HOW TO NOT CHEAT ON YOUR BOYFRIEND 101.
BECAUSE I'M NOT! BUT I'M WRITING THIS ANYWAY HERE.
Anyway I was enabled to essay on Devit's love life getting Complicated, though it's actually sort of less complicated than one might think, YET ALSO MORE, AND AHHHHH. Thanks MISTLETOE.
I have no idea how to start this and it's going to be super rambly and incoherent, so let's enjoying rambling. . . . Sob this is more complicated than it should be so I'll probably address all these points briefly, hella Jennifer style.
1. Devit and Sex
THIS IS SOMETHING I'VE TALKED ABOUT A LOT so I won't go too far into it here. The main point is that sex is complicated for Devit because it's tied up in all his Bonds feelings. In some ways Devit is a normal teenage guy who gets unfortunate erections and thinks about sex six times an hour or whatever. But in other ways, what Devit is really, really affects how he views sex and sexual relationships. For one thing, it's not something he would do lightly, ever. On some level, he does just . . . want sex because it feels good to come. But honestly, his Noah dampens that some and gets it tangled up in other things. He is twitchy about getting that close to anyone, because he's the Bonds with Jasdero and he is LOATHE to let anyone in on that action. There's a deep down part of Devit that doesn't believe he should be allowed to touch anyone but Jasdero, because Jasdero is all he needs. Even after two years, this still exists inside him, because it's part of his Noah, and he represses his Noah some (as all the Noah do, Devit himself acknowledges this in the manga), but he can't . . . kill it. It's the same part of him that still wants to set Hakuren on fire. It doesn't go away! He just is capable of ignoring it. But yeah, that same Bondomu inside of him wants to shut out everyone but Jasdero. Devit ignores it more and more as the years go by, but it still affects him.
Also, part of his power is literally physically combining with his twin, which is unspeakably intimate, and also . . . sort of weirdly analogous to sex! :'D HE TAKES ANOTHER MAN INTO HIS OWN BODY LOL. Or enters his, or both. Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that even though Devit is a teenage boy who really, really wants to bang, it's very hard to get to that point with him, because of the nature of his Bond with Jasdero and his power. To Devit, there is nothing more intimate than two bodies becoming one. It's something he does with his other half. He is half of a thing, and to be allowed the privilege of Devit wanting you to ~complete~ him is pretty gigantic.
So sexually, there's the human teenage boy part of Devit that is like MM YEAH I'D FUCK HIM, but this part is . . . it's not even really repressed so much as extremely slight to begin with, unless there is some serious emotional attachment going on. Devit doesn't sit around and look at guys and go "oh yeah he's hot, I'd tap that." It doesn't work that way for him, generally! (He actually DOES do this to really specific types of women, but that's even more complicated and also very rare.) To Devit, sex is meaningful. It's someone you do with someone you love, because to allow anyone else that privilege would be to desecrate the Bonds; HIS BODY IS A ~TEMPLE~ (for Jasdero, ha ha sob) and to let some guy he barely knew have the same access to his body as Jasdero gets is just unthinkable. Sex for Devit, when he does have it, will be an intensely meaningful experience, because it requires a lot of letting down his walls and making allowances for people/person to step in on the Jasdevi territory. In a way, Devit's body also belongs to Jasdero, and he would not let anyone else touch it unless he really truly CARED for that person.
2. Devit and Fidelity
A BRIEFER SECTION BECAUSE I JUST COVERED MOST OF IT. Because of this thinking, Devit is big on monogamy. He doesn't believe in sleeping around, obviously! There is one other variable in this equation, and that's sour grapes, ha ha. Devit is no pimp. He's not good at attracting people; in camp he's sort of SURPRISINGLY SO SOMETIMES? but back home and in general, nnnnnot so much. He absolutely sucks at landing lovers, not that he's TRIED much, but the point still stands; he's even worse when he does try. So along with him just not being into promiscuity, he's also not good at it, and this makes him even more determined to not be into it. IF HE CAN'T HAVE IT, IT'S BAD. idk if anyone's ever noticed that Devit tends to accuse people of being whores a lot, and he looks down on anyone who is fooling around with people without love or with a lot of people, but there you have it! Devit knows that a boy his age SHOULD want/be okay at/preferably be good at landing multiple partners to experiment with sexually (according to his macho worldview, anyway), and because he both doesn't want to and can't even if he did, he lashes out against that by being all OH LOL U SUCH A WHORE MAN YOU'RE SO DIRTY AND SKANKY. Sour grapes! If he can't have it, it sucks, honestly!!
Plus there's the fact that Cross is a MANWHORE and Devit hates anything that reminds him of Cross. I mean, the guy hates red hair because of Cross. Sob.
tl;dr the previous two bits: Devit's social failure in tandem with the way his body and powers and memories work makes sex a weird, intimate, special thing for him. His sex drive is actually surprisingly low except around his boyfriend/people he cares about. IT MAY BE HARD TO BELIEVE because he brings it up in threads and stuff! But most of that, unless he's specifically talking about sex with Hakuren, is a lot less "I am horny for sex" and a lot more a combination of "I am curious and also this is calculated to make you uncomfortable because it's funny and makes me look more manly and experienced than you, which is exactly what I want."
NOW I AM DONE WITH THAT BIT, SO ON TO THE MORE RELEVANT BIT!
3. Devit and Shuri
Devit has been MILDLY ATTRACTED TO SHURI for a long time now, and more worryingly so for . . . I am actually not sure, because as he mentioned to Shuri in their mistletoe thread where it finally came out, there wasn't any one event that triggered it. Shuri trying to goad Devit into killing him was really the moment where Devit finally said to himself "Okay, god, I need to admit this to myself and take active steps to never do anything about it."
The whole point of the blather at the beginning is to sort of try and pinpoint why that ended up developing, because it's weird and complicated. The bottom line is that it's because Devit cares for Shuri, and he associates caring for people with wanting to touch them a lot and be a part of them (literally). It happens to him so infrequently that it just . . . doesn't come up! Devit doesn't go around wanting to bang everyone he likes, because most people he likes he doesn't care for, and it takes some specific kinds of caring/circumstances to get there anyway.
IT'S MORE THAN JUST THAT THOUGH, SOOOOO.
Devit and Shuri have a COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP and a big part of it is that, as different as Shuri and Hakuren are, both of them have managed something that automatically puts people in a top tier in Devit's Hierarchy of Loev, and that is that they've both seen Devit at his worst and know about the shit he's done and yet aren't afraid of him (anymore, in Shuri's case) and still like him. Devit holds himself at a certain distance from anyone who doesn't know the horror of what he is, out of fear of being hurt, like he has been in the past. One of his biggest fears is like . . . making a friend, and then they find out he likes killing people, and then they go OH GOD YOU MONSTER HOW COULD I HAVE LIKED YOU!? So if you're a person who hasn't seen Devit's sadistic side, Devit doesn't trust you at all to not do that. When he first got to Camp, he just did went full-on sadist at everyone right away, so he didn't have to worry about it so much! But as time went on, he got bored of that, frankly (which is why he made that pamphlet). There are only so many times you can go HI I'M DEVIT AND BTW I'M A NOAH AND WE TRIED TO END THE WORLD AND I WANT TO KILL YOU DEEP INSIDE WHAT'S YOUR NAME? before it gets tiresome. The result is that not everyone who meets Devit knows that about him now, and so he's wary of those people. He is still very open with it and unashamed of it if it comes up in conversation; he just doesn't START every conversation with that information.
A big part of why Devit loves Hakuren is because Hakuren actually knows all this stuff about him already, and it's not that he forgives it or doesn't care, but he faces it honestly and isn't afraid or disgusted. Devit really appreciates and admires and loves that; it makes him more confident in their relationship. The reason why Devit is even willing to not kill people to preserve his thing with Hakuren--other than pure selfishness and the fact that it would ruin more than just having a boyfriend for him--is because Hakuren expects it of him and trusts him not to do it on his own terms, not because "What you are is disgusting and I don't want to date one so stop being it right now." If Hakuren felt that way towards him, Devit would dump him and probably kill him, because that's a trigger! But he doesn't; it's more like "I know you are a Noah and I know you want this and it's a part of you, and that's okay as long as you don't act on it, and I trust you not to act on it, and if you do you know I can't let myself be okay with that, so we're both sort of compromising here." Devit is OKAY with that arrangement.
With Shuri, it happened differently, but the outcome was pretty similar, IF LESS HEALTHY. Devit and Shuri hated one another initially as much as two people can hate one another. Shuri DID think Devit was a disgusting monster, and Devit felt the same way about Shuri, who is the most "human" person he knows. Devit tormented Shuri physically, mentally, and emotionally, and Shuri triggered Devit and was horrible to him right back, and IT WAS BAD. But they got over it! Basically, they hit the very rock bottom of interaction and both got tired/bored/stressed of it, and came to an unsteady truce, and very slowly built up a working relationship and then a friendship from there. It took like, a year and a half to do. XD But now Devit considers Shuri his best friend (along with Mika), and the reason is similar: Devit's already DONE everything to Shuri that he can do, short of killing him. He totally fucked over Shuri's mind at one point, and it was good, but having a friend is kind of better. And it's frankly amazing that Shuri managed to bounce back from all of that and still be okay with him, and so Devit is immensely comfortable around him. It's like, we did all that! He knows I'm an abomination against God who gets off on killing! I twisted his mind and manipulated him and forced him into weird shit! He called me a disgusting monster who didn't belong in this world! And yet SOMEHOW WE CAN HANG OUT AND HAVE FUN AND TELL SECRETS AND BE TEENAGE BOYS.
So the friendship means a lot to Devit. It's basically irreplaceable at this point. There is not ever going to be ANOTHER SHURI because this Shuri took two years to make, and Devit likes This Shuri, a lot. He likes him, like he said in the truth post last month, because Shuri makes him feel normal. Devit doesn't have many friends he can go to and be totally comfortable with, and harass, and rib, and get ribbed in return, and talk about what it's like to be a teenage gay guy and not be A Good Person and how everyone else sucks sometimes for having Expectations, etc. Shuri is that friend for him, with the added benefit of having seen everything that's disgusting and low about Devit and yet still wanting to hang out with him.
Okay I'm starting a new number.
4. Devit and Caring
So that is why Devit likes Shuri. As for why DEVIT LOEV SHURI, it goes like this. When Devit has something he likes, he has big issues with losing it. Devit is really, really bad at handling change and loss. If something is working for him, and you take it away, that's AWFUL. This is part of why Devit would murder anyone who did anything to Hakuren. In camp, death doesn't hold much meaning for Devit! People come back! He doesn't care much! But the aftermath would mean a change in his life, and that would piss him off. He'd be angry at someone who killed like, Teito, for example, not because Devit cares if Teito dies or leaves--he actually doesn't (much), despite them being friends and Devit respecting him--but because it would upset Hakuren, and an upset Hakuren means that Devit's routine is disrupted, possibly permanently. He doesn't want to have to deal with his People getting new emotional scars, changing their behavior, and so on. What if Hakuren died and he came back broken! What if he wasn't Okay any more! OH GOD THEN WHAT WOULD DEVIT DO!?
HORRIBLY, Shuri is . . . fragile, ha ha. :'D Or so Devit thinks. And this started to happen to him, especially recently! But it's something that always happens to him, in cycles, because Shuri's life is pain. He'll get in a fight, or die, or get emotionally broken by something or someone, or snap under pressure, WHATEVER, and then for a while he'll be weird and twitchy and lash out and cry and all that. Then it's okay again! Sort of! The thing is that every time this happens, Devit gets worried for him. WHAT IF THIS IS THE TIME HE NEVER GETS BETTER. What if Devit loses his friend because his friend snapped and reverted two years, or he doesn't ever stop crying, or he gets killed and comes back scarred, ahhhh! That would suck! Please be okay, Shuri!
It's funny, but Devit also actually does have a sort of protective and motherly streak in him that stems from his relationship with Jasdero. Jasdero is childish and cries a lot and all that, and Devit is the caretaker, in a way, and . . . he likes that. It's not something he recognizes or would admit to, but there's a touch of the maternal in him, something that enjoys being relied upon for comfort and fixing people. Without Jasdero in camp, Devit had no outlet for this other than animals (this is part of why he likes pets, among many other reasons). Except for Shuri! So when Shuri breaks down, Devit gets a strong urge to fix him and make him feel better, both because it would be inconvenient for Devit if Shuri were permanently broken and because it feels sort of nice to get cried on and hold someone and make things better for them, and that's not something Devit gets to do often at all.
So--therein lies the source; every time Shuri breaks down on Devit with his problems, Devit gets more and more tender towards him, and tenderness is a Big Deal Emotion for Devit, something he feels for only three people in the world. It's Devit's version of caring, and it is pretty close to human caring. Devit cares for Shuri, and yes it's a care born from "Well it'd suck for ME if I lost him," but it is caring all the same, it's an emotion with the end result of "I want to make you happy and for you to be okay." AND THERE WE GO. Like I mentioned 2000 WORDS AGO OR SOMETHING, Devit associates caring with sex. And yeaaaah.
This doesn't happen every time! Devit cares FIRST AND FOREMOST for Jasdero, and he doesn't want sex with Jasdero. If Shuri were like Jasdero, Devit wouldn't want to have sex with him. But he's not; Shuri's also mentally . . . his physical age, and attractive, and attracted to Devit (which Devit was able to pick up on some time ago), and fun to talk about sex with, etc. etc. So there's all that, and then there's also Devit's feelings of having a good friend he cares for, and so his sexual tension has been building juuust a bit over the months, until Shuri came to him wanting Devit to help him commit suicide, which was like, A HUGE "PLEASE FIX ME I'M BROKEN I NEED YOU DEVIT" RED FLAG, and Devit had the whole "Ha ha well shit I'd kind of rather make out with you until you feel better than kill you, uh oh, this is bad" realization.
Then mistletoe happened and Shuri figured Devit out and Devit figured Shuri out and now things are awkward, although not as awkward as they might be, because--
5. Devit and Fidelity, pt. 2
--Devit is not going to cheat on Hakuren with Shuri. AND THEY BOTH KNOW THAT. Devit and Shuri I mean. Not Hakuren--yet, sob.
But yeah. Devit cares about Shuri a lot, and he does feel sexually drawn to him, but he doesn't love him, not romantically (he does love him platonically and realizes that, though he won't say it). Devit doesn't want to be Shuri's boyfriend! Shuri doesn't touch those things inside Devit that only Hakuren can reach, like his prostate desire to better himself, and his need for a strong person to rely on and look up to, and all the rest. Devit's thing for Shuri isn't just lust; Devit doesn't have feelings of "just lust" for people, generally. There's real emotion and caring behind it. But it's not the kind of emotion and caring that he reserves for his boyfriend, and Devit is aware enough of that to not screw things up. The urge is strong sometimes to just give in and wall his boyfriend's cousin, but it's not worth losing his boyfriend, because Shuri would not be any replacement for him; a relationship between them wouldn't really work out. Devit doesn't even want to try. He just wants to be buddies and NOT EVER KISS NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE BOTH WANT IT. 8(
He's used to this, actually, because it's the same feeling he gets about killing people. He wants to do it, A LOT, because he's a Noah and it's a physical and mental urge, but it's not worth it here because there is no long-term reward but there are a lot of long-term consequences. It took Devit a long time to figure this out, over a year, but now that he knows it, he reminds himself of it constantly. And this is the exact same feeling. "I want this thing, but it'll only feel good for a little while, and then everything else will get fucked up because of it, so I have to not take it." It goes against his nature and it GALLS him, and he breaks down over it sometimes; he cried about it a little on Shuri in the mistletoe post. But he's had enough experience in camp by now to know he has no choice. IT'S NOT WORTH TRADING ONE OAK FOR ANOTHER, just like it's not worth killing a dude for calling him a fag or something.
Devit is learning the golden rule of humanity and the Rolling Stones, which is that you can't always get what you want! IT SUCKS and he hates it, but he has to live by it until he snaps, and because he was FORCED to live by it for a year (being unable to kill people easily anyway without Jasdero in camp), it's gotten easier for him to choose to live by it, and it applies to a lot of circumstances in his life, including this one.
P.S. HAY GUYZ WHAT ARE MY CHANCES OF A THREESOME
Anyway I was enabled to essay on Devit's love life getting Complicated, though it's actually sort of less complicated than one might think, YET ALSO MORE, AND AHHHHH. Thanks MISTLETOE.
I have no idea how to start this and it's going to be super rambly and incoherent, so let's enjoying rambling. . . . Sob this is more complicated than it should be so I'll probably address all these points briefly, hella Jennifer style.
1. Devit and Sex
THIS IS SOMETHING I'VE TALKED ABOUT A LOT so I won't go too far into it here. The main point is that sex is complicated for Devit because it's tied up in all his Bonds feelings. In some ways Devit is a normal teenage guy who gets unfortunate erections and thinks about sex six times an hour or whatever. But in other ways, what Devit is really, really affects how he views sex and sexual relationships. For one thing, it's not something he would do lightly, ever. On some level, he does just . . . want sex because it feels good to come. But honestly, his Noah dampens that some and gets it tangled up in other things. He is twitchy about getting that close to anyone, because he's the Bonds with Jasdero and he is LOATHE to let anyone in on that action. There's a deep down part of Devit that doesn't believe he should be allowed to touch anyone but Jasdero, because Jasdero is all he needs. Even after two years, this still exists inside him, because it's part of his Noah, and he represses his Noah some (as all the Noah do, Devit himself acknowledges this in the manga), but he can't . . . kill it. It's the same part of him that still wants to set Hakuren on fire. It doesn't go away! He just is capable of ignoring it. But yeah, that same Bondomu inside of him wants to shut out everyone but Jasdero. Devit ignores it more and more as the years go by, but it still affects him.
Also, part of his power is literally physically combining with his twin, which is unspeakably intimate, and also . . . sort of weirdly analogous to sex! :'D HE TAKES ANOTHER MAN INTO HIS OWN BODY LOL. Or enters his, or both. Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that even though Devit is a teenage boy who really, really wants to bang, it's very hard to get to that point with him, because of the nature of his Bond with Jasdero and his power. To Devit, there is nothing more intimate than two bodies becoming one. It's something he does with his other half. He is half of a thing, and to be allowed the privilege of Devit wanting you to ~complete~ him is pretty gigantic.
So sexually, there's the human teenage boy part of Devit that is like MM YEAH I'D FUCK HIM, but this part is . . . it's not even really repressed so much as extremely slight to begin with, unless there is some serious emotional attachment going on. Devit doesn't sit around and look at guys and go "oh yeah he's hot, I'd tap that." It doesn't work that way for him, generally! (He actually DOES do this to really specific types of women, but that's even more complicated and also very rare.) To Devit, sex is meaningful. It's someone you do with someone you love, because to allow anyone else that privilege would be to desecrate the Bonds; HIS BODY IS A ~TEMPLE~ (for Jasdero, ha ha sob) and to let some guy he barely knew have the same access to his body as Jasdero gets is just unthinkable. Sex for Devit, when he does have it, will be an intensely meaningful experience, because it requires a lot of letting down his walls and making allowances for people/person to step in on the Jasdevi territory. In a way, Devit's body also belongs to Jasdero, and he would not let anyone else touch it unless he really truly CARED for that person.
2. Devit and Fidelity
A BRIEFER SECTION BECAUSE I JUST COVERED MOST OF IT. Because of this thinking, Devit is big on monogamy. He doesn't believe in sleeping around, obviously! There is one other variable in this equation, and that's sour grapes, ha ha. Devit is no pimp. He's not good at attracting people; in camp he's sort of SURPRISINGLY SO SOMETIMES? but back home and in general, nnnnnot so much. He absolutely sucks at landing lovers, not that he's TRIED much, but the point still stands; he's even worse when he does try. So along with him just not being into promiscuity, he's also not good at it, and this makes him even more determined to not be into it. IF HE CAN'T HAVE IT, IT'S BAD. idk if anyone's ever noticed that Devit tends to accuse people of being whores a lot, and he looks down on anyone who is fooling around with people without love or with a lot of people, but there you have it! Devit knows that a boy his age SHOULD want/be okay at/preferably be good at landing multiple partners to experiment with sexually (according to his macho worldview, anyway), and because he both doesn't want to and can't even if he did, he lashes out against that by being all OH LOL U SUCH A WHORE MAN YOU'RE SO DIRTY AND SKANKY. Sour grapes! If he can't have it, it sucks, honestly!!
Plus there's the fact that Cross is a MANWHORE and Devit hates anything that reminds him of Cross. I mean, the guy hates red hair because of Cross. Sob.
tl;dr the previous two bits: Devit's social failure in tandem with the way his body and powers and memories work makes sex a weird, intimate, special thing for him. His sex drive is actually surprisingly low except around his boyfriend/people he cares about. IT MAY BE HARD TO BELIEVE because he brings it up in threads and stuff! But most of that, unless he's specifically talking about sex with Hakuren, is a lot less "I am horny for sex" and a lot more a combination of "I am curious and also this is calculated to make you uncomfortable because it's funny and makes me look more manly and experienced than you, which is exactly what I want."
NOW I AM DONE WITH THAT BIT, SO ON TO THE MORE RELEVANT BIT!
3. Devit and Shuri
Devit has been MILDLY ATTRACTED TO SHURI for a long time now, and more worryingly so for . . . I am actually not sure, because as he mentioned to Shuri in their mistletoe thread where it finally came out, there wasn't any one event that triggered it. Shuri trying to goad Devit into killing him was really the moment where Devit finally said to himself "Okay, god, I need to admit this to myself and take active steps to never do anything about it."
The whole point of the blather at the beginning is to sort of try and pinpoint why that ended up developing, because it's weird and complicated. The bottom line is that it's because Devit cares for Shuri, and he associates caring for people with wanting to touch them a lot and be a part of them (literally). It happens to him so infrequently that it just . . . doesn't come up! Devit doesn't go around wanting to bang everyone he likes, because most people he likes he doesn't care for, and it takes some specific kinds of caring/circumstances to get there anyway.
IT'S MORE THAN JUST THAT THOUGH, SOOOOO.
Devit and Shuri have a COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP and a big part of it is that, as different as Shuri and Hakuren are, both of them have managed something that automatically puts people in a top tier in Devit's Hierarchy of Loev, and that is that they've both seen Devit at his worst and know about the shit he's done and yet aren't afraid of him (anymore, in Shuri's case) and still like him. Devit holds himself at a certain distance from anyone who doesn't know the horror of what he is, out of fear of being hurt, like he has been in the past. One of his biggest fears is like . . . making a friend, and then they find out he likes killing people, and then they go OH GOD YOU MONSTER HOW COULD I HAVE LIKED YOU!? So if you're a person who hasn't seen Devit's sadistic side, Devit doesn't trust you at all to not do that. When he first got to Camp, he just did went full-on sadist at everyone right away, so he didn't have to worry about it so much! But as time went on, he got bored of that, frankly (which is why he made that pamphlet). There are only so many times you can go HI I'M DEVIT AND BTW I'M A NOAH AND WE TRIED TO END THE WORLD AND I WANT TO KILL YOU DEEP INSIDE WHAT'S YOUR NAME? before it gets tiresome. The result is that not everyone who meets Devit knows that about him now, and so he's wary of those people. He is still very open with it and unashamed of it if it comes up in conversation; he just doesn't START every conversation with that information.
A big part of why Devit loves Hakuren is because Hakuren actually knows all this stuff about him already, and it's not that he forgives it or doesn't care, but he faces it honestly and isn't afraid or disgusted. Devit really appreciates and admires and loves that; it makes him more confident in their relationship. The reason why Devit is even willing to not kill people to preserve his thing with Hakuren--other than pure selfishness and the fact that it would ruin more than just having a boyfriend for him--is because Hakuren expects it of him and trusts him not to do it on his own terms, not because "What you are is disgusting and I don't want to date one so stop being it right now." If Hakuren felt that way towards him, Devit would dump him and probably kill him, because that's a trigger! But he doesn't; it's more like "I know you are a Noah and I know you want this and it's a part of you, and that's okay as long as you don't act on it, and I trust you not to act on it, and if you do you know I can't let myself be okay with that, so we're both sort of compromising here." Devit is OKAY with that arrangement.
With Shuri, it happened differently, but the outcome was pretty similar, IF LESS HEALTHY. Devit and Shuri hated one another initially as much as two people can hate one another. Shuri DID think Devit was a disgusting monster, and Devit felt the same way about Shuri, who is the most "human" person he knows. Devit tormented Shuri physically, mentally, and emotionally, and Shuri triggered Devit and was horrible to him right back, and IT WAS BAD. But they got over it! Basically, they hit the very rock bottom of interaction and both got tired/bored/stressed of it, and came to an unsteady truce, and very slowly built up a working relationship and then a friendship from there. It took like, a year and a half to do. XD But now Devit considers Shuri his best friend (along with Mika), and the reason is similar: Devit's already DONE everything to Shuri that he can do, short of killing him. He totally fucked over Shuri's mind at one point, and it was good, but having a friend is kind of better. And it's frankly amazing that Shuri managed to bounce back from all of that and still be okay with him, and so Devit is immensely comfortable around him. It's like, we did all that! He knows I'm an abomination against God who gets off on killing! I twisted his mind and manipulated him and forced him into weird shit! He called me a disgusting monster who didn't belong in this world! And yet SOMEHOW WE CAN HANG OUT AND HAVE FUN AND TELL SECRETS AND BE TEENAGE BOYS.
So the friendship means a lot to Devit. It's basically irreplaceable at this point. There is not ever going to be ANOTHER SHURI because this Shuri took two years to make, and Devit likes This Shuri, a lot. He likes him, like he said in the truth post last month, because Shuri makes him feel normal. Devit doesn't have many friends he can go to and be totally comfortable with, and harass, and rib, and get ribbed in return, and talk about what it's like to be a teenage gay guy and not be A Good Person and how everyone else sucks sometimes for having Expectations, etc. Shuri is that friend for him, with the added benefit of having seen everything that's disgusting and low about Devit and yet still wanting to hang out with him.
Okay I'm starting a new number.
4. Devit and Caring
So that is why Devit likes Shuri. As for why DEVIT LOEV SHURI, it goes like this. When Devit has something he likes, he has big issues with losing it. Devit is really, really bad at handling change and loss. If something is working for him, and you take it away, that's AWFUL. This is part of why Devit would murder anyone who did anything to Hakuren. In camp, death doesn't hold much meaning for Devit! People come back! He doesn't care much! But the aftermath would mean a change in his life, and that would piss him off. He'd be angry at someone who killed like, Teito, for example, not because Devit cares if Teito dies or leaves--he actually doesn't (much), despite them being friends and Devit respecting him--but because it would upset Hakuren, and an upset Hakuren means that Devit's routine is disrupted, possibly permanently. He doesn't want to have to deal with his People getting new emotional scars, changing their behavior, and so on. What if Hakuren died and he came back broken! What if he wasn't Okay any more! OH GOD THEN WHAT WOULD DEVIT DO!?
HORRIBLY, Shuri is . . . fragile, ha ha. :'D Or so Devit thinks. And this started to happen to him, especially recently! But it's something that always happens to him, in cycles, because Shuri's life is pain. He'll get in a fight, or die, or get emotionally broken by something or someone, or snap under pressure, WHATEVER, and then for a while he'll be weird and twitchy and lash out and cry and all that. Then it's okay again! Sort of! The thing is that every time this happens, Devit gets worried for him. WHAT IF THIS IS THE TIME HE NEVER GETS BETTER. What if Devit loses his friend because his friend snapped and reverted two years, or he doesn't ever stop crying, or he gets killed and comes back scarred, ahhhh! That would suck! Please be okay, Shuri!
It's funny, but Devit also actually does have a sort of protective and motherly streak in him that stems from his relationship with Jasdero. Jasdero is childish and cries a lot and all that, and Devit is the caretaker, in a way, and . . . he likes that. It's not something he recognizes or would admit to, but there's a touch of the maternal in him, something that enjoys being relied upon for comfort and fixing people. Without Jasdero in camp, Devit had no outlet for this other than animals (this is part of why he likes pets, among many other reasons). Except for Shuri! So when Shuri breaks down, Devit gets a strong urge to fix him and make him feel better, both because it would be inconvenient for Devit if Shuri were permanently broken and because it feels sort of nice to get cried on and hold someone and make things better for them, and that's not something Devit gets to do often at all.
So--therein lies the source; every time Shuri breaks down on Devit with his problems, Devit gets more and more tender towards him, and tenderness is a Big Deal Emotion for Devit, something he feels for only three people in the world. It's Devit's version of caring, and it is pretty close to human caring. Devit cares for Shuri, and yes it's a care born from "Well it'd suck for ME if I lost him," but it is caring all the same, it's an emotion with the end result of "I want to make you happy and for you to be okay." AND THERE WE GO. Like I mentioned 2000 WORDS AGO OR SOMETHING, Devit associates caring with sex. And yeaaaah.
This doesn't happen every time! Devit cares FIRST AND FOREMOST for Jasdero, and he doesn't want sex with Jasdero. If Shuri were like Jasdero, Devit wouldn't want to have sex with him. But he's not; Shuri's also mentally . . . his physical age, and attractive, and attracted to Devit (which Devit was able to pick up on some time ago), and fun to talk about sex with, etc. etc. So there's all that, and then there's also Devit's feelings of having a good friend he cares for, and so his sexual tension has been building juuust a bit over the months, until Shuri came to him wanting Devit to help him commit suicide, which was like, A HUGE "PLEASE FIX ME I'M BROKEN I NEED YOU DEVIT" RED FLAG, and Devit had the whole "Ha ha well shit I'd kind of rather make out with you until you feel better than kill you, uh oh, this is bad" realization.
Then mistletoe happened and Shuri figured Devit out and Devit figured Shuri out and now things are awkward, although not as awkward as they might be, because--
5. Devit and Fidelity, pt. 2
--Devit is not going to cheat on Hakuren with Shuri. AND THEY BOTH KNOW THAT. Devit and Shuri I mean. Not Hakuren--yet, sob.
But yeah. Devit cares about Shuri a lot, and he does feel sexually drawn to him, but he doesn't love him, not romantically (he does love him platonically and realizes that, though he won't say it). Devit doesn't want to be Shuri's boyfriend! Shuri doesn't touch those things inside Devit that only Hakuren can reach, like his prostate desire to better himself, and his need for a strong person to rely on and look up to, and all the rest. Devit's thing for Shuri isn't just lust; Devit doesn't have feelings of "just lust" for people, generally. There's real emotion and caring behind it. But it's not the kind of emotion and caring that he reserves for his boyfriend, and Devit is aware enough of that to not screw things up. The urge is strong sometimes to just give in and wall his boyfriend's cousin, but it's not worth losing his boyfriend, because Shuri would not be any replacement for him; a relationship between them wouldn't really work out. Devit doesn't even want to try. He just wants to be buddies and NOT EVER KISS NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE BOTH WANT IT. 8(
He's used to this, actually, because it's the same feeling he gets about killing people. He wants to do it, A LOT, because he's a Noah and it's a physical and mental urge, but it's not worth it here because there is no long-term reward but there are a lot of long-term consequences. It took Devit a long time to figure this out, over a year, but now that he knows it, he reminds himself of it constantly. And this is the exact same feeling. "I want this thing, but it'll only feel good for a little while, and then everything else will get fucked up because of it, so I have to not take it." It goes against his nature and it GALLS him, and he breaks down over it sometimes; he cried about it a little on Shuri in the mistletoe post. But he's had enough experience in camp by now to know he has no choice. IT'S NOT WORTH TRADING ONE OAK FOR ANOTHER, just like it's not worth killing a dude for calling him a fag or something.
Devit is learning the golden rule of humanity and the Rolling Stones, which is that you can't always get what you want! IT SUCKS and he hates it, but he has to live by it until he snaps, and because he was FORCED to live by it for a year (being unable to kill people easily anyway without Jasdero in camp), it's gotten easier for him to choose to live by it, and it applies to a lot of circumstances in his life, including this one.
P.S. HAY GUYZ WHAT ARE MY CHANCES OF A THREESOME