Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/1098547. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Homestuck Relationship: Mituna_Captor/Sollux_Captor/The_Psiioniic Character: Mituna_Captor, Sollux_Captor, The_Signless, The_Psiioniic_|_The_Helmsman Additional Tags: Caliginous_Romance_|_Kismesis, Captorcest_-_Freeform, Orgasm_Delay/ Denial, Bondage, Psionic_Bondage, Xeno, Come_Inflation, Threesome, Bathtub_Sex, Voyeurism, Exhibitionism, Age_Difference, Size_Difference Collections: Giftstuck Stats: Published: 2013-12-24 Words: 4622 ****** Three Isn't Symmetry ****** by tatterdemalionAmberite_(amberite) Summary Why the Beforan equivalent of yourself didn't appear here, you're not sure, though you suspect it has something to do with direct and indirect transference and the extent to which each of you had contact with game code prior to this remix of the universe; the Ancestors from Alternia had vague memories of being their Beforan selves, so both versions re-instanced, but as far as you know you're the only version of Sollux Captor the game was aware of. Poor Sollux, you jeer internally, all alone in the world. If you were to quadrant yourself, you're not sure whether self-hate or self-pity would be the dominant emotion, but either way, you're getting off on it. God, you make yourself sick. You hold your bulge like you're trying to restrain it, but who the fuck are you kidding. It wraps around your fingers, both tendrils snaking and coiling harder the more you try to will them to stop, like don't-think-of-a-trunkbeast, and you rub at them distractedly because you can't stand not to. Sollux Captor, system architect of the new universe, reduced to thinking with his bulge by two copies of his ancestor being obnoxious at each other. Fuck your hot life. Notes This is as close to a PWP as I will ever write, which is to say I've carefully pared down my plot-generating instinct to allow as much smut to take shape as possible but it's still framed with some amount of worldbuilding. The Sneaker Pimps album Bloodsport makes great caliginous porny music, just so you know. It wound up being a gentle sort of blackrom. I sort of think the Captors are liable to roll that way. The xeno headcanons are a little different from my usual, in case anyone was wondering. ==>Sollux: facepalm. You should have expected, all told, that in this remixed universe (you're tired of people calling it "rebooted", too; if that much changes every time you reboot a system, you're doing it wrong) you wouldn't only have to deal with your damn ancestor up in your business, but there'd be two of him. HA HA 2O IIRONIIC. You wrote the code, for fuckssakes. You're not sure whether this particular stable result of population parameters is a result of the fact that you wrote it, or a cosmic joke; but the ancestors from your universe and their former selves from the previous universe both exist here. As far as you can tell, the rewriting process has rendered you from some composite of the images that lingered in the dream-bubbles. Psii is hale and whole but scarred and flinching; Mituna seems to glitch out a little less with each passing night, which surprises him as much as anyone else - you're guessing something about this reality being less static is making him gradually regenerate synapses - and your eyes are seemingly intact but sometimes you have to focus on knowing that to be able to see through them. And you're all living in an enormous hivestem together and it's taking some getting used to. Everyone's in each other's face all the time. But they both exist here, in any case. What's more, their worse instincts are out in full. Having met the (younger, dead) Mituna in a dreambubble, you are not surprised that he tends to be the instigator; you are surprised that the Psiioniic, the one from your home universe, takes Mituna's goading and gives as much as he gets. You bring this up to Signless - Kankri-the-elder, as it were - and he smiles gently and assures you that Psii was always like that; that it's a good sign seeing this side of him surface. (That smile reminds you of AA's, sometimes. The mellow isn't an act, it just has sharper teeth than people expect - the way the corner of his mouth tilts up and twitches just a little is the tell, a sign that his benevolent tolerance is rooted in the fact that all this chaos amuses the shit out of him.) "If he drops his eyes, he's thinking like a slave," Signless says. But this isn't not dropping his eyes. This is. Well. He has Mituna pinned to a wall in coils of light. "It hurtth," Mituna is complaining. But that's not a whine of alarm in his tone. You're not sure what it is, until you see - what the fuck - you see unformed brightness emerging from Mituna's eyes and splattering uselessly against the force pinning him - "Getting better does," the Psiioniic growls - It's the third time you've felt the impulse to intervene and try to calm them the fuck down. Because you're such a levelheaded bystander, ha ha again. But this time you open your mouth to say something and you can't think of a damned thing. You've been so caught up in your mental narrative of you're the auspistice, it's you and marveling about how fucked up that is - that you've been completely fucking dense about what's actually going on this whole time. What you're witnessing isn't misdirected and it isn't unwanted. Okay, so it's still dangerous, but you're not sure quadranting someone of your power rating ever isn't. And what you're seeing here - You take a step closer anyway, still thinking your next action is going to be something ashen or at least ashen-esque, something like hey how about let's go for a coffee, what started this anyway, and Mituna - Mituna's pinned at his wrists and ankles and that leaves his entire (surprisingly muscular) midsection to writhe and arch up off the wall and give you an eyeful of dancestor crotch. An eyeful of - you can tell he's unsheathed under his clothes, swollen and squirming, and you can't help it, his anatomy is so close to yours that you can feel it in hallucinatory vivid detail - something primitive in your brain goes off and your own bulge gives a sudden violent twitch, and with it comes a surge of jealousy. You're not sure whether you want to be pinning or want to be pinned - probably the latter - but either would be nice. You hate them for starting this without you, which is dumb as shit because you wouldn't have let them start this with you until now. You're not aware of the little openmouthed whimpering noise you've made until Psii turns his head around slowly to face you. And then recoils as if slapped. He lets Mituna down to the ground slowly and attempts to flee down the hall. "Well?" Mituna says, and it takes you a moment to realize he's talking to you. "Get your nerd ath in gear, are you going to follow him or not?" "Why would I -" You're more than half convinced that the Psiioniic left the room because he's disgusted by you. "Do I have to ecthplain - of course I ham. Have to. He's me." Mituna says it as if that explains everything. "And?" "He'th fucking, shy. Not shy. Embarrathed. Not the right word. Like he thinkth he'th done thomething wrong. Head to wall syndrome." Mituna mimes beating his head against the wall. "Thinkth he fucked up. Hathn't fucked much of anything yet though," he says, and waggles his eyebrows in a disturbing imitation of Cronus. "Okay, I get the picture. Why do you want me to follow him?" But you're starting to put the pieces together. You're probably the one Psii thinks he's offended. Great. You interrupted what was going to be a perfectly good caliginous tryst and didn't even do aftercare. You fail at ashen forever. But Mituna surprises you. "He doethn't know," he says. "Know what?" you ask. "That you have a wiggly," he sneers. Mimes that, too, and no matter how awkward his finger movements sometimes are, the crudity of the active bulge hand gesture is totally intact. "You know," he says blithely, like you somehow missed his implication the first time. "In your pantth. Your bulge ith tuning in like a radio antenna. Woop woop. I knooooow your frequenthy." Your face is also getting searing-hot. You think of telling your ancestor that and you're pretty sure that no matter how many times you die it won't cure your embarrassment. "Back the fuck up," you're saying. "Tell me. What in all the pothible univertheth did I walk into?" "Unconventional yet badath coaching. And also I'm pretty sure he hateth me back." Mituna grins triumphantly. You wince. You're not sure why; there isn't really any taboo in either the remnants of Beforan or Alternian society against dating your relations; it's a rare circumstance, mostly happens with long-lived seadwellers, but since relations don't double as lusii and troll reproduction is mostly clonal, and most people don't know their relations or even know of them, it's not considered to be anything wrong. You're mostly freaking out, you realize, because you've gotten concerned about what the humans are going to say, and why does that matter, anyway? Okay, you're also hanging back because you still have a wiggly. Your bulge, as far as you can tell, is trying to tie itself in a knot, somewhere between your efforts to clench it back in and the shit Mituna's saying to you. This 'skinny jeans' thing Dave got you to try is not going to stay in your wardrobe. And it's practically a given that you're the least sexually experienced of your genome. Mituna has sweeps of unreal time with Latula; the Psiioniic seems to have some kind of arrangement with the elder Vantas and Leijon that you couldn't describe if you tried. You, meanwhile, - a few rails-with-pails shenanigans, no more. .... And thinking of Mituna and his doppelganger getting it on is bad enough; thinking of interrupting them - like you apparently just did - no, you're not going to try to interpose yourself between them. Mituna grabs your arm and tugs, probably unintentionally, nearly hard enough to dislocate your shoulder. "Ow!" "You gotta thay thomething," he says cheerfully. "But you -" "Closed-quadrant shit ith tho old-universh." Impulsive behavior is apparently still on in this universe, because he leans in and, when you don't lean away, gives you a hard fangy kiss, as if to say, see? You're returning it without thinking about it. Until you do think about it and break away, utterly chagrined. "Fine," he says. "Your funeral. I put the fun in. I put the fun in... thomewhere elthe. You gotta thay if you want me to put it in you," and this is that weird Beforan thing again, this ritual of asking permission, and you want - Your want them both so much your nook aches with it, and you can't even make yourself think of asking. You growl in the back of your throat, and retreat, frustrated, to your respiteblock. ~~~ It's when you're in your ablution block splashing cold water on your face that you hear voices coming from the next block over - sounds from the next room are not usually so loud; you all room next to each other, but there's another ablution block separating on that side. Which means they must be in the ablution block, and what they could be doing there - Their voices are similar, but their intonations totally different; you'd recognize the distinct qualities of them anywhere. "Push me harder," Mituna is saying. "No," the Psiioniic says. Quiet, slow, the kind of demure that edges into velvety. "Not the way you mean. There'th a limit to progreth for any given time. Earlier - when Sollux interrupted us - I realized that I was letting my judgment be affected. I'm not going to make that mistake again." He manages to barely lisp when he's focusing, and you're jealous of that, too. "I like that," Mituna says, and fuck, his voice is getting all breathy and you - nnh, oh, this is - you unbutton your jeans, trying to convince yourself that you're just doing it so you won't end up tangled with yourself in your sheath any worse than you already are. "Becauthe fuck your judgment ith why. Your judgment could uthe a good fuck. I mean... I actually mean that. The thing I thaid. That your judgment could uthe a good fuck." You could use a good fuck, and you're more aware of it by the second, and you're not sure whether you hate yourself or pity yourself more. You're wrestling with your bulge. The two tendrils are twisted around each other so badly it actually hurts when you reach for it and you gasp and you're terribly, wonderfully aware of what a fucking mess you are. No, you're not going to pail yourself listening to them, no, you're just going to smooth them out and put your goddamn pants back on. Self-control. You have that, right? There's a rustle from the next block and a startled grunt and you're pretty sure Mituna went for the surprise kiss attack combo. "I won't be -" Psii is stammering now - he gets that way sometimes when he's discombobulated. "I don't - I'm not going to - take advantage of -" "- Becauthe I'm weaker?" Mituna says, and that's distinctly a snarl in his voice. "Earlier you knew better -" "- Ow!" That's the Psiioniic's voice. "Okay, you're making your damn point, I - " "Try not using your powerth, thee how long it taketh, I have, I have fucking anatomy. And fucking anatomy, I have that too." "Yeah, I sort of noticed," Psii is saying, and he laughs, the same nasal hey-I- gotcha laugh all three of you have, and your bulge twitches hard in your hand and at the same time it makes you bitterly aware of your own presence outside of this. "Your bulge is, heh, having a party over there." Your own bulge is still jammed halfway into your sheath, looped back on itself, and your sheath is smarting from the pressure as you try to tug it out. "Don'tcha want to know if you're invited?" "Oh, I already know I'm invited," Psii says. "The question is, do I show up." "You mean, do you come," Mituna says. You can practically hear the eyebrows on that one. "I think Rosa would call that a pun unworthy of cookies," Psii says absently, and sighs. "So is it technically self-pailing?" "It's sexnically really hot." "I'm not entirely you," the Psiioniic says, and there's a strange brittle tension in his voice. "We... remember different thingth." "Everyone elthe I pail, ith, they aren't me at all, tho what." Your bulge is swelling and it coils more as it swells, and it gets stuck worse as it coils. You're going to have to - no, okay, this isn't strictly something you have to do, if you're being honest; it just feels better that way. You suck in breath through your teeth and reach into your nook with two fingers and press upward, outward against your abdomen, pushing your bulge out from inside. There's another enthusiastic kiss from the next room; this one is wet and vigorous enough that you can actually hear it, can actually phantom-feel it on your lips, another tongue just like yours, could be Psii's, could be Mituna's, and you're thinking of something you weren't going to let yourself think about, the two points of his tongue felt in sharp sensory relief against the roof of your mouth earlier - and your bulge slips out all at once. No, it's not only learned taboo from the humans that stops you. You're inexperienced, that's a thing; and you're technically the odd one out here. Why the Beforan equivalent of yourself didn't appear here, you're not sure, though you suspect it has something to do with direct and indirect transference and the extent to which each of you had contact with game code prior to this remix of the universe; the Ancestors from Alternia had vague memories of being their Beforan selves, so both versions re-instanced, but as far as you know you're the only version of Sollux Captor the game was aware of. Poor Sollux, you jeer internally, all alone in the world. If you were to quadrant yourself, you're not sure whether self-hate or self-pity would be the dominant emotion, but either way, you're getting off on it. God, you make yourself sick. You hold your bulge like you're trying to restrain it, but who the fuck are you kidding. It wraps around your fingers, both tendrils snaking and coiling harder the more you try to will them to stop, like don't-think-of-a-trunkbeast, and you rub at them distractedly because you can't stand not to. Sollux Captor, system architect of the new universe, reduced to thinking with his bulge by two copies of his ancestor being obnoxious at each other. Fuck your hot life. You don't realize you're making a stupid trilling noise until Mituna starts laughing uproariously. "Sooooolllluuuuux," he calls through the wall and laughs again, and after a moment the Psiioniic joins in the cackling. It's becoming clear that this was a setup, that Mituna followed his eschatotwin into the ablution block at least in part to tease you, and that. That is just the last fucking straw. "I can hear you too, you know," you call out, and your attempt at a snarl only wavers a little. "Then get your ath in here, hacker boy," Mituna says gleefully. "You think you're too fucking cool but you're acting too cool for fucking." You're not even sure that makes sense, but you're too busy seething: He's engineered something you could never manage to, because he doesn't have the inhibitions you do. You disentangle yourself and throw on a robe over your T-shirt - you're not going to try to get your pants buttoned up again in this state, hands slicked with thin gold fluid from unsheathing into them. Super classy. Mituna opens the blockportal to you and shuts it behind you, promptly heading back to the ablution block. The Psiioniic practically crashes into him, emerging bright-faced and awkward, this kind of chagrined expression on his face. You sympathize. "Bulgeface," Mituna shouts, "how many timeth do I h-have to thay I wang thith, I mean I want thi, I mean -" His train of thought is running ahead of his ability to make words come out his mouth again, but it's clearly a continuation of the earlier dialog. And then he - you thought you were seeing things earlier - he's flaring out red and blue, shoving at the Psiioniic crudely. You're not sure if you're wincing because it hurts to be zapped that way or because some intuition tells you he's overdoing it; a moment later Mituna's face crumples in an expression of pain, the flares of light dying down, and you can tell that he's trying to reach for power and not finding it. "I thaid we were done for now," Psii snaps. "Didn't believe me, did you? Now you do. You can regenerate, but it'th not going to happen overnight." Mituna finally gives up on pushing his brain, but he's not done pushing Psii, panting and reaching out with both hands to grab his collarbones, and yeah, they're both just as hot under the collar as they sounded earlier, and you're finding yourself responding in sync. You can't help the tiny whimper that slips out of your throat as your nook slides against the crotch of your unbuttoned jeans. This isn't fucking fair. Mituna keeps giving you these sideways glances as Psii pins him again, this time responding to his earlier challenge: do it with your body, not your mind powers - and sure enough Mituna breaks free quickly, rebounds on him and holds him to the other wall. The Psiioniic says something so breathless-lisped that you can barely understand it, then calms down with an effort of will and says, "This isn't working." "It's fucking well enough for me," Mituna says, then deliberately: "Oops, wrong word." But he pulls his arms back, and stands there panting. "If I only use my body and not my powers, you're obviously a great deal stronger. But if I use my powers, I'll overwhelm you, well. Pretty much instantly." The Psiioniic smirks, and Mituna splutters. "Hey, don't look at me," Psii says. "I'm trying to change that for you, if you'd just cooperate. Anyway. I have no taste for caliginous romance unless it's properly competitive," and his tone is deceptively relaxed but you're pretty sure he's navigating around things he doesn't want to remember. "OK, so, thith guy." Mituna rounds on you cheerfully. "Let'th make him watch." "What does that have to do with - oh." Psii figures it out faster than you do; it hits you a moment later just as the wave of force does. "Hey!" You're struggling, but your powers don't match his. "Hey, what are you, oh fuck -" Your robe is hanging open, displaying your bulge, which twitches hard and twines itself like it's trying to crawl back into your pants. And you can't reach for it because your hands are suddenly locked to the wall. "Say the word and I'll stop," Psii says to you. Then, "Quite right, Mituna - my attention is divided now, so long as he's trying to fend me off. Trying, not pretending to try." The Psiioniic laughs, a quiet rumbling chuckle that starts slowly, pebble to avalanche, and you're suddenly more aware than usual that they've both gone through their final molt and you haven't; that they have a good foot of height on you and who knows how much more bulge, and you breathe in and out. "Are you going to double team me," you ask, because you're not going to not, and the Psiioniic turns to you and - god, he's nearly expressionless but it reads like a dark feral grin. "No," he says quietly. And then he turns back to Mituna and you can't stop watching. They're tearing each other's clothes off, literally, Psii taking Mituna's clothes to rags with nearly invisible cuts and Mituna yanking at his shirt until it tears along a seam. He's got his hands behind his back like it's a dare, and he's right, you haven't really tried to break his hold yet, and it's not going to be easy when you do. "I can't believe thith," you mutter. Your bulge almost hurts now, and it's only getting worse by the moment. "You're horrible." They ignore you, or pretend to - Psii's hold doesn't waver. You're disgusted with yourself - you know intellectually that you wouldn't be in here with your arms and legs stuck to the wall if they didn't want you, but watching them with their hands all over each other and neither of them touching you brings you near tears; and realizing how easily you're goaded just makes it worse. So you call out snarky remarks to distract yourself. "Did you hear the one where three yellowbloodth walk into an ablution block," and "What even ith that, did you learn that from a Pailing With Parkour vid -" Because as long as you're babbling you can distract yourself from the growing frustration. And maybe distract Psii from holding you in place, though you're failing so far at that part. You try as hard as you can to get your hand free to touch yourself; it's not happening, and your jeans, though open, are halfway up your hips and block any attempt you could make to fuck yourself with your own bulge. He's. Oh god. They're in the ablution trap now, and Mituna's straddling the Psiioniic, and you can see just enough of where their bodies join to make out the outline of Psii's bulge pushing up into his nook, and Mituna's on top right now but it keeps shifting back and forth, and for a moment you completely forget to keep talking, and keening and trilling sounds come out your mouth instead. Embarrassed by your lack of control you push hard at the bonds encircling you - hard enough that your head throbs, trying to lever yourself up, hands and feet and power all pushing, and just then Psii groans, deep and guttural, and Mituna gets this incredible blank look on his face, tranced-out and strange and stiller than you've ever seen him. Oh, fuck, this is the real thing, actual pailing like you've never - and your face is so hot you must be blushing bright yellow, and you're so turned on you can barely breathe. A touch could get you off, a single touch, and you can't even have that; and you nearly sob, choke it back into a strangled noise in the back of your throat. They're still locked together in a configuration you've only seen in porn, the Psiioniic's whole body undulating in rhythmic twitches as his breath catches in his throat, going to little chirpy-stuttery grunts, and you feel suddenly like your clothes are the part of this that's somehow most obscene, even though they're using the ablution trap as a pail - And you've forgotten to struggle for a long moment but your hand creeps toward your bulge again and suddenly it's - it's like moving through sopor but you're no longer locked to the wall, if you shove, and you can't even concentrate enough to use your psionics for more than that shove but you're starting to break the hold - "Tho do you want to touch your bulge like a, a fuckoff, or do you want uth to pail you?" Mituna says, and you can tell the weird sensation of being filled is starting to ebb for him, even though they're still locked together - god, you're envious, you've never felt that, and he's bright-faced and breathing hard and you can see his stomach stretched around his genetic sac - And they're moving like a single unit, eerily alike. Like duality made just for you, or just to taunt you. "I thought you thaid you weren't going to -" "We lied," Psii says. And he lets go of you the rest of the way. Your arms and legs feel strangely light from pushing upwards, rubbery from effort. "Get on my bulge." That's Mituna talking. "Or don't. The, unngh. Thelf-pity party ith over that way." He gestures vaguely at the door, looking pleased with himself. "Oh, fuck you." But you're crossing the ablution block, approaching them like some dangerous foreign species. "Exactly," Mituna says, and you can tell he's feeling the weight of Psii's genetic material shift in him as he speaks because his voice goes all breathy and warbly and he's hanging onto the edge of the trap. "Fuck me." And you're not even sure why you're so embarrassed. This is so close to what you've always wanted - Maybe it's because it's so close, because it feels like your inner thoughts spilled out in brightly colored genetic material on the wall. You're getting down on your knees, like some kind of lewd supplicant, presenting your nook to Mituna, down low so he can brace himself on the walls of the trap - and Psii lets go of him, and he's holding you by the waist, his bulge curling into you, one tendril then the other, so shaky you think the Psiioniic must be guiding him but all of a sudden Psii is in front of you and kissing you, and you are. You're getting double-teamed. You're getting stuffed full of Mituna's bulge, so large the stretch hurts, and at one point he leans over and says in your ear, "You think you can take thith?" and you growl back something in the affirmative, bravado and angry nonsense. No, you couldn't have engineered this. Something in your nook gives way and Mituna gives a sudden overwhelmed cry - and the splattering sound from behind you as he finally pails in the tub should feel more lewd than it does, but you're - distracted, everything's blurred except the core of you, warm and needy and stretching with the liquid spurting in and it's your turn to go blank, preoccupied. It's like the world revolves around your body, and everything is simple for a while, pure and perfect and wordless and your own blood rushing in your ears like ocean waves - until the Psiioniic's scar-traced hand brings you back, the touch to your bulge feeling scalding-hot and almost unbearably good, and your stretched-out center contracts once hard and sudden and you're grunting and shouting and pulled back to the ablution trap, to messiness, wet gold going all down your legs and splattering up your shirt, pouring out of you two ways at once, Mituna thrashing and shouting obscenities behind you and Psii silent in front of you holding your bulge like it's a specimen he's examining. And for once you can't feel sorry for yourself, can't hate yourself; it's like all your feeling is taken up, pulled into two, reflected into your ancestor and your dancestor and bleeding out of you in pulses of sensation and noisy sobs; like everything comes through you instead of from you and the noisiest parts of you have been shouted down into silence. Until the silence is real, and you're all pressed together in a cooling mess of genetic material, just breathing; and then you hate them again, and hate what they've shown you, and yet - weirdest of all - you actually feel satisfied, for once in your fucking life. Like you don't want anything at all. And then Mituna starts laughing, and you mutter, "Shut your face." "Too pail to cool. I mean -" And he dissolves into chuckles again. "Why do I let -" The Psiioniic shakes his head. "We're all mad here. - Line from a human book Lalonde showed me - ahh, never mind." And he turns on the shower, raining down cold water on all of you. 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