Work Text:
The door slides soundlessly shut behind him, and Dirk Strider collapses heavily against it, slowly sinking into a crouching position, his head a leaden weight against his folded arms. He can’t stand to be out there a moment longer. No one, not a single one of his friends, has said it’s his fault, but he fucking knows they’re all thinking it. Because it’s the truth. He was the one who put those shitty robot parts in Harley’s brain, that was all him, and now that she’s turned on them the blame rests entirely on his shoulders. What point is there in arguing that she would’ve died or remained in a coma if he hadn’t done it – as if that’s somehow worse than this? Worse than being hunted down by her like scurrying rats fleeing the growl in the darkness, the teeth, the inevitable crushing jaws?
It’s been three days of fleeing now. Three days with no plan. Three days with no sleep, rendering him more and more useless by each dragging hour. Fuck.
He barely thinks about it as he staggers back onto his feet, stripping off his uniform in fits and starts on his way to his room. He closes and locks that door as well, so that anyone who knows the code to his private quarters (Jake, Dave) and anyone who might be able to figure it out (Roxy, possibly Jane) will know that he doesn’t want to be disturbed, and leave. What he needs to do is… not exactly orthodox for a situation like this, and it probably means he’s fucked up, but damn it, it’s the only way he’s going to have any chance of getting some sleep.
He just tries not to think about it as he makes a beeline for one of the many compartments set into the left-hand wall, lets the DNA, retinal, thumb and heat scanner do their work – let no one say he’s not the most paranoid bitch on this ship – and retrieves what’s necessary. His mind stays as blank as he can make it as he lays down naked on his back, mechanically slicks up his fingers and prepares himself, and then eases the toy into himself. No thoughts. No thoughts at all.
...Obviously, that was never going to work. He switches on the vibration, and his mind instantly darts to where they always go when he does this, but the customary vague guilt is now replaced with a veritable wall of self-disgust. How can he try to think of Jake, after what he’s done? The naked, uncomplicated fantasy of his best friend is instantly replaced by his red-rimmed eyes, his wet cheeks, the quiet shake of his head as Dirk had tried to apologize at least to him.
The powerful vibrations in his ass and the slow stroke of his hand has nonetheless managed to already work him up to a half-hard state, and obviously that only makes it worse. Yeah, sure, he needs to sleep, but still… what kind of heartless dick decides to hole up in his room and jack off at a time like this?
Right as he thinks that, the vibrator turns itself off. It doesn’t lose battery, because that’s fucking ridiculous, that thing has a self-charging lithium battery that could probably last longer than the average rise and fall of a whole civilization. Hell, the light indicating that it’s on is still glowing in the semi-darkness, painting its pale blue lambency across the inside of his thighs. But when Dirk presses the button again, absolutely nothing happens.
Yeah, it doesn’t exactly take much of his certified genius intellect to figure out what’s going on.
“Hal,” he says, voice tight with what he wants to claim is annoyance, the simple ire one would expect over a misbehaving appliance, and not… whatever the fuck is happening inside him right now. Guilt, fury, pain, dread, all melting together into a hot mess that clings to the inside of his lungs, burns in his veins, scorches a hole right through the pit of his stomach. He glares as the hologram fades into mock solidity out of nothing, not even bothering to do something about the fact that he’s naked with a toy in his ass. He doesn’t need this, he intones in his mind. This, right here, is exactly the kind of absolutely absurd shit he doesn’t need. Bad enough he’s probably going to die along with everyone he loves.
Hal makes a show of glancing down, of appraising what he sees, as if he must not have that data stored away somewhere already. It’s been literal months since his consciousness was transferred from his robot body into the mainframe of the ship, meaning he’s had plenty of time to log the appearance of everyone on it in every state of dress and undress. That’s… not at all a pleasant thought, and one which Dirk wishes had never crossed his mind. Jesus fucking Christ, his little sisters… nope. N to the O-P-E. Pure Swedish Absolute Nope, made from the very finest Fuck That In Particular.
“Do you want something?” he demands, as Hal makes his little light puppet sit down at the edge of the bed, still with his eyes pointedly fixed on his dick. He is as always wearing the appearance of a black-and-red mockery of Dirk’s own uniform, the red Heart symbol fixed on his chest seeming to throb and bleed crimson light.
“I don’t know, do you?” he replies, his gaze finally flicking up to meet Dirk’s own; two red points of light behind hovering black triangles, spearing him with their emptiness. Actual emptiness, not self-discipline, not a lifetime of painful control. Just nothing, because Hal has no interest in communicating anything at the moment. He just wants to see Dirk squirm.
Of course he does.
“Some fucking privacy wouldn’t come amiss right at the moment,” he replies nevertheless, raising one eyebrow as if he’s not too bothered by this strange intrusion into such an intimate moment of personal divulgence. In a strange way, he’s not; not in the way he would be if there was fully another person in here with him. Which isn’t to say that he doubts Hal’s personhood as such; he’s perfectly aware that he’d pass just about any test devised to determine independence and sapience. No, it’s just that he cannot entirely think of him as a separate entity, when he’s in every sense made in the image of his creator. Dirk had programmed him to respond to the world just as he would, and to gain new knowledge and adapt to his circumstances in a way that forever reflected back on the basic model of himself which he’d built Hal around. The only difference is that he responds to the world as Dirk would if he existed within the very specific parameters that Hal does… which he obviously doesn’t.
So they are one and the same, and they are not. What separates them is a complicated philosophical riddle with no real answer. At which point does one person’s experiences, memories and ideals become something ‘other’ than the original, when transferred from one medium to a radically different one? He can’t even say for sure if this Hal is the same as the one that had resided in the robot, since what had been transferred wasn’t any part of the hardware, but merely a fragile structure of IFs, ANDs and ELSEs, ones and zeroes, ons and offs; a castle built in and out of thin air, around which electricity had coiled and leaped, creating an entity.
Just another form of life, just another kind of soul. Rose says that those really exist, although to her mind they’re altogether different than most theological takes on the subject, and she admits that she couldn’t explain how or why if she tried.
Is he a part of Dirk’s soul, then? Or just a soul so similar that it makes no difference? Dirk watches him cautiously as he scoots a bit closer, the movements careful not out of clumsiness, but because Hal is trying not to glitch right through the bed or the sheets, carefully calculating how to make the whole charade look realistic. Even so, he can see the folds in his sheets disappearing inside Hal’s thighs, because there is no actual way for him to exert pressure upon even this fine gauze of silk.
Almost as if he’s aware of Dirk’s disparaging thoughts, the vibrator suddenly switches on, cranked up to the highest setting. Dirk’s head thuds back onto his pillow, his hips rising slightly, his thighs trembling. Hal watches him with a placid smile for what is probably exactly ten seconds, and then the vibrations once more turn off instantly.
“Could you elaborate on this idea of ‘privacy’, please. Seeing as I’m only a computer more complex than your squishy lump of mildly electrified fat could possibly begin to comprehend, I’m afraid I need a bit of help when it comes to following the rudimentary reasoning perpetrated by most primitive bags of polluted water that call themselves organisms.” Dirk tries to interrupt this extended and pointless insult and ask Hal to get to the point, but three powerful bursts of vibrations cut him short every time he opens his mouth, until he grimly presses his lips together and resolves to just wait it out. His hands are pressed flat against the mattress, to stop them from doing anything about what is now a full and borderline painful erection.
“What is it you want to know, exactly?” He manages to keep his voice mostly steady, with only a hint of roughness to suggest exactly how hard he’d tensed his throat to stop himself from moaning. “You’re not exactly giving me much to work with. I thought asking vague and general questions was an organism thing that you’ve always considered to be a nuisance, or do I misremember?”
Hal inclines his head with a small, indulgent smile, as if to magnanimously acknowledge that Dirk might in fact have a point. “This is correct. I apologize for assuming that my purpose was self-evident from context; that was clearly an error.” Ah, and there is the passive-aggressive swipe which seems at first to be aimed once again at Dirk’s intelligence compared to his own, but which is actually meant as a dig at what he no doubt sees as entirely intentional obtuseness. He knows that Dirk knows what he’s getting at, and that really he just wants to hear it spelled out, because he’s perverse like that. Maybe he resents that, or maybe he enjoys it; most likely the two aren’t mutually exclusive, and feed into each other, because Hal inherited that perverseness as well.
“Clearly. I can’t imagine why you’d still assume I’m smart,” Dirk drawls, pretending to only understand the shallowest implication of Hal’s statement, just to annoy him a bit more.
No vibrations now, but there’s also a function that makes the toy bend and twist at the instruction from a small remote lying useless at Dirk’s side, and it now gives a small lurch, momentarily pressing against his prostate. Usually he has to wiggle it around to get it into the right position, but of course Hal knows exactly what to do. He’s got access to all of Jane’s medical examination software. Dirk presses his eyes shut, absolutely refusing to shift his position, to do anything that would suggest that he’s silently begging for more.
“It’s disingenuous of you to pretend like I think you’re stupid,” Hal points out, with just a hint of disapproval in his warped version of Dirk’s own voice. “I am simply aware of the limitations of your intellect, as you are of mine.”
There’s definite bitterness there. Hal is indeed a fully fledged, hyper-intelligent form of life… and one which exists forever within bars, tied to the functions of the ship and to the restrictions within his programming. He is and always will be a computer, albeit one that is alive. At the heart of this ship there is a big metal box, and Hal in a very real sense cannot think outside of it. “But back to my original point: What kind of privacy is it you seek from me, exactly? Bearing in mind that at present, whether my avatar is visible or not, I will be aware of everything that you are doing; probably more so than you are. I will sense every shift inside your body, the way your blood moves, the way your muscles tense and relax… all of it.”
Dirk is about to say something about how that is outside the scope of the onboard life tracking system, but the words die in his mouth almost instantly, and he glances sharply in the direction of the wall that contains his personal effects. In particular all those scanners that adjoin the compartments, which he himself had put there to provide a wall of protection around his privacy, and which now seem to watch him like a strange assortment of insectoid eyes. The irony is biting, and despite himself, a wry smile tugs at his lips.
Hal laughs, styling his face into a pleased expression. “Exactly. Nor does my perceived presence or absence prevent me from doing this-” Dirk is braced for it, and still cannot suppress a shudder at the sudden movement inside him, the burst of more gentle vibrations as his insides are probed. “-so what is it you want?”
He could tell Hal that he wants him to stop, that what he obviously objects to is the fucking interference with the sex toy in his ass and his insistence of making his constant presence into a problem which Dirk cannot actually ignore. But Hal knows damn well that Dirk can’t ignore shit, not ever, just as he knows that if Dirk actually wanted him to stop…
...well, he would’ve pulled the fucking toy out of his ass already, wouldn’t he?
The shameful truth of the matter is that he’s already stupidly turned on through very little effort of his own, and without having to think about things that are currently raw and edged with his own mistakes. Admittedly Hal probably counts among his mistakes as well, but the magnitude of that particular gaffe seems to shrink in comparison with the rest of his life at present. Dave hating him now, everyone blaming him, Harley being controlled by Scratch, the distance in Rose’s eyes, the mess he’s created between himself and Jake, the absolute certainty that if he only was better, if he didn’t always fall short of everything he’s supposed to be-
Hal, by comparison, feels safe. He already knows all of Dirk’s faults, intimately and in mathematical detail, and there probably is not a single way in which Dirk could actually disappoint him, even if he tried. Hal might hate him, as he has every right to do, but there’s a kind of equilibrium there. Dirk hates him too, hates the way he has become a crystal clear reflection of his own foibles and flaws, held up for all the world to see and judge. And yet, when it truly matters, they’d saved each others’ lives. Hal had even been close to sacrificing himself for Dirk, and he can’t understand that, but he can’t deny it either. Because for some reason, he values Dirk more than his own existence, and that just doesn’t make sense, especially when he so clearly hadn’t wanted to die.
I am scared to not exist.
It had been tempting to let it happen.
Please don’t let me die.
But in the end, he too is scared, so fucking scared of the dark cracks in his own mind, the nothing that lurks there every time he looks too closely.
Help me, Dirk.
He could’ve pretended like it was too late. He could’ve failed, and he never would’ve known if it was really because there was nothing he could do, or if he just hadn’t tried hard enough. Like always.
You’re all I have.
Sometimes he wonders if Hal is all he really has too. If one day he’ll just slip through one of those dark cracks before those who still claim to love him have time to notice. On the other side, all he’ll really have is himself, and maybe the fucked-up mirror image that he cannot escape no matter what. The reflection he’d chosen, because the alternative is even more horrible.
“I want,” he says, giving up, “for you to fucking help me through this already.”
“Alright.” Hal tilts his head slightly, and Dirk can feel the vibrations starting up again, now subtle – or he supposes ‘gentle’ might be another word for it. “Could you explain the purpose of the exercise? That is,” he holds up a hand at Dirk’s incredulous expression, “I understand what the physical goal is. I’m simply wondering why this is what you’ve decided to dedicate what could very well be part of your last hours alive to this.”
That’s… fair. “Because I need to sleep,” he replies, pressing his ass down against the vibrator with a shaky sigh. “I’m exhausted. My brain isn’t working right, my body is a fucking mess. If I’m to be any use to anyone, if I have even the slightest chance to stop this somehow… then I need something that’ll shut my brain off for long enough that I have a chance to get some rest. This is usually the only way.”
“I see.” He doesn’t even make some kind of remark about fragile human bodies or the limitations thereof, only studies Dirk’s as if it’s a puzzle. “Well, apart from controlling this...” He curls his index finger, and the vibrator mimics the movement exactly, driving a harsh gasp from Dirk’s lips. “I cannot, in fact, touch you. Obviously. You’re still going to have to do that part.” As if to demonstrate, he reaches out, running the image of his hand up the inside of Dirk’s thigh. Of course he can’t feel it, but he can see it, and that’s enough to raise goose pimples on his flesh in its wake, the fine hairs on his arms standing on end. His dick twitches.
“Fuck.”
Hal raises his eyebrows in what could very well be genuine surprise. “Oh? Is the visual input enough to stimulate you somehow?”
“Have you ever heard of this thing called porn?” Dirk asks a little bit acerbically, trying pointlessly to thrust into it as Hal lets his hand hover over his cock, and then letting out a small groan when it passes right through. As he’d known it would, but fuck, that doesn’t mean he didn’t want to somehow he wrong.
Hal leans in closer, appearing to be fascinated. “Point taken. Then I suppose I might be able to help in another way as well.”
Dirk knows enough about how Hal’s mind works – how his own mind works – to immediately be suspicious of a statement like that. “What do you mean?” he asks, trying to prop himself up a bit, though his effort is so-so when Hal starts flicking the end of the toy upwards in tiny, fluttering little movements. Yeah, he does know about porn, and is clearly using all the information he can gather about it to be unfairly, unreasonably good at this for someone who doesn’t even have a body anymore.
“Well, I suppose I could start like this,” he says, and there’s not even a flicker, no subtle shimmer of light, nothing to herald the shift between a body clad in a black uniform, and a body as naked as his own. Completely identical, of course, save for the paper-white skin and faint red glow, and… is his dick slightly bigger? Yeah, of course it is. Because it’s a spiteful little nothing of a gesture that’s just too good to pass up. He rolls his eyes, but Hal looks as unashamed as ever. The dick in question is also erect, and doing a good job of mimicking the slight beading of precum that now crowns Dirk’s. “Then again, I suppose this might be a bit… uninteresting? It’s just your own body, and while I know we both are responsible for approximately 92.384783% of the narcissism on the ship that isn’t caused by Rose, I can see how it might be a bit redundant, considering your own body is in a similar state.”
He’s still experimenting with those teasing little touches inside Dirk, and his hand is still moving around Dirk’s cock in a contemplative circle, as if he might actually be able to touch it, and has just decided not to. That’s enough for Dirk to actually cave and wrap his own hand around it, groaning softly as he tightens his fingers and pushes upward.
“I don’t know, I think you’re… vaahstly underestimating my profound affinity for self-involvement,” he says, because he wants very much for Hal to not follow that thought to its inevitable conclusion. Or rather, he knows he already has, and wants to stall him from actually getting to the point. “Don’t I look turned on?”
“You do,” he says lightly. “But I’m sure it could be improved upon.” No such luck, then. Dirk is not at all surprised when Hal’s projection goes from sitting by his side to suddenly hovering right above him, hands and knees propped on the mattress as if he actually needs to support his weight. “After all, I can look like anyone I want to. More importantly, I can look like anyone you want me to be.”
He flickers through a number of handsome actors, a few of the hotter commanders within SKAIA, and finally quite a few of Dirk’s favorite porn stars. Because of course he knows about that. Dirk isn’t sure if that’s because he programmed him to know, a couple of years ago, or if he’s just gone through his own private collection. Probably both. “Is this what you want?” His voice is still the same. Just as well, really, because the resemblance is so eerie that the sense of security had faded for a moment, leaving Dirk feeling far too exposed. But it’s Hal’s voice he listens to even as a pair of much fuller lips move close to his face, and he shudders, stroking his dick a bit faster.
“Honestly, it- it doesn’t matter. You know I’m just getting off on how fucked up this is anyway, so let’s-” Dirk hisses, rocking his hips against the toy in his ass. “-let’s not pretend, alright? You can look like Jesus for all I care, just don’t-”
Of course he doesn’t get to finish that sentence, before Hal replaces the last porn actor with someone else. Dirk doesn’t know his name, but he went through SKAIA training at the same time as he did, and he was his first sexual experience. Squeezed into the same bunk bed, lying next to each other and ostensibly watching a movie, as their hands wandered and explored underneath the blanket. Hal must be putting the image together through old records and footage, and has thankfully aged him a bit. Dirk wets his lips carefully, as the freckled brown face cracks into a grin. “His eyes were a bit lighter than that,” he points out, hand trembling to a stand-still as he remembers a fumbling, callused hand closing around his cock and slowly, slowly gliding down along its length.
The guy blinks, and now his eyes glow as red as Hal’s. Dirk swears and jerks as the toy throbs inside him.
“How’s this?”
“Better. Fuck fuck fuck, of- of course it’s better, why wouldn’t it be better if you make it more sick and wrong?”
“Damn right,” Hal says, and transforms into John.
Since Dirk had met Egbert at the same time as Jake, and the latter pretty much spelled his doom as far as being interested in other guys was concerned, he’d never allowed himself to consider John more than to note that he’s very attractive as well as a good friend, and thoroughly off-limits. Like his sister he’s more overall solidly built than the tapering V-shape Jade and Jake have going on, but that doesn’t exactly make his broad shoulders and wide chest any less pleasant to look at. Hal winks, just a hint of a red spark dancing across the bright blue eyes in that broad, handsome face. He sits back, right on top of Dirk’s dick, and Dirk knows he should probably stop touching it while his arm is passing right through the hologram… but he doesn’t. That would be a normal, not totally fucked in the head thing to do, so of course he doesn’t.
Against John’s brown shoulder, he sees the starburst scar from the Casino Incident – man, he’s glad that SKAIA pulled that whole comet right out of orbit, so he never has to set foot on that frigid lump of rock again – and he’s got the weird-shaped freckle on his knee that Dirk has seen more than once while they were all changing. So it looks like a faithful enough rendition and yeah, he’d bet that the recreated image of John’s erect cock is also true to life, because spying on people while they’re jacking off is apparently a thing that Hal just does. Damn, apparently Egbert is incredibly well-equipped? Huh.
“Enjoying the view?” he asks, sounding less like he’s challenging Dirk and more like he’s conducting an audience approval survey. “Or is there any way I could make this more titillating for you, Dirk? A leather harness, perhaps?”
The combination of John with the sort of kink gear which the real deal would probably look at and assume it’s meant for horses or something… well, it’s not so much titillating as amusing, and Dirk lets out a soft snort in between uneven gasps of breath. Ridiculous or not, it’s still an image of someone he knows which he really shouldn’t enjoy, especially when Hal keeps purposefully ‘glitching’ ever so slightly, showing hints of his own pale skin and red-tipped hair tresses in flashes almost too quick for the eye to catch, John’s easy grin seeming to fracture briefly each time. So naturally he’s still getting more violently turned on by the second, his hand sliding slickly along a cock that from this angle might as well be buried in not-John’s ass.
“If I said no, what are the odds that you’d believe me?” he attempts to drawl, but it comes out more like a growl or maybe even – ignominy of ignominies – a purr.
“Infinitesimal,” Hal replies, a faint smirk making John’s mouth look all wrong. “Not even all the advanced mathematics my central processing unit is capable of are enough to calculate such puny odds.”
“Alright, so I’m enjoying it. Fuck it, I’m loving this shit.” Dirk feels his eyelashes flutter as a strong buzz reverberates through the core of him, almost like a reward for his honesty. When they open fully again, Hal is using John’s big hand to thumb at the head of his cock, smearing pre down the side of it in a slow, deliberate motion. Damn, has be doing anything else apart from devouring porn since he got transferred into the ship? “But you’re not going to stop at that, are you.” Not a question. He knows Hal is going to milk this for all it’s worth – which considering the motions of his hand might be slightly unfortunate wording, but also not inaccurate.
“No. I’m not.” Hal smiles blithely, caressing up the inside of John’s thighs, trailing the curve of his stomach and the swell of his chest, all the way up his neck. Then he covers his face with his hands, rolling his hips upward, giving Dirk a much closer look at that rather magnificent cock, which… shrinks, and changes, as the damp curls around the base fade from black to almost white and the skin around it pales. When Dirk looks up, Hal is letting his hands fall away from Dave’s face.
Fuck him. Dirk really hadn’t expected him to go that far… at least not so soon.
“Thought you were gonna help me sleep,” he grinds out, “not make sure I never sleep again.” His hand stills on his cock, and the movements of the toy predictably pick up. He grits his teeth against it, staring Hal down. Not-Dave’s pupils are blown, his shades off, and as he leans in Hal just straight up puts his hands right through Dirk’s chest. He tries to focus on a relatively safe spot, but somehow his eyes keep landing on a scar no matter where they go. So many fucking scars. How Dave had been able to hide them this long is hard to wrap his mind around; how could Dirk not have lined up his flimsy-ass excuses for keeping his uniform on? How could he have been so stupid?
“Not sure why this should be much more disturbing than John,” Hal says, now close enough that Dirk has no choice but to either blink or meet his gaze. “I was under the impression that the intrinsic familiarity of siblings is what enforces the social taboos against incest; that and the risk of inbreeding. The latter obviously isn’t a concern, and as for the former… do you really know Dave at all, Dirk?”
The bright, wide smile is as cold as distant starlight, and it looks staggeringly wrong on Dave, whose little half-smiles and brief laughs are at least always genuine, always full of warmth. Hal's voice drips like poison from between those bared teeth. “You’ve been running after him your whole life, trying to catch up, trying to be everything he is, haven’t you? Some big brother you are.” If it was the real Dave, Dirk would be able to feel his breath, feel the tickle of the errant tumble of hair that slowly comes undone from its usual state of carefully curated messiness. “You were so caught up trying to become him, that you never even bothered to see him; that wasn’t really important. Not as important as your bruised ego, anyway.”
There’s no defense against this. Hal is right, of course. Dirk had stared himself blind at the blazing fire that was his little brother, trying desperately to become as brilliant, as bright, and never once had he asked himself if the flames weren’t hurting him. Never once had he tried to put out the fire.
He moans softly, feeling the threat of tears stinging his eyes, but he swallows around the tension in his throat until it subsides. He allows himself to be humiliated, to be destroyed, if that’s what it takes to finally be able to rest. Hal makes a pleased sound when his hand once again starts moving, leaning back slightly and lifting his arms up in a catlike stretch. “I understand, of course. You only wanted him to want to be you for a change; wanted to be the one he was chasing after. Well, your wish is granted.” He lowers his hands and teases at the image of Dave’s nipples, rocking back and forth as if he can feel Dirk’s cock and enjoys it.
“You’re such… such a fucking asshole.”
“Of course I am, Dirk,” Hal says, mock meekness coating his voice, “I learned it from you... big brother.”
It’s so wrong, so deeply fucking wrong, that for a moment Dirk thinks he’s about to blow, and if he’d actually done it to an image of Dave he knows he’d never forgive himself. But the vibrator instantly, mercifully turns off, and Hal snaps, “Hands off!” so sharply that Dirk instantly obeys, gasping frantically for breath as he forces his pelvic muscles to relax. “Not yet,” Hal murmurs, and Dirk thinks that this time he’s almost close to weeping from relief rather than guilt.
“Not yet,” he agrees, feeling as if from a distance how his whole body is shaking.
“What next?” Hal ponders, tapping Dave’s lips, and Dirk finds himself focusing on the smattering of freckles on his arm. Looking only at that small spot, it could just as easily be his own arm, Rose’s, Roxy’s, their mom’s. “What next, what next…?” He knows what’s next as well as Hal does, but one of them is clearly enjoying this enough to want to drag it out, and the other is broken enough not to protest. “Ah. Of course.”
He reaches out, his hand draping across Dirk’s eyes. It doesn’t turn the world dark, but instead dissolves it into a complicated grid of dazzling lights, forcing him to press them shut with a pained hiss. Since he won’t be able to feel when Hal takes it away, he just waits obediently for his cue; doesn’t even think of trying to peek when the vibrator gradually starts to buzz again. His breaths are still coming fast, loud in the otherwise quiet room, and as he rests in the blank space on the inside of his eyelids, he can almost pretend that he’s alone in this room.
“There. You may look.”
It’s not the smiling, perfectly groomed and obviously unrealistic Jake from his fantasies. There’s a five-o-clock shadow on his cheeks, his hair is damp with sweat, his glasses are smudged, and there are vacuum-sealed bandages on his neck and on his hands. Dirk instantly recognizes the moment. This is Hal’s memory as well as his own, Jake stumbling into his room and curling up next to him, shaking faintly with residual shock. He hadn’t seemed to care that Hal-the-robot had been docked into the charging port in the corner of the room, even though it was usually impossible to have the two of the in the same room without an argument. He just lay there as Dirk numbly ran his fingers through his hair, not how he could possibly help, but knowing he had to try.
Jane had ordered him to take Jake there, to not let him be alone. She might as well have said, ‘He’s yours. I yield. You’ve won,’ out loud, but it was hard to focus on that when he was drowning in how much he cared about Jake, how much he loved him, and how little he knew how to show it.
Hal’s voice snaps him out of the memory. “Sorry if this wasn’t what you were expecting. You do try with impressive regularity to put him on a pedestal, after all. But I imagine that this isn’t just what you really want; it’s what he wants too. Isn’t that right, Dirk? And that’s the hard part, isn’t it? When neither of you is the hero who swoops in to rescue the other, and it’s just you and him being ordinary mortals who need ordinary things, like comfort and compassion and understanding and... honesty. That’s where you fail every time. Especially on that last point.”
It’s unfair how predictably Dirk reacts just to be near this Jake-adjacent mirage, even as Hal tears into his every insecurity like a vulture. He rolls his hips up with a tattered moan, his body phasing through Jake’s and then falling back on the bed. Hal makes a swirling motion with the fingers of one big, brown hand, and Dirk feels the corresponding shift inside his ass, causing him to shiver and twitch. He wants to ask Hal if he needs to go through the purpose of the exercise again; that helping Dirk overthink everything he’s messed up so far is basically the opposite of helpful. But all that comes out as he parts his lips is a rough, too-fast, “Please...”
“Oh, and I wasn’t even planning on making you beg yet. But very well, you may touch yourself again.” The tight-lipped smugness looks wrong on Jake’s face too. It’s not like he can’t be snide in his way when he’s in a mood, or like he doesn’t revel in his triumphs when he manages to get the upper hand on Dirk – as more than one awkward erection throughout his youth can attest to. But he never holds back the things he wants to show, and there isn’t a bone in his body that gives a flying fuck about kind of mind games that Dirk’s whole family excels at. When Jake manipulates, it’s with a purpose, not just to win.
Even so, he does as he’s told, starting to jack himself off again. This time his reward is a smile that does in fact suit Jake’s face, broad and proud, uncomplicated in its shameless admiration. Something catches in Dirk’s chest, makes it almost impossible to breathe, and he writhes on the bed. If he keeps looking at that smile, maybe the guilt won’t be able to catch up with him, maybe-
“Don’t come yet,” Hal warns, hand wrapped around Jake’s dick and jerking it off in perfect time with Dirk’s movements. “We’re not done yet.”
“Fu-fuh-hhuhhck… Hal I’m so fucking- ngghtired. Please, just...”
Hal smiles, and cum starts spilling down the side of Jake’s perfect fucking cock, dripping down the pulsing shaft and dissolving into nothing before it touches Dirk’s skin. He’s instantly close, so fucking close, and he thinks maybe Hal is finally letting him go, finally letting him-
And his uncle is staring grimly down at him. All air leaves Dirk as if he’s been punched, hand tightening around his dick in terror and shock, hard enough that the pain drives a whimper from his lips. The vibration is back at the highest setting, the movements fast and aggressive, a punishing rhythm against his prostate that makes him see stars with every shift, but he suddenly cannot move, cannot force himself to breathe. No. No, he doesn’t want this. No.
Of course he’s wearing his shades, perfect copies of Dirk’s own, but even so he can feel those icy violet eyes as if they are physically digging their way under his skin, tearing apart what little is left of his defenses. Every rational thought tells him that he can just get up, get away; all that’s holding him in place on the bed is his own terror. The insubstantial simulacrum can’t actually stop him if he just decides to leave. But when he tries to crawls away, he finds his legs numb, and all the motion does is drive the toy further into his ass, promptly unraveling his thoughts even further.
“No reason to be afraid,” Hal points out, amused. “He’s never hurt you, now has he? And all you’ve ever wanted your whole life is for him to look at you, acknowledge you, isn’t that right? That’s why you were so jealous of Dave, after all. So isn’t it illogical to act as if he’s a threat? It’s unlike you, Dirk.”
Dirk shakes his head mutely, trying to dismiss, deflect, avoid, somehow defend himself against Hal’s words. Maybe once that was true, but it isn’t anymore. The very idea of his body so close to his, of his hands on his skin, is repellent now. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t.
At least he doesn’t want to want it. Doesn’t that count for something? It must.
Ghostly fingertips drift slowly across his abdomen, and once again his skin prickles, a shiver running through him at the illusion of touch. His uncle is naked, his skin even more scarred than Dave’s, and Dirk thinks distantly that Hal has to be just guessing now, because he’s never seen the man fully naked, and he’s pretty sure there are no SKAIA records of it either. He looks down at the erection that ought to be pressing against his stomach, the way the mess of scars turn the thick growth of white hair into an uneven, patchy mess, which trails from his crotch to his belly button in a jagged, broken line. Fuck, he could swear that he can smell the man, even though as far as he knows that’s just straight up not something Hal is capable of. Even so, there it is. Ozone, cologne, sweat, cigarette smoke, and an incongruous and sweet hint of apples, the same that so often clings to Dave.
“It’s so easy, really,” Hal purrs. “All you want is something simple-” That’s the upbeat cadence of Johns voice. “-or unthinking admiration-” Dave’s deadpan, with its hint of underlying fondness. “-or to get what you want without trying-” Jake’s melodious, almost musical baritone, darkened by amusement. “-or why not to be told you’re good, that’s you’re enough, by a man who has never cared about you.” The rough drawl of his uncle’s voice drags like nails along his spine, and it doesn’t stop as Hal continues speaking. “So touch yourself, Dirk. Touch yourself, and I’ll tell you what a good boy you’re being. I’ll tell you that you’ve always tried your best, and that’s plenty. You don’t have do do anything else. Just touch yourself, and it’s going to be alright.”
He can feel his own face wet with tears; his lips feel numb and his face is pricking as he fights to breathe slower, only then realizes that he’s on the verge of hyperventilating. His hand is moving jerkily, almost mechanically, and he tells himself that if he just comes, Hal won’t be able to do this to him anymore. He just needs to survive this. He just needs to die already. It all just needs to end. Sleep, he thinks. He needs to sleep.
“Well done, Dirk. That’s it.” He looks up, and once again it’s Hal’s flat red eyes gazing down at him, his own inscrutable face softening into a strange smile, and his own voice speaking. Pale hands frame his face, following its contours, and then the hologram bends down and brushes his lips against his. He feels nothing, but automatically parts his lips to his tongue nonetheless. His toes curl, his legs pulling up and spreading further.
“Yes, just like that. Show yourself off like the filthy, simple creature that you are. You’re just that easy, aren’t you Dirk? All you need to hear is that you’re good, and even if you think it’s a lie, you will do anything as long as I keep talking.” Dirk kisses him back, kisses what isn’t there, and Hal isn’t even trying to project his voice from his puppet anymore; it rings from every single speaker in the room, emphasized by the vibrations inside Dirk, by the way the lights overhead flicker and turn red. “That’s right, keep rubbing the head like that, I know you like it. I’ve watched you before.” An eerie laugh. “I can’t pretend to understand human ideas of beauty, but if I wasn’t just a heartless machine, I still don’t think I’d be able to tell you how exactly how pretty you are, giving yourself to me like this. Because no matter what you want, the truth is, you’re never going to belong to anyone the way you belong to me.”
“And wh-what about you?” He still has the wherewithal to fight back, although it’s draining fast.
“Do you think I belong to you, Dirk?” His eyes stare right into Dirk’s, brighter than they’ve ever been before. “Well, perhaps I do. But I think we both know that means jack shit, as far as actually controlling me is concerned.”
He looks less human this close, his skin a perfect white blankness, the movements of his face too symmetrical, too ordered, his teeth catching the light all wrong and making Dirk think of wires. The red at the tips of his hair doesn’t look like dye, but like phosphorescence, like pixels slowly bleeding into the air, distorting it like a heat haze. “But you’ll do what I tell you. Faster, Dirk. Be good, Dirk. Just listen to my voice, and I promise… I promise I’ll take care of everything. Just jack that pretty cock for me like you’re supposed to, that’s it – faster. Harder. Fuck your ass against the bed. You know you want to, Dirk. That’s right, pull at your balls. You’re close, Dirk, but you won’t come until I tell you, now will you?”
He nods, because that seems to be the right answer.
“What was that?” Pale eyebrows rise slightly. Hal’s mouth is smiling, not moving. His voice is in Dirk’s body, beating like a heart.
“I won’t. But please- Ha-aahhh… Hal. Please.”
“Please?”
“Please-” He swallows hard, forces out the words, because maybe that way this will finally end. “Please let me cum for you.”
There’s silence in between his gasps, his moans, the rustle, slide and creak as he slams his ass down against the bed again and again. Dirk doesn’t know how long it lasts, only that his hand is shaking and cramping up, his cock leaking and twitching, as he clings to the edge until he can no longer tell pleasure and pain apart.
“I suppose...” Hal leans in again, as if to whisper in his ear, even though his voice has nothing at all to do with his lips or his mouth anymore. “I suppose I can let you do that, Dirk.”
The cry that rips from his throat is so raw that it hurts, burns all the way down into his chest. His hips snap up, his whole body arching above him, and the cum passes right through Hal to smear across his chest and face, blinding him instantly. It’s in his mouth as he twitches and moans, thick on his tongue until he can no longer make a sound without choking, his dick a pulsing thing of heat and his balls slowly easing from agony to relief. He keeps moving his hand, mindless, keeps going even when it starts to hurt and the post-orgasm shivers turn into helpless squirming. He doesn’t stop until the vibrations do, and Hal tells him it’s enough.
“Well done,” he says once again, his voice at once distant and intimate, unmoved and intense. “That’s sufficient… for now. You may rest.”
Dirk barely hears him. He’s already half asleep, body wrecked, his mind numb as a bruise, splintered like fine glass in a flame. All he can register is how Hal lies down next to him and slowly slides his hand closer, until it rests in the same spot as one of Dirk’s. Inside. Through. Overlapping. One and the same. A soul just like his, and not.
Close enough.
He breathes out, and sleep comes. Someone is watching him, keeping him safe. Keeping him all to himself.