#dcc x reader

Clark had been stationed right outside the doors of the dining room. His hands clasped behind his back and his sharp ears attuned to every little noise coming echoing through the thick mahogany doors.

You'd gotten up with a clatter, a half-hearted excuse and the sound of your silverware falling to the floor. 

Then you rushed past him, too fast to be considered polite, too fast for your usual careful poise.

So Clark followed. Followed the string in his chest that seemed to tied to you. Followed you into the private library, nearly an entire wing away from the conversation that drove you there. 

The door slammed behind you with enough force to rattle the windows, Clark barely dodging its swing. 

"Miss-" 

"Did you hear that?" You interrupt, voice clogged with fear. You spin to face him, dress tangling around your legs. Your eyes are glassy, tears threatening to spill over your lash line. 

"I did-" 

"They're just going to marry me off!" You cry, cutting him off again. 

Clark had heard it all, your father's voice echoing as he made a deal and stole your future all in the same breath. 

"Like I'm cattle and not their daughter."

Your hands pull at your dress, tugging at its seams and pulling it away from your body as much as the material will allow, which isn't much. One sleeve is falling off your shoulder, the other dangling close behind. 

Your breathing only grows heavier the more it sticks, exasperated pants that have Clark worrying about your health even more than your heart.

"It's too tight." You whimper, pulling again to no avail. 

Your hands go to your buttons, making quick work of them and pushing your dress down to your hips. Leaving you in just your corset and shift.

Clark's entire body goes rigid, and before he can betray his better instincts, he spins on his heel and turns his back to you. 

He's not sure what to do, what sin he committed to be worthy of such a cruel punishment. What kind of God would force him to endure losing you and being unable to help you all in the same night?

"Miss what are you doing?" He asks, voice pitched an octave higher than normal. 

Clark can hear your labored breathing, the way it only gets worse as you seemingly work towards losing another garment.

"The corset." You huff, nearly inaudible over the rustling fabric and the blood pounding in his ears. "I can't-" You panic, voice wet and airy as you grunt with effort. "Please!" 

A sob breaks free, bursting from your chest like it's been cut from it. It's unlike anything he's ever heard you make. Without even meaning too, Clark turns around. 

Your arms are twisted behind your back, reaching for the laces of your corset. It's tied tight enough that he can see them digging into your ribs, the way the skin ripples out from beneath it and how it holds you upright despite your distress.

"Are you hurt?" Clark asks, taking just a step forward, he feels his body listing towards you, desperate to help, to be useful. "What's wrong, what can I do?"

"Off." You bite, harsher but not mean. Your hands move to the front of the corset, frantically pulling. "Need it off."

The motion brings his eyes the absolute last place he wanted them to go.

Your bust.

Spilling over the fabric, so perfect and perched it almost looks painful. He swears if he looked at them long enough he would be able see your heart pounding.

The room goes hot, his face burning, shame and bile both rising in his throat as he corrects himself.

A well worn mantra plays in self inside his head.

Not mine.

Not my place.

Not what she deserves.

Clark is immediately in motion, hurried steps towards the door, "I'll fetch your ladies maid."

"No!" You panic, still making no headway, "Please I can't breathe!"

Clark's hand hesitates over the door knob, white gloves flexing with restraint. 

He makes the fatal, world-ending, honor-destroying mistake of looking at you one more time.

The realization hits him between the ribs. This is most vulnerable he thinks ever seen you. 

The most vulnerable you've ever allowed yourself to be seen. 

Something else builds in his gut. A fire sparking to life inside his soul, it climbs up his chest and burns everything it touches. 

Your hands are shaking as you pull at the corset. Your frustration evident through hiccups and half-baked cries of panic. 

He knows that his ultimate duty, the one thing he's promised to always do is, take care of you. 

And right now, despite his station, he can help you. Right now he can be more than a hand assisting you out of a carriage, or a silhouette in the corner of a room. He can be more than a voice announcing a caller, or the footsteps pacing outside your door. 

Then as if you can hear his resolve failing, you throw a dry log onto his raging fire. 

"Please Clark." You whisper.

Your voice is small, hardly above a whisper. 

Clark moves faster than you can say the word ruin. 

The distance between you shrinks, until suddenly he's closer than he's ever dared before. 

You're bereft, lip wobbling with your chin tucked as you keep trying to pull at the binding around your chest. You don't even feel his hands when suddenly-

Riiiiiiiip!

Seams pop, boning bending in his grip as Clark tears the wretched garment in half. 

It splits down the middle, expensive fabric and perfect craftsmanship no match for his brute strength. 

Clark doesn't even realize he's torn the damn thing until it falls to the floor between you in a crumpled heap. 

You double over, relief palpable as you finally take a full breath. Then another. Then a few more.

It's minutes before they even out, Clark's concerned gaze never leaving you. His traces your face, each curve as you slowly relax back into your features. Then your shoulders, watching carefully as they roll down from your ears. Your lips, as they open and close around each inhale. 

It's not until you straighten, that the gravity of the situation finally dawns on Clark. 

The gravity of your closeness, the way his hand ended up circled around your wrist at some point. The gravity of your undress, of your bare skin and the barely there material of your shift. The gravity of the fact that you're alone. In a locked room. 

If anyone found you it would spell disaster. 

A black mark on his name at best. A death sentence at worst. 

The word whore would become synonymous with your entire family. It's one thing for a lady to be alone with a gentleman. It's another entirely for her to be alone with a servant.

Clark seems to stop breathing altogether. 

Even as you finally soothe, as the tears on your cheeks start to dry, he can't seem to step back. 

He's close enough to count your eyelashes, a task he would probably enjoy more than he'd like to admit. They flutter, kissing your skin as you breathe them open and shut.

"Thank you." You whisper. 

"Of course." Clark answers, giving you a short nod, he finally releases your wrist. His hands tangle themselves together, knotting behind his back. 

"I think I probably owe you an apology." You half-jest. "I fear I was rather dramatic."

Clark's heart sinks. 

"I'd disagree." He insists, voice kind but firm. "I'd argue your reaction was perfectly suited to the situation at hand."

His voice sound far away, as if his own heart hadn't shattered at the prospect. A sudden free fall from his chest through the ground. Not at the idea of losing you -he'd made peace with that a long time ago- but at watching you be subjected to such a fate. 

"You're always so good to me Clark." Your voice is soft, the fondness in your tone not lost on him. "Still, I apologize. As grateful as I am, this-" You gesture to your state of undress "-was far too much to ask of you."

Clark would laugh if the situation were any less dire. He nods to were your corset lays across the floor, "I believe we're a little beyond that."

You do laugh, the surprised kind that bubbles out of your throat before you even realize it's started. Short and startled you let it lighten the room for just a moment.

"I'm sorry that was-" you fluster, refusing to meet his eyes. "-inappropriate."

Clark could almost laugh.

"It's alright." He assures you. "Are you sure you're okay?"

You nod, a light hum punctuating the movement. "I think so."

At long last, you look at him.

The proximity seems finally to dawn on you. Given away by a catch in your breath so minuscule Clark probably wouldn't have noticed it if he couldn't hear it.

If he couldn't see the way your chest faltered with it.

Eyes up. He chastises. 

Yet he still doesn't move, only further frozen by the fact that you aren't either.

Something settles in your expression. Something that wasn't there when you sat down to dinner. 

Your eyes are hollow, duller. No sparkle of mischief, or whisper of an untold joke. Your lips turn down at the edges, not an active frown but something more reserved. Your chest doesn't puff as proudly, none of your usual confidence propping itself behind your ribs.

Clark hates the word he finds for it.

Surrender. 

His heart pounds even harder.

"Clark?" His name is different on your tongue this time. Something saccharine behind it, something young and just a little afraid. 

"Yes?" He breathes, hardly conscious of it. You're still too close for him to think. 

You take the smallest of steps forward.

"Can I ask you something?" 

It's a silly question. 

Clark would sneak you out for an early morning ride before your father woke, cover for you when you were late to meet your governess.

Clark would bring you sweets, the cheap kind only sold at the markets on the streets you're not allowed to go to.

Clark would tell especially persistent suitors you were preoccupied, saving you their company and never letting your mother catch on to the fact that they ever called.

Clark would do anything you asked.

"Of course." He says instead.

It hangs there between you for a moment. Anticipation building as you work up the courage to speak.

"Do you think about it?" You finally ask.

Clark would kiss you. One night he wound find you well after the moon had settled high in the sky. Alone in the garden, he would cradle your face and place his lips on yours because you asked him too. Because you wanted to know what it felt like, because you wanted your first kiss to be on your own terms. 

He would set himself on fire and spend the every moment since that night tortured by the flames.

"Miss I-"

"Just answer me Clark." You plead, "Do you think about it?"

He pauses, swallows his fear puts yours first.

"All the time." He answers, because above all else, Clark Kent is a man of honor and men of honor don't lie.

However, despite all that honor, Clark Kent is still just a man. 

"Do you?" He asks.

You take a step towards him, stealing space that hardly existed in the first place.

"Every night." You lean closer, just enough to let the fabric of your shift brush his uniform. 

Clark goes still all over, each muscle turning to stone. Having already used flight and fight, the only thing left in his arsenal is freeze.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, your floodgates finally open.

"I can't stop thinking about it Clark." You sound torn, like it physically hurts you to say it out loud. "The way you held me, how safe I felt." 

The room spins, the weight of gravity pulling his body towards yours.

"The way I wanted more." 

You've always been brave. Always worn your heart on your sleeve and your courage right beside it. This time it's different, there's an insecurity clouding it, a quiet self-consciousness

"Miss-" Clark tries to protest, your name dying on his tongue. "I can't, we can't."

You huff, unconvinced. "Please, Clark." Your hands find his chest, gently fingering the felt of his uniform and the buttons adorning it. "I want to know what it feels like." Your voice is hardly above a whisper now. 

Clark's skin starts to sting. Burning as the flames start to lick at his finger tips. 

"You don't know what you're asking." Clark tries to argue. His body curves in anyway, shoulders pulling forward and closing a little bit more of the distance between you. "It's not so simple-"

"Isn't it?" You ask. You close the distance, hands curling around the lapels of his jacket as you press your chest to his.

He can feel the warmth of your skin despite all of his layers still between you. 

"I've heard about it. I know what to do." You insist. "I know I may not be what you want Clark…"

Clark doesn't hear the rest of what you try to say. The blood rushing in his ears as your words repeat. 

You think he doesn't want you?

That simply won't do.

Unlike that night in the garden, Clark doesn't take his time leaning in. One moment his hands are safely behind his back and the next they're on you.

One finds your hip and rests over the layers of fabric piled there. The other cradles your face, large palm holding your cheek and keeping your head in place as he throws all his good sense into the fire.

Clark kisses you the way he's been dreaming about. 

Like he can't get enough, like if you gave him the time he would memorize your lips and still want more. He nibbles on your bottom lip and licks into your mouth when your gasp. 

Clark kisses you like he has the right too. 

Clark kisses you like a man with nothing to offer but his heart and all the love inside of it.

He kisses you until there's no room to doubt what he feels.

When he pulls away, your eyes are still closed, his jacket still clutched tight in your hands. 

Clark's afraid to blink, to look away for a moment and miss the chapped swell of your lips or the pieces of hair he pulled askew. 

"You're all I want." He promises. His hands leave you, but only long enough to pull his gloves off. 

Your gaze lingers at his lips, pupils blown wide with hunger. "Show me." You beg. 

You push your dress the rest of the way down past your hips, letting it fall to puddle on the floor. 

"Show me what it's like to be wanted." You're firm, voice sure and filled with conviction. The voice of a woman who knows exactly what she's asking for. 

And Clark would do anything you ask.

The world disappears, his vision tunneling until all that's left is you.

Clark takes a step forward, then another, walking you back until you're pressed to one of the mahogany bookshelves. Deft hands peel back his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders and onto the floor beside your gown. 

This time you kiss him, craning your neck and pushing onto your toes to reach him fully. Its messier than the last one, all inexperience tangled with enthusiasm. 

Your teeth nip at his lips, fighting the angle until suddenly-

Clark's hands find the backs of your thighs like two old friends, palming the soft flesh through the thin muslin of your shift. When he uses them to lift its gentle, despite the strength you feel when you hold his arms, his touch is nothing but comforting. 

He hoists you against himself, pulling away just long enough for you to wrap your legs around his waist before pinning you between his chest and the bookcase.

Your hands can't find a place to rest, grazing from his biceps, to his shoulders, down over his neck and through his hair. Finally, you settle at his chest, palm splaying over sternum. 

His heart hammers beneath your fingers, strong and powerful as it's rhythm vibrates against your touch.

You kiss him softer than he deserves, at least in Clark's opinion. 

You kiss him like you never want to stop, like you could spend forever doing it. You hold him against you like he's something delicate, something worth protecting. 

Clark is a stark contrast. 

Clark wasn't born a gentleman for a reason. Despite his manners, his restraint, and the deep respect he carries for you, he grabs at your skin like he's afraid you'll disappear if he doesn't hold you tight enough. His lips cover yours like he would swallow you whole if given the opportunity. His fire burns and pools in one place, tenting itself against you as he presses impossibly closer.

His hand slips under the hem of your shift and dances across the skin of your upper thigh until he finds the heat of your cunt. His hand swallows it, cupping your entire mound and moaning as his fingers find dampness in the gusset of your stockings. 

You're burning too. 

Clark can't help but hold himself there, press his fingers flat against your folds and reveling in the way your hips stutter. 

You make a noise, something small and new. It falls from your lips like water from a faucet. 

Clark kisses you hard, as if trying to drink it. His hand slips away, replaced by thick press of cock through his trousers. Even through the layers he can feel you pulse against him, the privilege of being close enough to turn his vision blurry.

As if to testing the waters, he rolls his hips against you. Torturous and slow, just enough to let you get used to the feeling, the weight of something between your legs.

A thought crosses his mind and spills out before he can stop it. 

"Have you ever touched yourself here?" Clark asks. His voice is low, private, despite the empty room he speaks only loud enough for you to hear. Like no one else- not even the books deserves to know.

You fluster and turn away, pressing your cheek into shelf behind you as you avoid his gaze. 

Determined to get an answer, Clark uses what he's learned. 

Another roll of his hips, this time using one of his thumbs to press against the curve of your cunt. He pushes it in, just beyond the split of your folds and lets your wetness soak through to the pad of his finger.

You gasp, hips twisting off the wall and into his touch. 

"Need you to tell me." Clark insists, pressing his thumb just a little harder. "Or else I won't know how much you can take."

You shake your head, panic evident at the idea of him stopping. "Yes." You admit, breathless and whiny. "Yes I've touched-" you swallow hard around the words, the thought escaping completely as he starts to suckle on your neck. 

Clark smiles against your skin, pleased at both your answer and your reaction. He rewards you, pressing wet kisses down your neck, sucking the soft skin between his teeth. 

"What about inside?"

His hands slip back under your shift, and with the same careful strength he used earlier, Clark finds the seam of your stockings, and rips a hole directly in the center. Just big enough for his to fit his hand through, just enough for him to drag his fingers through your folds.

He finds your entrance with the focus of a man starved. As if his next meals lies between your thighs. 

He dips the tip of his index finger inside. 

"You ever have something here?" He asks. 

You tense -only for a moment- at the sensation, the realization of where his touch has led him. 

"Yes." You whisper. "Not my fingers though."

That makes Clark freeze.

"One of my ladies maids," you explain, "She got me a-" you hesitate, finding the word, "-tool."

Clark nearly doubles over. "A tool?" 

You nod, sheepishly biting your lip. "She said it would be less painful if I practiced with it." 

Clark struggles, his tongue seemingly having swelled to twice its size in his mouth. 

The image fills his mind faster than he can think. Hazy visions of you sprawled on your bed, night gown rucked around your waist as you writhe against something phallic and solid. It makes his blood turn to molten lava.

"Did it feel good?" He asks. 

He brings a hand down between your bodies, reaching for your cunt once more.

You nod, eyes falling half-lidded as his touch settles over you again. He rests it on the apex of your thigh, hand curling against the junction where it meets your cunt. Just near enough for him to feel the heat radiating off of it.

He hums in appreciation, both of the answer and your honesty. 

"Do I have your permission to make you feel good like that?"

Eyes turn to saucers, and without any hesitation you whisper, "Yes."

Pride swells in his chest, its hold on him getting stronger with every little noise he pulls from you.

With one goal in mind, Clark sets you on the floor, holding your hips as your feet find the ground. 

Then, as if melted by your gaze, Clark slips to his knees. The wood is hard beneath them, but your skin is so soft in his hands that he doesn't even notice.

One large palm tickles up your thigh, then over your hip, until he finds the waist of your stockings. Crooking a finger into their band, Clark begins to pull them down.

Inch by torturous inch, Clark reveals you to him. The curve of your hip, the way they cant toward him when his breathe brushes over your cunt. 

The tops of your thighs are as smooth as whiskey and just as sinful. He presses a kiss there, lingering to inhale the scent. Sweat, musk, and something floral from your soap. It goes straight to his head and before he knows it Clark has kissed all the way down to your knee. It's messier than he meant for it be, spots of his spit catching the light when he pulls away. 

you don't seem to mind, eyes blown wide as you watch him with unmasked fascination. 

Clark's holds your gaze as he pulls your stockings the rest of the way down, unblinking as he tugs them off your feet and tosses the garment somewhere behind him. 

He nuzzles into the curve of your knee when he's done, pressing one last kiss to the sensitive spot where it meets the top of your calf. 

Then he moves higher.

You tense, bracing for a kiss.

What you get is sort of like that.

Clark rucks your shift up on his assent, pushing it up over your ribs and leaving your cunt on full display.

"Heavens." Clark breathes, wondrous and awed. 

His eyes, blue, big, and begging. They find yours and ask the question with out words. 

You answer without them too, blinking slow as you spreads your thighs wide enough for his head to slot between.

Clark licks into your cunt like he's coming home to it.

One flat stripe through your folds, a slow pull as he maps out every ridge and valley with his tongue.

Then a second one, this time dipping it even further against you, groaning as he hits a pocket of slick. The taste blooms on his tongue, sweet and unlike anything else he's ever savored. A taste that will haunt him the rest of his life and he can't find it in himself to care.

By the third drag he's figured out where you squirm. 

His tongue passes over your clit, the hard nub all but vibrating with want. He closes his lips around it, trapping it between his teeth and giving a purposeful hum.

You gasp above him, thighs trying to close around his head only to be met by the firm grip of his hands, a palm on each leg holding them apart. 

Clark goes on like that, suckling at your clit holding you in place around him.

Your hands find his hair, plush curls tangling between your fingers. Clark can't tell if you're trying to pull him closer, or push him further away. He's not sure you know either. 

His tactic changes, tongue slipping out again to grind against your clit, pressing flat and holding its pressure. 

Your moan gets choked off, body stilling like you've ceased breathing all together. Some thing tight, strangled and high-pitched leaks from the back of your throat.

"Clark!" You squeak.

His belly burns with satisfaction, his want turned inside out from just how good his name sounds on your lips. 

A thought occurs to him them, possessive and wild. 

"Did you peak?" He follows up. "With the tool?"

You start to shake, body taut as his fingers take over his ministrations on your clit. 

"Peak?" You ask, eyes squeezed shut and hands gripping the book shelf behind you.

Clark has to stand, straightening to his full height and bringing him close enough to count your eyelashes again, although this time, they're hardly what he's think about right now.

He doesn't elaborate, too distracted by your governess' words echoing in his ears, something about you being a visual learner.

He'll show you instead.

His index finger pushes the rest of the way in, rubbing your clit as he eases it past the resistance of your cunt. 

You swallow him without hesitation, gasping at the sensation as your cunt sucks him in. He pulls it out, just enough to slide his middle finger in next to it. 

You're velvet around him, white hot and tight as a vice. It's unlike anything he's ever felt, unlike his hand or the lips he's felt around his cock before. It makes him twitch in trousers, a wet spot beginning paint the fabric where his tip rests.

Clark makes slow work opening you up, gently massaging your walls and your clit as he stretches you out. Each pass gives him a little more give, every curl of his fingers granting him a little more wetness to ease their glide.

And you- the memory of your face contorting with pleasure would be enough to have Clark reaching his peak for the rest of his life. He doesn't tear his eyes away to watch his hand, too spell bound by the way your lips quiver around each gasp and whine. 

It builds, the same motions repeated over and over until Clark curls his fingers slightly to the left and finds it. 

The spot that makes your whines blossom into something louder, something more full-bodied in the shape of his name. 

He attacks it with fervor, massaging the pads of his fingers against it until you start to shake. 

"Clark wait-" Your eyes snap open, panic written clear as you reach for his hand. "I'm … oh my god!" 

Clark's free hand captures your wrists, pinning them above your head and forcing you to take the pleasure. Forcing you to peak.

Slick coats his hand, gushing to his wrist as you clench down on his fingers. Your hips buck wildly, head falling back against the bookshelf with a hard thunk as your eyes roll back.

The pleasure is overwhelming, Clark is sure of it. 

He burns knowing he's the one who gave it to you.

You're still gasping when you come back down to earth, thighs shaking around Clark's waist as he releases your wrists.

Clark has to kiss you, pulled to your lips like fate itself designed them for him to touch. 

He's expecting to leave it there, carry the moment in his uniform pocket and tuck it under his pillow. 

Then you legs tighten around him. 

In one quick movement you pull him flush against you. 

"Are you sure?" Clark asks, watching with blown pupils as you reach for his belt.

"I told you." You remind him, "I want more."

More is delivered, more is freed from his waistband with a hiss and twitches when you wrap a curious hand around it. 

More is throbbing, leaking hot and heavy into your hand as you line him up with your entrance,

More presses itself into you with a gentleness you wouldn't have believed a man who rips corsets is capable of. 

Clark buries his face against your neck, breathing heavy as he slowly feeds his cock into you. Its almost precious, how soft he makes himself be. How malleable he is under your touch. 

Like clay, Clark morphs himself into whatever you need, friend, confidant, protector, and now the role he seems to fit most naturally, lover.

A role you match with equal ease. Body opening up for him with every push forward. You grimace through the sting, hands clutching his shoulders and digging your nails in so hard he's shocked you don't return the favor of ripping his shirt.

It's like that until he bottoms out, until he finally pushes his hips flush with yours and feels your heat all around him. 

His chest shudders with the force of it, the weightlessness that surrounds him and lifts his soul high enough to make it sing.

You clench down hard, cunt spasming around his length as you get used to it. 

You're both breathing hard, stilted gasps that brush across the others face. Tandem racing heartbeats.

The first thrust is shallow, Clark hardly pulling more than a quarter of his length out of your cunt before falling back in. 

You both moan anyway, ragged and wanton as you chase the sensation. 

It builds quickly from there, Clark gradually working his way up to a solid rhythm, not fast, no you're not something he wants to rush, but deep. Each pass is purposeful, Clark using everything he already knows to his advantage as he starts to climb that peak, this time right beside you.

He flies his fingers to your clit one last time, abusing the already tender nerves with one goal in mind. Harsh circles dragging around it, tracing every side and leaving no piece of it untouched. 

His hips twist, aiming for that spot that had you falling apart on his fingers. 

It's too much and not enough.

You fall apart like a precious glass. The way a vase scatters on the floor and becomes a new masterpiece. You cry his name, pleasure coating every syllable like candy.

Unable to stop it Clark lets go of his fears, of the dread that comes with all things unrequited. He presses his forehead to yours and with devastation honesty he says the words that always seem to be on the tip of his tongue.

"I love you." The words break free with the last of his resolve. Disappearing with the last of his self-preservation. He could cry with the relief of finally saying them. Eyes squeezed shut as he grinds himself into you, rolling his hips as you ride out your orgasm.

He's so lost in it, so busy trying to savor you that he almost doesn't hear your response. 

"I love you too." You whisper, hands stretching the skin of his back as you mindlessly claw at it. "God Clark, I love you so much." 

Clark's orgasm sweeps him away before he can even process your words. Hips stuttering as his mind falls away to bliss. 

The only coherent thought he has left is a single phrase, a mantra echoing through the pleasure. 

She loves me. She loves me. She loves me.

It stays long after the pleasure fades, after his cock stops twitching inside you and your breathing evens out. 

It lingers when he pulls out, when you whine at the emptiness and Clark uses what's left of your corset to wipe away the mess he's made between your thighs. 

The room stays warm, the heat of your bodies and smell of old books tangling in the air. A heaviness fills the space between you, melting between your souls and holding them hostage. The bitter sting of reality. 

"My parents have a farm." Clark says, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against yours. "A few weeks ride from here."

You hum, "I remember." He'd told you about them one night, when you couldn't sleep and asked him to tell you a story from where he was stationed outside the door of your bedroom. 

"I've always planned to go back, take over so they can rest." You go tense, eyes widening with worry. "I'd leave after you married-" He explains, "- I wouldn't be able to bear witness to that." He takes a deep breath, doing his best to steel his nerves,

For the first time, Clark is the one to ask you a favor.

"Run away with me?"

The question comes out breathless, more a plea than anything else. It bleeds from his lips and leaves copper in his mouth. 

"We could go." He offers sheepishly, already convinced you'll say no. "I cant promise you much, but I can promise I'll do my best to make you happy every single day."

You melt, cupping his face in both your hands and pressing the softest kiss to his lips. 

"Take me away Clark." You whisper, "Take me so far I never have to come back." 

You kiss him again, firmer this time, carding your hands through his hair. 

"Take me so far away I never have to look at another corset."

Clark would do anything you asked.

Clark Kent Masterlist

She never took for granted the slow, sleepy mornings of her college town.

Except for this one, maybe.

It was January, and the freezing wind was changing her opinions about it. She was standing on a sidewalk outside of her apartment complex in pajamas while her dog sniffed a blade of grass for the fourth time. Biscuit did not care that it was five in the morning.

She reminded herself that no matter how cold or tired she was, this was her life and she had chosen it.

She was dressed in an oversized blue UNC crewneck, her favorite red plaid pajama pants, and the fluffy moccasin slippers she kept by the door specifically for early morning potty runs. Biscuit himself was two years old,  a golden retriever still operating under the assumption that everything outside was worth exploring. He sniffed each blade of grass with the gravity of a detective at a crime scene, occasionally lifted his leg, reconsidered, sniffed again, and then led her further down the sidewalk with enormous confidence.

She held his leash in one hand and her Kindle in the other. The latest romantasy was most of the way through her, or she was most of the way through it—at this hour it was hard to tell. She had just turned twenty-four that weekend, and the hangover still hadn't totally left her. Her best friends in the program had taken her out for celebratory drinks and cake, because her birthday and the New Year fell close enough together that they'd made one night of both. She was in her second year of a philosophy doctorate, always buried in Descartes and teaching responsibilities and the particular exhaustion of someone who had chosen this path completely voluntarily and was only sometimes sure why. These early mornings always made her reconsider why she’d done this to herself. 

Books were the consolation prize she gave herself regularly to help drown out everything else. She grinned at the thought at the number of books she had reviewed on Goodreads last year—204. Let’s keep that up, she thought.

She was mid-yawn when the apocalypse happened. In the space between one breath and the next, the apartments, the parked cars, the quiet street, were all gone. Biscuit barked once, seemingly unaware of what had just happened. 

Approximately a hundred feet away, an illuminated stairwell waited. She looked at Biscuit. Biscuit looked at her. His tail was wagging. She looked down at her Kindle. 67% battery. No time to go back for a charger. This was probably fine.

Biscuit tugged at the leash toward the warmth radiating from the hole in the ground. She followed him.

— ♡ —

You have been designated Crawler Number 1,098,233. You have been assigned the Crawler Name "Unc." You are assigned the race of Human. You are currently level 1. You may choose a new race and class as soon as you descend to the third floor. Your stat points have been assigned based on your current physical and mental profile. See the stat menu for more details.

When she entered the dungeon, the AI had taken full creative liberty and named her after her sweater. After much complaining, she filed this away as information about the kind of entity she was dealing with. No way in hell she was staying as Unc. Chronically online as she was, she was not about to spend an indeterminate amount of time in a death dungeon tagged as Unc. 

Floor 1 was a blur. She survived mostly on stubbornness and the fact that Biscuit, even mid-level, thought this was a game. In a way, he wasn't exactly wrong. She fed him the Enhanced Pet Biscuit she'd gotten in a loot box for being the first crawler to enter with a golden retriever. She'd done it in the tutorial guild with the help of the attendant, who was a small creature that looked remarkably like an Ewok. They introduced themselves as Calix, level 50, and seemed genuinely delighted to meet them both. Whatever the biscuit did to Biscuit, it worked immediately.

"We're in a DUNGEON! This is wild! Are you okay?! I think we're okay! I love you, MOM!"

She hadn't expected the southern drawl, or the unwavering enthusiasm. She wasn't sure where either trait came from. She had decided, however, that somehow he was even more perfect now.

— ♡ —

Somewhere across the galaxy, a universe-wide book club received a new edition of their weekly newsletter. Tune in, it said. One of ours just entered the dungeon.

They called themselves the Marginalia. A fangirl's book club, technically, though they had long since expanded to accept any creature in the galaxy who met their standards, and their standards were not low. For galactic numbers, there weren't many of them. They were, however, terrifyingly organized. Weekly newsletters, moderated forums, three separate group chats sorted by time zone, a blog that had never missed a posting schedule in eleven cycles, and a rating system for dungeon crawlers that was more rigorous than most academic peer reviews.

At their core, they were professional fangirls. They met frequently to exchange ideas, introduce different fandoms to one another, and dissect the things they loved with the kind of focused intensity that made non-members slightly nervous. They called these gatherings meetings of the mind. It was essential to what the purpose of this club was: a dedicated, hard-won space to nerd out without apology.

The Marginalia read everything. Romance, horror, biographies—but also the dense literary fiction of a dozen dead civilizations, the galactic treatises that were the founding documents of this empire, and genres that had no Earth equivalent, like threadsong, a form of storytelling that existed in four dimensions simultaneously and required a specialized implant to experience properly. Most Marginalia members had the implant. It was essentially a prerequisite.

The Kindle she had brought into the dungeon was the reason they found her. It had awoken two skills that stopped the evening crawl-watchers mid-scroll: Critical Textual Analysis at Level 7, and more impressively, Bookworm at Level 11. That second number sent someone into the group chat immediately. The math was done on the rest of her starting skill sheet and the alert went out club-wide before she'd even reached the first safe room. To the Marginalia, skills like those meant only one thing: someone who had read, deeply and devotedly, for most of her life. They followed her for that. But they stayed for a multitude of reasons: because of Biscuit, because of the way she read between fights in safe rooms while he ate his Bopca-created kibble beside her with tremendous enthusiasm, and, most importantly, because she was, improbably and stubbornly, still entirely herself.

That Bookworm skill made them absolutely feral. A true book girl, the newsletters declared. The first one in many cycles.

When she wasn't reading, she would retell stories to Biscuit from life up on the surface. Book series about vampires, fae, warrior queens. He was, it turned out, an excellent audience. His tail would slow to a gentle wag as she talked, and by the end of most tellings he was asleep with his chin on her knee. The Marginalia loved this almost as much as they loved her arguments.

By the second floor, she had developed a habit that would later have its own dedicated section in the Marginalia's fan wiki: she liked to argue with the AI out loud. The AI, to its credit or discredit, argued back. She was, or at least she’d like to think, well-versed in rhetoric. But how useful was this ability in the dungeon? Her arguments with the AI usually centered on the ethics of the system itself, or the misclassification of items. Most famously, her Kindle.

ITEM: Kindle Paperwhite.

Classification: Primitive Information Device.

Combat Value: Zero.

On the third day of Floor 1, she finally noticed the item's description. She set the Kindle down on the safe room table with great care. Slinky, the Bopca protector of the safe room, was belly-rubbing Biscuit after feeding him kibble. Neither of them paid her any attention.

"The classification of accumulated human knowledge as having zero combat value," she said, to the ceiling, to the System, to anyone listening, "fundamentally misunderstands what value is. Aristotle would like a word. Hobbes would like a word. I would like a word and I'm having it right now—"

She stopped mid-sentence because she had received a notification. The classification was updated.

ITEM: Kindle Paperwhite.

Classification: Sub-Primitive Information Device.

Combat Value: Negative infinity.

"Are you kidding me," she said.

Slinky paused mid-belly-rub to look up at her in puzzlement. Biscuit, who had been listening with the focused attention of a very good thesis committee member, wagged his tail in solidarity. "I think you made real good points! You’re the winner in my heart!"

The Kindle was at 43% by the end of Floor 2. She looked at the battery bar the way someone looks at a beloved elderly pet and tried not to think about it.

Across the galaxy, in a video call that spanned four star systems, Minx, President of the Marginalia, a female Naga who moderated their forums with an iron fist, delivered her weekly address. "This is our girl." The virtual audience cheered. 

A club-member scholar on a distant planet had already written a thesis on her argumentation style. Someone had made fan art of Biscuit in different art styles. There was even some talk of a sponsorship fundraiser. These things and more were all set in motion by Minx’s announcement, and so began Crawler Unc's journey toward dungeon recognition.

— ♡ —

On Floor 3, Calix tried to help her and Biscuit through race and class selection. Her options were limited. The System AI had given her one choice: Elysian. Calix, in all their cycles, had never encountered this race. She had no choice but to accept.

She didn't feel different. Didn't look different. That was the thing about being Elysian, she pondered. There had been no dramatic transformation, no flash of light, no sudden awareness of cosmic significance. She looked and felt exactly the same. The only thing that worried her was a weak sensation that pulsed behind her eyes. She relayed this to Calix, who listened carefully and then gazed at her with undisguised pity.

The System AI had been characteristically unhelpful about it. Something about reaching forward. Something about what humanity could become. She had read the description multiple times and gotten progressively less enlightened each time.

There was only one class to accompany an Elysian race choice: Reluctant Curator, which felt extremely on the nose when she read its description. A cataloguer, essentially. She would preserve things in the dungeon, stabilize situations, absorb and retain the details of every fight, every room, every face she passed with perfect clarity, whether she wanted to or not. She read it twice, looking for the opt-out. There wasn't one.

She tried to take it as a compliment that this was an Intelligence based class.

You will remember everything. From now on, the past, present, and future are all at your fingertips. You will be a human library.

She already had a very good memory. She had never once considered that this might be a problem.

The throbbing worsened some hours after selection. Not a headache, exactly, but a pressure that bloomed from behind her eyes to the back of her skull, as if something enormous was settling its weight against the inside of her head and making itself comfortable. She pressed her fingers to her temples and held them there.

She hadn't asked for any of this. Sometimes she let her mind wander to who she had been right before the apocalypse. She was a philosophy PhD student from North Carolina who had been outside in her pajamas because her dog needed to use the bathroom.

This feels like a curse, she said to the air around her. 

The System AI did not respond, which she was learning was its version of a shrug.

When she explained all of this to Biscuit, he wagged his tail. "You'll get used to it! You're strong and smart. How freaking cool is that? Like a librarian of all knowledge, ever!"

"I'm not sure how intelligence is supposed to keep us alive without physical strength," she told him, and then quietly added, "I'm scared, Biscuit. Have you gotten used to it? Having to fight just to survive?"

He looked at her seriously for a moment, an expression she'd never seen on her dog before the dungeon. "No ma'am! I quite miss my doggy bed sometimes. But I'm staying really optimistic about this whole thing!" 

Biscuit chose to remain a golden retriever. The class the system assigned him was, appropriately, Designated Retriever. It gave him the ability to retrieve anything he set his mind to, and to boost the morale of any crawler within a certain radius, whether they wanted him to or not. "I get to fetch things AND make people feel better?! This is the best day of my life!"

The next several days were difficult. Her brain was filling steadily with millennia of accumulated information: the history of her planet, the architecture of the System, the topology of the dungeon stretching in all directions at once. She rested more frequently. She was afraid she was hindering Biscuit's progress.

"Biscuit," she said, one evening in a safe room, "I think you should go on ahead. Get more experience. I'll catch up."

"And leave you by yourself in pain? Mom, I’m never going to leave you."

His tail never stopped wagging. When she could feel an attack coming on, she would lay down on the floor or the ground or whatever they could find and Biscuit would put his head on her chest, anchoring her to him. "Good boy," she would whisper, before another crippling headache took over and the world would go black.

The Marginalia kept track of all of this. Several viewers noted in the comments, and in the newsletters, and in the dedicated sub-forum threads, that they couldn't wait to see what color her eyes were up close when her internal metamorphosis was complete.

— ♡ —

The real catalyst came when Minx was watching Odette's show.

She watched it every week with a cup of a warm drink the Naga liked and her own collection of annotated books stacked beside her. Odette was mid-segment, doing her thing, but when she began referencing Carl and Donut the thought hit Minx's cobra-head like a galactic freight ship.

The clip was of Carl, walking through an Over City village, with Donut on his shoulder.

She put her cup down.

Primal, she thought. And Elysian.

Then, half a second later, a cat named Donut. A dog named Biscuit.

But the first thought was the one she kept turning over. She opened one of her Encyclopedia’s on the different dungeon races. She realized that the complementary abilities weren't a coincidence. No, no. They were the System's idea of poetry. Primal was a blank slate: no history, no form, no known origin. The boogiemen of the cosmos, Carl's Game Guide Mordecai had once called them, who spread across the galaxy and simply vanished. A race that could become anything, that trained every skill to its ceiling, that had given up its own identity to become limitless. Carl’s class, Compensated Anarchist, layered onto that a kind of beautiful contradiction. Make the bombs and plead for peace, throw the Molotov and step in front of the camera, tear things down with your hands and walk away with more charisma than you arrived with. Destruction as a form of social engineering. Chaos with a media strategy.

And then there was her. Elysian. Reluctant Curator. She would preserve what he demolished, remember what he unmade, hold the shape of things while he remade the world around it. The past, present, and future at her fingertips, versus a race that had erased its own past entirely. The library and the bomb-maker. The one who remembered everything and the one who had chosen to start from nothing.

It was the most romantic thing she had ever seen, dungeon or otherwise. Star-crossed lovers, or dungeon-crossed, she supposed, given the circumstances. Either way the System AI had clearly made its intentions known.

Holy shit, Minx thought. She opened a new tab.

She was logged on to a forum and uploaded her thoughts to it in under a minute. The idea spread quickly. Carl and this crawler, platonically, romantically, as the ultimate pairing of the rarest abilities in the dungeon. It stirred something in all of them: awe, happiness, and in several dedicated subforum threads, something considerably less proper. 

The best part of running an intergalactic book club, Minx had learned, was that fangirls, given a cause, got straight to work. Someone made gifs. Someone made video edits. Someone wrote a thread. Someone did the math on their complementary abilities and posted it in a twelve-page document with footnotes and a bibliography. 

And just like that, the shipping between the two crawlers began entirely without either’s knowledge. These two were too busy fighting for their lives in the dungeon. 

Within the week, the Marginalia had a dedicated sub-forum to both crawlers. Within two weeks, they had artists creating commissioned art to print on merchandise. Someone had released an exclusive line of pins and stickers. 

By the third week, votes were held for ship names. Carunc? Uncarl? They settled on Cunc. Eh, Minx thought when she read the poll results. It would do for now.

— ♡ —

She had a corner table, a whiskey she was nursing without urgency, and her Kindle propped against the glass. The battery was at 31% and she was trying not to look at it. She had switched to airplane mode at the beginning of the dungeon, but it wasn’t slowing down the battery drain. Biscuit was under the table, his chin on her foot, making that low-grumbly sound he made when he was perfectly happy.

"Mom," he had told her while settling down, "I like being here with you."

"Good. Stay right there."

The classification argument had resumed ten minutes into her sitting down. It always did.

"I'm not asking you to reclassify it as a weapon," she said, at a volume that the other tavern patrons had learned to accept. "I'm asking you to engage with the rational framework here. Knowledge has instrumental value. Instrumental value is—yes, it is relevant, I don't know why you keep insisting that—"

She didn't notice the man and the cat in the tavern doorway.

Carl had not expected this. He and Donut had come in for a quest lead (something about a contact in the back of the tavern) and instead he had stopped dead a couple of steps through the door because of the scene in front of him. There was a young woman in plaid pajama pants seemingly debating the air while a golden retriever offered moral support from underneath the table. This was bizarre, even for his standards. 

"OH HI!" The dog had spotted them. He was already on his feet, tail wagging, heading their direction with the type of confidence only dogs seemed to have. "You're real tall! And you smell interesting! Do you need friends?! You should be our friends!"

Crawler # 1,098,234. “Biscuit”. Level 17.

Class: Dog. Race: Designated Retriever.

"Hi buddy," Carl chuckled at Biscuit's enthusiasm, charmed by the dog's southern drawl.

He remarked to Donut, jokingly, that she wasn’t the only talking animal in the room anymore. Donut hissed at the comment. Carl crouched down automatically, one hand out. The dog put his whole nose into it. Carl scratched his ears without thinking, because that was what you did when a dog looked at you like that, and it felt like something he'd been missing for a long time.

The woman never looked up from the spot in the ceiling she was arguing with.

He examined her.

Crawler # 1,098,233. “Unc”. Level 15.

Class: Elysian. Race: Reluctant Curator.

They left after Carl was done petting the dog. He kept turning her race and classification over in his mind on the way out. He'd have to ask Mordecai about that.

— ♡ —

Later that day, Carl and Donut were teleported out of the dungeon, materializing in front of Zev, who was prepping them for an interview appearance.

"Oh, by the way," Zev said later, in the tone she reserved for information she found amusing and knew Carl would not. "You and another crawler have been the top ship in a niche fandom for three weeks. Odette's going to bring it up. Be ready."

Donut perked up immediately. "Wow, Zev! That's great for our views. A romantic subplot. Why hadn't I thought of that?"

"Ship?" Carl said. He had genuinely no idea what they were talking about.

"Seriously, Carl." Donut fixed him with the particular look she reserved for his densest moments. "Like Blaire and Chuck. It's two characters that viewers want to see get together. To do it, you know?" Zev nodded in agreement with Donut.

Carl stared at Donut with his jaw open. Donut stared back, already bored.

— ♡ —

Carl was never truly comfortable on the blue crushed-velvet couch, but part of him had developed a familiarity with it. Right now he was wishing he were anywhere else.

Odette gave the recap with evident delight. The Kindle arguments. Biscuit. The complementary abilities thread, which she let him read twice. The gifsets, the fan art, the Snick compilations, the thousands of fanfictions. She scrolled through them at a pace that suggested she'd watched his face carefully during each one. She read snippets of the smuttier contributions with professional enthusiasm. The crowd loved all of it.

She even had the gall to lay out across her desk a collection of official fan-club merch: a hat, a mug, and something that looked oddly like a TV remote. The designs mainly featured collages of Carl’s and the crawler’s face surrounded by red hearts.

Then, to add insult to injury, she played the clip of him in the tavern doorway. Just standing there. Just looking at her.

Something in Carl's chest did something he chose to suppress. He gripped the arm of the couch until he heard the wood support begin to creak.

Donut, sensing the attention drifting from her, made sure she got to the microphone before he could.

"Odette, darling, you must be completely out of your mind if you think Carl and I would willingly associate with a dog owner. Biscuit, was it? And besides," she glanced at Carl with theatrical concern, "Carl is absolutely hopeless in the romantic department. It would not go well. Isn't that right, Carl?"

Carl said nothing.

"Well," Donut settled herself. "I'll put it this way. It's practically Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. One is all brooding severity and the other reads, doesn't she? That's essentially the same thing. Except she has a dog. Yuck."

The audience laughed. Carl said nothing, and went on saying nothing, as he and Donut reappeared in the production trailer.

"Carl." Donut's voice had shifted, just slightly. "What was that? You went completely mute."

"It's like when the leading man goes all slow-motion on the—OH MY GOODNESS CARL NO." She launched herself upright. "You cannot have the hots for her! CARL."

Carl sat down on the couch and stared at the floor between his legs. He had nothing to say back to the cat.

— ♡ —

He found her three days later, in a different tavern.

Biscuit found Carl first, bounding over before he had even cleared the doorway, nose and tail both going, completely ignoring the cat on Carl's shoulder who was making her feelings known at volume.

She was at the bar. Whiskey. Kindle face-up beside it. 29% battery, some part of her registered, with the specific dread of someone watching the last of something they love run out. She didn't look up.

He walked over. He wasn't entirely sure why. His feet seemed to have made the decision without consulting the rest of him.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Carl."

She picked her head up and looked at him.

Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail that draped over her sweatshirt, and he found himself actually looking at her, really looking, in a way he hadn't let himself do on Odette's show. She had a soft, round face, the kind that looked younger than she probably was, with a delicate freckled-nose and subtle lips. It was the kind of face that made him want to keep looking at her without knowing why.

But what unsettled him most were her wide-set eyes. They were green, or close to it. Like the color of river water with the sun behind it, almost clear, almost nothing.

Mordecai had mentioned something about Elysians, that their eyes tended to be striking. He hadn't thought much of it at the time.

Something in him went very quiet, because he thinking quite a lot about it now.

"My goodness, Carl." Donut could sense this interaction was going terribly. "I see why Beatrice had other options. You are truly terrible at this."

Carl soured at the mention of Beatrice. He could already tell this woman was nothing like her. For one, Bea would not have been caught dead in public in pajama pants.

Biscuit had returned to her side. She took a sip of her whiskey. "A talking cat," she said. "I've seen you both on the recaps." She introduced herself by her preferred name and not the one the dungeon had decided for her. Carl decided he really liked the sound and feel of her name. 

This introduction was short, and a little awkward on his end. He ended up retreating to a corner table without entirely meaning to and sat there, trying to remember how to be a normal person. Donut perched on the table and tilted her head in confusion at Carl. The cat had never seen him act like this.

"I like him! Do you like him?! I think we like him!" She watched Carl across the tavern as he was rubbing his face with both hands. From here she could see Donut beginning to pace a small circle on the table surface while obviously chastising him.

"I think," she said to Biscuit, "he knows something I don't."

She picked up her Kindle. 25%. She groaned and tried not to think about it.

— ♡ —

"Goddammit, Carl." Carl muttered to himself as he pressed his palms over his face. 

"That was the most pathetic display of courtship I have ever witnessed." Donut’s voice was laced with pity.

"She's the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen." The words left his mouth before he realized what he had said. Too late. Donut's ears perked up.

"Oh no," Donut said. "Oh, absolutely not."

Carl was already on his feet, already moving toward the door, Donut leaping after him.

"Where are we going?! What about the quest?!"

"Forget about it. We'll come back later."

He cast one last look back at the bar. She had her Kindle open again. She wasn't looking at him. Somewhere across the galaxy, the Marginalia were going absolutely feral at Carl’s confession.

Zev sent a notification as soon as she figured out why #cunc was trending on every galaxy-wide social media interface. 

Zev: Carl, good news! Your mentions across galactic socials are popping off! Odette wants you back on the show stat!

Oh fuck, Carl thought. All he could see were her eyes. That pale almost-green, like river water with the sun behind it.

He'd be thinking about them for a while.

Zev: Carl and Princess Donut, please prepare to transfer to Odette’s show within the next couple of minutes. She wants to do an emergency segment with you four.

Carl: Wait, what do you mean by "you four"?

— ♡ —

The couch was the same. The velvet was the same. The cameras were the same, and the crowd noise was the same, and Odette's smile as she watched Carl settle in had exactly the same quality it always did when she knew something he didn't.

What was different was the crawler sitting on the other end of the couch, on the far side of Odette. Carl and Donut were brought on set after Odette had finished grilling her and Biscuit.

She had Biscuit on her lap, which was truly a challenge, given his size, but she looked like she was managing it. She hadn't looked at Carl yet. She was looking at Odette with the calm, direct attention of someone very comfortable in front of a camera. Internally, she was losing her mind. This was her and Biscuit's first media appearance. Ever. Odette had asked her to show the audience her Kindle, which now was propped face-up on the cushion beside her. Carl could see that the battery was at 15%.

Donut, who had taken up residence on the far armrest and was grooming herself with pointed disinterest, chose this exact moment to look up and discover Biscuit.

Biscuit had already discovered Donut.

"HI! Hi, I remember you! You made that noise at me! I've thought about you a lot since then, I hope that's okay."

"I will END you, filthy mutt," Donut cut him off with a hiss.

The audience loved this chaos. They had never seen this side of Princess Donut. Odette let it run for a couple of seconds before she leaned forward.

"So," Odette said. To both of them. "The galaxy's been doing a lot of talking about you two. I thought we should finally introduce you properly." She smiled. "How are you both feeling?"

"Fine," she said, without hesitation, before she let the nerves get the best of her.

Carl opened his mouth. Carl closed his mouth. 

She turned to look at him then for the first time since the production team had sat them down, and something about the angle, the lights, whatever it was, her eyes were doing that thing again. River water. Almost clear. He had zero brain cells at this moment.

"He knows," she said, to Odette, conversationally, "something I don't. I've been trying to figure out what it is."

Carl realized in that moment that Odette must have failed to mention to her anything to do with #Cunc.

It occurred to him, in that moment, that Odette had failed to mention anything about #Cunc to her. He wondered why. The crawler and her dog seemed entirely unbothered. There was no embarrassment, no surprise, nothing on either of their faces that suggested they knew.

The audience made a sound. Donut made a sound. Biscuit made a sound that was simply "MOM!!!" and had to be gently shushed.

Carl said nothing. He was staring at her. She was looking at him with that calm, direct expression, waiting, unhurried, with what seemed like all the patience in the world.

"Your clothes have changed," he blurted out.

They had. Her hair was french-braided back, neat and practical, and she'd traded the pajama pants and oversized sweater for something that looked almost functional: a fitted long-sleeve and  loose legging-like trousers. Her slippers had been replaced with a pair of white sneakers with little red hearts that had absolutely no business being as clean as they were, given the dungeon. 

"Loot boxes," she said. "I think the AI and the viewers got tired of the pajamas." Or this is the AI’s sick version of matching couple shirts, he thought while glancing at the shoes, and then his underwear.

She glanced down, briefly, at his bare feet. Her expression didn't change, but something in her eyes softened.

"Doesn't seem like anyone has shared that kindness with you," she said.

Somewhere across the galaxy, Minx closed her laptop, pressed her multitude of hands to her face, and breathed in very slowly through her serpentine nose. Her two favorites were in the same room. This was an ultimate fangirl emergency, and she had to act fast. The Marginalia's #Cunc subforum refreshed 4,000 times in the span of seconds while Minx scrambled to update the members who had no access to Odette's show on what was happening in real time.

Odette smiled. In this moment, she knew to let the cameras do the work.

The Kindle, on the cushion between them, ticked down to 7%. 

— ♡ —

The sharing of their chats happened because of Odette. The host, in the way she was able to find the pressure point of any conversation, asked about their strategies in the dungeon.

Without hesitation, they answered at the same time. "It’s just like Frogger."

The same reference and sarcastic delivery caused the audience to erupt. Odette sat back in her chair with satisfaction etched on her face. Even Donut, from her end of the couch, went quiet.

That answer probably meant nothing to anyone else in the galaxy but everything to the two of them. She turned to look at him. He was already looking at her. And then he laughed, a real one, unguarded, the kind that didn't have a camera in mind, and without thinking, without meaning to, she brought her fist up.

Without thinking, without meaning to, he met it.

It lasted half a second. The crowd lost their minds at the touch. Neither of them had noticed what the fist-bump triggered, because their dungeon interfaces didn’t work on these shows.

Later, when the show had ended, and all four had been teleported back to the same tavern, the two of them noticed the notification from the interface as they caught up with what they had missed.

New connection established. Crawler Carl has been added to your dungeon chat.

She stared at it for a moment. Then she looked up at him.

He was already reading it. She watched him read the notification carefully, like it meant something.

He looked up at her.

"Huh," he said. "Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah," she said.

Later that day, when they had parted ways with simple goodbyes, a new message finally came through. 

“GIRL! MOVE! This thing isn’t slowing down and if you aren’t out of the way in 20 feet we’re running you down!” the man yells at you from down the hall. 

You quickly jump out of the way and press yourself to the side of the dungeon wall as the man and his cat speed by you. 

“Seriously dude!?” You shout in response. You cannot believe this. The first person you see that isn’t dead is a man and a talking cat on a motorcycle and now they’re gone. 

You’re trying to find another guild hall door and go in hoping to talk to your game guide. Yulissa was a Fulminar, which you found out is a person sized, elemental creature. She is translucent and made mostly of wind. You quickly learned to not question anything in the dungeon as it just made you even more confused than you already were and you were in a dungeon under the ground. 

The motorcycle thing came to a stop about a mile down the dungeon when you heard the woman, or you guess, the cat speak. “Carl. We must help that poor girl. She looked so shocked to see me! Do you think she knows who I am? Wouldn’t that be wonderful! A fan from the surface! Could you imagine!”

You have no idea how you were able to hear her being so far away, but considering you have no idea how any of this bullshit works, you’re not questioning it anymore. 

“Goddamnit, Donut” you hear the man, who you are guessing is Carl, grumble to the cat.

You hear the motorcycle turn on and drive back to you, “hey, you alright?” Carl asks you.

“Uh yeah, I guess, I mean, I’ve been better for sure considering everyone I know is dead and I’m in a dungeon, now two floors down, surrounded by goblins and weird rats and llamas that do cocaine and fucking rage elementals when some dumbass decides to piss on the walls!” you’re out of breath after that and on the verge of tears.

Carl looks at you like you’ve lost your mind. The cat looks between you and him and says, “Well she needs some help” and you break down into the tears you’ve been holding back since entering the dungeon however many days ago that was. 

“Why does your cat talk?” you say between tears and wiping your eyes, “sorry about that, by the way, don’t really know where that came from!” you try to laugh off your very abrupt breakdown. 

“Excuse me, I am not his cat. My name is Grand Champion, Breed Winner Regional, National Winner Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk and I am Ms. Beatrice’s cat, not this large, foul, no pants wearing man’s cat. He is only here as my bodyguard.” She huffs in response to your question. 

Carl kicks the motorcycle’s kickstand down and swings his leg around to get off of it. “First, not a bodyguard. Second. Hi, my name is Carl. Donut thought you needed some help. Can we help in any way? We were headed east from Seattle when we saw spray painting on the dungeon walls and met up with some guys from an elder care facility. Anyways, now Donut is trying to recruit people because it will get our ‘viewer count’ up or something. I’m just trying to find a pair of pants.” 

You laugh as you look down and see that he is just in a pair of boxers, not wearing any shoes, and wearing a very worn leather jacket.

“Carl, I think she is checking you out.” Donut says as your eyes travel back up his body. You flush in embarrassment. 

“N-No! I wasn’t!” You totally were. You realize he is a very attractive man, tall, muscular, kind, at least you’re hoping he is, which is why you gain the confidence to look up at him and ask, “I’m sorry if this is weird, but I was just wanting to join someone’s party. I’m done trying to do this alone.”

“Oh um, I’m not sure if-”

"Motherfucker," she groaned at the sunset above her.

Her Kindle had died right as she watched Biscuit trot down the stairwell to the fourth floor. She was so close to finishing the romance novel she was reading. She rubbed her eyes with frustration before placing the device in her inventory. She took one last look at the Over City, preparing to write a message to Carl, but stopping herself when she remembered he was already gone. 

She pulled up their last exchange instead.

Carl: Donut and I are going down now.

Unc: Huh? But we still have three days.

Carl: I know. We got ourselves into a situation. Stay safe. I'll chat with you on the other side.

Unc: Okay. Take care, old man.

Carl: Take care. And I'm only three years older than you.

She smiled at the screen before minimizing it. She wondered what he was up to. She was grateful, sometimes, that she wasn't in Carl's party. That entire group seemed to attract disaster with a kind of reckless enthusiasm that she (and others, she was sure of it) found alarming. She had once messaged him that he seemed to be on a speedrun to an early grave, and he hadn't denied it. She later learned that his Game Guide, Mordecai, shared the same resentment.

"You can't save them all."

Ever since Odette's show, their messages had been coming with increasing frequency. She enjoyed talking to him and had started to crack through that tough exterior of his. He was smart, deeply loyal to his family, and kind. She couldn't believe the dungeon hadn't beaten that trait out of him.

They hadn't crossed paths again on this floor after the joint interview, but that didn't stop their chatting.

Biscuit had gotten them into all sorts of trouble on the third floor, his doggish nature meaning he was incapable of not being friendly to anyone—and unfortunately, that friendliness extended to danger, to the delight of mobs and harmful NPCs. On the bright side, she was getting plenty of skill practice on the mobs Biscuit kept dragging her way.

Her Situational Stasis skill had come in handy more times than she could count. All she had to do was hold one hand out, and whatever was threatening them simply stopped. It was like a pause button for catastrophe. Her Redirect skill had been equally useful, rerouting damage mid-flight when mobs threw things at them. This had been particularly helpful during an encounter with a mob of winged monkeys that hurled fire bananas.

She hadn't mastered any physical weapons yet, and she wasn't fond of the idea. The incessant violence of this place went against every instinct she had. But somewhere along the way she had become functional with a garrote—a long wire connected by plastic handles. According to the System description, this was an assassin's tool, which she found both funny and mortifying. Their strategy was simple enough: Situational Stasis to freeze the target, Biscuit's Advanced Retrieval to bring it to her, and then the wire. His bite was strong enough to finish most things on its own, but together they were more efficient. It wasn't elegant, but it worked.

Biscuit's Morale Aura helped buffer her before fights. She always felt steadier when he was near, calmer than the situation warranted. She was grateful for that more than she could say. Her real power, she suspected, would be best used in a party; energy redirection would be incredibly useful with powerful spellcasters. She had been gathering what information she could about Elysian from NPCs but hadn't found much beyond what the System had already told her. Her inner Catalogue was filing it all away regardless. Every detail, every face, every crawler or NPC she hadn't been able to help, was stored in her brain. She remembered everything. That was the deal the System had made with her.

She took one last look at the village behind her. An announcement cut through the air.

Hello, Crawlers! 

As a reminder, this floor is set to collapse in six hours. Only a couple thousand of you haven't taken stairwells yet—I suggest you start wrapping your affairs up and getting down those steps. That's all for now. I'll see you on the fourth floor as you all get ready to kill, kill, kill!

She rolled her eyes at the cheerful voice and went down the stairs.

— ♡ —

Halfway through the fourth floor, in an empty subway car, she cried into Biscuit's fur while the train jolted and swayed around them. She had cried more times than she could count since the start of the subway-themed level. 

Biscuit whimpered in distress because his emotional buffer wasn't enough to cheer his girl up.

She had never taken a subway in her life. This was not what she'd imagined it'd be like.

She had grown up, as most small-town teenagers do, with visions of moving to a big city like New York. She imagined herself taking the subway to some important job in an important outfit, fancy shoes; very put together, very adult. Instead, she was on the Winter Sky line in yoga pants, somewhere underground on a dungeon floor, completely alone except for her golden retriever. The line had been suspiciously devoid of monsters, which should have been comforting but was somehow worse because of how alone the two of them were. The loneliness was opening a gap for her depression to start poking around the back of her brain again.

She hadn't heard from Carl in a while either. She knew he was caught up in cahoots—he had told her that himself—but she felt an ache at the lack of communication. He was her friend now, and she missed talking to him. 

Her only (and best) companion was Biscuit. There were literally no other life forms on this floor, save the Bopca Protectors that they'd meet in the safe rooms. The loneliness, even if it meant no hostile mobs, was sending her thoughts into overdrive. Her inner voice had not been as quiet as it was around other living forms.

She knew she should hold it together until they found a safe room. She wiped her eyes and watched the station number approach. 40.

She dabbed the last of her tears with her long sleeve and took a deep, shaky breath. "Come on, Biscuit. Let's get off here." He followed her with concern in his eyes but didn't say anything. The sound of his nails and her sneakers hitting the tiled floor echoed across the platform. That, and the buzzing of the lights, was all they could hear.

They found the safe room door at the end of the platform. "Mom, I can open my Fan Box now!" Biscuit's tail started going. "Same," she said, checking her interface.

Admin Note: Your Fan Box is ready to open.

"I hope you got some toothbrushes for that breath of yours," she told him, trying to lighten the mood. She knew it wasn't fair to Biscuit that she kept losing her composure like this. It felt selfish. 

"What about a razor for your hairy legs?" Biscuit replied, tongue out.

"Hey!" She laughed as she pushed open the safe room door and was briefly blinded by the colors that assaulted her eyes.

The safe room was themed as a children's daycare, with bright paintings of rainbows and butterflies covering every wall and a Bopca Protector standing behind a small countertop. "Welcome," he greeted them. "Please let me know what I can do to help."

She settled onto a purple beanbag under a painted sunrise. Biscuit sat in front of her, eyes going slightly hazy as he opened his box. A light flashed. When it cleared, he was wearing a bandana around his neck—white, patterned with small bones and hearts alternating across the fabric. He looked down at it. Then back up at her. His tail went into overdrive.

"MOM. Do you SEE this?"

"I see it." She laughed.

"I look SO good. I look HANDSOME." His southern drawl thickened with excitement.

"You really do," she said. She pet him for a bit while talking to him about how she'd been feeling. Biscuit was the best listener, and laid on his back while she rubbed his belly. 

At that moment, her guilt started eating her alive. "Biscuit, I—" She was trying to apologize to him, for the tears, for the persistent sadness, but he jumped off the ground and onto her lap and started licking her face until she couldn't stop laughing. 

"Get off of me!" She clutched her stomach as Biscuit went back to the floor. "Mom, you don't have to be sorry. That's what dogs are for. I'm here to help you carry your burdens and make you smile a bit more."

"My sweet boy," she held his face and kissed him on his forehead.

She opened her own box before she could sink back into her emotions again. Then, she almost got emotional about the content of the box instead. Three complete series—her favorite fantasy novels, the ones she'd read in high school and college when things got really hard. She shouted a thank you at the ceiling. 

Minx grinned as she watched the broadcast feed of their girl opening her box. The Marginalia had held an emergency fundraiser and spent a pretty penny getting these items into the dungeon. Biscuit's bandana caught the daycare lighting perfectly, and Minx cooed at how cute the dog was.

Biscuit snored lightly at her feet while she started reading. A few hours later, after finishing a dinner of beef stew the Bopca had made her, her interface lit up.

Carl: I know it's been a bit. Checking in. Donut and I just dealt with something absolutely insane. Would love a distraction.

Unc: My fan box arrived. I got sent complete sets of my favorite series.

Carl: That's really good.

Unc: Biscuit got a bandana. Little bones and hearts. He looks incredibly good and will not stop telling me about it.

Carl: Send him my congratulations.

Unc: He says—and I quote—"TELL HIM I LOOK GREAT! I WANT HIM TO KNOW!"

Carl: Noted. What kind of books?

Unc: Please don't laugh at me.

Carl: Promise.

Unc: Fae romance. I used to read them in high school when I was really sad.

Carl: No judgment. I've read A Court of Horny Roses.

Fuck, does he mean A Court of Thorns and Roses? She couldn't help but crack up, filling the safe room with her laughs. She chose not to correct him.

Unc: Color me impressed.

Carl: Are you sad now?

Unc: Yeah. I know I have Biscuit, and he's my best friend, but this is a different kind of sadness.

Carl: Fuck. Let me see if I can figure out how to get you here with me.

She stared at that last message for a long time. She tried not to overanalyze it, but she was just a girl. The way he said it, no softening, just let me see if I can figure out how to get you with me made her feel butterflies in her stomach—hope, she realized, which she hadn't felt in days.

This is not the time nor place for this. 

She bent down and scratched at Biscuit's soft, golden head, trying to distract herself from her crush. 

— ♡ —

On the fifth floor she had been assigned to the subterranean quadrant of Bubble 1,134.

It had been its own kind of hell, mostly—until Biscuit found the girls.

He had spotted the four crawlers on the first day underground and made the decision, as good dogs do, to go up and say hi to them. Lindsey, Nia, Piper, and Sofia had been at a fraternity party at their SEC school when the collapse happened. All four had stayed human, which she respected. They were smart, funny and brought a fun kind of bubbliness to the situation they were in.

She liked them enormously. The six had formed an almost instantaneous bond. 

Together they had managed to free their quadrant. This had required all of their combined brain cells (Piper liked to make this joke) and Biscuit's enthusiastic, if chaotic, assistance.

"To your left!" Piper called from behind her, and she whipped her hand toward the Cave Viper mid-lunge—a small snake-like mob that spat acid venom. It froze. Biscuit launched himself into the air, grabbed it, shook it until its health bar emptied, and dropped it. He wagged his tail over the dead snake.

Lindsey led them up the ramp toward the surface, torch held high, her blonde hair catching the light. Nia moved beside her, protection spells cycling steadily over the group. Behind them, Piper and Sofia held the rear, Biscuit chatting cheerfully between them.

"Biscuit, shush," Sofia said. "We don't know what's on the surface yet."

"I know!" Biscuit replied. "That's what's exciting!" Sofia sighed, and the girls all laughed.

His tail didn't stop wagging once.

— ♡ —

Carl: Checking in. I'm catching up with your messages. You said you freed your quadrant?

Unc: Yep. Suck it.

Carl: Nice work. We've made progress but Donut is stressed about the time we lost.

For those five days Donut and Carl were missing (which she now knew meant that they had been in detention), no messages would be delivered to Carl's inbox, and the silence haunted her time underground. She had told the others about it around the third day of no messages in a moment of weakness, and they had reacted in a way that reminded her that they were in fact twenty-something year old girls.

"Oh my god, you have a crush on him," Piper had said immediately. "No, he's a friend." She insisted over the gaggle of girlish voices.

"Wait. Is this the buff guy from the recaps? With the underwear and the tattoos?" Nia had looked up sharply. "He's fucking hot! Why are you not with your man?"

"He's not my man. And I don't—I mean, I don't think I—" She had been very aware of her own face heating up. "We just check in on each other. Like friends." She tried once again to emphasize that word. It felt wrong for her to say.

That was when everything came spilling out of her. She told the girls about Odette's show, the weird intergalactic ship she now found herself in, and how that had jumpstarted her and Carl's friendship. Carl had told her about it towards the end of the fourth floor, in a moment where he thought he might not make it out. Everything clicked in place when she learned about #Cunc. She read the girls their conversation about it.

Carl: In case I die, I need you to know that Odette had you on the show because a bunch of horny aliens want to see us together.

Unc: Excuse me? What happened to hi, hello, how are you?

Carl: No time. 

Unc: What do you mean by together?

Carl: Do you know what fanfiction is?

Unc: Carl I wasn't born under a rock. Of course I do.

Carl: Okay they're writing that crap about us. They call us Cunc.

Unc: CUNC?????? I'M DYING THAT SOUNDS LIKE A DISEASE HAHAH

Carl: Don't yell.

Unc: Are you actually being serious?? Why didn't Odette say anything?

Carl: Her intentions are her own. I need you to know in case I die and she brings you back to ask you how you feel about it.

Unc: Don't worry. I can work the cameras.

Carl: Actually, you can't. 

Unc: You cheeky fucker!! Try not to die I'll miss you

Carl: Noted. I'll talk to you later.

"Wow. This is just like when I used to read One Direction fanfiction." Nia said, with Lindsey nodding in agreement. "I was always more of a Harry x Y/N." Lindsey whipped her head at Nia's comment. "Really?! I was always a Ziam girl. I wanted them to kiss" 

"Of course you were," Nia said laughing. "I will say that Cunc is an incredibly tragic shipname. There's gotta be something better we can come up with. I'll work on it."

"Anyways, I feel like you talk to him a lot more than you're letting on," Sofia said calmly, pushing past the chaos of the bickering girls. "This is very romantic."

"He hasn't replied in four days," Piper added. "Has he blocked you?"

Sofia hit her arm. "Not the time."

"You guys have cute banter!" Piper blurted the compliment, trying to remedy her comment.

She had pushed her anxious feelings aside to focus on keeping everyone alive, which was the correct priority—but the feelings had been there. She had, however, let the girls add her to their group chat. They named it, after a brief and spirited debate, Girl Power! This was the kind of cheesiness she had needed in this desolate place.

— ♡ —

Somewhere across the galaxy, Minx pressed her hands to her face and rocked back in her seat.

She could not believe her luck. Her friends were going to freak out. She and her moderators were freaking out on their video call.

The girls had read the Cunc conversation out loud. The girls had clocked the crush IMMEDIATELY. The girls had named the group chat Girl Power!, which Minx had immediately added to the Marginalia's Cunc document under the subheading: in-game validation of ship; collateral characters arrive.

"They are doing our job for us now," said a moderator over the call. "Who would have thought that on-the-ground intelligence would outperform our analysis division."

"Lesser intelligence, may I add," another voice cut through. "It's genuinely humbling."

"They are doing it better," Minx quipped. "Look at them. Look at how quickly they got there. We took an episode of Odette's show and a hundred-page analysis with footnotes."

"To be fair, we did not have access to her in person." Someone added, and Minx heard collective hums of agreement.

"That is not a fair point and you know it. We should be ashamed of ourselves." Minx's serpentine voice cut through the hums.

The moderator sighed, in the way moderators did when they were being shut down by Minx. "I think you're being too hard on yourself. We found our girl quick—the romance came second."

"Carry on," Minx ignored them.

The Marginalia's moderator video call carried on, and the fan club's activities continued from there. The newsletter for that cycle was already being drafted. The artists were already taking commissions.

Somewhere on the fifth floor a girl in a bubble quadrant had not yet finished blushing about a man she had not yet admitted she had a crush on. The Marginalia continued to root for their girl, because they had a story to believe in now.

— ♡ —

Her and Carl's chat had quieted down as they each faced their own battles for survival. Towards the end of the floor, the girls had trouble helping to free their air quadrant. Of course, like a knight in shining underwear, Carl had managed to pop a majority of the bubbles to help guide crawlers to the stairwells, including theirs.

Unc: Carl, I'm not even going to ask how you did all of this. Thank you.

Carl: Don't mention it. Please get down ASAP. I'm about to face off some very angry gods.

Unc: Okay, maybe I do want to ask about that.

Carl: Go. Please.

Unc: Be careful.

Carl: I will be. I'll find you on the next floor. Take care.

Unc: Take care. We're going down.

— ♡ —

They descended to the sixth floor because of Carl's bubble escape scheme, which she had watched on the recap with her hands over her mouth. The crawlers couldn't believe the balls this man had. When Lindsey said that, her cheeks had flushed red.

Lindsey choked out laughter when she saw her blushing face.  "Whoops, made you think of his dick." Nia smacked the back of her head and Lindsey yelped in pain.

She spent the next few hours anxiously checking her interface until a message finally appeared.

Carl: Hi. Missed me?

Unc: Carl. Oh my god. Are you okay? Is Donut okay?

Carl: Don't worry about us.

Unc: That is genuinely impossible for me to do. You are actually insane.

Carl: I promise I wasn't like this on the surface. What's your plan now?

Unc: The girls and I are going to try to scout a hiding spot before the hunters are released.

Carl: Good. We've gotten pulled into that TV show quest I mentioned. We'll have to deal with that first. Watch out when they release the hunters.

Unc: Okay. Talk soon.

She closed the interface and looked out at the jungle stretching in every direction.

"Mom," Biscuit said beside her, reading the worry on her face. "We're going to be okay! I really think so!"

"I know," she said.

Piper walked up behind her and started playing with the ends of her ponytail. "I know you're worried, but I think he's got it." Piper's tone was gentle. "Nia thinks we should follow the river and get as far as we can from the hunters."

"Come on," she said, snapping out of it. "Let's find somewhere to hide."

"Girl gang, girl gang," Lindsey and Piper chanted as they whacked a path through the thick jungle.

The group hiked for several hours, and not once did she stop thinking about Carl.

They finally approached a settlement occupied by Ursine NPCs and quickly headed into a bed-and-breakfast. The girls were all exhausted from the hiking, and ready for food and a bed.

A female Ursine wearing a nightgown stood behind a small counter. She looked up at the crawlers and smiled. "Welcome, ladies." She glanced down at the big ball of golden fur. "And dog. Our safe room entrance is located past the kitchen door."

Lindsey looked at the girls and told them that she was going to go kill the mayor to take control of the settlement. Exchanging glances, the group shrugged shoulders and sent her on her way. "Lindsey is literally not scared of anything," Piper commented. "She was like this in college too. There wasn't a keg she couldn't conquer." The group watched Lindsey beeline her way to the town hall through the window. 

The girls all said their thanks to the attendant and headed towards the kitchen. After settling into their personal spaces, which they had all combined on the lower floor, Biscuit headed into his and hers room. She and Biscuit had decided to just share a room—he had slept on her bed ever since he was a puppy. He jumped on the bed as she stepped into the bathroom to wash off the day. When she stepped out of the shower, Biscuit was snoring in the middle of the pink comforter.

Carl: Checking in. Where are you?

Unc: We're in a Ursine settlement on the farther end of the floor. Lindsey killed the mayor.

Carl: Let me guess. She renamed it Lindseytown.

Unc: YES. How did you know?

Carl: Oh, shit. I'm good at this.

Unc: To be fair, that one's predictable.

Carl: Don't steal my thunder.

Unc: What are you up to now? We watched the recap episode. That took some real guts to infiltrate Zockau like that.

— ♡ —

"Carl?!" She screamed as Big Tina made her way around a corner. The giant dinosaur was showing no sign of stopping the chase.

"Holy fuck, MOVE!" Carl yelled her name, beckoning her towards him.

Big Tina ran after her as she sprinted as fast as she could. Cramps dug into her sides as she pushed past the pain. She looked back at the dinosaur, a mouth full of teeth staring at her. "Can you please for the love of god slow down!" She screamed as she ran. 

She had gotten herself in this situation because of her own doing. Her team had made it into a safe room, and she had gotten distracted while collecting some of the local flora for medicinal plants. She hadn't noticed the sun setting until the dinosaur was already sprinting at her.

What she hadn't known was that Carl, Donut, and Mongo had made their way to this settlement earlier that afternoon. 

Carl grabbed her into his arms as he pulled her into the safe room. They fell to the ground, Carl making sure she landed on top of him. They panted as they took each other in. Realizing what had happened, she scrambled to push herself off of him.

"What are YOU doing here?" They said at the same time. Carl pushed himself off the floor.

"Are you insane? You were about to be eaten by a dinosaur!" Carl said, angrily. "Don't you ever endanger yourself like that!"

"It's nice to see you too, Carl," she replied as she dusted off her pants. 

His eyes met hers. The pale green eyes seemed to startle him the same way it had on Odette's show, like he was seeing her for the first time again.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, but don't scare me like that again." He walked up to her. They pulled each other into a hug. "It's good to see you. Alive."

She let herself hold onto the hug for as long as she could. He didn't move away either.

"Carl, that stupid dog is here again. We must leave." Princess Donut's voice was answered by Mongo's squawk as she rounded the corner of the safe room entrance. Her fur ruffled as she observed the embrace between the two humans. What on Earth are they thinking? The Princess thought. 

She noticed the cat staring from the corridor and pulled away. "Hi, Princess Donut." Donut preened at the use of her formal title. "Finally, some respect. I like this one."

She walked up to pet the cat's back and to quickly pat the raptor, careful to avoid his teeth. "I'm glad to see all of you well. You're more than welcome to come into our personal space and catch up, if you have time."

Carl and Donut glanced at each other before Donut invited her group in. "Carl told me that Nia is interested in potion making. Mordecai will want to meet her. So, we insist you join us."

Internally, she freaked out at Donut's comment. He's been talking about my friends to Donut?

— ♡ —

Carl and Donut's personal space was a luxury compared to her group's. They had enough space to spread out, and she sat on the couch with Sofia and Piper while Carl sat across from them in a chair. Nia had gone off with Mordecai, Lindsey joining her best friend to keep an eye on her. Donut had declared that Biscuit had to stay off the couch, so he laid on top of his girl's feet.

Carl took his time explaining what he and Donut had been up to, and the rest of his family too. He detailed the damage he and Donut had done to Zockau, the encounter with Signet, the drama with Vrah, and everything else in between. He shared about Katia, Elle, and the others and what they had been doing. The girls couldn't believe how many crawlers Carl knew and cared for. Sofia had sent out a message to the group chat, giving her approval on Carl.

Sofia: Don't you love a guy who loves his family?

Piper: OMG, my heart is going to burst. Green flag!

Sofia: And his voice is sexy as fuck.

Unc: Can you guys not do this right now.

Lindsey: Fuck. Am I missing a chance to make you squirm?

Sofia: Just know that Carl is like the most chivalrous guy ever. Also, confirmed he has a six pack.

Lindsey: YUMMY.

Unc: GUYS!!

Carl glanced at her reddening cheeks but kept on talking. Piper then gave their group an account of how they came to be and where they had been. The girls had left the original Ursine settlement because they were trying to be proactive by killing hunters, but had run into this weird village instead. Big Tina had been an unaccounted for problem. 

Everyone had been in the safe room except for her, who had been trying to create some sort of salve for a burn that Biscuit had gotten on his paw.

Carl listened attentively, but his eyes glossed over once in a while and the girls knew that meant he was sending messages.

"Okay. Our game plan is to take care of this dinosaur quest stat, then to start moving towards the Butcher's Masquerade castle." The girls nodded.

"What can we do to help?" His eyes snapped toward her.

"You, nothing. I have to deal with Signet first."

"Are you sure, Carl?" she said. "We're not scared."

"It's not about if you're scared." He looked at her directly. "I don't want you fighting my battles for me." Sofia and Piper side-eyed each other at this exchange.

"Okay." She acquiesced and leaned back into the couch. There was something in how he had phrased that that she didn't know what to do with.

"Are any of you invited to the Masquerade?"

The person he did not want to see raising her hand, did. "Goddammit," he muttered under his breath.

"I got the notification early on the floor. I'm pretty sure I'm the 50th top crawler. No one else has one." Carl nodded at the information.

"Okay. I'm going to take you with me, but your group will stay together and do as I say."

— ♡ —

"Mom," Biscuit's voice was quivering. "Do you have to leave me? I promise I'll be good if you let me come with you."

She held the dog's head in her hands. "Oh, my baby. I love you so much. We will see each other in a couple of days."

He licked a tear that fell down her cheek. "I need you to protect those girls. They will make sure you are loved on. Can you do that for me?"

Biscuit composed himself and held himself a little higher. "Yes, mom. I'll be a good boy."

"That's my boy," she said. "I'll message you. If we happen to be in our personal space together, I'll see you then." She gave him one last kiss on the forehead before hugging her friends in a group hug.

"We love you," said Sofia. "If at any point you want to back out, we will haul ass to get you."

"I love you girls. Take care of Biscuit, and we will see each other in a couple of days." She turned to walk towards Carl, Donut, and Mongo.

Donut and Carl had spent the previous couple of days taking care of several quests, but now needed to get moving to the castle because of the creeping branches. Carl had told her that Miriam Dom had died, and that they were in some other deep shit. But the overarching floor's theme was hanging over their heads, and they needed to get moving. Biscuit and the girls were going to circle another way towards the castle, but she was going with Carl because of her invitation.

The four of them began their hike towards the castle. She and Carl fell into a comfortable pace next to each other.

Biscuit: MOM I MISS YOU SO MUCH ALREADY

She jumped back at the screaming in her head. She and Biscuit had never thought of using the messaging function until now.

Carl laughed. "Biscuit just decided to message?"

"Yeah, how can you tell?" She answered, rubbing her temples.

"Donut also types in all caps. It seems to be a quadruped quirk. You'll get used to it." Carl told her.

She sighed. "There's no hope he'll learn how to type like a regular person?"

Carl's grin widened. "No chance."

Carl's voice softened. "I know it was a lot of us to ask you two to separate. I can't imagine doing this crawl without Donut."

He continued. "I don't want to sound crazy, but she's my best friend."

She chuckled. "You're not crazy. Biscuit's always been my best friend, even before he could talk." She took a drink from her water canteen, before continuing. "I had a hard time making friends during my first year of my PhD program. I would come home and just talk out loud to him. He remembers all of those conversations, which now mortifies me at everything he's witnessed me do."

Carl smiled, as he validated her. "You know, I almost stole Donut from my ex-girlfriend." Her eyes widened in surprise. "Bea was going to sell her, but I couldn't just let her do that to Donut. She's a special cat."

"Aww, Carl, you win cat dad of the year." She lightly pinched his arm. "That's so cute."

They kept on chitchatting before she changed the topic. 

"So, I know we talked about it, but that interview we did was really weird. Have you been back?"

"On Odette's show? Oh, yeah. A ton." He answered.

"Damn, she must not have liked me. Do you guys still talk about—you know—the"

He cut her off . "That's probably for the best you haven't been on. And just so you know, she hasn't dared talk to me about Cunc again" He chuckled. "Which makes me suspicious that she's working something up behind the scenes."

She glanced worriedly at him. He tried to reassure her. "Listen, we've been through the worst. And hey, you didn't even know about this ship business."

She paused for a second before answering him. "So, you don't find that shit totally weird? That our images and likeness has been created into merchandise? That we have—what'd you call—those videos made—" She had been giving fanfiction a lot of thought since Lindsey and Nia's comments. A deep, hidden part of her would have loved to see what people were writing about them.

"Are you talking about snicks?" Carl raised an eyebrow. 

She snapped her fingers. "YES! Those. It doesn't freak you out to hangout with me? They're probably making content of us right now." She looked around at the imaginary cameras she was sure were trailing them.

Carl sighed. "Is it weird? Absolutely. Is it any weirder than all of this shit?" He paused for a moment. "Actually, probably. But let me remind you I had a snick made of me and an orc alien prince." Carl rolled his eyes at the thought of Prince Maestro. "Carl's naughty little piggie, huh?!" He yelled into the sky above. "Fuck you, Skull Empire!"

She laughed at that. "Wow. I'm sensing some sort of history here." 

Carl nodded and chuckled. "I'm glad the dungeon brought us together, even if it was through this. By the way, even Donut knew what a ship was." Carl said, looking at her.

"Well, she's the pop culture queen. I'm not surprised." She answered.

"Hey. Don't think about what's happening outside the dungeon, okay? It's going to die down eventually. No one's bothered you about it again, right?"

She shook her head no. "I just haven't stopped thinking about it. I don't want it to bleed over into real life."

Carl looked at her. "And would that be so bad?" His tone was light, and he nudged her with his elbow.

She froze in place. 

"What do you mean by that?" Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Her eyes widened as so many thoughts raced through her head. Holy shit, is he about to confess his love to me? Her heart was beating out of her chest. She sucked in a breath while the girl brain part of her waited for him to tell her that she was the most beautiful, intelligent, special girl in the world and he needed her to survive the dungeon. 

(Minx practically died when she heard them talk about Cunc. Her blog had about 500 new posts that day.)

Carl ignored her question. She deflated a bit, and snapped back down into reality. She cursed herself for letting the idea of a crush throw her off her game. Of course Carl wasn't confessing his love. Her feet started moving again.

His tone got more serious as he asked if she was doing okay.

"The sadness isn't something that really goes away, but the feeling has gotten a lot quieter since Biscuit and I joined the girls. It's just something I've dealt with since I was a teenager." She breathed before continuing. "For a moment, I got really scared on the fourth floor that I was going to die and that Biscuit was going to be alone without me. The voices just got a little louder. I promise it's not that bad, but it is something that I have to deal with on my own."

She swiveled her head. "I promise I'm not crazy—I'm not hearing actual voices." She laughed nervously.

Carl did not take her vulnerability lightly. He knew more than anyone about the constant stream of voices and thoughts that made doing anything impossible. He glanced down at her, and she had the odd sensation of being observed. He'd always been aware of that, that she was shorter than him, but standing next to her made it real. The fake sunlight through the thick jungle canopy seemed to settle around her differently than she expected—like a golden halo.

"I understand not wanting to disappoint Biscuit," he said.

She smiled sadly at that, knowing he was being sincere. 

"I never want to disappoint him, but when it gets too loud in my head, there's nothing I can really do."

Carl nodded. They marched for a couple minutes in a comfortable silence.

Then, she spent the next couple of hours drilling him with questions. 

"What's your favorite color?" she asked.

"Red." He answered.

"Where did you live on Earth?"

"We still live on Earth." Sarcasm laced his response. "I guess in Earth, now."

"You're such an ass. I mean on the surface, idiot." She laughed.

"Wow, resorting to name calling now. Seattle." 

She stuck her tongue out at him and replied. "Okay, cool. You like the Seahawks?"

"Yes."

"Who's your favorite player?"

"Doesn't matter. They're probably all dead."

"Okay, edge lord."

"What did you just call me?"

"So, you were a boat mechanic. Is that how you got so ripped?"

"And a Coast Guard veteran. Show some respect." He winked at her while she shook her head.

"Okay, but is it like the police, where you can have fat police officers?"

He bit back laughter. "Hell no. I used to go to the gym too. Not to be like this, but… you gotta be fit for the sort of job I had."

"Weird brag on your part. Cats or dogs?"

"You know I can't answer that in front of her." He said, pointing at the cat riding Mongo.

"Okay then. A runaway trolley is speeding towards five people, but you can pull a lever to a sidetrack where it will only kill one person instead. What do you do?"

"Hold on, what the fuck. Are you trolley problem-ing me?" He snorted.

"Yes. What's your answer?"

He was quiet for a moment, thinking.

"I pull the lever," he said finally. "Every time."

"Most people say that."

"I'm not done." He kept walking, eyes on the path. "The one person on the sidetrack. I pull the lever and then I spend the rest of my life trying to figure out if it was right. I don't think you can be sure that it was the right choice, to pull it. I think you just have to live with the choice you made and not pretend it was clean." He glanced at her sideways. "That's my answer."

She looked at him for a moment. That was the most Carl answer she had ever heard. A better answer than she could have given. He truly was humanity's best.

She let out a low whistle. "Okay," she said, nodding her head in approval. "That's a good answer."

"What's yours?"

"I'm a philosophy student. I don't give answers. I just ask the questions." She waved her hands around as she mocked a pretentious tone.

"That is deeply irritating."

"I know."

He laughed. It was a real one, and she looked away before she could do anything embarrassing with her face.

— ♡ —

The castle disappeared.

One moment it was there—stone walls, torchlight, the distant sound of Donut's performance echoing through the ballroom—and then it wasn't. The Zerzura spell took it cleanly, the entire structure lifting and vanishing to the ninth floor, leaving everyone who had been inside suspended briefly in open air above a bramble-choked ruin before gravity took effect.

She dropped. Everyone dropped.

The exposed basement rushed up to meet them and she hit the ground hard, rolling to absorb the impact. Around her the chaos was immediate and total: mantis nymphs swarming up from every crack in the exposed foundation, hunters materializing out of smoke and shadow, elves regrouping around Imogen's crackling form, the brambles descending from above like a slow green ceiling.

Her Catalogue skill logged everything in the first couple seconds. Exit points. Threat vectors. The nearest crawlers. Carl, forty feet northwest, already moving.

She didn't have time to think about Carl.

"Stasis!"

Her hand shot out and the nymph mid-leap froze in the air in front of her face, its mandibles inches from her throat. She held it, redirected a bolt of elven magic that was heading for a crawler she didn't know, and kept moving. This was what Elysians did, what she did. Read the situation. Preserve what could be preserved. Keep people alive long enough for someone else to finish the job.

The garrote was in her other hand before she'd consciously reached for it from her inventory.

She worked her way through the nymph swarm using Stasis to freeze, redirect to reroute, the wire for anything that got close enough. Around her she caught glimpses of the larger fight, listening to Donut's voice rising in some kind of spell, the crack of Florin's shotgun, Imogen's lightning painting shadows across the pit walls.

She used Reluctant Mend once, on a crawler she didn't recognize who was bleeding out near the east wall, and immediately felt the familiar static blur at the edges of her vision when she used that skill. Her Catalogue ability dimmed. She hated that feeling. She pushed through it.

"Behind you!" someone shouted. It was Piper, from somewhere to her left. The girls had found each other in the chaos, after they'd been able to join the ballroom, well, when the party had ended.

She turned around.

The hunter was already there.

He wasn't one of the big names. Just a giant cockroach-alien-race in hunter's gear with a crossbow already raised, and she caught one second of his face before he fired. Something deliberate in it, something that said I know exactly who you are was etched all over his face. The bolt caught her in the shoulder and spun her sideways into the wall.

The pain registered a half-second behind the impact. She slid down the stone, hand going automatically to the wound, her Catalogue cataloguing it in her interface. Non-fatal. Serious. The bolt had gone clean through. She hesitated for a moment before pulling the bolt out of her shoulder. Blood gushed from her wound.

She couldn't quite move yet.

I know who you are, Bax's eyes, the hunter, seemed to say. She'd seen that look before and had become familiar with it ever since she joined Carl on this last segment of the dungeon. On the faces of people who'd watched the Marginalia content. Who'd seen the clips of Odette's show. Who'd decided that the easiest way to hurt Carl was through whatever she was to him.

She was going to be very angry about that later. Right now she was mostly focused on staying conscious.

"Oh my GOD" Piper was at her side, hands already pressing against the wound, spell cycling up. Sofia appeared on her other side a second later. She looked past the girls to see Bax fidgeting with his crossbow, tongue out in concentration as he tried reloading the weapon.

"I'm okay," she gritted her teeth as she spit the words out, her vision starting to go in and out.

"You are literally not," Sofia said.

Across the pit she caught a glimpse of Carl.

He was fighting, of course he was fighting, the man was always fighting, but his head had turned. She didn't know what he'd seen or how he'd seen it through the chaos but his eyes found her and for one second that stretched longer than it should have, she saw his face.

She'd never seen that particular expression on him before. It wasn't the fury she'd expected—she could tell that was going to come later. It was almost a look of despair, like seeing her like this was going to haunt him for a long time. That raw desperation was going to be dangerous. 

She filed it away in her head before the static took the edges off her vision again and she stopped being able to think about it.

"Don't you dare use Mend on yourself," Piper said, reading her mind.

"I wasn't going to," she slurred, trying her best to not pass out. Bax continued fidgeting with the crossbow in the chaos of the battlefield.

— ♡ —

Carl was on top of a hunter he had just killed when he felt it.

That was the only word for what happened. Felt. Like a thread yanking at his chest, like a warm breeze drifting over the sound. His head turned as the feeling got louder.

He saw her against the wall.

He couldn't help himself from doing the math. He did the calculation that everyone in his life had been subject to—Donut, Katia, Louis, every member of his family—the calculation of who, where, how bad.

He didn't realize that that math now accounted for her.

She was bleeding. The bolt had gone through. Piper was already there. Sofia was already there. The girls were doing what girls did, which was the thing he had been counting on without admitting it.

Across the pit her eyes found his. He could see in her, feel her, that she was going to pass out. 

His focus redirected. He saw the hunter past her, fumbling with a crossbow.

The rage inside snapped. He moved.

Everything blurred out around him. He only registered the hunter, a giant cockroach in hunter's gear, tongue between his teeth in the way of a creature concentrating on a thing he was not good at. He felt the ground beneath his feet, the gauntlet on his own hand, and he made the decision in an instant.

He punched the hunter once. The cockroach didn't see him coming, couldn't even try to put up a fight against Carl. 

The hunter went down.

Carl put his boot on the hunter's head and pressed. The gore from the hunter's head was nothing new to him, but the tug of emotion was.

When it was done he stood there for a second, looking at what remained of the cockroach's twitching body. Gross.

He had neutralized the threat. And then, finally, in that moment of standing on cockroach brain matter and other body fluids, he stopped lying to himself about her. He cared about this girl in a way that lived deep in his primal nature, in that place where the river of noise he tried so hard to quiet down grew louder and louder. Yes, he heard. Her. Her. Her. Find her. Take her. She's yours.

He needed to put an end to this now. He tried quieting the noise and forced his eyes away from her. The girls had her. He trusted the girls. She was safe with them.

He turned around and went back into the fight, because there was still a fight. He tried to ignore the voice at the back of his brain. The alternative was crossing the pit to her. Putting his hands on her face. Doing nothing else for a long time.

The fight needed him more than she did right now.

— ♡ —

The hunter who'd shot her was dead minutes later.

She didn't see how. But of course, it had been Carl.

She came to propped against a section of collapsed wall while Sofia ran her Triage spell and Nia cycled protection enchantments over their small corner of the pit. The battle was still going. She could hear it, could feel the ground shaking with Imogen's area attacks, could see the flash of Donut's spells painting the smoke overhead.

She gasped when she saw a golden ball of fur run and launch himself at an elf. "Biscuit." She tried yelling, but it came out hoarse and soft. Her head was too fuzzy to use the chat. She prayed he'd be alive by the end of this.

She had to pry her eyes off of her best friend as enemies descended upon her and her girls. She used Stasis twice more, with her good arm, from where she was sitting, freezing threats she could see coming before they reached the others. 

The brambles kept coming down.

When the arena finally declared a winner she was on her feet again, barely, with Piper's shoulder under one arm, and the survivors were moving toward the stairs in a ragged, exhausted way.

The girls had her. She didn't need to be carried exactly, but she wasn't walking without help, and they gave it without being asked. They set her down for a second, letting her catch her breath. 

She heard Carl before she saw him. His voice cutting through the general noise of the aftermath, sharp and wrong in a way she hadn't heard from him before. 

"Where is she. Where—" He panicked as he didn't find her at the spot she had collapsed at.

And then he was there, pushing through the crowd of survivors, and his eyes found her. They were wild, broken. Full of anguish. 

He fell on his knees in front of her. His hands came up to her face and gently held her for a moment. 

"I'm okay," she said, trying to reassure him. He didn't look convinced. He turned her face slightly, examining the shoulder wound, his jaw tight. His hands were careful as he looked.

"You're not," he said, flatly. Exactly what Sofia had said.  "Non-fatal," she said. "I've had the report." She tried tapping her forehead to get the joke across. "It's in my noggin."

Piper shushed her. 

He looked at her for a long moment. At the bolt wound, at Piper's arm around her, at her general state of having recently been shot. His jaw was twitching. His hands were still cupping her face. 

"The hunter," he said.

"Is handled," she said. "I know."

"He targeted you because—"

"I know," she said again, quieter.

Whatever she was to him. She'd thought about it against the wall, and she was thinking about it now. She didn't know what the answer was.

He looked at her. She looked back at him. The stairs were pulling everyone now, the System nudging survivors toward the descent, and around them the battered remains of the battle's winners were moving.

"Carl." Donut's voice, from somewhere behind him. "We have to go."

He didn't move immediately. That was the thing she filed away, later, when her Catalogue came back fully online and she could think about it properly. He didn't move immediately.

"Go," she told him. "We're right behind you."

He looked at Piper. Something passed between them that wasn't words.

"Take care of her," he said.

"Obviously," Piper said.

He looked at her one more time. She held the weight of his gaze before he finally turned and went.

The stairs were as chaotic as everything else. She went down with the girls, Piper and Sofia taking turns with her weight, Lindsey clearing the path ahead, Nia keeping the protection spells running. Biscuit found them somewhere on the descent. She didn't know how he did, she'd told him to stay out of the battle hours prior, and she was going to have words with him later about following directions. He pressed himself against her leg and kept pace.

"I thought I said—"

"I know what you said," Biscuit replied. "I came anyway. I had to help." 

She felt some guilt from holding him back. But she also didn't have the energy to argue with that. The girls limped forward into the stairwell.

Behind her, somewhere in the crowd of descending survivors, she was aware of Carl. She didn't look back. She didn't need to. She knew he'd be behind her.

The stairs took them down.

— ♡ —

Except, the seventh floor didn't happen. Prepotente had blown it up. The six of them teleported away.

— ♡ —

Before you enter the eighth floor, you must secure your starting location.

Warning: all parties consisting of more than five members will be automatically split into squads of five or less. You will remain partied with the other members of your team, but some challenges on this level may require you to interact only with your squad. 

Your party consists of six members. It has been split.

Your squad consists of:

Crawler Unc (Squad Leader)

Crawler Biscuit

Crawler Sofia Gomes 4

Crawler Piper 

Six spots remain.

You may not break squads on this floor. Boy, I hope you get along.

Squad Leader Unc, please proceed to the platform and choose your starting location. You have ninety seconds to choose, or a random location will be chosen for you.

— ♡ —

The System notification appeared at the same exact moment as his message.

NEW CHAT MESSAGE: Carl

Unc: carl are you okay

Carl: Are you okay

A pause.

Unc: ...we sent those at the same time

Carl: Yeah.

Carl: Shoulder okay?

Unc: Imani got to it before we went down. I'm fine. You?

Carl: I've been better. I've been worse. Where'd you end up.

Unc: Rio de Janeiro. I picked. We got split up from Lindsey and Nia. You?

Carl: Sorry to hear about that. We're in Havana.

Unc: Oh. We're practically neighbors.

Carl: Practically.

— ♡ —

Sofia had gone very still beside her. They were standing in the middle of an outdoor market in the Zona Sul area (or what used to be an outdoor market in Zona Sul) watching ghost-vendors arrange ghost-fruit in the early morning light. A ghost-woman with silver hair was picking through neatly stacked papayas.

"Minha avó," Sofia said quietly. "She shopped here every Saturday." Sofia told them that she'd visit her grandma every Summer. This market was a tradition for them.

She didn't know what to say. She put her hand on Sofia's arm and held it there.

— ♡ —

Unc: Carl. The ghosts.

Carl: Yeah.

Unc: They're just going about their lives. This woman just walked through Piper on her way somewhere. She was carrying flowers. She didn't even notice.

Carl: I know. It's eerie.

Unc: It's sad seeing Earth's last days. No one knew. Life went on.

Carl: Yeah.

Unc: That's so cruel.

Carl: I know.

Unc: Is Donut okay? Mongo, Mordecai?

Carl: Yes. They're shaken up from Prepotente's fiasco.

Unc: Tell them I say hi.

Carl: I will. Get some sleep. These floors don't get easier at the start.

Unc: Talk tomorrow.

Carl: Talk tomorrow.

She closed her interface and stood in the ghost-city as it went about its last beautiful ordinary day. Behind her, Sofia was still watching her grandmother arrange papayas. Piper had put her arm around Sofia's shoulders.

Biscuit pressed himself against her leg.

"Mom," he said quietly, which was unusual for him.

"I know," she said.

"It's really sad."

"Yeah."

"Do you want me to be extra cheerful tomorrow to make up for it? I can do that. I'm very good at that."

She looked down at him. "Just be yourself, babe."

"Okay," he said. "I can do that too."

— ♡ —

They had flagged four cards so far. The Curupira had been Biscuit's idea. He'd spotted the backwards footprints in the sand at Ipanema and tracked the creature three kilometers into the ghost-city. The Iara had been harder. The river mermaid had nearly drowned Piper before Sofia redirected her with a spell and held her with a binding long enough to flag her. The card was beautiful and terrifying and they were not entirely sure they liked her.

She'd been not thinking about her family since Chapel Hill. She'd gotten very good at it.

The dungeon undid nine months of careful not-thinking in a couple seconds for all of them.

Sofia had cried for hours after seeing her grandmother's ghost in the market. She'd held her through all of it. Eventually, the tears had stopped, and she felt like Sofia's eyes held a new, hardened glint in them. She messaged Carl from the floor of a ghost-apartment in Santa Teresa, well after midnight, Biscuit's head in her lap, the girls asleep in the next room. 

— ♡ —

She had just fought and killed a three-headed monster. That three-headed monster were the heads of her family.

At least she knew they were dead if the dungeon was using their faces. That bought her some comfort through her sobs.

Unc: I saw my family today.

Carl: Tell me.

Unc: They were having Sunday dinner in my childhood home. My mom had made her spaghetti sauce. She made it every Sunday. My dad was complaining about something on the news, like always. My little sister was on her phone under the table thinking no one could see her. They were just… there. Being them. Not knowing what was coming.

Carl: I'm so sorry.

Unc: There was an empty placemat for me. They turned into this three-headed hippogriff thing and it was horrible. I had to kill them.

Unc: I've not been thinking about them since Chapel Hill. I thought I was okay, or that I was able to push all those feelings down. Seeing them alive and there and completely fine and just not knowing what was going to happen. That was horrible.

Carl: Yeah. If it brings you any comfort, they didn't suffer. The collapse was instant. The dungeon is trying to break you. You can't let it break you.

Unc: Have you seen anyone? From before?

Carl: Not yet. I don't think I want to. My situation before the collapse was… complicated.

Unc: You don't have to tell me.

Carl: Bea and I didn't end well. There's stuff there I haven't dealt with, but it's not about her specifically. More like being cheated on, over and over. I told you how Donut reacted to her on Odette's show?

Unc: Yeah, she made me proud. Fuck her.

Carl: Ha. I've just accepted that the dungeon has a way of making you deal with things.

Unc: Okay, random thought. I'm trying to make myself laugh here, but we should probably assume no body, no death rules. If we didn't see them die, they're alive. You should expect your worst enemy to pop up at any moment.

Carl: Ha. Don't be afraid to be sad, though. But you're right.

Unc: Are you physically okay? I know you've gotten into some fights.

Carl: I'm fine. I just don't know what I'd do if I walked around a corner and saw my family.

Unc: I think that's very human of you.

Carl: High praise from a philosopher.

Unc: I'm being serious.

Carl: I know. Thank you.

The chat went quiet for a while. The ghost-city of Rio moved around her, alive and bustling, even at this hour. Biscuit shifted in his sleep and made a small yipping sound she'd learned meant he was dreaming about chasing something.

Carl: Get some sleep.

Unc: So should you.

Carl: Yeah.

Unc: Carl.

Carl: Yeah?

Unc: Good night.

Carl: Good night.

She sat with Biscuit for a long time after that. In the next room she could hear Sofia and Piper talking quietly. She thought about Sunday dinners and trauma people don't deal with until they have to, and about a man in Havana who was practically her neighbor, and about all the new flurry of emotions her brain kept replaying over and over and over until she passed out.

— ♡ —

She'd been watching the recap feed loop, from a safe room, over and over again. She knew something had happened in Carl's Phase Two. The recap kept cutting away. 

Unc: Carl. We've been watching the recap, but your segment is cutting out. Are you okay. 

She was still watching when her interface lit up.

Finally, he answered.

Carl: Hey.

Unc: CARL.

Carl: I'm okay.

Unc: You're not. What happened in Phase Two. The recap keeps cutting right before—

His message came in before she finished typing hers.

Carl: The dungeon used my past against me.

Unc: God. What did it show you?

Carl: My dad. He was dying. I had to watch the recording. His whole—the end of it.

Unc: Carl I'm so sorry.

Carl: That's not the part I'm sorry about. He deserved to die.

She waited.

Carl: I have a brother. A half brother. His name is Asher. The dungeon put his face on the hydra, on this boss it built out of people from my life. That's how I found out he existed. 

Unc: The dungeon told you about him.

Carl: Bea knew. She hid it from me. He tried to contact me before the collapse and she hid it. 

Unc: I don't even know what to say. How old is he?

Carl: Young. Just a kid. Maybe 12, He was afraid of lightning. That's all I know. He was afraid of lightning and he tried to reach out to me and I didn't know he existed and now I don't know if

Carl hadn't finished out the text. 

Unc: Carl.

Carl: I'm fine.

Unc: You don't have to be fine right now.

Carl: I know.

Unc: Is Donut with you.

Carl: Yeah. She's here. Mordecai  too.

Unc: Good. Don't be alone with this.

She minimized the interface down and looked at the ceiling. She thought about Asher who was afraid of lightning trying to reach out to a brother who didn't know he existed. She thought about what it must feel like to find that out the way Carl had found it out. 

She opened her interface back up.

Unc: For what it's worth, and feel free to ignore this. He reached out. He wanted to know you. Whatever happened after—that part was real.

She almost fell asleep when the notification came through.

Carl: Thank you. That means something to me.

Unc: Get some sleep, old man. 

Carl: Working on it.

— ♡ —

A long time passed before they sent each other messages other than just short checkins. They were in the last days of the floor when she got the ping.

Carl: Something really bad just happened.

Unc: Carl? We're trying to get our key right now.

Carl: I hurt Mongo and Katia really bad. I did something to Li Jun. 

Unc: Oh shit.

Carl: There's more. Shi Maria merged with me during the final battle. There's a spider in my chest now. She tattooed her eye onto me. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, she's called.

Unc: Carl, are you okay? You're scaring me.

Carl: No, listen.

Unc: Who's Shi Maria? You're saying she tattooed you?

Carl: Yeah.

Unc: From inside.

Carl: Yeah. Right in the middle of my chest.

Unc: Carl, do you have a concussion?

Carl: I'm not kidding.

Unc: … we're going to come back to that. I've had to process the nipple rings and now this. Are you in pain?

Carl: It's not pain exactly. Mordecai is still explaining what it means. And I'm bald now. Donut doesn't like it.

Unc: You're bald!? 

Carl: … That's what you're most concerned about.

Unc: Carl. I don't know if I'd like you bald.

Carl: Superficial. I'm being haunted by a spider demon and you care about that.

Unc: I'm glad you're safe for now. We will deal with this.

Carl: Yeah. 

Carl: We're going into Faction Wars next.

Unc: I know. I saw the announcement.

Carl: Your group joining one?

Unc: The girls want to. We've been talking about it. Certainly won't be those Skull Empire fucks. 

Carl: Princess Posse has room. If you want in.

Unc: Are you asking me to join your faction.

Carl: I'm asking if you want to join the faction. It's technically Donut's faction.

Unc: That is genuinely the least convincing clarification you've ever offered.

Carl: I'm asking. Please.

Piper grasped the key in her hand. "Hey, are you chatting right now!?" Piper kicked the crawler she was fighting in the groin. "Could use your help over here!"

Sofia knocked the last crawler out cold. They walked up to her, the beach scattered with unconscious bodies. "We should go before they wake up," Sofia said quietly. 

They all knew what that meant. The group knew that it was death for the crawlers they had just defeated. The dungeon had pushed them to this.

They had spent the day refusing to fight back when the group first ambushed them. Piper and Biscuit had tried pleading with them, but it was no use.

None of them would forget this. It only made them angrier.

Biscuit sat by the doorway to the stairwell, tail not moving. He got up as Piper approached with the key. 

"Wait." The two girls and Biscuit looked at her. "The next floor is going to be our biggest challenge yet. Carl has offered us a space in his faction. He wants to unite all the crawlers." She explained.

Sofia and Piper looked at each other and nodded. "We're in. Let's take these fuckers down."

Unc: We're in.

Carl: Good. I'll see you on the next floor.

Unc: See you on the next floor. Take care, old man.

Carl: Take care.

She closed the interface. Piper put the key in the door and unlocked it. She pushed the door open with her boot. 

"Well?" Piper said to the group.

"I miss Lindsey and Nia." Sofia's voice quivered, and Biscuit pressed himself against her legs. It hadn't been the same without Lindsey's chaos, or Nia's decisiveness with spells. They had grown into their own sixsome, and now it was time to get the girls back.

She stared into the darkness of the stairwell, the warm draft rising from the cavernous opening beckoning her forward, encouraging her to venture to the next floor. 

Piper was quiet for a moment. "Let's go find our girls." 

The four of them entered the stairwell to the ninth floor.

— ♡ —

The Marginalia thread had been popping off since the start of the ninth floor and currently had more than nine hundred replies.

Minx scrolled through it like a scholar reviewing peer-reviewed work. And in some senses, she really was a scholar of her two favorite crawlers. The thread title was, in the Syndicate language, untranslatable to humans, but the closest English equivalent was something like: PROJECT CUNC — PRELIMINARY FINDINGS — ELYSIAN/PRIMAL PROXIMITY BEHAVIORS — COMPILED EVIDENCE.

Reply #303 was a frame-by-frame breakdown of Carl's facial expression when the bolt hit her shoulder. Reply #103 was a supercut of every time he'd said her name on the livefeed, with timestamps. Reply #217 was a six-thousand-word analysis of the trolley problem walk that drew comparisons to courtship rituals on four different planets. Reply #350 had simply read: HE DIDN'T WANT TO MOVE WHEN SHE GOT HIT. The reply had received nine hundred reactions.

She'd contributed earlier in the day, somewhere around reply #380. A clip from the Big Tina rescue, looped, with no commentary. It didn't need any. The video of her falling onto Carl spoke for itself.

But she'd stopped scrolling an hour ago, and returned to her research. The fangirling would have to wait. She'd pulled up the class data on her second screen and she hadn't been able to look away from it since.

Elysian and Primal. The Marginalia had access to the archives through channels Minx wasn't going to think about too hard, and what she'd found there had sobered her. Elysians were rare. Primals were rare. The two together, paired, in proximity—that was rarer still, and the crawl records were sparse but consistent.

Elysians stabilized Primal output. Primals amplified Elysians redirect. An Elysian near a Primal grew steadier. A Primal near an Elysian grew stronger. The classes were complementary in a way the System didn't announce but absolutely accounted for. They were, on paper, designed to find each other; not by intent, but by the way the universe was built.

Minx looked at the first screen, then to the second. Behavioral patterns on one side. Class data on the other. She minimized the first and replaced it with the Marginalia's social interface.

She was not surprised to see the thread had nearly tripled since she'd posted. Somewhere in there, reply #911 was a new compilation of every time Carl's eyes had found her in a crowd. Reply #912 was someone simply typing i cannot survive this someone make them kiss nowwwww.

Minx laughed. A real one, the kind that surprised her out of her seat for a second, because the Marginalia was nothing if not committed to the bit. She let the laugh run its course. Then she sat back. The dread started to gnaw at the back of her mind. 

Her girl was on the ninth floor. Walking toward him.

After he catnapped Donut, Carl had no idea where to go. It actually wasn't as dramatic as he thought—Bea couldn't give two shits about anything, really. All he got was a string of manic text messages where she cussed him out, but they stopped as soon as he asked if she wanted Donut back. Bea had blocked him on all social media by the end of the day, and he had to remind himself to change his passwords so she couldn’t access them anymore.

He ended up leaving Seattle, planning to embark on a multi-day road trip with Donut, heading South. He was thinking about California—his goal was to put as much distance between himself and that city as possible. So, he quit his job and gathered his things into a suitcase before Bea came home from the Bahamas. Donut sat in the front seat of his truck, her cat bed nicely laid out with an assortment of treats and toys at her disposal. 

He drove until his car got a flat tire somewhere near the coast, about four hours out. He laughed the whole time on the side of the highway, looking like a maniac. He had only made it four hours. The tow truck driver towed him to an auto shop near one of the coastal towns. Hanging in the window was a job ad for a boat repairman position at the local marina. Carl called the number and was hired the next day.

He had to sleep in and out of his truck and motel rooms for the next couple of weeks, but he made sure Donut was comfortable and fed. She was his everything now, and he did not take his fatherly duties lightly. She still slept in the crook of his neck every night. He enjoyed the daily grind of his work and started making friends there and at a gym he worked out at. He kept up with his old friends in Seattle still—the guys he'd play video games with.

The small, coastal town was the kind of town that didn't ask questions about their new inhabitant. Quiet, a little grey, population small enough that everyone knew the new marina guy's name within a month.

Small town life suited him. He could grab beers with his buddies after work, go swim in the ocean, hike in the dense evergreen forests, and go back home to Donut all in one day. His neighbors were kind, and no one looked at him like he was a loser. Hell, he made the newspaper yesterday for rescuing his elderly neighbor's cat out of a tree. Donut wasn't happy that he'd used her treats for this—he'd gotten an earful of meows and hisses when he came back inside.

For the first time in years he felt like he could breathe.

After scraping together enough cash, he eventually found a one-bedroom on the outskirts of town. It was a third floor unit, with a balcony that looked out over a sharp cliff, the roiling waves keeping him and Donut constant company. Six hundred square feet, built in the 70s, the kind of place where the radiator made creepy noises and the laundry room was down two flights of stairs. He and Donut took to it immediately—she'd sit by the living room window and look out at the scenic pacific northwest backdrop all day. It was theirs.

For the first time in years, he felt true peace. He was calmer, happier. He'd even go out of his way to smile at people and ask them how they were.

And then he met her. About a year into living in the town, he had the day off and wandered across downtown. It was a beautiful January day, chilly and rainy, like he liked it. When suddenly, it hit him—literally. She had just moved to town, and had misjudged the walking distance from her apartment to work. She had run into him in her rush and spilled coffee all over him. Now he was wet from the coffee and the rain.

"I'm so sorry." When he looked in her eyes, he knew he was fucked.

And here they were now. Two years into a happy, healthy, safe relationship. She had only added to his peace, which is not something he had felt with any of his exes. Not something he felt like he deserved. She was kind, and interesting, and the biggest animal lover he knew. She bonded with Donut immediately, and had even gotten a silver butterfly charm to put on Donut's collar. Donut loved running around to hear its jingle.

They had moved into a bigger unit in the same building together—two bedrooms, seven hundred and fifty square feet, which felt like a palace compared to what he'd had before. The second bedroom was technically a home office but was mostly Donut's domain, occupied by her cat tree and an embarrassing number of toys. The irony that Donut still had her own room was not lost on him.

They scraped together their wages to manage the fifteen hundred a month rent and worked hard for the future they wanted. This domesticity had made Carl start to think about children, which had shocked him. He had never wanted to be a father, didn't want to screw up a kid the way his parents had fucked him up, but that fear diminished when they'd talk about it.

He used to have panic attacks at the thought of children, or marriage, and becoming stuck in the cycle and responsibility of what either meant. The idea of it would close in on him like a wall. But with her, he wanted a wife. He'd sometimes daydream of her pregnant, how she'd be as a mother—patient, and a little silly, the kind of mom who'd do the voices during bedtime stories. How he'd be as a father—he didn't have much of a blueprint for that one, but for the first time, it didn't scare him. He knew that, with her, he'd be able to figure it out. 

He was even proposing soon, the ring tucked somewhere in a boot in their closet. He was planning a road trip to Yosemite—he was quite the outdoorsman now. Take her on their favorite hike, pop the question. He was still figuring out how to get the cat involved.

"Honey, I'm home!" Her bright, cheery voice cut through his headset. He paused his game, something with guns and fighting, and took the headphone off his ear. The cat on his lap shifted as she felt him move. He pet Princess Donut's head as a sign of apology.

"Hi, babe." He shouted from the living room. "How was work?" He knew her so well that he grinned as he imagined the steps she was taking right now. She was hanging her rain coat in the hallway closet, slipping off her scarf and boots at the same time, dropping her heavy purse on the hallway bench. She'd push her boots under the coats, never making sure they were properly straight—a habit that drove Carl wild—and was now moving towards the kitchen, where she dropped off her rainbow unicorn themed lunchbox. He grinned as he heard a thud and the clanking of her ginormous water bottle.

Her radiant smile greeted him as she moved to the couch to give him a hug. "What, no welcome home kiss?" He teased her. She rolled her eyes and pressed her lips against his. His hand moved to grab at her ass and she playfully swatted it away. "Not in front of Donut." She pet the flat-faced Persian on her head, on that one spot she liked between her ears. "Hi, Princess. Were you a good girl today?" Donut seemed to purr yes.

"Work was good. It's so slow now since it's the offseason, but I'm enjoying the quiet." She worked as a receptionist at one of the boutique hotels in town. "Actually, Stephen wanted to talk to me on Monday about potentially picking up shifts to train as a manager."

Carl perked up at the news. "That's great, babe! I'm glad they're finally recognizing what they have." She cooed at him as she kept scratching the tortoiseshell. "You're so nice to me. Boyfriend of the year goes to you."

She sat beside him on the couch, still in uniform, and touched the grey sweatpants he was wearing. "Thai tonight?" He nodded. "We haven't done that in a while. I'll order while you take a shower." She kissed his cheek.

Carl had just gotten off the phone and had engrossed himself back in his game when she walked back in with a big t-shirt on and pajama pants, a white towel wrapped around her head. She plopped beside him, scaring Donut out of his lap. "Sorry, girl," she tried apologizing to the cat, but Donut had already relocated to her cat tree in the corner of the second bedroom, visible through the open door, judging them from her height. She called another apology to the cat while cuddling into Carl's Coast Guard hoodie, the material soft from the years worn. 

"The restaurant said twenty minutes for delivery—which you know means forty." He shut down his game to switch to Netflix. She tucked into his side, pulling a fluffy blanket over them. "Wanna watch the new action movie? It has romance, and guns!" She hit finger guns in the air and he laughed. "Sounds like a plan."

On Fridays, Carl usually worked in the morning, and she'd be gone all day. She'd come back home, they'd order takeout and watch a movie. After, Carl would make love to her, hold her close in the most intimate way. They'd fall asleep, Donut joining to sleep in the crook of Carl's neck. 

And so they settled into their Friday night routine, the balcony door rattling quietly against the January wind off the coast, the cliff side dark beyond the glass.

Donut had finally forgiven them of their trespasses. She hopped down from the cat tree and padded out to the living room, then into his lap, and started making biscuits into the blanket. She cooed at the cat's behavior. "Thank you for forgiving me, Princess." She scratched Donut's back, her purrs increasing in volume. 

Outside, the rain started up again, soft against the windows.

Carl tucked her closer. He thought about the ring in the boot in the closet. He thought about the second bedroom and what else it could be someday. He thought about a flat tire on a coastal highway and how sometimes the universe had better ideas than you did.

His girls were beside him. The radiator clicked on with its usual moans. The food would be here in forty minutes.