For Love of Love 10: Ex Periculo
#9 of For Love of Love
_ _ Anonymous, Latin "From danger..."
"Anyone can love," he repeated. "It's just not always obvious to us."
Besides, among all of the anguish and anger she was feeling, all of it directed at herself, she almost welcomed it as a relief from stress.
His sheer ignorance gave her the strength and will that she needed to wiggle away from his touch and raise herself into a sitting position, where she drew up her knees and placed her head between them, sobbing constantly.
Look at what I've done! I'm a horrible person! I've killed children after killing their parents and throwing their flaming bodies off the edge of cliffs..." despite her protests against his contact, he continued hugging her.
Are you hearing what I'm saying?" she was almost yelling now, a state that she rarely dissolved into, and even then only in the heat of battle. "I have crushed eggs underneath my feet...in a single clutch, some of them were soft and still aqueous, others were more......formed...." She sobbed even louder, doing her best to hold out against the urge to break down completely and fall into Jamie's arms, an act that she still had compunctions.
"Well, Jean, it's because I like you." She stared blankly forward, not at the human that was trying vainly to comfort her. He was making less and less sense, and Jean knew less and less about how to react to what he was saying or doing.
Unaccustomed to such actions, her hand started to move instinctively towards the neck of its human, and it was only a few inches away from properly connecting. Only with the knowledge that she could accidently kill the human with only the lightest of squeezes was she able to bring so sudden a stop to the hand that otherwise may have killed him. She had no wish to see him injured, especially after everything that he had done for; although he wasn't doing many things that she liked, she didn't want anything to happen to him, especially something brought around by her own hand.
You're talking about thousands of lives, Jamie. That isn't a figure you can scoff at."
still couldn't care less."
His hands found their way again to that place on her shoulders and started rubbing. Jamie was the only person that she knew and could trust now...for whatever reason, he seemed to have a great interest in touching her. If that's what he wanted, she couldn't really afford to do anything to stop him and maybe make him angry. Besides, the contact, as strange and alien as it was, was almost soothing. It felt...kind of nice. Her muscles were quite tense, and they were starting to become less so with the rubbing. After a minute or so of this being uninterrupted, she gave into the feeling and started murring softly, curious about the nature of what he was doing.
It was starting to feel more and more pleasurable, almost to the point where it was feeling too good. The worries of her past had almost ceased to be, and the only thing in her mind was the pleasurable sensation that she was now experiencing in her upper shoulders around her neck. It would have been a useful distraction to lull an enemy into a sense of complacency if one had an interest in creating false friendship.
"It used to my job."
What was left of her loyalty to the Citadel screamed out in protest, urging her to bring all of the power she could muster against him for taking such contact with her, but the rest of her urged her to let him keep going. It felt nice, and there was no reason for her to stop him any longer, as her oaths to the Chapter and its laws no longer applied to her. She had broken nearly all of them already.
She wondered if there was anybody else in either world doing this at this moment. Maybe it was just a human thing, but it was absolutely a wonderful feeling. Everyone should have felt this at least once in their life. Maybe she could get Jamie to bring this back to the Citadel, where something like that could be spread around so that everyone could know the feeling.
"Do you feel better, Jean?"
She wasn't in the right state of mind to give him an answer other than the soft groan that she emitted.
"I don't like to see people when they're unhappy."
"Jamie, can I ask you a question?" she posed shortly thereafter. All of what she had told herself was useless if no one else knew it. Normally, she would have other Digimon to tell her if what she was doing was right or wrong, there were no questions that could be answered with anything other than a yes or a no, once properly reduced. But here, in the Real World away from all of that, they seemed to no longer have any power over her. They hadn't come for her yet for not returning after completing her mission. Maybe they knew she had failed and were giving her time to repent, or maybe they weren't yet aware of her failure to kill Lex and they believed that she was still tracking or combating her target. Either way ...
I mean, can I stay with you?"
Maybe it meant that he wasn't willing to commit to letting her stay in his room with him like this for any longer hen she absolutely had to, or maybe it meant that he just didn't know how to answer 'no'. Maybe he cared about her just enough to try to break that kind of information to her gently, or maybe he didn't even care enough to give her an answer. As the silence continued on and on without an answer, Jean started to get more and more worried, even though he hadn't yet stopped the 'massage'.
Even if the other room hadn't been full like she had been told, she didn't know if she was ready yet to sleep in the same room as a virus. She was much more comfortable with Jaie, even though he wasn't a Digimon; although he did behave quite like a Vaccine. He wasn't malicious, he cared for other people maybe even to the point of caring for other people at the cost for himself.
She blushed at all of the attention and kindness that he was giving her then she bushed even harder as his hands moved from the middle of her back to her sides. Human hands pressed against the lean, toned yet sensitive curves of her stomach.
For forgiving me for hurting your Digimon; for taking me in after all of this; for letting me stay in your room with you, for trying to help me be more like the humans and have fun." She murred softly again at the feeling that was surrounding her sides and coming from his hands. "And for this..."
"Jean..." he giggled.
It's, uh...swishing."
"I didn't know it bothered you. I won't do it anymore," she curled her tail around her leg where at rest.
"I'm done with that part," he giggled. "Want me to do your tail?" Jamie was absolutely fascinated by Jean's tail, especially when it was moving slowly from side to side. For obvious reasons, he had no experience in doing tails or other appendages that aren't regularly encountered on humans. He had tried to Jes once, but she ended up becoming quite mad at him when he went too far down her body, even though he hadn't actually meant to, and had just simply been careless.
Her tail, which for some reason she no longer seemed to be anxious about displaying to him, found its way outside of her robes and across his lap. He smiled at how she was becoming less and less nervous around him and started to slowly rub around the tip. A stifled yet obviously there giggle came from the other side of Jean's hood. He rubbed a little harder, and the giggle got louder.
This was the first time that he had the opportunity to actually be in physical contact with the surface of Jean's body, and he was enjoying every moment of it that he could get. When he released the tip of her tail and started moving downward, it started to flick about in an almost playful way. Jamie tried to hold back a small laugh, but failed miserably. He had never thought about what she might have felt like, but he was surprised at how soft she was; he thought the scales would have been more rough and large, but they were quite small--he could only visually pick them apart, something he couldn't do physically at all. Travelling further down toward almost the base of her tail, he wondered if they maintained this consistency all the way through her body.
She had obviously never had a massage in her life, which wasn't very surprising when he considered what her life must have been like. Still, it was kind of amusing to get this kind of reaction from someone who wasn't under the age of ten. It was amusing ... and kind of erotic. He rubbed a little bit harder, moving farther down her tail, almost at the bottom of the long, white appendage now. It was then that he realized something that he should have realized sooner; he couldn't stop the advance of his hands down her tail. He tried to pull his hands away at the last moment when they went underneath her robe and rubbed the base of her tail. She had stopped giggling nearly seven or eight inches ago, and she was quivering now.
"..." The Clerimon twitched violently, spun around and grabbed his hands by the wrists. Her grip was very tight and very painful, making him wince immediately from the pressure and the pain.
"I shouldn't have done that."
Jamie was fairly sure he could hear a growl underneath her voice, but not certain. Either way, he didn't want to anger her any more than he already had, and remained silent and unprotesting. The silence that arose between them was their longest one to date. It wasn't long, though, before she turned her back to him again, buried her face in her knees, and started to cry again.
"Jean...?" he asked weakly, only just loud enough to be heard over the noise of her crying. She didn't respond when he said it, so he did again and again, waiting for some kind of answer from the Clerimon.
He already knew it wasn't right, damn it ... he didn't need to have it pointed out to him.
I've told you before, you're very pretty, very beautiful. I'm attracted to you, Jean, and I know it isn't an excuse ..." she continued crying unabated by any of the things he was saying. Ah, well..it had been worth a try. He didn't have a lot of experience with anything like this, he had never been in a relationship where women had rejected him, although he had kept a few women away from him in his time.
"I want you to be happy. What can I do that will make you happy?" He had lost count of the number of times he had wanted to just put his arms arund her and give her some comfort, but if he had been counting, he would have added another one onto that number.
"No one can do that for you, at least no one that I know about. You'll just have to learn to accept your past. We all have things we rather wouldn't remember, but they're part of who we are. If you forgot about that, I don't think you'd have the same appreciation for life that you have now."
He tried to concentrate on something other than miserable, painful sound of Jean's crying. That sound cut through his skin like a hot knife through butter and went directly to his heart; it was terrible, but there was nothing he could do. He had already done everything that he safely could, hadn't he?
An idea came to mind; an idea that would either end up with the end of Jean's crying, or the end of Jamie himself. Or both, potentially, that was always a possibility. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, then grabbed Jean's shoulder and turned her around to be facing him, ignoring the violent twitch that his touch brought. Before she had time to do anything else, he flipped her hood down from her head, closed his eyes and pressed his lips against hers, giving her the softest, kindest and most non-invasive kiss that he could manage. Once it was over, the sobbing had stopped. Everything had stopped, actually...everything except the two of them together.
"Please, just stop..." he looked straight into her beautiful eyes and waited for her to kill him or kiss him back. Or both...again, that was always a possibility.
Maybe he'd be getting home alive after all.
dare to do that?" Or maybe he wouldn't.
I know that these excuses must sound very bad and, well...bad...but I want to see you happy more than I want to see anything else."
"But I can't be happy when I think about the--"
The back of her head had the same slightly moist, nice and soft feel that was on her tail. Another silence, longer than even the previous one, passed between them, but this one was positive. They weren't silent, Jamie thought, because they didn't know what to say to each other, but they were instead silent because they didn't need to say anything to each other.
"Jamie...?"
He just wanted to hear the words come out of Jean's lips themselves.
He was starting to know Jean well enough to realize that she wasn't talking about having sex with her, but only laying next to her in bed to make her feel like there was someone out there who cared--and there was.
"It's night already?" he asked the English-speaking attendant.
The sun had set and the stars were in the sky. The Clerimon he had come with looked up at him and smiled, her muzzle turned up in the direction of the sky as they walked. It was about a ten-minute walk, and she did nothing but stare up at the sky for the first five minutes.
Her muzzle darted around in different directions, all generally located up. "What am I looking for?"
We're far too far away from England for me to know what's in the sky right now."
I did horribly in every part of it but memorizing the constellations," he giggled a little.
He didn't know what it meant, but whatever it meant; he liked to be able to look at Jean's face without being afraid of what she would think he was trying to do. "The wind changed direction since I got here," she observed after a few more seconds. Jamie grinned, suspecting that she was trying to explain away what she had just done to herself, or maybe to Jamie.
Whenever he had the opportunity, he mapped out his travels in the Digital World from the information that moving around left on his D-ult. He hadn't had the chance to do that yet, and he was fairly sure that trip brought him the farthest down that he had ever been. "Probably the upper four hundreds..."
"I've seen layers where the direction of gravity changes at random intervals. I've been to places that change from being dominated by a haze of heat to suddenly being a storm of hail."
For the rest of their short walk, they did nothing but stare up at the sky, getting lost a few times because of it. It took Jamie nearly an additional hour to find his way back to the room in his hotel.
"IF you aren't, we could order a pizza and watch a movie or something."
Movie?"
He giggled and wondered if she was going to be the same person after she learned more about the real world. He hoped she would, and that this adorable creature would remain the same adorable creature for as long as he knew her.
Even Digimon."
I assumed it was some function of abandoning my service to the Order."
Do you like meat?" He stopped himself, knowing that she wouldn't know whether not she would. "Never mind...I'll just get pepperoni." He picked up the nearby list of restaurants that delivered to the hotel, which, thankfully, had listings in multiple languages and ordered a late-night pizza.
Three and a half, maybe? I'm not really sure, it seems like such a long time since I met her."
Why do you ask?"
Hopefully, that wouldn't end up happening--after all, she had ended up coming into the Real World near to them, and no one had claimed her as their Digimon, so maybe everything was just as it seemed, and she was just here by chance. "Are you trying to get somewhere with this?" he asked hesitantly. Maybe she wasn't happy as she seemed to be when she was at the arcade.
I hate to be without purpose."
Even if I was your tamer instead of Jes', I'd tell you the same thing. Just because Jes is my Digimon doesn't mean she's mind to command around and control. It's pretty much the other way around, actually," he added lamentably. "She pretty much has me on a leash most of the time..."
"Heehee...give me a second, let me take it out of the box before you go crazy on it." He set it down on the table and flipped it open. Jean did the same thing to it that she had done to the box, sniffing the whole thing over with her mouth slightly opened--Jamie was reminded of the way that a cat sniffed something very intently and giggled even more until she stopped.
You eat it." He demonstrated by removing a slice carefully, folding it in half to prevent it from falling apart, and pushed it into his mouth. "See? ... food." He grinned again.
"...I feel tired now..."
Jamie thought absently about cupping his hands around her legs then sliding slowly up to where her leg ended, then repeating the process on her other one, then doing something down Jean's sides while giving her a soft, reassuring kiss, then gently sliding his hands down and around her thighs to ease her legs apart without making her nervous, followed by a demonstration of how much pleasure there was to be had in the process of making love by applying a gentle pressure between her legs against her lips and clit until he brought her to a gentle cooing, then letting her level of excitement float back down to a more normal level while licking down her snow-white, beautiful stomach to resume by--
"Do you want to get under the covers and I'll get on top of them?"
She blushed a little bit, then got into the covers from the side. Jamie waited until she had stopped moving around to get in--or on, as it were. He put his arm over the mound in the bed that was Jean, who made a soft cooing noise remarkably similar to the one that he had envisioned her making while they were making love in his little fantasy.
That was probably too much too soon for her.
Jamie couldn't help but smile. She was like a young teenage girl who didn't really know what she wanted because she had never done it before; not like that was something that Jamie would know anything about.
She made another soft cooing noise that stemmed from somewhere in her throat. Jamie smiled, telling himself that he liked that noise and wouldn't mind hearing more of it. He was all too happy to do what she wanted and keep his arm around her. Sliding another pillow underneath her head, he rested his own head underneath the remaining one.