[Caterpillar] Chapter 24 - Forever (NSFW - lime) (Patreon)

Semi-darkness, a dark sky, purple-tinted vegetation and a withering jungle, on a dying planet. It was a desolate scenery, reeking of death. But for a particular man and woman, it was as if they were in the middle of a walk in a park. With their hands linked together and a pair of silly grins on their faces, the two of them could not take their eyes off each other.

The man in question was of an average height and his haggard and bloodied appearance made him look rather pitiful. In contrast, the woman holding his hand looked very different. Though her white clothes were also stained by blood and dirt, one could tell from a glance that she was royalty. She looked like a warrior princess. They were none other than Naruto and Wonder Woman.

Unlike other times, instead of sitting in his usual place on Naruto's shoulder, this time around Kyuubi was curled up on Wonder Woman's shoulder, basking in the comforting aura that she was unconsciously emitting due to goddess Artemis' blessing.

"I have to take a shower. Urgently. My whole body feels sticky and itchy," he said.

"You have a shower in your ship?" Diana asked curiously.

"I even have a bathtub," Naruto said and chuckled. "My ship is my home. Seeing as I spend most of my days on the ship, I equipped it with everything I need to live decently. I also have a fully equipped kitchen - tho it's not big. A bedroom and a decent living room too."

"I didn't get the chance to see the inside but your ship didn't strike me as being that big. It's like what? About 150 feet long?" Diana said.

"If you exclude the space occupied by the engine room and the control room, the remaining space is enough to fit in a small apartment. It's more than enough for a guy and a fox to live in."

Wonder Woman turned her head to the side and let out a silent but long yawn.

"Ah, I'm beat," she said.

"Sorry," Naruto muttered.

When he had called her earlier that day, she had been sleeping. Not only that he had disturbed her sleep, but he had also made her worry and she flew to half a galaxy away because she was afraid for his safety. But Diana smiled at him and lightly squeezed his hand.

"It was nothing. As long as you are alright, that's all that matters."

She stopped her walk and came in front of him.

"You are alright, yes?"

She remembered that when she got out of the Javelin, Naruto took her in his arms and he did not want to let her go for a long time.

"I-,"

Naruto started but he did not continue speaking. Because of his happiness at seeing Diana and having her in her arms, he had momentarily been distracted from what he had been through but now that a bit of time passed, he was reminded of it.

"Let's not talk about depressing stuff now," he said and gave her a smile.

She brought her hand up to his face and gently caressed her scarred cheeks.

"I don't want to push you. But just so you know, whenever you feel like wanting to talk about it, I'll always be here for you."

He closed his eyes and leaned into her caress.

"Thank you," he said and took her hand into his.

The rest of the walk was quiet, the two of them only exchanging looks and smiles.

⁂

"Um, Naruto?" Wonder Woman called him out in a hesitating voice.

"Yes?"

"Perhaps you can borrow me some of your clothes for the night?"

She was looking to the side, her eyes not quite daring to meet his.

Naruto brought a hand to his chest, making a posture as though he was feeling pain.

"You're doing it on purpose, aren't you? Trying to kill me with your cuteness, aren't you!"

"It's not what you think!" Wonder Woman protested. "I just came in a rush and I don't have a change of clothes because I didn't think I'd be staying over! That's all! Don't misunderstand!"

The more she spoke, the more flustered she became. By the time she finished her words, a healthy pink rose from her neck to her face, lightly colouring her otherwise pale cheeks.

To Naruto, her flustered and embarrassed expression was too much. it was a critical hit.

'Crap, why is she so cute?!'

His mind involuntarily went again over what she said. When he pictured her dressed only in one of his oversized T-shirts and a pair of panties, his face became hot too. Both red-faced, Naruto and Diana could not look at each other.

"I'll go prepare you the bath," Naruto said and scurried away from the ship's living room.

Now that she was left alone in the room, Wonder Woman dropped all the pretence and buried her face in the palms of her hands. But when she put her hands down, a determined expression appeared on her face.

'I won't let him always get the better of me!'

When Naruto returned from the bathroom, just like her, he looked like he had also regained his composure in the meantime.

"I ran the water, you're good to go."

"Thank you," she said and, as she passed by him, she stopped to give him a kiss on the cheek.

He was still grinning in satisfaction a few seconds later when Diana looked back and said over her shoulder:

"You can join me, you know?"

Saying that, she removed her long white cloak and she let it fall on the floor of the ship. From the corner of her eye, she could see that he was looking at her wide-eyed, his mouth ajar. She even caught the movement of his Adam's apple when he swallowed his saliva.

'Ah, this is so embarrassing!' she thought to herself and no longer looked back at him for Naruto to not see that her face was boiling. It was one thing to exchange kisses and hugs with her boyfriend and a completely different thing to invite him to bathe together with her and entice him like that by stripping off her clothes in front of him.

Walking towards the bathroom, she was fully committed to giving him a show, stripping one article of armour at a time. She was in the middle of taking off her shoulderless white top when a gale of wind came from behind and Diana suddenly found herself pressed flat against the door of the room. A pair of strong arms wrapped around her svelte waist and she felt a particularly rigid mound pressing against her from behind.

"You little minx, do you have any idea what you're doing to me?" Naruto rasped in her ear, his voice rough with desire.

With her breasts squished and her face turned to the side and pressed against the door, Wonder Woman had never been dominated like that by a man.

"I think I have an idea. Something down there feels very hard," she said suggestively and she pushed back with her ass against him for more emphasis.

At her words, he nearly came undone right there and then. He let out a grunt and he ground himself against her, pushing her even harder against the wall.

"Wait, don't touch me there!" Wonder Woman suddenly cried out when his hand sneaked around her waist and went between her legs.

But when his fingers reached her special spot, all her resistance vanished and she started to grind back against him, matching his movements with hers. It was only a few moments later that the pent-up sexual tension from before reached the peak in them both and they came undone.

"You're so wet I can feel it through the fabric."

At his words, her knees trembled and her teeth sunk deeply into her plush lower lip. Breathing out heavily, the two stood in the same position, with him pressing her face-first against the door, and tried to recompose themselves.

"Here I am trying to hold myself back and let things run slow but... I'm just a man. I won't be able to hold back for much longer if you keep tempting me like that," Naruto said with bated breath.

"What if I don't want it slow? What if I want you to go hard?"

It had taken all her Amazonian courage for Wonder Woman to say something that raunchy but the effect was immediate. She was roughly turned around and she did not have a chance to even voice out her surprise because he sealed her lips with his in a hungry kiss. The look of primal want in his red eyes made her break the kiss and moan but he covered her mouth with his again, taking her breath away. When she also felt his hard thing pressing against her core, she lost all the strength in her legs.

The two of them slid against the door together, letting themselves fall slowly on the floor. But Naruto broke the kiss and cupped her face with his hands.

"Don't stop!" Diana said in a needy voice. "Kiss me. Touch me. Take me."

A groan of almost painful desire came from his chest at her dirty talking. There was no profanity but simply hearing someone like Wonder Woman, an Amazonian princess, speak like that was turning him on like mad.

"I want you so bad, Diana," he said with his eyes closed, using all his willpower to keep his inner beast in check. "But not like this. Not like a bunch of animals in heat. Not here, in a cold hallway, not while we're covered in grime, blood and filth."

He took her lips again and this time his kiss was gentle and slow but still no less passionate than before.

"I want our first time to be special. I want to treat you like a princess and worship every inch of your body, like a goddess. I want to make love to you."

The words he said made Wonder Woman almost desperately horny. But at the same time, her heart melted. Her burning lust gave way to her warm feelings of love and she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

"Man, you really stink," Diana said and, just like that, the fiery mood from before vanished. They burst into laughter and they kept at it until they could no longer laugh. Even when their laughter subsided, they could not wipe their smiles off their faces.

⁂

In the end, they showered separately.

But there was just one bed in the spaceship. Because of that, three hours after he went to bed, Naruto could still not fall asleep, his bloodshot eyes staring a hole into the ceiling of the ship. The reason for that? A gorgeous Amazon was sleeping draped all over him. For a repressed virgin like him, it was too much stimulation. He was so turned on that it was physically painful.

'I only have myself to blame for not doing it when she threw herself at me.'

Nevertheless, he did not really regret his decision.

'It's still better to take things slow.'

Although Naruto often liked to play-fight with Kyuubi and annoy him, he held the fox's advice in very high regard.

'He's lived for much longer than me. Makes sense he knows more things than I do.'

He did not think that what he felt for Wonder Woman was just lust. Far from that, especially after spending over 10 years married to her in the illusion of the Black Mercy. He loved her so much that it was scaring him. But he understood that realistically, Wonder Woman could not be as invested as he was after just ~1 month of relationship. Because of that, he listened to Kyuubi's advice - to take things slower.

'I want to date her. I want to get to know her better. Just chatting through a video call is nowhere near enough to truly know someone.'

He did not want to jump over all those steps, straight to sex. He did not want their relationship to be based on just physical attraction.

'I want to be together with her forever.'

At that thought, he unconsciously tightened his hold on the woman sleeping on his chest. She stirred slightly in her sleep but she did not wake up. One of her legs intertwined with his and she pressed her head deep into his chest, hugging his waist with both of her hands.

Wearing only one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants and sticking so closely to him made him nostalgic. He closed his eyes and a smile appeared on his face.

'Just like before.'

It was just like in the time when they were married and sleeping together in the same bed, in his dream. At peace, unknowingly, at some point, he fell asleep.

⁂

A rather abrupt movement shook Wonder Woman awake from her sleep. But she was so tired and the warmth radiating from the body underneath her was so cosy that she fell back asleep in a matter of seconds.

"No... please not her. Not Thea. Please!"

Despite being asleep, her sensitive hearing picked up exactly what he said. She woke up instantly. Her first thought was -

'Who is Thea?!'

But she heard him sleep-talking again.

"Everyone is dead... no..."

He was not shouting, it was just a quiet mumble but his forehead was sweaty and his eyes were moving very fast behind his closed eyelids. He was having a nightmare.

"Naruto, wake up," she said in a whisper and shook him slightly. "Wake up, darling," she called out again and shook him a bit harder.

He woke with a start, a haunted look in his eyes. But he calmed down when he saw her worried visage.

"Hey, did I wake you up?"

She nodded.

"I think you were having a bad dream... and who is Thea, by the way?" she asked suspiciously.

A smile involuntarily made its way onto his face.

"Are you jealous? What a cutiepie. But you're my first and only girlfriend. You got nothing to be jealous of. I'll tell you more about Thea some other time. Let's just sleep now, ok?" he said and kissed the top of her head.

After that, he turned around on his side, with his back to her and tried to sleep. But Diana laid back next to him and hugged him from behind, making him the little spoon. It was such an unexpected gesture from her that he did not know how to react at first. Still, after the ordeal he had gone through that day, he was drained. It did not take long for him to fall back asleep in Wonder Woman's embrace.

⁂

"Good morning, princess," Naruto said filled with energy and turned on the lights in the bedroom.

In contrast, Wonder Woman covered herself with the blanket and buried her face in the pillow.

"Go away. Let me sleep," she whined.

But she suddenly threw away her blanket and sat up.

"You cooked pancakes?!"

Her sleepiness vanished in an instant. Looking at her eager face and at how her messy hair was standing in all directions, he burst into laughter.

"Yep. I didn't know what you liked to eat for breakfast so I made you some pancakes with chocolate."

He put the tray in her lap and poured her a glass of milk too. At first, Diana just eagerly focused on eating but she started to become embarrassed the longer he kept staring at her.

"Do you want some too?" she asked, hoping that maybe if he ate something too he would stop looking at her with so much intensity.

"I ate my fill. I made these just for you." he shook his head and said.

"Who was Thea by the way?"

The smile on Naruto's face disappeared.

'We haven't known each other for long. What if she freaks out?' he thought.

They had been together for a short while; he was afraid that it was a little too early for him to be mentioning kids and marriage. He was troubled that it would scare her off.

'I'll tell her. If we're going to spend the next few weeks together, I can't guarantee this subject won't pop up again. Might as well get it out of the way from the start.'

He sat on the edge of the bed, right next to her, and leaned with his back against the wall.

"Remember that tendril you saw wrapping around my neck during our video call? That was a Black Mercy. I got to experience it first-hand."

Wonder Woman put down the pancake and looked at him intensely. There was a worried look on her face.

"In that dream, my parents, my mentor, my auntie, my friends, they were all alive."

He looked at the metallic-grey ceiling lost in thought.

"Before I had this dream, I thought that I had gotten over the loss of my homeworld, family, and friends. It's been almost 100 years since then. You'd think that one's wounds would heal by then, right? But this illusion gave me more than I've ever had...and then it took everything away."

"Was Thea one of your friends from when you were young?" Wonder Woman asked.

Naruto took one of her hands in his and said:

"Thea was my daughter. She was my little princess. The cutest thing in the world. She was just as beautiful as you. But she had my energetic personality. "

He grinned to himself in melancholy.

"You mean to say we were together?" Diana asked and Naruto moved his eyes from the ceiling to her.

His smile widened when he saw her shy expression, looking down at her lap. Aware of his gaze on her, her face quickly became red, in a matter of seconds. By now, he was smiling from one ear to another. It took all his self-control to not grab her in his embrace and smother the life out of her with his hug.

"But of course. The Black Mercy showed me my version of paradise. In my dream, we've been married for more than a decade. We named our daughter Thea because we came to an agreement: if our baby was a boy, I would get to choose his name. If it was a girl, you would choose her name. And you named her Athena. Thea was short for Athena."

Wonder Woman may have gotten one over him the previous day and teased the hell out of him but the tables had been turned on her in the present. If yesterday she had driven him almost mad, now it was her turn.

'In his perfect world, we were married!' she thought. Unconsciously, she brought her hands to her cheeks and let out a cute squeal. It was only after she heard it herself that she realized what she had done.

"I take it you're not opposed to the idea?" Naruto said. She did not look at his face but she could practically imagine the shit-eating grin he had just by his voice.

"Ah, I want to dig a hole and hide myself in it."

Naruto took both of her hands in his and she reluctantly looked at him. At that point, it was not only her face but her neck and her ears too that was beet red.

"Don't feel pressured by my dreams," he said seriously. "As I told you yesterday, I want us to take things slow. I'm not a builder but I know that you build a house one brick at a time. I may have spent years married to you in the illusion of the Black Mercy but the plant had no real knowledge about you. It was a version of you crafted by my own thoughts. It was not the real you...That's why, I want us to get to know each other better. I don't want this to be just a fling. I want us to be together forever."

Diana's embarrassed expression was slowly replaced by a serious, thinking one.

"Forever is a very long time. Especially for people like us. We don't age."

Naruto lightly kissed her knuckles.

"Yes, forever. As long as you'll have me. I know I'm not the most handsome man around; my face is disfigured. But I will devote my life to protecting and making you happy."

"You are not disfigured, Naruto. I like you just the way you are," she said and brought a hand to caress the dark and thick whisker-like scars on his cheeks. "And I don't need you to protect me. I'm a warrior princess and even a demigoddess. If anything, you're the one who almost died yesterday. I will be the one to protect you," Wonder Woman said, her fingers now pinching his cheek.

She closed the distance between their faces and she pressed her lips against his in a chaste kiss.

"You wanted to take things slow but what you said just now sounded awfully close to proposing. How does that work?" she said and giggled.

"I haven't asked for your hand in marriage yet, OK?"

His annoyed face only made her giggle harder at him.

"Shut up and eat your pancake!"

"Yes, yes." she mock-agreed and spread some chocolate on a piece of pancake. But instead of eating it herself, she brought the fork in front of his face. "Say aah~"

His annoyance melted like a miracle and he let her feed him. He had eaten his fill before but how could he deny her when he saw the way her face lit up in happiness when she fed him? Diana herself was not aware of it yet, but she had him wrapped around her little finger.