Touch Me, That You Might Understand
A trainer gives his Absol a post-gym match massage. It goes places.
"-And that final Night Slash, Emily! Magnificent! Just like we've practiced!"
The door to the tiny hostel room squeaked open as Max Urban, recent recipient of his third gym badge, burst through it. His small frame barely contained his excitement as he gestured animatedly at the Pokemon following him, a snow-white Absol. She was limping, covered in a patchwork of partially-healed injuries that the Pokecenter's trauma healing machine had fallen short of completely fixing, but her eyes stayed fixed on her trainer as he led her into their room for the night.
"Mrow!" She said, tossing her head, and Max laughed.
"Yes, yes, of course I'm proud of you. We've both come so far." He sobered, yawning. "I wish Sam, Nalani, and Hera could be here, but I know they're safe at the Center until tomorrow. Guess it's just the two of us."
She purred at him, smugly, flicking ber tail towards the bed in the center of the room.
"No, of course I don't mind," he said with a frown. "But I'm trying to remember what I owe you."
Wincing slightly, Emily crawled up onto the bed and sprawled onto her stomach, wiggling back and forth slightly as she growled at him. He slapped his head. "Wow. Am dumb. Yes, I'll give you a rub down. You've certainly earned it."
Max shed his shoes and climbed onto the bed to straddle his partner and Ace pokemon, who did her best impression of melted icecream as his thumbs met in the center of her neck. Max was a short and slender man, yet his frame had the wiry strength of someone focused on his Journey. He applied all that strength to the task of helping his best friend and partner. "Mmm... someone's tense," he said, as he began to apply deep pressure. "I'll make that go away."
The rumble of her purr accompanied his hands as he found, and reduced, knot after knot in her muscles. The familiar sight stirred his memories, and he couldn't help but smile. "Remember when you were just a kit and had Situational Horn Derangement and couldn't sleep? I had to massage the tension outta you every night until you could relax."
She rolled over, growling at him as her tail slapped the bed and she put a paw over her eyes. As he laughed, she leaned up and bit his face gently before flopping back, covering her eyes with the paw again. "I know, I know," he groaned. "Don't remind you, got it. Even though you loved it then as you do now. Roll back, please."
She trilled at him, almost smugly, and wiggled back to lie on her belly. He rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, I know, I should worship you every night just like I used to, got it. Here was me thinking that with adulthood came fewer responsibilities, not more." Her back had relatively few knots, but his hands lingered on her barrel as he rubbed gently. Not for the first time, Max savored the feeling of her thick pelt under her fingers-- warm and fluffy. "Going to be the world's best heated blanket for when we have to brave the winter passes?" He teased. She miaowed, short and sharp, pressing the fur against his hands, and he smiled. "Yeah, I'll get a sleeping bag big enough for the both of us, if that's OK."
She cocked her head back at him and he presented both hands, letting her rub her cheeks against his palms. The powerful jaw muscle and the thick layers that gave her Night Slash its fearsome speed and power rolled against his hands as he massaged, feeling the slight tremor of air through her windpipe as she breathed. The bounding pulse under his fingers beat a confident rhythm, filled with life, and he leaned forward to give her an impromptu embrace, making her purr.
Regretfully, he tore himself away from the hug, and leaned backwards to work towards her haunches. Having seen her up against the Gym Leader's Lucario, he knew that the worst was yet to come as his hands worked steadily backwards.
"Sss!"
The low hiss made him jerk his hand away from her right leg, and she mewed apologetically. "That one really hurts, huh," he said, soothingly, getting up from the bed and rummaging through his Silph bag. A glove and a blue stone appeared after a moment of searching, and he pulled the glove onto his right hand as he returned to the bed to take her leg in his left. "Bear with me here, sweetheart."
The Absol sighed into his hands as the cool energy of the stone filtered into her muscles. He substituted the stone for his fingers, working it into inflamed muscle and strained ligament. Ice Type Energy settled into the limb, soothing her pain like the world's best icepack. Occasionally he set the stone aside to knead with his fingers, coaxing at her gently and applying pressure only slowly as he watched her carefully for signs of pain. He knew that she felt better when he lifted the leg up off the bed, running his hand over it, and she only half-lidded her eyes in relief with a quiet sigh. Smiling, he switched legs, feeling gently at her left.
"This one not too bad?" She miaowed, and he nodded. "I know, that last Aura Sphere really did a number on your right leg." She growled. "And your butt?" She nodded. "OK, I'll get there in a minute."
The left leg harbored few challenges; Max sighed as he finished with it, reaching for her haunches. "Girl, I know that you love exercising," he said, pantomiming an excessive wince as his hands settled on her rear, "But you've got so much muscle back here it's hard for human hands to get through it."
She trilled smugly. He scowled ferociously. "Oh, so that's it, huh? I have to work harder because you're literally a hardass?"
She tossed her head before laying it down on the bed and sighing contentedly as he rubbed. Minutes passed as Max lost himself in the circular motions, reaching deeply to relieve the stress in those layers of thick muscle. As much as he'd been teasing Emily, he also wasn't completely unserious. She had developed a great deal of muscle to power her immense speed. It was dense, seemingly mocking his attempts at massaging it, but the lingering type energy that permeated his body over the years gave him the strength to push through. Judging from the rising purr, Emily approved.
He muttered the muscle names under his breath as he worked, a habit from the time a younger Max had forced himself through the Illustrated Absol. He'd been bound and determined to know his new friend "inside and out." That had taken the form of obsessive studying until he could quote entire passages from memory and draw out Emily's entire anatomy blindfolded. Down the gluteus. Under the sartorius that crossed towards the inner thigh. Massage the iliopsoas that hooked underneath her leg, then back up to the glute on the other side. Over and over and over again. Ever so slowly, ever so slightly, Emily's noises became more sighs of relief instead of grunts of pain as the muscle responded to him and softened under his hands.
The first thing he noticed was the smell. Sour. Tangy. Strange. Her sighs changed in timbre, becoming soft, almost gasping. But it was the tail that flickered to the side that made him blink as he cycled his hands over her rear. His fingers brushed her inner thigh and the tail flagged sharply to the left even as her rear curled upwards and something underneath became visible, something he'd seen a thousand times. She just wasn't usually swollen, or dripping, or fanned out like she was now.
"Emily...?"
Max didn't realize he'd said her name until his ears registered his own gasp and her head whipped up. He had a split second to recognize that particular dark sheen on her horn as the same shade that appeared when she foretold things to come before she shot out from underneath his legs like she'd used Extremespeed. A backpaw shoved him and he stumbled backwards off the bed as she crouched against the headboard. Her eyes glittering with power as a full-power Night Slash took shape around her horn and her battle-growl rattled the windows.
He gaped, stunned, for a long moment. "E-Emily? It's, it's OK, we can talk."
Her growl only intensified as her tail whipped back and forth, and Max raised both hands. "If you need space that's fine, but I promise, Em, promise, it's ok-"
She moved. One moment she was growling on the bed. The next, the door to the tiny en-suite bathroom slammed shut in her wake. The sound of the bolt slamming home in the door echoed in the silence she left behind.
Stunned, Max could only stare at the bathroom for a long moment before he shook himself and slowly walked to the door. "I'm here," he said quietly, into the silence. "When you're ready to talk, I'll be here."
The room grew dark as he sat next to the door, waiting patiently for her to calm. The muffled sounds of pacing Absol echoed for a while, until a thump and the rattle of the door indicated she'd sat down on her side of the entry. A purple claw popped underneath the door and he reached out to take it between thumb and forefinger. "Got you," he whispered.
The claw flexed against his fingers, as if to grasp him in return, and a shaky meow answered his voice.
"Wanna come out and talk?"
Silence.
"It's OK. I can sleep here." He yawned, leaning against the wall. "Am an expert trainer, I c'n sleep anywherrr-"
Max stirred, sleepily, as something fluffy brushed his face, and opened his eyes. He could see the red-glowing letters of the clock-radio on the nightstand blinking "0346" from his new position, on his back in the bed. The indentations in his neck left little to the imagination as to what had happened. "Emily," he said to the Absol looming over him. "Did you put me to bed like a kitten?"
Her tail flickered in an Absol-shrug as she hovered over him uncertainly, and he sighed. "Come here," he told her, and she dropped to her belly next to him, staring at him. "Feel better?"
A headshake.
"You wanna tell me what that was about?"
Another headshake.
"I know what sexual presentation looks like, Emily," he said quietly, reaching up to stroke her head, finding the tiny ear hidden in her ruff and scratching behind it. "I know you can't help it when it's the season, but season isn't for months." He blew out a long, anxious sigh. "Was that- did you-" his hands described arcs in the air. "Did I, uhm, excite you?"
She miaowed pitifully, looking away for a moment, before she sat up and lit her horn. The inky black and yet glowing Dark Type Energy hung in the air as she made a series of slashes, leaving the shadows of letters momentarily behind.
"DRMG." He read, frowning. "Dreaming?" She nodded, hanging her head. "You were dreaming I would-" the nodding speeded up even as she avoided his eyes.
He let his head thump back to the bed even as he felt his heart speed up. "I don't," he paused, shaking his head. Sure, he'd fooled around in high school a little. Emphasis on a little. And just with girls. But the journeying life hadn't come with a lot of opportunities. "Emily," he said after a long moment. "Sorry, I'm just a little shaken." He chuckled and it came out like a groan. "Not every day that your best friend tells you that she thinks you're hot. How long has this been going on?"
"YRS." The letters hung there and he winced. "Years? So when the lady with the boy Absol offered you eggs and you were mad for a solid week that I was OK with that-"
She hissed like a teakettle. Paws seized his hand, pulling, yanking, until it settled on her chest. He felt the thrumming beat of her heart underneath his hand. She cupped the hand, then pushed it back gently towards him, her eyes wide and almost moist. Max winced as some of her Type Energy buffeted his meager senses, and the fear slammed into him like a fast-moving train.
He gasped, looking up at her. "I, you know that it's not illegal, but if you get the wrong Officer they can make our lives miserable, even separate us, right?"
She looked down and away, a low caterwaul building in her throat as she gestured frantically with a paw. Nonsense letters formed in the air as she struggled to express herself and Max watched her, his heart hammering in his chest. Then she froze as she met his eyes, and then once again she moved.
Absols don't have lips like human beings, but the way she ground her muzzle against his face ever so tenderly made the difference moot as she pursed what she did have and attacked his mouth. Paws that could rip solid stone in half cupped his head gently as she licked at his lips, rough Absol tongue against soft human. Her purr rose into a thunder for a long moment before she pulled away reluctantly, head hanging limply as she avoided his eyes again and the purr faded away.
"You love me." The words fell unbidden from his traitorous tongue, and she nodded. Barely. Her frame collapsed in on itself as she leaned against him, and he felt her tremor against his side.
"Why?"
She rose again, staring down at him. Her eyes danced impishly and she trailed a claw down to his waist to point below his belt, licking her lips in an exaggerated motion. The absurdity of the motion made his eyes bug out until, suddenly, as the tension snapped like a broken rubber band, he burst out laughing. She chuffed along, her forehead and eyes wrinkling in a "smile" as his laughter echoed. Finally, as the laughter died, her expression became serious. She tapped his chest, over his heart, and wrote letters in the air.
"BST."
"You think my heart is the best?"
She nodded.
He put his arms around her and tugged and she fell against him, limply, panting slightly. She jerked when he pressed his lips to her nose. "Emily, I," he paused for a long moment. "I'm surprised. I'm shocked. But," he kissed her nose again. "You've always been there for me. Best friend, confidante, fellow trouble maker. You know me better than I know myself."
She pulled back to stare at him, eyes wide.
"Not that I'm not a little worried about this, and about messing up, or having to deal with the law, or the parents, or-" he cut himself off with a jerk. "Come here, sweetheart."
She hurled herself on him, shoving her head into the crevice between neck and shoulder, rubbing her face against his and purring fit to burst. He laughed, stroking her head. "We need to go slow and I need to understand this better, but," he kissed that happy face, whose eyes shone with happy tears, as he felt his heart expand in his chest, "I'd be a fool to say no. I love you, too."