#attention-starved troy otto

[noemitenshi]

Excerpt

Ri’s hand, the one he wasn’t holding in his own, moved hesitantly to his temple. Ghosting over the ghastly scar there, her gaze fixed to it intently. Troy felt bared all of a sudden, holding his breath.

“You survived that all on your own?” There was horror in her tone and he almost grimaced at it but – that wasn’t all he could hear in it. Underneath it, in the quiet whisper of that question lay something else, too. Wonder, almost, he thought. His answer was a hoarse whisper of his own, an almost inaudible “yeah.” He felt choked by the accompanying feelings, feelings from back then, feelings he’d thought long buried. He feared what it would do to him if they broke free, could barely contain them.

But then warm, slender fingers laid on the scar tissue and everything except that soft touch fell away from him

“...does it still hurt?” Her voice was even quieter now. And so soft it had his heart ache in a strange way.

“Sometimes.” He matched her volume or maybe he was still hoarse, his throat still closed from the echo of those feelings. “Not like… the first few days.”

She continued to softly touch the scar, moving over it so carefully until her fingertips were at the corner of his eye. He knew by feeling them.

“It took your eye, too.” The words sounded like pity but her tone did not. Nor did her expression, so full of feeling. It almost made him want to be able to give her a different reply than the quiet admission of “yeah.”

Her expression changed, looking pained and he reflexively rebuked her.

“Don’t look like that.” His voice was kinder than if he’d consciously decided on saying it.

“Like what?”

Like you��re hurting for me. He didn’t say that of course.

[noemitenshi]

Excerpt

Fuck, Troy had almost groaned with the zeal -the lust- for it. With what that one simple -sweet- touch had done to him, awakened long-lost wants, oh god, how long had it been that someone had touched him like this? Without meaning to cause harm or stop him. With the intention of making him feel good – that had been the intention, hadn’t it? At least, it had felt like it, had felt so achingly careful, so painfully sweet—

He’d do anything. Anything, he realized in this moment if the other man would just touch him like this again. The injured, the dead, the ranch, he didn’t give a damn about any of that in this moment.

God, they’d all been right, his mom, Jake, and all the rest, too.

He really was a monster.

[noemitenshi]

Excerpt

���Why’d you save me?” Troy asked, breaking the not so uncomfortable silence. He figured she was the driving force from Lee’s words earlier on, and he was curious what made her spend so much work and resources on a stranger.

Ri sat down then, the bloody bandages she removed from Troy’s head in her lap.

“Because you needed it.”

There seemed nothing more to it. Her voice kind and matter-of-factly, and her face calm. It wasn’t soft exactly, her eyes still observant. Troy found it difficult to look away, something about her holding him captive. This face he’d thought he’d dreamt up. He was glad he hadn’t; liked how animated and real she looked now. Now that he wasn’t half-delirious with pain, his thoughts could race again, like they tended to do. Getting stuck on her explanation ‘you needed it.’ He had needed a lot of things in life, a lot of times, and no one had cared. Why would she? A total stranger. Why would she, when not even his family had? Was it truth, what she said? Or was it just a pretty sentiment devoid of meaning.

How much could he need, he wondered...

“Yeah? What if I need your boyfriend?”

“Don’t be a dick.”