Chapter Text
Scarab could scarcely recall what ailments had awaited him on the mortal plane. His swarm had always been more concerned with an encroaching fungus—one that had evolved to overtake the minds of those who wandered too near in order to spread their spores far and wide. Scarab had long been drilled on watching for irregularities in how those around him acted, in case they signaled the beginnings of infection. He knew how to monitor those around him, looking for signs of guilt or confusion, but he had long forgotten the signs of regular sickness.
Scarab couldn’t even recall being sick, back when he was mortal. All he remembered was the pain of injury—such as the one in his hip that had followed him through his ascension to a higher being.
Immortals didn’t tend toward illness the same way mortals did, and most mortal illnesses tended to stay among mortals—except for the occasional magic-borne disease. But even those mostly targeted beings made of magic, who toed the line of immortality on a technicality. There were very few sicknesses that affected cosmic beings, and most had been stamped out through careful inoculation and isolation.
Despite that, Scarab was rather sure what he had was a sickness. Of what ailments were left, the few colds that ravaged the offices that he had avoided for so long were ultimately harmless—if irritating.
It was the first illness within memory that had gone so far as to affect Scarab. Of course, he had been around so long that some things—some distant, useless things—had been purged from his mind, one way or another.
He had had the luck of never catching what was being spread around the office before, as he so rarely spent even a full day’s time among his coworkers. In his effort to escape his once stifling, collectivistic lifestyle, Scarab worked alone as much as possible, and it was only among groups that those more weak-willed than he tended to contract their common colds and whatnot.
Scarab hated it. He felt dizzy, relying on his cane more than usual to support himself as he walked. There was a pressure in his head that never quite went away, no matter how he swallowed, moved, or opened new orifices through which to try and vent it. His throat burned all the way down, and what constituted as a nose, an air passage flat against his face, felt swollen from the irritated mucus membranes that leaked and dripped unattractively. When he opened other spiracles—airways dotted along his body, a vestigial structure that he had abandoned back with his old life—they filled up with fluid, too. Rows upon rows of fangs, spikes, and teeth churned inside of his body, tense and raw as they tried to open up more passages.
Scarab tasted blood.
The illness, as harmless as it surely was, certainly didn’t feel it.
Thankfully, he had taken the night off instead of working through overtime as he usually did over the loosely suggested “weekend”. There was truly no set schedule in the office, but everybody liked to act as if there was, jumping at the chance to slack off.
Unfortunately, Scarab was already taking said time off for a reason—a reason that the cold would hinder, though it wouldn’t stop him.
Nothing would.
After all, the Boss was calling him.
Scarab sniffed, cleared his sinuses, cleaned himself as much as he could, and waited, knelt on his bed atop a towel that he had spread out for the purpose of keeping things as clean as possible.
It wasn’t long before the phone dropped from the ceiling and into his waiting lap. The Boss’ greetings were familiar enough that Scarab easily returned them without having to think, breathing heavily through his mouth and sniffling through the one nostril that wasn’t completely clogged.
The Boss paused, and asked him what was wrong.
“I’m sick,” Scarab offered carefully, unaware of their familiarity with such a thing. The Boss often overlooked what didn’t directly affect the company’s output. They surely knew what illness was, but that might have been the extent of their knowledge. “It isn’t anything serious, but I’ve taken ill, and will be as such for a few days.”
Scarab was asked if his illness would interrupt their time together.
“No,” Scarab said, firmly, hoarsely. “I would have alerted you if the schedule needed to be changed. I can still do this.”
And this won’t worsen your symptoms?
“It won’t,” Scarab shook his head. “The endorphins may even work to make me feel better, for a time.”
But they won’t cure you.
“No, Boss.”
Very well, they said. Thank you for reporting it, Scarab. You’ve done a good job.
Scarab felt himself grow that much wetter between his legs. His legs twitched, muscles tensing, folded beneath him.
They told him to lie on his back, and he did. Under their careful direction, Scarab positioned himself on top of the towel, letting the pillows support his head and shoulders. He lay with his legs folded so his feet touched, and his parted knees pointed outward to either side.
One hand held the phone close, while the other traced along his inner thighs, waiting for permission.
“May I?” he asked quietly.
They noted their approval.
“Thank you,” Scarab croaked. “Where?”
They told him to trace his lips, and he did, feeling his slick and gathering it on a few fingers as he moved about the area until his fingers glided across his genitals.
The Boss ordered him to dip a finger inside of himself.
Scarab, as always, followed the command, pushing two fingers shallowly into his cunt. The way he was positioned, he didn’t have the right angle to thrust fingers inside of himself, but even the shallow, shaky motions gave him a spark of growing pleasure as he rubbed his inner walls.
He bent and straightened his digits a few times before the Boss had him move on.
Delighted and eager, Scaran pulled his hand back, using his slicked fingers to part his soaking lips. “May I touch my clit, Boss?”
No, they said shortly.
Scarab hesitated, fingers twitching. “I can’t?” He trembled, nerves frayed.
Stop touching yourself, the Boss ordered. They waited until Scarab murmured his affirmation—that he had withdrawn his hand, wincing at his self-inflicted denial of pleasure. Then they told him to rub his chest.
“Really?” Scarab asked reluctantly. He could hardly see the point of the exercise—he saw no point in anything besides stimulating the main sexual regions, really. Why not let him touch his clit, when it would be the fastest route to orgasm? “Do I have to, Boss?”
They didn’t dignify his whining with a response. Balking and curling in—cradling the phone against his shameful, disease-ridden body—Scarab dragged his hand against the shell of his tight chest, fingers warm and disgustingly slick.
Scarab turned the phone away from himself and gave a few rasping roughs as he cleaned some gunk away. He pressed his chest harder, feeling that warm pressure, and shakily tapped the casing of the phone against his shoulder, imagining that it was the Boss on top of him, touching him and pressing down.
Good, the Boss said, heedless of Scarab’s choked gasp. That’s very good, Scarab. Won’t you squeeze your legs together, they asked.
“Of course,” he replied immediately, his voice thick with mucus he hadn’t managed to clear, laying back as he was. He didn’t care—not when the Boss had asked him a question. Scarab had already been so recalcitrant during this exchange that he didn’t dare press it further.
So Scarab curled his calves together and squeezed his thighs together, rubbing and writhing until he could feel the tensing of his pelvic floor. Sparks of pleasure coursed through him, enough to make him dizzy. The spines along his calves scraped together, striking off each other with an echoing vibration like music.
His nose began to drip, his chest heaved beneath his plastron. He applied more and more pressure until he was sure that his shell would splinter beneath the strain. He—
Your leg, the Boss reminded, and Scarab lessened the pressure, feeling how the joint in his hip twinged. They directed him to squeeze his thighs together in increments, instead. The Boss told Scarab to follow their count.
One—Scarab molested his chest and shell, covering himself in a thin, drying layer of his own wetness.
Two—Scarab took a deep breath—or as deep a breath as he could with his tight chest and mucus-filled, blood-stained throat.
Three—Scarab squeezed and rubbed his inner thighs together, his legs twisting and calves scraping while he gaped in pleasure.
Four—Scarab loosened, relaxing on the Boss’ command.
Five—Scarab took several deep breaths and cleared his throat. He dug new, less obstructed airways into the flesh of his body with twisting, winding fangs.
Six—Scarab thanked the Boss.
One—Scarab, at the Boss’ direction, collected more slick from between his legs—just a cursory touch—and dragged it across his shell.
Two—Scarab breathed.
Three—Scarab squeezed his pelvic floor tightly enough to go cross-eyed, toes curling, fingers slipping across his chest as he tried to grab at himself for purchase. His fingers closed so tightly around the phone he worried he may break it.
Four—Scarab relaxed, against his better judgment, and laid there trembling.
Five—Scarab took a shuddering, stuttering breath.
Six—Scarab thanked the Boss.
One—Scarab collected slick from between his legs. A line of arousal followed his fingers as he pulled away, beading along his pelvis as Scarab lifted his hand. With shaking fingers, he painted the expanse of his chest, feeling for all the world like a child with finger paints.
Two—Scarab inhaled sharply, curling toward the phone to pant to the Boss.
Three—Scarab squeezed his legs together, rubbing his thighs as he squirmed. He tensed his pelvic floor, pleasure beating with his heart between his legs.
Four—Scarab forced his body to relax with a quiet sob.
Five—Scarab sucked in a desperate breath of air, and lost it to another soft cry.
Six—
“Can I touch myself?” Scarab asked, feeling weak.
The Boss didn’t answer for a long moment, and Scarab quieted, aware that he hadn’t thanked them as he was supposed to. So he waited, stuttering over labored breaths and tentative arousal as he waited.
Assume your initial position, the Boss ordered, finally.
Scarab did, folding his legs so his knees pointed away from one another, leaving his thighs parted. He swallowed and stared at the ceiling, trying to find something—anything to say.
The Boss hushed him as soon as he opened his mouth. It was a huff of static that hit frequencies high enough to make him quake. Then they told him that he could touch his clit.
Scarab jumped to it, furiously grinding his clit between his forefinger and thumb until the Boss gently told him to ease up. He collected more of the copious amounts of wetness from his cunt and lightened his touch, brushing his fingertips against his clit.
When Scarab felt the growing need to clench—to pull his legs closed and to squeeze them together again to ride out the rest of his ever-mounting pleasure—he pushed them further to either side, instead.
His hip popped. It was a burst of pressure that sent him reeling before something went back into place. He groaned softly, and murmured his distracted assurances to the Boss that he was okay, that that had fixed something.
Good, the Boss praised.
Something ran down the crack of his ass, pulled by gravity down to the towel below, and Scarab shuddered upon realizing that it had been a bead of arousal slipping down his shell.
The Boss asked him what had happened.
Scarab felt hot. “I’m dripping.”
Beautiful, their multi-toned voice said, all of them low and gravelly.
Scarab let out a soft cry, hips jerking, legs quaking, though he hadn’t come— yet.
Finger yourself again, they demanded, easing up on the voices.
Scarab moved a few shuddering fingers down from his clit to his cunt. He pushed them inside, curling thick, hard, shelled digits into the oversensitive warmth of his empty pussy. This time, it felt like heaven.
He fingered himself shallowly, twisting his hand to awkwardly grind his thumb up against the hood of his clit.
How are you doing, the Boss asked.
“Good,” Scarab croaked, eyes tearing. He sniffed an ugly, wet sound as mucus dribbled down his face, an ever-present reminder that he had taken ill. It was just that he almost didn’t care when the Boss had him like this.
You are good, they mused, and waited for his gasp. You’re so easy, like this, the Boss went on. So very reactive to everything you’re told.
Scarab’s hand flew back to his clit, flicking and rubbing it rapidly. “Sir, Boss I—I started touching myself again. I can’t—”
The Boss told him that they knew. That it was okay. In fact, they told him to speed up.
Scarab moved his fingers impossibly quickly, aware he would likely be sore the next day if he were to keep it up. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
“Boss?” Scarab choked into the phone. He cleared his throat, coughing wetly before he tried again. “Boss?”
What do you need?
His stomach did summersaults, and it wasn’t from the cold he had contracted. Did he really need this? “May I orgasm?”
The Boss hummed, multi-toned and staticky, made for the ears of a being far beyond what Scarab could ever hope to achieve. All he could manage to perceive was the toned-down, softened version of the Boss and their many voices, delivered through a phone that dampened the edge of their might with its tinny speaker.
“Please,” Scarab cried, twisting. He worked his clit over, feeling that edge draw nearer and nearer. “Please, Boss, may I come?”
You may, they said. Come for us, Scarab.
Scarab jerked, legs begging to close shut, to carry him through his impending orgasm with rubbing, twitching, squeezing pleasure where he wouldn’t have to touch himself. Where he could just pretend that orgasm was a bodily reaction to how he moved his hands, and that it had happened by chance.
He persevered, grinding and brushing his fingers against his clit until he came, forcing his legs out and down onto the mattress on either side of him, hips bucking into the air with the force of his neediness. It felt wonderful to reach such fulfillment, and he strove to prolong it for as long as he could, rubbing his clit furiously as he lost himself to the intense delight that every stroke brought. Pleasure coursed through his body in shaking convulsions, making every sore pang and sickly gasp worth it.
Slowly, after what felt like an eternity of bliss, Scarab’s orgasm petered out, and he collapsed back into the bed, relaxing every muscle he had tensed. The phone slipped from his hand, and he was quick to grab it and readjust his grip, pulling it to his face so he could all but lay against it.
“I reached climax,” he mumbled shyly into the phone.
The Boss sounded amused when they told him that they could tell. Then they told him that he had done well, and to relax.
Scarab lay in the bliss of his orgasm for what felt like forever, savoring his gratifying accomplishment. His eyes slipped shut as he leaned back, finally warm, nestled against the towel he had laid down, head tilting back against his pillow.
His fingers moved between his legs, pressing and curling to soothe the aftershocks until even they passed, and he was left moving his fingers in hypnotic motions, just feeling himself. It was too little stimulation to work himself back up, but he was loathe to stop just yet.
He was getting better at masturbating, Scarab thought deliriously. Gone were the days he had to tense his muscles for orgasm in order to tense his pelvic floor without touch, relying more on the rubbing and chafing of insectoid legs that had evolved past that purpose than the stimulation to his actual genitals.
He liked this, better. The Boss was so smart.
Scarab, the Boss called. They asked if he felt as if he felt as if he were able to get off again.
He opened his mouth to give them an affirmative before he thought better of it. Instead, Scarab rolled to the side, considering. He brought his hand away from the place between his legs, and felt an ache from how he had been pressing them so forcibly. It wasn’t so bad at the moment, but he was sure he would be sore soon enough.
He was still sick. He felt… better, maybe, but not by much. He couldn’t tell if his time with the Boss had made it better or worse.
There was a buzz at the back of his head—a slight headache. Scarab realized, abruptly, how thirsty he was.
“Yes,” he tried to say, though all that escaped his hoarse, burning throat was a pitiful rasp. He cleared his throat. Cleared it again when phlegm caught in his throat on an inhale, and gasped until he caught his breath.
“No,” Scarab corrected himself regretfully. He realized that he had been hacking into the phone and grimaced. “I apologize. I know this would be cutting our meeting much shorter than usual.”
The Boss told him not to worry so much. He was sick, after all.
“Still,” Scarab protested faintly. He felt bad—would always feel bad for how the Boss wasted so much time on him, even if he coveted their attention above all else.
Since he couldn’t entertain them for as long as usual, the Boss pointed out that there was still ample time for them to help Scarab put himself back together. You need it, they said, musing on his ailment.
“Of course, Boss,” Scarab agreed, immediately perking up. “What would you have me do?”