Ben turned his head to the side slightly after having put himself to bed and heard Delaney coming to, looking over at her. She was huddled in her sleeping bag; rather than laying flat, she had adopted almost a fetal position, pulling her legs up toward her body and hugging them with her arms. The top of the bag came all the way up to her chin, and the tips of her ears were tucked underneath the fabric of it. There was a small, sleepy frown on her face, causing her features to wrinkle ever so slightly. The fire crackling quietly was the only sound heard as Ben waited to be addressed, and Delaney continued to wake up so that she would be able to speak, the two staring at one another silently until that point.

"It's really cold," Delaney said after a few seconds, rubbing her legs with her hands slowly in the hope that she would be capable of generating a little bit of friction. She was right, of course; the range of temperatures between the day and the night seemed to be drastically wide, with the noon sun cooking them and the midnight moon freezing them. Ben hadn't noticed until this point, as he had either been in front of the fire or distracted from his perception of the cold by confusing Dark-type Pokemon.

The human took pity on the bunny, and so after a moment of consideration he gestured toward the sleeping back he was laying on, rather than in, and told her "you can use my sleeping bag, if you'd like." He was certain that should she use both of their bags, while he would suffer hypothermia and be frozen solid by the morning, she would be able to sleep comfortably. Granted, there was a certain gender normality influencing his offer, a begrudging sort of dutiful thought pricking at his side, but he also genuinely wanted to help his friend because, well, he liked her.

Delaney, who was starting to wake up a little more, shrugging off her grogginess a little better and having somewhat usual cognitive function, raised her eyebrows at him. "Really? You'd do that for me? I would have thought it would make you uncomfortable." Ben shrugged. Sure, it would make him uncomfortable, but, again, her comfort he had decided, was more important to him. A monosyllabic expression of confirmation from him.

Following this, the bunny-girl smile and thanked him quietly, running her hands through over her ears and then through her hair before crawling out of her sleeping bag. The piercing night air hit her for a moment, and so she grabbed her bag, moving over toward the figure of Ben, who was still laying on his back on his own sleeping bag, now sporting a frown of confusion. When he saw what she was doing, however, the confusion started to dissipate.

The Lopunny anthro quickly huddled up against his prone form, laying her body alongside his, resting her head on the right side of his chest, ears strewn haphazardly in opposite directions. She reached across him with her right hand, resting it on his left side, her right leg moving up and over the top of his right leg, resting her knee on the inside of her thigh, cuddling closely up against him. Obviously, his invitation to use his sleeping bag had been taken as an invitation to join him. She looked up to him with a smile of gratitude. Even in the dim light, her eyes looked beautiful, sparkling with an internal illumination. He hadn't had this in mind, but he couldn't possibly turn her down when she was looking at him like that.

"Pull mine over us like a blanket," she whispered to him quietly, still staring up at him with that adorable look. He blinked, turning his attention to the sleeping bag in question, and reached last her with his left arm, grabbing it and doing as he was instructed. Once they were both sufficiently covered, he refocused his gaze on her, then faltered it slightly to the side at his right arm. His right hand was resting along the ground. He hesitated only for a second before bending his arm at the elbow, placing his hand on the area between her left side and back, pulling her closer to him and holding her loosely.

"Better?" He asked her, looking to her for a few seconds before turning his gaze up toward the top of their translucent tent. She was still looking up at his chiseled features, scanning his face before closing her eyes and snuggling her cheek into his bare chest, the thin, short fur on her face rubbing against his skin. "Much better," she contested somewhat dreamily, and Ben couldn't help but think that it wasn't just the warmth to which she was referring. The temperature, however, was certainly higher for the both of them with this new arrangement. Their bodies have off heat like radiators, fueling one another before feeding back to the first and keeping them both toasty, the covering blanket locking it all in place. Ben could smell Delaney's hair, which was very aromatic considering how long it had been since their conjoined shower- she still smelled strongly of the shampoo they had used.

An hour passed, and Ben could do nothing but stare up through the somewhat solid barrier created by their tent and up at the cloudy night above. Usually, he would have lost himself in his thoughts, but because he was so tired, and yet he couldn't sleep, the time just seemed to get away from him without him a happy having any coherent thoughts. He was just in a perfectly relaxed state, his mind and body content with just shutting down. He occupied himself with listening to the rhythmic pattern of his partner's breathing, the feeling of her chest inflating as she breathed in, pushing lightly into his side. A small smile crept onto his lips.

Some more time passed, and he closed his eyes, but still found that he couldn't quite drift off. Maybe there was just too much on his mind. He remained still until the sound of a soft, gentle voice got his attention: "Ben... Are you asleep?" There was a pause before he opened his eyes, turning his head down to see the anthro looking up at him again. "No," he admitted quietly to her, staring back into her eyes. "What's up?" He was curious to see what she considered to be worth potentially waking him up for.

"I'm still a little cold," she informed him, which made Ben's brow turn downward in a frown. She was giving off enough heat that he was on the verge of being uncomfortable because of it; how could she possibly still be cold? Was she not retaining any of the energy she was producing? "Really," he questioned in mild disbelief. Her fur moved up and down along his skin as she nodded. "We don't have anything else we could use to warm up with," he told her, scanning the inside of the tent while doing a mental inventory of what all they had brought with them. With the exception of putting on layers of clothes, there wasn't anything. And surely she had thought of that already.

"Well..." She began, turning her head to put her head parallel with his shoulders, thus looking away from him. Her right thumb made a slow back and forth motion over the muscle of Ben's left pectoral. "There is something else we could do." Ben continued to watch her, having noticed a slight shift in her manner. She seemed a lot more awake and thoughtful with each word that she was picking up, and he felt like he might be missing something. "Oh?" His question was obvious: what?

There was a pause where nothing changed, and she continued what she was doing, and then she started to move her right hand down and along his left side. The incredibly short hair on her hands and fingers made him increasingly perceptive of where her hand was on him, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up as she ran it gradually inward and to his stomach. Right above his waistband, she started rubbing his abs back and forth as she had his chest with her thumb. While she did this, she asked: "Have you ever heard the expression, 'hotter than screwing a Lopunny in a wool sock'?" Ben's Adam's apple bobbed in a swallow. "We have an expression somewhat similar to that where I come from," he told her.

Delaney smiled mischievously, scooting up Ben's body somewhat and raising her head off of him, placing her lips beside his ear. "Was it: 'Let's fuck like rabbits'?" she asked in a filthy tone, using a term that she had heard one of the humans in her village say previously. Ben blushed as Delaney's tongue suddenly began to push his ear lobe around, closing his eyes as her teeth closed around it. Her right hand disappeared down beneath the waistband of his boxers and sleeping shorts, moving down over his left thigh with splayed fingers, and then gave a brief squeeze.

Ben was right:

It was going to be a long night.

It's probably short, but I like to get a little bit of hype going before I release something dirty. Make sure you keep your eye out for chapter updates!

Arthenius