Oh he has such warm hands. He is so good. And she—actually just feels okay, what is this bullshit, she has barely ever felt okay in her life and certainly not in the company of another human being, but here is Asher actually touching her and as long as she can avoid overthinking everything in sight she's fine. Is it magic. Is he hypnotizing her with alien interdimensional magic. No probably this is actually just what happens when you tell someone your dumb childhood traumas and then they hug you a lot and are nice about it.

He's touching her back and kissing her neck and murmuring that she's very beautiful.

Oh gosh. Oh gosh. "I mean yes that's objectively the case but I don't think I've ever been this happy about it before. Also wait I don't even have my face on, never mind, are you high??"

"Have your face on?"

His hands are touching along her sides.

"There's a—there's a whole thing I do with makeup and stuff—and like, posture—I don't think I can do it right now, I'm too happy—anyway it makes me really hot and I get on like magazine covers and stuff. No one would put this mess on a magazine cover."

She is kind of melting into him a little. It is just so nice how he touches her.

"Well, I have also been on magazine covers, and I think you're extremely beautiful, and I don't think I would like the magazine-cover version of you at all."

"Well. Okay. I believe you. That's weird, by the way, I never trust people, trusting people is terrible. But you are very good."

"I try to be very trustworthy! Also I literally have no reason to lie."

"I mean you could just really want to be able to tick off 'female alternate version of dad' on your scorecard but wow let's just forget I ever said that shall we?"

"I'm no longer in the 'checking things off my scorecard' stage of my life. Haven't been since I met Sasha."

"—mm?"

"Well, I met Sasha, and casual sex stopped being particularly interesting?"

"Oh." Well what the hell is he doing here, then?? .........probably he is having some sort of Feelings. Probably that.

"But you're great, and you make such good facial expressions, and I really want to make you happy, and you're an alternate universe version of my dad but I sort of gave up on my sexual decisions not being questionable when I started dating a teenager and a burn victim who's also dating Death."

"I am like slightly worried that I'm doing something sketchy here but—you hugged me while I cried and you like it when I smile and you're, just, really extremely good. There is so much goodness. So if this makes me a terrible person then what else is new and at least I get cuddles."

"You have such low standards! You should have higher standards! At least let me eat you out first!"

She giggles and blushes. "I mean, I'm not gonna stop you!"

"Well then."

Asher's hands are moving slowly and steadily closer to her breasts.

She sighs happily and leans on him a little. It is so unbelievably nice just to be... with someone, touching someone, who doesn't scare her or make her defensive or anxious or unhappy or uncomfortable, and then on top of that he also has to have such excellent hands? Unfair. She should file a complaint.

His excellent hands are starting to stroke her breasts!

Gosh. Gosh.

"I like... your hands," she murmurs, resting her forehead on his shoulder. "They are warm." She sounds like an idiot but she has sounded like an idiot quite a lot of times so far and he seems to find it endearing so maybe she'll be okay.

"I like touching you," he says, and lifts up her shirt and kisses one of her nipples.

...she makes another undignified sound. "Ah—oh wow—you are.... very good. Really extremely good."

(Her arc reactor shines between her breasts. There are a few differences in the details of the design, but it's still clearly the same fundamental thing, just built a little differently.)

"The skin around mine is sensitive," he says, running a finger around one of her nipples.

"—mm?" What's he—right, arc reactor probably. "Oh—yeah—mine too kinda—" And now she wants to touch his chest but SOMEONE is DISTRACTING HER. It's okay, she'll get her turn later. She does not want to try to multitask on this. Also has she mentioned in the last two seconds that he is VERY GOOD.