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sciatrix...so here's a little snippet of something I was working on about six months ago, which I think I might like to revisit.
See, you have two characters here with these wildly different approaches to touch: Mantis, who is a touch empath and also a lot more fragile than Nebula, is someone I rather think has been raised to be rather careful and delicate about who she touches and when (and this will be especially true, given that she lives with Gamora who is quietly horrified by the concept of someone knowing your feelings by touching you). By contrast, you have Nebula, who was raised to be a weapon, doesn't seem to have much interaction with touching outside of combat, and has a very, very high pain tolerance coupled to a very intense desire for emotional intimacy and basically no idea how to go about getting it.
The novelty of having someone touching her—willingly! Without having to ask!—had been a heady one, Mantis thinks, but it’s really getting old now.
On her chest, Nebula drools gently and burrows her head more aggressively into Mantis’ lower jaw. Then her teeth start grinding. Again. It is like trying to cuddle a jackhammer, and it is seriously interfering with Mantis’ ability to sleep. She whispers “sleep” and inelegantly shoves Nebula’s consciousness deeper into its slumber, hoping it will help.
Nebula shoves happily into Mantis’ skull again and clutches her arm more tightly.
Mantis really, really has to pee.
Experimentally, she pulls at her arm, only to find that Nebula interprets this as a request to cling even tighter. Finally she gives up, pulses a light alarm down Nebula’s thigh and hisses “Let me go or I will pee on you right now.”
It works: Nebula whines low in her throat but loosens her death grip on Mantis’ arm.
The bathroom is very welcoming, even if she does step on one of Rocket’s stupid screwdrivers on the way to the door.
—
The trouble, Mantis thinks gloomily, is that Nebula wants to be touching all the time. She can feel the yawning need need need thrumming under the calloused indigo skin, but she has no earthly idea what to do about it. The few times she’s tried gently requesting space, Nebula leaps away from her immediately, keeps a distance of at least six feet until someone kisses someone else, and—worst of all—screams hurt shame sorry wrong through her skin so loudly that Mantis can almost feel it from across the room even though no one is touching at all.
It makes Mantis feel like a little puddle of selfishness every single time.
In a fit of desperation, she corners Peter in the kitchen on one of his cooking nights. “Peter, I need your help.”
He blinks owlishly at her from the pot of curdled milk sauce he’s mixing together to pour over dumpling skins. “Mantis? What’s wrong?”
“How do you get Gamora to stop touching you?” Surely he must have had a similar experience. He and Gamora have been together since shortly after she met them both, and they often touch. Gamora does not seem very touchy to anyone else—least of all Mantis herself, given her tendency to keep a comfortable six feet between them at all times—but then again, neither does Nebula. Perhaps this is one of those small, uncomfortable echoes between the sisters that crop up at odd moments and make them both uncomfortable when someone makes an observation.
The long, blank, confused stare Peter gives her is enough to tell her that she has badly miscalculated. “…I think that’s a compliment? I. What? Back right the fuck up, what?” he babbles, his spoon dripping with yellow-beige liquid all over the counter.
Mantis gropes for words through her frustration. “Nebula will not quit touching me all the time, and I am not used to it. I wanted to know if you had any advice.”
He blinks at her several times. Confusion, she absent-mindedly slots into place. “Uh…. Have you tried just… asking her for some space?”
She throws her hands in the air. “Yes, I am not stupid! I have! She just becomes hurt and avoids me and I still don’t have any personal space. I thought you would have better suggestions, but apparently not.” She glares at him.
He doesn’t even have the decency to look hurt. “I’m not the one who didn’t bother with context, God!” He waves the spoon at her before going back to stirring thoughtfully. “You gotta back the fuck up an’ start at the beginning if you want good advice out of me.”
Mantis huffs. “I did.”
Unfazed, he adds, “Anyway, I got nothing on this one. It took me two months to convince Gamora that she didn’t have to take her sword to bed.”
“Oh, she keeps weapons in easy reach. That’s not the problem.”
“No, you don’t understand, she was insisting on sleeping with her sword hilt. I kept triggering the release mechanism in my sleep, almost lost my balls once.” He shudders. “Not a good feeling.”
“Peter.”
“I’m just saying! Gamora doesn’t have that problem, and before that I mostly abandoned girls in spaceports when they started getting clingy or snuck out of bed before they woke up.” At her glare, he adds “I never said I had good ways to handle that shit, before. Anyway, would you have wanted to take a girl home to meet—well, never mind, you’ve really just met Kraglin. Trust me, though, Ravagers don’t make the best impression, if you get what I mean.” He reaches into the utensil drawer for a tool and pulls out an empty hand, which he inspects unhappily.
“Peter, focus.”
“Right, right.” He grins at her. “Well. If the problem’s that she goes all hurt and you’re trying to avoid that, what if you talked her around before you asked? Get her to trust that it doesn’t matter enough to be worth breaking up over, but it’d be nice if she could ease up a bit.” He frowns and peers into the drawer. “You seen the whisk?”
Mantis stares at him dubiously. “No. Do you think it will be that easy to convince her that it isn’t that big a deal?”
He shrugs at her. “I mean, you got those empathic powers, right? You could try showing her how you feel, literally. That’s got to be convenient,” he adds wistfully as he rattles the drawer. “Oh, flark it. Hey, a-holes!” he bellows into the open corridor, “anyone know where the whisk is?”
“Oh, right,” yells Rocket, “I borrowed it for that remote-control grabber back on Io.”
“Did you put it back?”
“It was in eight pieces!”
“Oh my god!”
Mantis decides that discretion is the better part of valor and retreats to plan her strategy.
—
Nebula pants angrily as she twists on Mantis’ fingers, and Mantis loves her so much that she can’t help but lean over to kiss Nebula’s sweating face all over. She’s been teasing Nebula just up to the point of orgasm for twenty minutes now, and she’s finally gotten her to the point that she can’t spit the furious obscenities that she can feel Nebula would be throwing if only she could form the words.
It’s adorable. Mantis loves it, teasing her clit between her fingers like a joystick on the world’s most entertaining video game, but she can feel that Nebula is reaching the end of her patience. So she surrenders and, instead of twisting away at the last possible moment as she’s been doing all evening, she relents, keeping the rhythm steady until Nebula squirms and yowls. It’s the hottest thing ever.
They both flop down against the bed, panting and covered in sweat, and for a moment Mantis would swear that Nebula is the most perfect being in any known planetary system and most of the unknown ones. Then Nebula releases a great big satisfied sigh and crawls over the mattress to thunk her enormous, rock-hard skull into Mantis’ belly, complete with snagging her rough metal eye socket across Mantis’ collarbone.
“Ow!”
Nebula winces and Mantis catches the wave of shame sorry guilt, but it resolves quickly enough into the basking content affection content as Nebula lifts up her eye and helpfully positions the rough metal edge into…. Mantis’ right nipple. Mantis, who has always been rather sensitive, has to catch herself from actually tearing up from the scrape. Ow, ow, ow. Well, if there was ever going to be a better time…
“Um, Nebula?” Mantis does her best to sound friendly, engaging, affectionate, nonthreatening and in no way judgmental or throbbing in pain.
It doesn’t work: Nebula stiffens over her immediately, although she feels like she’s making an actual effort to relax her muscles. The effect is to make her much heavier and less comfortable than she was to start with. Not ideal. Mantis tries not to grunt and pulses loved affection content into Nebula’s gorgeous tits. “Sweetlobe,” she adds, “Do you mind giving me some space? It is only that you are hurting me.”
“Mmm?” Nebula fights upright and moves her head, which is at least something.
Mantis swallows hard. “That reminds me,” she adds carefully, laced with as much affection and trust and love as she can pour. “Could we maybe sleep with just a little more distance sometimes? It’s only that—”
Nebula rockets to the far edge of the bed immediately. Holding herself there tensely, she tightly rasps “I am sorry. I will not do it again.” Mantis knows from bitter experience that if she passes out now, she’ll wake up to find that Nebula has fled the bed entirely. Dammit. She has not worked this hard to coax Nebula into her bed to do it all over again.
She fights the urge to snap and tries coaxing. “It’s okay to have some contact, it is only that I need a little bit of space sometimes,” she says carefully. She’s sending the same waves of comfort and affection through Nebula, but she can feel that the anxiety and disbelief is rising hard.
Shit. This is so frustrating--
--she feels Nebula catch that stray irritation and freeze under her hands--
“I am sorry,” Nebula says stiffly, “I did not want to presume.” She rolls out of the bed and grabs her shirt before fleeing out into the hallway. She’s still bare-assed naked. Mantis can only hope that no one else is roaming the halls for the next fifteen minutes.
The worst thing is that Mantis knows full well that Nebula was being completely, bitterly, unselfishly honest. She groans into her pillow and rolls over in aggravation, which would probably have been smoother if she had not tumbled immediately onto the floor. Of course.
See, you have two characters here with these wildly different approaches to touch: Mantis, who is a touch empath and also a lot more fragile than Nebula, is someone I rather think has been raised to be rather careful and delicate about who she touches and when (and this will be especially true, given that she lives with Gamora who is quietly horrified by the concept of someone knowing your feelings by touching you). By contrast, you have Nebula, who was raised to be a weapon, doesn't seem to have much interaction with touching outside of combat, and has a very, very high pain tolerance coupled to a very intense desire for emotional intimacy and basically no idea how to go about getting it.
The novelty of having someone touching her—willingly! Without having to ask!—had been a heady one, Mantis thinks, but it’s really getting old now.
On her chest, Nebula drools gently and burrows her head more aggressively into Mantis’ lower jaw. Then her teeth start grinding. Again. It is like trying to cuddle a jackhammer, and it is seriously interfering with Mantis’ ability to sleep. She whispers “sleep” and inelegantly shoves Nebula’s consciousness deeper into its slumber, hoping it will help.
Nebula shoves happily into Mantis’ skull again and clutches her arm more tightly.
Mantis really, really has to pee.
Experimentally, she pulls at her arm, only to find that Nebula interprets this as a request to cling even tighter. Finally she gives up, pulses a light alarm down Nebula’s thigh and hisses “Let me go or I will pee on you right now.”
It works: Nebula whines low in her throat but loosens her death grip on Mantis’ arm.
The bathroom is very welcoming, even if she does step on one of Rocket’s stupid screwdrivers on the way to the door.
—
The trouble, Mantis thinks gloomily, is that Nebula wants to be touching all the time. She can feel the yawning need need need thrumming under the calloused indigo skin, but she has no earthly idea what to do about it. The few times she’s tried gently requesting space, Nebula leaps away from her immediately, keeps a distance of at least six feet until someone kisses someone else, and—worst of all—screams hurt shame sorry wrong through her skin so loudly that Mantis can almost feel it from across the room even though no one is touching at all.
It makes Mantis feel like a little puddle of selfishness every single time.
In a fit of desperation, she corners Peter in the kitchen on one of his cooking nights. “Peter, I need your help.”
He blinks owlishly at her from the pot of curdled milk sauce he’s mixing together to pour over dumpling skins. “Mantis? What’s wrong?”
“How do you get Gamora to stop touching you?” Surely he must have had a similar experience. He and Gamora have been together since shortly after she met them both, and they often touch. Gamora does not seem very touchy to anyone else—least of all Mantis herself, given her tendency to keep a comfortable six feet between them at all times—but then again, neither does Nebula. Perhaps this is one of those small, uncomfortable echoes between the sisters that crop up at odd moments and make them both uncomfortable when someone makes an observation.
The long, blank, confused stare Peter gives her is enough to tell her that she has badly miscalculated. “…I think that’s a compliment? I. What? Back right the fuck up, what?” he babbles, his spoon dripping with yellow-beige liquid all over the counter.
Mantis gropes for words through her frustration. “Nebula will not quit touching me all the time, and I am not used to it. I wanted to know if you had any advice.”
He blinks at her several times. Confusion, she absent-mindedly slots into place. “Uh…. Have you tried just… asking her for some space?”
She throws her hands in the air. “Yes, I am not stupid! I have! She just becomes hurt and avoids me and I still don’t have any personal space. I thought you would have better suggestions, but apparently not.” She glares at him.
He doesn’t even have the decency to look hurt. “I’m not the one who didn’t bother with context, God!” He waves the spoon at her before going back to stirring thoughtfully. “You gotta back the fuck up an’ start at the beginning if you want good advice out of me.”
Mantis huffs. “I did.”
Unfazed, he adds, “Anyway, I got nothing on this one. It took me two months to convince Gamora that she didn’t have to take her sword to bed.”
“Oh, she keeps weapons in easy reach. That’s not the problem.”
“No, you don’t understand, she was insisting on sleeping with her sword hilt. I kept triggering the release mechanism in my sleep, almost lost my balls once.” He shudders. “Not a good feeling.”
“Peter.”
“I’m just saying! Gamora doesn’t have that problem, and before that I mostly abandoned girls in spaceports when they started getting clingy or snuck out of bed before they woke up.” At her glare, he adds “I never said I had good ways to handle that shit, before. Anyway, would you have wanted to take a girl home to meet—well, never mind, you’ve really just met Kraglin. Trust me, though, Ravagers don’t make the best impression, if you get what I mean.” He reaches into the utensil drawer for a tool and pulls out an empty hand, which he inspects unhappily.
“Peter, focus.”
“Right, right.” He grins at her. “Well. If the problem’s that she goes all hurt and you’re trying to avoid that, what if you talked her around before you asked? Get her to trust that it doesn’t matter enough to be worth breaking up over, but it’d be nice if she could ease up a bit.” He frowns and peers into the drawer. “You seen the whisk?”
Mantis stares at him dubiously. “No. Do you think it will be that easy to convince her that it isn’t that big a deal?”
He shrugs at her. “I mean, you got those empathic powers, right? You could try showing her how you feel, literally. That’s got to be convenient,” he adds wistfully as he rattles the drawer. “Oh, flark it. Hey, a-holes!” he bellows into the open corridor, “anyone know where the whisk is?”
“Oh, right,” yells Rocket, “I borrowed it for that remote-control grabber back on Io.”
“Did you put it back?”
“It was in eight pieces!”
“Oh my god!”
Mantis decides that discretion is the better part of valor and retreats to plan her strategy.
—
Nebula pants angrily as she twists on Mantis’ fingers, and Mantis loves her so much that she can’t help but lean over to kiss Nebula’s sweating face all over. She’s been teasing Nebula just up to the point of orgasm for twenty minutes now, and she’s finally gotten her to the point that she can’t spit the furious obscenities that she can feel Nebula would be throwing if only she could form the words.
It’s adorable. Mantis loves it, teasing her clit between her fingers like a joystick on the world’s most entertaining video game, but she can feel that Nebula is reaching the end of her patience. So she surrenders and, instead of twisting away at the last possible moment as she’s been doing all evening, she relents, keeping the rhythm steady until Nebula squirms and yowls. It’s the hottest thing ever.
They both flop down against the bed, panting and covered in sweat, and for a moment Mantis would swear that Nebula is the most perfect being in any known planetary system and most of the unknown ones. Then Nebula releases a great big satisfied sigh and crawls over the mattress to thunk her enormous, rock-hard skull into Mantis’ belly, complete with snagging her rough metal eye socket across Mantis’ collarbone.
“Ow!”
Nebula winces and Mantis catches the wave of shame sorry guilt, but it resolves quickly enough into the basking content affection content as Nebula lifts up her eye and helpfully positions the rough metal edge into…. Mantis’ right nipple. Mantis, who has always been rather sensitive, has to catch herself from actually tearing up from the scrape. Ow, ow, ow. Well, if there was ever going to be a better time…
“Um, Nebula?” Mantis does her best to sound friendly, engaging, affectionate, nonthreatening and in no way judgmental or throbbing in pain.
It doesn’t work: Nebula stiffens over her immediately, although she feels like she’s making an actual effort to relax her muscles. The effect is to make her much heavier and less comfortable than she was to start with. Not ideal. Mantis tries not to grunt and pulses loved affection content into Nebula’s gorgeous tits. “Sweetlobe,” she adds, “Do you mind giving me some space? It is only that you are hurting me.”
“Mmm?” Nebula fights upright and moves her head, which is at least something.
Mantis swallows hard. “That reminds me,” she adds carefully, laced with as much affection and trust and love as she can pour. “Could we maybe sleep with just a little more distance sometimes? It’s only that—”
Nebula rockets to the far edge of the bed immediately. Holding herself there tensely, she tightly rasps “I am sorry. I will not do it again.” Mantis knows from bitter experience that if she passes out now, she’ll wake up to find that Nebula has fled the bed entirely. Dammit. She has not worked this hard to coax Nebula into her bed to do it all over again.
She fights the urge to snap and tries coaxing. “It’s okay to have some contact, it is only that I need a little bit of space sometimes,” she says carefully. She’s sending the same waves of comfort and affection through Nebula, but she can feel that the anxiety and disbelief is rising hard.
Shit. This is so frustrating--
--she feels Nebula catch that stray irritation and freeze under her hands--
“I am sorry,” Nebula says stiffly, “I did not want to presume.” She rolls out of the bed and grabs her shirt before fleeing out into the hallway. She’s still bare-assed naked. Mantis can only hope that no one else is roaming the halls for the next fifteen minutes.
The worst thing is that Mantis knows full well that Nebula was being completely, bitterly, unselfishly honest. She groans into her pillow and rolls over in aggravation, which would probably have been smoother if she had not tumbled immediately onto the floor. Of course.
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Date: 2018-12-18 12:50 am (UTC)