#dcc 6

They reached the dive bar on the Main Street that connected the windy suburbs outside of Miami. They both acknowledged the Bopca standing on the bar and headed to the back, where the door to the personal spaces would be. Carl wasn’t ready to face reality just yet, he was enjoying putting off this task just a bit.

He knew that after today, things were going to change, and the dungeon never introduced change for the better. He was going to enjoy his last hours of normalcy, as normal as it can get within the suffocating environment. Carl and Nova walked into the safe rooms and the common corridor populated, her door to the left and the door to his personal space to the right, where everyone was celebrating their last moments of normalcy as well. Nova didn’t let Carl dwell on it, she invited him to her personal space and he gladly entered the living area of her space. 

── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ── ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ── ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ── ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──

“You’re alone?” Carl strolled into the living room and looked around, there were only two doors, the bathroom and one bedroom. 

“Well,” Nova plopped on the couch and toed her cherry red boots off, throwing them across the room towards the door. “I wasn’t, and now I am.” She leaned her head back on the couch backrest, closed her eyes and let out a long exhale. The hip length chestnut curls drooped over the back of the couch, the hair revealing her neck where a thin gold chain sat perfectly over the base of her neck, he recognized the faint sheen of an enchantment on it. 

“I entered with a sort of big group? There were 47 of us.” Most didn’t make it past the iron tangle, she didn’t say out loud to him. The subway system was particularly horrifying to her, given that she narrowly avoided being crushed to death on the surface only a couple weeks ago mere feet away from the subway station entrance. “After that, there were only 13 by the fourth floor.” While she recounted the losses, Carl was roaming around the personal space looking at anything and everything that lay around. Her party mates forgot to clean up before they decided to get brutally murdered by a hydra built from all of their loved ones, a fight she barely was able to escape. She almost laughed out loud, but quickly held it back when she realized Carl had stopped pacing and stood a few feet in front of her, listening. 

Nova’s chosen class of Glass Oracle gifted her with exceptional abilities, but unfortunately for her, they hurt just as much as they helped. High intelligence and charisma upon entering the dungeon did not sound as amazing as strength and constitution, but once the dungeon decided her fate, it began setting her up for it. She gained Neural Overwrite on the third floor, an ability that allowed her to hijack mobs and use them to her advantage, an action that the viewers considered entertaining at first, and quickly got tired of. The masses watching this shit-show thankfully decided that she wasn’t very interesting, and aside from a million or so viewers, she had never had to deal with the fame of being an entertaining crawler. All of this was sickening to her, she had so many thoughts and not enough time to process any of them. 

The system thought it was hilarious to suggest her Glass Oracle to her during class selection. A previous psychiatry student, with a class that can drive people insane, literally. It was more than that really, she was able to alter the reality around her for just one moment, change the thoughts of people around her, both crawlers and mobs alike. Her Fear spell at this point was at level 11 after using it time and time again to flee fights, she was suffering for that now with a lower level than most. The downside to the unusually blue hued eyes that the class came with, was that if she used her cognitive alteration skills too much she suffered from migraines, and at its worst, temporary blindness. That had only happened once, and yet it cost her everything. That last fight for the key was won, at the cost of her remaining 4 party mates. She could still hear Catalina’s screams as she was dissolved by an acid attack from a hydra head that looked like her own mother. Nova was now the deck-master, and alone, with no idea how to ensure she survived the next phase with a key. She gave Carl a condensed version of her story, avoiding unnecessary gruesome details even though she was reliving the experience behind her tightly shut eyelids. 

Carl had stopped pacing around at some point during the story and now leaned over the kitchen counter. He stared at her intently from across the room with his brow slightly furrowed. Instead of dropping the ‘So sorry for your loss’ she was expecting from him, he crossed the room towards her and sat unnecessarily close to her. His warmth radiated to her, and she opened her eyes to see his eyes staring back at her. She could tell he was being charmed slightly, but there was not much she could do about that, not while it was working in her favor.

 “Well at least we’re here.” He mumbled. His eyes ravished her face from her eyes down to her lips and back up to her eyes, he was plotting just as much as she was. Nova was unsure if it was the heartache or the alcohol that had led her to this point, but she knew one thing for certain. She wanted to give in to her human instincts; Carl was fucking hot, and he manifested into her life at a time where all she needed was a distraction. 

Though, maybe he didn’t manifest at all. The dungeon AI randomly decided to bring her to this part of Miami so she can see her family? At first she thought it was a glitch, but the dungeon AI had been awfully snarky with her the past couple of days. Her class came with a rare spell that allowed her to change the course of AI action once a floor. The AI seemed to lash back at her whenever the spell was cast. 

SYSTEM ALERT:

Unauthorized statistical manipulation detected.

Encounter integrity slightly compromised.

Initiating… corrective action.

She remembers how suddenly it had come back then, the notification appeared in front of her immediately after she cast Probability Tilt and the hunter that was chasing her and the rest of her group suddenly could not use their pulse rifles. They simply stopped working. Her friends had recounted how terrifying she looked when she cast the spell, they said her eyes were glowing white and unseeing during the couple of seconds and then she disappeared. The dungeon AI had teleported her to woods miles away from her party. The achievement that followed was so absurd she had laughed out loud. 

New Achievement! Plot Blue Balls. You know? I really wanted that to work and you just ruined that for me. It was badass, but I wanted to see it happen. 

Reward: It’s not a reward. You have been teleported 5 miles away from your party. Reflect on how you hurt my feelings on your walk back, crawler.

So really, what were the odds that after trying to emotionally wreck Nova, the number one crawler seems to cross paths with her? She suspected the AI wanted to see how this would play out as well. Nova just couldn’t make out the intentions behind it, did the AI expect them to be friendly? Friendly was an understatement, both crawlers were doing a terrible job at hiding their attraction to one another. 

“Are you here for the same purpose as I am?” Nova’s big bright blue eyes stared back at him. The waves had returned to her irises and they were restless. 

“I don’t know what you mean.” Carl shrugged. “But maybe you can explain more.”

Nova noticed the way his lips twitched, like he was holding back a lopsided grin. He knew exactly why she had asked him to come to her place. She hummed in agreement, her hand snaked to his knee and trailed up to his thigh. 

“I don’t think I have to say anything.” Her hand stopped at the hem of the heart print boxers. She trailed her fingertips back and forth along his thigh, she noticed his pupils dilate. As much as humans would love to hide their arousal, the eyes were the windows to the soul, and Carl’s window was crystal clear. His eyes begged for a distraction from the cruelty of this floor. 

Nova decided to put him out of his misery. Her breath hitched and she locked her blue glassy eyes onto his. She leaned closer, their noses almost touched, she held back enough to test his limits. How far can he hold himself together? She wanted to test him. She wanted to poke and prod at the hardened exterior he presented to the world. Would he break if she pushed enough?

She had enough waiting. What the hell did waiting do for her, anyway? 

Nova leaned closer to him and returned the sultry stare he had doused her with minutes ago. “Do it.” She whispered against his lips, just close enough that her breathing tickled his face. 

Instead of kissing her savagely like she expected, Carl trailed his hands up her arms slowly. Goosebumps rose as he trailed his hands up, eventually he rested them upon her collarbone. Their eyes met across the bridges of their noses. 

“Do what, dear?”

“Do it.” She whispered against his lips. 

Carl didn’t hesitate any longer, he knew exactly what she was demanding. The hands resting on her collarbone reached up to cup her chin and he pulled her into a fierce kiss. His pointer and thumb gripped her chin as his tongue explored hers. Initially, she inhaled sharply but quickly recovered. Her arms crawled around his neck at the same time she hoisted herself onto his lap to straddle his strong legs to sit on his lap. Nova shifted her hips over his so she could feel how much he wanted her right then. 

Carl kissed like a starved man. He hadn’t had a kiss like this in years. He savored the taste of her lips and at the same time he tried to commit it to memory. The intrusive thoughts couldn’t stay away no matter how hard he pushed them away. She’s going to leave. She can do better than this. Yet, the Carl that existed in the dungeon was a changed man. He knew that whether he deserved her or not, she was dripping for him regardless and he wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip by.

Carl bit her bottom lip and dragged his hands into her curls. They found respite on the back of  her neck, clutching to her nape. He was afraid that she would back away so he held her lips hostage against his. Carl manipulated his lips onto hers, he told a story he would never say out loud. He was lonely and Nova was going to save him from the bitterness that was overtaking him the longer he continued in this game.

Nova’s cloak flared over them, draping over her shoulders and onto his as well. The time for modesty was over, this she knew, but she wanted to savor this on her own just for now. The galaxy didn’t need to see this just yet. The strong hands intertwined in her curls pulled just enough that she let out an involuntary gasp, Carl took advantage of her distraction and pulled her head further back. He led his lips down her jaw, peppering her with fleeting kisses until he reached her neck. He looked up to meet her eyes once again but he couldn’t see them. Nova’s face was a portrait of pleasure, her eyes closed and her perfect pouty lips gaped open just enough to let the pleasured breaths out. He wished to tattoo the image behind his eyelids. She appeared like a goddess in that moment and if pleasing her was his penance then he was going to do everything he could to not be a sinner any longer. 

She opened her eyes and stared at him from her perch upon his lap, her eyes had turned almost white akin to the sea foam he was so familiar with after sailing rough straits. Carl realized he had stopped his ministrations to stare at her again, this time, she shook him out of his stupor by trailing a delicate hand over the goblin pass over his neck up to his jaw. The gentle fingertips upon her hands trailed the dark stubble he had been neglecting for a day or two. “Focus.” She hummed. 

He untangled his hands from her hair, taking care to not pull the coils, but hard enough to slip his fingers out. His hands trailed down her back underneath the cloak, he caressed her back through her sweater as he continued down to what he really wanted to grab. Carl’s calloused hands reached her ass at the same time she leaned her body forward to press her lips to his ear. She gasped softly when he gripped her supple curves through the denim jeans. She began to grind her hips slowly over his and he was suddenly glad for the cloak covering them both because his erection could not be hidden any longer. She nipped his earlobe and continued down his neck, nipping and dragging her glorious tongue over his neck. All the while he slipped his warm hands underneath her sweater and caressed her waist, he felt goosebumps over her skin.

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