My fellow Arthenians:
Sorry about the long stretch of inactivity. Legal stuff and school stuff and baseball stuff has been getting in the way, and I haven't had much time to myself. I know I promised the next upload I had would be the last GGP chapter, but that's going to be 99% smut and, considering I can only write on the school computers, I don't think that's something that I should be composing. So here's the next ZTS chapter. IDK how long it is, but uh. Here ya' go.
Ben was already both emotionally and physically drained, and he hadn't even been presented with the opportunity to think about breakfast yet, much less eat it. In fact, food was the last thing on his mind as he sat in a daze on the shower floor. He wondered how long he had been sitting there, nonmoving, and he wondered if he was going to wake up at some point in his own bed, or perhaps in a straitjacket in an asylum.
He took a deep breath. Not to prepare himself to do anything special, but rather just to break free from the rut he had established so that he might be able to move at some point. The disruption in his breathing rhythm assisted in slowly bringing him back to reality, slowly freeing him from the hypnotic spell of not only the feeling but the sound of the warm water washing over him and bouncing off of the shower floor.
Our protagonist took in his surroundings objectively, in the sense that he was becoming slowly aware of what the hell was actually going on. He hadn't the energy for… What does one even call what had just happened to him? His first thoughts pointed to the word rape, but every fiber of his body denied not just the label but the application of it in his specific situation. What, then? Misunderstanding was the next word to come to him, but as he reflected on the past however long it had been, he decided that, at least after a while, they had both fully understood what they were doing. He was unsure what he would tell his journal had happened.
He blinked a few times to refocus his eyes, which gave a painful retort as they had grown accustomed to staring blankly at the neutral-colored interior shower wall. His neck turned, rotating and bending to either side to crack itself, eliciting a sigh of pleasure and relief from the human. With that sigh, he felt as though he had finally returned to himself. He brought his hands in front of him, massaging his wrists thoughtfully; they didn't actually hurt, but the similarity to handcuffs the tie to his robe had posed created phantom aches there.
As he looked down at his hands, he noticed something all over his thighs and stomach. What the hell was... Oh. Yeah. Right. He wasn't sure if he should have been disgusted or amazed by the sheer amount, but one way or another it made him feel dirty in more ways than one.
Ben put his hands down on either side of his body, pressing his weight into them and gradually bringing himself to a stand. He directed his attention afterward to the body wash that immediately brought up memories and emotions that he didn't have the mental capacity to process at the moment, putting enough in his hand that he could potentially clean himself with, getting to work removing the proof that he hadn't just dreamed, nightmared, or fantasized the entire ordeal.
Once he had sufficiently cleaned himself, he stepped out of the shower and turned off the water, grabbing for a towel and beginning to dry himself off (head to toe, as is customary). He looked to the door. At some point, he was going to have to walk through that and face Delaney again, at which point he would also be forced to discuss what had occurred and how they were going to move past it, hell, if they were going to move past it. The white towel wrapped around his leg as his weighed the pros and cons of having a nymphomaniacal bunny girl for a travelling companion.
He held the towel out in front of him a little, looking down at it in an examinatory fashion. Should he even bother with decency at this point? Did he have any left that would warrant him wasting the effort of covering himself? His thumb traced across the cheap white cloth of the towel, his brows furrowing in thought. He decided to wrap the towel around himself like a normal human being. Not about to let one...incident change the way he lived his life. In fact, he got an idea of his own about how to repay her for her...generosity. Well. He had more than one idea, but solely one that he had the courage to act upon.
The sound of the bathroom door opening and the concomitant entrance of Ben caused for Delaney to look up and meet his gaze as he walked into the room. One of her tall ears, upon his arrival, drooped down over her face and covered part of her right eye like a rebellious group of stray hairs falling from one's bangs. She was propped up on the bed, the middle of her back and up supported by two pillows stacked on top of one another. Her right hand was behind her head with her elbow bowed out to the side, and her left hand was hovering slightly above the bed and clutching the remote control for the television loosely. "I was starting to think that you had gotten sucked down the drain," she mused to him casually. The comforter was folded neatly at the foot of the bed, but the sheets were drawn over the furry girl's body up to her armpits. The TV was quietly droning commentary on some big fight.
A shrug came from the male, and he went in pursuit of his robe as he gave his response: "I haven't had a shower in far too long. It felt good." He grabbed the neck of the brown fabric with his hand that wasn't holding his towel onto his body (perhaps a little too securely), and he paused when his fingers closed around it, his thoughts going to the ropelike stretch of fabric that held the garment closed when he wore it. What had happened to it when she had finished using it as makeshift handcuffs...?
"I told you it would feel good if you stopped being such a baby about it." The teasing tone brought him back from his speculation, his gaze coming to fall on hers again. He licked his lips a little, which had spontaneously begun to feel unrealistically dry. He sat on the end of the bed with his back to her slightly, angled so she was directly to his left. "Yeah. We need to talk about that," he started quietly, his eyes finding a section of the carpet floor and staying there.
"No, we don't," was the reply he got before he could even manage to continue speaking. A frown was drawn across Ben's features as his head turned to Delaney. "Stop trying to overanalyze. What's happened has happened, and there isn't anything you can do about it. Focus on the future." He continued to stare at her with his confused and somewhat irritated expression. She met this stare with a blank one of her own.
"We can't just pretend that never happened, Delaney. How can we ever look at each other the same-"
"Do you think that I'm ever going to look at the world the same way again?" Ben was caught unawares when the Lopunny cut him off. He lost his train of thought, and before he could go looking for it she continued and he listened. "My entire village was just run off by Arceus knows what, Ben. I might never see anyone I know ever again, and now I've been pulled against my will into this religious pilgrimage you're on. I'm more than happy to help you, but in doing so I've given up everything that I ever knew. Sometimes it's better to move forward even without knowing what's behind you. Don't make such a big deal out of something so small. Maybe think about someone else for a change."
Ben resisted the urge to jump out of a window. He had had enough schooling to know that she'd just thrown him a red herring because she didn't want to talk about what he wanted to talk about. The only problem was, if he ignored what she had just said and continued, he would be a textbook example of a douche. "So let's move toward the future," she concluded. Ben leaned his head forward and looked at the bed with a sigh, giving her a "fine".
"So what are we going to do today, O' great redeemer?" What were they going to do today? Oh, right. That was one thing he actually was ready for. "Today we're going to try to look a little less like societal pariahs," Ben informed the rabbit girl as he stood up and off of the bed. He went to drop his towel, then stopped and turned around to face away from her. Casting a glance over his shoulder at her faux-boredly raised eyebrows before taking off and tossing aside his towel. He was overly aware of her lingering eyes as he pulled on his robe, looking again for the tie. He turned around to find one of her fingers pointing at a towel rack on the front of the bathroom door, from which it hung, mostly dried. He gave an appreciative nod and tied it around himself.
Delaney obviously needed a little more clarification. "What does that entail, exactly?" Her right hand moved up from the back of her head and along the length of her ear. Ben turned around with an uncharacteristic grin. "It means we need to go shopping."