck, Diavolo–" she whined. She just needed a little more. And he knew just what to do.

Placing his head next to hers, he began murmuring into her ear. "I'm going to cum so deep inside you, letting everyone know that you're mine. When we're home, I'll breed you anytime you want. I'll make sure you're so full of me, my seed will be dripping for days. Everyone will know you belong to the Demon Lord. And I'll make you my sweet little wife to take care of for all our days," he whispered to her, grunting between words occasionally.

That's what did it for her. A cascade of raw pleasure burst throughout her body, causing her to give a short wail. She trembled beneath him as more of her cum gushed over and around his cock, dampening the sheets further. Her fluttering walls, the way she whined and moaned, and how she clung to him made him finally lose himself, too.

He gave long, hard thrusts before locking his hips forward, unloading every spurt and drop of hot cum deep inside her. His own pitch raised an octave, hardly believing how this sort of pleasure could feel any better than before, but it was. Maybe it was knowing he was keeping the love of his life, but nonetheless, this was unlike anything he'd felt before. He felt so in-sync with her, experiencing her flow of pleasure mixing with his own. A small whimper managed to escape his lips, so he hushed himself by kissing her neck and hear her soft moans better. He continued to softly grind himself into her, still hard as a rock, to extend their pleasure a bit longer.

After several minutes, he felt her body slacken. Her hands slid off his back and down at her sides, and her legs fell open as she relaxed. It was almost a struggle for him as well as he propped himself up on one elbow.

"So perfect..." he murmured, smoothing her hair back out of her face. "Thank you," he added with a small smile.

"Why?" She mumbled, her eyes barely open.

Diavolo chuckled and shook his head. "I'm thanking you for being mine, for being so perfect for me, for being you," he answered. "You are everything to me, and I'm happy you're going to be with me."

She nodded and finally sighed. "I'm tired," she whispered weakly. He chuckled again.

"I was afraid you'd want more, and I'd have to be the one to tell you no."

She smirked and rolled her head to the side. "I mean, there's always later, right? I like it when you fill me up."

His eyes widened, and his dick throbbed again at those words. He groaned and gripped the sheets. "I mean it, you're going to kill me one day through words alone."

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed. <3

Post made by sassykattery. Do not repost. Reblogs and comments appreciated.

Tags: @flemmingbamse @delphi-dreamin @l-d-8 @itsmeninerz @biteable-pink-pixie @themythicaldisaster @marvelous-maniac @attic-club-sandwich

[lloydspuppy]

Hello everybody! I'm so excited to announce my first ever writing event. This event will take place during October 5th until November 9th. This event is titled Harper's Dollface Writers Club, which means that writers can join! I'll list the guidelines below under the cut. Every Saturday starting from October fifth, i'll be posting a writing dedicated to the day written on the image above this. I hope you guys enjoy this! kisses.

GUIDELINES!

-Must write for C.Evans or S.Stan characters strictly

-Use age indicators on your profile or your submission will be reported

-Add a cut + warnings to your writing submission

-Tag me and use the tag #Harper's Dollface Writers Club

-Last but not least, be creative with it! Have fun!

[patientlibrarian]

"Yup, it's Monday!"

Hello everyone, everywhere, he's just confirmed that it is Monday! Not sure which decade or century but it is Monday! Hope your day goes as you would want it to be.

Summary:

AU. Lucy and Flynn are together and Flynn's worried about something and won't tell her. Adorable behaviour from Flynn. Team togetherness. Slight poignant reminder of future hopes. Sexual references. Utter, utter, fluff and coffee break cheer (I hope).

[bloatedandalone04]

If You Feel It

➪the one where you’re the only person tyler wants to celebrate with after a successful chase.

Warnings: tyler is a star okay, smut, swearing, unprotected sex, pda, hair pulling, all that fun stuff, oral (f receiving), overstimulation (only a lil bit), this is honestly filthy, probably the dirtiest thing i have written yet

Word Count: 3.8k

Do not repost this anywhere, reblogs are fine ♡ | THANK YOU FOR 5.1K FOLLOWERS

Tyler just finished streaming a storm chase with Lilly and Boone, and of course they were successful.

Their fanbase were cheering them on as Tyler got out of his beloved and iconic truck, his eyes drifting through the crowd as he tried to locate you among the fans. He adored them, but you were his girl, and there’s no one else he wants to celebrate with except for you.

He tipped his sunglasses down, his eyes still sorting through the crowd for you as he signed autographs and gave high fives, a few people shoving their shirts into his face for him to sign as well.

Lilly and Boone opened a bottle of champagne behind him, getting his clothes wet as he grinned, still trying to find you.

Tyler’s clothes were even more soaked as he finally located you, and he gently but firmly pushed his way through the crowd to get to you. He was a bit sweaty, but you didn’t seem to mind as he picked you up and spun you around, his hat falling off his head in the process. 

Your loud laugh was music to his ears as he stopped spinning you but kept you in his arms. “Did you see that, baby?” He asked with his hair in his face and his sunglasses halfway down his nose. 

“Of course I did,” you laughed again, your feet not touching the ground as you wrapped your arms around his neck. “You were amazing, babe. Like always.”

Tyler grinned at you before leaning in and kissing you in front of everyone. “I think we should celebrate,” he mumbled against your lips. His hands squeezed your back before he set you down, keeping his body close to yours as he leaned in. “What do you say?”

“With your friends?” You teasingly ask, threading your fingers through the sweaty hair on the back of his neck. 

He shook his head and leaned down to press his lips to the side of your neck. “Nah, not with them,” he murmured, “I want it to be just us.”

You didn’t get to say anything before he picked you up again, guiding your legs around his waist as he turned and made his way through the crowd and back to his truck. He leaned back against the hood, keeping your body against his as he leaned up to brush his lips against the shell of your ear, 

“I think I’ve waited long enough to give you a proper greetin’, babydoll,” he whispered and you bit down on your lip.

You hum, both of you ignoring the many people around as you get lost in your own little world. You couldn’t even bring yourself to care about the harsh glares you were receiving from a bunch of girls who wanted to fuck your boyfriend. Wrapping your arms around his shoulders, you press yourself closer to him, burying your face against his neck. 

Tyler grinned, still a bit high on adrenaline as he slid his hands further down your back. “You’re clingier than normal, dollface,”

A quiet scoff leaves your lips as you pull back a bit. “Is that a bad thing? I just wanna be close to my man,”

He smirked down at you, shaking his head. “No, no, it’s not a bad thing at all. I love when you get all touchy, it’s cute as hell,” he said, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead as he made eye contact with Boone from across the lot. His friend shook his head, a teasing smile on his face as he went back to talking with Lilly.

“Tyler,” you groaned quietly, pulling his attention back to you. “You’re making me all flustered.”

He laughed at your words, holding you tighter as the crowd continued to get bigger and bigger. “Y’know, there’s a perfectly good backseat in my truck behind us,” he suggested and you bit your lip. “I need you all to myself right now, baby. You and me with no one interruptin’ us.”

A blush coated your cheeks as you looked away from him and at the group of people who wanted their turn with your boyfriend of six years. 

But he wanted you. “What do you say, dollface?” He asked as he leaned in to kiss the side of your neck. “You wanna be all mine for the rest of the night?”

You turned back to him with a grin. “Always,” you answer, stroking the sides of his neck with your fingers. “But I’m all yours every night. Don’t forget it.”

Tyler’s smirk turned into a proud grin as he effortlessly bounced you in his arms before pushing off the hood and walking around to the passenger side door of his truck. “Get in, baby,” he softly demanded as he set you down and opened the door for you. An excited laugh escaped your lips as you held onto his hand and the frame of the door before hopping in the truck. Tyler rounded the front of it and got into the driver’s seat, his eyes dark as he looked over at you. “Feel like goin’ for a drive?”

You grinned over at him, “Take me away, Ty,”

It was already dusk when the storm ended, and it was even darker when Tyler pulled into the lot earlier, so as he backed out and left his watchers and friends behind to celebrate, it was pitch black as he drove down the dirt road. “I know a good spot,” he said, reaching over to place his hand on your thigh. You smiled over at him, excitement and lust written all over your face. 

The adrenaline from the tornado, the rush from seeing all his ‘fans’, and his undying need for you was making his head feel clouded, his grip tight on the wheel as he drove for another ten minutes. He pulled into an area surrounded by forest, parking the truck a few feet from the road before turning to you.

Tyler was silent for a few seconds, his eyes trailing over your body as you leaned back against the seat. “It’s just you and me, baby,”

You grin, taking your seatbelt off. “You and me,”

Tyler’s eyes were dark as his fingers fumbled to take his own seatbelt off. “Why don’t you come sit in my lap, babydoll…”

It wasn’t a question and you both knew it. You laugh excitedly, moving to crawl over the center console and settle on his lap, feeling just how worked up he was for you.  

Tyler’s hands settled on your waist, and he gave your hips a firm squeeze as he spoke, “God, you look so good, baby,”

You blush, reaching up to run your fingers through his hair. “Do I?”

He nodded slowly, leaning in as he pulled your hips right up against his. “Fuck yeah, you do,” he muttered, not giving you a chance to say anything before he was kissing you deeply. His tongue pushed into your mouth as he guided your body into a slow roll, your hips meeting in a much needed friction. “I need you, baby. So bad.” He mumbled when he pulled away and began kissing down your neck.

You moaned, pulling at his hair as you took it upon yourself to grind against him. “I need you, too,”

Tyler groaned, tugging at the sleeve of your shirt and pulling it down so he could suck a dark, purple mark onto your skin. Another moan left your lips as you moved against him, your fingers grasping at the buttons on his shirt. He left another mark onto the side of your neck before pulling away, his eyes hooded. “Let’s move to the back, dollface,”

The way you nodded quickly and forgot about your quest of ridding him of his shirt in order to crawl onto the back seat had him grinning, his own hands finishing the job as he shrugged the shirt off. 

He tossed it onto the passenger seat before crawling back there with you, his body snug against yours as he braced his hands on the seat at either side of your head. You grinned up at him, lust clear in your eyes as you trail your fingers up his abs and chest. 

Tyler leaned down and placed open mouthed kisses to your neck, his hands sliding under your shirt and creating goosebumps on your skin, despite the interaction growing more and more heated. Once he was sure your neck was all nice and marked up, he pulled away and kneeled above you, his fingers tangled in the hem of your shirt as he tugged it up and over your head. 

He tossed it onto the passenger seat with his, and his big hands were instantly cupping your breasts through your bra, his thumbs massaging you through the pretty lace. Your head tipped back in a moan, your eyes falling shut as you pushed up against his hands. “You’re so gorgeous,” he muttered, “Prettiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

A needy whine left your lips as you tugged him closer by pulling on his belt loops, and he laughed deeply. His hands reached around you and unhooked your bra, and he pulled it from your body and dropped it into the growing clothes pile on the front seat. His hands were instantly back on your chest, squeezing more firmly now that the barrier was gone. 

Your breathy moans went straight to his cock, and it strained against his jeans as he leaned down to wrap his lips around your nipple. He gently tugged on it with his teeth as he rolled his hips against yours, and he did that until you were whining and swollen, then he did the same thing to your other one. 

Once your breasts were more than well taken care of, he slid his hands down and unzipped your jeans. You propped yourself up on your elbows, biting down harshly on your lip as you watched him. Tyler smirked as he pulled the fabric down your legs, seeing just how wet you were through the thin lace of your panties. “Damn, baby,” he muttered, dropping your jeans to the floor of the truck. “Did I do that to you?”

“You know you did,” you mumbled and whined when he leaned down to kiss the skin above your panties. “Ty…”

He grinned, kissing you through the fabric and groaning at the faint taste that only belonged to you. “Yeah, yeah,” he grunted, pulling away long enough so he could slide the soaked material down your legs as well before tossing them aside. With you completely bare and exposed to him, he couldn’t hold off anymore, and he settled between your thighs again. He gripped your hips and pinned you to the seat before licking a stripe up your folds, his tongue collecting your wetness like a magnet. 

Your head tipped back against the door, your fingers tangling in his hair as you moaned loudly. Tyler licked you again before wrapping his lips around your clit, groaning at the taste of you. “Oh, fuck…Ty,” you moaned, propping one leg on the seat as you slowly rolled your hips up against his face. 

Tyler groaned again, wrapping his arms around your thighs as he hiked your legs over his shoulders. “Taste so fuckin’ good, baby,” he pratically moaned before pushing his tongue back inside your wet walls. 

Your body jolted as you tugged on his hair with one hand, your other reaching up and gripping the headrest of the driver’s seat. Tyler’s hips pressed against the backseat, his cock painfully hard as he worked you open for him. “Feels so good, Tyler. Oh, my God,” you moaned as he flattened his tongue against you, his nose brushing against your throbbing clit. “Fuck…yes.”

Tyler licked, sucked and swirled his tongue against you, his fingers digging into the skin of your hips and pushing you harder against the seat. His tongue fucked into you, gathering up your wetness and spreading it all over your already soaked core. 

“Tyler,” you cry out, pulling hard on his hair and making him groan against you. “Fuck! Oh, my God, don’t stop…please, Ty.” You moaned incoherently as you released your grip on the headrest in order to blindly reach for one of his hands. Tyler laced his fingers with yours as he devoured you like he’s been craving to do all day long, keeping his movements slow. 

He gripped your hand and moved his head back and forth, making you shake against him as loud cries and whimpers filled the truck. He knew you were close, and he just moved his head faster until you were nearly screaming. 

“Fuck…fuck!” You called out, arching your back and holding his hand with a death grip. “I’m coming…I’m coming…”

Tyler looked up at you as he fucked you with his tongue, and your eyes squeezed shut as you bucked up against his mouth and came with a cry of his name, your body shaking and writhing against him. He moaned, licking up all you gave him, his free hand releasing your hip as his thumb rubbed against your swollen clit, overstimulating you through your high. 

“Fuck,” you whimpered, shaking uncontrollably as he gave you one final slow lick before pulling away. His mouth was wet, your arousal dripping down his chin as he moved to kneel above you again, his thumb continuing to slowly rub your clit. “I love you…I love you so much.” 

The whiny edge to your voice had Tyler grinning, his hands sliding up to grope your breasts again. “I love you, too, baby,” he said back, softly pinching your nipples between his fingers as you weakly reached down to unzip and push down his jeans and boxers. 

He let out a sigh of relief, his cock finally able to breathe as his jeans pooled at his knees. He shifted and kicked them the rest of the way off, then kept one knee on the seat and used his other leg to give him more leverage. He gripped his base, not yet giving in as he ran his tip along your wet core. You trembled a bit, your eyes wide and needy as you looked up at him. He coated himself in your arousal, listening to every quiet gasp and whine from you, before he slowly pushed into you. 

Your head fell back against the seat again, your hands gripping his wrists as he held onto your hips. “Just like that,” you whispered, your face scrunched in pleasure as he pulled out then slid back in, reaching even deeper this time. 

Tyler fucked you slowly at first, then began to move a bit faster, his hands on your thighs in a bruising grip. “Fuck, you feel so good,” he muttered under his breath, feeling a light layer of sweat form on his skin. 

You moaned in response, holding onto his wrists as he fucked you against the seat. You glanced over at the camera he had mounted on the driver’s side of the windshield, your lip getting caught between your teeth. While the idea of having all his viewers watch him fuck you turned you on a concerning amount, showing off how good your boyfriend is was not something you wanted to do. “You turned that off, right?”

Tyler looked over as well, never stopping his pace as he let out a laugh. “Of course, baby,” he said, draping your thighs over his as he placed his hands against your ribcage. “Besides, we have a better camera at home, anyway.”

You blush and moan loudly, your heart hammering in your chest and against his right hand. You pushed your hips up to meet his thrusts halfway, the new angle making him reach even deeper inside you. 

His deep groans matched the volume of your whines, and he gripped your middle tighter, the sound of his thighs hitting yours echoing around the dark truck. “So tight, baby. Feels so fuckin’ good,” 

You whimpered and clenched down even tighter around him, emitting a low grunt from him as he had to put more effort into fucking you. “Oh, my God, Ty, yes,”

Tyler looked down and watched the way he disappeared inside of you with each thrust of his hips. Each drag of him left him more and more coated in your slick, and the sound of your wet walls taking him was almost enough to have him coming right then and there. 

He fucked you quicker, harder, as he reached down to rub your stimulated clit, making your back arch and soft screams leave your lips. “Fuck! Fuck, Tyler,” you moaned brokenly. “I’m gonna come.”

Tyler grunted, not stopping for even a second as he worked you again until you were crying out and soaking his cock. “Goddamn, baby,” he muttered, slowing down as he circled your dripping clit with his thumb. “So fuckin’ wet.”

You whimper at his words, your hands clinging to anything they could reach as you came back down. “Holy shit, Tyler,” you gasped, your breathing uneven as he slowly rocked into you, his thumb finally giving your clit a break. “I fucking love you so much.”

Tyler grinned, stilling inside you as he throbbed. “Always and forever, baby,”

You blushed then moaned when he began moving inside you again, much slower this time as he let you catch your breath a bit. “Always and forever, Ty,” you whispered, reaching up to grip his chin. “Let me ride you, please?”

He grinned again and nodded, kissing your palm as he slid out of you and moved to sit down on the seat, his hand wrapping around his cock and slowly stroking it as he watched you weakly push yourself up. “You sure you can?” He teased as you moved to straddle his lap. 

You huffed as you gripped his base and lowered yourself onto him, making him grunt at the feeling of being back inside you. “I think I can manage,” you mumble and brace your hands on his shoulders while his grip your waist. You leaned down to kiss him as you slowly rode him, your fingers tangling into his sweaty hair. 

Tyler breathed heavily as he kissed you back, his fingers digging into the skin of your hips. “So damn good, baby. So fuckin’ perfect for me,” he grunted against your mouth and you moaned, keeping your lips against his as you began to bounce on his lap. “There you go, just like that, baby.” He praised, his lips brushing against yours with every word. 

He leaned back, letting you have full control as you dug your knees into the seat on either side of him, your breasts bouncing beautifully with each drop of your body. “Mm, fuck,” you hummed, your voice sounding a bit hoarse as you closed your eyes and tipped your head back. 

Tyler bit his lip, a low groan leaving his throat as he reached up to push your damp hair off your sweat-slick shoulders. “So good, baby,” he continued to praise you, wanting nothing more than to feel you around him like this for the rest of his life. 

“You looked so hot,” you mumbled, pulling on his hair. “I was watching the stream…you looked so fucking hot, Ty.”

He almost blushed as he took in your words, and he gripped your hips tighter. “Yeah? You like seeing me like that?” He rasped, helping you move on him. “You love knowin’ it’s you who I get to come back to?”

You nod, clenching around him and pulling another groan from the back of his throat. “I’m so lucky…having such a sexy boyfriend all to myself,”

Tyler felt himself tighten up, his head falling back against the headrest. “I’m the lucky one, baby. The luckiest fucker in the world,”

You laughed, biting down on your lip as he felt your body tense up. “You feel so good, Ty…you’re so deep,”

He moaned, gripping you impossibly tighter. “Goddamn, babydoll,” 

“I’m gonna come,” you whimpered, and he fucking loved that it was your third time announcing that since he got you alone. 

Tyler wasn’t far behind, especially since he’d been holding off his own climax in favor of giving you your last two. “Come for me, baby,” he whispered, the veins in his neck straining against the skin. “Come all over me again.” 

“God, fuck,” you cried, shaking on top of him as you came for a third time, and Tyler finally let himself go as well. He came deep inside of you, every slow drag of your hips making it reach even further. 

Tyler groaned loudly, slowly fucking up into you as you rode out your highs. “I love you,” he mumbled, holding you against him as he stayed deep inside you. 

You smiled, burying your face against his neck. “I love you, too,” you murmured, hugging him tightly before pulling back and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. 

He moved so you were laying on your back and he was next to you, his overworked body trembling as he wrapped his arms around you. You settle against him, a teasing grin on your face. 

“So are we sleeping in the truck tonight?” You asked, running your hands through his sweaty hair. 

“Sounds good to me,” he replied and buried his face in your hair. “I don’t care where I sleep, just as long as it’s always next to you.”

You blushed, looking over at him. “Careful, Ty, that almost sounds like a proposal,” 

You were just teasing him, but the thought of marrying you was one that had been on his mind for a while now. “Yeah,” he trailed off, shifting behind you as he thought over his next actions. He moved away from you and reached into the front to grab something from the glove box, a laugh of disbelief leaving his lips at what he was about to do. “You deserve somethin’ a bit more romantic than the truck, baby, but I’m tired of waitin’.”

He moved back so he was next to you again, and your eyes widened a bit as you looked at the little black box in his hand. You sat up, your hand gripping his wrist as you stared at him, seemingly unable to say anything. 

Tyler felt like his heart was in his throat as he opened the box and revealed a ring. He had a feeling he knew what you would say, but he was still nervous as he ran his free hand up your leg and glanced up at you. “You know I’m head over heels for you, baby,” he started, kissing you softly before placing the box in your shaking hands as you stared at the large diamond ring. “You’re the love of my life, forever. Will you marry me? Be my wife one day?”

Your eyes glazed over and you took the ring out of the box. “Are you kidding me?” You gasped when he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “Yes. Yes yes yes.” You murmured before wrapping your arms around his shoulders and kissing him deeply. 

Tyler’s hand slipped up your thigh and gripped your waist as he kissed you back. Your hands were on his face as he took the ring from you before you lost it, and he pulled away after a few seconds so he could slip it onto your finger. “This is my promise to you,” he mumbled, tangling his fingers in your hair once you were securely wearing the ring. “I love you. Always and forever.”

You grin, tears still falling from your eyes as you wrap your arms around his shoulders and kiss him multiple times. “Always and forever,” you echo before kissing him again and pulling him down on top of you.

[rangerbarbz]

Losing Bets

Disclaimer: So this is not a Ford fanfic because I need to show my man Stan some love. Sorry about that. Also, I’m going to post the whole thing just to tumblr and to ao3, so you won’t have to click on a link to read it. This is a smut btw

Summary: Reader bets that Stan can’t go a whole day without touching them. It’s a win win situation 😉

If there was one thing about Stan Pines, he was a handsy man. You had been dating him since you first got a job at the Mystery Shack working the check-out counter when Wendy wasn’t working. There wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t squeeze your butt as he shuffled behind you or grab your hips while you restocked. You didn’t mind it one bit, though. Stan always made you feel sexy and loved. He was a good man, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. However, you also knew he was a gambling man, and you were looking for fun.

It was a slow day at the Mystery Shack, and you were putting snow-globes on display when you felt a hand snake around your waist. “Lookin’ good, sugar.” When you weren’t expecting Stan’s voice, it always managed to give you butterflies. You smiled and set the one in your hand onto the unsteady wooden shelf in front of you.

“You talking about the snow-globes or me?” you teased, looking over at him. His eyebrow raised as his hand moved from your waist down to your ass. He cupped one clothed cheek in his big hand.

“Both,” he answered. “I love these shorts on you. Can’t help myself.” He had a devilish grin on his face and was staring into your eyes. God, he was so handsome. He had an almost intoxicating aroma of cigars and cologne that you wanted to drown in.

You giggled and patted his chest. “Stan Pines, you’d still find a way to get your hands on me even if you were handcuffed.” You picked up the empty cardboard box at your feet and carried it to the check-out counter to break it down.

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Stan purred, following behind you as you flattened the box. You shot him a look that caused him to chuckle.

“You need to behave,” you playfully chastised him, bending down behind the counter to get your to-do list out. You set it next to the register and checked off the box next to “Unpack Snow-globes.” “There we go, that was the last thing I had to do.”

Stan set his elbows on the counter across from you. “Ah, I actually added something else for you to do. Should be at the bottom,” Stan stated.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What? Really?” You picked up the notepad to see “Stan Pines” scrawled at the end of the lined paper with an empty box next to it.

Stan burst out laughing at his own joke. “See. I put my name there because I want you to do me,” he explained while you rolled your eyes.

“You’re so dumb.” You couldn’t help but laugh with him, though. “You know this reminds me; I have an idea for a bet. That is if your up to it.” Your eyes glimmered with mischief. You and Stan were always betting on trivial things, so this was a normal request.

“I’m all ears, dollface. Shoot.”

“I bet that you can’t go a whole day without touching me.”

Stan’s head perked up. “I better get something really good if I have to go the whole day without touching you,” he grumbled, crossing his arms.

“If you can go a whole day without touching me, I will do that thing you’ve been begging me to do for an entire week,” you declared.

He gasped. “You mean you’re going to cook me stancakes naked every morning for a week?” he asked incredulously.

You chuckled. “Yup, but if I win you have to come to karaoke with me at Greasy’s every Friday for a month.” At that, Stan groaned and rubbed the part of his nose where his glasses sat.

“Jeeze, you had that one ready didn’t ya, kid?”

“Oh, yes,” you replied. “You accept the bet, old man?” You extended your hand towards him. He flashed that million-dollar smile at you before shaking your hand in agreement with the bet.

“Deal.”

                                                                                ~ The Next Day ~

You looked in the mirror at your outfit you had prepared to tempt the “Man of Mystery” himself. You were prepared to play dirty to get karaoke nights with Stan. You were wearing a tight t-shirt that was tucked into some daisy dukes. You also were wearing some boots that went up to your knees that you knew drove Stan wild. He was a confirmed leg man for sure. You fluffed up your hair and applied some light makeup. It was nothing too crazy but just enough to have you singing BABBA with him Friday night.

When you were satisfied with how you looked, you walked out of your bedroom and down the hall to the gift shop. Stan was giving a tour outside, so he had no idea what you looked like just yet. You went about your job as usual restocking the freezer, sweeping the floor, and pricing new items. It was about thirty minutes later when Stan entered the gift shop with a group of tourists behind him.

“Step into our gift shop and marvel at the quality of the Mystery Shack’s merchandise. Such beautiful craftmanship is deserving of your money, so make sure to spend a lot of it,” Stan’s voice echoed throughout the room. Some tourists “oohed” and “ahhed’ at the new shirts you had just hung up on the wall while the others piddled about the store. You sat at the register waiting for customers pretending not to notice Stan ogling you from the other side of the room.

When you finally decided to give him your attention, you gave him a coy smile and a little wave. His mouth was slightly agape, and his eyebrows were raised. He looked you up and down as he approached you.  It was go time; you got him.

“Y/N, you look smoking!” Stan exclaimed, his hands reaching for your hips. They stopped just inches away from them. He frowned and let his hands drop to his sides. “Damn. Forgot I can’t touch you.” He sounded disappointed. You were about to respond when one of the tourists got his attention by asking him about his newest taxidermy creation. This might be harder than you thought.

You exhaled through your nose in defeat. You couldn’t ponder on your plan too long, however, because a line of people had quickly formed in front of you. They held fistfuls of cash and novelties waiting to be paid for. It took a while, but finally everyone had picked an item they wanted and purchased them successfully. You couldn’t see him, but Stan had been eyeing you all over.

Once the last person left the shop and Stan reminded them about his “No Refunds” policy, he turned the “Open” sign on the door to “Closed.” You tilted your head at him and walked from behind the counter towards him. “Stan, why are you closing the shack? Are you-‘’ You were interrupted by him quickly turning around to face you and throwing you over his shoulder. You yelped in surprise as he bolted down the hall to your bedroom. You were not expecting this. He kicked the door open and dropped you on the bed.

“You like to play dirty, don’tcha?” Stan growled, grabbing your ankles and dragging you to him. “Dressing like that in front of me knowing I can’t touch ya. You’re such a tease.” His lips crashed into yours, his beard tickling your neck. You moaned into his mouth, letting your hands explore his thick, gray hair. The passionate kiss turned into a hot, open-mouthed one. Stan’s tongue slipped past your lips as you gripped his back. You grinded against him to get some friction going but to also see how hard he was. He was rock solid, his bulge pressing against your thigh. You wrapped your legs around his waist to bring him closer to you, earning a groan from him.

His lips parted from yours and he began to pepper kisses along your neck, stopping to suck at your collarbones. “Stan…” you whined.

“Use your words, baby,” he murmured against your skin. “Tell me what you want.”

“You.”

You felt Stan’s lips curl into a smile. “That can be arranged. But these,” he tugged at your shorts, “will have to go.”

You looked him in the eyes. “Then why don’t you take them off for me?” you asked, grinning at him.

“With pleasure,” he responded. He removed your boots before undoing the zipper of your shorts and pulling them off. You lifted your hips up to help him get them fully off your body which revealed lacy red underwear. He wasn’t a huge fan of any particular color, but he loved red on you. He let out a low whistle. “Sweetheart…You shouldn’t have.” Stan’s tone caused blood to rush to your throbbing clit.

His hands slid up the side of your legs to grab your thighs. “God, I love these legs,” he whispered, his thumbs rubbing into your inner thighs. His long, calloused fingers were splayed over the side of them as he admired the way they dug into your flesh. He adored the softness of them.

“Can’t wait to have them around my head,” he breathed, moving his hands over your underwear and under your shirt. “But first, I gotta get this off. Been wanting to get my hands on these.” You blushed as he pulled your t-shirt over your head. You were revealed to be in a matching red bra that pushed your breasts up to make a delightful cleavage.

“Fuck,” Stan said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Come here, sexy.” His hands found your waist and guided you to his lap. He began peppering kisses on the top of your breasts as his hands fumbled to remove your bra from the back. He eventually succeeded causing the straps to fall down your shoulders and exposing your hard nipples. His pupils were dilated and filled with lust as he gazed at your body. He took his time, letting his eyes wander.

Stan slowly exhaled before letting his lips make contact with your skin once again. His tongue licked across your nipple gently and cupping your other breast. He massaged the tender flesh and let his thumb drag over the nipple as he began to suck the other one. You hissed, raking his hair between your fingers. He repeated the same action but on the opposite breast causing your hips to instinctively grind down on him. You were so turned on you were becoming light-headed.

Stans arms encased you as he lowered you onto the bed, kissing in a line down your stomach. You knew what was coming next, and butterflies were already beginning to form. “Mind if I take these off, doll?” Stan asked gruffly, his eyes meeting yours. You nodded your head in response. His fingers hooked around the band of your panties and removed your last garment of clothing. He began to bury his face against your thighs, giving them little pecks. Your eyes rolled back in your head from how his mouth and stubble felt against such a sensitive area. He then removed his head away from your core to look at you.

“Let’s see how much I’ve riled you up,” Stan said, letting one of his fingers enter you. He slid in easily due to your wetness. He let out a shaky breath. “Shit, baby.” He began to pump his finger back and forth. You cried out in pleasure, letting your nails rake along his muscular forearms.

“Oh, God, Stan,” you whimpered. If he kept going like this, you were going to cum before his dick was inside you.

“As hot as it is to see you like this, I just gotta taste ya.” Stan muttered, removing his finger and lowering his head back down to your bottom half. “I’ve been craving you all day.” His tongue slid into you as his big hands held your legs around his head. He moaned into you as you gripped the bedsheets behind you. One hand travelled upwards to play with your breast as he used the tip of his tongue to manipulate your clit. Stan continued to lap at you, bringing you closer and closer to an orgasm. He knew you were close too. You were bucking your hips on his nose to help relieve yourself. He loved it when you did that; he wanted you to use him to get all the way.

“I want you inside me,” you pleaded. “Please, babe.” Stan stopped what he was doing to give you a sloppy kiss. His mouth and nose were covered in your slick which was now partially on you. He stood up to unbutton his shirt while you scrambled to unbuckle his belt.

He laughed cockily. “Someone’s eager,” he teased, waggling his eyebrows.

You glared at him. “Shut up,” you retorted, taking off his boxers to see his painfully erect dick. You slid off the bed and onto your knees. You started to suck on his balls and rub along the bottom of them. Stan moaned loudly; his hands were now in your hair. You licked a stripe of the base of his dick to his tip before taking him into your mouth. You went slowly at first, creating a suction with your cheeks.

“Y/N…” Stan breathed, pushing your head onto him, wanting you to go faster. “Okay, okay. I can’t go anymore. I wanna feel you,” Stan interrupted, holding your face. “Put your boots on. Those were so damn sexy.” You chuckled and put on the shiny, leather boots from before. You were entirely naked other than your feet.

“Alright, hot stuff, you ready to ride the Stan O’ War?” Stan asked, throwing your legs on his shoulders. A boot was on either side of his head.

You giggled in response. “Yes, captain,” you answered.

He lined up with your entrance, and finally was inside you. He stretched you out painfully good. He wasn’t the longest, but, God, he was wide. That’s how you like it. He held onto your boots for leverage as he pounded into you. His breathing became ragged as he went back and forth inside you.

“You feel s’good,” he groaned. “So fucking good.”

His voice sent you over the edge making your body start to quake and pulse. Your legs shook around his head which, in turn, caused Stan to cum. Your convulsions were enough to make a “dead man come back to life” as Stan would describe. As you both rode out your highs, Stan laid on your chest as you twirled his hair. You laid in blissful silence until you remembered something.

“So…does this mean karaoke Friday?”

His face scrunched into his signature grumpy frown. “Can you just let me enjoy what’s left of my dignity until I lose it all?” You giggled at his answer as he laid his head back on your chest. You kissed the top of his head and leaned your head back on your pillow. Little did you know, he was more than happy to sing cheesy songs with you in public. He would just never let you know that.

[belvedia]

“Lover” makes me feel a little weird but it’s not a deal breaker in fanfic. Mostly it’s a characterization thing. Some characters just wouldn’t use super mushy pet names.

However, two characters referring to each other by their titles despite banging on the regular? Especially while banging? Hot.

Also IRL relationship-wise, we are babe and love and honey to each other and it is natural as can be.

Just saw a TikTok complaining about ‘kitten’ as a pet name in fanfiction and while I do agree with their discomfort on that one the comments were FULL of people mentioning all the other common pet names ?? Like honey babe baby sweetheart etc ?? Is your partner just supposed to call you by your name the whole time ????????

[tomatopers]

❝ What I call my lover? ❞ [Genshin Men edition]

im actually going to use this as a list to remember the pet names they use in my genshin fanfics too lmaoooo

Men included as of 04/06/2024: Albedo, Ayato, Baizhu, Capitano, Childe, Cyno, Dainsleif, Diluc, Dottore, Kaeya, Kaveh, Kazuha, Pantalone, Pierro, Thoma, Tighnari, Venti, Wanderer, Xiao, Zhongli

➥ Albedo;; Dear (he read it in a book), Button (there's a fic tied to this in my drafts)

➥ Ayato;; Darling, Love, Sugar

➥ Baizhu;; Darling, Dear, Angel

➥ Capitano;; Not only does he forgo pet names, he also rarely uses your name. To be fair, he isn't much of a talker.

➥ Childe;; Comrade 💀, Doll/Dollface, Tiger, Firecracker, My Lady/Lord

➥ Cyno;; Sunshine, "Meow meow" (he thinks it's hilarious), Pookie (see prior reason), Teddybear (see prior reason again), Love bug (he thinks he's hilarious)

➥ Dainsleif;; ...maybe Dearest. Rarely, as a treat.

➥ Diluc;; Angel, Darling, Dove

➥ Dottore;; Pet. Other ownership type names too, probably.

➥ Kaeya;; Sweetheart, Sugar, Baby, Honey bunch, Cutie

➥ Kaveh;; Lovebug, Precious

➥ Kazuha;; Sunshine, Love of my life, My love

➥ Pantalone;; Precious, Darling, Poppet, Silly thing

➥ Pierro;; Dear. That's all you get.

➥ Thoma;; My Princess/My Prince, Beautiful, Buttercup (only once, upon saying it he realized it sounded incredibly cringey)

➥ Tighnari;; Rosebud, pumpkin, sweetpea

➥ Venti;; Dove, My muse, Pumpkin, Cutie, Honeybear

➥ Wanderer/Scaramouche;; Brat, Angel (once in a blue moon), Pest, Freak, Weakling (affectionately... probably?)

➥ Xiao;; Your name. Nothing else. Sorry not sorry. Maybe he calls you pretty once or twice, but that's about it.

➥ Zhongli;; Beloved, Darling, Dearest, Treasure, Precious

[battlekidx2]

I'm making this post purely to shout out some incredibly talented fanfic writers from the Hazbin Hotel fandom and my favorite works of theirs.

Did anyone ask me for this? No. Will I post it anyway? Absolutely. The writers in this fandom are too good.

The first fanfic writer I want to shout out is @prince-liest (ao3 link)

I absolutely love their get cared for idiot (Alastor) series (not the official name but they called it that in one of their asks jokingly so it's now the default in my head).

Knock, Knock! It's Your Worst Fucking Nightmare! (this fic gets it!!!! This is what I meant when I said Alastor is growing a heart and part of him is raging against it. He still has ulterior motives and a massive amount of pride and part of him feels like that growing fondness is getting in the way, but he can't stop it. I need to stop before this becomes a long ramble. I've written a couple thousand words on this idea, but this fic is just a better use of your time than any meta I could ever write and way more entertaining :D )

Happily Ever After, and Other Shit Nepotism Can't Buy

The Last Bus Stop in Hell, Now Boarding (Please look at the tags for content warning. Angel and Alastor body swap story.)

They're amazing at balancing on that razor's edge with Alastor where there's a heart in there (really deep) and he's unintentionally growing attached to the hazbin crew, but he doesn't lose his edge. He's still manipulative and an asshole and can easily be the scariest guy in any room. He's in hell for a reason. A+ characterization at all times.

They're so good at writing the complicated dynamics he has with the residents, especially Charlie, and I enjoy how they expand on Alastor's potential dynamic with Angel Dust.

Anything they write from Lucifer's POV is gold too! My favorites are:

Take Two and Leave a Voicemail!

The Care and Keeping of Homo Angelus

I am also 100% here for their Aro!Alastor agenda and I'm enjoying their fic I Love Her, I Love Her Not so far!

The second person I want to shout out is @grayintogreen (ao3 link)

Their series Red Roses and Dead Things consistently gut punches me.

Just like Princeliest, they are also fantastic at balancing on that razor's edge with Alastor. A+ characterization for everyone and I love how they write HuskerDust. It's so soft, especially in the aftermath fic for Learn that Even Death May Die called If My Love Is Tomorrow, I've Forgotten Yesterday (that fic hurt in the best way).

The way they explore the aftermath of Learn that Even Death May Die is incredibly impactful. They capture the unique grief that comes from the reality that there are some things you won't get closure for so well that it's painful.

I can't say enough good things about their series. Genuinely go read it.

I found @lediz-watches (ao3 link) before the first season of Hazbin Hotel dropped (I've been a fan of the hellaverse for a few years now and have been enthralled with the Hazbin Hotel pilot since I first watched it in 2020) and I really enjoy their fics.

My favorite is Suffering Kindness. I love the Charlie and Alastor dynamic they explore in this story. I think I'm just a sucker for the Charlie and Alastor dynamic in general, but this fic hits all the right notes for me. (written pre-season 1 but man is it good. 100% recommend)

LeDiz also has a lot of one-shots/collections of one-shots that are very fun.

The Cure for Inexorable Boredom

Dollface (one-shots about Alastor theories. My favorite is the 3rd one. So fascinating!)

Choice Words (one of the few explorations of Alastor and Vaggie's dynamic that I've found in the fandom)

Don't Say It

I have to shout out @ckret2 (ao3 link) and their phenomenal fic You’ve Got a Face for Radio. This is such an amazing aroace!Alastor fic. (Embarrassingly it was this fic that made me realize I was most likely aroace myself. I’d had fleeting moments of suspecting it but it wasn’t until I saw my experiences laid out in a character explicitly written to be aroace that I put the puzzle pieces together. -_- some of these passages were too relatable.) I cannot express how much I love this fic.

I also like their fics Dumpster Baby and Bitter Grapes.

I have one last writer I want to mention because this is getting really long (whoops). The last one is tiredoflofteranditsshit and their Assume He Has a Heart series (because my favorite character and how I interpret them was not obvious enough already with the fics/authors I've recommended. I had to make it more obvious).

These fics are massive (17k and 26k words) and so much fun. Definitely worth the read. Yet another series that follows up season 1 and explores Alastor’s growing connections and how he lies to himself and pushes against it. Love this series and there’s a lot to sink your teeth into :D

[real-hot-grl-shi]

HEHE HAHA THE THOUGHT OF KATSUKI CALLING HIS GF/WIFE DOLL OR DOLLFACE ABABAHAHAHAUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA

MY FUCKING MANNNNNANANAHAHJSSNSNSJ

I want to make a fanfic of him and my oc Comet but idk how to start HELP ME ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🦄🦄🦄🦄🦄

I like unicorns 🦄

[starleska]

Dollface - the Toymaker x Real Toymaker!Reader

As a toymaker, you are delighted when you stumble across MR EMPORIUM'S TOYSHOP. But when you meet its eccentric owner - one eponymous 'Toymaker' - you enter into an impossible game with higher stakes than you ever imagined…with the risk of your deepest fantasy coming true. Rating: Mature. Tags: Dollification; Toyification; Truth or Dare; Reality-Bending; Humiliation; Psychological Torture; Fluff; Teasing; Touching; Forced Dancing; Mentions of Neglect; Cosmic Horror; Horrible Fake German. Reader is presumed female, but has a complicated relationship with gender and enjoys feminine terms of endearment. requested by the lovely @chronicbeans!! whilst this was originally meant to be a few-paragraphs long headcanons bit...but then it sprawled into a 13,000 word fanfic. my apologies to yourself, and to any German speakers in the audience 🙈💖 you can also read this on AO3. i hope you enjoy!

Toys are your life.

For as long as you can remember you have been fascinated by all manner of toys: everything from teddy bears to zoetropes; spinning tops to yo-yos. As a child you weren’t just interested in playing with toys—you wanted to reach inside of them, pick them apart, and understand every little detail about how they worked. Much to the chagrin of your parents, you spent more time trying to put your toys back together than you did actually playing with them. 

But all of your alternative playtime paid off. Now, as an adult, you run a modest yet successful local toymaking business, with your own vendor stall at the market and a popular online shop. Much of your work is custom, using vintage materials to replicate toys of the past, and you occasionally trade and sell real old toys too. As a result, you have something of a monopoly on the local toy scene, and feel you know every single toymaker and toy-collecting enthusiast in a fifty mile radius.

That’s why it’s a real shock when you stumble across MR EMPORIUM’S TOYSHOP late one night. 

The storefront is a gorgeous assault to the senses. Parked in the middle of the cold, grey street, the toyshop beams out crimson and gold onto the snow drifts, with all manner of classic toys peeking out at you through the windows. You are delighted to see an assortment of downy plush bears and hand-painted model motor cars crowding the shelves: so many it feels like the toyshop itself might burst at the seams. Your giddiness only increases as you get closer to the window. You can make out all sorts of fun, bright shapes within: countless colourful toys beckoning you and begging to be taken home. 

Yet it isn’t these treasures which catch your eye the most. Right at the back of the shop, near the counter, you spy a shelf lined with dolls. They are beautiful even at a distance: likely from the early 20th century, masterfully painted and wearing a fine rainbow of little dresses. Even from your vantage point you can see the impeccable craftsmanship. There’s immense detail in their delicate hands, and if you’re not mistaken, each doll has a crop of real human hair.

Perhaps most intriguing of all is the eyes. Their glass sheen looks so sad and wistful…far more emotion than a doll should be able to communicate.

If you didn’t know any better, you would believe the dolls were alive.

Oh, I shouldn’t , you tell yourself. I’m much too old now to be playing with dolls…and I keep all my old ones locked up anyway. I shouldn’t deprive some kid of a toy. This is a deeply silly excuse, and a hypocritical one. The vast majority of your clientele are adults, as are the brilliant toymakers you’re proud to call your friends. This is the perpetual double-standard you constantly believe and are always trying to rally against: that you are uniquely strange, and deserve to be ridiculed for your interests. 

The curious thing is that this idea doesn’t apply to toys more broadly…only to dolls. You have made countless dolls throughout your career, and yet owning dolls and enjoying them is something you’ve long nursed a hang-up over. But that is a can of worms you refuse to open up today. No , you decide, today I am going to be a normal adult who is confident about their interests and doesn’t feel an ounce of shame! I am going to go into this toyshop and look at those dolls, and that’s that! With your mind made up, you shift your backpack onto your shoulder, take a deep breath, and push through the toyshop’s door. 

The door slams shut behind you with the tinkle of a bell. You are immediately enveloped in warmth, and the delicious scent of varnished wood enrobes you like a fine dress. You can’t help but close your eyes and inhale: somehow, the toyshop smells just like your childhood.

“Hallo, meine kleine Mädchen! Komm in, komm in, be ge-removings yourselves from dee kalt! It is ein horrid evenings, is it not?”

You open your eyes in surprise, and see an older, greyish-blond-haired man leaning against the counter. He’s dressed in a most whimsical fashion, wearing a soft white work shirt coupled with a maroon waistcoat, and a brown apron stuffed with woodworking tools. A spotted ascot around his neck and a pair of pince-nez balanced at the end of his nose complete the look.

The man smiles at you like he’s known you all his life. You feel like you’ve been transported to another time.

“It is,” you agree, as you shake the snow drifts from your boots. “So sorry for dropping in so late—I’m surprised you’re still open.”

“Ah, but I am always having times for dee beautiful Fräulein,” says the man with a coy wink. “But vot is it zat is ge-bringings you here?”

You have to stifle a giggle. You know enough of the language to know the man’s German is terribly off, and his accent is borderline offensive. However, you also know that folks in the toymaking community tend to be eccentric, and you can forgive a corny, theatrical accent for the wonderful atmosphere of this shop. Who are you to judge if he wants to LARP as a Bavarian thespian?

Before you can reply, the strange man is suddenly beside you…although you don’t recall seeing him move. He has also removed his pince-nez. You blink, a little taken aback. How did he move so quickly? You wonder if you’ve eaten enough that day.

“I’m…a toymaker,” you say, trying not to sound freaked out. “I’ve never seen your shop before, and I thought I knew everyone in town who makes toys. What’s your name?”

The man’s eyes are blue, you notice—terribly blue, and sparkling in the soft light with unspoken mischief. “You are beings ein toymaker? Vy, zat is a coincidence…” He taps the side of his nose. “Many peoples ge-calls me by many names. But zey most oftens call me the Toymaker, und nothing else. It be gettings dee point across, nein? Und was ist your name?”

You tell him, and the Toymaker’s mouth splits open in a wide grin.  

“Das ist ein schöner name!” he says enthusiastically. “Truly, a magnifizent fit. It is not often zat I am gettings other toymakers in mein shop…I vonder, vot does your eye ge-fallen upon? Could it be mein cuddly collection of teddies? Oh, ja, I sees you are ge-needings ein soft companion for dese frosty nights. Or could it be mein train? Choo-choo! it goes, round and round all dee livelong day! I am ge-havings many customers mit ein eye for dee train.”

The Toymaker’s voice is smooth as butter, rich and inviting, and each word he speaks seems to add a little more colour to his delightful environment. You look around in awe at all of the toys, unable to comprehend the sheer scale of the place. Just moments ago the shop seemed so small, with the abundance of toys seriously crammed in on the shelves, but now it looks impossibly vast: a veritable sea of playful delights. The little choo-choo train in question chugs along on its rails and moves past the doll shelf, drawing your eye back to their pretty little figures.

“Ah, dee Katze hast gotten your tongue,” says the Toymaker. He gestures to the dolls, and the gold ring on his right pinkie finger catches the light. “I too ams often becomings stricken by dee beauty of mein dollen…zey took me many nights to make, ja. Oh, but ge-look! Eins ist out of place. Zose fingers are so fiddly! Und dee hair…zo many eveninks ge-spended brushing out zeir tiny curls."

You watch as the Toymaker reaches up and begins deftly rearranging the dolls. His fingers are long and nimble, and they move with such care and attention, placing each doll’s tiny hands neatly in their laps and smoothing down their dresses. When you’re a toymaker, you grow to appreciate a pair of well-practised hands, and there’s something undeniably… charming , about this Toymaker and his cartoonish whimsy. It’s silly, but you feel a little heat rising in your cheeks. The attention he’s paying to such small, delicate objects…

…well, it’s only natural that your mind should wander to more practical applications of such hands.

“The dolls are gorgeous,” you say. “Do you offer any toymaking classes? The dolls I make have a bit more of a modern touch.”

That’s when the Toymaker laughs, and it is a strange laugh: it tinkles out of his mouth like a jingle, in a musical, ‘Ha ha ha HA ha ha ha!’

“Oh, mein dollen are sehr modern…moreso zan you sink,” says the Toymaker. He gives you another wink, as it seems he likes to give them out for free.

That’s when you feel the little clench in your chest. Oh dear, he really is quite handsome. This wouldn’t be the first time you’d caught feelings for a quirky, attractive stranger, and they were often not as well-dressed as the Toymaker. You have a tendency to get caught up in the realms of imagination, and have thought up more than a few daring trysts with pretty-faced people with whom you’d only exchanged a couple of words. You ought to grab a doll, leave, and have a quiet little panic attack about this interaction at home.

You force your eyes away from the handsome man and back to the shelf.

That’s when you spot her.

Somehow, a doll had escaped your notice. Right in the middle of her sad-looking rainbow sisters is another doll, simply and prettily done up in a powder-blue be-ribboned frock. Unlike the other dolls, this one is smiling in a dimpled way, and her eyes sparkle with a magical sheen not unlike that of the Toymaker’s. You note with some amusement that the doll has the same eye colour as you—hair colour, too. This isn’t strange on a doll, but it gives you the same jolt of satisfaction and déjá vu you get when meeting someone who shares your name.

“Ah,” says the Toymaker (now on your other side). “Dee dollen…zey speak to you, ja? Zey are ge-having ein chitter-chatter, all high up on dee shelf. Vot fun games zey have ven I ge-leaves the shoppen!”

Dollen isn’t even the German word for dolls, you know—it’s Puppen. But you get the sense that the Toymaker’s German accent is less an earnest recreation (and it’s certainly not his natural accent), but a pantomime version intended to amuse and entertain.

“I’m sure they do,” you say, but you’re distracted from the Toymaker’s little act. The longer you look at the doll, the stranger you feel.

You move closer to the shelf to get a better look, and are startled by what you discover.

It isn’t just that the doll on the shelf has similar hair and eyes to you: they’re both the exact same shade, even down to the imperfect flecks in your irises. 

You study the doll intently for a moment, blink, and— what? The doll’s hair is now the same length as yours. Was it always? No, you could have sworn just a moment ago it was not just a completely different length, but style.

You rise up on your tiptoes to get a better look at the doll, and are baffled by what you see. It’s as if detail is stacking on the doll right before your eyes, the way some video game maps load in piece-by-piece. You watch as texture is added to her hair, and light pools in her eyes. This level of craftsmanship is uncanny; it’s as if the Toymaker went out of their way to create a doll which resembles you.

“How did you do that?” You turn to the Toymaker, confused. “Did you know I was coming here?"

The Toymaker’s mouth contorts into an offended pout. “Now, you ge-vounds me. It is ein special privilege, having another Spielzeugmacher in mein shop. Tell me, vot do you sink of her hair? Es ist pretty, ja?”

“But that doll looks exactly like me,” you say.

You can feel your heart hammering in your chest. Suddenly the warm, cosy atmosphere of the toyshop feels more claustrophobic and oppressive. The Toymaker looks unbothered; he rests his chin on his hand and contemplates the shelf. 

“Zere ist ein…certain resemblance,” says the Toymaker, with an unusual, almost French affectation on the last word. “But you are just ge-havings, as zey say, ‘von of zose faces’. Ja, das ist richtig: ein dollface. Puppengesicht. All smooth und sveet. Vy, vot a lucky lady you are! She simply must be goings home vith you.”

You’re scrambling to work out what kind of practical joke this is, and how the Toymaker was pulling it off. You’d met a few eccentric toymakers with God complexes before, as they tend to go hand-in-hand: you’d briefly dated one who designed escape rooms in his spare time. But this is on another level…creating a doll which can be imperceptibly altered to resemble a person in real-time? You’d never heard of such a thing, and you can’t think of a non-creepy reason why someone would go to the trouble of making one.

Oh, hang on a minute, you think. This guy might just be a genius. “This is a marketing trick, isn’t it?”

You pull away from the Toymaker and lean against his counter, feeling terribly smug for having figured it out.

The Toymaker puts his head on one side, quizzical. Playing dumb, you think.

“I am not ge-followings you,” the Toymaker says. 

“You make dolls of the people you see ahead of time,” you explain. “People you know who will come in here at some point…collectors, other toymakers. Then you wait and put them on the shelf when they come in, maybe behind some hidden panel so you can spin them around when they get close. Then when they come in, it’s like they’ve found the perfect toy!” 

You’re so proud of yourself for having cracked the case, you want to pump your fist in the air. For a moment, you envision yourself wearing a deerstalker hat and smoking a pipe. Go me! But your victory is short-lived. During your diatribe, the Toymaker’s bright, childish grin had frozen on his face, and remained in place even during your brief mental celebration. But now the smile slowly slips like a mask peeling away from too-tight skin. In its place sits a stormy frown: one which clenches the muscles and wrinkles of the Toymaker’s face into an expression which says ‘insulted’.

“For shame,” says the Toymaker. “That’s twice you’ve accused me of cheating now. You really do me a disservice. I am bound by the Rules of Play, and would never resort to such cheap tricks.”

What the hell…? The Toymaker’s accent is completely different. Where before his voice was a thick soup of faux German, now it is a soft British breeze: a proper, formal accent which speaks the way trees rustle. You gape at him, dumbfounded. 

“Your accent is different,” you can’t help but say. You’re no longer just leaning against the counter—you’re actively pushing into it, with the edge of the countertop pushing into the small of your back.

The Toymaker raises an eyebrow at you, and smirks. “You are not half as stupids as you are ge-lookings,” he says, slipping the German back on like a heavy cloak. “But zen, I know you are playing ein game mit me, aren’t you?” 

You stare at the Toymaker. Something has shifted: the air is thick with a tension you cannot identify, but which you want to run away from. You keep staring, thinking that if you look away from those too-blue eyes for even a moment, you might just lose your grip.

You know for a fact that if you look back at that doll on the shelf, it will look even more like you than before.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, and you wish you weren’t lying.

The Toymaker laughs his musical laugh and wags his finger in your face. “Sehr naughty!” he says. “Oh, how natürlich dee lies kommen to sie, mein Schatz. You be ge-knowinks how to play games…zis ist ein lecker human mind game, und you are ge-tryings to deceive me.”

His voice slips smoothly back into the British:

“Do you think I don’t know all about your little fantasy?”

Your eyes go wide, and a choked noise escapes your mouth. No. There is no way that this man…this impossible toymaker could possibly know. You were always so careful, so sure to keep it all to yourself! Familiar shame and embarrassment wash over you in a hot wave as the Toymaker looks at you, looks into you, as if he can see the inner workings of your mind. Your mind grabs at the old, familiar justifications the way one might grab a newspaper for modesty if they found themselves naked on a bus. It’s perfectly normal to have fun little flights of fancy. Everyone plays make-believe sometimes, right? “But zey are embarrassing, zese thoughts of yours,” the Toymaker giggles. “Not dee kind of thoughts you can share mit deine Mutter. I am not ge-thinkinks zat you have shared your desires mit ein Partnerin…” There goes the eyebrow again, cocked sardonically to match the wicked curl of his lips. “Is zis true?” You feel nauseous. The firm pressure of the countertop underneath your palms is all that stops you from shaking. It feels as if the Toymaker is probing the inside of your skull, and using those skilled fingers to strip back the whorls of your brain and grab at the fleshy thoughts inside. 

“Get out of my head,” you say quietly.

“Oh, but zis is dee game I ge-likes!” says the Toymaker. “Humans mit zeir internal struggles. Desires mit dee most fun ideas, but you are too ge-frightened to say vot you vant. So you play games mit dein loved ones…dee hunting und dee exasperation. Oh, you simply vill not communicate!"

You don’t know when the Toymaker got so close to you, but now he’s towering over you, with his hands firmly planted on either side of the countertop. You’re close enough to count the spots on his ascot, and examine the year-lines etched around his mouth and eyes. When he smiles those lines crinkle, but not naturally: it’s the way a puppet’s arms reach for the stars when the marionette twists them upwards.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun,” you whisper. “I’ll buy the doll and leave.”

This close, the Toymaker radiates heat. He smells like rose petals and Christmas.

“You could…but zat vould be no fun,” says the Toymaker. “I propose ve solve zis in a more interesting vay…”

The Toymaker waves his hand across your field of vision…and transforms the centre of the toyshop. A small wooden table complete with chairs has popped into existence just in front of the counter. You gape at the sight. How did he do that?! “Let us play ein game,” he says. “If you vin, you can take dee doll free of charge. But if I vin…”

The Toymaker’s smile cracks like the earth preceding a quake.

“You vill stay vith me und play mein games forever!”

You have to give yourself credit for reacting as well as you did. Most people, if they were faced with a crazy fake German man who seems able to read your mind, may have had a breakdown or made a run for the door. But you’ve seen a lot of anime, and you understand that if you are challenged by a handsome, powerful man with magical powers and a delightful hairstyle, you cannot refuse the call. Your brain has shifted from This should be impossible, to It’s game time.  “Alright,” you say slowly. “You’re clearly very powerful. It seems like if I play a game with you, you have far more to gain than I do. A doll isn’t a good enough prize.”

The Toymaker smiles at you. “Ein girl after mein own heart,” he says. “How about zis: if you vin, I vill show you exactly how I make mein dollen, complete vith a demonstration. Zat is generous of me, nein?”

His words are laced with sinister venom, and it’s all you can do not to be poisoned.

“And I’m guessing that if I refuse your game, something terrible would happen to me?”

The Toymaker hums low in his throat. “Hm…not accepting mein game is always ein option…ja, you could do zat. Und yet…” 

You inhale as the Toymaker brings his face terribly close to yours. The skin of his cheek brushes your own. You can feel his soft breath as he whispers into your ear, British once more:

“I know you are so curious as to how I make my dolls. If you leave now, you’ll never know. And I think if you wanted to leave, you would have done so already.”

The Toymaker pulls away from you, leaving you with your face on fire. He’s right. In less than ten minutes, the Toymaker has sussed out your fatal flaw: your damned unstoppable curiosity. There have been countless times where your life would have been improved if you’d kept your nose in your own business…but this is different. The Toymaker isn’t just dangling a carrot: he’s already dug his hooks in you, and you are being reeled in with every second you spend looking into those impossibly blue eyes.

When you next blink, the Toymaker has moved again. He is sitting in one chair, his hands folded primly in front of him.

“Name your challenge,” he says.

You weren’t expecting this: you thought he would have a game in mind. “Any game at all?”

“There isn’t a game I don’t know,” says the Toymaker coolly. “It is common courtesy to allow the guest to pick the party game.”

You can’t help a nervous giggle. “This is a weird kind of party,” you say. 

The Toymaker acknowledges this by inclining his head. “Choose.”

Your mind scrambles over dozens of options. There are so many games…board games, card games, strategy games. Do we need equipment? How long does the game have to be? What games can you play with just two people? That’s when your brain starts to run in a very different direction, and a variety of… game positions …flash through your imagination with impunity.

A flush scalds up your neck. You look at the Toymaker, who raises his eyebrows in a knowing way.

He knows exactly what you’re thinking.

You want to scream.

“Truth or Dare!” you blurt out.

That gets his attention. The Toymaker leans forward, his eyes quizzical. “Zat is non-traditional…yet apt,” he says. “Could it be zat you are ge-vantings me to force zat fantasy out of you, meine Liebchen?”

“No,” you lie. “I want you to tell me what you are, and why you’re doing this to me.”

“Then let’s get down to business,” says the Toymaker. “We take it in turns to ask each other Truth or Dare. A Truth corresponds to a question which must be answered truthfully, and a Dare is an action which must be carried out. The player earns one point for each Truth or Dare successfully completed.”

The Toymaker steeples his fingers together. You can’t pull your eyes away from them.

“If you refuse to complete a Truth or a Dare, or you contravene the rules of the game, you lose a point…and must complete a forfeit.” 

The way he says ‘forfeit’ sends a shiver down your spine. “What kind of forfeit?”

“Oh, dee usual,” says the Toymaker casually. “Somesing difficult or humiliating. I do not ge-liken to pre-plan zese things…I am preferings to be spontaneous.”

You are starting to regret your choice of game. This is a man who knows more about you than you’ve ever told your closest friend…surely a game like Truth or Dare would be pointless for him? So you ask: “Why would you want to play this if you can already tell what I’m thinking?”

The Toymaker frowns. “A good question,” he says. “The Rules of Play prevent me from having any unfair advantage over an opponent. Although my abilities will remain intact, anything which would tilt the game in my favour is out-of-bounds. I am physically incapable of cheating, and would thank you not to bring it up again. There are only two states of being which matter: winning, or losing. I intend to win.”

Fair enough , you think. “And what if I cheat?” you say. “I have a pretty good poker face. If you can’t look inside my head during the game, what if I just lie to you? How could you tell?” 

The Toymaker chuckles, bearing his mouth wide. To your horror, you see there are far, far too many teeth in his mouth.

“I can always tell when someone is lying to me.” 

“Six turns,” you counter, voice trembling. “Whoever has the most points at the end of those turns is the winner. And…you can’t choose Truth or Dare more than twice in a row.”

The Toymaker seems impressed by your game-making skills. “Agreed,” he says. “Let us begin.” 

He snaps his fingers, and all the lights in the toyshop go out. Above, a stagelight snaps into existence, pouring heat and light onto your scalp in a cascade. The Toymaker’s striking features are illuminated by this shift in lighting, casting the lines of his face with the severity of stage makeup. You swallow: he looks divine.

“Would you like to go first?” he asks politely.

“...No,” you say after a moment. “I think that honour should go to the house.”

Your gamble pays off: you realised that the Toymaker is a man with great respect for the rules of the game, and this offer makes him smile.

“How generous,” says the Toymaker. “Truth or Dare?”

“Dare,” you say. 

The Toymaker taps his finger to his lips, considering. Then, he says, “Destroy something precious to you.”

It takes a few seconds for you to really process the Dare. When it hits, you are baffled. What kind of Dare is that? you want to say…but you don’t bother saying it aloud. What kind of toyshop is this—and what kind of ‘toymaker’ is he? All you need to know is reflected in the sadistic gleam in the Toymaker’s eye. This wouldn’t be an ordinary game, and contesting his requests would be fruitless. All you can do is make your move.

You take a deep breath, and reach down into your backpack. You didn’t leave the house this morning planning to bring anything precious to you, but you are a sentimental person by nature, and know you have one item which fits the bill. It’s with great sadness that you pull out a small, ratty teddy bear and place him on the table. The bear is old and beige and dressed in a crimson band leader’s outfit, complete with a hat and red-laced riding boots.

“Oh, ein teddy bear!” laughs the Toymaker, delighted. “How charming. He is quite dee looker, isn’t he?”

“He’s the first bear I ever made,” you say. “I was listening to some 90s British pop music, and the idea for his design just…popped into my head. I scribbled it down and pulled him together from scraps of fabric and repurposed stuffing in just a day. His name’s Neil…I keep him with me for good luck.”

Something about what you said is terribly amusing to the Toymaker, but you don’t know why. “Ein handsome name indeed,” says the Toymaker. “But I am afraid zat vill not be enoughs to ge-save him. Poor Neil. Now…vill you complete your Dare?” 

You take a deep breath. There was no turning back now; you’ve accepted the Toymaker’s game, and the predatory sheen in his eyes tells you that you can no longer just walk away. So you pick up Neil, grab hold of his little teddy bear ears—

And tear his head off, sending stuffing careening all over the table. 

“Oh!” says the Toymaker with a false gasp. “Vot an unfortunate end for poor Neil. I did not know zat you have such ein cruel streak.” 

“Shut up,” you say, trying not to look at Neil’s decapitated corpse.

Even though he’s just a teddy bear, you feel like you’ve just killed a defenceless animal. Neil’s lifeless button-eyes gaze up at you imploringly, as if asking why you’d do such a thing. You knock Neil’s head off the table and focus back on the Toymaker.

“That’s one point to me,” you say. “Truth or Dare?”

The Toymaker grins at you like a shark. “Dare.”

There are a thousand questions ricocheting around your head, but you ask the one which you know will keep you up at night: “Tell me how you did that thing with the doll.”

The violence of the Toymaker’s laughter makes you jump. He actually covers his mouth to quieten himself, but his shoulders shake even so. “Oh nein, nein, nein, you are ge-makings ein mistake!” he says. “You cannot be askings a question ven I have chosen Dare. Oh, meine Schatz, you have your lost your point…and must receive ein forfeit.”

Your veins run cold. “What? No! That was never in the rules!” 

“It is a common rule,” says the Toymaker, suddenly serious. “What is the point of distinguishing between a Truth or Dare, if a Dare can be a Truth?”

You want to protest…but his logic is infuriatingly sound. It’s exactly the kind of argument you could see yourself making if you were playing the game against a friend. You try to think of some other get-out-of-jail-free card—anything which would allow you learn how the Toymaker made that doll look exactly like you—but you come up short. You slump in your chair, and resign yourself to waiting for the next round.

“Oh, do not ge-look so sad,” says the Toymaker. In mock sympathy, he makes a little tutting sound against his teeth. “Now, about zat forfeit…ah! I am ge-knowings just dee sing.”

The Toymaker snaps his fingers…and your clothes burst into a flock of doves.

You scream and leap up from the table, batting away at the birds scrambling over your skin. They coo and and flap in your face before struggling upwards and flying into the rafters. Shocked, you look down to find yourself still fully clothed…but with a wardrobe change. You are now clad in a beautiful, powder-blue dress. The fabric is inhumanly soft and threaded through with white ribbons.

“Oh my God!” you yell. “What did you do?!”

The Toymaker is doing his best to stifle a giggle behind his hand. “Do you like it?” he asks. “I think the colour is rather fetching on you.” 

You clutch at the skirts of your dress, wishing the floor would open up and swallow you whole. There is no way this is possible…you hadn’t felt anything, not even a shift of your own clothes or the sliding of new fabric against your skin. One moment you were wearing your own clothes, and the next you weren’t. It’s as if your clothes were merely a covering, and when they transformed into doves and flapped off, they left only your dress behind. 

You move your legs under the layers of fabric, and blush when you discover you’re wearing a pair of frilly stockings. As you stick out your feet, you can see your feet are clad in a shiny pair of Mary Janes. It’s with a sick feeling in your stomach that you realise what the dress is.

It’s the same dress that the doll on the shelf is wearing.

"You're sick," you hiss.

The Toymaker cocks his head to one side. “Indeed?” he says. “How odd. I thought I was being rather generous, giving you a helping hand towards becoming your true self.” He snickers at you. “If I am sick, then I do wonder what that makes you. My mind is full of games, but the inside of your head is full of so much more.”

You ignore the Toymaker and hold your own arms, shrinking back down into your chair. Yet as you look down at the dress, you can’t help but feel a pang of longing. The dress is a perfect fit, one which could have been custom-designed, and the fabric is truly stunning in appearance and quality. With its puffy sleeves and shapely waistline, you know if you were alone you would have given your new skirts a twirl.

But you can’t let yourself get lost now. This is as much a mind game as it is a real one, you realise. The Toymaker is eyeing you like a piece of meat, and it’s clear that he is capable of so much more than a costume change. You must press on with the game. 

“I want to keep playing,” you say.

“Wonderful,” says the Toymaker. "We’re currently still at zero points each, with two turns down. Unfortunately, your turn was taken due to the forfeit. I must ask you: Truth or Dare?” 

You don’t allow yourself time to think about it: “Dare.” 

The Toymaker’s smile is knowing. “It is a fool’s errand, trying to delay the inevitable. I believe my initial suspicions were correct…you do want the Truth to be pried from you, don’t you? Perhaps that makes the shame a little less potent. After all, the mean, scary Toymaker made you dress this way. It wasn’t your fault…you couldn’t help it. Am I getting warmer?”

Your face is getting warmer, and it’s getting increasingly hard to meet the Toymaker’s gaze. “It isn’t my fault that my opponent is insane,” you say, with venom. 

Somehow, the Toymaker’s laugh is German. “Ah, zere is zat fire. You are quite dee entertaining playmate, meine Liebling. I am not ge-xpectings you to verstand games of dee mind…but I do find zem exhilarating. Dee expressions ge-crossing your face right now…I vish you could see zem.”

You scowl at the Toymaker. “Just give me your Dare.”

The Toymaker shrugs at you. “If you insist. I Dare you…to perform a dance befitting a fine young lady such as yourself.”

Oh, God, no. This is a nightmare of a Dare. “I—I’m not a dancer,” you say. You can feel your blush crawling up your neck. You envision yourself prancing around in your new dolly-dress, and the embarrassment makes you physically cringe.

“Oh, zat is not ein problem!” The Toymaker beckons you to look under the table. When you do, he taps his own shoes against the floor, performing a rhythmic tap-step. “Zose lovely Schuhe I gave you vill ge-helpen sie along. Provided you are villing to perform dee dare, your tanzen is all taken care of. All you are ge-needings to do is stand up, und take drei steps backwards.”

The Toymaker leans back in his chair and looks at you expectantly. The list of excuses which blossomed into your mind when he first suggested the Dare are dwindling rapidly, each one seeming more pathetic than the last. But…maybe there is a way out of this?

“What about music?” you ask. “Surely you can’t expect me to dance without music.” 

The Toymaker shakes his head at you. “Do not ge-worry about dee musik! I have it all covered. Unless…you vish to forfeit once more?” The idea of any other part of your body spontaneously transforming into an animal is enough to make you scramble to your feet. Immediately, you are self-conscious: the dress is equal parts beautiful and ridiculous, and is so poofy and frilly that it gives your lower half the shape of a bell. You haven’t felt this kind of embarrassment since you were in school: the dry throat and sweaty palms before getting up on stage for assembly. Feeling like a silly child, you can’t help but look at the Toymaker, searching those mirthful eyes for guidance. But the Toymaker simply shoos you, indicating for you to step back.  Hesitantly, you take one step away from the table. Then another. Then, one final, gentle step.  Without warning, the floor of the toyshop erupts! From beneath your feet a wooden stage springs up, unfurls around you and traps you like a box. You shriek and try to stumble away, but your new dancing shoes root you firmly to the spot. A spotlight bursts into being above your head and illuminates your frozen self in all your newfound frilly glory.  You look down from your new height to see the Toymaker sitting in what is now the front row of a vast auditorium; the toyshop’s interior has vanished. He whoops and grabs a fistful from a cartoonishly large bucket of popcorn. You open your mouth to yell at him, and maybe call him some horrible names you haven’t thought of yet. But before you can, music starts blaring from all sides of the auditorium. It’s a grating, repetitive tune: some ghastly combination of twee guitar and twinkling piano…and it’s so familiar . You know this song, but what is it? And why does it sound so…childish?  The music hits a powerful note. Your mouth opens unbidden, and from your vocal cords a voice which is decidedly not yours belts out the opening lyric to a familiar nursery rhyme:  “I’m a little teapot, Short and stout!” Your voice is loud and beautiful, and you project better than any Broadway singer. You can do nothing but watch yourself in abject horror as your knees bend in time with the music, and your shiny shoes send you toppling along the stage in time with the song.  “Here is my handle Here is my spout!” You try to scream and stop, but your body is no longer in your control. Your arms bend at frightening angles, and your hips send your neck careening to the side with a crack . A rictus grin is firmly plastered onto your face, and your mouth stays open and singing: “When I get all steamed up, Hear me SHOUT!…” Your hands flap and your toes point and you screaming on the inside, begging for this to stop, stop, STOP ! But the infernal music is inside of your head and it’s pushing in on all sides, and no matter how much you cry and beg and plead your mouth won’t work except to belt out the final words of your song. “TIP me over and POUR. ME. OUT!” At the last line, your knees give out and you collapse face-first onto the stage. A grand cheer goes up from the auditorium. You twist around, trying to see if the Toymaker has conjured up an audience to witness your humiliation—but he is the only one present. The Toymaker is on his feet and giving you a standing ovation. “Vunderbar!” the Toymaker cries as he claps enthusiastically. “Oh, you are dee most darling little teapot, ja. Zis is a fine game we are ge-havings!”

“What—did—you—do?” you gasp on the floor. You feel like your lungs have been crushed. Something the Toymaker did seized up everything inside of you and folded them up like paper. Now it’s as if you really are a doll: crumpled up and discarded in the corner when your owner is finished playing with you. Although you’re quite sure the music has stopped, the melody is blasting in your head in a maddening loop. You try to move, but your legs won’t work. 

“Oh, don’t be zo dramatik. Eversing I ge-make brings viele fun,” says the Toymaker. “Herzlichen Glückwunsch …das ist ein point to you.”

You don’t see the Toymaker get up on the stage, but the next thing you know, he’s crouching down next to you. Without warning, the Toymaker lifts you up under the arms and pulls you to your feet as if you weigh nothing at all. You try to stand but your rigid muscles struggle with the task and you stumble, falling right into the Toymaker’s chest. He chuckles, and you hear it rumbling softly in his chest. His skin is impossibly warm…and you can’t hear a heartbeat.

The two of you stand like that for a long moment, with you enveloped in the Toymaker’s arms. When pressed against his waistcoat, the maddening song infesting your brain quietens, and is replaced with an easy sort of calm. It’s strange…all the questions and anger and terror seem to just burn away. They’re forgotten in the simplicity of being held like a doll.

Eventually, your senses kick in. You manage to pull yourself away from the Toymaker, and you refuse to look at his face. “I just want to get on with the game.”

“Of course.”

The Toymaker waves his hand and the stage and auditorium vanish. You are transported back to the interior of the toyshop, with its familiar cuddly audience and the table taking centre stage. You sit back down at the table shakily. You know when you look up the Toymaker will already be sitting across from you…and you’re right, even though you didn’t see or hear him pull back his chair. His eyes are bright and curious. 

“Okay…Truth or Dare?”

The Toymaker places his hand on his chin and pretends to be deep in thought. After a while, he says, “Truth."

You very nearly ask him the same question you were denied just before: how was he able to make that doll look exactly like you? But the momentary calm offered by the Toymaker’s embrace has had a quieting effect on your mind, and a spike in your critical thinking skills. You have to think strategically; if you want to win, you need to ask him a question which will throw him off-guard. Asking him about the doll wouldn’t be a challenge because he likes to gloat, and to tease. But if you win, you can have your answer to that question and an actual demonstration…

…plus, you get to keep your freedom. Don’t forget that.

So you stare at the Toymaker and wonder…what causes a man (creature, entity, etc.) to end up this way?

“Tell me about your childhood,” you say.

The smile is wiped from the Toymaker’s face in an instant. His mouth twists in discomfort and anger. For the first time since you’ve met him, you feel a pleasant curl of satisfaction in your guts. The game is on, you think.

“What’s wrong?” you ask out loud. “Do you have a problem with the question? Because you can always forfeit—”

“I. Will. Not. Lose.”

The Toymaker’s fists are on the table now: they’re clenched and shaking. Although he’s looking at you, his mind seems far away, trapped somewhere else. After a beat, he leans forward, grabs your head and brings your foreheads together so they’re just barely touching.

“You asked for this,” says the Toymaker gravely. “I will do more than give you the answer to your question. I will show you. Close your eyes.”

The closeness is invigorating: the Toymaker’s hands are strong against the sides of your head, and you wonder for a second if he could pop your skull like a balloon. You consider saying no and demanding he just tell you the answer, but the look on the Toymaker’s face is so intense that you cannot refuse. It’s that terrible curiosity in you, willing you to stand at the edge of the universe and take a step off the cliff.

So you do as your bid, and close your eyes…

…only to awaken in a void.

To say there is nothing around you is an understatement. Your idea of nothingness is very particular: blackness; emptiness, an absence of sound and light. But this is something else entirely. You can’t even feel the lack of something in this place because there simply isn’t anything to feel. From the moment you open your eyes you feel the contradiction of yourself as a physical being, standing in this vacant not-space. There is less than nothing here. There is zilch. There is negative zero. There is null.

You try to get your bearings by looking around, but there are no bearings to get. This is a nothingness which exists beyond your comprehension. Just standing in this nothingness makes your jaw tighten and the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. This is a phobic realm which is the antithesis to life.

And it is so, so cold. 

“This is where I grew up.”

You jump. The Toymaker is standing beside you, arms folded behind his back. He surveys the nothingness with humble respect, the way a weary sailor surveys the ocean.

“How?” You try looking around again, but without anything to anchor gaze on, your eyes just swing back round to the Toymaker. “There’s nothing here.” 

“Nothing except for me.”

The Toymaker sits down on the emptiness, cross-legged. Feeling discombobulated in the lack of space, you sit down too, next to him, and wonder how that’s possible. You hug your elbows, trying to fend off the omnipresent cold.

“We are outside of your universe,” says the Toymaker quietly. “Below it, as a matter of fact. We are in a pocket realm, like the hollow in a tree branch. Here there was nothing for a very long time…so long, that I do not know how to count it. The void is indifferent to such concepts.

“I was a child for an eternity, and many more eternities after that. Merely a conscious speck suspended in forever. At the time I had no form. No body, no face, and not really a mind. I was a collection of distant ideas and fraught, base emotions. There was no reason for me to have either a solid shape or a brain. I existed only in relation to the void, and the void went on forever. All I had to entertain myself were my games.”

With a flick of the wrist, the Toymaker conjures a ball into existence. Then another. Then another. He does this over and over again until he is juggling at least twenty balls. His hands move in a blur as he juggles the balls effortlessly. He tosses them higher and higher, so high that you have to crane your neck to see. Eventually you lose sight of the balls in the nothingness.

But then, the Toymaker sighs…and you notice that the balls are disappearing. This continues for about a minute, the balls growing fewer in number until he’s down to just three…and then there’s only two, so he’s not really juggling at all.

Finally, the Toymaker catches the last remaining ball and holds it up to your face. A frost has grown along its leathery side.

“Playing games can keep you warm,” says the Toymaker, “but only for a little while. Eventually, the cold gets in. And the cold devours everything."

“How did you survive here?” you ask quietly. You can’t raise your voice above a whisper: it feels disrespectful.

“Death isn’t something I am capable of experiencing,” says the Toymaker. “I can never die from the cold. But I can still feel it.” 

The Toymaker looks at the ball in his hand, and it catches fire. You gasp and pull away, but the fire only burns for a few seconds: the flames are quickly extinguished by a new crop of frost, growing over the ball’s surface like a disease.

In moments, the Toymaker is holding nothing but a ball of ice.

“I’m…sorry,” you say.

It’s a feeble reply, and you know it. The cold here is wrapped into the environment itself. This no-space could well be made of nothing but a creeping, insidious chill. It’s worse than the kind of cold which slams into you, like the jump from the shower to a towel on a winter night, or the way your cheeks are slapped when stepping outside on a snowy day.

This cold is sinister. 

It waits.

It seeks out warmth wherever it can, wraps itself around that spark of heat, and crushes it frozen.

The Toymaker runs hot, you remember with a shiver.

No wonder. The Toymaker fends off your weak sympathies with a shake of his head. He stares off into the nothingness, and continues to speak.

“I thought it would just be me and the void forever. But then one day, I heard laughter! It was a sound utterly foreign to me. I was so frightened, I spent millennia curled tight up into a ball, cringing away from the sound. But I could hear them now…beings, with shape and light and thoughts. As the epochs stretched before me and the void remained still, I found myself drawn to their laughter.”

The Toymaker’s eyes glitter with recollection. “I learnt how to poke small peepholes into the fabric of the void, and peer through at the shapes. And oh, the things I saw! These beings, they played games , just like me! Games which used pieces and strategies and all manner of wonderful toys. I wanted to have them all. Needed to have them. So I did. I fashioned myself fingers, and with those fingers I fashioned toys and toys and toys, enough to fill up every child’s toy room in every universe!"

You watch as the Toymaker trembles with excitement. His voice has swollen to fit the void: a rallying cry against the darkness. He looks so proud of himself…but only for a moment. 

“After a while, my toys grew old,” he says sadly. “They say a boy becomes a man when he must throw his toys onto the fire in order to keep himself warm...and the cold never stops. I realised that wood and string were all well and good, but they had no personality of their own…and I had no opponent.”

The Toymaker turns to you then. There’s a manic look in his eye. “So I began to lure in the flesh-and-blood creatures,” he says. “It was easy enough once I learned to assume their shape…especially the early ones, who weren’t so bright. And what shapes I would become! I enjoy this shape so much that I’ve decided to keep it permanently, with the odd touch-up every half-century or so. Being handsome helps bring in the players.”

There goes that easy wink again, smooth and charming and drawing you in like the lure on an anglerfish.

“And…that’s why you’re here today?” you ask. “You just want to play games with us?” 

The Toymaker’s laugh is mean. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he says. “All that exists is to win, or to lose. I don’t want to play games with you. I simply want to win.”

The two of you stand in silence for a while, contemplating the nothingness. The longer you stay, the more you can feel the chill sliding its icy fingers over your flesh. It crawls up your socks and settles into the gaps behind your knees. It causes wet, cold dew to form at the edges of your eyelashes. It even seeps into the spaces between your skin and fingernails.

You wish you hadn’t asked for this Truth.

“One point to you, Toymaker,” you say through chattering teeth.

The Toymaker starts: clearly he’d forgotten all about you. The void has a sobering effect on him, it seems. How did a little boy manage to have any imagination in this place at all? “Yes,” says the Toymaker with a worn smile. “One point each.”

The next time you blink, the void is gone. You are returned to the familiar warmth of the toyshop, and are still sitting at the table across from the Toymaker. But now, even as the cold sloughs off your skin and your cheeks begin to heat up again, you can see the toyshop for what it is. The bright lights and colourful attractions are nothing more than decorative wallpaper for a frozen, ephemeral darkness, ever-creeping in on the corners of your vision.

When the Toymaker speaks again, his German is back in full force, and you wonder if he’s trying to stave off how frightened he really is.

“Zat is vier turns down,” he says. “Mit only zwei to go. I ge-believe it is my turn, ja?”

Oh, hell: he’s right. You’d gotten so caught up in the impossibility of the Toymaker’s mind that you’d forgotten you’re playing a very dangerous game. But the Toymaker’s smile looks fake now, and the way his eyes glimmer seems less like mischief, and more like withheld tears. For the first time you want to stop this game…not just for you, but for the Toymaker too.

But that’s not how this would be played. The rules are fixed, and you’ve seen what the consequences could be. Worse, you only have one response left to give. By the way the Toymaker is grinning at you, you know he’s remembered this rule too.

“Truth or Dare?” he asks.

You swallow, before giving the only answer you can: “Truth.”

The Toymaker laughs a little too loud. “Now, you had better nots ge-try to get out of zis one,” he says. “I vant you to tell me dee truth: vot exactly is your fantasy? I vill be requiring details.” 

There it is: the question this whole game has been building up to. This situation is impossible and ridiculous. Here you sit, surrounded by beautiful toys in your gorgeous dress, playing a game with an unbelievable, broken man who can rewrite your entire reality with nothing more than a thought. Yet you still can’t just open your mouth and give him the answer. Somehow, even in the face of impossible adversity, you are still beholden to your human embarrassment.

“If I tell you…” you say slowly. “...Do you promise not to laugh?” 

The Toymaker’s eyebrows knit together. He looks distressed by the question. “All players should be treated with respect,” he replies.

That’s not the answer I want, but it’s the only answer he can give , you think. But maybe that’s the key here. You would never willingly part with this information…but the Toymaker just did the same thing for you. He didn’t have to show you where he came from. He could have talked around it, given you the crib notes, and you would have been none the wiser. The Toymaker showed you vulnerability just by allowing you into his history.

You owe him that same level of respect.

“I didn’t get much attention when I was growing up,” you say. “It wasn’t a bad upbringing, but I was just kind of…left, a lot of the time. I wasn’t looked after. There was always some sort of problem that needed fixing, and my parents never had time for me. No one bothered to check on me, so I just had to figure things out for myself. I spent most of my time alone in my room…just me and my toys.”

“That sounds familiar,” says the Toymaker, and the sympathy in his voice is real. “How did you pass your time?”

“I took my toys apart,” you say. “I think my parents felt guilty for leaving me alone a lot, so there was never a shortage of toys. But I wanted to figure out how they worked. That seemed much more interesting than actually playing with them, you know?” 

The Toymaker smiles with approval. “Dee keen eye of a toymaker is a gift,” he says. “But I sense you are delaying your real story…” 

You curse inwardly: again, he’s right. You cannot hide any longer.

“I took apart all of my toys…except for my dolls.”

That gets the Toymaker’s attention: those bright blue eyes light up with interest. “Go on.”

“I had a set of five dolls,” you say quietly. “Generic dolls. Sparkly, brushable hair, and little swappable outfits. Nothing special. But even when I was really small I couldn’t hurt them. I was terrified of damaging them in any way. There weren’t any other kids around to talk to, and my parents weren’t home, so I just…talked to the dolls instead. I knew it was weird, but in my head the dolls were more sentient than my other toys. I thought they could really understand me.”

The Toymaker starts back up in his German voice: “Ah, zere is nothing more ge-saddening zan a lonely Kind. Zat is why decapitating poor Neil vas being no problem for you, zen?” 

“Yeah. It still hurt, but not for the reasons it would hurt most people.” You swallow; this is the really difficult part. “The older I got, the more toys I had, but I never added to my doll collection. My parents would joke all the time about how I was becoming a ‘little lady’. When I became a teenager there was so much pressure to be pretty, and girly…and it made me feel sick. So I tried to fight back against it. I cut my hair, I swore off pink, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress.”

The words stick in your throat. You look up at the Toymaker, hoping for some kind of mercy, but you don’t find it. But he isn’t mocking you, either: he just sits and waits for you to continue.

“I locked my dolls away,” you say. “I pretended I had thrown them out…but secretly, I’d sneak them out, and play with them. I’d brush their hair, and mend their dresses. I still do.”

The Toymaker leans in. “Why?”

“I…I wanted to be like them,” you whisper. “They are so pretty. The long, flowing dresses and the perfect makeup…they’re dazzling in a way I could never be. I can never, ever be that beautiful.”

You twist the fabric of your dress between your fingers fitfully, and force yourself to say it: 

“I always wanted to be someone’s favourite doll."

There’s silence in the toyshop. You stare down at your lap, your heart pounding and your face flushed. Stupid, stupid…! Your eyes well up with hot tears. You can’t bring yourself to look at the Toymaker.

“Und zen you arrive here,” he says. “Meine beautiful dollen drew you in.”

“Yes,” you say quietly. “If I can’t be loved like a doll, then at least I can give them love instead. If I were a doll, maybe things would be easier, you know? Maybe…”

You can’t help the little choke-sob which escapes your lips.

“...maybe someone would take care of me."

The tears fall freely into your lap now and stain the beautiful fabric of your dress dark. You feel disgusting: worthy of ridicule. I deserve whatever happens to me now, you think, your brain awash with old, dark feelings you’ve kept locked up just like the dolls in your closet.

But it’s the Toymaker who snaps you out of his reverie. You didn’t hear him move, but you flinch when his fingers slide under your chin and tilt up your face towards him. Your tears cast him in a watery halo.

“Mein Liebling, stop ge-crying,” he says. “I have made sehr many dollen over dee years, und many of zem have been beautiful. But you are somesing else entirely entirely. Ein living, breathing, villing doll, so cute und poseable. Oh, you und I vill have zo many adventures together! You could be mein prized possession, und I vill hold you and play vith you from dawn zu dusk.”

The Toymaker’s words send a shudder through your body. Blood thrums at the surface of your skin and pools in your cheeks and neck. The Toymaker leans in until your noses are almost touching. He’s so very close to you now…close enough that he could kiss you. 

But just before he reaches your lips, the Toymaker moves to the side and whispers into your ear:

“Dee game is not yet over, meine schöne dollen. You have one final question to ge-ask of me. Do it, und zis vill all be over…one vay or another.”

You can feel him smiling gently against your hair, and it makes you want to sob. Oh, please let this torture end…! But you’re in the Toymaker’s grasp now, in the final throes of his game, and you know you have to finish this or your suffering will never be over. There is only one turn left. You have to try, one last time, or you would spend the rest of your life at the beck and call of this madman.

“Truth or Dare?” you manage to croak out.

The Toymaker lets your face go. “Dare."

You take a deep breath. This is your last chance.

“Let me go.”

The Toymaker takes a long, long moment to process your answer…and then he starts to laugh. Really, really hard. The tinkling arpeggio of his laughter builds and builds until it seems to shake the very walls of the toyshop. For a moment, you are terrified that it’s all going to come crumbling down like a house of cards.

“Oh, perhaps becoming ein dollen hast eroded deine brain, ja?” says the Toymaker, the arrogance flashing in his teeth. “I am not ein genie you kann outsmarts. I am afraid zat since letting you go ist your prize, you cannot request it of me. So, you have lost ein point, putting us at a tie…und you must complete ein forfeit once more.”

No. No. NO! “That’s not fair!” you yell. The tears are streaming down your face in earnest now; all of the distress of this game and the Toymaker’s psychological torment can no longer be contained. 

“Oh, und here comes dee tantrum,” says the Toymaker with a sigh. “I hates it ven zey get like zis. You must have ein forfeit…und I think I have dee perfekt idea to stop your ge-crying.”

The Toymaker snaps his fingers again. You open your mouth to scream at him…but nothing comes out.

You try again, but your mouth just flops open like a fish, with no sound attached to it whatsoever.

The Toymaker has stolen your voice. 

“I have assisted you in another core aspect of your doll transformation,” says the Toymaker, the British swooping in over his tongue with ease. “I do not think most dolls can talk, do you?”

You awful…! But the words can’t even die on your tongue, because they never reach your tongue in the first place. There is a total disconnect between your mouth and your brain. Although you can fashion your lips into the correct shapes and try to push the air into forming syllables, none of them can escape your mouth.

The Toymaker has silenced you, taking away perhaps your only remaining asset in this game.

You mentally tally up the points, and realise he’s right. You are now tied, and six turns have passed. 

“But I cannot tolerate a tie. Dee rules dictate zat ve must perform a tie-breaker challenge…” His accent ripples between the German and British easily, as if he can’t decide between childish delight and cool professionalism. “Do you have any suggestions for a tie-breaker?"

The devastation of losing your voice almost made you look over this detail. Yes, he’s right: for all of your suffering, the Toymaker hasn’t actually managed to get a point over you. That means all is not lost.

That means you still have a chance to win.

But you cannot strategise in a vacuum: much less when you can’t speak. The Toymaker looks at you in amusement, as if expecting you to try and talk anyway. You could have written a message down on a piece of paper, or typed it on your phone, but you decide not to give him the satisfaction. The Toymaker has already gotten you on the rules twice: you are going to play within his boundaries and win fair and square. 

You don’t see where he produces the hat from. A flourish of the arm, and it’s suddenly in his hands: a beautiful top hat which would have gone perfectly with a tuxedo. The Toymaker flips the hat over and proffers it to you.

“Ladies first,” he says with a sly smile. 

You reach into the hat and are surprised to find a variety of small, paper tickets. After some rustling around, you pull one out and read it. When you do, your eyes go wide.

WHOEVER HOLDS THEIR BREATH THE LONGEST IS THE WINNER.  “Vot fun!” exclaims the Toymaker, clapping his hands together in excitement. “I must ge-varn you, I am a very gut schwimmer, and kann hold mein breath for ein long time.” 

But do you even have a lung capacity?! is what you would have asked if you could. How was this fair? The Toymaker is clearly an extradimensional being, and his physical body doesn’t seem to conform to the laws of physics, space or time…anything that would put a real challenge to this game. But you can’t say so: you have no way of telling him.

Besides…is it cheating if that’s just how he is? Is it cheating if he’s just better at the game?

A loud tick-tocking draws your eye to the right side of the toyshop. Against the wall (where it definitely didn’t exist before) is a grandfather clock. Both of the clock’s hands are almost at the 12. This was news to you; you’d arrived at the toyshop sometime around 8pm.

“Ve vill begin when ze clock strikes twelve,” says the Toymaker. “Zere are no fancy rules…ve just start ge-holdings our breath, until eins of us cannot anymore.”

The grandfather clock ticks closer to your demise. You look at the Toymaker in desperation, clasping your hands together in a silent plea…but he just looks at you coolly. Now, you are nothing but an opponent to defeat. You are an obstacle ready to be demolished. 

Well, I am not helpless. If anyone is going to decide the winner of this game, it’s going to be me. With only thirty seconds remaining, you fish around in the pocket of your backpack and pull out your phone. You set up your video camera, prop the phone up against a toy monkey holding a pair of cymbals, and hit the record button.

“Ah,” says the Toymaker. “In case of ein photo-finish. Gut idea.”

There’s a cold fire in his eyes now: something which ignited when he took you into his personal void. You have no moves left, and no gameplay strategies to implement. It is clear that he is the master of games, and you may as well already be his doll. 

But hell, you are going to try your best.

The grandfather clock strikes twelve with a loud, booming chime, and you suck in the largest breath of your life. You don’t balloon out your cheeks: instead you opt for a subtle approach learnt from musical training, where you draw in the oxygen deep into your lungs and will it to sit there for as long as you can handle.

By comparison, the Toymaker doesn’t look like he’s holding his breath at all. You merely hear him stop breathing. He looks totally at ease.

The first ten seconds are child’s play.

The first twenty seconds are fine.

The first thirty seconds are acceptable.

But by the forty-second mark a playful fire start to burn in your chest, and the urge to take a breath begins to beg. Inside you curse yourself, wishing that you’d practised— but why on earth would I have practised such a useless game?! You look at the Toymaker. Big mistake. He waggles his eyebrows at you silently, rippling them in an over-the-top-sultry manner. You feel your lips quirking up into a smile…You can’t believe it! He’s trying to make you laugh!

So much for respecting the rules, you think to yourself. Your chest is really starting to hurt now. But then you wonder, is that really cheating? If the Toymaker can try to make you laugh, what if you can make him laugh too? But you shut down that idea immediately: if you prancing around in a frilly dress singing I’m A Little Teapot didn’t make him laugh (just clap!), you didn’t have a chance in hell.

Oh no. What is he doing now? While trying to focus on holding your breath, the Toymaker had conjured two familiar puppets on the ends of his hands: Punch and Judy. With a final, victorious wink, the Toymaker begins a silent, over-the-top slapstick routine with the puppets. Even without dialogue you recognise the beats of the show; Mr Punch is a mess of a man, overwhelmed by the demands of his wife and baby (the latter brought into being with a tiny, adorable puppet the Toymaker wears on one of his thumbs). His hands move with such finesse that the puppets almost look real.

Such a gaudy routine wouldn’t have been enough to make you laugh by itself, but the Toymaker brings a whole new dimension with his wonderfully expressive face. Each time the long-suffering Judy begins a voiceless tirade of her husband (i.e., throwing little puppet-objects at his face), the Toymaker supplements Punch’s depression with a frown worthy of a theatre mask. When Punch manages to land a hit on his wife or baby (My God, were these shows always so violent?), the Toymaker grins with such deranged glee that you can’t help but find it hilarious.

Oh no. You look at the clock: it’s been a minute, and your chest is really starting to hurt. The Toymaker and his puppets make your cheeks puff out with the effort of not laughing.

He smirks at you as Punch picks up his wife and baby and tosses them into the air, punting them like footballs. It’s so absurd and ridiculous that you can feel the giggle rising up in your chest. You desperately want to open your mouth and suck in oxygen but you can’t, you simply can’t, because if you do you’ll lose the game and he’ll keep you here forever…!

As your remaining seconds tick closer to your inevitable failure, you close your eyes. You want to have one last moment to remember yourself as you are, because you are sure whatever the Toymaker is going to do to you will not be pleasant.

Your chest aches. Your cheeks bulge. Your will starts to unravel.

And then, you have the idea.

It’s a stupid idea, and with barely any seconds left to execute it, you have no guarantee that it will work. But as you open your eyes and look at the Toymaker’s smug ‘I’ve already won!’ expression, you know you have no choice but to follow through with your mad plan.

So, holding on to every last bit of breath you have, you lunge at the Toymaker—

—and envelop him in a bone-crushing hug.

Several things happen at once:

The first is the Toymaker exclaiming in surprise, his breath clearly lost, and dropping his puppets, which dissolve into ash as soon as they hit the floor. 

The second is your desire to breathe finally overpowering you as you collapse against the Toymaker, and the two of you tumble to the floor. 

The third is the grandfather clock exploding. Just as you hit the ground the clock bursts apart, firing out wooden shrapnel with a horrifying bang! On reflex you huddle yourself against the nearest form of safety, which in this case happens to be the Toymaker’s chest.

You weren’t expecting him to hold you back.

The two of you stay like that for some time: you and the Toymaker, on the floor together, breathing heavily and wrapped up in each other’s arms. Despite your own adrenaline, you can’t understand the Toymaker’s terror: surely he caused the clock to blow up? He certainly wasn’t in any danger.

But then you hear a sound you couldn’t hear before. It’s the thrumming of the Toymaker’s heart, loud and insistent and desperate to survive. You hear it through the fabric of his waistcoat, and feel it in the pulse of his neck. For just a moment, the Toymaker seems to be just as human as you.

You wonder if the Toymaker’s mortality is contextual.

Eventually, you manage to disentangle yourself from the Toymaker’s limbs. You peek at the smoking remains of the grandfather clock, and are relieved to see that nothing has caught fire: there’s just a scorched, black mark where the clock once existed. The shards of wood which exploded out from the clock have disappeared.

Thankfully, your phone is untouched! You pick it up, pause the recording and watch it back. A smile stretches across your face.

“Oh, Toymaker!” you say, and you are so very pleased that your voice has returned. “You’re going to want to take a look at this.” 

When the Toymaker climbs to his feet, you are immensely amused to see that his perfect curls have been knocked a bit by the explosion. For the first time since you met, the Toymaker is dishevelled and confused. It’s a cute look on you, you think.

“You broke my game,” says the Toymaker incredulously. “How did you do that?”

“No idea,” you grin. “Maybe it was an unexpected outcome. Still within the rules, still a valid way to win, just…unorthodox.”

You show the Toymaker the recording. You watch as his expression turns from bafflement, to despair, to outright blazing anger.

“No!” the Toymaker cries. “You can’t have beat me!”

But the camera never lies. The footage on your phone clearly picks up the Toymaker gasping in shock as soon as you hit him with your hug…whilst you don’t gasp for air until a few seconds later, just before the grandfather clock explodes.

“Seems like I have!” you say happily.

“But I…you…” The Toymaker’s fingers flex in the air meaninglessly, as if looking for a straw to grasp. “But that’s cheating!” 

“No it isn’t,” you say with confidence. “There was nothing in the rules about us not being able to make each other lose our breath. If you making me laugh was a valid strategy, then me hugging you was too. Either we both cheated, or no one did.”

The Toymaker looks like he’s been slapped, and it is a delicious feeling. You almost want to pinch his cheeks. With a pout fixing his lips, the Toymaker snaps his fingers…and your clothes return to normal. Your dress is gone, replaced by the clothes you entered the shop with.

(Is it a little silly to be regretful of that fact…?)

“I still say that shouldn’t count,” says the Toymaker sullenly. “That was an underhanded tactic. I’ll be writing that into the rules next time.”

But you’ve turned away from the Toymaker now—he obviously needs to work through his sore-loser feelings in his own time. You trot over to the doll shelf, pick up the beautiful doll in the powder-blue dress and cradle her in your arms. She truly is a wonderful prize.

When you turn back around, the Toymaker is sitting on the floor with his hands hugging his knees. You feel a pang of sympathy for the man…it seems this really is his whole life.

“But why did you hug me?” the Toymaker asks, baffled. “That’s not a winning strategy. You just surprised me. You were so…”

The Toymaker looks up at you with shining eyes. This time, his eyes really are wet with tears.

“...Warm,” he whispers.

The triumph of your win quickly sours on your tongue. The way the Toymaker is looking at you gives you a powerful feeling…and it’s not one that you like. Even though every part of you is telling you to make a run for the door while you have this post-win window…you don’t.

Instead, you sit down cross-legged on the floor next to the Toymaker, just like you did when in the void. You even bump your shoulder against his.

“I’ve been sad a lot in my life,” you say. “But I’ve never felt as much sadness as I did in your void. And it made me wonder if…you’d ever been held before.”

The Toymaker looks at you with flashing eyes. His bottom lip trembles as if he’s trying to hold back a lifetime of grief. He doesn’t say anything, but those eyes tell you all you need to know. 

“I wouldn’t mind coming around here sometimes,” you say gently.

The Toymaker looks at you like you’ve got two heads. “You would voluntarily subject yourself to my life-or-death games?”

“Maybe not the life-or-death part,” you say hastily. “But I had fun today. Weird, horrible fun. You’re kind of a weird and horrible guy…and I’m pretty weird too.”

To your surprise, the Toymaker actually laughs at that. “You are unique, meine Liebling,” he says, German once more. “To out-ge-smart me, you must be.”

“Well…maybe it’s a good thing we met,” you say. “Maybe you don’t need to keep luring in suspecting people to your shop, Toymaker. Some of us might actually want to stick around and play. And maybe…”

You rest your head against the Toymaker’s shoulder.

“...Maybe I could help keep the cold out for a while.” 

The Toymaker and you sit in silence for some time, listening to the gentle whirs and clicks of the toys going about their business. You keep your new doll tucked between your legs, and your cheek resting against the Toymaker’s shoulder. He’s so warm that you find your eyelids fluttering: you could easily fall asleep right here.

It’s a surprise when you feel the Toymaker’s fingers sliding into your own. You look at him, and see those telling blue eyes alive with fresh excitement.

“It’s a deal,” says the Toymaker, with an enormous, brilliant smile.

You let the Toymaker pull you to your feet. To your amusement, he grants you a deep, formal bow.

“Run along now, meine Schatz…today must have been ge-xhausting for you. But I shall be seeing you again soon, ja?"

Other people would not have caught it, but you know what loneliness sounds like: you hear the edge of desperation at the edge of the Toymaker’s voice. You take a step back and return the bow with a curtsey.

“Ja, genau,” you grin.

The Toymaker’s smile could have outshone the sun.

That night, when you return home, you take all of your dolls out of your closet. You line them up with care on your shelf, making sure to pose them prettily and smooth out the creases in their frocks.

But you keep your new doll in your hand, and clamber into bed with her. Before you turn out the light, you look one last time at her perfect, dimpled face.

Oh, what games will you and the Toymaker play next?

[sassykattery]

Dollface Pt. 8

CW: Main Character is afab, uses she/her pronouns. Profanity. Smut scene: piv sex. Creampie. Rough sex. Monsterfucking.

The main character is afab, uses she/her pronouns. This story is meant to be somewhat curvy/plus-sized reader insert, but the main character is given a physical description, but it's not crucial to the story or mentioned often after Part 1.

Themes: Romance. Magic. Adventure. Sex. Smut. Diavolo x fem! MC.

Characters: Main Character. Diavolo. Mammon. Satan. Beel. Belphie. Levi. Asmo. Lucifer. Mention Barbatos.

Minors and ageless blogs DNI

18+ only

Masterlist

"Darling? Are you alright? You acted like something spooked you," Diavolo commented after sipping on his macchiato. They were a couple minutes from her house. He sniffed his coffee silently, trying to place the peculiar smell he detected.

"A man approached me at the store... and he kinda weirded me out," she confessed and then drank her cold brew, keeping one hand on the wheel.

"You could've come and got me," he replied with concern, forgetting about his previous thoughts.

"It's fine. I just don't like men approaching me out of nowhere," she answered, sounding even more despondent then.

"May I ask, did something happen?" He inquired softly.

"Throughout my life, men have seen my apparent kindness as an invitation to flirt with me, or they want something from me. Most of the time, it hasn't ended well, and it's either because they wanted sex or just to use me for some other reason," she replied matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry, my love," he replied, reaching over for her hand once she set her drink down in the cup holder. She held his in return as she turned down her street.

"That's alright. Most of the time, I either avoid the confrontation or keep a distance so they don't feel inclined. That's also why you often see me with what we call a "resting bitch face," too," she added.

"I don't think that's very nice," he groaned as she pulled into the garage of the house.

"I suppose I self-deprecate a bit," she mused, turning off the car and closing the garage door with a smirk.

Both got out of the car and headed into the house. Once inside, Diavolo went into her bedroom, and she went to the front of the house to look through the mail on the counter. Her parents weren't home, away on some family reunion vacation with further removed family.

The doorbell suddenly rang, and she grabbed the mail to continue reading as she approached the front door. Unlocking it with one hand and still looking down, she opened up and heard,

"Hey there, uh, I gotta question," a male tenor stated. She immediately looked up and froze. Keeping her hand on the doorknob, using her index finger to lock the knob silently. She looked him up and down. It was the white-haired man from the coffee shop.

"Did you follow me home?" She accused, sounding defensive.

"Ah, well, uhh..."

"Just a heads-up, women don't like that, creep! Now get lost before I get my boyfriend," she snapped harshly, closing the door more so she was partially hidden behind it. Mammon backed up, raising his hands.

Diavolo's ears perked up at the sound of her raised voice. He approached the bedroom door and listened closer.

"I just came to ask if you've seen my friend!" Mammon shouted.

"And I'm telling you, you shouldn't have followed me home! And I'll call the cops if your other friend shows up here, too!"

Mammon leaned in closer. "Just let me finish–"

"DIA!" She screamed.

Immediately, Mammon high-tailed it off the front porch and into the silver sports car that sat on the side of the street. He quickly got in and sped off while she slammed the door shut. Diavolo was at her side just as the door clicked, hands on her waist and standing in her space.

"My love," he murmured, looking out the stained glass window on the front door. He looked back down at her and saw how she trembled, and it broke his heart. Taking her hand, he led her to the couch and sat her on his lap to console her. He briefly thought he smelled that peculiar smell from earlier but quickly dismissed the thought in favor of consolation of his human.

"Who was that?" He asked, running his hands up and down her arms to calm her down.

"A guy from the coffee shop! He followed me home!" She huffed, burying her face in his neck.

Diavolo instantly huffed and held her tighter. "I'm sorry, my darling. You should have had me talk to him," he murmured in her ear, caressing her trembling form. He took hold of her as he swung his legs around to recline back on the couch cushions, holding her on top of him.

"Thank you," she mumbled into his shirt.

All seven demon brothers were sitting in the penthouse of a hotel. None of them had been to this area of the United States, and they were starting to get closer to finding their lost prince.

"You moron! Now, if she sees you again, she's going to run for the hills!" Satan barked at Mammon.

"Oi! I didn't want whoever her boyfriend was to show up with a knife or somethin' in case he was crazy!" Mammon retorted, folding his arms.

"You're so stupid. A knife won't kill you," Belphie groaned.

"No, but if Diavolo thought I was some weirdo and he was actually there, he might have killed me," Mammon grumbled.

"Are we sure that's even her?" Levi asked, playing his handheld game.

"It seemed like it was. There aren't too many humans that look like her," Beel replied, eating his ill-gotten cheeseburgers. He had run off while Mammon and Satan were at the coffee shop to get cheeseburgers, to which he ordered thirty of them and managed to not pay for them as he wasn't given any money for it.

"There is one that does look like this one. She's a famous human makeup guru. You have to give it to this one. She's pretty good at it," Asmo declared, admiring the security footage photo of the woman in question.

"Run that by me again, Mammon," Lucifer commanded, standing at the window overlooking the city, interrupting the conversation.

"When she opened the door, I said I had a question. She accused me of followin' her, and when I didn't answer, she started yellin' at me that women don't like it when they're followed home before threatenin' to get her boyfriend," Mammon recounted the situation.

"Then?" Lucifer pressed.

"She screamed somethin' and I ran off to the car," the second born replied.

"The boyfriend's name? Did you catch it?" Satan inquired.

"All I heard was -ia," Mammon answered, looking nonchalant.

Lucifer turned and stalked up to the second born, smacking him upside the head. "Idiot! She probably said Dia!"

Mammon tched his older brother but realized he was ultimately right.

"Well? What do we do?" Satan asked.

"Can't we just break in her house and see if he's there? What if she's holding him hostage?" Belphie mused.

"One, no, we can't just break in. If he's not actually there, we'd be in a heap of trouble and don't need the exposure," Satan replied. He then held up the security photo of a man that looked like Diavolo and a woman holding hands while walking. "Two, I don't think she's holding him hostage judging by this."

"I suppose it's my turn to talk to her," Lucifer finally replied, walking towards the door and grabbing his overcoat.

"We don't have much time left."

Late one afternoon a couple of days later, she was in the city grocery store looking for things to make her birthday cake. Diavolo had requested to make one with her, wanting the experience of doing so while performing a task together, something he learned was important from his research on humans. While she was in the baking aisle, she had reached down to a bottom shelf to grab some flour when she found herself on the floor, ready to catch herself, but someone had taken hold of her sides to keep her from falling completely down.

"My apologies, ma'am, I didn't meant to run into you, forgive me," a very deep, slightly nasally and airy voice called to her right into her ear.

Once she was upright, she looked at the offender and cranked her head back to stare into a set of darkened eyes, and if she wasn't mistaken, they had a crimson hue to them, framed by jet-black locks with gray streaks on the ends of his face-framing pieces, stark against his ivory skin. The man was nearly as tall as her boyfriend, wearing a black turtleneck, black slacks, a dark blue overcoat, and a set of glasses hanging on chains around his neck.

"Um, thanks. It's fine," she quipped, stepping away from the man and grabbing onto her shopping cart.

He gave a rather charming smile and softened his gaze. She gave him a wary look, glancing from his shoes to his head several times. What she didn't know was how he had been following her for going on two days to find out more about her, or potentially see Diavolo, but came up with nothing and lost his patience. However, when he was finally close and in her space, he realized he had actually made a mistake.

Oh.

"Ah, I must apologize again for staring. You are quite magnetic," he purred.

She frowned then, looking up at him under her brow.

"Thank you, but I'm committed to someone," she retorted, her body angled away from him.

"What a lucky person they are," he replied with an endearing smile, but she wasn't having it. The longer she stared at him, the more suspicious she became.

"Right, well, bye," she replied curtly.

Lucifer's gaze hardened again, a frown tracing his lips. She huffed before completely turning away and stomping off with her cart.

The eldest sighed, folding his arms and calculating his next move.

"Diavolo? What are we doing?" She asked with her hands out, searching blindly as the prince held his hands over her eyes. The demon let out a chuckle as he walked behind her.

"Just a few more steps... stop," he answered. "Alright, ready?"

"I guess," she mumbled, putting her hands down to her sides.

He lifted his hands off her eyes, and she blinked a few times to adjust. Looking down, she saw a book in front of her on her bed, one that was brown and leather bound with no title or markings. She reached to open it and saw photos of the last month or so with the demon, all the cherished life's moments held in singular photos. It was a photo album.

"I'm rather fond of these back at home, and I wanted to make one featuring my favorite person," he murmured in her ear. "Happy Birthday, baby."

She shivered as his breath tickled her neck and ear. There weren't many, but they were all the ones she had taken with her phone since he came into her life. His first coffee run with her, outings to dinner and movies, and selfies randomly taken throughout the day.

"Thank you," she turned and faced him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

He kissed the top of her head. "I'm glad you like it."

"Love it," she mumbled into his sternum.

"Well, I think I have something you'll love more," he murmured softly to her.

"Hm?" She chirped, picking her head up to look at him.

He took the opportunity to cup her cheek and kiss her passionately, his other hand purchasing her waist. She hummed happily into his mouth, letting his tongue gain access to hers.

That afternoon, neither left her bed as he kept her completely occupied with his hands, mouth, and body.

A happy birthday indeed.

A couple of days later, she had been out running errands when a certain demon decided to run into her again. She was looking through some stationary at the office supply store when she dropped her pens she selected. With a sigh, she started to set her stuff down when she turned to find a pair of crimson eyes at her level, just as he was starting to stand at full height again.

"Well, it's you again," he beamed again.

"Yeah..." she mumbled. He handed her the pens she dropped, and she took them from his large hand, noting the red nail polish and long fingers. "Thanks."

"My pleasure. If you don't mind, would you be willing to show me which pens you like here? I'm rather picky and not from around here, so I'd like someone else's opinion," he murmured to her.

"Sure..." she replied, grabbing her things and walking around to the aisle with the pens. Setting her things down, she reached up and picked a couple. "I like the glide on these for taking down notes, and they're fast-drying so they don't smudge. These I prefer for making edits on things, the sharp color is really nice and I don't have to press too hard to get it to work." She continued on, showing him the different ones, but he quit listening the moment she started speaking. Lucifer was too busy admiring her form, appreciating her looks and expressions. She could make something as boring as pens seem interesting.

"So?" She asked.

"Pardon, I was considering which ones to get. What did you ask?" He asked smoothly.

"What's your name?" She asked again.

"Luci is what you may call me," he replied, bowing his head slightly. "And yours?"

She replied what hers was, and he repeated it like it was sweet honey on his tongue.

"I apologize if we got off on the wrong foot before. Thank you for helping me. If you don't mind, I'd like to treat you to coffee," Lucifer stated. She narrowed hers eyes, so he added, "As acquaintances."

"As acquaintances," she echoed.

"Thanks," she replied, taking her cold brew from Lucifer's hand. He nodded and sat next to her, drinking his own.

"So, tell me about yourself," he said.

"I just finished some university classes, but I'll be taking on a full-time job until I get into professional school," she replied quietly, looking around the coffee shop.

"Ah, a student," he mused. He thought for a moment and then asked, "Do you have siblings?"

She cocked her head and swirled her drink thoughtfully. "Just one sister. Older. We're not close. You?"

"I have six brothers, all younger," he replied, sounding despondent.

She smiled then. "Being the oldest of that many must be tough. You probably almost feel like their parent," she mused in return.

"Indeed, and by all means I practically am," he said with a sigh.

"As the youngest, it's not easy either. Even if you're bright, attractive, or anything else that's favorable, you'll always live in the shadow of your older siblings. Yes, most of the time, people are quite lenient with us, but knowing you'll never amount to your sibling is difficult when you pride yourself in your accomplishments... and nobody else does except you," she declared quietly.

Lucifer looked at her openly then, studying her face. He hadn't ever considered such a thing, but it made sense as to why his youngest brothers may have felt jaded when it came to him.

"I appreciate your perspective, actually. That's something I suppose I never have to deal with," he finally replied after she stared back at him. She nodded and took a drink.

"What do you do for a living, Luci?" She inquired, looking out the window.

"I work in the government as well as in education," he replied. "Though, looking after my brothers is more of a full-time job than anything else." He paused for a moment and then continued. "You said you have a partner, tell me about them."

"Ah, well, we've only been seeing each other for over a month, but we're incredibly happy. My parents adore him, and he's really just... something else," she replied with a sweet smile on her lips. The demon tilted his head at this, trying to calculate his next move, while also sorting through why he would be jealous in this moment, but that was for later.

"You sound very happy with him. How'd you meet?" He asked.

"It was kind of strange how we met... He just showed up one day, and he's been with me ever since," she replied dreamily.

Lucifer felt conflicted then. If this was Diavolo she was talking about, it sounds like he's not in trouble and likely has been playing house with this human. But, certainly, the prince wasn't kidnapped or in harm's way. He had managed to find himself a sweet woman who just liked him, maybe even loved him.

"I really should get going. Thank you for the coffee, Luci," she stated, coming to her feet while looking at her phone. "Maybe we'll bump into each other again."

Lucifer watched as she stood and walked away. A glimmer on her ring finger caught his eye, but he wasn't sure if maybe just the sun was playing tricks on his vision. Even after weeks in the human world, he wasn't entirely used to the blazing light.

Damn. Barbatos is going to be absolutely livid when he hears about this, he thought to himself as he watched her car leave the parking lot. He quickly stood to leave the shop and follow her in his red sports car.

"In the kitchen, darling," Diavolo called out to her as she came in the house through the garage. She bounded up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind after finding him.

"Hi," she purred.

He was standing at the stove, making a stir-fry for dinner while her parents were out of town. Though the moment her body collided with his, he straightened up and turned his head to the side.

"What..." he mumbled to himself. Diavolo put the spoon down and whirled around to look at her.

"What is it, b–"

"Were you with someone?" He asked defensively, looking her over. A particular smell radiated off of her, the smell he was finally able to place after being amongst the hunans for this long, one with a warning known to only demons. One that said, "Back off."

"What? I mean, I got coffee with someone, and I was just about to tell you about it. What's wrong?" She asked nervously.

"You..." He started to say and then pulled her into him. His brows were tightly knit, lips pressed into a thin line.

"I didn't do anything, I just–" she started to tremble, afraid he was mad. The demon deeply inhaled the scent from her hair, trying to place its familiarity.

"Who did you meet?" He asked roughly, his arm tightening around high on her waist.

"He said his name was Luci. Diavolo, what is this about?" She started to whine slightly.

"The scent of a demon followed you home, an intentional one at that," he murmured. He rubbed his chin back and forth across the top of her head, his other arm slithering around her. He growled ferally, a deep sound coming from the pits of his core, vibrating all across his body.

In a quick series of moves, he grabbed her by the waist and sat her on top of the bar across from the stove. His lips were on hers, furiously lashing his tongue against her mouth. The prince's hands were everywhere all at once, grabbing and caressing every which way across her body.

"You're mine," he snapped, kissing her neck and sinking his teeth into her delicate flesh.

"Baby, I'm sorry, p-please," she whimpered.

"I'm not–" he panted, "Not mad at you. Just let me take you, my love. Let me claim you again, make you mine."

She relaxed slightly and finally reciprocated his touch. "O-Okay... Yes, please," she whispered. He yanked off her shirt and tossed it. Not wanting to do it there anymore, he picked her up and quickly carried her to the couch in the living room, laying her back against the seat cushions while he worked her pants off and then her undergarments too.

"Mm, I love your body, your skin..." he purred, grinding himself against her. He swiftly tossed his shirt aside, followed by pulling down his lounge pants to release his hard, throbbing cock.

"Take me, Dia, make me yours," she murmured sweetly against his cheek.

"You're sure you're ready for me?" He asked a hit hesitantly, kissing her jaw.

"Now," she commanded, wrapping her legs around his waist.

He groaned and took hold of his length, rubbing the head up and down against her clit, spreading their fluids together and making them both moan. The head popped into her entrance with ease, opening up the rest of her cunt for his cock. He groaned again, his cock fully seated inside her, like it was his throne, like she belonged to him.

"Oh, my love," he rasped, a wicked smile threatening to cross his lips.

"Fuck me," she whimpered softly, clinging onto him.

"Gladly," he grunted, taking her legs onto his shoulders and pressing down into her. His thrusts started slow but deep, quickly building to a harsh pounding. Her moans quickly turned into wails of pleasure.

"You're all mine," he growled, leaning down to kiss her roughly. She blinked and suddenly he was in his demon form again, and she felt his cock thicken and throb inside her, causing an orgasm to barrel through her like a bullet train. This spurred him on to fuck her faster, gripping her thighs firmly as he folded her further into the mating press.

"Dia! It's too much!" She cried out, feeling another orgasm already burning within her core.

"Just��" he grunted, "A little– aghck, more." He was completely feral, watching her so intently with his glittering golden orbs fixated on her beautifully wrecked face.

Suddenly, he pulled her up, still sheathed on his cock, and he turned to kneel down to the floor, carefully laying her back, a move so tender, it was juxtaposed to how hard he fucked her once she was settled with her legs on his shoulders again.

"I love you," he groaned, feeling his inner knot begin to coil and start to snap.

"I-I l-l-love you-u!" She stammered back.

"I'm close," he rasped. He laid himself fully down on her, kissing her lips and trailing down to her breasts to lick and suck on her nipples. Her body curled in around him, a silent scream befalling her mouth as her whole body went rigid with pleasure.

"Dia, Dia, Dia!" She gasped, sounding strangled and pitiful.

"That's it, tighten down on me, make me yours too," he grunted. She turned her head and bit gently into his neck, feeling feral herself. It caught him by surprise, especially with how good it felt for her to mark him in return. It was enough for him to fall down the pits of pleasure, chasing his high and pounding his cock into her as he released spurts of hot cum.

His labored breaths filled the space around them. Carefully, he lifted himself up to look at her, suddenly a heavy weight of guilt on his chest.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed

Post made by sassykattery. Do not repost. Reblogs and comments appreciated

Tags: @delphi-dreamin @itsmeninerz @biteable-pink-pixie @flemmingbamse @themythicaldisaster @marvelous-maniac @attic-club-sandwich

[oreolemur]

His Possession Pt2- Junpei Yoshino Fanfic

A week after your shameful incident, your paranoia increased. You couldn’t stop thinking about what the man had said. “He’s never letting me go?”, you cried. You were stuck at home, taking a vacation from work. You didn’t feel safe leaving your house. Your days have been filled with distractions. Your mind was playing against you, and you hated it. 

❤~Time Skip~❤

Coming out of the shower, you stared at yourself in the mirror. You examined the leftover marks on your flesh. Ever since that night, Junpei had installed hidden cameras around your house. While you were looking at your body, so was he. He was aroused by how beautiful you were. “I miss the feeling of your soft skin”, he groaned, feeling himself get hard. You removed your towel, gently rubbing over the bruises. “A teaser, huh?”, he grinned.

As you walked out, heading to your room, your phone began to ring. It was midnight, so you found it strange that someone would be calling you at this time. Looking at the number, your heart dropped. Your breathing became shaky and you immediately hung up. “I thought I blocked his number”. Without hesitation, that’s exactly what you did. Throwing on an oversized hoodie, you quickly ran downstairs to check and see if everything was locked up. No matter how scared he made you, you weren’t going to let him hurt you again. 

Junpei sat at his desk monitoring you. He didn’t have a good day, so you declining his call ticked him off even more. He tried to have patience, but he was craving you. “I’ll try again”. Using a different phone, he instantly dialed your number. 

Dozing off to sleep, your buzzing phone woke you up. “Who is this?”. Answering it, all you heard was a low chuckle. “Did you miss me?”. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”, your heart was racing. “I didn’t have a good day, so I wanted to hear your sweet voice. I guess I called at a bad time. Is that right?”, he sounded annoyed. “Y-yes”, you gulped. He sighed, knowing you were lying.

The atmosphere was quiet, Junpei glared at you through the camera. Spinning a knife in his hands, he thought of an idea. “Are you still curious about who I am?”. He saw your eyes lit up, “Y-yes. Who are you?”. A huge smile formed on his face,”I’ll tell you, but you have to let me come over”. As desperate as you were, you had to be smart about it. You trusted him once, however, it backfired. “No”, you cleared your throat. “I’m not falling for that again”.

Junpei was surprised by your response. “Are you sure? Aren’t you just dying to know who made you cum? You can deny it all you want, but I saw how good I made you feel”. You closed your thighs at the thought of it, feeling guilty for the heartbeat that formed in between. “You should’ve seen the look on your face. The look of desperation really suits you”.He had you wrapped around his little finger. You didn’t want to admit it, but ever since that night, something awakened inside of you. Something you hated at most. “Fine”, you said. “Y-you can-”, you hesitated. “I can do what”, he teased. “You can come over”. Junpei’s plan worked. He didn’t believe how easy it was to manipulate you.  “Wait for me”. Hanging up, you laid back questioning yourself. “What the fuck am I doing?”. Squeezing your legs together,still, you craved to be touched.

An hour later, you heard a small knock on your bedroom door. Startled, you jumped up and held yourself out of shame. “Come in”, you said. Junpei slowly opened the door, letting the squeak travel throughout the dark. It made the exact same sound from the first encounter. He stood against your dresser, smiling at you. The lights were off, but you were able to see a small part of his face.

“Do we still have an agreement, dollface?”. He tapped his finger along the smooth wood. You bit your lip out of nervousness,”Y-yes”. “Do you remember what I said in the beginning?”. “Y-yes”, you answered him like an obedient little pet. He loved how inferior you were to him. He unbuckled his pants, pulling them down slightly to let his dick poke out.

Stroking it, he quietly groaned. “Come here”, he demanded. You got up, making your way towards him. He seemed taller than before, but then again, you were on your knees the first time he ordered you to approach. He placed his hands on your waist, pulling you closer to him. His dick rested against your stomach. “I’ll start this off slowly”, he grabbed your chin, forcing you to look at him. “Do what I say, and I’ll drop a hint of who I am each time you behave”. Junpei leaned into your ear,”Got it?”. Nodding your head, you agreed. “Good, doll”.

He grabbed your hand, making you jerk him off. “You have soft hands”, he placed small kisses on your neck. The desperation between your thighs grew stronger. You were so into his touch, a moan slipped out of your mouth. Junpei’s eyes lit up. “Are you enjoying yourself?”. You told him yes, making him even more obsessed with you. “Do you want me inside of you?”. “Yes”. “How bad?”. “R-really bad”.

Hearing that made him feral. He lifted you, and gently placed you on your back. He hovered above you, fingering you in the process. “Hint 1: I have black hair that covers one eye”. You listened to him, trying not to be too distracted. The feeling of his digits inside of you, made you blush. You missed being touched, no matter how fucked up the situation was. The warmth of his breath made you want him more. You pushed your hips into his arm, feeling your orgasm coming. “A little harder, please”, you begged. Junpei did what you wanted, kissing your lips to feel you moan in his mouth.

Removing his shirt, he ordered you to undress. You threw your hoodie on the floor, spreading your legs. The man placed himself at your entrance, teasing you by rubbing it on your clit. “Hint 2: I always come to your store”. He thrusted into you, not giving you time to adjust. It was your second time having him penetrate you, yet it still hurt. As he talked to you, you tried to think hard about who he could be. “What else?”, you moaned. 

He pounded you harder,”Don’t rush it, doll. I said slowly”. He fondled your breast, admiring how much they jiggled. You tried to stare at him, but the stimulation forced your eyes shut. He reached for your neck, squeezing it for support. He threw one leg over his shoulder, thrusting deeper. “Hint: 3, and make sure you listen closely”. He rested his head near your ear. “I’m Junpei, your next door neighbor”. He choked you harder, making it impossible for you to react. “Say my name”, he groaned. “J-Junpei”, you stuttered. “Repeat it”. “J-Junpei. Junpei. Junpei!”. You both climaxed, shouting in ecstasy. He stayed still, laying on top of you. “You’re mine, and mine only, dollface”.

[girl-in-a-bubbl3]

Glamrock Bonnie(FNAF) x Reader Part 3

Not enough sassy Bonnie fanfic so here we go...I'll try to upload at least once a week.

Notes:

AU Fanfic/NonCanon

Bonnie is terrible but he likes you

5 greenrooms on RSR (we include Monty)

Sun/Moon are the same animatronic

Moon has a lil touch of the virus

Will probably be some spicy parts so...18+

You were completely hypnotized by Bonnie's eyes. The neon lights had his maroon irises glittering, completely capturing you like a fly in a spider's web.

The look on his face made you doubt that he was even an animatronic. His eyelids were half closed, his signature smirk glued to his face, and he was slowly leaning down towards you.

Your heart rate spiked as you made this realization. What is happening what is happening what is happening.

Bonnie's arms quickly shot forward and snatched up something behind you. Before you could register what happened or what he grabbed, he was walking backwards while laughing.

"You're too easy, dollface. Way too easy."

You heard him continue to laugh as he quickly scampered away with whatever prize he had in his large hands. You felt a sigh of relief but also something else... disappointment? Why were you so disappointed? And why did your heart go so crazy when he was so close? And why did you enjoy it?!

"I'm still fixing your ear tonight, Bonnie!" You yell after him.

You know he heard you but you got no response back. You turned around and finally it struck you what he stole...

My freaking ice cream.

You rolled your eyes and checked the time. 1:56. Only 5 hours left and you still had to find Monty, visit the Daycare Attendant, and still fix Bonnie's ear. You started to regret that impromptu game of bowling but thinking of your moment with Bonnie made it not seem so bad...

You shook the thought out of your head as you raced towards Gator Golf. Hopefully Monty wasn't in need of any serious repairs tonight since you were so pressed for time. If it didn't take you forever to get from one part of the building to the next then it wouldn't be such a problem but you knew by the time you got to the daycare after Gator Golf that you'd be dragging.

Aside from Bonnie Bowl, Gator Golf was your second favorite attraction at the Plex. You loved the dim lights, the music, and the purr of the robotic gators in the water. Something about it all together was pretty relaxing.

You did a quick scan of the area and didn't see Monty so you decided to check up on the catwalks. You weren't familiar with that area but it was in your notes so you headed for the hidden stairs.

Once you got to the top of the step, you knew you'd be dragging on the way to the daycare. You haven't put in this many steps in a long, long time.

You looked up and saw Monty at the very far side of the catwalks. Oh great, more steps. "Hey Monty!" You waved, trying to get his attention. You watched him look at you, shake his head, and keep walking, making a motion with his hand like he was dismissing you. What is up with the attitudes around here?

You started your trek to the other side. "Monty I have to actually speak with you!"

You saw him turn in your direction once more and he flashed his (very) sharp teeth. As he did so, an awful squawk came out of his voice box. His face quickly shifted into an image of panic as he realized you now know that he does have a problem that needs to be fixed. You stared at each other for a moment before he rolled his eyes and started walking towards you.

"So...something up with your voice box, I'm assuming." Monty just glared at you as you both started walking back towards the stairs. "We don't have to go to Parts & Services for we at least need to walk into the maintenance room so I have some tools and good lighting."

Monty just silently followed behind you as you led him down the stairs and down the hallway to the little maintenance room tucked around the corner. You didn't think it would take too long. You were actually pretty excited to put your skills to the test.

You pointed to the table in the middle of the room. "Sit there." Monty shot you one more glare that you met with an innocent shrug before he plopped down on the table with a loud clang. You shook your head and connected your tablet to start the scan first.

You heard a sharp, clicking noise and looked down to see Monty lightly tapping the table with his claw in some sort of anxious tick. You didn't take Monty as someone who had anxiety. Then again, you didn't think any of the animatronics could feel those kinds of complex emotions but you were quickly made aware of how wrong you were in your first conversation with Bonnie.

You smiled at your minds mention of his name but was quickly brought out of your thoughts by the tapping growing louder and more frequent. You looked up and saw Monty's eyes flicking around the room like some sort of trapped animal looking for an escape.

You gently laid your hand on Monty's arm, he jolted in response but you kept your hand where it was. "Hey Monty?" You met his eyes and held his stare. "It's going to be okay. It's a really quick and easy fix. I already have the diagnostics and everything." He stared at you a little longer until he finally nodded and looked away.

You put your finger underneath his chin (did he just shudder?) and pushed up. "Head back. I need to be able to access your voice box."

Monty followed obediently with eyes closed, tilting his head back so his snout was pointing towards the ceiling.

You giggled quietly. "You know, with your reputation I bet this is as quiet as you've ever been."

Monty didn't move his snout but his eyes snapped open to look down at you while he tried to push out curses from his broken voice box. Unfortunately for him, you heard nothing but garbled static. You giggled again.

"Sorry, big guy. It was just too easy." He snorted and rolled his eyes. You were sure you'd hear about it when he could use his words again.

You started working quickly but carefully. Since the pieces kept getting smaller and the details finer, you had to keep inching forward until you were standing directly between Monty's scaley green legs. You didn't think anything of it at first. You were immersed in your work to the point where you tuned everything out and just did what you needed to do. Which also made you completely unaware of the fact that someone's claw would lightly brush up against your side every now and then.

With a few new wires back in their rightful places, you were pretty sure you had it fixed. Stepping back to admire your work, you were ready to test it. "Alright Monty, time to test it!"

He quickly lowered his snout until he was locking eyes with you again. A minute went by and you started to nervously wonder if you did actually fix it or not. Until he finally spoke.

"Thanks." Sweet. Simple. You'll take it.

"No problem, big guy." You smiled at him and lightly tapped him on the arm with a chuckle. You went to turn and start packing away the tools you used until you felt his large hand wrap around your wrist, pulling you a little closer and making you freeze. You looked at your wrist and then back up at his face to an expression you weren't sure how to read.

"You okay, Monty? Everything feeling alright?"

"Yeah I-I..." He broke eye contact and his eyes started flitting around the room again. He quickly let go of your wrist and stood up a little too fast, putting distance between you both as he neared the door and that's when you suddenly saw someone standing in the doorway. Someone tall and blue with long ears. How long has Bonnie been there?

"Just...thanks. Appreciate it." His gruff voice was quiet but clear. He made a purpose of bumping into Bonnie's shoulder as he left.

You blinked as he disappeared out the door. How strange. Bonnie looked at you with a sour expression on his face. "The fuck was that?"

Your eyes widened at his language. "Bonnie!"

He shrugged and continued in. "Fix my ear now or there won't be another chance tonight. I don't feel like being bothered when I go back to my room."

You rolled your eyes and made the same motion to the table that you did with Monty. "Sit."

You grabbed your bag of tools again and turned to see Bonnie still standing there with his arms crossed. "Say the magic word, peeps."

You smiled sweetly. "Sit, Bonnie. Now."

Bonnie stared at you for a minute, presenting a silent challenge between the both of you. Your heart started to quicken as your thoughts started to wander. What would he do to me? Would...I like it?

The smile that formed on his face made you think he could read your thoughts. You immediately blushed and looked down at your tools.

"Sit, please, Bonnie?" You muttered after clearing your throat.

That signature smirk that started to form across his face didn't do anything for your racing heart. Thankfully he turned and made his was to sit on the table, mumbling something under his breath that you swear was something along the lines of 'good girl'. But it couldn't possibly be that, right? Were you starting to hallucinate and project your fantasies? Wait, WHAT fantasies??

You jumped as Bonnie snapped his fingers. "Come on, dollface. Let's get this show on the road."

You nodded and took a deep breath... time to work.

To be continued...

Authors Notes:

I present to you... anxious Monty! How does he feel about the new mechanic? Why's he acting so strange? o.o It's about to start getting spicier folks! I'm terrible and very awkward so I'm sorry in advance but I'm having so much fun already lol. Also, I love Monty and Sun/Moon so there may be some angst with them. If y'all are against it, tell me because if not then it's coming xD

[saiilorstars]

For Better Days | Ch.1: I Hate Camping

Fandom: MCU ○ Bucky Barnes x OFC

Story Summary: Chloe's forced to go camping with her brothers so Bucky decides to give her a few tips to survive...

Story Masterlist ○ Chloe's Masterlist○

Also available on Fanfic ○ Ao3 ○ Wattpad

Taglist: @ocappreciationtag​ @arrthurpendragon​ @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet​@averyhotchner @foxesandmagic @kmc1989 @caplanbuckybarnes​

[If you’d like to be a part of any OC’s works/edits, let me know!]

His head was always clouded. In fact, Bucky couldn't really remember a moment where his head wasn't fuzzy and at a loss for coherent thoughts. Even after escaping HYDRA and freeing himself of their brainwash, he only ever felt real clarity a handful of times. And there was always one common denominator across all the individual moments.

"If you stare any harder, she'll burst into flames." Sam was smirking from ear to ear when Bucky met his eye. "You know, with that cyborg stare of yours…it could happen."

"Shut up, Sam," Bucky muttered. And then to lessen Sam's point, he turned away from Chloe and Sam's sister Sarah. Unfortunately, Sam had followed him to the porch steps and sat down with him.

"It's really not that hard, you know. I would think that after everything you've been through, asking some girl out would be easy-peasy, you know." Sam's smirk had not diminished in any way.

"I don't need your tips, Sam," Bucky said quietly. As much as he fought, he wasn't able to resist the urge to gaze ahead of them again.

Chloe was talking to Sarah and seemed pretty chippy about whatever their conversation was about. Bucky wouldn't say it but he could stare at Chloe for hours.

In the next minute or so, Chloe and Sarah started heading towards the house.

"Anything you need from us, just let me know, alright?" Sarah had gone up the porch steps, narrowly missing Sam's attempt to poke her leg.

Chloe had stopped in front of the steps, slipping her hands in her back pockets. "I will. Thanks, Sarah."

"What are you two up to?" Sam asked suspiciously when his sister had gone inside the house.

"She was giving me camping tips," Chloe said, leaving both Sam and Bucky confused. She rolled her eyes, knowing exactly what they were thinking. "My stupid brothers want to go camping."

"And you stupidly said yes?" Bucky said with a much too innocent smile. She pointed a finger at him, warning him to watch his words. Bucky laughed lightly. "Sorry, I just don't exactly see you as the camping type."

"I'm not," Chloe agreed, flatly. "But since I've blown them off so many times now, there's no way out of it." She pulled her hands from her back pickets and crossed her arms. "Unfortunately, I think I'll be dead by the end of this camping trip. I know squat about camping, which they'll take full advantage of."

"That they will," Sam nodded. "We'll miss you."

"Be quiet, Sam," Chloe muttered.

"Yeah, be quiet Sam," Bucky said as he stood up from his spot. "Chlo, let me help you out. I can teach you a few things before you head out."

"Really?" Chloe raised an eyebrow at him. "Aren't you leaving too?"

"My flight was pushed back to tomorrow so I have all of today."

"Yeah, and he wants to take full advantage of it," Sam said with a wide smirk. Bucky looked over his shoulder in a rather murderous way.

Shut up.

Chloe was none the wiser of the brewing murder plot so she accepted Bucky's help. "Guess it wouldn't hurt but if you make fun of me, I'll shoot you."

Bucky smiled at her fondly. There was no way she could make the shot but he'd still let her take it.

With a few things from the Wilsons' shed, the camping 101 crash course started. Chloe reiterated how the whole damn thing was beyond stupid. Who needed camping anyways?

Bucky found it amusing the way she didn't run out of things to hate on in regards to camping. "Dollface, you were an Avenger — a fugitive at some point — and camping is what seems like a challenge?"

"Don't laugh, Bucky Barnes!" Chloe pointed a finger at him the moment his lips twitched. Said finger started glowing blue, giving Bucky a good idea of what was to come if she decided that he was laughing at her.

"Alright, alright, come here," he motioned her to follow him. "If you're going to do traditional camping, then you're gonna have to learn how to set up a tent."

"I hate tents," went Chloe flatly.

Bucky's back was still to her so hiding his smile, almost laugh, was easy that time. "Yes, but you're gonna want a tent if you plan to sleep. Unless you're doing sleep bags outside."

"There's no fucking way I'm doing that!" Chloe said, appalled. "I'll actually murder my brothers then."

"Then let's practice setting up a tent." Bucky had done them the favor of taking out the tent pieces from the shed and left them on the ground. "It's a good thing the Wilsons love their camping too."

"Mhm…" Chloe eyed the pieces with disdain. "So where do I start or whatever?"

"Well, first you would want to make sure the area you pick to put your tent in is flat, alright?" Bucky looked back at Chloe, dead serious now. She nodded with him.

"Flat ground, got it. What's next?"

"A tarp on the ground before you set anything up." Bucky pointed at the folded tarp next to her.

"Why?" She reached over to pick it up.

"Keeps moisture out."

Chloe's nose crinkled with disgust. "Moisture? Eugh, what did I get talked into doing!" She groaned and slapped the tarp against her face.

Bucky chuckled then, and to his surprise Chloe didn't try to shoot him. He gently took the tarp off her face and assured her that it wasn't that bad.

After putting the tarp down on the ground, Bucky showed Chloe the tent poles they had to put up. Chloe felt her head spin when he started showing her the corresponding flaps in the tent. She had to slid the poles into the right ones or the whole thing would be messed up.

Bucky showed her how to do the first one then let her do the second one. She nearly ripped the fabric from frustration.

"Eugh, I hate this!" She was shoving the tent pole through the flap but it kept getting stuck so she had to pull it out and try all over again.

Bucky came around beside her and stopped her altogether with a hand over her wrists. "Let me show you again," he said, absolutely calm and patient.

Chloe let go of everything and watched him redo what she'd been trying and got it done so easily. "You're good at this stuff," she said with a faint smile on her face. "And you're a good teacher."

Bucky pretended to be solely focused on what his hands were working with because the alternative was looking at Chloe and therefore revealing the stark red blush on his face. "It just comes with experience," he said after clearing his throat. "The days of a soldier — the good one."

Chloe didn't miss the way he was quick to clarify what side of himself he spoke about — the urgency, really, like she would automatically assume that every part of his past was the Winter Soldier. She often hoped that one day he wouldn't feel compelled to always have to clarify his "good" and "bad" parts of life.

Eventually, the tent was built and although Chloe knew that she could've helped more, Bucky assured her that she had done it in the end. A pure lie since he was the one who set it up but there was no winning against that guy.

"Now taking it apart—"

"Will be my brothers' jobs," Chloe said decisively. Feeling Bucky's side-glance, she met it with a smirk. "I'm the little sister. They gotta do something for me, right?"

With that face, anyone would do everything for you. Bucky's face warmed at his thoughts. He quickly moved onto a different skill. Campfire set-up.

For that, they ventured a little further from the Wilsons' residence. On their walk, Bucky explained to Chloe what she needed to look out for.

"You're gonna want to find dead, dry wood. Nothing bendy and definitely nothing moist which means fresh wood us out too, got it?"

"Got it," Chloe affirmed and helped him find the right pieces of wood.

They started making a small pile of woods with the intention of lighting it when they were done. Bucky went into deep details about how to set the wood properly and how to light it.

"I hear you, I do," Chloe started, bringing her hands up from her sides, "But I could also just do this." She shot a ray of a psionic blast at the logs and started the fire.

Bucky deadpanned her grinning face (which was kind of cute). "That's not proper camping," he pointed at her.

"But I got the fire going," Chloe retorted. "Isn't that what we wanted?"

"You're cheating!"

"But is it actually cheating or is it me working smarter not harder?"

"Chlo, c'mon…" But Bucky was chuckling, which made Chloe start to do the same…which just meant the seriousness of the situation was gone and that she was ultimately right.

After properly learning how to put out the fire — without the use of powers — the two started heading back to Sam's place. Bucky still had some tips to hand out, like what she should bring, the things she shouldn't bring, what she should wear…

"I'm only going for a few days," she reminded him. "Any more than that and I'd personally hang my brothers."

Bucky chuckled at her. "So how'd you even get roped into this? You don't strike me as the camping type." She wasn't at all.

"It was my brothers' idea. Bonding or whatever," Chloe shook her head. "As if we couldn't do that at a restaurant or something. Even like a proper cabin and stuff. Ever been to Big Bear in California?"

Bucky gave a shake of his head. "Not really."

"That's my kind of camping, not sleeping-inside-a-tent shit." Chloe continued to complain all the way back to the Wilsons'.

She plopped down on the porch steps and motioned Bucky to do the same with her. He of course had no protests against the idea.

"I would much rather help you and Sam out on your missions. Aren't you guys headed to, like, Quebec?"

"I think so, yeah," Bucky said then laughed at Chloe's put-out reaction. "No need to get all grumpy, doll. It's not like we're going out there to have fun. You're the one who gets to go and relax, so have fun."

"You and I have very different ideas of what having fun is," Chloe said dead seriously, leading Bucky to laugh again.

"If your definition of having fun is going on a mission in the middle of nowhere, then I fear we do…"

Chloe shot him a look but in a few seconds it dissolved and she was smiling at him…which then made him do the same. Her smiles were always infectious.

"I would still rather be with you — and Sam!" Chloe's face flushed immediately as she heard her own mistake. "With you and Sam on your mission, I meant…" She cleared her throat and looked straight ahead. What she would give for the ground to open up and swallow her whole right now…

Luckily, Bucky didn't seem to notice her 'grave mistake'. He reiterated that a nice camping trip was still the better choice. Chloe agreed to disagree and before she could make a fool of herself again, her phone rang in her pocket.

"I'll leave you to that," Bucky said and stood up from the steps. "Hungry?"

Chloe nodded at him. "A bit."

"I'll see what they have going on in the kitchen. Don't be long — it's getting cold out here."

Chloe chuckled. Bucky didn't feel cold the same way she and the others did, what with the serum and all. Still, he was always attentive to the weather for their sake — for her sake. She was no stranger to his sweaters and jackets when they happened to be outside in a chilly moment. She loved his attentiveness, making her feel quite the special girl…not that she would ever say it out loud.

"Hello?" Chloe answered the phone before her thoughts got away from her too much.

"Hey! I was just about to hang up. You took forever to answer!" Seren Soul was on the other line and much like always, she was very cheery.

"Sorry, I was, uh, getting some camping 101…" Chloe looked back at the house and saw the front door was shut. Bucky was long gone.

"Ah, so you couldn't get out of it then? You'll be camping with your brothers?"

"Horrific, I know," Chloe said with a sigh. "And me, the worst camper in history. I'm sure they'll be ganging up on me. It's what brothers do, especially older ones."

"Times like these, I'm glad to be an only child!"

Chloe smiled dryly. "You want one? I have two so I can definitely spare one."

Seren laughed. "No, no, I'm good. I like my life just the way it is."

"Mm, I bet you do," Chloe smiled. She could hear the faint hollering of kids in the background. "Sounds like you have a show going on over there…"

Seren hummed. "Oh, you know. With a five year old and a toddler in the house, Steve and I barely get a moment of peace. What you're hearing right now is a rendition of Frozen. For the third time today."

It was Chloe's turn to laugh. "Record and send please. You know I love my God-children."

"Will do! So I was just calling to see if you still need me to pick you up at the airport?"

"Yes, if you still can of course. I need to get packing asap. Sort of left it for the last minute."

"Of course you did. What about Bucky? Steve said he had a mission in Quebec or something? Is he not coming back to New York first?'

"He's flying out tomorrow instead. Apparently, his flight got delayed. But the mission's still on. Wish I could join them instead of this camping stuff."

"Right, and it totally has nothing to do with the fact you'd be spending the whole week with Bucky instead of your brothers, right?"

Chloe could hear the smirk on Seren's face. "You don't know what I'd rather do than camping. Don't underestimate my hatred for camping, Seren."

"Oh, I don't, but I also know you'd rather be with Bucky 24/7."

"I'm gonna hang up now."

"Oh c'mon! All I have at home right now is Let It Go and a stupid snowman going 'I've been impaled' on repeat. Give me something, Chloe!"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "There's nothing to give, Seren. We've been over this many times."

"Yes, so I don't understand what keeps getting lost in the conversations. It's quite simple, really. You like Bucky. Bucky likes you. See? Simple."

Chloe snorted. "I know you of all people are not telling me about having feelings for someone when you literally spent how long denying your feelings for your current husband?"

"Well take it as someone with experience, then," said Seren. "You should tell him. I mean, you guys are at this secluded place, right?"

"You mean Sam's family home? Where Sam and his sister and his nephews live? You see the problem, right?"

"Yes, okay, but truthfully there's not gonna be a right moment and I feel like you're just prolonging this. Bucky too. It's so obvious that it's painful to watch."

"Goodbye, Seren." Chloe was prepared to end the call right there when Seren shouted at her to wait.

"I bug you with the best intentions," she said as a weak apology. "I'm your best friend. I'm just trying to help you out. Sorry."

"I know you are," sighed Chloe. Seren would never do anything malicious. Chloe wasn't even sure Seren could do something of the sort. "But it's a lost cause."

"Mm, I wouldn't be so sure, Chloe. But I'm gonna have to put a pause on the conversation. One of my kids is making eyes at my bookshelf…"

Chloe chuckled. "Good luck with that."

"Ditto! Gotta go!" Seren hung up shortly after, leaving Chloe to dwell on the conversation and her thoughts.

Eventually, Chloe gathered herself up and went back inside to have her last dinner with the Wilsons and Bucky. She struggled to take her mind off Seren's words whenever she glanced at Bucky. He was damn cute when he interacted with Sam's nephews. He was clueless around them but that was the charming part. She liked watching him trying to be him — carefree and simply trying to live. He deserved the opportunity and much more. Which was why she often re-decided to keep her feelings to herself. She didn't want to add any kind of stress to his life and his new journey to build himself up again. What she wanted most was to see him happy and if she had to do it as his friend, then so be it. It was a small price to pay for his happiness.

~ 0 ~

The following week, Bucky counted each day that passed by like his life depended on it. Never had time gone by so slowly. Despite the fact he spent half the week in Quebec on a mission, time still managed to pass by so damn slow. He knew why, he just didn't admit to it out loud…not that it stopped Sam from teasing him about it. The fact that Chloe was camping and completely away from technology wasn't supposed to hit him that badly. It was like a dry spell.

Time was when he lived in Wakanda, he had to go days — weeks even — without contact from Chloe (and the rest of their friends). Now he was so used to having Chloe at a simple call away that it seemed outrageous to have gone almost a week without hearing from her.

On the day that she was supposed to be back in the city, he got a message from Steve in the evening. He was supposed to go to some bar down in Manhattan. Bucky didn't think twice. For once, it looked like Steve was playing the wingman.

When Bucky stepped inside the bar, his eyes immediately scoured the area for his — Chloe. He scoured the area for Chloe. It didn't take long for him to spot the gorgeous blonde sitting at the bar counter with their friends Seren and Steve. She looked so happy, not to mention crazy beautiful. She was wearing a dark dress hugging her body so nicely…

His feet walked before he even thought about it. It was Steve's voice that broke him out of his trance — he was greeting.

"You and Sam didn't kill each other!" He clapped Bucky on the shoulder.

"Don't sound so sad about it," Bucky mumbled. His eyes barely left Chloe when he greeted Steve and Seren. "How was the camping?" He asked Chloe, who immediately snorted.

"Peachy," she said, raising her glass up at him. "I should have gone to Quebec with you."

Bucky half smiled at her. "That bad, eh?"

"Get a drink, it'll be a long night by the time I've finished telling you everything my dumbass brothers did to me."

Bucky's smile spread. He would've laughed had Chloe not been so serious. That, however, didn't stop Seren and Steve from laughing.

"Shut it you two," Bucky warned the couple.

"I think we're no longer needed here, honey," Seren whispered to Steve. He agreed with a hum and took out a few bills to cover their bill.

"We'll be seeing you two," Steve said, slipping out of his stool. He took his wife's hand and walked away.

Neither Chloe nor Bucky seemed to mind — they barely noticed them leave.

"So," Bucky sat next to Chloe, "how bad was it, really?"

Chloe had a tight smile on her face when she answered. She hated camping before, but now she detested it. Camping was useless to her. Pointless.

Bucky let her go on until she literally ran out of things to say. He thought the whole thing was funny. Chloe was a bit of a drama queen — he loved that about her and he would never change that — so he knew the camping couldn't have been that bad. Sure, her brothers may have messed with her but not to the extent that she swore up and down by.

After a few more drinks, Bucky decided it was time to cut her off. She didn't seem drunk but it was better to quit while they were ahead. She didn't mind, especially when he asked if he could walk her home.

Screw the drinks, Chloe immediately thought and was getting up from her stool before Bucky even offered to pay for their drinks.

They were soon on the street heading for Chloe's apartment. Bucky shrugged off his jacket and draped it over Chloe's shoulders, earning a soft smile from her in return.

"Thank you," she said and held the jacket closer around her.

"So how bad was the camping trip really?" he asked her.

"Bad," Chloe groaned, making him laugh. "I'm being serious. I got a ton of bug bites! I'm pretty sure I touched something I was allergic to because I got a wicked rash on my foot!"

Bucky laughed again. "What, were you walking barefoot or something?"

"Ha, ha," Chloe mimicked his laugh before shooting him a sharp glance. "I'll have you know that I saw a spider and I bolted."

"So you were walking barefoot?"

"Running, if we're being technical."

"You're lucky all you got was a rash, then. You never walk barefoot in the woods!"

"Don't you think I know that!? I got scared!"

"Of a spider?" Bucky teased her. "You have been through hell with missions and you are still afraid of spiders?"

Chloe couldn't take his laughter. She pulled his jacket off her shoulders and used it to smack him with it in the middle of the street. Bucky's laughter actually got louder instead.

"Alright, alright, I surrender!" He said with his hands covering his head. Chloe was smug at her victory and stopped hitting him. "So much for all the Winter Soldier training…" He mumbled under his breath and gazed at Chloe fondly. She was still semi-glaring at him but a little smile was trying to overshadow it. He reached over and took his jacket from her and placed it over her shoulders again. "Okay, I'm done now. I promise."

Chloe still did her best to keep glaring at him. "I could shoot you right now…"

"And I could take it…right now," he copied her with a smug smile. She rolled her eyes. He chuckled. "I'm done." He tugged his jacket closer around her, and in the process her body to his. "You know I'd let you win any day."

"This doesn't sound like you're 'done' to me…"

"I had one more, sorry."

"You're still taking me home?"

"You know it." Bucky let her go and instead took her hand in his. He didn't often touch her and when he did, he always tried to do it with his flesh hand. Especially these days and nights when it was colder, he didn't want to add on to the coolness. Chloe never said a thing, though. She loved any of his touches, no matter how minimal they were (and they usually were).

They walked the rest of the way without bickering and hitting. Chloe finished telling Bucky about the rest of her camping experience and declared that she would never, ever, go back to such a horrid thing.

"Think I've never heard someone hate camping so much," Bucky said with a chuckle.

Chloe reached her apartment door first and searched for her keys in her purse. "There are just so many other great things to do, Bucky. Why would I ever want to go back to the dirt and sleep on the ground?"

Bucky rolled his eyes and watched her unlock the door. "I guess I'll leave you to it, then…"

"What?" Chloe looked at him quickly. "I thought…I mean — do you want to come in? You haven't told me about your mission in Quebec."

"I haven't…" Bucky agreed. He would take any excuse to spend more time with her. He let Chloe tug him inside the apartment like he didn't have super strength. He'd let her lead him any time and anywhere.

Chloe took his jacket off and handed it back to him. "Oh, you know what? I have something of yours here too. Give me a sec!" She hurried off into the hallway, disappearing for all of two minutes before coming back with another familiar jacket in her arms — a few of them. "Think I've been making you a spot in my closet or something."

Bucky hadn't even realized she'd been accumulating his things but he remembered each and every one of his jackets draped over her shoulders. Every time they were out somewhere and he thought it was chilly, he would give her whatever he was wearing to cover herself up.

"Anyways, thanks for letting me borrow them," Chloe put the jackets on the table for the moment. "Don't worry. They've all been washed."

"Doll, you did not have to do that," Bucky said, making her chuckle. He wouldn't mind having some of his things smelling like her.

"I know, but what kind of friend would I be if I returned everything all dirty?"

He watched her set his pile of clothes on the table for him. His heart was yearning for her. "Well, why don't I thank you for the gesture? Maybe some dinner tomorrow somewhere nice?"

Chloe heard the question and for a second wondered if she was jumping to conclusions because it very well sounded like a…

"Like a…a date?" She had tried saying it boldly but her voice had shaken in the end. She tucked some hair behind her ear and looked at him nervously.

Bucky gave a firm nod of his head. "A date." Why not? He already made a fool of himself plenty of times before, so what was one more time if it meant he could go out on a date with the prettiest girl in the world?

"Okay," Chloe nodded, smiling with an even darker blush on her face. "Yeah, I'd love that. Um, yeah!" She bounced excitedly and threw her arms around Bucky, laughing with him.

He loved hearing her so happy and he wanted to keep being the reason for it. He passed his flesh hand on her cheek, taking the moment to gaze at her. "You're real pretty, doll."

Chloe smiled from ear to ear. Even though her nerves were making her heart race intensely, she couldn't be any happier. "And you're very handsome…" She retorted, reaching for his other arm — the metal one — and brought it around her waist. Her sharp look was that of a challenge in the face of Bucky's hesitance. "I like you all," she said bravely and after a few more seconds of boldness, she added: "And I love you all."

Bucky blinked a few times at her. His lips parted several times but each time he was unable to say a word. How could she be more brave than him?

His metal hand gripped her waist and sighed. "I love you but you are way more than I deserve."

"No," Chloe said, still smiling, "We are exactly what we deserve." She leaned forward, touching noses. "Now I know you're all about being proper but what's it going to take to get a little kiss from you before the date?"

Bucky chuckled lightly. "Not much if I'm being honest."

"Ooh, I like that answer…"

"Yeah?"

Chloe chuckled with him. "Yeah!"

"Already off to a good start then…" Bucky mumbled and pressed his lips against hers. He could hear Chloe's giggle against his own lips and by God, it felt even better reverberating against his skin.

[mizarsta]

Sketches I drew after reading Party Trick by dollfaces on AO3, except the shaunajackie was just a funny sketch based on that vine and a post from someone who had never seen the show lol. I highly recommend the fanfic!

[ponds-of-ink]

A… Disney Speedstorm Fanfic? (“Chapter” 1/Prologue - Oogie’s Challenge)

Or, more properly titled: “Speedstorm: The Quest to Defeat Oogie”.

…Yes, I’ve taken it upon myself to write a fanfic about the whole Quest for Oogie Boogie event in Speedstorm. Idk, something about it felt right.

This should be more of a fun little writing challenge in-between Speedstorm sessions, but uhh.. I’ve already kinda written lore for this actual joke/for fun fic. And I’m pretty sure I’m accidentally doing some Mirrorverse-type shenanigans when writing these versions of Speedstorm characters.

Regardless, I hope you enjoy the chaos about to ensue.

It had been a busy day for the racers in the Speedstorm Arena. All four members of the newest team were given their training by Arbee, every other racer had to learn how to deal with said team’s abilities, and Arbee relayed her typical briefing to the system’s manager. All in all, the standard stuff for a new season in the Arena.

Except, this time, something was off.

A reddish tint filled the sky. Only Doctor Finkelstein reported back from the Pumpkin Team’s briefing. Racers from other teams received frantic calls from the manager. Even AR-Bee felt something other than excitement in her coding.

Yet, amidst all this building chaos, Mickey strolled to the farthest corner of the stadium. “Stay close, now,” he told the two other racers behind him. “I dunno if this place is safe or not.”

“Can’t Aladdin go check?” a lanky creature asked, brushing back a ‘strand’ of her snake hair. “He’s always been a sneaky kind of guy.”

“He’s supposed to be training with Ar-Bee,” Mickey responded softly, giving a side glance towards Aladdin. “He’s still under-leveled for this place, last time I heard.”

“Only by a few!” Aladdin cried out, only to be cut off by a chorus of shushing. After  everyone finished waiting for some terrible danger, Aladdin huffed in exasperation. “I might be ‘under-leveled’, but I can still outrun the best of ‘em,” he insisted, habitually putting his hands on his sides. “All I gotta do is steal this Skellington guy away like he’s the Genie’s lamp in the Cave of Wonders. Nothing to it.”

“I still think we should be careful,” Mickey retorted quietly, lightly stomping his foot as he resumed his sneaking. “Oogie Boogie knows how to cheat. And if he’s in charge of this place, then there’s nothing he won’t do to win!”

“That’s right, Mouse-Ears!” a fourth voice yelled with a booming laugh. “Finally, a racer who gets me around here!”

Before the three could recover, a large shadow materialized in front of them. Its pitch-dark tones was soon replaced with a bright neon green. The transparency solidified into a towering, cackling mass of glowing burlap. “And now that you’ve brought me an audience, it’s time for my show to begin,” the burlap-‘sewn’ racer said with a slightly theatrical motion of its arm. “It’s ‘Oogie Boogie’s Champ Challenge’!”

The stone walls holding the iron gates turned into a moving checkerboard. Swing music blared as neon letters flashed to life. “‘Oogie Boogie’s Champ Challenge’?” the snake-haired woman read in a puzzled mutter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Glad you asked, Medusa,” the being known as Oogie responded slyly. “This here is the ultimate challenge: You win against the toughest ghouls this side of Halloween Town’s ever seen, you hit the jackpot: An all-paid trip to Boogie-Central!” Another boisterous laugh followed, which only made his listeners glance at each other. “That is, I get to join your group all nice and quiet-like,” he added in a slightly calmer tone, though no less cheery.

“And if we don’t?” Aladdin questioned, cautiously taking a step closer.

“I’ll just gobble up Jack and Sally’s chances of joining instead,” Oogie shrugged casually. “Dollface’s already been turned into a pal o’ mine, so what’s one Pumpkin ‘King’ for some extra spice?”

Mickey did a double-take. “What did you do to Sally!?” he cried out, readying to march up to the squirmy behemoth.

Oogie chuckled in a deep, menacing tone. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he returned, looming over the silently arguing trio. He turned his head just enough to look at the iron gates.

A smaller, much more shadowy figure emerged from the billowing fog. Its hands made quick work of the gates’ locks. Then, after unlocking the doors, the stranger gently pushed them open. It looked at the snakewoman, then mouthed something.

“…Cecilia…” the woman seemed to hear. Instinctively, her one blue eye followed the sound. Two pin-prick pupils stared back at her. “The rest of your friends to train,” the hushed chorus of whispers continued. “Most of them will be very close by this month’s end. Some of them already are.”

Cecilia’s snakes bobbed their heads in agreement. Cecilia herself pulled Mickey aside. “We‘ll come back for them later,” she said in a stern tone. “Come on, Mick. We’ve got some racing to do.”

Mickey and Aladdin protested, but Cecilia dragged them away. All she could do was glare at the taunting Boogie-Man before returning to the main section. This was going to be a long October, even if she was going to be sidelined again. She could feel it.