Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Giving Laurance ideas was often a bad idea in and of itself. Or perhaps a really, really good idea. Hard to tell! The answer often depended on when exactly you asked Garroth: either before, or after. Beforehand, it was always a bad idea. But after?

S'fairly decent, most of the time. Nothing Garroth would ever have the gall to admit.

Garroth knew this, of course. And, being the reserved man that he was, he often tried to keep any funny ideas well out of Laurance's reach, no matter how much he actually desperately wanted those ideas to come true. Because he knew that the second Laurance caught wind of any particular interests of Garroth's, those closely guarded, shameful secrets would swiftly come to bloom into a blaringly present, fruitful reality. But the most dangerous sin of all, is that Garroth knew exactly how much he would enjoy it. Once the train got rolling, he knew there was no hope of ever convincing himself to stop it again.

Laurance was a very, very dangerous man.

Laurance was aware of this. But Laurance had goals of his own. He knew that Garroth was keeping secrets from him, shying his deepest desires away from the glare of the spotlight out of pity and shame. He knew Garroth had no reason to hide from him, and no reason to be ashamed.

Laurance had one goal and one goal only: Sniffing out those buried desires and demonstrating his utmost love and acceptance for them—by dragging them out into the light and diving into them with ruthless and ravenous abandon.

And one day, he caught a whiff.

Just a few days ago, Garroth's mental resiliencies were already preoccupied with the thrall of an entirely separate fling, loosening his lips and more than distracting the Hadean guard dogs that stood diligently between his ego and his pleasure.

Laurance had Garroth pressed against their kitchen counter, reaching up to freckle Garroth's neck with kisses as Garroth gripped him by the waist. Laurance's hand had already slid its way past the elastic rim of his sweatpants, in the dim, orange morning light that parsed through the blinds. Their hair uncombed, the two still in their PJs, they'd wandered into the kitchen to cook breakfast only to soundly derail from their original plans into something else, mumbling in quiet, slurred voices in the cool of the kitchen.

"Just a minute longer," Laurance muttered a response, pressing an extra kiss to Garroth's collarbone.

"Mmfair enough." Garroth hummed his agreement, letting his forehead fall against his shoulder and nestle in closer. The fabric of Laurance's green pajama shirt was scratchy against the bridge of his nose.

Laurance spoke with a relaxed, casual air, as Garroth shifted in place to slide the base of his shaft against Laurance's curled hand. "If I had the energy for it, I'd bend you over the counter instead. That'd be nice."

"Mm, not the counter." His voice muffled against his chest, lightly shaking his head.

"No? You want something softer for your delicate bones?" He teased with a smug, insufferably taunting grin. "You want me to pamper you like a Prince? Some velvet cushions and silky sheets for a custom-ordered dish of gentle loving?"

Garroth whispered out a light laugh. "Maybe. Would that be so bad?"

"Not at all." Laurance gave his flank a light slap. "Anything you want, darling, I'd give."

He fished Garroth's dick out of his mildly stained sweatpants, pulling down his own green and black checker pants a titch to press their cocks flush together, wrapping his sweaty palm around the two of them.

Garroth wrapped his arms around his back to pull him in closer. He swam in a sea of sleepy bliss, rose-flushed and fuzzy with the swelling of love in his chest. He drank in every word, losing himself in a haze and allowing his voice to cradle him in a net of devotion.

"I'd fuck you nice and slow on our sheets, give you kisses and tell you just how pretty you are. I'd tell you how radiant you look in the moonlight…"

Garroth couldn't help but laugh. "How cheesy."

"You know you like it." He winked with an ear-to-ear grin.

"It's true." He shrugged. "I'm suspectible." He raised his head to press a kiss to Laurance's cheek.

Laurance slid his palm up and down their shafts, pressing his thumb along the veins of Garroth's warm cock, dragging the welling up of precum down the sides and slicking him up.

He continued. "I'd make you be good for me. Make you do what I tell you to. Stick my fingers in your mouth, maybe give you a treat if you're good."

"Mmm…" Garroth's hips twitched and rolled against his hand.

"I'd get you a nice collar, walk you around… Maybe even take you outside, just to show the world how mine you are."

Garroth jolted in place. "What?" Despite the indignant shock in his tone, undeniably the rush of the image in his head separated his blood cleanly to flood his cheeks, and his cock.

Laurance grinned something maniacal and snide, entirely teasing the other man. "That's right. Butt-ass naked. For everyone to see."

His cock twitched and jumped to life. He pulled back, grabbing Laurance by the side. Feathers ruffled and face flushed to a hot pink shade, he stubbornly insisted, "Laurance, that's illegal."

"Not if you don't get caught!" Leaning in closer, "Unless… you want to get caught?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Garroth's ears were burning. "I wouldn't even entertain the idea. It'd be terribly unwise." He turned his gaze away with a huff.

"Hmmm." Narrowing his eyes, with a flick to Garroth's cock that made his breath lightly hitch, "I don't know man, you seem pretty excited to me."

"I'm not. I'm just—"

A faint squeak punched out of his throat in response to Laurance's touch, as he seized his dick in his hand and squeezed. Garroth's voice shriveled up on the spot, as his boyfriend shifted gears to manhandling him something rough.

Laurance's Garroth sense was tingling with the hint of something new and undiscovered around the corner. Perhaps there might be a theory here in need of some proper testing.

"You sure you're not getting off to the idea of me fucking you up the ass, hidden behind nothing but a few trees in a public park—" Voice low and sharp, seizing him by the collar of his shirt and hovering less than an inch away from his ear, "Muffling your whimpers behind my hand to keep you quiet, as I rail you hard enough for anyone to hear the slap of your body against mine,"

Precum spurted and welled down the side of his shuddering cock, as Laurance slammed his hand up and down his shaft. Garroth choked on his own breath as his shoulders tensed, squeezing a high-pitched sound bitten behind his teeth, as he clenched his eyes shut tight.

"What do you think they'd see if they found you buckled under me, taking my dick down your throat like a good little dog? If they saw you so helpless to my will, on display for everyone to see exactly what kind of man you are, would you like that?"

Trembling, his voice an octave higher, "Laurance, I-I'm—"

"What, you're gonna cum? Would it make you cum to be my pretty little public pet? Would you want that? Want me to take you outside and fuck you till everyone knows you're—

With a faint, squeezing, bitten moan muffled through his lips, he came with a shuddering splatter against Laurance's chest.

"—Whoa!" He promptly pulled back.

Garroth's entire body shivered and slumped on the comedown, letting out an exhale of relief as the final drops of it rolled down the underside of his cock.

Laurance surveyed the damage, tugging at his shirt to straighten out the folds. The stains of white cum had soaked the face of his leftover Christmas pajamas, glooping up the plastic picture of peppermint canes and mistletoe.

Only a snicker could be stifled, before he kicked his head back and started to laugh.

"Uuuurrrgh." Garroth already knew what was coming (or perhaps, what had already came), burying his face in his hands and hiding his embarrassment as best he could. "Goddamn it."

"Really?!" Laurance howled with glee. "You're joking! There's no way—Actually, no, that's on me. I should've expected this from a freaky little dog like you." He jumped up on his heels to try to kiss his face, kissing his hands until he found a crack between his fingers that Garroth couldn't cover in time. "Why didn't you tell me sooner that you liked that stuff?"

"It's humiliating. I don't want- It's just- It's so-… I mean, it's not like we'd ever be able to do anything for it, so what's the point in telling you?"

"Hey, fantasies aren't nothing! Incorporating a new fetish into our dirty talk isn't nothing!" With a finger gun point, "Also, that's defeatist talk. You'd be surprised what we could get away with in the back of a parking lot, or, say, deep in the woods at a park. Etcetera. I bet we could make it work."

"Laurance…" He groaned.

"Ooh, what if I sucked you off while you were on a call?" With a dorky grin, wiggling back and forth as he leaned in to kiss his hands some more, speaking in a sing-songy tune, "We could really test your poker face if you waaaant!"

"Laurance, no."

"Why not?"

"I-it just- I-" Down to his shoulders, his skin was a burning pink. Sweat trickled down his brow as he struggled. "It's not- I mean, if we were actually- in practice, it'd be a terrible idea. Could you imagine how humiliating it'd be if we were actually caught?"

"Can you imagine how arousing it'd be to be humiliated by that?"

"No." He ordered with a firm point to his chest.

…He then noticed the amount of cum he was pointing at. He winced. "Oh, dear. I'm deeply sorry for ruining your shirt."

"Oh, you're fine. S'not ruined." He waved it off. Cupping his hand under the rim and pulling it up and over his head, rolling it up into a damp, green ball, "Alright, fair. Fair. I'm not gonna push you into anything that could actually be dangerous or something you don't want. But you don't need to feel bad or embarrassed for having a fetish, Gar'th. And you don't gotta hide them from me, either. You know I'm not going to judge you."

Garroth sighed. "Yeah, I just-… Mm." Chewing on his lips, "I'll-… it-… I'll think on it. Alright? Just-… keep it between us for now, and I'll-… think about it."

"Mhm. I bet you will."

"Oh, hush you."

With a chuckle, Laurance stood back up on his tiptoes. "Gimme a kiss?"

"Yeah, alright. You absolute heathen." He cupped his face in his hand, dusting a kiss against his lips.

Laurance rested his hands against his chest, humming as he worked his lips flush against his, drinking in the warmth of his mouth.

"You'll always be my favorite freak." He cooed.

"Oh- just-" Garroth fumed harmlessly, pink as a tulip as he pushed him away. "Go put your shirt in the dirty laundry. Go."

He fled with a skip in his step and a mischievous giggle thrown over his shoulder.

When he came back, still shirtless, Garroth was already beginning to fry a few eggs for breakfast.

Laurance added, "I am still hard as a rock though. Should we uh-… do something about that, or…? Would you want to do something about that?"

Garroth reached out to grab him by the hem of his pants and pull him in closer, gifting a kiss to the top of his head. "Maybe after breakfast."

"Excellent, wonderful. Meal first, dessert later." Surveying the eggs sizzling in the pan, he rubbed his hands together and licked his lips.

Garroth hummed out a warm laugh. His heart felt fuller than it'd been before, plush and cottoned with the reassurance he'd been craving. He stood with Laurance at his side, and he knew that he was loved for all that he was, no matter how strange.

Chapter Text

Gene's transition from the Head Guard of Boboros to the newest General of the Shadow Knight militia was a rough one.

As smothering and blisteringly challenging as the infernal depths of the Nether itself, The Shadow Knight army was far more than a step up from what he'd dealt with in Boboros. In Boboros, the worst he ever had to deal with was a drunken senior soldier talking back to him outside a tavern. In the Nether, the worst he had to deal with was a single soldier by the name of Zenix.

"Fall in line, Zenix!" His voice shouted with the fury of a commanding officer, but none of the deeper, backing strength to fill it with.

"Fall in line, Zenix!" Zenix mimicked a shrill, nasally version of his voice in a mocking tone. Instead of standing in formation with the rest of the Shadow Knights before him, he'd managed to sneak away to scale one of the ruined remains of a fortress tower. He relaxed idly by on the bricks of what was once a window, kicking back with his arms folded behind his head. "Gods, you sound like a child! Hey newbie! How much experience did you say you had under your belt again?" He jeered, his voice calling out over the crowd. "I can't recall if you were talking about graduating from the Guard Academy or graduating kindergarten. Not like it'd make a difference!" He cackled something sharp and mean, like the squawking of a gull perched over a revelatory catch.

Gene fumed. Gauntlets gripped tight into white-knuckled fists, his mind was rich with vivid fantasies of all the things he wished he could do to the other man to shut him up for good.

The problem was, the leader that had ruled over the majority of their bootcamp work before was The Shadow Lord. A God. An ancient, all-powerful, mortifying being older than even the senior Shadow Knights who'd been around for centuries, who could crack the earth and sky with the flick of his wrist.

A God who had, unfortunately, been broken into shattered halves, a ghost who was withering away exponentially by the century. As The Shadow Lord grew weaker, he found himself needing a few extra helping hands to make up the difference. Gene was that helping hand.

But Gene was young and new, with zero reputation or respect to his name. Meanwhile, Zenix had been a Shadow Knight longer than Gene had been alive. No matter how desperately he tried, he held no power over the other man.

He spat through gritted teeth, his body rigid and tense, "Zenix. Get down here and face me."

"Whatcha gonna do if I don't?" He purred.

Oh, he had had enough.

Throwing all graceful formalities to the wind, his violent fury consumed him with the untamed ferocity of a wild animal, and he leapt with a snarl.

Zenix had a split second to drop the smug look on his face before he realized Gene was about to crash into him. His entire body slammed into his with the force of a bullet train, crashing the two of them through the opposite wall of the fortress, sending the dark maroon bricks flying and cracking into pieces. Zenix's back hit the ground first, grinding a crater into the mucous, bloody ground as the impact dragged them multiple feet across the earth.

Before they'd even slowed to a halt, Gene's hands were already locked around his throat. "You insufferable damned rat! I'll tear out your throat! Or better yet, I'll tear out your tongue! Do you ever stop fucking talking?!"

"Awww, cute wittle General can't handle someone huwting his feewings?" He only continued to taunt, his voice strained and hoarse around the claws that squeezed his esophagus. He gripped onto Gene's wrists, a devious, pointy grin spreading from ear to ear, beckoning him onwards with every step. "Go on, give me your worst. There's nothing you can do to make me obey you, jackass."

Gene boiled over with a howl, his fury shredding through his vocal chords. He flung up his hand, summoning a sword pulsing in radiating, magmic heat in a twinkle of black and red particles, and plunged the blade directly into Zenix's sternum. Zenix sucked in a gasping breath at first—and began to laugh.

"Is that your worst? Aww, you're so much gentler on me than The Shadow Lord was! How sweet!"

"Stop fucking talking!" His shouts tore out in exclaiming grunts as he thrust his sword out and cauterized it back down into his chest, wrenched through his armor to carve into his stomach, then again in his side, and again in his chest, and again, and again, and again. All the while, Zenix did not stop laughing.

"Do you even know what a Shadow Knight can take?" He sang in glee. "Strike me deeper, you coward! Harder! Give me something to cry for!"

With a desperate cry, Gene threw his sword out to the side and plunged his face directly into the wounds that marred Zenix's chest.

"Oh—!" Zenix's intrigue spiked an octave higher.

Jagged, vampiric teeth tore to where the flesh was sensitive, devouring the ash of the cauterized sides and tearing into chunks of hot, damp tissue, wet with freshly flowing blood pouring into his mouth. Claws sharp and thick with the scales of his gauntlets carved deep into the wounds of his stomach, pulling them open and burrowing deeper and deeper inside.

"That's new." He whistled. "Can't say The Shadow Lord ever got this up-close and personal with me. You looking for an autograph down there?"

Gene growled something low and rumbling, the vibrations of it rippling through his ribcage. He tore through chunk after chunk of his flesh, digging down to his ribs, as the blood welled and poured in pools of hot fluid in the divots and holes he'd carved, pooling around them and soaking his face.

He jabbed two of his fingers up through his wounds and beyond his ribcage, punching a stuttered breath out of the man laid beneath him. Wet warm walls squelched and squeezed around his hand as he carved deeper, farther, down into his chest, until the rapid pounding of Zenix's heart felt flush against his palm.

He clenched his fist and squeezed, and Zenix yelped in gasping, whimpering breaths.

The sound of his whimpering voice in his ears filled his core with pride. Wheeze after wheeze choked out of the man, as he scrambled against Gene, gripping into his arms and shoulders, eyes clenched tightly shut.

Gene rose up, blood dripping from his chin, as he pulled the fingers of his other hand out of his stomach and reached up to rest his soaked and soggy claws against the edge of his cheekbone. He seized his face and jaw in his grip, pressing the tips of his nails into his cheeks and wrenching up his face to meet his, hovering a few inches above. Zenix's eyes cracked open, bleary and fogged with pain.

"Disobey me again, and I will break you." He growled low and quiet, his breath hot against his face. "Do you want me to break you?"

Zenix's inhale shuddered. "…A-a bit." He croaked, weak and shallow.

That was not the answer he was expecting.

"…Hm." He pursed his lips in a tight frown.

It was also in this moment when a new idea occurred to Gene. An idea he otherwise would not have humored, but…

He set it aside for later.

He pulled his hand out of his chest, and Zenix buckled forward with a shivering moan, clutching at the gushing hole in his sternum. Gene sat back on his heels, and pushed himself up to his feet.

"Oohh, Gods…" Zenix hoarsed. "I feel so hollow. No one's ever- That one was new. That one was—"

Gene grabbed him by the hair and yanked him forward.

"Gah—!"

"Quiet down. You have a job to do, remember?" He clutched clumps of his messy, dark brown hair in his fist, wrenching him closer as he stepped to the side.

Zenix could only whine as he was dragged back to camp by his hair.

When Gene returned, most of the soldiers had broken from formation and were loitering about the nearby area and chatting amongst themselves, or had left the area entirely.

When Zenix was thrown to the ground in a pile of battered bruises and blood, the chatter fell silent.

"Fall in line." Gene's order was quiet, but firm and undeniable.

They took one look at Zenix. Looked up to Gene.

They scurried into place.

"That includes you, you know." Gene grumbled, kicking a painful yelp out of the smaller man. He grabbed him by the arm and hoisted him up onto his feet, holding him there as he stumbled. "Get up. Get in line."

He shoved him forwards, and Zenix nearly fell over. He limped to his vacant space in line, staggering and hunched over, his arms wrapped around the brand new orifices Gene had carved into his internal organs. He craned his neck up to meet his gaze.

The heat in his hooded eyes pierced a dart into Gene's chest.

He swallowed it down, and set the swelling of his heart aside.

When bootcamp was finished, the remaining Shadow Knights were returned to their holding cells, including Zenix.

Gene decided to pay him a visit.

The cell was sweltering with the streams of lava that pooled down the cracks in the scarlet bricks, functioning as the only lighting in the enclosure. The iron door clicked into place behind him, as he stepped into the cramped cube room, its maroon tile floors stained with years of blood that was never cleaned, with a metal table in the corner holding a set of sharp, used tools.

In the center of the cell was Zenix, chained to the floor and ceiling, his wrists hanging in the same metal cuffs that were clamped tight around his ankles. The exoskeleton of his armor plating had retreated down to his waist, keeping his scarred body bare from the hips up, as sweat trickled down his skin. His wounds were still healing, slowly regenerating and closing themselves over with matted scar tissue and scabs growing around the edges.

When he looked up, a flicker of that same heat still remained, like the reflection of the lava glowing golden in his dark, brown eyes.

Gene despised the man. Gene had an idea.

"If it isn't the newbie General…" The words dripped like venom from Zenix's tongue. "Come to honor me with your presence, have you? Or are you just here to pick up where we left off?"

"Something like that." He let go of the door handle, and strode inside.

Zenix's expression shifted, raising an eyebrow in genuine puzzlement, and at least a little bit of concern for what "something like that" could possibly mean.

Gene came to stand directly in front of him, towering over him as Zenix's head hung low in his restraints. A single, pale hand reached out, as his gauntlet retreated back into his wrist, the armor plating stacking and seeping into one another like packed, bloody, muscular fluid.

A delicate fingertip traced along the edge of the wound in his sternum. The sensation was a funny one, strangely pleasurable as it glided down the sensitive strip of skin between his pecks, before twinging with pain as it traced down the wound. A feather of a touch, a teasing of his senses.

"…Wh-… Whatcha doing there, General?" Zenix managed out a small, nervous smile.

After years upon years of torture, both physical and psychological, Zenix's pain tolerance as an immortal, infernal, undead creature was substantially stronger than the average mortal human's.

But even still, the physical torture he was used to didn't touch him like this. They didn't carve their fingers deep into his tissue, just to feel the pulse of his heartbeat in the palm of their hand. They didn't hold him by his jaw and look into his eyes with piercing shades of ice, as they filled him up inside and traced their fingertips against his pecks.

His gaze unblinking, cold and lifeless, his fingers dipped down the walls of his wounds, and slipped inside. Zenix's breath caught in his throat.

It was far from the strongest pain he'd ever felt. But the sensation that came along with it, pressing up against his walls and edging against his nerves and pushing into his flesh, it was something he'd never experienced before.

Gene curled his fingers and let the blood run in trails down his wrist.

"You don't like me." Gene muttered. "I want nothing to do with you."

The words thrummed against his ribs, traced along the rim of his bones. Gene could feel the way his heart skipped against his hand.

"But I might have something to offer you that can change your mind."

"What?" He winced through the word, as Gene's knuckle brushed against a throbbing, painful nerve. He strained to look up and meet him on his level. "I don't mean to break it to you, but if you're talking a promotion, there's no promotion you can give me that'll make me respect your sorry ass. Whatever your ploy is, it's not going to work."

"Oh, I think it will." A shimmer of frozen, charged desire flickered in his eyes.

He pulled his fingers out of his wound, a strand of blood stretching thin between his scissored fingers, and Zenix nearly shuddered as a taste of the same hollow feeling swept through his chest in its place.

Tracing a mark of dark blood across his side as he walked, Gene stepped to the side and strode behind him, a foot behind his back.

"What are you doing?" Zenix glanced over his shoulder. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and stood on end.

A small, snide smile spread across his face. He placed a hand flat against his back, and stepped closer, 'till Zenix could feel his faint exhales against his neck. His other hand glided down his side, around the front, down his hip, and came to rest in front of his groin. "Bring down your exoskeleton." Zenix could hear a smile in the whisper in his ear.

"What? Why?"

"Just trust me."

He hesitated. If he sheathed the rest of his exoskeleton, he'd be entirely vulnerable to the man, bare and unguarded. He still wasn't entirely sure what he was planning on doing once he was bare, and he certainly didn't trust him, but…

He had to admit he was curious enough to find out.

And, honestly, he didn't think this fresh-blood human was capable of physically, painfully torturing him in any way that'd be worse than what The Shadow Lord had already done to him ten times over. No amount of stabbing him, gutting him, dismembering him, or shattering the bones in his body would break him in. To him, Gene was weak.

Perhaps that was why he was resorting to offering him "something that would change his mind" and make him like Gene enough to consider following his orders. Whatever that was. He knew he wasn't strong enough to persuade Zenix any other way.

"…Alright." He huffed. "Have at it."

His exoskeleton folded in on itself in plates down his thighs, revealing bare skin down his knees, legs, ankles, until the final, clawed tips of his boots sheathed and seeped back under his skin.

From the way Gene had been touching him earlier, the breath hot against his neck that played with the hairs raised on the nape of his spine, and the grip on his hips, Zenix was already not entirely flaccid.

"Good boy." Gene purred in his ear.

What? He thought. What the fuck? Was that praise?

He couldn't recall the last time he'd ever been praised. He didn't think he'd ever been praised before. Oh, boy, was that addicting. And extremely confusing. If there was anything he could do to wrangle more of the praise that made his heart skip out of this strange, intriguing newbie General, then by Irene, he figured he should really consider—

"Ohhaah—!" He hitched, as Gene's hand curled around the shaft of his cock and slid down to the base.

Fingertips pressing into his sensitive flesh in ripples of sensation he'd never felt before, dragging up his shaft and running alongside the veins, up to press his thumb against the tip of the head and rub in a circle, eking out drops of precum as the blood flowed to fill him up, bringing him to a twitching, hardened state.

He shivered, curling his spine and leaning back into the other man, the back of his head resting against his shoulder. "Oh fuck, oh- okay, okay—" He strained through his teeth.

A smug, small laugh rolled out of Gene's lips. Using his other hand, he pulled Zenix against him by his waist. He could feel the pressure of Gene's own growing erection press against his flank, teasing him of what was to come.

"Wh- whuh's th- mmghh—" His mind dissolved to a sputtering slurry, as he struggled to bring himself into focus. The pleasure ripping through his cock was a brand new feeling to him, similar only to a few minor experiments he'd had with himself in the seclusion of his cage. Though, to be honest, the moments where he had time to himself and his wrists were unchained enough to give him the freedom of movement to touch himself were very few and far between. Usually if he had enough freedom to jerk off, he had enough freedom to attempt a prison break, and the latter had a tendency to run as a higher priority.

Never had he experienced something like this before, especially from another person. Whatever this was, it was far more powerful than any feeling of pain he'd known before.

"My- Gods- what in- the shit—" He choked.

"Now do you see what I mean?" Gene hummed.

"Haah…" He leaned forward, his hips bucking into his hand. His jaw hung open, eyes rolling back into his head as he twitched into his grip. A single bead of saliva dripped down his chin, and fell upon Gene's hand, as he stroked back and forth in slow, methodical swaths.

Zenix wanted more. A bright light was screaming his name at the end of the tunnel, and by the Gods, did he chase for it. With a grunt, he sputtered his hips forward, pulled back, and thrusted forward into Gene's grip. He thrusted again, again, picking up the pace—

'Till Gene let go.

A shiver of need ran through him in the hollow absence of his touch, left bereft and dripping in the humid air. "Aaarrghhh. What'd you stop for, jackass?" He sneered over his shoulder.

"Good to see you're enjoying yourself." He chuckled, as if witnessing him keeled over like this was funny to him. He took his other hand and lifted it up to grab Zenix by his jaw, pressing his fingers into his cheeks hard enough to feel the grooves of his teeth through the layers of skin. "If you want me to continue, you're going to agree to be good for me. If you do as I say, you get a reward. If you keep talking back to me and disobeying my orders, then I'll leave you here to rot, untouched and alone."

The tips of his fingernails traced down the top of his shaft, edging a featherlight scrape down a sensitive vein. Zenix twitched, and desperately tried to maneuver his cock up to touch more of him, but Gene pulled his hand away once again.

"Tell me you belong to me, and I'll give you more than you could ever dream of. All you have to do is beg."

Beg? Who does he think I am? Zenix bristled. It was deeply humiliating at best, dehumanizing at worst, and the fire in his gut erupted with a prickling fury at the mere thought of bending to this man's schemes. Does he think I'm just gonna be some easy servant for him? A doormat?

But he couldn't deny the desperate need blazing where his logical mind could not reach. No amount of indignant fury would abate the hungry, salivating beast inside him, the beast that had already started begging and pleading in his brain a long time ago. He could think something rational all day long, it wouldn't be enough to soothe the throbbing ache of his erection.

He huffed out a frustrated snort like a bull, and leaned his body back into Gene. "Big talk for a guy whose just as hard as I am. Don't think I don't feel you back there. You think you're just gonna walk out there like that?"

Gene faltered first, catching himself in shock.

Zenix ground down on the tent in his suit, massaging twinges of pleasure out of the other man. "Come on, you're not really gonna leave, are you? What do you get out of going back to boring ass business when you've got everything you want in here?"

Gene scoffed in offense, riling up his pride. "Fair point." In a seizing grip, he grabbed him by the throat, pressing his chest flush against his back. "I'll just get myself off right here in front of you, then. Make you watch everything you're not going to get. I'll walk out satisfied either way."

His cock twitched at the thought. Seeing Gene bare and stretched out in front of him, palming his own dick and eking out every last drop of pleasure that Zenix ached and yearned to have, watching him with that same snide, arrogant, insufferable grin, taunting him with all he needed but could not have.

It drove him mad.

"Fine. Fine." He spat. "I'm-… Urgh." The words came chewing and dragging out of his lips like molasses stuck to his teeth. "I'm-…yours." He cringed at the thought of it. "I'll follow your stupid rules. I'll be good."

He couldn't deny the flow of precum that swelled from his dick once he admitted it—an admittance that should not have given him such roils of pleasure and excitement as was spilled.

"Oh, such a good boy…" Gene's grin spread as wide as it could reach, gloating and reveling in giddy glee. He pressed a few kisses to Zenix's shoulder. "I always knew you had it in you. You'll be rewarded handsomely for this."

Zenix practically melted in his arms.

"In fact… let's get you something easier to handle, hm? Good boys deserve a little extra dessert, I'd say." And much to Zenix's surprise, Gene extracted a key from his belt and reached up to the cuffs on his wrists. He gaped as he watched him unlock the cuffs, one after the other. Zenix nearly collapsed the second he was free, stumbling as his arms fell.

He rubbed at his red and aching wrists, working the circulation back into place. Shooting Gene a wary, puzzled glance, "You sure that was a good idea?"

"Oh, yes." He smiled. "I'll need you on the floor, after all."

He felt his cheeks flush.

"Go on, kneel right there for me."

He hesitated a moment, considering his options. He decided to kneel.

Gene got down on the floor alongside him, his own carapace beginning to fall down his chest, revealing his musculature and scars, and down to his thighs, letting his own cock hang loose.

He placed a hand on Zenix's back and gently pushed him down. "Curl your spine. Ass up."

Zenix swallowed down the saliva in his throat, sweat trickling down his temple, and he complied. The embarrassment started to catch up with him now, making him flush and move with an awkward, clueless tension, as he worked himself into position. It was a lot more revealing than he was used to, with a level of vulnerability he wasn't sure he trusted Gene with handling safely. He felt exposed, like a deer standing in the open plains, easy pickings on all sides and clueless to what could be lurking in the bushes.

Nonetheless, Gene seemed pleased enough. "Good. Very good. You're a natural at this, you know."

He certainly hoped so.

Gene bent forward, and Zenix could feel the head of his cock come to rest against his thigh, nudging the back of his balls. He reached down to grab Zenix's cock in his hand again, and Zenix shut his eyes tight, sighing in relief.

"Don't get too excited now. I've still got half the show planned for you, after all."

The last thing Zenix was expecting was the prodding of Gene's fingers against the rim of his ass. "Mngh—!" He jolted, as Gene slipped the tip inside. "What the fuck are you—"

"Just trust me. It'll feel good in a second."

"Mmm." Zenix pressed his lips into a tight frown, but figured he might as well take this "fucking around and finding out" quest to completion, now that he'd gotten this far.

As Gene slowly, gently pressed in deeper, Zenix muttered, "I don't trust you for shit-iiiihahaauuh-" He dug his nails into the bricks of the floor and pressed his face against the ground, grimacing and twitching as he felt Gene's finger press directly up against something that was eliciting a wild fucking response out of his body. "Oh my Gods that feels so ffffuucking weird! What is that?!"

"That would be your prostate. When I fuck you something proper, you should be feeling it as orgasmic pleasure."

"Oh." He coughed, his voice a small squeak of what it had been prior. "O-okay."

The duel-bladed barrage of sensation pulsed through his cock as Gene's left hand tugged up and down his dick, squeezing at his base and dragging that tight grip of his hot and sweaty palm up to the head, while his right hand slipped a second finger inside and scissored him open, circling around the gland of his prostate. The hollow, shuddering sensation of being filled on a deeper level returned, similar to the feeling he'd had from his fingers in his chest. Only this time, the pleasure was exponentially greater, deeper embedded into his core and pushing against his walls.

Pleasure shot from one side and out the other, as Gene's fingers jabbed deep inside while his other hand rubbed circles into the plush and pliable flesh of his cock.

"Mmmh…" His face squished into the ground, humming in delight as his body rocked in a push-and-pull against Gene's hands. He much preferred this over another round of torture.

For a brief moment, the push-and-pull came to a disappointing halt, when Gene pulled his fingers out of his anus. The burning pressure of the head of his cock took its place instead, pushing snug against the rim of his ass.

Oh, fuck. Zenix's heart skipped a beat. He considered for a moment whether or not it'd be possible for Gene to thrust inside, considering he'd never had anything shoved up there before. He didn't know if it'd hurt, if it'd feel any good, or what it'd feel like at all.

"Relax." He hushed. "Let it in easy. I'll go slow."

He gulped, and nodded.

When the head slipped in, Zenix could feel it stretching out the rim. He sucked in a shuddering breath. It was a strange sensation, but not entirely a bad one.

"Gods, that's tight." Gene gasped. His hips twitched, stuttering in place and thrusting further inside faster than Zenix would've liked.

He jolted with a muffled yelp. "Ow." Zenix spat into the floor.

"Please, you've dealt with worse." Gene huffed. "You can take it."

With a sneer over his shoulder, "Nothing up my ass, you bastard. Go slow."

Gene rolled his eyes, but continued pushing inside at a slower pace.

He gripped onto his hips to pull him back as he took him to the hilt, inch by gradual inch, until his ass cheeks were pressed flush against his thighs.

Zenix had never felt so full. No matter how and where he squirmed, Gene remained in place, buried deep inside him, nestled up against his prostate. When he squirmed, he could feel the rod of him press and shift against his prostate, sending shivers up his spine. Sweat slicked down his back and his temples in the sweltering heat of the prison cell, dripping down to his chin.

"Gods, that's nice…" Gene whispered, leaning his head back as he reveled in the feeling of his walls clenched tight around his cock, squirming and rubbing throughout his skin.

"What are you, stalling?" Zenix reached back to slap his thigh. "Get moving."

In the heat of the moment, Gene's nicer exterior slipped a bit when he muttered, "Needy little bitch," under his breath.

"I heard that."

Gene leaned down, wrapping his arms down to rest against his chest, his other hand returning to curl around the head of Zenix's cock. He pulled back as his hand dragged down to the base, and with a grunt, thrusted deeper inside with the sweep of his palm back up to the head. It squeezed a squeaking sound out of Zenix's throat, as he bit back a moan.

He pulled back, nearly out to the head, and slammed back in, punching a yelp out of the smaller man. "Fuck—! Gentle!" Zenix pleaded in a ragged voice.

"It's funny how you think you're the one giving orders here." He muttered against his shoulder, his teeth gliding over his skin. "I said I'd give you a treat. I didn't say I was going to pamper you." And he bit down, digging his fangs into the back of his neck with a grunt.

Zenix gasped and dug his nails into the bricks, dragging his claws down the floor.

Gene hoisted out and carved back in, smacking into his prostate. Before Zenix had any time to recover, he was already pulling back and thrusting back inside, burning against his walls and digging a burrow deep inside his core.

"Fuck, shit—" Zenix wheezed. His precum splattered against his chest as Gene's hand ravaged his cock at an equally faster pace, shooting up and down the sides and wrenching him back in his grip.

Gene's teeth dug sparks of pain and pleasure around his throat, the taste of blood welling in his mouth. Like a firecracker burning through his insides and scorching into the core of blood that built up behind his cock, Gene was relentless. The wet plap of his skin slapping against his, as he pounded him deeper and deeper, again and again, railing into him with all the rage and vitriol and desire that coursed in his veins, screaming to tear him open from the inside out.

Gene wanted nothing more than to own him, tear down his pride and beat him into a sniveling, sweaty, obedient mess of limp and sore limbs begging for mercy, only to never see a spec of peace. He wanted Zenix ruined, broken down into a pulp that would never talk back to him again.

With every pounding thrust, the animalistic growl that rippled from his teeth, and the white-knuckle grip he squeezed Zenix's cock with, he broke him down little by little, again and again.

Zenix's hands scrambled against the dark scarlet tiles, squirming helplessly in place as his whines escalated an octave higher. His pleasure and pain roared through his body in a tandem, raw and burning as Gene slammed into his prostate again and again, mercilessly overwhelming him on both ends.

His cock grew more and more sensitive as the pleasure mounted, his squirming jolting stronger as his whimpers caught in his throat, "W-wait, slow down, slow down, I- I'm gonna—" barreling closer and closer to a mortifyingly bright and scorching sun, until he couldn't hold on any longer.

He came with a muffled cry, cum splattering against the tile and up his chest as the overwhelmingly powerful orgasm surged through his entire body, inside and out.

He clenched tight around Gene as he did, the ripples echoing around his cock and shooting all the more pleasure through him. He grit his teeth as he spilled over the edge as well, and filling up his insides with warm pools of cum.

The two finally slowed to a halt. A sweaty, panting, sticky, sore and exhausted halt.

Gene pulled out, and let the stream of cum flow down the crack of his ass.

"Hoooh Irene… that still feels weird…" Zenix collapsed onto the floor in a battered pulp, more than ready to take a long, deep nap.

"Well done." Gene patted him on the back. "I'm glad you learned your lesson." He started to stand up, dredging up the droplets of cum that ran down his softening cock and flicking them off of him, and onto Zenix instead.

"Mmmmh…" Zenix was swimming in a different ocean right now. "…Say, when do you think we could do that again?"

"Again?" Gene made a face. You? Again? He grimaced. Eugh. "…Maybe if you give me enough reason to reward you with a treat, I'll come back and we can do this again."

"Mmmnokay." Zenix curled up on the floor, letting his eyes fall shut with sleepy bliss.

Gene wondered for a moment about letting him stay there to rest, unchained and uncuffed. It'd be a security risk to let him keep his mobility unsupervised, but… he also looked like he wasn't going to be getting up and running loose anytime soon.

With a sigh, he decided on a compromise. From the supplies on the metal table, he fetched looser chains and fixed them to the upper cuffs. With little resistance from Zenix, he locked the cuffs around his wrists. He'd still be able to lay in place, but the length of the chains should prevent him from moving any further from his designated spot in the center of the cell.

Still a minor security hazard, but reliable enough for now. He'd come back and fix it later.

He drew his exoskeleton back up over his body, covering up his skin with plates of red, scaley armor, and turned to the door. He gave Zenix one last glance.

He was already drifting off into a doze, peaceful and, finally, quiet.

Gene left without another word.

Chapter Text

Aphmau had a job to do. After escaping from the werewolf kingdom, she, Laurance, and Katelyn had ended up in Scaleswind, reuniting with Nicole (who was the Lady of Scaleswind now, quite the shocker). Nicole was thankfully able to grant them a ship for safe passage back home, and she, Katelyn, and Laurance were finally able to return to Phoenix Drop in one piece. Thank Irene.

There was a lot on Aphmau's mind. The potential of war with the werewolf kingdom loomed over her head now, with the threat of Michi still being out there and ready to strike at any minute, the war against The Shadow Lord was still on-going, the Phoenix Drop Alliance was in desperate need of repair, Laurance was beginning to suffer the bloodlust of a Shadow Knight, all of her friends and family were aged 15 years and were now scattered throughout Ru'aun with no note of how they were faring or how they'd since changed, Nichole's son had stowawayed on the ship and now Aphmau was awkwardly witnessing 15 years worth of marital drama between her friends unfold in front of her, and above all else, they needed to find a way to bring Garroth out of the Irene Dimension, without also infecting the world with the wrath of a returning Zane Ro'meave.

But… additionally… there was the matter of her… situation, with Garroth and Laurance.

It wasn't exactly that she didn't like them, she did! But that was the problem. With Garroth absent, it made things a lot harder to resolve between the three of them. And that's if she even wanted to resolve the three-way mess that was happening between them. She wanted both Laurance and Garroth equally, and if she picked one over the other, she'd be just as heartbroken to lose one of her two loves.

It was a mess she adamantly did not want to think about. No matter how much Laurance and Garroth both pestered her or tried to flirt with her, she refused to make a decision. She refused to think about it at all, actually. With her job as a sort-of General of War, facing a multitude of deadly threats from all sides at all times, she quite literally did not have the time. And if she got in a committed relationship with either of them, she wasn't sure she'd have the time in her schedule for that, either.

It was merely poor timing. When the wars against Zane and The Shadow Lord were finally over, and all was peaceful and right with the world again, maybe then she would decide to think about her love life. She wished and hoped for the day where she wouldn't have any other stressors on her plate to interfere, where she could get to know Laurance and Garroth on a deeper level, not just as her Guards, her employees in a militia position, but as her friends, on an equal footing. Maybe then, she could figure out what to do.

But in the meantime, none of that was an option. So, she would put her love life aside. She'd take all the weird and wily feelings that bloomed in her heart, lock all of them up in a box, and kick them under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind. Her emotions did not exist.

All that mattered was doing her job. The job she could never clock out from. She would simply do her job, ignore everything else around her, and everything would turn out perfectly fine.

…Or at least, that's what she was hoping would happen, before she and Laurance were captured and turned into Meif'was against their will.

Aphmau didn't know much of anything about Meif'was, or how their biology worked. She took note of a few of the surface-level changes that were made to her biology in the switch, such as her hearing, as her normal human ears changed to cat ears, allowing her senses to be heightened. There were the added purple hairs and whiskers that grew all over her body and on her face that increased her warmth, heat regulation, and acted as sensory extensions through her sensitive whiskers.

There were her nails, which were now longer and sharper and slightly curled at the tips like claws, there was her tail that aided her in balance and dexterity (and frequently expressed more of her emotions than she would have liked to have outwardly visible for others to notice), the convenient added ability of night vision, and an overall increase in her dexterity, agility, and sense of stealth.

She was certain the changes ended there, though.

She was wrong.

It started at around their stay at Nicole's mansion in Scaleswind, when Aphmau started to feel a bit…strange.

Occasionally she would be hit with sweats and hot flashes. Her body odor had gotten worse as well, which was always a fantastic thing to happen while you were on the run. Thankfully, she could finally bathe at Nicole's. And an additional con of more frequent urination, which also made her grateful that she was finally out of the woods and returned to the glorious constructions of civilization.

But, by far, the loudest symptom of all was arousal. A deafening, seething, overwhelming, full-body rampage of unmatchable, debilitating arousal, ongoing for hours and hours at a time.

She was very grateful she lacked any immediately visible, biological, outward clues for anyone else to notice. If anyone were to find out, she was certain it would be through her behavior, and her behavior was something that could be strictly controlled and regulated. No matter how achingly stone-hard and swollen her clitoris got, how sensitive each brush of her pants or the seat underneath her felt, or how each twitch and clench of her lower muscles radiated with the threat of burning pleasure. No one would ever know.

It was certainly more overpoweringly strong of a feeling than she'd ever felt in her life, that was for sure. She did wonder why that was, but when she thought of what recent events could've potentially caused her to feel so aroused, her mind could only fall back to the events of the wedding. When she thought of her darling Laurance, bloodied teeth bared and tearing through flesh for her, to save her, his wild, scarlet eyes blazing with devotion to her…

…She decided she wasn't going to think about that, either.

She cracked it up to the assumption that she was simply ovulating, and this month's ovulation period was just a bit more…concentrated, than it usually was. She was used to her libido shifting with the fluctuating state of her hormones, and she was used to her body's hormones taking weird and potentially disconcerting directions. She was sure it was normal, and in a week or so, it would pass.

That did mean her period would likely be starting soon after this biological episode ended, and she was not looking forward to handling that on top of all the military shit she had going on, but frankly, it was far from the first time she'd handled it fine, and it'd be far from the last. Whatever. Normal body functions. She decided it was fine.

She would simply muscle through it, focus on her work as a distraction, pretend it never happened, and no one would notice anything changed.

She waited for a few days to pass, expecting her symptoms to get better and easier to handle as her hormones shifted.

…The days passed.

Nothing changed.

Oh boy.

It itched at the back of her mind with relentless, burning fury as she went through the motions of the day, desperately hunting for a distraction. She was wrapping up her trip around town now, speaking to everyone she could find in Phoenix Drop in hopes the endless, mindless chatter might distract from the sweltering need vibrating through her entire body.

She found her distractions in Dmitri's sudden arrival, in unfurling drama with Dante and Nicole and the strained state of their relationship, in delivering the news of what happened with the werewolf kingdom and the news that they were now Meif'was, asking the resident magicks users, Zoey and Kawaii~Chan, for any information or aid on finding a potion to put them back to normal, and checking up on everyone else in town.

But the second the last person of the day, Donna, had said her goodbyes and sent them away, Aphmau was left with nothing to do and nowhere to go to distract herself anymore.

And, curiously, Laurance had been following close behind her the entire time.

That in itself wasn't really anything new. As her bodyguard, he frequently kept himself fixed to her hip, but lately he'd seemed…off. He was fixated on her, in a way she couldn't quite place.

And now, when they were walking back home, she could feel that odd energy in the air between them again.

When they got to the front door, she stood in place while he took the keys from his belt, went through the ring to find the right one, and inserted it into the lock on the door. Aphmau couldn't help but squirm a bit in place, now that she was left to stand.

Her thighs chafed against the bottommost edge of her crotch, her pants pulled tight against the area, but not tight enough. She shifted her legs together a titch, her tail twisting and curling in on itself as her ears pinned back against her head. She was certain Laurance wasn't paying any attention to her. She was wrong.

"Hey, uh-…" He cleared his throat. He had unlocked the front door, but now stood still, his hand on the doorknob as he hesitated. "I hope this isn't too-…personal, to ask, but… My Lady, is anything wrong?"

"What?" She blinked, freezing up and swiftly readjusting to a "normal" and "unassuming" stance. It felt like agony.

Her heartbeat picked up a pace at the idea that her humiliating secret had potentially been found out. Damn it, why did Laurance have to care about her so much to notice whether she was under the weather? Maybe he just thinks I'm sick, or stressed. She decided to take that assumption as a cover story and run with it.

"Well, I mean, I imagine Nicole is far from happy about the fact that her son is missing. Once she finds out he's gone, I bet she's going to tear apart the kingdom looking for him." With a wince, "I really hope she isn't mad at me for-… kidnapping her son, or anything like that."

"I'm sure she won't be angry with you once she finds out what happened. He's a rowdy kid, surely this isn't the first time he's snuck off and gotten himself into trouble." He shrugged, but then shifted gears. He seemed…uncomfortable. Tense. "But that's not-… exactly what I meant." He shifted on his feet to face her fully, his blue eyes narrowed in a studying, skeptical stare. "Aph… Has there been anything going on with you-… physically?"

Shitfuck. "What?" Her voice cracked. "Uh-… No. No! No, there's nothing going on, haha!" She choked out a nervous laugh, jumping far too quickly for the nearest excuse to be believable. "Why- uh- why do you ask?"

He stared at her blankly, his furrowed expression unreadable and conflicted. His tail tip twitched like a rattlesnake, as his shoulders tensed. "No reason. Just-… wondering, I guess." He looked away. "You seemed stressed. I wondered if there was anything-… o-out of the ordinary, but that's all. Nothing else."

…Then, awkwardly, he returned to meeting her gaze. He stepped closer, leaning down a titch. "Is there… anything I can do to-… help? With your stress?"

Why is he acting so weird?

"Um-…no. I'm fine, thanks." She then narrowed a scrutinizing stare at him. "Is there anything going on with you?"

"Nope!" He jolted back, separating himself physically away from her. "Nothing at all. Perfectly fine." His grin seemed tense and forced.

"…Alllright." She held her stare. "…So are you going to open the door, or…?"

He swung it wide open in a rush, stepping behind the door to open it for her. "Ladies first." He acquiesced, not looking her in the eyes.

"Thank you." She stepped inside. Pointing inside, "I'll just- um- be in my quarters, then—"

"Yup! I'll uh- I'll be in mine! For a while!"

"Mmm-hm. Likewise."

He didn't step inside after her for a few seconds. For a moment, it looked like the poor sod had forgotten how to walk.

She slid a step to the right. "…See you later?"

He remembered where he was, jumping in place and quickly stepping in after her, shutting the door behind him. "Yes, haha! Byeeee! See you later, my Lady!"

"Mmhm!"

They both scurried away to their separate rooms as quickly as they could.

Aphmau slammed the door behind her, pressing her back against it. "Haaaah." She let out a heavy, shuddering exhale, sinking down. "Sweet Irene."

She scurried around to lock the door, and turned to her bed. "Thank the Gods. Irene's sakes."

The sweet song of pillowy, blanketed, secluded relief called to her with the singing of angels on high. She crawled into bed, letting her lower back rest against the pillow and pulling the blanket over her knees, creating a tent to hide herself away from the outside world.

She'd been yearning to do this all day.

She slipped her hand under the waistband of her pants, running her fingers down a thick and fluffy bush of dark purple hair that had grown and multiplied since her transformation into a Meif'wa.

There was one perk to her current state. Whatever it was her hormones were doing to her body, it had her so worked up already as a baseline that it saved her a lot of the trouble of foreplay. With how ragingly sensitive her entire vulva felt, there were times throughout the day where she was certain she could come untouched, if she focused hard enough on clenching and tightening and shifting the right muscles around.

Her hand drifted down past the bush of fluffy fur and to the topmost tip of her folds. At the slightest graze of her clitoris, sparks were sent dancing through her abdomen. She hissed a sharp inhale through her fangs, as she lifted her finger back up.

With a low, quiet mrrrrp through her tightly pressed lips, her tail flicking back and forth, she pressed back down with the pad of her middle finger. Before anything else, the area ached with a blunted pain. Her clit was swollen and engorged with blood, hard and erect enough to spike at the tip. It throbbed at the faintest touch, begging and pleading for contact.

She pressed down further with one finger, feeling the damp squish of her folds giving way, while the hardened vein of her clit raged on, even where she could feel it underneath the surface.

Lightly, she rubbed side to side with her fingertip, left and right, in a repeating pattern as she felt the pleasure work out of her clitoris in a tantalizing wave, spreading down her urethra and buzzing throughout the entire nearby area, with her clit as the centermost, strongest source of sharp and vivid sensation.

She relaxed into the feeling, letting out a sigh of relief as her desperately starving needs were finally being met.

It was easy to drift into thought, sitting still and repeating the same slight movement of shifting one knuckle, over and over again as more than enough to send her roiling with pleasure.

…Why was Laurance asking earlier…? What was he asking earlier? He seemed disturbed by something, whatever it was. Perhaps something was on his mind as well, stressing him out and making him worry. Was he worried about rebuilding The Phoenix Alliance? Was he sick? Did someone else get sick?

It's probably nothing, she thought. If something was terribly wrong, he would tell me. I trust him.

…Laurance…

Oooh, Laurance. She thought of his face. His sharper jaw, but softer eyes. His shoulders, his chest, when she last saw him bare from the waist up. Her tail curled in on itself, her finger picking up the pace as she remembered his voice in her mind, telling her how much he cared for her, how much he loved her. How he wanted her. What he wanted to do to her.

She wanted him to tell her exactly what he thought of doing to her. She avoided the thought most of the time, but as her body blazed with want, she more than entertained the idea now. What fantasies did he have of her? Did he watch her with a fire in his eyes, wishing to smother her with kisses, to nip her neck as he fucked into her, slowly and sweetly?

She clenched at the thought of it, of Laurance guiding her to bed, kneeling at her bedside, slotting his face between her legs. Nuzzling her thighs open with his nose, kissing along her sensitive skin. When the image of Laurance licked between the lips of her vagina, she could almost feel a trace of a phantom's touch in its place, slicking the wet lips of her interior and ricocheting the sensation deep up inside her.

In his image, his tongue would press open her lips and seep deeper in, to rub her soft, velvety flesh and curl the wet tip of his tongue against her ribs and divots. She swallowed thickly around her own saliva, as this false Laurance in her head plunged only deeper, licked faster, with wild and unfettered abandon.

The pleasure in her clitoris grew stronger, strung higher, and in a blinding flash of light behind her eyes, she realized just how desperately she wanted him.

The orgasm shivered through her entire body, twitching her legs in succeeding jolts, as she gasped and panted on the other side.

"Mmmgh…" Eyes shut, she fell limp on the comedown, slowing her hand to a halt and leaning her head back against the headboard of the bed.

But where her desire would normally wane and soothe, this time it only blazed stronger. It caught her off guard, punching straight through her with the force of a cannonball. She needed something more, and she needed it now.

Deep in her core, she churned and writhed with a calling, a needing to be filled, to have something far more than just clitoral stimulation pound into her and thrust against her walls. It made her squirm and arch her back in place, how desperately she physically ached for more.

With a huff, she dragged her other hand down to her clitoris, setting her left index finger atop the throbbing point while two fingers of her other hand traced down to her vagina. Her left hand rubbed at her clit, while her right spread open the veiny, bulbous lips of her labia, and dipped inside.

Nope- wait. Nope. Absolutely not. Her nails, sharp and pointed like claws, scraped her walls in painful scratches. That absolutely would not work. In a rush of motion, determined and feral, she pulled them out and stuck them in her mouth, tasting the vivid flavor of her own fluids on her tongue as she bit her nails with her teeth and sliced them down to blunted nubs.

She rubbed them out a bit on the fabric of her pants, to inefficiently file them, and plunged straight back into business.

They still scraped a tiny bit around her lips, but it was significantly better of an experience the second time around.

Her walls were tight with soggy flesh, clenched around her fingers. She could feel the veins when she swished back and forth, feeling the soft texture ruffle against the pad of her fingertips. Her other hand rubbed her clit side to side, working out a stable stream of pleasure to counter out where she was raw and irritated inside.

Electricity coursed through her blood in pumps, rapturous heartbeat pounding under the weight of her ribcage. Where should would normally be slow and careful, she raged with desperation for something fast and hard, for the burn of raw skin against skin.

She rolled herself over on her chest, sweat slicked down her brow and her back as she bit onto the pillow, creasing her brow and muffling a growling mrrrrhhhww of animalistic sound, digging its way out of her throat involuntarily. Her spine curled, arching her back into the air, the fur on her back bristling as her tail shook.

Her thick fingers plunged in and out, as the raw, ruffled texture of her skin gave way to something slicked up and mucousy. She carved as deep as she could, and yet it still wasn't enough to fuck as deep as she needed it to be.

She needed something hot and thick pressing up against her walls, she needed a bulbous head slamming against the ridges deep within. She needed claws gripping around her wrists, teeth sinking into the back of her neck, orange fur petting up against hers. She wanted Laurance.

She needed Laurance arched behind her, his hands gripping tight into her waist, panting into her ears. His sweat dripping amidst her own, as his cock thrusted deeper and deeper inside. The veins of his flesh rubbing divots into the mucous of her membrane, his precum spurting in droplets from the head of his dick, feeling the warm, sticky fluid fill her up, his tongue rough like sandpaper against her shoulder blades and throat.

Feral and untamed, oh, to hear him howl, to whimper and gasp against her back. To feel his hands curl up her chest and grip iron-tight into her breasts, claws digging into her skin, scratching irritated red lines to mark her as his.

In and out, at a buildingly rapid pace, her fingers punched in and out, her other hand nailed hard against the crook of her clit, pinning it as far back as it could go, as she flicked her knuckle back and forth, faster and faster.

"Haah-! Gh-!" Her gasping squeaked something high and breathy, broken faint whimpers against the pillow. Beads of her saliva had already made a small pool in the fabric, as she let go one moment to whimper, and bit back down the next. She yowled into the cushion, her entire body jerking violently in place, as orgasm finally crashed through her.

Rocketing pleasure filled her up from the inside out, seeping through her body in waves, down to her ankles and up to her wrists, fuzzing out her head and zipping all thoughts shut to a buzzing radio static. Her body twitched with each ripple, feeling the clenching pulsating waves tighten and loosen around her fingers.

She rode out each final pulse of pleasure, until it all slowed to a standstill.

She collapsed with a defeated huff.

"Mmmrrrggh…" A groan pursed through her lips as she pulled out her hand and dragged her arm up to rest against the pillow, the poor thing sore, achey and just as tired as she was.

Blood in her skull swam in a dizzying circle. Everything felt good, everything felt tired and buzzed, and she could still feel the delicious aftershocks of her orgasm tearing through her groin, tempting her to come back for more.

She did want more, but she was fairly certain if she tried to do that again, her arm might just give out on her midway through. Mmm… If only Laurance were here to continue for me…

A moment passed of her brain in a sleepy, absent slurry.

It clicked back into place. She froze. What? What did I just- about Laurance?

It sunk in. She usually never allowed herself to think so much of Laurance, or Garroth, whenever she was handling herself and her desires. She always shied away from the image of them in her minds, shooing away the thoughts that naturally pulled in their direction, banishing them her embarrassment and shame. It was rude to think of someone who might not even want to be thought of like that, she told herself (knowing full well that she was lying to herself and she knew that both men would be more than ecstatic to find out she was jerking off to their image).

She always told herself she simply wanted to be polite and sensible, but in reality, she was terrified.

Whatever apprehension she'd walled herself up with before had clearly dissolved, in the wake of the overwhelming, hormonal lust that controlled her body now. She'd slipped up for one moment, and ended up cumming twice to the image of Laurance Zvahl, eating her out and railing her into the mattress like there was no tomorrow.

She gulped, her face flushed a bright, blaring red.

Uh oh.

She would simply have to lock this memory away, just like the rest of them. She would pick herself back up, put herself together, and sweep it all under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind. It never happened.

…In the next room over, Laurance stood keeled over with his lower back pressed flush against the wooden plank wall, a handful of thick, white cum dripping down his wrist and soaking his right palm. He clasped onto the base of his cock with his left hand, fished out of his pants as it twitched and ached with oversensitivity.

He gulped, ears pinned back against his head as they burned a dark red shade. He'd just finished for the second time, and still his body buzzed loud and obnoxious with its own hormonal call, beckoning him to chase his overpowering, feral desires.

He slumped down, weak, with a shuddering exhale. He hissed under his breath, "…Shit."

Chapter Text

Aphmau and Laurance started the next day anew like nothing ever happened.

"Good morning!" Aphmau waved to him as she stepped into the kitchen, cheerful and bright.

"Good morning, my love!" He beamed back at her from where he stood at the oven, cooking breakfast.

Both of their grins were forced.

"Morning, both of you." Zoey hummed, seated at the dining table with a cup of tea in her hands. She did not try to match their energy any more than a polite smile.

Aphmau slid on over to Laurance's side. "Busy day, I bet! Lots of work to do!"

He did a double take when he glanced at her, but quickly smothered whatever briefly appeared in his expression under the glaring light of a cheerful smile. "Mm-hmm! Lots and lots of work. Looking forward to it!"

"Oh my goodness, me too!" She gasped, holding a hand to her chest. "How crazy is that?"

"Suuuper crazy. Mhm."

…Zoey couldn't quite place her finger on it, but something was very wrong with those two.

After breakfast, the first line of business for the day was Aphmau's daily rounds through Phoenix Drop. Every morning, she did a quick patrol of the perimeter of town, dropping by to say hello to any villager she found on the way. She took note of any holes in the outer walls, anything that needed repairs, the daily news, and anything new going on between her villagers. Laurance followed close behind.

As her patrol took her through the center of town, Kawaii~Chan was up next.

Kawaii~Chan stopped her first, when she saw her coming. "Oh! Aphmau! Lady Aphmau!" She waved with her entire arm, a glitter of friendly glee in her golden eyes. "Come on in! I made pie!"

"Oooo!" With a skip in her step, Aphmau followed her inside.

Her dining room was small, but cozy. The stone brick walls were lined with decor, with crude children's drawings hung up in portraits and colorful, fake flowers made out of construction paper and glue dotting the frames. At the wooden table centered a vase full of sweet-scented pink and red roses and wildflowers, with greenhouse pots in the windows growing fruits, vegetables, and even more flowers, filling the air with the verdant scent of spring. The morning light warmed in through the open windows, down upon the fluffy white rug on the stone tile floor, between the kitchen counter and the table pushed against the wall.

The pie was fresh out of the oven, cinnamon and apple with nuts, served on a tray with two extra plates and forks that Kawaii~Chan slid to the center of the table, as Laurance and Aphmau took their seats.

Laurance took in a big, long whiff of the pastry. "Hoooh, that smells delicious, Kawaii~Chan. Excellent as ever."

"It's true. No one would miss your baking for the world." Aphmau nodded, taking her fork and twirling it in her claws.

"Awww, thank you!" She giggled, lifting her hand to her mouth. "You're both too sweet."

"Not as sweet as this is gonna be!" Laurance whistled, leaning over the table to serve himself up a slice.

With a light laugh, Kawaii~Chan took a seat across from them.

"How have things been lately, Kawaii~Chan?" Aphmau offered, making idle chatter as she took a bite of her slice.

The apples were soft, but not as soft as the apple sauce was. With sweet and sugary, mushy apple sauce, bitter apple slices, paired with the sweet of cinnamon spice and the complimentary crunch of the nuts and crust, it was the best meal she'd had all day.

"Doing alright, we've been managing. Dmitri is staying with us temporarily while we wait for Nicole to arrive. Oh- I've sent her a letter, it should reach her soon. Perhaps in the next few days." She hummed. "Dmitri is a handful, but-…" She trailed off, growing quiet…almost solemn. "It's-… a pleasure to have him here. I don't mind his presence at all."

"I'm glad he has you guys to look after him. He's a menace, but he's in good hands." Laurance gave a curt nod, scooping another chunk of pie onto his fork.

"Mmhm…" She didn't seem all there, until she looked back up at the pie and the audience in front of her and blinked back into the present. Livening up with a smile, "But that's enough about me! What about you two? How have you been faring lately?"

"Good. Doing good." Aphmau replied a bit hastily. It was her automatic response to the question, more dismissive than honest.

"Doing… fine." Laurance cleared his throat, sparing an awkward glance in Aphmau's direction. "We're doing fine. Just business as usual."

"Ah." For a reason neither of them quite understood, Kawaii~Chan chuckled, knowingly, as if she were in on a joke they weren't apart of. "I'm certain you are doing… quite well."

With a breath, she continued, "Speaking of which, I hope it's not too intrusive of me to ask, but, how are you managing your first heat cycle? Is everything okay? Are you having any health issues?"

Beat.

They both slowed to a halt. The room fell silent.

They blinked at her. Kawaii~Chan blinked back.

As the meaning of the words began to sink in for the two of them, Laurance drifted off into space, his mouth falling slightly ajar, as Aphmau swallowed thick and hard around the bite of pie still left in her mouth, shoving it down as if it were a rock.

"Wh-… What? What do you mean?" Aphmau managed out in a croaking voice, her smile wavering and tense. "…He-Heat cycle?"

"Sorry, was that- rude of me to ask?" Kawaii~Chan stammered, holding up a hand as her own nerves set in. "I-I just figured since being a Meif'wa is pretty new to you two, you'd probably appreciate someone checking up on you! You know, like a friend! A-and considering the fact that being in heat is such a huge health thing, I'd imagine it could be scary or confusing for someone experiencing their first ever heat, so it might help to-… have someone to talk to about it…?" She winced, her shoulders rising. Then, rushing as she remembered herself, "N-Not the juicy bits! You don't need to tell me anything personal, I-I was just—"

"THAT'S why?!" Laurance finally cracked, jumping in his seat with an exasperated shout, his hands and fork slamming down on the table. "That's why I've been—?! Great IRENE that's why I fucking— I knew it! I knew it!"

"Wh-what? What do you- Laurance—?" Aphmau scrambled to keep up, sweat slicking down her brow as pure panic coursed through her veins. "What do you mean? Knew what?"

Laurance sunk down in his chair until Kawaii~Chan could barely see his face under the lip of the table. All the while a groan grated out of his throat, burying his face in his hands.

"I fucking knew it. I knew it. I-… oohhh my gods…" He wheezed.

"Laurance…?" Aphmau's ears fell back, her shoulders hunched as raw, tumultuous emotion racked through her body. "Wh-…what are you talking about?"

His ears pinned back, his face flushed a vivid, dark cherry red. She could see the furrowing of his brow in the cracks between his fingers, shoved against his face. He hesitated first, wincing out a bitten sound through his tightly pursed lips. Shying away, he motioned to Kawaii~Chan, redirecting the question to her, "You- you know, don't you? You know what's going on, right?"

Kawaii~Chan felt like she was watching a building collapse in front of her. Rubbing the back of her neck, she tried, "I-…believe I do…?"

"Then explain. Explain it to her. Please."

Aphmau looked to her friend, visibly confused and distressed.

"Um-… well…" Kawaii~Chan rubbed her thumbs against her hands, shifting awkwardly in her seat. "Lately, you've been producing a lot of strong pheromones that I-I'm pretty sure guarantees that you're in heat. And when a female Meif'wa produces the-… uh- the heat pheromones, if they're nearby, male Meif'was are able to pick up on them. And though they don't go into heat themselves, their bodies involuntarily create a-…similar response, in reaction to the-… the female Meif'wa. It's entirely involuntary for both parties, purely just your biological nature, but um- it puts the male Meif'wa in a equally heightened state of- um- of arousal, and… uh…" Kawaii~Chan trailed off, her voice falling small and meek, as the weight of the tension in the room seeped in, cold and thick as ice.

Slow and grating like a chunk of metal dragging across a floor of steel, the puzzle pieces started to slide into place. Miraculously, every strange thing her body had been doing to her for the past week or so finally started to make sense.

The bone-chilling dread seeped in next.

Gradually, jutting with each inch like a broken screw, Aphmau's head swerved to stare down at Laurance Zvahl. He was adamantly refusing to meet her gaze, blocking his view of her out of his vision with his hands. The tips of his ears were bright pink.

Kawaii~Chan cleared her throat. "There are some other symptoms, of course, but um- You really didn't know?? Couldn't you at least tell?"

"No! No I didn't know!" Aphmau cried, exasperated. "No one explained this to me! I- I didn't think it was any of my business, considering I was human two months ago! What do you mean I'm in heat?! What do you mean if I'm in heat, that he-…" She fell quiet, turning back to him.

Laurance made a weak whimper of a squeak as he physically shied away in his chair.

"…Did you know?!" She pointed at him with a rigid, trembling hand, every muscle in her face strained.

"I-… you- uh- ahaha…" Laurance tugged on the collar of his shirt, visibly sweating. "I had a… sneaking suspicion that something was up? I guess? I did wonder if it was possibly related to cat heat cycles, since I remembered we-… we used to have a lot of stray cats in Meteli. They'd love to stick around our village, since there was always an abundance of fish for them to eat, and every now and then, they'd go into heat and they'd yowl like crazy and it'd drive everyone nuts. I remembered what their symptoms were like, so I thought-…maybe-… it might also happen to me? Since Meif'was are like-…part cat, I guess?" With a glance to Kawaii~Chan, "Is that right?"

She gave a shrug of compromise. "Not exactly, but I see what you mean."

"Right. I didn't know for certain."

Aphmau fell silent.

After everything they'd been through together, she couldn't help but feel a bit…betrayed. "…Why didn't you tell me?" She murmured.

"Oh sure, like it was ever going to be courteous of me to tell you!" He strained, flinging up a hand. "Flirting with you is my favorite pastime, even if it's purely for fun. But I'd never take it too far. If I told you what was happening to me, especially my suspicion that it came from you, it'd be like I was trying to-… force you to have sex with me."

He then sat up, facing her with a serious, sincere gaze. "I do want you, yes, and I always have. But my love for you goes far beyond the realm of-…simply wanting your body. You're more to me than that." He murmured.

"If we were ever, in a million years, to have sex, which I honestly wasn't expecting you to want anytime soon, I wouldn't want it to be forced, or circumstantial, or something we wouldn't want. I'd want it to be special. I'd want it to be because I love you, and you love me, and we can be something, together."

He lifted up a hand to rub the back of his neck. "I never would have told you. Not because I don't trust you to confide in you with things that are important, but just-… I-… I didn't want to push you away, or hurt you, or try to strong-arm you into something you didn't want and weren't ready for. It wouldn't be right."

A softening sympathy cottoned the lining of her heart, as her bristling fur flattened and soothed. "Laurance…"

Before they could escalate any further, Kawaii~Chan held up her hand. "Maybe you two should talk about this somewhere private…? It seems like you two have a lot you need to discuss, and I'm not sure my dining room is exactly the best place for it…"

"Ah…" Aphmau's shoulders fell. "Yeah, um-… we should-…" A nervousness blistered between the two of them, as she met his wary, worried eyes. She swallowed down her saliva. "…Talk. In private."

Laurance sucked in a tight breath, and nodded.

After they left, Dante slid down the ladder to meet them, only to find the dining room was already empty.

"Aw, man. I thought they were staying over a lil longer, what's with the rush?" He said with a pout. Then, with a pointed look to their unfinished plates of pie on the table, "Hey, they left their plates, too! What gives?"

Kawaii~Chan hadn't moved from the window, where she was watching them walk home in the world's most awkward single file line.

"They didn't know they were in heat."

Dante blinked. "…What? Wait- how would they not—" His expression dropped when the full extent of the situation sunk in. "Oooooh. Oh boy."

Aphmau shut the bedroom door behind her. She locked it for good measure.

Humid and heavy hung the air over the bed, in the way Laurance watched her move, standing a few feet behind her. Infestation itched under his skin, inside her organs, in his shaking hands as they reached out to touch her, only to retract. Not a word needed to be spoken for the two of them to know how hot the pulse ran in their core, the sweat that ran down their backs, the way their tails and fingers twitched.

It was different, when it was Aphmau and Aphmau alone. It was supposed to be her burden to carry, heavy atop her shoulders as a plinth regarded to isolation. If there was anything Aphmau had learned in her life, it was the knowledge that the crown hung heavy atop her head, but only one head was made to hold its jewels.

She held the world, the universe, the mere concept of peace and tranquility in her hands. She'd accepted that responsibility years ago.

But Laurance came along, and the two became inextricably tied. He was always there to interfere with her plans, to catch her when she didn't ask to fall, standing beside her through it all. When she relegated herself up to the fates that clamped around her throat, he was the one diving in to cut the rope, a wild dog in the face of a God, unleashed and independent.

Somewhere along the line, he'd dedicated himself to nothing but disruption through persistence. When she lost all control and was brought to kill, to wet her hands with blood under the throne of the divine, she was certain he would finally despise her. But instead, he'd wrapped his arms around her and told her, again, again, how he loved her.

He loved her. She was not supposed to be loved. And yet, here they were.

Could've done with less god-awfully awkward circumstances, though.

"Aph—"

"I'm sorry." She broke first. "I'm so sorry." She clutched onto the door, her hands balling up into fists as she let her forehead fall against the wood in a punishing thud. "I- I never meant for this to happen. I never wanted this to happen. You weren't supposed to- I was just going to keep this to myself, a-and you never would've been bothered by my problems, but it happened anyway, and I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry." Her voice cracked with the threat of oncoming tears.

"Aphmau…" Laurance softened, stepping closer.

She felt his head brush against the back of her ears, as it came to rest on top of her own. He wrapped his arms around her and clutched her soft and close. She leaned back into him with a whimper, her body's responses flaring to life as she pressed herself against him, melting into his touch far more than she initially planned.

"It's alright. You don't need to apologize." He cooed in her ear, hushed by sympathy. "You're not annoying me with your problems, you know. Sure, I can worry about you, I want to make sure you're okay, but I'm not mad at you." He then muttered in an awkward branch at humor, "…I'm quite the opposite, actually."

"It's so stupid. This is so-… Uurrrggh." She rubbed her face with her hands. "I'm not supposed to be like this. I'm supposed to be human, I'm supposed to be normal, but the stupid- fucking- Michi and the- uuurrrgh."

"I know. I'm mad about that, too. But until we find a cure, this is our life now. We're not human anymore, and that means we have not-human problems, different needs, different situations, it- the circumstances aren't natural, but the changes still are."

"I shouldn't have any changes. It's not fair."

"It's not." When he shook his head, she felt it ruffling through her long, black hair. "I'm sorry."

She sighed, shuddering and tired. "…What am I supposed to do? What do I even do? I can't just-… I mean- I have a job I need to do, I have a war to fight, I—"

"The war can be left outside for a little while. The world can wait, no matter how much it says it needs you. You need to take care of yourself first."

Clutching on tight to the arm wrapped around her chest, she whimpered, "…Wh-…what about Garroth?"

"Mm…" Laurance frowned, drifting into thought.

It felt wrong for both of them, to have him gone. Both of them wanted him to be here, and felt it was an injustice of the Gods themselves that he wasn't.

Laurance missed him a lot. His heart ached at the thought of him, yearned to have the man by his side again. His dearest friend and companion, his partner in arms. They were supposed to be pursuing Aphmau together, not… like this.

He tried to lighten the mood. "…You know what you should do?" Smirking something mischievous and gleeful, "How about, we could do a little something-something, and then when you meet him in your dreams again, you should surprise him by doing the same thing with him, and then we tell him what happened between us."

"Laurance!" She yelped, offended and aghast.

"What?" He could only laugh. "He wouldn't be as mad!"

She huffed out something annoyed, but harmless. "…Wouldn't that make him more upset?"

Muttering, "Okay, probably." Reassured, "But I think-… I-… okay. I know that I'm feeling like- this, right now, but I don't want to throw him under the bus either. When we made that promise to say that we wouldn't pursue anything deeper until he was here, I really meant it."

Drifting down to take her hand, his fingers tucked themselves between hers, "But-… I think in these past few months with him gone, I've realized some things. I've realized how much he means to me, how much I miss him when he's gone… How brief our lives together are in the face of forces like Zane, like the Nether, those that come to hurt us like the werewolf King. In no scenario should we be apart.

I joke, but… I really do think that when you see him in your dreams again, you should tell him that we've decided. We're sticking with him, we want him to stay, and we're not going to abandon him like he thought we did. No matter what happens, he's not going away. We're gonna bring him back, and when we do, he's gonna be apart of us."

An ache bloomed in her heart, thrumming with the grief of missing him, the physicality of wanting him. She saw how devastated Garroth looked, on the day of the invasion. If she could only reach inside the Irene Dimension and pull him out herself, take him home where he belonged, everything would be okay again.

"…Now we just need some way to tell him that." He muttered.

"I could tell him in my dreams, when I see him again tonight…"

"Mm. That'd be nice." He rubbed his cheek against the back of her head, tracing a circle on the back of her hand as he slumped over her. "What I wish I could do is be there to talk to him, too, so I could just… run up to him, give him a big old smooch, and tell him that we love him."

"Yeah…" She sighed, blissful. The smallest of smiles formed on her lips, parting through her fatigue and the weight of her stress.

"I got kind of close, during the fight in the Irene Dimension. We didn't have enough time for me to tell him the full breadth of it, though… Poor guy seemed so certain we were gonna just-…ditch him. Forever. Like we weren't even gonna be friends anymore, as if I'd just stop talking to him completely if I ever got with you." Shrugging, "A ridiculous thought. He couldn't be rid of me for the world, no matter how hard he tries to push me away. But I don't blame him for coming to that conclusion." Flicking his finger down the bridge of her nose, he teased, "You are pretty enchanting, My Lady."

"Hey!" She swatted his hand away, but still laughed nonetheless. Her smile grew a little wider, a little brighter, despite the weight that dragged in her heart.

As terrified as she was of even facing her emotions, her soul ached for the relief of knowing that she could be loved. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, if she let down her walls and allowed herself to be soothed. She'd thought for so long that it would hurt on the way down, that if she ever had to "choose" which man to love, she would be slicing off half of herself no matter which direction she picked. Between the two, there was no option that made her satisfied in the end.

So she never made a choice at all. After all this time, after everything the three of them had been through together, to lose one of her treasured boys would be to die on the inside, little by little.

But they weren't the young strangers they were before, when their hearts only began to flutter at the names of one another, with pride to prove and little to worry about. They had fought side-by-side on the battlefield of war together, they had died for each other, came back from the grave for each other, sacrificed everything for each other, burned down the world for each other, vowed the rest of their entire lives, their bodies and their souls for the servitude of one another. Garroth and Laurance were linked to her at her soul, wrapped tight and snug around her very core.

She didn't know what exactly they were, or if anything would work out between them at all, but she did know that her time with them was fleeting. With Laurance's growing corruption, and Garroth being so easily swiped away from her without so much as a goodbye…

It was true, they could be killed at any moment.

She had been terrified of how it might feel to lose them, if she let herself get too close.

But now, with Laurance holding her tight to his chest, all of her emotions magnified tenfold by the restless, blazing fury of her body and heart and soul, she could see how much they meant to her now. How desperately she wanted to be cherished, to be kissed, caressed and held late into the night, to be loved, no matter how terrified she was.

She wanted to be loved. She wanted them to love her, at the very least before Garroth could be killed by Zane, before Laurance could be stolen away by his corruption, before Aphmau herself could be slaughtered in the wake of war.

It was in that moment, when she began to tear up.

Laurance noticed the shift. His smile faded as he tried to see her face, worry seeping back into his voice. "Aph? What's—"

Sucking in a trembling breath, she whirled around to face him, smushed his face in her hands, and slammed her face into his.

"Mmph—!" He froze up, wide-eyed and shocked.

She pulled away, briefly, to rub her bruised nose. "Ow…" She hiccuped through her tears.

An alarmed and confused, but sincere, hopeful smile spread across his face. He didn't seem to care so much about how sore his nose would be feeling from the impact. "Aph…?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck. When she leaned back in, he was ready for her.

His arms came down to wrap around her waist, pulling her tight up against him. Affection, sweet and gentle and kind, gave way to hunger in the push and pull of her lips against his. In the years of time she'd been waiting to kiss him, in the passing glances and late-night conversations that drew dangerously close, the countless mornings spent eating breakfast together, the countless nights they said goodnight to each other before bed. Every time Laurance said to her, "I love you," and the many times she nearly said it back.

When at the night of the wedding, Laurance was tearing into the blood of dozens all around her, and all she could think about was how distressed he was going to feel later when he saw what he'd done. When she grabbed him by the collar and kissed him then, a silent, unspoken, "I love you, too. Please, come back to me." The look in his eyes when she pulled away, the fear and the regret, as he realized what he'd made her do.

In the moment they spent wrapped around each other under the glaring light of the moon, soaked in pools of blood, as Laurance sobbed into her shoulder, and she only cradled his head against her chest. In the aftermath that followed, when he called himself a monster, and she couldn't fathom why. In Nicole's guest room, when she said she would have let him kill her, if he turned his blade on her. She meant every word.

When she kissed him now, saying still, silent and unspoken, "I love you," she meant every word.

He kissed her back.

In terms of their urges, it was the last shot that broke the dam of carefully regulated self-control. Any hope they had of holding back withered and died in their arms. Tender, gentle kissing devolved into a mash sloppy and wet, their legs stumbled back towards the bed in jagged motions, nearly bowling each other over, clothes were swiftly discarded and thrown to the side.

Aphmau pushed him back onto the bed, sitting his flank down and crawling onto his lap. Between kisses, she said, "I've never- done this before, so-"

"Neither have I," He gasped between her lips. "You're fine."

"What?" She pulled back for a moment. "Really? You- Ohh, no, wait, I remember. You-"

"Yeah, back when-"

"Mhm. No, no, I remember. Thank Irene, because I-" As he kissed along her throat, "I have no idea what I'm doing- ah,"

Muffled against her shoulder, "That's fine. Me neither. Just try shit."

"Mmhm. I- I can do that," As he slid his hands up her sides, almost to her chest, "I can try shit."

His hands hovered over her body. "Can I—? Pretty please with a cherry on top?"

"Pfft- yes, yes. I- yes." She laughed. "Have at it."

"Yes, ma'am!" He spared her a salute, like it was an order. It got a laugh out of her.

She gripped the bottom of her light gray shirt and hoisted it over her head, then took to unclipping her bra, wrapping her arms behind her back and fiddling with the mechanism while Laurance simply sat in wonder.

To Laurance, he'd been waiting ages to see such a sight. Now that his dream was finally coming true, the poor lad was a bit star-struck.

She noticed. "What are you gawking at?"

"You're beautiful."

"Oh, hush, you." She scoffed. "Damn stupid thing—" Her bra finally unclipped. She slid the straps off her arms and discarded it to the floor, finally bare. Only now did her shy, sweating nerves start to ramp up to something significant and droning.

Laurance wasn't ashamed at all, however. The giddy grin of a kid in a candy shop spread across his face.

He pulled her in close, pressing his face against her chest and dotting the top of her breast with kisses. In a jubilant, sing-songy voice, he purred, "He-llooo, you beautiful ladies!"

"Oh- you—! Cut that out!" Aphmau flushed a cherry red, pressing her hand into his face to push him away.

"Why? They're excellent appendages that are deserving of love and affection!"

"It's embarrassing!"

"It is not!" He swept back in, pressing kisses against both breasts respectively. "They will be my new favorite thing, and I will give them nicknames to show my appreciation."

"Oh my Gods, no you are not." She buried her face in her hands.

"I can and I will!" Nuzzling his face against the side of one, "This one I will call…Maurice. No. Mammarice."

"Oh my Gods— I think I'm going to strangle you."

He cracked up cackling. It took immense effort in every muscle in her face to force herself to not smile. She loved him more than life.

"You next. I can't be the only one feeling embarrassed." She tugged on his belt.

"I could never be embarrassed around you, my Lady." He hummed, undoing his belt.

"Mm, that's not true." She stood up for a moment to allow him to shimmy off his pants, and he followed a moment later, standing up to drag them down and kick them off his feet.

She could see his erection tenting into his boxers.

"Alright, fair. Fair. It's true, I'm nervous." He hooked a claw under the rim, "If I'm being honest, part of me thought this day would never come."

"Goodness, yeah. Don't get me started." Aphmau muttered, solemn, "Part of me thought one or both of us would've died before we ever got the chance."

He cocked his head to the side in a nod. "One of us did."

"I mean- like- permanently. For good."

"Mm." He grasped her face in his hands, the tips of his claws resting behind her jaw as he leaned in. "Let's just-… celebrate the opportunity while we still have it."

"Mmmhm." She met him in a kiss.

Keeping an eye cracked open as he rocked his lips into hers, she hooked her hand into his boxers and began to tug them down. She heard the faintest of shy squeaks from him as he was rendered fully revealed, his flushed and swollen cock hanging high between his legs.

Part of her nerves spiked even more at the sight of it. It was a lot… veinier and fleshier than she'd initially expected it to be, and though Laurance was roughly average in size, not anything grand or monstrous, it was still the first she'd ever seen, and more than intimidating.

She pulled her lips away from his, gripping his arms as he held her. "…Can I-… touch it?" She murmured.

"He's not gonna bite you." He chuckled. "Go right ahead. Feels a bit unreal to hear you ask me that, but by all means, please do."

She hesitated first. Trepidation lulled her back, extending out her hand to only graze the tip with the pad of her index finger.

Laurance snickered. "You're just gonna poke it?"

"Shush! I'm learning."

His snicker grew to a laugh, lighthearted and devoid of any mockery or offense.

"…What do you-… do with it?"

He laughed more. "Uh-… that's a brilliant question. Well, I can pee out of it, for one."

"Not like that! I mean—" Her cheeks burned a bright red up to the tips of her ears. "I don't know how to-… touch you. In the way you'd want me to."

"Oh. I see." Reaching out to take her hand and guide it to the shaft of his cock, he instructed in a quiet voice, "Well, you'd wrap your hand around, just like that… and you'd slide up, and down. Up, and down, just like that. You can play with the head, play with my- uh- my balls, give it a slap, I'm fine with anything, but um-… there you go. It's mostly just that."

"…That's it?" She glanced up to meet him, visibly confused.

Now he was the one confused. "What do you mean, 'that's it'?"

"Nothing, just- um-… I thought it'd be more of a- a complex deal. With layers to it and different techniques, and-…such."

His nerves spread across his face. "Is- is it a complex, layered deal for you??"

"I- kinda? I guess? Not really? Well- it- okay. I don't know."

"Well, show me. How do I touch you?"

She gulped.

A voice screamed in her head that she was mad, barreling down a rocky road of insanity that, after this point, she could never take back. Laurance was watching her every move, his eyes burning into her skin.

"…C-close your eyes. Cover your eyes for a second."

"Hm?" His ear flicked to the side, raising an eyebrow.

"Just do it."

With a shrug, "Alright."

He covered his eyes with his hands.

She took a deep breath, and undid her belt. Sliding her pant legs down to her ankles, then her panties along next, she kicked them away, out of reach.

Laurance absolutely did sneak a peek between his fingers. His grin and the jittery twitching of his tail betrayed him.

"Don't look!"

"Sorry." He couldn't help but giggle.

Once she'd stripped bare, quickly did she realized that standing like this would not be the best position to… display herself.

She crept silently back onto the bed behind him, propping her lower back against the pillow. When she spread her legs open, she could feel the chill of the air buzzing against her skin with her nerves, her skittish fears, her arousal, and, deeper down, the giddy, flustered mini version of herself jumping and dancing in glee in the center of her heart, all combined into a messy emotional slurry.

Clearing her throat, "…O-okay. I'm ready."

"Ooo!" He leapt to life, holding up his hands in giddy anticipation to touch—before he realized she'd disappeared. He looked around, lost.

"Behind you, dork."

"Oh!"

Oh. Majesty of the Gods, did he feel blessed.

The years he'd ached to see such a sight. Envisioning her only as a mystery in his head, occasional and fleeting, only to find the real thing in the flesh at last. It was a miracle he'd even had the chance to see her in her fullest, and by the Gods, was it a miracle he was ready to worship.

Her skin was a dark, warm tan, flushed a deeper red in her face, her ears, and her shoulders. Scars from previous, numerous battles marred her body and her limbs, slashes and burns and divots from arrows. A few of them Laurance could directly connect to the injuries she'd sustained in the war against O'khasis and Scaleswind, wounds he himself had witnessed her gain.

Some, such as the burns, he recognized from the night of his death, as they fought tooth and nail to escape the Nether fortress. Some were massive claw scars, from the inhuman and humanoid foes they'd faced throughout their travels.

Her long, raven-black hair draped across the pillows behind her and across her shoulders, a strand of her fringe sweeping across her face, nearly hiding her round, soft nose, her plush and chubby cheeks.

He ached to squish his face into her plump belly, to feel the curly purple fur and hair of her bush and tummy trail itch against the bridge of his nose and forehead. To kiss every one of her stretch marks, along her hips, thighs, and chest. To caress the muscles that built in her arms and her legs after years of extensive hiking, travel, combat, construction of building village homes, and all the physical exertion their work entailed.

He crawled into bed with her, the two of them now stripped completely bare. Balancing his hand against her leg, he smiled and said, "So? You wanna show me how it's done?"

With a shy nod, she reached her hand down.

She wasn't really sure how it translated to him visually when she pressed down into the very topmost tip of her folds, and she worried a bit at the idea of her finger and hand blocking the view, but she worked her way down nonetheless. "For clitoral stimulation, you want to focus on this area right here," She pulled open the folds, revealing a swollen nub at the top, "That little guy, right there."

"Aaah."

"You usually only need one finger for that, maybe two, depending on what motion you're doing. I put my finger against it and flick side to side, like this, but you can also do big, circular swirls, like that. Um- probably don't go up and down? I never do that. It pulls on my urethra, which can also be stimulated for pleasure, but um- side to side is best."

He drew closer. The fixation in his eyes was drunken, drowning in nothing but the enchanting scent of her wafting in his veins.

"The entire area can be stimulated, honestly… But be careful with your claws, a-and be delicate. It's easy for it to be painful, and I imagine the skin down there tears and scratches really easily, so that would just-…not be any good. These two big lips are my labia," She ran her fingers down the bulbous edges of her folds, and slipped between them, to scissor them apart, opening herself up to reveal the fleshy cavity within. "And that's my vagina."

Laurance licked his lips. She nearly squeaked.

"That's where this little guy's gonna go?" He reached down to brush his cock.

"If all goes well, I'd certainly hope so."

He slid close to kiss her, cupping her cheek with his hand. As his tongue licked into her mouth, his other hand caressed her chest, grasping at her breasts, on the way down past her bush. She could feel his fingers wander, exploring her folds and how she felt in his grip. When he found her clitoris, he pressed down deeper than she normal would on her own, though she could tell it was still his version of trying to be gentle with her.

When he flicked side to side across her clit, his strokes were wider, larger, and strummed deeper within her nerves. She gasped into his mouth, and he nipped at her bottom lip.

"Good?" He hummed.

"Hah- Don't- don't stop."

He'd do anything she ordered in a heartbeat.

His pace was relentless, riling her up as his body itched to fuck her, twitching and beckoning him on further and further. She whimpered and unraveled at his touch, sparks going off in her brain with each flick like firecrackers.

He kissed every inch of her skin he could reach, for he loved every piece. The scratch of his tongue against her throat buzzing her sensitive nerves, scraping down her shoulder, collarbone, and chest. While his other hand slid a finger inside of her, he worked a strong, heavy cycle of circular motion against her clitoris.

There was something to be said about masturbation that differed wildly from the touch of another being. Where she had exact, fine control over how she felt when it was her hands alone working an orgasm, when Laurance held the reigns, there came the thrill of being at his mercy.

He controlled at what speed he thrusted his fingers in and out of her, whether he curled his fingers and circled the grounds of her rim, savoring every last divot and dive like a treasure to map. There was an outside source inside of her now, and though he was a mere amateur and she was certain that came with inevitable mistakes and stumbling on both of their parts, she trusted him with the welcome invasion.

With a quiet moan parsed between her teeth, she leaned her head back against the headboard and closed her eyes, allowing her body to relax into the process.

She draped her arms across his back, massaging into the soft skin of his shoulder blades as she coaxed him forward.

"Ready now, d'you think?" He muttered against her neck.

"Mmhm."

He pulled his fingers out, leaving her twitching with an emptiness, surging with a weeping for more.

As she kissed his jaw and cheek, he pilfered the lubricant from the nightstand and poured a dollop onto his hand, rubbing the cold, gooey fluid over his cock in a circular massage.

"…Mmmm add more than that."

"Oh?" He looked up, a small, curious smile on his face.

"Just in case." She mumbled, glancing aside.

"Fair enough."

He slathered on extra.

He set the bottle back down on the nightstand, returning to kiss her throat as he gripped onto her thighs and crawled into place.

"Go slow. Gentle, please." She whispered.

"Anything you say, my love."

My love. It tickled against the chambers of her heart. He'd called her sappy pet names countless times before, even on the very first day they met, but never in this context. Never had it felt so true to her, a shining reflection of how vulnerable and open she was in his arms now, when she was trusting him with her body, her greatest weakness, her insecurities where they concentrated the most. And here he was, making love to all of them.

She was his love. She never thought it was possible to be something so grand.

The tip of his head felt a lot denser in size than merely two or three fingers. "Hah-!" Her voice hitched, jolting in place as he thrust the head less than an inch inside. She could feel it stretching her out, raw and sore even despite all their precautions. Desperately she clung on to her sense of relaxation, fighting against her own muscles and body not to tense up and cinch shut, as he gradually dug in, inch by careful inch.

"Ow- ow! Stop stop stop—" She hissed, gripping onto his shoulders.

He froze, panic spiking up his fur. "What? What's wrong? Did that hurt you?"

She let out a sigh of relief when he froze. She could still feel the muscle of her fleshy walls flexing and twitching around his head, raw and irritated.

"Should I pull out? Try something else?" He was fretting on her now.

"No, no, it- stay. Stay there. Just-…" She sucked in a breath. Despite the pain, something in her body still registered half of the experience as pleasurable. Especially as her heat began to take center stage, mitigated in a wrestling competition against her conscious brain for control over her decisions and her sense of practicality.

Part of her was nervous and scared, and wanted him to slow down ten times more. Another part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind and beg him to rail her as rough as he physically could, to tear her open from the inside out and force her into cumming fast and cumming hard. Part of her wanted the pain, wanted the way he burned against her most sensitive skin. The other part of her had no fucking clue if that was a terrible sign or not and kept thinking "oh god what if I'm bleeding and we shredded open a nasty wound and it'll get infected and ruin everything." She was not bleeding. She was fine.

But nonetheless, it was a lot to contend with.

"I think I'm okay." She exhaled. "It- it does hurt, a little bit, but I think it's-…probably fine?"

"You're hurt?" His fight or flight was kicking in.

"I'm not hurt, I-I'm just- sensitive. The skin is delicate and really sensitive and- um-…" Embarrassment pooled in. Oh, Gods, am I killing the mood already? "Nevermind, ignore me! I-I'm probably just making a big deal out of nothing, haha. It's nothing."

His face fell. "…What."

"What?"

"Aph, I'm not falling for that. If there's something wrong," He cupped her cheeks in his hands, "I need you to tell me. If you're uncomfortable or in pain or not enjoying yourself, I don't want to just-…keep barreling onwards for myself and my sake and leave you behind. We're not doing this just for me, Aph. I'm here for you. Your comfort is important to me." He tipped her face down to pointedly stare her directly in the eyes. "Do you know why that is?"

"…Because you love me?" She muffled between her squished cheeks.

"Well- yes. That is true. But also because it'd be incredibly fucking awkward if I had to face you, my Lord and my partner, the next day knowing I couldn't even please you in bed. It'd be the most humiliating achievement in my life." He stressed. "Trust me when I say this, you are not inconveniencing me by telling me how you feel. You are not saving my pride by not saying anything. For Irene's sakes, you would not be saving my pride."

"…Oh."

"Tell me what's wrong."

"…Um-…I think-… I'm not used to doing this. As in, my vagina isn't used to doing this. Like at all. And that makes things harder, because I'm a lot more raw and sensitive, so the-… the tight friction of your skin against mine can um-… can hurt, a tiny bit, sometimes. Nothing serious, just-… uncomfortable."

"Ahh."

"Maybe you could try, um-… thrusting with just the head for now, and work me up to something deeper? Little by little?"

Chewing on the idea, he nodded. "That I can do." Though, it took an exceeding amount of self-control over his own body to not thrust straight to the hilt and just go hog wild. But, this was the first time he'd ever gotten his Lady to open up like this, and that was special and important to him. If he fucked this up, he worried she might never want to be romantic with him again. He really, really didn't want to fuck things up with her.

"I'm-…really sorry." She whined, sinking down in her shame. "I know you want something sexy and- confident, and suave, and cool, like a- a picturesque time where everything goes smoothly and I'm so totally confident and sexy, but I-… I don't know what I'm doing. Urrgh," She buried her face in her hands. "I don't mean to-… do all this. I'm sorry."

"Hey, hey, it's okay…" Rubbing his hands against the back of hers, coaxing them down to see her face, he pressed a tender kiss to her nose. "You don't need to apologize, it's okay. You're not ruining anything. It's like I said, I'm not here because I want some-… cool, awesome, perfect fuck to get off and go, I'm here because I want you. I've always wanted you."

Pressing a soft, lingering kiss to her temple, her eyebrows, her cheeks, "I want to cherish every bit of you, just as you are. If I wasn't in love with the real you, messy and clumsy and reckless and stubborn and silly, as beautiful and wonderful as you are, I wouldn't have given my life for you, now would I? I wouldn't ask for anyone else. Just you, exactly as you are."

She sniffled.

Leaning forward and caressing her hands down his chest, she pulled him into a kiss. Slow, soft, and sweet as sugar. A returning of all his kind words, summed up where she lacked in description or alliterative grace, but still swelled with emotion.

"Thank you." She whispered into his lips. "I-… I love you, so much. Okay?"

It hit him like an arrow through the chest. He froze up, staring at her with his baby blue eyes as wide as smitten saucers, as his face flushed a vivid dark pink, all the way to the tips of his ears. Blinked a few times. Blinked some more. She wondered if she'd broken him somehow.

When the surface tension broke, his ears flopped down to the side, his voice drenched with barely restrained emotion. "You finally said it. You said you loved me."

"Wh-what?" She stammered. "I did? Did I not- say that earlier?"

"Not in words! I mean- I already knew, but it's just-… It's wild hearing you put it in words and say it out loud." Then, a mischevious grin spreading across his face, as he rubbed himself against her like a nuzzling cat, "You really do loooove me? You love me soooo much?" He teased in a dopey tone.

"Oh- you- shush!" She huffed, flushing.

He was beaming. "You loooove me! Can't take it back now! You said you loved me!"

"I did! I do! I've loved you for a while, I've just-… you know."

"I get it. Ladies often become shy in my presence." Crowing with his hand on his puffed out chest, "They see the magnitude of all this and they just get tongue-tied. It's simply too much. You can't help it."

"Pshh." Rolling her eyes, "It's too much, alright. But not in the way you think it is."

He stuck his tongue out. She gave it a kiss.

"No, you're just adorable." She hummed through a warm smile.

"Hey, I'll take adorable."

When they reconnected in a kiss, it evolved to something deeper. He licked into her mouth, and she muffled a quiet sound as she arched back into him, hoisting him close. In this embrace, he started to carefully pull back his cock, nearly pulling out, only to push back in.

It felt easier, softer, the next time around. As he continued, she could finally start to feel the pleasure of the stimulation against her soft, squishy walls, growing wet around his shaft and giving under his pressure. Back and forth, he ribbed against her rim, the wet slap of her labia lips fluttering along the sides of his shaft.

The pleasure began to build. She was sure if he continued only head-deep, she could eventually cum, just off of that stimuli alone. "Deeper, please,"

He gripped onto her shoulder, letting out a huff as he thrust deeper inside.

He could feel her twitch and squirm all around him, tight and clenched around his shaft. Velvety, ruffled with the squelching squish of damp, thick skin against skin, as his head fully popped in and his shaft followed suit, crawling a few inches down. There came a point where the hardest (ha) hurdle had been passed, and the tissue nestled further within took him in with little resistance or pain.

He plunged deeper, choking out a gasp from her throat.

"Fuck…" He breathed. The sensation was so much more magnified than the touch of his own hand, rippling around him on all sides, closed against him, sending sparks up his spine.

Louder called the voice of the wild animal in his brain, latching its ties around his throat and yanking him forward, to rut into her as much as he could. Both of them could feel it, the sweeping wave of the tide dragging them under, as rational thought fell away and gave in to an untamed beast within.

He bit into her shoulder, as a low, guttural growl involuntarily pushed from his jugular, digging a faster pace, thrust after thrust, deeper and deeper inside with each wet slap of flesh.

For a moment, a small, conscious part of him feared he would have scared her, hurt her, potentially drawn blood as his inhuman, infernal fangs pierced her skin. But to his surprise, Aphmau had the opposite response.

Her claws dug harsh red lines into his back as she whimpered in his ear, pressing her chest against his. "Please, please, Gods- Mmgh- faster— Mmh-!"

His back arched as he slammed her down to the hilt, snarling against her shoulder with his fangs bared. He gripped iron-tight around her thighs as he yanked her up against him, pinning her into place when she squirmed involuntarily around the bullet pace of his cock.

The feeling coursing through her vagina, through her abdomen and into her thighs, up her back and into her brain, it was stronger than anything she'd felt on her own. It was electric, blinding, and inevitable, as the lack of control to stop it from barreling into her with the impact of a crashing, howling train became swiftly clear. Dynamite had been forged inside of her, and she could do nothing to stop the explosion.

She came with a yelp, her panting spiraling to a rapid pace before slamming short to a frozen halt as her entire body tensed up and let loose, melting into the embrace with a croaking whine.

Laurance did not stop. He kept going, faster and faster.

"Mmgh- Fuck- fuck—! Laurance—!" She cried, as she rode every last overpowering aftershock and drop of her orgasm, drawn out and pulled into focus with each thrust.

He came shortly thereafter, slowing to a twitching, shuddering halt, gasping a high-pitched, squeak of a whine through his teeth. Hot, gooey, white cum pooled inside of her, filling her up and slicking down his sides.

He collapsed against her with a winded huff.

The two laid still, panting and soaked in sweat, for a good minute as they caught their breath.

They fell quiet.

…Laurance opened his eyes. "I'm still hard."

"Mm. Same. In a way." She waved it off. "I-I'm still ragingly horny, is what I'm saying."

"Again—?"

"Yes, Gods, please."

Her bodily instincts called for far more than just that, though. "But maybe this time, we could…?" She turned her body around, so she laid on her chest, her face smushed against the pillow. Her spine curled, her flank held up to be front and center view.

Laurance was salivating already. "Yes, happily- yes."

He slid back inside with significantly easier effort.

The second time around, there was absolutely zero time spared for foreplay or build-up. They were feral, they were hungry, and there was no God on earth that could stop either of them from submitting entirely to their voracious, base desires and instincts.

He steadied himself with his hands against her back, though that didn't take long to devolve into gripping the cheeks of her ass, as he thrust in and out, the fluids of their combined spend mixing together to create a perfect lubricant. Where her vagina was tight and tense before, it now felt open and easy to slide in and out of.

The angle didn't punch as well against the internal nerves of her clitoris, but any hesitation or doubt had long since been thrown out the window for her. It was hell or high water now, baby. The experience itself was erotic on its own, feeling vulnerable on a brand new level as she exposed herself to him in a whole new way. The thrill of it burned in her chest.

He carved deep with each thrust, slicking his swollen, veiny cock against the all-encompassing walls of her vagina until it sent his conscious mind in circles, maddening and droning. He could feel it itching in his teeth, in the hellfire that burned through his veins, as he grew all the more strung-up.

He arched forward, leaning down to bite into the back of her neck, gripping her by the scruff and pulling against the fat that cushioned her skin. She panted into the pillow, gripping the folds of fabric tight between her fingers.

It was exactly what she'd been craving. The very thing her body had been telling her to do since day one. All finally felt right with the world, like an itch she could finally fully scratch.

He reached around to grasp at her breasts, squeezing them tight in his palms. Her tail curled and wrapped around his chest, holding on tight as he pounded against her, thrust after thrust.

It didn't take long for the pleasure to start to mount again. She bit down into the pillow to muffle her yowls as she came a second time.

Laurance followed soon after, whimpering out a string of, "Fuck- shit- please- hah- fuck—!" Crescendoing into a high-pitched squeak of a final word.

His cum dripped down her folds and onto the mattress, filling her as plump as a pie.

They quieted down for a moment, catching their breath, before Laurance gradually began to move again. A second time turned into a third, a third into a fourth, laying back down to give their muscles a rest, spooning each other, only for that to descend into a fifth.

Their heat sat in the drivers seat, spurring them onwards and dragging them forward with a stamina unmatched outside of anything they'd felt before. Only when their heat decided it was done, were they finally allowed to rest.

They laid in each other's embrace, the bridge of Aphmau's nose nuzzled under his neck, as a low, blissful purr radiated from the two of them. Sweaty, sticky, marred with bite and scratch marks, and sore all over, the two of them were about ready to pass out the second they called it a night. Aphmau felt stuffed to the brim with thick, gooey fluid, as Laurance's softening cock rested nestled up inside her still.

Her purple-furred tail wandered the sheets to find his, wrapping around his thin, orange tail. His intertwined with hers, as she nuzzled in closer. He grasped blindly for the blankets, and pulled them up over the two of them.

"Mmm… Good night, my Lady." He murmured, a small but heavenly smile on his face.

"Good night, Laurance." She kissed his neck. "I love you."

"I love you, too, Aph. I always will."

Into the cloudy call of tranquil heaven and peace, the two drifted off to sleep.

The clouds parted to let the sun shine down upon her face, as Aphmau sunk into her new reality. Her eyes gradually blinked open.

It was bright. The wheat fields reflected the glaring light of the sun, with no surrounding shade or cover to hide behind. It took her a minute for her eyes to adjust.

She rubbed her face with her hands. She could have sworn her arms were sore and exhausted moments prior, though her entire body felt woozy and airy and light as a cloud now, as the walls between reality and dream blurred. She sucked in a breath, and allowed herself to wake to the world around her.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and Aphmau felt the happiest she'd ever been.

"Can you turn that light off…?" A voice next to her groaned.

"Ah-!" She squeaked and yelped a foot into the air.

There was someone here with her—Oh!

It was Laurance. Laid flat on his back in the pastel tall grass, covering his face to block out the sun that was shooting directly into his eyes. He was wearing an eggshell white toga, in a similar way to how her own dress had changed to something pale and draping with silky, billowy fabrics.

"Laurance?" She blinked. She finally, fully, woke up. "You're here?!"

"Weh?" He strained. He lifted up his hands, but that didn't do much to help him open his eyes.

"You're- but- how?! How are you here?"

"Where…?"

"In my dream dimension!"

He blinked a few times. "…Dream… dimension…?" He sat up, casting a shade over his eyes, finally allowing him to parse out his vision and look around at where he was. She could see the exact moment when it sunk in that he wasn't safely bundled up in Aphmau's bedroom anymore. "…Hoooly shit. What? Is this- is this the place you go to in your dreams?!"

"It is! With the tree, and the fields, and-…"

Garroth.

It occurred to both of them at once.

He snapped around to look up at her. She held out her hand and hoisted him up.

Holding her hands in his, looking around wildly, "You're sure this is it? Here? He's here?"

"He should be, but… how? How did you…?"

Laurance shrugged.

"…Maybe because my body disappears, since you were so-… um-" Clearing her throat, "Intertwined with my body, maybe when I traveled dimensions it took you along with me…?"

"Probably. Maybe." He did not care for semantics right now. "Remember what we said we were going to tell Garroth?"

"Yeah?"

He nodded his head in the direction of the tree. "Let's go get him."

A sparkle lit up in her eyes like a giddy firecracker, beaming and grinning. With an enthusiastic nod, she led the way.

A tug on her wrist stopped her. "Wait- wait. He won't be expecting me—I wanna surprise him."

"Oh?"

"Just distract him for me." Laurance winked.

With a giggle and a nod, she was off.

There he sat, at the foot of the tree. The shade cast down in mottled shapes from the swaying, golden leaves overhead, the roots running dense into the ground, as spare leaves fell gently through the breeze.

Garroth was seated on one of the roots, staring down in thought at the grass below his metal heels, when she arrived.

"Ah, Lady Aphmau." He smiled something soft. He stood up to greet her. "I'm glad to see you could make it. I was beginning to worry I'd be here alone today, though I suppose that, too, would be a welcome reprieve from the onslaught of battle."

"Mmm-hm. Don't worry, I wouldn't miss this for the world." She kept her hands folded over her dress, as she rocked back and forth on her heels, a giddy grin spreading from ear to ear.

He took notice. With a quiet chuckle, he asked, "What's gotten you in such a good mood today?"

Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, "Oh, nothing…"

She stifled a quiet giggle. You'll find out for yourself soon enough.

To her right, parting through the reeds, was a Laurance hunched low to the ground, crawling forward with each step. Despite her efforts not to look at him or give his position away, she could still see the shifting of the grass in her peripheral vision as his booty rocked back and forth with the aim of the pounce.

"Nothing, hm?" Garroth raised an amused eyebrow. "Do you have any intentions of telling me, or… is this a secret I'm going to have to live with?"

"I dunno.” Drawing closer, a hungry, mischievous look in her eyes, "That depends on how much you want it."

"How much I… want… it?" He cocked his head to the side. "Want…what—?"

"SURPRISE!" Screeched the pouncing, fullbody tackle that crashed into Garroth's side, knocking him straight into the ground.

"AH—!" He was out in an instant. Bowled over, face-first into the dirt.

Laurance and Aphmau howled laughing, as his head spun and recovered.

Laurance Zvahl was crouching over him, in the flesh. He was a Meif'wa, just as Aphmau had said he was, with two tall, orange ears and a long, thin, striped, slender-furred orange tail. They were both here, in front of him, and they were smiling and laughing with hardly a care in the world.

"Laurance—? How are you- is it really you?" Garroth sat up.

Laurance turned to his lifelong companion, his partner in armor and steel, and brushed his cheek in his hand, letting the scruff of his blonde, unkempt beard scrape against his palm. "Hey, big guy." He purred, leaning in close. "Long time no see, huh?"

"It's been awfully brief for me…"

"Not for me."

Laurance kissed him.

Garroth's face flushed a bright pink, blinking in shock, until Laurance pulled away. "Laurance-? What was—?"

"Scoot over!" Aphmau shoved Laurance to the side, crouching down next to him. Laurance gave way with a barked laugh, as before Garroth could even process the first thing that happened, Aphmau was grabbing his face and smushing a kiss against his lips as well.

Garroth about near imploded.

When she pulled away, he'd forgotten how to breathe.

"Whuh…?" He squeaked helplessly.

"Surprise, buddy." Laurance chuckled, as if he found the look on his face entertaining.

"Aphmau—? Laurance?" Garroth strained. It was hard to keep his composure when he had both of the loves of his life rubbing up against him like cats, nuzzling him from both sides and purring. When Aphmau kissed up his neck, he shuddered and gasped, as the rush shot straight to his cock. It did not help that she was crawling higher onto his lap the further she went.

"Wha- what's going on? What brought about this shift in attitude?" He felt like he was hallucinating.

"Well, when springtime rolls around, apparently a Meif'wa's body can undergo a hormonal shift called 'going into heat.'" Laurance hummed.

Garroth's face burned bright red. "…Oh." He then realized the exact reason why they were here. "Oh… my."

"Mmmhm."

"Garroth, there's not a day that goes by where I don't miss you. Both of us miss you." Aphmau pulled away for a moment, grasping the side of his face.

He tried his best to focus on her and what she was sincerely trying to tell him, but it was also a bit challenging when Laurance was already beginning to slide behind him and suck on the back of his neck, licking along his skin.

"We were thinking about how you felt during the war against Scaleswind and O'khasis, how you thought we were going to leave you behind. But we're not. We would never leave you, Garroth. You mean the world to Laurance and I."

She clasped his hands in hers. "We wanna be with you, Garroth. We're gonna get you out of the Irene Dimension, no matter what it takes, you're gonna make it out, and we're all gonna be together once it's over. Okay? We- we want to have you with us, every step of the way."

Laurance was already beginning to remove some of his armor. Garroth could more than tell how eager the other man was to agree with Aphmau's words, given the fact that he was already speeding towards a head start.

"You-… you're sure about this…?" Garroth spoke in a raw and quiet tone.

"With every muscle in my body." She licked her lips, and Garroth realized she was referring to far more than just symbolic emotional expression.

"We want you, Garroth." She leaned in close, purring against his lips.

"Oh." His choked on his own lungs.

"What do you say, bud?" Laurance kissed at his earlobe. "Will you have us?"

He could hardly speak at all, but he knew that despite all nerves, shyness, or flustered embarrassment, this was something he'd rather die than give up. "I-… I would love to. More than anything else in life, I would love that, dearly."

He pulled back, wrapped his arms around the two of them to bring them in for a hug, and kissed the tops of their heads, right between their ears.

"I love you two more than life."

They loved him too.

Garroth was leveled from both ends that day.

It was the happiest day the three of them ever had.

Chapter Text

"Sasha, darling! Do you think you could be a dear and try some outfits on for me?"

Cadenza had a plan.

Sasha was none the wiser.

"Huh…? Oh… Sure."

Seemed harmless enough.

Sasha was the Head Guard of Meteli, standing guard at her post when Cadenza picked her off the streets of the salty port town and dragged her into her boutique. There was the lobby at the front of the store, with wide floor-to-ceiling windows that displayed mannequins wearing Cadenza's newest dresses and designs, a few chairs to wait in, and a receptionist desk that Cadenza also worked, whenever she wasn't busy in her workshop.

Her workshop was the back half of the building, behind a concealing red curtain and into a series of long desks and tables covered with sliced fabric pieces, shears, and toolboxes full of a wide array of miscellaneous objects that Sasha couldn't recognize. She stepped over stray buttons, string, bundles of yarn, and various other trinkets that had fallen to the wayside in the chaotic scene of explosive, vivid color.

The workshop also had changing rooms, a few large mirrors, and a small circular podium for a model to stand on as they looked in the mirror and displayed their dress or suit. Cadenza herself was wearing one of her own designs, a green and white lace dress. Sasha wore one of Cadenza's designs as well, her silver, black and purple-scaled armor fit to balance style, self-expression, and safety all in one suit of steel.

She stood in waiting with her hands in her pockets as she watched Cadenza rifle through piles upon piles of clothes hung on hangers, laid across one of the desks.

"This might be a little out of your comfort zone, so do let me know if you're uninterested, but I've recently had some magnificent ideas for intimate wear." Cadenza hummed, filtering through the pile of the dresses one by one, lifting them up, setting them back down, and filtering on to the next.

Sasha raised an eyebrow. "'Intimate wear'?"

"Lingerie, darling." Cadenza purred, leaning back a moment to give her a glance. It was a gaze commonly worn on the fashionista's face, amorous and confident and suave, but today something about her seemed more sly, more pointed, calculative.

Sasha already began to realize the extent of what she was asking of her, and the result of such an epiphany showed up in the pooling of warmth of her cheeks. Nonetheless, she narrowed her violet eyes in skepticism. "Lingerie? You're sure you want me to do this? What about one of your models?"

It was presently the middle of her shift, but she wasn't complaining.

"Of course I do, dear. Yes, my models are wonderful, but sometimes, you, ah-…" She hesitated, scrounging her brain for an excuse. She snapped her fingers. "Sometimes it helps to get a fresh perspective! Yes, that's it."

Sasha's heart fluttered relentlessly with a prickling at the back of her mind. Is she just…? She just wants to see me in lingerie, is that it? She puzzled, her mind swirling in place. She's not even trying to hide the fact that she's making it all up…

Nothing of this situation was lost on her. She could tell Cadenza was being bold on purpose.

"Ah-ha!" She struck gold, if the gold was extracting a hanger emblazoning a black, lacy bra and equally revealing, black lacy panties. The fabric was a bit too translucent in places that made Sasha gulp.

She whirled around, dangling the set in front of her with a gleeful grin. "Soo? What do you say? Want to be my model for the day?"

Sasha swallowed down the saliva that'd pooled in her mouth. Sweat dripped down her brow, as she felt her insides fritz. When she evaluated the offer in front of her, she was evaluating far more than just trying on a few clothes. There was the full chance that Cadenza was intending to take this offer much farther than a fashion show, and Sasha was intimately aware of every implication of such a chance.

It didn't take long for Sasha to find her answer. She wanted this more than Cadenza knew.

With an amused smirk, she took the hanger from her hand. "Sure, why not." She shrugged with a calm, collected air.

She watched a glimmer of satisfaction bloom in her baby blue eyes.

Here goes nothing.

Sasha had an additional realization when she was in the dressing room, looking at herself in the mirror. The bra and panties fit her perfectly.

This wasn't just some average sizing Cadenza picked for sales, Cadenza had worked specifically with Sasha's measurements in mind.

This was pre-meditated.

She would not be surprised if this specific set of lingerie ended up being kept somewhere private, shared only between the two of them.

She left the pieces of her suit of armor on the floor of the dressing room, and took a deep breath to soothe any lingering nerves before she grabbed onto the curtain, and slid it aside.

Cadenza's face lit up when she saw her.

Oh, she's not even trying to be subtle, Sasha observed.

"Ohh… wonderful, my dear, you look wonderful…" She sucked in a breath. She pointed to the platform, drawing closer. "Come, come. Stand on the pedestal, darling."

Happily. The spotlight painted the planes of her form in highlight and strong shadow as she stepped up to be a centerpiece, towering over the other woman as she stood tall.

"Mhm… Just like that. Excellent." Cadenza lifted her hand to rest against her chin, looking her up and down. With a fixated gaze, she studied every inch of her body, marking each into memory and lingering around the lingerie itself (and what laid underneath it).

She could feel her gaze hot against her skin, vulnerable and revealing as she stood on full display for her.

It would be easy to feel nervous, or perhaps even shy, in a situation like this. But she knew what she was getting herself into. This was exactly what she'd wanted, what she'd been waiting for. It was easy to relax into the position, to take pride in the way she looked upon her now, to know that she was in demand and in control of what she saw, what she wanted Cadenza to see.

She was already striking a pose before she'd even told her to. Putting her weight on one foot, cocking her hip to the side with a hand on her waist. The black fabric of the lingerie contrasted strongly against her ghoulishly pale skin, her long, straight white hair draping over her chest. She'd cupped her breasts into the bra in a way to push them up, into view, as the translucent fabric only barely covered her skin underneath.

It covered a fair portion of the underside of her breasts, and just enough of the nipple, coming down to a short strap underneath, but the topmost planes of her chest were fully on show.

For personal sensory reasons, she usually kept her bush below fairly shaved, though some stubble still remained and curled under the hem of the panties. They scooped under her, covering just enough of the front, and a fair portion of the back. It was revealing, yes, but nowhere near as revealing as she knew Cadenza could've gone.

She wondered if that was intentional, if Cadenza wanted to see her in something more merciful before breaking out the most undressing of underwear.

"Hmm…" Cadenza deliberated, until an idea struck her. "You know what you need? Some heels."

"Oh?"

In the cabinets that lined the walls were boxes of shoes, boxes Cadenza filtered through until she narrowed it down to a single pair. Sleek and black cross-strap with a block heel, Cadenza wrapped her hand behind her calf and guided her leg up, sliding her foot into the shoe. She locked the thin leather strap around the base of her ankle, soothing her soft, pale hands up her calf. Then again with the next heel, cradling her leg in her palms and taking great care to dress her up for her.

The stylist stepped back to survey her work, looking her up and down.

"Oh, yes. That works beautifully." She smiled. Holding up her hand and twirling her finger, she gestured, "Do a spin for me, will you? Let me see how the back fits."

With a chuckle, Sasha complied. She raised her arms to fold above her head, sliding a hand down her forearm and looking over her shoulder for her, melting into the curve of her spine and the cock of her hips.

"How's that look for you?" She purred, a light laugh on her lips.

Cadenza's entire face was red and grinning. "Very nice."

Sasha laughed some more.

It was not the only pair Sasha tried on for her that day.

The next was something green, an unusual color that Sasha wouldn't normally wear, but she did notice that it was a similar seafoam green to Cadenza's dress, and one of Cadenza's personal favorite colors. It complimented the shade of her eyes well.

The next was a shade of warm violet, matching the pieces of violet in her armor, in the casual clothes that filled her wardrobe. Cadenza remembered, and took note of Sasha's favorite color, and designed her lingerie to match.

It was the most displaying set of all, covering only a snippet of her breasts in a small, triangular shape, using thin string straps to wrap around her back and neck, locking over her chest in star-like shapes. The panties a similar case, with a singular, triangular strip to cover most of her extremities, and little else but a string to slide up the back.

For each new color, each new pair of lingerie, she provided her a new set of heels, a few new accessories to add on. A hat, a necklace of jewels, earrings to dangle from her lobes.

When Cadenza checked her measurements, her steadying hand strayed up her thigh. Her hand cupped around the cheek of her flank, digging the tips of her acrylic nails into the plumpness of her skin. She drew in close, kneeling on the pedestal by her leg, looking up at her as she fixed a lacy garter to her thigh, caressing up the interior side of her sensitive skin.

When she stared up at her, basking in her spotlight, she felt as worshipped as a Goddess. Kneeling at the altar of her calves and her thighs, coating her body in endless praise, reverence glittering in her adoring, watchful eyes. When she gave her hips a thank-you kiss, it left a mark of vibrant red lipstick upon her skin.

Well over an hour had passed, before Cadenza directed her one last time, to sit down on the edge of the pedestal. She complied, letting her legs fall open, the tips of her purple heels scraping the ground.

Cadenza kneeled down between her legs, and guided them open. Sasha cupped her face in her hand, allowing her to kiss her palm, before she leaned down to plant a kiss of her own to her forehead.

It was a natural, welcome invitation, when Cadenza nestled the bridge of her nose against the lacy fabric of her panties.

She planted a kiss to the top of her folds, through the sheer, violet shade, murmuring whispers of, "Beautiful, darling. You are simply… beautiful," that fluttered into her heart and pulled at her lips, the tips of her ears flushing a bright pink.

The weight of her tongue pushed in through the thin cloth, her saliva forming a wet pool where-ever her tongue lingered, a warm, seeping feeling that Sasha could feel covering her groin. She leaned her head back, letting out a shuddering exhale of relief, as her tongue flicked and pressed against her clit, easing pulses of pleasure out of her body.

It felt religious, when she licked through her folds, worshipping every inch of her, soaking her in her saliva until she dripped onto the platform.

Sasha leaned back, as she pulled the panties off to the side to reveal the dampening lips of her labia, allowing Cadenza in. Thick and bumpy with a fleshy texture velvety and slimy at the surface and stubborn at its core, her tongue pushed inside, devouring around her walls and circling the rim of her vagina.

She worked her tongue in, and out, in, and out, up and down the length of the canal, and though she could never dive in further past the surface edge, it was more than enough to please her. Her pleasure came in waves, itching out of her mouth and into her core, as Cadenza's saliva slicked her folds and seeped down into the lingerie, where it pressed against the floor of the platform. Her hands gripped along her thighs, sliding under the straps to cup her ass and squeeze.

After all the piles of compliments Cadenza had given her, Sasha gazed upon her, seeing Cadenza's face nestled in against her folds, her nose rubbing her clit, her eyelashes fluttering closed as she sunk into an easy rhythm, her fire-orange hair falling across her shoulders and tickling her thighs as her lipstick stained her labia and marked kisses up her legs… and she thought there was nothing more beautiful, more magnificent, than the sight that sat before her now.

This was her crown jewels, her runway brilliance, the star of the show. Cadenza, and the adoration she felt for her, in all her majesty and grace. It was the highest honor to be revered by a lady like her, a perfectionist of the highest standards that picked Sasha as her spotlight darling, and found nothing but beauty in her body, in her heart.

She was smitten with her, moreso now than ever before.

She came unraveled at her touch, gasping out her name as she twitched around her tongue. Cadenza worked her through each ripple of pleasure that coursed through her body, licking at her lips while she rubbed against her clit with the hard bridge of her nose. "Wonderful job, my dear, you're doing such a good job…" She purred, caressing her hands up and down her hips.

Her lingerie would most definitely need to be washed after all the bodily fluids (and lipstick) it'd been soaked with, but Sasha was absolutely certain she'd be coming back to Cadenza's workshop any time she needed her to "model" again.