The White Elephant in the Room Playground

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Sure thing, Lee."

Jesse obliged his friend with a particularly deft ear-scratching. He'd gotten pretty good at this over the years, if he did think so himself. He'd win this extremely weird but mercifully wholesome game easily, no doubt.

 

[Fusion]

Lee leaned into the scratches, tilting his head and purring. You know, as dogs do. His foot twitched and kicked gently in the air. "Gods, it's been ages since I've been spoiled like this, perhaps literally. Under my chin, next, please?" he asked.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Abigail wasn't sure what Gen was doing, but it looked like something. She figured she'd talk to him. "Gen? How are you holding up?"

 

[IFBench]

"I-I'm fine," Gen lied, trying harder to hug himself, stretching his nubs as much as he could. Despite his efforts, he couldn't succeed.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"Oh. I was hoping you, like, needed a hug or something. Just because I could use one after all this."

 

[IFBench]

There wasn't a single moment of hesitation before Gen ran over and hugged Abigail.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Once Gen couldn't see her face anymore, Abigail started smirking. He had needed a hug after all.

If only he felt comfortable asking for one when he needed it, but he wasn't the first person she'd met like that, and she knew how to work around the whole 'I'm fine' song and dance.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Jesse allowed his mind to drift a little as he scratched at Lee's chin and cheek fur. The wolf let on what he wanted so easily, it was effortless to make him happy. That made... a nice goddamn change from Jesse's usual social interactions. And all without proper mindreading. What a strange and inexplicable circumstance this was. But they still had to escape, and he had a hunch the way to do that was still to solve the original murder, whatever they'd learnt since. Those journals... they were dozens of pages long by now but maybe there was still a clue in there somewhere? Salt and sand, he had no idea. Maybe when the dates were over and the Wii prompted them to vote again he really would vote Santa just to see what happened.

"Not bad, hey?" he asked Lee, absentmindedly, as his digits moved from the back of the lycanroc's neck to his scalp, where they performed a very presentable massage.

 

[Tanuki]

"Well, apparently it requires suntan lotion despite this stuff having no effect on fur!" Palkia called out cheerfully, holding up the bottle. "I imagine it's a cultural thing."

“Suntan lotion?” Zeke asked. He tried to piece together the dots himself and

'unrestrained summer fun'

A blush burned its way through his fur. Palkia. Putting suntan lotion on Palkia. Getting suntan lotion applied by—“Sure! Tanning, I could use, and fun—love to—just haven’t—do you your scales look perfe—it’d be a fun do you which position do you take m—prefer to take?” His eyes nearly lost their pupils. He couldn’t take them out of Palkia’s. His heart beat out of his chest. His breath failed him. A whimper squeaked its way out of his throat.

"Actually, we're doing a different game now,"

“Any couple can play any game they like!” cheered the Wii. Points pinged out over a model of Jesse and Lee’s heads, Jesse’s quickly outpacing Lee as the scritches went into scratches.

 

[Tanuki]

There wasn't a single moment of hesitation before Gen ran over and hugged Abigail.

3D models of Gen and Abigail’s heads showed up next to the others, points slowly adding up as they hugged. A heart encircled each pair.

 

[Fusion]

"Not bad, hey?" he asked Lee.

"Not bad at all..." Lee muttered, his leg kicking more than before. He glanced over at the tv screen, noticing how low his points were compared to Jesse's. Some spark of his usual self seemed to shine through. He was losing? Impossible! There's now way he could lose! Even if... this was probably the most enjoyable way to lose...

Lee shook his head, this was still a competition! He had to have some of his competitiveness stuck in this flurry of emotions and scritches. It took a great deal of strength to do it, but Lee eventually turned himself around in Jesse's arms. Turns out, his tail was wagging this entire time, as small and as unnoticeable as it was. "That was, what was the word... spooning, I believe? I rather enjoyed that, but..."

Lee raised his paw to Jesse's cheek and scratched gently, slowly bringing his paw to the fox's chin and returning the chin-scratchies in kind. His other arm trailed up Jesse's back, leading to the top of his head and rubbing those giant ears. "I'm... coming up in last. And I can't have that, so it's only fair I return the favor, partner."

His tone was about as sultry as one would imagine a wolf that had zero experience in trying to be sultry would sound like.

 

[IFBench]

Gen didn't notice himself popping up on screen. He was too focused on hugging Abigail.

 

[Tanuki]

Gen didn't notice himself popping up on screen. He was too focused on hugging Abigail.

Gen’s intense focus on giving the goodest hug seemed to earn him a multiplier of sorts. His score started to steadily outpace Abigail’s.

 

[Chibi Pika]

A blush burned its way through his fur. Palkia. Putting suntan lotion on Palkia. Getting suntan lotion applied by—“Sure! Tanning, I could use, and fun—love to—just haven’t—do you your scales look perfe—it’d be a fun do you which position do you take m—prefer to take?”

"Apparently it's good for your fur!" Palkia declared cheerfully, with almost no apparent acknowledgement of Zeke's flustered state. Almost. "I'm unsure if changing into swim trunks is mandatory--you might have to ask the Wii. Do we even have a swimming pool here?" the dragon mused, pouring lotion onto its claws.

 

[Tanuki]

"Apparently it's good for your fur!" Palkia declared cheerfully, with almost no apparent acknowledgement of Zeke's flustered state. Almost. "I'm unsure if changing into swim trunks is mandatory--you might have to ask the Wii. Do we even have a swimming pool here?" the dragon mused, pouring lotion onto its claws.

Zeke's eye twitched. "Oh you wanted to do me fir—apply fir—the lotion that's fine, I'll just." He stood stone still for a moment when he realized he had to take off his sweatshirt. In front of Palkia (and everyone else in the living room, but Zeke didn't seem to notice they'd changed locations). This was fine. He was fine. He could do this.

"Pool, well, there one is it under the main bodega." Stalling, perfect. He just needed to work up the courage. He knew how to take off his hoodie. He hadn't personally practiced undressing himself, but he had seen plenty of videos that elucidated such for him. One smooth motion, quick enough to be cathartic, but slow enough to tantalize.

Zeke did his best attempt at a sultry gaze (closing his left eye, tilting his head, and opening the right wider) and grabbed the base of his hoodie. He rolled it up his torso while keeping his eye fixated on Palkia's. Well, his eye jumped between both of Palkia's eyes because he didn't know which one to focus on. The hoodie caught on his elbow. He didn't know how to stop. He didn't. He kept pulling it off until it covered his face. His elbow was caught.

He didn't have enough room to pull it the rest of the way. He stretched, pulled, tried as best he could, and finally managed to lose balance and fall over. His head slammed against the PS3 on the way down, and he only let out the cry of pain from that as any indication he'd made a mistake. He could recover this. Easy. He had to lay down anyway, right?

He raised one leg and rested his head on his free paw. "Ready when you are," he said with the closest thing to a veneer of confidence he could manage. Unfortunately, he couldn't know he had his back to Palkia with his hoodie covering his face.

 

[Chibi Pika]

"Ah, so there is a pool, excellent. Well, you'd hate to get sunburnt," Palkia said, pretending to forget that the lotion would serve no practical purpose. After the rather elaborate piece of performance art that was Zeke's hoodie-removal (there was surely a good reason why the procedure needed to be so unnecessarily complicated) the spatial dragon set to work applying essential UV protection to the Zangoose with all the confidence of someone who'd done so a hundred times before.

 

[Tanuki]

Zeke yelped when Palkia's paws made contact. The hoodie over his head further heated his burning cheeks, but it gave him something to bite down on to keep quiet. It almost helped. A little. Somewhat. He made just about every noise no one Gen's age should hear, but at least his hoodie muffled it a little bit. Palkia was giving him a massage. Sure, it wasn't Pallister, but he happily pretended it was. Only he would know, after all.

This massage, oh this massage. Palkia knew how to push every single button he had. Of course, it being Palkia made just about every button the right button, but the legendary took it even further than Zeke thought possible. Even blinded, colors he didn't know existed filled his vision. He felt more relaxed than he had in decades. Even the thought that he was blinded with two children on the loose didn't pull him out of his calm.

The Wii took note of Palkia's skill. Its score flew above everybody else's, even surpassing Gen's goodest hugs in seconds. The counter struggled to keep up. It kept counting after Palkia had thoroughly coated every inch of Zeke in lotion. Zeke didn't notice Palkia had finished for several minutes, too busy committing every second of the experience to memory.

Nothing good lasts forever, though, and he eventually floated out of his stupor. The new relaxation allowed him the peace of mind to manage to finish taking off his hoodie. Blindfold gone, he finally realized everyone else was also in the room with him. He ripped the swim shorts off the floor and put them on as if he hadn't been without pants since he met everyone. He couldn't bring himself to look at Palkia, instead watching his claws poke each other. "So, if you'd like, well first, really good lotioning, thank you. I, if you want, y'know, turns or something I could did you want me to, too and after I could show you the pool if you like or maybe we could go ou—" he cut himself off, better judgement finally kicking in.

"Wonderful performances!" cheered the Wii. "I hope this helps you all decide who to vote tonight's Most Dateable Contestants!"

 

[Tanuki]

Not one to miss out on the festivities, Rally pulled out his own bottle of suntan lotion from.

He poured a liberal amount into the palm of each hand and displayed physics-defying flexibility. He managed to cover each and every part of his body his swim trunks nobody saw him put on didn’t cover. His fur’s natural sheen shined ever brighter, and he gave every muscle group a deep tissue massage while simultaneously managing to make a show of flexing every muscle that he wasn’t actively massaging.

This confused the Wii. This was a couple’s game, yet Rally had managed to enter all by himself. After some deliberation, two Rallies appeared on screen, distinguished by tie color. Their score went up in sync, but he struggled to keep up with the competition with his score split between him and himself. Palkia had the highest score by a far margin, a margin growing still larger as the counter struggled to keep up with his performance, but with Zeke yet to contribute any points, the real competition remained between Jesslee and Abigen.

Zeke glanced at his empty score, then back at the floor. The math wasn’t on his side. He knew that without having to work any equation. Palkia only picked him because they needed an extra. “Hey,” he squeaked and cleared his throat. “So, thanks. That was fun. I’d love to return the favor but,” he raised up his claws and forced a chuckle. “I get if you don’t want to risk a massage from these.”

He watched the door just to look at something other than Palkia. “Or just not from me,” he whispered. “You’re not my Palkia, but it was still nice meeting you. I can go back to my equations if...” a twinge of hope managed to sliver into his voice. “C-could you please let me give it a shot?”

 

[Fusion]

"I hope this helps you all decide who to vote tonight's Most Dateable Contestants!"

Most... Dateable...

Lee would have been distracted by that, but he focused as best he could on his par-- no, rival, in this game. "I feel it's obvious who I'd give the title of Most Dateable," he chuckled. "That Mia kid was a prick, but I'd be lying if she wasn't sharp."

That pun hurt Lee just as much to make as it was for anyone to hear.

"...Who in their right mind would willing make puns?" he shuddered, dropping his chin on Jesse's chest. "How vile..."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Oh great. The Wii was shipping her with Gen. Gosh, couldn't she just hug a guy without it having to be some kind of straight thing? She wanted to stop just to spite the thing, but making sure Gen felt okay was more important.