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

[generationlost]

"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?"

[themostempty]

"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.

[generationlost]

Ranboo frowns slightly, trying to understand what exactly Dirk means. Fucked him like a man...? That could mean any number of things, and none of them have anything to do with consent. Especially not considering some of the things that Dirk's implied or directly stated here. They shake their head just slightly, the smallest of motions, brow furrowed.

"... I don't-- what...? That's--" Like a man...? For a moment, Ranboo wonders if it has something to do with the way most people think of gay sex-- the mechanics of it, that is, but... while Dirk definitely seems to prefer it a certain way, he's definitely allowed Ranboo to fuck him in other ways, too. So that wouldn't make any sense for that to be it, would it?

Either way, that's missing the point.

"So, okay, so... you're saying that, since they did it a certain way, that made it... not rape?"

Given the age Dirk seems to be saying they started him at, asking Dirk whether or not he thought he wanted it at the time is kind of irrelevant. Dirk probably wouldn't believe that, given how this conversation's already been going.

However, even without confirmation of exactly what Dirk's specific wording means, this one moment explains so many things-- it's like Ranboo finally just found the key to unlocking the Dirk mystery. This was the cipher to start decoding what the fuck he's saying sometimes. Dirk didn't regard what he attempted to do to Ranboo previously as rape, because, to Dirk, that word fundamentally means something different. Because he's been so abused himself that his concept of it is entirely warped. Dirk wasn't doing it to Ranboo "wrong," so it wouldn't have been rape. That also explains his immediate reaction to Ranboo's outburst in response, it explains his utter and sincere confusion about why they had fixated on it so pointedly and taken so long to begin to trust him again afterwards. In Dirk's eyes, he sincerely believes he hadn't violated anything or anyone in that moment.

It's a moment of sudden and profound understanding, and also a deep, sick horror welling up in the pit of Ranboo's gut.

[themostempty]

"Yeah, now you're getting it." Which is... a relief. Not a very big one, admittedly. He can feel something is off. Something ihe way Ranboo is repeating what he says. Like understanding what Dirk is saying is somehow an incomprehensible act in itself. It's a relief because Ranboo is getting it, and he's having a smaller reaction than Dirk was expecting, but that reaction could get bigger. Fast. He's seen it happen already. After the way Ranboo flipped out before leaving, when he left... he just fucking knew this information would become a whole Thing.

But that's why he has to keep talking. He has to stop Ranboo before they start drawing weird conclusions without his input. Before they jump to the conclusion that he's a victim. He is, on paper. Technically, it's true. But it's just not that simple. And he has to make sure they really get that, or...

(Or, or, or. It's an 'or' he doesn't even want to think about. An 'or' that really, actually does scare him.)

"And I'm not saying I liked it all the time. I didn't, always. But this is me we're talking about. And there's something wrong with me. So 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. 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?"

As he talks, he alternates between speaking and making eye contact, then breaking off to speak more. He can make eye contact with Ranboo or he can think and talk, but he can't do both. Not about this.

Now, though, he locks eyes with him, because now he can again. And because--he needs to.

"They took a kid anyone else would have messed up anyway and made sure I'd make it as a man. And they 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.

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. Really, there was no other way for him to be. If not through this, then some other way. There's a tug on the corner of Dirk's mouth. Not downwards. A crooked half-smile pulling the corner of his mouth, pulling his normally stoic features into something expressive. It's not a nice look to wear, in this moment.

"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."

[generationlost]

That expression causes something inside of Ranboo's stomach to twist, to faintly ache. He tries to catch it before it can show on his face, though he isn't exactly sure of just how effective the attempt is.

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.

[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." The smile doesn't completely vanish--in fact, he's still wearing a bit of it as 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.

He's fucked up. He knows that. 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. If his own freak turns him on, that's one more damning feature--but then, so much the better. Why can't Ranboo see that?

"I'm fine. I lived. Think of it what you want. I can't stop you. But don't make this... a thing." There's a bit of contempt in his voice, creeping in through the hidden undercurrent of fear that Ranboo will do exactly that. He's already doing that. Dirk can see it, he can hear it--he can feel it, and it scares him in a way he wants to kill.

"Don't make it weird." He says this, but there's a desperate flavour to the hard edge. His clit, incredibly, manages to hit him with a twinge of something that's not quite arousal--with Ranboo leaking out of him and pressed between his thighs.

His half-smile wavers, and he releases a 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. And yet he keeps going.

A dry tone replaces the scorn. Or at least, it's a different kind of scorn.

"I can do that myself if I want it."

But then he hesitates. Puts two very small pieces together in his head, and the corner of his mouth finally tugs down. His brow forms a single crease. Bitterness--or maybe simply darkness--pools inside of him. And while he doesn't let go of Ranboo's face, the way he cups their face is... lighter. Lessening. Like he's giving them a chance, now--to run.

[generationlost]

Ranboo is quiet, listens patiently to Dirk, off-green eyes searching Dirk's own-- for what, he isn't exactly sure. Sincerity, maybe, or some indication of what to even say here. Dirk seems to truly believe it-- that this is fine, that he's okay, and Ranboo wants to argue, but is it his place?

It isn't. At least, not now, anyway.

Ranboo sighs, lifting a hand to rest it over one of Dirk's where he cups their square jaw.

"If you say so," is all they say for now.

Ranboo does have one more question, though; one that's been burning quietly in the back of their mind for some time since this conversation started, even since before their brief "intermission." It's a question that they can't help but wonder, more now than ever, so, after a moment, he finally asks:

"Does it... help? When we-- do stuff that they used to do with you, or whatever, like... does it make it easier?"

[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.

Which is how their question blindsides him, and for a moment he simply stares back at them, his intensity in deadlock with incomprehension.

And 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. Which is all very nice, but he really doesn't get it.

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.

".... what?"

It's not his most intelligent response.

"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?

[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?"

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--

His overwhelming impulse is to get 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... he is fully tense now.

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 he believed that he alone knew the shape of it.

Now Ranboo breaks that certainty, tapping it like the shell of an egg and sending cracks spiderwebbing across 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 finds the falsehood of that denial.

Because of course it does.

Hadn't he thought about it before? The difference he'd noticed? Between having sex with Ranboo the first time--a release so longed for, and for so long, that it was--well, if he'd ever wanted to cut his captive loose, losing himself in that ecstasy was a mistake. But that didn't... fix anything. He didn't feel 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 onto that need? He began to feel more... 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]

It's too late to take it back. He curses himself, on some level. He really shouldn't have admitted--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.

"Yes? 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 while the rest of him forms a new wall against the world.

[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...

[themostempty]

"Remember what I said about not making this weird?" Dirk's reply is half a grumble; he's pressing the side of his face into his pillow now. He doesn't actually try to get up, though. Heat rises in his chest, intense enough to be almost a burning. He doesn't know what that that means. He has a lot of... a lot of thinking to do, and he's not sure he appreciates that. But he's just so tired right now--so ready to simply dissolve into the bed and into Ranboo--that, frankly, it's a problem for a future man.

As, it becomes increasingly likely, will be cleaning up himself or the bed.