A Natural Remedy to Artificial Insomnia
If one were to, for whatever reason, spend some time observing the daily life of Dorothy Frank with the goal of cataloguing her activities into as few categories as possible, this person would most likely end up with a list consisting of merely three entries.
The first and most prominent would be, as anyone even just remotely familiar with her would guess, work. Most of Rhine Lab's researchers immersed themselves in their work in a way that could seem at times a little excessive, be it to chase after a promotion, to not disappoint a senior, to try and earn a rise or yes, even for simple passion. Even among them, however, Dorothy stood out, and not necessarily in a good way. Indeed, the zalak had an habit of working from the earliest hours of the morning to the latest hours of the night and then still some more. It wouldn't be at all unreasonable to think that she often got lost in her research rather than simply immersing herself in it. This side of her hadn't improved at all since the beginning of her cooperation with Rhodes Island, and in fact had actually gotten worse since she arrived on the landship: while Silence and a few others did try to keep an eye on her, Astgenne was no longer there to make sure Dorothy would look after herself at least a little bit. Not to mention that she had a lot less meetings to attend to at Rhodes Island than she did at Rhine Lab, which only made things worse. Or better, from her own point of view.
Talking about Rhodes Island, Dorothy's laboratory on the roaming vessel was surprisingly compact, though it only appeared small to those unaware of the fact that it was also technically her dorm room. That in itself wasn't even all that weird, in truth, Mayer also had her workshop in her own private quarter. As for the fact that Dorothy had a bed in her room and not a mere sleeping bag only due to Silence and Astgenne's insistence, well, that was quite far from normal, yes.
It is inside this one room that the recollection of a certain event starts.
Dorothy had been working for roughly four days, or perhaps six, who could tell. There were tall sheets of papers neatly ordered on her desk, samples of odd shapes and dubious nature well organized along the walls and over the furniture, several screens with all kind of different data and graphs showing, three different computers, a single wardrobe, a few tools both mechanical and not, some active, a few turned off. A small but nicely tended to plant stood out against everything else. A bed that didn't seem to have seen any recent use was half-hidden in a corner, behind a couple of curtains. The mini fridge was filled to the brim, but only a small part of its content was food or beverages. Then there was an experimental pod, placed inside what most laymen would probably see as a weird kind of hyperbaric chamber, though that was not at all an accurate description. Dorothy had spent nearly twenty hours observing the content of that pod, occasionally casting a few glances at the tablet in her hands and typing some observations on it, going back to one computer or the other to check on the readings every now and then, adjusting the internal environment if needed.
That activity of hers had only come to an halt due to what we could reasonably describe as force majeure.
The experiment was... stable, it would seem. Even a little too much, in truth. Dorothy was beginning to fear the internal structure of the watery constructs behind the double layer of glass had actually collapsed after they made contact with each other. The readings from the sensors were, for the most part, within expectations, but the few values out of line reinforced her suspects. And when the readings well and truly confirmed the failure of her latest experiment, the amalgamations within the pod beginning to seemingly melt into a motionless puddle, she slumped down on a chair. That wasn't even among her predicted outcomes, let alone the desired ones. Which meant she had to go over the entire theory again from the start, something for which she didn't quite have the mental capacity at the moment. No, she needed to relax a little bit.
As for what this led her to do -or at least attempt to do- for the following hour, that pertains to the second entry of the previously mentioned list.
Unlike what most people who had ever worked with her believed, Dorothy did take breaks from her research every now and then. It just so happened that her concept of "every now and then" was remarkably different from the common one, not to mention that, most of the time, these breaks of hers weren't even truly breaks.
Dorothy knew that her mind needed at least a bit of rest every once in a while but, when she didn't quite want to drive her thoughts too far away from her work, she focused on more purely personal projects instead. Things that still required small bits and pieces of her creativity and wealth of knowledge, but for which she had neither expectations nor higher goals, sometimes for which she didn't even quite have any real use cases in mind. It could be said that that was her way of playing around, in a certain sense, it did relax her a fair bit after all, and in truth that's how both the quicksand generator and the high-speed resonating troubleshooter had come to be, among other things. Granted, this tinkering of hers usually resulted in nothing functional being made, but that wasn't the aim to begin with after all. As for her current side project, that was something similar in principle but extremely different in purpose from the two aforementioned creations. A little thing for purely personal, private use, that was unlikely to ever leave her closet even if it did end up working in the end. Partially because it was rather... embarassing, to hand-craft such a tool. But Dorothy was still an human, and as such she occasionally felt a certain kind of need arise. Fingers could work just fine for that, yes, but as the saying goes, to each task its tools. Or something like that. And assemblying said tools herself was cheaper than buying them. ... probably? She had never actually looked into that. Anyway, she'd very much rather keep that one side project a secret. With all of that said, her relaxing efforts had produced little to no results that evening -... night? What time was it again?-, and for a very simple reason.
Agrypnotics.
If one were to, for whatever reason, spend some time observing the daily life of Dorothy Frank with the goal of cataloguing her eating habits and included the consumption of medications into their observations, this person would find that the three things she most often ingested were water, plain rice and agrypnotics.
This person should also probably start asking themselves where their fixation with compiling lists about Dorothy's habits could've possibly come from, but that's an entirely different and ultimately unrelated matter.
Back to the main topic, Dorothy had an habit of consuming an excessive amount of agrypnotics. A slightly customized, somewhat special drug which could fend off sleep very well, too well even, which she had managed to synthesize on her own despite not really pertaining to her field of expertize, even if only to get around the medical staff's refusal to handle her any more of those kind of medications. It's thanks to them that Dorothy could manage to work for up to ninety six if not an hundred and twenty hours without catching a break, barring of course the brief but necessary pauses to eat, drink and use the bathroom. And since she conducted her research on her own at Rhodes Island, nobody was there to warn her when she lost track of time and took those pills for one too many consecutive days.
Let's leave aside that her regular consumption of them was in itself a problem.
Now, Dorothy wasn't so reckless as to poison herself just to get a few more hours of work done, but that was still a medication she took, and as such it could have unintended effects on the body when abused. One of such side effects was the reason why she was now slumped on a chair with her head in her hands, looking absentmindedly at a metallic contraption lying on the table in front of her, that embarassing side project of hers that should've taken her mind away from her work but not overly so.
She couldn't think properly.
That wasn't her first time experiencing those symptoms, so she could recognize them right away. A faint, almost distant sense of fatigue that was far too weak to induce sleepiness. Mild, intermittent sudoration. Slightly dulled senses. And, most important of all, an ever increasing difficulty in keeping her thoughts in check. It wasn't that she couldn't concentrate, in a certain sense, but rather that she couldn't quite choose what to focus on. She would think about something intensely, only for her mind to notice an entirely meaningless detail, or remember something completely unrelated to what she was doing, and suddenly her thoughts were all focused on that other thing, until something else caught her attention again. She couldn't get any work done in that state, not even on the little, harmless toy-in-the-making in front of her.
Worst of all, she couldn't even sleep in that state. The following five hours, which she spent trying to catch some sleep in vain, proved that. She knew that to be an exercise in futility from the very beginning, but in that state she just couldn't quite think of anything to do. Even something as simple as reading a book would be exceptionally bothersome: her mind would keep wandering every other line, and it'd take her nearly an hour just to finish a couple of pages. She knew that from prior experiences.
She looked at the clock, only then realizing what time it was. Then she looked at the electronic calendar on one of her computers, and only then realized what day it even was.
"I might've overdone it a bit" she said to herself with a little chuckle, perhaps to make fun of herself a bit.
She had gone two whole days over her self-imposed limit of maximum time without sleep, which was already a rather unhealthy threshold to begin with. There was a terrible nausea awaiting her the following day from overdosing on those pills, one bad enough to keep her stuck in her bed for at least an entire afternoon in the best case scenario. All things considered, stunts like that took time away from her work rather than adding to it, and yet she still kept making mistakes like that.
But oh well. No point crying over it now. Her eyes fell back on the contraption on her desk, her mind wandering to all kind of places in response to the sight, some more embarassing than others, most of them being for adults only. At some point she even considered dedicating some time to herself in a more intimate way, admittedly, in the bathroom to make the clean up easier. But then she noticed a slightly unscrewed screw in the small machine in front of her, and her mind made a dive as sudden as it was deep into the correct procedures to follow to assemble and disassemble little devices incorporating miniature Arts repeaters to allow for remote control by a Caster, even if only from a distance of one and a half meters at most.
Sighing, she decided to put it back away into a drawer. Not like she would make any progress on it at the moment anyway, and it still couldn't be used either in its current state. All she would achieve by leaving it out in the open would be distracting herself. She headed to take a long, warm shower, the running water making her feel ever so slightly drowsy, perhaps enough to at least try to get some sleep in again? No, she had already wasted enough time doing that. But she still couldn't quite get back to her work either in that condition. As she got out of the shower and began to dry herself up, however, she noticed a little piece of paper sticking out from a pocket of her clothes, which she had quite unceremoniously thrown on a stool. Taking care to not wet it with the water still dripping from her air, she took it out and unfolded it to take a look at its content.
A movie ticket.
Right, it'd happened a little over a week ago. An outgoing, white-haired lung had caught Dorothy on her way out of Rhodes' screening rooms, she'd been going around looking for all the members of the movie club apparently. That woman boasted about having managed to talk the Doctor -or was it Amiya?- into approving the creation of a proper movie theatre within the landship, and went around giving tickets to the inaugural screening. Dorothy red the ticket once again, her memories told her something was a little off about it and she wanted to at least confirm or refute them. And as it turned out, that ticket was really supposedly valid for a timeframe of thirty two entire hours, during which she was guaranteed a seat, D13 to be more accurate. The starting and ending times of each screening were even written down on it.
How odd. She'd never seen a movie ticket like that before, which was enough to rouse her curiosity at least. Sure, she could imagine a movie theatre inside a landship operating a bit differently from those one could find in a nomadic city, but still. She checked the hour and the date and found out that another screening would start in forthy minutes or so, the last one actually. Now, that woman hadn't quite said what the movie was about, she just assured Dorothy it'd be a masterpiece, and for some reason she hadn't actually managed to convince the zalak all that well. Not to mention that she doubted she could actually focus on a movie either at the moment. But she didn't have much else to do anyway, besides she was a bit curious about the movie theatre itself. Rhodes Island had quite a few screening rooms one could use to watch videos, but they were all rather small. Dorothy didn't mind that at all but, at the same time, it'd been quite a long while since she had last gone to a cinema. A part of her would also feel bad for wasting the ticket entirely.
The vague drowsiness from the shower dissipating already, Dorothy reminded herself to put on some clothes. The content of her wardrobe was pretty monotonous, consisting mostly of several spares of the same outfit which she had bought all at once quite a long time ago because she liked the outfit and didn't want to spend time hunting for something nice to wear daily. Actively trying to not get lost in reflections and considerations about what little she knew of sewing and fashion design, she got dressed, walked to the door and then turned right back around to take another long, deep look at the pod. And then she checked all the monitors as well, then went through a few files on one of the computers. Nothing seemed to have changed since she had last checked the parameters. The experiment was, by all practical means, already over after all. And still she made sure to have her receiver on her, checked if it was functional -it would alert her in case of an emergency of any kind, with the definition of "emergency" used here being a rather broad one- and then walked out of her room, or rather her laboratory plus bed and bathroom.
It was late, but not that late. Evening shifts were already over, night shifts had already started, dinner had already gone by, but most people had yet to go to sleep. In fact, that was probably when the landship's bars were the most crowded.
The screening rooms, and by extension the recently built theatre, weren't all that far from Dorothy's quarter, but she kept wandering off into her own minds upon spotting any little insignificant detail, her thoughts growin shallower and less cohesive with every passing minute. That made her take the wrong turn more than just once or twice, but she still managed to arrive at her destination in time.
Spotting the entrance to the theatre didn't require any effort. For starter, there was a large sign hanged right above the double door. And there was also a sort of makeshift mini bar placed in the middle of the hallway a short distance from it. Nobody was around to man it though. Then again, maybe the one in charge was inside watching the movie themselves, there seemed to be only a single hall after all. And food wasn't allowed inside the ordinary screening rooms either way, though some did still take a few snacks with them regardless of the rules. On closer inspection, the stall was actually closed with a couple of padlocks here and there. Had Dorothy known about anything Ceobe or Lunacub, that precaution would've gone from reasonable to mandatory in her eyes. Had she actually known about those two, she'd also have realized precautions like that were meaningless.
Pondering the possibility of grabbing something to eat or drink during the movie when the stall opened again, she made her way to the small screen installed in the wall next to the closed door. The current projection was about to end, just a matter of minutes, and the next one would begin soon after, which made the complete lack of people waiting around to enter... a bit worrysome, in truth. The film about to end and the one about to start were the same, and thinking about it the ticket only had a single title on it. Title Dorothy couldn't quite decipher, was that a comedy? An action move? Either way, she doubted that to be anything remotely close to what she usually watched, but given the situation she didn't feel like complaining. So she simply stood around and waited, turning around when the double door opened soon after.
Her ears wiggled once. A twitch shook her tail. A lump of saliva suddenly made its way down her throat.
"Ah, good evening to you, oh fair lady" a tall man greeted her as he made his way out from the theatre "Are you here to spend the night away with a movie? To grab something to eat from a place not as crowded as the cafeteria? Or perhaps you were merely passing by?" he asked, bowing down and taking Dorothy's gloved hand in his own, laying a soft, brief kiss on it.
She blinked a couple of times, her eyes wandering all over, her thoughts going everywhere and nowhere at the same time, something in her mind having briefly stopped working.
Dorothy herself was taller than average, but it'd take the entire length of her ears standing straight up for her to match that man's height. He was donning black trousers and shoes, together with a long, black jacket that reached all the way to his knees. Said jacket was unbuttoned, and beneath it was a dark pink shirt that hugged his chest rather... tightly. Dorothy's gaze didn't quite have a single point of interest, but it did wander several times over that shirt, the upper half of which had only a single button -not even closed up- which left a good portion of his pectorals in plain sight. He wasn't terribly muscular, but definitively well toned, with the necklace hanging right between said pectorals making them stand out even more. The standard issue Rhodes Island infection monitor was placed around his neck as if it was a choker, a perhaps somewhat odd choice, but that looked oddly... good on him.
"Is something the matter, dear?" he asked, taking half a step back "Oh but of course, where are my manners. Operator Midnight" he introduced himself with a smile, running an hand through his long, black hair, briefly moving the bangs that covered his right eye out of the way "At your service"
"... ah" Dorothy finally made a sound, slowly realizing just what exactly had gone through her mind for the past fifty seconds or so "Dorothy Franks" she answered, her hand fidgeting in the air a short while before she decided to offer it for a shake "Nice to meet you"
"A lovely name for a lovely lady" he said back, making her tail waver again "Shall I call you miss Franks then?"
He shook her hand with firmness but delicacy, and her wandering eyes noticed that he was wearing only a single glove on his right hand. Like her, actually. What a coincidence.
... right, she wasn't in her laboratory at the moment. She could've done without putting that glove back on in the first place. Habit truly was a force to be reckoned with.
"Just Dorothy is fine. Is anyone else inside?" she asked, forcing her attention onto something else.
"Not a soul, in truth" he answered, shrugging his shoulders.
Somehow, Midnight managed to make even that simple gesture look flamboyant. Dorothy made an effort to keep her ears still, for one reason or another.
"It's just my lonesome self" he continued as he walked behind the counter, taking a key from his pocket and unlocking a couple of compartments "I'm here to take care of the stall and check the tickets, but I doubt anyone will show up at this point"
As for why exactly he of all people was doing that, the reason was fairly simple: a lost bet. But he figured Dorothy had no need to know that detail.
"I'm here just for that, actually" she answered, taking out her ticket and handing it to him.
"Marvelous!"
With a smile neither too wide nor too subtle, Midnight grabbed her ticket somewhat melodramatically -or so she thought, at least- and looked at it from up close, bending his neck just the little bit he needed to give her a good angle of his own face. Dorothy, on her part, found herself too busy taking advantage of that to actually realize he had done that on purpose.
"There are still a few minutes before the next screening start. Is there anything you want? There is quite the variety here. A bit of coffee, perhaps? Or is tea more to your liking?" he added, because the dark circles under Dorothy's eyes were impossible to miss.
"A cup of coffee would be nice, yes"
Midnight then raised an hand and framed her face from afar, staring at her face as if to study her. Dorothy tilted her head to the side a little bit, confused, the way her thoughts kept wandering doing very little to help her figure out what he was doing.
Though, oddly enough, they weren't wandering quite as far as she'd have expected them to.
"Columbian coffee, I bet"
"Oh, that's right" she replied "How did you know?"
"I didn't" he said back as he swiftly prepared her drink, placing it down on the counter together with something else for himself "Call it an intuition"
"Is that so?"
Dorothy grabbed her cup and waited a little while for the coffee to cool down, just enough for it to not burn her tongue. Then it dawned on her that she hadn't even asked about the price.
"How much is it?"
"Fourteen lmds, but seeing how this is the last drink of the evening, it's on the house" he replied, lifting his glas for a toast.
Dorothy raised an eyebrow. Fourteen lmds for a coffee was a lot. Like, really a lot. One could buy four, perhaps even five coffess with that in most places. She didn't quite want to accept the offer, but her finances were perpetually low, and not due to a lack of income. That, and the way that man looked wa-hold on. Hold on, what was she just about to think? The question left an ever so faint trace of redness on her cheeks.
"That's very kind of you" she agreed, softly bumping her cup against his glass.
"Meetings should be celebrated, shouldn't they? Especially those with someone as fine looking as yourself" he replied before drinking.
Dorothy found her gaze wandering back and forth between the man's partially exposed chest and his neck, something about it really catching her attention, her mind going on a journey through all she could recall about men's clothing -not much, admittedly- for some reason. To bring her thoughts back under control, she lifted her own cup and drank, the sour beverage pouring down her throat in long, warm gulps. Which in turn brought her gaze on Midnight's lips, her eyes catching every gulp, every motion, a faint tingle running down her tail every time the man took a sip from his glass. Then her eyes moved to the single drop of water -was that even water?- which had escaped his lips, following its path down along his lovely chin, his alluring neck, then further down on his pectorals and then even further still, towards -no, no no no, calm down.
"How about a snack then, Dorothy?" he asked, making her realize that she had no idea when exactly he had put his glass down, nor when she had emptied her own cup either.
"I'm fine on that front, thanks" she answered, her stomach truly still full of, well, plain rice from her last meal.
Perhaps even a little too much rice, honestly. Thinking about it, had that been a dinner or a lunch? Well, it didn't really matter either way. Probably.
"A wise choice. Eating at this hour of the night can be harsh on one's figure. Oh, but you clearly need no advice on that, don't worry. Now, feel free to go ahead. I will close up here and join you shortly" he said, gesturing to the double door in a way that was remarkably elegant and vaguely theatrical too. But something about the way his black hair flowed as he did that just caught Dorothy's attention and refused to let go of it, those two dark pink locks of his in particular.
Shaking her head exactly once to bring her thoughts away from their nonsensical dive into hairdressing, Dorothy thanked Midnight again for the coffee and walked into the theatre.
It was a somewhat small room, at least for its given purpose. At a glance, the seats probably didn't reach a three digit number. Then again, space inside a landship was at a premium. The floor was sloped enough to avoid having people stare at the head of those in front of them rather than at the screen, with stairs on both sides of the room leading all the way down. There was a single way in and out, excluding an emergency exit, and the screen itself -a blank cloth hanged on the wall in a somewhat makeshift way- could've been a bit larger, perhaps. A large projector was placed near the entrance, but what really caught Dorothy's attention, at least after she had managed to bring her thoughts back from three entirely different tangents they'd gone off to, were the seats. Those were clearly repurposed Rhodes Island standard issue foldable chairs. The legs had been bolted to the floor, and armrests had been added on to them, not to mention a whole lot of padding, but the result was somewhat amateurish in appearance. Thinking about it, however, the logistic department definitively had more important things to take care of than chairs for a movie theatre. In that regard, it was perhaps a little surprising that they had even managed to get those fixed up a bit in the first place.
Besides, those chairs were actually rather comfortable as it turned out. The gap between the seat and the backrest was large enough to accomodate for even larger tails too, though maybe not enough for a certain archosauria aboard. She'd heard something about a young woman with a tail thicker than her entire body, but Dorothy had some doubts about that. Now, biology and such wasn't exactly her field of expertise, but such a disproportionate tail sounded like the result of some sort of genetical defect. Perhaps a rare kind of mutation caused by oripathy too, but the rumor she had heard said that wasn't the case. There was someone whose infection had actually caused an enlargement of the tail actually, though that was a rather different case probably. Thinking about tails, maybe -no, hold on, she wasn't there for that. Besides, she liked keeping her tail beside her legs when sitting down rather than behind herself anyway.
Shaking herself out of yet another tangent, she made sure she had picked the right seat. Though there wasn't anyone else there to complain even if she went and sat somewhere else anyway. She then heard the door opening and closing, the lights turning off soon after, the projector springing to life. A few moments later, Midnight was standing a few steps from her.
"May I take this seat, dear?" he asked as he pointed to the one right next to Dorothy, with that flamboyant yet elegant mannerism she had already started to pleasantly associate to him.
The last word caught her somewhat by surprise, but she managed to not show it. Probably.
"Of course, yes"
And so he sat down, slouching ever so slightly forward, one leg stretched out a bit, the other closed, an arm resting on his thigh, the other supporting his head, which was bent to the side a little bit as if to let Dorothy take a peek under the bangs that covered his right eye.
For an ever so brief moment he turned his gaze towards her, only his gaze, his lips curling into a soft, knowing smile that sent the zalak's ears into a short but rather intense twitching frenzy. Then the sounds from the loudspeakers caught her attention, or maybe she just used them as an excuse with herself to turn towards the screen, the movie having just started.
And, well, it... it surely was a movie, yes. Just ten minutes in and Dorothy already felt like she had missed a couple of plot points, because she couldn't quite make sense of what was happening. Sure, she kept getting lost in unrelated thoughts every other minute, but that was her first time failing to follow a film that badly. The protagonist was acting all high and mighty and getting on the bad side of some ursus crime lord's son or something like that, which he had no reason to since he earlier said he just wanted a quiet life so -and now his car exploded and his wife was still inside, that's quite -how did the house blow up too? Wait, was his dog in the car or at the house? But when did they even plant those, and -hold on, the explosion was spreading to the entire district? Not even the fire, the explosion itself? That's not even how explosions work, just how in the-
Dorothy sighed. Only internally, she supposed, but she still sighed. She didn't like to judge a movie from its opening ten, fifteen minutes, but that thing in front of her was absurd, and not even in a funny way. How did something like that even get made? Well, it did seem rather... low on the budget side of things, yes. And she had a faint feeling some of the background actors looked familiar. How odd.
"Quite the piece of entertainment, this one" Midnight commented, a slightly veiled sarcasm in his words.
"This isn't quite a genre for me I'd say" she replied, avoiding actually voicing her opinion of that thing on the screen "What about you?" she asked, realizing too late that her eyes had trailed back to his chest.
"I've had to watch this movie three times already today but, try as I might, I can't quite say I've managed to find that many positives about it"
Dorothy's ears dropped down a little bit. She had held hope that the film might improve later, but that clearly didn't seem to be the case.
"You don't have anything else to do? I understand you have to keep an eye on the theatre, but surely there is something you can busy yourself with in the meanwhile?"
"Oh, I did keep myself busy during the first screening" he replied, Dorothy's eyes following his index as he twirled a lock of his hair for some reason "But that distraction did run out eventually. Allow me to clarify, it was a book I was reading, but I hadn't expected the movie to be so uninteresting, otherwise I'd have brought more than just one. I have to say, however" he added as he turned around, suddenly resting his chin on his other hand and facing her directly "That as lady luck wanted, there is someone quite more pleasant to the eye than this movie sitting on these chairs right now"
Dorothy's tail waved a bit, but maybe he hadn't caught that. He hadn't, right?
"Praises like that are pretty old-fashioned, you know?" she said back with a soft laugh, trying to recall how exactly she used to dodge such advances back at the university "Besides, I'm not that pretty"
"You absolutely are, dear, and it does nobody any good to deny it. However" he added as he drew ever so slightly closer, Dorothy making a conscious effort to keep looking at his eyes rather than at his pectorals "I was talking about myself"
Her ears stood straight up, her thoughts doing a deep dive into a subject she couldn't even quite name, her heart sinking a little bit into a pool of embarrassment.
"Sorry" she said, the tip of her tail waving a little against her feet "I hadn't mean to stare"
"You flatter me" he answered with a smile as he leaned a little further in, stopping right on the edge od Dorothy's personal space "But worry not, to stare at this body is a right belonging to all. Or is there something wrong with my clothes perhaps?"
"Well, since you did bring that up, I couldn't help but take notice of your shirt"
"I understand perfectly" he answered as he backed away a little bit and unbuttoned his shirt completely, baring some rather nicely sculpted abs too.
... no, you didn't understand at al- oh, oh my, look at thos- hold on!
A not too faint redness flushed over her cheeks, but Midnight didn't react to that at all, leaning back on his seat instead and turning his face towards the screen once more.
"This is quite the scene, though whether that's a compliment or not is another matter entirely I'm afraid" he said, as if to tease her into looking away.
And, wrestling her eyes off him, Dorothy did manage to drag her gaze back to the screen, she even tried to distract herself with the movie. Their exchange couldn't have lasted more than three or four minutes, five at most, but in that short time a massive car chase scene had broken out somehow. There was something amusing about how incredibly over the top the entire thing was while being clearly made with, shall we say, a very limited budget, but Dorothy wasn't the kind of person who could laugh at such things. Quite the opposite, she found them rather boring at best, headache-inducing at worst. Fortunately, that particular movie seemed to lean more towards the former.
Unfortunately, that meant her thoughts kept drifting back to that man sitting beside her, her eyes catching occasional glances of the way he ran an hand through those long, pretty hair of his. Why he did that, she... she did actually have some clue about that, and if she was right then, well, he was doing a good job at it.
"You're quite the kind person, aren't you?" he suddenly said, his eyes turning towards her, their gazes meeting.
Well, too late to look away without being noticed then.
Well, it'd probably been too late since quite a while already to be honest.
"Pardon me?"
"I happen to know the director of this movie" he said, shifting position a bit as if to show off his now fully exposed chest "She gave away a lot of tickets to the screenings. You said you're not interested in this genre, so I take it you're here out of a certain sense of obligation?"
"To... to a degree, yes. But I didn't actually know what kind of movie this would be at all before walking in"
In the background, some character started talking about an international criminal scheme about smuggling fireworks by hiding them into paintings or something like that. The painter lady seemed genuinely angry, an oddly exceptional acting compared to everything else up until that point. Oh, but her lines didn't quite fit with the plot of the movie? How weird.
"Quite the sour surprise this was, I suppose. Now then"
He turned towards her once more. His hand moved in a semicircle, a gesture that perhaps was simply meant to be theatrical, perhaps was meant to give her ample time to either stop him or move out of the way. But since she did neither, his fingers landed on her chin, gently cupping it.
"Shall we spend out time in a better way? I am no professional, but I'm not quite an amateur either, if you catch my drift"
Dorothy's face turned red, her ears standing up once more as her mind went to all kind of places, none of which were appropriate for the actual place she was physically at.
"T-this is a movie theatre" she said back, managing to not shout "What if someone walks in?"
"Oh? Your concern is not with my offer, but merely with the location? You flatter me once more, dear"
"Ah! That's not what I meant!"
"Am I making you uncomfortable? My most sincere apologies then" he replied as he backed away "But I doubt anyone would feel outraged by a massage being performed in an empty movie theatre"
She blinked.
"... a massage... ?"
"Why yes. Dear me, what could you possibly have thought of?" he said, nothing in either his voice nor his expression hiding the fact that he knew exactly what she had thought.
"A-ahem... what... what kind of massage are we talking about here, Midnight?"
He tapped the back of her gloved hand with his own, then tapped it again, and again, slowly tracing a line to her wrist and then further up, underneath the sleeve of her coat.
"Whichever you desire, Dorothy. As I said before, I'm at your service"
She looked at the double door. It was a bit late, the movie had already started, there'd been quite a lot of screenings of that same movie before so anyone actually interested had probably watched it already to begin with, and nobody was around. It was unlikely for anyone to show up, yes, but... besides, they had quite literally just met for the first time, and those hair of his were just so -hold on, no.
"I must confess" he said as he stood up and leaned over her, making sure to leave enough room for her to still get up and leave if she so wanted "It looks to me that you have a fair bit of pent-up stress to release, dear"
Dorothy gulped. He was blocking a good portion of the screen with the way he was standing, but his unbuttoned shirt, his almost lustrous hair and his deep eyes made for a much better sight anyway.
"Shall I offer you a sample of my services? I don't charge for them, of course"
"W-well, I... " she trailed off, a bead of sweat running down her forehead "I suppose I might give them a try... "
"Then" he replied as he suddenly hopped over the line of seats to move behind her "Allow me to remind you that a good massage relies on communication. If there is a part that you feel is receiving too much attention, speak up right away. The same is true, naturally, if you believe an area that needs work is being ignored too"
With those final words he dragged her coat down just enough to bare her shoulders, placing his hands on them, the contrast between the warmth of his bare palm and the coolness and smoothness of his gloved one sending a shiver down her spine.
"I'll do just that" she said, a part of her wondering how comfortable it could be to give someone a massage like that considering that each row of seats was higher than the one in front.
Then Midnight pressed down on her shoulders, his palms applying a firm and gentle pressure, her eyes closing on their own in response to the pleasant touch. She made sure to not lean against the backrest too much to give him more space to maneuver and didn't bother opening her eyes again, her ears still catching bits and pieces of whatever was going on on the screen, her mind not quite registering any of it. She felt his hands rub and caress her shoulders, softly moving her coat out of the way, eventually making it fall further down her arms as he massaged them too, only to move back up and rub her neck instead, untying knots she didn't even know needed to be undone in her muscles, then sliding ever so slightly down her back, gauging her reactions to better adjust his touch.
"... a bit harder, if you would" she eventually asked.
Midnight noticed the way her tail twitched, and smiled.
"As you wish"
And he did just that, putting a bit more strength into his touch, pushing down a little harder, savoring the feeling of her skin under his fingers while making sure to not linger on it for too long, for that wasn't about him. He kept working on her shoulders and neck, occasionally trailing down her arms a little bit too, and by the way Dorothy gradually started to lean into his touch he seemed to be doing a fine job. A nice confirmation that he hadn't lost his edge, at the very least. As for Dorothy herself, the zalak was still suffering from the temporary inability to control her thoughts properly, which led her to think of a whole lot of things, some of which nearly made her subconsciously rub her thighs together. Midnight made sure to not say a single word about that, wondering instead if he shouldn't have really asked Perfumer for a proper course on massages. He was pretty good already, if he could say so himself, but that woman could make pretty much anyone melt completely under her touch.
Bringing his attention back to Dorothy, he moved his thumbs down and applied a bit more pressure in the area beneath her shoulder blades, making the zalak let out a small, surprised yelp which immediatly made her ears twitch.
"Dear me, was that a bit too intense perhaps?" he inquired, putting a thin layer of air between his hands and her body.
"Not at all, I was just a little startled" she answered as she opened her eyes, looking up and back to meet his eyes.
There was a telling smile on his face, and a captivating glint in his eyes. An unspoken promise, a silent vaunt, almost as if he was asking her whether she was really satisfied with that much.
Am I?
Not quite sure about the answer herself, Dorothy decided to toss the ball back to him and played it as safe as she could.
"Could you massage... the front a bit too?"
A rather intriguing way of playing it safe, that was.
"Your every wish's an order, dear"
As he said that, he walked over the seats once more, getting right in front of her, parting her legs a little as he got down on his knees, a sight which made her heart skip a beat, perhaps even two, especially because the lack of space forced him really close to her.
"This might require a fair bit of work" he said, having noticed how she tensed up the moment his palms came to rest on her thighs, his fingertips placed on the hem of her shorts.
"I don't exercise much" she admitted, clasping the armrests a little.
He looked up, her eyes meeting his.
"We all have our own commitments to take care of, after all" he said, placing both hands on her right thigh and beginning to knead and fondle it gently, a warm shiver making its way up her leg.
"I'm often told I get a bit too lost in mine" she continued the conversation, a rather vain attempt at keeping her mind from conjuring provocative pictures in her mind.
"Out of passion, I hope"
He ran an hand down along her leg, lifting her foot up and sliding her boot off, applying a soft pressure at regular intervals as he kept moving closer to her foot, now covered by nothing more than a thin layer of fabric.
"It's... perhaps more of an obligation"
"That's encomiable, but at the same time rather dangerous" he said as he began to work on her other leg too, noticing both the way the tip of her tail was moving on the floor next to him and the slight raggedness of her breaths "One always needs to unwind every so often, lest they fold and break"
There probably was truth in his words, but right there, right then, in that state, Dorothy didn't quite want to keep talking about that.
"Do you often help people unwind then?" she asked with a soft giggle.
"Now, now" he replied, planting a kiss at the very edge of her shorts, sending a shiver up her spine "Let's not think about other people, alright? You should simply lie down and relax"
She gripped the armrests with more strength as he kissed her thigh again, and again, and nearly moaned when he suddenly bit her gently, turning bright red as he gave her a playful smile.
"I believe we're making progress" he said, caressing her calves while peppering her thighs with soft kisses, her tail waving wildly enough to hit him when he licked up a small bead of sweat off her "Would you agree?"
She brought both hands to her face, kind of grabbing it, kind of covering it, not quite doing either, her heart rate rising as she asked herself whether she was seriously going to let those words out of her mouth.
"Could you move... a bit further upward?"
Their eyes met again.
"You're quite the daring woman, Dorothy"
"You're quite a skilled masseur too, Midnight"
"Ah, a flattery I will gladly accept"
Adjusting his position, Midnight ran his hands from her ankles up along her legs, to her hips and then further up to her waist, reaching for her lower back and briefly massaging it before moving further up, his palms lying between her coat and her dress.
"With your permission then"
Her breaths almost heavy, his own not quite light either, he paused a short while, waiting for a refusal that never arrived. And so he cupped her breasts, something about the way she jolted at that luring him even further into her. They were just the right size to fit into his palms, and her weak squirming as he pushed down on her nipples through her clothes, feeling their consistency with the rest of his hands, made him focus further on her reactions.
Sliding both hands around her chest, he fumbled a little bit with her clothes. Her attire was a bit peculiar, a two-piece dress with the upper and lower half completely detached from one another, the former covering only her breasts while the latter took care of sheltering the rest of her body all the way to her shorts and then further down, albeith not quite to her knees.
"Ah!"
"Something the matter, dear?" he playfully asked as he undid her top, baring a black bra which was a fair bit more frilly than he had expected.
"I'm just... not too used to this"
"Oh?"
She bit one of her fingers, her face growing more and more expressive as her other hand went back to grabbing the armrest, a conscious effort being the only thing keeping her legs from closing around him.
"I'm honored them" he said, his gaze captivated by the way she was nibbling her own index.
Without further ado, he pushed her bra up, baring her chest and getting a soft yelp out of her, the direct caressing of her breasts stoking a warm tingle deep within her self. Then he leaned forward, placing a knee on her seat, right against her, only partially to balance himself as he pushed his face against her neck, his breath tickling her skin, making her ears and fur stand up, one of his hands teasing and caressing her chests while the other roamed over her sides, her hips, her thighs, the two alternating to not leave a single bit of her body neglected, a whimper loud enough to make her blush even harder leaving her lips as he kissed her neck, his hunger evident in his every touch, her excitement making itself more and more tangible between her legs.
"You got one thing wrong, Midnight"
"My deepest apologies, oh fairy of the theatre" he joked, that brief reminder of where they were making her heart jump yet again "Would you kindly shed your light on my mistake then, and instruct me as to how to make up for it?" he asked, pulling back just enough to look her in the eyes.
"You moved a bit further up than I had meant you to" she said, her every word making her own face grow redder and redder "But I... I believe you know already what to do"
He didn't answer, not with his words at least. But the way he smiled at her was more than eloquent enough. He slowly trailed down along her body, gently dragging his hands along her, and for a brief moment he considered taking off the lower part of her dress as well to tease her belly too. But delaying her any further might've been a bit mean, not to mention that Midnight himself was really looking forward to what had yet to come.
So he got back to his knees and lifted the skirt of her dress out of the way, his fingers swiftly opening her belt and undoing the buttons of her shorts, pulling them down a bit, her hips raising just enough to aid him in the task. He stopped for a few moments, giving her soft butt a firm squeeze, making her jolt yet again as he savored her flesh, then dragged the garment down, moving aside just enough to bring it all the way to her ankles and then sliding it off the leg without a boot on, leaving it hanging from the other ankle, his eyes fixed on the elegant pair of black underwear in front of him. They were so drenched they would've probably became see-through by then had they been of a thinner fabric, or perhaps even simply of a lighter color, her fluids having long stained both her thighs and the seat beneath her. But that final little barrier only fueled his desire further, and the fact that she could so clearly read it in his eyes made Dorothy herself just that much more eager in turn.
With all of that said, Midnight still didn't want to rush things. He actually noticed that, while similar, her bra and panties weren't a set, but he knew better than to bother giving something like that any importance, especially at that particular time. What he did instead was grabbing her hips and pulling her forward a little bit, placing his mouth right over her soaked garment and planting a long, intense kiss over them. Not quite sure what to do with her hands, Dorothy went back to gripping the armrest as Midnight pushed his tongue against her, sending a warm wave of soft pleasure through her body. He considered saying something about her taste, but he had a feeling she'd rather not hear something like that and kept it to himself, focusing on simply tasting her instead, kissing and licking her through that final layer of modesty covering her, making sure to keep his hands moving on her hips, on her thighs, on her butt, even occasionally stroking her tail to give her as thorough a service as he could.
She grabbed his head, her fingers running through his long hair, her touch telling him that his efforts were being appreciated.
"Any more than this would be in bad taste, wouldn't it?"
"A woman who knows what she wants" he replied "And I happen to be a man who can provide"
He grabbed the side of her panties and dragged it down, the sight of him slowly pulling the garment away and accomodating it on her ankle just the same way he'd done with her shorts further stoking the flames raging inside of her. Then, at last, she felt him directly on her entrance, his tongue sliding in and caressing her from within, following the tempo dictated by her own contractions, a moan as needy as it was pleased escaping her as he savored her insides, quickly finding her most sensitive spots by following her reactions.
Remembering where they were, Dorothy moved an hand back and bit her finger, perhaps a little too vigorously even, her other hand still grasping Midnight's head and pulling him against herself, a partially muffled, almost sultry moan leaving her throat as he focused on her stiff clit instead, poking it with his tongue, sucking on it gently then stroking it again, each touch getting her closer and closer, her chest heaving up and down with every ragged breath she took.
Then Midnight pulled his head back slightly. She was about to ask something, but the sight of him biting his glove to take it off without lifting his other hand off her got her words stuck in her throat, his gaze nearly piercing through her with its intensity.
Forgetting to control her voice, she gasped out loudly first, moaned then as Midnight slid his now bare index and middle inside of her, bending his fingers a little and scratching her from within. Combined with his mouth over her clit, sucking on it, a wave of sparks turned her mind into a blank slate for a few moments, her hands grasping Midnight so hard he almost wondered if he shouldn't tell her to not tear his hair off. But he decided to keep focusing on her instead.
"S-stop!"
And stop he did, backing away a little bit, the string of fluids briefly connecting his mouth and fingers to her being a far more alluring sight than she'd have ever imagined something like that could possibly be.
"Was that a bit too much?"
"A... a little bit, yes" she replied between one ragged breath and the other.
"I'll be sure to be more gentle then, Dorothy"
"... please, do"
He waited a few moments to let her catch her breath, to a degree at least, and then went back between her legs, taking care to move more slowly, to put a little less pressure on her pulsating insides. He avoided stimulating her clit too much, only giving it soft strokes with his tongue every now and then while teasing its surroundings, relishing in the way her hold on his head grew more and more intense, just like her voice did.
Then he heard her call his name, and for a split second he nearly forgot to take things slowly, his free hand squeezing her soft butt with perhaps a little too much strength. Having managed to regain his self control before actually losing it in the first place, Midnight kept easing her up into her climax, looking up to make eye contact and then blinking as little as possible, composure all but gone from her face.
Then he felt her push her hips against him, her legs closing around him as her body grew stiff, a single, lasting moan slowly trailing off into silence as her insides clamped down on his fingers. He slowed down his touches, gently lapping up her juices as they came out, careful to not overstimulate her and simply accompanying her off her orgasm instead, her heavy, broken breaths akin to sweet music in his ears.
Her muscles began to relax, and he went from teasing her sensitive spots to simply caressing her instead, lying gentle kisses on her thighs, lightly fondling her hips, her sides, her legs, even sucking on her thigh with enough intensity to leave a small hickey, close enough to her privates that her shorts would hide it from prying eyes once pulled back up, all the while keeping his eyes on her, the angle allowing him to look at her face and at her bare chest at the same time, quite the treat if he could say so.
"Midnight, at your service" he said with a smile as he backed away ever so slightly "I take it my performance was appreciated, wasn't it?" he asked with the tone of someone who already knew the answer, twirling a lock of his hair a couple of times as he spoke.
Dorothy, on her part, had slumped back down on her chair, her breathing still irregular and heavy, her mind oddly focused -on him just as much as on her own body-, the heat deep within her not entirely sated yet, a sudden feeling of tiredness making her ever so slightly sleepy.
"Are you really... ending this... here... ?" she managed to ask, surprising herself more than anyone else by placing her hand above her entrance and spreading her labia open a little with her fingers "This wouldn't be fair to you, wouldn't it... ?"
Oh... oh dear, what in the world am I doing... ?!
Midnight smiled, a sharp and alluring smile, and leaned over her again, supporting himself on the backrest of her seat, their faces so close they could feel each other's breath, his other hand resting on her thigh, teasingly close to her entrance.
"Do you happen to have a condom with you, dear?"
... oh... ah... !
"I... I don't, no... "
"I don't either, regrettably. Unless" he continued, his hand sliding along her skin and reaching past her wet privates, a soft, surprised yelp leaving her lips as his fingers gently poked her rear entrance "Are you talking about this, maybe? Although I don't quite have any lube with me either"
Her ears flapped wildly, bright red dying her cheeks once more.
"I don't have any experience with... with anal"
"Then let us not, dear. To tell you the truth, however" he added, running an hand through her hair and gently pulling her ever so slightly closer "You truly look like you need some sleep, Dorothy"
He'd had that thought in mind since he first saw her, but he figured that might be a good time to bring it up.
"I'm currently having some trouble falling asleep, as a matter of fact"
"Insomnia? How terrible"
"We could say it's a self-inflicted one" she replied, laughing a little to play it off.
"I do happen to know a simple method to increase sleepiness, you know?" he offered, his gaze lost in her bright amber eyes.
"Oh? And what could that possibly be?" she asked back, playing along to that little game.
"Shall I show you, Dorothy?"
She made a conscious effort to keep her tail still, but only after it hit him a couple of times in its spontaneous waving.
"... please do, Midnight"
"Then" he concluded as he slowly got back on his knees "With pleasure"
And then Dorothy's voice mixed in with the noises coming from the long-forgotten about movie, possibly even overpowering them at times, her moans echoing in the empty theatre as Midnight kept savoring her.
She woke up suddenly, almost jumping up, her eyes adjusting to the lights which seemed to have been left on the entire night. Morning. ... afternoon? Whatever. She blinked a couple of times, rubbing her eyes a bit, a faint redness on her cheeks.
"... oh... just a dream, oh my... what a wild dream... "
She had used masturbation as a mean to help herself fall asleep before on some occasions, yes, but... having someone go down on her until she passed out from sheer exhaustion despite still being under the effects of her agrypnotics was... well, not something she'd have ever imagined dreaming, and so vividly at that. Honestly, she never even had someone go down on her at all in the first place. In a movie theatre to booth... maybe she should stop working on that particular side project of hers before going to sleep, if those were the consequences. Dreams so intense were bad for her heart, though she couldn't in good faith call them unpleasant. She noticed something though, the feeling of... of something very small and light pushed against her hip? It was underneath her shorts. And there also seemed to be something in the inner pocket of her coat.
... hold on... hold on, why was she fully clothed? Actually, that wasn't even her bed, nor was she in her laboratory.
That was the medical bay. She recognized it. That might explain why she wasn't feeling any nausea despite her overusage of agrypnotics, they'd most likely administered her something to prevent that. And -oh, there she was, that short medic Dorothy had gotten rather familiar with during her time on Rhodes Island.
"Dorothy" Sussurro said, a folder in her crossed arms, her foot tapping the ground, her ears and tail signaling her annoyance even more clearly than her expression did "Again?"
"Good morning, doctor Sussurro" she tried to play it off.
"It's evening already"
"Oh. ... good evening, doctor Sussurro?"
"Dorothy!" the good doctor shouted "How many times do I have to tell you that -you, you know what, just take this" she said, handing her the folder she'd been holding up until then.
"What's this?" the zalak asked back as she began to skim through the pages, of which there were probably fifty or so.
"A study on the long-lasting effects that your constant abuse of those pills will have if you keep this up. I spent the last seven hours writing that. You'll read it and submit an essay of at least twenty pages on it within a week to prove that you really did"
"Doctor Sussurro, I'm not a student anymor... "
"I swear, doctor Franks" she cut her off, which was really rare for her to do "If you need medical assistance for agrypnotics abuse one more time I'll make sure to have someone assigned to you twentyfour-seven to ensure you quit this habit of yours at least during your stay on Rhodes Island, be it the last thing I do on this landship"
Sussurro was cleary pissed off. But Dorothy apologized in her mind, because even in that state the vulpo looked more cute than authoritative.
"I-I'll see what I can do"
"... very well" Sussurro concluded, taking a deep breath to calm down "Just stay here another hour or so so we can be sure you're in good shape"
She had raised her voice a bit too much, people in the nearby rooms might've heard something. But that wasn't terribly important at the moment.
"Alright. Ah, h-hold on" she stopped her just as Sussurro was about to leave "How did I end up here?"
"Midnight brought you over" Sussurro replied "He said you collapsed in the movie theatre and figured you needed assistance. Orchid occasionally works herself to exhaustion too in the office -but not like you-" she made sure to point out "So he's rather familiar with these cases. You were really out of it though, to go out of your room in that state"
"... where's the bathroom?"
"Over there. If that's all, I have other patients to take care of. I'll be back in an hour, and I want to find you still here when I return"
"Sure"
Then Dorothy rushed over to the bathroom, locking herself into it before pulling her shorts down to check something. And there it was, the hickey, exactly where she had dreamed Midnight had left it, which meant that had been no dream in the first place. Her face flushed red, her ears twitching with wild abandon. Doubly so as she saw that the thing she had felt against her hip was a small slip of paper tucked inside her panties. She pulled it out and unfolded it to reveal an handwritten message.
"Dear Dorothy, I believe I owe you an apology. Placing this slip of paper in the location you found it at is not something to be proud of, I believe, however I feared that Sussurro might've found if had I left it in one of your pockets instead.
I hope my decision to bring you to the medical bay didn't cause you any discontent nor trouble: if it did, do tell me and I'll be sure to make up for it as soon and as best as I can.
You don't have to worry about the seat, I cleaned everything myself. I also made sure you looked presentable enough so as to avoid suspicious from anyone. You can trust my discretion: not a soul will hear anything of what transpired in the theatre from me.
If you ever need help falling asleep again, I'd be delighted to offer you my services once more. I share a room with Spot -one of my teammates-, but I believe we will be able to find a suitable location regardless, if need be. I had a most lovely time with you, and I believe you did enjoy my company as well.
Whichever part of the day or night you might read this message in, I hope it will be a lovely one.
-Midnight"
And following that were his contact informations.
"... oh... oh, dear, what in the world... "
She slumped down on the toilet, holding her face with both hands.
There was a storm of confused thoughts and feelings raging on inside her mind, with the most prominent one probably being embarrassment.
Did she give him her contact info too? No, she remembered the entire ordeal clearly, and she hadn't. That meant he was leaving it entirely up to her whether they'd meet again or no, right? Then again, he might just ask around to find out where her room was, dorm rooms assignments weren't confidential after all. So -no, no, wait, but what if-
She had to calm down. And check what that other thing in her pocket was.
A glove.
His glove.
Her face flushed red again, wait, what did that even mean, was that a present? Why would-
A shower, yes, she needed a shower, then she'd put her laboratory back in order a bit as she had left it in somewhat of a messy state -almost as messy as her hair, she'd realize as soon as she looked into a mirror- then she had to reanalyze the data from her last failed experiment, and then review the entire theoretical side of it, but angering Sussurro any more than that seemed like a bad idea so she'd probably better stay there and start reading that folder she'd been given, but...
... but, for starter...
... for starter, put the glove back in her pocket, where it wouldn't slip out by accident. And she memorized Midnight's contact info.
For good measure, you know.
I noticed by pure chance that both Dorothy and Midnight wear the right glove but not the left one, so here we are.
Thank you for reading.