Work Text:
410D 20H 54M 16S
Manousos sits in the dark of his porch with a cigarette, listening to the desert crickets sing their soft, repetitive lullaby.
His porch.
“His” porch doesn’t really feel right, he thinks. This isn’t my house. Sólo lo estoy tomando prestado.
He keeps meticulous records of everything. He has chickens and ducks and grows his own vegetables, but he had to get those things from somewhere initially. Even the wire for the chicken fence. And the chicken feed. And he still has to go to the supermarket every now and again to get that, which he hates. And he even has to go to the regular supermarket as well sometimes, which he hates even more. The stack of IOUs at Sprouts is starting to look like the bible.
The cigarette glows cherry red in the darkness as he inhales again, looking across and down the hill where he can see the light of Carol’s cul de sac.
Their last fight was probably the worst one yet.
She had yelled at him and told him to mind his own damn business, and he had screamed at her that [Zosia] was wearing her dead wife’s memories like a skin suit and she was too far gone to notice. and that she’d lost her mind and was ‘betraying The Cause’ by getting deeper into bed with that thing.
“She’s not a thing! She’s a person!”
“That’s not a person. Come on! This isn't about gathering intel anymore!”
“How would you know what a person is? Maybe you should try being one sometime!”
“¡Mira quién habla, pendeja!”
The door slammed in his face.
Stubborn, deadlocked, they had refused to speak to each other after that, and neither one of them wanted to be the one to pick up the phone first. That was weeks ago.
So now he’s sitting here, on “his” porch wearing a wifebeater and boxers, smoking a cigarette in the dark and wondering for the umpteenth time in a month if he should just…pick up the phone.
Instead, he throws on a faded, old black t-shirt and jeans and makes his way down the road to Koumba’s ridiculously decadent choice of someone else’s house.
“So she isn’t speaking to you at all?”
“We are not speaking to each other. She has to admit she’s wrong before I do that.”
Koumba chuckles. “You are going to be waiting forever.” He pours a finger of whiskey into a glass and hands it to Manousos, who takes it, and a seat, reluctantly at the breakfast bar in Diabaté’s kitchen.
“I have never heard that woman ever admit that she is wrong about anything,” Koumba says. “She is…much like you, in that regard.”
He doesn’t like the way Koumba is looking at him. Like he’s waiting for him to admit something.
“Why don’t you just apologize?”
“No.”
Koumba throws his hands up. “Why do you come for chats if you never take my advice?”
Because there’s no one else to talk to and I’d rather die than converse with those bastards.
In the distance, a lone coyote mournfully sings.
“You have good whiskey,” he says, finally.
Koumba tuts. “You could buy your own?”
“No one takes money anymore.”
Koumba ignores him. He’s not about to get into that debate again.
“Well, if you won’t apologize, you are probably not going to make any headway. But isn’t it pointless to let this resentment between you carry on? I can see you are hurting. After all, I know she is your everything.”
So that’s what Koumba has been trying to coax out of him. He grits his teeth.
“It’s not like that,” he grumbles. “We are just friends.”
Koumba’s infuriating, smug grin makes Manousos want to smash his fist right into his teeth. He wants to watch the incisors clatter across the floor of Koumba’s kitchen. Watch Koumba get down on his hands and knees and try to collect them. He grips the glass of whiskey tightly.
“Of course you are friends,” Diabaté says. “But that doesn’t mean I am oblivious to the look in your eyes in her presence.” His cheeky smile persists, impervious to his guest’s death glare. “They go all soft around her.”
Manousos stabs his finger towards Koumba in horror.“I would never say that to her!”
He finds the idea morally repugnant in so many ways. He might not be able to help how he feels, but he would never tell a lesbian that. Carol isn’t like him.
He’s always known his attraction is more or less the same when it comes to men and women, but he’s also not stupid enough to think everyone is built like him. Nor should they be. He’ll never be a thief. He’ll never let someone feel uncomfortable in that way. Like they owe him something. He’d rather die.
Koumba raises a hand. “That isn’t what I’m saying, my friend. It would be pointless anyway. I’m saying…” He leans forward over the breakfast bar. “You are surrounded by beautiful women…”
Manousos frowns.
“And beautiful men,” continues Koumba. “There is no shortage of them!”
Manousos feels his face go hot. He takes a quick sip of the whiskey and rasps:“How did you know?”
Koumba just stares at him, hands on hips, one eyebrow cocked.“Ah.”
Of course. Of course. Those fuckers have no sense of privacy. They’ll tell people anything. They've got the knowledge and memories of every person he's ever gone to bed with.
The Mauritanian waves his hand casually. “In any case, these people want to make us happy. I think it would be good for you, my friend. You look like that glass is about to explode in your hand. You need to get some tension out of those shoulders!”
“They’re not here to make us happy. They can’t say ‘no’ to anything. It’s…it’s that thing that makes them say yes to whatever you want! We have this same conversation every time, imbecil! And just like every time, you aren’t going to convince me those people are all there–” Manousos taps the side of his head with one finger furiously.–and enjoy fucking you until you find a way to get it out of them. And that includes your pija!”
He stands up, chugs back the rest of his whiskey in one gulp and unceremoniously slams the glass on the bar.
Before he walks off, he eyes the half empty bottle and turns sheepishly to Diabaté. “I’ll get the next one,” he mutters.
He should have known Koumba would have no advice to offer that wasn’t related to his boner. He really can’t stand being in the presence of that man for more than an hour at the most. Everything about him feels slimy. Taking advantage of everything around him. Using people’s bodies.
Isn’t that what Carol is doing?
He grits his teeth. He wants to believe it’s different. That they manipulated his friend into all this. But she may be the only person on earth more stubborn than he is. He can’t imagine anyone making her do anything she doesn’t want to.
That's what he likes so much about her.
And he felt understood by her. At least, most of the time. He doesn't expect miracles from people. Aside from Koumba, the other immune give him a wide berth.
This never really bothered him until now. As long as one person got him, that was enough. And now he'd ruined that as well.
But it also makes no sense to him to tell her that getting into bed with the enemy and enjoying it a little too much are healthy or acceptable actions. Would you tell a heroin addict that overdosing was just fine just as long as it felt good?
The whiskey is warm in his belly, but the desert air carries a chill as he walks back down the road to the house, ruminating. He wraps his arms around himself to feel warmer.
He's halfway up the driveway when he becomes aware of a person standing near the porch where he'd been sitting hours earlier.
“¿Quien anda ahi?”
The figure still isn’t fully visible in the shadows. Manousos doesn’t understand why they do that. It’s almost like they’re trying their best to be creepy.
He can just about see the smile, though. A shiver runs down his back.
“I said I didn’t want to talk to you people,” he barks. “I’ve made myself clear over and over and you bastards won’t listen.”
The figure steps into the light. Manousos steps backwards instinctively.
The person…no…the body of the person that existed before looks very similar to the man who had tried to give him a lift on the way to Peru. And similar still to the doctor who had treated him at the hospital in Panama. Both burly, bearded men. Why…
Oh, those fuckers.
He doesn’t know how it found out he has a type when it comes to men, but it must have dug that out of somewhere. Maybe a casual comment he’d made about someone he saw at a bar. Who knows how many people were within earshot and…
“¿Estas bien, Manousos?”
He feels horror and bile rise in his throat. He doesn’t like them near him at the best of times, but out here, in the night, he feels like he’s stepped into a scene from a horror movie.
“¡Vete a la mierda!” he manages to spit, and runs for the house like the devil is chasing him down a hallway and he’s six years old again and just trying to go to the bathroom in peace at 3 a.m.
He slams and locks the door behind him quickly and doesn't dare turn on the light.
He peers gingerly through the peephole. The traitorous piece of shit wearing someone’s human skin lingers for a few minutes, then shuffles off down the road.
Manousos lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in.
He’s going to have to sleep with the gun under his pillow again.
The next morning he’s run out of chicken feed and has to run to the local farm supply store. He peers out the window to make sure there’s no one hovering in the driveway and grabs a notepad and pen from the desk drawer so he can write an IOU at the store.
The chickens make plaintive, hungry noises as he passes them on the way to the car.
“Calmáte,” he soothes.
His is the only vehicle when he pulls up to the farm supply car park, but he still looks around cautiously when exiting the car.
Satisfied there’s no one around, he makes his way into the store. The store they keep open specifically for him because they know he “shops” there. He doesn’t like it, but it is what it is.
He grabs a trolley and finds the aisle he’s looking for. He bends down to drag a 25 kilo bag of chicken pellets out from the bottom shelf.
The bag bursts open as he’s mid-stride and the chicken feed rolls under his shoe. He knows he’s going to slip a fraction of a second before it happens, but it’s too late to stop it. In a weary sort of way, he half resigns himself to the fact that he’s about to hit the floor, hard. Maybe he'll crack his skull and bleed out right here on the floor of the store. With no one to notice. Wouldn't that be poetic?
But that’s not what happens. Instead, a pair of strong arms breaks his fall before he's halfway to the ground.
“Careful, there!” booms a warm voice.
Manousos peers up at the voice’s owner. He looks like a biker. Long hair, salt and pepper beard, stocky build. The same person’s body that had been in his front yard last night. He smells of Old Spice and male sweat. Manousos shivers, then comes back to reality and quickly staggers away from the man.
“Are you stalking me?”
The biker's smile looks kinder in the daylight, and he tilts his head pleasantly.
“We know you usually come to this store to buy chicken feed around the same time every fortnight. You are quite...rigid in your habits. We just wanted to make sure you were feeling okay and see if there was anything we could help you with. I could help you carry a bag of that feed to your car, if you like?”
“What business of it is yours how I’m feeling?”
“We know you are lonely, Manousos. It’s not natural to be away from people for long periods of time.”
“Then why don’t you give them back?” he snaps. “¡Sería estupendo si eso pudiera hacerse!”
“Manousos, please…”
“I don’t need your help. I can do it myself!”
He crouches down to drag out a fresh sack, then hefts it up onto his left shoulder with a grunt in a hurry to get away. Damn using the trolley. He just wants to leave.
He makes it about four steps before his trapezium is seized by a nasty muscle spasm.
“Mierda!” he screams as he sinks to his knees. The sack hits the ground with a thump loud enough to echo throughout the store. Chicken pellets spray out across the shop floor as he lies there, whimpering.
Even on strong painkillers, his back hurts so badly he feels like he’s going to throw up.
He doesn’t know what’s stronger: the rage that he has no choice but to be coddled or the pain.The hive have been feeding the chickens for him, going to the store for him, making him meals. Biker Guy offered him a massage to soften the knotted muscle, but he refuses to let them touch him.
It isn’t until the fifth day of this that things change.
He can’t go on like this. Painkillers don’t help. Stretching doesn’t help. Warm compresses on his back don’t help. If he doesn’t do something soon, they are just going to stick around, and he doesn’t want that.
So, he decides to compromise. The faster they can fix his back, the faster he can be rid of them.
So, one evening, he agrees to let them massage him.
The massage team consists of three men and two women. He expects to just sit down on the side of the bed and have his shoulder rubbed, but they go to ridiculous lengths. They carry ointment, towels, scented candles. They even wheel in a massage table.
Fine. Whatever.
“Please, undress,” smiles a lady…no… the puppeted body of a lady as she gestures to the massage table. Manousos nods, gingerly removing his shirt while he eyes the table, trying to convince himself it’s not an instrument of torture. He leaves his jeans on.
With a grimace, he positions himself on the flat surface. Embarrassingly, he can’t even stifle a whimper at the pain the movement causes him.
He hears the cap of some lotion or ointment snap open. The sound of hands rubbing together.
Then he can’t help it:he damn near cries at the sensation of a hand touching him for the first time in what feels like forever. And he pretty much does sob when the hand moves over his scars in what feels like an almost loving manner.
“There we go,” soothes Biker Guy.
Manousos lies there like a dead fish with its mouth open, gasping for air. He can’t believe how incredible this feels. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. They have the knowledge of every damn masseuse in the world.
He lets himself melt under strong fingers digging into his shoulder, softening the agony of the past five days bit by bit, inch by inch.
It’s about 30 minutes into the session that he realizes he has an erection.
It’s becoming increasingly uncomfortable and he tries to shift his body slightly without Biker Guy noticing.
No such luck.
“Are you alright?”
“Uh huh.”
“It’s just, you’re lifting your hips off the table and it’s kind of throwing your body off balance. It would be easier to massage you if…”
Manousos starts an attempt to shuffle sideways off the table, like a worm.
“Listen, it’s perfectly natural to get an erection sometimes during a massage.”
Manousos freezes.
“We can even help with that, if that would make you happy?”
The room is completely silent except for the sound of the wallclock ticking. It feels like an eternity is passing.
Then Manousos does something he swore he would rather die than do five days ago.
“Yes,” he whispers.
Hands start undoing his belt buckle and pulling his jeans off him.
“Not here,” he says, before they start on his boxers. “I want to move to the bed.”
They nod, and just as he’s about to get off the table and follow them to the bedroom, strong arms lift him off the table and carry him to his destination, placing him gently in the centre of the bed. Everyone is undressing around him, including Biker Guy, who he gapes at shamelessly once he’s fully naked. A warm hand on his chest pushes him down onto his back.
Then Biker Guy starts kissing down the length of his body, over his stomach, over his happy trail. “Ay, Dios mio,” he moans, grabbing a fistful of the man’s hair. Biker Guy slips his boxers off.
Five pairs of hands move over his body.
He sobs as he buries his face in someone’s breasts and feels the Biker start to suck on his cock.
He would probably feel relief from just being held, but the additional feeling of flesh heightens everything, fires off dopamine and oxytocin in his brain that has been sorely lacking. He needs to be touched. He needs to feel skin on his skin.
Distantly, he hears a voice in the back of his mind saying: ¡Ellos no son personas! Son los cuerpos de la gente.
But the feeling, the illusion, of being surrounded by human contact is too much for him to resist, and the voice fades away. He whimpers and succumbs to the sensation of the warm mouth around him, of the caresses from multiple hands, of the loving words.
“We love you, Manousos. Does that feel good, baby? Do you like it when we touch you there, Manousos?”
No no no–
Yes.
He snarls and pulls Biker Guy’s face up towards him so he can kiss him fiercely. Hunger is blazing in him now, and he tries to turn both their bodies. Biker Guy gets the message and flips on his back, and Manousos climbs on top of him, desperately.
“Lube,” he rasps. They pass ointment down towards him, hand over hand, and he squeezes a generous dollop onto his palm, slicks himself, and lines up with the entrance to the man below him.
The full-body shudder and the groan that he utters as he sinks into hot flesh would be embarrassing if he was sleeping with a real person. God, it feels like a real person.
All rational thought fades again as he begins to thrust. The bodies around him writhe and moan. “Yes, Manousos, right there, we love it. You are so good at this.”
He has no idea if he really is good at this, but they make him feel like he is, and his thrusts become more frantic. It’s been so long, so long since he’s been with anyone, even before. He hungrily kisses the man below him again, drowning in him.
Hands caress his scarred back and squeeze his ass, encouragingly. “You can come inside us. We know you like that.”
That's all it takes for him. With a hard grunt, he empties himself, hot and liquid into the man's body. It’s literally the best orgasm he’s ever had. Built up from long periods of denial and isolation. No contest.
After two more deep thrusts and a low moan, he collapses onto the broad, furry chest under him. His body feels boneless. Not even his back is sore anymore. Fingers card through his hair. It feels like heaven, being held, being caressed. If this is what it feels like to succumb to oblivion, he'll take it. He falls asleep almost instantly.
416D 8H 20M 11S
Manousos’ arm is numb. He forces his heavy eyelids open, squinting at the morning light spilling through the blinds onto his face, and it takes him a second to realise where he is. Who he’s with.
FUCK.
The five bodies lie tangled together. A heavy, hairy arm is draped over his middle, and a scratchy beard nuzzles into his back as the hive starts to awaken.
No no no no.
He suddenly starts struggling to be free from the cuddle pile. The bodies look up in alarm.
“Manousos? Are you…”
“¡Fuera de mi casa! Now!”
“We can sense that you’re not happy…”
“Yeah? Did you need to think about that for a while before you all came to that conclusion?”
“We thought you enjoyed yourself last night. There’s no need to be angry.”
He realizes the Hive is trying to placate him. They don’t want him to snap or yell or have the meltdown he’s just itching to succumb to.
“Jódete,” he growls instead. “Leave.” The hive gets up and starts getting dressed.
He groans and rubs a palm across his face. He feels disgusted with himself. He used those people’s bodies. People.
And yet he also can’t help but feel used in turn. With growing horror, he realises he didn't even think to use a condom.
Once dressed, the hive walks the bodies out in single file and shuts the door behind them, smiling sheepishly all the while.
Almost immediately, Manousos runs down the hallway into the bathroom. He barely makes it to the toilet in time to retch, though it’s mostly dry heaves.
He shuts the toilet lid and sits on it, sobbing heavily. He looks up and sees his blotchy and bloodshot reflection in the mirror. Rapist, he thinks.
He suddenly can’t stand to be in his own skin and turns the hot water in the shower to the highest temperature he can stand. He spends the next 15 minutes scrubbing every inch of himself raw, but he has an inkling that he’ll never feel one hundred percent clean again.
When he’s done he wraps a towel around himself. He doesn’t dare look in the mirror again.
He stares down the hallway.
There’s only one course of action left.
“Hello?”
“Carol?” he croaks down the phone. “I…I’m sorry.”
There’s a pause on the other end of the phone, and for a minute he thinks she’s going to hang up, but instead there’s a soft, “Hey,” on the other end of the line, and then: “I’m sorry too.”
He tries to think of what to say next, but she beats him to it.
“Um…come over and see us for dinner soon, okay? How about Wednesday? I’ll make lasagna. We can play chess, have some beer? Just you and me if you like. We'll have a bud’s night.”
Manousos can feel his eyes welling up as relief washes over him.
“Sounds good,” he says in the steadiest voice he can muster.
He puts the phone back on the receiver gently and lets out a sigh for the ages.
At least he has his friend back.
But he can't write an IOU for what happened in his bed last night. There is no taking it back. There is no recompense he can possibly offer these people for what he stole from them.
It won’t happen again. It can’t happen again.
It won't.