very evil

The man was obviously only in it for himself, and yet he had won everybody over. He cursed people, stole from others, and went so far as to perform experiments on some of them. And that was just fine and dandy?

You look at him sideways. Every time you see that easy, contagious smile and those ever-shifty eyes.

The hallway outside the podcast room is a tunnel of fluorescent light. You round the corner, expecting an empty corridor to take a moment’s break.

Instead, you almost walk straight into him.

Danhausen leans against the wall, slumping his shoulders as he exhales heavily after his match. Sweat glistens on the demon painted across his chest. His face paint, especially around his lips, is smeared as if he were kissed too hard.

For a second, the whole act stutters.

You’ve seen him perform. You’ve seen him play at being something other, something stitched together out of comedy and spookiness that everyone cheers. But this is just exertion and weariness. A man who ran himself ragged for an audience, now caught in a personal moment after.

His eyes flick up when he notices you, and his smile starts there looks… smaller. Realer. Tired.

“Oh.”

“You’re—” you start, and then stop, because what do you even say? You’re shirtless. You’re human. You’re not a monster, apparently.

He huffs a laugh, breathy and unsteady. “Hot?” he offers, and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. The paint only smears more.

You should feel triumphant. Vindicated. You’ve been looking at him sideways for weeks, waiting for the moment he slips and shows what he really is.

This is the first time you think you might be wrong.

Perhaps he is just a man.

You hover by the recording room and watch him put on a song and dance after his win at Backlash. An important milestone for any wrestler, but watching him bask in it in his odd way put your teeth on edge. Was he truly this good at manipulation? Or is it all genuine and you’re the asshole who didn’t understand?

The interview begins to wrap up, and you decide the last thing you wanted was to run into him again. You’re scurrying back to your cubicle when you see a foot dangling out from the entrance that reads VERY EVIL. There was no way he could have made it here already.

But it was him.

He was sitting in a chair inside your cubicle, untying the laces of his boot. “Ah, Danhausen was hoping to catch you.” He presents his smile to you, directly to you, and you can’t help but smile back. It is like a beam of warmth that tugs a string in your chest.

“Oh, is this about earlier? I’m so sorry. I wasn’t expecting anyone there.” Let alone the most suspicious wrestler in the company. Your eyes darted to his chest, to the demon tattoo still glistening with sweat.

“You’ve been watching Danhausen.”

“I mean, so has everybody.” You shrug, unwilling to give in just yet.

There’s a twinkle in his eye.

“You watch him closely. Like you are looking for something.”

The silence that follows is thick, awkward — like you’ve been caught.

Your eyes linger on the black paint at his mouth, sweat on his collarbones, and his careful posture, small and self-conscious. Danhausen’s head tilts a fraction. The twinkle in his eye doesn’t go away, but it dims, becoming something watchful.

“Come,” he says, suddenly brisk, like he’s made a decision. “Danhausen would like to speak with you. Privatehausen.”

You blink. “Privately?”

His hands hang limp at his wrists, fingers slack, as if he’s too tired to make a fist. The damp hair at his forehead has started to curl. He's still flushed, still shirtless, still very much a man who just wrestled and then walked here.

You swallow and, against your will, chew at your lower lip.

“I mean, I guess I can grab a conference room.”

Danhausen brightens at once.

“Yes, yes,” he says, pleased enough that the word almost purrs. “A conference roomhausen.”

You want to roll your eyes, but control yourself. He gets up from the chair and follows you closely. You don't hurry; you hope to prolong this walk—what could he want? You try to distract him with decorations in other cubicles, but he stays firm. Danhausen must speak with you.

In the conference room, he invades your space, eyes wild, making your stomach flip with nerves.

“You’ve been watching Danhausen. Closely.”

"We’re all watching you. You’re a big deal right now," you shrug.

“No, no. Well, yes, Danhausen knows this, but — you watch like you are looking for something.”

Caught.

You laugh, but it comes out too thin.

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m trying to figure out what your deal is.”

Danhausen’s smile returns in pieces, first at one corner of his mouth and then the other, a crooked little thing made stranger by the ruined paint. Up close, the effect is worse. Worse because it is intimate. Because you can see where the white has cracked at the line of his cheek and where the black has settled into the soft crease beneath his lower lip.

“Danhausen’s deal,” he repeats, as if tasting the phrase. “You think Danhausen is tricking them. The people. The wrestlers. The cameras. You think he smiles, and they give him things.”

“Don’t you?”

“Yes.” He lifts his brows.

The admission knocks the next clever thing straight out of your mouth.

Danhausen looks delighted by your silence. “Do you think… that Danhausen is bad?”

You have an answer ready. You’ve had it ready for weeks. Yes. Obviously. Very bad. Very evil, as advertised, if anyone in this place had the sense to read the sign.

But he is standing close enough that you can smell sweat and canvas and the faint sweetness of whatever he uses to set the paint. His chest rises and falls too quickly. The demon inked over his sternum moves with every breath.

“I-I don't know what to think.”

Danhausen’s expression changes.

It is not much. A small tightening at the edge of his smile. A little pause in the busy flicker of his eyes.

“Hm.” The sound is soft. “Danhausen is something.”

“Something,” you repeat.

“Yes.”

You wait for more. You wait because there has to be more. Because no one drags you into a conference room, shirtless and damp and painted like a ghoul, just to admit to being vaguely unusual.

Danhausen only looks at you.

The silence stretches.

“What kind of something?”

“Ah.” He lifts one finger, sharp and triumphant. “That is the question.”

You cross your arms. “And?”

“And Danhausen will not tell you.”

Irritation saves you from whatever else you’d felt in your throat.

His smile softens at the corners.

“You watch Danhausen like you are waiting for him to become frightening.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Good.”

You blink. “Good?”

“Yes. Good.” He rocks back on his heels, visibly delighted, hands limp at his sides. “You should be on your toes.”

“Around you?”

“Especially around Danhausen.”

“Why?”

He leans in, just enough that the smell of sweat and sweet setting spray and canvas fills your head again.

“Because Danhausen is somethinghausen.”

You let out a frustrated, nervous laugh.

He is enjoying this. The realization hits with a strange, embarrassing clarity. He is enjoying your attention. The sharpness of it. The suspicion. The way you keep trying to pin him down, but cannot.

He likes being watched.

No. Worse.

He likes being watched by you.

“You wanted me to notice,” you say.

For once, he does not answer immediately.

His eyes flick over your face, quick and bright, searching.

“Perhaps,” he says.

The conference room suddenly feels too bright, too airless, every fluorescent bulb buzzing overhead like a summer day. Outside the conference room, people pass by as if you weren’t trapped in there with a something. He stands close enough to touch.

“So what happens now?” you ask.

Danhausen’s gaze drops to your mouth for a devastating instant.

It is quick. Barely anything. A flicker of attention, gone almost before you can decide whether you imagined it.

He steps closer, presses you to a wall you didn’t know was there. Air stutters in your lungs; your hands rise, defenseless. Danhausen leans in, nose grazing your cheek, lips near yours.

“Keep watching Danhausen.”