Post-Coital Cuddles

((Author's Note: This is advance notice that I'll be taking a summer break covering the 16th, 23rd and 30th of July, during which I'll be too busy doing family holiday stuff with the kids to make any guarantees about consistent writing output. So whatever goes to pen in those weeks feeds the buffer. And yes, I will post another reminder when we get closer.))

John didn’t know when they had moved to cuddling on the beanbag, which was in fact located under all the plushies. Or when he had unequipped his clothes. Actually, everything past climaxing while she rode him was just a pleasure-filled blur. He knew that he had taken a more active role in their sex, that they had kept at it until his last Climax Control refill had been spent, and that Qhila had enjoyed it throughout. In fact, that last part was what was clearest to him. Not in terms of mental images or any such specifics though, just the feeling of certainty that he had brought her pleasure.

At the moment, they lay naked together. His arms around her, her face buried in his chest, her legs wrapped around his thigh. Her breathing was deep, soft and relaxed. He thought she might have dozed off. Or maybe she was just enjoying the moment like he was.

Looking down her back, because taking his eyes off her was naturally unthinkable at the moment, he continued to marvel at the artistry of her form. How the lean fitness of her upper body, that showed muscles subtly move beneath her tanned skin when she shifted her position slightly, flowed smoothly into the plump thickness of her bubble butt, and how the partial concealment thereof by her copper-scaled tail only further elevated the sight. Even now, the fires of carnal attraction towards the nubile kobold burned within him still, but they had diminished into an ember at the back of his mind. Beneath a thick, enveloping blanket of satisfaction, contentment, and, above all, affection.

Overcome with a need to express that affection, he reached up to run his fingers through her short, silver hair. Almost immediately, he bumped against one of the hairpin-like structures in her hair that he had forgotten were there, causing her to shift with a bit more energy to the movement and her breathing to change rhythm. Interpreting it as signs of mild discomfort at having the pin-thingies disturbed, he shifted to stroking her back instead.

Whether he had woken her up or just changed the direction of her thoughts, however, the deed was done. Over the next few moments, she quickly grew tense and her legs clamped down around his, as though she were hanging on against something. Her breath caught in her throat in time with a tremor going through her. Then the floodgates opened.

Now clinging onto him with both arms and legs, sobs tore through her and tears wet his chest. Thoroughly confused by this development, John just held her close, until the sobbing started to be interspersed with sniffling and sentence fragments. Try as he might to make sense of what she was trying to say, all he could really tell was that she was simultaneously trying to beg and to apologize. What she was doing either for, he had no idea. To make matters worse, her RS had started fluctuating again, though it was at least staying in positive 2 and 3 digit numbers this time. Desperately reaching for some sort of clue how to navigate this situation, he Observed her.

Setting aside a few other concerning but not immediately relevant details, that was something he could do something about. Holding her close with one arm, he used his other hand to gently guide her chin, turning her face up so he could see it. And more importantly, so she could see his face. “Listen very carefully.”

His words caused her to go completely rigid, sobs reduced to a sniffle, while her expression looked somewhere between deer in headlights and someone staring down the firing squad. Despite this, he just smiled reassuringly and continued, “Everything is fine. Better than fine, even. And I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

Qhila’s expression rapidly cycled through shock and uncertainty before landing in relief. A different sort of tears welled up in her eyes as she pressed herself against him in a way that felt less like desperately hanging on and more like trying to snuggle even closer. If he hadn’t still had a finger under her chin, he expected that she would have nuzzled her face into him as well. But he had one more thing he wanted to say. “In fact, I would like, if you’re willi-” he cleared his throat, feeling this turning into something of a bungle but pressing on regardless, “Do you want to be my-” at this point he ran into another issue. Draconic didn’t have the term he was looking for. And he didn’t really like the ones it did have, too much potential for misunderstandings. So he settled for English and hoped she knew the word, “-[girlfriend]?

The small alchemist went limp in his arms, like a marionette with its strings cut. The relief in her face fell away into an expression that was neutral, but only on the surface. In a way, it was similar to the figurative mask she had put on when they thought his powers might have mind controlled her, but this was infinitely worse. Worse because the mask was full of cracks, showing a gnawing emptiness behind. In a hollow tone, she responded, “I wish I could. More than almost anything in the world. But I can’t, I’m not able to… Kobolds don’t do romance. They can’t pair bond. They don’t even form families. There’s just the tribe, and friendships… I- I can’t be your [girlfriend] if I’m unable to love in that way.”

Those words turned the blanket of happy satisfaction, that had helped him handle her tears without panicking, into lead and dust. In its wake was left a burning emptiness, like a piece of him had been torn out. A large part of him wanted to lash out. To yell, rant, and rage, or smash something, or storm off, or any number of other expressions of aggression and anger at the unfairness of it. But like a flame deprived of oxygen, the impulse withered into nothing before it could become action. Because however much that angry part of him wanted to unsee the despair she was failing to hide, he couldn’t. And it was a hollow feeling he knew all too well.

It was a sibling to the void that her incapability of romance had ripped in him. But it was also a cousin of the emptiness in his mother’s voice when the brave mask slipped in the months following his father’s ****. Or the dull pain and detachment he had sunk into in that same period and only really found his way back out of this Monday, when falling into the Abyss had suddenly given him a sense that what he did actually mattered.

In the end, as much as he wanted to explosively vent his anger at the cruel injustice of this, he wanted even more to take that emotional hole inside of her and fill it with all the care, affection, and love he felt she deserved. Even if that love had to be of a different kind than he had hoped.

And so, while he could feel tears starting to form in the corners of his own eyes, he used his thumb to wipe one away from Qhila’s cheek. “Okay. I’m… not going to try to pretend that that doesn’t hurt. But it isn’t your fault that you were born a kobold, and I care too much about you to let it get between us. If… if friends are what we can be, then that’s what I want us to be.”

Unbidden, a window popped into John’s vision, apparently unwilling to wait for him in the notification stack.

Achievement Unlocked: Mutual Density of a Neutron Star
Miss something that’s both fairly obvious and quite important (to you).
Really, this achievement is as much for her as it is for you, but I can only throw a bit of Wisdom at one of you.
Reward: 50 EXP, +1 WIS, Dummy’s Guide to Facepalming

’I know I shouldn’t antagonize you, but right now I frankly don’t give a shit. So if you could stop rubbing it in and shut the fuck up, that’d be great.’ Even if it came with free stats, John really wasn’t in the mood for that crap.

Gaia: Suit yourself.

During that brief and unwanted exchange, tears welled up in Qhila’s eyes once more, and without his finger under her chin, she buried her face in his chest again. For a long moment, they just held each other and cried. John quietly for what they could have been if kobold nature had allowed, Qhila more forcefully for… he wasn’t exactly sure what mix of emotions she was feeling, but he did know that even tears of raw anguish were a step up from the hollow state he had seen. And he was pretty sure these tears were at least partially of catharsis.

“Thank you, John” Her words were only barely intelligible between her sniffling and talking into his chest. “You’re the best thing that has happened to me in a long time… I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you…”

Before he managed to formulate a protest against the notion that she might not deserve him, she continued, “And… I don’t know much about human, uh, mating practices. But as far as I understand, you sometimes have friendships with a sexual element. [Friends with benefits], I think? If, if you want to, I… I wouldn’t mind if we had that kind of friendship…”

That one took a bit to process. For a moment, it felt like a consolation prize, even though he would have been over the moon about that kind of relationship a week ago. ’No, John, you fucking asshat, stop it! That is entirely the wrong way to think about this! She is trying her best to give as much of what I want as she can, and that’s something to be grateful for and cherish. Unless… there is one thing I need to rule out first.’

“As long as you promise that you bring this up because you want to, not because you think you need to in order to deserve my friendship.”

She nodded, nuzzling her face against his bare chest in the process. “It is. It was nice before. And I trust you. A-and as long as it’s you, working the heat out of my system is better than trying to suppress it alchemically…”

That last part felt halfway like a tacked on afterthought, but the talk of heat also brought up another point they kinda had to address. Before he could get to that, however, she added something else, “I’m… not sure how much interest I will have in the sexual stuff outside of heat though. I used to just avoid it as much as possible, but that’s not exactly normal Skytail behavior and maybe, since I can trust you, it’ll be different…”

“We’ll see how it goes when we get there. The reason it’s called [friends with benefits] is because the friendship is the important part and the sexual stuff is a side benefit.” He wasn’t sure if that was really how it went in general, but it was his opinion on the matter, so that should be good enough. “That said, there’s something else about the whole heat thing we kinda need to talk about. Uh… Long story short, how likely is it that I got you pregnant?”

“Pregnant?? How would I- oh. Uh. No. I’m on birth control, and the heat suppressant going haywire shouldn’t impact that, so I won’t start laying eggs.”

“Lay- ah. Right. That’s a relief.” He paused but then quickly added, “N-not that I wouldn’t take responsibility if you did get-uh, lay eggs, I mean.”

That caused the kobold to raise her head and look at him, one eyebrow quizzically raised. “Take responsibility?”

“Stick around. Help take care of the kids and raise them, you know.” At this point he realized that since she said that kobolds didn’t form families, she actually probably didn’t know. But saying it still made her smile. It was a small, melancholic sort of smile, but it was still a smile.

“Thank you, John. But it’s fine, I’m not going to have children…” By her tone, John got the feeling that she wasn’t just talking about right now. He didn’t really know what to say to that though, so he just went back to cuddling her quietly.

Unfortunately, that couldn’t last very long. At a different time, he would have gladly just cuddled and relaxed with her for however long she wanted to. But right now the pain of the… rejection didn’t seem like quite the right word but he had no idea what else to call it. In any case, the pain of it was still much too fresh to keep at bay without something more to occupy his mind than the cuddles themselves. Especially when the feeling of her body against his also served as a continuous reminder that he wanted to kiss her.

Deciding that letting himself stew in the feeling of rejectedness? was exactly the wrong way to not let it get between them, he looked around for some sort of conversation starter. He would still prefer to stay snuggled up for a bit longer if possible, after all. The first thing he noticed was that while he was focusing on the emotions of the situation, Qhila’s RS had stabilized again at 142, so that was something at least. A conversation starter, however, it was not.

The next thing to catch his eye was a plushie. Hardly surprising given the amount they lay among, but this one stood out for two reasons. For one, it was placed about an arm’s length away from the pile atop the beanbag, with its back towards the rest in what looked like a deliberate arrangement. Secondly, it was the one she had pulled out of the Schrödinger’s Present that he gave her.

“Is it okay to ask why that plushie is over there?”

While she didn’t raise her head or otherwise move to check which one he was referring to, she had to have known just from the question, as she actually blushed hard enough for him to feel her cheeks heat up against his chest. “That’s, uh… I put him there. When I knew that I was going to lose my self control. To the heat.