Work Text:
The subtle hiss of a soldering iron and light off-key humming fills the silence of the messy workshop, a tangy mixture of pine and grease scenting the air. Tools and hastily sketched blueprints lie across the workbench, next to partially built robotic limbs and other small mechanisms, frayed wires sticking out at all ends. You sit on the worn-out rolling stool, head down, with a pair of clunky, oversized headphones on, blasting some noise rock from a bygone era.
Behind the industry-recommended safety glasses, you squint as you finish soldering circuits into the component in front of you, which will eventually become, hopefully, a functioning arm for a synthetic body. Your heel taps against the stool’s footrest to the beat of the song, so lost in your task, you don’t even hear the swish of the door sliding open and then closed again, nor the purposeful footsteps that trail up to you.
You do, however, notice the shadow that begins to loom behind you. You pause, heaving an exasperated sigh at being interrupted as you set down your soldering iron, pushing your headphones down around your neck before turning to stare at the man standing there, if you could call him that.
Kirsh is in a familiar pose, hands dutifully folded behind him with a passive expression on his face as he gazes down at you, eyes flicking to your latest project. You slide your glasses up onto the top of your head and lean back against your bench with an elbow resting on the surface. “Where are your ducklings?” you ask with a quirked brow and a tilt to your lips that threatens to turn into a shit-eating grin.
He gives you the reaction you were hoping for, slanting his head with his mouth pulled into a straight line that signifies your teasing doesn’t amuse him. You roll your eyes and scoff at him before standing up, dusting the invisible bits of dust off you.
“I’m just joking, Kirsh,” you croon and almost decide to tempt fate to tug at his cheek, but ultimately decide not to. “It wouldn’t hurt you to smile.”
His brows tick up on his forehead just the slightest bit. “It just might.”
You snort as you pluck your tablet up from your workbench. “What can I do for you?” you ask as you scroll through the plethora of emails that have come through within the last few hours.
(You had been ignoring them.)
“Monthly maintenance,” he informs, tone even and giving away nothing. He watches as you swipe away email after email, deleting ones specifically marked 'URGENT' and 'IMPORTANT', clearing up your already cluttered inbox. His expression morphs into the synthetic’s best replica of disapproval or perhaps disbelief.
Humming, you tap a few times on your tablet, bringing up the maintenance schedule for the various synthetics you are responsible for around the Neverland Research Facility, and find that, yes indeed, it is Kirsh’s day for maintenance. “Good thing you’re on top of it, huh?” You grin as you wave your tablet in the air before motioning him to follow you to the little corner of your lab set up for synthetic upkeep.
“If only you read your emails,” Kirsh muses lowly.
He can’t tell if you’re ignoring him or didn’t hear him while you read the write-up you did for his last maintenance, as he takes a seat on the gurney with no prompting from you, used to the routine after all these years. Even without peering over at him, you can feel his eyes on you, the hair on the back of your neck standing up.
“Looks like we’re just making sure your systems are up to date today,” you confirm. “Next month we’ll have to refuel the hydrogen fuel cell since we’re coming up on the four-hundred-day life cycle for that.” He nods, listening to you as he sits there with his hands resting on top of his knees. If he were human, you’d think he was tense. “We’re also going to be looking into starting the overhaul for your muscular system in the next six months. We’ll just replace components one at a time rather than all at once, so you’re not out of commission for terribly long.”
As you finally glance up from your tablet, you meet his eyes, and the faintest trace of a disingenuous smile crawls onto his face. “You’re the expert,” his voice comes slinking out.
You give him a flat look as you toss your tablet onto the gurney next to him, uncaring as the clattering of metal against metal echoes through the room. “Other people might not be able to tell when you’re making fun of them, but I can,” you inform wryly.
The smile tightens. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
This is a familiar song and dance between the two of you. A constant push and pull that has been playing out since you were hired onto Prodigy by Boy Kavalier. You’ve spent a lot of time around synthetics, had a hand in designing and building several different models, in fact, but Kirsh has proven to be by far the most interesting one you’ve ever encountered.
You’re unsure whether the deceptively human sarcasm is unique to his model or just unique to him. Regardless, you would be lying if you said you didn’t find it endearing.
(You actually wouldn’t say that out loud at all; you can’t even imagine the can of worms that would open.)
Reaching over, you grab one of the wires that hangs from the console next to the gurney, stepping between his legs as you plug it into the port at the side of his neck. The monitor lights up, scanning through the programs of Kirsh’s system, a series of code flashing rapidly down the screen.
It’ll take a few minutes, and you usually would pull up a stool and catch up on any notes in the meantime, but instead, you stay between his legs as he gazes down at you with a trace of curiosity in his eyes.
Crossing your arms in front of you, you lean in a bit. “I did hear an interesting rumor floating around the compound,” you hint, knowing Kirsh would take the bait. He always did.
“Did you now?” He doesn’t shift away, just meeting you with a blank gaze and raised brows. If he could breathe, you’d be able to feel his breath on your lips. You push that thought to the furthest reaches of your mind.
“That ship that crashed in New Siam, I heard you and the kids went and recovered specimens from the wreckage,” you answer in as casual a tone as possible.
“They’re not children.”
You draw back, arms still crossed, with a pursed look on your face. “Not this again.” You roll your eyes. “You’re deflecting.”
“And you don’t approve of the hybrid project,” Kirsh contests, the traces of a smirk spreading across his face as though he has the capabilities of being smug. Obviously, he’s the one who is doing the baiting this time, because the displeasure contorts your face immediately. You go to step back, to move away, but Kirsh grabs you by the back of your neck, holding you in place as he tilts his head. “Why?”
You and Kirsh have touched before, an inevitability when you’re doing maintenance on him, and even aside from that, there have been fleeting moments, brief touches, but never anything that felt this intimate.
There’s a stutter in your chest, and you hope the heat that is spreading on your skin remains hidden under your clothes as you give him an incredulous look. “You’re seriously asking me why I would have a problem with the supposed consciousnesses of children being transferred to synthetic bodies?” You try not to react to the way his thumb caresses just below your ear, doing your best to mimic his neutral expression.
“I’d like to hear it directly from you since you… have such a way with words.”
“Oh, now you’re mocking me,” you accuse, though there’s no real bite to your tone, just mild annoyance.
“No,” he denies, and you blink as you peer into his eyes; they’re dark and give nothing away, but there’s a distinct lack of any snarky smirk adorning his lips, so you’re inclined to believe him.
Still, there’s hesitance in your demeanor, chewing the inside of your cheek as you debate whether to say anything. You weren’t necessarily afraid of it getting back to Boy Kavalier, per se; you had made your displeasure with his little project known early on, though those conversations were private, and you knew better than to voice your concerns to anyone else in fear of shattering the united front of Prodigy.
You are lucky enough to have leniency in the eyes of Boy Kavalier, but not stupid enough to know that only went so far. You’re a prized commodity, a prodigy in your own right concerning robotics and cybernetics, but you’re not irreplaceable. The galaxy is vast, and he has all the resources at his disposal to find someone who could do just as good a job, if not better than you, if push comes to shove.
Kirsh tilts his head just a bit, staring down his nose at you, so lost in your own thoughts, you momentarily forgot about the hold he has on you. “If it settles your nerves, I have no intentions of relaying anything we discuss to Boy Kavalier.”
You scoff, rolling your eyes before they flick upwards towards where you know a security camera is actively monitoring your every move. “It is not you that I am worried about,” you admit.
His eyes slide up for a fraction of a second to where you’re looking before they return to your face. “He’s a little preoccupied at the moment.”
A grin pulls at your face. “With what you recovered from the crash, right?”
He gives you a flat look and finally lets go of you, leaning away just slightly. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re insufferable?”
“Consistently throughout my life,” you confirm as you step around to observe the monitor. “It must be pretty big if you’re this adamant about not even giving me a little tidbit to nibble on.” You grab your previously discarded tablet, typing a few things into Kirsh’s chart before peeking back up at him. “If it makes you feel better, I have no intention of relaying anything we discuss to Boy Kavalier.”
You think that if he could rip the cord out and leave your lab at this moment, he would, but he’s stuck here staring at you and your smarmy face as you throw his words back at him. This was something you enjoyed with Kirsh, probably a little too much if the swirling in your belly was any indicator.
“Several species were recovered from the ship,” Kirsh relents, knowing the chances of him leaving your lab without divulging information to you were slim to none. “They’ve all been deemed unsafe for human contact, so I and those with synthetic bodies are taking the lead on the study of them.”
You pause your notetaking, eyebrow cocking as you stare up at him. “The children?” you ask disbelievingly. “You’re having children study some of the first instances of alien life that we’ve found?”
“They are not children.”
You roll your eyes. “You know, you keep insisting that, and yet Boy has you looking after them like they are. Just because they’re in these grown-up, synthetic bodies doesn’t make them any less children, even if—especially if they insist that they’re not.” You draw a deep breath, feeling yourself teetering on the edge of an outburst. Huffing a bit, you glance away and start stabbing at the screen of your tablet with your fingers a little more aggressively than you mean to. “I don’t mean this to be cruel, but you don’t understand what it’s like to be a child, and quite frankly, I don’t think that you or anyone else, even Dame, realizes the psychological impact that this entire experiment will have on these kids.”
He's quiet, and you finally look his way again to see him staring at you. It never gets easier to stomach how unreadable he can be. It’s like staring at a blank wall sometimes. In your head, you imagine him mocking you for your delicate human sensibilities. “Your concerns are noted,” he says in a hushed tone.
You blink, mouth hanging open as you go to speak before closing it once you realize you have nothing to say. The monitor chimes, signaling the scan is done, so wordlessly, you reach up to pull the cord from the port in his neck, only for him to grab your hand just as your fingers wrap around it.
You freeze, spine straightening. A baser instinct in you whispering in the back of your head that you should be afraid, but perhaps foolishly, you weren’t. Instead, there was a trill of excitement that licked up your spine as if he were any other man, as if you didn’t know what he was, and you almost do something reckless, you almost lean up into him to see if he’d meet you halfway.
But you are many things, and reckless is not one of them.
“Everything okay, Kirsh?” Your voice comes out quieter than you want it to, more intimate than you wish it to be. Like you’re some simpering heroine in a romance novel. Even the thought of what you must sound like to him makes you want to cringe.
He stares at you for a pause longer, like you didn’t do what he had expected you to do, what he’d anticipated. Then he releases you from his grip, the same tight, barely polite smile flashing onto his face. “Everything is fine.”
The next time you see Kirsh is after Wendy has experienced a malfunction. You are in the middle of a rare instance of restful sleep when you are harshly yanked from it by the intercom in your room, blaring over the white noise machine you had set up. With your legs tangled up in your bed sheets, you lean over to your nightstand, pressing the button to the intercom.
“Yeah?” Your voice is heavy with sleep, and your throat is dry even though you’re in the middle of the jungle.
“There’s been an incident,” Kirsh’s voice crackles from the other end. “Your presence is required in the hybrid lab.”
You don’t even respond, just flopping back against your pillow for a moment as though that will somehow revitalize you before you start to untangle yourself from your sheets. In about ten minutes, you’re in the lab, reading the chart over Arthur’s shoulder as Dame and Kirsh stand in front of a visibly confused Wendy.
“There’s no anomaly detected on the scan that would account for the audio malfunction she experienced,” you mutter as you sip at the coffee you’d grabbed on the way, which could be more accurately described as sludge. You grimace a bit as you force yourself to swallow it down, grumbling, “It’s like crude oil.” Arthur huffs out a laugh, shaking his head at you as he flips through the pages on the clipboard.
“Can she hear us now?” Kirsh questions, and though it seems to be a general question to either you or Arthur, his eyes are fixated on you when he asks it. You gulp down another mouthful of sludge as though it will extinguish the burning that settles in your gut.
“No, I took her hearing offline,” Arthur confirms, not looking up as he thumbs through the chart.
“There’s no anomaly.” Your voice is gentle and singsong as you repeat your earlier observation from looking at the scans, knowing Arthur is searching fruitlessly for something that isn’t there.
“She mentioned a sound the moment we landed,” Kirsh explains. “It was louder, the closer to the Xenomorph she got.” You silently mouth ‘Xenomorph’ to yourself. It was a word you had not heard before, and clearly, it was one of the species they had procured from the crashed Weyland-Yutani ship. “And last night when I extracted the embryo—” That has you staring at him with wide eyes, wondering what the hell is going on in the labs downstairs.
“You think it’s got something to do with these creatures,” Dame surmises, cutting Kirsh off.
“Not all of them,” Kirsh corrects. “Just one species.”
You glance at Arthur, who is giving you a similar look of discomfort before he busies himself over at the console. You’re tapping at the paper cup in your hand anxiously. “Just what we need, an unknown variable,” you grumble.
Wendy vocalizes a bit, obviously unused to not hearing her own voice, and you imagine it is really disorienting, especially with everyone around you talking as though you’re not there. You place a hand on her shoulder, holding up a finger as you mouth ‘one second’ to her, just in time for Boy Kavalier to walk in, heaving a hefty sigh.
“Stop frowning,” he orders. “This isn’t a wake, we’re on a voyage of discovery, and I have a colonic in thirty minutes.” You’re glad you’re facing away from him as you scowl openly at his words and the flippancy with which he’s treating the situation. He turns to Curly, who is trailing behind him like a lost puppy. “Go, uh, push some buttons and turn some knobs while the grown-ups talk.”
Curly nods obediently, and you glance over, watching her go over to a console on the far side of the room. You pretend not to notice the way she looks back at Boy as if seeking approval from the man, but you certainly make note of it.
“We’ve taken her offline, we think she can hear—”
“—the Xenomorph,” Boy cuts Kirsh off. “Just assume I’m ahead of you, always, which don’t you have, y’know, little experiments to run?” Your own jaw tightens, and you force yourself to take another sip of your coffee in an effort to bite your tongue as you watch Kirsh lean forward in what could only be a confused manner at Boy’s words. “These creatures aren’t going to discover themselves.” Boy looks at him as though he’s shooing away a child.
Kirsh’s face, to his credit, remains extraordinarily neutral before he squints his eyes a bit, the corners of his lips tightening into a barely there smile. “Of course,” he confirms before turning to take his leave.
“Unnecessary,” you mumble to yourself, though loud enough for Boy to hear it.
He points at you. “Ignoring that,” he declares before looking at Dame, who was seated next to Wendy, holding her hand. “You, too.”
Dame’s mouth hangs open in shock and derision. “No,” she objects. “She’s scared, she needs me.”
“Uh, careful,” Boy warns, any humor on his face drops off in an instant. “You’re not her mother. It’s an IT issue, not a gab session, and I’m still waiting on your field assessments of the hybrid performance.”
Dame and Arthur share a look, with him giving her perhaps the assurance she needs not to push the issue, and she leans down to Wendy, speaking softly but mouthing the words clearly. “I’ll be back, okay?”
Wendy looks a bit startled by this, eyes blinking as she watches Dame walk out of the room after Kirsh. Arthur pulls up a stool as Boy announces, “Ah, alone at last.”
You walk around, standing at the foot of the gurney, chuckling a bit as Curly flips a knob that sends all the buttons on the console into a tizzy before hastily flicking it back off, glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone had seen. You pointedly stare at a ceiling tile, pretending you hadn’t noticed.
“Let’s bring her hearing back online to see if it’s a hardware or software issue,” Boy announces as Atom walks in with Wendy’s brother, Joe, behind him. The smile that had been on Boy’s face drops in an instant, a sour expression taking over. “Oh, good, it’s the brother.” The displeasure drips from his voice like ichor.
Joe steps to Wendy’s side instantly, and a look of relief flashes on her face. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“Uh, she can’t hear you,” Arthur explains with all the bedside manner of a Ph.D. doctor and not an M.D. doctor.
Joe’s eyes widen. “Why?”
“We took her hearing offline—”
You cut in as you see panic morphing on Joe’s face. “She experienced some malfunction with her audio processing. As a precaution, we turned her hearing off so that we can troubleshoot the issue with the least amount of discomfort to her.”
Joe blinks as you speak, nodding along as he processes what you’re telling him. The dread on his face settling into something more manageable. Behind him, you can see Boy standing with an annoyed expression. “Hi,” Boy says flatly.
“Here we go,” you murmur to yourself.
“We haven’t met. You, uh, you work for me—or should I say you work for a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a holding company of an LLC of mine. Yeah, uh, how’s the new lung?”
“It’s great, thanks,” Joe confirms after he swallows down what could only be a lump in his throat, brows furrowed together with uncertainty.
“You’ll never guess what we did with the old one,” Boy teases, and that catches your attention, your neck practically snapping as you look at him before peeking back at Arthur, who seems to be equally as horrified.
“What?” Joe asks, but before it can go any further, Wendy speaks up.
“I can’t hear you,” she says, loudly, and perhaps to everyone’s benefit, that line of questioning is dropped. Joe turns his attention back onto her, worry lacing his features. “I can’t hear. There was a sound in the lab, and it hurt my head. I can’t hear.”
“Okay,” Joe nods as he listens to her before peering over to Arthur. “What’s in the lab?” Arthur looks like a deer caught in headlights as he opens his mouth, but says nothing, only staring at Boy, while Joe follows his gaze, a look of realization dawning on his face. “Tell me you didn’t bring those things back here.”
A feeling of unease settles in your stomach as Boy dodges the question, ordering that Wendy’s audio processors be brought back online, and for now, you push the feeling to the back of your mind as your professional training takes over, tossing your half-full coffee cup into the trash.
After her hearing is brought back to normal levels, Wendy explains what happened in the lab, discussing Kirsh's experimentation on the eggs and how she heard a baby screaming. You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until you feel yourself falter from the lack of air.
“Okay, we’re going to figure out what it is, and why you’re hearing it, and we’re going to make it stop,” Arthur assures.
Both Boy and Wendy exclaim, “No!” at the same time, leaving everyone else, more specifically you and Arthur, confused.
“What do you mean ‘no’?” you question, tilting your head. “There’s clearly an issue here, and we don’t know what other systems it might be affecting.”
“She—” Boy scoffs. “She can hear an alien language, and you want to turn it off?” He looks at you like you’re an idiot, and your jaw sets as you take a deep breath in through your nose.
“If it’s hurting you,” Joe says evenly, speaking to Wendy. “We should make it stop.”
“No, I-I think they picked me,” Wendy argues, and you’re reminded of the fact she’s a child in this moment. “They’re talking to me. I want to hear them.”
You lean back, nodding as you stare up at the ceiling. “Right,” you mutter with resignation. “Well, seems I’m not needed here anymore since there’s no unwanted malfunction.” Arthur looks like he wants to argue with you to stay, if only not to be the only sane person in the room, but you’re already turning around. “Billions of dollars...” you grumble.
The halls of the Neverland Research Facility are winding. Still, you’ve been here for so long your feet practically carry you on autopilot to your lab, luckily far enough away that you have time to simmer the anger that is coursing through you. You debated heading back to your room to try to get a few more precious hours of sleep, but you know you’d do nothing but toss and turn.
The door hisses open, and as you step through, it shuts behind you with a rush of air, though you freeze at the threshold when you see Kirsh standing in the middle of your lab, looking rather listless.
“Kirsh,” you greet with uncertainty.
He peers over at you. “Were you able to determine the issue?” he asks.
You roll your eyes with a snort of indignation as you make your way to your workbench to take a seat. “They’ve determined they’re not going to fix whatever the malfunction is,” you inform, feeling the anger that had simmered on your walk here start to stoke again.
He blinks as he processes your words. “What do you mean?”
“Wendy being able to hear the... Xenomorph—” The word sounds foreign coming from your mouth. “—is apparently a good thing,” you explain as you pick up a screwdriver to tinker with one of your components, anything to keep your hands busy as you talk. “Never mind the fact she’s a billion-dollar prototype and we just introduced an unknown variable into this little science experiment.”
You’re quiet for a moment.
“She thinks they chose her,” you recall, and you feel him walk up beside you, an arm's length away now. “She said there was an egg and a baby.” You glance up at him, seeing that he is already looking down at you. “Kirsh, what the hell are those things?”
“It’s probably best if you don’t think about them,” he answers, as if you could do anything, but think about what sorts of monsters are locked in the basement. Your mind is already spiraling, assigning horrible features to these unknown lifeforms that are housed only a few floors below you. Like the way your mind conjures terrible little creatures that morph in the darkest corner of a room at night.
You stare down at the surface of your workbench, fixating on a little speck of dust. “Are they dangerous?”
He falls silent, and you feel him shift beside you, and then his hand is grazing across your shoulder blades, settling at the back of your neck in a hold that should be threatening, but instead, you only feel comfort as you instinctively peer up at him through your lashes. “Incredibly so,” he admits, his voice a husky whisper. “Promise me you will not go down there.”
Your brows draw together. “Kirsh, what—”
“No matter what happens or who asks you to go into the labs, promise me you will not go down there.” Your mouth has gone dry as you’re struck by how serious he is. This is not the snarky banter that you’ve grown used to between the two of you.
You lick your lips and nod, pretending you don’t notice the way his eyes flick down to your mouth when you do so. “Okay,” you breathe out shakily. “I promise.”
It’s almost as though relief floods over him, and the tense grip he has on the back of your neck loosens, sliding to the side instead as he cups your jaw, thumb tracing the bottom of your cheek. He’s stooping lower, closer to you. You are stone still in the moment, nearly afraid that even breathing would dispel whatever you thought was building between the two of you.
You expect he’ll look away any second, but he doesn’t, eyes transfixed on you, flickering down to your lips every so often in a way that makes you feel like you can’t possibly be misreading the situation. “Kirsh,” you say in a hushed tone. “What’s going on?”
His gaze is almost suffocating. “I believe your maintenance scan missed an irregularity in my program,” he mumbles.
“What irregularity?” you ask, trying to keep your eyes trained on his, but your heart is pounding in your ears and you’re afraid he can hear it.
“I have been experiencing… wants—desires—recently.”
You feel yourself leaning up into his touch, stomach knotting all up into nerves. He’s so close now, all you’d have to do is crane your neck up just a bit more, but you don’t. Even still, the fear of rejection looms over you, the whisper in the back of your head that says you’re completely misunderstanding the situation, prodding at you. “What sort of desires?”
His thumb comes up and brushes against your lower lip, and you’re sure he sees the way your breath hitches in your throat. “You.”
Something in you snaps, and you’re surging upwards in the next moment, your lips connecting with his, and his hand wraps around your waist, drawing you up into a standing position, and you’re lost in the feel of his mouth against yours. Tongue dragging against his lower lip, and he opens his mouth, pulling you closer against him as he backs you up against your workbench, slotting a leg between your thighs.
The pressure against your core makes you whimper into his mouth, one hand shooting out behind you to catch yourself on the surface, sending your screwdriver careening onto the ground in a clatter. It’s like the noise brings you back to yourself, and you withdraw sharply, hand coming up to cover your mouth as you stare at Kirsh in horror.
“I’m so sorry,” you breathe out. Brain muddled with thoughts of monsters in the basement and how many ethics codes you just broke. “That was so inappropriate, I’ve never—”
He grabs your hand, interrupting you, pulling it down and away from your face. “Do you want me to touch you?” he asks as he doesn’t let go of your hand, lacing his fingers between yours. The intimacy of the action has your heart curling in on itself.
You blink frantically, trying to maintain a grasp on the shred of logic that still inhabits your brain. “I-I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you,” you assert weakly.
The leg that is still between your thighs shifts up, and you inhale sharply, feeling the exact moment the logic vacates your brain. “I asked if you wanted me to touch you,” he murmurs.
Your mouth dangles open for a moment before you nod, biting at your lower lip. “Yes,” you answer, voice practically cracking.
His lips tug up into a smirk. “Good,” he says lowly, and his other hand is brushing up under your shirt, skimming along the soft skin of your stomach as he reclaims your lips, swallowing down whatever further protests you might have had.
Slowly, you feel yourself relax as you kiss, one hand coming up to grip the hair on the back of his head as the other settles at his waist, pulling yourself deeper into him. He backs away from you briefly, and you’re only faintly aware that he’s working on undoing your pants as you try to catch your breath. Several seconds later, he pulls your pants and subsequently underwear down along with them before heaving you onto your workbench, pushing aside the delicate components and tools without care.
(You’re pretty sure you’re going to have to redraw several of the schematics on the table.)
He leans back, spreading your legs so he can take you in. You feel heat spread up your neck and down onto your chest as you shift under his gaze. You’re not even prepared as he swipes his fingers against your core. “You’re so wet already,” he mumbles the observation, almost as though he’s noting it to himself and not to you. He looks up at you, maintaining eye contact as he slowly pushes one finger inside, the pressure has you gasping softly, your hips tilting up. “You’ll tell me what you like.”
You reach a hand up onto his shoulder to steady yourself as you nod, giving a quiet and desperate ‘mhm’ as he pumps a singular finger in and out of you, seemingly fascinated by just the sight of it. You suppose he would be, being a scientist and all; you imagine he is making note of every single reaction in his mind right now.
You feel like you should be more self-conscious with how intently he is watching you, but the weight building in your core, paired with the sweet way he’s tracing circles into your outer thigh with his other hand, sends any of those thoughts to the depths of your cognizance. There’s a moment where you think you’re going to wake up any second, and then he crooks his finger in a way that sends a tingle up your spine. “More,” you plead.
Dutifully, he adds another finger, and you can feel yourself grow slicker with each press into your cunt. You chance a glance down and can see why he’s so transfixed on the sight. His long fingers are pumping in and out of your soaking core, dripping down his hand to his wrist. The sounds are becoming obscene, only sublimated by the increasing pitch of your moans as you feel your lower abdomen begin to tighten.
“Another?” he questions as he finally tears his eyes away from your pussy and instead focuses on the way you’re gnawing at your bottom lip and the scrunch of your nose when he hits a particular spot inside of you.
You nod frantically and keen when he adds a third finger. “C-close,” you moan out, hips jutting up now to meet his fingers halfway, not caring about the absolute mess you’re making on your workbench or the fact you’ll have to clean it up later. You grab his other hand and press the pads of his fingers against your clit. “Rub here.”
The effect is immediate as he circles your clit with an expertise you were not expecting, not even breaking the rhythm he’s set with his other hand, and your head tilts back as you whine. The band inside of you constricts as your walls clench around his fingers. “Are you going to cum?” He doesn’t even say it provocatively, but the husk in his voice has you whimpering as you nod, pathetically gripping the edge of the table as your toes curl.
Your vision goes black for a moment as your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, gasping out Kirsh’s name as he continues to work you through it, leaning down to press his nose into the crook of your neck as your breathy moans fill the still air around you both. You can feel his lips against your throat, softly trailing up to your mouth. You’re panting, pussy still clenching around his fingers in the aftershocks, thighs shaking.
“Was that satisfactory?” he inquires as though he isn’t still knuckle deep inside of you.
You hum the affirmative, your brain still foggy from your orgasm. “I would say your performance was more than satisfactory,” you slur.
He finally removes his fingers from you and leans down to press another kiss to your lips, less desperate this time, slower as though he’s savoring it or perhaps now just taking note of what it actually feels like. There’s a clumsiness with which he kisses that is endearing. You can’t imagine he’s had much practice in these sorts of endeavors before.
His hands trail up your sides under your shirt, skimming the edge of your bra. He pulls away just enough to haul your top off, eyes focusing on the swell of your breast against the plain sports bra you had thrown on after he’d woken you from your sleep earlier. Tugging at the band, his eyes stray up to yours. “Can I take this off?”
Wordlessly, you grab the bottom of your bra, yanking it over your head and tossing it on the floor next to you. He takes you in, hands coming up to trace the undersides of your breasts, gliding over your nipples in a way that makes you gasp. He does it again, engrossed by the way your nipples harden in the chilly air of the workshop.
He doesn’t make a move to undress himself, though. It almost feels a bit silly, you now being completely naked and him still completely dressed. If he were any other man, he’d be buried inside of you by now, but he wasn’t any other man. You’re not even sure if that’s what he wants.
The thought crosses your mind as he presses his lips to yours, and you draw back just enough to murmur against his mouth. “Do you want to fuck me, Kirsh?”
You are well aware that synthetics are built with anatomical accuracy. It is imperative when they are used for covert missions, whether to pretend they are eating and drinking or for… extracurricular activities, as is the case with some models explicitly designed as pleasure bots.
His brows raise on his forehead as though he’s surprised by your question. “I didn’t want to presume,” he admits. There’s an uncharacteristic shyness to his demeanor as he says it. As though he was willing to pleasure you, but didn’t think it was right to take any for himself.
You start to undo the zipper on his jacket. “When has that ever stopped you?” you tease, and he responds with a half-hearted scoff. He lets you pull off the coat, leaving him in a sleeveless black turtleneck and his pants, a sight that does a little more than something to you despite having just orgasmed three minutes prior.
He must’ve taken notice of something in your expression, maybe the way your pupils dilated or the new flush that had taken over your cheeks. “Do you like the way I look?” he questions. Not in a conceited, fishing for a compliment way, but to understand—to study.
“You’re very attractive,” you tell him, fingertips gently tracing over the contours of the muscles of his exposed arms before correcting yourself, “I find you very attractive.” He watches you intently as you relay this information. “Do you care how I look?” you inquire, genuinely curious to know if your appearance has had any bearing on these sudden wants of his.
“I think about the slope of your nose often,” he mutters after a moment’s pause. “The way your hair frames your face when you have it down.” The admission surprises you. It has your heart singing in your chest in a way you don’t think you have the right to. “I enjoy looking at you, but not because of any physical traits you have, but because it’s you.”
You swallow the lump that formed in your throat. “Oh,” you breathe out.
“Does that make you uncomfortable?” he asks.
You shake your head. “No,” you reassure. “No, it’s just—that’s incredibly sweet.”
He tilts his head as though he doesn’t understand the endearment; perhaps he doesn’t, but he fiddles with a tress of your hair, tucking it behind your ear. “You are incredibly intelligent and insightful,” he relays. “You’re… kind, but not to a fault. You’re passionate and stand by your convictions.” He continues. “In short, I find you fascinating.”
“High praise,” you muse, lighthearted in a way, if only to detract from how his words have your insides all in a jumble. “I didn’t realize you thought of me like that.”
“I do,” he confirms. You stare up at him, taking in the little details of his face. Sometimes, it’s shocking how real synthetics look. The amount of attention to detail in the little things, crow’s feet, tiny moles dotting the skin, remnants of smile lines, and wrinkles high on his forehead. The tiny minute details that make a synthetic look like a person who has lived an entire life.
Your hands move of their own accord, grabbing him by the back of the neck to wrench him back down into a kiss. He reciprocates instantly, mouth molding against yours, moving against you with more confidence now, a demonstration of synthetic learning. It’s so dizzying you almost forget for a second that you were in the middle of trying to undress him.
Drawing back, you pluck at his shirt. “Take this off?” He does so wordlessly, and you turn your attention to his pants as he shucks off his shirt, unbuttoning them.
He drops his shirt to the ground, a smirk tilting on his lips. “You seem impatient.” You give him a pursed look without much heat to it as you unzip his pants, tugging them down along with the standard black briefs below them. Before you can even lean back to look at him, he seizes you by your jaw, making you gasp as you peer up at him through your lashes. “What is it you said before?” He muses. “Something about me fucking you?”
A shiver runs up your spine at Kirsh using such crude language, a moan escaping you as you feel him slide the base of his cock against your clit. He juts his hips more as your legs fall to the sides, spreading yourself wider for him. The friction feels so good, and it’s almost embarrassing how much you know you’re coating his cock just from some humping.
His hand trails down to your throat, putting pressure on the sides of your neck just as he tilts his hips back, the head of his cock catching with your entrance, and then in one thrust, he’s seated inside of you.
Your body shudders as you whimper at the stretch; he’s long, and you can feel him deep inside of you, even as he thrusts shallowly, obviously taking note of the feel and your initial reactions. Your responses must be adequate, gasps and moans every time he drags his cock in and out of you, because he starts to speed up.
Your hands find purchase on his shoulders, nails biting into his synthetic skin as he keeps one hand on your throat, tightening his grip, not enough to hurt, but enough for you to feel it. The decreased oxygen only amplifies the pleasure that spreads through your body. His other hand keeps one of your legs propped up, making sure you’re nice and open for him. The coil is tensing in your belly, the slap of skin against skin echoing through your workshop as you whine underneath him.
His face is calm and passive, as though he’s not expending any effort, as you feel sweat gather at your temples, your legs shaking as you try to keep yourself upright. “H-harder,” you gasp out.
Silently, he drives into you with more force, tightening his hold on your neck at the same time in a way that has your eyes rolling to the back of your head and your toes curling. Your second orgasm hits you unexpectedly.
“Fuck, Kirsh,” you moan out as you claw at his arm. “Oh, God.” Your entire body feels like it’s on fire, every nerve tingling with pleasure as you cum. Like before, he continues until well after you’re done, thrusting languidly in and out until he’s sure you’ve finished. By the end, you feel boneless, glad that he’s in front of you, holding you up.
His grip on your neck loosens as well, though he doesn’t remove it, thumb tracing your jawline. He leans down to press a kiss to your mouth. “I hope you don’t think we’re done,” he murmurs against your lips.
Your eyes widen. “Wha—”
In the next instance, you’re flipped onto your stomach, bent over the table with your ass in the air, which Kirsh is palming, spreading you as he now examines you from this angle. The cool metal of your workbench is jarring against the sticky warmth of your skin. Kirsh doesn’t even give you time to adjust to the new position as he slides his cock back inside of you.
“I figured we could try several positions,” he says from behind you. “For science, of course.”
You try to find leverage against your table, gripping at the top of it as you whimper at how deep you take him with the new angle. “Mhm,” you agree. “Scientific method, and all that.”
“It is very important,” he affirms, and you feel his thumb trace over the rim of your other hole. You just know he’s smirking when he feels you clench your pussy around him, shoving your hips back to meet his halfway. “Where would we be without a little experimentation?”
He continues to plunge in and out of you, pressing the tip of his thumb into your asshole in a way that has you moaning desperately against the table, drool pooling from your mouth. “Kirsh, please,” you beg, and you don’t even know what you’re begging for.
“You know,” he starts. “I think I much prefer this side of you, you’re much more… pliant.” He emphasizes it with a hard thrust, his cock jutting up against your cervix, and you’re seeing dots floating in your vision. His other hand, that had been steady on your hip, sneaks around front, and when you feel the pads of his fingers circling your clit you know you’re done for.
You feel a gush of liquid as you scrunch your eyes shut, tremors wracking your body as your third (and honestly, hopefully, final) orgasm rips through you. Alternating between Kirsh’s name and expletives, you’re sure you blacked out at some point. Behind you, Kirsh has not slowed down, his thrusts deepening, both hands now on your hips, and then you hear him make a quiet noise, almost one of curiosity, as you feel hot sticky release inside of you.
His hips slowly come to a still, cock still pressed up into you, as you lie listless on the table, forehead pressing to the no longer cold metal in an attempt to cool yourself off. You begin to ask a question, “Did you—”
“Yes,” he confirms as he gently pulls out of you. “The feeling was not one that I expected.”
After a few more seconds, when you feel like your gross motor skills have returned, you push yourself up off the table, turning to face him as you lean against it for support. “So you’ve never done anything like this before?” you ask, as casually as possible for someone who just nearly had the life fucked out of her.
“No,” he admits, and now you finally take the time to trace your eyes up and down his form before realizing you’re allowed to touch, and your hands blindly reach out to run along his skin. “I’ve spent several weeks researching—”
Your mouth hangs open. “You’ve been watching porn,” you accuse as a grin warps onto your face. “How dirty of you.” You tug at his cheek playfully.
“It was purely for scientific purposes,” he defends flatly.
You bite your lip to keep the smile from growing as you nod. “Oh, yeah, bending me over my worktable is real scientific.”
“That reminds me,” he says as he turns to check the clock hanging in your lab. “We still have about fifteen minutes before the security feed comes back online—”
The reminder has you freezing in place as mortification runs through you. “Oh my God, the cameras—”
He silences your worries with a firm kiss. “—are currently offline,” he assures. “There was one other thing I wanted to try—for scientific purposes.”
You don’t even have time to question him as he begins to kneel down in front of you. “Kirsh,” you start to protest, having already orgasmed three times, you think a fourth might do you in for good this time.
He presses a kiss to your inner thigh as he peers up at you. “For science,” he swears.