"Hrm - is there any chance you know whether you would have been comfortable with us cuddling in our underwear yesterday, before you started awakening?"

"Oh, I wouldn't have, but that was different."

"How so?"

"...because it wouldn't have been a positive experience then!" she says after a moment of thought.

"I'm happy that you can notice that - do you have a grasp as to why it wouldn't have been positive? Aside from the lack of guiding."

"...that seems like the main difference to me."

"Hm... okay. Um. Lia?"

"Hm?" comes Lia's voice from the kitchen, where she has been gathering up anything dangerous to be hidden away.

"You been listening?"

"Yeah."

"Do you have thoughts on what I should do about guiding?"

"Both of you topless, with her bra still on, seems like it'll only be a bit awkward and definitely worth it?"

"What do you think?" Lucian asks Lorica.

"...you're both putting things in a kind of puzzling way but if that's what Lia wants and it's fine with you I don't mind!"

Lucien sighs and unbuttons his shirt.

That seems like approval for her to take hers off!

And they can hug like so and Lucien will ignore the feeling that he's taking advantage of Lorica because while it might be true it's not actually the most important thing going on here.

Lorica relaxes into the cuddle.

Better than her not relaxing, he supposes. He tags her every once in a while so long as they're touching.

She has no sensory experience of this so she doesn't comment.

Well she might feel the slightest shock but it's super easy to miss. After a while of guiding Lucien is going to broach the topic of blood donations again.

"- and my mom is a universal donor so you can get a transfusion from her without needing to go anywhere."

"...she can just donate blood at the blood drive, though? It's not that I don't want to go places, it's that I don't want to take somebody's blood that could go to another person. Her being a universal donor makes it worse, not better!"

"She'd prefer to donate to you - I'd really like it if you accepted. I don't think you're reasoning clearly about the tradeoffs here."

"I will do a lot of things for you but I don't know about taking somebody's blood! Sometimes people die if they can't get a transfusion."

"I'm not going to insist but I would really like you to trust me on this one - maybe you can donate it back to the blood bank at the end of the week or something." Though probably not and Lucien feels bad for implying it's possible.