I Prefer the Mind Control Rewrite - Chapter 9
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While I knew we had stuff to take care of, I went to SynthBrew for a bag of whole coffee beans to give Preston anyway, since I knew how much he liked to eat them. I figured if we were going to call Xan and Jirrin, unleashing a torrent of awkwardness, he deserved to have some chewable caffeine.
When I returned to our dorm room, I held the bag of beans behind my back. “Hey, Preston, I got something for you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you had something you needed to take care of.”
I showed him the beans. “This is what I had to take care of.”
Preston’s eyes widened. “You -- you got me whole beans.”
Handing him the bag, I said, “Yeah, I figured after everything you could use some.”
He opened the bag and popped a coffee bean into his mouth. It made a disconcerting crunching sound as I watched him chew. Preston noticed.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
I felt my face heat up. “I definitely wasn’t staring at your sexy lips.”
Great, now my face was almost certainly bright fucking red. Yay me and my pale skin that showed the least bit of blush whenever I had reason to blush, like when I said something fantastically, fantastically stupid. Oh, like you’ve never said something stupid? I’m sure you have, but now really was a terrible time to blurt that out because I have enough fucking awkwardness.
Preston smirked. “You like my lips, huh?”
“I just said I wasn’t staring,” I muttered.
He kept fucking smirking. “That means you were staring.”
I knew that, but it didn’t mean I liked having it pointed out to me.
“We need to, like, talk about last night,” I sighed.
That sucked all the fun right out of the room.
“Which part?” Preston asked. “The part where you lay down on train tracks or the part where we slept together?”
“Both, I suppose,” I mumbled.
Not wanting to look directly at him, I poured myself another mug of coffee and added milk to it. I stirred my coffee far more than necessary while I waited for -- I didn’t know what I was fucking waiting for. I wanted a break from the awkwardness that had settled around us.
“I’m -- I’m sorry,” Preston said.
I sat back down on the bed beside him, though I stared intensely at my coffee, which wasn’t nearly interesting enough to induce such staring. It was fucking coffee, not like latte art or anything.
Though I wished I could hug Preston, something told me not to. That made no sense to me, but I got this feeling I should keep my distance, even if that “distance” was only like three inches between us on the bed.
I raised an eyebrow. “Sorry for what?”
“For last night,” he whispered.
I said, “It wasn’t your fault Xan wanted you more.”
He shook his head. “Not that, Dylan. For -- for what we did.”
My stomach sank. Why was he apologizing for that? I looked at him questioningly.
“I shouldn’t have taken advantage when you were in such a bad place,” Preston sighed.
“You didn’t take advantage of me,” I cried. “What kind of shit is that? I wanted you as much as you wanted me.”
He gave me this look full of pity, like he felt sorry for me. Dammit.
I glared at him and muttered, “What? It’s not like it was pity sex.”
Preston said, “Maybe it kind of was, in a way. Maybe that’s why I decided yesterday was a good time to finally make a move. I did feel bad for you yesterday. I still do.”
“Bullshit,” I hissed. “I know what pity sex looks like, and that wasn’t it.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked.
I said, “I fucking know, okay? I’ve -- I’ve fucked someone who just felt sorry for me. I went along with it because I thought nobody would ever want me again, and it wasn’t anything like last night. Not even a little. So don’t try this crap about how last night was because you ‘felt bad’ for me or anything because I’m not gonna buy it.”
Preston stammered, “But -- but.”
I had what might have been a flash of actual insight. “It would be easier to say it was pity sex, wouldn’t it?”
He stared at me like I had lost my mind even worse than I actually had.
I explained, “Because then you could say the sex ‘didn’t count’ or some such bullshit, right?”
“Well, pity sex wouldn’t really count, right?” he said.
“I won’t go into details, but I’ve had sex I wish didn’t ‘count’ and you can’t make consensual sex ‘not count’ by magical thinking.” Damn, did I wish I could, though.
He sighed, “It would be easier if I could make what we did not count.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “So, you want to erase me from your history? Why, exactly?” I thought I might know, but he would have to tell me himself. I had nothing in the way of psychic powers, and I doubted telepathy would even work as well as it did in the movies.
Preston shifted a few inches away from me. He grabbed a couple more coffee beans and chewed on them. I waited for him to speak. This was fucking awkward, but he needed to talk about it. What the fuck did I know, though?
“Well, uh, my -- my family is about to disown me, and I just -- did the thing they’re gonna disown me over.” He blushed as he spoke.
I said, “Repression isn’t going to make things better. And pretending it ‘didn’t count’ is just a fancy form of repression. You could decide to get back in the closet and install a home theater inside it, and you’d still feel like shit if you tried to deny who you are.”
Preston laughed. “It would have to be an awfully big closet if you wanted to install a home theater inside it.”
“Xan’s closets are probably big enough,” I muttered.
“I’m not sure anybody from Zimara even knows what a closet is,” he said.
“Probably not.”
That reminded me, we needed to call Xan and Jirrin to discuss Preston’s other brain-exploding revelation. The whole “oh hello, you’re half fucking alien” thing just made everything exponentially more explosion-like than it would otherwise be. I had some experience with closets, but I didn’t know anything about being a half-human hybrid. I didn’t even know if any other half-Zimarans existed.
It had to be even worse for my best friend because he hadn’t even fucking known he was adopted. It would be one thing to find that out. Add the half-alien deal? I just wanted to hug him.
I looked at Preston, “So, promise me you won’t say the sex ‘didn’t count’ or anything like that, okay?”
His eyes shined like he might fucking cry. “I -- I promise, but that’s gonna be hard.”
I whispered, “I know it is. This shit’s not easy.” I paused. “Come here.”
Looking confused, he scooted back towards me. I wrapped my arms around him; I needed a hug as much as, or more than, he did. Preston returned my embrace, and we just sat there for a while, hugging each other. His body felt warm against my own, and I didn’t ever want to let him go.
“It’s too much,” he sobbed. “Everything -- it’s just too much.”
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
It was a lovely emotional bonding moment interrupted by my fucking phone. You just had to interrupt our moment, didn’t you? My best friend is fucking traumatized and you write a phone going off? You’re an asshole.
Grumbling, I let go of Preston and went to check my phone. It was Xan. How fucking convenient. I pushed the “call” button and said, “Uh, hi, Xan. You called. Obviously you called, but why did you call? I assume you have a reason, as I doubt you just wanted to hear the sound of my fucking voice.”
“I wanted to -- to see if you were okay,” he murmured.
Wait, what?
“Ex-excuse me?” I stammered.
He sighed, “I am truly sorry about what happened last night.”
I didn’t want to fucking deal with this right now. I muttered, “It’s not your fault you liked Preston better, I guess.”
Xan said, “I was -- let’s just say I was being foolish.”
I glared at my phone, as I couldn’t actually glare at Xan. “Yeah, you were being fucking foolish.”
Preston mouthed, “What’s he saying?”
I mouthed, “I’ll tell you later.”
“I -- I don’t prefer Preston,” Xan said.
“Then why did you act like you did?” I demanded.
He sighed, “Because I was so attracted to you.”
I hissed, “You were extra super fucking attracted to me, so you acted like another guy was your soulmate right in front of my face? I’m not from your planet, but I don’t think that makes sense even by Zimaran standards. You better explain yourself in some reasonably logical way or I’ll kick you in the nuts. I don’t care that we’re miles apart right now. I will transcend time and space to kick you in the nuts if I have to.”
“There’s no need to do that,” Xan said. “I’ll explain. It -- it was scary, how much I liked you. I like -- I like sex very much, but I’m not usually...particularly attached to the person I’m having it with. In -- in your case, I was, and it was...disconcerting.”
Wait, what?
I felt my face heat up at Xan’s words, which weren’t entirely sinking in. Preston mouthed, “Hey, why are you blushing?”
“So you have attachment issues?” I asked Xan.
He muttered, “I suppose you could say that.”
I said, “Uh, thanks for telling me.”
There was another long fucking pause. Again, I thought Xan might have hung up.
After what might have been a zillion years, Xan murmured, “I -- I was wondering, if -- if you might be willing to -- try again.”
“What, like go out again?” I asked.
At that, Preston’s face fell, but he had no reason to worry. Just because Xan decided to step up and admit his dysfunction, didn’t mean I was just gonna drop my best friend to go out with him.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m not gonna go out with you, Xan,” I sighed.
“Why not?” He sounded totally fucking disappointed, but that was his fault for being an asshole about everything.
I said, “I’m just not. That’s all you’re gonna get out of me.”
“Alright then,” Xan murmured, his voice strained.
“Look, Preston’s here,” I said. “And I think we need to talk about the minor fact that he’s not exactly human. I’m gonna put the phone on speakerphone, if that’s okay.”
Xan muttered, “That’s fine. Jirrin is still here, so I’ll put my phone on speaker as well.”
I changed my phone’s mode to speakerphone as Preston crunched on another few coffee beans. I smiled at him, hoping to send the message that, no, I wasn’t gonna dump him for Xan Wait, where did the two of us stand, anyway? Were we going out? That was another talk we needed to have.
I said, “I’m worried our government is gonna, like, find out Preston’s half-Zimaran, decide he’s not a citizen and dissect him or something.”
“That’s outrageous,” Xan cried.
Preston sighed, “President Georgia Bradley is pretty outrageous, if you know anything about Earth politics.”
Jirrin muttered, “I’ve heard things.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked.
Xan said, “Nobody knows yet, right?”
“Just us,” I told him.
“In that case, it’s probably best if we don’t do anything in particular. We should wait it out, but Zimara will offer Preston what protection it can should your government make trouble,” Xan murmured.
My eyes widened. So did Preston’s. My roommate breathed, “You can do that?”
Xan said, “Yes, I can.”
“He should be able to,” Jirrin murmured.
I let out a deep breath, feeling some, but not all, of my tension release. “You’re actually willing to do that?”
“Of course I am,” Xan muttered.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Y-yeah, thanks,” Preston stammered.
Now that this particular problem had a solution, having Xan on the phone got a whole lot more awkward. We had almost been a fucking thing. And now that wasn’t gonna happen, even though Xan still wanted to be a thing. One-sided interest sucked.
I said, “If that’s it, I -- gotta go now.”
“That should be it,” Xan murmured. “I’ll be in touch, though, if that’s okay.”
While I wasn’t super-enthusiastic about staying in touch with Xan, I told him, “That’s fine. So, like, see you later.”
After we exchanged the requisite goodbyes, I hung up the phone and put it down. Preston looked at me, his eyes wide.
He whispered, “You’re really not going to go out with Xan? But you liked him!”
I smiled and put a hand on Preston’s shoulder. “He had his fucking chance, okay? Part of the reason I’m not going out with him is he was an asshole, and I just don’t wanna date assholes. The far more important reason I’m not going out with him is I want you.”
“R-really?”
“Yes, really,” I said.
Preston gave me this disbelieving look. “Even though he’s a Prince and filthy rich?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “While that stuff is enticing, I’m not a fucking gold digger.”
“Still...”
I said, “No ‘stills’ or ‘buts’ or shit like that, okay? I like you.”
Somehow, I thought telling Preston wouldn’t be enough. I would have to fucking show him I meant what I said, so I leaned in and kissed him. His eyes widened even more, but he shut them quickly as I deepened the kiss.
I pulled away from him, just a little. “See? I want you. Not Xan.”
He looked at me so fucking intensely, my heart skipped a beat. This time, Preston kissed me first, dropping his bag of coffee beans to the floor. I eagerly accepted the kiss, letting him push me down onto the bed.
I slipped a hand under his shirt. He did the same to me. My body flushed from having Preston’s weight on top of me.
Preston broke the kiss and asked, “You -- you wanna do what we did last night?”
“Definitely,” I said.
I smiled up at him, my whole fucking self quivering in anticipation. Preston kept staring into my eyes, and I felt that mental shift again. He had put the mind control on me. This would be awesome; I had the guy I wanted and now he knew I wanted him, too.
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written for 500themes prompt #135 - "There Will Always Be a Monster"
next chapter
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While I knew we had stuff to take care of, I went to SynthBrew for a bag of whole coffee beans to give Preston anyway, since I knew how much he liked to eat them. I figured if we were going to call Xan and Jirrin, unleashing a torrent of awkwardness, he deserved to have some chewable caffeine.
When I returned to our dorm room, I held the bag of beans behind my back. “Hey, Preston, I got something for you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you had something you needed to take care of.”
I showed him the beans. “This is what I had to take care of.”
Preston’s eyes widened. “You -- you got me whole beans.”
Handing him the bag, I said, “Yeah, I figured after everything you could use some.”
He opened the bag and popped a coffee bean into his mouth. It made a disconcerting crunching sound as I watched him chew. Preston noticed.
“What are you looking at?” he asked.
I felt my face heat up. “I definitely wasn’t staring at your sexy lips.”
Great, now my face was almost certainly bright fucking red. Yay me and my pale skin that showed the least bit of blush whenever I had reason to blush, like when I said something fantastically, fantastically stupid. Oh, like you’ve never said something stupid? I’m sure you have, but now really was a terrible time to blurt that out because I have enough fucking awkwardness.
Preston smirked. “You like my lips, huh?”
“I just said I wasn’t staring,” I muttered.
He kept fucking smirking. “That means you were staring.”
I knew that, but it didn’t mean I liked having it pointed out to me.
“We need to, like, talk about last night,” I sighed.
That sucked all the fun right out of the room.
“Which part?” Preston asked. “The part where you lay down on train tracks or the part where we slept together?”
“Both, I suppose,” I mumbled.
Not wanting to look directly at him, I poured myself another mug of coffee and added milk to it. I stirred my coffee far more than necessary while I waited for -- I didn’t know what I was fucking waiting for. I wanted a break from the awkwardness that had settled around us.
“I’m -- I’m sorry,” Preston said.
I sat back down on the bed beside him, though I stared intensely at my coffee, which wasn’t nearly interesting enough to induce such staring. It was fucking coffee, not like latte art or anything.
Though I wished I could hug Preston, something told me not to. That made no sense to me, but I got this feeling I should keep my distance, even if that “distance” was only like three inches between us on the bed.
I raised an eyebrow. “Sorry for what?”
“For last night,” he whispered.
I said, “It wasn’t your fault Xan wanted you more.”
He shook his head. “Not that, Dylan. For -- for what we did.”
My stomach sank. Why was he apologizing for that? I looked at him questioningly.
“I shouldn’t have taken advantage when you were in such a bad place,” Preston sighed.
“You didn’t take advantage of me,” I cried. “What kind of shit is that? I wanted you as much as you wanted me.”
He gave me this look full of pity, like he felt sorry for me. Dammit.
I glared at him and muttered, “What? It’s not like it was pity sex.”
Preston said, “Maybe it kind of was, in a way. Maybe that’s why I decided yesterday was a good time to finally make a move. I did feel bad for you yesterday. I still do.”
“Bullshit,” I hissed. “I know what pity sex looks like, and that wasn’t it.”
“How can you be so sure?” he asked.
I said, “I fucking know, okay? I’ve -- I’ve fucked someone who just felt sorry for me. I went along with it because I thought nobody would ever want me again, and it wasn’t anything like last night. Not even a little. So don’t try this crap about how last night was because you ‘felt bad’ for me or anything because I’m not gonna buy it.”
Preston stammered, “But -- but.”
I had what might have been a flash of actual insight. “It would be easier to say it was pity sex, wouldn’t it?”
He stared at me like I had lost my mind even worse than I actually had.
I explained, “Because then you could say the sex ‘didn’t count’ or some such bullshit, right?”
“Well, pity sex wouldn’t really count, right?” he said.
“I won’t go into details, but I’ve had sex I wish didn’t ‘count’ and you can’t make consensual sex ‘not count’ by magical thinking.” Damn, did I wish I could, though.
He sighed, “It would be easier if I could make what we did not count.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “So, you want to erase me from your history? Why, exactly?” I thought I might know, but he would have to tell me himself. I had nothing in the way of psychic powers, and I doubted telepathy would even work as well as it did in the movies.
Preston shifted a few inches away from me. He grabbed a couple more coffee beans and chewed on them. I waited for him to speak. This was fucking awkward, but he needed to talk about it. What the fuck did I know, though?
“Well, uh, my -- my family is about to disown me, and I just -- did the thing they’re gonna disown me over.” He blushed as he spoke.
I said, “Repression isn’t going to make things better. And pretending it ‘didn’t count’ is just a fancy form of repression. You could decide to get back in the closet and install a home theater inside it, and you’d still feel like shit if you tried to deny who you are.”
Preston laughed. “It would have to be an awfully big closet if you wanted to install a home theater inside it.”
“Xan’s closets are probably big enough,” I muttered.
“I’m not sure anybody from Zimara even knows what a closet is,” he said.
“Probably not.”
That reminded me, we needed to call Xan and Jirrin to discuss Preston’s other brain-exploding revelation. The whole “oh hello, you’re half fucking alien” thing just made everything exponentially more explosion-like than it would otherwise be. I had some experience with closets, but I didn’t know anything about being a half-human hybrid. I didn’t even know if any other half-Zimarans existed.
It had to be even worse for my best friend because he hadn’t even fucking known he was adopted. It would be one thing to find that out. Add the half-alien deal? I just wanted to hug him.
I looked at Preston, “So, promise me you won’t say the sex ‘didn’t count’ or anything like that, okay?”
His eyes shined like he might fucking cry. “I -- I promise, but that’s gonna be hard.”
I whispered, “I know it is. This shit’s not easy.” I paused. “Come here.”
Looking confused, he scooted back towards me. I wrapped my arms around him; I needed a hug as much as, or more than, he did. Preston returned my embrace, and we just sat there for a while, hugging each other. His body felt warm against my own, and I didn’t ever want to let him go.
“It’s too much,” he sobbed. “Everything -- it’s just too much.”
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
It was a lovely emotional bonding moment interrupted by my fucking phone. You just had to interrupt our moment, didn’t you? My best friend is fucking traumatized and you write a phone going off? You’re an asshole.
Grumbling, I let go of Preston and went to check my phone. It was Xan. How fucking convenient. I pushed the “call” button and said, “Uh, hi, Xan. You called. Obviously you called, but why did you call? I assume you have a reason, as I doubt you just wanted to hear the sound of my fucking voice.”
“I wanted to -- to see if you were okay,” he murmured.
Wait, what?
“Ex-excuse me?” I stammered.
He sighed, “I am truly sorry about what happened last night.”
I didn’t want to fucking deal with this right now. I muttered, “It’s not your fault you liked Preston better, I guess.”
Xan said, “I was -- let’s just say I was being foolish.”
I glared at my phone, as I couldn’t actually glare at Xan. “Yeah, you were being fucking foolish.”
Preston mouthed, “What’s he saying?”
I mouthed, “I’ll tell you later.”
“I -- I don’t prefer Preston,” Xan said.
“Then why did you act like you did?” I demanded.
He sighed, “Because I was so attracted to you.”
I hissed, “You were extra super fucking attracted to me, so you acted like another guy was your soulmate right in front of my face? I’m not from your planet, but I don’t think that makes sense even by Zimaran standards. You better explain yourself in some reasonably logical way or I’ll kick you in the nuts. I don’t care that we’re miles apart right now. I will transcend time and space to kick you in the nuts if I have to.”
“There’s no need to do that,” Xan said. “I’ll explain. It -- it was scary, how much I liked you. I like -- I like sex very much, but I’m not usually...particularly attached to the person I’m having it with. In -- in your case, I was, and it was...disconcerting.”
Wait, what?
I felt my face heat up at Xan’s words, which weren’t entirely sinking in. Preston mouthed, “Hey, why are you blushing?”
“So you have attachment issues?” I asked Xan.
He muttered, “I suppose you could say that.”
I said, “Uh, thanks for telling me.”
There was another long fucking pause. Again, I thought Xan might have hung up.
After what might have been a zillion years, Xan murmured, “I -- I was wondering, if -- if you might be willing to -- try again.”
“What, like go out again?” I asked.
At that, Preston’s face fell, but he had no reason to worry. Just because Xan decided to step up and admit his dysfunction, didn’t mean I was just gonna drop my best friend to go out with him.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’m not gonna go out with you, Xan,” I sighed.
“Why not?” He sounded totally fucking disappointed, but that was his fault for being an asshole about everything.
I said, “I’m just not. That’s all you’re gonna get out of me.”
“Alright then,” Xan murmured, his voice strained.
“Look, Preston’s here,” I said. “And I think we need to talk about the minor fact that he’s not exactly human. I’m gonna put the phone on speakerphone, if that’s okay.”
Xan muttered, “That’s fine. Jirrin is still here, so I’ll put my phone on speaker as well.”
I changed my phone’s mode to speakerphone as Preston crunched on another few coffee beans. I smiled at him, hoping to send the message that, no, I wasn’t gonna dump him for Xan Wait, where did the two of us stand, anyway? Were we going out? That was another talk we needed to have.
I said, “I’m worried our government is gonna, like, find out Preston’s half-Zimaran, decide he’s not a citizen and dissect him or something.”
“That’s outrageous,” Xan cried.
Preston sighed, “President Georgia Bradley is pretty outrageous, if you know anything about Earth politics.”
Jirrin muttered, “I’ve heard things.”
“So, what do we do?” I asked.
Xan said, “Nobody knows yet, right?”
“Just us,” I told him.
“In that case, it’s probably best if we don’t do anything in particular. We should wait it out, but Zimara will offer Preston what protection it can should your government make trouble,” Xan murmured.
My eyes widened. So did Preston’s. My roommate breathed, “You can do that?”
Xan said, “Yes, I can.”
“He should be able to,” Jirrin murmured.
I let out a deep breath, feeling some, but not all, of my tension release. “You’re actually willing to do that?”
“Of course I am,” Xan muttered.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Y-yeah, thanks,” Preston stammered.
Now that this particular problem had a solution, having Xan on the phone got a whole lot more awkward. We had almost been a fucking thing. And now that wasn’t gonna happen, even though Xan still wanted to be a thing. One-sided interest sucked.
I said, “If that’s it, I -- gotta go now.”
“That should be it,” Xan murmured. “I’ll be in touch, though, if that’s okay.”
While I wasn’t super-enthusiastic about staying in touch with Xan, I told him, “That’s fine. So, like, see you later.”
After we exchanged the requisite goodbyes, I hung up the phone and put it down. Preston looked at me, his eyes wide.
He whispered, “You’re really not going to go out with Xan? But you liked him!”
I smiled and put a hand on Preston’s shoulder. “He had his fucking chance, okay? Part of the reason I’m not going out with him is he was an asshole, and I just don’t wanna date assholes. The far more important reason I’m not going out with him is I want you.”
“R-really?”
“Yes, really,” I said.
Preston gave me this disbelieving look. “Even though he’s a Prince and filthy rich?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “While that stuff is enticing, I’m not a fucking gold digger.”
“Still...”
I said, “No ‘stills’ or ‘buts’ or shit like that, okay? I like you.”
Somehow, I thought telling Preston wouldn’t be enough. I would have to fucking show him I meant what I said, so I leaned in and kissed him. His eyes widened even more, but he shut them quickly as I deepened the kiss.
I pulled away from him, just a little. “See? I want you. Not Xan.”
He looked at me so fucking intensely, my heart skipped a beat. This time, Preston kissed me first, dropping his bag of coffee beans to the floor. I eagerly accepted the kiss, letting him push me down onto the bed.
I slipped a hand under his shirt. He did the same to me. My body flushed from having Preston’s weight on top of me.
Preston broke the kiss and asked, “You -- you wanna do what we did last night?”
“Definitely,” I said.
I smiled up at him, my whole fucking self quivering in anticipation. Preston kept staring into my eyes, and I felt that mental shift again. He had put the mind control on me. This would be awesome; I had the guy I wanted and now he knew I wanted him, too.
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written for 500themes prompt #135 - "There Will Always Be a Monster"
next chapter