#her baleful autism stare

[neodiekido]

i love this cg. she does not fucking want to play touys with you guys

[2demondogs]

When You're A Stranger | Kieran/Male Reader

Tags: First kiss AGAIN!!, Kieran had PTSD and he's a little autism coded Words: 2k A/N: For Kinktober (SFW). Originally I was going to fill the frottage prompt but it was NOT sparking joy.

You know you put Kieran on edge. Kindness seems almost painful to him, and fear that you’ve pushed too hard follows whenever he has shied away from you.

Kicked dogs don’t cozy up fast, you’ll remind yourself, and then he’ll come around again.

He’s starting to learn that you aren’t intending to backhand him if he looks at you too long or speaks too softly around you. Even beyond the sweetness you’ve got stored on him, or maybe because of it and the strength love seems to give people to accept lonesomeness in favor of their darling’s happiness, you want him to have… someone, in some sense, that he doesn’t have to fear. Whether, in the end, it’s you or not— that doesn’t matter, but you’ll be the placeholder while he needs it.

His burgeoning confidence is starting to put you on edge, too, if it could be called confidence.

Kieran is bad at hiding his emotions, a real travesty as far as his general safety is concerned. You couldn’t place your finger on what exactly it was in his eyes until an evening where Molly had decided it was your turn to listen to her strife. She had glanced at Dutch the same way: soft-eyed, yearning, that little curl to her mouth. She hadn’t been angry anymore, merely… sad.

Good God, you’d thought, after she’d left you to sulk. He’s in love with me.

A lot of pieces fell into place, then: the patchy rosiness on Kieran’s cheeks that you chalked up to rosacea or sunburning; how he would straighten up when you did, sliding clumsily into mirroring your body language; his clinginess, laced with anticipation that kept him still-distant but much closer than he would ever be caught standing or sitting next to anyone else.

And those eyes, a cloudy color you haven’t gotten close enough to make out yet. They glaze over when you talk as if he’s in a trance — Jesus, you knew that your attention to detail had gone to total shit when that clicked into place, because it’s been painfully obvious ever since. You’d asked him once why he always stared when people spoke to him, and he told you his father had beat his ass raw for not looking him in the eye when he spoke.

That sufficed for the fact he stared, but not the way he did it. It had always been different, with you.

Meatier.

Kieran’s inhibition is palpable once he’s been drinking. Sean had been trotted into camp, loud as ever, and the group beer rations were quickly broken out to celebrate as dusk settled into the skyline beyond the Overlook. For the redhead’s piece, you’d asked him how the O’Driscolls didn’t fear what the rest of you were like after kidnapping his ass; more seriously, you’d ask how he was doing. He’d brushed you off, apparently preferring the taunting to genuine concern. Fair enough. You left him to talk someone else's ear off and wandered to a man you knew would enjoy your company.

He is nursing a beer, watching the campfire crowded ‘round with half of the camp. The tangible longing depresses you in its familiarity. Hosea's doing the same, from a fold-up chair beside his bedroll; Kieran squints when you greet him with: “Hey, old coot. Gonna join the party?”

It takes a second, but he huffs a tense laugh as you glance between him and Hosea. “Don’t think I’m missed,” he says, meeting your eyes.

There it is, that expression. It’s full to bursting.

“I’m missin’ you,” you say, nodding to the hay bale. “Mind if I join your party?”

“Sure thing." His voice sounds strained.

His beer is barely drank from, and neither is yours. The redness of his cheeks and nose, well— you don’t know what it’s from, and the daylight is so faded that it simply looks dark. Maybe it’s been a tan all along.

Or so you’d think, if he didn’t turn to you as soon as you settled a tad too close to him, eyes stuck on your face. The alcohol takes the edge off of your own carefully woven respect for his personal space, and by the time you realize how near you are, it has been too many peaceful seconds to excuse his staring for indignancy. His brows pull together like his mind has blanked in the middle of a thought before it could leave his mouth.

“Kieran?” You ask, and he blinks himself back to earth.

“S’rry,” he says, quick, mouth cracking back in a half-smile. “Real tired.”

“Oughtta be,” you say, taking a drink. He turns back to his own bottle and mirrors you. “All those gray hairs you got comin’ out, I’d be shocked if you weren’t tired. Stress’ll wear you out.”

The air eases. Stress is a word Kieran is familiar with.

“Aye,” he agrees. “Guess I do look pretty rough for my age.”

You smile some. “I was only teasing.” When, predictably, he turns to you— you wink. “Promise.”

He offers a short up-curl of his lips. It stutters when Javier’s guitar starts, sudden and sharp.

“I know,” he says. He tongues the inside of his cheeks, eyes glancing to the ground as if he’d like to watch it instead of you and yet can’t help himself. They roam over your face instead, as he struggles for the words; you let him find them, brows raised. “You never are mean to me. Not really.”

Simple. No juicy tell-all, but simple and sweet. The men start to sing around the fire, a song you don’t recognize.

“Never would want to be,” you say.

He swallows, and you’re certain now of everything you’ve suspected but found difficult to believe. Sure, the signs were damning on his part, and you’ve spent enough time mulling over each and every action to think of someone who does the same things, yet certainly does not fancy you; each one came up with an answer, except that look.

“Why not?” He asks, then, and you’re a little surprised.

“Oh, Kieran,” you say, gently. In your peripherals, Hosea raises to get another beer and Lenny tosses in his sleep. “Men choose to be mean. Well, maybe they’re mean by design, but they choose to show it, at least.”

The concept seems as comforting to him as it does alarming. “Most of ‘em choose it,” he says, eyes squinting. It’s a tic you’ve noticed he has, an irregular twitch of his muscles.

“I know,” you say. Chancing it, you lay an open hand on his upper back; he flinches, but then his shoulders fall an inch or two. “I don’t know what it is about you,” you answer the question before he can ask. “Maybe 'cause you never choose meanness yourself. Makes a man look inside of himself when someone makes a different choice than him, and I doubt they like what they see. To them, that's your fault, so they gotta beat it out of you.”

Kieran thinks the words over. To be honest, you have little idea what you're really saying, are flying off-the-cuff about a subject you probably shouldn’t be — but it feels crucial to answer fast, to speak whatever comes to you first whether it makes sense or not. Some people call gut reactions true feelings, anyways.

“Think I understand." He’s quiet, for a moment. “Y’never get tired of me?”

You huff a laugh. “I get tired of everybody, but I rest up quicker if it’s you.”

He seems to appreciate the lack of sugarcoating. “Me too,” he admits. Lifting his head again, eyes lingering beside your face and then at your jaw, he starts: “You’re really— you’re, uh, real,” — the scramble inside of his head to read your emotions is almost audible, and he finishes uncertainly — “Good to me.”

“You’re talkin’ in circles,” you point out, tone easy.

Kieran flushes. “I appreciate you,” he corrects, tears his eyes away. More to himself, he mumbles: “Yeah, ‘preciate you a lot.”

You smooth your hand across his shoulders. He tenses, but it doesn’t feel as flighty as it usually does. Disappointment might even flicker in him when you take it away. “I appreciate you, too, Kieran,” you say, and can’t help smiling.

Silence passes. Both of you watch the merriment around the fire, Kieran cringing when Dutch starts up his wailing gramophone and takes Molly by the hand. You’ve been thinking, now and again, of how she looked at Dutch just seconds after saying she hated him. Sometimes, I wish he’d grab me by the hair and put me on the boat so I could finally leave him. And then that longing, wanting the very thing you're sitting here watching.

At that, you feel shamefully voyeuristic. Sean is nowhere to be found, and you feel even more voyeuristic when you hear his voice alongside Karen’s over the cacophony.

God, there isn’t anywhere safe to turn your eyes or your ears in this goddamn place. You hope Kieran will start talking again, and then you remember it’s Kieran, so you’d better say something first or you’ll sit in silence the rest of the evening. For someone so stuck in his head, he doesn’t seem to think about many things he’d like to share.

You don’t know he’s looking at you until you turn to speak. It’s your turn to pause, the few lingering seconds of tolerance you have left for not bringing it up passing in the bated breath you share with him.

“Why’re you staring?”

He takes a breath. “You’re nice-lookin’,” he says, voice shockingly calm and even in a rare show of confidence. Then he takes a swig, much healthier than the rest he’s drank. “I jus’— you’re nice to look at.”

You bite the bullet. “Do you want to kiss me?”

Kieran blanches, apparently not expecting an equally as tactless dive-in response. A story crosses his face in an instant: relief, panic, pain, happiness, a few more expressions that you don’t believe have been named by science. “Why?” He asks, but his eyes aren’t behind the question. It’s a knee-jerk response, a self-defense against the idea that he might be worth something kind.

A smile finds you then. “Aren’t you flirting with me?” You ask, partially to get him to admit to it and partially to ease the doubt that prods at your insides.

He nods, and then pauses. Suddenly, he laughs. “Shit, yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t— ‘m sorry, I’ve never… with a man? I ain’t even kissed a girl.” He flushes as if he didn’t mean to say that aloud. "Honestly, it kind of doesn't make sense how I'm s'posed to—"

“Kieran,” you interrupt his babbling, itching to grab him but knowing it would scare him. “Look me in the eye.”

He obeys instantly.

His face melts, and so does your heart. If watching the others feel voyeuristic, this feels exhibitionist; his adoration is so clear on his face, and you can’t help letting your own seep through the mask of nonchalance you try to uphold. To look sweet is one thing as a man; to look sweet on another man is something you avoid at all costs. Yet it doesn’t matter, without anyone watching, even if it chafes on your skin for the mere air of camp to contain it.

“Forget everything. Whether it’s right or wrong or new or old or whatever the Hell,” you say. He nods, throat clicking as he swallows. “Tell me: do you want to kiss me?”

“O’course I do,” he says, as if it’s a dumb question.

He tastes like beer and one of Sean’s terrible hand-rolled cigarettes, must’ve bummed one before the man hit the hay with Karen. The thought is humorous. His beard is scratchy on your face, and his mouth doesn’t move, uncertain how to work against yours — until it makes more sense, and his lips shift slightly, still inhibited.

You lean back first, because you aren’t sure he would even realize he’s supposed to.