HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty Three

I had a strange dream.

I didn't really remember it once I slowly came back around, but it left me with a good feeling of warmth and contentment. I shifted my legs a little under the blankets covering me, planning on rolling over, but there was sudden movement between them and my mind flicked on.

Confusion washed over me as I stopped moving and lay still, keeping my eyes closed as I came back to myself. I registered a soft beeping and momentarily wondered what it was, but again, there was foreign movement between my legs and against my chest which distracted me.

I squeaked my eyes open and found myself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling.

Where the hell am I? I wondered, dazed, until a soft movement against my chest, stomach, and between my spread-eagle legs caught my attention. I looked down to see a lump that most certainly was not part of my own body under the covers and frowned, puzzled.

I could see it moving a little, and then I remembered everything, from the talk I'd initially had with Echo about hugs to the way we'd then spent hours just asking each other questions and doing our best to give each other answers. It had been oddly relaxing for me, personally, to be asked things about myself, my anatomy, and the nature of my existence without judgement.

Echo was unique in the way that he only ever asked questions to receive answers. He seemed intent on understanding things and I'd actually asked him about that, too, since I hadn't been able to figure out what made him want to learn if he couldn't feel. I'd told him that any desire to do something was normally stimulated by emotion.

His response had been surprisingly simple.

"When things don't make sense, I think about them until they do," he'd said in that robotic drone, giving me a lazy blink from his spot beside me, less than a foot away. "I ask about them until they do. It is not because I desire anything, but because I continuously think until things make sense. Once I have an answer I find other things that do not make sense to me and try to figure them out."

"Oh?" I'd asked, smirking at him. "So, is that why you want to feel emotion? Because it doesn't make sense and you want it to?"

"Yes," he'd confirmed, and I'd stared at him in shock. "Emotion is something I have seen for years and yet I cannot fathom why it makes one decide things irrationally, or why it brings different expressions to one's features, or why it can make saline fall from one's eyes. I seek out the unknown and put it together, as if it were a puzzle."

"Emotions are one of the most complex puzzles on the planet, though," I'd warned him. "Even the people who have them don't understand them sometimes. Take me for example: people always ask why I'm depressed when everything around me is... perfect. I understand why I'm sad, but because there's nothing I can do, it overwhelms me and just... hurts."

"What does it hurt like?" he'd asked, curious and unblinking. "When you hurt, emotionally, and become sad... do tears come to your eyes? I have seen many people shed tears but I have never been able to procure them. Even after being whipped, my eyes shed no tears."

"Really?"

"Yes. I want to know if emotional pain is somehow worse than physical," he'd explained. "Tell me, what does it feel like to be sad? How does it hurt and where?"

And I'd thought about it for the longest time before answering.

"Being sad, is like... having a hole in your heart," I'd eventually managed to say, thick-voiced. "It's a hole that doesn't bleed quickly, and it doesn't hurt sharply like a cut... its more of an ache, a deep ache that spreads out from the core of your body and overwhelms every part of you. It hurts so much that it makes you shake... that it makes you cry out, and tears come because its so painful and overwhelming that you can't do anything else. It can cripple you if you let it."