Work Text:
FORGET YOUR TROUBLES
Fox felt… small. No matter how big he puffed his chest, no matter how he lounged in his chair and exuded as much confidence as he could, Fox still couldn’t shake the feeling, deep in his core, that he was not up to the monumental task before him. It was unlike him, finding himself questioning his decisions, second-guessing his instincts. He’d always made his best decisions when he was following his gut, and didn’t let his brain get in the way more than it absolutely had to. It had been easier to do when there was less at stake. Just a few weeks ago, the Great Fox had been a shabby college-dorm-in-space, with the most expensive piece of equipment they owned arguably being the jukebox on the bridge. But now, with Sauria saved and all the paperwork filled out, they had money. A lot of money.
The money, of course, wasn’t the problem. Fox spun the blueprints of the newly refitted Great Fox around on his console, in equal amounts of awe and terror at the masterpiece of design that he had just purchased. He’d nearly keeled over at the price tag Fara had slapped on it, but as staggering as the sticker shock had been, the more horrifying aspect of the trade was that it had been a remarkably good deal, discounted heavily for owed favors and a “friends and family” discount. Truthfully, he thought that Fara was just encouraging him finally taking his job seriously for a change and wanted to keep him moving. And so, with the majority of his riches gone in the same week he’d received them, all he could do now was micromanage the myriad of purchases and expenses the team was currently incurring, in the name of becoming a true titan fighting force of Lylat.
And it was, perhaps, the most terrifying thing he had ever done.
Fox ran a hand down his face, wincing at a rogue pain that shot through his back and up his neck. Realizing he’d been holding enough tension there to crack steel, he forced himself to roll his shoulders out, cracking his neck first to one side, then the other. It helped, a little bit. Not nearly enough. He sighed, venting anxiety from a place deep in his gut before affixing his eyes back on the screen to continue double checking his calculations, communicating with suppliers, filling out forms for Fara… the work seemed like it would never end. He hadn’t taken a break for anything other than sleep in at least a week. Even in his dreams, he was filing paperwork.
The universe bestowed a mercy on him when his wristcom vibrated gently, pulling his attention away from the wall of numbers and towards an incoming text message. He flicked his wrist once, waking the screen up. His heart skipped when he saw one name pop up on the screen, shoving aside all of the spam and missed calls to sit front and center in his now undivided attention… a message from his newest teammate, Krystal.
Either we’re rolling through a space storm, or you’re stressed out again, Cap. I can feel your worry all the way over in the barracks :(
Fox felt a lump form in his throat at vixen’s message. Excitement to talk to her, sadness to have worried her, and somehow even more nerves at the potential embarrassment he always seemed to cause himself around her. Even still, he just couldn’t help his pulse beating a little quicker, his lips twitching upwards, his tail wiggling in his seat. Thank goodness she wasn’t there to see the immediate physical effect that she had on him. He mulled his response for a moment, finger hesitating over the keys. He couldn’t hide from her, knew better than to try at this point. But he really, really didn’t want to cause her any more panic, and he instinctively tried to clamp down on his emotions to keep it from leaking out his ears, or however the hell her telepathy managed to pick up his feelings. Maybe he could play it off as no big deal with a joke.
Well, the forecast showed nothing but clear space for the week, so…
Immediately he saw the vixen begin typing back.
Foxy…
He chuckled a little bit. It was a nickname she’d just broken out for him in the last week or two, and despite weak protesting on his part, it seemed like it was here to stay. Truthfully… it made the vulpine’s head swim whenever he heard her say it in that dancing, blooming voice of hers. However, seeing her use it in such a worried tone sliced through some of his protective, deflective humor.
Sorry. I’ll be okay, I could just use a minute or two away from these forms.
Krystal’s typing bubbles appeared again after another moment, and though he had too much to get done today, he couldn’t help but watch them rise and fall with rapt attention, shoving aside all other thoughts in favor of the vixen. It was just a little break to chat, right? No harm in that.
Poor thing. You’re still working yourself to the bone over all those papers? Can’t you take a break?
Fox glanced nervously over at his main console at that, and it seemed to glare back at him, looming and cruel. His ears flattened back, his stomach dropping out at the thought of spending another twelve hours working himself raw until he passed out in his captain’s chair from exhaustion. The vulpine groaned. Oh, how much he’d rather spend the day with Krystal. A smile crept on his lips, just thinking about watching a movie with her in the lounge, hearing her voice in his tired ears, seeing her face in his sagging eyes… Fox found his hands moving of their own accord, refusing to work for one more moment when they could instead be spending time with Krystal. The tod put his console to sleep and pushed up off his desk, standing up.
Alright, you got me to listen to the devil on my shoulder :)
Just then, a thought hit him, and he remembered something he’d been craving for as long as he could remember, but hadn’t had a chance to ask for. Something involving the vixen he was already texting. He opened his wristcom back up, and shook his head with a smile when Krystal had already beaten him to the draw.
Always happy to be a bad influence ;) do you want to stop by my room for some meditation?
Before he’d met Krystal, an afternoon spent meditating would have sounded like pulling teeth. Time spent alone, in the quiet, with only his thoughts? He couldn’t imagine a worse recipe for disaster. However, the blue fox had some special, secret sauce that had made the practice click for him. She’d always been vague with the details, and all he understood was that somehow, her telepathy made him more receptive to the effects of meditation while also calming his mind, which was, in other, similar circumstances, prone to violent thrashing upon too much introspection. The only side effect was that he never remembered anything specific about the time he spent meditating… but the rejuvenation he felt afterwards didn’t lie. He always came back with the tension drained from his body, with peace in his heart and tranquility in his mind. Fox typed back to the vixen, even as he was already walking out of the bridge and over to the barracks.
As long as you don’t mind spending your day off with me?
Her response was immediate, scrawling a goofy grin across his lips and a small blush into his cheeks.
Anything for you… Captain.
/////
Krystal hiked the dirty laundry that was sprawled across her floor into the closet, snatching up a few cans and stray plastic bags and depositing them into the recycler in the wall. She tugged at the crinkled sheet on her bed, her eyes flicking from side to side for any other last minute targets of her rapid-fire cleaning. Her room wasn’t dirty, just a little… creative. The vixen took a breath when she couldn’t find any other offending items littered about, so instead she set about fiddling with her gems and trinkets and scrolls, set up in glass cases, hung up on walls, stored on bookcases. Anything to keep her eagerness at bay before the vulpine showed up.
Krystal could sense him approaching, could feel the heat that his heart radiated growing warmer and warmer, washing over more and more of her fur with each step he took. Sometimes, he burned so bright that the vixen could only stop and bask in his glow, feel his light pierce through her skin and illuminate every dark corner of her soul. His fire would ablate away the dirty stains of her fears and her loneliness and her misery, wrapping her up from head to toe in his blinding, protective inferno until every inch of her was completely ensnared by him. By Fox. And then, he’d catch her staring off into space, looking at nothing in particular or, far more embarrassingly, at him, and she would have to snap herself back to reality and give some excuse for her mind wandering to unknown lands ruled by Fox McCloud.
Krystal had long since given up fighting the fact that she was completely, hopelessly, heart-flippingly, head-over-heels, stars-in-her-eyes in love with her Captain. At first, she’d told herself that it was highly improper. That Fox had his pick of Lylat and beyond and would never settle for her. That she would always be alone. That loving him would just make it hurt worse when she inevitably lost him. The vixen had rationalized all this and more, a million other reasons why loving Fox was the worst decision she could ever make.
But… that warmth. The way he made her feel so safe and cherished and… and… not alone. Fox had managed to slip down and down the layers of her psyche until it was just him and her, together, in the most secluded and personal parts of her mind. Every time she had revealed a little more of herself up to him, he’d made her feel even more understood. Even more known. He never ran or hesitate or even flinched as she had opened up to him. It was solely the vulpine’s warmth, burning deeper and deeper until it filled her from top to bottom. Every step he took down into her heart, she only knew the truth more and more. Krystal needed to be by his side forever.
Fox was getting closer. His flames tickled at her skin, teasing, toying. Even when he was so stressed, so wound up, so in his own head, he was still positively incandescent. Krystal shuddered, so eager for his being to wash over her again. For as much as she had opened up to him, it had been a two way street. She’d peered deep into the tod’s mind, seen places that he’d never allowed himself to share with anyone else. The vixen had safeguarded those precious thoughts, assuaged those fanged terrors, had tried to be as sunny to him as he had been to her. And through all that, she knew… he loved her too. She wasn’t stupid. Even without her telepathy, she noticed his glances, the way his eyes beamed around her, the way he drifted towards her like an ever-present magnet. He just… couldn’t say it yet. She took a breath. Krystal believed— no, knew. Knew that he would come clean to her eventually. She also knew that forcing him out before he was ready would hurt him, and she would never, ever, allow herself to hurt her love. And so, she waited.
…Mostly.
Lost in her own musings, Krystal jumped when she heard a light rap at the door. Even now, after talking about it, she’d still let herself get wrapped up in him. She shook her head, blushing a bit but still skipping quickly over to the entrance to her room. His fire bled through the plasteel panel, and as she gulped, staring at the white door that separated them, she would have sworn that she could still see his outline through the panel, glowing and hot. She pressed a small button on her wall by the light switches, and in response a few latches unhooked within the door, and it slid open on silent servos, revealing the tod waiting on the other side. He looked just a little out of breath, as if he’d jogged to get here just a little faster. Krystal giggled, the noise bringing a big sideways smile onto his face.
“Foxy!” Krystal threw her arms around him excitedly, pulling him into a full-bodied hug before he could react. The tod froze at first, rusted still by surprise and a light glow of embarrassment in his cheeks. He cleared his throat once his brain had rebooted though, and quickly returned the vixen’s hug. His toned arms felt safe and sturdy as they held her. Krystal could have stayed there forever, burying herself in his sparkling aura. But, she had a job to do.
Krystal pulled back after a moment, not pleased by the way cold ship air replaced Fox’s warmth. She beamed up at him, stepping aside to hurry him into her hastily organized room.
“That’s Captain to you,” Fox teased, his tone lighthearted in obvious jest. Krystal rolled her eyes, shutting the door behind them and surreptitiously locking it.
“So sorry, sir,” she quipped back dryly, the last word dripping with sarcasm. “Would you prefer Mister Captain, or Doctor Captain?” she asked, holding his gaze challengingly, feeling her lips twitching happily at the corners. Her tail was wagging more than idly behind her. Fox’s was doing the same.
“It’s an honorary doctorate,” he remarked, brushing past her, taking a seat in his usual spot on the floor. He sighed, leaning back on his arms once he was sitting. “Mister Captain will do fine.”
“Of course, Mister Captain, sir,” she snarked, earning a chuckle from the tod in response. Goddesses how she loved that noise. She sat down facing Fox, across from a small ritual circle she had thrown together before he’d arrived. “Are you ready?” Krystal asked, shuffling around a few last stones on her board. Fox nodded emphatically. He looked worn to the bone. There were heavy purple circles under his eyes, and his posture looked like he’d been hauling bricks up a mountain for weeks. Poor thing. She knew just the thing to fix him right up.
“You’ve never told me how this all works,” he said as she sorted and he closed his eyes, mentally preparing himself. It was a half-question which he suspected would not be answered today. He was correct.
“It’s a trade secret,” Krystal winked, her knuckles turning white in anticipation, excitement as she clenched her palms against her legs. Fox laughed with closed eyes, and as they breathed together, she witnessed his shoulders begin to slip downwards, the straining cords in his neck slackening a bit. She encircled his mind just as he had enveloped hers so many times, gliding around his thoughts and fears with a guiding touch, wrapping him up tight in her telepathy. A smile twitched on her lips when a small shudder raced down Fox’s spine in response to the closeness, to the intimacy he couldn’t explain with a Cornerian tongue but so desperately loved. She hugged his mind tighter in response, bleeding off his tension one drop at a time until eventually he was relaxed, the stalwart defenses of his mind dropping, secure knowing anything that wanted to hurt him would have to go through the vixen first.
“Are you ready, Fox?” Krystal asked quietly enough to not break his trance, extending one hand out until her fingertips almost brushed against his forehead. He didn’t respond audibly, as his mouth hung open ever so slightly in rapture, focused, held in suspension. Instead, Krystal could feel his mind finally open its doors, hesitantly at first, creaky and stiff on oxidized hinges, unused from years and years of solitude and anxiety. The vixen assuaged him as he opened up further and further for her, flooding him with as much warmth and joy as she could manage, not forcing the door open even a inch, but celebrating every millimeter that Fox managed on his own. Eventually… Krystal smiled, her heart swelling with care and love and responsibility when the gates to Fox’s mind had fully opened, and there stood the tod she was absolutely hopeless for, shy, bashful, but inviting her in. She let out a breath of relief, of solace, as she stepped inside, pressing one finger up against Fox’s forehead.
Immediately, Fox’s mind collapsed into her waiting hands, crumpling like a man who had walked for days, weeks, with no rest and no reprieve. Krystal was ready, and she caught him in her strong arms and her anticipatory thoughts, holding him up where he couldn’t, body and soul. Her heart surged for him, sadness and pity and protectiveness all boiling within her at once. Krystal hugged him tight. Fox worked himself to the bone, past the point of exhaustion, up to the very brink of total collapse, and yet always somehow found a way to keep going, to keep putting one foot in front of the other for the people around him. He was so, so strong. Today, she would make sure that he didn’t have to be strong. At least for a little while.
The two of them spent a long while in quiet silence, letting the vulpine recover through the sound of their slow, simultaneous breathing. She clutched his mind close, holding the poor fox near as he fell apart for her, shedding the accumulated stress and wear of months in the first place he’d finally felt safe in all that time. Honestly, if they simply stayed like this for a couple hours before he fell asleep here in the refuge of her careful watch, she would still be happy. But of course, as always, her Foxy was stronger than anyone realized.
Eventually, Fox’s eyelids fluttered back open. They were heavy and tired, but his heart was staunch, defiant. A tiny smile teased across her face as he blinked groggily, and she finally got a good look into his face. Krystal stifled a giggle at the glassy glaze over his eyes, unfocused, both pupils wide. A dumb, lopsided grin was on his mouth, his tongue hanging out of one side of his agape maw a little. His features were utterly lax, all the tension he had been carrying now replaced by rest and repose. A tiny laugh finally did slip her lips as he began to melt into the spot he was sitting, like an orange popsicle left out on a hot day. The light noise seemed to draw his attention, as the tod dragged his leaden gaze over to the vixen who had made the noise. Her heart sang when she immediately saw Fox’s face brighten, no pretense or excuses or other barriers thrown up to mask his true feelings. As soon as his eyes fell on her, that dopey smile grew wider, and his irises shone with wonder. Fox tried to push himself up to his feet, but stumbled forward as soon as he did, awkward and clumsy. Krystal let out a little yelp and a giggle as she sprang forward, catching him on the way down.
He was bulky, and a blunt breath was forced out of her as he landed in her lap face first. He began to chuckle innocently as he stayed there, like a drunk trying poorly to hide a secret. Krystal just smiled down at the prone vulpine in her care, instinctively beginning to brush one hand gently down his exposed back. He groaned at the sensation, and while normally he would have tensed tight enough to crush steel in response to the vixen’s touch, now he leaned into her, the strong ropes in his back finally torpid after months of being pulled taut to the point of snapping. He burbled nonsense into her legs as she continued petting her fingers down his spine, gentle, protective.
After a minute or two, the vulpine finally pushed himself back up, just enough so he could flip over and look up at the vixen. His face was still cloudy with lack of thought, but the emotion in those beautiful emeralds of his was plain as day. The moment Fox’s gaze locked with hers, he was beaming. His eyes were dazzling, huge, enamored. His face was scrunched with the widest smile she’d ever seen on his face, toothy, sideways, as crooked a McCloud grin as she had ever seen. He finally managed to part his lips and get some words out, his speech slow and slurred but dripping with awe.
“It’s you…” Fox said, as relieved and enraptured as if it had been a million years since they’d been together, since he’d been able to lay his sight upon her. The tod reached one hand up, wobbly and uncoordinated but equally determined. Electricity shorted through Krystal’s heart when Fox’s fingers brushed through the ruff of her cheek, and she felt a dizzy grin of her own appear reflexively on her lips in response. Her smile only made Fox’s face glow more incandescent, and he caressed her face once, twice, thrice. The final time, his hand stayed behind her head, his strong, callused hands resting tenderly on her neck and nape. His eyes softened, a want, a need building in his gut, but fearfully unable to act upon it himself. She trembled with excitement, gulping in anticipation as she plucked the thought from his head herself, and brought it to life for him, striking at the mortared wall of his doubts. Eyelids fluttering closed, heart beating out of her chest, the vixen urged Fox’s hand to drag her down, down, down… until finally, their lips brushed together.
Her tail fuzzed at the instant of contact, and beneath her, she could feel Fox’s do the exact same. Fireworks exploded in her mind as their mouths grazed one another’s, a kiss so soft it couldn’t have moved a feather. And yet, it was enough to make Krystal’s fists ball, her brain scream, her toes curl. The two foxes dissolved into each other, a smoldering fire burning them both into a single heap of ash, ignited by the spark that had just arced across their lips. The blue fox’s hands balled up in Fox’s long white hair, and this time it was the vixen that pulled him into their kiss.
Their lips molded together, slowly, achingly, knowing that if either of them went too quick, they might perish on the spot. So instead, in the quiet hum of the ship, only a hushed smacking sound echoed in Krystal’s room as their lips pushed together and pulled apart again and again and again. He tasted like cinnamon, like man, like love. Like her Captain. She whimpered into their embrace and felt Fox’s desire balloon at the sound, goaded on by her siren call. Fox rose up from her lap, using one hand to instead lean her down against the floor. Krystal bit her lip as he pinned one of her hands to the ground above her head, then the other. Fox’s face took up her entire field of view. Her heart thundered in her chest as her captain’s wide smile sucked the vixen in, full to bursting with enticing, newfound confidence and desire.
She let out a long, pathetic, high pitched moan when Fox sank down, dipping past her muzzle and instead stooping down around her neck, newly broken out in sheen of sweat. His breath was humid on her throat, each huff sending a fresh shiver shooting down to her toes. Fox made her wait an eternity, hovering millimeters away, the vixen only able to stare up at the surge of his strong neck and shoulder, at his back rising and falling in time with the bouts of broiling steam pouring over her fur. Eventually though, as gentle as their first, he barely tickled the short fur over her jaw with the smallest, faintest kiss. On pure instinct and with a short gasp of her own, she craned her neck to the side, giving the vulpine as broad a canvas as possible to paint with his lips.
“Fox...!” the vixen exclaimed in hushed ecstasy when the namesake’s mouth planted itself again on her neck, this time with more force, more urgency. He kissed her in this vulnerable spot once, twice, three times, by the end gripping her wrists tight, jamming his kiss, his love rough and unceremoniously against her racing pulse. She cried his name out again in unexpected, euphoric pain and pleasure when he sucked hard on her neck, sure to leave a bright purple bruise as proof of his devotion. He didn’t relent, this time sinking his sharp teeth in right over her freshly swelling mark, growling as he held her neck in his two rows of razor sharp canines. She stayed stock still in his deadly grasp, except for her tail, which there was no possibility of prohibiting from wiggling erratically while pinned beneath their combined body weight.
Even with so many daggers pushed into her fragile skin, she had never felt quite so safe as she did right now, completely and irrefutably possessed by Fox McCloud. What a reversal this had become, his boldness catalyzed with astounding efficiency by the vixen’s subtle touch. His rippling shoulders, his strong arms, his toned legs, all built a cage around Krystal to keep her out of harm’s way. His teeth mere millimeters away from mortally wounding her, and yet, the vixen knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would never, ever hurt her. His mind roared to meet hers, to completely envelop her being in his fiery presence. Fox’s thoughts and feelings raged like a wildfire around her, a thousand flames that she knew would never so much as singe her fur.
Krystal groaned as Fox wrapped her around his little finger, ate her alive right there on the floor of her cabin. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go — this was supposed to be about her taking care of him. But instead of taking care of a wounded animal, the vixen had released the restraining chain off a starving predator, and thrown herself bodily into his enclosure. His psyche, roaring, incendiary, surrounded hers, surrounded her entire being, backed her into a corner and grabbed a hold of her by the seat of her reason. His fire was fueled by weeks and months of pent up denial, a lifetime of “I’ll worry about happiness later”. Krystal squirmed under the vulpine, trying to remind herself that she was supposed to be at work here, but Fox… he was so heady. Addictive. Like a thick, sweet wine she just couldn’t get enough of. Never enough of. Another minute wouldn’t hurt…
But, of course, the mercenary life always managed to prove that particular claim wrong.
Fox’s entire body went stock still when the sound of his communicator ringing shattered the spell that had been cast upon the two foxes. It was a direly familiar jingle. The grating song had interrupted a million sweet moments between the two of them, had pulled them out of collapsed companioned sleep on the bridge, had always meant that another minute wasn’t an option. Fox’s mind flooded with anxiety as he began to fumble his way off the vixen out of reflex, to try and see what today’s crisis was. Pangs of sadness tore through her when she saw Fox’s innocent eyes begin to water out of misery, his lips tremble and his breathing race. This poor fox. This poor, overworked, heroic fox. Krystal lifted herself off the floor, cautiously so she didn’t startle him further, righteous anger quickly replacing her despondency and pity.
Slowly, gently, Krystal wrapped one hand around the tod’s face, caressing his cheek much as Fox had done to her earlier. She tugged at him until those crying eyes of his came to focus on her again, now full of the very suffering she had sworn to protect him from. The vixen gave him as sunny a smile as she could manage, doing everything in her power to distract him away from the source of his misery. As furtively as she could, she began to manipulate the lock around his wrist, trying to unlatch his communicator.
“Hey,” she purred, watching his eyes grow content again the longer he regarded her, even as they dripped with hot tears. Krystal stroked her thumb under his eyes, drying them, rubbing the water into his thick fur. “They just messaged me, it was a false alarm,” she lied, satisfied when she heard a small click from his comm unit. A little white lie was a small price to pay for his ease of mind. Whoever it was didn’t deserve his precious time anyway. They could wait. “They said that they’d call back later. It’s not important.” His face bloomed with solace upon hearing those words. Subtle as she could, Krystal lifted the comm off his arm, and tossed it deep into her closet, amidst the pile of dirty laundry. They both breathed a sigh of relief together, albeit for very different reasons.
His stress slinking away back to its cave, Krystal giggled at Fox’s returning dopey expression, his body once again melting into the floor. The vixen grabbed him before he could liquify entirely, relishing the intense contentment blooming on his face as she stroked his hair, fully dissipating the storm clouds in his mind under her watchful touch. She had to take her job more seriously. No more getting swept away by his masculine wiles.
Closing her eyes, Krystal reached into the tod’s mind, searching his wants, his desires, coaxing them out of the box he’d locked them away in for so long. Slowly, gradually, his mind offered up images, snippets, feelings. He was not used to being asked what he wanted, and so he was only able to do so haltingly, unsure if he was even allowed to suggest that he had desires. Showing the most appreciation and gratitude for his effort, she couldn’t help but giggle when, finally, something concrete bubbled up to the top of his mind, a meek request delivered without expectation. She would fulfill his every desire here today. Even the simple ones, like this.
“Get on the bed. Lay on your side,” she ordered her Captain, taking charge. The tod was more than happy to be given instructions for a change, embarrassingly eager to hand over the reigns to his best friend. Fumbling up to his feet, still klutzy but now also rushing to obey a direct command, Fox eventually scrambled up onto Krystal’s bed, laying his head down on one of her pillows. His tail was beating at a mile a minute, still somehow so sure that he didn’t deserve to have his needs, let alone his wants, met. The vixen smiled, shaking her head while holding the tod’s wide, disbelieving eyes as she granted his first wish.
Crawling up along the sheets, Krystal wiggled in and pushed her back up against Fox’s chest, shuffling around until she was comfy with the tod behind her. Fox gasped lightly as the vixen settled in up against him, in shock at his fantasy coming true before his eyes. Krystal smiled. He was so easy to impress. She still had work to do though, as the tod’s body was completely rigid against her, like a slab of petrified wood, his arms ramrod straight at his sides. He barely even dared to breathe for fear of upsetting the blue fox. Krystal cooed at him, making a little whining noise to show how she wanted him.
“Hold me, Foxy-Woxy,” she hummed, wiggling herself up against him harder. It took a moment of indecision, but one more whimper was all it took to finally break down another barrier. Hesitantly, she felt one strong vulpine arm come down around her stomach, another sliding ever so gently underneath her head so she could rest her head on his toned bicep. Fox pulled her closer and closer until her head snuggled in underneath his chin. The two of them fit together like a river and its bank, ever changing but always in perfect sync with the other.
It took a bewildered minute, but eventually Fox’s mind was able to comprehend that this wasn’t just delirium. The vixen in his arms was real. Warm. His. The radiance, the sunlight that began to flare out from Fox’s mind could have powered a thousand cities, so blindingly pure that its rays pierced her all the way down to her core, illuminating every dark corner of her imagination. Krystal rejoiced at his puppy-like joy, at his galloping heart beating a hole into her back, at the way his hands began to possessively curl around her midriff. She wanted those jealous hands to make her his for all eternity.
Making his dreams come true was fulfilling every single time. This was such an innocent wish. He didn’t even want to be held himself, solely desiring to pour all the love he felt for the vixen out at once, to have her be his and only his, if only for a moment. If only he knew, she would trade herself to Fox for a million lifetimes, for only the price of his unending love.
She bathed in the deluge of adoration that flowed freely out of Fox’s heart, pooling as much of it within herself and letting the rest run over her thoughts, her body. Fox’s heart was a bottomless spring of devotion, so bottled up and pressurized that she couldn’t understand how he didn’t just explode. How many days had she just wished he would?
Too many.
They laid there for a long time together, enjoying the feeling of their partner’s warmth, the lax, soothing meditation of their intermingled breathing. She wanted to cry from just how much unexpressed yearning the tod had sunken inside himself, but she held it together. She was merely glad he had an outlet for it, finally. Letting the serenity of the vixen’s proximity encircle him, Fox’s eyes folded closed and he rested his chin atop of the vixen’s head. Krystal traced twirling lines on the back of his hand, savoring the way he shivered under the whisper soft trail of her claw. Eventually, Krystal felt Fox’s thoughts begin to wander, and the vixen peeked back inside the vulpine’s skull to see where his fantasies were leading him. She floated in on wisps of thought, intertwining her feelings with his. After a moment, she felt the same embarrassed, hopeful heat warming her cheeks that was splashed across his. She could do that.
Slowly, tenderly, so as to not scare off the skittish fox, Krystal took hold of his hand that was curled around her midsection before gingerly lifting it up from where it rested. For a moment disappointment tinged Fox’s mind, but it was immediately replaced with astonishment when Krystal took that same hand and settled it over her breast, taking time to wrap his fingers around its generous curve so there was no doubt about its purpose there. She purred at the sensation of her Captain’s rugged palm hefting her chest against gravity, wanting to shower him in encouragement, permission, praise. Feeling the softness in his hand and the provoking noises of his partner sent Fox’s heart soaring, the vixen’s provocation catching and overwriting his naturally shy nature before it could spoil his mood. The tod’s face radiated heat from a blush brighter by the sun, but his smile outshone it tenfold.
Cautiously at first, Fox’s massaged the vixen’s breast in his leathered hand, marveling at its supple her chest was, how overflowingly heavy she was in his hand. Krystal bit her lip, the weightless sensation of her usually cumbersome chest making her shudder in delight as Fox, her closest love, relieved that burden personally. The grasp panted as Fox’s exploratory fingers grew bolder, flicking her straining nipples, leaving finger shaped bruises on her teardrop tits. Over her shoulder, the tod’s humid breath tickled her ear, his laser focused gaze burning holes in her shirt that was beginning to feel entirely too in the way. Fox seemed to agree.
Finally daring to act on his own, the tod slid his hand down to her stomach to toy with the hem of her thin tank top, turmoil brewing in his thoughts, but increasingly insignificant under the weight of his carnivorous, carnal draw towards the vixen. Fox wanted more of her. He needed more of her. Krystal squealed in delight when the tod tossed aside his doubts and took the plunge. Burning alive with excitement and embarrassment, Fox snuck one hand under her shirt and into her bare midriff, snaking his way up the thin fabric until his hand was pressed directly up against her breast, nothing separating their intermingled, tangled fur. Krystal’s thighs rubbed together of their own accord as Fox was rough and selfish with her tits. He held as much of her fluffy bosom as he could at once, growling in satisfaction at the way the soft, snowy flesh squeezed between his knuckles. Her heavy breathing flared into a full bodied moan when Fox pinched one pebbled nipple between his fingers, rolling it between his finger and thumb. His tail beat furiously against the mattress when he felt the small golden barbell there, a recent acquisition based on something the vulpine had let slip during their last encounter. She’d always wanted to get piercings, but she’d fast-tracked it after seeing the enormous blush that erupted on his face when she’d extracted the thought from his head a few months prior.
The hem of her shirt rode up and up the longer Fox spent groping her, showing off her soft tummy, then her grippable lovehandles, until finally it sprang up over her bosom entirely, siddling up around her collar ineffectually. Her breasts spilled out now free from containment, squashing against each other’s flattened surfaces and the plush mattress beneath them. Behind her, she could feel Fox’s pants tightening when her unobstructed chest finally popped into view, his barely restrained length already alluringly imprinted against the small of her back. For her part, Krystal was maintaining her composure remarkably well considering the way Fox’s electric touch made her head spin, made her heart thunder in her chest. She had to squeeze her eyes shut even as squeaks escaped her lips while Fox played so greedily with her sensitive nipples, her heaving chest. The feeling of her fur up against his shirt… It felt wrong, not just to her, but to her Captain too.
“Take your shirt off, Foxy,” Krystal huffed, reaching behind herself to scrunch it up in her fist and start lifting it for him. Fox wriggled behind her to maneuver the garment off, and Krystal giggled lightly as he made all sorts of awkward mmfs and urfs trying to free himself from its oppressive containment. After a few moments, Krystal saw his shirt sail off into a corner of the room. Soon after came the most comforting, the most safe feeling that the vixen could ever describe. So carefully, as if to not pulverize a delicate glass sculpture, Fox touched his chiseled torso against her sculpted back, only daring to truly press himself up against her after a long moment of making sure the moment hadn’t shattered around him.
The feeling of his skin against hers was… magical. Upon feeling such substantial skin to skin contact with Fox, the vixen let out a long breath that she’d been unknowingly holding for weeks. A tension that gnarled her shoulders and bent her back was lifted, and as her fox wrapped his burly arms around her naked chest, pulling her in so snug that she could hardly breathe, Krystal had never felt so secure or so tranquil in her entire life. And, given the way that Fox sighed behind her, the way that he melted into her curvature, the way that his mind finally settled into a meditative state, it seemed her Captain felt much the same way.
The two of them could have drifted to sleep in each other’s arms for some of the most restful sleep of their lives, tumbled into a dreamless sleep as a pair and awoken the next day new people. The vixen was too mischievous, too desirous to let their room end here, though. Krystal wormed up against the tod’s pecs and abs, delighting in how Fox responded to her movements before they’d even left her brain. He pushed up into the pillows as she shifted downwards. She waggled her rear backwards as he ground his pelvis into her back. His feet rubbed in playful, chasing circles with hers beneath the sheets. As always, they were in a perfectly synchronized dance with the other. His mind flowed seamlessly into hers, a level of synchronicity and that left their hearts beating in time, their breathing muffled by the bedding as one.
Behind her, Krystal could hear Fox start to whine quietly, so overwhelmed by the moment that he could only vent his feelings as high-pitched noise that rattled in the vixen’s ears. She could feel a small seed of worry again taking root in his mind, so plagued by his own fears that even in this state of disinhibition they still whispered in his ear. Told him that this was too good to be true. Convinced him that he was not worthy of her. It simply wouldn’t do. In tod’s embrace, Krystal managed to flip around to face him despite his steely clutch. Their faces landed centimeters apart, their noses bumping gently against one another’s. The vulpine’s expression softened once their eyes locked, his inundated anxiety whisked away by his vixen’s caring expression like a leaf on the wind. Krystal’s face was budding with adoration, and her kind smile dominated every other nervous thought that might have previously haunted him. The cords in his strong shoulders slackened, and the apprehension etched into his features dissolved into that dopey smile she’d fallen in love with.
Eyes fluttering closed, Krystal planted one small kiss on his forehead, curling her arms underneath his and grabbing handfuls of the plush fur over his shoulderblades. He laughed innocently when her lips pressed up against him over abs over again, all the while her fingers raveling up in his coat. He wanted so badly to feel wanted. Desired. To be able to pour out the bottomless love in his heart, and have it not just accepted, but reciprocated. Knowing this, feeling it lurking in the dark recesses of his mind that even the tod was not fully conscious of, Krystal knew what to do.
“Oh, my sweet, sweet Foxy…” Krystal whispered, the secret words too soft to escape their private world. “You’re so good to me.” Krystal unwrapped her hands from around him, instead splaying her fingers out across his broad pecs. “You’ve made me feel so safe and cherished from the very first day you stepped foot in my life,” she murmured, her errant hands wandering lower, down to his sides, further down until they were tracing the hard lines of his pelvis. She never dropped his gaze even as Fox’s eyes started to water in meaningful joy upon hearing her assert truths he hadn’t known how badly he needed to hear. Playfully, Krystal licked the salty tears from his cheeks.
“You’re my hero, Fox,” she breathed into his ear, without an ounce of exaggeration. With a small gasp from the tod’s lips, Krystal unbuttoned her Captain’s too-tight pants, pulling the zipper down slowly, slowly. The vixen licked her lips when she slipped one hand under the elastic of his boxers. Giving him the best puppy eyes she could and a smile as pure as sunshine, Krystal curled one hand around her Foxy’s massive manhood, barely able to get her grip around its circumference, to say nothing of its pink length, jumping eagerly on either end of her closed fist. Fox’s face was a mess of burning blush, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of hers, the tod utterly enthralled by the vixen. Committing every unending inch of his pride to her muscle memory, Krystal began to twist her hand leisurely along his cock, pulling and stretching the sensitive skin from the base of his balls all the way up to his soft crown.
“You work so hard for everyone,” she purred, continuing working him over, giggling as he melted into her commanding authority, surrendering to her with a blissed out smile. His cock spit a blob of pre in excitement, and she smeared it along her hand to wet his shaft. “You deserve for somebody to finally show you how grateful they are for you, hero,” Krystal intimated, swirling her thumb around the head of his cock. The vixen pushed her other hand under the elastic band, using it to delicately cup the tod’s hefty balls. She squeezed them lightly, rolling and tugging them in worshipful reverence. It felt like they hadn’t been emptied in days, maybe weeks. The tod started to hump idly into her caretaking hands, and Krystal hummed encouragingly in response.
“So brave. So selfless. So handsome,” Krystal showered him in one compliment after another. She was delighted to feel her words actually sink into his subconscious, his natural reflex to deflect praise fully suppressed under her care. Every exaltation planted itself in his subconscious, hopefully to take root there for good. Each word made his innocent smile rosier, his adoring eyes wider and more brilliant. His tail beat furiously against the mattress, fanning out of control. Krystal began to plant kisses on his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, his collar, anywhere her lips could reach in between each adulation she heaped on the tod, never relenting in her labor upon her love’s member. She rubbed one thumb along the underside of his shaft, stroking eagerly in the small valley beneath his cock’s head. Krystal held her grip tight, letting him thrust into her his hand for a moment at his own pace, cradling his sack while trying to tempt a warm load out of it.
“You work so hard, and you make me feel so safe. So happy. You do so good, Foxy,” she whispered, continuing to pour sweet everything’s into his mind. He crooned more than she expected at the last compliment though, his pride throbbing hard in her hand as soon as the words left her mouth. He stared up at her, eyes huge with desperate hope.
“Did… Do I…” Fox started, but the words died in his throat, obvious nervousness somehow still creeping into his voice. She brushed his concerns away with another soft kiss and a lick to the side of his muzzle, bringing a wobbly smile back to his lips.
“Ask me anything, Captain,” she breathed, slowing her stroking just a smidge to give him room to speak. He churned for a moment in obvious conflict before finally taking a breath and broaching the question he so desperately wanted an answer to.
“Do I… do a good job?” Fox squeaked, barely able to eke out the doubt from fear of hearing another negative answer. Of being told he wasn’t doing a good job. Of being told he wasn’t enough. His sincerity and vulnerability skewered her through the heart, and the fact that such a simple question had to come from such a deep, dark place in his soul was gut-wrenching.
“Oh, Fox…” she said, scooting in as close as she could to his radiant warmth. “You do such a good job,” she stated confidently, gently, making sure there was no uncertainty in how much she meant it. She could feel his heart doing backflips in his chest in immediately, physiological, relieved response. She didn’t relent, ensuring that if anything stuck in his brain when they were done, that it would be this.
“You are a miracle,” she said, renewing her efforts in pleasuring him. She began to stroke him more fervently, the ardor of her hands matching that of her words. “I’m so proud of you, Fox. You always do an amazing job, every single time, because you always give everyone your very best.” She squeezed his balls, jerking him off more frenetically as his tongue began to loll out and his brain turned to blissed out mush. “You do such a good job of being my Captain. You do an incredible job being my friend. My best friend. My other half,” she continued murmuring, unrelenting in her assault.
“Am- am I-“ he huffed, hardly able to form a coherent thought as Krystal giggled through beaming, open mouthed breaths as she masturbated him quicker and quicker, her movements growing random and erratic, relishing the moans, his whines, the leaking pre from his cock. “Am I a… a…”
“Yes?” Krystal trilled.
Fox buried his face in his hands, his blushing visage positively incandescent with mortification. He couldn’t manage to get the words out. Luckily for the tod, however, he didn’t need to be able to give them voice for Krystal to be able to deliver him an answer. She reached into his mind, not having to search far before encountering the thread that was front and center in his thought patterns. She let out a long, doting aww when she heard his unspoken query. She broke Fox’s bashful silence after a moment, telling him exactly what he wanted to hear without ever prompting the vixen.
“You are such a good boy, Foxy…!” Krystal murred, a surprised, thrilled yip escaping her lips at the sheer luminescence that surged from every wrinkle in the tod’s racing mind, that glowed from every pore of his stimulated body when he heard those simple words. Fox’s pride roared in her hands, her cherishing voice shooting straight to his cock, giving it a beastly vitality. He whimpered needily into her shoulder, now fully bent over into her embrace to be closer to his love, to fuck into her coaxing digits. More than anything in the entire world at this moment, Fox wanted to hear those words over and over again. He would do anything the vixen asked just to hear the vixen he adored with every last ounce of his heart praise him. Praise him more.
She giggled again through her panting, her own mind soaring with jubilation seeing, feeling Fox so overjoyed, so vulnerable, having a craving so primal finally sated. She gripped his balls harder, claiming his heft and his girth as hers and only hers. “What a good boy you are, Captain,” she pressed, pulling down hard into his thrusts as she let the words flow into his ear, letting him grind hard into her flat palm, her soft stomach. “But are you my good boy, Fox?” she asked innocently, batting her eyelashes at him naively. The noise he made in response was desperate, so eager to please. He could hardly get the words out without tripping over himself.
“Y-yes!” he exclaimed, his eyes full of want and hope. “Please, please,” he moaned, another huge glob of his precum soaking her palm. She smeared it into his balls, tugging on them assertively. “I’ll do anything, Krystal,” he cried, “yours, yours, Krystal, please… forever yours.” The vixen’s heart soared, carried upwards on the winds of the purity of his words. He was so close. He humped furiously into the vixen’s constricting hold, his hips jerking off tempo, his brain on fire.
“You don’t need to do a thing, love,” she whispered, renewing the freneticism of her pumping hands and shoving him over the edge with a beautifully cried out plea from the tod. “You were already my good boy, forever and ever.” Her smile turned devious as she coiled him up like a spring ready to explode. “Now be my good boy… and cum for me, Foxy.”
It was too much for the poor, overtaxed vulpine. With an unabashed cry, Fox fucked one last time hard into his vixen’s hands as an orgasm ripped through his body. Krystal squealed in delight as Fox threw his head backwards, emptying himself out into her seducing hand. The tod howled while his cock throbbed, humped hard up against his partner for as much head-spinning friction as he could get. Krystal’s fingers, her belly, the underside of her tits were coated in her Captain’s sticky seed as Fox came rope after hot rope in his stupor, finally unburdening his laden balls after goddesses knew how many weeks pent up. His eyes were clenched shut, his teeth clamped tight in exertion as every muscle in his body strained against every other. The vixen’s adoring words, her soft, receptive hands, her ecstatic grin, it was all too much for the tod. Every cell in Fox’s body was completely devoted to loving her, worshipping her, being good for her.
Krystal was so pleased with herself and with her fox as he came for her, the stress of months venting messily between her digits, into her plush fur. She didn’t stop coaxing his essence for what felt like minutes, hours, milking him dry for every last drop that he could produce for her. She tucked his head between her tits as she nipped playfully at his ear, a little pain only renewing his groans of pleasure. She showered him in sweet nothings with every breath she had, burying him beneath an avalanche of love and praise, all meant from the very bottom of her heart. He was amazing. He was strong. He was selfless.
And he was so, so good.
“Good boy!” Krystal cooed, her dutiful hands to matching the erratic bucking of Fox’s hips, ensuring that every last string of his potency made it into her fur. Her Foxy was cross eyed, chest heaving with exertion, and yet still the beast couldn’t help but rut into Krystal’s draining siphoning grip. After hours spent cumming for the vixen, Fox finally grunted, spurting one last virile load up between the valley of Krystal’s breasts before collapsing against the mattress, his strings cut. Fox moaned when Krystal gave him a few more hard pumps for good measure, earning a tiny drool of leftover essence for her efforts.
Sighing contentedly, Krystal ran her hands over her skin, rubbing Fox’s gift into her fur all over her body, shuddering with delight at how it electrified her nerves everywhere it touched, invigorating and manly. She pushed it into the velvet down of her soft stomach, kneaded it into the spilling flesh and the pebbles nipples of her sweat-doused tits. She couldn’t help but take one sticky finger and push it up into her thoroughly soaked entrance, her Cerinian blood immediately reacting to the diffusion of her soulmate’s cum making its way into her veins, into her womb. Still with plenty of Fox leftover all over her body, she scooped one more finger full of his cloudy essence up and, making sure the tod had a good view, popped his treat into her mouth with an impish grin. Disbelief and wonder were chiseled into his features in equal proportion as he watched his vixen’s face scrunch in glee as she greedily gulped his seed down, feeling it settle warm in her belly.
Still somehow with enough energy to move, Fox flung one arm haphazardly around the vixen’s midsection, reeling her in close until their heads were resting against each other’s. Aside from the comfortingly familiar groans of the Great Fox, the only sound in Krystal’s bedroom was the two foxes’ intermingled panting, a decidedly happy noise when filtered through their mutually satisfied smiles. Strong as always, Krystal giggled when Fox manhandled the vixen so that she was back where they had started, spinning her around so her back pressed safe and sound up against her Captain’s broad torso. She wiggled her butt up against Fox’s half-hard length, spurred on by its spirited jerking in the valley of her ass. Scooping her up in his embrace, he slid one arm back under her head, using the other to grope at her glazed tits, bold enough to no longer need her guiding hand for encouragement.
Taking one last glimpse into Fox’s mind, she found a man full of tranquility and confidence and satisfaction and optimism. More than anything else though, Fox felt… good. He’d finally begun to see himself the way that Krystal did. As her hero. As her better half.
As a damn good boy.
She hoped that paradigm had been embedded deep enough in the folds of his brain that it would still be there tomorrow, when he woke up in his own bed with no memory of what had happened here. Krystal felt a little melancholy at that thought. It was always the worst part of these “meditation” sessions of theirs. She knew what could be, if only Fox could overcome his demons. And… her ear flicked as the tod sighed behind her, his pulse slowing and his eyelids growing heavy again. And if only she believed in herself enough to force the question even if he wasn’t totally ready for it. Maybe Fox was able to feel some small scraps of her own emotions through their mental link, or maybe Fox just knew his first mate really well. Either way, it was at that moment that Fox finally broke the silence, bringing a solace to her heart that she hadn’t known that she herself had needed.
“I love you, Krystal,” Fox murmured, the words flowing so easily, so freely from the tod’s lips that it sounded more like an idle comment than an earth-shattering declaration for the vixen. She was stunned. Her tail froze in place, a gulp trapped in her throat. Fox had never said that before. Never ever. She’d felt it lurking in the deepest recesses of his psyche, but it had always been marred by doubt and fear. But now, he offered it up so freely, so nonchalantly, so confidently. Krystal was glad that she was faced away from Fox, because hot, elated tears began to pool in her eyes, her breath catching in her closing throat.
The blue fox clutched her hand over the vulpine’s suddenly, grabbing hold of him so tight that she worried he might crack and turn to dust. But he didn’t. He stayed right there, anchoring her to a universe otherwise so full of chaos and uncertainty. She smiled, the fire in her own heart finally roaring to meet Fox’s. The two burned brighter than Lyla, an unconfined fusion reaction exponentially fueled by the other. And Krystal was happy. She closed her own eyes, contentment reigning over their room for the night.
“I love you, too.”
/////
Epilogue
Krystal danced out of the foggy shower she’d just shut off, a made-up song in her head and uncoordinated movements made unabashedly in the solace of her own bathroom. Her hips rocked out of time with her twisting feet and her flapping arms. The vixen shook the water out of her fur before grabbing a nice, luxurious towel off the rack and mopping herself up. She breathed deep into the lavender sweetness of the fabric when she dried off her face, holding its cleanliness deep in her lungs before expelling it back out, leaving a plume of steam in the air. Still humming to herself, the vixen closed the shower door with her butt and wrapped the towel around her midsection before strutting towards the mirror.
She’d been on cloud nine all day, for obvious reasons. Grabbing a brush off the counter, Krystal began to run it through the untamed wilderness of her tail, beginning her daily ritual of domesticating it just enough that she could slip her bands around it. As her hands began their repetitive task, the vixen’s mind wandered back to the previous evening as it had a hundred times already. She couldn’t help but shuffle in place gleefully, her heart buoyed by those four magic words Fox had let slip last night. They played on repeat in her head over and over, like a loudspeaker hooked directly up to her brain.
I love you, Krystal.
The vixen squealed just thinking about it. Though she’d imagined hearing those words a million times, ogling the tod when he wasn’t looking, fantasizing during late nights spent alone in a cold bed, and basically every other moment in between, she never could’ve predicted how good it would finally feel to hear aloud. A goofy smile beamed back at her in the mirror. Her hair was messy with water, her fur puffed up at weird angles, but it didn’t matter a lick. Krystal sighed. She was happy.
The vixen’s ear flicked to the side then, a small knocking sound coming from inside her room. Krystal glanced over at the closed door, her telepathy uncoiling itself from obsessing over her new favorite memory and instead feeling out for any presences nearby. Somehow, Krystal’s smile bloomed even brighter, fueled by the warm familiarity of the mind awaiting her. Spurred on by reckless glee, Krystal didn’t bother changing out of her towel before sliding the bathroom open, finding the crouched figure of her Captain rummaging through her closet. The door’s servos were silent enough that the tod didn’t seem to realize he was no longer alone. Her smile turned mischievous, provocative.
“How bold, Captain,” Krystal chided, causing the vulpine in question to jump out of his skin. He whipped around on the spot, panic clear on his handsome face. She squinted predatorily when his eyes grew huge and his breath choked in his throat when he saw the vixen concealed by little more than a low-slung towel, draped lazily across her steamy cleavage, haphazardly over her naked thighs. The vixen shifted her weight to her other foot, letting the towel slip a smidge further down, relishing the way she could practically see the tod’s thundering pulse in his neck. “Fishing through a lady’s private quarters…” she continued, watching Fox open and close his mouth ineffectually with entertained glee. “So improper.”
“I-!” Fox blurted out, a rampant blush on his cheeks, in his throat. Adorable. Krystal couldn’t help but turn up the heat, prodded on by the love she knew was just aching to burst between them. She strolled towards the tod one lackadaisical step at a time. The poor thing’s head looked like it was about to explode as she leaned forward awaiting an explanation, making sure he had a perfect view into the still-wet trench between her tits, spilling over the cusp of her loose towel. She cocked her head at him innocently, pretending not to notice his predicament. Eventually Fox scrambled back around, snatching something out of her closet and frantically holding it up for the vixen to see. It was his wristcomm, still switched off from the previous day. “I was just looking for this!” Fox stammered, redder and hotter than a dying star. Krystal raised an eyebrow, pretending not to believe him. The vixen swayed in even closer to the tod, until she could have reached out and grabbed him.
“Mm,” she rumbled skeptically, looking the tod up and down analytically. Though he held his hips back and angled away, she could see a bulge forming in his flight suit, her teasing critically effective. “You know, Captain…” she whispered, her voice low, kept a hushed secret between the two of them, “if you wanted some of my undergarments, there were easier ways to get them than this.”
Krystal subconsciously expected Fox to seize up entirely at that, pushed too far too fast in her lingering frenzy. It had happened so many times before, the vixen prodding to the point of breaking, leaving the tod scampering away under the weight of his own fears. She braced herself for that apologetic expression that always drained the color from his face and the fire from his heart when this happened. But… it never came. Instead, Fox’s lips wobbled into an uncertain, hesitant grin, but a toothy McCloud grin nonetheless. The smallest ray of playful defiance warmed his thoughts, and against all odds, against his better judgment, for some bizarre reason that he couldn’t understand, he decided to act upon it.
“…W-well,” he started, returning her stare with sly flirtation on his tongue, “…I couldn’t just ask you for them, now could I?” Krystal laughed at that, an unexpected, full-bodied noise that cut through her goading bullying of the tod and left her beaming with elated, flustered laughter. He was obviously caught off guard by her delight, but after his brain had processed that he’d done well, the vixen’s giggling went straight to his rapidly inflating ego, making him stand up taller, his goofy smile even more crooked and confident. Had last night finally stuck in his mind? Once the vixen regained her composure, her cheeks were ruddy with satisfaction and happiness, an angelic smile on her face. She sniped back at him even as he began to scamper towards the door.
“Maybe you should try that instead, next time…” she suggested, the words a deep purr from her chest. “You never know.” Fox glowed brighter, but the dopey smile on his face didn’t waver. He stepped back out into the hallway, throwing one last volley back at his first mate.
“Maybe I’ll make it an order,” he stated, a firm assertiveness in the idle suggestion that made her legs rub together in anticipation. Oh how badly she wished he would.
“Aye aye, sir,” she managed, brain rapidly drowning in miraculous disbelief. Fox spun on his heel to leave, his chest puffed out in manly pride, but Krystal wouldn’t let him leave without one last parting gift.
“Oh, and Captain,” she called after him, “…close my door for me if you don’t mind… like a good boy.”