#benthic two tubes

[phi-guy]

My bug

[hellfiresky]

Nobody wants to hear me out? Fine. But HEAR ME OUT.

[space-blue]

We've only ever seen Tognath with their full breathing apparatus and prosthetics... And we know they're a mix of insectoid and mammal... So here goes nothing (and also something nobody asked for)

I bet on their homeworld they get to paint and decorate their chitin plates, and don't have to cut and trim them to fit anything. Giving Benthic here ear domes in a similar style as female togrutas. The eyes are deep set and the skin matches the inner mouth membrane which iiiiis....

colourful lol

This is all aesthetic and IDK how to do creature design, so don't even try to tell me someone eating sap and mushroom stews wouldn't have evolved that way!

Here are the lined versions:

And get some bonus sketches and full body studies :

Also, fuck it but this is a sub for @sw-andor Bingo, for the prompt Alien, and a gift for @spicedrobot

[spicedrobot]

Rough Hands, Soft Touch

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Fandom: Star Wars, Andor Pairing: Saw Gerrera/Benthic "Two Tubes" Rating: Explicit

It begins, as it always does, with an itch at the base of Benthic’s neck. The irritation grows like a sprouting seed, sluggish but disruptive. As the nights pass, his appetite steadily dwindles. The plates of his exoskeleton loosen, their outermost layers dulling and deadening. In this, Benthic wishes he was more like his brother. Edrio always molts quickly and without incident. That has never been the case for himself. Or, Benthic takes too long to molt. Saw helps.

[weird-writes]

Hot Off the Trail (Andor/Rogue One, E)

Title: Hot Off the Trail (11k)

Description: You've been comrades-in-arms for years, and you'd trust him with your life. So when Saw Gerrera's best rifleman offers to help you blow off steam, what's the harm in saying yes?

Pairing: Benthic "Two Tubes" x Female Reader

Maybe it's the drugs changing your mood as chemical byproducts drift into your bloodstream but the contented, heavy feeling is sliding away, replaced by something sharper. Curiosity. You would normally leave the conversation where it lies but the spice makes things that would usually be difficult easy. It's not that you're out of control, it's just not as hard to ask as it would be if you were sober.

You still make sure you’re looking straight ahead when you say, "Not so different how?"

The response is equally casual. "Want to find out?"

Warnings: Explicit sexual content, oral sex, penetrative sex, anarchist philosophy, drug use, squirting, knotting i guess??, monsterfuckin' galore, we playin' fast and loose with biology baby, open-ended romance, no betas we die like men

Tropes: friends with benefits, porn without plot, sex comedy if that's a trope, fluff or as fluffy as you can get with saw gerrera in the mix, is dirtbag4dirtbag a thing?, awkward first times

Author's note: i have no excuse i just can’t be trusted around a masc lifeform with a rifle and their face covered SORRY

***

"What, seriously? It doesn't feel good at all?"

You're sitting with your head resting against the rock wall of the canyon, looking up at the twinkle of the galaxy above you and watching the firelight in camp flicker and dance in the distance. It's been a long day - a long week - maybe a long month - and you can't remember the last time you had an evening to relax like this, let alone a whole day off. It's been nothing but one run after another for a while now, and while all of Saw's guerillas are tough, there's a limit to your comrades' ability to fly close-quarter combat missions without rest. And a limit to your ability to put them back together after exhaustion takes its toll, turning minor accidents into major ones. 

Which is why you'd handed off tomorrow's assignment: pilot and, if need be, medic for the saboteur crew harassing the Imperial arrestor cruiser that often patrols this sector. Bokk's not as quick on the controls as you, but Cantwell-class ships trade speed for power anyway. He'll be fine.

Benthic is next to you, his lean shoulders swathed only in his usual seamed shirt and dark cloak. You, by contrast, are practically drowning in layers, undershirt and tunic and sweater and at least two coats. It's freezing to your frail human body, Segra Milo's winter unforgiving under the best of circumstances and now only exacerbated by your position away from the fire and the portable heating units that keep your makeshift living quarters at a nearly-tolerable temperature. On the sand between you and the Tognath rests a thin pipe, its tip a smoldering orange glow in the shadows.

The spice has made you chatty, prone to talk about nothing at all. Your day off has been mellow already and the feeling is only enhanced by the drug. You'd volunteered to scrape together dinner as the duty rotation changed, bodies crowding your workspace as your fellow partisans huddle gratefully near the little plasma stove to shake off the chill. Benthic had appeared mid-meal, returning from his overwatch position on the cliffs. He'd been back long enough to tidy up, his headplates shiny from the sonic Saw had grudgingly permitted after his crew insisted that they'd be no good if the Empire could smell them coming.

Benthic had told you once he didn't actually need the sonic, that his kind cleaned themselves mostly with soft bristle brushes and dry, sweet-scented abrasives, but he enjoyed the sensation as a ritual that delineated the end of a sentry shift. He'd been obviously off-duty by then, unarmed except for the slender rifle he carries everywhere, the pipe that now rests between you extended in his hand as an invitation. You'd held up one finger across the crowded room, the universal sign for hang on a minute, then come to find him after the last of the plates were cleared away.

Which is how you ended up here at the mouth of the canyon, cold but pleasantly aware of Benthic's undemanding company, and a bit sleepy. At least, you had been sleepy - until he'd said the thing that made you wonder if he's messing with you.

"Not at all," Benthic confirms, picking up the pipe as his articulated finger-scales click against his joints. He can't draw on it the normal way, not with the respiratory apparatus that lets him thrive in oxygen-rich environments like this one clamped over what you presume is his mouth, but he thumbs open a port on his filter unit and takes in the smoke through there. Finding out that you both enjoy the effects of sansanna spice despite your differing brain chemistries had been one of your stepping-stones on the road to friendship.

"That makes no sense," you say, watching spice fumes leak minutely from the seals of the breathing tubes that gave him his nickname. "What's the incentive for..." Your vocabulary fails you. "You know... making young? Children?" You're both speaking Tognath, which Benthic prefers: partially as an act of defiance and partially because the low, buzzing pitch carries well through the modulator that transfers sound outside his mask.

He scoffs. "The incentive is the children themselves, isn't that enough? You purely mammalian types wouldn't recognize any of what we do as mating, not really. The selection process for reproducing pairs is not physical, and the eggs aren't parented the same way that human infants are. It's the father that provides the first six months of care after hatching, until the larvae select their nursery tree for cocooning."

Your eyebrows lift. "The fathers? Tognaths have two sexes? Have you been a father?" You've never really thought of your friend's choice of pronouns as anything but convenience for the less worldly. Maybe it means more than that.

“My sex is most closely analogous to male, yes," Benthic shrugs. "But I've never been a father. And now I won't ever be," he adds darkly. You know what he's talking about: the occupation of Yar Togna. Most of your comrades have similar stories. It's not something any of you dwell on in conversation, preferring to let the struggle you enact together against the Empire speak to your shared grief. There are no words loud enough to convey the pain of losing a homeworld, but the sudden violence of a blaster bolt, or a bomb, can sometimes come close. For a while.

But that's an on-duty sort of thought, and you're determined to spend your first free night in ages thinking about anything else. "Does that mean you've... you've never...?"

Benthic matches your attempt at levity with the ease of long acquaintance. His willingness to feel emotions other than rage and despair despite his hatred is one of the reasons you prefer his company to that of his brother Edrio. Benthic can be quick to anger, terse and intimidating, but with you he’s also funny... and kind. The tall Tognath was one of the first partisans you met after Saw recruited you straight out of your Imperial labor camp. He'd never objected to your presence, even when you spent your first few weeks on Segra Milo living in his shadow and avoiding everyone else. In the intervening years, many of the partisans you'd been terrified of had become your friends, but Benthic is the one you seek out when you need a sympathetic ear. Or someone to listen to your stupid jokes.

You're teasing him now, and he knows it. "Never what?" Benthic shoots back. "Never--" and then he makes a sound you don't know but you have no trouble deducing the meaning of. You’re pretty sure you just learned the slang for fuck, past tense. "Of course I have." He turns his head toward you in that way you've learned is smug. "I'm very good at it."

You're still catching up. "Hunh? If you're not a father and it doesn't feel good..."

"Making children isn't pleasurable," he corrects. "You would say we have two types of sex. Sex for reproduction, which is honorable but not pleasurable, and sex for... social function. For fun. That, I assure you, feels quite good. Especially with a partner one... enjoys." You do know that word, but here it has a connotation you're not familiar with. It sounds an awful lot to your human ears like hunger, and not necessarily in the metaphorical way.

"Oh," you say in sudden enlightenment. "Sex without children. We do that too. Well, most of us do, anyway– not everyone enjoys it." Your turn with the spice. You breathe in the smoke and hold it, letting the taste that gives the drug its name fill your mouth before exhaling. The cloud drifts away, broken apart by the cold night wind. Your head feels heavy and fuzzy and very slow.

"Do you?" Benthic's tone is lazy; he's feeling it too.

Well, this is one of the weirder conversations you've ever had. The tips of your ears warm with the start of a blush as you consider how to answer his question. "Um, yes? It depends on who my partner is, I guess. It's always so different from person to person, even if the... equipment is similar. I don't know."

He makes a sound that you interpret as his version of hmm. "Much the same for us, I think. Sometimes a good match, sometimes a bad one. My eggmate Edrio and I once coupled with a--" He must be able to see your expression in the dark because he breaks off mid-sentence, creaking out a laugh. "Maybe not so similar after all. Have you ever–" he makes the fuck sound again "--with a non-human?"

"No," you say quickly. "Not even with a human, not in a long time." You might be embarrassed to admit it under other circumstances, but running with the partisans means privacy is mostly an illusion. If you'd lied to save your pride, he would have found out.

Another thoughtful noise. Then: "Is it bad for you? To go so long without sex?" The polite version of the word this time, the one you've heard before.

You have no idea how to answer that. "No, it isn't bad for me physically." Mentally, probably. 

You haven’t been completely without offers. Plenty of your comrades sneak off together or share blankets in a more permanent arrangement. No one minds as long as it stays out of the command room. You'd had opportunities, but none enticing enough to risk the possibilities of things getting... difficult. If human sex has a defining feature, it's unasked-for emotion turning up to make a simple thing complicated. 

You wonder if it's the same for Tognaths. "Your turn. Are you sneaking off-planet to get laid?" That last sentence is in Basic, since you're not sure you understand the arrangement of syllables he's been using enough to reproduce them.

You'd meant it as a joke, but Benthic seems to take the question seriously. "No. The urge is not physiological. There are no consequences to going without, except for perhaps... yelling more than usual." His tone is dry. He's referring to himself, of course.

You snort. "With this lot, yelling is part of the job. How about you, have you ever..." You make a vague gesture with your shoulders, something like a shrug. "With a human?"

"One or twice," Benthic says. "Mostly females. Our bodies are not so different that one can’t navigate the difference.” He uses the same expression in Tognath as he would for the action of charting a course in hyperspace or memorizing a new star map. It's a romantic turn of phrase from the practical warrior. Apparently your friend has hidden depths. 

Maybe it's the drugs changing your mood as chemical byproducts drift into your bloodstream but the contented, heavy feeling is sliding away, replaced by something sharper. Curiosity. You would normally leave the conversation where it lies but the spice makes things that would usually be difficult easy. It's not that you're out of control, it's just not as hard to ask as it would be if you were sober.

And besides, come on, you're talking to Benthic. You've known him forever. He once showed you how to make a fire from dried-out bantha dung on Tatooine. You'd failed to account for the wind, inhaled a lungful of the shitty, oily smoke and then thrown up until you drowned the coals. The Tognath had laughed so hard at your mistake you thought he might pass out instead of you. Between the two of you there's not much dignity left to preserve.

You still make sure you’re looking straight ahead when you say, "Not so different how?"

The response is equally casual. "Want to find out?" 

And with Tubes it genuinely sounds like a straightforward question. As if there will be no consequences at all to your answer, as though no is just as good as yes. Like this could be simple, if only you'd let it.

Wait. Are you letting it? Are you about to say yes to perving on your best friend, who isn't even human? How high are you, exactly?

Benthic is waiting patiently for your response. You sneak a glance at him. His posture is relaxed, leaned back against the rock with his boots outstretched in the sand, his face betraying nothing - not that the configuration of hard bone enhanced with metal gives you much to go on. Only his hands show any sign that he'd said anything at all; the pipe is lifted halfway to his respirator as if he's forgotten he's holding it.

"Uh. Maybe?" Even you know you're stalling. "How– exactly what kind of... equipment are we talking about here?"

"Nothing damaging to you," he answers instantly, as if he'd anticipated this. "I could show you, if you like." From anyone else, this would be an unbearable pickup line; from him it sounds merely polite. 

The entire idea is insane. 

Or is it? This would just be an experiment. Between a human and an alien. Building intergalactic bridges, you think, with a twinge of hysteria. Hells, it's practically an exchange program.

"Okay," you say in Basic.

He seems as surprised by your assent as you are, and you are kriffing floored. You stare at each other for a long moment, or at least he stares at you and you stare at the small servo motor-driven diopter augmentations that make real eye contact with a Tognath impossible.

"Okay," Benthic repeats eventually, also in Basic. The word seems to unlock the strained pause between you. He puts the pipe down and shoots to his feet in one fluid, enviable motion. He's already close to a third of a meter taller than you even when you're standing and with you still sitting down he seems like the tallest thing in the universe. You find you have to swallow several times, your tongue a foreigner in your own mouth, your throat suddenly thick with - you don't know what. Embarrassment? Anticipation?

By contrast, Benthic seems entirely comfortable now he knows what the immediate future holds. It's clear you just said yes to a sexual proposition but you're still not ready when he reaches up, takes hold of the fabric near the shoulder, and starts to shuck out of his surcoat. 

You make a noise like a baby Wookie, a sort of high-pitched, terrified squeak, then clamp your hands over your mouth, mortified. "Sorry! Sorry," you say around your own fingers. "I just didn't expect– are we getting naked right this minute?"

Benthic looks down at you. "I am not undressing," he says, and his voice is warm and amused under the modulator. "I thought perhaps you would like to lie on something other than sand." He doesn't add you idiot, which is kind of him. Then again, maybe he doesn't need to. "We will go at whatever pace you wish."

"Oh," you say lamely. "Oh, I thought– it's fine." And you find, to your shock, that it is fine. You're nervous but it's good nervous, the kind you get when you're about to do something that you know is worth a little discomfort. Like jumping into a cold lake on a hot summer day. 

You're not in love with him and that's fine too. This is Tubes in front of you, taking off his cloak and spreading it on the ground to shield you. Tubes, who's seen you sweating and shaking, covered in blood or changing out of your flight suit more times than you can count. Tubes, who once talked you down after a near-miss with a TIE fighter when you refused to let your fellow medics near you because some broken part of you was still inside that cockpit as it came apart. You don't need to be in love with him because you trust him.

Stars, you're really going to do this.

"Here," you say, and it only comes out a bit strangled as you stand too, shrugging out of your outer layer and handing it to him. You feel a burning and nonsensical need to contribute somehow, to show you're invested in whatever the fuck is about to happen. "It's cold."

Tubes adds the thick coat to the pile, buffering the spot where you'll be laying under - under? Don't think about it yet - him from the freezing ground. "It is not cold to me," he says. "But we Tognaths have a very fast metabolism. I think you will find yourself adequately warm if you are close."

Close. You can manage that. Warmth sounds nice. Really nice, and it opens the door to something you've wanted to do for a long time, even if before tonight it was only from idle curiosity. 

"Can I touch you?" you blurt out, faster than your nervousness can stop you. "I mean– I mean– like this. Standing up. It might help me to..." You swerve away from relax. "I just want to know what you're like.” Oh, you hope that didn't come out as insensitive as it sounded. Like he's an exhibit in a Coruscant museum.

Benthic chuckles, a sound that combines the low register of a mature human male with the rasping, clicking buzz of a grasshopper. "Yes, you can touch anywhere you like. Gently to start, if you don't mind. Some of me is... very responsive."

Every aspect of this conversation so far has been thrilling, but the sensation has been... not intellectual, exactly, but mental - constrained to your spice-fueled mind. You're curious and excited and weirdly honored to be trusted to do this, but it's as if your body has been playing catch-up, unconvinced that it might get something out of the encounter too. Your limbic system is dormant right up until the moment Benthic says very responsive in that rumbling baritone and then everything comes online all at once, flooding your brain with hormones as goosebumps erupt under your layers of sweater. Something animal in you responds to the unspoken promise in his voice, the same voice that had assured you he's good at this, and your pussy gives a little pulse that feels like the equivalent of a dreamy sigh. You've never known Tubes to brag.

"Take off your shirt," you say, and if your voice is still a bit shaky this time it's for a different reason.

Benthic moves so obediently it takes you a moment to realize he's reached up instead of down, gripping not his clothes but the connector gaskets that attach his breathing apparatus to his face. The first seal unlocks with a hiss.

"Oh shit!” One of your own hands shoots out too late to stop him. "Wait. I didn't– we'll figure it out. Don't suffocate, please?"

"Your concern is appreciated.” Once again you can hear how he's pointedly not laughing at your expense. He moves from one seal to the other, taking your hand with him so you feel the click as the coupler unseats. "I am not in danger. The oxygen here is more than I'm used to but in the short-term, the effects are not unpleasant. Like spice."

Your first unkind thought, which you wouldn't admit with an Imperial blaster to your head, is, Wow I've been sharing my stash with this nerf herder when he gets high on the air for free?

Your second unkind thought is I am such an idiot, as he unbuckles the harness straps that hold his filtration pack and adds, "How else would I get dressed every day?"

"I'd never thought about it," you respond defensively, pulling your hands back to yourself and trying not to stare. You've never seen his real face before - or most of his face, since the mechanics that enhance his vision and hearing are still in place. You have an unobstructed view of his mouth, though, and it's... not human. Not even remotely, a blank hole in his otherwise familiar form that changes shape when he speaks more than a human's would, shielded by two ductile protrusions from above and below. The whole thing looks not totally unlike a blast door in miniature. You swallow hard. Kissing is apparently out of the question.

Now he’s reaching for the hem of his loose tunic, pulling harness and tunic off together in a bundle and letting them drop into the sand. You're not sure you can take another surprise like his mouth, but he looks… not so different than he did with the tunic on, anatomy some combination of lean strength and what you think are hard plates or scales in flexible, overlapping configurations a bit like the many seams of his shirt. His skin is the same pallid grey-green color as his face and it reflects the starlight just a little, smooth and clean. It's manageable as long as you don't spend too long looking at his mouth. It's more than manageable, it's... inviting, like allowed to touch a marble statue.

Benthic tilts his head in the same assessing motion he uses for range-finding over the barrel of his rifle. "And this?" he asks, as though you hadn't stopped talking. The volume of his voice has dropped noticeably without the modulator, although it's still audible in the quiet. You recall that his vocal cords, like his respiratory system and his tympanic membranes, are made for much thicker atmosphere, although you can't remember if he told you or you read it in one of the rare medical manuals that Saw sometimes barters for. "Did you think about this?" 

You're not sure if he means himself, half-undressed, or the evening's planned activities more generally, but the answer's the same either way.

"No," you say. It sounds honest because it is. "No, I never thought about this. Not before tonight. It seemed... impossible." You're not sure why it had seemed so impossible, only that it had. You've never been a xenophiliac, but you don't think you harbor any strict prejudices about your partners' species. You're a healthy human woman and - speaking based on ancient historical data, anyway - you like sex. And Tubes has always been different with you than with the others, teasing and affectionate in a way that you've sometimes thought would be flirtatious if... You really are an idiot.

"And you're not in the habit of dreaming the impossible." That dry wit again, laced with humor.

You know what he's referring to. You do your best attempt at Saw’s hoarse rasp back at him: " ‘In order to fight for the future we want, we must first be able to imagine the world as it should be.’ "

You'd meant it to be funny, but there's nothing funny about it when Tubes takes a long step towards you, his height forcing you to tilt your head back if you want to keep looking anywhere but at his broad chest with its distinct bands of muscle and plate. He's doing something with his fingers you can't quite follow in the dark at first, and then he makes a motion you do know, peeling away the articulated finger-joints of his.... gloves. He wears gloves, the same color and plate pattern as his skin. They're so well-fitted and camouflaged you've never noticed, the edges hidden under the cuffs of his surcoat. Just like his mouth, you've never seen his real hands.

So you never knew what you were missing until he raises those same hands and circles them, loosely but with conviction, around your wrists. He has beautifully long fingers, their color dark and indiscernible in the dim light, and they bend and flex in a way that suggests more joints than a standard human's. And oh, he wasn't kidding about his body heat. The first touch of his palms is burning hot, nearly as warm as some of the heating units you've slept huddled against since you came to this planet, and they feel excruciatingly good against your bare skin.

"Not impossible," Benthic says, and without the modulator he has to bend down so you hear it, putting his strange mouth close to your ear. His breath is warm too, and smells faintly of something dry and pleasant and inorganic, like the mineral incense in the temples you visited as a child. Your whole body reacts to his proximity, your stomach fluttering and your mouth going dry. Whatever pheromones or other chemical signals he's producing, they clearly work on you, despite your species difference. "Now, I recall you said something about touching?"

What follows is an unhurried interval containing nothing more overtly sexual than your hands on the Tognath as he stands, patient and impassive, allowing you to enjoy both the novelty of his form and his service as your own personal hand-warmer. You find that, despite the nerve-wracking presence of cloak and coat waiting on the sand, you can't turn off the medic part of your mind, and so you start to ask questions as your touch wanders over him. 

"This?" you say, as the tips of your fingers ghost over the biggest plate-scale on his abdomen. "Protects the vital organs," he answers. "Here?" you ask, as your palm brushes something soft and yielding just under what you think might be his sternum. "Adipose - helps sense vibration," he responds, and so on, until you've worked your way up to his shoulders to his neck. The moment you run your fingers along the vulnerable stretch between the last plate and the line of his jaw he hisses, the subtle rise and fall of his chest hitching for a moment as his own hands twitch toward yours.

You pull away instantly. "I'm sorry. Did that hurt?"

"No," he says, and his voice is even deeper now, raspy and polyphonic. "No, it didn't hurt."

"Then what--"

Benthic cuts you off. "I told you I can be... responsive."

And that gets through even your thick human skull. "Oh," you say, and can't keep yourself from licking your lips as you repeat the motion, still tentative but slower this time, drawing a long straight line from the top of his sternum plate to the edge of the ridge shielding his mouth. He's silent as you do it, but you can feel a faint tremor through him and the air between you thickens with tension like a spring coiling. Feeling him feeling you affects you too, action and reaction, your heartbeat kicking to life at the juncture of your thighs.

You stop when you reach his mouth; he moves to meet you, taking your hand and pushing it gently away. "You've touched. Will you permit me the same?"

Your response is to try and pull your remaining layers off at the same time as fast as possible, which ends with your arms stuck in the coat sleeves and your head engulfed in the neck of the sweater. It takes a deeply awkward moment of wriggling to get free and Maker, in that instant you can't believe anyone, let alone someone as competent and experienced as Tubes, would want to fuck you. The absurdity of it all strikes you again, painfully, as you finally manage to pull the sweater off only to find your friend regarding you with a serious expression.

"You could have helped," you accuse.

"I thought," Benthic says, solemn as the grave, "it was a mating display."

And that does it, breaks whatever magic spell of nerves and uncertainty he's cast over you. You laugh so hard you have to bend double and put your hands on your knees, not trusting yourself to stay upright. Tubes is laughing too, not at your expense so much as your reaction, the creaking-door sound soft without the modulator to carry it. When you can finally breathe you take off the rest of your clothes, still laughing, and lay down on the nest of warm coats he's made for you. You're smiling as he kneels between your legs, putting one hand gently on your waist and running the other lightly from the seam of your lips all the way down to where soft hair covers your pubic mound, like someone soothing an animal.

It feels divine, warm and textured and safe, the sand yielding under you. "More," you say, and you're startled by the change in your own voice now, lush and imperious. He indulges you, petting you again, then again, and you're just about to close your eyes and sink into this undemanding touch when Benthic changes course, dragging his fingers down your neck, your collarbones, and over the swell of your breast. You hum as those long, facile fingers find your nipple, circling tentatively.

"Good?" he asks.

"Good," you answer, your breath catching.

He lets go, then palms the weight of your breast in his hand, squeezing lightly, watching your reaction closely. "Good?"

"Good," you say, as your head falls back to rest against the pile of fabric under you.

His other hand joins in on the other side, hefting and pulling, half-experiment and half-massage. Then he stops, and you yelp at the mingled sting and pleasure as he pinches your nipple between thumb and forefinger. "Too much?"

"No, good," you say hoarsely, and moan as he does it again. You're going to have to remember to speak up. You don't know much about sex with aliens but you know enough to know that verbal consent is imperative since cues like involuntary noise are unreliable across species. You'd pulled your underwear off along with everything else and you can feel yourself starting to get wet, as much from his focused attention as from the sensation itself. 

His exploration continues, stroking along the underside of your breasts, sliding along your ribs - good thing you aren't ticklish - and pausing to dip into your navel, which feels... not bad, but surprisingly intimate. But then you suppose his kind don't have breasts or navels if reproduction is all done through eggs, and your body must be as mysterious - and you hope enticing - to him as his is to you.

Benthic's hands drop a little lower and then come to rest, long-jointed fingers splayed from the crease between your ass and thighs all the way to the swell of your hipbones. You want him to keep going, want to whine and part your legs wider to shamelessly ask for more, but you don't really know what to expect next. Tubes must sense your confusion, because he decides for you.

"Do you usually orgasm with a partner?" he asks in Basic. It's a clever inquiry to make with a new lover; reconnaissance to calibrate expectations, like scouting the terrain before a mission. It also drives home something else: this is, by far, the most questions you've ever been asked during sex. Maybe that's why some humans like fucking aliens so much - no preconceived notions of pleasure and capacity, every new species a fresh slate.

"Sometimes," you answer, avoiding his gaze. "Um... skillsets have been... varied. Not everyone can make me come." That last in Basic too. You're learning that when it comes to sex, your Tognath vocabulary is sorely lacking.

Benthic cocks his head. "Come?" The word is fuzzy and loose. He doesn't know it.

"Orgasm," you clarify. "Slang for orgasm."

"Come," he parrots, enlightened. "We would say-" and he rounds his mouth around a word in Tognath, ending with a round, liquid-sounding vowel that's pleasing to the ear.

You repeat it back to him once, then once more after he corrects you. "Very good. I should warn you– that is a private word, used only between mates. If you meet another Tognath, I would not give away that you know it unless you are in a similar situation."

You snort. "Tubes, you and Edrio are the only Tognaths I know. I'm not about to go on a sex spree."

"You couldn't even if you wanted to, there aren't enough of us left. Anyway," he adds, brutally practical, "you haven't even had sex with me yet." He must have noticed how you responded when he was close to you before, because he curls over you, obscuring the night sky, and puts his mouth right against the curve of your ear. "I would like to help you come," he says in Tognath. "And then I would like to feel what you are like inside and make you come again, if you can." 

If you can, not if he can, some part of you notes, the bit that isn't fading to sex-drunk stupidity. He's infuriatingly sure of himself. Any other time you'd come back with something sarcastic but the feeling of his fingers digging into the curve of your ass is like someone just popped a bottle of fizz at the base of your skull.

"Yes," is all you can manage back. "Yes, please." You shouldn't be so willing to beg yet, he's barely even touched you, but kriff, it's been so long since anyone but yourself has made you come. You'd almost forgotten what it's like to want someone who wants you back, the push-and-pull of mutual desire blotting out everything else.

"Please," Bethic repeats, sounding pleased himself at your response, and lets go of your hips to nudge your legs further apart. He looks down at you for a long minute while you fight the urge to squirm, out of practice with such direct scrutiny of your sex. You're sure he can see the deepening flush of your folds and the slick heat that's your body’s hopeful response to the promise of penetration. 

Then he makes a clicking noise - the Tognath equivalent of clearing his throat. "I am not completely inexperienced when it comes to humans. But it might be helpful to see what you like."

And suddenly the awkwardness returns, creeping back in like a thief - although this time it's nothing to do with him and everything to do with you. You've just been asked to put on a show. 

It's a sensible thing to request, given your differing anatomies, but something about it tugs at the same stage fright you used to have at academy. None of your previous lovers had ever even hinted at something like this. None of your previous lovers were aliens either, you reason, but the thought doesn't help.

"Uhhh..." you say, since you don't know what else to do, and then wince internally. Real sexy, genius.

Benthic, being Benthic, reads your reluctance immediately and returns to the same unthreatening petting motion as before, gentling his warmth over your skin. "Not if you don't want to. There are other ways to learn."

For some reason, the generosity of his reassurance annoys you. He's being so lovely and it occurs to you in a burst of irritation that you are being managed, almost like he managed you when you were new to camp and jumped at every shadow. It makes you profoundly grateful that he's being so careful not to hurt you, and irrationally angry that he thinks he could. Which is ridiculous, of course he could hurt you, he's a third of a meter taller than you and basically made of durasteel and might have needle spikes on his dick for all you know. 

But he doesn't have to act like it.

You react the way you always have to Tubes proposing something logical when your blood is up: stubbornly. "I want to," you say and it comes out like a challenge. I want to, are you going to let me?

The Tognath doesn't have eyebrows to raise, but you suspect his expression is skeptical and that makes you even more determined. If he wants to run the game like he owns the board, he's going to learn you don't play fair. 

"I want to," you say again, and sit up so you're sure he can hear you for the next part. "I want you to watch me while I make myself come." This time you use Tognath, the liquid word he said was private and only for use between mates, and then, just to drive the point home, you reach up and lick a hot, wet trail from the center of his chest plate to a spot just under the metal bands encircling his ear.

The noise he makes is incredible; you're so close you can feel the rumbling, purring vibration start somewhere in his chest, making his plates shiver against one another before it comes out as a drawn-out groan. Hearing it fills you with something headier than spice, the missing piece slotting neatly into place as you give an involuntary shudder and your cunt seizes hard around nothing. You want to hear that sound again. You want to hear it a lot. No, you don't just want to hear it - you want to be the reason he's making it. 

You don't bother to explain as you move into position. If he doesn't know, he'll find out. But Benthic says nothing as you turn around to kneel on all fours. He's silent as you dig your kneecaps into the coats and rock a little, making a divot to help you keep your balance. He's silent as you shove your own fingers in your mouth with a noisy suck, showing off while slicking them up. He's silent right up until you reach down and part your folds and provocatively slide the very tip of a finger into yourself. Then he makes the noise again, and this time it's even deeper. 

When you pull your finger back out, fluttering around your entrance before reaching up to firmly circle your clit, making your hips buck and your breathing stutter, he unleashes a slew of Tognath. You know only a few of the words - all of them rude - but they sound enthusiastic. It's easier like this, forcing him to observe from behind, the last of the spice in your bloodstream making you bold. You don't have to watch him watch you and you know he has an excellent view with your ass in the air and your pussy on display. It makes you feel gloriously obscene. 

"Good?" you ask.

"Good," he says, guttural and broken, and that's even better than your fingers.

You have to work for your first orgasm and you swear the rolling clench of your cunt when it finally happens feels rusty and out of practice. With his eyes on you it's gratifying anyway, even if it's not enough to quench the fire building in your cunt and crawling up your skin. You can feel Tubes shifting restlessly, gripping your thighs like they're the only thing keeping him in place. 

When the short, sharp waves of your climax have stopped, you peel one of his hands off your skin and place it over your swollen mound. "You wanted to learn, so learn," you say, and use his cooperative fingers to map the places that pleasure you most. 

The heat rolling off him is as just mind-numbing between your legs as you'd imagined. When he finally opens you up with one long, clever finger, pushing inside only to the first knuckle as he tests what might be too fast, too much, he groans again, and this time you let out a few rude words of your own. You’d swear you can feel the vibration reverberate through his curious bone structure all the way into your clit.

"You're so sensitive," he rasps, and that calm self-assurance has been replaced by something hot and urgent.

"Kriff," you say eloquently back, as he pushes a little further. "Holy fuck." His fingers are thicker than yours, and the texture is nothing like human skin. They're firm and ridged on the pad, rough and scaled over the knuckles. It might be too much if you weren't practically dripping, the sensation rendered safe by how willing your body is to receive him, but right now it's wonderful. If this is just his hands, what does the rest of him feel like?

There’s a shock of cold air against your pussy as he slides away, taking his warmth with him. "I want to taste you," Benthic says. "I want to make you come--" he uses the mate word, as you did, "-- on my tongue."

Better hanged for a thousand credits than a hundred, you think. You can handle that; you just won’t look down while it’s happening. "Fine. I mean, yes."

That's all you have to say; Benthic flips you around as easily as if you weigh no more than his rifle, tugging on your hips to move you closer as his broad shoulders part your thighs. You try not to think about what's about to happen but you can't help it, imagining your most vulnerable parts being pulled toward the unsettlingly mechanical arrangement of his mouth. You trust Tubes, you really do, but that glimpse of his mouth was just so... alien, opening and closing like a lithe black hole. What if -

"Wait," you blurt, as you feel the first brush of him against your legs. Trepidation slithers up your spine to whisper a very stupid question into your soft mammal brain. "You don't– like… eat your mates or anything after, right?"

That same mammal brain shrieks in alarm at the strange rattling sensation he produces in response. It takes you a panicked moment to realize what you're feeling is Benthic laughing, the thin and flexible plates that surround his mouth knocking against the skin of your inner thigh. "No. Besides, most mate-consumption is done by females anyway. I should be the one worrying."

"Don't," you say, intending to be flippant. "I don't eat Tognaths.” Except it comes out more like, "I don't eat Tognaaa--" because those same lips have just closed over you. All of you. He must be able to open his jaw a lot farther than a human because your whole sex, from the top of your pubic bone to the sensitive flesh just above your asshole is enveloped in plush heat. It feels incredible, a sharp contrast with the punishing chill, and your sentence ends in something between a surprised yelp and a moan.

Another rattle, this one a rumble of satisfaction. You know because you've heard it before: through your headset after you've hit a particularly difficult target with your U-wing's laser cannon - a shot your squadron leader said you couldn't make. Before this you've always interpreted it as pleased, but now you realize it’s not just pleased, it’s possessive. You’re not sure your pussy can get any wetter, but the knowledge that Tubes would feel that way about you, like you’re his - has felt that way for a while and you’ve just been too dumb to notice - makes your brain melt too.

"Good?" Benthic asks, his voice even more muffled. You have no idea how he's talking with his mouth this far open.

"Good," you confirm. "Don't stop."

He doesn't. Something smooth and slippery and even hotter than the temperature of his mouth  glides gently through your folds and slides up to investigate your clit, petting and tapping. You squirm, unable to hold still at the inconsistent stimulation. Whatever's touching you seems a lot like a tongue but more muscular and certainly more capable than the human variety. It's clearly attached to a fast learner too, because after a minute or two of exploration, Benthic starts to hone in on what makes your hips jerk the most, circling and pressing in the same pattern that you'd used to get yourself off during your little demonstration. The pressure combined with the overwhelming heat is so fucking perfect you start to lose yourself, chasing friction by bucking up into the sensation. There’s a tight, explosive feeling building somewhere in your core as your stomach tightens, your breath turning into pants, little ah-ah-ahs of pleasure driven out of you with every stroke of his tongue.

You’re building quickly towards a very satisfying climax, which leaves you totally unprepared when something else joins the party - this time pressing into you. You yelp again as you almost levitate off the coats in surprise, your hands scrabbling instinctively towards the head between your legs. Tubes has two tongues? 

He’s laughing again, the bastard, and this time you can definitely feel it all the way through you as the second tongue flutters against your lips. He’s teasing you, flicking against your entrance and barely dipping inside while further up, the steady rhythm across your clit never falters. It’s torture, delicious torture on every sensitive part of you at once, especially after having come so close before, and you abruptly find you don't care if Tognaths do eat their partners afterward. You just want whatever's happening to keep happening.

"Fuck that's— fuck," you gasp, remembering this time to give your approval without being asked. "More.”

The tongue against your cunt pauses for a moment as Tubes encourages your knees to part even farther, making more space for him to maneuver. You realize belatedly that you’ve been so focused on your own experience that you haven’t checked in. It’s only fair that you ask if this is working for him. And, a selfish little voice that comes straight from your sex whispers, maybe you’ll get to hear him sound horny again.

As turned on as you are, you still don’t quite have the courage to look down. “Good?” you say to the empty air above you instead, and then choke as the only response is a growl so deep it vibrates right through the joints of your hips and the cup of your pelvis to rattle your womb. His grip on you changes, the hands on your knees sliding up to grab your ass, lifting until you’re half off the ground and tilted at an angle that allows the tongue that’s been tentatively lapping at your entrance fuck you for real. The first thrust would have had your spine convulsing off the sand if you weren’t already in place, a hot firm slide into you that’s overwhelming after so long on the brink of being fucked. It probes against your inner walls, questing in a way that feels like a question.

You think you know what he’s after. "A little further up," you tell him, and then, "Kriff." The thing inside you has redistributed itself somehow, swelling and hardening once it finds its goal: the textured, sensitive spot inside you that feels like too much and not enough all at once. It pulses against you at the same time as the pressure on your clit increases and oh, fuck, oh, oh…

If you had to work for your first climax, your second works you - what seems like every muscle in your body seizing at once as you come with a soft wail somewhere between a gasp and a sob. It’s so strong it takes you by surprise, flooding from the top of your head to the tips of your toes as your cunt seizes around the tongue inside you, clenching and releasing in time with the frantic beat of your heart. Tubes must be able to feel what’s happening but he doesn’t slow, working you through your peak with steady, unyielding patience. You only stop him, batting at his head with one clumsy hand, once the stimulation on your swollen clit threatens to move from pleasure to near-pain. 

“Good?” he asks again, as he eases out. You can feel how fucking soaked you are in the aftermath, your own arousal combined with whatever serves Tognaths for saliva.

“Good,” you answer, tugging lightly on his shoulders. “Really good. Come here.”

There’s a disconcerting click and a rasp as Benthic raises up to hover over you: the hinge of his jaw, you think hazily, slotting into place, his plates moving back into their protective position. By the time you can see his face it’s the same as before: sharp chin, high flat cheekbones and the odd blast-door arrangement of mouth and lips. You find it interesting rather horrifying this time, and that alone would be enough to tell you that your orgasm was a good one even if the thick, sated feeling in your blood wasn’t. 

You reach up to trail a finger lazily along the line of his cheek, skipping unsteadily as you drop to his collarbones, then sternum, then lower, trailing down. You might have just come harder than you have in years, but you still want. You want to find out what will break that uncompromising courtesy, even the playing field by making him as desperate as he’d made you. 

When your wandering touch glides over the plate covering his abdomen, Benthic reacts like you’ve scorched him, jerking away as he grabs your wrist in a grip that isn’t painful but conveys every fiber of his wiry strength. You make a spoiled, childish sound before you can stop yourself, disappointed at being denied further contact. 

The hand around your wrist remains. “What are you doing?” Benthic asks, and his tone is flat rather than playful.

You whine, fighting his grasp. “Touching you. Is that okay? Is something wrong?”

“You want…” He trails off for a moment, unsure. “Did I not… did I not satisfy you?”

“What?” Your mouth drops open. “Hells yes, you did. What about you - do you not want…?” 

“That’s not necessary.” Benthic lets your wrist go with an air of finality, straightening up. You can tell from the set of his shoulders that he’s about to stand, ending whatever this is between you, and you’re surprised at how much it stings. Guess he decided he doesn’t like human women after all. You’re so focused on bracing for the impact of rejection that you almost miss what he says next: “You don’t need to make yourself uncomfortable. Not for me.”

Ah. A slow, triumphant smile creeps across your face as the implications of that particular piece of nonsense register. That’s what this is about. For all his cool self-assurance, Benthic thinks you don’t want - is somehow under the mistaken impression that - he’s being stupid.

“Tubes, stop. Look at me,” you command, putting all the iron in your voice you can. He pauses above you, which gives you time to snag his hand in yours. You wind your fingers through his long ones and reach down. “I’m not uncomfortable,” you say in Basic, not looking away from his face. “I like touching you.” You place your twined fingers over your pussy, the same way you did earlier - only this time you can see his reaction, see the sharp intake of breath as he feels how wet you are, how open. You give him a soft sound of encouragement. “You seem to care a lot about what I want, and I appreciate that,” you continue, as you work his fingers inside the inviting velvet of your cunt. “And what I want is for you to fuck me with your cock– or whatever – until neither of us can walk tomorrow.” 

For a minute you think maybe he doesn’t understand, the idiom too colloquial to register. Then Benthic makes a new noise: a low, echoing snarl that no longer sounds even remotely human. It’s thrilling and terrifying and comes out of his throat as pure bass, so reverberant that it jostles the plates of his exoskeleton against each other with a sharp clack as he closes the distance between you. He’s everywhere, against and above you, crowding his impressive size into your space in a way that both reveals how much he’s been holding back and makes you dizzy with desire. The shift in stance jams his fingers further into you and you stifle a sound of your own, the coarse treatment so unlike his previous careful handling. Your arousal sparks to life again, a first step in the inevitable chain reaction of your climax.

He’s pressed so close that you can feel his other hand unbuckling his belt and shoving at the waistband of his trousers. You suppose you shouldn't be surprised: between the legs seems to be the most common place for bipeds keep their genitalia. You’re still spread out on the coats without a clear view of what, exactly, is about to happen but you have no doubt that whatever it is, Tubes will ensure your enjoyment at least as much as his own. 

Your suspicion is borne out as the fingers inside you withdraw. Something stiff and ridged and hot nudges through your soaking folds and barely breaches you, sliding just inside your cunt and settling there. “Good?” comes the inevitable question, only this time he pairs it with a nearly imperceptible rock of his hips. Even that small adjustment makes you hiss, the motion catching against the sensitive rim of your entrance. Whatever Tognath anatomy is, it’s thick - pleasantly rather than painfully so - and has a strong upward curve that bumps against your inner walls. 

“Good,” you say. An unwise but irresistible idea has taken hold and, not waiting for your cue, you dig your hands into the coats underneath you and use the leverage to shove yourself as far down on what you think is his cock as you can.

It’s a stupid gamble without being able to see the rest of what you’re pushing into your eager pussy, but it’s far from the riskiest thing you’ve ever done and you refuse to give Tubes a chance to collect himself in case he starts refereeing again. Fortunately for your delicate bits, the size and shape of him is amenable. You feel his cock bottom out after only a few more inches; it’s thickest toward the tip but the upward curve is so strong you feel stuffed full anyway. The sensation is unique but not too intense, pleasing but not overwhelming.

Until he moves.

The first real thrust slams the tip of him against the sensitive spot behind your clit like a meteor impact. The onslaught is so powerful you sink your teeth into your lower lip to keep from shrieking. You’re still raw with the strength of your last orgasm, every bit of you hyper aware of even the smallest touch, and his sudden invasion rides the edge of overstimulation, lighting up your nerve endings like fireworks. You can’t bring yourself to regret it, though, not with the sounds he’s making, his Tognath slurred almost beyond recognition as he tells you how much he likes feeling you like this, so wet you’re running down his length. The rough fabric of his trousers is rubbing the inside of your thighs and his hands are back on your ass, holding you exactly where he wants you.

Benthic sets a punishing pace, not slowing even when you thrash beneath him, open-mouthed pants turning into mewls of happy agony as he gives you no quarter from the relentless stimulation of his distinct anatomy. The high-handed, generous lover of a few minutes ago has vanished and if you weren’t so wrapped in the euphoric high of breathtakingly good sex, you’d be a little ashamed of how triumphant you feel. Motherfucker’s not asking you questions now - he’s too caught up in chasing the sensation of your cunt clutching him tighter with each punch of his hips.

You’re halfway to another orgasm from the internal stimulation alone when the heavy rhythm of Benthic’s strokes stutters, breaking apart to crash into your slick heat once– twice– three times. His cock swells, becoming impossibly harder as you feel all the long muscle in his body convulse, drawing tight like a pressed trigger. Something is happening, from the noises he’s making; and it sounds a hell of a lot to your untrained ears like the desperate, satisfied groans of a man who’s come so hard he can’t form words.

You’re just about to cheat a hand down between your legs for your own raucous finale when the firm, hot thing inside you shifts again. Instead of the pulsing feeling of ejaculation, something complicated and entirely unexpected happens. You can feel the protrusion that he's been using to pleasure you both split, lengthening as each segment unfurls like a flower. One hooks back on itself to bump against your entrance from the inside, another drifts upward to curl gently against your cervix, a third presses and presses and presses into your g-spot. You try not to move, afraid that you'll hurt whatever fragile process just unfolded inside you, but you can’t help the noises that are coming out of your mouth, high-pitched and frantic.

"Kriff," says Benthic in Basic from above you. His chestplates are rising and falling rapidly, which you hope is a sign that whatever's going on feels half as good to him as it does to you. "Sorry." He sounds uncertain, even awkward. "I... I'm not able to– remove myself." It's a formal turn of phrase where anyone else would have said pull out. Maybe he doesn't know the expression. He adjusts his hips against you and you moan again. You feel unbelievably stretched, every part of you stimulated simultaneously except your clit, which is whining for attention between your thighs. "I will need to stay like this for a little while. If you don't mind."

Your first thought is that the spice must have been stronger than you thought if he thinks you mind this. Your second is a reminder to yourself: words. You have to use words. He can't read your body automatically like another human could, doesn't know that your galloping heartbeat and throbbing cunt mean you're on the edge of another climax already. "Don't mind," you choke, between sounds that are rapidly becoming sobs of pleasure. "Fucking amazing– I’m close. Same– same spot." He doesn't move. He might not know what you mean, and you're not sure at this point you can explain. "Tubes– before, your tongue– on the outside– the same spot. Please." That last please is in Tognath and seems to get through, which, thank the Maker, because you might actually die if he doesn't touch you there again. 

Benthic grunts and reaches down to slide a warm hand between you. Your eyes fall shut with the first press of his fingers against your clit, stars exploding across the backs of your eyelids as he finds the same pattern that worked before, drawing sharp circles over the sensitive spot. You can feel that there's a new texture rubbing inside your cunt now too, rough and catching and so good that it's driving you out of your mind. Something is building within you, something more than the normal tension, the flickering touch on your clit and the constant pressure of whatever is happening inside you combining to spark a blaze that isn't contained to just your sex anymore but roaring through your whole being, consuming each nerve ending in a flash of intensity as it goes. You're so close to something important, something vital to your continued existence, but it's not quite enough–

"More," you gasp in Basic, and this time Benthic understands just fine, increasing the pace as he slips his ridged fingertips against you over and over. He has to lean back a little to make space, which has the unintended effect of driving the multi-segmented thing inside you against your inner walls. One of the protrusions drags against your g-spot at the same time he hits a perfect rhythm on your clit, making you clench so hard he curses. You're so full and you can feel every bit of where he’s touching you, inside and out, and it’s finally all too much, too much, and you can't do anything but let it take you, white-hot oblivion searing across your vision. The strength of your orgasm pulls your hips off the ground as you clamp down around his alien cock in a warm, wet rush, soaking the Tognath and yourself and the cloak underneath you as your scream echoes off the canyon walls up into the freezing sky.

You don't think you black out but you're not sure what happens next either. By the time you're aware of yourself again, Benthic is still inside you but the sensation is different somehow, softer and more accommodating in a way that it wasn't before. He's also leaning over you in the posture you know means worried, touching your cheek gently with one ridged palm. "Are you all right?" You get the feeling this isn't the first time he's asked you and you were too far gone to notice. "Do you need a medic?"

Of course. Of course he doesn't know what he just did to you. "No," you manage to get out. "No medic. I'm fine." You're better than fine, you're one hundred percent awesome, and also maybe your bones have liquified and you'll never be able to stand again, not that you care. Something incredible is happening in your shoulders and back, kinks and knots you'd thought were permanent unlocking as your body makes room for a crazy new idea called relaxed. Even with damp thighs and the wet fabric of the cloak seeping cold into your tailbone, you feel better than you have in ages, like you've just gotten a massage and a good meal and a thousand credits all at once. Hot damn, maybe the xenophiles had the right idea after all.

"Then you might want to tell them that too," the Tognath says drily in your ear, and your head whips around to follow the sound of rapidly approaching boots on sand. Your comrades, coming to investigate the commotion. They're not around the corner of rock shielding you from view-- yet. "Soon," Tubes adds, and you realize that he can't shout: not with his modulator off; not in the thin air of this planet that's so perfect for you and toxic for him.

Modesty might be in short supply among your partisans but that doesn't mean you want an audience while parts of Tubes are still inside you either. "Sorry!" you yell in the general direction of camp. "That was me! I'm okay!" The last part comes out more strangled than you meant it to, because Benthic shifts again, settling back on his heels as he wraps his arms around your thighs to drag you with him. Your cunt gives a pleased, exhausted flutter at the feeling of you moving together, his - whatever it is - still buried inside you.

There's laughter from around the bend. You clearly did a piss-poor job of hiding what's going on, the panicked note in your voice enough to give you away even if the scream hadn't been. You can't bring yourself to care. "About time you two got some!" you hear someone shout back, but the footsteps are headed the other way now, back to their sentry vantage points, and at least some modicum of your privacy is still intact. The teasing will be relentless in the command room tomorrow, but less detailed than it might have been if your comrades had gotten an eyeful.

Benthic, on the other hand, is focused only on you. "Truly, are you all right?" he repeats, and while his voice might not carry far you can't mistake the concern in it.

"Better than all right," you say. You can't help grinning stupidly up at him. You're back to Tognath because you want to make sure he understands you. It's suddenly very important that he knows how wonderful he made you feel. "That was... you weren't lying. You are good at it."

There's a hint of a preen in the way he straightens up, but his tone is all business when he says, "I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. If I can ask... this?" And he raises two fingers now shiny with the slick that gushed out of you.

"Oh," you say, but you're not embarrassed. You should tell him, he's more than earned it. "At the end... you know, coming again?" You're fairly certain you pronounced that right. "That only happens when I'm really enjoying it. When someone is very skillful and very--" You don't know the word for compatible. "Paired? The best pair for sex. It means you made me feel very, very good."

He drops his hand and taps the same fingers lightly on your stomach, considering. Then: "Better than anyone else?"

You have to laugh, because it's such a Tubes question. Always ambitious, always considering how to hone his skills, the same in bed as on the battlefield, which you would have known if you'd ever thought about it before tonight. Sometimes the best things are surprises. "Yes," you answer, still smiling. "Better than anyone else."

"Good," he says again, with a tinge of satisfaction this time.

You're curious too. "I have a question of my own. If it's not rude. This?" And you tilt your pelvis just a bit, nudging where he fits snugly inside you, making it obvious what you mean.

A scant second of silence, then his shoulders begin to shake. He's laughing too, although you can't hear it. "The same," he says, and flicks one of your nipples experimentally to watch you twitch, still obviously fascinated by the sensitivity of mammalian breasts. "A good pairing indeed. Very good. I should be able to let you go soon. If you wish."

There's a moment of hesitation before his last sentence, a breath of a pause that you know you're not imagining. An invitation, politely unstated. The implication: what happens next is entirely up to you. It only takes you a second to decide. This is Tubes after all, he knows you thoroughly, every quirk and joke and fear, why shouldn't he get to know your body too, as much as he wants - as much as you want?

"No," you say thoughtfully, reaching for his strange, warm hands and placing them firmly on either side of your hips. "I don't think I do wish. I think I want you to stay."

It won't last, you know it won't. It can't. Either of you could die tomorrow, leaving the other to struggle on alone. There's a war out there in the dark, past your little cocoon of cloak and coat and the heat radiating from Benthic where he's still pressed against you. A galaxy full of hurt, of pain and injustice and the unceasing, unthinking violence of Empire against human and alien alike. But for just a moment it's possible to imagine something else, a world composed of nothing but this: you and your best friend, a human and a Tognath, tangled together in a pool of warmth and laughter with the sound of your trust echoing over the sand.

***

masterlist

[piermanwalter]

WHICH ONE ARE YOU IN YOUR FRIENDS GROUP BOYS?!

SAUSAGE PARTY

SNORP

STANCED OUT

SCRAMBUS!

C̜̺͓̺͙̼̖ͦ̇̚͘͢͡A̱̝̿͂̋̅̈́͊ͧ̋͡ͅW̺̯̮̝̖̉̋ͅͅK̸͖̰̘͉̝̒̈́͂̕T̸͇̹ͧ̄ͣ͊̄̏̚Ǫ͔̮ͤ̃̇̒ͨ̑̚Pͨ͆̌͗͒͊ͪ҉̼͡Ō͙͓͋͑̓ͩͭͦ̉Ŏ̵̤̹͕̌͘S̷͖͙͉̦̔̌ͮ̊ͪ̚͝H̳̮͔͎̮̗̩̖ͭ͊͌ͫ́͂͆̀̌

(based off this post)

[senpezeco]

Benthic "Two Tubes" in Star Wars #62 (March 2019) art by Andrea Broccardo, colors by Guru-eFX

[tuskenraider]

maybe???? shrugs