Alias felt the sweat from Theo’s chest dripping onto his own skin, the salt and the heat mingling. He began to move his hips instinctively, trying to find a rhythm that didn’t ache.

​"It is... changing," Alias whispered, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps. "The fullness... It feels like a demand now. I want you to move, Theo. I want to see what happens when you move."

​Theo didn’t need to be told twice. He began to move, he pulled back and thrust in, sending a new kind of sensation over Alias.

It wasn’t painful anymore and he felt... something.

Theo’s thrusts were slow and deep at first, before the heat he had spoken of took over.

Every time he pushed inside, he felt the incredible tightness of Alias’s body, a sensation that made his own head spin with a pleasure that was almost violent.

​"Oh... gods, Alias," Theo rasped, his eyes burning with a blue fire. "You feel... you’re so warm. You’re everything." He confessed, even though his heart felt tight.

​Alias was a mess of silver hair and flushed skin. He wrapped his legs around Theo’s waist, pulling him closer, wanting to feel every inch of the man who had lied to him.

He wanted to drown out the memory of the boy in the living room with the sheer, overwhelming reality of Theo’s body.

​"I can feel you... In my very core," Alias moaned, his voice hitching as Theo hit a particularly sensitive spot. "It is not just the body, Theo. You are lying again. I can feel your soul shaking inside me."

That’s because I’m trying to love you, not fuck you, Alias.

But the thought was like a knife to his heart each time because he recalled this was a punishment and he was only teaching Alias how the body was used.

Despite that, his rhythm became frantic.

The sound of their bodies meeting was the only thing that filled the room, a wet thud that matched the pounding of their hearts.

Theo was gasping, his lungs burning, his mind a blur of guilt and ecstasy. He loved the feeling of being inside Alias—of being completely surrendered to the one who should have known better than to love a man like him. And yet... that feeling was what was killing him.

Theo wanted to cum. He was so close, but as the end drew near, as he looked down at the man beneath him—the silver hair spread out like a fallen moon, the eyes wide with pleasure—something inside him snapped.

He was inches from the cumming, his body a cord of tension, but he suddenly went rigid for a different reason. The heat was there, but the heart was screaming.

Theo stopped.

He didn’t pull away, but he froze, his weight trembling over Alias. The heavy thud of his heart slowed into a jagged, painful pulse.

Alias, whose breath was short and whose body was primed for the next ’data point’ of this experience, blinked in the dim starlight.

"Theo?" Alias whispered, his voice a mix of confusion and lingering heat. "Why did you stop? We have not reached the ’release’ yet."

Theo didn’t answer immediately. Instead, a hot, wet drop fell onto Alias’s collarbone, then another.

Theo buried his face in the crook of Alias’s neck, his shoulders shaking with a sudden, violent sob. The sound was raw, a guttural break in the silence that had nothing to do with pleasure.

"I can’t," Theo choked out, his voice muffled by Alias’s skin. "I can’t do this to you. Not like this."

Alias lay still, his hands coming up tentatively to rest on Theo’s broad back. He could feel the frantic, grieving vibration of the man’s soul.

"You tell me you feel guilty," Alias reminded him, his voice low and eerily calm. "Then this is your punishment. Carry the weight of what you’ve done while you feed my curiosity."

"But I don’t want it to be a punishment!" Theo cried out, lifting his head. His eyes were bloodshot, blue fire drowned in tears. "I didn’t want our first time to be like this—a clinical study, a penance. I wanted to hold you because I loved you. I wanted to whisper words of affection and feel our souls connect. I wanted to make love with you, Alias... not just have sex."

Alias watched the tears track through the dust on Theo’s cheeks, fascinated and pained by the distinction. "Making love," Alias repeated softly. "Is there a difference, Theo? Is it not the same thing as using our bodies?"

"It’s the difference between a house and a home," Theo whispered, his voice small and broken. He slumped forward, his face buried in Alias’s neck as he wept for the perfect start he had destroyed with his own lies. "Sex is just the walls, the physical necessity of having a roof over your head. Making love is the warmth inside. It’s the reason the walls matter. When I was in the slums... when that happened... it was just something that the other person wanted. It was a mistake of the flesh. I didn’t even want it."

In fact, it was easier to say he was raped but he couldn’t bring himself to speak such strong words.

Alias went silent, his mind categorizing this new distinction. He thought about the boy sleeping in the living room. So, that was as a result of a forced necessity between a man and a woman, was it?

Then he looked at Theo, who was breaking apart because he couldn’t bear to treat Alias with anything less than reverence.

"I see," Alias said softly. His heart softened, the jagged betrayal smoothing out into a profound, aching empathy. "The curiosity was looking for the ’how.’ But the heart was looking for the ’why.’"

Alias moved, his legs sliding down to rest flat, but his arms came around Theo, pulling the larger man down until they were flush. He didn’t ask Theo to continue the act. Instead, he simply held him.

"You have been a thief of the truth, Theo," Alias whispered into the dark. "But you are also the only one who makes me feel like I am more than what I am. If you want to make love... then we will make love."

Theo let out a long, shuddering breath, the tension finally leaving his limbs as he sunk into Alias’s embrace.

"I want to love you and only love you, Alias." He claimed, his large frame trembling.

"Then love me, Theo. Let our souls connect."