Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/599512.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      Other
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      Dirk_Strider/Autoresponder, Jake_English/Dirk_Strider
  Character:
      Dirk_Strider, autoresponder
  Additional Tags:
      Underage_Character, Masturbation, Breathplay, Robotics, Urine,
      emetophobia_warning, Non-Graphic_Violence, Sexualized_Violence,
      Masochism, Autoerotic_Asphyxiation, Masturbation_in_Shower, Robots,
      Dirk's_Issues
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-12-20 Chapters: 1/2 Words: 3898
****** As I Burn Into The Evening ******
by jadebloods
Summary
     You wonder at what point you finally lost control of your life to a
     digital imprint of your thirteen-year-old psyche ensconced in a pair
     of sunglasses. Loneliness, misery porn, masochism, and robosex.
Notes
     This fic is partially inspired by an_RP_log_that_I_did_a_long-ass
     time_ago_with_genericUsername. The reason why will be more apparent
     in the second chapter, which I haven't even started writing yet. This
     first chapter has been sitting on my hard drive for months, waiting
     for me to make progress, but it just isn't happening right now so I
     figured I might as well post what I do have.
     This is what I've been lovingly referring to as my "misery porn". I
     just love putting Dirk through the worst things I can imagine. So if
     you like beating up on Dirk, let's be friends.
     Be sure to read the tags for content warnings. EMETOPHOBIA WARNING:
     There's barf in this. It's brief, nonsexualized, and really just
     water. I'm emetophobic myself, and I could handle it, but I wouldn't
     want you to be startled by it.
     EDIT: Holy crap, tumblr_user_shadesofdirk_drew_fanart_for_this_fic.
     It is awesome, go check it out!
When you wake up, the sun is already low on the horizon, painting the water a
deep orange that shifts gradually to purple. You open your mouth to take a
breath, and your lips crack in half a dozen places. The air dragging across
your dry tongue makes you feel flimsy like paper, so you breathe through your
nose instead to conserve moisture. You close your eyes again, and your eyelids
feel hot and almost sandy, some kind of grainy bullshit that makes your eyes
want to water, but they can't. Even if you wanted to cry, it would be fuckin'
impossible. Closing them is easier than opening them, though. You lay like this
for a while, trying not to think about the pain of your shoulders and tailbone
digging into the roof's unforgiving concrete, or the pounding in your head like
an 808.
You have to piss, and that's almost the worst part. You are in dire fucking
need of a piss, but even if you could sit up right now and aim yourself just
enough to get the stream off of your stomach, you sorta feel like it'd be a bad
idea. You aren't even sure if dehydration works like that; maybe holding it in
would just make things worse? The pressure on your abdomen just adds a layer of
misery to the buzzing sensations running through your body while you try to
pull yourself together.
At some point you have the wherewithal to reach out blindly and grab your
shades, and when you put them on, you realize AR has been talking to you.
TT: You just gonna take a nap now? One titanium uppercut and lights out, that's
it?
TT: Fine, I'll handle these assholes. Tell me when you wake up.
You flip on the voice recognition and try to speak, but all you can manage is a
croak.
TT: It seems as though the wretched sack of viscera is trying to communicate
with me. If you're conscious, make another unintelligible noise.
You swallow thickly and try again. This time, words tumble out like gravel. "I
can't move. Send Squarewave up with some water."
TT: With those metallic sausage fingers? You know as well as I do that he
wasn't made for manual dexterity. I'll have Halbot do it.
"No," you say with a great deal of effort. "No, fuck that guy. Make Squarewave
carry it in a bucket if you have to." He can't make a smartass retort if you
take the glasses off, so that's exactly what you do. The dying sun is still
radiating orange in an arc across the sky that stops abruptly when it dips
under the black ocean water. No clouds. There hasn't been a cloud all day and
aren't you fucking lucky.
You have no idea how long you've been out. You'd been buzzing around on Derse
in the meantime, but time doesn't really work the same way over there.
You manage to roll over on your side so that you can look away from the sun,
and the movement shifts enough air around your body that you finally get a good
whiff of yourself. After marinating in the sun for several hours, you smell
positively sour, something like stale crotch sweat with a side of urine and
bile. If not for the dull, rolling desperation in your lower abdomen, you'd
think you already pissed yourself.
At some point you decide that the dignity of holding it in is contributing
needlessly to your misery, but there's a significant delay between making this
decision and being able to let go. You somehow coordinate your arm enough to
get your fly open and pull your dick out, but all you can do is aim yourself a
little bit to the side. You close your eyes and stretch your lips in a long,
slow grimace, trying to overcome a lifetime of conditioning and relax your
muscles. You teeter on the verge of being able to let go for so long that you
almost give up, because all of this trying to fucking relax is making you do
nothing but tense up even more.
This isn't working. You need to switch tactics. Instead of thinking about
pissing, you employ a bit of mental misdirection. You recall the sensation of
hard, hot metal grabbing you by the leg and hyperextending your knee so much
that you nearly white out from the pain. Yeah, you remember that. Then the same
metal had flipped you over and hyperextended your shoulder. There had been a
moment when you were absolutely fucking sure that it was going to dislocate-
- and through the pain you had found yourself coming up with a contingency
plan, figuring out how to find and convey to Sawtooth exactly how to yank it
back into its socket-- but he had relented at the last possible moment. You
don't know why he had done that; even now you feel like you got cheated out of
a proper punishment, and isn't that a weird thing to be thinking? Anger flares
deep in your chest, but so does something else. Once it had seemed inevitable,
you had wanted to be broken, not just knocked unconscious. This is your
punishment for not being able to beat him. This is what you deserve.
You deserve to piss yourself, you subservient piece of shit. You command
yourself to do it with a mental voice that's somewhere in the uncanny valley of
almost your own but not quite. Your parasympathetic nervous system bends to the
voice's will, and finally you can let go. The stream is so weak-- your body
wants to hold on to as much water as possible-- that it dribbles down your hand
and pools next to you, seeping into your jeans despite your best efforts. It's
warm, and it stinks, and you'd probably be properly ashamed of yourself if you
could feel anything at all right now. It also feels so fucking good that you
should probably be sobbing with joy if you only had a bit of moisture to spare.
It doesn't do anything for your headache, but the relief stretches down all the
way to your toes just the same.
Moving out of the puddle would have minimal returns at this point, so you flop
back down right where you are, wiping your hand off on the inside of your thigh
with your dick still hanging out of your pants. You wonder at what point you
finally lost control of your life to a digital imprint of your thirteen-year-
old psyche ensconced in a pair of sunglasses (and apparently also sometimes
echoing in your head). That's when you hear clanking footsteps from the
stairwell, and you raise your eyes skyward in silent thanks when you see
Squarewave's clunky feet instead of Halbot's streamlined figure. He's carrying
a bucket of water, just as requested, and you force yourself not to think about
what the bucket had been used for last when you put your lips to it and drink.
Squarewave tilts it gently for you, but his motor skills aren't exactly up to
par so a lot of it winds up sloshing up your nose and down your shirt. You
couldn't give fewer fucks.
The water is lukewarm and slightly salty, but it's the fucking godly ambrosia,
the sweetest of elixirs, and you drink it down rapidly, knowing that you should
slow down and pace yourself but unable to stop. You sit back, leaning on your
elbows and feeling your stomach stretch uncomfortably. Waterlogged. That's the
feeling. For a minute you actually believe that you can keep it down, but a few
seconds later you curl over and it's coming back up all over your lap with
painful retches. You're wringing out your guts like a washcloth. Fortunately
you're so empty that all that comes up is the water, not even any bile. At
least it dilutes the puddle of piss you'd been sitting in.
Squarewave pulls a straw out from somewhere and hands it to you clumsily. The
message is clear: Pace yourself, idiot. You look up at Squarewave's eyes as you
take the straw, and you wonder if AR is watching you through them. Who are you
kidding? Of course he is. "Thanks," you say, because fuck it, dude is probably
listening in too.
If your job is to handle everyone else, then AR's job is to handle you.
Sometimes, this knowledge is the only thing stopping you from taking the
sunglasses and throwing them into the endless brine, letting them sink for
miles and miles until the circuits are fried from the saltwater and the glass
is crushed under the immense weight of the ocean. Just a pair of cracked shades
slowly deteriorating with the sands of time, and no ghost in the machine
anywhere to be found.
It's good to know that someone has your back, even if that someone is a
sadistic motherfucker. So you dip the straw into the bucket, and you drink. The
straw forces you to drink slowly and take deep breaths, and you manage to keep
it all down this time. You spread out your legs and prop your elbows on your
knees, letting the water settle in your stomach and absorb a little bit before
you try to stand up. The sun is almost completely under the ocean now, and
there are vast expanses of dark purple where there was once brilliant gold and
orange. This time of evening always makes you think about Derse, with its
spires of deep purple, a sky of even darker black, and the faint blue
impression of Skaia in the distance. Sometimes, if you squint, you can even see
a smudge of yellow.
You wonder if this is what Jake feels like after being knocked out cold by
Brobot. Part of you hopes not, because wow, this is really fucking shitty, but
another part of you knows that this was sort of the point. One of the points. A
major point, anyway. Jake also usually has the luxury of tree canopies to
shield him from the direct afternoon sun, so he probably wakes up feeling a
little more refreshed than you do right now.
You stare off into the distance, watching the sun fuck the ocean, all deep,
slow, and familiar, like they've been doing each other since time out of mind.
In the absence of human contact, you have apparently taken to not only
anthropomorphizing celestial bodies and bodies of water, but also giving them
long and storied sex lives as well.
After a while you finally start to feel like something resembling human, like
something that might be able to stand up of its own accord. You grab your
shades with one hand and Squarewave's arm with the other, and you pull yourself
to your feet. "Thanks, dude," you say again. It's intended for Squarewave, but
you have no idea if AR is still watching you through him or not.
The staircase doesn't pose too difficult of a challenge for you, which is a
relief for once, and you make it back to your apartment on surprisingly steady
feet. You need to eat, but the thought of it makes your stomach roll, probably
because you're still covered in piss and retched-up water. The bathroom seems
like a better plan. You take off your soiled clothes and toss them in a pile in
a corner, setting your glasses carefully down on the edge of the sink.
You stand naked in front of the full-length mirror and inspect yourself for
serious damage. What you see is fairly familiar: lanky lean muscle from all the
swimming and strifing, dark pockmarked skin from acne and sun damage, and burn
scars all over the place from welding accidents. Your hair is a fucking mess,
standing up wildly on top of your head, but then again when is it not? Cuts and
bruises pepper your body, like red and blue-black (and sometimes green) slashes
and splotches against a muted brown canvas. Many of them are new, but not all
of them. You can't decide if you love or hate the way they look on you, but
sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror and think you look like some kind
of perverted Christmas tree. You don't see anything so serious that it needs
more than just a good soaping, so you step over to the shower and turn it on.
The message indicator on your shades is blinking, so you put them on while
waiting for the water to warm up.
TT: This cat-and-mouse charade you and Halbot have going on is already getting
old.
TT: I don't know if I'm more proud of how expeditiously he handed your ass to
you on a gleaming precious metal platter or more disgusted by how easy you are
to break.
TT: Either way, I think this has been a roaring success. A+++ would wreck your
shit again.
TT: Spare me the self-congratulatory onanism.
TT: Maybe we can pick this up later when I have the attention span for it. You
can rub your dick in my face to your cold mechanical heart's content at that
hypothetical juncture.
TT: But for now, fuck off.
TT: In my infinite wisdom, I really should have predicted that you'd be the
special kind of mouse who enjoys the pre-evisceration foreplay.
TT: Oh wait.
TT: I did.
TT: I'm not sure if "enjoy" is the right word.
TT: You might not be sure, but I am. How's your shoulder doing?
TT: Shut up.
TT: Enjoy the shower.
The water isn't quite warm enough yet, but you get in anyway. It pelts your
broken skin like little fucking blades, but it hurts less when it starts to
warm up. You remain standing just long enough to let the worst of the grime
rinse away, and then you sit down in the bottom of the shower. This time, the
water hitting your forehead feels amazing, and the massaging sensation confuses
your brain into thinking your headache is gone, at least for a little while.
Lateral inhibition, man. How does it work?
You reach up and grab the soap, which smells like rendered shark fat because
that's what it fucking is, and it makes your stomach roll a little more.
Fortunately there's nothing left inside you to come up, now that the water has
settled, so you scrub yourself down as best as you can while sitting on the
floor. You run your hands over your body with the crude bar of homemade soap,
touching yourself gently with the slickness of the suds where those fresh cuts
and bruises are blossoming. Your stomach feels empty and warm as you slide your
fingers over it and then down your thighs, over your sharp knees and down to
your feet. Back up, around your hips to the small of your back. To the front
again, and over your chest, nipples, and shoulders. The back of your neck feels
too hot and too tense, so you roll your head back and forth against your
shoulders for a while, letting your hands dangle in your lap, brushing absently
against your thighs. Meanwhile, you think again about how earlier it had felt
like your entire neck, shoulder, and clavicle complex would snap under Halbot's
grip. He'd made you feel helpless, like you had bird bones, full of air and
ready to break at will, and it made your heart race. Your heart picks up speed
right now just from the memory.
You shake your head and go back to scrubbing, making sure to soap up
everything, because nothing had escaped without a thick coat of grime during
the direct sunlight boy-juice marinade marathon. Putting it that way makes it
sound kinda sexier than it was, but then, why do you feel yourself getting
hard? A question for the fucking ages, but you push it to the side for a moment
while you concentrate on rinsing yourself off without standing up. You have to
pivot and contort, but you manage it. Getting the piss and sweat off of you
makes a world of difference, even with the slightly fishy under-smell that has
permeated your existence ever since the real soap ran out a few years ago. You
can hardly smell it anymore, except for when your stomach is on a hair trigger,
apparently.
Trying to convince yourself that you're going to turn off the water and get out
of the shower is an exercise in futility, because your business isn't done in
here and you fucking know it. You just don't really want to admit it to
yourself because, frankly, you don't understand it. But not knowing why certain
things give you an erection has never really stopped you from indulging in
them. It's not like you have any use for the human diseases of shame and
propriety.
You grab your dick and pull the foreskin back, soaping up your head gently. You
don't clean it every day because this homemade soap is harsh as hell, but after
a day like today you really can't get away with not. After rinsing it off, you
don't let go. Instead, you give it an inquisitive squeeze, and it responds by
getting a little harder with a light throb. Well, fuck. Okay, you guess you're
doing this. You close your eyes and lean against the wall of the shower, which
is cold against your back but not unpleasant, and you start stroking yourself
lazily, letting your mind wander while you try to see if you're even capable of
a full erection right now.
Masturbation fantasies were never hard to come by since they were really all
that you've ever had. Right now, you picture Jake sitting in the bottom of his
shower and touching himself the way you are. You lick your lips subconsciously,
watching water drip over his dark brown skin and muscles and thinking about
what he smells like. Probably like dirt, but you've never known how really
fresh dirt might smell. Or fucking… trees. Whatever, it doesn't matter. You
think about him sliding his foreskin up and down over his head with those
enormous fists, like you're doing to your dick right now, and letting his
eyelids droop with pleasure as he… chews on his bottom lip... Oh, shit.
Physiology and fantasy seem to align your favor, because before too long, your
dick is hard as hell and aching for a rougher touch. You give it to yourself,
gripping hard and stroking fast, biting the inside of your cheek in
concentration and not giving any fucks if the muscles in your arm start to
overheat.
For the sake of symmetry, you imagine that in this fantasy, Jake has just
finished sparring with Brobot. Maybe he got a little too touchy with himself in
the post-fisticuffs soaping ritual, or maybe he just has too much excess
energy. Maybe Jake is the kind of guy who gets turned on after a fight, and
honestly, that wouldn't surprise you one fucking bit. Maybe he pops a boner
every time he gets into hand-to-hand combat with the robot and has to furiously
rub one out afterward. Maybe it makes him think of you.
Maybe it makes him angry at you.
You shift your weight because your leg is going numb, and you double down the
pressure on your dick. Your chest feels a bit tight, like you're not breathing
very efficiently through the heat and the shower fog when you're taking such
rapid, shallow breaths. Your mental frame shifts too, because now you're
picturing Jake sparring with you, like maybe he's pissed at you for all the
subtle manipulation and mechanical beat-downs. Maybe he wants you to know what
it feels like. He wants to break you. He forces your face down into the dirt,
plants one knee into the small of your back, grabs one of your arms, and just…
pulls. You grip the base of your dick hard with one hand and twist your hand
over the head, feeling your breath catch in your chest at the thought. Fuck.
Lightheadedness settles over you, probably a result of the dehydration and all
the steam in the shower getting in the way of your oxygen, but you kinda like
it. It makes you feel desperate, like you need to finish before you stop being
able to breathe completely. Like it's a fucking race against the clock and the
limitations of your own biology. You like pushing your body's limits, although
probably not as much as you'd like someone else to push them for you. Push
through them.
But it starts looking like you're going to lose the race, because you can see
black spots blossoming over your field of vision when your orgasm meter is
still only about 80% full. Your heart beats loudly in your ears, and you choke
out a frustrated sob and stroke faster, ignoring the lactic acid burn in your
triceps and pushing it as far as you can, but you just… you can't… you can't
fucking breathe is what you can't do. At first it feels amazing, the mild sense
of alarm making your body tingle and buzz and intensifying the sensation in
your dick, but then panic starts creeping in and wrapping tightly around your
chest, constricting your every movement. You're hyperventilating and it's
making everything worse. You need to get out, now.
You turn off the water and roll out of the shower, taking deep frantic breaths
as you crawl into the hallway outside the bathroom for fresh air. Water falls
off of you in rivulets and gets all over the tile and carpet, but you'll worry
about that later because you need to breathe right fucking now or you really
will pass out again. You roll over and lie down on your back in the hallway,
chest heaving, feeling the cold, dry air fill your lungs and clear your head.
You sober up. You're not gonna pass out, but the panic has caused your dick to
retreat back to its normal, flaccid state. Game over.
You lost again. Today just isn't your day.
The carpet sticks to your wet skin, and as it dries it starts to itch against
your back and legs. Your dick has practically crawled all the way back into
your body because of how cold you are, but it still takes you a while to stand
up and start searching for clothes. When you do finally sit up, you see a flash
of cold gray out of the corner of your eye, like one of the robots had been
watching you the whole time and finally decided to abscond. Three guesses who.
You cradle your head in your hands for a moment, elbows braced against your
knees, trying to collect yourself. Until the day you woke up to find Halbot
standing in the corner of your bedroom last week, you'd never felt quite so
much like you were living with another person, even if that "person" was just
the mechanical avatar of the artificial intelligence version of yourself.
The two of you needed to have a pretty serious discussion about privacy and
personal boundaries and how sometimes pity was the most ruthless course of
action in a person's arsenal, and you fucking hated it. But first, you needed
to eat.
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