Chapter 6: A Father's Gift
The memory of the darkness, the scent of soap, and the imprint of his father's hand gripped Minalan for the next two days. It vibrated under his skin, a low current that made the mundane feel alien. Eating breakfast, he felt Victor's eyes tracking the swallow in his throat. Walking past him on the couch, the space between their bodies felt magnetized and dangerous. The weight room was the only place the tension felt logical, a physical extension of the new, unspoken reality.
Minalan found himself there before dawn on Wednesday. The garage gym was cold, the concrete floor biting through his socks. He flicked on the space heater and the single, bright work light. He didn'tt start his routine. He stood in the center of the rubber mats, staring at the empty bench, waiting. He hadn't set an alarm. Something deeper had pulled him from sleep.
He heard the back door open, then close softly. A pause.Then footsteps. Victor appeared in the doorway, already dressed in his gray sweatpants and a tight black tee. His hair was damp from a shower. He didn't look surprised.
"Beat me to it," Victor said, his voice gravelly with morning. He walked in, his presence immediately filling the small, cold space. He stopped a few feet from Minalan, his gaze appraising. "Couldn't sleep?"
Minalan shook his head. His mouth was dry. The speech he'd rehearsed in his head for two nights evaporated, leaving only the raw impulse that had woken him. He felt the words lodged in his chest, thick and shameful and true.
Victor moved to the rack, loading a forty-five-pound plate onto the bar with a solid clank. He didn't look at Minalan as he spoke. "Soreness gone?"
"Mostly."Good." Victor loaded another plate. The ritual was familiar, but the air was static with what hung unsaid.
Minalan watched his father's back muscles work under the thin fabric. He saw the faint scar on his right shoulder from an old, forgotten injury. He saw the way his sweatpants hung from his hips. The memory of the darkness surged up, a tidal wave of heat and confusion. The words broke free.
"The drink," Minalan said, his voice cracking on the first syllable.
Victor paused, a plate in his hands, but didn't turn.
"It... it helps," Minalan continued, forcing the air from his lungs. "But you were right. In my room. Some repairs need more." He took a step forward, his bare feet silent on the rubber. "Direct contact."Now Victor turned. His face was a careful mask, but his eyes were dark pools, unreadable in the harsh light. He set the plate down slowly.
"I want to be stronger," Minalan whispered. He hated the tremor in his voice, but he couldn't stop it. This was the precipice. "I want you to make me stronger. Properly. Not just with the weights. With... with everything.The source. The way you said."
He was kneeling before he fully processed the movement. The cold of the floor seeped through his thin shorts, a shocking contrast to the fire in his face and chest. He looked up at his father, his vision blurring at the edges. He had never felt so exposed, so utterly at someone else's mercy. The act of kneeling wasn't submissive; it felt like an offering, a physical plea that bypassed all logic.
"Please, Dad," he breathed, the word taking on a new, forbidden weight. "Use what works. Use... use your protein."
Victor looked down at him. A long, silent moment stretched, filled only with the hum of the space heater. His expression shattered. The careful mask crumbled into something raw, agonized, and fiercely hungry. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He took one slow, deliberate step forward, closing the gap until the worn toes of his trainers were inches from Minalan's knees.
His own need was visible now, a thick, proud line straining against his sweatpants, mirroring his son's desperate state.
"You understand what you're asking?" Victor's voice was stripped bare, a rough scrape of sound. "This isn't a game. This is... rewriting the code."
Minalan nodded, unable to speak. His own cock throbbed, a painful, demanding ache. The memory of his father's grip through the cotton branded him.
Victor reached out, his hand trembling almost imperceptibly. He didn't touch Minalan's face. His fingertips brushed the shaved side of his son's head, a ghost of a touch, before his hand settled firmly on the crown, a heavy, claiming weight. It was a gesture of possession, of blessing, of damnation.
"Then we start now," Victor said, the words final."Right here. No more drinks from the fridge. You get it straight from the tap."
His other hand went to the waistband of his sweatpants. He didn't push them down. He simply hooked his thumbs and eased the fabric forward, just enough. Minalan's breath stopped in his throat.
The reality was more potent than any fantasy, any whispered implication. It was blunt, veined, and heavy, the glistening tip already peeking from its foreskin. It was utterly, unequivocally his father's. The source. The design. The truth in the dark, made flesh in the harsh dawn light.
Victor's grip on Minalan's head tightened, not painfully, but with an unshakeable certainty. He guided him forward, an inch at a time.
"This," Victor said, his voice thick, "is the only supplement you'll ever need again."
The world narrowed to the scent of clean sweat and soap, the chill of the garage floor on his knees, and the overwhelming, heat-radiating presence before him. Minalan closed his eyes as his lips made contact. The taste was salt and skin and something profoundly, biologically familiar. A whimper escaped him, lost against his father's flesh.
Victor’s answering groan vibrated through him. "That's it. Get your protein, son. Take your medicine."
And Minalan obeyed, the last thread of his old life severing as he accepted the first direct dose of his new, irreversible conditioning. The weight room, their sanctuary of sweat and steel, was now a cathedral for a different kind of devotion.