And so I am lonely

[themostempty]

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."

Comments

[themostempty]

"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.

[generationlost]

Ranboo finds themselves at a loss. How do you even begin to respond to that? To unpack the years and years and layers of horror and manipulation that have now solidified into a seemingly impenetrable wall? And, more than that, would it be right to? Their gut instinct is to keep talking, to try and lead Dirk into facing the truth, but would that actually work? Is it even possible? This is... wrong, the way Dirk keeps justifying what happened to him... it's wrong. He should be angry. He deserves to be angry. He deserves to hate those men.

Then again, there are moments, glimpses of recognition of the reality, the horrors that Dirk actually faced beneath his enforced cool. Maybe he already does. Maybe it's much more complicated than Ranboo could ever understand. All at once, he feels like he's just watched a great chasm open up in front of him, revealing a complex reality he had no idea existed before and can't possibly come to grips with now.

No wonder Dirk is so needlessly complicated about... everything.

Ranboo is quiet, but his expression has crumpled, tightened into something deeply troubled. They want to say something, to intervene somehow, but at his core, he can't help feeling distinctly out of place here. He's wandered into something far, far over his own head here.

"Okay," is all they end up saying. The edges are soft and frayed with concern and pain and horror, but he doesn't argue any further.

[themostempty]

"Whoa--no. No. Don't just 'okay' me. Don't give me that... that look. I don't want to see that fuckin' look." He finally does pull his arm free, reaches up to take Ranboo's face in both hands. He holds them there, gently, the exertion of mere minutes ago still warm in their skin under his tough palms. Even as he does this, he's feeling the tackiness of cum and slick and sweat drying between his legs and against his hole. The great, post-exertional heaviness weighing down every layer of his body. The stretched-out, used feeling of still being loose and open after it all.

His clit, incredibly, manages to hit him with a twinge of something that's not quite arousal. God, he's fucked up. But if he was ever going to be anything else, it's some thing he doesn't want to know. So he lives with it and he's making it work. The half-smile comes back, then vanishes with another heavy sigh. Not even for emotional reasons--well, maybe for those. But mostly because, honestly, he feels so wrung out. Breathing itself is like a chore.

"This is me we're talking about. Remember how we got on this subject? About how I know what gets me hard? About knowing how I like it? And the fact that I know how I like it? At the end of the day it's just where I got some of the sick fetish material I'd be jerking it to if I had the opportunities."

So maybe it was insane, and maybe it was twisted, and maybe it was wrong, and maybe it made him insane and twisted and wrong. But maybe he was always meant to be this way. That's the worst possibility of them all, but somehow the easiest one to stomach. Because he's his own worst enemy. No matter which explanation you favour, which breakdown you table, that's objectively true. He hesitates, though. Something tugs down at the corner of his mouth.

He doesn't let go of Ranboo's face, but the way he cups their face is... lighter. Lessening. Like he's freeing them to pull away, before the next words can leave his mouth.

"I'm not so different, that way."

[generationlost]

"Well-- yeah, because they made you this way," is Ranboo's response-- soft, gentle, but firm in conviction. "You pretty much just... told me that."

Tired green eyes search Dirk's face, laser-focused despite just how wrung out the head they belong to is. Ranboo lifts a broad hand to lay over one of Dirk's where it's cupping their jaw; despite the sincerity and affection in the gesture, they half-shrug a shoulder, as if playing what they're saying off as something casual.

"And I don't think you're that bad. I mean... what they did to you was..." Ranboo trails off, watching Dirk's eyes; finally, they settle on, "Not... great."

They pause for a long moment, thinking something over; finally, hesitantly, he asks, "Does it... help? When we... do stuff they used to do with you, or whatever."

[themostempty]

Ranboo's hand surprises him, and he stills. His muscles--slack from exertion, but still holding a strain of tension from the conversion, from holding his legs apart just so, from the heat of his cunt and the mess of his hole and his thighs, from emotion he's carrying in secret under his skin--slowly release some of their hold on his shape. He relents, just a little.

"Was that bad?" Dirk asks, in the pause. There's a hard edge to it. But he lowers his voice and continues, quieter. Softer. Like he's sharing something intimate between them. And in the moment, maybe he is.

"You forget that we have the same genetics. I could have become a screaming lunatic. I could have died. I could have killed myself. I could be a weeping, trembling waste of space. But I didn't. I adapted fine. Because--what is that look for."

Ranboo's question blindsides him, and there's a change. Not just in his mind, but in his breathing. Not to something fearful, not a panic attack. Nothing like that. It's different. Sharper, fast inhales, but long, slow exhales that empty his lungs to the bottom. A pre- fight-or-fuck reflex he doesn't notice he has. The prepatory instinct before exertion, before change. Physical, mental, emotional.

The anxiety grows again--congealing into some dark shape inside of him, a throb in his groin and his guts where Ranboo has filled him with a now-cooling load. He searches their face. Those green eyes are so piercing. The shape of them is naturally narrowed; his brows are so strong, long and arched in a way that gives him a penetrating stare even when neutral. Even when he's distant, or thinking, or tentative. Even now. It's a different kind of natural severity than Dirk's own, but it's also a big point of attraction--and connection. He can understand what's happening in the shape of them, even if not what's going on behind them.

".... what? Is that a trick question?"

[generationlost]

"N... no, I--" Ranboo frowns, just a little, pausing to think before he continues. "I mean, I know that you think it's... hot, or whatever, but I mean, does it help? Like, does it... make it easier for you, I guess?"

Does it make the weight of what happened any easier to bear? Or ease his struggle in any way? Does it serve a purpose beyond what Dirk says it does, maybe? Does it help? Ranboo isn't sure what kind of answer he expects here; Dirk seems content to keep insisting that he's fine, that what happened wasn't so bad, but there's no way. There's simply no way that's true. The marks of it are clear on Dirk and show in his every word. So Ranboo has to know, does doing this help?

On some level, they can't help but wonder if something like it could help make their own struggles more bearable, too-- obviously not... exactly what Dirk is doing here, probably, but. Some kind of... something like it, maybe. Something has to help them deal with the weight of their own suffering too, right?

[themostempty]

A war is occurring inside of him, one he doesn't perceive. One he barely feels, except as a set of conflicting responses and simultaneous impulses. It doesn't feel like a war at all. Mostly it feels like a traffic jam between his brain and his mouth that he has to sort. And an urgent need to solve it faster.

One of those gut responses is to laugh.

One is simply: who cares?

One is to deny that there's anything so deep to it.

And one--

Does it make what easier? He wants to ask, to fix Ranboo with a stare--calm, cool, calculated. Go on. Say it.

The instinct to blow it off is so powerful that it almost wins out. If he wasn't where he was, the way he was--if Ranboo's hand wasn't so warm laid over his, the soft skin of their face so peaceful under his palm and fingers, their eyes so sincerely searching--

It makes him want to get up out of bed entirely, to find an excuse to go clean them out of him and deal with this entire conversation later, to find a really true way to refute it. But he stays put just a second too long, processes these ideas just a moment too late, and getting up after an obvious delay like that becomes a last resort. But the way Ranboo studies him, like he sees something in him, sees into him, kindles a form of fear in Dirk that he doesn't understand.

This, itself, is its own blow.

And yet there's more to it than that. He knows--has known, deeply--that there's more than just something wrong with him. That something is broken in him, and about him. But before now, he believed that he alone knew the shape of it.

In one painful, terrible moment, Ranboo broke that certainty, snapping that one small piece of Dirk's reality like a twig. It engulfs him from the inside: the knowledge that he's broken not in new ways, or in more ways than before. But in ways that he didn't know other people could see. Ways he hadn't observed in himself, but which were obvious to others. Ways he felt but never truly comprehended the shape of, even if he'd acted on them.

Because he did know.

Ranboo has just articulated something that Dirk has noticed on his own, but never pieced together. And once he thought about it, having already denied it, his brain found the falsehood of that denial.

Hadn't he thought about it before? The difference he'd noticed? Having sex with Ranboo the first time had been a release so longed for, and for so long, that it was--well, if he'd ever wanted to cut them loose, losing himself in that ecstasy was a mistake. But that didn't... fix anything. He didn't feel better. Refreshed. Powerful. But not better. Not until they had sex again, and again after, with Ranboo on top now, pressing Dirk's body into the mattress, hands fisting in Dirk's hair as he fucked into Dirk's ass. Those orgasms weren't the one he'd first had, with Ranboo raw and hot inside of him a place that put him over the edge immediately. But they sated something. Brought him down, released something inside of him that was so pitched and so terrible that he could only barely contain it. And as they did more--as he got more, fed that need more, layered more and more into himself on that need? He began to feel more... real.

His eyes have become distant now, although he's not aware of it. The epiphany is strange.

As this picture, this realisation, comes together and settles over him, it burns hot. In the back of his mind, a beacon is lit. He has learned something. Realisation--knowledge--is power. It's control. He knows now. But at the same time, he becomes... small. Not small. Weak. He lies in his own bed next to a man he openly dominates, and feels like something changed. Something he can't identify. His brow furrows, just a crease.

"Yeah," he says, blunt and flat. Without realising 'empty' is how he feels. Especially when that's not how it sounds. It just sounds deadpan. It's like he's just normal, but in this moment, his body feels terrifying. Human. Flesh, in a way that isn't strong or sexual.

[generationlost]

The response takes far too long to arrive. While it wasn't nearly as long as it might have felt to Dirk, the delay was just long enough to register as unusual to Ranboo. They quirk an eyebrow at him-- not out of mockery or condescension, but concern and genuine confusion.

"Are you... sure about that?" When he speaks, his voice is slow, soft-- feathered in a way that they don't often let themselves speak around Dirk, since they figure he'd probably just tease them for it. It's an utterly gentle tone, warm at its core.

Dirk is difficult to read. The way he expresses himself and views the world is so utterly alien to Ranboo that trying to follow or make sense of his emotions is generally a fool's errand-- trying to predict how Dirk might respond to something is borderline impossible until you've spent as long around him as Ranboo now has. They still don't quite guess correctly sometimes. Now is no different; Ranboo can tell that he's thinking, can see the gears working behind his vibrant eyes, but they won't even pretend to have any idea what about. Hopefully it isn't how annoying they're being right now.

[themostempty]

Something about Ranboo's tone sends a spike of something like fear up through his gut to pierce his heart from underneath, and his breathing stops for a second.

Long enough for his eyes to focus and lock with Ranboo's.

"Seriously?"

It's too late to take it back. He curses himself, on some level. He really shouldn't have--but then, what else was he going to do? He should have lied, is what. Even though he's certain now, he hasn't had time to actually examine the reality he's unlocked yet. He doesn't know what it means that it's true, he doesn't know what he plans to do with that information or how it fits in, and some visceral sense tells him he doesn't want to. His sense, intuitive and deep, is that knowing this about himself will change things. Change him. That's not necessarily a good thing. It can't be a good thing--one way or another, it's going to make him worse. If it doesn't make him a bigger monster, it makes him a weaker person. He can't have either one, can only just stomach the first and he can't allow the other at all. He can't un-know this. Why did he let Ranboo--no, why did he let himself let Ranboo draw him in like that? What kind of idiotic, horrible impulse was that?

And just to make this all the more childish and stupid, his brain interjects an added note: his stomach hurts.

He lets his breath out all in one heavy gust.

"What? Why does this matter to you so much? Is this your new fetish? Did you figure something out? I said yeah, I'm not going to say no afterwards. Yeah. That's my final answer. Take it or leave it." His jaw presses back, his brain still working behind it all. Pushes him, churning through the waters of deeper thought until he adds one thing more.

"Just don't ask me to explain it."

[generationlost]

Well. At least Dirk definitely seems like himself again now, for better or worse. Ranboo gives Dirk a bewildered look at the outburst, but the edge of his mouth is touched by a smile.

"I was just... wondering if it helped, dude. Jesus." They heave a deep sigh, settling in to get comfortable there with Dirk; it's only a little bit of a delaying tactic, or an attempt to play off the intimacy of what just happened, at least outwardly.

It's pretty immediately betrayed by Ranboo murmuring, turned to gaze at the ceiling, "I just. It's like... if it's helping you, then that's... good."

It's a very simple statement, but so much meaning is hidden behind it. If Dirk is being helped, then it's okay to continue. Ranboo isn't making things any worse by doing what Dirk asks of them, right? So they can relax and enjoy it, too, knowing that Dirk is okay. Well, as okay as he ever is or can be, considering...