Villains: Associate!

Chapter 1

It had to be noon or probably even later; Frank had slept in, like he often did, after a closing shift at the cantina without Connie on the clock. She’d had a bunch of important stuff to do last night, dealing with all her enemies, but that didn’t make it any easier on him, having to pick up her slack while surrounded by idiots who could barely steer a mop bucket, and it didn’t help that he’d passed out on the couch again, not that the crummy mattress in his apartment was any better for back support. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the blinds, battered by time and likely a previous tenant’s cat, onto the matted living room carpet. His wasn’t the best place to live, and with his infernally-granted powers of persuasion, he could have convinced the landlord to fix it up if he ever had the free time, but that was the thing: he never did, and even when he did, he usually spent it recovering from whatever his crazy life had last demanded of him.

Shutting his eyes against the light, he rolled over on the cushions, tangling himself in the blanket as he did, and knocking the Restaurant Warehouse catalog off the armrest. Fuck. He was supposed to order the new silverware for work. Whatever. He’d slyly convince the chef that it could wait until next week. He’d get away with it. He was, well…him.

As he began to drift off again, something light settled into the cushions, pressed against the small of his back. He felt fingers ruffle his hair. At first, he was content to believe it was a dream, but then he turned over again in three scoots, and blinked blearily up into a pair of intelligent, shining brown eyes.

He’d given Connie his spare key back when they first started–dating? That was the way to put it that would make the most sense to anyone who’d asked. Because ‘she’s helping me fatten up in preparation for my quarterly flesh sacrifices to the demon who promised to make everything easier’ was almost certainly too much for most people.

“If it was anyone else, Connie Cole,” he teased, even as he sat up to pull her close, the soft heft of his middle folding comfortably over itself inside his shirt as he did.

“I know, I know, you’d tell me to ‘geddoutta here’.”

“You know we don’t really talk like that, right?”

“Whatever.” She bounced a bit in place, sending the ends of her damp, jet-black curls bobbing against the sleeves of her band shirt.

“It rained?”

“Yeah, earlier, but it stopped a little while after I left Caprisky’s lab. Anyway, I’ve got the check in the bank, Cece’s finally moving out of my place, I took care of Agent D…oh! And I talked to the Bloodhound!”

“Yeah?” he said, willing his voice not to crack with apprehension.

Connie smirked. “It’s over.”

His eyes widened. “He’s–?”

“Well, not dusted,” she clarified. “But your name’s off his books. He’ll never come knocking on your door for anything else, BUT, you get to keep the superpowers. Basically, you’re free.”

“You mean—?” His hand left her side and drifted his own, as if feeling for invisible wounds. God, the last sacrifice had been excruciating, but he’d been resigned, at the time, to have to do it again. Now, a warm breath of relief filled his lungs.

“Yes,” said Connie. “You get to–”

“Keep it? All of it?” he cut her off, unable to squash the note of hope out of his voice. “And maybe…a little more?”

A wider smile broke across her face as she leaned in closer, her cheek on his shoulder, her palm on his belly through the thin fabric of the shirt he’d slept in with what he could only describe as reverence. “Well, isn’t that music to my ears–I thought after I told you that, you might want to get back in shape again.”

“Are you kidding?” Back in the past, that was the outcome he might have hoped for. But that was before his trusty little barback, who secretly moonlighted as the sharpest criminal mastermind in Blackwater City, had enlisted herself as his accomplice in all of this.

In retrospect, it had been dumb of him to cling to vanity; nobody cared what he looked like under the veil of superhuman charisma. But still, it had taken the dastardly Crime Brulee to teach him all about the pleasure of indulgence…and the pleasure of HER pleasure.

“I wouldn’t want to part with a single pound,” he continued, “knowing how much you like me like this.”

“I don’t know if ‘like’ is the right word,” she said, and as the implication hit him, a warm flutter built up in his core…but he knew he couldn’t translate what she said into sentimental sap speak, not now, not out loud. She’d let him know when she was ready for that.

She leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek. “As long as that’s how you feel, though, I’m glad I stopped for breakfast!”

He didn’t want to let her go, and by the way she snuggled against him, he guessed she was in no hurry to get up, either, and knowing it only intensified the giddy rush building up inside him. But eventually, he let her pry herself from his embrace and saunter to the kitchen, where she must have been stashing her loot.

She returned with a big cup with a straw and a lid and a white cardstock box bearing the logo from the bakery on 7th, where she’d taken him a few times during his ‘bulk cycle’, this scratch-kitchen breakfast-and-brunch place with pastries the size of your head. His stomach gave an eager little growl, his mouth watering in anticipation as Connie pulled out a glistening croissant, still warm and wafting the aromas of butter and chocolate towards him.

If he told himself the truth, it was a relief to him that after the first sacrifice, excruciating as it had been, he still had something to show for it–he’d put on almost an even 60 pounds and after the demon had skimmed off what he wanted, he still had about an extra 20 to pad out his once-thin frame. What’s more, the appetite that Connie had helped him train remained intact, which would’ve only made it easier for him to ‘replenish his stores’ when he had to do it again.

It was an even bigger relief not to have to do it again.

“You sure know how to spoil a guy,” he said.

“My pleasure,” she replied, like she was talking to a table, but as she moved to hand him the pastry, he grabbed her around the wrist.

“Uh-uh.”

She cocked her head at an angle, confused. “Did you change your mind? Like just now? Because it’s okay to say you don’t want to gain any mo–”

That’s when he pulled her into his lap, her legs spread, straddling him. She fit there like she belonged there, and really, didn’t she? “I want you to feed it to me.”

Her mouth hung open for a second, but by the way her hips pressed firmer against the bottom of his belly, he could only guess that it was because she was so excited that in the moment, speech failed her.

“Do you remember the first time we did this?” she asked, breaking off a piece to thumb it gently past his lips. “You were so miserable.”

It took him a while to answer her; he was too busy chewing, swallowing, relishing the much-needed burst of sweetness, and, a second later, accepting a deep drink of creamy iced coffee as she raised the cup for him. “That’s because I was still used to eating like a bird, and that pizza was shitty. Besides, it felt a lot better once you gave this thing a nice rub.” He gave his belly a gentle smack, and didn’t miss the way her eyes dropped to watch it jiggle between them.

One by one, she fed him each of the pastries–a cream cheese and lemon curd danish, a blueberry scone, a square of cinnamon coffee cake. Bit by bit, the sugar rush lulled him into a woozy bliss. His stomach gently swelled, but it didn’t hurt like it used to. What once would’ve been a feast to incapacitate him with the force of a siege left him now only deliciously satisfied.

And what’s more, after weeks and weeks of Connie’s special attention, he could no longer stomach a big meal like that without springing an insistent boner.

Taking her cue, Connie hooked her thumbs under the waistband of his boxers and peeled them off of him.

Later on, they lay spent. Their clothes were on the floor, and so was the empty pastry box and the empty coffee cup, and there they were, Connie lying on top of Frank with her head resting on his chest, her breath coming quick. “I can’t believe it’s really over,” he murmured, low, into the last of the daylight.

“Yeah, about that…I know those were my words,” she said. “But you know that thing they say about how when one door closes–”

“Pry another one open, yeah, yeah, yeah.” He could only still sound so ‘New York Tough’ while he was petting her hair and letting her cuddle him like a favorite pillow, but it was worth a shot. “What have you got for me?”

“There’s someone you should meet. She was my getaway driver. We were texting, and we had this idea, and, I dunno, I think you’d like it. Also, is it gonna be a dealbreaker if I adopted a dog?”