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chronically-ghosted · 3 months

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you got your claws in me honey, like a tiger in love

rating: E for Explicit! 18+

word count: 8K

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

summary: you arrive at your estranged uncle's door. what else is there to do but catch up over grilled cheese? well, if you have anything to say about it, you might end up doing a bit more.

warnings: dbf!dieter, grilled cheese as a way to guilt trip your dad's best friend/uncle into fucking you, drug use (weed), raising arizona that comes with its own warning, flirting with someone twice your age, no smut — that’s what part 2 is for, reminiscing, a cliffhanger? 👀

a/n: the original fic came out MONTHS before the mcu rumors, so either i have precognition, or the apocalypse is becoming predicable. happy valentine's day you filthy animals because nothing says romance like porking your dad's best friend

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From the voicemail of Mr. Paul Landeau, official Hollywood talent manager and agent to one Mr. Dieter Bravo . . .

Tuesday, 6:43PM

No, I’m not doing it. I’m not.

There has to be something else out there. Look, I know Fire Monsters: A Cliff Beasts story didn’t do as well as we hoped, but Reddit says it could be a cult classic so why don’t you focus on making that happen, okay? Instead of giving me shit roles like this. I’m not doing it.

– the sound of a door opening and the phone being shuffled – – a zipper rips – – liquid pouring –

We fucking talked about this, man. I told you I needed something different, something new. Tiktok is just reels of me screaming and dying – it’s fucking bullshit –

– more liquid –

I’m done playing the fucking bad guy. I’m not signing any more headless action figures for those little snot-nosed, little fuckers in line. I’m not asking to sign their moms’ tits, either – okay, maybe – but Jesus Christ, Paul, what you sent over is, like, the opposite of where I need to be. It’s for little teeny boppers with one or two B horror movies under their belt to finally break out into the mainstream – or where actors over forty go to cash in an easy paycheck. And yes, I fucking know we need something, but fuck – is this really all there is?

– liquid stops pouring – – zipper rips – – the sound of a toilet flushing –

Don’t fucking call me back, Paul, unless you’ve got something. Something real.

Tuesday, 8:23PM

OW! Motherf–

– a skillet clattering –

Okay – fuck, that hurts – okay, Paul, what about this? It came to me in the bathroom. Remember Jack from the Christmas party at the studio’s place? So, he’s got those two Sundance films, right, but they’re in Spanish, so not appealing to an American audience. Nicki told me that he’s thinking about doing another project, one with a wider appeal, and I’m thinking I should totally give him a call. I think we could vibe. I really liked his stuff – reminded me of my old small town, fucking around with the neighbor kids, you know? Kinda hometown hero sort of thing.

– sharp inhale then a cough –

It’s not my usual thing, but I think we should give it a try. Gimme a call.

Oh, do you know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich? Been craving one but I think I might burn down my house if I try again and UberEats doesn’t reach the good places further south. Oh, fuck, wait –

Hey Google, how do you make a fucking excellent grilled cheese?

Tuesday, 9:21PM

No, fucking–

Siri – how.do.you.treat.a.burn?

Calling. . . Burger King . . .

No! Fuck!

Tuesday, 10:49PM

Paul-y! Baby! Paul-ito!

Don’t worry. I got an idea that’s going to make us a million dollars.

A shop that makes only grilled cheese. But like – fancy grilled cheese. What do the kids fucking call it, ah – boogie – yeah, boogie grilled cheese. Like gouda and white cheddar, and butter churned by blind nuns or some shit. Tomato soups that have been blessed by the Dalai Lama.

Big sign out front that says, Vegans Can Eat Shit.

They’ll eat it up.

Fuck yeah, they will.

– silence for three minutes and sixteen seconds –

Fuck acting, man. Fuck this place.

And fuck this fucking cheese that keeps burning – goddamn it!

Tuesday, 11:52PM

Paul, why don’t we hang out anymore?

When I got started, we hung out all the time, man.

Hot dogs on the Santa Monica pier. Beer in the Pacific Ocean.

You showed me all the cool spots that no one else in LA knew about. You got me my first bump and my first stripper. God, that was fucking wild, man, you remember? I was so nervous I thought I was going to throw up. Did I ever tell you that before? Coke probably didn’t help a kid from a small town in South Cali, but – fuck, it made me feel better. Like I could get my shit together if I really tried.

What, are you too good for me now – is that it? Am I not good enough for you, huh?

Look, I’ve got Raising Arizona on right now, so why don’t you come over with a six pack –

Oh, shit, that’s right. You got a fucking family now.

Not a good influence, ol’ Dee.

Not a good –

Wednesday, 1:05AM

Fine, Paul. Fine.

I’ll play Mr. Fantastic in the Fantastic Four reboot.

Dieter’s thumb brushes the red End Call button and tosses his phone onto the kitchen island with a growl. He can feel himself coming down from the bump earlier – a thing he absolutely did not want to happen – and he shoves his palms into his eye sockets.

There is more coke upstairs, but that would require him to walk through his very long hallways to get there. Very long, and dark, and empty hallways.

He should have asked Maria to stay once she was done with the laundry. He would have done it right too – big bowl of popcorn, fully dressed, with a sign around his neck that said, I promise I’m not trying to sleep with you.

He is becoming increasingly aware of how many erratic voicemails he just left for his agent, aware that behavior like that was libel to get him a sit down in Paul’s office with all the blinds and windows closed, Paul’s narrow face serious and using Concerned Emotion #5, as he asks, “do we need to go back to rehab, Dieter?”

We.

There once was a “we”, now there was just “he” – in a house with seven bedrooms and a pool that could fit a sixteen wheeler in it.

And TWO kitchens – why the fuck did he think he needed two kitchens –

Well, he knew he didn’t need two, but it would have been cool to show them off to someone – If there was anyone to show them off to . . .

Fuck this downer mood.

Dieter snatches up his phone again, and the movement brings up his latest apps. UberEats is the second one. He taps in a few keywords, blatantly ignoring his latest call list.

Goddamn Burger King . . .

The front doorbell rings.

Dieter frowns, pulling the screen closer under his big nose. Now, he knows he is high and he knows he should be wearing his glasses when reading but there’s no fucking way . . .

He goes out of the kitchen, the room still smelling of burnt cheese with the cast iron skillet in the sink and a black husk sticking to its bottom. He goes left, then right, his robe tightly wrapped around him as if he is some huffy housewife, then down a hall and across the marble entrance way – fuming – why is this house so goddamn huge – who thought this was a good idea?

And so he wrenches open the front door – to a girl, not holding a Burger King bag. No, she’s got a roller suitcase behind her, bright blue, and she and the case are dripping wet. Like, just sprayed with a hose kind of wet and her big bottom lip is trembling. Behind her, the sky pukes buckets of rain, groaning with thunder.

Now, he likes his call girls (he always thought it was classier to call them that) a little more . . . vampy than this, but hell, he had been turned on by much less than this— than her with her big eyes, fat droplets rolling off her lashes, flushed cheeks – and oh, shit, her shirt is totally see-through – is that purple, he feels the back of his mouth flush with spit – wow, is this Paul’s way of apology because –

“Uncle Dee?”

And he’s mentally shoving himself back into his pants because no one in years has called him that and that was a very different time in place, when he was a completely different person and if this girl is the person he thinks it is, then – Jesus Christ, he’s bound and gagged straight for hell –

He squeaks out your name and you smile, sort of grimace, at him and wave.

“Yep, it’s me. Been awhile, right?” You finally give into the mortification of your stupid plan and you scrunch up your face, your hand wrapped around your elbow. “Look, I’m so sorry, this is too weird. I don’t have your number, but I panicked when my flight got canceled and my phone’s dead and you’re the only person I know in LA and –,”

“No, no – you’re fine – sorry–,” Dieter blinks before stepping back and letting you through. You sigh in relief and yank your baby blue suitcase over the threshold as you walk in, dripping water everywhere. “Sorry, it’s been a weird night and for, like, two seconds, I thought . . . nevermind . . .”

I thought you were a fucking ghost.

You bite the corner of your lip, glancing at him, knowing it was probably unwise to piss off your one chance at not sleeping on the ground tonight — or if what you were about to say would piss him off in the first place.

“Yeah, well, it’s been eleven years since we last saw you, Uncle Dee.”

Early on in his career, he wanted to build up rep as not only an actor but a real tough guy, so he asked if he could do some stunts for an old cop show. For all his bravado, he ended up getting a real round-house kick to the face and it sent him reeling.

This feels a little bit like that.

“No way, it can’t have been that long. Besides, I know I left my number with your dad or your grandma before I left and —,”

His throat closes up when very old guilt washes over him. It’s intensified when you give him an uncomfortable look.

“So your dad didn’t give you my number then.”

It’s not a question. You shake your head. You don’t tell him that your dad tried to call years ago and got a busy tone for the first few, and then a few years after that, was brusquely informed the line had been disconnected.

He chews on his lip.

You try to smile at him again but then another shiver takes hold of you and Dieter grimaces. “Shit, sorry, one second. I think this closet down here has towels.”

He all but sprint-walks down one of the many halls branching off from the entrance, the ends of his robes flapping. You hear the creak of doors, several, as he digs around in the walls.

“Why do I have so many fucking linens?” You hear him grumble and you smile to yourself. You feel like you need to wring your hair out but wouldn’t dare move from the spot where he left you.

After a thump and more grumbling, he comes back, rubbing the back of his head, but holding out a giant lime green towel. In the light, you can see the dark circles under his eyes when you take the towel and immediately go to stop your hair from dripping on the marble.

His brain is waffling, ping ponging, between his memories and what is standing right in front of him. This? This is the little girl, not his literal blood relative, but she’s Enrico’s kid – Enrico, a slugger and one hell of a outfielder since he was eight years old, whose mom made enchiladas like nobody else in the goddamn world – Enrico, whose house became like a second home, Ricky's family a better family than his own – this is the same girl who hoarded Skittles like a fiend, the same one who he took to the pool on the weekends in the summer, and the zoo during Thanksgiving break? This little girl –

– is the same girl who is all legs under damp denim, eyes that could make Cleopatra fly into a jealous rage, and a fucking rockstar smile?

And, holy shit, those tits –

Dude, you cannot be checking her out. Dig deep and fight your fucking caveman brain. You’ve fucked up a lot in your life and you cannot do that right now. You cannot do that to Enrico.

You cannot do that to her.

You notice him grimace as he squints into the light of the chandelier above you both. “So, uh, not that I mind, but, uh, what are you doing here? I mean –,”

You laugh and it seems to echo in the empty house. “No, that’s a fair question. I was on a flight back from looking at colleges out east and my flight got grounded in LAX because of the storm. I absolutely don’t have enough money to stay in a hotel or rent a car and drive back home, so I needed a place to crash and call my sister to send me some money. And my stupid driver didn’t want to get flagged for harassing a celebrity, so he dropped me off at the corner, hence . . .”

You wave at yourself and inside his slippers, his toes curl, respectfully not looking at your damp legs and a definitely purple bra visible through your shirt.

Your mouth suddenly capsizes. “Shit, is that okay, if I stay here for a night? I didn’t even think - I - I’m not . . . interrupting anything, am I?”

Dieter chuckles, your expression undeniably cute, and he shoves his hands into the pockets of his robe.

“Nah. Not unless you call making the worst grilled cheese imaginable a party.”

At that moment, your stomach chooses to make the most aggressive growl in your entire life and you flush deeper than the cold outside.

“Apparently someone thinks that’s a good idea,” you chuckle weakly, horrified that your body is actively trying to sabotage a normal conversation.

Did it matter that you had posters of him in your bedroom when you were thirteen? That you went to midnight releases of every one of his movies?

No. Not at all.

“I got some food, mostly leftovers.” He worries at his lip as he realizes the only thing by way of something green in his fridge is the jar of olives he got for martinis. Even then, he has a sneaking suspicion he replaced the olive juice with vodka, but the memory of that night is entirely butchered. “But, uh, I’m sure we can find something.”

You smile at him. “Actually, grilled cheese sounds great.”

“Only if you do it.” He smiles, honestly, when you laugh. “What? Don’t laugh — I’m serious. I can’t make a sandwich to save my fucking life.”

“Pretty sure I can manage two slices of bread and cheese.”

His eyebrows jump as his lips press themselves together and you watch the thumb-sized bare spot on his beard twitch.

“Yeah, that’s what you think and then your goddamn kitchen is on fire.”

“Lemme change, do some rocket surgery and brain science, and then I’ll attempt to crack this grilled cheese thing.”

“Okay, but remember we do have Chinese leftovers and I can definitely crush a microwave. This way.”

You follow him through the halls, his shoulders loosening underneath the off-green fuzz, and you try and not to stare at the immaculately beautiful walls and expansive, clean floors, so your eyes wander, and then you’re trying not to stare at the immaculately beautiful man in front of you.

You push away the thought that this house looks nothing like you’d expect someone like Dieter to have, as he leads you to the kitchen — all black and chrome and steel, like what a Norwegian serial killer would have — and nods to a door towards the opposite wall. He’s digging around for the last slices of white bread when he says,

“Bathroom’s down there. I’ll get it all ready, but I’m leaving it up to you. Can’t afford to lose another pan.”

Your eyes finally drift down from the bare walls, unsure if you should be offended that nothing of the family back home is here, or accept that there was just nothing personal anywhere. You smile gently at him and nod in thanks.

He watches you go, that bright blue suitcase flashing as loud as a tornado siren, and he shakes his head. God, he needs a drink but drinking also makes him horny and he needs every mental facility available to him if he wis going to make it through this night with his sanity still intact.

Had it really been eleven years? He always meant to call up Enrico and the old neighborhood gang. He probably forgot about that last fight anyway – even if Dieter hadn’t – even if it wasn’t more than a decade ago. Mama Gonzales always said there’d be a place for him, even after his own father said acting was for maricos and drag queens. It always hurt more when the postcards from the Gonzales family stopped coming than when Mom stopped calling. And he always meant to send back a proper return address when he moved out of that crappy loft after his first real movie premiere but that was the 90s, and much of the 90s was spent between working shit jobs and drooling on the floors of rave warehouses. It wasn’t them specifically he didn’t want to see him like that, but anyone. Anyone who knew him before Dieter Bravo.

Certainly not anyone who called him Uncle Dee —

Something flashes in the corner of his eye and he realizes he’s always fucking hated the fact that the a) the back of his house is just one big window and b) he never bothered to put in curtains. Because, the thing with windows is they reflect things — things like his pseudo-niece taking her top off in his guest bathroom. Reflected and in full color right across his kitchen island like the sexiest hologram that will haunt his fucking wet dreams until the day hell freezes over.

Yep, that’s definitely your hips, your ribs, and okay—

Nope. Absolutely not.

Dieter’s knees give out and he crouches (more like slumps) to the floor behind the island, his palms so far in his eye sockets he can only see stars.

Yeah, only stars. Focus on the stars, not the image of the curve of your gorgeous tits that’s running around his brain like a child with scissors and a Thanatos instinct off the fucking charts.

Fuck, and he just wanted to get high and watch Nicholas Cage in a mullet.

“Hey, I’m done. Dee, you still here?”

He stifles a groan and stands up. You smile at him, the wet jeans and agonizing white tank top gone, only to be replaced by a black Fleetwood Mac tshirt and — fuck, where are your pants?

You lower the handle to your suitcase and go to stow by the bathroom door. And that’s when he realizes you are actually wearing pants, black shorts that are practically hidden by the oversized t-shirt and are comically, hilariously, painfully small. He can’t actually see the curve of your ass as you walk around the side of the island but he is absolutely not going to let his gaze linger long enough to confirm.

He clears his throat as you come to stand beside him. He gestures to the four pieces of white bread and a stack of Crafts American cheese.

“H-h-have —,” he clears his throat again and his forebearers groan collectively in embarrassment. “Have at it.”

You smile and tuck your hair over your ear before picking up the knife.

“D’you have mayonnaise? Butter?”

No amount of irredeemable hotness can distract him from that. “What? What do you need mayonnaise for? It’s grilled cheese.”

You cluck your tongue, an eyebrow raised. “Brain science and rocket surgery, remember? Don’t question the master.”

He can’t help but chuckle as he goes to his steel monolith of a fridge.

“Jeez, sorry, I asked,” he grumbles playfully.

He comes back with an (thankfully) unexpired jar and tub of butter and you get to work. Silence stretches a bit too long, something Dieter has never been good with, especially with beautiful women. He loves running his mouth and sometimes he's found that the women liked it too. He resigns himself to sit across from you at the island, watching you spread mayonnaise on both sides of the bread.

“So, uh, how are the folks? How’s your, uh, dad?”

You nod slowly and even though he hasn’t been around in eleven years to pick up on all your tells, he swears your hackles go up.

“Fine. All good. Dad’s still at the car repair shop — owns it now, actually. Makes decent money, I guess.”

“You guess?” He hadn’t made it his life’s work to mimic the human condition to not recognize cagey language.

You glance at him briefly before flipping over the last piece of bread and dropping a dollop of mayonnaise on top.

“Yeah. I — uh, we haven’t — I actually haven’t talked to them in a while. Though if I had, I probably wouldn’t be here right now.” You sneak another glance, this one ladened with a smile that had a secret curled up in its corners. “Serves me right, probably.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

He can’t help but return the smile, one of a familiarity he hasn’t earned yet. You were smiling at him as if you two had years of secrets together, memories and inside jokes that were for the pair of you alone. For the life of him and all the water in his ridiculous pool, he couldn’t fathom why you were being so nice to him. Letting him off the hook. It had been eleven fucking years after all. There are a lot of things he takes guilt free from the world. Your fucking star-eyed smile is not one of them.

So, he lets you off the hook. He doesn’t push it. If you don’t want to talk about your folks, he is happy to chatter aimlessly about something else. But, his brain winds up, what happened that caused you to fall out with your parents? Enrico, even back then, had been a hard ass, with you and your brothers. Always made sure to walk the straight and narrow. Detested drugs, always shined his shoes, thought tattoos were the devil, never kissed a girl on the first date —

And here you are, making fucking mooneyes at his daughter.

Well, one thing was for sure, he muses, something warm spreading in his gut, you are nothing like your daddy.

The hiss of the bread hitting the hot butter in a pan (you didn’t even need to ask where another pan was, you just helped yourself to his cabinets and he couldn’t have been more proud) jerks him out of his daze and he realizes that annoying silence has set in again.

“So, colleges, huh? Anything in particular spark interest?”

You nod excitedly as he found a topic that made you glow. Clearly, no one had asked about your interests in a long time.

“Yeah, actually. Emerson in Boston was amazing. I loved the city, but not sure I’d survive the winter. Swarthmore sounds good, Amherst too, but again, cold.” You grin sheepishly and flip the sandwiches, pressing the spatula (he didn’t even know he owned one of those) into the bread, making the butter sizzle and the air fill with a smell that can only be described as mouth-watering.

“It’ll be a nightmare, taking out loans for those places, but fuck, I think I’d be really happy there.”

He leans against the counter, facing you with crossed arms. He smiles a smile that he knows doesn’t reach his eyes.

“What, your folks wouldn’t pay for it? Or at least help out?”

Something sharp flashes in your eyes, like a rabbit catching the scent of a predator, before you shrug your shoulders flippantly. A well-worn deflection, he notes, right next to the place where he’s got all the places you mentioned are about as far away from California as possible. If you had mentioned somewhere in Europe, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Nah. I wouldn’t let them. Don’t want them thinking they get input into my life because they hold the purse strings over my head.” You turn off the stove and he moves to get the plates out from the cabinets – something to contribute as you made him a better meal than he’s had in ages.

“So, uh, we eat in there?” You glance down the hall to the eerily clean dining room, a place he’s pretty sure he’s never once set foot in after three years of living in this goddamn mansion.

He chuckles and shakes his head. “C’mon, I already have a movie picked out.”

You follow him, plates hot, down carpeted stairs to clearly the only room in the house that Dieter actually lives in. The lights down here are low, much more bearable than the white spotlights of the kitchen. Against one wall, there’s a fully stocked bar, with most of the alcohol halfway empty and costing a fortune. Across from the stairs is a massive record collection, going up to the ceiling, next to a gorgeous old record player — all wood and black vinyl — with big, plushy earphones curled up on a black leather recliner.

But the star of the show is the wall-to-ceiling television, with a brown, mouse-soft leather sofa that wraps like a giddy, up-turned grin in front of it.

And of course, in between the superstar television and the cozy couch, is a low glass table where he had snorted lines of coke more times he could count and where a virgin joint sits, unsmoked and tempting.

Dieter flushes as though he’d been caught by his parents with his pants down around his ankles.

“Fuck, sorry–,” he rushes over, the plate clattering with the glass, and he reaches for the joint, ready to squish it into his pocket when–

You laugh. “Relax, Dee, I know what a joint is. In fact, we are very well acquainted.”

You fold yourself into the couch, legs crossed, grinning at him as you bite into your sandwich.

He swallows, unclenching slightly as he sits down next to you. He watches you eat for a moment, trying to think of something cool to say.

“Sounds like I’ve missed my calling as the fun uncle, getting you high for the first time and all that.”

You snort and swallow your mouthful. “Yeah, by like two fucking years.”

“Oh, what a fucking lifetime. You poor thing,” he says, pouting dramatically and you giggle again, bumping into his shoulder. It sends his sanity knocking around in his brain.

You don’t notice, though, your eyes falling to the joint in the small ceramic bowl. The smile slides from your face.

“Well, you might have missed my first joint, but I’d be more than happy to take this one as my next.”

His eyebrows practically bounce off his forehead. “You’re serious?”

Your eyes slide away from the joint to his, something distractingly dark hiding there. “I mean, if the parties on your Instagram are anything to go by . . . And, well, when in Rome . . .”

You trail off, smirking, gesturing around you as if you had any idea the levels of debauchery that were obtained in this very room. Come to think of it, he halfway considers picking you up off the couch and putting a towel down underneath your perfect ass.

This is how it went sometimes, with the slower hook ups. No wet clothes, or grilled cheese, or bringing up family trauma — but initial touches, curling smiles, and then drugs. Always drugs. As if there needed to be another hand that tore off the cap of the pressurized, fizzy soda bottle. He’d play music then, for them, to show off his vinyl collection and have a plausible reason to rub his dick between their ass cheeks while dancing slowly to something croon-y from the seventies.

Not that any of that would be happening with you.

He wasn’t a complete monster after all.

With a playful grin that he had mastered over many press junkets, he snatches up the joint and lighter, and presents both to you in the flat of his hand.

“First hit goes to you, since you were so kind to make dinner for an old fuck like me.”

You snort and put your plate onto the table, wiping your hands free of crumbs on your black shirt.

“Such a gentleman.”

With deft and practiced hands, you take the joint between your index finger and your thumb, and sparking the lighter, brought the flame to your lips.

Just for one second, one goddamn second, he swears he saw The Look reflected in your eyes. He glances away, his cock fluttering awake like goddamn Lassy hearing the calls of another well-begotten child. He picks up his own plate.

“Hardly. It was all a ploy to get you to admit you follow me on Instagram.”

You burst out coughing, smoke chugging from your nose and mouth. “Dieter!”

He cackles, his tongue between his teeth, as you shove him away from you — do not think about her fingers clenched around your bicep — try to sit up and inhale again. You hang your head and groan.

“Fuck, I can’t believe I said that.”

“Yeah, and for that, I get two puffs,” he says out of the corner of his mouth, the rest of it full of the most perfectly cooked grilled cheese sandwich he’d ever had. He finishes chewing and swallows. “Hand it over, princess.”

You hand over the lighter and the joint, the paper slightly greasy from your fingers, leaning back dramatically into one of the many plushy cup holder seats spread out along the very long couch.

He chuckles devilishly again, far too satisfied, as he lights up and leans back into the cushions.

“And, as gesture of goodwill, I’ll admit that’s a good fucking grilled cheese.”

Your eyes snap open and a wide grin splits your face. “Hell yes! Mayonnaise on both sides, butter on the side with cheese. Best family recipe. Mwah!”

“Fuck, even I know that’s too much cholesterol for me,” he grunts and digs into the cushions, feeling around for the remote.

“Well, that’s not enough cholesterol for me,” you wink as you take the joint from the hand on his thigh, eyes daring you to do something about it. Nowhere near high enough to take the bait, he just narrows his eyes at you as he clicks the button and the entertainment system comes to life with a primordial hum.

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter, eyes wide, as the speakers roar and the lights dim further and the screen glows, “it’s like I’m in a fucking movie theater . . . in space.”

“It’s great, right?” Dieter moans like a loving father over his first child. This thing is his pride and joy, the only thing he could stomach in this goddamn house.

The DVD buffer for Raising Arizona begins and you squeal quietly, sliding onto your back, the joint dangling between your lips.

“No fucking way, I love this movie.”

Dieter stilled. “Really? You do?”

The few times he felt nostalgic for his old life — his old, old life when he was still a kid from nowhere, a nobody, you couldn’t pick him out of a line up of his sweaty, grubby cousins when they were all cobbled together like crooked teeth in front of Abuela Josefina’s television that still had knobs and bunny ears to watch movie after movie of Nicholas Cage reruns. Even with knees in his back, elbows in his ears, Dieter could quote every single line, his heart swelling.

That’s gonna be me some day.

“This movie is from, like, another century,” he mutters as he watches you settle in, something sickening like adoration clawing up in his chest.

“Yeah and it’s great,” you say eagerly, ignoring the way he plucks the joint out of your fingers. “Put it on!”

He resolutely ignores the pinch in his low stomach at your almost whine and presseS the play button with a little more force than necessary. Then, balancing the joint on the ceramic bowl, he sticks his fingers into his robe, pulls out his glasses, and puts them on without a second thought – just as he always did when watching movies.

It is only when he realizes he doesn’t hear you breathing that he realizes what he has done. Slowly he pulls the square glasses off his face and looks at them, feeling as disgusted as the day his doctor put them in his hands.

Near-sighted. Very common. Happens when people as they age.

“Got ‘em–,” his throat closes again, “got ‘em a few years ago. Only have to wear ‘em to see things up close and, uh . . . Well, I think they make me look old as shit.”

He can’t quite look at you, unsure what he’ll see on your face and knowing for sure that he couldn’t stand it if it wasn’t the way you look at him before. If you just would tease him about it, then —

“No,” you say, your voice very soft and small. His heart nearly punches out his throat, his neck nearly snapping in half as his head whips up to look at you. You sit up on your elbows, the darkness of the room cushioning your soft cheeks and muting the glaze in your eyes as you watch him over the bend of your knees.

“Nah,” you say, your nose scrunching, the weight of the high clearly settling into your skin, “they make you look . . . Uh, they’re cute.”

Dieter sucks in the side of his cheek, nodding slowly and sliding the glasses back over his nose. Cute, he could work with that.

“Jeez, would you start the movie already?” You poke his side with your toe. He doesn’t need to look at you to hear the faint blush in your voice.

He turns the volume up and crosses his arms, smiling faintly. You’re warm next to him, he thinks vaguely, his own high finally starting to sink into his bones.

Cute. Definitely not a word he’s going to obsess over.

The movie goes on.

Nicholas Cage is Nicholas Cage with a mullet.

Your laugh is the clattering of bells in his ears and he can’t remember the last time he laughed so hard his sides hurt.

He’s coming up from bent over, knees almost to his chest, laughter nearly popping his ribs, when he realizes your feet are in his lap. The arches of your soles, the delicate bones of your ankles, the long smooth planes that run up to your gorgeous calves—

They are there, in his lap, and you don’t seem to mind. Head turned towards the screen, face bright from laughing, your arm arched back over your head, pressing your chest up — it’s like you meant for them to be there.

It’s just one hand, right? Two at the most. Just putting his hands down where he had them a moment ago. Up and — down.

You don't flinch. His palm is on the arched top of your foot, the other just above your other ankle.

You do smile, but that might have been because of Nicholas Cage raging again.

And then, during another bout of giggles, he clutches your shin bone, wraps his fingers around your heel, and laughs and laughs and laughs.

You wipe the tears away from your eyes, the end credits rolling.

“Fuck, that’s a such a good movie.”

He swallows, swiping quickly under his glasses before taking them off and chucking them onto the table in front.

“You’re fucking right it is,” he says hoarsely, leaning forward and plucking up the last of the joint. He inhales, letting the smoke ease stifle the tears in the corner of his eyes, gulping down a breath before offering it to you.

You take it, distracted, eyes on the credits, the light from the screen glowing on your cheeks.

He presses up under your ankle with his middle finger. “What? You knew what was gonna happen, you’d said you’d seen it before.”

You nodded, still not looking at him.

He goes for a more direct approach. He pinches your calf, and you scowl, the light back in your eyes.

“What are you thinking about?” He asks, a bit sharply. He’s not nearly done having fun with you, not nearly. You take another sip of smoke before setting the joint back on the table.

You huff, settling onto your back, pinching at your nails.

“Just . . . Nothing, it’s stupid.”

Dieter hums. He knows when to let him come to you. He taps the arch of your foot.

“How are you feeling?” His gaze nudges the joint on the table.

You grin. “Really good. Tingly. Warm. Like everything else is a million miles away.”

Just the two of us.

“Enough to tell ol’ Uncle Dee what’s on your mind?”

You roll your eyes and sit up a bit, yanking a pillow behind you.

“Just thinkin’ about the old days, I guess.” You glance up at him from under your eyes. “Not in a bad way. At all. I just . . .”

“What?” If you gave him hell for the last eleven years, then fuck it, he deserved it. He pulls at your ankle. “What?”

With a big sigh, you lean back, something finally breaking and, with it, comes a great big smile.

“Okay, remember when you’d put on those plays with the rest of us kids during those super lame family reunions o-o-or Christmas? Marissa would have everything written out, all the cousins cast and you’d beg her to let you play – fucking – Bear Number 5 or something ridiculous – and she’d fight you on it but she’d relent, always putting on a show of her own – as if a ten year old could be put out like that.” You giggled, biting on your thumb, a sparkling in your eyes that made something in his chest burn.

Yes, he remembers the incredibly stupid fuzzy ears and the bear claw mittens. The fake roaring. TMZ would have a fucking stroke if those pictures of him, baby-faced, were to ever surface online. He smiles at you and basks in the warmth of those memories, his high making them brighter.

“I think it would have crushed her little heart if you didn’t ask,” you said, heavy-lidded eyes on you again. “I know it broke her when you stopped showing up at all.”

His heart actually pinches at that. He knows you’re not scolding him but fuck, maybe he’d feel better if you did. What a fucking idiot he was, for leaving all of that for empty mansions and meals from UberEats and all this fucking gunked up shit in his veins that made him feel older and older every year. Like he was chasing something that was never real in the first place.

“Look, honey,” the pet name is out of his mouth before he can stop it. He’s twisting towards you, both hands under your calves now. “I should have called. Should have made sure that at least you knew where to find me, even if things between your dad and I were fucked.”

“Oh, God, Dee, no. I don’t blame you. I don’t even blame my dad, sometimes. You just were very different people. He’s fine living his life in the same small ass town in the middle of nowhere. But you weren’t. And, fuck . . . I’m not either.”

He frowns. You bite your lip and continue.

“You know, I thought about following you out to Hollywood. Because of those plays. I had the best fucking time doing them and Hollywood didn’t seem so scary . . . with Uncle Dee out here. But, uh, I dunno. I grew up, I guess. Figured I was better at telling stories than performing them. I just knew I didn’t want to end up like my dad. Dying where I lived. Unremembered.”

His gut doubles in on itself. Please don’t say you gave up your dreams because I stopped calling.

“Do you still think about acting?” He asks quietly, trying to fight the faint ringing in his ears.

“Oh God, no,” you wave your hands, dusting away his near-panic that he’d somehow ruined your life. “I really do prefer writing stories, even if they exist only within the pages of a book. Or a really bad pamphlet, once or twice. I tried to continue the plays at home for a few years, after you left and Marissa took up cheerleading and thought she was too old to play with her little cousins anymore. But it just wasn’t the same without her. Or you.”

He realizes all too late that he can feel your pulse under your ankle. Strong. Pounding. Pounding, hard. Like you’re nervous. So struck by the notion that he can feel something so personal of yours, the smoke trapped in his brain lifts only slightly when he catches your eyes looking somewhere you absolutely should not be.

Oh, fuck.

Oh, fuck, he knows that look. You blink at him, then your gaze slowly slides down, down to his crotch, as smoothly you can beneath the weight of the smoke in your brain and he battles between the desire to throw your legs off him or pull you underneath him.

It’s The Look.

Men, women, it didn’t matter. The look was the same.

When the possibility of sex first enters their mind, when that first bloom of lust rushes down their spine and the memory of the physical exertion of fucking – all the panting and the heavy breathing, aching muscles and sweat – comes back, as real as a song stuck in your head. When that spark of imagination threatens to sway from the hypothetical to the actual, it’s a look he knows so fucking well, he might as well be able to carve it from clay, blind-folded.

And you’re giving it to him, right now.

You haven’t really thought about seducing him yet, no, that part hasn’t crossed your mind yet. But you definitely are imagining what his cock would feel like inside you, and you and your imagination and your wide-eyed gaze at his lap all whole-heartedly agreed: that would be a great fucking thing.

You, on your elbows, your heel dangerously close to his half-hard cock, the glaze in your eyes having something to do with what you were so shamelessly picturing, and your short breath having everything to do with what you were so shamelessly picturing.

He was quite sure you were completely unaware of the expression your face was making. Eyes hooded, mouth parted, breath short. Masking your emotions and filthy thoughts is a skill set mastered later in life and perhaps the last time you looked at someone like that, they simply bent you over the nearest surface and railed you till your knees buckled.

What a fucking excellent idea, his libido trilled. Now get off the couch and do something about it. I’m foaming at the fucking mouth here, man.

Dieter silences his inner horny monster, unintentionally squeezing his hand, the one that happens to be wrapped around your calf.

The movement seems to break you out of your dizzying spiral and you blink up at him.

He swallows. With a half smirk on the edge of your lips that you try to not let him see, you take your feet out of his lap, then reach forward, your palm alarmingly high on his thigh as you take the joint from his fingers. Your eyes flash like warning signs.

DANGER. DANGER, WILL ROBINSON. DANGER.

“So, you gonna give me a tour of this place or what?”

End of Part 1 | Next

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