A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 28

"What would it take for you to have that feeling back?" he asked very quietly, "Maybe I can help."

"I dunno," she smiled, looking up, "Maybe if I looked at you for the first time in a day from really close up."

Dahlgren snorted with a little grin, "I know that feeling, I'm getting more than a little of it now." He sighed as the grin faded, "I thought that I'd have a great big hole in my chest -- and I was right, but, ... it hurts so much, and though everyone feels for me, I'm the one left alone with myself at night, wondering what I could have done to prevent it, and coming up with a thousand things which only make me feel worse."

They looked toward the door as Nahl'een wandered in, looking as though she was about to cry and complaining about a dream. Selena smiled and bent to pick her sister up.

Dahlgren stood watching as they hugged, and Nahl'een asked Selena if she'd take her back to bed. Dahlgren smiled and told her to go ahead, "I'll just wash these mugs. Rachel has taken ownership of the whole place. I really like it, but this is the other side. I don't want to face her accusing stare in the morning."

"Neither do I." Selena laughed as she carried Nahl'een out.

Nahl'een was back in her bed with Selena sitting on the edge of it, listening to Nahl'een tell of her dream. "You went away, Selena, a -- and --"

Selena shushed her sister, "I'm not planning to go away, honey," she smiled as she stroked the girl's cheek with her thumb, "Nope. I'm staying near you, so you see, your bad dream was a mistake. Just close your eyes and try to find a better dream."

"You stay with me a while?" Nahl'een asked.

Selena kissed her, "Nahl'een, I can't. I'm really tired too. I was just about to go home to my bed."

Nahl'een put a tiny amount of whine into it, "Just until I sleep, Selena?"

Selena looked over her shoulder at Dahlgren as he stood in the doorway. "That's up to you, Selena. It's fine with me, no matter what you do."

Selena shrugged with a smile and lay down on top of the blanket and put her arm over Nahl'een. A second later, she felt her sister's arm on her as well and Nahl'een sighed happily.

She wasn't sure when it had happened but Selena had fallen asleep. She woke to find Dahlgren covering her with a blanket, but she shook her head, and looked at her sister. Looking back, she asked, "How long?"

He shrugged, and whispered, "Maybe half an hour."

Selena sat up very carefully and stood up. She joined Dahlgren at the door and before he had time to react, she put her arms around his neck and mindful of her horns, she hugged him and kissed him very softly.

"What was that for?" he asked in a whisper.

She smiled, "For bringing back that feeling for just a second."

He was walking her to the door, but she bumped into him in the hallway and he looked at her curiously.

She pointed, "Isn't this where you sleep?"

He nodded, "But -- "

She took his hand, "Come on, I've got the strongest feeling that I'm right where I belong now, and before anything else happens, I want to sleep next to you, if that's ok. I know we've both got a lot of things on our plates, but unless you have a problem with it, this is where I want to be right now. I want to talk with you from real close up because I've always liked that and I know that you do as well, but I really need to see if I can have one of those moments when I wake up."

She smirked a little, "That's what I really want to do and I know that I used to be too shy and cautious to even say it. But I figure that I really don't have much self-respect to lose anymore -- after what I did a few days ago, so if you don't mind ..."

He looked at her in a bit of shock, but then he nodded.

They lay in bed whispering and kissing very lightly for a while, until she pulled back to look at him and smile, "How does this feel to you? Does it feel right, or does this feel like something that we shouldn't be doing?"

He looked at her and reached out to touch her face, "I haven't said a thing to you or given you any reason to think that I'd judge you for what happened to you. I know that there was a part of you that needed something like that to happen.

Maybe I should crawl out from under my rock a little more, so here, ..."

He kissed her more definitively, and not as the fleeting little things that they'd passed between them, "I'm not upset with you, and I'm not judging you at all. I feel as though we're doing something that we should have been doing a long time ago."

She smiled slowly and let out a sigh, "That's what I mean. I feel the same way. I started out as a human and I found out that I never was just a plain and simple girl. Now I've learned that I'm not even the plain and simple demon that I thought I was -- I'm just hoping that I'm still WHO I thought I was.

I've been down the road and I've even kidnapped my own sister to keep her with her father. But they're still not a family, as hard as they're trying, and I'm still looking at the same man that I wanted before -- when my life was simple. I only robbed and stole, and hunted bounties now and then. Now I've got more horns on my head than any three cows. I can tell that you still like me, horns and all. All I'm saying is that I think that we ought to just do this. Just let me stay."

"I thought that you meant stay here with the rest of us," he said.

"I did," she smiled as she moved his forelock out of his eyes, "But now, I guess I'm asking that you let me stay in your lives, from really close up, and right now, I want to beg that you let me sleep with you tonight. I can't think of a place that I'd want to be more than here. If you're so understanding about everything, then I want you to understand something else."

She rolled away from him and he watched as she held her tail to the side for him, "Come on, Dahl. Let's go back to how we started. I'll take care of you tonight."

"But Selena," he said, "You belong to a Xer pack now. I see the marks on you, and I saw the horns that you put on them at dinner. I know at least a little about the Xer, and they're incredibly, um, exclusive in their relationships, and I'm not the kind of guy to want to exactly share a lot either."

In an instant, he saw her as the rogue that he'd wanted so much to get to know. She'd changed her shape for him. "It's alright, Dahl. This is for you." She pressed herself back against him and despite his objections, his body wasn't listening and he was hard in a second.

He moved forward and slipped his hardness between her flanks with a quiet groan. It lasted only a minute before she asked him to stop. "I've just realized what I really should have done under your tiny tent in that snowstorm."

She moved away and changed her angle, before pressing back and lifting the blankets so that she could move her leg back over his. She reached to guide him into her before she pressed back slowly with a quiet groan, "Now, fuck me, Dahlgren, before the roof comes down or I suddenly grow horns out of my ass. I don't care, but I think that we ought to try to be quiet."

She rolled the top half of her back onto the bed so that she could see him and she reached to touch his face. "Listen to me," she smiled.

"They are exclusive, but then, they don't usually make their loves into triumvirates, either. I belong to a pack of Xer, Dahlgren, but that pack belongs to me just as much as I belong to them. Whatever I am now with all the horns -- well that needs Xer. I didn't exactly get a manual to read beforehand, but I just know, and you'll have to trust me on it."

She smiled as she moved his hair out of his eyes and sighed at her pleasure for a moment. "It's not a marriage, Dahl. It's a marriage for Arrax and Shaevre. There's something in them that needs me now and then, and I need them too, every once in a while. They want to speak with you about it. They know there are others who need me, like my sister and her father. They think that I should be yours, but that's up to you. I can only try to get you to see that I need you both as well."

He stopped and she moved away from him so that he could lie on her. "Come here, Dahlgren. I want you, just like I've always wanted you. I even need you in a lot more than this."

He moved to lie on top of her and they were amazed at how it felt a few seconds later just to lie like that. Dahlgren listened as he began again slowly.

"All that you need to do is think about me, and if you want me. I want to stay in Nahl'een's life, because I have to. She needs me, and it's obvious that she sees me as more than her sister. You need me too, and what I'm trying to say is that I need you both so much."

She reached up and touched his cheek for a moment, "I asked that you not come to me that day because it would have broken my heart if you did. I needed them all for that one time, and I won't ever do that again. I got what I needed and frankly, having to sit through dinner after that was awful. I'm not that kind of girl.

I'm really just a one-guy kind of girl. I've always been that kind. It's just that I also belong to a small pack of Xer, but other than being with Shaevre and Arrax now and then there won't ever really be that much to it."

She smiled and rocked him a little, "I don't think that I've even got any right to say this, but I want you as my husband, Dahlgren. You just have to decide if you can handle sharing your wife with a couple of Xer once in a while, because I need them as well, but I know that I need you more -- and much more often. We've talked about it, and they agree. They'd allow it. They even want it. That pair of Xer love Nahl'een and you as well."

Selena opened her mouth and Dahlgren was right there, his kiss taking her away with a soft groan that they shared as their tongues slid over each other. She felt him grow hard as stone after that, and he pushed himself up to look down on Selena. "You're so beautiful," he sighed.

"Share your heart with me, Dahlgren," she smiled, as she reached up to touch him and caress the muscles down his ribcage. He flinched a little out of ticklishness and she gave him the warmest grin for it. "I'll share everything that I have -- everything that I am with you and that little girl. I'll take care of you, Dahl. Just give me a chance and I'll never stop taking care of you both."

She reached to hold his bottom and pull him as she raised her legs, "I belong to them a little and sometimes I'll probably mate with them again at some point," she sighed, "the rest of me is dying to be all yours. If there was a way, I'd be yours all of the time, but there's something that ties me to them, and they understand it. They want me to be with you. I just don't know if you can accept that."

She felt it in him, straight from his heart. She felt just the beginning of his acceptance and something else -- it was exactly as she'd felt it one night in a blizzard, but now she knew what it really was. She sighed as she watched him smile at her, "Who's making an offer now? I'm not exactly in a position to clamp my hands over my ears and refuse."

"You can try," she smiled, "but I'll only get up on top of you, and I'll still fuck you just like I really should have there on that mountain. Open your eyes, you incredible demon, we need each other. What I'm offering is forever for us. You can refuse, but you know that you're only going to be hurting yourself and Nahl'een as well as me."

She reached for his face there above her, "You and I have had this between us from that night on the mountain. I made a big mistake there, and then I made another at my house. What I should have done was get my wet ass up out of the grass, take your hand, pull you to my bed and just accept the love of a wonderful male who wanted me.

This is your home and I'm here under you. We're almost there now and everything. Don't make the same mistake that I did, Dahlgren. It just costs us all far too much.

I already feel what you want inside you. Your body knows me and here we are. Just nod to me and let's fuck, though I'd much rather make love with you. Let me take care of you both while we all get over what we've lost. I'll still be here for you, from right now. I won't let either of us screw this up again. Let's just start this quietly and just be a family. I want you to breed me so we can have a little one to torment my sister. I can't think of anything that I'd want more than all of that."

She reached and wiped a fearful little tear from her eye and he knew how far she'd crawled out on a limb to tell him this. It was no stretch to him to feel that she had a real fear that he'd refuse to try or just tell her that they'd see.

"Please Dahlgren, if you don't mind what I am now and what I did that day, let's just fuck real slow, at least to start so that I can look at you for a while. We can talk about everything in the morning."

Dahlgen accepted then, and he began to really try for Selena. They slid together tightly and it was the most tender thing between them. She tried, but her cry still came out quietly and he came right after her from the way that she contracted and held him tighter as he pushed his last strokes before his seed came.

"That, ..." he smiled, That was, ... I can't even say it."

"I know," she chuckled, "I was here too, remember?" She sighed, "I always knew that it could be like this for us," she said as she ran her fingers over his back. "Is there something that you want to say to me?"

"Uh, thank you?"

She actually giggled quietly, "No, not that," she smiled, "because I'd have to thank you as well. Let's just assume our thanks to each other. I meant something else."

Dahlgren raised his head and whispered, "I'm still hurting over Faith, but I'm not going to be an idiot about this. I accept you, Selena."

He waited as she gasped and smiled, "I never thought that I'd hear you say that to me. I accept you, Dahlgren. We're probably the most screwed up family on the planet, but I don't care at all."

They should have gone to sleep, but they didn't. Dahlgren moved to lie beside Selena and they just spent a long time caressing and whispering and it felt wonderful to do that. Selena had always liked the way that they could talk like this, and she was so glad that it remained unchanged from when they were in his tent.

"Have you ever, ... have you ever looked at Shaevre as more than a hellhound?" she asked a little cautiously.

"You mean back at the house?" he asked, "I only ever saw her on four feet then. I always liked her the best out of them all. I used to sit and talk to her. It probably sounds a little stupid, but I'd start out on the bench with her sitting on the floor, and I'd talk to her. I was always surprised, but just at the end of it every time, she'd put her paws on the bench on either side of me and she'd sort of stand on her back legs a little so that I could hug her once. I liked that.

It wasn't until later that I saw her other shape, and with everything that's happened, I haven't really had a chance to talk with her very much." He sighed a little, "Which doesn't seem right to me, somehow, since I feel as though I've been ignoring her, and I'd never meant to. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing much, I guess," Selena smiled, "she still likes you. She always has. When she and I first started, we used to lie just like this and talk. We used to share little fantasies about sharing a male. We only ever talked like that about two, and you're one of them. I'm pretty sure that Arrax will want to talk to you about what he sees as the unevenness of this. I think that he'll offer Shaevre to you as compensation for that. I know that she'd be thrilled to try it."

The expression on his face made her have to stifle her laugh, and she kissed him afterward, "Sorry if I stopped your heart for a second there."

"I like her body," Dahlgren said, "but I wouldn't know what to do with her, and she must be pretty long when she's stretched out on a bed."

"She is," Selena grinned, "really long, but if you're curious about what it might be like, Dahl, you can always try with me."

He stared at her as she changed right here next to him and he found her hands holding his head as she kissed him. She pulled back and smiled a little coyly, "Wanna play again?"

--------------------

Nahl'een woke up and walked to wash her face. Dahlgren had been pretty insistent about it, and always left the bathroom sink full for her every night, so that the water wouldn't be as cold as it would be otherwise. She got it done and brushed her teeth as well, before she wandered out.

She wondered where her father was. He was almost always up before her.

She smiled to herself. If he wasn't up, that meant that he was still sleeping and it gave her a little problem. Part of her didn't want to disturb him, but all the same, it was a chance to run shrieking into his room to wake him up with one of her hugs. She walked to the doorway and she was suddenly very glad that she hadn't given in to the urge to shriek and laugh.

Selena opened her eyes and looked at Nahl'een standing there looking back. "Hi, Sis," she smiled.

She got out of bed very carefully and walked with Nahl'een, "Are you hungry for some breakfast?"

"No," her little demon girl said, "I mean, yes. What, .. why you were in Dahl's bed?"

Selena smiled, "Well, if all of the things that happened to you hadn't happened, and if our father hadn't been killed, you'd have had the same sort of early childhood as me. You wouldn't think anything about the way that grownups sleep together at night if they love each other.

When I was little, smaller than you, Mother and Father slept together every night," she said as she led Nahl'een to the front door. "Come on, let's see if Rachel has anything cooking. I've forgotten whose turn it is to make breakfast. I just know that it isn't mine."

Nahl'een blinked, "But, you are not --"

"No," she nodded as she got down to Nahl'een's level, "I'm not your mother, but I'm your sister and I love you, and Dahl isn't your real father, either. He's a man who adopted you so that you would have a father and he loves his daughter very much.

We talked a lot last night, and we decided that you need a mother too. I'm not her, but that doesn't matter. Dahl and I love each other, and I guess that it's going to be the family that you have. Kids need to have a family, you know."

It took Nahl'een a second to think about it and she was hugging her sister a second later. She didn't mind, and after a few more seconds, she was thrilled. "I am lucky," she smiled as she hugged Selena again.

"So am I," Selena nodded and she carried Nahl'een the rest of the way. Cha'Khah was cooking the meal and Nahl'een got down to sit beside Sariel, since that was where Cha'Khah always placed her plate whenever she cooked.

"Good morning, Ugly," she giggled.

"Why do you always say that to me now?" he groaned. "I never call you names, do I?"

"No," Nahl'een said, trying to look contrite and failing at it.

"I think that you're not seeing this the way that a girl might, Sariel," Selena smiled, "See, a girl like Nahl'een might really, really like you. She just doesn't want to come out and say what she really means to say. That would be like showing you her heart, and she might not dare to do that."

Sariel was listening as Cha'Khah laid her breakfast down in front of her, and Selena could see that the Drow was listening intently as well. She picked up her cutlery, "What she might be really busting to say inside her might be, 'Hey Handsome, what's cookin'?"

Cha'Khah grinned, "Really? I never knew this." She turned to look at Nahl'een, "Is that what you are really saying like that?"

"No," the girl said as she shrugged, "It was a bad thing to say. Sorry Sariel."

He nodded but said nothing as he ate. Nahl'een looked at him for a moment, and then she tossed her sister a tiny grin as she lifted her wing and put it over his shoulder a she began to eat.