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“Hello”
You jerk awake to be met with two pinpricks of light hovering a few inches above your face.
“I’m sorry to wake you up, but the cat vomited. I forget what cleaning chemical you typically use for that.”
You sigh and roll your neck as you slide out of bed. The cat has a tendency to get into things she shouldn’t and there’s no cause for concern, but you had a rough shift in the mines so everything aches. The bruises all along your legs and up your shoulders throb as you get to work cleaning up. It takes a long while to notice the presence looming over your shoulder. Almost as soon as you do, Krobus speaks up as always sounding more like a breeze through pipes than a voice.
“I want to observe so that the next time this happens I can let you sleep.”
“That’s so sweet, thank you.”
“Really?”
He leans further over your shoulder to turn and peer into your face. You get the feeling he would be squinting if he had eyelids and the muscles for it.
“I really want to be a good housemate, but I never know if I’m doing well.”
“Krobus do you know how many cups with suspicious liquids I had in every nook and cranny of the house before you moved in?”
“No?”
“I was growing entire civilizations out of the scum of cranberry candies.”
He doesn’t say anything for a bit.
“To clarify, that was a joking exaggeration.”
“Oh!” his sigh simultaneously embarrassed and relieved, “I was unsure… if you meant slimes or something I had never heard of.”
“Just molds and bacteria cultures—the non-sentient kind. As far as I know.”
Once everything that needed to be thrown away was in its place and everything that needed to be sanitized sanitized, you blearily trudged back to bed. The covers beckoned, but a thought made you pause.
“Krobus, is there a reason you never wear any coverings?”
He had been padding over to his standing corner when you asked that and made him stop to shift his eye lights back in your direction.
“Modesty is not really a concept to my people?”
“I know I—sorry what I meant was, does being covered hurt you? Like, if you were to get into bed with me would it hurt?”
He didn’t reply immediately and his eye lights appeared to dilate some.
“Oh. No, I don’t think it would. I know it wouldn’t.”
“In that case, would you want to, or I guess what I mean is I want you to know that. If you want to. You can rest in bed with me. If you ever get tired of standing by yourself. Open offer, no pressure.”
Krobus’ eye lights were swallowed by shadow for a moment before twinkling back into existence just as quickly.
“I appreciate that. I don’t get tired from standing in the way humans do, but I really appreciate the offer.”
A few more moments of awkward standing and he clarified.
“Not tonight. I think I need to have it pre-scheduled and my room is a really good temperature. Thank you.”
---
Due to your mining schedule and tendency to pass out it would be four nights before the topic became relevant again. At around ten PM, Krobus pulled back the blankets to join you where you lay half asleep already.
“Is the humidity high enough for you in here?”
“I think so. Thank you for lighting the fireplace.”
“Of course,” you pat the empty side of the bed, smiling sleepily, “hop in.”
He did so very literally and you watched in curiousity as he adjusted himself into the approximation of a laying down position. He spotted you and his eye-lights dimmed. His mouth area sagged at the corners.
“We’re so physically different that it’s a challenge to live together, isn’t it?”
“What? No. Krobus this is fine. I shouldn’t’ve stared I just like watching you move. That’s not… better. Krobus I love you, you’re my best friend and I want to know everything about you. That you’re willing to share. I mean.”
“You find me fascinating?”
You stilled your nerves at his deadpan and avoided eye contact.
“Yes, I do. As a person not just—”
“I find you fascinating too,” the relief in his voice was airy and honestly adorable, “humans as a whole but your body in particular. I like watching you sleep.”
“Do I do or say anything interesting?” your shame dissipated to the tune of his excitement.
“You move more than I thought you would. Not just twitching and breathing, but I really like when you breathe.”
“Me too,” you laugh and turn to face him properly, head propped in the butt of your hand, “I prefer breathing to no breathing by a wide margin. I guess it would be pretty weird to imagine for someone without lungs, what does it look like to you?”
“…Like a wave, almost. Or pond rippling at regular intervals. It’s soothing to watch, like the ocean or the rain.”
Your face and neck warm in a spiral that creeps further down your torso. Something in you stills your instinct to respond. Something that wants him to keep talking.
“Your breath smells so moist, too. And warm,” you could be imagining it, but his voice seems to hitch at that last point.
“Maybe I should just sleep in your room, be your personal humidifier.”
Krobus’ eyelights flicker and he practically squeaks. He’s unable to turn his head away like you are, but his face almost seems to retreat into the shadow of his form.
“Was that too far?”
“No. No I didn’t think that would be so exciting a thought.”
In a gesture with the same sort of weight as clearing his throat to move on, Krobus took hold of the blankets and pulled them over himself up to what could be interpreted as his chin.
The covers immediately ploff flat.
You stare.
“Krobus?”
“Yes?”
“Where did your uh. Body go?”
Krobus looks down, looks at you, looks at himself again, and takes a moment to reply.
“It. Well… it’s under the blanket?”
“Are you- so you’re there, right?”
“Yes? I’m made of darkness. When shadow people choose to relax or aren’t under a light source we merge with the surrounding dark. I didn’t realize… you really don’t spread out at all do you?”
“Not like that, not like a liquid. I can splay my limbs, but everything stays together under my skin.”
“Fascinating,” his eye lights watch you with almost a warm yellow glow, “then two humans don’t meld into each other’s physical space when they relax next to each other?”
“No. Do you?”
A nod.
“Family groups, friends, lovers, even work groups we’ll share physical space in each others’ darkness and rest. There are different ways to do so, different emotional and magical levels of sharing shade, but yes. It’s very soothing…”
“You’re lonely here. Physically I mean. Humans get that too, actually.”
“Really?”
“Touch starvation, yeah. There’s studies that say it can really fuck up your mental health to be isolated physically from other people. Of course, there are people who don’t like to be touched, but in general we like to groom and cuddle as a species.”
“When you and I hug, does it feed your touch hunger?”
You smile and press your forehead to Krobus’ head area.
“Yeah. It feels really nice. Not like human skin contact obviously, but that doesn’t matter… hang on if you’ve sort of splooshed out into all the under cover area… can you feel me?”
Krobus’ face twitched with embarrassment.
“I… can yes. I am admittedly um… all around you. Or you… are in me… sort of. Enveloping? Is that the phrase?”
“Oh,” then, “Do I… feel nice? Or do you need space? Somehow? Like a nightli—”
“No. You feel nice.”
Krobus’ face tries to shrink in on itself.
“I like. Feeling your body. It’s so solid. I wish I had bones.”
If he had feet he’d be choking on them.
“Do you want to… feel more of it?”
Neither of you speak for several minutes while your face burns at the realization of… several things. Now that you’ve become aware of how his body worked you can feel an extra weight or texture that you had assumed was just the sheets. It was that silky, almost waterlike texture you felt whenever you hugged him. Like you could sink into him if only you were slightly less buoyant. At the moment you can only feel him on your uncovered feet and arms but…
“Would… you like me to want to feel more of it? Because I would. If you would.”
More silence.
“I would. But I’m cozy so you can. I mean can you move around under there? Could you move into the area under my shirt?”
“…If you lift it.”
You take a breath to steady the beating of your heart and lift the hem of your pajamas still under the blankets. Tentatively, Krobus unfurls into the new patch of darkness. It feels strange, not at all like skin but more as if the softest silk sheet in the world had gained a mind of its own and begun to wrap around your bare midsection. You feel Krobus slowly inching up your chest and back simultaneously. It’s almost analogous to the sensation of rolling down and smoothing out a tube top.
If the tube top were very clearly alive and rippling with the same energy that tickled your palms when holding void essence.
You shiver, and Krobus retracts completely from under your clothes.
“Are you alright? Are you getting sick? Am I too cold?”
“No no! It’s okay it was. That was a good shiver. Humans just shiver when sensations trigger our nerve endings.Iit’s not always bad.”
“But when you’re soaked from the rain, that is bad, correct?”
“…Yes that’s… theoretically bad for humans. And usually gets me sick eventually. But I’m not going to stop doing it… Can I… if I reach out to your side of the bed will it harm you?”
“No.”
Krobus’ squinting eyelights signal he is not going to forget to hold your admission against you the next time you mine or fish in the rain for seven hours, but the way his outline vibrates makes you think that… maybe he’ll drop it for the moment.
“No, that wouldn’t hurt it might feel nice. Like when you hug me.”
“That’s how you wrapping around me just now felt.”
“Oh, good! Good!” His tone is as quiet as ever but crackling with windy static, “please, spread out as much as you want!”
You can’t help but laugh, face burning, “and you! I mean right back at you! I uh, I’ll let you know. If it’s bad.”
“Me too. I don’t think it will be bad but…”
Krobus trails off as you slowly sprawl an arm into the perceived center of his mass. A bee like humming emits from his head area. The feeling is, for you, surprisingly more like swimming than moving through steam like you expected. Or even like strands of water sliding over your skin separately… shower like rather than sticking your hand in a bowl of still water. He wraps the arm and leg you’ve eased on to his side of the bed, and for a moment the two of you stay like that. Buzzing from him, thumping and pulsing from the blood in your veins.
“You’re so warm,” he breaks the silence, “Can I…return to your skin? Under—”
“Yes,” you croak, “please.”
You were worried he might be startled, but Krobus instead… laughs. A small sound like pebbles clinking together. You’d made it your goal to hear that sound as much as possible from the first time the two of you had met. In this instance, it launches your heart into your throat.
“Do you uh. Have…?”
“The concept of arousal in our culture? Yes we do, but I’ve also been reading your books.”
“Oh.”
“Is that okay?”
“That’s fine, I told you anything. Anything was yours. I just. Forgot.”
“Humans have a very interesting fascination with mermaids.”
“Uh. Uhuh.”
“Do you particularly like tendrils and tentacles or is that just what you could find from the night market catalogue?”
“…Yes.”
Another laugh from Krobus whose face rests against yours now. Somewhat more solid than the rest of him, the concentration of his void magic being in his head, you assume.
“Would you like me to…” his bravado fails, “um… not all of it just. Nevermind.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I would I just. Don’t want you to think that’s why I wanted to live with you. I love you, dude. You’re my best friend.”
“I also love you as my best friend… but… if you as a human need contact…”
“And I mean you need it too, right? You haven’t… you know.”
“No, and this feels very nice.”
Krobus slides under a gap in your pajamas with a tendril of shadow and once again spreads to fill his container. It really is such a strange sensation, and you try to pull more of him to you with the arm already enveloped by his being. Krobus chirps at this movement. If a smoke detector weren’t grating, this is what it would sound like. You roll over experimentally, and the chirping becomes persistent. Shaky even. If he had a solid form it would be trembling. As it is, the shadows wrapping around you tighten and quiver. Breath stutters in your lungs.
“You’re… so soft…” Krobus’s voice has become a wheeze and his eye lights flicker constantly. “Can I. I can’t kiss you but. Can we?”
You gasp as his form tightens around you and your legs kick instinctively. Having spread inside your PJs, Kobus’s writhing pressure on your crotch sends a flush though your body from tip to toe. Leaning into his mouth form is an act of reflex as much as it is one of passion. He takes it as it’s meant in affirmation and enters between your gasping lips. Your eyes widen as his head itself twists and envelops your head like the closing petals of a flower.
Two pricks of light, almost tucked behind your eyes. Two pricks of light and a darkness so warm and full that it should be suffocating. Krobus fills your mouth; pushing and prodding curiously against each tooth. Against your soft and hard palates. He should be triggering your gag reflex, but he doesn’t. You can breathe, somehow, slow and muggy like walking in the low caverns of the mines.
Not too different, truth be told, from a very deep French kiss.
Your groin throbs.
“Is this alright?”
The whisper is in your ear. Really in it up against the eardrum. You shudder and writhe somewhat even as you manage to nod. Movement is slowed, resisted like trying to swim around the bottom of a deep pool. It carries that same stillness and quiet, that same sense you’re at the mercy of a power far beyond what your body should be able to handle.
This realization sets your face and loins ablaze.
“You’re moistening,” a whine undercuts his observation, “you feel so good you’re such a good crevice to huddle in.”
A tendril unfurls in the back of your throat and another shudder wracks you.
“Do you want me… would you like me to play with, I mean…”
He trails off, confidence waning and the staticky whine increasing. His uncertainty causes Krobus to tense—and you to yelp in strangled delight at the tightness. You wriggle again in an attempt to nod with your entire body.
Please, please understand me. Please bind me, please penetrate me please.
He’s already in your mouth and throat. He’s already wrapped around your tongue and tugging at it. He has your lips and you vision monopolized. You need him to take over the rest of your space.
You pull your arms through his constricting form with difficulty to attempt to pull off your pants and underwear. Krobus, shifting and sliding over you with increased frequency, tugs your wrists back somewhat.
You moan around his pressure in your throat.
Krobus’s entire being flutters then constricts and your arms are suddenly pinned above your head. His hypothesis yielded results. Krobus pauses.
Waiting.
“Yes,” you try to moan, “please.”
It comes across.
Krobus’ tendrils shuffle your underwear to your ankles where it becomes a makeshift pair of cuffs. You feel his silky form congeal between your thighs and several visceral tendrils lap at the edge of your opening.
These feel different than the rest of him… moist and tingling with energy. Void essence and electricity, you find, eerily resemble each other.
They tendrils lap at you again, testing your sensitive head. You feel whimpers vibrate in your chest. Your wrists and ankles struggle against their bindings.
All around you, Krobus laughs. More electric zinging to the nerves along your pleasure. More whimpers. Your eyes roll back and the pinpricks of light disappear to leave you in true darkness.
“You’re so wonderful,” the world around you says, and Krobus’ tendrils ply your entrance open, “I’ve never felt anything like you. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. Thank you,” the first tendril inserts and you barely feel it, “I’m going to fill you now. Tap twice on the headboard if it’s too much.”
For just the fraction of a moment you wonder how he could possiblly be too much if you can breathe through him.
Only a fraction of a moment. Because then the next tendril joins and you realize that the first one is expanding like a water-balloon. The second does the same even as the third enters and the fourth and the fifth and you’re screaming around Krobus but you don’t tap. You won’t tap you can’t let this moment end. He isn’t just filling you—his essence is connecting to every never and impulse and feeding directly into the sensitive clusters like a live wire.
Your underwear digs into your ankles and rips apart as the sixth tendril slides in and past the others by a margin. Much further than you’ve ever inserted anything before. Your eyes roll and lights flicker and pop even behind your lids. Everything, every muscle tenses. Your abdomen clenches so tight you think your back will snap.
You start to shake. You shudder, and convulse, and Krobus removes himself from your mouth to let you really scream.
And THEN Krobus starts to thrust.
The thrusts aren’t like a human’s hips. They aren’t in and out but expansions and contractions of the tendrils amassed inside you. Now able to see, with Krobus only clasped around your throat and the back of your head, you realize the lump in the blankets where your abdomen is visibly swelling to the rhythm of Krobus’s pumps.
You notice that in an instant, at least, because an instant is all you have before lights explode in front of your eyes and your limbs jerk away as orgasm ruins you.
-------
It takes a few moments to get your bearing and several more to realize that you’re breathing a much less humid, cooler air. You wonder how long you’ve been conscious. There’s a vague memory of tremblingly knocking against wood. Of Instant release. An even vaguer memory of being carefully lifted and moved. Coaxed to the bathroom and propped up, even.
Did you fall asleep? Have you been asleep?
In the darkness (the usual kind) your eyes gradually adjust and it becomes apparent that you’re on the couch in a blanket burrito with your head propped on pillows. The cat is asleep on your chest. Did Krobus fuck you then steal your bed?
You’ll gladly let him have it, but it seems out of character.
“Hey…”
The voice makes you slightly jolt. Slightly. Your limbs are too loose and heavy for a real startled jump.
“How are you feeling?”
Your mouth is Very dry so you just nod and free one hand from under the cat to give a thumbs up.
“Good. I was… admittedly worried somewhat. Reading didn’t prepare me for how… your body would respond.”
“Did it… did it do anything for you?” You croak.
Krobus, his eyelights and mouth now within the frame of your vision, beams.
“Yes it was…extraordinary. Much umm…wetter! Than I expected, I think! Or. Well. Anyway. I changed the sheets, so you can go back to your bed now.”
“Oh.” Oh, “Would you… want to come back with me? To sleep this time for real, I mean.”
“Yes,” the beam grows somehow and it feels like your heart is floating in your chest. “I would be delighted to share your shade.”