I Prefer the Mind Control Rewrite - Chapter 14
previous chapter
May be slightly NSFW.
---------
Time itself moved differently in Xan’s bedroom; how else could I explain how it became 10PM by the time we were done having sex? Seriously, there was some kind of black hole vortex wormhole spatial anomaly in his room. Or possibly in Xan himself, specifically in his cock . Yes, Xan had a spatial anomaly in his cock. That was a rational explanation for why time seemed to fucking fly, right?
No, that’s not rational? Fine, author, I’m making fucking excuses for having extreme lust for Xan. I get it; I know I’m doing it, and I know it’s bad. It’s hard not to fall under his charms, okay?
Xan shifted in the bed, propping himself up on his elbow. “Had a good time?”
I tugged at the sheets and tried to cover my lower half. Xan put his hand over mine, stopping me.
He smirked and murmured, “Don’t cover yourself; I want to look at you.”
I felt my face flush as I looked back at him. “It’s late. I should, like, get going.”
“You can stay the night, if you like.” Xan squeezed my hand as he spoke.
“I got class at 8:30AM, man,” I muttered, glancing at the clock on the nightstand.
Xan let go of my hand. He reached out, gently brushing my cheek.“I can drive you in the morning,” he said.
I rolled the sheets between my fingers and turned away from him. I said, “I didn’t bring any extra clothes with me, and it would look fucking weird to show up in some of yours. They’re -- they’re not quite human-looking. But you wore human clothes the day I met you, right? But you’re way bigger than me.”
He wasn’t fucking deterred. Instead, Xan ran his fingers along my neck, sending a shiver through my body. He murmured, “I have some things that could work. I -- I don’t want you to go.”
“That much is obvious,” I muttered.
Xan sighed, looking downward. “It’s -- lonely, here.” Were his eyes shining? With fucking tears?
“I’m sorry,” I said. I looked him in the eyes. Yeah, he was about to cry. Without actually meaning to, I wrapped an arm around him, pulling him closer. “I guess I could stay if you don’t mind, like, waking up early.”
“That’s what coffee is for, right?” he muttered into my shoulder.
I gave him a little squeeze. “Yeah, as long as it’s okay if I drink half your supply.”
Xan laughed; I could feel it against my body. “I don’t think you’ll quite manage that.”
“Oh, just you wait and see,” I teased.
He let me go and started to get out of the bed, swinging his legs over the side of it. “I think it’s time we get washed up.”
After we washed up, Xan provided me with another pair of pajamas. Like the ones before them, they were huge. He smiled at me sheepishly as he handed them to me. “I think I need to buy some smaller ones. If you’re going to stay here with any regularity, it would help if you had something that fit.”
Wait, what?
I raised an eyebrow as I hugged the pajamas to my chest. “You -- uh, you certainly are forward. And --” I stopped myself, feeling my stomach sink. “Aren’t you heading back to Zimara soon, anyway?”
“I --” Xan grabbed his right arm with his left, crossing the one arm over his chest. He shifted on his feet, awkwardness suddenly filling the air. “I -- don’t know. Probably. But I -- you know I don’t really want to go back for a competition I have no interest in and no hope of winning. My older brother Krun will get it. He cares about the politics, the power. My -- my younger sister Ayli is -- well, she’s unlikely to get it, either.”
“Does it really matter if you don’t wanna go back, though?” I looked at the ground, trying to ignoring the queasy feeling in my stomach. Why was I so fucking disappointed that Xan was leaving? Didn’t I want this weird lust business to go away? “You still have to leave, right?”
“I still do,” Xan sighed. He twisted to the side, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know when, but -- I suspect it’s soon. And before I got to know you properly.”
It wouldn’t have fucking worked out anyway, though, right? Xan was not only an alien, he was royalty. That was a double serving of “not remotely a viable romantic prospect.” Logic didn’t stop me from feeling sick at the thought he was going to leave, though. Maybe I needed stronger logic cells in my brain. You got any spare logic cells, author? What, “logic cells” aren’t a thing? Fine, I’m not a neuroscience major, okay?
“We’ve got some time?” I offered, playing with the drawstring on the pajamas I still held.
“Perhaps we have a little,” he murmured. Xan didn’t look convinced, his eyes appearing almost...tarnished. While Zimarans seemed to have facial expressions much like humans, our eyes never looked like something from a fucking junkyard.
“I wish you could come with me,” Xan said.
“Excuse me?” I cried, nearly dropping the pajamas.
“It would--” He took a step towards me. “It would solve the problem of having to go back but not wanting to leave you behind.”
“Except for how we don’t actually, um, know each other all that well. It hasn’t even been a month, and by Earth standards?” I struggled to catch my breath. “By Earth standards, that’s like taking a supersonic jet to the Realm of Bad Decisions That Are Enticing Anyway.”
“So you would consider it, on some level?” he murmured, looking oddly hopeful. No more fucking junkyard eyes, anyway. He let go of his arm, his whole body relaxing, from what I could tell.
“There’s lots of things I would consider but not actually do,” I stammered. Despite knowing I should back away, I stayed where I was, letting Xan remain way too close to me.
“I suppose there are,” he said. Xan offered a small half-smile. “It’s still nice to hear you consider it, even if you wouldn’t really do it.”
Was it? I heard hope in his voice, like he actually fucking though I could just go to an alien planet the same way I would visit someone in the next state over. It didn’t work that way; I couldn’t just leave Earth, as much as I sometimes wanted to.
“I guess...” I mumbled. I turned away from him before anything physical could happen again and dropped the pajamas on the bed. “I’m gonna change now.”
“And I’m going to watch.” While I couldn’t see him, I could hear the smirk in his voice.
As I started undressing, I couldn’t get Xan’s offer out of my mind.
* * *
Xan drove me home the next day, his offer still refusing to get out of my brain. How did I make it go away?
Throughout my class, I couldn’t even pay the littlest bit of attention. While I should have watched the whiteboard for whatever fragments of language we were learning, I daydreamed instead, imagining what life might be like on Zimara. I assumed Xan lived in some kind of palace, though I had no idea what it might look like. My daydreaming brain decided it was an even fancier version of Xan’s black and silver decorated apartment.
As I sipped my travel mug of SynthBrew, I wondered just how serious Xan’s offer really was. Of course, I wrote down precisely nothing during class, despite hearing plenty of scribbling pens and clacking keyboards around me. Xan? He was fucking terrible for my brain. I should have told him to take the mind control off me. Instead, being a genius, I asked him to leave it on. He had obliged very, very readily.
After class was over, I stuff all of my things into my bag. I put on my stupid orange windbreaker, tugging on the edge of it, and joined the flow of students leaving the classroom.
When I finally made it out of the classroom, I almost dropped my fucking travel mug. “P-preston?” My roommate was standing right there, an unreadable expression on his face.
He held onto the leather straps of his ridiculously fancy backpack and didn’t quite look at me. “I...”
I raised an eyebrow, adjusting my own backpack. “You what? Uh -- what are you doing here?”
“You didn’t come back last night,” he mumbled, still holding onto his backpack straps.
“Did you -- get my voicemail? I said I would be out for however long,” I murmured. I looked at Preston, trying to figure out what the fuck that expression meant. Was he worried about me? Why would he be worried about the guy who had dumped him in such an awkward manner? Can you tell me, author? You don’t actually know? That’s fucking helpful.
Preston became apparently interested in the wall. His voice cracked when he spoke, “I -- I got it, Dylan. But -- it was Sunday yesterday. You had class in the morning. I -- I didn’t think you would stay overnight, so I kinda worried something might have happened. Couldn’t wait to check, you know?”
“I -- that still doesn’t make any fucking sense,” I muttered. My chest tightened uncomfortably.
“You’re wondering why I would bother when you had broken up with me, right?” he sighed, still looking at the wall and not letting go of his backpack.
“Yeah, I kinda am,” I said. I almost wanted to reach out for him in a friendly way, but even I knew such mixed signals would be a bad fucking idea.
“I don’t even know if I can be friends with you, right now,” he said. Preston looked me directly in the eye, his own eyes shining with tears. “But -- but that doesn’t mean I wanted you to die. I -- still care.”
I shook my head, feeling baffled. “You really shouldn’t care. Not about me,” I muttered.
Right now, I saw no fucking reason why Preston would give even the most infinitesimal shit about me. My whole body sagged, some strange weight dragging it down. I knew what that weight was; it was the force of my failed relationship come to bear down on me.
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t care.” He half-smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.
“But you do anyway?” I asked. Again, why would he?
His voice was low and kind of defeated. “I -- I do. Can’t turn it off just because you don’t want me, though I wish I could.”
“That would make things easier, wouldn’t it?” I said, feeling that weight bear down on me even fucking harder.
“It would,” Preston agreed, his eyes downcast.
I could offer some bullshit about how life isn’t fair, but I doubted Preston would appreciate that. He had to know already how fucking unfair life was, partially thanks to me.
Instead, I muttered, “I gotta go.”
Where was I going to go, though? Normally, I would head back to my room now, but that wasn’t a viable option, as I thought Preston would be heading there, too. I wanted to give him some space, because he deserved it.
Without realizing it, the whitewashed halls had become empty, with only the occasional straggler like me and Preston. The emptiness was kind of disconcerting. It left me more alone with my roommate and my stupid thoughts about how we should have been able to be happy. We had been best friends who had already proved we could live together without murdering each other. “Able to live together without homicidal impulses” was a major aspect of compatibility, yeah?
But it wasn’t the only one, was it?
“Heading back to the room?” Preston asked, eyes still downcast.
“I was gonna give you your space,” I said quietly.
He met my eyes, and I felt a pang in my chest. “I -- might appreciate that, if you don’t mind. I’m not gonna banish you from our room, but...”
“I understand.” And I did.
After all that had happened to Preston, he would be justified if he did banish me from the room for a while.
“See you later,” I mumbled. I shuffled off, not sure where I was going and feeling that heaviness trying to beat me down.
---------
written for 500themes prompt #436 - "Bound by Silence"
next chapter
May be slightly NSFW.
---------
Time itself moved differently in Xan’s bedroom; how else could I explain how it became 10PM by the time we were done having sex? Seriously, there was some kind of black hole vortex wormhole spatial anomaly in his room. Or possibly in Xan himself, specifically in his cock . Yes, Xan had a spatial anomaly in his cock. That was a rational explanation for why time seemed to fucking fly, right?
No, that’s not rational? Fine, author, I’m making fucking excuses for having extreme lust for Xan. I get it; I know I’m doing it, and I know it’s bad. It’s hard not to fall under his charms, okay?
Xan shifted in the bed, propping himself up on his elbow. “Had a good time?”
I tugged at the sheets and tried to cover my lower half. Xan put his hand over mine, stopping me.
He smirked and murmured, “Don’t cover yourself; I want to look at you.”
I felt my face flush as I looked back at him. “It’s late. I should, like, get going.”
“You can stay the night, if you like.” Xan squeezed my hand as he spoke.
“I got class at 8:30AM, man,” I muttered, glancing at the clock on the nightstand.
Xan let go of my hand. He reached out, gently brushing my cheek.“I can drive you in the morning,” he said.
I rolled the sheets between my fingers and turned away from him. I said, “I didn’t bring any extra clothes with me, and it would look fucking weird to show up in some of yours. They’re -- they’re not quite human-looking. But you wore human clothes the day I met you, right? But you’re way bigger than me.”
He wasn’t fucking deterred. Instead, Xan ran his fingers along my neck, sending a shiver through my body. He murmured, “I have some things that could work. I -- I don’t want you to go.”
“That much is obvious,” I muttered.
Xan sighed, looking downward. “It’s -- lonely, here.” Were his eyes shining? With fucking tears?
“I’m sorry,” I said. I looked him in the eyes. Yeah, he was about to cry. Without actually meaning to, I wrapped an arm around him, pulling him closer. “I guess I could stay if you don’t mind, like, waking up early.”
“That’s what coffee is for, right?” he muttered into my shoulder.
I gave him a little squeeze. “Yeah, as long as it’s okay if I drink half your supply.”
Xan laughed; I could feel it against my body. “I don’t think you’ll quite manage that.”
“Oh, just you wait and see,” I teased.
He let me go and started to get out of the bed, swinging his legs over the side of it. “I think it’s time we get washed up.”
After we washed up, Xan provided me with another pair of pajamas. Like the ones before them, they were huge. He smiled at me sheepishly as he handed them to me. “I think I need to buy some smaller ones. If you’re going to stay here with any regularity, it would help if you had something that fit.”
Wait, what?
I raised an eyebrow as I hugged the pajamas to my chest. “You -- uh, you certainly are forward. And --” I stopped myself, feeling my stomach sink. “Aren’t you heading back to Zimara soon, anyway?”
“I --” Xan grabbed his right arm with his left, crossing the one arm over his chest. He shifted on his feet, awkwardness suddenly filling the air. “I -- don’t know. Probably. But I -- you know I don’t really want to go back for a competition I have no interest in and no hope of winning. My older brother Krun will get it. He cares about the politics, the power. My -- my younger sister Ayli is -- well, she’s unlikely to get it, either.”
“Does it really matter if you don’t wanna go back, though?” I looked at the ground, trying to ignoring the queasy feeling in my stomach. Why was I so fucking disappointed that Xan was leaving? Didn’t I want this weird lust business to go away? “You still have to leave, right?”
“I still do,” Xan sighed. He twisted to the side, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t know when, but -- I suspect it’s soon. And before I got to know you properly.”
It wouldn’t have fucking worked out anyway, though, right? Xan was not only an alien, he was royalty. That was a double serving of “not remotely a viable romantic prospect.” Logic didn’t stop me from feeling sick at the thought he was going to leave, though. Maybe I needed stronger logic cells in my brain. You got any spare logic cells, author? What, “logic cells” aren’t a thing? Fine, I’m not a neuroscience major, okay?
“We’ve got some time?” I offered, playing with the drawstring on the pajamas I still held.
“Perhaps we have a little,” he murmured. Xan didn’t look convinced, his eyes appearing almost...tarnished. While Zimarans seemed to have facial expressions much like humans, our eyes never looked like something from a fucking junkyard.
“I wish you could come with me,” Xan said.
“Excuse me?” I cried, nearly dropping the pajamas.
“It would--” He took a step towards me. “It would solve the problem of having to go back but not wanting to leave you behind.”
“Except for how we don’t actually, um, know each other all that well. It hasn’t even been a month, and by Earth standards?” I struggled to catch my breath. “By Earth standards, that’s like taking a supersonic jet to the Realm of Bad Decisions That Are Enticing Anyway.”
“So you would consider it, on some level?” he murmured, looking oddly hopeful. No more fucking junkyard eyes, anyway. He let go of his arm, his whole body relaxing, from what I could tell.
“There’s lots of things I would consider but not actually do,” I stammered. Despite knowing I should back away, I stayed where I was, letting Xan remain way too close to me.
“I suppose there are,” he said. Xan offered a small half-smile. “It’s still nice to hear you consider it, even if you wouldn’t really do it.”
Was it? I heard hope in his voice, like he actually fucking though I could just go to an alien planet the same way I would visit someone in the next state over. It didn’t work that way; I couldn’t just leave Earth, as much as I sometimes wanted to.
“I guess...” I mumbled. I turned away from him before anything physical could happen again and dropped the pajamas on the bed. “I’m gonna change now.”
“And I’m going to watch.” While I couldn’t see him, I could hear the smirk in his voice.
As I started undressing, I couldn’t get Xan’s offer out of my mind.
* * *
Xan drove me home the next day, his offer still refusing to get out of my brain. How did I make it go away?
Throughout my class, I couldn’t even pay the littlest bit of attention. While I should have watched the whiteboard for whatever fragments of language we were learning, I daydreamed instead, imagining what life might be like on Zimara. I assumed Xan lived in some kind of palace, though I had no idea what it might look like. My daydreaming brain decided it was an even fancier version of Xan’s black and silver decorated apartment.
As I sipped my travel mug of SynthBrew, I wondered just how serious Xan’s offer really was. Of course, I wrote down precisely nothing during class, despite hearing plenty of scribbling pens and clacking keyboards around me. Xan? He was fucking terrible for my brain. I should have told him to take the mind control off me. Instead, being a genius, I asked him to leave it on. He had obliged very, very readily.
After class was over, I stuff all of my things into my bag. I put on my stupid orange windbreaker, tugging on the edge of it, and joined the flow of students leaving the classroom.
When I finally made it out of the classroom, I almost dropped my fucking travel mug. “P-preston?” My roommate was standing right there, an unreadable expression on his face.
He held onto the leather straps of his ridiculously fancy backpack and didn’t quite look at me. “I...”
I raised an eyebrow, adjusting my own backpack. “You what? Uh -- what are you doing here?”
“You didn’t come back last night,” he mumbled, still holding onto his backpack straps.
“Did you -- get my voicemail? I said I would be out for however long,” I murmured. I looked at Preston, trying to figure out what the fuck that expression meant. Was he worried about me? Why would he be worried about the guy who had dumped him in such an awkward manner? Can you tell me, author? You don’t actually know? That’s fucking helpful.
Preston became apparently interested in the wall. His voice cracked when he spoke, “I -- I got it, Dylan. But -- it was Sunday yesterday. You had class in the morning. I -- I didn’t think you would stay overnight, so I kinda worried something might have happened. Couldn’t wait to check, you know?”
“I -- that still doesn’t make any fucking sense,” I muttered. My chest tightened uncomfortably.
“You’re wondering why I would bother when you had broken up with me, right?” he sighed, still looking at the wall and not letting go of his backpack.
“Yeah, I kinda am,” I said. I almost wanted to reach out for him in a friendly way, but even I knew such mixed signals would be a bad fucking idea.
“I don’t even know if I can be friends with you, right now,” he said. Preston looked me directly in the eye, his own eyes shining with tears. “But -- but that doesn’t mean I wanted you to die. I -- still care.”
I shook my head, feeling baffled. “You really shouldn’t care. Not about me,” I muttered.
Right now, I saw no fucking reason why Preston would give even the most infinitesimal shit about me. My whole body sagged, some strange weight dragging it down. I knew what that weight was; it was the force of my failed relationship come to bear down on me.
“Yeah, I probably shouldn’t care.” He half-smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes.
“But you do anyway?” I asked. Again, why would he?
His voice was low and kind of defeated. “I -- I do. Can’t turn it off just because you don’t want me, though I wish I could.”
“That would make things easier, wouldn’t it?” I said, feeling that weight bear down on me even fucking harder.
“It would,” Preston agreed, his eyes downcast.
I could offer some bullshit about how life isn’t fair, but I doubted Preston would appreciate that. He had to know already how fucking unfair life was, partially thanks to me.
Instead, I muttered, “I gotta go.”
Where was I going to go, though? Normally, I would head back to my room now, but that wasn’t a viable option, as I thought Preston would be heading there, too. I wanted to give him some space, because he deserved it.
Without realizing it, the whitewashed halls had become empty, with only the occasional straggler like me and Preston. The emptiness was kind of disconcerting. It left me more alone with my roommate and my stupid thoughts about how we should have been able to be happy. We had been best friends who had already proved we could live together without murdering each other. “Able to live together without homicidal impulses” was a major aspect of compatibility, yeah?
But it wasn’t the only one, was it?
“Heading back to the room?” Preston asked, eyes still downcast.
“I was gonna give you your space,” I said quietly.
He met my eyes, and I felt a pang in my chest. “I -- might appreciate that, if you don’t mind. I’m not gonna banish you from our room, but...”
“I understand.” And I did.
After all that had happened to Preston, he would be justified if he did banish me from the room for a while.
“See you later,” I mumbled. I shuffled off, not sure where I was going and feeling that heaviness trying to beat me down.
---------
written for 500themes prompt #436 - "Bound by Silence"
next chapter