"In the Flesh," Cobalt/Jade AU
This isn't new fic by any means, but with me not being on LJ anymore it was, er, not really available anymore. And I realize I still like this one, so I want it to have somewhere to live. I hope nobody minds. ^^;;
Cobalt/Jade, cyberpunk AU, ~2400 words, not worksafe. Warning for bloodplay.
In the Flesh
The rain leaves smudgy, shimmering tracks down the window, almost obscuring the view outside, so only a little cold red light -- and the jerky motion of the Petal's mechanical-girl holos -- remains visible. It's too quiet; the clones are seeing the only client they've had so far today, Jasper's plugged into a sim and twitching in induced REM, Topaz has gone back into stasis, and Peridot's just been rebooted, so he won't be broken enough to be interesting for another week at least.
"Bored?" Jade asks, and Cobalt realizes that his hands have been moving without him, his claws gouging deep wounds in the memory-foam of his mattress almost faster than it can restore itself.
"Aren't you?" Cobalt replies. "That stuff's too toxic for the clients to risk it." Controlled doses of mutagens are one thing, but venturing out in rain like this is the act of desperate or suicidal men, and those don't tend to have the credit to make the Bijou unlock its doors.
Jade licks his lips, eyes tracking Cobalt's claws. "So sharpen those on me," he says. Greedy little masochist.
"You're too soft," Cobalt says. It's true at least two ways. But it's also a slow day when they're not likely to get interrupted, and he'll take Jade in the flesh over the best pain sim his credit will buy. He gets up, retracting his claws and shaking off the scraps of foam clinging to his hands. "Come on."
The boys' lounge isn't self-sterilizing; it's an expensive feature, installing the proper nano and keeping it under control. So far Garnet's only bought a unit for the blue room, but nobody's in there -- the door slides open when Cobalt walks up to it -- so today that's not a problem.
Jade palms the door to lock it behind them, so they won't be disturbed. Some days Cobalt would complain -- he actually does want to pay off his contract and be a citizen one of these days, unlike some of them -- but paying customers are in way too short supply right now for it to matter.
"I'm going to record," he warns Jade instead. He takes a chip from the cache on the table and plugs it in behind his ear.
"You want me to do it, too?" Jade asks. "Sell the set?"
"If you want," Cobalt says. He can feel the chip syncing up, the tingling in his limbs as it calibrates to his senses. Solo recordings get better play rates from the sadist end, but when they're paired, the masochist side gets downloaded more often. Still, pairs do wind up with higher rates for both of them.
Jade takes a minute to slot in his chip and let it calibrate, and then he says, "Ready."
It always feels different when they record. For a second Cobalt has to remind himself not to resent it. He chooses it, doesn't he? When he gets his citizenship he'll have his sense-i.d. rewritten, so it won't even be him getting downloaded and replayed off the Bijou's net by these cheap contact-phobe perverts. All he needs right now is to get into it, and stop thinking about the damn chip.
"Let's go, then," he says. He pushes, and Jade steps into the cage of the restraining apparatus, still, relaxed, ready. Cobalt keys up his favorite position for this, and the machine hums to life, titanium and rubber appendages extending, coiling around Jade's limbs, lifting and spreading and supporting. Sometimes clients fight the machine; Cobalt never has any sympathy for their dislocated arms, their bruised-raw wrists and ankles. Jade knows better, going limp in the machine's grip so it can put him where Cobalt wants him: suspended almost horizontally, his hands above his head, his legs spread wide. His cock is already hard, thick and flushed dark against his smooth belly. For a minute Cobalt just looks at him, admires how well he works as an extension of the machine: one complex beautiful thing to be used.
"Please," Jade says, squirming, as if he could get closer to Cobalt even with the machine holding him.
"Gladly," Cobalt says. He flexes, the tendons drawing taut in the backs of his hands and his claws extending. He can see the way the muscle lies under Jade's skin, the contours and soft shadows. He runs his hands up the insides of Jade's thighs, carefully, too lightly to break the skin. Jade shivers, and then moans when Cobalt reaches up to dig his claws into the skin just below the collarbone on both sides.
For a few seconds Cobalt just waits there, his claws sunk into Jade's flesh, blood welling around his fingertips. Then he pulls.
Eight fine crimson lines open in the skin over Jade's pectoral muscles; they have just time enough for tiny beads of blood to well to the surface before they begin to seal closed again.
Jade's chest heaves, deep gulping breaths of the Bijou's scrubbed air. "Oh please," he says. "Oh please, oh please." His hands twist, clenching and releasing on nothing.
"You need something more serious?" Cobalt asks. His cock is thickening, hardening between his legs. He's never dared try the major vessels in Jade's throat, or the junctures of his elbows, the creases of his thighs -- but everywhere else, Jade stops bleeding fast, and even the worst marks vanish within hours instead of weeks.
"Nobody's done it all week," Jade says. "It's driving me crazy." He arches his back, offering himself up. "Please, Cobalt."
Cobalt wipes away those first beads of blood -- the cuts weren't deep, and already he can barely see the lines. He'll have to do better.
He cuts again, deeper. His claws trace thick primitive arcs across Jade's chest, and shallower, delicate patterns over Jade's stomach. Jade trembles and almost succeeds in holding still. His skin is warming, as his virus grows more active.
"When you've had enough of this," Cobalt says conversationally, "or maybe almost enough, I'm going to fuck you."
Jade nods. There's sweat glistening on his brow. "Fuck me before you're done cutting," he says.
"Impatient?" Cobalt smiles. He reaches for the more adjustable of the machine's two piston-limbs, flipping the switch on the base that starts the slow trickle of lubricant from the silicone tip. It has to be fitted manually; he presses it into Jade's ass and locks the piston in place, and Jade moans. "This should keep you satisfied for now, shouldn't it?"
"Oh god," Jade agrees.
Cobalt fixes the settings for the piston so that both the thrusting speed and the expansion of the shaft diameter are slow, and turns it on. "Now. Where were we?"
The blood on Jade's skin is drying, tacky and dark. Cobalt re-draws the lines so Jade whimpers and shakes, arching up toward his claws instead of away from them. The fresh blood smears as Cobalt works, carving swirls and spirals, and his mouth waters. It's tempting, always so tempting, to just lean down and lap up this slick coppery mess he's made --
But while there are some people he can do that with, Jade isn't one of them. The custom virus in Jade's blood is incompatible with the drug cocktail he takes to keep his own flesh from rejecting his claws or his collection of designer eyes. Even unprotected sex with Jade can make him queasy; the one time he tried drinking Jade's blood, he was feverish and nauseated for three days.
That doesn't make it any less beautiful, though, Jade strapped into the machine and painted with his own blood, his skin fever-hot and his limbs trembling as the piston fucks him open. He's reaching the non-verbal point, where every touch makes him make noise but none of it is real speech, just pleading animal sounds. Cobalt cuts along the lines of his hipbones, traces around the base of his cock, teases but doesn't quite cut the velvet skin of his balls.
"Getting close, Jade?" Cobalt asks. "You're opening up so nicely on the machine, and you bleed so well." He skims the tops of Jade's thighs with the pads of his fingertips, claws carefully held back, and Jade shivers at the lightness of his touch. "I think it's about time for me to fuck you. Don't you think so?"
Jade nods, making a high keening sound in his throat, chewing on his lip. His eyes are glassy, the pupils huge. Cobalt always wonders, when they get this far, if it's the pain or the virus that puts him in the altered state; he's not sure if Jade knows or even if there's a difference.
He shuts off the piston and withdraws it; Jade's asshole is stretched, flushed pink, glistening with lube. Cobalt changes the restraint setting to lift Jade's legs further, and gets a condom from the table. He has to retract his claws for this part; there's no way he's dexterous enough to avoid nicking the thin rubber when his fingers all end in razorblades.
The latex is cool against his cock, slippery, black in the packet but thin enough to look silvery gray when it's rolled over flesh. Cobalt strokes it on, down to the base of his cock, and the friction makes him suddenly conscious of how badly he wants this. He steps up to the machine, presses the head of his cock to Jade's asshole -- and waits, until Jade manages to look him in the eyes, until he can see recognition if not coherence there, before he pushes.
Jade's always an easy fuck, but never more than this, drugged on pain, mechanically stretched and slicked, hot and smooth and yielding. Cobalt flexes to extend his claws again, and digs them into Jade's hips for leverage as he starts to thrust. He doesn't have the coordination to draw intricate patterns while he's fucking Jade, but at this point he doesn't think it matters to either of them. The air smells like blood and sweat and rubber, and every time Cobalt thrusts, Jade moans.
"More?" Cobalt asks, dragging his claws inward, lightly, reaching for Jade's cock.
Jade nods. His hair clings in damp curls to his forehead. His lips are swollen where he's bitten them.
Cobalt smiles. "Don't say you didn't ask for it," he says. He wraps his hand around Jade's cock, makes his first few strokes kind and careful -- then curls his fingers inward a little more, so his claw-tips nick skin.
Jade thrashes in the restraints, muscles in sharp relief as he tenses, his ass tightening around Cobalt's cock. The movement makes him cut himself further, and Cobalt's hand grows slick with the blood.
"God," Cobalt says, "oh god." He tries to ease his grip, so Jade won't do himself too much damage too fast. Jade doesn't stop moving, shivers wracking him as he pushes into Cobalt's blood-slick hand. He's still hard enough to thrust, probably hard enough to come, even if he's clearly pushing the limits of what the virus will handle in one session. "There," Cobalt says, "like that, you want to come, don't you?" He doesn't wait for the answer that Jade is probably too incoherent to give, just thrusts hard and strokes harder, trying to drive Jade over the edge before he loses control himself. The heat radiating off Jade's body is getting to him, making him feel sticky and too-hot and ready to just finish, damn it, come on --
And he knows that hitch in Jade's breathing, that particular look of needy, inward focus -- soon, now, so soon -- he runs the hand not wrapped around Jade's cock up the outside of Jade's thigh, just shallow cuts this time, just enough to sting -- and Jade convulses, sobbing, his ass clenching around Cobalt's cock and his come splattering across the trails of blood on his stomach.
Cobalt struggles for a grip on him, hands slick with blood-sweat-come, breath hissing through clenched teeth -- so few of the clients want to come for the pain even if they can, but Jade, oh, Jade -- the tension crackling and electric, right there, the tight slide of flesh around his cock and the noises Jade's still making -- now, Cobalt thinks, I want to now, and he does, eyes squeezed shut and breath raw in his throat and pleasure washing golden through him.
When he opens his eyes, Jade has come down enough to focus on him, enough to give him a weak, dizzy smile.
"You're probably about ready to be let up, aren't you?" Cobalt says. When Jade nods, he pulls out, slowly, feeling how awkward he is right now without anything to lean against.
He strips off the condom and drops it down the waste chute, then keys in the command for slow release, so the restraining apparatus sets Jade down easily. The machinery retracts, folding back into its inactive position, and Jade folds slowly to the floor, like he's still a little doped up. Cobalt tries not to smile.
"Not bored anymore?" he asks, as he sits down, too.
Jade blinks a few times, and licks his lips. "Was I the bored one?"
"I think you must have been," Cobalt says. Somehow, Jade has gotten through all this with his face still clean, so Cobalt leans over for a kiss. Jade hums, and reaches out for an actual embrace, sticky and awkward as it is. Still, Cobalt doesn't resist; Jade has been very good to him -- and this way Yakout can edit their sim into two versions, one with and one without the kindness.
"Right," Cobalt says, when he pulls back from Jade's embrace. "Have you stopped dripping by now?"
"Think so," Jade says. He runs a hand through the still-wet mess on his stomach, and wipes it on the floor. "Yeah."
Cobalt shakes his head, smiling. It makes sense, since the nano will sweep the room and eat anything organic that's left in here, but that moment will likely be edited out of both versions. "Come on, then. Let's go wash up, so you can see your marks before they fade."
"Okay." Jade's graceless, getting to his feet, but right now Cobalt can't blame him. "You want to hand in our chips before or after?"
What the hell. They're performing well together. "After," Cobalt says. He lets Jade help him up. "We might get in another decent scene in the showers."