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 Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:49 am
As Faustite laid against his boy's chest, felt the slow rise and fall of breaths and the steady beat of alive, alive, alive, he told himself that he had to speak what had been percolating in his head. Faustite was one to ruminate; he was one to — not necessarily hide his thoughts, but he expected that others would find them wearisome or depressing, so he had kept them close at hand in the management of his deteriorating situation.
Now, however, enough research had been done that he could make a decision about what to do with himself, and that decision could have deleterious effects on his team, his boys, himself. It could set the Negaverse against him, or it could erase him from existence if he ever again came up against a royal senshi. After all, they had learned that there were no other opportunities to stop the youma from eating through his body.
As he laid against Waru's chest, he wondered if he would no longer have a heartbeat chanting alive, alive, alive. He supposed that, he wouldn't need one. But on the other…
Hadn't Nectaris made enough of a mess for his boy? Stirred up enough bullshit and feelings and made ridiculous demands that Albite had to join the White Moon? To Faustite, that was just another manipulation tactic. Another coldhearted attempt to force Albite to become something he wasn't. All it had bred was hurt and confusion for a boy who was already terribly confused. If Faustite would do the same as a knight, would that be worse than becoming a youma? He had to think so. Likewise, he had to think that, even without a majority of his memories, he would have had to retain the quality that let him love his boy completely as he was. Right? Or would becoming part of the White Moon brainwash him the way it had brainwashed the others?
"Waru," he spoke at last. If he stopped speaking for a few hours, then his first words always came with a plume of smoke now. He watched it roll across his boy's chest in its heaviness before it reluctantly made for the ceiling. "We need to talk."
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Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 1:08 pm
“M’here,” the words rolled out like a tired stone nudged by waves on the shore, Waru didn’t bother to open his eyes, to make other assurances. He had the feel of Faustites slight weight, the cloying scent that washed over his skin; lived in every fiber of hair, every stitch of clothing he hardly needed when surrounded by such warmth. He was there. Just a shove away from being fully awake; felt like he always had been, always would be. Insomuch as it was humanly possible to be so. Till he broiled to death or charred alive, or the sun died, or he was reborn, and even then he planned on still being *there*. Right up under Faustites too sharp nails like dried blood. Impossibly annoying to pick out, a b***h to wash free. <********, Death herself coulda tried to pry him out from where he bathed comfortably beneath ashen sighs; the thoughtful kind he wanted pressed into his skin permanently as fresh new ink— n Waru had enough ego to think that even if he would’ve lost that sort of fight? Then he at least woulda given Death a hell of a time! A black eye. A bruise. Would’ve come back laughing in some new Senshi’d skin, wearing garb darker than what he wore now—-
He would’ve gotten tats in the next life too. The thoughts of what to do on his back were so often filled with ancient gaping insect maws and curls of smoke. Not a dragon — something else — older — alien — the smoke becoming tendrils that would bind tightly enough to the lazy oceanic swirls on his shoulder, to the hint of a rising sun, that they would choke it out till all were one n the same.
The image was a messy dream that had so little to do with Faustite wanting to talk, a hindbrain distraction. Easy enough to ground himself from it by feeling Faustite out, laying a hand over the jut of a hip; searching for that first touch of steel.
“M’listneing, Ei. V’gotchu, ri'here—“ slurred muzzily by sleepy lips that he was tempted to seek kisses with. Maybe after? He could think of ten-million-and-one things that they needed to talk about. All piling ever higher and higher and higher still — till they threatened to crush them both and leave them buried beneath a refuse of words that weren’t yet born. The burning towers of those words sat large and looming in his bed, on his boy's tongue. Waru found himself welcoming their fall, because where was there to run when he was here already?
Right where he belonged.
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Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:01 pm
That Waru's arm curled about him and touched his hip? Faustite smiled. Something small and automatic against skin that danced in different colors in guttering candlelight. As was his want, Faustite snuggled closer —more chest pressed to Waru's flank, an arm tossed the rest of the way over Waru's chest, small shifts to close more gaps. He hadn't body heat to tell him his boy was alive and vibrant, for Waru always felt corpse cold to him as Faustite, but the drum in his chest was always answer enough. Spoken words were just an extra treat.
"So much has happened. So much intends to happen. Don't know how I'll be around to see it," he began, though the statements sounded more sullen in content than he meant them. Conversations were ever tricky things for the burning boy. "But I know I'll be around for it. Won't give up.
"But I can't plan alone if I'm not alone. Wouldn't be fair to you, the team, the other boys." Even if the decision affected his body and mind, if he was the one making the final call of what to do with himself, the context in which he existed — married to a few wonderful boys, head of a team that largely happened by accident, and seen as a contributing member of the Negaverse — none of these states of being occurred in a vacuum. Other people had to make those realities happen. Just as his boys chose to be with him, his team chose him as a lead.
Helped that many of his boys were also part of his team; that simplified the number of conversations somewhat. It compounded the amount of hurt, however.
The cracks in his skin always pained him — the way they stretched and boiled, Faustite wondered when his skin would tear away. Felt like it wasn't just his skin. Felt like his throat had a few for how it hurt to talk. "Think that, if we don't do anything, I'll end up a youma. But if we do, the only thing to do is join the White Moon. However temporary that is," he breathed.
"I know it's my decision, but." He breathed another rasped, hacking sigh. "Don't want to make it alone. Not when it affects all of you."
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Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:58 pm
Waru wondered, starkly, sharply — if he’d ever told Faustite how proud of him he was? If he’d said it nearly enough? Had he conveyed the words with the same kind of desperate, half starved fervor as his ‘I love yous’; for how badly he wanted them to keep their meaning without ever growing stale? He worried, his bottom lip beneath a set of human teeth, worried his mind in the same fashion. Set mental teeth against gray matter and sparking neurons that were sharp as his imagination would allow.
Eion was thinking of them all so clearly, involving his loves, his lovers. Waru hiffed some wavering note of breath as his stew day heat picked up a quicker beat because the thought alone of Eion putting all of them before himself, in a decision like this? Being inclusive when really it was his husband's own mind, body, soul most at stake of falling apart and failing entirely —- Albite could’ve cried in that moment. Would’ve watched his tears become so much soothing, salty steam where he knew they would've patterned down onto Faustites flesh.
“You’re asking how I feel about, oh, *Eion…*” it was the shittiest decision he’d ever had to put weight to. He needed a moment to think it over, to take it in and examine it and breathe an answer out. “…Elex, love, you’re too good for all of us. Heh, don’t ******** deserve…how-how wonderful a husband you are…” he swallowed that and hunted the places he couldn’t hurt, the scant slips of skin that were closer to steel he could fidget his fingers along.
“I know you're not giving up, but this is huge, isn’t it?” a tone full of rough whine. All those thick thoughts in his head churning rapidly alongside his heart. Faustite was mostly a youma now, wasn’t he? The fire in his guts, his Agni as an easy way to explain to waru what consumed his love — what continued to burn through him — Whether Eion had started out as such? With the intent to be as he was now, did it really matter? A youma was what he became. No halves, quarters, nickels or dimes about it. It was not how he’d been born, though. It wasn’t what he’d be reborn as either, if such a thing as reincarnation existed for the merely flesh and mortal — if somewhere under all that fire and peeling skin Eions past-knighthood would’ve shown through enough to save his — his what? His memories? His wonder? Was Velvet’s wonder even alive in the same way Senshis solar bodies were not?
“I don’t want you to die. Not that you will! You won’t. But? And this is selfish as ******** I don’t want you to go where I can’t find you…If you end up in the Rift…” and he was shaking his head for the thought already, gruffly laughing the idea away, “I can find you in the stars— I can — if you purify? Even if we have to rebuild from the ground up and you don’t love me again like you do now? As long as you’re alive somewhere I can see you smiling Ei’, that’s good enough for me.”
And he’d never seen a youma have the emotions a person did, knew they didn’t understand, knew they died differently, but died regardless! Knew he couldn’t follow Eion there if that was the way things went, and ********, but he needed to be able to follow him. To the stars, beyond that, eternally…..
“Cause I don’t know how to love anyone else the way I love you in this lifetime….if I even can love someone the same way….grapes n oranges and all that. So long as you’re alive to be loved by someone, though?” even if it wasn’t him, even if…”I think you deserve a chance at that.”
A beat, two, he held his tongue for a moment even as the next thoughts rushed up to meet the old ones like crashing waves in his head; opened his mouth again at the end of a pause. Faustite would never be alone in anything, Waru meant that promise with the ring, meant it daily with every more n necessary word and extra touch. Didn’t need to say he meant it even now.
“But I wanna hear what you want too! Cause m’proud of you for thinking of us: me, the team, everyone. But it’s your everything on the line — n’I mean, you were born a person who maybe didn’t get the choice you deserved, yeh? In this n this alone you get to have that choice back…kinda….”
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Posted: Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:31 pm
Faustite breathed out slowly. "Coming from the man who's watched me die slowly. Imagine that's worse than doing the dying."
He knew he wouldn't be half as patient as Albite had been if their roles had been reversed. Underlings would be getting whipped into action, peers put to task, Axinite begged into checking the annals of every last scrap of Negaverse intel for something to preserve his beautiful, precious boy. He'd ask Amazonite to launch into every experiment of her wildest dreams, on anyone she wanted that wasn't a part of his team or one of his boys, if it meant bailing Waru out of a slow death. If it meant sparing Faustite from watching it. And he'd hunt the White Moon to the ends of the earth until they either coughed up their own energy and starseeds to buy Waru more time or offered guaranteed solutions of their own.
Luckily for them both, the roles were not reversed. Faustite could accept his own death because, selfishly, he wouldn't have to be without his boys. There would be no conscious awareness of his own deprivation. But what had bothered him was that his boys might suffer — both for his slow decline and the aftermath of his death. They hadn't deserved any of that. They hadn't asked for it when they agreed to get more involved with him. None of those rings came with a 'til death do us part' clause because death was a cheap and easy out when they had so many more lifetimes than the first one, according to people like Encke.
Faustite had thought, prior to that, that there was so much more beyond death. That even if there was a rebirth cycle, there existed ways to live around it. Those were his points of interest.
But now? The decision wasn't entirely his. Even if it hurt his boys to consider the question, he hoped that by broaching it, it returned to them a measure of control.
Faustite smiled under all that tired, genuinely, when he heard Albite's self-proclaimed selfish request. It was terribly sweet, and brave, for him to ask for Faustite to consider his choice in light of where Albite could visit him and where he couldn't. It was true that Albite had no hope of breaching the Rift on his own — he would need a chaperone, and that chaperone must stay in close proximity to the boy to prevent an accidental homicide — but the same rules went for most of the others. Only Celadonite could follow him there, and it was Celadonite who he did not want to abandon to feeling like the only youmafied officer among a sea of human faces. Especially since the boy youmafied himself so that Faustite wouldn't feel alone.
And Albite was right about more chances being available to humans, for humans felt in a method and manner that other humans understood. Youma had their own emotional bandwidth, and much of it laid outside a spectrum that humans could understand. It would disconnect his boy utterly if he became a youma. That bore consideration, too.
With what energy he still had, as Albite sought out his little touches, Faustite tried to soothe by drawing aimless designs over Albite's chest. Anything else could steal away his focus, could do him some good. It was cruel enough that Faustite had just asked him to think.
The last request was the most difficult, however. Faustite's flaming attention flickered down to his husband's sprawling skin as he considered it. "I want to be me." It was such a simple statement, yet an impossible one. "Don't want to give anything up, or lose any of you. But if my options were to join the White Moon or become a youma, with no room in between…
"Think i'd join the White Moon, Doesn't have to be for long, But if I stay human enough, then I can do more for the Negaverse than if I was youma. Even if I hate being human, it's better than facing the perpetual, dismal idea of eating one of you." He drew and released a shaken breath.
"Imagine a world without Ren, or Yuuri, or Haru," Eion observed softly.
"But… I don't want to be human again. Don't care for it now. Won't know what I'm doing. That part scares me — the not knowing or understanding — or the idea that I'll start growing facial hair, I'd need a job, might have to go back to school, would have to earn money so I could pay money just to live somewhere temporarily. I'd have to file taxes, and work every day, and wash my clothes, and fulfill stupid social obligations. I'd be faced with a world that I want gone. I could go talk to youma in the Rift, but they won't look at me the same way. Even at that, there's more to consider.
"So being human again wouldn't be my choice, but it's more a choice than being youma. Don't know what to do about it, though."
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2023 7:45 am
“Awwh, Ei--” as if he could stem the tide of fears with only the sounds he made, the strength of his will alone. “You know what? The one good thing about ‘fraternizing with the enemy’ – is that you learn a thing or two about what goes on in the crossing over part of it all,” and true there was no control over what was kept, lost, abandoned or abolished from the whole of a person who chose to take that leap. Waru knew in his bones that there were few guarantees at all, not in life, and especially not in the way that Eion may come out of one abyss into another more blinding one on the other side.
Knew the alternative that would happen if the leap wasn’t taken at all, and to him that was far more terrifying than Eion losing all memory of him could’ve ever been.
“Like, with Nectaris? I don’t know if she kept anything at all, memory wise, but she was still herself in so many ways. She didn’t simply die n get reborn in pink. I recognized her even if she didn’t recognize me–” a swallow of an ache for that because he’d made a ruin of ‘what could’ve beens’ all on his own, whatever chance he’d had of bringing her back, of moving forwards and collecting more information. He’d put a stake through the heart of the matter and turned her against them fully. He’d been sloppy, overmotional, too close to see beyond the fish bowl of feels he swam in. He’d ******** it all up, and accepted that if he’d been more honest with her about so many things—
If he’d been more closed off with others. Spread his trust evenly, withheld it where it needed to be withheld. ********, but he was a coward in so many ways and if he just didn’t say it outloud? Then maybe it couldn’t actually hurt him, all the unspoken asks he wanted to remain willfully ignorant of. The ones that hid him upside the back of the head like a spiked cleat because they should’ve been glaringly obvious!! Hindsight, hindsight, hindsight, it hurt so soo soooo much! He was sore from it, but only in the places he couldn’t reach n soothe out easily.
Time would ease the ache, leave a scar….
Losing Eion a second time would leave a gaping wound that rivaled the already existing hole in his chest. To acknowledge that he’d sat by and watched his love deteriorate so patiently; hearing it said aloud? Was he desensitized to it all —- No, no, no, not that!
He was being selfish was all, he wanted his minutes, his seconds, every tick of the clock he feared losing out on if Eion were ever to be gone! If he spent his time chasing leads he wasn’t smart enough to follow, to the ends of every inch of the Earth? He wouldn’t’ve been where he should be. Where he wanted to be, which was by Eions side. Let those better equipped than him handle it instead. Let Ren weave his network of wealth, and Axinite his prowess in command, and – all the rest who knew better how to face the kind of dying that Albite wanted to stave off with kisses and touch and saunas…. Aelius and his soft, soothing tones of reason packed with so much love. Celadonite’s ability to wander the Rift and scour the edges of every inch of youma-infested stone for answers.
“Something must’ve remained though, some feelings, or…Like—muscle memory of the soul, but for a connection like that? Same way Cybby’ remembered how to break my ******** ribs without needing to really think about the mechanics of how she was doing it– or Albireo? She remembered the Rift just fine, I think? Or–uhmn–there was that shovel knight, had General bits in his brain, hit like a mac-truck….” those soft tracing claws were a balm, lured him unconsciously into steadier breathing, eased that fearful flutter trapped beneath his pillowy pecs. Eion was there, living scald, flickers of fire – Alive, alive, alive, and his!
Right now. Always. Forever. Even if he had to woo him back all over again; to try, and try, and try over a lifetime or twelve to make it happen.
“Point is, cause I can find the point, I swear it — ******** me, but even falling apart you’re distractingly pretty to stare at!” he had to laugh for it now that he was awake and watching. Both eyes open and torn so far out from the land of nod as to be in the deepest parts of the awake ocean. It really wasn’t fair, that even bleeding blacks, gone reds, gone molten – hacking up half a lung – Albite wanted to do nothing more than kiss Eion from his center outwards; leaving incisor indents on his heart and up his so-bared-it-was-scary spine. He loved his boy so much. “But-uhhmn, the point is? All those people who went over, they could also probably come back; whole, halved, something in between. They’d all come back alive though, which’s the crux’ve all this.”
Shaking his head again because he couldn’t imagine a world without Ren, without Yuuri, ******** – without Aelius and Trey?! Unimaginable. Though he had a feeling that Faustite’s deep love for them had little at all to do with the youma half of his self craving ‘senshi’ like a shark craved blood in the ocean, and far more to do with the fact that Faustite had always needed to be loved and only recently figured out the ‘how’ parts. Waru didn’t want to give up a single soul to the hunger that’d overtaken him, had put in the work to shore his boy up against all of that.
Could he stop Faustite again though? Sure~ Go through all the motions as easy as breathing. If his husband were full Youma though? All those beings that lurked down there and saw them with empty, gnawing, chasms for eyes. That spoke like stilted riddles if ever at all. Ephemeral, ethereal, embodiments of old horrors with too many eyes and too many mouths – Waru liked them insomuch as he thought they were adorable in the most macabre of ways, but understanding them was another thing entirely. Especially if he asked himself the question of all questions – Could he honestly dust his husband if the chips came down to it? The answer was an easy *No*, even if he were ever powerful enough to do so. When it came down to it? He’d simply get eaten, they all would, and what an irreparable loss that would be.
The thought made him fidget all over again, felt it in his fingers as they moved, tapped a rhythm up steel spine, along where lightning would’ve scarred flesh had it existed there, higher until he could pet with just the pads of his fingers; lightly, lightly, gently. Eion should’ve never had to have been scared of himself, shouldn't've been worried about being human either. Waru thought maybe he could assuage some of those fears though!
“N’fire of my heart? Do you really think we’d let you suffer all your fears like that. Especially if you made the kinda sacrifice m’asking of you. ********, taxes, n school, n humanity? <******** absolutely all of that bullshit – We’d get you a pendant to wear. ******** mine, cause it’d look good on you, and then we’d let you have your hobby n spend time with Cela as a chaperone in the Rift, n if you really wanted to go down the path into becoming part youma again? M’pretty sure we’d support that too-–”
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Posted: Tue Mar 28, 2023 9:17 am
"How do you know?" Turning, Faustite looked up at his boy. "How did Sylvite define herself? Or Nectaris? And how do they compare to one another?" He knew the answers to those questions were probably that Albite didn't ask — it wasn't in his nature to do so when he formed pictures of people by how he interacted with them — but Faustite wanted to know. He needed to know that the integral parts of his identity, the parts that he considered necessary, still carried over whether he remembered them or not. And if Albite knew the answers, or even if Nectaris knew the answers, Faustite had to tell himself that it would be enough to make that call for himself.
Even in Albite's convoluted explanation that never quite got at the point, Faustite could discern something of what he was saying. It didn't quite seem like muscle memory was the accurate description of it, but Faustite could tell something was at work. Even if he nor Albite could fully articulate it.
It wasn't that muscle memory remained. Faustite understood that Cybele remembered essentially nothing of her life after going through so much trauma between the factions. Nectaris had forgotten something of her time in the Negaverse, too. Was it everything? Faustite couldn't say for certain. But, as Albite had pointed out, parts remained that were irrefutably them. Albite understood it as a fast-twitch response to break his ribs for Cybele, but Faustite expected they were seeing the results of that drive she had as an officer. Cybele was ever ready to do what was necessary for the Negaverse, and that drive carried forward with her. Just as Nectaris retained her feelings for Albite — something of her same preferences was carried with her.
Trauma to the body changed the landscape of skin from familiar to strange. Trauma to the soul changed the landscape of the mind from familiar to strange, too. Despite that, they were both familiar and strange.
He was pulled from those thoughts when Albite cursed about getting to the point, and Faustite managed a wan smile and a single huff of amusement. By smoldering, apparently he was smoldering. He imagined Ren would say something like that.
He hadn't thought far enough on how his boys would take him renewed, as that was beyond his prediction without first talking to them. But to hear that Albite wouldn't let him suffer the doldrums of humanity? It was heartening and relieving all the same. Never had he wanted part of that life, though he had once understood it as an inevitability. He was spared it for so many years as a youmafied officer, and he would be spared it again soon, without the need to burn for it. That was sweet. That was a gift he couldn't have thought to ask for.
"Love you," he murmured, half in smoke. He kept his arms loose about his boy, though he gave him a brief squeeze. "Can't yet plan for what would come after, but we can plan for what's to come.
"Just give me time."
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Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2023 6:41 pm
As a fourteen year old girl who'd left them to save the princess she'd believed they'd been torturing, though Albite didn't bother to say it because that wasn't quite right as far as 'defining oneself' went. It was heartbreaking for him to hear, devastating, but maybe not for her?
She'd been so-- worried, excited, sad. This conflagration of emotions and he'd been so wound up in himself that he hadn't picked out the key point from go. He was willing to play a game that she'd long since given up and ended, save for him. She was willing to play for him, and hug him because he'd bawled like a baby. He'd felt she'd been terribly wronged, knew in his heart that she felt finally, finally, fantastically right! Maybe for the first time in a long time? The way she'd called them the 'bad guys', him 'the bad guy', and yet? The hug had been her hug, the body was her body, that voice, and smile, and the way her laugh lit him up was all so much the same!!
"I--I don't know. Maybe she does? The parts that made her the same for me...it was small mannerisms n physical s**t. N'gods I think I asked Cybele about this once even! Back when we had her at our disposal..." he laughed foolishly for this, remembering ignorantly spouting on about how he'd hoped then that Nectaris had crossed over without remembering anything, and was cursed to realize how upset he really was when he found out that she didn't. That there was nothing at all. Maybe he was even more upset for how her memories didn't seem to define her core personal self--the parts he'd loved most, and how terrifyingly dangerous he thought that was for her. How grateful he was that she seemed able to handle it in some capacity - what with being a moon knight, having that grown body and a young girls determined zeal.
She had that bubbliness though, had offered her friendship even though he must've screamed ******** who was being far too over-emotional; every. single. time.
"There were parts about Nectaris that she recognized as being Sylvite, too. Could've been more-- uhmn-- the s**t you cant grasp? Oh, intangible!! But she was still there--" he said with a ripple of a shrug. Knew it was what he'd thought at the time, what he'd wanted to think, and so maybe he thought it straight into being real for him as he'd needed it to be then. All of which ceased to matter as Faustite spoke sweetness, while his own fingers found ways to still without really stilling at all; teasing the endpoints of heat straightened ink, the soft strands that he knew held curls in human form.
"Love you too--and you're always gonna have me, Ei. Always. Me n all the time you need spared...I promise...." the promise easy to whisper into smoke-filled air, the way the words disturbed the wisps of it floating in with a breath, in, out. So mesmerizing. The way the promise felt right beneath the sleepy lull of his loves lax form. Planning for the immediate future seemed a hell of a lot easier than planning for some distant and far off thing. Albite knew Faustite would find a path to go down, that whatever his love chose? He would inevitably follow, heel to toe in line, waiting for the neon hued fires of a sign to light his way with instructions.
"Now go t'sleep---mma'dream bout distracting you awake inna morning."
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Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2023 4:18 am
So Nectaris was, in some way, largely preserved from who she was initially. Lost her memories, but Faustite had to assume she was largely the same person. That she was no more changed by this act to join the White Moon as she would have been from any large event in her life — losing a loved one, getting a promotion, working a stressful job. He had to believe that she was still fundamentally herself in a manner that didn't displace mind from body.
But he couldn't be sure. He had to know, had to see if he could contact her. If she remembered anything — even a scrap of her old self in the context of her mundane life — then there was some hope that she could make her own introspected comparison. If she deigned to respond, or even tell him that much.
His mind spun with the possibilities. How much of Sylvite was integral personhood? And how much of that core personhood made it through something like a purification? What was done to the starseed in the process that caused someone to lose their memory, and how did it determine what memories to take in exchange for this kind of decision? Nectaris was still recognizable as Nectaris, but whoever she was now outside of the uniform — was that person recognizable as Alexa? If not, how did the White Moon manage the same feat that Axinite accomplished for him so many years ago? And what was done with Nectaris afterward? Did they put her up somewhere, as simple as Encke had offered his home to Faustite after this ordeal was over?
There were far too many questions to answer, and any answers would invariably lead to more questions. Faustite recognized in himself a propensity to mull over decisions to the point of inaction at times, and this choice — leaving the Negaverse, whether permanently or temporarily — was itself paralyzing.
And Faustite was exhausted. No matter how much he slept, he was exhausted. Letting himself spiral into the cerebral proved far more exhausting, so when his boy acquiesced to Faustite's implied request, he simply grunted in acceptance and let his head rest against him again.
He smiled something soft for the comment. "So ******** lewd," he murmured, already drifting to sleep.
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