Chapter Text
His mind couldn't decipher what was real anymore.
The icy cold of the village sank into his veins but you, you didn't belong there.
"Buttercup what are you..." His voice caught on his tongue as your face shifted. A smile that was so familiar yet looked unforgivingly disturbing along your beautiful face. "No." He breathed taking a step back as inky black wings grew from behind you.
"Has my favorite son come home to me?" She asks, her voice destroyed with your own making his stomach heave. "You're so good to me my son. How well you've done." She coos, her long spider like fingers caressing along his cheek.
"No! Fuck you! Go back to hell where you fuckin' spawned from!" His hands became heavy as the familiar weight of his hammer lifted in his grasp. The hum of electricity vibrated across his skin. The missed sense of power, so much power that grew and shifted in his veins, down his arms, hands, legs and fell heavy in his stomach. The thud of his heart matching that of his Cadou that he had long forgotten about. It felt incredible, intoxicating and made the back of him mind sing with worry.
He looked over to his right expecting to see Ethan Winter's bloodied, sweat covered face but was greeted with your terrified expression. The ceremonial vines twisting and tearing into the flesh of your arms, throat, arms and legs. You wore a simple dress, something you would never wear, something that he had seen women in the entirety of his life. Until he was free. He was free wasn't he?
"Karl... Please..." You choke out as a branch twists tighter along your throat. The thorns and rough branches cutting into the delicate skin. Skin he had just spent the night worshiping, touching, caring for was now being tore apart.
"Yes my son. Please..." She mocks in your own voice as she shifts from behind you. Her long golden fingers grasping your face in her hands. "She is rather beautiful. Something so suitable for my favored son…" She hums, looking over your face as you choke on your own tongue, trying to call for him to help you. The feeling, a haunting sizzle of electricity sings across his skin. So familiar, a soothing sense of comfort in this hellish scenario.
"Drop her." He growls, lifting his hammer up to Miranda's twister face.
"No." She says simply, a smile sliding along her lips too wide and unnatural.
A roar vibrates from his chest as his arms lift up the weight of his hammer up and over his head. The slam of the head against the dead ground shakes the ceremony site. Sparks shift across the dirt and mud, landing at Miranda's feet. She barely registers the blast of from his powers, shaking them away with a swipe of her long arm.
"Pathetic. And to think I thought of you as a prize..." She mocked, floating closer to him. Her hand snapping out quickly to grasp around his throat. "Look at you now. Domesticated. Watching that little brat like she is your own? She will never be yours. The same for this one." She says nodding her head in your direction. Your voice choking out his name as the vines twist tighter. "Thinking you can have normality. A life? A family?! You're even more pathetic than I thought! A poor little boy running scared just as you always have been. Trying to pick up the scattered pieces of what once was. Your mother would be thrilled to see you now. Thinking you've won. She had such defiance... Just like you. I should have known then when I choked the life out of her that you'd end up just like her! Chocking at my feet…" She hissed, lifting his body up with no effort. His boots dangling in the air as his gloves hands grasp onto her wrists. He fights, kicks, tries to move to set himself free but her hold remains.
You stirred in the large, warm bed that you felt safely cocooned in. You had never felt more relaxed, more safe than in this bed, with this man beside you. It was astonishingly really in the reality of it... That one simple change that you've been ignoring for years, trying to force yourself to will away would be the evening point of your sanity. You didn't have any nightmares. No flashing lights or screaming manic mothers. Nothing, just rest and the feel of his heavy arm wrapped around you.
But you supposed the same couldn't be said for your protective lover.
His whimper made your eyes flutter into consciousness. The tightening grip broke you out of your blissful nothingness. He wasn't having the same restful sleep as you, that much was certain. His face twisted up in agony. Soft moans and pained whimpers breaking little pieces of your heart with each one he let out. Your hands clasped around his face, finger sliding slowly over each scar. His nose, his cheek, across his bottom lip to his chin. He shifted a bit, his eyes relaxing from their clenched expression. You continues to pet him, his face, his hair, down along his throat anywhere your fingers could reach. His chest, along each scar that you could find until his face evened out.
"Karl... You're ok. You're safe..." You whispered, tilting your head to his ear. You could make out the faint rattling of something beside the two of you. Your eyes searching over the darkness of his room to a lamp that sat beside his alarm clock shifting in place. The tingling feeling of electricity right before a storm caressed your skin. Your hair on your arms standing on end. Your brows knitted together in confusion, thinking you are still just been in the grips of sleep. "Karl..." You try again, pressing your lips to his temple, his cheek, bridge of his nose to finally his lips.
You felt his chest intake a breath of you. Expanding and widening as you lay along it. His hands loosening in their grip, shifting across your back, down to the curve of your hips.
"Sorry Buttercup... I was..." He hummed, his voice smoky timber as it sank into your ears. His hands continuing to roam along your naked body, stopping at the fat of your ass to give it a squeeze before moving to your lower back.
"Nightmare?" You ask as his head nods, shifting your hair from your neck to press his lips along your throat.
"Seems as though however, that I woke up to a wonderful dream..." He hums, his lips opening sleepy along the sensitive flesh of your neck, still raw and chaffed from his beard hours before. "Turn around..." He breaths, giving your shoulder a gentle shove. You follow his command, shifting your weight so that you're now on your side, facing away from him. The warmth of his large body behind you is intoxicating. The length of him pressed along you as his lips continue to kiss at the nape of your neck, shoulders, cheek, nipping gently at your ear. Your body shivers despite being incredibly warm. You can feel his hardening member at your lower back. The long shaft slowly rolling into the meat of your ass. The chuckle that vibrates from his chest only fuels your want of him. His hands searching all over you, leaving delicious heat in their wake. Your arms, hip, thigh, stomach back and forth in a slow torturous motion. His hand ventures lower around to the front of you, moving down and down until his finger brushes along the hood of your sex. You fall back into him with a sigh, his body holding you where he wants you as he eases a finger between your almost soaked lips. His knee is next, moving gently between your own to make room. The feeling of his muscle, taunt and flex against your sensitive lips make you arch and mewl against him. It was amazing how something so small as a movement would leave you a panting mess. Another rumbling chuckle cascades into your ears and another wave of warmth floods to your core.
You feel his hand that rested at your shoulder, glide down behind you at the curve of your ass. You can feel his thick, hard head slide between your legs. You lift your leg for him, wanting nothing more than for him to stretch you again. His fingers that grasp around his cock feel for you. His fingers that were playing with your clit around the front opening you up to the cool air of the room hitting against your heated core. The thick head of his cock slips between your drenched lips, back and forth slowly, gathering as much of you that he could along his length.
"Still so wet for me..." He hums sleepily, pressing his fingers into the meat of your hip, moving you just where he needs you.
With a satisfied sign from the both of you he slips into your warmth. His body presses even closer to your own, wrapping you up on him. His hands search along your chest, grabbing on a breast that he cups in his large hand. His hips start to rock into you slowly, pulling himself almost all the way out before pressing back in to the hilt.
"So fuckin' tight like this baby..." He moans, starting to pick up the pace. It's not as it was before, earlier in the evening when he took you apart and pieced you back together. His movements now are slow, but heavy. Each thrust slapping hard against the curve of your ass. Every grunt sounding low and steady in your ear with each thrust. "Fuck. I could do this all night...." He moans, kissing at your shoulder and nipping your already pinked flesh.
"Feel so good..." You moan, grasping your hand into his that still played at your breast. His fingers pinch and twisted your nipples before moving down your stomach, finding your hardened bud so easily. "Yes..." You gasp as his index finger presses and slowly circles your clit, matching the rhythm of his hips.
"Such a good girl for me..." He breaths as you feel yourself breaking with each raspy word. You start to move yourself on him a bit faster but his hand clenches at your hip, holding you in place. "Don't rush me Darlin'... I want this feeling to last." His bites through clenched teeth that make your inside flutter and the need to push back on him that much more.
"Fuck... Karl please... Feel so good."
"I know baby... Feels good doesn't it? Yeah it feels so fuckin' good..." He moans, shifting just a bit faster. His finger rubbing your hardened clit to match. "Never felt... Fuck!" His voice a strangled moan burning his face into the back of your neck. You wanted him to go on, wanted him to voice it. Match the feeling fluttering inside you that hasn't stopped since the first time you fuckin looked at him. But, you knew he couldn't. Not yet.
His hands moved back to your hips, stopping his own movements inside of you. He let out a slow pained hiss as he start to move you against him. Slow and steady you feel your hips rock against him. His thick cock sliding in and out of your socked folds. His fingers biting into your flesh. You knew that he couldn't move himself or he'll ruin you. He'll be unable to help himself and rut into like a fucking animal. Part of you wanted that. To feel him lose himself on you. But the sleepy part that was enjoying this far too much wanted none of that. It wanted this to continue, forever.
Your hand reached back to grasp in the ends of his hair. Your fingers twirling around his locks, pressing his face closer to your own. You turned your head, finally able to catch his lips with a kiss. You both panted into each other's mouths. His eyes watching you so intently you couldn't do anything but close them and kiss him back. It was too much, he was begging you to hear him with all of this. Say so many things that couldn't ever be said. He wanted you to know it, all of it but, he didn't want to lose you. Not now, not after everything. His eyes shuttered closed once your mouth met his. His moans that you swallowed willingly told you everything that he couldn't.
"Karl..." You moan as he responds with a whimper of his own, starting to rock his hips back into you.
"I know... I know baby almost there..." He moans, his voice destroying you with each shaking, unsteady breath. "You gotta cum for me Kitten... Please." His voice is needy, on the verge of begging and it alone, with the aided rhythm his finger along your clit and large cock spreading you so beautifully, he guides you over that cliff. "That's a good girl... Ughh... Fuck." He feels you clench and flutter around him, moving just a bit faster into you. "Where?" He asks, picking up speed as your blissed out mind doesn't register the question.
"Wha..."
"Fuck!" He hisses, pulling out of you. You feel his hot spurts along your back and curve of your ass. He wipes himself slowly off between your cheeks, groaning as he does.
"Sorry I didn't know what you meant..." You chuckle sleepily. You feel his chest vibrate with a laugh of his own.
"S'ok..." He hums, shifting behind you. You feel a cloth run along your back, cleaning him off of you. "Remind me to wash my shirt tomorrow..." He chuckles again, wrapping his arms around you.
"You got it..." You yawn, falling back into another restful sleep.
Your eyes fluttered opened to the sunlight breaking through a window. The sound of birds and summertime slowly made it's way into your conscious as you remembered everything from the night before. It came all at once making your body ache and warm at the same time. He had throughly destroyed you with not just one round but, that second after his nightmare, leaving you both exhausted and a naked mess in his sheets. It was the first time you woken up without a lingering nightmare in your vision. Without your heart racing with aniexty. It was, nice…
Looking over at the man that had left you a crumbled mess in his bed you let your fingers graze across his face. Your index finger slowly tracing the scar across his cheek, nose, lip. In the light of day they were easier to see and looked even more beautiful along his face. His deep breathing reassuring you that he wouldn't stir from your simple touch. He was beautiful, heartbreakingly so up this close. Your fingers ran over his head, through his greying waves and down the side of his neck to his naked shoulder. The scars here were deeper, more gnarled with poor execution of stitching or healing. Some ran the length of his bicep, some just speckled over his skin. He was a canvas of torn flesh and marred skin, but he was still beautiful. Whatever happened to him in his past he became better for it, coming out on the other side. That in itself was beautiful…
Leaning towards his face you plant a small kiss to his lips. He hums in his sleep, reaching out to wrap you in his large arms but, you're able to move a bit quicker than his slow, sleepy movements. You needed to use the bathroom and figured getting coffee and maybe some breakfast would be a good way for him to wake up. You were definitely starving after he put your body through the excursions it went through last night.
Your grabbed his shirt that was tossed off to the side last night and stopped remembering what he had used it for… Unable to help yourself from the large smile the lifted to your face you went into his first dresser drawer. Underwear, some socks. You went to the next and let out a relieved sigh that you didn't have to search much longer. Another green shift lay on top of others looking all the same as the one that lay dirty on the floor. If anything he was a simple man… Made him that much more charming. You put it on, lifting the collar to your nose for a long breath of him. It was wondering and you didn't know if it was just coming off your skin or his shirt. Either way you didn't care, and couldn't get enough of it. You searched quickly for your underwear that was thrown off somewhere in his room before he ate the soul from your body and put them on. It wasn't exactly modest but, you didn't want to just be in his kitchen naked, especially if Pam decided to drop Rose off a little early…
Going into his kitchen you familiarized yourself with everything. Where he kept things, coffee mugs and sugar. Where his skillets were. After cooking for him and Rose as many times as you did it was easy to figure out the lay of his little land. You checked your phone, knowing no one would be calling or checking in, not that you minded and put on a playlist to help you cook. It was quiet and lovely as the coffee brewed and the breakfast sizzled.
Karl rolled onto his back, feeling for your body in the cooling sheets. His hand searched out for you before opening an eye when he didn't feel you there. His head perked up and noticed that your clothing was still left around his room and then the wonderful smell of bacon and coffee wafted to him. Jesus, you had throughly worn him out last night which was a feat in itself and now you're making him breakfast? There's no way you were real.
Getting up he slipped on some sweatpants and made his way down to the kitchen. You were humming to some music playing off your phone and dancing around his kitchen like you were made to be there. Coffee just finishing brewing with a beep and you had placed a stack of bacon on the kitchen island.
"Oh, morning…" You greet him when you go to place a paper towel over the bacon to collect the extra grease. "Sleep… Ok?" You ask, moving closer to him. He looks your body up and down, noticing his shirt on you, making his stomach ignite.
"Slept great actually…" He hums, grabbing a piece of bacon from off the top of the stack before moving in closer to you. "You didn't have to do…"
"I wanted to." You shrug as he sighs, tilting his head down to your neck. It seemed that this was something he was going to be doing from now on. Hiding his face and emotions from you with a gently kiss against your pulse. But, you weren't going to demand anything from him. He was still moving at his pace and you were fine with that. After last night you're fine with anything. As long as he doesn't ask for you to leave.
"I know." He breaths, dragging the tip of his nose from your neck up into your hair. You smelt so wonderful, filling his head of the dreams he was able to finally have after decades of nightmares. Dreams of you, just you smiling and surrounding him. Rose's laughter in the background and you're smiling face pulling him deeper into a restful sleep. He wasn't sure of a time that he slept that peacefully. Maybe the night that Miranda finally died. The image of her icy eyes going black and fading to nothing, her body laying limp beneath him. But, even then he worried it was all just that, a dream. Even in the mist of dreaming he couldn't let himself know that it was real. That she was gone. He had to always be a thousand steps ahead of her or else he would end up under her thumb, being her pawn once again.
You let him just hold you, his breaths slow and steady as his hands circled around your waist. Your body warmed from the thoughts of last night, those hands that wrapped around you leaving you a moaning panting mess only hours before. His breath in your ear reminding you of the groans and pants he sounded in them earlier.
Your hands reached up around his shoulders, pulling him closer to you. Your head leaning back to catch his face, watching as his jade eyes swirling with molten gold fell on yours. Your hand traced his cheek, nose and lip much like you had done upon first awaking. His eyes looked lost, almost asking for you to take the lead in this moment. A moment of softness he wasn't at all used to. Pressing up onto the balls of your feet your lips met his. It wasn't hungry, it wasn't fast, it wasn't anything but a slow, caring kiss. His mouth opened on your own, letting your tongues dance with each other before the grip on your waist tightened. His body moved you backwards until you felt the familiar hard countertop. His hands reaching down and lifting you up easily as he continued to move his lips over yours. His hands at your waist moving up and down your thighs, up and over your hips to your lower back and then back again leaving that familiar, intoxicating heat in their wake. His hips pressed flush to your own, pressing his already hardened member into the dampness of your panties. You were sore, but the idea of him filling you. Taking you in the kitchen where that first kiss happened, where you brought him his first meal for fixing your car, where this had all started was beautiful, serendipities almost.
He pulled aside your panties and let the hem of his sweatpants fall to lift himself out of the loose fabric. He slipped inside of you easily. Your body already so used to him and fitting him like a goddamn glove. He rocked against you slowly, not rushed or needy. As though he just wanted to be buried in your heat and stay there. His thumb gently stroked your clit, back and forth making wanting pants leave your lips. His mouth still latched onto your own allowing you breaths when you needed them. His hands reached to your backside, moving you along his length in slow steady movements. Its was maddening but, felt so fuckin' good.
"Karl…" You moan out gently, your hands gripping into his shoulders as his pace quickens that much more.
"Fuckin hell, have I told you how much I fuckin' love hearing my name come off those lips?" He asks in an growling tone. "Say it again." He hisses, his lips nipping at yours as you smile, shifting your weight to you're now pushing back on him.
"Karl…" You purr as his head falls back. His mouth dropping open as a low steady moans leaves his chest. His hips start to thrust and jerk into you, heavy and slow making your head dizzy and eyes roll back. He fucked you so slowly, so carefully it wasn't like he was fucking you at all. The implications made your stomach twist and heat. His mouth panting and kissing along your cheeks, neck, lips made you match his lazy kisses. Your mouths just missing each other on another pass as he moved to your cheek and you moved to his neck. Never touching just panting into the other as his eyes remained clenched tightly. You lifted your hand from his shoulder, nails leaving marks against his skin to brush your thumb along his handsome face. His eyes opened slowly on yours, his forehead pressing into your own as he panted into your mouth.
"I don't think I'm gonna get enough of you…" He breathed as you moaned back, trying to shift your hips to meet his with each heavy, slow thrust.
"I hope not…" You say with a smile as he places his head back against your neck, hiding himself away from you and the emotions that he didn't want you to see shift across his face.
Soon the movements, slow and steady became too much. He needed to move faster, he needed to feel you tighten and flutter around him. His arm lifted your knee up and over his bicep, allowing your other knee to follow. Your body folded in half up against him on the counter. His thumb moved quicker against your clit. His hips rocking into your own. You tried to keep your moans down, biting your bottom lip as you watched his thick cock enter and leave your core. His eyes followed yours to watch your bodies meet. The slick that gathered along his cock as he pushed into you. The beauitful scent and sounds that squelched as he moved deeper inside of you. It was mesmerizing. He moved faster, his thumb matching his hips as your body started to ignite and clench. That familiar cliff coming into view as he chased you down it. Your body fluttering and clenching around his own. He pulled out, cumming along your clit, pulsing the warm of him against your sensitive flesh.
You both panted for a moment as you felt the warmth of him slide down between your lips onto the counter. It was surreal. The counter that you had leaned against so many times was going to look a little differently now. He lifted himself up off of you, tucking himself back into his loose sweatpants. He reached over to the sink, taking a hand towel to clean you off gently. Your body shuttering and flinching to the terry cloth against your sensitive flesh.
"Did you want eggs or pancakes?" You ask, your face beautifully flushed, pink cheeks and eyes alight. He chuckled, shaking his head and helping you down off the counter.
"Eggs sound good."
The two of you ate, drinking your coffee and nibbling on bacon as you sat next to each other. Your hand reaching out every now and again to trace a scar along his arm or chest. His eyes watching you intently each time. He was waiting for you to ask where he got them. What happened to him? But, it never came. Only loving caresses against his scarred flesh.
"I should probably go wash up before Rose gets home..." You say gently, taking the breakfast dishes and placing them in the sink.
"Oh... Yeah. Um... You're gonna come back over... After?" He asks, helping you with the dishes. He places his own in the sink, trapping your body between him and the counter. His eyes soft and wanting as they reach yours.
"Whatever you want..." You answer, lifting your hand to his cheek. You let your thumb trace slowly across his X marked scar along his flesh. His head tilts into your touch.
"I want you to come back." He says, grasping your wrist in his hand, lifting it to his lips. His nose trailing along the delicate flesh of the inside of your wrist to your palm where he leaves a gentle kiss.
"Then I'll be back." You say, pushing up against your toes to capture his lips in a kiss.
"I... Uh, I have to finish that guys car. I told him I'd have it done by the end of the week. So... Maybe dinner?" He asks with a small wince in his expression. So unlike the confident, boisterous Lord he once was.
"Dinner is good." You smile as his shoulders sag a bit, as though he was holding tension, awaiting for your disapproval or rejection. Your hands clasp around his face, your lips meeting his again. "I'm gonna keep this." You say, tugging on the shirt your were wearing, his shirt. A smile lifts across his face as he nods.
"As long as I get to keep those." He counters with an arched brow, slipping his finger along the seam of your moist panties. Your body shutters, keeping your eyes locked in his you take them down your legs. You hold them, rolling them into a ball before putting them into his sweatpants pocket.
"Deal. Oh..." You say, before turning to go back upstairs to gather your things. "You should probably wash your shirt..." You smile as his head tilts for a moment before realization eases over his face.
"Yeah... I don't think I will..." He smirks.
Gathering what clothing you had left you make your way to your yard. You go out the back still not wanting prying eyes to know too much about your and Karl's growing relationship.
You scan the area before you do a double take. Your eyes lifted, noticing a large black SUV parked on the side of the street, across from your house. Your watch it for a moment before the car starts up, turns and drives off. Weird. Maybe the Johnson's got a new car? Shaking it off you go home and go upstairs. Tossing Karl's shirt straight onto your bed. You wanted to roll around in your sheets for a bit, hoping the smell of him would rub off on them for the next time you had to sleep alone. But even that seems a bit much for you... Plus. If you could get him in your bed that would be much better.
Taking a shower you relived the morning and the night. Your hands touching spots on your neck and chest that were littered with bruises from his mouth. The sensitivity between your legs grew once you got out of the hot shower. He had thoroughly destroyed you, and you wouldn't want it any other way.
Still your mind didn't forget his daughter and those small complications, if you can even call them that. Would she be OK with this? You remembered bring him over dinner and her wanting you to stay, even going as far as to light candles for the two of you? Did she even understand what she was doing, or was she just being cute? Does she really want you? Does he?
The small insecurities that have ruined you your entire life start to circle your head like a hungry shark. Your heart feels heavy in your chest, weighed with doubt. You wanted this, you wanted it so much that you didn't even think of if he wanted it? What it all meant? He did say he wanted it… He told you. But, what would happen if Rose didn’t? She was his whole world. What happens when you enter it and fuck everything up?
With a sigh you shake your head. You couldn't let this ruin something that has been so bright in your life. You couldn't let you ruin it. Not with the poison that sat heavy in your own mind. Not with this. This was yours.