
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/392499.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      Tavros_Nitram/Dave_Strider
  Character:
      Dave_Strider, Tavros_Nitram
  Additional Tags:
      Hurt/Comfort, Sadstuck, Piercings, Quadrant_Confusion
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-04-27 Words: 2994
****** Mark Me ******
by orphan_account
Summary
     What's there left to do when you live in a dream bubble with nothing
     but the trappings of a teenage boy's bedroom? Develop a piercing
     fetish, that's what.
Notes
     AN: This is actually a lot more emotional than my little blurb up
     there leads you to think.  I dunno....  I'm a total sap; I know it.
      I like hurt/comfort fics, okay?  They make me feel nice.  So, yeah,
     sorta sadstuck.  But, um.... I dunno.  /fail
     Man, I always start these fics out with one idea in mind and then
     something completely different happens.  Eh.  Hope you like it
     anyway. :P
     Theme music is Try_To_Remember_Me_(boyChild_remix)_by_Stumbleine.
Hold still.  Don’t cry.
Tavros sat with his hands in his lap, waiting.  It was the worst part of the
whole thing, the waiting.  Waiting was never any different, no matter how many
times he’d gone through this ritual.
How often was it, really?  Tavros began to wonder if there would ever be a
stopping point.  Two people, one needle, twenty fingers between them and plenty
of metal to stud their skin, gray and peachy.  Enough blood to spill between
the both of them.
Tavros swallowed and clenched hands at the fabric of his pants.  What came
next?  Really….  What else could Strider want to stick that needle through? 
The troll sighed and fell back onto Dave’s bed, unable to stand watching him
any longer.  He propped his feet up on the mattress and put his hands behind
his head, closing his eyes.  The sounds of Dave fiddling around with the
surgical steel instruments still chimed in his head. 
That and Dave’s humming.
It was a recent habit of his.  One that they both knew he picked up from Tavros
but neither would speak of that fact.  Tavros started singing back the lyrics
that played from Dave’s stereo in the moments where there was more or less
nothing.  Nothing but space to fill.  Between the long verses of rapping and
beat boxing, there’d be a melody for Tavros to latch onto.  And he would sing
it in the afterglows when Dave would nod off on the bed next to him.
Tavros couldn’t sleep when Dave did.  So he would sing instead.  And there
would be times when Dave would wake up to quiet and wavering murmurs of song
snippets.  So he’d hum them back.
Dave never sang.  Not even under his breath.  That was alright, though.  Tavros
was fine with the humming.  It was low and smooth.  Special.  A rare thing that
would always come out of nowhere and Tavros made sure to go silent every time
he heard it.  Because soon, it would be gone.  And Dave would replace it with
something else.
“Hold still,” he would say in a voice just as low as that humming but not as
sweet.  “Don’t cry.”
In the back of his heart, Tavros felt the emptiness weigh on him.  This was
death.  An existence in a memory.  He had use of his legs back but eyes as
blank as paper.  He had a companion to spend time with but the absence of
anything original to do but try and push the boundaries of how kinky their sex
could get.
Only, they had this new hobby now.  One that Tavros would actually admit he
found interesting. 
He’d never had a Kismesis before.  A relationship built solely on rivalry,
competition.  One that highlighted the pleasure in pain.  Honestly, it was a
weak union.  Tavros was the only one who saw it for what it really was.  Dave
called what they had a ‘matter of convenience and that’s really all there is to
say about that shit.’  Either way, hearts weren’t really in it.  Only the
motions. 
They flung insults at each other when boredom set in and there wasn’t much call
for gentleness or niceties.  Just silence.  Lack of voices and just the songs
that played in the background.  Tavros’s singing.  Dave’s humming.
Kismesis…yeah right.  They were just nothing.  Nothing apart and when they came
together they were nothing then too.
“I wanna do something different today.”
Tavros opened his eyes as the bed dipped.  Dave was crawling over him with his
shirt already off, the needle in his fingers.
“What’s that?” Tavros asked quietly.
“I wanna do this naked,” Dave said, looking down at him through the shades. 
Tavros had gotten to the point where he could almost see straight through them,
to the nothingness behind the lenses.  The words did something to the emptiness
he kept cradled inside.  It hitched a spark and made this warmth spread.  Signs
that somewhere, they were doing something right.  That burn was a good thing.
“Uh…why?”
“Because it’ll make the happy ending easier.  Get your pants off.”  Dave set
the needle aside on the nightstand and unlatched his own belt as Tavros sighed
and pulled at his zipper.
What was there left to do when you were dead?  Maybe if Tavros had landed in a
bubble with someone else, he would’ve actually managed to find some sort of
consolation.  Maybe some peace.  Some closure. But not with this human who
didn’t talk.  Not about things that hurt.  Not about things he loved.
They didn’t talk.  Why talk when you could just fuck and not think? 
Tavros shuffled his pants the rest of the way off and propped himself up on his
elbows.  One of his hands lifted to brush along the taut lines of Dave
Strider’s waist.  He really was a beautiful human.  Tavros couldn’t deny that. 
Not the strange paleness of his freckled skin or the soft strands of his oddly
yellow hair or the sweet bites from those dull teeth.
Beautiful all over.
“What are you, uh, piercing on me now?” Tavros asked him. 
“Your tongue.” 
Tavros closed his eyes and breathed, feeling the heat and giving press of Dave
settling his hips in the curve of Tavros’s pelvis.  Half-hard against his
nook.  Another breath.  Dave leaned in when Tavros inhaled, as if pulled by
it.  His kiss landed at the tip of Tavros’s nose, teeth slipping out to tug
just a bit at the septum ring that hung there.
“Ouch,” Tavros said gently.
“Open your mouth,” Dave said, taking up the needle again, his hips pushing
against Tavros as he did. 
“Next, I’m gonna get those, uh, those weird pink nubs on your chest,” Tavros
muttered.  The tip of his bulge slid out, fingering lightly at the length of
Dave against him.  The human made a soft sound and took a moment to rock his
hips a little, coaxing a bit more length from them both.
“Be my guest,” Dave said.  Tavros opened his mouth, staring straight up into
those shades.  “Be still.  Don’t cry.”
Tavros’s pulse sped, as it always did in this moment.  But instead of an
intrusive pinch at his flesh, he felt only the warm slide of Dave’s tongue into
his mouth. 
Dave liked to kiss Tavros like it was a question he had.  What does this feel
like?  How does it taste?  What’s it like compared to…?
Yeah.  Even though they didn’t talk, Tavros knew who they weren’t talking
about.
That one.  That other human.  The one where Dave’s kisses wouldn’t be so open
ended but would have their own answers.
Feels like warmth and happiness and darkness.  Tastes like everything you
love.  There is no comparison.
Tavros hiccupped a bit, Dave’s tongue still in his mouth, feeling along points
of fangs and putting that salt-and-iron flavor along the inside of his lip. 
Never failed to cut himself.
“Are you crying?” Dave asked, pulling away, the hand without the needle holding
Tavros’s face.
“Am I?” Tavros asked.  There was a stunted silence as Tavros wiped angrily at
his cheeks, trying to shove the tears away.  Then his heart screwed up inside
his chest, tight and aching.
“Dave…I…I hate you.”  He pushed Dave’s hand off of his jaw and wrapped his arms
tight around the human’s chest, pulling Dave down on top of himself.
“Whoa, whoa, what brought up this oxymoronic attitude display?”  A chuckle.
  “Sounds like what you are, an oxy-moron.”
“Shut up.”  Tavros knocked his forehead into Dave’s shoulder and squeezed him a
little tighter, the twine of his bulge retreating in the face of his sudden
heartache.  “I hate you….  I get that you…that you don’t give a fuck about me. 
But…but you’re all I have now.  And it,” he choked, “it makes my think pan
just…it just warps…that we do stuff like this….  We hurt…we hurt each other…and
we, w-we fill pails and it doesn’t mean…anything.”
And Tavros hated the silence.  The inevitable quiet that always fell over
them.  That’s what it always came back to.  A whole bunch of nothing.  With the
sting of new piercings in skin that meant nothing.  And songs in the background
that meant nothing.  Tavros would sing.  Dave would hum.  Nothing.
“Hey,” Dave muttered, turning his head from where it landed in the crook of
Tavros’s neck.  He reached up his fingers and muddled them through the strands
of Tavros’s mohawk.  “I can only guess that you’ve been building up this mess
for a while.  We doing one of those feelings jams right now?”
“You’re an idiot,” Tavros told him.
“Yeah, go figure, it happens.”  Dave pushed himself up out of Tavros’s grasp
and picked up the needle from where it had fallen.  “Open your mouth.  Shut up;
just do it and listen.”
Tavros closed his eyes, feeling the hot stream of tears trickling down his
face.  He opened his mouth anyway, keeping still underneath Dave as he felt
strong fingers steady his chin.
The shift of Dave’s calves against the outside of Tavros’s thighs was gentle,
the returning press of his hips, heavy.
“Once upon a time,” Dave said, “I lived in a world where I was going to die. 
And I didn’t know it.  And you can bet every nonexistent thing you own that I
didn’t think I would be the last one out.  The very last one dead.  But that’s
what happened.”
Dave readjusted himself just a bit and put the point of the needle at the
center of Tavros’s tongue, pushing it in slowly.  Tavros kept as still as he
could, a noise of pain stifled at the back of his throat.
“Being alone sucks,” Dave murmured.  “Wouldn’t wish that shit on anyone.  And I
thought that when I died, I’d find the end of everything.  But here I am, in my
bedroom, with a troll I’d barely known, a bunch of music and needles to pull
through you.”  And he did pull it through.  So slowly, making Tavros curl his
tongue in a weird angle just to get the thin tube of metal through the wet
muscle.
Slow and stinging.  And when it was all the way through, Dave screwed the
barbell in place with another stud.  There were more watery brown tears; some
got on Dave’s fingers, salting the stickiness of the saliva that was there.
“You’re a moron,” Dave told him, touching the tip of his own tongue to the
needle before setting it aside again.  “But you’re here.  You’ve got soft
insides and baby kisses and you sing like I need to hear.  I ain’t good with
the whole ‘bearing my soul’ shit but you’re the only one here to take the brunt
of all the shit I’m carrying and I just can’t unload all that on you.  You
don’t need to worry about my flaws and fuckups.”
Tavros wanted to speak.  But his tongue was numb, swelling in his head.  So he
grabbed Dave’s wrist and put that hand to his own neck, pressing Dave’s fingers
against his throat.
He tried.
“Where…agh…what hurts,” Tavros said thickly, “share it.  Make me feel.”
Dave sighed and took his hand away.
“Sure, kid,” he promised, fingers sliding down Tavros’s throat, over his chest,
all the way to the folds of his nookHe slid a few digits in carefully.   “But I
don’t got it in me to hurt you for real.”
Tavros moaned gently his hands coming up to grip at Dave’s shoulders.  “But…ah,
but why do you…?”  Those needles hurt.  For real. 
“It helps,” Dave said, lowering his head a bit, “knowing that someone won’t
forget me.  It’s an addiction.”
“You…won’t forget….”
Dave looked up again, the slight pink of his cheeks obvious now to what Tavros
could see.  The troll shifted his hands and pulled Dave’s sunglasses away,
letting them fall beside the pillow.  Blank eyes. 
“Remember,” Tavros whispered.  He did his very best.  Sometimes, if he tried
hard enough, his eyes would come back.  Dave mentioned it once.  So he tried. 
And he knew it worked because Dave opened his mouth just a fraction and stroked
long and slow at that sweet spot inside Tavros.
And then Tavros saw.  For the first time in life or afterlife, he saw Dave
Strider’s eyes.  As red as the blood in that human body and sharp as the needle
he’d driven through Tavros’s tongue. 
“Won’t forget me,” Tavros said.  He sniffled a little bit.  The ache in his
mouth and the pleasure that continually burst from the tips of Dave’s fingers
echoed back and forth to one another.
“No, prolly not,” Dave whispered.  He kissed.  Not at Tavros’s lips, but the
tears on his face and the skin that hid beneath the locks of hair on his
forehead.  At the angle of Tavros’s jaw and down his neck, over and over, while
he pushed his fingers in and out, gently.  Tavros’s bulge slithered out again
Dave let it curl around his hand, stroking at its side with his thumb.
“Dave….”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t…,” Tavros grimaced at the pain and then shuddered, jaw trembling, “I
think I…uh, pity you instead.”
“Make up your mind, won’t you?”
Tavros grabbed Dave’s shoulder a little tighter and tugged him to the side
until he got the message and lay down.  He took the needle from the nightstand
and positioned himself, straddling Dave’s hips, his bulge wrapping around
Dave’s erection and pumping gently.  For a moment, they just rocked, staring
into each other’s eyes now that they had colors to gaze into.
But then Tavros put his hand on Dave’s chest and leaned in.
“Don’t stop,” he whispered, moving so the head of Dave’s cock just pushed past
the dripping folds of his nook.  “Cry when it hurts.”
Tavros bent forward, pushing his hips back at the same time, and wrapped his
lips around Dave’s nipple, sucking lightly.
Dave arched up, his cock going deeper inside Tavros as he did.  They both
moaned gently, two tones of longing in quiet harmony.  Tavros pulled his lips
away, rolling his hips a little before taking the stud from his own
eyebrow—long since healed—and slipping it into the hollow end of the needle.
He steadied himself on Dave’s chest and for a moment, they were both still save
for the gentle writhe of Tavros’s bulge against Dave’s thigh.
Tavros pushed the needle through the damp nub of Dave’s nipple, glancing up at
him when the metal pierced through the other side to watch the shrink of Dave’s
pupils.  He pulled the needle through, leaving the jewelry behind, which he
screwed the other bead onto.
“I can’t cry, Tav,” Dave laughed gently. 
“Mmh.”
Dave wrapped his hands around Tavros’s hips and thrust up into him.  Tavros’s
head fell back and he gasped, gaining a rhythm in his own downstrokes as he
held tight to Dave’s shoulders.
What were they now?  A couple of dead fools, bloody for each other.  One crying
because he could think of nothing else.  The other unable to.  Or unwilling. 
Tavros found Dave’s words echoing in him, ringing from that deep part of
himself that he couldn’t name but loved.  It made him happy; it glowed when
they hurt each other.  When they held each other this closely.  Hold still, he
would say….
Hold still.
Don’t move.  Don’t leave me.  Don’t forget. 
Don’t cry.
Find joy.  Find love.  Find peace.
Tavros held it back as long as he could but the sob spilled over him.  Out of
his eyes and down his face, from his lips and all the way to his trembling jaw
and shaking fingers.
Dave sat up and moved his hands, grabbing Tavros’s thighs as he lifted and
pushed the troll against the wall.  Their hips rocked back and forth against
each other, Dave’s length pushing hard into Tavros’s insides.  Caramel colored
mess slipped out of Tavros’s nook, staining the paleness of Dave’s thighs on
its way to stain the sheets.
“Boy, you’re so hot inside,” Dave whispered, his tongue flicking the shell of
Tavros’s ear.  Tavros moaned at the words, digging his claws into Dave’s back
as he held even tighter.
“Dave…Dave…,” he cried over and over again, his tears soaking the warm column
of the human’s throat.
“Come hard for me,” Dave said. He gave another shove up into Tavros and came
himself with a breathless groan.
The muffled sound of Tavros’s genetic material dripping all over the bed was
hushed under the troll’s gasping.  His muscles clenched tight around Dave,
pulling every drop of cum from him.
 The panted, breaths layering over one another in a sort of airy cacophony. 
Then finally, Dave put Tavros down on the pillows and gathered the blankets up
around him.
He looked down into Tavros’s face, watching as the deep chocolate brown of his
eyes began to fade.
Before they did, he bent and kissed him.  A soft kiss.  All lips, no tongue.
And when he pulled away again, the eyes were blank once more.
“Gonna stick the other one?” Dave asked him, lying down on top of the blankets
by his side.  He flicked a finger casually over the unmarred nipple on his
chest.  Tavros shook his head.
“I don’t…,”  he caught his breath and shivered a bit, “have to be the only
one…you remember.”  He swallowed a little.  “You can’t cry out loud.  But you
do anyway.  I, uh…I can feel it in me.”
Dave let out a sort of scoff, shaking his head a little. 
“You’re some weirdass angel, Tav,” he told him, leaning in for another kiss.
 Tavros let it linger, putting his hands on Dave’s face as he kissed him.
“One day, you’ll learn how to cry again,” Tavros told him.  “And…and I’ll be
here for you, when you do.”
Dave laughed again.
“I know you will, kid.”
Be still. Cry when it hurts.
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