![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
NOTE: This is the chapter primarily reponsible for the mature content rating. If Audrey/Duke/clockwork!Nathan sex sounds too brain-breaking for your liking, skip to Chapter 15 after the scene break (about 3,000 words in).
PART 4
Chapter 14
Nathan was almost rattling with relief as they were finally able to disentangle themselves from the proceedings on the train. The crew had reluctantly accepted his authority, and even that reluctance had peeled away once further automated police had been brought in to secure the wrecked carriage and dead body, but he had no intention of staying to take full charge of the scene.
He had no idea, yet, what the repercussions would be for him going missing these last three days, after jumping aboard Duke Crocker's airship. Had they assumed he'd been destroyed? Counted him a loss already? He would have to return to Heppa Central Command to find out, but that struck him as something he should put off. He didn't want to risk losing his badge and authority and the options they gave him.
Not being a non-person helped to improve his outlook. The return of at least a veneer of memory... awareness... from another life that was not much impressed by all of this, a real life that understood more truly where he stood with Audrey and Duke, gave its own kind of relief, but it brought other complications, too.
His shoulder joint clunked with each movement and his arm seemed loose, and that repair would need to be dealt with before he risked too much further activity. Slipping out on a crime scene wasn't something he'd ever normally do, but he was compromised by both his involvement and physical condition, and had more important things to think about than his duties to a world which wasn't real.
"Where are we going?" Duke asked. Despite the return of some of their memories, he'd been wide eyed and fidgety with so many automata around. "We need to get cleaned up -- or fixed up." He eyed Nathan's arm. "We need somewhere to crash for a few hours. In Heppa, I always had my boat--"
"We can go to my place." Nathan felt a weird thrill that was half anxiety. Automaton Nathan never had visitors. "We'll have to be careful, because I don't intend to report in." He hesitated. "I don't have any food, or any facilities to make food, so you should pick up something ready-prepared on the way."
"I can live with that," Audrey said. "I am going to be fascinated to see where machine-you lives, Nathan."
"Right now, I'll be most fascinated by his bed," Duke commented, and blinked suddenly. "You do have a bed? I mean, I joked about you sleeping standing in a closet, but if you really don't need to sleep--"
"I have a bed." If he could have, Nathan was sure he'd be blushing. "It should fit you both."
Duke looked a little bemused, but Nathan was damned if he was offering an explanation.
It was midday and the town was a bustle as they headed to the police HQ Nathan's apartment building was adjoined to. The streets were cramped and noisy, cobble lined, dirty and dark from the press of buildings tall enough to block out the light, and although Heppa's sanitation system was adequate, that did not mean that every resident necessarily used it.
"Oh, my God," Audrey said, screwing her nose up and staring in horror at the bustling market stalls. "You know, I don't know if I dare eat anything bought here."
It was odd to view it all through the filter of the other Nathan. This was a scenario out of time and place; colour and detail for Malcove's world.
An airship sidled above them, slowly following the open length of the street at a very low level, casting them into further shadow. It was the Parts Bazaar, one of a number of airships that traded as commercial premises. It dangled a short rope ladder that led upward to a pulley construct -- used to bring aboard bolder customers. For the regular customer, it had scheduled stops. Nathan had been a bold customer, on the few occasions when he needed parts and didn't want to wait to requisition them for free from the maintenance section, but the traders had not been overly happy about the weight of his metal body on their ropes. The practice had held him in good stead for leaping out after Duke's airship.
"Fresh fruit, dried fruit and grain should be pretty safe," Duke said. "The milk's gonna be unpasteurised, if you're okay with that... but we could have muesli later." He was looking around with the same intent, brow-crunching double-vision that Nathan felt but wasn't sure his own face could articulate quite so eloquently.
"Okay," said Audrey, swallowing. "I can live with that. I know I ate at the port towers, but I didn't remember hygiene, then, and the towers were way cleaner than this."
"There's a more upmarket district a little further on," Duke said. "We can wait." Reluctance dragged at his voice. Duke wasn't from 'more upmarket' Heppa, he was from this Heppa, Nathan realised, and probably the lower end of this one. This world of dirt and packed streets blocked out by the shadows of towers and overgliding airships.
"Where would you eat?" Nathan asked. "Do you know a good place?"
"It was years ago. It probably isn't still there." His darted glance at Audrey indicated it probably wouldn't be up to her standards.
"No, it's okay," she said, rallying with determination. "Let's go find out."
There was a tiny, cheap bar and eatery tucked down an alley. Duke's face cleared as he saw it, and brightened considerably as he laid eyes on the grizzled old man behind the counter. Nathan blinked, pushing his hazy brain to explore the flare of recognition he himself had, and discovered the memory of the take-out joint that had existed in a rickety shack not far from the school, going back to his and Duke's childhood -- a shared childhood, in the real Nathan's memory. Though Nathan had not eaten from there in years, Duke... Duke had practically lived off the place, both before his dad died and then, afterward, maybe even more often.
Nathan resisted the urge to ask if Duke's parental situation had been the same in this world as in the one where they'd shared a childhood. It didn't, after all, matter when they were working toward putting an end to this world. There was no sense indulging his curiosity just to poke at something that could bring back bad memories.
"Hey, Mr. Stacco," Duke said, an almost shy grin breaking out across his face.
"Why, it's little Duke Crocker," the old man said with some surprise. "It's been--" He caught sight of Nathan beside Duke and he stopped, inhaling sharply, his pleasure at the meeting turning to uncertainty.
Nathan didn't like to think that regular people in Heppa had such fear for the sight of a police automaton. He'd never thought about it before, had always put the odd reactions down to nervousness at his metal frame, but the real Nathan curled at least semi-aware inside his head was more tuned to human emotions, and with Duke's attitude... He knew now that it was fear. He held up a hand in a reassuring motion. "Easy--"
"He's all right," Duke said quickly, resting a hand on Nathan's shoulder. It was such a human gesture, and a casual affection that Nathan in this world had never experienced, and it struck him dumb and froze him for a moment. Then Duke thumped his shoulder, waking him up.
"We're only here to get these two something to eat," Nathan said. "I don't have a problem with your establishment. I'm just... with my friends."
Audrey ducked in against his side, her hair brushing his neck, making Nathan smile. "Don't let the tin frame fool you. He's a softy. Oh my God, that smells amazing. What's cooking?"
What was cooking was some sort of spicy stew, and Duke and Audrey ordered theirs with no further hesitation. Nathan regretted not being able to smell it or taste it. Unfeeling, he'd lived in such details, and now he remembered that. The machine body had so much less that it really did put his usual affliction into perspective.
Mr Stacco had, back in the day, been known for his willingness to sell the small bottles of beers he stocked to local teens, but he'd never done so in quantity, just one or two with a meal, and Nathan had never really felt like he could push the issue after he'd become a cop, having partaken of the illicit alcohol himself previously.
The old man shot Nathan a few more strange looks while he was busying himself behind the counter and Audrey and Duke thirstily drank their beers. As he turned to clunk their plates down, Mr Stacco said, squinting, "I do know you. Nathan Wuornos. Came here with this one a few times as a kid. Thought you were some kinda town bigwig, now...?" His brow wrinkled and he stared at the automaton body that had clearly never been a teenager in any stage of its development.
"Yeah, weird, huh?" Duke said, in absolute sympathy, though he made no attempt at explanation. The old man shook his head after a moment and moved on.
Audrey was oblivious, having fallen on the food with gusto. "It's good," she said around a full mouth. "Oh, my God. After that finger food on the train... Who is supposed to live on that?" She seemed to have forgotten her concerns about hygiene.
"Hah," Duke said, and picked up his spoon. Nathan was left mostly to his own ticking thoughts for a while. It was strange to watch them eat and be something alien that couldn't and to now have awareness of that.
It must be strange for Audrey, too, to have her real memories back -- mostly intact, so far as Nathan could gather, although she'd admitted things still seemed jumbled. She kept casting him pained looks and then turning them into affirming smiles.
With living appetites taken care of, they took their leave of the small eatery and carried on to Nathan's apartment. It was in a block not quite so large as the docking towers, for obvious reasons, but still a large tower building, adjoining the back of the smaller but far grander building of Heppa Central Security station, which faced onto the street in front of it. Duke eyed the police station with nervousness as they walked past it, but there was wary caution in Audrey's eyes as well.
The block Nathan lived in was built for people -- officers, trainees -- and it would serve any living human adequately. He even had running water and toilet facilities, because some humans did still live in the police berths and the plumbing throughout the building had been left intact. That should contribute to Duke and Audrey's comfort while they were there.
There were, inevitably, automaton officers in the corridors, heading to and from shifts, and Duke's tension and Audrey's very focused interest were palpable as they passed. Nathan nodded to the officers politely, but there was no rule against bringing living people into their rooms. Although it didn't normally happen, it would pass without comment from his more limited compatriots.
"Here." Nathan opened a door labelled with the number 313. It had a clockwork combination lock, the key a sequence of numbers lodged in his brain.
"...Well," Duke said slowly, behind him, as they sidled inside. "I am pretty glad that when you say that you live here, it looks like you actually live here. I was afraid of bare walls and no furniture."
"Mm. It's nice," Audrey added. "I'm glad it looks like a home. If you're both going to live with an extra set of memories in your head after this is over, I'm glad they're not all... bleak and clockwork."
Nathan hadn't thought about it, but he supposed it was a toss-up whether the memories of this Trouble lingered if -- once -- they ended it. Other people, who'd been less awake and aware while within its grip, might escape unscathed.
"I'm just relieved you have a bed," Duke said, and went to face-plant himself into it with a groan.
"Okay, although why you have a bed... and a bed this big...?" Audrey teased, her brows lifting as she shot him a querying look. "You been engaging in any not-very-automaton-like activities already, Detective Wuornos, or just secretly hoping for them?"
Because I used Garland as a pattern of how to furnish my life, as well as how to live, was the answer, and Nathan had saved and scraped for the funds to make himself, piece by piece, at home in this environment the way he'd been accustomed in Garland's. But he didn't say that.
Maybe it had been the feeling that he should have those things. Or that Malcove's Trouble could only go so far in warping his real, human needs within this created life. Even so, most of what was in his living quarter was parts, books and crafts -- the latter things to keep himself occupied in place of relationships and human contact.
Duke was already asleep. Audrey had crawled next to him and was beckoning to Nathan with her hand, shifting with intent to indicate space for him on the other side of her. Nathan shook his head and shrugged his clanking shoulder. "I have to fix this." He did not sleep, and was content to watch them do so.
"We'll fix it later," she said, her tone insistent. "Come sleep with us."
Reluctantly, Nathan lay beside them on the edge of the bed. He'd been careful to leave distance between himself and Audrey, but she cuddled back against his metal body and pulled Duke with her anyway. Nathan felt the tingle of her touch from her hair against his face, and further down his body as she wormed a hand beneath his shirt to press it to his chest plates.
"Later," she murmured, her fingers flexing, "we are going to fix all of this."
It didn't take her very long to fall asleep either, and Nathan watched them sleeping beside him on his bed. It was strange right now, and the transformation of his form was a gulf between them. But he'd be real again, he assured himself, taking in Audrey's words. He'd be with them -- properly able to be with them -- again.
After Audrey's breathing had changed and he judged her sufficiently deep asleep, he edged back out of her clutch and got up. He didn't mind lying beside them -- the contrary! -- but he did have work to do.
He crossed to the shelves where the parts and the technical manuals were stashed. From the surrounding much more used ephemera, he dug out a box which had travelled with him from Garland Wuornos' house, unused parts from when he'd first been assembled. It rattled softly when he lifted it, but most of the things in there weren't metal -- the practical sorts of pieces and spares he'd used long before now. The only things left...
He cast a glance back to the bed, and then took the box into the bathroom, not looking to be observed at considering this, even covertly, even accidentally.
He opened it up using the set-down lid of the little-used toilet as a shelf and stared at the items inside. Another bladder, more rigid and shaped than the one that made his voice, but deflated and shapeless right now. A sort of soft, padded sleeve. Countless small fixings for both. And a slim pamphlet that read, obnoxiously, 'Owner's Manual'.
Well, one thing he was sure of was who the hell owned him. As of yet, that book had been read by no-one. Because, he fumed in a sudden spike of fury, no-one else had had the right.
Nathan picked up the book and opened it,.
It was maybe two hours later when he returned to the bed and slipped in again at Audrey's side. First he'd had to fix his grating shoulder joint, which had been awkward, but mostly just a matter of tightening everything up that Butler had forcibly loosened. Nothing was broken, and certainly the damage was nowhere near the scale of that done by falling perhaps forty feet from the top of the airship. Even after that, though, he'd had to check over the whole of his clockwork body, including overhauling a bunch of very specific places for the required safety checks, and to clean parts that had never been used. The modifications to his throat had taken the longest. Butler had been able to speak, though it had been a bit muffled, so he hoped he would be able to. There hadn't seemed a lot of room left in the cavity to form the sounds. The most visible and obvious difference had just been a matter of snapping a few fixings into place and connecting up a few formerly redundant cogs. As a result, he now had an obvious masculine bulge showing between his legs.
It had been a very strange process, but Nathan's will had solidified as he worked. Bloody Malcove... the fucking Troubles... they didn't get to emasculate or de-sexualise him into some work-obsessed drone, just because that was all Malcove saw! So he worked hard. So he couldn't feel anything. That wasn't justification to re-cast him as a machine!
His dual selves wavered a little, but the one who'd lived this life was fluttering like a caged bird against its restrictions, as game as Nathan was to claim back this part of his humanity, all of his identity... and when they woke up, Duke and Audrey, assuming they were willing.
***
They were tired and Nathan would have let them sleep, but Audrey woke up in a flail of limbs after only a few more hours and kicked Duke, waking him up too. "Shit," she said blearily. "Daylight... What time...?" Then she stopped and peered around, and apparently caught up with the situation. She groaned and flopped back.
"I hate you," Duke said from the floor, having rolled off the bed, hand flailing for a gun that wasn't there on a nightstand that wasn't there.
"I'll make you both some coffee," Nathan said. He could do that. He had a small stove for boiling water for visitors, which he'd bought early on, in more hopeful times, and hadn't used in six or seven years. He frowned. "Tea." Tea didn't spoil, as such, did it? Not so easily as that? He'd still be able to get some flavour out of it, if he put in a couple of bags.
"I guess," Audrey sighed.
"Tea's good," said Duke. "Why do you have that morning rasp in your voice? I thought you didn't sleep."
Nathan ignored the question and went to boil water, figuring that the two of them being awake and alert was the first step toward anything.
When he returned an interval later, the pamphlet that said Owner's Manual was in Duke's hands. Nathan sighed, and the new oiled soft sleeve inside his throat muffled it to a hiss. He had been careful not to leave the box out, but had packed it safely away on the shelf where he had got it from.
"This is freakin' disturbing," Duke opined, waving the pamphlet while Nathan looked for suitable nearby surfaces to set cups of tea down on. It looked the right pale brown colour, but Nathan couldn't attest any more than that for its quality. Duke had bought milk and syrup for his muesli idea, so there was at least that. Audrey's expression as she tasted it could have been because she didn't normally drink tea.
Duke said, obviously feeling ignored, "Who buys a perfect clockwork replica of a human being to fuck it?"
"Not Heppa's municipal council," Nathan said.
Duke scrambled for the tea as Nathan held it out for him. "Seriously, man, what's up with your voice? Why's it so muffled?"
It got more muffled as Nathan replied, "There's... it's like a sleeve that goes inside my mouth. It interferes with talking, and it doesn't have any... applicable purpose, so I'd never worn it. But I thought it might be..." Duke was staring at him, tea forgotten in his hand. "I guess it's to stop anything organic from gumming up my works." Irritation helped Nathan to get the words out.
Audrey coughed, almost choking on tea. "Holy shit, Nathan."
"You've got the book, you've seen the box," Nathan rasped at them both. He'd not planned to do this snappishly, but they had to pry...
"I was just looking at your shelves, man," Duke protested. "so, so... you literally just unpacked your sexuality from a box?"
"Now there's a metaphor," Audrey smirked. She put her tea down and sat cross-legged on top of the bed covers, She'd shucked most of her clothes off at various stages through her sleep. "And you've been holding out on us." She waved a finger at Nathan as her face pinched in confusion. "I'd thought this was all some kind of revelation."
The mechanisms of Nathan's face crunched with the force of the expression he formed in his annoyance. "I have not. There was a box of 'spare parts' that came with me. I told you, I never thought about it before, I was a machine."
"And now you're... not a machine." Duke gulped a big mouthful of tea, and he pulled a face, too, though that could be the amount of syrup Nathan had dumped in it to provide flavour. "So this is, what, a plan? A plan where we get to deflower you?"
Audrey's brows went up. "I hate that phrase with fiery hate, but... When you use it like that, I think perhaps we should stop talking and start doing, all the same."
"You're not going to-- I've had sex!" Nathan spluttered. "And I remember it!"
"Not in this life," Duke said. "Or with these parts." The twist in his mouth was changing from sleepiness and bad tea to mischief.
"Kind of makes it a once in a lifetime opportunity," Audrey said. "And if you remember, then you should remember -- well, scattered and patchy as my memory still is, I'm pretty sure you're the insatiable one. When we're together alone--" she pointed between herself and Duke "--we usually watch all the bad cult TV that you don't like."
"Right." Duke grinned, momentary glimpses of blocked memory clearing his expression. "Yeah! Vampires in Space!"
Nathan rolled his eyes. "You're waiting for me, that's all. And you like that crap." The memories were hard to access, not anything he'd given much attention to yet. Small things. Pieces of life, day to day. "I'm the one who can't feel."
"Okay, you tell yourself that," Audrey snorted.
Nathan pointed out, "I work longer hours. Meetings. Troubles have got nothing on town meetings. I need to relax somehow."
"Yeah, okay, Sex Fiend Wuornos."
"Fuck you, Duke."
Audrey said, "Hey, stop acting like it's a complaint. And anyway..." She narrowed her eyes and looked between them. "Me first. You want to come and lie on the bed with us, Nathan?"
"I..." Nathan just settled for nodding. He reached down and unbuckled his belt, internally starting the clockwork mechanisms to pump air into the new bladder between his legs. It wasn't the first time he'd done it. He'd practiced while they were sleeping.
It was very strange.
Duke let out a hoot as he unbuttoned and the bladder unfurled from his open pants, then Duke rolled on his back on the bed, holding his hands over his mouth and belly. "Shit, Nathan," he said, gleeful in the face of Nathan's annoyance, propping himself up on an elbow. "You have been holding out on us, making like there was nothing down there."
Audrey laughed and squirmed to pull Nathan down, poking Duke with her foot as she climbed over the bed and making him yelp. Then she was somehow straddling Nathan's hips, above the pumped-hard jut of his sexual part. She reached her hand down and wrapped her fingers around it, and he gasped as that tingle warmed, impossibly, the unliving matter, awakening a semblance of life and arousal. It wasn't feeling, but it was more than Nathan had ever had in this lifetime. He pressed his face into Audrey's shoulder and just focused on that for a moment, letting it be his whole world.
"This is soft," Audrey said with surprise, her fingers rubbing, then squeezing. A moment later, Duke's hand curled between them both and his surprise coloured the air, too, as his fingers joined hers.
"It's, uh, another bladder, not a solid part. Like my voice box, only more rigid."
"That's for sure," said Duke. Nathan couldn't get any sense of Duke's touch being there unless he relaxed his shoulders and tilted his head to achieve a line of sight and affirm it with his eyes. The sight pleased him more than he would ever have thought it would.
Audrey giggled a little. "You have an actual inflatable cock?"
Nathan frowned, not quite seeing what was funny, although the other set of memories squirmed within him. "It's probably so it can be reduced down and worn all the time. If it was designed to stay rigid, it would have to detach or it'd jut out, and probably get damaged."
"Plus looking far too lewd for this society," Audrey snickered.
"I guess we all have inflatable cocks, when you look at it like that," Duke commented. "Hang on, it gets worse, doesn't it? This is new to you. You seriously kept your cock in a box when you didn't have to?"
"I'm a machine," Nathan growled, frustration rising despite the situation. He'd been -- he'd been trapped like this, in this body, without his real memory, and now they were laughing at him for it. Duke was going to be laughing at him for it forever. "I didn't have a use for it."
"It's okay," Audrey said, rocking her body on him and using her hand soothingly. "It's just. Really strange. And it's way funnier than Duke being a vampire, and we laughed about that, once we'd got over the biting me and the Duke almost dying part."
"It doesn't make you less of a man," Duke said, grinning despite himself. "Just a man with... different priorities. And a detachable dick."
"I swear I'm going to strangle you," Nathan muttered.
Duke was busy with his hands, though. The one that was on Nathan's cock next to Audrey's hand roamed, testing the organ's rigidity and flexibility. "This is pretty good," he said. "Pretty true to life. And I bet that if it does go down from all the activity, it's at least quick and easy to re-inflate, right?"
"Let's test it," said Audrey, and Duke guided her down, his hand on her hip, the other staying between them all. She leaned back to provide more space for Nathan to see. Beneath the pale skin of her belly and her lightly downed mound, Duke's fingers moved in her folds, opening her up. They forked over Nathan to ease him in. Audrey made a noise of satisfaction as she took in Nathan's full extent, and placed her hands flat on his midriff, curling her fingers in his shirt. Duke's hand moved from the join of their bodies to entwine with hers there.
"How's it feel," Duke asked, "losing your virginity all over again?"
It was difficult to get past what Audrey was doing to focus on Duke over her shoulder, and the answer to the question was pretty good, in the strictest sense, with her closed around him, engulfing him in that touch that was not quite touch, making him feel it keener than he had yet. Nathan was tempted to let the comment go, but he managed a tight, "Don't mock me, Duke."
"I don't want to mock you," Duke said. "Really. It's better than freaking out, though, and I'd rather focus on the funny parts of my boyfriend being turned into a machine." There was a dazed earnestness in his voice that Nathan believed. His hands on both Audrey and Nathan were constantly moving, stroking, facilitating, as Audrey moved. "I would not be coping nearly so well if our roles were reversed," he added.
"It doesn't seem like it's freaking you out so much," Audrey murmured, grinding back against him, then reaching a hand behind her to palm him through his pants. "You want to swap?"
"I can wait. Leave you to break the virgin ground. Explore where no human has gone before."
Nathan started a protest in a low growl, and then gave up. His body didn't have desire, but his mind was satisfied, and he was all for the exploration of this new territory himself. "Just bear in mind that I also want to get chance to use this thing in my mouth, since I put it in and made myself talk like this."
Audrey frowned. "That's definitely a drawback. Thank you for compromising your voice. If you're uncomfortable, though, you really don't have to. We can stop for you to take it out."
Nathan shook his head. He stared at Duke as he crawled around Audrey and leaned over to kiss Nathan on the lips, closing their mouths together for seconds that stretched. Nathan couldn't feel anything he was doing, and it was too close to see. But when Duke finally withdrew, he said, "Mouth glove. God, this would be perverted if it wasn't, you know, you."
"You mean--" Audrey's face betrayed her wince even as she breathed harshly, still bobbing on Nathan, and Duke's hand returned to her folds, playing there. "A real person in a synthetic body. Who wants to have sex with us. Who often has sex with us. And is not a sex toy."
"Mm-hm," Duke grunted, and with his hands playing over Audrey, leaned to kiss Nathan again.
"I don't think it's designed for kissing," Nathan tried to say around Duke's lips, but it came out pretty garbled; it definitely wasn't designed for talking.
"Yeah, that's a problem. We have to make the best of it." Duke touched his face instead. "You really want to do that?"
"I really do." Nathan figured that Duke's reticence was due to the general impression that that was what Lock had engaged in with Butler. "Better, probably, in fact. The other, it's, uh, if we do that, it's gonna be pretty passive, I think... I've more adjustable mechanisms in my mouth. The sleeve's altered the shape of it to something more conducive to the exercise, and I have more control up here."
"Don't have to do the other one, either." Duke looked at him intently.
"No. I want to try and use this body in all the ways I never have. I want to know," Nathan declared. All those years of memories... "If we succeed, I'm going to be someone different. I can already feel that coming back. So much will become meaningless. I need to use this, now, while I can."
Duke pulled a face. "Tell me about it. If the last thing I do as me is to fuck an automaton... well, it's ironic, but I'm pretty sure it'll be all kinds of interesting."
"Interesting we can usually manage." Audrey had taken advantage of Duke moving to flatten herself more against Nathan, her hips still bobbing regularly and small sounds interspersing her loud breaths. Her fingers pulled at his shirt buttons, but Nathan slid his gloved hands over hers and moved them back. "I want to see your crazy-ornate chest," she complained.
"Better not," Duke said. "Those plates articulate in a fashion that could give skin a pretty nasty nip if you're pressed up against them. It might be dicey enough for me to fuck him, though I haven't had a real close look at how the leg joints work near his ass. He's had those stone age undies glued to his butt."
"I won't hurt you," Nathan said defensively. "But I might have to lock down and not move much, which is the point I was making before." Hard, cold metal and crunching gears were more suited to heavy work than lovemaking.
Duke straightened up again to slip one hand underneath Audrey's bouncing thigh and the other behind her buttocks.
"Uh. Not at the same time," she said. "And not my ass. Not today. We have to. Stuff to do. Troubles. I don't need to be sore."
"Never a problem for Nathan," Duke smirked.
"Probably why he's the sex fiend." Audrey made a little noise, interrupting her quip. "Doesn't have to worry about fighting Troubles with a sore ass. Oh, you bastard, Duke Crocker."
Nathan craned up, which also elevated his hips to tip her angle, and could see Duke's fingers curled around him and on and inside her, working hard around the rise and fall of her body on Nathan's cock. The pitch of Audrey's breath had changed, and contained a strained wheeze. The rhythm of her measured movements was breaking up.
"C'mon, okay, Nathan can probably go forever right now, and I want my turn before tomorrow."
She gave a final quiver and moved higher onto Nathan's chest, clinging to his shoulder. The little pool of sensation around that new part of him disappeared. Her face was flushed and Nathan could see the tremor in her of her orgasm. He reached up and touched her face wonderingly.
"Your dick's all slimy," Duke observed.
"It'll wash." Nathan spoke a bit stolidly, still wary about being mocked.
"Yeah." Duke was eying it. "But I'm kind of thinking how glad I am this is virgin equipment."
"Oh, fuck you, Duke," Nathan groaned again.
"Yeah, I want my turn on Nathan's Amazing Inflatable Cock." Duke's hands moved, working around Audrey's clinging, sated form for now. Nathan realised that what he was doing was using Audrey's juices to prepare himself, though the position was awkward. "Come on... You might have to lose your nice blanket..." Duke was getting fidgety, but Audrey came back to life, wriggling clear. "We start off this way, then flip? See how it goes?" Duke grinned and bent over; reached behind himself to slap his bare ass. "Come on and play cops and robbers," he goaded.
Duke was very different to Audrey, easy with the idea of Nathan taking charge, pushing him to do so. He left Nathan the control to sink in, judging how much Duke could take, working from the sounds he made underneath him... though he kept up a patter of talk in addition to his body's automatic noises of discomfort or pleasure. It was a trust Nathan hadn't expected, especially when he could not feel what he was doing, and was heavier and stronger now. He was deep inside Duke before hands reached back to pull at his metal ones, and Duke said, "Yeah. More. More," and then groaned as Nathan obliged.
Nathan had expected that it would feel like having power over Duke, that given the nature of their relationship, it would feel combative, but it wasn't like that. Of course, physically he didn't feel at all, but all the same, this felt... very intimate. He stroked Duke's sides as his body moved, and familiarity surged back into him, telling him what to do, what Duke liked, how to best make the other man moan.
Eventually, Duke reached back a stalling hand and wheezed through strained breaths, "You want to switch here, it's gonna have to happen now, or it's not gonna happen, if you get my drift." Nathan stilled and let him roll clear, pause and hold himself and get his breath back. "Okay... okay. How d'you want to do this? Facing or from behind?"
"You don't want my legs on your shoulders," Nathan said with a trace of sarcasm.
"Okay. So can you, y'know, roll over? We're gonna have to get those pants all the way off, this time... If you're sure you want to do this."
Audrey moved in and curled her fingers in Nathan's pants, yanking on them, since Duke had one hand indisposed. "He wants to, alright. Come on, Wuornos, get 'em off."
Nathan rolled over, letting Audrey and Duke pull the garment clear of his legs, amused by their struggles to manoeuvre it over his jointed feet. He had taken the underwear off in the bathroom, already, and now he took up a position on his hands and knees, bracing and locking his body.
"Shit, Nathan," Duke said, still out of breath, and Nathan turned his head and could just about see his shirt being rolled up to his shoulder. "Come on, let's have all of you."
"All of me is full of hard metal edges," Nathan said. "And seriously, I don't think it's a good idea."
"I won't be going near the top of you," Duke argued. "C'mon, the shirt... Let me admire my handiwork."
"I'm not a damn handiwork project!"
Audrey wheedled, "But your chest is seriously pretty."
"Huh." Nathan undid a few buttons and pulled it carefully over his head.
"This is some Trouble," Audrey said, an edge in her voice. Nathan 'felt' the tingle as her touch carefully stole along his side and across his rump. "You kind of have to wonder what they were thinking of when they designed this." Her finger and the tingle of near-sensation it brought with it slid somewhere unexpected and Nathan made a sharp, metallic sound in surprise.
"You feel that?" Duke asked.
"You like that?" Audrey asked.
"Yes," Nathan said, hoarsely. "Please."
"It's pretty clear that his body on some level remembers 'human'... especially when you're touching him," Duke said. "Hell, maybe it's because he's a real person that it had to work this way, particularly. I mean, maybe that influenced the design, influenced the world. It kinda seems like the whole Heppa clockwork police thing came from Malcove's view of Nathan, but it was Lock with the mech fetish, so the two clashing visions kind of meshed."
"Mm." Audrey sunk her finger further, making a sound of concentration. Maybe she added another. It was hard to tell from a tingle, but the sense of it seemed to spread deeper. "I don't think you need a lot of lubricant," she said. "This is smooth. A little of mine and it seems fairly easy. "
"Let me at him, then," Duke said.
"Hm. Nathan? Making way for Duke means taking my fingers out. Sorry."
"It's okay," Nathan said, and felt the loss as the sensation retreated.
"It sort of looks like this whole section detaches," Audrey observed with some puzzlement. "Like it could be rotated here and then just... pull out."
"Cleaning," Nathan mumbled, burying his face in the mattress. "It's for cleaning."
"A detachable ass?" Duke asked incredulously.
"Shut up," Nathan grunted. "No, it hasn't been in the box."
"Man." Duke was quiet a moment, just scuffling sounds until he said, "Okay, I'm coming in."
Nathan had a sense of the heaviness as Duke settled over him, arms coiling down carefully over his stomach with its jigsaw of plates. But when Duke asked, "Are you getting anything from this?" he had to be honest and respond, "No."
"Nathan..."
"Fuck me, Duke." He coughed a laugh. "Wouldn't that be something to say, that you fucked a Heppa cop, after all these years? I mean it, just go for it. I'm... what I am. I have to see if I can find a way to work with it."
"Okay..." The bed bounced slowly as Duke thrust, rocking them both. Nathan braced his hands better, trying to keep his limbs tucked out of the way as the handbook had advised. He counted the thrusts and marked the changes in Duke's breath, and it wasn't true that it left him completely unaffected... because the thought of Duke inside him inspired his intellect, at least, to the abstract of arousal. But there was no chemical payload, no physical component, even an unfelt one, to work with here, and without the ability to see what was happening it was a very reduced experience.
Still, he had given himself over to having the experience.
Duke's rhythm broke up and his movements faltered. Nathan thought for a moment that he'd finished, but he hadn't. He took a moment to catch his breath before he spoke: "Nathan. I want you to see me. I want you moving. Everything I remember makes me feel sure that's the way this should be. Like this, it isn't working for me."
"He's right about you trying to field his legs face-to-face. You'd end up concussed," Audrey said.
"No, but... I guess... give me your mouth?" Duke pulled out and rolled around so that Nathan could see him, and a hand encouraged him to disengage from the position he'd adopted with obvious disdain.
Nathan could point out that he was heavy, he was clumsy, he couldn't feel what he was doing, and he was being trusted with his friends' most intimate parts, but excuses felt... unnecessary. The intimacy between them now was natural, familiar and well-worn. Their memories might still not be perfect, but he knew that doing this had regained them much. Nathan stood up, making the bed and himself creak, and walked around Duke. Carefully, with his metal hands, he guided Duke's position until he was perched on the edge of the bed. "Lean back and I'll be able to see you, kind of... I think that's the best we're going to get until we fix this," Nathan said, as he slipped down onto his knees between Duke's parted legs, speaking firmly enough to keep the protest poised on Duke's lips from being voiced.
Duke swallowed. "Go for it."
Audrey caught his shoulders as he leaned back on his hands, and she ran her fingers through his hair, looking down over his shoulder. "I'll just play with this and watch. Duke, if this doesn't carry back with us, grow your hair long."
"--I'll take that under advisement--" Duke's voice changed as Nathan carefully parted his lips and took him inside. It didn't stop him adding, " I guess at least we don't have to worry about ass-to-mouth."
Nathan grunted but didn't dare try to speak. His jaw was a heavy duty hinge, so the potential damage... well. He looked up past a soft smatter of dark hair below Duke's belly and along the sculpted expanse of his chest to meet his eyes. When he had that line of sight, he dared close his mouth just the tiniest bit more to increase the pressure, then sliding back carefully and watching Duke's reaction intensify, before he moved forward in a purposeful bob. Duke moaned. Nathan saw one of Audrey's hands slip around his waist.
Nathan bobbed up and down, bringing his hands in to aid the effort. On second thought, he slid one of them under Duke's ass, and let Duke shift himself to onto an extended digit with a moan. He left that hand to Duke and focused his attention on his mouth. On an inspiration, he inflated the bladder in his throat as if to speak, then just hissed the air out, hearing it vibrate against the blockage of the sleeve and Duke inside the sleeve.
"Oh, fuck," Duke groaned, writhing. He skewed his body so he could extend one hand to touch Nathan's hair without pulling away from Audrey and still push his weight up and down, balanced by the other. "Fuck, Nathan..."
Nathan couldn't talk, but affirmed the success by doing it again.
Duke hunched over further as he worked, until it was difficult to angle himself to see Duke's face any more, but Duke's hand was in his hair, and his chest was rising and falling hard, and the muscles in his belly were twitching hyperactively with the excess of sensation, and Nathan could hear his reactions just fine.
"Fucking Heppa cop..." Duke groaned, leaning forward. "I could never have believed..." A long groan ended the statement, and Nathan almost objected as Duke started to pull away, until he saw that Duke's erection was fading, strings of creamy fluid pulling away with it from Nathan's mouth.
Duke leaned completely forward and took Nathan's face in his hands, teasing him up from his knees. Nathan stared and pressed his lips closed tight as Duke tried to kiss him, aware that there was fluid held in the sleeve inside his mouth that he needed to get rid of without spraying everywhere.
Duke settled for kissing him around the lips, and on the nose, and in his hairline.
Nathan stared, and smiled carefully, and disengaged to go dispose of the sleeve and its contents.
When he came back, Audrey and Duke were sprawled together in the centre of the bed. He sat on the side of it and watched them for a moment.
"How do you feel?" Audrey broke the silence, asking it cautiously. "I mean--"
Nathan could 'feel'. "It feels very, very strange," he said, "to think of myself as human enough to do that."
PART 4
Chapter 14
Nathan was almost rattling with relief as they were finally able to disentangle themselves from the proceedings on the train. The crew had reluctantly accepted his authority, and even that reluctance had peeled away once further automated police had been brought in to secure the wrecked carriage and dead body, but he had no intention of staying to take full charge of the scene.
He had no idea, yet, what the repercussions would be for him going missing these last three days, after jumping aboard Duke Crocker's airship. Had they assumed he'd been destroyed? Counted him a loss already? He would have to return to Heppa Central Command to find out, but that struck him as something he should put off. He didn't want to risk losing his badge and authority and the options they gave him.
Not being a non-person helped to improve his outlook. The return of at least a veneer of memory... awareness... from another life that was not much impressed by all of this, a real life that understood more truly where he stood with Audrey and Duke, gave its own kind of relief, but it brought other complications, too.
His shoulder joint clunked with each movement and his arm seemed loose, and that repair would need to be dealt with before he risked too much further activity. Slipping out on a crime scene wasn't something he'd ever normally do, but he was compromised by both his involvement and physical condition, and had more important things to think about than his duties to a world which wasn't real.
"Where are we going?" Duke asked. Despite the return of some of their memories, he'd been wide eyed and fidgety with so many automata around. "We need to get cleaned up -- or fixed up." He eyed Nathan's arm. "We need somewhere to crash for a few hours. In Heppa, I always had my boat--"
"We can go to my place." Nathan felt a weird thrill that was half anxiety. Automaton Nathan never had visitors. "We'll have to be careful, because I don't intend to report in." He hesitated. "I don't have any food, or any facilities to make food, so you should pick up something ready-prepared on the way."
"I can live with that," Audrey said. "I am going to be fascinated to see where machine-you lives, Nathan."
"Right now, I'll be most fascinated by his bed," Duke commented, and blinked suddenly. "You do have a bed? I mean, I joked about you sleeping standing in a closet, but if you really don't need to sleep--"
"I have a bed." If he could have, Nathan was sure he'd be blushing. "It should fit you both."
Duke looked a little bemused, but Nathan was damned if he was offering an explanation.
It was midday and the town was a bustle as they headed to the police HQ Nathan's apartment building was adjoined to. The streets were cramped and noisy, cobble lined, dirty and dark from the press of buildings tall enough to block out the light, and although Heppa's sanitation system was adequate, that did not mean that every resident necessarily used it.
"Oh, my God," Audrey said, screwing her nose up and staring in horror at the bustling market stalls. "You know, I don't know if I dare eat anything bought here."
It was odd to view it all through the filter of the other Nathan. This was a scenario out of time and place; colour and detail for Malcove's world.
An airship sidled above them, slowly following the open length of the street at a very low level, casting them into further shadow. It was the Parts Bazaar, one of a number of airships that traded as commercial premises. It dangled a short rope ladder that led upward to a pulley construct -- used to bring aboard bolder customers. For the regular customer, it had scheduled stops. Nathan had been a bold customer, on the few occasions when he needed parts and didn't want to wait to requisition them for free from the maintenance section, but the traders had not been overly happy about the weight of his metal body on their ropes. The practice had held him in good stead for leaping out after Duke's airship.
"Fresh fruit, dried fruit and grain should be pretty safe," Duke said. "The milk's gonna be unpasteurised, if you're okay with that... but we could have muesli later." He was looking around with the same intent, brow-crunching double-vision that Nathan felt but wasn't sure his own face could articulate quite so eloquently.
"Okay," said Audrey, swallowing. "I can live with that. I know I ate at the port towers, but I didn't remember hygiene, then, and the towers were way cleaner than this."
"There's a more upmarket district a little further on," Duke said. "We can wait." Reluctance dragged at his voice. Duke wasn't from 'more upmarket' Heppa, he was from this Heppa, Nathan realised, and probably the lower end of this one. This world of dirt and packed streets blocked out by the shadows of towers and overgliding airships.
"Where would you eat?" Nathan asked. "Do you know a good place?"
"It was years ago. It probably isn't still there." His darted glance at Audrey indicated it probably wouldn't be up to her standards.
"No, it's okay," she said, rallying with determination. "Let's go find out."
There was a tiny, cheap bar and eatery tucked down an alley. Duke's face cleared as he saw it, and brightened considerably as he laid eyes on the grizzled old man behind the counter. Nathan blinked, pushing his hazy brain to explore the flare of recognition he himself had, and discovered the memory of the take-out joint that had existed in a rickety shack not far from the school, going back to his and Duke's childhood -- a shared childhood, in the real Nathan's memory. Though Nathan had not eaten from there in years, Duke... Duke had practically lived off the place, both before his dad died and then, afterward, maybe even more often.
Nathan resisted the urge to ask if Duke's parental situation had been the same in this world as in the one where they'd shared a childhood. It didn't, after all, matter when they were working toward putting an end to this world. There was no sense indulging his curiosity just to poke at something that could bring back bad memories.
"Hey, Mr. Stacco," Duke said, an almost shy grin breaking out across his face.
"Why, it's little Duke Crocker," the old man said with some surprise. "It's been--" He caught sight of Nathan beside Duke and he stopped, inhaling sharply, his pleasure at the meeting turning to uncertainty.
Nathan didn't like to think that regular people in Heppa had such fear for the sight of a police automaton. He'd never thought about it before, had always put the odd reactions down to nervousness at his metal frame, but the real Nathan curled at least semi-aware inside his head was more tuned to human emotions, and with Duke's attitude... He knew now that it was fear. He held up a hand in a reassuring motion. "Easy--"
"He's all right," Duke said quickly, resting a hand on Nathan's shoulder. It was such a human gesture, and a casual affection that Nathan in this world had never experienced, and it struck him dumb and froze him for a moment. Then Duke thumped his shoulder, waking him up.
"We're only here to get these two something to eat," Nathan said. "I don't have a problem with your establishment. I'm just... with my friends."
Audrey ducked in against his side, her hair brushing his neck, making Nathan smile. "Don't let the tin frame fool you. He's a softy. Oh my God, that smells amazing. What's cooking?"
What was cooking was some sort of spicy stew, and Duke and Audrey ordered theirs with no further hesitation. Nathan regretted not being able to smell it or taste it. Unfeeling, he'd lived in such details, and now he remembered that. The machine body had so much less that it really did put his usual affliction into perspective.
Mr Stacco had, back in the day, been known for his willingness to sell the small bottles of beers he stocked to local teens, but he'd never done so in quantity, just one or two with a meal, and Nathan had never really felt like he could push the issue after he'd become a cop, having partaken of the illicit alcohol himself previously.
The old man shot Nathan a few more strange looks while he was busying himself behind the counter and Audrey and Duke thirstily drank their beers. As he turned to clunk their plates down, Mr Stacco said, squinting, "I do know you. Nathan Wuornos. Came here with this one a few times as a kid. Thought you were some kinda town bigwig, now...?" His brow wrinkled and he stared at the automaton body that had clearly never been a teenager in any stage of its development.
"Yeah, weird, huh?" Duke said, in absolute sympathy, though he made no attempt at explanation. The old man shook his head after a moment and moved on.
Audrey was oblivious, having fallen on the food with gusto. "It's good," she said around a full mouth. "Oh, my God. After that finger food on the train... Who is supposed to live on that?" She seemed to have forgotten her concerns about hygiene.
"Hah," Duke said, and picked up his spoon. Nathan was left mostly to his own ticking thoughts for a while. It was strange to watch them eat and be something alien that couldn't and to now have awareness of that.
It must be strange for Audrey, too, to have her real memories back -- mostly intact, so far as Nathan could gather, although she'd admitted things still seemed jumbled. She kept casting him pained looks and then turning them into affirming smiles.
With living appetites taken care of, they took their leave of the small eatery and carried on to Nathan's apartment. It was in a block not quite so large as the docking towers, for obvious reasons, but still a large tower building, adjoining the back of the smaller but far grander building of Heppa Central Security station, which faced onto the street in front of it. Duke eyed the police station with nervousness as they walked past it, but there was wary caution in Audrey's eyes as well.
The block Nathan lived in was built for people -- officers, trainees -- and it would serve any living human adequately. He even had running water and toilet facilities, because some humans did still live in the police berths and the plumbing throughout the building had been left intact. That should contribute to Duke and Audrey's comfort while they were there.
There were, inevitably, automaton officers in the corridors, heading to and from shifts, and Duke's tension and Audrey's very focused interest were palpable as they passed. Nathan nodded to the officers politely, but there was no rule against bringing living people into their rooms. Although it didn't normally happen, it would pass without comment from his more limited compatriots.
"Here." Nathan opened a door labelled with the number 313. It had a clockwork combination lock, the key a sequence of numbers lodged in his brain.
"...Well," Duke said slowly, behind him, as they sidled inside. "I am pretty glad that when you say that you live here, it looks like you actually live here. I was afraid of bare walls and no furniture."
"Mm. It's nice," Audrey added. "I'm glad it looks like a home. If you're both going to live with an extra set of memories in your head after this is over, I'm glad they're not all... bleak and clockwork."
Nathan hadn't thought about it, but he supposed it was a toss-up whether the memories of this Trouble lingered if -- once -- they ended it. Other people, who'd been less awake and aware while within its grip, might escape unscathed.
"I'm just relieved you have a bed," Duke said, and went to face-plant himself into it with a groan.
"Okay, although why you have a bed... and a bed this big...?" Audrey teased, her brows lifting as she shot him a querying look. "You been engaging in any not-very-automaton-like activities already, Detective Wuornos, or just secretly hoping for them?"
Because I used Garland as a pattern of how to furnish my life, as well as how to live, was the answer, and Nathan had saved and scraped for the funds to make himself, piece by piece, at home in this environment the way he'd been accustomed in Garland's. But he didn't say that.
Maybe it had been the feeling that he should have those things. Or that Malcove's Trouble could only go so far in warping his real, human needs within this created life. Even so, most of what was in his living quarter was parts, books and crafts -- the latter things to keep himself occupied in place of relationships and human contact.
Duke was already asleep. Audrey had crawled next to him and was beckoning to Nathan with her hand, shifting with intent to indicate space for him on the other side of her. Nathan shook his head and shrugged his clanking shoulder. "I have to fix this." He did not sleep, and was content to watch them do so.
"We'll fix it later," she said, her tone insistent. "Come sleep with us."
Reluctantly, Nathan lay beside them on the edge of the bed. He'd been careful to leave distance between himself and Audrey, but she cuddled back against his metal body and pulled Duke with her anyway. Nathan felt the tingle of her touch from her hair against his face, and further down his body as she wormed a hand beneath his shirt to press it to his chest plates.
"Later," she murmured, her fingers flexing, "we are going to fix all of this."
It didn't take her very long to fall asleep either, and Nathan watched them sleeping beside him on his bed. It was strange right now, and the transformation of his form was a gulf between them. But he'd be real again, he assured himself, taking in Audrey's words. He'd be with them -- properly able to be with them -- again.
After Audrey's breathing had changed and he judged her sufficiently deep asleep, he edged back out of her clutch and got up. He didn't mind lying beside them -- the contrary! -- but he did have work to do.
He crossed to the shelves where the parts and the technical manuals were stashed. From the surrounding much more used ephemera, he dug out a box which had travelled with him from Garland Wuornos' house, unused parts from when he'd first been assembled. It rattled softly when he lifted it, but most of the things in there weren't metal -- the practical sorts of pieces and spares he'd used long before now. The only things left...
He cast a glance back to the bed, and then took the box into the bathroom, not looking to be observed at considering this, even covertly, even accidentally.
He opened it up using the set-down lid of the little-used toilet as a shelf and stared at the items inside. Another bladder, more rigid and shaped than the one that made his voice, but deflated and shapeless right now. A sort of soft, padded sleeve. Countless small fixings for both. And a slim pamphlet that read, obnoxiously, 'Owner's Manual'.
Well, one thing he was sure of was who the hell owned him. As of yet, that book had been read by no-one. Because, he fumed in a sudden spike of fury, no-one else had had the right.
Nathan picked up the book and opened it,.
It was maybe two hours later when he returned to the bed and slipped in again at Audrey's side. First he'd had to fix his grating shoulder joint, which had been awkward, but mostly just a matter of tightening everything up that Butler had forcibly loosened. Nothing was broken, and certainly the damage was nowhere near the scale of that done by falling perhaps forty feet from the top of the airship. Even after that, though, he'd had to check over the whole of his clockwork body, including overhauling a bunch of very specific places for the required safety checks, and to clean parts that had never been used. The modifications to his throat had taken the longest. Butler had been able to speak, though it had been a bit muffled, so he hoped he would be able to. There hadn't seemed a lot of room left in the cavity to form the sounds. The most visible and obvious difference had just been a matter of snapping a few fixings into place and connecting up a few formerly redundant cogs. As a result, he now had an obvious masculine bulge showing between his legs.
It had been a very strange process, but Nathan's will had solidified as he worked. Bloody Malcove... the fucking Troubles... they didn't get to emasculate or de-sexualise him into some work-obsessed drone, just because that was all Malcove saw! So he worked hard. So he couldn't feel anything. That wasn't justification to re-cast him as a machine!
His dual selves wavered a little, but the one who'd lived this life was fluttering like a caged bird against its restrictions, as game as Nathan was to claim back this part of his humanity, all of his identity... and when they woke up, Duke and Audrey, assuming they were willing.
***
They were tired and Nathan would have let them sleep, but Audrey woke up in a flail of limbs after only a few more hours and kicked Duke, waking him up too. "Shit," she said blearily. "Daylight... What time...?" Then she stopped and peered around, and apparently caught up with the situation. She groaned and flopped back.
"I hate you," Duke said from the floor, having rolled off the bed, hand flailing for a gun that wasn't there on a nightstand that wasn't there.
"I'll make you both some coffee," Nathan said. He could do that. He had a small stove for boiling water for visitors, which he'd bought early on, in more hopeful times, and hadn't used in six or seven years. He frowned. "Tea." Tea didn't spoil, as such, did it? Not so easily as that? He'd still be able to get some flavour out of it, if he put in a couple of bags.
"I guess," Audrey sighed.
"Tea's good," said Duke. "Why do you have that morning rasp in your voice? I thought you didn't sleep."
Nathan ignored the question and went to boil water, figuring that the two of them being awake and alert was the first step toward anything.
When he returned an interval later, the pamphlet that said Owner's Manual was in Duke's hands. Nathan sighed, and the new oiled soft sleeve inside his throat muffled it to a hiss. He had been careful not to leave the box out, but had packed it safely away on the shelf where he had got it from.
"This is freakin' disturbing," Duke opined, waving the pamphlet while Nathan looked for suitable nearby surfaces to set cups of tea down on. It looked the right pale brown colour, but Nathan couldn't attest any more than that for its quality. Duke had bought milk and syrup for his muesli idea, so there was at least that. Audrey's expression as she tasted it could have been because she didn't normally drink tea.
Duke said, obviously feeling ignored, "Who buys a perfect clockwork replica of a human being to fuck it?"
"Not Heppa's municipal council," Nathan said.
Duke scrambled for the tea as Nathan held it out for him. "Seriously, man, what's up with your voice? Why's it so muffled?"
It got more muffled as Nathan replied, "There's... it's like a sleeve that goes inside my mouth. It interferes with talking, and it doesn't have any... applicable purpose, so I'd never worn it. But I thought it might be..." Duke was staring at him, tea forgotten in his hand. "I guess it's to stop anything organic from gumming up my works." Irritation helped Nathan to get the words out.
Audrey coughed, almost choking on tea. "Holy shit, Nathan."
"You've got the book, you've seen the box," Nathan rasped at them both. He'd not planned to do this snappishly, but they had to pry...
"I was just looking at your shelves, man," Duke protested. "so, so... you literally just unpacked your sexuality from a box?"
"Now there's a metaphor," Audrey smirked. She put her tea down and sat cross-legged on top of the bed covers, She'd shucked most of her clothes off at various stages through her sleep. "And you've been holding out on us." She waved a finger at Nathan as her face pinched in confusion. "I'd thought this was all some kind of revelation."
The mechanisms of Nathan's face crunched with the force of the expression he formed in his annoyance. "I have not. There was a box of 'spare parts' that came with me. I told you, I never thought about it before, I was a machine."
"And now you're... not a machine." Duke gulped a big mouthful of tea, and he pulled a face, too, though that could be the amount of syrup Nathan had dumped in it to provide flavour. "So this is, what, a plan? A plan where we get to deflower you?"
Audrey's brows went up. "I hate that phrase with fiery hate, but... When you use it like that, I think perhaps we should stop talking and start doing, all the same."
"You're not going to-- I've had sex!" Nathan spluttered. "And I remember it!"
"Not in this life," Duke said. "Or with these parts." The twist in his mouth was changing from sleepiness and bad tea to mischief.
"Kind of makes it a once in a lifetime opportunity," Audrey said. "And if you remember, then you should remember -- well, scattered and patchy as my memory still is, I'm pretty sure you're the insatiable one. When we're together alone--" she pointed between herself and Duke "--we usually watch all the bad cult TV that you don't like."
"Right." Duke grinned, momentary glimpses of blocked memory clearing his expression. "Yeah! Vampires in Space!"
Nathan rolled his eyes. "You're waiting for me, that's all. And you like that crap." The memories were hard to access, not anything he'd given much attention to yet. Small things. Pieces of life, day to day. "I'm the one who can't feel."
"Okay, you tell yourself that," Audrey snorted.
Nathan pointed out, "I work longer hours. Meetings. Troubles have got nothing on town meetings. I need to relax somehow."
"Yeah, okay, Sex Fiend Wuornos."
"Fuck you, Duke."
Audrey said, "Hey, stop acting like it's a complaint. And anyway..." She narrowed her eyes and looked between them. "Me first. You want to come and lie on the bed with us, Nathan?"
"I..." Nathan just settled for nodding. He reached down and unbuckled his belt, internally starting the clockwork mechanisms to pump air into the new bladder between his legs. It wasn't the first time he'd done it. He'd practiced while they were sleeping.
It was very strange.
Duke let out a hoot as he unbuttoned and the bladder unfurled from his open pants, then Duke rolled on his back on the bed, holding his hands over his mouth and belly. "Shit, Nathan," he said, gleeful in the face of Nathan's annoyance, propping himself up on an elbow. "You have been holding out on us, making like there was nothing down there."
Audrey laughed and squirmed to pull Nathan down, poking Duke with her foot as she climbed over the bed and making him yelp. Then she was somehow straddling Nathan's hips, above the pumped-hard jut of his sexual part. She reached her hand down and wrapped her fingers around it, and he gasped as that tingle warmed, impossibly, the unliving matter, awakening a semblance of life and arousal. It wasn't feeling, but it was more than Nathan had ever had in this lifetime. He pressed his face into Audrey's shoulder and just focused on that for a moment, letting it be his whole world.
"This is soft," Audrey said with surprise, her fingers rubbing, then squeezing. A moment later, Duke's hand curled between them both and his surprise coloured the air, too, as his fingers joined hers.
"It's, uh, another bladder, not a solid part. Like my voice box, only more rigid."
"That's for sure," said Duke. Nathan couldn't get any sense of Duke's touch being there unless he relaxed his shoulders and tilted his head to achieve a line of sight and affirm it with his eyes. The sight pleased him more than he would ever have thought it would.
Audrey giggled a little. "You have an actual inflatable cock?"
Nathan frowned, not quite seeing what was funny, although the other set of memories squirmed within him. "It's probably so it can be reduced down and worn all the time. If it was designed to stay rigid, it would have to detach or it'd jut out, and probably get damaged."
"Plus looking far too lewd for this society," Audrey snickered.
"I guess we all have inflatable cocks, when you look at it like that," Duke commented. "Hang on, it gets worse, doesn't it? This is new to you. You seriously kept your cock in a box when you didn't have to?"
"I'm a machine," Nathan growled, frustration rising despite the situation. He'd been -- he'd been trapped like this, in this body, without his real memory, and now they were laughing at him for it. Duke was going to be laughing at him for it forever. "I didn't have a use for it."
"It's okay," Audrey said, rocking her body on him and using her hand soothingly. "It's just. Really strange. And it's way funnier than Duke being a vampire, and we laughed about that, once we'd got over the biting me and the Duke almost dying part."
"It doesn't make you less of a man," Duke said, grinning despite himself. "Just a man with... different priorities. And a detachable dick."
"I swear I'm going to strangle you," Nathan muttered.
Duke was busy with his hands, though. The one that was on Nathan's cock next to Audrey's hand roamed, testing the organ's rigidity and flexibility. "This is pretty good," he said. "Pretty true to life. And I bet that if it does go down from all the activity, it's at least quick and easy to re-inflate, right?"
"Let's test it," said Audrey, and Duke guided her down, his hand on her hip, the other staying between them all. She leaned back to provide more space for Nathan to see. Beneath the pale skin of her belly and her lightly downed mound, Duke's fingers moved in her folds, opening her up. They forked over Nathan to ease him in. Audrey made a noise of satisfaction as she took in Nathan's full extent, and placed her hands flat on his midriff, curling her fingers in his shirt. Duke's hand moved from the join of their bodies to entwine with hers there.
"How's it feel," Duke asked, "losing your virginity all over again?"
It was difficult to get past what Audrey was doing to focus on Duke over her shoulder, and the answer to the question was pretty good, in the strictest sense, with her closed around him, engulfing him in that touch that was not quite touch, making him feel it keener than he had yet. Nathan was tempted to let the comment go, but he managed a tight, "Don't mock me, Duke."
"I don't want to mock you," Duke said. "Really. It's better than freaking out, though, and I'd rather focus on the funny parts of my boyfriend being turned into a machine." There was a dazed earnestness in his voice that Nathan believed. His hands on both Audrey and Nathan were constantly moving, stroking, facilitating, as Audrey moved. "I would not be coping nearly so well if our roles were reversed," he added.
"It doesn't seem like it's freaking you out so much," Audrey murmured, grinding back against him, then reaching a hand behind her to palm him through his pants. "You want to swap?"
"I can wait. Leave you to break the virgin ground. Explore where no human has gone before."
Nathan started a protest in a low growl, and then gave up. His body didn't have desire, but his mind was satisfied, and he was all for the exploration of this new territory himself. "Just bear in mind that I also want to get chance to use this thing in my mouth, since I put it in and made myself talk like this."
Audrey frowned. "That's definitely a drawback. Thank you for compromising your voice. If you're uncomfortable, though, you really don't have to. We can stop for you to take it out."
Nathan shook his head. He stared at Duke as he crawled around Audrey and leaned over to kiss Nathan on the lips, closing their mouths together for seconds that stretched. Nathan couldn't feel anything he was doing, and it was too close to see. But when Duke finally withdrew, he said, "Mouth glove. God, this would be perverted if it wasn't, you know, you."
"You mean--" Audrey's face betrayed her wince even as she breathed harshly, still bobbing on Nathan, and Duke's hand returned to her folds, playing there. "A real person in a synthetic body. Who wants to have sex with us. Who often has sex with us. And is not a sex toy."
"Mm-hm," Duke grunted, and with his hands playing over Audrey, leaned to kiss Nathan again.
"I don't think it's designed for kissing," Nathan tried to say around Duke's lips, but it came out pretty garbled; it definitely wasn't designed for talking.
"Yeah, that's a problem. We have to make the best of it." Duke touched his face instead. "You really want to do that?"
"I really do." Nathan figured that Duke's reticence was due to the general impression that that was what Lock had engaged in with Butler. "Better, probably, in fact. The other, it's, uh, if we do that, it's gonna be pretty passive, I think... I've more adjustable mechanisms in my mouth. The sleeve's altered the shape of it to something more conducive to the exercise, and I have more control up here."
"Don't have to do the other one, either." Duke looked at him intently.
"No. I want to try and use this body in all the ways I never have. I want to know," Nathan declared. All those years of memories... "If we succeed, I'm going to be someone different. I can already feel that coming back. So much will become meaningless. I need to use this, now, while I can."
Duke pulled a face. "Tell me about it. If the last thing I do as me is to fuck an automaton... well, it's ironic, but I'm pretty sure it'll be all kinds of interesting."
"Interesting we can usually manage." Audrey had taken advantage of Duke moving to flatten herself more against Nathan, her hips still bobbing regularly and small sounds interspersing her loud breaths. Her fingers pulled at his shirt buttons, but Nathan slid his gloved hands over hers and moved them back. "I want to see your crazy-ornate chest," she complained.
"Better not," Duke said. "Those plates articulate in a fashion that could give skin a pretty nasty nip if you're pressed up against them. It might be dicey enough for me to fuck him, though I haven't had a real close look at how the leg joints work near his ass. He's had those stone age undies glued to his butt."
"I won't hurt you," Nathan said defensively. "But I might have to lock down and not move much, which is the point I was making before." Hard, cold metal and crunching gears were more suited to heavy work than lovemaking.
Duke straightened up again to slip one hand underneath Audrey's bouncing thigh and the other behind her buttocks.
"Uh. Not at the same time," she said. "And not my ass. Not today. We have to. Stuff to do. Troubles. I don't need to be sore."
"Never a problem for Nathan," Duke smirked.
"Probably why he's the sex fiend." Audrey made a little noise, interrupting her quip. "Doesn't have to worry about fighting Troubles with a sore ass. Oh, you bastard, Duke Crocker."
Nathan craned up, which also elevated his hips to tip her angle, and could see Duke's fingers curled around him and on and inside her, working hard around the rise and fall of her body on Nathan's cock. The pitch of Audrey's breath had changed, and contained a strained wheeze. The rhythm of her measured movements was breaking up.
"C'mon, okay, Nathan can probably go forever right now, and I want my turn before tomorrow."
She gave a final quiver and moved higher onto Nathan's chest, clinging to his shoulder. The little pool of sensation around that new part of him disappeared. Her face was flushed and Nathan could see the tremor in her of her orgasm. He reached up and touched her face wonderingly.
"Your dick's all slimy," Duke observed.
"It'll wash." Nathan spoke a bit stolidly, still wary about being mocked.
"Yeah." Duke was eying it. "But I'm kind of thinking how glad I am this is virgin equipment."
"Oh, fuck you, Duke," Nathan groaned again.
"Yeah, I want my turn on Nathan's Amazing Inflatable Cock." Duke's hands moved, working around Audrey's clinging, sated form for now. Nathan realised that what he was doing was using Audrey's juices to prepare himself, though the position was awkward. "Come on... You might have to lose your nice blanket..." Duke was getting fidgety, but Audrey came back to life, wriggling clear. "We start off this way, then flip? See how it goes?" Duke grinned and bent over; reached behind himself to slap his bare ass. "Come on and play cops and robbers," he goaded.
Duke was very different to Audrey, easy with the idea of Nathan taking charge, pushing him to do so. He left Nathan the control to sink in, judging how much Duke could take, working from the sounds he made underneath him... though he kept up a patter of talk in addition to his body's automatic noises of discomfort or pleasure. It was a trust Nathan hadn't expected, especially when he could not feel what he was doing, and was heavier and stronger now. He was deep inside Duke before hands reached back to pull at his metal ones, and Duke said, "Yeah. More. More," and then groaned as Nathan obliged.
Nathan had expected that it would feel like having power over Duke, that given the nature of their relationship, it would feel combative, but it wasn't like that. Of course, physically he didn't feel at all, but all the same, this felt... very intimate. He stroked Duke's sides as his body moved, and familiarity surged back into him, telling him what to do, what Duke liked, how to best make the other man moan.
Eventually, Duke reached back a stalling hand and wheezed through strained breaths, "You want to switch here, it's gonna have to happen now, or it's not gonna happen, if you get my drift." Nathan stilled and let him roll clear, pause and hold himself and get his breath back. "Okay... okay. How d'you want to do this? Facing or from behind?"
"You don't want my legs on your shoulders," Nathan said with a trace of sarcasm.
"Okay. So can you, y'know, roll over? We're gonna have to get those pants all the way off, this time... If you're sure you want to do this."
Audrey moved in and curled her fingers in Nathan's pants, yanking on them, since Duke had one hand indisposed. "He wants to, alright. Come on, Wuornos, get 'em off."
Nathan rolled over, letting Audrey and Duke pull the garment clear of his legs, amused by their struggles to manoeuvre it over his jointed feet. He had taken the underwear off in the bathroom, already, and now he took up a position on his hands and knees, bracing and locking his body.
"Shit, Nathan," Duke said, still out of breath, and Nathan turned his head and could just about see his shirt being rolled up to his shoulder. "Come on, let's have all of you."
"All of me is full of hard metal edges," Nathan said. "And seriously, I don't think it's a good idea."
"I won't be going near the top of you," Duke argued. "C'mon, the shirt... Let me admire my handiwork."
"I'm not a damn handiwork project!"
Audrey wheedled, "But your chest is seriously pretty."
"Huh." Nathan undid a few buttons and pulled it carefully over his head.
"This is some Trouble," Audrey said, an edge in her voice. Nathan 'felt' the tingle as her touch carefully stole along his side and across his rump. "You kind of have to wonder what they were thinking of when they designed this." Her finger and the tingle of near-sensation it brought with it slid somewhere unexpected and Nathan made a sharp, metallic sound in surprise.
"You feel that?" Duke asked.
"You like that?" Audrey asked.
"Yes," Nathan said, hoarsely. "Please."
"It's pretty clear that his body on some level remembers 'human'... especially when you're touching him," Duke said. "Hell, maybe it's because he's a real person that it had to work this way, particularly. I mean, maybe that influenced the design, influenced the world. It kinda seems like the whole Heppa clockwork police thing came from Malcove's view of Nathan, but it was Lock with the mech fetish, so the two clashing visions kind of meshed."
"Mm." Audrey sunk her finger further, making a sound of concentration. Maybe she added another. It was hard to tell from a tingle, but the sense of it seemed to spread deeper. "I don't think you need a lot of lubricant," she said. "This is smooth. A little of mine and it seems fairly easy. "
"Let me at him, then," Duke said.
"Hm. Nathan? Making way for Duke means taking my fingers out. Sorry."
"It's okay," Nathan said, and felt the loss as the sensation retreated.
"It sort of looks like this whole section detaches," Audrey observed with some puzzlement. "Like it could be rotated here and then just... pull out."
"Cleaning," Nathan mumbled, burying his face in the mattress. "It's for cleaning."
"A detachable ass?" Duke asked incredulously.
"Shut up," Nathan grunted. "No, it hasn't been in the box."
"Man." Duke was quiet a moment, just scuffling sounds until he said, "Okay, I'm coming in."
Nathan had a sense of the heaviness as Duke settled over him, arms coiling down carefully over his stomach with its jigsaw of plates. But when Duke asked, "Are you getting anything from this?" he had to be honest and respond, "No."
"Nathan..."
"Fuck me, Duke." He coughed a laugh. "Wouldn't that be something to say, that you fucked a Heppa cop, after all these years? I mean it, just go for it. I'm... what I am. I have to see if I can find a way to work with it."
"Okay..." The bed bounced slowly as Duke thrust, rocking them both. Nathan braced his hands better, trying to keep his limbs tucked out of the way as the handbook had advised. He counted the thrusts and marked the changes in Duke's breath, and it wasn't true that it left him completely unaffected... because the thought of Duke inside him inspired his intellect, at least, to the abstract of arousal. But there was no chemical payload, no physical component, even an unfelt one, to work with here, and without the ability to see what was happening it was a very reduced experience.
Still, he had given himself over to having the experience.
Duke's rhythm broke up and his movements faltered. Nathan thought for a moment that he'd finished, but he hadn't. He took a moment to catch his breath before he spoke: "Nathan. I want you to see me. I want you moving. Everything I remember makes me feel sure that's the way this should be. Like this, it isn't working for me."
"He's right about you trying to field his legs face-to-face. You'd end up concussed," Audrey said.
"No, but... I guess... give me your mouth?" Duke pulled out and rolled around so that Nathan could see him, and a hand encouraged him to disengage from the position he'd adopted with obvious disdain.
Nathan could point out that he was heavy, he was clumsy, he couldn't feel what he was doing, and he was being trusted with his friends' most intimate parts, but excuses felt... unnecessary. The intimacy between them now was natural, familiar and well-worn. Their memories might still not be perfect, but he knew that doing this had regained them much. Nathan stood up, making the bed and himself creak, and walked around Duke. Carefully, with his metal hands, he guided Duke's position until he was perched on the edge of the bed. "Lean back and I'll be able to see you, kind of... I think that's the best we're going to get until we fix this," Nathan said, as he slipped down onto his knees between Duke's parted legs, speaking firmly enough to keep the protest poised on Duke's lips from being voiced.
Duke swallowed. "Go for it."
Audrey caught his shoulders as he leaned back on his hands, and she ran her fingers through his hair, looking down over his shoulder. "I'll just play with this and watch. Duke, if this doesn't carry back with us, grow your hair long."
"--I'll take that under advisement--" Duke's voice changed as Nathan carefully parted his lips and took him inside. It didn't stop him adding, " I guess at least we don't have to worry about ass-to-mouth."
Nathan grunted but didn't dare try to speak. His jaw was a heavy duty hinge, so the potential damage... well. He looked up past a soft smatter of dark hair below Duke's belly and along the sculpted expanse of his chest to meet his eyes. When he had that line of sight, he dared close his mouth just the tiniest bit more to increase the pressure, then sliding back carefully and watching Duke's reaction intensify, before he moved forward in a purposeful bob. Duke moaned. Nathan saw one of Audrey's hands slip around his waist.
Nathan bobbed up and down, bringing his hands in to aid the effort. On second thought, he slid one of them under Duke's ass, and let Duke shift himself to onto an extended digit with a moan. He left that hand to Duke and focused his attention on his mouth. On an inspiration, he inflated the bladder in his throat as if to speak, then just hissed the air out, hearing it vibrate against the blockage of the sleeve and Duke inside the sleeve.
"Oh, fuck," Duke groaned, writhing. He skewed his body so he could extend one hand to touch Nathan's hair without pulling away from Audrey and still push his weight up and down, balanced by the other. "Fuck, Nathan..."
Nathan couldn't talk, but affirmed the success by doing it again.
Duke hunched over further as he worked, until it was difficult to angle himself to see Duke's face any more, but Duke's hand was in his hair, and his chest was rising and falling hard, and the muscles in his belly were twitching hyperactively with the excess of sensation, and Nathan could hear his reactions just fine.
"Fucking Heppa cop..." Duke groaned, leaning forward. "I could never have believed..." A long groan ended the statement, and Nathan almost objected as Duke started to pull away, until he saw that Duke's erection was fading, strings of creamy fluid pulling away with it from Nathan's mouth.
Duke leaned completely forward and took Nathan's face in his hands, teasing him up from his knees. Nathan stared and pressed his lips closed tight as Duke tried to kiss him, aware that there was fluid held in the sleeve inside his mouth that he needed to get rid of without spraying everywhere.
Duke settled for kissing him around the lips, and on the nose, and in his hairline.
Nathan stared, and smiled carefully, and disengaged to go dispose of the sleeve and its contents.
When he came back, Audrey and Duke were sprawled together in the centre of the bed. He sat on the side of it and watched them for a moment.
"How do you feel?" Audrey broke the silence, asking it cautiously. "I mean--"
Nathan could 'feel'. "It feels very, very strange," he said, "to think of myself as human enough to do that."