"I'm sor—"
"No."
"I just, I wanted it to be—"
"Seriously, man, if you try to apologise or insinuate you were at fault in any way, I'm gonna be so mad at you."
Wirt huffed, but didn't say anything more. He settled his head into the bed's pillows more comfortably and stared off at nothing for a while.
It just…hadn't gone the way he wanted it to. Maybe he could have expected that given his two warring sides of "It needs to be like it is in poetry, beautiful and seamless and in the heat of the moment" and "There are so many things that could go wrong and I'm going to think about and get anxious about every one of them" in his mind, but…still. This was meant to be a pivotal moment in their relationship, a step neither of them had crossed before with another person, an expression of love and trust in one of its deepest forms, and—and it had stuttered and come to a halt in such a jaring way.
He had felt sore and nervous and embarrassed and Dipper had been right in the middle of things when he said, "Can…can we stop?" and Dipper didn't seem to know what to do after he asked Wirt if he was alright and pulled out and it wasn't meant to be awkward like that and—
"Dude, I know you're freaking out right now, and that's basically as bad as apologising," Dipper interjected. He flipped onto his front to give Wirt a look, a little nervousness in his upturned eyebrows and a little hardness in his dark eyes. "I don't want you feeling guilty on my behalf, okay? 'Cause, like, what kind of a guy would it make me if I thought it would have been better if you'd stayed quiet and gone through with something you didn't want to do?"
Wirt tensed at the idea that that's what he'd been implying to Dipper. It was true that both of them could be inconsiderate; they had the tendency to occasionally forget there was a world outside of their own thoughts, and that actions they carried out for personal gain could hurt others, but in that same sense, they could understand what each other was thinking pretty well and, yeah, there was no way Dipper would ever want anything like that.
"Sorry," he replied. After a moment, he jolted, and started saying, "No, wait, not about that—I was talking about how I-I didn't mean to say you wanted me to—I wanted it to feel right, that's all and—and actually I'm really glad I have you as a boyfriend because I felt relaxed enough to tell you what I was thinking and there's not a lot of people who can make me feel the same way, s-so, thank you."
Dipper paused, then nodded, and ran a hand across Wirt's chest before pulling him into a loose hold and situating his head in the crook of Wirt's neck. Wirt let out a breath and ran his fingers through Dipper's thick curls, appreciating this level of intimacy as an indicator that things seemed to be forgiven.
"Would it make you feel better to think about how we might do this differently next time? So you enjoy it more?"
"Uh…like what?" Wirt questioned with some hesitance in his voice.
"Like, other positions we could try. I mean—I thought that was the simplest thing for our first time, right? But I bet you'd appreciate it more if we were facing each other," he said, brows furrowing. "Or maybe I should be focusing more on stuff like angles. Hitting your sweet spot, or whatever."
Wirt couldn't help his lips quirking upwards into a smile—Dipper's scientific approach was sort of endearing. "Are you turning me into an experiment? Like…independent variable: position, dependent variable: amount of pleasure produced?"
Dipper laughed, the sound sending a wave of relief through Wirt. "Yeah, man, I'll have to fuck you the same way at least three times to make sure the results are reliable," he affirmed with a grin.
"Oh my gosh," Wirt said, covering his face with his hand to temper the blush that had blossomed on his cheeks. Dipper snickered again, which, of course, made him blush harder, but his boyfriend just pulled his hand away and leaned their foreheads together, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. That finally got Wirt to break and erupt into giggles.
It was in a casual way that Dipper swung his leg over Wirt and therefore situated his body on top of him, everything now aligned from their foreheads to their… Well. It wasn't like they had gotten dressed again.
Wirt met Dipper's eyes and didn't see any pressure to do something in them, only contentedness. He glanced down at their chests and decided he was happy at them being this close together, and willing to do more. Wirt pulled the younger boy's lips down onto his own. He kept his fingers buried in the locks of hair just by Dipper's ears for a while as he kissed him, then had them skirting across the skin of his arms, back, sides; a few stray giggles interrupted their making out when he passed by ticklish areas. It was so sweet that he could barely recall how he'd felt not too long ago.
This was more familiar territory to them, anyway: they'd already done things like this a few times before talking about how to further on their experiences. The fact that they didn't have a fixed 'end goal' to work towards right now made Wirt feel a lot less worried about meeting expectations and doing things right, so he simply did what felt natural and wrapped his arms around Dipper's lower back, getting him pressed even more closely to his own body. Spending that time kissing had helped get them going again and he gave a tentative roll of his hips to test how they were feeling, earning a gorgeous sound from Dipper.
Wirt smiled in satisfaction, but then Dipper took a hold of the hands on him and pushed them down onto the mattress. He started shuffling back until he was sat in between Wirt's legs. Wirt watched on as Dipper licked the palm of one of his hands, but when Dipper started using it, his head dropped down onto the pillows and he let out a sharp gasp. Fighting against the automatic response to keep his eyes closed, he opened them, seeing a strangely concentrated expression on Dipper's face.
"Ah—…Dipper, wh…" was all he managed to get out before his words dissolved like condensation into the cold air.
"I know I sucked at doing the whole sex thing, so I'm gonna have to make it up to you like this instead…" he mumbled in an almost blasé tone to mask the insecurities rife in his words.
Oh god, it wasn't an expression of concentration—it was one of apprehension. Wirt could see that now. Christ, had his own anxieties been blinding him to Dipper's for all this time? He thought he'd seemed pretty okay and confident in himself, but…no, of course his mind had immediately turned to how to do things better… Oh, Dipper…
Wirt sat up and grabbed a hold of his boyfriend's wrist to focus on him instead of what he was doing. "Wait, Dipper, let me just say that it wasn't you that made me want to stop. I-I-I just, I realised I wasn't ready yet. It was all so new, and that—that would have been the case regardless."
His face only softened fractionally. Wirt still had convincing to do.
"A-and I love you regardless, too. I'm sorry I told you to stop; I didn't even consider how that must have made you feel about yourself…"
Dipper's eyes clenched shut for a second as he said, "No—shit—that's exactly what I was trying to stop you from apologising for. Fuck, I can't believe I said something that stupid and got us back to square one and now I'm ruining things for you again…"
"What? Dipper, hang on, you shouldn't—you always put yourself in this, this position of responsibility and therefore assume everything that happens is down to you, but it—it shouldn't be. It's not," Wirt pleaded. Why, why, why did their accursed anxieties have to drag them down so often? It turned their temperaments into creatures of the sea, endlessly struggling against the threads that tried to pull them into despair. It got so difficult trying to deal both with his own and his partner's, even though there were a million things that made this relationship worth the hassle.
"Yeah, well… Sometimes it's like you're assuming I'm gonna react to things you've done in the worst way possible, and all I want is to deserve your trust, and…trying to help you out with, you know—leadership, I guess?—seems like a good way of, uh, doing that. And I wanna make you happy…" he said as he trailed a hand up Wirt's arm. He wasn't meeting Wirt's eyes, instead looking more in the direction of his chest. "But it feels like all I've done tonight is try to start things only for them to come to nothing without giving you what I want to give you."
It was Dipper who had set a date for when this would happen (the date of a party that Dipper's roommate and most of the rest of the dorm were going to, so they had some privacy); it was Dipper who had bought the things they needed; and it was Dipper who had mostly directed what they were doing when they were in the midst of things. That had seemed perfectly logical at the time—Dipper was adventurous where Wirt was recessive in his tendencies (one of the things that had drawn him to the freshman in the first place)—but maybe it wasn't the best way for them to go about this after all. Even though worrying came as easily to Wirt as breathing did, he didn't want Dipper feeling like he needed to earn the trust that he already had in abundance. Guilt pressed itself into his mind as he thought about how Dipper must have felt like he was under more pressure as the 'dominant' one in their relationship. Wirt came to the conclusion that he needed to change this. As soon as possible. Now.
He tilted Dipper's head up by his chin, irises the colour of walnut wood greeting him, looking slightly forlorn. "Let me show you how much I care, okay? It's not like it's all about me or like you're the only one who wants to make their boyfriend feel good." Even if I've done a bad job of showing that thus far, he added in his head. "I trust you with all that I am, Dipper, and you've already demonstrated this night that you deserve that a thousand times over."
Wirt held onto Dipper's shoulder and waist and manoeuvred him onto his back on the bed, Wirt's bangs hanging down as he took in the sight. He looked somewhat wide-eyed, maybe curious or a little reverent, Wirt wasn't sure. He took it as encouraging, though, and kissed Dipper deeply, the thumb on his boyfriend's waist making small circular motions. Wirt felt arms lace around his back and sighed with gratification. One of his hands moved down Dipper's stomach, edging tantalisingly close to where he imagined Dipper wanted it, before it continued down his thigh and leg. Little keening sounds left Dipper's mouth and Wirt lapped them up in the kiss with his lips and his tongue, giving a low moan of his own.
He finally broke away from the kiss to focus on what he really wanted to do; Wirt couldn't help himself from starting off slowly, though, if only to hear the adorable sounds of protestation that Dipper made. He snorted when Dipper hit him in the side with his foot, replying, "Okayokayokayokay!" and speeding up his hand's movement.
Wirt lifted his head and his eyes caught on the lube and condoms still sitting on the bedside table. When he started reconsidering their current positions, with how he was almost draped across Dipper as he held himself up with his arm, he got a little distracted from what he was doing.
"Wiiiiiiiiirt," Dipper whined, "enough with the teasing already, jeez!"
He turned his head back. "Oh, um, I was just wondering…" Wirt begun. Dipper squinted at him critically. "Well…what if I was the one who…" He moved his weight to his elbows and held up both his hands, sticking out his index finger and awkwardly jabbing it at his fist a couple of times. He hoped he didn't look as embarrassed as he felt about doing that. Probably did.
Dipper's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Really? You wanna try that?"
Wirt started double backing on his words. "No, not if you think it's a bad—it's probably a bad id—I'm sorry, I don't know why I said it, never mind, forget I said anything," Wirt rambled, his hands dropping down onto the mattress besides Dipper's chest.
"No, no, no! I dunno, man, I didn't consider it because I thought you'd prefer—like, I don't know, it's kinda stupid now that I think about it, presuming anything without trying it… We should try it."
"Huh?"
"Well, I'm up for it," Dipper shrugged with a huge grin on his face. "…Get it? 'Cause—" he nodded down at himself.
"Oh my god."
Dipper cackled with laughter as Wirt groaned and shook his head ashamedly. While he calmed down from the 'brilliance' of his 'witty' 'joke', Wirt attempted to temper down his worries.
As it turned out, he didn't have much to be worried about. They took their time with it, figured out what felt good for both of them, laughed off a few things and gasped in pleasant surprise at other things, and it generally turned out a lot better than expected.
Who would have thought he'd be a top?
