F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

Buk stayed under Dane through one bad sleep and half of another.

Rest left the goblin in fragments. His teeth touched. Sackcloth rasped stone. Each tight breath nudged the spoon in his grip against Dane’s lower board.

Once, while the dungeon drip quickened in some poor imitation of morning, Buk whispered into the wood.

”Mother Kesh, keep fire low. Buk comes quiet.”

The words entered Dane as warmth and vibration. He had no answer for a mother waiting somewhere beyond the annex, only the closed lid above Buk and the bad pin he could force to tick.

Buk slept again. His heel slipped away from the corner it had warmed, and cold stone reached the wood.

Cold used to mean one foot outside a blanket.

After both of them worked late, the apartment had gone quiet. A kitchen cabinet hung crooked above the sink. Blue ink marked the side of June’s left hand from a report she had corrected through dinner; Dane still wore his work shirt with one cuff rolled and the other buttoned.

He sat on the edge of their bed to pull off his second boot. June stayed by the dresser instead of getting under the blanket.

”You’ve worked four of the last six Saturdays,” she said. ”Then you took Thursday after telling me you were coming home.”

Dane set the boot beside its pair. ”Raymond called at four. Three hours covered the water bill, and next Saturday gets the cabinet fixed before that hinge tears out. After that, I can stop taking every—”

”I’m asking about the second weekend next month.”

He had been reaching for the cabinet with his explanation. June made him look at her instead.

”Both days,” she said. ”Both of us. I want them claimed before something else needs them.”

Yes rose too quickly. Beneath it, he could already hear Raymond asking for Saturday.

”If I turn down the Saturday rate, we’re short again unless Raymond gives me the weeknight shift. That’s all I’m trying to—”

June looked at the floor. Her inked hand closed around the dresser knob without opening the drawer.

Dane stopped.

For a moment the sagging cabinet, the water bill, and every argument he had prepared waited with him. None of them could explain why he had volunteered for Thursday before telling his wife.

”Second weekend,” he said. ”I’ll block Friday night through Monday morning. Both our names.”

June’s thumb moved once over the knob. ”You mean it now.”

”I mean it.”

She let go of the dresser. The pinch beside her mouth stayed as she crossed to the bed, took his rolled cuff between two fingers, and unfastened it with the same blue-marked hand.

”Do you want me,” she asked, ”or do you need sleep?”

Dane nearly told her what she might need. The answer reached his mouth dressed as concern for her early meeting, her headache, the hour.

He swallowed it.

”I want you. I’m tired, and you’re still angry, and I want you.”

June watched him long enough for the radiator to knock in the other room.

His hand settled at her hip. He left it there without drawing her closer.

She closed the distance herself.

Her first kiss was warm with coffee and the mint she kept in her desk. Dane answered slowly. June’s fingers opened his collar, then stopped there while his hand moved beneath her shirt and found the skin at her waist.

The next kiss carried more hunger. He stood, turning them toward the bed, and reached for the buttons down the front of her shirt.

June caught his wrist.

Dane went still. ”Too fast?”

”A little.”

He started to apologize. She slid his hand back under the shirt before the first word escaped, placing his palm against her ribs.

”Stay here for a minute.”

So he did. Her breathing changed under his hand while they kissed, and the tightness in her shoulders eased by degrees instead of vanishing because he had found the correct response.

June opened her own shirt when she wanted it gone. Dane pushed it from her shoulders and kissed the blue smudge below her collarbone. She unhooked her bra, let it fall, and pulled his work shirt over his head with less patience than care.

He bent to mouth one breast. June’s hand tightened at the back of his neck. She shifted against him, bare stomach meeting his, and opened his jeans.

Dane tried to step out of them without breaking the kiss. His heel caught in the denim. He sat down harder than intended, struck his shin against the frame, and swore into June’s shoulder.

June’s laugh escaped before she could stop it. She rubbed the bright spot on his shin with her toes while he kicked the trapped jeans and underwear clear.

”I’m fine,” he muttered.

Her laugh softened. She pushed him back onto the mattress and climbed over one thigh, kissing him until the sting stopped owning his attention.

Dane rolled her beneath him. June’s pants and underwear caught at one ankle; he eased them free instead of trying to win another fight with clothing. When he returned between her legs, she lifted her hips to meet his hands.

He kissed down her stomach. June’s fingers followed through his hair, then loosened as his mouth moved over the inside of her thigh.

The first touch of his tongue drew her breath short. He licked along her labia and found her clitoris, staying there while one hand held her thigh open. June shifted closer, offering more pressure without telling him how to manufacture it.

June’s hips broke the rhythm he had chosen, then found it again with more pressure. He followed the change and slid one finger into her. She took it easily, then tightened when he curled it and returned his tongue to the same slow rhythm.

June’s heel pressed into his back. Her other foot dragged the sheet loose. The hand in his hair closed hard enough to sting, and Dane chased the reaction, adding a second finger and working them against her while his mouth stayed on her clitoris.

The grip in his hair pulled upward.

He pressed closer, assuming she wanted more.

June pulled again. ”Up here.”

Dane lifted his head. ”Did I hurt you?”

”No.” Her breath broke across the word. ”I want your face where I can reach it.”

He stayed between her thighs for one extra heartbeat, caught by the urge to finish what he had started. Then he withdrew his fingers and came back to her.

June took his damp hand, guided it around her hip, and kissed him before he could turn the interruption into another question. Her mouth opened under his. The kiss was messy, impatient, and impossible to complete on someone else’s behalf.

Dane shifted his weight and brought her onto his lap instead of lowering her to the mattress again. She answered by wrapping both legs around him. Her wet vulva pressed along his erection, and the contact stripped the last prepared sentence from his head.

He held her close and moved his hips once. June made a small sound against his cheek and did it back, slower, her forehead resting beside his.

”Condom,” Dane said when reaching the drawer would have been easier to postpone.

June leaned aside without leaving his lap. He opened the left drawer, found the packet, and tore it with hands that had stopped pretending not to shake. She watched while he rolled the condom down his cock, then checked the base with her thumb.

He lay back. June rose over him on her knees, took him in one hand, and guided him into her.

She lowered herself a little at a time. Dane’s fingers flexed at her hips as the warm grip of her body took him deeper. June paused when he was fully inside, breathing through parted lips, her ink-marked hand spread over his chest.

He waited for her movement.

She began with a slow lift and return. The bedframe complained once beneath them and was ignored. June set the pace by what felt good rather than what looked graceful, changing the angle when one knee slipped on the sheet.

Dane reached between them. His thumb found her clitoris while she rocked over him. June caught his wrist, but instead of repositioning it, she held him there as her next movement pressed harder against his hand.

Her rhythm sharpened. Dane met her from below, then stopped trying to match every stroke. He pulled her down against his chest.

June braced both hands beside his shoulders. ”Tired?”

”No. I want you close.”

She searched his face, still moving around him. Then her elbows bent and her weight settled along his body. The new angle shortened her strokes. It also put her mouth beside his and kept his hand trapped between them, thumb circling where she needed it.

June’s breath lost its restraint first. She tried to keep the same pace, failed, and ground down against his hand while he stayed deep inside her. Her climax came in uneven pulses that stopped her hips and tightened her whole body around him. She bit his shoulder once, released it, and held on while the tremors passed.

Dane kissed the damp hair at her temple. He remained still until June lifted her head.

One of her knees slid again when she tried to rise. She caught herself against his chest and let out a frustrated breath.

”Switch?” he asked.

June nodded and loosened her legs. Dane held her at the waist and rolled them together, keeping the condom in place and himself inside her. She settled beneath him with one leg around his hip and drew him down before he could ask another question.

He moved slowly at first. June’s body was sensitive after coming; each deeper thrust changed the pull of her leg and the pressure of her fingers at his back. When she wanted more, she met him with her hips rather than handing him instructions.

The pace June had set fell apart between them. Dane kissed her, felt her breath against his mouth, and drove deeper. As the bed shifted, June caught the side of his face and kept him close while his control broke.

He came inside the condom with one deep thrust and two smaller, involuntary movements. June held the back of his neck through the shudder and the long breath that followed.

They stayed tangled until the radiator knocked again.

June held the condom at the base while Dane withdrew. He tied it, dropped it into the trash can beside the bed, and returned with the water glass from her side. She drank first and handed it back with a wet thumbprint on the rim.

The phone waited on the dresser.

Dane retrieved it and sat against the headboard. June lay against his side, one knee over his thigh, while he opened their shared calendar. He blocked the second weekend of the following month from Friday night through Monday morning and entered both names.

He showed her before saving it.

June read the entry. ”Don’t take the call when it comes.”

”I won’t.”

Her fingers closed around his, blue ink marking one knuckle. ”I know you mean that.”

Dane had three explanations ready for why meaning it should count. He saved the event and put the phone facedown instead.

June drew the blanket over them. Within minutes she stole most of it in her sleep, leaving Dane’s left foot in the cold. He nudged her calf with his toes. She caught his ankle between both feet without waking and gave him none of the blanket back.

A smaller heel struck wood.

Cold stone replaced the sheets. Buk tightened beneath Dane, his breath snagging against the rib dressing.

The goblin began to work his dragged leg out of the dip. Dane pressed the loose pin twice. The second tick sent pain into his left band.

Buk paused, then tucked his heel back against the warmed corner.

”Chest says stay,” he whispered.

Maybe. Dane had meant wait, or danger, or please stop turning one sound into a language.

Footsteps entered the corridor before he could try again.

One person. No cart wheels. No chain. The right step landed lightly while the left boot gave a loose double tap, sole and nail arriving apart. A lantern whined at each swing, bringing lamp oil, wet wool, and a small moving pocket of heat.

The heat crossed the threshold first. The person’s weight stayed outside while three dungeon drips fell.

”Floor Two storage annex,” a young man read aloud. His voice cracked on annex. He cleared it. ”One lure chest. Old blood. Possible active hazard. No party support because independent learning is apparently cheaper than trainee organs.”

Buk’s fingers pressed into Dane’s lower board.

Rainwater pattered from the stranger’s clothes. One drop struck the edge of Nate Parr’s old blood. Nate had been the first delver to open Dane and the first person this mouth had killed.

”Milo Trent,” the young man told the room. ”Provisional delver. Salvage-credit run. I am stating that for the slate and also for anything in here that recognizes names.”

A thin hook tapped the stone outside Dane’s bite line. Milo’s breathing stayed another arm’s length behind it.

”Rule one,” Milo murmured. ”Never open a rich chest in a poor room.”

The hook moved half a pace closer and tapped again.

”Rule two. If rule one costs your license, reconsider from farther away than your examiner thinks is educational.”

The lantern whine shortened its arc. Milo had crouched without bringing his weight across the threshold. The loose sole on his left boot slapped once as he settled.

”One verified find,” he said. Chalk scratched across a slate. ”Then Madra at the desk can stop entering my license fee under charity.”

The ordinary copper remained in the wet groove between him and Dane. Milo’s hook had passed near it twice without touching it.

Heat gathered behind Dane’s lockplate.

His lid eased against the latch, presenting the oiled rim. The tongue bunched beneath five ordinary coppers and rolled them together. Their clink shortened Milo’s next breath. The lure had chosen a solitary trainee with one tool and nobody guarding his back.

Hunger agreed.

When Dane pressed down through the hinge, the crooked pin shifted, caught, and held the lid shut in pain for one breath.

Milo’s breathing moved closer anyway.

”I know what you are,” he told Dane. ”Probably. Mostly. Maybe.”

The hook tapped two paces from Dane, then one and a half. Milo never let his hand cross the bite line.

”Broken treasure still counts. Madra said so while taking my retest fee. If she lied, I hope every cup of tea she drinks this month tastes like boot water.”

The curse steadied his voice. His hook found the wet groove and traced it toward the copper.

Dane tried the loose pin. His first pressure spread upward instead of forward. The lid lifted a fraction. Air moved across his front teeth, and the coins on his tongue answered with another clink.

Milo stopped scratching the groove.

Wrong.

Dane released before the lure opened him farther. He found the painful ring around the pin, drove vibration through the left hinge, and forced it forward into the rim planted on stone.

His fixed rim made the floor answer. Water trembled in the groove; the external copper rocked, rolled past Nate’s old blood with an uneven rattle, and stopped beyond the distance Dane’s lid could reach.

Milo waited through five breaths.

The hook touched the copper once. It traced the groove back toward Dane, struck both stones beside the coin, and returned for a second tap.

”That is one copper,” Milo said. ”You know that isn’t treasure.”

The coin remained where the slope had left it.

”Are you bribing me with my own poverty?”

Under Dane, Buk made a hopeful sound.

The hook snapped away from the coin. Milo’s loose boot sole struck flat as he rose.

Dane drove pressure into the hinge before Buk could breathe again. Pain tore through his left side. The lid shuddered against the latch, his lockplate clacked, and the front rim vibrated hard enough to shake rotten leather from the broken shelf.

Milo backed into it. Leather slapped his coat and the hook stayed between him and Dane.

”Right,” he said after one breath. ”Broken treasure with an attitude.”

He gave the copper another five breaths.

The hook dragged it the last handspan toward the threshold. Milo rubbed both faces between finger and thumb, scraped one edge with a nail, then dropped it once on stone to hear the ring.

”Loose dungeon copper recovered outside the bite line of an active hazard,” he dictated. Chalk moved steadily. ”Audible hinge fault. Suspected lure response. Additional room noise unverified. Trainee withdrew under hazard rule after one verified salvage.”

He finished the last word before his boots moved.

The copper entered a cloth pouch. Milo backed down the corridor. Each step pulled the lantern heat farther away while the hook remained aimed toward Dane’s lid.

At the threshold he stopped. ”If you are broken, stay broken until I am very far away.”

Dane gave the pin one careful press.

Tick.

Milo’s breath caught. The loose sole slapped backward, followed by the good boot and the whining lantern. He kept retreating until the corridor bent and distance swallowed each sound.

Buk waited ten breaths before touching Dane’s underside with two fingertips.

”Small boot lives?”

Dane pressed twice, the same pattern Buk had already decided meant stay.

”Small boot lives,” Buk whispered, choosing the kinder translation.

The lantern whine continued toward the guild with Milo’s copper and his written exit. Dane’s internal inventory remained five ordinary coppers, the thin silver, the square-holed red-string coin, Nate’s knife, and the brass return charm.

His tag cooled.

Then square-edged pressure gathered beneath it.

/==[ Brackenvault System: Lure Sabotage ]==\

| Target: Trainee Delver

| Open Attempt: Abandoned

| Lure Shine: Distorted

| Feeding Result: Missed

| Fault Pattern: Repeating

\==[ Black Wax: Preparing ]==/