Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/714831.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      Dave_Strider/Dirk_Strider
  Character:
      Dirk_Strider, Dave_Strider, Roxy_Lalonde
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe, Forced_Prostitution, Guns, Crossdressing, Incest,
      Substance_Abuse, Marijuana, Alcohol, Underage_Drinking, Minor_Violence,
      Off-screen_Character_Death, Dubious_Consent, Phone_Sex, Oral_Sex, Anal
      Sex, Intercrural_Sex, Comeplay, Roleplaying_Character, Prostitution
      Roleplay, Incest_Play, Breathplay, Brothels, Age_Difference
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-03-10 Updated: 2013-03-19 Chapters: 12/? Words: 189075
****** Mafiastuck ******
by jadebloods, Neigedens
Summary
     He hadn't truly expected to win the fight against Noir, since Noir
     was the most powerful carapace in the city, a well-known mobster and
     entrepreneur, and Dave was a seventeen year-old with nothing but a
     broken sword and a dead brother. Still, he'd expected to be killed
     after he lost. Instead, Jack had pressed him into "service," the kind
     of service where you work in a bar, but not serving drinks. So that
     was why Dave was trapped, and that was why they'd made him wear a
     really short miniskirt, and that was why he was scanning the crowd
     nervously for the customer they had told him to find.
Notes
     Read the tags. No, I mean it. READ THE TAGS.
     A few things about this work: This isn't written like a fic and it
     was never intended to be a fic. This is a massive role-play log that
     started on Trollplay and ballooned into a 200,000 word behemoth over
     the course of a few months. As such, the pacing is very different
     from a fic, the scenes don't break into proper "chapters", and there
     are likely a lot of typos that will never be fixed.
     There is, however, a lot of porn. And who wants to keep that much
     porn to themselves?
     So, if you're down with the format being the way it is, read on. The
     up/down arrow format is a carryover from where it started on
     Trollplay and is used to signal POV switches (this becomes useful
     later on when the switch happens after multiple paragraphs). Down-
     arrow parts were written by Neigedens, who played Dave, and the up-
     arrow parts were written by jadebloods, who played Dirk.
     Fanart commissions based on this log:
     Dirk_escorts_Dave_back_to_the_hotel by Nachte
     Dirk_and_Dave_smoking by Breezy (this is for character concept but
     not based on any given scene)
     Dirk_loses_his_virginity_to_Cronus_in_a_club_bathroom_stall by Breezy
     (this was an in-game joke that spun out of control)
***** Chapter 1 *****
▼: He hadn't truly expected to win the fight against Noir, since Noir was the
most powerful carapace in the city, a well-known mobster and entrepreneur, and
Dave was a seventeen year-old with nothing but a broken sword and a dead
brother. Still, he'd expected to be killed after he lost. Instead, Jack had
pressed him into "service," the kind of service where you work in a bar, but
not serving drinks. So that was why Dave was trapped, and that was why they'd
made him wear a really short miniskirt, and that was why he was scanning the
crowd nervously for the customer they had told him to find.
▲: Dirk sat in a booth near the back of the bar, holding a whiskey on the rocks
but not drinking it with much relish. He really hated jobs like these, where
the hit was some unsuspecting kid who probably only made the mistake of being
in the wrong place at the wrong time and having the bad luck of knowing a
little too much. He set the drink down on the square napkin and looked up,
straight into the eyes of a pale, nervous kid. Fuck. That was him. There was no
mistaking it-- he matched the description perfectly, right down to the
freckles. Dirk nodded his head at the guy, a gesture that told him to come over
and sit down.
▼: He slid across from the man, who looked like Bro. Dave was trying to ignore
it, but there it was. He even had the shades like Bro had had. Even though he
was slighter of build and obviously much younger, the resemblance was uncanny.
Dave wasn't sure if the similarity was a good sign or not. Probably not, the
way his luck had been lately. "Hey," he said, leaning forward at the table and
speaking in a low voice.
▲: "Hey," Dirk said back. Well. Now that they'd gotten the pleasantries out of
the way. He took another sip of his drink and tried not to shift uncomfortably
in his suit. The kid was attractive. Not in an oozing with sex kind of way,
but. But. There was something more to him, Dirk could tell. "Nice skirt," he
said, deadpan. "I'm guessing you didn't pick it out."
▼: He laughed, despite himself. "Uh, excuse you, I happen to think it looks
fan-fucking-tastic. Really fits into the decor of a high-class joint like this,
right?" The guy even talked like Bro, sort of had the monotone cadence that
Dave hadn't heard for awhile. Weird, but not unwelcome, he supposed.
▲: A smirk flitted over Dirk's face for half a second. "Okay, yeah. Yeah, you
fit right the fuck in, my mistake." He drained the rest of his drink, which was
a considerable amount since he'd been nursing it like a pussy instead of just
drinking it. He was going to need all the courage he could get, because this
kid was too fucking pretty. He raised a finger at the bartender. "You want a
drink, kid?" It was almost rhetorical. If his consort was of legal drinking
age, he'd eat his nice Armani shoe.
▼: Technically underage drinking was illegal, but then so was prostitution,
after all. At Noir's place the workers tended not to give a fuck. Normally Dave
took advantage of this, but tonight he was feeling skittish and not up for any
drinking. Something told him the guy, whoever he was, would not be a good
drinking buddy. "I'm good, dude. Thanks." He leaned forward a bit more and
smirked back at the guy. "I'm Dave, by the way. You got a name?"
▲: Dirk licked his lips and nodded. "Yeah, I got a name." The bartender came by
to refresh his whiskey, but Dirk grabbed his arm. "Leave the bottle," he said,
slipping some bills across the table. He poured himself another drink and
downed it as well. Yeah. This was better. He was starting to feel better. "You
look like the kind of guy who has a story. Humor me a little bit. I have some
time to kill."
▼: He looked at the guy out of the corner of his eye for a second, trying to
keep the questioning look out of his face. That was something he still wasn't
used to, the way his face without his shades was left open. He shrugged. "Got
on the wrong side of Jack Noir, is the gist of it. Guy's kind of dangerous.
Which I assume you know. If you didn't you probably wouldn't still be among the
living."
▲: "Who, me? Nah. I'm in the sanitation business." He smiled, and it was
genuine. Everyone knew that was code, and if the kid was smart, he'd pick up on
it. He refilled the glass and pushed it across the table to Dave. "I think
you're gonna want this," he said.
▼: Dave stared. Well, that explained why the guy was so close-lipped he
wouldn't even say his name. Dave looked down at the drink; he'd never had
straight whiskey before. One time the bartender had given him a whiskey water
instead of a whiskey sour by mistake and it had nearly made Dave puke, but this
stuff was nicer, went down smoother, than what he was used to. "Thanks. Anyway.
My older brother got on the wrong side of Jack Noir too. Only difference is, he
didn't walk away from it like I did."
▲: "I'm sorry to hear that," Dirk said. He meant it, too. It occurred to him
that he should probably slow down with the drinking, but he always got nervous
before this type of hit. He was really too much of a fuckin' softy to be in
this line of work, but the truth was, he and this kid weren't all that
different in how much choice they had on that subject. It made Dirk feel bad
about pressing his leg against the kid's leg under the table, but on some
level, he couldn't help himself. "How long you been workin'?"
▼: "Just a couple of months." He took a slightly larger sip of the whiskey; the
more he drank, the more numb his lips got, and the smoother the whiskey felt as
it went down his throat. He hadn't eaten much that day, so even after his first
glass he was feeling, just a little bit. He let the guy refill it for him,
wondering at the guy's appearance all the while. Over those past few months
he'd gotten better at reading people; he wasn't great at it, but he could sort
of understand after a bit what people wanted. This guy was throwing him off.
Sort of expected, of course, since he was a Bro-lookalike. "You don't look like
the type of guy who hires a hooker," he said, aware maybe he was speaking too
freely but not really caring.
▲: Now it was Dirk's turn to laugh. "I'm not." He took a swig from the bottle
while Dave drank from the glass. A little uncouth, maybe, but he forgot to ask
for a second glass. "This is actually my first time. I bet you hear that a lot,
though. Shit, I bet you *say* it a lot." Dirk looked down at the hard, stained
wood of the table. This kid really didn't belong in a place like this, but he
wasn't about to go all Pretty Woman on this unsuspecting kid's ass. Not unless
he wanted to get them *both* killed. "Is Dave your real name?" He was stalling,
and it was probably fairly obvious. He found himself actually wanting this guy,
and it terrified him.
▼: "Uh-huh. If I was going to go with a fake name I'd probably choose something
more exciting and exotic. You know, like Steve or Bill or something." He
smirked. "Probably it is traditional to take some dumb stripper-sounding name
when you go into this business. I couldn't think of any good ones."
▲: "Rodrigo," Dirk said. "You definitely look like a Rodrigo." He licked his
bottom lip again, almost like a tic. He was starting to be unable to feel it,
and a calming warmth had begun to spread through his body. He still wasn't sure
he was going to be able to carry through with the job, but he'd deal with that
when the time came. He reached up and loosened his tie a little. "Why don't you
come over to this side of the table?"
▼: He still had the slight smirk on his face. He'd been returning the pressure
from the guy's leg, first out of a duty and then just for the hell of it. The
guy wasn't just another whiny asshole complaining about how his wife didn't
understand him and looking for a fuck. Dave appreciated that. Glass in hand, he
slid around the table until he was sitting right next to the guy, his bare
thigh pressing up against the smooth material of the man's slacks. "Fill me
up?" he asked, leaning in slightly to bring his glass closer.
▲: Dirk wanted to reach down and touch Dave's leg, but he hesitated. He knew
he'd get whatever he paid for, but he didn't like the feeling that Dave might
just be humoring him. This was exactly the reason why Dirk had never been with
a hooker before. He settled for just going back to the pressure as he refilled
the kid's glass for a second time. "With pleasure," he said. He watched as Dave
brought the glass to his lips, and he fought against the urge to adjust himself
in his pants. That would just be crude. Oh, fuck it, he put his hand on Dave's
knee anyway.
▼: He put his hand on his chin and looked the man over. "Bet your name's
Rodrigo. That's it, I've cracked it. That's you, right? Rodrigo the garbage
man. Takin' out the trash." He leaned over, so his body was pressed against the
guy's arm. "Nice shades, by the way. Very slick. You always wear 'em at night?"
Him making fun of somebody for wearing sunglasses indoors was the height of
hypocrisy, but this guy didn't know that, did he?
▲: Yes, the garbage man in the Italian suit. Dirk smiled again. "Such a
severely masculine name would be befitting of a guy like me, but no, that's not
it." He let up on Dave's knee and moved his arm back, resting it across the
booth so that Dave could lean in closer. He was getting a little too worked up
feeling that skin under his fingers, anyway. "You can keep calling me Rodrigo,
though, if you like it. I'll call you Antonio. Now we both have stripper names.
That's so legit." He took another drink from the bottle. The alcohol had
started making him chatty. "Yes, I always wear my shades. Maybe I'll take them
off for you later."
▼: "Fuckin' swoon, bro." He pressed closer to him, now sitting so the man (the
customer, Dave reminded himself) could put his arm around him if he wanted to.
"I dunno about you, but I'm sick 'a lookin' at all the people down here. You
want to get out of here?"
▲: Dirk did want to put his arm around Dave, but he didn't, instead settling
for letting his fingers brush against the kid's shoulder. He looked at the
bottle of whiskey, which was still a quarter full. "Yeah, okay. You got a coat
or something? I wanna take this with me but we need to hide it." He grabbed
Dave's glass and finished what remained.
▼: "Yeah, I got one. We can grab it from the coat check girl on the way out."
He leaned forward to murmur in the guy's ear. "Where we going, Rodrigo?" Before
he could help himself, he rolled his eyes. "Shit, I was doing so well on the
sexy talk there, but I can't take myself seriously when I'm calling you that.
Sorry, dude."
▲: The whisper tickled Dirk's ear, and he had to suppress an involuntary
shudder. Shit. This kid was playing him like he was a fucking flute. He was a
goddamn pro. "I thought you were doing alright, actually." For someone who kept
talking about leaving, Dave sure wasn't making any moves to get up. That was
fine with Dirk, since he was probably in danger of pitching a tent. "I have a
room not too far from here."
▼: "That sounds good. Bet it's nicer than this dump. Come on." Dave wouldn't
have cared even it was another trash heap. Which was unlikely; the guy worked
in sanitation after all. Dave stood up, and grabbed the hand that had been
brushing his shoulder. He was curious, suddenly, and eager to get out of the
bar.
▲: Oh, okay, they really were leaving. Dirk grabbed the bottle and held it-
- hopefully somewhat surreptitiously-- over the front of his pants with his
free hand. He let Dave lead him over to the coat check and tipped the girl
handsomely while sliding the open bottle to Dave to hide under his coat.
▼: He felt light on his feet while walking, which was a side effect of the
alcohol, but also due to exhilaration. There was something sort of refreshingly
normal about sneaking booze under your jacket, even if circumstances otherwise
were the furthest they could be from normal. "You're kinda loaded, huh," he
said. "Like, damn. Can barely believe it." Probably this counted as "shooting
your mouth off," but Dave was three drinks past caring.
▲: The air outside was brisk but just on the warm side of being cold enough for
the jacket, so he didn't feel bad about making the kid smuggle his whiskey out
of such a fine establishment. He finally felt relaxed enough to put his arm
around Dave's shoulders, leading him down the street towards his hotel. "Now
that's a rude question. They have to pay us garbage men pretty well to keep us
willing to get rid of trash day in and day out." It wasn't actually that far
from the truth.
▼: "Well, I got a shitty job too but they don't pay me very well to compensate
for it. I ain't complaining, by the way. See, the rest of us, we just got to
pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and keep shoveling away for the guys on top
until shit starts looking up for us and is this line of reasoning making you
laugh yet? Because I've been busting a gut about it for the past three months,
let me tell you." He let the guy put an arm around him, and leaned against him
slightly as he walked.
▲: "Yeah, well. Maybe you won't have to worry about that for very long." Dirk
wouldn't have said that if not for the fact that he'd drank way more than he
originally intended. Something dark passed over his face, although fortunately
Dave was looking forward instead of at Dirk. He decided it would be better to
shut up for a while, and they walked in silence. After a little while, they
came up on a hotel that, while not a five star, was probably a lot better than
the kind of place Dave was usually taken. "This is us," he said, opening the
door for Dave. What a fuckin' gentleman.
▼: Sort of an odd, ambiguous thing to say, but Dave didn't question it, just
appreciated the seamless way the guy fell in line with Dave's at time uneven
stride. "Shit, no doorman, dude? I'm surprised." The lobby was empty, but there
was classy, muted muzak-type shit playing through the loudspeaker. Dave hated
that kind of shit. He turned around and waited for him. The light here was
brighter than it had been, in the street and in the bar, and it didn't lessen
the guy's resemblance to Bro at all. That should have been unnerving in the
situation, but for whatever reason, it wasn't. Dave found himself staring.
"Weird," he said, before he could help himself.
▲: Dirk was digging through his pockets for his keys. "They don't build hotels
with doormen very close to classy establishments like yours," he said off-
handedly while patting himself down. When he finally found the keys and pressed
the button for the elevator, he looked up to see Dave staring at him with an
odd expression on his face. "What?" he asked, oblivious, as the elevator dinged
behind him.
▼: "You just...you look like. Someone I used to know." He wasn't quite drunk
enough to tell the guy he looked like Dave's dead brother; that was a bad idea
for anyone you were going to have sex with, even if they were paying for you.
"It just hit me suddenly, that's all. Forget it." Dave followed him into the
elevator.
▲: He didn't have anything to say to that, so Dirk punched the button for the
top floor, then reached over and slipped a hand under Dave's coat, grabbing the
bottle and taking a swig from it. He had started feeling a little nervous
again. Maybe it was something in the other guy's voice, or maybe it was the
proximity of his room and what that meant. He never actually intended to sleep
with the kid, but... well... Dave was a little too good at his job, let's just
put it that way. When the elevator stopped, he grabbed Dave's hand and led him
over to a room at the end of the hall. He flipped on the lights, exposing a
neatly kept room with a large window and few personal effects.
▼: The hotel wasn't a skyscraper or anything, but it was higher up than what
Dave had gotten used to in the past few months. He'd sort of missed seeing the
city like this. He stood in front of the big window before remembering, oh
yeah, he was supposed to be paying attention to the client. Keeping your eye on
them was sort of important, he knew, or at least had been told. He turned
around to look at the guy. "Nice view."
▲: "Yeah," Dirk breathed, looking at Dave. Wow, that was fucking cheesy as
hell. He took off his suit jacket and hung it over the back of a chair, and
then took off his tie, setting it down neatly on top of the jacket. He didn't
really know what the protocol was here, because he hadn't been kidding about
not picking up hookers. He took another drink and then sat at the edge of the
bed, holding out the bottle to Dave.
▼: He walked up to the guy and took the bottle from him, standing very close to
him, so their knees were almost touching. He took a pull from the bottle like a
seasoned expert; hard to believe that earlier tonight he could hardly drink
whiskey straight without grimacing. Dave leaned over and set the bottle on the
nightstand before turning back to him, putting his hands on the man's shoulders
and taking another step forward to stand between his legs.
▲: Oh. Oh, okay. Dirk swallowed and then reached out, feeling Dave's legs
through the thin fabric of the skirt. He ran his hand up under the skirt and
brushed his fingers momentarily against Dave's ass, then brought them back
down. For the second time he appreciated the feel of Dave's skin under his
fingers. Damn. He reached up and grabbed the bottom of Dave's shirt, looking up
at Dave's face to see if this was okay.
▼: Dave ran his fingers up the man's neck, carding them through his hair, which
was surprisingly soft given how much it stuck up. Dave had been expecting a
waxy, sticky feel. He grinned a bit and pulled his shirt off and over his head
before returning to the guy's hair. "Take these off," he said, tapping the
points of the guy's shades. "Before you stab me in the gut with them."
▲: Dirk smiled again, for the first time since leaving the bar. "Whatever you
say, Tony." He pulled off the glasses and set them down on the bedside table,
next to the whiskey bottle, and then looked up at Dave again, this time with
naked eyes. Dave looked a lot better this way, Dirk had to admit. He reached
out again and settled his hands on Dave's hips, pulling him forward slightly so
that Dirk could press his lips against the exposed skin just to the side of
Dave's navel. Yeah, Dirk was definitely loosening up a bit now.
▼: He closed his eyes and put his hand on the back of the dude's head so he
could guide him, but softly. He hummed very softly and with his other hand
reached down to undo the buttons of the man's shirt. That was one thing he'd
gotten good at, unbuttoning shit one-handed, if nothing else.
▲: Dirk kissed and bit lightly along Dave's abdomen and over to his hip bone,
breathing in the smell of Dave that was a little bit boy sweat and a little bit
laundry detergent. It made Dirk hungry and a little impatient, and he pulled
away for a moment to pull the rest of his shirt over his head without
unbuttoning it the rest of the way. He threw it on the floor with little care,
which may have come across a bit odd, considering the way he had meticulously
placed his tie and jacket. Having dispatched with that, he turned his attention
back to Dave, hooking his fingers under the skirt and pulling it down.
▼: He helped the guy ease the skirt down his hips and stepped out of it,
kicking it to the ground so he was only wearing his underwear. He sank down
until he was straddling the man's hips and almost sitting in his lap. Whoever
the guy was, he was hard, which as a signal was about as unambiguous as they
come. Dave reached down to unbuckle the man's belt, rubbing him through his
pants as he did so.
▲: Hard was an understatement. Dirk was pretty sure he was solid. If he was in
his right mind he'd probably even be a little embarrassed by how obvious he was
being. As it was, he leaned back and rested his weight on his arms behind his
back while Dave took off his pants, exposing the tent of his pretty obvious
erection under a pair of bright orange boxer briefs. "Why don't you go turn
down the light?" he muttered with a bit of effort. As aroused and headed
towards drunk as he was, he didn't think he was ready to fuck a hooker in full
light.
▼: "Mm." Dave stood up and went over to turn off the overhead light, and, on a
last minute thought, turned on the small reading lamp in the corner. "That
alright?" he said, peeling off his underwear and kicking off his shoes while he
was at it. "Mood lighting's nice and all but I sorta like to see what I'm
doing." He sank back down beside the guy and started pulling his slacks down
his legs.
▲: "Yeah, that's..." Dirk stared from where he lounged on the bed, transfixed,
as Dave finished undressing. "That's fine." He kicked off his own shoes and
lifted his hips so that Dave could pull his pants the rest of the way off.
Catching a glimpse at what Dave was packing, Dirk licked his lips again
involuntarily. He sat back up, now only in his underpants, and pulled Dave down
so that he was straddling Dirk's lap. This time, he kissed Dave's neck, running
his hands up Dave's back and pulling their torsos together as he moved his lips
and teeth over the soft skin just under Dave's jaw. His dick was probably
poking Dave's thigh.
▼: His skin was hotter than Dave had thought it would be, given the coolness of
the man's hands and how detached he had seemed while they'd been talking. Maybe
he was from out of town, reflected Dave, only here for a job, and in the middle
of a serious dry spell. That would explain why he'd hired a hooker, and the
desperate way he was moving against Dave, pulling him close and kissing his
neck, his still clothed dick pressing between them. Dave felt himself getting a
little excited too; he arched his neck up and rubbed the guy through his briefs
with both hands.
▲: The touch took Dirk by surprise, and he released a jagged exhale against
Dave's throat as Dave rubbed his dick. Yeah, it had been a while, Dave was
right about that much. Too fucking long. Too much business that needed taking
care of. Too much trash that needed to be taken out for Dirk to really have
time for relationships. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had sex, so no
wonder he was jumping out of the gate a little too eagerly. He wanted to kiss
Dave on the lips, but to be honest, Dirk didn't know if that was considered bad
behavior with a hooker or not, so instead he reached down and pushed his boxer
briefs over his hips so that Dave could get a proper grip on his dick.
▼: He wrapped one hand around the shaft of the guy's cock and started working
him slowly, leaning down to mutter in his ear again. "You can kiss me, if you
want," he said, sort of amused. "On the lips, I mean. I wouldn't mind." He
found it sort of funny, the bounds on intimacy people set out for themselves,
but then Dave had used to always keep his eyes covered by shades for
inscrutable yet surely ironic reasons, so he really wasn't one to talk.
▲: Dirk kept his hold on Dave's shoulders as he fell back onto the mattress,
pulling Dave down with him. "Well, if you wouldn't mind..." he trailed off
before going in for the kiss, reaching his head up off of the bed a little to
meet Dave's lips. He didn't dive right in with his tongue because damnit, he
was still a somewhat restrained gentleman, although the desire to dive in and
devour the kid's face was definitely there. Instead he brought a hand down and
felt Dave's semi-erect dick, trailing his fingers down to knead the balls
lightly. "Dirk," he said against Dave's lips. "That's my name. Say it."
▼: There were warning bells going off in his mind as he kissed the man lightly
in return, like loud mental klaxons blaring in his head that something was
wrong, something was *fucked up* here, besides the inherent fucked up-ness of
his situation in general. "Dirk," Dave repeated after him automatically. It was
too much, and all the blood was rushing to his cock as the guy...as *Dirk*
touched him. It couldn't be for real, he thought, somebody somewhere was
fucking with him, but that was kind of a normal state of affairs. Dave didn't
even care when the guy, whoever he was, touched him like that. "Dirk," he said
again in a rougher voice.
▲: Dave's voice saying his name was perfect, and Dirk wrapped his hand around
Dave's dick, stroking it lazily into a fuller erection while he bit at Dave's
lips. Who was servicing whom here, exactly? Even if he was paying for it
(although he still was operating under the assumption that he was going to
finish the job, which technically meant he didn't have to pay for shit), Dirk
liked things to be as mutual as possible. He didn't have to worry quite so much
about being mindlessly catered to if the other guy had a raging hard on. Dave
seemed to be matching him on his own dick, and before long Dirk couldn't stop
himself from moaning into the kid's mouth. "Again."
▼: This had to be a joke, it couldn't be real, or so he kept telling himself.
Any sane person would have gotten up and demanded an explanation for this
bullshit, or would have just gotten out, went away and never turned back, but
Dave was too far gone in every sense of the word for that. If he was going to
run, he knew, he should have started a long time ago. "Dirk," he said, in a
choked voice, though whether it sounded that way because he was worked up or
because of some indefinable emotion, even Dave wasn't sure. He buried his face
in Dirk's neck and rolled their hips together.
▲: Maybe unfortunately for Dave, Dirk wasn't experiencing any of the same
cognitive dissonance, so he took the strain in Dave's voice as arousal (or
really good acting, but he was going to go with arousal). When Dave broke the
kiss, he let go of Dave's dick for a minute in order to grab the guy around the
waist and flip them over, pushing Dave all the way up on the bed and then
sitting back for a moment to look at him. Dave was still way too young and way
too vital for this line of work. Although he didn't patron hookers, Dirk spent
enough time around them to recognize the signs of a veteran. This kid was green
as shit. Still hot enough to reel them in and naive enough to not know when to
quit. He crawled on top of Dave, his hips pressing Dave into the mattress.
"What are my limits?"
▼: "Wha'? Oh." He pushed himself up slightly and turned so Dirk could hear him.
Dave didn't look straight at him, something he hoped wouldn't be noticed in the
heat of the moment. "I--just don't be a dick. I dunno." Normally he might have
been more explicit, but he could barely stand to look at the guy right now,
much less tell him how rough was too rough. "You got a condom and lube and
shit? I had some in my pocket if you don't." He wasn't *completely* stupid, at
least.
▲: He hadn't even thought far enough ahead to think of condoms and lube. Wow,
maybe he shouldn't be doing this. It wasn't too late to stop, but... fuck. The
sooner he stopped, the sooner he had to do his job, and he was trying to put
that off. "Yeah, I'll get it later," he said a little distractedly. He could
tell that something was up, although he thought maybe it was just nerves.
Perhaps there was something he could do to relax the kid a little? Dirk bent
down to kiss the soft, exposed skin of Dave's abdomen again, biting absently
but not too hard, trailing down to Dave's thighs and gripping Dave's dick with
one fist. "Has a client ever gone down on you before?"
▼: He shook his head. "Uh. No. No one's ever...." Now, actually, he couldn't
take his eyes off the guy. He opened his mouth and no sound came out, so he
reached down to pet Dirk's head, touching him again and feeling slightly
calmer. Everything felt a little more real now, less hazy and alarming, but he
wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. If this was someone's fucked up
idea of a joke...well, he was a fucked up kid, apparently, and he'd take a blow
job if it was being offered. "No one's ever tried that before," he said
finally, sounding a little more normal.
▲: "Guess it's your lucky day. Not too many people get their dick sucked while
on the clock." Dirk took the hand wrapped in his hair as implicit permission,
so he resumed stroking Dave's dick and kissing his thighs. However, he quickly
shifted his focus over to Dave's balls, nipping at the loose skin and massaging
them with his tongue before licking slowly up Dave's shaft and wrapping his
lips around the head. Blowjobs from Dirk were less altruistic than you'd think,
because he got off on them almost as much as the person on the receiving end.
He dug his hips absently into the mattress as he took more of Dave in his
mouth, making sure to look up at him and watch the response. After all, that
was the best fuckin' part.
▼: It must have just been nerves, or all the blood rushing from his head, or
alcohol, or something, because he laughed when Dirk said that, and when the
blond head moved from his thighs to between his legs. He bit his lip when he
felt Dirk's tongue lapping at his balls, and clenched his eyes shut when he
moved his mouth up and enveloped Dave's cock with his so-warm mouth. Dave
realized belatedly that he had clenched a fist in Dirk's hair, not enough to
pull, since he knew he himself hated that more than pretty much anything. He
spread his legs a bit farther and ran his fingers through Dirk's hair again in
encouragement.
▲: Dave responded favorably, so Dirk continued, running his tongue in circles
around the head and along the sensitive skin on the underside. He felt Dave's
cock react to the stimulation, getting a little harder in his hand and the head
becoming more engorged. Yeah, there was no doubt in Dirk's mind that Dave was
enjoying this because you can't fucking fake that shit. He pulled back just
long enough to say, "No, go ahead and pull it," before resuming, working his
free hand between Dave's legs to put some light pressure against Dave's ass.
"It's okay, I'm not going in yet," he said when he felt Dave tense up.
▼: He relaxed, more relieved than he would have wanted to admit. At Dirk's
words he threaded his fingers through the soft hair again and tugged slightly.
"Ok. I just always hate it when people tug. Like, Jesus, dude, I'm getting to
it as fast as I fucking can, why don't you lighten up before you tear it out,
you know?" He was babbling, he realized, but it was sort of enjoyable, being
able to talk while the other person couldn't for once. Almost as enjoyable as
the pressure on his cock, and the way Dirk was pushing him deeper into his
mouth.
▲: Dirk took Dave as far as he could go, not quite all the way down but awfully
close, straining to go farther as Dave tugged on his hair. He listened
bemusedly as Dave rambled, content to let the kid keep talking since his voice
was so damn pleasant: deep and kinda husky, with a lazy, meandering quality,
like the kid had no shits to give, or at least wanted you to think as much. He
dragged his teeth over the head a little bit on the way back up, not hard
enough to hurt but enough to startle and perhaps entice. "You talk too much,"
he said with a wide, teasing grin when he finally surfaced, wiping the saliva
from his lips with the back of his hand. He got up off the bed and dug around
in Dave's pants pockets until he found the lube and condoms, tossing them on
the bed so they'd be nearby when the time came. Crawling on top of Dave again,
he went back to kissing the spot on Dave's neck just under the jaw, his dick
pushing between Dave's thighs but not insisting on entry just yet-- rather, he
wanted to wait and see what Dave would do on his own.
▼: He gasped slightly in annoyance at the scrape of Dirk's teeth, then let out
a breath. "That's what they tell me," said Dave, collapsing back on the pillows
while Dirk dug around on the floor and staring at the ceiling. He came back to
earth when Dirk crawled on top of him again, kissing at his neck and
reawakening whatever had been propelling Dave onward in the first place;
curiosity, anger. Boners. Probably that one was the big reason, so to speak. He
wrapped his legs around Dirk's middle and pulled at his hair again, lifting
Dirk's head up and kissing him roughly on the lips.
▲: Well, shit. Dirk hadn't expected such an enthusiastic reception, and he
rolled their hips together fervently, spurred on by Dave's apparent interest
(or, again, impeccable acting). Dave's smarts were starting to show as well:
Dirk didn't need to remind him to pull, although... "Harder," Dirk growled into
Dave's mouth, perhaps a little harsher than he had intended to be, but
definitely every bit as harsh as he meant it. He reached down and grabbed one
of the kid's thighs, squeezing it tightly. Maybe a little too tightly. Dirk
didn't want to go all out, but his harsh side was starting to poke through the
cracks.
▼: Dave retaliated by pulling at his hair, wrenching Dirk's neck back so he
could kiss and nip at the softer skin of his chin and neck. He usually didn't
go in for the rough stuff, or at least he wasn't the one to initiate it, but it
was different with...with this guy, this impostor, whoever he was, who looked
like Bro and sounded like Bro and treated Dave softly, who dug his fingers into
the soft flesh of Dave's thigh and growled into his mouth. Dave was seized with
one of those dumb adrenaline rushes you got during sex; suddenly he wanted to
tear this guy apart, or be torn apart in turn. At the moment he wasn't sure he
cared which.
▲: It was more than a little disconcerting how quickly Dave was getting over
the learning curve of Dirk's buttons. On the one hand, he *was* a professional
(albeit a relatively green one), but on the other hand, Dirk kinda felt like
Dave understood him intuitively-- specifically him, and not just anybody. Then
again, Dirk didn't have much time to spend really pondering this, because holy
fucking shit. Dave got a strained moan out of Dirk for his trouble, not to
mention a tighter clench on his thigh, which would probably bruise purple
later, if there was a later. Dave was lucky that Dirk took such good care of
his fingernails; otherwise there might have been blood to deal with. He brought
his other hand up and rested it at the base of Dave's throat, not digging in
(he wasn't going to *choke* a *hooker*, what a fucking cliche that would be),
but resting his thumb lightly under Dave's Adam's apple. Enough to say 'I
could' but not necessarily 'I will'.
▼: He bit his lower lip and looked at Dirk in the eye, as if daring him. For
once he wasn't scared, wasn't nervous; all he was conscious of was the pressure
(or lack thereof) on his throat and the pain in his thigh and the almost
uncomfortable hardness of his cock between their bodies. He wrapped his legs
around Dirk more tightly and rolled his hips again, waiting for him to get the
picture.
▲: Well, fine, if that was how he wanted it. Dirk pressed his thumb down, not
hard enough to cut off Dave's air but enough to be alarming. A fresh tug at the
hair at the base of Dirk's neck told him that yes, this was exactly what Dave
wanted. Dirk leaned forward and pressed their foreheads together, looking Dave
in the eyes and maybe pushing a little more with his thumb subconsciously. Once
that floodgate was open, he didn't really know how to stop it. The dry-humping
felt good, but-- "Get the condom," he said, unable to keep the growl out of his
voice and not even trying to suppress it this time.
▼: He shuddered involuntarily and opened his eyes, which were right in front of
Dirk's. Dirk's were orange, freaky and orange, like a fucking day-glo marker,
which was unreal. Dave was going unhinged, or something, but he wasn't about to
stop. He sucked in a wheezing breath and felt by his side for where Dirk had
thrown the condom and lube. He grabbed both in his hand and held them up.
▲: Dirk let go of Dave's thigh and took the condom, ripping the package open
with his teeth and then tossing the condom on Dave's bare chest, all while
maintaining the pressure on Dave's throat with his other hand. He was just
gonna leave that there until he was ready for it. He held out his hand and
said, "Lube me, kid. Unless you don't need stretching?"
▼: He opened the bottle and squirted some onto Dirk's hand, dripping a little
on his bare chest as he did so. He had a feeling that even if Dirk's hand
wasn't on his throat his breaths would be shaky right now. As it was, he was
lightheaded and rubbing lube up and down Dirk's fingers, the process oddly more
intimate than he might have expected. Usually he hated when lazy fuckers made
him do stuff for them they could easily do themselves, but this was different.
With every shaking breath he knew it was something else entirely.
▲: Dirk was not particularly sadistic-- he actually preferred to get as much as
he gave, and he was sure there was a word for that but he had no idea what it
was-- but there was something completely fucking intoxicating about the way
Dave shook underneath him, not just his breath but his hands as well. He might
be worried that he was actually scaring the kid, but a quick glance told him
that Dave was still hard as fucking rock. No, he was enjoying it just as much
as Dirk was. Fucking good. Dirk reached his hand down, between their legs, and
spread the lube around Dave's ass before pushing the tip of his middle finger
inside.
▼: He sucked in the sharpest breath yet when the finger went in. He arched his
back and braced his hands on Dirk's shoulders, taking a steadier breath when
the next finger entered him. His forehead was still pressed against Dirk's but
his eyes were closed; he could deal with the fingers, he could deal with being
fucked, but he still couldn't quite deal with the eyes, since he had never even
*heard* of anyone else having orange eyes, not ever, and-- Whatever useless
train of thought he'd been on was derailed when Dirk hooked his fingers enough
to glance off Dave's prostate. He gasped sharply and squeezed Dirk's shoulders.
▲: Dirk made a small noise when Dave squeezed: not quite a moan, maybe more
like a very punctuated exhale. He wanted to play this kid like an instrument
the way Dave had played him earlier, and he knew he could do it, although he
didn't know how he knew. He hooked his fingers again, wanting to make the kid
moan, to ask to be fucked. Yeah, okay, so he was power tripping a little. It
just felt so fucking *easy*. Nothing had felt this easy in a long time. Not
since Jake, but he did not want to fucking think about that right now. "Open
your eyes," he demanded.
▼: He made a choked noise when Dirk grazed his prostate again, and he opened
his eyes either out of a long habit of obedience or because he would have done
anything at that point to get Dirk to do that again. He was squeezing Dirk's
shoulders again, his fingertips getting revenge for that bruised thigh from
earlier. He blinked at Dirk, breathing hard, almost panting.
▲: Dirk sucked air in and out through his teeth with the force of his
concentration. He felt locked in place with Dave's eyes on his and Dave's
breath loud in his ear. Even the nails digging into his shoulders had him
rooted to the fucking spot. Dirk had to fuck him; Dirk's whole body was aching
for it, and Dave's whole body was begging for it, but his mouth still wasn't
asking for it. He thrust his fingers in straight a few times and then hooked
them again, fluttering his fingers repeatedly, and, yeah, pressing a little
harder on Dave's throat. He was starting to edge past 'alarming' and into
'painful' territory. "What do you want?"
▼: He blinked a few times, and gasped as Dirk pressed down harder on his
throat. He made a few abortive noises, halfway between moans and gasps and
maybe even the f-sound he was trying to get at. Dirk got the message and
lightened up on his throat enough. Dave took in a few steadier breaths and
closed his watering eyes before opening them again and looking Dirk straight
on. "Fuck me. Fucking--just fuck me already. Goddammit."
▲: Dirk pulled his hand out of Dave's ass and grabbed the condom, saving Dave
the embarrassment of having to put it on for him because, frankly, Dirk was too
fucking impatient to wait to see if the kid was gonna fumble with it or not. He
rolled it down over his dick and then pulled away from Dave, finally letting go
of his neck in favor of hiking his thighs up to get better access. Lube was
getting everywhere, all over Dave's chest and his left thigh, but he didn't
seem to give a shit. Dirk positioned his dick against Dave's asshole and pushed
slowly, stopping once the tip was inside to give Dave time to relax. In the
meantime, Dirk used his lubed hand to go back to lazily stroking Dave's dick.
▼: He rested his hands on his thighs, keeping his palms flat and unclenched
even as he tensed slightly upon being penetrated. Air tasted sweeter now,
seemed to fill him more now that his airway wasn't constricted anymore, and he
breathed in and felt Dirk slide into him. He felt himself getting hard again as
Dirk's still lubed hand wrapped around him. He made a noise before he could
stop himself, part of surprise and part of pleasure.
▲: Dirk waited until he felt Dave relax before pushing in more, only an inch or
so at a time, and then pausing again, letting Dave catch up. Now that he had a
good angle, he leaned down and kissed Dave again, resting his weight on his
elbow beside Dave's head and twisting his fingers into Dave's hair. He felt
Dave clench and relax around him and under him until, bit by bit, Dirk was all
the way inside him. "Fuck," Dirk whispered against Dave's lips. "You're
strangling my dick," he gasped. He had no idea Dave would be this tight.
▼: "Well, don't have such a huge cock, then," said Dave, and the words were out
of his mouth before he even thought. He realized too late that they sounded
like the worst kind of dumb line, but whatever. He wrapped his legs around Dirk
more tightly and turned his head to the side to feel the cooler air blowing
from the air conditioner. His face was hot, and still a little wet. "Come on,"
he said into Dirk's ear, rolling his hips again for emphasis.
▲: Dirk was so taken aback for a moment that he actually stopped moving
completely and just looked down at Dave, dumbfounded. Then he laughed, a soft
chuckle next to Dave's cheek. "Look, I'll pay you extra if you promise *not* to
feed me any more cheesy-ass lines like that, okay? Spare me." It still made him
feel good, though. Whatever. He rested his temple on the pillow next to Dave's
head, his lips brushing Dave's bare shoulder as he pulled out a little and
slowly pushed back in, trying to find a groove that was pleasurable but not
overwhelming. He matched his hand strokes to the rhythm, running his thumb
vertically along the underside of Dave's dick.
▼: He started to move his hips in time with Dirk's thrusts, trying to match up
with him. "No way, you will keep fucking me with your gargantu-dick until I
tell you to--oh *fuck*." Of course, before he could finish shooting his mouth
off Dirk shifted the angle of his stroke slightly and Dave lost it. "Fuck.
Right th--oh *fuck*." Maybe Dirk really was bigger than he was used to (Dave,
truthfully, hardly ever even noticed,) or maybe he was just worked all the way
the hell up, but either way he was rocking his body to meet each thrust from
Dirk frantically.
▲: Dirk wanted to keep kissing Dave, but maintaining this angle was limiting
his range of motion and beginning to make his back ache. He wanted to keep
forcing Dave to make those incoherent noises, but regrettably he had to pull
out long enough to reposition them. He turned Dave on his side and entered him
from behind, and from this new angle he was able to thrust deeper and sink his
teeth into Dave's shoulder, not hard enough to break the skin but enough to
hurt. It also gave his hand greater freedom to move on Dave's dick. The kid's
back was all sweat-slick and hot to the touch, and if Dirk wasn't supporting
himself with the other arm he probably would have given in to the desire to rip
into Dave's skin as he fucked him. Dirk shook his head, trying to get rid of
those thoughts that didn't belong. Fuck. "Say it. Say it again." If he was
gonna fuck this poor kid into oblivion, he wanted to hear the kid's voice. He
didn't know what he wanted to hear, he just wanted Dave to keep talking.
▼: He had calmed down somewhat when Dirk pulled out and turned him over. He'd
almost moaned in frustration, actually, but he didn't think the guy had heard
that, thank Christ. Unfortunately, when Dirk started moving again in earnest
inside him, doing what he asked was all too easy. "Fuck--fuck, I. Do it faster.
Oh *god*." He buried his head in the pillow, hissing slightly when he felt the
bite on his back. He eventually was able to prop himself up a bit, could move
his body into Dirk's hand in time with the stroke of his cock, and when Dave
did that he caught his breath. "Thought you didn't want me to tell you that
stuff," he said. "Thought you didn't want to hear how *huge* your dick is, you
conceited assho--oh Jesus. Fucking--fuck me, yes, *Dirk.*"
▲: "Changed my mind," Dirk breathed raggedly into Dave's ear. "I like the way
you say it." He grabbed Dave's hand and brought it down to his dick so that
Dave could jerk himself off for a while, and then Dirk reached up to grab
Dave's throat for a moment-- but just a moment-- before he ran his hand all
along Dave's torso, dragging his nails across Dave's chest. He eventually
settled his hand on Dave's hip, which he gripped tightly and used for leverage
as he thrust inside more rapidly at Dave's request. Dirk didn't say much,
didn't want to stop the flow of words coming out of Dave's mouth, but his
breath grew harsh and sharp in Dave's ear as he felt himself winding tighter
and tighter.
▼: He worked himself without a lot of finesse, but at this point finesse wasn't
really necessary. He was starting to get out of breath again, and his words
were more like a long wheezy stream than actual sentences. "You--fucking.
*Bastard*. Oh Jesus. You twisted son of a--is that what you want to hear? Is
it." His face was pressed to the side, toward the cool air again, but it wasn't
doing much. Dirk's breath was hot on his neck and ear. When Dirk succeeded in
thrusting in deeper, he let out a shout. He was never sure if he was naturally
a shouter or if he'd just acclimated to circumstances, but either way it was
the same. "Fuck. Oh fuck--"
▲: Dirk clenched harder on Dave's hip and bit down again in a different spot, a
little harder than before but still not enough to break the skin. He wasn't
sure if this qualified as being a dick or not, but he figured Dave would stop
him if he crossed the line, like earlier with the choking. "Yeah," he panted,
"yes-- I want that." He was already starting to feel close, even though there
hadn't been much preamble. Maybe it really *had* been that long. God knows he'd
been wound up awfully tight lately, despite the cool demeanor he carried
everywhere. He was more than happy to let it out on Dave's body as he drove
into him and allowed Dave's touch, smell, taste, and sound take over his mind.
A shaky "sh--shit" was all Dirk let slip out to betray how close he was
getting.
▼: The bitemarks on his back felt like the only cool spots on his skin now;
everything else was burning up around him. His sweat was slick on his skin and
damp pressing against the bedspread. He was close, between the blowjob and the
emotional turmoil and of course how thoroughly he was being fucked. And he was
*liking* it, being openly enthusiastic about it at that. He worked his cock
furiously and said, "Shit, you're so close now, aren't you? You're just so
fucking close you...god. You motherfucker..." He broke off with a moan and with
one last squeeze he felt himself go over the edge, coming into the bedspread as
he pressed himself up towards Dirk one more time.
▲: Dave's voice drove Dirk completely fucking insane. He was losing it,
absolutely *losing* it. For the moment his job, his guilt, were fuckin'
lightyears from wherever the hell he was right now. He moved his hand
frantically over Dave's body as he felt Dave's orgasm approaching, and he
thrust in hard and held the position while Dave came. He stayed still for a few
moments, waiting for Dave to come down a little bit before he pulled back out,
ripping off the condom and throwing it on the floor behind the bed. This time
he grabbed his own dick and jerked himself furiously. "You are--" he panted
into Dave's ear while Dave continued coming down, "the hottest-- fucking thing-
- when you come-- little bro." Well, it looked like the strong silent Dirk had
finally found his words. On top of that, he had no idea where that particular
term of endearment had come from. Must have been summoned out of the ether from
the back of his brain somewhere by his rapidly approaching orgasm.
▼: He sank against the bed, too exhausted to even care he was laying stomach-
down in the mess, and closed his eyes. Dirk spoke and it was surprising after
how quiet he was being earlier, as if Dave had forgotten what his voice sounded
like. Or *who* it sounded like, more importantly. Even with the husky whisper
in Dirk's voice, Dave could hear the similarities even before Dirk's last words
sank in. Dave opened his eyes, suddenly alert, because it was a good reminder,
actually, that he was being played, that whatever this was was someone's idea
of a joke, a really fucking sick joke. So maybe Dirk was trying to do him a
favor, who even fucking knew. In any case, Dave rolled over slightly so he and
Dirk were face to face. "Come on, Bro. Almost there," and he reached down to
put his hand over Dirk's.
▲: He let Dave take over working his dick, and Dirk used both of his arms to
brace himself as he shifted to hover slightly over Dave's body. He leaned down
to kiss Dave again-- probably not the best idea, but he didn't give a fuck. It
was a muscle memory, from the last time he'd done this, from Jake, and things
had been so fucking different back then. He wasn't the same person anymore. It
wasn't rough like before, just needy. When he pulled away he buried his face in
Dave's neck, whispering, "Shit. Yeah, that's-- yeah." He jerked his hips into
Dave's hand as he felt the tightening in his balls that told him he was coming-
- now. "Ja--" slipped out, subconsciously, with the first shudder, and then,
"oh, god--" with the second as Dirk came all over Dave's stomach and fingers.
▼: Dirk's breaths were coming sharp and fast; he could feel them on his neck.
Dave's own heart was beating probably in competition with Dirk's, although not
because of excitement anymore. Or at least, not sexual excitement, anyway. He
knew saying anything was a bad idea; they weren't even cleaned up yet, Dirk had
barely gotten over coming, but Dave couldn't help it and he couldn't stand by
anymore. "Hey. Look at me. Ok, here's the thing: I know you're not who you say
you are. There's no way you could be. So someone must have put you up to this,
or...or something. So spill. Tell me who you are." God, it was *such* a fucking
bad idea, but he was so done, so fucked in every sense of the word. He didn't
even care.
▲: Dirk pulled away to look at Dave when asked, not yet capable of the higher
thought involved to protest. However, when Dave spoke, none of it made any
sense to him. He was still a million miles away, his brain still flooded with
mind-fuddling chemicals and-- fuck-- the balls of his feet were even twitching.
That was. That was fucking awesome. He smiled lazily, then blinked a few times,
and then muttered a confused, "What?"
▼: Dirk looked up at him and Dave saw he'd been too hasty. Obviously the guy
was too post-coital to listen to shit; Dave, of all people, should have known
that, but he wasn't thinking too clearly at the moment. Obviously. "Who was it.
Who...who put you up to this? Because somebody must have sent you here, and
told you what to wear and what say to me." Amongst other things, but Dave
wasn't going into that. "It must be somebody's idea of a sick fucking joke, is
that it?" This was like...classic post-coital prostitute freak-out. If that was
a thing. His body was still loose and relaxed, but his voice was strained, if
still level-sounding. Dirk was blinking at him, looking blissed out and highly
confused.
▲: Dirk shook his head a little bit, as if that would help him understand, like
he could shake out the orgasm cobwebs and start thinking properly. "Um," he
said, thinking hard. "I mean, I'm not really a garbage man? I thought you knew
that?" The truth was, someone *had* put him up to this, but Dirk was pretty
sure that wasn't what Dave was trying to get at. If it was, Dave would probably
be making much more with the running away instead of lying underneath him.
"Nobody... told me to wear or say anything. Are you okay?"
▼: "No! Jesus. You don't--look, you look exactly like him, ok? Except." He
paused, took a deep breath, tried to wheel back a bit on the crazy-meter. "You
look *exactly* like my dead bro. I tried to ignore it at first
because...because I did, but. His name was Dirk and he had blond hair and dumb
pointy sunglasses and he was older than you. Like 46 or...well, it doesn't
really matter because he never got any older because he is fucking *dead*, ok?
I saw him dead, Jack Noir fucking killed him with his own goddamn sword so
don't even--" The crazy-meter had exploded; it was showering the audience with
its flaming wreckage. There were multiple casualties. "Just. You can't be him.
Someone must have put you up to it. That's the only explanation. You can't be
him," he repeated dully.
▲: Dirk just stared at Dave with his mouth half-open for a moment. "I-- was
actually going to ask you if the person you thought I looked like was someone
you were hot for once upon a time," he said after a little while. That would
explain a few things. Way more things than Dirk looking like Dave's *brother*.
Then, a thought occurred to him. "Wait. Shit. Are you on something? Fuck. I
wish I had known-- I shouldn't have given you any alcohol." Dirk leaned in
close to look at Dave's pupils, but they seemed normal.
▼: "I'm not on anything, jackass." He closed his eyes rather than look at
Dirk's. Jesus, were they contacts? You couldn't even tell. He opened them again
and glared. "Look, I can admit that I'm kind of messed up. I mean, you look at
me and the first thing you think is 'wow, that kid is messed up,' but I'm not
delusional, ok? I'm not making this up. Go back to the bar, ask anyone who
works there. They all know about my bro. It's not a fucking state secret. Hell,
there's...there's a fucking *tombstone* for Christ's sake. I couldn't possibly
be making this up. So this must be a con, because your name cannot really be
Dirk Strider. Ok?"
▲: Dirk sobered up hard at that. His stomach dropped all the way down to his
fucking toenails and a hot line of fire tickled up his back as adrenaline
surged through his body. Yeah, Dirk was about to go all hells of fight or
fucking flight on this kid. Before Dave knew what happened, Dirk had reached
under the bed for the gun he kept within arm's reach while sleeping and had it
pointed right at Dave's forehead. "I didn't tell you my last name, kid. Who the
fuck are you?"
▼: Holy shit. So, this was like the worst case scenario of all things that
could possibly happen to you while being a prostitute, the only thing worse
being getting stuffed in the mattress after the fact. He held his hands up very
slowly, staring wide at the gun. Time seemed to slow down, and the air from the
a/c was very cold and making him itch from the mess still on his stomach. Based
on the speed Dirk had pulled that gun on him, Dave suspected he wouldn't be
able to make a dive for it and keep his brains intact. "That's what I've been
trying to tell you. I'm Dave Strider. No joke. Check the wallet you got the
condom out of if you don't believe me."
▲: Dirk frowned a little but the gun stayed cold and steady in his hand (after
all, he was a professional). He could just finish the job now. Hadn't that been
the plan all along? Well, no, first it had just been to lure the kid out of the
bar and shoot him in the alley, but he'd made the mistake of letting Dave get
to him, make himself irresistible to him. Fuck. This was so incredibly fucked
up. Maybe there was a double agent somewhere in the organization that had
tipped off Noir, and Noir had told this kid to be on the lookout for him.
Fuuuck. He really should finish it. He really should. But. "No," he said
coldly. "No, you're not. Dave Strider was my brother and he died like ten years
before I was born."
▼: "Well. If that's the case then I guess we're both having some existential
crises here." Dave felt like there should have been dramatic organ music
playing, like one of those cheesy musical cues in the telenovelas Bro used to
watch all the time, when Angelina discovered that Miguel was the father of her
baby or some shit. Or, perhaps more accurately, when Antonio tried to accuse
Rodrigo of impersonating his brother and Rodrigo revealed himself to be the
slick mob killer he'd been intimating he was all along and turned the tables on
Antonio, that poor, miserable fuck. "So are you going to shoot me, or are you
going to let me prove it to you?" There was the question of the hour.
▲: "I should definitely just shoot you. Noir runs the biggest racket in the
city, do you really think I'm going to believe that he couldn't whip up a fake
ID?" Dirk's finger didn't move, though. He exhaled slowly, trying to think as
quickly as possible, and stared at this kid. He could no longer call him Dave
in his head-- the link to his dead brother hadn't even crossed his mind because
he didn't think about Dave much. He didn't really have a reason to; he'd never
known the guy, didn't even have a picture. But now that he was thinking about
it... fuck. This kid did look a little bit like Dirk. Something was still
bugging him, though. "If you really thought I look so much like your brother,
why the hell did you let me fuck you?"
▼: "Did you miss the bit where I have sex with people and they give me money?
That's kinda my thing." He squirmed uncomfortably. He really, really wished he
could itch his stomach, but he didn't want to put his hands down. Why did he
even have his hands up, anyway? Why did people always do that around guns, as
if that would keep the basket case on the other end from pulling the trigger?
Still, Dave didn't put them down as he went on. "I...thought it was just a
coincidence at first. Honestly. I mean, you look a *lot* younger than him." He
shrugged. "And then when you said your name we were already halfway to boner
city and. Yeah. Messed up, remember?"
▲: "That's funny, because here I was thinking that this felt way more like a
one-night stand than a business transaction." Wow, Dirk, did you really just
accuse the hooker you hired of enjoying the sex too much? He relaxed his elbow,
letting the gun point up just above Dave's head instead of between his eyes.
"Do not fucking move," he said, getting up and walking over to Dave's clothes
on the floor. He went through all the pockets, emptied out the contents of
Dave's wallet, and even pulled the soles out of Dave's shoes. No weapons.
Nothing more lethal than a motherfucking bus pass. For some reason, this only
pissed Dirk off even more. He stormed over to where Dave was still lying on the
bed and pressed the barrel of the gun to Dave's temple. He got very close to
Dave's face and asked, "Where were you last Thursday? Do not lie. I will
fuckin' know."
▼: Thankfully he'd gotten most of the panic out of his system already. Sort of.
He sort of wanted to laugh, but laughing with a gun in your face was the kind
of shit you could only pull in movies. He took a breath. "I was supposed to be
working. At that bar you found me at. But I said I was sick. So they sent a
doctor up, and he told me he knew I was faking and I told him to go fake
himself and it was a really lame joke. Uh. Shit. So he went to talk to Droog,
and I snuck down the fire escape to get some Thai food. And of course they
noticed I was gone and I got in trouble when I came back but it was totally
worth it, because fucking Thai food, man." He swallowed, some of the well of
his bullshit going dry. Well, it wasn't bullshit, it had actually happened, but
when he said it out loud it sounded extremely pathetic as well as. Well. Petty.
▲: Dirk, on the other hand, was starting to panic more and more as the kid
talked. The thing was, he fucking *believed* this poor asshole, and that meant
one of two things. Either he'd picked up the wrong hooker, or someone pretty
high up in the White Queen's business circle was double-crossing them. That
didn't explain why they would want this guy dead, though. Sure, he was fuckin'
mouthy as hell, but he seemed harmless, and Dirk pretty firmly believed he was
nowhere near what had gone down at the Wayward Vagabond-- one of WQ's front
bars-- last week. He let out a growl of frustration, which was seriously
unusual because Dirk never flipped out. That was kinda his thing, being the
quiet dude in control of the situation. He took his gun and the other one that
had been hidden in his jacket pocket and threw them in the lock box in the
closet, and then he turned to the kid. Dave. He turned to Dave and said, "I'm
going to take a shower. I need to fuckin' think. If you're telling the truth
and you wanna hammer this out, stick around and get yourself some room service
or something. If you'd rather fuck off, just take whatever you think I owe you.
My wallet is in my pants." He stopped in the door of the bathroom. "Go ahead
and add 20% since I almost killed you."
▼: And just like that, boom, he was gone. Dave breathed in and out slowly. He
was shaking, but his face was sweaty. But he wasn't dead. Somehow he'd talked
himself out of it, which was kind of impressive, that for once he'd talked
himself *out* of something. So now all that was left to do was to get the fuck
out.
After a minute, he was still sitting. He felt steadier on his legs and so
finally got up and went to the sink by the now closed bathroom door. He washed
his face and stomach and eyed the guy's wallet, considering rifling through it.
The guy had rifled through his, after all. He considered; by the time he got
dressed he had decided 1) that he would look through the guy's wallet but not
take anything and 2) that he was going to stop pretending there was any way he
would choose the smart option and amscray the fuck out of there while he still
could.
By the time he heard the water shut he'd discovered that the wallet,
predictably, had nothing personal in it, not even a license, only obscene wads
of dough. He sat at the table by the reading lamp, close to the door, and
waited for Dirk to come out.
▲: Dirk stewed in the shower for longer than was probably necessary, but
nowhere near long enough to sort out all the bullshit running through his head.
Nothing lined up. If the kid was lying, what was the endgame? He wasn't there
to kill Dirk, that much was obvious. Maybe Noir was trying to get this kid to
win Dirk's trust and position him in WQ's organization. After all, the only
thing better than one sleeper agent was two sleeper agents.
Then again, if the kid was telling the truth... well, that was stranger than
fucking fiction. If he was telling the truth, *nothing* made sense anymore.
Dirk felt a weird sinking feeling in his gut that he didn't care to examine
very deeply right now. It was just-- fuck, that had been *so good*. There were
ways to prove his story. Really all they'd have to do is head to a library and
look up some old school photos or something, but. Dirk wasn't sure he really
wanted to know the truth, if that's how things were going to turn out. He
didn't want to go down that road.
He turned off the water and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his waist. When
he opened the bathroom door, there was that fucking kid. Just sitting there and
waiting for him. Part of him, a small part, had been hoping that the kid would
just fuck off so that he wouldn't have to deal with the possibility of his
story being true. "Well, this was unexpected."
▼: He nodded slowly, still eying the door. "I was thinking what you said about
my tip. I'd like to see if I can talk you up to 35%, since you did shove a
fucking gun in my face." He finally turned to look at Dirk. "Or, failing that,
we could. You know. Do what you said. Talk and shit." He grimaced. "I was
thinking earlier this was like a telenovela, all these shocking revelations and
stuff. Now I changed my mind, it's more like some weird time travel fucked-up
fantasy. Like a David Lynch film, or I don't even know."
▲: Dirk shamelessly took off his towel and started drying his hair while Dave
talked, walking over to the dresser and finding a clean pair of underpants:
black boxer briefs this time, instead of the bright orange from before. He
pulled them on and then sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Dave from
across the room. "I had been planning on doing a lot worse than just shove it
in your face from the moment I laid eyes on you. You were kinda my target.
That's too shitty of a twist for a David Lynch movie, though." Dirk looked
around. "You didn't get food?"
▼: He shook his head. "No. Wasn't hungry, I guess." Actually, that wasn't true.
He hadn't eaten for awhile, but his mind had been racing too much in the last
couple hours for him to think of food. "But now that you mention it..." He
grabbed the menu off the nightstand, lifting it up from under the whiskey
bottle and Dirk's shades, which gave Dave a weird feeling to look at. "Do you
know why they wanted you to kill me?"
▲: "Shit went down. You got implicated. Why do you think I asked about
Thursday?" Dirk eyed the now nearly empty bottle of whiskey as Dave picked it
up and sat it back down next to the alarm clock, which now read a little past
2:00 in the morning. He either needed to be way more drunk or way more
caffeinated to deal with all of this shit. "Order me a coffee while you're at
it. Fuck. Man, you really know how to ruin a good orgasm coma, don't you? Shit,
I should be sleeping like a baby right now, with a little cartoon log getting
sawed in half over my head. Like sleep so good you drool all over your pillow
and don't even give a fuck." Dirk could hear himself regressing to the smartass
kid he used to be-- he always said it like that, as if it were 10 years ago
instead of three or four, though truth be told it felt more like 20 years-
- probably because of the way Dave made him think of Jake a little bit, not
because they looked alike or acted alike or anything like that, but maybe
because of the way their presence made Dirk feel.
▼: "Yeah, you're welcome for such a high-quality fuck," he said, rolling his
eyes and picked up the phone, reflecting as he did so that you could either
talk about the fact that you were apparently long-lost brothers, or you could
talk about the fact that you just had mind-blowing sex with each other, but you
probably shouldn't do both. Wait, mind-blowing? Dave shook his head and just
ordered the fucking food. Dirk was right, it was too late for this shit.
He ended up ordering a lot more than he thought he would, probably because he
actually hadn't eaten for a long time, and because he had checked personally
that Dirk could cover it, after all. When he had hung up the phone, he turned
back to Dirk and watched him for a second before speaking. "I don't know what
to tell you, dude. Sounds like someone's playing you. I mean, what was I
supposed to have done on Thursday? Sounds like a set-up or...shit, I don't even
know."
▲: "I have a business associate who is overly fond of saying that you don't pay
hookers for the sex, you pay them to leave afterwards. Yet here you are. Is
this costing me extra? Are you maybe next going to share with me all the
stories about how when you were a little girl, you dreamed about being a
princess locked in a castle by your Wicked StepBro and that someday you'd be
rescued by a prince riding a wild white pony with a little pink heart on its
ass?" Dirk trailed off, lost in thought. Somehow he had jumped from Pretty
Woman straight to My Little Pony. What the fuck? This was really messing with
his head. "Fuck. I really hate that guy. What a dick."
He stood up and pulled on some sweatpants from his suitcase, not wanting to be
mostly naked when the food got here. "Someone's playing the both of us, pulling
our strings like some kind of fucked up celestial puppeteer. But one thing's
for certain. You are *not* my brother. Even if Dave was somehow still alive,
he'd be-- fuck, how old was he when he died?-- he'd be in like his late 30s or
early 40s. I mean, look at you." He looked at Dave, sprawled in the hotel
chair. Kid wasn't small by any means, though he looked like he wasn't done
filling out yet, either. "You're like, what, eighteen? Nineteen?"
▼: "Eighteen." He shifted uncomfortably. "In a month." He grimaced and wondered
if he really wanted to know what had happened to this other Dave Strider. "It
doesn't make sense. It's a lotta weird bullshit. Either I'm lying, or you're
lying. Or we're both telling the truth." The worst part was, Dave found himself
wanting to believe Dirk, even though every rational part of his mind screamed
against it, told him to look at the evidence and the absurdity of it. He should
have run, but he didn't, and he knew he wasn't going to. He may have been
messed up, but he was into deluding himself. He was going to stay with Dirk,
because Dirk was too much like Bro, but also not enough.
Dave sighed. "Yeah. You're not him either. I mean. Even besides the age thing.
You're just..." He trailed off. "Plus I saw the body. When he died. I mean, my
bro pulled some weird-ass shit in his day, but he didn't fake his own death.
He's not that good. Wasn't that good." He shrugged. "Whoever's playing us, they
got a weird sense of humor, I'll say that much. Still, it's a pretty good joke.
Even if the punchline fucking sucks."
▲: Dirk's eyes grew wide, and he opened his mouth a few times, as if to say
something, but then ultimately went with, "Well, fuck. On top of everything
else, what's a little statutory rape? I mean, why the hell not." He did the
math and yeah, 23 was definitely outside the legal range, even though he was
pretty sure the age of consent was like 16 or 17. "Someone out there is trying
to make me look like the most cosmic dumbass right now. Hat's off to you,
motherfucker, for a job well done." He didn't even hear the knock at the door.
▼: When Dirk didn't get up, Dave grabbed Dirk's wallet off the desk and opened
the door to the delivery guy, who didn't even blink at the oddness of the
scene. Guy's seen it all before, Dave figured with a smirk. He closed the door,
set the bag down on the table, and handed Dirk back his wallet. "I tipped him
35%. Someone should at least make bank off this venture, if I'm not going to do
it." He grinned. "Shit, are you really flipping a tit about the legality of the
situation, beside all the weird identity crap? You musta realized that bar was
skeeze as fuck first time you walked in there." He took out the sandwich he'd
ordered but glanced at Dirk before digging in. "Just drink your coffee, dude."
He practically inhaled half of the sandwich; ok, yeah, he was hungry as fuck
and Dirk still looked like he was having a little interior crisis. Dave felt
bad, almost, but mostly just kind of fucking annoyed. "Look, no one asked you
to fuck me, alright? But you did, and I let you, so just. Fucking chill,
alright? Jesus. Maybe you shoulda just shot me when you had the chance."
▲: Dirk sipped his coffee but didn't talk. He was an all-or-nothing kinda guy
when it came to talking, apparently. Spew out everything or keep it all inside,
no middle ground. He usually put sugar in his coffee, but he wanted the bitter
taste because he thought it helped him sober up a little better. It was
probably just a placebo effect, but who the hell cared? So he sat at the edge
of the bed and slowly drank the coffee while Dave ate at the table.
A lot of thoughts ran through his head in the silence, particularly the little
he knew about his mom and his brother, and what that might mean about Dave. He
tried to find a way to tie it all together neatly with a fancy-ass ribbon, but
nothing came to him. There were always loose threads. When Dave started talking
again, Dirk looked up. "Actually, *you* asked me to fuck you."
▼: "I meant--Jesus, that's different, you can't--look, didn't your asshole
business associate tell you you can't trust anything a hooker says in bed?" His
face was getting sort of hot. God, this was dumb, how was he getting
*embarrassed* about this? He was pretty sure he was well beyond that by this
point in his life. "What I *meant* was I'm pretty sure you were supposed to
kill me, so why you fucked me first I don't quite understand."
▲: "I'm not sure the normal hooker rules apply to you. You're either a terrible
one or a particularly stupid one, because any professional worth his or her
salt knows that you steal the John's wallet while they're in the shower." Wow,
that had come out way harsher than he'd intended it. At Dave's follow-up
question, Dirk looked down at his lap for just a second, almost as if by
reflex. "Do I really need to explain that to you?" He sighed. "I was stalling,
okay? I don't take a lot of pleasure out of my work. You grew on me, so I was
putting it off." Yeah, Dirk, you decided to fuck the hooker before you killed
him because you *liked* him. What a class act you are.
▼: "You kind of got a huge fucking ego, bro. Getting fucked would be a pretty
shit last meal. Think I'd rather have the sandwich." But his face was still
red, and the other half of the BLT was sitting there uneaten. "Anyway. I know I
shouldn't still be here. Hell, I should have gotten out of here as soon as you
told me your name. But I didn't because...well, like you said. On top of
everything else, what's a few more bad decisions, right?" He sighed and put his
head in his hand. "Guess you kind of grew on me, too," he said finally, almost
muttering.
▲: The last thing that Dave said was obscured by the noise of the air
conditioner, so Dirk stood up off the bed and crossed the room, sitting down at
the other side of the table. He leaned against the tabletop, resting his temple
in one hand, and used the other to steal some of Dave's fries since Dave seemed
to be finished. He stared at Dave, who wasn't looking at him, while he chewed.
The kid looked like maybe he wanted to cry or something but either couldn't or
wouldn't. Or maybe he was just confused and frustrated. Maybe just sad. Maybe
he'd just had a near-perfect stranger pull a gun on him. "There's basically no
other sequence of events, other than the one that just transpired, that could
possibly have ended with you not dying. So maybe let's not dwell on it too
much, okay? I'm a class act and you make mistakes. Big fuckin' deal."
▼: He found himself nodding. "Yeah. Guess so." There were still questions
running through his mind--what if Dave hadn't said anything? Would Dirk really
be sleeping like a baby like he had said he would? Would Dave be dead right
now, stuffed under the mattress for the fucking hotel maid to find? He didn't
know, but the thing was you couldn't think about that sort of thing too hard.
You couldn't obsess over the decisions you might have made or what they might
have led to, because once you did that you'd never stop.
He looked at Dirk finally. "So. What now." He had this feeling, like now they
were in each other's lives there was no way they could go back to how things
were, but that was a dumb fucking feeling and he tried to ignore it. "You were
supposed to kill me. What are they gonna do when they found out you didn't, and
you're not gonna?"
▲: Dirk ate some more fries in silence before answering. He'd had a big dinner,
but that had been like seven hours ago. "I was thinking about that in the
shower. I could pay you, and you could go back to Noir and hope he protects
you. I'll just tell my boss I wasn't able to get near you. Or, you could fake
your own death and just get the fuck out of dodge. Third option is that I go
back to my boss and tell her the truth. If what you're saying is true, someone
is getting played somewhere, and I owe it to the organization to let them know
they might have a Noir sleeper agent in their midst. This is a pretty dangerous
option, since Noir will definitely be on the lookout for you, and WQ might also
have it out for you at first until you're vetted. You could probably stay with
Roxy for a while. She's protected people for me while I worked shit out with WQ
in the past. All very attractive options, I know, but it's your call, kid." He
leaned back in his chair and added, "If you pick door number three, you should
stay with me tonight. I can take you to Roxy's place in the afternoon."
▼: He looked down at the sandwich, like the bacon could give him the answer he
needed. "I'm not going back," he said, slowly, thinking out loud. There wasn't
really anything for him back there; couple of the other workers in the bar
might wonder where the hell he had gone, but they'd get over it. There was, to
put it nicely, a lot of turnover. "And I'm not sure where I'd go if I went with
door number two. I have friends who live outside the city, but I haven't talked
to them in months. They probably think I'm dead." He sort of *hoped* they
thought he was dead. "And I don't want to get them involved in this. With Noir
and all that." He bit his lip. It was all pointing to one option, the likely
crazy-ass option, to be sure. Finally, he looked at Dirk again. "Who's Roxy?"
▲: "She's basically the only friend I have left." Wow, that was melodramatic.
Whatever, two in the morning was the best time to play fast and loose with
personal demons. "She runs one of the few bars that isn't affiliated with
either racket. She'll keep you safe for a little while, although I don't know
how long I can reasonably ask her to keep it up until I'll have to come get
you. Hopefully it'll be long enough. She wouldn't make you work, either." He
added, eyeing Dave a little warily. "Unless of course you wanted to, I guess.
Also, I know Roxy better than anyone currently alive-- and vice versa, I might
add-- so there's definitely a 99.99999% chance that she's going to hit on you.
Do me a favor and tell her you're underage from the start."
▼: A couple of choicely inappropriate responses to that cropped up almost
instantly in his head: 'Wow, you have friends?' 'Well, is she hot?' 'Why, did
you date her?' Then it occurred to him that the guy was going to be running a
substantial risk if Dave really went through with this, so maybe he could be
less of an asshole about it all if he really expended an effort. "I could work.
I mean, just like, doing dishes or busing tables or some shit. Nothing sleazy.
That's assuming I said yes, though."
He twisted his lips up as he thought and tapped out a beat on the tabletop.
Part of him was saying run, just get the hell out of the city and never come
back. Find Rose again or something. She'd likely be mad as hell at him, or
she'd pity him, but he might be glad enough to see her again he wouldn't even
care. But then he thought about what would happen if they found him again. He'd
run before, after all, and people had gotten hurt, people who had just been
standing in the way, because between him and Jack it was sort of personal. He
supposed he would have to tell Dirk that if he did go with door number three.
He noticed he was tapping and stopped himself. "Sorry. Um. If I did stay. With
you. How would you want things to be between us? I mean." Wow. That was a
really smooth way to say that Dave. Nice job.
▲: "No, I mean, of course she's gonna make you work in the back, but she's not
gonna make you *work*." You know, like he was supposed to be working with Dirk
tonight. "That kinda stuff does go down there, but Roxy is a pretty harsh
madam. The families have no idea what goes on inside her place, it's like a big
fuckin' void in the city as far as they can tell, and it tries them crazy but
they know not to fuck with her because they usually patronize her girls and
boys instead of their own or each other's. As long as you stay out of sight and
in the back or upstairs you should be pretty safe. It's not going to be easy,
but Roxy is a lot smarter than she seems. Smartest fuckin' person I know."
Dirk pinched the skin between his eyes. The caffeine sobered him up but didn't
do much to keep him awake. He was starting to get a little bleary and a little
rambling, which was a bad combination when you were spending the night with
someone you weren't sure you trusted. The smart thing would be to just go to
bed and save the big life story reveal for the morning.
He was completely unprepared for Dave's next question, and he was so sleepy
that he answered it pretty much immediately without thinking about it. "Us?
What us? I know exactly three things about you. You're too much of a smartass
for your own good, you think I'm your dead brother, and I really like sucking
your dick."
▼: His eyes widened, but he said levelly, "Alright. That's what I figured." He
paused. "And I don't think you're my brother. I mean...yeah, ok, there's some
cognitive dissonance there but you're obviously a different person from him. I
know that, I always have known that. I'm not..." He twisted his lips in
distaste. "I'm not using you as a surrogate, ok? I mean, this shit confuses the
shit out of me, but I'm not that confused."
He took the sandwich and started putting it back in its wrapper. Call it
breakfast for tomorrow. Which meant...that he would still be here tomorrow. The
sandwich had decided it. He looked up at Dirk. "So I guess I'm going to be
staying with you. I'm going to brush my teeth, and then I'm going to bed."
▲: Dirk snapped his fingers. "Oh, and Thai food. You like Thai food. Okay, four
things. I guess I lied a little." He wanted to put some distance between them
and the last thing he'd said, because now that it was out of his mouth, he felt
really weird about having said it. What an odd few things to say back to back.
Also it made him sound a lot more flippant about the whole thing than he was.
He really did want to know what was going on with this kid, wanted to see more
of him. Probably wanted to fuck him again, but, shit. He needed to put that
thought back on the shelf and step far away from it for the time being. "Wait,"
he called after Dave, "With what toothbrush?"
▼: "Shit, don't they leave you extra ones in this classy-ass hotel? Do I gotta
call that poor fuck at the front desk again? 'Shit, son, I know you're busy all
falling asleep at your desk, trying to get some fuckin' shut-eye, but I got the
cottoniest case of dry mouth you ever saw, it's like a million drunks took
turns pissing in my mouth and then ate a fucking BLT, so get your ass up here
with a toothbrush toot sweet, there's more of someone else's money in the deal
for you if you do.'" He walked over to the sink and rinsed his mouth out.
Suddenly he was tired, even too tired to talk anymore. He did that lazy ass
thing where you swish toothpaste around in your mouth and call it good. He went
back over to Dirk, sat down on the bed, and grinned. "Ain't it funny how you
can say you want to suck my cock and neither of us blink an eye, but sharing a
toothbrush is just like...wow, no, gross, why would anyone even do that. It's
completely revolting."
▲: While Dave was rambling about desk boys and being lazy about oral hygiene,
Dirk took off his sweatpants and turned off the rest of the lights. He stared
out the window for a while before getting into bed just as Dave was wrapping up
in the bathroom. He suddenly felt incredibly awkward. For some very wide and
varying reasons, he'd been mildly unsettled pretty much nonstop since meeting
Dave-- except maybe for like ten or fifteen minutes or so while he was actually
fucking him-- but he really had no idea what was supposed to happen next.
Should he offer to sleep on the floor? Dave had turned down his money, and Dirk
still had no idea what that even *meant* with respect to what had already
happened and whatever was going to happen next.
But then Dave got in bed with him and started talking about dick sucking, and
Dirk sighed to himself. There really was no point in thinking too much about
this shit when you could count on the kid to take everything in stride with a
dick joke. "I would suck it a thousand times before I ever let you use my
toothbrush. Sorry, kid." Dirk wasn't hugging the edge of the bed, but despite
the topic of the hour, he was self-consciously staying a prudent distance away.
▼: "Yeah, that's exactly my point. It's funny, is all. I feel the same way." He
pulled his shirt off, and the skirt, although, he considered, it didn't really
matter if he slept in them and they got all wrinkled because he could probably
get some new clothes. Whatever. He crawled under the covers in his underwear.
Dirk was stiff and awkward next to him, like there was an imaginary line border
the center of the bed and any breaching of it would cause the dissolution of
peace between two warring countries. Which was overstating some things, Dave
thought, but still. The metaphor was good. He considered reaching out to Dirk.
He even thought, fleetingly, of offering to suck his cock for him. He was so
tired, though, and there was toothpaste sitting in the back of his throat, and
maybe a blowjob, getting or giving, would just freak him out more...
"Don't share a bed very often, huh," he said finally. He had always kind of
liked talking to people in the dark, because even if the other person felt
awkward you could ruthlessly ignore it and keep going because you couldn't see
their face.
▲: Dirk had his arms folded behind his head on the pillow, with the blanket
loose around his waist, and he stared up at the ceiling in the dark. The only
light was the city lights through the window, which wasn't much, but it was
enough to make out a vague Dave-shaped lump at the corner of his eye. As
uncomfortable as Dave's presence made him, he also didn't want him to leave.
He'd spent way too much time alone for the past few years, but it wasn't just
that. It wasn't even that Dave could turn him on the way nobody had in years.
He just liked the way Dave talked about things, like he was a lot smarter than
he was letting on.
"No, not since Jake," he said before he could stop himself, and now he was
really glad that it was so dark because the red that creeped up on his chest
and the tips of his ears wouldn't be visible. God fucking damnit. How did Dave
keep doing that to him? Maybe Dave had been the celestial puppeteer all along.
▼: His big problem with his job, aside from all the actual dangerous parts and
the "working for a gangster who literally gets off on destroying people and
things for kicks" part, was listening to people. People treated you *so* much
better if you were a good listener and just let them unwind at you, and he
recognized dimly that there were ways to encourage people to do that, but he'd
never quite had the knack for it, between his own disinterest and the fact that
he just didn't know when to shut up.
Dirk was a bit different, obviously, because Dave was not only surprised that
Dirk had said something, had named a name when he hadn't even told Dave his own
name until he'd gotten under the skirt, but Dave found himself actually
ravenously interested. He rolled over on his side (and thus a little closer to
no man's land) and said, in an off-handedly casual voice, "Who's Jake?"
▲: The air conditioner chose that moment to kick off for a while, thus making
the resulting silence while Dirk sorted his memories seem that much more
pregnant with... nothingness. It stretched on for so long that he may have even
been able to pass it off as drifting off to sleep, but his mind was racing.
"Jake was my best bro," he said finally. "He got himself killed trying to help
me out some odd years ago." It had been 4 years and 3 months ago, actually, but
who's counting? Certainly not Dirk. "He, uhh. We-- you know." Dirk stared at
the same spot on the ceiling the whole time. He didn't mind telling Dave about
this stuff, it was just that he didn't really want to think about them any more
often than he already did.
But here was this fucking kid, who talked so much like Dirk used to, back when
he knew Jake, when shit like that came so easy. "Not for very long, though. I
mean, like six months maybe, which I guess to some people would be a long time,
but that shit is awfully relative. It was nowhere near long enough. I guess I
have this bad habit of not speaking up until it's almost too late." If ever
Dirk craved some simple human contact, it was right now. But to bring it full
circle, he didn't know how to ask for it, so maybe he just let one of his legs
drift towards the center of the bed a little bit.
▼: Aw shit. Dave had hardly processed the ramifications of what Dirk had said
when he noticed the leg. Dirk's foot had breached the Maginot Line, so to
speak. It was not a fucking drill. He scooted over just a bit, rearranging the
covers as he did, and his leg ran up against Dirk's. He let his foot sort of
rest there for a minute, giving Dirk a second to retreat back if he wanted to,
before hooking his whole leg over Dirk's and rolling over enough so their arms
were touching.
(Jesus, he thought, who needed to resort to elaborate military metaphors just
to initiate some fucking cuddling? Dirk had been right, he really was the worst
hooker ever.)
"I'm sorry," he said, softly. "That sucks."
▲: Dirk closed his eyes when he felt Dave's leg brush against his. "Yeah, well.
That's enough ironic self pity bullshit for one night, I think. I would like to
feel as though I deserve to own my own testicles in the morning." Dirk's
barriers had always been more like false fronts; all it took was a tiny crack
to bring the whole thing crashing down. One yank of the hair or thumb to the
throat to bring out the weird shit he liked to do in bed, and one little touch
of the foot to get him to fold, turning over on his side so that Dave could
scoot in next to him and Dirk could drape his arm across Dave's stomach. Dave's
hair was getting in Dirk's nose, and Dirk's fingers splayed across Dave's
hipbone. He felt something shift downstairs at that, but he willed it away. Not
now, little dude. Not now.
▼: "Mmm. Yeah. Totally," he said offhandedly. He could feel Dirk breathing
against his hair. It sort of tickled in a way that both nice and annoying, so
he ducked a little and let Dirk's chin rest on the top of his head. He let
their legs tangle together and let out a breath. "No pity parties for us. We
should have. Like. Pity fiestas. Get an old time mariachi band and some fucking
guacamole."
▲: "Holy shit, dude. You don't even shut the fuck up in your sleep, do you?"
Dirk was most of the way there, but he stayed awake longer than he really
wanted to, long enough to watch the lights from the street slide around on the
far wall for a while and really wish he had some tacos. Dave had finally shut
up, but whether he was sleeping or just thinking, Dirk didn't know. It was a
little unsettling, having someone else's diaphragm rising and falling under his
arm again. What he'd said about not sharing a bed was true. He'd fucked other
people since Jake, but never stuck around long enough to sleep with them.
At some point, he did finally fall asleep, because the next thing he knew it
was a little past 7am and the sun was in his eyes. He always woke up super
early after a late night of drinking, as though his body decided that rest and
recovery just wasn't in the cards for him. He got up long enough to close the
curtains, piss, and drink a glass of water (and swish his mouth out with some
mouthwash because fucking whiskey breath, man). After that, he crawled back
into bed and curled up behind Dave, using Dave's body as a shield against the
bit of sun that peeked through the crack in the curtains. He must have fallen
asleep again because the next time he woke up, the body next to him was
stirring a little bit, and Dirk had a familiar aching sensation in his
underwear. Morning wood. He buried his face in the person's neck-- Dirk was a
little too groggy to really process who it was-- and thrust his hips forward,
just so slightly, just enough to press his erection against the ass that was
currently in his crotch.
***** Chapter 2 *****
▼: He tended to sleep like the dead, which wasn't really a good habit, but he
usually woke up when the other person did, if another person was around. At one
point he heard Dirk up and moving around, and he wondered if that meant he
should get up too. He rolled over and saw it wasn't even 8 yet. Yeah, fuck
that. He closed his eyes and didn't open them even when Dirk got back into bed
and curled up close behind Dave's back. That was...yeah, it was nice. He didn't
exactly sleep, just sort of dozed, and didn't open his eyes until he felt
someone nuzzling his neck, and...yep, wow. That was a boner, right up against
his ass.
He leaned his head back, onto Dirk's shoulder. He was fully awake now. "Hey."
When Dirk didn't respond, he rolled over, letting Dirk's morning wood drag
across his ass as he did so. "Dude. Hey. You awake?" He rested his arm across
Dirk's midsection, nudged him slightly.
▲: Oh, right. It was the smartass kid. The smartass kid who just took away all
the soft places he had been enjoying in his sleep twilight. Eyes still closed,
he grabbed the kid's hips and pulled them together, hoping it would shut Dave
up but doubting it. Of course it didn't work. Dirk grunted noncommittally. "No.
I'm on planet fucking Jupiter," he mumbled with a slight twinge of annoyance
but no real malice. "Trying to get my 'dry hump a sleeping hooker in the
morning while in outer space' merit badge. Go back to sleep."
▼: He couldn't, though, even if he wanted to. Shifting around reminded him of
the pressure in his bladder, so he got up to piss and rinse the morning breath
out of his mouth while he was at it. He climbed back into bed with Dirk,
curling up closer than he had been and draping an arm across his side again.
"Can't do it. I'm all awake now, thanks a lot, you fucking space cadet."
▲: Dirk groaned and opened his eyes to see Dave's face very close to his face.
Dave held up better in the morning than most people Dirk knew, even after a
shower and coffee. He still looked-- yeah. Yeah. His hair was a lot messier,
but that was okay. Kinda looked like how his hair had looked after Dirk had
fucked him last night, and. And Dave moved his thigh just a little bit,
brushing it against Dirk's boner, and Dirk had no idea if it was intentional or
not. It was probably *supposed* to be ambiguous, that little shithead. "If
you're so awake, why are you back in my bed?"
▼: "Well where else would I go?" he muttered. "What, you want me to go to the
lobby and chill with the desk guy or some shit? I didn't tip him that much,
assuming he's even still there." As he spoke he let his leg brush against the
front of Dirk's briefs again, more purposefully this time. "Plus then of course
there's your little problem down here. I could give you a hand with that." He
didn't even know why he was bothering being coy, but he couldn't help it.
▲: "Why? You got a crush on him?" Dirk was more than happy to keep up this game
of asking increasingly stupid and dickish questions back and forth forever, but
then Dave rubbed up on him more forcefully. Dirk lost the thread of his sarcasm
and closed his eyes again, leaning his hips into the touch. Now that he was
cold sober, he was a little embarrassed by how easily aroused he was by this
near-perfect stranger, how easily this kid could play him. It kinda... pissed
him off a bit. Man, fuck this coy act. He pulled Dave into a sleepy kiss,
hiking one of the kid's legs up so that he could thrust himself lazily between
Dave's thighs. "So, do something about it."
▼: He was a little surprised when Dirk kissed him, but he supposed he shouldn't
have been. After the dry humping. He kissed back with more urgency, sort of
appreciating this more now in the daylight, when he wasn't drunk and
disoriented and convinced Dirk was trying to play him. He pressed his thighs
together when Dirk pushed between them before trailing his hand down Dirk's
stomach and pushing down the waistline of his briefs slightly.
▲: Dirk pulled away just enough to let Dave get his dick out from under the
waistband before resuming the dry hump, his cock now naked between the skin of
Dave's thighs, rubbing up just under the kid's underwear. He let go of the hold
on Dave's leg and used his free hand to feel the rest of Dave's skin, which had
cooled off a little bit since stepping out of bed. Dave's scent had gotten
muskier since last night, a little less detergent and a lot more boy sweat, but
it wasn't unpleasant at all. It was just-- dirty enough. Dirk actually said
that last bit out loud, grumbling "Dirty" into the skin of Dave's neck as he
broke the kiss and began exploring other parts of Dave's body, although he
didn't realize he said it.
▼: He sort of shuddered when Dirk spoke against the skin of his neck, and when
he felt Dirk's mouth moving down his neck and chest. He took it as an
indication to play it up, so he started grinding more shamelessly against Dirk,
and felt with each thrust Dirk's cock rub just under his own, though the cloth
of his underwear. That was the thing about playing it up, he was never sure
where he stopped playing it up for show and when it started playing along with
it for real. He let out a little hum and buried his face in Dirk's neck, just
enjoying the friction, and the dry heat of Dirk's body.
▲: Dirk was not in a hurry this time, because he had no plans to get out of bed
for a while anyway, and none of the day's business ahead of him was pleasant.
As such, he maintained the slow, steady groove for as long as he could stand
it, just lazily rubbing himself wherever he could get the best friction and
kissing up and down Dave's torso, sometimes coming in for a kiss on the mouth
or to bite Dave's bottom lip, but always going back down to Dave's chest or
neck for a little while.
The air conditioner had kicked off again a while ago, so the only noise that
filled the room was their breathing, and Dirk heard every little hitch in
Dave's breath when he bit a certain spot or rubbed up on a certain place. He
was slowly driving himself crazy with it, trying to provoke the kid into making
noises without making any more moves. After a while, though, something had to
give. He grabbed Dave's shoulders and rolled over on his back so that Dave was
now on top of him, straddling his lap. "Look, I would love nothing more than to
just blow you straight into the mattress right now, but I'm a little too
distracted."
▼: "Well, no shit, Sherlock." He was getting a little frustrated too, actually,
but then that was what the guy was trying to do, after all. "If you're just
gonna hump my legs for like six hours at a time then yeah, your mind's not
gonna be on sucking my cock a thousand times as promised." He ground his hips
down on Dirk's a few times. Jesus, why hadn't he taken them off before Dirk had
pulled him onto his lap? The thin barrier between their skin was driving him to
distraction too. He bent down to kiss Dirk again, running his hands through his
hair. "Yeah, bet you thought I forgot about that. Not a chance, dude."
▲: Dirk arched his hips up and grabbed Dave's ass, sliding his fingers under
the waistband to grip the skin tightly, and he pulled Dave's hips down with
each movement, grinding Dave's ass over the length of his dick. "Fuck, bro. You
want my toothbrush that bad, you can just have it." He pushed his own
underpants down even farther so that he could kick them off, but Dave was kinda
on his own, since you can't exactly slide that shit off when you're straddling
someone.
▼: He groaned, less in a sexy way, more in exasperation. "No, we are not
getting on the dick euphemism train, 'cause if we do I will never get off. I
mean. Get off the train. Of that metaphor. Not--" He shook his head and
grinned, reached down and wrapped a hand around Dirk's cock. "See, that's what
I mean. I will not 'borrow your toothbrush,' I am giving you a handjob. Plain,
simple talk from a plain, simple man." He kissed Dirk again and worked him more
insistently, running his hand up and down the shaft before lightly running his
palm over the head.
▲: After all the unfocused friction up to this point, the difference in
sensation when Dave began firmly stroking Dirk's dick caused his abdominal
muscles to clench just a little bit, and Dirk looked down at Dave with an
expression of mild shock. He still had a hold on Dave's ass, and he clenched
his fingers every time Dave squeezed his head. "Yeah," he moaned into Dave's
mouth, "Twist the-- yeah. Okay." After a little while, when Dave broke the kiss
and sat back, Dirk grabbed the hand that Dave had been using for support and
placed it at the hollow of his throat. He was too wound up to really tell Dave
what to do, but he kinda hoped he'd get the picture.
▼: Dave pressed down on Dirk's windpipe with his thumb, starting off with maybe
too much pressure before letting up, doing it like Dirk had done it to him last
night. His own breath caught in his throat and he became intent on listening to
Dirk breathe (wheeze, really) as Dave worked his dick in his hand, running his
thumb down the underside and putting the pad of his finger over the slit. He
was focused now, almost forgetting about his own frustration and need. He
licked his suddenly dry lips and pressed down on Dirk's windpipe again a bit
harder.
▲: Dirk's mouth dropped open and his eyebrows shot up as he felt the familiar
sensation of his heart leaping up into his throat at the pressure. The effect
was nearly immediate: he saw Dave more clearly, felt every movement more
vibrantly, as the initial surge of excitement spiked his senses. When the kid
let off a little bit Dirk glared at him and whispered hoarsely, "Harder,
*fuck*," and fortunately Dave doubled back down. He may have hoped that the
pained expression on his face wouldn't freak the kid out too much, but truth be
told he didn't really give a shit at the moment. Let the kid have another
hooker freakout afterwards if he had to, because this was the fucking sexual
ambrosia, the express train to orgasm city. It hurt but it needed to, because
it was so fucking *good*. After the brief heightening of his senses, they began
to dull, fading and fuzzing out so that all he could really feel was Dave's
hand on his dick, and he was completely oblivious to the way he was shamelessly
panting and cursing.
▼: He was sort of mesmerized by the pained expression on Dirk's face, the way
just a little bit of pressure with one of his fingers made him come totally
undone and let off a string of words when normally the guy was all stoic
silence and dismissive eye rolls. Yeah, Dave could sort of get used to this, he
thought. "That hard enough?" he asked, breathless but definitely not as
breathless as Dirk, and he pressed down harder on Dirk's throat and gave an
almost brutal twist to his cock at the same time. "I'm open to criticism,
motherfucker, is that fucking *hard* enough," he said, pressing and twisting
again.
▲: Dirk let out some kind of guttural noise at the twist on his dick. That hurt
too but it was-- fuck. "No-- you piece of shit-- little fuckin'-- bitch.
Fucking--" He had to take a break to let out a series of harsh gasps as he
screwed his eyes shut tightly and dug his fingernails into the fleshy skin of
Dave's ass. "Don't got the fuckin'-- huevos-- don't got the balls to-- choke me
like you-- fucking *mean* it." Despite what he was saying, the kid was fucking
phenomenal. He didn't know what spurred him to initiate this, since he
generally reserved the choking for solo activities, but holy fucking shit. No,
for real. Holy *fucking* shit. Kid was a natural at this.
▼: "'K. Honesty's good, Dirk, thanks," he said, gritting his teeth and pressing
down harder, so hard he couldn't even imagine how Dirk wasn't sputtering and
choking. "'Preciate it." He let up on Dirk's cock a bit, rubbed his balls and
ran his fist down the shaft, still insistently but not so rough as before,
because chafing was nothing to joke about, after all, but any gentleness on one
end he made up for on the other. He brought his face close to Dirk's, looking
with zeal into his eyes for once and pressing right down on his windpipe,
feeling the fluttering pulse under his thumb.
▲: His heart was pounding in his ears now, and the malice drained from him as
the next pressure increase cut off his ability to speak at all. He could still
draw enough oxygen to not pass out, and Dirk was pretty strong when it came to
this shit-- someone else probably *would* be sputtering right now. Instead of
speaking, his face twisted in a grimace that masked just how amazing he felt.
He looked up and met Dave's stare with glassy eyes. Man, they were in the shit
now. They might even be entrenched in this bitch. He didn't know why he trusted
this fucker so much, but he didn't have much of a choice. Dirk let out a
frantic exhale, which was all he could manage, given the circumstances, because
he felt the orgasm creeping up on him and it was gonna be fucking *sharp* as
hell.
▼: Dirk let out the breath in his face, his eyes were glazed and faraway
looking, and Dave couldn't help himself from leaning down to kiss Dirk's lips,
licking at them a little but not letting up on Dirk's throat, or on his cock,
and he was so lost in the taste of Dirk's lips and his mouth that he almost
missed it when, with a few more squeezes of his cock, Dirk came all over his
hand, messily and with labored, heavy breathing into Dave's mouth.
▲: It was less like coming and more like having something violently ripped out
of you. If he'd had any force behind his breath, it probably would have come
out in a shout, and not just once. That was likely for the best, since he
didn't think the people in the next room would have appreciated his amorous
shouting at barely past nine in the morning. The kiss was incredibly surreal;
the odd intimacy of it juxtaposed with the harsh hands at his neck and dick was
too much for Dirk to handle. Weird how he could easily kill people in cold
blood and could take being choked nearly to blacking out and *like* it, but a
kiss at the right moment was just a little too much for his warped mind. He
committed to it, though, leaning up into the kiss as he lost control of what
the rest of his body was doing. When it was over, Dave let up on his neck, but
Dirk held on to the kiss for just a moment before falling back and panting
hard, rubbing his throat as he tried to get his voice back. Not that he really
had anything to *say* after that.
▼: He got down, stretched out alongside Dirk, and propped up himself up on his
elbow so he could watch Dirk's face. Just watching him catch his breath was
exhausting, and he wasn't the one who had just had the life choked out of him
on both ends. "Alright?" he said absently, and waited until Dirk was looking at
him before licking a string of semen off of one of his fingers. "Speak to me,
boy. You still there?"
▲: Dirk swallowed hard a few times, still feeling the resistance in his throat.
He marveled silently at the arrogant lasciviousness of this fucking kid next to
him. The nonchalant lick of his finger made Dirk want to... well, he didn't
know whether it made him want to fuck him senseless or strangle him in the
least sexy way possible. Not that he'd be capable of doing either one at the
moment, which is probably why Dave knew he could get away with doing it. It
struck him that Dave was either the worst prostitute ever or the best
prostitute ever, and he kept going back and forth in his head on which one it
was. "Nope, still Jupiter," he croaked as soon as he felt like he could speak.
Then, as an afterthought, "Boy? The fuck? I'll show you 'boy'."
▼: "There it is. See, I was afraid my huge thumb had completely destroyed your
voice box and I'd never get to hear you say something in that monotone sorta
condescending voice you got. I was all, 'damn, another victim of my vicious
pimp hand.' Pimp thumb, I guess." He collapsed down and rested his head on
Dirk's shoulder, grabbed the bedspread and wiped off the rest of the mess on
Dirk's stomach. "And yes, I see the irony in me making pimp jokes, so don't
even start."
▲: "It's gonna take a lot more than your pimp thumb to break me, little bro, so
screw your damn head back on before it floats away completely." He made a face
when Dave wiped his jizz on his own stomach, but he guessed he deserved it. He
*did* make Dave sit with semen on his stomach while being held at gunpoint last
night, after all. "Should've painted your hair with that instead." He curled
his arm, the one under Dave's head, and brushed his fingers through the hair at
the base of Dave's neck.
▼: His heart raced a bit when Dirk called him that again. He wasn't sure if he
liked it or not, but it made the bottom of his stomach drop out, so when Dirk
brushed his fingers over his neck he shuddered before he could stop himself.
"No way. We can put it in yours if you want, give you some more volume," he
said with a small grin, but he used his clean hand when he reached out to
thread his fingers through Dirk's hair. He clenched his fist in it, turned
Dirk's face towards him. "Anyway, I think I handled what was distracting you,
so you can go ahead now. Whenever you're ready as long as it's. You know.
Soon." He'd sort of forgotten about his own frustration, but it was coming back
to him now as he lay there.
▲: Dirk smiled despite himself. "My hair is voluminous enough already. I have
it just the way I like it, thank you very much." He kinda liked it, just
sitting here with Dave, their hands in each other's hair. This was definitely
turning out to be the weirdest 12 hours he'd had in a long fucking time. If
circumstances were a little bit different, he'd think he had a crush. Yes. A
crush on the prostitute (ex-prostitute?) who just choked him off at nine
o'clock in the morning, in a hotel in the same damn city where he technically
lived. "Hmm? Ready for what? Tacos? Yeah, you're right, I'm hungry."
▼: "No, not tacos, you dick," he said. "You were gagging to suck me off just a
couple minutes ago, weren't you?" He pulled Dirk's hair a little more roughly.
"Bad pun. But you know what I mean. I know you like it, dude." He'd been sort
of out of it last night, and he wouldn't say his powers of observation were the
greatest, but it had been impossible not to notice how much Dirk had enjoyed
giving him that blowjob last night. There was a lot of enthusiasm there; even
flipping out Dave had noticed it. He grabbed Dirk's had and rubbed it over the
front of his underwear.
▲: "Mmm," Dirk nodded. "Oh, *that*. Yeah." He cupped his hand around the
package in Dave's underwear, feeling it through the thin cotton. He ran his
fingers up and down on either side of Dave's dick, then reached down and cupped
the balls. He really expected the kid to get freaked out by what he'd asked
for, not *enjoy* it. Not *get off* on it, but Dave had taken to it, and
apparently that had turned out well for the both of them. For values of turning
out well that equal really hard boners, anyway. Dirk pushed Dave's waistband
down and released Dave's cock, gripping it at the base but not moving down to
go to work just yet. "Is this you asking because you want it or you asking
because you're still playing a part? Or both?"
▼: He had closed his eyes when Dirk pulled his underwear down, because with all
the action they'd been seeing, just getting rid of them, getting his cock out
into the open air, had its own pleasure to it. But then Dirk asked him a
somewhat serious-sounding question, and it sounded like one that deserved a
somewhat serious-sounding answer. "Part? Oh. Yeah. Well." Ok, so it didn't take
Lalonde's prodigious Wikipedia skills to realize that part of the reason Dave
was still here, in bed with Dirk, was some weird Oedipal hangup shit that he
didn't really feel like delving into, because fuck that. And maybe he'd come
off as protesting a bit too much when he'd told Dirk that he didn't see Dirk as
a copy of his older brother. He saw Bro every time he looked at Dirk; there
wasn't any getting away from that, but at the same time Dirk was quite clearly
his own person in distinct ways, and it's not like Dave could imagine Bro doing
to him the things Dirk had done, after all.
So yeah, obviously, besides the whole Oedipal rat's nest there that he wasn't
really interested in, there was the prostitute thing, which he guessed was the
thing Dirk really cared about. But that was dumb; Dave was messed up, but he
wasn't damaged, really. Sex was just something you did, and sometimes it sucked
and sometimes it didn't, but he wasn't *scarred* and he wasn't gripping asking
for a blowjob because he was a lost soul and sex was the only thing he knew
now. So he was able to look Dirk in the eye and say, with a reasonable degree
of seriousness, "It's not a part. You're helping me out of the jam I'm in and I
appreciate that, but it's not like...it's not like this is what I'm doing to
pay you back for that, you know? I do want it, I just..." His hand had
unclenched in Dirk's hair; he was sort of running his fingers through it
absentmindedly as he talked. He looked at Dirk, and shrugged.
▲: Dirk had started stroking Dave slowly while he talked, and when Dave
finished, Dirk sat up off of the pillow and started rubbing Dave's thighs with
his other hand. With his back facing Dave, he said, "The only jam I'm helping
you out of right now is this boner. You scratch my back," he trailed his nails
lightly over the inside of one of Dave's thighs, "I scratch yours. Or, to make
it a little more topical: you choke me, I blow you, both of us feel satisfied
but slightly weird about it afterward." He thought about this for a moment, and
then added, "Then we go get tacos and trade life stories. Shit, I am hungry."
Not too hungry to appreciate a hot guy in his bed with a hard dick, though,
thank god. He pulled Dave's underwear all the way off and threw them on the
floor, then spread Dave's legs apart and laid down between them, pushing Dave
up on the bed so that he was propped up on a pile of pillows. He licked a line
up the underside of Dave's dick, pausing to rub the flat of his tongue over the
sensitive area at the base of the head before taking Dave in his mouth.
▼: He let out a breath he hadn't quite known he was holding and ran his fingers
through Dirk's hair. "That sounds nice," he said, spreading his legs a bit
wider and leaning back. "I was thinking about it all night. You know that?
While we were sleeping. I kept thinking about you sucking me off again, I guess
just 'cause no one's ever asked if they could blow me before. Guess they
figured it wasn't the best use of their money, but. Ooh." He made a noise
before he could stop himself, and tried to keep himself from thrusting up into
the back of Dirk's mouth, although he supposed Dirk could probably take it. The
guy's throat was getting one hell of a workout, but he obviously didn't mind.
"But they could learn something from you, dude. You have. Like. A reckless
dick-sucking enthusiasm. Or something--aw, shit, do that again."
▲: Dirk's heart rate spiked a little bit when Dave said he'd been thinking
about Dirk sucking his dick all night. He wasn't really capable of getting a
physical boner quite so soon after such an explosive, almost blood-letting
orgasm, but he definitely got a mental one, not to mention an ego boost. An ego
boner, maybe. He wrapped his thumb and index finger tightly around the base of
Dave's dick, trapping the blood inside and making it just a little harder, and
then went back to lapping at that spot Dave told him to go back to. Blowjobs
are a bit like cracking into safes. You have to fucking pay attention. He
pulled back for a minute and said, "No, I didn't know that. Why don't you tell
me all about these thoughts of yours?" Monotone aside, he was actually very
interested, but he didn't wait for an answer before going back down, using his
other hand to stroke Dave's shaft while he licked around the head. He was going
to go all the way down, but not yet.
▼: "You don't exactly invite confidences, dude. Well. I guess that's not quite
true, 'cause I've been telling you a hell of a lot of shit but anyway. But
telling you would just stroke your ego, and you seem like the type of guy who
does that fine enough on his own. Right?" He had both hands in Dirk's hair now.
He sort of enjoyed messing it up, just because Dirk looked like he spent plenty
of time maintaining it, so it had the same allure as breaking a vase or
defacing a photo. Dirk licked him again on the underside, long slow and sort of
teasing, and he groaned. "Fuuuuck. Dirk." He tugged on Dirk's hair a bit in
encouragement, then a bit harder to punctuate it.
▲: Dirk closed his eyes and groaned a little bit on the inside. He really
wished he either had a shorter refractory period or had decided to blow Dave
first, because this was absolute boner city and it was being wasted on his dick
right now. Not that he didn't appreciate it-- quite the opposite, he planned on
storing these memories for a great deal of use later. After all, last night was
the anomaly. He spent most nights alone. He thought that under the right
circumstances he might be able to get a pretty good boner going just from
listening to Dave talk shit; double-time if Dave was touching his hair.
Then again, if he had blown Dave first, maybe Dave wouldn't have been quite so
enthusiastic about the erotic asphyxiation earlier, and that was-- fuck. Yeah.
You win some, you lose some.
He released the hand that he'd been using to help stroke the entire shaft and
started taking more of Dave in his mouth, continuing to rub circles along the
underside with the flat of his tongue for as long as possible. He couldn't-
- quite-- get all the way down, especially not with his throat still
recovering, but he could get far enough to get a steady rhythm going, bobbing
his head up and down and using his other hand to knead Dave's thighs or cup his
balls. He was just frustrated that he couldn't take more of it right now; he
fucking loved everything about it, the smell, the taste, the rigidity in his
mouth. He wanted to make that dick *his*.
▼: He made a choked sort of noise when Dirk took him more fully in his mouth,
and if he noticed that Dirk didn't quite take him all the way down to Deep
Throatsville (which he was dimly aware of because while he was a noob to
getting blow jobs he wasn't a rookie in general, after all) he failed
spectacularly to give a fuck. Whatever he'd been trying to say was losing a lot
of coherency, which was probably not a huge loss because what could he even
say? Dirk seemed to know his cock better than he did himself, because before he
could say "hey do that again," or even pull Dirk's hair some more as
encouragement, Dirk had already done it, like the bastard could just read his
fucking mind. He was going nuts, and he wondered what Dirk would do when he
came, and what it would feel like if Dirk let him come in his mouth, how it
would feel to look down and see him like that...
▲: After maintaining the rhythm for a little while, Dirk came up for air and to
clear his mouth of some of the saliva that hard started accumulating, most of
which was just left behind on Dave's dick. Spit was horrible for long-term use,
but it made pretty damn good short-term lube, so he used his hands to stroke
Dave while he took a few deep breaths and rested his jaw. "Holy fucking shit,
dude. Did I actually get you to shut up for once? Hell yes, I cracked that safe
wide open."
He needed a better range of motion, so he got up off the bed and pulled Dave by
the hips over to the edge of the mattress. This way, Dirk could kneel on the
ground and access Dave's dick straight on instead of from above, which was
easier on his neck. It was also a little strategic: he could tell Dave was
getting awfully wound up, and Dirk liked to stretch blowjobs out. Savor them,
if you will. He wasn't going to let the little shithead get off *that* easy.
Not to mention that he now had two free hands, so he dug his nails into the
skin of Dave's lower back before taking Dave back in his mouth, this time
running his tongue all along the ridge under Dave's head before going back to
the sensitive spot and then back to the rhythm, a little more slowly this time.
▼: "Oh, shut up," he muttered, leaning his head back against the pillows, so he
was sort of caught unawares when Dirk dragged him over and knelt on the floor
in front of him. "Hey--oh." He propped himself up on his arms to look down at
what Dirk was doing, biting his lips when Dirk took him in his mouth and
started to draw out the bobbing motion of his head motion more. "Oh come on,"
he said, before he could help himself. Dirk could pick it up again, couldn't
he? He *could*, obviously, but Dave knew damn well that he wasn't going to
until he felt like it. He supposed that was the problem when somebody liked
blowjobs so much; they just wanted to draw them out forever and ever.
▲: Dirk smiled at Dave's outburst, which is no easy feat with a dick halfway
down your throat, just for the record. He wanted to get under Dave's skin, so
it was good to hear that he was getting the job done. There was, let's face it,
no way that he was going to be able to give Dave the kind of experience that
Dave had just given him, but what this might lack in intensity Dirk was more
than willing to make up with skill and enthusiasm. Man. The only way that
blowjobs could be a more perfect way to kill time would be if you could give
them *and* kiss simultaneously. Oh well. He decided to take a bit of pity on
the kid and move a little faster, twisting a little with one hand on the
upstroke. His other hand was planted firmly on the small of Dave's back. It was
pretty much impossible to maintain eye contact when facefucking like this, but
he looked up at Dave's face frequently, trying to catch Dave's expressions.
▼: Dirk finally started to move a little faster, and Dave sighed a bit, spread
his legs more and bit his lip to keep from moaning or panting or whatever more
than he had to. It was weird to think how different everything was from last
night, the distance between Dirk holding him by the throat in the dark and
fucking him, and Dirk kneeling in front of him with his nose inches away from
Dave's pubes and the sunlight from the window shining on his hair. He sort of
regretted choking Dirk so wicked awesomely, but then, there was always time for
deep throating later, right?
Actually, he had no idea. He knew, with a sort of certainty that was hard to
determine the cause of, that he'd want Dirk to do this again for him, if it was
possible and Dirk was willing. Which he would be, because Dirk was pretty
obviously all kinds of into him. Dave grinned at the thought, which he had
realized but hadn't quite acknowledged explicitly even in his own mind. Just as
he did grin Dirk caught his eye. Dave raised his eyebrows at him and reached
down to grab a piece of hair that was falling in his face, winding it around
two of his fingers and tugging just a little insistently.
▲: Dirk needed to rest his jaw again, so he went back to stroking with his hand
(though maintaining the same speed, probably to Dave's relief). He felt a rush
of something, some ambiguous feeling, when Dave smiled to himself like that,
and he was suddenly consumed with the desire to kiss him. So, he stood up and
grabbed the back of Dave's head with his free hand, drawing him in and tasting
him. It was a little sloppy because of the speed with which he was working Dave
with his hand, but sloppy seemed befitting of the mood anyway. He pushed their
foreheads together, looked Dave straight in the eyes, and said, "Stop biting
your lip. I want to hear you when you come in my mouth." He sank back down to
his knees and went back to sucking Dave's dick with renewed speed, though maybe
somewhat reckless with enthusiasm. Of *course* Dirk was going to want to do
this again. He already wanted to do it again, and it wasn't even over yet.
▼: His mouth dropped open when Dirk said that, and stayed pretty much open the
rest of the time because shit, that wasn't a tone of voice you could fuck
around with, was it? He shut his eyes and rocked his hips, his whole body, into
Dirk's mouth, which was so warm and so nice and he wanted to look at Dirk, he
wanted to watch Dirk and taste Dirk and kiss Dirk again all at once, but just
for a second he wanted to focus only on how the motions felt against his skin,
wet and slippery and getting a little more frantic and less polished as Dirk
took him closer. Dave opened his eyes to watch because he'd only known him a
day and he already felt that Dirk could do with looking a little less polished
in general. Just as he did, Dirk grazed him very lightly with the tip of one of
his teeth. It was so light and swift but nothing tooth-related was a joke down
there, after all. He gasped sharply but didn't say anything or admonish Dirk
because at a certain point every little fucking thing was just building him up
to the finale, and Dirk knew it just as much as Dave did. For just a second he
felt a tightening in his stomach and in his balls before he felt one of Dirk's
hands squeezing his cock and the other pressing into the small of his back as
Dave finally came. He didn't even really hear whatever dumb moaning noise he
made, but whatever it was it had probably been loud enough to keep Dirk happy.
He sagged to the side, watched Dirk as he let Dave ride it out. Dave's hand was
shaking just a bit as he reached out to pet his hair again, and say, "Dude, you
were wrong. I don't feel weird at all, I feel fucking amazing."
▲: Dirk let up on the kid when the orgasm hit, slowing down a little while Dave
rode through it, though he didn't release his grip until it was all over. He
felt the come hit his tongue and pool in his mouth, all warm and salty and
kinda... whatever... seaweed-y. It was weird; as much as Dirk loved giving
blowjobs, he was kinda so-so on having jizz in his mouth, but it was usually
worth it just to see the reaction. Dave didn't disappoint, because the shocked
expression on his face when Dirk told him to come in his mouth, not to mention
the way the kid practically fell over when he came, was worth the price of
admission.
He sat back on his heels and watched Dave recover after he finally stopped
coming. He smiled but shook his head and didn't speak, instead standing up to
walk over to the sink and spit out Dave's load. He found his own boxer briefs
on the floor, and then tossed Dave his pair (although it occurred to him that
Dave would probably rather take a shower first). "Yeah. That part doesn't hit
you until later," he said, sitting down on the bed next to him.
▼: "Yeah. Well." He sat up straighter, grabbed his underwear, looked at Dirk
and shrugged. "Thankfully feeling weird is like. My normal state of operating,
so that's not even a big deal." He cleared his throat, sort of uncomfortably
despite what he'd just been saying to Dirk. He wasn't sure what he wanted to
do; part of him just wanted to slouch there for awhile more, or just lay in bed
like a lazy asshole, but it was the middle of the morning already and, two AM
sandwich or not, he was pretty fucking famished. He stood up, stretched his
arms over his head. "Guess I'll take a shower." He gathered up his clothes and
went into the bathroom, sort of grateful to be by himself for a little bit. His
mind was oddly blank when he was under the shower spray; he was thinking about
eating, actually, and how nice it felt to get the sweaty smell off of him,
rather than anything actually important. He came out drying his hair and
watched Dirk as he got dressed. "What were you saying about tacos? Guess I
could go for that."
▲: "This is a different kind of weird. The 'I just had a one night stand with a
prostitute' kind of weird. Or, I guess for you it'd be the 'I just got sucked
off by a dude who pulled a gun on me not even 8 hours ago' kind of weird." Dirk
wasn't doing much to alleviate the situation but he couldn't stop mumbling to
himself as Dave walked off into the bathroom.
He didn't need a shower so he washed his face in the sink to get off all the
sleep and blowjob grime. He also brushed his teeth and rinsed his mouth out
again, thankful that Dave wasn't there to see it because he didn't want to be
rude, all like, yeah man I really hate the lingering taste of semen all day
long because then every time you breathe its like jizz in your nose all over
again.
"Yeah. I mean it doesn't have to be tacos, I just-- I got that in my head last
night for some reason." He'd already forgotten Dave's half-asleep rambling
about guacamole. "Hey, wait, do you want some jeans or something? I mean I
don't want to make assumptions here, but you don't seem like the kind of guy
who walks around town in a skirt during daylight hours. You can't be more than
like a size or two smaller than me."
▼: He looked down at the skirt. Part of him felt weird wearing another guy's
clothes, but then the skirt had been a hand-me-down originally as well. As
skirts went he actually didn't hate it; it had pockets that weren't so flimsy
that everything fell out of them, which was pretty much the bane of his fucking
life, and it was pretty boring-looking. Plus, there was the fact that wearing
the clothes of a guy you just had sex with was arguably a different context
altogether than a cheap secondhand outfit like the skirt.
He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I'll wear some of yours. I mean, it's not a big
deal, really, it's not like I'm not used to it, but I'll need to borrow some
clothes from somewhere eventually. Not like I'm going to go back to Noir's
place to pick all my shit up, right?"
▲: What Dirk *didn't* say was that he didn't want to walk around town in the
daylight looking like he'd picked up a rent boy before noon. Somehow he thought
that might offend Dave, but it then again, Dave seemed like the kind of guy who
also had an equal chance of finding it hilarious. He dug through the clothes he
had with him for a pair he didn't mind parting with and tossed it on the chair.
Not like dude didn't have enough money to buy himself a replacement, and anyway
he didn't get the chance to dress down as often as he'd like these days, so
they weren't much use to him.
He picked his slacks up off the floor where Dave had dropped them last night,
and kinda crinkled his face with annoyance at how they'd gotten wrinkled. He
didn't care enough to iron them now, so he got out another pair of jeans and
pulled them on. Why did he have so many clothes here, anyway? When was the last
time he'd been home? "Technically, you could. It would be dangerous, but I
mean, wouldn't you be getting back right around now anyway? You might be able
to run in and grab some things, but it's the getting back out again that would
probably be tough. Is there anything there that you can't bear to part with?"
▼: "No," he said quickly, then was kind of embarrassed at how quickly he came
to the conclusion. But all of his stuff had been left in the apartment, and
with one thing and another he'd never really gotten a chance to go back. "I
mean, besides my clothes, just some books and music and junk I picked up in the
last couple months, but nothing that can't be replaced. It'd look way too fishy
if I tried to come out again with a bag. And I was squirreling some money away
under the mattress, but I dunno. I'd kinda rather not risk it. Next person who
gets the room can find the money, go nuts with it." It was sort of a letdown,
after all the work he'd put into hiding away money without getting caught and
then not even getting to use it, but he could get over it.
Then, of course, there were his shades, which he supposed were still sitting in
Noir's office. Unless he'd hocked them, which seemed more likely. Dave had
never actually bothered to check, but surely the Stiller shades had to be
pretty top-notch, right? But whatever. He turned back to Dirk. "I don't want to
go back," he said again as he pulled on his jacket.
▲: It was kinda funny how one little thing like putting on jeans instead of
suit pants changed so many other things in turn, like deciding on a button-up
instead of a dress shirt and wearing sneakers instead of dress shoes, and all
of a sudden Dirk was feeling a lot more like himself than he had in quite a
while. He liked the grownup clothes because they demanded respect out of
people, which was a basic necessity for him to do his job, but it kinda left
him feeling a little too uptight all the time. He probably looked a lot more
like his age at the moment, especially since his hair was still a mess.
Or, you know, how deciding to sleep with the hooker instead of killing him
immediately can make you have an identity crisis all of a sudden.
"Okay, so we don't go back. Let's stop at the drug store and get you a
toothbrush, though. I mean I didn't wanna say anything, but..."
▼: "Wow, fuck you," he said, but he grinned. Dirk looked a lot different than
he had last night all of a sudden. His hair was less than artfully mussed
(thanks to Dave, actually) and the jeans and sneakers made him look a lot
younger even than he had already. "Eating first would be nice. Also, this is
embarrassing, but I've never actually seen Pretty Woman because of how I don't
hate myself, so if you start making a lot of jokes about buying me shit and
classing me up, these are all references that'll go completely over my head.
Just so you know."
▲: "I have no delusions that classing you up would be in any way remotely
possible, so don't worry." He dug around through the stuff in the closet. Where
the fuck was his ankle holster? This was one of the other downsides to not
wearing a suit. "I've been making Pretty Woman jokes more or less since we met,
but mainly for my own amusement, so I'll probably keep doing that. Just so
*you* know." He found his holster and strapped it on, thanking whichever god
would listen that he'd never given in to the skinny jeans fad. He didn't look
at Dave while he did it, though, since he still felt kinda weird about what had
happened but didn't know how to apologize for it without coming off as a
douche. "It's a little early for tacos. I changed my mind, I want bacon," he
said, grabbing his shades off of the nightstand and heading for the door.
▼: Obviously he hadn't forgotten about the gun, but had been in the back of his
mind just like it was in the back of the closet. Not that he wasn't used to
seeing guys with pieces, but the gun did maybe make Dirk look a bit older. He
followed Dirk quickly, hiking the borrowed jeans up a bit because they were a
little big and just slightly too long in the cuffs. He realized with annoyance
that he didn't even quite remember what streets they'd gone down to get here
last night; their little walk to the bar was among some of the hazier memories
from last night, which was really saying something. With an even greater surge
of annoyance, he realized that while he didn't quite remember the way back to
Noir's place from here, he did remember some highlights from the conversation.
He remembered bitching about his job, and he remembered, suddenly, what Dirk
had said in response: "Maybe you won't have to worry about it for much longer."
Or something like that. The memory gave him a sick little twist in the stomach,
and not just because hadn't it turned out to be true?
Once they got out onto the street, anyway, he knew where he was. "Waffles," he
said. "I haven't had a waffle in pretty much forever. That'd be the shit."
▲: Dirk had to stand there on the sidewalk in the sunlight for a minute and
think about that. Waffles. A neutral place they could get waffles. He turned
and started walking in the opposite direction from which they came last night,
putting some distance between them and Noir's HQ. Not that he didn't have
fingers all over the city, but he didn't think that Dave would be missed yet.
He liked walking in silence, just beating pavement and listening to the city
buzz and wake up around them, because he intended to do a lot of talking over
the food. He owed the kid his story, and he really hoped Dave would be willing
to share his, too. Anything that would help Dirk convince WQ that he deserved
protection. He had no idea *why* he felt like protecting Dave was his
responsibility, and in fact it made him more than a little bit uncomfortable.
He didn't want to get involved in some kind of weird wires-crossed-everywhere
sexual power trip thing. Not any more than he already had, anyway.
"This thing itches," he said after a while. "I really hate guns. When I was a
kid I was big into swords, like all that stupid kid playing with samurai swords
bullshit, but those are harder to carry."
▼: "Mmm." He put his hands in his pockets. "We had a fuckton around the
apartment. Like, but they were all such pieces of crap, it's like my bro had a
compulsion to seek out the most horrible, bendiest piece of a shit
blacksmithing jobs. They'd all just be chilling on the counters, in the fridge.
Half the time you couldn't even use the fucking kitchen because of it. Like,
who needs fucking appliances, right? Eat a bowl of shurikens for breakfast,
Dave, they're totally like Cheerios." He grinned. Hopefully that was impersonal
enough to not get super-deep into the byzantine identity crap. Wasn't like he
was going to add 'And oh yeah, the guy looked like a beefier, wrinklier version
of you, how about that.'
He went on. "He actually did bring home a waffle iron once, though. I don't
even know where the fuck he got it. Probably a fucking dumpster. Anyway, I was
like, dude, that thing is janked as fuck, I am not eating whatever you make
with that. But actually they were pretty good. He only made waffles with it
once, the rest of the time it just sat on the counter holding onto our
priceless collection of tiny throwing daggers."
▲: "Shit. I can't decide if your Bro sounds like the kind of guy I'd like to
have known or if he sounds like the kind of guy I should stay the hell away
from." Speaking of waffles, Dirk could now see the sign for the diner a few
blocks ahead of them, the one he thought he remembered being in this direction.
It was some shitty chain and not a real greasy spoon, making it less-likely to
be have mob ties. Real corporations don't really like to go down for that shit
if they can help it. "How the hell did you get so tall if all you ate for
breakfast was throwing stars?"
▼: "I kept the pantry well-stocked. And by pantry I mean my bedroom closet. And
by well-stocked I mean there was usually apple juice and some Pop Tarts in
there if I had remembered to stop in the 7-11 on the way home." He shook his
head as they entered the loudly-decorated diner. Place really was an eyesore,
but Dave definitely hungry not to give a fuck. "Shit, I'm making it sound like
it was constantly some sort of struggle just to scrape by. It wasn't like that
at all, though. I mean, he brought home enough money. It's just that he brought
home a lot of his other random, weird crap, too." He couldn't believe he was
actually recounting all of this with a fond smirk on his face, like he'd really
missed the piss-warm apple juice and avalanches of puppets. He supposed it was
just the fact that he hadn't actually talked about Bro much in the last couple
months, and everything was so different about his life now that he could look
back on everything, even all of Bro's annoying bullshit, just a little fondly,
and he could talk about it with just about the most unlikely person possible.
It was sort of harder to talk once they were in the booth together; idly
reminiscing about smuppets gone by while strolling along was one thing, but
sitting face to face was sort of different. He decided to masterfully deflect.
"So," he said. "What about you? Where'd you grow up?"
▲: "I can't believe you think I'm anything like that guy." Swords and pointy
glasses aside, Dirk couldn't imagine forcing anyone to survive on apple juice
and poptarts. What kind of life is that? Anyway, doesn't apple juice go bad if
it stays out of the fridge? Kid should really have stocked up on some Orange
Crush or something instead. His train of thought was broken when they sat down,
though, because there was Dave on the other side of the table from him, just
like how they'd started out. "Here. Apparently I lived right here in the city
when I was a baby, but then I got adopted by a family in the suburbs. There's
really not much to say about it, though. They were really nice folks, too bad
they're dead. I was actually a pretty normal kid for a long time, if you'd
believe it."
Just then a waitress came up and asked, "What can I get you brothers this
morning?" Dirk's mouth popped open slightly.
▼: He nearly started laughing at the look on Dirk's face, but he turned to her
and ordered coffee right away. "He'll have coffee, too," he added, after a
second. "He definitely needs it." She left them with the menus, and he looked
back at Dirk. "Shit, there was the tidal wave of weirdness washing over me. You
totally called it, dude, who would have even thought. So what went wrong, if
you don't mind me asking? How'd you...you know. Get into the sanitation
business."
▲: "It's a long story, so I'd appreciate it if you allowed me the favor of
doing a slow reveal on that. You're right, I do need coffee." He wondered what
that waitress would have thought if they'd walked up with Dirk's arm around
Dave's shoulders, the way they'd been walking back to the hotel the night
before. He had kinda been doubting Dave's story a little bit all along, but if
perfect strangers thought they were brothers... shit. What had all the people
they'd passed on the street last night thought? Or were they too drunk or
involved in getting their own one-night stands back to their places to bother
noticing?
When the waitress came over with the coffee pot, she gave Dirk a weird look,
but didn't say anything. "God, she must think I'm slow or something." He put in
a bit of sugar and sipped on it, then continued, looking over Dave's shoulder
at the door instead of at Dave's face. "Yeah, so, like I said, I was adopted.
My parents let me know I was adopted pretty young, because my birth mom had
left me a letter. It was your pretty standard fare. 'Mommy loves you very much
and wishes she didn't have to give you up, but it's the best option for your
future blah blah blah, you have a dad and he loves you too, yadda yadda, you
have an older brother who is in Heaven and even though you won't be able to see
him, he'll always be looking out for you.' That kinda crap. And I get what she
was trying to do with the heaven thing, but even as a kid I didn't believe in
that kind of stuff so. I dunno." He glanced down at the menu, but talking about
this stuff kinda took away his appetite. They were gettin' kinda real for not
even 11am.
▼: "She probably thinks you're hungover," he said. "Which is somewhat closer to
the truth, I guess." He listened to Dirk's story about the missing parents, and
the mysterious dead brother, who he wasn't sure he wanted to ask about. Too
weird for not even 11am. "Me neither, I guess. I dunno, I never thought about
that kinda stuff much. Didn't have a very religious upbringing, to say the
fucking least. My bro ran this...well, it was mostly off the internet, but it
was like a porn site? Uh. But it was like. With puppets. Not with real people."
Funny how he could actually go into the skin trade but the fucking smuppets
were still making him squirm. "Anyway. Like I said, weird guy with some weird-
ass shit. He ran that for a long time, even before he got involved with the
Derse guys. Then everything kind of...well." He shrugged.
▲: "You know, again, I really feel the need to ask how you could possibly think
I'm anything like him." Okay, so Dirk just wasn't going to tell Dave about the
massive puppet collection he had as a kid, but at least he never made them
*fuck*. Well, okay, that's a lie, maybe he had acted it out a few times when he
was like nine or something and still trying to figure out what sex was, but
he'd never *filmed* it. Okay, maybe that was a lie too, but he'd definitely
never shown it to anyone. Definitely. "Puppet porn doesn't really seem like the
kind of thing the Derseites would be interested in. I mean, it seems a little
too tame to be lucrative, since you can probably sell it legally."
The waitress came back to see if they were ready to order. "Give me all the
bacon and eggs you have." She gave him another look and opened her mouth to say
something, but Dirk pressed on. "Yeah, sorry, bad habit I picked up from a
friend. I'll just have the normal bacon and eggs."
▼: He ordered the strawberry waffles and raised his eyebrows at Dirk, but went
on. "Yeah, puppet porn was not what got him in the shit. It actually started
with a hobby? He liked robotics. Like, one day he just started bringing a lot
of that shit home and fiddling with it while I was out and when he wasn't
working on his site. I tried to look into it a little. Not really my jam. I'm a
humanities major, I guess, who even knows. Anyway, I totally thought it was a
joke or whatever. And maybe it was, on some level, but it's like one of those
jokes you start taking pretty seriously and then it kind of overtakes your
life." He paused. "Which might have been the story of his life, now that I
think of it, but anyway. So, he finally built this robot--this little dorky
boxy robot, and I swear, it was like...I mean, it was almost cute, but in a
really ugly way. Like a hairless cat or something. And I was like, what the
fuck is this thing supposed to do, dude. And he said there was a second model
that was a little slicker, and I shouldn't even worry about it. So he builds
this and I guess he took it to some sort of like...one of those dorky battle
droid competition things for nerds and, against pretty much all odds, he won. I
don't know if he expected that or not. Hell, I didn't even know he was entering
the competition. He was kind of mysterious like that.
"Anyway. So that's how the word got out that he was pretty good with that sort
of junk. And that's how Noir and his gang heard about him." He leaned forward
slightly, sort of getting into it more now and looking Dirk in the eyes. "I
dunno if you ever heard about this. It was a couple years ago and maybe you
were still out in the 'burbs then, but. Did you ever hear about the night Jack
Noir lost his arm?"
▲: Dirk also decided not to tell Dave that he was applying to engineering
schools when the shit went down that made him decide to join the mob instead.
Well "decide", as if he really had a whole lot of choice in the matter. The
parallels between himself and this other guy were starting to pile up. It was
the weirdest most random assortment of traits, none of them things he
considered really vital parts of who he was, but it was just fucking
unsettling. There was a small lump in the pit of his stomach that kept growing
as Dave kept speaking. And it really helped absolutely nothing that Dave was so
vibrant, so irresistible when he got into what he was talking about. It had
only been... what... two hours ago (if that) that Dave had been straddling
Dirk's legs with his dick in one hand and his throat in the other. Dirk sucked
on his bottom lip absently. "Yeah, I've heard a ton of stories, none of which I
believe. Are you going to try to tell me you know the gospel story?"
▼: "Fuck yeah, dude. I mean. Hell, I have it sorta from the carapace himself.
Well. Not exactly, cause even now if you asked him about it all he probably do
is mutter something about a huge bitch before telling you to fuck off. But my
bro told me everything he knew about it." For once, thought Dave with a
grimace. "See, Jack was trying to mess with the Felt, which you figure even
he's not nuts enough to do, and I don't think he's tried since so maybe he
learned. Anyway. He was trying to break into English's vault, and Snowman found
him. Ripped his arm off with a whip when he wouldn't drop his knife. Can you
fucking believe it? I sure as fuck didn't, but Bro said he'd seen her and he
didn't doubt she could do it."
He shrugged. "So even if you don't believe the whip part, it was definitely
her. That's why he still hates her. She made fucking sure of that. See, 'cause
after she did it she must have known she had him by the balls...uh, which
carapaces don't have, but anyway. See, she's had pretty much everyone who can
do robot prosthetics workin' for her, and she might still for all I know.
Zahhak and his crew, he's a troll I never met. Anyway. So, none of those guys
are gonna touch Jack Noir's bleeding stump with a twenty foot pole, right? So
that's when Droog comes and finds my bro."
▲: Dirk rested his chin in his hand and stared, rapt, as Dave told the story.
He watched Dave's lips as he spoke instead of his eyes, another bad habit he
picked up a long time ago. From about a table length away, people never know
you're looking at their lips and not into their eyes. "I know Zahhak," he said.
"We, uhh-- nevermind. I've run into him a few times. Snowball and WQ hate each
other, but they hate Noir even more, so we've worked together in the past.
Never for very long, though." He could kinda see where this was going, now, but
he figured he'd let Dave finish the story since he was having such a good time
sitting here. And, anyway, maybe the kid would surprise him. "So your Bro got
acquisitioned?"
▼: "Yeah. Droog showed up in the middle of the night and talked him into it,
but they were arguing in the living room for a long-ass time. I was about 13 at
the time, by the way. And it's like...look, he wasn't stupid, he knew that once
you get into this shit with a guy like Noir he doesn't just let you go, right?
And I think he knew what he was doing, and for a couple years things were fine
and life just went on as normal. For given definitions of normal, obviously. He
had his smuppets but he'd do work for them only occasionally too, and he made
sure they never came to the apartment again. He had a plan all along but you
know. Shit goes down and suddenly your plan needs a contingency plan, and a
contingency of a contingency and what are you supposed to do? I think he must
have known things were getting sticky 'cause he told me if something happened
to go find Rose--Rose is a friend of mine who lives way the fuck up in the
mountains in the middle of nowhere.
"Anyway, no one's ever told me what exactly went down when he died. Jack told
me later on that my bro was trying to go behind his back, but I don't know what
he could have been doing. But then like I said. He had his secrets, I guess.
Anyway, I went to the workshop he had--he eventually did get a workshop because
our apartment was tiny and it could only handle so much ridiculous bullshit
being stored in it at once. Uh. And Jack was there. And...his body was there.
And I guess the fight must have been over for awhile, so I don't know what Jack
was still doing but. I sort of just walked in on that." He didn't really know
what a good way to describe what happened next was, which was good because
right then the waitress came back with their food, and none too soon. He dug in
with a lot of enthusiasm, sort of grateful to shut up.
▲: Dirk drank his coffee silently while Dave told him the next part, not
interrupting or interjecting. He guessed that Dave probably hadn't really had a
chance to tell anyone all of this stuff, unless he was tight with some of
Noir's other lost souls in indentured servitude. Maybe he needed to talk about
it. Or maybe he didn't need to talk about it but just wanted to tell Dirk about
it. Either way, it helped Dirk build his case for WQ. None of the rackets in
this city were reputable, strictly speaking, but WQ was the closest to it.
That's why Dirk had gone to her instead of Snowman, after all.
He didn't really know what to say about Dave's dead brother, though. "I'm
sorry" didn't really seem like it would cut it. And "I know how you feel",
while technically true, always rings hollow when you say it. Their food came
and he just kinda looked down at his bacon for a while, and then he settled on,
"Why didn't you go to Rose?"
▼: He stared at Dirk, then at a strawberry he'd speared onto his fork. "Got
kinda pissed, I guess. With one thing and another." He remembered being very
mad, at Noir, of course, and at Bro for getting himself killed, and eventually
at himself, but that first moment he'd just stared in shock, hadn't even said
anything, hadn't even really felt anything except this white void. "When Jack
saw me he...shit, I don't think he even knew who I was? But Droog was there,
and Droog remembered, and he had some guys take me home. I think they must have
been looking for something. Not sure what. I didn't really realize that then,
and I just let them take me home, 'cause I didn't know what else to do."
He ate the strawberry. He remembered who it was who'd been his escort; Boxcar
and the little guy whose name Dave never remembered, and they'd locked him in
his room and started tearing the place up. And that was when it had started to
hit him, and that was when he'd taken his finest shitty sword off the wall and
busted open the door. "So I was hardcore pissed, and I tried to fight Noir. And
I lost. Game over." He stabbed at the waffle viciously with his knife, until it
bled syrup. Nothing like taking out life's frustration on your breakfast. "I
wasn't thinking very clearly," he added, somewhat unnecessarily.
▲: The pit in Dirk's stomach was now approximately the size of a basketball,
but he knew he needed to eat, so he picked up a slice of bacon and started
crunching on it. "Yeah, that was a pretty stupid idea. I can't say that I blame
you, though. I almost did the same thing, once. Probably would have, if my
friends hadn't stopped me." He was going to add something about how maybe if
they hadn't stopped him, he'd be the dead one and they'd both be alive, but
that was a little too melodramatic for breakfast. It was probably even too
melodramatic for 2am. The more he crunched, the better it tasted, and the more
he wanted to eat it. He really wanted to make some kind of gesture, some kind
of 'I feel you, bro' kind of deal, and he used to be so good at that kinda
stuff but this was way too close to home for him to think clearly about layers
of ironic sincerity over breakfast. He decided to sit on it for a while. He was
always better at long-term plans than short-term plans. "I'm kinda in the same
boat, I guess. Noir got to everyone I've ever cared about, except for Roxy."
▼: He looked up sharply from the syrup he was pouring. "Really. Didn't realize
that. That's what happened to...to your boyfriend, then?" He watched Dirk's
face intently for his reaction; he sort of missed when they'd been in bed and
Dirk wasn't wearing the shades (which were a bit disconcerting anyway) but it
wasn't like Dave wasn't used to that sort of thing.
▲: Dirk got out his fork and started scooping up some eggs, because why the
hell not. He spent a whole six dollars on this. "That's really getting ahead of
the story. So I told you I had this letter from my mom. Turns out that there
was a second letter that I wasn't supposed to read until I turned 18, but my
adoptive parents died when I was 16-- car crash, supposedly-- so I never even
knew about it. Anyway, after they died, I went to stay with some twin friends
of mine, Jake and Jane. We had been tight for a long time and I knew their
grandparents really well-- they lived with their grandparents-- so they just
kinda took me in. There was this really unexpected legal battle over my
parents' estate after they died, though. This one businessman claimed that they
owed him a small fortune, so everything was held in legal limbo for a long time
and eventually I found out that the house was going to be repossessed to pay
off this fucker, and I wouldn't be allowed in to get anything. Like,
*anything*, not even personal memorabilia."
He waved the waitress over to refill his coffee. He looked down at it for a
while and then decided to drink it black. Apparently black coffee was the hot
new accessory for weird awkward memory jams. "So one day Jake got the bright
idea that we should go break into my old house and steal some stuff before
everything got repossessed. Like some sort of adventure shit out of one of his
stupid movies. Like S'burban House Raider. What a dumbass." That last line was
obviously said with affection.
▼: "No, dude, that sounds like a caper. Like a totally well-thought out plan.
Lara Croft that shit, right? As long as you wear, like, the short shorts and
the thigh holster and make it look good." He grinned. "What kinda shit did you
even want to steal? And who was this dick businessman?"
▲: "Just, like..." He waved around with his fork. "Just stuff that meant
something to my dumbass kid self. Like my shades and my computer and this dumb
stuffed bunny rabbit that my parents gave me when I was a little kid. Shit like
that. So we sneak out one night and break in, and Jake and I are having a hell
of a time just going through everything, you know? We were high on our own
stupidity and inflated sense of ego and adventure. I remember I got so excited
that I almost..." He trailed off and stared out the window over Dave's shoulder
for a while, picking up another piece of bacon and chewing on it absently.
"So then Jake decides that we needed to break into my parents' safe. I don't
really know why. Maybe he thought there might be some money inside that I could
take since I wasn't going to be getting any inheritance. Or maybe on some level
he knew that there might be, like, adoption papers or something. It took us
most of the night to get that thing open, but he was actually really good at
it. Had his ear all up to the thing and everything. I didn't know that was even
*possible*. Good thing my parents had a safe from like ancient ass mesopotamia
or something because that doesn't work on safes made in this century, I'm
pretty sure. That's how I found the second letter."
▼: "Yeah, that's charmingly old school," said Dave. His waffles were long-gone
and he was just sipping coffee now, leaning up against the window and watching
Dirk talk in that level way he had, even when reminiscing about his adolescent
forays into crime. Well, justified crime, he supposed, since the house was sort
of Dirk's, or should have been. "So, second letter. Told you where the bodies
were hidden, or well the oil well was or something, right?"
▲: "No. It told me about Jack Noir. I guess my mom was some sort of writer. An
undercover journalist or something? I'm not too clear on the details because
that letter is long fucking gone, but she was digging up dirt on Noir around
the time I was born. I guess Noir found out and decided to threaten her,
because she said she thinks he's the one who got my Bro. It said some stuff,
like..." He shifted in the booth and chewed on his bottom lip, trying hard to
remember exactly what the letter had said. "It was dated like five years after
the first letter, so I guess she originally never intended for me to know this
stuff, but after Noir killed my Bro to intimidate her and possibly also my dad-
- I dunno, she didn't even *mention* my dad in the second letter so I have no
idea what happened with that-- she gave me up for adoption because she figured
she might be able to get away with that; that he wouldn't be able to find me or
might not even know that I existed, but she was too late. Noir knew about me
and knew where I was and was using that knowledge to keep her in line. It
probably would have been easier for him to just kill her, but if he had her on
a leash he could have her make sure that nobody else tried to check up on him,
either."
He dropped his fork and gave up on the rest of the food on his plate. He was
officially no longer hungry. "Actually I didn't think much of it at the time
but there were a lot of discrepancies between the two letters. Like in the
first one she went on and on about my dad but didn't even mention him in the
second one. And in the first one she said my brother died a long time ago, but
the second letter made it sound like it was more recent. I guess I really don't
know very much for sure. But whatever the details are, Noir made some kind of
deal with her that he'd leave me alone until my 18th birthday as long as she
kept her mouth shut and made sure that nobody else caught wise. I guess she had
an idea that when I did turn 18 he was just going to kill her, which is why she
risked sending me the second letter. It was all sealed up in a second enevlope
and everything-- my other parents never even saw what it said."
▼: "I feel kind of bad," he said. "Turning breakfast into 'talk all about your
dead relatives' theater. Kinda morbid." He narrowed his eyes, leaned forward
and said somewhat more seriously, "So what happened to the letter, then? Did
you guys get caught? Did you find her?" He knew that the story probably didn't
have a very happy ending, but he wondered regardless.
▲: "Burned. Eventually. And no. I think Noir somehow got her to admit that she
wrote me a letter. I guess he didn't like that because it implicated him, and
it also meant I was no longer an innocent bystander, at least not once I turned
18 and read the damn thing. My theory is that he killed her the same time he
killed my parents. I can't prove that he did any of that, but he was the
businessman. That's not a coincidence. So now he's got all my old shit and all
my parents' old shit and I guess he never found what he was looking for because
he came after me directly about two years later. I honestly have no idea why
he's after me so hard. I mean it can't just be that I know he's a dirty douche.
Everyone knows he's a dirty douche, it's just that nobody can prove it. Like,
why is he burning through so many people to get to me? That's why I eventually
wound up going to WQ. I figured the best place to hide would be in plain
sight." There was a lot more to the story, actually, but Dirk wasn't sure he
could even go into what happened to Jake and Jane right now.
"I think Jake was more upset about the whole thing than I was. Like I was just
completely blown over because my entire world had flipped its lid, but I think
he just saw another fucking adventure. He wanted to go after him. I was always
trying to talk him out of it and tell him the best thing to do was be
unremarkable for as long as possible." He took off his shades for a minute and
massaged his temples, taking care not to look Dave in the eyes while they were
off. "Anyway, that's my story. Or as much as I care to tell of it for the time
being. You're right, this is getting way too fucking morbid."
▼: "Yeah." He was quiet for a second, staring at the salt shaker in thought.
"What about your friend? Roxy. What's her deal? I'm gonna meet her so I guess
I'll find out. But I'm curious." Secretly he was all kinds of worried about
meeting her, but then as far as people in the skin trade went she couldn't be
much worth than the people he usually had to deal with. "What are you going to
tell her about me? You make it sound like she knows most of your dirty
laundry." If they did hit off, he was sort of curious what she would say about
Dirk.
▲: "If you're asking if I'm going to tell her we fucked, no, but she'll know
anyway. I'm not gonna tell her anything you don't want me to, but she's pretty
perceptive. That's the thing about Roxy. I mean she comes off as a serious
floozy but she's a fuckin' genius. Like if she wasn't in the business she'd be
off building rockets or cloning sheep or something. Shit. Maybe she's doing
that anyway on the side. She reads people, which is why she's so good at what
she does. Not too many people my age can hold down a bar and a house of ill
fame, but she's a goddamn rock. She's also one of the sweetest motherfuckers
you'll ever meet. You'll like her. She's gonna like you too. It's probably best
if you never ever talk to her, ever." Best for whom, though? Best for Dirk,
obviously.
▼: You're doing a good job scarin' me off, bro. She sounds like an ogre." He
grinned and looked out the window, suddenly sort of excited at last. Sure there
was Dirk who was sort of...a gray area, really. Ambiguous. Dave found himself
trusting him, obviously, but at the same time the guy gave off the air of
impenetrability that reminded Dave of Bro. Still, whatever conflicted feelings
he had about Dirk aside, there was the fact that he was getting out finally. No
more skirts, unless he really wanted to. (Which he didn't think he would, no
matter how hot the weather was or how nice the one with the pockets was.) No
more shitty nights in a room with no A/C, with sweaty people who took up the
whole bed. No more worrying about getting his ass kicked because somebody
snitched about the chump change he was hiding under his mattress. For the first
time it was hitting him, and, while it really wouldn't do to start turning
cartwheels in this fucking waffle house, that was sort of neat.
Plus there was the fact that, Bro-like or not, Dirk was a little easier for
Dave to play, which Dave was realizing at long last. He leaned over closer to
Dirk and said, kind of slyly, "Also not lessening my impression that she knows
your dirty laundry. I ain't known you too long, and obviously you ain't told me
your whole story and you sound like you get into some pretty heavy shit. But I
feel like I must be up there with the dirtiest laundry you got."
▲: Dirk laughed, probably a little too hard, like he'd been waiting for
something to break the tension and he latched onto the excuse. It felt good to
laugh after such a harsh memory dump. "No, you're not. I mean, you're up there,
but... Man. I let Zahhak do some *weird* shit to me. Like seriously... I dunno,
man, that was a strange time for me." He kinda chuckled and sat back in his
seat, like the memories weren't painful but just kinda odd. He'd liked it at
the time, after all, despite how fucked up it seemed in retrospect. "Shit, you
know what? At this rate you're never going to believe me when I tell you that I
actually have slept with women before."
And just like that, his appetite was back. He picked up the last few pieces of
bacon and started cramming them in his mouth. When he finished, he said,
"Anyway, yeah, Roxy knows as much about me as there is to know. She's good at
keeping secrets, though, so don't get any ideas. And before you ask, no, I've
never slept with her." He looked over at the dessert case wistfully. Now that
he was done talking about Jake and his parents, he felt kinda ravenous all over
again. And he'd had a savory breakfast, not a sweet one. Maybe he'd get some
pie or something. "What do you think the waitress would do if I leaned over the
table and kissed you?"
▼: He looked at the waitress out of the corner of his eye; she was arguing with
an old man at the corner table with one of those fake, "fuck-off" smiles
plastered over her face, the kind you get when you have to deal with someone's
shit and somehow keep yourself from hauling off and slapping them. His heart
went out to her, it really did, because prostitution was pretty rough but so
was arguing with seniors about the price of their discount coffee. That still
didn't stop him for returning Dirk's grin and saying, "Well, she'd probably
learn a valuable lesson about what happens when you assume. But then, you're
gonna be tipping her so I'm guessing she'll just roll with it."
▲: "That's not nearly as fun as I was hoping. Your loss." Instead, he waved her
over and ordered some chocolate pie, because why the fuck not. He usually ate
better, but greasy road food has its own merits, and who gave a fuck if they
weren't technically on a road trip. Dirk was always on a damn trip. And maybe
he was stalling again, just a little bit, because he really didn't want to
bring up the "so what happens next" conversation. He knew that he had to get
Dave to Roxy before it got too late in the day, and he was good on all the
business he had to take care of after that was done, but he wasn't sure what to
do in the meantime. Keep trading stories? Go buy a toothbrush? Fuck in the
alley after they'd had time to digest their food a little? He had no fucking
idea. Before he dug into his pie, he said, "I can't help noticing that you
haven't said word one about your parents."
▼: He widened his eyes, then grinned. "Oh yeah. Forgot about them. Well, I
guess it's natural that I should because Bro never said diddly squat about
them. What I picked up from him and from some of the neighbors who'd known him
for awhile is that Dad ran off, Mom...ran off too, I guess? Or died. Honestly,
he never fucking talked about them at all, and I don't remember anything about
them. I did find my birth certificate once, at least, and I actually was born
in a hospital, which is kinda reassuring. Like, I didn't crash to Earth in a
meteor or spring from Bro's brow fully formed like the goddess Athena, with a
fucking...like, I dunno, with a a broken shitty sword and a smuppet clinging to
my back. Gimme a bite of your pie."
▲: "Haven't you had enough confection for breakfast already? You carbo-loading
or something?" All the same, he pushed the plate over to Dave's side of the
table. "Guess you need to bulk up a little anyway if you're gonna fit into my
pants." He noticed the waitress's eyes flit over to his direction for a second
when he said it. While Dave ate, he thought about what he'd said. "I think
you're flattering yourself with that Athena stuff. More like... I dunno.
Dionysus. You know. The skirt. The bar. The--" Probably best not to discuss the
sex here. Yeah. He made a twirling motion with his finger that he wasn't sure
what it was actually supposed to represent, but he figured Dave was smart
enough to guess.
▼: He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, the bumping uglies. Wow, I didn't realize you
sanitation guys were all Classic scholars. Plus everyone knows that Dionysus
busted out of Zeus' thigh when he was born like some gross Greek version of the
alien busting out of John Hurt's stomach." He put the fork back down after one
bite; it was too sweet, especially after the waffles and the strawberries. He
pushed it back towards Dirk and watched him thoughtfully as he plowed through
the whipped cream. "That reminds me though. Speaking of shitty broken swords. I
wasn't gonna tell you this 'cause it's sort of embarrassing, but I guess it's
also funny if you look at it the right way." Plus he suspected that Dirk was
making more of effort to be open with him than he might have otherwise, which
Dave appreciated for reasons of his own.
"So, I take this sword of mine to go fight Jack, right? I used to fuck around
with that crap too, I guess. Like, Bro and I would shit around practice
fighting, like we were some sort of fucking rooftop ninjas. Stupid, but anyway.
So I take this sword and I find Jack at his HQ. And I try to sort of swipe at
him-- that's a real technical swordfighting term, I hope you're taking fucking
notes-- but I fuck up on the swing, and I don't manage to hit him at a joint
like you're supposed to. So I hit him straight on in the middle sort of with
the flat of my sword and instead of nicking his shell...the sword fucking
breaks in half on his carapace. Fucking incredible."
▲: "No, I mean, I already told you I didn't go to college. But prostitutes are,
I guess? Everyone knows about Dionysus anyway. He's one of those gods who has
something for everyone." He started scarfing down pie while Dave talked. Holy
shit he was hungry. Whipped cream fuckin' everywhere. "Jake and I used to do
that too, but it was usually wrestling," he interjected at one point. Yeah,
wrestling. Playing "hide the fact that you have a boner" was *always* a fun
time. Dirk snorted a little bit when Dave got to the part about the sword
breaking, but he felt bad for doing so. "Sorry. I just. I bet that was scary as
fuck when it happened. Like oh shit, I just broke steel on this fucker's
exoskeleton, now what? I've actually never confronted Noir directly. That's
gotta take serious huevos. That or a lot of stupidity."
▼: "Nah, dude, go ahead and laugh. It's pretty awful but kind of hilarious too.
Like I'm the polar opposite of Inigo Montoya or some shit. I don't know what
the fuck I was thinking." Which wasn't exactly true, but he wasn't going to
tell Dirk *everything*. They were trying to keep off the morbid shit, and
continuing the story with "and then I woke up from my quasi-suicidal vengeance
bender in a whorehouse" was about as morbid as you got.
They'd been there for awhile now; the breakfast crowd was clearing out and the
lunch crowd was coming in. The waitress, who looked more cheery now that Old
Man Expired Coffee Coupon was gone, had been back a couple times, but Dave just
kept asking for more coffee and talking. He'd gotten over whatever block he'd
had about looking Dirk in the face, was even starting to appreciate both how
much it looked like Bro's and how much it didn't. Dirk's face was younger and
more expressive, and he was more free with the info, like when he talked about
his guy friend and their no doubt entirely non-sexual athletic endeavors.
"Wrestling, huh," he said, raising his eyebrows. "You still do a lot of that?"
▲: "Nah. It's a shame. I'd probably be a lot better at it now that I actually
have muscles and shit. I had to, you know, bulk up for the job in order for
people to take me seriously. I was naturally gifted with being a tall
motherfucker and kinda hairy, so that helps." He put his fork down because he
was finally done eating, and picked up the bill that had been slipped face-down
on the table by the waitress a little while ago. "Man, why is this food so
cheap? Kinda makes me feel weird about eating it." He took some cash out of his
wallet and tossed it on the table. "Why, d'you want me to show you a thing or
two?"
▼: He shrugged. "Well. Shit, why not? I don't have a lot of experience with
wrestling. I mean. Actual wrestling. Sounds too much like an organized sport
for me, but fuck, why not try it?" And even if Dirk meant the euphemistic kind
of wrestling, well, he wasn't going to say no to that at this point, was he?
"We got some time to kill, don't we? Just gotta find a drug store and get me
some basic toiletry stuff." A vestigial part of him still felt bad, making the
guy spend all this money on him, even if it was just for greasy food and a
toothbrush. Dave had gotten used to having his own money since he was pretty
young, since Bro, in his mysterious budgeting methods, had usually just given
Dave money to do get what food he wanted. Having someone else treat him still
felt weird, even though he supposed he should have gotten used to it after the
last three months.
▲: "Yeah, maybe." He felt an admittedly cheap thrill when he pictured mounting
Dave and showing him some wrestling holds. Wow, Dirk was so fucking
predictable. He looked down at his crotch-- well, actually at his wallet, which
he was still holding open. 'All this money' hadn't even come out to twenty
bucks yet (not counting the room service, for which he had no idea how much
he'd paid, since Dave had done it for him), so Dirk hadn't thought twice about
it. He'd spent a lot more than that in the past, buying drinks for people he'd
just met that he wanted to hump, so Dave was actually turning out to be a cheap
date so far. That thought crossed his mind as he stuffed the wallet in his
pocket, and it amused Dirk, so he opted to share it. "Waffles and a toothbrush.
Cheap fuckin' date. If you had left last night, how much would I even be out
right now?" he asked as he stood up from the table to leave.
▼: "I probably would have taken all of the cash," he admitted. "Which would
have been...shit, I don't even know the math, a pretty huge percentage of a
tip. You would have been a generous contributor to the 'underneath Dave's
mattress fund.'" He stood up and followed Dirk, blinking in the bright midday
light when they got back out on the street. "Which I'm sure would have warmed
your fucking heart, right?"
▲: "That's what I expected you to do." Dirk kinda wished that this *was* a date
because then he'd know whether or not it was okay to put his arm around Dave's
shoulders like he had last night. He kinda had the urge to do so, but he had no
idea why. Maybe he really was getting a crush, which was like half a dozen
different directions of fucked up. He thought a psychologist might have a field
day figuring out why Dirk was getting a crush on this technically underage
hooker for whom he now had an almost-parental responsibility, whom he'd already
fucked, twice (and was already planning to do again), and who kinda sounded
like he might actually be Dirk's transuniverse intergalactic brother. "Why
didn't you? I'm not really buying that tip adjustment line you fed me."
▼: He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. "That's a good question. I'm
not sure yet." He fell into step with Dirk as they walked; that was something
he'd sort of appreciated about Dirk even while drunk last night, how easily
they matched up with each other as they walked. Like it wasn't even thing.
Although Dave didn't have three glasses of nice whiskey in him this time, so he
didn't really need to lean against Dirk to make it down the road, and suddenly
he wondered why he was getting all gushy about it.
"I guess that's just story of my life. Never run when I probably should." He
put his hands in his pocket. "Not that I'm saying I wish I had run. Just that
it was definitely the smarter option at the time." He considered, and looked at
Dirk out of the corner of his eye. Part of him missed the intimacy of a face-
to-face conversation, but walking did make it easier to say this. "Don't regret
staying, though. I mean...this has been better than my morning and afternoon
would have gone otherwise, even if I had dipped with all your money."
▲: "Mmm," Dirk said noncommittally. He reached out as he walked and brushed his
fingers against the fabric of Dave's shirt in the middle of his lower back. He
wasn't sure why; it was just a momentary compulsion. His hands were restless so
he stuffed them in his pockets, which forced him to shrug and slump over a bit,
and now he and Dave were almost the same height. Dirk was a little bit taller
and broader and more defined, but they still had very similar frames. They
walked in step, they moved well together, they got each other. If he didn't
spend a whole lot of time thinking about why that might be, he could just stand
back and bask in the ease of it. It had been something like 12 hours, and Dave
was pretty firmly under Dirk's skin. "Who knows. With one thing or another, it
might still get even better." There was a drugstore on the other side of the
street, so Dirk hit the button to cross. "Over there. I think I might need a
few things too."
▼: He'd been thinking along some pretty cheesy lines there, but just feeling
Dirk's fingers brush against the small of his back sent a jolt down his legs,
and for whatever reason he suddenly thought of Dirk holding him by the throat,
pressing against his forehead and telling him to stop biting his lips. Jesus,
what the fuck was his deal? You'd think he'd never had sex before. Although,
now that he thought of it, he'd never spent so long in the other person's
company before, he didn't think. He'd never gone to buy condoms with the other
person before either, which he assumed was what they were going to do now.
"Hey." After they crossed the road, he stopped Dirk at the corner. "Now that we
won't freak out the waitress anymore." He grabbed Dirk's collar with both
hands, pulled him forward and kissed him.
▲: Dirk's hands rested on Dave's hips for just a moment, just long enough for
his possession instinct to kick in, which was a bad idea on a public sidewalk.
When Dave pulled away, Dirk blinked in the sunlight for a second and then
grabbed Dave's hand, leading him behind the drugstore and into a loading alley
at a brisk pace. It was dingy back there, but not too dirty. Just dirty enough
to make you feel like you were some kind of punk kid passing a joint or making
out-- which wasn't too far off base, actually. He turned around, and Dave was
looking at him with an expression that seemed a little bit startled but not at
all confused. Dirk grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved his back against the
wall of the nearest building. "I don't know if you really know what you're
getting yourself into with all of this," he said before kissing Dave again,
pressing him into the wall with his upper body.
▼: "Yeah, sex is a mystery," he said, turning his head to the side to pull
their lips apart. "What is 'kiss'?" He ran his hands up Dirk's sides; he
couldn't move them very far up because Dirk was pressing him pretty hard by the
shoulders; he could feel the grooves in the brick through his jacket, almost.
He licked his lips when Dirk finally pulled away, raised his eyebrows at him.
"I think I've got a pretty good idea, actually." At least that's what he was
telling himself.
▲: He shoved his shades up and grabbed Dave's chin, pulling his face back to
center so that he could look Dave in the eyes. "Do you? Really?" He came in for
another kiss, biting Dave's lower lip briefly. "Don't take this the wrong way
but have you ever even been with the same person more than once?" Dirk was
mostly referring to Dave's age, not his profession, but there was that, too.
▼: "Couple times," he said, and he forcibly kept himself from squirming in
Dirk's grip. 'Couple times' meant literally two people, one of whom had come in
twice, and another who'd come in almost every day for a week and then had been
banned from the bar for not paying his tab. Dave wasn't the type to get
regulars. He was never sure if he would have liked to have a frequent customer
(or customers) or not, and he'd never had the guts to ask one of his co-workers
who did if they preferred it. At any rate, while thinking his eyes had drifted
to the side, and he supposed he might as well come clean. "Only twice though.
What's your point?" he asked, lifting his chin up a bit.
▲: Dirk frowned with bemused annoyance. "Yeah. That's generally what 'a couple'
means." He backed off a little bit, but left his one hand on Dave's shoulder.
If Dave had never been with someone-- really *been* with-- then that meant he
had no idea how this kind of sexual energy could snowball and how quickly you
could get addicted to it. It wouldn't be the first time that Dirk had used that
kind of rush as a crutch to get himself through something. After all, hadn't
that been what all that shit with Zahhak had been about? And he didn't regret
any of it, but fuck, that had actually gotten scary a few times. Zahhak was a
solid dude, but Dave was-- not actually a kid, really, despite the way that
Dirk called him a kid all the time, but he wasn't built the way Zahhak was,
that was for sure. Then again, he seemed to have a lot of mental armor. Maybe
he could handle it. Who the fuck knew. "You know what? You're right. Guess it's
kinda late to warn you about how I can be intense. You wanna keep pulling my
strings, I'm fine with that."
▼: "Nice that you admit you have them," said Dave. He wasn't going to say 'I
know what I'm doing' because shit, hadn't he just spent the time it took to
vacuum up a waffle and like ten cups of coffee telling Dirk how he didn't know
what the hell he was doing most of the time? A rational part of him maybe saw
where the guy was coming from, thought that maybe he had a point, but the more
petulant part of Dave's brain resented being patronized. "I can take it," he
said. "I'm not...I'm not a kid. I'm not that much younger than you." Dirk
calling him names like that-- "kid," "little bro," that sort of thing-- didn't
exactly bug him, but it annoyed a part of his mind that felt like it should
have bugged him, if that made sense.
He shook his head, suddenly completely sick of thinking about this and thinking
about his feelings about his feelings. Fuck that. He grabbed Dirk's collar and
kissed him again, harder this time. He pulled away and looked past Dirk's
shoulder, sort of muttering, still with his hands by Dirk's neck. "I see what
you're saying. I'm not stupid. I just...kinda don't care."
▲: 'I'm not a kid' is exactly the kind of thing that a kid would say, but Dirk
thought it would probably kill the mood to point that out. Fine, if the kid-
- if Dave didn't want to be patronized, then Dirk was just going to go with
what came to him. He put both of his hands on the small of Dave's back and
pulled them together when Dave kissed him again, and his dick was showing signs
of starting to come back to life if they kept doing this for very much longer.
'This' being making out behind a fucking drugstore on a Saturday afternoon.
"Shut up," he mumbled, pushing Dave back a few steps against the wall again,
kissing him under the jaw. He put one leg between both of Dave's and rubbed the
crotch of Dave's (Dirk's, actually) jeans with the palm of his hand.
▼: He was going to say something else, but his face was tilted upwards, so
Dirk's hand on the front of his pants sort of caught him off-guard and he let
out a little gasp of surprise. For whatever reason, suddenly he was very aware
that the pants didn't actually belong to him, because the denim on them was
thicker and even the zipper to the fly felt more jagged as he felt it rubbed
down his cock. Jesus, was he that fucking sensitive all of a sudden? It had
only been a few hours. He arched his back, or tried to, and braced his hands
around Dirk's shoulders.
▲: Yeah, Dirk had strings all over the fucking place, and Dave plucked them
like a harpist, even when he probably wasn't trying, like all those small
noises he made whenever Dirk touched him. Since the pants fit a bit loose
anyway, Dirk didn't have to unbutton them to fit a hand down the waist and rub
Dave through his underwear instead. Man, the stories that pair of underwear
would be able to tell after this day was finally over. He didn't even know if
they were capable of maintaining a sustainable erection right now because they
weren't *that* far removed from the sex this morning and, also, there was the
fact that they'd both just ate a ton of food, but. He also kinda had no fucks
to give. He wasn't gonna fuck Dave out here, anyway. He just. He had to scratch
an itch real quick, one that had overcome him when Dave kissed him on the
corner. He just... needed to own Dave for a moment, to touch him and know he
could get a reaction. After all, he was pretty sure that they wouldn't be able
to do this for very long without being interrupted by a truck or something.
▼: He was also sort of surprised when Dirk just sort of crammed his hand down
his pants, because fuck buttons, right? He tried to say something but he
couldn't even speak properly, the words all got lost on the way out of his
mouth. Which was fucking *ridiculous*, since when did getting felt up over his
underwear reduce him to speechlessness? Maybe it was the fact that he was in a
'the spirit was willing, anyway' sort of state, where as much as he wanted to
get it up it maybe was not going to happen. Maybe it was the fact that someone
could come across them at any time. Or maybe...yeah, it was disingenuous not to
admit that Dirk was a pretty big element of the situation, it was Dirk who was
making him twist and writhe around against his hand, and he realized with a
jolt that he'd broken his vow of silence (or actually, his vow of non-
verbosity, he supposed) and had just said Dirk's name without realizing it,
which he hadn't even thought was a thing that could *happen*. "*Dirk*," he said
again, more out of frustration with himself, with his body, with the man in
question.
▲: Dirk smiled viciously against Dave's skin when he heard Dave whisper his
name. It slipped out so naturally, and Dirk was reminded of how he'd originally
thought that the person he reminded Dave of was someone Dave had been hot for
once upon a time. He didn't know if the 'Dirk' slipping out of Dave's mouth
right now was 100% him or some fraction also his Bro, but he was just going to
assume it was him because Occam's razor or some fuckin' thing. The second one,
the more forceful one, was definitely all Dirk, though, and he was satisfied
with that. He backed off, pulling his hand out of Dave's pants and brushing
some dirt off of the shoulders of Dave's jacket. "C'mon, let's go get you some
oral hygiene products."
▼: Dirk started walking away and Dave stood there with his back to the wall in
shock for a second, feeling his heartbeat coming down and Dirk's body heat
leave him. After a second, he shook his head and was (mostly) back to normal.
He caught up to Dirk. "That was a dick move," he said, annoyed but without any
real malice. As they went into the drugstore finally he grabbed Dirk's hand.
The one that was still warm from being inside Dave's pants, actually.
▲: "So cry about it," he said with some distraction, since his mind had already
switched gears and he was trying to remember what he needed. Deodorant, mostly.
He was unsettled for just a moment when Dave grabbed his hand, though. It was
always the really mundane shit that cut through all the clutter for Dirk, not
unlike how a simple kiss had gotten through to him this morning when Dave was
choking him. But now that he had the hand, he was going to drag it around for
deodorant and toothpaste and hair gel and okay yeah condoms. "Why do they
always sell condoms in even numbers?" It was mostly a rhetorical question.
▼: "Because whoever heard of a baker's dozen of condoms?" he asked. "13 is a
bad luck number to put next to your junk, so they just keep that shit at a
straight dozen." He was starting to wonder what had prompted him to grab Dirk's
hand in the first place; simple curiosity, he supposed. Wondering how he'd
react. Wondering how Dave himself would react. After a bit it didn't feel weird
anymore; just normal to be shopping, shooting the shit and arguing over
toothpaste brands. (It was a really stupid thing to be relieved about, but he
was sort of glad when he saw Dirk didn't use the same kind Bro had.)
After picking out his toothbrush, Dirk asked him if there was anything else he
needed, and he shrugged. He felt like there should be, but he couldn't think of
anything else. He wasn't hungry, and it wasn't like he was going to buy a $5
pair of shades here just to make up what he didn't have any more. "No. I'm
good. We can go."
▲: Dirk decided to grab some Astroglide too because, what the hell, might as
well stock up. He'd be using it one way or another, no matter what. He thought
about grabbing something off-the wall, like a teddy bear or a box of latex
gloves or something just to make it all the more surreal for the cashier, but
the teddy bear thing would probably make him feel like a pedo, and he had no
idea what he'd actually *do* with a box of latex gloves, so that particular
urge of sophomoric humor got left behind. Their final haul was deodorant,
toothbrush, toothpaste, condoms, lube, pork rinds ("chicharrones", Dirk
insisted), and a Kit Kat. He had to let go of Dave's hand to pay for it all,
but after they left the store he put his hand on the small of Dave's back
again. He liked it there.
"So," he said when they walked back outside. He couldn't really put it off any
longer. "We should start heading for Roxy's... soon." He couldn't bring himself
to actually say 'What now?', but that was the underlying question.
***** Chapter 3 *****
▼: "Well. There was your 'wrestling' idea. Which the more I think about the
more I think you must have meant as...you know." He cleared his throat.
"*Wrestling*, and not actual straight-up honest-to-god wrestling, because the
more I think about it the more I can't even believe that it's a sport that
people even take seriously. Like, when I was in high school, in the weight room
they had all these wrestling posters. Like there was this one...I couldn't even
fucking believe it, it was this butt ugly guy who had the other guy in a hold,
and butt-ugly guy's face was right next to this other guy's hairy ass...which
you couldn't see, obviously, but the spandex leaves very little to the
imagination and anyway, yeah, I didn't see how that was supposed to inspire
anyone to want to bulk up, unless they were like, really closeted for ugly guys
in singlets. Which was eminently possible because it was a fucking high school
weight room, right?"
He leaned towards Dirk's arm slightly as they walked, feeling more normal about
it but still stupidly exhilarated with the pressure, slight as it was, which
probably was what was making him go off about random-ass shit and ramble worse
than he had since Dirk had stuck the gun in his face, actually. Not that he was
nervous, just still stupidly worked-up. Fucking Dirk and his back-alley not-
handjobs.
▲: "No, I meant actual wrestling. But thanks for showing me all your cards."
Suddenly Dirk had the awkward realization that his shades were still perched on
his head from when he shoved them up there back in the alley. He took his free
hand off of Dave's back to push them back down. How the hell did he forget
that? "I know the kind of posters you're talking about though. Like they're all
from the 70's and the only people who wrestled back then were bears in booty
shorts. I wrestled in high school, but I liked it because it was just, like,
two dudes locked in a one-on-one battle for dominance. Not, you know, 'Hey take
this ball and try to put it through that hoop over there or kick it in the net
or whatever, but you can't just *do* that, because we also have all these
intricate rules about who you can pass to when and where you can take shots and
blah blah blah'. Fuck team sports." Also he liked having an excuse to feel Jake
up. That was a big part of it, but not the only part. He really had liked it
for the sake of it.
▼: "Yeah, exactly. Sports," he said with a shrug. He raised his eyebrows when
Dirk shoved his shades back down from his hairline. Dave hadn't even noticed
their absence over Dirk's eyes, he supposed because he had gotten used to
seeing Dirk without them anyway, after spending all night and a good chunk of
the morning in bed without them on. He smirked and looked at Dirk out of the
corner of his eye. "Never would have guessed that a one-on-one battle for
dominance would be up your alley. It's a revelation to me alright."
▲: "I'm a real enigma, I know." They were coming back up on the hotel now, and
Dirk opened the door with his free hand. There were a lot more people in the
lobby this afternoon, and Dirk was really glad that Dave had taken his offer of
jeans. Now they didn't have that air of 'Yeah, I hired a hooker before lunch
today, we're gonna go fuck and do weird things with pork rinds in my room' that
might have otherwise come off. He was also thankful that they had an elevator
by themselves. "Not that I've had any real challenges lately."
▼: "Really," he said, knowing that Dirk was trying to bait him. He thought
about saying something about that morning, but then decided instead that was a
bit too easy. Sort of low-hanging fruit. Instead, since they were alone in the
elevator, after all, he reached out his hand and rested his hand on Dirk's
collar, as if he were putting his hand on his back, but then instead of just
resting it there, he squeezed lightly at the back of Dirk's neck, just above
his collar. He wasn't sure if that would get his point across, but even if it
didn't, just the contact itself was...nice.
▲: Dirk dropped the bag he'd been holding and jerked Dave close to him by the
other wrist. "Don't start something you don't know how to finish," he said
coldly. He had no idea if Dave was capable of topping him and wasn't sure he
believed that Dave even had enough meanness in him to do what it took (he was
positive that Dave didn't have the brute strength, but sometimes that wasn't
even necessary if you were cruel enough). And that was okay, really. Dirk
didn't need to be topped, he liked being the one in control, and half the time
he wound up topping from the bottom anyway, like this morning. It was just
always a nice surprise when someone was able to do it. He guessed that was why
he had entertained Zahhak for so long before breaking it off.
▼: His eyes widened; whatever reaction he'd been hoping for, it hadn't been one
that was quite so serious, or so sudden, but then maybe he had been naive.
Yeah, no shit, and maybe he was biting off more than he could chew here, but
then that had maybe been obvious from the start, and that was what Dirk had
been trying to say back in the alley. Yeah, alright, you made your point, he
thought with a grimace.
He waited until his heartbeat went down, then said finally: "Alright," and
eased his hand down Dirk's back slowly, so that one arm was just resting on
Dirk's shoulder while the other was clenched in his fist.
▲: Dirk felt bad about it pretty much immediately, but this was what he'd been
talking about, after all. It occurred to him that maybe he shouldn't be doing
this. Maybe Dave was way too green, maybe he should reel it in a little bit,
but Dave just couldn't stop plucking those fucking strings. "Sorry," he said
after the elevator stopped and they'd walked out into the hallway. "It's just
that you have no idea." He tried to think about how to put it as he searched
his pockets for his room key. "Your effect, I mean. You don't know your own
strength, metaphorically speaking. Like your brain hasn't grown into it yet or
something. I don't fucking know."
▼: "I do know," he said, sort of blankly as he his mind raced. It was hard to
explain that for anybody else Dave probably wouldn't have been so fucking dumb,
but Dirk was...his own person, right, of course, uses different toothpaste and
hair gel and loves pork rinds (sorry, *chicharrones*) apparently, but at the
end of the day there was the plain, honest fact of how much he was like Bro and
how that went directly to the pissed off little brother centers of Dave's
brain, and how that occasionally made a stop at his dick too? "I just...it's
different with you. I can't talk about it." He suspected Dirk knew what he was
trying to say regardless; guy wasn't stupid, and Dave had spent all of
breakfast describing Bro. Some of that stuff must have pinged for Dirk, and it
wasn't like Dave had been terrifically subtle telegraphing his feelings. Kind
of the opposite. That was the Bro effect in action too, he realized.
After Dirk got the door open, Dave decided to break in his new toothbrush. He
leaned against the sink and watched Dirk.
▲: Dirk dropped the bags on the small table and walked over to the window. Noir
would probably have figured out that something was up with Dave by now. Or
maybe not-- he had no idea how close of an eye Noir kept on his people. Either
way, when they finally set out for Roxy's, they'd be better off taking Dirk's
car. He heard the water from the faucet but didn't look over until Dave was
finished. "Hey. Dave." It was the first time he'd addressed Dave by name and
not 'kid' or whatever. He turned around and rested against the window's ledge,
which was right around ass-height, so he didn't have to sit down very far.
"Come here."
▼: He spat into the sink. It felt nice; he hadn't really noticed it until now
how much he'd needed it, how his teeth were getting the fuzzy sweater effect.
He was savoring the feeling when Dirk called to him and Dave sighed quietly. He
splashed water on his face before wiping it off on his sleeve, took a deep
breath through his nose and turned around to walk towards Dirk, stopping again
close to him, so their knees were almost touching. He crossed his arms and
realized that it was probably the first time he'd heard his own name on Dirk's
lips since he'd told it to him. He tried to remember if Dirk had said it when
Dave was jerking him off that morning, then remembered; oh yeah, Dirk hadn't
really been saying much of anything at that point. "Yeah," he said. He wanted
to reach out and touch him, for admittedly different reasons than before, but
not as different as they could have been.
▲: Dirk took off his shades and set them down on the table. Dave was actually
standing slightly over him, so he looked up into Dave's eyes. The sunlight from
the window made his eyes shine like some kind of rubies or something totally
fucking cheesy like that. Red eyes. How crazy was that? This wasn't the first
time he'd noticed them; it's just that the light made them so bright that it
was kinda hard to look at them. "If you're mad at me, use that. If you're not,
stop crossing your arms like the petulant kid that you keep insisting you're
not and *kiss me*."
▼: He blinked in the light, and when Dirk took off the shades again. His face
started to feel hot, but that could have been plausibly denied as being from
the heat of the sunlight from the window. Not that he gave a fuck; he sank
against Dirk, kissed him, and it occurred to him that this was maybe what Dirk
had been talking about, or obliquely referring to, how things could snowball,
because it was something like his third time initiating a kiss between them
today and each time it felt different, more urgent but different each time.
This time was slower, more drawn-out with them not being in public, and not
making out like two punk kids in an alley. His arms were wrapped around Dirk
and the bright sunlight from the window caused a hot red glare behind his
closed eyelids.
▲: Dirk returned the kiss perhaps a bit lazily, maybe a little too slowly,
because the heat of the afternoon sun on his back just felt so damn good.
Despite what had happened in the elevator, Dirk was so fucking relaxed right
now, like he'd gotten something out of him that needed to be said or bled out
or whatever and now he could just be himself again. He just wanted to taste the
lingering toothpaste in Dave's mouth and run his hands up Dave's back and smell
the faintest smell of sweat under the collar of Dave's shirt and he was in no
fucking hurry. No sir. Of course, none of this sensuality that overcame him
when Dave kissed him really made him feel any less guilty about how he'd
reacted to Dave's touch in the elevator. "Dave," he said again, mumbled against
Dave's lips. He didn't have anything to follow it up with, he just wanted to
say it.
▼: He braced one hand on Dirk's thigh and ran the other up his back, onto neck
again and into his hair. Dave was leaning against him, probably pressing Dirk
uncomfortably into the windowsill, but Dirk seemed too relaxed to care. The sun
was warm, almost as warm as Dirk's body heat as Dave leaned against him, and it
relaxed him, made him almost drowsy. If he had been mad at Dirk (and part of
him had been) or embarrassed by what had happened in the elevator (definitely),
it all seemed to drip away now as they kissed, as Dave felt himself almost melt
against him. It was so much more drawn-out, this time Dave appreciated the
littler details; the rub of Dirk's stubble against his cheek, the smell of his
hair gel and Dirk himself underneath it. He made a questioning noise as Dirk
said his name, ran his hands down Dave's back. "Hmm?"
▲: Dirk didn't mind being pressed into the window; he liked it, actually, aside
from the irrational fear that he was going to fall through, but that was easily
subdued by focusing on other things, like Dave's hand on his leg. "Nothing," he
said, finally letting his hands settle on Dave's ass. He left them there so
that their arms wouldn't get tangled while Dave moved his up and down from
Dirk's back to his hair and then back again. He was content to let Dave drive
this thing for a while. "You know, if this was a date it would be the second
longest date I've ever been on. And officially the weirdest."
▼: "Mmm," he murmured as he kissed along Dirk's jaw. "Kinda weird that I run
away from a brothel and the first thing I do is just...fuck like crazy." That
was simplifying things a bit; part of him didn't quite feel like he'd truly run
away yet, like he was stuck in limbo or something. Really, really horny limbo,
apparently. "How long was the longest?" he asked, slightly muffled because he'd
moved down to Dirk's neck and was kissing and sort of burying his face in it,
nipping softly every now and then.
▲: Nobody had actually come out and said that they were coming back to the
hotel to fuck, but apparently they had both known it. Having it said out loud
made Dirk's breath pull a little deeper and his heart beat a little faster.
Fuck like crazy. Yeah, that's what it felt like, Dirk thought to himself as he
lifted his head and looked up at the ceiling. "Not that I'd know, but I imagine
that it's different when you're doing it for yourself." He suddenly really
wanted to ask if Dave had ever had sex for himself, or if he'd been a virgin
when he had gotten taken. Fortunately, Dave interrupted his train of thought.
"About 36 hours."
▼: "Dang." He smiled against Dirk's neck. "That's a lot of wrestling." He
readjusted a bit, so he was between Dirk's legs and almost, but not quite,
sitting in his lap. "But yeah, guess that does make it different. Doing it for
yourself. Lot less boring, at least." He was sort of surprised he'd said that,
but it was true, after all. It'd been awhile since he'd stopped being scared
and started being just plain old bored. It was all the same after awhile;
people wanted the same things, the same noises and words and looks. Same fake-
cute act. He supposed that was what he had liked about Dirk from the start; he
hadn't needed any of that, and Dave hadn't felt pressed to do it.
▲: "Yeah. But do you really wanna talk about my day and a half long fuckfest
with my dead boyfriend or all that apparently quite boring sex that you had
with customers right now?" Dirk didn't. Dirk wanted to shut up and close his
eyes and feel Dave's lips on his skin and Dave's thighs against his. He made a
subdued noise when he felt Dave bite where his shoulder met his neck, and he
was fucking mesmerized. It was getting hot... really hot. Drowsy hot. He
couldn't think straight, especially with the hand on his leg that was playing
some kind of game of erogenous zone chicken with his crotch. "Why are all my
shirt buttons still done?"
▼: "'Cause you're a lazy asshole, I guess," he said, smiling into Dirk's neck
again, but he moved a hand to Dirk's shirt and unbuttoned the top one with one
hand, keeping his other one on the warm area on the inside of Dirk's thigh.
Usually he didn't think much of it, but one-handed unbuttoning was a useful
skill occasionally. He ran his lips over each spot of Dirk's chest he exposed
as he unbuttoned the shirt, and with his other hand rubbed along the inseam of
Dirk's jeans, stopping before he got to the crotch and rubbing back down again.
▲: He didn't realize he was doing it, but he was holding his breath each time
Dave's hand ran up his inseam and then exhaling audibly each time the hand
backed off before hitting paydirt. He was being played again. Apparently that
was just what happened when you let Dave drive, but that was fine. That was
fucking A-OK. He was just gonna... ride this. Out. Ride it out. Yeah. His
breathing picked up again, getting deeper and his chest rising harder with each
breath as Dave moved down his chest. He let go of Dave's ass and stabilized
himself by putting one hand on the table and the other one in Dave's hair, not
pulling, just holding. Possessing.
▼: He pushed his head up into Dirk's hand, liking to feel Dirk's palm slide
across his hair. Probably looked like a fucking cat, but in this position he
supposed it didn't matter. He was sinking down lower as he unbuttoned the rest
of Dirk's shirt, until he was, inevitably, on his knees between Dirk's legs. He
looked up, so close he could have rested his chin on Dirk's belt buckle, before
finally he cupped Dirk's bulge and rubbed the heel of his hand down his fly. He
considered briefly getting revenge for earlier, just teasing him and standing
up, but he already knew that wasn't going to happen. He let out a breath that
Dirk couldn't feel through the thick denim of his jeans and looked up at him
again.
▲: Dirk removed the hand briefly, just long enough to shrug out of his now-
unbuttoned shirt and toss it on the floor. The hot glass from the window felt
sharp against the bare skin of his back, but Dirk didn't give a fuck. He pushed
the hair back from Dave's face, looking down at him with mostly lidded eyes,
and his mouth popped open in a silent moan when Dave finally touched him
through his pants. He could feel sweat starting to shine at the back of his
neck. So. Fucking. Hot. In both respects, really, because he hadn't actually
had Dave on his knees in front of him yet, and wow. He should let Dave take
control more often. "You waiting for a signed invitation?"
▼: "Notarized, too," he muttered, but it was doubtful Dirk heard him. He
unbuckled Dirk's belt and undid that last, crucial button before resting his
hands on Dirk's spread thighs; probably he wasn't going to need them for a bit
here. He pulled down the zipper with his teeth, which he did slowly and
carefully. Not just to be a teasing asshole, but you did have to be careful,
after all. He licked along the length the shaft through Dirk's underwear from
the bottom up, breathing out again as he did so. When he got to the waistband,
he dragged it down with his teeth.
▲: Dirk opened his mouth to say something witty, but closed it when he saw what
Dave was doing, and then opened it again when Dave actually did it. Holy shit.
Apparently hooking up with a hooker had its perks. Who knew the kid-- Dave-
- who knew that Dave had tricks? He somewhat involuntarily rotated his hips out
when Dave licked him through his underwear. The warm, damp breath on his dick
was very befitting of the theme of this encounter so far: hot and lazy. He
really wanted to say something, maybe a word of encouragement, maybe something
obnoxious, but then Dave went after his waistband with his *teeth* and Dirk
just had nothing to fucking say about that. In a word, he was totally
dumbfounded.
▼: He looked up at Dirk before continuing; he found himself more conscious of
his audience than he usually was, appreciating the noises-- minor ones, just
the breath going through his nose-- and that look Dirk was giving him, like
he'd just started speaking in tongues. Which was such an awful pun he
considered sharing it, but decided against when he looked back down at what was
in front of him. He licked the underside of Dirk's cock, then the slit, putting
his lips on it and glancing up to catch Dirk's face again.
▲: Dirk tightened his grip on the table, his knuckles going white with the
effort of holding himself completely still while Dave's tongue was on his dick.
He put his tongue to the roof of his mouth as if to say Dave's name again, but
all that came out was a punctuated exhale when the tongue passed over his slit.
Fuuuck. He closed his eyes again, mouth hanging open, so he missed it when Dave
looked up at him. While they were closed, he took his free hand and put it
open-palmed on his chest, his fingers curling and uncurling. Dave wasn't just
pulling his strings now: he was fucking trilling them.
▼: He thought about calling Dirk's attention to what Dave was doing. Well,
attention was the wrong word; Dave just wanted to see his eyes, but when he
watched Dirk flex his fingers on his bare chest he decided to call it good. He
went back for another lick, more to the side than before. He tasted sweat, but
it wasn't as gross to him as usual for whatever reason. Maybe he'd just gotten
used to the smell of it. "I don't know why I bothered to brush my teeth," he
said, before he wrapped his lips around his teeth and took the head into his
mouth.
▲: Dirk's attention was most definitely focused on what Dave was doing, even if
his eyes currently weren't. "Good hygiene is its own rew--oh-- oh..." he
trailed off as Dave took him in his mouth, opening his eyes again to look down.
Dave was on his fucking knees for him, and he really needed to take advantage
and enjoy the visual of Dave's lips wrapped around his dick and Dave's hair
messed up from Dirk's hands. He wanted to pull off Dave's shirt, to look down
and see the freckles on Dave's shoulders from this angle, but to do so would
require Dave to let up on the dick sucking, and he wasn't about to initiate
*that*. "Fuck," was quite the understatement for how frustrated this made him.
▼: He took his mouth away for a second, making a wet smacking noise without
meaning to. He huffed a few breaths before catching Dirk's eye again. "Alright.
I should be able to do this still. I think. If not then I'll go hide in shame
in the shower. You can take me back and everything." He smirked, before
wrapping his lips around it again, drawing a deep breath through his nose, and
taking Dirk's cock all the way to the back of his throat.
After a few seconds, he knew he was going to be alright, so he started bobbing
his head and working up a rhythm, more focused than he usually was on what he
was doing, but still appreciative of the noises around him.
▲: "Not on your life," Dirk managed to choke out under his breath. He finally
let go of the table and rested that hand on one of Dave's shoulders, not
wanting to put it at the back of Dave's head while he was that far down on
Dirk's dick. He banged his head back on the window-- not hard, just enough to
momentarily cut through the weird haze that had settled over him. He wondered
if anyone was looking up at his window right now, and if so, what they thought
was happening. He kinda wished that the window went all the way to the floor so
that there'd be no ambiguity. He kinda wanted to fuck Dave up against this
window. He pictured that, Dave naked and pressed right up against the window,
and Dirk fucking him from behind, kissing the back of his neck and biting his
shoulders. Fuck. Shit. Goddamn. He cursed with every exhale as Dave bobbed on
his dick, wet and sloppy and fucking *warm* and soft and. And. "It's a little
early to tell, but I think I like you."
▼: It almost broke his rhythm when Dirk's head bonked against the window, but
he still had that calm focus that he hadn't quite had throughout his other
encounters with Dirk that made him persevere. At Dirk's words, he made another
questioning hum in the back of his throat, this time slightly obstructed,
obviously. He drew away, finally, leaning his head against Dirk's thigh as he
took a few breaths. "You're just sayin' that," he said, wrapping his hand
around Dirk's shaft and working it up and down.
▲: "Maybe, but I doubt it." He took this opportunity to grab Dave's shirt and
pull it up awkwardly over Dave's head. Okay, so it wasn't the suavest thing
he'd done since meeting Dave the night before, but his head wasn't on very
straight at the moment. Whatever, it was fucking worth it, even though it meant
Dave had to let go of his dick for a minute. Now he could see the shoulders and
the freckles and the muscles in Dave's arm that moved when he stroked Dirk's
dick. He put both hands on Dave's bare shoulders. What he really wanted was to
feel Dave's chest against his, but that would require moving things that didn't
need to be moved at the moment.
▼: "Whoa--oh, ok." He'd thought Dirk was trying to make him stand up, which
Dave didn't think he would have done. Half-assing jobs was usually his thing,
but not this one. Losing his shirt kind of threw off his equilibrium but what
he was losing in poise he was gaining in enthusiasm, and this sort of pleasant
heat that was accumulating low in his stomach, which had started, pathetically
enough, when Dirk had said he liked him. Dave wrapped his hand around the shaft
and started sucking on the head again, moving more frantically, taking Dirk
farther back in his throat with each bob of his head.
▲: Dirk had apparently lost some of his restraint in addition to his suaveness,
because he couldn't stop himself from thrusting ever so slightly into Dave's
mouth each time Dave came back down. It was a dick thing to do, he knew, and he
tried to keep it from going very far, just like half an inch or so, but he was
kinda unraveling here. The instinct to thrust in hard was so-- fucking-- strong
that it took all of his conscious energy to stop it from happening. Dirk had to
grit his teeth, even. It was unlike him to be this considerate, but-- "Fuck,"
he breathed. Then, "Fuck, Dave. Fuck." Funny how he didn't say Dave's name at
all for something like twelve or thirteen hours, but once it came out once it
didn't seem to know how to stop.
▼: Dirk thrusting back at him threw him off a bit too, but he adjusted to it,
part of him getting lost in the sensation of Dirk's cock going almost all the
way to the back of his throat, and in the thought of what he wanted Dirk to do
to him. Dave wanted to climb in his lap, spread his legs, let Dirk whisper
Dave's name into his ear because suddenly Dave couldn't get enough of it,
wanted Dirk to hold his cock and rock him and yeah, Dave was getting sloppier
by the minute but with each second that passed he knew he was getting to the
point where Dirk would care about that as much as Dave did. As in, not one
fucking wit.
▲: Dirk already didn't give a shit how sloppy Dave was being. He liked it
sloppy and messy and genuine, bring it the fuck on. He was chewing the hell out
of his bottom lip now, alternating between squeezing his eyes shut and looking
down, getting high on the sight of Dave losing himself on Dirk's dick the same
way he was making Dirk lose his mind. He was-- wait. "Wait," he said out loud,
and when Dave didn't stop he put his hand in Dave's hair. "Dave-- wait. Stop. I
don't-- hnng-- I don't want to--" He didn't want to come yet. He didn't want it
to be over again already, but he was getting really fucking close.
▼: So Dave let go, and it was actually sort of difficult to make himself do it
but he did, dropped it like it was hot and pulled himself up slightly on Dirk's
thighs. "Just can't win with you. First I'm not starting you going fast enough
and then I'm finishing up too fast. Make up your damn mind." He leaned forward
to catch Dirk's lips in a kiss, grabbing his shoulder for support and trying
not to slip. He could feel Dirk's still wet cock pressing lightly against his
still clothed leg.
▲: "Just take the fucking compliment," Dirk said into Dave's mouth, thankful
that he had managed to slow things down in time. He was still kind of on a hair
trigger, so he put his hands on Dave's hips and kept him from moving too much
against his dick, trying to just enjoy the kiss for now and focus on that
instead of the insistent throb in his cock that said 'Hey dude I can go off at
any moment now just say the fuckin' word.' After a few moments, he felt like he
could stand to let Dave move freely again without putting him in danger, so he
let go. Well, actually he started taking off Dave's jeans, because while
blowjobs were *amazing*, what he really wanted right now more than anything was
to feel Dave's skin all over him.
▼: It wasn't like the jeans were the hardest things for Dave to slip out of, so
in a second he was naked between Dirk's legs again, kicking the jeans out from
around his ankles and stepping back for a second to throw them away. "You
comfortable?" he asked as he melted against him again and this time only felt
Dirk's warm skin beneath his own. "Your ass isn't going all numb from sitting
on the ledge there?" He kissed Dirk softly. "'Cause I'm fine here if you are.
It's a nice window. We can give the pigeons on the ledge out there a show or
some shit."
▲: He had been so busy focusing on Dave and his dick that he hadn't actually
considered it. "Yeah, actually it kinda is. Now ask me if I give a shit." He
put his hands on Dave's face and pulled him into a deeper, rougher kiss,
tonguing and biting at Dave's lips. He pushed them forward a bit, and then Dave
pushed them back into the window, and they rolled like that for a while until
Dirk couldn't stand it anymore and had to put his hand on Dave's dick, had to
touch it and feel it and know how hard it was. He reached between them and
grabbed it at the base, and yeah, it didn't disappoint. He ran his fingers up
it, and he really needed some lube or something if he was going to do Dave's
dick any justice, but right now he was more interested in sensations than
getting Dave off. Still, he shouldn't be selfish. He broke the kiss and put his
chin on Dave's shoulder so that his mouth was next to Dave's ear. "What do you
want? Right now, what do you want the most?"
▼: The words made him shudder. He pulled himself up onto Dirk's lap, so his
knees were pointed towards the window and he was straddling Dirk's legs. "Say
my name," he said quietly, turning to say it in Dirk's ear too. "Say it." He
grabbed Dirk's hand and pressed it against his cock more forcefully, not even
caring about the friction caused by Dirk's dry hand. His mind was buzzing, and
he wanted to wrap himself around Dirk, and keep moving like this against him
until he couldn't stand it anymore. So he did that, panting and almost moaning
into Dirk's mouth.
▲: Yeah, that wasn't going to be a problem. Dirk pressed his lips to the skin
of Dave's neck and gripped Dave's dick harder, properly stroking it instead of
just feeling it up. "Dave," he mouthed against Dave's body, quiet at first but
then a little louder, appreciating the way that the skin at the small of Dave's
back pulled into goosebumps when he said it. He felt the hairs pricking up with
his free hand, working Dave's cock with his other hand, really wishing he had
some lube because this wasn't going to feel awesome for much longer but Dave
didn't really seem to care so he was just going to keep going. He thought that,
even though they wouldn't be able to see any of the really interesting bits,
anyone looking at his window right now would *definitely* know what was
happening because there was no mistaking that particular repetitive arm motion,
even without a naked person in his lap. They could do this right now and anyone
could see them doing it, at any moment, but the people would never know who
they were. It was kinda weirdly romantic in a fucked up kinda way. Good thing
they were two weirdly fucked up kinda guys. "Dave," he said again, harsher and
more needy. Nobody was touching his dick right now, but he could feel the
intensity going up all the same.
▼: He heard the bite in Dirk's voice, and reached between them to grab Dirk's
cock, working it up again in his fist. His other arm was around Dirk's back,
his stubby nails digging into Dirk's skin. "I think--agh. I think I might be
catching up to y-- *God*, Dirk." He was losing it again, forgetting all
semblance of composure and even the ability to talk. He buried his face in
Dirk's neck again, kissing and biting at him again, still rocking against
Dirk's skin. It was so rough, so sloppy but he wasn't in the mood to split
hairs, and he didn't want to let go yet. He didn't even want to think about it
yet.
▲: When Dave started touching him again, he knew he wasn't going to last very
long unless he did something. He tried to think about something else, and
somehow he came to the absolutely brilliant realization that *he had actually
just bought lube*. Fucking duh, why didn't he remember that sooner. He reached
out with his dumb hand and rummaged blindly through the drugstore bags for the
bottle of Astroglide, almost knocking his ankle holster (which he'd taken off
and placed on the table almost immediately after getting back) onto the floor.
He finally found the bottle and popped it open with his thumb, squeezing some
into his hand and then more on his own dick. It was a pretty slipshod
operation, and a bunch of lube got in places it didn't need to be like on both
of their thighs and a little bit on Dirk's stomach.
The lube was a little bit cold on his skin, in direct contrast with everything
else going on, between the sun at his back and Dave's warmth on his front. Now
everything was wet, slippery as hell, and he found he could move his hand a lot
faster, forcing the most pornographic noises out of Dave.
▼: He only dimly heard Dirk's hand rummaging for the lube, didn't even bother
to look up because he was just so fucking lost in all of it. A part of his
brain that was watching everything more rationally (and making dumb comments
about it) observed that he couldn't believe this moaning, panting shit was him.
He was no stranger to the porn noises, obviously; hell, his last time doing
this, before meeting Dirk, he'd made a noise so loud and blatantly fake he was
sure the john wouldn't buy it, but if the guy didn't he didn't care enough to
say anything. But this shit...this shit, the peanut gallery told him, was
ridiculous, and Dirk opening up the lube didn't change that, just made it
worse.
It made it better, actually. So, so much better. He took Dirk in his hand
again, rocked against him and almost sobbed in happiness at the softer feeling
against his cock, at how smooth and nice everything felt after the almost harsh
rub of before. He had found his voice after his brief period of incoherence and
was conscious of babbling Dirk's name a few times into his ear along with a few
other choice bits. "Jesus, just *hold me*," he hissed, and felt a little shiver
run through him after he said it. Like a cold little thrill of embarrassment,
as a counterpoint to everything else, in a way.
▲: The momentary distraction that finding the lube had provided was pretty much
mitigated by how hypersensitive he was to everything after he had put it on.
Dave wasn't fucking helping anything, either, what with the way he was more or
less whimpering with pain or pleasure or *something* in Dirk's lap, speaking in
tongues or something like that, and it gave Dirk a heady thrill to know that he
could reduce Dave to that state.
Despite the fact that Dirk was much more composed than Dave, his engines had
been revving for quite a bit longer. Dirk was going to come any second now, he
could feel it, the pull on his balls that told him it was an inevitability, but
then Dave asked Dirk to hold him. He moved his hand up from where it he'd put
it, at the small of Dave's back after tossing the lube bottle back in the
direction of the table, and draped it diagonally across Dave's back and rested
the palm on Dave's shoulder, pulling him as close as he could while still
allowing enough room for them to keep working each other.
Dirk was practically hugging Dave when he came, not really having the ability
to warn Dave that it was going to happen or even say anything, not even a
curse, but figuring that he'd get the message when Dirk's breath spiked harshly
in his ear. He came on Dave's hand and stomach, unable to vocalize but if he
would have he'd probably just wind up saying Dave's name again, since that was
the word of the hour. His rhythm on Dave's dick suffered a little during the
process, but at least he had the wherewithal to keep it moving.
▼: His head was still tucked against Dirk's neck, so he didn't see it when Dirk
came as much as felt it. He worked his hand a bit more at Dirk's cock, riding
him out until Dirk's breath had steadied out a bit. Dave wiped his hand on his
own already messy stomach and wrapped both arms around Dirk's back, hugging him
as tightly as he could while still allowing Dirk to work his cock. Dirk had
picked up the pace a bit once he got over his own orgasm, and it reduced Dave
back to near-speechlessness again; the only noises he was making were little
gasps as he rested his head against Dirk's shoulder and felt himself getting
closer. When he finally felt himself slip over the edge, he let out a sharper
little "ah" noise before burying his face in Dirk's neck and clinging even
tighter as he came. He didn't care about the sticky mess of lube and semen
between them, because at that moment all that mattered was contact and feeling
Dirk's arm around him as the endorphins coursed through his veins. "*Jesus*,"
he said after a second, almost exasperatedly, but fuck if he was going to let
go yet.
▲: Dirk didn't even mind that Dave came all over him this time, not just his
hand but also his stomach and chest. They'd really done a number painting each
other up, and Dirk considered for a moment wiping it in Dave's hair, a callback
to this morning. It would have been fucking hilarious, but he didn't think Dave
was in a state to appreciate the humor. So instead of doing that, he waited
until Dave stopped panting and then pulled his arm out from between them and
wrapped it around Dave's back, pulling them flush together so that their chests
and stomachs were touching. He really hoped that someone out there on the
street could see Dave's post-orgasm face since Dirk was being deprived of that
particular pleasure, but he was more or less okay with it.
▼: He was reluctant to let go, and not just because it would mean inspecting
the huge mess between them. So he stayed like that until it started to itch,
which didn't take that long. He let out a small sigh and sat up, running his
clean hand over his face and brushing the hair out of his eyes. Almost as soon
as he drew away he felt colder, from losing Dirk's warmth against him and from
the drying lube and jizz. He felt satisfied, but also oddly empty in a way he
usually didn't, for reasons he either couldn't explain or didn't want to. He
assigned it to the loss of body heat and looked at Dirk's eyes again. "Well
shit," he said. "Couldn't have made that mess much bigger unless we were
actually *trying*."
▲: "What makes you think I wasn't?" Dirk grumbled. He had been itching too, but
that didn't mean he wanted Dave to move. Still, it was probably for the best.
Now that he wasn't riding an impending orgasm, the sun's heat was becoming
irritating. That, and his ass really was starting to go *seriously* numb. He
kissed Dave gently, just long enough to taste him a little bit before guiding
Dave back a few steps and then standing up, stretching his arms over his head.
His bare ass was probably in plain sight from the window. Oh well.
He looked down at himself and realized that, yeah, he was a fucking mess. He
grinned to himself for a minute and then reached out to stroke Dave's hair with
the hand that was coated in lube and semen. Dave saw it coming, but Dirk was
too quick. "Shit, bro, look what you did. How the hell did you manage to get
come in your hair? What is Roxy gonna think?"
▼: "Oh, fuck you," he said, grinning and lunging at Dirk with his own dirty
hand, which wasn't as dirty as Dirk's had been but that didn't make it any less
satisfying when he grabbed Dirk by the hair and tussled with him briefly before
sinking against him again and kissing him. "Jesus, are you trying to give the
whole block a show? Well. More of a show." He looked out the window briefly;
what with one thing and another, he'd sort of forgotten about it, and that
anyone looking up from the street would have seen him wrapped around Dirk like
a fucking koala bear. For whatever reason, the thought of *that* embarrassed
him not a bit. "So. Shower, yeah? Even though I'm not worried, because ladies
who work in whorehouses tend to love me. I am like the fucking child they hope
to never get cursed with." Which was overstating things, but it sounded slick.
▲: Dirk reached up to cup Dave's face as he kissed Dave back. It just so
happened completely and totally by accident that the thumb he caressed Dave's
cheek with was covered in lube and semen. "Mmm. Yeah, let's see you walk in
there with jizz on your cheek, then." He only wished it could have been his own
jizz marking Dave's cheek, but you gotta make do with what you have on hand,
right? He pulled away and looked at the both of them in the light. "Yeah. Fuck.
Okay, shower. Just do me a favor and don't call yourself a child again. Like...
ever."
▼: "So gross, dude," he said, wiping his face off on the back of his hand. "I
won't, but can I just say that this obsession you have with marking your
territory or whatever is pretty damn childish." That was how it felt, actually,
like Dirk was marking him, and childish maybe wasn't the right term to describe
it. 'Slightly disconcerting' might do it, or, he thought grimly, just plain
hot. He'd always been fairly dismissive of the concept of such possessiveness
in general, but then every other time it hadn't felt quite so personal. This,
like everything else with Dirk, was a lot different.
He went into the bathroom and grabbed two towels off the rack to throw on the
toilet. He was ready to hop in because it was starting to feel pretty nasty the
longer this stuff stayed on him. "You coming in with me?"
▲: "It's not childish, it's a very basic masculine instinct that I'm sure
you'll grow into one day." He realized that it was kinda hypocritical for him
to say something like that right after admonishing Dave for calling himself a
child, but he couldn't help it. He turned around and watched Dave walk naked
through his hotel room, taking a long lazy, post-coital look at how the muscles
in Dave's back moved when he reached up for the towels. (Okay, not exactly
post-coital, but what a heteronormative word, anyway. There wasn't a good word
for 'post-mutual-masturbation', at least not any that he knew about, so that
would have to suffice.)
"Yeah. But just so you know, we're skipping like eight or nine steps in the
sexual progression echeladder by hopping into the shower with each other so
soon." He followed Dave into the bathroom, really hoping that Dave had grabbed
those towels with his clean hand.
▼: "Shit, fuck water, it's gonna be rainin' boonbucks in here pretty soon. Nine
whole steps means another feather in my dumbass cap and I'll ascend to the
coveted 'Hunk Rumpus Buster' tier," said Dave, turning on the water and testing
it. Fucking hotel room showers were so touchy, no matter how pricey they were.
"Man, what are even these words that are coming out of my mouth? They don't
mean anything. Get your ass in here, boy-skylark." He stepped behind the
curtain and put his head under the spray, feeling better almost at once. "Guess
it is kind of familiar-ish. Like, sure, you can make out in the shower and do
it all sexy if you want, but at the end of the day I bet it's like, dude, yeah,
I get it, get your hands off my ass, can't you see I'm trying to *condition*?'"
He said that, but in fact he was still appreciating watching Dirk, and
conscious of Dirk watching him, so it wasn't exactly going to be a complete
bore, was it? He wouldn't say no to a bit of fooling around, even if he did
also desperately want to clean this stuff off himself first.
▲: Dirk stepped into the shower from the opposite end, behind Dave, letting him
have the first crack at the water. This was mostly an altruistic gesture and
had nothing to do with the fact that it meant that Dave would have to wrestle
with the temperature control. "If you're assuming that you're going to be
busting this hunk's rumpus any time soon, I think you probably need to check
yourself."
He stood back in that no man's land between the cold tile wall and the mist
from the shower spray, both of which would contribute to bad things like
shrinkage, and watched the water flow over Dave's skin, muting the curly hair
on his head and then coursing down his back and over his ass. The urge to reach
out and touch was awfully strong, and he was maybe even already halfway towards
touching Dave's ass when Dave alluded to it. "Fuckin' creepy," he said, putting
his hands on Dave's shoulders and feeling the heat radiate off of his skin. He
ran his hands down Dave's arms and leaned into the water, kissing Dave's
shoulder where his hand was a moment ago. "So you want me to back off and let
you condition?"
▼: "What I'd really like is for you to back off long enough for me to get your
spunk off me," he said, but he leaned back into Dirk's body, enjoying the
warmth of the water at his front and Dirk's body next to him. Even though Dirk
was still sticky in places. "Seriously, look at this shit," he said, grabbing a
washcloth and the soap from the ledge. "This is ridiculous. Look at all this
mess, it's like you own shares in the Astroglide corporation and just went
fucking nuts." He lathered up his arms and front and tried to ignore what Dirk
was doing behind him, though evidently he wasn't trying very hard because
shortly thereafter he turned up the water a little bit and leaned back against
Dirk to let the hot water rinse him off.
▲: "What a whiner. You're making this sound like it was manbro bukkake theater
hour up in here. It's a little lube. I'd think you'd know how to deal with that
by now." But, yeah, he really had been a little overzealous with the lube. Oh
well. He paid for it so he might as well get good use out of it, right? And
anyway, he liked painting Dave up. Maybe he did have an issue with marking
territory, but it's not like he was seriously trying to claim Dave after not
even knowing him a full day yet. These thoughts passed lazily through his head
as he moved as close to Dave as he could, in order to get some of the warmth
from the water. "Hey, wait. So, am I still a hooker virgin?"
▼: "Huh?" He had been lathering shampoo into his hair and thought maybe he'd
misheard. "Uh. Well. We just had sex for the third time, and...I don't
understand your question? I mean, I'm not gonna lie to you, dude, I wouldn't
consider myself an expert on the subject or anything, but I think your hooker
v-card has been punched and validated a couple times over by now. Like, get me
off one more time and you get a free sub or something." He turned around,
running his fingers through his hair and rinsing it out as he grinned at Dirk.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
▲: Dirk stood back when Dave got dangerously close to flicking shampoo into his
eyes. "Okay, well, wow, I guess this is the part where we have that awkward
conversation about whether I was having sex with a hooker or with Dave. Because
I was pretty sure we already *had* that conversation and agreed that it was
Dave, but I guess there's always the possibility that I misinterpreted your
totally transparent and concise way of making a point." He reached over Dave
and cupped his hands in the water stream, using it to splash his face. It kinda
just made the semen in his hair drip down to his eyebrows, though. "Gross."
▼: He raised his eyebrows, pressed his lips together and watched Dirk tangle
with the semen in his hair a bit before he said anything. He was trying to pin
down why the question gave him such a feeling of distaste. "I still don't get
what you're trying to ask me. What do you want me to say? I know you...feel
guilty, or conflicted or something, about having sex a 17 year-old prostitute.
But obviously I don't really give a shit about any of that. Are you asking me
to tell you that it doesn't count, that you're a 'hooker virgin,' whatever the
fuck that means? Because correct me if I'm fucking wrong, dude, but it almost
sounds like you're asking me to absolve you of your own fucking sins here, or
what you think are sins or." He stopped himself. Maybe it was the fact that
they were in the shower that made it easier to say all this, because the white
noise of the water spray sort of drowned out everything else. He thought he was
speaking in a normal voice, but the shower was an echo chamber and made his
words come back at him louder as he spoke.
"But I'm not fucking interested in doing that, alright? Nobody forced you into
fucking me, and nobody forced me into staying with you. And it doesn't *matter*
if I was a hooker or if I was Dave when I fucked you because they are both the
same fucking thing and being the first one doesn't mean I'm not the second one.
You gave me plenty of chances to run and I didn't take any of them because I
*fucking like you, you asshole.* I like you and I like being with you and." He
stopped and stared, and listened to the shower spray and the void his sudden
silence left in the shower stall.
▲: Dirk curled and uncurled his fingers while Dave was talking. He really
itched for his shades just then. "So what you're trying to tell me is that
you're always all Dave when you're working? There's no compartmentalization
that goes on at all? Because let me fucking tell you, I have to turn off all
the Dirk parts of my brain to do my fucking job, every single time. It's the
only way I can sleep at night."
He also really wished Dave would turn back around and stop looking at him,
because his ego sure wasn't going to let *him* look away, but holy shit this
was uncomfortable. And incredibly naked. "Maybe that wasn't the best way of
putting it and I'm sorry if I offended you or whatever, but I guess it's just
important for me to know which compartment I've been with and when. Unless
you're really going to tell me that you don't do that. I don't give a shit what
you do for money as long as--" he didn't know how to finish that thought,
though.
▼: He winced; he wondered why he always seemed to start these big, emotional
scenes in such awkward situations, ie when they were both naked and/or covered
in jizz. Just a knack, he supposed. "Well, yeah. Of course I compartmentalized.
Or I used to. Hell, I let them drug me the first time 'cause I thought it'd be
easier to--" He cut himself off. Wow, that had been a thing that had not really
needed to be said. Like, at all. He went on. "But that doesn't mean...look,
most of those girls and guys in that bar weren't there because they thought it
sounded like a great line of work, with lotsa fun people and a great work
environment. I mean, I'm pretty sure most of them didn't tumble into it ass-
backwards in the stupid fucking way I did, but my point is that a lot of them
weren't really there by choice either. But that doesn't mean I...that doesn't
mean we're never going to have sex again, or ever enjoy sex again."
(Of course, most of his co-workers also weren't going to meet a weird younger
alternate version of their brothers and spend almost 20 straight hours fucking
his brains out, but then Dave, as always, was a special case.)
"So yeah, maybe that's why I'm *offended*, 'cause you think I'm broken and
don't believe me when I tell you that I want you. But nobody's paying me this
time, and I'm never fucking going back there so. You know. It's a moot point."
He had goosebumps by now, even under the hot water. He felt exhilarated and
empty, even emptier than he'd felt after coming earlier.
▲: Dirk felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, primarily because he
actually felt bad that he'd upset Dave but also because he felt like Dave still
didn't really answer his question. Maybe it was on purpose or maybe they really
did just approach this with two incompatible paradigms. And anyway, it isn't
like the lines weren't blurred for Dirk when they had fucked the first time,
either. He still didn't know if he really would have killed Dave after the fact
or not. At some point he knew he wouldn't have been able to do it, but when had
that point come? He had no fucking clue. Maybe the same was true for Dave.
"I don't think you're broken, Dave," was all he could think to say. "I think
you're splintered, like me, but that's not the same thing. Maybe it's
semantics, or splitting hairs or whatever, but it's really not the same thing."
He unclenched his hands, having just then realized that his nails were biting
into the palms of his hands. "Look... I'm cold. Do you mind?"
▼: He stepped out of the way, so Dirk could stand under the water. He was
almost...not afraid, but his limbs were shaky, especially his arms, like he'd
just lifted up something very heavy. He was cold when not under the water, but
he didn't want to get out and grab his towel yet. He didn't want to break eye
contact with Dirk because he wasn't sure he wanted to stop talking about this
and then have to bring the topic up all over again. Better to just get it all
out in one uncomfortable go. "What do you mean. By splintered. I don't
understand."
▲: Dirk closed his eyes for just a minute when he stepped under the water, just
long enough to let the heat comfort him and collect his thoughts. "Splintered,
yeah. It's different from broken because it's still functional, but it's
like... there's not just one Dirk. There's a main Dirk, but there are all these
side Dirks that are necessary to go places or do things that main Dirk can't
do. When I picked you up, I was hitman Dirk. At some point I stopped being
hitman Dirk and I became main Dirk. I don't know when, though. There are other
Dirks who are dead and still other Dirks who aren't dead but I'm never going to
be them again anyway for one reason or another. I realize how crazy this sounds
but it's really just how I conceptualize it. I'm not actually, you know...
Sybil. I mean I'm better looking than Sally Field but I'm also not *that*
crazy."
▼: He smiled a little, and leaned a shoulder against the wall. "No. I get you.
I think I get you. I...I sort of feel the same way I guess. About who I was in
the past. It feels like it was for-fucking-ever ago already, and...I dunno. I
feel like I must be a totally different Dave now, because of the choice I made
to go after Jack like I did. And at the time...I know I told you I was pissed
as hell at the time, and I was, but it wasn't even that. It was like I felt
that I *had* to go after him, that I could choose not to but that the decision
would all come out to the same in the end. Like I just *knew* that that's what
I was gonna do, you know? So I didn't tell Rose or Jade or John, and I ran off
and did my thing anyway, and. Well." He shrugged, one shoulder dragging against
the wet wall of the tile. "All sounds as fatalist as hell, and I guess it's
that too, but. And now it's too late to do anything about it, so I just don't
think about it, because if you try and track your decisions like that, track
the person you were back then..." He shrugged again, stared at Dirk and wanted
so badly to hold him for a moment. But he stayed wheere he was.
▲: Okay, so Dave had a branching paradigm and Dirk had a broken mirror
paradigm. Maybe that explained some of the miscommunication between them. Dirk
had a vague idea that maybe Dave had more of a connection-- or at least a
perceived connection-- to his splinters or branches or whatever than Dirk did.
Maybe that was why he'd gotten so upset. "Yeah. I am sorry, okay?"
Dirk finally let himself relax. He turned around, his back to Dave, to grab the
shampoo. "What a volatile kind of day. Feels like a day at the amusement park
and I just chucked my churro on the dizzy cups."
▼: He laughed. It was sort of perfunctory, but it was genuine, at least. "Guess
it was kind of another inappropriately timed post-sex flipout. Which really
aren't as much of a thing with me as I'm making them seem, I swear. It's
just...you know. Odd circumstances." He decided he'd definitely had enough with
talking now. If there was ever a time that called for some actual contact, it
was now. He stepped forward and put his hands on Dirk's hips, running them down
until his thumbs were brushing over his ass, and he rested his head against
Dirk's back, appreciating the warmth more than he ever had so far.
▲: "And the one thing I actually expected you to freak out about, you took in
stride. You're a weird kind of guy," Dirk said while lathering his hair. He
took care not to fling it around too much so that Dave wouldn't back away. He
felt, not for the first time, like he'd completely lost control of his body and
his reactions, like something was flinging him up and down violently. Volatile
had been a good word. Passionate was another good one.
He'd never had a spark with such an alarming intensity before; it was so unlike
what he'd had with Jake, which had really been more like a slow burn whereas
this was like a fucking hydrogen bomb. Yeah, he and Dave had a spark alright,
and he wasn't entirely sure that this one was healthy. In fact he was almost
positive that it was really unhealthy. If they could drive each other up and
down the walls in the first *day*, he had no idea how they could actually stand
one another long enough to-- wait, and was he really considering trying to date
this guy?
Maybe in a month. After all, the sex was better than he'd had in forever.
He realized that he'd been lathering his hair for-- actually, he had no idea.
"I spaced out just now, didn't I? Fucking Jupiter."
▼: While Dirk apparently got really intense about his hair (not surprising,)
Dave thought about the strangeness of how clingy he was being here. Dave really
hadn't ever had the instinct before; not just with people he was attracted to,
nor with anyone at all, really. He wasn't really a hug-loving kind of person in
general. He wanted to hold Dirk all the time, be held by him, and thought about
being around him more than he'd thought about anyone else in a long ass time..
Now that they were in hour 15 or whatever it was he felt less weird admitting
that in his own head, even though it had been obvious for awhile.
He knew, distantly, it wasn't healthy, and not just because of the Bro element,
although that did add a lovely fucked-up spice to everything. But then, he was
the kid who'd grown up on lukewarm apple juice and closet pop tarts, what the
fuck did he know about healthy? Besides when something definitely wasn't.
Finally, Dirk came back to Earth and spoke. "I figured it was just part of your
normal hair care routine," said Dave, running his fingers through its wet mass
briefly. "Like, really *extreme* conditioning. You know."
▲: Dirk turned around to face Dave-- he noticed that Dave didn't let go, just
let him shift within his grasp-- and leaned back is head to rinse out the
shampoo. Dave's face was somewhere in the vicinity of his chest, clingy
motherfucker that he was, like a baby spider monkey or something. He didn't
mind, it was just that he had to take extra care to make sure he didn't drip
shampoo down into Dave's face. Once he was rinsed, he said, "So. Would you want
to do this again?"
▼: He stayed still, pretended to think about it with his head resting against
Dirk's chest. Thought about saying something sarcastic, then realized how
utterly false such a thing would come out sounding. Well. More false than
usual. "Yeah," he said finally. "I think that'd be. Ok. I won't see you for
awhile...after you take me to Roxy's, I mean. You're gonna be busy, aren't
you?"
▲: Dirk dropped his arms and wrapped them around Dave's shoulders. "Hmm," he
hummed into Dave's hair. "Dude, stand up straight so I can talk to you."
Another weird thought that popped up out of the ether was that he'd never been
with a guy who was shorter than him before. Girls, yeah, but never a guy. Dave
wasn't that much shorter than him, but it threw him off every so often. "Yeah,
I'm gonna be busy trying to convince people not to kill you. And not to kill me
for not killing you. It's not gonna be all marshmallows and rainbows for me for
a little while. I hope you remember that while you're kicking back at Roxy's
washing glasses or whatever. I'm guessing it'll take about a month, and that's
a completely arbitrary guess with no higher meaning. On a totally different
subject, when is your birthday?"
▼: "The third. December third." He stood up straighter so he could look at
Dirk, and slicked back his wet hair as much as he could so it was off of his
face. "Finally I'll be able to buy lottery tickets and cough syrup and porn, I
guess. Such freedom. It's a date I'm looking forward to and I'm sure nothing of
interest will occur at all, besides the annual tick of my march towards death,
so no worries." He grinned; he'd been about to say that maybe it was a good
thing that they wouldn't see each other for awhile, that this had all been so
intense that a break between was a good idea, but looking into Dirk's eyes made
him decide not to say so at the moment, even though it was true. He reached up
to cup Dirk's cheek and kissed him again, long and softly.
▲: It was also kind of sweet, which was another thing that kept throwing Dirk
off. At least he'd have something nice to think about in the coming weeks (not
to mention plenty of lube, seeing as how he was destined to walk the path of
self-satisfaction). He had no intention of asking Dave to wait for him or some
stupid fucking thing like that, not seeing as how they'd just met each other
because that's unrealistic and unfair to everyone, but he really hoped Dave
would still be interested when the time came. He hoped that he wouldn't get
distracted, either, but sometimes shit happened. Also there was the not
entirely unlikely possibility that one or both of them would be dead in a
month, but that was (a) awfully morbid and (b) kinda directly dependent on how
he handled things.
What weird thoughts to be having while kissing someone. But if he paid too much
attention to the kissing he'd start thinking about how soft Dave's lips are,
and how good they'd felt on his-- "No," Dirk said firmly, unwrapping his arms
from Dave's shoulders and pushing Dave back a step, not unkindly. "No, no, this
is not going to snowball again. We need to go."
▼: "Yeah, that'd just be embarrassing," said Dave, leaning around Dirk to turn
off the water. "Almost make it to safety, then be all, nope, sorry, got shanked
by Jack Noir 'cause we were too busy swapping spit in the hotel room." He
pulled open the curtain and grabbed the towels, tossed Dirk one. "Uh, not that
that's gonna happen. Pretty sure last time I ran I had at least until the
evening before they sent people looking for me." Still, all the same, he was
starting to get nervous, even though he hadn't been earlier walking around in
broad daylight. Probably losing all the jizz had sapped the rationality centers
of his brain. That would explain a lot.
He got dressed and gathered together all his things, which weren't much: his
wallet, his skirt (not his, but he wasn't going to bother to return it now),
and the remaining half of his sandwich from last night, which he was keeping
out of habit. Kind of a pitiful haul, but there it was.
▲: Dirk took his time drying off and getting dressed. Truth be told he was
already getting hungry again. Apparently fucking and talking too much were good
for his appetite. Good to know in case he ever decided to bulk up even more. He
decided to put the suit back on since he was going to have to go to work pretty
much immediately after dropping Dave off. His pants were still not as crisp
looking as they should have been, but hanging them over the chair had flattened
out some of the wrinkles that had accumulated while on the floor overnight.
Also it meant he could use his shoulder holster, which he liked about a million
times better than the fucking ankle holster. Speaking of, he needed to get his
guns in order. "Did I ever actually apologize for pulling my gun on you last
night? I don't think I did."
▼: He blinked. It really said something about your life in the past 24 hours
when you could forget a thing like that. Not that he'd exactly forgotten, it
had just...been pushed out of his mind, with everything else. Not that he ever
wanted to get a gun pulled on him directly after sex again, but it had been a
pretty extreme adrenaline rush, taken altogether. Must have been how James Bond
feels or something, he thought with a grimace. "Guess not," he said awkwardly.
▲: Dirk turned his back to Dave while he checked the magazine and the slide
before slipping the gun under his arm. "Let that be a lesson to you," he said
to the wall, "Next time, let the guy come down off of his orgasm high before
you start interrogating him and accusing him of impersonating your brother. You
know, if you ever find yourself in that situation again." He put on the suit
jacket, hiding all traces of the gun, before he turned back around. "Also, I'm
sorry. But seriously, what did you expect? I know you're smart enough that it
had probably pinged for you what my job was."
▼: He grimaced again. God, this was going to be the weirdest fucking day ever
once he looked back on it. It had been pretty weird just *living* it, but taken
in total was just so bizarre. He thought of how terrified he'd been, more
terrified than any other time in his life, even when his sword had broken on
Jack's carapace, and then he thought of in the shower, by the window, when he
hadn't been able to let go for the life of him. Jesus.
Space. That was what he needed. Space, and a bit of time to process the
ramifications of this bullshit. Hitman Dirk was back; the suit made him look
older, and with the shoulder holster he seemed to stand taller, hold himself
differently. "Yeah, it did ping. I just...thought it was a joke or something.
That you were a fake, had made it all up, and...yeah, you weren't making it up,
obviously."
▲: The transformation was complete. Dirk looked like a completely different
person when he went from street clothes to work clothes. It wasn't really a
transformation that he enjoyed, but it was one that people respected and
responded to. He smiled a little to himself. "Yeah, and I just pulled all that
backstory out of my ass over waffles, too. All just a big joke, right?" He
walked over to the table and grabbed his keys. He thought about checking out,
but he'd already stayed past checkout for the day, so he might as well sleep
here tonight. He really didn't have it in him to pack up his stuff right now,
anyway. "You ready? Do you need anything else?"
▼: He looked around the room. It had been...interesting, but he was glad to be
leaving. All things considered. He pulled on his jacket, picked up his things
(including the toothbrush, which he'd almost forgot, even after the whole big
fucking deal he'd made about it.) He was still wearing Dirk's jeans without a
belt, but he supposed if Dirk could change his clothes and become the Slick Mob
Killer version of Dirk, he could put on someone else's jeans and
become...whatever Dave came next. Frankly, he had no fucking clue. He turned
back to Dirk. "No. Let's go."
▲: When Dirk put his shades on it kinda felt like the 'complete strangers'
barrier was back up between them, which made him feel weird, especially
considering how they had been making out in the shower like 15 minutes ago. It
was unreal how quickly they could code shift, and this was pretty much exactly
what he had meant about the dizzy cups earlier.
They went out the back of the hotel this time, towards the parking lot instead
of the street. Dirk's car was nice but nondescript. Comfortable, but not very
memorable, kinda like how his face would be without the weird glasses and the
spiky hair to frame it. They had been walking in silence ever since leaving the
hotel room, and with it a kind of mounting tension had accumulated. Or maybe it
had been a long time since Dirk had enjoyed a comfortable silence and he didn't
know how to recognize it. His fingers tapped the gearshift restlessly as they
pulled out, but he didn't know what to say.
▼: Dave was sort of lost in thought. He didn't notice the peculiar silence
between them until they'd gotten in the car, when it somehow became more
suffocating. He looked down at the shit in his lap and decided to eat the
sandwich, since it would give his hands and mouth something to do. The lettuce
was wilted and the wrapper was squished, but it wasn't like he hadn't had worse
before, and bacon was bacon. He watched the streets pass by and ate, filled
with a strange anxiety and trying not to think too much about Dirk, if only
because what lay ahead of him was so much more intimidating.
He did finally think of something to say, at least. "I know you'll be busy.
With stuff. But we could talk online. Maybe. If you wanted to." He crumbled the
now empty sandwich wrapper in his hand and watched Dirk out of the corner of
his eye.
▲: Dirk snorted. "I only have time for phoneternet these days. But yeah. That
would be helpful, actually, because then I wouldn't have to count on Roxy if I
need information from you." He gave Dave his messenger handle. He thought about
giving him his phone number too, but... It wasn't that he didn't *want* to, but
that it was probably unsafe for the both of them. He went back and forth on it
for a minute before deciding to give it to him. "Emergencies only, though. As
in, 'Jack Noir is in my bedroom'. Not 'I have a boner'."
▼: "Oh, fine," he said, tucking the information into his jacket pocket. "If you
insist, even though we both know you would be hanging off any boner news I sent
out." Kind of an awkward way to say that, but even the slightest bit of
flirting sort of soothed him right now, made him feel less twitchy. "Like,
Dave's Boner Bulletin frequent subscriber. That'd be you. But if you insist, I
will only call you if I'm actively evading lightning-quick stabbing motions of
Jack Noir's super-fast roboarm, if it'll make you happy."
▲: "I'm less concerned with keeping myself happy right now than I am making
sure we're both okay. When this blows over you can sign me up for the boner
bulletin." He tapped the steering wheel, suddenly full of some kind of energy
that itched to get out. Maybe it was the thought of Dave calling him up in the
middle of the night to tell Dirk all about the wicked boner he had. He could
imagine Dave doing exactly that, which would be good for his own boner but bad
for his ability to strategize. "Priorities," he added for emphasis, mostly for
his own benefit. "There's going to be a lot going on at Roxy's. You'll be so
busy you won't even miss me. And that's not me being some kind of self-
deprecating douchebag, it's the truth." He tapped his fingers even faster,
really hoping that Roxy didn't tell Dave too much about him.
▼: "If you say so," said Dave his voice a bit far away, because the thought was
barging into his mind that if he was going to talk to Dirk online then he
should probably talk to some other people online too. The thought gave him a
sick, swooping feeling in his stomach that wasn't quite positive and wasn't
quite negative. He wondered if there was a note or a fucking e-card you could
send to people: "hey sup lets pretend i wasnt incommunicado or whatever for the
past three months thatd be great." Thinking about it made him uncomfortable,
even slightly guilty, so he distracted himself by watching how quickly Dirk's
hands were moving on the steering wheel and the gear shift. He waited until
they had pulled up to the place and parked before grabbing one of them. "Hey.
Not trying to snowball anything here. Just wanted to say good-bye before we got
in there." He leaned over and kissed him, not very neatly, but shit like chaste
kisses or whatever was hard to pull off when you were leaning awkwardly over an
armrest.
▲: Dirk kissed back, putting one of his hands up in Dave's hair. One of these
days he was gonna kiss Dave without going straight for his hair, but apparently
not today. He had to admit that he kinda liked how Dave was just always fucking
kissing him. It seemed way too honest for such a guarded kind of guy. He broke
it off before it could go on too long, though, and stepped out of the car and
into the alley behind Roxy's, smoothing down his jacket. He really did feel
like a boss in this suit; it was the one good thing about it. He opened the
back door, glancing back to make sure Dave was following him, and walked
inside. "DIIIIIIIIIIIRK" he heard from somewhere deep inside the bar, and
cringed a little.
▼: He felt weird almost immediately after they broke off the kiss; he'd been
going for some sort of bittersweet "here's looking at you, we'll always have
that hotel room/the lube aisle at CVS" sort of hokey bullshit, but as they
pulled apart all he could think of was 1) how stupid he was getting about
kissing this guy and 2) how he'd never actually had sex in a car and he had to
wonder if the novelty factor would outweigh how fucking cramped it would be and
wow, yeah, no, down, boy. Dirk was right; they both had to remember their
priorities, and keep their eyes on the prize and be team players and all that
unmitigated bullshit. Dave shook his head and followed Dirk out of a car and
down the alley.
He wasn't sure what he'd expected her to look like, but whatever it had been,
it wasn't what stepped out from behind the bar. She didn't look like any madam
Dave had ever seen, but then Dirk had warned him she was young. It was
reassuring to Dave that she looked her age, now that Dirk had gone into full
business mode while Dave stood to the side and slightly behind him in pants
that sagged. She had sharp eyes, but she smiled widely at Dirk. She was also,
Dave couldn't help but notice, really fucking pretty. Like, damn. "I'm not even
gonna ask if this is a social call, 'cause is it ever, with you?" She ran her
eyes up and down Dave before raising her eyebrows at Dirk. Yeah, she was going
to know they had fucked like 10 minutes into the conversation, Dave saw that
right away. Call it another instance of fatalism on his part, but there was no
hiding from eyes that sharp, or a smile that shameless. Either way, he found
himself grinning slightly along with her, and looking at Dirk as well.
▲: Dirk rubbed his forehead and plastered on a strained smile when he saw the
way that Dave and Roxy were grinning at him. Putting these two in the same room
was probably his worst idea yet. He wasn't sure that Dave would ever really
appreciate what Dirk was willing to deal with to keep him safe.
That said, he still wrapped his arm around Roxy's waist when she approached him
and kissed her familiarly on the cheek. "Can't it be both? Roxy, this is the
business, Dave. Dave, Roxy."
"More like pleasure," she winked at Dave.
"Keep it in your pants, okay? He's seventeen." Dirk felt a headache coming on.
He actually found himself feeling totally ready to go talk to WQ just so that
he could be far, far away from these two when they had their first major
conversation.
"Oh? And did you take your own advice?" she asked.
▼: "Well, we just laid that one on the table right there for everyone to see
right away, didn't we," said Dave, still grinning and wishing he knew how to
wink back. "Nice to meet you." He held out his hand.
"Hey, yeah, totally," she said, shaking his hand but still searching Dirk's
face for a reaction. "If it's business we should go into my office." She turned
back to Dave. "I like to keep things fucking professional around here, ok?
Also, it's where I keep the better liquor. Is that skirt for me? Because red
really isn't my color."
"What? Oh, no, it's mine, long story, but--holy shit." They had followed her
into a room just one flight of stairs above the bar, and, though it had been
years since he'd read it, he was suddenly forcibly reminded of when Harry
Potter had walked into Dolores Umbridge's office for the first time. There was
a lot of pink, a lot of cats, and a lot of fucking wizards. The really schlocky
ones, like the kind you can get at the Renaissance Festival, with cross-eyes,
holding crystals and looking all in all like pompous little fucks. He gaped.
Roxy was watching him with glee. She was behind the desk and had taken out a
bottle and three glasses. "See, Dirk? The piles of wizard shit move yet another
man to tears."
▲: Roxy was the main reason that Dirk spent so much time concentrating on
keeping his face and voice expressionless once his guard was up. Girl could
read him like a fucking billboard, and it was just plain unsettling. He neither
confirmed nor denied her accusation and followed the both of them into Roxy's
office. He was no stranger to the, uhh, *unusual* decor of the place. He'd even
given her a good number of the gaudier wizards.
"Yeah. I can already see that this is a match made in heaven. The gods are
shining down on me right now and telling me that I'm never going to have
another peaceful day in my entire life. Is it too late to just go back and
fight Noir for a while?"
That seemed to break through to Roxy, and her smile faltered for a minute.
After all, Jake and Jane had been her best friends too. "Well, now I really
need a drink. You always did know how to set the goddamn mood," she said,
kicking her stilettos up on the desk and breaking out the whiskey. She drank
the same stuff Dirk did, and passed him a glass, then slid one over to Dave too
because why the fuck not?
▼: "Thanks." Roxy was looking at him as he took it from her, and she watched
him take the first drink. Luckily, he was an old pro at knocking back the
whiskey now. It tasted like a campfire, sort of woody and smoky and he was
beginning to like it more and more. Roxy was swirling her drink, had those long
legs up on the desk, and all in all suddenly seemed a bit more intimidating, so
Dave took another drink and looked at Dirk out of the corner of his eye. Dirk
raised his eyebrows at him, and Dave grimaced. Right, so no help from Dirk for
now.
"So where did you come from?" she prompted, apparently noticing how he'd
clammed up. "And what does that have to do with Jack Noir?"
"Uh. Well." Dave cleared his throat and decided not to look at Dirk until he
finished explaining. "Well. Up until...well, last night, I guess it was, I was
working at the Iron Horse Hitcher. It's a bar, have you heard of it or...yeah,
I guess you've probably heard of it." She had sat up with alarm as soon as he'd
said it.
"Have I fucking heard of it. What the fuck is a kid like you even *doing* at
the Iron Horse Hitcher, much less working there?" She was looking at Dirk,
though, an unspoken question in her eyes: *just what the fuck are you doing
with a kid from that shithole?*
▲: Dirk bit the inside of his cheek to keep from saying the first thing that
came to mind and drank most of the whiskey before answering. He knew he'd need
to be able to drive later, but there was no way he was going into this
conversation without the whiskey inside him. "It doesn't matter why he was
there, at least not at the moment. I'm sure he'll tell you the story later if
he wants to. *I* was there because Dave was a job."
She turned to Dave, incredulous. "He tried to off you?"
Dirk spoke over her, "Someone close to WQ implicated him in the shit that
happened last Thursday. I told you about it. The short version of the story-
- it's a hell of a story but I really don't have time for it right now-- no
really-- no, Roxy-- the short story is that it was a setup. Someone wanted us
to take him out for them, and that someone is high up."
He sipped at the whiskey again and drained the glass, passing it over to Roxy
for more. She obliged him with an indulgent look, as though getting Dirk drunk
was one of her favorite pastimes, as though maybe one of these days she was
going to get him drunk enough to do something he'd regret. "Either that, or
someone is setting him up as a double agent, getting me to trust him and
protect him-- no, I'm not going to tell-- no, just don't ask right now, trust
me-- and bring him into WQ's circle. I'm... pretty sure that isn't true?"
▼: "Uh, no," said Dave, sipping at his whiskey again. "It's the first one."
"Well, that would be your story," she said, winking at him again. "Dirk, that
was the shittiest story I've ever heard. That was a story that I bet could have
been really interesting but you ruined it all by being coy as fuck. Like
watching an R-rated movie on basic cable. Somebody has removed all the bomb-ass
titties from what could have been a great fucking tale I bet, Dirk." She turned
to Dave with the bottle in hand. "Can I refill you, Dave?"
"No, I--uh. Ok, I guess. So--"
"So," said Roxy, leaning towards him and sliding his refilled drink back to
him. "What is Dirk leaving out? He's being a spoilsport as usual."
Dave felt awkward, like he was caught between the two of them, and they weren't
even arguing, really. But the most logical course of action, of course, was to
down the whiskey and just say some shit anyway. "Welll, he left out the hooker
thing, but I guess there's no point being coy about *that*. You saw the skirt."
▲: Dirk choked a little on his drink and had to struggle with himself not to
cough any of it out. He looked up at the ceiling intently for a moment and then
said, "No, no, I'm good. Yeah. Yes, Dave was working and I picked him up and I
fed him waffles instead of killing him. That's all there is to the story."
Funnily enough, Roxy wasn't buying that story. "Waffles," she said, mimicking
Dirk's deadpan. "That's code for some of your weird-ass sadomasochism shit,
right?"
Dirk stood up and turned to Dave, pretty clearly itching for a way out of this
conversation. "I really hate to be that guy, you know, 'grownups need to talk'
and shit, but will you excuse us for a moment?" he said, grabbing Roxy by the
wrist and dragging her out into the hall.
He shut the office door and leaned against the wall in the hallway between her
office and the stock room. "There's something really weird going on here, and
I'm a little bit terrified."
Roxy leaned against the opposite wall and bent her knee, bracing one heel
against the wall as well. "You mean that astral projection stuff? Because I
already *told* you that the mind doesn't work like that, and I--"
"No," he shook his head, "No, no. He--" Dirk looked at the door, like he was
looking through and into the room.
"Shenanigans," Roxy finished for him.
"Yeah." He swallowed. "Like a fuckin' motherlode." None of this would have made
sense to anyone else, since it was mostly in best friend shorthand.
"Is he at least good in bed? I mean, if I am once again going to be deprived of
any first-hand knowledge."
Dirk thought about giving a smartass answer, but settled on honest. "I honestly
have no idea. Either he's really good, or I'm so easy that it doesn't matter."
Roxy rolled her eyes. "You've never been fuckin' easy. Not for anybody." She
took another sip of her drink, which she'd brought out with her. "So you want
me to keep him while you clean up the mess, yeah? That's fine. He's cute as
shit, he'll bring in good customers." Dirk made to say something, but then she
cut him off. "I mean conversationally. I'm not going to whore him out."
"Thanks, babe." Dirk wrapped her in a hug.
"Stop it, you're getting my hopes up," she said, again mocking his monotone
before pulling away and going back into the office.
▼: He had a moment of indecision after they left, whether he should try and
listen on their conversation or snoop around Roxy's office a bit more, see if
there was anything of more interest than a million constipated-looking statues
of Gandalf-looking motherfuckers. His attention was caught by the collection of
framed photographs on the desk, so he stood up to see if he could get a better
look from another angle, without having to stand directly behind the desk.
Mostly there were pictures of cats. Like, wow. Lots of cats, mostly of the same
black one (or same-looking, hell, maybe she had a type when it came to cats, he
didn't know,) at various ages and in various cute poses and shit, but once he
leaned over to stare into the desk-Dumbledore's crystal ball he was able to
scope out some more interesting shots. A bigger one on the corner had a picture
of four people. His attention was immediately drawn to Dirk in the picture, so
it was a second before he even noticed Roxy (looking about the same) and the
other two people, a dark-haired girl and boy that he realized with a jolt must
have been the twins Dirk had talked about. The tall guy, who had one arm around
Dirk in the picture and another arm around the girl (Jane, he remembered), must
have been the old boyfriend, and suddenly Dave felt weird, not because he was
snooping around somebody's private things (which was kind of par for the course
for him) but because for whatever reason looking at the guy, (who was, he could
not help but notice, handsome in this dopey, rugged way, with a lantern jaw and
a huge, toothy grin,) reminded him suddenly of his and Dirk's first time having
sex, and the half syllable of Jake's name that Dirk had let out as he came,
which for whatever reason Dave didn't quite connect until that moment. Awkward.
When the door opened again, Dave was still intently examining the silver wizard
figure on the desk. Roxy took him in with a grin, obviously not fooled for a
second. "Like it? That's one Dirk gave to me. He went to an out-of-state Ren
Fest for reasons I still don't quite understand."
"It's beautiful," said Dave, standing up straight and looking at the two of
them. He raised his eyebrows.
Roxy went on with a grin. "So, it looks like you're going to be joining our
happy little family for a bit, Dave. Being the excellent fucking host I am,
I'll show you to where you'll be staying and then once Dirk dips out of here
you and me can have a little heart-to-heart."
"Alright," he said, and watched her busy herself behind her desk for a second
before he turned to Dirk. "So, guess I'll see you around?"
▲: Dirk saw the look that Dave gave him when Roxy mentioned that *one time* he
went to a Ren Fest. "It was a date that didn't pan out, okay? I mean, nice
girl, but her obsession with old-timey gallows gave me the creeps." He put his
glass down on Roxy's desk and looked back and forth between Roxy and Dave.
"Also I kinda liked the knights. They looked like robots under all that metal,
you know? Buncha fuckin' brobots running around a field downtown. You don't see
that every day."
He was rambling. Whiskey does that. He wasn't drunk, but he also wasn't sure he
should drive. Fortunately he didn't have to go very far, and he could probably
hoof it or take a cab. He'd already said goodbye to Dave in the car, and doing
it *again* just made him feel really awkward (also he was pretty sure Dave had
been looking at the picture of all four of them on Roxy's desk, which made him
feel extra weird), so he decided not to. "Yeah, I'll call you," he said, not
clearly directed to either of them, before he made to leave through the front
door this time. There was business to handle.
▼: "He'll *call* me? Oh, I'm blushing, what a dashing man," she said after he'd
already left, but Dave laughed along with her and stood with his hands in his
pockets. She came out from behind the desk with a brass key attached to a ring.
"Here's you go. I'll get you set up, alright?" He nodded and followed her down
the hall, carrying the bedsheets she grabbed out of a closet and wondering what
to say.
The room she led him to wasn't much, was even a bit like the room he had run
away from. Something about it, though, seemed far less oppressive. Probably
just his own perception, he supposed, that made it seem less like a cell and
more like just a bedroom. The window was bigger, too, and opened up onto the
slope of the roof. Roxy pointed this out to him, and showed him where to jump
so he could shimmy down the gutter. "Or you could go to the edge and try to
jump to the next building over's fire escape," she said dubiously. "But
personally, I wouldn't try it. If you absolutely have to get out of here, take
the gutter. Or. You know. The stairs." He nodded, deciding not to divulge quite
yet that he had plenty of experiences with roofs and fire escapes. And gutters,
for that matter.
She stayed to help him make up the bed, showed him where the bathroom was and
what to do if the toilet backed up, before inviting him to have another drink
with her. "You can say no, though. I'm more than happy to leave you alone if
you want." She was leaning in the doorway, watching. "I mean, I'm going to keep
an eye on you either way, and I'd appreciate it if you gave us a hand in the
bar, but I'm not gonna push. That's some pretty heavy shit that you just ran
out on, after all."
Part of him wouldn't have minded being alone for a bit, but he found himself
changing his tune when he looked at her eyes, which were lit up (in more ways
than one, he suspected) and oddly inviting. He shrugged. "Nah. I've been
spilling my guts all day, might as well grease the wheels with more booze,
right?"
She grinned and stepped aside to let him through. "That's the kind of logic I
like to hear."
By the end of the night she'd gotten him tipsy but not smashed, and just chatty
enough to suit her purposes. It was different than being in the Waffle House
with Dirk, though, and not just because Roxy, being in the racket herself and
all, was easier to talk to about the business part of it. She was a more
relaxed and easygoing confidante than Dirk was, and didn't give off the air of
revealing every bit of information about herself through painstaking
extraction.
The next two weeks passed in a similarly tipsy daze, although he didn't really
drink much unless Roxy invited him to. He thought about booze plenty, since
Roxy had urged him to "become the grandmaster mixologist I'm sure fate has
always meant you to be" and had been teaching him how to tend bar. She'd given
him enough of an advance on his pay so he could buy some more clothes, and had
given him a cell phone as well. "It's very important that all my dudes and
ladies are able to contact me in case of emergency. Like we get raided or run
out of lemon wedges or fuck if I even know." She had handed it to him with a
wink, though, and he saw later that the only name and number programmed into
it, besides her own, were Dirk's.
Dave still hadn't had the rocks to message his actual childhood chums, much
less the dude who he'd spent 20 straight hours having crazy monkey sex with. He
had rationalized it to himself that he was just easing himself into new
surroundings, but it was mostly a crock of shit. So it was with a sinking
feeling in his stomach that he heard the phone ping one evening as he sat in
his room and saw, for the first time, that it wasn't Roxy.
***** Chapter 4 *****
▲: Dirk was most concerned about the first meeting with WQ (which always
sounded like "dub-cue" when he said it), because it would have to be alone, and
her carapacian consorts weren't going to like that. There had been a really
tense moment between Dirk and AR, and Dirk hadn't had to pull his gun but he
came really close to it. PM was more willing to entertain his idea, though, and
even the Mayor (Dirk had always wondered how he'd gotten that particular
nickname, but he'd never asked) came around relatively quickly.
Once he was alone with WQ, he told her everything that happened, minus the sex
details (although he did tell her they'd fucked; it was pertinent info). WQ was
the only person he ever told the whole truth to without hesitation; his life
often very literally depended on it, and their relationship was impersonal
enough that it never got awkward. She was a woman of few words, and he liked
that about her.
WQ was more than willing to call off the hit on their end, and she put Dirk to
work ferreting out which among them was the mole. She agreed with Dirk, though,
that whatever Noir was up to, killing Dave hadn't been the end game. It made no
sense to go to all the trouble of infiltrating WQ's business and sending one of
WQ's hitmen after Dave if Dave had already been directly under Noir's thumb.
There was something bigger at play here, and they honestly weren't sure whether
they had side-stepped the plan or were playing directly in to it.
One thing was for sure, however. Dave was never going to come anywhere near
WQ's operation, since WQ would never fully trust him. Dirk was fine with that.
The following two weeks had been less than pleasant. He'd finally checked out
of the monkey sex hotel and gone back to his house, which had really been
Jake's grandparents' house once upon a time. He didn't like being there, which
was why he stayed at hotels in the city whenever he was working heavily. He was
working pretty much constantly right now, but the intensity was such that he
welcomed the drive back out to the suburbs every night, even if it was at 5am
or something ridiculous like that.
On this particular evening, he was sitting in his car in a parking lot
downtown, seat reclined and looking up at the sky through his sunroof. It
wasn't even late, something like 10pm, but it was dark and he was exhausted.
Usually he liked working alone, but he'd been so deep in his own head lately,
and he'd hadn't really had a chance to... uhh... clear his mind in a while. He
found himself wondering what Dave was doing, as he sometimes did when he had a
moment of down time (which wasn't often, and almost always when he was in the
car like he was just then). Probably wiping down counters and chatting up old
women with husbands who couldn't get it up anymore and too much money.
Dirk closed his eyes. No, maybe Dave was doing something else. Maybe he was in
his room. Maybe he was taking a shower. Maybe--
He didn't quite realize his hand had drifted down until he actually startled
himself with the brush of his hand against his clothed crotch. Damn.
Damn.
But he'd promised himself he would wait until Dave's birthday. That was the
Right Thing To Do. It was also the Legal Thing To Do, but everyone knew that
legal meant jack fucking shit around here.
Dirk took out his phone and flipped through the screens until he found the
messaging program. It couldn't hurt to test the waters a little.
TT: Hey. What's news?
▼: He sat up, staring at the message. His heart was beating; part of him hadn't
really expected Dirk to contact him, despite everything, and that it would fall
Dave when he finally got up the nerve to do it. He wasn't sure if he would have
preferred being the one to reach out first, or if he liked it better this way.
Despite the fact that he'd been the one to suggest it, he wasn't actually sure
what he had wanted to *say* now that Dirk's name was blinking at him.
He realized he was pacing, and then he felt dumb. Jesus, it was a fucking three
word *text message* and he was flipping tits about it for no reason. He made
himself sit down on his bed again, relax and sink against the pillows before he
responded.
TG: oh you know
TG: kinda
TG: well everything pretty much
TG: whats up with you
TT: Digging up secrets and flinging the truth detritus in my wake.
TT: Also takin' out the trash, but you knew that.
TT: I guess I just wanted to check and see if you're still alive. But I reckon
that if you weren't alive, I'd have an inconsolable Roxy in my lap staining my
pants with mascara and vodka drippings right now, so maybe I should just tell
the truth and let you know that I was thinking about you.
TG: yeah shed be pretty busted up its true cant say id blame her
TG: the day dave eats it is the day this bar loses its shining star
TG: but anyway guess i wondered the same about you even though roxy says you
can take care of yourself
TG: and then some
TG: thinking about what
TT: There was a betting pool on how many of Roxy's horny old lady patrons had
hit on you, and another pool for how many had doubled their efforts when they
found out you weren't even 18 yet.
TT: I had a round dozen.
TT: Did I win?
TG: wow rude
TG: no need to get jealous
TG: your question is like a million kinds of wrong headed
TG: i mean if they were hitting on me its probably because of my superb mixing
skills
TG: drinks in this case most of them probably wouldnt be that appreciative of
the other kind of mixing i used to do
TG: which we never really talked about did we
TT: Don't you have to be 18 to bartend too?
TT: Actually, you know what, let's not go there. Let's stay so far the hell
away from there.
TT: Also, no, we didn't, but I'm sure we'll have a chance to later.
TT: I'm actually not very far away right now. I'm planning on coming by soon
and talking to Roxy about some stuff.
TT: I thought I'd give you ample heads up so that you'd have time to spruce up
your new octogenarian girlfriend. That way you can flaunt her and make me
jealous.
TG: fuck you there is only one geriatric gal for me
TG: her name was bea arthur and shes dead you insensitive prick
His heart was beating again, to his annoyance. He was sitting straight up on
the bed, too, clenching his fists in the bedspread each time his phone
displayed the next message from Dirk.
TG: so ill see you down there i guess
TG: also i dont technically tend bar i just bus tables and take orders when its
busy
TG: calm your tits i know youre so concerned with following the letter of the
law all the time
TT: In that case I'll leave my date at home too.
TT: Later.
He hadn't actually planned to go down tonight, but he could make up a reason to
work that no one would suspect, besides Roxy, but he'd given up trying to throw
off her suspicions, because she suspected pretty much everything.
▲: Dirk smiled and put his phone in his pocket. He felt a little bit better
already. He felt kinda-- yeah. Wow, that was articulate, Dirk. He smiled again,
and it felt fucking good.
After he'd put his seat upright and put the car in gear, he set out for Roxy's
place. He tried not think very hard about what kinds of stories they'd been
swapping and instead just be happy that he was going to be seeing them both. He
really hadn't expected to be able to see them so soon, but WQ had agreed to let
him stop in and make sure Roxy's security was holding up.
There wasn't anything else on his plate for the night, so maybe he'd stay with-
-
He didn't even want to say Dave in his head because he knew that as soon as he
started making assumptions, some universal force would probably start acting
against them. Some kind of cosmic karma expectation bullshit. So instead he
said Roxy. Maybe he'd just stay with Roxy tonight. Wouldn't be the first time
they'd shared a bed with varying degrees of platonicness.
Granted, there had been a few times when they were both completely schwasted
where some weird stuff may have happened (he seemed to distinctly remember one
time when they were like 18 or 19, waking up in the middle of the night to her
rubbing one out next to him very loudly, and when he said something about it
she told him to shut up or help out, so he'd shut up-- at least he thought he
did). But he hadn't been lying when he said he'd never slept with her. Not that
he could recall, anyway.
Dirk shook his head as he pulled up behind Roxy's. Whoa. Weird train of
thought, there. He got out of the car and stretched, hearing his shoulders pop.
"Into the lions' den," he muttered to himself as he walked in the back door.
▼: Dave thrust his phone in his pocket, his heart still beating. He ran into
the bathroom and checked out his hair in the mirror before he could stop
himself. Yeah, super dumb. Wow. He took a deep breath and splashed water on his
face, and by the time he had sauntered down into the bar he looked pretty
chill, he thought, even if he was still shades-less. (He knew he should buy
some, if only for practical purposes, but wearing any besides his old ones just
felt too weird for reasons he didn't quite understand but were potent
nonetheless.) It was pretty quiet in the bar, as it was a weeknight and still
pretty early. One of the regular bartenders was there, and thankfully all she
did was throw a towel at Dave and tell him to dry. He did, looking along the
bar for a familiar face.
The only face like that he saw was Roxy herself, who was sipping her dinner and
reading a magazine. "Thought you were staying in your room tonight, Dave," she
said without looking up.
"Did I say that? What a fucking lame thing to say."
"Mmm." She continued reading, and the bar was quiet except for a few hushed
conversations and the clink of glasses as Dave set them down. When the door
opened, the crack it made seemed extra loud. Dave turned to look at the new
arrival right away, and so did Roxy.
▲: He was completely unsurprised to see the both of them waiting for him, and
the way he felt about it was equal parts happy and anxious. "Hey."
Roxy glanced up from the magazine. "Hey yourself. You here to check my nooks
and crannies for bugs?"
"I think you probably check your own nooks and crannies thoroughly enough," he
said, reminded of that weird memory he'd had in the car. "I wouldn't mind
giving the bar a once over, though."
"I *am* the best lover I've ever had," she said nonplussed as Dirk hung his
suit jacket on the back of her chair and then leaned on the bar with one elbow.
"Anything weird happen since I saw you two last?" he asked.
▼: "Onanism," said Dave to Roxy, shaking his head. "I'm shocked. This place
really is a den of iniquity, you know that? Think of the fucking children why
don't you."
Roxy looked up at him finally. "Dave, I have been looking out for your welfare
ceaselessly since Dirk dropped you off on my doorstep. I will not take any of
your sass-back, tonight of all nights, when we have such a distinguished
guest."
He smirked at her and glanced at Dirk, who was now only in his button-down.
"Nothing much weirder than normal. That I noticed."
"Dave's best friend has the same last name as me," said Roxy, lifting up her
drink. "He apparently has not put two and two together, or doesn't want to
think about what the coincidence means, and I don't think he's even brought
himself to talk to her yet. But it's interesting, given the...connections
between the two of you." She knocked back the rest of her cocktail and
conspicuously did not look at either of them.
"I--wait, *what*?" He tore his eyes away from searching Dirk's face for signs
of a reaction and looked at Roxy. "What are you even talking about?"
She sighed, slid her empty glass to the other side of the bar, and stood up.
"My office. Both of you."
▲: Dirk had managed to cultivate a semi-erecton on the drive over here, but he
could feel it dropping away as Roxy spoke. Yeah, connections. The connection
between the two of them drove his libido up the wall when they were alone, but
when someone else was talking about it, it just kinda made Dirk feel... like
his mom had caught him with his pants down, or something.
"Wait," he said on the way to Roxy's office. "Rose is a Lalonde?"
"Yep," Roxy said, grabbing a bottle of rum from behind the bar. That conniving
little tart. She knew what rum did to him, and there was no doubt she'd grabbed
it on purpose. She was toying with him!
Dirk looked over at Dave and a feeling passed over him like they were brothe-
- like they were friends who had just gotten in trouble at school and were
about to be lectured by a particularly sadistic teacher. At least it was a sexy
teacher?
He leaned against the back wall of Roxy's office, not really wanting to sit
down because he thought better on his feet.
▼: "Wait, what?" said Dave, still reeling. "*What*? How did you even--"
"Yeah, ok," said Roxy, setting the rum down and, surprise surprise, taking out
three glasses. Talk about deja vu. "You didn't tell me her last name. Probably
because you weren't sure what it meant and didn't want to think about it. But
you ain't the most reticent guy out there, Dave, and you've talked enough about
her that it wasn't too hard for me to figure out who she was. With a little
digging." Dave gaped at her. Not that he'd thought Roxy was stupid, but part of
him couldn't believe that she'd picked all that up just from listening to him.
But then, she had gotten him pretty drunk, and while he wasn't quite a
lightweight anymore, she was...well, a friggin' sumo wrestler compared to him.
"So--I mean. What?" Eloquent as ever. He noticed that she hadn't poured the
drinks yet, a sure sign that something was on her mind. She looked...not
pissed, just intent, and she eyed Dave sharply as she spoke and recounted what
she knew to Dirk in a flat tone of voice for her.
"It was the one thing that threw me off about him. I mean, generally Dave is
about as conniving as a sack of hammers, and I say that with exasperated
fondness. But Rose was the loose end, and I thought maybe he was waiting around
for something to contact her. Thought maybe it was a scam. But it's not. I'm
pretty sure of that. He still hasn't contacted her--have you, Dave?"
"I...yeah, no, I haven't--"
"Why not?" She looked at him dead-on then, and her eyes were so sharp that he
supposed she saw the split-second of dead panic in his eye, because she turned
back to Dirk before he could answer. "So, yeah. I trust Dave, obviously, but
Rose is still a loose end. I think, at the end of the day, what it means is
that you can't write off some of the stuff I been telling you. You know. The
stuff you think is more of my conspiracy theories?"
▲: Roxy must be wrestling with her own 'pull a gun on the other guy while in
bed' moment. Fortunately for everyone, Rose was nowhere near all of them right
now. "Okay. Which one, though? The one where Betty Crocker is the queen of the
underworld? The one where interdimensional travel is possible? The one where
the president might actually be a juggalo? I mean, there are only so many of
them. Are you gonna pour that?"
Roxy just gave him a sour look, so he stepped forward and poured the glasses
himself. Might as well make this a proper orgy. He took one for himself, left
one on the table, and passed another one to Dave, who looked like he might
still be too stunned to notice how their fingertips brushed when Dirk handed it
to him. Dirk itched to clench his fists and say no, no, fuck this, I don't want
to deal with this right now, I want to back Dave up against the wall, but...
that would be in incredibly poor taste, considering. His up-and-down semi would
have to be patient.
▼: She glared at Dirk, looking more honestly pissed at him than she had with
Dave. She knew him better, he supposed. "No, Dirk. Not those ones. God. Do you
always have to be such a skeptic asshole? I mean, I know you've like, made it
your profession to *literally* be a killjoy, but--"
"Hey," said Dave. "What the hell are we talking about here?"
Roxy looked at him and her face softened a bit, and she sighed. "Fuck. I need a
drink. Oh, hey. Good planning, me." She poured herself one and looked at the
two of them. "You must have heard of the Scratch people. You know. The ones who
think that the universe is going to be destroyed, but before it does it sort of
clefts itself in two and there's. Like. An overlap of realities. You've heard
of those people. Right?"
Dave stared. "Uh. Yeah. Guess I have. No offense but. I kind of always thought
it was a crock of shit? Like a cult."
"Probably is," said Roxy with a shrug. "A crock of shit, I mean. It's
*definitely* a cult. Doesn't mean there's not something there."
Dave turned to look at Dirk for the first time since they'd gotten to the
office. He raised his eyebrows incredulously at him, and shrugged.
▲: Dirk made a 'fuck if I know' shrug at Dave. "I hate to be the one to bring
up anything quite so mundane as Occam's razor, but wouldn't it be easier to
assume that we're all just distant cousins or something?" He took a sip of the
rum, which kinda cut through the bullshit rattling around in his skull. He
didn't often drink clear liquor, it felt just a little too clean in his mouth.
"I mean, as opposed to the 'Dave and his friend Rose are actually us from a
doomed universe alternate reality' cold open." Even the thought of it made his
dormant boner incredibly confused. A more confused boner there had never been.
▼: Dave would have really liked to have Dirk's easy assurance. He had known a
couple of the type of people Roxy was talking about. Not so much here, but at
the Iron Horse Hitcher there had been a couple. It was a very bleak philosophy,
and so was sort of popular. Not with Dave, though. He was fatalistic, but not
that fatalistic. Maybe you had to accept your fate, but you didn't have to be
*happy* about it, and that seemed to be what the cult was asking for. Plus, it
was like he had told Dirk; he'd never had a very religious upbringing.
He suddenly realized that easy assurance and alcohol went hand-in-hand. He
drank the rum, and turned to Dirk, his eyebrows still raised and a slight smile
on his face. In the meantime, Roxy went on.
"Look, it's like...look, I don't know a lot of shit about religions and all
that apocalyptic bullshit, but I do know how this planar stuff works. I mean,
you do any reading on fenestrated planes and you know that what I'm talking
about here-- you and me, Dirk, and Dave and Rose-- that's kiddie bullshit
compared to some of the stuff that-- wow, you guys are so totally not listening
to me at all it's like. Not funny. I can see you playing footsie behind the
desk there, asswipe," she snapped at Dirk.
▲: "Footsie?!" Dirk asked incredulously and probably a little too quickly. "You
mean that's an actual thing that people do? Man, I always thought that was a
made up word. Like cooties." He reached up and loosened his tie, unbuttoning
the first few buttons of his shirt. "Okay, so..." He looked over at Dave and
then back to Roxy and then back again, and he realized that Dave kinda had the
same look on his face that Roxy used to get when she had a date and-- Wow, this
was getting really confusing and the implications were stacking to the fuckin'
ceiling.
Dirk drank some more and cleared his throat. "So why do you trust Dave but for
some reason think that his pal Rose is some kind of Pandora's box? Or
Schrodinger's box? I can't keep all your damn boxes straight, babe. Dave, do
you have any pertinent information on the state of Rose's box?"
▼: Dave laughed and Roxy groaned. "Forget it. You know, for all the shit you
give me about not taking stuff seriously, you can be the most sardonic little-
- and I'll tell you why I was worried about Rose Lalonde, whoever the fuck she
is, because I thought maybe somebody would try to use her or hurt her like they
tried to hurt Dave to get close to us. I thought *you*, of all people, Dirk,
would want to check that the fuck out." Dave blinked and nearly took another
sip of his drink when she rounded on him. "At first I was worried that you were
trying to play us, Dave, all holding it close to your chest about what her name
was, and not actually contacting her once you were here. I thought that was
really fishy. I thought for sure you were in touch with her in secret. But now
I'm pretty sure I know what it is. You're just a scared kid who for some reason
won't tell the people he calls his best friends that he's not fucking dead."
She shook her head. "Man, whatever. I'm done with this. Do what you want. I'll
be at the bar if you fucking need me."
There was an awkward silence after she left; Dave would really have liked to
say something like "What's *her* deal?" but he couldn't quite make himself be
that douchey. And what she'd said...it had kind of cut him. Contacting everyone
from his old life seemed like a huge task that he knew he had to do that but
the very thought of it made him shudder, and instead of doing it he would
almost rather talk about Roxy's weird science and arcane alternate universe
theory.
The more attractive option of any of these, though, was Dirk. Looking at Dirk
and drinking with Dirk and...not talking about difficult, confusing shit with
Dirk. Yeah. Dave cleared his throat and said, "She. Uh. Kind of had a rough
day."
▲: Dirk wanted to say something like, "Of course I want to check it out but I
literally just learned about this so there's not much I can do right at this
moment," but Roxy just kept *talking*. Then, suddenly she wasn't talking
anymore and she stormed out. Dirk noticed that she left the bottle, so he stood
up and considered pouring himself another while Dave struggled with his
thoughts.
"No shit," he said bluntly, leaning on the edge of Roxy's desk and facing Dave
again. He looked at the bottle of liquor and thought that it needed something.
Coke, maybe. This kind of liquor was really made to be drank either in shot
glasses or mixed in something. He thought about getting some shot glasses from
the bar, but that would require coming back in contact with a pissed off Roxy.
Actually. Fuck. This was Roxy. He dug through the drawers of her desk until he
found a set. "You always come through for me, babe," he said out loud to no one
in particular, pouring a shot for himself and one for Dave. He passed it over
and then knocked his own back, sitting down on top of Roxy's desk. "So," he
started.
▼: "Cheers," he said, knocking it back and staring at the glass. "She's right,
obviously. I don't..." He shrugged, and sat down next to Dirk at the desk. "I
am going to talk to them. I just don't know what to say. You know. How much to
tell them." He was quiet for a second; part of him really wanted to reach out
and grab Dirk's knee, but he needed to get this out first, too. "I mean, it's
like...I've barely known where the fuck I'm at for the past two weeks. I mean,
don't get me wrong, it's been cool, getting to know her--" *getting to know
stuff about you from her*-- "but it's like. I'm up a fucking creek enough as it
is, without her springing her weird existential cult stuff on me too. Kinda
hoped I had left all that apocalyptic depressing bullshit behind me." He
shrugged again and held out his shot glass. "Up for another?"
▲: Dirk took the glass from Dave and filled them both up again. "Spread them
out a little after this. I'm guessing you've never done shots before. They
don't exactly creep up on you. It's more like getting hit by a Mack Truck." He
took his shot and set the glass down on the table for a while. "Except instead
of spreading your guts along the highway, your knees feel funny and you lose
the ability to control your speaking volume." Also when it's rum, you get
really horny. Or maybe that was just Dirk. He ran his tongue along the roof of
his mouth and then said, "I'm going to have someone check up on Rose. I can't
do it personally, but I'll make sure it's someone I trust. You can't tell her,
though. Not yet. Okay?"
▼: He pressed his lips together into a line, but nodded. Of course, he had been
reluctant to say anything to her, but as soon as Dirk told him not to he sort
of resented it. Which as a stupid, hypocritical reaction, he realized. "Keep me
updated, then." He knocked back his shot and set down the empty next to Dirk's
on the desktop. Their hands brushed briefly, and he felt a flush in his face
that perked him up a bit.
"Guess that was a bit drama-tastic again. But hey, at least I wasn't fucking
naked and shouting at you this time, right?"
▲: That moment was when Dirk started to first notice the lip tingle. He
couldn't stop running his tongue along the roof of his mouth, like some kind of
tic or something, and he reached up to take his tie all the way off, laying it
out on Roxy's desk. Fuck. His tie was in here, his suit jacket was out there by
the bar. Was he going to wake up tomorrow and have to play 'find the myriad
pieces of your suit'? Probably. He was so lost in this train of thought that he
didn't even notice Dave had snapped at him until he mentioned it. "Why? Do you
want to be?"
▼: He laughed, a little louder than he might have usually. There was a
pleasant, light hum in his head, and his lips were getting a little numb as
well. It was a good buzz, and suddenly he felt far less nervous than he had
since his phone first rang earlier that night. He looked at Dirk and noticed
the way the guy kept running his tongue over the roof of his mouth, and the way
he wetted his lips each time he did it. On an impulse, he reached out and ran
his thumb over Dirk's bottom lip, suddenly too entranced by how soft it looked
to ignore it. "Depends on what you want me to shout for you."
▲: On the plus side, his boner was no longer confused. He looked into Dave's
eyes while Dave watched his thumb run across Dirk's bottom lip. "What I would
really like-- what I would just fuckin' adore-- right now, would be for you to
get naked and start shouting to me an explanation for why despite the fact that
you are apparently my doomed timeline transuniversal clone or whatever-the-
fuck, I still really want to fuck you right into the wall. I notice you didn't
bring your girlfriend along."
▼: "She had a spin class," said Dave, resting his thumb against Dirk's chin
finally and looking into his eyes briefly, just barely detecting the flash of
orange through Dirk's shades. He'd gone past the point where Dirk's eyes
freaked him out; if he thought about it too much they did, but just seeing them
(even covered by the shades) gave him an uncomplicated thrill in his lower
stomach. "Also, I thought you were thinking we're second cousins or some shit."
He swiped his thumb again, feeling another spike of a thrill in his abdomen as
he did. "But whatever. Not really interested in that right now. All I want is
to find out if you can make it to a room that's not full up with these awful
goddamn wizards. Don't really want them to watch for some reason."
▲: "I don't know if you noticed this, but we're in a brothel, dude. These
wizards have seen some shit. And at least a quarter of them used to live in
Roxy's bedroom when she was a teenager." Meaning that, yes, they have
definitely seen some shit. Some of it possibly involving Dirk. He didn't want
to think about that right now either, though. What he wanted to do was hop off
of the desk and push Dave into the nearest wall. He hadn't really had a whole
lot of opportunities to relax enough to the point where self-satisfaction had
been an option in the past couple of weeks, so Dirk's body was beyond ready to
go. His mind, however, was willing to draw out the tension a little, so instead
he hopped off the desk and grabbed the bottle of rum in one hand and the shot
glasses with the other (flashing momentarily back to them walking out of the
other bar with the whiskey bottle). "If I know Roxy she's either out front
blowing off steam by yelling at wild animals, or she's sitting at the bar
blowing off steam by ranting to the bartender. Either way, she's not watching
the staircase."
▼: He felt a momentary pang of guilt at the thought of Roxy, but not quite long
enough to get him to actually *stop*. He quickly led Dirk up the stairway to
his room, wincing a bit at the mess he'd left when he turned on the light.
This was going to be a little different, he realized. His room back at the Iron
Horse Hitcher had always been pretty sparse; most of his shit had been borrowed
from other people and so was always moving around, and he hadn't bothered
keeping much else with him. Even after just two weeks, this room looked a lot
more inhabited than his old one. There were piles of CDs (also borrowed) on the
desk, a few books, and a laptop he was borrowing from one of the escorts in
exchange for doing laundry for her for a week. Plus there were clothes
everywhere, and he never made his bed because he didn't have to worry about
bringing people back to his room. At least, he hadn't until now.
He pushed the shit out of the way on the desk so Dirk could set the bottle and
glasses down, and Dave went over to open the window. The breeze was a little
cool, but he was getting hot, and a little stuffy in the room.
▲: Dirk set down the alcohol and then followed Dave over to the window. Once
Dave had propped it open, Dirk grabbed Dave by the shoulders and shoved him
abruptly into the wall next to it, forcing him into a rough, needy kiss and
more or less panting into Dave's lips with each breath. He ran his hands down
Dave's arms and then gripped his torso, pressing his fingers into the
relatively soft skin near Dave's stomach through the fabric of Dave's shirt. At
the same time, he positioned one of his thighs between Dave's legs, pinning him
to the spot and grinding gently against him.
Then, as abruptly as it had started, Dirk pulled away. "Sorry, I've been
wanting to do that for a while now." He walked back over to the desk and poured
another couple of shots, taking his immediately. Per usual, he was not taking
his own advice with respect to spacing them out, but he'd had a hard couple of
weeks and intended to unwind as sloppily as possible tonight. "How have you
been, though? For real. I've been thinking about you."
▼: "Good," he said quickly, now feeling warm all down his front and
disappointed that Dirk had stopped when he had. He was breathless and
surprised, although he shouldn't have been; it was only two weeks, and he knew
what Dirk was like. It occurred to Dave that worrying about the mess had been
stupid; Dirk obviously could give two shits. "Pretty good. I mean. It was weird
to get used to at first. Just the people and the bar and how Roxy runs things.
It's a change. But it's been ok." He played with the empty shot glass in his
hands, running his fingers over the rim as he considered telling Dirk about how
Dave had been thinking of him as well, at nights and in the shower and even
sometimes just when he was at the bar working and kind of lonely, not sure how
to approach the other workers, either from having not enough in common with
them, or too much.
Instead of saying of that, he walked over and took the shot, though he
suspected it might edge him into a drunker territory than he needed to be at.
"You know, it's only been two weeks and I think my tolerance is already higher.
Guess that's the Roxy Lalonde effect, right?"
▲: "If I hadn't seen Roxy bleed actual human blood with my own eyes, I might
assume that she's some kind of robot who runs on ethanol combustion." His mood
was picking up rapidly, so he grinned a little bit at Dave. He wanted to press
further because he felt like Dave might not be telling him the whole truth, but
he decided to leave it for now. Maybe they could talk about feelings afterward,
but right now he just wanted to get drunk and maybe paint Dave up a bit with
his prolonged sexual frustration. Speaking of which, just then some amorous
noises filled the air from the next room. "Wow. You have to listen to this all
the time?"
▼: He smirked. "Used to it by now, aren't I?" He pointed to the mess of CDs on
the desk, and the beat-up player on the ground that he'd found while helping
clean out the storeroom. "Plus now I can listen to music if it gets really
annoying." His eyes glazed over the CD pile when he looked at it. Shit, did he
even have any mood music? He honestly had never given it any thought, even when
he'd brought customers up to his old room. Now it seemed like more of the thing
to do.
Looking at Dirk, though, made him decide that attempting to set a mood might be
wasted effort. Guy was pretty obviously in something of a mood already, if the
tingling in Dave's lips and the friction against the front of his pants had
been any indication, and Dave was more than willing to go along with him. He
set the shot glass down on the desk and leaned against the edge, closer to
Dirk. "So. Thinking about me, huh."
▲: "How does it not drive you crazy, though? I think I'd live with my hand just
sewn up inside my pants. Maybe it's different if you know the person, I dunno."
Or if you know they're only doing it for the money and you know that they
probably aren't having as great of a time as their voice would have it seem.
Granted, Roxy's people had it good as far as things went, but it was generally
speaking still very much just an act.
Maybe it was just the fact that he was looking at Dave, specifically the way
his hair curled against his temple, and their shoulders were touching, and Dave
smelled like laundry again, and Dirk was already thinking about fucking anyway.
He hadn't wanted to do the sex cold open-- because he wasn't that desperate for
it, really, although he *did* really want it-- but Roxy had made sure that they
cold opened with conspiracy theories instead, so that was one problem solved.
"Yeah. I mean, not all that often, but whenever I got some down time. Mostly in
the car." Or in the shower. Or in bed.
▼: "Yeah, I don't find it that sexy anymore. It's just a noise. It's not even
that awkward, even when you see them come out with the sex hair and everything.
The girl across the hall-- yeah, that one, that screaming noise just now was
definitely her-- this is her laptop that she's lending me. So it's like, yeah,
I hear your fake orgasm noises when I'm brushing my teeth, but your computer is
mostly filled with pictures of your cats and a really tame porn folder labeled
NOT PORN so." He shrugged, enjoying the way their shoulders brushed against
each other as he did.
He grabbed Dirk's hand on an impulse and started rubbing on the center of the
palm with his thumb, moving down to the veins in his wrist slightly as he did
so. "No offense, but. If just those noises is making you need to stick your
hands down your pants, then you need to get laid. Desperately. And I'm sayin'
this as your fantasy object, so take fuckin' heed."
▲: "Well spotted, Dave, what was your first clue?" What he wanted to say was,
'Oh, and you don't?' but he was sort of afraid of which way that question might
get answered. It wasn't like they were dating, after all, but Dirk didn't want
to think about it. Something about the way Dave was touching his wrist made
Dirk believe that he did, though. It was just innocent enough to be pretty
obviously filled to bursting with crude intentions. He let Dave trail up his
forearm a little before taking his hand back, reaching behind Dave-- brushing
up against his back quite a bit-- and grabbing the bottle so that he could pull
a glub from it. Whoa, Dirk, settle down. You'd think you never had the night
off before. You don't gonna drink it all before midnight, you know. "Haven't
had a lot of opportunities for down time, know what I mean."
▼: "Oh. Right." He watched Dirk take a pull with raised eyebrows. "Well, looks
like you're making up for lost time. On the booze front, anyway." He grabbed
Dirk's wrist and took the bottle out of his hands, setting it on the desk
between them before wrapping both hands around one of Dirk's and setting it in
his lap. "Wouldn't say I'm desperate, myself. I mean, I've had more me time
than you most likely. Also I can take longer showers here. That's nice." He
started rubbing Dirk's hand again, leaning forward but not kissing him yet.
"Not the same, obviously. You know how it is." He squeezed Dirk's hand a
little, just to make his point.
▲: Dirk was watching Dave's fingers move on his hand, mesmerized, until Dave
started leaning in slightly and Dirk looked up at his face. Basically the only
time Dirk had had time to jerk off had been in the shower, and he usually
thought about Dave jerking off in the shower when he was jerking off in the
shower, and if Dave had been jerking off in the shower while thinking about
Dirk jerking off in the shower then it means that they'd sorta given each other
some kind of shower imaginary mobius reacharound jerkoff. This thought was
beginning to spiral out of control, so Dirk forced himself to say something.
"Yeah, nobody to yell at."
▼: "Yeah, exactly. Everyone here thinks I'm nuts 'cause I'm just standing
around in the bathroom shouting at nothing. Not even singing or anything, just
straight up rambling like an old guy on the subway." He rested their foreheads
together, still not kissing, and Dave himself was drunk enough that smelling
the alcohol on Dirk's breath wasn't a disincentive. "Really cool to see you,
though. Wasn't expecting it at all." He was still grabbing Dirk's hand. He was
interested in them suddenly; Bro's, he remembered, had been sort of calloused
and ugly-looking, an old man's hands even before Bro himself was technically an
old man. Dirk's were neater, the nails trim and somewhat softer. Dave liked
feeling it in his hand, feeling the slight pulse in Dirk's wrist.
▲: Time kinda felt like it was slowing down as Dave kept leaning further into
his space but not kissing him. The brief satisfaction that Dirk had gotten out
of pressing Dave against the wall was already gone. It hadn't sated his
appetite at all, rather it just delayed the inevitable a little bit longer. The
thing was, Dirk wasn't overly eager to jump right back into bed with Dave,
regardless of what his dick had to say about the subject (his dick had a lot to
say about the subject, and most of it was enthusiastic consent). He actually
wanted to get to know Dave, not just his dick and the soft spot where his neck
met his shoulder-- Dirk glanced down instinctually to look at it-- but he
supposed that those things could be taken care of during more sober hours. He
let out a long, slow breath, feeling the anticipation of more touching build
into a whirlwind in his stomach. Crescendo. That was the word. He realized that
the silence was starting to stretch and that some kind of response was
required. "I didn't plan it. Guess I didn't even realize how much I needed it
until I got the okay to head out here for the night." How much you needed what,
Dirk? A night off? A drink? To get laid? To see Dave? All off the above,
probably.
▼: "Mmm." Dave let out a breath through his nose, leaning forward and finally
brushing his lips over Dirk's, imagining that he could taste the rum on his
breath as he did. Which maybe should have been gross, but wasn't.
One of the more vivid memories of his time with Dirk...well, ok, a lot of it
was really vivid, but one of the most intense bits was just sitting in his lap
and being held by him, because when you got right down to it, crazy monkey sex
was great but it was just sort of nice after a certain point to know that the
other person had your back, even if your back was all sticky and covered in
jizz. (Metaphorically. Obviously it had been his front that had been a mess,
but whatever.) With that in mind, he sank his head against Dirk's shoulder, and
when he spoke his words were partially muffled by Dirk's neck. "What do you
need?"
▲: Dirk's head started buzzing when Dave kissed him, like there was some kind
of energy buildup going on just behind his forehead and over his crown. Like
Dave's kiss had startled him into opening some chakras or something like that
and now his spinal column was all aligned and the energy was all going straight
down through his heart and stomach and into his groin. God, and it was just his
*lips* right now. He really was high strung.
The hand he wasn't propping himself up with went directly to Dave's hair (go
fucking figure), twining around the curls at the nape of Dave's neck, and it
stayed there after Dave broke the kiss. "Shit, I don't know. Everything. What
have you got?"
▼: He tilted his chin up a little, so when he spoke he barely even had to raise
his voice. "Well. I've been thinking about you fucking me again. That's
something we got in common." He kissed the portion of Dirk's jaw just below his
ear, and reached up to brush his thumb over Dirk's bottom lip again. He was
getting a bit uncomfortable leaning against the edge of the desk like this; one
of his hips was even going numb, but he wanted to touch Dirk some more before
he stood up and thought of making his bed and finding the lube and all the
minutia involved in the process. He thought he could feel Dirk's pulse spike in
his wrist, and the way his breaths came slightly faster when Dave kissed him.
Dirk might be desperate to get laid, but Dave didn't see the hurry. Especially
if Dirk was going to be so quiet and intent like this.
▲: Yeah, that. Dirk was actually kinda amazed that he only fucked Dave-- really
and truly *fucked* him, not just fucked in the fooling around sense-- just the
one time. "That might help, yeah," he whispered. He kinda figured that at this
point he'd cry with happiness at any bit of sexual attention that Dave wanted
to throw his way because he was just that stressed out. That said, he was fine
with not hurrying. More than fine. Shit, it was pretty well established by now
that Dirk liked torturing himself under certain circumstances. This was one of
them.
He kinda had a vague idea that Dave was holding his hand to read him, somehow,
and he had to stop himself from making an undignified noise every time Dave's
lips touched his skin. Fuck the window-- it was way too hot in here. "When...
did you think about that?"
▼: He was still running his lips along Dirk's jawbone, and he hummed a last
against Dirk's skin at the question. "Pretty often. When I'm in the
shower...mmm." He broke off to leave a longer kiss under Dirk's chin, cupping
Dirk's cheek with his other hand still. "When I'm in the shower I think about
you jacking me off. But at night a lot..." He was leaning against Dirk now, all
discomfort forgotten as he pressed his knee between Dirk's legs. "On nights
like this I'd beat off in bed there...with the window open and I'd wonder what
you were doing...and I thought about you climbing up the rain gutter and coming
into my room...holding me down and just fucking going to town on me. Like how
you made fun of me for wanting a prince to come into my tower and save me,
except in this case I could live with just. You know. A good deal of being
fucked." He pressed his knee down a bit, to make a point at his last words.
▲: Dirk felt uncharacteristically pliant right now, his normally very
domineering nature abandoned for the way he was content to just passively ride
whatever this wave was that Dave was stirring up. It was almost pathetic,
really. He was actually that desperate-- not for sex, not even to come, but
just for more of Dave. More words, more skin. Even though Dave was speaking
very quietly, the words rang in his ears as Dirk pictured what Dave was
describing with eerie clarity. He could see Dave on that fucking bed, beating
off furiously, the breeze from the window not quite enough to evaporate the
sweat on his heaving chest. Shit, man. Fuck. He cursed out loud but he forgot
what he said as soon as it was out of his mouth. "What's really hilarious is
that I almost did exactly that. Some nights I just wanted to hop in my car at
like three in the morning, come out here, skip the bar entirely and just come
straight into your room, back you up against the wall and fuck the hell out of
you before even saying hello. I almost did, too."
▼: He hummed against Dirk's skin again, moving down to his neck now and letting
out a sharp breath when Dirk spoke. He drew his arm around Dirk's middle, tried
to pull him closer and to bury his face in the warmth of Dirk's neck. All the
practical thoughts he'd been entertaining-- getting off the desk, making the
bed, smoothing out the covers, finding the condoms, digging out the lube-- all
that practical shit had just evaporated from his mind as he became wrapped up
in what Dirk was saying. "Do it. Do it just like that. I almost called you, you
know that?" He hadn't ever seriously considered it, but there had been
moments... "Almost called you just to hear your voice. Not even to tell you I
was beating off to it, just to hear you say something. Anything at all." He was
moving his knee, now, sure he could feel Dirk getting hard through his slacks
but not completely sure.
▲: Dirk moaned and it was maybe a little more akin to a whine than usual. The
word 'pathetic' crossed his mind again. Like he'd just discovered the fact that
he had a dick or something. "It's a little--" he sighed, "late for that, isn't
it? I mean we're pretty-- far past hello." He'd had as full of an erection as
he could manage while still in these pants, ever since Dave had said he'd been
thinking of Dirk fucking him, so yeah, he definitely felt hard.
He couldn't quite take it anymore, so he took his hand out of Dave's grip and
put his palm flat on Dave's leg, pressing it up towards Dave's crotch, but
stopping at the hip and squeezing. "Dave. I think I'm actually going to fly to
pieces over here if you don't touch me."
▼: "Communication," said Dave, resting his forehead against Dirk's shoulder so
he could see what he was doing when he unbuckled Dirk's belt. "See, that's what
we call good communication. It's very important." He pulled down Dirk's zipper
and in a few seconds had freed him from the confines of the fabric. Wow, yeah,
no doubt about that one. Definitely hard. Dave worked him a few times, feeling
Dirk's cock harden further in his hand. "Damn," he said softly into Dirk's ear.
"You weren't kidding. That wasn't a line, you really were thinking about this a
lot, huh. You were just...raring to go, weren't you. Desperate as all hell." He
nipped lightly at Dirk's earlobe, and worked him a little harder under his
palm.
▲: Dirk's breath caught repeatedly when he felt Dave's hand on him, like a
chain reaction of positive feedback breath hitching. His mouth pulled down and
his eyebrows pulled up and it really was like various parts of him were trying
to fly away from center with how much he wanted Dave right now. For a minute,
he couldn't even speak. He couldn't make any sort of reply to what Dave was
saying and it was frustrating but good god, his dick. His fingers clenched and
unclenched rhythmically. "Oh my god-- shut up, Dave. Shut the hell up and-
- *fuck* me."
Whoa. Wait. What the fuck did he just say? Dirk wasn't-- he didn't-- this
wasn't how it worked, okay? Not for some-- kid-- who-- fuck. Screw his voice;
even his thoughts were becoming staggered. He couldn't even gain enough control
over his own body to growl with frustration properly.
▼: He stilled for a second. He hadn't been expecting that one, but let it never
be said, after all, that Dave couldn't roll with the punches, among other
things. He finally kissed Dirk again, harder, not just brushing their lips
together but clamping down and working Dirk's cock more furiously under his
hand. He didn't need to have a finger on Dirk's pulse to know his heart was
beating faster; he could feel it under Dirk's skin, could tell by the way Dirk
was clenching his hands. "You got it. There should be lube in the desk drawer."
And with that he pulled away and went over to do the most half-assed job he
could smoothing the covers out, his mind running every which way as he heard
Dirk moving around behind him.
▲: Dave left Dirk confused and reeling when he walked away to go fuss with the
bedsheets or whatever the hell he was doing. Dirk didn't really see the point
of making the bed right *before* fucking in it, but he also couldn't bring
himself to protest that piece of minutia compared to the fact that *Dave had
stopped touching him*. That was the opposite of what Dirk wanted. He slid down
off of the desk, but then just stood there without moving or doing much of
anything, mouth hanging slightly open and blinking at Dave's back, until Dave
turned back around.
▼: Probably a stupid compulsion, but he hated when the blankets bunched up
under him while having sex. Although he supposed he didn't have to worry about
that this time if he didn't want to; he could go on top if he wanted to, or he
could have Dirk lower himself onto Dave's cock, have him sit in Dave's lap if
he felt like it, it was all up to Dave because not only did Dirk want Dave to
fuck him, he was also being oddly spacey and not as forceful as he usually was.
He was just standing there, staring at Dave. He actually looked pretty
ridiculous, with his mouth slightly open and his cock hanging out of his pants.
"Dude, are you just going to stand there? What are you waiting for?" Dave
asked, sitting down on the side of the bed and untying his shoelaces. "You are
acting so weird. Well, weirder than normal. Get your ass over here."
▲: What was he waiting for? Something about that question kicked Dirk out of
whatever trance he'd been in and prompted him to move; specifically, he took
his pants and underwear the rest of the way off, and then he crossed the
distance between the desk and the bed and shoved Dave wordlessly onto the
latter, straddling Dave with one leg on each side of his hips and forcing Dave
backward onto the mattress. The fabric of Dave's jeans was a little rough on
the exposed skin of Dirk's cock, but he was hard pressed to even notice that at
the moment. "That's a really good question, actually. What *am* I waiting for?
What are *you* going to do?"
▼: Dave sat up, grabbing Dirk by the collar and pulling him forward for another
kiss. He could feel Dirk's cock pressing against his jeans, which was a potent
reminder that he himself was at half-mast, probably, an gaining ground by the
second. He ran his hands down the straining muscles of Dirk's back until he was
cupping his ass in both hands. He'd checked out Dirk's ass before, obviously,
but as he squeezed it gently beneath his hands he realized this might have been
the first time he'd truly appreciated it as it deserved. He kissed Dirk again,
lifting him up slightly, and managed to slip out from underneath him. Sort of
underhanded, but desperate times, etc. With an emphasis on *desperate*, at
least on Dirk's part. "I'm gonna fuck you, liked you asked me to," he said,
going back over to the desk. "But I guess you gotta wait another sec since you
were too busy to grab the lube like I told you to. 'Cause you were standing
there with your dick hanging out of your pants like the smooth motherfucker you
are."
He went over and pulled the lube out of the desk drawer and, then, on a bit of
a cruel impulse, changed his mind about music. Maybe a mood would be lost on
Dirk, but this was supposed to be fucking special for Dave himself, right?
Fucking sure. Let him wait. He quickly skimmed the library he'd borrowed and
decided on some R&B thing, slower than he normally liked, but still with enough
of a backbeat he could get into it. He turned it up and went back to Dirk
quickly because he wasn't that much of an asshole and he really was getting
harder by the second.
▲: He had just started getting into the groove of the kiss and getting used to
having his ass felt up for a change when suddenly there was nothing underneath
him. This must be some kind of sick payback for all the times that Dirk had
abruptly ended something, because there was no other explanation for why things
kept being so stop-and-go tonight. Earlier he had relished the torturous
feeling of drawing things out endlessly, but now it was just starting to set
him on edge. He wanted to fuck or be fucked or something as long as he was on
Dave or Dave was on him.
He rolled over onto his back and stared blankly up at the ceiling, making a
noise low in his throat that wasn't too far removed from a growl. "Mood music
ain't necessary, dude; I think it's pretty obvious that I'm already there."
While Dave putzed around with his CD collection, Dirk started trying to
unbutton his shirt. It was slower going than usual because of the
multiplicative effects of horny x tipsy-headed-towards-drunksville.
▼: When he got back to the bed, he dropped the lube and condom he'd grabbed
next to Dirk's head and pulled his own shirt over his head. He sat down to push
his pants and underwear down at once before crawling up next to Dirk on the
bed, straddling him and helping him with the buttons. "Not for you, maybe."
Which was being untruthful, sort of; Dave had been doing alright on his own,
and Dirk's desperation probably did more from him than any amount of music
could. He pulled Dirk upright, just enough to pull the shirt the rest of the
way over his head without undoing the buttons. When he finally had Dirk naked
underneath him, he pushed him down and kissed him again, desperate and messy,
before grabbing for the lube. He uncapped it and poured some onto his hand.
"Yeah, you've been there since you fucking walked into the building, dude.
That's pretty obvious." He reached down and ran one of his slick fingers over
the skin around his asshole before easing his pointer finger in roughly.
He hadn't actually done the actual topping thing before; it wasn't unheard of
to ask for that kind of thing, obviously, but no one ever had with Dave. He
wasn't nervous, but he figured there were two ways to do it; either you could
be very careful and go slowly so as to know what you're doing was all good, or
you could just do it all in as much of a rush as possible and trust you'd get
the gist of it as you went along. In this case, he didn't think Dirk would have
much appreciation for the first method, so just when he felt Dirk relax around
the first finger he thrust a second one in as well.
▲: Dirk couldn't give fewer fucks about the music; he was just happy to have
Dave on top of him. The alcohol that had mostly been affecting his mouth had
started hitting other parts of his body, making reality a little swimmy and
confusing. While they were kissing, Dirk felt their bodies rocking back and
forth, probably a little more pronounced than it actually was, trying to fight
for control, but Dave was on top and more sober, so it was all him.
When Dave pulled away, Dirk knew what was coming, but it still took him a
little by surprise, a startled "Ooh," coming out of his mouth before he could
stop it. His senses were dulling, but his desire increased (he hoped he didn't
have whiskey dick to look forward to, but he didn't seem to be having any
trouble getting it up at the moment, so maybe that wouldn't be a problem), and
the sensation of Dave's finger inside him managed to cut through all the haze.
He had to clench his jaw, but he knew he could take it. He wasn't even sure why
he asked for this, since he pretty much never let anyone fuck him. The one
exception had been Zahhak, of course, but that just went along with all the
other bizarre stuff that had happened in that... that whatever it even had
been. This thing with Dave was miles away from that, but even still he found
himself wanting it. Maybe it was in interest of reciprocation. Who the fuck
knew. He just knew that the second finger made him grip the sheets of Dave's
bed, bunching up the sheets and undoing all of the smoothing work Dave had done
earlier. "Fuck. Dude. Also-- what is this music. Didn't peg you for a late 90s
R&B guy. Were you eve alive when this came out?" Yes, Dirk, temper your
inability to control yourself with inane questions.
▼: "Hmm?" He was focused on what he was doing with his hand and the Dirk's
reactions to it. "Oh. Yeah, I was. Was pretty young, I guess. But what's age
when you've got the internet, right?" He moved his fingers in and out of Dirk,
noticing when he hit the spots that got more of a reaction and enjoying the
reactions he did get. Dirk normally was pretty sanguine, Dave supposed, so
watching him gasp and swear and curl his fists was satisfying. Probably also
the novelty of it did something for Dave, too, and he watched almost mesmerized
as he rubbed Dirk, wanting to feel Dirk go boneless and pliant beneath him
again. He slipped a third finger in almost without realizing it, and hooked his
fingers. With his other hand, he reached around to feel Dirk's cock and leaned
slightly against his thigh as he worked Dirk open.
▲: Dirk fought to control his reactions to what Dave was doing, biting down on
the skin on the inside of his cheek, but all that did was break the skin and
make him taste his own blood, which was a slight hint of something metallic
like someone had slipped a penny under his tongue. His body went rigid with the
effort of containing whatever it was that wanted to get out, because once Dirk
let go he didn't really know how to reign it back in again, and he'd had a
really bad couple of weeks. He was liable to make Dave push him until he broke
something.
Dave was too good, though. Well, like he'd said to Roxy, either Dave was too
good or Dirk was too easy, or maybe Dirk was too easy just for Dave, because
Dave hit something just right and it undid all the effort that Dirk had put
into this venture. His legs fell down from where he'd been holding them up
slightly, and his jaw fell open in a long, low groan. The only thing that held
its composure was his hands on the sheets. His chest heaved, not with effort
but with the force of the breath he had to exhale.
▼: Dave's breath caught in his own throat; when he'd run over doing this in his
mind, he had thought Dirk would take it...more in stride, in fact. Maybe Dave
had underestimated what Dirk's reactions would be, and what his own would be as
well. Not just to the noises and the sounds Dirk made, but to the way it felt;
beneath his fingers he could feel Dirk's pulse fluttering in a completely
different way from before. Whatever it was, it didn't fucking matter. It was
all making him almost uncomfortably hard. He leaned down and stretched out
parallel to Dirk's body, drawing his fingers out a little but not fully, enough
so he could lay down a little and rest his head on Dirk's chest. "Holy shit,
dude," he breathed, taking his hand off from Dirk's cock to run up the smooth
lines of his chest. "Ho. Lee. *Shit*," he breathed, flicking his thumbnail over
one of the nipples and pushing his fingers back in fully as he did.
▲: He managed to close his mouth so that he wasn't just lying there like a
mouth-breathing puddle of Dirk, breathing through his nose now in long, slow
pulls. "Yeah," was all he could really say in response on one of the exhales.
He wanted Dave to do more to his nipples but was too busy trying to focus on
staying in one piece to really ask for it, even if he could string together
more than one word right now. He was relaxing relatively easily now, but that
didn't make the sensations any less strange. There was a reason why he didn't
really do this by choice. He stayed as still as possible when Dave pushed back,
hoping it would feel the way it had before. It missed the mark at first, but
after a second he angled his hips and-- there. It shocked another harsh breath
out of him, "Dave," hurry the fuck up, come on, can't you see I'm dying here?
Kiss me you piece of shit, just fucking fuck me already motherfucker. He
couldn't really say the rest of that, so he hoped his tone would convey it for
him.
▼: He ran his fingers over the nipple again, squeezing it for a second before
pushing himself upright and withdrawing his other hand from Dirk's ass. He
looked down at Dirk, took in his heaving chest and hectic coloring before
grabbing the condom and tearing it open. As he slipped it on he leaned down to
cover Dirk's mouth with his own, grabbing himself with his already slick hand
and pushing Dirk's legs up to get a better angle. He had a momentary anxiety
about the position, whether something else might not be better, but shit,
sometimes you just had to stop fucking around with the blankets and the music
and making everything just right and just do what fucking felt *right*. That
was probably a strange way to describe what he was doing right now, but when
Dirk was making noises like that, saying Dave's name in that perfectly longing
way, *right* was the only way to describe it. He lined their bodies and started
pushing in, taking it slow.
▲: He'd been doing pretty good at relaxing until Dave actually entered him, at
which point he went rigid all along his body again, once again clamping his
teeth down so hard that he drew blood on the inside of his cheek. Not much,
just enough to hurt and for him to taste it. His throat was going to be fucking
raw in the morning, but then again, what part of him *wasn't* going to feel raw
in the morning at this rate? It probably should have forced some kind of noise
out of him, but actually he was being unusually silent, breathing through his
nose and trying to relax around Dave's dick. His eyes, however, were wide open
and locked on Dave's, whether or not Dave was looking back.
▼: He had another moment of anxiety when he felt Dirk tense up under him, like
he was hurting him or wouldn't be able to get it in, but...no, it was fine.
Dirk relaxed and Dave was able to move inside him a bit more. Still, Dirk felt
too wiry and wary beneath Dave, so he stretched out again to try and fix that.
With one hand he grabbed Dirk's cock and with the other flicked the nipple
again. He angled his head down to lick the other one, and had to draw out
somewhat to reach but it was worth it because he remembered Dirk had seemed to
like it before. He scraped his teeth over it, then ran the rough flat of his
tongue over it before turning to the next one.
Dirk was watching him intently the whole time, his eyes wide open and so intent
that you would have thought looking away from Dave would turn him to stone.
Dave pulled himself up so they were eye-to-eye, and pushed his cock inside Dirk
more as he did. "Hey," he said, reaching up to touch the side of his face.
"Don't bite yourself. I want to hear you, remember?"
▲: "Yeah, I'm so worried 'bout what you want right now, you've no idea," Dirk
managed to say, letting his jaw relax but not shifting his gaze away from
Dave's face. It was starting to get a little less intense, finally, especially
now that Dave was stimulating other parts of his body and drawing a bit of
attention away from the part he was fucking. At least his brain was functioning
to the point where he could speak in sentences again and react to normal
stimuli, like, for example, Dave playing with his nipples again. Goosebumps had
spread over his chest when Dave licked them, and now he could feel the cool air
from the window on his wet skin.
He supposed that the Mack Truck of the shots had finally hit him, because
something about the back and forth motions of Dave moving slowly in and out of
him was suddenly overwhelming. His head was buzzing again, like it had before
when Dave kissed him, although it was less focused and more of an all-over
feeling. That and the fact that his dick was finally getting some attention
made him remember what, exactly, he was doing. He was getting *fucked*, and
despite how intense it was, he fucking liked it. He loosened up considerably.
"C'mon, Dave. You gonna keep tickling me or are you gonna fuck me?" Probably
not the smartest thing to say to the dude with his dick in your ass, but Dirk
always was a terrible bottom.
▼: "Tickling's probably all you deserve," said Dave, and he rammed into Dirk
with more muscle behind it than any of his thrusts so far. It was a satisfying
thing to do; Dirk's words had pinged the "pissed off little brother" part of
his brain again, and using Dirk more forcefully suddenly seemed alright
because, oh yeah, Dirk was kind of an asshole. Still, his exuberance kind of
came back to bite him in the ass because he hadn't actually done this before
and *jesus*. It felt great, but it was so fucking intense that he was clenching
his hands in Dirk's hair and thrusting again before he'd even quite realized
it.
▲: That was more like it. The hard thrust got a yell from Dirk, who really
wished he could push his back down farther into the mattress. As Dave continued
to thrust into him Dirk was overcome with the full-body feeling that came along
with getting fucked, which was something he'd kinda forgotten and wasn't
something he ever really experienced when he was the one doing the fucking.
There was nothing about handjobs or blowjobs that resonated through the whole
body the way this did. The yell dissolved into loud grunts every time Dave
pushed inside, not quite as loud as the first time but definitely loud enough
to hear from the next room or the hallway. He grabbed one of Dave's hands and
placed it square in the middle of his chest with an unspoken command: push me
down, fuck me into the bed, make me yours.
▼: Shit. He supposed he wouldn't be able to complain again about everyone else
making noise if Dirk kept this up. Not that Dave really would complain, because
complaining would involve actually, like, *talking* to the people in question.
He spared barely a second worrying about what the neighbors would think because
Jesus, who cared, but a second later it gave him an idea. He stuck his fingers
in Dirk's mouth, using the hand without as much lube on it. "Changed my mind,"
he said breathlessly, hoisting Dirk's hips up with the other hand so he could
go deeper. "Maybe I don't really want to hear you. Didn't think you'd make so
much fucking noise. Suck on that instead, yeah?" He was getting breathless now;
jesus, this was intense just moving a little; thrusting deeper each time,
trying to hit that spot Dirk liked made it almost unbearable, but in the most
amazing way possible. Sort of like getting your fingers sucked on and bitten at
the same time, to take an example at random.
▲: The effect was reminiscent of the time that Dave had choked him while
jerking him off: the extremes of sensation at both ends of his body. Except
this time he was being filled from both ends instead of squeezed, and it had a
very distinctive undertone, one of being, well, stuffed, to not put too fine of
a point on it. It was all-consuming and in all honesty somewhat humiliating, in
a way that reminded him again a bit of the time he spent with Zahhak but
different, too, because that had been cold but this was so very hot. Which is a
really long-winded way of saying that Dirk felt completely fucking owned by
Dave and rocked all the way to the core. Also, very literally rocking in his
core, because the fucking picked up in intensity and Dirk would have begged for
Dave to touch his dick if not for the fact that he now had several fingers in
his mouth. So he clamped down on them and sucked as hard as he could, finally
closing his eyes and still making those pathetic noises deep in his throat
every time Dave thrust inside. He felt like a completely different person right
now; some new Dirk splinter had taken over.
▼: This was new. Reallly new, not just "wow this is tight on my dick" new,
but...that was a huge part of it, actually, but not all of it. It was amazing,
feeling so in control of things for once, and that had less to do with where
his dick was and more to do with the noises Dirk was making, and the pressure
his teeth were putting on Dave's hand. He was going to have the mother of all
bitemarks on his hand and he didn't even care. "You want me to touch your
cock," said Dave, and it was meant to come out teasingly but he was so
breathless and close to undone that he sounded more delirious than anything,
obviously not caring for whatever response Dirk gave to it. He wrapped his free
hand around Dirk's cock and moved his hand in time with his own hip thrusts.
▲: Dirk nodded, not that it mattered because Dave was already touching him. He
just needed to affirm that hell yes, he wanted that. He wanted pretty much
everything, even the way Dave's fingers were pressing down the back of his
tongue and making him gag. He even wanted that. He released his grip on the
bedsheets and put them on Dave's shoulders, locking his elbows and using Dave's
torso as a new anchor so that he could pull his knees up higher and let Dave in
even deeper. He was actually kinda glad that his mouth was full of fingers
because otherwise he'd be speaking some really embarrassing and incoherent
gibberish right now about how he was Dave's bitch or something. Or maybe, even
worse, declarations of how much Dirk wanted him and found himself wanting to
give to him.
▼: He wasn't going to last a lot longer, he thought. It was just too much, the
pressure on his fingers and his cock and now on his shoulders too, he couldn't
hold it back any longer. "Shit," he said in a voice closer to a whine than a
moan, and he thrust in as much as he could a few more times before holding it
as deep as possible and shuddering as he came. He fell forward, dragging his
now sopping fingers out of Dirk's mouth and working Dirk's still hard cock with
his wet fingers. Dave was panting and looking up into Dirk's eyes, not even
daring to withdraw from his ass yet because he was still crazy over-sensitive
and intent on watching Dirk's abnormally bright eyes. "You're so close, bro.
You gotta come for me. Come on."
▲: Dirk gasped loudly when Dave withdrew from his mouth. He immediately missed
the sensation of being so filled, but he did need to breathe. "God, Dave." He
really should have come by now and probably would have if he wasn't so drunk,
but then again if he hadn't been so drunk it is unlikely that he would have
gotten himself into this situation to begin with. "How did this-- even happen?"
It wasn't whiskey dick; he was just having trouble focusing. "How do you-
- *know*?" Now that the whole body shuddering of being fucked was over, he
could focus completely on Dave's face and his own dick, which was so totally
more than ready to come; he just needed to wait for the rest of him to catch up
to it. "How?" he demanded again, pleading this time. Desperate, now, almost
there. This is not the time to be having a crisis of faith.
▼: He sounded weird; he'd sounded weird the whole time, but then maybe that was
why he'd walked in here all unfocused and weird and oddly intent on getting
drunk, asking to be fucked and then pretty much begging for it. Gagging for it,
actually, but that was a pun that could get pretty old when you were doing it
with Dirk, Dave suspected.
He was sort of spacey at the moment, could really only focus on one thing, and
that was getting Dirk to fucking come already, *jesus*, but the pleading note
in Dirk's voice caught his attention. He blinked once and shrugged, still
working the shaft of Dirk's cock, reaching down to massage his balls and run
his thumb over the slit as he spoke. "You're like me. You sort of like getting
knocked down every once in a while." This was true, but was something he hadn't
really admitted to himself for whatever reason.
▲: It scratched the same itch as his short-lived but jam-packed black fling
with the other guy, but this was so much more human. It worked so much better
and actually left him feeling good afterward. Dave got him, and Dave had him,
in most possible ways. Maybe this new Dirk, this weird needy splinter, was one
that was just for Dave. "Yeah," he agreed with himself, although it probably
sounded like he was agreeing with what Dave said. "Yeah, I--" but before he
could say whatever he had to say, he felt it. Just like the drunk, it came out
of nowhere and hit him like a Mack Truck. No warning, just one second you were
probably about to confess some embarrassing feelings for someone you barely
knew and then the second moment your dick took over everything and started
firing off. He tilted his head back and mouthed a series of "Oh, fuck"s that
decreased in intensity as he rode through it, coming on his own stomach.
▼: Once Dirk was done, Dave let go and pulled out with a slight shudder. He
knotted up the condom and made the toss into the garbage can from across the
room, hilariously enough. From the bed he was also able to grab an old towel
off the floor; apparently being a slob had its advantages. "Shit," he said with
a slight laugh, wiping off Dirk's stomach before curling up next to him to get
lost in thought. This had been different, and not just because Dave had been on
top. It was like their second time; obviously in the hotel room had encompassed
a couple times, but already the memory had...not faded, just blurred together
into several vivid tableaux that Dave thought about (jerked off about) in quiet
moments while remembering all the while that Dirk was a wildcard in more ways
than one, and maybe it had been for the best they had parted ways.
Now he thought about that with a laugh; he couldn't keep his hands off Dirk,
couldn't let go of him even long enough to grab a towel or get up to throw away
trash. He threw a leg over one of Dirk's, let out a huff of a laugh, and
wrapped an arm around him.
▲: When it was over, Dirk felt way too empty. He put the palms of both hands
over his eyes and laid there, panting through his mouth and slowly getting his
breathing back to something resembling normal while Dave fussed around with
condoms and towels and other things Dirk couldn't bring himself to care about
right now. He wasn’t just getting his breathing back: he was waiting for main
Dirk to come back. Alpha Dirk, if you will. He was still struggling with this
when Dave laid back down next to him and tangled their legs together, and Dirk
kept his hands pressed firmly over his eyes. He felt it come back slowly,
creeping up while the freakishly malleable Dirk melted away and the solid,
composed Dirk replaced it. "I'm gonna need some water in a minute," he said as
soon as his voice returned, dropping one of his hands and reaching it up and
around so that Dave could rest his head on Dirk's shoulder. "That doesn't mean
I want you to get up, though."
▼: "That'll be interesting, then," said Dave. "You gonna take a page from
Roxy's fucking wizards? Accio agua or something like that?" His head was
pillowed on Dirk's shoulder and his voice was easy, but he'd been watching Dirk
with some trepidation. He'd been really different; Dave had *liked* it too, as
much as former Dirk had been attractive as well, but this Dirk was such a
change and he wondered why, and had that dilemma again of trying to get people
to talk about themselves without making it too obvious. "Dirk? You ok?"
▲: He let the other hand drop to the mattress, not needing to hide anymore
since he felt like he was all the way back. Still drunk, but entirely alpha
Dirk. "No, as soon as my legs stop shaking I'm going to do it the boring way,
by walking downstairs and getting it myself from the tap." Actually, he hadn't
thought much about it, but it was still business hours. He'd have to put all of
his clothes back on. Ugh. He curled his fingers into Dave's hair, wondering not
for the first time why he felt compelled to touch it so much. "Yeah, I'm fine.
Why?"
▼: He shook his head, not enough to dislodge Dirk's fingers because obviously
he didn't mind that or he would have said something one of the other 70 times
Dirk wound his fingers in Dave's hair. "It's nothin'. Just different I guess.
But I ain't never been on top, so maybe that's just how it is." He paused,
wondering how to add, 'also you were acting a lot weirder than normal, what was
the deal with that.'
Some of reality was returning; when Dirk talked about getting up, he remember
that Dirk would have to leave, probably early tomorrow morning if not later
tonight, and that laying there together for ages was both impossible and,
probably, undesirable in the long run. In the long run. In the short run,
though, he just wanted to continue here with Dirk for a bit, maybe even talk
some more, even though it was well-established that Dave wasn't good at the
'listening to people' part. But then, with Dirk it was different.
▲: "Mmm," Dirk mumbled, turning his head so that his lips were against Dave's
temple. Even though Dave had been on top for a while, they had already
reverted. After all, Dave was the one curling up to him right now, not the
other way around. "Yeah, it can be kinda scary I guess. You never know if
you're gonna hurt the other guy. Although sometimes that's what he wants, which
makes things a bit easier." He may or may not have been talking about himself.
He ran his other hand up and down his own chest and stomach, feeling the
goosebumps pop up again. The breeze from the window was starting to feel cold,
but he knew that the moment he stood up to close it, he'd be committed to doing
all the other things he needed to do, so he dealt with it for now. "I mean, our
bodies weren't technically made to do that."
▼: "Well, technically our bodies weren't made to imbibe like half a bottle of
rum either, but we seem to enjoy doing that too. You cold?" He didn't want to
get up yet either, so instead he just kicked at the blanket on the end of the
bed until he'd brought it close enough to throw over the two of them. He wasn't
sure if he wanted to sleep or just keep talking. When he closed his eyes he
remembered all the rum he had drank and he really could go either way.
"Yeah. I mean, people asking you to hurt 'em isn't anything new, but I guess.
This way it's different or something." He readjusted somewhat as he curled up
next to Dirk, and found himself talking about something completely different
just to have something to say. "It was a lot different than the last time I you
know. Fucked somebody, but that was with a girl and we were really, really high
so it was like. Yeah. *Really* different."
▲: Dirk smiled. "Yeah, that's a good point I guess." The blanket was old and
faded and pilling all over, but it was soft and warm so it did the job. Being
under it with Dave helped fade away that 'too empty' post-getting-fucked
feeling. He didn't want to get too comfortable, though, because he really did
need to drink some water or else there would be hell to pay in the morning.
"You didn't really seem to have a lot of trouble hurting me the last time." He
guessed that this was an admission of a thematic element, but he figured that
Dave was beyond smart enough to have figured that out by now anyway. "And of
course fucking a girl is different. That's like basic anatomy and physiology.
Girls are a lot easier to fuck-- no, not like *that* asshole, I mean the
mechanics of it-- but with guys there's a better... I dunno. Payoff." He
thought about that for a while. He wasn't really sure what he meant by it.
"Boobs are great, though. Damn," he added as an afterthought. Yes, how
eloquent.
▼: He snorted. "She was a co-worker, I guess. She used to get an eighth from
one of her customers every now and then. She'd share it with me but usually we
really didn't do anything except sit out on the roof. She wasn't that
talkative, as a rule." He was just sort of babbling now, but whatever. "But it
was different last time, with you. You're more..." He paused; his face was
still turned away from Dirk's, so it was easier to say this. "I just feel like
I get you more. I dunno. It's weird. I was never very good at reading customers
I had. Usually they had to spell out what they wanted pretty explicitly. But I
don't gotta do that as much with you."
▲: Dirk stretched his limbs out on the bed, which was a little too small for
the both of them so he accidentally jabbed Dave with one of his knees. He felt
boneless and malleable again, but in a 'well and truly fucked' kind of way that
was different than before. He felt fantastic, and Dave's body heat was warming
him up rapidly. "I'm not exactly an enigma. I have like two or three basic
drives and you seem to more or less have a handle on them." He felt kind of a
jealous twinge at the thought of Dave fucking some girl for fun. He didn't mind
the stories about working so much, but recreational sex? Whoa, dude. Don't
really wanna hear it. "A smoke would be pretty bitchin' right now, you know? I
bet Roxy would get some if I asked." He considered this. It would, in fact, be
bitchin', but it required him to get up.
▼: Dirk wasn't an enigma; that was the weird part, for Dave, since 'enigma' had
been about the most fitting descriptor of Bro. But every time he saw Dirk,
every time he *fucked* Dirk, he became less of a mystery and more...whatever he
was to Dave now. "Hey," said Dave, at Dirk's last words. "Not cool, dog. Hugs
not drugs, yeah?" He surprised Dirk and pulled him into a bone-cracking
embrace. "I do have some, though. If you wanted." He'd pulled up Dirk enough so
they were eye to eye. "Guy from upstairs gave me a little as a welcome present,
I guess." Which had been pretty cool, actually, though Dave hadn't brought
himself to smoke it yet. He wasn't sure what he'd been waiting for, but hell,
why not christen it with Dirk? "What do you think?"
***** Chapter 5 *****
▲: Of course he had some, Dirk thought while Dave was compressing his ribcage.
In retrospect Dirk didn't know why he didn't just ask. Dirk hadn't smoked in a
long time, primarily because seeing the business side of things made it a lot
less appealing. After you've seen what kinds of people run this stuff and who
is benefitting, it loses some of its luster. And who wants to spend their high
being paranoid about the type of people they're funding?
Then again, right now, Dirk was unable to give a fuck. He leaned forward and
kissed Dave briefly but with a hint of tongue. "I think I like you, that's what
I think." It was the second time he'd said that, and he was starting to believe
it.
▼: "You're damn right you do," said Dave, ruffling his hair and kissing him
back, the weed in the desk drawer momentarily forgotten. He wasn't relishing
the thought of getting up, exposing all his skin to the cool air from the
window, but it was a necessary evil. As he kissed Dirk, he eased himself out
from under the covers until he was crouching on the floor. He rooted around
until he found the pants he normally slept in. "Do you want to borrow some
sweatpants from me? I dunno why, I'm sure people do it all the time, but it
seems like it must be really weird to get high in your classy business slacks."
▲: Dirk sat up on the bed, stretching his arms some more, lifting them over his
head to stretch the muscles in his shoulders and back. He was actually kinda
fine with smoking naked, but it was probably a little too cold for that. "Yeah,
okay. I guess you owe me a pair anyway." There was no headboard, so he leaned
his back against the wall, drawing up his knees and resting his elbows on them.
He looked around the room while Dave scrounged for clothes and rummaged through
drawers, and he was feeling this surge of affection that he couldn't really
explain-- at least, not beyond the post-coital brain chemistry and probably
also the liquor. "Do you even have something to smoke out of? Roxy used to have
this bowl shaped like a cat when we were in high school."
▼: "As fun as it would be, pulling smoke out of a cat's anus," said Dave,
throwing Dirk a pair of black sweatpants and pulling on his own, "I got one.
That's why the dude let me have some, he had a new pipe and said I could borrow
his old one." He set the shit down on the window sill, which was wide enough he
could sit there and pack the bowl reasonably comfortably. There was enough
light to from the streetlamp just outside the alley, and he wasn't so drunk
that he'd lost his fine motor skills, thankfully. "Ha. Forgot about the jeans I
took from you. You can take 'em back, if you want. I got a couple pairs now. Or
we can trade for those things you got there, even though they're probably too
tight on you." *Definitely* would be too tight, not that Dave was in a state to
mind to care.
▲: Dirk pulled on the sweatpants, and yeah, they were a little tight,
especially around his thighs, which had more muscle than Dave's, but not
uncomfortably so. He slid down to the end of the bed, near the window, so he
could watch while Dave picked the bud apart with his fingernails. There was
something kinda sexy to Dirk about watching people perform tasks that required
a certain level of manual dexterity. He could smell it, too: kind of a dry
leafy smell with spicy undertones. "Nah, you can keep them. Kind of a shitty
gift for a first date, but I'll do better next time, I promise." Kind of a
shitty first date too, while we're at it, but at least the sex was good. Dirk
knew he was going to get chatty real fuckin' soon, so he tried to get all of
the embarrassing thoughts out of his head now. Too bad brains don't work that
way.
▼: Dave looked up at Dirk through his eyelashes, trying to keep the grin off of
his face. He felt...really good. Probably from the sex, and the booze, and
there was always this pleasurable moment before you actually started smoking
the weed that was almost as nice as actually smoking it. Sort of companionable.
He finished packing it and licked the plastic edge of the baggie before sealing
it up again. "Alright. Hopefully it's not too shit. There weren't too many
seeds, at least. You can go first." That was the gentlemanly thing to do,
obviously. He watched Dirk prepare to light it and leaned back on the
windowpane. "You still gonna show up on my birthday, then?" he asked, not even
bothering to make his voice sound off-hand. Shit, what was even the point? "Let
me guess, we're going to the casino. Is that it?"
▲: Shit or not, Dirk had no doubt that it would do the job. It really had been
a long time. He took the spoon and lit up, taking a pull and holding his breath
for a moment. He looked at Dave thoughtfully for a moment and then turned his
head toward the window to exhale. "Casino? The fuck you think we are? Aruba?
You can't gamble at 18." He passed the pipe and the lighter over to Dave, then
turned to look out the window, avoiding Dave's eyes. "I can't make any
promises, but I'll try to be here. Assuming you still want me to be." Thinking
about Dave's birthday just made him think more about the fact that he shouldn't
even really be here *now*. Dave was still pretty illegal. Dirk kinda thought
that the rules should be different on the basis of who was doing the fucking,
really, but that was neither here nor there.
▼: "Yeah. Sure. I mean." Shit. For the first time, he realized that he'd been
subtly looking forward to seeing Dirk on his birthday since Dirk had asked him
when it was. It had been a fixed, idealized point in the future, something to
look forward to, when at last he'd have told all his friends about reports of
his death being exaggerated, and when he'd have figured what the fuck he was
going to do for the rest of his life. And while he was at it, by his birthday
maybe Jack Noir wouldn't be out to kill him anymore, and Roxy would give him a
fucking kitten and a lottery ticket that would win him a million dollars. Ok,
yeah, he was being a little fanciful, and he hadn't even taken a pull yet. So
he did, coughing a bit, and when he looked at Dirk something lurched in his
stomach. "We should shotgun the next one," he said, holding out the bowl and
lighter and leaning forward.
▲: "If you're looking for an excuse to kiss me, you don't need one, dude. I'm a
sure thing." He took the pipe and held it for a moment, thinking. The normal
protocol that was generally invoked when getting involved with someone had been
all hells of fucked up with him and Dave because of the circumstances of how
they met. At this point, taking Dave on an actual date would feel kind of
stupid. Like they'd skipped a lot of really important steps and somehow wound
up smack in the middle of the stage where you know the most intimate details of
the other person's family life and sexual preferences but you didn't know the
shit like what their favorite color was or what their favorite movie is. They'd
just kinda jumped over that and landed in this strange limbo where Dirk shows
up out of nowhere and asks Dave to fuck him, and then they smoke half-naked out
the window of a brothel.
Maybe this was what college was like for normal people. "Huh," Dirk said out
loud. He looked down at the bowl in his hand like he'd forgotten what it was,
but then he lit up again and leaned forward, touching one hand to Dave's cheek.
He put their lips together, first in a kiss, but then parting his lips and
exhaling slowly into Dave's mouth.
▼: It was nicer, less harsh than just pulling it normally. "Shit, you saw right
through my ruse," he said, after he had sunk against the windowpane and exhaled
it through his nose. He took the pipe and did the same thing for Dirk, bracing
his hand on Dirk's shoulder as he did. He liked the way it smelled, weirdly,
better than how it did doing it the normal way. He watched the way the smoke
moved in the light and licked his lips. "I'd like you to be here," he said,
still watching the smoke. "On my birthday, obviously. I can try and be coy and
all that, but I think it'd be pretty stupid for me to deny it at this point."
▲: Dirk stood up, taking the pipe from Dave and setting it back down on the
windowsill for a minute, and then he pulled Dave up to kiss him again. It was a
long, slow kiss, with a lot of heat behind it, but muted heat, not explosive.
He wrapped his arms around the bare skin of Dave's lower back. "I'll be here."
He realized that he'd just said he couldn't promise anything a moment ago, but
here he was promising things. "I'm going to come straight up here-- and I'm
going to fuck the hell out of you-- and then after that I'm going to get you
some Thai food-- and then we can do whatever gay shit you wanna do for a little
while-- before we come back here and I fuck you again, just because I can. How
does that sound?" He spoke directly into Dave's lips, punctuating his thoughts
with kisses.
▼: He felt a little dazed, and there was a second before the words even sank in
where he was really fucking happy and kissing Dirk and he didn't know why.
Besides the obvious. He had his arms tucked under Dirk's, running over the
waistband of Dirk's too tight sweatpants. The breeze from the window had picked
up and he didn't even notice it on the bare skin of his back, he was too busy
murmuring assent back into Dirk's mouth, like he was shotgunning the words
instead of the smoke this time. "Good, it sounds good," he murmured. He pressed
as close as he could into Dirk and felt warm all over, from some combination of
everything he'd drank and smoked and fucked that night. "Go to a concert or
something," he murmured. "Haven't been to a concert in...forever."
▲: Dirk snorted while still kissing Dave, which was awkward but made him laugh
even harder. "Okay, yeah, a concert. Sure. Whatever, it's your birthday." He
sat back down on the bed and just stared at Dave for a moment with a bit of
wonder in his eyes. "Sometimes I look at you and I see myself." Oh, great, here
comes the verbal firehose. "Not in some dumb kind of metaphorical way, I mean
like literally, I'll look at you and be like, 'those are my cheekbones; I can
tell even though the skin lays differently over them' or something like that.
It's like having sex with myself if I was half someone else. I don't even know
you and I already like you so much-- does that make me a narcissist?"
▼: "You were already a narcissist," Dave assured him as he sat back down and
picked up the pipe. But as he spoke he became more serious, or at least as
serious as he was able to be at the moment. "Of course we could say it's all
due to my dynamic personality and like. Literally insane sex appeal. That'd
definitely part of it." He tamped down what was left in the bowl with the end
of the lighter. "But I think we're both smart enough to know that there's...uh.
Maybe something else going on here." He took another puff, exhaling and
watching the smoke again as it floated out the window. "Probably you're not in
the mood to talk about that, though. I wouldn't blame you. I haven't been in
the mood to talk about it for the past two weeks, not that Roxy hasn't tried."
He leaned forward to pass the pipe again. "Still. Gotta face facts: we're not
second cousins. We're...something else."
▲: Dirk stared blankly at the residue on the bottom of the lighter, flipping it
over and over between his fingers. "Not in a big hurry to face those facts.
Cause when I do, all signs point to it meaning I probably can't fuck you
anymore." He wiped the lighter off on the pants he was wearing (whatever, they
were black anyway) and went to light up but then paused, as if something
occurred to him. "I mean, it's one thing to go on deluding yourself and being
like, 'shit, man, I didn't know, I never would have kept sleeping with him if I
had known that' but at some point you gotta man up and admit that yeah, you
knew it all along, but you kept doing it anyway because it felt that fuckin'
good." He wasn't looking directly at Dave when he said any of this; rather, he
was looking at one point of light off in the distance through Dave's window,
some kind of radio tower or something. "Something this easy can't be good," he
said more to himself than to Dave, spacing out a little bit. Then he snapped to
and looked down at the pipe in his hand. "Damnit, Dirk, it's not a fuckin'
microphone," he muttered before lighting up.
▼: Dirk was looser than he had been. Well, he'd been loose since slamming all
those shots, and getting pretty well fucked, which Dave congratulated himself
for, but the weed was making Dirk looser still, almost unraveling him entirely,
which Dave was able to watch with an abnormal amount of detachment, all things
considered. When he spoke, it was more clinical of a tone than he usually
managed. "Like I said. I'm not saying we gotta talk about it. I'm not looking
forward to that discussion either. But if we ever do talk about it, when we're
sober, hopefully, although with us who even fucking knows, but if we do, don't
think of it like...I mean, who's to say you *can't* fuck me? If you don't want
to, that's different--" and pretty fucking unlikely, Dave thought inwardly, but
decided not to say. "But *can't* is something else entirely. *Can't* makes me
think of Roxy's weird cult shit again. Like some sort of personification of the
cosmos is gonna reach out and point out the many fucked up thing inherent in
our actions. No fucking thank you."
▲: Dave was in a slight backlit silhouette: Dirk could see all of his features
but not as clearly as he otherwise could because of the glow of the lights
through the window. There was something of a neon corona around him, shining
brightly through the curls all over his head, and the effect was a little less
film noir, a little more substance abuse space tragedy, like a fucking
Aronofsky film or something. The plot would involve two dudes stranded on the
moon who fuck and take mind-altering medication to keep from going insane, and
later on they find out that they are first-degree relatives, but through some
kind of supernatural space/time shenanigans that make sense to no one but the
director. Yeah, that felt kinda fitting. The effect right now was caused by the
sun rising behind Dave's head as seen from the moon. Maybe the twist would be
that they'd been lied to all along and they could never go home.
He was completely lost on this convoluted mental tangent that really boiled
down to nothing more than 'wow, that light shining through Dave's hair looks
cool', and he technically heard the words that Dave said, but it look a while
for them to make sense. "Okay, fine. Throw out can't. What about should?" He
realized he was still holding the fucking pipe, so he reached out to hand it
back to Dave, since he really didn't know what else to do with it. It took
considerable effort to lift his arm.
▼: He took it from Dirk, considering his question. "Dude. Do you think if I
knew what I should do I'd be sitting here smoking with you right now?" He
looked at the bowl after he pulled from it. "It's cashed," he said, and dumped
the rest of it out. There might have been a few more hits in it, but he figured
that Dirk probably didn't smoke regularly and Dave himself hadn't in weeks. It
seemed like it was hitting both of them pretty hard, so he stood up and put the
pipe and lighter back in the drawer. He sat down next to Dirk on the bed,
getting close and wrapping his arms around him lightly. "Hell, if I did what I
should have done in the first place I wouldn't be sitting here right now. I'd
be up in Bumfuck, Nowhere, with Lalonde teaching me how to knit." He rested his
head on Dirk's shoulder. "My Lalonde, obviously. Not Roxy. God, that's so
fucking weird. I didn't even know what to say when I found out they had the
same last name, except 'Well. Fuck.'" He paused. "We should definitely go get
some water, dude." That would involve finding shirts, though, so Dave just
stayed where he was for a minute.
▲: Dirk sat still, letting Dave lean on him for a while. He wasn't overly eager
to stand up and he wasn't entirely certain that his body would obey his brain
even if he changed his mind about it. The best he could manage was to slip one
arm around Dave's waist and rest his fingers where the waistband of the
sweatpants met Dave's hip bone, sliding his first two fingers a few inches
under the elastic.
"I just want you all the time," he said finally. He wasn't just talking about
sex, although that was a major part of it. There was some kind of unexplainable
bond between them. He'd never felt this protective of anyone before. Not even
Jake, for whom he'd had a fierce protective instinct, but this was different
somehow. He'd been in love with Jake for something like five or six years
before anything even happened between them, and that was pretty clearly the
basis of the instinct. Well, that, and the fact that Jake was a little too
idealistic to know when he was in over his head. Dave was different from Jake
in just about every single way, except for the fact that Dirk couldn't stop
thinking about him. Where Jake was an idealist, Dave was cynical. Dirk wasn't
in love with Dave, but there was something going on here. Maybe that's what
Dave had been getting at, with the conversations that neither of them wanted to
have. "Aren't you the one who said it's pointless to think about how things
might have been if you'd made different choices? Well. I'm not talking about
choices I've already made. I'm talking about ones I haven't even considered
yet."
▼: "Weed's making you paranoid, dude" said Dave, but his voice came out
sounding more glib than he wanted it to. "Ok. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
It's just...." He closed his eyes, savored the feel of Dirk's warm hands on him
before opening them again. "So, let's just both operate on the assumption that
we're not seriously talking about this, because we're both way too high and
tired and probably still too drunk for that. But just answer my question and
then we'll get water and talk about penises or something stupid, ok?" He
readjusted slightly, so he was facing Dirk more, and he tilted Dirk up by the
chin and looked at his eyes. "Do you believe me now, about that stuff I said
about my bro? Or does a part of you believe me, at least? I'm not saying you
swallow everything Roxy said, about two universes and all that shit, but. Just
the part I told you."
▲: Dirk ran his hand up Dave's back. "Hmm. Yeah," he said, pulling his legs up
onto the bed and pushing Dave gently backwards onto the mattress. "There are
parts that I don't empirically believe, but that's not the same as not
believing you, if that makes sense." He put his face in Dave's chest and
pressed kisses into his skin, not really trying to start anything sexual (he
was so far from being able to get a boner right now) but just desiring the
sensation of Dave's skin against his lips, bumpy from the window breeze. He
pressed kisses all the way down Dave's sternum to his solar plexus. "I believe
that I'd do anything to protect you as long as you kept wanting me to. Even if
we weren't fucking like baboons."
▼: "That's reassuring-- ahaha. Jesus." He wasn't usually ticklish, but
something about the goosebumps on his skin accompanying everything else made
him laugh. He was thinking, about how Dirk's words made him feel sort of warm
inside, made the goosebumps worse, even though it sort of chapped his ass that
he needed protection at all. But he supposed if it had to be anyone...
Before much of this train of thought could take hold, his body had moved
practically on its own. He hooked Dirk under the arms, catching him unawares
and flipping him over onto his back, with Dave straddling his hips. "Look at
this. Motherfucking wrestling, bitch, how you like me now." He started trying
to hold Dirk's arms down and press him into the mattress with his body, but
eventually Dave spread out alongside Dirk and sank down to kiss him lazily. He
didn't even feel up to anything else but bullshit tussling like this. He knew
he really should get up and get some water for them, but he couldn't stand to,
because the bed was warm and Dirk's skin was even warmer and dry against his
own, although not as nearly as dry as Dave's mouth was. So they ended up back
where they'd started, with Dave curling up next to him. "Water. I'm going now.
I'm like a thirsty man in a fucking desert, and the tap in the bathroom is only
a beautiful mirage to me. God. Ok, let's go. Seriously, I'm going to get some
fucking water. I mean, what is this, I can run away and escape Jack fucking
Noir, but I'm utterly bested by the prospect of getting us two Dixie cups of
water? Let me go, dude, we gotta do this."
▲: "Thought I told you 'bout starting things you don't know how to finish,"
Dirk said with only a slight twinge of annoyance, but it dissipated a bit when
Dave kissed him. "Mmm." He pulled Dave down for another. "You should know
better than to try to wrestle with me, boy. Get you in an armbar and then we'll
see how well you can fill up a Dixie cup with a dislocated shoulder and a
hyperextended elbow." He leaned toward Dave and propped his head up with one
elbow. "I'm sure you'd be quite shocked to learn that I'm something of a master
at submission holds. Or, well, I was, but shit's like riding a bicycle. You're
lucky I like you so much." Dirk was honestly quite shocked that he was able to
speak as well as he could at the moment, and to be perfectly honest he was glad
to be off of the subject of their connection. "You realize it's... like... not
even midnight yet? How is it that all the fun parts of the night are already
over?"
▼: He looked over his shoulder at his cheap clock radio. He stood up finally
and stretched. "Dunno. I feel like hydration is important here, though, so I'll
be right back." He decided not to bother with a shirt-- fucking brothel,
remember?-- and returned from the bathroom a short while later, not with Dixie
cups, but with a cheap sport bottle from a gym down the street that Dave had
never been to. He took a swig and handed it to Dirk. "Well, it is pretty early.
If you're tired we could go to bed. If you sober up we could go another round."
And then, on a sudden urge and because he was still blazed as fuck, he leaned
down to whisper in Dirk's ear and run a hand down the front of his (really,
Dave's) pants. "Hell, if you want to you could even show me one of your fucking
submission holds you love so much," he said, and he squeezed lightly at the
bulge in Dirk's sweatpants. Which was actually pretty prominent even now,
because Dave's sweatpants really were way too small on Dirk.
▲: Dirk took the bottle and gulped from it, not even realizing how dry his
mouth had been until the water touched it. Oh man, that felt amazing. His eyes
flicked up to Dave's at the mention of a second round. That would be ideal,
actually, although he really didn't know if he could get it up again at this
point. He'd definitely need to sober up a little bit. "No... I don't want to go
to bed," he said flatly. Dave's touch got a small response from his dick, but
not a big enough one to mirror the way it felt in spirit. He shifted his weight
on the bed to make room for Dave. "I... could do that. I don't think it'd be as
sexy as you seem to think, though. Mostly it would hurt a lot." He didn't
actually want to hurt Dave right now. What he really wanted was to put his lips
on everything; he craved that tactile sensation of the tiny hairs tickling his
lips and the warmth of Dave's skin. Maybe if he couldn't get it up in a
reasonable amount of time he'd give Dave a long, meandering blowjob. Shit, that
sounded fantastic. It even made his dick twitch a little, but nowhere near
enough. He realized he'd been eyeing Dave's lower lip while having this train
of thought, so he leaned in and made like he was going to kiss Dave, but
instead he bit it softly. "I swear you're not even a person, you're just a
fuckin' magnet." For some reason, this made Dirk chuckle, in a way that started
small but rolled over on itself and began to grow. "Fuckin' miracles, bro."
▼: "Ugh, don't start me on that hokey clown bullshit," said Dave as Dirk's low
laugh washed over him. "I'm serious, that shit...like, just ICP is bad enough,
but then you have the weird troll clown religion that I swore for the longest
time I thought was a joke but I'm actually pretty sure is not...yeah, boner
poison, dude," he said, but he leaned down to kiss Dirk's cheek, moving his
mouth up his jawbone until he was nipping at Dirk's earlobe and muttering
again. "Don't even care what you do to me, dude. I think...at this point I
might let you do whatever you wanted. Even when I'm not kinda stoned and drunk.
Crazy, right?" For being the somewhat more sober of the two of them, he really
was starting to lose ground here. He was getting horny as fuck again, he
realized as he moved in just the right way that Dirk's thigh rubbed against his
dick.
▲: Dirk continued chuckling, too low to be a giggle but with the same
enthusiasm, while Dave kissed along his jaw. "Stop it, dude, this is so fucking
unfair. I can't get it up right now and you *know* it you malicious
motherfucker." As turned on as he was, he was in that alcohol limbo where it
just wasn't going to happen for a while no matter what Dave said or did to him,
although that didn't mean he actually wanted Dave to stop, despite his
protests. He knew that if he chased it, he'd just wind up in a maddening place
where he was breathless and horny but had no way to release the energy because
of whiskey dick.
Maybe it was worth it. Maybe he deserved that kind of torture anyway. But,
first he needed to do something. He crawled over Dave and got out of the bed,
pulling off the overly tight sweatpants and shutting the window. "It might get
hot. Deal with it. I want you sweaty and squirming, like you did that first
time," he said, leaning down to pull Dave's pants off too.
▼: He'd gotten lost in watching Dirk's ass on the way to the window, and the
way the muscles in his back move and he shut it, and suddenly the thought hit
Dave: holy crap, he had fucked that ass. That ass had totally been his not even
two hours ago. He almost laughed, but then just as suddenly Dirk was on him,
peeling off Dave's own pants before Dave could even react. He squirmed out of
them, making Dirk's wish come true before Dirk himself had even done anything.
"Sure," said Dave breathlessly as he pulled Dirk down on top of him. "When you
took my blowjob virginity. How well I remember it. What an unlikely sequence of
events, right?"
▲: Dirk's face was somewhere in the vicinity of Dave's neck, so his voice was
muffled when he said, "Wait, are you serious? That was your first blowjob?" He
put one leg between both of Dave's, rubbing his thigh lightly against Dave's
dick as he kissed down Dave's chest again. Man, how quickly they had gotten
right back into this. Like flipping a switch. This was kinda what he'd meant
about things being too easy. It wasn't natural for two people to have this kind
of effect on each other. "You'd fucked a girl but never gotten a blowjob. Damn.
You never do anything in order, do you?" The heat radiated up from Dave's naked
body and got trapped between them. No more fuckin' goosebumps. He licked around
one of Dave's nipples and reached down to palm Dave's dick.
▼: "I'm an enigma," he agreed. It was sort of weird, but you couldn't just ask
a girl who was a hooker to give you a blowjob when she was getting high and
fucking you on her off-duty time. That would be all kinds of presumptuous, but
Dave wasn't sure how to say that without sounding weird, so he just hissed when
Dirk brushed over his cock. Due to one thing or another he'd never actually
*asked* for a blowjob before all of this, but...yeah. They were pretty alright.
He could sort of see what the fuss was now.
He felt himself getting hard again, and it was different than before for
whatever reason. He felt almost light-headed, disconnected from himself when he
looked down and ran his hand up the side of Dirk's head. "Guess I just never
wanted anybody to do it till I met you. Probably helps that you actually enjoy
giving 'em."
▲: "Stop it, you might actually make me feel special," Dirk said into Dave's
chest. He kept running his palm up and down over Dave's cock, but didn't make
any moves to grab it yet. He was mesmerized by Dave's body, particularly the
way the skin pricked up at his touch, despite the fact that there was no longer
a breeze from the window. "I do owe you like 998 more of them, so. I'm not a
man who breaks promises. Remember that." He closed his eyes and pressed his ear
to Dave's ribcage, listening to his heart beat and running his free hand up and
down Dave's side. He was getting sidetracked, lost in the sensuality of the
moment, which was apparently a side effect of being too drunk to enjoy the
cruder aspects of sexuality and too high to keep your thinking linear.
He looked up at Dave, his face so transparent with affection that he'd be
embarrassed for himself if he wasn't blitzed out of his mind. "Holy shit, you
are so fucking gorgeous." He pressed down on Dave's dick a little harder. "I
just don't fucking care. I don't care who you are, in relation to me, I don't
give a fuck about any of it. My reptile brain is so obsessed with you, and I
don't just mean the sex but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to lay here
and just make you come until one of us passes out." Yeah, he was definitely
going to feel embarrassed about that later, but at the moment he just got
himself back on track and started kissing down further, towards Dave's belly
button.
▼: "Think that's going to be you, at this rate," said Dave, moving up a little
bit to sit against the pillows more comfortably. He put his hands in Dirk's
hair again, smiled vaguely because he was horny, but not horny enough to get
pissy about Dirk fucking around and babbling instead of getting to business.
"You're probably going to pass out with my dick in your mouth. You are baked."
He rolled his hips up when Dirk kissed his stomach, which was less ambiguous
than whatever he could think to say, because nothing much was coming to mind.
Not just because he wasn't sober, but because what were you supposed to say
about so much unhidden affection like that? It might have freaked him out a bit
with anybody, but with Dirk especially it was jarring. "I'm just...yeah. That's
nice. You're nice. I don't know. I want you to kiss me again, alright?" He sat
up, leaned forward far enough until he could tilt Dirk's head up and cover up
his mouth. Kissing now that he'd had some water was better than talking,
although nothing was better than Dirk's hand rubbing, even lightly, along his
dick. Dave sank back against the pillow again, dazed and tingling all along his
front, where Dirk's lips were ghosting against his skin.
▲: Dirk bit bluntly at the skin under Dave's navel, more like scraping than
pinching, and Dave's pubic hair brushed against the underside of his chin.
"Maybe." He chuckled again. This was the most laughing he could remember doing
in a long time, and he hadn't even been laughing *that* much. "Okay, if I do...
do that. Pass out with your dick in my mouth. Ha, that would be... Okay. If
that happens, just... take it out on me however you want." He emphasized the
last thought with a squeeze at the base of Dave's dick.
"Wait," he said suddenly and crawled back up the bed so that both hands were on
the pillow on either side of Dave, and Dirk was propping himself up with locked
elbows. He looked down at Dave for a minute, and then dropped down to kiss Dave
one more time, using all of his weight to press Dave into the pillows and the
mattress. He flexed his hips a little bit to grind against Dave, really just
craving that feeling of full body touching before isolating himself to Dave's
crotch.
▼: When Dirk squeezed his dick, Dave let out a choked laugh, and of course it
was shortly after that Dave felt the semi-erection, which he'd been sporting
since Dirk pulled him onto the bed, go fully hard. His legs fell apart almost
on their own, and he made a long half-hum, half-moan before he'd even quite
realized it. He knew how Dirk operated by now, so there wasn't any anxiety in
what he was doing as he pressed his face to Dave's crotch again, and while it
felt good, and somewhat more urgent than a second ago, Dirk wasn't rushed, and
neither was Dave. He was dazed, not tired, and it was early. He really could go
all night.
Thinking about it as he pulled absently at Dirk's hair, this was probably the
least tense he'd ever been pre-sex, because he had precisely jackshit to worry
about this time, and Dirk knew it. Like there wasn't anything between them now,
fewer barriers than there had been before. Which Dave had been feeling all
along, really, but for the first time he felt like it was directed at *Dirk*,
and not just a misfire of misremembered emotions surrounding Bro. Yeah. The
familiarity was nice and also, more explicitly and specifically, the pressure
on his cock, the heat on his skin.
He was spacing out, though, and realized Dirk deserved a little reaction. He
wrapped his legs around Dirk's back and scraped his fingernails over Dirk's
scalp, canting his body up towards Dirk as he did.
▲: The fingernails against his scalp flipped some kind of switch in Dirk,
triggering some kind of determination, probably because it was unexpected and
sharp. He made a low, content noise deep in his chest and dug in with his hips,
feeling a little bit frustrated that he wasn't currently able to fuck Dave
properly. What he really wanted right now, more than anything, was to make Dave
scream. Oh well. There was always next time. And Dirk was becoming pretty
comfortable wth his assumption that there would be a next time (as if the
birthday plans they had just made weren't proof enough, although at the time a
small part of Dirk thought that Dave might not have been taking him seriously
at the time).
He was suddenly afflicted by a powerful urge to blow Dave for a while and then
put him in a sudden anklelock somewhere in the middle of it, just because Dave
had made such a show of not caring what Dirk did to him, but he allowed that
impulse to pass with nothing more than another laugh. "Dude. You're just gonna
have to shove my head down there, because I keep gettin' distracted up here."
▼: "You're being a shitty drunk tease by not going ASAP for my cock, just so
you know," said Dave, pushing Dirk down and laughing. "Now that you've said it,
one of us is pretty much cursed to pass out sometime soon, and let me tell you,
it's not gonna be me, alright? And we both know you're obsessed with my dumb
face because you see in me some fucked up reflection of yourself, so get to
it." He didn't shove particularly hard, though, just pushed lightly on Dirk's
shoulders. "Like, this is me being the fucking taskmaster, dude. Get used to it
because I think you'll find when it comes to being a shitty, ineffective
taskmaster, I'm simply the most shitty and ineffective there is." He sank back
against the pillows again, just to drive in the point.
▲: "Okay, okay, princess. I'm going. Just..." He nipped at Dave's jaw for a
moment and reached down to squeeze his dick again. "Just keep talking to me,
okay? Might get lonely down there. Keep me on track and shit." He let Dave sink
into the pillows and shifted back down the bed one more time-- hopefully for
the last time, at least during this round. He held Dave at the base and jiggled
it gently while kissing Dave's hip bone and then moving lower, down the crease
of his leg just barely outside the line of his public hair. Dave was hard, so
Dirk began stroking him slowly, moving over to lick his balls on the upstroke
and pull one of them into his mouth, very lightly sucking on it before moving
over and doing the same with the other one. Dave's skin had that undersmell of
sweat that was actually kinda pleasant right now. Maybe it was weird, but Dirk
really kinda liked it, so he leaned forward and licked around the head slowly
and deliberately.
▼: "Fine. You got it. Here I go." When he felt Dirk's mouth on him, he wrapped
his legs around Dirk's body again, resting his feet almost flat just above his
hips. When Dirk took his balls into his mouth, he curled his toes, wiggled them
a few times before sighing. "You just...I think what I called it before is a
reckless dick-sucking enthusiasm? Yeah, that phrase has been pretty much etched
on my frontal lobe, it is inextricably associated in my mind for all time with
that handsome fucking face of yours. How 'bout that...ooh. Shit. You just..."
He sighed and scraped lightly at the top of Dirk's head again. "You just play
me like a slide-whistle or some shit, I guess. Whatever. I'm over it. You do it
pretty well. Do it again, right there. Fuck."
▲: Dirk let Dave's babbling wash over him while he ran his tongue under the
edge of Dave's head. He let his free hand wander over Dave's thighs and hips
before finally resting it on Dave's lower abdomen, his fingers curling into
Dave's pubic hair, not quite tugging on it but perhaps threatening to. He had
already noticed the way Dave's speech faded a bit every time he ran his tongue
along the bottom, so he obliged when Dave asked him to repeat it, massaging the
spot gently with the tip of his tongue this time. "I was thinking harp, before.
Not last time but--" he dipped back down to lick up the underside of Dave's
dick from the base to the tip, "the time before, last time the last time, by
the window. I kept thinking. Harp. Strings. I guess side-whistle makes more
sense for a blowjob, though." He licked up again, this time taking the whole
head in his mouth when he reached the tip and sucking on it gently, looking up
at Dave's face.
▼: "What? Oh. Yeah." He laughed when he got it. "Yeah, a harp's good too. Whole
bevy of ridiculous fucking instruments. Like a fucking glockenspiel or what the
fuck ever..." He let out a whistle, as good an imitation he could do of a slide
whistle, but towards the end he got distracted by Dirk's mouth around his cock,
and even the slight bit of suction he applied to it, and Dave was left just
puffing air out of his mouth. Like he was still smoking or something. It was
then that Dirk caught his eyes, and Dave smiled. "Yeah. The window. I remember
the window. That was nice. You talking me down from my little conniption fit.
Shit, that entire night and day was pretty much one big conniption fit. I
didn't even realize it at the time, but that's what it fucking was." His hand
trailed down from the scalp, ran over Dirk's cheek lightly even as Dave had to
lick his lips at the sensations Dirk's motions caused. "This is nicer. This
is...yeah. It's chill."
Dave's mouth was dry again, so he reached for the water bottle, which he'd left
within reach. He took a swig, and then held it down by Dirk's face. "As much of
a crime as it would be for you to take your mouth off my cock right now...want
some? Mouth must be getting a little dry by now."
▲: Dirk propped himself up a little and took a drink. It was still cold, and he
wondered if Dave had really thought that through because now his mouth was
going to be cold on Dave's dick. "Yeah, this is nice, but that was too." He
made to go back down, but then paused, like he'd just remembered something he
wanted to add. "You asked me to hold you." He hoped that came out nonchalant,
but really it had shaken him at the time. The whole thing had shaken him, but
that moment of vulnerability had really stuck in his mind, and he kept coming
back to it like it was a loose string that kept dragging across his bare skin
and making him think a ghost of something was touching him. He buried the
thought and then buried himself between Dave's legs, taking him deeper in his
mouth. His throat was feeling a lot better than last time, so he was pretty
sure he could take Dave all the way with a little effort.
▼: He shuddered, both at the slightly cooler feel of Dirk's mouth on him, and
at Dirk's words themselves. "Yeah. I did." *So what?* didn't seem like an
especially productive response to this line of questioning, but it was the only
one he could think of. "I...that's not really. That's not how I am usually. I
mean. It's all messed up in my head, some of that stuff. You know how it is
sometimes. You just want to..." He let out another breath as Dirk's mouth
became warmer again, as the wetness surrounded his cock. "I'm sayin' a lot of
stuff that doesn't mean anything. Basically it was a weird regressive impulse
but you did it and it was nice I guess. I *guess*. Fuck that, it was really
nice. Like I said." Being more descriptive than that was beyond him, but that
was ok when Dirk took him deeper into his mouth. He pressed the balls of his
feet down on Dirk's lower back and sighed.
▲: He wanted to tell Dave that he was misunderstanding, that Dirk had liked it,
even though it rocked him. It had kinda set a tone. Dirk had already been
willing to do what it took to keep Dave safe-- at least until he could figure
out what the hell was even going *on* with Dave-- but that simple request had
made it a lot more personal. Maybe he was overthinking this. Definitely he was
overthinking this. He decided to stop thinking and do more dick sucking. If he
couldn't fuck Dave until he screamed, he could at least give Dave the best
blowjob that he could in this state of inebriation and try to get a few good
moans out of it. He relaxed his throat and took Dave in deeper, not quite all
the way down, but setting a rhythm that he could adapt as he continued. He
gripped Dave's sides tightly with his hands, wanting more of him than he could
reach.
▼: "Shit," he said when Dirk's hands tightened around him and he blinked a few
times, thinking of the morning when Dirk had blown him and Dave had fantasized
wistfully about Dirk being able to deep throat him sometime in the far future.
Yeah, trips down memory lane were pretty exciting like that, especially when
the encounter you were canonizing happened in the far-flung past of literally
less than two weeks ago. Still, the entire time had solidified in his mind,
strange and unreal but also more intense, more concrete and present to him than
any other part of his life had been since he'd moved into Roxy's place. He'd
felt cut-off from everything since then, detached and unsure of himself even
more than usual, but Dirk brought him back, Dirk's mouth and throat brought him
back, more to the point; they were insistent, to say nothing of his clenching
hands. Dave was panting, now, and his breaths were more loud and ragged. Dirk's
hands were holding his hips still, but he was still trying to rock them as much
as he could, his hands squeezing lightly on top of Dirk's. "Dirk," he said,
finally, the word sounding strange in his mouth even after he'd said it.
▲: Finally, Dirk was fixating on the right thing. His determination was going
to work out in Dave's favor because Dirk kept pushing down farther every time,
until his nose was bumping Dave's public hair on every downstroke and he felt
Dave brushing against his throat, felt completely stuffed with Dave, though not
in the same way that he had been a while ago. This was more, well, in-your-
face, quite literally. (He took a brief moment to thank the god he didn't
believe in that they'd been using condoms, but wow, what a weird thought to be
having right now.) After a bit of this, he pulled it back and stayed on the
head for a while, giving his jaw a bit of a rest. "Yeah?" He gripped the base
hard and stroked it rapidly for just a minute while he took another pull of
water from the bottle. "You stopped talkin'."
▼: "Oh shit, you're right," he said, catching his breath somewhat even as Dirk
took him deeper. "Real sorry, to stopper up the substantive discourse we were
rocking there." Really he wouldn't have minded just shutting up, getting lost
in the feeling and his myriad thoughts, but that wasn't exactly helpful, and
ignoring Dirk was not sporting, and also really not what he wanted to do right
now. He sighed again and put one of his arms under his head so he could watch
Dirk more easily. "Just thinking about shit. 'Bout how I'm glad we made this
happen again. 'This' being 'giving me a blow job.' I was wondering about it,
although maybe I shouldn't have because my dick is like a Dirk-magnet pretty
much." He watched Dirk suck greedily from the water bottle, which took on a
dirty thrill now that Dirk's lips had literally just been on his cock. "But
yeah, I should focus on the immediate here. Dick sucking is no joke, k? That's
what I have learned."
▲: The water had gotten warmer but probably was still too cold to go right back
down on a very hard dick, so Dirk decided to warm up his tongue in Dave's
mouth. He kept his grip on Dave's dick but moved up and forward, kissing him
wide and sloppily. Dave never seemed to be squeamish about oral sex kisses, and
Dirk really appreciated that (it had been a bit of a problem with Jake, not
that he was thinking about that at the moment). "Shh, shut up so I can hear
you," he whispered as he pulled away again, grinning wildly. For some reason he
was really amused by throwing conflicting demands at Dave while blowing him.
What he said didn't even make sense, although in his head it kinda did. He got
back down on his elbows and took Dave in again, happy to notice that he could
go all the way down again almost immediately, and used one of his hands to
massage Dave's balls, a little rougher than before but not enough to veer into
uncomfortable territory.
▼: "Oh, sure thing, dude. That makes so much sense." Fortunately for Dirk, Dave
was high and getting more and more lost in the sensations by the minute, so
really, the discourse was only going to get more elevated from here on out. He
briefly forgot about words, though, when Dirk took him deeper and gripped him
by the balls. Having someone by the balls. Truly the width and breadth of that
cliche had not him until right now. He gasped audibly, thinking as he did that
he did see the stupid sense behind Dirk's words. 'Shut up, stop blabbing, I
actually want to *hear* you,' like Dirk actually wanted to hear him behind all
the nonsense he usually said. He caught himself shortly thereafter, said Dirk's
name again and stretched out his legs, feeling a tautness in his body, in his
cock. This blowjob was longer than last time, or felt that way. Not that he
minded, but it made him feel like Dirk was just pulling him along, just
stretching him along like a piece of gum. "You shit," he said, smiling and
resting a hand on Dirk's shoulder. Just to say something.
▲: Dirk brought down the intensity of the ball-squeezing but maintained the
pressure on them, squeezing them lightly but in time with the rhythm he was
using to go all the way down on Dave's dick. After some amount of time of slow
but deep face-fucking, he decided to sacrifice deep throating for speed for the
time being, reining it in a little bit so that he could bob more rapidly around
Dave's head, running the flat of his tongue over the sensitive underside with
each stroke. He finally let go of Dave's balls so that he could use his hand in
time with his mouth on the rest of Dave's shaft. "Yeah," he managed to say,
"yeah, exactly." He could sense Dave's body tightening in front of him and
around him, and he tried to play on that, going a little slower when Dave
tensed up and then getting faster again when he relaxed.
▼: He was panting more and more. "Yeah, *exactly*," he said, and moaned out of
exasperation or maybe something else when Dirk slowed down. He rolled his hips,
trying to get Dirk to take him deeper again, or just trying to intensify the
rougher feeling on the sensitive part of his cock. He had clenched a fist in
Dirk's hair without realizing it again, but that was alright; Dirk liked that,
he remembered. He liked the feel of it too, and even the little things like the
noises or the tiny puffs of air from Dirk's nose as he worked Dave
methodically. "Yeah, slide whistle was the most accurate musical equivalent for
this unmitigated bullshit. This fucking horse hockey crap shoot. I'm
gonna...*fuck*. I'm getting close."
▲: Dirk would have smiled, had he been able to do anything else with his mouth
right now. It was good to feel, at least for a little while, like he was
playing Dave and not the other way around. He probably enjoyed it a little too
much, because he took his time adjusting the rhythm to keep it just under what
Dave really wanted. He knew that he could only get away with this for so long,
since even low stimulation applied for long enough will do the job, so when
Dave gave a particularly nasty twist to his hair, Dirk picked up the pace just
barely enough to feel Dave react to it, his limbs going rigid around Dirk's
back. He wasn't going to just give it to Dave, though, he was gonna make Dave
ride through it and wait until it came to him on its own. He also noticed with
some dismay that he was getting really fucking turned on by the way that Dave
was writhing and panting on the bed, and that if he didn't sober up enough to
get off, he was going to have a pretty big problem on his hands later.
▼: "Fuck." He licked his lips, took a deep breath because his voice was going
higher than he wanted it to and he was almost groaning with frustration. He
crossed his ankles over Dirk's back and there was no way he could stop himself
from jerking his hips up towards Dirk's mouth. He was too strung out like that
piece of bubble gum he'd been reminded of earlier, too close to stop himself.
He wasn't lifting himself off the bed but he might have liked to. "Yeah, ok.
I'm...*shit*. I'm--" Obviously there was really no need to clarify what he was
trying to get at there, and a second before he came he wondered if he was even
going to quite manage it, but then Dirk gave a twist to the base of his cock
and *sucked* and...yeah. He threw his head back, straightened out his legs and
rode it out. Yeah, blow jobs were pretty great. If his time with Dirk taught
him nothing else, it definitely taught him that. He fist loosened up in Dirk's
hair, and he let out a long breath, whatever was left over from the almost-
scream he'd let out when he came.
▲: Dirk didn't mind the thrusting too much; he honestly kinda expected it, so
he was prepared for it. And anyway, he was pretty much willing to let Dave do
whatever he needed to do to get there-- as long as he kept making those goddamn
noises, Dirk would have done anything. He pulled back a little bit to suck on
just the head when Dave finally came, stroking it out of him with his fist
while he sat back and watched Dave's body tense and relax. When it was nearly
over, he crawled forward and laid down half on top of Dave, pushing his face
into the crook of Dave's neck. Shit. So close to a scream. He was going to
count it, because fuck it. He really needed to get up and go spit, but he
didn't know where the bathroom was and he really just wanted to smother Dave
for a minute, so he held off and just kept it in his mouth. Seems pointless to
spit if you're going to hold on to it for this long, but old habits die hard.
He wrapped an arm around Dave and tangled their legs together, keeping silent.
▼: He finally opened his eyes to look at Dirk, getting ready to say something
to him. He tilted Dirk's head up before noticing; shit, he hadn't swallowed,
had he? Before Dave even really thought about it, he was giving Dirk the
messiest kiss yet and taking his own semen into his mouth. He hadn't really
meant to snowball that shit originally, but it wasn't like he hadn't done it
before with other people's, plus there was something far less objectionable
about swallowing your own. "Shit," he said, wiping off his own mouth with the
back of his hand and then dabbing at a stray spot at the corner of Dirk's.
"Kinda fussy, huh? Were you just gonna loogie that shit onto the floor or
something?"
▲: Dirk didn't even realize what Dave was about to do until Dave's tongue was
already in his mouth, licking around sloppily and taking all of the come. He
wasn't super efficient, though, so some of it dribbled out of the corner of
Dirk's mouth. To say that Dirk was incredibly confused would be to put far too
fine of a point on it. Strange as it may seem, Dirk had never done this before,
nor had he ever really planned on it. He looked down at Dave with a look of
probably quite hilarious bewilderment, as though he didn't actually believe
what had just happened. He just kinda stared for a few seconds, pretty clearly
needing a moment to process the situation, and then he pushed forward and
kissed Dave with a ferocity that was probably entirely unwarranted but which he
was unable to hold inside. Something just kinda... snapped. Something
animalistic. He held Dave's jaw with one hand while he pressed down on Dave,
smothering him, exploring Dave's mouth with his tongue and tasting the residual
flavor of the come on both of their lips. After a minute of this, he calmed
down a little and pulled back. "The fuck was that?" he asked, somewhat dazed
and unclear as to whether he was even asking about what Dave did or how he
reacted to it.
▼: "I was just keeping you from making a big old mess in my room," he said,
breathless from coming and from that kiss, which was a lot to take in all post-
orgasm-like as he was. "And you just kinda...I don't even know what you just
kinda did but it was just kinda hot? Maybe. You'd think you'd never seen
snowballing before or something. Have you never seen the cinematic chef
d'oeuvre 'Cum Guzzlers 5'? One through four are shit, but five is where they
really get into the material." Yeah, ok, that might have been really hot, and
he was not talking about fucking Cum Guzzlers here. For a second he hadn't even
been able to breathe, and the taste of Dirk had overwhelmed the taste of his
own come and he'd been completely overwhelmed.
▲: Dirk had to take a moment to catch his own breath as well, hovering over
Dave with one arm braced next to Dave's head and panting. "Fuck, Dave." He let
that linger for a moment, then added, "Fuck. Why did you let me drink so much?"
He finally collapsed on to the bed next to Dave, putting one of his arms over
his eyes. "Like, I want to tear you apart right now, but my dick is more
useless than the person whose job it was to come up with the gripping and
imaginative title of the 'Cum Guzzlers' series." It didn't feel all the
useless, actually; it kinda felt like he could probably get it up right now
because he'd kinda worked some of the alcohol out of his system with the
vigorous dick-sucking, but he knew it would take him forever to get off, and
Dave was. Well. He'd just been blown, so Dirk didn't expect much from him.
That's fine. Dirk would just lie here consumed with lust for the rest of the
night while he stared at the ceiling.
▼: "Dude, you can't start regretting how much you've drank, it's not even two
o'clock. Save that for tomorrow morning when you're wondering why you left your
tie with Roxy's wizards. Also, I hardly think your dick is useless, quote
unquote. I have seen a *lot* of useless dicks in my time, and your dick is not
one of them. Ok?" He looked at Dirk, who was staring resolutely at the ceiling.
"Dude. Are you pouting about your whiskey dick? Stop that right now. That was a
ballin' compliment I just paid you, and it's like you said. We got time." He
ran his hand down Dirk's front, rolled over to whisper in his ear. "I said I'd
do anything you wanted earlier. Remember? If you're going to suck my cock 998
more times, I guess I can keep my promises, too."
▲: "997 now, actually," Dirk said, still staring up instead of looking at Dave.
He wished that Dave hadn't brought up Roxy, because now he was just thinking
about how pissed she was still going to be at him come morning. It also
occurred to Dirk that he was going to be spending the night in a brothel. That
was a first. "Maybe I should just go get my tie and my suit jacket now. That
way I can just... dip out the window in the morning and skip the strife with
Roxy." He didn't really mean it, though. Roxy could hold a grudge when she
wanted to-- and he really *had* come here with the intention of talking things
over with her. Now, on the other side of a bunch of drinking and smoking and
fucking, he felt kinda bad about how he'd blown her off earlier. He could still
go talk to her, but... but Dave was rubbing his chest and whispering in his
ear. "God *damn* it." Their sex life was rapidly turning into some kind of
self-pollenating plant that just kept respawning over and over and over again.
A self-fulfilling prophecy.
▼: "Dude, she told me how to climb out this window the first day I got here,"
said Dave. "Which is all well and good, but I'm guessing it means that sneaking
out under her nose is next to impossible. Not that I've had to climb out the
window yet, thankfully. Nobody's come looking for me yet, except you." He
started stroking Dirk's dick, just palming it and testing how hard he could get
it. After all, he'd had to fuck guys that were a lot drunker than Dirk was
right now, but still, this was going to take some coaxing. Might as well talk
while he got to it. "Suppose I should practice my shimmying-down-the-gutter
skills. Just in case."
▲: Dirk didn't know why he'd actually thought of them having anything quite so
mundane as a 'sex life' a minute ago. After all, wasn't this what they had
started with? Sex and waffles. Well, sex, waffles, and big dramatic
revelations. You can totally build a sustainable relationship out of that,
right?
Maybe now wasn't the best time to be deliberating that. Not with Dave's hand on
his dick and Dave's voice in his ear. "Was that innuendo? Because I feel like
it probably was but I'm trying to wrap my brain around it, unless you're gonna
try to climb my cock or something. I know you called it a gargantu-dick once,
but it isn't *that* big." He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind, just
feel Dave's hands and breath on him. It helped a little, especially if he went
back a few minutes in his mind and focused on how Dave had lapped the come out
of his mouth earlier, making their lips salty and bitter and spreading the
taste of Dave all over his face. Fuck. Yeah, that was starting to work.
▼: Dave leaned over to kiss the corner of Dirk's lips, but he smiled instead at
his words. "Yeah, I was hoping just the mental image of me shimmying my ass
down a pipe would give your junk the jump-start it needs, but apparently not."
Not exactly true; maybe he was imagining it, but Dave thought he'd felt a
twitch under his hand, even when Dave had just been shooting the shit about
gutters and random crap. That was a good sign. He rubbed harder over Dirk's
crotch, pressing the heel of his hand into Dirk's pubic hair and massaging with
his fingers up and down the shaft, and nuzzled at the side of Dirk's face. "I
remember the gargantu-dick comment. That was the first time. The very first
time. When you went all alpha male on me. Remember that?"
▲: Dirk kept his eyes closed and exhaled. "Hell yes I remember that. God, I
want to fuck you like that again." Dave doubled down on Dirk's dick, and Dirk
lifted his hips up off of the bed to match him, feeling a pull in his stomach.
He'd long since been past turned on and well into very fucking horny, but he
might... actually... be getting hard. "No... yeah, I think it is working.
You're some kind of dick whisperer, you are. Oh god, this is fuckin'
embarrassing. I can't have you be my dick whisperer, dude. That's a little too
personal. I really only just met you." Admittedly, he was babbling, but it was
also kinda true. Somehow, having Dave coax a boner out of him when he was
blitzed out of his fucking mind was just a little too familiar and tender for
him, in the absolutely weirdest way. Dirk had the strangest limits. Not that he
was going to heed this limit, but he still felt the need to acknowledge its
crossing.
▼: "It's not personal to me, as much," he said, thoughtfully. "I mean, I had to
console drunk losers all the time, and like I said, I've seen lots more
pathetic dicks than yours. But if you don't want it to be personal then don't
make it personal this time," he said, still just stroking at Dirk's dick. He
wasn't imagining it; definitely there was a reaction there, and meanwhile there
was an unspoken sentence ringing in his mind: despite it all, this thing with
Dirk had always been personal for Dave, right from the beginning, even when
Dirk was technically a stranger. Dave didn't actually want to relive that
night, when he'd been confused and lost and then terrified as all hell, but
something in him wanted the roughness he remembered, the teeth sinking into his
back and the gruff note in Dirk's voice that was like Bro's when he got pissed
about something.
So yeah, everything being too personal was the status quo as far as Dave was
concerned, but he was well past caring. He was also pretty close to fucked out
by this point, but he knew what he wanted anyway. "Fuck me like that again.
Didn't I say I'd do what you want? I mean, within reason, and I know you're
still gonna be sloppy because of all that rum I made you drink earlier, but
shit, dude. You've got me at my freakishly mellowest here. I'm basically asking
for the pimp hand, aren't I? I'll put the fucking skirt on again if you want if
you think that ugly piece of shit'll help."
▲: "I can't just--" he broke off, squeezing his eyes shut tightly for a moment
and bucking his hips again because, yes, this was doing the trick, he was like
half hard now. He started over, "I don't want to just use you. If I'm gonna
fuck you, I want you to be getting off on it too." Man, this was why he said
that fucking girls was a lot less complicated. However true that may be, there
was never really a doubt in anyone's mind what Dirk really preferred in a
perfect world. A deep part of him really did want to just fuck the hell out of
Dave whether he was getting off on it or not, though-- probably the same part
of him that had jumped to the surface when Dave had kissed him with all that
come in his mouth. And again, thinking about that sent shivers through his
body. Something about semen and the proximity to Dave's mouth was really
setting him off, here. He didn't want to risk looking down and seeing it not be
true, but he was pretty sure he might have an erection now.
▼: "You do," said Dave softly, wrapping his hand around Dirk's fully hard cock
now. "You do want to use me. Your altruism is. Like. Truly touching me right
now. It's giving me all kinds of thought boners, even though I can't physically
get a boner, you know that?" He paused briefly to smile against Dirk's neck
before he looked up to mutter in his ear again. Thought boners. Classic. "But
you do just want me that way. You do just want to use me, just take me like I'm
a whore you picked up in a bar, like you did the first time. You want me like
that too. I got the evidence right under my hand here, bro." He squeezed gently
at Dirk's cock, and licked a line up the side of his face on impulse. "Plus who
knows. It's gonna take you awhile to get off, I think, what with all your
boozing, and...ok, I'm gonna put this in terms even you can understand: my dick
is a magnet, and its refractory period is a fucking miracle, how does it even
work. You just have to..." He trailed off, waved his hand vaguely in the air
before returning to Dirk's cock. "Believe. You know what I'm saying?"
▲: "I do," Dirk nodded in agreement. "Believe you. And want to. I mean, I
don't... but I do." He couldn't clarify it any more than that, so he didn't
try. Instead, he thrust his miraculously erect dick up into Dave's hand,
thinking he might have to convert because there might actually be a god after
all. He was starting to sweat a little bit, whether from the sex or the closed
window or just the alcohol getting out of his system, he had no idea, but his
skin was getting a little slick and he was starting to discover the real
meaning of the phrase 'hot and bothered'. Dave was hot as hell, a person-sized
nuclear reactor, and Dirk was so far past bothered it wasn't even close to
being funny. He growled low in his throat, that animalistic thing starting to
come back. "Yeah. Go. Get it. Put it on. Treat me like a fucking customer. Like
I'm going to put this out there right now: I actually am starting to care about
you, at least as much as you can care about someone you've known for a couple
of weeks and only spent about 2 days with total, but from the moment I finish
this sentence until I have an orgasm, you're a fucking hooker. Now go put on
that nasty ass skirt."
▼: So he got up, feeling cold as he detached himself from Dirk, but his face
was hot and so was his stomach, all the way down to his dick, even though it
was still too sensitive to even touch. He went over to the ratty dresser and
opened the bottom drawer. He hadn't really expected to ever wear the skirt or
need it again. Hell, he hadn't expected to suggest this to Dirk even if they
did see each other again, but weed did weird things to his libido; he should
have remembered that. At any rate, he'd kept the skirt out of a packrat's
instinct, he supposed. He dug out the shirt he'd been wearing that night too,
which had just been a thin, ratty tee with a v-neck. It was just slightly too
tight on him; all the used clothes he'd been buying were really baggy in
comparison to this thing, which he hadn't even thought about until now. Now the
only thing was the underwear, which was also the same pair; he'd washed that
too, of course. It was the only pair he had that you could wear with a skirt;
he'd been getting used to wearing boxers again in the past two weeks.
Above the dresser was a very small, dirty mirror. He looked in it and flattened
his hair slightly, but didn't bother to angle the mirror down to check himself
out. He had a pretty good idea what he looked like. Instead, he walked back
over to the bed and stood at the head by the nightstand, his hands in the
pockets and his legs astride.
▲: Something inside Dirk was rolling over and over in his chest as he watched
Dave put on the clothes he'd been wearing the night they met. It whipped him
back; he even kinda felt himself feeling involuntarily for the gun that wasn't
there. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed to watch Dave a
little more clearly. His heart beat loudly in his ears when Dave walked back
over to him, transformation complete, standing there with a look on his face
that was half petulant, half scorching. Dirk was so hard right now that his
dick was like, 'alcohol? what even is that?' He looked up into Dave's eyes, and
he could see that the act was on, but also that Dave was definitely under there
too. Good. "God, you are one pretty little whore, aren't you?" He reached out
and touched Dave's thigh, sliding his hand up the inside and under the skirt.
"With lips like those, though, there's really nothing else you're better
qualified for. How much is it going to cost me to fuck you tonight, Tony, and
is there a surcharge for bite marks? I need to know how much to budget for
this."
▼: "Talking business kinda ruins the mood, don’tcha think?" asked Dave,
smirking slightly. "I think you can talk to the management about that sort of
thing. I'm just here for you. You look like you're ready for it." He looked
down at Dirk's cock, still hard even as he sat there. "More than ready," he
added, trying to give a speculative, detached tone to his voice. He took a step
forward, still with his hands in his pockets, letting Dirk's hand rub up his
skirt more. He hummed in pleasure at the cool feel of Dirk's hand and licked
his lips slowly, then finally reached a hand out to tilt Dirk's head up and
look into his eyes. "I'm ready too, boss. You just say the word. Anything you
want."
▲: Dirk reached out with his other hand and slid that one up Dave's skirt too,
this time up the outside so that he could cup Dave's ass with it and squeeze
hard. He kneaded the relatively soft flesh under his fingers and leaned in to
breathe in the soft fabric, rubbing his face on Dave's thighs. "What can I say?
I'm a businessman. Talking about money and the various ways I'm about to spend
it in order to defile your body turns me on. But, okay." He bit at the
waistband of the skirt, pulling it down just a little, just enough for Dave's
hip bone to peek out a little. "I want you to get on your knees and put those
lips on my dick for a while. Make me believe it's the most enthusiastic fucking
blowjob you've ever given a dude. Like you should be paying me for the goddamn
pleasure of sucking it. Do you think you can handle that, kid?"
▼: "Uh-huh," he said, mesmerized and undeniably turned on by the bullshit
coming out of Dirk's mouth. "I'd love to. It'd be a fucking pleasure, sir. Can
I call you that?" He sank to his knees and put his hands on Dirk's, drawing
them apart and coming leaning towards Dirk's cock, which really did seem huge
to him at that moment. Before he put his mouth on it, he looked up at Dirk and
blinked a few times, which was fucking cheesy as hell but he found he couldn't
resist. One nice thing about being who he was; no matter how ridiculous it got,
he knew he wouldn't laugh. He wasn't going to break character, that was for
damn sure. "I hope it's ok, sir. Your cock's just *so big* that I..." He leaned
forward to put his mouth on it, licking up the shaft and then lapping at the
precum at the head. "Mmm," he said, before he took the tip in his mouth,
looking up at Dirk as he did.
▲: "You can call me sir, or you can call me by my name, if you like. Although I
guess I haven't told you that yet. I'm not sure I want you to know, to be
honest." He had to close his eyes for a second when Dave licked him. He had the
benefit of knowing for certain that it was an act right now, but he'd be damned
if he tried to say it wasn't working. Dave was just so good at it. "Maybe if
you're good at your job you'll earn the right to call me by my name. Fucking-
- yeah. Just fucking spit on it." He reached out and put his hand on the back
of Dave's head, pushing him down just a little bit, remembering that Dave told
him how much he hated that. He had no idea why being a huge dick to Dave-- or,
well, Dave's hooker alter ego-- was turning him on like some kind of ape
gorilla, but Dave had given him express permission, so he'd worry about feeling
bad about it later.
▼: He'd been expecting something like it; shit, hadn't he explicitly asked for
the pimp hand? But when Dirk actually did force Dave's head onto his cock, for
a second Dave really was surprised, and he made a genuine noise of shock
despite how small the movement had been. There was spit welling up in his
mouth; he really was slobbering all over Dirk's cock, which was normally a
feeling that he didn't like, but. Well, normally there were a lot of things he
didn't like, and apparently he was about to take a tour of all of them. He made
another noise of distress in the back of throat before he started moving his
lips and tongue around in earnest. He assumed that Dirk would probably be able
to tell the difference between the real noises and the fake ones by now, but
that wasn't really the point, was it? He hollowed his cheeks and really sucked
at it for a second, wrapping his hand around the pretty sizable portion he
wasn't getting in his mouth, before he popped it out of his mouth. "I want to
do good for you," he said breathlessly, looking up through his eyelashes again.
"It's just so big, I...it's a fucking gargantu-dick, sir. That's all there is
to it."
▲: Dave's mouth was warm and slick and all soft, and he appreciated how Dave
could take direction. He hadn't quite articulated it to himself yet, but it
really got him right in the boner whenever Dave licked things with that look of
arrogant sexuality. Like that time he'd licked Dirk's come off of his fingers,
or just a little while ago when he licked Dirk's face. Dirk really enjoyed
having Dave's tongue on him, which was why he moaned in frustration when Dave
pulled away from his dick just then. "I suggest you try a little harder. What
kind of worthless whore can't even take a dick in their mouth?" He moved his
hand down from the back of Dave's head to cup his chin. "Shit. Look at you,
you're getting me all kinds of agitated. Why did you have to go and do that?"
He squeezed a little. "Come on, I'm trying to relax here. You have no idea what
kind of day I've had. I know you can take it, all of it. So try. fucking.
harder."
▼: "Alright," he said softly, and leaned forward to kiss the head in
contrition. Even the small squeeze at his chin had made him shaky, made him
wonder how he was going to deal when Dirk got really rough. "I'll try. You
might need to help me, but I'll try so hard for you." He kissed it again
sloppily before taking the head in his mouth, sucking at it and lapping at it
with his tongue. He gradually started to take it further and further back into
his mouth, and eventually stopped with the fake-cute act and just got into the
feel of it in his mouth, the taste of his own spit mixing with the scent of
Dirk's sweat. Dave supposed his technique was improving now that he knew what
he himself liked in a blow job. He'd never even considered that, but then
worrying about his technique had never kept him up nights before. He was still
working the shaft with his hand, playing with Dirk's balls, and while he took a
lot more of the cock into his mouth, he was still stopping short of going all
the way back in his throat.
▲: Dirk let his head fall back with a moan. "That's much better, thank you." He
rested both of his hands on the bed behind him, locking his elbows and leaning
back so that he could look down at Dave from a more reclined angle. He couldn't
push Dave's head down anymore now that he was supporting his own weight, but he
didn't stop his hips from twitching forward every few times Dave went down,
pressing a little farther into Dave's mouth than Dave intended. He tried to
keep it in check, though, because having Dave puke on his dick would kill his
boner for about a month, and that would just ruin all their birthday plans. So,
yeah, he kept it to a safe amount that wouldn't actually gag Dave, just maybe
piss him off a little.
Also? It just felt fucking good, especially what with how Dave was drooling all
over the place. Dirk switched his weight to one arm and reached out a hand to
smear a string of saliva all down one of Dave's cheeks, and it glistened in the
dim city lights from the window. "That's more like it, dude. I'm gonna need you
to be a lot dirtier-- a lot *messier*-- than that. Get fuckin' sloppy as hell
on my dick. Wipe that shit on your face; I wanna see it on you." He wiped his
hand off in Dave's hair before returning it to the mattress, letting his head
drop back again for just a moment as he let out a long, shuddering breath.
▼: He nodded, bobbing his head on Dirk's cock and closing his eyes. Every so
often he was a little taken aback by Dirk jerking up into his mouth, but it
wasn't anything he wasn't expecting. Hell, he'd almost definitely had worse.
Still, after a bit he withdrew and sucked more at the tip. He rubbed his face
along the wet length of the shaft, which felt a lot messier, a lot dirtier,
than it probably was. This was turning less into Cum Guzzlers 5 and more into
the seminal Cock Slap Whores series, though he supposed vocalizing this
realization would be out of character. "Like that?" he asked instead, before he
licked up the underside and spread around the saliva he'd left on it, running
his hand down the other side.
▲: Dirk chewed on his lips as he watched Dave going down on his dick with that
fake helpless expression plastered on his face. Dave seemed to know exactly how
much to play it up for him, when to be coy and when to be aggressive. It drove
Dirk up the fucking wall, and he was rock solid in Dave's mouth right now, a
feat he didn't even believe was possible. Maybe it really was a miracle.
"More," he demanded. "You are the disciple worshipping at the altar of dick and
you're about to take your first holy communion. Paint your face with your own
saliva from my dick with some religious fucking fervor, bitch, and lavish my
dick like it's a holy sacrament, a pillar of your miserable existence." He had
no idea where those words were coming from, but the metaphor just kept spinning
on its own.
▼: Holy shit. OK, maybe he'd overestimated his own limits. Not for rough sex,
but for the ridiculous dialog. He nearly broke out laughing right at the holy
altar of dick, a distinctly unpious reaction that he supposed would earn some
divine retribution or some shit. Hell, he hadn't had a religious upbringing, it
wasn't like he had some altar boy fantasy he could riff on with Dirk in this
situation. He had to tuck his head down for a second until he could trust his
face to stay straight. Unfortunately, that meant that for a second he was
still; even his hands had stopped moving on Dirk's cock. He was legitimately
taken aback at that. "Sorry, sir," he said quickly, moving his hands up and
down the shaft again, nudging it with his face. "I'm so sorry. Yeah, I love
your cock. Mmm. I'll be your little bitch, I'd do anything--" He started
kissing and licking it again with renewed fervor. His mouth was getting a
little drier, but what he was lacking in saliva he was making up for with
enthusiasm, he thought.
▲: Dirk thrust his hips up again involuntarily, probably a little harder than
he should have, but Dave was touching him so perfectly that he kinda felt like
he was going to lose conscious control of all of his somatic nerves if he
didn't do *something*. "Oh my god, yeah. You're a fucking pro, kid. That's-
- Fuck. Okay, stop, stop, stop." He gripped the poor bedsheets hard, like he
was trying to hold on to reality itself. Somehow his dick was just
hypersensitive at the moment, like maybe it had been overstimulated earlier and
he still hadn't quite recovered from it, even though it had been quite a while
ago. "Come here," he said gruffly, pulling Dave up by the shoulders and
bypassing his face, going directly to the shoulder and biting down hard before
licking up Dave's neck to his earlobe. "Get the lube," he said into Dave's ear,
"You're prepping yourself."
▼: He let out a breath with a shudder. Dirk had had to pull the collar of his
shirt roughly aside to get at his shoulder, and he'd pulled so hard Dave felt
jarred, like Dirk had stretched the fabric itself out of shape. Somehow the
idea of still wearing clothes while doing all this shit seemed...really
depraved. It was weird, that Dirk was the one bare-ass naked here but Dave was
the one who felt exposed in his hands. Psychological bullshit, he supposed. Fun
time was over here; he wasn't really hard, probably wasn't even close to it,
but for the first time he felt a shudder like he could be, if he really tried.
If he willed it hard enough. Shaking, he got off the bed again and went back to
the lube in the desk drawer. He remembered getting it earlier, when the sun had
still been slightly visible in the sky and things had been a lot different. Now
he stood by the foot of the bed and watched Dirk before he reached under the
skirt and pushed down the underwear until they fell to the ground. He stepped
out of them and then climbed right over the footboard back on the bed.
He poured the lube into his hand and smeared it over his fingers, reaching
behind himself and under the skirt. He was rushing, and the lube was still a
bit cold when he pushed a finger in. He made a low "ooh" noise and braced
himself against the footboard.
▲: Dirk sat back against the headboard of the bed and watched Dave walk over to
the desk, noticing the barely concealed shakiness in Dave's steps. Dave was
either scared or thrilled or both, and any of the above were perfectly fine
with Dirk. In fact, he felt a tug of excitement in his chest at the thought of
unsettling Dave so much that it had started to show through the bullshit
fucking act that he was putting on for Dirk's benefit. That was kinda what Dirk
wanted anyway, to insert himself into all the cracks in Dave's armor and just
break that fucking thing apart. That was the long con, and in order to get
there, he had to make sure Dave put on all the armor in order to shatter it
methodically. He reached down and stroked himself absently from one end of the
bed while Dave bent over and pushed his fingers inside of himself at the other
end, still wearing the fucking skirt. It was beautiful, probably one of the
most gorgeous things he'd ever seen, looking at the conflicting expressions on
Dave's face as he carried out Dirk's orders. "Slow down, Tony. Enjoy yourself a
little. You look so pretty right now." What an understatement. Dirk wrapped his
index finger and thumb around the base of his own dick and stroked up, hard,
and his dick was still slick with Dave's saliva. He felt like his heart was
going to beat right out of his chest.
▼: He forced a second one in, working himself open in the familiar way, but it
felt completely different. Even though this shit was all old hat to him, even
though this whole song and dance was basically a parody of his old life, this
was...for a second he wondered what he'd been thinking, he wondered why he
hadn't just let Dirk fall asleep after blowing him, or given him a nice, lazy
handjob instead of whatever this bizarre crap was. He put a third finger in,
still going fast despite what Dirk had said, and opened his eyes. Then it hit
him; yeah, that was why. Dirk was the reason he had done this, Dirk was
probably the only person he could do this *with*, because Dirk understood
better than anyone might how much was an act and how much was real. Dave wasn't
really sure he wanted to exactly know the percentage there; he still wasn't
sure why he'd wanted it, but now that he was here there was no fucking way he
was going back. He let go of the footboard and instead leaned forward, still
working his other hand in his ass. "I'm ready," he said. "I'm ready, babe." He
crawled up one-handed so he was between Dirk's legs, and bent down to lick
Dirk's cock again, long and slow while still working himself underneath the
skirt.
▲: Dirk grabbed Dave's chin again and squeezed it, a little harder than the
last time. "That's nice, gorgeous, but I'm not. Why would I fuck a filthy slut
like you without a condom? Make yourself useful and go get one, yeah?" He
licked his lips and patted Dave's cheek with a condescending little slap. "Take
off that shirt, too. Leave the skirt on, though. I want you to wear it while
you're riding me. Go on." He jerked his head toward the desk, where he assumed
the rest of the condoms were. He knew he was laying it on a little thick, but
he was surprised with how easily he slipped into the character, and Dave seemed
to be giving it back just as good. They seemed to be pretty evenly matched when
it came to character commitment and stubbornness, and that was likely to add up
to a horrible disaster of epic proportions or some really bizarre and
satisfying sex. So far it had been the latter. "You need a name to call out
while you're fucking yourself on me though, don't you? You can't just call me
'sir' for that, although I appreciate your adherence to propriety. Tell me,
what name would feel best on your lips?"
▼: His face flushed; he had honestly forgot completely about grabbing a condom.
He had rarely if ever been so distracted he forgot something like that. He'd
meant to slip one into his pocket, produce it with a flair at just the right
moment all slick-like, but with one thing or another...shit. He was truly
embarrassed for a few seconds, so he scurried off the bed and back to the
drawer, grabbing the condom in lightning-quick time. He didn't know why he was
rushing; like he'd told Dirk, they had all fucking night. When he'd returned
he'd composed himself somewhat, but he still hadn't answered Dirk's question,
he realized. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it on the floor.
"I..." He tore the condom open with his teeth to give himself some time, and
leaned down to lick Dirk's cock one more time before slipping it on him. "I
dunno, I...I don't care, whatever you want, I..." Shit, why not. He was already
up to his balls in this weird farce, wearing nothing but a skirt, and suddenly
he remembered a customer he'd had a month ago, who'd been polite and quiet and
then oddly insistent about one thing.
Dave climbed up to straddle Dirk's hips and braced himself on Dirk's shoulders.
"Sometimes people like it when I call them daddy. You want me to call you
that?"
▲: "Mmm," Dirk hummed when Dave lowered himself down on his dick, just the head
at first but then taking more. "Shit. Yeah. Well, 'daddy' has a certain ring to
it, but I don't think that's exactly fitting to this situation. No, we need
something--" he grabbed Dave's hips just above the band of the skirt and dug in
his fingernails as hard as he could. His nails weren't long, but they weren't
as blunt as they usually were, either, since he'd been too busy to focus on
certain minutia. "We need something a little less authoritarian and a little
more humiliating. How about Bro? You gotta say it with a capital B. I need to
hear that capital B in your voice when you're taking my dick, okay? Can you do
that for me?" He didn't think Dave had really stretched himself as thoroughly
as he should have, because Dave was tight as hell. He found it hard to believe
that this wasn't hurting him, but it felt fucking amazing.
▼: He was bracing himself, more distracted than he might have been. He found
this position more difficult to work than most, because you had to make sure
you didn't let gravity fuck you up and take the whole fucking dick at once. He
eased himself down slowly, hissing a little bit and biting his lip when Dirk
dug his nails in. He felt the fabric of the skirt riding up his thighs,
bunching at his hips, just beneath Dirk's hand. When he was sitting on Dirk's
cock fully, he rocked once and hissed again. Wrong angle. "Yeah," he said, his
voice choked. "Sure thing, Bro. Sure thing. You're so...god. I can't--" He
rocked again, and this time it was better, and he felt himself melting around
Dirk, his grip on Dirk's shoulders softening. "There we go. That's good. You
like that, Bro?"
▲: Dirk rolled his head back and actually showed a moment of altruism by
forcing himself to not roll his hips under Dave as well. Fuuck. And here he
thought Dave's ass had strangled his dick the *first* time. He had to pant
through the pleasure that was mixed with more than a healthy dose of pain.
"Yeah." He swallowed. "Yes. I like that. You're perfect. For a whore you are
shockingly tight." He realized he was still squeezing Dave's hips, so he let go
of them and stared at the purple crescents his thumbnails had left behind. Dirk
slipped one hand under Dave's skirt to rub his palm against Dave's dick. Dave
wasn't hard, but that was okay. He didn't need to be. "Shiiiiiiit," he said,
drawing out the vowel with a low rumble in his chest. "That's it. Work it,
little bro."
▼: He started moving in earnest, finally finding the right rhythm. He started
gasping in time with his own thrusts, and when Dirk touched him his voice
almost broke because shit, he was so fucking close to getting hard but not
quite close enough. That was the real torture involved here. "Please," he said.
"Bro. I--please, just. I want to do good for you. Yeah." He was hitting his
prostate pretty regularly now, and it finally made it easier to ask for what he
wanted. "Bro, please, you gotta-- I need you to touch my cock, I can't--" He
didn't want to let go of Br-- of Dirk's shoulders, didn't want to risk ruining
the equilibrium he had going here, but he definitely wasn't going to get hard
on his own. That was not going to happen without some assistance.
▲: Dirk was chewing on the inside of his cheek now, and he bit down on the part
that he'd split open earlier in the night. The pain was bright and sharp, but
it didn't detract from his arousal at all. "So you're actually enjoying this?
You wanna get off on fucking yourself on your Bro's dick? God, you're dirty."
He wrapped his fingers around Dave's cock and started stroking it gently, not
wanting to overstimulate it before it got up. "Motherfuckin' depraved is what
you are. It's sick." If anything, Dirk was just getting harder inside Dave
right now. "That's the most pathetic thing I've heard all week. What would your
friends think about that if they knew?" He ran his other hand up Dave's side,
almost tenderly, in contrast to what he was saying.
▼: "I don't know," he said with a moan. "I don't know." He could barely even
talk now, and he wasn't sure if the sick thrill Dirk's words put through him
helped his cock stiffen up or not. Even if he'd wanted to look down to check,
he wouldn't have seen anything but Dirk's wrist moving. He was rocking faster
now, getting sweaty and screwing his eyes shut. He wasn't detached anymore, he
was...shit, had he told Dirk not to make it personal this time? Obviously Dave
hadn't been able to take his own advice. He had to physically prevent himself
from leaning into Dirk's caress to his side. He squeezed Dirk's shoulders, took
a few deep breaths, till he could say with more stability: "They don't gotta
know, though. They don't gotta know what a fucking whore I am for you.
Literally. Shit. That's just you and me, Bro." He was definitely erect now; no
denying that, skirt literally cockblocking him or not. "You feel that? I'm so
fucking hard for you, Bro. You must be some kind of miracle dick whisperer or
somethin'."
▲: "Yeah, I feel it," he said, a little more breathlessly than he would have
liked. This whole thing was really getting to him. He didn't quite get off on
being Dave's Bro-- that was more Dave's thing, which Dirk had been aware of for
a while even though it had never been explicitly articulated-- but he did get
off on how effective the scenario was at unscrewing Dave's hinges. "You're
right. That's just us and it'll always be just us. And-- just between us-- I
think that what you really want isn't to ride your Bro but to get fucked by
your Bro."
He put his hands on Dave's hips again, this time pulling him up and off of
Dirk's dick so that Dirk could position him on his side. Dirk curled up behind
him and angled his dick so that it pressed just up against Dave's ass. "You
want your Bro to just--" he pushed it inside slowly but steadily. "Fucking--
" It was all the way in now, and he pulled back just as slowly. "*Take* you,
like the inferior, subservient little *bitch* you really are to him," he
finished, thrusting back inside more rapidly this time on the emphasized words.
He wrapped his arm around Dave's chest and held him at the opposite shoulder,
bracing him in place and allowing Dirk to lick up the back of Dave's neck.
▼: It was a different angle, harder and faster and it wasn't as easy to
reposition himself, especially with Dirk's arm over him like it was. Which
wasn't a problem; Dave wouldn't have moved away even if he could. He was moving
his hips into each slow thrust, not backing down even when Dirk started really
pounding away at him. It was deeper, more intense, and better because he was
staring at the pillow and not in Dirk's eyes now. He remembered how they'd
freaked the shit out of him the first time he'd really noticed them, and to an
extent they still did, even now. Not facing Dirk head on made it easier, both
to pretend Dirk was Bro and to be reassured, also, that Dirk was really still
just Dirk, although how Dave could hold the two contradictory notions in his
brain he didn't quite understand and wasn't really in any condition to
speculate.
He was nodding, agreeing with whatever was coming out of Dirk's mouth, which
sounded more like Bro than ever. "Yeah. Yeah, I do, I love it, you're so good
to your little bitch. I want to make you--want to make you come so hard inside
me, Bro. Want you to fill me way the fuck up, just..." His words got more
incoherent from there on out. He was rocking and holding onto the arm Dirk had
wrapped around him for dear life.
▲: Dirk's voice, which was usually pretty deep anyway, was deeper and more
guttural than usual because of the exertion and the mood, so he probably did
sound an awful lot like Bro as he muttered a string of mixed messages, both
insults and praise, from just behind Dave's ear. This new position had brought
something else out in him because it had given the element of control back to
Dirk. He'd always been in control, really, but now he could properly wield it
like a weapon. Dave's back was sweating, and in between bullshit lines, Dirk
kept dipping his head down to lick it up and taste the skin and salt or to try
to bite but finding no purchase on the slippery skin, just dragging his teeth
down Dave's neck. He was sweating too-- sweating fucking bullets, and what a
fucking fantastic metaphor that was-- but was filled with an intense, cold
focus that began to unravel as he got closer and closer.
"You don't deserve this," he panted. "You don't-- but I'm 'a give it to you
anyway. Cause I like you. Cause you're my little bro-- and your body is so
fuckin' good to me." After that he got erratic, pounding with no real rhythm
because the orgasm was toying with him and it was so goddamn frustrating. He
tried to squeeze Dave's shoulder with the hand wrapped over his chest, but he
couldn't get purchase. Instead he squeezed Dave's throat, for no other reason
than that it was easier to grab, right before he came in the condom-- inside
*Dave*-- with a low, choked growl. He pulled Dave as close as he could and held
him there, not moving much because he didn't want to overwhelm himself. He let
all the venom dissolve away with the orgasm, and when it was gone he let go of
Dave's throat but didn't move away.
▼: Dirk hadn't been able to bite him very well, but his teeth scored long lines
down Dave's back, leaving it feeling raw. Dave kept rocking his body towards
Dirk's, but now it was less like riding waves and more like trying to hold his
own in a storm. Thankfully, he felt Dirk's hand on his throat and knew what
Dirk was about to do a second before he did it. The hand that clenched around
Dave's throat felt rougher, more like Bro's in that moment because whatever
smoothness or relative slimness it had was lost on Dave. Dirk didn't stop
clenching until he'd ridden out his orgasm completely; then Dirk let go of him,
and Dave sucked in a huge breath, feeling marvelously light-headed. That was
all he really wanted, he realized; he was tired, scraped raw both physically
and emotionally, and suddenly all he wanted was to come, to fall asleep, and,
most fucking importantly of all, to feel light-headed enough to not think until
morning, if ever again.
So Dave put his hand over the one Dirk still had over his throat and squeezed
until the message got through Dirk's post-orgasmic brain. While Dirk was
choking him once more, Dave opened his mouth and felt the smooth material of
the skirt over his erection before he reached under the waistband and worked
himself to completion. It didn't take long, and the shuddering pleasure he felt
from it was almost over before it began, but that wasn't surprising. Was even
ok; this encounter's memorability wasn't due to its physicality. He knew that
even through his haze, through the scraped raw feeling in his think pan.
▲: Dirk felt a little uneasy choking Dave again on the other side of his own
orgasm, but he would have done anything Dave asked for at that moment. He
didn't even pull out until after Dave finished himself, coming without much
fanfare other than an exaggerated breath. That part wasn't shocking, since it
was his third one of the evening and thus likely to not be very intense. When
he finished, Dirk finally let his hand drop and pulled out, sitting up just
long enough to toss the condom in the direction of the trash can. He might have
missed. If so, Dave can bitch about it later and he'd take it without
complaint. He lay back down, curling one arm under the pillow and the other
around Dave's waist. "Dave. You okay?" he asked, pressing his lips to one of
the scrapes his teeth had made in Dave's back earlier. Dave was being
uncharacteristically quiet.
▼: He stayed still for a second, hand still wrapped around his cock, before he
let go of himself and rolled over slightly to look at Dirk, trying to will some
normalcy back into his voice. "Totally," he said, wetting his lips and wishing
he didn't move for the rest of the night. That was unfeasible, though;
occasionally he could sleep with lube still in his ass, but sleeping in this
nasty-ass skirt which he'd just made nastier-ass was out of the question. Part
of him wanted to curl up to Dirk and fall asleep, an urge he felt the strong
need to fight against at the moment. "Shit, it's hot. Could you. Uh. Open the
window? I'm going to clean up." The other motive, of course, being that he
didn't want Dirk to watch him as he took off the skirt and moved around the
room. His reticence didn't really make much sense. In the circumstances.
He went into the bathroom briefly, filled up the water bottle again, and came
back to a breezier room, feeling more composed but still exhausted. He crawled
in the bed next to Dirk, thinking, oddly, of their first night together, when
he'd started wigging out about one solitary foot over the middle of the bed. He
tucked himself in the crook of Dirk's arm and cleared his throat. He would have
liked to roll over and fall asleep, but his own nature rebelled against it.
He'd always had a thing about talking in the dark, after all "So.
That...happened. Huh."
***** Chapter 6 *****
▲: Dirk wanted to say something along the lines of 'bullshit', but he kept it
to himself. He wasn't even sure that *he* was perfectly fine, and he'd just
been the guy dishing it out. Instead, he got up and fiddled with the window
until Dave had left the room, and then he set about cleaning himself up. He
found a box of tissues in the corner and wiped himself down, trying to get most
of the lube off, and he also dabbed at the sheets a little. When he was
satisfied, he dug around for his underwear, pulled them back on, and got in
bed. Dave's bed really wasn't big enough for the both of them-- it was probably
a full, and they weren't tiny guys-- but the only way in hell that Dirk was
going to leave before morning was if Dave asked him to. He'd certainly slept in
more cramped conditions before.
His sweat had already started to dry in the breeze from the window by the time
Dave got back. The bed was... a mess, and he was a mess, and Dave was probably
a mess too. They could be a mess together, that was fine. Dirk pressed his face
against Dave's temple. "Yeah. That was definitely a thing that just happened.
Are you sure you're okay? I mean, that was intense on all kinds of levels.
Don't bullshit me."
▼: He rolled over onto his side, so they were face-to-face. He hadn't exactly
been shy before about hanging off of Dirk, embracing him and the like, but
after all of that he wondered where the impulse was coming from. Bro hadn't
been a hug-person, and neither had Dave. Huggy Bear, yes, actual hugs, not so
much. Still, he pressed one of his legs between Dirk's and rested a hand on one
of Dirk's hips. "Yeah. I dunno, dude. I seriously don't. Hand to god. I'm...."
He decided to stop shittily attempting to analyze where it was coming from and
just gave in; he put his arms around Dirk again and did his best to squeeze the
life out of him, like he had before. That time it had been more on a joking,
happy impulse, and this time.... He let go but didn't pull away. "So much for
not making it personal this time. Sort of whizzed that one down my leg. But I
don't...I dunno. I know you've been more hung up on the 'this kid's still
underage and obviously some sort of wayward soul,' but I've been hung up on.
Well. Other stuff. Like you just saw." Funny how a second ago he couldn't even
imagine saying another word before dropping off.
▲: Whatever kind of response Dirk had been expecting, it certainly hadn't been
a hug. It took him completely by surprise, but he wrapped his arm around Dave's
lower back and pulled him in all the same. "O...kay," he said, a little
unsteadily. "Personal isn't bad, you know. I was just kinda being a douche when
I said that earlier. Because I was embarrassed about my whiskey dick. You can
never trust what a guy says when he's having trouble getting it up, don't ya
know that?" He leaned forward to kiss Dave on the lips, realizing for the first
time that they didn't kiss once during that whole little act, whatever it had
been. He did think Dave was a wayward soul, but then again, he thought he
probably was one too, so it really wasn't some kind of condescending thing,
even if he did feel responsible for Dave. He pulled away and swallowed. "Look.
I don't care if you had some sort of thing for your brother. Families are
fucked up and sexuality is even more fucked up. And I guess I'm kinda
benefitting from it, so... whatever, dude." He kinda figured Dave was still
working out his feelings about his brother's death, and that it had somehow
gotten rolled up in their sex whirlwind. He was fine with that; he just hoped
that what they had done helped things rather than made them worse.
▼: Part of him reacted incredibly defensively to Dirk's words; of *course* he
didn't have a thing for Bro, it was less having a thing for Bro (whatever that
even *meant*, although he had some ideas) and more...something else, which he
wasn't incredibly interested in hashing out exactly, but who would be? "Yeah.
Whatever. It's...I dunno, I'm not gonna get all paging Dr. Freud on you here.
More than I already have, anyway. That's what my friend Rose was always all
about. Not my Freudian issues specifically, but just pretending she knew what
the fuck she was talking about with that psychoanalysis shit." He found himself
smiling in the dark, and pulling himself closer to Dirk unconsciously. "That's
the root of the problem, probably. I've been too chickenshit to talk to Rose or
any of 'em again, just like I was too chickenshit to think about...you know,
about Bro."
He squirmed uncomfortably. "And I know I've said this before but shit, bears
repeating: I seriously do get you're not the same person. I mean, you're a
whole lot different than him in a lot of just...little ways. And big ones too,
obviously." It was awkward thing to bring up, but probably needed to be said.
"Bro never would have done anything like this with me and I never would have
asked him to." Pretty much. He wasn't going to think about that. "Anyway. Yeah.
It is fucked up, but fucked up is just our normal, I think we decided. I mean,
it would be even without a dead brother in the background, yeah?"
▲: Dirk rested his palm flat in the small of Dave's back while he talked.
Right... Didn't have a thing for his Bro. That totally explained why Dave
had... well, done exactly what they'd just done. Dirk didn't buy it for a
second, but he didn't want to press the subject. Now wasn't the time, if there
ever even was a time for it. "I know you know I'm not him. We've already beaten
that horse to death, right?" He kissed Dave again, briefly. He still kinda felt
like he needed to make something up to Dave, but he wasn't quite aware of what
or how. He felt like maybe if he kept kissing Dave, it would come to him, but
he didn't want to be clingy. "Are you going to talk to them? Your friends? I
mean, they have to be worried about you. Maybe it would help you work through
some shit so that you don't have to get it all out by fucking some guy who
tried to kill you once." Are you going to tell them about me? That was the
unasked followup.
▼: "Yeah. I will. That's why I borrowed that laptop over there. I
just...haven't yet." He kissed Dirk back finally; they hadn't kissed at all
during the skirt encounter, and apparently he'd missed it all of a sudden. "I'm
not sure what I'm going to tell them. How much." He shrugged. "I mean. They're
my best friends, but it's not exactly easy to decide how many sordid details I
want them to hear." That was easier to admit than it might have been to anyone
else. It was probably insanely obvious to anyone that there were details of the
last three months Dave would want to excise, but just saying it seemed like a
bigger concession of weakness than anything else.
He turned to Dirk, looked him in the eyes again. "I suppose I'll have to tell
Rose what the deal is with you. I mean, if you're going to send somebody up to
disturb her mountain peace. Plus I don't imagine Roxy's going to drop the
issue, now that she knows about her. Basically, I think we're destined for one
huge clusterfuck of Lalondes no matter how we slice this thing, dude."
▲: "Hmph," he grunted. He loved Roxy to death, but the thought of having more
than one Lalonde in one place? No, thank you. "That's fine. Tell her whatever
you want." He hooked the blanket with his foot and pulled it up over his waist,
burrowing down into the pillows. "God. I feel like I could sleep for a week.
Like someone took out all my guts and stuffed me with cotton. Can't wait to see
how I feel in the morning." He closed his eyes for a moment, and he kinda felt
like he could drop off at any moment if he just stopped talking. "Thank god I
didn't pass out with your dick in my mouth, huh?" He opened his eyes and
smiled, and Dave was still looking at him. Even though he was getting awfully
sober, he felt more mellow than he had at any other point in the night, and he
had the fleeting thought that Dave might actually be a positive presence in his
life. If only they could just push through all this weird shit and get to
something resembling normalcy. Fat chance of that.
▼: "Yeah, you really were reaching for that rainbow, surpassing all my
expectations," he said, smiling back and sinking into the pillow next to Dirk.
It was pretty much impossible for them to sleep without touching each other;
the bed was too small for that. Dave had conditioned himself out of kicking in
his sleep, though, and the open window made it cool enough that being under the
blanket together was comfy and not overheated. "I'm actually serious about
that, I did not really expect to instigate some weird roleplay in the latter
half of another one of our marathon fuckfests. Not complaining, it's
just...man. Blame the weed, I guess." He closed his eyes, thought about
sleeping, and leaned over to kiss Dirk again instead. "'Preciate you rolling
with it and stuff. Guess obviously you don't mind the weird shit either, but."
▲: Dirk kissed him back, and it kinda felt like they were trading them back and
forth now. It had an incredibly pleasant familiarity to it, but it also had
something of an apologetic undertone, at least from his end. "Whatever you
need, dude," he said through a yawn. "Anytime, anywhere. I've rolled with
weirder, trust me." He put his face in Dave's hair and breathed in. Dave
smelled like sweat and sex and smoke. Smelled like a good fuckin' night, and
yeah, he guessed it had been. Pleasant company, anyway. "Think we both just...
needed something..." He closed his eyes. Sleep was creeping up on him quickly.
"I meant what I said though. Right before you started getting your role play
on."
▼: "Hmm? Oh." He pretty quickly figured out what Dirk was talking about. He'd
almost forgotten about that, though not quite, and it made him grin despite
himself. He supposed the end of the night was a good time to be getting corny,
though he didn't really know what he wanted to say. Everything was so fucked up
but every time he kissed Dirk it became a lot less complicated in his mind.
"Yeah. I know you did." He sensed that Dirk was feeling not guilty exactly (he
thought he knew what guilty Dirk looked like by now) but some sort of vague
regret or...something. "I knew you meant it. I knew the whole time. Don't
worry." He might have had a thought but he wasn't going to try to articulate it
right now. "Night. Wake me up when you're ready to leave, I'll come talk to
Roxy with you. If you want me to, anyway."
▲: Dirk felt Dave shift next to him, settling in to actually go to sleep for
once instead of talking Dirk's ear off. It appeared that wonders really would
never cease. "Should probably talk to her alone. Smooth things over. I know all
of Roxy's buttons. I'll fill you in later... or she will." It occurred to Dirk
that he forgot to ask what kind of embarrassing shit Roxy had told Dave about
him already. It was probably better if he didn't know. "I'll wake you up to say
bye though. I try not to just dip out on people after I fuck them. How rude...
even is that..?" He trailed off, and if Dave said anything after that, it was
lost on Dirk.
He woke up a while later with a throat that was beyond raw and a head that
thankfully wasn't pounding but definitely wasn't happy with him. (His ass
didn't feel all that amazing, either.) At least the sun wasn't shining directly
on him; there was that much to be thankful for. Dirk groaned and buried his
face in the pillow, breathing in the stale smell of smoke and sweat that
lingered on the sheets despite the breeze. At some point in the night, Dave had
rolled over away from him, and as soon as he could lift his head without
wanting to kill himself, Dirk kissed the back of Dave's neck.
▼: "Whatever you say, dude," said Dave, and whatever else he'd been planning to
say was going to have to wait until morning because he fell asleep before it
even crystallized in his mind.
He woke up early; he'd started doing that recently, maybe because he still
wasn't used to the bed, but once he woke he usually only dozed. He didn't have
a whole lot to do, most of the time. This time Dirk might have woken him up,
although he really wasn't sure. He opened his eyes at the kiss, though, and
rolled back over on his other side to look at Dirk. "Hey. How you holding up?"
▲: Dirk made a grunt that really didn't imply anything one way or another and
kissed Dave's back just under the neck. His brain really couldn't formulate
sentences at the moment, and even if it could, his mouth probably wouldn't be
capable of expressing them. Instead he wrapped his arm around Dave's chest and
pulled him closer. The muscle memory gave him a momentary flash back to the
night before, eliciting another grunt from Dirk, but a contented one this time.
Yes, communication through grunting was how much he'd regressed this morning.
It was going to be that kind of day.
▼: He snorted at the first grunt. "That good, huh?" The second groan was a
little different, and almost made Dave want to turn around more fully to look
at Dirk. Almost. "Dude, you sound like a caveman," he said, but he really
didn't have the energy to say much else either. Even flipping over fully to
face Dirk seemed like too much effort, but just relaxing and letting Dirk kiss
his back, pull him closer was something Dave could manage. He put a hand over
the arm Dirk had laid over his chest and leaned his head back. "You even awake?
Or are you initiating a semi-comatose cuddling ritual or some shit? 'Cause fuck
knows I'm in no mood to stop you."
▲: "Mmhmm," Dirk mumbled, and it was a step up from the grunting but not a huge
one. He hoped it would convey 'Yes, I am awake, and I am also initiating semi-
comatose cuddling rituals. Not that I knew that there was any such thing, but
now that I do, that's totally what it is. Also pass me the motherfucking
water.' He doubted that all of that would make it through translation, but
whatever. He squeezed the arm tighter for emphasis on the 'motherfucking
water'.
▼: Waking up, he thought he was alright, but leaning his head back made it swim
a bit. Water would help, and he remembered suddenly that he'd filled the bottle
up last night before passing out. "Oh shit, I'm awesome," he said, and decided
that as a statement, this needed no context. He rolled over towards the
nightstand, partly taking Dirk with him. "I dunno 'bout you, but I got some
serious dry mouth here, bro." He wondered if calling Dirk 'bro,' just in the
normal way, was going to be fraught with tension after last night, but fuck
that, he decided immediately afterward. Who gave a shit about fraught tension
when he was this parched. He managed to swipe the bottle off the night table
and rolled back onto Dirk as he took a long drink.
▲: The fact that Dirk was being dragged across the small bed barely registered.
Dave falling back on him, on the other hand, registered a little too much. "Oh
god," he croaked, pushing Dave off a little. He had to piss pretty badly, but
he didn't want to stand up or move or think about moving or even think, really.
He snatched the water bottled after what was hopefully a reasonable amount of
time and took a long, slow drink, and then he gave the bottle back to Dave and
rested his head on Dave's chest. "I feel like shit. Not nearly as bad as I know
I could be feeling right now, but with the kind of day I have ahead of me, it
amplifies the misery quite a bit." He stared at his pants, which were once
again in a crumpled heap on the floor. He had no idea where the rest of his
clothes were. "What about you? Are you okay?"
▼: He stretched his arms above his head, and arched his back without displacing
Dirk. "I'll be fine. I bounce back pretty well, in general." He propped his
head up on the pillow and brushed some of Dirk's hair off his forehead
carefully. "Just 'cause I'm curious: what do you even gotta do today? Besides
work your pacifying voodoo magic on Roxy." Part of him had wondered that idly
in the last two weeks. He assumed that Dirk's life as a hitman was something
like what Dave's old life had been; you didn't spend all of your time
contemplating your sordid deeds or preparing for them, you just...kind of did
what you had to do to kill the time until then, really. Not that Dave thought
Dirk spent part of his free time getting high and playing Uno with depressed
co-workers like Dave had, but the thought amused him nonetheless. "Like, just
in general, on a day-to-day basis, what do you do? I'm curious."
▲: "Most days I'm a glorified bodyguard and consultant. Sometimes an
interrogator. Sometimes a confidence man. Sometimes an executioner. Sometimes
I'm the IT guy, not really by design but just because I happen to know more
about computers and robotics than anyone else on the immediate payroll." He sat
up a little so that he could grab the water again and pull from it. He also
wanted to look Dave in the eyes, since this seemed to be a serious question.
"It's not like I drop three bodies before dinner every day. That's just, you
know, the heaviest thing I do, so it's come to define me in a way. My job
description is doing whatever I have to do that day to further the interests of
the business." He realized that he was saying a lot of words without really
answering the question, and he had no idea if Dave would buy it. If he didn't
buy it, Dirk would tell him, but he had to try because he wasn't overly eager
to talk about it.
▼: "Yeah, I figured that. That you weren't some stone cold motherfucker just
shooting gas station attendants instead of waiting for them to give you your
receipt or whatever. I meant more...just what's your day like." He sank against
the pillows, propped his head up on his arm and took a thoughtful swig from the
water bottle. "I dunno. Always seemed to me like the worst part wasn't the
actual horrible shit you had to do sometimes. It was the mundane bits in
between, 'cause they just last forever and make everything worse." He shrugged.
"Whatever. Probably it's different for you." Usually he wasn't this talkative
in the mornings, and it occurred to him as he spoke that the question was oddly
personal, even though it didn't seem like it.
▲: "Usually I accompany WQ or one of her carapacians to 'meetings'. I'm the guy
in the background with his eyes and ears on everything, trying to spot trouble
before it starts and surgically remove it from the situation where necessary."
'WQ' always kinda sounded like 'dub-cue' when Dirk said it. Most people called
her White Queen, or just The Queen, but Dirk felt weird calling her that since
he knew her real name. And anyway, it made it sound too much like they were in
some kind of Renaissance/Cosa Nostra crossover nightmare. If you start calling
people Queen this and King that all over the place, the next thing you know is
that someone's calling you a Knight or a Prince or some such stupid thing and
then you're just in way over your head. Nah. No, thank you. "Mostly I'm driving
someone somewhere and then sitting in the back of a restaurant for hours. And
when I'm not doing that, I'm brainstorming with WQ or trying to get information
out of people."
▼: "Hmm." Part of him wanted to ask how Dirk had started working for the
Prospit people, but it was a bit early for that, especially since it was a
question Dirk had point-blank side-stepped the last time Dave had brought it
up. "So what did you tell them about what happened with us? And what'd they
even say about me? Other than I guess they don't want you to kill me anymore."
He'd never met any of the Prospit crowd, or even really heard much about them.
The White Queen was a lot classier than Noir himself, that much he did know.
She was more calculating, played the long game, and didn't have Jack Noir's
capacity for pointless destruction. If some dumb kid had tried to kill WQ, Dave
thought, the kid in question would be dead as soon as the sword split in half.
No fussy revenge plans or making the kid work it off in a brothel or anything
messy like that. Just one dead Dave and nothing else.
▲: Dirk sat back, leaning against the pillow instead of Dave. "She was pretty
pissed off at me at first. It was touch-and-go for a while there, but she
trusts my instincts and decided to look into it. I mean, if you go and tell her
there's a mole in her circle, she's going to take that seriously. We're still
working on figuring out who it is, too. It hasn't been a fun time trying to
navigate her business right now, since she's kinda in trust limbo. I'm well
aware of the fact that I'm still a suspect, too." He sighed. That was a big
reason why he'd been so stressed out lately and why he'd needed a pretty
dramatic release the night before. Maybe he really should take up getting high
on his off hours... not that he really had many off hours. "Anyway, I got a
stay of execution on you, which is the important part, as long as you stay as
far away from the business as possible. In fact, I really don't want to say
this, but it might actually be a good idea for you to hole up at your friend's
place, if she lives as far away as you say." He'd rather rip out his left nut
with his bare hands and a rusty fork, but you gotta do what you gotta do. "As
for the supernatural Twilight Zone shit going on between us, I really don't
think she gives a fuck. I didn't tell her I'm banging you, because that would
just complicate things. Like they aren't complicated enough already." Shit, he
had really meant to say that last line in his head and not out loud.
▼: He had a strong negative reaction to Dirk's suggestion to leave the city, to
his own surprise. He'd been born there (probably) and grown up there, but it
wasn't like there was some romantic, sentimental reason for him to want to
stay, especially after all the shitty memories he'd accumulated. And there were
a lot of practical reasons for him to get the fuck out of Dodge. "I'd only go
to her if I was sure they wouldn't follow me." He sank back against the
pillows, looking at the ceiling. "Which they maybe could. I'm not sure how much
digging they did into my personal life after Bro died, but if they know about
Rose then they could probably also find her pretty easily." It occurred to him
with a guilty stab to the gut that that was another reason to let Rose know
what the fuck was going on with him. "You're right, though. I should probably
get the fuck out for awhile. Until the heat dies down. If not Rose, I could
talk to Jade."
He looked at Dirk again. "Guess I didn't really tell you much about her, huh?
She grew up on this fucking desert island or something, I'm not exactly clear,
but her grandpa was hella rich, like some sort of reclusive billionaire weirdo,
and when she got older she left the island and traveled around a lot with her
dog. Came to visit all of us a couple times. I used to tell her her life sounds
like a fucking Nickelodeon cartoon or something. Anyway, she's..." He trailed
away. "Yeah, she's fucking weird, but she might have an idea about where I can
go? I mean, I don't want Jack going after her either, but she's so out there
that maybe it'd be easier for her to find someplace off the grid. My point is
there are options here." He turned to Dirk; headache or no, he was in a better
frame of mind thinking about all this suddenly. It all seemed a lot less
overwhelming than it had yesterday, and possibly it was thanks to Dirk. "Plus
her last name's Harley, so presumably she doesn't have any weird family
connection to one of your other friends like Rose does. That's gotta be
reassuring, right?"
▲: Dirk would have been fine if Dave hadn't mentioned Jade's last name. After
all, he never called Grandma Harley by her first name, so the fact that Dave
had a friend named Jade barely even registered. As it was, it took a second for
the pieces to fit together. He stared blankly at Dave's face for a moment, like
he was trying hard to see something that wasn't there. Then, a look of dawning
comprehension and barely concealed horror began to rise. So much for
pokerfaces. "Are you fucking serious right now? Harley? JADE HARLEY?" He
remembered that he'd found it weird that all four members of that family had
different last names, but Grandma Harley had been an academic and didn't change
her name when she married Poppop. And Jane and Jake had been their grandkids,
not kids, so.
▼: He stared at Dirk, wondering what he'd said to garner such a reaction. He
thought about it, and his brain jumped to a conclusion, based less off of
evidence and more because some awful gut feeling that he occasionally got when
he became convinced the universe was pulling some cruel cosmic joke on him.
(Which was surprisingly often.) "What. Don't tell me your dead boyfriend had
the same last name as my middle school girlfriend or some shit. That
would...heh. Shit, dude. It's too early for this." He suddenly wanted to laugh,
so he did, leaning his head back against and just letting it out, which was an
inappropriate reaction given how absolutely horrified Dirk looked, but, again:
shit.
▲: Dirk found the laughter contagious, and also sometimes you just have to
fucking laugh so that you don't go insane. This revelation had hit him a lot
harder than finding out that Dave shared a name with his dead brother, probably
because Dirk had actually had a relationship with Jake's grandma.
The bullshit was really starting to pile up. That makes three confirmed cases
of interdimensional identity fuckery, and one or two suspected cases. Dirk
found himself wondering if Rose had any relatives named Roxy, or if that was
just a coincidence. It was still possible that Roxy and Rose were related the
normal way, since Roxy had been a functional orphan like himself and never knew
any of her living family (that was part of the reason why the two of them were
so unhealthily close in weird mixed signal kinds of ways).
So, yeah, Dirk started laughing too. He covered his eyes with one arm and just
laughed for a little while. "No, not exactly. Just his... grandma."
▼: "Oh. Huh." He sank back against Dirk; his mind was more awake now but his
body was lazy, and he didn't even want to get up to use the bathroom. "Well, I
feel I should mention that while we both know I have literally stables of
septuagenarian ladyfriends waiting to take me out and buy me liquor on Friday
nights, Jade obviously uh...you know, is also seventeen. We're almost the exact
same age, actually, our birthdays are really close and everything. So. Not a
grandma." For whatever reason, talking about that made him think of the plans
the four of them had made, not for Dave or Jade's birthdays, but for John's,
when they would all be 18 and would all go and buy cigarettes and porn
together. (He assumed the plans would become less shitty the closer they got to
April, but Dave had never really the plan guy.) He supposed those plans might
still be possible now, but thinking about it gave him this odd maudlin feeling
in his stomach. Nostalgia or some bullshit, or maybe just from his fucking
hangover. He turned back to Dirk, put an arm around his waist and pulled
himself closer. "Can I just say: fuck existential garbage like this. Just
straight up fuck it. I'm over it already."
▲: "I thought it was octogenarian. Although at that point you're kinda just
splitting hairs." He reached up and threaded his fingers through Dave's hair at
that, like he'd just reminded himself that Dave's hair was his favorite place
to touch Dave in a nonsexual way. Momentary heart attacks aside, he was really
enjoying just lying here together in the morning light. He hadn't shared this
kind of thing with anyone since... well... everyone knew that drill by now.
Morning sex was good. Was amazing, actually, especially with Dave, but this was
also really damn nice. "Yeah, fuck it. Who cares about you dating my dead
boyfriend's grandma when there are much more mundane things to worry about,
like the fact that I want to say here with you until lunchtime but
unfortunately I'm about to piss myself. Where's the bathroom?"
▼: "End of the hall, on your right. Also 'dating' is kind of putting it a
little strong. You may be shocked to learn this, but long-distance
relationships when you're 15 don't tend to last too long." He sat up slightly
when Dirk got up. He hadn't actually thought about that for a long time. He was
the one who had broke it off, and mostly what he remembered about that was
being indignant that Jade hadn't taken it harder. Not that he'd wanted her to
get busted up and teary-eyed about it constantly, but still. When you break up
with someone, you'd like them to actually seem moderately emotionally
devastated by it, or at least so he had thought at the time.
At any rate, it had been a tumultuous couple of months that their friendship
had obviously survived, and now that he had actual grown-up problems it mostly
just seemed funny to him. Even though his grown-up problems were pretty
straight-up fucking ridiculous too, come to think of it. As he sat up, he
decided to get up and pull his pants on again, and when Dirk returned from the
bathroom he was sitting by the window again, leaning against the frame.
▲: "I spent my preteen and teen years jerking off shamefully in the dead of the
night over some guy who didn't have a clue until we were like 18. Do you think
I really got involved in too many relationships?" He didn't really want to
expound on that, so he crawled over Dave and went down the hall, looking for
the bathroom. He thought about putting on pants, but figured what the hell,
he's in a house of ill fame.
He took a leak and rinsed his mouth out with water, splashing some more on his
face. He didn't bring a towel, so he stood there for a minute with his head
down, hands braced against the sink and letting his face air dry. It was a good
opportunity for him to collect his thoughts and get into zen mode for the day,
gathering the energy he'd need to face Roxy and then go talk to WQ about
sending someone to check up on Dave's friends. Maybe all of his friends. He
reminded himself to get the name of Dave's other friend, the guy, before he
left.
As collected as he was ever going to be, he walked back to Dave's room. He
looked at Dave for a second and and then bent down to pick up his pants. "I
wish I could take you out for waffles and crises again, but duty calls and all
that." He stepped into the pants and buckled his belt, and then he stood there
for a minute, staring off into space and thinking. "What's your long-term
plan?" He hoped that was nonspecific enough that Dave would just run with it.
▼: "Well. The big one is 'not get killed and/or sent back to the Horse
Hitcher'? The rest is just gravy, sorta." He shrugged. "Dunno. I do really want
to see them again. John and Jade and Rose. Despite what you might think by what
I've done to actually contact them. Today's the day, though." He paused, and
caught Dirk's eye. "Wanna see you again. Almost as bad, probably." Jeez, that
was pretty schmaltzy-sounding. He went on quickly, in a more detached tone.
"Roxy said something the other day about maybe setting it up so I can take
online classes and still graduate in the spring? I dunno if I can; might be too
late for that, but it's worth looking into, I guess." It had been strange to
talk about that with her, and not just because this was a 23 year-old woman who
ran a brothel and drank like a fish telling him he should start studying more.
School felt like it was light-years away from whatever his life had become.
He shrugged, and stood up to stand by Dirk, who was getting back into uniform.
This time the change was a little less drastic, since Dirk had been shedding
bits and pieces of his outfit throughout the bar all last night. He put his
arms around Dirk's waist, pushed their foreheads together. "I really do want to
see you again. Did I mention that one?"
▲: Dirk looked around for his shirt while Dave was talking, eventually finding
it under the desk and pulling it on. He buttoned it slowly, deliberately. "I
think it's a good idea. I mean. I kinda want to stay out of that because I
don't really wanna... bleed into guardian mode? That would just be. I mean. You
know." It would be a little too much like fucking your guardian, which he
guessed was what they had role-played last night. "But still, you probably
should do it, especially if you want to do something other than work in a
whorehouse for the rest of your life." He finished buttoning just as Dave
approached him, and Dirk let Dave wrap around his body. He closed his eyes and
pressed gently back. "Yeah, you may have. We have a date for your birthday,
yeah? Like a real date. The kind normal people go on. Okay, maybe not that
normal, but normal enough, right?"
▼: He rolled his eyes. "Well, yeah, I was starting to plan an alternate career.
If nothing else I can always go back to my true calling, which is putting
shitty comics on the internet." He smiled, though, when he thought about the
birthday plans. "But yeah. The date is a thing that we're making happen." He
smiled harder at the thought. He wasn't used to feeling this happy, or this
driven, so early in the morning. Usually he didn't pick up any steam until,
like, nine at the earliest. He supposed that against all odds Dirk's
companionship, if not the vigorous sex, was a restorative. Or something. "I'll
let you know what the plan is, when I figure it out." He brushed his lips over
Dirk in a dry kiss, but couldn't tear himself away, and suddenly the kiss was
long and had a slow-burning passion to it, and he felt wrapped up in the warmth
of Dirk's arms. He withdrew abruptly because Dirk was right, they really
couldn't just fuck around in bed or in the bar all day. "Shit, you'd think I
was sending you off to fight in the Crimean War or something. It's only two
weeks. I'll see you then, ok?" He knew Dirk still had to talk to Roxy before he
left, but he didn't want to say good-bye like this in front of everybody down
in the bar. Apparently he was shy like that; who even knew?
▲: Dirk let the kiss deepen, realizing they were saying goodbye right now
instead of later. Best to just rip the bandaid off rather than drawing it out,
right? Which was exactly why the kiss lasted as long as it did. Dirk's hands
started on Dave's shoulders but wrapped around his back and then drifted up to
Dave's neck and face so that finally Dirk was cupping Dave's cheeks and feeling
the energy pass back and forth between them like the smoke they'd passed
between their lips the night before. Then, suddenly, it was over. Damn. Kid
didn't pull any punches. Still, it was probably best that they stopped before
his crotch started waking up too. (Too late. When Dave pulled away, he had an
uncomfortable moment where he had to readjust himself through his pants.)
"Okay. Yeah. Talk to you friends," he said as he slipped his shoes back on.
"Try to do some, I dunno, normal people shit."
▼: "Yeah. I can tell you're such an expert in normal people stuff, dude," he
said. He bent down over his desk to turn on the laptop, partly because he
really did want to write an email or something to at least one of them before
he lost his nerve, but also to prevent himself from taking any rash action
because fuck, that kiss. That had been a really shitty idea, kissing like that,
because now his face and body were all stupidly tingly where Dirk had touched
him, and all he could think of was how long two weeks was going to be. It was
going to feel a lot longer than the last two had felt, he knew that already. He
didn't think he'd been this anxious for his birthday to hurry up and get here
since he was a kid.
To Dirk, though, he spoke over his shoulder in a voice attempting nonchalance.
"Tell Roxy I'll be down in a bit. If she's still pissed at me tell her I'll
make lunch or something." Looking at the laptop made him remember his other
chore. "Or do her laundry, I got a fuckload to do anyway."
▲: Dirk really wished he could take a shower first, but he didn't have any of
his stuff with him. Oh well, it wasn't like Roxy hadn't seen him in worse or
less hygienic conditions, and he'd have time to swing back by his place before
going to work. Next time, hopefully it would be possible to take Dave back to
his place. Actually, he wasn't sure if he was ready to do that, since he was
still staying in the house that used to belong to Jake's family. Shit, he was
still sleeping in their fucking bed. It wasn't so much that he felt like he'd
be defiling some sanctity of the place by taking Dave there, because he didn't
believe in that kind of stuff and he knew that Jake wouldn't want him to die
alone anyway. No, it was more that it still felt way too personal, despite
everything. Maybe he'd just get another hotel room. Something private and
nearby with room service and fluffy towels.
These were the thoughts he had while he tied his shoes. "Okay, I will. Oh, what
is your other friend's name? I mean, I might as well make sure they're all
looked in on."
▼: "John Egbert's his name. He lives in the 'burbs with his dad. I can still
remember the address, actually." He told it to Dirk and thought about the last
time he'd been there. It had been for John's birthday, which had been just
before the shit went down, actually, so even though it was only earlier this
year it felt like ages. He sat down at the desk chair, watched the laptop boot-
up screen and then Dirk as he put on his black dress shoes.
Last time, when they'd gone through their "getting dressed and saying goodbye"
routine, Dave had found Dirk's transformation into mob killer dude somewhat
intimidating, but this time it was less so. Maybe because Dave had just seen
him drunk and high and sloppy, or maybe because the nice clothes made him look
completely different from Bro. Dave hadn't ever seen Bro in a tie, and he
didn't think Bro had even owned dress shoes; when Dave had absolutely needed
some he'd had to go to Target and buy the cheap, ugly, clunky ones instead of
wearing hand-me-downs from Bro like he usually did. Just being reminded that
Dirk wasn't Bro, or was Bro put in a lot of different, weirder circumstances,
tossed around and turned into something else, was oddly comforting, even if the
situation itself was unsettling and strange. Which it definitely was.
"They won't know you're spying on them, will they? My friends, I mean," asked
Dave. Just to have something to say, more than anything; he trusted Dirk's
coworkers to be discreet, if nothing else. "I mean, I don't want Daddy Egbert
getting all freaked out by some random chess guy you're sending out to peek
over his hedges or something."
▲: Dirk stood up after he finished tying his shoes, chuckling to himself. Of
*course* his friend's name was John Egbert. Just the icing on the sugared
confectionery that was this whole surreal mindfuck. "Right... John Egbert. I'll
write that down." He bent over and looked at his reflection in Dave's small
mirror, trying to force his hair into something resembling its usual shape,
then thought better of it and messed it up. Roxy always found his bedhead sexy,
and he was going to need everything in his arsenal to butter her up. "They
don't have to, no," he responded to Dave's question, "Unless of course you want
to tell them. You should probably tell Rose anyway, since I imagine Roxy is
gonna want to be all over that, but that's up to you."
He turned away from the mirror, giving up on being able to fix his hair, and
looked down at Dave. "Anyway. I need to get going. I'll... call you. That
sounds lame, I know, like a brush-off. Like something you say to someone who
was an okay fuck but maybe had some kind of weird attribute you just couldn't
get over." He put his hands in his own hair again. "I like your attributes.
Hey, can you come mess up my hair before I go downstairs? It looks too 'just-
so' if I try to do it myself."
▼: "Mess up your hair? Dude, I know that we've had sex a couple times but do
you really want to get so...personal?" He stood up and grinned at Dirk. Dirk
also obviously gave more of a shit about his hair than Bro ever had, if Dave
was going to continue making such list, which he really didn't want to. Making
comparisons, he told himself, was only natural, and he found himself doing it
automatically.
At any rate, he did as Dirk asked, and Dirk gave him a look that chased any
thoughts of comparing the two out of his mind, because it was a look that was
one hundred percent Dirk in every way, both in what it was and how Dave reacted
to it. "All right," said Dave. "See ya. Your hair's a certified mess, if that's
the look you were going for. Now get out of here before the sight of my half-
naked body gives you the vapors or some shit all over again."
▲: "For the record, I'm only asking you to do it because I *want* it to look
bad," he added while Dave raked his fingers through Dirk's hair. Still, Dave's
touch was relaxing. He kinda felt better already. He wanted to kiss Dave again,
actually, but that was just a little too 'oh I adore you so much the last thing
I must do before we part is press my lips to yours', so he held back. "Thanks,"
he muttered instead when Dave finished talking shit. "Okay. Yeah. I'll see you
later." He tried to be all smooth and nonchalant but it probably showed how
much he didn't want to leave when he walked through the door.
He made his way downstairs at a leisurely pace, both because he kinda wanted to
reflect on the night before a little bit before jumping into the ring with a
pissed off Roxy, and because is had still really fucking hurt, and going
anywhere in a hurry was kinda out of the question at the moment. The downstairs
was, for once, completely empty. Too early for the bar to be open and too late
for any clients to still be lingering around. He decided to peek behind the bar
to look for his jacket, but it was nowhere to be found. Well, shit. Maybe Roxy
took it to her office. He took a deep breath and knocked on her door.
▼: "Come in." Dirk entered, and she couldn't help letting out a low whistle.
"Wow. Not even shy about the sex hair this morning, are we?" She'd been sitting
with her feet up on the desk again, but when he came in she sat up to study him
more closely. "You look like you had a rough night. Or a good one. I'm not sure
which." Dirk was not the easiest to read, even hungover, but she'd always been
an expert on this sort of thing, even before she'd started running this place.
"Since you have the classic 'I just got fucked' hair and I haven't seen hide
nor fucking hair of Dave since last night, I'm not going to have to break out
my finest Poirot mustache to solve the mystery of what you've been up to." She
still had the mustaches, actually, and Dirk knew that. Even the silly joke
facial hair had something of a maudlin air to it nowadays, and she assumed Dirk
knew that too. She let an ounce of sympathy seep into her voice. "How you
holding up?"
▲: "But you look so cute in that mustache. Very posh androgye. I've never been
more attracted to you, and that's not a lie." He sat down and propped his own
feet up on the desk. "It was both a good and a rough night, thanks for asking.
I'm fine, although I could really use some coffee and a toothbrush... or maybe
some hair of the dog." He leaned forward-- stretching his back muscles felt so.
damn. good.-- and picked up his tie, which was still sitting on Roxy's desk
where he'd left it. He threaded it through his fingers a few times and then
said, "So, I guess apologies are in order."
▼: She sighed. "I'd dislike that you're so transparently trying to ingratiate
yourself to me, but on the other hand I am cute as fuck rocking the 'staches.
Your Poirots, you Clouseaus. Hell, even your Swansons. Better than you and your
fucking peach fuzz, right?" She leaned forward. "Still. Yeah, you could
apologize. I mighta overreacted a bit, though. It was a long, stressful night
and... yeah, we got a lot of stuff to talk about so I'm not even going to tell
you the shit I been dealing with around here. Dave and his teenage boy drama
and his 'schtupping my best friend' ways has been a breath of fresh air in
comparison, if you can believe that." She sighed and reached into the desk for
Dirk's brand of whiskey and glasses; normally even she didn't start quite this
early, but this topic was going to need it. "How's that going? And please don't
be an annoying fuckwit and assume that meant I was asking for the dirty
details, because that's not what I mean and you know it." Shit, if she really
wanted to, she could probably get that from Dave.
▲: "Blatant ingratiation doesn't make it any less true," he said, slipping the
tie over his head and not bothering to redo the knot. He felt a little bad that
while he'd been having wild and crazy sexcapades with a teenager all night,
Roxy had apparently been having a really shitty time. Okay, he actually felt a
lot bad, although not bad enough that he'd go back and change anything. Not on
your fucking life. "Good. Weird. We're going on a date, I guess? On his
birthday. You know, when he's... legal. God, that sounds so fucking shady,
doesn't it? Roxy, babe, tell me straight. Am I doing a bad thing, here?"
▼: She raised her eyebrows at him, pushed a glass towards him and gave him a
considering look over the rim of hers. "Honestly? I have no fucking clue what
to tell you about that. I mean. I'm not gonna say oh hey, no there's nothing
remotely weird or off about this fling of yours, but on the other hand I'm not
gonna be all 'shit's fucked up yo, stay here while I call Chris Hansen.' That
would be wicked hypocritical of me." She sighed. "I dunno. I guess I'm assuming
you actually give two shits about him beyond just fucking him or we wouldn't be
having this conversation. And he likes you. Obviously. I guess I'm going to
have to say that I need more evidence before I decide where you guys fall on my
'spectrum of weird and fucked-up sexual relationships,' which is a real and
actual metric that I maintain, by the way. Do you want ice?"
▲: Honestly, Dirk had been more than a little bit worried lately that Chris
Hansen was going to go finding *him*, not the other way around. He was still
working through exactly what he wanted out of this, but one thing was for sure:
he definitely gave at least two shits about Dave, and probably quite a few
more. He may have even sad as much if Roxy hadn't kept talking. "He does?" he
asked before he could stop himself, and wow, that was just fucking pathetic. He
grabbed for the drink, probably a little hastily. "I mean, uh, what? He does?
Why? Have you been feeding him bullshit about what a totally nice and
respectable dude I am or something?" He took a swallow, and it stung his raw
throat something awful, but it was a good kind of burn. A cleansing burn. "No,
I'm good on ice."
▼: "Mmm." She shrugged, rolled her eyes. "No, I think you'll be pleased to know
that I've been like. Hella circumspect when it comes to talking about you, ok.
Didn't even bring up much unless he asks." Which he did pretty often. Dirk was
a frequent topic of conversation, after all. "Are you that surprised that he's
into you? Yeah, of fucking course he is. I mean, Jesus, I was assuming you were
trying to wrap him around your little finger from the moment you saw him." Or
something like that; she'd extracted a surprising number of details from Dave
about that night, but there were two sides to every story, after all. "Are you?
Trying to wrap him around your finger or whatever? I mean, don't take this the
wrong way, but you can get kinda intense about people you get involved with."
Dave hadn't made it sound like it, but then Dirk, on top of all his other
ambiguous qualities, was pretty good at manipulating people, and manipulators
knew how to hide their tracks, and Roxy should know, being one herself. "Of
course he digs you, dude. Did you not notice that?"
▲: "Yeah. I dunno, I think maybe dealing with Jake's obliviousness for so long
as kinda given me a permanent issue about my ability to read people's
intentions. But somehow only when it comes to me, personally." He sat back in
his chair and stared at Roxy for a while as he sipped on the whiskey. He didn't
intend to drink any more than this one glass-- just enough to take the edge
off-- so he went slowly on it. He tried to glean from her expression just how
much she *had* told Dave, but she wasn't letting anything slip through. "I
don't know what I'm trying to do," he said finally. "I'm not playing him. I
mean, I was, but that kinda ended as soon as I decided not to kill him." Wow,
that really sounded harsh when he said it out loud. "I don't know what I'm
doing, but I'm not using him. This isn't one of my Things. If anything, I'm
kinda worried that he's the one using me, although if he is, I don't think he's
consciously aware of it. I mean, he *remembers* his Dirk. He's got more of a
connection to that... whatever that stuff is... than I do. I'm just in it
because I can't get enough. I figure the rest of it will straighten itself out
as we go."
▼: "Hmm. Well, there is that." She sipped her drink thoughtfully. "He talks
about his bro plenty. Just...doesn't really say much, if you know what I mean."
She shrugged. "I dunno. There's some stuff there, obviously. Some unplumbed
depths or whatever, but fuck if I'm interested in that. Kid's been through some
shit, but he's pretty resilient." This was true, though it had the ring of
being something she was telling to make herself feel better. Maybe the kid
needed a therapist, but what he got was her and a bottle of Baileys. She
shrugged again. "He maybe isn't as tough as he thinks he is, but he is pretty
tough. He'll be all right. Hell, if he can go through all that at the Horse
Hitcher and look all this weird alt-universe crap in the face and still roll
with it, then he can take a little weird sex with Dirk Strider, yeah?" She sat
in her chair again, spun around leisurely, and took something out of another
drawer. "Which brings us to his very own alt-Lalonde and crew. There's her, for
starters, plus has he told you about Jade yet?"
▲: "In the scheme of things, it's not all that weird. I mean weird is a
thematic element, but without all that paranormal shit it wouldn't be *Strider*
weird," he muttered. Dirk wasn't actually sure how much he wanted to know about
Dave's Bro. He felt like this alternate reality version of him was kind of a
major douche, but then he wondered how any kid raised him *him* would turn out.
Probably not all that well-adjusted, but still. He wouldn't go stuffing his
kitchen full of daggers and throwing stars instead of food. At least he knew
that much. "Yeah, he told me about his friends Jade Harley and John Egbert."
The names almost sounded foreign on his tongue. They were Grandma and Poppop,
damnit, not some seventeen-year-old kids. He thought he probably didn't want to
meet these kids, although he'd very likely be forced to at one point or
another. "I think Noir knows. I think that's why he angled to get Dave and I to
meet. The more I think about it, the more I think he wanted exactly what
happened to happen. Well, okay, maybe not the sex part, but figuring out our
connection. Maybe even his goal was to get me to talk to WQ and have her flip
out and kill me. Hell, it almost happened that way. He's made worse attempts at
my life."
▼: "Mmm." Drinking this early was probably bad form, but it did grease the
wheels of her thought process, or so she liked to think. "Well. To be honest, I
think if Jack really wanted to kill you he would just...you know, stab you or
something uncomplicated like that. He does really enjoy stabbing people, so I
don't know if he'd leave it to your boss to do it for him. I mean, I know he's
a destructive asshole and if it weren't for Droog holding him back probably his
whole racket would come crumbling down, but the fucker's not dumb. He's playing
a long game. I just don't know what for. You're right, though, he must have
known about the connection between you and Dave." She put the laptop she'd
taken out of the drawer on the desk between them. "Also, I would guess that
he's got even less patience for this dark fenestrology/two universes business
than you do. Still. Check it out, baby Grandma Jade is totally a prodigy in
this shit. Like, hella young and super-smart. Like yours truly, really."
The new article she had pulled up on the computer was about Jade accepting a
scholarship in the field of planar physics and starting at Skaia U in the fall.
"So, she's a student literally right in the city here, and Dave didn't even
know. Fuckin' incredible, right? Also, look at the picture. Holy shit, she's
fucking adorable. Can you believe 15 year-old Dave dumped that because he
thought having a cheerful girlfriend wasn't fittin' into his thug lifestyle?"
▲: Dirk got up and walked around to Roxy's side of the desk so that he could
get a better look at the screen. The photo showed a young girl who kinda looked
like the love child of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. And, if he looked
more closely, yeah, she also looked an awful lot like Grandma Harley. It mostly
in her eyes, but also the way her smile blasted off the page to smack you in
the face. "Shit," Dirk muttered.
It occurred to him that this was something approaching what Dave had felt when
he saw Dirk for the first time, and he suddenly had a lot more respect for how
well-adjusted Dave seemed to be despite everything. Dirk was a skeptic at
heart, and while he'd been rolling with all of this, somehow it never felt
quite as real as it did at this moment, staring at a girl who was a dead
fucking ringer for his old boyfriend's grandma.
Shit. He couldn't imagine having to go and fuck this girl, which would be what
he'd have to do to even start coming close to what Dave had felt. Dirk felt a
creeping urge to go back upstairs and start apologizing or... something. He
didn't really know what the appropriate response was.
He also felt this weird twinge of... something. It wasn't jealousy, exactly,
but it probably could have been had she been anything other than the
doppelganger of his surrogate parent. "Shit," he repeated. Apparently all of
the eloquence had been sucked out of him.
▼: "That," she said, patting him on the shoulder, "is exactly what I said.
Shee-it, motherfucker." She let him take in the picture, and maybe read the
article, though Dirk was probably hung up on the photo. She had been, after
all. "The article has a little bit of her history, but not much more than what
I learned from Dave. I found a little bit about the Egbert kid, and Rose...ugh.
Don't get me started on her, I can't find a word about her anywhere online. If
Dave didn't swear that she exists and he'd met her I'd think she was a cypher
he made up to fuck with me. Still, gotta have respect for someone who removes
themselves so thoroughly from the grid, for whatever reason. I mean, there's
not a whole lot about Egbert except stuff about...I dunno, swim meets and
academic shit, but still. Rose has purposefully made herself almost
untraceable. Which is by far the best evidence that she's related to me, let's
be real."
Dirk was still staring at the screen with a stunned yet thoughtful expression,
so she added, to break him out of his reverie, "By the way, please don't tell
Dave how thoroughly I cyber-stalked his friends because...yeah, just don't."
She watched his expression again and said, in a softer more serious voice:
"What are you thinking about?"
▲: He licked his lips and took a step back, trying to put distance between
himself and the ghost on the screen. "I was thinking that she looks a lot like
Jane too, you know? Like chop off the hair and give her a big wooden spoon and
maybe one of your fake mustaches. Like, shit, I can taste the pie already." He
wasn't going to say he missed them, Jane and Jake and Grandma and Poppop,
because that would just be empty and redundant. Roxy knew he missed them, and
she missed them too. It was just a given.
The other thing he wasn't saying-- the really big thing-- was that if there was
an alternate reality version of him and one of Grandma and Poppop... was there
an alterate reality Jake out there too? Dirk wasn't sure if the idea excited
him or made him feel sick in the stomach. Maybe a little of column A and a
little of column B. He'd made his peace with the fact that Jake was dead (he
was still seeking revenge, but that's a different thing), and he didn't like
the idea of all this-- what had Roxy called it? dark fenestration?-- poking
holes in that peace.
He took a few hard swallows and then leaned up against the desk, sitting down
on it and facing Roxy. "I won't. Tell Dave. I don't know how much I want him to
know, but I told him I was going to send people to check on his friends." He
thought about that for a minute. "Do you think this is the whole world? It
can't be just us, can it?"
▼: She sank back in her chair again. "Well. It's possible it is. And it's
possible it's a phenomenon more common than we think. Hard to say, really.
Depends on who you talk to, and what they've been smoking that day."
She shrugged, put down her drink, and put her laptop back in the drawer. "But
seriously, this idea's always been around, or at least has been for a while. It
always just got laughed out of the room because...well. The idea is that there
have always been these two universes, feeding off and bleeding into each other,
existing at once even though you'd think the existence of one would preclude
the existence of the other. But the co-existence is possible; we've seen it in
motion. Hell, you've slept with it. But the effects are...well, there's some
debate about what the effects are, let's say. Some say that a tenuous co-
existence is always possible, even sustainable, and there's another argument
that the universes are colliding-- crashing into each other, really-- and that
means that destruction of both is inevitable. People who are more in the loop
about this shit would probably be able to give you more specifics, put names to
the theories. It's why I'm definitely interested in talking to Jade. Well. One
reason why."
She dropped the pseudo-academic tone. Wasn't really her thing anyway. Professor
Lalonde does not keep office hours. "On that note, though...look, I know it's
difficult, but you gotta take a page from Dave on this one. You gotta remember
that they're different people...whoever these kids are. Dave's good at seeing
it in those terms. Hell, I think he made himself to see it in those terms, and
now he does it out of habit. Jade isn't Grandma Harley, and you're not Dave's
bro. Not really." She purposely hadn't brought up the white elephants of Jake
and Jane, but she knew he was thinking about it. "You just have to remember
that. You have to see them as they are, not as you think you remember them. You
know?"
▲: "Destruction of both universes. Yeah, I knew there was a reason I was so
eager to talk to you about all of this. You always know just way to say to calm
me down, it's like some kind of mystic Dirk whisperer talent that you've got,
babe." The pun amused him, at least. He'd take whatever amusement he could get
right now. "And, yeah, I know I'm not. And she's not. It's just... it creeps up
on you. Like, a lot of things Dave said to me that first night are starting to
make a little more sense now."
He reached across the desk and picked up his glass to drink the rest of it. Now
was as good of a time as any, and it gave him something to do other than think
about Jake and Dave. He really, *really* didn't want to start crossing those
signals. Not yet. Subject change. "I kinda figured I'd offer to let you lead
the follow-up with his friend Rose, since that's kinda your stake in the whole
deal. I mean, shit. Your you might even still be alive. I think that's pretty
unique among all of us."
▼: "Ok...well, I hadn't even considered that. Sexy old lady me still being
around, I mean. Wow, that like, totally distracted me from whatever I was going
to tell you."
She pondered for a few seconds, before going on. "Right. I wanted to say, don't
be so dramatic about the universal destruction thing. Like I said, it's just
one theory among many. It gets more attention than it deserves because there's
that weird-ass religious cult thing surrounding it. The Scratch people--
Fracturists, is what they're called. Like the troll clown weirdos, but moreso.
I mean, not to generalize, but a religion that's all about impending doom
attracts a certain type of person. Apocalypse aficionados and social misfits or
just plain depressed people. Dave told me that a lot of his old co-workers were
super into that stuff, and it doesn't surprise me, at a place like the Horse
Hitcher. But just because it's popular among a couple whackjobs and some former
teen goth wannabees...that doesn't mean that total annihilation is what's going
to occur here. Hell, the loonies might even be right, but even that's not as
bad as it sounds. Everything's got a life cycle, and everything ends, even
universes. It's the circle of life, Simba. Doesn't mean there's no hope at
all."
She laughed. "Wow, that's a lot of heavy shit to take in before noon, isn't it.
Ok, change of subject: I was thinking about it while I was talking just now
and...I think I can tell you this, in confidence obviously, because you're my
best friend and you're contractually obligated to listen to my shit, and you
really have no room to throw stones here. Dirk. I want to bang sexy old lady
me. I mean. Assuming she's alive, and up for it. I want that to be a thing that
happens. What do you think? I am 100% serious."
▲: He was glad he'd downed the remainder of his drink before she'd asked that
question. Roxy banging an older version of herself. Huh. He'd had a front row
seat to Roxy banging herself at least once if not more (some of the details of
their late teens were already starting to get fuzzy), and that had been rather
energetic anyway. He figured that old Roxy was probably the only person who
could keep up with young Roxy. The thought wasn't entirely unappealing. He
smiled and said, "No reason why I should have all the fun. Although I'm
honestly not sure if you banging your interdimensional clone is more or less
fucked up than me banging my interdimensional brother. Does this mean yes you
want to go peek in on Rose, or should I designate someone else for the job?"
▼: "Well, I think we long ago decided that I shouldn't be anyone's designated
anything but...yeah. I guess. We'll see what's up with that." She sighed. "This
is gonna get *weird*, like even weirder than it is now. I can feel it in my
water. I'm just glad that we have alcohol? Yeah. Alcohol's good." She looked up
at Dirk. "Also, friends. Having friends is almost as good. Speaking of, I gotta
poke Dave and get him to get out of his adorable little tortoise shell and talk
to his bros. Kid cannot keep living in my attic and only talk three people for
the rest of his life, ok. One of those people is me and the other is you." She
stood up. "Ok. Good talk. You can consider yourself mostly absolved of the
stuff I was pissed at you about. I think. If I think of something else I'll
send you an email, like I always do." She came up to gave him a hug, and while
she was embracing him something caught in her chest. She withdrew to look at
him. "You're doing alright, aren't you? I'm never fucking sure about you.
Because you don't have to keep doing what you're doing forever. You know that,
right?"
▲: Dirk wrapped his arms around Roxy and hugged her back. It was different than
hugging Dave, a lot softer. And she smelled kinda fruity instead of like stale
cannabis smoke. Oh, also it didn't give him a boner. There was that. Still, it
was nice. Roxy gave good hugs. "I do have to, though. Look how many people Noir
has burned through to get to me? I hate how fucking dramatic that sounds, like
bloo bloo bloo, poor tragic backstory of a boy with a tortured soul and a big
purple heart full of venom and revenge, but really. I don't want anyone else to
get hurt. At least, not anybody else who didn't sign up for it. This is the
only place I can do that." He pulled her back in because he didn't want to look
her in the eyes when he said this kind of stuff. "I just wish I knew why he has
it out for me so bad. Maybe it has something to do with the other me that he
killed. I have no idea."
▼: "Hmm." She rested her head on his shoulder for a second. "That's another of
those...well. Call them mysteries, I guess, and even my greatest Poirot staches
can't quite solve them yet. Like I said, Jack's playing the long game. Like in
an incredibly violent game of chess. I always fucking hated chess, didn't you?"
She pulled away, looked in his eyes. "Look. There comes a point where you can't
say you're in this just to protect other people. I mean, I don't doubt that you
are. But...look, Jack Noir might be part robot, but you're not, no matter you
might like to think. Normal people need to take breaks. Even little ones. Just
think about it, ok?" She patted his arm again. "By the way, I didn't want to
tell you this until you were about to leave because I think you'll be mad, but
somebody spilled clamato on the jacket you left in the bar last night. I'm
sorry, but not really, because what did you expect?"
▲: Dirk looked around wildly until he spotted his jacket hanging on the
backside of the other chair in the corner with a big red wet spot down one of
the sleeves. It looked like the bartender or barback or maybe even Roxy herself
had tried to get some of it out with soda water, but it was still going to need
some hefty dry-cleaning. He groaned, but then he kissed Roxy on the forehead.
"In the spirit of the morning, I forgive you." It wasn't Roxy's fault or
anything, but he just felt like saying that. He walked over and picked it up,
and while his back was turned, he added, "Wouldn't it be great if I was a
robot, though? Then you could have your own mechanical Dirk to boss around
whenever you wanted. I'd even let you make him do all that raunchy shit I never
let you do. Actually, that's kind of an awesome idea. Maybe if I ever do take a
vacation, I'll look into it."
▼: "Wow, thanks for the benediction, Pope Dirk," she said, but couldn't help
smiling as she rolled her eyes. "The day you build me a sex robot...I can't
even finish that sentence. I don't know how I would process you building me a
sex robot. The only thing that would be better would be actually banging me. Oh
wait! I'm gonna do that anyway. Suck it, robo-Dirk." She watched him as he got
his shit in order. "So. You're taking Dave out for his birthday, was it?" Dave
had mentioned this off-handedly, and had tried to downplay how much he was
obviously looking forward to it. Still, Dirk didn't need to hear about that;
this wasn't high school, and she wasn't a fucking love doctor. "So I'll see you
in a couple weeks. At least I better." She raised her eyebrows at him; didn't
hurt the grease the wheels a little bit, after all, and just a little meddling
never hurt anyone. At least that's what she always insisted.
▲: "Fine. No Dirkbot for you. I'm still gonna build it, but I'm gonna freeze it
in carbonite. That way, one night when you're all worked up but alone because
you've long since broken up with your alternate reality self, you can go visit
it and run your fingers down its hard metal exterior, wondering why you ever
made so flippant a comment about its value." He swung his jacket over his back
and made for the door. "It's going to taunt you, Roxy. It's going to say,
'Girl, you could be riding this metal and gear facsimile of your best friend
right now, but on November whatever, 2012, you were too proud to admit that you
might need me one day. Now look at what you've done.'" He paused when reaching
for the doorknob and turned back. "Or maybe I'll give it to Dave. Speaking of,
yes, I'll be back. Even if I wasn't taking him out, I'd be back for you,
dummy." He flashed a smile and left in the direction of the nearest dry
cleaner.
A little over a week later, his suit jacket had been cleaned but had gotten
dirty again, and he was taking a shower to wash away the grime and the sick
feeling in the pit of his gut. Dave's two friends, Jade and John, were fine. He
hadn't heard from Roxy yet about Rose, but he was hoping that no news was good
news on that front. Even still, he wasn't any closer to figuring out what was
going on or why. The good news was that they'd finally found the mole in WQ's
circle-- or at least, one of them. Dirk had had the unsavory honor of tying up
that particular loose end, which was how his suit had gotten dirty again.
When he turned off the water, he realized that through the haze of filth and
disgust, he had forgotten to grab a towel on his way to the bathroom. Well,
fuck it. He stepped out onto the mat and let the water drip. There was actually
something a little bit satisfying in that small act of rebellion. Why was
letting water drip on the rug such a big fuckin' deal anyway? He walked through
the dark house completely naked, getting water everywhere, picking things up
and setting them down restlessly. Finally he dried his hands and face off on a
kitchen towel and picked up his phone from where he'd tossed it on the counter.
The clock said midnight thirty but his brain said high noon, zooming around
like it'd just had that last cup of coffee before lunch and thinking it could
go all damn day. He flopped down on the couch, realizing he was kinda sticking
to the fabric but not caring too much, and tried to think about things other
than work. He thought about turning the TV on for a moment, since he'd been
trying to watch this new show about a self-obsessed gynecologist, but he was
having trouble following it, and he really wasn't in a situation comedy kind of
mood anyway.
He closed his eyes and stretched one arm behind his head on the arm of the
couch. He was going to see Dave again in less than a week. There was that. The
phone was abandoned on his bare chest to rise and fall with each breath, and
instead he moved his hand down to his junk, which he rubbed absently. Yes,
there was that. What an effective distraction. So effective that he forgot
about the phone call he was going to make and lost track of time for a little
while... that is, until the phone rang and startled the hell out of him, though
not enough to kill the boner he'd managed to cultivate despite the doom and
gloom of the day. He thought about letting it ring, but ultimately he let go of
his dick and picked up the phone to at least glance at the screen. Speak of the
fucking devil. Okay, fine. He hit the button and said, "Funny. I was just
thinking about you."
***** Intermission *****
From: Dave Strider
To: Rose L
Date: Nov 13, 2012 11:38 PM
Subject: so
hey
its dave
you know this is gonna be awkward no matter how i slice it like what am i even
supposed to open with
so
guess ill get right to it then
bro bit off way more than he could chew
thats how jade always put it and i guess she was right
big surprise
probably i shoulda listened to jade about a lot of things
anyway jack killed him to make a long story short i dunno if bro had seen it
coming or not
maybe he did
i dunno maybe he was doing it
fighting jack i mean
cause he thought theyd leave me alone
or he thought he could take jack
they were pretty evenly matched and im not just saying that
i dont think he ever would have expected them to go after me
i mean i was still just a kid to them
thats why i did it i think
went after jack for myself after he killed bro
yeah that was pretty dumb
we really werent that evenly matched
me and my bullshit inigo montoya schtick
except i think inigo montoya had a pretty nice sword
anyway that was what happened sword broke and jack cracked me over the head
with the titular horse hitcher
thats the name of the brothel i was working out of the iron horse hitcher
probably some kind of poetic justice in that which is cool because no other
kind of justice was available
oh man that was a slick bit of wordplay i just pulled off
slick oh my god i got a million of em
slick is what droog calls jack sometimes when hes being all ironic like or is
experiencing the heinous after effects of this carapacian disease called
friendship
anyway im just stalling before the unpleasant part of this email obviously
you knew that
you maybe know more than im giving you credit for here
you and your eldritch nancy drew ways
shit does that make me ned nickerson or whatever sexless man douche it was that
followed her around
i feel like youre probably raising your eyebrows at that description
man this email is going predictably horribly
im probably going to delete half of this but maybe not
who knows thats the thing about emotional vomiting into somebodys inbox you
just never know where its going to stoppppppp
hope you liked that gross metaphor because theyre only gonna get worse from
here on out
so i got hit over the head and woke up in a brothel
dear penthouse i never thought it could happen to me
yeah im kidding it was pretty awful
they had this creepy ass doctor checking me out when i got there
i needed stitches and for whatever reason they had the doctor give them to me
ive got a scar right under my hairline but its pretty small
creepy doctors good at what he does so its too bad hes creepy as hell
he_didnt_have_a_face_rose
i know youre probably all wow how hard did jack hit you but im serious rose he
didnt have a face he had negative face where his face should have been there
was just
nothing
i cant even explain it i mean id seen him around before all this happened maybe
i was just blind maybe people just plain dont notice hell maybe it was my rad
stiller shades inhibiting me from seeing it
god i miss those things
anyway it was by far the creepiest thing that happened to me at the horse
hitcher which is fucking saying something
didnt start working for a week after to recover from the head injury
it healed just like the doc said it would
i got the feeling the whole thing was an accident almost
like they put me in the horse hitcher to just to keep me somewhere while they
decided what to do with me
but in the meantime someone gave them the idea to have me work there
thanks mysterious dude i owe you a million bucks
obviously my ass instantly became such hot shit there was no way theyd let me
go
that was sarcasm btw
shit look whats happened i actually gotta tell you when im being sarcastic
instead of you using your fancy lalonde meter to figure it out on your own
anyway i lied and told them id never had sex before
you know never fucked anything never been fucked
uh
which was true actually
i know what youre thinking dave pimp daddy strider secretly a virgin surely
youre joking
that was sarcasm again btw
yeah so i dont know why im telling you this but at any rate
i didnt lie but it turns out that me not having done it before didnt really
matter to droog and the rest of them
turns out theres a certain kind of person thatll pay extra for that
theres a certain type of person thatll pay for anything is what ive learned
thats been the object lesson of the last few months
capitalism in action
its sort of exotic a hooker whos never been fucked
so i know what youre thinking "dave this personal trauma is fascinating to me
but what the fucking fuck you dumb bastard"
actual quote right
yeah so why am i telling you this now
well as of writing this im no longer in the employ of the iron horse hitcher
sup you cant fire me i fucking quit you assholes
so yeah im hiding now not gonna tell you where just in case but im probably
safe for a little bit
what happened was
2 weeks i picked up this guy
or he picked me up im not sure which here
anyway he tried to kill me
but changed his mind
he works for the prospit crowd
i didnt know that originally of course at first he was just some douchebag at
the bar
he was super fancy like nice armani suit shoes from douchebag central all of
which shoulda been my first tip off that shit was fucked up
but what was really odd what distracted me from everything else about the
situation was how much he looked like my bro
i mean he had the shades and everything
his hair even did the same thing bros did when he didnt put a hat on before it
dried
it was so fucking freaky even though the guy was obviously a lot younger than
bro
kinda had the look of a real young guy desperately trying to look older
anyway we talked a little bit and he was alright
got a little handsy but not idk like rude handsy like "ima prospect for gold up
your skirt hold still" handsy
guess i didnt really need to mention the skirt note to self delete this shit
later unless youre just really dedicated to grossing rose out
which lets face it i am
anyway so
he takes me to his hotel room
and were getting the show started so to speak and he gets me so im bare ass
naked like right next to his face
and he says
my names dirk call me dirk say my name
he hadnt even told me his fucking name and if i hadnt been so fucking stupid
maybe i coulda weaseled that out of him sooner
but there i was and i should have just run but i couldnt
i couldnt because i was mad and not to get too explicit but we were already
pretty firmly entrenched in that bullshit
so right after he finishes up i confront him right away
before he can even say anything i tell him dirk strider was my brother so that
couldnt possibly be his name
and as soon as i say his name he flips out
like pulls a gun on me flips out which as flipping out goes is about the
flippingest you can get
and then it comes out what i figured all along that hes a garbage man
(thats funny gangster man talk for a contract killer type like denzel in
american gangster to take an example)
hes a garbage man and his name is dirk strider and he says i couldnt be dave
strider because dave strider is his brother and dave strider died 20 years ago
thats true by the way
i looked up the news article
also (and this was sort of an afterthought which is saying something) hed been
hired to kill me
he was supposed to kill me after he was done fucking me i guess but when you
put it like that it sounds really
well it sounds exactly like it is but i dunno living it was different if that
makes sense
living it was horrible but it had this lucidity to it that i hadnt felt in
months
i dont know what the fuck im saying here note to self delete this horrible
bullshit later and tell rose more horrible hooker stories that involve santorum
and dudes with b.o.
so yeah obviously he didnt kill me he put the gun away because he believed i
was who i said i was and wasnt the mark he wanted
so he told me to get out of there or stay if i wanted to to figure shit out
he was gonna go take a shower
i dont know what i wouldve done if hed told me to stay or told me to go
maybe id have felt differently or wouldnt have believed him but he gave me a
choice so i stayed
he told me to take the money in his wallet if i wanted while he was showering
he had a lot of money in his wallet
i dont know what the fuck i was thinking i should have taken it and run
made it to tijuana by morning
though if i had i guess i wouldnt be writing this right now would i
bet youre starting to wish id run to tijuana too huh
but i stayed with him
idk why
well
thats a not true
i have an inkling
but this letter is long enough already
i trust him is the thing despite everything
which is so fucking beautiful right
but like i said living it was different that telling it is
he couldve killed me but he didnt so that means what
he couldve killed me but he didnt and oh yeah hes also my brother kinda sorta
through weird alt universe shenanigans
and i trust him because hes my bro
and i dont trust him because hes not my bro
not really
and i fucked him because hes not really my bro not really my bro at all
not even that much like him except superficially
but when we first met i liked talking to him and being with him because he is
my bro in a way
shit
so anyway he brought me here to the safe house
left me here and its been two weeks and i didnt talk to you until now because i
wasnt sure what to say so i just sort of
said it all
said every goddamn thing
im gonna write john and jade about not being dead too but dont tell anyone
about hearing from me yet ok
ill see you soon i think
ill be in touch
hope youre ok
==>
Get on Pesterchum.
-TT
==>
TG: hey lalonde good to talk to you too yeah it has been a long time hasnt it
TT: I'd like confirmation, please. A picture, some sort of code phrase.
TG: holy shit a code
TG: what are you dan brown
TG: yes the secret code that proves im really dave strider is encoded in
backwards script hidden in the ass-seam of the skirt i used to wear god why do
i keep making the sex refrances
TT: Don't joke with me about this, Dave.
TG: if that is my real name
TT: What did I just say? How on Earth, Alternia, and whatever other benighted
planets that exist in the cosmos am I supposed to process this? How am I
supposed to be sure you are who you say you are?
TG: holy shit you are really serious about this arent you
TT: Dave, I thought you were dead.
TG: wishful thinking
TT: What did I just fucking say about joking?
TG: jesus
TG: fine let me just think of something thatll prove i am who i say i am
TT: I'll wait.
TG: ok thanks
TG: you and me met on a squiddles messageboard when we were nine
TG: i dont know if i got your chumhandle there or later through jade
TG: i dont even quite remember if we talked much back then
TG: but i knew you because you were like the resident shitstirrer
TG: us both we were like the forum wide infamous and quintessential internet
ogres your mother warned you about
TG: im trying to think what your username was its on the tip of my tongue
TG: i had a couple different ones since i usually got banned for posting goatse
in the middle of long threads
TT: Would you really consider me a shitstirrer in quite the same way as that?
TG: nah not really i guess
TG: you were one of those argumentative types
TG: "words words words big words squiddles sux donkey anus big words
intellectual argument about the objective shittiness of a childrens cartoon"
TG: my method was more
TG: find a couple threads
TG: start a flame war
TG: when things start getting hectic
TG: emotions running high
TG: spam the thread with a couple dozen pix of a mans stretched gaping anus
TG: drop the mike
TG: get outta that bitch
TG: classic
TG: thorns_of_ogoloth that was your username
TG: rose
TG: you still there
TT: Still here.
TG: shit you getting all emotional remembering our youthful foibles on the
forums for a shitty kids show
TT: That must be it.
TG: that was a joke
TG: am i allowed to make jokes now or is there still a joke moratorium going on
here
TT: ...
TG: you believe its me now right
TT: Of course. I didn't exactly doubt you before.
TG: wishful thinking again
TT: No, I think it was the opposite. It seemed too good to be true. For months
I've had no reason to believe you weren't as dead as your brother.
TT: Jade persisted in believing you were alive, I think, but we had no evidence
to go either way.
TT: It's a definitive glass half empty, glass half full thought exercise.
TG: what deciding whether i could be dead or not
TG: like
TG: schrodingers strider
TT: Sure.
TT: I would have liked to come down to the city myself to investigate the
situation. Still, there's only so much three people can do when the police have
no interest in investigating the crime.
TG: hey thats not a very nancy drew attitude is it
TT: Not that it ended up mattering much. I've been forbidden from any
extracurricular travel. Forbidden and forcibly prevented, I should mention.
TG: well
TG: not to rub it in but maybe you wouldnt get grounded so much if you werent
running away all the time
TT: I told you, I didn't run away.
TG: right right
TT: I don't think you have much room to talk on the issue. And it's not quite
like that anyway. My mother didn't ground me, she simply thinks it would be too
dangerous for me to go to the city now
TG: wonder what gave her that idea
TT: I suspect she did know of your brother's death, though I didn't ask her
directly.
TG: course you didnt
TG: direct communication between you and your mom not on your life
TT: Again, I would say: et tu, kettle?
TG: k i think you missed your reference there but fine
TG: maybe you should lay off the dead family member referencing kind of a sore
subject you know
TT: Sorry.
TG: nah im just kidding talk about it all you want
TG: so what made you so sure bro was dead but not me
TT: Jack admitted to being involved in your brother's murder.
TT: Well. His lawyer did.
TG: jack has a lawyer what who
TT: Some douchebag. Does it matter?
TG: guess not
TG: just didnt know he had one
TT: You can't run the rackets Jack does without one.
TT: Although I imagine that, as an asset, you were kept quite separate from the
Legitimate Business side of the operation.
TG: ...
TT: Which may have been a crass way to put it. Sorry.
TG: its fine
TG: so this lawyer said something about bro
TT: He admitted that the death at your brother's workshop had involved Noir.
TT: Then the next day he said he never said that, and the day after that the
police started looking for other suspects that they have since spectacularly
failed to uncover.
TG: golly gee i wonder how that couldve happened im shocked
TT: Mmm. Anyway, after finding that out I had almost no doubt. Why wouldn't
Jack kill you too, to prevent your incipient Inigo Montoya Syndrome, like you
said?
TG: syndrome
TG: wow you are such a terrible wannabe therapist inigo montoya syndrome isnt
even close to being a thing
TT: No. That was a joke. Are you going to put a moratorium on jokes now too?
TG: no go nuts
TG: laugh riot over here
TT: Sorry. Not a great joke.
TG: its fine
TT: I don't mean to upset you.
TG: for fucks sake
TG: im not upset
TT: Clearly.
TG: fuck you
TT: ...
TG: ok fine but admit it you were being purposely aggravating just now
TT: I was.
TT: I am sorry. Really. I don't want to make it worse. I just want to know if
you're alright.
TT: As in physically secure. I'm making no claims to wanting to know your
emotional state.
TT: That's what you want to hear, right?
TG: yeah sure
TG: man youd think i was balling all this inside and that i hadnt busted out
the sob story already
TG: i sent you that email didnt i
TT: You did.
TG: yeah
TG: what did you think
TT: Besides the obvious?
TG: yeah besides that
TT: I'm...not sure? I think you said something at one point about trying to
disgust me.
TG: and how
TG: looks like it worked
TG: you seem pretty grossed out
TT: You could give me a little more credit.
TG: what do you mean
TT: Do you really think that "grossed out" is the best way to describe my
overall reaction to an email where you detailed being held against your will
and forced into the sex trade?
TG: well
TG: maybe
TG: maybe that was my own reaction
TT: If you were trying to induce acute physical repulsion maybe you should have
gone back to your old Goatse standby.
TG: hey maybe
TG: i could use my own
TG: hey rose 3 months in the sex trade check it out what do you think could i
fit a fist up there
TT: ...
TG: ok THAT was gross
TT: It was.
TG: i think id rather gross you out than have you pity me
TG: that thing i just said might have done both though
TG: do we have to talk about this
TT: No. Like I said, I just want to be sure you're no longer in danger.
TT: I'm not sure about this person you said brought you to the safe house in
the first place.
TG: oh that douchebag
TT: Your brother.
TG: nope
TT: He's not your brother?
TG: no hes not but also no im not talking about this now nope
TG: look hes not even in the picture right now
TG: i meant he is but he isnt
TT: That's not worrying at all.
TG: i know it sucks but its how it is you just have to trust me
TG: you do trust me right
TT: Of course I do.
TG: sure took you a long time to type that
TT: Dave.
TG: right fine ok
TG: i know you trust me youre just worried
TG: i get that
TG: sorry to pull the old dont you trust me guilt trip on your ass to make you
swallow my crazy story
TG: youll believe me soon though
TG: i promise ok
TG: rose
TT: Alright.
TT: What about John and Jade?
TG: yeah them
TG: i still gotta
TT: Would you authorize me to give them a bare bones account of events?
TG: tell them about stuff
TG: wait what
TT: I would tell them about your brother's death, and your employment at the
brothel, and about Dirk.
TG: ...
TG: maybe i should get it adapted into a lifetime movie tell em that way
instead
TT: Dave.
TG: right no jokes i forgot
TT: You're obviously not very comfortable talking about this. This way they
would be aware of the situation and you could approach them when you're ready.
TG: aka dave this way you wont put off doing it forever and end up spilling
everything at once in an incomprehensible word vomit again
TT: I wouldn't say that. My intention's more selfish than that. I don't want to
keep this to myself. I don't think I could, Dave. That's not me trying to
blackmail you, that's a simple fact.
TG: i guess i get that
TG: so fine you win
TG: you tell john and jade
TG: just dont
TT: Yes?
TG: dont mention the stuff with dirk
TT: Certainly.
TG: the sex stuff
TT: I figured.
TG: that oedipal fuckfest is my special gift to you rose lalonde
TG: its a late halloween gift turns out the great pumpkin isnt a big fakey fake
thing after all
TT: Of course it's not.
TT: Should I show you the letter before I send it?
TG: yes make sure that its on my desk by monday do you fucking hear me
TG: i dont actually give a shit ok
TG: guess i trust you too isnt that sweet
TT: There certainly is something genuinely touching poorly concealed in your
constant tumult of ironic detachment.
TT: But maybe I just missed talking to you.
TG: yeah
TG: well hey thats awesome
TG: so
TG: good talk
TT: You're leaving now, I take it?
TG: yeah
TG: im gonna turn off the computer and go find the alt universe version of your
mom and drink a ton of liquor with her until my ironic detachment re-rights
itself
TT: What?
TG: later
TT: I'm pretty sure that was your most inscrutable 'your mom' burn yet.
TG: ahaha
turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT]
***** Chapter 8 *****
▼: After Dirk left, Dave started in on it. He logged onto Pesterchum for the
first time since the day before Bro had died; going through old conversation
logs was weird, but he found himself rereading them almost obsessively. Not
because there was anything that interesting in them; he was just stalling, and
he knew it. Nobody was online, which maybe was good. Yeah. Maybe IM was just
too...too personal. Maybe he wanted to write an email. Maybe that was it. He
logged out and decided to start with Rose; he immediately saw that writing a
mass email to everyone wasn't going to cut it in this case, and Rose would
require the most delicate wording if he was going to explain everything. Which
he obviously was, he knew with a weary resignation.
Once he started writing he found that he couldn't stop, and then when he reread
he had to edit everything, taking out massive chunks and adding even larger
ones until finally it was noon and he'd been sitting there for hours. He hadn't
eaten anything, hadn't showered, hell, he hadn't even pissed yet. He looked at
the email, this horrible mass of red text with phrases jumping out at him that
made him wince, and sent it before he could change his mind. He had to piss so
bad it almost hurt, so he grabbed a towel and went into the bathroom.
Afterwards, feeling more human and shuddering every time he thought about the
email, he went downstairs to find Roxy, hoping that talking to her would calm
him down, or at least distract him.
"I'm going out of town soon," she told him right away. "You can't come with me.
You going to be alright?"
This did surprise him, but he was (mostly) back to normal now and could reply
with a normal level of irony in his voice. "What? Well, yeah, think I'll be
fine, Mom, thanks. You don't have to hire a sitter." He paused. "How long?"
"Just a day, if I'm lucky. More if I'm not. Call Dirk if anything goes wrong,
obviously." She eyed him. "You eat anything yet?"
He shrugged and she groaned. "I don't actually want to be your mom, dude. Come
on. We have to talk."
A week later she was still gone. He wasn't worried; she'd texted him, plus he
wasn't a fucking mother hen pacing around his room. He was just...pacing in the
normal way. Over the past week he'd sent Jade and John similar emails, had
received replies, and even sent a few back, but he hadn't logged onto
Pesterchum since the morning after Dirk had left. Porrim had taken her computer
back, so he was left in his room with his phone, staring at it like a mortal
enemy.
He hated calling people. He really did. So why he found himself sitting down on
the windowsill and dialing Dirk's number, he had no idea. Maybe he was atoning
for something. He had no idea. He almost regretted it when Dirk picked up, but
his heart leapt slightly at Dirk's words. "Oh. That's cool. Me too. Well,
obviously, that's why I called you. But." God fucking damnit did he hate
talking on the phone. "Anyway. No emergency or anything. Let me just look in
the closet here...yeah, no Jack Noir in my bedroom." And Dave didn't have a
boner, but he could probably use one. "Just...wanted to talk a bit. Is now a
good time?"
▲: Dave sounded unsettled but not actually scared, so Dirk didn't feel the need
to sit up just yet. Even still, he didn't have any hands left for his dick
unless he removed the arm he was using for a pillow, so he decided to leave
that thread hanging for a minute. "Pretty sure I told you not to call unless
you were in danger, but lucky for you I'm actually off the clock for the time
being. Just, uhh, sitting around." He shifted a little bit on the couch. The
water evaporating off of his skin was starting to make him cold. Maybe this
hadn't been an amazing idea. "What's up? Are you okay?"
▼: "Yeah. Sorry 'bout that, except not really. Anyway, I'm fine. Everything's
pretty chill here." Shit. He didn't really want to sound like a worrying pansy
to Dirk, but Roxy had been gone a lot longer than he thought she would be. Than
*she* thought she would be. Part of him wondered if Dirk knew more than he did
about what she was up to. She'd said something about finding Rose, but she'd
promised not to approach Rose or talk to her until Dave had said something to
her. Thinking about it made him queasy, and he wished he could have convinced
her to let him come too.
He went on. "Things are pretty quiet around here, with Roxy gone." He kicked
the window open; there was no screen, so he could sit there with a foot hanging
out into the night. He thought about Roxy, and about Rose's disquieting emails,
with an annoyed quirk of his mouth, and sitting there made him think of smoking
with Dirk in this spot last week. A feeling of affection, of exasperation, rose
within him. And loneliness, he supposed. That was why he had called in the
first place, probably. "Fucking Lalondes, man. I feel like you are the only
other dude in the world who can quite understand me when I say that. I mean,
don't get me wrong, I missed the shit out of Rose, but she does not make it
easy, you know that?" He paused. "On that note. You heard from Roxy lately?"
▲: Dirk sat up and started walking around. It was time to dry off. Maybe an
awkward time to decide to do this, but boners plus creeping chill does not
equal a good conversation. "No, I definitely feel you." He found himself
wondering idly if there was ever anything between Dave and his Lalonde. Not
that there had been *much* between him and Roxy, but it was also not accurate
to say that there hadn't always kinda been something, too. Shit was
complicated. Relationships between Striders and Lalondes were, apparently,
particularly so. "I've heard from her, but not much. She texted me-- yesterday?
Was it yesterday? Or maybe the day before. I'm sure she would have elaborated
if something was wrong." He reached into the linen closet and grabbed a towel,
trying to awkwardly pat himself down while balancing the phone between his
cheek and his shoulder. "She's been gone a while, but I figure she's just busy
having lots of sloppy lesbian sex with herself."
▼: "Well yeah, but--wait. What." He sat up straighter in the window. "Are you
making a masturbation joke or-- oh. Wait. Do you mean Rose's mom? Whoa." For
whatever reason, he hadn't even thought about Rose's mom being to Roxy what Bro
was to Dirk. "Is she-- you're joking. She must be joking. You're joking,
right?" He swung his foot back inside, sat up straighter. Holy shit. Of course
he wasn't joking. "What the fuck. Is *that* why she wouldn't let me come with
her? 'Cause I would cockblock her and her old lady self? My fucking god." He
wanted to laugh; he was annoyed, but also a lot less tense now. He couldn't
really be anxious about Roxy, and Rose by extension. He stood up, went to
stretch out on the bed instead." He grinned. "Oh man. If that is a thing that
is happening, I'm so telling Rose. It will scar her. I've only heard back from
her once since I emailed her, and she hasn't said anything about seeing Roxy,
so who knows. Maybe that is in fact what's happening right now."
▲: "Mmhmm," Dirk muttered while he continued attempting to towel off. He at
least managed to dry to the point where he no longer felt on the verge of
shivering. The thought of going back to the couch was unappealing, seeing as
how it was now damp all over, so instead he walked down the hallway to his
bedroom, turning off the few lights that were still on while he went. "When I
talked to her that morning I mentioned the fact that her alternaverse time
clone might still be alive, and she somehow turned that into a big grand scheme
to sleep with herself for real instead of just, you know, the old-fashioned
way." His bedroom was warmer than the living room since he kept all the vents
closed, so he immediately felt better even before flopping down onto the bed.
"I don't know if her extended absence means she's actually doing it, but if
alternaverse Roxy is anything like my Roxy, they're definitely fucking like
drunk lesbian rabbits right now."
▼: "OK. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, or think that I'm telling you
to abuse her trust or something, but: you have to get as many dirty, awful
details about this as you can from her, because she obviously doesn't want to
let me in on this for some unfathomable reason. You have no idea how I can use
this to get revenge on my Lalonde. Do you know how many times she has
traumatized me? The passive-aggressive dance of sexual whatever that she
initiated when we were still fucking children can finally swing back in my
favor, which is basically where it was to begin with." He considered telling
Dirk about how, when they were younger, Rose would peruse the very depths of
plushrump.com (or whatever other puppet URLs Bro had snagged that month) and
find unsettling pictures to traumatize him with. For whatever reason, though,
he chose not to bring that part up with Dirk. "Yeah, you can do that for me,
right? I mean, I don't want to sound like a Gossip Girl here, but I really
cannot let this opportunity get away from me. I have to make up for months of
lost time with her."
▲: "Hmm," Dirk considered this as he stretched his limbs in the bed, flexing
his toes and lifting his arms over his head. "I'm tempted to ask about these
sexual passive aggressions, but something tells me I probably don't want to
know. I'll tell you whatever I can, but I gotta be honest. I don't really want
to get on Roxy's bad side. Or Rose's, for that matter. Although I do fully
expect Roxy to come back relaxed and pliant from a week of frantic scissoring
with some 45-year-old divorcee or whatever." Now that he had a real pillow, he
had a free hand, which he rested on his stomach for now, curling his fingers
open and closed against his own skin. His boner had faded away during the
freezing interlude, but it was still on deck and could come back any time he
willed it to. "I'm guessing you didn't really call to talk about Lalondes
though, did you? I mean, as near and dear to our hearts as they are. What's on
your mind?"
▼: "Yeah, fuck Lalonde problems." He'd ended up telling Rose pretty much
everything; everything about Bro dying, everything about going to the Horse
Hitcher, and quite a few details in between that he'd shared with neither Dirk
nor Roxy. And she hadn't gotten back to him for days now, after her initial
reply. While a week ago he would have been okay with that, now he was almost
mad at her. Here he'd bared his fucking quivering soul to her like she
obviously always wanted, and she ignored it.
Still, Dirk was right. He hadn't called to talk about this, or at least not
really. "I dunno. It's a lot of drama, basically. I wish you were here because
we pretty much got our quota of drama in our first day together, so really we
can only get less drama from here. At least that's my theory, and hopefully
it's right." He hesitated. "So yeah. That's state of the Dave. How about you?"
▲: "Yeah. Like, I'm not saying it wasn't worth it, but do me a favor and remind
me to never sleep with any other prostitutes I'm supposed to kill who happen to
be the sibling of my dark fenestrations time clone. I don't know if my blood
pressure can handle that." It felt easier to think of Dave that way, as the
brother of his clone instead of as his brother's clone. "I've been... you
know." He waved his hand around vaguely, not that Dave could see the gesture to
know what it meant. "Working. The bad kind of working, actually." He hadn't
intended to tell Dave that, but he was gradually losing the tight-lipped front
that he usually managed to put on around people. "Got some information today
that doesn't really help me figure out what the hell is going on with us, but
it made WQ happy, which means she's willing to let me keep digging. Anyway, I
had to tie up the loose ends. Kind of a rough day, if I'm being honest." He
moved the phone away from his mouth for a minute because he felt a sigh coming
on, but he didn't want to be dramatic. "When you called I was just trying to
relax a little bit so that my brain would shut off long enough for me to trick
it into falling asleep. It's okay though. Kinda missed your stupid voice."
▼: He briefly felt bad for disturbing Dirk's relaxation period on a dumb whim
like he had. And then it occurred to him just what Dirk was implying he had
done, which chilled him-- it was easy to forget that about garbage man Dirk. Or
maybe Dave just made himself forget it, like he made himself forget a lot of
other things about Dirk.
He didn't want to talk much about that either. "Sounds pretty rough," he said
in agreement. "Guess I wouldn't really know. But it sounds pretty rough." Wow,
what a pointless thing to say. He paused awkwardly, then said the first thing
that came to his mind. "Guess I lied before. I dunno if I was really thinking
of you, even though I ended up calling you. I was just...I was sitting here and
I wanted to talk to somebody. But now that I hear *your* stupid voice,
I'm...can't stop thinking about last week. 'Specially sitting in this bed." He
rolled over on his side to stare out the window again.
▲: If Dirk closed his eyes, he could picture Dave's room pretty clearly. Maybe
not perfectly, but he definitely had the bed and the desk and the window down.
He'd spent enough time staring at that shit, and that combined with how
memorable the experience had been transported him back in time. He could almost
smell the sex sweat and the stale cannabis smoke. "I think about that like all
the damn time. The obvious parts, but other stuff too. I keep thinking about
this one way your hair looked as the light shone through it from the window. I
must have been pretty gone at that point because I was fixated on it for like a
good five minutes probably. It was like. Cherubic, almost. That feels like the
most homosexual thing I've ever said-- yes, gayer than when I told you to put
your dick in me-- but I mean it literally, not in like a sappy way." He cocked
one leg up and shifted in the bed, trying to get more comfortable. He wanted to
settle in, because he had a feeling that one way or another, he wasn't getting
back out of bed until morning. "Then my brain went off on some kind of tangent
about sex on the moon. I never claimed it made sense, just that the moment
stuck with me."
▼: He laughed. "Pretty sure no one has ever said I look cherubic before so
yeah, you were pretty far gone. But I'm guessing you haven't smoked in a while.
I hadn't either. Kinda hits you." He sat up as he started speaking, and
reminiscing about that night. "That's probably what the deal with the skirt
was. I mean, me saying I'd wear it for you. That was the weed talking, or
partly." He'd never felt that weird when he'd *had* to wear the skirt. It had
been embarrassing at first but then it had just become a thing, and he'd made
himself stop caring. It had taken him longer to adjust without shades,
actually. The skirt, now that he was out of there, had become...something else,
and he found himself explaining it to Dirk like this: "I think it must be the
same kind of compulsion that makes someone with the munchies eat a whole can of
cake frosting or something extreme like that. It's sort of enticing to them at
first, then just kind of gross but they still can't make themselves stop. I
dunno. At least letting you fuck me in a skirt isn't going to give me diabetes.
There is that." He paused, then added: "And unlike hypothetical guy with the
munchies, I didn't feel sick afterwards. I think you didn't believe me when I
said I was fine. I know you didn't. But I was." For the most part.
▲: Dirk rolled over on his side. Something Dave had said, or maybe just the way
he'd said it, made him feel kinda uncomfortable. "Wait, so me fucking you was
enticing at first but then gross? Dude, you are terrible at this. Consider my
boner sufficiently murdered." Actually his boner had been murdered by the cold,
but he wasn't going to tell Dave that. At least, not yet, because that would
involve admitting that he'd been jerking off when Dave called, which he wasn't
averse to doing but it would be out of place to mention it at the moment. In
retrospect he was a little surprised that Dave hadn't picked up on it, since
his voice had been awfully husky when he answered the phone. Then again, Dave
had seemed kinda distracted at the time. "Anyway, I believe you. Roxy kinda
helped me realize some key differences in our thought processes that I'd been
sticking on. I was so out of it at that point that I probably would have gone
with any scenario you latched on to. If that was what you wanted to do, then I
don't regret it."
▼: "No, that's not...that's not what I meant. Not that you, personally, were
gross. Like the situation was, and I knew it, and that's what I wanted it to
be." He thought about it. "Like mud wrestling, except metaphorically. The
situation was wrong, but not in a bad way. It's the difference between hot-
wrong and. You know. Wrong-wrong." He paused. "Though I suppose we're kind of
walking the line between hot-wrong and wrong-wrong all the time. Suppose that's
part of what makes it so much fun." Oh man. It was like he was high again,
pulling out all these deep thoughts out of his ass. He rolled his eyes at
himself and went on in a more flip tone. "My condolences about your boner,
though. Did not mean to hurt your boner's feelings or ruthlessly kill it. Hell,
your boner and I are like old friends at this point, after all that shit I had
to go through to even get it to make an appearance." He licked his lips, and
added, "I didn't realize you even had a boner to kill. That does explain a bit,
though. Probably that's what made me call you, right?"
▲: "Probably," Dirk agreed. "Your dialing thumb has a psychic connection to my
cock. When it dips down to brush against your touch screen, you can be pretty
sure that somewhere out there in this big, wide world, Dirk Strider has a
boner. It's a honest-to-God divining rod." He reached down to jiggle things
around a little bit, maybe cup a ball or two. "I'm gonna take that as an
apology, so apology accepted. But, no, for real, I was definitely jerking off
when you called." He let that sink in for a second. "Not that taking care of
business turns me on or anything; God, I'm not *that* kind of weirdo. I was
just trying to make everything shut up for a while." He felt awkward about
that, so he pushed on, "I was trying to clear my head and I got this-- *image*
of you in my mind." He grabbed his dick around the base and squeezed it. It
wasn't quite hard again yet, but it was on its way. "Of you riding me and
telling me that nobody had to know. It was pretty good at blocking out the
other stuff, so I ran with it."
▼: "That gives a whole new meaning to having phone sex, I guess. Shit, my cell
doesn't even have a touchscreen." He smiled when Dirk admitted the jerking off;
damn if that wasn't some mad kind of serendipity that had impelled him to call
Dirk at, apparently, just the right moment. Sometimes fatalism wasn't so bad,
maybe. He laid back with his feet still on the floor, so he was laying
horizontally across the bed. "Mmm. See, that's...that's just a fucking stroke
of luck for me. I was thinking about that too. How nobody else has to know."
Never mind that he'd spent the last couple emails spilling his guts to Rose,
but Dirk didn't have to know about that. "Every time I look out the window I
think about what you said. About stealing through it in the middle of the
night, you shimmying that ass up the gutter, and then being all 'hey Dave,
wassup' before you fuck me against the wall 'cause you're just that fucking
impatient." His shirt was riding up his stomach and he found himself clumsily
unbuckling his belt one-handed so he could fit his hand beneath his waistband.
▲: "The thing about that, though, is that now that it's been brought up-- what-
- three times now?-- is that I can't do it anymore because you've been thinking
about it too much. Built it up too much in your head. So that if I were to
actually crawl through your window--" He palmed his dick with a little more
purpose this time. "And then back you into a wall, it would fall kinda flat.
You'd be expecting it. There'd be no surprise fuck, it would be like, 'oh, now
we're going to have that surprise fuck that we already discussed in detail'. It
just doesn't have that x-factor anymore. That's not to say that I don't want to
do it-- my boner is back already just saying this-- but rather that it's become
a Thing. I don't like Things." He closed his eyes again, sinking back into the
pillows. "But in theory, if I did do it, I'm pretty sure I'd want to turn you
around first and fuck you from behind. I'd have to prop your leg up on your
desk chair or something and smash your face into the wall."
▼: He moved his head to the side so his face was pressed into the mattress. Not
as hard as a wall would be, but it was cool against his face. "No, see, that's
what I'm doing here, I'm making a point of having every little thing take place
what was once mentioned in passing, no matter how dumb." His hand was around
his cock now and realized he hadn't gotten off since Dirk had been here last.
Even though he'd been bored and even though he'd been lonely, he hadn't
actually sat down long enough to beat off. "That's how all the best sexual
misadventures get strung together, didn't you know. Shit, how many times have I
mentioned climbing down that downspout? We're pretty much doomed to do that at
one point, one of us." His cock leapt to attention right away, of course. "But
yeah, things that become Things are generally bad. I have adequate faith in
your ability to surprise me, though, if nothing else. If we did go the wall-
fucking route. As long as you could grab me by the throat just as you're coming
I doubt you'd care much." Just thinking about that almost made his head swim
like it had, but maybe that was because he was laying down, or because the
blood was rushing to his half-hard cock.
▲: He squeezed his dick hard, maybe a little too hard, but it felt good. The
phrase "choking the chicken" came briefly to mind. More like "choking the Dave
by proxy". He let out a low chuckle at that thought, but it devolved into
something else, some kind of deep, frustrated noise. "I don't believe in
destiny, Dave, but I think that if the time comes and it feels like the right
thing to do, then it'll happen. You can't force this Will of the Cosmos shit,
it's gotta come from genuine desire." He had no idea what he was talking about;
they were just words. "But right now, the whole scenario feels a little played
out. I mean, you've got me doing that alpha male thing, cramming your face into
the tacky wallpaper with one fist while I cram my dick in your ass, and you've
got you, fighting to maintain enough composure to breathe and bounce back on my
dick at the same time. How cliché is that?" He started stroking himself,
holding the phone up with his left hand now. He could hear his own breath in
the receiver and wondered if Dave could hear it and what Dave was doing.
"That's just so... boring."
▼: "Yeah," said Dave with a sigh as he pushed down his pants without even
unbuttoning the fly. "So boring. Hella boring." He sighed a little in relief
when the heavy material of his jeans wasn't on him anymore, but it was just a
minor huff or static into the phone. "Kinda plumbed the depths of that one last
time. Ha ha, what a great pun that was." He pulled himself up the bed, so he
was sitting up against the wall. He pulled his knees up and started stroking
himself through the fabric of the boxers. He could hear Dirk breathing into the
phone, just a little bit, though he wondered for a second if it was his own.
Now that he was sitting up his head became a little clearer. "Still, I don't
know if I care that much." He wondered, for the first time, what Dirk's place
looked like, where he was, how he was sitting. That eternal question: what are
you wearing? "I'm sitting here rubbing my dick through my underwear by myself,
ok. I'm not gonna write you a thesis on how belabored your 'sneak into Dave's
room to take him swiftly from behind' premise is. Any other time, yeah. But not
now."
▲: The picture was clear as daylight in his mind. He might have a few of the
details wrong, but all the important parts were there. He knew Dave was on his
bed because of the way Dave had previously described to him, in lurid detail,
the way he'd been jerking off on his bed thinking about Dirk before. In fact,
it was when he'd first described his exact fantasy. "Same, except I'm lying in
my bed and I'm not wearing anything. I just got out of the shower a while ago-
- I actually just finished toweling off while on the phone with you-- so I just
stayed naked. There's a big window next to my bed. When I was a teenager, I
used to leave the blinds open when I jerked off because I kinda liked the idea
of someone seeing, even though I was never super obvious about it or had the
lights blaring or anything. The room is kinda small because it used to be the
guest bedroom before it was my room." He actually had no idea if he'd told Dave
about the fact that he was still living in the house that fell to him after his
foster family had all died, including, you know, his old boyfriend. At least
he'd never shared this bed with Jake. "Dunno why I don't just take over the
master, but old habits, et cetera. So, yeah, I'm naked and it's kinda warm in
here because the heater is on. Also I've been stroking myself for a while now,
wasn't sure if you could tell. What kind of underwear? Tell me."
▼: "I-- it's just boxers," said Dave, answering before he could stop himself
and tripping over his words. "I mean. I started wearing boxers again now.
Since. You know. Gives you more freedom and stuff." Not enough, though. He slid
his hand underneath the waistband, feeling the warmth of his cock even as the
open window kept the room a little chilly. "It's a bit cool in here. But I
prefer it that way, I guess. Anyway. You're kind of exhibitionist, huh. That's
like..." He was feeling himself, stroking himself lightly and twisting a little
at the head, and for a second he was almost lost in the sensation of the fabric
against his cock. "Like in the hotel room. When I sucked you off by the window.
I always wonder if someone looked up at just the right moment and saw something
good." He was harder now, pressing insistently against the fabric and leaving a
wet spot on the crotch. He found himself huffing out a breath again. "So not
only did I happen to call when you're beating off, I also happened to call when
you're *naked*? Wow, phone sex lottery winner here."
▲: "Divining rod, like I said. Either that or the dark fenestrations have given
us some kind of psychic connection that only gets activated during
masturbation. I find both equally believable." Oh god, why couldn't he stop
talking shit long enough to get down to the actual sex part of the phone sex?
It's not like his dick wasn't ready to go. Actually, it was super hard, sitting
up against his lower abdomen while he stroked the underside up and down with
two fingers, occasionally pressing them down on the head. Time to stop fucking
around. "Never used the word exhibitionist to describe myself, but yeah, I
guess so. I want someone to see me fucking you. Maybe I should fuck you up
against your window instead of the wall. We could turn on your lamp, and there
would be no way people wouldn't see. Late at night, right outside a brothel,
there aren't gonna be any kids. Just horny losers deciding whether or not they
have the huevos to come in and buy a whore for the night. Maybe they'd be
content to just sit in the alley and watch me fuck you instead. I know you know
how to put on a good show." He grabbed his dick properly now and started
stroking, picturing the scenario of him thrusting into Dave while pressing his
face into the glass. "We could even have the window cracked so you'd have cool
air on your face and they could hear you whimpering. Fuckin' win-win, bro."
▼: "Wow, how considerate." He let out another, louder breath into the phone and
pushed his boxers down finally; he couldn't take it anymore. "Think you're
underestimating my endurance though, dude. Whimpering? Fuck that." He was
moving his hand quickly, but he took the time to kick his boxers down his legs
so he could bend his knees again where he sat. "*Fuck* that. If you're trying
some entrepreneurial showman shit then fuck whimpering. That is my creative
input because we both know I can take your fucking cock and a whole lot more."
He was moving too quickly, to vigorously over his skin. He eased up, rolled
over to his side and moved the phone from his ear for a second; he realized
that he'd been pressing it to the side of his head without even realizing it.
"Fuck that idea in general. Pretty sure I've had enough of horny losers to last
me a lifetime. I'd rather just do it for you." He paused to lick along his palm
before returning to his cock. "You know. Just for one horny loser. Just you and
me. That's what I told you, yeah?"
▲: "Ow, that stings." His cock disagreed with that sentiment, though. He let go
of it long enough to reach over to the nightstand and grab the lube from the
top drawer, dumping some out on his dick and capping it one-handed. It was
sloppy, and a good amount of the lube dripped down on his stomach instead, but
oh fuckin' well. The cold shocked him into attention for just a moment before
his hand warmed it up with friction as he started stroking again in earnest.
This would get tricky trying to keep the lube off of his phone, but he figured
it was worth it.
"I kinda beg to differ on the 'whole lot more' comment, since you keep
referring to it as a gargantu-dick-- and don't try to play that off as some coy
hooker thing; I know you-- well enough now to know-- when it's an act." He
didn't know how long he could keep up the snappy commentary, since he was
starting to trip up on his words. "Just us. Just you and me. Yeah. I like the
acts, you know? I like the shows you put on-- and the weird shit we do to each
other-- but those are like-- those are 'I need this'-- but what I *want*-- is
just you, raw. Like by the window in the sun. That was just us. For real." He
squeezed the head again, and he could feel Dave's mouth on him like it had been
that afternoon, the flat brush of tongue and the scrape of teeth. "Fuck," he
slipped. "I'm so hard for you right now. You're missing out on a spectacular
erection. I'm kinda proud. Like I wanna take a picture and frame it."
▼: "I bet. I can picture it just fine in my head, though." He could; he wasn't
lying about Dirk's dick being an old friend by this point. He supposed the key
to successful phone sex was having a rich bank of memories from which to pull.
Luckily or unluckily for him and Dirk, their rich bank of memories was pretty
much all sex, with occasional waffles and some arguments. Hell, he'd known a
lot of long-term couples that had less to go on. Not that he was really
thinking of the two of them as a couple. His rejection of the term wasn't out
of distaste, was just because it seemed like the traditional designation didn't
feel right for...whatever this was. "I am too. I mean, I'm hard. I took my
boxers off, I-- just to keep you updated. Dave's Boner Bulletin, giving you
live boner coverage 24/7." He licked his hand again; the lube was in the desk
drawer, but it was cold on the floor and he didn't want to move, had this
feeling like Dirk's voice was holding him in place just as much as he'd
literally held him that time by the window. Not held down, just...held. He was
curled up on his side, one hand on his cock and the other pressing the phone to
his head again almost painfully.
"That used to be my thing, too...putting on a show versus being real. When I
was working for Jack especially. How I never knew where the show stopped and
the actual Dave began. But it's like you said, you *know* when it's real, when
you cut through the crap...I mean, sometimes when I look at you all I can see
is him and all I can think about is how fucked up I must be, but then you just
*look* at me, just off-handedly or...just for a second and it's you, I know
it's you and not anybody else and it's real, it cuts through all the bullshit
in my head, and I just know..." He trailed off; his hand had long since dried
again, so he ran his tongue over it to stop up the flow of garbage coming from
his mouth. "Yeah. Raw. That's how I want you too. That's how I'm doing this."
Literally; he was not getting up for the lube at this point. He was rolling on
the bed, hard as a fucking rock and working himself now with a steady fury.
▲: Dirk's breath caught in his throat when he pictured Dave pantsless and
jerking off raw. There was always a sort of desperation in that, in a 'I need
this too much to worry about logistics or even comfort' kind of way. He liked
the idea of Dave needing him that much. Dave was also getting a little sappy in
his desperation. Dirk found this endearing, and it gave him a thrill that was a
little bit more pure than the other ones he'd been having in this conversation.
"Hang on a second-- I need to--" He gripped his dick at the base and held it
up, taking a picture with his phone in the other. It was flushed and slick and
about as hard as it ever got-- harder than it could have ever gotten the last
time, since he was stone cold sober right now. "Sorry. I wasn't kidding-- I
really did just need to take a picture. Can you get photo texts on that stone
age phone of yours with actual buttons?" He went back to stroking rapidly after
taking the picture, and he tried to picture Dave doing the same. Dave, on that
little bed in that little room, touching himself and thinking about Dirk
thinking about him. Quite the incestuous thought loop, and the irony of that
thought didn't even hit him right away. He needed more details, though. "Are
you naked or do you have a shirt on? How are you laying? What are you doing?
Tell me, exactly. Paint a fucking picture for me so I can make myself come to
you exactly how you are."
▼: "Yeah, it can." It would be grainy as fuck, but that wasn't really the
point, was it? He didn't need to map every wrinkle on Dirk's cock. Just getting
the picture, knowing the proof, that was what made it fun. Plus, it was like
he'd said; he didn't even need a picture, he knew it so well. "My shirt...I
still have my shirt on. Forgot to take it off, I guess. and I'm...on my back
now. Sort of curled up because it's like all the heat in the room's got sucked
onto my fucking dick..." For a second he appreciated the symmetry, or lack
thereof; Dirk in a big, warm, empty house, and Dave in a cold, drafty room with
dozens of other people living their lives just outside his walls. "I'm just
jerking it, I guess. Didn't put a lot of thought into it while I was saying all
that shit to you. Guess I'll take it a little slower now." He paused to lick
his hand, laving the palm and licking the pad of each finger individually,
imagining Dirk watching him do. "I just got my hand wet...been doing that with
my mouth every couple strokes 'cause I'm a lazy motherfucker and the lube is a
whole desk drawer and bed away. Oh shit, are you really texting me that?"
▲: "Yes. Would you really expect me to pass up on such a choice possessive
alpha move like forcing you to stare at my erect dick? No way." He probably
sounded a little distant, since he'd put Dave on speaker while he sent the
text. He had to stop stroking long enough to do it since he kept hitting the
wrong points on the screen from all the jostling, but finally it was sent and
he could go back to cradling the phone between his cheek and shoulder. He
didn't want to get his other hand in the lube so he rubbed his chest with it
instead while he went back to stroking. "Incoming dick pic. I better not see
that on the internet later. That's for you, okay? The boner and the picture and
the-- the sentiment. Just us." He gulped down some air because he was starting
to feel a little lightheaded, like maybe it was getting *too* warm in here.
"I'm on my back. No blanket. It's really fucking hot, Dave. It's so... hot in
here... and my eyes are closed and I can *see* you. I can see it and it's so-
- you're so--" He hiked one leg up and arched his head back toward the
headboard, pulling in a long, shaky breath that he heard rattling in the phone.
▼: "I and I alone understand the tender sentiment behind your dick pic. Don't
worry." He heard Dirk jostling around, probably getting his shit back in order,
and he thought about grabbing the lube while Dirk was functionally distracted,
but before he could *ping*, there it was. "Dang. There it is. That's what I'm
thinking about. When I'm sucking my hand, getting it all messy. True facts,
believe it or not." He did so again and wrapped his hand around his cock again.
The saliva dried fast, obviously, and when it did working himself got rougher,
but that just made it all the better when he licked himself again. He heard the
staticky noise of Dirk's sigh into the phone. "Yeah, I can see you too. Bet
you're getting kinda sweaty, right? It's...getting a littler hotter in here
too, despite all indications to the contrary." He was moving pretty good now,
to keep himself warm and to thrust himself into his own hand. Where his side
was pressed into the mattress he was even a little slick with sweat. "I'm so
what?"
▲: His arms were getting kinda tired, but there was no way he was going to stop
now. "I don't even know-- confusing, maybe." Like, sometimes, when Dirk got the
urge to choke Dave, it was coming from a place of just general sadism, but
sometimes it was a display of possession-- yes, this is mine, this is us-- or
even a stupid alpha Bro thing, and other times it was just an act of
frustration or anger, especially when Dave was pulling that arrogant lascivious
schtick out of the box. Like some kind of older brother complex rears up inside
him and makes him want to knock Dave down a peg-- not in a cruel way, but in a
"you need to learn that you can't always get away with that, okay, I'm prepping
you for the real world" kind of way. How could one person feel so many things
at once without exploding? Speaking of which, Dirk was getting kinda close.
"Don't underestimate the-- sentiment of sharing your dick with someone. It's a
pretty nuanced thing. I can't believe I can-- still talk in full sentences. I'm
so close. I'd probably be even closer if I stopped talking-- for a fuckin'
minute." So he did stop, for a minute, and just breathed into the phone while
he concentrated on picturing Dave more clearly and what he was doing to his
dick.
▼: "Yeah, I'm all about nuanced dicks. Tell me about it," he huffed into the
phone. He could still talk, apparently, but what he was saying wasn't a whole
hell of a lot. He could hear Dirk's heavy breathing, which still sounded
crackly over the phone, but shit, that was like pixels on the dick pic. Didn't
actually matter, because he knew what the real thing sounded like, looked like,
so much better. He slowed down again, listened to the rhythm of Dirk's breaths
through the phone, especially as they got closer together.
His mouth was getting dry, so he cracked and crawled over to the end of the
bed. His cock was erect and straining as he leaned over and just managed to
reach the drawer. "Yeah, I...I bet you are close," as he clattered through the
other shit in the drawer. "You sound pretty close. I'd send you mine...you
know, a picture of mine, but it's dark in here and a lousy fucking camera so."
He finally managed to grab the bottle, and balanced the phone between his neck
and shoulder so he could pour some out and warm it up in his hand. "But yeah,
but you don't need that, do you. You probably can tell I'm...god, I'm so
fucking hard for you it *hurts*." On that note, he wrapped his newly-lubed hand
over his cock, and as he stroked himself again it felt so fucking good he
sighed in relief into the phone. "Shit. Dirk."
▲: "I know," he moaned. "I know you are, cause I am too." His free hand was
clenched tightly in a fist on his chest while the other manipulated his dick,
and he kept thrusting his hips up into his hand, flexing the muscles in his ass
and thighs for leverage. "I bet your dick is begging for something, the way you
keep rubbing it raw-- I bet-- if you were here, I'd take it in my fuckin'
mouth-- just-- tongue the hell out of it and spit all over-- gotta be nice to
it, shit-- unless you just *want* it mean-- haven't given you a mean blowjob
yet, have I? Dunno if your-- dick could handle that-- I want to, though."
He stopped talking shit for a minute to go all out on himself, and he lost
track of who was fucking which face, because in his mind he was simultaneously
thrusting his dick into Dave's mouth but also sucking Dave off. He wanted Dave
at both ends, and it made him miserable. One of the weirder things he pictured
was himself in some kind of London bridge situation, except it was Dave that
was somehow fucking both his face and his ass at the same time. Just stuffed to
the fucking brim with Dave until he popped, and that was a really effective
visual because his balls had been aching but now they were tightening and
suddenly he was coming all over himself with rapid breaths that were loud in
the phone, so loud he could hear them. What a weird fantasy. That wouldn't even
be possible unless someone invented time travel. "Oh my god," he moaned.
▼: "We've been over this," he sighed as he flopped back down onto his back and
twisted around so he could brace his feet against the wall as he worked himself
more leisurely. His voice was a little smoother now, as Dirk's breaths became
more ragged. "My dick can take a mean anything. Hell, if you get a mean blowjob
seems to me that you gotta be mean right back." He moved his hips up, imagining
he was thrusting up into Dirk's throat, feeling the warmth of his mouth and
hearing the stuttering noise in his throat when Dave went too fast. At that
moment, Dirk seemed to reach his peak; his breaths got even heavier. Dave
wasn't quite there yet, but he hummed with pleasure into the phone. "Did you
just come? It sounds like it. Tell me about it. Describe it, come on. Don't--
" He drew in a sharper breath and sharply twisted the head of his cock some
more. "Don't leave me hanging, bro."
▲: "Yeah," he breathed into the receiver. "Yeah I-- I did, just now." He licked
his lips and tried to get his breath back under control, unclenching his fist
and rubbing his chest with it. His other hand was still holding his dick
because he was too afraid to move it for the moment. "I had a pretty bizarre
train of thought. Obviously I was thinking about letting you face-fuck me,
right, but then I got to thinking that its too bad that you can't
simultaneously blow and fuck someone, you know? You can fuck their mouth while
you blow them, but I've never really seen the point in 69s because there's just
way too much coordination that needs to happen and you're thinking about not
falling over instead of your dick. But I just couldn't get rid of that idea, of
doing you while you do me, it was so good that I had to make up something, like
what if you could have two bodies at once? What if I could blow one of you
while fucking the other one? And then the train of thought got away with me
because then I realized-- what I really wanted just then was to just be-
- fucking stuffed with you, at both ends, kinda like I was when you fucked me,
do you remember that? You had your fingers in my mouth, but I wanted your dick.
So I was like, well as long as there are multiple Daves, he can fuck my face
and my ass at the same time. Like I'm fucking Fergie or something all London
Bridge up in this bitch. I guess that was the winning combo because that was
what made me come. Thinking about you fucking me from both sides." His mouth
was dry from all the heavy breathing and talking, and when he swallowed it was
thick and hoarse. "You're being awfully quiet, Dave. How's it going over there?
Talk to me."
▼: "That's--I." In the middle of Dirk's description he'd started trailing his
hand down to his balls, over his taint and now he was circling his asshole. He
forced two fingers into himself roughly, going in deep. He exhaled sharply,
partly because of the roughness of his own movements in his ass and partly
because his cock was straining and hard and neglected now. "That's--two Daves
one Dirk, huh. Yeah, I could dig that. Hell, I could use an extra pair of hands
over here. I'm. Fuck it." He gave up and balanced the phone on his shoulder.
Now he could work his dick with his other hand as he fucked himself. "Right,
Dave's boner update. I got the lube out while I was talkin' to you earlier, and
now..." Now he was having trouble talking as he scissored his two fingers to
stretch himself, imagining taking Dirk in their place, but as he squeezed his
cock wetly he remembered how it had been feeling that amazing tightness all
around his cock as Dirk sucked on his fingers. "Now I'm fucking myself and
working my dick and maintainin'--shit-- yeah, working a fucking trapeze act
here. Fuck, I'm close. Keep telling me your pornographic sci-fi tales or
whatever, your voice--" Dirk's voice was so rough, and it reminded him of Bro's
like it always did, but it was even deeper, more rough than that.
▲: Dirk laughed a little at that. "Well, I don't really have any more stories
since that was where I got off the train, you know? Last stop, Orgasmtown; you
may exit through both the front and rear doors. I'm kinda... covered in jizz
and lube now, and I'm afraid to move because as soon as I do it's gonna get
everywhere. It was pretty stupid of me not to bring that towel to bed with me,
huh?" He let go of his dick and grabbed the phone with his clean hand so that
he could bring it closer to his mouth. "But... I dunno," he continued in a low
voice. "Why should I be the only one to enjoy some paradox time clone fun? I
mean, you know how I always talk about there being Dirk splinters? What if
those were real people? So the fingers in your ass... that was my dick. And the
hand on your cock? That was my mouth, or my ass, whichever feels better at the
moment. You could fuck me while I fuck you. You'd be pressed pretty hard
between the two of me, too. Probably would be hard to breathe, even without my
hand on your throat."
▼: He huffed out a breath and pressed his ear down on the phone. He was going
to have the mother of all cricks in his neck but damn if he gave a rat's ass at
this point. "*Jesus*," he said, and with another deeper thrust into his ass he
came into his other hand. He was panting into the phone, which had dropped down
onto the bed but was right by his mouth. He blinked a few times before removing
his fingers from his ass carefully and wiping the excess lube off by the rest
of the mess on his stomach. When he could bear to let go of his cock and had
finally (sort of) cleaned it off, he sighed. "That was...yeah, I just came.
Maybe out of sheer horror at the idea of having to deal with two of you at
once." The smile in his voice was probably evident as he went on, though.
"Yeah, I don't want to get up either. The ground's probably really cold. That
was...think I'm just gonna lay here. Yeah. I like how we've repurposed the
device we've been using as a model to describe our dumb brain problems or
whatever, and now we've turned it into basically an aid for masturbating." He
laughed. "That seems really appropriate, yeah?"
▲: "It actually makes perfect sense to me." After all, didn't they get off on
how preternaturally they understood each other? He sighed, low and content.
Sated. That was the word. Dirk felt sated, or at least as sated as he could get
with the phone for company instead of Dave. "I think I have to get up, though.
I mean. I roll around in my sleep a lot when I'm by myself. I just *washed*
these sheets. But not... right this moment..." he trailed off, looking out the
window. He thought about something for a moment, and then asked abruptly,
"Would you want to come here, the night of your birthday? To my house, I mean?
Would that be weird? I can get another hotel room if it'd be weird." He
honestly wasn't sure if he was completely okay with it himself, but he didn't
want Dave to think he was holding him at arm's length. He was holding Dave at
elbow length, tops, and it had nothing to do with Dave being *Dave* and
everything to do with-- well, he wasn't quite sure, but it'd be the same no
matter who he was thinking about dating.
▼: He paused, and almost asked why it was weird before realizing what a dumb
question that was. Hadn't he felt a moment of trepidation last week before he'd
taken Dirk up to this room? Shit, and he hadn't even been settled in here a
month yet. It was different fucking in here than it had been in his room at the
Horse Hitcher because already this room felt more like his own than that one
had, and for Dirk it was probably even moreso. It was then that Dave pieced
together some of the information that had flown over his head a couple minutes
ago, and he realized who the house had belonged to. It was a second before he
finally spoke.
"It's not a big deal. To be honest, dude, this is all a little weird from. You
know. My perspective, but to say that I'm used to it by now is the fucking
understatement of the year." He grinned at that one. "It's more about you. If
you want take me there that's fine, but if you want to go to a hotel instead I
wouldn't be offended." He hesitated, and then added: "Not that this affects
anything I just said, but: the house you're in...it used to belong to the other
Jade, right? Bea Arthur Jade, as I like to think of her." Which wasn't really
true; he hadn't even thought much at all about old lady Jade since he'd learned
who she was. Just dealing with teenager Jade had been enough for now.
▲: "Mmm," Dirk hummed noncommittally. He'd have to think about that, because he
really wanted to be ready to bring Dave here, and it would be a lot more
comfortable than a hotel room. After a night of Thai food and raucous sex, he
could sprawl on his own couch and smoke or watch the Late Show or eat ribs at
2am. Or shower in this own fucking bathroom. And Dave could join him if he
wanted or he could do something else because, hell, this was a pretty big
house. Yeah, he wanted to be ready for it he just didn't know for sure that he
was. In the meantime, his messy hand trailed through the semen and jizz on his
stomach, which was starting to get a little tacky. He rubbed it around like he
was fingerpainting or something. Man, the gross things people do when no one is
looking.
"Yeah. It's a nice house. Brick, two stories, four bedrooms, two and a half
bath. It even has a study where Grandma Harley wrote her papers on all that
science crap that Roxy always understood a lot better than me. All of their
stuff is... still here. I haven't really known what to do with it. I mean, they
were like a second family to me, but we weren't related so none of it really
*belongs* to me, you know? It doesn't feel right to throw it away, but it
doesn't feel right to keep it, either." He chewed on the inside of his cheek,
thinking about what to say next. "How much did you tell your friends? Do you
think... I mean... Do you think they would want some of this stuff? That would
be kinda odd. 'Hey, you wanna go dig through the belongings of your dead
alternaverse self and see if there's any cool shit?'"
▼: He laughed. "Well. I didn't tell her, or John, about the other weird clone
thing yet? I don't know what either of them would say. I think John would just
find it freaky, but I dunno. Jade...well, this is the girl who I'm pretty sure
legitimately wanted to be a dog until she was like 13, so who the fuck even
knows. I guess I'll bring it up at one point." He'd kept his story a little
more to the bare facts with John and Jade, had just told them about Bro dying
and what came after, with none of the sex stuff with Dirk thrown in, because
they weren't Rose, and he wasn't going to passive-aggressively detail his
sexual history in attempt to disgust/shock them. That was more of a him and
Rose thing, for whatever reason.
He dug around in the mess on the floor again for a towel. Being a slob was
amazing, as was living by yourself surrounded by piles of your crap. "Yeah,
I...I dunno. I told Jade more about you, because she used to know Bro. She used
to come visit the apartment more than the others did. When I said you were like
him I think she thought I meant more superficially. So I explained." He
shrugged, then realized Dirk couldn't see it. "She rolled with that, so I
suppose she'd roll with the idea of old lady Jade too. I'll see what she says
about your idea, though. John too."
▲: "Okay. You don't have to, it's just-- I mean I guess they don't actually
have any more of a claim to it than I do, but I just don't want to be the one
to make decisions about what to do with what if I can help it. I'll do it if I
have to, but..." He looked back out the window, trying to not think about
younger Dave macking on some girl who was too smart for her peers and wanted to
be a dog. The possessive thing started to rise inside of him, but he squashed
it. They had been like fifteen, and he was just too tired to let himself care.
"Shit, dude, I'm nodding off. I think I might just resign myself to jizz
sheets. Did you ever decide what you want to do when I come get you?"
▼: "Film festival," he said instantly, with purpose. He braced himself and put
his feet on the cold floor to go and shut his window, pulling his boxers back
on as he did because even with the drying lube and jizz wiped off it was
getting too cold in here. "Specifically, it's a troll film festival. Don't ask
me to tell you the whole title 'cause it's really long. Troll flicks are always
fun, and occasionally super bloody, especially the romcoms, which is what this
is. According to my neighbor, a shorter translation of the title would be
'Troll Pretty Woman,' and no, I'm not joking. So it's guaranteed to be fucking
horrible, although, as you may remember, I've never actually seen our version
of Pretty Woman so obviously you'll have to be our expert in that. I did a
little research, though, and I have to say that our Julia Roberts actually has
a more impressive set of teeth than the troll equivalent of Julia Roberts, if
you can believe it. I find that oddly disappointing."
He sank down on the bed again, and kicked back the covers. He could take a
shower in the morning; right now he just wanted to listen to Dirk's voice and
fall asleep. Hokey as shit, but whatever. "Uh, but seriously, if it's really
horrible we can laugh at it, and if it's really, *really* horrible we can sit
in the back and neck like the classy mofos we are. Plus the theater it's
playing at is right down the street from the restaurant I had in mind, so." He
laid down fully now, stretched his legs. "But really, I haven't put much
thought into it, can you tell?"
▲: "Yeah, it sounds like you've been positively languid on the whole subject."
Dirk leaned over the edge of the bed for a sock that he'd taken off the night
before but hadn't gotten around to putting in the clothes hamper yet. It wasn't
a towel, and it kinda grossed him out, but it would do for now. He'd probably
want another shower in the morning, which felt a little redundant, but it also
felt like it had been worth it to get so dirty again so soon. "Okay, Troll
Pretty Woman, I can dig that. It's topical. Thematic. An inside joke and a
meta-analysis all in one," he said as he wiped himself off. "I would like to
interject that my classiness has really only just recently tanked since I met
you, though. Christ. You've got me getting high in whorehouses and cleaning
jizz off of my chest with yesterday's socks. My life used to be top shelf
whiskey and expensive Italian suits. What the hell have you done to me, kid?"
He was smiling the whole time, though, because he really didn't mind. It made
him feel more normal than he had in years, even with all the Twilight Zone
bullshit.
▼: "I don't know what you think *I've* done, but I guess this means Troll
Richard Gere has some magical lessons to teach you. About whores and, uh. How
you should give them your money, and...be a smarmy-looking prick? Really not
sure, like I said. I'm sure I'll learn a lot." He was grinning into his stone
age phone now, really hard at the thought, both at the thought of the movie
(which Porrim had described to him with such distaste that he felt he had to
check it out) and at their other plans. There was a restaurant by their old
apartment that Bro had usually taken him to every year on his birthday. Dave
hadn't been back since last year.
The Thai place he and Dirk were going to was not that restaurant. The Thai
place was in fact on the other side of the city from the old apartment, which
had seemed like an important distinction to make when he'd been looking up
restaurants. Finding Troll Pretty Woman had been plain serendipity, although
that was mixing up the shitty romcom references. "Uh, but yeah, at least the
restaurant's pretty good, though I haven't been there in a while. You can buy
some smoky 12 year old scotch and pretend you're mature while we're there, will
that make you feel better?"
▲: Dirk finally grabbed the blanket from the foot of his bed and pulled it up
over himself, settling down into the pillows and rolling over on his side,
facing the window. He had to switch the phone over to the other ear. "Scotch
with Thai food? That sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen. Thanks for the
offer, and by that I mean the suggestion that I spend my own money on a
viscerally horrifying alcohol and food combination. Remind me never to let you
anywhere near my kitchen when you come over." He sighed a little. "Still,
wouldn't be the most horrifying dinner fare I've ever had on a date. You
wouldn't believe some of the shit trolls eat. Have you spent a whole lot of
time around trolls?" Dirk knew that some trolls worked at Roxy's, and from
context it sounded like Dave had befriended at least one of them-- for values
of "befriended" that equal borrowing shit and asking for opinions on movies,
anyway-- but he had no idea if there had been any at Noir's, or if Dave's Bro
worked with them.
▼: "Yeah, suppose I have. At Jack's and stuff. I never had any clients who were
trolls, though, if that's what you're asking." He hesitated. "But there was
Damara. The girl who I smoked with a couple times. You remember me talking
about her? She was a troll." He felt a stirring of awkwardness at the subject,
but at least it was a normal kind of awkward, the "this is somebody I used to
bang" awkward and not the "you look like my dead brother" kind of awkward they
were so used to. "I feel like maybe I'm misrepresenting her to you, because I
told you she gave me weed and fucked me once. She was...not a very nice person,
let's say. I mean, I wouldn't have called us besties. We were just...in the
same situation, you know? There was this creepy doctor who did check-ups on
people sometimes, he had brought her there, and I got the feeling they were
just making her take clients in the brothel until they figured out what else to
do with her. Like they were putting her in storage for something, which was the
same sort of feeling I had about me. So." He hadn't even thought about that for
a long time. That wasn't even anything that had ever been explicitly stated,
just a feeling he had picked up. "But yeah, besides her there were a couple
trolls around. Plus the ones who work for Snowman, of course, but it sounds
like you've met a couple of them, right?" He grinned for a second and thought
about Dirk's references to Zahhak the robot guy.
▲: Dirk was taken aback at that. He really hadn't pictured Dave's first off-
duty fucking experience to be with a troll. He wondered again if Dave had been
a virgin when he was forced into service, although he supposed that if Dave
wasn't, he could rule out girls by process of elimination. He really wanted to
know the answer to that, but he couldn't come up with a good way to ask.
"Yeah... although I'm not really sure you could call what we did 'dating'. I
don't know what you'd call it, aside from a series of increasingly bizarre
booty calls that ended abruptly when I almost broke my leg." He let out an
annoyed exhale. "I mean, I don't wish him any ill will or anything. He offered
to build me a prosthetic, but I pretty much had to call it off at that point.
It wasn't good for me." Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. "I actually lost my
virginity to a troll, though. While I was waiting for Jake to figure his shit
out. I mean, I was in hopeless love with the guy, but I wasn't a fuckin' monk,
you know? Roxy and I got some fake IDs and got into this gay bar downtown when
we were like sophomores. I'm pretty sure everyone knew we were only 16, but we
weren't trying to sneak any alcohol so they didn't seem to give a fuck. I ran
into this dude-- I don't remember much about him except he had some Harry
Potter scars-- he was a real douchebag but oh my god he could suck a dick."
▼: It was kind of weird to imagine Dirk in hopeless love with someone, and
admitting it, nonetheless, but maybe Dave was underestimating him. Hell, maybe
it was different when the guy was dead, not to be too callous. You can feel
lots of ways about a dead guy, and Dave supposed he should know. "Surprised
Roxy wasn't all over him if he looked like Harry Potter. But I guess she's more
a fan of the wizard beards, not the scars, right?" Actually, he had no idea why
Roxy was so into that hokey bullshit. He might have thought it was some sort of
ironic fixation, but he'd kind of been over the idea of ironic fixations in
general since about the age of 13.
He found himself speaking again, sort of to clear the air, and sort of to
return the unconscious dare Dirk had put before him: I told you my punching my
v-card story, you tell me yours. "Don't remember much more than that about my
first guy, either. No distinguishing marks or scars on him. I was pretty out of
it, though. I let them put me under, wasn't really passed out but
really...loopy. I shouldn't have let them do it, but it seemed like the easier
option at the time, you know?" He paused; it sounded unduly traumatic when you
put it like that, which it sort of had been, but he'd ceased to think of it
like that. Or rather, he'd ceased to think about it at all. "Guess I told you
about that already, though, huh? In the shower. I totally forgot about that."
▲: Dirk cleared his throat, suddenly feeling kinda awful for bringing this up
again. He remembered the story about his first time working, but Dirk had
really hoped that wouldn't also be the story of how Dave had lost his
virginity. He had been hoping there would be some story about a guy Dave had
known from school or even just a one night stand with someone's older cousin
who had been visiting for the summer or some fucking thing. Maybe Dave had come
out and told him it had been his *first* first time, but Dirk's recollection of
what they'd talked about in the shower was a little fuzzy. Most of what he
remembered was Dave yelling at him while naked, which had been awkward and
arousing and infuriating. "Yeah, I guess you did tell me that, didn't you?
Sorry. I kinda feel like a dick now."
▼: "Nah, it's ok. I was shouting lots of stuff at the time. Plus I don't think
I told you that had been...you know, sort of my first time." Except for some
over-the-shirt action with Jade, which didn't quite fall in the same category,
for a lot of reasons. "I don't really think about it that much, to be honest.
Kinda runs together in my head, even without the drugs." He paused, rolled over
on his stomach and thought. He could be more detached thinking about this now
that he was out of the situation, and was relaxed and talking about it with
Dirk in the wake of having phone sex with him. It was all a nice counterpoint
to the memories, he supposed. "You know, it's weird to think about, some of
that stuff. Like, take that doctor I told you about, for instance. Creepiest
motherfucker I ever met. When I first got there I needed stitches because Jack
had cracked me across the head, and he was the one who did 'em. Honest to god,
the most unsettling experience I had the entire time I was there, and I can't
even explain to you why." He rolled back over and smiled at the ceiling. "Shit,
can't believe I didn't tell you about that before when you were here. Coulda
showed off my badass scar and impressed the hell out of you, right? It's right
under my hairline, you can't even see it unless you're looking."
▲: "It was probably hard to remember something like 'hey look at my scar' when
you're so busy getting high and getting your dick sucked. Priorities, you know?
You can always show me next time." He pulled the blanket up a little higher so
that it was almost over his head. He kinda felt like some teenybopper sneaking
a late-night conversation with their boyfriend after their parents fell asleep.
He didn't know why people had such scorn for teenyboppers because, honestly, it
was kind of a cool feeling, if a bit lame. Yes, simultaneously cool and lame.
Whatever, don't question it. Don't question equating Dave with your boyfriend,
either, because they were so definitely *not* there yet, but it worked for the
analogy. "I'm still sorry. Both for that and for the fact that I think I'm
going to fall asleep on you."
▼: He looked over again at his alarm clock. "Holy shit. Yeah, it's kind of
late. Wow, great talk, with your mysterious Harry Potter first love and all my
stories down memory lane's smelly back alley." He smirked a little. "But
seriously, yeah, I'm glad I called, even though I technically wasn't supposed
to." He normally really hated talking on the phone. He would usually pace and
press the phone hard to his ear without realizing it and give himself a
headache. This had been...really nice, and even had been before all the sex
talk. "So...next week. Get ready for a classy night of food and entertainment
that I'm pretty sure will rock your world." His mind was moving quickly now,
but his body definitely was tired. "Night."
▲: "Who said anything about first love? He was just my first fuck. There's a
difference, you know, or do I really need to explain to you the difference
between love and sex?" He sat up begrudgingly to look at his alarm clock as
well, and yeah, it was pretty late. "Okay, later. I'll see you soon." He hung
up before they could get into a spiral of dragging things out. It was a little
different on the phone, which really just meant that it was easier to pull away
from Dave when he wasn't touching him. His phone needed to charge, but he
couldn't be bothered to get up and look for the charger, so he just dropped it
on the other pillow and turned over, falling asleep after only a few minutes.
Things started looking up over the following week. He really wasn't making any
progress on the Noir thing, but at least everything was stable (well,
relatively speaking) at WQ HQ now that Dirk had taken care of the mole. It was
calming down to business as usual, which was still stressful but at least less
so than it had been. That, and he finally heard back from Roxy a few days after
his conversation with Dave. Not much, just a text to let him know that she
would be back in the city by the time Dirk came by for Dave's birthday, but
that was enough for him.
Hell, he didn't even have to take out the garbage all week long. Needless to
say, he was in a good fuckin' mood when he pulled into the tiny parking lot
behind Roxy's that evening. He even kinda felt like a normal person since he'd
had the day off of work and he was wearing normal people clothes instead of a
suit. He was dressed similarly to that time they'd gone out for waffles: jeans,
sneakers, and a button-up shirt under a jacket that, thank god, did not belong
to a suit. It had been a good day so far; he'd woken up late, caught up on that
show about the gynecologist (he was pretty sure that main character/douchebag
coworker was going to wind up as the endgame, and he had a preternaturally good
sense of these kinds of things), spent way too much time in the bathroom
debating the relative merits of mousse, and even spent some quality time with
his Xbox. You know. The shit normal 23-year-olds do when they're not at work.
He got out of the car, feeling a little bit awkward despite what a relaxing day
he'd had up to that point. Maybe he just didn't know how to act on a date,
which was definitely likely considering his dating history. Maybe it was the
fact that it seemed way too fucking surreal to even be going on a date with
Dave. Surreal or not, it was what he wanted, but let's not get ahead of
ourselves. The first thing he wanted to do was check in with Roxy. He opened
the back door of the bar, and it was still quite early in the evening, so there
were only a handful of people milling about. He saw her sitting in a booth off
to the side of the room, reading something intently, so he slid into the seat
on the other side of her. "Well? Did you or didn't you?"
▼: She looked up at him disdainfully. "Did I what? Honestly, Striders are so
crass. You're not interested at all in any arcane theorems about alternate
universes, it's just all sex, sex, sex." She couldn't help the grin from
seeping onto her face. "I...spoke. With myself. And it was a uniquely wonderful
experience and suddenly I feel jealous of you and everyone else who gets to do
it regularly." She shut the book she was reading. "So I spoke to alt-me, who
knew some things, and I spoke to Rose a bit too, who...well, she's interesting,
I guess." Roxy shook her head. "And I got drunk with alt-me, too, but that is
hardly surprising." She scratched the back of her head. "I mean, we got along,
like. Freakishly well. Really well, if you're that curious, but the sensation
of talking to her is weird. Disquieting. Sort of raises the hair on the back of
your neck. I dunno. It is reassuring to know that I will still look this fly
when I'm 40-whatever. And apparently will still be rocking this hairstyle." She
hesitated and looked at him straight in the shades before speaking in a more
serious tone. "It wasn't bad, talking to older Roxy, but it was.... I mean,
have you thought at all about what it would have been like to meet your
counterpart?"
▲: Yes. "No. The way Dave describes him doesn't make him sound like a guy I'd
really want to meet very much. Apparently he kept shurikens in the kitchen
instead of fuckin' Cheerios. I think if I'd been tasked with raising a kid, I'd
be more responsible than that." He would pity any child who grew up with him as
a guardian, that much was true, but he at least knew enough to keep pointy
objects away from them. At least until they were old enough for training,
right? Right. He was actually pretty upset with the fact that alternaverse Dirk
seemed like a major douchebag. He also tried to talk about him as little as
possible, except when Dave specifically wanted to, because they were already
walking a fine line with the wrong-wrong and sexy-wrong as it was.
▼: "Well, I'd like to think if I was tasked with raising a kid I wouldn't keep
bottles of Jack Daniels in random cubby holes throughout my house but
apparently that is a thing that I still do? Uh. But you didn't hear that from
me. I was trying to pick out what kind of...you know, mother-daughter
relationship she had with Rose. I talked with Rose a bit, but she didn't really
trust me, I don't think." She shrugged. "See, this is the problem with not
having an actual mom, 'cause I have no idea how this shit is supposed to work,
if Rose and alt-me are abnormally distant or just your typical 40-something
woman and teenager. I mean, it's weird to think of me having a kid in the first
place, yeah? I'm guessing you feel the same way." She set her drink down,
tapped the cover of her book with a nail. "Dunno. Suppose there's a good reason
we're not supposed to notice all this shit. You must feel pretty uncomfortable,
thinking about it." She smiled at him. "Sorry. You're here for a fun time date
and I'm sitting in a corner by myself getting all moody and introspective. I
fucking hate that. Tell me about your week instead."
▲: "No, it's okay." He reached out and took a sip of her drink, because he
didn't want a whole drink to himself. Not this early in the night, and not
right before taking Dave out. "I guess I get so upset when I think about Dave's
Bro because I can't exactly rule out that I wouldn't do exactly what he did,
given the right set of circumstances." Take, for example, the way he'd tricked
Jake into signing up for wrestling with him in high school. That wasn't just
Dirk wanting an excuse to mount him. If he was being honest with himself, he
had a bad habit of trying to groom people. Maybe that was why Roxy was his best
friend: she always saw through it. Although that begged the question: was he
prepping Dave for anything? Not that he knew of, but time had shown that he
didn't always have to be aware that he was manipulating someone in order to do
it.
"It's been good. Quiet, but that equals good around these parts. I think I
plugged the hole in the dike, so things are getting back to at least the usual
level of insane. Had a nice phone conversation. Caught up on some TV. You never
did answer my original question, though."
▼: She rolled her eyes. "Right, of course. We might...have made out. Just a
little bit. What is even the deal." She took the drink back and took a long
drink. "Not a deal at all. It was...I mean, I rocked my own world naturally,
but. On the other hand, I'm just like...my life, Dirk. My life is ridiculous.
But you're here to take your ex-mark on a date so I guess your life is somewhat
more ridiculous so maybe you should stop stealing my alcohol and go find him or
something. God." She nudged at his shoulder with a twisted up smile on her
face. "Nice phone conversation, huh? I would ask about that all suggestive-
like, but god, we're already gossiping here like fucking teenagers. Speaking of
which, he's in the other room. Have a good time tonight, alright?"
▲: "Teenagers, yes, but *legal* teenagers. Those are the best kind." He stood
up, but instead of walking away he squeezed into Roxy's side of the booth and
gave her a sideways hug. "Love you too," he said. He had made a habit of saying
this when Roxy was brushing him off, in fact he didn't think he ever said it
any other time, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. On the one hand, he was
glad she was safe. On the other hand, there had never really ever been any
question that she would or wouldn't be. Roxy was the only thing left of his old
life that he cared about, but there was a *reason* why she was still here.
Truth be told, Dirk had never really needed to prepare Roxy for anything.
He kissed her on the forehead and then got up again, this time for good. "I'll
see you later," he told her before pushing through the tacky saloon-style doors
to the lounge area. There was another bar-- currently unattended-- smaller
tables, and even some plushy loveseats surrounding a small raised stage with a
piano in one corner. He'd always thought this room was a bit anachronistic,
probably a holdover from when this place was more jazz club and less whorehouse
(although it had always been a little bit of both). Dave was sitting in the
corner with his back to the door, so Dirk strolled up onto the stage and
plinked a few keys. He didn't know how to play, but he'd always liked how
pianos looked. They had the same kind of strong, silent eloquence as things
like grandfather clocks and armoires.
***** Chapter 9 *****
▼: The week had dragged on pretty long, although not as long as Dave had feared
it would, and he was surprised at how happy he was to see Roxy again when she
finally got back. It was good to see her, and also weird now that he knew for
certain that she was (sort of) Rose's mom.
Rose had gotten back to him finally, and something in her tone had changed. She
spoke to him more candidly. Now, it seemed, she truly believed what he had told
her, didn't think all the stuff with Dirk was some weird manifestation of a
post-traumatic stress disorder. Which it maybe partially was, but Dave had
fallen back into his old habit of checking out of the conversation whenever
Rose brought out the DSM-IV. He was glad she believed him and he was even maybe
not completely regretful that he'd told her so much, and that was probably the
best he was going to get.
At any rate, it was a different sort of pleasure to see Dirk again than it had
been with Roxy. When he heard the piano he'd turned around, and when he saw it
was Dirk he pocketed his phone without finishing the text he'd been writing.
"Hey. Shit, are you the talent this evening? Thought we were going out."
▲: Plink, plink, plink. "Depends on how you define 'talent', I think." He
smiled and left the piano behind, walking over to where Dave was sitting and
sinking into the loveseat next to him. For once, Dirk felt like he had a
modicum of restraint around Dave. Sure, he *wanted* to force Dave against the
back of the small couch and climb on top of him, but there was this novel
sensation of not feeling like he *needed* to do it right this moment or else
he'd burst. He sat back and looked at Dave for a moment, thinking about how at
least one element of hot-wrong/wrong-wrong had been lifted. You know. The whole
underage thing. It really was just a number, but somehow it put Dirk at ease
knowing he was on the right side of the number. (Sure, there had been a sick
thrill in doing something he knew he shouldn't, but it wasn't like there was
any shortage of that where the two of them were concerned. He didn't think he'd
miss it too much.) "We have a little bit of time," he said after a moment.
"What are you doing sitting in here all alone, anyway?"
▼: He took his phone out of his pocket by way of explanation. "Talking to
Rose." It had been a joking conversation that had turned into a moderately in-
depth one, so he was sort of glad he could ollie out of it now. He hadn't even
told her who it was who was taking him out on his birthday, because he'd
started to feel weirder and weirder about him and Dirk doing something as
normal as a dinner and a movie date. Not enough to make him not want to go, but
still. "Hold on, let me tell her I'm leaving now." He finished the message he'd
been in the middle of and added, "I really hope you're able to get some good
dirt about what happened on Roxy's secret mission to Bumfuck, Nowhere because
both Lalondes have been cagey as fuck about it to me. Seriously, I was about to
offer up my fragile psyche to Rose to pick apart at will if she wanted." He
sent the text and re-pocketed the phone. "Thankfully, I would never be stupid
enough to do that. Plus you're here now. You saw Roxy in the bar, right? You
must have gotten something out of her."
▲: He waited a little awkwardly while Dave finished tapping out the text on his
bronze-age phone (the phone had gotten a promotion, apparently). "You need this
much privacy for a text conversation? Should I be jealous?" No, really, should
he? Not that he thought there was actually something there (okay that's not
true; he knew something was there, but it was likely as undefinable as whatever
it was that was *there* between him and Roxy), but. But what? He didn't know.
"Yeah, I got something. Probably not as much as you were hoping for, though.
But, I mean, it's not like there's some law that says you can't exaggerate in
your retelling." He stretched his arms out along the back of the couch and
stretched his legs out in front of him. This was a lounge, so he was gonna
lounge for a minute. "So, do you feel as weird about this as I do?"
▼: "I don't *need* privacy, but it's kind of nice. You gotta be firing on all
cylinders when you're talking to Rose. Believe me, if you ever meet her you'll
understand." He smirked. "Which is why the hot gossip you've landed me here is
gonna make her flip. Or so I'm guessing." He wondered briefly if Dirk really
was jealous. Mostly Rose dealt with his shit, sort of landing on the grenade of
Dave's logorrhea, which he could admit in his more generous moments. At any
rate, Dirk didn't really need to know that, did he? "Exaggerate in the
retelling is pretty much guaranteed to happen at this point. Shit, who are we
kidding, we both know I have like ten pages of Rose's hot mom fanfic sitting on
my hard drive waiting to go." When Dirk stretched out, Dave moved himself a
little closer and when he spoke his tone was more serious. "Uh. You mean the
date? Do I feel weird about it?" He shrugged. "Dunno. Guess it's like you said.
I always do shit out of order, don't I?"
▲: "Hmm," he hummed, leaning his head back against the back of the couch and
letting his fingers brush against Dave's shoulder. He vaguely remembered doing
something similar the night he picked Dave up, and the thought made him smile.
Damn, he was in such a cheerful fucking mood today that he kinda hated himself
for it. Or would, if he wasn't so goddamn chipper. "Well too bad, because
you're doing them in order tonight. I'm enforcing a normalcy minimum for the
rest of your birthday. You know, just to spice things up a little bit around
here. Let's be boring for once and do things the way you're supposed to.
Dinner, movie, and then missionary sex." He didn't plan on enforcing any type
of normalcy to the sex part, but he figured he should throw that bit in there
to keep Dave on his toes. "As for the dirt, I'll tell you about it in the car,
after I give you your present. Don't get your hopes up about that, by the way.
It's a present full of deep personal sentiment but little to no practicality or
actual worth."
▼: "Oh. All right." He hadn't even thought about getting a present from Dirk.
Definitely hadn't expected one, so he wasn't sure how to react. He smiled
vaguely, maybe even a little uncomfortably. "Normalcy minimum sounds like a
pretty steep challenge for the both of us, you especially, but ok. I'm game if
you are." For a second he didn't even want to move, especially when he felt
Dirk's hand brush against his shoulder. Fuck dates, why not just get trashed on
Roxy's alcohol and have sex in his shitty dirty bedroom again? But no; his
momentary urge to be a complete shut-in went away. He had been looking forward
to this a lot, after all. He sat up, put his hands in his jacket pockets, and
looked at Dirk. "I'm also ready whenever you are. Let's go." As they went out
to the car, he again wondered what the hell Dirk could have gotten him, and
just before they got there he felt a momentary jolt of horror.
Oh shit. What if it was a puppet?
▲: Dirk followed Dave out through the backdoor, giving Roxy a little wave and a
wink on the way out. It was noticeably colder than it had been two weeks ago,
and he had to zip his jacket all the way up. Maybe it wouldn't seem all that
cold to most of the country, but for the people who lived here their whole
lives, it felt like it was really getting down there. The car beeped happily
when they approached, and when Dirk got into the driver's seat he rummaged
around under piles of crap in the backseat.
What he finally surfaced with was some kind of odd contraption that looked like
a two-foot tall robotic bunny wearing a pair of sunglasses that were an almost
exact copy of the pair Dave used to wear, not that Dirk knew that. "Like I
said, little to no practicality or value." He noticed that Dave was looking at
it with a bit of apprehension, so he went on, "There's a story behind this guy,
okay? There's actually a real stuffed bunny inside that belonged to my Bro.
It's one of the only things I have that are from my birth family. When I was in
like junior high or something I covered him in metal and gears because, I
dunno, it seemed to better fit my manly interests or whatever. The sunglasses
came with the bunny, though, I didn't add those. I did make some, uhh, changes
to them. I really would not recommend wearing them. Ever." He thought briefly
about just taking the shades off of the rabbit and keeping them for himself,
but no, it was a package deal, man.
"He's kind of handy, though. He can process simple vocal commands and perform a
lot of various tasks. So, like, if you need lube but don't want to get out of
bed... just for example. There's more to him that, but I guess part of the fun
of getting a present is figuring out what it can do for yourself." He shrugged.
"Also I thought you might like having something that belonged to my Dave. Maybe
this will ping for you somehow."
▼: He'd been schooling his face into an expression of wan indifference that
would hopefully mask whatever residual horror he was going to feel when Dirk
dumped a smuppet into his lap. All his careful planning left him when Dirk
brought out the bunny, because suddenly he was 13 again, opening up the blue
package with Egbert's Stiller shades. He was 13, going to some random-ass
auction website to buy vintage Fraggle Rock commemorative plates for Bro's
Christmas present, coming across that fucking Con Air bunny almost by chance.
Almost...shit, it was almost fate, wasn't it? And here it was, covered in metal
but still, undeniably, that same bunny, wearing those same shades.
He became aware that Dirk was watching him, and that he himself had been
staring at the bunny, running his thumb over one of its ears and holding it
like he thought it would explode. Hell, maybe it could, if Dirk's mechanization
tactics were anything like Bro's. Still, Dave looked at him and tried to say
something. "Yeah. It's...pinging for me, you could say. Shit." Talk about an
understatement. He wasn't sure what to say. Bro had expounded for him once on
the many layers of ironic and genuine sentiment inherent in a perfectly
realized gift, but Dave's mind wasn't really in any condition to analyze that
shit. Hell, "How Do I Live" could have started playing on the radio right then
and he probably would have started crying tears realer than Kraft Mayo. He
shook his head again, grinning. "Yeah. It's cool. It's good. Thanks."
▲: He took the bunny back from Dave momentarily and flipped it over. "The power
switch is in his butt. Sorry. Blame my thirteen-year-old psyche for that one. I
thought it would be hilarious at the time, but now it just looks like I have a
desire to be intimate with robotic lagomorphs." He pointed to the power switch,
just under the tail. "I'm not going to turn him on in here. You should do that
sometime when you're alone. The first thing you have to do is name him-- or
her, whatever, it's a fucking bunny so you can make it whatever gender you
want-- but this is very fucking important, ok? You need to give it a name. And
never wear the glasses. They're sweet shades, but just... don't."
He handed it back to Dave, watching the careful way that Dave held it. He kinda
wanted to ask *how* it was pinging, but he figured it would come up eventually
when Dave wanted to tell him. Now that he'd dumped a whole bunch of sentimental
cogs and gears into Dave's lap-- literally-- he felt a little awkward. This
wasn't his first rodeo or anything, but it was inherently different. He took
off his shades and tossed them up on the dashboard for a moment, and then he
leaned over the armrest. Dave was still looking at the rabbit, so Dirk had to
reach out with his hand and turn Dave's face toward him in order to kiss it.
▼: It was more comfortable than the last time they'd made out in the car,
mostly because Dave wasn't the one leaning over the armrest this time. He was
putting his arms around Dirk, sinking into the kiss because part of him had
wanted to do this since the moment Dirk had showed up, but he hadn't because of
hang-ups, or the line of questioning Rose had been putting him through, or a
bunch of other shit he was just about the farthest away from caring about as he
sat shotgun in this fucking car.
He rested his forehead against Dirk's, and couldn't help grinning like a
motherfucker. "Hey, not in front of the kid, you pervert," he said, nodding at
the inanimate rabbit before kissing Dirk again. He was actually pretty hungry
but this felt more important all of a sudden, just tasting Dirk again because
Dave had been right. It had been two weeks, and each one had dragged on like a
motherfucker.
▲: Dirk kept his palm on Dave's face, even though he really didn't need to hold
it there any longer. The center console was digging into his ribcage, but he
wasn't about to move just yet. "He's seen worse, ok? Don't worry about it.
That's part of why I don't want you to fuck with the glasses." He pressed
forward again, because now that he was kissing Dave he felt that whole 'wanting
it but not needing it' thing slipping away and being replaced by something a
bit more 'hands-y teenager'. He wanted more of Dave's teeth on his lips and he
wanted to keep smelling Dave's skin just under the scent of the soap he uses.
He laughed into the kiss deep in his throat, and he found himself really hoping
that the movie fucking sucked.
He pulled away, though, because, "Snowballing," he said out loud. He laughed
again after saying it, because he remembered that they had explored multiple
meanings of that word. "Okay. Fuck. Stop... doing whatever you're doing and
tell me where to go. I'm less likely to try to grope you with a full stomach."
▼: "Yeah, good point." He settled back on the seat, feeling warm all down his
front despite the fact that it was coolish outside. "Keep your eyes on the
road, dude. Vehicle safety. Buckle your seatbelt and take a left on the street
out here." He still had the rabbit in his lap. Obviously he wasn't going to
turn it on, because he was pretty sure a robot bunny would be the mother of all
third wheels, but just looking at it still gave him a kick. The bunny was one
thing, but shit, those damn shades. He'd wondered if they were his same ones at
first, then changed his mind as Dirk had explained. Still, seeing this copy
made him think of the originals, which could have been anywhere: still in Jack
Noir's possession, hocked to some pawn shop somewhere for a couple of bucks,
Hell, maybe one of the more unscrupulous whores had stolen them. He'd found
himself wondering about them more often lately, and part of him had forgotten
that Dirk didn't even know that the aviators had once been his thing. His
Thing, even.
"What do you got against these shades? Shit, I used to have a pair just like
this. John gave them to me for a birthday gift. I think he thought it was an
attempt at another one of his shitty pranks, but little did he know that they
were a sentimental gift of immense significance. I wore them pretty much all
the time until Jack took 'em. What's wrong with this pair? They got a curse on
them or something?"
▲: Dirk buckled his seatbelt and gave Dave some serious side-eye. "Do you even
have a license? I think I know how to drive, kid." Calling Dave 'kid' had
become something of an internal joke to Dirk, and he actually felt a little
less bad about it now that Dave was on the right side of 18. He pulled out of
the parking lot and started driving, feeling a bit giddy. Part of it was Dave
himself, but a very significant part of it was just having something good to
look forward to. He hadn't realized how long he'd gone without something to
look forward to instead of just reacting to whatever was being thrown at him in
the moment. He felt like it was probably healthy for him. It helped string the
days together, anyway, instead of just stacking them endlessly.
They sat in comfortable silence for a while, and when Dave spoke again, Dirk's
gaze shifted momentarily to the bunny. "Not exactly. More like a ghost. I used
to wear them, but then for some reason I decided that it would be a good idea
to fuse them with one of my first attempts at programming an AI. The whole
thing kind of backfired, so I integrated him with the rabbit. Little dude kinda
doesn't work without it." That wasn't entirely true, but he thought it might
discourage Dave from trying to investigate. Dirk honestly didn't even know if
the AR was still kicking around in there or not, and it wouldn't be the *worst*
thing in the world if Dave talked to him-- after all, he had made AR like ten
years before he met Dave. What harm could it possibly do? Still, it was
probably not the best idea to introduce someone to the robotic essence of your
thirteen-year-old brain until after at LEAST the like fifth or sixth date.
▼: "Man, you got some weirdass hobbies, you know that?" He set the bunny in the
backseat now. He needed a name, a good name, but overthinking it wouldn't help.
He was thinking LeAnn, as in Rimes, but no, that was too obvious. Possibly he
was going to have to break out a copy of Con Air to come up with the perfect
reference that would sufficiently drive Egbert nuts. "Get on Fifth and we're
there. See it?" The restaurant was within walking distance of the theater, and
they had parked a little distance away. It wasn't until they were on the
sidewalk walking, with his arm around one of Dirk's, that it really sank in for
Dave.
"Man, we're really doing this, aren't we? Going for a romantic fucking stroll
on a nice day on my fucking birthday, I mean. This is weird. This is too
normal, it's freaking me out." He was only sort of kidding about that. It was
nice but...bizarre as shit, honestly. "I was wrong, I totally fucking lose at
the normalcy minimum game. Tell me it's not just me."
▲: Dirk had parked a little farther away than he could have, but it was out of
old habit. It was always better to park your car a short walk from an
unfamiliar scene instead of right outside. That way if something went down, you
had time to get lost in the crowd before making your exit. And anyway, once he
was out in the crisp air, he found that he kinda liked walking quietly and
slowly, especially with Dave leaning into his side. Dave, on the other hand,
apparently had a real thing for ruining comfortable silences.
He couldn't quite contain the laugh, and it came out more like a muted snort.
"Romance is what you make of it. So is normalcy, by the way. But I feel you,
yeah. If you're that wigged out, we could just get our food takeout and go back
to my place. I'll eat pad thai off of your stomach. Would that make you more
comfortable?" He didn't even realize that he'd left his shades on the dash of
his car until they were too far to turn back around. He hesitated in his stride
for a moment, but kept walking. He'd be fine without them for one dinner,
anyway.
▼: He almost took Dirk up on that one, but finally shook his head with a grin.
"I think getting something that spicy close to that sensitive of an area is a
bad idea, so I'm fine with eating in. I mean, it still is weird, but it's the
kind of weird I can deal with. I'm readjusting my perceptions as we speak.
Shaking the fuck out of all my paradigms or whatever." Dirk going without the
shades probably helped, not that Dave was going to tell him that. Without the
shades, he looked less like Bro, and in his street clothes he looked less like
Rodrigo the Slick Mob Killer, which was how Dave secretly thought of the guy
who had picked him up a month ago. Those Dirks were not the same as this Dirk,
although Dave didn't know how to phrase that exactly without sounding like he
was going for another clonesex joke.
He didn't bother to phrase it, though. They walked on in silence again, so
contentedly that it wasn't until they were seated at the restaurant that the
clonesex reminded him. "Shit, with all the robot bunnies and crap I totally
forgot to ask you what you found out from Roxy. About Lalondequest, which is
what I've been referring to it as in my head." Thankfully, whatever pretensions
at normalcy he and Dirk had were pretty much destined to go to shit once they
actually started *talking* about stuff. Lalondequest was a lot of things, but
normal was not one of them.
▲: Dirk didn't respond right away, because he was distracted by the menu. He
had been facetious when he said that he needed to get some food in his stomach
to keep himself from jumping Dave's nuts, but now that they were here he
realized that he really was hungry. He didn't know why he bothered looking,
though, because he always got the same thing. "Mmm. Yeah. She was being really
cagey about it, but she admitted to drunken makeouts with your friend's mom."
He put the menu down and looked around the room. It was nice but not fancy.
White walls and a fish tank in the corner. That bored him, so he looked at Dave
instead. He tried to picture Dave wearing the AR shades, and he decided that he
liked it. Dave looked like the kind of guy who'd be more comfortable with some
mental distance between himself and everyone else, probably for a lot of the
same reasons that Dirk was. "My guess is that she isn't telling the whole
truth, but she's smart. She's not saying more because she doesn't want it
getting back to Rose, I bet."
▼: The urge to cackle maniacally like a fucking Bond villain at Dirk's words
was very strong, but Dave suppressed it and said, "That's too fucking bad. It's
like I told you, there are scores to settle here, ok? Horrible, deep lasting
psychological scars that I have yet to inflict on her that she has had coming
for a long ass time and I'm starting to sound like a crazy person here so I'm
going to shut up." He shook his head. The past two weeks, since he'd sent her
that fucking War and Peace-length email, had really driven home to him just how
much he had missed talking to her, even, maybe *especially*, when she tried to
turn his brain inside out. Which maybe wasn't immediately apparent to Dirk,
since all Dave could talk about was how much he wanted to mentally traumatize
her. Still, from the way Roxy talked about him, Dave thought Dirk might
understand.
"Shit, she probably won't even care *that* much. I mean. It's possible I'm
overstating some things. Shocking, I know. But given all the shit that I have
unloaded on her... plus she's not 13 anymore. It's not like she's still in the
teenage 'my mother is a cruel governess out to destroy me' stage, but for a
couple years there...." He made vague motion with his hands. And it was true;
for as fucked up as his own home life had been, on a day-to-day drama level
basis it had nothing on Rose's. "Last time I was here, actually, was with her.
She just sorta...showed up unannounced, which she would do sometimes. Just text
me and show up at the train station like she just got off the Hogwarts Express
from the magical land of domestic turmoil. Which, now that I know what Roxy's
like, is sort of hilarious."
▲: "I'll see what else I can get her to admit. It might take some lubrication,
though. I might have to take one for the team." He picked up the water glass
next to his placemat and sipped it thoughtfully for a moment, with a very fake
serious expression. "And by that I mean I might have actually promised her I'd
build her a sex robot. I'm fuzzy on the details of what exactly I promised,
since my brain was not functioning properly that morning, but aside from
jumping on that grenade *myself*..." He trailed off because he didn't really
think of Roxy as a grenade; it was just a figure of speech. Dave's relationship
with Rose seemed to be very much as codependent as his with Roxy, but the
undertones were very different. It seemed almost competitive, which wasn't
really a thematic element in his own friendship. "I mean, what the hell, go
ahead and make up all the gory tribadism details you want. You can even name me
as a source. I'll take the fall for you."
▼: "Pretty much what I was going to do anyway," said Dave. Before he could say
anymore, though, the waitress came back. Last time he was here Rose had made
some dry comment about him always getting the same thing, but shit, it was his
birthday after all, so he got the red curry anyway. As the waitress was writing
it down, she surprised him and looked right him over her notepad. "It's been
awhile, huh?"
"What?"
"Since you've been here. Hasn't it?"
"Oh. Yeah." He was taken aback. He supposed it was his favorite restaurant, but
he really hadn't thought he'd come here enough for the cute waitress to
remember his face. It was kind of nice, anyway, if alarming. As she took their
menus he smiled back at her, either because she'd remembered him, or because of
how fucking adorable her dimples were, who even knew. After she left, he caught
Dirk's eye. "See, word must have got out that I'm legal now, huh?"
▲: Dirk sized up the waitress as she walked away. He realized what he was doing
and that it wasn't an appropriate reaction, but he'd never been good at
reigning it in. "It's certainly not that she's digging for a tip, otherwise
she'd be flirting with *me*." He wasn't sure what he really meant by that,
because he had no idea how obvious it was to other people that they were on a
date. Shit. The last time they'd gone out to eat, the waitress had assumed they
were brothers, after all. He felt a sudden overwhelming desire to touch Dave,
but he settled for pressing their knees together under the table. Jealousy
always did bring out his possessive side. "So, what would you normally be doing
on your birthday?"
▼: He shrugged. "Just like this, sorta. Like I said, it was Jade's birthday too
so we'd go out together usually. And then to John's usually because there was
more space to do shit there." He had always really hated bringing people back
to the apartment. Even Rose, who had crashed on his bedroom floor a couple
times during her domestic upheavals, and even Jade when the she and Dave were
technically a thing. "John's dad would make us cakes, although that was less
because it was our birthdays and more because it was a day that ended in 'y.'
And. You know. Stuff." He paused. "Last year I got my license, obviously. And I
saw Jade in person for the first time since we broke up, which was...nice. I
was afraid it'd be weird but it wasn't. We just...well, if you want to know the
truth I think we ended up playing Pokemon until the middle of the night and
when I woke up the next morning she was watching The Dark Crystal with Bro
so...you know. Back to normal."
He wondered why he'd felt the need to share that story so badly. It might have
had something to do with the jealousy he'd detected (or maybe just imagined) in
Dirk's gaze as he'd watched the waitress. He pressed his feet closer to Dirk's
and leaned forward a little. "See, I hope you're not jealous of Jade. Unless
you really wanted to go home and play Pokemon, but I should warn you that I
would not go as easy on you as I did on her." Which was a lie; Jade was pretty
fucking hardcore about her Pokemon, actually. He was trying, probably really
shittily, to make a joke out of the whole thing, but it was something he'd
thought about seriously. Not that he expected Jade and Dirk to be bffs, but
after all, Jade and Bro had always been pretty cordial, even though Dave
thought that Bro did kind of unnerve her. Dirk, while a professional hitman and
kind of intense, was was actually a lot less unsettling than Bro had been.
Which was really saying something.
▲: He remembered pressing their legs together like this under the table before,
at the diner. Possibly also at the Iron Horse Hitcher, but he couldn't remember
that very clearly. Above the table, he rested his elbow on the corner and
propped his chin in his hand, using the other to fiddle with the plates and
bowls on the table. He didn't look directly at Dave, at least not for the
moment. "I kinda missed the nostalgia boat for the whole Pokemon thing. Like I
dicked around with it a bit, but by the time I realized it was a thing, I was
just barely too old for it to really imprint. So I'm sure you could kick my
ass. I mean, at least until I get pissed off at losing and put you in an armbar
just to get you to shut up about Pokemon." He smiled a little, and it felt kind
weird to do that in public without his sunglasses on. It was okay, though. "I'm
not jealous of your junior high girlfriend, ok? Jesus. What kind of weirdo do
you think I am? I had a junior high girlfriend too, I just don't talk about her
all the fuckin' time like some people I know."
▼: He rolled his eyes. It had been like what, two or three times? Whatever.
"Some kind of weirdo, anyway. But that's not the point." It wasn't even so much
Jade in specific, although obviously he'd been thinking of her since it had
been her birthday too. "It's just weird, thinking that all that stuff still
happened. It wasn't *that* long ago but it feels like forever." In some ways it
was eerie and unsettling, being back in a familiar place again. He couldn't
imagine what it would be like to go back to the apartment, something both he
and Roxy had agreed wasn't safe to do yet. Plus it was nice, to know that he
still was the same person, and that people he'd known before would still
recognize him, as weird as that sounded. Although he had to wonder how the
waitress would react if she knew what had happened to him in the intervening
six months.
Dirk was somehow mixed up in all that, though Dave couldn't quite explain why.
The very sight of Dirk (even sans shades) was an at times painful reminder of
the past, but everything else about him was a novelty, was new and different
and frankly exciting as fuck. Dave still wasn't sure it was *healthy*-- it
almost definitely wasn't-- but it wasn't actively *bad*, something he'd been at
pains to explain to Rose, who had seemed dubious.
Still. He wasn't here to explain himself to Rose, or even reminisce about Jade
and her Pokemon and her encouraging of Bro's Jim Henson vice. He was here to
have *fun*, dammit. So he doubled down on the foot action under the table,
pressed their legs closer together while above the table he looked off in mock
disinterest. He even slipped off his sneaker and ran his foot under the hem of
Dirk's pants. Thank god the guy didn't wear skinny jeans.
▲: Dirk dragged his teeth across the fleshy part of his bottom lip and let the
saucer he'd been playing with clank back down on the table when he felt Dave's
toes playing with his ankle. Fuckin' smooth, bro. Why was this kind of thing
sexy, anyway? Was it a callback to a time when ankles were considered obscene?
Or was it just knowing that you were touching someone in a way that other
people were not aware? It was supposed to be naughty, therefore it felt
naughty. Circular logic. Whatever, it worked. He kinda wondered what Dave would
do if he took his sneaker and 'stepped' lightly on Dave's crotch, but he wasn't
going to find out. Not here, anyway. He cleared his throat and tried to clear
his head. "It's not like your life was a thing that stopped happening while you
were there. The world keeps spinnin', but so do you, you know?"
At some point he intended to ask Dave if he wanted to do something about his
Bro's death-- like, have some kind of, whatever, some sort of Thing-- but that
wasn't a topic for tonight. The bunny was probably a way to broach that subject
when the time came, though. Since Dirk didn't know about the sunglasses or the
stuffed bunny and what they meant to Dave, he'd just kinda been hoping that the
whole robot thing would be familiar and comfortable to Dave in that way.
Wait, why the fuck was he thinking about this right now. He closed his eyes for
a second and shut them out, thinking about the pressure of Dave's foot on his
leg, which really wouldn't feel all *that* sexual in any other context. He was
probably a little too good at shutting out the thoughts, because when the
waitress came back with the drink he'd asked for, she brushed against his elbow
and he jerked forward slightly in surprise.
▼: "All right?" she asked, and came within an ace of spilling Dirk's drink
before setting it safely on the table. She was like some kind of anti-spill
ninja. "Dang," said Dave, because it had been an impressive bit of maneuvering.
She caught Dave's eye, and he raised his eyebrows, shrugged, gave her a "this
guy, right?" expression. Which was a dick move on Dave's part, he knew, but he
couldn't stop himself. She smiled at him again and left, and Dave was suddenly
reminded of the Waffle House, and Dirk's aborted plan to kiss him to freak out
the waitress. Not that Dave wanted to freak this one out or give Dirk a footjob
unbeknownst to everyone else in the restaurant. The attraction was in just
touching Dirk, and knowing with certainty that he could throw him off the way
Dirk kind of did for him just by existing. Call it passive-aggressive
oneupmanship if you wanted, but it was like some sort of adult milestone for
Dave. So instead of backing down, he kept his foot moving upward, over the knee
and rubbing slightly at the inside of Dirk's thigh, and this time he looked at
Dirk's face to catch his reaction.
▲: Dirk reached for his beer, determined to maintain his composure after that
momentary and embarrassing lapse. He sipped it slowly and looked back into
Dave's eyes, daring him to press farther but also enjoying the warmth and the
pressure on the inside of his leg. He wasn't usually a foot kind of guy, and
that really hadn't changed, but the strangeness of it added to the experience.
Dirk wasn't one for passive-aggressive power plays-- he generally preferred the
direct approach-- but he decided to make an exception. What would be a good
topic of conversation while Dave is gunning for Dirk's dick with his toes?
"Yeah, so, my junior high girlfriend. Her name was Meenah. She was pretty
stacked, and I learned the hard way that you aren't supposed to suck on troll
tits. Fortunately I was only paralyzed for like five minutes, and it was only
my face, but she thought it was fuckin' hilarious. She was kind of a bitch,
actually, but in this endearing kind of way? She gave a mean handjob, though,
and I mean it when I say mean." That was one of the things he'd liked about
her. He still wasn't exactly sure if he liked her because he liked that kind of
stuff, or if he liked that kind of stuff because she'd had a formative effect
on him. He licked his lips. Dave's foot was practically in his lap now.
▼: "Mmm." He was half paying attention to where his feet were going, and half
to Dirk's words. "Yeah, the venom sacs'll get you. Evolution is crazy, right?"
He'd slipped off his other sneaker and had just rested his foot on Dirk's knee.
He wasn't moving that one. Instead he pushed Dirk's legs apart with it and kept
his other foot moving up Dirk's leg, expecting any second for Dirk to grab his
foot to stop him or do *something*. Drag him into an alley to make out again,
he didn't know. He was in two minds; part of him wanted to have a nice chat
over the curry, and another part of him wanted to bait Dirk until Dirk tried to
knock him back down again. He was starting to rethink the maturity of his
actions here, but shit, his birthday, right? Plus the reactions he was getting
weren't bad. He watched Dirk lick his lips, and finally stretched out his leg
until his foot was brushing against Dirk's fly, and then looked around to see
if anyone was watching. Of course no one was, not that it would have really
stopped him. "Do you mean, like, didn't trim her fingernails mean or. Extra
mean." He pushed forward a little with his toes, and his voice had gotten
lower. "Just out of curiosity."
▲: Dirk rested one palm on the foot that was resting on his knee, and then he
leaned back in the booth and slouched a bit, pushing his crotch a little
further under the table so that Dave's other foot wouldn't be visible in his
lap. He took another drink of his beer with his free hand, making sure that it
stayed steady. Dirk could take whatever Dave threw at him as long as his
resolve was set-- Dave had just taken him by surprise earlier. He rolled his
hips out to give Dave better access to his dick. He wasn't hard yet, but he
could get there pretty easily if he concentrated. "I mean she used to get her
kicks by overstimulating me nearly to tears, even after I came. That was my
first erotic experience with someone other than myself. Does it explain a thing
or two?" His eyes lidded halfway when Dave continued to press into his crotch,
rubbing up against his dick, but he caught himself and brought it back to a
neutral expression. This was a lot harder to do without shades, wasn't it? He
had to worry about innocent bystanders, because the fortysomething lady friends
the next table over really didn't need to see his footjob face. Well. Maybe
that one with the leopard print collar would like it. He caught her smirking at
him momentarily, and he blinked hard a few times. "Our food is gonna be here
like any minute, you know. Do you have a contingency plan for that?"
▼: "Contingency plan?" It would be kind of a downer, to just stop once the
plates were on the table, but. He shrugged, wriggled the toes that were under
Dirk's hand, and brought his heel up to press down against Dirk's cock. "Look,
dude. I think you're all right. I like you...quite a bit." Obviously Dirk
wasn't hard yet, but Dave could feel the swell of Dirk's cock against the
instep of his own foot, and imagined he could feel the heat even between the
fabric between them. "But the curry I ordered is really, really fucking tasty,
so. I'm torn. Damn." He dragged his toes down the length of Dirk's package and
then ran his toe right along the zipper, underneath the fly itself. He had a
vague memory of Dirk doing something like this to him at one point, getting him
het up and leaving him high and dry, although that had already been a month
ago. Revenge was apparently a dish best served cold, or, in this case, served
by a cute waitress and piping hot, because when she brought out their food Dave
put his feet back down on the ground and sat up straight. Holy crap, he hadn't
been kidding about the curry, or how hungry he was. If Dirk was pissed at him
he decided he could deal with the consequences later, because the food was
calling his name.
▲: Dirk chewed on the inside of his cheek to keep from saying anything when
Dave started toeing his zipper. He clenched the fist that was holding Dave's
other ankle under the table, and the woman across the way caught his eye again.
She either knew what was up or she was on the prowl, and Dirk couldn't figure
out which one it was. He blinked again and dug his fingers in, but just when
his dick was really starting to show signs of life, suddenly his lap was empty.
His eyes snapped back to Dave's face with a slight glare, but then he realized
that there was food in front of him. Did he really space out that much? Over a
footjob? He gave his head a little shake and dug into his noodles after
shifting his hips around in the booth a little bit. "Right. So." He was a bit
at a loss as to what to say, since he was suffering from a sudden unwanted lack
of pressure in the crotch region. Dave was going to get it for that, later that
evening, in the privacy of Dirk's home. He smiled a little around his fork at
the thought. Having Dave at his place was going to feel a little weird, but he
was pretty solidly convinced that he was ready for it, if for no other reason
than that he'd have his entire collection of sweatpants to choose from when he
was done fucking Dave and wanted to lounge on the couch for a while. The small
things, you know.
▼: "So," said Dave, after he had stuffed his face, and whatever excitement he'd
felt at feeling up Dirk with his feet was mostly gone once he started eating.
He slipped his shoes back on finally, too, and drank some of his water. "Been
kind of a long two weeks," he said, as if that was a good explanation. "Pretty
boring. Got enrolled in the online courses I was telling you about, so after
Christmas I won't technically be considered a dropout anymore. I have no idea
how Roxy worked the whole thing out. She might actually be a wizard, in
addition to all her self-romancing skills. I'm not even sure. Anyway. Yeah. And
the bar's been pretty quiet. Obviously I haven't been the target of any
assassination attempts." He knocked on the tabletop. Everything had been pretty
quiet on the Noir front, which was ominous, but Dave wasn't complaining. "Guess
I didn't really ask what you've been up to, did I?" Between footjobs and making
eyes at the curry and all. "Did you decide on a hotel or..." He didn't want to
ask right out if they were going to Dirk's place, but he had been wondering.
▲: It *had* been a long two weeks, but they'd also been orders of magnitude
better than the two prior. "That's good to hear. Both of them, I mean." He was
trying pretty firmly not to get involved in planning for Dave's future,
although he'd be happy to help out if Dave asked for it explicitly. Roxy seemed
to be doing a pretty good job of it, anyway. Maybe she'd make a decent mom
after all. He made a point to keep eating for a little while and drink some
more of his beer before answering. He was not, generally speaking, much of a
beer kind of guy, but you just couldn't drink liquor with food. "Nah. Hotels
are for work." He really couldn't believe how close he'd come to putting a
bullet in Dave's head the last time they'd been in one. Whenever he thought
about it-- which wasn't often-- it gave him chills. "I thought we could go back
to my place after the movie. Maybe in the morning we can go through some of
your grandma girlfriend's stuff. Maybe you can find her a birthday present in
all of it. Spread the interdimensional weirdness around a little more, you
know? No reason we should be hogging it all."
▼: "Sure. Get an early Christmas gift for Egbert or something too. Hate for him
to feel left out." His mind balked at the idea, but he still wanted to do it.
Jade had believed him about Dirk and Roxy, but John had initially thought it
was an elaborate joke on Dave's part, or that Dave had just gone nuts, which
secretly offended Dave quite a bit, not that he was going to say anything,
obviously. "He hasn't said it exactly, but I think he still doesn't quite buy
all of it. Thinks it's a shitty prank, even though I do not pull shitty pranks
like that." Unless you counted the aborted footjob, which he wasn't going to.
"So, maybe I'll present him with some fucking evidence or something. See how he
takes it." At that thought, he went back to his curry. Even though the idea of
digging through Golden Girl Jade's shit was weird, it was exciting and he was
glad they weren't going to a hotel. He supposed he agreed with Dirk on that
one: hotels were for work. "Sounds like a good plan, though. I think it'll be
cool. Weird, but cool. I'm not sure what you'd call that feeling. Probably
we're gonna have to coin a term to describe it if we're gonna keep seeing each
other like this."
▲: Dirk looked up at Dave with a concerned but somewhat confused expression as
he slurped up noodles. For all the airs he gave off about being one classy
motherfucker, he was actually something of a sloppy eater. Not messy, just...
not as refined as you would expect. "What part doesn't he believe? I mean. I
could give him a call. Shit, we could go swing by. Does he live in the city? I
mean, not tonight, obviously, because you'll be too busy getting punished for
that stunt you pulled earlier, but you know. Maybe tomorrow. I'm the kind of
guy you gotta see to believe, anyway." He was just talking shit at this point,
but he also wanted to get Dave's mind off of the subject if he was genuinely
upset about his friend's reaction.
▼: He laughed. "No, dude. No. Don't pull your Goodfellas schtick on him, it'll
freak him out, or excite him too much. Not that you look much like De Niro
but." The idea made him laugh, but at Dirk's threat his heart leapt up a
little, even though Dirk had said it jokingly. Shit, the dumb movie was going
to go on extra long now. He ate a bit more before saying thoughtfully, "I'm
leaving a lot of that refined reasoning shit to Jade and Rose. Make them do my
dirty work. Like the interpersonal equivalent of making Jade help me with
physics homework. Leave John to get served with the cold hard, kinda goofy
facts like a dude on butler island."
He'd cleared his plate; thankfully it had been as good as he'd remembered, and
he vacuumed it up. He pushed his empty plate aside and sipped at his water,
enjoying the spicy feeling still in his mouth. He surveyed the restaurant,
regarding with almost uncharacteristic goodwill everyone he saw; the table of
middle-aged women laughing across from theirs, their server who was chatting
with the hostess, hell, even the fucking busboy. He looked around until his
gaze came back to Dirk, who looked back at him with a mouthful of noodles. He
looked fucking ridiculous, in fact. Dave shook his head and laughed, and tapped
Dirk's foot again lightly. "Stunt? What stunt? I've been really well-behaved.
You totally can take me places, dude, come on."
▲: Dirk licked some noodle juice from his bottom lip. "Are you kidding me? I'm
way too refined and too symmetrical to look anything like De Niro. A little too
soft-featured, too. That's why I'm so good at my job. I'm too fuckin' pretty
for anyone to suspect that I'm about to bring the realness." He was still
eating, because unlike some people at this table, Dirk actually liked to taste
his food. At some point in between bites, though, he put his fork down and
reached his hand across the table to rub the pad of his fingertip over the flat
of one of Dave's square fingernails. He stared at Dave's hand intently before
speaking again. "You know exactly what I'm talking about," he said, a bit less
playful than before. Serious, but it would be obvious that there was something
about it that he enjoyed. Got off on, even. He tapped the fingernail with the
tip of his own. "Don't play coy, unless you're trying to dig the hole deeper.
In which case, by all means, go right ahead. You might actually make it to
China." He pulled his hand back and smiled before forking up some of the
remaining noodles and stuffing them in his mouth.
▼: "Yeah, maybe Ray Liotta," he said, before shutting up when Dirk spoke.
Speaking of bringing the realness. He was a little taken aback at Dirk's more
serious tone, but not really. Not like he once had been, he remembered. A month
ago if he'd heard that tone it might have put him off the dinner he'd just had.
Now it only fed the satisfied feeling he got from eating, and made him look
forward to whatever came next. "Let's face it, that hole is already pretty
fucking deep. That hole is fucking *treacherous*. Which sounds a lot dirtier
than I meant it to sound." That was another lie. He leaned forward, his foot
pressing into Dirk's instep again, and when he spoke it was softer and more
seriously as well. "Like I said. Been a long two weeks. And we have 45 minutes
until the show starts." 45 minutes was really not that long, but somehow the
light pressure on his finger had set him off more than all that feeling up with
his foot he'd done earlier. Hands were just naturally sexier than feet, he
supposed. "What do you think?" he asked, just as the waitress came back to take
their empty plates.
▲: Dirk drained the remainder of his beer, waiting until the waitress walked
off with the plates to retrieve the bill before he replied. "Are you seriously
suggesting that we fuck in my *car* right after eating a bunch of spicy food?
That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Let's do it." He didn't actually have
any intention of fucking Dave until they got back to his place, but he wouldn't
say no to a bit of fucking around. The waitress came back with the bill, and he
took it, stuffing the little book with cash. Always with cash. You'd think Dirk
didn't like leaving a paper trail or something. The good thing about cash,
however, was that you didn't need to wait around as long as you didn't need
change. "C'mon," he said, standing up. Suddenly he was really impatient to get
out of here. He put his hand on Dave's lower back and raised his eyebrows at
the lady across the way behind Dave's back as they walked out. Yeah, she
totally knew what was up. When they were back outside, Dirk added as an
afterthought, "Also, fuck you and your Ray Liotta. I will accept the lovechild
of a young Al Pacino and a young Denzel Washington and nothing fucking less."
▼: "It's not one of my more brilliantly-executed plans," he said. "Still. I'm
not the plan guy, remember? I just roll with the punches and--yeah." He got out
of the booth with Dirk and nodded to the waitress on the way back out onto the
street.
The theater was actually getting full, from what he could tell from the people
pouring out from the under the marquee. By the time they got to the car, did
whatever they were going to do (which was what exactly? Answer: who gave a
shit), and got back, probably the show would have started, but his mind wasn't
on that. The sun was going down, Dirk's hand was pressed against his back, and
he was 18 fucking years old. For the first time in a while he felt like he
could do anything he wanted. Besides drink and run for president and a couple
other stupid things, but still. He somewhat understood Dirk's preoccupation
with the arbitrary number even as it annoyed him a little, because it was a
milestone for him. "Sure you do. Wow, your erotic male pregnancy fanfiction is
pushing all my buttons here, dude." Dirk actually was pushing all his buttons,
just not with what he was saying. Dave was in that sort of mood. He drew Dirk's
arm behind him so it was more resting around his waist. He might have liked to
hold his hand, but he also wanted to maintain whatever contact there was
between them.
▲: Dirk pulled Dave's hip closer to him so that they were walking in step. He
liked how even though Dave was a bit shorter than him, they were pretty well-
matched. Dave's shoulder fit exactly where Dirk needed it to go, and they
walked like that for a while, Dirk staring off at the sky. The setting sun
painted the undersides of the clouds orange and lilac, and it looked surreal,
like an illustration out of a book. Dirk had a momentary feeling of
spatiotemporal displacement, although he didn't really have the words to
describe it as such. His stride broke for a moment while he shook himself out
of it.
Dave gave him a look that ended in an obvious question mark. "Nothing. I think
I went astral projecting just then or something." He squeezed Dave's hip again
and kept walking, and before long they came back up on the car. Dirk opened the
door to the backseat and gestured for Dave to get in before crawling in after
him. There were gym clothes all over the backseat that, for once, were actually
clean, and he contorted his body to pull off his jacket in the tight space,
bunching it up and tossing it to Dave's other side. They were too big to be
doing this, even in a car with as roomy of a backseat as this one, but he would
make it work. He put his hand flat against Dave's chest and pushed him against
the far door. "Hey," he whispered before bending down to kiss Dave's neck.
▼: There wasn't anybody around the car where Dirk had parked it, which was
good. Even in the mood he was in and considering his past history, Dave thought
he might be self-conscious about crawling so obviously into a car with one
purpose in mind, but once he got in and sat down on the clothes in the backseat
he found himself well distracted. Being cramped and sitting on a bunch of lumpy
soft shit didn't matter as much when Dirk's face was warm and pressed against
him. Dave's nose was pressed into Dirk's hair, and he could smell the spices in
the meal Dirk had just eaten and the scent of his hair gel. "Yeah?" he asked as
he let out a breath and felt a small shudder run through him. Apparently his
monastic existence over the past couple days had taken more of a toll on him.
He felt rushed, and wanted to roll his hips up towards Dirk but the angle at
which he was sitting made it impossible. Instead he wrapped his arms around
Dirk to bring him closer.
▲: Dirk wasn't really self-conscious at all, maybe because he tended to get
tunnel vision when he was focused on something, or maybe because he just liked
the idea of people knowing what they were doing. Either way, one side of the
car was up against a building, so they were only exposed from three sides. It
offered a modicum of privacy, at least. It didn't take long for his heart to
start racing, not with the way he was hovering over Dave's body and listening
to him breathe in the silence of the enclosed space. He braced one hand against
the seat and the other aganst the door next to Dave's head. Dave was boxed in,
but it wasn't as if there would have been much room for him to maneauver
anyway. Dirk let Dave pull him in, and he wanted to hold Dave's lower back but
he needed both of his arms for leverage. "Nothing," he said into Dave's neck,
just beneath his ear. "Just glad to see you." And by 'see' he meant 'get my
hands on'.
▼: "You saw me all through dinner," said Dave, pulling at Dirk's shirt and
getting his hands on the warm skin beneath it on Dirk's back. "Glad to feel me
up in an incredibly confined space, I think you mean." Not that Dave wasn't
doing pretty well himself, and of course it had been his idea to start with. He
might have liked to kiss Dirk, but the angle was all wrong and his breath
probably smelled anyway. He was surrounded by Dirk, by his arms and his breath
and the rumble Dave felt more than heard when Dirk spoke. "Good way to spend
your first night as a legal adult, right? Real mature. What an excellent way to
say goodbye to being underage." His voice was soft, but it seemed loud in the
small space and how close Dirk was to him.
▲: He pulled back and looked at Dave now, since he hadn't been when he said it.
"Not the same," he mumbled, pushing up Dave's shirt and unbuttoning the fly on
Dave's jeans. He pushed his hand inside Dave's pants and felt him up through
his underwear, not knowing why he was in a hurry, especially since he knew that
there wouldn't be time to finish no matter what they did. That added to the
fun, actually. "Feeling someone up in the backseat of a car is a sacred rite of
passage and more important than any law on the books about adulthood. We're
making a fucking man out of you right now, dude," he said with complete deadpan
seriousness, but he couldn't hold it for very long before he had to bite his
bottom lip to keep from laughing. He squeezed Dave's package and leaned in to
kiss him, not really thinking about his breath because after all, they'd been
eating at the same restaurant. So what if the kisses were a bit spicy? He liked
how it felt. "You said it yourself. Long two weeks."
▼: He'd rolled his eyes at the 'I'll make a man out of you' comment, but before
he could say anything Dirk had kissed him, and Dave enjoyed the suddenness of
it, the way his teeth bumped against Dirk's lip and the taste of it, too, and
he opened his mouth wider as Dirk squeezed his dick through his briefs. His
hands were still under Dirk's shirt, so he ran his nails down Dirk's bare back,
dug his nails into Dirk's sides before resting both hands on his ass, squeezing
a little in return. "Two weeks fucking sucked," he said uselessly before
kissing Dirk and finally managing to buck his hips up against Dirk's hand. He
had to brace one leg against the front seat, but it was worth it to feel even
the small increase in pressure.
▲: Dirk chuckled low in his throat. "Slow down, dude. We have, very literally,
all fuckin' night." It was temping to pull his hand back out and leave Dave
with nothing but a tease, but he liked the way Dave's nails felt on his back.
Instead, he decided to stay pressed against Dave, even though his shoulder was
locked in a somewhat painful angle. He spread his fingers and slid them down,
cupping them around Dave's balls and then pushed them back up as softly as he
could within the confines of Dave's jeans. "No rush... we have a pretty long
movie to sit through, you know." He pulled back, trying and failing to
gracefully extricate his hand from Dave's pants, but at least managing to not
fall over between the seats. Once he had his hand back, he used it to push
Dave's shirt up even farther, all the way to his armpits, and he sank back in
the seat as far as he could go. He had to get his knees down on the ground in
order to angle himself so that he could get his mouth on Dave's stomach, but it
was worth the effort. He bit against the skin around Dave's hips, folding the
top of his jeans back as much as he could to get at more of the soft skin
underneath. "I don't want you to forget about the serious chastising you're
going to get later for your behavior in there. That's the kind of feeling you
need to stew in for a few hours."
▼: "Yeah, really dreading that one. All that hardcore chastisement," he said,
and nearly groaned. Quite obviously he was not a great plan guy, because anyone
with an ounce of forethought would have budgeted some time for the pre-movie,
post-dinner quickie. He was not that guy, obviously, and Dirk wasn't going to
give it to him. "Maybe you're underestimating my stamina and patience and shit
here," he said, but he had a fist clenched tightly in Dirk's hair. "I mean,
I've been looking forward to seeing Troll Julia Roberts as the hooker with a
heart of gold I have heard so much ab--" He broke off with a sharp intake of
breath when Dirk bit at the sensitive skin, below the waistband of his jeans
and right above his pubes. "About. That shit is *highly interesting* to me, ok.
Like so relevant to my experience you don't even know. My attention is going to
be fucking rapt," he said as he rolled his hips again and threw his head back
so his head made a *thunk* noise against the window.
▲: "Don't hurt yourself," was all that Dirk had to say to that. He stretched up
in the seat to look around for bystanders, but there was nobody nearby and it
was rapidly getting quite dark. Before too long, nobody would be able to see in
anyway. As it was, Dirk could hardly see what he was doing. He didn't really
need to though, because Dave's skin was very warm under his hands, and the kid
didn't know when to shut the fuck up, so Dirk had a pretty good idea of what
was going on. He pulled Dave's jeans down a little farther, enough to expose
the front of Dave's briefs, and Dirk bent down to breathe on Dave's dick
through the fabric, running his lips down the bulge and dragging his teeth as
he went. He was going to have one hell of a crick in his neck later. Why didn't
he own a goddamn Cherokee or something? Shitty cars to use in the city, but
exponentially more room to fuck around. If he'd had an SUV maybe he would
actually consider a quickie before the movie, but it wasn't going to happen
here. He pulled back and stroked Dave with his hand through the fabric,
watching his face as he coaxed him to a fuller erection. "If you're that
anxious to lay eyes on Troll Julia Roberts, we could get out of here and head
over to the theatre now. Scope out the best seats. Get some Sno-Caps. Man, who
invented those anyway? What a lazy candy concept. Yeah, let's take some
chocolate chips and just put some sprinkles on that shit. Kids love sprinkles."
▼: "Yeah. Shit." He actually had a lot of surprisingly emphatic opinions about
movie theater candy, but he was not going to elucidate because fucking hell.
Why had he signed up for this anyway? He had known this was going to happen and
he'd just...fallen for it regardless. He let out a breath and tried to focus,
tried to forget that he was tense, spread out awkwardly on the seat with his
pants half-off and his shirt pushed up. He didn't want to make any sudden
movements and end up knocking their heads together, but he wanted Dirk's body
heat against him again because he was getting goosebumps with his clothes
pushed up like this. A streetlamp backlit Dirk's head, but most of his body was
hidden in the shadow cast by the car's front seats, so the only thing Dave was
sure of, like rock hard certain of, was where Dirk's hands were on his dick. He
grabbed Dirk's wrist, the one that was feeling him up, and ran his hand up
Dirk's arm until he was grabbing his shoulder. "Come here," he said in a lower
voice, and pulled Dirk towards him until Dave could lean up to kiss him again.
Which felt amazing and distracted Dirk enough that Dave could reach down with
his other hand and feel up the front of Dirk's jeans for himself.
▲: Dirk crawled forward between Dave's legs and kissed him again, and he wasn't
at all surprised to feel Dave's hand on his crotch a moment later. That was
fine. He kinda felt like Dave owed him a good and proper grope after teasing
him with his foot for so long before dinner. Not that the footjob hadn't been
effective, but effective wasn't the same thing as *satisfying*. He made a noise
and bit at Dave's bottom lip, pulling it gently and letting the swell of it
slide through his teeth. Apparently he was in a mood to bite all of Dave's soft
places right now, so he pulled away and started biting at the skin around
Dave's throat and up to his earlobe. Meanwhile, he pushed Dave's hand out of
the way and started unbuttoning his pants, pushing them down around his thighs.
He was already half hard, although in this terrible lighting, Dave probably
couldn't see. Maybe he could feel. "You gonna open your mouth for me, or what?"
he asked in Dave's ear.
▼: "Yeah, 'cause I'm normally so taciturn," said Dave, breathing out and
feeling between their bodies for the waistband to Dirk's briefs. He was still
hard, way too hard for how small a space this was and how much time they had,
but he wanted to feel Dirk for himself. Like a point of comparison. He reached
inside Dirk's underwear for his cock and was gratified by how warm it was in
his palm, and how it was already hard as he wrapped his hand around it. "But
yeah, sure." With his other hand he brought their mouths back together and
kissed Dirk sloppily, since that seemed to be called for, and he was well
beyond giving a shit about how his breath smelled.
▲: Dirk arched up when Dave touched him with his bare hand because holy fucking
shit his hand was *cold*. "Ahh, my god," he mumbled into Dave's mouth, but he
sacked up and dealt with it, hoping there weren't any negative effects on the
boner he was cultivating. He thought he was pretty much past that point,
though, so he willed his body to relax despite how cold it was. If he kept it
down there long enough, it was bound to warm up anyway. He forced the tension
away and let himself fall into the kiss, and really he couldn't smell or taste
anything because he was too busy thinking about his cock and how little time
they had and how warm and soft Dave's mouth would feel on his dick right now.
"Yeah, this is nice," he said between kisses, "really really nice, but-- this
wasn't what I was talking about." He pulled away and looked pointedly down at
the hand in his underwear.
▼: "Oh. Shit, why didn't you say something?" He chuckled softly. "Might be an
acrobatic feat. Take some maneuvering. Here." He sat up a little, somehow
managed not to trip over his own jeans as he put both of his feet on the floor
and pushed Dirk back, so Dave could slide down to kneel down on the floor.
"There." He pulled Dirk back towards him and kissed him again. "Lay back. Like
that, yeah." There wasn't enough room for Dirk to actually sit normally,
obviously, but if he stretched out at an angle Dave could lean down between
Dirk's legs. He pulled down Dirk's briefs with one hand and rubbed Dirk's side
through his t-shirt with the other. The awkwardness of his position and slight
discomfort from his disarranged clothes left him as he breathed over Dirk's
cock and licked the underside slowly, looking up to watch what was visible of
Dirk's expression in the dim light.
▲: Dirk rested his weight on his hands behind his back and leaned at an angle,
tilting his hips up as far as he could hold him so that Dave wouldn't have to
contort too much. It wasn't an easy position to hold, but it paid out very
well. Even though Dave was licking up his cock, he felt it in his back as a
wave of goosebumps crawled over his skin, likely a result of the mix of hot
skin and cold air. He really should have turned the car on for this. They could
have had the heater going, but it was too late now. "Fuck yeah, dude," he
whispered, letting his eyes close halfway but keeping them open enough that he
could see Dave's tongue on his dick. It felt amazing, and he probably would
have been tempted to say fuck this movie we're going home right now and you are
sucking the hell out of this dick, but after just a few minutes, he started
hearing voices outside the car. He was still pretty tempted to just ignore
them-- their night wouldn't be *ruined* if they just so happened to glance in
at just the right angle to see Dirk getting his dick sucked-- but then he heard
one of the voices say "Hey, daddy...", and Dirk's eyes flew open. "Fuck.
*Fuck.* Pants. Now. Dave." He reached down blindly and grabbed at his jeans,
accidentally knocking Dave's cheek in the process, though fortunately not very
hard.
▼: Dave was too distracted to hear the voices, and it was Dirk's tone of voice-
- more raised and hectic than what he'd been using before-- that penetrated
Dave's hearing more than the words themselves, so he was taken aback pretty
badly when Dirk's hand flew out and hit him in the face. "What the *fuck*,
dude--oh." He could hear people shockingly close just outside the car, and
heard the raised voices of children. "Holy shit. Kids. They still make those,
don't they?" he said stupidly. He was only partly kidding about that, but this
was a rude reminder: yes, Dave, children are things that exist. He pulled his
shirt down from where it was rucked up around his chest and tugged his own
pants up as Dirk frantically rebuttoned his fly. Dave didn't even want to look
out the window because he had the vision of a seven year-old pressing her nose
up against the glass and asking her parental unit what the hell those freaks in
the backseat were up to. The thought was the exact opposite of titillating.
Holy shit, he'd just been literally cockblocked by some phantom third grader.
The thought made him lean his head back against the back of the seat and laugh.
"Shit. They gone?"
▲: He craned his neck to look out the window, and he could see the faint
outlines of two kids in jackets not too far away. He doubted they would have
even been able to see inside the car, but still... "Not yet," he said flatly
and sunk down into the seat with a sigh. His whole body felt way too hot and
his heart was beating rapidly, although not really in the good way. Well. So
much for all of that. Of course, he had always intended to cut things short,
but he'd wanted to do it on *his* time, god damnit. He banged his head back
against the head rest and stared at the roof of the car, but one of his hands
inched out across the seat and latched on to whatever part of Dave it could
find. He didn't know if he was touching a knee or an elbow, but it didn't
really matter.
It kinda struck him at this really odd moment how comfortable he'd become with
Dave's company so quickly. Especially considering that their first night
together it had been such a big deal for him to even let his foot cross the
demilitarized done in the bed. Sex was one thing but apparently touching for
comfort instead of getting off was something completely fucking else. He curled
his fingers more tightly. "Yeah. 'They' still make those. I hear it's a pretty
popular pastime." He let his head roll over until he could see Dave's face. "I
guess that's that, huh?"
▼: "Maybe it was a sign. Not that I believe in signs, but." He trailed off and
looked at the hand Dirk had curled around his arm before pulling himself up
onto the seat with a sigh. "Yeah. See, thing is I have been living in brothels
for almost half a year now, which is really weird to think about, so I don't
run into kids unless it's at the store or like in this case where they
literally prevent me from getting my freak on in the back of a car. Sucks.
Fucking kids. Glad I'm legally not one of them anymore." He sighed again, felt
his heartbeat coming down from the excitement he'd been feeling earlier. He
grabbed Dirk's hand as tightly as Dirk had been grabbing him a second ago. "So.
Obviously this was the universe-- any universe-- telling us that we got to go
watch that dumb movie right now. You ready?" He wasn't; the scare he'd gotten
had left him chilled, like his hands and feet were cold, and he might have
liked to stay there with Dirk for a bit. He sank down in the seat and rested
his head against Dirk's shoulder, letting a long breath out through his nose.
▲: Dirk looked down blankly at Dave's hand squeezing his own. Per usual when
this happened, he really didn't know what to make of it. It wasn't the first
time that Dave had grabbed his hand like that, but it was the first time he'd
done it in a context that was both nonsexual and not in the context of walking
around in public. This kind of private hand-holding made him think things he
wasn't sure he was supposed to be thinking. He blinked a few times and then
looked up at Dave, who he had just realized was talking. "No," he said
honestly, turning his body a bit so that Dave could lean in closer without
having to let go of Dirk's hand. He pressed his face into the side of Dave's
head, his nose in Dave's hair, and he just breathed like that for a while,
bewildered at how rapidly the tone of the backseat tryst had changed, at least
for him. He had no idea if Dave could pick up on it, even though it was
technically his fault.
He suddenly realized that he was about to start talking way out of left field,
and he was unable to stop it even though he wanted to. Maybe this was something
that had been threatening to bubble to the surface anyway, and Dave's touch had
just jiggled it the right way to speed up the process. "For a long time I told
myself that I couldn't date anybody. Not out of some kind of weird sense of
misplaced loyalty, but just because I didn't want anyone else getting hurt.
Very martyr complex, I know." Oh no, the words wouldn't stop coming. He didn't
even know why this was on his mind except for the fact that he was a little bit
confused as to whether or not he and Dave were *dating* and it wasn't a
conversation he wanted to have, but either way this was definitely *a date*.
Maybe it was just because the hand-holding, the private hand-holding, made him
think of Jake. Made him a bit melancholy. Wow, way to ruin the kid's birthday.
▼: He licked his lips. It was so dark now he could barely even see Dirk next to
him, and that made it easier. "Yeah. Fucking martyr complexes. I get that. See,
I guess that's why this works. You can't put me in much more danger than I was
already in, right? That's the good thing about being at the bottom, 'cause you
can only go up from there and holy shit, I sound like my own AA sponsor, I'm
going to stop now." He laughed nervously, and was self-conscious suddenly, and
his mind was compensating for not being able to fool around anymore by making
his brain run a mile a minute. He was thinking about how similar he and Dirk
were in that one respect, because Dave's martyr complex was a mile wide and, in
the end, it had been just as futile as Dirk's, if not more so. Dave had kept
away from everyone to keep them from getting hurt, and maybe it had worked, but
he hadn't managed it without getting himself royally fucked over in the
process. Dirk had kept himself safe, retained some semblance of autonomy, but
in the process had lost his best friends. His *boyfriend*. The thought gave
Dave a sick twinge in his gut that he supposed was the kind of useless jealousy
you could only feel towards a dead guy.
He didn't want to actually tell Dirk this, of course, so instead he spoke and
hoped Dirk would get what he meant, and that it wouldn't strike him as too much
of a non sequitur. "I still...wish I hadn't done things how I did. With Jack
and everything. I'd change things if I could, which I guess everyone says about
their shitty decisions. But...I dunno. It's different because I keep
thinking...you know, if we had met under any other circumstances I don't think
we could have been the same. Not just the sex, although that too, but I don't
think things could have been the same between us. Because. We just." He wanted
to shrug, but didn't want to move from where he was pressed against Dirk's
side. "Fit together like this. Sounds hokey but fuck if I care. And I like it.
That's my point. Even though everything's been fucked all to hell, I...." He
trailed off, regretting most of that once he'd said it. Probably he should have
just kissed Dirk. It would have gotten the point across about as well, and
would have been more enjoyable.
▲: Dirk was looking out the window at the shadows of people walking by on the
sidewalk some distance away. He liked the idea of all those people out there
getting on with their evenings, oblivious to whatever was going on in this car
not all that far away from them. Sexual misadventure or heartfelt but awkward
conversation, either fucking away. He smiled a little, not in any sort of way
that suggested that he was objectively happy right at this moment, but he was
at least feeling a bit warm about what Dave said. Not the fucked all to hell
part, but the part where it sounded like Dave kinda thought that it hadn't
turned out all bad. He turned to face Dave and kissed him to shut him up,
nudging his hips a little bit and hoping that Dave would get the message and
get in his lap.
▼: Dirk was so quiet, and there was such a sudden chill in the car, and Dave
was still so oddly mortified by actually saying what he had, that he found
himself getting up and straddling Dirk's legs without giving it much thought.
He didn't feel like giving too much thought to anything he'd just said anyway,
and would have rather focused on how much warmer it was when he leaned forward
and pressed Dirk's chest up against the seat as they kissed again. "Glad you
kept the shades off," he said, because he wanted to change the subject and it
was the first thing he thought of that was even vaguely related to anything.
"I'm not an expert in car sex but I'm pretty sure glasses that pointy are a
hazard in close quarters like this. Good thing you forgot about 'em, yeah?"
▲: Dave's weight in his lap was welcome, because despite the panic over
potentially violating the innocence of some kids with their slightly
exhibitionist sexual shenanigans and the melancholy that had for some strange
reason settled over him in the dissonance afterward, his erection never really
quite went away. He pressed his hands up Dave's thighs and kissed him again,
slow and soft. It kinda matched the mood. "I beg to differ. I felt kinda naked
without them all through dinner." He rocked his hips out a little bit to adjust
his dick under Dave's legs. "Anyway, who said anything about sex?" Actually,
Dirk, you did. Back in the restaurant. But who's counting?
▼: "Cry me a river," said Dave, rocking into his hands and thinking about the
bunny sitting in the front seat with the forbidden copy of his old shades. He
knew he was at least going to try them on, and assumed Dirk knew that he knew
he would, but actually wearing a pair that weren't his old ones seemed wrong to
him for no reason that he could really identify. Maybe he was a lot more
sentimental about dumb shit like that than he'd ever thought he was.
In any case, the thought was distracting him from how nice it was to feel the
pressure of Dirk's hard-on against his jeans. Or at least he thought he felt
it. He reached down to be sure and was not disappointed. "Yeah, sex? Who's
thinking about sex. People in this car who are thinking about sex: clearly not
you." He rubbed his palm over Dirk's fly and nipped at Dirk's ear as he spoke,
wanting to dispel whatever tension that had built up between them.
▲: Dirk moved his hands from Dave's thighs to the small of his back. He tried
not to react to Dave's touch, but probably did a terrible job of it. As it was,
he was having a hell of a time trying to keep still. Apparently when his
dissonance dissolved, it left him with a lot of nervous sexual energy. He
couldn't stop fidgeting, so he tried to pass it off as him trying to glance at
the clock on the dash around Dave's back. Wait, the car wasn't on. Maybe Dave
wouldn't notice. He took a shot in the dark. "No way. I'm thinking about how
our movie started like five minutes ago. Probably still previews, though.
Moment of truth, dude. It's your birthday, after all."
▼: "It is my birthday. And my birthday wish is to not break my neck on the roof
of your car." There wasn't a huge danger of that happening since his head was
still a few inches from the roof, but it was a possibility. A distinct
possibility. Dirk was twitchy, was squirming under Dave in a way that only made
Dave want to press him harder against the seat. Still. As attractive as it was,
as much as he would have liked to call it off and let Dirk take him home (to
Dirk's home, he remembered suddenly), he had been set on this dumb idea. So he
kissed Dirk one last time before getting off of him and opening the door. He
climbed out and was still chilled, more from his brief panic earlier than the
actual cold, but it was nice to stand up straight again, to be out in the open
and not hunched over in an awkward angle over Dirk's body. "I would like to
suck your cock with an actual carpet to kneel on. Plus it's like you said. We
got all night, right? Let's go enrich ourselves culturally or some shit."
▲: Dirk had to sit for a moment and let out a long, slow exhale after Dave had
crawled off of him. Dave was right, of course. They did have all night, and it
would really suck to blow his load on some kind of post-depressive-episode
sympathy fuck, but still. His dick was pretty hard all the same, and it spoke
to him in no uncertain terms, 'Get this guy to touch me.' He clenched and
unclenched his fists a few times, trying to burn off some sexual energy before
following Dave's lead and crawling out of the car. It *did* feel good to stand
up straight. How long had they been in there, anyway? "Most of my house has
hardwood floors, so you might have to suspend your fantasies a little bit.
Unless you wanna blow me in the bathroom, but that's not exactly the sexist
room of the house." Who was he kidding, though? He was so flipped that he'd
take it no matter where Dave wanted to give it. He stuffed his hands in his
pants pockets to try to obscure the bulge in his pants and give his erection
time to go away. If Dave wanted to keep holding hands, he'd need to wait a
little bit.
▼: "Yeah, I'm pretty sure we'll make do," he said vaguely, and walked with Dirk
down the street, this time not touching because he did feel like something of a
cocktease for doing all that dry humping and then not sealing the deal, so to
speak. There was a tension in his body and there was tension between them, but
not the kind that he remembered from the hotel room. It was weird to think
about being in this same position a month ago, because he remembered walking
down the street like this with Dirk, remembered being pinned to the wall and
told to behave himself or something to that effect, and now they
were...whatever they were. It was strange to think of them as dating even
though that was, technically, what they were doing here: going on the second
half the classic dinner and a movie date. It was like they were something more
than fuckbuddies but less than actual boyfriends, because thinking about Dirk
in those terms just didn't fit his worldview. Dave was still at the point where
he didn't want to think about what Dirk was to him, and definitely didn't want
to talk about it, and from the way Dirk was hunched over, uncomfortable and
with his hands stuffed in his pockets, Dirk probably didn't want to talk about
it either.
That sight, along with the memory of Dirk's warmth against him in the car, was
what did it. "Oh, fuck it," he said suddenly, and grabbed Dirk by the elbow and
dragged him into the alleyway. It was a little cranny between two tiny, shitty
businesses with their lights turned off. There was a dumpster and a tall fence
at the other end of the alleyway, which guaranteed a small amount of privacy,
not that he intended to give a shit about that. He pushed Dirk against the
brick wall that was in the shadow of the dumpster and sank to his knees. "Just
try to keep quiet. I don't care if a whole fucking Girl Scout troop shows up,
I'm not stopping this time, alright?" he said, and unbuttoned Dirk's fly again.
▲: Dirk had resigned himself to the idea of not being able to get off for a
while, but this rollercoaster of will-they-or-won't-they reach any sort of
realized sexual encounter was starting to take its toll on him. They kept going
hot and cold, at Roxy's, in the car, at dinner, in the car again, and now here
in this stupid alley that Dirk really didn't think he had the willpower to stop
Dave, even though he knew it was the right thing to do. Kinda funny how he'd
started off the evening being quite proud of the fact that he didn't feel like
he *had* to jump Dave's bones. He guessed that this was just another example of
the inexplicable way that Dave toyed with his libido-- to go back to the harp
analogy, Dave knew exactly how to pluck Dirk's strings and make them vibrate.
Buzz. He supposed that this was why he let Dave pin him against the wall, even
though Dirk could easily overpower him. He was wound too tight to resist. "You
know that my enjoyment of the evening doesn't hinge on your getting on your
knees for me, right?" he said weakly, letting his head drift to the side to
look at the alley entrance, watching for people. He looked down at Dave and
reached out, touching his cheek and then letting his hand rest in Dave's hair.
"I mean, who's birthday is it, anyway?"
▼: "Dude, your cursory protests are really not necessary. I'm really aware it's
my birthday," he said, and he looked up at Dirk with his eyebrows raised before
drawing Dirk's cock out of his pants. He licked it again, like he'd been doing
when they'd been interrupted. The hard ground was already uncomfortable on his
knees, but he was nervous enough about doing this in public, and turned on
enough from the heat of the cock in his mouth, that he could ignore it. With
one hand he pressed Dirk's hips against the wall, and with the other he
unbuckled his own belt so he could tease himself through the fabric. He was
hard, still excited, but not nearly as hard as Dirk had been, or so he was
telling himself. He considered saying something like yeah, it was Dave's
birthday, and thus he could do what the fuck he wanted, within reason, but also
he wanted to do it because Dirk had seemed oddly morose in the car and on the
walk over here. Maybe it was Dave's own dumb, reckless way of trying to cheer
the guy up.
"Call it an impulse blowjob," he said between licks. "Like when you go to the
store to buy fruit and end up buying a pack of Skittles at the checkout." He
was focusing on the head, popping it in and out of his mouth and watching
Dirk's face for a reaction. "Don't think about that metaphor too much and it
totally makes sense."
▲: There wasn't exactly a crowd of people nearby, but there was a steady
trickle of people walking past the gap between buildings, which was far enough
away that they wouldn't know what was going on unless they paused and looked
directly at Dirk. If they did, they might take a second to notice the look on
his face and the sneakers poking out from behind the dumpster on the ground in
front of him. Then again, it was pretty dark out, and from the vantage point of
the sidewalk, they'd be backlit. He let himself relax a little bit and tried to
compose his face into something that said 'I'm just hanging out in this alley
and not doing anything illicit, possibly just waiting for my pot dealer to
arrive. Nothing to see here.' Dirk had never known a dealer who actually dealt
in alleys, but then again, WQ had never gotten into moving very hard stuff.
That had always been the Derse crews' racket.
He didn't know why he was thinking about that just then. Something about a back
alley blowjob just makes you think of the seedier things in life. Like, well,
like drugs and hookers, he guessed. Suddenly he felt a real pang of guilt about
letting Dave do this here, but it got all tangled up with the way Dave was
tonguing him and popping his head with his lips, which kinda made his legs a
little unsteady. Man. Dirk was really off of his game tonight, because he could
normally hold his composure *so* much better than he'd been doing so far. Dave
was probably getting under his skin more than he'd realized. He looked back
down at Dave, since he was still holding on to Dave's hair, and he gripped a
little tighter for a moment in encouragement. "Honestly? This isn't going to
take long. At all. Especially if-- yeah, if you keep doing that. Do that, but
faster." He might feel embarrassed at being so well primed right out of the
starting gate, but for one thing he was actually stone fucking sober right now,
and for the other, it isn't like they really were right out of the gate. This
asshole had been feeling him up for hours. He set his stance a little farther
apart and leaned his shoulders back against the grimy brick wall, tilting his
head back a bit and closing his eyes. Yeah, now anyone who looked would know
what was happening. Look at all the shits he gave.
▼: Dave murmured slightly when Dirk gripped his hair, and remembered when that
sort of thing had annoyed the shit out of him, but now it...didn't annoy him.
He wasn't annoyed. When you spent part of your birthday getting felt up in a
cramped backseat, followed up by dealing blowjobs by a fucking dumpster, a
little hair pulling became at best a minor annoyance. A little hair pulling
became something else entirely, actually. He was working himself and working
Dirk's shaft at the same time, doing as Dirk had asked and running his tongue
and lips faster over the head. He paused for a brief rest, breathing heavily
and still fisting both their cocks at once. "I don't think you've come in my
mouth yet," he huffed, maybe not even loud enough for Dirk to hear him. "I
don't think you have. What gives with that, man?" he asked, taking Dirk in his
mouth again and looking up. Dirk's blissed out expression was gratifying
enough, so gratifying he almost forgot the oddness of the situation as he moved
his hands faster. Quick and dirty was fine with him. That was really the only
way you could do something like this, probably.
▲: He balled up both fists in Dave's hair, probably pulling harder than he
meant to, but he wasn't putting any force on Dave's head. He didn't even want
to try to drive right now, because he couldn't waste any extra attention or
effort on anything other than getting off as quickly as he possibly could. It
wasn't something he did very often, since he was usually the kind of guy who
liked to savor the good things (this being a good thing was questionable; yes,
he enjoyed it, and yes, it felt fucking amazing, but this alley smelled kinda
funny), but with enough focus he could actually rub one out pretty fuckin'
quick. Granted, he wasn't usually standing when he did this, and that slowed
things down a little. He slouched against the wall, face contorted in
concentration and breathing way too much, way too fast. He had to leave his
mouth open, so his breath was loud and jagged, and as a result, he couldn't
stop any of the involuntary noises that wanted to come up. Quick, dirty, and
sloppy as hell, yeah. Not his most refined blowjob performance, but shit. They
had a movie to catch and a dumpster to get away from as quick as possible. "I
hope that's an invitation because I'm like-- this fucking close--" He let go
with one hand but wrenched the other one in a way just short of vicious. Being
a little mean had always helped him get there faster, and anyway, it kinda fit
the mood. Dave could take it out on him later if he didn't like it. Dirk would
be happy to let him.
▼: This time when Dirk pulled his hair, there was a definite reaction in his
dick. He could feel it, like a jump all down his body, directly to his groin.
He let out a muffled moan, but it was nothing compared to the noise Dirk was
making. In his hypersensitive, hyper-paranoid state, Dave thought the moans and
pants were extra-loud, and wondered how people couldn't hear them and come
check out what was happening behind this fucking dumpster. He imagined someone
pausing to watch them and it gave him another jolt. Dirk had obviously been
raring to go the entire walk over here, but Dave was surprised at how close he
found himself with just his hand and the threat of getting caught on his mind.
He worked himself harder and it almost hurt, almost overstimulated him, but he
wasn't distracted enough to miss the signs that Dirk was about to come. Good
timing, because it gave him something to focus on wholeheartedly. He put his
tongue on the tip as he felt Dirk let go, and worked the shaft to let Dirk ride
it out.
▲: He felt it creeping up on him, and he only had time to shoot a cursory
glance toward the sidewalk to make sure no one was looking (no one was there at
all, thank god for small miracles and all that bullshit) before letting out a
moan that was definitely too loud. He felt himself arching up on the balls of
his feet a little bit, rolling his shoulders back and pushing his hips forward
as he came fast and hard into Dave's mouth. A rush job never felt quite as
good, but the only bad orgasm is the one that doesn't happen. Or the one you
get a leg cramp in the middle of, but none of that here. It got a lot better
once he got enough brainpower back online to look down at Dave's face. He
panted heavily a few times, coming down off of it, and unclenched the fist that
was still in Dave's hair. He kept the hand there and threaded his fingers
through the curls a little, puffing them out and messing them up. It was a
gesture of endearment, because wow, did Dave ever look fantastic with his lips
on Dirk's dick like that. Like some kind of patron saint of dick sucking. Our
Brother of Blowjobs. Let's get this fucker canonized. "My brain is going on the
weirdest tangent right now. Holy shit, do you look good like that."
▼: He let the semen well up in the back of his throat and drew away as soon as
it was over to swallow. When Dirk let go of his hair he pulled away even more
to look up at him. "Your brain does that, I've noticed," he said, forcing his
voice to sound lighter and less strained than he actually felt. He was still
hard, hard enough that if he didn't do something about it was going to hurt,
but he ran his fingers down his shaft and pulled himself up. "Let me guess,
more multiple Dave clones sucking you off again, right?" He didn't give Dirk
time to answer before kissing him messily as he worked himself into his hand.
He wasn't sure if this was an awesome way to spend his birthday or just a bit
lame and rushed. It definitely was cooler than what he'd done last year, but
that wasn't that hard to accomplish, since most of that had been spent arguing
with Jade about Pokemon gyms.
He needed to come, though. He decided that when Dirk's mouth was under him and
when he remembered the feeling of Dirk wrenching him by the hair. He worked
himself quickly and messily. No frills, because no frills were really necessary
here as he bit at Dirk's lips hungrily.
▲: "N--mmph." Whatever he might have said got lost when Dave kissed him with
some kind of weird desperation, the kind that you can only really reach when
you're trying way too hard to come. He was going to tell Dave to relax and let
it happen, but that would have made him a hypocrite, probably. Hadn't he just
done the same thing? Dirk had wanted to make Dave wait tonight, building the
anticipation until it got unbearable, but maybe it had anyway. Maybe it had
gotten away from him. Shit. Maybe he'd completely lost control of the fucking
situation. He didn't like that. Dirk liked to be the one pulling the strings,
but it was like Dave had made it his personal sacred mission to make it as
difficult as possible. What an asshole.
He let Dave chew on his bottom lip, and it actually hurt pretty badly but he
wasn't going to complain about that right now. It would be swollen and
sensitive later, but Dirk always did like battle scars. There was a time there
for a while that he was walking around with so many of them that WQ thought
maybe he wasn't cut out for the job. That led to an awkward conversation about
his extracurriculars, and while WQ was pretty cute for a carapacian, he really
didn't ever want to have that kind of conversation again. Fortunately that
particular relationship fizzled out (more like blew up in his face) relatively
quickly.
But back to Dave's orgasm problem. Dirk put one hand at the nape of Dave's
neck, grabbing the short hairs there and pulling on them a little bit. This
seemed to be pretty integral to whatever internal monologue Dave had going, so
he pulled harder, yanking Dave's head back a little. "Wow, you are fucking
desperate right now, aren't you," he whispered with a warm breath against
Dave's ear. "If you don't come right now, I'm just gonna have to leave you out
here to fondle yourself by this shitty dumpster while I munch on some popcorn
inside."
▼: He groaned, either in exasperation at Dirk's words or because he really was
that close. Even Dave wasn't really sure. This definitely wasn't how he'd
pictured this evening going, even though he had kept it open-ended in his mind.
He wasn't sure if this was how he'd *wanted* it to go; probably literally
giving a back alley blow job wasn't the best way to come of age, not to even
mention the sleaziness inherent in the deed, but whatever. It had been what he
wanted to do, and it was his birthday. He leaned his forehead against Dirk's
shoulder, breathing hard and working himself hard and fast as Dirk wrenched his
hair. "Oh, fuck you," he said, and came anyway.
▲: Dirk considered moving out of the way to make sure that none of it got on
him, but honestly he probably wasn't quick enough anyway, and he had no idea
which direction Dave's dick was pointing. Maybe it would get on Dave instead.
Maybe it would go on the ground. Maybe one of them was about to get some
seriously awkward looks when they walked into the theatre with come stains on
their shirt. Who the hell cared. Instead he put his free arm around Dave's
waist and let up on the grip on his hair once he started, rubbing his fingers
in circles at the base of Dave's neck while he shuddered through it. "Yeah,
well. You can later, if you want." When it seemed like it was over he pulled
Dave closer, pressing their torsos together and wrapping his arm more firmly
around Dave's lower back. It wasn't exactly a hug but it was in the same
ballpark. This time when he glanced over at the sidewalk, he noticed someone
looking at them. The stranger didn't linger, though, and from their vantage
point, they would just look like two dudes embracing behind a dumpster. Nothin'
to see here, right. Nothin' out of sorts. Right. It made him uneasy. "You can
do whatever you want... later. Or I'll do it for you, whichever. But for now, I
think we should probably get inside, yeah?"
▼: He shuddered. Shit, he was shivering like he was cold or something. Which he
was, actually because it was chilly out here in the alley, in addition to being
smelly and moderately public. Still, despite it all, he felt satisfied, which
he supposed was what mattered. "Yeah," he said slowly, turning his head to the
side but not raising it off of Dirk's shoulder. He let himself press into
Dirk's body heat before standing up straight, stepping around the mess he'd
left on the ground between their legs. Wow, this was really gross, wasn't it?
He almost wanted to laugh at how dumb it was. "Yeah, let's get inside or we w--
oh. Shit, guess that might not be appropriate, huh?" he said with an
embarrassed laugh as he tucked himself back in his pants. He was moving
lightheaded, like he was in a dream. "I was gonna say. We already missed the
beginning, which sucks. We probably missed all the real hooker-y parts and
everything."
▲: Dirk laughed out loud when Dave started walking away with his dick still
hanging out of his pants. He put his hand up to the back of his own neck and
ran his hand up the back of his head, rubbing the spot where it had dug into
the brick wall when Dave had been blowing him. He felt a little absurd. Not
only that, but he felt this weird rush of affection toward Dave that came out
of nowhere and left him reeling. "Wait," he said, and stepped away from the
wall to meet Dave where he was standing in the middle of the alley. This time
he wrapped both arms around Dave's waist and kissed him. "I think we blew it
with the whole normal date thing when you decided it'd be a good idea to take a
load in the mouth next to a pile of trash. Now, we could go in there and watch
the rest of a movie about a hooker who winds up falling in love with the rich
asshole who picks her up-- spoilers, sorry-- or we could go get some tiramisu.
Or hookah. Or both." He didn't really realize what he just said because he was
too busy thinking about tiramisu.
▼: "That still sounds dangerously normal to me," said Dave, and for whatever
reason after that kiss his face was hot. He supposed he just hadn't been
expecting it. "But yeah, sure. Hookah, some dessert. Sounds good." He supposed
it would be nice to be able to clear his mouth out at his leisure, and also to
talk. It actually sounded like the more attractive option, Troll Julia Roberts
or no. "Guess we can talk that way. Might be nice." Talk about *what*, he
really didn't know. He felt it was his right on his birthday to defer any
awkward "what do you want to do in the future?" conversations, but he supposed
just a little bit wouldn't kill him. The answer to that question, both as it
applied to him and Dirk and to himself alone, was intimidating as hell, but
broaching the topic post-large meal and post-orgasm seemed as good of an idea
as any. "You know a place, I'm guessing?"
***** Chapter 10 *****
▲: "I know of a few, but they're all on the other side of town. Closer to my
place. We could head over that way, or poke around this neighborhood until we
find something." He thought baklava and coffee sounded good right now, but then
again, so did a whiskey. He was pretty determined not to go to a bar if he
could help it, but he kinda wondered if he and Dave were at a point where they
could spend a night together sober instead of drunk or blitzed or both. Like
most things tonight, he was just gonna take Dave's cue on the subject. Being
deferent wasn't something that came easily to Dirk, but he was willing to make
exceptions. Your first birthday after the death of your only relative and
caregiver and after several months of coerced sexual servitude seemed like a
worthy exception. He let his hands drop off of Dave's hips and took a step
back, shoving his hands back into his pockets again. The giddy feeling that
he'd had earlier was starting to come back. Apparently an orgasm was the key to
killing that weird mood that came over him in the car. "Why, did you want to
talk about something?"
▼: "I guess. Nothing in particular's been bothering me. Just. You know. Vague
uncertainty." He shrugged and put his hands in his pockets too. "Hookah sounds
cool. I had some once but it was in a guy's basement, so going to a hookah bar
sounds a bit more glitzy. Plus I want to go somewhere new. I know this side of
town pretty well. 'Specially round here." The familiarity had been nice at
first, but now part of him just wanted to get away. Also, after the quickie
following their big meal, he was hungry again, which made tiramisu sound pretty
good.
So they set off back to the car, and Dave tried to collect his thoughts now
that he wasn't distracted by his dick and all that noise. Not that his dick
still didn't have the potentiality to distract him, but at the moment he was
probably in his best form for a somewhat more serious discussion. "Don't really
want to talk about anything too...you know, dramatic. Not now. But a month ago
you made it sound like I shouldn't stay at Roxy's too long or things would get
too hot. With Noir and the Derse guys and all that." That was another topic he
had been deferring thinking about much. He was not infrequently overtaken by
bouts of paranoia on the subject, and every single bar patron looked like
someone he had known who would turn him in, but most other times he tried to
put it out of his mind. No one had come looking for him, and according to Roxy,
no news was either good news, or a sign that they were all being spied upon as
they spoke. One reason he didn't bother with paranoia much was that Roxy was
paranoid enough for all of them.) "You still think that? That I should find
somewhere else to go?"
▲: Dirk paused in the middle of reaching for the car door handle, opened his
mouth as if to say something, and then closed it again. Well, shit. That was a
hard question to answer, wasn't it? He opened the door and got in the car,
starting the engine without responding right away. Objectively, yeah, he
thought that getting the hell out of dodge was Dave's best shot at a relatively
normal existence from here on out. It wasn't like Dave really had a horse in
this city's race anymore, now that his brother was dead. He had friends here,
but he had friends other places too. Shit, maybe the best thing for him to do
*would* be to go live on Teen Grandma Harley's private island. The thought
kinda made him feel sick to his stomach, though. He didn't say anything until
after they'd been on the road for a few minutes, and he didn't know if the
silence was comfortable or tense. "I think that if there's nothing holding you
to this place, then yeah, getting out is your smartest option."
▼: He nodded slowly. His hands were still in his jacket pockets, and he was
sitting slouched down in the seat, with his knees pressed against the dash, and
he was staring at Dirk's shades which were still sitting on the dashboard.
"Yeah. That's what I was thinking too," he said slowly, and was hit with a
strong sense of deja vu. Because he remembered being in the same spot in the
hotel room, staring at the shades on the nightstand and trying to convince
himself to run. It all got tangled up with another moment in his fucked up
brain, from when Bro had been alive. He remembered Bro, in his predictably
condescending tone that had driven Dave nuts, explaining that knowing when to
run was the most important trait of a fighter. Probably he and Dave had
probably been screwing around with the shitty swords on the roof, or playing
Grand Theft Auto or a fucking RPG, god forbid, and there Bro had been, acting
like he was a fucking martial genius imparting a sacred long-lost secret of
battle: knowing *when to abscond* and when to stay. It pissed Dave off, both
the memory and the fact that it was coming back to him in this context in
particular.
So he looked at Dirk. Dirk, who was obviously a big part of the conditional he
himself had just laid out. Dave watched him for a second, felt the scowl that
had crept on his face soften. "This question sucks. I don't know why I asked. I
knew what the answer would be." So why had he asked at all? He couldn't answer
that, and he didn't really want to. It was his birthday, and he had a right to
not think about this sort of thing, didn't he? He had a right as a legal adult
to fuck who he wanted, to stay where he wanted, so fuck all those past Daves
and their past horrible decisions. If Dirk hadn't been driving Dave might have
reached out and tried to touch him, but instead he only said: "It's the
smartest decision. It's also the shittiest one. The lamest one. For a lot of
reasons. But you probably figured that too, huh?"
▲: Leaving the city behind felt good. It always did, because nine times out of
ten, the city meant work. Unless it meant Dave or Roxy, it almost always meant
work, and sometimes even then. He shifted his hands on the wheel, letting one
of them drop to his knee and relaxing a little in his seat. He didn't know
whether to be relieved or pissed off, but he was pretty sure he mostly felt
relieved. He curled and uncurled his fingers, feeling the joints in his hand
pop and remembering how Dave had held it earlier. "Yeah. If you moved to Guam,
I'd have to find some new asshole to get inappropriately attached to. And
you're about as inappropriate as they come, so why ruin a good thing?" It made
sense for the most part, although Dave wasn't any good to him dead, either.
That really wasn't a train of thought that he wanted to hop on. Not tonight. He
splayed his fingers and rubbed his palm against his thigh, looking at the road
and not at Dave for the most part, although he cautioned a glance over for a
moment. Dave wasn't looking at him, either. He caught a glimpse of metal next
to Dave's feet, though. A subject change was definitely in order. "Do you know
what you're going to name him? It?"
▼: He bit his lip, looked down at his feet, and picked up the bunny. "Not sure
yet. See, it's a delicate procedure 'cause assuming this bunny, by which I mean
the plush one under it, is some kinda universal constant...I mean, I know it's
just a fucking bunny, but the fact that apparently, even existing in a constant
state of flux, my very essence is drawn to this stuffed animal and these
ridiculously awesome shades...well, considering that, I can't just give her a
shitty name like Farmstink Buttlass or some ridiculous bullshit like that, can
I?" That had been an awful lot of words to say 'I haven't decided yet,' but
even as he spoke he became less tense. "I don't know why she's a girl. I was
thinking of a girl when you gave her to me, so I guess that's why. Shit, I
didn't even tell you what the deal was with this bunny, did I?" He sank back in
the seat. "Bunnies were like...fucking beanie babies for my four person group
of shut-in pals when we were all twelve or whatever. I bought John this bunny
for his birthday, from this junky Hollywood memorabilia site, and then his bday
became like a bunny free for all, because Jade and Rose decided to give him
their childhood toys that were, incidentally, very similar rabbits. It was a
fucking plushapalooza. Really adorable, if you're into that sort of thing. I
couldn't say I am, but whatever."
He stared at it-- at her-- for another couple of seconds, looking at the shades
and resisting the urge to put them on his face on impulse. "I don't know if you
saw that movie. Con Air. Nic Cage gives the bunny to his daughter at the end of
the film and the daughter gets freaked the fuck out because the thing's
probably encrusted with syphilis and her dad's particular brand of B.O. Poor
kid." He smiled, and the thought came to him. "Her name's LeAnn Rhymes. The
bunny, not Nic Cage's fictional daughter. I just decided it."
▲: "Wow," Dirk laughed. "That is one shitty fucking name for a ruthless killing
machine such as this. Better than what I used to call it, but nowhere near as
good as the name Jane gave it. Oh well. She's yours now. This bunny is
guaranteed to save your life one day. That's part of the reason I gave her to
you." He pulled the car over and parked in the street next to a row of
businesses that was halfway between the city and his house, mostly shitty hole
in the wall type bars but also, randomly, a medical supply store. The hookah
bar was in the middle, and it would probably look like some kind of coffee shop
except for the two old men sitting on the sidewalk out front smoking from tubes
and chatting with each other like it wasn't the beginning of fucking December.
"Leave her in the car, though. You never know when she's going to mistake
something for a threat and whip out her katana, and I don't know enough Turkish
to get us out of a sensitive situation." Dave would have plenty of time to
learn her quirks later. "I may have been making false promises about that
tiramisu, but the baklava is good here." He turned the car off and got out,
coming around to Dave's side and brushing his hand against the back of Dave's
jacket before going inside.
▼: He had a sudden vision of LeAnn sparring off against Jack Noir and smiled.
"Yeah, ok. I'll keep that in mind if shit ever hits the fan. Which totally
never even happens, right?" He followed Dirk into the strip mall, slightly
discomfited after Dirk brushed him off like he had. Dave looked down at himself
as they walked into the place. He looked unassuming enough. Hell, look at him
and you wouldn't know he'd been blowing a guy in an alley not an hour ago.
Consider his cover un-blown, which was such a horrible pun he considered
sharing.
The bar was dim, lit up by lamps with yellowish light that made everything seem
older than it probably was. They sat in a circular booth towards the back. The
seats were high and the place was quiet enough that it felt private. More
intimate than the restaurant had been, which paradoxically made the impulse to
fool around less all-encompassing. He was in a calmer mood, he supposed, even
before the waiter lit the hookah for them. "I was going to make you buy me
liquor," he said as he took the hose from Dirk and slid closer to him. He'd
ordered some water, which had done enough to watch the other taste from his
mouth. "But I don't feel like it, and this way we won't get in trouble and have
to break out your robot bunny to get out of it." He wasn't sure what the flavor
was that Dirk had chosen; it was fragrant, sort of fruity, and smooth in his
mouth. "As fun as that would be. For once I don't feel like getting trashed,
how about you?"
▲: Dirk slipped one arm behind Dave, around his waist, as he scooted closer.
The mood lighting was perfect, but he'd never really been in a hookah bar that
didn't feel a little bit like an opium den. Soft lights, lots of cushions, and
a general haze about the place. He supposed that was the appeal. Roxy had
gotten him into it when they were teenagers, because it was that perfect
combination of classy and seedy that she always seemed drawn to. He was fond of
this one in particular because the owner, like Roxy, insisted on remaining
neutral. Dave exhaled, and the thin, light vapors drifted toward the ceiling.
Dirk tilted his head back to watch, and he dipped his hand just under the
bottom of Dave's shirt, absently rubbing slow circles against the skin of
Dave's side with hs middle finger. "Well, let's see. I had a beer at dinner and
I just ordered a coffee. How about you put your fledgling deductive reasoning
skills to the test?" It had less to do with him wanting to stay sober and more
to do with the fact that the coffee was very fucking good here, but that was
part of it too. He was content to sit here shoulder-to-shoulder with Dave and
space out a little, maybe talk a bit, since Dave had mentioned wanting to do
that. Low key. Post-orgasmic. No pressure.
▼: "Just checking. We've gotten trashed both times we've gotten together," he
said, and slouched down in his seat until his head was against Dirk's shoulder.
"Once more and it's a pattern." Part of him wouldn't have minded getting a
drink himself, just to unwind, but it didn't seem worth the effort. The hookah
and Dirk's hand against his side was doing the trick well enough. Not that he'd
been that tense, but everything in here felt so hazy and pleasant. When he'd
slid down Dirk's hand had moved up his side more, and Dirk's hands were warm
enough that Dave didn't bother to move even though his shirt had been hiked up
a little in the move. Dave put his hand on Dirk's knee, like he was using
Dirk's leg as an armrest. When the waiter brought their dessert and Dirk's
coffee he'd sit up, but for now he was still, comfortable. "You ever think
about leaving the city? Getting out of here?" he asked, trying to make his
voice sound light and off-hand but his words, after he'd said them, hung like
the smoke in the air.
▲: He was usually too focused to ever think about doing anything other than his
job. There was so much to plan ahead for, to strategize, to take out. Being an
angel of justice and revenge was a full time job. So was having a destroyer-
slash-martyr complex. It was the only thing holding him here, but it was a
fucking doozy. (There was Roxy too, but he was pretty sure that she'd be
willing to pack up and get out with him if he ever asked. Too bad he'd never
ask.) "Honestly? No. This place needs me too much. If Noir's gonna keep running
around stabbing hapless idiots, then I'd rather be here trying to keep him in
check. I guess you could say that it's personal." Understatement of the year,
right? He took the mouthpiece from Dave and inhaled, mostly as an excuse to
stop talking. It tasted good but made his teeth feel strange. It was supposed
to be peach, but it tasted a little off because of the tobacco. Not like any
peach he ever tasted.
▼: "Hmm," he said, and it was a sound that could have indicated dubious
skepticism, or understanding, or both. "Guess I get that. Pretty well." He
pulled from the hookah, considering it. It was prettier than the one he'd
smoked from before, with blue ribbed glass, but it was also kind of fussy, like
a grandma lamp, except of course you could pull smoke from it. He tried to make
a smoke ring, and of course couldn't. He'd never quite managed it. "Shit. Smoke
rings are so fucking hard. Anyway. I understand where you're coming from with
all that, but at the same time...dude, do you really think doing this, this mob
sanitation worker thing, is your civic duty or something?" He looked up at
Dirk, but didn't move from where he was slouching. "I mean, that's a question I
can ask, right? Speaking as a guy you almost killed and stuff." Shit, this was
getting into an awkward area, one he wasn't sure he wanted to go to. Still,
might as well hammer it out here as anywhere. Here they were at their least
tense, after all.
▲: "Yeah, you can ask it," was all that he said, because he saw the waiter
coming back. He really wanted that coffee, so Dirk extricated his arm from
between Dave's back and the seat so that he could grip the large mug. It tasted
dark and woody, maybe a little heavy after so much spicy food, but worth it all
the same. Dave had been right about three times being a pattern, although
they'd had sober sex before. Just not at night, apparently. Actually, now that
he thought about it, both times they'd fooled around while sober, it had wound
up with Dave giving him semi-public blowjobs. He smiled a little and rotated
the side of the baklava plate with the fork so that it was facing Dave. Of
course, classical conditioning didn't work when *you* were the one thinking of
the desired behavior and not the subject of the conditioning, but whatever.
When the waiter was out of hearing range, he went on. "I don't think it's some
kind of divine servitude, no, but I do think it's what I'm supposed to do. It's
not something I have an easy time articulating, but even if Noir and Roxy and I
were the last people alive on the planet, I'd still be going after him. You
just don't leave loose ends. Anyway apparently it's the family business to
stand up to guys like him." It's also the family business to die at his hands,
but Dirk left that part out. He figured that Dave already knew a thing or two
about it anyway. "Sometimes I think that Noir can't be the top. Does that make
sense? Dude is smart and ruthless but he's not *that* smart. He's too trigger
happy to be a good, sustainable leader. I think someone else is calling even
bigger shots over his head."
▼: "Well, yeah," said Dave, who was overly warm suddenly. He grabbed his ice
water and drank before going on. "He doesn't have the patience at all for
running the rackets and shit, but he's got Droog for that. That's not what
you're saying, about Noir not being the top." He sat up finally, to try the
baklava. It was flaky, and sweet without being cloying. "Obviously we're going
to sidestep the pun there and not go into his kinky dismemberment-based sex
life, because no fucking thank you. But there's rumors all over the place,
about him and Snowman, and about who's playing both of them for chumps. The man
behind the curtain or whatever." This train of thought made him think of
Damara, actually, who had made such insistences on a regular basis, although
her way of doing it had been a lot creepier and all tied-up in her peculiar
brand of apocalypic fatalism. He would have brought this up, but thinking about
that part of it was disquieting, and thinking about Damara just made him sad,
really. "Can I try your coffee?" He took a sip and then another bite of the
dessert before going on.
"That's another reason to stay, I guess," he said. "Not only would I feel like
a fucking coward if I ran, but it'd be a shame to dip before finding out what
it all means, if anything, and who's calling the shots. Like leaving a show
before the third act. Or not showing up for the show in the first place,
although I guess that is what we just did, isn't it?"
▲: Dirk cringed a little. "I think now that you're out of it, you should stay
out of it. Now that you've exited the theater and all, I don't think you really
wanna pay the fee for another ticket to this show, ok?" He knew how it sounded,
especially coming from him, but he couldn't stop himself from saying it. Even
if Dave stayed in the city, Dirk would feel a lot better knowing that he was as
far from the business as possible. Yeah, it was kind of a protective thing, but
whether it was a paternalistic brother thing or just a 'I like you and don't
want you to die' thing, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was a little bit of both.
Maybe those things were pretty inextricable here, as much as he didn't want to
admit it. He took the coffee back and drank some more of it, frowning a little.
The caffeine was mitigating some of the effects of the tobacco, so he was
starting to get a little concerned by the direction this conversation was
taking. "I mean wouldn't you rather just... I don't know... go hang out with
Gr-- with Jade-- she's in the city by the way, I don't know if Roxy told you-
- or John or whatever, rather than get involved in all of this bullshit?" He
knew what he would have to say if someone had said the same thing to him at
about the same age, but he guessed that part of being older is knowing how
people are going to react but having to say what you have to say anyway.
▼: He took the mouthpiece back from Dirk. "Yeah, sure. More Pokemon parties and
her explaining planar physics at me. That summarizes most of high school for
me, actually, except now I have more practical application for some of that
dark fenestration junk." He shrugged. "Jade's got her own deals now.
She...look, I always hate the thing in the movie where the douchebag keeps
people at arms' length to keep them safe or whatever, but that is in fact what
my thought process is here. Of course I want to see her and John again, and
Rose, obviously, but..." He shrugged. "I dunno. You know how you start to feel
like you're bad luck? So even if I did forget about all this shit, with Jack
and stuff, who's to say it'll forget about me." He turned his head to look
right at Dirk, who still wasn't wearing his shades, but the light behind him
meant that Dave couldn't quite see his eyes anyway. "I appreciate you giving me
the advice you obviously couldn't take yourself, though. Do as I say, not as I
do, right?"
▲: There wasn't a thing Dave said that didn't also ring true for Dirk. Well,
okay, except maybe the stuff about Pokemon and planar physics, neither of which
Dirk cared much about. "In that case, I'm glad to hear that you care so little
about my well-being." He smiled and took a bite of the dessert. He'd let Dave
have the first crack at it, what with it being his birthday and all, but it was
the whole reason why he'd wanted to come here. It flaked up in his mouth, thin
and crispy and delicious, the honey threatening to stick to his teeth. He was
silent for a while as he chewed, content to just watch Dave stare off in space-
- possibly out the window that was across the room from them-- and take drags
from the mouthpiece. Dave looked good with his lips wrapped around something.
He put down the fork and sat back in the booth, reaching out and taking Dave's
hand. He didn't clasp it; rather, he took his thumb and index finger and ran
them slowly down both sides of Dave's little finger, then back up again. He
repeated this with the other four fingers, his expression blank. When he looked
up again, Dave was staring at him. "What?"
▼: "Well, you're different, aren't you? You got into this shit with your eyes
open. I. Uh. Didn't." That was true, and it wasn't a veiled comment about
eyewear either. Shades or no, Dave definitely hadn't had his eyes open when
he'd gotten himself involved. He wondered sometimes if Bro had known all the
shit involved, but he could never decide for himself. Bro had been such a
fucking enigma, and as a child it had impressed Dave, but now thinking about it
made him pissed off. Really pissed off, actually. He'd had plenty of time to
reflect on this in the Horse Hitcher, but for whatever this fact had been
driven home since he'd moved into Roxy's place. He supposed that was why he
appreciated Dirk so much, because despite everything he did feel like they
understood each other pretty well most of the time, and despite how much shit
was tied up between them, very little of the anger he (still) felt towards Bro
had carried over to Dirk.
It was strange to think about this when the guy was sitting right there,
though, and he realized with a little jolt that he'd been staring as Dirk had
been stroking his hand. "Nothin'. Just spacing out." He turned his hand over so
their palms were pressed together. Dirk's had a natural dry heat to them; that
had always been a preoccupation for Dave, when people had cold or clammy grips,
which had always bothered him; he could never make it stop bothering him, no
matter how the people themselves actually were. "You know when your mind just
makes like fifty different random connections when you're looking at
something?" Or someone, in this case. "That's what that was. Mostly because I
don't want to think about you or me getting our asses shish kebab-ed anymore.
It's a downer, right? I was thinking about what we're gonna do when we get out
of here."
▲: "That so?" He rubbed the pad of his middle finger over the inside of Dave's
wrist now. "What were you aiming to have us do? There are just--" He trailed
the finger farther up Dave's forearm, "So many options." His voice was low and
soft, and the place wasn't particularly loud but he could barely hear himself.
Dave might have to lean in a little bit to hear what he was saying. "I could
show you my collection of ceremonial Scottish highland daggers. Or I could kick
your ass at some Halo. Or I could finally get around to showing off those
wrestling moves that I keep threatening you with. Or I-- are you getting the
point yet?" He dragged his hand back out of Dave's sleeve and instead planted
it firmly and very high on Dave's thigh, his fingers grazing the inseam of his
jeans leg. "Hypothetically, of course. I still have a lot of coffee left."
▼: "Yeah, it's a whole friggin' world of possibility," he said, leaning his
head against the booth and sliding down again, so Dirk's hand was necessarily
forced even higher on his leg. "Ceremonial daggers. Puh-lease, that is so weak.
Might as well take me home and show me your etchings while you're at it.
Although as far as innuendo goes I suppose daggers make your point better than
etchings, right?" He was mostly just talking shit, but Dirk touching him had
stopped being comfortable. He was still relaxed from everything, the tobacco
especially, but that didn't matter as much now. Plus jerking off in an
alleyway, while stupidly thrilling in its own way, hadn't actually been that
satisfying. He supposed Dirk realized that. Hell, Dirk was probably still
pissed off about the footjob. Dave thought he might be too. He kept still, but
his heart rate spend up a little and the back of his neck was getting warm. He
supposed Dirk might notice, or he might not. "You're definitely taking your
sweet time with the coffee, anyway." This was true; Dirk was nursing it, but
the baklava was almost gone. At least the hookah was still pulling pretty well,
from what he could tell.
▲: It's particularly good coffee. When I like something, I prefer to savor it."
He splayed his fingers, so that a few of them left the relative safety of
Dave's thigh and brushed against his package for a moment. The room wasn't
crowded, but the few people who were there were either deep in conversations or
looking out the window. Even still, Dirk didn't feel like going whole hog with
the surreptitious groping just yet. "Sure, I could sit here and chug this
delicious coffee, scalding my tongue and throat in the process and barely
tasting it, or I could sit here and stew in the glorious way the bitterness and
acidity complement each other. This coffee and my mouth are my OT fucking P and
this is a very delicate situation with many moving parts in order to get both
sides to the eventual moment that they connect, lips to cup to sweet, delicious
liquid, most of the parts being joints in my hands and arms, but also some in
my face, but you just can't rush some things, ok?" He had no idea what he was
even talking about at this point, all semblances of any meaningful metaphor
abandoned, but he thought that maybe, probably, his hand was still his hand and
his mouth was still his mouth, but he was pretty sure that the coffee was
Dave's dick. He licked his lips. "I'm thirsty, Dave."
▼: Well, drink your coffee," said Dave, slouching down even more, although it
was more in despondency than from any attempt to force more contact between the
two of them. He watched Dirk drink the coffee, lick his lips and drink again.
The sight made him sit up restlessly, and he took the mug from Dirk to try it
again. It *was* good coffee, and he took a larger sip this time because he
might as well hurry this along as much as he could, right? It was a bit too
strong for him, but sitting up had made him more comfortable. Now Dirk's hand
wasn't pressing up against him, and he didn't feel the need to readjust his
jeans. He leaned forward to finish the rest of the baklava, and started tapping
the fork against the plate after he chewed it slowly. He realized the noise he
was making and stopped abruptly. "Sorry. What were we talking about? Something
about coffee. Definitely coffee, right?"
▲: Dave may have been down, but Dirk was pretty amped. It was a huge coffee,
and Dave had only had a tiny bit of it. He was going to take a huge piss later,
and he kinda hoped it happened before they got down to business. In fact, he
was so amped that he was a little oblivious to the fact that Dave seemed to be
acting like something was bothering him. He didn't even notice the tapping,
because he was too busy thinking about the easiest way to get the waiter back
over here to settle the bill. Suddenly he was anxious to get out of here.
Actually, suddenly, he was just straight up anxious. "Coffee? What coffee?" He
put the empty cup down on the table.
▼: "Whoa. Hey, you did really chug that one, didn't you?" He wanted to leave
now, obviously, part of him definitely, and part of him was oddly nervous about
going to Dirk's place. Because Dirk had asked specifically if it was ok, and
had seemed preoccupied by the idea (as preoccupied as you could seem over the
phone, anyway) and so in Dave's mind it had become a Thing. It was a stupid
thing to be anxious about, especially after everything else that had happened,
but there it was. He was fidgety again, like an impatient kid. So much for
spending an evening celebrating being an adult, not that he really gave a shit.
He picked up the mouthpiece and hose and wrapped it around the hookah, and
looked around for the waiter. "Ready to go?"
▲: Dirk raised his index finger at the waiter from across the room, who
fortunately didn't waste much time bringing him the bill. "Yeah, let's get out
of here." He paid with cash-- what else was new-- so he stood up and booked it
to the car as fast as possible, not really looking to see if Dave was
following. It wasn't out of disinterest, but more like an overwhelming desire
to be outside in the cold air as soon as possible. He sucked down a few deep
breaths and felt a little bit calmer. His mouth was so warm from the coffee
that he could see his breath on every exhale. Suddenly, he remembered
something. He turned back around to look at the door, and Dave was just now
coming out after him. "Hey. Sorry. I think I have the jitters." He wasn't in
the most observant condition right now, but he started picking up on something
all the same. Maybe it was something in Dave's stance, or his expression, but
something felt off. He walked up to Dave and put his hand on Dave's back. He
was always doing that, it was some sort of body stance tic or whatever, but it
felt nice. "What's up, dude?"
▼: "Communicable case of the jitters. Except I didn't just drink all that
caffeine so I don't know what my excuse is." His hands were jammed in his
jacket pockets to keep out the cold, and he was leaning into Dirk
automatically. They were still standing in the light from the hookah place's
windows, but then he figured he was well and truly over being shy about public
displays of affection at this point. After blowing a guy in an alley and
everything. Jesus, could you *get* more cliché? And here he was having this
nameless anxiety over what? Being taken to a suburban house that had belonged
to some dead people he hadn't even met. Yeah. That was how he was selling it to
himself, anyway, and that was why he leaned forward to kiss Dirk. He still
smelled strongly of the coffee, and his mouth was even warmer than his hands
had been. "Jesus, get a room," he said after a second and stepping away. "Oh
wait. That wasn't what we decided, was it. Let's go, before you change your
mind about that, yeah?"
▲: Dirk leaned in, not even thinking about the window, and the feel of Dave's
body up against him calmed him down even more. Weird. On the way back to the
car, he said, "I had no intentions of changing my mind about that. Are you
projecting?" He also hadn't planned on heading back to his place so soon, or on
skipping the movie, or on getting blown in an alley, or. Or. Whatever. He
started the car and pulled out onto the road. It was a short drive, but he was
buzzing all the same. Impatient, but he wasn't even sure what for. Maybe he was
oddly a bit nervous about bringing Dave to his place, although probably not for
the reasons Dave thought.
Wait, no. This is fucking stupid. Is he *twelve*? He kills people for a fucking
living, but now he's going to sit here and be all weird about bringing someone
he's banging over to his place because he's worried that-- what, exactly? That
Dave won't like it? That Dave will think it's lame or weird or makes him think
of other people? Dave is also the paradox timeclone of his dead brother. There
are more pressing concerns here, dumbass. Like how he was going to get Dave out
of whatever weird mood he was in on his birthday. Hopefully also out of his
pants. Before he could even finish that train of thought, he was pulling into
the residential district. They came up on a pretty large brick house with a
modest yard. The mailbox still said Harley-Egbert. "This is me."
▼: At this point he was such old hat at the alternate self shebang that he
barely even blinked at the mailbox. He grabbed LeAnn, which reminded him of
Dirk's idea of finding something among the previous tenants' effects for John
and Jade. That...was an interesting thought. That could wait for tomorrow,
actually. He followed Dirk up the walk to the front door. Dirk flipped on the
hall lights, and Dave slipped off his shoes and took in what he could see. The
house looked a little bit like John's, actually, which he supposed was fitting
because it was John's in a way. The space was cluttered with what were
(probably) Dirk's things, but it was a different kind of clutter than Bro's had
been. Bro's mess had always completely eaten the small space in which he and
Dave lived, but this house, though untidy, was huge and empty. It didn't look
empty, but it felt that way. Maybe it just came from growing up in a one
bedroom apartment that was always filled with crap, but Dave didn't think he'd
like living in such a big house all by himself.
He set his stuff down on the couch and turned back to Dirk. "I think we should
have a drink. Just to chill out. Don't you think?" Side-effect of living with
Roxy Lalonde for a month. Feeling awkward? Haven't said anything to each other
in a while? Get a drink.
▲: He watched Dave look around, feeling a ghost of trepidation but still mostly
just telling himself that he was being fucking stupid. He hung his jacket up in
the hallway and kicked off his own sneakers before wandering into the kitchen,
which was separated from the living room by a large window wall. He got some
glasses out of the cabinet and surveyed the liquor on the top shelf of his
pantry. "What happened to not wanting to get wasted this time?" he asked, but
he was willing to go along with what Dave wanted. That was the theme of the
night, after all. He picked a bourbon, which wasn't what he usually drank, but
it seemed befitting of the occasion. For entrance into manhood or some dumb
shit like that. He looked through the hole in the wall at Dave, who was still
looking around at all of his junk. He probably should have cleaned up. It had
been a long time since he had much of a reason to, so there were probably
random robot parts hanging around the place. They looked weird, scattered
around the suburban home. It added some kind of dissonance to the place that
Dirk rather liked, but he usually at least tried to clean it up whenever people
came over, which lately wasn't often. He poured the amber liquid into the
glasses and carried them over, handing one to Dave and sitting down on the
couch. The room was relatively dark, and he thought about turning on the TV,
but ultimately decided to wait and see what Dave had to say.
▼: He sat down next to Dirk, moving a metal arm out of the way and sitting with
his back against the armrest so Dave could almost face him. "Just one won't
hurt. Might even be nice." He decided not to bring up the weird tension that
had sprung up the closer they'd gotten to this house on haunted hill. Dirk was
probably as aware of it as he was. It was better now, though. Probably sitting
in the dim light on the couch with Dirk did more to unwind Dave than the
alcohol did. "Plus I figured you'd break out the nice shit for my birthday.
Psychology of the individual or some noise like that. I knew you wouldn't let
me down." He clinked their glasses. "Cheers." They drank in silence for a bit.
Dave thought about turning on the TV or the radio, but before he could suggest
either he found himself talking. "Not sure what's freakier, that this house
belonged to senior citizen John and Jade, that senior citizen John and Jade
used to live here together, or that senior citizen John and Jade lived here and
now you do." He paused, and then was gripped with curiosity for once. "Do you
like it? Living here, I mean."
▲: As Dirk settled into the couch, he pretty immediately started feeling
better. Dave leaned against his side, going with the dip in the couch created
by Dirk's presence, and that helped a lot. It was also mostly just... sitting.
He was relaxing in the quiet, mostly darkness of his home, enjoying a drink on
his comfortable couch with his guy and it was just nice. Nice in a way he
wasn't very used to. So nice that he didn't even pick up on the fact that he'd
mentally called Dave his 'guy', which wasn't the same thing as boyfriend, not
by a long shot, but it was something. He could feel Dave relaxing into his
side, too.
"Yeah. Well, yeah and no. I like it cause it's familiar, and cause it has ties
to people I've lost. Sometimes I also feel like it's not healthy to keep living
here. Like I'm living with ghosts, if that isn't too dramatic of a thing to
say. Nothing's really keeping me here except inertia." He had an idea that Dave
might understand what he meant about living with ghosts, but the difference
seemed to be that Dave actually sought them. Well. Him. He set his glass down
on the coffee table after drinking about half of it, since he actually wasn't
in much of a drinking mood for once, and lounged a bit on his end of the couch,
draping his legs across Dave's lap. "Why? Are you picking up on anything
familiar?"
▼: "Sort of. Like... I dunno. I mean, it looks a little bit like a house John
and Jade might have, but maybe I'm just saying that, you know?" He almost
shoved Dirk's feet off his lap, then stopped because there was something
comfortable in it. Like just lounging here for the sake of lounging, just
talking and drinking and touching before it even became anything sexual. Yeah,
like how normal people conducted their relationships, in other words. Jesus. He
shook his head and went on. "It's just weird to think about. I mean, I was
considering it and I think that your dude, Jake...he must have been younger
Jade's grandpa. Crazy, right? I never met the old version, he died when she was
real young, but still." He swirled his drink a bit more and took one more long
sip before setting it down. He already felt pretty relaxed, actually. He leaned
forward so his elbows his elbows were on Dirk's shins.
"She didn't talk about it much. About him dying and stuff. I guess it was
pretty remote to me, back then." He wasn't sure what his point in all this was.
Maybe he was thinking about living with ghosts, which obviously applied to him
much more personally than it once had, and was something he'd never directly
discussed with Jade, because she didn't invite those kinds of questions and
Jade, really, wasn't the type to think she was being haunted by her dead
grandfather's memory or whatever.
"I dunno. That's partly why I don't want to go back to the apartment. Too much
crap. Literal and, you know." He waved his hands. Shit both literal and
*emotional* was the word he was looking for, because the apartment was a mess
by now, probably an even a bigger mess than it had been in Bro's time, and
thinking about it being torn apart by strangers gave Dave an odd feeling of
melancholy that not even seeing Bro dead had done. "Suppose I will go back one
day. Probably there isn't much there anymore. Shit, maybe somebody else lives
there now. Who even knows? Hope they like finding naked puppets in the
crawlspace for years on end."
▲: Dirk had started unbuttoning his shirt while Dave was talking, but he found
himself slowing and then stopping halfway through the job when Dave mentioned
that Jade's grandpa was dead. There was no guaranteeing that Jade's grandpa was
Jake's alternaverse clone-- after all, John probably had a grandpa too, right?
And who is to say that Jake has to be one of their grandparents? He could be
their dad. Or their uncle. Or whatever. Did it really have to work exactly in
some kind of weird inverse sort of way, or did it just… happen that way with
him and Dave? He supposed that the only way to find out would be to talk to
Jade himself, but the idea was very fucking disconcerting for very fucking
disparate reasons, not the least of which was (a) he was nowhere near ready to
talk to the teen ghost of Grandma Harley and (b) he was nowhere near ready to
talk to Dave's ex-girlfriend. In this lucky case, they happened to be one and
the same.
He had to physically shake the cobwebs out of his head at that particular
mindfuck before he could resume unbuttoning his shirt. Slowly and carefully he
undid all of the buttons and then leaned forward slightly to shrug out of the
dress shirt, tossing it onto a nearby chair and then leaning back against the
arm of the couch. He crossed his arms behind his head and looked at Dave, which
got easier as the subject changed, oddly enough. "I could go with you, if you
wanted." Speaking of disconcerting, he wasn't really ready to face the reality
of his own alternaverse clone's life and death, but he'd do it for Dave.
▼: "I..." He trailed off with his mouth open. He shrugged and knocked back the
rest of his drink before setting his glass down on the side table and looking
at Dirk, who was lounging there with his shirt off like going to the old
apartment wouldn't be a trip at all.
Which maybe it wouldn't. Maybe Dave was overreacting. It couldn't be that much
weirder for Dirk than coming here had been for Dave, and coming here wasn't
*that* weird. But then, he hadn't seen much of the place yet. He shrugged again
before going on. "If you wanted to, yeah. It'd be useful to have somebody help
carry shit, at least, assuming there's shit there to be carried. It'll be
super-weird, though, just warning you. You know, for a change." While he'd been
lost in thought, he apparently had reached out to put a hand on Dirk's knee,
and now he was running his thumb up the inseam as he spoke.
▲: Faced with the prospect of actually going to where his clone used to live
had started an odd train of thought in Dirk's mind. He started wondering if he
would have banged himself a la Lalonde if he'd met the other guy while alive.
Actually, now that he was thinking about it, he kinda wondered why he never
*had* met this guy, especially if he was involved with Jack. He guessed that as
long as he was just a contractor-- and seemingly not a very willing one at
that-- and not a partner, he probably didn't come around the business too much.
But... what if he had? What if he'd wound up face-to-face with his older self
one day? How would he even have reacted to that? Maybe there were just
mysterious forces at work here to make sure that nothing like that ever
happened. It was really the only way to explain the fact that there were very
likely eight pairs of them--that he knew of!-- running around the same fucking
city but never once running into one another.
This is what he was thinking about when Dave started fondling Dirk's inseam,
which is probably why he didn't react sooner. He reached down and grabbed
Dave's hand, pulling it all the way up his leg and resting it at the top of his
thigh, just below his crotch. "Let the weirdness do its worst. I'm ready for
whatever it's got." Big words for a guy who got the heebie jeebies from the
idea of talking to the clone of his adopted adopted grandma, but it was kinda
different when it was himself and the other dude wasn't alive.
▼: He'd been touching Dirk's knee distractedly, without thinking about what he
was doing. When Dirk grabbed him it jolted him into the moment, which was both
good and bad considering the train of his thoughts.
It was weird to want to kiss Dirk just after thinking about the apartment, and
Bro's stuff, and Bro himself, but shit, did that word even mean anything to him
anymore? Hadn't he known since he was old enough draw a comparison that he
wasn't normal, that his family Was Not Like Other Families? This was the same
goddamn thing, it was just as fucking bizarre, which...well, it wasn't
comforting, but it was at least familiar, in its way. All it showed was that
you couldn't run away from your past, you could only...well, you could do what
Dave had done, and wind up in fantastic trouble only to be bailed out by a
hotter, younger version of your guardian. He grimaced internally at the idea,
and it gave him a twisted feeling his stomach, a feeling that probably made him
move closer. He pressed his hand down in the warm area at the top of Dirk's
leg, and ran his other one up Dirk's side. "Me too," he said finally. "Yeah, me
too." He laid himself down and pressed Dirk deeper into the couch.
▲: Dave's hands were a little bit cold, and Dirk's skin pulled into goosebumps
when Dave touched it. He suppressed the shiver and the squirm that wanted to
manifest from it, and instead he looked up into Dave's eyes as Dave crawled on
top of him. Fortunately for Dirk, the rest of Dave's body was very warm, maybe
even overly warm, and he shifted a little to make space for Dave's legs between
his body and the back of the couch. Dirk didn't know exactly what Dave had been
thinking about, but shit, they *had* just been talking about Bro like ten
seconds ago, and now suddenly Dave was on top of him. It made him think of how
deep Dave had gone down that particular rabbit hole the last time they'd been
together, especially the part where Dave had been on top of him like this,
riding him, talking about what a whore he was for Dirk. Well. For Bro, but also
pretty literally for him, too (wasn't that how this all got started, and hadn't
that kinda been the entire fucking *point*?). Dave had said, 'Nobody has to
know,' and yeah. Dirk was pretty sure he'd never tell anyone about that,
because it was hard enough to explain what was happening here already.
He pulled one hand out from behind his head and put it at the back of Dave's
neck, pulling him down so that Dirk could kiss him. Dave tasted mostly like the
bourbon but also a little bit like smoke, and those were very familiar flavors
to Dirk, flavors that had kinda been staples of his life for a while now.
Without letting Dave pull away, he said, "That goes for you too, you know.
Whatever you've got in there, I can handle it."
▼: "I dunno, dude. Got some pretty sick shit up there. Pretty fucking gnarly."
He was mostly bullshitting, because he didn't doubt Dirk at all, really, and he
knew Dirk was very aware of just how twisted it all was. The only one more
aware of that was probably Dave himself, and Dave spent most of his time trying
to ignore it. He kissed Dirk back, initiating it this time because suddenly he
needed the contact, needed to be reminded of Dirk's physical presence beneath
him because he'd been stuck in his head thinking about this bullshit from the
past for too long now. Dave threw one leg over Dirk's body and pressed closer,
so he was straddling him as they kissed. Like last time, actually, but he
supposed they both were pretty well aware of that.
▲: Dirk removed the other arm from behind his head so that he could sink into
the couch cushions this time with the force of Dave's kiss. He kinda wished
that he'd finished his drink, and he resolved to finish it ASAP if Dave let him
back up any time soon. For now, he was content to stay put and let Dave do
whatever he had to do (or do whatever Dave needed him to do). Even still, he
started feeling a rolling sensation in his body, or maybe a rocking sensation,
some kind of driving rhythm that made him want to deepen the kiss if not
necessarily push things forward. He pushed up gently and let Dave push him back
down again, and that felt right. That felt good. "Yeah, I know. It's okay." He
let his hand slide down from Dave's neck to the bottom of Dave's shirt, which
he pulled up and off between kisses, between small, rhythmic pushes up and back
down. "It's okay," he repeated, throwing Dave's shirt blindly in the same
direction that he'd tossed his own. Dave's skin was hot, and no wonder he'd
been so warm through the fucking shirt. Having that much skin next to his, he
could feel the heat conducting between them. He liked that, too. "Show me." It
was more than a simple imperative.
▼: He let out a breath that was so small you couldn't tell if it was a sigh or
a laugh. Dave himself wasn't sure. He rocked on top of Dirk and pressed their
foreheads together. "I don't know..." He trailed off, uncertain. He didn't know
how to even describe the feeling Dirk's comforting words caused in him. Part of
Dave relished it but a greater part, or at least more dominant part, wanted to
buck against it. Like he wanted it but he didn't. He pulled himself up
slightly, enough so he could run his nails down Dirk's sides and grind down
against him harder out of some useless frustration. Sexual, physical (he was
getting kind of overheated, even with his shirt off now), or emotional, god
forbid. "Show you what," he muttered before pressing him down into the couch as
much as he could. It was a pissant question because he was pretty sure he knew
already. He thought he did, anyway, and pushed Dirk back down again.
▲: Dirk felt Dave's teeth push against his own at that last one, like maybe if
he had been a little less prepared for it, he'd have a split lip. His sides
stung a little bit too, like maybe Dave had kept from cutting his fingernails
for a week for this express purpose. Maybe he wanted Dave to be a little bit
mean to him right now, but it all felt perfectly fine to him. He pushed up a
little harder this time, and Dave pushed him back with more force. Yes. Good.
"Show me..." he started, but it was muffled because Dave wasn't letting him
pull back enough to talk, so he worked his hands between them and unbuttoned
Dave's pants. He didn't move to push them down yet, but he unzipped them and
slid his hand under the waistband, squeezing Dave's ass. "Show me what you
got," he finished when Dave stopped for a second to take a breath. "What you
want, what you think." He shrugged. "Didn't you ever have a composition teacher
say that you need to show, not tell? Well, call me Mr. Strider, because I
demand that you fucking show me."
▼: "Fine," he said, breathless for a moment and looking down at Dirk's hands in
his pants. "Hey, what happened to making me stew in it?" he asked, running his
hand up the side of Dirk's face and into his hair. "Like, getting me all hot
and bothered and drawing it out and all that shit?" He bucked his hips upwards,
towards Dirk's hands, before going on. "Guess the surprise blowjob kind of
threw you off course there, huh. I bet that was it. Point: me." What a
masterful deflection from whatever it was they were talking about earlier.
Smoothest segue ever. Not that it really mattered at this point, to either of
them. He tugged a little harder at Dirk's hair and moved his mouth down to bite
at his neck. He wondered if he really wanted to knock Dirk around, or if he
wanted to annoy Dirk enough to make him retaliate. He supposed the answer, at
this point, was both, or maybe Dave just wasn't sure. Instead of thinking about
it, he bit harder and scraped one of Dirk's nipples with a fingernail.
▲: Dirk successfully bit back the 'motherFUCKER' that threatened to be said
when Dave scratched his nipple, but he did wince a little bit, which was bad
enough. He tilted his head to the side, away from the couch, so that Dave could
have easier access to his neck, because he definitely wanted this. It felt a
little weird to be looking out into the dark room, where he once sat and helped
Jane paint her toenails on Sunday mornings, while Dave was grinding into him
and putting bruises on his neck, but he supposed that it didn't hold a candle
to the weirdness that Dave felt every time they were together, no matter what
the setting.
He decided then and there that if they ever did go back to Dave's old
apartment, Dirk was going to fuck him there. Somewhere weird, like in the
kitchen.
But at the moment, that was unimportant. He opened his mouth in a silent moan
as Dave bit down harder on his neck, pretty positive that if Dave kept going
like that, he'd break the skin and start bleeding out. Not that Dirk would
mind, but that's some pretty unsafe sex right there, and it's not like he'd
ever asked Dave if he'd been tested. He kinda wondered if maybe he should ask,
but he figured that now was not the time. Anyway, no too terribly deep down, he
wanted Dave to keep going. He tightened his grip on Dave's ass, digging his
fingers into the soft skin. "You don't see my hands on your dick yet, do ya?
Just because I let you get a little rough with me doesn't make me anything
other than completely in control. I'll be the one pulling the strings here.
Never forget that."
▼: He pinched Dirk harder, reached down to roll both nipples between his thumb
and forefinger, and craned his neck up to nip at Dirk's earlobe. "Don't you
tell me about strings," he said, huffing into Dirk's ear. Strings made him
think of puppets, which were part of the subject he'd been trying to deflect
from. It served its purpose in making him more belligerent. He was getting
worked up now, and pretty soon he was going to pitch a tent, probably. He
huffed a breath in Dirk's ear. Dirk wasn't touching his dick, but Dave suddenly
wished he was.
That also spurred him on, of course. "Don't you talk to me about strings," he
said. "I wrote the fucking book on strings, ok. I didn't spend three fucking
months as the second-most bored hooker in that fucking dive to sit here--" and
here he grabbed Dirk by the shoulders and pressed him roughly into the couch,
like he was ineffectually trying one of those wrestling holds Dirk was so fond
off-- "and have you lecture me about pulling my strings." He wasn't sure how
much of that was joking or not, but then he didn't particularly care about
that, either. It occurred to him, seemingly without reason, that this had been
a pretty fucking great birthday, but this didn't seem the time to mention it.
He kissed Dirk instead, pressing down again and letting that feeling of
overheatedness build up between them, like a spark about to catch fire.
▲: It was almost like Dave had no idea that he was reacting exactly the way
Dirk wanted him to, which was only further proof for what Dirk had said. Saying
this would be a mistake, however, so Dirk kept his fucking mouth shut. Not that
he had a whole lot of choice, what with how Dave was driving him straight into
the couch with his hips and the hands on his shoulders. He let go of Dave's ass
and pressed his hands up Dave's back, stopping at Dave's shoulders to pull him
down, laterally, so that Dave's crotch slid across the front of Dirk's pants,
which would give him an idea of what was happening in Dirk's pants situation,
especially if Dave kept up the bad behavior. Show, don't tell.
One of them was starting to sweat a little bit, but to be honest he wasn't sure
who. Either way, he felt something in that hot place where the bare skin of
their torsos rubbed together. Something that invited more fighting back, just
enough to keep Dave going. He slid Dave back down his crotch forcefully when
Dave pulled back up, and the muted friction-- more like pressure, really-
- through his jeans wasn't really enough. "It seems as though you're pretty
fucking agitated, Dave. What are you going to do about that? Show, don't tell."
▼: "Who's agitated?" asked Dave, almost panting into Dirk's mouth at the
pressure of Dirk's fly against his own open zipper. The rougher material of
Dirk's fly and Dave's own zipper were rubbing him through the thin cotton of
his briefs, which was a more intense sensation than he'd thought it would be.
It almost hurt, the way the teeth of the zipper scraped over him, but not in a
way that made him withdraw. He let out a groan and after a second sat up and
pulled Dirk up with him. He braced himself on Dirk's shoulder and looked down
between them to see his own dick poking out, fully erect now. Dirk's was still
constrained by his jeans, so Dave had to rub the heel of his palm over it to
feel for himself. "'M not agitated," he said with his face pressed against the
side of Dirk's head. "So fucking cool right now. How are *you* doing, bro?" His
voice was low and muffled; he was almost nuzzling at Dirk's ear, even as he
pressed harder with the heel of his hand.
▲: Dirk had to bite his lip and drag it out slowly through his teeth, and he
was glad that Dave's face was pressed against his cheek so that he couldn't see
it happen. He rolled his pelvis out to lean into Dave's hand, inviting a
rougher touch. It was good, but it could be better. Somehow the heat between
them was completely fucking overwhelming, yet it still wasn't enough. Despite
the assertions of absolute fucking coolness, Dave's breath was just as hot on
his ear and his neck as Dave's chest was against his own. This angle didn't
allow them to be as flush together as they were before, although it opened up
worlds of possibilities in the arena of dick touching. Still. He exhaled
harshly but was able to keep the groan inside. "Hate to repeat myself, but you
don't see *my* hand on *your* dick, do ya?" Not that it wasn't calling to him
or anything, what with how it had saved them both the trouble of taking it out
of Dave's pants. He pulled his head back to look Dave squarely in the eye, and
then he reached down, grabbing Dave by the thighs and picked him up,
repositioning them so that Dirk's back could be against the back of the couch.
Much better. He leaned his head back against the couch, exposing more of his
neck and chest to Dave. "Tell me you've got better than this. Show me."
▼: Whatever he was going to say was cut off when Dirk moved them around. Dave
was going to say something shirty, but it was hard to keep from doing what Dirk
said. He found himself back at Dirk's neck, mouthing a mark he'd already left
there. Fucking good. He hoped it was in a really obvious place, that would be
almost impossible to hide without a scarf, probably due to some bullshit
possessive instinct that Dirk had once tried to convince him was evidence of
maturity. He thought of bringing this up, then changed his mind and bit harder,
digging his nails into Dirk's sides again. The pressure against his dick was
nice, but he could tell already that soon it wasn't going to be enough. Shit,
it was torture, and which Dirk had been counting on, probably. He breathed
again and ran his nails down Dirk's back, until his fingertips were tapping at
the top of Dirk's belt. "I wanna fuck you," he was saying suddenly, so
breathily that he thought maybe Dirk hadn't heard him. He hadn't really meant
to be so obvious all at once, but oh well. "Fuck it. I wanna fuck you again,"
he said more forcefully. "Maybe I don't want your hand, maybe I just want to
fuck you like last time."
▲: Dirk leaned a bit to the side, pulling himself away from Dave's face so that
Dave was forced to look at him again. He'd heard Dave the first time, and if
Dave had stopped there, Dirk might have just rolled over on the couch, all
like, 'take me, I'm yours', because after all, this was exactly the sort of
mindset he'd been gunning for with all the puppetry metaphors. But something in
Dave's tone the second time made Dirk *have* to fuck with him, because now he
needed to see how far Dave would take this. Like Dave had crossed out of the
place where Dirk could suspend his disbelief and just let Dave fuck him, and
now Dave had entered the place where he was going to have to force it, for
real. It was a thin line, and there was no way to really know if someone was
gonna cross it until it happened. Dirk had doubts, but they were in this now.
"No," he said, squeezing Dave's thighs through his pants. He looked down
between them, watching Dave's chest rise and fall shallowly, and he couldn't
tell if Dave was angry or just frustrated. Could have been any number of
things. He rubbed the inseam of Dave's pants legs with his thumbs, but still
didn't move up. "Sorry, bro, I'm not buying it."
▼: "That's not another hooker joke, is it," he said, but he knew he was being
purposefully obtuse, to counter Dirk's purposeful dickishness. He hadn't
expected Dirk to make it easy, he supposed. Doing it the hard way seemed only
appropriate, he supposed. "Not buying it. Shit. I *know* you're not buying it.
Did I ever fucking let you buy it?" He wasn't sure what he was saying exactly,
but his nails were digging into Dirk's sides, not gently. He'd stopped biting
them, finally, not in preparation of this, probably due more to the release of
all his nervous tension recently, but it had ended up working out in this case.
The scrape he could feel his nails making against Dirk's skin was really
satisfying for many different reasons. "I think it's been adequately
demonstrated by our past history that I don't give a *shit* whether you buy it
or not," he went on before Dirk could answer him. What he was saying didn't
make a lot of sense, but before it could really sink in, Dave was pushing
himself off of Dirk's lap and pushing him down on the couch, jarring his head
slightly against the armrest and getting on top of him again. "I don't give one
fuck, all right? So take off your fucking pants and shut up."
▲: The back of his head stung a bit where it hit the armrest, but the sensation
was welcome. It just kinda joined the tingling in his back and sides where Dave
had been ripping up the skin. Still, his face betrayed him because he winced a
little, screwing up one eye and the side of his mouth while he looked up at
Dave, who was sitting on his thighs. He stared for a minute while he waited for
the throbbing sensation to go away. "I know you said to shut up, but I'm not
too good at taking orders from guys like you." He had no idea what he meant by
that. Guys who were related to him through some sort of esoteric transuniversal
genetic amalgamation? Guys who used to be whores? Guys who were shorter than
him? Guys who got him this fucking hot? Speaking of, his chest felt way too
cold now that Dave was no longer pressing against him, passing that heat back
and forth, so he reached down and unbuttoned his pants anyway. "Not much I can
do about my pants with you chillin' in my lap, you know that right?" He pushed
them down as far as he could, which wasn't very far since he couldn't lift his
ass off of the couch. It was enough to get his dick out, though.
▼: He pushed himself off of Dirk's lap enough to let Dirk push his pants the
rest of the way down. "Yeah, I figured that would be a bit of a wash," he said,
watching as Dirk's cock bobbed into view. "Pathological inability to shut the
fuck up is some kind of a family curse, I guess." Wow, that was an awesomely
fucked up thing that just got said, he thought. Yeah, they were related, but
actively referring to it in the middle of fooling around seemed like a party
foul. He almost said as much to Dirk, because he thought Dirk would find it
funny, but then didn't at the last second because it struck him as out of
character.
Which was an even odder thing to think. All this wasn't as explicitly a
roleplay as it had been last time, but there were elements of playing a part.
Fuck it, he could dissect it all later. Right now his cock was getting harder
by the second and Dirk was staring up at him all defiant-like, throwing down
the gauntlet and daring Dave to take it to the next level, which was enticing
and also exasperating because it reminded him of shit Bro used to pull, albeit
in a completely different context. Normally Dave would shy away from such a
comparison, but right now he relished it. It made him clench a fist in Dirk's
hair and push himself up along Dirk's body, so his cock was within reach of
Dirk's mouth. He jerked harshly at Dirk's hair until Dirk opened his mouth. "I
know it's pretty hard for you to keep quiet, so I'll help you out, bro. Open
up."
▲: He was going to say something about how if Dave was serious about wanting to
fuck him here on the couch, he might want to go upstairs and grab the required
paraphernalia before taking this any farther, but whoa, hey, suddenly there was
a fist in his hair and a dick in his face. He looked up at Dave with a face
that pretty clearly said, 'Do you have any idea what the fuck you're doing,
here?' but he still opened his mouth and let Dave shove his dick inside, which
for the record was not done very gently at all. Perfect. Dave still had a grip
on his head, so there wasn't much he could do other than move his tongue while
Dave controlled everything else. He used the flat of it to run circles along
the underside of Dave's head, spreading around as much saliva as he could so
that Dave's movements wouldn't pull on the skin of his lips. Letting someone
fuck his face wasn't something Dirk usually did, but then again, neither was
blowing a relative (he couldn't get that out of his head after Dave's comment
about family curses-- and yeah, it hadn't escaped him).
▼: Dirk still looked dubious before Dave thrusted into his mouth, which Dave
supposed was reasonable but also pissed him off more. Sure, it was palpably
obvious that Dirk fetishized having the control, both sexually and otherwise,
which normally Dave didn't really care about, but shit, just this once was it
that fucking hard to just let it go?
Dumb question, he thought with a grimace as he twisted his hand in Dirk's hair
and drove his knees deeper into the couch. He was getting into it more,
thrusting into Dirk's throat deep, though not quite deeply enough to make him
truly gag. He knew it was a supremely uncomfortable position to be in for Dirk,
knew it from personal experience, and that enhanced something about it, too. "I
had a guy do this to me once," he was saying suddenly, breathlessly. "Just-
- just sit on my fucking chest and ride me out like this, until I got him off.
Fucking sucks, right? You already got that crick in your neck?" He thrust his
cock a little more down Dirk's throat; not enough to choke but close. "It's a
bitch, let me tell you."
That guy had been a bit of a prick, and Dave didn't actually want to fully
emulate that sort of thing, even though fully fucking Dirk's mouth hadn't lost
its appeal yet. Still, he pulled back. His face was sweaty and he was breathing
quickly, though not as quickly as Dirk. He looked around urgently to see where
he'd thrown his pants. "Hold on." He leaned over and managed to grab them
without moving off of Dirk's chest, and dug his wallet out. "Here we go." He
took the very small bottle of lube and condom that he'd been used to carry
around with him, out of habit originally, and tonight because getting lucky had
seemed to be a foregone conclusion. "Boy scouts, yeah? Always prepared."
▲: While Dirk liked where Dave was going with this, a not insignificant part of
him took personal affront to having his blowjob autonomy taken away like that,
what with how much satisfaction he normally got out of giving them. He wasn't
the type of guy to make grand claims about his own sexual prowess, but he knew
from experience that enthusiasm went a long way when it came to fellatio,
provided that you didn't use too much teeth. Well, whatever. He did what he
could with his tongue while Dave fucked him, letting his jaw go slack and
trying to relax the muscles in this throat despite the awkward angle. One thing
he could do was maintain eye contact, so that's exactly what he did, looking
Dave in the eye while Dave told him hooker horror stories.
He could handle what Dave had to dish out, though. He hadn't been facetious
when he said that-- Dirk was hard to break. The only reason he'd broken with
Zahhak was because he, quite literally, almost broke his fucking tibia, and he
didn't think Dave had it in him to do that. That wasn't some kind of dig; Dave
just didn't have that perverse troll strength.
At some point, Dave had started sweating and panting pretty hard, and Dirk
started to believe that this was just going to be it-- Dave was going to come
in his throat and that's the end of it-- but then Dave let off. When he pulled
out, Dirk had to wipe a mess of drool off of his mouth. That part always
grossed him out a bit, and he didn't want to wipe it on the couch, so he wiped
it off on his hip instead. "If you were a Boy Scout, I'll eat your stupid
fucking t-shirt. That one with the record on it," he said between gasps for
air. (In retrospect, he was a little bit sad that Dave hadn't pinched off his
nose. Would have added to the fucking pathos of the moment.) His voice was
hoarse, and he had to clear his throat to get some of the backed up saliva out
of it.
Dave came back over to the couch with his goddamn Boy Scout buttfucking kit,
and it occurred to Dirk that he probably should have done something other than
just lie there and pant like the pretty obviously willing bottom that he was
being right now. Doesn't really go far toward maintaining the doubtful and
reluctant sub image that he liked to cultivate, but too fucking late. He pulled
his knees up and made room for Dave between his legs. "Davey fucking Crockett
of ass-fucking," he muttered.
▼: "Yeah, totally," he said, and set the two items on the table just behind
Dirk's head. "That's me. Was Davey Crockett even a Boy Scout?" He slid down
along Dirk, and shifted so their dicks were rubbing together, which was enough
friction to be nice but not enough to send him off prematurely, and then, just
for old time's sake, wrapped his hand around Dirk's throat. "Spoilers: I don't
give a fuck what the answer to that was." He pressed down and with his other
hand grabbed one of Dirk's to wrap around both of their dicks, moving against
Dirk like they had before, except this time he was pressing down on Dirk's
throat with both hands, feeling the pulse flutter and watching Dirk's eyes get
wider. "See, I know this isn't enough for you, right? Like, shit, why am I even
asking. You want me to choke you--" he squeezed harder here for emphasis,
digging his nails in briefly-- "and fuck you at the same time. Don't you?"
▲: Dirk never did get to give his smartass answer to Dave's question before
Dave started bearing down on his throat with two hands. Okay, this was new.
Panic was inevitable because it was a reflex-- constricting the windpipe causes
a sympathetic nervous response, yadda fucking yadda-- but to be completely
honest, Dirk thought he might feel a tiny bit of genuine, heartfelt alarm. Yes,
straight from his soul to Dave's fists. That just made it even better-- more
effective-- and he felt his tongue pressing into the roof of his mouth, digging
into the soft palate. He could still breathe through his nose a bit, but...
fuck...
He almost spaced out on what his hand was supposed to be doing, and he brought
his other hand up to hold their dicks with both hands. He clasped his fingers
together on the other side of Dave's dick and moved up and down, thrusting his
hips up weakly, trying to create enough sensation to hold on to through the
haze that had settled over his head. He was sweating now too, with panic or
with exertion or both, he didn't know, but he wasn't hot enough. He wanted to
feel that nuclear reactor in Dave's chest on his stomach, or maybe on his back.
Yeah, probably on his back. He wanted-- he had to blink repeatedly before it
got through to him that Dave had asked a question. He was so... He was gonna...
What? Pass out? No. Come? Not yet. But he'd started... losing... focus... So
much so that he didn't even have the wherewithal to pick up the disgruntled act
and stop himself from nodding. Yeah. He wanted that. Keep it coming.
▼: When Dirk nodded, he felt oddly gratified, and the gratification penetrated
the weird angry buzzing that had been in his head since he'd climbed on top of
Dirk. It gave him a warm feeling in his stomach that moved down to his cock,
pressed against Dirk's own. He let up on Dirk's throat for the time being, and
bent down to lean his head against the armrest and look down at Dirk. "See, we
both knew you couldn't keep your hands off my dick." He grabbed the bottle of
lube and uncapped it with his thumb. "That was a losing battle if I ever heard
one. Gimme your hand." He was rubbing lube up and down Dirk's fingers for him
as he went on. "It is always fun to choke you," he said, forcing a flip tone
into his voice as he doubled down on the windpipe again-- not as hard as the
first time, and with only one hand, but enough to constrict the airflow, at
least. "I highly recommend it. It's satisfying. It's like. Random example here,
but say a dude pulls a gun on you one time. You just turn right back around and
choke the living daylights out of him the morning after. It's real satisfying.
'Specially when you see that look in his eyes." He was aware that he was
babbling again as he moved Dirk's hand down, and eased back enough for Dirk to
reach behind himself.
Once Dave started, he just couldn't stop the words from pouring out. "'Cause
you just *know*, when you see that look in his eyes," --the very look of alarm,
in fact, that Dave thought he'd seen in Dirk's eyes, just for a second when
he'd first started choking him-- "You just know that no matter how *alarmed*
you make him, how short of breath he is, it's never gonna hold a candle to what
he did to you. To that extra-special 'just got a gun pulled on me' sense of
alarm. Know what I'm saying, Dirk?" He was pressing down pretty hard again, he
found, and eased up to let Dirk breathe.
▲: Was that what this was all about? Dirk wasn't certain, because he was pretty
sure that they had been back in the general family weirdness place and not any
sort of specific Dirk and Dave weirdness place, but maybe he'd miscalculated.
Wouldn't be the first time, but it didn't happen often. He really had no idea
that Dave had been holding some kind of weird torch over that incident-- didn't
he know it wasn't fucking personal?-- but it explained a thing or two, maybe.
Odd thoughts to be having while fingering yourself, but there you have it. He
forced in another finger with a grimace, moving fast-- too fast; it kinda hurt,
kind of a lot-- but he felt like time was of the essence here, especially
considering the state of his current inspiratory capacity. And anyway, he could
handle some hurt. He could handle this. He could.
Why did he have to keep telling himself that?
Truthfully speaking, whatever this was coming out of Dave right now was not
something Dirk had anticipated. He wondered if maybe he'd been underestimating
Dave this whole time, or if there were extenuating circumstances at the moment
that were contributing to this. Then again, did it fucking matter? His dick
said hell no. It was hard to coordinate stretching with one hand and stroking
two dicks with the other, even when you had full control over your breathing,
but somehow he managed. He wasn't ready for another finger, but he did it
anyway, and his mouth popped open with something borderline desperation. He
looked up at Dave's eyes and tried to communicate telepathically. Come on. Come
on come on. Get this show on the road and fuck me, asshole.
▼: Dave himself wasn't quite sure what had impelled him to bring up the gun
thing. He supposed because it was something they hadn't actually talked about,
because it was an awkward area and what was there to say? Thinking about it
made him angry, but not necessarily angry at Dirk. Angry at himself for staying
(even though staying had probably been the better choice), or angry at what had
been the powerlessness of his situation in general. Who even knew. He could
dissect it later, if he felt like it, which didn't seem likely given his
history.
Instead he grabbed the condom off the table and tore it open, fumbling a little
with it as he pulled it over his dick. He hadn't wanted to let go of Dirk's
throat, but that gave him an idea. "Do it yourself," he said. He grabbed Dirk's
newly free hand and brought it to Dirk's own throat, wrapping it around and
putting his own hand over Dirk's. "I know you don't fully *buy* the idea of me
fucking you, so why don't you give yourself a little squeeze so I can
really...focus, you know?" While he was talking he pushed himself up, enough so
he could have Dirk flip over onto his stomach, which was a better angle of
approach. Earlier he had wished that they'd taken the time to move to a bed,
but the couch actually was perfect. He braced his feet on the other armrest as
he pushed his cock into Dirk, slowly because the pressure was still a huge
novelty for him. Once he was fully in, he resumed the rhythm the two of them
had been working together, moaning a little at the intense pressure on his
dick. "You think I'm fucking tight," he muttered at Dirk's ear, which was right
by his mouth.
▲: Dirk pushed his face into the cushions next to the armrest, which served the
dual purposes of shielding his face so that Dave couldn't see how it contorted
with pain and muffling the sound that welled up in his throat when Dave pushed
inside him. He really wasn't ready, and it hurt-- so bad-- but that was part
of... that was how he wanted it right now. It cut through everything and gave
him something to latch onto. His eyes might have been watering, but whatever.
There might be a Higgs boson, but ain't nobody proved that shit yet either. No
data to be had, motherfucker.
He clutched his throat with one hand, and it wasn't nearly as effective as
having Dave do it, but it did add something that would be missing if *nobody*
was choking him, so it was better than nothing. He used that extra percentage
of control to try to relax the muscles in his legs and pelvis, and after a
while the pain wasn't so fucking sharp anymore. Dave's weight-- and heat, fuck-
- was oddly comforting, pushing his hips into the couch cushion with each
thrust and making his dick rub up against the fabric. Not as good as a handjob,
but again, better than nothing. This wasn't really for him, anyway. At least,
not in that way. He was still getting something he wanted. "Oh-- my god--" he
panted harshly into the pillows, tilting his head down so that his eyes were
still pressed into them, but his mouth was free to talk. Dave was fucking him
kinda slowly, actually, and it was-- hard to describe. Equal parts mind-blowing
and fucking infuriating. He reached his other hand behind his own head and
twisted his fingers into the hair, tugging at it with exasperation. "Cut the-
- fu--fucking bullshit-- monologue." He felt Dave thrust in harder at that and
he moaned; thankfully he moved his head just enough that it all went into the
pillow.
▼: "That is--" he went in a little harder at that, and lost his breath in the
middle of his sentence-- "the most blatant, stupid-- example of the pot calling
the fucking kettle black that I've ever heard. Your monologue is like...like
Jay Leno levels of bullshit." Wow, sick zinger there, Dave. Dirk was right, he
really should just shut up and focus on what he was doing, so he did. Dirk was
tense and really...almost *brittle* beneath him, which was an odd way to think
of it, Dave knew, but that was what came to mind. Dirk sounded pained, too, so
Dave reached down between them, and lifted Dirk up a little to feel his cock,
which was still pretty fucking hard. Good. He thrust more deeply, getting a
slightly different angle from lifting Dirk up like he had, the way his breath
was hissing probably giving Dirk some clue of how close he was. He brought his
hand back to Dirk's throat-- always important to help a brother in need, right?
He wrapped his hand over Dirk's warmer one and squeezed. His nose was nuzzling
at the side of Dirk's head, and he could feel a wetness against his own face
that could have been sweat, tears, anything, really, but for some reason it
made Dave try the conciliatory approach.
"It's okay," he said, and he wasn't sure if he meant to mock Dirk's earlier
attempts to soothe him, attempts that had both annoyed and comforted Dave in a
weird way, or if he, Dave, was trying to emulate them. One thing Dave had
learned, or rather one thing that Bro had always insisted, was that it was
possible to do both at once and still mean both things equally. Which in and of
itself was an irritating school of thought, but it didn't stop Dave from trying
what a troll would call the diamond thing. "It's okay," he said quietly, making
a shooshing noise into Dirk's ear. Ultra kinky, he could almost hear Damara's
voice say. Getting all pale while fucking your...your guy friend, let's say.
While squeezing his throat with gusto and fucking him as hard as you can while
still keeping breath in your lungs. "Gonna be all fucking right, bro," he said,
nipping at his earlobe.
▲: It wasn't, though, and Dave insisting that it was going to be just made Dirk
even more frustrated. He didn't know how he'd let himself get to this state,
but he had underestimated Dave. He hadn't seen this coming, and not only did
that piss him off, but it *scared* him. He wasn't afraid for himself or
anything like that-- he still knew that he could handle this-- but there was
something so viscerally upsetting to him about someone being able to surprise
him. The first time he let Dave fuck him, it had been about getting fucked.
This time, it was pretty rapidly turning into being about *Dave*, because he
was finally starting to feel like Dave was his. Not in some possessive kind of
way, or in a relationship kind of way, but a sort of-- he hated to think it-
- kinship. Despite the fact that they looked a lot like each other, this was
the first time Dirk had really seen a glimpse of himself in Dave, like oh shit,
maybe we really are brothers. What an odd time to feel such a thing. Like,
yeah, this guy fucks with the same meanness but awkward honesty that I do.
Shit, he must be related to me. Time to have a motherfucking crisis about it.
The hand covering his own around his throat was more comforting than anything
Dave had to say, though. It was intimate in a weird way, like holding someone's
hand while you fuck them, or at least the Strider brothers equivalent thereof.
Brothers. There was that fucking word again. It did more to make Dirk feel like
he was choking than what either of their hands were doing, and it occurred to
him that he might be having a really poorly timed panic attack. For all that he
so blithely discussed 'bringing the realness' earlier in the evening, he was
apparently not prepared to deal with the realness that Dave had been dealing
with every time they'd fucked so far. Maybe he should give Dave more credit.
Maybe he should stop fighting it and just ride through it. Yeah. He arched his
back so that his ass tilted up a bit more and pushed back into Dave's thrusts,
trying to clear his mind of all the bullshit and just feel Dave's presence
around him. "Dave-- shut up," he croaked. "Just shut the-- fuck up." He didn't
even know if Dave could hear him, because he was speaking into the pillow and
he couldn't get enough power behind his words anyway. Shit, maybe all of this
was just brought on by carbon dioxide poisoning in his brain. "Don't wanna-
- hear you-- just feel you-- Dave, Dave." He repeated Dave's name a few more
times and never felt less like himself in his life.
▼: Part of him was surprised when Dirk started repeating his name like it was
the new $100,000 word, but not too much because it felt right, like everything
else did at that moment. He even ended up doing as Dirk said and keeping quiet,
though that was mostly because he physically couldn't have spoken at the
moment. Not that he had a whole lot to say.
He'd fallen into the idea of actually fucking someone easily enough. It was
like riding a bike or driving a car. Once you got it into gear, so to speak,
you could just coast along, and Dirk seemed eager enough to do that with him,
if the way he was moving back against Dave was any indication. Dave himself was
so fucking close, but he tried to hold himself back as he reached around Dirk,
so he was squeezing both Dirk's throat and his cock at the same time. "Come
on," he said, breathless, although he didn't know if he was going to be able to
keep from coming before Dirk did. Not that it was a race or anything, but
still. "Come on," he said, putting more force behind his words and the thrust
he gave. He moved his hand up from Dirk's throat to his hair, so Dave could
wrench his head back, off of the pillow and onto Dave's shoulder. "Come on.
Wanna hear you say it. Nice and loud."
▲: Dirk let go of his throat as well, using both arms to brace himself against
the armrest now to push back against Dave. He needed the extra air anyway if he
was going to get anywhere close to 'nice and loud'. His neck and shoulders
ached with the strain of maintaining this position, but he didn't try to pull
away. He was in this odd sort of twilight zone where he was far too aroused but
also way too freaked out to be able to come-- kinda like overstimulation, but
with a less physical kind of pain. He said Dave's name a few more times-
- louder, as requested-- and it started sinking in by repetition. It probably
wasn't as loud as Dave wanted, but his throat fucking hurt and he still
couldn't breathe right because of the lump that had settled at the base of his
throat where Dave's thumbs had pressed down on it. "Dave," he said again, as
loud as he could this time, his voice so hoarse that it probably didn't even
sound like him. "Is that good enough-- for you? That what you want-
- motherfucker?" Before Dave could respond, he grimaced and then moaned, "I'm
sorry. I'm sorry," but he didn't know what he was apologizing for. It was a
thought that didn't really follow what he'd been saying immediately before it.
▼: "'S'alright," he said, probably slurring his words badly but not enough to
care, not enough to be unintelligible. "It's alright," he said again, moving to
rub at Dirk's stomach, just above his dick. Dave was completely past being able
to gauge how much of what he was saying was sincere and how much of it was him
trying to rub it back in Dirk's face. He didn't care, of course, because it
didn't fucking matter and he was so close, just so fucking close. He wrapped
both arms around Dirk's torso and thrust one more time before he felt the
orgasm wash over him, harder and also wetter because of the still novel
sensation of coming in the condom. He moaned but stayed mostly still, rocking a
little on the balls of his feet where they were braced against the other arm of
the couch, before he collapsed. "Shit, he said, his head on Dirk's shoulder as
he ran his hands over Dirk's chest and stomach. Dirk was still tense underneath
Dave, brittle and hard as a fucking rock. Dave circled one of Dirk's nipples
idly with his fingernail as he came down from his high and scraped over it with
a nail while his other hand drifted down lower, to feel Dirk's cock, hot and
pressing into the couch cushions.
▲: He liked feeling Dave's hands on his chest, but when Dave moved to touch his
dick, something felt wrong. "Stop," he said, resting his face on his forearms
and feeling Dave's head roll on his shoulder. "Safeword. Whatever. Just--" He
shifted up and then rolled over underneath Dave and pulled Dave back down on
top of him. His dick was so hard that it actually kinda hurt, but he couldn't
stand to have it touched right now for some reason. Maybe he *was*
overstimulated. He wrapped one arm around Dave's back and rested the palm of
his other hand against his forehead, staring up at the ceiling and panting,
still trying to get his breath back from earlier. Everything fucking hurt, but
that wasn't even the important thing. His dick was pressed against the inside
of Dave's thigh, and it felt kinda like maybe he could probably get off soon if
he could just calm down a little bit, as weird as that sounded.
▼: He rolled over a little, so he was almost wedged between Dirk's body and the
back of the couch. It meant he could rest his head but still look at Dirk's
eyes, or what he could see of them. He suddenly wondered if his half-assed
shoosh-papping hadn't been completely off-base; everything *wasn't* alright,
everything was in fact fucked all to hell as a matter of course, and maybe the
truth of that had just smacked Dirk in the face mid-coitus. Dave supposed he
knew the feeling. "Dirk," he said, and it came out sharper than he meant it to.
"Hey. Dirk." This time it came out more softly as he reached out to put the
hand not pressed between them on Dirk's stomach, resting it there just above
where his pubic hair started. "Not bullshitting this time. You ok?" He moved
his fingers slightly, just pressing his tips lightly against his stomach and
watching Dirk's chest go up and down. He was still wearing the condom, which
felt gross now that the moment had passed, but wasn't enough to catch his
immediate attention like this did.
▲: No. "Yeah," he muttered between pants. The serious role-reversal going on
here wasn't even the slightest bit subtle, and that just unnerved Dirk even
more. Like Dave was the fucking big brother here, but Dave *had* been his big
brother, that guy he never fucking knew but still kinda wanted to emulate. That
was why he'd held on to that fucking rabbit for so long. Leann, right. Which
he'd given to Dave. This Dave. Oh god, things were so fucked. "I'm fine. It's
fine. I just--" He shifted a little, taking the hand off of his forehead and
brushing back Dave's hair, looking him in the face for the first time since
rolling over and freaking out like a fucking idiot. "I just need a minute, ok?
Overstimulated." He didn't think that was exactly it, but it was close enough
and made a good cover story. He closed his eyes and squeezed Dave with the arm
that was around his back. Dave had asked Dirk to hold him once, and Dirk kinda
wanted to ask him to return the favor right now, but even this shaken up he
couldn't bring himself to do that. Not when he was just starting to get control
of himself again. He could feel himself calming down slowly, like he no longer
felt like he was suffocating, and in its wake he could feel his balls starting
to throb dully. He really did need to get off, but man, what shitty timing. He
took his hand out of Dave's hair and reached down to shift Dave's hand
slightly, putting it over his dick. "Slow, ok?"
▼: He only nodded, not really sure what to make of this development, so he
settled his head against Dirk's shoulder and closed his eyes, tried to think as
he massaged the skin of Dirk's balls with the tips of his fingers and then ran
them up the underside of his cock. Dirk gradually became less tense underneath
him; his breathing evened out and his body overall felt less stiff, so Dave
chanced to wrap his whole hand around the shaft and work Dirk slowly, without
applying a lot of pressure.
Dave's arm, meanwhile, was almost falling asleep from being pressed between
them, so he shifted around until their chests were pressed against each other,
which was nice. Warm, and it freed up his other arm. He tilted Dirk's chin up
and kissed him for a long second, because it seemed appropriate for that
moment. They could talk about what all this had been later. If it had been Dave
he would have vehemently not wished to discuss it, so Dave knew he would have
to bring it up later, once he took care of Dirk. Now, though, he kissed at
Dirk's mouth and down his jaw, and licked up the side of his face on an
impulse. Might as well go all out, right?
▲: Dirk kept his eyes closed, focusing less on what Dave was doing and more on
relaxing his body, hoping his mind would follow suit. He sank into the cushions
of the couch like dead weight, and that feeling brought with it an emptiness of
mind that he found comforting. Like his body had taken on the density and
weight of an equal volume of bricks, and with about the same capacity for
higher thought. Just the way he liked it.
He found that after focusing on that for a while, the sensations on his dick
kinda floated to the surface naturally, until pretty soon they were all he was
thinking about. It was nice, and once he could actually feel it, he realized
how turned on his body had been through the whole thing, even if his mind
wouldn't let him feel it. His dick was ready to fucking go, and he was already
getting really close when Dave kissed him. That shocked him out of the tunnel
vision he had going on, but it wasn't unwelcome. After all, Dave was kinda the
epicenter of this whole fucking thing, and it was important not to forget that.
He didn't open his eyes, but he did kiss back, bringing his other arm around to
rest it on Dave's shoulder, squeezing Dave's deltoid muscle rhythmically as
Dave built him up. He started moving a little, like maybe he was actually
muscle and bone, thrusting his hips up into Dave's hand and panting in his ear
until finally he came. It didn't feel all that great, kinda tired and muted,
like some kind of depressed orgasm or something, but what it lacked in its
usual overwhelming pleasure it gained in its ability to make Dirk actually,
genuinely relax this time without that mindless, dead feeling. He sighed and
didn't open his eyes, but he stopped squeezing Dave's arm and started rubbing
his back with that hand instead.
▼: His hand was getting cramped and the condom he was still wearing was
starting to seriously annoy him by the time Dirk actually came. It was as much
of a relief to Dave as it was to Dirk, maybe. He stayed still for a length of
time, actually counted out 60 of their breaths, 60 times Dirk stroked his back,
before he sat up slightly. There was a box of kleenex within reach on the end
table, which was either serendipity or maybe Dirk just liked to jerk it off to
wrestling in front of the TV sometimes. Now wasn't really the time to ask,
though. He grabbed a tissue and cleaned up before wadding it into a ball with
the condom and setting it aside to toss later. Tossing it now would involve
standing up, and fuck that, just fuck it. Instead he grabbed an afghan he could
see peeking out from below the end table and threw it over their entwined legs,
because now that the heat of the moment had passed his feet were getting cold.
Dirk still had his eyes closed, even now, so Dave sank back into the crevice
between Dirk's body and the back of the couch slowly. Everything that came to
mind to say stopped dead in his throat, so he cleared it and pulled the blanket
up around them more. "So. Uh." In typical circumstances, the appropriate thing
to say here would be some variation on "happy birthday to me," but
circumstances sure as fuck weren't typical here. He suspected in his gut they
were pretty atypical, but he wouldn't know that unless Dirk deigned to tell
him. Mentally, he tried to cast the odds on that and came up short. In the end
he just waited, leaned his head back and watched for Dirk to open his eyes.
▲: He opened one eye when Dave spoke, squeezing the other shut and looking at
him for a few seconds before opening both eyes like a normal person. He guessed
Dave probably wanted him to say something, although for the life of him he
didn't know what Dave was digging for. Did he want to know what the fuck just
happened, all the gory details, or did he just want to know that Dirk wasn't
going to flip out on him? He shifted his arms back down to Dave's lower back
under the blanket and squeezed him tight. It was, essentially, a hug. A weird
hug. "Happy Birthday," he said, because he honestly didn't have anything to say
about what had just happened, so it seemed as good of a thing to say as
anything else. "I don't know about you, but I need another drink. After I
finish my first one, I mean." He didn't make any moves to get up just yet,
though, nor did he let go of Dave. The heat from the blanket was nice, Dave's
weight on top of him was nice, and not having a panic attack was totally
fucking aces. It could wait a few minutes.
▼: He laughed a bit at that, one of those half-real, half-put on laughs more
about lessening any tension remaining in the air than anything else. "Yeah,
that sounds nice." He stayed where he was, though, and Dirk didn't make any
move to shift him. "You don't have a butler or something, do you?" He still
didn't quite feel like getting up, but at least he was starting to feel more
normal. In the moment, while it had been happening, it had felt like playing a
part, and then abruptly it hadn't, and now...
He shrugged a little, just enough to get Dirk to loosen his arms but not enough
to have him let go completely. If Dirk needed the contact, then so did Dave
maybe. "Uh. Sorry?" He shook his head at that, and sat up a little, enough that
he could reach the drink on the table behind them. He held it out to Dirk. "I
didn't...I mean, I dunno why I brought up the gun thing. I didn't mean to...you
know, freak you out." He cleared his throat again. That was what he assumed
Dirk had been apologizing for, anyway, although he didn't intend to directly
allude to it. He was realizing, belatedly, that what he was experiencing was
the old feeling of post-coital awkwardness, which he'd gotten used to doing
without the past couple times with Dirk. "I don't actually think about it that
much. I think I was just throwing shit and seeing what would stick, I didn't
actually...I don't think you would." He stopped abruptly, and put the drink in
Dirk's hand, letting their fingers brush together as he did, and that made him
decide to stop talking for one goddamn second. "Yeah. Don't worry about it. I
don't."
▲: Dirk took the drink and shifted up, so that his shoulders were leaning on
the armrest and he could take a sip of his bourbon without aspirating it. What
he probably really needed was some water, but fuck that. He sipped it and
relished the satisfying burn at the end, and then he tipped it back and gulped
the rest. That's the ticket. He reached behind himself awkwardly to put the
glass on the table, and then he folded his arms behind his head again, like
he'd been doing before all of this got started. "I would have, though." He made
like he was going to continue lying there for a while, but then suddenly he
swung his legs out from under Dave and stood up, grabbing his glass and walking
naked back into the kitchen. He limped noticeably but not considerably. "I
wouldn't *now*, but don't make the mistake of thinking that I wouldn't have
then," he said just loud enough for Dave to hear him from the other room while
he poured himself another drink. While this wasn't something he wanted to talk
about, he found it more palatable than trying to talk about what had just
happened. He took the first sip of his second drink in the kitchen, bracing one
arm against the countertop, and then he walked over to the archway that
separated the two rooms, leaning against the wall of the door and looking at
Dave, who was still lying on his couch. Sprawled out, actually, and pretty pale
against the dark blue of the couch. Dirk rubbed his chest while he drank,
thinking about picking up his underwear but ultimately deciding against it.
"Just so we're clear on what kind of guy I am. You know, the kind who will fuck
a hooker before he puts a bullet in them. That's the kind of guy you're
dating." He was being facetious, because he still wasn't sure if he was that
kind of guy or not. After all, he hadn't gone through with it.
▼: It had been the wrong thing to say to get what he wanted. Dave saw that
right away, although he wasn't quite sure just *what* he wanted at the moment.
He sat up, pulled his knees up to his chest, and raised his eyebrows at Dirk.
"Do you have to do that? The whole 'I'm a grizzled loner who spits bullets'
schtick? Because...ok, I freely admit that you're into some pretty heavy shit.
And maybe you would have killed me that night, if I hadn't said anything to
you. If I'd just taken the money like a good boy and gone home." He looked
right at Dirk after saying that. "I don't know. But even if you think that...I
know you're fronting, dude. Shit, you've straight up admitted as much to me in
the past. All that shit about alternate Dirks, right?" He hesitated, knew he
was talking too much, and pushed onwards anyway. "Look, I don't...I don't
really get what just happened, and I don't expect you to tell me, but at least
don't..." He had been about to say 'don't pull away,' and stopped himself
because he suddenly thought saying that (saying all of this) struck the wrong
note entirely. He stood up abruptly. "Whatever. Change of subject: where's the
bathroom?"
***** Chapter 11 *****
▲: He shrugged. "You can't pick and choose which splinter to date," he mumbled
into his glass as he took another sip, more to himself than to Dave. "Bathroom
is upstairs right in front of the landing. Can't fucking miss it. Go nuts."
Dave had to walk right past Dirk through the archway to get there, and he
watched Dave go. He had half a mind to reach out and grab him for a second, but
he held it in and sunk down on the couch instead, setting his drink on the
counter long enough to pull his boxer briefs back on but not getting any more
dressed than that because it's his house, damnit. It was too dark and too quiet
to just sit there with his thoughts, so he turned the TV on but put it on mute.
The 11 o'clock news was on, so he watched it in silence and sipped his drink
until Dave came back. "Guess I never answered your question," he started. The
angle of the light from the TV made it so that he couldn't make out Dave's
face. "You asked me what just happened. I think most people would call that
sex, and I reckon you're familiar with the concept. Is that not what you'd call
it?"
▼: "Oh shit, is that what that was. Glad you finally cleared that up for me,"
he said dully. It was too dark for him to root around on the floor for bits of
his clothes to put on, so he sat on the couch by Dirk. Disingenuous sarcasm,
who'd even have expected it. Not Dave, oh no. He sat there and stared at the
TV, watching the anchorwoman's lips move noiselessly. That was how it felt,
like everything he said had no fucking effect, might as well be on mute, and he
realized with increased irritation that he'd gone from feeling like a big man,
all dominant and filled with sexual whatever, to feeling like a kid who nobody
listened to. Dirk was purposely trying to annoy him, and it was working, worst
of all. Motherfucker. He took a deep breath and went on reasonably levelly. "I
meant the other...look, I'm not blind, something was bugging you, and like I
said, we don't gotta talk about it. I just..." He stopped, shrugged. Part of
him wanted to reach out to Dirk, grab his hand or put his head on his shoulder
or *something*, but he stopped himself. Instead he changed the subject once
again. "Do you really want to go to the apartment with me?"
▲: "Of course I do. I wouldn't have said so if I didn't." His glass was empty
again, and he thought about getting the bottle, but he really *didn't* want to
get trashed. Contrary to what it might look like on the surface, especially at
the moment, he'd had a pretty good night. Even the parts that had been
objectively kind of terrible had also been good in their own special little
ways, and he didn't want this to devolve into some kind of passive aggressive
thing. He leaned forward and set the empty glass on the table, and then he
turned to the side slightly, pulling one knee up on the couch and turning his
body toward Dave but not facing him. "When you're ready to talk about the fact
that you hop on my dick every other time your brother comes up in conversation,
then you can ask me about what just happened, ok? I'm not pressuring you to
talk about that, by the way. It's cool. Just don't hold me to some different
standard of honesty. It was what it was, and I wouldn't take it back. Sometimes
you just need to get knocked down, remember saying that? Still true."
▼: He was really glad it was dark, because he probably made a face like he'd
just gotten kicked in the stomach, all wide-eyed and gaping like a fucking
fish. De-fucking-flected. Ouch. "Whoa. Ok, that's...I think that's
mischaracterizing some things but...yeah, ok. I'll go with that."
He fidgeted, suddenly uncomfortable sitting there naked on the couch like this.
For purely physical reasons, of course; his brief dalliance into the uncharted
realm of emotional honesty or whatever he'd been trying for there had
absolutely nothing to do with it. The nap of the fabric was making his ass
itch, that was all. He stood up, found his underwear on the floor, and went
into the kitchen to get a refill before remembering that his glass was in the
living room, and still half-full. He sat with his legs crossed on the couch,
staring at the liquor he held in his lap, on top of his crossed ankles, and
resisted the urge to down it all at once. "Shit. Couldn't have killed the mood
there more efficiently if I had put out a fucking hit on it, which is a loaded
metaphor and I'm sorry." He did down it, finally, and after he'd set the glass
down he found himself sprawling out on the couch, so his head was in Dirk's
lap. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "You should gag me during
sex sometime, you know that? Like, a physical gag. You could use whatever the
fuck you want, I wouldn't even give a shit. Jesus fucking Christ."
▲: "Now why the hell would I do that?" Dirk laughed softly and put one hand on
Dave's chest, running his thumb back and forth over the sternum. He leaned his
other elbow on the armrest and used his hand to prop his head up. "How else am
I going to get my highly taboo mid-coitus shoosh-papping? That was the
raunchiest thing I've ever seen someone do while fucking. No joke." He thought
for a minute that it was odd that he knew so much about troll sexual behavior,
which subsequently led to a thought that it was odd that he slept pretty much
exclusively with trolls except for a few key exceptions, chief among which were
the dude currently in his lap and the dude who used to live in this house. It
also struck him that he'd made at least two oblique references to the idea that
they might be dating, but he meant it in the sense of going on dates. Wow, this
was so stupid. All of it was just so fucking stupid. "Don't dwell on it, ok?
All things accounted for, this has been a pretty good night for me so far." It
wasn't Dave's fault that Dirk had a sudden existential crisis mid-fuck, because
it hadn't been any particular thing that Dave had done or said that had caused
it to happen, which was what Dirk assumed that Dave was assuming. It had been
more of a confluence of events and sudden mental connections, but how do you
explain that kind of miserable serendipity to someone?
▼: He moved one of his hands from his eyes and looked up at Dirk with a grin.
"Diamonds are forever, right?" It didn't actually mean anything, but he felt
more normal like this than he had before. He was going to abjure the hell out
of the idea of having any sort of serious discussion right now, but just laying
here was nice, was what he should have done in the first place. He wasn't a
troll and he didn't want a moirail, but if he ever had one he had a feeling
he'd be pretty shitty at it. "Yeah. It's been good. Good birthday." Despite his
best efforts to the contrary. He decided to stay where he was until Dirk made
him move, or until his neck got too stiff to stay in the position. He moved up
a little, so his head was against the armrest but his body was still over
Dirk's lap. He was thinking again about Dirk's promise to go to the apartment
with him, and he had an idea that maybe after dealing with all of that, with
all the accumulated dross of his old life, it would be easier to talk
about...the shit with Bro, and all of that. In any case it gave him an excuse
to put off a discussion some more, which was the most important part.
▲: "No, I mean it. That's the real depraved shit, man. So tender." He picked up
the remote and started flipping through channels, looking for something
brainless but amusing, like a 90s sitcom or late night shows. He got an episode
of Battlestar Galactica and stopped on that instead. It wasn't normally his
thing, because the robots were way too human, but he liked the show from a
philosophical standpoint. Sophisticated robotic AI species puts their makers
into exile and drives them to near extinction. Man, what a great thought
experiment. He tapped his fingers on Dave's chest and wondered if maybe he
should go into Leann's programming and try to wipe out the Autoresponder, but
he had an idea that it would backfire something awful if he tried. Dirk scooted
out from under Dave and laid down long-ways behind him on the couch, pulling
Dave closer to him and wrapping his arm around Dave's hip. Technically this was
spooning, but that's okay as long as there are robots on TV. "Anything left on
the list of birthday shit you wanted to do?"
▼: "No," he said. "Well, I didn't really have a list, but I can't think of
anything else to add to it." Robot bunny, Thai food, alleyway sex, hookah,
dessert, then more sex with provocative shooshpapping. Yeah, that seemed pretty
exhaustive. "Well, we should look through AARP member John and Jade's stuff,
but that's for the morning. When we're...you know, not all fucked out and
wearing nothing but our underwear." Not that he held these dead people and
their stuff as that sacred, but he figured he could at least put on some pants
while he went through it, for decency's sake if nothing else.
After a bit, he rolled over, so he was on top of Dirk again, but it was a lot
different from before. He felt lazy and unhurried for once. Not that there'd
been any reason to hurry before, but he hadn't felt that way at the time. Now
it was just...nicer. He wasn't that enthralled with Battlestar Galactica, since
he'd stopped watching in the second season and had never had the chance to get
caught up again. "Shit, what am I saying. Who's fucked out? What even is that?
Have the robot bunny butler get me some water, I'm going all night." Instead of
getting up to get some water for himself, though, he crawled up Dirk's body and
leaned down to press their mouths together, actually enjoying the sensation
this time.
▲: "You have got to be fucking kidding me." He dropped the remote on the floor
and brought his hands up to rest on the backs of Dave's thighs, squeezing
gently before running them up over his ass and settling on his lower back. "My
blood pressure still isn't back to normal from the last time but somehow you're
ready to go? Jesus. I didn't know this tender bullshit got you so hot." He shut
up for a minute and just let Dave kiss him, because honestly it *was* really
nice. Maybe he needed a little niceness after being put through the wringer
like that. He thought there was a word for that kind of thing but he couldn't
think of it off the top of his head. Dave's weight was solid on top of him and
still had that heat, and his mouth was soft and wet instead of insistent and
bitey. "Mmm. I could break out the Toni Braxton for you, if that's what you're
into." He hoped Dave didn't call his bluff, because he was pretty sure he
didn't actually have any Braxton in the house. Then again, there was always the
internet.
▼: "Whatever," he said. In a sense, he had gotten pretty much what he wanted
out of this birthday, and now he felt willing enough to go along with whatever
Dirk wanted. Hell, even this couch, which in theory should have been kind of
awkward with two not small people sprawled out on it, was pretty comfortable.
He didn't even really feel like standing up, not even to get the glass of water
or change the music or whatever. He kissed Dirk again, and rolled his hips a
little when Dirk ran his hands over them, but he still wasn't pressed to do
anything else. He drew his mouth away just enough to speak. "Yeah, you being
the ancient old man like you are, I'll have some consideration. We don't got to
do a marathon race with our refractory periods like last time or whatever. It's
just this couch is so small so what else am I supposed to sit but right on your
junk?"
▲: Dirk groaned. "Yeah, please don't make me go through the whole miracle dick
whisperer thing again, ok? That was humiliating. I think it speaks to how much
I choose to trust you that I even deign to talk to you after that." He looked
into Dave's eyes at close range, and all the pits and crypts in the red irises
stood out to him. He remembered being struck by how deep red they were when he
first saw Dave at the Horse Hitcher, as soon as Dave had gotten close enough
for Dirk to see them. He'd never seen anything like it, and it kinda made him
realize how people felt whenever they commented on his orange eyes. But orange
wasn't that weird, right? Orange is just a step away from brown, just some
yellow pigment, but *red*. Damn. Dirk was the kind of guy who made a habit of
searching for things that people might be self-conscious about in case he ever
had to exploit them, and at the time he had wondered if his eyes were such a
thing for Dave. Now that he'd gotten to know him, he was pretty sure that Dave
gave no fucks. He smiled and felt a weird surge of affection. "Tell you what.
Since it's your birthday and you're giving my wrinkly old dick a pity break,
I'll give you one more present. I'll give you a complete and honest answer to
one question." He went on before Dave could say anything. "And don't say you
don't have anything to ask just because you feel weird asking, because for one
thing I know that's bullshit, and for another, I may never make this offer
again. I've never offered it to anyone before. So turn it down if you want, but
think about it first."
▼: "Dude, just after that you fucked me while I was wearing a skirt and
pretending that you were my dead relative, I think we're pretty square on the
humiliation front." He could grin while he said that, though. Thinking back on
it wasn't really that humiliating, but it was oddly titillating. Less because
of what they'd done and more because he knew with certainty that he was never
going to tell another human being about it, and that Dirk wouldn't either, and
that made it oddly special, even if it was pretty twisted in every other
respect.
He raised his eyebrows at Dirk's offer. "Yeah. Ok. I'll only do it if it's like
an exchange, though. So I ask you something, you ask me. Like truth or dare,
except no dare. It's so fifth grade, we'll both spill our guts and then paint
each other's toenails before bed. Deal?" He got more serious about it as he
thought about, and as he pushed himself up to look down at Dirk a bit. "What
were you apologizing for? Earlier. Did--" He cut himself off from saying
anymore, deciding not to speculate. Instead he watched Dirk carefully as he
answered.
▲: He averted his eyes, looking off to the side and sucking on his bottom lip
for a minute. Good fucking question, and not an easy one to answer at all,
although he hadn't expected any less from this. "Hard to say. I don't think I
really even knew at the time." He ran his tongue over his teeth in nervous
concentration. He wanted to be able to say *something*. "You just go to that
place and shit comes out of your mouth, and maybe you can piece it together
later and make it make sense, but not always." He laid his palms flat on Dave's
lower back and closed his eyes, digging deep. It was hard to set the scene,
because he was finally feeling relaxed and didn't want to backpedal, but he
tried to dip into it just enough to remember Dave's hand on his throat and
mouth in his ear. "I think it was a lot of things. Primarily for trying to use
you and then put you out with the trash, since that was the subject du jour.
Other stuff too, though. For making you feel things on the surface that I get
the feeling you'd rather keep buried deep. For... for getting off so hard on
the parts of this that are wrong. For being too much of a brother when it is
convenient for what I want and not enough of one when you probably need it."
This was edging dangerously close to the shit they'd agreed not to talk about,
so he bit it off there. Maybe if Dave asked, but... no. He opened his eyes
after he finished talking to see how Dave reacted to that.
▼: He found himself laying perfectly still as Dirk spoke, but as he took it in
more and more he was running his foot along the opposite armrest in a nervous
motion. "I don't know...if I need a brother. He's not...I mean, he's dead, and
I don't want a replacement. I never did, even when shit sucked and he could
have bailed me out." It was strange to think about, but he pressed on. "I'm not
sure. For the most part how I feel about him and how I feel about you are
pretty well separated but. It's all screwed up in my head, and all of it's
buried pretty deep, and maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe you were right about
that." He squirmed around a little bit. At that moment, admitting he was ready
to talk about it seemed worse than actually talking about it, but he supposed
this modified truth or dare thing might help him get through it. If he had to.
"That was a pretty good answer. Pretty damn comprehensive. Like I could hear
the asterisks and the footnotes." He settled down, stretched his legs out to be
more comfortable. "And now it's my turn, so lay it on me. Right over the plate,
like a line drive, hail mary sort of pass or what the fuck ever."
▲: Not wanting one wasn't the same as not needing one, but Dirk kept that
thought to himself, especially since it wasn't really a role that he desired to
take on. Well. Most of the time, anyway. "It wasn't just that, though. I also
kinda felt like I was apologizing for every bullshit thing I ever let myself
talk myself into believing was my fault. Like my Bro dying and Jake dying and
your Bro dying and you being basically sold into sexual slavery and... none of
that is my fault, obviously, but it's kinda like how when someone sees Jesus in
their spaghetti or something and suddenly they start speaking in tongues
because they thing they've been enlightened. Your dick in my ass was the holy
fucking spirit possessing my earthly vessel and I had to atone for all of
humanity's sins. Or something like that." It sounded like he was bullshitting,
and he sorta was, but there was a bit of truth to it too. He did feel
responsible for those things, on a gut level even if not in his head. Mostly he
was just talking because he wasn't sure what to ask Dave if he was going to
stay away from the whole Bro thing. He had to bite back the urge to ask 'How
*do* you feel about me, then?' because this little game was junior high enough
already. He kissed Dave again to buy himself some more time.
▼: His nervous twitching stopped when Dirk kissed him, so it was a good
distraction, if the ludicrous bullshit coming out of Dirk's mouth hadn't been
enough. Plus it occurred to him that they were laying so close that Dirk could
surely feel him fidgeting. "That is the most whack theology I have ever heard,
ok, which is saying something," he said, resting their foreheads together.
"It's my turn, and you still haven't asked me anything," he said finally,
propping his head up to look down at Dirk. "If you're nervous about asking
about Bro, don't be. I can take it." For one question, at least. "Plus you did
say earlier that you could handle all the twisted shit in my brain, didn't
you?"
▲: "Being able to handle something and actively seeking it out are two
different things," he said with his eyes closed. Now that Dave had given him
the go ahead, he wasn't sure he wanted to ask it anymore. This was getting
seriously close to a feelings jam. The aforementioned depraved, tender shit.
Wasn't really his style. Okay, it was maybe slightly possible that all of this
emotional honesty was turning him on a little bit, and that made him feel kind
of gross, like he was getting off on puppies or something sick like that. Who
does that. Who gets off to this shit. It was more of a cerebral turn on anyway,
because his dick wasn't getting hard or anything. Fuck, this is weird. "Fine.
If I don't ask, you'll lord it over me anyway. Tell me. Why do you hop on my
dick every time he comes up?" He looked down at their groins, which were flush
together, Dave's thighs on each side of Dirk's, and then back up at Dave's
eyes, all 'I told you so'.
▼: "When *don't* I hop on your dick, really. When we're talking about him or if
we're not," he said, trying to sound airy. Still, the second time around, Dirk
saying it was less alarming to him. He tried to think of how to say this. "When
I was a kid...and even when I got older and it wasn't that funny anymore, I
could never get the best of him. Like. He always designed it that way. And part
of that was just normal younger brother bitterness, I guess, like being mad
that he was older and smarter and better at stuff, and he always had to frame
everything as...like, oh, I'm just doing this to make *you* better, Dave, it's
not like I'm putting you through the wringer just to fuck with you, 'cause I
think it's funny, nosiree. And that was one thing when I was a kid, but then I
got older and he was still doing it, still holding all the cards and sitting
all poker faced like the douches playing Texas Hold-'Em on ESPN sixteen or
whatever." He shrugged. "And he was still doing that, even when he died. So."
"But it's different with you 'cause...well, 'cause you're not him, and even
though everything about you shouldn't make sense, just the fact that you even
fucking exist...it's different with you. Maybe just because how we met was with
you trying to get in my pants. Skirt. Whatever. That makes you easier to read
than he ever was, and I guess there's something sort of intoxicating about
that, or whatever." He shrugged, looked right in Dirk's eyes again. That answer
felt pretty comprehensive, actually. Feelings jam on the Strider pile could now
be over, as far as he was concerned, but putting it into words had felt almost
good. Not that he'd ever admit it.
▲: Dirk thought about this in silence for a minute. "Wait, so... you worship at
the altar of my cock because your brother was a little too good at beating you
at Mario Kart or whatever? Man. And the way you act about it, here I was
expecting some kind of heartfelt confession of all the lonely nights you spent
jerking off furiously in your closet after accidentally seeing him in the
shower one time at a critical point in your sexual development or something
like that." He didn't know if he was relieved or strangely offended. "Wait, can
I ask another question? We could settle some real controversial nature vs.
nuture shit right here I think. Your Bro. Was he into chicks at all? Like in a
major way?"
▼: "Based on the evidence of what went down in our apartment, he was really
into puppets," said Dave, rolling his eyes. "I dunno, he didn't really date
much. Or if he did he kept it on the down low. Our apartment was too small to
really bring people back for the night." Dave himself had never done it, but
that was more because of shame over all the fucking puppets around than because
he wanted the privacy to get his mack on. The secrecy in which Bro conducted
his sexual affairs (or lack thereof) was kind of unsettling, actually. "He ran
a porn site, and we lived in a one bedroom apartment that was even smaller
because it was constantly filled up with shitty swords and puppet ass, what's
more weird is that I never *did* walk in on him doing anything sexual. Like
beating off or getting it on with someone. He never would have let me catch him
at that sort of thing, though. Not in a million years."
He stretched out. For someone who'd just decided he was over it, he really was
talking Dirk's ear off on this subject all of a sudden. "Look, you don't get
it. You grew up in a normal-ish house and obviously circumstances intervened to
make you the stone-cold freak you are today, but you started out basically
normal, right? I didn't, I grew up in a weird ventriloquy sex den filled with
knives and chafing foam smuppet ass. Having some sort of weird Flowers in the
Attic pubescent sex crisis sounds refreshingly normal in comparison, don't you
think?" He shook his head. "Worship at the altar of your cock. Please. Your
weird religious metaphors aside, why you so interested in where he fell on the
Kinsey scale? You having some sort of internal crisis over how much my cock in
your ass is imbued with essence of the holy spirit or whatever?"
▲: "Fuck no. I think it's pretty obvious what I'm into. And even if it isn't,
it's telling that I've never *really* been with someone who was both human
*and* female." That 'really' caveat went in there because he wasn't sure if the
stuff with Roxy counted or not. In his mind, if you were both blackout drunk
and it never got past simultaneous masturbation with a side of first base, it
didn't count. "I just wondered. I guess I'm curious about the dude. I mean, if
I knew more about my Bro, wouldn't you be curious too?" He figured it would be
best not to mention that if Bro was alive he'd probably be tempted to hit on
him. In fact, if Bro was alive, this whole thing with Dave would feel a
thousand times more wrong, and not in the sexy way. He didn't know why that was
true, but it was, and it felt like it would be in poor taste to say it, for
about a million reasons. He liked things the way they were, especially now that
'the way things were' principally involved Dave lying on top of him in this
dark, quiet room, radiating heat onto Dirk's front and just talking to him in
the afterglow of some incredibly satisfying if a bit unnerving sex. He reached
down and grabbed Dave's ass, squeezing it firmly-- maybe even a bit too hard-
- with both hands. "Puppet ass, huh?" He tilted his hips up a bit, not enough
to actually be a hump but just enough that a hump was lightly suggested. "Yeah.
I could be into that."
▼: He almost groaned out loud, partly out of exasperation and partly to mask
his surprise at being grabbed suddenly. "Wow, that's shocking. You know, that
was almost what I spent my truth or dare fun coin on, on asking you how many
times you've fapped to the plush rump, but then I didn't because I don't think
I could take that, on top of everything else." He kissed Dirk, though, with
more heat behind it this time as he pushed his ass up into Dirk's hands.
Apparently that was what got him hot now, the shoosh-papping and the plush
rump, forget the weird quasi-incest. He ran his hands down Dirk's torso as they
broke apart, and turned to mutter in his ear. "Guess that is pretty straight up
depraved. Me knowing that you were an ass man before I even had a lot of
evidence for it." There was a persuasive nature vs. nurture argument to be made
about that, maybe, but Dave definitely wasn't up for laying it out. He moved up
slightly, enough to rub their crotches together and cause a maddening bit of
friction against his underwear.
▲: "You don't need any tokens to ask about my masturbatory habits. That
information is yours to be had, free of charge." He shut up and let Dave kiss
him for a little while, rocking their hips together in something that still
fell short of actual humpage. Just a kind of light rocking that happened to
involve their dicks being in close proximity to one another. "You know," he
said after a few minutes, "I think maybe I was being a little hasty when I
turned down your offer to gag you. That actually sounds like a good idea.
Imagine me fucking you and you not being able to talk shit back. I think you'd
actually explode." He thought about this for a minute. "Then again, you
wouldn't be able to say no, either. We'd need to work out some sort of Morse
code eyelid blinking safeword. Assuming I can see your face. Nah, maybe that's
too complicated." Then again, when has Dave ever said no to him? Dirk was
reminded of his earlier resolve to fuck Dave in his old apartment, and he
thought that if Dave was ever going to say no to something, it would probably
involve whatever kind of bullshit Dirk got the inspiration to do in the midst
of all of his Bro's old things. Then again, maybe not. Maybe not at all.
▼: "That's easy, I'll just knock on the wall or the headboard," he said, the
words just kind of pouring out. Jesus, what was he saying? This was probably
why he needed a gag in the first fucking place. "Or the floor or your skull,
whichever hard surface is the most convenient. It's not complicated." Clearly
he was doing his thinking with his dick here, but what else was new. Sex with
Dirk never really made him want to think very intellectually. "Offer still
stands. You just have to come up with a gag, because I didn't bring that with
me in my Boy Scout kit, for whatever reason. That just had the bare essentials,
but shit, this is your house. You're supposed to be providing the amenities."
Amenities in this case meaning 'something to sock in Dave's mouth so he can get
fucked in blissful silence for once.' The initial suggestion had been made out
of exasperation, but the more he thought about it the more attractive it got,
as more heat built up between them. "Anything to stop talking about smuppets
and my dead relative's weird sex life, ok." That was sort of a joke too, but
sort of not. The subject matter they'd just been discussing should have been
majorly off-putting, but whatever reason it wasn't. It was...he rocked against
Dirk again, and closed his eyes. Yeah. Not off-putting at all, actually.
▲: "Mmm. Don't get excited. I'm not doing this *now*. I'm making plans, kiddo.
Guy like me thinks ahead. Thought you knew that." He slid his fingers under the
waistband of Dave's underwear, pulling it back a bit and then letting it snap
back. "Could ball up your underwear and stuff it in there, though. Shit, dude,
you better start making sure you've got a clean pair on when you come to see
me." He ran his thumbs over Dave's hip bones just under the waistband. "I wanna
fuck you in your old apartment," he said, tilting his head up so that he was
speaking into Dave's ear. "Maybe I'll just grab whatever's handy and shove that
in your mouth." Before Dave could react to that, Dirk rolled out from under him
and stood up. "Water. Dunno bout you, but I need it," he said without turning
around and walked into the kitchen. He grabbed a large glass and filled it from
the water dispenser in the fridge door before walking back into the living
room. Dave was still lying down, so Dirk perched on the edge of the couch and
took a long drink. "You're gonna have to sit up if you want some of this. Can't
have you asphyxiating on plain old water on my dime."
▼: He did want some water, and he didn't. Dirk fiddling with his underwear and
talking about doing him on the futon, or on his old bed, the one with the card
sharp bedsheets and no frame, made him shudder. Still, by the time Dirk came
back with water he had regathered his wits mostly.
"Yeah, I want to asphyxiate on something a little classier, please," he said,
sitting up and taking the water from Dirk. He took a sip and said thoughtfully,
"Shit, didn't know you were jonesing so bad to fuck me in my childhood bedroom
underneath my Felt poster and all that shit. Thought now that I'm legal that
wouldn't be so tantalizing." He set the water aside and stood up. He'd been
laying down too long, so he stretched his arms over his head and cracked his
back, looking down at Dirk. "Or maybe the sight of all Bro's abandoned ninja
shit and weird-ass marionettes is going to, like, put you in the mood. Hard to
say. Guess you'll have to surprise me, huh."
▲: "No, see, the fact that you're 18 is exactly what makes it sexy-wrong
instead of just wrong-wrong. Fucking someone in the same room as all of their
stuffed animals and cartoon posters and... I don't know... Little League
trophies is *always* sexy-wrong. Unless said person is actually a child, and
then it's just wrong as fuck. I mean, I'm guessing." He'd never actually tried
it to find out, nor did he really have any desire to, but that was what his gut
told him. "I'd offer to return the favor, but Noir burned down my parents' old
place after... well, after." It occurred to Dirk that he never actually told
Dave how Jake, Jane, and their grandparents had died. Not exactly the right
subject for the mood, you know? He wasn't going to broach that topic right now,
and Dave had already spent his truth or dare token for the night. "We can still
fuck in my last two years of high school bedroom, I guess. I mean, that's
pretty much a given to happen at this point. Not quite the same level of
dirtiness, though." He took the water back from Dave and drank some more.
▼: "I don't have any Little League trophies, but I see your point," said Dave,
stepping closer. Sitting around together in their underwear had started to feel
more normal, more like two guys just chilling in a sauna or something. Which
was fine, but suddenly, as he felt the coolness of the glass press against the
heat of his side, things felt a whole lot less casual. Dave leaned forward to
press himself against Dirk's chest and pressed his face against Dirk's, feeling
the rough stubble on his cheek. There'd been something therapeutic in talking
to Dirk about the old apartment, sort of like talking to Rose but not as
alarming, or to Roxy but not as inebriated, but he was pretty much ready to go
back to not talking about it anymore. To maybe not talking at all, gag or no
gag. He ran his hands down Dirk's sides, to his ass and the the backs of his
thighs where they were pressing against the couch. "Not sure how dirty it has
to be," he said, "but I'm ready to check the room out anyway. If you are. You
can stop talking about fucking me in my old house and start putting your money
where your mouth is. Or just put your mouth on my dick, either way."
▲: Dirk put the hand not holding the glass on Dave's back. It was slightly wet
from the condensation on the glass, and he wiped it off on Dave's skin. Dave
felt a little too warm anyway, but what the hell else was new? "Yeah... ok." He
hadn't thought he was ready to go until Dave basically asked to be taken
upstairs, and now he could feel his heartbeat speeding up a little. He stood up
and walked over to the thermostat, turning it up just a little bit, and then he
went into the kitchen to refill the glass. He had mentioned that it wouldn't be
dirty, but that wasn't exactly true. Maybe he didn't grow up in this house, but
he sure spent a hell of a lot of time here under wildly different circumstances
and with very different people. He was kinda glad that he and Jake usually
fucked in Jake's room. Made things a little easier to separate in his head. He
reached out and took Dave's hand, which felt a little hokey but oh well. He
couldn't exactly carry Dave up the steps and carry the water glass too, so this
would have to do.
"Hope you don't get weirded out by robot faces because there's quite a few in
here." He switched on a lamp in the corner and set the glass down on the
bedside table. The room was on the smaller side, pretty obviously a spare
bedroom that wasn't originally intended to be a full-size bedroom. The blinds
were open next to the bed, which Dirk sat down on and looked over at Dave. "You
gonna bring the dick over here or are you just gonna stand there and gawk?"
▼: Dave started; he had been standing in the doorframe in his underwear,
staring at Dirk's things, his eyes falling for a second on the robot designs,
some of which looked very familiar. He was reminded of Bro's workshop,
actually. The last time Dave had been there had been the day Bro died, so
seeing Dirk sitting there in the middle of it all was a little unnerving. He
pushed the thought out of his mind even more quickly than he might have
normally and walked over, pulling his briefs down and kicking them off before
he sat next to Dirk. He had a sudden image of having to go downstairs tomorrow
morning and re-gather all his clothes under the eyes of framed pictures of old-
John and old-Jade and it made him want to laugh, or at least drove out the
alarming image that had popped up unbidden in his mind's eye just a second ago.
Fucking brains.
He grabbed Dirk's hand again when he sat down. Whatever he'd been about to say
had been driven out of his head, so instead he put one of Dirk's fingers
against his lips and grazed it lightly with his teeth, ran his tongue over the
rough pad and raised his eyebrows at Dirk as he did it. Not a gag, but the next
best thing, right?
▲: He pushed his middle and index fingers into Dave's mouth, pressing down on
Dave's tongue and feeling the hot moisture under the pads of his fingers.
"You're about as subtle as a dick in the face. Anyone ever tell you that?" Dirk
didn't really feel malicious right now, though, despite the fact that
ordinarily he'd be wanting to enact revenge for what happened on the couch.
Twisted sexual justice, or some shit like that. But, no, he didn't really have
it in him at the moment. "I should be demanding that *you* cater to *me* right
now, after what happened downstairs. But I guess I'd be a pretty shitty...
friend... if I didn't give you a blowjob on your birthday." It was already past
midnight, so it wasn't actually Dave's birthday anymore. Minor technicality.
He shifted on the bed so that he was straddling Dave-- it felt weird, because
usually this happened the other way around-- and pushed Dave backward onto his
back. He took his fingers out of Dave's mouth and sank down onto the bed to
kiss him. The effect was weird, smelling Dave so close to the familiar drowsy
smell of his bed. It created an odd sort of comfortable dissonance that only
added to his relaxed state. Maybe even made him feel a bit lazy. He didn't stay
at Dave's mouth for very long, though, moving down to kiss his chest and his
stomach while reaching down for Dave's dick with one hand.
▼: "You want to talk about *subtle*...let's be real, you haven't said two
sentences together without mentioning my dick. I think we both know where your
mind's at, man." He let Dirk push him down and arched up into the kiss, keeping
his eyes closed even when Dirk's mouth moved away from his, down his body. He
was amused that Dirk, like Dave himself, had tripped up on the terminology just
now. Earlier he'd mentally thought of Dirk as his "guy," (what the fuck even
was that?), Dirk had used "friend," but when you put the two concepts together
in one compound word it became all at once too much baggage for both of them to
handle. Too much on top of everything else, anyway. He was pretty certain
neither of them really gave a shit, and it didn't really matter because shit,
who was he even going to discuss this with? Hey LeAnn, let me tell you about my
secret boyfriend. Secret bro friend. Secret Brofriend.
He opened his eyes, tore his mind away from *that* train of thought quick as he
fucking could. Dirk was at his stomach, looking up at him with his hands around
Dave's dick. Dirk's palms were warm and dry, and for all his joking about
putting Dirk's mouth on his dick, suddenly Dave was anticipating it much more
immediately. His mind needed to focus on something else, and Dirk's mouth was
the perfect candidate. Dave licked his lips and rocked his hips into Dirk's
hand.
▲: Dave was clearly aroused but not completely hard yet. Dirk could continue to
play with him until he got all the way there, but he was a little too eager to
get started. Instead of waiting, he slid all the way down the bed and got on
his knees on the floor, pulling Dave's ass toward the edge of the bed. He ran
his hands firmly up and down Dave's thighs, kissing the skin just to the side
of Dave's balls and then biting the skin gently-- less like biting and more
like running his teeth over it. "Yeah, you're right," he said into the crook of
Dave's thigh. "Ravenous cockslut right here, I guess. I tried the twelve step
program, but the siren song of your cock was just-- too much for me to handle--
" He licked his lips and took Dave in his mouth at that, and since Dave was
only half hard, Dirk could get it all in his mouth right away with only a small
amount of effort. He sucked on it lightly-- actually sucked, not like 'suck a
dick'-- and worked his tongue back and forth, feeling it continue to grow and
get harder while inside. As Dave got closer to a full erection, Dirk could feel
it starting to press against his throat, and he knew he'd need to pull back in
a minute and recalibrate. But not yet. He reached up and grabbed both of Dave's
hands with his own.
▼: "Yeah, Dave's Dick Anonymous. That's you, always falling off the fucking
wagon. You're hopeless," he said, and then, of course, ceased saying much of
anything at all. He slouched forward a bit as Dirk nipped at him-- which made
his heart beat skip, even though it was only a second-- and when Dirk grabbed
his hands he squeezed back, laced their fingers together and flexed them as his
dick grew in Dirk's mouth. He let out a long breath through his nose, let out
something half between a groan and a sharp inhale. "Yeah, that's good," he said
vaguely, rubbing his thumbs into Dirk's palms more gently as he felt himself go
truly hard. "Might as well get used to just...falling ass-first off that wagon,
you know?" His toes were digging deep as they could into the pile of the
carpet, and he could feel the muscles in his leg tensing up, so he exhaled
again, ran his hands down Dirk's forearms and rested them on his thighs as he
relaxed. Shit, who couldn't stand to be catered to every now and then? It was
pretty fucking nice. Also nice to just feel Dirk's hands in his and to clench
those instead of Dirk's hair. After everything else, something softer was nice.
Dave could admit it, and even Dirk might have if you pressed it.
▲: Dave's dick was feeling uncomfortable in his mouth now that it was hard, so
Dirk pulled back to breathe for a minute, using the spit left behind to stroke
Dave with his hand. Once he got some air, he went back down and settled into a
slow rhythm. This wasn't a back alley blowjob, and there was no need to rush.
Yeah, there was something to be said for softness every so often, and Dirk
actually felt pretty benevolent. Maybe because of their impromptu feelings jam,
but probably just because the malice had been pretty righteously fucked out of
him earlier.
He let go of one of Dave's hands so that he could reach down and palm himself
through his boxer briefs, running his hand up and down over his clothed dick
but not taking it out. This wasn't for him, but giving himself a little
something usually made him a more enthusiastic giver. He squeezed the base
through the fabric, letting out a small moan around Dave's dick before letting
go and going back to focusing on Dave. He brought that hand up and gripped Dave
with it, matching each stroke with his mouth. After a while, he relaxed his
throat and started pushing down as far as he could go-- farther-- until he
could feel Dave's pubes brushing his cheek.
▼: He might have liked to stretch out on his back, just take a spill onto the
bed to mirror the liquid movements of Dirk's mouth, but that would have thrown
everything off and obstructed the view, and the sight of Dirk feeling himself
up and letting out that moan, which started as a thrum in the back of Dirk's
throat and seemed to travel all the way up Dave's spine in a shudder. "Fuck,"
he said, and the word felt just as good on his mouth. He ran his fingers down
the side of Dirk's face, brushing the backs of them over his cheek because it
felt right, as right as wrenching him around by the hair had felt earlier.
"Dirk," he said as Dirk took him about as far down as was physically possible
to go. "*Fuck*. Think about this all the time, about you and that fucking
mouth, you know that?" Which was true; in his mental encyclopedia, next to
"blowjob" there was probably a picture of Dirk.
▲: Dirk knew that Dave thought about him-- after all, that had kinda been the
point of their phone conversation a week ago-- but he liked hearing about it,
especially when Dave's dick was already in his mouth. So-called relentless
dick-ducking enthusiasm aside, doing it for Dave was particularly enjoyable and
only got more so as they got to know each other. He took his other hand back,
using one of them to squeeze Dave's shaft and the other to go back to touching
himself while he pulled back to focus on the head for a little while. From this
angle he could look up at Dave and better feel the hand on his cheek, and he
studied Dave's face. He was getting more used to seeing Dave in this most
familiar of settings, here in his bedroom, and he decided that he wanted to
bring Dave here often. He probably wouldn't be able to as often as he'd like,
but he wasn't going to think about that right now. "Tell me about it. Talk to
me. I'm in a listening mood," he said, punctuating the statements with
exaggerated, smacking sucks on Dave's head.
▼: "Yeah. I..." He broke off and watched Dirk smack his lips on his cock for a
second before he spoke again. "I...I think about it a lot. I mean. You. I think
about you quite a bit, and me," He thrust his hips shallowly into Dirk's mouth
before going on. "I just...I like the idea. Of having this thing with you
that's just...that's like a secret. Just you and me, like...like it should
bother me but it doesn't, it doesn't, it's just...you and me." He wasn't even
sure what he was saying. It wasn't even sexy talk, it was just bullshit, but it
was heartfelt bullshit nonetheless, and his mind was really only half paying
attention to it anyway. He was close, and getting so he couldn't quite control
how much he was rolling his hips into Dirk's mouth. He scratched Dirk's scalp,
which messed up Dirk's hair and worked nicely as a distraction.
▲: Yeah, some secret. Some secret what with how they were all over each other
in public, giving secret blowjobs in public alleys and feeling each other up
under the table in public restaurants. Kissing in the street, freaking out
waitresses, but yeah, sure. Secret. Dirk rolled his eyes but was laughing about
it on the inside. Instead of saying anything about it, he let go of his own
dick and of Dave's dick and he took one of Dave's hands in his again, going
deep on Dave in a steady rhythm that was just fast enough to be effective but
just slow enough to make it a slow burn instead of a race to the finish. He
laced their fingers together and squeezed Dave's hand, enjoying how present
Dave was in front of him. Earlier, on the couch, it had been very detached.
Even though Dave had been very present, it wasn't in Dirk's face (primarily
because Dirk's face had mostly been in the couch cushions). Here, his whole
field of perception was full of Dave's smell and taste. Tactile, too, in his
hand and on his scalp. He ran his other hand up Dave's leg and grabbed his hip,
stabilizing himself so that he could move a little faster. After a while, he
pulled back just long enough to ask, "I don't offer this choice often, so don't
expect it to be a thing. Where do you want to come?"
▼: 'Secret' was relative, he supposed, and holding hands and fucking around in
front of strangers and waitresses who half-remembered him was one thing;
actually telling people you knew was another, although it made it pretty easy
for Dave since he had literally known about five people, tops, even before
being press-ganged. Whatever. He almost wanted to laugh. "Oh wow, the
tantalizing option of the facial. Happy fucking birthday, right?" He did laugh
at that, because he knew what he wanted suddenly, and it wasn't that. "Get up
here." He pulled Dirk back on the bed with him and pushed him onto his back,
leaning down to kiss him not very neatly, because he was working himself,
working the saliva that was left on his cock and straddling Dirk's stomach as
he did it. His breathing had gotten heavy and strained; apparently he'd gotten
more worked up than he thought he had, or he really had been looking forward to
another blowjob more urgently than anticipated. Either way, when he came he let
out a groan, before tucking his head down and digging his upper teeth into
Dirk's shoulder, just enough to scrape.
▲: Dirk let himself be pulled up easily enough, and he was a lot more turned on
than he really expected to be at this moment. He subconsciously bit down on the
inside of his bottom lip when he felt and heard how heavily Dave was breathing
up close. That was always the shitty part about blowjobs, right? More intimate
in terms of the sexual minutia, but less face-to-face intimacy. He guessed that
was why he'd kept grabbing at Dave's hands. "That wasn't the only option on the
table. Some guys like to come on a dude's chest, you know?" Apparently Dave
knew a hell of a lot about that. Dirk reached up and put his palms flat on
Dave's back and rubbed the hot, sensitive skin up and down while Dave came. He
sighed, looking off to the side and out the window while he kept rubbing Dave's
back, waiting for Dave to come back from wherever he goes after an orgasm. He
brought one hand all the way up to settle on the back of Dave's neck, and it
occurred to Dirk that what he really wanted was to pull Dave in, as close as
possible. It might have been able to wait until Dave came back to earth and had
time to wipe Dirk's chest off, but Dirk was a little too impatient for that.
They could hose down later, right? So he wrapped his arms around Dave and
pulled him down so that their chests were pressing together, and he tucked his
face into Dave's neck.
▼: He huffed out a long breath that turned into a laugh. "Why not, right? Share
and share alike," he said as he ran his hands down Dirk's sides. Despite the
mess, it felt so satisfying, to lie there so heavily with Dirk's hands on him,
that he thought he could stay where he was until he turned another year older,
probably. Dirk was warm under him, and a little hard, and Dave could feel
Dirk's cock against the top of his thigh, this comfortable pressure just next
to his own.
Eventually, some of his energy reasserted itself. He turned Dirk's face toward
him for another kiss before moving downwards, nipping at the skin of Dirk's
neck until he got to the chest. He caught Dirk's eye as he licked, long and
slow, at his own semen, running his tongue all the way up Dirk's breastbone to
the base of his throat. He wondered briefly why he always ended up doing this
with Dirk, the come lapping thing. Probably the memory of Dirk's gobsmacked
expression the time they'd snowballed was what impelled him, or maybe he just
liked his own jizz. Who even fucking knew. He lapped at it a couple more times
before moving down to feel the bulge in Dirk's briefs, mouthing it through the
fabric before licking that too, just as slowly.
▲: Dirk's eyes went wide when he saw what Dave was doing and felt the tongue on
his chest. He didn't know why shit like this was always so shocking to him,
especially considering the other shit he was into, but Dave was really the only
person he'd been with to ever do it. Maybe it was shocking because it was a
rare thing that was new to him. Either way, it jolted an exaggerated exhale out
of him, which only got deeper when Dave moved down. "You don't have to--" His
train of thought was momentarily derailed when Dave licked him, but he fought
hard to refocus. "That was for you, you know? I'm not--" He put his hand in
Dave's hair, petting it down softly. "I'm not in this to win it. Or something.
Fuck, that made no sense, did it?" His point was that he wasn't keeping score,
or that if he was, he wanted Dave to come out on top. One of the two. He didn't
feel this strongly enough to actually stop Dave from what he was doing, but
enough that he really wanted to say it.
▼: Dave paused when he said that, looking up with his mouth still hovering over
the seam at the front of Dirk's briefs. "Not a whole lot of sense, no." He
moved up to grab Dirk's hands as he spoke, which, unlike the careful movements
of his tongue and his mouth, was pretty obviously uncalculated. It just felt
right, in that moment. "I kind of figured this wasn't some exaggerated battle
for sexual oneupmanship or whatever." He could see, after what they'd talked
about, why Dirk would want to make that reassurance, but he wouldn't have
admitted it. "Don't worry," he said, before going back to work and licking at
the seam again. The material was getting really damp now, very obviously
outlining Dirk's cock. He mouthed it once, lingering down and then back up
until he got to the waistband. At that he paused, caught Dirk's eye again, and
squeezed his hands. "I thought you'd be jumping at the chance to have
me...shit, what was the fucking phrase? Be an altar boy at the holy eucharist
of your cock? Light a couple candles or some shit, right?" He snapped the
elastic with his teeth. "You telling me to stop? Is that it?"
▲: "No, but if that's what you're aiming for, you might wanna try coming up
with some hymns about your holy devotion to my cock and how it is going to
deliver you from the twin bondage of sin and materialism." Dirk had delivered
Dave from something, anyway, but he really didn't think sin was it. "Unless in
this case, lighting a candle is a metaphor for getting me to come. If so, I
will gladly anoint your forehead with the holy oil." Wow, Dirk was full of this
specific type of bullshit. "Did I ever tell you I went to a Catholic elementary
school? I feel like that would explain a lot. Had to wear a uniform and
everything." He stopped talking for a second to take a deep, shuddering breath.
"Shit-- Do that again." He squeezed Dave's hands tightly and arched his hips
off the bed so that Dave could pull off his underwear. "I think about you a lot
too, as long as we're keeping score." He leaned his head back on the bed and
stared up at the ceiling, since his neck was starting to hurt from trying to
look down at what Dave was doing. "All the fucking time."
▼: "That does explain some things. Not all the things, but some of them," he
said, and then pulled down the elastic band to expose Dirk's cock. "It's like
your life is some weird carapacian remake of The Godfather or something. Shit,
I don't know." He put his lips around the head and sucked on it a bit to make
it harder, and let go of one of Dirk's hands to pull his underwear out of the
way. He listened to Dirk's words and thought about Dirk lying here in the dark
the other night, feeling himself up and talking to Dave on the phone at the
same time, and how near Dirk had felt to him even though Dirk had really been,
frustratingly, very far away. Suddenly Dave really wanted to be face to face
instead of just down here. He pulled himself up again and pressed their chests
together again, leaving just enough room for one of his hands to keep working
Dirk between them. "Do you," he said, with his mouth right by Dirk's ear. In
his haste to bring himself level with Dirk, Dave had pulled them into some
weird half-embrace, with one arm slung around Dirk's back and his mouth pressed
up against the side of Dirk's head, like he'd tried to kiss him and missed his
mark.
▲: It pretty much *was* an embrace, since the first thing that Dirk did was put
his arms around Dave's back again. As much as he enjoyed feeling Dave's lips on
his dick, he'd already gotten a blowjob once tonight, and he was more in the
mood for face-to-face encounters. Then again, he'd already gotten a handjob
once, too. His choices were limited, here, and he wasn't really in the mood to
fuck Dave right now. He didn't give a shit about that, though; he just wanted
more Dave in his face while he was getting off. The window was still open, and
the room was a little cold, and Dave was just-- all over him, his breath, his
hands, his weight. Dirk closed his eyes and turned his face to the side,
pressing it into Dave's neck and thrusting his hips up into Dave's hand.
"Yeah," he whispered, his voice strained. "I think of you like every time. I've
never gotten off so efficiently in my fucking life. The fuck did you even do to
me?" He dug his fingernails into Dave's shoulders and let out a moan next to
Dave's ear. "Don't even remember the last time I watched porn. Do you have any
idea how big of a compliment that is?"
▼: "I tried to," he said quietly, and he rearranged his leg so Dirk was
thrusting up against his thigh. "Watch porn, I mean." He broke off in surprise
briefly when Dirk jerked his hips up particularly sharply. "Total waste, I
ended up thinking about you and didn't even pay any fucking attention." He kept
working Dirk, not incredibly effectively because he was more intent on feeling
Dirk's skin on his than he was on whatever his hand was doing. He caught Dirk's
earlobe between his teeth and tugged at it. "I don't know what I did to you.
Ensnared you in my web of...whatever. Could ask you the same question. On paper
this should all just seem like such a bad fucking idea but every time I see you
I just..." Well, he just ended up in this position, or a variety of similar
ones. He rocked against Dirk's cock once or twice, so it rubbed up and down his
leg.
▲: Dirk didn't even care about the seriously inefficient handjob, because this
was more about sensation than anything else anyway. It was getting late, and
he'd already gotten off twice. He wanted to come again, obviously, but if he
didn't, that was fine too. Dave got him worked up, made him breathe hard, made
him feel good. Dave made him think about something other than work for a while,
and holy shit that was nice. It had been a long time since he'd had so good of
a distraction. Maybe too good. He reached down and took his dick in his own
hand, positioning it so that it pressed up and between Dave's thighs, and then
he grabbed Dave's hands again and put them on the mattress over his head,
clasping them tightly. He didn't know why this had become a thing that he
wanted insatiably all of a sudden-- this holding both of Dave's hands-- but he
didn't want to stop, not even to get his dick touched. "You what? Every time
you see me you do what?" He didn't wait for an answer, turning his head to kiss
Dave instead. He thrust himself between Dave's legs with the same slow rhythm
as the kiss, and it built up to something that was actually pretty effective.
He picked up some speed, and his breaths became labored, punctuated with small
grunts that got muffled against Dave's mouth. "What? What? You what?" he
demanded again, breaking the kiss to breathe more deeply.
▼: He only had to brace himself enough so Dirk could thrust up against him.
Dirk's cock rubbed against him and felt strange on the over-sensitive skin
between his legs, but that didn't really matter when Dirk's breath was so hot
and demanding. "I want you," he said, which was true, even though the ways in
which he wanted Dirk tended to change by the hour. By the *minute*, maybe. "I
just...I never know if I want to fuck you up or for you to fuck me up, and
shit, it doesn't even *matter*." He squeezed Dirk's hands, laced their fingers
together until it almost hurt. "Doesn't matter, 'cause every time we just end
up...end up fucking each other, just plain old fucking, and it's so good, it's
so good, *Dirk*." The mental distinction he was making between *fucking each
other up* and just plain old *fucking* was confusing him, but the sensations
were overwhelming him, and Dirk was so demanding that he could give in with no
compunction. "It's so good and I just want to be...just want you to hold onto
me." He dipped his head down to kiss Dirk, feeling Dirk's chest warm and
breathing and completely whole underneath him. A more sardonic part of his
brain was thinking wistfully once more of the gag idea, but most of it was
enjoying this, enjoying Dirk like this, too much to care.
▲: Intercrural fucking wasn't Dirk's favorite way to get off, but it allowed
way more body contact than the other kind of fucking, at least where human
dudes were concerned, and that's where Dirk's priorities were at the moment.
And anyway, it got the job done. He was working himself up to a much better
orgasm than the depressed one he'd had on the couch earlier. And suddenly,
there it was. He knew why he was suddenly so enthusiastic about holding Dave's
hands, because while Dave had been holding Dirk's hand over Dirk's throat,
helping him choke himself, Dirk had thought that it was their own twisted kind
of intimacy, like their version of fucking while holding hands. He guessed that
now that he was feeling a little more red than black, he'd try it the regular
people kind of way. They must have hit all of the two-person quadrants tonight,
not that Dirk really bought much into the concept. His thrusts became more
erratic as Dave continued to talk, his words about fucking each other up and
just plain fucking each other driving Dirk closer, because wow, could he
fucking relate. There really wasn't anything else to say about it because Dave
had it pretty much covered. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm--" He let go of Dave's hands to
grab Dave's hips and help him thrust faster, more controlled, and Dirk's mouth
fell open in a moan as he came, wet and sticky between Dave's thighs. He kept
thrusting through the orgasm, making everything slick and messy. "Shit," he
muttered, slowing down but not stopping, riding through the aftershocks. That
was way better. Now they were a fucking mess at both ends.
▼: He had to brace himself above Dirk's body, even though Dirk was holding onto
him. He balled up his fists and dug them into mattress on either side of Dirk's
head, panting a little. Dirk's movements against the sensitive skin just
beneath his balls caused this strange, brief yet intense pleasure, nothing like
coming but really nice all the same, and even moreso when Dirk came all over
his thighs. He shuddered and collapsed back on top of Dirk as Dirk rode out the
orgasm. Once Dirk had stilled somewhat Dave parted his legs, spreading the mess
around between the two of them. Share and share alike, right? Their chests were
pressed together again, and for a second Dave almost laughed at the mess they
had made, at the fucked up messes both of them were together, and how much he
failed at making himself care. "Ok," he said, after a bit, only moving enough
so his head was turned up and Dirk could hear him. "So, thigh-fucking is
usually pretty damn lamesauce, in my opinion, but that was *awesome*. So." He
expected to start getting fidgety as they laid there, but he was still really
comfortable, and the room was cold enough that it made him want to stay on top
of Dirk with their skin pressed together instead of getting up. "I don't think
I'm going to let you up. Guess you converted me too well, huh? To your
intercrural altar or whatever."
▲: "So many ancient Greek motherfuckers can't be wrong, right? Shit, maybe we
should do that more often. Would be a lot better with some lube, though." He'd
keep that in mind for next time. For now, he was content to just hold Dave like
Dave had asked him to do just before he came. He focused on getting his breath
back, looking out the window and wondering if anyone had seen them. Unlike at
the hotel, it was possible that he could find out. Like if he got any angry
phone calls from someone claiming he'd given their preteen daughter an early
education in the special kind of physical love between two dudes. He didn't
think that was going to happen, though. Dirk cleared his throat. "Glad to know
I converted you. It was a long and arduous process, but I'm glad to be doing
God's work." He reached down and rubbed Dave's ass before moving his hands even
farther down and wiping them through the mess he made. "As promised, I will now
anoint thee." Before Dave could figure out what he meant, Dirk wiped his thumb
across Dave's forehead, smearing semen in a stripe. The urge to whisper 'Simba'
was very fucking strong, but for one thing he didn't want to mix his metaphors,
and for another thing, he didn't think this situation really needed with any
more layers of familial weirdness.
▼: "You are. So fucking disgusting, dude," said Dave, rolling his eyes. He'd
noticed Dirk looking out the window, and felt a second of alarm at the idea of
somebody seeing them, which honestly had not even occurred to him the entire
time. It didn't really bother him, but he wished he'd thought to notice it
before. Still, he'd been...distracted by things upon first coming into the
room. Everything had felt portentous, almost foreboding, and now...well, now
Dirk was anointing his head like it was the jizz of their lord Jesus Christ,
which he was reasonably certain was not a sacrament even in Catholicism. The
mood had changed somewhat, was the point, and that was just fucking fine with
him. "You got a complex or somethin', dude. I'm seriously worried about you.
Here." He ran his hand through the come coating their chests and applied it to
Dirk's bangs like it was hair gel. "This'll help. This'll give you that crucial
lift you've been looking for."
▲: Dirk screwed up his face, but he didn't fight it. "Well, now I'm definitely
taking a shower. Thanks for making that decision easy for me, because I was
very fucking torn for a hot second." Instead of trying to get up, he leaned up
and kissed Dave again, and while he did it he reached down to get even more
come on his hands. On breaking the kiss, he wiped both hands down Dave's
cheeks. "Seriously. You've never looked hotter," he said, tracing his finger
over Dave's mouth. Then he kissed him again, running his tongue along Dave's
lips and tasting himself. Dirk wasn't huge on having come in his mouth, but
Dave had this weird effect on him. Shit, what else was new. He laughed and
forced his way out from under Dave. "I mean it though, I'm going to take a
shower. You should probably join me, because there's no way I'm letting you
anywhere near my pillows like that." He walked out of the bedroom and across
the hall, flipping the light on in the bathroom. He looked at himself in the
mirror for a minute, and wow. He looked fucked all the hell up. Something About
Mary hair aside, he had all kinds of bright scratches and red spots all over. A
few bruises too. Shit. Dave really knew how to leave a calling card.
▼: "I fucking hate you, holy shit," he said. Licking up come in the heat of the
moment was one thing, but he felt obscurely like he shouldn't be encouraging
Dirk's tendency to finger-paint him with the zeal of a monkey throwing shit,
but he couldn't help it. He kissed back with relish and rolled off the bed to
follow Dirk into the bathroom. It felt weird, showering so late, but he knew he
would feel better for it in the end too.
In the bathroom, he found Dirk studying himself in the mirror, and the bright
lights over the mirror painted a much starker portrait than the dim lamps
downstairs and in Dirk's bedroom. Dirk looked kind of rough, like he'd lost a
fight or fallen into a thorn bush or something, and it filled him with a
strange kind of pride. He came up behind Dirk and wrapped his arms around him,
standing on his toes so he could more easily run his lips over the marks he'd
left and mutter in Dirk's ear. "Dirk," he said in a breathy whisper, his lips
trailing up Dirk's neck to tug lightly at his ear lobe. "Dirk. Where the fuck
are your towels, Jesus Christ."
▲: "Hmm?" Dirk mumbled, still checking himself out. There was a particularly
nasty bite mark on his shoulder that reminded him of something he'd thought
about earlier, when he was thinking that Dave might break the skin. Now wasn't
really the time to bring it up, though. He'd wait until they were in bed for
the night, since Dave had a habit of getting chatty at that point anyway. He
leaned back into Dave's torso, which was sticky on the bare skin of his back.
Ugh. Shower, right. "Closet," he said, gesturing vaguely at a linen closet in
the hallway and then pulling away to start the hot water in the shower. He
stepped in before Dave got back from the hallway, leaving the shower door
partially open for him. The spray from the shower felt sharp on his over-
sensitive skin, but it felt good. There were like three orgasms worth of jizz
all over him in varying degrees of dryness-- not to mention the lube that was
still kinda clinging to his ass-- so it felt really fucking good to be able to
start rinsing some of this shit off. Damn. Fucking Dave was a dirty job.
Instead of soaping up, his first concern was his hair, and he was already
shampooing it when Dave stepped in not too much later.
▼: He grabbed the towels and dropped them on the toilet seat before getting
into the shower behind Dirk. Dirk, he had decided, looked distracted, or
thoughtful about something, but Dave didn't want to ask what it was either.
Maybe Dirk was getting tired, or maybe he was remembering the last time they'd
taken a shower together, and had argued. Dave didn't even remember what they
had argued *about*, just that it had been very fraught and he'd looked back on
it with embarrassment later. This time he kept quiet, leaned against the tile
of the shower, and let Dirk get first dibs on the hot water, out of the
boundless goodness of his soul, probably. "Jesus, dude, calm down. It was just
a little spunk, you're scrubbing at it like it's biohazard material or
something." He was also keeping out of the way because Dirk was at the perfect
height to fling the soap in Dave's eyes without meaning to, and Dave figured
that would be the stupidest way to start an argument, inadvertent soap-
throwing. Wasn't like he even felt like arguing. He was tired too.
▲: "If I let it get close to dry, it'll be impossible to get out," he said over
his shoulder. He was almost done anyway, so he turned around to face Dave while
he rinsed it out. He stood under the spray with his eyes closed and let it coat
his head, sending rivulets of water and suds all down his body. The steam and
the white noise was soothing, and it was the calm, relaxed atmosphere that made
him realize how totally fucking exhausted he was. "If I fall down, please do
your best to make sure I don't drown in half an inch of water like a fucking
infant, ok? I think you fucked the life right out of me." He actually felt a
little unsteady on his feet, so he put an arm out to brace against the wall and
opened his eyes. Dave was looking at him studiously, leaning against the tile,
which had to be cold as balls, so Dirk grabbed his hand and pulled him under
the water. "Hey," Dirk said before kissing him, and there wasn't any heat
behind it but there was still an intensity to it. Kind of needy, maybe, like
Dirk needed to ground himself after everything that had happened today and Dave
was some sort of lightning rod.
▼: "But what a way to go, right?" He kissed Dirk back under the water.
Apparently he hadn't realized how cold he'd been, not just in the shower but in
the bedroom too, until he went under the hot water. The kiss was strangely
chaste, but he let it linger because the water was glancing off Dirk's shoulder
and hitting him in the perfect way as they stood like this. He remembered what
Dirk's objection to showering together the first time had been; Dirk had said
that doing so would forcibly spring them up several rungs on the fuckbuddy
echeladder, or whatever metric you used to measure how "serious" a relationship
was getting. (Dave inserted the mental scare quotes there automatically; he
couldn't even help himself inside his own brain.) For better or worse, though,
he and Dirk had mercilessly destroyed the echeladder of normal sex things. They
had methodically dismantled it and used it for kindling and then had sex by the
bonfire as it burned up. Or something. He didn't quite know.
He wasn't really concerned with getting squeaky clean; just removing the upper
layers of grime from his skin would be fine. He rinsed off his front and went
to grab the bar of soap as he spoke to Dirk. "Easy now. You've got me worrying
here, you're all teetering on your feet and not filled with irritating bravado
about stuff. It's throwing *me* off."
▲: "My bravado was part of that vitality that had to vacate the premises to
make room for all the fucking." Well and truly fucked, indeed. "I mean it. You
destroyed me." He let out a breath that was just on the far side of a sigh and
leaned back against the wall under the shower head, letting Dave have the full
benefit of the spray for a while. Dirk was edging far too close to Talking
About It, so he figured it was better to just shut up. He might be willing to
Talk About It some more, but not here where he was standing naked in full
lighting, face to face with the object and subject of a vast majority of the
things that needed talking about. He distracted himself by helping Dave spread
the soap around, running his fingers over Dave's chest and stomach, slippery
against the hot skin. It was nice to just be together silently, because it gave
Dirk time to just shut up and look at Dave, observe him doing stupid shit like
rinsing jizz out from between his legs. Too bad Dave hardly ever let silences
linger, but fortunately he allowed it this time. Maybe Dave was tired too. Dirk
noticed that Dave didn't look nearly as worse for wear as he did this time
around. This night had been nothing like what Dirk had expected, but that was
okay. He took the soap from Dave and soaped himself up too, pushing Dave out of
the spray so that he could rinse off. The steam from the shower was starting to
feel oppressive, making him light-headed, so he put his hands on Dave's hips
and moved him gently, trading places so that Dirk was at the back of the shower
now. "Sorry, I'm kind of in a hurry all of a sudden. I'm gonna go downstairs
and get some water."
▼: "All right. Could you bring my bag up? I left it by the rabbit." He had
decided on the spur of the moment to wash his hair too, use Dirk's shampoo and
unravel the mystery of how Dirk got his hair to smell like that. He'd washed
his hair that morning, but he was partly using it as an excuse to be by himself
for a bit. He watched Dirk climb out of the shower, and could make out his
blurry outline through the thick glass of the door. Dirk left him to it, so
Dave stood there for a length of time, thinking and running his fingers through
his hair.
He was drying off as he made his way back to Dirk's room, stopping to eye some
of the framed pictures in the hallway for a second before tearing himself away.
He could save that for tomorrow. For now he was sleepy, and chilled too. When
he got back to Dirk's room he pulled his underwear back on like that would
really help, and shut the window tightly, which did. He was just climbing onto
the bed when he heard Dirk coming back.
▲: Dirk made a cursory pass at his body with the towel before wrapping it
around his waist and going downstairs. He drank a full glass of water, filled
it up a second time, grabbed Dave's bag, and then brought them both upstairs.
"When the hell did you bring this? I swear I didn't even notice it," he said
absently, dropping the bag at the foot of the bed and depositing the water on
the night stand. He hung the towel on the door and rummaged through his dresser
for some clean underwear before finally turning off the lamp and getting into
bed. His sigh of relief was probably louder than really necessary, but fuck, it
felt so good to crawl into bed and know that he didn't have to get up for a
while, especially since his legs had been jelly for some time now. He rolled
onto his side to face Dave and threw one arm over Dave's chest. "These sheets
are probably disgusting. That shit's getting changed tomorrow. Oh my god."
Now was the time to talk about the thing he'd thought of in the bathroom, but
there was really no good way to cold open the 'You should get tested for HIV
since you were a hooker for three months and this is very relevant to me
because we've been having a lot of wild monkey sex' conversation. It occurred
to him that maybe Roxy had already taken care of that. Maybe he should hold off
on it and just ask her to bring it up with Dave, but... no, he was the one
fucking him, so he should be the one to talk about it. Just not right this
second. Right this second he wanted to lay here and feel every muscle in his
body relax while he waited for Dave to say something.
▼: "That's the thing about carrying a robot bunny, I guess," Dave said,
settling under the sheets as Dirk moved around the room. "Kind of makes it hard
to notice anything else you've got with you." It *was* a pretty small bag, one
of those hip packs that only owned by tourists and grandmas and apparently
Roxy, since he had stolen it from her. It was small, but he hadn't really
needed to bring much. He'd packed some shorts to sleep in that he apparently
wasn't going to avail himself of, because when Dirk stretched out next to him
and put his arm over him, Dave became much less inclined to move around, and
sleepier than he'd thought he was. "Yeah, what is up with these sheets, what
the hell. What kind of service is this. I'm very displeased with this fucking
hotel, where the hell is my comment card and complimentary breakfast?" The
sheets, actually, felt fine. They weren't rank but they did smell like Dirk
faintly, which he didn't mind. "Sort of glad we did this. Instead of a hotel.
Dunno about you." A hotel probably would have been simpler, he thought with a
grimace that Dirk couldn't see.
▲: "If you really have your heart set on breakfast, I could make you some, but
are you sure you really want to see me be that domestic? It would probably
shatter some illusions you have of me." Also, Dirk's idea of a good breakfast
was cold pizza, which wasn't to say that he was incapable of making a more
traditional breakfast like huevos rancheros or some shit like that, just that
he was normally disinclined to go to the trouble. And anyway, he didn't want to
think about getting up and doing anything right now, even things that were
still like seven or eight hours in the future, because his body was really
starting to ache. He shifted around a bit, trying to find a comfortable
position before he realized that it was really his mind that was restless, not
his body. Well, fuck. Might as well rip this bandaid off. "Something's been on
my mind, and there's never going to be a *good* time to ask it, so fuck it, I'm
just going to ask now. Have you been tested since you left the Horse Hitcher?"
▼: "Oh. Yeah." He shifted around too, rolled onto his back and sat up on the
pillows somewhat. "Yeah. I...yeah. Don't worry," he added hastily, in case Dirk
thought all this hedging was the precursor to bad news. "I'm fine. I did get
tested. Roxy found me a free clinic first week I got there. Drove me two towns
over and everything. I think the people who work at her place have a guy they
go to if they're worried, but we figured I shouldn't go to him, just in case
word got back to Noir. Not that it would, but." He shrugged. "Paranoia is way
too easy when you're in hiding, you know that? You never know if you're being
rational about stuff or if you're just jumping at every goddamn shadow that
comes your way. Anyway. Yeah. I'm clean." He slid down the pillows a bit. "It's
weird. That whole...time, it doesn't even feel real anymore. Feels like
somebody else lived it for me, you know?" But then, when he'd been living in
the Horse Hitcher he'd felt the same way about his old life, too. Maybe he was
just good at compartmentalizing. Too good, maybe. "Sorry, I probably should
have brought that stuff up earlier. Wasn't sure how to...yeah."
▲: Shit, that was a pretty major relief. Dirk let out a long, low exhale,
letting himself be glad for a minute before going back and turning over the
other stuff Dave had said. "You're talking to the guy who does splinter selves.
Of course I know what that's like. Like, right now, it feels like some other
guy who wakes up and goes to work every day." He slid up closer to Dave,
wrapping his arm around Dave's chest again, since it had gotten dislodged when
they had both started shifting around with discomfort. "And when I'm working,
I'm definitely a different person than I am when I'm with you. I'm all like,
'shit, dude, I wish I could be that fucking guy right now and not here
listening to all these douchebags talk about weapons trafficking and breathing
in their cigar smoke'." This was also getting dangerously close to talking
about feelings, and whatever it was the two of them were even doing with each
other, but Dirk was just so bone tired and exhausted and relieved and so
thoroughly fucked emotionally and physically that he didn't even care. Maybe it
was because he was in such an extreme state that things were looking pretty
clear to him right now, like the fact that there were pretty obvious parallels
here between his thought patterns regarding Dave and the way his thought
patterns had been regarding Jake, back before he figured certain things out. Of
course, most if it was very fucking different. Never in his wildest dreams
would he imagine having an existential crisis while getting fucked by Jake.
▼: "I was thinking about that in the shower, since that was where we...uh,
first talked about that. First *argued* about that. About the multiple selves
thing." He hated how relieved he felt when Dirk put his arm back over him, even
though he was pretty sure he was the one who had withdrawn from it just now.
Maybe he just wanted the contact, but it made him feel needy as hell, almost as
needy as he'd felt that first time in the shower, which maybe was what had
propelled the argument along. He hadn't been sure at the time, and he really
didn't remember now.
He was more comfortable now, though. Dirk was obviously more comfortable now,
and that helped. He rolled onto his side, and let Dirk pull him closer. "How
far down do you think it goes?" he was asking suddenly. "I used to wonder that.
How much of it is putting on a front, doing it...shit, let's say doing it for
the *irony*, even though that doesn't really mean anything. But where does that
shit stop being a front and start being you?" He wasn't sure if this counted as
a good question, or as a question that seemed really deep when you asked it as
the both of you were in the process of falling asleep.
▲: "I don't know," he said honestly, pulling his head in and pressing his face
against Dave's shoulder. Dave wasn't the only one who felt needy right now, and
this was some *seriously* unfamiliar territory for Dirk. "It's a defense
mechanism, right?" He spoke into Dave's shoulder, his lips ghosting over the
skin as they moved. It wasn't sexual. "You do it until either you don't need to
do it anymore, or until you start to mean it and it just becomes who you are
now. Like, now you're just that dude who has a problem with multiple
personalities and really likes fucking his brother." Well, shit. There it
fucking was, wasn't it? All laid out like a dining hall buffet. He wanted to
take it back immediately after saying it, but what could he do, you know? He
pulled back before Dave could say anything and rolled over, sitting up on the
edge of the bed. "Water," he mumbled, and grabbed the glass off the bedside
table, taking a long, slow drink.
▼: He let out a shaky, mostly humorless laugh, even as Dirk pulled away like
he'd been scalded. "I'm not sure if that's better or worse than whatever I was
before." He trailed off because it hit him that Dirk was referring to himself
as well when he said that, and then suddenly something clicked in his mind, and
he remembered that Dirk, unlike Dave, hadn't been faced with their connection
every time he looked at Dave in the eye, that Dirk, unlike Dave, could ignore
it quite easily if he wanted to. And why wouldn't you want to? Dave certainly
knew that feeling well. "Shit. Is that why you...earlier, on the couch, is that
why you..." He trailed off again, and watched Dirk drink his water, which for
whatever reason it made him think of that song or phrase or whatever it was,
about giving water to a drowning man. He decided to take Dirk's silence as at
least partial assent, and sat up, drawing his knees to his chest. "Yeah. Yeah,
ok. I get it. It hits you, right? Smacks you right in the solar plexus. Doesn't
help if you're naked and in the middle of getting your freak on with the dude
in question, right?" He nodded, rocked forward a little onto his knees. "Yeah.
Ok. I get it." It was all he could say. Pretty much all the comfort he could
offer. One minute reaching out and grabbing Dirk had been easy as anything, but
now this was...pretty much all he had, as reactions went.
▲: Dirk hadn't really been thirsty to begin with, so he sat the water back down
on the table. He stayed on the edge of the bed, looking out into the darkness.
Being smacked in the solar plexus was putting it lightly, although Dave had the
location correct at least. More like getting hit in the chest by the cab of a
truck. "Is that what it's like for you every time?" he asked with a voice that
was uncharacteristically unsteady. Looks like all the Dirk walls are coming
down tonight. Why the hell not. "Cause, I mean, I can handle it if it's just
going to hit me like that every so often, you know? But if it's always like
that for you, I dunno, it kinda makes me feel like I'm doing a Really Bad
Thing." He remembered asking Roxy if he was doing a bad thing, and her
basically telling him that it wasn't her place to say. He wasn't sure who's
place it even was to determine that, but he figured Dave was as good as any.
▼: "Not every time, no. Sometimes." He watched Dirk's back, and the part of
Dirk's face he could see in profile. "Sometimes it does hit you. And sometimes
that's what you want, right? You want to be choked and smacked and get the air
knocked out of you, either literally or...or metaphorically, 'cause it lets you
remember how fucked up you are, for liking it, for wanting it, on some level. A
level that...you maybe never let yourself think about." He grimaced again, and
wished obliquely that Dirk would look at him. Sometimes addressing the darkness
was easier and sometimes it was easier to see the whites of their eyes. This
was one of those few times, but he pressed on anyway. "I don't know," he said.
"I still don't know." He finally made his legs push him across the bed, so he
was sitting alongside Dirk. Leaning forward to draw Dirk's face towards him and
kiss him felt strange at first, stilted, but it was easier than talking. Got
the *point* across better than talking. After he pulled away he rested his head
on Dirk's shoulder, unsure of what to say. "I need you," he said, staring into
the darkness himself now. "In...an odd way. Lots of odd ways. Lots of
conflicting odd ways. So."
▲: It *did* feel weird to kiss Dave in the middle of this conversation, but it
also made Dirk feel better, like Dave either didn't think he was doing
something wrong or at the very least didn't blame him for it. Maybe even wanted
him to do it. Actually, there was no 'maybe' about it, because that was what
Dave just said if you boiled it down. Yeah, shit sucks and it's all fucked up,
but that's what I want and that's what you want. That's what they both wanted.
The whys didn't even matter. He kissed back, and that felt needy too. He didn't
feel like himself at all tonight, but that was probably just an effect of
shedding all the bullshit he usually propped up around him. You wouldn't feel
much like yourself if you suddenly started walking around naked in public,
would you?
He didn't really have much to say in response to what Dave was saying, so he
just let him keep talking, putting his arm around Dave's back. Dave needing him
brought up a lot of things that he wasn't sure he was ready to tackle, but it
was still more of the same. Just them hurdling over all the normal bullshit two
people have to go through when they want to be with each other for whatever
reason. "Me too," he admitted. So they needed each other. Did that make them
boyfriends or brothers?
Wow.
Something needed to be done here before Dirk could slip up and ask that
question out loud. He took his other arm and slipped it under Dave's knees, and
then he stood up, lifting Dave (with some effort) and suplexing him back onto
the bed. He crawled on top of Dave and let his body go limp, collapsing and
covering Dave at every possible point. "God, I am so tired. I can't believe I
even had the energy left to do that. I don't think I really did. Can we talk
about something else? See any good movies lately? I hear that Troll Pretty
Woman is a good one."
▼: "That was a good segue," he said. "Very smooth." He readjusted a bit, so
Dirk's head was resting comfortably on his chest. He ran his hands down Dirk's
back, feeling his adrenaline come back down after the surprise of getting his
ass hauled off the ground. Part of him didn't mind being carried bodily and
literally tossed into the next avenue of conversation. "We'll never know how
awful or amazing Troll Pretty Woman is. It's my one regret from my 18th
birthday. We just were not strong enough to face it. It's really sad, when you
consider that in my prime I could watch such a shitty movie and it was no
sweat. Hell, it was even what I did for *fun*." He closed his eyes, and by the
end of his rambling he was getting more and more sleepy. Dirk's weight on him
had gone from hilarious to oppressive to almost soporific. He wasn't as
physically worn-down as Dirk was, but together both of them had just subjected
their psyches to some serious mental wringing. He was ready to sleep, and let
Dirk pass out on whatever portion of Dave's anatomy that he felt like.
"Tomorrow I will. Like. Go face-to-face with my failure. Just you watch me."
▲: "Holy shit dude, shut the hell up." Dirk had never known anyone who could
talk for so long about nothing at all, excepting possibly himself, especially
when he goes on one of his freaky religious metaphor tangents mid-coitus. But
that was one thing. Talking shit during sex was expected. Talking shit when you
were trying to sleep was just rude. He smiled into Dave's chest, starting to
feel a little bit more like himself. The suplex helped a lot. He'd been
threatening to show Dave some of his wrestling moves for a long time, so it was
about fucking time that he got around to it. It also made a fucking bomb-ass
distraction from awkward questions that stuck in your brain and threatened to
get said. He rolled over so that he was only half-draped across Dave's body
instead of completely squishing him. Would be a shame if Dave accidentally
suffocated on his crushing weight in the middle of the night. "You'll be face-
to-face with something in the morning, that's for sure. Maybe by then I'll even
be able to get it up again." What was more likely was that he'd be hit with a
surreal case of friend time clone weirdness, which was only slightly better
than dead brother time clone weirdness. But still better. Either Dave finally
did shut up or Dirk went a little too far down to hear him, but whichever one
it was, Dirk was asleep not very long after. What a hell of a day.
***** Chapter 12 *****
Chapter Notes
     This is the last of the existing content for this RP log. The story
     will continue to be updated here if we write more, but updates will
     be significantly more sporadic from now on, if they come at all.
▼: Maybe it was leftover anxiety from all their Serious Discussing, or being in
an unfamiliar bed, or maybe just because his fucking hair was wet, but Dave
didn't sleep that well, or that long. He woke so early he was surprised it was
light out, so early he wasn't even going to wake Dirk. After staring resolutely
at the gradually brighter window, he decided he might as well get up, since he
wasn't getting back to sleep. He stood up and put on his clean underwear and
shirt; his jeans were still downstairs. Dirk didn't even stir all the time he
was moving around, so Dave decided to leave him be and go snoop around the
house.
Snooping around was a foregone conclusion, once it appeared that Dirk wasn't
going to be rejoining the living anytime soon. Dave thought about going
downstairs, finding his pants, fighting with Dirk's coffeemaker and watching
early morning infomercials on the TV, then rejected that idea out of hand. This
was a rare opportunity. Maybe it would be weird if Dirk caught him sniffing
around his personal effects, but that was a conditional; *if* Dave got caught.
The upper rooms of Dirk's house contained mostly normal clutter, aside from the
occasional robot part. Nothing disconcerting, which was maybe what Dave was
looking for. Who even knew? He opened the door to the bedroom down the hall,
which must have belonged to one of the kids, either Jake or Jane. There were
still some posters on the wall, but mostly the place just felt like a
storeroom, filled with things that (probably) belonged to Dirk. He opened the
closet to look and stopped dead. It was mostly filled with what he thought were
probably Dirk's old clothes. It was possible they belonged to the bedroom's
former occupant, but he didn't think it was likely; most of the shirts were
polos, with the kind of popped collar douche ironic frat boy look that Dave,
unfortunately, knew too well. If photographic evidence was anything to go by,
it was the look Bro had favored for most of his adult life. Almost at once Dave
lost his taste for sneaking around. He stared in mild horror at the display in
front of him before he heard a minute creak of the floorboards out in the hall.
Shit. So much for not getting caught.
▲: Dirk slept like a log, which Dave should take as a compliment and a
testament to how thoroughly he'd put Dirk through the wringer the night before.
Dave's shifting in the bed didn't seem to register at all, but his absence was
felt, even though the thick haze of sleep. Dirk was slow to come around,
hovering between asleep and awake for a long time until he realized what was
bothering him. Dave was gone. He lifted his head blearily, spreading his arms
and legs across the large bed (too large, too empty) and stretching with a loud
yawn. The fuck was Dave, anyway? He swung his legs out of bed and padded around
in his underwear, going first downstairs to see if maybe Dave had taken the
initiative to make his own goddamn breakfast. Nope, no Dave down here. Dirk
shrugged and turned on the coffee pot as long as he was down here, then went
back upstairs. He noticed that the door to Jake's room was open, and that was a
choice moment of surrealism. He walked up to the room and leaned against the
door frame, crossing his arms and looking at Dave, who was staring into what
used to be Jake's closet like he'd just seen a ghost. "The hell are you doing?"
he mumbled, his voice still full of sleep gravel.
▼: "Uh." There wasn't really much he could say here. He knew where the bathroom
was, so he couldn't say he'd gotten lost. There was absolutely no good reason
for him to be in here, so he shrugged. "Couldn't sleep. I...didn't mean to wake
you up." Which didn't answer the question at all, so he added in a low voice,
"I was looking around. Sorry," he added, scratching the back of his head. He
chanced another look around the room. Shit. If this was the dead friend's room
then this was awkward and he looked like a tool. If this was the dead
boyfriend's room then it was awkward and probably looked even worse. Like he
was digging for something or...shit. Plus he couldn't explain what he'd
actually found in the room and why it had freaked him out so bad. He should
have pretended to be fucking sleepwalking or something. "I just...saw something
that caught my eye. Never mind. You can go back to...I'll just." Jesus. He
really was not as his best in the mornings, it seemed. He looked back at Dirk,
frozen to the spot and feeling like a little kid caught looking for Christmas
presents which, in this context in particular, was especially mortifying.
▲: Dirk wasn't angry, even though he probably should be. He didn't know why his
high school clothes (seriously, why had he ever thought that polos with popped
collars were the epitome of cool?) had Dave so damn spooked, but it was
actually pretty amusing, in a sick kind of way. Was there any other way? He
walked around the room, looking at the old, fading posters from Jake's
objectively shitty taste in movies. A Lara Croft here, an Indiana Jones there,
Mystique fucking everywhere. Some Twi'lek girls from the old Star Wars movies,
who were actually kind of hot as far as alien girls go. Not as hot as trolls,
but what could you do? Holsters scattered about. Trophies. Photos. All of this
was piled under boxes of Dirk's junk, but they were there if you knew where to
look. Dirk sighed and sat down on the bed in the far side of the room, which
still had those green sheets with the white monsters all over them. God, this
felt strange. "If you wanted to know about Jake, you could have just asked,"
was all he said.
▼: Jake's room. Right. This was objectively fucking awful, even worse than that
time when he was 13 and he'd stolen Rose's diary, and it was worse because Rose
had just arched her eyebrows and looked quietly amused as he'd offered a
rational explanation of why it was totally John's fault, whereas Dirk
looked...honestly kind of depressed as he took everything in? There was
something similar in Dirk's expression, though. It was that bemused "Oh *Dave*"
sort of look that had always driven him crazy when Rose did it, and when Dirk
did it it was...well, might have pissed him off normally, but he supposed he
had it coming.
Part of him wanted to close the closet door, like he'd uncovered a dead body
among Dirk's shitty polos (which wasn't impossible, given Dirk's line of work,)
but instead he crossed over and sat on the bed next to Dirk. "Didn't know it
was his old room. I was just being shitty and snooping around." There was a
pause; he stared at his knees, which he was pressing together against the cold.
"Not sure what I expected to find." He looked around, noticing a certain unity
of the decoration all of a sudden. "If it was 'a fuckton of blue poon tang'
then I guess I hit the jackpot."
▲: Dirk winced. There was no way for Dave to know that Jake's preoccupation
with 'blue poon tang' was a source of major insecurity issues for most of
Dirk's pre-teen and teenage life. He'd seen the second X-Men movie with Jake
like six times in the theater. He remembered because they were fifteen and Dirk
had his learner's permit, and they'd snuck out at 11pm the night of the premier
and drove illegally to the midnight show. Two permits don't equal a license,
right? That was from a movie or something, but not a Jake movie. Jake had
gotten so excited that he'd flipped up the arm rest between their seats and
practically sat in Dirk's lap the whole time, and it was two of the most
awkward hours of Dirk's like up to that point.
Shit. Why was he thinking about this now? He was the kind of guy to hold a
grudge against the universe for certain things, but to be honest, he hadn't
been thinking too deeply about Jake for a little while, something he'd
suspected that Dave had a direct hand in bringing about. He didn't want to fall
off the wagon *now*. "Yeah. Jake had a type." He stood up, because he had an
idea that if he stayed in here too long with Dave, they'd wind up making out on
Jake's old bed, and that was not something he wanted to have to unravel later.
"If you're really poking around for hidden treasure, you should have opened the
attic door," he said, gesturing toward the door in the ceiling of Jake's
closet. He stood next to the closet door, looking at Dave expectantly, like he
was both daring Dave to do it and daring him to be audacious enough not to do
it after being caught in the act.
▼: That was almost certainly a challenge he could not help rising to, and later
he would think that he had a premonition of what would happen even before the
first piece of foam smuppet nose hit his face. "You are sick. This is some kind
of illness, I swear," he said. It was like a rainbow cavalcade of horror, like
a ridiculous bukkake of puppet-assed splooge. How had Dirk even gotten so
*many*? Still, in a way, it felt right. Dave wasn't sure how to apologize,
(because just saying "hey, I'm sorry" was apparently out of the question,) so
submitting to righteous baptism by smuppet seemed fitting enough. Completely
fucking stupid and demeaning, but fair. He picked up one of the plushes and
threw it at the smirk on Dirk's face. After what seemed like a long time, the
dolls had stopped pouring out of the crawlspace, and Dave was standing in an
impressively high pile of them. "You fucking suck. You were supposed to be
asleep. I could have made that horrible discovery, and then woken you up with
my screams of horror. Way to ruin it." He chucked another one, just because,
and another one because smuppets, as unsettling as they were, were really good
for chucking, anyway.
▲: Dirk caught the first smuppet, but the second one hit him square in the
chest. The third he managed to deflect with the first. "No, see, this is just
the first room of the house of uncanny valley horrors. Just wait until I show
you Grandma Harley's office and… well… I don't really know what kind of room
you'd call the one where Poppop wrote all of his lame-ass jokes, but that's
definitely a thing that exists in this house." Talking about Grandma and Poppop
in the context of being alternate universe versions of Dave's friends made him
realize something. "You know, Rose is the outlier here. Like, I assume she was
probably related to Roxy in some way. Too bad Roxy knows even less about her
family than I do." Dirk was kind of annoyed at the aliveness attribute of all
the known Lalondes, not because he wanted them to be anything but alive, but
maybe because he was jealous. They had almost a full set. For Dave and Dirk, it
was just the two of them, and for Dave's other two friends, it was probably
even less than that. He threw the smuppet he was holding back into the massive
pile that had accumulated in the closet floor and walked over, falling
backwards into it all and pushing Dave over in the process. "I dunno, man.
Maybe trolls are onto something. I can't think of a better way to spend a
morning than being a bum in a pile of smuppet ass."
▼: "Like I haven't done *that* plenty of times," said Dave, but it was just
requisite complaining, because he let Dirk drag him down without offering much
protest. You had to pick your battles, after all. He rolled over, so he was
laying halfway over Dirk's body, one of his knees between Dirk's legs and
sinking into the soft foam of the pile. "Rose likes being the outlier. It'll
make her feel special." This was being disingenuous, but then he was thinking a
little guiltily of how he had kind of shot down her questions yesterday to go
on his birthday sex romp. Not that she needed to know the details of his
birthday sex romp, but still. He stretched out alongside Dirk, running a hand
up the bare skin of Dirk's side. "You still want to go through some of that
uncanny valley stuff today? We can dig up some cool shit, give John something
to make him stop being a doubting asshole and give Jade the gift of an excited
fit of apoplexy when we show her... Grandma Jade's particle accelerator or
something, Jesus, I don't fucking know. Figure that out once we're done with
all this totally pale pile shit, obviously." He ran his nails lightly down
Dirk's side, then rubbed it with his palm to feel it warm up beneath his
fingers.
▲: Dirk let out a grunt of vague agreement, closing his eyes and settling into
the pile. He needed to piss something awful, and he needed to brush his teeth,
and the coffee was probably already made by now, but this was really
comfortable. It was really comfortable and he didn't want to tell Dave to stop
touching him. "I've had about enough of you getting your quadrants so blatantly
mixed up." A bold-faced lie. He turned his head and kissed Dave's clavicle,
which was next to his face and far enough away that morning breath wouldn't be
an issue. "I tell you what I need right now," he said, putting his hand on
Dave's thigh and running it up to the bottom edge of Dave's briefs. "And it
doesn't really involve any papping." He wrapped his legs around Dave's, pushing
Dave over on his back so that Dirk could get on top of him and kiss down his
stomach, putting a few bites for good measure near Dave's navel. "I tell you
what it does involve, though." He pulled the waistband of Dave's underwear down
a few inches and planted a kiss just above Dave's pubic hair. "Lots," another
kiss, "and lots," and another, "of bacon." He pushed off and stood up, which
wasn't as smooth of a movement as he might have hoped it would be, considering
that there wasn't anything solid to brace against. Somehow he managed to get to
his feet and leave the room, going downstairs to pour himself some coffee
without really checking to see if Dave was following behind.
▼: He stayed on his back for a second, sinking slowly deeper into the pile and
struggling to believe that Dirk had really just done that. He got to his feet,
kicking several smuppets away from himself in disgust. Possibly he had had that
coming too, but he wasn't going to admit it, even in his own mind. Nuts to
that. He closed the closet door roughly, jamming until he pushed back enough of
the plushes that he could force it shut. Out of sight, out of mind. He went
downstairs to pull his pants on, because it really was way too cold to be
partially naked unless it was for recreational purposes. The smell of coffee
lured him into the kitchen; he peeked around the doorframe to see Dirk standing
by the counter. "If the bacon you mentioned was another cruel bait and switch
I'm going to have to flip a bitch. I don't care how precious the fine stemware
in the cupboard was to Grandma Jade, ok, it's going to be *shattered*. Where
are your coffee mugs?"
▲: "No, the bacon is very real," he said without looking up. "Got you a mug
already." He gestured to the small kitchen table, which was where he ate way
more often than the formal dining room. Dave didn't really strike him as the
dining room type either. He still wasn't wearing pants, and he had kind of a
half-boner going on that was part morning wood and partly the fact that he'd
been teasing himself too when he pulled the rug out from under Dave. It
probably looked a little ridiculous-- him standing in his kitchen in his
underwear, nursing a semi and sipping coffee. Whatever, it was his house. He
turned around and began digging through the fridge, tossing things like bacon
and eggs and butter on the counter. After he got all the food out, he stopped
to stand up, stretching the muscles in his back by extending his arms over his
head and leaning back. "Fuck, dude, I am so sore. What the hell did you do to
me?" He closed the fridge and leaned over the counter, drinking some more of
his coffee. "Gotta piss. Will you get a pan out and turn on the range? I figure
we can eat before tacking whatever surreal shit we decide to get into later."
It worked whether or not they decided to fuck or take a trip down the Egbert-
Harley-English-Crocker memory lane.
▼: "'Destroyed you' was the quote, I guess," said Dave as Dirk was on his way
out. He was grinning as he started breakfast. He felt great, even though he
hadn't gotten a lot of sleep and had sort of started the morning by tactlessly
blundering into Dirk's personal life. But then, what was a relationship if not
a lot of tactless blundering, followed by bacon and Dirk being a literal
cocktease. He had bounced back pretty well, and even if he had been distracted
by the bulge in Dirk's underwear, he could focus enough on the cooking. By the
time Dirk got back the bacon was starting to sizzle and he was getting the eggs
ready. "Can't be that much more surreal than yesterday. Shit, look at me, I'm
getting all Suzie Homemaker in your kitchen, this is already pretty surreal,
isn't it?"
▲: Dirk went upstairs to piss and put on some sweatpants. The bruises and
scratches that he saw in the mirror last night looked a lot worse today, and he
was kinda glad that it was winter. And that he worked a job that required him
to button the top button on his shirts. He brushed his teeth too, which was
kinda pointless since he was just going to go back downstairs and drink more
coffee, but he knew he'd feel worse if he didn't. When he went downstairs
again, Dave was already cooking. "Yeah, shit. I was going to do that, by the
way. Then again, I think you probably owe me one." Dirk kinda frowned down at
the stove, because considering what Dave had told him about his home life with
Bro, he honestly wasn't sure that the kid had ever seen a properly functioning
appliance. He seemed to be doing everything right, though, so he leaned against
the far counter and picked his mug back up. "Don't you know that cooking bacon
topless is courting danger?"
▼: "Oh. Shit, yeah." Making drunk eggs with Roxy at three in the morning had
become almost a tradition, so he felt pretty smooth with that, but bacon spat
like a motherfucker, didn't it? He took a step back, away from the range, and
leaned against the counter to look over at Dirk. "Anyway, are we still keeping
score? Shit, what am I asking for, we're always keeping score. Wasn't the
blowjob fakeout your payback?" He was being flippant again, but the memory of
getting caught in the back of his head still kind of embarrassed him. They'd
been able to avoid the subject safely enough but he wondered if Dirk cared more
than he was letting on. If he wanted to talk about it. Dave, for his part, felt
weird thinking about Jake, both as the ghost of a person who had once lived in
that room, and as the potential clone of Jade's wacky old grandpa. There was
that on top of whatever dumb quasi-jealous knee-jerk reaction he felt when he
thought about Jake and Dirk.
Thinking of a way to bring it up, and deciding if it was even worth bringing
up, was another minefield, so instead he finished cooking the bacon at arm's-
length as Dirk watched warily, like he thought Dave might burn the house down
around them.
▲: "No, my paybacks would never be so cheap or short-lived. That was just my
stomach winning out over my dick for once. It doesn't happen often, but it does
happen." Any posturing he might have done about gnarly paybacks that dangled in
the future might have lost its bite for the time being, especially now that
Dave had seen his sex tears. (He would never admit that that's what happened,
but he thought they probably both knew it anyway.) He had actually made a
conscious decision not to keep score last night, but he supposed that now that
the birthday rules were lifted, they were back to the status quo. He wasn't
actually bothered by the snooping, especially now that he knew it hadn't
specifically been about Jake. Dirk wasn't very forthcoming with details about
that kind of stuff because he kinda liked the fact that he hadn't been thinking
much about it lately, but also because he kinda figured that Dave would rather
not know. It had hurt for a minute when he thought Dave was snooping around
that specifically, but now that he knew it was just a general snooping around
*him*, he thought it was funny. So, yeah, he wasn't actually bothered by it,
but he wouldn't pass up an opportunity to lord something over Dave. He set his
coffee down on the table and walked up behind Dave, grabbing his hips and
sliding his hands down the front of Dave's pants. He kissed the back of Dave's
neck and said against his skin, "I'm hungry. Come on. Hurry up."
▼: "Can't make it cook any faster, dude," he said, although in fact it was all
pretty much done. If he left it much longer the bacon would burn and the eggs
would get all rubbery and gross, but for a second he stood there. The fakeout
in the smuppet pile had happened quickly, so quickly he had had barely any time
to react, but as he stood there with Dirk he found himself leaning back against
him for a couple seconds. He finally made himself turn around, and put his
mouth on the spot where Dirk's jaw met his neck. "You want to talk about
payback...shit." He looked down, and ran one of his fingers down one of the
bright red marks he'd left on Dirk's side. "Kinda did do a number on you,
didn't I." It was strange to see the evidence after the fact; it hadn't felt
hard to do in the first place, but the marks, and seeing them in the daylight
like this, looked deeper, more real. Reminded him of everything that had
happened, and how surreal *that* had felt.
▲: Dirk looked dispassionately down at himself. "I don't really give a shit
about that. I'm more pissed about how sore my muscles are." That wasn't exactly
true, saying he didn't give a shit. It was gratifying to be able to see them.
He got out a couple of plates and set them down on the counter behind Dave,
thinking it over. "I told you I could handle whatever you had in you. That
didn't stop being a thing that's true just because--" Just because what, Dirk?
"--you gave me a few bruises. Please. You know what I do." It was kinda cheap
to pull that out now, because he knew he didn't have anything to prove, but he
still didn't want Dave thinking he shouldn't be real. Real whatever he needed
to be. He picked up one the plates and twirled it over in his hands a few
times, and then he scooped a bunch of bacon and eggs onto it and sat down at
the small kitchen table. "For a kid who was practically raised by wolves, this
food looks pretty good."
▼: He found himself rolling his eyes at Dirk's macho act, the whole "I'm a
ruthless killer dude" schtick, but he couldn't really think of anything else to
say to it. Plus Dirk was right, he was a fucking great cook, so he dished
himself some of his own. He sat across from Dirk and "Late culinary bloomer, I
guess. By which I mean I am capable of, you know. Turning on a stove." He
chewed the bacon thoughtfully; he had chanced across the perfect consistency.
It wasn't too crispy or too chewy. Score one, Dave Strider, apparently. "I turn
on a stove with the best of them. Take that, Roxy. We got into a huge fight the
other night when we were getting food about putting milk in the eggs. Can you
believe that shit? Apparently Rose's mom-clone was the one raised by wolves.
Who even does that?"
▲: Dirk didn't say much for a while because he was too busy stuffing his face.
Suddenly he was ravenous. When he stopped to drink some more coffee, he said,
"I dunno. I'd trust whatever Roxy says on it. Jane taught her to cook. Jane had
this fuckin' preternatural knowledge of food. She was so good that it was kinda
scary, you know? Like maybe she sold her soul to the devil in exchange for the
ability to bake a perfect soufflé every time. Girl baked like she had some kind
of personal stake in it." He looked down at his plate and remembered that he'd
had the same thing for breakfast the morning after he picked Dave up. Huh.
"Whenever Jane made bacon and eggs she'd wear one of her mustaches. To this day
I have no idea why bacon and eggs require a mustache, but don't expect me to
grow one." He was probably talking about Jane so that he didn't have to talk
about Jake, whom he figured Dave had heard enough about for a while. "She
didn't die when the rest of them did, did I mention that? Got a photo shoved in
my mailbox a week later. Noir killed her himself. Wanna guess how?" Dirk
grimaced and speared some eggs with his fork.
▼: He stopped with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. "Shit, dude." He put
down his fork. "Feels like a game of Clue or something. A knife in the library.
The horse hitcher in the kitchen, katana in the laboratory." He watched Dirk
eat for a second. It surprised him, how angry he still got thinking about the
murder, but he supposed that was never going to go away, no matter how many
months went by. He had no idea "Anyway. If I know his M.O., and I guess that is
the kind of thing I am privileged enough to know, I'm guessing he stabbed her."
He paused again, took a sip of coffee. He was getting a case of deja vu, eating
breakfast while talking about what a stab-happy asshole Jack Noir was.
▲: "Yeah. I don't know why he sent me a photo instead of a body part or
something, that seems way more up their alley. Or maybe that's just Droog's
influence, I dunno. I'm not saying I particularly want to get one of my best
friends' head in a box, but at least I got to bury the rest of them." He went
to take another bite, but dropped his fork back on the plate. "I have no idea
what they even did with her after. Makes me fucking sick." He grimaced and
looked out the bay window behind the table. When he thought about Jake dying he
got weary, but when he thought about Jane, he got pissed. Every single time.
"Man, I was really looking forward to this bacon. Ducked out of a potential
blowjob and everything." He stood up and poured himself some more coffee
instead, drinking it black and quickly even though it was acrid in his mouth.
He walked back over to the table, sitting down next to Dave instead of across
the table like he had been, and he slouched in the chair, leaning his head all
the way back against the window and closing his eyes. "If you can bring my
appetite back before my food gets cold, I'll really owe you one."
▼: He watched Dirk down the hot coffee with concern, his lips twisting. He was
always so bad at this, even though he and Dirk were technically in the same
situation when it came to murdered family members. "I could guilt you into it.
Do you know how hard I worked on that bacon, you ungrateful tool?" He
hesitated, considered leaning over and patting him on the shoulder. That should
have been easy, after last night, but for some reason it was not. Instead, he
went on. "I dunno. It's kind of surprising to me, how mad you can still get
thinking about that sort of thing. I don't know about you, but. I still get
really pissed more than anything when I think about him dying. According to
Elizabeth Kubler-Rose I should be...moving on from the 'anger' rung of the
grief echeladder or whatever." He paused again. "I'm just kidding, Rose hasn't
said anything like that. But you know what I mean." He trailed off, ate some
more of his food instead. Suddenly he felt hot, overheated and awkward. "Got a
better idea, maybe. I'm thinking memory lane isn't the road we want to be going
down this morning. Not right now. Maybe instead..." He waited until Dirk looked
up at him again. "We should try something else. Probably you're all bitter and
looking to get back at me for last night, right?"
▲: Dirk kept his head against the window but cocked it to the side so he could
look at Dave through one eye. "Hmm." He thought about it, and he didn't really
feel bitter. He didn't actually feel much of anything about last night, except
for sore and kinda husked out. It could have been a lot worse than it was, and
he knew it, but the second fuck had also been therapeutic. It had brought him
back down and soothed his nerves, so when he woke up this morning he'd actually
been in a pretty good place until he got to thinking about stuff he'd rather
not, just because Dave had been a little too eager to look at his high school
clothes or whatever. He wondered what the hell Dave had even been looking for.
"Not particularly. Why?" He sat up and rested his forearms on the table, and
his fingers played with the edge of Dave's plate. "If you're looking to get
your ass annihilated, this really isn't *that* kind of anger. Also I'm pretty
sure that would violate the first term. The only term, really. My bacon would
definitely be cold by the time that was over."
▼: "Well, I thought it would make you want to hurry it up and finish," he said,
and he picked up a strip of his own bacon to eat with his fingers. "But if
you're not interested in ass annihilation then we could dig out the board games
instead. Play some fucking Yahtzee or some shit, right?" He watched Dirk as he
ate, trying to read the expression in his eyes. Technically this should have
gotten easier, since Dirk didn't wear his shades around the house like he did
in public, and it was, but Dave still felt unsure. He felt like he'd upset
something this morning with the closet deal, but he wasn't sure how to set it
right, and the food that had once felt savory and hearty in his mouth now just
felt greasy and unpleasant. He swallowed a few gulps of coffee, met Dirk's eyes
again. "You know. Maybe I lost my appetite too." First time for everything,
right?
▲: "We can't *both* be turned off bacon." Dirk reached out and grabbed a strip
off of Dave's plate, taking a small bite and chewing it slowly. He concentrated
on letting go of the subject of Noir, breathing through his nose and tasting
the bacon, trying not to feel the greasiness. "I think you're right, though.
It's a little too early for memory lane." He took another bite and closed his
eyes, feeling the stress drop away. He willed it away. It was too fucking early
to get worked up about long dead friends. "Let's talk about something else."
When he opened his eyes, they landed on Dave, who was looking concerned. It
wasn't a look that Dave wore well, not because it made him look bad but because
he was obviously not comfortable with it. Dirk crammed the rest of the bacon
strip in his mouth and scooted his chair over next to Dave's. While he chewed,
he reached up and brushed the hair out of Dave's face, pushing it back so that
Dirk could see all of his forehead. "Didn't you say something about a scar?"
▼: "Right here," he said, tapping it with his fingernail. The scar was a little
more than an inch long, and right next to his hairline. It was raised slightly,
but it wasn't really that dramatic-looking. When it was newer, just after the
stitches had come out, he would be reminded of its presence if his hair was
tugged a certain way, but as it healed over more it became less sensitive, had
become almost desensitized. In the last couple months, and especially since
moving into Roxy's, he hadn't even thought of it at all. Until he'd been
talking to Dirk that one night, actually.
"Bad. Ass. As promised," he said, rolling his eyes as Dirk's finger brushed
over it. It was more impressive for the fact that the wound originally had been
quite dramatic. He was lucky he hadn't ended up with a more severe concussion
than what he'd had. Shit, it had been a fucking metal rod to the head; he was
lucky it hadn't cracked his fucking skull open. The stitches had been neat, and
had seemed to Dave, who had never had stitches, to be impossibly small. "You
wouldn't think a doctor as good at doing stitches would be working out of a
whorehouse, right? It was a pretty good bit of sewing. Like, Face/Off levels of
plastic surgery good."
▲: Dirk spread the hair apart where Dave indicated, tracing along the thin line
with his finger. It was a pretty nice scar, actually. He had to lean over into
Dave's space to look at it, and he braced his other arm with a hand on Dave's
thigh. From this proximity, Dirk could tell that Dave's hair smelled like bacon
from standing over the skillet while he cooked. He leaned in to smell it more
deeply, and it was like... bacon and sleep sweat. Gross if you think about it,
but the impression was kinda nice. "Yeah. Some scar, dude. I can tell it had
the potential to be a lot worse." He didn't know why, but he leaned over and
pressed his lips to the scar for a moment, and Dave's skin was hot. Probably
from cooking, but who knows. Dave always seemed to be hot. "Most of mine are
boring. You know. Welding accidents and shit." He pulled back and pointed to
his throat, where he had a small, thread-thin white line running all the way
across. "You have to be looking for this one, since it was so small and so
clean, but I almost got garroted once. Wire broke and cut me pretty deep."
▼: The scar tissue itself wasn't sensitive, but the skin around it sure was.
When Dirk kissed it it made the skin of his scalp break out into goosebumps. He
blinked, was hyper-aware of Dirk's breath in his hair and his hand on Dave's
thigh. When he opened his eyes he watched Dirk trace the line on his throat. It
was very light; if Dave had noticed it before he hadn't really thought about
what it was, or had been distracted by more important things whenever he'd been
close enough to see it. He reached out to tilt Dirk's chin up to get a better
look at it, and with the other ran his thumbnail along the entire length.
"Shit, man," he said, and on an impulse, and because it seemed to be the theme
of the moment, he leaned forward to put his mouth over the side of Dirk's
throat where it started. "Someone got the jump on you?" he murmured as he ran
his lips along the scar.
▲: Something in his chest dropped a few inches and stuck there. He let his hand
drop and settle on Dave's shoulder, which he squeezed. "Yeah. One of my first
jobs. My storied career was almost over before it ever really got off the
ground." He traced down Dave's back, and then back up again. "That's the kind
of mistake you usually only get to make once. I lucked out." It had been one of
Jack's carapacian buddies. Not one of the slaves, someone actually working for
him on purpose. Dirk didn't know the dude's name, but the guy had said Jane's
name, and that had put all of Dirk's defenses out of whack. "I also got the
dude's head." He didn't really want to expand on that. He was hardened to a lot
of things, but it's difficult to be blasé about decapitation, even for a guy
like him. But this was the stuff he'd decided not to think about. He pulled up
his pants leg and pointed to a circular scar on his right calf. "Bullet. Lucky
it hit me that low and not in the femoral artery or something. That had been a
shot in the dark anyway, but still. Hurt like... I don't even know how to
describe it. Like a sledgehammer."
▼: He made a vague "hmm" sound, but it wasn't really supposed to signify
agreement, because how would he know what a bullet felt like? No one he'd known
had ever been shot, or if they had they hadn't survived to tell any stories
about it, though his vivid imagination had often forced him to wonder what it
would have felt like. When Jack had hit him during the fight, he still
remembered that split-second right before the pain had fully set in, when he'd
known he was about to black out and hadn't been able to do anything about it.
Most of the events from those first days were hazy to him, so he wondered why
he had to remember that one particular moment with such clarity in his mind's
eye. So instead he pressed his lips down a little harder, feeling along the
thin, almost undetectable line of the scar until he found a pulse point. He
pressed at it, bit at it lightly with his teeth. The goosebumps on his scalp
seemed to have traveled down the back of his neck as Dirk ran his fingers down
Dave's spine. It didn't help when he looked down to see the pitted mark of the
bullet scar that Dirk was pointing out. He'd seen the kind of scar before, but
he supposed it was different when you were looking at someone you actually gave
a shit about. He tapped the spot lightly, then tapped Dirk's fingernail resting
next to it. "Looks like a close call on that one."
▲: Dirk shrugged. "Had me laid low for a while, anyway. Kinda hard to get
around when you've ripped up your calf muscle." He reached around Dave's back
and grabbed another strip of bacon, talking while he chewed on it. Smooth,
Dirk. He was a lot less slick in his own home, apparently. "Roxy came and lived
with me for a while. You haven't lived until you've taken a really painful bath
while your drunk best friend leered at you." Or woken up with all your nails
painted candy pink. He kinda missed having her around all the time, actually,
although he didn't miss walking in on her shaving. He'd probably have invited
her to live with him a long time ago if she hadn't decided to get all gung-ho
about her business. It was good for her, though. Gave her something to do and
something to think about other than her own myriad problems and issues. But
Dirk was selfish, and Roxy was a good cook. He licked the bacon grease off of
his thumb, and then he reached down and grabbed Dave's hand, bringing it to his
lips and licking the grease off of his fingertips too. "My appetite's back."
▼: "Is it," he said. He moved his fingertips but didn't draw his hand away.
"That's a load off my mind, thanks." He really wasn't that hungry anymore. For
a second he pushed his fingers farther into Dirk's mouth, watched Dirk's lips
wrap around them and felt Dirk's tongue swirl over the pads of his fingers. It
was...not smooth, not even really that sexy because he could still feel the
grease on his fingers, but it was comfortable. Lazy. The kitchen was well
situated and had a big window that let in a lot of light as the sun rose
higher. It was strange to think of back alley decapitations and bullet wounds
and scars when the sun was shining, he supposed. "Apparently talking about your
own dangerous lifestyle is what really makes you want to vacuum up food off my
plate," he went on to say. As long as Dirk's mouth was full. "I'll keep that in
mind in the future."
▲: Dirk gnawed on Dave's knuckles, wondering briefly if Dave had washed his
hands after touching the raw bacon. He hoped so, but if not, the damage was
already done. He wasn't actually trying to be sexy, but he felt like he needed
to commit to the charade. "I'm comfortable with my lifestyle," he mumbled
around Dave's fingers. After Dave withdrew his fingers, Dirk picked up the fork
and started eating eggs off of Dave's plate. "You know, if I get taken down
again, maybe I'll make you come cook for me instead of Roxy. Somehow I feel
like you'd be less likely to creep on me while I'm asleep." After a while, he
put the fork back down and turned to face Dave. "If you're done eating, you
should probably get on cleaning up that mess you made upstairs."
▼: No, but apparently Dave would creep on just about everything else in the
house. He thought that but decided not to say it. It made him wince, because
part of him still felt bad about it, and because part of him didn't want to
make a joke about Dirk getting shot again. Which was a dumb thing for him to
worry about, really. He stood up, took the plate over to the sink, and washed
his hands. "So that was your game all along? Get me in here and have me do the
Suzie Homemaker routine, making your breakfast and cleaning your house. Props,
dude. I did not see that coming." Most of that was just cursory complaining.
The idea of living here, even for a short period of time, was incredibly
alarming, but attractive, despite the many (and oh, there were so many) points
going against it. Not that he was going to say that, and not that he ever
expected Dirk to seriously propose it. He shook his head a little and looked at
Dirk. "Right. Housekeeping duty. On that shit like fuzz on a smuppet, which is
something I'm so gung-ho about getting reacquainted with, you have no idea."
That was more cursory bitching before he actually made his way upstairs; he
would clean it up, since it was his fault, after all, but there was no need to
make Dirk think he, Dave, had any enthusiasm about being the live-in maid.
▲: Actually the game had been to bring Dave home and then punish the hell out
of him, but things hadn't really turned out the way Dirk had planned, had they?
Kind of the polar fucking opposite of what he'd expected to happen, but he
wasn't exactly complaining about it. "Nah, that's pretty much all you. If you
recall correctly, you started cooking all by your own damn self." He followed
Dave up the stairs, ignoring the comment about the smuppets. "And you're the
one who made the mess in the first place with your inability to contain your
morbid curiosity about-- I don't even know, my wardrobe? What had you even been
looking for in there?" He was edging into the 'this is so stupid that it's
actually pretty hilarious' territory on this particular subject, so if Dave was
feeling any guilt about it, Dirk was oblivious to it. Not that he wasn't going
to milk it a little. When they got to the landing at the top of the stairs,
Dirk grabbed Dave's shoulders and pushed him against the wall, not roughly but
firmly. He leaned into Dave's space, and his face was relaxed and unmenacing.
"Tell you what. Since I responded favorably last night to you trying to do the
diamonds thing, how about instead of snooping, you just ask me anything you
want to know from now on, and I'll do my best to give an honest answer."
▼: Morbid curiosity was all it was. He only shrugged in response to Dirk's
question, because he didn't know how to explain. He'd been trying to freak
himself out, and boy had it worked. It had been like a subconscious dare with
himself, like he was trying to prolong the weird cycle of oneupsmanship he and
Bro had had going back in the day, or like he was trying to resurrect all the
stupid mind games even after the other player was dead. This, though, this
whole thing with Dirk's earnest expression up in Dave's face, wasn't a mind
game. It felt like it should have been a mind game, but it wasn't. Dave could
see that and it intimidated him, something Dirk obviously had been counting on.
Hence the pinning against the wall. Still, that didn't change the genuine
nature of what Dirk was proposing.
He put his hands around Dirk's wrists, not to shift them from where they were
pinning him to the wall, just to hold onto something. "That sounds suspiciously
like a straightforward and healthy way to conduct a relationship. The fuck. But
we'll try this crazy experiment of yours. Why not?" He hesitated, unwilling to
move but unsure how to move forward, and how to phrase a question. "Ok. Honest
answer time. Are you going to let me up, or did you need something else? Did
you have some new trust exercise you wanted to conduct to celebrate how open
and forthright with the info we're gonna be from now on? I'm all ears, bro."
▲: A relationship, huh? "Is that what you'd call this." He said it without the
question mark because he really didn't want to know how Dave would answer. He
could see into Jake's old bedroom over Dave's shoulder and the soft pile of
stuffed smuppet beyond. He wanted to get back into it, or maybe just go back to
bed. Do the whole 'get up and eat breakfast and then immediately get back into
bed and be a lazy asshole until 2pm' thing, preferably with Dave coming along
for the ride, but. They had things to do. Very important shit to sort through
and possibly also plans to make about apartments to sneak into later. And he
had plans to make in secret about where he was going to fuck Dave once they got
there. Yeah, it was going to be such a busy fucking day, and that's exactly why
Dirk kissed him right there against the wall. Dave's lips were still salty from
breakfast, and he still smelled like stove in the hair, but whatever. They
could shower later. He pushed Dave into Jake's room (it was closer) and down on
the bed. "I'm gonna need you to clean everything," he said, pinning Dave down
and not letting him up.
▼: He was taken aback when Dirk swept him up into Jake's room. He had kind of
assumed that Dirk would want to steer clear of the place after everything, but
before he knew it he was on his back on the green bedsheets, staring up at Dirk
as a Lara Croft poster looked down on both of them from on high. Dirk was
pressing him in; Dave squirmed and managed to buck his hips up against Dirk,
but that was about it. "Everything? Wow, that sounds pretty legit. Let me go
find a fucking maid's uniform and a feather duster and I'll get right on that.
Fuck this 'relationship' drama, that sounds like the pinnacle of domestic
tranquility right there." He tried to move again and did the same thing, only
succeeded in moving his lower body and hips against the thigh Dirk had pressed
between his legs. This time he went more slowly, deliberately, and caught
Dirk's eye as he did. He gave Dirk a look-- he didn't trust himself to actually
ask the question out loud-- that asked if he, Dirk, really intended to go
through with this right here, on this bed. Shit, maybe Dirk was trying to prove
something after finding Dave snooping in it earlier. Maybe Dirk just didn't
have the fucks to spare for it at the moment. Dave found himself sympathizing
with the feeling, if that was the case.
▲: There was that word again. Why did Dave keep saying it? Maybe that had
something to do with why they were doing this in here instead of in Dirk's
room. He saw the question in Dave's eyes, although it seemed to be half-
question, half-dare. He probably did have something to prove, but probably not
what Dave thought, and it wasn't really Dave to whom he needed to prove it. The
important thing had been to get back into a bed with Dave, and that was where
they were, right? The ends justify the means. He pushed his thigh down tighter
between Dave's legs and lowered his head to kiss Dave's neck. "Yeah,
everything. Gonna need you to polish all of Grandma Harley's little metallic
perpetual motion doodads." He kissed down his throat and up the other side,
pressing his own hips against Dave's thigh and letting their chests brush
together for a moment. "Make you brush the dust out of all of Poppop Egbert's
joke props." He let go of Dave's shoulders and reached above Dave's head,
grabbing his wrists and holding them down instead. "Mmm-- gonna make you-
- replace the adhesive on every piece in Jane's fake moustache collection. Holy
shit, that's sexy." He was being facetious... kind of.
▼: "If you say so," he said, letting out a breath. He wasn't even really
listening to what Dirk was saying because the weight of Dirk pressing him down
was distracting enough. He would have liked to kiss Dirk, put an end to the
talking for a bit, but he couldn't lift his head up enough to reach with his
arms pinned down like they were. He flexed his fingers, felt the tendons of his
wrist strain against Dirk's hands. He was fidgeting more for the hell of it
than anything, just to test Dirk's commitment to pinning him down. Dirk's
commitment to pinning him down, it turned out, was pretty severe. Sometimes,
Dave supposed, you just had to get your mack on in a dead loved one's bedroom,
and he supposed he was the last person in the world to censure anybody for
that. "Didn't realize the prospect of housekeeping got you so in the mood, man.
Consider it fucking noted."
▲: "I just like making you do shit you don't want to do," Dirk said, shifting
so that he could pin Dave's wrists down onto the bed with one hand, which
allowed him to bring the other down between them, cupping Dave's junk over the
fly of yesterday's jeans. "Cause I know I can." He ran his hand down the
inseam, pressing gently with his fingers before grabbing Dave's inner thigh and
squeezing. "Cause I know you'll do whatever your bro tells you." He said it
with that lowercase b, but he had no way of anticipating which way Dave would
hear it. The stress from last night was still weighing him down, in the joints
and small tight places between his bones, so maybe he was eager to revert back
to the status quo. You know. Fetishizing the allocation of control. "Kinda like
how I know," he unbuttoned Dave's fly with one hand, "that even though you said
you don't want to get fucked in the window of that shitty room back at Roxy's,"
he pulled down the zipper, "you'd still do it for me." He pushed his hand
inside Dave's jeans but outside of his underwear, having to contort his
shoulder to get the angle right. "You wouldn't say no."
▼: "Well, we'll never know now, will we," he said. Not true, he supposed. He
wouldn't have put it past Dirk to make a point of it. Having been brought up
twice, it was now a Thing, and he would probably have to face the consequences
of its...of its Thing-ness. Yes. That made total sense. He shivered when Dirk
reached his hand under Dave's jeans. It was all getting all mixed up in his
head; Dirk referring to himself as Bro, getting that low, rough voice like he
hadn't since...well, actually, at this point it reminded Dave more of being
back in that shitty room, by that shitty window, all those nights ago, even
though Dirk had just tried to work his Bro Knows Best routine in again. Dave
saw it all as a jumble of memories and feelings in his head, and who would even
have seen that coming. How un-fucking-expected. He grimaced and rolled his hips
up, arched his whole back towards Dirk's hand "You keep dicking around like
this and I'd probably ok you fucking me in the middle of the town center." He
was being dickish, but he supposed confusion and the tightness in his pants
made him short-tempered.
▲: The Lara Croft poster above the both of them kept threatening to mock Dirk,
like the watchful avatar of some kind of omniscient guardian taking extensive
notes of all of Dirk's missteps. It had happened here, hadn't it? On this bed.
Dirk hadn't mentioned it to Dave, and he saw no reason to, but Lara fucking
knew about it. She should-- Dirk had spent the whole conversation staring at
her because he couldn't bring himself to look Jake in the eyes when it had
happened. Maybe that had something to do with why he was doing this here.
Reclaiming the space so that he could live with it instead of just shoving
boxes of old clothes into it and closing it up forever.
Didn't mean he wanted to look up at her, though. He kept his eyes on Dave
instead. Baby steps, bro. He pressed his temple to Dave's opposite temple and
said, "I hope that's a promise," into his ear. It was hard to maneuver in the
tight space he'd imposed on himself, but he managed to twist himself into a
position where he could rub his fingers up and down Dave's shaft through the
cotton. "I could dick around like this all damn day. Shit, dude. I think we
left the stove on. I better go check, right?"
▼: "I turned that shit off," he said with a sigh as he felt Dirk's fingertips
run over him. He pressed his face against Dirk's cheek and moved his hips up
again, trying to maximize the contact. Given his own mood, and what he could
read of Dirk's, he would have put it past Dirk to just leave him high and dry
to go dick around with something else instead of Dave, so he figured he should
get it while it was good. Or something. It didn't seem fair, though, because in
this position he couldn't touch much of Dirk. His arms were pinned down and the
angle Dirk was laying at made it impossible for Dave to do much with his feet
or his legs other than squirm and disarrange his clothing. He moved his head
until he finally found Dirk's mouth and kissed him. "I think you should
probably stay here, you fucker," he said quietly. Matter-of-factly, almost.
▲: "Think so?" he whispered against Dave's lips, pressing back in after Dave
broke the kiss. He pulled up and slipped his hand under the waistband of Dave's
boxers, gripping his dick awkwardly at this angle, kind of fingers-first
instead of palm-first. It wasn't ideal, but it would be enough for now. He
opened his mouth, feeling himself get amped up in a hurry as he stroked and
tried to ignore the ache that built slowly in his wrist. He didn't think he was
even that hard-- it was just vicarious excitement or... something. Maybe his
thrill was coming from somewhere else for the time being. After a while, he got
tired of the position and finally let go of Dave's arms so that he could push
Dave's pants down around his thighs. He didn't take them all the way off, just
pushing them down far enough that his dick was free and he could get a proper
grip on it that didn't feel like it was slowly wrenching his arm out of the
socket. "Tell me why I should stay with a disrespectful asshole like you, who
can't keep himself out of other people's private affairs. Or their polo shirt
closets, to be more accurate." It was underhanded, because Dirk didn't actually
give a shit, and that wasn't a thing that stopped being true all of a sudden.
▼: His mouth dropped open, but his mouth was already open so it was pretty easy
to play off. He suspected Dirk was fucking with him, but whatever. Suddenly he
was in the mood to roll with it. He put his arms around Dirk's neck as Dirk
finally wrapped his hand more fully around Dave's dick. His movements were
still constricted by his pants around his thighs, but it was better than
before, at least. "Because," he said, and hesitated. Instead of giving Dirk the
answer that contained some element of the truth, something along the lines of
"because you *like* disrespectful assholes," Dave decided to go along with
Dirk's semi-sincere anger with some mostly insincere contrition. "Because I
won't do it again. You can bet your dick on that, alright? Consider my lesson
learned by the cleansing fire of smuppets and the fact that you very
magnanimously didn't have us make out in that pile."
▲: "I don't believe that--" he twisted harshly at Dave's head, and it was
definitely too early in the sexual progression of events to be doing stuff like
that, "for a fucking second." He pushed Dave's arms off of his neck and sat
back, squatting on Dave's thighs and pushing his weight down on Dave's sternum
with the hand not stroking his dick. "You've done absolutely nothing to show me
how sorry you are. How am I supposed to trust you now, dog?" He looked up at
Lara and grimaced, looking back down at Dave in a fucking hurry. Nope. Not
going there. Not now. He tilted his head down so that his hair hung over his
eyes, blocking her from view. All he could see was Dave, and some of the stupid
green sheets. He leaned forward, shifting his center of gravity past his knees
so that more weight was being supported by Dave's ribcage. "Why do you give a
shit about crossing the quadrant streams all of a sudden?" he added as an
afterthought. "What's wrong, dude? Why so quiet?"
▼: It wasn't really the inherent paleness of the pile that bothered him as much
as the fact that it was made up of smuppets, and it was in very close proximity
to those damn fucking shirts, but Dave didn't currently have quite the lung
capacity to explain that very well. "Dunno. I dunno. I..." He trailed off and
titled his head back for a brief second to try and adjust his breathing, and as
he did happened to see Angelina Jolie glaring down at him like some sort of
wrathful angel, in booty shorts and gun holsters, looking judgmental and sort
of foxy as she surveyed her territory. Oh man, this was all so stupid but he
wasn't ready to call it off, not even close. "I happen to think I've done quite
a bit to show how fucking trustworthy I am, but if you want me to show you how
sorry I am then..." He trailed off. "Well, you gotta let me prove it to you,
don't you. Yeah. Go ahead."
▲: "How d'you reckon you're gonna do that?" He took some of the weight off of
Dave's chest, shifting back to his knees again, so that Dave could speak more
clearly. It would never get tiring to watch Dave trying to decide whether to
challenge him or just give in to whatever bullshit Dirk made it sound like he
wanted Dave to do or say. Anyway, he decided to relent, pulling himself off of
Dave's ribcage and sitting back on Dave's thighs once again. He used his free
hand to rub Dave's sides while he stroked his dick with the other, almost
reassuringly. "Guess I haven't been very nice this morning, either. Revving you
up and then stalling you out like that. Probably you're pissed about it."
Probably Dave wanted him to shut the fuck up and get on with it. He leaned
forward and kissed the spot on Dave's chest where he'd been pushing, tonguing
the warm skin.
▼: Pissed was probably an accurate enough description, but Dave wasn't going to
admit it to him. "It's nothing I'm not used to, is it," he said. "If I was
going to get pissed about you being a cocktease I'd be spitting mad all the
time, probably." Which was overstating both the degree to which Dirk was a
cocktease, and how pissed off Dave was currently, which was not very. He was
mildly irked, maybe, if he had to put a word to it, which he wouldn't because
irked was a dumbass word. Whatever. He was chill, getting chiller by the second
as Dirk caressed him with his hand and his mouth. He put his hand on the back
of Dirk's head, scratched him lightly along the back of his scalp and down the
nape of his neck. It was about all he could reach with Dirk still lying on his
legs.
▲: It was something of a recurring theme, wasn't it? The truth was that Dirk
was just talking shit because he was stalling. He had tried the whole
domineering manipulative bro thing back on just now and it felt weird. It
didn't really fit him right now, probably because of how things went down last
night. Without that, he really didn't know where to take this whole thing. Dirk
was an adaptive kind of guy, but right now he was kind of at a loss. It scared
him, partially because of what it meant that he couldn't make himself be mean
to Dave. He rested his forehead on Dave's chest and just breathed against his
skin for a minute while he thought about this. He didn't like the conclusions
that he was coming to, which were that he was starting to Feel Things. Nothing
of the same magnitude as the Things he had Felt about Jake, but definitely
Things of the same flavor. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut it out but
failing. Shit. He sat up and frowned at Angelina Jolie, blaming her for the
really shitty irony of realizing something like that in a place like this.
Suddenly he was the one who was pissed off, but not at anyone he could take it
out on. He stood up, getting off of the bed in order to pull Dave's jeans the
rest of the way off. "Y'never told me how you're gonna prove your repentance,"
he said with a blank, unreadable expression.
▼: Dirk looked kind of distracted; Dave noticed this but was unable to come up
with a satisfactory explanation for it on his own, and he would have (maybe)
asked if Dirk hadn't pulled his pants down. Now that he was free of his
clothing and Dirk's weight on top of him, he sat up. Fuck talking, and fuck
piles. Despite all the jokes about getting his pale on, it pretty much was the
last thing he wanted. Instead, he put his hands on the waistband of Dirk's
sweatpants and ran his fingers beneath the elastic, running over Dirk's sides
and along his hips. "Shit, I wasn't sure at first, but I might have got some
ideas." He dragged the elastic down and dipped his head down to lick at the
skin of Dirk's balls and up along the underside of his shaft. He kept one eye
on Dirk's expression as he did, and after he'd ran his tongue over the tip he
withdrew, still with his hands resting on Dirk's hips. "Pretty revolutionary, I
know." Dave paused, running his thumbs thoughtfully over the front of Dirk's
thighs. "Unless you wanted to go into another room instead." He wasn't sure why
he'd asked, and he wasn't quite sure of the reaction he'd get to the
suggestion. Dirk was hard to read like this. Not that normal Dirk's readability
was a cake walk, but the toneless of Dirk's voice coupled with his expression
was fucking ridiculous.
▲: "No," Dirk said immediately, maybe too quickly, but in that same monotone.
No, he wanted to do this right here. He put one hand on the back of Dave's head
and used the other to grab his own dick, shaking it a little bit to take it the
remaining distance to a full erection. He had already started getting hard, but
his momentary crisis had gotten him off track. Dave was looking up at him like
he was being read, like Dave was trying to figure out why he was being weird,
but what was Dirk supposed to say? Sorry man, I just remembered that my
boyfriend dumped me on this bed. Coincidentally, I think I kinda like you, and
those things together make me angry. He let go of his dick for a moment and ran
his thumb over Dave's bottom lip. "Tell me you're sorry." He squeezed Dave's
jaw. "Tell me you're not gonna fuckin' do that again." Grabbing his dick at the
base again, he pressed the tip of it insistently against Dave's lips. "Tell
me..." he trailed off, pushing inside Dave's mouth. He remembered that Dave
said he hated it when people-- customers-- did this to him. He also remembered
that Dave had done it to him last night anyway. "Tell me--" he started again,
feeling himself getting worked up over this. Tell me you're not gonna freak out
on me. Tell me you're not gonna get sick of me. Tell me you're not gonna go. "-
-you're gonna do whatever it takes to convince me," he finished after a minor
hesitation. He didn't know how he expected Dave to answer with his mouth full,
though.
▼: If he were actually capable of speech, he might have accused Dirk of some
pathological habit of wanting what was impossible, because he was pushing down
on Dave's head and forcing his way into Dave's mouth, and Dave was just
managing to keep up with it. He was still holding onto Dirk's hips for dear
life, which afforded a slight bit of control but not a whole hell of a lot, so
how the hell was Dave supposed to be giving him an answer to all those
questions?
Still, Dirk's voice had started off toneless and intimidating and ended up full
of some sort of curious sentiment, so even if he didn't quite understand it,
Dave decided that it was encouragement enough for him. He ran his hands over
Dirk's ass, running his fingers down the crease and pulling Dirk's hips towards
him, even, once he'd gotten his bearings somewhat and could take Dirk more
deeply in his mouth. He wasn't able to see Dirk very well from this angle, and
could only listen and feel the pressure Dirk put on the back of his head.
▲: Dirk closed his eyes, not consciously doing anything so crude as imagining
that Dave was actually Jake, but he couldn't shake the sensation of being there
with Jake, either. It was almost like he was getting blown not by Jake or by
Dave but rather by some kind of hybrid entity comprised of both of their
personalities and his combined experiences and memories with each of them. The
kind of genetic and personal morphing amalgamation that only happens in
videogames. Javesprite. Dakesprite. Something like that. It was a pitiful and
infuriating thing to have to see, even just in his own head. He shook his head
and tilted it back, groaning. Dave wasn't resisting him, so he didn't hesitate
to twist his hand in Dave's hair. It made him feel better, but just a little
bit. He was just wound so goddamn tight-- from the residual weirdness of
walking in on Dave in Jake's room, from having to think about how Jane died,
from remembering this shitty break-up and the gut-wrenchingly short time he had
to mourn it in any sort of effective way-- and Dave's mouth on his dick was
only making him tighter. "Get-- get on the floor," he mumbled in a low, raspy
voice, and jerked Dave's shoulder toward the edge of the bed.
▼: He opened his eyes when Dirk pulled his hair, first at the nape of his neck
and then at the fine hairs on the top of Dave's scalp, which made him shudder.
Dave pulled his head back and wiped the spit welling up in his mouth away
because he didn't suppose it would be a good idea to have Dirk's cock in his
mouth when he slid inelegantly to the floor. He still had his hands on Dirk's
ass, which was what he grabbed to pull himself onto his knees. Dirk was
treating him roughly, something Dave had expected since being caught in the
act, something maybe he'd woken up wanting, and Dirk's tone was impersonal too,
dismissive, as if Dave himself didn't matter, and Dave wondered if he was
reading into things, misunderstanding due to his own feelings. In any case, it
really did make him want to convince Dirk, whatever that even fuck that even
implied, because maybe he really was that fucking pathetic. So he crawled back
between Dirk's legs and tried to push Dirk down on the bed so Dave could see
his face and expression as he went to take him back in his mouth.
▲: Dirk responded by planting his feet and squeezing Dave's shoulder. He had no
intention of getting on the bed, because the leverage that he had-- literally
standing above him while Dave kneeled on the floor-- was one of the few things
that felt very satisfying to him just then. It made him feel capable of
handling the situation, some kind of 'not gonna take this lying down' bullshit.
So he spread his feet out to both plant himself down where he was standing and
to lower his hips a little, making it easier to push Daves head down on his
dick. He didn't usually do this to people-- that pompous asshole he lost his
virginity to didn't count, and dude had been fucking asking for it anyway-- but
it also felt satisfying. It kinda felt like he was getting some kind of revenge
on his past self for being such a fucking idiot about Jake. What do years of
unresolved breakup rage feel like? When you never get the chance to mourn the
relationship because you have to mourn your ex instead? Don't speak ill of the
dead, right? Fuck that.
He didn't push Dave down any further than he knew Dave could handle, but it
just felt good to put Dave at his mercy like that. He wasn't going to, but he
could if he wanted. Probably it was a foregone conclusion that this kind of
thing would happen at some point, but if you'd had asked him about it, he would
have said that it would happen during some prostitute roleplay shit, not this
weird misplaced grief anger. Not fucking his new boywhatever's face in his old
boyfriend's room. Still, holy shit, did it feel good. It was sloppier, messier,
like spit all over his dick, and it was gross but fitting. "Can you take more?"
he asked. He wasn't a total asshole.
▼: He was surprised that Dirk was still standing up, since it didn't seem that
comfortable to him, but comfort, he supposed, wasn't the goal here. This wasn't
a fucking Best Western, it was...well, the exact opposite. It was some dead
teenager's bedroom, full of personal effects and memories that, for differing
reasons, both he and Dirk maybe didn't want to remember so much, but they were
in here because of horrible adherence to...to some long-forgotten dare or
standard that they both foolishly felt they needed to uphold. Who even fucking
knew. All he did know was that he wanted Dirk to keep fucking his face until
all similar unwelcome comparisons left his mind. He started nodding before he
pushed Dirk back enough to get the guy's cock out of his mouth. "Yeah," he
said. "Yeah, I--" He didn't let himself finish, even. He only caught his breath
long enough to rest and then went back, dragging his nails down one of Dirk's
sides as he finally moved to touch himself with the other.
▲: Dave seemed eager enough to let Dirk get this out of his system, and that
gave Dirk this heady mixture of disgust and gratitude. Disgust at himself for
wanting to do this, to Jake and to Dave, disgust at Dave for being so eager to
please him, disgust at the fucked up situation they were in. Gratitude for the
fact that Dave *could* handle it, was willing to handle it, and gratitude for
finding someone who was fucked up in a way that was compatible with his own
way. Affection, anger, self-loathing, arousal, it all got jumbled together, and
he had to force himself to just concentrate on the way Dave's mouth felt
pressing down farther on his dick. The nails on his side helped, and he groaned
again, the monotone in his voice melting away to something more honest.
If he wasn't careful, he was going to start apologizing mid-coitus again.
"Don't know why I asked. Knew you could." He brought his hands down from the
back of Dave's head and wrapped them over Dave's ears and jaw instead, like he
was holding Dave's head up, holding it in place as he moved his hips instead of
forcing Dave's head down. "You'd do anything for a bit of positive attention.
Crawl around on the floor like a dog if I asked you to, just on the off-chance
I'd show you some fucking kindness. You got your bone, dog. Now suck it." He
pushed in, feeling the sick thrill rise through his spine. The knot of self-
loathing for his past self-- that was who he was talking too after all, wasn't
it?-- wasn't going to fucking budge, but fortunately it wasn't in the way of
the orgasm he could feel building up.
▼: With Dirk's cock so far down his throat, sucking was pretty difficult, and
he could mostly just move his tongue and feel the vise pressing down on his
head that was forcing him onto Dirk's cock. He was digging his nails fully into
Dirk's sides now, and if he felt some compunction about being so eager to let
Dirk do this, it didn't dim his enthusiasm, just made it worse. He started
squeezing his own cock in time with the rhythm he was sucking on Dirk. He
continued, and after a bit everything started to hurt; the pressure on his ears
was giving him a headache, he was still drooling all fucking over himself, and
he had nothing to jerk himself off with but his hand. He was being about as
patient with himself as Dirk was being with him. He made the vaguest of all
possible noises with his throat stuffed and let Dirk keep going until finally
he had to draw back and regain his bearings. He kneeled there for a second,
with the nails one hand digging into Dirk's hips and his forehead resting
against his stomach. He caught his breath before risking looking up and
wrapping his free hand, the one not occupied with Dave's own dick, around
Dirk's cock.
▲: Dirk had been really close when Dave pulled back, and that just pissed him
off more. He smoothed the hair back on the top of Dave's head, wiping it away
from the warm face that was pressed into his stomach. The gesture felt almost
paternal. Or maybe, yeah, maybe something you'd do to a pet. "Thought I told
you to heel, mother fucker," he muttered, but he didn't force Dave back down.
Not yet, anyway. Being yanked out of the moment forced him to open his eyes and
look down at Dave's face, which was bright red-- he didn't know if it was a
flush or just from where his hands had been grabbing him, or maybe both-- and
shiny with spit. Dave's lips were swollen and a little bit too red, cushiony,
and they bumped softly against the tip of Dirk's head while Dave jerked him
off. It was deceptive in how vulnerable it looked, one part pathetic and one
part brutally fucking hot. Dirk kinda felt like he'd been punched in the gut,
but already he was coming up on the orgasm. Now that he was looking at Dave, he
couldn't look away, so he wiped the sweat and the hair back from Dave's
forehead again, running his thumb over Dave's eye and down his cheek afterward.
"Open up," he said low, almost in a whisper, looking Dave in the eyes. His
breath started to break, like he couldn't believe how easy his body was being
this morning. Shit, this wasn't taking long at all. Apparently he got off
pretty hard on hating Past Dirk.
▼: It all seemed to be happening so quickly. Maybe the sensory deprivation, not
seeing or hearing anything for an extended period of time, was playing fast and
loose with his perception of time, or he was just distracted by every other
sensation. In any case, it was better to pause, catch his breath. He didn't
catch Dirk's eye until Dirk ran his thumb down Dave's face, not pressing hard
enough to hurt but at least enough to drag some of the skin down. He remembered
how last night he'd joked (half-joked) about wanting Dirk to gag him, but
apparently he'd been underestimating his own fortitude because he made no
comment about Dirk telling him to heel, or Dirk patting his head like a dog,
and instead opened his mouth to take in the tip as he continued to work the
rest of of Dirk's cock with his hand. He used his other hand to brace himself
on Dirk's hip, squeezing as hard as he could to hold himself up.
▲: Dirk broke eye contact just long enough to look wildly up at Angelina for a
moment before looking back down, composed again, at Dave's upturned face, which
he was no longer thrusting into but rather letting Dave come to him. He let
Dave rub it out, staying mostly silent until the orgasm was imminent, letting
out a few shaky warning moans before coming in Dave's mouth. "Don't you dare
swallow that," he muttered as he finished riding through it with small thrusts
into Dave's hands and against his flushed lips. It was hard to stay on his feet
while coming like this, and as soon as Dave let go of him, he sank down onto
the floor where Dave was, leaning in to put his forehead against him.
What happened next happened so fast that he didn't even really realize what he
was doing, although it undoubtedly came from that same place where he was angry
at all three of them for different reasons right now, and Dave had the
unfortunate luck of being the symbolic personification of and the object of
Dirk's frustrations. And the unfortunate luck of just having taken a load to
the mouth and being told not to swallow. Dirk brought his hands up to wipe the
saliva carefully from Dave's face, and his face was dispassionate, but his
composure was belied by the heaving breaths he was still taking because of the
orgasm. "You're so filthy, dude. You look disgusting." Once Dave's face was
clean, Dirk put his hand behind Dave's neck and leaned in to kiss him, parting
his lips immediately and taking the semen into his own mouth, like Dave had
done to him back in that shitty little room. But instead of swallowing it, he
pulled away and spat it forcefully on Dave's chest, where it dripped down his
torso and onto his stomach. "There," Dirk said, wiping his chin with his hand
and then rubbing it off on the carpet. "That's much better."
▼: He stared in shock for a second; he remembered Dirk gaping at him in
complete bewilderment after he'd done something similar in his bedroom, but
Dirk, predictably, had taken it a step further still, leaving Dave unawares in
a way that was jarring, disconcerting, and, in another context, very familiar,
because if there was one thing he was familiar with, it was never-ceasing games
of oneupmanship. That realization caused another wave of mortification. Part of
him wanted to curl up and cringe away, but there was another more daring part
that wanted to retaliate, if only to get another reaction out of Dirk.
Wrestling really wasn't his advantage, but he had surprise and Dirk's post-
orgasmic lethargy on his side, and all he wanted was to pin Dirk long enough to
at least feel like he was gaining back some semblance of control. "You--
fucking--*bastard*," he said, and pushed him onto the ground, pressing him down
by his chest. One of Dirk's knees was still partially bent, and Dave found
himself moving against it before he even really thought about why. If he
weren't so intent at that moment he might have smiled, but as it was he only
continued humping at Dirk's leg. If Dirk wanted to treat him like a dog, might
as well meet him halfway there, right? Really buy into the illusion or some
fucking thing. The friction of Dirk's skin, the hair on his legs, against
Dave's still-hard cock was incredibly rough, but he didn't want any gentleness
right then. That was for fucking sure.
▲: Part of Dirk was expecting Dave to do just that, to curl up and cringe away-
- probably so he could go on feeling sorry for himself in a new timeframe, for
alienating and disturbing someone else he had feelings for-- but fighting back
seemed to be much more in character for the relationship so far, didn't it? And
the use of that phrase, in character, was something that mirrored Dave's
thought process from the night before, not that Dirk knew about it. This was a
kind of role-play, although Dave seemed to be under the impression that he was
playing a dog instead of the combined identities of himself, Dirk's dead ex,
and Dirk's past self. Or maybe Dave knew something else was up and just hadn't
asked what yet. Either way, being shoved to the ground felt a lot more like
something Dirk deserved than having to rescue a broken kid from the dingy
corner of some psychological cage of shame. He'd made such a point of saying
that he could handle whatever Dave had that it didn't occur to him that Dave
could handle what he had, too. That was why this kept working, in its own
severely dysfunctional way.
The palm of Dave's hand was pressing into the soft part of his abdomen just
below his xiphoid process, constricting his diaphragm and shocking him into
breathlessness. He wanted to make some kind of retort-- something about knowing
who your daddy is-- but he couldn't, so instead he reached up and pressed
Dave's dick into his leg with his hand. He didn't quite wrap his hand around
Dave, forcing him to continue to hump himself off, but at least providing more
friction than from the leg alone. The come he'd spit out onto Dave's torso was
dripping slowly onto his own chest in small drops. Dirk grimaced, but he wasn't
going to roll away until Dave was satisfied.
▼: The added hand was infuriating to Dave. It was less rough than the rub of
Dirk's knee and the hair on his leg, but not satisfying enough. He dragged his
nails down Dirk's sides again in frustration, leaned forward and hissed at him.
"Why don't you say something, fucker? Couldn't get you to shut up before, could
I." He had to consciously restrain himself from saying anymore; knowing him, he
would go off on a spiel and end up spinning his wheels uselessly in the
metaphor ditch, and shit, wasn't this whole leg-humping thing bad enough? It
was filthy because he was getting Dirk's spit and jizz all over them, it was
desperate, and the fact that he had to work so hard for such a small bit of
pleasure made it more degrading. Eventually he couldn't stand it anymore, and
had to dismount. He sank onto Dirk's chest, burying his head in Dirk's neck and
grabbing the hand Dirk had been touching him with. He wrapped it around his
cock as he sunk his teeth into Dirk's neck.
▲: Dirk opened his mouth at Dave's taunting, but nothing came out. He wasn't
sure if it was more because he couldn't breathe or because he had nothing to
say. Instead he bit his lips together tightly and frowned, staring up at Dave
who was inches from his face. This side of Dave was every bit as brutally hot
as the superficially vulnerable side that he'd seen just a minute ago, which
made sense because they were two sides of the same fucking coin. When Dave
finally collapsed onto him, he sucked in a deep breath and wrapped his hand
around Dave's dick, stroking him mercifully fast. "Can't even-- hump yourself
off-- like a good fucking dog," he managed to choke out, squeezing Dave's dick
tighter as Dave latched onto his throat. God, that was going to leave a serious
mark, not that he wasn't covered in the damn things already. "You don't even
deserve this small kindness. You're lucky I like you so fucking much."
▼: "Coulda fooled me," he said in a low voice right next to Dirk's ear. He
licked a line from the new mark on Dirk's throat, up his neck, and bit lightly
at his earlobe. So much for not talking. He moved his hips again into Dirk's
hand, feeling himself getting closer with each squeeze. "Some fucking kindness.
Shit. You probably would--shit. Shitting fuck, Dirk. Would you just--" He let
out a soft breath as Dirk worked him harder. He pushed his chest against Dirk's
as he finally came with a choked noise. It happened sooner than he'd expected,
harder and more brutal than anything. He collapsed on top of Dirk, and even
though he was uncomfortable where he was, for a second he thought he could
almost fall asleep right there.
He drew away, though. As aggravating as he'd made it for himself (on purpose,
he supposed) it left him empty and satisfied. He rolled over on his side and
tried to study as much of Dirk's expression as he could without lifting his
head, and absently he reached out and traced one of the bitemarks on Dirk's
neck with his index finger. This time he forcibly suppressed any awkward
questions that he'd been led to ask last night on the couch. That was the kind
of interview that could wait. Even though he'd been invited to ask questions,
Dave figured it was a topic that could wait, at least until they got away from
this bedroom and the memories it had brought back.
▲: Dirk stared up at the ceiling, dazed and trying to get his breath back,
which he never really was able to do after his own orgasm because of how Dave
had attacked him. The adrenaline stayed high, and he was just now coming down
from anything. He had that same feeling of mental and emotional
overstimulation. His skin felt cold and thin, like if you breathed on it the
wrong way it would start aching like a fever. Maybe that was just a deep bone
weariness from too much emotionally charged sex in less than 24 hours. When
Dave rolled off of him, he concentrated on breathing first. It had become kind
of a ritual between them to make sure that the other guy was okay afterward,
but Dirk wasn't entirely sure that *he* was okay. He felt pretty gross about
what he'd just done, and it was different from the gross stuff he'd done back
in Dave's room at the brothel, because that had been mostly about Dave's stuff.
He had no problem being mean to Dave for the sake of dealing with Dave's
issues, but he felt guilty for doing it for selfish reasons. He closed his eyes
and swallowed a few times, feeling Dave's fingers on his throat, before turning
his head to face him. "What were you going to say? I probably would... what?"
▼: His fingers stilled on Dirk's throat for a second after Dirk made eye
contact, and he froze like he was under a spotlight. Shit, what had he been
going to say? He briefly considered telling Dirk he didn't know; was he
expected to know every bit of bullshit he was spouting off, or was about to
spout off? But that would be a lie, and there was no point not being honest
with each other, after all that. Or so he told himself. "Probably would take
even a dog humping your leg at this point. Right?" He had meant to come off
flippantly, to have the sentence roll off his tongue and then to add something
else, but whatever he was going to say was stopped by a look in Dirk's eyes, or
maybe just his own consciousness of how the sentence had come off. When he
spoke next, it was after an awkward silence. "Uh. Yeah. You don't seem like a
dog person. I dunno." He pulled his hand away from Dirk's throat and sat up,
pulled himself back so he could look at Dirk. Part of him wanted to stand up
and go into the shower, wash this shit off of himself, but he stayed where he
was. For the moment, at least.
▲: Dirk actually laughed a little bit, but softly and without much vigor. "No,
I'm not much of a pet person. I greatly prefer to commune with animals that
take your life in their hands instead of the other way around, like a graceful
galloping herd of mechanical ponies jetting off en masse into a pastel sunset.
That real fuckin' majestic shit." He rolled over, rotating his body so that his
head was in Dave's lap, resting against the meat of one of Dave's thighs, and
he grabbed one of Dave's hands, bringing it up to rest on his chest. "Nothing
majestic about a dog," he said quietly. "They just drool everywhere." He ran
his finger through some of the jizz that had dripped onto his own chest-- from
where he'd spat it on Dave's chest-- and then rubbed it into the back of Dave's
hand. He tilted his head back, looking up at Dave's face. "You know those were
just words, right?" Except for the part about really liking him, apparently.
That was a nugget of truth that slipped through the bullshit. Maybe it was just
a coincidence. "I don't need to tell you that, do I? Because if you actually
need me to reassure you that I would rather have you humping me than a dog-
- any fucking day, for real-- I will."
▼: When Dirk started waxing poetic about ponies and pastel pastures or what the
fuck ever, Dave took it as a cue that it was a good time to get up and leave.
Before he could, though, Dirk was putting his head on his lap, grabbing Dave's
hand and being reassuring in a disturbingly earnest tone. Dave supposed after
you spit your own come back on someone was a good time to be earnest, but it
was surreal thing anyway. He watched Dirk rub the jizz into the back of his
hand-- gross, but oddly transfixing to watch. "You don't need to reassure me,"
he said, slowly. "I'm not that fucking--" He was going to say needy, then bit
the inside of his cheek to stop himself. He wasn't actually mad, about the
smack talk or the come-spitting, but he wondered where it had come from, if
anywhere, and he wondered if it was worth it to ask.
What the hell. "If I say we're in a relationship...does it bug you?" Which
wasn't exactly what he'd meant to ask, but oh well. "Because when I say that, I
just mean it in...like, the general way you can use it to mean two people
being...you know. Linked. In one way or another." He winced, conscious that he
was not explaining this very well, and that discussing it without bringing up
the b-word was pretty fucking tough. "I don't care if you don't think of me as
your boyfriend or whatever. It doesn't matter to me." They were just words,
right?
▲: Wow, that was... not at all where he expected Dave to go. Dirk hesitated,
continuing to rub his finger against the skin on the back of Dave's hand while
he chose his words carefully. "Don't think anyone's in the business of making
up words to describe what we are to each other," he said eventually. "If you
find yourself in the position to call me something, just use whatever best fits
the circumstances. If 'boyfriend' is easiest, ok. If 'bro' is better, that's
fine too." Maybe this wasn't the best time to bring up that other b word, but
it was applicable to them. It was definitely more empirically and universally
applicable to them than 'boyfriends', although neither one was incredibly
accurate. Might as well not shy away from that. "I guess that was a really dumb
way to say no, it doesn't bug me." He sat up, looking somewhat impassively
around the room. Suddenly he didn't want to be in here anymore, now that it was
over.
▼: "I didn't think it would. I just wondered if we should...talk about that."
He watched Dirk stand up and regard the room with the same general distaste
Dave had started to see it with. "Or not. In fact, let's never talk about
anything, let's just communicate in dismissive eye rolls and spitting come on
each other when we're mad." He stood up because after all the kneeling on the
floor his legs were stiff. He cracked his back and then looked down at Dirk.
"Eye rolls can be surprisingly communicative, you know. It's definitely one of
the top ten reasons I miss the Stiller shades John bought me." What a smooth
subject change. He was like some sort of conversational ninja. He started to
pick up his clothes and watched Dirk out of the corner of his eye. Part of him
wanted to be alone and part of him did not, and it was a highly frustrating and
contradictory feeling. "Communication in general is just overrated, in my
opinion. I'm going to the shower, you want in too?"
▲: "I'm, uh--" Wow, how to explain this? "I'm not mad," he said simply. He
wasn't sure he agreed with Dave's assessment that they should communicate only
in gestures and bodily fluids, but he wasn't eager to talk about that part of
his relationship with Jake either. He stood up too, walking away from the bed
and away from the hateful Tomb Raider poster, closing the door to the room
behind them as they vacated the premises. Dave hadn't cleaned up the mess, but
that had never really been the point, probably. He wasn't sure what the
original point was anymore. In lieu of answering, Dirk went over to the closet
and got some more towels. He wasn't sure where the towels from last night even
ended up, and he wasn't about to go looking for them. Since he'd taken the
shower first last night, he let Dave have first shot at the water. It was a
while before he said anything, and for some time he was content just standing
in the steam and waiting to step in behind Dave. "Do you have any spare pairs
at your old apartment? That's still a thing that we could go do. Like maybe
next weekend."
▼: "Nope," he said. "Spares were for people who made mistakes. Or something. I
dunno." Getting the jizz off of him made him feel better, less hectic and like
he was hitting all the wrong notes as he spoke. "Probably shoulda invested in
some but. You know how it is. I liked those ones a lot." If felt nice to be
talking about something concrete instead of a lot of nebulous relationship (or
lack thereof) discussions, even if it was about something stupid yet oddly
maudlin like the shades. "If I wanted the shades we'd have to go back to the
Horse Hitcher. Which I'm not ready to do unless it's to burn that fucker to the
ground." He rinsed off his torso one more time before stepping back to let Dirk
have a go at the water. "But yeah, we should go to the apartment. If you're
still up for it I definitely am. Call it a fucking adventure."
▲: Dirk grunted a "Hmm," noise at that. Burning down the Horse Hitcher wasn't
out of the question-- not by a long shot-- but he had other priorities for the
time being. Also it would require approval. They could always go rogue, but a
lot of people knew they had a reason to want to do such a thing. Sick fires of
the literal persuasion weren't really Dirk's forte anyway, but he did know a
guy. You'd think someone with horns that big would be a conspicuous fucker, but
dude was deceptively stealthy. "Ok. I'll pencil it in. I'll probably swing by
first and look into it, just superficially. Rule out any obvious problems." He
opened the door and stepped in behind Dave, putting his hands on Dave's ass.
"If we're gonna do this, though, I'm gonna need to know that you'll be able to
do whatever I say at a moment's notice. No questions fucking asked. Does that
sound like something you can do?"
▼: He raised his eyebrows and turned around, letting Dirk's arms rest on his
hips for a second before Dave leaned forward to kiss him. "If I didn't fucking
trust you, asshole," he muttered against Dirk's cheek, almost but not quite in
his ear, "would I have let you spit your jizz back at me like the world's
nastiest loogie with minimal comment?" He stayed standing there for a second,
resting one of his hands in Dirk's hair and just feeling the spray. This was
becoming kind of a theme with Dirk, just standing under the shower spray as a
way to cool off emotionally and physically, and he would have said he liked it
a lot were it not for the fact that they were probably wasting a metric fuckton
of water. It bugged him, but apparently not enough that he was going to step
back out of Dirk's reach. "Do you really need me to take some sacred oath on
this? I've got your back, you've got mine, if there's gunplay or whatever I'll
leave it to you, unless one of them wants to duel with shitty katanas at dawn."
Roxy had offered to teach him how to shoot a couple weeks ago, but he'd
declined due to general distaste for pretty much all guns. It might have bugged
him, but it wasn't like he didn't know how to take care of himself in a fight,
if it came to that. "You really expecting that much trouble?"
▲: "It's not a question of trust," Dirk said quietly, letting Dave muss with
his hair. He closed his eyes against the small beads the warm water that
splashed off of Dave's arm and into his face. The thing was, he hadn't lost
very many friends to this game, but he had no doubt that the few of them whom
he did lose had trusted him. It was more about reflexes and good decision-
making than anything else. And a healthy dose of luck. "It's more like
instinct. Like if I tell you to do something, your brain doesn't even have time
to remind itself that it shouldn't question what I'm saying, because your body
is already doing what I told it to. My voice needs to activate all your reflex
circuits. You feel me? I don't know what to expect-- that's the point." The
thought of possibly taking Dave into a tense situation filled Dirk with a lot
of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he honestly felt a little pumped,
like he wanted to know what Dave could do, and that was probably some kind of
latent brotherly instinct. On the other hand, it scared the piss out of him and
he wanted nothing to do with it, which was probably a brotherly instinct of a
different kind. Or maybe just something you felt about anyone you cared about.
He picked his arms up from Dave's hips and wrapped them around his back,
pulling them together and kissing him. He could feel the water flowing down
Dave's face and between their lips, warm and slick, sloppy, making them slide
across each other.
▼: "Yeah, I get you. I guess." He sank into the kiss, but he was feeling
conflicted as well. He got what Dirk was getting at all right, but talking
about it in low mutters in the shower gave it a different context than the
words by themselves could possibly have. Which Dirk most likely counted on, but
he grimaced a little even as they kissed and when his back broke out into
goosebumps it could be plausibly denied as being because it was the side of his
body not under the water. "I've got pretty good reflexes. As a general rule."
He kissed Dirk harder, pressing their bodies closer to share the heat of the
water, and any compunction he had about wasting water was mostly forgotten. It
was...yeah, he could admit. It was fucking exciting, especially after now that
he'd spent a relatively quiet month expecting another shoe to drop only for it
to never actually happen. The idea of courting any amount of danger was
attractive, as was the idea of going back to the apartment, as if he had
something to prove. To Dirk, maybe to Roxy, and almost certainly to himself.
▲: Dirk guided Dave around so that they switched positions while they kissed,
so that Dirk was the one under the water now. Dave wasn't the only one with
jizz all over him, after all, although he *had* gotten the worst of it. He
pulled away reluctantly and grabbed the soap, which he wasn't sure he needed
since they had taken a shower before going to sleep the night before, but while
he was here, you know? "You're also the dumb kid who thought he could take on
Noir," he said without malice. He gave himself a cursory swipe with the soap
and rinsed out his hair really well, not seeing the point in washing it again
so soon. "When we get out what say we go poke around in the Uncanny Valley's
closet? Maybe even power up LeAnn before I take you back into the city." Dirk
wasn't sweet on the idea of taking Dave back, but his dick was ready for a
break, not to mention the rest of him. Maybe there was such a thing as too much
of a good thing. He stepped out of the stream, giving it back to Dave, but
before he got out of the shower he paused to run his hands down Dave's sides,
looking him over. Would be a shame to send Dave back to Roxy's looking like a
battered kid, but it seemed that Dave had gotten out of the weekend less
scathed than Dirk for once.
▼: He'd almost forgotten about LeAnn. Dear, sweet LeAnn, powered off and
waiting patiently downstairs while he got his weird sex quota for the week
filled upstairs. He nodded in agreement and finished up himself, noticing the
way Dirk appeared to take in Dave's own appearance before stepping out of the
stall. Dirk himself, to Dave's eyes, looked pretty rough, and there was a
split-second when he wondered what had happened before he remembered: he, Dave,
had happened. It was strange to think about, strange to be reminded, and yeah,
oddly satisfying to see, even though a good many of the marks looked much
angrier than they had when Dave had originally inflicted them.
In any case, it didn't matter much when they got dressed. Dave went downstairs
to grab some more of his shit, and grabbed the bunny while he was at it. "Which
closet is Uncanny Valley closet?" he asked as he returned to Dirk's room and
sat down on the bed to inspect LeAnn's controls. "The one with Mount Smuppet,
or is there another one I should know about?" The on-switch was on the very
bottom; he remembered that from last night. He flipped it finally and watched
the lights in her eyes turn on.
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