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“Ugh, this is so f@&*ing frustrating,” Zooble growled as they dropped their head onto the café counter.
You and Ragatha shared a glance. “What’s so frustrating?” you asked.
Zooble turned their head slightly to glare at you. “What do you think?” they asked.
Ragatha set down her tea and sighed, “I know. I just don’t know how to get to a point where everyone’s happy without something blowing up in our faces.” She slumped over the counter. “You think those two could hash it out on their own?”
Zooble’s expression slackened in surprise. They let their gaze meander away as they muttered, “God, now I feel like an a*&hole.”
Your brow quirked. “Well now I gotta know what you were thinking,” you said.
“It’s really not that big a deal—”
“Zooble, maybe talking about it would help you feel better?” Ragatha suggested.
Zooble groaned, “S**, man. I’m f@&*ing frustrated we can’t have s**.”
Ragatha’s eye widened while your other eyebrow jumped to join the first. “Oh,” Ragatha said.
“See, I told you it’d make me sound like an a*&hole,” Zooble said.
“Oh, no, no, it’s not that,” Ragatha said as she waved her hands in front of her. “I mean…” She relaxed with a sigh. “You’re not the only one.”
You leaned back on your stool with a snooty expression. “It’d explain why Jax is such a bully,” you said, earning a curious look from your two snackmates. “He’s pent up like a neutered rabbit.”
Zooble burst out laughing. Ragatha tried to hide her growing grin with a hand.
“Oh my God,” Zooble snickered.
You gave a mischievous look as you made a lewd gesture with your closed fist as you said, “How many pumps do you think it takes him? Two? One? He is a chump, after all.”
Ragatha started giggling at that, but it earned a guffaw from Zooble.
“Dude, Caine’s gonna kill you!” Zooble laughed.
“Does he really seem like the type to know what we’re talking about?” you asked with a grin. Not like you used to be much better. You stowed away that self-aware thought.
“You’ve got a point,” Ragatha mused. She propped her face on one hand. “I’ve never really thought about testing the limit on the censors—I didn’t think it’d be worth it.”
“They’re looser than ya think,” Zooble answered. “Gangle told me about—well, she’s got this friend who’s into some strange stuff. Really niche sh#%.”
You tilted your head. “Oh?”
Zooble began to count on their fingers: “Tentacles, ugly b*%#ard, monsters, guro, and then…” They scratched their head. “Some other word that started with ‘n.’ Neto…something?”
“Oh, netorare,” you supplied.
“Yeah, that’s it!”
Ragatha only blinked, her expression uncomprehending. “What.”
“I forget sometimes that Gangle’s into anime,” you said. Just as Zooble started glaring at you, you quickly added, “It makes sense that she’d have friends who are even deeper in the hole than her.”
Zooble’s expression relaxed. “Yeah, you’re right,” they said. Their body tensed again as they grumbled, “F%*#, just thinking about that kind of stuff is getting me f%*#ing annoyed again.”
You hummed. “Yknow, I wonder…”
“Wonder what?” Ragatha asked.
You stood from your seat and started making your way to the door. “Maybe I could see if Caine is up for some…negotiations. After all, he’s supposed to make sure we’re all happy, right? Don’t see why he’d be so against stretching the rules just a bit.”
Ragatha’s face fell in concern. “Do you really think he’d listen?” she asked.
You shrugged. “Won’t know ‘til I try! Buh-bye!”
With a wave, you bounded out of the café and down the stairs.
“Welp, there goes God’s bravest soldier,” Zooble huffed with a mock salute.
“Caine’s gonna kill her,” Ragatha mourned.
“Nah, he likes us,” Zooble reasoned. “She won’t die, but he’s probably still gonna force her into the next adventure.”
“I hope that’s all he does.”
“Yoo-hoo, Caine~!” you sang from your open front door. “Could I talk to you for a little while?”
Caine zipped down the hall like a particularly enthused gnat before settling right in front of you. “What can I do ya for, my forthright flutterby?” he asked.
“Come in, let’s chat for a bit,” you invited as you stepped out of the way for Caine to enter.
Caine floated into your room while you closed the door behind him and locked it. He whipped around at the sound and laughed. “Why, if you wanted to beat me with hammers, all you had to do was say so,” he said. Caine reached into his top hat and produced a comically large mallet. “But, I’ll warn you, I swing back!”
You playfully rolled your eyes. “That’s not why I asked you here, Caine. I just don’t want anyone interrupting us,” you said as you walked over to your bed and sat down on it.
“Ah, silly me,” he said as he stuck out his tongue and put away the cartoonish weapon. “What did you wanna talk about?”
You patted the space in front of you. “Here, sit,” you directed.
Caine looked at you curiously before floating over and landing on the bed on his knees.
“Good boy,” you chuckled.
Caine’s face flushed. He pulled at the collar of his shirt as he bowed his head slightly. Your brows shot up as you watched him like a cougar watches a canary.
“Good golly, has it gotten hot in here all of a sudden?” he laughed nervously. He quickly replaced any shyness with his usual boisterous flair as he puffed out his chest. “Why with the forwardness, you schemer?”
“Call it ‘in-keeping with the theme,’ with what I wanted to ask you about,” you said. “Those ‘child-friendly’ filters you have on: I wanna see if we can bend the rules on those.”
“Ah-ah, absolutely not, my dear! We have to keep this realm accessible for all ages at all times!” Caine said.
You coyly tilted your head. “But, Caine, wouldn’t the intense gore and horror elements from some of your adventures also not be accessible for all audiences?”
Caine raised his finger and made a noise like he’d intended to say something in response, but nothing more came.
“Plus, adults and kids can exist under the same roof and still be kept separate when it comes to…age-appropriate activities,” you reasoned as you leaned forward. “You just gotta stay quiet and keep things under wraps.”
“Th-That’s…” Caine leaned away and shook his head. “No, I can’t compromise on this! I won’t be corrupted by your wicked whims!” He folded his arms and let his jaws shut over his eyes as he turned away from you.
You sat back with a sad hum. “Shame, that. And here I was all geared up to share this…adventure that I got inspired by you to make,” you muttered.
Caine ever so slowly turned back to you, opening his mouth just slightly to look at you through his own form of lowered eyelids. “I…inspired you?” he asked.
“Stakes. Intrigue. Something bad could happen,” you steadily lowered your voice as you listed off traits of your “adventure” that only served to make Caine’s eyes widen in curiosity. You shrugged lightly and turned away. “But, if you’re not interested—”
“N-no, no, I am interested!” Caine argued. You gave him a sly look out of the corner of your eye, lips parted ever so slightly. Caine sighed before he clasped his hands together. “…Please?”
So cute when he begs, you thought instinctively. Your smile widened as you turned back to the ringmaster. “Before we begin, I’ll need a couple of tools: toothpaste and a toothbrush. Think you could spawn those for me?”
“Naturally, my dear!”
With a snap of his fingers, the two objects manifested just above your open hands.
“Thank—” The toothbrush slipped out of your hand and landed on the bed, bending it in half and forcing you to fall forward as Caine zipped away from the collapse. You gave Caine an unamused look. “Any reason why your toothbrush weighs the same as an anvil?”
“Hmm…” Caine stuck his tongue out in thought as he snapped his fingers and let the bizarrely heavy implement float over to him. “Oh, it’s a relic from when I just started programming! Its mass is because of the 5700 polygons making up its frame! The realm should run much smoother once I remove it.”
He snapped his fingers one more time and erased the toothbrush, at the same time spawning a realistically-light toothbrush in your hand and repairing your bed.
“I must say, all of this seems like a lot of trouble just to tend to your oral hygiene,” Caine mused as he floated back to where he’d been sitting.
A smirk pulled at your lips. “Oh, it’s not my teeth we’re tending to.”
“Gasp! How rude of you!” Caine said with a hurt expression. “I brush thrice daily—frice even! These pearly whites don’t upkeep themselves!”
“I’m not trying to imply you have anything less than perfect dental health,” you chuckled. “The adventure—nay, the game I want to pose to you is an exercise in restraint.”
Caine tilted his head. “I don’t follow?”
You gestured toward Caine with the toothbrush you held. “You know how, after a certain age, most people handle personal tasks without any outside help? Makeup, nail care, feeding oneself…unless you really trust someone, you usually wouldn’t let anyone do something so intimate.”
Caine rested his head in his hand as his expression grew contemplative. “I…think I’m with you so far…”
“The same goes for brushing your teeth,” you explained. “It’s a mundane task that, done by oneself, is so unremarkable, you wouldn’t be judged for just forgetting if you’d done it; however, if you let someone else perform the task for you, your brain puts up major resistance.”
Caine scratched his chin with an uncertain expression as he thought over what you said. “So, you’re posing that you will—”
“Do the brushing to you, yes,” you concluded. “Here’s where the stakes come in:” You steepled your fingers. “We’ll go for five minutes. If you tap out or cry ‘uncle,’ then I win; if you go the full fiver without surrendering, then you win.”
“Interesting…” Caine hummed. “What’s in it for you if you win?”
“You start letting us girls and gays push the boundaries on those family filters—” You interrupted Caine as he opened his mouth to speak. “—and don’t lie and say ‘that’s impossible;’ I’ve heard you say a sweary word or two completely uncensored, so I know you purposefully unbalanced the rules.”
Caine’s eye twitched but he said nothing more to dispute you. “And if you lose?” he asked.
You raised your hands in defeat. “Then I give up on these negotiations. That sound fair?”
“Hmm…” Caine scratched his chin. “I don’t think there’s enough in this gamble for me.”
You chuckled darkly. “Greedy,” you lilted.
“You want the rules to be balanced, I want the stakes to be balanced,” Caine harrumphed as he folded his arms. “I would hardly call that greedy.”
“Alright, alright, fair,” you said. “How about…” You snapped your fingers. “…A daily date?”
Caine tilted his head.
“If you win, then you get an hour of my time every single day for the rest of my time here. Hangouts, talking about secret hobbies, whatever you want.”
Caine’s eyes sparkled like new stars at that. “Make it three and you’ve got a deal, starlight!” He said as he shoved his hand out in front of you.
“Mmm, two hours.”
“Two and a half!”
“Alright, Bargain Benny, that, I’ll agree to,” you said as you took Caine’s hand and shook it firmly.
And you couldn’t be happier with that.
Caine was an interesting presence in this space to you. While everyone else was a peer (or a bully, in Jax’s case) to you, Caine was something else. Not the tyrannical authority figure you’d expected given his expansive abilities, but a weird goofball with a strong sense of justice and yearning to entertain.
Needless to say, you weren’t too fussed about “losing,” since you’d still be winning a prize of some sort.
“And here I thought you’d offer me a real challenge!” Caine laughed as he puffed out his chest. “This might be a little one-sided, but I won’t say ‘no’ to a little warranted pampering!”
It’s absolutely a little one-sided, but I think the weights are skewed differently than you think, you thought as you stowed your grin. “Alright, let’s get started then,” you announced as you squeezed a dollop of toothpaste onto the brush. “Got the timer ready?”
Caine pressed a few buttons on his Wacky Watch™️before nodding in satisfaction. “We’re good to go!” he said with a thumbs up.
“Alright, then,” you said, a fawning
smile spreading on your lips. You guided Caine to sit perpendicular to you and shuffled closer on your knees. You rested a hand at the back of his jaws as you took a slow breath. “Say, ‘ahhh,’” you instructed.
“Ahhh…” Caine let his jaws drift open, his eyes locked on you, as you slowly invited the toothbrush past his teeth.
The reaction was immediate.
His body jerked, a sharp gasp escaping him as the thin bristles delicately parted against his teeth. Your hands didn’t falter, continuing to brush even as Caine began to tremble in your grasp, as his eyes flicked to yours with an expression you couldn’t name.
Caine’s breath came faster, his fingers twisted in the sheets, his eyes tumbled back as the delicate hairs on the brush parted against the firmness of his teeth, as the brush delved lower, deeper, and gently tended to the inside of his gums. He groaned softly and squirmed as you pulled back and brushed the fronts of his teeth. He gazed up at you from under his peaking top jaw—a fawning hunted in the eyes of its hunter—as he whimpered and fidgeted and shook.
The grin of a canary-fed cat spread across your lips, as you rested the head of the brush on the millimetered gap between his front teeth. “Had enough, sweetheart?” you murmured.
Caine seemed to come back to himself as he met your lurid gaze with a shaky chuckle. “Is that your best?” he challenged.
Your grin disappeared in favor of an expression of distanced focus. “I guess I’ll have to try harder, then,” you replied.
You brought the hand holding up Caine’s head around to the front, rubbing at his bottom jaw with thumb and forefinger. You lifted his tongue with the brush, letting the bottom drag against the soft bristles as gravity pulled it back into Caine’s mouth.
“Ah, ahh,” Caine moaned as he quivered under your care. His fingers threatened to tear at the sheets as he squeezed his legs together—you caught him rocking ever-so-gently at the mattress.
You blinked as his sounds reached your ears. I didn’t even realize, you thought as you felt your throat grow dry, hearing him moan like this is making me feel strange.
You knew arousal didn’t exist in this world as it did in reality. If it did, you figured it’d be muted and unrecognizable. So why…
Why is my heart racing so fast???
As if to try and answer your questions, Caine’s sounds became more desperate and yearning, soft whimpers and whines that punctuated the arch of his back into you; throaty gasps that hung on your consciousness like his hands grasping and hanging from your top like a lifeline.
You swallowed thickly. He really is cute. Your breath escaped in a nervous, lust-drunk sigh as you gazed upon Caine like he was the first work of art man had ever made. This is bad. Has Caine always been this cute? Your eyes slowly trailed up his heaving figure. People in reality can be attractive, sure, but isn’t this something next-level? Humans weren’t prepared to comprehend this…
No, no, no! I’m going insane, you reasoned internally, even as you met Caine’s hazy eyes, as he writhed under your care, as his fingers tightened their grasp in your clothes. This is a mentally compromising situation of my own design and I’m just as susceptible to it!
I know that. I know that!
But…
Caine gave a sharp cry as you brushed a particularly sensitive spot inside him. He arched against you and sobbed and clung to you like you were his salvation.
“C-Caine…” you huffed. You carefully lowered him onto his back, swinging your leg over him as you only stared into his eyes.
Even in what felt like a pleasure-drunk state, Caine gazed up at you, eyes watery and soft. “S-Starlight…” he whimpered.
You leaned in closer. Nothing else mattered but him and this moment and how close you were nothing else mattered— “What do you want?” you asked, no louder than a whisper.
Between labored gasps for air, Caine beheld you, pupils blown out so wide you wouldn’t be able to discern his eye color. Drool leaked from his mouth in thin rivulets. He was the picture of submission. “Starlight, please…” he whined. “Please.”
You felt something in your mind snap at that.
Your hand moved. Its target long since decided. Down his trembling body. Breath came faster. Heartbeat cracked like thunder in your ears. Hand approached where he ached for touch.
All you could hear was him and you and him and your pulse and Caine and—
“What the hell am I looking at?” you heard a voice from the open door (when had it been unlocked).
You and Caine slowly turned to regard the two passersby in the doorway. Jax glared at you with some mixture of confusion and disgust, the key to your room dangling uselessly from his fingers. Gangle peered out from behind him with her ribbons pressed to her mouth, her entire face going red.
It was only then that the two of you noticed the obnoxious, loud cartoon noises Caine’s watch was making. The timer had been up for some time, it would seem.
The ringmaster covertly pressed a button on the device, immediately silencing the noise.
“Ol’ Saddy here said she heard these weird noises coming from your room, so I decided to help investigate if it’d stop her whining,” Jax said as he jerked his thumb at Gangle.
“We were…” Your eyes flicked to Caine’s—the ringmaster seemed even more adrift than you, if that was possible. “Caine was…getting attacked by a bug!”
Jax looked unamused. “A bug.”
“Yeah! Uhh…” You stared down at the toothbrush in your hand. “They manifest like cavities for him, apparently.” You shot Caine a look.
“E-Exactly!” he corroborated, “Normally I can manage on my own, but for some reason I was having difficulty reaching this particular virus, so our kind friend here offered to assist!”
“Uh-huh,” Jax said as he clicked his tongue. “Yknow, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say this is something straight out of one of those loser cartoons I’ve heard so much about. Right, Gangle?” he asked as he turned to Gangle with a shit-eating grin.
“Uh, uhhhh,” Gangle stuttered as she looked to Jax, back to you and Caine, and back to Jax. “I’m staying out of this!” she cried before rushing off down the hall.
“Hey, get back here! I wasn’t done making fun of you!” Jax shouted as he chased after her.
Caine snapped his fingers and the door slammed shut and locked after that. Gravity suddenly shifted and it was your back pressed to the sheets while Caine loomed over you.
Of all the questions you were prepared to answer, you didn’t expect him to ask in a voice that curled heat in your stomach: “What exactly were you planning on doing if we hadn’t been interrupted?”
Oh, so he noticed that.
You sighed softly and looked away. “Does it matter?” you asked. “You lasted way longer than you needed to, so you win. No more pestering about risqué content, and no arguments against two and a half hours of my daily time being devoted to you.” You squirmed half-heartedly against his hands on your wrists, met his gaze with a sultry look. “Wasn’t that the deal?”
You held Caine’s stare for what felt like time unending—you suffocated the thought that if this was what life would be from now on, you didn’t have any complaints.
In the next moment, Caine pinned you to the bed with a fervent kiss. He took advantage of your gasping mouth, as he bullied his tongue inside. You caught the taste of fresh mint as you let your tongue move in tandem with his, moaned as he dragged his hands from your wrists, down your arms, down your body to your hips. You rocked your hips up into Caine’s, causing his breath to hitch and stutter.
You only pulled away from the kiss once the sensation of oxygen deprivation could no longer be ignored. You stared up at Caine, his flushed, breathless expression mirroring yours.
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps I was…too quick to judge this type of activity,” he conceded. He let his gaze roll to the side as you intently watched him think. “Perhaps…this is something we could explore further? On those dates you mentioned?”
A relieved smile played on your lips as your breath returned to you. “Perhaps we could. Perhaps we could try this again? Best of three? Perhaps you do me, sometime?”
Caine’s gaze darkened. “Perhaps now.”
You lunged up and wrapped your arms and legs around Caine. “Now is good,” you murmured.
Caine snapped his fingers and transported you both to somewhere off the map, where you wouldn’t be interrupted. You weren’t sure exactly how things would proceed from here, but you were sure of one thing.
It was sure to be amazing.