swampofsadness | And so I am lonely

And so I am lonely

There can be a quiet period after sex. A relaxed kind of lull that's easy to exist in, even for someone like Dirk. Relatively, anyway. His mind doesn't stop--the layers and contrivances that turn inside him like an endless mechanica are an endless process, and so even this peace is tentative. Fragile, and short lived. But it's still a state of relief. His body feels better. His brain is calmer. When he actually cums, that is. Which, Ranboo has been incredibly cooperative about--sometimes the guy takes some talking through some concepts, but he's eager and earnest and he's bigger than Dirk in a few key dimensions that make his difficult traits tolerable, if not outright endearing.

He has, however, noticed that he's always the one making demands, prompting and cueing Ranboo through certain motions. Which is partly what Dirk means when he regards Ranboo as difficult and/or endearing. It's nice, in a way, to have a willing partner who does what he wants. It's also... odd.

They're curled up against each other; Dirk has taken the liberty of resting his head against Ranboo's bountiful pectorals, feeling the warmth of the man's skin against his ear and face, the rhythm of his breathing and even his pulse just underneath Dirk's own. He's slightly sticky with sweat (it's mostly sweat, anyway) but that's kind of a plus, to Dirk. It's... real. Comfortingly so. He can better feel himself against Ranboo this way.

"Fuck, man. Every time we do this, it's like.... I want to say it gets even better, but I actually don't know. Not--because of you. Or kind of because of you. Are you into this? What are you into? You never say anything about that--you never ask me to do anything specific. Which doesn't seem to be stopping you from putting your hot load in me every time. Sometimes repeatedly. Which feels fantastic, for the record."

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Perhaps unfortunately for Dirk-- or maybe fortunately, depending on his mood and viewpoint-- Ranboo would refuse at least one of those demands outright, and another would take quite a bit of convincing. The first two, however...

They roll their hips slowly, shallowly, for now, attempting to adjust to the steady, sparkling burn of their still-raw nerves; every little motion feels magnified and yet somehow numbing, a faint whiteness shining behind their lids where they've closed their eyes to kiss Dirk. This is definitely the least downtime they've ever taken between rounds, and Ranboo is absolutely feeling the effects of not resting for longer first; the faint yet steady tremble in his thighs as he moves is evidence enough of that, the way his breathing shakes in his chest and escapes in almost a hiss.

He breaks the kiss finally to press his heated face against the crook of Dirk's neck, breathing harsh and hot against Dirk's skin. It's a grounding gesture, something to try and keep them from going totally nuts from just how overwhelmed their senses currently are, but it's also an attempt to catch his breath; he just... needs a moment.

It is unfortunate, and Dirk is at least on some level aware of it--and has been avoiding it, resolutely, for quite some time. The truth is that all the sex in the world, while satisfying a number of needs Dirk has been bearing in stoic (and not-so-stoic) solitude for what feels like years now, doesn't exactly leave him feeling complete. It's a relief, and a release, and a very, very real need... but as he himself has been discovering since the first time he hilted Ranboo and took him raw straight to climax, it's not everything.

No, that's not accurate.

He knew that wasn't everything, knew it wouldn't be everything. But just how much isn't being satisfied by sex and attention and touch and everything else Ranboo gives him is something he's been uncovering gradually. He's been getting his pain wherever he can, in the meantime--including like this. It's harder on Ranboo than it is on him, but he wants it to be harder on him. He wants to push it further, wants Ranboo to really rip his hole apart and fuck him up. He wants to be--if not so fucked out that he can't move or think, then at least leave his guts wrecked and his hole gaping and raw, his stomach muscles so sore that another round makes him want to heave. Being able to think after is fine, just this once. He still needs to be able to talk. And yet a small part of him also wonders if maybe it's better if this time he can't.

Maybe he just wants an excuse.

"What's wrong?" he murmurs into Ranboo's ear--almost tenderly, mostly goadingly. "Can't do it?" He runs his fingers back through Ranboo's hair, tracing fingertips along his scalp until he finds bare skin--his neck--which he follows down to the line of his shoulder. He rubs Ranboo's broad shoulder, equal parts reassurance and insurance that Ranboo's still with him. The little pat he gives their back after, in contrast, feels entirely condescending. "If you're going to give up, I can always ride you."

Actually, scratch what Ranboo was just thinking about Dirk being hot and sexy. He's just rude, and also mean.

Ranboo huffs a sound that's almost a flustered scoff against Dirk's neck, lifts his head to frown down at him.

"N-- no, I can do it, I just. Needed a second." They aren't sure even as they do it why they're bothering to argue; it's pretty transparent that Dirk is just trying to get a rise out of him, but unfortunately, being aware of that doesn't make it any less effective.

As if to prove his point, Ranboo fucks into him just a touch more forcefully-- which actually backfires magnificently when it makes their own head spin wildly, their body visibly trembling slightly in response to the sensory overload.

"Fuck," they swear quietly, trying to stifle it under their breath and mostly failing.

Dirk is both of those things. He is also hot and sexy. He can be rude and mean while being that. He contains multitudes, and some of those multitudes are extraordinarily horny. But that thrust hits him right where he needs it--his ache for pain, his appetite for it, ebbs a little in favour of acknowledging the fresh pleasure.

Instead of an acerbic retort, as he might have wanted to give, the sound that comes out of him instead is pitched low usual--an outright pornographic little moan, as Ranboo hits nerves already sensitive from their round before, and his body tight around their cock in response. His cunt throbs with heat; the pressure against it from inside feels so goddamn good. It's not fair. It's not fair how good that feels, how good cock feels. How much better it would feel if--

Ah--ahn...!" Fuck. Fuck, that felt good. Fuck, that was embarrassing. But not so embarrassing he doesn't want more.

"Yes," he breathes.

His eyes fall shut, reflexively.

Edited 2024-06-19 11:24 (UTC)

Oh, Jesus Christ. That sound shoots down Ranboo's spine like something molten, settling low and burning in their belly; despite the way their exhausted nerves sing and burn, they do it again, and again, driving into Dirk with a renewed focus. Or lack of focus-- it isn't really clear, even to him. All he knows is that hearing Dirk's voice that way is good, and that they want to hear it again.

He barely even notices the sounds that he's making, lost beneath the hazy static cloud that lays thick over his brain; while Ranboo might not be very verbal during sex, that doesn't by any means imply that they aren't vocal. Each thrust is marked by a soft, mindless sound in his throat, an accent to his overwhelmed, panting breathing.

As Ranboo begins to fuck into Dirk with more and more vigour, Dirk's voice goes from small, short little moaning gasps to full-throated cries of mingled ecstasy. This is it. This is what he wanted, what he lives for. The steady, constant back-and-forth of friction as Ranboo gets going builds heat, builds pressure, builds torment that it simultaneously relieves and escalates with each thrust. He can feel the way his cunt fills with wetness, spills over, his ass clenching around Ranboo's cock and then releasing in a rhythm that's rooted in instinct, but honed with practise.

"Ah--ah--ah--anh--ah--yes--ahh--fuck--!" His fingers curl; Dirk's blunt, too-short nails vainly attempt to dig into Ranboo's back, find no purchase and try again. He still wants more.

More. More. More--!

If Ranboo were to look in on this moment from the outside, they might immediately die of embarrassment; but fortunately for Dirk, it's easy for their mind to be misplaced, at least for a little while, in moments like this. Even the ever-present anxiety that so frequently renders them more awkward than attractive can be silenced for a time in the heat of the moment, which... is a nice change, honestly.

Sometimes Ranboo thinks back on sexual encounters with Dirk and wonders what on earth possessed him-- who was that? Dirk seems to bring out something in him that even he didn't know was there, and, if directly asked, would probably deny the presence of, if only out of being bashful. It isn't so much that Dirk makes them think differently, so much as he has a way of wiping out their rational thought entirely-- which is a pretty effective deterrent to overthinking, or worrying about every move you make being wrong or weird.

In the present moment, Ranboo feels as if their brain itself is being fried, their nerves overloaded to a point where it's nearly painful. The heat and friction of Dirk's body where it wraps around him is almost too much, their head spinning as they press their face into his neck to pant and gasp against his ear. Despite his place on top here, the active role he's taken this time, the way that their voice rises into almost helpless, whimpered sounds is an almost comical contrast, his own voice having entirely gotten away from him and risen to something that would thoroughly embarrass him if he had the presence of mind to notice.

The truth is, of course, that Dirk isn't doing anything to Ranboo that he isn't seeking for himself. Minutes ago, Dirk was embroiled in a complex internal calculus intended to manipulate this scenario into hurting him more, pushing him further, taking things harder. Much of this was subconscious, or unconscious, or simply other in his consciousness behind his consciousness, but still it was there--constantly demanding, endlessly unsatisfied. Now, the layers of want and ideas of how to get it fall away as Ranboo careens over the precipice into no longer 'having sex' in a personable sense but simply fucking, his voice pitched high, his frantic energy intoxicating.

Dirk is, in this moment, experiencing the best of both worlds in a way that even he rarely achieves. As Ranboo may have noticed, every inch of him aches to top, aches to dominate and reduce Ranboo to whimpers and gasps and cries beneath him. He craves the totality of power and pleasure, including the power to give and receive pain. And yet every inch also craves this. Pinned and helpless under Ranboo as the other man drives into him, forcing himself closer to ecstasy through his own ravenous need for Dirk. It's all about Dirk, in this moment: how Dirk feels under him, how he sounds, and he takes every advantage of the willing hole he's been given to claim. And yet he's been broken to it. He's whining, desperate, falling into Dirk and burying his face into the crook of his scarred neck. Ranboo himself has been rendered helpless above him. It's too much. It's almost enough. Dirk's own voice falls too low, cracks, pitches up and then his next cry is breathless, voiceless, his own relentlessly thinking mind broken open beneath Ranboo in the best and most needed way.

Ranboo, for his part, is beginning to experience the clashing of two opposing instincts-- his body is telling him that it's too much and demanding a break, a moment to catch their breath, to let the rapidly gathering static disperse into something a little bit more bearable, but beneath that is the drive to chase his own pleasure. The peak is so close, he can almost feel it starting to bloom over their nerves, yet just out of reach somehow, as if the goalposts keep being moved from under them. It's very nearly painful, their chest and stomach wound too tight with it, their long limbs trembling.

They lose whatever restraint they had left and drive into Dirk harder, deeper still, seeking some kind of relief, and white pours across their vision, a sharper kind of whine escaping his throat.

This, this is all Dirk wanted. This is all he ever wants, in his heart. He wants this, and he wants it to be real; he wants to be taken and claimed and loved and used with Ranboo's whole body. Just like this. And sore as he is, well-used (perhaps overly-used, but who's keep tracking), raw and open as he is, it feels incredible.

Dirk dissolves into the kind of repetitive, loud, slutty gasping and moaning that belongs in pornography. The way bare-breasted women with shaved legs and arching backs cry out, over and over, thrust after thrust. It would be a lie to say he's too far gone to be embarrassed by it. He isn't. He hates it, and it builds a low boil of fear and disgust in him--and some sick part of him thrills to it.

There's a way Dirk has learned to feel it coming, when he's taking it in the ass. Not the debilitating, all-body kind of orgasm, but a real one, the kind that comes from being fucked and nothing else--no other touch, no pain, no gradual pleasure, can replicate that. The desperate, hollow, aching want of his cunt is no longer agony, but a thrill. His guts wrench him from the inside--a tightness, a cramping of muscles he's never identified on an anatomical chart, and Ranboo keeps going, keeps driving deeper and deeper until pain peaks and ebbs and--and--

And. Well.

His orgasm blooms in the way a firework blooms--fast, loud, instantaneous and blinding. Layers to it, but all part of the same event, the same exhilirating burst.

"Ranh--Haah, Ranboo...! Hh-ah-anh-ahh--!"

There's always something surreal about hearing their name said that way, gasped out in heated moments or half-moaned against their ear; it doesn't feel quite real sometimes, as if they've wandered into a fantasy all of a sudden. Maybe it's because of his disconnect from his own sexuality, the way that the concept of him being wanted at all sexually is still so strange and almost comical to him.

Well, either way, it still has the same effect it would in said fantasy; hearing Dirk moaning and almost choking out their name as he shudders and arches beneath them, feeling the way his body clenches tight--

God, he's painfully close.

Ranboo keeps fucking Dirk straight through his orgasm, chasing their own mindlessly; were they more present they might feel bad about this, but their mind is somewhere else right now, smothered under too many layers of desperate, sparking need. He isn't sure exactly how long it goes on for-- time as a concept is something utterly beyond him right now-- but, eventually, he reaches that same peak as Dirk beneath him, and it rolls across his body and consciousness with a ferocity that leaves him feeling genuinely faint.

"Fuckfuckfuck-- D-- Dirk-- fuuuuck...!" He almost collapses atop Dirk, hips jerking mindlessly against him and breathing coming in harsh, shuddering bursts. They whine softly against Dirk's ear, fucked out and brainless, at least for a moment, their body feeling light and boneless.

Dirk is caught almost off guard by Ranboo's incompletion, or at least his corresponding persistence. Almost. Almost, almost--because he did expect it; he knows the ins and outs of sexual masculinity and masculinity in sex in ways Ranboo has never conceived of. He learned early, and he learned fast, and this, specifically: not the long, hard, difficult road to repeated orgasm, but the ordeal of being loved like this, like a thing. Of being used and abused to sate appetites besides his own. Of being spent--either because of achieving his own rarefied, longed-for climax, or in spite of never reaching it--but either way, of being spent, and not being done yet.

It's excruciating. It's exhilarating.

And he rides it out, wrapping his strong legs around Ranboo's hips and curling a fist in their soft, wild hair; his other hand closes over the back of Ranboo's neck, a tight hold to keep his pace, because now even Dirk struggles with keeping control of his body, of enduring and sustaining through the agony and ecstasy of overstimulation and oversensitivity. Tightening his muscles when he even can, stiffening and arching and straining when he can’t. His brain has almost completely disconnected from his consciousness. He's only his body now: his suffering, savaged flesh; his stripped and scorched nerve endings; his sweat and slick soaked skin. And his insides. God, there are no words for it, the inside-outside affliction of too much and too long and too hard and too deep and how all of it combines inside of him, not only in his guts but in his muscles and inside his chest, where it feels like his heart could give out or his voice could finally break and he might actually cry out, although he never fully does. He's far from silent, though.

And finally--finally--Ranboo comes. Into him, inside of him. His mouth and throat are raw and dry as he gasps beneath them, desperate.... and collapses, every bit as boneless and depleted as Ranboo himself.

For once, Dirk Strider is left with nothing to say.

Or at least has no capacity left for speech to say it.

Edited 2024-06-21 17:25 (UTC)

For a very long moment, it's all Ranboo can do to lay there atop Dirk and shiver, panting, eyes squeezed shut as his body finally begins to settle from the overload and his mind begins to clear. It's a few minutes of silently catching their breath before they finally do roll off of him, apologetic, though they stay close, pressed against his side.

Pulling out is a brief moment of agony, numbness and pain overriding any pleasure from a few moments ago, if only for a second; they grimace about it before pressing their face back against his neck. A long arm drapes over Dirk loosely, holds him close against them as they try to recover from... everything that just happened.

That was. A lot.

For Dirk, he would have been happy to lay there beneath Ranboo--their heavy breathing and trembling body inducing agonising pulses of sensation in his muscles, his oversensitive hole tensing around their cock in tight spasms with each throbbing reaction to their continued touch. He would have loved to stay there like that, but he's actually relieved when they don't--although he groans in anguish when they pull out. Whether that's regret for the new, gaping absence inside of him or simply a physical response to how much he feels it as Ranboo withdraws is unclear.

He's not even sure if he's leaking cum or simply having some kind of psychological phantom sensory experience. Maybe he's simply dripping, a very real possibility that he's far, far too spent to investigate. He doesn't even know whether he should be closing his legs or trying to spread them. He's too weary to come to a decision; instead, he presses his face into Ranboo's arm, closing his eyes as Ranboo buries theirs into his neck.

And so they lay there, breathing, for a few seconds before Dirk tries to speak.

"I think I saw the actual face of God," he manages at last, though every second or third syllable is punctuated by another deep breath as he struggles to compose his body enough for speech.

Which, if it wasn't Dirk Strider, would make the feat of sheer bullshit that's about to come out of his mouth even more impressive. But it is Dirk Strider speaking, and it's quite possible that this is actually what happens in his brain when nothing else is.

"He looked an awful lot like you."

There's a pause as Ranboo actually processes what exactly Dirk just said-- and then they laugh. It's a breathless huff of sound, their eyes crinkling with a rare genuine smile that lights up their flushed face and shows off a frequently hidden set of dimples before it's pressed back against Dirk's neck in embarrassment.

"Jesus christ, dude."

It's a goofy-ass thing to say. It is flattering, though, and honestly, Ranboo would be inclined to agree if only with the first half of the statement-- that was... intense.

As they lay in the quiet together, however, the real world encroaches as it always does on moments like this; Ranboo's mind is able to wander back to their conversation before this, to what they both needed the distraction and stress relief from in the first place, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to put off unpacking it any longer.

Learning that Dirk spent so much of his early life going through something like that-- Ranboo might not know the details, but they don't really want or need to. It's enough to recontextualize things that Dirk has said before simply to know that those things happened at all-- to make sense of things that previously seemed entirely random, or statements that seemed incoherent. They're still incoherent, really, for the most part, but at least Ranboo now has some kind of explanation for why. They're not a psychologist-- they have no idea how exactly that kind of thing messes people up, what the exact symptoms it can cause are, but they're certain that it definitely wouldn't leave anyone unscathed.

Dirk is like this because he's been hurt.

That's really the important core takeaway, the context that Ranboo had lacked before but now can finally fit into place. He's been hurt terribly by the people he should've been able to trust the most, and that hurt has... really never gone away, by the sound of things, even if Dirk seems to refuse to admit that himself. Dirk is still... confusing, some of the hoops that he seems to jump through mentally obscure, but at least now Ranboo has some frame of reference to try and puzzle things out.

"I'm... sorry," he murmurs softly against Dirk's skin.

Dirk, of course, has no earthly idea what Ranboo is thinking about. He enjoys the laugh he earns for his frankly embarrassing declaration of sincere love, although he simultaneously wishes he hadn't just said that the way he did, and wishes Ranboo had taken it a smidge more seriously, because he really did mean every single word, and every accompanying sentiment to boot.

He'll take the laugh, though--it's a good one. A real one. And in moments like this, it's a lot easier to be honest about that. It's a short lived window, but one that brings out either the best or the worst in him, depending on how he's feeling when he characterises it. Maybe his brain is just fucked out, maybe it's a moment of real human honesty. Who can say.

He's marinating in that while Ranboo is thinking, and it's in that state of mind that the 'sorry' slips in. Quiet, mouthed almost in secret against the curve of his neck.

"What? No." He turns, tries not to smush Ranboo's face into the bed against his jaw--he has to pull back in order to prevent that, and in doing so, he finds room to cup Ranboo's jaw in his free hand, the one that isn't pinned somewhere between them. His arm feels comically week, but he finds the strength to press the pad of his thumb into flushed, slightly sticky skin, warm along the strong lower bound of bone.

"Don't apologise. Never apologise." The brief, postorgasmic opportunity for reprieve from his usual layers of obfuscation isn't over quite yet. Soon, yes. The door is closing fast. But not yet. "You were magnificent."

Oh... Ranboo smiles again, sheepishly, bashfully this time. For once, Dirk's sincerity reads loud and clear, and it's hard for Ranboo to even want to try and go back to the real subject at hand from there.

"No, I-I mean-- th-thanks, but..." They trail off, reluctant to break the peace of this moment.

"I'm sorry that you... went through that. What you just told me about, before."

It takes Dirk a second to catch up, mentally. He's a bit lost in Ranboo's first reaction--the smile, the embarassment, which never ceases to be bewildering to Dirk. How anyone with a build like Ranboo's, a face like Ranboo's, hands and shoulders and a chest like Ranboo's, naturally, nevermind what Ranboo does to him in the very literal sense--

How anyone like that could manage to be so affected and shy is a complete goddamn mystery to Dirk. He knows there's some fucked up trauma thing going on with them, obviously he knows that, but still.

There's barely a shift in his expression--or maybe it's that there isn't one at all, just the same sharp-eyed, straight-faced flat look that's just a little too intense for the situation.

"You're still thinking about that?" It's an actual question, albeit one that's already been answered. Which is why he follows it two seconds later with a large sigh. He doesn't look away from Ranboo, though.

"It's not like that. You don't have to think about it too much. It was fucked up, and yeah, I'm kind of fucked up, but it wasn't like that. It wasn't whatever you're thinking it was. They never fucked me in any way they didn't fuck each other. They never raped me like that."

"Dirk, they shouldn't have been... fucking you at all."

Ranboo can't tell much about Dirk's mindset right now. He's hard to read, even when he's in an apparently good mood if not even more so than usual, and so they struggle to tell exactly how much he believes what he's saying, exactly how much he understands.

"S... sorry, that's... maybe I shouldn't have brought it up, but I just--" They shake their head, laying it back to gaze up at the ceiling above them. "... it's just... bad."

He doesn't want to tell Dirk he feels sorry for him. That wouldn't end well. But he does.

"Yeah, I get that, thanks." A note of sarcastic dryness creeps in, despite his intentions. He'd love to be more reassuring than that, but he doesn't know what Ranboo would find reassuring to hear. He decides to backtrack, to go back to what Ranboo was talking about before he needed...

Before he needed a break.

He reaches up, brushes sweat-sticky strands of brown hair from Ranboo's forehead as they turn away to stare at the ceiling. It's gentle, but a little brusque. Then he taps their forehead with his fingers, a little reminder that he's still talking.

"You can bring it up. It's fine. I'm an open book for you." This is mostly true. "But I'm just saying, there were lines. Rules, and reasons. Like--" He stops himself, catching his own train of thought before it passes through his lips and into articulation.

"Uh." He closes his eyes, pressing his fingertips into a point between his eyes, at the top of his nose bridge.

"I just mean, I can talk about it. You asked me something, why something. I don't remember exactly what. Let me answer that. But this doesn't have to be a whole thing. Okay? Don't make this... it doesn't have to be weird." He says this with Ranboo leaking out of him and pressed between his thighs. "I can do that myself if I want it."

Edited 2024-06-22 02:56 (UTC)

Ranboo is... baffled for a moment into silence by everything Dirk just said. They literally turn their head to gaze at him, gears clearly, furiously turning behind their sharp eyes as they try to process all of it, to understand.

Rules and reasons...

As if that makes it all okay. And Dirk says this so casually, and so matter-of-fact, so certain of himself, as if Ranboo should already know all this. As if Ranboo is the one being unreasonable here. Making it weird.

"... you... really.... believe that. Don't you? That that makes it... okay, because they weren't doing it specific ways or whatever..."

There's a tone just beneath their voice of something being unlocked, a dawning kind of realization.

"Okay is a strong fucking word." Dirk wants to retrieve his other arm from the tangle, but he can't think of how, so he just takes the one hand he does have access to and places it over his face, dragging his palm and fingers down over his strong features.

"And not one that actually came out of my mouth. I know you're a better listener than that." He stops, tangled in a couple trains of thought. Starts again.

He doesn't like the way Ranboo is framing this--like he's deluded. "You freaking out like this is kind of what I was afraid of."

Too honest. Back up.

"One more time, I'll even repeat myself." He locks eyes with Ranboo--it lasts only a moment, but it's there. But then it isn't. He can make eye contact with Ranboo or he can think and talk, but he can't do both. Not about this.

"I know it was fucked up, I've been saying that. I'm not saying I liked it all the time. That I was enjoying it all. I didn't, always. I fought sometimes. Some of it hurt. A lot. Some of it could have killed me. They could have killed me, there was a lot of that. They taught me to fight, and when to fight. When not to, how not to. They did some nasty shit, got me into some of that nasty shit. More than some of it. But there's something wrong with me. I know I've made that pretty clear, too."

As he talks, he alternates between speaking and making eye contact, then breaking off to speak more. Now, finally, there's a pause, as he digests the turn this conversation is taking. How much more honest he keeps being than he wants to be. Or maybe this is exactly how honest he wants to be. Maybe this is the honesty he needs. After a long, long time. But he still can't let Ranboo think he's a victim. He is, on paper. Technically, it's true. But it's just not that simple.

"They took a kid anyone else would have messed up anyway and made sure I'd make it as a man. So--okay, yeah, it was wrong, it was bad, it was whatever you want to call it. But they always made damn sure I wanted it."

That's the thing, isn't it? He wanted it. Not always, but they taught him to want it. To crave it. And before that, and even after, or during, he could have quit over it. He could have opted out at any time. But he wanted it more. To prove himself. To persevere, to endure, and to become. Not to quit on the only people who mattered, the only people he could trust. Not to quit on himself. And he wanted it. That love. That aspirational becoming. If anything, he only feels cheated by what he didn't get. What he couldn't have, what they couldn't achieve for him because even black market surgery didn't have what he really needs.

Edited 2024-06-22 15:21 (UTC)

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It takes Dirk a second to catch up, mentally. He's a bit lost in Ranboo's first reaction--the smile, the embarassment, which never ceases to be bewildering to Dirk. How anyone with a build like Ranboo's, a face like Ranboo's, hands and shoulders and a chest like Ranboo's, naturally, nevermind what Ranboo does to him, both personally and in the physical sense--

How anyone like that could manage to be so affected and shy is a complete goddamn mystery to Dirk. He knows there's some fucked up trauma thing going on with them, obviously he knows that, but seriously. How. How the hell.

There's barely a shift in his expression--or maybe it's that there isn't one at all, just the same sharp-eyed, straight-faced flat look that's just a little too intense for the situation.

"You're still thinking about that?" It's an actual question, albeit one that's already been answered. Which is why he follows it two seconds later with a large sigh. Dirk wants to retrieve his other arm from the tangle, but he can't think of how, so he just takes the one hand he does have access to and places it over his face, dragging his palm and fingers down over his strong features. He doesn't look away from Ranboo, though.

"It's not like that. You don't have to think about it too much. It was fucked up, and yeah, I'm kind of fucked up, but I'm fucked up anyway, not because of that. So whatever you're thinking it was, it wasn't. They never fucked me in any way they didn't fuck each other, they never raped me."

"Dirk, they shouldn't have been... fucking you at all."

Ranboo can't tell much about Dirk's mindset right now. He's hard to read, even when he's in an apparently good mood if not even more so than usual, and so they struggle to tell exactly how much he believes what he's saying, exactly how much he understands.

Hesitantly, carefully, Ranboo finally asks a question that they've been wondering for a while now-- a question that, Ranboo expects, the answer will actually answer a whole lot of other questions as well.

"Dirk, what do you... think rape is? Like... what would you call that?"

"Uh." He closes his eyes, pressing his fingertips into a point between his eyes, at the top of his nose bridge.

"It. Okay. Look. I--" He stops himself, catching his own train of thought before it passes through his lips and into articulation. The language matters here. It's the primary obstacle to his ability to talk about this at all--not the language Ranboo is so concerned with, what is and isn't rape. He knows what rape is, and the differences between what it is "on paper" and what it really is.

The problem is him. His body. Talking about it, and the parts he has instead of the ones he doesn't. Ranboo's inquiry has put him in a bad spot, one he avoids on every cognitive level except this. That was part of the rules--neither he nor his bros acknowledged it, and he's so removed from it now, cognitively, that he forgets. It was the only way to cope with it, for any of them. The only way to make sure it didn't--

He doesn't want to think about this. He never wants to think about it.

And since leaving his bros' protective isolation, it's led to some mistakes. With Ranboo, most especially. Mistakes that he doesn't regret. But he's forgotten more than once--despite its constant, relentless presence in him. The nature of... what could be, how others perceive it, and him. What they might assume, or do. But he doesn't use any words for himself there. He doesn't have any, not for his own body. There's 'inside' and 'outside,' there's 'rape,' and there's what he doesn't have. That's all.

So he struggles, for a second, to recall the language for what he means. But it all clicks back together after that second, and he regains control--both of himself and the conversation.

"They fucked me like a man, and I took it like one. So there were lines. Rules, and reasons." He says this with Ranboo leaking out of him and pressed between his thighs.