Work Text:
Evening does not touch the harsh white light of the room you’re in, with its blackout curtains drawn firmly shut and the carpet soft against the soles of your feet.
It’s been redecorated to set the scene for this specific thing: A couch sits on false imitation wood in the center, its red upholstery beaten down. It folds out into a futon, but not without a significant amount of effort. On it are two cushions, close enough in color that he’d deemed them fine, then spent an entire fifty hours in a vicious bidding war on a fabric website to get the shade that actually was fine, and then re-upholstered himself. A blanket, crumpled on one edge of the futon. The corner of a rug. The careless shards of a shitty sword. And above it all, a wooden cross, thin ropes dangling down, deep red. Clear, he’d said, was traditional. Red, you’d pointed out, would match the couch, and whose show was it really, anyway.
Bro stands in the middle of it all, stripped down to nothing but a pair of dark boxer-briefs. You’re watching him, critically, appraising your work. You have always been a perfectionist, you’re trying to not be as obsessive about it in other aspects of your life, but this? This requires every fuckin’ detail to be perfect. For the both of you.
“You really wanna do this?” he asks you, mouth unmoving since you’ve told him twice to quit fidgeting, you’re not about to fuck a line up just because he couldn’t stay still.
You know, of course, about his skill with ventriloquism. Ventri bro quism, even, if you let your penchant for puns get the better of you. Either way, it’s an extension of your own, albeit better, though you’re sure as fuck not planning to tell him that.
Certainly not now.
A line down from the corner of his mouth needs neatening. You step forward to fix that, your hands steady.
“Yes,” you answer shortly. And then, because there’s always a point to when he speaks: “Are you?”
He scoffs, his throat bobs. You press a thumb against his pulse point as a warning, feel it pick up a little.
“Answer. Honestly,” you add. You even lower the felt-tipped eyeliner pen you’ve been using on his face for the last few details so that he can answer.
“Do I ever lie to you,” he asks. Says, really.
“I gotta admit, you don’t,” you say, dry. It’s the one thing he’s not done – he shares your distaste for that shit; you’d both rather stretch the truth until it was near breaking than tell an actual lie, massage the shit out of it until it’s limp and pliant and will do what you want.
These days, he doesn’t even do that much, except for when he wants to surprise you.
You do not like surprises.
“There we go.”
You bend to make another adjustment: The false ball-joint on his shoulder, this time; there’s a bit of unevenness there, and even with the rope, you’d know about it.
“I’m just saying, dude, it’s a lot.” Even for the two of you, this is a production. A bro duction, if you would, and you most certainly fuckin’ will, as the director, producer, and puppetmaster for today, if not the star of the show.
No, that’s all him.
“If you’re gonna call it, lil man, you would’ve before I was all in this getup.”
“I have tea with Lalonde twice as week,” you tell him, calm. “Dirk, if you wanna reverse psychology me, you’re gonna have to do better than that. I wouldn’t have agreed to this shit if I wasn’t fully fuckin’ committed.”
His mouth twists into something that could be a smile, if it was on your face.
“Say what you like, but you’re beyond fuckin’ committed. Might even think you’re getting off on my emotional catharsis. How’s them for big Lalonde words?”
You actually do smile at that, close-mouthed, a little cruel like he likes it best.
“Decent enough. Good thing I never claimed to not get my rocks off to your emotional catharsis,” you say. “‘Cause we’ve got ourselves one hell of a psychosexual tangle here, emphasis on the sexual. Probably more than anyone would advise, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
He huffs, short and humorless.
Chewing over what he wants to say, you think, pleased with him giving it some real weight.
Bro’s not as flippant as Dave can be, as even you can be sometimes. And by now he’s got a good sense of when you want sincerity. It still comes out like pulling teeth, but maybe with a dose of local anaesthesia rather than sober and with a pair of rusty pliers.
You give him the time. You put the eyeliner down – you’re done, you think, as good as you’re going to get. The red circles on his cheeks are symmetrical, full of false cheer. The lines that mark his mouth, his joints, are straight and seamless. His eyes, unshaded, and the painted-on lashes are strange, transforming him into a doll rather than a person.
A thrum of excitement runs through you at that. You tamp it down. He’s not hard yet, and so you’re not about to lapse in control before he does.
“Yours was empty,” he says finally. “Mine wasn’t. Ain’t – ain’t bad that I’m here now. Away from all that shit. But you know as fuckin’ well as I do how it gets in here. He made that easier.”
Your jaw tightens. You know; you just can’t imagine ceding that control. Not to Cal, no matter how much of a comfort he was to you, how badly you wished sometimes that he could talk, just so you’d hear another person’s voice in the flesh, or real fuckin’ close to it. And not to yourself.
But that’s why you’re doing this to him and not the other way around.
“You make it easier too,” Bro says, like it’s been dragged out of him. Every word disgorged, still-bloodied, placed reverently on your lap. “Not all the time, fuck no. But when it’s like this.”
“Good,” you tell him. “That’s what I’m here to do. Now – sit on the sofa, we’ll rig you up.”
You pretend not to notice how easily his shoulders slump at that, relaxation sliding into his posture. He sits, and you follow.
Kneeling, you start with his wrists, one at a time. His hands on his thighs, your fingers skimming the delicate blue lines of his veins. Looping, tying it off, the drawn-on joints stark against his skin. Precise, clean, inorganic even over the rapid beat to his heart.
You don’t speak during this part, only ever guide him with gentle touches so he moves the way you need him to. You want to tell him he’s being good, how you barely need the strings at all to bend him to your will, but you don’t. It’s more difficult than you expected; at some point, you got used to praising him.
That’s because at some point, he got used to being good.
But puppets aren’t good . They just are.
You remind yourself of that as you wind the next set of ropes around his shoulders. Different ties than normal, different knots; you won’t be fitting him with a full pattern of shibari no matter how you want to, nor how good he looks in suspension – these aren’t sturdy enough to hold him up, and anyway, that’s not what you have planned.
He won’t be moving much, after all.
A loop around his waist next, and you feel the judder of his breath. A clumsy solution, to get the attachment point in the lower back. You couldn’t get all nine, seven will have to do.
Once Bro’s secured, you step back. Your mouth is a little dry. He doesn’t move, only keeps breathing, slow and even. You’ve never made him drop this fast, never seen him so quiet. He looks like a puppet with its strings cut, carelessly tossed aside.
Experimentally, you pull at the ropes on his shoulders. It’s hardly enough to make him move, but he does, just at the slightest hint of it. Straightens up, stares straight ahead. Just like that.
The fabric has extra slack, now. You rub at it idly with your thumb, watch his arm twitch. Senseless, almost. Involuntary.
Your heart thuds in your chest.
Legs, you remind yourself, and walk back around to settle between his thighs.
Here is where you break the scene, or at least push it: You tie them so they’re splayed open, ropes framing either side of his knees, and you make sure there’s little slack there – he won’t be moving. You resist the urge to touch, to indulge yourself. That’s not what you do with dolls, not this kind anyway.
Only then do you step back to survey your work, just like always, only this time the sight is dangerously fuckin’ arresting. He’s still staring straight ahead, not quite looking at you but through you. You reach over, flick the tie to his left knee. His leg obligingly jerks up, once, and falls limp.
The thought rises to your mind not quite unbidden: You could make him do anything.
Well. You can’t. Obviously. He’ll stay sitting, might lie down if you tell him to, but you’d need some automated system to rig him to move as guided like a real marionette – and you know, deep down, that you both want it.
It’s scary, how much you want it, but you’ll deal with that later. There’s parameters to what you’re allowed to do here, and it’s not about you, not really.
You pull at the rope looped around his waist, and this time, intone, pitching your voice narrative and impersonal, “Laying down in the futon always sucks. It’s not comfortable, it’ll never be comfortable. There’s springs everywhere.”
He leans backwards, slow and controlled, and then goes limp, his legs falling apart naturally. You notice that he’s breathing faster now. Sweat beads at his temples, and already there’s that look of reverent distance that you normally have to work real fuckin’ hard to get. He’s under deep, so easy, all for you.
Not quite for you.
You’re not doing the voice. You’d refused point blank, before he could even ask.
And so he hadn’t asked.
“Bro,” you say, turn your voice plaintive. “Let’s have some fun.”
A flick to the rope of his left arm. He lifts it, and you keep touching it while he moves to cup his crotch.
“Okay,” you say experimentally – you’re throwing your voice this time, a skill you’re both good at, one you’ve never used for this before. His mouth moves, a simple up-down, jarringly inhuman. His eyes are glassy. His underwear tented, .
You’re not in any better shape.
It’s one thing to take control, to leave him a sobbing mess that you’ve meticulously picked apart. It’s another to do this .
He’s wholly under your power here, is the thing. You’re his voice. He won’t move if you don’t let him. You let go of the string, his entire arm drops, his fingers don’t even so much as twitch even though he’s touching his dick, even though he’s always a fuckin’ brat about this, stealing indulgence where he can get it, testing you until you finally push him over that mental edge.
This time, it’s like you’ve started in freefall.
“Fun.” A question. A request for more information – for orders.
“You know. Fun,” you repeat, a little more emphasis, a little more personal.
Another nudge. He tilts his hips into his hand, suggestive.
“Ah.” An exhale, trickier to do. “That kinda fun. Huh. What should I think about?”
“Plush rumps. Green ass. Me.” This, you make sly, a little coquettish, deliberately inaccurate.
“That last one.” Immediate; this much, you know. You curl the fingers of your hand against the rope, slide it down, and he slides his hand into his underwear, hisses out a little breath. Permission to touch granted, but he doesn’t do much more than that, not until you drag a nail down the rope, let the vibrations carry through.
Only then does he start moving, rocking the heel of his hand down into his cock, a clumsy grind.
It gets to you more than you’d thought.
“If you want. I might tell you no, though, and then what would you do?”
“Please.” Desperate already. Your free hand works at the fastening for your own jeans, fishes your erection out with the ease of a man who was once a desperate teenager extremely committed to his single pair of skinny jeans.
You moan, and so does he, soundless.
You touch yourself with slow, deliberate indulgence, grace that doesn’t fuckin’ suit how crazed you feel right now, watching him paw at himself, watching that flush creep down his face, the only fuckin’ sign that he’s a real person, with you giving him his pleasure, with you voicing it for him, with your breath turning into his.
Fucking into the curl of your own fingers is a luxury compared to what he’s doing. You draw it out, you beg, say, “Please, please, please,” in that breathy whimper you get from him sometimes, because you think that’s what he’d say, what he’d sound like. It’s strange hearing the timbre of his voice reflected through you, a shade wrong as it echoes in your skull before hitting your ears.
You realize, belated, that you’re gripping the rope hard, putting extra pressure on his wrist – you see it in the cut of tendon along his forearm, how he strains to follow your orders, except they’re not orders any more than your nerves firing are orders to your limbs, any more than your fingers are independent soldiers to its general.
You don’t relax your hand. Your hips move faster, canting forward. Canting up off the couch, desperation mounting. You’re quiet, just the sound of skin, the faintest peal of breath, and you’re going to have to fuckin’ learn how to throw your voice for this, too, you swear, but not yet. Not yet, next time.
Strained, because neutrality is hard when you’re closer than you should be, just from your own hand and the sight of him: “How’s this for fun, Bro? Don’t you like this?”
“Fuck,” you both breathe out, and because there’s a groan in your voice, there’s one in him, and you drag it out just to hear him. “Yes. Yes, I want to come. Let me come.”
“Not until I say so.”
“ Please ,” again, you beg, jagged and desperate.
“No.” Cruel this time, only you’re losing track of the voices, because you’ve never taken that tone with him, so gleeful in your sadism, and it flashes over his face even if his body doesn’t do a single thing you don’t let it do.
“Please, c’mon –,” you breathe out, strain seeping in. You’re leaking pre, you’re sure he is too, a mirror there as everywhere else, looking into your own helpless, pathetic reflection.
Feeling like a god ten times over, when you say, “Do it,” and he does, and so do you, pleasure vicious on your part, snapping like a dog at the leash of your control. Slow and drawn out on his, another dog coming to heel, satisfaction found in following.
You’re panting as you come back to yourself.
The physical high’ll wear off soon, you’re already too-aware of the stickiness between your fingers, the drops you didn’t quite catch landing on his chest.
The rest? Yeah. You’re still reeling.
Hiis jaw is slack, still agape, and you’re tempted to slide your cock into his mouth just to feel it, to have him lick you clean, but that’s what you make Dirk do, that’s what you make a person do, and he’s not that right now.
It shakes you to your core.
You close your mouth, let your teeth snap deliberately shut, and he does the same.
It’s over. His lax body, dick softening, come splattering his stomach and cooling on his hand, is too quiet. So you maneuver him into sitting up. Legs first, waist, shoulders following. He’s still slouched, but all the same, you let your touches linger as you work on untying him.
Disassembly is easy – the knots weren’t actually designed to hold him, and they slide off, leaving black ink and faint red marks around his knees, his left wrist, the ones you’ve pulled on the most. The one around the waist is the only one that requires work; you lean over and wrap your arms around him, and then his full weight is on your back, nose pressed against the curve of your spine, and you feel his chest heave, and heave, and heave, his fingers twitching in your peripheral vision. It’s the most he’s allowing himself to move. You want badly to hold his hand, but you don’t; he might take that as another restraint.
“It’s alright, Dirk,” you say. You , properly, to him. You feel it register, feel it wash over him like a wave. “You did well. You were perfect, yeah?”
One arm moves, sluggish. It loops around you, broad palm whose calluses are long gone splaying on your stomach.
You give him his voice back, and only smooth a hand down his back, free of strings, when his sobs still stay choked, silent.
It’s not comfortable.
You stay there anyway, until he straightens up, face blotchy, eyes red.
His voice is hoarse with disuse as he says, “Yeah? I did?”
The reassurance is the easiest thing to provide, utterly sincere. “Yeah, man. You did.”
It’s quiet for a moment as he processes that, as you let him.
You’re not fuckin’ sure what he’s gonna need after this one – you’re barely sure what you’re going to need, beyond a solid meal, but you’ve got a frozen deep dish pizza calling your name once cleanup’s done properly, nothing but cheese pulls and a good time.
You anchor yourself to that a bit.
It still doesn’t help when Bro opens his mouth.
“Cool. Never heard that one from him,” he says against your skin, and it settles against you like ice.
“‘S good, from you, though,” Bro murmurs, thick. “Better. Killed it there, junior.”
You let out a breath.
Alright.
That, you can work with.