Chapter 37: The Womb That Hungers, The Dream That Splits
After my sixth bottle, I exhaled the kind of sigh that felt like surrender in carbonated form. There was simply no hope — not with this pisswater alcohol, not with this overclocked liver that filtered like a sanctimonious nun judging the fun out of every molecule. "Next enhancement cycle," I muttered into the bottle's neck like a man confessing to a beer priest, "I'm engineering a failsafe — something that toggles tolerance on and off like a kill switch for joy."
Kimchi, ever the curious biomass-blossom she was, leaned in, took my current bottle without asking — as if I were just a limb of her own — and took a sip. Her mandibles twitched, and her tongue darted out in full theater of disgust. "Kimchi does not comprehend, Irvine-mate. Why poison yourself willingly? There is no nutritional gain in this fermented swamp fluid."
"That," I said, twirling the bottle like it was a wine glass in a tavern I didn't belong in, "is exactly the point. It's a ritual of controlled self-harm with socially acceptable consequences. You dose yourself in poison until your body starts interpreting 'danger' as 'pleasure.' It's fun. Or… it used to be, before my stupid perfect immune system decided I wasn't allowed."
She said nothing after that, just planted herself at my side like a loyal spore and stayed there, silent and steady, while I drained the last bottle. It wasn't getting me drunk, but it had a sharp, crisp flavor that felt nostalgic — like the ghost of a buzz I used to know in a weaker body.
Eventually, we returned to my room, where Crystal's inert body lay like a divine statue mid-transcendence. We sat in quiet vigil, the kind that doesn't demand words. Two hours passed like molasses in zero gravity. I didn't mind. In fact, I loved it — the calm, the shared silence, the holy comfort of doing absolutely nothing with someone who made you feel everything.
And then — like a marionette rethreaded by a god's hand — Crystal's limbs snapped upward, graceful and violent all at once, her spine curling her into a seated position with all the elegance of awakening royalty.
She didn't stay upright long.
I launched myself across the bed like a ballistic missile made of need and relief, tackling her straight back into the mattress. "Thank every fucking psionic current in the multiverse," I whispered into her clavicle, burying a kiss into her crown like a benediction. My hand found her back and began stroking it in long, calming arcs, as if I could erase all the time I spent worrying with a single caress.
"Kimchi said you were fine, but I was still swimming in dread," I murmured, arms tightening around her. The hug would've liquefied a baseline human, but Crystal simply melted into it like it was the only place she belonged.
She chuckled — a soft, resonant sound that made my nerves unclench. "Your precious Crystal is intact, my beloved. Your... vigorous affection merely pushed me past a threshold. I was balancing 281 concurrent star-cluster invasions, with dozens more queued. Your touch — well, it nearly shattered my focus. The hive would've hemorrhaged biomass on a scale that would make a xeno-economist scream."
I blinked. "Wait, what."
"Oh, don't fret — only the sectors from here to Homeworld were affected. The main frontal conquests remained untouched. A few scout missions — like the one near your birth system — were slightly disoriented. Nothing catastrophic. Just a few hundred billion drone misfires."
I stared at her, deadpan. A few. Hundred. Billion. "Oh sure," I said flatly, "just a few hundred billion psychic xenomorphs hiccupping because I made you come too hard. Nothing to worry about. Totally standard."
Crystal laughed again, and I swear the sound tasted like honey static.
Feeling the tension finally bleed from my spine, I laid my head in her lap. She read the signal instantly — of course she did — and her fingers began combing through my hair like prayer beads slipping through gentle claws.
"Mmmmh." I let out a moan of contentment, not remotely ashamed of it. "So, apart from me fucking you so well your consciousness short-circuited, how was it for you?"
She smiled — not her usual hive-mother smile, but something warm, fragile, and almost shy. "I didn't have a framework for it. The hive has reproduced only asexually for millennia — mutation, biomass, egg. To experience an act of pleasure this intimate, with a mate… It's hard to quantify. There were reactions — biochemical, emotional, psychic — I've never catalogued before. I'm still processing them."
"Heh. I'll take that as a 'yes, I liked it, please do it again.' For the record, you're incredible. Top-tier mating partner. Hive-certified platinum experience. Ten out of ten — would ruin galactic supply chains again."
Her smile bloomed wider at the compliment, almost glowing. "The voices you heard — the overlapping ones — they weren't hallucinations. When I entered heat, the upper-tier psionic nodes within the hive, those closest to brain-status… they felt it too. We're deeply linked. My ecstasy spilled over. They were... participating. In a way."
"…So you basically psychically sexted the top brass of the hivemind through me."
"In a manner of speaking."
We spent the next few hours in gentle conversation, drifting between topics like leaves in an air current. Nothing pressing. Just fragments of thoughts, shared freely. Eventually, sleep crept up on me like a velvet hunter, and I surrendered to it.
But I did not dream alone.