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rarsneezesbut i also know that some ppl possibly don't want to read smut, so, here's the keystone relationship moment from it, isolated
i'm not editing out the context of "they started having sex but almond got really anxious and stressed about it so they stopped" but that's the context. enjoy your neurotic catgirl and her patient not-yet-her-gf-but-you-can-see-why-they're-getting-there
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They cuddle and talk for a while—trading stories about bullshit; a merchant Anna recently helped, a monster Almond recently slayed, gossip about the Scions. Almond isn’t quite sure how long, exactly, they’ve been doing this, just that it’s been more than twenty minutes, and given that Anna has not actually moved other than to shift her legs a couple of times, probably less than an hour. Comfortable as this is, Almond knows that the only way to get Anna to stay still for extended periods of time is to sit on her, quite literally. (Though, laying and/or napping in her lap works just as well.)
But maybe Anna’s just genuinely enjoying spooning Almond this much. What does Almond know. ...other than the fact Anna hasn’t groped her boobs once this whole conversation, despite how easy it would be for her to. Which... is that because Almond said she wasn’t interested in sex? If so, that’s really sweet of Anna, and even just the possibility fills Almond’s heart with a kind of gooey feeling.
It’s... nice. It’s unbelievably nice, just being able to lay here and be held, to enjoy that, the sensation of it. She feels safe, she thinks, then feels kind of embarrassed for thinking it. Even though it’s probably true? Like, she’s laying here half-naked and just letting Anna cuddle her, and she’s not even anxious about the idea. She’s just content, and warm.
She should... she thinks she should say something about that. She thinks Anna should—she wants Anna to know.
“Hey,” Almond says, tentatively, as Anna winds down the end of her latest story. She runs her fingers over the scales on Anna’s forearm, because they’re there, and the texture really is soothing. Almond understands more and more why Anna’s nervous tics include rubbing her neck and reaching as if to fiddle with her wrist before remembering she only has one arm. It’s just a good stim, is the thing!
“Yeah?” Anna asks, gentle.
“I guess... uh...” The whole feeling safe thing is way too sappy and embarrassing, so Almond instead goes for: “Thanks for not being mad about the whole me ruining the mood thing.”
Something about Anna’s attitude changes, with those words. What, Almond isn’t entirely sure, especially since she can’t see Anna’s face. But she feels it, in the shift of Anna’s body, the way Anna’s grip gets a little tighter. Why it matters, exactly, Almond doesn’t understand.
“Yeah, of course,” Anna says, easy as breathing, and as wholeheartedly as she ever says anything. And yet... the conviction in her voice seems a little stronger, maybe? “You don’t—it’s not a problem,” Anna insists. “No mood ruined. We just decided not to do the thing.” She pushes her face into Almond’s back briefly, tenderly, lingering in a way that Almond also doesn’t quite understand. “So don’t worry about it,” Anna finishes, mumbling.
“Still,” Almond says, feeling uncertain but still gooey, still immeasurably grateful. She can’t just say nothing. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
Anna just shoves her face into Almond’s back again instead of answering. The way her nose is being squished cannot be comfortable, but Almond leaves her to it.
It really is nice, though, knowing that there’s no such thing as a point of no return, here. That it really is this easy. Anna is so good about that—at making things seem simple, effortless. She’s also good at making Almond feel silly for stressing so much, but in a way that... that doesn’t make her anxious the way she thinks it should.
“...thanks for not laughing at me, too,” Almond adds.
“What!?” Anna’s surprise is full-body, reeling away from Almond’s back, squeezing Almond tighter either for balance or something else. She hoists herself up in such a way that she can lean over Almond to actually look at her. “Almond, why the hell would I laugh at you?”
Almond doesn’t know how to answer. “Like,” she begins, but words fail her. This is something that happens—more often than she would like, frankly—where what she thinks she understands about the world just gets completely upended. It’s an amnesia thing, she always assumed, except this time it isn’t about not knowing how Eorzea works like anyone who grew up here would. This time...
She swallows. The fear that had been nice and absent from her chest since she and Anna laid down to cuddle suddenly returns.
“You were... expecting to get...” Anna is saying, into Almond’s silence. Almond’s eyes flicker to her face long enough to watch Anna’s mouth scrunch up, and then she has to look away, afraid of the conclusion, the judgement. “About what? Not being good at sex??”
“About... not knowing how...” How it works. How the world works. You know, missing something that’s totally obvious to everyone else, like she always does, because she has amnesia, and is apparently shit at everything that isn’t combat. (She knows this is unfair, but her brain isn’t up to feeling particularly charitable right now, half-paralyzed by anxiety as it is.)
“I’m starting to understand why you don’t want your memories back,” Anna huffs.
Almond stops tracing Anna’s scales and clenches her hands into fists instead.
“Gods, sorry,” Anna says, and bumps her head against Almond’s, her forehead smashed briefly against Almond’s ear. Almond wonders not for the first time if Anna’s always been like this, or if the head-bumping is compensation for the missing limb. Almond doesn’t mind, though, even if she feels sick to her stomach at this precise moment. “I don’t want to stress you out, I just—this shit pisses me off.”
Almond still feels like she’s missing a critical piece of information, but she doesn’t dare ask for it. She can line up pieces herself, anyway. It’s just that they don’t make a lot of sense.
“Hey,” Anna continues, her voice bright. “If you ever remember who the fuck treated you like that, let me at ‘em, okay?”
Almond swallows. “Yeah?”
“Yeah! If they’re an asshole who made fun of you just because you didn’t know something then my fist has a date with their face.”
“Even Y’shtola?” Almond asks, rolling over so she can see Anna better.
“I mean, Y’shtola’s not above consequences, so yeah,” Anna says, without much hesitation. But then Almond watches her scowl, slowly. “...for real, though, if Y’shtola makes a joke that you don’t like, just tell her? I know she’s intimidating, but—”
“If it’s just a joke,” Almond tries to interject, stuck on that thought for some reason.
Anna shakes her head as well as she can when she’s flopped back down into the pillows. “No, still tell her. Or, I’ll tell her?” she offers, but doesn’t give Almond much space to reply. (Which is fine, Almond wasn’t sure how she would, anyway.) “Like—Yda’s not a huge fan of sex jokes, but that doesn’t mean jokes about sex are inherently bad? That’s the train of thought I’m going with, I guess. Point is: I know Y’shtola’s humor is uh, kind of, you know. But I also think she’ll knock it off if you ask.” Anna shrugs. “Otherwise I punch her, I guess.”
It’s a joke, and Anna acts like she’s joking, but Almond also knows it’s also a serious offer, because that’s... just how Anna is. She plays everything lighthearted, but means every second of it, as well. Almond likes that about her.
Even though she’s, like... she’s definitely missing something here, because she can’t read Anna’s mind to know exactly what’s going on in it, and like hell she’s going to ask. All she knows is that she knows—ugh, it’ll sound stupid—but she knows Anna’s vibes, when she’s getting protective. They’ve fought primals together. She’s stood right next to Anna in between a dragon and Alphinaud. Anna even stepped between Gaius and Almond once. Anna’s putting out those same vibes now—but why? Why even bother directing her anger at people who might not even exist; why, over something so stupid like Almond not being able to take a joke. Isn’t that her problem?
And if she’s not the one who’s been wrong, all this time, then—
...All this time? Wrong about what, exactly? When she tries to access the information from her memories, all she gets back is a big fat folder with every single word in it redacted. Which is pretty much normal for her, but still.
Almond scoots a little so that she can put her forehead against Anna’s, and then she changes the subject.
“I can take care of myself, you know,” she says, throwing it as a joke.
“Well, yeah, duh,” Anna replies, with an unbearably fond look, “but I want to be there for you.”
Almond hesitates, not sure how to answer. Anna’s eyes are locked with her eyes. Anna gently pushes her legs against Almond’s legs.
“Like, don’t get me wrong,” Anna continues. “I’m incredibly aware that you could do this whole Warrior of Light thing on your own if you wanted to! But I know doing this alone... kind of sucks.” Her brow furrows with genuine distress, and a little quieter, she says: “I don’t want you to do it alone.”
“Oh,” Almond says.
“Like, if you ever decided you just... didn’t want to do this,” Anna says. “That’d be fine by me. I could pick up the slack. You don’t have to stay.”
Something about that idea deeply offends Almond. “...I don’t want you to do it alone, either,” she insists, in a whisper.
“...Oh,” Anna says, a near-perfect echo of Almond’s own sentiment, just a few seconds ago. She grins, slowly, contagiously, her grin growing wider and wider as the realization really seems to settle in. “What the fuck! That’s sweet of you,” she says, her tone somewhere between whining and sing-song.
Almond blushes. “It’s just- I mean. Killing primals is the only thing I’m good at, anyway, so I might as- I might as well stick around, and—”
“That’s not true,” Anna protests.
“What?” Almond says, because she was mid-thought and doesn’t quite know what part of it Anna is referring to.
“It’s not the only thing you’re good at,” Anna clarifies.
Almond blinks. “Oh yeah? Name one other thing.”
“I dunno, you’re pretty good at kissing.”
“...oh.”
Almond can’t help it. The quiet little sound escaping from her, the way she slowly starts grinning, wider than even Anna is grinning right now. It’s so stupid. And yet the thought makes her so happy.
“Also, like, I’ve seen you weave,” Anna continues, unaware of the revelation occurring in Almond’s mind. “You’re pretty good at that, too.”
Almond’s so distracted she says: “Yeah, but,” as if she wants to protest, despite weaving being objectively a more useful skill than kissing. Anna complimenting her weaving still makes her feel warm, but it’s a candle compared to the fire that Anna complimenting her kissing lit in Almond’s chest.
“Almond, my dad makes money fixing leather,” Anna counters, to the protest Almond made by mistake. “Weaving is totally a skill. It’s not like anyone’s telling me that my freakish ability to scale Mor Dhona even with only one arm isn’t a skill.”
“It’s not freakish,” Almond protests.
“Hey, you’re not bad at climbing, either,” Anna says, instead of agreeing or arguing. Oh well.
“Not as good as you are,” Almond says, not that she really cares, because—Anna said she’s good at kissing.
“Yeah, but you can keep up with me!” Anna says, brightly. “Lot of people wouldn’t even try. Or they’re too scared of heights. Whatever.”
“You really think I’m good at kissing?”
Anna looks at Almond, and she laughs—still such a gentle, fond thing.
“Yeah,” she says, and she kisses Almond on the nose. When she pulls back, she’s grinning from ear-to-ear, same as Almond. “I really do.”
Overcome with emotion, the only thing Almond can really think to do with it is to just kiss Anna about it, so, she does. It’s short and sweet but it’s on the lips, savoring the milliseconds of the warm heart-fluttery feeling before she backs off so she can look at Anna again. Anna giggles, eyes half-closed, the sappiest expression on her face. Point made, Almond guesses? But all it really wants to do is make her want to kiss Anna on the mouth again.
So she does, a few more times, until the both of them are giggling like little kids. Somewhere in there they started holding hands, fingers intertwined; Anna squeezes Almond’s hand, now.
“Y’wanna keep doing this?” Anna asks around her laughter, her words slurred. “Like—talking is fun, but kissing is fun too.” She grins, knowingly, which would piss Almond off if it were anyone other than Anna, and if that weren’t objectively true. “Obviously I’m not expecting sex, just to be clear,” Anna adds, “unless you change your mind? Anyway—”
“I’ll let you know,” Almond says, because Anna makes it easy to be comfortable enough to say something like that. “But, yeah, kissing sounds fun.”
“Great!” Anna laughs, her smile wide.
Still giggling, a little breathless, Almond leans in and puts her skills to good use.
