Reap the Earth at Which you Stand [boyxboy]

Chapter XLII

~Tuesday 13th February 2018~

"Please, Vas, please, I can't take it anymore," Dakota couldn't do it. He couldn't step forward, couldn't open the bedroom door and actually witness what was occurring within. He had been in there a moment ago, he hadn't found it so distressing. Then again, Izelon had been gagged when he had left to go get him some more ice.

Really, Dakota should have just taken Vasile's advice and stayed at home. He didn't need to be there that day, he had just wanted to spend some time with his boyfriend and didn't think that Izelon's heat could really be that bad. It wasn't him, Dakota had to keep reminding himself. He didn't want to taint the image of his friend with the creature he was becoming that day. He wouldn't hold anything against, just as he hadn't when Vasile had mentioned how the two used to be intimate during their heats. It was instinct, not love, he just needed to remember that.

For the past minute, Dakota had just been standing there with a glass of water in one hand and a bowl of ice in the other. He couldn't bring himself to move, couldn't even think of walking in there and seeing Izelon in such pain. He didn't think it was the man's speech that hurt him, it was knowing that the one person he really trusted, the one person he had helped through the same agony for so many years, couldn't return the favour anymore.

"He doesn't know what he's saying," Vasile assured Dakota when he opened the door, stepping out of the dimly lit room and into the hallway, "just try not to listen, OK?" Vasile looked pained too. Maybe that hurt Dakota as well, how much it was affecting his Keeper to see their friend like that. Izelon didn't deserve this. None of them did, it was mother nature's way of punishing them, it had to be, why else would they be forced to go through something so traumatic every month?

"You can do it if you want," Dakota's voice didn't have the confidence he would have liked, nor the volume. He wanted to sound strong, wanted to put up the facade that this wasn't so difficult for him, especially when Izelon had it so much harder, yet he simply couldn't. He didn't feel very well to begin with, and hearing the distress that Izelon was clearly wasn't helping him.

"Do what?" Vasile took the ice and the water from Dakota, placing it on the bookcase in the hallway and warming the boy's hands in his own. It had been bordering on painful, not that Dakota had even noticed, since he had been so preoccupied dwelling on the mental rather than the physical.

"Help him," Vasile's frown darkened, shock crossing his face, "it's just a handjob, V, it's not a big deal. It's not like you're gonna get anything out of it. I just can't listen to him anymore, it's killing me," Dakota wouldn't say he wanted Vasile to be so intimate with someone else, however, if it helped Izelon, he could cope with it. So long as he just didn't think too much. There was no love there, just physicality, a means to an end.

"Kota, you don't have to do this. Izzi can cope through this by himself, he doesn't need me," Dakota was well aware of Vasile and Izelon's past. They were closer in the physical sense than they were to Akos, it was almost sweet to think how much they would put aside to help one another. The problem was Dakota, in the end, he was the reason that Izelon was going through so much agony. He was the reason that Vasile couldn't fuck him through his heat. A bizarre concept, yet one that he still couldn't help feeling guilty over.

"You really think he's coping?" Vasile chewed on his bottom lip, remaining silent as his gaze dropped down to his hands entwined with Dakota's, "look, if it takes the edge off, then I'm OK with it. Honestly, V, it's not like you're sleeping with him. I just... I can't bear to listen to him anymore," there was a sense of selflessness that Dakota knew could be said of his actions, not that he cared. He wasn't doing it for himself, he was doing it for Izelon.