CHAPTER 25
Nick let Cait herd him into the dining hall along with the rest of their gang, and again marveled at her resilience. That said, she hadn't had to feel Bullrush's hoof entering the soft flesh of her body before Dreamboat had yanked his mind out of the dream. It had all been fake, sure, but while his body was technically fine it still quivered from the aftershocks of mental pain and shock.
The most fucked up thing, from his perspective, was how easy it had been to kill the opposing Guardians. Not in terms of pure difficulty, of course, they were insanely tough and killed his team as often as they themselves went down. No, Nick had been surprised that not only had it been easy emotionally, it had felt good, had felt right. Like it was what he was meant to be doing. He knew that was new.
One of the few almost-positive memories Nick had of his father was a hunting trip they'd taken to an area near the edge of the dome. It had started well, but Nick had found himself entirely unable to loose the arrow his father had helped him train on a small deer. His dad had snatched the bow from him, killed the deer, and they hadn't spoken for the rest of the trip. Maybe that memory wasn't almost-positive after all, in retrospect.
He scooped some beef stew into a bowl and joined the rest of the crew at their table, where they were animatedly congratulating each other and discussing tactics. He couldn't reconcile the kid who couldn't kill a deer with the monster that had, gleefully, slaughtered heroes less than an hour ago. The echo of the pleasure he'd felt on the tip of his tentacle wedged between Gwyn's soft breasts whispered through his mind. He shuddered, not wanting to admit to himself how similar it had been to the feeling that had run down the appendage as it pierced into Fingerguns' brainpan during their fourth bout.
"-and Breastman was like something out of a survival horror game!" Kennedy exclaimed animatedly. She linked up with him, splashing him with approval. The empath had very seldomly linked with him in the past, either due to a repulsion for him or the fact that the stretchy abilities she got from him were less useful than their other team members. Her face fell, presumably as she got a wave of the self-disgust Nick felt for himself right now.
"Maybe," Cait said hurriedly, picking up that there was something amiss. "But y'all didn't see that catch he made in the second round."
She beamed at him, holding a hand up for a high tentacle. He took a second to return it, but when another wave of approval, this one somehow warmer, washed over him from Kennedy, he managed a firm slap on Cait's palm.
MORE PROUD OF THE YEET MYSELF
He was lying, of course. 'Saving' his indestructible friend absolutely had been the thing that felt the best to his human mind. This was the cost of conversation though, and that toss was largely what had won them the round. Kennedy could feel the lie, and a brush of concern touched his emotions. The concern alone helped immensely, actually. He might not be used to having murder hardcoded into his DNA, but he was even less used to having people that cared if he did. Mustering up some reassurance, he sent it back Kennedy's direction. She smiled warmly at him, and he felt something wrap around one of his tentacles. A quick scan with his senses showed it was Kennedy's pinky, bizarrely extended and stretched into a miniature tentacle of its own. The weird appendage squeezed on his, and suddenly the comfort he'd been faking became real. No question, his new situation was fucked, but he actually had people to help him through it this time.
"Speaking of that yeet," Cait continued, eyes turned upward in thought. "We should work on some more moves like that. My mobility is better than it was, but I'm still slower than I'd like to be on the approach, and I can only come in at the angle of 'fucking charge'. If you could toss me into the middle of things, or behind, or carry me with you…."
Becalmed, Nick joined in on the tactics discussions for the rest of the meal. They had a million ideas, most of which probably wouldn't work in practice, but if even a few did they would up their effectiveness massively. Dawn also corralled Kennedy into a frank discussion of her powerset, and the fact that she wasn't giving it the respect it was due. The team had guard duty tomorrow afternoon, but the deerlady made them aware that she would expect them all at the Coliseum that evening to work on Kennedy's combos.
As they finished up in the dining hall, Dawn excused herself while Cait and Kennedy headed back towards the room, laughing and flirting, still clearly high off of their success. Nick followed close behind, checking his phone as he did. There were a couple new messages, one from Cait and one from Gwyn.
C: hey bud, can tell somethings up. Im no therapist but im happy to listen (read?) if you need to vent in private. Love u.
Heh. Must've been typing under the table like back in middle school. Nick would probably take her up on that. He was very much beginning to suspect he needed an actual therapist, but that was so far out of his comfort zone he'd need to take baby steps.
B: Thanks, Cait. I think I'll need that, and appreciate the offer. I'll find you sometime when you're not balls deep in Lira.
He heard Cait laugh, and wave off a question about the messages content from Kennedy.
C: honestly man, I could probably handle both, and Liras not shy
It was Nick's turn to chuckle as Cait shot a wink over her shoulder at him. He was pretty sure she was joking. He checked Gwyn's text next.
G: Hey B-man!>-<
G: I heard Cait call you that, and I think its cute, is that okay?
G: n-eway! Let me know how it went with Warhawk!
G: Rodeo squad has a bit of a reputation for going too hard on newbies.
B: Rodeo squad? Also, yeah, call me whatever you'd like Gwyn! The fights went as well as you could expect, we actually won one!
Her response came before they'd reached the top of the stairs.
G: !!!!!!
G: You guys won one!?
G: Im so proud of you!!!! >-<
B: Heh, thats the general consensus around here as well.
G: Mind if I come over to celebrate?
Nick's tentacle hovered over the screen for a second. Things had been easy with Gwyn so far. She was clearly interested, and while his interest didn't look the same as it had, he no longer denied it was present. The fact was though, that in his previous life he'd been well on his way towards becoming a virgin wizard. He knew that actual relationships were supposed to cover some level of emotional vulnerability, but he wasn't sure he was ready to dump any of this on Gwyn and risk…. whatever they had.
B: I'd love that!
He also wasn't good at setting boundaries, and was loath to disappoint one of the very few friends he had.
B: I get to choose the movie though.
Bad with boundaries or not, he didn't think he could handle Gwyn's fascination with body horror films right now.
Fifteen minutes later, he was cuddled up in Gwyn's lap, melting as she ran her fingers absent mindedly over his skin. The sounds of a romcom where a young lady goes on a blind date with a dude who turns out to be a goofy and charming hitman washed over him. Cait hadn't objected to him picking the movie, and five minutes in the reason was clear, as Lira bounced through the door!
"Hey guys! Congrats on the win!" She said, coming up behind Cait on the couch and leaning over to kiss at her neck. "Cait, could we fuck- sorry, I mean, talk in private?"
Her eyes glinted with mischief as she pulled at Cait's hands, and the amazon responded at speed, twisting around and vaulting over the couch, basically tackling a giggling Lira back into her room.
"Oh yeah, total slip of the tongue." Gwyn muttered to herself, and Nick let out a hissing chuckle. He could feel the heat begin to rise in her cheeks though, and while he tried to respect her modesty, he could feel it in her lap as well. Over the week, he'd also realized that not all women smelled like Lira, as he'd initially begun to assume. Lira was just the first girl he'd been around when they were actively horny, which for her had effectively been always, so he'd thought it was just part of her scent.
As he'd spent more time around Gwyn and Kennedy, women with more reasonable sex drives, he'd noticed he only smelled it on them in certain situations. Like now. It hadn't taken too long for him to realize he was picking up on their arousal. He tried to hide his own darkening blush, but had no clue how good of a job he was doing. As the sounds of sex drifted in past the closed door, Kennedy was getting more and more fidgety. When the wall shook followed by a guttural moan from Lira, she excused herself to her room, muttering an obviously false excuse.
Gwyn's own breath had changed, Nick could feel it as it became hotter, and heavier. Her hands had an almost imperceptible quiver as they stroked against him now. Logically, Nick knew he should be horny now too. Two super hot people having what sounded like great sex in the next room, another supermodel level beauty quietly jilling off to it in the room next to them, and, most importantly, Gwyn.
Nick hadn't ever had a woman… want him before. His knowledge of what that would even look like came entirely from romcoms and porn. As he'd spent time around Cait, he'd realized that his perceptions of it were entirely wrong. Even though her life seemed to operate on porn logic, she was a real person, and so were the people around her.
Actual arousal and desire wasn't all cock-shock and accidentally dropped towels. People didn't casually announce how wet they were to their step siblings. The signs were just as obvious to his new senses now, but to regular people they'd be much more subtle. Heightened breath, increased body temperature, pheromone production, all of these things were written out for him clear as day. While he didn't think his previous life had included any situations where it would have been relevant, it would have been amazing to get as clear a 'go' signal as he was getting from Gwyn now.
All that was to say, while the sounds, 'sights', and smells were pleasant, they did little for him now. While he'd found he did seem to be capable of sexual desire, it was predicated almost solely on touch, focused on the end of his tentacles. So while he should have been metaphorically hard as a rock and ready to go, instead, he was perfectly happy to sit on Gwyn's warming lap and enjoy the movie in his own way.
That was, until Gwyn's fingers started to stray. One hand traced away from his core, following the muscular strand of a tentacle. He could feel his own 'blood' start to rush as she slid those fingers to the tip, a shock of pleasure rushing through him as she, tentatively, began to work it between her fingers. Shuddering, he unconsciously wrapped another arm around one of her plush thighs. The short, soft pj bottoms she wore exposed plenty of skin, and he felt her breath catch as he rubbed against the smooth flesh of her inner thigh. Her grip on his tip tightened at the same time, flashing pain as well as pleasure down the increasingly sensitive nerves of the organ.
"Ah! Sorry!" She said when he let out an involuntary hiss. Her voice was colored heavy with lust as she continued, "Let me…."
Gently, she pulled the tentacle to her mouth. Nick twitched from the erotic shock of pleasure as her plump lips puckered against where she'd pinched him. She didn't remove them. Instead, he felt them part, letting her warm breath wash against his skin, followed, hesitantly, by her questing pink tongue.
Nick moved the arm without thought then, entwining his tip with her tongue in an unholy perversion of a kiss. Only it wasn't 'a perversion'. As Nick could feel every indicator of Gwyn's arousal build, he knew this might not be natural, but neither was he, and they both wanted this.
As tongue and tentacle played together, he snaked the one around her thigh higher. The temptation to go up the leg of her shorts, right up against and into her, was like the gravity of the sun, almost insurmountable in its strength. He hesitated. Her kissing had taken on a desperate quality as he'd moved down below, but the thought of making this… sex, or as close as he could logically make it, had set off a storm of emotions inside of him. Self-hatred, body dysmorphia, and fear warred with physical desire, a weird kind of lust, and a burgeoning emotional attachment to Gwyn.
It wasn't a war that would be decided tonight. Instead, he brought the tentacle up and over the soft fabric of her pjs, running it back down along the front. He immediately felt it grow hot and damp as he began to apply pressure to Gwyn's pussy. He'd allowed himself to expect this might happen, and been self aware enough to know that porn was a poor instruction manual to take care of someone you actually cared about yourself. As such, he'd asked Cait for advice.
Following her instructions, he pulsed pressure all along Gwyn's slit, the low vibrations from her mouth indicating he was doing something right. With the tip, he teased at where he could tell her entrance was, while the fatter part of the appendage continued to pulse and grind against her clit through the thin cloth of her clothes.
Gwyn took a sharp breath that he mistook as pain, but as he went to withdraw his tentacle from her mouth she shot her head forward, catching the tip between her lips and beginning to suck it back in. The sensation was like fireworks in his head, a never ending 4th of July finale somehow managing to intensify as she began to work her tongue again, soft vibrations carrying along it and through her lips as he continued to work at her undercarriage.
To his horror, Nick felt an almost uncontrollable instinctual urge to thrust the tentacle into her throat, down into her stomach, the pressure almost like a voice in his head.
C'mon, you've seen the way she looks at you. Little freak probably wants it.
No.
Instead, Nick tore his attention away from the explosive sensations of the occupied tentacle to the many that were currently doing nothing. One by one, he assigned them tasks. One he snuck up between Gwyn's breasts, wrapping it around the left and working at the hard, sensitive nub of her nipple. He kneaded at her right with another, while two wrapped around her soft belly. A pair took hold of her wrists, bringing her arms up behind her head before lacing between her fingers.
With immense difficulty, he removed the tentacle in her mouth, and she actually growled a little in frustration. He raised himself up to eye level, and Gwyn looked at him with naked lust. Nick knew he must look terrifying, base level of scary turned up to 11 by the black tendrils of 'blush' shooting through the skin around his maw. That didn't seem to matter to the beautiful nerd though. In fact, impossibly, it was just what she wanted.
Cait had talked with him about not letting himself be used by people that saw him as a fantasy, little more than a living sex toy. He'd been confused at the time, but Gwyn's attraction to him made it clear that it was actually a possibility. To be honest, the look in her eyes made him scared that was what was happening. Cait had told him something else though, too.
Relationships are built on trust. Nick thought, and kissed her. Kind of. His thick red tongue shot out, entering her mouth as it was open and panting. She moaned into their 'kiss' as he increased the intensity of his ministrations on her pussy. He wasn't sure how long that kiss lasted before Gwyn began to shudder and shake against his bindings, her breath catching on his tongue as she came. Cait had gone on a long tangent about edging and multiple orgasms, but Nick was absolutely not confident enough to try and pull that off. Instead, he picked Gwyn up, now limp in afterglow, and carried her to his room. With the strength in even a single tentacle, she weighed almost nothing.
He pulled the sheets of the bed down, putting Gwyn in the center. He pulled himself up, and wrapped tight around her as he covered them again with the blankets. With her satisfaction, and the emotional exhaustion of his day, they were asleep in seconds.