He laughs and hugs her back. "But you will not be stopped by the mighty arm of Big Snuggle," he says, through and among the laughter. 

"I love you so much."

"I..." Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. He freezes and buries his face in her arms. Fuck. He should say it he should say it. "I, love..." comes the muffled voice. But he doesn't know that he does and he can't make himself and he feels awful. Fuck. "I'm... sorry..." he says, still muffled. 

"....I sense turmoil," she says, gently wrapping her arms around him and squeezing. "You don't have to say it. You don't have to feel it, I know I'm still new to you. It's okay to just... be you and feel your feelings and not try to make yourself be or do some specific thing for me. It's okay."

"But I'm supposed to," he says mournfully into her arms. She doesn't seem like she's broken up about it though? She seems like she's still in love with him and doesn't mind? He doesn't... he doesn't understand that. "If she says she loves you and you don't say it back then it's bad." 

"No!! Why? No! I want to know how you feel, not how you think I want you to feel, or how you think society wants you to feel, or how you think society expects me to want you to feel. Leave society out of my bedroom, please, it'll get crowded."

He giggles, despite himself. "I just... are you sure?" this feels like an easy way out, like cheating. (Lots of things about Rosy feel like cheating, sometimes.) "I... I want to feel the same way you feel, I want to be sure the way you are, I want to do it right" but that's society again or something "or... I don't know. I don't know." He buries his face in the bathrobe again. It's fuzzy. 

It is.

Rosy softly pets his hair.

"...we are trying to do some pretty advanced consent maneuvers here," she observes, "and... I think it's important, under conditions like those, to be honest with ourselves and each other about how we feel and what we want? Because—I can't think of a sillier way for this to end badly, than for you to try to do all the 'right' things, and drag me along with you into it by force of ownership, and be unhappy, and make me unhappy, all in service of the looming nebulous opinion cloud of a bunch of people who would probably be horrified to hear we're even doing this in the first place."

That's not likely to happen, is it? (Isn't it?) "It still feels like something will go wrong if I don't say it," he says, his voice muffled by fluffy fabric. "I get what you're saying" it really would be a silly way for things to go wrong "but it feels like, I don't know, I'm doing you a disservice by not saying it back. You care about me so much and are so good!" His voice gets more muffled as he buries it deeper. "I just, I like you, I like you a lot, but I don't know if I love you yet." He braces, but everything is fine, she's not jerking away in frustration or anything. (That was a really unlikely possibility. He was still scared of it though.)

She pets him some more. "It's okay! It's okay to not know. It's okay to not love me yet. It's okay. You're okay."

"Doesn't feel ok," he says, with a bit of a twist in his voice, but even as he says it it doesn't feel true. He still feels loved (even if he doesn't feel it himself yet). He feels ok. He feels warm (possibly a little too warm in here now that he's been here so long), and comforted, and ok. "Well. Maybe a little ok." 

She attempts to unearth his forehead so she can kiss it.

He is a little shocked and confused but lets himself be lifted and grins when kissed. Rosy is so good to him. (And hopefully he can learn to be just as good back. He wants to be. No matter what society might say. (Though society is probably on his side for this one.))

She grins back and hugs him.

"I love you. Is it okay to keep saying it?"

He winces a little, but takes a deep breath and thinks. "I think so," he tells her, "I just don't know what to say back."

"You could try 'okay'. Or the classic 'I know'. Or even 'I'm glad'."

The first one seems dismissive and he doesn't like it, the second, while classic and hilarious, isn't what he's going for either. "Okay, I'm, I'm glad," he says, trying it on. 

She kisses his nose.

He giggles and flops backwards on the bed next to her. She's so cute! 

She snuggles up.

...and then says, "I'm getting a little warm in all this fuzz, do you mind if I take it off again?"

He blushes. "That's probably okay," he says, and blushes some more. He isn't in the mood for doing hot things with her just yet but the cute girl entirely naked might help with that. 

She disenfuzzes and snuggles up again, nestling cozily against him. Yep, that's a cute naked girl all right. A cute naked girl who loves him 💖

Is it weird that he still feels like he needs to be careful where he puts his hands? He still feels like he needs to be careful where he puts his hands. He carefully wraps his arms and hands around her, and snuggles up close. She's very warm and good. (And naked.) 

...she decides not to pester him about where he's putting his hands. He can put them wherever he wants, even if that's Definitely Not Anywhere Interesting. Snuggle! Warm and good and naked snuggle!

It's cozy. And relaxing and despite (despite? Why despite) the nakedness, it's making him feel better.