Work Text:
Viktor works too hard, Orianna thinks. She strongly suspects that he worked even harder before she installed herself in his workshop, but she has never bothered to press and find out. It is enough for her to know that he works too hard, he forgets to sleep and eat and perform basic maintenance on himself, and sometimes she needs to remind him.
Or, as she much prefers, distract him.
He is sketching designs again when she interrupts this time, his drawing hand inhumanly steady on the blueprint, his third arm holding the desk-lamp so close to the paper it would blind any other artist.
She taps his shoulder. She has learned that he is easily startled when he's working, and he always seems to think "intruder" or "thief" ("Jayce" or "Stanwick", more accurately, not that he voices that irrationality aloud) before "Orianna" even though she's operated alongside him for seventy-three days now.
Viktor flinches anyway, but it's a "jolted out of thoughts" flinch, not a fear reaction. Orianna feels no need to apologise. He glances up at her. His mask is raised, and so are his eyebrows, but his expression is not one of annoyance. Her interruption is not unwelcome. That will make her mission easier.
With a series of soft clicks, Orianna insinuates herself between his torso and the desk, managing to perch on part of his upper thigh without accidentally stabbing him. She kisses his nose, pleased when it wrinkles in confusion.
"You are tired," she informs him.
Viktor frowns at her. "I'm almost finished," he says, like a child.
She tilts her head at him. "Will the paper run away if you sleep?" she asks. "...That was rhetorical."
He chuckles. "I know, love."
Bits of her go fluttery and content at the endearment. She kisses him--a reward. Viktor hums softly, scooting the chair back a few inches to allow her more room. (Now she knows he's tired--he'd be fighting his own affectionate urges even now if he could focus.) She immediately takes advantage; normally she would remove her bladed skirt before trying to kiss him properly, but she fears that he'll pick up his pencil again if she stands up. Instead, Orianna adjusts herself, swinging one leg over his thighs, tilting her hips until her torso curves sharply in on itself and away from him. If she had a spine, she is sure she would find the angle awkward, and the very tips of her skirt-knives are digging into Viktor at solar plexus and knee despite her best efforts, but it is better than nothing.
Viktor makes a slightly pained sound, his hands moving to her skirt, finding the clasps holding it to her hips and unlatching them. She smiles against his mouth in thanks as he pulls it upwards, leans back and raises her arms when the waistband reaches her torso. It catches on her breasts--Viktor mumbles an embarrassed apology--but at last he gets the skirt up over her head and off of her, to be laid on the desk with as much care as any other part of her chassis.
Naked, Orianna can shift forward, cuddle close to him as their mouths meet once more. She hasn't straddled him before--not this directly, anyway--but she finds she likes it. Viktor is warm all over, both his flesh and his metal parts, and when she's pressed against him like this she can feel... almost... alive. She finds herself trying to shuffle closer, despite the fact that she would need to violate the laws of physics to do so. And Viktor...
Viktor bolts to his feet, his hands lifting her off of his lap and depositing her on his desk in the same fluid movement. "You're right," he says, tension thrumming through every part of him. "I should sleep."
Orianna frowns, sliding off of the desk. Her frown deepens when Viktor backs up a step. He has not protested her proximity since they reached their understanding. "Have I upset you?" she guesses, lost.
"Of course not," he assures her, but he does not move any closer.
"Then why did you stop?"
Viktor stammers a few times. "Nothing of importance," he says tightly.
She tilts her head at him. "You are nervous," she observes.
"It--it isn't something you need concern yourself with--"
"What if I want to?"
The corner of Viktor's mouth twitches. Orianna cannot tell if it is a smile. "I highly doubt that," he says under his breath. "I apologise for offending you," he adds. "Good night, Orianna." He turns, starts to make his way to his bed.
"I am not offended," she objects, following. "I am... confused."
Viktor strips his coat off, folds it neatly. His shirt follows. "My evolution is not... complete," he says at last. "There are matters I am not certain of how to address. That is all."
She knows he isn't, she knows how hard he is to even scratch at this point, but: "Are you hurt?"
He snorts a chuckle as he toes off his boots and slides under the covers. "No, my love. Everything is--is functional." He frowns.
Everything is functional, she thinks. Functional? But that isn't a good thing? And what could that possibly have to do with her--oh. Oh. She still forgets, sometimes, that he is not like her, that he still has some flesh to him.
"I believed you removed everything nonessential," Orianna says, a lightly scolding note entering her voice. She sits beside him, resting her fingers on his shoulder just where metal meets skin.
Viktor's face is entirely without expression, which worries her more than anything else could have. "I had plans," he says. "But... biochemical maintenance proved necessary, and it was difficult to remain functional without additional sources--" He takes in a sharp breath. "I am more stable now," he tells her. "I believe I can continue without undue stress on my... my... emotional state." He opens his eyes to look at her. "I am sorry."
He panicked the first time, too, Orianna thinks fondly. Her confusion at these almost-her recollections has faded of late; now it is only impatience for the thought to finish itself. She remembers--she remembers--
Her father was always paranoid, although whether it was about all potential suitors or just Viktor she doesn't care to consider. They had to make love in a field somewhere, Orianna dragging Viktor down beside her while he fretted about poisonous plants and wild animals and insect bites in unfortunate places, and he didn't lose his train of thought until she pulled his hand under her skirt and he felt how wet she was.
Ori frowns to herself. She can't use that tactic now. But even despite that obstacle, something in her thrills. This was important, she remembers, to her. Perhaps not altogether necessary, certainly not something she can enjoy herself anymore, but Viktor can. And if she can no longer feel lust, curiosity is still very much within her range. (Does he still want her? Should that question make her more nervous than it does?)
"Show me?" she asks him softly.
Viktor stares at her, baffled. "What?"
"Your maintenance."
His mouth opens and patiently stays that way for several seconds. "I," he says. "That isn't necessary--"
She leans forward. "Do you not want to?"
He hesitates just a moment too long. "That's irrelevant, Orianna. I no longer require--"
"I want you to be happier," she says. "I always want you to be happier than you are." She used to have the words for that, she thinks. Maybe.
Viktor's arguments are floundering, she can tell. "There are still other methods," he breathes halfheartedly. He seems closer than he was a second ago, but she doesn't think he moved on purpose.
"I want this one," she says.
Viktor looks up at her like she's a miracle. Orianna has no idea what he was thinking--that he would disgust her by having some humanity to him? He taught her how to kiss--but it must have distressed him to make him look at her like that now. Despite his genius, he is still so very foolish in so many ways.
She kisses the remnants of his protests from his lips. "Show me," she repeats, reaching between them to undo his trousers, tug them down his hips.
Viktor is all sharp angles and scar tissue, the metal of his legs merging with the flesh of his torso in a V shape, but Orianna's interest lies more with the half-hard organ at its crux. So strange, she thinks. So human.
His hand trembles a little--nerves, she assumes, and she pets his thigh in an attempt to soothe them--but he obeys, taking hold of himself and beginning to stroke. Small, methodical, efficient movements, as he watches her watch him.
"What do you think of?" she asks.
Viktor swallows. "Usually," he says, "nothing." His breathing is getting quicker; everything of him is tense, trained on her, like he's reaching for her with his entire body.
"What are you thinking of now?"
His voice is raw, honest. "You," he says.
An excited little thrill darts through Orianna. She leans forward, bracing her forearm on his chest, and kisses him as he makes a tiny, overwhelmed noise into her mouth. Sometimes, when Viktor is holding her, he likes to gather her close and kiss her neck; there isn't anything overtly sexual about the gesture, she thinks, but something urges her to mimic it anyway. His throat is one of the parts of him that remain unenhanced. It jerks against her lips, so soft and alive with heat. She can, if she listens hard, hear his blood pounding under his skin. Fast, but steady enough to dance to.
Viktor hasn't changed the motion of his hand, it's still just so annoyingly... methodical. And Orianna still isn't really a participant in his pleasure, only a very close observer. She can do better.
She raises her head to kiss his lips as she reaches between them; he exhales a shaking breath, his tongue flicking sweet and slow into her mouth. It's uncharacteristic of him to be the first to deepen that contact and she smiles, bites his lip, thrills in the little noise it pulls out of him.
Orianna follows his movements with her fingers for a few strokes and then, gently, eases his hand away. Viktor makes a worried sound; she nips him again (trust me) and he slowly relaxes (I do).
They have kissed before and he had never reacted like this. She has sat on him, curled under him, laid against him, and nothing like this had come of it. But.
She moves up his body, knees braced against the mattress on either side of his waist. The metal between her legs is smooth (and she has never been annoyed about that before this moment), but she can lower herself down until he is settled between her thighs. It's a mimicry of the position that started all of this--only this time, when she begins to move, it is so very deliberate.
His breath hisses between his lips. She can hear the joints in his third hand moving, clicking together, like it needs to grab onto something but just isn’t quite sure what. His other hands flutter against her hips, uncertain, before he jerks up against her with a sudden noise and the last bit of confused hesitance breaks in the wake of whatever he’s feeling.
Viktor clings her to him, whispers her name into her mouth. His third arm arches down from above, folds itself over her back to press her to his chest until she can feel as well as hear his heart pounding beneath the enclosure of his ribs. The other two settle high on the outside of her thighs, guiding her--leading her, and it is a dance, and she understands it, and she sways forward and back in time with him.
Orianna feels that she should speak, but she doesn’t remember the words. “I enjoy seeing you like this,” she says instead.
He gives a tiny little shudder and for a moment she is afraid (with his eyes closed, which Orianna was he envisioning?), but he bucks twice against her out of rhythm; his fingers tighten on her legs and she thinks that, perhaps, if she was still made of flesh, she might bruise.
She almost wishes she could, now. “I want you to claim me,” she tells him, almost more out of startlement at the revelation than out of any real intention of speaking.
Viktor gasps out a curse in a language she does not know. Orianna hears his heart stutter; he jolts against her--once, twice--goes tense and still. Seconds pass: four of them. His frantic grip on her thighs loosens, his body relaxing, slowly, muscle by muscle.
When he speaks, his voice is hoarse. “Thank you,” he breathes.
Orianna leans forward, nudges her nose against his neck. His skin is damp, his pulse fast. Living creatures are so messy sometimes. And speaking of…
She draws back a little. Viktor keeps a neatly folded little pile of hand-towels next to his bed for her to clean her chassis with. She picks up one of them--checks to make sure there is no polish residue on it; she knows how delicate flesh can be, even to such silly things as that--and gets to work cleaning them both off. Viktor makes a small noise of protest, but he’s already melting backwards into the pillows.
If Orianna had known that this made him so calm, she would have tried it a long time ago.
She pulls his trousers the rest of the way off and pushes them onto the floor before she curls up beside him and tugs the blankets over them both. She doesn’t need the warmth, but he does need the comfort--at least, he certainly seems to slumber more peacefully when she’s physically in reach. (So long, and he’s still so scared he’ll wake up and not find her. He doesn’t tell her this, but she knows.)
Viktor’s eyes are open, lazily tracing her face. She shuffles across the pillow to kiss him. “Go to sleep, Viktor.”
His lips twitch into a smile. “Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
Viktor hums quietly in answer, tucking his head beneath her chin and holding her close. Orianna combs her fingers through his hair and tries to quiet her ticking.
He’s asleep within minutes.