When Jerome awoke the sun was shining brightly through the trees. His hand was still in Krystyna’s. More than that, she had rolled over on her side and grabbed his arm with her other arm. It would have been a completely ineffective elbow or wrist lock, he noted, so it must have been affection. She lay on her side facing him, eyes closed, face completely relaxed in sleep. He turned so they were face to face, less than a foot apart.

She was beautiful and he could lay here forever.

Then he noticed that he was back in his original form. He could tell because of his raging boner. Old shows had joked about ‘morning wood’, but he’d thought it was a fabrication. How it felt now was like it did halfway through a porn session. Porn, which he’d been nearly a week without…

There was a difference. He would never seek out porn of someone sleeping gently. If he stumbled across it he would click through to the next thing almost immediately. But this… not only did he want to stay here forever, the sight seemed to be affecting more than his dick.

She opened her eyes.

“Oh,” she said softly. “You’re back as you.”

He waited for her to withdraw her hand in disappointment — even with all these new muscles he wasn’t half as pretty as she was — but she kept it there and squeezed, then looked into his eyes.

“Something’s different,” he said. “Not just me.”

He immediately chastised himself. What a stupid thing to say! He didn’t even know what was different, aside from the whole she-wanted-to-hold-his-hand thing, he just had a feeling. Hopefully it wouldn’t destroy whatever was going on at that moment.

Thankfully she just smiled. “You’re right.”

What could be different? He hoped she would say what was different. Then again, why was he thinking about this? He should be practicing, focusing on rescuing the humans, rather than laying here wondering what was in some woman’s mind!

Still, it would be nice if this could just keep on going forever.

He would let fate decide. If this went on, if she kept on giving him these looks and holding his hand, it would be wonderful… and he could continue this safely tonight, after he was exhausted.

If it stopped, then he would be able to concentrate on rescuing the humans, and that would be fine. If he were completely selfless, a true hero, he would even prefer the second… but he was not completely selfless. As strong as his desire to rescue the humans, he couldn’t pull himself away from this moment.

He could, however, take risks, do things that could either take them deeper into the moment or make the moment explode in his face.

“Tell me about it,” he said. “You seem better about understanding these subtle human things.”

She laughed and put her other hand on top of where their fingers interlaced. “That’s just because I’ve been paying attention longer. You’ve started paying attention while you’re here. I can tell. The fact that you could tell something was different with me, that means you’re making progress. And the fact that you asked, that you wanted to understand…”

“Okay, but… that’s still me. Why are you different?”

She sat up to a kneeling position, butt resting on her feet and one hand leaning hard on her legs. He sat up to match her, knees inches from hers. In the middle she clenched his hand almost painfully.

“Because I can be now. Because this new you, it lets me relax. It lets me be how I want to be, not how I’ve had to be these past… oh God… years? Even before I was here. While I was fighting the government I never knew who was a plant. I had to be vigilant all the time. Always watching my back. And then here I never knew when a gnoll attack was coming. When I’d have to fight. Kicking ass gets old after a while if you’re just doing it to stay alive.

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“It was just me against the horde of gnolls. Me, stuck between bloodthirsty creatures who wanted to kill me and the equally bloodthirsty humans who wanted to lock me in a room forever, good only for the occasional rape.

”I’ve been alone for so long.”

She bit her lip and her eyes glistened, but she kept talking.

“When I first ran into you, you were like a child. Your personality and strength had been squeezed out by the gentle relentless crushing caress of the World Government. But I could tell there was something about you. A goodness they couldn’t squeeze out, not completely. And having something to take care of, even as stupid as you were back then, it was better than nothing. Better than just living for myself.

“And now… You’re a man now. I can relax in your presence. I can let you take care of me for a time.

“They try to separate us out there. They try to make us separate units all hooked into the same entertainment-industrial complex, all of us forming our strongest bonds with the same hundred characters on a screen. Not individuals, not even close. They tried to sell it to us as that, at the start, back when people cared about such things. Consumer as individual. But individuals find other individuals, form relationships, create beauty and joy and life.

“You did that,” she said, pausing, looking into his eyes as if trying to find something. “Not with me, not at first. Staring at boobs and receiving protection isn’t a relationship. But then you started to break free. When you made the hard choice. When you formed a bond, and then risked everything for someone you knew. Not an ideal. A person. A flawed, annoying, but exceedingly real person. Don’t hide it, I could tell how you felt by how you described Rayi. You liked him, but he annoyed you. He wasn’t some scripted fakeness, something calculated by a thousand test screenings to maximally exploit your affection. He was real, and you were real, and you made a connection. Then you took responsibility. You took risks. You can’t take risks without taking responsibility; without responsibility it’s just reckless endangerment. Then you saw your weakness and you grabbed it by the throat and started the long slow process of strangling it. You’re getting stronger. You’re not doing it for vanity; you’re doing it so you can be the man you want to be. To protect the connections you form, because you see how tenuous they can be. And that man, as stupid and naive as you can still be…”

The torrent of words halted and she started crying.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, tears flowing down her face. “I look so weak and stupid, and you didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask to take care of me. I can still take care of myself. I’ve done it for so long. I’m imposing on you and—”

He cut her off with a finger on her mouth. He’d seen that in the old movies and it was the only thing he knew to do.

Shockingly, it worked. Her tears slowed. She lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing onto his shoulder. He returned the embrace and let her cry. But then she pulled back and looked at him, hands grasping his arms, wet eyes sparkling and full of need.

His heart jumped into his throat. He knew what the men in the old movies did next. The men with their chiseled jaws, their confidence, the very not-like-Jerome men who always seemed to know what to do.

Except he was like them now. He wasn’t a scrawny boy any longer. He had tried. He had failed and he had succeeded. He had grown. He had skills and muscles and magic. Apparently he had whatever those individuality and connection things were that Krystyna had talked about.

More relevantly, he was holding a beautiful woman, holding her in his arms, not ogling her through a screen with his dick in his hand, and this beautiful woman was vulnerable and looking to him for strength and reassurance.

He knew what the men in the old movies did next and with terror in his heart he followed in their footsteps.

He kissed her.

She leaned into the kiss, as natural as breathing, overwhelming her insecurity with passion. It went on for a split second of eternity. Five seconds? A minute? There was no way of knowing. His limbs tingled.

Then she broke away and started crying again, throwing her head onto his shoulder. He held her close and patted her on the back, and she squeezed him in a hug that used all her strength. It took his breath away.

Literally. She was still the physically stronger of the pair and in her passion she wasn’t holding back at all. He was even losing HP, albeit slowly.

He coughed and tapped out. “That’s enough.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said as she pulled back, the thought not crossing her mind that it was physical limitations that made him want to stop. “There are all those humans being tortured and I’m here crying and being useless and—”

He kissed her again, stopping both tears and speech.

Another small eternity later he realized he needed to stop. Despite how wonderful all this was, he still had a mission to accomplish.

“I have to go,” he said. “Practice. Leveling.”

She laughed through the remaining tears. Thankfully no new ones were being produced. “I would be disappointed if you did anything less.”