"I think I've been... converted," Matty whispered, clutching a pink sparkly water bottle like it was holy scripture. "Not religiously, babe. Physically. Like. Organ displacement. Spine redesigned. I think he rearranged my chakras through my lower intestine."
The Power City Gym support group—now a semi-formal inner circle of queer gossip warriors, retired boxers, and one very invested Zumba instructor—nodded solemnly. They were gathered like a medieval council, except instead of robes they wore crop tops and discount Adidas, and instead of scrolls, they had screenshots and betting slips.
"He looked different today," said Sherry, the front-row twerker with 3 baby daddies and an attitude stronger than pre-workout. "Arslan. I saw him walk in with that little twitch in his neck. That's a man who fed."
"You're saying he's... hunting less?" piped in Kyle, the twink who still believed in astrology and had a Leo moon so dramatic it wore eyeliner.
"I'm saying Matty got digested," she whispered. "Emotionally. Sexually. Spiritually. You got haunted, baby."
Matty, in the fetal position on a gym bench, looked like someone who had learned the difference between love, lust, and interdimensional travel the hard way.
"Four weeks," he moaned. "FOUR. Weeks. He doesn't speak, he acts. He's like if stoicism had abs and daddy issues. I made jokes. I flirted. I seduced. I'm an artist. But he—he's a discipline system with a pulse."
"You ever try safe words?" asked Brian, sipping a smoothie that might've been vodka.
"I tried to breathe. He didn't allow it!"
Gasps.
Respect.
Even the straight guys nodded solemnly.
"He sent me a spreadsheet," Matty cried. "A GOOGLE DOC. Color-coded. Positions, schedules, mileage. There were footnotes. That man made love like he was fixing a geopolitical crisis. I got power pointed into subspace."
"Wait—wait, what about your cage?" said Talia, the gym's unlicensed therapist with a bad wig and too many secrets.
"Oh, babes, I haven't had a key since May," Matty said, voice cracked like an overused whip. "He doesn't even need the app anymore. He looks at me, and I reboot like a Wi-Fi printer."
The group stared.
A beat.
Then—
"I'd do it," whispered Kyle.
"Same," said Sherry.
"Where do I sign up?" Brian muttered.
And as Arslan passed silently by the front desk, towel over shoulder, eyes a glacier of composed destruction—
Matty made the sign of the cross.
"He's here," he whispered. "Pray for my hips."
The fluorescent lights flickered above like judgmental ancestors, and Matty—our dear chronically unwell, spiritually ravished, and physically humbled Matty—lay in the hospital bed like a retired Olympic gymnast who just did too much with too little spine support.
"Doctor," Matty whimpered dramatically, one arm flung over his forehead like a Victorian widow. "Tell me the truth. Did I lose my sparkle?"
The doctor looked at him, then at Arslan, then back at the chart. "Honestly? Your… sparkle appears to be intact. It's your pelvis that's in witness protection."
Arslan didn't even look up from the small, leather-bound book in his hands—though it might've been Machiavelli, or a Chinese-English medical dictionary, or just a manual on how to break twinks responsibly. His face was carved from marble, uninterested. His left eyebrow twitched only slightly when the doctor passed him a post-it note with a winky face and a phone number.
"Are you flirting with my trauma?" Matthew groaned.
"No, love," the doctor chuckled. "I'm admiring the logistics. Do you know what kind of pelvic torque you need to dislocate two vertebrae and cause serotonin overdose? That's not sex. That's aerospace engineering."
"He's not even an engineer!" Matty moaned. "He's just—Arslan! My boyfriend is a terrifying biomedical phenomenon with shoulders that won't quit and a bedtime routine involving spreadsheets and protein shakes!"
Arslan finally looked up. One blink. "No caffeine after 7PM."
"Oh my God, he's still quoting the document," Matty cried. "Doctor, please tell me I'm being punished for my sins. Be honest. Did I disrespect some ancient bottom deity?"
The doctor paused. "Well, considering your CT scan showed what looked like cosmic re-alignment and your prostate waved back at us on ultrasound—maybe."
Matthew stared at the ceiling, broken and blessed.
Then the nurse entered.
"We've also scheduled a fitting for a… more sustainable cage. One that won't cause nerve damage or trigger earthquakes every time he looks at you. Occupational hazard, apparently."
Arslan nodded approvingly.
"Excellent. Matte black, biometric lock, medical-grade. I'll pay."
"You always pay," Matty whispered like he was narrating a tragic French film. "In muscles. In menace. In the destruction of my fragile Irish bone structure."
But he smiled. Of course he smiled.
Because deep down, Matty wouldn't change a thing.
He might need a smaller cage, reinforced pelvic therapy, and a new birth chart after that night—but he was the only man alive with Arslan's attention, his keys, and a hospital bill labeled:
Injury type: Intimacy. Severity: Legendary.
There's a difference between thinking you want a wild animal and actually feeding it at 2am while crying in your Crocs, and Matthew—bless his flamboyant, unfiltered soul—had walked into Power City Gym with the confidence of a man who thought he could "handle a real one."
Except Arslan wasn't just a real one.
He was the final boss of masculinity, dom energy, and emotional detachment with abs sharper than Matty's tongue and probably a license in mechanical engineering just for fun. The man bent gym equipment like balloon animals. He once fixed a treadmill mid-run using a single hex key and a growl.
And poor Matty?
Matty was in recovery mode. Not from heartbreak. No, no, no. That would've been easy. This was something far worse.
From his 8th existential-gay-crisis this week.
He stood in front of the cheering gym crowd like a WWI veteran addressing a youth dance class, holding up one trembling hand and mumbling, "You think you want it… you think you're brave… but has your soul ever left your body and waved goodbye?"
The gym went silent. One guy dropped his protein shake.
Matty continued, haunted:
"There were… vegetables involved. And not in a salad way. I won't name them. But one of them was organic. And the yogurt was Greek, but not even that could save me."
Several gym members started quietly scheduling therapy sessions on their phones. One girl whispered, "I used to think I was a top. I don't think anything anymore."
Meanwhile, Arslan was standing near the squat rack in an unbothered tank top, silently putting on gloves like a war general prepping for his fifth conquest before noon. The only sound he made was the stretch of fabric and Matty's soul leaking out of his body one sarcastic gasp at a time.
"And you know what's worst?" Matthew wailed, now fully doing a TED Talk-meets-sermon-meets-post-orgy confessional. "He hasn't said a single word. I've monologued through five therapy arcs, and this man's only contribution was nodding and somehow rearranging my hip bones!"
Someone clapped. Someone cried.
One man in the back muttered, "I came here for gains. I got… theology."
And Arslan?
He finally looked up from adjusting the pull-up bar. Slowly. Dangerously. And with one glint in his eyes, he said one word that sent Matty twitching like a cursed marionette:
"…Yogurt?"
Chaos.
Matthew collapsed in tears. The gym officially cancelled leg day. And therapists in Kent raised their prices by 30%.
This wasn't just Power City Gym anymore.
It was the Church of Consequences.
And Matty? He was the chosen prophet of Too-Much-Daddy.
[08/07, 3:09 am] Arslan Toto: When a queer Irish twink gives up the front door, strengthens the backdoor, trains like a man possessed, learns how to walk with purpose again, cries less than twice a week, and finally lands a clean hit on the emotional Mount Everest that is Arslan—you don't expect to hear:
> "I'll leave for Pakistan. Three months."
THREE. MONTHS.
Matty stood there, sweaty, breathless, freshly greased from round forty-two of his weekly domestic demolition derby with Daddy, and blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. His brain did a full factory reset.
"…Huh?"
Arslan, cool as ever, casually pulled on a black shirt, picked up his duffle bag, and said it again—like it wasn't a missile through Matthew's soul:
> "I'll be in Pakistan. For three months."
That sentence hit harder than the last seven orgasms combined.
Matthew froze like someone unplugged his software. His legs gave out, but with enough flair to make it look like a drama school audition. He landed on the floor whispering to the gods of chaos, "Is this how widows feel…?"
The Power City gym fell silent. Someone dropped a dumbbell. Another screamed into a protein bar. A third person already started a Google doc titled: "Coping with Temporary Top Absence: A Community Resource."
Matty, of course, spiraled. Not quietly. Loudly. Gayly.
He cried into a towel, wiped his face with the same towel, screamed into it again, and then accused Arslan of "emotional terrorism, international abandonment, and gay war crimes."
> "You're just gonna LEAVE me here? With emotions? And GYM PEOPLE? And hope?!"
Arslan stared at him with the patience of a god watching an ant try to emotionally blackmail a thunderstorm.
> "It's just three months, Matty."
Matthew dramatically pointed at his own crotch.
> "You caged my heart and my genitals and now you're flying to the other side of the world like I'm not a premium subscription?! I need daily updates, shirtless photos, top-energy assurances, and, like, a… live stream of your abs!"
> "…Do you want me to install a camera in my shirt?"
> "YES. I'LL PAY FOR IT. HD. NIGHT MODE. CHEST HAIR FILTER."
To be fair, the idea wasn't completely unhinged. Half the gym already had a "Where in the World is Arslan?" betting pool set up. Matty's fanclub started making care packages. Kent declared emotional martial law.
But the thing is—Matty had adjusted. The drama was in his blood now. The cage was his crown. He didn't need Arslan to survive.
…He just wanted him like a gay needs iced coffee and vague trauma.
So when Arslan finally kneeled, cupped Matty's jaw in that gentle, world-ending grip and whispered—
> "Don't miss me too much, yeah?"
—Matthew smiled through the tears, grabbed Arslan's wrist, and whispered back:
> "I'm not crying. You're just sweating from your eyes because you know nobody's gonna rearrange me like you."
And with that, Arslan left.
And Power City braced for a three-month Matty-storm that would redefine the meaning of "emotional cardio."
After one month, even the sun had the audacity to show up late to work and Kent was humid in ways that made people question their life choices. But none of that compared to the feral meltdown of a caged, sleep-deprived, cucumber-wielding Matty.
See, Matthew had been holding on for 31 days, 18 hours, and 23 minutes (he knew this down to the microsecond because he set up a countdown timer and screamed at it every day like it owed him rent). The gym members had taken turns holding him during the withdrawal spells. Half the city now had "Pray for Matty" candlelight vigils. Even Kent's mayor issued a public apology for "letting Arslan leave without proper top duties fulfilled."
But today?
Today was different.
Matthew had had enough of holding his own knees and whispering "Daddy's coming back" like a bedtime prayer.
Today he FaceTimed Arslan from the middle of his absolutely unholy bed, surrounded by five cucumbers, a liter of coconut oil, and a candle labeled "Scents of Submission."
Arslan, currently in a Pakistani mountaintop office dealing with weapons, politics, or possibly rearranging global capitalism, answered calmly, shirt half-open, eyes like dusk falling on danger.
> "Matty, what is this?"
Matthew, already sweating and glowing like a saint possessed, shouted:
> "This is called a CRY FOR HELP. I NEED YOU. Not emotionally—I need your hips, Arslan. I am going feral. I'm reverse-psychologically married to you. I miss the sound of you breaking my soul and spinal alignment. Come. Home."
Arslan blinked. Once. Slowly. Like a cat who just watched a laser pointer run into a wall.
The gym members, who were watching the FaceTime via live projection on the main wall, nodded solemnly. They didn't even flinch at the cucumber count anymore. This was the eighth FaceTime this week. What shocked them now was Matthew's speech:
> "Listen, you all know it's not just about the 🍆 logistics anymore. It's economics. My serotonin? Tanked. My personality? 80% Arslan-dependent. My insides? Look like a war zone abandoned by NATO. I can't drink smoothies without crying. I need that man to come back and rearrange the internal IKEA shelf of my gay spirit."
No one argued. No one could. It was too... true.
Even Arslan, God of Silence, cracked the faintest hint of a smile. Just a twitch at the corner of his mouth that caused three gym members to pass out and a nurse to be called preemptively.
He said, casually:
> "Cucumbers? That's new."
Matty, unfazed:
> "We all cope in our own way."
Then, softer:
> "Come home and replace them."
And for the first time in weeks, Arslan paused. He tapped something off screen. Probably rebooked a flight. Or maybe called a world leader to delay a coup. Either way—
Power City knew what that pause meant.
Daddy was coming home.
And the cucumbers would never survive.
At precisely 3:47 PM—known now in Kent as the Hour of Reckoning—the ground trembled slightly. It wasn't tectonic, but emotional. Power City Gym's foundation creaked under the sheer weight of Matthew's vocal range. Every attempt to drown it out with headphones failed. Even the guy who swore by his "military-grade" noise-cancelling earbuds was shaking in the corner like a Victorian widow.
Arslan had returned.
Nobody knew why he was in Pakistan. Maybe it was global espionage. Maybe his cousin's wedding. Maybe he just wanted peace for once in his life. What they did know was that Matty had been feral for three months and was now making up for lost time like a horny hyena raised by drag queens and deprived of enrichment activities.
The second Arslan walked through the gym door—stoic, jawline sharp enough to slice protein bars—Matthew launched himself at him like a heat-seeking Irish missile.
No words.
No context.
No delay.
Just full-contact thirst.
They vanished into Arslan's office, door slamming shut like it had just been blessed with holy water and trauma. Some say the thermostat broke. Others say it was Matthew who broke the thermostat. Either way, gym-goers began journaling. One person tried to start a prayer circle. It collapsed after ten minutes of moaning.
By 4:00 PM, the chaos reached My Chemical Romance-level emotional intensity.
And then—it happened.
The door creaked open.
And there, framed by the fluorescent lights of Power City, Arslan emerged shirtless, glistening like a forbidden Greek statue someone left in the rain. In his arms? Matthew.
Also shirtless.
Also glowing.
Also unable to walk.
He was being carried like a princess whose kingdom had been thoroughly invaded.
Someone in the gym dropped their protein shake.
A woman burst into tears.
A man whispered, "That's love… or war."
As Arslan silently walked them across the gym floor, Matty looked around like he'd just finished filming an HBO original series and no one was ready for the behind-the-scenes trauma.
And in a voice too soft for someone with that much emotional wreckage, Matty whispered:
> "He never even said hi."
And they knew.
The man didn't need to say hi.
Because Arslan was home.
And the backdoor would never know peace again.