TO: chuuni-the-hedgehog@gracenote.com
FROM: mauvelous@foxmail.com

SUBJECT: Re: dungeon philosophy

Coffee is absolutely on the table! I had to google your email to figure out what it meant but now I'm giggling so thanks for that. When's good for you? I have some favourite coffee shops but you could definitely convince me to try a new one.

It turns out they share a semi-regular haunt!  One that's quiet and cozy with private enough corners that they don't stand too much of a chance of being overheard if they find themselves swapping nature facts again.  If that sounds good to her?

Cozy coffee is the best! She's in.

He vaguely considers getting there early so he can be lounging smugly at their table when she walks in but he feels like that would be a little... something.  Possibly a little several different things.  He does not make any especial effort to arrive early.

Then Kimberly will be there about two minutes early and might get in ahead of him!

She squeaks in ahead of him, yeah.  He waves and holds up one finger and gestures toward the counter to indicate he is going to get himself a drink first, and gets himself a drink first, and then cozies into the booth across from her.  "Hey."

She has an overly elaborate hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles, and bounces happily when he sits down. "Hi!! How've you been? I told Lenore about the wall and she won't stop dramatically proclaiming," she puts on a semi-reasonable impression of Lenore dramatically proclaiming, "'Walls are a social construct even in dungeons!'"

Oh her hot chocolate order is very cute.  Oh her happy body language is so cute.  Oh he can just think thoughts like that now that he is not interacting with her in a professional capacity and also backlashed to hell.  He giggles.  "I'm so curious about how she has opportunities to always be saying walls are a social construct."

"I think it started as one of those late-night conversations where everything's funnier than it should be, and then it got to be a meme."

"Aha, that makes sense."  He stirs his drink, idly, slowly, one finger gently pushing the stirrer in circles along the ring of the mug.  "So you told her about the wall, huh."

"And about the spray paint. I'm never gonna live that one down."

"Coolest thing I've ever seen a dungeon victim do."

"It's terrible, how am I gonna maintain my self-image as generally kinda bad at everything now that I've been caught doing something cool?"

"You've got no hope.  I have you cornered."

Hee hee hee.

He takes a sip.  "So I guess we were talking about dungeon philosophy at one point, and trading animal facts at another, either of which sound fun to me."

"Lenore pointed out after we went home that you probably heard me triumphantly announcing that I hadn't brought up duck penises."

"I was.  Not gonna bring that up.  But.  Yeah."

"Well we are not in a dungeon anymore so I can embarrass myself without interferin' with a rescue operation."

"Is it more or less embarrassing if I explicitly invite you to share any duck penis facts you feel moved to share?"

"It's way less embarrassing to talk about duck penises if you're fine with it! The embarrassing part is bringing up duck penises to somebody who's not fine with it!"

"Yeah I guess that makes a lot more sense than the reverse.  Tell me about duck penises."

"It's been a couple of years since I learned this one so I don't remember if it's all ducks or some specific kind of duck but apparently they're, like," she gestures expansively, "wildly long. I mean, compared to the duck, at any rate. And squiggly. Something about girl ducks going all labyrinth on them so they need to have all those squiggles to keep up? Nature is beautiful and also very silly sometimes."

"I'm picturing... I'm not sure what I'm picturing.  I'm gonna stop picturing it.  ...I distantly recall hearing that the barnacle has the largest ratio of penis size to body size of any animal."

"Good for barnacles! If they're into that sort of thing."

"I thiiink it has to do with them being sessile but I could be making that up."

"I'm picturing them just like. Growing that shit out like ivy, hoping it runs across a girl."

 - he sporfles helplessly.

"Well if they're sessile, right?"

"Mm-hmm!" he squeaks, as he gets himself under control.  "It only makes sense," he giggles.

"I'm gonna be so disappointed when I learn how barnacles actually work and it's not that."

"I was getting tempted to look it up on my phone, but I'll refrain, for you," he says.

"Thank you for letting me keep my penis ivy illusions." Pause. "What a sentence."

Snort.  "It's a pretty good one."

"I make those occasionally!"

Smiiiile.

" - um," he says, eloquently.  "Do you have more nature facts other than the duck penises that you were avoiding scandalizing the slendermins with?"

"...well there was one time you said you had a sketchy bug fact and I was wondering if it was the same sketchy bug fact I was thinking of..."

"I have at least a few bug facts of variable sketchiness.  Do you want to say yours or should I pick one of mine...?"

"I forget what kind of bugs it was—was it cockroaches? It was one of the icky kinds—but apparently they get up to some really wacky stuff."

"I don't remember thinking of a cockroaches fact.  I remember a bedbug fact and a certain kind of like... recursively parasitic mite."

"Bedbugs are pretty icky, it might be the same bug fact. Wait, does recursively parasitic mean they parasite each other? That's like that scifi book where the only things alive in the frozen wasteland are people and snow monsters and all they eat is each other..."

Giggle.  "No, recursively parasitic means they parasitize an animal that itself parasitizes another animal.  ...Which sci-fi book is this?"

"I forget. Lenore was complaining about it. Something something that's not an ecosystem that's a suicide pact... anyway do bedbugs have horrifying sex lives?"

"Bedbugs... hmm.  I should say, this is worse than the duck penises.  And the barnacle penises, and probably a lot of sorts of penises this conversation is likely to encounter."

"Okay yep I'm pretty sure that's the same bug fact."

"That male bedbugs," he clears his throat, "just fully skewer female ones on their penises?"

"Yep that's the one all right!" She laughs, a little self-consciously.

Bryce also Laughs A Little Self-Consciously.

"For a while I was mixed up and thought bedbugs were hermaphrodites who penis-fenced each other, but apparently that's flatworms, and bedbugs just do the traumatic insemination."

"Oh yeah, the penis fencing ocean squiggles! Those are so cute..."

He sporfles again.  "It would not have occurred to me to call penis fencing cute!"

"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!"

He leans back and cranes his neck toward the counter.  "I guess we could..."

"It's very tasty if you have my personality and my tastebuds."

Giggle.  "If you had a different personality but the same taste buds would you not enjoy it as much...?"

"Well the rainbow sprinkles wouldn't be as fun that way!"

"Ah, that makes sense.  You do seem like a rainbow food enjoyer."

"I like when things are cute and colourful."

"I apologize for my edgy color scheme."  He's wearing black-on-black.

"Don't apologize! You look nice."

"So do you."  Bashfully.

"Eee..." (Also bashfully.)

"I didn't know it was possible to squee that quietly and shyly."

Little giggle. "Explorin' new frontiers in cuteness, that's me."

She's so cute.  This is not fair, to Bryces.

"You know, maybe I will go order some of your adorable hot chocolate."

But he hesitates, just minutely, as he moves to get up, just in case - well.

Shyly wiggling...

Girl. Please.

"...o-or you could try some of mine, if you want."

He was right.

"If you're offering..." he says, a little bit slyly.

Blushing, she nudges the cup toward him across the table.

She's really fun to make blush.

He takes a little sip, and licks his lip dextrously to get some of the whipped cream and sprinkles off of it.

"It tastes adorable."

"See? The rainbow sprinkles do help."

"You were right!"

"...you're welcome to try some of mine if you want but it is, uh, Just Chamomile Tea."

"You know, I don't even know if I've had chamomile tea? I might as well try it." She sneaks his cup over to her side of the table and sips. "Huh! Tastes like plant."

Sporfle.  "We can trade back if you want."

"Enjoy your plant." She swaps the cups back. "It's not bad or anything! But it sure doesn't have rainbow sprinkles."

Still makes him giggle.  "I am not a habitual rainbow sprinkle drinker."  He sips his plant.

She sips her adorable. "It's nice to try new things sometimes."

"It is."

He is maybe gazing a little.  She really does have such a cute smile.

She blushes.

And a really cute blush.

"If you keep lookin' at me like that I might start thinkin' I'm nice to look at."

"Wouldn't want that."  He stirs his tea a little more, not taking his eyes off her for a second.

"Eee."

Would it be over the line to actually tell her what a cute blush she has, here.  Maybe?  They sure have progressed awfully fast from recent dungeon rescuee-rescuer relationship to flirting in a cozy coffee shop.  He'll take another sip of his tea but maybe he'll make it a slightly smug one.

She glances shyly across the table at him, and wiggles, and sips her hot chocolate.

He's starting to want to deploy some of his Evil Grins but that too may not be the vibe.  He smiles pretty widely behind his mug, though.

What if she hides her face behind her hot chocolate. Then he'll never find her. (He absolutely will find her, and also she has whipped cream on her nose.)

Ehehe.  "You okay back there?"

"...I have whipped cream on my nose. But also yes."

He retrieves a napkin from the dispenser and offers it to her, with dignity.

She puts down her beverage of concealment and wipes her nose, giggling softly at herself.

He bites his lip a little.  But what if he had kissed it off instead.

Oh cute... he's so cute...

"I don't know exactly what we're doing here but maybe it's about to become your business that, lots of espers are poly and I in particular am extremely poly."  He's tracing his finger around the rim of his mug, slowly chasing the thin wooden stirrer in circles.

"—oh! Neat. Gosh." Vistas of enchanting possibilities are opening before her eyes. "I was not thinkin' that far ahead. Gosh."

"Sorry, I don't mean to - there's no pressure, for this to be anything more than exactly what it already is.  We can even ease back if you want."

"Nooo I'm good. I just - I guess I don't know what we're doing here either. But I like your idea. It sounds like a good idea. Can we go with that one?"

" - I don't think I had an idea so much as a disclosure?  I am and will continue to be doing more, and more specific, things with other people."

"...well, right, which implies there's things, that we could be doing, besides sitting here blushing in a coffee shop, and that sounds like a good idea, just like, generally?"

"I might still have clarified the point if all we were gonna be doing was blushing in a coffee shop," he says.  "But.  There are thing we could be doing."

"I don't, um, I'm not... blushing in coffee shops... with anybody else right now." She looks down self-consciously into her rainbow sprinkles. "But I don't mind that kind of thing. It's like having friends, right? You don't hafta get mad when your friends have other friends."

He grins and bites his lip.  "That's pretty much exactly how I feel about it."

Tentative smile. "Oh... well, good."

"I even like it when my friends get along, from time to time."

"I'm gonna be honest with you, I'm not a hundred percent sure what you're getting at. But I think I might agree."

"Just thinking ahead a little," he says playfully.

"Well it's good that one of us is doing that. I'm pretty bad at it."

"Maybe you're just better than me at living in the moment," he says, trying to get the words out before he realizes how twee they are.

"You know what, I'll admit to that one."

"I'm glad you'll cop to at least some of your good qualities."  (Bryce @ Toby, inside his head: yes okay I hear it shut up.)

"Being adorable, living in the moment, spraypainting dungeon monsters in the face. That's me."

"I'm looking forward to getting to dig up more."  Why does he talk like this...

"Oh dang, now there's two of you..."

"Two of - oh, you mean me and Lenore?"

"Yeah. Going around making me acknowledge my positive qualities and stuff."

"...I do think you're - cooler than you realize - but I can ease off the teasing, if you like."

"No, it's okay. It's probably good for me or something. And, you know, I don't exactly mind people saying nice stuff about me."

"Just making sure."  Bryce has certainly had moods during which people insistently saying nice things about him were not helpful, though usually he is much more palpably miserable at times like that.  "Anyway, all I meant about my friends getting along was - " he ducks his head a little - "I was just, you know, laying the flirting on a little thicker."

"...wait, so did you mean that sometimes your flirty friends flirt with your other flirty friends and that's nice?"

"I did mean that," he says.  "And, you know, sometimes it's a little bit more than flirting."

She blushes. "Gosh..."

"Do you want an example?" he says, sounding somehow both a bit sly and a bit bashful.

Little wiggle. "Yeah..."

"Well," he says, twining a lock of his hair around his finger.  "Occasionally.  Me and one of my friends will do little... photoshoots... together, and send them to certain other mutual friends."  He bites his lip reminiscently, not quite meeting her eyes.  "Who usually really enjoy being flustered by receiving them."

She blushes. "Oh wow..."

Ehehe.  "You're looking a little flustered yourself."

"Gee,,, I wonder why,,,"

"Were you picturing receiving one of them?"

"I actually got flustered before I reached that stop on the train of thought, but yes."

"...How far did you get?"

"About as far as the word 'photoshoots'."

"The idea of me and Toby taking racy pictures together is just that exciting, huh?~"

(Toby would not, he thinks, mind being name-dropped here very much.)

Blushy wiggle. Blushy nod.

"That's really cute."

"Oh. Well, good."

"Do you like it when I fluster you?"

"Kiiiiind of..."

She's getting even blushier and wigglier.

"...I don't like it when... people are like mean to me? So being flustered can be a lil scary because - there's all the ways that could turn out where somebody's mean to me? But makin' me blush and then tellin' me I'm cute about it is. Nice."

" - aww, Kimberly," he says.  "You are cute.  And I hope I haven't scared you," he says earnestly.

"Not any more than trying to flirt with a cute boy was bound to scare me already."

"Well," he says knowingly.  "That's very fair."

"You're very nice to flirt with though."

"I really like flirting with you," he says, going a little droopy-with-affection again.  "And making you blush."

"Eeeeee." She hugs herself a little, wiggling shyly.

"You seem to perked back up okay but I was also gonna say that kinda made me wanna give you a hug.  Little side hug.  But here we are on opposite sides of this table."

"...I like hugs." She eyes their little booth, whose wraparound bench has room for a third person between them, or, perhaps... "We could stop being on opposite sides of the table?"

He scootches around to the middle of the bench.  He's dexterous enough about it but there is not really a particularly dignified way to scootch, especially not along a wraparound bench.

Kimberly is not even trying to be dignified. Scoot scoot.

Well, Kimberly being undignified is just cute.  And, because of who Bryce is a person, a little sexy.

Is it also cute if she blushes a bit and scoots right up next to him and leans her head on his shoulder a little?

Oh!

It's delightful.  He puts his arm around her.

"Eeeeee." She nestles cozily.

He idly traces one finger up and down her arm, from her shoulder down to just above her elbow and back.  (It's a light enough touch it might be muffled by her sweater.  Or maybe it won't.  Who's to say.)

(The little wiggles suggest she noticed.)

"That's cute."  Trace, trace.

Wiggle wiggle!! "You're cozy."

He rests his head against hers, a little.  "I gotcha."  Hmm, what an odd thing for him to say.

Odd, yes, but also: cozy.

"Were we talking about... flirting...?" she wonders. "I got distracted by how cozy you are."

"What got me wanting to cuddle you was asking how much and in what ways you enjoy being flustered.  Which is, yeah, talking about flirting, for me."

”Oh yeah!" She leans on him a little. "I've definitely been having a good time so far, with the flustering."

"Me too."

"Tell me," he says, gently and with almost convincing lightness, "if I ever get it wrong.  Okay?"

Nod nod! "Yeah. Important to do that."

He rests his hand on her shoulder and gives her a little squeeze, holding her close to him.  "Thanks."

Snug! Her hand has ended up on his knee. A pretty good place for it, she thinks.

He resumes tracing up and down her arm.  - well, he leaves his palm flat, so it's more of a petting motion.

She relaxes into him, enjoying warmth and closeness and cozy safe feelings.

...then she giggles.

"Hmm?"

"Noooo let's talk about something that's not the thought I just had," she says, blushing and ducking her head a little. "Inappropriate thought."

"All right."  Squeeze.  "Hmm, who's turn is it to share a grotesque nature fact...?  Or we were also maybe gonna talk about dungeons."

"Well, got any more good nature facts?"

"Hmm.  So you know how ants vomit into each other's mouths, right?"

"I think I knew birds did that, do ants do it for the same reason? Carrying food to somebody who can't get it themselves?"

"Huh, possibly," he says, "because the queens don't go out foraging themselves.  I think it's more general than that, though, just sharing and equalizing food throughout the colony."

"That's honestly kind of sweet. I mean, gross, obviously, but sweet. Vomit communism."

"...well, bad news," he says impishly.

"Oh?"

"The fun fact isn't the vomit communism" vommunism "but the fact that there's at least one type of ant that doesn't do it," he says, with a little bit of playful ominousness.

"Do they do something spooky instead?"

"They're called Dracula ants..."

Hee hee hee "oh no! Do they drink each other's blood? Are they okay??"

He giggles almost regretfully.  "It's actually even worse."

"Go on."

"They drink the blood," he says, "specifically of their larva."

"Oh no! Wait, what? What good does that do??? Where do the larva get their food??? Who's paying for this?"

He giggles helplessly.

Oh he has good giggles. Especially when she's snuggled right up and can feel him giggling them.

His cuddleable rapid-fire chest hitching subsides.

"So " he says, "the only part of this I'm sure of is that these guys do exist, and do do this.  But the way I think it works is that - like, in regular ant communism," he continues, tastefully, "I think food gets shared between ants that feed themselves whenever one has a surplus and one is hungry?  So I guess Dracula ants just feed their larva enough to keep them at a surplus, so if one of them gets hungry, they can," he shakes his head and starts snickering darkly, "go down to the fuckin' baby larder - "

"Baby larder..............."

"Baby larder," he says, ruefully, distantly.  "...I don't know if they are okay."

"...yeah. Nature can be kinda sad sometimes too."

...squeeze.  "Sorry, I don't think I meant to get quite that... um."

"No, it's okay." Nestle. "It's okay for things to be sad sometimes."

"Well," he says, fondly, quietly, "we'll get along, then."  He rests against her, feeling quite comfortable.

Her hand is still on his knee. She gives it a gentle squeeze.

Tiny little happy sigh.  "You're sweet."

"I try!" Snug. "You're sweet too."

" - aww, thank you."  He sounds a little surprised.

"Wait, why is that a surprise?"

He laughs and shakes his head.  "Maybe I don't have a leg to stand on being down on myself with you.  No, just..."

He trails off musingly.

Nestle. "Hmm?"

"No, maybe I'm just being silly.  Don't read too much into it, okay?"

"Okay!"

Nestle.  He kinda scritches her, as though her shoulder is a kitty he's petting between the ears.  "Where were we... I think it might be your turn, unless you're out of even the animal facts that would scandalize the slendermins."

Cozy... "No slendermins to scandalize anymore!"

"No slendermins to scandalize.  ...We shut that dungeon down, after everyone was out, we got the core, so really no more slendermins."

"...man... that's a little bit sad," she muses. "I mean, obviously it's better than having it still kidnapping people. But it's like the ants with the baby larder, right, it's not their fault nature made them that way, and it kind of sucks to be a baby one. You know?"

"May I kiss you on," the cheek would be inconvenient in their current snuggling configuration, "the crown of your head, about you having said that?"

...oh, blushy wiggles... blushy wiggly nod.

He does.

It's gentle, and soft; it's brief, but not especially quick or darting or playful.  In another context - or maybe even in this context? - it might be called comforting.

"Cozy."

"That's such a flatteringly specific description of a kiss," he says fondly.

"Is it? It was cozy!"

"I'm glad it was cozy.  It - "

"It kind of just felt like the most honest way to say what I felt about you having said that was to kiss you about it, first thing, rather than try to say anything in words.  But I didn't think we were in spontaneous kiss territory yet."

"You know, that makes a lot of sense." She considers. "I think we can be in spontaneous cozy kisses territory if you wanna be."

"Cozy kisses, mkay.  I think I know how to aim for cozy kisses."  He plants another gentle little kiss, just as brief-but-unhurried, on her hair, right next to the first one.  "Like so?"

"Eeeeee..."

"I don't know " he says, "that sounds more squidgy and blushy than cozy.  Maybe I shouldn't do that again without asking."  He's not actually laughing but he also can't keep the smile out of his voice.

"No it was extremely cozy."

Giggle.  "All right."  A third kiss completes a little equilateral triangle pointing toward the part of her hair.

"You made geometry with 'em..." Shy blushy wiggles.

 - he sporfles helplessly, which with their existing snuggly situation winds up with him squeezing her a little tighter and kind of nuzzling his face into her hair, a little bit, gently.  "I guess I did..."

Hee hee. "It was cute."

"I'm flattered."

"I did have, um, actual words, about what you said.  Or I was probably gonna in a minute.  But I wanted to contextualize them properly by my first response to what you said being me kissing you and then we got distracted."

"Makes sense. I don't think I mind being distracted by coziness." Snug. "But if you wanna say more things about dungeons, that is also good."

"I was - reminded very vividly of a moment in the dungeon," he says.  "You - if I remember, you called it cute.  When one of the monsters was trying to alter the directions pointing back to the portal."

"...yeah," she says. "Like... dungeons are dangerous and scary and stuff, but this one was also cute and silly, I think?"

"Yeah.  The thing that reminded me of it was that... I said something like I wasn't going to say this but I thought that was funny.  I kind of had the same experience again, but more intensely and - solemnly.  Something I felt, that I didn't think was appropriate to share with you, but that you then surprised me by expressing independently.  But - it was something kind of important to me, this time."

"The being sad about dungeons?"

"Yeah.  It's - "

"Have you been to the Ontario Monster Park?"

She shakes her head.

"Do you know about it at all?  It's a zoo for monsters recovered from dungeons.  It's out on an artificial island, you can take a ferry there."

"Yeah, I heard about it, I've just never been."

"Mm-hmm," he says.  "I've actually done a bit of capture work for it.  There's a foot-long three-eyed toad in there, that one was me.  I - "

" - I don't want to feel uncomplicatedly good about killing these things."

"...yeah. Yeah, that makes sense."

He pulls his face away from where its resting in her hair, and cranes his neck just a little to look down at her face.

Then he rests against her, again, and just - breathes, for a moment.

"It wouldn't - have been your responsibility, to feel like that about a dungeon that got you.  But.  I'm glad you do."

...awww. She squeezes his knee.

"Yeah. I'm glad I do too."

...he places his free hand over hers, on his knee, and nestles against her.

Nestle. Maybe a lil shoulder-nuzzle. Cozy.

He sighs a little.  Not in an unhappy way, but as though letting go of a breath, though he wasn't actually holding his breath.  "This is lovely," he murmurs.

Nod nod.

He might just stay like this, quietly, comfortably, for a little while.  Maybe his fingers gently curl around under the palm of her hand, so he's holding it properly; maybe his other hand pets and traces up and down her arm again.

The whipped cream is slowly melting into her hot chocolate and she is simply too cozy to do anything about this.

Bryce has no duty of rescue toward Kimberly's cocoa.  He traces the thumb of the hand holding Kimberly's hand back and forth where it falls on her wrist.  Mmm.

Mmm indeed. Truly they have reached the peak of coze. Snuggly and soft and—

—she giggles again.

"Should I again not ask what you're thinking?"

"...maybe. Probably. It's kinda inappropriate."

"Worse than the prenatal incest bugs?  - sorry, we don't have to."

Giggle.

"...I guess it's like. The prenatal incest bugs are weird but if you're fine with it and I'm fine with it then it's fine to talk about them. This is more like, I'm not sure I'm fine with blurting it out in the middle of a coffee shop."

"That's really fair."  Squeeze.  "If - you want to talk about it, some time we're not in the middle of a coffee shop, I think I won't freak out, but if you don't, we don't have to."

"Are you sure you won't freak out?"

"Um," he says.  "I have a guess as to where this is going.  And, if I'm right, I really doubt you're going to be the one to shock me.  But if my guess is wrong I will be very embarrassed."

She thinks for a second.

"...okay this is not the thing I was thinking but it's something I don't mind saying in a coffee shop and it kinda sorta makes a good test case for how badly I'm gonna embarrass myself... do you, uh. Do you remember me yellin' at the monster when I thought you weren't there."

He opens his mouth - 

- and closes his mouth - 

- and kisses her again - 

- and then says, "I, uh, wasn't sure if I heard that right..."

She ducks her head and kind of half-hides her face in his shoulder, blushing. "It was somethin' like, 'a pretty face is no excuse for being a meanie pants'..."

He gives her a squeeze and presses his own face into her hair a little, and says, "yeah, that sounds familiar."  His breath catches like he's about to say something else, but he doesn't.

"...yeah I was kind of having 'oh no he's hot' problems every time I saw a monster in that dungeon. So, uh. If that helps you figure out... vaguely the kind of inappropriate thought I might be having, generally speaking. It was kind of a different thing this specific time but like. Same broad level of weird I think." She is blushing so much.

"...we really don't have to get any further into this than you want to."

"...I dunno, I think we might, actually. I think I am bad enough at keeping my thoughts to myself that if I'm gonna hang out with somebody a lot I should warn them upfront how weird it'll get."

" - aww, Kimberly."  He - has to let go of her hands about this but he wants to give her a proper two-armed hug.  Squeeze.

...she leans into him, taking a deep breath and hugging herself.

"If it'd make you more comfortable to talk about it we can absolutely talk about it," he says bracingly.  "I just didn't want to push."

She takes another deep breath, a calmer one this time, and maneuvers an arm around his waist so she can give him a return squeeze. "Okay. That... is gonna be a conversation to have in Not A Coffee Shop, then. But I guess..." Her voice gets smaller and shyer. "...I'm not totally irredeemably weird so far?"

"...I think my guess was right that - maybe I won't shock you, either, but we might be on pretty similar wavelengths.  In terms of kinkiness."

"...gosh." Tiny wiggle. "I wasn't expectin' that."

"No?" he says.  "...I guess maybe I haven't been dropping that many hints.  But I kind of figured - I mean - I don't know what else my guess would have been."

"I might not be great at picking up hints."

Squeeze.  "'Sokay," he says.  "I'm probably a little more obtuse and circuitous and hesitant than I realize I'm being, a lot of the time."

"Circuitous is such a fun word." Snug.

 - giggle.  "It is!"  His face is still nuzzlingly-positioned for a spontaneous kiss with minimal fanfare.  "I think so too."

Happy wiggle.

"Well, I don't mind you being circuitous as long as you don't mind me being kinda dense about it sometimes."

"Deal," he says.  (He kinda feels like he might be making that face Toby makes at him sometimes about her calling herself dense, though.)

"But to be really clear, we can talk - as little or as much about this as you want, I think.  I might be hesitant to talk about some of my stuff at first, but if you want to get stuff out in the open early so we can see whether I can - keep up with you - that's fine with me."

"...yeah. Yeah, I think I do want that. It's gonna be really embarrassing but so far every time I've embarrassed myself in front of you you've been really nice about it."

"I really don't think I would characterize you as having embarrassed yourself in front of me at all."

"Are you sure?? Not even with the 'pretty face' comment?"

"I was - I don't know.  If anything I think I should apologize to you for that.  I - "

He takes a breath, and his voice becomes more serious.

"I don't know if it would have been responsible for me to be more careful not to catch you with my power, that sort of thing is hard for me to do in a split second and I think a split second is what I had, but I don't - like that I did that to you."

"...yeah," she says, consideringly. "That makes sense. I don't know, I... I think you did the right thing in the situation we were in? And—"

Now is not the time to be self-deprecating. I'm giving you that look, you know the one.

—she does the tiniest little gigglesnort, and continues with a little smile on her face and in her voice, "...it turned out okay. I think I'm okay with being accidentally set up to embarrass myself if there's monsters around and they're gonna hurt somebody. Like that's just—it's a price I'm willing to pay, you know? Even if you hadn't been nice about it. But I'm really glad you were nice about it."

"I - wanna be nice," he says.  "You should get to have people be nice to you."  He does a gentle little sideways motion that would cause him to shoulder-bump her if they were not already in a pretty cuddly side hug.

"Aww... yeah. Yeah I should. I'm glad you wanna be one of 'em."

"I'm glad you agree."  Pet pet.

Cozy. She makes a happy little sigh about it.

"So," he says, gently, after taking a moment to enjoy the coziness and the happy Kimberly noises.  "We've got a non-coffee-shop conversation to have..."

"Mhm!" Nod nod. "Do you wanna go somewhere that's not a coffee shop?"

That smiiiiiile.  He can just be happy about being smiled at by that smile now.  "I do if you do, I think."

"Cool. Then lemme put this hot chocolate out of its misery." She unsnugs a little to retrieve her arms so she can pick it up.

Bryce will allow her to retrieve arms from snuggle, and look into transferring the remainder of his chamomile to a travel cup.

Oh, does he get to say - "Your place or mine?"

"Probably yours unless you like sad little dorm rooms and being interrogated by Lenore. Which, I mean, you could! If you want!"

"Hmm, would it be more fun for you to meet Toby or for me to meet Lenore..."

"I dunno, I don't hardly know anything about Toby. He seems nice. Lenore will probably make ominous jokes about what happens to people who break my heart. I can tell her not to if that's not your cup of tea."

"Toby's a sweetheart," he says.  "He'll really like you.  He makes mean-sounding jokes sometimes but the people he makes them about are in on them, he won't do that with you if you don't like it.  He'll - "

He fishes his phone out of his pocket and fiddles with it, and then says into the receiver with exaggerated clarity, "He'll probably offer us free rein of his retro video game collection and then say something about how we'll probably be too busy to use it."  He taps his phone again and sets it down on the table.  "And then when he does I'll get out my phone and play that sound clip and he'll double over laughing."

Hee hee hee. "Okay that's really funny and now I wanna see it happen."

Giggle.  "Well, if you don't mind me having the home turf advantage, that sounds like our answer?"

"Sounds good to me!" Slurp! The hot chocolate is vanquished.

As they head out, he says, "You're welcome to some of my plant if you want more hot drink on the walk."

He brushes his fingers interrogatively against hers, as they exit side by side: take my hand, if you like?

Oh, she definitely likes.