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Carlos grins. It’s mischievous, and Travis can now definitely see him saying what he did to Liam earlier. “I love a dom that can admit that.”
“Carlos,” Liam says in warning, his hands squeezing the boy’s shoulders. “Do you need a second round?”
“No, sir,” the boy says with an almost dreamy sigh. He sinks back against Liam, smiling when the man wraps his arms around him and kisses the top of his head. “I meant it as, like, him being a good dom. Doms that can ask for help are good doms, you know?”
Liam buys it. Travis… might. Though if it’s true, it was a double-meaning because that smile was far too mischievous.
While Hunter gets Carlos a juice box and gummies, Travis gets him up to speed with everything. Whereas the others did an, “Ah,” and a, “Mmm,” and a, “That’d be it,” Carlos does a dramatic sigh and a shake of his head, clearly disappointed in Travis. “Of course he was upset. If I wasn’t determined to be a good boy, I’d totally call you a stupid head right now.”
“That was still rude,” Liam says in exasperation.
Carlos pouts. “Sorry, sir…”
“To him.”
“Sorry, Travis,” the boy corrects. “I didn’t mean to be mean.”
“How little are you right now, baby boy?” Liam asks, leaning forward. “Are you big enough to explain things right to Travis?”
The boy’s pout worsens. “I’m plenty big enough. I’m, like, the biggest.”
Liam smirks, but nods to Travis. “Go ahead. Just… don’t expect too much.”
“That was rude…” Carlos mumbles before sighing dramatically again. “Listen, the reason your boy is sad is because you set a rule and then you didn’t care about it. He probably got all warm and fuzzy and safe feeling when you gave him that rule. We boys like rules. Lots. They’re like… a blankie. They mean we can be good, that we can’t mess up or do something wrong because as long as we’re following the rules we’re good. Is that - does that make sense, sirs?”
“Yes,” everyone besides Travis says at once.
“Good. So, like, you gave him these rules and made him all fuzzy and stuff, and then you just shrugged the rules off. You didn’t care. And then you made him feel like the rules don’t matter, which stole away his fuzzy warm feeling.”
“So every time he breaks a rule, even just a tiny bit, I have to punish him?”
Carlos shudders. “No way! But you have to acknowledge the rule. Like, tonight, when I said what I said to Liam, if he didn’t know I’d been struggling all week and I really needed the release, he could have easily played the comment off with a, ‘You’re damn lucky I’m in a forgiving mood tonight or you’d be getting a red ass. Better make a real nice apology’ and if I was good and apologized real nice, he would have winked and warned me to behave and that was that. And I’d be okay, because he kept the rule. I’d still be warm fuzzy. Plus, I know he’s not mad at me because he said I could apologize and I apologized and then he winked and, yeah, warm fuzzy. You know?”
Travis does know.
He gets it now.
In fact, he feels like a fucking idiot for not getting it on his own.
“Well what the fuck do I do now?” Travis asks everyone in the room.
“You talk,” Hunter says. “Communication, man. It’s the fucking key to this shit. Number one rule is safe, sane, and consensual, but you can’t have any of those three without communication.”
“And whether you punish him or acknowledge the rule and move on together, make sure he knows you forgive him. Because something even worse than your dom not caring about the rules you’ve set together is your dom caring so much they don’t forgive you,” Carlos says, sounding bigger as he goes. “That’s one of the reasons I like punishments so much. Sure, the pain clears my head and I feel centered and better after everything is over, but it’s knowing I’m good again, after being bad, that makes everything better.”
Travis takes a deep breath, taking this all in and letting it settle. “Okay. Okay, I can do that, yeah. Thank you. All of you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Hunter makes a shooing motion with his hand. “Go talk to your boy so the two of you can actually enjoy your evening. Feel free to use any of the rooms downstairs.”
“Yeah.” Travis nods slowly. “Yeah, I’m going to do that. Thank you.”
“Oh, and Travis?” Booker asks, pausing his cucumber slicing.
Travis stops halfway to the door. “Yeah?”
“Steak or burgers?”
Travis chuckles.
