Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Membrane Industries Phantom Wearable Cloaking Device, often simply called “Phantom,” was a slick, subtle piece of technology. Appearing as no more than a few bands of black elastic that clung onto the arms, legs, and torso, with the press of a button the wearer could become not just invisible, but fully incorporeal. The material didn’t matter; it could pass through the thickest metal, through organic matter, through walls and floors and ceilings. And now, Dib had one.

Because of its potential for use in crime and espionage, it was a top-secret project, known only to the military and a few private contractors. However, no amount of security clearances and NDAs could prevent Professor Membrane from leaking information about new developments to his son, desperate to find any way to make him more enthusiastic about his impending role as the head of his research empire. For once, this managed to grab Dib’s attention, and he requested a sample.

Professor Membrane had perhaps become overly permissive with his son ever since his extended stint in a psychiatric inpatient facility. Like his doctors, he had put the blame for Dib’s mental health struggles on his obsession with the paranormal, and was eager to encourage anything to direct him away from that, no matter how ill-advised. And that’s how Dib ended up with a hand-delivered shipment from Membrane Industries, a Phantom nestled in several layers of cushioned packaging.

It’s perfectly tailored to his measurements, and fits inconspicuously beneath his clothes. To activate it, he simply needs to press a button on the top of the right hand. Cloaking devices were fairly rare despite having existed for a few decades, and still extremely difficult to obtain by civilians, but the aspect of incorporeality presented by the Phantom was both new and unprecedented. It had incredible potential, including immense potential for misuse.

Dib’s intentions for this device were far greater than the simple scientific fascination that he had claimed to his father; as he watches you exit your Thursday evening class, his heart rate picks up. It was finally time to put the Phantom to the test.

Two months had passed since he had seen you in class for the first time, two months since a gigantic wrench had lodged itself in his simple, uneventful day-to-day life. By now, he had completely lost himself. He was a slave to his obsession; he needed to watch you like he needed food, like he needed air. He had never spoken more than a few passing words to you, and while he wasn’t exactly satisfied with this, he had come to accept his inherent lack of worthiness. He was a creep, and a creep was all that he’d ever be. He skulks behind you on the other side of the road as you walk in the direction of your apartment, headphones on, world tuned out.

Sometimes he gets a bit concerned with your lack of attention to your surroundings; if you were more diligent, then you would have surely caught on to his unseemly behavior by now. He makes a point to check around him, looking for any sign of a pursuer who would seek to do you harm. His self-appointed role as a volunteer bodyguard was deeply ironic, of course, and he knew it. Even if he doesn’t wish to hurt you, he would almost certainly be homicidally enraged if he caught wind of anyone else doing exactly what he did. And no matter how he justifies it to himself, no matter what kind of mental gymnastics he does to excuse it, the fact was that he was definitely about to break into your apartment. These last couple months had been an endless procession of discovering new lows.

It’s a little under a mile to your slightly-off-campus housing, and Dib keeps himself at a safe distance, hiding in the shadows. As you climb the stairs of the old but refurbished brick building, he feels his pulse start to race yet again. On a normal day, this is where his observation would end, unless he decided to camp out nearby and try to observe what he can through your window. But today, it was only the beginning.

As you unlock the door and disappear into the apartment, he quickly crosses the street, looking around to check for any witnesses. He ducks between a fence and a dumpster; if anyone caught him in the act of disappearing, it could be game over. He raises his arm and looks down at the button strapped onto the back of his right hand. It was now or never. He presses the button.

Immediately, his body disappears, clothes and all. The incorporeality is at-will, synchronized to the brainwaves of the wearer. Until he wills it, the Phantom acts as nothing more than a standard cloaking device, the same ones that he had used to infiltrate Zim’s base in the distant past, but much more seamless. He removes his boots, each one popping back into visibility as soon as they leave his feet, and tucks them behind the dumpster. He exits his hiding spot and starts creeping up the stairs to apartment D. Her door. Your door.

With a simple mental shift, the incorporeality activates just enough to prevent him from falling through the floor. He passes a hand through the locked metal door; for a moment, he hesitates. This was an extreme measure, far more extreme than anything he had attempted in the past. He might not like what he finds in there. What if you had a roommate, or worse, a lover? Nothing in his, ahem, research had indicated that you’re in a relationship, but you’re a fairly private person regarding your personal life. Anything could be waiting for him behind that door. Steeling his nerves, he pushes forward.

As he enters, he’s greeted to an empty front hall, dimly lit and lined with eccentric decorations. He smiles as he looks at them; they were just like you, you that had broken his mind, you that had ensnared his soul. He continues walking, creeping carefully to avoid making any noise, the one aspect of concealment that the Phantom did not address. To his immense luck, the floors are solidly constructed and do not squeal as he makes his way down the hall.

He emerges into a living room that seamlessly transitions into a kitchen, cozy and inviting but slightly cluttered. In the back corner, perched in front of the open refrigerator, is you. Dib feels his heart stop for just a moment. This was a moment he had dreamed about, and it was finally real. He tucks himself into an inconspicuous corner and begins to observe. The only way this could be any more perfect is if he was able to conceal a camera.

You pull a canned drink out of the refrigerator and pop it open, letting gravity shut the door behind you. He frowns slightly as he notices your expression; you look upset. After a moment, you pound the imitation-granite countertops and let out a frustrated growl. “Fucking Professor Wallace,” you exclaim, “Fuck that shitty old man and his backwards concept of art, and fuck the art department for employing him!”

Dib was fairly out of the loop when it came to matters concerning art majors except for when it was immediately relevant to you, but he had heard of Professor Wallace. He ran your drawing class (Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3 PM to 5:30 PM, Drake Hall room 304,) and he was well-known for being a tyrant and deeply set in his ways. His fists clench; how dare that bastard put you in such a foul mood.

“Ugh… Goddamn it.” You sigh, set down your drink, and reach into a drawer next to the kitchen sink. You remove a neatly wrapped joint and a disposable lighter. “Here’s to suppressing emotions with mind altering substances,” you quip as you bring the joint to your mouth and light it.

He smiles adoringly for a moment and suppresses a chuckle, but his smile quickly fades as the situation he’s gotten himself into sinks in. She better not say anything too funny, or too adorable, or else he’s going to end up giving himself away. He returns his attention to you again; he didn’t realize that you smoked pot, and you must not do it often enough for it to leave a lingering scent. He watches in fascination as you take a slow drag; he can’t help but focus in on your lips wrapped around the filter, and feels a tingle in his loins at the subtle eroticism of this gesture. He shakes his head; he had promised himself “no pervert shit” when he had set his mind on this infiltration. A tough parameter for someone whose free time was mostly comprised of pervert shit.

His heart skips as your head turns in his direction; it seems like you’re looking directly at him, staring him right in the eyes. Did the cloaking not work as well as his trials had indicated? Was his cover blown? You exhale, sending a stream of pungent smoke in his direction. You look away and check your phone; he breathes out a muted sigh of relief.

His anxiety picks up again as you glance in his direction once more, your eyes growing wide with a look of alarm. The incorporeality is inactive so long as he isn’t focusing on it, and to his horror, he realizes that he’s created a human-shaped gap of clear air in the cloud of smoke. You squint and move towards him, and he immediately wills himself to fully disappear. His heart is pounding wildly as you stick your hand directly through his upper chest, waving it around in the suspicious smokeless expanse of air. As he dematerializes, the smoke starts to fill the space once again, leaving no trace of the unseen intruder.

You step back and sigh. “Am I seeing things?” You turn around, headed to grab your drink again. “Or maybe… It’s a ghost?” You take a few sips of the fizzy beverage before squinting in the direction that you just investigated. “Are you a ghost? You have to tell me if you’re a ghost or else it’s entrapment.”

He bites his lip, desperately trying to stifle a laugh as his heart pounds from the near-miss at being discovered. Of course you would be making jokes to a hypothetical ghost. But that’s trouble for him; he already slipped up way more than he’d have liked to.

You face the counter and take another drag of the joint before stamping it out on a nearby ashtray. “Well, make yourself at home, ghost. Maybe you can alleviate some of the soul-crushing loneliness of my day to day existence.”

He smiles adoringly. She’s lonely, just like him. I’d love to, he mouths.

You take a look out the window before speaking again. “Hey, ghost, you into women? I’ve had one hell of a dry spell and a spectral screwing sounds pretty damn agreeable right about now.” You sigh, putting your head in your hand. “Jesus Christ, I’m flirting with nothing,” you mumble.

That may have been a joke as well, but this time, Dib wasn’t compelled to laugh. He felt his face flush; of all the things that could happen as a result of this mission, he could have never expected being propositioned, serious or not. He squeezes his eyes shut. No pervert shit. No pervert shit. No pervert shit.

You continue to muse to yourself. “Hm. Maybe add that one to the ‘ghosts aren’t real’ pile. If ghosts actually existed, you’d be hearing stories about phantom lovers all the time, wouldn’t you? I mean actual claims, not just in the realm of movies and weird porn. But no, they’re always turning on TVs and rattling chains. Does being dead kill your sex drive?” You walk around the room as you ramble, the intoxication from the marijuana seeping into your voice. “A damn shame, really.”

He smiles, feeling a more wholesome surge of affection as you continue to ramble about the implications of ghost sex. The subject matter is a bit titillating, but he can push that down. This is the closest he’s ever gotten to having an actual conversation with you, and even if he’s just a silent observer, he still enjoys merely basking in your presence.

“An-ee-way,” you huff, setting your drink down. “Let me waste no time squandering yet another beautiful evening of my youth.” With that, in a swift motion, you yank your dress off. Dib barely suppresses a gasp as you go from clothed to mostly-bare in under a second.

His eyes travel up and down your figure, admiring your curves and soft-looking skin. Fuck, I need to get out of here, he thinks, I promised myself that I would leave if she got undressed, or started doing something that would be inappropriate to watch, or—

His thought process is terminated as you reach behind yourself and unclasp your bra, casting it away along with your dress onto the back of a nearby chair. You turn towards him and his mouth hangs open as he beholds your bare breasts, soft, supple, inviting. He wants to step forward and get a closer look, but he restrains himself. As soon as the bra came off, the promise he made to himself flies out the window. He shakes his head. You really thought you have enough self-discipline for ‘no pervert shit?’ That’s rich, he chastises himself internally.

He panics again as you once again move in his direction, activating the incorporeality. You stop immediately in front of him, pressing your bare chest directly into— and slightly through— his. As you reach up to grab a book from the shelf behind him, he desperately wishes that he could phase back and feel you pressing into him. His growing erection pushes through the skin of your lower belly.

He lowers his head down to your neck and inhales as quietly as he can. He shivers as he takes in your scent, the closest thing to direct contact that he can manage in this state. You can just barely perceive the sound of him taking a breath, and as you step back with the book in your hand, you feel the piercing, unmistakable sensation of being watched. You close your eyes and sigh, turning around. “Shit. Maybe I do have a ghost.”

He grits his teeth, grimacing. You’re detecting his presence way more than he expected you would with the Phantom’s near-perfect cloaking technology. It would be extremely dangerous to do anything but leave immediately, and he knows it. His infiltration skills were many-years rusted, and you had proven to be far more perceptive in your own home than you were outside of it.

You walk off into an adjoining room, mumbling as you go. “Hmm… Ghost sex. How had I never considered that? Now that I think of it…” Your voice trails off as you pass through the door.

He stays in place for a moment, locked in an argument with himself. He had very clearly established that this was not for the sake of voyeurism, he just simply wanted to observe you in your natural habitat. But the fact that you’re so effortlessly, casually sexy… It was too enticing to just walk away from. If he stays, he can observe you in better detail than he ever had in his life. His conscience curses him as he steps towards your bedroom, phasing through the wall.

He finds you lying on your bed, reading the book you had plucked from the shelf. He settles into a comfortable stance a few feet away from the foot of your bed, trying to calm his thoughts as he uncontrollably leers at your chest. He takes a few slow, silenced deep breaths, and tries to appreciate the scene more wholesomely. He regards you like a piece of art, like a carved marble sculpture crafted to represent the essence of female beauty.

Watching a person read is hardly a stimulating activity, but after the scares from a moment ago, he welcomes the boredom. If this is all you’re going to do, he can handle it, easy. Even if you’re topless and enticingly splayed on the bed… He can handle it. He can just save the mental image to enjoy later.

After about five minutes of flipping pages and silent watching, you slam the book down on your bed. “Ugh, it’s no use! I’m too pent up,” you exclaim, rubbing your forehead. “Can’t focus on shit like this… I need some relief.”

Dib covers his mouth with his hand, his eyes wide as you reach under your bed and pull out two objects; a glass jar full of an unidentified whitish-clear substance, and a translucent silicone dildo. Now he’d really be going too far if he stuck around. Yet again, he feels his will dissolving into flecks of ash that scatter at his feet. There is no amount of money on this world that could convince him to walk away from this.

His hand gets tighter over his mouth, barely suppressing a whimper as you slide off your panties, leaving your body fully exposed. You open the jar, dip your hand into it, and coat the toy with a slick oil. You lean back, your mind running with the fantasy that your mysterious encounter had conjured. You think about the ghost floating up to your bed, materializing just enough to feel him putting his hands on you, caressing your body, lusting after your warmth and your life and your solidity, before finally—

Dib’s hand moves up to cover his nose as well, stopping him from breathing audibly as he watches you thrust the toy inside. He allows himself a desperate exhale as you cry out slightly at the stimulation. His cock burns with need as he regards this incredibly erotic scene playing out before him. You start to thrust the toy into yourself with increasing urgency, letting out choked gasps as the pleasure starts to build.

He takes a hesitant step forward, and then another. Between your gasping moans and the sound of the toy slickly sliding in and out, he has a little more allowance for sound, but not much. Keep your hands to yourself, he begs himself internally, overcome with a desire to reach out and grab you. He tries to remain still, but it’s futile. After just a bit longer of watching your display of self-pleasure, he reaches down and very carefully, very slowly pulls the zipper of his jeans down, releasing it one tooth at a time.

With a careful, swift motion, he tugs his underwear down, exposing his cock. He very gently places his right hand on his mouth, producing just enough saliva to make his palm slick. His hand lowers, gripping onto his cock, his left hand moving to cover his mouth to suppress any sounds of pleasure as he joins you in masturbation.

He quickly falls into your rhythm. Watching you thrust the toy in, he imagines that it’s his cock, that he’s the one filling you up. He matches the rhythm of his strokes to your thrusts, his fingers grasping his face desperately as his lower body radiates intense pulses of pleasure. You pick up the pace, and he does the same, briefly shutting his eyes as he’s overwhelmed by the sensation but quickly opening them again, not wanting to miss a second of this.

As you work yourself closer to orgasm, pounding faster and faster, your moans pick up in volume and urgency, and he in turn allows himself slightly more tolerance for noise. His left hand leaves his mouth as his breathing gets harder and more ragged, losing himself in this second-best thing to actual sex with her.

He feels himself drawing closer to completion, and for just a moment, he gets sloppy. A slightly-too-loud gasp emerges from his mouth, just barely loud enough for you to hear. You immediately freeze. “The fuck?”

He holds his breath and doesn’t move a muscle as you sit up and look around the room. After spending a little over a minute silent and listening for intruders, you lay back down on the bed. “Shit. Three spooky happenings within a single hour. Maybe I actually do have a ghost.”

Dib silently exhales, deeply grateful for this fiction that you’ve built to explain the odd occurrences that have resulted from his indiscretions.

He startles as you speak up again, more loudly this time. “Listen here, ghost! It’s fine if you live here now, but could you at least have the decency to fuck my brains out while you’re at it!? I’m dying over here! Please!?” You sigh, covering your eyes with your arm. “God, I wish.” You place the toy on your bedside table, coming to terms with the fact that it is not sufficient to relieve the incredible frustration that you had built up from this touch-starved semester.

Dib looks down at you, the gears in his mind turning fast enough to generate smoke. She really thinks he’s a ghost, doesn’t she? And she, in this narrative she’s built… She wants him. She wants him badly. Dib’s body acts before his mind can catch up as he slowly steps towards the side of the bed.

Don’t do this. There’s no way this could possibly go well for you. You’re going to get caught, and she’s going to hate you, and you’re going to go to prison and be labeled a sex offender for the rest of your life. Do not do this.

Your words override his reason. You had asked for him, no, begged for him. There may be a slight misunderstanding involved, but you wanted him, and you wanted him now. Without activating the Phantom’s incorporeality, he presses his knees into the side of your bed.

Your eyes go wide as you feel the mattress shift. You know for a fact that you’re alone in this room, and yet you clearly just felt someone climb onto your bed. You stay frozen, waiting with held breath for whatever happens next. Dib hesitantly hovers his hands over your body. He can feel the warmth radiating from you, calling him closer, asking him to touch.

She’s going to scream. She doesn’t actually want this. Step away, now, and leave this apartment. Step away before it’s too late! Step away! Step away!

He places his fingertips gently on the side of your body, and you instantly gasp and go rigid, your eyes wide and frightened. As he sees the fear on your expression, a greater proportion of his mind wonders if this is a mistake, but not so great a proportion as to wrestle the reins of his body away from his uncontrollable desire. He presses his hand against you more firmly, gauging your reaction.

You don’t scream. Your mouth hangs open, looking down at the side of your torso that now seems to have a warm, seemingly male hand on it. Seeing your lack of resistance, he pushes the hand upwards, caressing your soft, warm skin.

Your mouth slowly forms an incredulous smile. “O-oh my god. Ghosts are real. Ghosts are actually real.” You let out a breathless laugh. “That or I’ve lost my fucking mind.”

Dib feels a pang of guilt for being responsible for a false paranormal experience; it undermines everything he stands for. But for now, if she thinks he’s a ghost, he is a ghost. And if that means he gets to touch her— to fuck her, that’s good enough for him. To increase your certainty, he places his other hand on the opposite side of your torso, moving with a symmetrical stroke towards your breasts.

You continue to laugh in disbelief as your far-fetched sexual fantasy is unexpectedly realized. It’s warmer than you had expected, more lifelike. Your mind is flooded with excitement and hesitation; are there consequences to having sex with a ghost? Are you going to be cursed? Can ghosts cause pregnancy? No, fuck it. Who ever gets to be fucked by a ghost? You have to. Do it for science.

“C-can I…” You hesitantly reach your hand out, testing to see if you can feel the specter as well. You land on a clothed arm, and move upwards, feeling the contour of his body, skinny, young, but unmistakably adult. Certainly a young man cruelly cut down in his prime, possibly even before getting to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh properly, leading him to seek it out in the great beyond. “Wow,” you breathe, your smile growing wider.

The invisible figure climbs on top of you, pressing his weight into your body. He’s clothed, but you could swear you feel an exposed erection pressing against your groin, and you let out a quiet, shuddery gasp as you’re flooded with arousal. His hands grip onto your waist as your touch travels from his arm to his neck; you can feel a pulse, yet another detail you weren’t expecting.

Your fingertips brush upwards to his jaw, and then to his face. You close your eyes as you try to suss out the details of your unseen visitor. The skin is smooth save for little patches of irregularity, indicating very mild acne. Lips are soft, unremarkable. Your eyebrows raise as your hand makes contact with cool metal; glasses. You run your fingertips along the edge around his eyes, feeling that they’re round with a thin wire frame. Your hand travels up to his hair; short, messy, shaved on the sides, with a pronounced cowlick in the middle. You smile softly, imagining what this stranger must look like. “Wow,” you whisper again.

Dib’s mind is racing out of control. This was the most impulsive, dangerous, batshit thing that he had ever done, and somehow, somehow, it seems to be working. The way you gently touch him is so intimate that it makes him shiver.

You gently cup his cheek. “Can you speak?”

Dib bites his lip. He best not reveal any more identifying information than absolutely necessary; it’s possible that you could recognize his voice. He shakes his head against your palm.

“That’s okay,” you say softly, reassuringly. You reach down and take his hand, bringing it up to your palm. “My name is [Y/N].” As you say your name, you gently trace the letters of it onto his palm. “What’s your name?” You press his hand into your palm, indicating for him to do the same.

Shit. Shit. He wasn’t ready for this. He decides to run with the idea that a ghost may not necessarily remember who they were in life. D-O-N-T-R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R, he spells into your palm, and you quietly repeat the letters as you feel them.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Don Tremember.” You laugh quietly. “Sorry, sorry, I’m just kidding.” He smiles adoringly; just like you to make a joke, even now. You release his hand. “It’s okay. I don’t need to know your name.” You cup his face again, getting a feel for where his mouth would be, and move up to press your lips against his.

Dib lets out a sharp exhale as you kiss him, leaning down to allow you to lay your head against the pillow. His lips tremble as he reciprocates the kiss, and his heart pounds so intensely that you can feel it. Something about the idea of this ghost being nervous to be intimate with you is extremely endearing.

You part, keeping your hand softly perched on his jaw to feel his reactions. “Do you want me?” You ask softly.

He nods eagerly, exaggerating his movements slightly so that there’s no possible ambiguity in his response.

You grin, a hint of deviousness in your expression. “Good. Because I want you.”

Dib lets out a shaky exhale; he can allow himself to audibly breathe, but nothing else. His cock throbs with want. He has no idea how he’s going to stop himself from moaning as the encounter escalates.

“I want to know how you feel. I want to learn what feels good to you.” You stroke his face gently before reaching down to his hands and placing them on your breasts. “Please… Show me.”

Dib can barely stop himself from crying out as his fingers sink into the soft flesh of your breasts, so soft, the softest thing he had ever felt. He leans his head down, kissing your erect nipple before opening his mouth and gently suckling on it as he squeezes the other. You moan quietly as you feel his tongue stimulating you, and shift your hips up so that his cock presses between the lips of your pussy.

He squeezes harder as he feels how wet you are, desperately trying to redirect any audible reactions, releasing his mouth to grit this teeth. You were still slick with lube from your self-pleasure, and plenty aroused on top of that. It would be so easy to just— as he shifts his hips to rub up against you, the tip of his cock catches on what is unmistakably the entrance.

You let out a little gasp as you feel him press against you. “Please,” you whisper.

He can’t resist. He pushes in, urgently pressing his lips shut and breathing hard through his nose as the warm, tight wetness envelops his dick. He presses down against you, burying his face into your neck. You let out a delighted moan as he fills you; his cock was average-sized, satisfyingly so. The ghost feels exactly like a real person; you go quiet as that thought echoes through your mind again. Exactly like a real person.

You take a deep breath; you’d never met a ghost before, this must be what they’re actually like, and the tales of cold, pulseless apparitions were just fiction. Regardless, it’s too late for doubts now.

As he pushes himself down to the hilt, Dib starts to question whether this was actually real, or if he had perhaps just fallen asleep in his dorm after his last class and was having a very vivid dream. But how could his mind conjure this? How could he so perfectly simulate something that he had never experienced before? Or maybe the simulation wasn’t perfect, perhaps the real thing didn’t feel nearly as good. How could anything feel this good? He grips onto your sides as he gently starts to pulse, his breaths coming in shallow staccato bursts as he tries to keep himself from whimpering.

The pleasured gasps coming from the invisible figure on top of you are extremely gratifying, and you pulse your hips and moan softly as a surge of warm satisfaction radiates out from your lower body.

The plus side of having to spend so much of his mental energy keeping silent is that it gives him something to prevent the pleasure from spiraling out of control too quickly, as he’s sure that under normal circumstances he’d be pushed over the edge in no longer than thirty seconds. The thought of a ghost who suffers from premature ejaculation is just absurd, and he doesn’t want to disappoint you like that. He picks up his pace slightly, his hand moving to cover his mouth, using every last shred of his will to stop himself from crying out.

The more he thinks about it, the more he becomes determined that he cannot allow himself to cum under any circumstances. What would even happen if he did? Wouldn’t it become visible as soon as it left the Phantom’s range, and wouldn’t that undermine your ability to accept this ghost narrative? He doesn’t know the situation with your birth control or lack thereof, and getting you pregnant with a baby that he would never be able to claim and leaving you a single mother sounds like a nightmare scenario. He resolves to focus entirely on your pleasure, and rub one out afterwards once he’s in the clear.

He slows his pace, pumping into you with long, deliberate strokes, trying to reduce the intensity of his own sensation while simultaneously increasing your own. Your arms wrap around his body, pulling him down against you; he breathes in the scent of your hair, takes in the softness and warmth of your flesh, and feels a surge of powerful, heart-bursting love. He had never dreamed he could ever have anything like this, ever in his life. A part of him wants to just break his vow of silence and profess his love, admit everything, beg you to love him, but he’s not quite so far gone as to allow himself to give over to that impulse.

Your gasping moans become louder and more urgent as he continues to pulse into you, the sensation intensified by the fevered breaths warming the skin near your ear. You hold him a bit more tightly; “P-please… Please don’t stop, it feels so good…!”

He lets out a long exhale, his face contorted with frustration at not being able to moan, not being able to encourage you and praise you and tell you to keep speaking. Instead, he thrusts more aggressively, gritting his teeth and raising his head to watch your pleasured expressions; as he speeds up, you let out a high-pitched whine, your eyes rolling back slightly as the friction ignites a chain reaction of sensations that elevate you closer and closer to climax. “Ngh— aaah, aaah…! I— I’m so close, I’m so close…!”

Your words light a fire within him, and he pounds into you as hard as he can, gripping onto you tightly and watching you with extreme focus to ensure that he’ll never, ever forget what this looked like, what it felt like. After just a few more moments of this, your legs tighten around him as you let out a strangled cry, your eyes shut tight as you’re rocked with a violent orgasm that sends surges of pleasure across your entire body.

Dib opens his mouth and breathes out a muted scream. Your pelvic muscles contracting around him threaten to break his internal promise to not be sent over the edge. He wants nothing more than to just give in, fill you with his cum, let you carry a piece of him with you forever and ever. But he resists, a tiny victory for his self-control after the series of extreme lapses in judgement that led him to be in this situation.

You cling onto him tightly as the aftershocks pulse through your body. For a moment, he considers his next move. Should he continue? Is one orgasm enough, or do you want more? He knows the safest bet would be to just go incorporeal and leave your apartment as quickly as possible, which would almost certainly solidify the ghost narrative. But does he really want this to end, has he really had enough? Would he get the chance to do anything like this ever again?

His train of thought is violently interrupted as your hands release him and flop down onto the bed. But your left hand connects not with the sheets, but with the top of his right hand. The button depresses, and the Phantom is deactivated.

Dib feels his heart stop. He frantically moves to press it again, to reactivate the cloaking device before you can open your eyes and see what’s happened, but it’s too late. Your eyes are wide, locked with an expression of betrayed horror on his fully corporeal, fully visible, fully alive human body.

You scream, pulling away from him, your back pressed up against the wall. He waves his hands frantically. “W-wait, wait, wait, I can expla—“ He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before the lamp that was on your bedside table goes crashing down over his skull.

Everything goes dark.

Chapter Text

As Dib’s consciousness fades back in, the first thing he feels is a dull pounding pain on the upper left portion of his head. The second thing he feels is the rough, bristly rope that is constricting him from his feet to his chest. The third thing he feels— or rather, doesn’t feel— is that there is no barrier between his skin and the rope, save for his underwear. He groans as he blinks his eyes open, painfully adjusting to the light.

He sees you hastily putting on a bra. Your head turns in response to the sound of his voice, your expression contorting into a dark grimace as you lean down and pick up a nondescript black rod. Your voice drips with malicious sarcasm. “Awake already. Enjoy your nap?”

“Urgh— what…?” he mumbles. As he looks down, he sees that he’s tied to a chair, and the Phantom sits in a pile on the floor along with his clothes. He tests the restraints; they’re solid, unyielding. “What’s going—“

“I think, considering the circumstances, it should be easy to understand that I have questions for you, and not the other way around.” You brandish the rod; Dib’s eyes go wide as he sees two metal spikes on its end. A stun baton. “And I highly recommend that you answer honestly. Did you know that being tased can interrupt the electrical flow of your heart and kill you? Please keep that in mind as you respond.”

Dib lets out a stifled whimper as he regards the weapon in your hand. “Okay,” he squeaks.

You go quiet for a second, a look of baffled recognition dawning on your face. “Wait… Wait, I know you. You… You’re in my class!” Your eyebrows furrow skeptically as you squint at him. “What was it… Di…?”

“Dib,” he chokes out, looking down at the ground. “It’s Dib. We’re in Intermediate Video Editing together.”

“Dib,” you muse as you stroke your chin. “So tell me, Dib, what exactly were you DOING IN MY FUCKING APARTMENT!?” Your question turns into a furious bellow as you finish, so intense that Dib can swear that he feels the room shake.

“I… I— I…” Dib looks up at her in terror, words failing him.

“ANSWER.” You press the trigger, making the stun baton crackle with electricity in front of his face.

He yelps as he sees the bright blue arc of electricity connecting the two metal prongs. He shuts his eyes tightly as he stammers out a response. “Aaaaa— I… I’ve, I’ve been stalking you! I’ve been stalking you for months! B-but this, this is the first time I’ve ever been in here! I swear!”

“Stalking—!?” You shake your head, looking down at him with a mixture of confusion and rage. You brandish the stun baton in front of his face again. “Are you with the Church of Sceptra!?”

“What? What, no! No, absolutely not!” Dib was familiar with the Church of Sceptra, but only through you. You had made an exposé about them a while back, and they’re a notoriously vindictive organization; it stands to reason that you may have had experience being pursued by them before.

“Then why? Why were you stalking me!?” Your questioning becomes more desperate, more upset, panicking as your mind races with possible explanations for why this guy could be here, how he could have possibly ended up doing that to you.

“Because, I…” He lets out a pained groan. He wishes he could cover his face. “I’m obsessed with you! That’s it, okay! I’m just a garden-variety obsessed stalker who spends all my free time following around a girl who doesn’t give a shit about me!” His chest hurts as he admits this, overwhelmed with heartbreak and self-loathing. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

You cover your face, sighing exasperatedly. This situation was objectively fucked up and disturbing, but for some reason, you feel a surge of relief. The circumstances of him being here were much lower-stakes than the worst case scenario you had cooked up in your head. “Jesus,” you mumble, rubbling your forehead. “That’s… fffuck,” you sigh.

“I’m sorry. I’m genuinely, truly, so fucking sorry. I knew I shouldn’t have been doing it. Any of it, not just today. I shouldn’t have been following you, I shouldn’t have been taking pictures of you, and… G-god, I absolutely should not have broken into your apartment.” He grimaces, his eyes filling with tears. “I’m not a creep, I—“ He catches himself. “N-no, I… I didn’t want to be a creep,” he corrects.

“Yeah, um, that ship has sailed,” you answer in an unimpressed monotone, the fury gone from your voice. “No offense, but you broke into my home, watched me masturbate, and then had sex with me under false pretenses. The only way you could have been more of a creep is if you had actually raped me.”

Dib feels an immense wave of relief at the that last statement, indicating that you don’t consider what happened to have been rape. It’s a tiny sliver of hope in this immense, soul-crushing catastrophe, but it lifts his spirits regardless. “Y-yeah… Yeah, I know,” he mumbles.

“How… How the fuck did you even get in here?” You sit on the bed, your expression tinged with exhaustion. “The door is locked, it’s loud when it’s opened… I mean, I saw your fucking… cloaking device, which is a thing you own for some godforsaken reason, but that doesn’t explain how you got in.”

“It’s called the Phantom.” He feels a surge of guilt; Dib might not be under an NDA, but his father certainly was. If this ever got out, it would be Professor Membrane that takes the brunt of the pain. He could lose the contract over this. But under her annoyed glare and the threat of the stun baton, he doesn’t particularly care about protecting corporate secrets. “It allows the wearer to go invisible, and dematerialize if they want to. T-that’s how I got inside. I phased through the door.”

“Dematerialize!?” You repeat incredulously. “How the fuck did you get your hands on that?”

“That’s, um…” He stammers, hesitant to implicate Membrane Industries. “That’s… A long story.”

“Clearly.” You shake your head, groaning as you put your face in your palm. “I can’t believe the actual explanation is even more far fetched than ghost sex. An invisible stalker making me think he’s a ghost?! God… What a grim joke this is.”

“I… I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what else you want me to say. I know what I did was wrong, I knew it was wrong when I was doing it. But I’m… I’m addicted to you. When I don’t know what you’re doing, it feels like I can’t breathe, I can’t think clearly until I see you again. And I… I didn’t come in here with the intention of doing any of that stuff! I just… I just wanted to see how you live your life. I told myself that I was going to leave if anything inappropriate happened, but—“ he chokes.

You let out a breathless laugh. “Yeah? What happened to that?”

“I just… I couldn’t help it.” He squeezes his eyes shut, his face red with humiliation. “Seeing you touch yourself was the hottest thing I had ever— ever seen in my life, and… W-when you called out like that… When I learned that you were just as desperate for relief as I was…” His head hangs defeatedly. “I just… broke. It was like my body wasn’t mine. I needed you, a-and… and it seemed like you wanted it too, and so I…” He goes quiet.

You feel your stomach twist as you look at him. Your impression of him before this moment was that he was cute, quiet, shy. You had even considered striking up a conversation with him, getting to know him. You should feel nothing but revulsion for him now, and you know that, but he’s not the only one who struggles with feelings that make him act counter to his sense of reason. You were host to a number of carefully-concealed fetishes, and one of your more potent ones was activated when a seemingly innocent person revealed their secret dark side. And, as much as you hate to admit it, he was a great lay. You can’t help but feel a creeping sense of arousal start to build in your core, no matter how much you wish it wouldn’t.

You groan, covering your face as you stand up and pace in front of him. “Would you at least try to put yourself in my shoes? Try to think about what it would be like if you were me, and I broke into your home, the place that’s meant to be your safe space, without even using the door. And I watched you, and I decided not to leave when you started doing things you wouldn’t like other people to see, and then I took advantage of you? Would you actually be okay with that?”

Dib pictures it. He pictures it vividly. Very, very vividly. His eyes are wide, staring into space as he imagines her invisible form climbing into bed with him, touching him, riding him. He fails to answer her. His boxers, the only clothes he’s wearing, do little to conceal the excitement building within him from that mental image.

You watch his reaction, breaking into an incredulous laugh. “God, what a stupid question. Of course you’d like that. You’d probably lose your goddamn mind over it.”

His face is even redder now. He subtly, almost imperceptibly, nods.

“Let me guess.” You point at the ropes with the stun baton. “You’re so far gone that even this isn’t a problem, am I right? You like being tied up in that chair, just because I’m the one who did it.”

It was a flawless read. Dib stares down at the ground, his face burning with embarrassment, his erection creating an even more pronounced tent in his boxers.

“You don’t need to answer that,” you say, prodding his cock with the handle of the stun baton. “Your body already responded for you.”

He gasps as he feels the baton make contact, looking down at it in disbelief. “W-wait… D-don’t do that,” he stammers.

“What?” You scoff. “Am I really supposed to believe you’re not enjoying this?” You push the handle of the baton between his legs, his cock pulsing against the cool metal.

He looks up at you, and down at the baton, and up again. His heart is pounding wildly. He opens his mouth to attempt to stammer out a denial, but he can’t bring himself to summon the lie. “I… I…” He shuts his eyes tightly. “F-fuck… This is so messed up!”

You smile darkly. “You’re right. You are extremely, deeply, irrevocably messed up.” You push the baton a little more firmly against him, threatening to cause pain. “You’re messed up for breaking into my apartment. You’re messed up for taking advantage of me. And you’re especially messed up for enjoying this.”

He lets out a whine. “Nhhh… T-that’s not what I…” He goes quiet again. How was he supposed to form any type of coherent argument against this woman who had completely broken his mind? You could spit on him, hurt him, torture him, kill him and he’d take it with a smile on his face and a tent in his pants. There is no argument. He is as messed up as it gets.

“You know, you’re in a dangerous situation right now, Dib. What if I never let you leave? What if I just keep you imprisoned in my spare room, only making contact to feed you and use your body for my gratification? Don’t tell me you’d even enjoy that?”

He lets out a whine. The mental image of being her slave was so erotic that it feels like his cock is about to burst. “Ghh— I… I would… I would let you do anything you want, I… I deserve it,” he gasps.

You smirk. “Oh? Anything?”

“Anything,” he whimpers, using his extremely limited range of motion to grind his cock against the baton. “I… I promise I’ll be good from now on!”

You go quiet for a moment. “I don’t think you can be good. You can be obedient, but you’ll never be good.” You press the baton a little harder, and he cries out at the surge of pain. “You’re far too twisted to ever be good.”

Dib’s emotions reach a breaking point. Between the shame, embarrassment, fear, arousal, and love, the cracks that had already run deep in his sanity start to grow larger, threatening to shatter entirely. “I— I know,” he chokes out, a tear running down his cheek, followed by another, and just a moment later he’s openly sobbing, tears pouring down his face as he wails, his head tilted back, a futile plea to a neglectful god.

You withdraw the baton, slightly taken aback at his sudden emotional outburst. To be perfectly honest, what you had said was more dirty talk than an earnest assessment of his character. It must have hit him where it hurts, though, if he’s that affected by it.

You grumble, tapping the handle of the baton on your forehead. The fuck are you supposed to do now? Obviously, the sensible thing to do would be to leave the room and call the cops. If he’s not with Sceptra, there’s no reason not to. But then again… There is the matter of how he got that cloaking device. He probably has some freaky underworld connections too.

You grit your teeth. Which would you rather do? Spend the night dealing with the notoriously useless and male-biased Oakbend Police Department? Or have some freaky and potentially mind-blowing sex with a crazy person? To someone like you, the choice is clear.

You set the stun baton on the foot of the bed, standing there for a moment as the sound of Dib’s sobbing fills the room. Am I really about to do this? Have all the choices in my life really culminated to this? You sigh. Yes, they have.

You turn around, closing the gap between the two of you, and sit down on your knees in front of him. You prop your head up on your arms, folded onto his lap. As he feels you make contact, his wailing is suddenly silenced. He looks down at you, confused, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

“I guess I can’t really hold it against you too much for what you did. Not the— not the stalking or the home invasion, I mean. I’m still pretty sour about that. I meant the sex.” You look up at him, smirking slightly. “I was begging for it, wasn’t I? I’m sure to someone like you, that must’ve been completely irresistible.”

He looks down at you, his eyes red and puffy, his mouth slightly agape. This attitude shift was disorienting to say the least. He nods hesitantly.

“So? How was it?”

He blinks, confused. Were you really asking what he thought you were? He breathes out a quiet “Huh?”

“The sex. Did it feel good? As good as you were hoping?”

He lets out a shuddering gasp. Your tone was playful, slightly teasing. Why did you want to know? Why does it almost sound like she liked it too? Like she wants… more? He lets out a quiet, breathy “Oh my god,” and stammers for a moment, weakly collecting his thoughts. “It was… So much better. So much better than anything I could have imagined… It… It was…. It was…”

“…The best thing you had ever felt in your life? So good that you don’t know how you’re supposed to go even a day without it?”

It was like you had taken the words directly from his soul. “Uh-huh,” he whispers barely audibly, his erection tenting through his boxers again, so, so close to your face.

“Really!” You give a self-satisfied grin. “But it wasn’t much, was it? We only did that one thing, that one position. There’s so much more you haven’t experienced yet.”

Dib shuts his eyes, his breath ragged, unable to respond, his mind completely flooded with potential positions and sex acts.

You draw your face slightly closer to his pulsing bulge. “So… What is it that you want right now, exactly? Do you want me to untie you, to let you go?” You let out a slow exhale, making him tingle at the feeling of your hot breath on his skin. “Or is it something else that you want?”

He strains against the restraints, trying to push his hips forward, failing to get any closer to you. “H—hhhah, haah…” He grits his teeth, giving you a look of pained desperation. “Aa-aaah… P-please…”

You grin softly. “Please? Please what? Be more specific.”

“I— I need it, fffffuck, please, I— I need it,” he gasps.

“Come on. Say it.”

“Touch me,” he cries out. “P-please, god, touch me, touch me, touch my cock, I don’t care how you do it, p-please, just… touch me!”

“Ah, I see.” You grin, and bring your hand to his cock, pushing it further upwards with your pointer finger. The stimulation from that alone is enough to make him cry out. You move your palm to his shaft, gripping and stroking him through the cotton fabric as he lets out a long, strangled moan.

“You’re noisy,” you comment as you continue to stroke him. “It must have been one hell of a task for you to keep quiet earlier, huh?”

“You have no fucking idea,” he chokes out quietly. The chair jolts slightly as he tries to buck his hips up into your hand.

“Hm.” You look up at his face. He alternates between looking down at you and shutting his eyes tightly, letting out desperate gasps as you stimulate him through the fabric of his underwear. Being indisputably in charge of the situation was fun enough, but something about him stirred up something chaotic in you. You withdraw your hand, making him let out a cry of disappointment.

“There. I gave you what you wanted. Very generous of me, don’t you think?”

He looks down at you, his expression devastated. He sighs, and hangs his head slightly, going quiet for a moment. “Y-yes. Yes, thank you,” he mutters.

You take a beat before you respond, looking at him with your head slightly tilted. “I sense a bit of hollowness to your gratitude. I didn’t really give you what you wanted, did I? Moreover, you didn’t ask for what you really wanted.” You stand and walk slowly behind him. Then, you bend down, and untie the two ends of rope keeping Dib bound to the chair. His eyes go wide as the rope slackens, dazed by this sudden turn of events.

You move in front of him again as he pulls his arms free from the rope, rubbing his wrist to soothe the irritation from the tight bindings, looking up at you with absolute bafflement. “There. You’re free. So what are you going to do now?”

“I… I don’t know,” he says in a voice just barely above a whisper as the rope continues to fall away.

“There’s something you want to do. I can feel it. I’m not sure what it is yet, but I think you already know. I think it’s on your mind all the time. So? Are you going to take the opportunity?”

“I don’t…” His voice drops even lower. “I don’t think I should.”

“I get the impression that you’ve been doing things that you don’t think you should for a very, very long time. So what’s stopping you now? Is making the right choice now going to be enough to reform you into a respectable member of society?” You lean down over him. “Or… Are you stuck like this?”

As he looks up at you, he feels something in his mind start to shift. The voice of his conscience is getting quieter, quieter, so quiet, silent. Maybe he really is nothing more than his most depraved impulses. The rifts through his sanity grow deeper, deeper, threatening to become completely undone, and your next words strike his psyche like a hammer dropped on a piece of delicate china.

“Show me who you really are.”

He shakily stands, the remainder of the rope falling off of him and onto the floor. For a moment, he just stands there, looks at you. As the seconds pass, he takes on a look in his eyes that fills you with a surge of fear. You think for a moment that perhaps this was a mistake; before the thought completes, you’re violently shoved down onto the bed. The stun baton clatters to the floor.

“Tell me that you’re mine,” he demands, his expression crazed and feral as he holds your wrists down onto the sheets. “Tell me I can have you all for myself,” he insists louder, more urgently.

You look up at him with your mouth agape. Now it was your turn to be knocked completely off-balance. But this is what you wanted, wasn’t it? Otherwise you wouldn’t have untied him. Still, to go from fully in control of the situation to being pinned down and forced to verbally submit was something that you weren’t quite prepared to accept. “I— I,” you stammer, failing to answer him.

“Come on. Say it. Say it.” He grips onto your wrists so tightly that his fingers threaten to leave a bruise. “I know it… I know you feel it, I know that… that you’re the same as me!” You stare up at him in wide-eyed terror, remaining silent. He moves his head down, growling into your ear. “Say it. Fucking say it.”

“I don’t want to,” you protest.

“Liar,” he hisses, his nails digging into the flesh of your wrists. “I can read you better than you think. You wouldn’t have let me out if you didn’t want this. Tell. Me. That. You’re. Mine.”

You fight weakly against his grip; he’s stronger than he looks. If this goes south, you could be in real trouble, and yet… his words ring true. Still, you’re too proud to admit it. “You don’t know that.”

“I can see it. I can see that darkness in you, the same one that’s inside me. Can’t you see we’re perfect for each other?” He leans his face down extremely close to yours, his exhales warming your skin. “Stop fighting it. You already know it’s true, so just say it.” He squeezes your wrists so hard that it makes you cry out in pain. “Say. It.”

“I… I…” Your voice trails off. Suddenly, your expression takes on a devious smirk. Maybe he was right. But you still knew his weak points. Even pinned down like this, you could still turn the tables. “No.”

He pulls back, his expression slightly angry as you continue to speak. “You’re mine. You’re a slave to your desire to me. A marionette to which I hold the strings. Even if you look like you’re the one in control, you’re still mine.”

He chokes, his grasp on your wrists getting weaker for a moment before it tightens again. After he visibly falters, he summons his fury, bearing down on you with a nearly animalistic grimace. “Just say it! Admit that you want me too!” Your words echo through his mind again. It’s painful how right you are. Despite all his confidence after he pushed you down, he didn’t have absolute certainty that what he said was true, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that every word you spoke was completely correct. His grasp falters again, his head falling on your shoulder. His voice comes out weaker, quieter. “Please just say it. Please.”

“Why should I when you can’t even admit the truth? Do you feel like you’re acting like yourself right now? I can tell you’ve never done anything like this before. I broke you. You wanted me so fucking bad that I broke you.”

Even before you said it, Dib could feel the pieces of himself strewn across the floor of your bedroom. He wasn’t just broken, he was shattered. Destroyed beyond recognition, beyond repair. His face sinks into your chest and he lets go of your wrists. “Fuck… Fuck!” He pounds the bed with his fist. He goes quiet for a moment. When he speaks again, his voice is soft, vulnerable. “I admit it. You broke me. You are everything to me, and I am nothing to you. We’ll never actually be the same,” he says, choking up slightly as he finishes.

You chuckle quietly. When you raise your head up to look at him, your smile is surprisingly soft and affectionate. You feel like you’re ready now. Maybe you just needed to hear him debase himself one more time before you really cut him loose. “Good. Thank you. Now I can finally give you what you wanted.”

Hearing your last words, he looks up at you, wide-eyed. You reach out and stroke his hair, making him let out a sharp exhale at the gentle touch. “Dib… I’m yours,” you say sweetly, quietly. He quietly gasps. You sit up, and he follows.

“I am so completely yours, unbelievably fucking yours… Despite all the fucked-up shit you’ve done, I can’t stop myself from feeling completely out of my mind for you. You can have me all to yourself. I want you to. I want it badly.”

Your voice gets more frenzied as you speak. His insanity was infectious. Maybe you would regret this later, but in the moment, none of your words felt false, or even exaggerated. You were more turned on than you had ever been in your life. Not only did you want to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear, you wanted to embody that. To represent everything he wanted the most, and drive him completely out of his mind with lust.

“Dib, I want you to use me however you like. I want to see what you think about in your fantasies. I want to show you everything you want to see, let you feel everything you want to feel. I. Am. Yours.”

“I’m going to make you regret that,” he says barely audibly, completely involuntarily. The tiny, whimpering remains of his sanity are disturbed. He would have never even thought something like that about her before.

“Not likely,” you whisper.

His shards of sanity crumble into particulates.

Chapter Text

He pounces on you like a wild animal. Your back slams down onto the bed as he forces himself on top of you. He grabs your face, making no attempt to conceal his shattered, corrupted mental state as he stares at you with an avarice usually reserved for those under the thrall of an enchanted artifact. He stays like that for a moment, just watching you, taking in your features. He feels no shame, no hesitation, none of the self-hatred he had grown so used to. Casting away his sanity had ejected all the parts of himself that he hated the most. Maybe he didn’t really need it. Maybe all he truly needed was you.

“I want to tear you to pieces,” he mutters darkly, his hands moving to cling onto your torso with a firm, greedy grasp. “I want to break you just like you broke me. I want to fill your mind with me, me, only me… Just like you did to me.” He could feel everything he had built up since he had met you— those two wonderful, horrible, maddening months— starting to pour out. All the lust and frustration, the soft, wholesome adoration, the sweet daydreams and the rape fantasies and everything in between.

“Ngh… Dib…!” You writhe your hips as you breathe out his name. His words, repulsive and violating as they were, were music to your lust-warped ears.

He lets out a sound halfway between a laugh and a needy exhale, smiling crookedly as he looks down at you. “O-oh my god, s-say… say my name again.”

“Dib,” you gasp. “Dib, Dib… Ffffuck, Dib, I want you… I want you more than anything.”

If his physical reality could match his mental state, he would have burst into flames. “Aaa— Aaaahahahaha,” he laughs darkly as his grip on you gets tighter. “That’s… That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” The crazed greed running through his body made him feel like he suddenly had unfettered access to a giant treasure vault. He just wanted to take, and take, and take.

He presses his weight down on you, giving you a smile that was halfway between adoration and animalistic hunger as he gently strokes your hair. “Aaa— aahaha, you’ve always been mine. You’ve been mine before you even knew it. Ever since I first laid eyes on you, I knew it. Maybe I couldn’t admit it, but deep inside, I could feel it.” He lets out a pleasured groan as he forces your legs open, pushing his hips firmly against yours. “You… You were always destined to be mine. I’m going to help you understand that.”

He presses his lips into yours, kissing you hungrily, gripping your hair and letting out desperate whines of pleasure as he pushes his tongue into your mouth. You return his intensity, your lust having packed away your sense of reason into a neat little box and pushed it under the bed, where it couldn’t tell you how scary this was, how much his own goals don’t actually align with yours.

Dib was much more far gone than you. If your lust-induced madness was as deep as Lake Superior, his was as deep as the Mariana Trench. Thoughts of what he wants to do to you burst in his head like flashbulbs. He wanted to feel you, fuck you, violate you, hurt you, destroy you, and teach you how to love it. It wouldn’t be difficult for you, you’re already a natural. Already so good at being his.

He pulls away from you, panting, and yanks off your bra, not bothering to deal with the clasps. You moan softly as he eagerly grabs your tits and pushes his face between them, rubbing in slow, deliberate circles, taking extra time to relish the feeling of your soft flesh pushing against his cheeks. He takes in a deep inhale and lets out a shaky sound of delight on the exhale. The scent of your body was rich, multifaceted. Sweat from a long day, sweat from fear, sweat from arousal. Every one of them lit his nerves on fire.

He opens his mouth and licks the skin of your breasts, traveling upward, still wearing that perverse smile. Before today, he already knew you looked, sounded, and smelled maddeningly good. And, of course, he could easily assume that you felt good. But before now, he had failed to meaningfully consider the aspect of taste. You were a perfect, full-spectrum sensory experience.

His tongue travels over your chest wildly, his breath coming in frenzied groans. “Haaa-aah, you taste so good,” he mutters, giving your chest another firm squeeze. He looks up, and his eyes catch on your lips. He stares for a moment before lifting up and yanking off his boxers, consumed by yet another uncontrollable urge.

He climbs up over you to straddle your chest, and pushes his cock against your lips. “Don’t you want to taste me, too?”

You answer him by sticking out your tongue, running it along the shaft. It tasted nice; warm, clean, lightly flavored by salty sweat.

He lets out a strangled cry as your tongue makes contact, closing his eyes for a moment before fluttering them back open, relishing in the sight of you accepting him so eagerly. “Is it good?” he asks quietly.

“Mm-hmm,” you affirm.

He makes a noise that’s nearly pained. Hearing you parrot his deepest desires was almost too much to handle. It would almost be easier if you were fighting him off, resisting like he had always imagined that you would, because at least that would make sense. “Good… Good,” he breathes, pressing his cock more firmly against you. “Take as much as you like.” He presses the head of his cock into your lips.

You accept it into your mouth, your warm, slick tongue raising to greet the pulsing pink tip that had just pressed inside you. He whines in gratification, pressing his hips down to fill your mouth just a little more. “O-oh my god,” he gasps, biting his lip as the sensation resonates through his body. “D-do you have— do you have any idea how perfect you are like this?”

His praise fills you with warmth. You take him deeper, pressing the tip into your soft palate as your tongue massages the shaft. Staring down at you, he feels a tether of self-restraint that he didn’t realize he still had snap. He reaches down and pushes your head up, forcing himself into your mouth until there’s nothing left to take, letting out another sharp cry. Slowly at first, he starts to pulse his hips.

Looking down at you, he felt powerful, he felt manly, two things that had stubbornly eluded him all his life. And even more, he felt love. It was undeniably love, but he couldn’t see that it was rotted, festering, corrupted; the kind of love that’s destined to consume itself and leave a black, infinitely-dense nothingness in its place. Where others saw rot, he saw pure devotion. Where others saw corruption, he saw unwavering loyalty. It was consuming him, and he couldn’t feel it happening.

In between shaky breaths, he chokes out a request. “Say my name. Ngh— s-say my name, just like this.”

“Mmmnb.” It was an impossible ask; your mouth was completely full, not allowing your tongue the necessary range of motion to sound out the first consonant, but you tried your best regardless. “Mmnb… Mmmb.”

He sucks in a sharp breath, his fingers possessively weaving through the strands of your hair. “Gh-aah, ahahaha… Who knew that you could sound even more beautiful like that.” He starts to thrust harder. “Keep going.”

You try to get ahold of your breathing as he pounds into your mouth, obligingly letting out short moans that resembled his name in only the most vague sense. He thrusts harder, getting lost in the pleasure, shutting his eyes and letting out a desperate moan with every breath.

Eventually, it becomes too much for you. It was too hard to catch your breath at that pace, and pinned beneath him with such little range of movement, you had no way to slow him down. As he withdraws from a thrust, you quickly turn your head, taking a deep gasp of air.

“No, no,” he gently chastises, grabbing your face and pushing in again. “You don’t need to stop. Not with me.” He says it as if he’s doing it for your benefit. The rot in his soul was immense, malignant, terrifying, but the greater the disparity between your previous perception of him and his true self, the greater you were fetishistically enthralled. You don’t protest.

“Sorry… Sorry… I took it too fast, didn’t I?” He gently strokes your hair, pulsing his hips at a more manageable pace. “I just couldn’t help myself. Your mouth feels too good.” His fists clench, pulling your hair tightly. “Can you blame me, though? You must have some idea how irresistible you are.” He goes just a little faster. “If only you— ngh, if only you had any idea how good this felt,” he gasps. He looks over his shoulder. “Maybe… Maybe I can…” He doesn’t finish his train of thought before he pulls his cock out of your mouth and lifts off of you, moving to pull your panties down.

He lets out a shuddering breath, enamored at the sight of your bare pussy. “Maybe I can make you feel good, too,” he breathes.

You wince. You’d had a long day, and felt like you weren’t clean enough for something like this. “I’m not sure that’s—“ You’re interrupted as he brings his mouth to you, making you gasp sharply as he places a delicate lick right over your clit.

He groans in satisfaction, pushing his face against you as he licks more deeply. His reception of your taste couldn’t be any further from disgust; he couldn’t possibly imagine a taste that was more satisfying. It was so enthralling that, for a moment, he forgets about his own aching need, making you cry out as he loses himself in the act of eating you out.

It’s not long before that need starts to build again, and so he reverses his position, placing his hips right over your face. You obligingly direct his cock into your mouth once again, and he muffles a loud moan by grabbing your ass and pushing your hips forward, pressing his mouth against you once again.

For a moment, any of Dib’s thoughts about subjugation and control cease. The intimacy and mutuality of this new position filled his heart with warmth; he lowers himself, pressing against you, wrapping his arms around you, wanting the surface area of your bodies to connect as much as possible. He pushes himself against you so tightly that he can’t tell where you start and he ends.

Both of you make pleasured, muffled grunts, each one encouraging the other to go faster, harder, deeper. He gently pulses his hips against your face, and your hips buck up into his. It’s not long before you’re struggling to stay focused, his licking and sucking sending you into a frenzy. As he squeezes you even more tightly and feverishly rubs his tongue against your clit, you let out a loud cry as you feel the pleasure building out of control. Sensing that you’re close, he presses his face into you harder, licking with greater urgency until you let out a high-pitched whine, his cock still in your mouth as the climax makes you buck and tremble.

Dib lets out a frustrated growl as you reach completion, the sensation on his cock threatening to drive him over the edge as well. The thought of you swallowing down a mouthful of his load was so tempting, incredibly tempting, but he resists. He needs to make you cum as many times as possible first. He keeps licking for a moment, but your movements and noises indicate that you’re overstimulated. As he pulls his face away, he whispers, “Two.”

He lifts up off of you, reversing position again, and brings his mouth to yours. He kisses you deeply, invasively, the taste of your own fluids prominent on his tongue, a detail that you would find slightly repulsive if you weren’t already thoroughly lost in the depravity of the situation. He grinds his cock against you, your pussy slick with saliva and primed to be entered; he nearly pushes in again before he suddenly stops. He already knew what this position felt like; he needs more than that.

He pushes off again and flips you around onto your stomach; you attempt to lift up to your knees, but he climbs on top of you, keeping you prone. He gives the cheeks of your ass a firm squeeze, and presses his cock between them, grinding against you with a slow, steady rhythm. “You want it inside again, don’t you?”

“Yes,” you squeak out.

His face takes on a wicked grin. “Tell me how badly you want it.”

“P-please, please Dib, I want it so bad,” you whine, raising your hips up slightly, making him grab on to your cheeks even harder. “I want more, I want it… I want it so badly I could scream. Please, please, I— I need it,” you gasp. Your words make his whole body tingle in satisfaction. There were few things more gratifying than feeling like you wanted him just as badly as he wanted you, even if that couldn’t possibly be true.

“Ngh… If I had any idea you were like this, I would have done this a long, long time ago,” he says, pressing his cock down in between your legs. “You come off as so pure, so uncorrupted. But that’s not you, is it? This is you. The you that’s desperate for my cock… That’s the real you.” He pushes the tip against the entrance. “It’s okay. I’m desperate for you, too.” He thrusts in.

You cry out, and he makes a strained gasp. This position may have been… ill-advised. The way you felt with your legs spread was wonderfully tight, but with your legs shut, your surrounding body making the orifice even tighter, it was more than Dib was prepared to handle. As he pushes down, he freezes, eyes wide and mouth open, making short, shuddery breaths as the feeling threatens to take him over the edge far too quickly.

“Ghh— hhh-aaa-aaaa… J-jesus christ,” he quietly stammers, leaning his body over you, pressing his head between your shoulder blades. “N-no, not yet, please… Not yet,” he quietly begs himself.

Sensing his control starting to lapse stirs up your chaotic impulse again. You peek over your shoulder at him, grinning cheekily. “Oh dear. Is there something wrong?” As you ask this, you start to gently pulse your hips, making him take in a sharp, strangled breath and double over even more. “Don’t tell me it feels too good.” His fingers dig into you. He tries to respond, but words fail him. You pulse your hips slightly faster. “Come on. You can take it.”

He withdraws urgently, avoiding premature orgasm by a tiny margin. He breathes hard through gritted teeth, a spark of fury building in his gut at the way he still feels like you’re looking down at him even as you’re below him. He takes a moment to catch his breath, his cock returning to a state of non-overstimulation. He looks up at you, giving you an angry grimace that turns into a devious grin as he comes up with a plot to get one up on you again.

“Okay. Fine.” He reaches over to your bedside table, taking the jar of lube that you had used to pleasure yourself earlier. He unscrews the jar and dips a finger in, making it extremely slick. He places the jar back down and moves back over top of you. Then, his wetted finger prods gently at your asshole. “Let’s see how you handle this, then.”

Your expression drops, your eyes going wide. You were prepared for a lot of things, but this you struggled with. “Wait! Wait, wait, wait, please— just, wait a second,” you beg.

“What’s that you said before? ‘You can take it?’” He smirks maliciously. “I think the same applies to you.”

You grit your teeth and sigh. “Just— just keep it to only one finger, please. I’m not really great with… That. And please… be gentle.”

“Alright. I suppose the rest will have to wait for some other time,” he says as he puts a little more pressure on, threatening to push in.

Between the boundary violation of anal play and his implication that he thinks that this is ever going to happen again, there’s suddenly a large, clear gap in your haze of arousal. Within seconds, you are hurtling dangerously close to not being okay with this, starting to regret all the times you had poked the bear earlier. Your thought process is suddenly terminated as he presses his finger inside; you grimace, sucking in air through your teeth. This feeling never got any less weird.

Dib, although his senses and thoughts are flooded with madness, his sadism had already been slaked by how much this action had seemed to diminish your rebelliousness. He moves gently, tenderly, enough to allow you to relax slightly. “How is that?” he asks softly.

“I-it’s… It’s alright.”

“I knew you could handle it.” As he continues to finger your ass, he pushes his cock back inside. You cry out at the dual sensations, discomfort and intense pleasure combining in a confusing swirl.

Dib breathes heavily, delighting in your slightly-pained cries as he starts to pump his hips. Your sounds come out strangled. It’s… a lot. It’s extremely invasive. But… it’s not necessarily unpleasant. You take deep breaths, trying to relax your lower muscles as he suddenly thrusts his cock in, hard. You cry out again. That time, the sensation was unambiguous. Damn. That felt good.

He lets out a slow, deep breath, preparing himself for the incoming onslaught. He keeps his slow, gentle pace with his finger, but after he slowly pulls his cock out, he thrusts it back in again at a furious pace. You scream, the sensation ripping through you as you desperately clutch the sheets.

“Do— you— gasp, like that!?”

You can’t respond. If you could, the answer would be yes. Yes, immensely. But all you can do is clutch the sheets and scream.

“I bet— gasp— I bet that feels good, doesn’t it?” He moves his free hand to press your head down against the bed.

“Yes,” you just barely manage to gasp between loud cries.

“Nghh, I… I thought so!” He pounds even harder, and as soon as the stimulation intensifies even slightly more, you’re consumed by an intense climax. You bury your face into the bed to muffle the sound of your screaming. The weirdness of the finger inside you morphed your orgasm in a way you weren’t expecting, making it feel deeper, more resonant.

He slows his pace again as your cries start to fade. “Fffffuck,” he breathes, withdrawing his finger and grabbing your body tightly. Once again, it had been a challenge to not follow you over the edge. He squeezes you and whispers, “Three.”

He withdraws his cock and shakily stands, plucking a tissue from the box on your side table and wiping off the lube from his finger. He regards your trembling, prone body with a smile. He was satisfied, but not nearly satisfied enough.

He looks around the room, considering his next move. His eyes catch on a full-length mirror affixed to your wall. He takes your hand. “Come on, get up.”

You sit up, your gaze half-lidded and delirious. Your brief return to sanity was cut short by the torrent of pleasure you had just experienced, and right now, you can barely even think for yourself at all. You stand, your legs struggling to support your weight.

He guides you over to the mirror. Once he has you in place, he gently pushes down on your shoulders, and you take the cue to get on your knees. He leans over you, resting his hands on your shoulders, looking down at your reflection with a self-satisfied grin. “Aaaah… Sometimes my brilliance even scares me.” He lowers himself, getting down on his knees behind you, peeking smugly over your shoulder. “Getting to feel that gorgeous ass bouncing against me and getting to watch your beautiful face while I do it?” He presses his body into yours. “A stroke of genius, if I do say so myself.”

He lines himself up behind you. “Ready?” he breathes into your ear. You give a small, single nod.

He presses in, letting out a satisfied groan as he feels you constricting his cock. He wraps his arms around you, shutting his eyes and burying his face in your hair, taking in a deep breath of your scent before he lifts up and looks once again at your reflection. “There is no greater joy in my life than getting to look at you,” he pants as he starts to thrust. “And right now… mmnh, the view is better than ever.”

His eyes lock on to your face, looking at you with a piercing, greedy, nearly-unblinking stare. Finding his eye contact uncomfortably intense, you let your eyes shut. He grabs your hair, pushing you up against the cool glass of the mirror, creating a mark of steam on it with your sweaty body. He speaks into your ear, smiling deviously at your reflection. “Look at that. Isn’t it incredible? This is the way you were always meant to be.”

You force your eyes open, looking at his crooked smile as he increases the rate of his thrusts. “Goooood,” he breathes, “Look at me. Look at us. Don’t you like that? Doesn’t it feel right?”

The intensity of your lust had allowed you, however briefly, to adopt his mindset. You give a small, shaky nod.

His grip on your hair gets tighter. “Use your words when you answer me. I like hearing you talk.”

“Y-yes, Dib,” you gasp as he pounds harder. “I-it… It feels amazing.”

He lets out an ecstatic whine, burying his face into your neck. “G-gghhh— I didn’t… I didn’t even ask for you to say my name,” he mumbles, his crooked smile growing wider, his voice getting more breathy and tinged with pleasure as he continues to speak. “You just did. You just did because you wanted to. You’re so… g-god, you are so unbelievably perfect.”

His hands grip onto you more tightly. “And you cum so easily… It’s like I don’t even have to try. Do you have any idea how good that makes me feel? Do you have any idea how good you feel?” His hands move to grab onto your hips as he looks over your shoulder with a lustful smile. “I bet you want to do it again. I think you want to cum for me.”

You nod.

“Speak,” he insists.

“Yes,” you gasp as the pleasure intensifies. “I— I want to. P-please make me cum again.”

One of his hands moves to grip onto your hair, pressing your head against his. “Keep asking and I’ll give you exactly what you want.”

“P-please, Dib, please make me cum, please make me— gh-aaah!” You upper body slides down the mirror as his pace becomes overwhelmingly intense. His teeth are gritted, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead as he pounds into you as hard as he can. “Please make me cum, please make me cum, a-aaah, p-please make me cum,” you say in a prayer-like chant, occasionally interrupted by moans.

Not yet, not yet, not yet, Dib begs himself as his cock threatens to burst before he can fulfill your desperate pleas. Just a little longer, please, not yet—

“Y-yes, yes, aa— aaaa, a-aaaAAAAAAH!” Your orgasm hits just moments before he hits the point of no return. He sucks in a sharp breath and holds you still as he feels you clamping around him. He could let himself cum. But with how much he’s already exerted himself, that would almost certainly mean this encounter would be over. He doesn’t feel like he’s ready for that. He doesn’t know how he’d ever be ready for that. By some miracle, he resists.

He releases your body, staggers back slightly, and collapses down onto the floor, supine. He covers his eyes with his arm, breathing hard. “Four,” he whispers inaudibly.

Turning around to look at him splayed on the floor, you can’t help but softly smile. He had exerted himself so much trying to give you an incredible experience, and you feel compelled to return the favor. You crawl over next to him, and place a hand gently on his chest, stroking him gently with your fingertips.

He uncovers his eyes and looks up at you with a tired, adoring smile. “[Y/N],” he exhales.

You climb on top of him. His cock still pulses at attention, not tired enough to quell the incredible lust running through his system. He sputters as you push it up against your pussy, grinding against it for a moment before slipping it inside once again.

As you start to pulse up and down, he lets out a breathy laugh in between moans. “A-aaah, look how badly you want me… I didn’t even ask for this, you just— you wanted to fuck me so bad that you took it for yourself.”

He runs his hands along the contour of your body, admiring your bouncing breasts. As he looks at you, he feels something softer, more pure than he had felt when he was fucking you before. He leans up, wrapping his arms around you, his fingers weaving through your hair as he holds you tightly.

“[Y/N],” he breathes, “You— you are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I can’t even tell you how happy you make me.”

Your heart feels warm at his words even though a quiet, nagging voice in the back of your mind is telling you that it shouldn’t. For a moment, just for now, perhaps you can believe that the two of you really are perfect for each other.

He places a series of delicate kisses on your neck. “F-fuck, [Y/N], you make me feel better than I ever thought was possible,” he whispers. “I could have never, ever imagined that you could really want me just as much as I want you. I was already crazy about you, but the real you is so, so much better than any fantasy.” He pushes his face against your neck. “I would do anything for you. I want to make you just as happy as you make me. I— I’m so grateful. Th— thank you.”

You take his face in your hands, bringing his lips to meet yours. The kiss is soft, delicate, loving. It grows in urgency as you start to pulse your hips faster, your tongues mingling, both of you gasping in delight.

He parts, leaving another soft trail of kisses from your mouth to your ear. “Let’s cum together,” he softly requests. “Please.”

You both hold each other more tightly as you bounce your hips at a frantic pace, your moaning picking up in volume and intensity. He gasps your name over and over, holding you against him like he never wants to let go, some subconscious portion of his mind aware that he will almost certainly never get to enjoy the feeling of you held fast against him again. But for now, as far as he’s concerned, this moment will last forever. You will always love him, and he will always love you, and the two of you will be making love always and forever until the end of time.

Your noises get louder as you draw closer and closer to climax. “Y-yes,” he gasps, holding you so tightly that his arms shake. “Please… Please, cum for me,” he begs.

Just a few seconds later, you fulfill his request, letting out a sharp cry as a surge of pleasure overtakes your body once again. As he feels you squeezing down on him, he finally, finally allows himself that release he wanted so badly. “Ngh— f-fuck, yes, YES, YES!” he cries out as the sensation bubbles over, shooting stream after stream of cum deep inside you.

He clings onto you tightly, his whole body trembling, feeling so immensely drained that he can barely move at all. After catching his breath, he finally speaks, his voice a hushed whisper; “Five. That was five.”

You don’t quite hear him. “Hm?”

“I made you cum five times today.” He lets out a breathy, incredulous laugh. “Five times.” He pulls away from you with a soft, affectionate smile, his expression no longer crazed. “Not bad, huh?” Just for a moment, he almost seemed normal. Like someone you could actually love.

You laugh softly. “Not bad at all.”

“I love you,” he whispers.

Something twists inside your gut. The room around you suddenly appears to be in sharper focus. You don’t respond.

He lays back, his mind fogged over with a haze of gratification. That was easily the most incredible thing he had ever experienced, and he doubted that anything else could possibly top it. He doesn’t notice as his eyes flutter shut, his current reality too indistinguishable from a dream to have any way to notice when he passes from one to the other. His brain, flooded by quickly-dissipating adrenaline and hormones, soon gives way to unconsciousness.

You shakily get up and sit on the bed. This was definitely not your finest moment, but it was precisely as satisfying as you hoped it would be, if not more. But the more seconds that tick away from your last orgasm, the more certain you are that this was a horrible mistake. It’s not like he was going to just forget all that shit you said to him in the heat of the moment. They were words that, no matter how genuine they might have been at the time, were not ones that you could stand by when you were in your right mind. And god, you had let him cum in you. You rub your forehead and let out a deep sigh, making a mental note to get a referral to a gynecologist.

Your head pounds as you consider the predicament you had gotten yourself into. Your impulsiveness had really thrown a wrench in your contingencies. To accuse him of rape would be patently false, and you were loud and enthusiastic enough during the act that your neighbors could probably attest to that. But to accuse someone of stalking and trespassing and not rape, when there had clearly been sex involved… It sounds expensive, and precarious, and extremely hard to prove.

Staring at his sleeping form on the ground, you feel a deep, resonating pain in your gut. His peculiarities were almost perfectly tailored to yours. When he was inside you, you felt a sense of profound connection, the total mutual understanding that you had been looking for all your life, that which had eluded you in your partners who came before. In another world, if things had gone differently, maybe the two of you could have been soulmates.

But that’s not the reality you lived in. As the endorphins fade, a stark reality was presented before you. This man was dangerous. He’s a criminal. If he was able to allow himself to do all the things that had happened before the Phantom had been deactivated, what else would he be capable of excusing? And that’s not to mention that you have no idea if he’s jealous, or possessive, or controlling. Women had been abused, imprisoned, killed by freaks more benign than he. All the things he said, which you had found so deeply arousing just a moment ago, pierce your guts. A belated stab wound manifesting well after the violence was already enacted.

You look around your room, an intense sadness washing over you. You liked this apartment. It was quiet, and clean, and the utilities always worked correctly. You think about Oakbend University. Not your dream school, sure, but you were plenty happy here. You liked your routine. You liked the video editing class, fully unaware that a dangerous obsession had kicked off just a few feet from your usual spot.

You would never be able to feel safe here again. You could destroy the Phantom, sure, but who’s to say he can’t get another one? You have no idea how he even got it in the first place.

You look down at him again. During the course of the night he had made you feel annoyance, fury, arousal, affection… But for the first time, you look at him and feel hate. This fucking man who phased through your door and confiscated your life.

Despite all the far greater problems his presence represented, the one that nags at you the loudest in this moment was that you wouldn’t even be able to fondly remember the greatest fuck of your life. You curse him under your breath.

You look up one more time. Your eyes scan the walls, the shelves, your closet, the comfortable bed. You loved this place. Now it was ruined. You get up and start to pack.

—

Dib’s eyes blink open; for a moment, he doesn’t know where he is, but as he sits up and looks at your bed, the events that had preceded him falling asleep come rushing back. He looks around; it’s dark, but he can tell that you’re not in here.

Right beside the bed are his clothes, arranged in a pile. He quickly starts pulling them back on, and notices something else as he turns his head. On the floor beside him is a mass of black tatters. His stomach sinks as he realizes that it’s the Phantom, tens of thousands of dollars of cutting-edge technology lying in limp ribbons on the carpet. It’s destroyed beyond repair. He stuffs the ruined device into the pockets of his jacket, if only to clean up the evidence of him having been there.

As he looks around the room, he notices that something is different. The room is… less than it was before. Your closet looked emptier. Your stuffed animals are gone, as well as your electronics, and many of your books, and the portfolio that had been previously leaning against the wall. It looks like the items had been removed hastily, knocking several things to the floor and leaving formerly organized areas a disheveled mess. His heart skips a beat as the thought that you might have been robbed while he was asleep crosses his mind. It’s not an assumption he can hold onto for long. Sure, the valuables were gone, but books, plushies? Those were sentimental items. The only person who had removed anything from this apartment was you.

Dib was well-acquainted with the concept of post-orgasm clarity from the daily fits of shame and regret that he was sent into any time he pleasured himself by looking at his collection of secretly obtained pictures of you. There’s no chance that the same didn’t apply to you. They were far more alike than he expected, both prone to deviant fascinations and impulsive, lust-based decision making. But the difference between them was that you had your head on straight, at least most of the time.

He exits your bedroom, a similar scene greeting him in the living room. The TV was gone, as were your gaming consoles. The kitchen drawers were left open with a few scattered items on the floor around them. This was the work of a person who was scared, terrified for her life. The kind of scene that you would expect from a home recently evacuated for a natural disaster.

Dib’s stomach feels sour as he walks through the dark, ransacked apartment. Of course you wouldn’t feel safe here, why would you? If no physical barrier can protect you from your pursuer, the only way that you could ever feel safe again would be to disappear, go somewhere that he could never, ever find you. It’s like he can feel his heart physically tearing in half as it dawns on him that, chances are, he will never see you again.

An intense feeling of numbness washes over him as he walks out of the apartment. His life had managed to peak and crash to rock bottom within less than twelve hours. Now he had to figure out what his existence would look like without you. And who’s to say she’s not going to go to the police? Maybe it would be best if he just killed himself before he can be caught. He retrieves his boots from behind the dumpster and walks home, the hollowness within him reverberating the sounds of the early-morning street so loudly that it was nearly deafening.

The night passes, and he doesn’t kill himself, and no police come to his door. He shuts his alarm off as it rings to wake him up for his first class. He draws the curtains shut and goes back to bed. By the time he wakes up, it’s a little after 1 PM, nearly time for their shared video editing class. He pulls himself out of bed, gets dressed, and starts walking in the direction of the art building.

He immediately regrets having shown up. He already knew exactly what he was going to find. Ten minutes, five minutes, one minute before class is set to start, and your chair is still empty. You were never late. The professor begins the class, but Dib doesn’t hear him, staring at your unoccupied chair, the emptiness of it pulling him in like a black hole.

A tear falls down his cheek as he’s consumed by a feeling that can only be described as grief. The light in his life had gone dark, and he was the one who had snuffed it. His expression is totally blank, his misery only betrayed by the tears rolling down his face as he stands up, puts on his backpack, and leaves the classroom.