"I saw a video once and it was really weirdly pretty. But in a silly way. Squigglin' around at each other."

Giggle.  "I have always mostly preferred to stick to text descriptions."

"I've totally seen pictures of the bedbugs."

What an interesting and cute face to try to decipher.  Idly, gently, he stirs his tea some more.  "So you know about bedbugs, you taught me about duck penises... do you know about the mite that's born pregnant, because it gets even more fascinatingly awful from there."

"I have never heard of the mite that's born pregnant, please tell me more."

" - so as I think about this I am increasingly unsure of the recursively parasitic thing, I think I have that wrong.  But the story with the mite is that it's born with seven or eight eggs inside it, one male and a bunch of females.  And at some point the eggs hatch inside it, and perhaps you see where this is going - "

"For real??? Come on, guys, what did your tiny ancestors invent sexual reproduction for???"

She's delightful!

"And then after that shit," he continues enthusiastically, "the females just chew their way right out of their mom, leaving her and their brother to die."

"Nature is fuckin' wild. So the only time the boys even exist is—? They literally have no chance to ever have sex with someone who's not their sibling?? What is even the point then? They could just clone themselves like those gay lizards and save everybody the trouble!"

"They could!" he giggles.  "I don't know why they don't, it just... worked out that way."

"Bugs are weird. Bugs are weird and you're cute."

(oh no why does she let words come out of her mouth)

 - is he allowed to say this -

"You are also pretty cute."  Wow it immediately feels like he was not.

—oh! Eeeeeee.

See what he means..........

Oh what a cute smile he has!! She wiggles happily.

He hunches over a little and cocks his head to one side, like he's gone a little droopy with affection.

"And you keep gettin' cuter..."

He scrunches his eyes shut and his smile twists up into a bigger, twistier smile.

She giggles.

So flirting with somebody you recently rescued isn't the same as sexually harassing a current kidnap victim but it's not, like, non-fraught -

- but Kimberly seems to know what she's about, here, and its not like he's been plotting his way here.

"I don't know where you get off calling me cute, little miss fluffy pink sweater rainbow sprinkles on her hot cocoa.~"

Eeeeee wiggle wiggle. "The rainbow makes it tastier!! 's science."

"Would you believe I've never tried hot chocolate with whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles?"

"We can fix that right now if you want!"