A void

You glance back at Otto. He looks appalled behind his small sunglasses. It’s almost funny.

“Oh no, please keep talking,” you say evenly, “‘gives me more time to come up with an attack plan.”

What’s more difficult to admit to yourself is how totally out of it you are when it comes to anything Octavius-related. You’ve been happy living in your little world of delusion before the mind-altering and deliciously traumatizing altercation with Olivia. But now? Every taunt, every tilt of the head looks like an invitation. Knowing there were alternate universes was pretty mind-altering as well, come to think of it. 

“I’m curious to see how you plan to attack me in your current situation.”

Right. You push against the vibranium shackles holding you hostage in a chair. It was more for show if you were being honest; you doubted you could break free even with hundred-percent strength. Instead, you stare at the dirty walls of Otto’s new lair, trying not to focus too much on the flow of images his shiny actuators brought to the surface.

“Do not bother.” He lets out a bark of a laugh. “You’re completely at my mercy.”

You’ll give it to him though, he has been swift and efficient when he cornered you in a back alley and knocked you unconscious. In your defense, you did fight back against the actuator pinning you against the wall, but he said something and the next second, everything had faded to black. It was something insubstantial, something stupid and stereotypically evil like he’s famous for. Totally not something that made your heart skip a beat.

“I have to say,” he says conversationally, “I’m disappointed by how easy it was to catch you.” With two mechanical arms digging into the ground, he looms over you, the pans of his coat flapping against his naked skin. “You’re usually not that compliant.”

Don’t you fucking dare blush.

You tear your eyes away from his chest. “I was just bored out of my mind. Your tricks are getting old, Otto.”

He chuckles. “It worked in the end, didn’t it? Even if it wasn’t the desired effect.”

“If it wasn’t, why pull the same shit over and over again?”

“For fun.”

It leaves your mouth open dumbly. You scoff. “Failing is not what I’d call fun.”

Otto stares before lowering himself to the ground, soles tapping against the wooden floorboard. You’re trying your damn best not to meet his gaze, even protected behind your mask.

“What’s gotten into you?” He asks. “You’re never this… serious.”

It gives you a whiplash. “Uh?”

“Did I break something?” He muses to himself.

You certainly didn’t expect him to notice you were out of it, or care about it for that matter. Perhaps you’ve underestimated the man’s perception.

“All fine and dandy. Thanks for asking, Doc’.” Your tone is way too even to your liking.

You’ve always been a terrible actor and he sees right through your bluff. Which is saying something since he can’t even see your face. You make another attempt at breaking free but it only makes your suit rub against all of your bruises and cuts. Your wince makes the good Doctor raise a questioning eyebrow.

“So, I did hurt you,” he says, disbelieving.

“You kidding, right? You punch like a little girl.” That’s a big lie and also misogynistic.

Fuck, maybe Olivia was right.

You’re suddenly assaulted by a strong smell of damp leather as two fat digits slip underneath the edge of your mask and pull. “Hey! The fuck you think you doing—“

Does anyone grasp the concept of anonymity ‘round here? “Fuck, Doc’, I thought you were a bit more chivalrous than that.”

Otto doesn’t answer, inspecting your face. It’s making you uncomfortable how much he’s staring. Did he expect a model or something?

“I wasn’t expecting this kind of hurting,” he says. You frown, confused, but when he uses one finger on your chin to slowly turn your face away, you realize with horror he’s looking at the beautiful purple claim Olivia left on your neck.

“What—“ you sputter, withdrawing as much as you can. “That’s not what you’re thinking.”

“And what am I thinking, exactly?” Otto asks, evenly.

What is he thinking exactly? He barely reacted to your naked face, not even to gloat at exposing your biggest secret. And what do you want him to be thinking? That you have no game at all? What would be the point? If anything, you should be proud to show him you get any action.

He interrupts your inner monologue: “I wasn’t expecting the reason for your scattered brain to be sex.” You blush bright red. “I thought you had more self-control than that.”

His lips stretches, deliberately slow, displaying rows of straight incisors and sharp canines. “Unless you’ve been fighting an oversized bat.”

It would have been preferable at the moment. “Yes. You guessed it. How smart.”

Otto chuckles. “It probably wasn’t any good if you look this tense.”

“I have a good reason to be tense at the moment,” you hiss.

“I make you feel that way? My, I’m flattered.”

“You wish, Doc’.”

His hand glides on your neck, wrapping his fingers around your throat. A large digit presses down on the mark. “Perhaps, I do.”

Your bruised skin burns at the pressure but your mind burns even brighter processing what Otto just admitted; what he could be imagining as he traces the uneven blood crusts left by the sharp teeth of his counterpart. And your silence is even more telling; somehow even more than the quickening of your breathing, your pulse confessing everything to his touch.

“What do you want?” you struggle to say, mouth heavy.

He smiles, almost gently, but his eyes are predatory. You’re not unfamiliar with the look on his face and isn’t that a thrill. With Olivia, you could have used her actuators as an excuse for your actions; not that you had any intention to though. With Otto, however, the shackles are quickly removed and the raised eyebrow he offers looks like an opportunity for flight.

You don’t take it.

There he stands, the reason for sleepless nights, the unhealthy obsession you can’t wrap your mind around. He looks down and it feels intimate, almost natural if you could ignore your surroundings, the sensation of your suit, and the four red eyes watching you closely.

His fingers are back on the bruise, ignoring your question. “Who gave you this?”

You’re about to lie through your teeth when he adds: “No one important, I’m sure?”

Your spit is thick when you swallow. “Self-centered much?”

He laughs. “You don’t have to answer. You’ll forget them soon enough.”

Doubtful, you think. At the very least, you’ll be haunted forever by the juxtaposition of two universes. “Keep telling yourself that.”

You’re still frozen in the chair, free but still bound by the desire running rampant under your skin and his long fingers around your neck. He’s not even bothered by your comment; Otto has always been radiating confidence, and you know that if one person could erase Olivia from your mind, even for a moment, it’d be him. Fittingly. Her alternate self with whom you share a deeper bond, a long-term rivalry, a never-ending attraction…

He straightens up, hand leaving your neck and you feel a lot colder. In a smooth movement, he takes off his glasses, and you’re assaulted by the gentleness of his brown eyes. The same eyes you kept seeing alongside Olivia’s green ones.

“I want to erase all of this tension.” You realize he finally answered you when he says: “Now tell me, little spider, what do you want?”

There’s no way around it, is it? You can’t just admit you’ve been chilling in an alternate dimension with his alternate self and that you’ve been thinking about him every single minute spent running away and fighting. You can’t just admit you had the best sex of your life with a women-him who confronted you to the extent of the absurd and frankly unethical feelings you distil for your archenemy. You can’t tell him you’ve been fantasizing about the weight of his body, the strength of his hands, the thrill hidden behind each actuator… The thoughts are too much to bear or explain.

“You.”

The grin he gives you is enough of an acknowledgement.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Broad palms stretch across your back, feeling the dryness of your skin, dipping fingers in the tender joints of your muscles as you sigh. His silence almost feels reverent; a stark contrast with Olivia’s rough handling. She spent her time hovering over you, close but never touching, wallowing in the superiority induced by the distance between you. Otto however seems intent on pressing as much skin as possible to yours, enveloping you completely.

“Your back is surprisingly devoid of scars,” he comments.

Your haughty chuckle dies in your throat, distracted by the warmth of his hand snaking to your abdomen to pull you closer. “I always face my enemies,” you answer after a second or two.

His petting stops. “How brave.” The press of clammy skin and well-worn leather melt away the chill raised by his exploring hands. Not entirely because his breath bounces off the crook of your neck, and it’s so easy to get lost in the clash between warmth and cool. “What does that say about me?”

You understand belatedly the insinuation of your previous statement. “Is it trust?” He taunts, and you can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Hell no,” you fire back, “you’re the last person I could trust.”

It’s a lie; you’ve met far shadier and far more morally reprehensible enemies than Dr. Otto Octavius. “I’m offended.” His fingers are running higher on your torso, leaving chills behind like a powder trail ready to combust. You’re not certain you’ll be able to survive this wildfire. “Killing you would be a waste,” he adds as an afterthought.  

“Yeah, your life would be so boring without me.” You smile, stretching your numb arms.

“Indubitably.” The actuator holding your arms up loosens and your heart tightens at the admission. “Although—“

One fat finger from a hand you’ve, regrettably, forgotten press forcefully on your sex; its outline peaking scandalously through your suit. Your gasp is silent but your whole body tenses up against his chest. “—the same could be said about you.”

You swallow a snarky remark. Anything you say could incriminate you further, and your body already does an amazing job on its own. Thankfully, the Doctor is happy to keep the conversation alive: “Could we call this a truce then?”

You wouldn’t call a quick dirty fuck a truce. It’s a distraction, a wonderfully effective one. “As if!” You scoff. “You’re going to prison after this.”

Another finger joins its lonely mate, rubbing in tandem with the spandex against your pelvis. The suit is designed for comfort and to avoid chaffing despite being skin-tight (which you’ve never been more thankful for at the moment), but it’s not an efficient protection against the softness of his caress. You’ll soon want to rip the offending fabric off to press more forcefully on teasing fingers, but for now, you’ll hang on to the last thread of reason the suit provides you. Who knows if you’re not actually dreaming?

“You’re in no position to promise such things, I’m afraid.” He’s right and there’s nowhere else you’d like to be at the moment.

Otto retrieves his hand. “Hey! Don’t—” Your mouth snaps shut but it’s already too late.

You feel him straightening up, leaving your sweaty back to the cold air of the room. You can’t see him but you hear his chuckle and his actuators rattling.

“I see,” he says, “you’re just desperate.”

“Desperate for what? You?” Better dedicating yourself completely to the monkey business. “I’ve had the best fuck of my life two days ago, I’m not desperate.”

The claw holding your arms up retracts and despite the physical retrieve it offers you, you can’t help but wonder if you’ve played a role a bit too well. The shining eye of the actuator stares directly at your face, and you watch it stretch with dubious eyes— “Such a clever mouth.” – until it pushes you against naked skin, squeezing you back tight against Otto’s body…

“I’ve always thought a good fuck could humble you greatly.”

…and his unmistakable excitement. The remaining slivers of coherence leave you at the vulgarity of his sentence and the tantalizing, unique snap of his hips.

“Always?” Your voice is lost in a whisper.

His breath hitches, you’re almost certain of it. His nose brushes against your shoulder, and a hand snakes back over your abdomen as the actuator retracts, holding you even closer. It’s funny how you already are near losing your mind. Your eyes are open but you barely see, only the dark blur of the metallic beam on which you hold on. You’re completely helpless, bent almost in half by the weight of his body, trembling legs and shaking from anticipation; heady from his admission.

Otto hums and the sound vibrates through you. “Fuck, look at you.”

Desperate for the touch of a madman, two seconds away from panting like a dog from how fast your heart is beating, shameful…

“How could I not desire this?” His digits wander in the ridges of your muscles, the dips of your skin. His breath is hot and moist against your shoulder. “You entice me. I can’t wait to make you beg.”

The actuator fixated on your face moves closer, rotating his head in agreement.

“You’ll never hear me be—“

You startle. Another mechanical arm has taken hold of your suit, tugging before tearing it apart like a sheet of paper. A still coherent voice at the back of your mind fustigates you for ruining two perfectly good suits in less than seventy-two hours; the remaining ninety percent short-circuits. You realize, with no amount of dignity left, that your skin is dripping wet. “Shit.”

“Would you look at that?” You can’t look. You don’t want to look. “How flattering.”

The glide of his hand is disgustingly arousing, and you moan unabashedly when he finally – finally – relents and touches your neglected sex. It’s too good to be normal. Lost in your breathy whines, you think about Olivia and her sweet torture session. Even she hasn’t been able to tease such a strong reaction out of you this quickly. How fucked up are you?

Twice you left your body in the hands of an Octavius for experimentation, and you’re afraid this time will be the one that’ll leave you crawling back for more.

“So close so soon?” Otto tuts. “Disappointing.”

His touch stops altogether. You groan. “As lovely as it sounds to make you come more than once, I do intend on experimenting a little more with you.”

Damned Octavius-es! Loving to hear themselves talk, loving to drag things torturously slow…

“Nothing I haven’t seen before,” you pant, closing your eyes to gather your thoughts.

“You’re a degenerate, aren’t you?”

He steps away, and you hear the squeaking of leather falling to the ground. You yearn to turn around and watch him in all his half-naked glory. Instead, a metallic arm wraps around your ankle, pushing your legs apart. You feel exposed, the cold air of the warehouse striking your wet skin in an overwhelming contrast. It gets worse when Otto puts a wide palm on the curve of your ass, spreading you and observing the way you part in an embarrassing, squelching noise.

You have no time for a witty comeback: he presses one thick finger into you. You gasp. The intrusion is more surprising than hurting, it distracts you enough from your upending orgasm. His fingers curl inside you, so warm, spreading you open with ease.

He hums pensively. “You feel tight. You’re certain you’re not lying when bragging about your last date?”

A date. You manage not to scoff. “There are other ways to have sex. You’re just old-school.”

Otto chuckles. “More fun for me.”

His mouth is back to your ear, and his affected state is unmistakable. “Let’s see how long you can last before you beg me to fuck your pretty hole.”

The next minutes are excruciating. You lose your voice and all sense of coherency. He fucks you harshly, curling, twisting, scissoring his fingers as you pant hot, condensed air. You could have ignored it (you could have) if he hadn’t been alternating between making sure you were loose for him, and stroking you ‘til you’re leaking enough to use your precum for his mistreatment. And all this time, you were being watched closely by the red eye of his actuator, held tight by two others.

Two delayed orgasms later, and three fingers deep in you, you are near your breaking point. You’ve lost track of time, lost control over your vocal chords and you’re secretly glad you’re not in an apartment right now. The neighbors might have complained.

“Nothing to say?” Otto asks. You can hear his shit-eating grin.

“F-Fuck. No.”

“As you wish.”

He spits directly on your fluttering opening before stuffing four fingers in. You definitely scream this time.

“Otto!” You don’t even recognize the sound of your own voice.

He hums in fake interest. “What is it, love?”

Your heart beats even faster. You hate him for that. He thrusts against your walls. “Oh, fuck!”

“Not even close, darling.”

Your moan sounds devastated. His other hand snakes to your front, stroking you with clever fingers and you feel yourself overflowing. You know you could come from this alone, but your half-delirious brain somehow craves more. You want the press of his soft body on your back again, and his bruising mouth on your neck. Perhaps even his teeth right where Olivia marked you. You want his warm hands on your aching skin, on the map of scars he left on you.

“Now,” he sighs, “what do we—“

“Please.”

His stillness attests to his surprise. You share the sentiment but you’re this close to losing your goddamn mind; you don’t really care anymore except for the chance of feeling him inside you.

“What do you want?” he hisses, stroking you impossibly harder.

“You,” you cry out. Otto disengages with an irritated sound. “Wait!”

He grabs your chin, almost choking you in the process. You realize your cheeks are wet. “I’ll leave you like this, you hear me?” His voice is harsh, raspy. “Now, be very specific, pet.”

“Fuck me!” What a pathetic display you make. “I can’t take this anymore.”

You look directly into the actuator’s eye. It gives you a thrill. “Please, Doctor.”

You register distantly his labored breathing, the slight tremor in his fingers when he releases you to get rid of his trousers. Despite having been thoroughly prepared, the filthy glide of his cock stretches you wider, reaching deeper parts of yourself. Your legs tremble and the only reason you’re not collapsing on the ground is the tight hold his actuators have on you. His arms wrap around your torso, and the furnace of his skin turns you to embers.

“Come on, just give it to me!” Even in your tormenting need, you somehow find it in you to be bossy. “Otto—“

He grabs your face forcefully, turning it towards him. His strong nose is pressed in your right cheek, and the encompassing heat of his breath tickles the corner of your mouth. You want to kiss his plump lips so badly.

“From now on, it’s Doctor Octavius for you.”

The stretch burns from lack of lubrication, but he plunges into you without any concerns. The snap of his hips is so strong you topple forward in a pitiful cry. Otto fucks you harshly, frantically while holding your mouth close to his. He pants through his nose and you respond in kind by moaning loudly. If you had more time, you’d have wished for Olivia to wreck you like this, to have you feel her skin as she fucks you. Her fingers, her actuators, anything to make you feel this full.

“Doc’,” you choke, twisting your neck to partially meet his chapped lips, “harder.”

“You greedy little thing.”

The actuators at your legs disentangle themselves, planting in the ground in a loud crack. The combined strength of Otto’s hips and his mechanical allies pushes you completely against the metal beam. You’re glad, unable to hold yourself upright as you’re assaulted by this indescribable force.  Your screams speak volumes:

“Ah! Ah, shit!”

He’s now groaning against your cheek, sweat gathering on his forehead and running on your skin. The whole ordeal is disgusting and you want more. You need more.

Greedy. You’re so greedy.

In an unconscious movement, your numb hand releases the beam to bury itself in his damp bangs. It elicits a downright animalistic snarl from Otto, so you tug. Hard.

“Fuck,” he hisses. It sounds like pain but his hips shake, losing his rhythm.

The embers he created coil in your abdomen. Your limited movements don’t stop you from pushing against him, chasing the spark that’ll finally ignite you. You mutter disjointed sentences – ‘come on’s, ‘so good’s, and debauched iterations of his name – which he answers with more groans and moans of his own. You cling to him, breathing in the strong essence of leather and sweat, twisting your neck, even more, to meet his lips in an almost kiss, anchoring him closer and deeper until—

“Break down, sweetheart.”

He bites the scream you let out. It’s his words, this final act of stimulation, this echo of another universe, that lights you up. He catches your tears with his lips and you come, powerless against the intensity of the sensation. Otto follows you, pumping his spend inside you for what seems like forever. Your own clings to your trembling skin. You try to regulate your senses, still focused on the twitching of your muscles, on the throbbing length of his cock and his ragged breathing.

The actuators retract and you expect him to do the same but he stays anchored to you. The nuzzling of his nose against your cheek somehow manages to freak you out more than the aftermath of this whole conundrum. Your fingers in his hair relax, scratching his scalp in response to his caresses. Your neck hurts from the unusual position you force it into, but it’s the least of your worries when his mouth is right there.

Sadly, he steps away, slipping out from you in a deafeningly wet noise. Your legs fail you but you hold onto the metal beam, now warm under your touch. The contraction of your muscles has the unfortunate effect of letting his hot cum leek out of you, cascading along your thighs. Otto lets out a contemplative hum.

“You paint a pretty picture, I must say.”

His thumb dips into your flesh, spreading your sensitive entrance as more of him comes out of you.

You huff, straightening up. “Hands off.”

Your suit is in shambles on the ground; you look at it dejectedly. Olivia had the intelligence of divesting you of it, not ripping it to shreds. Men.

“Hard to take me to prison in this state, right?”

You turn to glare at him but you end up gaping at the two actuators throwing Otto’s leather coat on your shoulders.

“Thanks.” You try to summon your usual carefree attitude but you find yourself unable to. You’ve somehow been more easy-going with your life on the line and under the near-psychotic gaze of Olivia than you are now. You wonder what that says about you. “This doesn’t change anything. Next time, I’ll kick your ass so hard they’ll have to drag you to your cell.”

He laughs lowly. “’Sounds promising.”

He’s not insinuating—

You clear your throat, adjusting the coat around you to shield you from the cold seeping into your bones. You feel uneasy being watched so closely by three pairs of eyes. Otto hands you something: the ruffled mask he snatched off before. You take it.

“You know that the purpose of a mask is to hide your face?” you mutter, stuffing it inside one of his pockets.

He shrugs. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“…Sorry, what?”

Why you ended up at Egon’s place you have no idea. Well, you do know how – most of the files were his after all and you couldn’t let Dr. Stantz handle the walking up five flights of stairs on his own. Plus, Egon wanted to look back at some old papers of his; something about a new plan of approach concerning the storage facility issue. So, there you stood, looking around awkwardly as Dr. Stantz retrieved the last box downstairs. It was a simple apartment, messy and not intended to be anything more than an occasional place to sleep – or, surprisingly, a fungus breeding farm.

Your questioning gaze certainly didn’t go unnoticed. “I collect spores and fungi,” he explained.

“Neat.” You didn’t really think before you carried on, “Is that why you studied microbiology?”

“…amongst other things,” Egon said, looking slightly surprised. “I didn’t realize you knew.”

“Uh,” you trailed off. “I’ve read your papers.”

“All of them?”

Can it get any more embarrassing than that? “…might have.”

He didn’t answer and you thanked him internally for it. The visit was short and to the point, Egon clearly looking uncomfortable having other people trespass into his space. That’s what you kept telling yourself anyway, not especially fond of diving back into the whole ‘I’m an embarrassment to myself, him, and society’ spiral.

In itself, routine didn’t change much. You kept doing most of your research at the university, exchanging with the different professors of the lab, giving your opinions on the students’ ongoing thesis and avoiding Dean Yaeger. Then, you’d meet with the doctors after work to discuss the improvements of the containment facility. But the more the days went by, the more Egon’s temper seemed to flare. Not in the usual, explosive or passive-aggressive nature but in the dwindling of words, and the psychosomatic tremor of his eyelid. You hadn’t been truly able to understand why, when, or how.

Which led you to your actual predicament.

“I don’t think it’ll work, Egon.”

Sitting at a desk, you scratch an equation, staring dejectedly at the example of ‘ionization radiation decay meter’ Egon sketched. The man himself has taken his glasses off and pressed his eyes to alleviate his migraine. “We’ll have to include the system later,” he concedes, looking crossed. “I have to analyze today’s samples.”

After downing the cup of cold coffee you forgot on the desk with a disgusted grimace, you slouch on your chair. You watch Egon from the corner of your eye, busy staring and typing on his computer. He lets out an uncharacteristic annoyed noise.

“Not good?” you ask.

“Like I thought, it’s exponential.” He sighs. “Two days ago, PKE was three times less important than today.”

“Something big on the horizon.”

“Yes,” he says.

This tense atmosphere has you overly cautious as if one wrong word could make this artificial veil of normalcy shatter. It makes your skin crawl, inadequately feeling like your mere presence is making things worse. Leaving his computer behind to sit on the couch, he browses through the results he printed. His tiredness is noticeable even from where you are. You’re about to say something when Venkman comes waltzing in, his energy clashing with the general atmosphere of the room, which he notices immediately.

“Well, well,” he says in a singsong tone. “Who are we burying today?”

Egon doesn’t grace him with an answer, only with a glare before looking back at his results.

“It’s been a long day, I guess,” you answer truthfully to loosen the tension.

Venkman, always in theatrics, opens his arms wide. “Look who we’ve got here! Hello there.” He has his usual smirk on. “You’ve been hanging ‘round here more often.”

“Hello, Dr. Venkman.” You smile. “Just trying to help Egon.”

“And why aren’t we on a first-name basis?”

You certainly don’t voice aloud that you don’t want to give him any ideas, which he gets well enough on his own. Egon, for its part, is frowning so hard his eyebrows have merged with the frame of his glasses. You can almost imagine a big molten hole where his eyes are boring through the paper.

“Egon kindly proposed,” you explain.

“Wow, you guys,” Venkman exclaims. You frown at him, confused. “Congrats, Spengie! Don’t forget the invitation.”

This snaps Egon out of his sulking trance, face hardening at Venkman’s inappropriate comment.

“He kindly offered,” you interject, trying your best to look unfazed at the innuendo and to avoid an act of crime against humanity. “You, however, take everything for granted.”

Venkman whistles – which makes you want to strangle him – but at least Egon doesn’t look like he’s going to jump at his throat from across the room anymore.

“Damn, snarky today, uh? Let’s start over then.” Despite his mocking tone, he walks near you and extends a hand that you look at dubiously. “Hi, the name’s Peter.”

A small part of you doesn’t want to shake his hand, just to rile him up but you still do. Strangely enough, there’s an endearing quality to his man, when he wants to.

“Nice to meet you, Peter.”

The man lets out a pleased chuckle. “Now, now, I’m not trying to get you two to leave but this man–” He tugs at his collar. “–has a date tonight and he will be singing in the shower. So, if you want some peace and quiet, now would be a good time to go play in the basement.”

You scoff. “You’ve got a date.”

Venkman seems either completely oblivious or completely disinterested in your tone. “With a sweet creature called Dana Barrett.”

“Don’t forget to ask her about Zuul, Peter,” Egon says, snapping out of his good ten minutes of selective mutism.

Venkman disappears into their common room. “Did I say date?” he shouts. “I meant work meeting.”

True to his words, he starts singing a bad rendition of Queen of Hearts, making sure to annoy the whole building. Even if it grates on your nerves, it’s fascinating to witness this clutter of a place, with such different personas stacked on top of each other. You’ve never heard the story of how the three of them ended up being best buddies and judging by Egon’s closed-up face, today wouldn’t be the day you ask.

After five minutes of excruciating vocalizations, he puts down his results, standing up from the couch. You eye him curiously. “Where’ you going?”

“The basement.”

You frown, standing up. “You know; I don’t think he was serious.”

“I have readings to do downstairs,” he answers shortly.

He walks towards the stairs but stops, pivoting slightly towards you without meeting your eyes. The prickling sensation at the back of your brain is back. You can’t wrap your head around the contrast between his high-strung demeanor and his unspoken invitation to follow him. The confusion suddenly feels too heavy.

“Egon.” He looks up and you’re not expecting the flatness of his expression, how detached he’s looking. “Are you angry?”

It sounds stupid in your own ears, a ridiculous childish question but it’s out of your mouth before you can think about it. Words are wonderful incentives, you think, but sometimes, they just end up pushing people away.

Egon frowns, still not entirely facing you. “No.”

“Then–”

Venkman comes back into the room, whistling loudly. “Still there, lovebirds?”

You turn to answer him but you’re cut off by the loud steps of Egon hurtling down the stairs, leaving you staring dumbly at the invisible trail he left behind. There’s an uncomfortable silence as you frown, heart beating loudly for a reason you can’t really pinpoint. Venkman stands there, undoubtedly conscious of having said the wrong thing.

“Don’t worry, he’s cranky when he doesn’t have his nap.”

You decide to simply gather your belongings and leave. “I’ll come back in a few days.”

Even if Venkman offers to buy you a taxi, you decide to use the subway and as you stare without seeing at the dirty walls of New York’s underground tunnels, you realize that perhaps you’re starting to care a little too much.

Just a tad too much.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Awakening of Gozer

Perhaps you shouldn’t have gone home that day.

For when you heard that in less than twenty-four hours, the Ghostbusters headquarters exploded and that a cloud of psychokinetic energy appeared above Manhattan, you felt that ‘are you angry’ were stupid words to say to somehow you might never see again.

You stand in front of your TV as journalists follow the Ghostbusters’ car through the streets of New York, crowd in a standing ovation. You feel restless as you look through your window, watching the sky turning dark and the full-blown light show the ghosts seem to be throwing downtown. Even when the black clouds dissipate – reminding everyone that it was barely three in the afternoon, you stare, left leg bouncy, at the screen for the final cry of the crowd, hoping, praying, that it’d be of joy.

You’re not truly sure of the feelings rushing through you when they leave this building, dirtied but alive. As soon as you see their proud faces, you turn off the TV, and lay down on the couch, breathing deeply. You close your eyes and contemplate the labyrinth of paths life could have taken in the last two hours. When ten p.m. rolls out, you stand up, driven by some unknown force out of your apartment. Somehow, the sky still holds the purple hues of the paranormal manifestation that plagued New York this evening, ribbons of ghost energy glowing like winter lights and casting discreet colors on the buildings. Tomorrow, you’ll look back at the usual grayish streaks of pollution and everything will feel like a long fever dream.

It’s silly the way the heart and the brain latch on to these human connections like they’re starving. It’s unfortunate, truly. Unfortunate how walking through the chill of the busy streets leads you to his place; a sanctum at the top of a dirty building. And it’s scary how unable you are to stay away, – now and every day – especially when emotions are all over the place; fear in your stomach, anxiety in your loins, need – this unshakable need — in your heart: terrible, voracious, heavy in your limbs as you drag your exhausted body up the stairs. Knocking on the door is, weirdly enough, more nerve-wracking than having witnessed their improbable excursion on television. Egon opens the door, all intrigued eyes and furrowed brows; dressed so casually it seems unreal.

“I know it’s not the time, and that you don’t like people in your space,” you mumble. “But I was— “

Egon steps away from the doorway, inviting you in silently, and it’s almost reluctantly that you step inside. It’s dimly lit but you notice opened notebooks on his table next to three empty mugs.

“Was I interrupting?” you ask, already knowing the answer.

“No,” Egon answers to your surprise. “I was only writing down what happened tonight.”

You hum. “I saw it on TV.”

He gestures to you to take a seat. From your chair, you can see Egon busying himself with his small fungus farm, touching the caps of his mushrooms with the tips of his fingers. “You know; I think you deserve a rest, after saving the city and all.”

“I believe we saved the world.”

The emphasis doesn’t go unnoticed. You chuckle nervously, having found a deep interest in a stain on the floor. “I wonder if your Sumerian God would have been able to conquer the world as a hundred-foot-tall marshmallow man.”

“Gozer is a powerful entity,” he says. “They would have brought the apocalypse on our world.”

“But now it’s gone, eh?” The unusual silence makes you look up at him.  

“We’ve only destroyed a vessel and a portal. There might be more somewhere.”

“Well…” You try to rationalize. “Good thing the Ghostbusters will always be there.”

Egon stills, staring without looking as if he’s debating inside: is it true? Will it be true? Will I do anything to honor this promise? You decide to drop the subject.

“So, how does one destroy the portal of a God? ’Sounds like a lot of molecular bounds to break.”

“We crossed the streams.”

You freeze.

“…I thought you shouldn’t do that, like ever.” It’s easier to fake some lightheartedness in your tone than to face how a simple slip of fate could have made this improvised late-night meeting impossible.

“It did work.”

It’s harder to swallow as if he could suddenly vanish in front of your very eyes, taken away by some dark entity; as if every single particle of his being could disappear forever as they annihilate their counterpart. A total protonic reversal, that’s what Dr. Stantz had said. You unwillingly explore this possibility: how you, safely at home, wouldn’t have known about their utter and complete destruction until the ridiculous vessel of a Sumerian God turned on the city and brought the apocalypse upon the world. Perhaps after a few hours, perhaps after a day, you would have accepted the fact that they had lost. Or you’d have watched an explosion of unimaginable scale, staring blindly at the death of thousands of people and the loss of what became a constant in your life.

You stand up, trying to get rid of the restless energy that has been buzzing underneath your skin for two days now.

“Oh yes, proton-antiproton collisions are usually effective at killing everything around.” You sigh, trying to squash down the trembling in your voice, leaning against his desk. “Even if you weren’t already dead by the annihilation of your own molecules, the explosion would have finished the job.”

But it’s pointless to remind him of what he already knows. Egon still faces his farm but his mechanical movements have stopped. You say, “You’re more of a jackass than I thought.”

“The chances of surviving were low, I’ll admit.”

“No shit,” you mutter lowly. “Bless the uncertainty principle.”

His small cocky smile is an unexpected but welcomed sight. “Quantum theory has never been truly challenging for me.”

It startles a laugh out of you. “You might want to revise your judgment, then.”

Putting down whatever kind of instrument he has been using, he walks closer and leans on the spot next to you; an unusual decision, perhaps even an unspoken attempt at consolation. It’s funny because you’ve never stood this close, ever. There’s always been something between you: a room, a desk, Venkman, your apprehension, his awkwardness… As his shoulder brushes against yours, your heart soars with uneasiness but as soon as you let your bubble of comfort merge with his, it becomes the most natural thing in the world. Only then, at this very instant, does your heartbeat finally slow down, does the gnawing sensation at the pit of your stomach dissipate… leaving you to wonder when it’ll all pop.

“You haven’t told me the purpose of your visit,” Egon says after some time, always traveling the universe at the speed of light.

“Ah yes.” There it is. “I was restless.” He looks at you intently. “It just occurred to me that our last meeting hasn’t been entirely— agreeable.”

You stare at the ground. “I would have preferred not to have left on bad terms.”

“You were worried I wouldn’t come back.” It sounds like an epiphany.

He says ‘I’ and not ‘we’, and you would have liked for his social ineptitude to take a step forward for once, and not his ridiculously sharp sense of observation.

“Well… It’s normal, isn’t it?”

He doesn’t answer. You wish for the world to be ‘normal’ again, or at least the isolated system of your mental landscape. The disruption in the former entity of your thoughts morphs your behaviors, your habits, making you a slave to the random bursts of emotions you’d like to see buried. This energy stays right there, bound by thermodynamics and your fixations. Perhaps this PKE, this conscience energy is the reason for it all.

“I’m afraid that all of this–” You make a half-hearted movement of the arm. “–will disappear.”

“The world?” He asks.

“No. Yes. I mean…“ You swallow. “Here, right now. I’m afraid I’ll wake up in the morning to realize that it’s all gone.”

“I don’t think reality will end during the night.”

You don’t feel like expanding on those uncomfortable feelings so you entertain the idea. “We were about to be wiped out by a God from distant times. If ghosts are proof of anything, it’s that time is meaningless. It could very well end in a few hours.”

Egon doesn’t answer. You let out a sigh. “It’s irrational.”

“Perhaps,” he says after some time. “But fears usually are.”

“People usually fear tangible things, like, I don’t know, ghosts.”

“Ghosts aren’t material per se–”

You chuckle, looking at him. “I knew you’d say that.”

It’s complicated, this situation; how his literal words comfort you in unsuspected ways. It should be annoying, saddening even, to harbor such feelings for someone who lives miles away in his own head of equations, schematics and paranormal theories. You question your behavior, wondering if, in the end, he’s not just another new thing to fixate upon, if he’s not just another unanswered question on your long list of interrogations about life, the universe and everything. If that’s the case then, you can just move on.

“It’s late,” he states.

Perhaps, you can move on. “Yes, I’m gonna go.”

You gather your bag, breaking the fallacy of closeness you had. If the painful torpor your heart is in is any indication, is that it – whatever it is – goes beyond a fixation, but you don't want to confront any of this...

“Goodbye, Egon.”

…unless it’s to run away.

It’s a goodbye, you convince yourself, pushed closer by a disillusioned thought and a hint of desperation. On his face, you can read a plethora of interrogations, each for one flicker of a lid, for one shift of an eye; unique movements as his body stays right in place. It spurs you on, makes you cross the remaining distance between you. And as you place your hand on his arm to not buckle under the pressure, you give a single kiss; a furtive indulgence at the corner of his lips. Something that could be more, something that could be nothing.

You haven’t meant to meet his eyes, but it all seemed inescapable when he didn’t even close them in the first place while you hid safely behind the opaque screen of your lids. It’s confusion, likely a little bit of recoil… You burn brighter from a single kiss, a torch shining a little light on him too, but as adrenaline slips away, you’re faced with darkness again. There’s nothing you can fault him for as it’s your own two legs that took you there in the first place. It’s your own weak heart that pushed you up those stairs as everything else was dragged down by gravity.

You’re out of his apartment as quickly as you can. You know that if you abuse this kindness, your wider smile and warmer face will be the devil’s work; the consequence of pillaging of benevolence you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to stop. Even with genuine motions, his telltale beat will never follow yours, and even the strongest, wildest embers won’t alienate it faster. You will be a parched man facing a mirage, a moth to an ephemeral flame that will love everything until it’s consumed. But a flame doesn’t love back and love is a sin for the ones that feel it the most.

Putting down a box labeled ‘Electronics’ on his trolley with a loud crashing noise – which makes you wince, he starts making his way out of the room, smacking your flank in the process.

“You do know those items partially belong to the researchers working here,” you argue, clutching your side and standing in front of him. “You can’t just take them without permission.”

“Listen, I’ve been asked to remove this stuff, ok? So move out of the way.”

You swallow back your irritation, ready to conjure up every ounce of antagonism, but you’re halted in your need for confrontation by a giddy tone.

“Ah, Professor.”

You turn back to face an uncharacteristically smirking Dean Yaeger: a self-satisfied smug that would deserve to be wiped right out of his face. It makes you fear the worst.

“I’m sorry to announce to you that Dr. Stanz, Dr. Venkman, and Dr. Spengler have departed our university,” he declares, voice devoid of any empathy.

“Departed?” you ask. “Did they quit?”

“Oh no,” he laughs. “We’ve terminated their contracts. The psychology pole deserves better than three frauds ridiculing our university.”

It is, indeed, the worst that could happen. Baffled, you watch as the dean gives directions to the workers with a large smile. You’ve never wanted to hit someone more.

“Frauds?” you scoff, trailing behind him. “Dr. Stantz has a doctorate in parapsychology, so does Dr. Venkman. Dr. Spengler graduated from this very university and possesses several diplomas notably in nuclear engineering and psychology. What makes you possibly think they don’t deserve their places here?”

Another worker almost bumps into you. You glare at them.

“While I admire your lovely attempt at defending the undefendable, the decision is taken. This room will be emptied and used by actual scientists.”

The dean has started making his way out of the room, radiating self-satisfaction and throwing prideful looks at everything his eyes come across. You run after him, pushed forward by this revolting sight.

“Those files are their own research! You can’t take them away without consulting with them first! Yes, they were working for this university, but it’s still years of their work that you’re just confiscating.”

The smirk he gives you makes you regret your words instantly. “Since you’re so willing to maintain your questionable relationship with the three of them, you won’t see any problem with being entrusted with those files? I’m sure you can return them in person.”

“Questiona–” you stutter, but Dean Yaeger claps his hands obnoxiously.

“It’s settled then.”

Shit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Accepting to take care of Dr. Venkman, Dr. Stantz, and Dr. Spengler’s stuff had been both your good deed of the month and a middle finger at the face of Dean Yaeger. Stuffing piles of boxes in your tiny car hadn’t been easy. Especially since the dean had decided to dump everything in front of the university, grinning all along, savoring his cruel little prank. It says a lot about the actual interest Columbia University has in the work of its researchers.

There were at least over thirty different boxes, filled to the brim with research papers, littered all around your apartment. Obviously, Yaeger had made sure to take back all equipment – broken or not, leaving you with pounds of paper stored in their cardboard containers.

That is to say, after a month, you're starting to regret it.

The cluster of your home is slowly but surely disrupting your peace of mind. It’s almost as if the air has been saturated by dust and cardboard specks, the lack of luminosity not helping. Browsing through research papers and ordering everything has been fun at first, your curiosity satisfied, but you couldn’t decently keep digging through personal stuff. Therefore, you stopped, and now you loathe the view of these boxes.

The problem is that you have absolutely no idea where the three men went, and even on your deathbed, no one would witness you ask the dean for information. You simply can’t believe they would just switch universities, despite it being the ‘logical’ course of action. Mainly because Yaeger would behave like a goddamn leech and talk shit about them ‘till all universities in the country know about their turbulent history. You hoped for one of them to drop by your department but no one ever showed up.

Opening the door to your apartment and immediately feeling dejected at the view of the stacked boxes, you let out a sigh, getting rid of your work clothes and falling head first on your couch. You grab the TV remote, zapping mindlessly before deciding to let the device run in the background as you stand up to prepare something to eat.

During the small amount of time you’ve spent with the doctors this month, you’ve learned more about spooky theories and proton cages than about their actual life stories. Well, sort of. Dr. Stantz was certainly the most open of them all.

“Have you ever experienced a paranormal experience before?” he had asked, one morning, as he leaned conspiratorially towards you.

“I don’t think so?” you replied.

He had then talked extensively about a plethora of incidents, most notably a sponge migration which he’d assured was clear proof of paranormal activity. You had simply nodded, not wanting to question nor deter his enthusiasm. You quickly noticed – despite Dr. Spengler’s eclectic choices of study which could testify about his interest in science in general, Dr. Stantz remained the most passionate of the two; his obsessions towards specific subjects going further than a simple craving for knowledge on a Sunday afternoon. He kept lending you books on the supernatural which you had to decline after a fifth one joined the pile on your bedside table. It made wonder if the man didn’t own a secret bookshop somewhere. It left you with a sour aftertaste, knowing you had some of his prized possessions in your bedroom but couldn’t return them.

Dr. Venkman was– well… he was something else entirely. If Dr. Stantz was eager to share clever insights, Venkman was eager to share made-up stories. The diplomas on the wall did attest to his title of ‘Doctor’ but he couldn’t be more detached from it. Oh, he was researching psychological phenomena alright, but never knowledge for knowledge’s sake or even out of pure professionalism as you could expect from a researcher. If psychology books were leafed through, it was for manipulation tactics and to weaponize the uses of sugary words. In that, he was talented.

“Is it my time to interview the case subject?”

It was your third time in Weaver Hall. Both Dr. Stantz and Dr. Spengler had looked up from their ‘ghost trap’ schematics as Venkman took place in the chair in front of you.

“You never do interviews,” Dr. Stantz had said, deadpan.

“I feel magnanimous today.”

Venkman was a case study on its own, a study you weren’t willing to commit to. You had trouble understanding his true intentions most of the time. In the end, he remained the most enigmatic of the three, despite a boastful, overly dramatic persona (All the world’s a stage!). In the end, you couldn’t genuinely despise the man when he was driving away nosy students and even nosier teachers with phlegm, or when, during his rare excursions in the lab, he would bring sweet treats and coffee.

As for Dr. Spengler, well… he was brilliant and devoted to his work. Alike Dr. Stantz, although sporadically, he would sometimes get caught in a tirade of explanations and postulates. Every day, you resented the apprehension that staved off your second meeting for he could make your neurons flare and burst into ideas that’d spin in your head fast enough to weave entirely new conceptions. You were somewhat drunk on the feeling, making you distracted which even your colleagues noticed, embarrassingly enough. It all ended up in a self-deprecating mantra that led you away from Weaver Hall and back to the arms of your students and lab partners.

Now, they are gone, and you have no idea how to reach out.

“Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?”

You know Dr. Spengler has spent his entire life either studying for new degrees or researching. Universities are probably all he has ever known, and that makes you wonder how he’s managing the whole thing. Maybe he was hired by another university; with his degrees, it shouldn’t be too hard, despite what happened. Damn it, you should have given either of them your number. What if he’s already halfway across the country by now?

“Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?”

 What the–

You glide out of your kitchen, spatula in hand, almost falling as your sock-clad feet slide on the wooden floor.

“If you or any of your family ever seen a spook, specter–”

“You’re fucking with me.”

As the three of them stand inside your TV offering ghost-hunting services, it makes you wonder if they didn’t take things a tad too far – or too seriously, this time.

“Call the Ghostbusters! We’re ready to believe you!”

Well, you certainly don’t believe it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Phoning the place has been like stepping into another dimension. You’ve been bombarded with words you’ve never heard in any discussion, except in Dr Stantz and Dr Spengler’s endless chatter about compendia and other mystical publications. 

“Is your haunting an apparition, poltergeist, phantasm, wraith, banshee, demon, specter, tortured soul, or–”

“Excuse me but–”

“For your information, we do not summon dead family members.”

“I’m not calling for that–”

“Wait, hold, please. No Dr. Venkman I haven’t–”

And that was the end of the conversation. It left you with a strong puzzling sensation and a definitive confirmation of your aversion to discussions happening over the phone. The secretary never called back and you were secretly glad, leaving you time to summon all of your courage and go there directly. Which you did… eventually.

Funny how when you’re not searching for something, it comes to you from every angle. After discovering the strange choice of reconversion the doctors took, you were bombarded by advertisements, radio talks and covers of magazines. The men have managed to put all of New York in their pocket, and half if not as many ghosts in their traps. You’ve never been a firm believer in specters but Dr. Spengler and Dr. Stantz had talked extensively about them and their prototype to finally be able to catch one. You’ve been more interested in the physics aspect of it all; Dr. Spengler has been more than willing to explain and you’ve been more than willing to add your own theories.

You now stand in front of their headquarters, preparing to face them. And once again–

“Hey, it’s you!”

–it’s Dr. Stantz who nudges you in the right direction. The man smiles widely, face darkened by car oil and dirt, a crooked cigarette hanging from his lip. His uniform is equally as dirty, and he looks more like a mechanic than a ghost hunter… but no one has ever been a ghost hunter before so, what do you know?

“Hi, Dr. Stantz.” You smile. “It’s been a while.”

You can see he’s struggling to not pat your shoulder in a welcoming gesture. “Man, we thought we’d never get to see you again! Spengs’ gonna be so happy to see you!”

Somehow, you have trouble imagining Dr. Spengler overjoyed or overexcited. It’s not in his character.

“Come on!” He gestures for you to follow him. You’re barely inside that he has already strode through half the hall. “Sorry for the mess! It’s so hectic these days.”

“I saw the articles,” you say, taking in your surroundings.

At the front desk sits a fashionable lady whom you guess to be the secretary. She’s busy answering the phone, munching at her pencil and looking exhausted. She barely acknowledges your presence as you follow Dr. Stantz up the stairs.

The man never stopped talking. “Venkman is out right now; he wanted to check on one of our clients. The woman had blood dripping from her chimney, can you believe that?”

You clearly have trouble to. The blood part, not the seducing clients part.

Upstairs is as messy as the hall if not worse. It rivals the state of Weaver Hall. Dr. Stantz throws his extinguished cigarette in a nearby bin before grabbing a paper napkin to wipe his oily hands.

“Egon!”

Dr. Spengler appears from behind a desk, light on his forehead, and invested in organizing a large number of electric cables. “Ray, I found the problem with the Aura-Analyzer–”

He pauses when he sees you, which you can’t say that you did, blinded by the light of his lamp. “Hi,” you say, smiling while protecting your eyes.

“Oh,” he answers, turning it off. “Hello.”

The uneasy silence that follows throws you all the way back to your first meeting as if a month of socializing had suddenly vanished in the span of four tiny weeks.

“Do you have issues with a ghost?” he ends up asking, putting down his torch.

Your eyes widen in surprise, unsure of how to react. Dr. Stantz, however, lets out a strong laugh so you chuckle awkwardly to echo him. “No, no ghost.”

“It’s crazy that you came in today,” Dr. Stantz says, throwing away the dirtied napkins. “We have to improve the storage facility and we need to be able to boost the grid while saving as much power–”

As he speaks, he disappears behind a wall, the sound of running water overlapping his words. You stay silent, watching Dr. Spengler rearrange electric cables until his friend emerges from the bathroom, clean-faced.

“But anyway, Spengs can give you the big tour,” he declares, grinning. “I have a check-up to do at Tai Hong Lau! If we’re lucky, I’ll come back with dinner as well.”

This time, he gives you a clap on the shoulder before running to the stairs but turning back at the last minute. “You’re staying to eat with us right? The owner has the best Peking duck in town, I’m sure you’ll love it! See you later!”

And then he’s gone, leaving you alone with Dr. Spengler. The distance separating you makes the room feels even bigger. You clear your throat. “I see you were able to create your ghost trap after all.”

He nods. “The day we were… dismissed, we managed to have enough readings on our first supernatural encounter to finalize the prototype.”

“Incredible,” you praise before realizing how uncaring you might sound. “I mean, I’m sorry about the whole Dean Yaeger situation.” 

Dr. Spengler shrugs, stepping out of the corner of the room he crammed himself in. “There’s nothing you could have done to change the outcome.”

You decide not to comment. There’s a certain tension behind his words that makes you think he might truly have been upset about the situation.

“So, what’s up with the… grid?” you ask, looking at the different types of equipment stacked in the room.

He does sound relieved by the change of subject. “The Containment System is the storage facility we use for paranormal entities. Lately, the growing number of stored entities has put a strain on the main chamber.” As he explains, he searches in a pile of paper, extracting a large sheet. “The simplest course of action would be to enlarge the room but in case of an exponential increase in psychokinetic energy, it wouldn’t be possible to expand indefinitely and I’m not even addressing the energy consumption problem.”

You saunter closer to him. Half of your brain is focused on how easily he slipped back into his rambling habits. Perhaps not all socialization has been lost, you muse delightfully.

“What’s the worst that could happen? An explosion?” you joke, hands on your hips.

There’s a moment of hesitation. You stare at him in disbelief. “Don’t tell me–”

“The system has a high-voltage laser grid.”

You gape at him for a second before clearing your throat. “Uh, you’ll have to tell me more I’m afraid.”

On the table, he puts down what seems to be the blueprint of the storage chamber. You study it from the side.

“PKE bounds together the negatively charged particles composing a ghost. Our two laser grids…“ He ignores your bewildered expression. “…prevent the entities from escaping.”

He continues, “But we’re completely dependent on the city’s power grid.”

“No redundancies?” you ask, starting to see the problem.

He shakes his head. “We had no way to generate our own power supply when we moved in – we still don’t, and we weren’t planning on a strong surge in PKE.” There’s a tremor at the corner of his eye, perhaps from tiredness. “It makes us vulnerable in case of a power outage.”

It all sounds very hazardous. “I’m surprised you still haven’t had Public Services knocking at your door, with you powering high-voltage grids and…” You throw another look at the blueprint. “…a penning trap of this size.”

Dr. Spengler looks up solemnly. “We have been drawing attention.”

That’s one way to put it, you think. “Won’t you also have problems with your… residents in there?”

“It’s complicated to assess the level of ionization inside the chamber,” he explains, lost in his musings. “I do daily samplings to monitor psychokinetic energy but it’s a time-consuming process and as minimum as it is, there’s still a risk of slippage. Stronger entities could attack the grid from the inside, despite the threat of–”

He comes to a sudden stop. “...perhaps I can just show you. If you’re willing to.”

Blinking away the feeling that is suspiciously looking like infatuation, you smile, trying to convey what you hope is a convincing agreement. “Of course.”

Dr. Spengler nods, putting away the scheme of the Containment System as you stare, unable to stop yourself. Funny how history repeats itself, you think, already picturing how you’re going to neglect your work just to hear him talk more. You can’t bring yourself to care the right amount. The concretization of it all – this whole Ghostbusters thing – is exhilarating. It was fascinating when it was mere speculations but now it’s all real. Right here, in an old firehouse in the middle of New York, are new forms of life; new not in age but in terms of discovery. Your work has always been focused on the future, so this is just another step toward it. It’s – funnily enough, all thanks to the past: the dead, the undead and the spiritual.

“Say, Dr. Spengler.” He turns back. “Have you been able to learn more about that psychokinetic energy?”

“Ghost energy can take various forms. I don’t have a clear idea of what it could be yet.” He frowns. “Which makes the improvement of the unit even more complex.”

“If you and Dr. Stantz are ok with the idea,” you say, heart beating faster. “I’d like to study this matter further. Apart from the effect on the valences, there could be laser-nuclei reactions that are worth looking into, as well as interactions between the entities themselves. Perhaps, it’s too soon to theorize about potential ‘ghost particles’ though...”

Dr. Spengler looks pensive for a minute, and you’re afraid he’ll chastity you – gently, but he just walks closer, extending an arm. “I’ll show you the unit, and we can talk about a new schematic.”

The ‘we’ is a heartwarming promise. “Lead the way, Dr. Spengler.”

As you approach the stairs, he has a small smile on his face. “Egon, please.”

The first thing you take note of is the low modulation of his voice; an unusual pitch that seems to vibrate directly out of his chest. The second is his wide, rigid build. From your chair, he towers over you, and your neck is starting to hurt from stretching uncomfortably (it might just be your overall terrible posture.)

You’ve been staring a little too long so you clear your throat and get up. “And you are? Not that I’m unwilling to lend you a soldering iron but I can’t just give my tools to strangers–”

“Dr. Spengler, I work at the psychology pole of this university,” he interrupts.

He looks at you like you’ve got a stain right in the middle of your forehead. You glance away.

“Psychology? What do you intend to solder? A loose neuron?” You stand up, cracking up a joke nervously.

“I assure you I don’t conduct any dangerous experiments on unwilling subjects.”

Despite the tension, it’s the ‘unwilling’ that does it for you and you let out a chuckle. Finally meeting his eyes, the light frown he adorns is either one of incomprehension or irritation, making you drop the smile immediately.

“Uh–” you croak out before you decide better not to say anything. You both end up looking awkwardly at each other, and time seems to be stretching to amplify your discomfort – and probably his as well. It feels like orbiting a black hole while he’s rushing through the universe at 18.5 miles a second.

Smart enough to be a researcher, stupid enough to ruin a simple conversation.

Fingers fidgety, you walk away to rummage through your closets, taking out the tool and handing it to him. “I do intend to have it back soon, Dr. Spengler.”

There’s a slight hesitation in his hand before he takes it, nodding curtly. In your defense, you do try to smile, even if it’s an uptight, embarrassing attempt. Oddly enough, he doesn’t leave, staring at the iron for a couple of seconds.

Abruptly, he clears his throat, looking intently at your face. “I’m improving a prototype that detects the presence of paranormal entities and directs me to them using a boron-trifluoride counter tube and a platinum electrode.” He doesn’t even take a breath. “A component of the rate meter I installed seems to be defective, and the cable of my soldering iron broke while I was working.”

He comes to a sudden stop, mouth half-opened but doesn’t resume his explanation. At a loss on how to react –and surely gaping at him considering you weren’t expecting to be slapped across the face by a presentation on neutron detectors, you whisper a small: “I see.”

A nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth makes your stomach drop.

“Uh, I mean; you can borrow mine!” You let out a tiny laugh. “I didn’t know psychology doctors also specialized in particle physics, is all.”

What you meant as a light joke to relax him did quite the opposite. He straightens, righting up his glasses one more pointless time. “I have a degree in nuclear engineering,” he states before walking out, leaving you confused and feeling like you’ve spent the entire time offending him unintentionally.

Ground control to Major Tom, your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong, screams your forgotten Walkman.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dr. Spengler didn’t come back to your lab after your disastrous first meeting. He did return the iron, though. You simply found it on your desk one morning at seven o'clock, electric cable neatly wrapped around the handle.

You were secretly hoping for the doctor to come back to your lab to hand the iron back, so you could have apologized and asked more about his work, about his degrees… anything really. You had planned the interaction at least thirty times, going through a series of ice-breaking sentences that all relied on the fact that he would be back. He had preferred to avoid you, which couldn’t compel you to go see him yourself. Clearly, you had left a bad impression, and anxiety wouldn’t let you go look for him to apologize.

In the meantime, intrigued by his academic history, you started going through published papers by Dr. Egon – you quickly learned – Spengler. And if you thought you couldn’t get more curious about this mystery of a man, you browsing through numerous seemingly random articles – like ‘Quantum tunneling in anastomosis formations and nuclear exchanges’ – made you raise many eyebrows. Your fascination reached new heights with his brilliant article on ionizing radiation, written in M.I.T. no less. Egon Spengler had become the person you wished to chat with the most yet the most inaccessible.

You can think of a million questions to ask him, a million conversations to have. Why ionizing radiations? Did he have an interest in cosmic particles? Were his studies on gamma radiation related to his microbiology degree? How did he end up working in the psychology aisle of Columbia? Could ectoplasms really be quantified as a network of negatively charged particles?

Your life became filled with thoughts of the doctor, so you blamed it all on professional curiosity and you pushed yourself back into your work. Labs have been deserted by most researchers, preferring to treat themselves to a well-earned vacation. Nothing you can’t agree with in essence but previously attempted vacations had instilled a strong feeling of dread in you: you showed yourself incapable of not visualizing the amount of unfinished work. It’s not as bad as it sounds, really, to be work-obsessed; you love your work. Summer in Columbia is peaceful, solitary but also desperately unstimulating. Researching alone is undoubtedly slower, especially in your field, and knowing there’s an ideal candidate for some great brainstorming a few buildings away is nerve-wracking.

After an entire month going by with no new interaction with Dr. Spengler – not even sighting him at the corner of a corridor, the awkwardness that made him run away fuels your guilt. However, the opportunity of meeting again with Dr. Spengler comes unexpectedly. It comes with a mandatory meeting with the dean of the academy.

“You’ve been summoned as well, uh?”

You snap out of your social distancing trance. “Sorry?”

Next to you stands another professor with an easygoing smile and a relaxed stance. “Dean Yaeger. He likes to summon us like he’s royalty,” he jokes followed by a low staccato of a laugh.

“Oh,” you pointlessly say. “Yeah, he tends to do that.”

He offers his hand, showing another pearly-white-toothed smile. “I’m Dr. Ray Stantz, department of psychology.”

You offer your name back as you shake his hand. “Department of Physics.”

“Neat.” Dr. Stantz grins. “You should drop by our aisle sometimes. Spengs has a degree in physics; I’m sure you’ll get along well.”

“Who?”

“Dr. Egon Spengler, my colleague and friend.”

“Oh.” How you despise idle chatting. “I know him. He came to my lab to borrow a soldering iron about a month ago.”

“Venkman – our other colleague, forced him to go ask; he was so grumpy after being stopped in the middle of his experiment.” Dr. Stantz sure does enjoy making conversation. “He returned it, right?”

You have the impression he already knows the answer. “Yes, he did.”

“What field of physics do you specialize in by the way?” he asks excitedly. You have to say his jolly attitude is endearing, slowly getting you more at ease.

“High-energy physics.”

“That’s amazing, man. ‘actually wish I knew more about it. You should definitely swing by our lab soon. You can take a look at what we’ve–”

“Ah. Dr. Stantz.” Dean Yeager has the most distasteful expression on his face. “You may come in.”

Dr. Stantz gives you an apologetic look as Yaeger nods at you. You remain standing in front of the door, anxiety spiking up. Now you have no other choice than to go, or it’ll be rude, right?

Shit.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It took you more than a week of conditioning to get your ass moving, leading you, once more, in front of a closed door. You have to say, this part of the psychology department is far from what you’ve imagined. You wonder what Dr. Stantz, Dr. Venkman, and Dr. Spengler did to offend Dean Yaeger to the point of being located in the university equivalent of a demilitarized zone. No wonder they need to borrow equipment from the physics department. The bright red ‘Burn in hell Venkman’ tagged on the door isn’t the most welcoming sight either.

You reluctantly raise your hand and knock four times. The shuffling you hear inside almost makes you run away. But thankfully – or miserably you’re still unsure about that one, an unknown man opens the door. Dr. Venkman, you guess.

A lazy smile stretches on his face. “Can I help you?” There’s a low edge to his voice, something that’s intended and practiced.

You try not to come out as too appalled. “I’m looking for Dr. Spengler.”

Dr. Venkman raises an eyebrow, and you immediately chastise yourself. At that moment, you see Dr. Spengler popping his head behind him and you lose your train of thought… and your words. “Uh, Dr. Stantz told me to–”

Dr. Venkman opens his eyes almost comically wide, pivoting slowly between Dr. Spengler and yourself. “Aaal-right. You know what; I have to meet up with Veronica of the literature department so– I’ll leave you guys to it.” He claps obnoxiously on his friend’s shoulder before departing, sliding past you while whistling some tune.

You watch him go, slightly distracted when Dr. Spengler grabs your attention again. “Dr. Stantz isn’t here today.”

“Ah, I see…” No wait–

“He’ll be here tomorrow at 8 am.” He angles his body towards the inside of the room like he’s wanting to go back to what he was previously doing.

“Actually,” you force out, heart at the edge of your lips. “I wanted to apologize to you.”

Only the small widening of his eyes behind his frames indicates his surprise because his voice remains soft-spoken. “Apologize for?”

Better to be honest than invent a stupid excuse he’ll probably spot immediately. “Yes, I clearly made you uncomfortable last time. I was only trying to idle-chat, but I’m terrible at it.”

“What makes you think you made me uncomfortable?” Dr. Spengler asks.

A few seconds pass. “…because I went out of my way by questioning whether or not you had the knowledge to speak about particle physics?”

“Did you?” You realize he’s probably genuinely asking, not as a way to rile you up but as a way to understand. Somehow, it calms your nerves. Just a little.

“No,” you say. “I’m sorry… you just looked upset when you left.”

He faces you completely this time, taking his time to answer. “Then I’m the one apologizing. I was grateful for your help, but I failed to show it.”

Some part of you wonders if it’s entirely true. You brush it off. “It’s alright. I guess we’re not good at understanding social cues, uh?”

He seems to be pondering something. “I’ve been told that before.”

You chuckle. There’s a tension off his shoulders, and you thank Dr. Stantz internally.

“I’m actually working on a prototype of particle thrower. Your input would be appreciated.”

Fuck, can you concentrate for once?

“It sounds like you already knew the answer,” she says. With her free hands, she pulls her curly hair up, rebellious strands framing her face. Is amazing hair a multi-universal law for all Doc Ocks?

“‘Can’t say that I did–” you pause as long gloved fingers slide under the edge of your mask. “Hey! That’s a no-no, lady!”

She snaps the mask right off your face, an interested glimmer in her eyes. You feel like a mouse spread apart for dissection and she sure looks ready to whip out a scalpel. Was she really hiding a complete latex suit underneath her clothes? Not to be the one to pat supervillains on their shoulders to congratulate them on a job well done, but she really mastered the inconspicuous chemistry teacher cosplay.

Focus.

“It is quite fortunate that your portal opened here,” Octavius says conversationally as she readjusts her gloves. “I would have hated to run after you everywhere in the city.”

“Oh, you know me.” Your shrug looks like an uncontrolled twitch of your shoulder. “Always glad to help.”

“Indeed,” she chuckles. She grabs your face, inspecting it from every angle, ignoring your string of offended words. At the corner of your eye, an actuator reaches for a– ah, there is the scalpel. “Now…”

Oh hell no…

“Hey! Hey lady–“ Struggling is pointless and the more you try, the more she grins. “Olivia– can I call you Liv’?”

Octavius laughs. “Only my friends call me Liv.”

“We can be friends I’m sure.” You make sure to put on your best smolder. It looks painfully ineffective. “Or, you know, we can come to an arrangement.”

She raises an eyebrow at that but doesn’t answer. She’s not considering it, is she? That’d be a lucky day for the smolder – not that it doesn’t usually work of course (It doesn’t.) You keep smiling but her slow approach makes all your senses – spider and regular, tingle. It takes all of your brain power to tame your fight-or-flight response and not recoil as much as you can.

Are you seriously sweating right now?

“Oh, that’s rich.” Her smile is predatory. “Is it a usual Spiderman tactic to try to seduce their enemies?”

The actuators tighten even more around your torso. The discreet cough you let out widens her smile.

Toothy.

“Perhaps not in your universe.”

You’re relieved when the scalpel is dropped carelessly on the table behind her. Even more relieved when the tentacles lessen their grip around you. Your relief is soon replaced by surprise as one of them curls slowly around your left leg. It’s definitely better than being cut open, right?

“Alright, little spider.” Octavius stares down at you. “I’ll entertain the idea.”

Right?

In a blur, she steps in between your legs, helped by the arm holding your limb hostage. “And to answer your question…” Her hand comes to rest in the dip of your hip, feeling up muscles under her fingertips. Somehow it’s this simple gesture that sends a strong shiver through your nervous system.

“You can call me ‘Doctor’ from now on.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Liv.” The actuator tightens around your throat. “Doctor!”

A low laugh answers you. And that’s just not fair. Octavius has you in the most vulnerable state you’ve ever been in. Except perhaps that time when you had to face Captain Stacy, near the corpse of your bestfrie— oops, no, wrong mind folder. The most physically vulnerable you’ve ever been then.

“You never stop talking, do you?”

Earlier, Octavius had taken all the time in the world to push your arms out of your suit, her actuators handling you like a puppet, until your torso was bare for her to enjoy. You did try to yank at the tentacles keeping both your arms secured behind your back but thanks to whatever kind of sick machinery she put in them, they just wouldn’t budge. You were genuinely impressed at the technology allowing those arms to both be flexible and unbreakable. Even your Octavius had to favor titanium steel when he built his own.

The actuator that isn’t wrapped around your throat – a menacing yet tantalizing statement, or holding your limbs down, creeps from the top of your thigh to your chest, not unlike a viper chasing for its food.

Ah yes, the situation at hand.

“To be fair,” you huff. “You love to hear yourself talk as well.”

“You seem to know a lot about me, little spider.” Her hand travels from your hip to the underside of your right thigh. “Altercations with my alter-self then?”

You chuckle, a breathy fucking embarrassing thing. “Oh, plenty.”

Your suit pools uncomfortably at the bottom of your stomach, the sleeves flapping underneath you. It must be so practical to have strong mechanical arms capable of holding your enemy one meter above the ground without even breaking a sweat. But you feel way too warm. Isn’t it hot right now? Isn’t she hot?

Oh, she definitely is, submit your traitorous mind.

“I’m sure we must have been tormenting you intensely.” She giggles, examining a large scar running from your pectoral to your lower belly. With a finger, she traces it like words on paper.

“That’s from you, actually.”

Your Octavius had looked so smug when it happened.

She looks up, smirking. “His actuators are way more pointy than yours,” you explain.

The double-entendre doesn’t go unnoticed, but she doesn’t comment. “Actuators, uh? I haven’t heard this denomination in a while, since my research paper on radioactivity in fact.”

“Yeah, I did my homework.”

You exhale shortly when the teasing actuator wrapped itself around your middle section allowing the others to tug at your suit. Octavius stopped her reverential petting to observe the spandex clinging to your skin, slowly displaying your legs and your underwear-clad pelvis like an exhibit. A free one at that, with free food and everything.

“So,” Octavius asks after discarding the suit to a corner of the room. “What’s the name of my counterpart?”

Both her hands come resting on your legs again. “Otto,” you mutter through clenched teeth.

“Funny,” she says, taking her sweet time feeling your backside muscles. She likes to grope, doesn’t she? “That’s the name of my father.”

Your nose wrinkles. “Ew, what a way to kill the mood, lady.”

Strangely, she doesn’t mention your slip, simply laughing while resting her palm on your– nether regions. The mood is far from being killed however judging by the humiliating wetness spreading through your underwear. She presses her palm down a little forcefully, and you moan loudly. Raising an eyebrow, it’s with a certain – perhaps misplaced – curiosity that she alternates between stroking up and down and toying with the tips of her fingers any potentially sensitive region. And you can’t contain the noise.

To be fair, you’ve never really been ashamed of anything.

There’s a daze settling in your mind, a fog behind your eyes as you only focus on the diffuse pleasure settling down there. You’re pulsating, every blood vessel tight, engorged as a blush spreads on your skin. You’re drifting, fuck– you’re so–

“Eyes on me, sweetheart.”

You don’t have time to reflect on the fact that you obeyed so eagerly because her touch's gone and it's the only thing you can focus on at the moment. She knows that too because her smugness is plastered all over her face – some things never change, and you want to cum all over her arrogant little smile.

“That’s–” you struggle to catch your breath. “So uncool.”

“The arrangement is you get out of here alive and I,” Octavius smirks. “get to do what I want with you.”

The shiver that travels through you speaks volumes. So the key to the ultimate fuck was ‘travel to a parallel universe’ all along? Talk about a joke.

“Now.” She straightens up, towering over you. “Tell me a little more about your Otto.”

The tentacles raise you higher in the air, pushing your hips at almost eye-level to Octavius.

“Self-centered much?” You joke, trying to ignore the actuator crawling along your leg.

“Curious,” she replies, enjoying the show. “You didn’t go around flexing those beautiful muscles in front of his face, did you?”

“What–” You try not to blush but fuck– it’s hard to concentrate when there’s the equivalent of an alien tentacle nuzzling you through your underwear. “Hey! I’m a very respectable – ah!, person ok?”

She laughs loudly at that. “It’s not a no, is it?”

“It’s part of the job!” You huff, avoiding eye contact. “Nothing ever happened with Otto. I care about my life, you know.”

“But not enough to avoid trying your ridiculous seduction tactics on me?”

You wonder if there’s a sliver of internalized misogyny reprimanded somewhere but, in your defense, the smooth head of the actuator now slowly creeping towards your opening is hard not to focus on.

“Worth a shot?” you pant.

You let out a surprised groan as the rough feeling of your underwear breaches your entrance, pushed inside by the blunt head of the mechanical arm. Not nearly enough to truly be inside but the movement is a warning at worst, a promise at best.

For fuck’s sake, listen to yourself.

As the actuator keeps pushing against your hole, you’re assaulted by the wet sound your garment does as it moves. It’s reminiscent of your evenings alone in your shitty apartment when you have enough time to tease the shit out of you. And as Octavius’ hand is back on your crotch, sensations and recollections drive you mad, spilling moans and gasps from your open mouth. Are you going to cum just like this? Groped through your pants and your hole teased like a fucking teenager? You’re too old for that.

Octavius hums to herself, observing you and cataloguing all your reactions as she would do for her research. Her undivided attention on you is exhilarating, and you watch her through half-lidded eyes wishing you could see the curious glint in those wide brown pupils.

What the fuck?

“You seem out of it, Spiderman.” She chuckles. “Drifting away?”

You gulp. “You could say that.”

It’s like she can see right through you. “Fuck– I’m–”

She suddenly disengages, leaving you once again panting, muscles tensed under smooth plastic. “Oops,” she giggles. “Butterfingers.”

You can only stare, heart skipping a beat. She couldn’t possibly have–

“Let me help you with that.”

In seconds, she discards you of any remaining pieces of clothing, holding you upright in all your naked glory. Still dizzy from everything, the touches, the words, you don’t say anything.

“Well then.” She tilts her head to the side. “Spider got your tongue?”

As latex-clad fingers dip inside your mouth before you can even muster a clever answer, you let out a moan, obsessed with the slick feeling of spit on her gloves. Lost in thought, a smooth arm soon takes its rightful place on your groin, pocking, rubbing and your sex glistens, sticky and sensitive to the air. Octavius keeps pressing her fingers down your tongue, sampling every single strand of your DNA when she pulls them away. Now that she’s so close, you can see her green eyes through her goggles. Wait, green?

“Have I finally broken you, little spider?”

Her laugh is supposed to be taunting but it just releases another spike of arousal through your whole body as if she somehow managed to alter your genes, confuse every nerve. Your entire self had changed with a single bite from a radioactive spider, who said you couldn’t go through the same process all over again?

“Not by a long shot,” you chuckle breathlessly.

“If I’d known it’d be this easy…” Her wet fingers graze against a hard nipple and you bite your tongue to not release another embarrassing noise. “Perhaps your Otto should take lessons.”

You let out a breathy moan, weak against the surge of all those sensory attacks and perhaps from the superposition of brown and green, tiptoeing the leyline linking her universe to yours. Unlike him, she seems to see right through you, deciphering the codex of your fantasies with a single look.

“You should describe him to me.”

“What?” you sutter. “What for–”

The twist sears through you, making your knees shake, pleasure distorting pain. The actuator against your throat tightens imperceptibly, just enough to make you remember its presence.

“Come on,” she whispers. “Are we alike?”

You scoff. “Not at all. He’s…”

A pain in the ass. Always in the way, always stealing money, always speaking about grand schemes and higher purposes. Completely mad, a total whacko, undeniably intelligent, brilliant–

“Tall.”

It makes her laugh. The touch of the actuators against your feverish skin is almost enough to cool it down. “And?”

“Uh, large?” you mutter. “He’s like a mountain or– something…”

One hand keeps playing with your nipples as the other traces random figures along your stomach which, you realize, aren’t random at all but just the complex network of your battle marks. When she runs a finger along the scar adorning your torso, you gasp softly and her gaze is all-knowing. Octavius drives you insane, and you’ll soon be complete putty in her hands, using your body as she pleases while you’re assaulted with visions of large hands and uncovered skin.

“He has uh…”

Get a fucking grip.

“Uh, he has short brown hair.”

You realize that her spit-covered fingers have travelled all the way down when she uncaringly presses a digit inside. Breath knocked out of your chest, you still hiss at the dry and unpleasant sensation but the lone actuator is quick to distract you again. When you think you had enough time to gather all your unholy thoughts and the remnants of your oxygen, her finger is joined by another, spreading you open.

“What else?” she asks, focused on her task.

You sigh, annoyed. “He has brown eyes–”

The actuator’s head suddenly splits open, revealing four small appendages and the opening of the tube that controls it. It stares at you, almost mocking, and you can’t take your eyes off it before it starts to dip down.

“Wait, wait, what do you think you’re doing–”

The echo of Octavius’ laugh is registered far at the back of your mind as the arm traps the entirety of your sex like the mouth of a carnivorous plant on a powerless bug. You feel it suck, making you throb, sputtering everywhere. The rippling of the plastic membrane makes it look alive as if it was waiting to swallow everything your body has to offer.

“Whe– where they even– fuck!, designed for th–ah!”

Octavius retreats her fingers, laughing again before getting rid of her right glove with her teeth. You try not to dwell on how filthy it is.

Fuck, it’s the filthiest thing you’ve ever seen.

The suction on your crotch increases and now you can only pant, gasp and droll everywhere. It's a sensation like no other, making you ignore everything else. Nails dip in your cheeks as Octavius grabs your chin to look at you, pride of your current state written all over her face.

“His eyes, you said?”

You want to kill her. “His– eyes?”

“Yes.” She giggles. “I don’t think you finished your sentence.”

You want to kiss her.

The actuator around your throat releases you, leaving you gasping for air. But your relief is brief as it soon slides against your loosened hole, slowly but surely pressing in.

‘They’re– they’re,” you stutter, arching towards her, brain devoid of any coherence. “Brown?”

She grips your face more forcefully and every sensation suddenly comes to a stop. “Have your brain already melted through your ears?”

You whine. “Ok, ok– they’re big, too gentle even–”

She smiles, a predatory thing. Aren’t spiders supposed to be predators? One good, strong suction on your crotch has you moaning so loudly you’re afraid all Achemax will come running in. “Beautiful– he’s–”

The actuator pushes inside smoothly, leaving you a shaking mess, split apart by the chaos of sensations running underneath your skin. No casual sexual encounter could have ever brought you to such a delightful, painfully aroused state. Your senses are attacked, assaulted from every direction as you’re watched, dissected under the gaze of an enemy. Octavius takes immense pleasure watching you completely surrender to her, and you can’t not picture the smug crooked smile of her counterpart in the wrinkles at the corner of her lips. There’s a lot that you could question about yourself if you hadn’t left your higher brain functions under the hands – and the tentacles, of a magnificent opponent.

“I think you have some self-reflection to do, little spider.”

You register the press of her lips late. Still holding your chin in a death grip, she kisses you like a snake strikes its prey. Eyes rolling back as she sinks her teeth into your lower lip, you arch strongly towards her, arms hurting for being held down for so long, legs spasming and chest heaving. Her tongue plunges into your mouth and she sucks at your lips not unlike how her actuators pump in and out of you, suck you dry, drive you insane…

Suddenly, she draws back, exhaling harshly against your reddened lips and you can feel her body moving forward. You only have the time to register that her hips are trusting against the actuator stuck to your crotch before she grabs a fistful of your hair and pulls harshly.

“Come on,” she pants in the crook of your neck. “Break down, sweetheart.”

You come like this, lightning travelling up your spine as you release on the mouth of the actuator, overstimulated by the trusts inside of you and the feeling of Octavius’ teeth on your skin. You spasm like an insect trapped in a web, a mouse constricted by the body of a python, arching, trusting your hips up over and over as the arm milks your orgasm out of you. Your throat is raw, your tongue is heavy and all your muscles scream from overuse but you just can’t stop coming, wetness spreading against your groin. When the actuators finally move away, you drip all over the floor, as your sex pulses, crimson red and spent.

Breathing air like it’s the first time, you try your best to calm your beating heart as you’re finally free from the arms’ grip, lowered on a nearby chair. Octavius lets out a sigh, tugging a rebellious strand of hair behind her ear.

“Oh well.” She smiles. “Good, very good.”

She throws your suit at your face. “You better run, little spider.”

“Uh?” You put it back, ignoring the uncomfortable stickiness between your thighs.

“This is my gift to you,” she says, putting on a clean glove. “You have five minutes before I hunt you down and use your body for my experiments.”

You laugh awkwardly, voice rough as you limp through the room. “I’ll be gone then. See ya, Doc!”

The giggle she lets out is hunting. As you swing away to central New York, the traces of her abuse all over your body, you think about your Octavius.

Your eyes flutter open, your tongue cautiously lapping at his lower lip. His eyes are fixing something behind you, not even aware that you’re looking at him. You chuckle internally, your hands sliding inside his lab coat, feeling his ribs through his woolen sweater vest. Egon, still focusing on his unknown task, gasps softly when you grab his lapels and force his attention on you.

Throwing an eye behind your shoulder, you arch an eyebrow, smirking: “I knew you had something else in mind.”

Next to you, innocently sits a beaker, half-filled with a pink substance.

You hop on the bench. “What is this then? Slime?”

Egon nods, jaw tensed. You cock your head to the right, unbuttoning your shirt slowly, noting with delighted amusement his following gaze.

“Am I part of your newest experiment, Dr. Spengler?”

You can’t help the breathlessness that accompanies your statement. Your fingers graze against the newly exposed skin of your stomach and those brown eyes follow.

“Slime is a psychomagnotheric substance,” comes the technical explanation, a slight rasp at the back of his throat. “We’ve already performed several tests with Ray to assess its reaction to positive stimuli and—“

“You want to observe the positive influence of sex on it.”

His gaze finally jumps back to your face and you’re having a hard time hiding the fondness at the corner of your mouth.

“I do apologize if I overstepped,” he says, pulling away just a fraction.

Straightening up, you wrap both your arms behind his neck.

“Don’t we both have to be, uh, positively emotionally engaged in the activity for it to work?” You ask, sliding your fingers in his hair, fondling gently at his neck.

You physically feel the tension slowly leaving his body. Egon is all subtlety, discreet displays of emotions that you learned to observe and understand.

“Stimulating you enough should not be an issue.” The smirk that adorns his face is painfully attractive, it sends a thrill that travels to your loins.

He lowers his face, lips grazing on the sensitive skin of your neck, the hot tide of his breath on your skin makes you dizzy. “For my part, I have to be extremely focused on the experiment.”

You feel yourself being leaned backward on the working bench as his mouth continues its slow descent along the column of your neck. When he kisses your neck, something exciting runs underneath your skin: something akin to tickles and goosebumps all in one. Something that makes you want to either curl yourself up or expose your throat for more.

On your left, your eye catches something. Shoving Egon back gently, he straightens up, intrigued.

“Better keep track of everything then,” you smile, pointing at the tape recorder he uses to record himself tinkering with the experiments at hand.

You see the slight confusion in his eyes before the thought finally settles.

“It’d be for the best, yes.” It’s now painfully obvious that he’s hard in his neatly pressed pants.

He strolls to the device and turns it on as you shed your shirt, baring your chest completely. His eyes are boring holes into you behind his glasses that he pushes up his nose before starting the recording.

“Experiment number thirteen on generating a positive reaction from the slime.” Egon motions you closer with a curved finger and you happily sauntered toward him. “Today, I have an assistant.”

Oh, that mischievous twinkle bears heavy consequences. “I’ll have to ask you to comment on our future tests.”

“You’re the scientist here, Doctor,” you try to deflect.

“As this experiment relies heavily on your impressions, I’ll have to ask you to be vocal.”

Bastard.

Hands are soon back sliding up and down your still-clothed thighs. “Shall we begin?”

Any retort genuinely dies in your throat as he presses against you, his pelvis delightfully grinding against your lower stomach. That stunt with the tape recording was fruitful both for immediate results and for the long-term satisfaction of knowing Egon Spengler’s a kinky fucker.

Always the quiet ones, you muse.

For an instant, you could have been in your apartment, a blissful evening with Dr. Spengler on top of you. All roaming hands on your skin, slowly going down, down to business. Quick and efficient, that’s the way you both like it. But right at this moment, if you hadn’t memorized all their calluses and crevices, those hands could belong to someone else. Those hands that barely caress a nipple, enough to make your breath catch.

The deliberateness of how his knuckles rack over the sensitive area, pads of his fingers pinching, rolling, spreading this tightness in your guts. The more it goes on, the more you can feel yourself clenching around nothing.

“Stimulation of erogenous zones, specifically the areola area.” His voice is so even. “Your impressions?”

You frown. “It should be obvious.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t plug in the camera.”

The scoff shamefully turns into a soft moan thanks to a deliberate hard pinch on your right nipple.

“Specificities, please.”

“Damn it!” You sigh. “It feels good, all right?” You don’t like to talk during sex and he usually doesn’t either.

“Is slight pain enhancing the experience?” He asks, pinching both your nipples hard.

“Ah!” You don’t expect the surge shooting through you, your chest skin tugging almost uncomfortably as more wetness spreads in your underwear.

“Yes?” Egon asks.

“Yes!” You hiss through clenched teeth.

“Conclusive experiment then.” He dips down, sticking his tongue out to lap at the reddened skin, deliberately avoiding your nipple. “Although your slight irritation might be a predicament to our progress.”

No shit. “I wonder why.”

His mouth encloses the tip of your tit, suckling softly, swirling his tongue as a reminiscence of your kiss. You don’t even bother to suppress the gasp that leaves your mouth, getting lost in the moist entrapment, in the way his long nose nuzzles your supple skin, in the soft brush of his hair raising goosebumps in its path. Your fingers fully tangle in it, holding him close to you, pushing him into your chest so he can feel your heartbeat.

Perhaps a wonderful part of Egon’s brain will decide that your BPM is important data to collect.

You have a moment of awareness, registering that the only sounds that will be heard in the recording are your gasps and soft moans and the indecent slurps of Egon’s tongue. It makes your face flame up, your cheeks so hot you feel the perspiration on your skin.

What would be more embarrassing, you wonder, one of the boys finding the recording or getting caught right here right now?

“Focus.” The sound of Egon’s voice startles you. “It’s supposed to be positive reinforcement.”

“Uh,” you battle your eyelashes.

Egon straightens up, righting his glasses on his face. “Let’s move onward.”

“You—“ Agile fingers take hold of your pants’ button and pop it off, unzipping them before silently asking you with a tug to shimmy out of them. “He’s forcing me out of my clothes,” you say, directing your words at the tape.

“A necessary part of the experiment.”

Your pants are halfway across your thighs when he grabs hold of your waist and hoists you on the bench.

“Holy—“ You gasp, naturally wrapping your arms around his neck. Who would have thought you had a thing for displays of strength?

“Would you mind getting rid of your garments?” Egon smirks knowingly.

Grumbling, you untie your shoes and take the rest of your pants and your socks off, throwing them across the room. You now face Egon almost entirely naked while he still stands in his button-down and sweater vest, lab coat on top, with his pants slightly wrinkled – although unmistakably tented. Oh, and how could you forget the goddamn tie… You would have also gotten rid of your underwear if he hadn’t pressed his palm on your mount.

“Right down to business I see,” you pant.

He arches an eyebrow. “You’re burning up here.” The pressure of the heel of his palm squishing down your outer labia against your clit feels beautiful. “Your underwear is soaked.”

You’re torn between the rush of pleasure and the urge to slap him for how unaffected he sounds.

“This doesn’t soun—ah, very professional, Doctor.”

The alternating amounts of pressure have you moving your hips, searching for more, demanding a faster pace, a harder push. He remains desperately steady.

“Copious amount vaginal discharge,” Egon notes, and a huge rush of shame shoots through you. “More than average I’d say.”

“You’d say?” You choke out.

“You do appear to be wetter than usual although we’ve barely started our activities.” The bastard smirks.

Why is that, lingers in the air, a loud but unspoken question. And you’re now certain Egon takes his own immediate and long-term satisfaction knowing you’re a kinky fucker as well. You’re just a couple of degenerates and doesn’t that turn you on more than it should.

His palm presses more firmly against you and you can’t take it anymore, you need his finger on you, in you, anywhere but separated by this stupid piece of fabric.

“Stop— stop spreading it!” You cry out stupidly. “You’re ruining a very decent pair of underwear.”

Egon scoffs. “I am?”

The squish that follows is a betrayal from your body you’ll never forget. “Take it off,” you mewl.

So he steps back, stops touching you altogether, and raises an eyebrow at you. Groaning, you get rid of your soaked underwear, throwing it at a random place in the room, quickly forgetting about the uncomfortable wet sensation because Egon sheds off his lab coat in a swift movement. You are captivated by the stretch of his sweater vest against his chest, and even more entranced by the slow teasing appearance of his forearms as he rolls up his sleeves.

“Isn’t having a lab coat an essential security guideline?”

You keep spewing teasing sentences but you know that your sanity is hanging by a thread.

He hums: “When manipulating hazardous substances, yes.”

He finishes securing his sleeves in the curve of his elbows and steps in front of you once more. Your treacherous heart skips a beat; you don’t even understand why.

“Having your way with me right next to an unknown paranormal substance isn’t considered a hazard?”

“The slime is neutronized, there’s no risk of causticity for your skin,” Egon answers in all seriousness.

Right now, it’s his big callused hands that you want on your skin.

And he delivers by grabbing each thigh in each hand, spreading them almost uncomfortably. Fuck, you think because you can feel how wet you are as the cold sensation spreads from your core to the cleft of your ass cheeks. By the end of his experiment, you’ll have dribbled all over the table.

He leans to you and captures your lips in another searing kiss. The curve of his nose fits perfectly next to yours, as both your mouths mold into a new shape. All your senses are awake and aware: your taste buds sweet from the teeth-rooting chocolate bars he loves to eat, your skin shivering from pleasure, and the always-too-cold air of the lab. Your muscles are quivering from being all crooked, folded over a flat surface in that way.

Even at an even level, he towers over you with his height and the wide square-ness of his frame. You want to press against him, squish your very self on his body. Although he might not like his clothes to be ruined by your moistness, you entertain the idea in your head because nothing turns you on more than seeing Egon Spengler messy and disheveled.

“As I won’t be able to, I’m counting on you to voice out your comments,” he says against your lips.

You don’t have time to ask why, his face is already down between your legs. Your breath hitches, stops, leaves your body entirely.

Down to business, you reminisce.

He starts by peppering small kisses inside your inner thighs but it’s not worshipping, it’s edging. You sometimes feel his tongue lap out at your skin, you also shiver when he gently blows against your core, sending another wave of chills on your body.

“Egon…” you sigh.

As on cue, he decides to spread your labia open with his fingers, and dear God, you can feel his breath tickling your clit, an inch away from any real pleasure. An inch he soon reduces to nothing as he licks a long, fat stroke all the way up your sex.

It’s a real moan that escapes your mouth this time, already thirsty for the next move. He keeps lapping, up and down, flattening his tongue completely against your opening, drinking more of the wetness amassed in his median sulcus.

You’re slowly but surely being driven to the edge, just hovering over the precipice but there’s still so much that you need to finally accept to let yourself fall. So he takes your metaphorical hand and leads you closer by finally pressing his nose in your pubes, jaw slacking open as he delivers a strong suction right on your clit.

“F-Fuck!” Your hand grabs his hair, instinctively guiding him closer.

It went through you like a zap, a single strike of lightning. Your clit is tingling, your cunt dripping and your whole body shivering. But it doesn’t stop there as the very tip of his tongue teases you, a quick succession of round-way trips, delivered with accurate frequency.

His brows are furrowed; you can feel the crease in his forehead as you gently pass your hand in the hair at the base of his cranium, flattening his curls. The action makes his eyes snap up at you. You feel stupid for staring at him without saying a word but you lost all vocabulary with the simple sight of such a special man pleasuring you so unapologetically.

He draws back a little, the corners of his mouth and his chin are glistening.

Filthy, so fucking filthy.

“Any comments?” His voice is deeper than usual, slightly scratching.

“I’m kinda at a loss of words right now,” you say genuinely.

Egon nods and, as if endowed with an important life-or-death mission, dives in once more, this time ignoring your throbbing clit to focus on your opening. The feeling of his tongue breaching in, squirming inside is everything and nothing at once. You do openly moan, trusting your hips to his face, again and again, chasing this half-sensation of fullness. The pleasure is not a spike of hormones like having your clit sucked and suckled. It’s a diffuse sensation of pleasure, the simple erotic feeling of his slippery tongue massaging your walls.

He trusts in and out, everything around you is just blurred lights behind your eyelids but you snap them open when he starts rubbing your clit with his thumb without stopping his previous activities. You know this instant that you’re going to come on his face if he keeps delivering the most perfect movements to all the right places.

“Egon, please…” You squeeze at his curls. “You’re gonna make me cum.”

It’s with a raised eyebrow that he finally quits the warmth between your thighs. “Wouldn’t that be the desired ending point of our experiment?”

He grabs a paper napkin that was innocently left there by Ray when he brought food earlier and wipes his mouth off your juices before throwing it in the bin.

You watch his movements, catching your breath and your trail of thought. “I need more than that.”

“Please do specify what is that and how can I give you more of it.”

A gentleman and an asshole, all in one. You want so much to tell him to go to hell but you’re so far gone in preliminaries you don’t think yourself able to delay your primal need to be fucked.

“I’ll show you,” you say, motioning him closer.

He has this look where he’s slightly apprehensive of the logical pursuit of things but he steps in between your legs once more. Your left-hand slides behind his neck and beckons him closer, close enough for you to press your other hand to the front of his pants. His mouth opens slightly but he doesn’t move away so you keep palming him, feeling how he hardens against your fingers. Even through his loose-fitting pants, the hard line of his cock is flagrant.

Stopping your neck petting, you unbuckle his belt, lowering his zipper, and finally putting your digits on something more palpable.

“I thought we agreed that I had to focus exclusively on the experiment,” he sighs.

“Actually,” you slip your hand farther in between his pants and the tight fit of his cotton briefs. “I never agreed to anything.”

The hotness is making your hand moist but you reveal in the sound he makes when you push harder, full hand flat against the entirety of his dick, the tip of your fingers grazing the beginning of his balls.

“Remind me to have you sign a written contract next time.”

Despite his tone-down exterior, you notice his eyelids dropping, the small exhales leaving his parted lips because your eyes are fixed on his face, registering.

“Next time?”

There’s definitely a joke underlying your question but his dark gaze makes you question everything. Damn, he’s really into that, isn’t he?

Into you, displayed on his working bench to be examined.

“Egon, I need you to fuck me—” you choke out. “—right now.”

Strangely, there are no dry comments anymore. Only the hard click of his shut jaw and the slight fumble of his hand slapping yours away, diving into his briefs and finally – finally, getting out his cock. If you had more time, you’d put your mouth on it, just to have a taste of the glistening circumcised head. But for now, you stay perfectly content watching it disappear in the tight ring of his fist.

Realistically, you’ve stayed perfectly content for exactly five seconds.

“Come on,” you whine, spreading your legs. Ah, there is the aforementioned puddle.

“Yes,” he huffs. Yes, ok.”

With one hand, he grabs your left thigh, the other guiding his length closer and closer to your core, your heart beating furiously in your chest. His gland makes contact with your entrance. With it, he traces an unknown pattern on your lips, pushing its slit on your clit and mingling both your fluids together. Definitely driving you insane.

“E-gon—“

So he pushes inside, in one, unstopping, hard push until he’s sheathed, your body just a pliant scabbard. You choke on any retort, hissing, the stretch is obviously tight. Yet, deliciously aching, you engulf his length entirely and the sole sensation of your walls rubbed in that perfect way is almost too much. You tug him closer, finally pressing your sweating body to the unruffled surface of his clothes.

His big hand return to your other thigh and he fucks into you. His snaps are precise and strong; he completely erases any traces of pain with the fluid movement of his hips. You’re definitively panting, your hot breath bouncing back from his cheeks to yours and you forget about the weird twist of your body. Your squished position is making the column of his dick rub perfectly at the top of your entrance.

“Ah— oh fuck,” you close your eyes, lost in the heat.

Egon hums and hides in your neck once more, seemingly conflicted between kissing and teasing your skin with his breath. So close to your ear, you can discern the hitch in his pants, his hidden soft moans, and your heart sores.

“Can I—“ he whispers.

You turn your head to look at him, at his open face and big brown eyes and you know he could ask anything, you’d say yes. So, you nod.

He pushes you back gently on the bench, pushing away pencils and cables in a broad swipe of his arm. Some clatter on the ground and his impatience startles a laugh out of you. There’s a small rictus at the corner of his mouth that could either be a grin or a scowl; it only makes you smile more. Impatience is also starting to run wild underneath your skin. You spread your legs wider, your fingers lazily grazing your stomach up to your chest then dipping all the way down.

It’s indecent how you stretch around him; you love to feel it with the tips of your fingers. You’re stretching so wide your clit feels tight when you tug at it. It’s dry but it still grants you with a few shots of hormones. When you throw a look at Egon, you realize he’s watching, alternating with your face, the sight of his dick buried inside you and your self-pleasuring display. He sucks his thumb in his mouth, efficiently coating it before pushing your hand away and rubbing circles right on top of the bud.

The lubrication makes the action more pleasurable; reviving your calmed-down orgasm. Except, this time, you can feel yourself contract around his sex, as if wishing to suck him impossibly deeper. This small moment of trance, the calm before the storm, stops when he withdraws his hand, anchoring himself again to your legs.

From then, you don’t have to tell him anything: he snaps his hips forward hard. Your body pushes into the bench, your hand pointlessly grabbing the edge to keep you from slipping. From there, it doesn’t stop. He fucks into you ruthlessly, the position connecting him to you from tip to base. The buckle of his belt whacks the tender skin of your ass cheeks contrasting with the soft cotton of his pants. His right-hand pushes your thigh onto the flat surface of the table and your muscles are screaming with the stretch but they’re quieter than your moans.

“There— ah, please—“

He listens. The tip of his dick is lodged deep in your loins, the back-and-forth movement stimulating all the right nerves. You’re squeezing him, your folds moving with his cock, sucking him inside and locking him in, even when he pushes back. Sometimes the ridges of his head catch on your tight opening before plunging back inside, making you yelp. You wonder if you’re going to cum on his dick, too stimulated to prevent it.

You moan to the sounds of his slaps, to the rhythm of the bench creaking. Your eyes roll back when he aims a perfectly good shift and your free hand plays with your nipple, fueling the fire in your body.

“Shit,” Egon huffs out, his gaze glazy behind his glasses.

You understand. “Close too— just a little—“

He nods and aren’t his motions the best, the most precise… more erratic, quicker and shorter yes, but oh so good. You can feel the tell-tale tightening in your guts so you chase your own orgasm by pushing back, meeting his hips. His ball-sack slaps against your ass and your skins meet in loud smacks, definitely resonating in all the firehouse.

“Do you need—“

“No, no, just—“ you mewl. “Keep doing that, you’re perfect.”

The little moan he lets out travels through your body like wildfire. And there, you feel it: the hot spill of his semen inside you, coating your walls and it’s the mere sensation alone that finally pushes you over the edge. Your vagina cramps around his cock, your own ejaculation milky, dripping at the base of his dick and the noise is vulgar, loud and so fucking hot.

For a little while, he keeps trusting in, making sure everything belonging to him got stuffed inside you. It makes you clench harder, divided between chasing this almost-unbearable tightness or crying for him to stop. You have no idea if you’re actually crying but your cheeks feel hot as your body spasms, mouth lewdly hanging open, could you truly cum a second time from overstimulation alone?

But thankfully, he slowly slides out, both of you sighing. You immediately stick your hand down, feeling the dribbles of cum coming out of you, trickling down in the crack of your ass, on the table and on the ground.

Your breath finally settles down after a few minutes. Your eyes have drifted closed without you noticing. Your heartbeat is slowing down and you feel a deep wave of contentment replacing the past hunger.

“Hey,” his voice is back to its even self.

You crack one eye open. He holds one of the napkins, motioning you to sit up as he diligently wipes out most of your spend. The napkin is rough on your skin but you silently thank him nonetheless.

You throw a glance around you. You made an absolute mess. “Ew,” you scowl.

The little smile lightening his face makes your heart throb for an entirely different sentiment than before. You notice he’d already tug his cock back into his briefs like nothing happened. On the front of his pants however…

“Oops,” you chuckle. “’Guess you’ll have to keep working with your lab coat closed.”

Egon’s scowl of disgust is barely concealed as he unsuccessfully tries to wipe the remains of your self-lubrication on his cotton pants.

“I should change,” he states bluntly. One of his sleeves has slid along his arm during the act and his hair is truly a sight; you take great pride in his actual state.

“I think you look amazing.”

He stares at you for a couple of seconds before a beautiful crooked smile stretch on his face. You blame it on post-coital bliss but your whole body is screaming your adoration for this man.

“So,” your own voice cracks but you ignore it. “Successful experiment?”

Egon clears his throat. “I think more testing is required.”

He doesn’t try to change your mind and just help you out. Once everything is settled on his desk, you sit on the floor and take out some of the groceries you bought for him. Viktor mimics you, roughly rubbing his hands on his face.

“You shouldn’t have.”

“I don’t need to be a magician to know your fridge is completely devoid of anything except milk.” You hand him a biscuit and he takes it without commenting. “Pushing yourself this hard won’t give you the solution any faster, you know.”

“I’m almost there.” Viktor makes a grand gesture. “I can feel it, it’s on the tip of my tongue but I can’t--”

“Concentrate because you’re exhausted.” You point out. He opens his mouth but you cut in: “Don’t even try to contradict me, I’m right.”

You know this look, you know his impressive intellect is impaired by the limitations of his body and that makes him annoyed. Annoyed and stubborn enough to go past those limitations even when it’s stupid and borderline dangerous for his health.

Viktor is an inventor like Latins defined it so many years ago: someone who finds, someone who searches desperately for excitation, stimulation. Without them, he deteriorates.

He takes a bite of his biscuit grumpily. You find him lovely.

“So, what theory’s on your mind lately?”

“I don’t think you’d understand it,” Viktor says.

“Hey, I may not be the assistant of the dean of the academy but I’m not stupid.”

“Far be it from me to insult your intelligence,” Viktor fakely gasps. “It’d be very discourteous of me to speak in an oversimplified language.”

This guy– “Far be it from me to insult your intelligence by calling you a bastard.”

“You’d be insulting my ancestry, not my intelligence.”

You laugh at the silliness of your conversation and you bask in this little happiness Viktor brings you. Something you couldn’t have seen coming in all honesty.

Your-- line of work means you work late at night. You, therefore, noticed the lights in your neighbour’s flat, always at indecent hours. That’s how you met.

One night, going up the stairs - wondering again what your neighbour could possibly do of importance to pull all-nighters every single day, you roughly collided with an exasperated Viktor. He didn’t comment on your outfit and you were glad for it. Instead, he apologised profusely but you brushed it off, genuinely not caring but also definitely smitten with Viktor’s elegant face.

“Would you like a cup of coffee or something?” You stuttered, vaguely motioning to your door.

Viktor, ever so articulate, stammered back: “I- uh, delightful. I mean, I’d be delighted to?”

So every once in a while, you swing by, bringing tea - that he actually prefers over coffee - and sweets to keep his beautiful brain running as you soon disregarded the idea of forcing him to sleep. He’s more stubborn than you are, and that’s saying a lot.

You started smitten and now stand completely wooed by the man.

Viktor extends his long legs underneath the table, leaning back on his hands. You can’t help but stare greedily at the long pale column of his neck. He abandoned his tie and waistcoat and looks shameless with his white shirt untucked, two buttons unfasten and his pale chest both peeking out and pressing against the cotton fabric.

Far from you to endorse such self-destructive behaviour but when he overworks and lets his neat appearance crumble, your body tends to feel a tad hotter.

How far have you regressed to be this entranced by a centimetre square of skin?

You clear your throat: “I’m going to make some tea.”

You take a few minutes in his kitchen to catch your breath. You grab the counter and release a pent-up sigh, closing your eyes. Damn your fluttering heart.

“Are you ok?”

You jump so hard you actually scare Viktor who just stands there, the box of tea you bought in his hand. For a minute, you look at him like a scared rabbit, your chest heaving. “Fuck-- you scared the hell out of me.”

Viktor - that bastard - actually smirks and supports himself on the door’s frame, his cane nowhere in view. “Maybe you’re the one who should rest, darling.”

You stutter: “What are you saying-- gimme the box!”

You snatch the box out of his grip and turn around to focus on your task. But Viktor limps forwards.

There’s something deliberate in the way he slides behind you, softly but surely grazing his body against your back. You tense up but he only grabs the kettle to fill it with water, handing it to you.

He’s still standing too close, a hand grabbing the counter to right himself, therefore, pressing against your side. Something akin to panic settles underneath the skin he just brushed, a sizzling that runs up your arm and makes your breath catch. He leans, seemingly at ease as he tilts his head towards you.

“Can you do it on your own? You look out of your depths, here.”

“Even an idiot can make tea, Viktor.” You gulp, truly hoping your infatuation cannot be read on the blush that may adorn your cheeks.

“I wasn’t calling you an idiot but if you insist--”

And that’s who Viktor truly is: a terrible tease, a 6-foot-tall smart-ass who has the nerve to smirk after every playful jab. Far from the stuttering first impression you had of him.

“You know what, Viktor? Please go back and sit your arse down in the living room. Tea is a delicate craft.”

A second is a long time you realise as your brain registers the slight bow of his head and the feel of his breath on the tip of your nose. “Don’t take too long, will you?”

He chuckles before going back to the living room without a word, leaving you behind, alone and breathless.

You wish you could tone it down. You and Viktor have nothing in common except the same corridor. He radiates with intelligence, a beacon of knowledge and innovation and you, well, you’re an escort.

Piltover eats weaklings and uses their remains to feed the rich. You would be damned if you happened to be the next in line. If staying afloat means spending the evening with wealthy old men, so be it.

When you come back to the living room, Viktor has sat back on the floor, leaning above his notebook, reading while unconsciously playing with his hair. You put the kettle down on the table along with two mugs and he looks up to give you a tiny crooked smile.

“Thank you.” He says, closing his notebook.

A comfortable atmosphere settles upon both of you as you wait for the tea to infuse. Vapour twirls lazily in the air, hypnotising and you can’t help but yawn.

“Long night?” Viktor asks.

For all the nights you spent together, Viktor had never asked - indirectly or directly - about your work. You don’t feel ashamed but your job is something you hope Viktor wasn't aware of or didn’t choose to comment on.

Wiping a lonely tear from your cheek, you nod, frowning: “You could say that.”

Viktor grabs the kettle and pours tea into your mugs.

To try to give you back a sense of decency, you start looking in the discarded bag: “I brought candy, cake - you like cheesecake right? - and--”

Viktor grins lightly, blowing on his tea: “You found cheesecake in the middle of the night?”

“I grabbed it before going to work.” You surely aren’t going to admit you buy cheesecake almost every day before work, just in case.

Viktor puts his chin in his hand: “It’s very thoughtful of you. I’m flattered you think of bringing me food so often.”

“Well, you know, I do live during the day as well.” You joke, not knowing what to say. “Like you should.”

He hums, sipping his tea while watching you through his eyelashes. Your discomfort somehow increases, running all over your skin.

“I am very grateful for everything you do.” Viktor suddenly says, putting his mug down. “I would like to thank you in kind.”

“Uh,” You say eloquently.

His fingers play along the rim of his mug, the steam of his tea swirling in between them. “What do you wish for?”

There must be something unlocking at midnight into an inventor’s mind, a transformation, a new flirting ability unlocking. Despite how friendly Viktor has always been, never has he ever behaved this enticingly, on the verge of seduction. You assumed he wasn’t interested in anything related, a married-to-work kind of man.

You also thought he was being respectful of your occupations. If he actually knows of your occupations that is.

“What’s the meaning of this?” You try to disguise your awkwardness behind a laugh. “Are you joking?”

Viktor shakes his head: “Absolutely not.”

If you could, you’d slap yourself across the face right now. For someone whose job consists of seducing and guessing needs behind hooded eyes and whispered moans, you feel completely at a loss when it comes to this man.

You stutter: “There’s really no need, I wasn’t waiting for any compen-”

“I insist.”

You stare at him in disbelief. There’s a hidden sense behind all this that you don’t seem to get. You can somehow feel it in the way he’s imperceptibly stretching, straightening while elegantly slouching against the table.

Are you imagining the subtle invitation in the Renaissance canvas he’s depainting right in front of your eyes?

“Let me reformulate.” He proposes, his tired voice rasping in the air.

You watch bewildered his golden eyes stopping on a random point behind you before slowly, deliberately, closing his lids and reopening them, pinning your gaze down with his own.

“What can I offer you?”

And right there, you understand.

“Anything.” It comes out breathy, somewhat shaky. ‘Anything you want’ is what you actually want to say.

Viktor straightens up, leaving behind a cooling down tea. He truly just has to lean and you’re as close as earlier, the sensory picture of his body against yours against the kitchen counter flashing in your mind and taking your breath away.

“You’ll have to be more explicit than this, I’m afraid.”

But Viktor doesn’t care about his needs. He lets his own health run downhill for the sake of others and that’s what he’s asking now. Your own needs, you own wants, in a way that you have never been asked before, a way you have chosen to ignore.

So you decide it needs a consensus.

“I want us to kiss.”

He genuinely looks a little taken aback by your wording but then smiles, a soft, adorable thing. The tips of his fingers caress your cheek.

"Delightful."

You can count the lines on his face but more importantly, you can observe the shimmer in his eyes, the golden dust sprinkled in his iris and you lose the ability to speak, lose the ability to breathe. And he kisses you slowly, right there, with you barely able to hold your weight back.

You lose yourself in the sensuality of his embrace, the small slide of your lips against his own. You feel him tilt his head, leaning even more forward and you know with the slight opening of his mouth that he’s waiting for your permission.

And you grant him.

As you relish in the tantalising sensation of his tongue against your own, he slides his hand behind your neck, scraping his nails at the start of your scalp and your whole body shivers. You love how he guides your head, how he kisses you in this devouring kind of way because it embodies everything people do not expect him to be.

Assured and confident.

Viktor draws back. God, the way he bats his eyelashes, his eyes focusing on your face.

“What else?”

How his words fuel your desire and spread the warmth in your body like wildfire.

You’re the one grabbing his face with both hands, fingers dipping in his cheekbones as you take your turn claiming his mouth. You put a palm on his chest and push. Viktor hums in agreement, scooching backwards as you settle on his lap. Through half-opened lids, you see Viktor smile, a rare sight of a toothed smile that immediately disappears with the smash of your lips.

You dig both hands in the strands you have been wanting to touch for months. You curl above him but somehow on the same level and press your hips against his like an automatism.

The groan he releases in your mouth makes you weak.

Viktor slides a hand in your hair and tugs back harshly once, a moan escaping you as he borrows his face in the crook of your neck. He stays there, breathing.

“Viktor–” You call out, your head still tugged back by his forceful grip.

“Hush.” He rasps out.

You’re sure he feels your throat bobbing up and down as you swallow the rush of pleasure that travels through you at his words. He keeps you there with barely the light sensation of his lips against your skin. Then slowly, he releases your hair and your eyes are back on his face.

His expression is serious but his eyes are hooded. You watch him silently, catching your breath, your stare jumping to different parts of his beautiful face: his lips, his moles, the dip of his cheekbones, the lines at the corner of his eyes–

Viktor strokes your cheek then lets out a chuckle. “You’re allowed to talk, you know.”

A blush flares on your face. “I– of course!” His laugh just fuels your embarrassment. “You told me to shut up!”

“And I’m flattered that you're listening to my every command.”

Your blabbering mess seems to entertain him greatly. His words are playful but his smile is gentle, loving and understanding.

There’s slight insecurity in your eyes, in the way you purse your lips. You can’t shake it, the anxious squeeze in your insides telling you that your relationship with this man is not meant to be spoiled. All your life you’ve been asked to please and forget the next day, intimacy nothing more than a schedule you have to respect. And you’ve been okay with that, you are okay with that.

“Now,” he murmurs against your mouth, his hands resting on your hips. “Shall we?”

But for him, you sure aren't going to forget.

“I wonder,” he asks one day. “why my work isn’t considered blasphemous by your peers.”

You’re leaning close to him, watching his tinkering curiously. “It is to some.”

“And not you?”

You shrug, evasive. “You’re saving lives and that should be celebrated, in disregard of any other factors.”

He pauses, looking up at you, a question burning his lips. “Why did you come to me that day?”

The day he saved the child, the day you talked to him for the first time.

You hesitate: “In my faith, death has to be accepted as part of the normal flow of life. When you die, your energy is released and the world around you feeds on it.”

Fed to the Arcane, he thinks bitterly. “I should have accepted it but she was so young."

Your fingers dance across his workbench as if trying to anchor you here, with him.

“Your methods work. It’ll be delusional not to recognise it.”

“My methods,” Viktor sighs, “are simple technology. Science is within the reach of anyone taking the time to study it.”

You chuckle. “Anyone who’s smart enough, you mean.”

He grabs your hand and your laugh stops suddenly. You watch your joined hands, not believing in Viktor actually seeking contact.

“Let me show you.”

You spend the night in his laboratory.

On a foggy afternoon, he lets you guide him through the crowd in the Entresol’s streets. An odd pair you must be to the eyes of others. He follows you and you slow down, mindful of his cane resonating on the paved road, throwing glances and smiles above your shoulder.

Slowly, people become scarce and the fog thickens. Buildings fall to pieces around you, ruins of ancient habitations. Some remain, their old architecture eaten away by modernity, moulded into something new, something sturdier in detriment of aesthetics. He feels strangely sympathetic.

“This is where I live.”

Two wooden doors open on an abandoned church. You step inside and the fog somehow lifts mysteriously, rays of sunlight cast from the fallen roof. Nature crawls through the cracks of the marble floor and there, underneath the altar of a fallen idol, a flower bed.

“How can flowers bloom here?” Viktor asks. “I thought the air was too heavy with chemicals.”

You smile, this landscape shimmering behind you as you become the centrepiece of it all. It's an eerie photograph.

“Let me show you how.”

He dislikes how easily it is for you to encroach, how you gracefully take two steps towards him and tug his mask away from his face. He dislikes how his mind tricks him into believing the air is somewhat fresher, cleaner despite his inanimate mechanical lungs.

“Wind blows away the pollution and brings pollen here, making the flower bloom.” You explain, walking towards the flowers sneaking through the flooring. “This place has been blessed.”

He cannot believe in such inept concepts but he remains silent, respecting your candour.

“Here,” You crouch down, grazing the petals with the tips of your fingers. “I’ve been blessed as well, this is where I realised what I had to do, what I had to believe in.”

He doesn’t believe in your deity but he believes in you. You who’s always in his thoughts, always in the dreams he stopped having many years ago. You’re the closest thing to the spiritual, to the unexplainable for him.

“The reality is,” you speak up, looking at him directly in the eyes. “the day I came to you, my beliefs got shaken to the core.

“Our deity she protects us you see. Her wind is a boon, keeping me safe from chemicals. Thanks to her, I can remain here in Zaun and help.” There’s shaking in your voice. “I thought that by preaching, by offering support and attention, by offering faith, this blessing could be passed on. And it worked, I became a benevolent figure and I was happy.”

You smile sadly, toying with the bluebird medallion around your neck. “But this child, despite how much she prayed, how much she begged, her lungs were still failing her.

“I sold her this myth, I convinced her to pray because I was convinced of the greatness of my cause. In the end, she got sicker by my fault.” You stand up, a lonely tear running on your cheek.

“You’re not responsible for the failure of her lungs.” Viktor objects, the urge to wipe the streak of your tear almost unbearable.

“But I’m responsible for preventing her from getting help sooner.”

He stands at the edge of the sea of blossoms and you step tentatively towards him.

“That is why I’m forever grateful, Viktor.” Your forehead comes to rest on his chest. “You gave me something else to believe in.”

“Are you here because you feel indebted to me?” He hates the weakness in his voice.

“No,” you whisper. “I’m here because--”

His life has always revolved around finding answers and solutions yet now, he’s the one waiting for an answer, unsure yet hopeful for an unknown result.

You distance yourself from him, smiling. “Nevermind.”

It feels like loose wiring in his head, a short-circuit pushing him to grab your hand. So he takes his glove off and with his fingers made of flesh, with this skin that forgot the feeling of its peers, he squeezes your hand in his.

Your fingers are cold, chill like his metal skin.

“I feel indebted.” He confesses. You tilt your head in a silent question. “I feel indebted to you for your-- presence.” For the time you spend in his company, for your brightness…

“I feel indebted to you for all the good you bring.” You open your mouth but no words come out. “I feel indebted because of my thoughts, the things I imagined concerning you--”

“Viktor--”

“I wish I could have given you something to persuade you to say, something other than pity.”

“No, Viktor--” Your hand rests on his mouth. “Please, I--”

There are unreleased tears in your eyes, shrouding your iris in a soft mist. Leaning forward, he can look at the pores of your skin, at all the small imperfections that still somehow don’t alter your perfect whole. “It’s not pity.” You whisper against his lips, caressing his cheek. “It never was pity.”

And you kiss him.

You press against his mouth and slot your lips together. Your nose is squished in the crook of his and this feels like its rightful place. There’s a tug in his mechanical heart, an electric spark in his mind. And you’re so lovely he cannot close his eyes. He stares at your closed lids, focusing on the moist feeling of your lips and the unconscious squeeze of your hand in his.

Sure, you don’t have to wear clothes anymore but clothes could really be an additional - if not a little flimsy - protection from all the potions and other 'biohazardous' substances she drops. Jumping sounds amazing but her lair is the messiest place you’ve ever seen. Even perching on a seemingly innocent shelf could result in an avalanche of her dangerous collectables, and you’re getting out of here back to human and in one piece.

Ah, the cuddles? You want to call them cuddles? What cuddles? It’s unbecoming of your status! Sharing snuggles with the first stranger you meet... what a disgrace.

(Truth is, Jinx’s cuddles are closer to arm-wrestling than real cuddles.)

The sound of an explosion stirs you out of your sleep. You open one eye and lazily stretch on the miraculously mess-free armchair you’ve grown to appreciate.

“You’re the worst witch I’ve ever seen.”

Jinx laughs haughtily, wiping the charcoal out of her face: “I think I’m pretty dope! That was one hell of a boom!”

“Aren’t you supposed to find a cure for my condition?” You ask calmly, unconsciously licking your tiny paws.

“I’m trying, ok.” She hisses.

After two other explosions, her eyebrows burnt three times, an entire cauldron knocked over the floor and unfruitful research in the only book of shadows she owns, Jinx throws her arms in the air in frustration.

You laugh: “You know, your witch name doesn’t suit you at all.”

“You talk too much for a cat! I should have turned you into a frog!”

“So, you even failed that, uh?” You mock, not even bothering to open your eyes from your third consecutive nap.

'Too easy to tease,' you laugh internally, proud of yourself.

Suddenly she grabs you and brings you to eye level. You let out an undignified squeak.

“You’re so annoying! You’re supposed to be my familiar!”

“You’re the annoying one! Clearly, you’re unfit for any social interaction!” You hiss, struggling to get free. "Why did you want a familiar in the first place?!”

“Because I’m always alone, okay?!”

Oh.

You stop struggling, hanging limply in her hands. She lets you go and you land back on your feet, going after her when she runs out of room.

“Hey…” You call after her. “Hey! Wait!”

That's not what you wanted. You never wished to hurt her even after that fateful day and you were pissed that day. This fragility she has, you would never have discerned it from her carefree, brazen behaviour.

Jinx lands face first on her unmade bed. You leap to stand on her back. “Hey, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking what I said.”

She snorts.

“I’m telling the truth.”

She doesn’t answer but turns her head to the side, showing her profile and - that makes your heart clench - her pitiful eyes. You come to lay next to her face, bending to lick tentatively the end of her cute turned-up nose. To your pleasure, she lets out a giggle.

“Anyone casting a spell has the inner knowledge to undo it. You just haven't found the way yet.”

Jinx pouts, laying on her back. “Being my familiar sucks that much?”

You curl up against her. “...Not that much.”

She laughs and pats your head. Maybe you can keep being a cat for a little while.