Chapter Text
You blinked. Blunk? Bloke?
The admission that your HVAC had been watching you day and night was… odd… to say the least. (Not like he hadn’t just said his greatest wish was to give you pleasure.) But you couldn’t just snatch the Dateviators off and leave! Nobody trying to date all of the objects in their house would call it quits over some light stalking, after all.
But still… major creep vibes - like Radiohead wrote that song for this dude.
“So you’re, uh… spying on me?” You ask, trying to keep the nervousness out of your voice.
He laughs bitterly, the sound cuter than you care to admit to the guy’s face- er- grate. “Of course you would see it that way - think about it that way.” Hector says like he didn’t just tell you he watched you regularly. What other way is there to think about that besides scared and a little horny? (Oh come on you’re no saint, you're the one who clicked on this.)
“Let me explain…” He begins, and you swear the air coming out of the vents swirls into hearts. “You are the prime feature of my thoughts. Whatever power courses through me, I turn into your pleasure.”
Once again, you’d been reduced to stunned silence as Hector goes on to explain how much he cares for you. How he watches the breeze play across your skin on a hot summer’s day, how he enjoys making sure the temperature is perfect for you at all times… It’s really quite flattering if you don’t think about how creepy it is. Or how the vent in your bedroom is smack across from your bed. Or that little bag in your bedside drawer… Maybe that’s a thought too far.
“I wanted to meet you here, through the grates, because I wanted you to hear my voice.” He purrs, and what a voice it is. The man sounds straight up sultry. “I want you to hear the melodies and resonance I create through these ducts and know that it is all and only another gift it honors me to offer you.”
Evolutionarily, everything in you is screaming at you to run, but then Hector goes on about watching the air play over your skin and A/C had never sounded so hot.
“...I feel deep joy that I have the air to give you. I adjust my own temperature and my intensity until I see the flush of contentment spread across your face, and then, then, I rest in contentment of my own.” He sighs lovingly, resting his chin on his hands.
You really, unfortunately, want to bite back about that being a lot of words for the phrase ‘service top,’ but you hold your tongue. Don’t want to come on too strong… You’re not sure if you want to come on to him at all right now, honestly. Even if Hector has been nothing but kind so far, there’s a tickle in your brain telling you to wait for the other shoe to drop - to watch him flip on a dime when you call out how creepy he’s really being.
“I never thought I’d be able to say this, and in a way you could truly understand.” Hector’s smile rises to his eyes as he happily sighs. “And now I have. My god… now I have.”
“I’m glad you could tell me...” You reply awkwardly, not wanting to confirm or deny this weird relationship with the stalker that controls the temperature in your entire house. “...But, could you please stop stalking me, going forward?”
You swear the air is sucked from the room as soon as the word ‘stalking’ leaves your mouth.
“...I’m sorry?” You watch your words stun him like it hadn’t crossed his mind not to watch you. Watch over you, he would surely argue. Like a guardian angel, would he have thought more highly of himself. “Stalking you? Is that what we’re calling this… devotion to service?” The tone of his voice drops to a warning one - undeniably attractive at a horrible time.
You wrack your brain for anything you could say to prevent this guy from hating you. “I didn’t mean I don’t appreciate you looking out for me, Hector. In fact, I…” No, don’t you dare dig yourself a deeper hole. “...think it’s actually…” Don’t do it! “...kind of nice of you. Like, making sure I’m comfortable is really kind. But, just, uh… could you let me get the thermostat for myself from now on?”
“I am sorry, but I am not stupid.” His eyes downturn despite the bite to his words, his hands slumped through the grate in heartbroken defeat. “I am sorry for my own lack of foresight. If I had known you’d act like this I would have frozen you out.”
You do freeze, ironically. Both from the sharp temperature drop and the harshness. If you could appreciate the irony while being angrily stared down by your HVAC system, you would, I’m sure of it. “I-I’m sorry, I should go… shouldn’t I?” You swallow thickly, watching the shadows of the grates play enough for you to watch his nose crinkle.
“I think I’m disgusted.” He brings his hands back into the vents at your apology. A pity, really. You’d just started warming up to the idea of holding them. “...Or maybe I’m just tired.”
Can’t say you disagree. In fact your eyes actually hurt from how tired you are right now. Actually, it might be that you’ve been wearing mysterious, drone-delivered glasses you got from a Thiscord stranger all day. Maybe the Dateviators were untested and unsold for a reason?
“Goodnight?” You quietly manage as the vent blows cold air down on you with not a Hector in sight, leaving you only to retire to Betty with no more charge in your Dateviators.
Even with the glasses on your night Abel, you can’t get Hector out of your head. He’s a complete weirdo, yes, but isn’t that impossible not to be drawn in by? Plus, he absolutely adores you. Where could one more conversation go wrong?
…Ah yes. Of course there’s the stalking. Truly even someone on a journey to date everything (haha) in their house would realize the danger that comes with someone watching them obsessively. But then again your self esteem may be so low that it’s sweet to you. I don’t know, there’s something warm and fluttery about someone still finding you worth loving after seeing all the weird little things you do when you’re on your own - and all the things you keep from others so they’ll like you. No judgement, just… devotion? It filled a peculiar, metaphorical hole inside to think someone would obsess over you.
If you had a nickel for every time your vent stalker was in love with you, you’d have only one nickel, but seriously who the hell does this even happen to?! You have to be in some Y/N fanfic based on a dating sim for sure.
The meta makes your stomach turn, but some unsung force gently pulls you to sleep afterwards.