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Silver Wolf wasn’t some kind of pre-pubescent cringe-ass loser who salivated at an accidental brush of fingers. Aha as her witness. It was just —
Pale fingers running through locks of shining silver, gathering them in their grip. The delicate skin on the back of Firefly’s neck, shaded from the blue light of the screen in the dark room, yet faintly aglow along the edge of an errant dissociation corpus. The way her hands danced as they worked her long hair into the ponytail. The faint little hum. The rise and fall of her chest. Silver Wolf couldn’t look away. Dammit.
Before she did something mind-bogglingly stupid, she yanked her gaze away. Her eyes flitted over Firefly’s cane leaning against the table, the snack bowl, the comms module, finally fixating upon the racer’s title screen as she willed the burn from her cheeks. Mesosphere Grand Prix 2135. Old as shit, sure, but undeniably fun. She’d chosen a classic for Firefly’s first game.
“Okay!” that angelic voice declared. “I’m ready now.” A momentary pause. “Mmm… let’s game, Wolfie!” A giggle. And she nodded to herself! What the fuck!
She blinked repeatedly. “Um, yeah. Cool. You remember how to use the remote, yeah?”
She couldn’t look away from those soft lips lit with blue light. “M-hm. I hold ‘two’ when we start, and then just tilt it around to move,” Firefly recited.
“And ‘one’ to drift.”
“And ‘one’ to drift. I think I’ve got it.” Firefly nodded to herself. Criminally adorable. Ugh.
“... ‘Kay, chill. I’m gonna set us up.”
She hit ‘A’ and quickly navigated over to two-player multiplayer.
“Hit ‘A’?” she asked.
“Got it.” Firefly pressed the button with an unusual zeal. Her sunset eyes were already sharp with that resolute focus Silver Wolf always saw them gain when she was about to activate S.A.M. She wanted to win. Ha, good luck with that, Fifi.
With both remotes synced, they entered the character selection screen.
Usually, she ran with Mushroomina, the Amanita-headed god of M2135, but that was a little too cheesy for a game with a beginner. Still, she needed to show off. So, Broczor. This two-headed tortoise in a car that looked like a spike-riddled sub-light jet. Blam.
She saw Firefly smile out of the corner of her eye. Not that she was focusing on her periphery. “Ooh, so cool.”
Silver Wolf grinned. “Yeah, thanks.” Score!
Firefly took a bit longer to decide, which gave her eyes time to wander.
It had been kind of weird when Firefly asked for her to teach her how to play games. Not weird as in bad, but weird as in—unexpected. (She wasn’t that brain-dead.) She hadn’t thought Firefly had even been interested. Her eyes had always glided over her screens with disinterest. She was glad, though. Ever since Firefly had climbed out of the stabilization pod, it was like she had a new lease on life, more time and energy to care about fun things. Objectively false, but, in another sense, kind of true. It was nice to see her smile. It had been hard to get her to, before Asdana. But now…
It was really rewarding to see her mouth turn up, to see her cares melt away. Now that Silver Wolf knew how to do it, she kind of wanted the high score. Like, how could anyone resist wanting to make someone so pretty happy? Pure positive feedback loop.
She scooted a little closer on the couch. Her throat went dry at the ghost of shared body heat gently caressing her side. Her fingers itched on the remote. She wanted to reach over…
“Okay. Marina, be my comrade!” Firefly announced, eyes sparkling. She’d chosen one of the princess characters — the cool blue one with the car that looked like a butterfly.
Aeons. “You’re such a dork.”
Firefly giggled. “Well, I think,” she replied, almost thoughtful, “being a dork is my right.”
Silver Wolf shrugged. “I won’t argue that,” she said, a smile tinging her words. “So, we have to choose our track. Any thoughts?”
Firefly hummed. “Do I get any hints, or is it just based on the names?”
“Hints? Yeah, sure.” She smirked. “There’s a wrong answer,” she lied. (All of the Stage One options were pretty good — Skyflume Castle was sort of difficult, though.)
Because she was Firefly, she took that as an invitation to scroll through every single track option, taking the time to watch each preview. Silver Wolf did not got lost watching Firefly’s beautiful turquoise-painted nails tap against her lips as she weighed her options. Something like that would have been lame. She wasn’t, like, a virgin, okay. She’d held Stelle’s hand for ten whole minutes last week. That was basically the god-tier of loving girls.
Eventually, Firefly settled on Skyflume Castle. Of course. The lush floating islands and puffy white clouds at impossible altitudes really seemed to draw her attention.
“This isn’t the wrong answer, is it, Wolfie?”
She scoffed, smirking on the inside. “Oh, yeah. You messed up, big time. Can’t play anymore.”
Firefly blinked a couple times in rapid succession, eyelashes fluttering prettily. “... Huh?” No no no. She was frowning! Abort!
“... I’m just fucking with you.”
Before she could react, a warm, soft palm came down on the exposed skin of her shoulder with a smack. “You jerk,” Firefly laughed. Silver Wolf didn’t reply — her mind was caught in the fire curling low in her belly, blossoming downward from her shoulder, spreading like a virus. It felt way too good.
She managed to stifle a squeak she definitely hadn’t been about to make. “Sorry,” she said, not quite absent-minded.
Firefly paused. “It’s okay,” she responded. “Ready?”
Right. Game time with Firefly. Hell yeah.
“Yesss, okay—let’s do this. Skyflume’s got a little bit of a learning curve, but it’s still a Stage One track.” She hit Start, and their two racers were dropped into the NPC crowd at the starting line.
“Hold ‘two’,” Firefly whispered.
So cute.
Silver Wolf opened her mouth to qualify that, but slowly closed it.
… This would be more fun.
The tinny buzzer voice counted down. “Three! Two!” She held down ‘two’ as well and afforded herself a brief glance at her opponent. Firefly’s eyes were all sharp and focused again. It made her want to see that look melt to something soft and open when she realized she could never beat the αWolf. Made her want—
“Go!”
She quickly released ‘two’ and boosted off to the front of the crowd. Firefly, on the other hand, spun out with a cloud of smoke.
“Wolfie! You tricked me!” Firefly exclaimed, still smiling (a little disbelieving, too). “Come onn,” she whispered to her controller.
Silver Wolf laughed, louder than she had in a while. “Only a little. Now, watch and learn, babe,” oops, “w-winner gets a reward.” She heard Firefly’s breath hitch just as the heat pooled in her face. Shit. It just slipped out. Firefly was gonna—
“Um, alright,” Firefly said, a little softer than before. “I’ll try my best.”
Huh. Well.
Silver Wolf snorted. “Prepare to lose.”
“How the fuck are you doing that?!” Silver Wolf shouted, probably a little too loud for 23:00 system hours.
By the third lap, Firefly had forgone the track entirely on its middle stretch, opting to make some hard free turns through the aerial boost rings. That was the optional segment the developers had put in to challenge the pros. Silver Wolf could do it, too, but it was pretty tight when she didn’t have her cheats. (Firefly had made her promise not to hack.)
Firefly’s brow was furrowed with concentration. “I just figured these would be okay. I’m pretty good with high-gravitation turns?”
Fucking hell.
“Okay, but I’ve been throwing bombs at you this entire time!” She threw another tracking one from an item box. Firefly just barely swerved from its path in mid-air.
“I know! Meanie. I’m trying my best.”
“Don’t look at me like that!”
“I’m not looking at you—oh, yay! I did it!”
Three torturous seconds later, Silver Wolf too crossed the finish line. She sighed long and slow, then wiped a droplet of hot sweat from her temple as it threatened to trickle into her eye. “Damn.”
Well, that blew. Kind of. Even she could admit it was a little funny.
Firefly laughed. Silver Wolf couldn’t help but join in. Aeons.
“I don’t usually get a kick out of beginner stuff,” she eventually commented, “but I really had fun. You did great, Fi… Fi. F-Fifi.”
She watched with abject fascination as the praise brought a flush to Firefly’s cheeks, as a silly little grin bloomed. Whoa.
“Um… thank you.”
That pink was so delicious, she could lick it. Lick it right off her round, embarrassed cheeks like a dog. (“So pretty…” she murmured.) The swift-reddening color brought out the pinks in her eyes, shining from within like the radiant effulgence splayed across twilit clouds in the darkening sky. She couldn’t look away.
Firefly did in her stead, covering her cheeks with her hands and twisting back to the game screen.
That must have been weird for her. Silver Wolf coughed. “So, uh, what do you want?”
Hiding between fingers, those soft eyes found her again. (What the fuck. So cute. She was going to die. She needed to just reach over and — how was this allowed? How was she supposed to deal?)
“Want?” Firefly asked, quieter than the question merited. Silver Wolf shivered as the breath of it tickled her cheeks. Their knees nearly brushed one another.
“S-since you won, dork,” she replied, feeling the heat creeping into her own face, too.
“Right…” Firefly trailed off, peering down at the metal tiles of the floor.
“But I’m not buying you a dildo,” she added, regretting it even before it finished departing her lips. Why the fuck did you just say that? What is wrong with you?
Shockingly, Firefly snorted, a remarkably dainty sound on her. “I’m good.” Then… “Okay, got it.”
That was quick. “What’s up?”
Every ticking thought process embedded in her skull, refracted across Prometheus, or otherwise occupied ground to a sudden and star-shattering halt as Firefly slid into her lap with a minute exhale of strain.
What.
She was soft, so madly soft, the way her plush thighs pillowed atop her, the way her calves swung around her waist, the way gentle breaths fell upon the crook of her neck, the animal warmth of flushed skin, of bright, open eyes, of silky fingers brushing the hairs on the back of Silver Wolf’s neck. It was everything she could do to stop breathing and keep the mind-addling haze of morning dew with a hint of earthiness from leading her into tremendously stupid impulse decisions. It was everything she could do to —
Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard. Don’t get hard. Oh aeons. Don’t. Do not.
“Hug me?” Firefly finally asked. The words were light and breathy with hope.
Silver Wolf quivered, every muscle in her body—even the phantom impulses of her detached tail—rigid. “I—um. Y-you—” She couldn’t move.
She could almost feel Firefly’s lips twitch near her ear.
“Please, Wolfie?”
Suddenly, Silver Wolf was surging, arms wrapping like a roaring wave around Firefly’s waist, around her back. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “S-sorry,” she mumbled, almost drunk on the proximity. “‘m… ah, weird.” Firefly smelled so fucking good. She wanted to shove her nose into her throat…
A faint laugh. She shivered. “You aren’t. We’re just ordinary girls, burning the night away, together. I… mm.”
Silver Wolf exhaled, warm and heavy, against the skin of Firefly’s shoulder exposed by the window of her blouse. She watched, transfixed, as the gooseflesh prickled. The consequents were impossible to believe. As soft fingers played with the ends of her drill, igniting embers through her guts, she couldn’t help but shiver openly.
“Hey, Wolfie,” Firefly continued.
“Mm?” The sound of the fan, the musical hum of the game, all of it fell into obscurity before this voice. It was like she had some sort of serious debuff condition.
“I’m sorry for how I was when we met,” Firefly whispered. “I didn’t know how to act. All I wanted was to seize the life I’ve been denied, and I didn’t know how to, um,” she swallowed. “Accept your friendship. But… you’ve always surpassed what was expected of you. So… thanks for this. I love you. With all my blazing heart before it burns out.”
Silver Wolf could feel herself choking on her own breath. She cleared her throat. Her face was burning hotter than an ion engine against that warm, plush skin.
“I… uh. That’s so. Sincere. Aeons. Fuck. I…”
Fingers traced at her scalp, and she shuddered, exhaling a death rattle as she relaxed.
“Look, uh. It’s really fine. You’re going through the worst hardcore Nightmare Mode shit I can imagine, and—and I’m an ass.” (A soft, stifled laugh.) “It’s all chill, Fifi, seriously. I… uh… I l-love you. Too.”
She was boiling. Her head was going to detonate from the internal pressure like a shitty Azracan hen egg in the microwave and then Fifi would have to clean the flesh-chunks off the couch with a wet towel and buckets of tears. How was she able to be that direct?
Firefly pulled back. For a single moment, Silver Wolf feared that it was—at last—to call her weird and stupid, and tell her that she’s ass at gaming and should probably just go back to Punklorde’s slums (where she belongs) to jump off a bridge, or something, but the tenderness in those sunset eyes as they roved across her face incinerated each horrible impulse into blessed, unexpected silence.
“Firefly…” she whispered.
She could feel how the weight of that word made the other girl shake. Blissfully soft fingers cupped her cheeks, quaking just enough to lash the reins of her pulse even hastier. Firefly’s smile was broader than usual. She leaned in and laid a kiss on her forehead. Flames burst from the tingling touch and licked down her insides, momentarily frozen in place when—again—those beautiful, pacific lips pressed against the corner of her own. Her blood revived, pounding ferociously in her head as the lingering heat melted her into a puddle. She couldn’t help but finally moan at the spark that then lit her nerves. As the desperate little sound echoed through the room, something hard pressed against the softness of her tummy, which would have been cause for panic had it not clearly been Firefly’s clit.
All the blood in Silver Wolf’s body seemed to rush downward to her core until she was almost as hard as she had ever been. She could already feel a spot of wetness against her panties…
“W-whoa,” she panted. “Fifi…”
Firefly blushed near luminosity and scooted back onto the couch with a muffled “eep”. So cute. So cute. So fucking cute. The addled buzz to her mind asked her—why bother pretending?
“Aeons,” she husked, feeling bizarrely powerful. “You’re so perfect. Really wanna fuck you now.”
Firefly’s mouth fell open, quivered a few times, then closed. Silver Wolf watched it, imagining what it would feel like to kiss, to bite, to suck. What the hell…
Finally, Firefly said, “Can our first time together not be on the couch, please?”
She laughed.
“Okay. Fiiine. But—” she sniffed. “I win this round, then, dork.”
Firefly looked at her — quiet and contemplative, just as she was when she considered the ends of her fate, longing for more time. As ever, it was more resolute than somber, more flickering ember than cold ash.
Then, she smiled.
“Alright,” she replied. “You win, too.” Sick! “So, we’re tied.”
Then, Silver Wolf drooped. “Dammit.”