How would the PAâs react to there favorite reagent running to them in tears? Perhaps trying to seek some form of comfort from the trials? They all need therapyđ
I want to be comforted and degraded, I will write this!!!!!
HERE YOU GO!!!!
Leland Coyle
He's immediately acting up
"Poor lil thing, you need daddy to comfort you?" he's wrapping an arm around you and pulling you around
He's pulling you into his lap and rubbing his cattle prod up and down your back
Maybe he's giving you a few lil zaps
Crying into his shoulder and he's squeezing and pinching your sides
"Oh, sugar, you're all sweet but you melt under a lil water. Gotta toughen you up, make you a real good recruit"
Liliya Bogomolova
If her sweet lamb is upset so is she
She's angry
Wrapping both arms around you and swaying you back and forth
She lets you cry for a bit before she's cupping your face to make you look at her masked face
"Dove, what disturbs you so? Has someone upset you? What makes my little angel weep?"
Franco Barbi
It makes him feel really good that you're coming to him
Franco loves being your lil baby, but he wants to feel like a strong man too sometimes
And you run up and hide against him
Like he's the only one who can protect you or make you feel better
It works him up, but he wants to make sure you're ok first and foremost!
"What's got ya so bothered, toots?"
"Come'ere, I got some cigars and snacks for ya in my room."
Arm around your waist rubbing your back
Mother Gooseberry
Ignore Dr Futterman, he's a rat bastard
Phyllis is so upset that you're upset
She'll start crying too
She's smothering you in affection
Backrub, kisses, hugs, allllll of it
She's giving you a handkerchief and wiping your eyes
"My poor Gosling...you're far too cute to be so upset! Dry those pretty little eyes for Mother"
The Kress Twins
"Why for God's sakes are you crying?"
"Poor thing is terribly worked up...It wouldn't hurt to coddle them for a while, dear"
You're getting picked up and carried around
They don't really understand how you're so upset, it's a bit embarrassing for everyone involved
Arora is wiping your face
"You're ruining your makeup, sweetheart...though it does look quite nice..."
"A few tears only make you look all the better."
Pitcher
He's really confused
You're crying, why are you crying
Then you're HUGGING HIM
He will take advantage of this
You're so cold, let him warm you up <3
He's picking you up and hauling you out of the trial with him
To the sleeproom you go!
Tucks you into his bed and wraps you in blankets
Deep pressure helps people calm down, he's smothering you and laying on top of you with his face against yours
Night Hunter
HE'S THE ONLY ONE THAT SHOULD BE MAKING YOU CRY
they're stealing HIS tears
You're getting tears all over his equipment, stay BACK
He'll have you sit side by side, draping your legs over his lap a little
Pets you like you're a cat or something
Berserker
He's smothering you
You're being LOUD and it's OVERSTIMULATING
But he likes you a lot, so he's kissing/licking away your tears and forcing you to sit on his lap
You're both on you floor and he's SQUEEZING YOU SO HARD YOU CAN BARELY BREATHE
He watches as you struggle to sleep. His favourite little lamb. He couldn't have 'joined in' any better time.
Your head was full of his praises, but mostly his lewd comments. "Let daddy fill you up." "Only i love you." His voice vibrates in your brain.
He watches as your hands move under your blanket. He's furious. Aroused but still mad that he cannot get a good view of what perverted things you're doing. Are you caressing your skin? Teasing yourself? Or have you already began to masturbate?
The thing that makes him the happiest though, is that you brought the radio closer to your bed. You press it's button from time to time, whimper and moan as you hear him talk. You're getting off just by hearing him! It warms his heart, and makes his cock throb.
His little lamb loves him. You don't ever want to leave him do you? Not from the way he sees it. He makes sure of it next time you finish a trial, instead of the sleep room, you will be sent straight to his office. Will it be 'cuz of a good or a bad grade? Praise or punishment will be your fate? He's already excited to find out.
He strokes himself through his pants, trying to stay quiet to hear you better. He wishes you would moan louder, like you wouldn't be ashamed to scream his name in the dead of the night.
Your hands gripping the sheet, you hump your pillow. He groans at every little twitch your body makes. You look so desperate.
He imagines you in his lap. You'd look so sweet! If only he could be right next to you, he'd help you. And he knows you'd embrace him, let him take control, let him do whatever he wants to you. He'd fill you up with pleasures you'd never felt before. If only he was there..
His heart almost stops when he hears you quietly moan his name. Even if you can't hear it, he encourages you, he tells you through the screen how good you are being, to keep going, make daddy proud-
Lost in his own babbling he cums. Just right after him, he hears you finally moan louder as you finish. Breathing loudly, sweat covering him, he can't take his eyes off you. As you calm down, you hug your blanket, and drift off. He just hopes, no, he knows you imagined hugging him.
He helped you cum, he helped you fall asleep, and he will keep on helping you. Just you wait.
Just came to my mind against my will an Otto and Arora x reader smut idea where they decide to use reader as basically a sexy toy for Otto. Reader acts as sort of a sub-in for Arora since her pussy is on Ottos neck. So Otto uses reader like basically a cock sleeve while shoving his fingers into Arora at the same pace.
And they wouldn't be normal about it, I feel there would be a lot of dehumanizing and degrading words. And a lot of objectifying. And Otto fucks reader only for his own pleasure, as far as hes concerned the only cunt that needs to cum is his sisters.
I feel Arora would still be jealous. I imagine Otto is quite big, though it may not seem like that compared to his large frame. If the reader is being too loud, their face is being shoved into the sheets. The first time they fuck reader, they'd be too loud from the size of Otto, so they make note to find an appropriate gag for you next time. If reader dares to let out something like "it's too big" Arora is just pissed that she will never be able to feel it. She may even accuse them of trying to make her jealous on purpose, in which she'll order Otto to "fuck it harder". She especially loved objectifying the reader, reminding them they are just a stand-in, a toy to be used, abused, and tossed away after.
I do feel for a successful and comfortable fucking, Otto and Arora require reader to be suspended or leveraged some way. I imagine they would have them in a full body shibari, certain parts with attachment which allow them to adjust your leverage, like a pully system. Sometimes, when they are finished with you, they will just let you hang there until they feel satisfied.
I also feel they like recording their sexcipades, with or without the readers consent or knowledge. They enjoy watching back on your reaction, examining you like an experiment "see how their left brow raised, they did enjoy it". They would also probably enjoy teasing you with it, or perhaps blackmail?
How the PAs + Ex-Pops + Dr. Easterman would react to other reagents fighting you
Hi everyone! I'm apologize for not posting recently, I've been kinda out of it recently. Not the fandom, but just in general.
I wanted to write something, though. Consider this a thank you for 100 followers! Truly, y'all are a blessing. I don't have the words to say a proper thanks. When I started writing, I didn't think anyone would like my writing so much. I love y'all. âĄ
By the way, I don't mean imposters fighting you. I'm talking about actual reagents who have an issue with you. These will be some possessive headcanons, enjoy!
Leland Coyle:
* You were his favorite reagent. No one but him had a right to touch you. Let alone hurt you.
* When he saw the other reagents in your group start turning on you, he was pissed. He saw how they tried to sabotage you, how they tried to hurt you.
The final straw was when one of the other reagents managed to drag you down to the floor and start punching you.
* Coyle started full-on sprinting at the reagent. His electron baton already primed over his shoulder.
* He was shouting at the reagent, pure anger behind his voice.
* "You beatnick rape-o hophead motherfuckers arenât gonna cook what meat I want raw!â
* When the reagent ran from you, Coyle didnât stop until he was right over you. He grabbed your arm and pulled you back up to your feet. He then dragged you to the nearest hiding spot and forced you in, telling you not to move until the rest of the reagents were dead.
* After Coyle left you, his footsteps grew more confident. He was faster, more determined. He was going to kill the ones that hurt you.
* You saw briefly how he interacted with the other reagents. When he got in arms reach, he jerked them back towards him. Coyle forced them to the floor and didn't waste any time frying them.
* The crackling was loud, and Coyle's degrading names echoed throughout the halls.
* Every scream from the reagents only fanned the flames, making Coyle more excited for the hunt.
* Once Coyle came back to you, he pulled you out of your hiding spot. He put an arm around your waist and guided you with him.
Mother Gooseberry:
* Her favorite gosling? Getting hurt? She couldn't, wouldn't stand for it.
* She kept a careful eye on the other reagents when she noticed they were trying to move traps around.
* Her breaking point was when she realized you were heavily injured from all the traps you had tripped on.
* That's when Mother Gooseberry put the puzzle pieces together. Once she did, there was no going back.
* You had been hit by one final trap when Mother Gooseberry came to you. She firmly but gingerly helped you back up to your feet. She led you to a dark room and told you to wait there for her. Threatening to hurt you if you moved.
* The only thing you heard when you were hiding was screaming, Mr. Futtermanâs drill and Mother Gooseberry's footsteps.
* You saw what she did to one reagent. When she had caught them, Mr. Futterman went straight to their forehead. Mother Gooseberry drilled through their skull and to their brain.
* While she was chasing the reagents, you heard a lot from Mr. Futterman. Constant cursing and yelling.
* âYou grimy little fucks can't escape the goose grease!â
* Once all the others were dead, Mother Gooseberry did come back to you. She was pleased to see you hadn't moved and praised you for it.
* You noticed she was tired from all the chasing, but still concerned for you. She took your hand and led you to a medical box so you could heal.
* While you walked with her, you could feel her thumb rub the back of your hand. She would apologize that she wasn't there to protect you.
* âI'm sorry Mother wasn't there to protect her gosling. These wretched little children kept me from you.â
Franco Barbi:
* You were Francoâs mommy, his little rabbit, you werenât gonna get hurt by these limpdick motherfuckers.
* Franco was angry for you. It was like he snapped when he saw the reagents try to lock you in the Chem Co facility. Thankfully, you managed to find your way out, but just barely.
* Franco's first priority was finding you so he could get you somewhere safe. If he found other reagents along the way, he would shoot them. Make them run.
* Once Franco found you, he grabbed you by the back of your ESOP. He pulled you around all the way until you got back to his room, where he kept the heavy grunt.
* He shoved you inside and took a moment to reload Lupara.
* âDon't worry mommy, babyâs gonna make these rat motherfuckers pay.â
* With that, he left. The popping of Luparaâs shots sounded much louder from where you were. You flinched every time you heard it.
* You couldnât hear much else since Franco was so far from you, most of the time.
* Still, once Franco had killed the other reagents, he came back for you. He had one small bottle of medicine in his hands. He didnât want you quite strong enough to fight back.
* He threw the medicine at you and waited for you to drink it. After you did, it was like he latched onto you instantly.
Kress Twins:
* They were more than upset, mostly because the other reagents weren't even playing fair.
* They had you do almost everything while bullying you.
* Otto and Arora's breaking point was when they saw a reagent slam your head on one of the metal valves.
* Arora borderline screamed at Otto to go and grab that reagent. Otto followed quickly and caught them just as quickly. He didn't even bother to get the reagent on the floor.
* Otto sawed through the reagentâs back, right on their spine. Once the reagent fell, Otto came running back to you.
* âMy dear, look at what they did to our love.â
* âThey must pay.â
* Otto grabbed your shoulder and forced you to walk with him. You could feel Arora's hand on your other shoulder, gently rubbing it.
* Otto put you in the nearest hiding spot and then left to find the others.
* You didn't even see any of the other reagents die. All you heard was the hollering, the sawing, and the breaking of glass.
* Still, Otto came back to you. They dragged you out of your hiding spot and brought you into the light. They then checked you over for any injuries. Of course you had some. Once they noticed, they left you once more to go get you medicine.
* When you started feeling a little better, they forced you along with them. Otto didnât let you go until the doctors had to come and retrieve you.
Liliya Bogomolova:
* You were her little lamb, and she wasnât going to let anyone else hurt you. That was reserved for her, and her only.
* When Liliya saw the other reagents picking on you, she was already keeping a close eye on them. Stalking them, and hiding around them more.
* Liliya stopped playing nice completely when she saw a reagent rip off the claws on one of her mannequins and stab you with them.
* Absolutely blasphemous, and Liliya wasn't having it. Liliya came out of hiding and bolted for the reagent who had hurt you. She moved right past you and tackled the reagent.
* She dug her claws into the reagent's neck, splitting it open. Once the reagent was limp, she got up and immediately went after the others.
* You slowly got up and covered your wound. You found the nearest bed and went to lay down for a minute. The pain was excruciating.
* It didn't take long for Liliya to get to the others. She had to hold herself back from acting too rash. She was angry, but she couldn't just constantly chase them. She needed to trick them, using her hiding skills. It was easier to get them that way.
* Once they were dead, Liliya slinked back to find you. It didn't take her too long since you hadn't moved very far. She saw you on the bed and rested her claws on you. She scratched lightly before noticing the wound on you.
* You swore you heard a light growl from her lips before she went off to find you some medicine.
* Pusher didn't like the way the other reagents treated you. He saw what they did, putting you in harm's way.
* Forcing you into traps, locking doors behind you so you couldn't escape the prime assets.. it didn't ever stop.
* Pusher would try and keep the other reagents in psychosis. Not you, though. Pusher always moved past you.
* âDon't worry baby, these bitches are in for a wild ride.â
* He would move antidotes away from the other reagents, just to keep them in psychosis longer. It would eventually work, killing at least 1 of the others.
* Pusher would also move medicine, making sure it was easier for you to find.
Pitcher:
* Pitcher hated it. He saw the way they treated you, like you were some sort of outcast.
* Pitcher would throw more molotolvs out. He did try and make sure you didn't get hit by them, but no promises.
* He would scream more often, too. It was louder than normal and sounded more strained. You would hear Pitcher growl and grumble to himself, but you couldn't make out anything he wanted to say.
* You noticed Pitcher would keep a close eye on you. Every time he saw you, his eyes scanned you for new injuries. He almost always found them.
* Pitcher would get so angry that he eventually stopped leaving the trial environment. If he ever did, it wasn't for long.
Night Hunter:
* The Night Hunter, like the others, hated seeing you hurt at the hands of these other reagents.
* The other reagents only hurt you so much before the Night Hunter decided you needed to stay with him.
* He wouldn't let you leave dark areas, and he always needed to have you in his line of sight.
* âI see you glow worm. For what they did to you, they're gonna fucking die.â
* Every time reagents would come in the room, the Night Hunter may as well have turned into the pouncer.
* He caught them and lacerated them until you could hardly recognize them.
* If the Night Hunter ever came across bandages, he would give them to you. Possibly even try to put them on you himself.
* He would watch your trials. You were supposed to be hurt, but not like this.
* Easterman thought it would make you stronger at first. He thought it would teach you not to trust others. So, he let it continue.
* Then, he realized every reagent that you got paired with tried to kill you. That's when Easterman took action.
* Even for him, it was hard watching his little lamb get bullied. So, Easterman forbade other reagents from doing trials with you.
* If the doctors forgot you needed to do trials alone and let another reagent go with you, the Jaeger needed to be put in the trial. The Jaeger was then forced to go after the other reagent(s).
* If you were stuck with another reagent, Easterman would monitor the trial closely. Just to make sure you didnât get hurt. Beyond what you were supposed to, anyway.
* If he saw the other reagent(s) hurting you, he would force the doctors to go in and grab you.
* He would talk to himself about you after your trials. He would occasionally leave you special voice messages on your radio.
* "I see how hard you're working and how sore those precious hands are. These others are just a distraction. Keep your attention on me, little lamb."
---------
I wanted to make this post longer so it felt more special. Seriously, thank you all so much for 100 followers. I can't say it enough.
I want to get more posts out there, and I hope I'll do it soon! As I said before, I've been kinda out of it recently. Just sorta sluggish.
I appreciate everyone's support greatly, and I highly enjoy reading y'all's submissions! I hope you (yes you) have a great day. Much love and affection. âĄ
You had never thought Mihawk was all that territorial until you discovered you didnât really know him at all.
There had been signs. Kuraigana Island was his, in that quiet, unspoken way that brooked no argument from the world or the sea around it. Yoru was his, and heaven help anyone who looked at it too long. Even his silly little apprentices were his, though he would never lower himself to say so aloud. He simply made it known through the precise economy of someone who had never needed to raise his voice to be understood.
And after that incident, where you had somehow found yourself on the end of his⌠special sword and come out the other side of it with a very complicated living situation, you too had become one of his own.
You were reminded of that occasionally. Sometimes gently. Sometimes not.
Screeeeeeeeccccchhhhh.
The sound the chair made as Mihawk dragged it across the stone floor was genuinely offensive. Loud enough to cut clean through every conversation in the tavern, to make the nearest crewmen of the Red Hair Pirates wince into their drinks. You were entirely certain Mihawk could have picked you and the chair up with one hand and simply relocated you, but that was not the point, was it. The point was the noise. The point was the spectacle.
You knew better than to say a word when Mihawk was making one.
After all, how else was he supposed to give Shanks the cut direct, make a proper show of it, and move you bodily away from the red-headed menace, without dragging your chair away from the man in a manner that left absolutely no room for misinterpretation? The screech had been deliberate. The placement of the chair, flush against his own, was deliberate. The arm that settled around your middle the moment he sat back down was deliberate, heavy and unhurried, as though he had simply decided you belonged there and that was the end of the matter.
Across the table, Shanks looked like he was fighting a grin and losing badly.
You gave Mihawk a long, flat stare. He ignored it with the same serene composure he ignored Shanks with, and the rest of Shanksâ crew, and the entire tavernâs worth of people now pretending not to look at the three of you.
His thumb moved once, a slow idle arc against your side.
You looked back at Shanks, who mouthed something at you that you were fairly sure translated to âmy condolences.â You decided not to acknowledge that either.ââââââââââââââââ
SUMMARY: Alone, exhausted, and pursued, you run face-first into the last Ex-Pop you want to see. After some convincing, the Pusher makes a deal with you. Unluckily, the Pitcher tracks you down halfway through your "bargaining." Luckily, he wants in.
WORD COUNT: 9.5k
WARNINGS: 18+, explicit PWP, dubcon, canon-typical violence. Oral sex (male receiving), finger sucking, penetrative sex, MMF threesome, spitroasting, bargain sex, spit kink, slight breeding kink (lol), generally gross. Mild gore + mentions of vomit. Reader is fem but written mostly GN, no descriptors of appearance, no Y/N.
READ ON AO3 HERE
Muscles up your side cramped with a vengeance as you willed your legs to continue onward. Pain, hot and insistent, stitched through your ribs, and flared every time you took a gasping breath. God, why had you ever picked this trial? Vindicate the Guilty was never a cake-walk â you should have just done Cancel the Autopsy, something that was brainless and easy â but the allure of extra reward that Easterman promised had been too much. If only you hadnât been so greedy, you wouldnât have been caught up like this. Your boots slammed on the ground, green-hued vision swung wildly from side-to-side as you attempted to make sense of where you were. Somewhere dark. The flayed skeleton of the courthouseâs still-in-construction section rose to meet you on all sides, bare wood and jagged nails threatening you at every step.
Ragged breathing matched yours, alongside incensed, guttural shrieks that echoed behind you. Your pursuer.
An angry Southern accent, spat out around a cigarette. âHold it right there, shitbird!â
Scratch that. Two pursuers.Â
Your wildly pumping heart sank. You cursed everything you could in your head; the trial, the courthouse, your teammates, your misguided altruism, yourselfâ though stopped shy at mentally shit-talking Easterman, because you swore he knew what you were thinking. Somehow. Always. Why had you offered to run interference while the others grabbed the acid? Putting your life on the line so carelessly was going to cost you one day, and with every painful, exhausted step, it was starting to feel like that day was near. Maybe even now.
Your fist flung out, snagged around a floor-to-ceiling wooden beam, and you hooked a right, using it as a pivot point; somewhere behind you, a molotov exploded against the battered scaffolding. Terror spiked in every limb. The distinct feeling of being closed in on began to crush you like a steel trap, and you fought the dumb, primitive urge to scream and run blindly. You were better than a prey animal. You had a brain, damn it, even if it was being flushed with cortisol and adrenaline to its physical limit.
A yawning gap of darkness beckoned you. Without question, you followed; although your thighs burned from exertion, you dropped to a deep crouch and duck-walked through the little gap in the slats. It opened into a dark hallway, littered with crates and miscellaneous detritus, the same as all the rest, and added further to your disorientation. At the top of the green wash of your field of view, your battery life blinked down ominously. The clunk of leather boots, offset pairs to indicate that both were still hunting for you, rang through the thin walls and peeling insulation. Still hunting, yes, but you had seemingly lost them. Not that you were going to leave anything up to luck. You needed to get back with the others and regroup. Hopefully your fuck-up had provided enough of a disastrous distraction that theyâd been able to scavenge the acid from the other nooks and crannies of the upstairs construction zone. If not, your chances felt slim to none; your progress in the trial had been hard-fought, shoulder already aching from where the Berserker in the downstairs lobby had clipped you earlier.
You turned on your heel and speed-walked blindly to the next door, hoping against all hope for a way to loop back to the front. All that you knew was that you were still being hunted, still pursued, and you were running out of time and chances to get awayâ
Thump. The door flung backwards just as you reached it, and you collided immediately with the person opening it. Not a Reagent. Why would it be a Reagent? No, it was the last Ex-Pop you wanted to see in such a tight, winding space. It was the fucking Pusher.
At least he sounded similarly winded. There was some small comfort in knowing that the Ex-Pops were â questionably â also human; not invincible, just drugged damn near close to it and provided with real weapons that werenât pilfered from back alleys and construction sites. The Pusher seemed a particularly egregious example, with his metal-braced limbs splinted to high heaven and his tall, thin frame hunched over in a permanent hobble. A âDoh!â wheezed out of him as your chest thudded against his own, ESOP smacking against the bone of his sternum, exposed by the loose flap of his apron.
Whatever bullshit relief you felt was instantly eclipsed by rightful trained fear, especially as he seemed to realize who you were at the same time you realized who he was.Â
âDonât be afraid, baby!â Long, slim fingers leapt up at you from the darkness beyond the immediate glow of your goggles, and you couldnât help the shriek that tore past your lips as he grabbed at your ESOP. Nails, chipped and unkempt, snarled in your shirt above your gear. âThe doctorâs in.â
Maniacal laughter bounced in your ears as you stumbled forward, caught off-guard by the strength of his grip. There was a flash of sinewy muscles that flexed along skinny arms, dotted with gnarled pustules and scarring, as he tugged you into a horribly familiar position. You knew this. You knew what was coming. The acrid, bitter spray of gas, turned neon green by night vision, pushing into your nose, your mouth, your lungs. Everywhere. Forever. It settled like a pollutant, permeated every inch of you, and felt as though you were being shoved underwater with a cloth sack over your face. No air to breathe, just pulsing veins along the walls and filling up your mouth and the inexorable march of the Skinner Man, his approach heralded by echoing screams and melting hallucinations.
Fuck no. Fuck. No.
Although you were exhausted from the previous chase, something like a second wind ballooned your lungs, and your hands flung out desperately. One fist wrapped securely around his gas nozzle and shoved it up and away. Anything to keep it away from your face. Your other hand smacked against the side of his jaw, obscured by the thick, cured leather of his gas mask. On instinct, your fingers curled, nails raking over his skin; his entire frame tensed at the sudden, unexpected pain.
âOhâ agh, tricky little bitch, watch the face!â he spat, and you would have laughed at the ridiculousness of how normal he sounded, if not for the gas nozzle swinging dangerously low above your head like a Damoclean sword.
You grappled for long, torturous seconds in the doorway, grunts of exertion and bitter swears exchanged between you both. A tremble started in the arm propping up the gas nozzle â your only warning. Fear sank your stomach. Your battery was low, it was pitch black back here, and you had no idea where the nearest antidote was. The thought of dying to the Skinner Manâs slow, sloughing drain â writhing on the floor and sobbing incoherently until you breathed your last â struck enough fight back into you to give it one final push.
âFffuckingâ gh, fuck you, asshole!â you snarled, near incoherent, flecks of spit flying from your bared teeth. You dragged your free hand down, fighting the way he attempted to secure a grip on your wrist, and struck your elbow across his throat.
The prominent bulge of his Adamâs apple gave way, mashed beneath the flat of your arm, and you both felt and heard the air wheeze out of his trachea. Some of it blew over your face through the filter of his maskâs nozzle, stale from constant gas inhalation.
He stumbled to the side just as your arm gave way, and you lunged at the chance. The chance. All you needed was a chance, just a fucking little bit of luck. Weight thrust forward, you made a break for it, battery ticked down to its last, and dove for the safety of darkness. He didnât have night vision. It wouldnât matter if you didnât either.
Or, rather, it wouldnât have mattered.
It was all just a stupid hypothetical in the end. Your fleeting dreams of escape were crushed as he swung around on instinct, nozzle-first, and cracked you across the back of the head with it hard. Stars exploded behind your eyes, accompanied by a similarly fantastic burst of pain. A pitiful little noise yelped out of your dry mouth and you stumbled forward a few steps before succumbing to gravity and hitting the ground hard, still carried by your earlier momentum. Oxygen was knocked out of you with a noise that was terribly similar to the one that you had wrung out of the Pitcher not seconds before. Agony throbbed across the back of your skull as you gasped on the floor, drained from the chase and the fight and beyond dazed.
You were fucked. Unbelievably fucked.
Hobbled steps. A large, spindly hand slapped down on your shoulder. Fingers dug in and yanked, hard enough that you felt the joint creak in its socket as he hauled you over yourself and flipped you onto your back.
Youâd seen more than your fair share of horrors. Who at Sinyala hadnât? Youâd been chased by Coyle and stuck with that goddamn stun baton, hunted down by Gooseberry and had muscle and tendon pulverized with her drill, even had fucking Franco blow out parts of your leg with his homemade buckshot. Been burned by the Pitcherâs molotovs, sliced by the Night Hunterâs machete, had shivs dug into your gut from Ex-Pops masquerading as your teammates. The list of things you had borne witness to â the list of things you had done â was long and nightmarish. All just for the doctors to stitch you up and keep sending you back.
And yet, somehow, this seemed to be the most frightening yet.
Maybe it was because you knew. You knew what would happen, you knew how awful psychosis felt, knew exactly how your body temperature dropped as the Skinner Man drained the life from your aching body bit by bit. There was no horror Sinyala and its team of fucked-up scientists could concoct that could eclipse the ones created by your own mind, aided by psychosis gas. Loved ones crying and screaming as their mouths were pried open around a whirring drill, friends and old coworkers begging for mercy as stun batons violated their most intimate places. Organs and other human offal raining down in an endless parade of suffering. Eastermanâs distorted voice above it all, playing in an endless loop of disappointment and condescension. You knew how you would die, terrified and alone, soaked in your own blood and vomit and waste, body gone cold and added to the endless ranks of Reagent corpses ground to slurry. A waste. A waste of Eastermanâs time and love, a waste of Sinyalaâs resources, a waste of a Reagent.
The Pusher standing over you, propped up by a metal-studded leg planted on each side of your abdomen, inspired more terror in you than anything youâd ever known. Silly. Stupid. Some backfire of Eastermanâs conditioning. Not even Coyle seemed to hold this much sway over you. Even then, it drove you to beg, and the desperation spilling from your lips surprised even you.
âPlease, God, donât!â you yelped, and brought your arms up to cover your face. An impromptu mask of your own flesh, like your skin shoved against your mouth and nose would save you.
The Pusher laughed â you saw how it shook his gangly frame â and leaned down; the gas mask invaded your field of view as he attempted to pry your arms away. The gas nozzle waved ominously near. âBe cool, bitch. Goinâ through withdrawal, I can tell. I can alllllways tell.â He dragged out the L, voice rough and raspy as it filtered through his mask with another wheeze of air. His voice dropped an octave as he leaned a few inches closer. âThatâs why Iâm here, baby. To make it all better.â
ââm not, please, Iâm not. Please, anythingâ for fuckâs sake, just donât, Iâll do anything you want, pleaseââ Pathetic. If you werenât so scared, you would have cringed at how embarrassing you sounded. So far from the confident, efficient Reagent that Easterman wanted you to be. Just a crying, sniveling body. Just an animal begging for its life.
That last part seemed to catch his attention. He loosened his grip on your arm and pulled back a bit â his long, broken nails scraped over your skin as his fingers slid away. Shaking violently, you peeled your arms away from your face and stared up at him; the tears that welled in your eyes blurred your vision behind your goggles. The battery blinked down to red, but it didnât matter; fingers that werenât your own flicked them up, exposing your entire face to the leering Ex-Pop. A gentle scraping noise trailed into your ears as his nails skimmed over the metal of your goggles.
Hot tracks ran down your face as the water tension on your lash line broke. Wide-eyed and still hopelessly crying â the little sobs wracked you uncontrollably even as you tried to quiet yourself into something lucid â your gaze met his. Or rather, met the huge, empty voids of his maskâs lenses. There was just barely enough light to see by â enough to determine large blocks of shadow and the pale, near-ghostly tinge of his grayed skin.
âAnything, huh?â he asked, and sounded surprisingly coherent. Then he broke into a delirious giggle, and the facade was lost instantly. Like there was some joke you werenât in on. âThatâs twisted of you, baby. But I get it. Withdrawal makes you do funny things.â The gas nozzle lowered into view, looming out of the darkness, and you flinched away violently â but the spray of gas never came. The hooked metal just prodded at your face, nudged at the curve of your cheek and the flesh of your lip. It was cold against your searing-hot skin. His voice trailed in and out, as if he was musing to himself behind the mask. âPretty cute, even when youâre banged up⌠I guess itâs not unheard of for a doctor to have sex with his patients.âÂ
The last sentence made your stomach sink right through the floor.
He couldnât possiblyâ notâ
Pressing his advantage by lieu of your lips parting in shock, the sprayer pushed into your mouth. Metal indented your tongue. A fresh sob balled up in your chest and trembled out of you around the nozzle. Anticipation and never-ending stress sang loud and discordant in your veins, but the proverbial shoe never dropped. The gas never clicked on. Just a perverse exploration of your features by an insane goddamn Ex-Pop. Slight movement caught your eye; his mask slowly tilted side to side as he studied you.
âTell you what.â The nozzle pulled free of your mouth; you caught a glimpse of how your spit shone on the scuffed metal, and nausea rocked you. âLetâs have a little fun, baby. Why donât we use that mouth of yours? See if itâs good for something besides all that crying.â The last word left him with amusement; you heard the way his grin stretched, lazy and leering, behind his mask. âScratch my back, I scratch yours. Let you go on your merry little way.â
He spoke so matter-of-factly, like he was discussing a frank business deal, but the manic excitement laced in his tone was hard to miss.
You were many things. Stupidly altruistic, apparently, yes â but you were also a good Reagent. The callousness that Easterman desired had not been beaten into you yet, but you had an unbelievable survival instinct. And right then, your gut told you â for whatever reason â that the delusional Ex-Popâs word would hold.
And there was no getting out of it anyway. Either you could do it willingly and swallow your disgust or heâd drag your mouth where he wanted it and gas you for the hell of it.
Your eyebrows drew together in disbelief and pure distaste. He laughed above you at the way you cringed; the sound scraped all the way up his throat and filtered through his mask. Still, you managed to force a swallow despite the dry tackiness of your mouth, all the moisture long since cried out.
âOkay,â you said hoarsely. A sniffle interrupted your words. Whatever would have come next failed you, and you just nodded as if to really seal your fate.
ââs what I like to hear, baby!â came the reply from above. âNot that it woulda mattered either way.â Manic laughter bubbled through his sentence.
Just get it over with. Just get it over with. Youâd done worse. Ground bodies up, dug around in guts for keys, sawed living people open and shoved packets of poisoned drugs snug up against their still-beating hearts. Sucking a dick was nothing.
You werenât sure if he mistook the way you scrambled up to your elbows and then further into a sitting position for excitement, but it delighted him either way. One hand slid down the front of his apron; you watched with no small amount of horror (and some very, very small amount of sick fascination) as his long fingers sank to the junction of his thighs and squeezed at his cock over the battered drape of leather. A long sigh whistled out of him.
âYeah, âs gonna be good, baby,â he huffed, pawing at his cock one more time for good measure before letting his hand fall away.
Movements jerky, you all but lunged forward on your knees now, the gray mist of dissociation hazing over your brain. Your fingertips skated over the leather, touch obviously shaking â slender fingers with bony knuckles snatched your wrist and you jumped violently. Your gaze instantly flicked up to that impassive mask, eyes wildly searching the discs of the lenses.
âSlow down,â he said with a reedy laugh. âGonna blow my fucking high.â A clatter off to your side made you jolt; you realized after a beat that heâd discarded the gas nozzle entirely. With his now free hand, he gripped his cock again, the tent more visible. âI got time, baby, donât you?â
The question was sardonic and made you bristle through your haze of fear and exhaustion. Fucking asshole. No, you didnât have time, you didnât want to do this, any second Coyle could find himself wandering through this part of the courthouse and catch you on your goddamn knees and deliver a shock right to your brain that would well and truly kill you. The Pusher fucking knew it too, because his rhetorical question cracked himself up again.
His fingers tightened in the leather and he tugged the skirt of the apron to the side with jerky, excited movements. The bulge was much more noticeable through the stained boxers he wore beneath â you tried your best not to think about what exactly was splattered across the fabric â and he at least did you the favor of keeping the apron from falling back in your face. Your lids squeezed shut for a second, and you took a breath to steady yourself; this close, you could smell him, sweat and old blood and the acrid tang of the gas that seemed to linger around him like a miasma. His skin beneath the apron was just as marred as the visible swathes; tumors and scarring stretched across the flat, near-concave plane of his abdomen and trailed up his visible ribs. Veins slunk below the waistband of his boxers. You swore you saw one jump and twitch.
Your fingertips curled in the fabric and tugged it down; it snagged for a moment on his cock but came free easily enough. He was on the better side of half-hard, and the head was flushed a deep, vivid pink with gnarled veins running up and down the sides. It curved off to the left, long and thin.
It was normal.
It was almost sickening how normal it was. If you closed your eyes, you could pretend that this was something else, someone else, anywhere else. But the feeling of the hard exposed wood beneath your knees and the ESOP pinching your chest and the wheezing laughter above your head kept you from actually managing to slip away mentally.
Trepidation stubbornly stayed your hand. The Pusher, seemingly tired of your hesitation, slid his fingers into your hair. âDonât be shy now, baby,â he crooned, voice tight and rasping on the edges. âRelax. Say ah for me.â A snicker tinged his words.
The grip near your scalp tightened and pulled your head in; you felt the heat throbbing off the tip against your lips before it even touched them. You curled your tongue in your mouth and tried to work up some last-second spit before the flare of the head shoved against your chapped lips; precum smeared over your mouth for a second or two.
You said ah.Â
Even though you felt sick, your lips parted and your jaw eased open; the tip slid into your mouth with ease and a full-body shudder wracked the Pusher. Even just the head enveloped by your warm, wet heat had his knees close to buckling, judging by the tremors in his braced legs. His fingers twitched against your head and tugged again; another inch or two pushed into your mouth. The weight of his cock settled on your tongue, the skin blood-hot and tangy with sweat. Unwashed, you realized with a cringe, and the reflexive expression scraped your teeth along his length. He jerked, a moan leaving him, and you reeled for a second.
âFuuuuck yes, baby, just what the doctor ordered,â he groaned, drawing the first word out languidly. âYouâre a dirty little bitch, huh?â
Iâm not. You wanted to defend yourself desperately, but with an Ex-Popâs cock crammed in your mouth (the fucking Pusher, no less), you realized that really any kind of argument that you werenât some cheap whore wouldnât stand for long. Still, you made some kind of noise around his length; all it did was vibrate up to him and draw another sound of pleasure from behind the mask.
His hips pushed shakily forward as his hand pulled you closer yet; you were already drooling around the intrusion, and an embarrassingly slick noise eked out around his cock. The veins along him pulsed and twitched as you half-heartedly sucked; salty precum bloomed on your tongue, and the overproduction of drool in your mouth made you swallow it automatically. As if triggered by the flex of your throat muscles, the Pusher groaned again and secured a better grip in your hair â you glanced up at his obscured face for a second, only to immediately choke as he shoved his cock further into your mouth.
Instantly, your hands came up to brace on his thighs; you gagged, coughing around the obstruction in your mouth as tears swelled on your lash line. It was what he wanted, evidently â his cock twitched on your tongue as it slid back just enough for you to catch a snatch of air around it before he yanked your head back down. Every fucking time he managed to hit your uvula, and you choked violently, drool spilling in ropes past the seam of your lips as you tried desperately not to vomit. Your nostrils flared in a helpless bid for air, and tears trickled over the swell of your cheek as the Pusher fucked your face. Obscene sounds filled the dingy space of the half-constructed courthouse hallway; your wet gags, the sound of his balls slapping against your chin, the huffing moans and delirious words that spilled near endlessly through the filter of his gas mask.
âThatâs it, bitch, justâ fuck, yeah, just take it, relax, take it in,â he slurred, the long line of his body hunched over your kneeling form. All you could do was take it in â although you werenât doing it well. Coughs wracked your throat, and half-gags and spasms of your jaw scraped your teeth across his length. The flare of his head knocked against your soft palate, dragged back against the roof of your mouth. Drool. So much drool. Down your chin, down the length of him, down to his balls, dripping in long striped stains on your shirt and glossy strands on your ESOP. You all but seized around him; bile rose steadily up from your gut, that low esophageal burn making itself persistent and known, and, oh God, please donât throw up on him.
Out of pure self-preservation, you fought his grip well enough and yanked your head back, gasping desperately for air with tears hot on your face. Breaths frenzied and disoriented, you barely noticed the way he reached back for something â panting heavily himself â even with a hand still tight in your hair. You should have been watching. Should have been vigilant. Through the blur of tears, you caught only a second of the gray flash of metal before a thin, hooked object slid in your open mouth â and you sucked in air to scream right as the gas clicked on.
âOh, baby, the things youâre gonna seeâŚâ
Everywhere. Everything. The psychosis gas flooded your drool-slicked mouth all the way up to your sinuses and spilled out your nostrils. Hazy green arabesques curled up past your eyes. No sound left your vocal cords. Gas rushed over them just the same, sinking down into your lungs with the great, frantic, instinctive pulls of your breathing. The acrid tang of battery acid, of electric shocks, of pure, distilled fear bloomed on your tongue along with the salty remnants of precum, and you attempted to throw yourself backwards in sheer terror. A ripping pain at your scalp reminded you in very short order of the Pusherâs hand still tangled in your hair, and you didnât even have time to make a noise past an agonized groan before he was pulling your head back to his cock â standing stiff and proud and completely soaked in your spit, even in the dim light.
The shadows around him, behind him, everywhere began to melt. Sobs wracked up from your chest as he pushed back into your pliant, gaping mouth with a satisfied groan, throwing his head back and letting the long, pale curve of his throat bob as he swallowed. âDonât wriggle, bitch, or Iâm gonna have toâ hah, shit, gonna have to manhandle ya.â
You tried your best to focus on the sinewy planes of his body, but it was no use. Your malfunctioning brain short-circuited â visions of his skin melting and his organs sliding out plagued you even when your reddened eyes shut. Keys, gore, meat grinders, saws, the velveteen feel of intestines on your face â you writhed as you cried, desperate for a reprieve from the hallucinations that simply wasnât coming.
âCut theâ the lid off that, hah, third eye, huh? Seeinâ it yet, baby? Isnât it justâ fucking shit,â he bit out, voice jumping an octave for the interruption as he pumped his cock into your slack, drooling mouth. ââjust beautiful?â
In your ears, his voice distorted, echoes and rewinds of it crawling into your shattered brain. Droning bass started â maybe it was your heartbeat, maybe it was something else â and then you heard it. The footsteps of the Skinner Man, unbelievably loud and quiet at once. Tentacles flickered into view, and you felt it, felt the tug at your vital organs, felt the steady drain of your energy. Misshapen skulls, melting viscera â all of it danced across your warped vision. And worst of all, the drug danced across your frame, loosened your muscles, and let a weak thrum of arousal start to twitch and flicker between your legs. Not so much stimulation as it was the complete malfunction of your body, but the constant thrust of the Pusherâs hips against your mouth wasnât⌠helping? Hurting? Every slick push down your throat made that little flicker run hotter and hotter. The Skinner Man opened a door off to your side, somewhere â or was it behind the Pusher? He was accompanied not by that dark, pulsing haze but by a glow, an odd glow â youâd never seen him with light beforeâ
An almost affronted snarl ripped through the haze. You dragged your bleary eyes up and they shot wide.
Not the Skinner Man.
The Pitcher.
The very one you must have been running from earlier. He hung in the doorway, gloved fingers tight around the glass of a molotov; the flame flickered and spiraled at his hip. Choked, ugly sounds â laughably similar to the ones wrung from the back of your throat â ripped out from behind his mask as he stared at the two of you. Instinct tore the reins from your hands, and you immediately attempted to pull off and run. He wanted you dead.
Didnât he?
It didnât matter.Â
Around him, the doorway warped and twisted. The locs swept back behind his mask elongated into twitching, writhing tentacles, the gas nozzle that obscured his mouth melted into a tooth-studded skeletal grin. Fuck, fuck, the Skinner Man â as you watched, the Pitcherâs form gave way to the now-familiar suit and tie. It was so dark. Every shadow was alive, pulsing and virile, throbbing in tandem with the Pusherâs cock still deep in your mouth.
The backwards motion of your head was halted by the Pusher palming your scalp and keeping you right where he wanted you; another long groan dragged from behind his mask as your throat muscles spasmed against his tip. Your nails raked at his thighs, but all it did was make him shiver and laugh. You were going to die, killed by the Skinner Man half-masquerading as the Pitcher, burned from the inside out and vitals drained into nothingness.
A snarl from off to your side. The Pitcher was back, the hallucination of the Skinner Man gone, and he made several half-shrieks as he stalked closer. Molotov bottles clinked ominously on his hips as he approached; the flicker of the lit oneâs flame made you cringe, even with your mouth full.
âCâmon, man,â the Pusher wheezed, fingers tightening down on your head. âYouâre harshing my fucking mellow here.â The words fought to come out, struggled their way through spit and pleasure and the asthmatic pull of drug-shredded lungs.
A guttural huff from the Pitcher â near dismissive in nature, you thought deludedly as your head spun and spun and spun â was the only answer. Heavy boots, long-stained with gore, clunked against the bare plywood floor, until he stood with his hips on your eye level. Ropes crisscrossed the front of his groin, securing the canvas skirt he wore over his jeans and acting as effective holsters for his firebombs. Scarred brown skin overlaid with battered leather straps filled the rest of your vision â his bare torso.
You were far past shame or embarrassment. Struggling to stay afloat, your brain fought valiantly against wave after wave of hallucinations; sluggishness plagued your limbs, and lances of sharp pain up your spine burned as the telltale indicator that the Skinner Man was sapping your strength â rotting you from inside.
Gloved fingers pushed brusquely at the hand secured on the back of your head, and replaced them with little difficulty, although the Pusher let loose several croaking complaints. Leather creaked, the sound echoing in your ringing ears, and the Pitcherâs grip tightened before he yanked your head backwards. You gasped, the sound raw and painful; a thick strand of spit connected your bruised lips to the flushed head of the Pusherâs cock. Every breath in was desperate and agonized; your throat felt as though it was bleeding from the combined abuse of the drugs and the Pusherâs⌠attentions. You stared up at the Pitcher with reddened, tear-shiny eyes, reduced to a trembling mess on your knees.
Behind his mask, the Pitcherâs eyes were heavy. Dead. No light, nothing to signify humanity. Just slate-gray irises and blown-out pupils, heavily lidded despite the dark. The severe planes of his mask caught and reflected the flicker of the molotov he held, and he brought it close to your face, enthused with how your tears caught the light. Harsh breaths tore out from his chest, the bare, scarred skin rising and falling.
âWe had a deal, man,â the Pusher complained, clearly uncaring of literally having been caught with his pants down. âWhat, youâre just gonnaâŚâ He trailed off with a frustrated noise, gestured loosely with spindly hands. âNot cool.â
A minute tilt of the head was all that the Pitcher gave to signify heâd even heard the other Ex-Pop; his eyes flicked to the side for a second before they trained back in on you and your tortured expression. You heaved, wanted desperately to gag, anything. Youâd never felt so sick and light-headed in your entire goddamn life. Every second that ticked by, the Skinner Manâs influence grew heavier; you swore your vision was darkening at the edges.
The Pitcher holstered his lit molotov â didnât even extinguish the flame â and held an expectant gloved hand out to the Pusher, who scoffed like heâd been asked something unreasonable. You sagged in the Pitcherâs grip, eyes unfocused as you saw photonegatives of the Skinner Manâs melted features every time you blinked.
âTch,â the Pusher snarked, and dug something out of the pocket of his apron. âYou people are a real fuckinâ buzzkill. Ruining my high.â
A short growl from the Pitcher. Two fingers probed at your slack lips; you offered little resistance, and in short order they pushed further into your mouth. The metal of the strike cap on the Pitcherâs middle finger weighed heavy on your tongue; the taste of it only added to the flavors of acid and sweat and salt swirling in your abused mouth. Spit slicked along the leather of his glove. Weak groans and drool slipped past the plug of his fingers; pitiful little noises that you were barely aware you were making. At least you wouldnât die with the Pusherâs cock down your throat. You could handle a few fingers.
And then they hooked on your jaw and pushed down. You heard the creak of your temporomandibular joint under the strain, but he didnât go further. The digits pulled out of your mouth and another metal tube slid in â in fear of getting another dose of gas, you let out a weak yelp and attempted to sway backwards, your survival instinct still trying its best to save the dregs of your life.
Huff. Gas filled your mouth again, but not in a thick, corrosive blast. Little puffs. Squeezes. A sterile taste bloomed over your tongue, numbed your throat.
Antidote.
Blessed, blessed relief. Lucidity came back to you in cool washes of conscientiousness. The hallucinations melted back to the shadows, inert darkness once more. Screaming faded away, no longer plaguing your eardrums. The Skinner Man collapsed in on himself like a dead star, packed away into nothingness like heâd never been there at all.
You gasped for air; one hand came up to clutch at your raw throat. The emptied antidote was discarded somewhere in the dark, clattering and bouncing against the plywood. Slowly, the edges of your eyesight came back into full view. They had been shadowed regardless, but not having complete tunnel vision was a plus. Exhaustion settled over you in a wave as you regained control of your body; your abused brain felt as though it were on the verge of seeping out of your ears. Every thought was liquid slurry; anything intelligible had to be forced through a mental sieve.
The Pitcher was breathing heavier now. Painful sounds â this close, you could hear the way the air whooshed over his ruined vocal cords, the way his breaths nearly bubbled in his gasoline-charred lungs. You didnât know what to say. Not that you would have even been able to speak. Maybe thank you, but somewhere, deep in your gut, you knew that it wasnât altruism. Eye for an eye. Trading your respective pounds of flesh. The Pitcher did not save your life to be kind.
Gloved fingers tightened on your scalp and pushed your head back towards the Pusherâs noticeably still-hard cock.
No, you were pretty sure the Pitcher saved your life so youâd be warm when it was his turn to fuck you, too.
Taken by surprise, you yelped and gagged as the slick head pushed past the seam of your lips for what felt like the thousandth time. Each time he fucked into your mouth, another thread of your consciousness felt as though it frayed to the point of unravel. The Pusher groaned and his hips instantly jerked against your face; the tip slid along the roof of your mouth and nearly tagged your uvula before the Pitcher tugged your head back with an excited-sounding snarl, his interest piqued.
Heady from the remnants of drugs still pumped through your system, you realized with a nauseating throb that the simmering arousal between your legs had not been wiped with the antidote. Not a hallucination. Real. It was real, it was very real, and each time the Pitcher pushed your head down the length of the Pusherâs cock, it pulsed against the inseam of your pants.
You were used. You had always been used. Since the moment you arrived at Sinyala, since that first introductory trial where youâd shredded every vestige of your identity, and, in Eastermanâs own words, become âall reamed outâ and ready for therapy. All you and your fellow Reagents were just vassals of flesh, empty and ready to be filled by orders. Objectives. Easterman wanted you empty so he could fill you with what he saw fit.
Was it so bad to disregard his command, just this once? Fill yourself with something that wasnât some gruesome objective? It was base. Primal. More than a little disgusting. But for the first time in days-weeks-months (time was beyond relative and more meaningless here than anything else), you felt human.
Filled. You could be filled. You could be used.
Eye for an eye. The thought came back to you again. Trading your pound of flesh.
At least you could wring a little pleasure from it.
The Pitcher controlled your motions tightly, the movement of his arm jerky with underlying strength. All that practice from chucking molotovs at Reagentsâ heads full-speed had certainly amounted to something. Back and forth. Back and forth. Your lids flickered shut as you did your best to relax your mouth â though judging by the way the Pusher groaned when your jaw faltered, he didnât mind the scrape of teeth along his length.
âFu-huh-ck yeah, baby,â he laughed, tone as sleazy as ever, wheeling his arms back to prop himself up against nearby scaffolding. The liquid in the tank on his back churned ominously. âFeels good, tastes good, donât it? Sure feels good to me.â
Some choked little sound eked out around his cock. Your tongue curled along its underside, caught a rivulet of precum just as it seeped from the tip.
Gentle metal rattling caught your ear, and with a start you realized that the Pusher was literally shaking at the knees with the effort of holding himself up on splinted legs against the slick pleasure of your mouth. Close. He was close. At least some part of the nightmare was close to over.
The Pitcher released your skull. You took the chance to suck in air; the head of the Pusherâs cock bobbed near your face, heat radiating off it. The Ex-Pop whined from behind his gas mask, voice croaking from gas inhalation and aborted pleasure.
âCâmon, man, be fucking cool, I was closeâ hey, watch it!â The Pitcher interrupted the Pusher with a heavy hand on his shoulder â his fingers still wet with your own spit â and forced the lanky Ex-Pop to his knees. He swore as he crumpled, his limbs bending awkwardly to avoid irritating the screws driven through his shins. The tank swirled and churned heavily, the weight winning in his losing battle against gravity, and he settled on the floor with a thump and several more complaints, knees spread out on the plywood.
Now that both of you were in the same position â despite the fact he was just a bit taller than you â you stared into the voids of his maskâs lenses; the warped reflection of your tear-stained face caught your eye.
The Pitcher barked out a snarl â it almost sounded like words, but not quite â and spun on his heel. A heavy hand settled on your shoulder now as he swung a leg over your calves and stood behind you â and then the weight slid from your shoulder to the nape of your neck. And then down an inch or two to your upper back. And then it pressed. Unrelenting, unmoving, insistent. You gave in, a tremulous breath caught in your chest and fluttering like a butterfly with half a wing.
Down, down, down you went, leaning forward until your lips hovered near the Pusherâs cock. Your hands splayed beneath you to support your weight, the skin of your palms abraded by the rough-hewn grain of the cheap plywood. He seemed to get the idea right when you did, because manic delight ratcheted up his voice an octave or two.
âSure, baby, everybodyâs invited,â he sleazed, giving his stiff hips a little thrust that knocked his cock up close enough to smear the head across your lips. âYouâll like this party, sweetheart, donât worry.â The words cracked and gave way to hyena-esque laughter, and before you could rebut, he splayed thin fingers across your scalp again and pushed your head back down.
On your hands and knees now, you swallowed the Pusherâs cock again; your compliance lasted for all of three seconds before you jumped and yelped at the feeling of fingers digging into the waistband of your pants. Without fanfare, your bottoms were wrestled down over the curve of your ass, yanked down just far enough along with your underwear to reveal your cunt to the stale air of the half-constructed courthouse hallway. A searing-hot flush washed over your face, and you made several embarrassed noises around the Pusherâs cock; he snickered at your fluster and watched shamelessly as the Pitcher pushed your pants down far enough to be suitable â until they bunched at your ankles.
âThere we go,â the Pusher cooed, rasping voice laced heavily with seedy arousal. âNot being a little bitch about it now, huh?â
The plywood bit into the skin of your knees.
Youâd never felt so violated, and youâd never felt so shamefully aroused. Even on nights where you snuck a hand beneath your Murkoff-designated sleepwear and worked yourself to a silent finish â always visualizing Eastermanâs praise as your motivator â youâd never been this wet. The Pitcher sucked in an excited, raw-sounding gasp, and leaned over your back; his weight pressed into your spine as his hand came up to your face.
Still drooling around the Pusherâs cock, you groaned in confusion and arousal and embarrassment. The Pitcherâs fingers pressed invasively at the stretched seam of your lips, and it took several seconds for you to realize what he was doing. He was collecting the spit leaking out of your mouth; arousal jolted through you all the way from your burning face to your twitching, unattended cunt. Shiny leather cupped and curled, collecting spit strands and even pushed in alongside the Pusherâs cock â stretched your mouth to the point where you thought your skin was going to tear â to scoop out enough saliva.
He let out a raspy purr and withdrew, pulling away from your back. When, exactly, he had dropped to his own knees behind you, you didnât know. All that really mattered was the rustle of fabric as he pulled his own gore-splattered jeans down and worked his cock free. Blind to everything except for the Ex-Pop currently taking up your entire field of view, it took you way the hell off guard when split-slicked fingers slid down your cunt from taint to clit, even brushed through the thatch of curls your sex was nestled in. You moaned, tremors in every limb, feeling your own saliva as it combined with the slick that had started to soak your folds. The metal of the strike cap pushed roughly over the bead of your clit and you choked again, much to the Pusherâs delight.
Leather gloves grasped inexpertly at your ass, movements harsh and greedy, and instinctively you spread your knees apart as best you could within the confines of your bunched pants. One hand left your flesh, and the other slid inward â open-palmed gropes at your flesh until his thumb slid down your cunt, hooked in your folds, and curled. A high, embarrassing moan left you, and in response, the Pusher pressed your head down further, amused by the way you sounded when you choked.
Spread completely open, the Pitcherâs eyes flicked over your waiting cunt for only a few seconds before he, too, succumbed to his impulses; his free hand closed around the base of his cock and the head prodded at your entrance for a few heart-pounding seconds. So slick were you that it slid down, pushed at your clit, and you jolted again; on the second try it found its target, notched on your hole, and slid straight home.
So full. You were so full. The Pitcherâs cock was thicker than the Pusherâs, mottled with veins and errant scar tissue, and it had been so, so long since youâd had anything but your own fingers jammed in your cunt. Pain seared through you at the unexpected stretch, and tears prickled at your eyes. Your nails dug into the flimsy plywood beneath â you felt the splinters already â as you half-groaned, half-sobbed. Burned from the inside out. The Pitcher was an unrelenting force; his hips pushed forward and forward and forward, bullying inside of your twitching cunt. He gasped and groaned like he was being tortured, the sound gargled in his chest. His hands groped hard at your ass, kept you spread for the intrusion.
Every inch was incredible agony, and nothing had ever felt quite so good. Finally, finally, he pushed in all the way to the hilt, and his narrow hips settled against the flesh of your ass; you felt the way his balls twitched against your clit. The burn faded, replaced with the ecstatic feeling of the stretch, and those few seconds of reprieve were all you got until the Pitcher started to move.
Goodbye, sanity. You might as well have been in full psychosis. The Pitcher pulled back only halfway before falling victim to how fucking good it felt to be buried in something warm, wet, and mostly willing; his hips drove forward again in a desperate thrust, and you were knocked forward onto the Pusherâs cock. It slid deeper down your throat, deep enough to make you gag, and fresh tears spilled over your puffed cheeks as the Pusherâs own hips jerked forward in response.
âThatâs the fucking ticket, baby!â he groaned, nails dug into your scalp as he fucked himself into your throat. âGood shit, Charlie. Fuck!â
Who the hell was Charlie? It didnât matter, because the next thrust of the Pitcher knocked every train of thought out of your skull. You trembled between them, dripping arousal and sweat and tears. Palms slick against the plywood, you did your best to stay on your hands and knees. The push and pull of their hips was so fucking demeaning and so, so fucking hot. You understood, now, why Easterman prohibited sex toys, why he spoke so lowly of vice and lust and perversion. This haze of pleasure was beyond addicting. To finally be filled after so much emptiness, so much hollowness â ecstasy to the point of tears. Or maybe it was just because you were choking on the Pusherâs cock.
Fucking sumptuous. A surfeit of flesh and deviancy â you thought distantly that you must have looked fucking perverse to whatever scientist was watching you on tape. Cameras everywhere, they had cameras everywhere. No corner of a trial was left unmonitored. The Pitcherâs fingers curled into the flesh of your ass, indented the fat, kept you open as he fucked into your cunt with an unmatched desperation. His hips moved like a machine, unfailing and insistent, and every forward thrust shoved your mouth further down onto the Pusherâs cock.
Heâd been teased enough; every time your mouth had been yanked off his cock, heâd squeezed fingers around his base hard to keep himself from finishing early, but this was too much. His stiff hips fucked hard into your waiting mouth, his hand pressed heavily against the back of your skull â you gagged and writhed, teardrops splattered against his thighs, but your spasming throat muscles felt too good to let up on. So what if you threw up? Heâd dealt with worse.
âFucking takeâ take it all, take it all,â he panted, voice pitched up in desperation and pure want. âThatâs it, bitch, just swallow your p-pillsâ gh, fuck!â
Some of it muffled towards the end. You looked up through tear-blurred eyes just in time to watch him as he wedged a thin hand beneath the leather of his mask, attempting to silence himself as he neared his own finish.
Another snap of his hips against your face, in time with the Pitcherâs own thrusts, and he held your face against his groin as he finally came. Cum spilled over your tongue, hot and bitter, and you moaned and coughed weakly as his cock twitched in your abused mouth. He pushed his hips up in staggered, slow thrusts as he fucked your mouth through the remnants of his orgasm; his breathing rattled heavily behind his mask, wet and labored. His hand remained heavily on your head until he felt you swallow his cum around his softening cock; only then did he release his grip on you.
When he pulled out with an embarrassingly wet noise, errant cum mixed with spit drooled from your slack lips; some of it bubbled as you hacked for air in between the Pitcherâs movements. His cock sagged between his legs, his own form hunched and panting, and he huffed out his trademark cackle as he watched the other Ex-Pop fuck into you.
âFuckinâ magic, baby,â he wheezed. âI dunno about him, but you got one happy customer.â
His words meant nothing. Delusional ramblings that drained out of your ears as soon as they filtered in; each hump of the Pitcherâs hips against your ass was enough to knock your mind free of everything but base sensation. The drag of his flared head against the hot silk of your walls, the way his balls smacked against your clit, the sharp bone of his hip digging into your flesh â everything was so much and so good. A heavy hand planted itself in the middle of your back and you were shoved to the floor with zero resistance; your elbows had been wobbly enough already. ESOP pinching your chest be damned, the Pitcherâs hand kept you pinned right to the plywood as he held your hips up with his other hand and really fucked you.
Your head rested somewhere between the Pusherâs spread knees; you heard him struggle for his breath distantly. Moans were punched out of you on every thrust â fucking loud, you knew, but you genuinely couldnât help it. The position was as humiliating and demeaning as it was hot, and you felt that tight, hot coil as it began to wind deep in your gut. As far as you cared, Coyle could have stormed into the hallway right then and all you would have done was begged for the Pitcher to keep going.
One of your hands scrabbled at the wood beneath for reprieve. The other snaked mindlessly down your front, wedged between your body and the floor, and brushed through your curls to find your neglected clit. A single circle of your fingers made you sob, and the way your cunt clenched around the Pitcherâs cock did not go unnoticed. He let out a chest-deep groan, glottal with desire, and redoubled his efforts; his weight pressed into your back as he curled over your prone form.
You were so damn far gone. Sweat slicked every inch of your skin, hot and desperate, and each pass over your clit had fireworks exploding behind your eyelids. Your cheek mashed into the wood beneath, jaw slack and drool seeping into the grain. So full. So full after ages of being empty. Pleasure crackled up your spine; the Pitcherâs fingers tightened on your ass and he started to pull you back onto his own hips, greedy for the vise grip of your walls.
Close. You were close. Moans poured from your mouth, mindless begs to keep going, harder, need it, please, Godâ
Another thrust, so hard it kissed your cervix and pain shot up your body, and the spike of sensation sent you over your precipice. The coil in your gut snapped, and pure ecstasy rolled over you in a full wave, fanning up and outwards. Somewhere in your spasming, your voice gave out, and all that filled your ears was the relentless smack of damp skin on damp skin and your own labored gasping. Your fingers twitched against the plywood.
The Pitcher was not done. Your entire body went lax in his grip, loose and pliant, and he huffed at having to hold up more weight. He let you slump against the floor, prone and twitching â your cunt still sucked spastically at his cock as he drove his hips relentlessly against yours. Each thrust was punctuated by a rough, throttled groan; he settled his hands on either side of his body and let gravity do most of the work.
It crested from pleasure to pain quickly, but you were so fucked out that you could do little more than moan and squirm weakly beneath the Pitcherâs lithe body. It didnât matter. A firestorm of sensation raked over you; the relentless abuse of your overstimulated cunt and the fact that he was fucking jabbing your cervix every few thrusts drew fresh tears over your searing-hot cheeks. But fuck, if it wasnât so good. This kind of torture was so preferable to the usual methods that you faced in the trials. Who were you to complain if it hurt?
It was good if it hurt. Eastermanâs voice curled in your ear. Pain meant that the therapy was working.
The Pitcher snarled and pushed his hips flush to your ass a final time; his own arms trembled with his orgasm as he came, spilling hot and heavy against your twitching walls. A few weak, cyclic motions of his hips followed, mindless little movements as if he were trying to fuck his cum deeper into you. You let out some half-lucid noise, breath fluttering as the Ex-Pop heaved above you. Eventually â it might have been years, it might have been seconds â he rolled his pelvis back and pulled out with a wet noise that made your ears burn.
Cum heavy in your cunt and still staining your tongue, you gasped for air against the floor. Around your head, there was movement; it took incredible effort for you to look up. The Pusher had dragged himself to his feet with the support of the nearby scaffolding, and he stood, still hunched, looking down at you with a curious tilt of his gas mask; his hands were busied with tucking himself back into his boxers and readjusting his apron.
âTake it easy, baby. The hard partâs over,â he said, and snickered at his own bad joke. Even then, he sounded out-of-breath. âDealâs a deal. Lemme know when youâre gettinâ twitchy. I do house calls.â
With that, he devolved again into maniacal laughter and hobbled off, the rhythmic spray and sputter of his nozzle the only indicator of his presence as he limped into the darkness. You drew yourself shakily to your hands, hips still slumped against the floor â and a throaty huff from behind you made you remember that, yes, the Pitcher was definitely still there, and no, you made no such deal with him to spare your life in exchange for your body.
You looked fearfully over your shoulder, eyebrows drawn up in worried anticipation â but no molotov smashed against your skull. The Pitcher merely drew himself to his feet, his scarred skin shiny with sweat and his bare chest heaving against the leather straps crossing it. He adjusted his own clothing and looked up at you; the eye contact made your stomach sink.
Nothing. No fire, no kick to your stomach. He stared at you for several long seconds, as if considering something, then shook his head with a sharp noise and stalked off. A few sparks signified the snap of his fingers as he lit another molotov for light, and you watched the orange glow as it disappeared into the yawning dark.
With shaking hands, you tugged your pants back up. The Pitcherâs cum leaked errantly down your thigh â something that made you flush all over again â but you dragged yourself up with nearby scaffolding and managed to brush yourself off.
Hey hey!!! I LOVE the way you write ... and I was just wondering how the PAs would react to a reagent that was like highkey obsessed with them. Like all they do is their trials, and they're constantly following them around and such..
How the PAs would react to an obsessive reagent
Hey, hey! Oh my gosh, I'm excited for this one. Speaking of obsession, I was just doing a Franco trial, and I didn't even finish it. I spent the majority of the trial just teasing him.
That being said, thank you so much for this submission! It's very much appreciated, and thank you for the compliments. Y'all make me all happy. âĄâĄ
Enjoy!
Leland Coyle:
* It didn't take him long to notice you, I mean, how could he not? When you first saw him, you started sneaking around just to be in the same vicinity as him.
* It was like you completely ignored the objectives given to you, and Coyle noticed. At first, it started with him noticing that nothing was getting done. He was patrolling the same areas over and over again.
* It annoyed him. He stopped being as annoyed when he found you, though. He was finally able to look at, possibly, the slowest reagent he had ever encountered.
* While he held you, he noticed something different. You were nervous, maybe even scared, but so giddy. He immediately saw the bright smile you wore. You looked like a kid in a candy store.
* "What do you think is so funny? Do you think justice is a joke?"
* Then, Coyle started to piece the puzzle together. He had heard more sound traps go off than usual, and it kept luring him into the respective area. Accompany that with your enthusiasm and shallow, fast breathing? You liked him, didn't you?
* He needed evidence for his reasonable suspicion. He let go of you and grabbed your waist. He pulled you slightly closer to him and threatened his prod to the other side of your waist.
* You didn't even try to run away. That's when he figured it all out. He would chuckle at you and shove his prod into your side.
* "Tryin' to tempt the law, huh sweetness?"
* Coyle, from then on, would tease you. Every time he got his hands on you, he'd put his hands in an intimate place. Your waist, thighs, neck, anything that would make you fawn.
* He relished the fact that you liked him so much. He loved your obsession. It just fed into his ego. Then again, he would always promise to punish you if he found you.
* He kept true to his promises, always electrifying you at least once. Each place he electricrified seemingly worse than the last.
* Also, he would never admit it, but he always wanted to see you back in his trials. He looked forward to seeing you, and if you ever stopped liking him? He would be furious.
* You were now his honey, his favorite. He could play you like a fiddle, and you would play right back.
* Coyle would hold on to you longer before letting you go, letting his hands roam just a little further down your body each time.
* Occasonally, Coyle would actually have to force you to go do your objectives. He didn't mind you following him around so much, but he knew he couldn't keep you in the trial forever. As much as he wanted to.
Mother Gooseberry:
* To say that Mother Gooseberry loved you was an understatement. You were stuck to her like glue.
* Like Coyle, it took a minute for her to even notice what you were doing. It was only when you got the courage to call out to her that she starting noticing the little things.
* When she came to you, she first treated you like any other reagent. She drilled you with Mr. Futterman, but after, you didn't run away. Why?
* Then she saw your weary, winced, but smiling face. You looked up at her with what looked like admiration. Like, you were genuinely happy to see her.
* Mother Gooseberry then tried a more gentle approach and grabbed your shoulder firmly. You still didn't run, looking at her with eyes as bright as the white lights.
* You held out your arms, hoping to get a hug from Mother Gooseberry. That's when she folded. She immediately accepted your hug, wrapping her arm (and Mr. Futterman) around you.
* You felt the tickling of feathers along your back, and her hug was surprisingly strong. Mother Gooseberry was soft, but she definitely had strength.
* You would hear Mr. Futterman's drill, keeping the atmosphere tense. Still, Mother Gooseberry didn't attack. No matter the insults Mr. Futterman threw at either of you.
* "You dumb Schmaltzhefer! What are you doing hugging that ugly-faced deadbeat?!"
* After letting go of you, Mother Gooseberry would kiss your forehead and back off for a little bit. She didn't want to let you go, but she couldn't keep you.
* Shortly after leaving you, she found you following her. You tried to stay stealthy but made a little too much noise.
* "Mama's little gosling is being naughty, trying to follow her."
* She definitely liked it. It was as if she was the mother goose and you were her baby goose. The babies always go where the mama does, after all.
* This time she caught you, she didn't really let you go. She would let you follow behind her, but you couldn't go too far. If you wandered far, you'd hear Mr. Futterman's drill. Definitely used as a threat.
* The doctors watching the trial actually had to go into the trial and take you from Mother Gooseberry because neither of you would let each other go.
Franco Barbi:
* He was definitely angry at first, which is the reaction he thought you were trying to get out of him.
* Every time you'd throw a brick or bottle around him, he'd shoot where the projectile landed just to find no one was there. At some point, you giggled too loud after watching him fail to find you. That really set him off.
* "You fucking laughing at me?!"
* It didn't take him long to find you after that. He was determined. You weren't gonna get away with your little games.
* Once he caught you, you were torn up. 2 shots of Lupara coloring your body, but a smile on your face with half-open eyes to match.
* You grabbed onto his arm that gripped your shirt and cooed at him. You quietly mumbled, calling him handsome and precious.
* He was taken aback by your words. He was almost angry, but those words hit just the right spot.
* "Oh, mommy, you like baby?"
* You gave him a nod in response. Before you knew it, you were being dragged to his room. The one where he normally kept the heavy grunt he suckled on.
* He shoved you on the floor, not even bothering to clear space on the chair. Franco climbed into your lap, and you instinctively cradled him in your arms.
* He writhed back and forth in your arms, trying to get you to rock him. You couldn't refuse because Lupara was still in his arm's reach. Not that you really did want to refuse.
* Once you started rocking him, he fell asleep rather quickly. He did seem to be tired because he didn't even bother trying to take off your ESOP. Or maybe he knew how much of a pain they were to take off, having tried to take them off the bodies of dead reagents. Instead, he sucked on his thumb.
* Heaven's forbid any doctor tried to come and get you. Lupara. Instantly. They were insane if they thought they could take the one person who actually tolerated him.
* Franco still wasn't convinced you really liked him, but don't worry. A few more trials, and he would definitely start believing it.
* It took a whole group of doctors to finally rip you away from Franco. When you officially left, Franco became more aggressive. Demanding to the doctors that you be brought back. The only tragedy? He never got your name.
* He wouldn't make that same mistake twice.
Kress Twins:
* They actually noticed pretty fast. You couldn't really sneak around with Arora's eyes constantly scanning the area behind Otto.
* Arora mentioned your "sneaking" to Otto, how you were following them. That's when they made a plan to capture you. If only they could lure you out a little, Arora could get a good hit on you. Then, Otto could go around and finish you.
* That's exactly what they did, too. Once Otto caught up with you, he had you on the floor with his saw threatening to cut you open.
* You tried to plead with Otto, but he wasn't really listening. It was Arora who stopped Otto. They listened to you about how you liked them a lot and how you just wanted to tell them how fascinating they were.
* "Well dear, what do you want to do with them?"
* "I want them to keep talking. It's been so long since someone has appreciated us like we deserve."
* Otto picked you up by your shirt, his strength and weight almost forcing you right against him. Now Otto used his saw to threaten you, and maybe if your praises were satisfactory, he'd let you live.
* The more you spoke, the more they liked you. You actually seemed sincere about it. Unfortunately, they knew you couldn't stay in the trial.
* If they didn't let you leave, the doctors would have to come and get you. So, they agreed to give you one of Arora's bracelets so they could recognize you for later reference.
* After the exchange was made, they let you run off before patrolling the trial again. While you completed objectives, you heard them praise you. Occasionally, they would comment on how silly you were for following them.
* No matter. They were your favorite, and you were their favorite. They had you around their finger, who knows what you would do for them? They couldn't wait to find out.
* Otto and Arora would kind of "pretend" to hurt you. I mean, they would occasionally, but they would purposely slack. Hurting you less, purposefully missing you when throwing projectiles or striking you, etc.
* Arora was a little upset when you left, even though she knew you had to. Otto consoled her, telling her that they would ensure you would come back.
* "It feels like they always leave."
* "Don't worry, love. They'll be back, and we can make sure of it."
Liliya Bogomolova:
* Liliya wasn't exactly accustomed to people being obsessed with her. Well, not in this way. Not that she didn't like it, but it was different.
* You couldn't really sneak up on Liliya, but she noticed how you paid extra attention to her mannequins and used the jammer rig to find her.
* When you did find her, you would always say something nice before bolting off, so you wouldn't get pounced on.
* When Liliya caught you, she would show special care when hurting you. She would choose the areas on your body deliberately. She would use her prothetic arm to pin down your clothes to the floor.
* She also noticed that you didn't really struggle when she caught you. You occasionally jumped and got scared, but quickly (almost) relaxed when you realized it was her.
* Liliya liked that. You were accepting to her, more than so many people in her past. You treated her with kindness, which she wasn't used to.
* The kindness you gave her was reciprocated. She would speak softly with you, especially when she hurt you.
* After realizing your obsession with her, she avoided killing you. What made you different was the fact that you were obsessed with her, but within reason. You still had your own head about you, and that's what made her softer with you.
* She didn't "possess" you, but you still chose to love her. That was dedication, and she eventually started loving you for it.
* "I'm with you, my beloved."
* It would take her a trial or two in order to get used to her new follower, but she would eventually welcome you.
* Liliya tried to keep you in her trial, hiding you to keep the doctors from finding you. It didn't work, and she was frustrated it didn't.
* If you were gone for too long, she would start getting into the doctor's heads. She would tell them to mutilate themselves until she saw you again.
* "Let my beloved find me."
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I hope you enjoyed these headcanons! Again, thank you so much for the suggestion and the kind words. I'm sorry if this took longer than expected, but I appreciate you all the same.
Thank you all for your support. The likes, reblogs, follows, comments, and submissions it all means so much to me. Have a fantastic day, y'all. Much love and affections. âĄ
A/N: This is very indulgent because I needed desperate and needy Mihawk to exist and this prompt tumbled right on into that to sate me 𤥠(at the airport hoping no one is looking over my shoulder rn too LOL)
Word Count: ~2.5k
Warnings: afab!reader, NSFW, p in v, forceful undertones towards beginning, desk sex, creampie, begging, praise, lots of the pet name "love", Mihawk is like super needy he moans "please" dude, he's also very in love, and trying sUPER hard not to finish first by the end đ, stress relief before Cross Guild meeting, brief moment shit-talking the other two lol turns real sweet at the end cuz I couldnât help myself
Please enjoy this man being as close to a mess as I think I can convincingly get him â°(âââ)âŻ
~ ~ ~ â˘â˘â˘ âŚâŚâŚ â˘â˘â˘ ~ ~ ~
Mihawk is usually the type of man to fully take his time enjoying every inch of you.
Usually.
âI know, love, I know,â his voice is full of panting desperation, worn to a fluster by his pressing need and his frantic firm thrusts into you. âIâll make it up to you later, I just -nnhah- just gotta fuck you now -nnnhg fuck- donât wanna think about anything but how fucking good it feels inside you.â
When Mihawk came to your study not thirty minutes before the next Cross Guild meeting, this was the last thing you were expecting. Though, it did fly right to the top of the list when you saw the intensity of his shining gold eyes on you and the rigidness of his figure, all coiled muscle waiting to pounce and gritted teeth waiting to tear. Youâd barely been able to get just his jacket over his shoulders before he was on you, speaking his need and hunger with persistent lips and hands. He was so set on getting his fill that he simply let his prized coat be dragged down his arms and thrown to the floor. Somehow, his hat survived the rush of his motions and the beloved closeness necessary for his demanding kisses.
Though they were rare, you loved the times he was like this, using you for his pleasure, clinging to you and taking you like nothing else in the world would ever suffice in sating him. You got just as much out of these times as he did, but you played it as a favor, partly for the delicious flavor it added to the dynamic to hear him apologize, beg, and thank as much as the stalwart Dracule Mihawk can and partly to earn the long and worshipful treatment heâd reward you with later. Youâre not sure how he hasnât caught onto you yet. Seeing the meticulously controlled man lose himself in his desire for you has you dripping, shown in the wet slap on each strong thrust. It was surely enough to give your abundant eagerness away.
Beyond that, you are just as ravenous for him, thighs clamped around his sides, hands gripping tightly to his tense forearms as he fucks you on your desk. You feel the jump of each muscle from their work sinking a bruising grip into your hips, manhandling them forward and back opposite the motion of his hips to fuck you just like he wants - like youâre a lifeline and if he just digs as deeply as he can into your sweet cunt as quickly as he can then he can finally breathe again.
Your heels pull him in on each quick thrust, the clench of your legs and abs for the motion helping a rhythmic pulse stroke at every inch of your walls and further firm your swollen lips and clit to absorb each delicious impact of Mihawkâs hips. The soft, sweat-damp skin of his back and sides teases your sensitive inner thighs and calves as he fucks you, his obliques dancing especially sinfully against your flesh. You loved admiring the look of his chiseled figure but absolutely nothing compared to the bliss of him using it against you.
The urge Mihawk has to collapse down over you and continuously drag you as close as possible is strong, but it is beat out by the erotic sight of watching the slap of his hips bounce your body. It lets you have a beautiful sight too; Mihawk backlit and looming over you, muscles fully displaying their strength and tone with the lack of his jacket, his curled hair and the feather on his cap swaying in time with him fucking into you. The hat still resting on his head only makes you feel smaller captured under him; he always looks impressive with it on and it makes the shadow he casts over you that much larger.
Mihawk uses an iron grip to throw one of your bare legs to hook over his shoulder. He uses his other hand to grip the inside of the other and shove it to the side, flat on your desk, trapping it down by putting his weight into his hold on your thigh. It forces your hips to turn on their side, giving him a new angle to work you open on his thick cock. The change has each forceful drag of his cock in you feel new again, recharging your nerves in their pleasant screaming. You tell him their call through whiny panting, chants of his name, and streams of âyes! like that, so good, fuck me harder, need it, need you so bad-â
Thereâs a firm thump and rattle of your desk as his hand plants next to your head to keep from collapsing over you. It leaves him crouching over you like a predator, but the hazy need in his eyes begging you to let him keep feeling this forever betrays the fact that heâs as deeply in your clutches as he tries to snatch you into his. The thickness of your thigh trapped between you helps keep him up as well as his other hand still pressing your leg down. His fingers that are sunk into your thigh dig deeper and tremble with his pleasure and overwhelm.
âGods, love, youâre perfect, want to live between your thighs,â Mihawk groans, so close you can feel his panting breath cool the sweat on your face. Heâs fighting his eyes to stay open, needing to see the pleasure scrunching your brow, loosening your jaw, fogging your eyes. The fluttering of his lids catches your eyes and swells your heart, shooting arousal through you from knowing heâs feeling so desperately good from fucking you. The amber of his eyes is so bright trained on you that it seems to glow through the shadows haunting his face. It makes him look all the more feral as he grips, spreads, bends, and fucks you like he wants to eat you whole. âJust -hahn- need some more from you, can you -nngaaah- do that for me, little love?â
You sob out a moan as you snap your eyes shut against the onslaught of sensation. The soreness his weight is pressing through your thigh and the tender stretch from your other leg being folded to your shoulder add more buzzing chaos to the sensations swirling their way through your body to flood your brain. The way he holds you open lets your clit take a soft impact every time he shoves his whole length into your plush pussy, giving the bud more little teases with how your body reverberates from the impact.Â
âLook at me while I fuck you,â Mihawk snarls, but thereâs desperation bleeding through the growl in his voice. You want to whine back at his request but you want to please him even more. You blink your eyes open and the raw need in them has Mihawk collapse just a bit more over you, feeling the want you and your pleasures ravage through his body begin to burn him alive. The brim of his hat taps lightly on your forehead from his closeness while he pants and moans to you, âLike that, love, fuck youâre so good for me.â
Meeting your gaze is a double edged sword; his arousal magnifies, his soul lights up, and his cock twitches hard but it also throws him to feeling right on the precipice of cumming and heâs not ready to stop feeling you. The siren song of the wet slapping of your hips, the slick sound of your pussy gushing around him and trying to keep him sucked as deep as he can reach, and your panting breaths carrying high moans and pleads and praises all tempt him to let the torrent of pleasure rush over him, promise him it would feel like endless blissful sin. It is all the harder to resist because he knows exactly how delicious it feels to sheathe himself from root to tip in you and pump stream after stream of hot cum into your welcoming walls while your cunt clings to him almost as tightly and desperately as his hands cling to you.
âLove, need you to cum,â Mihawk rushes out. He palms the hand on your thigh up so he can rub circles over your swollen clit. Your moans gain even more volume, filling the air in your office almost as thickly as the sweet, musky scent of sex.
âNeed it, please,â he whispers breathlessly, âNeed to feel you -nnnnhhah- love, love, need to feel your cunt sque-heeze me.âÂ
His vision begins blurring from the strain of staying right on the edge of cumming, barely holding back the powerful orgasm built from the burning in his muscles, the tingling in his fingers, the swirling in his head, and the throbbing of his cock. Giving up on trying to refocus them, he scrunches his eyes shut and lets his forehead fall down to rest on your temple, finally bumping his hat to fall onto the desk next to you. His closed eyes allow him to focus in better on all the other ways you are filling his senses, latching especially to your open mouth serenading him with needy babbling and fucked out moans.
âCan you be -ghahh- good and do that for me?â Mihawk pleads against your cheek. âCan you cum for me?â
âY-yes, please, wanna be -mmmngh- good for you,â you whine back to him. His hips stutter at the tone and you feel his lips pull up around gritting teeth, an airy âfuckâ sneaking past them.
âYou are, sweetness, you are sooooo good for me,â Mihawk praises, swirling his thumb more insistently across your slick clit. The increase and pressure and perfect timing with his firm thrusts has your core tightening in threat of bursting. Your thighs had already been shaking in warning of your coming orgasm, but now the trembling is seating itself in every clench of your walls around Mihawkâs thick cock, wringing tighter and longer on each pulse. Your nerves sparkle and buzz more with each clamp down, the blazing rub of his throbbing dick and its bulging veins whiting out your mind. âNow come on, love -nngh- cum on my cock -fuuck please- let me feel you, make me cum -nnnghah- need to fuck you full.â
With a sob of his name, you finally fall over the edge. It feels as overwhelming as you had been expecting since he first stormed in and threw you over the desk. Your hands and cunt cling to him in need of a tether and in need of more; while your body is trembling with the bliss of your orgasm a tiny piece in the back of your mind is waiting for the final thing that will melt your whole body into a honey drip of heaven.
Mihawk doesnât leave you waiting long; he is only able to feel your pussy milk him a handful of times before he can hold his end off no longer. With slurring groans of endearments and praises, he is overtaken by pleasure and can think of nothing beyond the relief of pumping you full of his cum with his twitching cock and grinding hips. The force of it has his thighs quake and numb out, making his weight crumble over you as he can no longer hold himself up. He nuzzles his face down the side of yours until heâs tucked panting against your neck, forehead pressed snuggly against your racing pulse.
You welcome his weight with open arms, one dragging him ever tighter to your heaving chest and the other winding its hand into his thick dark hair to ensure he never leaves. Both of you are still gasping for breath, your pressed chests rubbing and shaking against each other much like your greedy hips do as they ring out the endless pulsing beats of your orgasms. Your cunt and core continue to massage down on him and wring every bit of tight and bubbling bliss from his still hard and pumping cock that they can get.Â
The feeling of being not only filled with his large and achingly hard cock but also the swelling heat of his cum makes your eyes roll back. Heâs filled you full to bursting, now leaking out of you on every grind and the warm sticky sensation and sound matched with his pelvis massaging small sweeps across your clit prolongs your peak. You get to spend a long time suspended in the feeling of your body bursting with heat and joy and relief and electricity, all shoving your soul right out of your skin only for Mihawkâs presence to trap you right back into the storm raging in your nerves.
Mihawk begins to feel foggy and a bit delirious as he finally releases his pent up need in you, finally sates his ferocious hunger for your delicious touch, finally finds his comfort and peace stuck as close to you as he can possibly get. He makes a halfhearted attempt to bring his mind back to his body but is happily distracted by the aftershocks that jolt your body and flutter your cunt. They pull extra little spurts and groans from him each time and heâs defenseless to the contentment he feels following their slowing pace into the warm hover of affection that always envelops him after sharing bodies with you.
It takes a long time for either of you to actually come back to yourselves. The whole time you are afloat, you guide each other with trailing touches from limp but loving hands, quick kisses stolen between smoothing out your breath, and gentle squeezes in the embrace you keep on each other, needing those little moments where it's even more of a hug than a hold. Mihawk chases the touches that tease across the dips of his lower back or scratch up the back of his neck and across his scalp just a little bit more than the others. You feel too boneless to lean into almost any touch at the moment, but you do manage to roll your head to the side so you can gaze at your grandfather clock in the corner.
âI donât think thereâs time to make you presentable for them,â you sigh out with no real remorse. Mihawk is of a similar mind.
âNot my fault if those two donât have anyone to take care of their needs,â Mihawk mumbles dryly. âAlso not my problem if theyâre mad Iâve had mine met.â
The laugh you give at his attitude earns you one of your favorite prizes: Mihawkâs lips making the slow curl then spread into a real smile. It is only topped when they close again to press a kiss in the shape of that smile on their resting place against your skin with enough love to reach straight through that skin and nurture every beat of your heart.
PLEASE PLEASE DR EASTERMAN LETTING PUPPYBOY FTM READER HUMP HIS THIGH OR BOOT
Dr. Eastermen x FTM Reader
Type: Smut Request
Author's Note: Hopefully you enjoy! First request and story in a long time so I apologize for being a little rusty lolol
Content: Boothumping, tshot injections, power dynamic. Reader genetilia terms of crotch, clit, dick, and cunt.
If there was one thing that you knew in this place. You were Easterman's how high. You were a product that fell into his delusional teachings and fed it right back out to him. You were his success. His personal "mutt" as he affectionately referred to you. Due to being held in such a position, he had an offer he knew you couldn't resist.
As if you'd ever reject any of his offers.
After a solo trial, the taste and smell of blood (though not your own) and sweat overwhelmed your senses, that fuzzy feeling of the adrenaline slowly fading away as you heard Dr. Easterman's examination of you.
"Look at you, a step closer to getting out," he says in his pleased tone. It wasn't that long ago that you were simply a failure in his eyes when you recieved any letter below a C. You revel in his voice. You wonder if it was odd that sometimes you wished you could hear it from him in person. His lips near your ears while telling you the same message, to feel his breath hit against your skin. If he was any closer, you would probably be able to feel his lips on the sensitive back of your neck-
"Are you even paying attention?"
Shit. You stopped walking through the completion tunnel, turning to look at the screen where the scientists normally work behind. Odd.
No one's there.
"Mutt." You perk up at that name.
"Go to your room. Someone will lead you to my office." he orders. You mentally wince as the thought that not listening might've just taken you back from your progress by even just a little bit.
"Yes, Dr. Easterman" you reply before steadily rushing off to your room.
----------
You walked through the facility halls, following the scientist that Dr. Easterman had sent out. These halls were so unfamiliar. You had grown so used to the repetition of every room, that even an extra hall felt like a drop closer to freedom.
The scientist stops in front of a door while ignoring you, reading some papers in his hand instead. There was a silver plate on the door that read "Dr. Easterman's Office."
You walk into the room that is completely enveloped in dark except for two lamps that keep the enviornment somewhat dimly lit enough to notice the decor in the room. Your hands instinctively try to turn on your nightvision goggles before reminding yourself you weren't in a trial. As your eyes adjust, you notice the man himself, Easterman, in his office chair. His eyes practically glow in this enviornment, and you know he's staring right at you.
"Dr. Easterman," You started to speak merely to break the silence but you were terrified, and he knows it, "I'm... You called me here?"
"You've been performing so well recently. Consistently. You've been doing so wonderfully."
Praise. Dr. Easterman was praising you. Your eyes widened at this, this feeling compared to his harsh tones from before where he had called you mediocre. A mutt that was incapable of being trained. Sloppy. Those words used to repeat in your head during your trials, only leading you to work harder. Maybe that was Dr. Easterman's whole plan. To break you down so you could get up yourself even stronger.
"I think you could be useful, boy." You hear the chair creek as Dr. Easterman stands up, pulling out a cigarette and a lighter from his pockets, the clicking sound of the lighter's flame settled.
"You could be very useful.. You could do something for me, while I give you something in return. How does that sound, mutt?"
Dr. Easterman was a man of temptation. He knew what made his patients click. You nodded. You were his how high, after all.
Dr. Easterman released a small hum of approval, sitting himself on his desk, and raising a singly pant leg up slightly, revealing a long leather strap boot he had been wearing. You look at him with slightly confusion, "Come here, mutt" he orders.
Fuck, that admittedly got you slightly wet, but this wasn't the time. You step closer, swallowing the excess drool that started to build in your mouth. You could feel your heart pace quicker.
Dr. Easterman reaches his hand down to the desk's cabinet, opening it and pulling out an injection.
"I'm sure there's something you desire. Something that will make you feel as whole as getting an A on trials does for the both of us." He speaks gently, "Testosterone would work wonders for you.. or at least that's what you expressed on your file before arriving here"
It was true that testosterone was being deprived in his facility, drugs and food that kept every reagent weaker. This. This was privilege. This was a test.
"For every trial that you get an A on, I expect you to find your way into my office. You will pull down your pants and underwear, and allow me to order one thing from you. After that, you may have your reward." He inserts the needle into a small vial, filling it with a clear liquid, "Is that something you can do, mutt?"
Pull down your pants?
That stuck out to you, but Dr. Easterman didn't let that question go unanswered for too long. You felt him press the tip of his boot against your crotch. It was almost a light tap against your clit which left you shocked and frozen at first.
He wanted you to hump his boot.
Get praised for getting an A on a trial, walk into his room to get questionable sexual relief from this man that stalks your dreams, and then get injected with the one thing that you've desired since your youth?
"Of course, Dr. Easterman" you smile, if you had a tail it would've been wagging ferociously by now.
"Get to it then" He grins.
You eagerly pull down your pants and underwear, already noticing the growing wet spot that had formed. Getting on all fours, you crawl over, hovering your cunt over the leather boot. You look up at Dr. Easterman in hopes that you're doing the right thing. He put the injection down and moves his hand to your hair, "Start, puppy."
You almost whimper at that name, settling your wet cunt on the boot. It's been far too long for this. You haven't had urges like these in so long, and now that you're divulging... you feel greedy. Your brain is practically mush. The slow grinding, enjoying every light moan that escapes you. You can hear your own wetness on his boot.
"That's a good mutt" he praises, tugging at your hair gently.
"Thank you Dr. Easterman"
You proceed, happily feeding into the growing feeling of giving your dick pleasure. The repeated humping, your desperate gaspy moans while the man above you just stares coldly and praises you in this silent room. It's humiliating.
If only he was inside you, if only you could fill that carnal pleasure-- but not right now. This was enough. This was what a mutt like you was meant for. To be used in such a compromising position like this.
That build of pleasure starts to bubble up, your whimpers become into louder moans,
"Look at you. So desperate for a dose. This is what good puppies do for a treat" He chuckles, placing his hand under your chin, "I want you to keep your eyes on me. I want you to see the only man who's allowed to make you feel this pleasure."
Fuck.
He lifts his shoe up slightly and harshly, pressing the part your were grinding on even harder onto your dick. You moan in surprise, but he begins to move his boot along with your movements. He was going to force you to cum like this.
"Such a wet puppy cunt" he mutters, "testosterone is only going to make you so much more desperate"
"Please, Dr. Easterman" You shiver, "I need this. I need to cum, I can't-"
Dr. Easterman keeps the same pace, driving you insane as your legs quiver. His silence in this moment is torturous, knowing he's just staring at you to study your reactions.
"Do it then. Cum on my boots, puppy" he ordered.
A loud whimper slips from you, your hands holding Dr. Easterman's leg closer to you while you grind your clit against the smooth surface of his boots, you can feel the build of your wetness all over the leather.
"Dr. Easterman! I-" Your eyes are stuck up on him, his hand still harshly holding your chin before feeling your clit throb, your whole body shivering as you cum on his boot. You could barely speak. You haven't cum in so long.
"There we go.. look at you" he hums, pulling his boot away, "Normally, I'd make you lick this clean.. but I've decided to be nice as it's your first time"
You sit weakly on the floor, your whole body still feeling the pleasure that overwhelms you. He gets off the table and kneels to reach your level, the injection back in his hand.
"Stay still"
You barely even register the poke of the needle, but it was welcome regardless.
"Thank you Dr. Easterman" You mumble, regaining at least some semblance of dignity.
"Of course Mutt. I'm excited to see your scores from now on."
summary; reader is the new hire at the prison where simon is kept, and is tasked with bringing him his meals.
a/n; wow what a movie. thank god i'm a fanfic writer with free will.
cw; poor writing lmao, solitary confinement, shitty workplaces, i dont know much of the lore so if it's inaccurate please forgive me đ
i do not give permission for any of my works to be reuploaded/reposted, copied, fed into AI, etc. minors dni, age in bio or blocked.
minors and ageless blogs will be blocked!! i do check every blog that interacts with my fics!
the clinking of chains and the quiet thud of footsteps echoed through the dimly lit hallway. you passed rows and rows of cells, most of the inmates still sleeping or at least pretending to.
you kept your head up, shoulders back, trying to appear confident. you doubt it was working. you were new, all the inmates knew that. maybe a little young in comparison to your co-workers, but it was either contribute to society or be cut off from the resources. the only available jobs were in the prison, so you took what you could.
you were fresh meat. bottom of the food chain, as your supervisor described it. stuck with the lowest pay and the worst job, here you were at 5:30 am sharp to deliver breakfast to the convict in solitary.
"if anything goes wrong, we're not losing anyone valuable." your supervisor told you as he walked you through your duties. if you weren't desperate for food and shelter, you would've tucked your tail and ran.
you swallowed hard as you scanned your badge on the card reader, balancing the tray on one hand. the panel beeped, the light changing from red to green before the door began to slide open. it creaked and groaned, the metal grinding making your teeth hurt. it slid into place with a jarring clunk! and you made your way through and into the dark hallway.
there was a cell on the very other end of the long hall. it was entirely metal, the door was a giant vault with a medium sized window and small food port you could open to slide items through with minimal contact below it.
you knew who was in there. had heard the stories of what he had done. an involuntary shiver ran down your spine at the thought of him being only a few inches of steel away.
your footsteps slowed to a stop in front of the door. you set the tray on the ledge, slid the food port open and carefully pushed the tray of food through. it was pitch black inside the cell when you peered in. for a moment, you weren't even sure he was in there. maybe this was some kind of hazing ritual new hires had to go through to earn their place or something equally ridiculous.
"christ, this is stupid." you muttered to yourself, shaking your head a little. "you're not even there, are you? they're just... pranking the new hire."
you stood on your toes, peering in through the window and trying to squint through the dark. you couldn't make out a single shape or outline of anything. no bed, no desk, no toilet, nothing like the other cells.
you took a step back, tapping the toe of your shoes together a few times while you waited. you nearly jumped out of your skin as the tray was slowly pulled into the cell, blood roaring in your ears. you only caught a glimpse of his hand from the dim hallway light. you quickly reached forward and slammed the food port back into place, locking it with shaky hands before turning and running back where you came.
the rest of the day went surprisingly fast. you were walked through the rest of your duties, mostly custodial. cleaning bathrooms, floors, the few offices that were scattered around, even dish duty after meals. you couldnât seem to come down from the scare as you followed your trainer around, trying to keep your hands from shaking as you listened to him explain where supplies were and your expectations.
it didnât take you long to get used to it, the mundane routine. clocking in, cleaning, delivering food, clocking out. you never saw much of the convict, only the occasional glimpse of his hand as he took his tray and returned the old one. by the end of your first month, you were relying on autopilot to get through the routines.
you jumped as your supervisor banged on the kitchen door.
âlunch for the convict is ready.â he shouted through the steel before his footsteps faded away quickly.
you huffed, washing and drying your hands before navigating through the kitchen to grab the tray off of the warming table. you pushed open the swinging door with your shoulder, took the elevator down to the basement and made the trek down the eerie hallway for the second time that day.
you scanned your badge, entered the next hall, and soon you found yourself standing in front of the convictâs solitary cell again. you paused, listening for any sign of life.
stepping forward, you set the tray down on the ledge and unlatched the food port door, slowly dragging it open. you pushed the tray through, taking a step back and waiting. several long moments passed, your heart racing, palms sweating.
â...hello?â you called quietly, your voice echoing in the small space. âsir?â
chains clinking made you flinch, and soon the tray was being pulled inside. after a few beats of silence, the tray from breakfast was put in its place. you waited until it sounded like he had retreated far enough to take the empty tray, sliding the food port back into place.
âum⌠thank you.â you said quietly, before turning on your heel and scurrying out.
lunch was the same. dropping off one tray, picking up another. dinner was different.
you donât know why you felt like it. maybe the silence was becoming too loud in your ears. you set the tray down, opened the food port, and took a step back.
âum⌠hi.â you said quietly, hesitantly. your voice shook a little.
he didnât respond.
you gave him your name.
âiâm⌠sorry youâre stuck in there.â you continued, âit must be hard.â
you paused for a moment, embarrassment creeping up your spine. it must be hard? really?
you looked around for a moment, before focusing back on the cell in front of you. âum⌠do you like chocolate? i saw some in the kitchen and itâs not being used for anything. maybe i can sneak you some?â
the echo of your voice faded away, and soon the buzzing silence filled the air again. it made your ears hurt.
the chains began to clink again, and you listened as he stood up, making his way to the door. he took the tray, replaced it with the one from lunch, before retreating back to his corner. you couldnât help but feel a little disappointed.
taking the tray, you closed up the food port and made your way back to the kitchen for the end of your shift.
the next morning, you clocked in and made your way to the kitchen for the convictâs breakfast. you took the tray, navigating through the maze of counters and snatched the first chocolate bar you found, shoving it in your pocket inconspicuously.
making the long trek to his cell, you opened the food port, pushing his tray inside.
âgood morning.â you murmured, pulling the chocolate out of your pocket. âi brought you something.â
you set the bar beside his tray, taking a step back. he reached out and pulled the tray into his cell, replacing it with yesterdayâs. you held your breath, waiting to see if he would bite. your felt your heart flutter in excitement as he eventually reached back, taking the offered treat.
you couldnât help but grin, grabbing the dinner tray. âi hope you enjoy it.â you said sincerely, closing up the food port and retreating back to the kitchen
the treats kept coming, once a day. chocolate, warm bread, sometimes a peppermint or fresh fruit. anything to add to the slop and gruel they were feeding him. you usually saved them for dinner, hoping a treat to end the day would make night more bearable.
he never said a word, just took the food, returned the previous tray, and retreated back to eat. you never pressured him to talk, but you always talked to him. it felt strange at first, like talking to the air, like no one was listening, but eventually that became the appeal.
you told him about your day, about your co-workers, all the gossip and rumors about them. you updated him on the news, what was going on at other space stations. you hoped maybe the short-winded human interactions was helping him stay sane. if it was making it worse, you assumed he would say something. lash out, yell, yank on the door, something. maybe he just had more patience than you thought.
âlunch time.â you announced as you set down the tray, pulling a few small candy wrappers out of your pocket and plopping it onto the tray. âi found some sour candy, but i donât really like sour all that much.â
you stepped back, and he took the tray. you didnât hear chains clinking all that much these days, and part of you hoped it meant he wasnât hiding in the back. he sounded closer.
âi think itâs grape flavored because the wrapper is green, but youâll have to try it to find out.â you hummed, collecting the tray from breakfast and closing up the food port. âmight be green apple, though.â
you turned and began to make your way down the hall. âiâll see you at dinner. enjoy.â
you managed to get a decent amount of work done. there were scabs on your knees from kneeling to scrub the greasy kitchen floor, but you paid it no mind as you washed your hands to deliver the next meal. tray in hand, you made your way through the familiar halls and scanned your way into solitary.
you opened up the foot slot and slid the tray through. âdinners here,â you hummed. âi heated it up a little. it might not taste the best, but i thought maybe warmth would be good.â
the tray scraped against the ledge as he pulled it inside. you took the lunch tray as he set it down.
âmaybe tomorrow i can bring you some bread. they made a fresh batch this morning, but i couldn't sneak some in time, the cook was there all day and i didn't want to get caught.â you shrugged. âi did hear that maybe weâre getting some strawberries soon. iâll grab you the biggest one i can get my hands on.â
you closed up the food slot, taking a few steps back. âiâll see you tomorrow, bright and early.â
with that, you turned and began the trek back down the hall. you only made it a few steps before the sound of the prisoner talking stopped you in your tracks.
â...watermelon.â
at first you thought you imagined it. you turned, looking back at the steel vault door. you took a few steps closer.
âwhat?â you breathed out, heart racing.
âthe candy... it was watermelon.â
his voice was rough. scratchy from probably months of disuse. you blinked a few times, fingertips numb with shock.
âoh.â you whispered, âwatermelon.â
silence settled over the air again and you felt a jolt of panic that he wasnât responding. you had a taste of him and now you wanted to be greedy.
âum- do you- you, uh, do you like⌠sour candy?â you asked stupidly, taking another few steps closer. âi can try and get you more.â
a few beats passed.
â...yes.â
you let out a breathy laugh, nodding as you grinned. âgreat. yeah, i can- i can try and find more. iâll bring you some, i promise.â
you waited for another response, deflating a little as none came. you tried not to be disappointed considering the fact that he had finally spoken to you after months.
âokay, yeah⌠yeah, um⌠iâll see you tomorrow at breakfast.â you told him, gripping the lunch tray a little harder as you turned to make your way back to the kitchen.
a/n; thank you for reading! let me know if anyone is interested in a part two. reblogs and comments are welcomed and encouraged!
Noooooooo itâd be a shame if you wrote a fic based on Dispatch nooooooo đđđđđ
Hereâs just a little thing
I think that Sonar is the master of reading into shit, including shit that isnât there. Once he has an interest in you, heâs analyzing everything you say to him like youâre an upcoming addition to his finance portfolio.
Which means youâre all he talks about. He likes to think himself a geniusâ seeing all these signs. And also, talks about how amazing you are, to show everyone that he has impeccable taste.
âYeah, so they rushed out once I got into the break room. Which shows that theyâre on the grind, which is actually an incredibly attractive traitââ
Forget about how insufferable he is if you ever recommend anything to him. Heâs a total kiss ass about it. Talking about your great taste. Throws in tons of buzz words until you tell him to cut it out and stop talking to you like youâre an investor. Not to mention what happens if you ever recommend a romance.
He could make an 8 hour video essay about the implications of you making that recommendation to him. And same goes with any favor you do him. Like pouring him coffee if youâre at the pot when he comes into the break room. And if someone says âthey do that for everyone, dipshit, itâs a basic courtesyâ he gets super defensive.
âWell, yeah, maybe they do it for you because theyâre being nice. Hot people are into charity like that. I would know.â
Hi! I saw your hcs on your other blog, and I loved them!! Iâm excited to see longer fics from you, if you feel motivated of course!<3
Could I get a Daryl x M!Reader where they discover that Daryl had a praise kink?
daryl with a praise kink â nsfw, top male reader
synopsis: title/req says itđ pure smut, possibly slight ooc
word count: 770
writing this during very late hours of the night.. havenât really looked over it so might b a bit drabbleish but enjoy anyway :p
ALSO THANK YOU!!! iâm so glad to hear that, requests always motivate me to write
daryl panted under your touch. you hovered, your chest barely an inch above his. your hips slowly rolled into his, making him feel every thread of your jeans brawl.
his mouth hung open with an arm around your shoulders, the other hand gripping your tricep like his life depended on it. you massaged the back of his thigh, fingertips tracing little circles before you pushed his legs further apart. darylâs hips stuttered as they bucked into yours, his head reeling back.
âsensitive, ainât you?â âshut up,â he muttered back, barely above a whisper. âthe hellâya doinâ this for?â he squirmed as your breath ran down the side of his neck. âdoinâ what?â
âmakinâ me wait,â he hissed. âyou wanted this in the first place, yer beinâ such a tease.â âthis is for you, hun, you got it twisted.â
he pulled his head back, and looked at you with narrowed eyes, pushing for an explanation. âdonât see how this is fâ me.â âcalm down, yâknow how good iâm gonna make you feel?â
he let out an exasperated sigh.
âbe patient, dixon. just sit there ân look pretty for me, okay? you donât even have to try to do that.â
his stomach turned at your words, despite the mocking tone. his hips jolted, searching for more friction, and he prayed you wouldnât notice his face flush.
just that, you did. your eyebrows scrunched before slightly raising. toughest guy on earth and heâs flustered at âprettyâ?
his eyes caught the way yours were fixated on him, and immediately darted a different direction, anywhere but you.
âyouââ âdonât.â
you couldnât help but grin at his embarrassment. you brought a hand up, gently brushing the hair away from his face. he tried to turn his head to the side, but you held his chin and turned it right back. he couldnât hide from you.
you pressed your lips against his, messy and excited. his cheekbones felt hot before he reciprocated. the grinding of your hips grew rougher. in response, he let a mix of a gasp and a groan seep onto your tongue.
he rolled you over so he was on top. you shifted up, your upper back resting against the headboard. he straddled your lap and ground his hips down to yours, uncoordinated.
your hands held his waist, trying to guide his movements to a rhythm. it took a second, but he gave in, and let you guide him without resistance.
you jumped your hips in sync with his rolling down, pressing the right amount of pressure to his dick. his head dropped as he sharply inhaled. crescent shaped indents scattered on your shoulder from his nails digging into your skin as he held on, in attempts to ground himself.
one of your hands drifted to his lower back, putting more force in the contact. he rested a hand against the wall above you and panted, struggling to catch his breath. you let out a small moan just at the sight; it was almost too perfect. you tucked the outgrown bangs behind his ears.
âyouâre so damn handsome like this, daryl.â his eyes squeezed shut. your voice was intoxicating, making him chew his lip to silence himself. you spoke again, barely under your breath, âyouâre so good for me.â
his hands flew down to your belt, impatient and messy as he undid the buckle. his hips rutted against yours even rougher. âsince when do you want it this bad?â you slightly chuckled, his eagerness taking you by surprise.
he paused, ashamed of the rose tint that sat across his face.
holding his chin in between your index finger and thumb, you pointed his head towards yours. he fought the urge to break the eye contact. he couldnât believe the mess he was because of your compliments.
you spoke low, flooding with tease. ânothinâ wrong with liking a little bit of praise, baby, i want you to know how perfect you are.â âshut upâ shut the hell up,â his gravelly voice breathy and strained, trying to swallow sinful noises as he leaked pre.
you slowly undid his belt as you watched him try to deny how he loved it. you inched his jeans down before he lifted his hips, desperate to have them off, impatiently pushing them down.
he tore yours off once his were gone, and immediately closed the gap between your chests as he sloppily kissed you. you thrusted up to him, making a guttural sound rip from his throat from the heat of skin to skin, finally getting the contact he was throbbing for. it was going to be a looong night.
OMGOMGOMG I SWEAR I'M OBSESSED WITH YOUR WRITING NOWđđđ Every single one ATE!!! đđđ
I meanimeanimean everything is just so fluffy omgđđđ and it's so healinggggg. Did you ever thought of writing about a reader being the soul/player(a pacifist one?) ??? Cuzđ§ justđ§maybe I want to read it when it written by you omgđđđ
~Concrete Flowers Grow~
Krisâ soul isnât exactly subtle with its obsession with matchmaking its favourite human and their little interest. All it takes are the most perfect conditions for it to spring into action; be the matchmaker it was born to be. (You make the first move. Thatâs all it takes.)
You need your soul to live, right? Well, Kris sure as hell wishes they didnât.
~~~
HI GUYSS so likeeeeee hi a good 9.1k for u today ANOTHER KRIS POV with mostly fluff til the end yeah the end is very uhhh not fun BUT WITH RESOLUTION
I WAS TRYING TO FINISH THIS BEFORE THE MONTH-SINCE-POSTING ON THIS BLOG BUT I MISSED MY DEADLINE LOLOL be nice đ i wrote the outline for this maybe a day after my poll finished but i never got around to writing it bc yeahhh life hitssss
Anyways the soul is def the star here. I loved writing it. Omfg. I LOVED IT. soul and kris can communicate in this. best non-canon trope in deltarune FIGHT ME
ENJOY MY LOVELIES !!!!!!!!!!!!
banner is extra creative this time around took me 7 hours
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OH ALSO THE OTHER 2 ASKS THAT I PAIRED UP WITH THIS ONE: (idk why the quality is ass HAHA)
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Kris has learned a few new things today.
First of all, the dyed lines on the floor are horribly uneven, despite having been redone last year. Second off, Susieâs throws are strong enough to give multiple students something one step down from a concussion. And finally, it may or may not be a common occurrence for extraterrestrial gods to be good at dodgeball.Â
Itâs not exactly difficult to hover near the courtâs rear, even as someone with less of a care than them. Theyâve just been snatching up wayward foam balls and tossing them to Susie, whoâs been unapologetically sniping people left and right.Â
The numbers dwindle quickly, but apparently not fast enough for the standards of a certain attention-deficit ball hog. They feel their foot tap impatiently, outside residue of puddles and mud having kicked in a squeak or two.Â
They barely register the shape zooming towards their stomach before their palms instinctually trap the ball, halting it in its path. Someone groans on the other side of the court, trekking over to the oh so full bench.
Then, they hear that echoing voice. Itâs the one they hear over every other sound. The one they had previously wished they could claw out from inside their head. Itâs falsely humble at best â egotistical at worst.
âBoom. I dunno âbout you, but Iâm totally joining my schoolâs team after this. Do you think reaction time skills in games translate to real life? Probably, right?â
âŚyeah, maybe they still wish they could. But theyâll admit that itâs much easier to get along with the all-seeing and all-knowing when it does stuff in their place that theyâd rather not do. Like dodgeball.
Doesnât make it any less weird.
Theyâve been following the motions embedded into their veins; into every twitch of their muscles. Just so it doesnât look like theyâre unwillingly dragging themself along the ground. Thankfully, their soulâs decided it doesnât want to be the center of attention today.
It makes it easier for them to zone out. Theyâve learned that being a puppet is somewhat okay when the puppetmaster doesnât oppose everything they do.
Their head nearly snaps off their neck, just barely dodging a sharp ball headed straight for their face. Ouch.
âSorry! I, like, just saw it at the lastââ The voice dissipates, returning with an exhilarated gasp. âOoh, wait. Perfect opportunity right here. You see it?â
It gravitates their eyes to Temmie. Sheâs protectively hunched over her makeshift nest â formulated from a collection of different sized foam balls â shielding her eggs from danger. Oneâs appeared to have fallen over, to which sheâs begun righting back up; her back to the court.
I see it.
âOh yeah. You want this one, or should I?â
Itâs not like theyâve wanted to throw anything for the past half hour. But they, for some reason, have come to appreciate the repetitive offers anyway.Â
Go for it.
They feel a grin form on their lips; one that doesnât belong to them.Â
In what they hardly comprehend as a second or two, their arm winds back â ball clenched hard between their fingers â with the motive to win.Â
They hear the foam rip through the air, colliding with Temmieâs shoulder so impossibly hard that sheâs sent flying over her nest, face-first into the glazed hardwood. They watch as eyes upon eyes whip to where it came from. They ignore them, like they always do.Â
You almost missed.
Their eyes roll involuntarily. âI was trying not to knock her⌠stuff.â
A bit showoffish for an easy target.
âI was, uh⌠making a diversion for your buddy.â
Uh huh.
âTotally my intent.â
As if on cue, Susie knocks out both Catti and Jockington, taking advantage of the momentary shock. On Jockington, mainly. But he was so tightly winded around her that she had no chance to avoid Susieâs attack.Â
âDamn,â a longing sigh leaves their lips. âIâll never get over how stupidly strong she is.â
A stray ball rolls up to their foot. They pick it up, preparing it for ammo.
âI wonder if she could stop a hydraulic press. Like, if her hands were like Rupertâs drop.â
Rupertâs drop?
They sidestep, avoiding another vaguely red shape.
âDo you not know what that is? Oh, we are so watching some good olâ hydraulic press compilations when we get home.â
You can watch your compilations. Iâm going to bed the moment I step through those doors.
âNo, Kris. We need to do it togetherââ
And the voice goes dead silent.
Thereâs another ball that just narrowly zooms past their face. They could feel the wind splash across their cheeks. That wouldâve been a definite hit â if it werenât for the poor aim â considering the lack of forced suggested movement within them.Â
Theyâre almost concerned for their soul. Almost.
You still in there?â
The voice returns tenfold. They stop themself from wincing. âCrap, okay my tater tots are readyâ brb youâll be okay without me, right?â
I⌠what?
âOkay, goodâ just hang tight, Iâll be, like, five minutesââ
And itâs gone. They canât feel its presence.
Then, to their left, Berdly gets whacked in the stomach with a ball flying nearly as fast as the soulsâ.Â
Susieâs already tearing up, palm shielding her face as she poorly hides her amusement. âPfftââ
And another voice floods their ears. One far more angelic than the soulâs will ever be.
âSorry!â
Itâs you.
With another ball tucked firmly under your arm, you use your free hand to cup your mouth, a sympathetic-yet-entertained smile spread throughout your lips. âI wasnât really aiming for you; you just kinda got in my wayââ
âPshh!â The bird scoffs. âYou were using far too much force for a childrenâs game! I demand a recount!â
âA recount? Iââ You halt. They visibly watch the joy of your idea seep into your mind. âI was using just enough power to take down the strongest person on your team. I think I was justified.â
Heâs obviously taken aback; only anchored back to his normal demeanor through his ego. His wing splays across his chest, preparing a speech. âWell, I suppose I can make an exception when youâve so valiantly spent all your brain power attempting to take me down!ââ
Susie whips her ball at his leg, trying to avoid the distraction. âYouâre out, dude. Go sit down.â
But she almost falls victim to the bait.
Youâre already shooting your ball halfway across the court. Susie stumbles, causing you to miss her arm by a hair. She stares at you like youâre insane.Â
And youâre outwardly laughing. Not in a conceited way; more of an adrenaline-filled, disbelief sorta way.Â
They canât really say theyâve listened to more than a hundred voices in their life. The townâs small, and the people feel even smaller. Everyone always comes across as unbelievably happy, or unaware, or bored. Not that thereâs anything really wrong with that.
They never thought it was an issue. Until they âmetâ you.
You felt different. Real.
They already knew of you. Hell, theyâre pretty sure theyâve talked to you on multiple passing occasions. You looked up to Azzy a lot. Itâs something they took note of, but never really acknowledged.
It was a random Sunday night. Youâd spent a majority of the day with Azzy in their kitchen, studying like the nerds you two are. He liked helping you with your homework.Â
They thought youâd have left already. Itâs not like youâve ever stayed past ten.
It was one in the morning.Â
They had long prepared to sneak downstairs, finish off the rest of the pie that their mom had baked for your visit, but you were still there. Hunched over the table, surrounded by textbooks and your glaring laptop, pencil scribbling in your notebook like a madman.
You didnât look up.
âAz?â You mumbled, voice laced with the longing of sleep. âThought you went tâ bed.â
They debated not saying anything. Leaving you to talk to yourself in the dark. But they didnât. Mostly for the courtesy of their brother.
âItâs me.â
You didnât seem surprised. Still, your head struggles to turn. âOh. Sorry. Should I go?â
You shouldâve been gone, sleeping soundly in your own bed. They werenât really sure what youâre still doing here.
You phrased it as if youâre offending them. They offered you whatever reassurance they could muster. âNo.â
âGod, IâŚâ you trailed off, rubbing the exhaustion from your eyes. â...lost track of time. He said I⌠canâ could hang around⌠until I finished. Call âim down if he⌠er, I needed helpâŚ.â
Seems like you two were a lot closer than they thought.
Besides that, they didnât think much of it â beelining towards the half-eaten pie tin. Theyâd much rather have a lack of audience, but you didnât seem conscious enough to acknowledge them anyways.
And they heard a loud thump.Â
Youâve faceplanted onto the table. Your back rose and fell with the grace of someone deep in the trance of slumber. They froze for a moment, debating what the hell they should do next.Â
While they knew how horrible back pains can get when hunched over a desk table for too long (re: every nap theyâve ever taken at school), they also knew itâs none of their damn business.
They heard you let out a whimper of dissatisfaction. You werenât asleep, but you werenât awake, either.
âŚ
Youâre Asrielâs friend. And they trust him.Â
They hesitantly approached your setup, peeking over your shoulder from a safe distance to read whatever you were working on.
Youâve been stuck on the same problem for who knows how long. Your blotchy paper screams to be replaced; pencil stains and eraser bits scattered across the surface.
Theyâre not exactly much of a tutor themself, nor would they consider themself to be any level of smart, but they could already identify what mistake you kept repeating. Evident from the faded, identical numbers thatâve chosen permanent residence on your page.Â
Without thinking (because theyâre rather tired, too), they snatched a wayward pen from your pencil case, ripping off a blank sticky note while skimming your textbook for the question info.Â
After a minute or so, they scrawled on an equation â one similar to yours â and taped it to the corner of your notebook.
They tapped your shoulder. You lifted your head. âTry this one,â they offered.Â
Your eyes followed their own as you skimmed their handwriting. Your gaze lit up in recognition. âCrap, youâre so right. I forgot toâ fuck.â
They felt their stomach churn from the now one-sided awkward silence (one-sided because you didnât seem to feel the awkwardness of it), and they immediately decided that theyâll have pie tomorrow. Yâknow, instead of hovering over your shoulder like a weirdo.
Theyâve already turned to leave when your hand encircled their own. Not their wrist. Their hand. Their fingers.
Their palms lit up from the contact.
You gave them a dazed, warm smile. âThanks, Kris.â
They didnât really know how to respond to that.
Their stare was trained on the couch. âGo to sleep.â
âHuh?â Your grip slackened.
âThe couch,â they quickly corrected themself. âYou can take it. If you want.â
Not that they have any sort of authority in this house to decide something like that, but theyâre sure their mom wouldnât mind. You seem to be one of Azzyâs friends that their parents actually like.
You laughed. Itâs soft; warm, like your smile. âThank you for the invitation. Iâd be honoured.â
Your voice ripples through them. As if youâve embedded yourself deep into their veins.Â
Youâve woken them up much more than a coffee ever could. And yet, at the same time, they want to doze off, curling up into that sweet warmth.
âGuess youâre sorta a hypocrite, too, then?â
Theyâre almost taken aback. They didnât let it show.
âGuess so.â
You started packing up your books under the guise of âdoing it tomorrowâ, to which they couldnât help but stand there like a staring idiot.Â
But you didnât seem to mind.Â
Once you were nearly done, you held out something small pinched between your fingers, offering it to them. They cupped their hands expectantly.
And a blue paper crane fell to their palms.Â
âAlso,â you shut your laptop. âTell your mom she makes amazing pies. I could totally eat an entire tin unprompted.â
âŚ
Yeah, youâre⌠something.
âI know,â they found themself saying.
You gave them a look. âYou know?â
Yeah, that did not come off how they intended.
âIâve done it before.â
âYouâve eaten an entire tin?â You giggled again, giving them an almost enamoured look. âYouâre literally my spirit animal.â
You went to bed not shortly after. They couldnât sleep under the idea that youâre resting in the same house as them. Which sucked, considering theyâve never given you a second thought⌠ever.
Since then, theyâve heard you laugh a million times. And theyâll never get sick of hearing it.
Youâve never had a full conversation since. And to say they long for it would be a heavy understatement. In fact, itâs only gotten worse.
They donât even know why youâve caught their attention. For years. Counting, at thatâ
âI know. Total breach of your norms. Youâre suppose to be the calm, mysterious characterââ
Its voice snaps them back into the now. They debate trying to tune it out, but theyâre immediately focused on Susieâs oddly subtle hand gesture.
They pass her their ball without a second thought.
Susie winds her hand back like sheâs about to bat up a home run, shooting it straight for Snowyâs forehead.
He lets out an âUUFâ as the ball bounces off of him, curving like a bridge's arc. Susie cheers prematurely. She doesnât catch a glance at your pretty competitive smile.Â
You begin to position yourself under the bend, catching her ball effortlessly.Â
âNice try, Suz!â You playfully mock, waving the ball in her direction.
âWhat?â She whips her head to you, to the audience, and finally, to Kris. âThat counts?â
They shrug. Theyâre not an expert.Â
âIt does,â the soul answers with their voice.
The fact that it knows adds merit to their gods-are-good-at-dodgeball theory.
âDamn,â she pouts, trekking to the bench. âYou better win this, Kris.â
And thatâs when they realize theyâre the last one standing on their team.
Goddamnit.Â
Just watching your attention zone solely onto them makes them freeze in place. Thereâs a rush of adrenaline that emits from their soul. Knowing exactly whatâs about to happen, they try to shut it down.
Iâm letting myself get hit.
âNo way am I gonna let that happen. Weâre going to win! Screw your little âangelâ!â
Their eyes widen in realization.
You didnât even leave, did you?
âMmh, yeah I did.â Cockiness pulses through their fingertips as it reaches for a new ball. âBut the tots needed an extra minute, and I couldnât just interrupt your little recollection of your meet-cute. Literally. My screen was bombarded with a flashback cutscene.â
Whatever that means.
Theyâre harshly yanked to dodge your fast ball. They hear it collide with the back wall with a loud smack.
âDamn. That oneâs not holding back.â
The corner of their lip drifts upwards. You never do.
The soul effortlessly aims for Snowyâs feet. But at the last second, they jerk their arm to mess with the line up.Â
Sadly, it still hits the snow birdâs stomach, launching through the air in a similar fashion as before. Deja vu rushes past them.
They can feel the soulâs frustration. âHey! Whoâs sideâre you on, traitor?!â
They wish they could give it a look. Do I have a choice?
âIââ it hesitates. âEh, I guess not.â
Youâve lined yourself up to catch the ball once again, but the soul doesnât appear nervous. Instead, it directs them to snatch up another foam weapon. They barely realize theyâre lining up another shot, sniping their air ball before it lands in your hands.
Snowyâs actually out, this time.
You and Kris both share a stare of absolute shock. Although they hide it better, you recover faster.
âShowoff,â you challenge as your eyes narrow, preparing another ball for attack.
âOoh, youâre gonna like this one,â they hear from within them. âA certain someoneâs impressed with our trickshots.â
They feel their cheeks flush.
Those arenât your thoughts to read.
âI canât help it. Theyâre just so readable. And besides, I know you like hearing it, too.â
I donât.
The court turns into a drawn-out back-and-forth of shooting and dodging. Theyâre practically dragged across the court, uncaring of appearing like a dead ragdoll.Â
It isnât until you visibly start slowing down that the soul decides to strategize. At least, thatâs what they think itâs doing.
The determination in your eyes dwindles as their arm launches the fastest ball all period.Â
Your reaction time has slowed extremely. You obviously panic â unsure if youâre able to move in time â and you end up lashing your own ball at theirs.
While you successfully hit their ball to the ground, yours is now airborne, floating in their direction like a ticket to victory.
And, of course, the soul hardly struggles to catch it.
They watch your face crack for a moment, into one of disappointment. Youâre about to meet their gaze, when Susie lets out a, âYEAAAAHHHHH!!!â. Itâs so loud that the noise bounces off the walls.Â
While their team (following Susie, of course) comes to congratulate and celebrate the win, theyâre not too interested in the fanfare. Youâre the one they canât stop watching.
The way your chest rises and falls with each of your large breaths. The way you seem to calm your nerves and accept the loss. The way you offer a giddy thumbs up to your still benched, but proud, team.Â
âYouâre right. Letâs go over there!â
Their mouth falls open. No.
Thankfully, their teamâs chatting amongst themselves. Makes it easier to not notice the way their feet awkwardly drift across the floor in an attempt to stop moving at any cost.
As soon as theyâve breached the circle of monsters, you instantly spot their figure. Fuck.
âIâm helping!â
Youâre helping me look like a psychopath.
âYouâre so pessimistic! Just watch us.â
They awkwardly skid to a halt in front of you. Youâve not once broken eye contact; an amused yet curious look in your face.Â
âGood game,â they hear themself say. âYou didnât have a chance against me, butââ
They bite their lip. Hard.
Mirth nearly escapes them. Not their mirth.Â
Theyâre about to strangle their goddamn soul so hard it pops.
But your smile only grows bigger, displaying your pearly whites. âI know. With moves like those, I was destined to fail.â
You inch forward, closing the distance ever so slightly.Â
âAnd to get me out with my own move?â You tilt your head. âIâm starting to think youâre copying me, Dreemurr.â
They canât help but break your staring contest. âDonât say the C-word too loud. Itâs Berdlyâs trigger word.â
âYeah. Right behind âstupidâ and âmoronâ.â
âAnd B+.â
You outright laugh at that one. They swallow it up on instinct, committing every twitch of your face to memory. They canât remember the last time theyâve been so close to you.
âWell,â you breathe, the remnants of your joy still evident in your tone. âGood game, Kris.â
They love the way you say their name.
âOh my god,â the voice squeaks. âOkayâ okay, now hold out your hand for a friendly handshake.â
They definitely do not want to do that. But their hand goes up anyways.
You take it casually. Because itâs a casual gesture. Very friendly, as the soul had described.
Your hand is bigger than they remember, but itâs still warm, soft, just as it was that one nightâ
âNow get down on one knee and ask to get marriedââ
They have to lock their knees to stop them from bending. But theyâre more focused on not squeezing your hand out of pure anger.
âHow âbout a hug?â It suggests in compensation, sounding rather manic. âThatâs casual, right? Itâs perfect! Justââ
They robotically release your fingers. âI should go,â they strain themself to say.
âProbably,â you say as your competitive smile returns. âLooks like Alphys is ready to set up round two.â
Yeah, right. Like Iâm going through another round of that.
âOh, weâre going through another round of that!â
They do a 180 â ignoring the way your confused expression leaves an odd pang in their chest â ready to rip their soul out for the next week.
âThatâs not very nice.â
Youâre a pain in my ass.
âYou canât say that to your best friend, Kris.â
Not my best friend.
They try to ignore it, hovering near the benches until further notice.
âRight, of course. Iâm about to get you your new best friend.â
A pause.
âIâm winking. You canât see it.â
âŚ
âIâm talking about your crush.â
Not my crush.
âYour future lover?â
What the hell is wrong with you?
âEverything, Kris. Everything.â
~*â˘*~
Itâs difficult to understand. What makes you so enticing in their mind?
Sure, youâre objectively pretty. It doesnât really matter to them; their perception of normal and abnormal is so unbelievably skewed because of their constant imposter syndrome.Â
They know youâre hardworking, strong, determined. But besides those (rather vague) descriptors, they know nothing about you.
You laugh a lot. Youâre always radiating warmth, despite maybe being cold-blooded.
âYâknow, youâd actually learn more about your angel if you, I donât know, actually had a conversation more than once a year.â
Be quiet.
âHey, hey! Iâm just saying. I can move your mouth for you, if youâd like.â
They feel that all too familiar self-satisfaction rise from their soul.
Not talking to you.
âWell, I canât really tell when youâre trying to talk to me.â
I never try.
âKris⌠youâre going to make me cry.â
Its smile forces its way onto their face. They rub their lips back into a neutral position, hoping no oneâs lifted their attention from Alphys to see the insanity.
Youâre unbearable.
They canât remember the first time they heard its voice. Sometime in the cage, the noise echoed against the walls. Seeped into their brain. Said something stupid, like âoh shit, you can hear me now? Wait, this is great! Wait, waitââ
âOkay. I didnât sound that braindead.â
Through a rather heated back and forth, they learned itâs some interdimensional being from another world, tapping into their soul to interact with their universe.
Yeah, it sounded laughable. It sounds laughable.Â
But whatâs the harm in believing it? What do they have to lose?
Itâs not like they think of it any better than they did before.
âKrissyyy.â
It lives in their soul. It can read their thoughts. It can read anyoneâs thoughts. It proved that pretty quickly.Â
âWhy didnât you laugh when I told you my name was âyour majestyâ?â
Youâre not funny.
âI am funny.â
No.
âLaugh at my joke, Kris.â
No.
âIâm balling my eyes out, Kris.â
Great.
âOkay, I lied. My name is âyour best friendâ.â
Their lip twitches of their own accord.
Hello, âyour best friendâ.
âFuck, I messed it up. Do âmy best friendâââ
Despite its naturally aggravating nature, the night was spent talking. Over everything.
It was quick to claim that its intentions were never bad, despite the whole imposing on another body thing.
It felt bad, supposedly. Well, bad wasnât the word it wanted to use. But it didnât know what else to use.Â
It sounded sympathetic. But theyâve learned to not trust tones straight off the bat.
It said it tries to fill in spots that it thought theyâd want filled. But, obviously, it didnât know them. It still doesnât.
It begged for a baseline. Standards for it to fill. It wanted to help so badly. It wanted to be there, like someone would their closest friend. Someone they really care about. Which was weird, considering they knew little to nothing about this creature.
It's been a year since then.
Donât get it wrong; it breaks those âstandardsâ all the time. Not the truly horrible ones, but any sort of boundaries have way been forgotten. Theyâve given up on fixing it.
But to this day, theyâve never heard it sound as desperately sad as it did that night. Every time they think about any of it, it goes silent.
And maybe theyâre naive to believe that time fortifies truth. But they found themself believing the soulâs intentions werenât totally horrible, after all.Â
â...aww.â
All of that somehow led to you. Led to their little interest in you.
âLittle is an understatementââ
Little. Itâs little.
âLittle lot? Or lot of little?ââ
LITTLE.
Now, even if they do so little as glance your way, itâs practically screaming in their ear, begging them to go talk to you.Â
It calls you their âangelâ. After ignoring the nickname for months on end, it finally revealed â pretending it was reluctantly explaining â that itâs because the angel is, exact quote from the soul itself, âthe center of the DELTARUNE universeâ.
Implying you are the center of their universe.
Which is just crazy corny.
âItâs CUTE, you loser. Iâm the expert here.â
Are you?
âOf course. I could sweep anyone off their feet!â
Youâre horrible under pressure.
âAt least I can hold up a conversation!â
You say nothing normal.
âAnd youâre any better?â oh wait. Forgot youâre a literal flirting god.â
Their neck flames up. They rub their eyes.
Donât say it like that.
âGo flirt with your angel.â
No.
âSo there is some level of admittance that you have an angel? And your angel isââ
Like that. Who ever talks like that?
âIâm trying to sound smart. Maybe then youâll actually listen to me; realize my ideas are literal gold.â
Their headâs pulsing with an oncoming headache.
âOkay. Theyâre not that bad.â
They find themself nuzzling their cheek into their arms.
Stop talking. Sleep time.
It sounds panicked. âNoâ no, waitâ Alphysâ announcing some stupidââ
Their eyes drift shut, deciding that whatever the soulâs talking about can be future Krisâ problem.
~*â˘*~
âKris! Oh my godâ fade out of black any slowerââ
Theyâre half-conscious when they feel the soul tugging them in every direction. They have to grip the edge of their desk to stop themself from flinging to the floor.
âEveryoneâs in pairs, doofus.â
Kris gives a half-assed glance around the classroom. Berdly and Noelle are the only ones actually talking about school, fixating on two sheets in front of them. Everyone else â even Catti and Jockington â is doing literally nothing; keeping to themselves.
They instinctually begin to lay their head back into their arms, whenâ
âNo. No more sleeping. Donât you want to know what the hellâs happening?â
They huff. Not really.
âWhat if she announced some dumb project worth half your grade?â
Time to wing it.
âKris,â it scolds, as if itâs anything akin to a mother to them. âAlsoâŚâ
Their hand lifts on its own accord, pawing at the back of their head, until their fingers brush against some clump of paper nestled in their hair.
Bringing it to their eyes, they very clearly acknowledge it as a poorly-made paper airplane made of someoneâs quiz. They recognize the handwriting.
âWhoâs is it?â
They smooth out the folds on their desk, flipping the page to reveal a message scrawn on the back.
Ive been trying to nudge you for the past ten minutes
You sleep like a bear
Since you ditched me for your damn nap
Im gonna get a âdrinkâ from the âwaterfountainâ
See you tommorow
Damn. Susieâs gone.
They can physically feel the soul debating what to do next.
âYâknow what?â And they feel the strings around their limbs loosen ever so slightly. âMaybe youâre right. Susieâs the only one whoâd make this entertaining enough to sit through. Not my grade, anyway.â
Oh.
Youâre letting me sleep?
âYeah, sure. Iâm gonna go get some tortilla chips. No dip. A box of gushers. And maybe, like, six tangerines.â
And they feel it vanish. How kind.Â
Their eyes close before they hit the desk, attempting to get back into the nap mood. It takes a minute, maybe two, maybe ten, for them to realize this isnât working.
Especially with the loud shriek of a chair inching closer and closer to their area.
Itâs hard to gauge where itâs coming from. They can admit theyâve gotten used to having a second pair of eyes on the back of their head, with a voice telling them what it sees.Â
The chair grows louder, and louder, until it stops. Right before their desk.Â
Theyâre as still as prey in predatorâs sight.
âKris,â someone whispers. They have to bite their tongue to stop themself from flinching.
Itâs your voice. Theyâre sure your lips brush the shell of their ear.
They stiffen like a statue. They might look dead to the untrained eye.
âKris,â you drawl, tucking a stray hair behind their ear goddamnitâ
You huff, poking their arm. When they refuse to stir, you push the fluff of their sweater to reveal their unmoving eye to the blaring overhead lights.Â
They can feel your breath on their cheek, about to whisper another song of their name, when they open their eyes as fast as they can.
You shuffle back with an instant âoh my godââ before your smile of realization forms.
But then, you shock them more than they couldâve ever shocked you.
You gradually shift back to their side, resting an elbow next to theirs. Their eyes watch you with pristine accuracy.
And your mouth returns to their ear.Â
âYouâve got the creep factor down, thatâs for sure.â
Theyâre not sure if anyone would ever consider that a compliment. In fact, theyâre sure theyâve heard the exact sentence with a definitive negative connotation, butâŚ
Hearing you say it?
It makes them want to open up a haunted house. Just to be the main attraction.
Which sounds horrible, in hindsight. The center of attention? Nasty. But the idea came from them, not the soul.
Which makes it even worse.
You sit up, returning to a position in which youâre a foot away, rather than an inch. You speak as if you didnât casually make their heart skip a beat. âAre you done with the quiz thing?â
Their brain hardly processes what you say â they have to run your sweet voice through their head multiple times. At their very best, they manage a squeak. âQuiz?â
âPractice quiz?â You raise an eyebrow, obviously amused. âThough, you mightâve been sleeping through it.â
Thatâs when they tilt their head just a tad to reveal an ink-filled piece of paper resting in the top corner of their desk.
You both eye it. Itâs not exactly hiding the fact that itâs blank.
âNot done? Thatâs fine.â They hear the struggle not to laugh in your voice. They so badly want to tell you to let it out.
Not that they really mind your company â not at all â but theyâre more so confused at the gesture; the curiosity.Â
They donât let their mind wander at the possibilities; good or bad.
âYou just gonna go back to bed?â
Theyâre a bit taken aback at the idea. Yeah, they were going to, but⌠they canât just let the chance go, right?
âNo. Why?â
âWell,â you start, already sounding bored. âThe whole quiz thing was to practice marking. Giving pointers to each other on formatting and whatever.â
Your smile turns sheepish. The look makes them sit back in their chair. Just to fully absorb it. Probably creepy.
But, eventually, you crack. âWanna mark my quiz?â
They donât even get time to think about the prospect when their voice lunges from their throat, far louder than it needed to be, with an unthinkably clear answer: âYes!â
Their eyes nearly pop out their eyesockets. They clench their teeth like theyâre biting pure gold.
Theyâre not too concerned with all the other eyes on them. Mostly just yours.
But you donât seem weirded out. You look oddly happy.
âGlad to hear youâre so eager to help, Dreemurr.â
~*â˘*~
They can feel you intensely watching over their shoulder as they start skimming your quiz. You lend them a pen, very sneakily attempting to brush your fingers with theirs, to which the soul pointed out keenly.
âYou can checkmark anything thatâs good,â you eagerly direct. When they barely spare you a side glance, you add quietly, âand circle anything thatâs wrong.â
To anyoneâs surprise but theirs, they end up checkmarking the entire page.
For each one they give you, they can feel you visibly brighten. You sit up straighter, your teeth peak through your smile, stuff like that.
âYâknow, stuff that only in-love losers would notice,â their soul reminds them.
Ignoring that, the idea of making you happy controls them more than theyâd like. They end up adding checkmarks to places that are totally unnecessary â like when you give therefore statements to questions that definitely donât need it â just to see you light up.
Meanwhile, the parasite in their soulâs been yapping in their ear, crying about starting a conversation and say x say y say z.
They keep trying to tune it out, but it just gets louder in protest.
Sometimes, it manages to slip something through. Even though theyâre biting their tongue so hard they taste copper.
âGreat formatting here,â it forces out their lips. âWhereâd you learn to do it like that?â
Despite your obvious confusion at their talkative manner, you answer anyway. âCâmon,â you tease. âYou know where.â
âWanna remind me?ââ
They hack out a cough, effectively stopping that trainwreck.
âYour nerdy brother, of course.â You attempt to sound spiteful and joking, but it comes out hollow.
At the end, your quiz is full of checkmarks; not one circle or X in sight. Itâs not like youâve been blind during the marking process, but when they slide it towards you â about a centimeter in your direction. If anything, they just go through the motion of tilting it in your direction â you act like itâs your first time seeing it.
They watch you attempt to push down any sign of a smile on your face, but you seem too entranced with the page to make a full effort.
âNo complaints from me,â they quip, almost wanting to take the chance to fuel your now-enflated ego.
Or maybe youâre just proud of yourself.
âYeahââ their voice leaves them. ââand you have really pretty handwriting.â
You break from your daze to laugh, cheeks warming from the sudden compliment.
âThanks, Kris,â you stare long and hard into their eyes, still consumed with giggles.
God.
What a great way to mark the beginning of such bad times to come.
~*â˘*~
Maybe they havenât been grateful in life. Maybe theyâve done something to anger the angel. Maybe the soulâs never been trying before now.Â
But damn is it trying now.Â
They donât think theyâve felt so utterly helpless and utterly pissed at the soulâs continuous attempts to woo you. Itâs been forcing them to go up to you, sometimes mid-lesson, to ask for pencils, erasers, random shit. Doesnât matter.
Itâs gotten to the point where theyâve collected more than half of your pencil case on their desk. Sure, you donât seem to mind, and your smile only grows bigger and bigger every time they ask, but the second-hand (first-hand? Itâs technically still them) embarrassment that theyâve accumulated has made the risk outweigh the reward.
Their soulâll tug them to talk to you whenever it sees you. Important: when it sees you.
Theyâll be listening to Susie yap about getting called on for the xth time (for talking with Noelle mid-period), and with no warning, theyâll be dragged down the hall, through the crowd that no normal person would ever be able to see through, right to you.
Itâll say the same things everyday. Everytime.
âCrazy seeing you here!â
âHow was class?â
âGot lots of homework? I could totally help out with that.â
âWhat would you do if I shaved my head?â
You raise an eyebrow. Everytime.
But, oddly enough, youâve started getting more and more comfortable with the routine. Youâve even started casually snaking your arm around theirs, pretending the angle isnât horribly uncomfortable for you.
They know it is because their soul keeps telling them how you think about the position and the strain in your arm. Even though theyâre relatively good at reading people, they couldnât have caught that just by looking at you.Â
Sometimes it asks you things theyâd never dream of asking you.
âWe should study together. With Berdly.â
Their teeth clench. When the hell would I ever willingly do that?
âHar har,â you tug them down the hall (to which they accept by choice). âVery funny.â
They feel the soul pout within them. âI was being serious, yâknow.â
Yeah. Thatâs the worst part.
Itâs weird the way youâve adapted to them. Even without their soul reading your very private thoughts, they can just tell when you notice the change in their voice; in their demeanor. Of course, you have no idea of the terrors that lie within them.
âOkay. Rude.â
But youâre always offering your polite smile whenever it says something stupid to you. Sometimes youâll laugh out of pure surprise, but youâll mostly follow along with whatever it decides the bit is going to be.
When youâre talking to Kris? Itâs a completely different smile.Â
Itâs deeper; the creases in your face run stronger. Your words feel more genuine, as if trying to enjoy every second with what you know is them.Â
âWow. You just wanted to flaunt that over my head.â
Maybe a little.
Thereâs been moments theyâve been forced into thatâve felt like theyâve been ripped straight out of some Disney special.
Maybe itâs because they spent the night listening to that damn soul talk about you â not of their own volition â and they didnât get a lick of sleep, but it felt extra hard to even twitch their own muscles to life.
It forced them to sneak up behind you at your locker. They felt their hands being placed on your shoulders as they leaned in. âGuess who.â
Your eyes instantly move to your magnetic mirror on the locker door. You both instantly lock gazes.Â
You struggle to keep in your laugh. âI think youâre supposed to cover my eyes.â
âWell, I donât want you toââ
They can just sense the rest of the sentence: âI donât want you to think Iâm anyone else. Youâre supposed to laugh for me and me alone.â
Which is a crazy thing that theyâre definitely not about to say.
They have to physically slap a hand over their mouth, mumbling the rest of their words against their skin.
And, to add onto your weirdly perfect adaptation skills, you donât find their odd behaviours as alarming as you probably should. Which mostly include biting their tongue/lip, covering their mouth, sneezing and/or coughing. All of which are done mid-sentence to avoid the disaster that is their soulâs train of thought.
So, you only find it weirdly amusing.Â
Once the words run dry in their mouth, you pull their hand from their lips, just to hold their fingers against yours. Not really interlocking; just rubbing the pads of your index along the length of each finger. âI gotta go to the washroom. Touch up ân stuff. Wanna come?â
Before it can inevitably scream in agreement, they slap their other hand over their mouth.Â
Instead of saying anything, they decide to just nod. Simple enough.
And you seem to glow. Their stomach churns.
Your hand slides into theirs like the missing puzzle piece theyâve lacked their entire life.Â
Not one of those stray ones that fall under the couch, lost to the vacuum. Itâs almost as if you werenât supposed to end up in the box to begin with.
Yet here you are; clicking with their edges like you were always meant to be.
~*â˘*~
Eventually, they do weasel their way into a hangout. It wasnât anything they begged for, necessarily. But it just happened to work outâ
âItâs a study date!â
A hangout.
No thanks to their goddamn soul. It might as well have been begging for your attention; they had to spin its incomprehensible gibberish into something worthwhile. Which just so happened to be a study sesh.Â
Of course, youâve been to their house before. Youâve hung out with their brother more times than theyâre probably aware of. But instead of hearing a knock on the front door, they find you crawling through their window like itâs the most natural thing in the world.Â
They donât even remotely think of the connotation.
You wordlessly greet them; your bag tossed beside their bed, ready to be forgotten. They watch your eyes survey the room in alarming familiarity.
âNice to know this place hasnât changed.â
They remain seated on their bed, watching you glow at the sight of their empty side of the room. âNot really one for renovations.â
âYou donât want to bulldoze the wall down? Maybe add a slide down the side?â
You brush your fingers along their bedside table, locking onto something they canât see.
âOh my god,â you squeal, snaking your fingers behind their barren lamp toâ âYou know how to make paper cranes too?â
Their face ignites, staring at their lap in subtle shame. They donât even have the voice to lie to you.
âThatâsâŚâ you drawl, definitely catching on. âCrazyâŚâ
âWait, wait, whatâs happening?â
Thereâs a quick pause. Theyâre trying their absolute best not to think about anything, knowing itâll use the facts against them.
It wails. âWait! Thatâs the same crane?!â
Well, it definitely read your mind.Â
Theyâre so absolutely screwed.
âItâs yours,â it twists their tongue to its bidding. âI kept it all this time.â
You chuckle. Whether itâs out of nervousness, relief, embarrassment, or some nasty mix of the three, you recover quickly.
You join them on the bed, laying down so your legs dangle off the edge. They follow en suite.Â
âYâknow that problem you helped me with? Way back when, I mean.â
They hum in acknowledgement.Â
âAlphys ended up putting it on the test. Pretty much the exact same question, with different numbers.â
They know. They heard you talking about it with Asriel. They remember how adamant yet shy you were to admit they helped you.
âI totally wouldâve failed the question if you didnât give me the right equation. And I donât think I ever thanked you for that. So, yâknow. Thanks.â
They feel your eyes on them. They swallow painfully.
âYou wouldâve figured it out eventually.â
You huff in disbelief. âNo way. I was on that for hours. Refused to leave âtil I got it, though.â
For some reason, they expect their soul to cut in with some stupid quip. But all they feel is nothing.
âŚ
Even after they acknowledge its silence, it usually pipes up. And yet, it doesnât.
Weird.
You lift yourself up, crisscrossing your legs on the rim of their bed. They follow your lead.Â
You pause, almost hesitating.Â
They know youâre ignoring their stare on purpose.
âYâknow, I was actually gonna ask Az for help,â you admit, as if itâs the most scandalous thing in the world. âBut I lost track of time. And it was like, way past midnight. So I didnât bother.â
They donât know what to say to that.
âHowâs he been?â
You sound awfully nervous.
âHeâs doing alright.â
âYeah?â
âYeah.â
Your fingers clench their blanket like a lifeline.
This is a horrible way to take this. Letâs not go down this rabbit hole.
âWhy not? Itâs working, isnât it?â
Whatâs working?
âYouâre both starting to open up! Isnât that a good thing?â
It sounds awfully detached.
And just at the thought of that, they can feel it grow horribly defensive.
âCâmon. This is, like, one of the strongest topics you guys have in common.â
My brother?
âYes! Donât you see that?â
They canât help but get annoyed. Yeah, Iâm good.
âŚ
And their chest swells with anger. Itâs not theirs, thatâs for sure.
âWere you two close?â
But the voice isnât coming from their head.Â
It came from their mouth.
You mindlessly answer. âYou could, uh, say that.â
âI miss him, too.â
You donât even know him.
Your mouth falls into a frown, pink dusting your cheekbones. âWell, I didnât say that.â
âBut youâre thinking it, arenât you?â
Itâs a creepy thing to say, considering itâs probably true. Itâs why your eyes go wide. But you refuse to look at them.
âYou donât have to lie to me.â
Their mouth just wonât stop moving, wonât it?
You refuse to say anything more. They can feel it grow desperate.
âAsrielâs coming back soon.â
Heâs not, you moron.
âWe could all hang out together.â
You raise an eyebrow. âIsnât it exam season?ââ
It fishes their phone from their pocket. âI could call him right now and we could all plan something!ââ
They squeeze their phone. They might shatter the screen.
âIâll be right back,â they manage with a calm, uninterested tone, hopping off the bed like theyâve got a plan. They donât even know where theyâre going.
To their soulâs new grave, maybe.
âI mean,â you call out after them. âIf he canât come, we can still hang out. Yâknow, just us. If you donât mind.â
You sound more hopeful. Maybe itâs because you recognize their real voice in the sea of the psychoâs.
~*â˘*~
âIâm sorry! I just saw the chance, and I wanted to take it, andâ it worked out, didnât it? You quite literally got the approval for ânext timeâ! A checkmark! A good to go! Aââ
They flick the sinkâs handle to max pressure.
âWaitâ wait. You arenât actually about to do this on your own, are you? Iâm not trying to mess anything up! Whyâre you treating me like Iâve ruined your life?â
They take a deep breath in.
âKris! Câmonâ I already said Iâm sorry!â
And they rip it out on one fell swoop.
Into the bathroom cabinet it goes.
They donât need it.
âŚ
They truly donât need it.
Yeah, they feel like literal shit without it â itâs their lifeline, after all â but they can already sense how different you feel in its absence.
You seem far more comfortable without it. And theyâre sure you can tell how much more at ease they are.
You both stick to your word and actually do homework. Well, you do homework. They sorta just stare at their notebook and doodle random things on your textbook. Theyâve seen you take pictures of the drawings with a laugh hiding at the back of your throat.
Your shoulders brush. You lean into them. Every time they shift, you return to their arm instinctually.
They canât help but bathe in the moment.
âŚ
And nearly black out.
âHoly shit, you okay?â You steady them to sit up straight.
They barely realize theyâve hunched so far over their lap that they almost tumbled face-first off the bed.
âYeah.â They try to sound reassuring. It comes out slurred.
They donât need it.
I donât need you.
~*â˘*~
Things have been great.
They havenât been able to properly enjoy your presence because theyâre too busy not appearing dead to the average monster eye.
In obvious terms, they donât let their soul talk to you anymore.Â
Every time you hang out, they pull it out. Doesnât matter if itâs at your house, their house, neither. They arenât dealing with its stupidity.
And since they pull it out when they sleep, thereâs been a large increase in times they have the soul in versus times the soul is out. The toll itâs taken on their body has become physically clear. The mental strain was obvious a long time ago.
The first few days, it spent apologizing. It was dutifully ignored.
Eventually it gave up.Â
Somewhat.
At school, they canât help but let it be in your presence. It doesnât speak for them. But they can feel it watching.
âYour angel wants to talk to you. Wonât say anything first.â
It likes giving them hints. They donât know why.
They know it listens.
Theyâve gotten used to it.
They wonder what youâd say if you knew.
~*â˘*~
Maybe theyâre tired of being a zombie. Moreso than usual, anyways.
Youâre coming over.Â
They go back and forth on it. At least a million times. They canât even understand half the words you say because their body wonât stop shutting down.
Does that make it worth it? For the spite?
They leave it in. They donât give it an explanation. Not that theyâd ever need to; itâs skimming through their thoughts like a good summer read.
âŚ
Still nothing.
Good. If they hear it talk, just once, theyâll rip it out again. Doesnât matter when. Doesnât matter where. They will.
Itâs been a few hours. Itâs almost midnight. Youâre both spread on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
What may have been comprehensible chatter has now morphed into one of those late night talks where anyone says whateverâs on their mind. Well, you do. Theyâre safe enough to remain filtered.Â
But theyâre more tense than usual. They can feel their soul thinking.
They thought theyâd feel refreshed with their literal life force in them. Maybe not.
âŚ
âDo you want to go to college?â
Your voice is mumbly; quiet. Itâs like theirs on a good day.
Theyâre not used to hearing themself in you.
âProbably,â they answer automatically. The default response.
You pause, as if wanting to lead up on the topic. Their soulâs anticipation grows.
âAre you not gonna ask me?â You laugh, sounding more like youâre amused than disappointed. âActually, that sounded kinda douche-ish. Donât ask me.â
Despite that, they humor you. âI already know your answer.â
âDo you?â
They nod. You donât really see the action, eyes still glued above you.
âFifty bucks if you get it wrong.â
âMhm. Iâll add my yacht to the deal, too.â
You shove their shoulder, smile present in your voice. âIâm serious.â
âI am, too.â
âOkay. Plug in your answer, Dreemurr.â
They pretend to think. âCan I switch it if Iâm wrong?â
âThereâs only two choices: yes or no. That just guarantees your win.â
âYour point?â
You groan into your hands. They let their smile ease across their face.
âFine. No stakes. Just say it.â
âI think itâs obvious that you want to go.â
They hear you sigh. âAm I that readable?â
âMaybe.â
Youâre enveloped in silence once again. Youâre the one to break it. Again.
âI donât know. The idea of college is just kinda crazy to me,â you start. âKnowing that barely anyone from this town gets accepted, let alone moves away. Or some just donât bother with the idea. Stick around for the sake of sticking around. Continuing family business, and whatnot.â
They feel dread well its way up their throat. Itâs not theirs.
âWhen Iâm not doing homework, or studying, or doing whatever with school, Iâll binge online threads about other peopleâs experiences moving away. I just see how normalized college is in other areas of the world. And all I can think is⌠wow. Thatâs so weird.
âYeah. Just seeing people like Asriel do it is amazing to me. Even when others probably wouldnât bat an eye. Priorities, I guess.â
âŚ
Thatâs why they like you so much.
You work hard and strive to be the best, but you also care about things that no one would even think about. Youâre just like Asriel.Â
But youâre also just like them.
Admiration for someone youâll never be like.
Itâs⌠alarming. To say the least.
âI feel like Iâve made my whole life about getting there,â you confess. âBut what if you go through all the effort of being perfect, just to realize college isnât for you? What do you do then? Give up? Is that an option?
âŚ
âMaybe there arenât only two choices.â
âŚ
And when you fall silentâŚ
They realize how unbelievably screwed they are.
They have no idea how to comfort someone like this.Â
Youâre being vulnerable.
And they havenât a single clue as to what you need to hear.
Or if you even need to hear anything.
What if youâre expecting nothing?
What if youâre expecting everything?
Theyâre already ready to give up.
Butâ
But they feel their soul pang with hopefulness.Â
âŚ
They donât have time to go back and forth on it.
Please donât screw this up.
âŚ
Their tongue moves on its own.
âI get it.â
You sound almost shocked. âReally?â
âYeah. Perfectionist stuff. Itâs all about the end product rather than the process of getting there. You canât tell if you love it or just the idea of it. And people who tell you âeveryone goes through what youâre going through!â arenât helping. Not in the slightest. Just because everyone struggles doesnât mean your struggles get any easier.â
Their nerves loosen.Â
âItâs hard. To differentiate those feelings. Whether youâre getting pleasure or happiness. Whether you want it or you think you want it. And it sucks. But life doesnât care. Everyone keeps moving, whether youâre ready for it or not.
They hear your breathing steady.
âYâknow what I do? I just ignore the bigger picture. The future. Stability is a necessity filled with struggle and work, but youâll only feel worse if you hyper focus on it. And those little things? The small joys in life that make you truly happy? Those are what lifeâs supposed to be filled with.
âI know itâs easier said than done. Everything is. But when you try to live life like that? Days get easier. Weeks go by slower. And youâll look back; grateful that you chose to go easy on yourself.â
Itâs flooded with realization.
âAnd maybe struggle is okay. Stress is okay. Even if something doesnât feel right⌠trust is important too, right?â
âŚ
They hear you sniffle. Neither of you turn to face each other.
The voice rings quietly. Only to them.
âIâm sorry, Kris.â
âŚ
Theyâll never say it, or think it, butâŚ
Yeah. I know.Â
They feel their soul flow with warmth.
Youâre wiping your eyes clean. They watch the movement out of the corner of their vision. âIâ thanks, I⌠that wasâŚâ
Your hand twitches next to theirs.
âThanks.â
Their veins fill with pride. Itâs their soulsâ.
âDamn, you pick a good one.â
âI know.â
You turn to them, eyebrows furrowed in deep confusion. âWhat?â
Crap.
You said that out loud.
Its voice rings in their mind. âYou said that out loud!â
âŚ
We both said that out loud.
âFuck.â
~~~
SOME PARTS ARE RUSHED I KNOW IM SORRY im losing my mind send help. also snuck in night in the woods ref if u catch it i love u marry me
i dont spell out nearly as many things in this as i usually do so if u were confused throughout the whole thing i get it LMAO
also before u say anything, yes reader/asriels relationship is very weird and hinting to something that some of u may not like lolol. If u catch what im saying, it was def one sided and more of an infatuation but there were some complicated feelings mixed in there. IF U DIDNT CATCH IT THEN IGNORE IT LOL
ANOTHER VERY OFF TOPIC QUESTION do u guys like when i keep it in universe? Or do u guys want me to try smt like alt au stuff and/or deviation and different setting stuff. A lot of my asks rn are in deltarune universe territory but idk if thats bc ive only really written stuff like that so no oneâs asked for anything different lol
Ok, hands down the best fic Iâve ever read in a long while. Wow. Just WOW. Itâs been so long since Iâve read a fic this well-written. I love love LOOOOVE the slow burn, LOOOOVE small things that build up over time itâs just- UGHHHH. pleaseee consider making a full on fic like this, a really good slow burn, or if thatâs not your thing Iâd be happy with the 10k one shots ngl like you just write SO GOOD. Havenât been THIS excited in a long time reading a fic, and certainly havenât had this much reaction to a fic in a long while (putting the phone down at certain times from getting embarrassed -not in a I cringed reading this way but the embarrassment the reader felt also affected me and I had to take a lap around my house and look at invisible cameras as if to say âyou read that shit too?- PLEASE continue writing!!!
~Take Me Home~
Youâre Krisâ #1 prank victim. Thereâs just something about your reaction thatâs proven to be satisfying as hell. Whether it be your screams of terror or lashes of rage; both must be some sort of appealing for them to target you as hard as they do. But you notice something. A crack in composure. And you discover exactly what you must do to get them off your back, even if itâs temporary. But you donât mind; youâre not exactly opposed to this technique.
~~~
!!! JUST A WARNING some very light blood descriptions if ur like REALLY squeamish stay clear of this bad boy (i barely get into it so dw)
ANON u are literally gonna make me sob omg literally the sweetest thing ive ever heard ur amazing ILYSM !!! :(( <33 full ch fics are def smt ive considered but i find i lose motivation rlly quick if im not in love with my plot. but ill def keep it in mind !!!
besides that, ive got a 9.8k baby for u guys !!! and this one is BAD. its the most self indulgent, corny shit ive ever made (somehow worse than my first one) but IDC IT WAS SO FUN TO WRITE. nothing but pure FLUFF. RANCID. EW. enjoy the cavities :)))
~~~
You may combust from boredom.
Alphys is outlining the next few days of work, and youâre too tired to register any of it. But you donât mind â thereâs a joy in zoning out to the teacherâs voice. Your arms are comfy, anyways; the fluff of your sweater cushions your cheek like a pillow.
She starts writing down page numbers on the board and you decide maybe you should be a good student. You reach into your desk (with your free hand, of course. Canât sacrifice the pillow) to feel for your pencil case, scooping out a sticky note. But you canât find your pencil.Â
For some reason, you think you mightâve left it deeper into your desk.Â
What a mistake that was.Â
Your hands skim the wooden surface as you shut your eyes, trying to enhance your senses. You probably look like an idiot; arm flailing awkwardly beneath you as your head continues to rest comfortably on your other.Â
Thereâs a snicker to your left. You pause.
You squint, glaring at the obvious suspect: Kris.Â
Theyâre sitting almost identically to you. Hunched over their desk, sweater pillowing their chin, bored and monotone face; nothing out of the ordinary.Â
But you canât help but feel a pang of nervousness.Â
They meet your eye, only for a second, and return to Alphys (definitely not listening, either).
Your ear catches something important. Test date, homework pages, something like that. You snap back into reality, continue your search, hand flailing like a maniac.
Then, you feel it.
Something wet.
Your hand flinches back.
âŚ
The average person would probably back off, right?
Youâre not slow, exactly. Itâs justâ your mind is much too confused to tell you to stop touching the unidentifiable moist object.
Your fingers return to it, gliding your index across the smooth surface. The substance is thicker than water, almost sticky. You apply pressure. It feels like rubber, shape morphing around your finger.
Sitting up, you pull your arm out to examine your hand. Your digits are drenched in red.
Your head goes to one place and one place alone.
Blood.
You internally panic, sent into fight or flight mode.
And for some reason, you decide to shoot your hand back into your desk, fingers finding the squishy object once again. You squeeze it like a bear trap.Â
Youâre just really hoping you donât see an organâ
Some of the fluid drips onto your pants as you yank it out.
Oh my godâ
You donât think youâve ever screamed so loud in your life.Â
Thereâs a soul in your hand. A red, human soul.
Every eye in the classroom shoots to you, assuming youâre being murdered. But you donât careâ the bloodâs drenching your arm!
âŚ
Well, every eye but two.Â
Krisâ palm shields their mouth, deliberately facing the other direction.
You immediately catch on, a pang of anger and spite fueling your very being. You wind your hand back without thinking, using all your power to chuck it at themâ
âin their general direction; your headâs a bit too cloudy to aim.
They lean back just in time (curse their perfect reflexes), rubber heart bouncing on their desk with a wet splat and landing on Cattiâs. Her eyes boredly scan the, frankly, disgusting sensory overload.
â...cool.â She snaps a picture of it.
Your confusion returns back to rage as you bolt from your chair, murderous intention painting your face.
They donât flinch. In fact, theyâre staring at you like youâre the funniest thing in the world. Which, to Kris, doesnât appear like a lot. But you can just see it in their eyes. Theyâre getting a kick out of this.
Alphys is trying to nervously deescalate the situation, but you canât exactly hear it over Susieâs cries of laughter, which have now morphed into deepthroated coughs.Â
It doesnât matter, anyways. All you can hear is ringing.
âIâm going to kill you, Kris!â
Some of your classmates are probably looking at you like youâre crazy. Or maybe they sympathize with you. Or theyâre too busy trying to identify what the hell the fake soul is made of. Youâre still trying to figure that out yourself.
The âbloodâ feels like watered down slime. Itâs nasty, thatâs all it is.Â
Ignoring Alphysâ (failed) attempts at scolding, disciplining, whatever, you take one look from your sticky palm to Krisâ clean cheek and decide yeah, thatâs a good place to wipe your hand.
Theyâre unphased, but leap elegantly to avoid your dirty fingers. It isnât until Toriel shows up â confused and horrified from the scream â that you halt your chase to scoff.
While Kris emotionlessly takes the lecture from their mother, youâre escorted to the bathroom by Noelle to clean yourself off.
Mainly to ensure you donât hunt them down yourself.Â
~*â˘*~
You have a love-hate relationship with Kris.
You met when you were younger, by proxy of being in the same elementary class. You wouldnât call them a âchildhood friendâ, maybe a âchildhood acquaintanceâ. You were never close with them like Noelle was, but youâre a bit grateful for that.Â
While they were relatively tight and eventually drifted, you were never close enough to drift to begin with. They felt like a safe constant in your life.
Felt. Past tense. Now, itâs like theyâre actively trying to torture you.
It started at movie day in third grade. Toriel had put on the most PG, friendly film to exist. Even as an eight year old, you could agree it wasnât exactly stimulating. All it took was a quick bathroom break from Toriel for everything to spiral out of control.
Snowy and Monster Kid revealed they found a scary movie DVD from one of the supply closets, insisting they put it on and skip to all the âjumpscaresâ.
You werenât exactly sure what a âjumpscareâ was, but you thought that a movie with scariness sounded fun. It wasnât.
Maybe you missed some sort of jumpscare tolerance class, but all it took was one screamer to make you nearly piss yourself. Your lungs were more burnt out than the man being murdered on screen.Â
And yeah, maybe you got some unfiltered looks from your class (who somehow werenât nearly as horrified as you). But that didnât compare to the absolute ghostly expression on Torielâs face when she barged in. Â
Even after school, when everyone was dismissed (except Kris, of course), you stayed perfectly content in the corner of the classroom. You picked at the frayed edges of the sickly lavender carpet, trying to let Torielâs comforting words embed deep into your mind. You will be fine, you wonât be tackled from behind by a chainsaw murderer. Yeah.
You were so distracted, you barely noticed the considerate, almost dreamy air Kris was giving off. You wish you couldâve warned your child-self; they were plotting.
Toriel began leading you to the front, not acknowledging the way Kris lingered at your side, just close enough to seem suspicious.Â
You donât even remember what they whispered; some corny line from the movie. âYour guts are mine,â or something. But it got you.Â
God, did it get you.
You howl â nearly replicating your earlier cry â and stumble as far away as your jello legs would allow.Â
But, hereâs the thing. Once you realized you werenât about to die a gruesome death, you didnât cry. You didnât continue screaming. You didnât keep running.Â
You were fuming.Â
You held your hands in front of you, clenching and unclenching as if trying to replicate strangling someone. You threatened Kris as efficiently as a child could; mostly with warnings such as âIâm gonna get you!â in the most serious tone you could muster.Â
Now, you understand why that was such a satisfying reaction for Kris to receive. Pranks arenât fun if the victim starts crying; thatâs a given. When the victim screams, thatâs what makes it fulfilling. The identifier for the best reaction depends on what happens after.
More screaming? Thatâs probably boring to them. Too repetitive.
Flight mode? Itâs just an end to the reaction.
Rage?
âŚ
Now, thatâs interesting.Â
And you hate that your first instinct is to unleash your frustration when youâre conned. It makes your reaction worthwhile, along with the fact that youâre definitely their easiest victim. Youâre not scared of a lot, but theyâve learned whatâll make you jump.
You, for some reason, canât ever see it coming. You always forget you should constantly be on edge to ready yourself, but Kris is so quiet that youâre only ever on edge after youâve been scared.
Others learn to expect things. You canât predict anything to save your life.
Theyâre like the âboy who cried wolfâ. Except youâre probably that one villager who kept believing them every single time despite the obvious signs that theyâre messing with you.
Youâve tried everything to make them stop. Youâve tried pranking them back, which garners you zero reaction. Youâve tried avoiding them at all cost, but they always find you anyway. Youâve tried upping your paranoia, turning every corner and expecting something. But instead, you end up wasting the entire day on edge, slowly lowering your guard as night approaches, only to be hit at the very end.
Nothing works. Theyâve never budged, not for a second.
~*â˘*~
The final bell rings, signaling the end of the day. You stretch your arms above your head, joints cracking and screaming at you to take a fat nap when you get home.
Maybe youâre slow, but everyone seems to be in a rush to leave the classroom. You donât blame them. You reach into your desk (not peeking to check for unidentifiable objects because youâre lowkey an idiot) and plop your notebook and pencil case onto the top with a sigh.Â
To your surprise, Alphys leaves the room too. She mumbles something about picking up something from Toriel but youâre still trying to wake up.
âŚ
Speaking of waking up.
Kris is knocked out on their desk. As per usual.
Actually, theyâre only usually asleep for the first half of class.
âŚyouâre not sure why you know that.
Despite who they are, youâre a good person! You wonât let them rot in this empty classroom for the night (you know Alphys is coming back but you want the good samaritan points).
Abandoning your stuff, you find yourself at the foot of their desk, bending over to whisper in their ear. âKris.â
Nothing. Their back isnât even rising and falling to signify the air they should be breathing.
Your eyebrows furrow. From the proximity, you can certainly say they⌠smell weird.
Thereâs a hint of apple, their usual scent (again, not sure why you know that). But thereâs something else. It almost smells like⌠your compost binâŚ
âŚafter a week.
It smells like rotting. They smell like theyâre rotting.
Youâre not sure why you couldnât smell it from your desk, but you smell it now.Â
âKrisâŚ?â You mutter with a bit more urgency.
No response.
Youâre not sure why, but youâre starting to panic.
âKris?â
You poke their shoulder.
They donât even stir.
âKris.â
You shake their arm, fingers digging into the green hoodie, just barely brushing their silky strands.Â
And your pinky dips into something.
Something. Wet.
You come to your senses, immediately comparing the substance to the one Kris used to scare you a few days ago. Itâs just⌠different.
Itâs not as sticky. Itâs more watery, but still thick.
You almost laugh at the comparison. If you were to compare that gooey concoction to this, youâd have slapped your past self for even beginning to believe that was blood.
No. You get it now.
This is blood.Â
Itâs staining through the arms of their sweater, you realize. Itâs pooling on the desk.
Your voice dies in your throat. But you try, anyway.
âKris?â
Your eyes scan for something, anything.
âŚ
Thatâs when you see it.
The pencil stabbed straight through the side of their neck.
You shriek like youâre dying.
Your heart pounds in your ears. The colourâs drained from your face. You push them by the shoulders until theyâre leaning back on the chair.
Alphys trips over herself, poking her head into the classroom, but you donât really register it.Â
Youâre too busy screaming at what youâre witnessing.
Their entire neck, chest, and shoulders are drenched in blood. The stains have trailed down to their arms, drying and crusting at the palms of their hands. The old green and yellow of their hoodie is ruined; now a deep, red hue.
You think you might throw up.
Theyâre nearly blue. All the colourâs been drained from their face, besides the splotches of blood thatâve crawled up from their neck onto their cheeks and forehead.Â
Your hand gravitates to their slightly ajar mouth, hovering, checking for breathing, anything.
Thereâs nothing.
âŚ
Youâre going to throw up.
Alphys is by your side in an instant. If you gazed into a mirror, you think youâd have the same expression as her.Â
You turn 180, feeling your stomach churn.Â
But then, something changes. Her mouth defaults to a small line.
âWhatâre youâ whatââ You stumble out, voice struggling to keep up with your thoughts.
She almost looks⌠suspicious.
She presses two claws to their jawlineâ no, right below it, where the neck connects. Why? Is she doing magic? That wonât change the fact that Kris isâ
â...Kris,â she raises an eyebrow, unimpressedâ
Unimpressed?
âŚ
No response.Â
What is she doing?! Wasting time?
Kris is bleeding! Dead?
What the hell do you do?!
âO-one second,â Alphys addresses you, making her way out of the classroom once again.
âWhereââ you gasp, clutching your head.
But sheâs already gone.
Where the hell is she going?!
Kris is bleeding, potentially attacked. Left on the desk for dead. No one noticed. They always lookâ it was the perfect disguiseâ
You feel the tears before you register them.
You really canât be in the same room as them, especially like this, youâre going toâ
âŚ
Thereâs two bloody hands on your shoulders, and youâre beginning to wonder if you believe in zombies.
âBoo.â
âŚ
If you thought you strained your throat from screeching before, this one absolutely ruptured your vocal cords.
You manage to tilt yourself to face the culprit, eyes most definitely as terrified as you feel.
Kris turns you the full way, a faint amused smile gracing their lips. âHey,â they capture your wrists to stop you from squirming. Youâre squirming. Shaking, even.
Then, you slow your tremble.
âŚ
Fucking hell.
Youâre livid.
Heat floods your vision as you rip a wrist from their grasp, hand opening in preparation to slap their asshole stupid faceâ
They catch it again before youâre able to make contact.
You ignore how annoyingly strong they are.
âAre you stupid? Kris, youâreââ your voice breaks, but you donât really care. You probably look like youâre sobbing right now. âYou fucking moronic idiot, oh my god Iâm going to bury you alive after I claw that dumb grin off your faceââ
Youâre rambling, just barely noticing the way their grin fades.Â
âŚ
âYouâd cry for me?â They murmur, and you almost donât catch it.
The anger almost immediately dissipates, reforming into disbelief. No, no. Thereâs still some anger left.
âIââ you sniff almost comically. âYeah?? I just saw what I thought was a dead bodyâ w-who wouldnât?â Itâs like, also definitely a trauma response!ââ
Your voice dies in your throat as you stare just a bit closer at their blue-hued face.Â
â...is that makeup?â
No response, and youâre almost sure theyâre dying (once again) from the way theyâre eyes are locked onto you. The discoloured blue of their face tints just the slightest red. It makes a deep, plum purple. Youâd laugh if the mucus in your throat wouldnât make you choke.
You forgot youâre supposed to be filled with rage.
âWhatever,â you scoff, yanking your hands once again. They release you willingly. âI hope youâveâ uhh, written your will. Because⌠Iâm going toâŚâ
Are you in some sort of spotlight? Theyâre not breaking eye contact. Youâre turning a different kind of nervous.
âBye,â you spit, shattering under the attention. You storm out all dramatically, because they better feel some sort of guilt.
Alphys stumbles into you in the hallway, Toriel following closely behind. They both gaze at you expectantly, as if already knowing what youâre about to say.
âTheyâre alive,â you roll your eyes. âUnfortunately.â
~*â˘*~
Susie trails behind Kris and their mother, trying to intently listen as Kris briefly tells the story. Theyâre both ignoring the way their motherâs dragging their red self across the school, trying to shield them from the innocent eyes of the children. Itâs not working. Susieâs nearly sobbing of hysteria, which isnât helping.
They intentionally leave out the part where you said youâd cry for them.
Susie happens to spot you at your locker as they continue to rush outside. You seem to be intensely ranting to your friends about something. They may have an idea as to what it is.
Their fake blood still covers your fingers. Itâs also apparent youâve touched your face, judging by the small stains of red that brush across your nose.
âŚ
Youâd cry for them?â
Susie shouts your name enthusiastically. You nothing but glare maddeningly.Â
She points to her own snout. âYouâve got a lilâ something.â
Your face dusts a light pink, immediately understanding what sheâs referring to. Your eyes gravitate to them, and you instantly cover your nose with one hand, flipping them off with the other.
They can tell youâve put no heart into it, though.
âKris,â their mother scolds when they unconsciously slow down to gaze at you.
Susie regains their attention. âHey, Kris.â She gestures to a group of kids, wordlessly giving instructions.
They slouch their back, giving off their best zombie impression. Then, once a few of the smaller eyes point to them, they widen their eyes as much as they can, teeth poking through their manic grin.Â
Susieâs howling syncs with the kidsâ screams. Theyâre yanked by their mother right after.
They notice the smallest smile on your face, shaking your head as if saying I canât believe I know them.
~*â˘*~
Youâre like an evil mastermind, scheming up plots in your lair.
âŚif the grocery store was your home base. Only because the air conditioning in your house broke again and itâs really hot despite it being October. And the freezers just happen to work perfectly against your overheating face.
There was something off about Kris today. Although not the most talkative person, theyâd usually grace you with some sort of response when youâd ask about their prank (because you canât help but wonder how they put some of them together).
You had a million questions. Howâd you hold your breath for that long? Did you try to make the perfect blood concoction for this? Howâd you hold the pencil in your neck for that long? You assumed it was snapped in half and glued on, but it looked seamless.
And yet, you couldnât even get an answer to your rhetorical makeup question.
âŚ
Is it because you cried?
Youâre actually not sure if theyâve ever seen you cry. Well, past age ten. Itâs probably different seeing a child sob compared to a teenager tearing up (youâre a liar, you were definitely balling silently).
They donât seem like theyâd really mind you crying, to be honest. Maybe youâre being hopeful.
Hmm.
You tap the freezer edge in thought, eyes narrowing at the crusted red substance under your fingernail.
âŚ
They did ask⌠if youâd cry for them.Â
Is that what made them uncomfortable? No, thatâs not the right word. They didnât seem uncomfortable.Â
If anything, they sounded kinda hopeful. Like they wanted you to say yes.
And you did.
And they⌠liked that answer?
âŚ
Câmon brain. You can do something with this.
Okay. Whether they liked your response or not, it doesnât matter. Whatâs important is that it did do something:
It snapped them out of prank mode. It surprised them.
Thatâs what youâve been waiting for. Something to screw with their head. Something that allows you a brief window of escape. To get back at them.Â
You need to⌠beâ
âŚweirdly intimate?
Ew.Â
âŚ
ButâŚ
It might work. It might be what you need to throw them off their game.
After all, itâs like a plan with an unstable foundation. Whatâs a pranker without a stable execution?
~*â˘*~
Youâve been extraordinarily nervous.Â
And not just because theyâve been doing more and more âdead Krisâ pranks. Lots of loose limbs around the school, fake blood splatters, and even some appearances with their knife. Toriel has not been pleased.
You half wonder if theyâre doing it to see if youâd cry again.
But, youâre proud to say youâre only startled by the initial reveal, less scared by the gore (may or may not be a good thing that youâre becoming desensitized to it).
No, all of thatâs not why youâve been a bit more on edge recently. Youâve been nervous about your stupid plan.
It sounds like itâd make sense on paper, given what evidence you now have. Donât get it wrong, you have been trying. A little extra brush of your finger on their wrist when theyâre trying to calm you down (using the term âcalm you downâ very loosely), longer eye contact (in which they do break away first), even complimenting their scares (despite actually hating them).
But, besides a slight startle or subtle confusion, it hasnât gotten them to freeze up the way you want them to.
Do you need to try harder? Be even more⌠forward?
Although somehow more alert than youâve ever been, youâre still startled just as much.Â
You part from your friends during passing period, deep in thought on the way to your locker. Now that you truly think about it, youâre not really sure what could break Krisâ motto.
Whatever. Youâre alright at improv; you suppose it mostly depends on the scenarioâ what youâre able to do in the moment.
You punch in the code on your master lock, unlatching the lock andâ
A yelp tears from your throat.
Your notebook flops to the floor.
There Kris is, bent awkwardly around your bag like a tetris piece. Their clothes are filled with small rips, tears, and dirty stainsâ
And theyâre about to plummet right onto you.
You let out an âurRGHâ as they drape themselves over your bodyâ my god are they pushing down on you? Itâs like they want you to both fall!
Your knees buckle and bend awkwardly as you try to support them by the shoulders, chests nearly pressed against each other. Their arms fall past your sides like theyâre about to give you a weird bear hug.
The stares you feel at the back of your head are real.
But itâs nothing compared to the look Kris is giving you. They seem surprised beyond belief, as if expecting youâd be so paralyzed in fear that theyâd immediately crush you. Of course, this only translates to a slight raise in their eyebrows, but you take what you can get.
Your elbows struggle to stabilize your arms â hands slipping from your grip on their sweater â only causing your faces to grow closer in proximity.
Theyâre covered in makeup again; face the familiar blue that scared you so horribly before. Except now, theyâre littered in small cuts, black blotches, and an actual chomp mark on their neck (you wonder if that was susie or makeup too).
âŚ
And your brain flickers with an idea.
Here we go.
You put on the most calm, smug expression you can manage (despite the burn pulsing through your legs).
âYâknow, if you wanted someone to bite you, you couldâve just asked.â
âŚ
You hate it as soon as it leaves your mouth.
Butâ
It works.
Youâve never seen Krisâ eyes jolt open that quickly before.Â
Out of pure embarrassment, you try to glance somewhere else, anywhere else, but they fill your entire vision. They intently watch you eye the bite mark, then themself, and they flush like theyâve been lit on fire.
You barely register them stumble out of your grips, half thankful for the relief your spine gives you. You watch them take long strides to the front doors (even though school isnât over yet), not once looking back.
âŚ
And you canât helpâŚ
âŚbut stand there in triumph.
It really worked! They completely shut down. No snicker in your face, no knowing smirk that you want to slap off, nothing!
Oh yeah.Â
Youâve got the power now.
~*â˘*~
They feel like a mindless zombie. Or an automated robot.Â
Why the hell was their first thought:
Wow. Your hands are really warm.
It didnât stop them, though. You didnât seem to suspect anything. They hope youâre not too keen on the twitches in their face. Theyâve pretty much perfected their deadpan over the years.
But youâ
They rub their moist palm against the fake bite on their neck. They found an old set of plastic vampire teeth from many Halloweens ago. It was perfect. Exaggerate it with a bit of makeup, andâ
âŚ
What would your teeth feel like against their neck?â
âŚ
Wow. That is such a creepy, stupid thought.
Theyâve been demoted to a new type of low.
Youâre just an old friendâ classmate that they know.Â
Like messing with.Â
Enjoy watching your reactions.Â
That small upturn of your lip after youâre done cussing them out; itâs just so pretty satisfying.Â
âŚ
They feel the vibration in their pocket. Itâs barely been twenty minutes; theyâre surprised their mother isnât calling sooner.
Just the thought of going back to class makes them hot. Hotter than they already are with this damn sweater in this unbearable heat.Â
~*â˘*~
Itâs been a few days. Theyâve been too cloudy-headed to think of anything new to pull on you, and they know you can tell. The small glimpses they receive in the halls nearly pull at their soul; you seem almost disappointed, as if you think you upset them.Â
Theyâre not. They just donât want to bolt mid-reaction again. Or freeze in place. Or, god forbid, say something they'll regret.
Itâs funny, ironic. Youâre so keen on pretending you hate it, and yet you seem to actively want them to continue.
Itâs lunch. Theyâre giving half-assed responses to Susie when they watch you and your friends leave ICE-E's P"e"zza, sitting on the lawn across the street.
âWanna get pizza?â They ask, interrupting her mid-sentence. They donât mean to, but they do.
She snarls enthusiastically. âDo I?â
Susie nearly drags them down the sidewalk, barging through the doors. She orders them both a pepperoni pizza slice while Kris asks for a fountain drink.
They press their thumb against a random button, watching the half-syrup, half-water stream pour down the built-in drain. A menacing smile works its way onto their lips.
Tilting their cup, they gather the syrup-half with little water. As a test, they bring it to their face to try.
âŚ
It tastes horribly concentrated.Â
Perfect.
They repeat the action with every button, gathering the syrups in their small cup. They whirl the concoction in a circle, hoping to mix it enough. They pop a lid on top, paired with a straw.
âIâll be right back,â they call to Susie.Â
She waves back dismissively with an âEHHâ, far too entranced by the pizza-making process to care.
Pushing past the door, they immediately spot you planted on the grass; your back to them. Theyâd rather your friends not be around, but they donât really mind an audience (theyâd just prefer none).Â
They debate if they should scare you, but when your friendsâ eyes lock onto them â a sly upturn on their lips â youâre already turning around.
You barely try to hide your hopefulness as you jump to your feet. âKris?â
They swear your eyes sparkle like an anime girl.
Clearing their throat, they hold the drink in front of them. âGot this for you.â
You both wince when your friends coo an exaggerated awwwhhh!
Your hand reaches out to take it, fingers brushing oh youâre still really warmâ
âWhat is it?â
Theyâre startled, once again. Youâve really managed to surprise them lately. You look like you suspect something. Which is unusual, considering you never used to suspect anything before.
They put on their best innocent smile. âSurprise.â
You gaze at the straw once, expression unreadable. They think youâre about to sip it, whenâ
âYou try it first.â
One of your friends scoff. âJust take the drink, weirdo!â
But you donât budge. Instead, your eyes turn doe-like, quirking your head just enough.Â
âPlease?â
They shutter. And immediately scold themself for it.
You mirror how they held it out for you. Except now, you seem to very intentionally caress their dorsal.
Theyâre nearly boiling. From what? They canât tell anymore.Â
Distracting themselves, they donât hesitate to bring the straw to their lips. You intently watch the liquid travel up the straw, pleased when it appears to touch their tongue.
And it does. And itâs one of the worst things theyâve ever tasted.
Itâs pure sticky flavour. No carbonation, just a concentrated mash of the drinks they definitely shouldâve identified before mixing in.
But they ensure thereâs zero reaction on their face.
And you believe it. They can tell.Â
âOkay,â you chirp, snatching the drink back. âThanks, Kris.â
And you sip.
Oh, so very trustingly.Â
They can feel the thrill pulse through their soul as your face scrunches disgustedly.Â
âEugh!â You cry, sticking your tongue out to spit whatever you can on the grass. They intentionally begin walking away, taking note of your friends whoâve begun laughing hysterically.
You groan from afar. âKris!âÂ
They hear your footsteps approaching, speeding up to make more distance. You catch up. They let you.
Thereâs a hand on their shoulder, ushering them to face you. You⌠seem more amused, if anything.
âHow the hellâd you not react to whatever this is?â The cup collides with their chest. âDrink it again!â
They nearly gawk at you. âYou want me to drink it again?â
âYes! Or did you just pretend to drink it?â
âNope. Actually did it.â
âThen do it again!â
Although more than pleased to follow your very demanding command, you rip the drink away as they try to take it from you. âActually, I donât want you dumping it on me or somethingââ
Theyâd never do that to youâ
ââjust let me do it.â
âŚ
âŚdo what?
You lift the cup, pinching the straw between your fingers. Andâ
Their heart flutters.Â
Youâre holding the straw close enough to their lips that they could latch on whenever they wanted. Your confidence vanishes instantly, replaced by your shy flush.
Theyâre probably wearing the most dopey grin as they sip from the straw. Their bottom lip nearly touches your fingerâ
God damn, get your shit together.
Maybe itâs the added distraction of your reactions, but they can barely taste it. Yeah, itâs still nasty, but theyâre too busy watching your eyes dilate.Â
Youâre not even hiding how closely youâre watching their mouth.
âOkay, thatâs enoughââ you stutter, bringing the straw to your own lips. Theyâre not sure why youâre trying it again, but theyâre not opposed to following the movement of your lips.
Your face cringes once again. âMy god, thatâs rancid. Howâd you even make it?â
They snap out of their daze. Right. Youâre talking to them.
âFountain drinks,â they mutter like theyâve just learned to talk.
ââDrinksâ?â
They only grasp the drink to smoothly remove the lid. âAll of them.â
You sneer, narrowing your eyes at the brownish mixture. âIâve mixed them all before. It does not taste like that. Nor does it look that⌠uh⌠brown.â
There's a click in their head, as if realizing something crucial. âOh yeah. Itâs just the syrups.â
âThe syrups? Youâre a psycho!â
You laugh like a songbird. All they can say is itâs definitely luring them in.
âWhat about my tongue?â You question. And before they can mentally prepare themself, theyâre watching you stick out your tongue casually. âWhat colour is it?â
âBrown,â they squeak.
âOh yeah? What about yours?â On command, their own tongue slithers from their mouth. Youâre tapping your chin thoughtfully. âMhm, definitely brown. Thanks, Kris. Now everyoneâs gonna think Iâve been eating dirt. Or shit. But Iâd rather not think about that option.â
Theyâre about to laugh, but something catches their eye.
Thereâs a flash that goes off behind you, and they just barely spot one of your friends being scolded by the rest of them. Once they all notice theyâre watching, they start giggling like madmen.
You knowingly sigh, which is enough of an apology in itself. âTheyâre idiots. Donât worry. Iâm gonna kill them.â
You say it endearingly. Itâs like a calmer, more loving version of what you usually scream while chasing them. They want this version instead.
Then turn when you do, both returning to your respective friends. Theyâre too busy letting their brain spiral to notice your halting footsteps, only for them to get closer and closerâ
They feel your arms wrap around their shouldersâ
âThanks again for the drink, Krissy,â you laugh, shaking the cup in front of their face as if they forgot.
âŚ
They did not forget.
They will never forget.
Theyâre suddenly very dizzy.
Youâre gone as soon as you come, already cussing out your friends across the street.
âŚ
They have to lean into the door to open it because of how jello-filled their arms are.
âKris?â Susie spots them almost immediately. Sheâs sitting in front of two paper plates; both of which are empty. Thereâs half a slice in her claws. They raise an eyebrow.
âHey man, you were taking too long, honestly thought you ditched. Couldnât have a perfectly good slice go to wasteâ hey, whereâs your drink?â
They donât grace her with a response. Mostly because they donât trust their voice not to break halfway through.
~*â˘*~
If you realized how easy Kris was to fluster, youâd have done this years ago. Literally. Turns out theyâre relatively tolerant to everything except direct words.Â
So youâve turned off your filter and absolutely let loose. It doesnât matter how embarrassed or hot you are afterwards; Kris is always more flabbergasted. And itâs the most satisfying thing to ever see.
It also helps that the more you do it, the more confident you become. Actually, that may be a bad thing. You try not to think about it too hard.
Itâs been multiple days of this strange back-and-forth thing youâve got going on. But you donât mind. In fact, you really look forward to it.
Their pranks have actually drifted from scary to more annoying, if anything. But you still scream when they startle you; react when they taunt you. You can tell theyâre enjoying the change, too.
You donât register the hand caressing your head until your eyes peep open. It immediately returns to the ownerâ Krisâ side when they see youâre awake.
The classroomâs empty. Even Alphys is gone. You donât like how this is going.
As if sensing your question, they smile. A bit too friendly. âTold Alphys I could wake you up.â
You lean back and yawn. âWas I asleep?â
âSnoring and everything.â
âShut up, Dreemurr,â you snicker, punching their hip. Theyâre taking it awfully well.
You try to read their face, but that never goes anywhere anyways. Even their eyes (which you donât think youâve ever watched so intently before) are thoughtless.
âŚ
âWhat did you do now?â
If they were more expressive, theyâd have gasped and clutched a hand to their chest. But itâs Kris, so they just tilt their head; their small smile growing subtly. âAm I always up to something?â
âUh, yeah. Donât play innocent.â
âI am innocent.â
âNo, youâre not.â
You immediately start rummaging through your notebook, pencil case, desk, pockets, hair, everything. Did they plant a bomb in your shoes, or something? (Maybe âor somethingâ)
Once you detect thereâs nothing on you, you start scanning them. Thereâs nothing particularly unusual about them, butâŚ
Theyâre hiding their hands in their pockets. Not exactly atypical, but still suspicious!
Youâre yanking them by their wrists, revealing theirâ
âAha!â You cry in victory. âWhatâs this, then?â
You gesture to the splotches of red that lightly sprinkle across their hands, almost reminiscent of their fake blood. Itâs too bright to be that, though. Itâs like an obnoxiously bright red.
âArt class,â they answer effortlessly.
âIââ you utter. âOh.â
Youâre not entirely sure why you trust them, but you half shrug it off, half accept your fate as you leave the classroom with them. But then they split from you, leaving to find Susie as you continue down the hallway.
Thatâs when you notice somethingâs off.Â
Youâre getting the oddest stares. Some laughs. Youâre honestly offended, assuming they're making fun of your face. Youâre beautiful, thank you very much.
Your friends already have their bags, waiting patiently at your locker. Once one of them notices you, they gawk.
âWhat?â You spit, a bit fed up with the attention.Â
Another faces you, eyes widening comically. âThe fuck? What happened to you?â
âWhat do you mean? Nothing happened!â
One of them pulls out a phone, immediately flipping the camera for you to seeâ
Your mouth falls open.
No fucking way.
Youâd say your face flushed red with anger if you werenât already painted like a tomato.
Your cheeks, eyelids, nose, lips, ears, everywhere is just red, red, redâ
And, of course, you somehow fell for it again!
âKris?!â
Your battle cry echoes across the halls, garnering you more stares than you already have. But you donât care; youâre about to strangle a human, for heavenâs sake! Thatâll give you some real attention.
Youâve apparently gained x-ray vision from the way you directly spot both Kris and Susie. When she finds where the scream came from, she instantly breaks down into tears. You donât really blame her; you probably look like anger from Inside Out from how creased your forehead is.
Then, your target narrows onto you. You can just see the gears turning in their head.Â
âŚ
Youâre at a standstill.
Then, as per usual, they make the first move.
They bolt in the other direction.
âNo!â You yelp, revenge actively being torn from your grasp.
You weave in and out between students; through large groups with no courtesy in mind. You get stuck behind slow walkers (because youâre not mean enough to shove past them, even if you really want to) while they escape through the side door. You eventually follow ensuite.
Theyâre halfway down the street. Damn.
Mustering all your energy gained from adrenaline, you sprint like youâve never sprinted before. You donât even think youâd run from a murderer this quickly.
You close the distance with little effort, tackling them from behind. They let out an exhausted huff of amusement.
âYou think this is funny, huh?â Despite your words, youâre nearly grinning like a maniac. âIâll show you something funny!â
Your palm aggressively collects whatever facepaint you can from your cheek and smears it satisfyingly onto your victim. Their face squishes like putty beneath your hand.
After continuously laughing like a maniac, youâve decided this isnât efficient enough. You thread your hands through their fluffy hair (trying not to think about how nice this feelsâ think about your rage!). Their throat lets out a mini groan and your stomach fluttersâ
Shake the thought!
You (reminder: without thinking) bring your faces abnormally close and start rubbing your cheek against their own like a deranged and affectionate cat.
You really hope it isnât obvious how warm your cheeks are.
Oh, wait.Â
Thatâs exactly what theyâre currently feeling, idiot!
You stumble away; the redness of your face is probably filling in the blank spots youâve just created. Trying to maintain any semblance of confidence you have left, you point at them accusingly.
âT-Thatâs what you get!â You yelp, voice breaking. But it doesnât matter; you can tell theyâre not listening anyways.
âŚ
Youâre already too far gone. Who cares?
You swipe your (very shaky) thumb against your still-very-painted cheek, gathering more facepaint.Â
You rub the pad of your finger on their nose.
Then, you plant the tip right on the corner of their mouth and glide it upwards, mirroring it on both sides. Their lip quivers.Â
Sliding your phone from your pocket (ignoring the prints of red that stain your screen), you take a picture of their, frankly hilarious, expression. Their mouthâs morphed into a squiggle.
âThere,â you tilt your phone to show them the clown-like markings. âNow we match. In idiocy, I mean.â
They break their frozen state to laugh. Silently, but itâs there.
Youâre tempted to record it. Just because it sounds really nice.
~*â˘*~
Itâs quiet outside. The night is still. Midnight, to be exact.Â
Youâre not even sure why youâre up so late. Youâve been photoshopping you and your friendsâ faces onto random stock photos. For some reason (might be your sleep depravity), you find it hilarious.
Youâre in the middle of a gut-wrenching laugh â one of those laughs that's made funnier because youâre supposed to be quiet â and rolling around on your bed when your phone buzzes.Â
Itâs a contact-specific ringtone you set as a joke a few years ago; your friends recorded you telling Kris you were going to shave them bald. You donât remember the context. Probably good you donât.
At some point, your friends â unbeknownst to you â switched Krisâ notification sound for your voice. You barely noticed because of how little you text them, and when you eventually did notice, you were too lazy to change it.
If anything, it just makes you laugh harder.
Retrieving your phone, you open your chats to be bombarded with old texts of you cussing them out, usually after getting pranked. Mostly because you couldnât catch them after the crime.
Although they very rarely responded with more than a thumbs up or something ignorant like a plain âwhatâ, you could just feel their grin behind the screen.
You scroll to the most recent text. Itâs actually not a text. Itâs a photo.
A photo of a very familiar DVD.Â
You shiver and immediately judge yourself for it. The chainsaw man was responsible for most of your childhood fears and your very first memorable nightmare. Yeah. But youâre a teenager. Why the hell are you still scared of it?
Following the picture is a text. It doesnât even have words.
Itâs just:
???
âŚ
Youâre not sure how youâve learned to interpret vague texts like this, but this is very obviously asking if you want to relive your greatest fear for funzies. With them, of course.
Youâre delirious from your lack of sleep, but you still manage to scoff dramatically, even without an audience.
âLike hell Iâd ever do that,â you whisper to yourself.
You sprawl back onto your bed, shutting your laptop mid-face-transplant.Â
Theyâre probably luring you, anyway. Itâs definitely an excuse to get you in some sort of trap. Their home is free-territory; theyâve probably been setting up some intricate prank for hours.Â
âŚ
Itâs not like theyâd actually want to watch a movie with youâŚ
Haha.
âŚ
Youâre dialing their number before you can stop yourself.
They pick up after two rings, but they donât say anything. Theyâre not usually the one to initiate.
âNo fibbing?â You almost whimper, slight fear bleeding through your tone.
Maybe they hear it. Your nervousness.
Thereâs silence. Then: âNothing.â
âOkay.â You hang up.
Youâre opening your window, logical senses long gone.
Itâs second nature to you by this point. You slide off your roof effortlessly, landing semi-gracefully on your houseâs trash bins. Theyâre closed, thankfully. Youâd rather not smell like garbage.
Youâre not sure why you care. Itâs Kris.
âŚ
Somehow, that fact changes everything.
The streets are dark, empty, dead. Thereâs not a single person in sight. The houses appear inhabited because of the lack of light shining through the windows. Itâs honestly a bit nerve-wracking (wow. How surprising; youâre scared of something).
You unconsciously lead yourself to their house, letting out a breath you didnât know you were holding. Thereâs only the dimmest shine in their living room window. Besides that, itâs identical to every other house.
Youâve been over before, only by proxy of knowing them for the better chunk of your life. Itâs mostly been for dumb projects or something school related. Nothing ever because of the strength of your friendship bond.
Even so, this doesnât feel as unnatural as it probably should.
As your knuckles hover at the door, you think twice. Instead, you fish your phone and send them a text.
hey
You hear the faintest footsteps approach the door. Thereâs the click of the lock, andâ
âHey,â you repeat, drunk on tiredness.
They leave the door ajar, just enough for you to squeeze inside. You notice a distinct lack of Toriel and your mouth glues shut. Youâd rather not jinx anything (you freak).
âI was rummaging. Found it in an old box,â they mutter, answering the question lingering in your mind.
âAnd you thought Iâd be overjoyed to watch it?â
They take a seat on their couch, slyly gesturing for you to join them. âYouâre here, arenât you?â
You shrug. âItâs for nostalgia. Nothing more.â
âNostalgia,â they echo. They look at you like they donât believe you.
It barely takes a minute for you both to get comfortable under a blanket, just far enough to pretend itâs a casual hangout. Thereâs a bowl of popcorn resting between you two â something you deemed was a bad idea while Kris brushed you off wordlessly.
Despite having watched it before, youâre still startled by every little sound. You want to blame it on the fact that itâs been nearly a decade and you donât really remember the jumpscare spots, but you know damn well youâd still recoil.
You have decent self control; you know itâs late and you hold in most of your screams. Although, some really get you. You mightâve screamed at the top of your lungs. And Kris mightâve slapped their palm over your mouth, eyes popped open from nervousness, gesturing to the room upstairs that their mother might be sleeping in.
They pause the movie, listening for any signs of movement upstairs. When you hear nothing, you canât help but giggle.Â
Thereâs times where you jump, spilling half the popcorn on Krisâ lap. Neither of you seem to mind that much. Besides, youâre not opposed to lap popcorn. You do take note of how their face always tilts away from you when your hand brushes their leg.
Everytime you feel their hand get just a bit too close to your neck, or their head angles itself just enough to whisper in your ear, your newly built-in scare detector sends screaming alarms throughout your mind.
âŚand all it takes is a little scooch closer to make them stiffen and lean away. Youâre proud of how resourceful youâve become.
But, as the movie comes to a close, youâve found yourselfâŚ
âŚthoroughly disappointed with the plot. Itâs actually a really boring, generic recreation of every other horror movie out there.
Damn. Younger you couldnât have chosen a good horror movie to be scared of?
âThatâs how it ends? Nothing even happened. The girl escaped. The chainsaw dude got away. No one relevant even died,â you slur, on the verge of passing out from exhaustion.
âYeah, itâs⌠painfully average.â
âPainfully overstuffed with cheap jumpscares.â
They toss the blanket off your legs, setting the empty bowl aside. âYou flinched at every single one.â
âI said they were cheap. Notâ unflinchworthy.â
You stare at the glow of your phone. Two thirty.
âDamn,â you rub your eyes. âGotta get back before my parents wake up. Theyâre, like, early early birds.â
Maybe it's the hesitance in your step â although definitely tainted by fatigue â but they stare at you like youâre some vulnerable drunk in a dangerous city.
They come to some conclusion in their head.
âIâll walk you home.â
Youâre too tired to oppose.
~*â˘*~
You keep zoning out. Youâre heading to your house, and yet theyâre the one directing. Youâre not sure why theyâre soâ not tired. Energetic was the wrong word.
The loudest noises are your steps. Little rustles in the trees make you quiver. Turns out youâre still on edge. Get it together.
Your hand brushes theirs every other step.
Itâs an animal this time. You straight up shove yourself into them. They silently steady you with a hand on your shoulder. It grounds you.Â
You like the contact. Maybe a bit too much.
Theyâre firmly staring ahead, almost lost in thought.
Then, their hand smoothly slips into yours.
âŚ
Youâre so glad youâre delirious. You mightâve erupted on the spot if you were conscious enough.
They donât expect it â you can tell from the way their hand freezes â but you squeeze.
âŚ
After a moment, they squeeze back.
~*â˘*~
For some reason, they insisted on walking you straight to your bed.
Theyâ theyâre on the roof. With you.
You actually forget for a second, taking a deep breath in your stuffy room, flinching hard when they tap on the glass of your window. You donât remember closing it.
Theyâre grinning, you realize. You start fuming. Because they definitely meant to scare you, youâre preparing to cuss them out again. You press their contact, letting it ring for a second.
âŚ
They decline it. In your face.
Youâre about to swing the window open when you get a buzz.
âŚ
Thereâs two messages. Both from them. Of course.
One is a picture of you scared shitless, blanket pulled to your face. Theyâre in it, but half cropped out. You can make out their obvious amusement.
Itâs followed up with a single word:
blackmail
~*â˘*~
Itâs hot. Itâs been hot. All you do is complain to your friends about how hot it is.
A nice thing about being in a small town is that the complaints of a few random people actually mean something. Apparently the school acknowledged the spike in temperature over the past few days, preparing an âexciting after school activityâ as compensation.
Water balloons. Itâs water balloons.
But youâre not allowed to fill them yourselves. The teachers are the only ones permitted to use the hose.
Oh, and youâre not allowed to throw them. That was deemed too dangerous by none other than Toriel. What youâre supposed to do is pop them by ripping them apart with your hands. Or stab them with claws, if you have them. No biting (a weird specification, but you suppose it may happen). And you can only pop them on yourself. Like, awkwardly hold it above your head. You can pop them over other people, but you need âpermissionâ.
Youâre not surprised. Just a bit disappointed.
Thereâs some students (Susie) who immediately disregarded said rule.Â
Which one? All of them.Â
She chucked one at Berdly so aggressively that he toppled onto the pavement (it didnât even pop; just ricocheted like a bouncy ball). She stole the hose, set it on jet mode, and aimed the nozzle at Kris like a laser. She also mightâve eaten one, youâre not sure.
Youâll have to thank her for getting all the teachers off your collective backs. Theyâve all been hovering like eagles, ensuring youâre not splashing a single drop onto anyone else.
âGod, itâs so hot. And this oneâs not even popping,â you groan, piercing your nails into the rubber repeatedly. You were going to burst it on your head, but nothingâs working.
Youâre drenched in your own sweat, your skin feels like itâs blistering, youâreâ
âOoh, incoming,â your friend nudges you in the most obvious, indiscreet way.
You can already tell how thisâll go.
Tossing your garbage balloon to the grass (still doesnât pop), you face the culprit of your friendsâ attention.
âKris,â you greet civilly. âYouâ oh.â
Youâre rendered speechless as you notice the giant ass water balloon casually resting in their arms. Itâs almost the size of their head.
Youâre automatically confused. You never saw them have it pumped up, nor do you think Toriel wouldâve allowed one this big to be made, let alone for someone like Kris.
âHeard you were hot,â they lift the balloon, just barely. âGot this one for you.â
âŚ
Oh no.
Nuh uh.
Your senses have been heightened by the heat (somehow).
You see right through them for the first time in your life.
âNo,â you voice sternly, slowly backing away like prey.
But they donât stop. In fact, theyâre advancing.
âNo!â
You bolt.
Their fast footsteps behind you makes your blood rush, adrenaline pumping like never before.
The students are easy to navigate through, thankfully.
But that means thereâs no obstacles for them to get caught on.
âKris, I swear!ââ
Eyes glue onto you as you run for your life. Except you find out youâre not good at running for your life. Youâve run in a straight line.
You spot the police tape blocking off the rest of the road. Panicked, with no other ideas, you dip into the plumage of the forest.
They follow, no hesitation.
âI was joking! Itâs actually really nice outâ I donât wanna get wet!ââ
You continue to run despite the trickles of sweat gushing down your back. And youâre a liar! Have you felt how hot it is?!Â
And all this running isnât helping!
You catch the odd branch on your leg, nearly faceplant a few leaves, but you remain unwavering. You will not be caughtâ
Okay. You know you canât outrun them.
Need a plan. Now.Â
Uhh⌠ohâ
What if�
âŚ
Theyâre gaining on you. Quick.Â
Thereâs a small clearing up ahead.Â
Perfect.
You skid your foot in the dirt, slowing down. You pivot just in time to catch the raise in their eyebrows; they werenât expecting it.
You nearly collide, but they stumble before you touch. Theyâve shifted to hold the balloon in their right hand, despite it consuming their palm.
Stabling yourself, you use one hand to capture their free arm by the bicep. You snake your fingers around the wrist of their balloon-filled fist. Angling it towards the sky, you try to push it as far away from you as possible.
Youâd snort at their rosy cheeks if you werenât just as red. Youâre very close. You can feel their exhale on your nose.
âHaha!â You cheer breathlessly, ignoring the obvious standstill youâve put yourself in. This is victory in your eyes.
As if in mockery, they nearly rip their bicep from your grasp, clutching the same wrist to mimic.
Youâre both panting like dogs, although theyâre arguably much more graceful. Small, nervous giggles escape your lips every time you feel them tense. They keep fighting back, pushing against your grip to tilt the balloon over your head.
And every time, you thrust back with all your might.
Itâs held ominously above your heads, moreso over Krisâ than your own. You see the gears turning. Slowly. Calculated. Their hand strains in preparation.
You gasp. âDo not pop it.â
Theyâre trying to remain their usual neutral monotone, but theyâre wheezing out little laughs between their deep breaths.
âItâll cool you down,â they offer ominously.
âPlease. I donât wanna cool down.â
âYou know you do.â
Your grip tightens. âW-what about you? Youâll definitely get hit in the crossfire,â you gesture to the looming rubber above you.
Their smile is reminiscent of a supervillain. âA small casualty.â
Their balloon-filled fingers twitch as a threat. You start to panic.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
âŚ
And then it hits you.
An idea.
What all your training has come to.
The past few weeks of experience interpreted â knowledge gained.Â
How to make them stop.
You know what you must do.
âŚ
This is⌠by farâŚ
âŚthe dumbest idea youâve ever had.
Theyâre trying to read you. You can feel it. Their brows furrow in confusion.
Then, you glance at their lips. A small, innocent glance.
And youâre pressing your lips to theirs before you can think twice.
âŚ
Youâre tense, at first. But you ease into it.Â
Their lips are soft. A bit chapped, but you donât mind. They⌠taste like pie. Youâre smiling into the kiss involuntarily.
Kris, however?Â
Theyâve stiffened into a brick wall.Â
Oh, and theyâre squeezing your wrist so hard you might lose a finger.
âŚ
And you realize youâve made the biggest mistake of your life.
They squeeze their other hand just as hard, crushing the delicate balloon with ease. The⌠insides splat onto the both of you, painting every crevice and every strand of hair.
You squint through your eyelids, examining yourself. Youâre covered in⌠slime.
You will admit, it is kinda cooling.
âThe hell?â You heave. âYou were gonna slime me?â
Kris makes no move. Theyâre reminiscent of your red-painted face.
You sigh, disconnecting the two of you. Their grip turns to sand, allowing you to slip away with ease. Their hair is sagging from the weight of the slime, and you donât doubt you look the exact same.
âKris?â You tap their cheek.
They clear their throat. âY-youâŚâ
You feel a heat bloom across your face. âDonât!â Just⌠I thought youâd go slack. Yâknow, drop the thing. On the ground. It felt like a good idea, at the timeââ
When they donât respond, youâre absolutely sure youâve ruined your relationship. Well, regretâs not too far from embarrassmentâ
âDo it again.â
You pause.
âW-What?â
âIâll do it right this time.â
Youâre grinning despite your confusion. âYouâ youâre not even holding anything to drop.â
They squeeze some slime from their hair, collecting it in their palm.
You deadpan. âItâs not threatening if Iâm already covered in itââ
They smush the glob onto your cheek. Your lips seal shut on instinct.
âEugh! That almost got in my mouth, idiotââ
They repeat the hair squeeze, and you realize youâre not about to battle this out with slime.
âFineââ you grunt, lunging forward to wipe a glob from their cheek, getting as clean of a surface as possible. Youâre sure youâve already ingested some of it, so youâre not that worried.
You peck their cheek, cupping the much slimier other. The goo makes your lips sticky, but you try to ignore it.Â
They freeze at first, but they recover quicker.Â
âŚ
You lean back, ignoring the way your heart flutters.
Theyâve got the dopiest smile on their face.
âPfftââ
You can't help but pull out your phone (now slimified), snapping a picture before they can stop you. Their grin drops, shock ever-present.
You show the photo just in time to see the life drain from their eyes.Â
âBlackmail.â
~~~
...i told u this was corny. AND U DIDNT LISTEN. this was literally just an excuse for me to put them in the dumbest romance trope ahh type scenarios. there is ZERO and i repeat ZERO real plot. HOPEFULLY it didnt drag on for too long but i hope u enjoyed this mess !!!
also not sure if i explained it well but yknow how some of the actual fountain drink machines contain the syrups and the water (instead of a pre mixed drink)? and the nozzle is split like half syrup, half water (idk how it actually works its smt like this tho). WELL if u didnt know, u can actually put ur cup half under the nozzle (if that makes sense) and mostly only get the syrup (and it tastes like concentrated ass dont do it)
i couldnt get an exact pic but this one has the brown only in the middle bc thats where the syrup comes in, while the rest is the carb water OK IM DONE BYE LMAOO
need...more...kris...maybe haha only if u want to haha lol
~The Other Side Of Paradise~
Curiosity is natural in everyone. For you, itâs cranked up to a thousand (and itâs frankly hard to keep up with). When you find yourself infatuated with the song of a certain piano player, you hide your curiosity decently well, but itâs eating you up inside. Little do you know, an odd compliment you give Kris causes them to spiral into confusion. Someone understands their emo ass? Who knew it was possible!
~~~
hellooo !!! anon i ALWAYS need more kris dont u worry. this one's a bit shorter than my last, a measly 8.8k words eyeroll (def need to preface this is a joke). this one's more chill and a bit angsty but i tried to steer MOSTLY clear of that, wanted to keep this lighthearted :) kris is def the bigger simp of the two in this one so if ur into that here u go. enjoy !!!
~~~
Studying alone with Noelle is what youâd consider a luxury these days.Â
Every time you suggest something even remotely close to an after-school meetup, Berdly always weasels his way into the conversation. Whether it be by force or by Noelleâs kindness, heâs always invited.Â
But you lucked out today; he had told you two, with absolute devastation, that heâd be busy volunteering at the library. You could just tell Noelle was about to suggest you both study there and wait for him to be done, but you quickly shut down the theoretical idea with an oh, how disappointing! Weâll miss you.
Eventually she had suggested her house as your home base, and itâs not that you were excited to go to her mansion, but you were excited to go to her mansion. She told you she doesnât have people over as often anymore. It made you sympathetic because her outstanding hostess skills are being wasted.Â
The mini-tour? The snack platter? The Christmas cheer? It was definitely your (and maybe an eight year oldâs) dream hangout.Â
Youâre now planted on the couch in her room (couch? In her room?) while she sits on her bed, leaning on the wall to face you.Â
âWhatâd you get for 6c?â You ask, barely peeking over the notebook situated in your lap.
âUhm,â she pauses, skimming her answers. â78.2 Newtons?â
âAfter sig figs?â
âYeah.â
âPerfect,â you sigh, rubbing your eyes.
Youâve been matching answers relatively well, with the exception of a few. Itâs always just a small mistake, like punching the numbers into your calculator wrong or not copying the question info correctly.Â
Deciding you deserve a break, you let your eyes wander. At first, you didnât want to out of respect. You and Noelle also wanted to stay synced up with your pace to make it easier to compare. After an hour, you noticed that not only would Noelle be quietly (and patiently) waiting for you to finish, but youâd also feel pressured to be quicker and youâd make more mistakes. It wasnât worth it, so you told her to continue onto the next one and youâd catch up eventually.
You did not. Youâre not dumb, but sheâs definitely smart.
You like her; sheâs simple. Easy.
But now you just feel bad; you might as well be using her as an answer sheet.
Anyways, back on track. Thereâs something that stands out on her desk; a lone rock, stained with the pigment from dried algae. She doesnât necessarily stand out as a neat freak, but it still confuses you why something so outside is very inside her room.Â
âWhereâd you get that?â You gesture to the stone, curiosity getting the better of you.
Her eyes follow your finger. âOh, the rock? Itâs just somethingâ a friend got me.â
Youâre feeling nosey.Â
âWho?â
Thereâs a wavering, almost hesitant smile that grows on her face. âSusie.â
Susie⌠oh. Susie.
âThe purple one?â
âYeah, thatâs her,â Noelle continues, despite not being prompted to. âShe just⌠randomly came up to me at school and had it in her hand. Apparently, she found it at the beach with Kris and thought Iâd like it, for some reason. Then, she proceeded to tell me she was going to throw it through my window to give it to me, but knew my mom would kill her for it. Which is weird, because Iâm pretty sure she doesnât care what my mom thinks.â
âShe âthought youâd like it, for some reasonâ? But you obviously liked it enough to keep it,â you tease.
âWell, of course I kept it! But not because Iâ like rocks.â Her voice decreases to a murmur. âItâs because she gave it to meâŚâ
You shake your head like a disappointed mother.
âIâm also pretty sure it was a joke. She laughed, like, right after.â
âOh, wow,â you scoff jokingly. Her eyes widen, as if sensing what youâre about to say next. âI hate to break it to you. Youâre down badââ
Her smile explodes into an insane-looking grin.
âOkaywhatdidyougetfor6d?!â
âNoelle. Youâre probably on 12. At least.â
âA-and? Maybe I want to check my earlier answers!â
âItâs also bold of you to assume Iâve even started d.â
She laughs, somehow willing away the rosy hue on her cheeks. Sheâs about to retort when youâre both interrupted by a knock on the door.
A knock? Her doorbell song is literally a Christmas jingle. Itâs almost offensive that the unexpected visitor has chosen to ignore the doorbell.Â
She scooches off her covers. âIâll get it!â
Youâre about to question why thereâd be a possibility where youâd get the door, considering you donât live here, but sheâs already headed downstairs.
Her little click clacks from her hooves sound like heels. For some reason, it puts a smile on your face.Â
You pretend to continue onto 6d while trying to eavesdrop. The front door opens, and you just make out the mumble of a name. You canât actually tell what it was, though. Someone responds quickly and efficiently. Hm.
Noelleâs mom is far too commanding and, frankly, scary to have a voice so soft. You think youâd feel that iconic chill circle through the house, even if youâre on the second floor. You know Asgore occasionally helps out the mayor around the house, but heâs just⌠very loud. You know his friendly presence would cut through the walls.Â
This must be someone you donât know.
Noelle sounds hesitant, almost confused as she shuts the front door. But she sounds affirming, and something else opens and closes; it feels like it resonates in a different part of the house. Or maybe youâre hearing things.
The deer returns with a smile ever-present, but she notably closes her bedroom door behind her despite you being home alone. You grow skeptical.
âEverything alright?â
She hops back onto the bed, adjusting to get comfortable. âYeahâ itâs fine.â
You doodle a star in the corner of your page, waiting. Her lack of elaboration makes you raise an eyebrow.
âWho was it?â You pry.
âNo one. I mean, it was someone, but they were just asking to⌠use something.â
Huh. Sheâs being awfully secretive about this.
âOkay,â you hum, hiding your interest.
You both fall back into your wordless rhythm of work, blurting out answers every few minutes or so. Eventually, the regret of chugging those water bottles Noelle gave you begins to surface.
âCan I use your washroom?â
âYeah, itâs the door at the end of the hall.â
Your notebook becomes forgotten as you rise, stretching out your limbs for a much-needed break. Instinctually, you shut her door behind you.
The washroom trip was pretty uneventful, believe it or not. But, as you freeze at the top of the steps, your eyes gravitate to the snacks. Theyâre technically for you, right?
Tip-toeing downstairs, you round the couch and pop a cracker in your mouth. Maybe youâre starving, but this tastes ten times better than it did the first time.Â
Thatâs when you hear it.
Thereâs⌠music.Â
Someoneâs playing that huge piano in Noelleâs dining room.
For some reason, your mind immediately thinks ghost. This house is haunted.
But honestly, you wouldnât mind.
You feel lured to the kitchen door like a sailor to a sirenâs call. Pressing your ear against the wood, you listen.
Youâve always loved piano. It was one of those hobbies you picked up when you were, like, six, and eventually pushed away from as you got older. Thereâs something so elegant about the sounds, the hand movements, the player. Youâve never seen someone play and not look like theyâre being shined upon by angels.
This player, however, feels different. They seem confident despite the occasional pause or wrong note. They donât get upset when they mess up, from what you can make out. They just keep playing.
Like theyâre too engrossed to care.
Like this is more than music to them.
âŚ
You need to stop analyzing random strangers.
Noelleâs definitely wondering if you died on the toilet. You should probably head back.
She doesnât seem to suspect anything (not that you have anything to hide). You find her notebook sitting next to yours. She opens her mouth before you can question it.Â
âI just finished the last question; if you wanted to look over my answers for me, check over any mistakes, thatâd be great.â
You nod. You feel a bit hazy, for some reason.
âAre you alright? You, um, took a long time to get back.â
âYeah, Iâm, uhâŚâ you trail off. âWhatâre you gonna work on?â
Sheâs already sifting through the files on her laptop. âIâve got this group project in another class that I can start. Donât worry, Iâll find something to do! Take your time.â
You plant yourself closer to the armrest. Only a minute or so passes until youâre fiddling with your pages, continuously skimming over the same problem over and over. Your legâs bouncing, youâve switched positions about three times, youâ
âWhoâs playing piano?â You find yourself blurting out.
âWho?ââ She laughs nervously. âW-what do you mean?â
âI dunno,â you shrug despite being completely certain of yourself. âThought I heard someone.â
Youâre not exactly sure why sheâs lying.
She gasps in faux realization. âOhh! Yeahhh⌠haha. Thatâ thatâs Kris. Sometimes they just kinda⌠show up. And ask to play the piano. Iâ I usually wait for them to finish. Like, I wonât leave them down there aloneâ well, I do, but only because they donâtââ
âIâm not interrogating you, Noelle. Iâm just wondering,â you giggle.
Noelle sighs in⌠relief. Her stress is stressing you out.
âYeah, hehe. Sorry.â
You glance at the door. âIs that, uh, normal?â
She nods with an mhm, as if mooching off someone for their piano is normal.
âBut do you, like⌠hang out? I donât get it. Are they just here to play?â
âI mean, we used to. Weâd play when we were younger. But then theyâd see the piano, and kinda naturally drift to it. So Iâd just listen to them play. From the other roomââ
ââOther roomâ?â
âYeah,â she chuckles sheepishly. She doesnât continue, so you donât pry (despite really wanting to).
More time passes. Youâre dying. Why? You have no clue. It takes ten minutes for you to finish off question six, and youâve zoned out again.
Are they self-taught? Did their parents enroll them in piano lessons? You doubt it, considering how small this town is. Theyâre probably one of the only residents to know how to play.
Kris. That name is so familiarâŚ
Oh, wait! Thatâs the human in your homeroom, right?
Kris⌠Dreemurr?
Uhh⌠thatâs all you know. To be honest, you canât remember where they sit. Or what they sound like. You only remember small parts of their appearance because theyâre the only human youâve ever seen.Â
And now you know they play piano. Beautifully, at that.
Though, you find it hard for any piano player to sound horrible unless they intend to.
You pause mid-problem. Whyâre you thinking so hard about this?
Youâre a naturally curious (nosey) person; when you start to randomly dig into the life of a stranger, you always find something that irks you.
Maybe you need to find something thatâll make you lose interest.Â
âIs it weird to go ask to listen to them?â
Itâs been silent for the past few minutes; you can tell Noelle did not see that coming.
âIâ I mean, you can try⌠but every time theyâd catch me listening, theyâd stop playing.â
Ooo. So theyâre a bit closed-off. Are they insecure about their playing? Do they just not like the attention?Â
Only one way to find out!
âEhh, thatâs alright. Weâll just be sneaky.â
Her eyes widen as a droplet of sweat glides down her temple. âWe?â
It took zero convincing to drag her down with you. You just rose silently and gestured for her to follow. A grin spread across your face as her clacks followed en suite.
You almost hope you get caught. Maybe theyâd snap on you (hopefully not Noelle) and youâd realize they arenât worth digging into. No tear-jerking, mysterious past; no built-up walls or soft, deep insides. Just some angsty teenage douche.
The piano increases in volume as you both approach the kitchen. You watch Noelle out of the corner of your eye. She seems to grow more nervous and yet relieved at the same time.
You give her a stupid thumbs up as if you were on a stealth mission.
Hovering by the door, you feel a sense of deja vu when your ear meets the wood. Noelle appears to become lost in her own thoughts. Sheâs staring at you, but sheâs not really looking at you.
You understand the feeling.
Theyâre playing a song youâve never heard before.
âŚ
You feel a pang of sadness. But itâs not yours.
You feel comfort. An easy comfort, but itâs not that nice. It feels like youâre being hugged right after a tragedy.
Itâs⌠odd.
Thereâs a sigh to your left. âItâs nice, isnât it?â
You canât put into words how nice it is. Nice is just the start.
You close your eyes. Lean in just a tad more.
âŚ
Your arm jolts the doorknob just slightly and the piano immediately stops.
Crap.
Your heart drops.
Noelleâs mouth cracks open, like she realizes your mistake, too.
You wanted to get caught, right?Â
This is extremely incriminating!
Whyâre you freaking the fuck out right now?
Your spying buddy has scurried from the door, seemingly ready to bolt. Youâre about to scold her and accuse her of making more noise, seeing as the obvious best decision here is to hope they didnât hear anything!
The ear pressed to the door presses harder. Youâre trying to make out any signs of investigation; footsteps, murmurs, anything.Â
But thereâs nothing.
Are your ears clogged from the pulse echoing through them? Wow, your heartâs beating fast!
Or maybe theyâre not moving.
Maybe theyâll start playing again.
Just the verdict of that possibility makes you a bit giddyâ
The door swings open, uncaring of its hinges.
And the only thing youâve been leaning on is ripped from youâŚ
âŚas you stumble into a green sweater.Â
You fix yourself almost immediately, but you canât seem to make much distance when youâre pinned by their glare.
Youâre not exactly sure what you were expecting, but this wasnât really it. They look normal. A brown mess of hair, shaded eyes, a green sweater, and some pants. They actually look⌠oddly boring.
Maybe you were expecting Mozart. Yeah, that makes sense.
They donât appear mad, per say. They have a really good poker face. Noelle, on the other handâ
âH-hi, Kris! We wereâ just grabbing a snack when we heard you playing and we thought it was lovelyâ and I know you donât like when you have an audience and we werenât trying to spyâ actually spy is a very denouncing wordââ
âItâs fine,â they say simply.Â
Their voice is mumbly. Quiet. Not that thereâs anything wrong with that, butâŚ
It makes sense why theyâve never caught your eye before.Â
âWeâre both sorry, right?âÂ
You realize sheâs talking to you, now. Sheâs giving you the perfect opportunity to apologize.
When you keep your mouth shut, she squeaks your name.
Youâre too busy trying to tear apart their faceâ
That sounds violent. Youâre trying to watch carefully, for any slip in facade, any quirk of an eyebrow, twitch of the mouth, anything interesting. But you see nothing.
Youâre hoping, if you donât apologize, they might give you a demeaning look. Youâre hoping they expect an apology; so when you donât, their eyes will widen, just a miniscule amount.
But they donât. As if they expect nothing.
No, no. Thatâs a good thing. If they react, that makes them intriguing. Well, not if they react in the stereotypical teenager way. Only if they do something you donât expect.Â
Which is hard, because you expect everything.
Theyâre playing a losing battle. HoweverâŚ
You stand your ground, trying not to cower under their blank gaze. You wonât be intimidated by random strangers. Right?
Right?!
Theyâre pretty much screaming:Â
Iâm just as uninteresting as I appear.
Thatâs the exact issue. They look boring, sound boring, are boring. But thereâs just⌠something there. And you really want to know what it is.
But before you get that teenager reaction, they break eye contact first, stepping around you. âIâll go.â
Noelle, afraid youâve probably made an enemy, follows them to the door. âHey! You donât have to, weâll just head back upstairs, andâŚâ
But she can tell theyâve already made up their mind.Â
This is good. No need for some high-tech investigation about this kidâs deep, inner core. They may not be like the average highschooler with angst and anger issues, but thatâs great. Theyâre so uninteresting, itâs honestly worse.
âŚ
And yet your brain continues to spiral. You just know thereâs something.
You really shouldnât.
Some weird fixation on some human is not what you need right now.
âŚ
Youâre shouting despite the lack of distance between you two.
âWait.â
They turn, just slightly.
Your voice is cold, empty. You might even mistaken yourself for Noelleâs mother.Â
âWhen you play, I feel like⌠Iâm remembering a memory that doesnât exist.â
âŚ
And there it is.
Yeah, itâs covered in slight confusion, judging by the minute furrow in their eyebrow (the only emotion youâve picked up by them thus far), but you can see it. In their eyes.
They know exactly what you mean.
That sort of⌠complicated emotion. They understand it.
And thatâs not good.
Itâs horrible.
~*â˘*~
Noelle texted them after their departure. It was as they expected; a million apologies on your behalf, as well as a few odd excuses from hers. They replied with a single thumbs up.
The streets are quiet, the haze of dusk spreading throughout the sky. They donât spare a glance to the families having barbecues or those on walks. Their eyes are trained on the sidewalk as they head towards the water.
They donât really feel like going home.Â
Itâs not like this is unusual for them; their mother wonât worry.
They pass the picnic tables, resting themself at the edge of the lake.
Besides, thatâ what was that?
You.
Theyâve never been more confused.
Theyâre relatively observant. They know of you. Theyâve seen you in the halls with a plethora of friends. But they just assumed you were another trying to get through high school relatively unscathed. Another popular cookie-cutter teenager.
But that⌠compliment? Can they even call it that?
Theyâre confused as to why they took it as such.Â
Theyâve never heard anything like it. Ever.
Theyâre not allergic to praise, or anything. Theyâll still thank people for the admiration. But hearing the same youâre so talented over and over â especially when theyâre not trying to impress anyone â can get old. Quick.
They do it for themself. And back then, their family and friends.
âŚ
I feel like Iâm remembering a memory that doesnât exist.
That sort of off, tainted comfort. The type that doesnât feel right. The type that makes them feel guilty.Â
They thought they were the only ones that felt that way; that even understood what that feels like.
But, theyâre not.
You feel that too.Â
And thatâs horrifying.
~*â˘*~
Itâs like the universe is working against you.
Ever since you acknowledged that Kris exists, youâve seen them everywhere. Around town, the school halls; Alphys even assigned you as partners for some random discussion thing.Â
Youâve kept telling yourself to pay attention to the outer shell. Nothing to see there! If anything, they seem to actively dislike everyone! (Might be their RBF, though.)
And then you hear them laugh, and your brain starts to spiral into detective mode.
Whatâre they laughing about? What do they find funny? What did Susie say? Was it actually funny or are they just laughing because Susie said it? How much does Susie know about them? Do they let selective people into their psyche or can anyone break in? Would they let you, a stranger, learn more about them? Would they laugh at something you said?â
Okay. Maybe not that last one.
Theyâd definitely just push you away. Probably spit in your face.
No, they wouldnât.
How do you know? You donât know them! Nor do you want to know them! Right?
Youâre in denial.
âŚ
You think youâre going insane.
And to make matters worse, Alphys is calling your name. Hesitantly, of course.
She fiddles with her claws, keys nearly slipping to the floor. âI-I need to lock the d-door, and⌠you p-probably shouldnât be in here. W-when itâs locked.â
Youâ what? Youâre the only one left in the classroom. Is it time to leave already?
âN-no,â Alphys responds, and you realize youâve been speaking your thoughts. âWeâre going to the m-music room! Toriâ I-I mean, miss Toriel had the idea to l-lead, er, teach music for today.â
âOh,â you stare blankly.
âA-are you okay? Usually, Kris is t-the last one to l-leaveâŚâ
Just the name makes you go stiff.
âYeah. Iâll go.â
Youâre thankful youâre hyperaware of your surroundings, as youâd rather not be wandering the school searching for an infrequently-occupied music room. Youâve seen some old, used instruments being transported to a specific hall. You can put two and two together.
Thereâs asynchronous music (if you can even call it that) being played through the walls. If that doesnât scream music room, youâre not sure what does.
One peek into the room tells you everyoneâs got no idea what theyâre doing.
Jockington and Catti are fiddling with the electric guitars in the corner. Jockington is strumming the strings aggressively with his tail while Catti positions it upright, definitely doomscrolling on her phone.
Near the violins are Monster kid and Snowy. Theyâre both brushing the violin bow lightly against the lace, barely making a sound; almost as if they were nervous to break it. Temmie practices her singing into a microphone disconnected from any speaker.
Berdly is trying to impress Noelle with his (lack of) flute-playing skills, considering his beak leaves far too many holes for air to escape. She seems kindly uninterested.
Of course, your brain leaves Kris and Susie for last. Susieâs blowing as hard into her trumpet as possible, leaving an ear-piercing sound to echo through the already cramped space. Kris watches her with a light grin.
Itâs a bit underwhelming; the room is relatively barren. A few corny music-themed posters are thrown up on the wall, but besides that, thereâs nothing.Â
You hear your name as you fully enter the room. âWhich instrument would you like to try, dear?â
Someoneâs talking to you. Itâs Toriel; she stands adjacent to the door, watching the âblossoming talentâ with a gleam of motherly love.Â
âInstrument?â You ask stupidly.
âYes. This is music class, is it not?â
You honestly thought this was an excuse for Alphys to stop teaching for the day and goof off on her computer. Maybe both are possible.
âUhh...â
To be honest, youâre not exactly thrilled about spending an hour messing with stuff you donât know how to use, nor are you that interested in learning any.
Well, all but one.
Because of a certain player.
âDo you have a piano?â
She barely hides her shock. âPiano? Iâm not too sure. There may be one in the classroom next door. Itâs where we keep all the extra equipment, music or not. You can go ahead and check it, if youâd like.â
You huff out an okay and return to the hallway.
~*â˘*~
Is it bad they notice you leave?
Theyâve been thinking about what you said. Maybe a little too hard. Maybe a little too much.
You probably didnât even know what you were saying. Theyâre reading too far into it.Â
They donât read into anything. This feels so abnormal.
Susieâs honk snaps them back into reality. They both get a few annoyed looks. She raises an eyebrow, amused as hell. âYou good, dude?â
They donât get the chance to respond when their mother rests a hand on their fluffy hair. âKris, you did not tell me someone in your class also plays piano!â
Susie gasps. âOh, what?â
YeahâŚ
âŚwhat?
And, as fate would have it, your name slips from their motherâs mouth. She proceeds to explain how she could tell you held no interest in the instruments here, and wanted to findâ
They didnât think you played piano. Not that they know that much about you. But theyâd think theyâd know something like that. Or at least be able to assume it.
Youâd looked at them like theyâd done magic. Maybe you didnât intend to look that mystically invested in them, but you did anyway.
Why would you seem so amazed if you could do it yourself?
âKris?â They feel a nudge. They ignore it.
Theyâre on their feet before they realize it.
The door squeaks painfully as they throw it open, scanning the empty halls for that classroom filled with extra junk. Not you. Youâre far too fascinating to be junk.
And they find it. The entrance has been left slightly agape, and they can barely make out a figure moving inside. Itâs you.
They brainlessly push the door ajar just slightly, enough for them to slip inside. Itâs only then that they realize youâll notice the increased light shining in from the hall.
And you do. Their throat tightens.
You scan the room like a lighthouse. They watch your brow tense.Â
They conceal themself behind some random crate of supplies before you spot them.
Youâre quiet; unmoving.
Then, they hear footsteps. Extremely close to their hiding spot.Â
Shit.
Your figure stands in front of the door. You tilt your head, just enough to glance out of the sliver. Then, you shut it fully.
Thatâs probably worse for them, actually.
Whyâre they doing this, again?
You return to what youâve been so invested in: an old keyboard, sheeted in dust. Itâs not a piano, butâŚ
They watch you run your fingers against the keys, not quite applying enough pressure to make a sound. Your pointer skids to a halt on a C. They think. Itâs hard to see from here.
They can hear your breath in. You press. It makes no noise besides the rustic clack from the force itself.
âWhat?â You mumble, sorta pissed. You rapidly hit the note a few more times before letting out an exasperated sigh. Their lip starts to turn upâ
âand they immediately run a hand over their mouth to force it back down.
Then, you spot something. A cord not plugged in.Â
They allow themself the grace of looking away to wipe the sweat from their hairline. This is way too stressful. They just wanted to see if you knew how to play. For some reason.
After inserting the cord, you repeat your previous motion. The C key. It works.Â
You laugh in disbelief.Â
Although they usually hate their classmates who talk to themselves, they wish you did. Itâs really hard to read what youâre thinking.
You experimentally play some random keys, one after the other. Two Dâs, an E, F#, two Gâs, G#...
Your other hand lays thoughtfully on your chin, as if you were memorizing something.
You play a note confidently. Then, another. More hesitantly. Then another, and another, and another. You start over, again and again. Starting with the same note every time.Â
Or maybe⌠remembering something.
You get more confident as you play. But theyâre not paying attention to you anymore. Theyâre listening to the song.
Itâs so familiar.
It⌠almost sounds likeâ
It hits them like a semi. But instead of blacking out, theyâve flown above the road, ricocheting off of other cars.
They flush. Hard.
They feel warmer than theyâve ever felt before.
âŚ
Thatâs the song you caught them playing at Noelleâs.Â
They duck back behind the crate, running a shaky hand through their hair.
You remember the song. Why do you remember it?
Youâre also really good at playing by ear.
When you mess up, you let out a little ugh. Youâre only playing the melody, but itâs still⌠more than they expected. And youâre getting better; faster.
They donât know how long they sit there, concentrating on the song. Playing the notes in their head before you play them. Letting out a huff of amusement when you groan.Â
You start from the beginning. Multiple times. You perform it, continuously. They can almost hear your thoughts when youâre debating which note comes next. They donât blame you; everyoneâs memory is faulty at times.Â
They want to come out of hiding, tell you which note to play. Show you. Hum the tune in your ear; see if you can guess it. When you donât, theyâll guide your hand with their ownâ
Their breath hitches.Â
You stop, fingers hovering on the next key.
God fucking damnit.
You heard them.
âHello?â You call out. Youâre not scared, youâre skeptical.
That is ten times worse.
Apparently hearing someone search for them is much more stressful the second time.
The squeaky tiles are trying to warn them of what will be the most awkward moment of their life. They better have the best excuse to ever exist to get out of this; something that would work on the most narcissistic person on the planet.
And then, their non-existent prayers were answered. They hear you stumble over something. A wire, toys, doesnât matter. It takes them a millisecond to lock eyes with your head, currently trained on the floor.
Thatâs their ticket.
They bolt. Theyâve never swung a door open faster in their life. Theyâre just hoping youâre too busy detangling yourself from whatever to take one eyeful of their neon-green sweater.Â
Damn, they should just wear full black from now on.
~*â˘*~
You canât get that poison virus of a song out of your head. You hear it everywhere you go. And, of course, that means you think of Kris wherever you go.Â
Just hearing it ring in your mind makes you depressed. Manic. Longing. Curious. Did they write it? Howâd they come up with it?
You want to ask them. Ask them everything about them. Screw being a normal, functioning being. Youâve never been so nosey ever.
So you give into your weird impulse; you somehow convince Noelle to text you when Kris comes over. No context given.Â
With no texts related to such for days, youâre beginning to think she ignored your request (and maybe blocked your number while sheâs at it). But your phone buzzed with a specific ringtone you may or may not have set for Noelle for this exact moment.Â
Theyâre here.
A pause.
If you wanna come.
Youâre there within the minute.
Noelle greets you at the door, graced with a weirdly-knowing look. âI donât blame you for liking their piano playing, if thatâs what youâre worried about.â
You definitely are not. Youâve given up hiding your fascination (not that you were really hiding it to begin with).
âYeah, I wish it was just that,â you mumble under your breath. She doesnât catch it. Or she does, but doesnât comment on it.
Youâve never been to Noelleâs house so many times in a month. And yet here you are, sitting on her cold floor like a loser, just outside of the kitchen. The kitchen doorâs been left open; theyâre already playing.
Youâre entranced. Once again.
This oneâs a lot happier. Faster paced, higher pitch. You donât mind; youâre happy to listen to anything they play.
Right. You also plan on hardcore interrogating them.Â
You rest your chin on your knees, hugging your legs closer to you. Yeah, that doesnât seem as morally sound now that youâre sitting here.
You donât realize you sighed until their song slows til it stops.
Seriously?Â
Are you really about to get caught again?
âŚ
But they donât lift from the piano bench.
At least, you donât hear them do so. But youâve given up on your senses when trying to detect them.Â
Instead, they start a new song.Â
That song.
Your favourite song.Â
Since when was it your favourite?Â
Youâre not sure, but you canât help but close your eyes; a faint smile paints your lips.Â
And thereâs that feeling again. You havenât been able to fully recreate it since you felt it the first time. Youâve tried to replicate the song, but you canât get the notes perfect. It ruins it for you. But when they play it?
Itâs like death decided to sing you a lullaby. You love it, but you shouldnât.
Hours couldâve passed; you wouldnât have noticed.
They play the song. Over and over.Â
You let it consume you. Every time.
And you push down that nagging feeling of why every time.
Why do you feel this way? Why can they make you feel this way? Why do they keep playing it? Why do you feel their eyes on you?
The whyâs donât feel as important when youâve got the answer ringing through your skull.
It may not be the answer youâre looking for, but itâs an answer youâre content with.Â
~*â˘*~
Theyâve never felt so giddy before. Itâs like all their senses have been heightened to detect you.
The way your fingers rake against the ground, the way you sigh blissfully, the way they can blatantly hear you humming along with their song.
They wonder if youâre smiling. They want to watch you smile. They want to make you smile.
They maneuver their hands automatically, pressing each key like itâs muscle memory.
It takes two hours, but they take note of the front door opening and closing. You mustâve left.Â
They play one more song to not seem suspicious and proceed to get up, heading out.
Noelle still sits on the couch, head whipping to face them at the sound of their departure. âYouâre leaving?â
They nod. âWho was over?âÂ
They ask. Just to see if sheâll say.
And she does. She mumbles your name mindlessly. She recognizes her mistake immediately afterwards, zipping her lips tight.
âWhy?â
Not even they know. And they doubt you do either.
She plays with a strand of her hair. âOhh, b-because⌠she needed help. With homework.â
They donât bother pushing. They already know sheâs covering for you.Â
They offer her a goodbye, slipping their hands in their pockets. They still donât understand. They usually hate audiences. Whyâre you any different?
Because itâs more than just a nice tune to you?
They stiffen. Speaking of you, youâre standing at the end of the driveway, just beyond the gate. Youâre holding down a button on the side of your phone. Then, you lift your speaker to your ear.
Their song plays. Albeit slightly muffled, itâs there.
Their neck is warm to the touch.
You recorded it.
~*â˘*~
It takes a few more days, but Noelle texts again. Youâre slightly more urgent this time, digging through your desk to find a certain small bundle of paper stapled together.Â
You really hope you donât get flat-out rejected. Actually, maybe thatâll turn you off of them. The embarrassment may steer you away forever. Maybe you want to get rejected! Then, this whole weird infatuation with piano and this human might end.Â
You swallow the single voice of thousands in your head that speaks the truth you deny: you want them to say yes.
You run, maybe sprint, hoping to catch them despite Noelleâs text coming through five minutes ago.
Hiding the paper behind you, you greet Noelle civilly. She can definitely tell how flushed and out of breath you are, but she doesnât comment. You appreciate that. You donât need to hear what you objectively feel.
Making a beeline towards the kitchen, you halt. Theyâre just finishing up a song that you totally recognize oh god you remember their rotation of songsâ
Okay. Donât overthink it. Just ask like a normal person.
One glance to Noelle makes her quirk her head in confusion. You donât hear the muffled yelp she lets out when you head face first into the sharkâs den (the kitchen).
Kris immediately notices you, and your heart flutters. You scold your body for being so stereotypically corny. You watch their hands clench as they drift above the keys, returning to their side.
âHi. Again,â you smile courteously, halting by their side. You canât believe how confident you sound. Although, you probably look like youâre giving a presentation. Maybe a bit too sure of yourself.
âHey.â
And your confidence immediately goes down the drain as they stand. Maybe you felt the height difference of them on their ass made you feel in charge of the conversation. Maybe it vanishes when youâre both eye-level. Maybe theyâre still staring through your soul!
They gesture to the piano. âDid youâŚ?â
You snap into reality.Â
Oh, no no no. Youâre not letting this opportunity slip.
âNo, no. I actuallyââ you clear your throat. Your cheeks burn. ââwanted you. To try this.â
You whip the papers from behind your back, trying to ignore the crinkled spot from where your hand was squeezing. You force yourself to loosen your grip.
One glance to the sheet music makes their face flare.
Youâre not entirely sure why, but you donât care. Youâve never seen their eyes so expressive before.
A hand snatches the bundle (maybe a bit too aggressively) while the other glides its knuckles along their cheek, definitely attempting to will the colour away by force.
You hold back a snort. That is adorable.
âItâs one of my favourite songs,â you explain. âIâve always wanted to hear it in a piano rendition but I donât think itâs popular enough to warrant one. And I think youâll be able to play it because youâre skilled, but thatâs besides the point.â
Their lip shakily turns upwards as they seat themselves, skimming the notes like theyâre on auto pilot. Thereâs still a faint tinge to their nose when they realize youâre still standing awkwardly beside them. They gaze at you expectantly.
âOh, do you want me to?ââ You jab a thumb at the door.
Their eyes widen, just slightly. As if that was the most offensive thing you couldâve asked.
âŚ
And they pat the spot beside them.
âSit,â they offer.
You quiver. Quiver.Â
Now, that wouldnât be unusual for someone playing a piece you suggested. Itâs of your request, after all.Â
But this is Kris. You know they donât want eyes on them! Noelle, their childhood friend (which you canât believe you didnât know until recently), would make them flat out stop playing if they knew she was listening.Â
And theyâre just offering you a front row seat?
You wipe your drenched palms on your clothes. âOkay,â you shakily exhale.
The bench is small, but you make it work. Make it work means youâre hyper-focused on ensuring thereâs at least an inch between your shoulders.
Youâre too distracted to watch them position their hands over the white keys.
Then, they play the first note. And the next. Yeah, thatâs how music works.
But their fingers. Theyâre so⌠graceful.
You realize how amazing they are at sight reading.
They take it slower, but they never lose a set tempo. They barely make any mistakes, barely pause, barely struggle.
Sometimes they have to reach over your lap to hit the lower notes. You change your mind; you want them to brush you. You want to feel their skin against yours.
âŚ
The thought makes you hot.
When you finish thirsting like a dehydrated hyena, you find yourself closing your eyes. You love this song; itâs one that you never get sick of, no matter how many times you play it.Â
But thereâs something⌠off.
Maybe itâs the piano. Maybe itâs Kris.
But you donât feel the usual rush of warmth that comes from this song.
No, if anythingâŚ
You feel nothing.
Like your familyâs celebrating your birthday without you.
Like you wake up in a place you do not recognize.
Like youâve just made a decision thatâll change your life forever. For the better, and the worse.
âŚ
Is it bad that you like the feeling?
Itâs something youâve never felt before.
You like new.
You like Kris.
You like how they make you feel.
You really like it.
Youâre humming the song, you realize. They become rigid beside you, slowing down. Theyâre watching you. You can feel it. Theyâre trying to be conspicuous, but you can tell.
âDonât slow down on me now, Kris,â you tease.Â
They let out a huff, almost a laugh. You shiver from the sound.
You absorb each note, ingraining the feeling into your soul. Theyâre still playing, but you canât stop yourself from asking. Not out of a curiosity for why, but a curiosity for Kris.
âHow do you make it sound like that?â
Each press of the keys becomes softer; notes quieting but not quite halting. âLike what?â
âLike we really are just some tiny speck in this stupid universe. Itâs not just a phrase dumb adults tell you to calm you down.â
A pause.Â
âI donât know,â they respond honestly.
âReally? Iâve listened to, like, hundreds of composers. Iâve never heard anyone whoâŚâ
Theyâre studying you like theyâre screaming for you to keep going.
And you do; youâve rambled on about worse things.Â
ââwho, I donât know, sounds so real. They all feel so practiced, perfect, performative. Not that you arenât any of those things, but⌠yâknow. You feel right, I guess. Raw. Like I can taste every emotion you put into your playing, rehearsed or not. Your songs or not. Happy or not. I can see it, yâknow? IâŚâ
That phrase. The one you told them, when you first met. That describes it perfectly.Â
Damn it, what was it?â
âYou feel like youâre remembering a memory that doesnât exist?â
âŚ
âYou remember it?â You find yourself asking.
Confidence from who knows where plasters over their face. âBest comment Iâve ever received.â
You laugh nervously, shoving their shoulder like an old friend. âIt was a compliment, believe it or not. Itâs definitely kinda weird, butââ
Thereâs a pang of sincerity in their voice.
âDonât worry. I took it as one.â
~*â˘*~
They hate to admit theyâve been finding themselves at Noelleâs doorstep more and more lately.
Somehow, you always know when theyâre over. And you always approach them at the piano, no matter what. They can hear Noelle questioning what youâve done to earn an audience spot beside them. But to be fair, they donât really know what you did either.
You just⌠understand them.
To be honest, you barely talk when youâre together. You just sit and listen. You donât pry. Thatâs normal; thatâs what theyâve come to expect from most.
It doesnât matter that youâre not really getting to know them as you hang out. Youâre still open, gaining more confidence the more you see each other.Â
But afterwards, youâll tell them something. A metaphor, of sorts.
Itâs become a game.
A game with a very gloomy, depressing meaning.
But they still enjoy it. Still enjoy you.
Youâll say something like:
âIt feels like dancing in the ruins of a home I helped build.â
Youâll gasp it like a poet; exaggerated for dramatic effect.Â
And theyâll chuckle, softly. Youâll laugh. But their mind always wanders to a different thought, like:
I wonder what dancing with you would feel like.
And it keeps going.
âItâs like laughing in a dream I donât deserve to have.â
Your laughter is like a dream.
âThis is what sunlight during a funeral creates.â
Your presence feels like a ray of sunshine.
âA sweetness with a bitter after taste.â
I wonder what you taste like.
Oh, god.Â
Their eyes shoot out of their head. They blame the heat for the way fire spikes up their neck.Â
âŚ
They take a deep breath out.
Noelleâs not home right now, probably in the library with Nerdly. That wouldnât be an issue, if they didnât have an itch to play right now.
Theyâve been playing more, theyâve noticed. In general. Not just because of you.
So theyâve arrived at the hospital. Itâs the only one in town thatâs free to play whenever. But when they push past the doors, they seeâ
You.
Despite the lack of receptionist at the moment, you still seem to be hyperaware of your surroundings, pressing the keys with a distinct gentleness theyâve never seen from you. Youâre trying not to disturb the patients, not knowing they canât hear you from here.
Thatâs⌠really cute.
Youâre playing a few notes, pausing every few seconds to listen to something on your phone.
Oh.Â
Youâre playing their song. Youâre listening to the recording of them.
Itâs just as heart clenching the second time.Â
They wait for you to continue playing before shutting the door as quietly as possible. You donât peek over.
An evil grin spawns on their face step after step.
Step after step.
If they were about to kidnap you, youâd be screwed. Itâs odd, considering they know youâre very observant. You must be extremely invested in their song. The idea makes their pulse quicken.
âBoo.âÂ
A quick slap on both shoulders makes you scream, dropping your phone.
They snicker as you clench your heart. âKris! Holy shit, oh my god.â
You groan in embarrassment as they pick up your phone. Your hands brush and they hate how much it affects them.
âWhatâre you listening to?â They ask as monotonously as possible, really hoping to fluster you.
However, your eyes sparkle guiltily.
âYou.â
âW-what?â
They curse themselves for stuttering.
You shrug nonchalantly. âI may or may not have recorded you playing at some point. But itâs alright, because itâs my favourite song that you play. That totally makes it okay.â
They try to spit out a retort, but theyâre so hot and bothered.Â
You just admitted it?
âWhat?â Your hand wraps around their wrist. âIâm man enough to say it!â
Theyâre yanked to sit next to you, flushed to your side. And if things werenât bad enough, they feel your hand slither around their back, resting on their hip.
They let out an urgh as you squeeze. They couldnât get any redder if they tried.
You smirk. âAre you ticklish, Dreemurr?â
âNoââ they stammer. âIâŚâ
They canât bring themselves to finish explaining. Youâre gazing through their soul.
Really hoping itâs because youâre in a weird position and not because you see how much youâre viscerally affecting them, you shift your hand to their shoulder with a cough. âAnyways, wanna help me out? Youâre the expert, after all.â
Theyâre really glad you asked. They shift the arm around them to rest on the piano inconspicuouslyâ
âand almost immediately regret your absence of warmth.
But, with something more familiar, their composure returns. âWhat do you know?â
You attempt to play through the first verse, hands a bit clumsy and uncoordinated. Youâre not truly a piano player, so they donât blame you.
Thereâs a specific part that makes you relinquish. âI justâ canât get to those notes fast enough.â
âHere,â they adjust your wrist slightly. âYouâre too far, thatâs why.â
You lay your fingers on random notes. âHere?â
âNo, hereââ they guide each finger, nearly interlocking with your own. They can just barely see your grin grow.
You twitch a finger to brush against theirs. They hope you canât feel how hot their palms are.
âTake this seriously,â they try to say sternly, but it comes out as a laugh.
âI am, teacher!â
âI wonât teach you if youââ
âOkay, okay. Fine.â
You replay the first verse again. Youâre a lot faster; smoother with the transition between notes. Theyâre proud.
âWow, that actually worked.â
âYou thought it wouldnât?â
You shrug sheepishly. Stretching your arms above your head, you eye them curiously. âAny new songs you got for me?â
They embody the most emotionless expression they can muster. âThereâs one.â
You watch expectantly. The smile never fades from your lips.
Their hands hover above the piano like itâs the most natural thing in the world.
âŚ
They play the song they wrote for you. But you donât need to know that.
Thereâs a repeating verse that you hum along to. You really are amazing at playing by ear.
At some point, you lean on their shoulder. They donât mind. Of course they donât mind.
âŚ
Midway through, you break the silence. âWhatâs this one called?â
Theyâre paralyzed.Â
Youâve never asked for song names. Why now? Why this song?
As if sensing their hesitance, you roll your eyes. âCâmon. By now, weâve pretty much admitted weâve both spied on each other before. This canât be as incriminatingââ
They choke. ââBothâ?â
You pause.
âI canât tell if youâre asking if Iâve done it, or if I know youâve done it.â
âBoth,â they repeat.
âWell,â you gesture to your phone; the recording. That answers the first one. âAnd I know you were watching me in the music room.â
They stop completely. âIââ
You hold a single finger to their lips. âItâs the sweater. Caught the end of it on your way out.â
This damn sweater.
âSo tell me.â
Theyâre already lost, pricking your finger from their face. âTell you what?â
âThe name of the song.â
They pause. âNo.â
âThatâs the name?â
âNo.â
âNo?â
âThatâs not it.â
Why canât they will themself to lie to you?!
Youâre insistent. âSo whatâs the name?â
âYouâll live without it.â
âNo, I wonât. Tell me. Please?â
Itâs like you already know and you just want to hear them say it.
You wait patiently.
And they cave. They mumble your name.
âYeah?â
âŚ
âThatâs the name.â
Your eyes widen. âWhat?â
They repeat your name.Â
Their shame morphs into amusement as you shield your face, mumbling oh my godâs over and over again.
~*â˘*~
Youâve realized youâve never been more happy without Kris by your side. Even if the thought makes you cringe hard. So what?Â
You laugh together. Youâre depressed together. You zone out together. Itâs odd how much you used to do alone. Now, you canât imagine a world where Kris doesnât sneak through your bedroom window and sit on the edge of your bed until you wake up.
Theyâve told you how self-indulgent you make them feel. Like youâre something they shouldnât be around. That things are maybe so good that they feel bad.
You donât really care if you make them feel guilty. All you care about is if any of this feels wrong.
And so you asked them.
They told you theyâve never felt more right.
~*â˘*~
But you donât know what changed.Â
Somethingâs wrong.
You havenât seen Kris in days.
At first, you thought it was a you thing, selfishly enough. Maybe you did something wrong.Â
But it isnât.
Youâve realized, throughout everything, you never got their number. You know where they live, but after hearing that Torielâs been signing them out day after day, you didnât want to intrude.Â
Itâs not like you need them to be sparkly shining everyday. You just want to make sure theyâre okay.
You donât like how empty your days feel.
~*â˘*~
It takes another week, but you find them.
For some reason, your nerves spike at the thought of talking to them. Youâre not sure why.
Itâs like everythingâs reset; everyoneâs reset. But not you. Youâre still the same.Â
Theyâve been scouring the town, conversing with everyone theyâve come across. An egotistical part of you wants to believe theyâre looking for you. But thereâs something off.
This doesnât feel right.
Youâve never seen them talk to so many townsfolk before. Nor do you think theyâd ever willingly do so.
So, you revert to your old self. You investigate.
You follow them from a distance, certainly making eye contact multiple times. But they donât seem to care. Itâs like they donât recognize you. Your mind fogs over.
They head into the hospital. Youâre not far behind.
The hopeful part of you lights up when they beam straight for the piano.
Okay. Keep it lighthearted and casual.
Just naturally ask them where the hell theyâve been.
Justâ
Youâre about to tap them on the shoulder whenâ
Plink!
âŚ
They justâŚ
âŚmashed the keys.
âŚ
You barely realize theyâve turned to face you. They donât seem surprised to see you, either.Â
Like they knew you were behind them.
âK-Kris?â
They donât respond. Itâs like theyâre a husk of their former self.
Their eyes, however, paint a picture.Â
A horrifying picture. They look like theyâre screaming for help; clawing at chainsâ no, strings.
And just as soon as they came, theyâre gone.Â
âŚ
What was that?
âŚ
You stare at the piano, brushing your fingers on the random keys they played.Â
Is it weird to feel as though their talent was ripped from their hands?
âŚ
Or maybeâ
Maybe itâs something else.
Someone else.Â
~~~
AND ITS OVER !!! ok ill be dead honest with u guys, im not FULLY happy with this one. i kept getting stuck and remotivated over and over (was even thinking about scraping the whole thing at some point but i wanted smt to show for the past few days) BUT i finally finished it !!! i really hope u guys enjoy it even if its not up to my standard sob
ALSO thank u guys so much for the support on the last fic ahhhh !!!! u r all so SWEET it kills me ugh. if u have any ideas u think i can do justice send me an ask !!! it can be as generic or specific as u want !!! or just questions. comments. support. ILL TAKE ANYTHING !!! <33
Give him a minute to go enjoy a cigar, then heâll be up and moving. If you ask heâll even share his with you. Depending on how spent he is, Smoker might even offer to shot-gun it, if youâre up to it that is. Heâs not the most romantic guy, heâs always been rough around the edges, but Smoker loves you and wants to make you happy, so heâll do his best.
âŚFantasy â Do they have any fantasies or special requests for their partner?
Smoker, much to his own embarrassment, likes the idea of being dominated. Especially if his partner is wearing a marines uniform while they do it. Heâd prefer it be his own jacket compared to the full uniform but he certainly wonât complain if they get a slutty knock-off costume.
âŚWanting â How much do they desire sex? Are they easily satisfied?
Smoker is always stressed by work, his mind tends to be elsewhere so heâll need to be coaxed into relaxing. Once heâs got his hands on you though, Smoker is far from satisfied. He gets pent up, so you better prepare yourself for a rough night.
i love ur hcs and ur wesker snowman fic to the point it probably became one of my all time favorites! you seem to get wesker so well esp when it comes to how heâd deal with his own feelings if he realized he had feelings for reader. and thatâs why im here today because i want to ask the best wesker understander a specific thing!
how would (thinking about s.t.a.r.s scenario) wesker react to reader bringing to work an extra lunchbox for him? like, reader noticed heâs always working and never leaving his office to the point he mostly skips all of his meals and he refuses every invitation from others to go grab a bite during lunch bc heâs busy so reader starts bringing to work 2 lunchboxes: one for them and one for wesker. reader would definitely ask wesker beforehand why he doesnât eat lunch and when his reply is the same âiâm too busyâ everyday, they knew they had to do something about it and take care of their Captain!! and you better believe reader would bring a variety of different home cooked meals everyday: pasta, another time salmon and rice, lasagna, sandwich, wrap, broccoli and chicken saladâŚ
Everyone in the s.t.a.r.s team is jealous and picking (jokingly) on wesker getting a delicious home made meal for free by the rookie (whom they know they have excellent culinary skills) along with other treats because reader not only brings him a lunchbox, but every morning when reader comes to work, they always bring a coffee and a little pastry that they drop at his office which is something they have been doing since they started working there
Oh, so what, ya think you can just rock up into my inbox and start singing my praises and I'm just gonna write whatever you want for you? Cause you're right, I will, that's exactly how it works around here thank you /playful
Couple: S.T.A.R.S era Wesker X GN! S.T.A.R.S Reader
Summary: If Wesker refuses to take his lunch breaks, then you have no other choice than to take matters into your own hands
Tags: Domestic fluff
âAre you sure?â You asked, concern dripping from your lips as you cocked your head at him.Â
Wesker barely looked up from the paperwork in his hand. âPositive,â He muttered, looking at the next page in his hand, âSomeone has to work around here.â
You didnât like the tone of his voice, or how dismissive he was at the very notion of going to lunch with his coworkers. âYou canât work if you starve to death, you know.â you reminded him.
âI wonât starve,â He snorted, before pointedly looking up at you, âI had a danish this morning.â and then he went right back to what he was doing. Youâd never told him directly, but Wesker was far from a stupid man. He knew that the coffee and warm pastry he found on his desk every morning was from the S.T.A.R.S team's very own culinary savant.Â
You rolled your eyes at him. âItâs not good to skip meals you know.â
âIâll live, I assure you.â
âWhy donât you just come with us?â
He waved you off this time. âIâm busy Rookie, end of discussion. Now go get lunch before the others leave you behind. You sighed, before leaving and joining the other S.T.A.R.S members, piling into Barry's.Â
You sat next to Chris. âLet me guess, he said no?âÂ
You sighed, running your hand down your face. âHe said he was busy.â
Chris was really really bad at hiding when he felt smug. âI told you, Rookie. Weskerâs been at war with lunch for as long as any of us have known him.â
 It was a conversation youâd had in some shape or form with your Captain every day. You had noticed not long into your new position as Alpha teamâs medic that Wesker never left his desk, and never brought a lunch. Ever. And youâd never seen him come into work with a quick breakfast like you had the others either, not even a granola bar. You started to wonder if he skipped all of his meals. It was troubling, not just because Wesker was clearly a guy with pretty high caloric needs just judging by his build alone- but because you were a firm believer that no one should ever go hungry, no matter the circumstances.Â
So you started bringing him breakfast.Â
Youâd always been a fan of baking and cooking. Even using it as a side hustle while you were getting your Doctorate degree. You were good at it, and you loved doing it so it only made sense to put your skills to work. You started waking up early Monday mornings and making various different breakfast pastries, leaving them along with a fresh coffee on Weskerâs desk every morning.
He questioned it at first, but didnât think too much about it. Honestly, he assumed he was about to discover one of you guys had fucked up big time and were trying to suck up before he found out. But, after two weeks of it going on, baked goods on his desk every morning and not one mistake in sight, he had to admit someone was just bringing him breakfast. He automatically assumed it was you.
But, now you were starting to think it wasnât enough. One baked good isnât enough to run off of for an entire day. You decided, once again, if Wesker wasnât going to take care of himself, you would just have to take care of him yourself.Â
The next day you came into work with two lunch boxes. And at twelve P.M. on the dot, you waltzed into Wesker office and placed one of them on his desk.
He actually looked away from his computer monitor to look at it. âWhat is this?â He asked.
âItâs lunch!â You smiled, âMade it myself.â
He raised an eyebrow at you. âAnd itâs on my desk for what reason?âÂ
âBecause itâs yours. I brought my own, itâs in the break room.â You explained
He blinked at it twice. âAnd why did you bring me lunch?â
Your grin only grew. âBecause itâs already at your desk. You donât have to leave or take a break. You have no excuse not to eat.â
He almost smirked at you. âYouâre good.âÂ
You shrugged coyly, âIâve played the game once or twice before.â
He gave in, finally reaching for the box and opening it. You saw the shock flash across his face for half a second before he looked up at you. âWhat is this?â
You tilted your head. âItâs lunch? Itâs grilled salmon with wild rice. There should be a side salad there too.â
He fought the urge to roll his eyes. âYeah, I see that, where did you find the time to make this?â
You simply shrugged. âA magician never reveals their secrets, Captain.â
He simply sighed, not wanting your hard work to go to waste. Maybe he didnât have to work through lunch today. âWell, thank you Doctor.â
You now had contextual evidence that it works. And as such, it became your daily routine. You'd sneak into his office to leave him breakfast in the morning, and deliver his lunch in the afternoon. Never the same thing twice in a row, and always incredible. While medicine and helping people has always been your number one passion, the culinary arts was a very close second.Â
At some point, youâd taken to joining Wesker in his office for lunch, slowly coaxing him into taking an actual break as opposed to just multitasking: eating and working. Naturally, the others took notice. And predictably, Chris was the first one to say something.
âMan, Iâve heard of work spouses, but I didnât know they came with home cooked meals. I thought you had to put a ring on a finger to get that kinda treatment,â He quipped as he saw you deliver yet another lunchbox to Wesker. Youâd manage to convince him to actually eat in the break room today. You shot Chris a very pointed look, hoping he didnât scare the captain away.Â
âWhat?â He asked.Â
âYou donât need to marry someone to get a home cooked lunch,â Wesker said flatly, âYou just have to be charming. Something I know you struggle with.âÂ
âWhat about me?â Brad asked, somehow worse at hiding his jealousy than Chris was, âHow do I get one?âÂ
Wesker scoffed, âRefer to the previous point about being charming.â
You rolled your eyes, âGuys come on. The captain wouldnât eat lunch if it wasnât brought to him.âÂ
âSo itâs the incompetence that gets you lunch?â Jill asked.Â
That caught his attention. If looks could kill, the look Wesker gave her would have been a hydrogen bomb. âWatch yourself Valentine.âÂ
Jill lazily put her hands up in defence before turning back to you. âDonât worry Doctor, Iâm not after your lunches. Iâm after the home cooked pastries in the morning.â
âYes!â Chris agreed, excitedly pointing at Jill, âYou should make those for the whole team, it would boost team morale.â
You chuckled softly, honestly a little flustered by the whole display. âMaybe on Fridays.â
âIâll take it!â Chris laughed, happy to accept the non committal answer. The five of you continued to joke around and enjoy your meal together. Wesker ignored how comfortable it was to be around the team. Or, he tried to at least. Heâd refused to take lunches with everyone for so long because he knew the connections sharing meals together can form. He wanted to avoid it.Â
But, it was too late for that now. He was already in too deep. He had accepted his fate. Heâd cut you all out of his heart later, disconnect from it all and do what needed to be done. For now though, he might as well indulge himself in this new feeling.Â
As the others filed out of the break room, Wesker stopped you. You looked up at him confused, worried that maybe youâd done something wrong. âCaptain?â You asked.
He cleared his throat, and stood up a little straighter. âIâve greatly appreciated the care youâve shown me, Doctor. And Iâd like to repay you. Can I take you to lunch this weekend?â
You smiled, warm and bright. You mom was right, the way to a man's heart really was through his stomach. âIâd like that Captain.â
Wesker gave you a soft smile. âGreat. Itâs a date.â
