Still grape. And did you forget that Dane kidnapped Grayson first? Still grape
Ps. Toned down from novel
Yeah it’s all sa, my point was more the hypocrisy.
Also I don’t think Dane and Grayson should be judged the same. Grayson made a conscious and deliberate decision to force his partners into heat regardless of their consent countless times throughout his life. His plan here was to trap Dane long enough for him to go into heat naturally so he wouldn’t be able to resist his advances due to a compromised mental state. He knew Dane would never sleep with him otherwise.
He got his wish, he just didn’t like that Dane was able to overpower him and take control of the situation. He thought heat would make Dane more pliable and easier to control, but it didn’t go that way.
If Dane had any control over the situation he would have gotten the suppressants he needed and isolated as necessary to make sure nothing like this happened.
This story has a lot of reactive abuse caused by Grayson’s callous and harmful behavior. I’m not saying being a shitty person means you deserve abuse, but pretty much all of the bad things that happen to Grayson are primarily his fault.
If he had, at any point in his life opted to treat people with any degree of respect, courtesy, or human decency, there wouldn’t be a decent sized secret organization dedicated to his downfall. He uses people and then disposes of them once he loses interest, but their reaction to that treatment is somehow treated as separate from his conduct by the narrative.
Dane originally turned down the request to kidnap him because he just didn’t want to go that far, but changed his mind only after Grayson persistently ignored his boundaries and tried to pry into his life. That doesn’t mean he just gets a pass, but he would never have gone that far if Grayson showed a modicum of human decency or if he had any other way to be rid of him (he’s rich and morally bankrupt enough to follow him across the world, can’t be fired, etc…).
He thought if he could teach him a lesson, Grayson would leave him alone. That is Dane’s only goal, to be left alone, which should be easy to attain if not for Grayson’s blatant entitlement and obsessive harassment.
There are several scenes where Dane seemingly warms up to him, but this development gets cancelled out by Grayson’s entitled overreaching, because to him, his wants will always supersede the preference, comfort, and safety of the people around him.
Grayson is a malignant narcissist who constantly mistreats the people around him until they end up exploding in reaction to his mistreatment. I just don’t think it’s fair to judge them on the same moral scale.
Again, this does not excuse sa or mean that he deserves it. Dane is not in his right mind right now, he was cut off from access to medicine and ability to isolate. If he was lucid he would never choose to do something like that, while Grayson would, and has an extensive and unashamed history of it.
Interesting how Grayson got so indignant and surprised when Dane took control of the situation. His entire plan was to trap Dane underground until his heat came and he would have no choice but to sleep with him, thus allowing him to verify whether he was a dominant.
His plan works, Dane goes into heat and loses his mind, but Grayson wasn’t ready for it and tries to shut it down when Dane tries to sleep with him. Only Dane is too altered by that time for rational thought, and forces Grayson’s rut.
I just found it interesting that the second Grayson is on the receiving end of the treatment he gave to his previous partners and tried to give to Dane, he’s panicking and trying to regain control.
He suddenly cares a lot about consent (specifically his own), but doesn’t reflect on what that means for all of his past interaction where he was the one acting that way, except for Grayson it was a conscious choice, while for Dane it was a situation beyond his control that Grayson forced him into
Of course, the narrative will protect Grayson’s status as ml over maintaining Dane’s personality or a rational course of relationship for a relationship. I’m just here to watch the trainwreck at this point, but will probably drop soon since it seems the author will pigeonhole Dane into a classic forgiving doormat partner rather than giving Grayson any character development or progressing a realistic relationship