"I am different" [story] (Patreon)

"I am different."

Most drakes hadn't a second thought at recreational activities with any drake of the opposing gender, it was in fact, the social norm. It was a norm Aeryn disagreed with, and that put him at odds with many of the other drakes on Ezrael's ship, including the captain herself.

He however, always wanted more and bitterly so; hungered for that need to be met.

Like all sentient species, drakes didn't just have sex for procreation, for them it was also recreation. It kept soldiers balanced, crews controlled, and morale high. It was never frowned upon or belittled. It was their way. Sex parties before battles or wars was common, and drakes used sex as a means of relieving tension and stress. It was very rare that two drakes bonded, very rare that even a single drake imprinted, and the rarest was a bonded, imprinted pair. Aeryn had never heard of nor seen such a thing, but he dreamt of it daily.

Though he'd never share it with his crew mates, the thought of coupling so casually practically disgusted him.

He wanted more. And he wouldn't be satisfied until he found that something he was missing. Sure, there had been instances in the past when he'd fraternized, as there were instances when he'd also clung to another.

The most notable of these instances was his first, and only imprint. Years ago, Aeryn hung out in virtual reality rooms. When he wasn’t engaged in a job that required his attention, all his spare time went to VR. It gave him the slightest bit of camaraderie as he whiled away his free time.

It was in one such VR session that he'd met the stranger who also had a drake avatar in the sim. Many aliens had unique avatars and even some drakes in the sim hid their race with tokens that changed their species, but Aeryn accidentally had run into another. The likelihood of it being an impostor was slim, with their race being the only one of its kind, and spread so thin.

The male he'd come across seemed for all intents and purposes, friendly, outgoing and charismatic. He'd had pale silver eyes that were tinted with a dark blue, like the ocean on an overcast day. And like Angelus, his eyes crinkled when he smiled. It wasn’t love at first sight, or the drake equivalent by any means, but Aeryn had been mildly curious, even if the stranger was "weird" for a drake.

The relationship had been slow to start between them and Aeryn did his best to forget about the aftermath. In his current life, only the trauma and damage left behind by him remained.

Part of that trauma connected to how Aeryn viewed recreation and sex as a whole. He wished every moment of his life that he'd never met that weird drake years ago, because living without the attachment he'd had was unbearable. The wounds lingered and helped fabricate the personality flaws Aeryn now lived with. Flaws that Angelus in the future had to fight against with all of his headstrong might.

Aeryn had had a taste of the deepest bonds their species could have and it left him beyond broken. So when new males wanted to try their hand at recreation with the androgyn, Aeryn often refused. And when he didn't, he left afterward feeling a strong self-loathing and disgust.

It was their way though, to engage in frivolous sex and then leave right after. Not touching, embracing or entwining during or after the act. It was, the biggest disgust to Aeryn. And after his initial romp with Angelus, he'd gone months without frivolity of any kind. Though his crew around him attempted to throw females at the androgyn, (they weren't aware he wasn't fully male) and though he got calls from males of the past, he rejected all advances and let the shame and self hatred eat him alive in the months after the drunken escapade with Angelus.

On several occasions he'd been in a bar or even made it to the hotel room when he'd change his mind and deny the suitor. What he wanted and yearned for with every fiber of his being wasn’t something the overwhelming majority of his species could ever give.

Aeryn spent countless hours and nights alone in his room, reading books from strange, distant worlds that featured love and romance and displays of affection that were so alien to him, he wished for it even more.

Drakes didn't even have a word for love in their language, there was simply no comparison in their tongue. There was imprinting and of course bonding, but not love. And the concept of embracing your partner with touching and sweetness was something only imprinted drakes or bonded pairs engaged in. Most drakes knew not what they were missing. Most lived and died without ever experiencing it.

But Aeryn did. And he felt a pang of sadness and longing in his heart at the emptiness of his own life without that crucial, important thing. Shallow sex for fun, it just wouldn't do. It wasn’t good enough. He felt empty and heartbroken, and even used afterward. He never knew why he felt that way, even when he himself had initiated couplings, but he knew it left him hurt and longing for more.

Inadvertently, his mind would wander to the past. And no amount of squinting could save him from the memories or how his heart suddenly pounded like a thousand hoof beats in his chest at the mere memory of being stroked on the underside of the forearm, or having his finger digits traced by another's. He missed the feeling of his hollows being tickled and kissed by another, and having strong arms wrap around the small of his back. He missed kissing while being paired, and moaning into his lovers maw, and hearing those moans of pleasure back from the other.

This wasn’t the world he lived in, it was the world of his dreams. Of his memories. The sweetest feelings in the universe now caused him tremendous pain, yet still...

He wanted it...