Chapter 185 - A fluffy Monday 6 – Cuddles and pets (Patreon)

The loud rattling came from Rave, which was no surprise really. You could take a thousand different situations, John was sure that Aclysia would harm or play with any part of her kitchen in none of them. 

The origin of the rattling was a pan-shaped sieve that Rave let rotate on the kitchen counter. Like a coin falling and then slowly coming to a halt, the sieve’s looser parts clashed while the whole thing kept circling. As if it was the most interesting thing in the world, Rave stared at it as it came dangerously close to the edge of the counter. 

Her left ear turned towards John when he entered and her head soon followed. “Ther’ya’re!” Rave slurred and instantly forgot about the sieve to throw herself at John. This time he was prepared though, so, he caught her in his arms with some grace. 

“Carry me!” Rave demanded. John hesitated for a moment to look over at Aclysia, who was cutting some vegetables and arranging them on a plate. She sent him a simple approval as she nonchalantly extended a hand to catch the sieve and put it into the open drawer it belonged in.

John therefore swung his girlfriend’s legs onto his arm and carried her away from the kitchen, princess style. ‘Hurray for raising Strength,’ he thought, remembering times when this would have been impossible for him. Now he could not only carry her like she wanted but do so without shaky legs. He was curious though, how effective exactly was this new ability?

Pretty good, 25% increase of her physical stats was nothing to laugh at, and she had been in this mode for a while now. 

Copernicus watched him walk towards the couch and jumped off once they came close. “Kitty!” Rave shouted and jumped from John’s arms to catch her contracted partner. The endeavour was barely successful, but she got her nimble hands on Copernicus’ fur and pulled him to her chest. 

“Let me go, Jane,” the cat demanded while she sat on the ground, between table and sofa. “No,” Rave said and started patting the struggling cat in her arms. John kneeled down behind her and ruffled Rave at the base of her cat ears. 

In response the techno-lover nestled against his hand and inched towards him until he got his arm wrapped around her again. Copernicus ceased his complains and started purring instead, Rave humming in kind. John just kept at it, occasionally changing the ear he was ruffling, he seemed to do something right.

Then Copernicus, with a series of quick movements, escaped his summoners petting hands. “Was surprisingly nice, but I had enough of this,” he announced before running off into the entrance hall. Rave let out a miserable meow before turning to John. “The floor isn’t exactly comfortable; can we move on to the couch?” she asked with floppy ears. 

John nodded and got up, wanting to pull Rave up with him. She refused. “No, you get on the couch first,” she spoke with the tone of indecisive decisive only cats could produce. Scratching his head, John obeyed, sitting down on the couch. A moment later Rave stood up and jumped over the lean and now stood on the cushions. 

‘Lydia won’t like this’ John thought as he saw Rave knead the couch with her feet. Then she got on all fours and rubbed her cheek on John’s again. “Ya are soft, I like that,” she said and forced him to fall onto his back while she climbed over him. “Can I make ya hard?” she asked and put her hand on his crotch. The growing bulge was a clear yes and Rave giggled before retracting her hand and pulling him back into an upright position. 

“Great, but I don’t feel like it right now,” she said and curled together, head lying in his lap. Her eyes flicked as if to get rid of some small insect as she stared up at him. John concentrated on calming his erection down. ‘You are killing me, Jane,’ he ground in his thoughts. The fact that his girlfriends head was only a few centimetres from his dick wasn’t really helping.

“So, how was your date?” Rave, in a tone that drifted towards normalcy, asked, smiling up to him. “It was pretty nice; did you know that female dwarves have beards?” John told her. “For real’zies?” Rave laughed. “That sounds weird.” “It was pretty weird,” he smiled at her while softly running his hands through her hair, careful not to come near the entrances of the air and provoke getting hissed at. He didn’t want Rave to get angry at him again, and he could imagine it not being very comfortable. 

He was however very curious. She still had her normal ears, but these new ones seemed to not be actually be connected to her head, but be woven out of her hair. “Can you hear with these?” he wondered as he wiggled his index finger at the base. 

“Ja,” Rave answered a she purred, her copper eyes were half-closed as she slowly blinked at him. “It takes some getting used to, but it checks out. I can hear the scratching of the pens in Lyly’s room, for example.” “Did you really need to shorten her nickname further?” John giggled. “You will bring the poor princess to brink of insanity.” “Aaaaaand?” Rave asked. John brushed an unruly strand from in front of her eyes, copper cat eyes looked up to him. “And I love you for it,” said John. 

Rave extended her hand up to his cheek, where it rested for a moment. “I love ya too, tiger,” she said and then lightly slapped him with a giggle. Pulling her hand back down she added, “We are getting better at this emotional stuff.” “Well, I am getting A LOT of practice with the amounts of relationships I have. I must be a good influence on you,” he teased. 

“Oh please, without me you wouldn’t have any of those,” Rave answered. She was right, most likely right. Without Rave he wouldn’t have lived to make use of any of his abilities, although that wasn’t an absolute certainty. Maybe he would have managed just with Moira around, maybe someone else would have come along, there was no way to know for sure. 

“Besides, if dad knew I was your harem lead, he would be super mad,” Rave added and pulled him from his speculations. “Wait, he doesn’t know?” John asked. He wasn’t afraid of the wrath of Regan anymore, he was way stronger than the, somewhat insane, Abyss Auctioneer, at this point. It still felt wrong to leave him in the dark though, having the father of your girlfriend on your bad side sounded like a not-so-great idea.

“What should I have said: Oh, hey daddy, ya know that boy that you think is getting meow into all sorts of trouble? Yeah, he also shares me with other girls, but it’s fine because I have the power to blow that off whenever, ya see?” Rave giggled at the idea. 

“I do doubt he would be particularly psyched,” John admitted. “What if he finds out though?” “Than that’s a problem for future, non-catified me,” Rave purred, “I feel great right meow, don’t wanna think about it.” “How exactly are you feeling anyhow?” John wondered. Apparently, she was aware of her own flimsiness.

“Uhm, well, it’s like that feeling when ya are drunk enough to not care about stuffs, but without the whole annoyance of having no idea where your feet are,” Rave told him. That didn’t help John, who had drunk exactly one beer in his life, but he just noted that she felt careless right now. Rave was quick to guess what he was thinking. “Riiiight, we never got drunk together, we should do that sometime!” she exclaimed. “How about, right now, whaddaya think?” 

“I think you getting drunk right now would be terrible, Jane,” John spoke his mind. In that moment Aclysia put a plate of cut vegetables, cheese and sausage, all of it impaled with these small wooden sticks, on the low table in front of John. “So, how about you just keep lying there and I feed you as we watch TV, sounds nice?” he asked with a thankful nod towards Aclysia, who gave him the remote.

“Mhm, good enough for me,” said Rave, slight pouty, “I just think getting drunk would be more fun.” Her ears slacked slightly, giving her a downtrodden look. That changed the instant John dangled a piece of paprika over her mouth though. 

Her ears stood at attention and her eyes followed every move of the vegetable. “You want this?” John asked and raised the vegetable just in time for Rave’s suddenly snapping jaw to only get a mouthful of air. “I want that!” she pouted and kept looking after the paprika. 

He lowered the paprika just deep enough for Rave to be tempted to bite at it again, but he successfully pulled back a second time. Rave’s feet drummed on the lean of the couch. “Ya’re being very meown right now!” she complained and made a third attempt on the vegetables life. 

This time the Gamer wasn’t fast enough, all he pulled back this time was the wooden pick. He didn’t mind thought, while Rave was chewing on the vegetable and he was ruffling her ears, he reached for a new piece of food to repeat this little game. 

Between the third and fourth time he put on the TV. From the sound of it, It was just a regular old weather report, he was barely listening as he kept playing the little game with Rave. Watching was a thing he didn’t do at all. His eyes were focused on getting the next piece from the plate or on watching his girlfriend smile at him from her position in his lap.

He was teasing her by slowly descending the next thing, a diced piece of cheese, when he quickly turned direction and put it in his own mouth. “Dick!” Rave laughed and pinched his side. “A bit,” John admitted and now moved his hand to tickle her under the chin. “What are you going to do about it?” 

That turned out to be a bit of a mistake. His hand was now in biting range and Rave abused it by snapping at his hand with an audible “Nom!” It only stung a little, it was the sort of love bite cats often give people that pat them to much. It wasn’t really hurtful and didn’t draw blood, it was more of a playful gnawing. 

It was tight and Rave didn’t let go, though. She stuck to his hand even when he pulled it up. Now she was sitting on his lap, their eyes on one level. John tugged his hand a few more times, but Rave didn’t let go, he grabbed another piece from the plate, even though her eyes darted over to the moving target for a moment, Rave didn’t let go. Only when he kissed her on the forehead and whispered, “I love you,” did her bite let up and she kissed him passionately on the lips instead. 

Then she grabbed the food from his hand in a swift motion and stuck it in her mouth. “Yay, sausage,” she said while chewing, she gave him a telling wink and John felt his barely calmed erection twitch again. 

There was something else that caught his attention thought, namely the knife-eared reporter on the TV screen. A gentle looking blonde elf with green eyes. John raised an eyebrow. “They have abyssal television shows?” he asked. “Not in America they don’t,” Rave explained, “but yeah, here they do.” She rested her head on his shoulder as they followed the program for a moment.

“And now back to the news,” the elf said and the camera shifted over to a giant lizardman. At least three metres tall, he looked like a mixture of a very angry alligator and a dinosaur, his grey-brown scales looked like they could shrug of almost all projectiles without a care. Seeing such a massive creature in a suit was alien to say the least.

The lizardman didn’t look very happy about the get-up either. A red spear and armour were standing right behind him. “Now that I finally got the word back from blonde turtle, to the news. That steel-princess turtle will hold a speech later, so you can go listen to that. Otherwise the destruction turtle, Nathalia, has been sighted around Cologne. Officials only tell us that because, and I quote, ‘If she wanted to destroy something, she would have had already. Therefore, there is no reason to panic.’ However, as Romulus banishment is still in effect, there are two Rome turtles currently on the move. So, you weaklings best try to not get caught up in the fights, should they happen...unless you are like me and can stab stuff. This was Rak Wraithraiser, I will now go fishing.” 

“No way, that guy is real?” Rave wondered, “I thought he was just a webtoon character.” “That’s the news you are concentrating on?” John raised an eyebrow, “Not the whole ‘Nathalia is around’ part?” “Meh, she was going to appear again anyhow,” Rave said and clung to John with all four of her limbs, “but you are my man and its going to stay that way.” 

That was true, but John still was in worry what the appearance of that particular goddess meant for his future.

Well, no use to worry about it right now, what’s next?