Covalence: Chapter 8
The first waking feeling Lyte had was a jolt of pain like a punch to the gut. He’d been dreaming before, but those memories slipped right through his paws. Something about an impossible puzzle, repairing a big machine, hissing and steaming and sparking like a broken espresso machine? The pikachu felt like it was important, somehow. Significant. He tried to claw it back.
Nope. It was gone, and all that was left was the dull ache.
Lyte slumped back into his hammock, staring out across a sea of clouds. Was he even awake? Maybe he was still dreaming. He felt like he was, swaddled in clouds inside and out, fogging his thoughts. There was something he wanted, dancing tantalizing at the edge of his mind, if he could only put a name to it. It was something he knew before, had known, had forgotten, but now it was time again.
He wanted… Out. Yes. That was the word. The concept. Out.
Out.
He must have been dreaming, because the thought resonated out across the sky and it responded. The dreamscape reshaped itself, clouds wrapping him tighter, hugging him and pushing him down—
“Oh no. Not now. Please,” said a distant, frightened voice.
Lyte froze and so did everything around him. That was Zinnia, he was sure of it. Zinnia needed him. Zinnia was more important than Out. He wanted to be closer to her voice, and the dream complied, everything reversing and pushing him back up, back to that cradle of clouds.
“Zinnia?” the pikachu called. “Zinnia! I’m here! Are you okay?”
“Lyte!?” Zinnia sounded shocked. “Thank fuck, thank the Three, I was so worried!”
Worried? Why? He looked around for her, but he couldn’t see her. He was lying on (and partly in) a cloud, surrounded by a glassy lake, reflecting only the endless cyan sky above. “Where are you?”
“Whuh?” She sounded baffled. Then she grunted in pain and the world shook, ripples disrupting the mirror of the lake. “I’ll explain later. Soon. Please, just hold on a few more minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” said Lyte, watching the ripples fade back into stillness.
The pikachu lay back on his cloud, letting it cradle him, staring up at the sky. The other clouds around him had gone, and the ones in his head were slowly clearing too. What had he been doing before? He felt like it was important, but he couldn’t remember. The feeling grew, inexorably; Lyte rubbed at his eyes, blinking up at the vault of the heavens above, again and again.
He opened his eyes for real. Lyte stared into that same bright, electric blue, but this time it was no sky: it was a band of flesh, encircling his head, pressed against his cheeks. It pulsed with charge. His charge. More flesh ensconced him, pale and glistening in the eerie electric light, wrapped around him like a form-fitting sleeping bag.
Things started coming back to him, like he’d woken from a fever into a daze. <Oh… I get it,> Lyte said. <I’m inside you.> Only after he said it did he realize he hadn’t said it out loud. He hadn’t been using his voice this entire time.
And neither had she. <I’m sorry,> Zinnia pleaded, her words thrumming through his cheeks and directly into his head with palpable sincerity. <I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry—>
<Why?\ What’s she so sorry about?> Lyte wondered. Zinnia stopped, as if cut off. <Did I say that out loud? I mean, think?> He was still doing it, he realized. The pikachu still felt adrift in his own head, like his thoughts were heavy, hard to get going and harder to stop. Was it bad, being inside her? It didn’t feel bad, it felt nice. He liked it here. He’d always craved physical closeness, and this was as close as you could get, hugged on all sides. He sluggishly lifted one paw and dragged it against the wall, feeling its velvety texture against his fur. It was hard to lift, and then his whole body moved instead, squished against his foreleg from dizzying movements he didn’t understand.
<…sorry,> the zeraora said, again. She sounded distant, distracted.
<Shhh,> Lyte thought to her. <It’s okay.> He hoped she could tell he meant it just as well as he could. Just in case, he nuzzled at the smooth flesh in front of him, at the effulgent band of cyan he’d mistaken for the sky. Not the vault of heaven, but a vault of some sort, definitely. The vault of Zinnia…
More of his senses sluggishly stirred, shaking off their long sleep. The dizzying out-of-body feeling of movement wasn’t a product of his addled imagination, it was real. He was still, his surroundings fixed and snug, but the world outside was not. Zinnia was on the move, light on her paws, moving in gentle bounces and quick jerks and lunges. Each shift in direction pushed Lyte against the opposite wall, where the cushy flesh squished to absorb the force and the muscles behind it had already tensed, holding him in place.
Her heartbeat drummed in his ears and faintly twitched in the clinging walls, quick to match the muffled panting of her breath. A distant impact jolted him, Zinnia halting mid-movement. She’s fighting, he realized, right before a much closer impact rocked his little nook. The zeraora’s grunt of pain reverberated around him. If she’s fighting, it must be… late? Unless it’s an official match?
When is it? Lyte tried to think back, dredging his hazy memory. Bits and pieces came back to him, only barely more solid than a dream. He remembered his apartment. The sunset fading to twilight fading to night. He remembered crawling between the zeraora’s legs—<Oh. I’m in her womb,> he thought, loud enough it came out through his cheeks.
<Yes,> came the terse reply. Her focus was elsewhere.
Oops, he hadn’t meant to distract her. The pikachu snuggled into the cradling flesh and held still. It’s nice here, he thought, then wondered if he was thinking that because of her allomones. He didn’t feel overwhelmingly horny, so maybe not? Like he’d told her before, it wasn’t like he needed allomones to like being inside her. He was already into it. Plus, rodents loved snuggling, and this was like being snuggled from all sides.
But how could I not be swimming in her scent? I’m as deep in her as I can get. Lyte sniffed at the hot and humid air. It didn’t smell like anything, but that didn’t mean much; he’d probably gotten used to it. Maybe she only secretes them like… lower?
That thought got a twitch down between his legs, but only a halfhearted one, like his dick was tired. He kind of remembered humping into the velvety womb walls. A lot. Dazedly, Lyte dragged a paw across his belly, finding it coated in slick and clingy seed. Is this all mine? he wondered, amazed. Not like it could be anyone else’s. I hope it’s fine. He might be in the way, but he was pretty sure fertilization happened further up in the oviduct, so maybe him being here didn’t matter. Are we compatible? I forgot to ask about this. I just figured she’d cook the egg if she didn’t want it, like Jodi…
He blinked a couple times. Wait, Zinnia said she doesn’t even lay eggs.
More thumps jolted the zeraora’s body, and through it, him. Lyte felt everything spin, then slow from a particularly powerful impact. A distant roar rose, loud even smothered by layers of flesh and muscle and fur. Is it over? Did she win? Wait, he could ask her. <Did you win?>
<Yes,> Zinnia said. She sighed, out loud, and her body relaxed just a little.
<Nice!>
Lyte heard the announcer come on over the speakers. The booming, projected voice was already hard to understand at the best of times; inside the zeraora, he had no chance. Maybe if he pressed an ear to her womb wall and focused, he could make out the words, but he didn’t care enough to try.
Zinnia shook herself and padded off. “I’m gonna freshen up,” she said to someone, her voice extra resonant but clear enough.
More walking. Lyte yawned and stretched without even thinking; to his surprise, he actually could. The walls that had held him so tightly while Zinnia fought allowed his paws to stretch them, squeezing around his middle to compensate. There was weirdly little resistance; it felt almost like they were moving before his paws did.
<I know, I know,> Zinnia said to him, sounding (feeling?) exceptionally contrite. <Just a bit more. I’m so sorry for keeping you so long.>
<Huh?> Oh, she’d felt him. That had to be it. Lyte stopped stretching and the zeraora’s womb walls sprang back, returning him to his tight, compact curl. <It’s okay, it’s comfy in here.>
<I’m glad,> she said, with such tangible relief it almost made him tear up. <Hold on a bit longer, okay?>
<Really, I’m fine, I’m chilling,> he reassured her. The pikachu tried to figure out how long it’d been, exactly; he felt like he had the pieces, but they refused to go together. Fighting, midnight… then they were slipping through his paws like sand, and he was more clueless than when he’d started. <How long has it been?> he asked.
<It’s… about 10 pm? I don’t know when we, when I… Twenty hours? Twenty-two? It’s been almost a day.>
<Oh, okay.> Should he be concerned about that? He wasn’t. He felt fine. It didn’t feel real. No, that wasn’t right, it felt real, but like he was staring at it from a distance. Twenty is a lot of hours. Almost a day, yeah.
<I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do this,> Zinnia said, her electrical voice feeling like wringing her paws against his cheeks.
<It’s okay,> Lyte repeated, automatically. It must be okay, because he couldn’t imagine her doing anything that wasn’t. Whispers of that earlier feeling came back, steadily getting louder. It was like an itch in his mind. The feeling that he needed to… leave? But he didn’t want to leave. Zinnia had told him to hold on. He curled up inside her, trying to roll over like he would after snoozing his alarm. His body struggled to cooperate, but a ripple from her womb nudged him the way he wanted, onto his side. Perfect.
The sound and feel of her steps changed, her claws clicking on tile. Her claws are still out? She must be anxious…
Zinnia sighed all around him. <That was almost a disaster,> she said. <But the coast is clear. You can come out now.>
<Uh?> Lyte said. Why’d she say it like that? <Okay, I’m ready. Let me out whenever?>
<No, I can’t,> Zinnia said. Lyte got the sense she was shaking her head. <It has to be you.>
<It has to be me?> Which way is even out? The pikachu ran his paws over the encompassing walls, squishing into her slick and silky flesh. It relaxed under his touch, stretching to let him feel around without impediment. Everything was different shades of electric blue, her pale flesh and his weirdly dark fur, making everything even more surreal. Down, probably? Underneath me?
<Yeah. That’s what Jodi said.> (The amount of venom and angst packaged with Jodi’s name threw Lyte for a loop, but he didn’t have the spare brainpower to think about it.) <You nearly did it before; do that again?>
<Before?> Lyte tried to recall, but he didn’t even know what he was looking for in the dreamy haze. <You mean, when I…> That growing itch in his head. He was still resisting it, but what if he stopped? The pikachu leaned into it and embraced the idea. When I wanted… Out?
His cheeks fuzzed with static. The walls convulsed, gripping him tight enough to make him squeak. They kneaded at him, rotated him, the gate beneath him spreading wide to admit him through. Like the clouds before, her womb shoved him down, forcing him through the open cervix. The glowing band clung to his cheeks as long as possible, until—
The connection broke and Lyte was alone. The embrace of Zinnia’s body and circuits and feelings all evaporated, a subtly reassuring presence whose absence was stark. He was still wrapped up in her flesh, encased in slick walls that pulsed with her heartbeat, but now it was more oppressive than cozy. Now he really wanted out.
It didn’t take long. The zeraora’s muscles rippled around him relentlessly, shunting him down with great efficacy. They were inexorable; between the squishes and squelches against his ears that drowned out all other sound, he heard Zinnia groan and gasp for breath. They weren’t any nicer on her than they were on him.
Lyte felt cold air on his hindpaws one moment, and the next he was out, blinking in the light, floating between Zinnia’s legs. He stared up at flexing pink, swimming back into focus as the zeraora’s gaping spade. Strands of cloudy fluid stretched between him and her tunnel, which rippled a few more times as her black labia slowly closed back up, drooling more fluid onto his face. It was one of the hottest things Lyte had ever seen, but all that part of his brain could manage was to go “nice 👍️” and pass out again.
Whatever was supporting him moved. Zinnia lifted her paw (which she’d barely got between her legs in time to catch him) and twisted it around, staring at the bedraggled and cum-soaked pikachu. She was still panting. “Are you okay?” she asked him between breaths.
“I’m good!” Lyte said. “That was rough, but I’m good!”
He took deep breaths of fresh air. It bit at his lungs, frigid compared to inside her, smelling of cheap soap and cleaning products and assorted species’ piss that they’d failed to cover up. His surroundings registered, slowly: behind Zinnia, a white curtain of the cheapest possible plastic; flanking her, two bland beige slabs of HDPE covered in clawed graffiti.
They were in a shower. But not his shower (too small) or his apartment’s shower.
“I’m so glad,” Zinnia said. For a moment she looked like she might break down in tears, her nose and whiskers quivering. Then it was gone, back to steely focus. “Let me get you clean. You’re a mess.”
She hit the shower’s singular button and Lyte’s world turned to ice.
He’d thought the air was cold, but that was nothing compared to the shower. It was freezing. It felt like if it were any colder it’d be pelting him with sleet. Logically, he knew that didn’t really make sense—it was just room-temperature water—but after a few seconds he was shivering anyway.
He’d awoken wrapped in a blissful veil. It had been slowly slipping away the longer he’d been awake, but the cold shower shredded whatever was left. The pikachu was confronted, all at once, with the cold reality that he had a body. A body whose needs had been neglected for nearly twenty-four hours.
It was like getting up after an accidental marathon gaming session, only ten times worse. Lyte groaned from the sudden onset of every status condition: he was hungry, thirsty, his bladder was going to explode, his head ached, his cheeks ached, even his balls ached. The only thing he didn’t feel was cramped, somehow.
He went limp in Zinnia’s paws, the freezing water forgotten even as she scrubbed him under it. “Ooogh,” he said, his thoughts managing about the same level of coherence.
Zinnia apologized for something, but the words ran right off him like the shower spray.
Lyte just shivered in silence, eyes shut against the shower. It trickled into his mouth, making him cough and choke and swallow some by mistake. The coolness in his throat reminded him it was water, and then he couldn’t get enough of it. The little rodent held his mouth open, trying to catch it, gulping greedily of the spray until he’d had his fill.
When the shower turned off, the pikachu was still dazed and horribly run down, but at least he was thinking again, even if his brain felt like a thick curry. He tried to shake himself dry, but that was a non-starter: he had nothing to brace against, and after moving his head he found he’d rather be unconscious. Lyte took stock of himself instead, like he did after coming up from hyperfocus. He needed food. He didn’t need water anymore, though he knew it’d take a while for the headache to go down. He no longer had to piss real bad, he realized, which would have been more mortifying if he had the spare mental capacity to be mortified at all.
Most pressing was that he was freezing. He was shivering all over and his tail and paws felt like blocks of ice. It was like he was feverish, but without any of the warmth. The world wiggled a little, in tune to some chattering sound; it was his teeth, he realized, making him boggle involuntarily.
The only warmth was the wall of black and yellow fur next to him, which he huddled into as best he could. It helped, but not nearly enough. He needed to be closer, underneath that fur. Is her scent doing this? he wondered. Isn’t that… isn’t that why I feel this way, feel so awful, in the first place?
He didn’t care. “P-P-Put me b-back in,” he chattered, flattening himself against some part of the zeraora’s chest.
He only realized Zinnia had been saying something because she stopped. Whatever it was, he’d completely missed it. “What?” she said, after a moment.
“I’m f-freezing,” Lyte said, feeling that was sufficient explanation. He hoped it was. He couldn’t manage much more.
The zeraora shifted her paw to squish him between it and her chest, better shielding him from the cold air. It helped a little.
“Are you okay?” she said, keeping her voice low. It was barely audible over the shower.
“No. I feel horrible.” The pikachu shivered, violently. He was panting and didn’t know why. “It’s so c-cold. P-Put me back in, please.”
“I can’t!” Zinnia frowned and whimpered, the sound thrumming down through her chest. “We just got you out, we can’t risk you getting stuck again, or exposing you even more…” She trailed off, realizing she hadn’t thought about what to do next. She couldn’t just carry him out; there’d be all sorts of questions. Or even if not questions—Zinnia was proud of her “don’t talk to me” glower—people would talk, and she couldn’t risk it.
Lyte realized none of these things. He was too cold, too busy huddling against her. He’d tried to formulate some sort of counterargument, but trying to collect his thoughts had felt like picking up jello with oven mitts, so he’d abandoned that and settled for whimpering against her chest.
Zinnia lifted him away from it, her warm breath washing over his ears. It took a second for him to process it as words. “I’ll tuck you in my tummy, okay?”
“Okay,” Lyte said. “Yay.” He felt like he’d dragged out of his happy daze, into harsh and cold sobriety, and past it into a much less pleasant daze. The pikachu barely registered how Zinnia shifted her grip, turning him over so he was belly-down on one paw.
She lifted him and pushed, nudging him backwards. Hard and smooth points grazed his paws and tail and lower body, but the first sensation to actually cut through the haze was that of warmth. Slick and living warmth from the raspy zeraora tongue underneath his belly. Even just that was a huge relief, and the pikachu shuddered and went limp, flopping along her tongue and over her lower jaw. Her bottom fangs dug into his belly, blunt tips dragging against him as she pushed him deeper, but he didn’t care at all.
“Warm,” he said, though it came out more like a moan. “Keep going…”
She did. His hindpaws pressed against the back of her mouth, his zigzag tail folded flat against his back and squished against the ridges of her palate above him. They were the coldest parts of him, and having them pressed to warm flesh began to ease his shakes and shivers.
Zinnia tipped her head back and swallowed, tongue squeezing Lyte against the roof of her maw as he slipped back, the way behind him opening up for a moment. His hindpaws dipped into her throat before the flesh squeezed back around them, tighter and slimier than her mouth. The zeraora pet at his head, then took both paws away, supporting Lyte with her body alone. For a moment, his neck rested uncomfortably across her teeth, then her tongue lifted him for another swallow. Aided by gravity, the ripple of muscle pulled his rump into her throat and his head fully into her mouth.
Lyte stared up at at off-white ceiling tiles, his vision framed above and below by teeth. Six little ones and two big fangs on each jaw, with more alongside him in the corners of his eyes. He reached out to feel at them, running his front paws over her teeth, especially her fangs. He didn’t have fangs; the pikachu didn’t have teeth there at all, just his big front ones and his side ones. Slippery with saliva, they felt… like teeth, unsurprisingly. Like his own, when he pawed at them to unstick something from between.
The zeraora did not grunt, not with him in the way, but she did tense a little. She stuck her tongue forward, trying to get it under his exploring paws and nudge them away from her teeth. The slick muscle overpowered him with ease, but he had two paws and she only one tongue. Lyte giggled as he kept reaching out, battling with her for several seconds until she tried to close her mouth anyway. The ridged roof squished him against her tongue, the gap between her jaws narrowing towards his paw—but she couldn’t close all the way, not with most of him in her mouth.
She swallowed, dragging him another inch deeper. Her tongue curled up and squished against his face, shoving him back for her next swallow to reach his belly. Now halfway in her gullet, Lyte got to watch her teeth shut all the way, sealing him behind them. It probably should’ve sparked some sort of fear, but he felt nothing of the sort staring at the faint light shining through the gaps.
His view of mostly darkness became total as the zeraora lifted her rough tongue again, pressing him back. Her throat opened up underneath him, her gulp echoing in his ears as he slid back, pulled completely into her neck. The muffled sounds of the shower cut out completely as warm flesh squished his ears, drowning it out with slick squelches from each peristaltic ripple. Zinnia’s heartbeat thumped against him, loud to his ears and palpable in the rippling throat walls. Lyte heard her gasp as he sank down, letting out her long-held breath and taking in a new one, belabored by the pressure he was putting on her windpipe. Her breathing steadied as he descended further, feeling the squeeze of her chest all around him. Her heartbeat grew louder with each ripple, then quieter, slipping away above him.
By the time he squeezed through a tight ring of muscle and dropped into the zeraora’s gut, Lyte was blissfully relaxed. He’d been out of the cold long enough that he could think again without feeling like his head was full of pudding. He slid down the wrinkled walls, his body naturally following their curve as he fit snugly into the pouch of flesh. “So much better,” he mumbled, squirming to try and settle into place. The walls were stretchy, covered in thick slime that clung to his fur and made his movements easier. His whiskers brushed at them, giving him an idea of the narrow space around his head.
He was running his paw over the wrinkled rugae when the walls took over, contracting around him. They kneaded him all over once, then squeezed with purpose, pushing his head into place so his cheeks squished into the awaiting band of flesh. Sparks crackled, the conductive band lighting the chamber vivid, electric blue. The zeraora’s body drew on him and his cheeks twinged, a sudden ache like a sore muscle. He winced, trying to flinch away from the contact. Lyte felt a spike of panic—there was nowhere to go inside her, no way to break the connection—before he realized the draw had already stopped. The band’s glow was dim, providing just the minimal connection to Zinnia’s circuits. Ooh, that’s nice.
Lyte sighed, taking deep breaths of the warm, humid air. He relaxed into the cradling flesh and curled up. Or rather, the walls squeezed in on him, curling him up just like he wanted, hugging him close and tight. It was surreal, a little dizzying; the pikachu stretched experimentally and the stomach moved as much as he did, squelching in against his front and squeezing his arm and leg out the way he wanted. He relaxed to curl back up and the rugose walls did it for him, hugging back around him. They felt like extensions of himself. Maybe it was the dizziness, maybe the allomones, maybe not eating for a day, but he had trouble telling where he stopped and the walls began.
The blue band flickered with light, buzzing against his cheeks. Lyte ignored it. But he couldn’t ignore Zinnia’s paw questing for him, digging into her gut and squishing him back against her spine. “Lyte?” she said, her concerned voice reverberating around him. “Are you okay? Did this help?”
Oops, that buzzing was probably her trying to talk to me. The pikachu allowed himself to connect a bit more—or is it her body I’m asking to connect to me?—and felt Zinnia’s anxiety dancing against his cheek spots. <I’m okay,> he said. <I’m doing much better!>
He felt her sigh of relief as much as he heard it, the bellows of her lungs emptying several inches above his head. <Thank the Three,> Zinnia said. <I was so worried…>
<Maybe a warm shower next time,> Lyte said. He ran through his mental checklist again, this time with more agility and less pain. <I’m still exhausted, and hungry, and achy, especially my cheeks and—yeah.>
<Sorry, I was drawing on you a lot to charge up for my fights,>
<It’s okay. Just don’t do any more. I think I stopped it just now, actually?>
Now he could think again, and ponder about how he felt… but how he felt was mostly tired and hungry. There were probably more significant things to consider; “Probably”? Definitely. Is that going to happen every time I sniff her spade? That’s so much more intense than I expected. Wait, wasn’t this what Zinnia was afraid of? Fuck, and I pushed her into it…
feels her moving around, walking. overhears Marcus and Zinnia talk (one-sided conversation?)
Is this… a crash? Coming down off her scent? It was too fast, wasn’t it? He’d only just gotten outside her. But maybe there was something to it. And freezing.
snoozes
Lyte woke again to the spray of water, though this time it was blissfully warm and steamy.
She dries him with electricity? Or bundles him up in a towel? Maybe that’d be cute. Maybe she picked up a towel.
then we get back to his apartment and he ravenously digs into the fast food.