thedifferencebetween

Mm, that's nice. He likes that.

"That's because you have good taste in people," Steven points out. "He's— God, Tyler said once that he reminds him of the fairy asshole that kidnapped him and once he did, I realized that's who he reminded me of too. The one who took me. Just the same way he doesn't even see us as real."

After a moment he adds, "I think that made it even better. I mean, it would have been amazing either way, but doing what I couldn't do to my Keeper..." He smiles. "I really never felt so alive, you know. I should just keep throwing assholes down the stairs if they're going to start shit with me."

"It's cathartic. Doesn't matter if you're doing it to who ya really want to, it still gets out some of that whatever."

That's just simple logic in Jack's mind.

"It feels good, is the point. Why do you think I punch a loser instead of going for a Pokemon when we're doing half-ass mafia shit. It feels good!"

Steven laughs, warm and fond, reaching up to trace along the line of Jack's mask. "I thought so," he says, looking up at Jack with hooded eyes. "And I do like watching you have fun like that, bebe. I really do. I like that devilish smile you get. You're right--it does feel good, so good. In so many, many ways." His voice is doing that thing he lets it do when they're alone together, where he lets it move more.

"Actually," he says, brushing his fingers against Jack's lips. "It feels kind of sexy."

Edited 2020-06-04 04:22 (UTC)

"Yeah it does."

Not in a weird way, he's not some kind of freak who's into getting it on with someone he's beating to death or whatever, but it gets the blood pumping. Gets all kinds of things stirred up.

Jack lazily kisses the tips of Steven's fingers. He's obviously in a lazy mood, his quietness - or what passes as such for Handsome Jack - a clear indication. But he's more than happy to listen to Steven go on about this particular subject.

"I mean, I knew that in principle," Steven goes on, almost abstractly, as he runs his finger thumb along Jack's lower lip. "With all the things we like to talk about, of course I would. Talking about it's always been sexy. Sometimes I was a little jealous that you had so many things you could tell me about and I-- well. Spent far too many years behaving myself." Not that Jack hadn't done much of the same, but his own final straw had been so many years ago.

He chuckles softly. "Well. I suppose that's over now. Now that I've been one good stomp from crushing an old man's throat." Another soft chuckle. "Ah, bebe, I wish we didn't have to worry about resurrection here, that I wouldn't get written up for killing a coworker. Because I would have. Oh, I would have."

He smiles to think about it, the expression almost beatific, but then shakes his head. "If I hadn't already been running late to get back to the newsroom... you know, I kept thinking, on my way back from the stairwell, what a pity it was that I didn't have time to call you to come over. You could have got a few good kicks of your own in."

"Nah, that one was all yours, hot stuff."

That's important. A person's gotta do that kinda thing on their own. Like some kind of rite of passage or something. It's personal, in a way, that moment when the switch flips or whatever it is that happens. Jack can't put it into words, exactly, but something happens in that instant.

"That one was yours. And trust me, you're not gonna forget it."

Some things never left. Which was good, because in this world, the memories were pretty much all there was.

Steven closes his eyes--he can still picture the sight of Solus falling, as immediate and visceral as if he'd pushed him seconds ago, not hours.

"No," he murmurs. "I won't. Not ever."

He opens his eyes again, looking back up at the man he adores beyond reason. How did he get so lucky to find someone who always understood these things?

He worries his lower lip a little and tries to see if he can articulate the thing that's in his head. "If strangling that guard for work was like you shooting the Merriff," he says after a long moment, "I kind of think... throwing him down the stairs was almost like you and your CEO. The first was... being startled into realizing how good this shit feels, but the second is just... I don't know. It's like something... it feels like something's more... solid now, maybe? I guess? Shit. I'm not articulating this very well. But you know what I mean, right?"

God, he hopes he does. He's always understood so far, after all.

"It's like I spent the last four--no, god, six--the last six months in this prolonged state of-- fuck, I don't know. A six month internal scream because sure, I was finally free again, but fuck if I knew who or what I was anymore. I'd-- I'd lost almost everything that had driven me before the fairy bullshit, but I didn't... I didn't know what to replace it with. God, I think I'm actually really grateful I got pulled into this world and press-ganged into the PokeMob and not just because it lead me to you. It's given me something to focus on. That helped a little during all those months when I was screaming inside."

He gives Jack a tired smile. "But now... I feel. God. So much steadier. So much better. Like I can finally be confident about something other than sex, you know? And all those sweet things you've been telling me about myself all this time, calling me a predator and saying I'd have killed so many people in your world by now-- they feel real now. You know? I finally feel like a real boy. I feel real and alive and-- and me."

He laughs then, because he can hardly believe what he's saying, but--

"Jack--I think I like me."

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