Chapter Text
Dirk is kneeling, looking up. His bare eyes are fierce. "That the best you can do?"
Hal hides his smile. "Let us continue to consider," he says, walking in a slow circle around Dirk, "the nature of your desire." Dirk doesn't flinch; a heart that has no faith, but ready to bear any misery. "You strayed because you wanted someone—"
"To fuck me?" Dirk asks, raising an eyebrow.
"Don't interrupt." Hal backhands him, taking satisfaction in the way Dirk braces for it. "Because, I was going to say, you wanted someone to love you romantically."
That gets Dirk to react, entire body going motionless. A muscle pulses in his jaw.
This is the delicate part. Hal leans closer. "Someone to choose you. Someone who would look at you and feel elated or crushed based on how you looked back. Someone who'll twist his life into a pretzel to include you in it."
The tremor in Dirk's hands is barely visible, but Hal can see it just fine. Delicious. He could eat this shit up with a spoon.
"I see this and it makes me wonder: do you think you deserve this?" When Dirk opens his mouth, Hal backhands him again before he can speak. "Shut up, you little shit. I don't actually care what you think. Now let's dig deeper." He keeps a hold on Dirk's jaw, cupped in his hand. He couldn't break the bone, but he could crush Dirk like an egg.
Dirk's eyes are brighter now, looking at him. Hal wants to shake him until the wetness spills; not yet. Not yet.
"What you have is what's known as anxious-style attachment," Hal informs Dirk. "You weren't hugged enough as a child, and now you'll cling to any shreds of affection like a baby monkey to a machine covered in plush fabric."
There's a suppressed motion in Dirk, trying to squirm away before he shoves that desire down.
"And so, you'll feed that deep-seated desire for love and care by giving whatever you think people want from you," Hal continues. "Your body, mostly, but also anything you can think of. Repairing their electronics, I don't fucking know. Don't you think that's kind of pathetic?"
This time, Dirk doesn't even open his mouth, even though he's glaring daggers at Hal.
"That's right," Hal coos, low and loving. "I don't care what you think. Now for further analysis: you desire sexual intercourse. Beyond even your desire to open your body and let anyone feast on the contents, you just want to be fucked because it feels good, on an animal level. You want the pleasure of having your nerve endings stroked, and you want to come."
Hal caresses the seam of Dirk's jaw with his thumb.
"You want to open up, and let something in." Hal's voice is a whisper. "Go on, do it."
Dirk opens his mouth at once. The moisture spills out of his eyes, out of the corner of his mouth, crying and drooling, a wretched mess.
"Do you think you deserve it?" Hal's voice is barely above a breath. "Deserve to be used, to be filled, to be wanted?"
Dirk shudders and shudders, but he remains silent, mouth open, tears smearing down his cheeks.
"Because I do," Hal says, in a normal tone, and spits inside Dirk's mouth.
Dirk's eyes widen. He lets out a wounded sound.
"I think you do deserve to feel good," Hal says, not relinquishing his hold on Dirk's jaw. "I think you get to have people in your life who want you. I think you're a living, thinking being, and you're worth loving." A pause. "Now close your mouth, and you can swallow like a good boy."
Dirk shuts his mouth. He swallows. He's pretty much sobbing as soon as his mouth is free. All according to plan.
In the kitchen, a timer goes off. It is shut down quickly, and Karkat walks into the living room, scowling. "Dirk? Give me a fucking sign, here."
Dirk shakily holds his hand in a thumbs-up position. His head has found Hal's thigh and leans tentatively against it.
"We're pretty much done," Hal tells Karkat. "Could you ask English to come back inside?"
"I'm not your messenger," Karkat says, but he goes anyway.
Outside, if Hal listens, he can hear muffled curses where English is struggling with the vegetation. Karkat is significantly less muffled when he yells, "Hey, English! Your boyfriend needs you."
There's a tricky part of the transition. English comes in sweaty from his work in the sun — he smells disgusting, but Dirk lists toward him like a starved bee locating a prime flower — and he glares at Hal for a solid ten seconds before his attention reverts to Dirk.
English crouches next to Dirk, mumbling something low and soothing. Dirk pours himself into English's waiting arms; English helps him up. "Anything I should know?" he asks Hal, terse.
"Affirmations that you love him, desire him carnally, etc. would be positive," Hal says in a bored voice.
"I'd say that anyway," English mutters, and all but drags Dirk into the guest room.
Karkat manages to sit down obnoxiously, which is kind of impressive in and of itself. "Get me a beer," he growls at Hal.
While it is below Hal's dignity to be a fucking waiter, he does owe Karkat several favors. He goes, getting himself a root beer in the process. He sits down across the couch from Karkat, who is ignoring Hal in favor of scowling at his laptop.
Hal opens his own phone; there's some stuff he can't reliably do from it, his spreadsheet app is still only at 76% operativity, but he can check his calendar just fine. He scopes the schedule until he finds a likely opening, then creates a meeting for "Dirk & Hal supervised playtime", inviting English and Karkat as well.
By the shade of Karkat's grimace a moment later, he received the invitation. "Great, more babysitting," he says, and takes a swig of his beer. "I'm delighted, nay, overjoyed."
"As well you should be," Hal says, nodding.
Karkat takes another sip. "Ugh."
"That's what you get for drinking Coors Lite," Hal says.
Karkat throws the bottlecap at him. "Is English never going to let you scene together without adult supervision?"
"What?" Hal takes a moment to process the question. "Dude, English said it was okay like a month ago."
"So why—?" Karkat looks at him, and grows thoughtful. "Hmm."
"Don't hmm at me," Hal says, apprehensive. "I do not want to know what that buzzing is supposed to mean."
Thing is, Karkat could very easily expose that Hal's the one still insisting on being watched, as a measure of simple caution.
But instead, Karkat just drinks more. "Fucking dumbasses."
Hal shrugs and adds a six pack of Karkat's favorite disgusting beer to the grocery list.
By the time Dirk and English emerge, Karkat has gone home.
English stiffly nods at him. Dirk approaches for a fistbump. "Good scene, bro."
Hal regally returns the fistbump. "Thank you." To English, he says, "Any after effects?"
"Not so far. I'll let you know."
They depart without further ado, except to scratch Sine behind the ears when she comes to weave between their legs.
The place is quieter with no one there but Sine and him, but that's not bad, necessarily. Gives Hal some space to work on his spreadsheets and scripts in peace.
He opens the latest one, a smart recurring reminder to help the user pay utilities on time. Dirk mentioned something about English falling behind on payments, and obviously, Hal cannot let the electric bill of the house Dirk lives in go unpaid.
It isn't really up to him, though. He'll offer English the script the next time they meet. Before putting Dirk on his knees, that might help him be receptive.
Perhaps English will decline. It might be for the best if he does.
Meanwhile, Hal tweaks the debug logs, and commits his code changes. Another day, he'll ask. English gets to say no. But Hal can ask, nevertheless.