Colin Wallis

After so much time in a coma, I guess it’s no wonder that my circadian cycle is screwed up.

By which I mean that I end up waking up earlier than usual.

Earlier than usual and with a slender arm draped over my chest that, when I follow it in the near darkness only partially mitigated by a sliver of streetlight coming from the nearly-locked door, leads me to Dragon’s face.

She’s sleeping.

And beautiful.

I can feel the warmth in my chest when I observe her. When I take in the shape of her closed eyelids, diffuse as it is, supplemented by memory and imagination. When I notice her lips turned up into a soft, barely there, still warm smile.

Then I see the arms wrapped around her waist, and I lift my head from the pillow to find Minnie’s open mouth and light snoring coming from behind my girlfriend.

I feel a slight note of amusement rise up at that. At Mouse Protector not managing to be quiet even when unconscious.

And then I realize that there’s an empty warmth on my right.

So I take in a bit more of the endearing view. Of Dragon and her yellow and black pajamas and Minnie and her loose shirt. Of two women entangled as they rest on a pillow that smells like the three of us. That fills my chest with them with every inhalation.

That makes me smile.

And I wish I could close my eyes and drift back to sleep, to actual rest rather than the past few days, but I’m wide awake, and so I gently pick up the hand on top of my official pajamas and kiss Dragon’s knuckles softly enough that her smile widens just a bit without her rest being interrupted.

Then I slowly roll to my left and get up, out of the most welcoming bed I’ve ever slept in and toward where my other girlfriend should be.

Which turns out to be in the kitchen and barefooted.

…

I think I should refrain from further comment.

“Colin? Sorry, did I wake you up?” she says, smiling at me with a hint of worry without letting go of the steel mixing bowl she’s stirring something in.

“I think my body needs to get reacquainted with a sane schedule,” I tell her as I walk toward her.

Toward the woman still wearing the lingerie from the night before and a white apron that contrasts beautifully with the sharp green of translucent fabric highlighting her tanned skin even under the unflattering fluorescent tubes that let her cook before the sun rises.

“You’ve never had one of those,” she comments with what tries to be a passable attempt at snark but gets spoiled by her smile as I stand behind her and slide my hands under the apron to rest them on her bare belly before pulling her to me just so I can feel her warmth on my body.

“I am sane, and I had a schedule; thus, by definition, I had a sane schedule,” I tell her the irrefutable truth before leaning down to kiss the side of her neck until she giggles and pushes back against me so that my arms tighten around her and my hands go from gentle to possessive.

“Dragon’s gonna be in charge of monitoring your stimulant intake from now on,” she says.

And then she looks over her shoulder at the betrayal plain on my face, and her giggle grows louder before she stifles it with her right wrist, unwittingly taking the spoon out of the mixing bowl and splattering a few white, creamy droplets on her bare shoulder.

Of course, I lick them.

And she shivers.

The taste is… citric. Sour with sharp spearmint, and I see the floating, chopped dark green leaves on the bowl set against her chest. Yogurt, but the Greek kind, and turned into a mix for dipping, I presume.

“You are delicious,” I murmur right into her ear.

“That’s… a weird compliment,” she says as she wiggles against me and makes me react to her body a bit more than the situation already had.

“A sincere one,” I offer, my fingers sinking into the trim belly as I pull her harder against me.

“Colin…” she breathes out.

“I love you,” I say. Unprompted.

For the first time.

And she freezes.

“You… You’ve never told me before—” she starts to say.

And I take the bowl out of her hand and set it on the counter made of fake wood by the side of an actually wooden cutting board, still holding her belly with my left hand before I grab her right with mine.

“It’s one of the first things I saw. When I woke up,” I tell her.

She’s staring at our entangled fingers, reflexively returning my possessive grasp.

Evading my eyes.

And I would worry. I would be an anxious mess expecting reciprocation or rejection.

But she’s shown me too many times that the word wasn’t there, but the feelings were. She’s told me how furious she’s at me for not letting her die by my side. How much she hated being left behind.

So I know this isn’t about that.

I don’t know what it is about, though.

“You saw that you loved me?” she asks, her voice so small I can barely hear her from my place by her neck.

“I saw you and Dragon, and I didn’t even remember your names. Just… Just that I love you. That… Hannah, is there something you—”

Her hand reaches up to my neck and claws me down and forward to crash against earnest, hungry lips and the hard teeth behind them in a way that uncomfortably reminds me of my first kiss and the notebook I started filling up after it.

“Ouch,” she says, pulling away and offering me a wide grin.

“Ouch indeed,” I answer, smiling down at her.

And then her hand goes from my nape to my beard, her fingers pressing down so I can feel their roughened warmth on my cheek as deep green eyes take me and hold me as tightly as I grasp her hand.

“I love you,” she says.

And then, slowly, she closes her eyes and tilts her head up to offer me open lips that I, applying everything that found its way to a notebook I should burn before Lisa’s next visit, kiss her.

Slowly brushing our lips together, softly pushing down against her as my fingers massage her toned belly, tightening my grasp on her captive hand, and finally pushing my tongue past her lips to languidly taste her without the interference of the dipping sauce resting on the countertop.

I don’t miss the lemon, mint, or yogurt. Not when I have her.

She lets out a small noise, something almost like a whine, and her hand goes from my beard to my chest, her own fingers pushing against my muscle until I finally allow her to turn in my embrace so that she can face me, a toned leg going around mine as my hand rests on the small of her back and beneath the tied belt for a single moment before pulling her harder against me, her breasts molding to my chest as she grabs my neck while our entangled right hands are trapped between a white apron and blue pajamas.

It is tempting to do something… not more, but other. To grab her backside and lift her onto the counter, spreading her legs as I step between them to take her. To make absolutely certain that she’s as mine as I’m hers.

But…

But I pull away, and she opens her green eyes, looking up at me with a marvel that makes me uncomfortable. That makes me feel undeserving of something so pure and intense.

“You have… a nice kitchen,” I end up saying.

She quirks an inquiring eyebrow at me.

And then we burst into laughter.

“I enjoy it,” she ends up saying, resting her cheek against my chest by the side of her open, warm palm.

“The normalcy?” I ask, taking a stab at the meaning underlying her answer.

She nods, caressing me with the motion, the crown of her head brushing soft hair past my beard.

“There’s no reason that you can’t retire,” I offer.

The nod becomes a slow shake before she turns up with a look of reproach.

“Together,” she reminds me.

And I can’t help my answering smile.

So we stand there, at least a couple of hours before sunrise, under fluorescent lights that do nothing to detract from her beauty, smiling at each other like foolish children in love for the first time.

Until the sound of a camera echoes in the empty apartment.

I close my eyes in exasperation and turn toward where Mouse Protector is holding her phone and offering me a cheeky grin, only to instead find a floating screen with Dragon’s avatar blushing bashfully and holding what I know to be an entirely fictional camera.

I blink.

And Hannah groans.

“Her body sleeps, she doesn’t,” she offers as the only explanation.

I blink again, and then I realize that my two girlfriends don’t need to sleep, but I do.

Which makes me very conflicted because now I don’t know whether to stare in dawning horror or bitter jealousy.

***

“I’m certain it can be solved,” I state while sitting at the granite counter opposite the fake wood one where Hannah keeps mincing vegetables with her back turned to me and her distracting lingerie fully on display.

“There’s nothing to solve,” Dragon’s drone chastises me from her place floating on the aisle between the counters.

“Dragon… as much as it pains me to agree with him on this, not needing to sleep is a great advantage,” my best girlfriend says.

…

Damn it, Lisa.

“It pains you to agree with me?” I instead say.

“You know perfectly well what I mean. You’re not in a drug rehab program only because Tinker-regulating laws are stupid.”

“I agree with half of that statement,” I say.

“You would…” Dragon mutters.

“Is it so wrong to believe that biological limits are there to be surpassed when we live in a world of actual superheroes?” I say, as reasonable as ever.

Dragon’s drone turns slightly in mid-air, holding its altitude almost perfectly, and shoots me a glare about as flat as Assault’s encephalogram.

“You’re not going to drag me into a transhuman debate before five in the morning when you haven’t even had sex with my human body.”

Hannah drops her knife-turned power, the glowing mass of unscannable energy (no, I’m not resentful) turning into garrote wire before reaching the mottled, cream-colored tiles by her feet as she, once again, stifles her laughter with her wrist.

“I offered,” I say with affronted dignity.

“You would have finished in a single thrust,” Dragon says with a mix of indignation and smug—wait.

“Did you… Dragon, have you tinkered with your lady parts?”

And now Hannah is bent over in a very distracting way, given she’s still wearing her apron and green, sheer panties, and her laughter threatens to grow beyond the ability of her self-gagging to contain.

“I’ll have you know my body is perfectly within the limits of what’s humanly possible.”

I blink at her avatar.

She turns her nose up and harrumphs.

… Cute.

“So, if I were to walk into Hannah’s bedroom, take your pants off, and—”

“I haven’t consented to sleep sex!”

I, yet again, but for understandable reasons, blink at her.

Hannah just shakes harder.

“… It may be a grey area,” Dragon says with a bashful pout and tinted cheeks.

“You are talking to me. There’s nothing grey about your ability to consent.”

“I have the ability, I just haven’t exercised it…” she says, very clearly sulking.

I raise an eyebrow.

She blushes harder.

And I stand up.

“Colin? Colin what are you—”

I turn my head over my shoulder to shoot her a smug smirk, and she pales.

“Stop! I—this isn’t—I want it to be special!” she says.

And I keep walking.

It’s just that, at the last moment, I turn around the counter and walk into the aisle occupied by Hannah and Dragon so that I can stand in front of her avatar while I grab the edges of the screen and tilt her drone so that it feels like I’m holding her under my gaze.

The way she looks at me perfectly completes the illusion.

“I know; I was kidding,” I say.

“… You are a jerk,” she says, about as bashful as she’s ever been.

“Your jerk?” I offer.

“You two are so goddamn corny,” Hannah mutters, laughter still in her tone.

“Together,” Hannah’s recorded voice comes from Dragon’s drone as a vindicative glare shoots past my shoulder.

“I also have an eidetic memory,” Hannah counters with what may be a sulk that I should tease her about, depending precisely on what shape her power has taken after the last flash of green light.

“See? I need cybernetics just to keep up. Two insomniac girlfriends with perfect recall? What sane man could put up with—”

“You are not sane,” two people who shouldn’t gang up on a recovering coma patient wrongfully state.

“I miss Minnie. Minnie takes my side,” I say.

“I just recorded that,” Dragon spitefully comments.

“I should learn voice acting…” Hannah idly (and worryingly) muses.

“We have enough trouble with identity theft with Lisa running rampant with that software Dragon loaned her.”

“It wouldn’t be identity theft. Just enough borrowing to make a lasting impression of you saying ‘Minnie takes my side.’”

“You’re both going to be the death of me,” I mumble.

And then two slender yet toned arms wrap around my waist, and a soft body presses against my back, a white apron once more rustling against blue pajamas.

“Never,” she says just a moment before Dragon echoes her.

And so we stand in her kitchen once again, this time the three of us, sharing an intimate silence pregnant with all the things they have yet to tell me about what happened while I wasn’t here, with them. With all the things we should’ve told each other before marching to slay Behemoth.

We stand by the side of Hannah’s discarded cooking, the traces of normalcy she sometimes manages to claw out of her life when returning to an apartment too expensive for how little time she spends in it.

With Dragon’s drone held in my hands as an almost imperceptible hum comes out of the maglev system she uses. With her avatar looking at me like I so often wished it would through long nights spent in my workshop.

With… With me. Out of my armor, without my tools, wearing a mocking set of pajamas that tell the world about a man standing between two more than human women.

I don’t deserve them. Nobody does.

And I can almost hear a young, bratty, cheeky voice telling me that that’s precisely the point. That nobody deserves love.

That it happens.

And that what you do after it does is what makes all the difference.

I would be happy to listen to her advice. To stand here for as long as I can, just… just taking in all that they offer me and trying to give back whatever I have that they may want in exchange.

But then Dragon’s eyes fly wide open, and a dark flush races up the sides of her neck before a shriek comes from the bedroom.

So I let go of her drone, and both Hannah and I sprint there to—

To find Minnie on all fours between Dragon’s spread legs and Dragon covering her face with both hands.

“I didn’t consent to this!” she yells through her fingers.

“You did it to Colin! I thought you were on board!” Minnie indignantly replies.

“I am a hypocrite! I deserve the right to be a hypocrite! There’s nothing in Asimov’s Laws against hypocrisy!”

“Just tell me you don’t want a wake-up eating out, and I’ll drop it. No need to pull out the nerd card,” the Mover grumbles.

“You don’t get to call anyone nerdy, Miss ‘I don’t get why you have trouble sleeping after I force-fed you horror sci-fi stories,’” Hannah mumbles, immediately perking up my interest.

“Really? I always found Usher II—” I comment.

And then Hannah freezes to look at me in horror, and Minnie, still on all fours, wearing a loose shirt and not a shred of underwear, slowly turns to look at me over her shoulder, the blooming grin’s growing intensity eerily synchronizing with the movement.

Then she’s no longer there.

And it’s only by sheer reflex that I catch in my arms the barely dressed teleporter dropping on top of me from the ceiling.

“You and I are going to have so much fun,” she says the grin growing hungrier before she bites her gleaming lower lip as her legs wrap around my waist.

And it takes me a moment to realize that her lips can only be this glossy because of what she was doing between Dragon’s legs.

 

 

===================

So. Next chapter we’ll go back to Lisa and Taylor, and there’s a smidge of Tagg to liven things up.

Then the next one is full on TAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGG!

… I need a drink. Or sleep. One of those. Maybe both at once.

Anyway! See you all soon enough, because there’s no rest for the wicked, nor, apparently, for fanfic authors who thought they’d be done with this fic months ago.

As always, I’d like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, and Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on Amazon. Thank you for reading!