Right In The Kisser

"You sure I'm the best option for your first rodeo? Plenty of other BLADEs in the running. Doesn't have to be me."

"What's this? Why do you not think we would be honored to have you first?"

Just think of it as an experiment, Gwin had told him. L's a good friend, Doug had told him. Good luck, pard, Yelv had told him, and so on and so forth, throughout the varyingly jocular ranks.

It wasn't that he was scared of L. Nothing to be afraid of - they were all functionally robots, weren't they? Couldn't get creeped out by any alien sensations if you knew what you were feeling wasn't really...real. Right?

Right. Far be it for and from a wannabe poet to try to impose attemptedly rational, scientifically-disposed ontology onto anything even remotely (again, attemptedly) replicatory of the human experience.

Well. So here was the problem, as Minoth saw it:

"We simply wish to determine if there is any merit to this human practice - to see if we, too, should kiss and dust up!"

A reasonable request. A flattering one, if you were the type to put amatonormativity central to all things, especially alongside of the fact that L was no stranger to, ah, going balls-deep in the ass-cave. No, he knew that one. For sure and certain, he knew that one.

What he wanted out of Minoth was the mushy stuff - as a test, with a free coupon to boot. Minoth had agreed, at the outset, because he himself didn't go for it. Didn't have no experience, but didn't have much either. He considered himself an academic expert in the arts, however, and had laughed at the very thought, since he'd thought that L, surely, was joking. Sure, love makes the world go 'round, in all its forms, and when we get to triangulating Mira's orbital axes, we'll put another pin in it and see where geocentrism takes us this time.

Now, though? He wasn't laughing. Well, L was. He was smiling, with his eyes and all. He didn't know why Minoth was trying to back out of the ring. Maybe he didn't, or rather, wouldn't, care if he did.

"Alright," shrugged Minoth, straightening up. "Let's get this show on the road." Better to keep your mouth shut and see if you look stupid than flap it open just to prove it, 'n' all.

It was fairly obvious that Minoth was the one meant to take the lead, no matter how eager L acted on the regular. And, since the unknown xenoform was still humanoid, whatever god or loudspeaker had designed xem had left the face overall similar, for ease of wild recognition. This meant that the spaces between cheeks and horns were just big enough to fit armored adult hands, and bring the whole assembly closer, closer...

Most descriptions of aliens involve, apparently erroneously, goo or slime. Not only was L's kiss indescribably dry, so too was xer skin - or whatever analogous dermal tissue - itself. No tongue, thank everything.

Minoth pressed his lips closer, trying to get some sort of purchase. L was taller, but not by all that incredibly much, and he'd repeatedly shown himself to be less on the lumbering side of statuesque and more on the humanoid noodle end. Minoth, too, was buff but not bulky (Reclaimer work would do that), and flexible enough. How had he forgotten how many variables there were to a simple kiss? Without tongue, no less (and no more)!

Mechanically, the thing just didn't seem to work. His stance - literally, his stance, legs and all - was correct, as was L's, and their arms weren't stiff by way of any sort of mental tension. They weren't bumping chins or noses - or sideburns or horns, for that matter.

But enough about the physics of it. What about the fact that that was all it was? A kiss. Normal people ("normal people") got nervous about a thing like this, thought they'd screw up the chemistry, thought they'd be so bad at it the other person'd never want to do it, or have one, with them again, which was what they wanted, because normal people ("normal people") liked this.

That so surely was not the problem here. Kissing had not evolved, between pre-proto-writing organisms, with connotations of amorousness. The literal spit-swapping involved was a biological test between potential and/or prospective mates for the purposes of preparing for procreation.

All this meant, then, was that Minoth Castigo and L...Lacking-Of-A-Last-Name would never collaborate on such a project. Moreover, it meant that whatever species L belonged to didn't produce the same type of saliva, or any at all, that humans did. After all, he seemed like the type of fellow to go on and on about "mouth-watering" in all its best and most idiomatic and euphemistic forms, if given the slightest chance.

Minoth pulled back, noting just how easy it was to untangle their various limbs. "I think this strategy needs some workshopping, L."

Aer face sagged with a ferocity and immediacy Minoth hadn't thought possible, given the overwhelming gentleness of everything else about the giant. (Not that he'd been witness to, nor wanted to be, the associated acts of darkness.) "You were not satisfied? But this is terrible news!"

"Oh, well, listen, I'll tell you what." This surely wouldn't come back to bite him later. "Let's try a different type of kiss. You just stand there, and I go-" a kiss on the cheek, like a slap on the back "-like this."

L's entire face lit up. "Of course! We must have been playing the wrong tune. Now that is a beautiful canoodle!"

"Er, no, that's actually not a canoodle - that's more like a greeting."

But, if kissing was supposed to be this great life-giving act, and neither of the two of them seemed to see any other purpose for it...well, no. That'd probably get L handed a collection of sexual harrassment charges and flags that would definitely be a hell of a lot harder to explain than what was and wasn't, by Minoth's own honest country judgement, a canoodle.

"Let's just table it, okay?"

"You wish to try the table with us?"

"N-NO- no, no, I didn't say that. No. Just...party's over. Right?"

"And a kiss goodbye, then, yes?"

"Sure, yes, a kiss goodbye." No canoodle, no foul.

But plenty of tongue.