A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 59

Ellie was tired from her frantic flight and her fear, but she was still awake enough to want to be thinking of things, trying to process everything. She saw that things were different now and she couldn't be completely certain because of what had happened to Talon, but she did feel a lot more welcome with them. She wasn't unwelcome before, but there was an awkwardness that was absent now.

She sat slouched in the overstuffed chair, her hand supporting her head and her eyes were closed, but her mind was awake.

Ellie liked them. She could admit that to herself. Both of them were so beautiful to her. She thought of herself and her situation and though she was sad -- and she was always a little sad, she thought about Katje's kiss and wondered a little. It was only the fast friendly kiss of the moment, but it was on Ellie's mind all the same.

She opened her eyes a little and looked through one of the spaces between her fingers at Katje, who was quite obviously sleeping. But it was already quite warm in here and Katje slept on top of the covers and she was still naked. It was something that Ellie liked about her most of all -- a beautiful woman who was not shy the way that Ellie always had to be.

She felt a droplet of sweat begin its long, slow trip down her chest, running right between her small breasts on its way to join the rest of the pool there in her navel. Ellie's hand drifted to the zipper of her flightsuit and she carefully and silently opened it a few inches more, wanting to make the most of any cooling effect that she could get. She wanted to reach inside, but even like this she didn't have the courage.

Talon had changed a little from her time here before, she noticed. He was the same as his female now, not shy about his body. She liked that too.

Ok, she really liked that too.

Talon was such an attractive male. They both were so kind to her, and even before when there had been the awkwardness, it was easy even for Ellie to see that they cared about her. They even seemed worried for her, wanting her to feel safe with them before she tried to be safe on her own.

Ellie decided that she'd see what might be made of her stay here if she ever developed a spine. They seemed to want her to stay with them, and though she had her usual misgivings, Ellie was a little thrilled to be asked.

It was her last thought for a little while.

Despite her position, the chair was comfortable and she was tired. Her eyes closed and she drifted off.

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

Thirty-nine minutes later, the sound of the groan snapped Ellie's eyes open and she looked across the room. Talon was awake, -

No he wasn't.

He was thrashing in a dream or some kind of non-aware state, but he was about to non-aware himself right out of bed and onto the floor. Ellie was trying to find a clue in the fog of her mind.

It suddenly came to her that she didn't know about his wings. What if he landed on them? She kept thinking of the way that Katje had been so gentle with them. Talon was about to fall. Though it wasn't far, she was suddenly worried. What if he rolled as he fell and landed on them?

She groaned as she jumped up. Her head hurt with a bang.

Her head felt like there had been a gremlin camped out inside her body near her asshole and he'd had a slingshot and a rock; just waiting for his moment and when she'd jumped up, he'd fired that stone up through her body and her neck to bang against the inside of her skull. She hated waking up after just getting to sleep. Fucking sleep gremlins.

She was beside Talon in a second, trying to talk to him and keep him in the bed. A second later, Katje was there helping. Ellie was glad of that. Talon wasn't awake or maybe not asleep either and he was a lot stronger than he looked like this and of course, she knew why that was.

"Stop it, Talon," Katje said calmly, "You need to rest."

"Stop. Your wings have come in and you'll wreck them if you don't let them dry properly."

She bent down and kissed his forehead, "Stop, baby. Just rest."

They struggled on for a few minutes. Ellie let Katje do most of the talking while they tried to restrain him as well as calm him. He wasn't frantic, he was just trying to go somewhere in his sleep, the more that they watched him.

And then, suddenly it was over and he relaxed as Ellie gasped. His eyes were open and he had a temperature, by the way that his skin felt, but he wasn't struggling anymore. He was smiling, still not really with it and it was obvious that he was just about a quarter of an inch above going back to sleep because he sure wasn't awake.

He turned his head a little and he smiled at Katje and Ellie and then he looked at his outstretched hand and arm. It wasn't a death grip or anything, but Talon's arm had gotten away from them as they'd tried to restrain him gently and keep his wings opened. Sometime during its travels, it had gone right into the wide opening of Ellie's unzipped flightsuit.

He held her genitals gently in his hand.

"Nice," he smiled and then he drifted off.

Ellie was horror-stricken, but Katje still had a brain and she stepped over to Ellie and put her arm over her shoulder as she reached down and gently freed a smallish set of male genitalia from Talon's sleeping fingers.

Before Ellie could look up or even react, Katje kissed her cheek softly for just an instant.

"Thanks so much for getting to him so fast, Ellie. Can you go bring me the pan with the water and the dishcloth please? We need to wipe him down. He's burning up."

Ellie looked at Katje with wide eyes, but Katje's face only carried a small smile, "Please?"

Ellie nodded and turned to walk away, reaching down to pull the zipper up so that it was over her navel. She poured out most of the water and added a little fresh water to the pan and then she walked back carefully and held it for Katje as she swabbed Talon very gently. Ellie didn't know what to say.

"Katje," she whispered, "Katje, I, ..."

"Sshh," Katje hissed softly, "Let sleeping boys lie. This won't take long."

Elle stared and then she nodded, beginning to turn away again, but Katje asked her to stay. Ellie had no better plan and so she stayed, feeling stupid and mortified.

Katje finished up and then she took the pan away with Ellie following, still not knowing what she ought to be doing now. Katje took Ellie's hand and pulled her gently to the bed, "Sit."

Ellie sat.

"I'm sorry," she blurted, but Katje just shook her head.

"For what? You didn't do anything wrong. You got there so fast, Ellie. I can't thank you enough."

She smiled a little, "I was more worried that he might have squeezed you without meaning to. He didn't, did he?"

Ellie shook her head.

Katje looked at Ellie a little seriously, "One thing. Big rule here, ok?

I think you might be feeling like you've just wrecked something and now you want to run to the door, open it and just run away. Is that about right?"

Ellie stared for a second and then she nodded, looking down, "Something like that."

"I think you've been doing that a fair bit in your life lately. I can understand it, but Ellie, I don't really know what Talon might have said to you earlier. If I know him, he was trying to tell you that you have a home here if you want it. We want you to stay. We think you belong with us.

My sister and brother were trying to get you into bed, weren't they?"

Ellie looked up and Katje could see the tears about to begin, so she shook her head again, "Neither of us need the waterworks, baby. I have my answer." She grabbed the corner of the sheet and handed it over. Ellie nodded her thanks and wiped her eyes.

"They have reasons that I'm not sure that I can actually agree with anymore, but I think that the main one is that you're beautiful and desirable. Talon and me, we think so too, but we're not gonna try to get you into bed out of just that."

She smirked, "Knowing what I know now, I think you'd about have heart failure then."

"Katje, I -- "

"You hate yourself," the other one said, "God only knows why, but that's just dripping off you, now that I know. Why is that? You didn't do anything. You're just the way that you are."

"But I'm nothing," Ellie began -- I'm --"

Katje chuckled, "Near-sighted, is what you are. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Not all at once, just try to ease out of hating yourself. Try not to read anything into my question, but, ... does everything work?"

Ellie's eyes had just gotten a little near to their proper size. Now they were widening again and Katje was shaking her head again too.

"What I mean is - and just answer the question, Ellie.

It's me, Katje; one of two people who saved your ass again today and would go on doing that even now because I'm your friend. Actually, there is no 'even now'. Nothing's changed in how I feel about you. What I meant to ask was, is there a vagina under those balls? That's all I meant."

Ellie looked at Katje's face and nodded very slowly, "Why?"

Katje's smile stayed. "Because like a lot of things, it's all in how you look at stuff. You might see yourself as something a little different, but if you think about it, you're the only one here who's complete."

Ellie's eyes looked about ready to leave her head, so Katje took Ellie's hand in hers, "When I was growing up, I only had Sonja and Cor, but they're both pretty smart and they've always read like crazy. One of the places we lived must have belonged to a doctor or something and Cor read every one of his books. So when it was time for me to know about things, he told me.

When we're made, and we're inside our mothers, things are decided even before that about how we're gonna be. We grow and we're born. But at certain points, things happen to make sure that we're like the plan. At certain places, we develop what we'll have between our legs, our eye and hair color; stuff like that. The cock on every male starts out the same as the little bump at the top of a girl's hole. All kinds of things like that.

If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. That way, there only has to be one set of parts. They just grow the way that the plan says they have to for that one little person inside their mom. We're born and off we go, but either way, we grow up needing a part from the other kind. In your case, things just went a little of both ways, that's all. I remember that I was really curious about that and Cor told me that it just happens every so often -- every couple of hundred thousand births in any kind of animal, but it doesn't usually come out as well as with you. Maybe it was more from the demon side of things.

If you think about it like that; you're not put together wrong at all. You're special -- something that doesn't happen every day.

You might know what you need, or you might not even be sure, but I think you have a clue. To live your life, everybody's gotta be something -- or they gotta look like something and live that way.

Looking at you, I see Ellie, and Ellie is a girl."

Ellie looked as though she was about to argue, but Katje held up her finger, "That cunny that you've got, do you get periods?"

Ellie nodded and Katje grinned, "See? A girl. If you didn't have periods, I'd say you were a guy even with the vagina. The important thing here; the really, really important thing, Ellie, ... you ready?"

Ellie looked as though she was about to hold her breath.

"No holding your breath," Katje grinned, "'Cause the answer to that is the same as for the rest.

It's not important.

What's important is how you see yourself and you'd enjoy the only life you've got a whole lot more if you just live it. I sure don't care, and I still think you're beautiful."

She saw Ellie's eyes flick over to where Talon slept and she chuckled quietly, "Ok, at some point, he's gonna get curious and the best thing that you can do is let him in on it, so he won't have to care either. He thinks you're beautiful, the same as I do, and that won't change because you have a dick. It might be a big deal to a lot of males, but not that one. And he's your friend too.

How was it that you shot him? You were all freaked out?"

Ellie nodded, "I didn't shoot at Talon. There was a demon in the building and right in front of me. I shot him, but he didn't die right away. I guess I must have hit Talon. He ran over and killed the demon."

"See? You think that he'd have let that thing hurt you if he knew then what's between your legs?"

Katje's smile looked to Ellie like it could survive anything. She wanted one like that.

Ellie felt better. More importantly, she felt odd, because she was beginning to really feel a little better overall and it was a feeling that she had never had long enough to get used to. "What was the big rule you mentioned?"

"I already told you. It's not important. That's the big rule. What's important is that you're alive and healthy, and you've got a couple of friends. That's what's important.

Ok, so you've got everything. And starting right now, you have no more fucking reasons to hate yourself. It's hard enough just to get by. Something we're big on, Talon and me, is that we like our bodies and we like each other's bodies. I know you're probably gonna get a little freaked out, but we don't usually wear a lot of clothes when we're in here. So you'll just have to get used to that.

Oh, and we fuck a lot. Hope you're not a light sleeper.

Like I said, nothing's a big deal. Think you can handle that, or will you need Talon to build you a little fortress over in the corner to hide yourself away in? I know I'd like it better if we didn't have to tiptoe and worry that we might be disturbing you. We make noises when we screw; that's how it is.

Ellie had been smiling through all of that. Now she was laughing a little, "Do I get to watch sometimes?"

Katje laughed too, "I don't think you'll have much choice, unless you get earplugs and a good book. But hey, fair's fair. We get to watch if you play with yourself."

Ellie's eyes were growing again and Katje hugged her before the thought came to her to jump up and bolt. "What I meant was, you don't have to hide it real hard. I'd probably love to see that, but I'm not gonna leer over the edge of the bed while you do."

Ellie nodded and said that she'd think about it.

"I might cheer you on, though," Katje said as she got up to make tea.

Ellie had to really struggle not to laugh out loud then. She got up and went over to where Katje was trying to see if the kettle still had hot water. The way that her throat felt right now, she'd love a tea even if it was only half-steeped in warm water.

"Can I have some?" she asked.

"I wasn't going to ask you, I was just gonna make one for you,"Katje said, "You feeling any better now? I hope so."

Ellie nodded.

"Ok, here's where I try to talk Ellie out of her clothes, but for a totally different reason," Katje smiled.

"This place smells like a swamp and there's nothing we can do about it until morning when we open up. There's always a risk that there might be more idiots out there and I don't feel like having to protect two people that I care about at the same time if I can avoid it.

But I'm sweating a little right here, just like this and I'm naked. Ellie, you make me sweat even more just to look at you in that flightsuit. A hot cup of tea isn't gonna make it any better. So if you think that you can, I know you'd feel better with that off. Talon won't be in any shape to even have a thought on the subject for a long while yet, the way that he looks to me, so if I swear that I won't look, do you think you can ..."

Ellie didn't want to, but she knew that Katje was right. Staying in her suit wasn't going to make sleeping one bit easier and, ... well she had been listening, as uncertain as she'd been through it all.

Just like she always had been, she thought.

That was what decided things for her and she nodded, "I'm gonna try not to care, but please, just don't stare at me, ok?"

"Deal," Katje smiled, so Ellie began to try to get the soaked clothing off her sweaty body.

She almost ended up on the floor, so she asked for a little help and half a minute later, she felt better.

She also felt as though she was being really daring and it felt good to feel that way. She looked at Katje who was still smiling and looking only at her face.

"Thanks, Katje," Ellie said.

Katje nodded and spoke through her smiling teeth as though she was facing such a struggle.

"I will not look.

I will not look.

Ellie is lovely and this is killing me, but I will NOT look."

Ellie giggled and just said, "Oh fuck, Katje, go ahead. You might as well look and I'll try not to crawl under the bed. I didn't say you couldn't look. I only asked you not to stare."

Katje heaved a sigh as though she'd been carrying a heavy weight and had just been told that she could set it down. "Oh thank God."

Ellie smiled and wished that she'd known these two all of her life.

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

It started as just the two of them sitting on the bed and with their mugs of tea, but it became obvious in fairly short order that there wasn't really a comfortable way to do it. They muttered and grumbled as they each spilled a little over the rims of their mugs and burned their hands a little.

"This would be easier even if we were sitting side-by-side on one of the long stones outside, "Ellie said, meaning the curbstones which were there for cars which no longer came to park there, "THAT would be the way."

Katje nodded, "I want to do that with you now. Tomorrow, that's what we'll do."

Ellie nodded and after more looking around for a better way, they just ended up sitting on the bed cross-legged facing each other. It was a huge step for Ellie and Katje noticed it.

"Have you always been alone?" she asked, though Ellie's actions to this point told her enough to be certain that she likely had.

"Pretty much," Ellie nodded, "I never managed to make many friends growing up and there were always the things that human people do which terrified me. Like if a friend invited me to sleep over at her house.

I'd have to say no and once, I could even see it as our friendship changed right there on the spot.

But what was I going to do? If they saw me getting into my PJs, I'd have looked like their brothers back then and one of the girls who had been a friend had already tried to get a little touchy-feely the way that kids can get while they're figuring things out before puberty. And what if I changed while I was sleeping? I had enough trouble as it was. My mom knew it and she always said no so I had an out.

She was around for most of my childhood and then she caught the fever and died. My dad was the demon, like I told you, and he was a professional hunter. That was how he made the money that we needed to stay alive. He taught me, but he never taught me how to shoot more than once. Said bullets cost too much money to really show me more than that. How was it for you?"

"I never really had much in the way of friends," Katje said, "We moved too much for a long time. I never had much of a chance to make any and there was always the other side of me underneath. You must have had it even harder -- well, you did, I can see that, between trying not to let anybody find out about two things instead of one."

Ellie looked at Katje for a moment and then she said, "Hey, I think I've just thought of this, but, ... well, can I ask -"

"What am I?" Katje asked and Ellie nodded.

"What are Talon and I? Ellie, we don't even know.

Mamma told Cor once I think, but as to a name for what we are, ..." she shrugged, "Make up what suits you. All we know is that we seem to be something which can hunt and kill demons to eat them, not that we usually do much of that. We'd never do that to you, just saying.