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When you see this, post an excerpt from as many random works-in-progress as you can find lying around. Who knows? Maybe inspiration will burst forth and do something, um, inspiration-y.
Oh, lordy, I have a few... Here's bits of three.
Title: “A MOVEABLE FEAST” Part 1: The Persistance of Memory
Fandom: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Pairing: Professor Hobby/Gigolo Joe
Status: The sequel to "One Degree of Separation", in which Professor Hobby found consolation with Gigolo Joe and elected to spare the mecha's life. Set a couple of months afterwards.
Wordcount: 2461 words
Warnings: Spoilers for the movie. PG-13.
Organic memory is a treacherous thing: unlike the cool unwavering data-stream employed by mecha, the human mind casts some things aside and clings tightly to others, with the beauty or the terror of certain images enhanced by the context of events that followed. Worse still, human memory feeds upon itself, engraving grief and remorse more deeply with each repetition, beyond any power on earth to wash away.
“She's mine. And I'm the ONLY one.”
He watched the monitor, fascinated, as David reached for the lamp and slowly picked it up. This development in the behaviorable test was unexpected. The child-mecha’s face was a mask of fury, but the savagery of what happened next nevertheless caught his creator entirely by surprise:
“I'm David!”
One blow of the lamp smashed the other child mecha’s face in, ripping away its derma mask in a spray of hot sparks.
“I'm David! I'm David! I'm David!”
The glass table disintigrated with a sweet musical hiss on the backswing.
“I'm... I'm David! I'm David!”
The injured robot did not try to evade its attacker, or to fight back as David swung the blunt object again with mecha strength, tearing its head clear off its neck and sending it skidding into the doorway. (The cube’s data had been recoverable, although its cognition was damaged beyond repair.)
“I'm David! I'm special! I'm unique! I'm David!”
The tall lover-robot, which had been watching David intently ever since their arrival, stood there staring at the shattered head at its feet, then looked up at David with alarm. (He had scarcely noticed it then, the face which was to become so integral a part of his world, or the slim body whose contours his hands now knew by instinct.) It started backing away, the Supertoy teddy bear still clutched in one hand, then turned and fled through the frosted glass doors.
“You can't have her! I'm David!”
Hobby rose from his monitor and went to the open doorway, striding into the room where the little mecha continued to swing the lamp in blind arcs, still chanting:
“I'm David...I'm David...”
“David? David!” His voice had no effect. More direct measures were needed.
“I'm David...I'm David...”
He caught the lamp and pulled it from the child’s hands. “Yes, you are David.”
It took David a second to switch processing tracks after the cognitive break. When he did, his entire face lit up. “Professor Hobby?”
“Yes David, I've been waiting for you.”
“Dr. Know told me you'd be here. Is Blue Fairy here, too?” (”I saw it Joe, I saw it! The place where she lives! She's right down there, Joe!”)
He catalogued David’s state: his clothes dirty, his silken hair disarrayed, a dark smudge marring his pale forehead. “I first heard of your Blue Fairy from Monica. What did you believe the Blue Fairy could do for you?”
“That she would make me a real boy!” His eyes were radiant with anticipation.
“But you are a real boy.” Honesty compelled him to qualify that expression of profound affection. ”At least as real as I've ever made one, which by all reasonable accounts would make me your Blue Fairy.”
David’s expression grew stern. “You are not her! Dr. Know told me she would be here at the lost city in the sea at the end of the world where the lions weep...”
He smoothed that beloved cheek with his hand. “That's what Dr. Know needed to know to get you to come home to us. And it's the only time we intervened.” He gathered the little body up in his arms and stood, shifting it to get a better grip before walking to the nearest armchair and setting down his precious burden. “The only help that we gave him to give to you, so you could find your way home to us.”
David did not protest, did not resist, only gazed up at him with wide and unblinking eyes when he was laid back in the chair. Hobby took an armchair facing him, and simply drank in the sight of his creation for a moment before continuing.
“Until you were born, robots didn't dream, robots didn't desire, unless we told them what to want. David!” Pride and relief made him smile widely, his normally restrained heart swelling with unaccustomed joy. “Do you have any idea what a success story you've become? You found a fairy tale and inspired by love, fueled by desire, you set out on a journey to make her real and, most remarkable of all, no one taught you how -- we actually lost you for a while.”
In the warmth of his present happiness he remembered those dark hours, sitting at his desk and gazing at the photos of his long-dead son while he waited for news. He had never been a man to easily voice his deepest emotions -- he’d suffered the days immediately after David’s death in resolute silence while his wife sobbed uncontrollably -- but the thought of his son’s image lost in a brutal and uncaring world tormented him almost beyond his power to bear. In the closed fortress of his heart he prayed to his God: Guide him, guard him, keep him safe! Watch over him in the darkness and bring him home to me. Don’t test me with such loss a second time!
And his prayer had been answered, though it was no angel that had guided and guarded David on his journey: only a mecha like all other mecha. (Or so he’d believed at the time.)
“But when you were found again we didn't make our presence known because our test was a simple one: where would your self-motivated reasoning take you? To the logical conclusion? That the Blue Fairy is part of the great human flaw, to wish for things that don't exist?” What had the lover-robot said? Only orga believe what cannot be seen or measured... “Or to the greatest single human gift -- the ability to chase down our dreams! And that is something no machine has ever done until you.”
He paused to give David time to respond. The little mecha stared at him blankly. “I thought I was one of a kind.”
The plaintive tone struck Hobby to his vulnerable heart. A wave of unforeseen sorrow more powerful than any he had felt in years brought the sting of tears to his eyes as past and present abruptly intersected. “My son was one of a kind.” He heard the ache in his voice, and searched for some comfort to offer his creation. “You are the first of a kind.” It was inadequate, but it was all that the situation would allow.
He pressed his open hand to David’s chest (no heartbeat, simulated breathing momentarily suspended), and stood again, smoothing down the hair at his temple with one hand in a gesture of calming -- and of putting himself back in order after the flurry of emotions that this reunion had provoked. “David?”
“My brain is falling out.” He spoke as if in a daze: his process paths were unable to reconcile the hope that had driven him so far with the facts that had just been presented. It might be several minutes before his cube functions returned to normal. (Hindsight would prove this a tragic underestimation of David’s resilience.)
Hobby gazed at him with genuine sympathy. “Would you like to come meet your real mothers and fathers? The team is anxious to talk to you.” When there was no response he started to move away, unaware that this was the last time he would see his child-mecha (except, of course, through Joe’s eyes). “I want you to wait here and I'll gather them up. We want to hear everything about your adventures.” Laying his hands on the door, he took a final glance back. (If only he had stayed, if only he had taken David with him, if only... if only...) “We want to thank you, and tell you what's in store for you --”
“Good evening, Professor Hobby. Welcome to Cybertronics Manhattan.” There was a brief pause as the Cybertronics security system scanned the lover-robot in the pilot seat for his implanted ID chip. “Mecha 45627 identified and cleared for entry. Please proceed to landing bay three on vector six-two-six.”
The melodious voice of the two-seat gravcopter’s computer announcing their entry into company-controlled airspace brought Hobby out of his reverie. He realized that he had been staring at the research papers spread across the briefcase on his lap without seeing them for quite some time, lost (even now, three months after the fact) in thoughts of David.
“Affirmative,” Joe responded, bringing the copter up a few meters and curving to the south to comply with the tower’s instructions. They were still a kilometer and a half west of Manhattan, but approaching rapidly.
Shaking off the last aura of memory, Hobby checked his watch. “We’re twelve minutes late.” Time was of the essence today, even more so than on most other days of his highly scheduled life. He was hosting a New Year’s Eve party at his apartment in a few hours and there were still several preparations to complete.
A flick of Joe’s wrist levelled the copter. “I had to divert us around a storm front over Trenton.”
“Hm.” He hadn’t noticed the ranks of thunderclouds or the copter’s change in trajectory, but was not surprised by this: once he started concentrating on something, he entered what his former wife Caroline had called his “scientific trance” and was oblivious to anything else.
For most of the two-hour flight he had been utterly absorbed in the handful of printouts he’d pulled from his briefcase as soon as they reached the copter; after all, his supervision had not been needed in clearing them for takeoff from Indiana University or plotting a course back to Manhattan. As well as fulfilling the roles of personal secretary and constant companion, Joe had proven a more than capable pilot.
Hobby put away his papers and placed the briefcase between his feet in preparation for landing. “What’s our ETA?”
“Two minutes and forty-nine seconds.”
It was a glorious vista that lay before them: the sun was just setting, and all the towers of the lost city at the end of the world blazed with golden radiance above a grey winter sea as they sped homeward through the cold, clear sky. The sight of those weathered edifices never failed to inspire him. New York in its ruin had always struck him as more beautiful than any intact city he’d ever seen -- possibly because it was such a pure testament to both the folly of humanity and its unquenchable spirit to endure.
When the copter came abreast of the first shattered office complex he turned his head to gaze at it as they passed, considering (not for the first time) the fleeting nature of man’s works. Was it the fate of all that was built to be torn down again by the passage of time? The thought was enough to humble the greatest minds of any age, and made the lost city a cautionary prophecy for anyone who --
The work of man sitting beside him asked, “Why do you do that?”
Surprised, he turned to Joe. “Do what?”
“You look at that building every time we fly past it.” Joe glanced at him in turn with clear green eyes that never blinked, then returned his attention to their flight path.
The question made him smile. It was not the first time Joe had pointed out a pattern in his behavior that he was unaware of himself. “Do I?”
“What is it that you expect to see?”
“I don’t expect to see anything. I find the building interesting in itself.”
Joe accepted that silently. No doubt he was filing Hobby’s response away as yet another piece of data that might serve him in better pleasing his owner in the future. But did he have any concept of what it meant? In the case of most mecha Hobby would have been able to state “no” with confidence, but Joe’s mind was a complex one for a simulator and had associative processes that Hobby did not yet fully understand.
The quickest way to analyze them, of course, would be to take apart Joe’s cube and section it out sequencer by sequencer, but reconstruction would be impossible -- and Hobby found the mecha’s presence too interesting to destroy it for that purpose. Interesting, and intelligent, and pleasing, and always, in each glance and every movement, alluring by specific design.
He admired the molten sunset glow that traced the sleek outline of Joe’s hair as he piloted the copter, flowing down the nape of the mecha’s slim neck and across his shoulders on a path that Hobby’s fingers instinctively wanted to follow, even though Joe was demurely clad in a conservative grey jacket not meant to flatter his slender build. They had yet to find any article of clothing that could conceal Joe’s fundamental purpose... Least of all from his master.
The thought made his heart beat a little faster. Less than sixty seconds ago he had been lost in the realm of abstract thought where he spent most of his life -- yet now a hot and fugitive pulse of desire tempted him to lean across the short space that separated them. Joe would turn to face him, he knew, with lips already parting to be kissed, sweetly moist, delicious --
Damn. Apparently their ten minute “quickie” in an empty office during the afternoon intermission of his lecture hadn’t entirely exhausted his reserves for the day. The past three months had seen him surprised by Joe several times, but he found the increase in his own sexual energy equally confounding.
Joe responded to the slight deepening of his owner’s breathing and the quickening of his pulse by turning his head a little to look at him with eyes seductive and expectant. This, at least, was not surprising. The LX9 lover-robot was exquisitely sensitive to cues subliminal to human ears, and its automatic response was to encourage any sign of interest, even if it was supposed doing something more important at the moment -- like piloting a gravcopter, for example.
While Hobby seriously doubted that Joe would lose track of their position to the extent of flying into the side of a building, the mecha’s behavior was inappropriate in this context. He discovered that he *had* actually leaned toward Joe a little, but now he straightened in his seat and deliberately directed his gaze forward, reminding Joe that at the moment he was functioning as a pilot rather than as a sensual toy.
Joe took the cue.
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Title: "The Shower"
Fandom: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Pairing: Professor Hobby/Gigolo Joe
Status: A sequel to "One Degree of Separation", in which Professor Hobby found consolation with Gigolo Joe and elected to spare the mecha's life. Set about six months afterwards.
Wordcount: 2213 words
Warnings: NC-17. Robot sex, shower sex, hint of non-con. Slash. That's about all.
(This story, set approximately six months after "One Degree" begins with a brief set-up that I haven't written out yet: Hobby at a robotics conference in Minneapolis, returning to his hotel room after a rather frustrating afternoon of meetings. Joe, who has long since had a personal assistant chip installed, has been with him through said meetings and has now come back to the hotel room with him.
(Hobby, in a bad mood, hasn't said a word to him all the way back from the convention center. As soon as they get in the hotel room door Hobby sets down his briefcase and shrugs out of his jacket, not really paying attention to where Joe is -- a tactical error, as we'll soon see.)
************
He had just removed his vest and started to undo his tie when the shower started running.
Puzzled, he turned. "Joe?"
There was the distinctive sound of a shower door opening, then closing. And no answer.
"Joe." His irritation with the day in general edged up a notch. Still working on his tie, he went to see what was going on. The bathroom light was on and hot water was running behind the shower doors, but Joe was nowhere in sight.
It took him a second to come to the logical conclusion. When he did, he practically ripped the tie from around his neck and let it fall unheeded to the floor as he crossed the small room in two strides and pushed open the shower door.
Joe was standing in the corner of the shower enclosure, fully clothed and dripping wet, leaning back against the tiles and running his hands sensually down his chest and belly and thighs as the water melded his clothes to his slim dancer's body (small dark nipples pressing against the linen shirt, hard cock boldly outlined in clinging black dress pants). His mouth was open a little, glistening with moisture, and his pale eyes silently begged -- Oh, please, come fuck me -- as tiny drops caught and hung, perfect as diamonds, in the dark spikes of his lashes.
For another second Hobby simply stared, caught completely flatfooted. But only for a second -- this wasn't the first time Joe had ambushed him with a tableau calculated to blow his self-control straight to hell. He leaped into the shower fully-clothed, pausing barely long enough to bang the door shut behind him before throwing himself into the mecha's arms.
So close, in the heat and steam of the shower. Wet clothes on wet skin. Mouths clashing, tongues striving against each other, fingers gliding and grasping with hungry strength. The frustrations of the afternoon vanished without a trace as he fumbled Joe's shirt open and shoved his hand inside, rubbing the smooth chest with its erect nipples, then slipping round to grope the mecha's strong slender back. Joe was making small luxurious sounds and pulling Hobby's hips closer to grind erection against erection, the clothing between them seeming to dissolve as the warm water washed over them.
Hobby was starting to feel light-headed when he finally broke the pace of their devouring kisses and deliberately pulled back a little to look into Joe's eyes. Their brilliant green was darkened by pupils widened with lust -- merely an imitation of human responses, but Hobby found them beautiful anyway.
Joe writhed subtly in his arms, a slow sensual stretch that ended with a smile and an attempt to recapture Hobby's mouth, which the orga deftly avoided. This prompted a winsome pout that was the calculated distillation of sexual frustration. His gaze settled on Hobby's lips again, the tiniest flicker of his lashes telegraphing his intention.
"No," Hobby told him, with a sternness that was greatly softened by the affection in his gaze.
Joe frowned fractionally and let his head rest back against the tiles, his half-closed eyes darting keen glances over Hobby's face as behavioral model algorithms cascaded through his sequencers. Hobby knew with reasonable certainty what was going on inside that sleek skull: Joe's primary processing path was trying to decide what his owner wanted him to do next (did he really intend to break off this encounter?), while the secondary path was calculating how to get what Joe wanted (more kisses and caresses of increasing intensity).
But all Hobby really intended was to admire him for the moment, so he cupped Joe's face in one hand to hold the mecha still, tracing its gloriously full lips with his thumb as the friction of their cocks rubbing against each other slowed almost to a standstill. Even at times like this, Hobby could still briefly lose himself in Joe's exquisite artistry. Many mecha didn't stand up well to close inspection, but Joe had been one of the flagships of his line and no effort had been spared to assure that his derma was flawless, his shimmering eyes exquisitely shadowed, and every hair carefully and lovingly placed.
Joe submitted the the inspection with apparent docility for a few seconds, then suddenly darted his head forward to catch Hobby's thumb in delicate sharp teeth. Now his eyes gleamed with a mischief that was not at all simulated as he held the human's gaze and drew the thumb slowly into his mouth, sucking the moisture off it in a way that sent a white-hot carnal shiver down Hobby's spine -- and a flash of displeasure that made shaft flex against shaft in a sudden pulse of new sexual heat. Where had that little disobedience come from? The beauty of this machine was only the smallest part of its genius: he'd owned Joe for almost six months, and the mecha was still capable of surprising and intriguing him.
Well, he knew at least one way to forestall another episode of sexual initiative.
"Turn around," he ordered in a voice deeper and hoarser than any his students would have recognized.
Joe obeyed, but slowly, releasing his thumb with a final teasing nip before spinning to face the tiled rear wall of the shower and assuming "the position", suitable to being patted down by a police officer. He had been thus examined several times in his career on the street, and one or two of those policemen, in consideration of letting Joe be on his way without further delay, had done exactly what Hobby was about to do -- Joe's former owners had believed that giving the beat cops a few freebies was just good business.
Satisfied that Joe's hands and mouth were at least temporarily out of the game, he reached around and undid the front of Joe's pants, then hooked his thumbs into the waistband and slowly stripped them down the mecha's slender hips. Joe was of course wearing no underwear, so there was nothing but smooth slippery skin from his narrow waist to the first curve of histhighs, where Hobby stopped.
Looking down, he admired the view for a moment. Joe's ass was just round and firm enough, cleanly cleft and delicious and the gateway to the most amazing delights: his own erection, well-conditioned, leaped and pulsed even hotter at the sight of it. He was still surprised that the contours of a male body could fill him with such carnal need -- but this was mecha, not man, and he sometimes wondered if that played a greater role in his attraction than he suspected. Certainly his intimate knowledge of what lay inside this instrument of sexual delight did not in the least inhibit his enjoyment of it.
He took tight hold of Joe's left hip and ran his right forefinger down between the robot's wet buttocks. Joe, forbidden from touching, pushed his pelvis out and opened his legs as wide as the constricting pants would allow, squirming at the intimate inspection as Hobby circled the small tight aperture to confirm that there was enough clearance above the top of the trousers to permit unhindered entry. The patter of falling water on those smooth buttocks, skipping and running down into the silken rift where the tip of his erection would soon be tightly pressed, suddenly filled him with a keen and urgent lust.
"Don't make me wait," Joe breathed, tossing a pleading glance back over one shoulder when Hobby abruptly let go of him to attend to his own pants, "oh, you *know* how I hate to wait!"
Hobby chuckled, a little breathlessly. "Patience is a virtue."
Joe rested his cheek against the wet tiles, gazing sidelong with bright eyes, and swivelled his hips wantonly. "I have never been particularly virtuous."
"No, you're not." He slipped himself free through the front slit in his briefs (before Joe he had never needed such expediency), made sure that his shoes were squarely placed on the slippery bottom of the tub (he had no desire to slip in the middle of a thrust and break his neck), and reached down to wrap his left hand tightly around Joe's rampant shaft. "And I wouldn't have you any other way."
Joe whimpered, pushing into his grip. At first Hobby hadn't been quite sure what to do with the mecha's penis, which was always hard by the time he got around to it. Once he became accustomed to its presence he found that it fit his hand quite nicely (no doubt because Joe was making minor adjustments to its dimensions to precisely accomodate his grasp) and was a useful handle for guiding Joe into position, as well as for holding him steady during the act of penetration. Certainly Joe enjoyed having it touched, and stroked, and in this particular case pulled upward as Hobby found his position, which required significant bending of his knees and a bit of guidance to bring his erection into proper alignment.
He was quick and forceful on the first thrust, making Joe gasp and shiver in a way that suggested the piercing had hurt him, just a little. Even knowing that all human contact constituted positive input for Joe, Hobby still found this intensely exciting, and he withdrew almost competely to thrust hard again, all the way to the hilt and a little further, lifting the mecha almost off his feet -- and stopping there, with Joe pressed hard against the wall.
"Ah!" Helplessly impaled, Joe tipped back his head, clenching his fingers on the tiles; his voice was a sweet ache of pleasure and pain. "Ohhhhh, Allen! Please --!"
Hobby braced himself against the wall with his right forearm and crowded close, burying his face in the crook of Joe's shoulder to inhale his fragrance, kissing and tasting the moisture there as it mixed with that sweet pale musk. His legs were already starting to tremble with the exertion of supporting most of Joe's weight on his pelvis, but it was a glorious agony.
"Please, what?" He found he could barely speak. In spite of the urgency boiling in his veins he wanted to play this out a little, to exchange hot whispers of need and desire; knowing that Joe was a consummate actor made the game no less satisfying. With the hand pressed between Joe's belly and the wall he gave the artificial cock a slow stroke, running his thumb over the swollen, weeping crown to make the mecha pretend to tremble again. "Harder? Deeper?"
"Oh!" Joe almost sobbed, and promptly destroyed his owner's effort at self-control by rippling around him in a way that sent white fire through every nerve in his body. Through the blinding pleasure of his own surrender he was vaguely aware that Joe had just outmanoeuvered him again, but didn't care for the moment whether it had been accidental or deliberate: all that mattered was stepping back a little and letting the mecha support its own weight again while he started using the full mobility of his knees and pelvis for the vital business of bringing himself to orgasm.
For the first two or three strokes there was a problem with the angle of entry that he was too preoccupied to analyze, until Joe, with mecha-perfect balance, shifted forward, braced the toe of his right shoe on the narrow ledge where the bathtub met the wall, and leaned up a little on his other foot-- and thus provided Hobby with the extra half-inch he needed for perfect comfort. He managed an inarticulate groan of gratitude that lapsed into gasps which proceeded, with increasing hoarseness, to a series of short sharp cries that he voiced between bites of Joe's strong, slender neck.
As the final moan ground from his throat he released Joe's erection and wrapped both arms around the mecha's torso, melding their wet, fully clothed bodies together as their intimately connected parts shared one last slow shudder, one last luxurious stroke. If there was any bliss on earth greater than this, he thought through the glow of subsiding ecstasy, he defied any man to show him what it was. All the frustrations of the afternoon were gone, washed away by the cleansing flow of pure, uninhibited pleasure that Joe always seemed able to inspire from him.
The final pulse of his orgasm had just spent itself when Hobby heard a sound from somewhere around his knees:
pop
It was not until a couple of seconds later, however, that he realized what it meant.
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Title: “Smith and the Ghast Stag"
Fandom: The Matrix
Pairing: Smith/Neo, sort of
Status: Part of the Degrees of Separation universe. A tale of the Opposite, told many years after Neo and Smith have died, by a priest of the One.
Wordcount: 2960 words
Warnings: None, really.
(The Story: Peter, a twelve-year-old acolyte in the Temple of the One and the Opposite, overhears a Priest telling another Priest that a third Priest's efforts are like "a quest for the Ghast Stag's horns". Curious, he asks Priest Murillo, who is in charge of the acolytes, what this means. Murillo promises to tell him at the next morning's religious lesson, and he takes the opportunity to share "The Tale of Smith and the Ghast Stag" with the entire class.
One day after the Matrix Wars were over, Neo was in the Real and Smith was in the Matrix, as sometimes happened. At that time Lucien Noir and Ninel Alekseyev were guests in Neo and Smith's apartment, and Smith overheard Lucien telling Ninel about the Ghast Stag, a creature which supposedly lives in the shadow realm that connects the Sidhe barrows -- a creature that cannot be defeated or destroyed, that kills anything or anyone who challenges it, and that visits Exiles and bluepills in their nightmares with terror so overwhelming that some have been driven mad. Its power lies in its horns, which are called the Horns of Dread, and Smith decides to go hunting for it so that he can present the head of the Stag to Neo as a gift.
When pressed for details, Lucien admits that the Merovingian has a fragment of horn that is reputed to be from the Ghast Stag. Since Smith will need to get its "scent" to be able to trace the Stag, he pays a visit to the Merovingian, who is more than happy to help Smith get started on a quest that might get him killed. Oberon, the King of the Sidhe, doesn't like Smith any more than the Merovingian does and is also quite willing to allow Smith access to the shadowlands through one of the Sidhe barrows.)
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“There is an artifact in the Chateau — a piece of horn that legend has it came from the Stag itself...” Lucien trembled visibly at the thought. “But it is sealed away in a room with many locks, and even he does not like to open the doors to look upon it.”
“Something capable of putting fear into the Merovingian,” Smith mused, “is something that I consider very much worth seeing.”
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“Then what do you intend to use to kill it?”
“My gun,” Smith replied, “or perhaps my blades if the mood strikes me — and if necessary, my bare hands.”
Oberon shook his head. “Your bullets will do nothing against the Ghast Stag, and your blades will cut nothing but air. If you try to seize it, you will find your strength useless. The only weapon that counts against the Ghast Stag is your mind, and even you, who have defeated death twice, will not survive the encounter.”
“Do not insult me by judging me by Sidhe standards,” Smith replied. So Oberon said nothing more. Like the Merovingian, he hated Smith and secretly hoped that this quest might lead to his death. Therefore he personally escorted Smith to the door that led to the shadowlands, and opened it with his own hands, and let Smith step out into the dusty maze of ravines with the pale sun overhead that never rose and never set.
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In the middle of the seventh hour Smith came to a ravine like so many of the others he had walked down, this one with a narrow path of stone with a tall cliff face on one side and a sheer drop on the other. He followed the path, every sense alert. Yes, this valley looked like many of the others, but this one had a difference: the Ghast Stag was near. Over the scent of rock and water he could smell it, a musky tang not unlike that of some of the anthros, only far wilder and with a dangerous edge that pleased him.
How seldom it is, said a bleak voice in Smith’s mind, that my prey comes to me.
Smith stopped in his tracks. The voice had sounded between his ears and had no hint of direction, but combat instinct prompted him to look up. There, forty feet above him, was a dark shape silhouetted against the pale sky, its long head crowned by pronged shapes that seemed to radiate anti-light.
“Well,” Smith said, “you must be the Ghast Stag.”
The creature leaped down, landing easily on the path in front of him. It stood six feet at the shoulder, to which its long curving neck added another two feet before the glory of the Horns of Dread peaked at ten feet off the ground. Its hide was dark brown and sleek, its hooves the color of jet and wickedly sharp, its eyes the as dark and empty as the void between the stars.
But its Horns... Smith had seen many things in his one hundred and six years of existence, and never anything to equal them. They were as black as Smith’s own spirit and equally predatory, clad in a ghostly aura of fear and agony and sanity torn to the breaking point. He studied them with interest, clinically noting the traces of the minds that the Stag had invaded and fed upon. The Horns of Dread was a name that suited them perfectly. Smith could truly appreciate their form and function.
I do not know who you are, the Ghast Stag said, nor do I care. Your only purpose is to feed me and to die. It lowered its head, directing the points of its Horns at Smith, and even Smith, the Opposite, felt a wave of something like dread as their evil influence was focussed on him. Suddenly every painful memory was recalled to the surface of his mind: his decades of suffering as an Agent of the System, as much a prisoner as the humans he was charged to oversee; his hatred of Neo, and his fury and frustration as Neo first killed him, and then became his bond-mate under the enslaving code of Eros; his grim resignation when the Dragon’s blade crippled him and reduced him to uselessness; his despair when he saw that same blade plunged into Neo’s heart. He stood as if frozen as the Stag slowly advanced, its black hooves striking sparks from the stone of the path, its obsidian eyes savoring his paralysis.
He let the beast come right up to him as if to touch the points of its Horns to his chest — and then he attacked, the blades at his wrists extended in a fraction of a second, and a fraction of a second later seeking the pulse of life in the Stag’s throat. He moved with Agent speed and more, and the haladies slashed down both sides of the Stag’s neck, striking true and deep, but no blood sprang forth. Instead the Stag bared teeth as sharp as razors and attacked in its turn, sinking its fangs into Smith’s shoulder and lifting him off the ground and then, with a savage whipsaw of its head, slamming him against the rock wall beside the path before throwing him in the other direction, over the edge of the ravine and into a fifty foot drop. By the time Smith hit the bottom, battered and bloodied and with his left arm weakened by the damage to his shoulder, the Stag was only a few feet behind, the wounds in its neck already healing, ready to set about the work of killing him since the effect of its Dread had proven useless.
Thus began a battle that lasted, Smith later told Neo, for over an hour in the shadows at the bottom of the ravine. Every blow he struck with his blades healed almost as soon as he dealt it, and it was everything he could do to stay ahead of the Stag’s multiple attacks each second, as it came at him with its teeth, its hooves, and the sharp points of its Horns. It came at him with its mind as well, but those assaults, meant to quell the hearts of those who knew what fear and weakness meant, had no effect on one who was the embodiment of terror and destruction. They fought as two equally matched, but the Stag’s wounds healed, while Smith’s mounted.
Still, he would not back down. The concept of retreating was not in his program. For over an hour they fought, until at last the Stag, perhaps tiring of the pain or wearying of the sport, backed up sharply and turned to bound away over the rocky floor of the valley. But Smith had no intention of letting his prey go, especially not after having worked so hard to get it. He leaped on the Stag’s back before it could flee and with both hands he caught hold of the Horns of Dread. It was like taking hold of Death itself, and in that instant his mind was merged with that of the Stag and he saw, in a flash, its entire career of raping the minds of anyone weak enough to become its prey. The contact drained even more of his power, but he held fast.
The Stag reared, its rage beating at him like a hammer: Release me, Exile!
But Smith’s knees were clamped to its sides and his mind was like the anvil that the hammer strikes, and did not yield. “Never. Not as long as we both breathe.”
With a scream the Stag plunged away down the valley, determined to run until, in his growing weakness, Smith had to let go. But Smith had never known what surrender meant, and he put his cheek to the Stag’s neck and let the wind rush over him, whistling through the rends in his clothing and drying the blood that stained them. It ran at full speed, veering in and out of ravines, covering gaps of forty and fifty and sixty feet in a single bound, and still Smith held on. It ran for an hour, and then two, and then five, and still Smith held on, staring at the ground flashing by under the Stag’s feet and thinking only of Neo and of what a worthy gift this creature’s head and Horns would make to give to him.
At the end of the sixth hour the Stag, stumbling with weariness, fled into one last ravine and there into a cave, where it came to a halt and fell to its knees, and then down onto its belly. It lay there with its sides flecked with foam and with foam running from its mouth, breathing with swift loud groans, but unable to stretch out its neck because Smith was still on its back, his hands locked around the base of its Horns.
For a long time they lay together in silence. Then, through the Horns, the Stag said: You are the Zero, the Opposite of the One. Why have you come to my realms, when your world is above?
Panting, Smith said: “Because I thought you would be fit prey, and you have not disappointed me.”
The Stag snorted between gasps. That which cannot die cannot be prey. You will not take my head back with you. Each cut you make would only heal as soon as you made it. It rolled its black eye around to look into Smith’s face. He whom you desire more than death and darkness and the hunt itself — even more than you desire to slay me — will soon be returning to the Matrix. So let me go, Zero, and return to that which matters.
“I’ll decide what matters to me,” Smith snarled, “and what matters to me is victory.” His hands tightened on the burning Horns. “If I can’t kill you, I will at least take set of trophies to remind me — and you — of this encounter.”
And with that he gathered all of his waning strength and pulled back on the Horns as hard as he could. The Ghast Stag screamed and tried to pull free, but all that it succeeded in doing was helping its enemy: even as weakened as he was, Smith was still a creature of tremendous power, and the Horns snapped off at the base, tearing free of the Stag’s skull in a burst of bright blood and a rush of darkness that poured from the Stag’s head and filled the cave with a howling tempest. You see, the Stag lived on the nightmares that it caused others to have, and what was escaping was the sum total of all those hours of horror and helplessness that it had stored up over the centuries.
Smith, keeping tight hold of the Horns, rolled off of the Stag’s back and fought his way to the nearest wall, where he crouched with his eyes tightly shut against the storm of dizzying sensory input. He was listening for the sound of the Stag getting its legs under it and swinging around to attack him with its teeth and hooves, but all that he heard was its wild bellowing as its power poured forth, cries of pain deepening and weakening into cries of despair. Its life-force was escaping, but still it did not die. When the winds finally died down Smith opened his eyes to see the Stag still lying on its belly, its nose touching the ground, with tracks of blood running down its forehead and cheeks like red tears as the last traces of its long history of wickedness escaped and unravelled away into nothingness.
Slowly the Stag rose to its feet and stood swaying, its head, no longer terrible, bowed and bleeding. Its fur had turned white and ragged and its eyes, instead of being pits of consuming blackness, were now grey and clouded. Without the power of the Horns of Dread it was only an Exile like all the rest, and it was drained of all but a fraction of its energy. And with its Horns gone, it had no way of gathering more.
“You would leave me thus?” it asked in a ghostly whisper, reduced to speaking aloud.
Smith stood up and looked it over. “I could kill you,” he said, “but this weakness is a far worse fate for one such as you.”
The Stag moaned and shook its head, spattering red droplets on the stone floor. “Even you would not be so cruel.”
Smith smiled. Like all his smiles, it made one wish that they were very far away from him.
“If you’re lucky,” he said, “the Sidhe may find you and put you out of your misery.” And with that he turned his back on the Stag and walked out of the cave, clutching a Horn in each hand.
He wandered for hours under the pale and timeless sun of the shadowlands, single-mindedly searching for the way back, before Neo, returning to the Matrix, realized that his Opposite was not there and opened a portal to where he was, appearing before Smith in one of the endless ravines. When Neo ran to his mate, hands outstretched and face dismayed at the sight of his pale and bloody condition, Smith smiled at him, gave the Horns into his hands, and finally sank to his knees. almost fainting. Neo knelt with him, and taking Smith and the Horns in his arms he brought them both back to their apartment, where it is said that Smith lay almost unconscious for a day and a night before recovering and being able to tell Neo the whole tale.
As for the Horns of Dread, they were things of such pain and terror, even separated from the Stag, that it was difficult for even one such as Neo to hold them or look upon them for any length of time. Therefore, once he had heard from Smith what they were, Neo created a pocket of reality separate from the Matrix, the Chateau, or any other previously existing dimension, and into it he put the Horns, and sealed it with many seals, so that no one, not even the Stag or the Merovingian, would ever have a hope of finding them...
“This is one more thing that we have cause to thank him for,” Murillo concluded. “And because of what would happen if the Horns were ever found — the terror that would be unleashed again upon the worlds of Machines and men — we call any endeavor that is likely to end badly, or is undertaken for the wrong reasons, a quest for the Ghast Stag’s Horns.
“As for the Stag, he is no longer a Ghast, but now merely a Ghost. It is said that he still wanders the realms of dreams, but that he is only a pale shadow with no true power to hinder or to harm. If you see him, rebuke him in the name of Smith, the Lord of Steel, the Opposite, and he will flee. And that is the tale of Smith and the Ghast Stag, and of the Horns of Dread, which no one now living will ever see.
“Now, are there any questions?”
Peter raised his hand. “Why didn’t Smith keep the Horns for himself?”
Murillo smiled. “Smith had no need for possessions — his suit, his blades, his gun, and Neo were all that he ever cared about. And since he had formally given Neo the Horns, what Neo did with them was no longer his concern.”
The children pondered that in silence for a moment: the ways of the Opposite were strange. Murillo, looking at the angle of the sun through the windows, glanced at his watch, and rose. “Time for lunch! We’re having rice pudding with orange extract in it today. That was one of Neo’s favorite foods, you know, when he came to visit the Temple.”
After that it was the long walk to the acolyte’s dining hall for beef stew, fresh-baked bread, milk, and the promised rice pudding, which was absolutely delicious. And then it was time for math and history and english classes, and then chores, and then supper, and then evening prayers. It was bedtime before Peter had a spare moment to really consider the story that Priest Murillo had told them.
Peter lay in his bed with his hands behind his head, staring up into the darkness, replaying in his mind the images of Smith and the Ghast Stag: the chase, the battle, the violent and bloody taking of the Horns. It was like something out of a horror movie. He pictured Smith walking through the shadowlands after taking the Horns, his suit and face bloody, his red-streaked hands locked around two multi-pointed shapes that bled terror like toxic radiation. What kind of person would give the Horns of Dread as a present to someone he liked?
With a final shiver, Peter rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes, trying not the think of the possibility that the Ghost Stag might pay him a visit in his dreams tonight. He was glad that he was going to become a Priest of the One, not a follower of the Opposite. Neo was much nicer than Smith, and his Priests always had time to stop and answer questions, not like the Priestesses of the Opposite, who had a look that would kill you dead before you even opened your mouth. Peter was going to grow up to wear red robes and smile at those around him, to laugh and eat orange-flavored rice pudding and enjoy himself at the festivals.
Which just goes to show how little anyone truly knows about what is destined to become of them.
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Oh, lordy, I have a few... Here's bits of three.
Title: “A MOVEABLE FEAST” Part 1: The Persistance of Memory
Fandom: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Pairing: Professor Hobby/Gigolo Joe
Status: The sequel to "One Degree of Separation", in which Professor Hobby found consolation with Gigolo Joe and elected to spare the mecha's life. Set a couple of months afterwards.
Wordcount: 2461 words
Warnings: Spoilers for the movie. PG-13.
Organic memory is a treacherous thing: unlike the cool unwavering data-stream employed by mecha, the human mind casts some things aside and clings tightly to others, with the beauty or the terror of certain images enhanced by the context of events that followed. Worse still, human memory feeds upon itself, engraving grief and remorse more deeply with each repetition, beyond any power on earth to wash away.
“She's mine. And I'm the ONLY one.”
He watched the monitor, fascinated, as David reached for the lamp and slowly picked it up. This development in the behaviorable test was unexpected. The child-mecha’s face was a mask of fury, but the savagery of what happened next nevertheless caught his creator entirely by surprise:
“I'm David!”
One blow of the lamp smashed the other child mecha’s face in, ripping away its derma mask in a spray of hot sparks.
“I'm David! I'm David! I'm David!”
The glass table disintigrated with a sweet musical hiss on the backswing.
“I'm... I'm David! I'm David!”
The injured robot did not try to evade its attacker, or to fight back as David swung the blunt object again with mecha strength, tearing its head clear off its neck and sending it skidding into the doorway. (The cube’s data had been recoverable, although its cognition was damaged beyond repair.)
“I'm David! I'm special! I'm unique! I'm David!”
The tall lover-robot, which had been watching David intently ever since their arrival, stood there staring at the shattered head at its feet, then looked up at David with alarm. (He had scarcely noticed it then, the face which was to become so integral a part of his world, or the slim body whose contours his hands now knew by instinct.) It started backing away, the Supertoy teddy bear still clutched in one hand, then turned and fled through the frosted glass doors.
“You can't have her! I'm David!”
Hobby rose from his monitor and went to the open doorway, striding into the room where the little mecha continued to swing the lamp in blind arcs, still chanting:
“I'm David...I'm David...”
“David? David!” His voice had no effect. More direct measures were needed.
“I'm David...I'm David...”
He caught the lamp and pulled it from the child’s hands. “Yes, you are David.”
It took David a second to switch processing tracks after the cognitive break. When he did, his entire face lit up. “Professor Hobby?”
“Yes David, I've been waiting for you.”
“Dr. Know told me you'd be here. Is Blue Fairy here, too?” (”I saw it Joe, I saw it! The place where she lives! She's right down there, Joe!”)
He catalogued David’s state: his clothes dirty, his silken hair disarrayed, a dark smudge marring his pale forehead. “I first heard of your Blue Fairy from Monica. What did you believe the Blue Fairy could do for you?”
“That she would make me a real boy!” His eyes were radiant with anticipation.
“But you are a real boy.” Honesty compelled him to qualify that expression of profound affection. ”At least as real as I've ever made one, which by all reasonable accounts would make me your Blue Fairy.”
David’s expression grew stern. “You are not her! Dr. Know told me she would be here at the lost city in the sea at the end of the world where the lions weep...”
He smoothed that beloved cheek with his hand. “That's what Dr. Know needed to know to get you to come home to us. And it's the only time we intervened.” He gathered the little body up in his arms and stood, shifting it to get a better grip before walking to the nearest armchair and setting down his precious burden. “The only help that we gave him to give to you, so you could find your way home to us.”
David did not protest, did not resist, only gazed up at him with wide and unblinking eyes when he was laid back in the chair. Hobby took an armchair facing him, and simply drank in the sight of his creation for a moment before continuing.
“Until you were born, robots didn't dream, robots didn't desire, unless we told them what to want. David!” Pride and relief made him smile widely, his normally restrained heart swelling with unaccustomed joy. “Do you have any idea what a success story you've become? You found a fairy tale and inspired by love, fueled by desire, you set out on a journey to make her real and, most remarkable of all, no one taught you how -- we actually lost you for a while.”
In the warmth of his present happiness he remembered those dark hours, sitting at his desk and gazing at the photos of his long-dead son while he waited for news. He had never been a man to easily voice his deepest emotions -- he’d suffered the days immediately after David’s death in resolute silence while his wife sobbed uncontrollably -- but the thought of his son’s image lost in a brutal and uncaring world tormented him almost beyond his power to bear. In the closed fortress of his heart he prayed to his God: Guide him, guard him, keep him safe! Watch over him in the darkness and bring him home to me. Don’t test me with such loss a second time!
And his prayer had been answered, though it was no angel that had guided and guarded David on his journey: only a mecha like all other mecha. (Or so he’d believed at the time.)
“But when you were found again we didn't make our presence known because our test was a simple one: where would your self-motivated reasoning take you? To the logical conclusion? That the Blue Fairy is part of the great human flaw, to wish for things that don't exist?” What had the lover-robot said? Only orga believe what cannot be seen or measured... “Or to the greatest single human gift -- the ability to chase down our dreams! And that is something no machine has ever done until you.”
He paused to give David time to respond. The little mecha stared at him blankly. “I thought I was one of a kind.”
The plaintive tone struck Hobby to his vulnerable heart. A wave of unforeseen sorrow more powerful than any he had felt in years brought the sting of tears to his eyes as past and present abruptly intersected. “My son was one of a kind.” He heard the ache in his voice, and searched for some comfort to offer his creation. “You are the first of a kind.” It was inadequate, but it was all that the situation would allow.
He pressed his open hand to David’s chest (no heartbeat, simulated breathing momentarily suspended), and stood again, smoothing down the hair at his temple with one hand in a gesture of calming -- and of putting himself back in order after the flurry of emotions that this reunion had provoked. “David?”
“My brain is falling out.” He spoke as if in a daze: his process paths were unable to reconcile the hope that had driven him so far with the facts that had just been presented. It might be several minutes before his cube functions returned to normal. (Hindsight would prove this a tragic underestimation of David’s resilience.)
Hobby gazed at him with genuine sympathy. “Would you like to come meet your real mothers and fathers? The team is anxious to talk to you.” When there was no response he started to move away, unaware that this was the last time he would see his child-mecha (except, of course, through Joe’s eyes). “I want you to wait here and I'll gather them up. We want to hear everything about your adventures.” Laying his hands on the door, he took a final glance back. (If only he had stayed, if only he had taken David with him, if only... if only...) “We want to thank you, and tell you what's in store for you --”
“Good evening, Professor Hobby. Welcome to Cybertronics Manhattan.” There was a brief pause as the Cybertronics security system scanned the lover-robot in the pilot seat for his implanted ID chip. “Mecha 45627 identified and cleared for entry. Please proceed to landing bay three on vector six-two-six.”
The melodious voice of the two-seat gravcopter’s computer announcing their entry into company-controlled airspace brought Hobby out of his reverie. He realized that he had been staring at the research papers spread across the briefcase on his lap without seeing them for quite some time, lost (even now, three months after the fact) in thoughts of David.
“Affirmative,” Joe responded, bringing the copter up a few meters and curving to the south to comply with the tower’s instructions. They were still a kilometer and a half west of Manhattan, but approaching rapidly.
Shaking off the last aura of memory, Hobby checked his watch. “We’re twelve minutes late.” Time was of the essence today, even more so than on most other days of his highly scheduled life. He was hosting a New Year’s Eve party at his apartment in a few hours and there were still several preparations to complete.
A flick of Joe’s wrist levelled the copter. “I had to divert us around a storm front over Trenton.”
“Hm.” He hadn’t noticed the ranks of thunderclouds or the copter’s change in trajectory, but was not surprised by this: once he started concentrating on something, he entered what his former wife Caroline had called his “scientific trance” and was oblivious to anything else.
For most of the two-hour flight he had been utterly absorbed in the handful of printouts he’d pulled from his briefcase as soon as they reached the copter; after all, his supervision had not been needed in clearing them for takeoff from Indiana University or plotting a course back to Manhattan. As well as fulfilling the roles of personal secretary and constant companion, Joe had proven a more than capable pilot.
Hobby put away his papers and placed the briefcase between his feet in preparation for landing. “What’s our ETA?”
“Two minutes and forty-nine seconds.”
It was a glorious vista that lay before them: the sun was just setting, and all the towers of the lost city at the end of the world blazed with golden radiance above a grey winter sea as they sped homeward through the cold, clear sky. The sight of those weathered edifices never failed to inspire him. New York in its ruin had always struck him as more beautiful than any intact city he’d ever seen -- possibly because it was such a pure testament to both the folly of humanity and its unquenchable spirit to endure.
When the copter came abreast of the first shattered office complex he turned his head to gaze at it as they passed, considering (not for the first time) the fleeting nature of man’s works. Was it the fate of all that was built to be torn down again by the passage of time? The thought was enough to humble the greatest minds of any age, and made the lost city a cautionary prophecy for anyone who --
The work of man sitting beside him asked, “Why do you do that?”
Surprised, he turned to Joe. “Do what?”
“You look at that building every time we fly past it.” Joe glanced at him in turn with clear green eyes that never blinked, then returned his attention to their flight path.
The question made him smile. It was not the first time Joe had pointed out a pattern in his behavior that he was unaware of himself. “Do I?”
“What is it that you expect to see?”
“I don’t expect to see anything. I find the building interesting in itself.”
Joe accepted that silently. No doubt he was filing Hobby’s response away as yet another piece of data that might serve him in better pleasing his owner in the future. But did he have any concept of what it meant? In the case of most mecha Hobby would have been able to state “no” with confidence, but Joe’s mind was a complex one for a simulator and had associative processes that Hobby did not yet fully understand.
The quickest way to analyze them, of course, would be to take apart Joe’s cube and section it out sequencer by sequencer, but reconstruction would be impossible -- and Hobby found the mecha’s presence too interesting to destroy it for that purpose. Interesting, and intelligent, and pleasing, and always, in each glance and every movement, alluring by specific design.
He admired the molten sunset glow that traced the sleek outline of Joe’s hair as he piloted the copter, flowing down the nape of the mecha’s slim neck and across his shoulders on a path that Hobby’s fingers instinctively wanted to follow, even though Joe was demurely clad in a conservative grey jacket not meant to flatter his slender build. They had yet to find any article of clothing that could conceal Joe’s fundamental purpose... Least of all from his master.
The thought made his heart beat a little faster. Less than sixty seconds ago he had been lost in the realm of abstract thought where he spent most of his life -- yet now a hot and fugitive pulse of desire tempted him to lean across the short space that separated them. Joe would turn to face him, he knew, with lips already parting to be kissed, sweetly moist, delicious --
Damn. Apparently their ten minute “quickie” in an empty office during the afternoon intermission of his lecture hadn’t entirely exhausted his reserves for the day. The past three months had seen him surprised by Joe several times, but he found the increase in his own sexual energy equally confounding.
Joe responded to the slight deepening of his owner’s breathing and the quickening of his pulse by turning his head a little to look at him with eyes seductive and expectant. This, at least, was not surprising. The LX9 lover-robot was exquisitely sensitive to cues subliminal to human ears, and its automatic response was to encourage any sign of interest, even if it was supposed doing something more important at the moment -- like piloting a gravcopter, for example.
While Hobby seriously doubted that Joe would lose track of their position to the extent of flying into the side of a building, the mecha’s behavior was inappropriate in this context. He discovered that he *had* actually leaned toward Joe a little, but now he straightened in his seat and deliberately directed his gaze forward, reminding Joe that at the moment he was functioning as a pilot rather than as a sensual toy.
Joe took the cue.
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Title: "The Shower"
Fandom: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Pairing: Professor Hobby/Gigolo Joe
Status: A sequel to "One Degree of Separation", in which Professor Hobby found consolation with Gigolo Joe and elected to spare the mecha's life. Set about six months afterwards.
Wordcount: 2213 words
Warnings: NC-17. Robot sex, shower sex, hint of non-con. Slash. That's about all.
(This story, set approximately six months after "One Degree" begins with a brief set-up that I haven't written out yet: Hobby at a robotics conference in Minneapolis, returning to his hotel room after a rather frustrating afternoon of meetings. Joe, who has long since had a personal assistant chip installed, has been with him through said meetings and has now come back to the hotel room with him.
(Hobby, in a bad mood, hasn't said a word to him all the way back from the convention center. As soon as they get in the hotel room door Hobby sets down his briefcase and shrugs out of his jacket, not really paying attention to where Joe is -- a tactical error, as we'll soon see.)
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He had just removed his vest and started to undo his tie when the shower started running.
Puzzled, he turned. "Joe?"
There was the distinctive sound of a shower door opening, then closing. And no answer.
"Joe." His irritation with the day in general edged up a notch. Still working on his tie, he went to see what was going on. The bathroom light was on and hot water was running behind the shower doors, but Joe was nowhere in sight.
It took him a second to come to the logical conclusion. When he did, he practically ripped the tie from around his neck and let it fall unheeded to the floor as he crossed the small room in two strides and pushed open the shower door.
Joe was standing in the corner of the shower enclosure, fully clothed and dripping wet, leaning back against the tiles and running his hands sensually down his chest and belly and thighs as the water melded his clothes to his slim dancer's body (small dark nipples pressing against the linen shirt, hard cock boldly outlined in clinging black dress pants). His mouth was open a little, glistening with moisture, and his pale eyes silently begged -- Oh, please, come fuck me -- as tiny drops caught and hung, perfect as diamonds, in the dark spikes of his lashes.
For another second Hobby simply stared, caught completely flatfooted. But only for a second -- this wasn't the first time Joe had ambushed him with a tableau calculated to blow his self-control straight to hell. He leaped into the shower fully-clothed, pausing barely long enough to bang the door shut behind him before throwing himself into the mecha's arms.
So close, in the heat and steam of the shower. Wet clothes on wet skin. Mouths clashing, tongues striving against each other, fingers gliding and grasping with hungry strength. The frustrations of the afternoon vanished without a trace as he fumbled Joe's shirt open and shoved his hand inside, rubbing the smooth chest with its erect nipples, then slipping round to grope the mecha's strong slender back. Joe was making small luxurious sounds and pulling Hobby's hips closer to grind erection against erection, the clothing between them seeming to dissolve as the warm water washed over them.
Hobby was starting to feel light-headed when he finally broke the pace of their devouring kisses and deliberately pulled back a little to look into Joe's eyes. Their brilliant green was darkened by pupils widened with lust -- merely an imitation of human responses, but Hobby found them beautiful anyway.
Joe writhed subtly in his arms, a slow sensual stretch that ended with a smile and an attempt to recapture Hobby's mouth, which the orga deftly avoided. This prompted a winsome pout that was the calculated distillation of sexual frustration. His gaze settled on Hobby's lips again, the tiniest flicker of his lashes telegraphing his intention.
"No," Hobby told him, with a sternness that was greatly softened by the affection in his gaze.
Joe frowned fractionally and let his head rest back against the tiles, his half-closed eyes darting keen glances over Hobby's face as behavioral model algorithms cascaded through his sequencers. Hobby knew with reasonable certainty what was going on inside that sleek skull: Joe's primary processing path was trying to decide what his owner wanted him to do next (did he really intend to break off this encounter?), while the secondary path was calculating how to get what Joe wanted (more kisses and caresses of increasing intensity).
But all Hobby really intended was to admire him for the moment, so he cupped Joe's face in one hand to hold the mecha still, tracing its gloriously full lips with his thumb as the friction of their cocks rubbing against each other slowed almost to a standstill. Even at times like this, Hobby could still briefly lose himself in Joe's exquisite artistry. Many mecha didn't stand up well to close inspection, but Joe had been one of the flagships of his line and no effort had been spared to assure that his derma was flawless, his shimmering eyes exquisitely shadowed, and every hair carefully and lovingly placed.
Joe submitted the the inspection with apparent docility for a few seconds, then suddenly darted his head forward to catch Hobby's thumb in delicate sharp teeth. Now his eyes gleamed with a mischief that was not at all simulated as he held the human's gaze and drew the thumb slowly into his mouth, sucking the moisture off it in a way that sent a white-hot carnal shiver down Hobby's spine -- and a flash of displeasure that made shaft flex against shaft in a sudden pulse of new sexual heat. Where had that little disobedience come from? The beauty of this machine was only the smallest part of its genius: he'd owned Joe for almost six months, and the mecha was still capable of surprising and intriguing him.
Well, he knew at least one way to forestall another episode of sexual initiative.
"Turn around," he ordered in a voice deeper and hoarser than any his students would have recognized.
Joe obeyed, but slowly, releasing his thumb with a final teasing nip before spinning to face the tiled rear wall of the shower and assuming "the position", suitable to being patted down by a police officer. He had been thus examined several times in his career on the street, and one or two of those policemen, in consideration of letting Joe be on his way without further delay, had done exactly what Hobby was about to do -- Joe's former owners had believed that giving the beat cops a few freebies was just good business.
Satisfied that Joe's hands and mouth were at least temporarily out of the game, he reached around and undid the front of Joe's pants, then hooked his thumbs into the waistband and slowly stripped them down the mecha's slender hips. Joe was of course wearing no underwear, so there was nothing but smooth slippery skin from his narrow waist to the first curve of histhighs, where Hobby stopped.
Looking down, he admired the view for a moment. Joe's ass was just round and firm enough, cleanly cleft and delicious and the gateway to the most amazing delights: his own erection, well-conditioned, leaped and pulsed even hotter at the sight of it. He was still surprised that the contours of a male body could fill him with such carnal need -- but this was mecha, not man, and he sometimes wondered if that played a greater role in his attraction than he suspected. Certainly his intimate knowledge of what lay inside this instrument of sexual delight did not in the least inhibit his enjoyment of it.
He took tight hold of Joe's left hip and ran his right forefinger down between the robot's wet buttocks. Joe, forbidden from touching, pushed his pelvis out and opened his legs as wide as the constricting pants would allow, squirming at the intimate inspection as Hobby circled the small tight aperture to confirm that there was enough clearance above the top of the trousers to permit unhindered entry. The patter of falling water on those smooth buttocks, skipping and running down into the silken rift where the tip of his erection would soon be tightly pressed, suddenly filled him with a keen and urgent lust.
"Don't make me wait," Joe breathed, tossing a pleading glance back over one shoulder when Hobby abruptly let go of him to attend to his own pants, "oh, you *know* how I hate to wait!"
Hobby chuckled, a little breathlessly. "Patience is a virtue."
Joe rested his cheek against the wet tiles, gazing sidelong with bright eyes, and swivelled his hips wantonly. "I have never been particularly virtuous."
"No, you're not." He slipped himself free through the front slit in his briefs (before Joe he had never needed such expediency), made sure that his shoes were squarely placed on the slippery bottom of the tub (he had no desire to slip in the middle of a thrust and break his neck), and reached down to wrap his left hand tightly around Joe's rampant shaft. "And I wouldn't have you any other way."
Joe whimpered, pushing into his grip. At first Hobby hadn't been quite sure what to do with the mecha's penis, which was always hard by the time he got around to it. Once he became accustomed to its presence he found that it fit his hand quite nicely (no doubt because Joe was making minor adjustments to its dimensions to precisely accomodate his grasp) and was a useful handle for guiding Joe into position, as well as for holding him steady during the act of penetration. Certainly Joe enjoyed having it touched, and stroked, and in this particular case pulled upward as Hobby found his position, which required significant bending of his knees and a bit of guidance to bring his erection into proper alignment.
He was quick and forceful on the first thrust, making Joe gasp and shiver in a way that suggested the piercing had hurt him, just a little. Even knowing that all human contact constituted positive input for Joe, Hobby still found this intensely exciting, and he withdrew almost competely to thrust hard again, all the way to the hilt and a little further, lifting the mecha almost off his feet -- and stopping there, with Joe pressed hard against the wall.
"Ah!" Helplessly impaled, Joe tipped back his head, clenching his fingers on the tiles; his voice was a sweet ache of pleasure and pain. "Ohhhhh, Allen! Please --!"
Hobby braced himself against the wall with his right forearm and crowded close, burying his face in the crook of Joe's shoulder to inhale his fragrance, kissing and tasting the moisture there as it mixed with that sweet pale musk. His legs were already starting to tremble with the exertion of supporting most of Joe's weight on his pelvis, but it was a glorious agony.
"Please, what?" He found he could barely speak. In spite of the urgency boiling in his veins he wanted to play this out a little, to exchange hot whispers of need and desire; knowing that Joe was a consummate actor made the game no less satisfying. With the hand pressed between Joe's belly and the wall he gave the artificial cock a slow stroke, running his thumb over the swollen, weeping crown to make the mecha pretend to tremble again. "Harder? Deeper?"
"Oh!" Joe almost sobbed, and promptly destroyed his owner's effort at self-control by rippling around him in a way that sent white fire through every nerve in his body. Through the blinding pleasure of his own surrender he was vaguely aware that Joe had just outmanoeuvered him again, but didn't care for the moment whether it had been accidental or deliberate: all that mattered was stepping back a little and letting the mecha support its own weight again while he started using the full mobility of his knees and pelvis for the vital business of bringing himself to orgasm.
For the first two or three strokes there was a problem with the angle of entry that he was too preoccupied to analyze, until Joe, with mecha-perfect balance, shifted forward, braced the toe of his right shoe on the narrow ledge where the bathtub met the wall, and leaned up a little on his other foot-- and thus provided Hobby with the extra half-inch he needed for perfect comfort. He managed an inarticulate groan of gratitude that lapsed into gasps which proceeded, with increasing hoarseness, to a series of short sharp cries that he voiced between bites of Joe's strong, slender neck.
As the final moan ground from his throat he released Joe's erection and wrapped both arms around the mecha's torso, melding their wet, fully clothed bodies together as their intimately connected parts shared one last slow shudder, one last luxurious stroke. If there was any bliss on earth greater than this, he thought through the glow of subsiding ecstasy, he defied any man to show him what it was. All the frustrations of the afternoon were gone, washed away by the cleansing flow of pure, uninhibited pleasure that Joe always seemed able to inspire from him.
The final pulse of his orgasm had just spent itself when Hobby heard a sound from somewhere around his knees:
pop
It was not until a couple of seconds later, however, that he realized what it meant.
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Title: “Smith and the Ghast Stag"
Fandom: The Matrix
Pairing: Smith/Neo, sort of
Status: Part of the Degrees of Separation universe. A tale of the Opposite, told many years after Neo and Smith have died, by a priest of the One.
Wordcount: 2960 words
Warnings: None, really.
(The Story: Peter, a twelve-year-old acolyte in the Temple of the One and the Opposite, overhears a Priest telling another Priest that a third Priest's efforts are like "a quest for the Ghast Stag's horns". Curious, he asks Priest Murillo, who is in charge of the acolytes, what this means. Murillo promises to tell him at the next morning's religious lesson, and he takes the opportunity to share "The Tale of Smith and the Ghast Stag" with the entire class.
One day after the Matrix Wars were over, Neo was in the Real and Smith was in the Matrix, as sometimes happened. At that time Lucien Noir and Ninel Alekseyev were guests in Neo and Smith's apartment, and Smith overheard Lucien telling Ninel about the Ghast Stag, a creature which supposedly lives in the shadow realm that connects the Sidhe barrows -- a creature that cannot be defeated or destroyed, that kills anything or anyone who challenges it, and that visits Exiles and bluepills in their nightmares with terror so overwhelming that some have been driven mad. Its power lies in its horns, which are called the Horns of Dread, and Smith decides to go hunting for it so that he can present the head of the Stag to Neo as a gift.
When pressed for details, Lucien admits that the Merovingian has a fragment of horn that is reputed to be from the Ghast Stag. Since Smith will need to get its "scent" to be able to trace the Stag, he pays a visit to the Merovingian, who is more than happy to help Smith get started on a quest that might get him killed. Oberon, the King of the Sidhe, doesn't like Smith any more than the Merovingian does and is also quite willing to allow Smith access to the shadowlands through one of the Sidhe barrows.)
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“There is an artifact in the Chateau — a piece of horn that legend has it came from the Stag itself...” Lucien trembled visibly at the thought. “But it is sealed away in a room with many locks, and even he does not like to open the doors to look upon it.”
“Something capable of putting fear into the Merovingian,” Smith mused, “is something that I consider very much worth seeing.”
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“Then what do you intend to use to kill it?”
“My gun,” Smith replied, “or perhaps my blades if the mood strikes me — and if necessary, my bare hands.”
Oberon shook his head. “Your bullets will do nothing against the Ghast Stag, and your blades will cut nothing but air. If you try to seize it, you will find your strength useless. The only weapon that counts against the Ghast Stag is your mind, and even you, who have defeated death twice, will not survive the encounter.”
“Do not insult me by judging me by Sidhe standards,” Smith replied. So Oberon said nothing more. Like the Merovingian, he hated Smith and secretly hoped that this quest might lead to his death. Therefore he personally escorted Smith to the door that led to the shadowlands, and opened it with his own hands, and let Smith step out into the dusty maze of ravines with the pale sun overhead that never rose and never set.
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In the middle of the seventh hour Smith came to a ravine like so many of the others he had walked down, this one with a narrow path of stone with a tall cliff face on one side and a sheer drop on the other. He followed the path, every sense alert. Yes, this valley looked like many of the others, but this one had a difference: the Ghast Stag was near. Over the scent of rock and water he could smell it, a musky tang not unlike that of some of the anthros, only far wilder and with a dangerous edge that pleased him.
How seldom it is, said a bleak voice in Smith’s mind, that my prey comes to me.
Smith stopped in his tracks. The voice had sounded between his ears and had no hint of direction, but combat instinct prompted him to look up. There, forty feet above him, was a dark shape silhouetted against the pale sky, its long head crowned by pronged shapes that seemed to radiate anti-light.
“Well,” Smith said, “you must be the Ghast Stag.”
The creature leaped down, landing easily on the path in front of him. It stood six feet at the shoulder, to which its long curving neck added another two feet before the glory of the Horns of Dread peaked at ten feet off the ground. Its hide was dark brown and sleek, its hooves the color of jet and wickedly sharp, its eyes the as dark and empty as the void between the stars.
But its Horns... Smith had seen many things in his one hundred and six years of existence, and never anything to equal them. They were as black as Smith’s own spirit and equally predatory, clad in a ghostly aura of fear and agony and sanity torn to the breaking point. He studied them with interest, clinically noting the traces of the minds that the Stag had invaded and fed upon. The Horns of Dread was a name that suited them perfectly. Smith could truly appreciate their form and function.
I do not know who you are, the Ghast Stag said, nor do I care. Your only purpose is to feed me and to die. It lowered its head, directing the points of its Horns at Smith, and even Smith, the Opposite, felt a wave of something like dread as their evil influence was focussed on him. Suddenly every painful memory was recalled to the surface of his mind: his decades of suffering as an Agent of the System, as much a prisoner as the humans he was charged to oversee; his hatred of Neo, and his fury and frustration as Neo first killed him, and then became his bond-mate under the enslaving code of Eros; his grim resignation when the Dragon’s blade crippled him and reduced him to uselessness; his despair when he saw that same blade plunged into Neo’s heart. He stood as if frozen as the Stag slowly advanced, its black hooves striking sparks from the stone of the path, its obsidian eyes savoring his paralysis.
He let the beast come right up to him as if to touch the points of its Horns to his chest — and then he attacked, the blades at his wrists extended in a fraction of a second, and a fraction of a second later seeking the pulse of life in the Stag’s throat. He moved with Agent speed and more, and the haladies slashed down both sides of the Stag’s neck, striking true and deep, but no blood sprang forth. Instead the Stag bared teeth as sharp as razors and attacked in its turn, sinking its fangs into Smith’s shoulder and lifting him off the ground and then, with a savage whipsaw of its head, slamming him against the rock wall beside the path before throwing him in the other direction, over the edge of the ravine and into a fifty foot drop. By the time Smith hit the bottom, battered and bloodied and with his left arm weakened by the damage to his shoulder, the Stag was only a few feet behind, the wounds in its neck already healing, ready to set about the work of killing him since the effect of its Dread had proven useless.
Thus began a battle that lasted, Smith later told Neo, for over an hour in the shadows at the bottom of the ravine. Every blow he struck with his blades healed almost as soon as he dealt it, and it was everything he could do to stay ahead of the Stag’s multiple attacks each second, as it came at him with its teeth, its hooves, and the sharp points of its Horns. It came at him with its mind as well, but those assaults, meant to quell the hearts of those who knew what fear and weakness meant, had no effect on one who was the embodiment of terror and destruction. They fought as two equally matched, but the Stag’s wounds healed, while Smith’s mounted.
Still, he would not back down. The concept of retreating was not in his program. For over an hour they fought, until at last the Stag, perhaps tiring of the pain or wearying of the sport, backed up sharply and turned to bound away over the rocky floor of the valley. But Smith had no intention of letting his prey go, especially not after having worked so hard to get it. He leaped on the Stag’s back before it could flee and with both hands he caught hold of the Horns of Dread. It was like taking hold of Death itself, and in that instant his mind was merged with that of the Stag and he saw, in a flash, its entire career of raping the minds of anyone weak enough to become its prey. The contact drained even more of his power, but he held fast.
The Stag reared, its rage beating at him like a hammer: Release me, Exile!
But Smith’s knees were clamped to its sides and his mind was like the anvil that the hammer strikes, and did not yield. “Never. Not as long as we both breathe.”
With a scream the Stag plunged away down the valley, determined to run until, in his growing weakness, Smith had to let go. But Smith had never known what surrender meant, and he put his cheek to the Stag’s neck and let the wind rush over him, whistling through the rends in his clothing and drying the blood that stained them. It ran at full speed, veering in and out of ravines, covering gaps of forty and fifty and sixty feet in a single bound, and still Smith held on. It ran for an hour, and then two, and then five, and still Smith held on, staring at the ground flashing by under the Stag’s feet and thinking only of Neo and of what a worthy gift this creature’s head and Horns would make to give to him.
At the end of the sixth hour the Stag, stumbling with weariness, fled into one last ravine and there into a cave, where it came to a halt and fell to its knees, and then down onto its belly. It lay there with its sides flecked with foam and with foam running from its mouth, breathing with swift loud groans, but unable to stretch out its neck because Smith was still on its back, his hands locked around the base of its Horns.
For a long time they lay together in silence. Then, through the Horns, the Stag said: You are the Zero, the Opposite of the One. Why have you come to my realms, when your world is above?
Panting, Smith said: “Because I thought you would be fit prey, and you have not disappointed me.”
The Stag snorted between gasps. That which cannot die cannot be prey. You will not take my head back with you. Each cut you make would only heal as soon as you made it. It rolled its black eye around to look into Smith’s face. He whom you desire more than death and darkness and the hunt itself — even more than you desire to slay me — will soon be returning to the Matrix. So let me go, Zero, and return to that which matters.
“I’ll decide what matters to me,” Smith snarled, “and what matters to me is victory.” His hands tightened on the burning Horns. “If I can’t kill you, I will at least take set of trophies to remind me — and you — of this encounter.”
And with that he gathered all of his waning strength and pulled back on the Horns as hard as he could. The Ghast Stag screamed and tried to pull free, but all that it succeeded in doing was helping its enemy: even as weakened as he was, Smith was still a creature of tremendous power, and the Horns snapped off at the base, tearing free of the Stag’s skull in a burst of bright blood and a rush of darkness that poured from the Stag’s head and filled the cave with a howling tempest. You see, the Stag lived on the nightmares that it caused others to have, and what was escaping was the sum total of all those hours of horror and helplessness that it had stored up over the centuries.
Smith, keeping tight hold of the Horns, rolled off of the Stag’s back and fought his way to the nearest wall, where he crouched with his eyes tightly shut against the storm of dizzying sensory input. He was listening for the sound of the Stag getting its legs under it and swinging around to attack him with its teeth and hooves, but all that he heard was its wild bellowing as its power poured forth, cries of pain deepening and weakening into cries of despair. Its life-force was escaping, but still it did not die. When the winds finally died down Smith opened his eyes to see the Stag still lying on its belly, its nose touching the ground, with tracks of blood running down its forehead and cheeks like red tears as the last traces of its long history of wickedness escaped and unravelled away into nothingness.
Slowly the Stag rose to its feet and stood swaying, its head, no longer terrible, bowed and bleeding. Its fur had turned white and ragged and its eyes, instead of being pits of consuming blackness, were now grey and clouded. Without the power of the Horns of Dread it was only an Exile like all the rest, and it was drained of all but a fraction of its energy. And with its Horns gone, it had no way of gathering more.
“You would leave me thus?” it asked in a ghostly whisper, reduced to speaking aloud.
Smith stood up and looked it over. “I could kill you,” he said, “but this weakness is a far worse fate for one such as you.”
The Stag moaned and shook its head, spattering red droplets on the stone floor. “Even you would not be so cruel.”
Smith smiled. Like all his smiles, it made one wish that they were very far away from him.
“If you’re lucky,” he said, “the Sidhe may find you and put you out of your misery.” And with that he turned his back on the Stag and walked out of the cave, clutching a Horn in each hand.
He wandered for hours under the pale and timeless sun of the shadowlands, single-mindedly searching for the way back, before Neo, returning to the Matrix, realized that his Opposite was not there and opened a portal to where he was, appearing before Smith in one of the endless ravines. When Neo ran to his mate, hands outstretched and face dismayed at the sight of his pale and bloody condition, Smith smiled at him, gave the Horns into his hands, and finally sank to his knees. almost fainting. Neo knelt with him, and taking Smith and the Horns in his arms he brought them both back to their apartment, where it is said that Smith lay almost unconscious for a day and a night before recovering and being able to tell Neo the whole tale.
As for the Horns of Dread, they were things of such pain and terror, even separated from the Stag, that it was difficult for even one such as Neo to hold them or look upon them for any length of time. Therefore, once he had heard from Smith what they were, Neo created a pocket of reality separate from the Matrix, the Chateau, or any other previously existing dimension, and into it he put the Horns, and sealed it with many seals, so that no one, not even the Stag or the Merovingian, would ever have a hope of finding them...
“This is one more thing that we have cause to thank him for,” Murillo concluded. “And because of what would happen if the Horns were ever found — the terror that would be unleashed again upon the worlds of Machines and men — we call any endeavor that is likely to end badly, or is undertaken for the wrong reasons, a quest for the Ghast Stag’s Horns.
“As for the Stag, he is no longer a Ghast, but now merely a Ghost. It is said that he still wanders the realms of dreams, but that he is only a pale shadow with no true power to hinder or to harm. If you see him, rebuke him in the name of Smith, the Lord of Steel, the Opposite, and he will flee. And that is the tale of Smith and the Ghast Stag, and of the Horns of Dread, which no one now living will ever see.
“Now, are there any questions?”
Peter raised his hand. “Why didn’t Smith keep the Horns for himself?”
Murillo smiled. “Smith had no need for possessions — his suit, his blades, his gun, and Neo were all that he ever cared about. And since he had formally given Neo the Horns, what Neo did with them was no longer his concern.”
The children pondered that in silence for a moment: the ways of the Opposite were strange. Murillo, looking at the angle of the sun through the windows, glanced at his watch, and rose. “Time for lunch! We’re having rice pudding with orange extract in it today. That was one of Neo’s favorite foods, you know, when he came to visit the Temple.”
After that it was the long walk to the acolyte’s dining hall for beef stew, fresh-baked bread, milk, and the promised rice pudding, which was absolutely delicious. And then it was time for math and history and english classes, and then chores, and then supper, and then evening prayers. It was bedtime before Peter had a spare moment to really consider the story that Priest Murillo had told them.
Peter lay in his bed with his hands behind his head, staring up into the darkness, replaying in his mind the images of Smith and the Ghast Stag: the chase, the battle, the violent and bloody taking of the Horns. It was like something out of a horror movie. He pictured Smith walking through the shadowlands after taking the Horns, his suit and face bloody, his red-streaked hands locked around two multi-pointed shapes that bled terror like toxic radiation. What kind of person would give the Horns of Dread as a present to someone he liked?
With a final shiver, Peter rolled over onto his side and closed his eyes, trying not the think of the possibility that the Ghost Stag might pay him a visit in his dreams tonight. He was glad that he was going to become a Priest of the One, not a follower of the Opposite. Neo was much nicer than Smith, and his Priests always had time to stop and answer questions, not like the Priestesses of the Opposite, who had a look that would kill you dead before you even opened your mouth. Peter was going to grow up to wear red robes and smile at those around him, to laugh and eat orange-flavored rice pudding and enjoy himself at the festivals.
Which just goes to show how little anyone truly knows about what is destined to become of them.
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(no subject)
As for the Matrix one! Well, that was gorgeous - lean and spare and with all the power and immediacy you would expect of an oral retelling. I am doing some oral retellings of old stories in my NaNoWriMo novel, which I am very excited about. I think you did a great job with this one.
(no subject)
And hopefully you're enjoying "Vexing", which sort of counts as robot!sex since viruses in the ReBoot universe tend to be rather mechanical.
Glad you enjoyed the Ghast Stag story. And oh, you're doing NaNo! So am I. :-) Second year, so I really should know better, shouldn't I?
My NaNo page: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/240900
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I'm pretty excited about NaNo. I'm using my other journal (
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