Chapter 11
Bang, bang, bang.
With a flick of my fingers against the keys, I reloaded my gun.
It was pretty rare in Kill Floor for a survivor class character to have the ability to obtain a weapon more powerful than a knife, but I’d figured out a trick to get the special item pretty early into the match and had been exploiting it ever since.
A few more moments, and I rounded a corner as I chased after the killer in an attempt to give my teammates enough time to unlock the keypad and set us loose, winning the game.
The timer at the top of the screen counted down steadily as I aimed again with the mouse, the familiar tightness I associated with the thrill of an imminent win swelling in my chest.
I didn’t have many bullets left, but I didn’t need them. Just one hit would be enough.
“You’re so fucking dead,” I laughed, about to drain the last of the Killer’s life points, forcing them to wait ten seconds to heal.
It was more than enough for us to finish this, the time he’d spend waiting to be able to move again would be invaluable, game wi—
“AH!!! FUCK!!” Jesse screamed in my ear, making me jump so hard that my shot went wide.
I groaned, slamming my mouse down in frustration. “Jess, you fucking scaredy cat! Get it together! Do you have any bullets you can drop me?”
“Sorry—sorry!” The panicked clicking and clacking of keys through Jesse’s hot microphone, along with their muttered cursing, told me that he’d been standing there as the killer rounded the corner.
“I just can’t seem to—AH! Leave me alone, you ugly bitch!
What is wrong with you!? I'm just a little guy! "
“You said you wanted to play, weenie!” I sighed, regretting for the millionth time using the limited time we had to game together on something that Jesse wasn't only terrible at, but genuinely found terrifying.
Jesse screamed again, and I pulled my headphone away from my ear before using our call window to lower his volume.
“I just wanted to play anything with you! You never show up to Tuesday night free play anymore. It’s fine—I’m fine! FUCK!" The warning for a teammate elimination flashed at the top of the screen just as they finished talking, sounding defeated and relieved at the same time. "I died!”
“Yeah, because I don’t want to make Eva uncomfortable…” I mumbled.
If you'd asked me a couple of days ago why I was avoiding everyone, I probably would've brought up Halloween.
But now?
The hurt in her eyes as I caught her wrist, asking her to stop, loomed too fresh in my memory.
I'd done the right thing, of course. It wasn't typical for alphas to pursue more than one omega at once, and even if we'd already sort of hooked up before…
It just didn't feel right to go ahead without first talking to Joon.
I was serious about him, and even if the omega didn't see himself packing up and forming a bond with us…
I did. And that was enough for me.
But Eva? I understood why she was upset, even if my reasons were above board. Being rejected by an alpha, especially one that was an obvious scent match, hurt. As much as I was a slave to hindbrain sometimes, so was she, and when I factored in the alcohol…
I needed to apologize. To explain myself.
If I could just work up the courage to send her a message, I would. But that was a feat I'd deemed impossible long before I knew what she looked like trembling around my omega's cock or covered in Marcus' cum.
“You won’t,” Jesse assured, a little too quietly now that I’d fiddled with my settings, and he was done screaming.
I busied myself with trying to find some more bullets. There wasn’t much time on the clock now, so the chances of winning were getting pretty slim, but I was too competitive not to try.
“Jesse…” We’d had this same conversation a lot over the last few months.
Ever since I’d watched my entire pack fuck the life out of Eva during her heat.
We'd made a lot of promises before taking her back to Omega's Lust, but the time it took for us to get her safely checked into the heat facility was enough for me to get a grip.
Make some decisions about my boundaries.
Maybe I'd fucked my chances in the process, but… I liked Eva. I didn't want the first time I touched her to have an audience. I enjoyed exhibitionism as much as the next guy, but some things were meant to be between alpha and omega alone.
A decision I stood by, especially now that I could recall the sweet, earthy taste of her kiss. The way her hands caressed my skin as I pulled her flush against my body in that bathroom.
“She asks about you,” Jesse said, making me pause—and get stabbed in the back. I’d been so focused on the beta that I hadn’t heard the footsteps behind me, watching as my HP steadily tracked down towards zero.
“Fuck!”
“Shouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“Not Eva, Jesse. I died,” I huffed, leaning back in my seat and scrubbing a hand along the back of my neck.
“I just… I didn’t want any of it to go down like that.
And now I’m pretty sure I blew my chance.
Besides, I’m with Joon, and he’s made it pretty clear that sharing is like… complicated for him.”
“Uh-huh,” Jesse said non-committally. “How many excuses have you come up with to avoid reaching out to her, weenie?”
“Would you cram it—”
“It’s about time right now. Why not just hop on the call for a minute? If it sucks, we can bail, and I’ll play as much of this with you as you want.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Jesse that it hurt more than helped to play together, my rank taking a nose dive with how poorly we did as a duo—mostly because of their inability to keep their hands on the keyboard instead of covering their eyes.
Looking through your fingers really wasn’t an effective way to push the objective towards victory. But Jesse was too much of a fraidy cat for PG-13 slashers, much less the stress of being in control of the murder victim themself.
“If I say yes, and you see it’s fucked, will you leave it alone?” I asked, the barest spark of hope flickering to life.
Maybe it would open the window for us to talk about the other day, if not about the whole heat thing. Break the ice a little.
“Yes!” Jesse said triumphantly. “Okay, bye! See you in there!”
I sighed as our private call disconnected, pinching the bridge of my nose as I debated logging off for the night instead.
But that was, in fact, weenie behaviour.
And I was no weenie.
I let my mouse hover over the voice channel of our server for a couple of moments.
Everyone’s little icons were there, including hers, causing my nerves to come back in full force.
Finally, I brought myself to click into it, my headphones exploding into a wall of sound as little video boxes containing my friends populated the screen.
“Indiiiii!” Tara shouted by way of greeting, leaning way too close to her webcam so we were practically looking down her throat as she shouted gleefully, “Finally! Where have you been? Where's POTATOOOOOO?”
But it wasn't the brunette who caught my attention. It was a shock of bubblegum-pink hair, carefully styled into long, flowing waves that framed her face beautifully alongside her short bangs.
"Hi, Indi," Eva said, her soft, bubbly voice pulling a smile to my face that she matched with one of her own.
“Hey, man,” Charlie called, mellow as always.
“I told you I’d get them to come, is my little chippy baby?”
"She's napping in her cave," I said, to answer Tara's question about my pink Eastern garter snake. With some effort, I managed to pull my eyes away from Eva, who was nibbling on her lower lip shyly, and cleared my throat. “Are we here to gush over me, or are we going to play?”
"Play, now that we have a half-decent healer—" Tara started, cut off by Charlie's warning, "Hey!"
Things felt surprisingly normal as we loaded into OVWatch to play for the evening, rounds slipping by between inside jokes and the same barbed comments that’d become the standard when we played together.
It almost made me sad that I'd been avoiding it, the time with my friends a welcome change in my routine that'd started to center too much around work in an effort to keep myself busy.
We were just waiting for another game to load in when I scraped together the courage to stop being a wuss and message Eva.
hey, about the other day… it’s not that i didn't want to.
i know i could feel how badly you wanted me, remember?
Eva_Aft3r
I glanced at my second monitor, catching the subtle smirk tilting Eva's lips.
i didn't react how i would've wanted to without alcohol involved. you did the right thing, ok?
with wanting to talk to Joon first…
did you?
Eva_Aft3r
I swallowed.
In truth? I hadn't quite figured out a way to bring it up that didn't make me sound like I was trying to have my cake and eat it too when it came to the two omegas. But Joon and Eva were friends, sort of… At the very least, I knew the omega was attracted to her.
Luckily, I was saved from having to respond as the round started, the conversation I'd only been half listening to shifting to orders from Tara to push ahead towards the goal, or from Jesse looking for healing.
It was a pretty brutal mismatch of skill between our teams, and it didn't take long before the white and neon green victory text was bannering across my screen.
Nice.
Joon knocked on my doorframe just as I brought my chat window with Eva back up, poking his head into the room. “You busy?”
“Nah,” I said, closing it quickly. Maybe a little too quickly, even. I wasn't doing anything wrong, just trying to clear the air, but… something still didn't feel right about it as I turned in my chair, patting my knee for him to join me.
“Good, I miss you." My omega grinned, stealing a quick kiss and settling in my lap. "Oh—Are you on with everyone? You haven't done that in a while.”