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“I mean how much of a person is it?”
Pike looks at a mostly nude Scanlan looking at a mostly nude Scanlan-simulacrum.
“You’re a person, right, Clonelan?” She says.
He smiles easily. More than Scanlan, who smiles a lot but not easily. It never occurred to her until she saw them next to each other a few times, but simulacrum’s smiles seem to be more truly content than real Scanlan’s, but also a little more vapid. “Sure,” he says.
“I’m not sure anything that can be dispelled can be a person, since he can’t, like, technically be healed or age. But I guess I’m more curious about if he can experience the stuff people can. Like can he learn and create? Could he create another simulacrum? Could Repliclan learn different spells than me?”
The Scanulacrum looks thoughtful for a second. “I think so, but it’s hard to say if that’s based on any knowledge I gain on my own or what you’re capable of and have innately supplied in me.”
“That’s a good fucking point, Scanlan.”
“Thank you, Scanlan.”
Pike can’t tell if this is a genuine philosophical inquiry or the highest peak of navel-gazing Scanlan could possibly achieve. It’s probably a little of both.
“Is creation what makes a person a person?” Scanlan #2 says.
The original Scanlan looks thoughtful this time.
Scanlan might find the nature of simulacra puzzling, but Pike thinks the differences make it fairly obviou, especially when they’re right next to each other. They’re nearly identical physically, but everything about the simulacrum is less complicated.
It’s little things that set off her attention. Scanlan has a straight, fine scar under his eye from Kaylie’s rapier, and a few more gnarled pinkish rivulets that cut through some of his chest hair from Raishan’s talons. The simulacrum has those scars, but fainter, like they’re painted on instead of in the skin. Scanlan’s nail beds are almost purply-brown from years of handling spellcasting supplies and kohl make-up and lead and ink. The simulacrum has even tan under softer nails. And their skin is what she supposes is the same shade of very light brown or dark beige, whatever the name of the color is, except she’d say Scanlan’s skin looks warm underneath, and Scanulacrum’s looks cool.
The simulacrum doesn't have Scanlan's nervous tics-- the way his nose twitches when he's about to tell a joke he thinks is really stupid, his restless leg when he's forced to sit still, or his right shoulder that's always tighter than the left. The simulacra do not hide the things--like music, writing, or emotions. The simulacra don’t sigh when Pike repacks her bag for the third time or interrupt other people when they’re talking.
The simulacrum can know surprising things about spells and tell a joke and cast high level magic, but that’s because he’s a shade of Scanlan, who is cleverer and funnier and more powerful.
Not to mention, this is the third one she's seen. None of them seem to take on any different traits or emotional preferences from each other. They're all equally as content and obedient and happy as each other. They’re easy.
The real Scanlan seems to weigh the very long-lasting thoughtful look on his face, like he’s aware that both Pike and the Scanulacrum are waiting for him to say something. The corners of his lips turn up. “I suppose that depends on what you’re creating. Life, magic, words? Art? A tool, a toy? A scene?” He lies back on the bed, his head near Pike’s thigh and his hand reaches over his head, between Pike’s legs. His fingers very softly prod her inner thigh, just barely swirling in the nest of her pubic hair. “Creating a stir.”
Scanlan is, to say the least, not those things--easy or content, obedient, happy especially.
Their year apart taught Pike, in a way that still made her stomach tense when she thought about it, that deep down in the core of who he is, Scanlan isn't a happy person. He can obviously fake it very well. He wants to try, though. They've talked about it since of course. Scanlan doesn't know if he can be happy; Pike doesn't either. She doesn’t know for herself. Who knows that sort of thing? But she wagers it’s more important to keep trying to be happy than to actually achieve it. it's enough for both of them that he now knows he doesn't need to pretend it anymore, and he's committed to being honest about it now. And trying it together with him makes them both happier.
Both Scanlan’s hands start reaching for her, grabbing for her hips and her waist, He casts a mage hand to echo his reaching, and she feels a phantom hand graze her breasts and swirl around her back to untie the strings of her chemise.
She grabs the hands she can, pins them to his own chest, and leans down to give him a kiss. Upside down and her chin hits his nose, but it’s still fun. They start laughing together, and when she looks up Clonelan is looking at them with a weak but warm smile.
This is the real line of difference between Scanlan and the simulacra, she thinks.
Clonelan’s eyes are soft and interested, but Clonelan’s eyes are always soft and interested no matter what is going on. Scanlan’s eyes were soft a moment ago, but sharp and searching now. With a darting look, the mage hand pulls her hair stick out and hair tumbles over her shoulder. And Scanlan starts to look greedy and far too pleased with himself.
Scanlan wants. And that’s something she doesn’t think the simulacrum understands.
The simulacra don’t try anything, don’t yearn, don’t need. They just exist. It’s a little sad to her, even though they don’t seem bothered by it.
The simulacra seem to have fewer of Scanlan’s flaws and quirks, but they also have fewer of his virtues. Pike has never seen a simulacrum be courageous or spontaneous. She is not sure a simulacrum would use all its power to save one of their lives, but she’s seen Scanlan exhaust himself to do that. The simulacra are not as creative or interesting or witty. They don’t have appetites for anything; Scanlan has an appetite for so many things. It’s not something she considered as a virtue before, really, but she does now. Scanlan is dismissive of things he doesn’t care about and relishes things he does. To the simulacra, everything is on equal, barely attentive footing.
And of course the biggest difference is in the way they react to Pike.
She’s still holding Scanlan’s hands down, so she shimmies her shoulders a little to encourage the loosened ties of her chemise to just fall down and it does, bunching up around her middle.
There’s not much difference in the color between the pupil and iris in Scanlan’s eyes in the dim light, but she watches his pupils dilate, basking in the not unfamilar sight of Pike’s titties. Scanlan pushes back a little, but not a lot, against Pike’s grasp. His knuckles whiten from his clenched fists. He bites his lower lip, maybe because he’s turned on, maybe because he’s plotting something, maybe both.
The Scanulacrum remains smiling, waiting politely.
To Pike, there’s no question in the difference. Identical and infinitely different.
“Clonelan,” Scanlan says, “I can’t seem to move. Take off my pants, please.”
The simulacrum nods happily and unties the lacing on Scanlan’s too fancy, silky red braies he’s currently tenting. When she’s watching Scanlan lift his hips so Clonelan can pull down his pants, the mage hand slides under her bunched up chemise and tickles her right in that spot under her ribs and she crumples. Scanlan slips out of her grasp and adds his own hands to the assault of gentle touches to her ribs and belly rolls.
“No!” She laughs into pillows, trying to get away with nowhere to go. “This is cheating!”
She tries to get her legs around him, to squeeze him or pull him closer or kick him, she can’t tell. And unsurprisingly, when she opens her legs, Scanlan wriggles in between them, and pulls her closer to him by her hips. “Yeah, but you knew I was a dirty fighter when you asked me out.”
She squeezes his middle with her knees as best she can and pulls him on top of her. She absolutely did know that, which is why she reaches down to grab his dick. It stills him immediately, including the mage hand. “Yeah, but I can do that too.”
He laughs a little nervously as Pike moves her grip around slowly, a little up and down. “Clonelan, aren’t you gonna help me out?”
The simulacrum crowds over Scanlan’s shoulder and his hand half encloses around hers and joins in jacking off Scanlan. He laughs and his arms give way, collapsing the space between them.
“That’s not what I meant,” he mumble-groans into Pike’s neck. “I meant to team up against you.”
“I thought you liked a team up against you.”
He groans again, body tense like he’s torn between pushing his hips back or forward. “I had a whole plan. He was my reinforcement. The hand. I could have so many hands to tease you with. I could even get Bigby in here.”
She puts her hand around Clonelan’s and stops them both. “Bigby is not allowed in here, Scanlan.”
Scanlan lifts his head up and smirks. “Bigby could be fun.”
“Bigby is too big. And let me be absolutely clear in saying that is not a challenge to either of us.”
“It could be.” Off her look he says, “I didn’t mean for that. Necessarily. Maybe just a fingertip.”
“Scanlan!”
“I’m kidding. Just, you know, for fun.”
“Scanlan. No Bigby. He only lasts a minute anyway.”
“That’s extremely unfair to him. I’ve only lasted a minute before and you still keep me around.”
Pike can’t help it, and laughs. She lets go of Scanlan’s dick and grabs the back of his neck with both hands. Sometimes she marvels at how much he can talk, and despite wanting to do less talking, he makes her want to do lot of different things. “You’re better at communicating than Bigby. And you last longer than a minute. Two, at least.”
He laughs into her neck again and kisses her collarbone. “Sweet talker… So we’ll wait on Bigby, then.”
Pike laughs. Which is sometimes what she thinks is a summary of her relationship with Scanlan. She laughs and squeezes him with her knees, which makes him laugh.
“One high level magical force in the bedroom at a time, please,” she says.
There’s a brief flash of confusion competing for his still handsy, preoccupied attention.
She nods to the Scanulacrum, who looks a little lost for what do since Scanlan’s dick was taken out of his hand.
“Don’t be cold to Clonelan. He’s more than a spell. He’s… Did we come down on any official nomenclature for where you’re at? You know, as a being? Distinct from my own being?”
“Not really. I mean… I’m a simulacrum.”
“Does it freak you out to know that?” He says, distracting himself from the task at hand.
“No,” the simulacrum says easily, because that’s exactly what he is. At least, she and Scanulacrum are on the same page.
“Don’t start with that stuff again,” she says, trying to move Scanlan so their hips start to level again, and guiding him by the chin back to face her.
“Am I overthinking the whole Repliclan thing?”
“Yes. Definitely.”
He gathers faux solemnity into his voice as he grasps the backs of Pike’s thighs. She feels the mage hand start to flutter around her left nipple again. “There’s a first time for everything.”
That’s not remotely true, but she’s happy to take the end of conversation where she can get it. And she starts kissing him again.
She thinks there’s some level of nonverbal communication that Scanlan can achieve with the simulacra, because without him saying much beyond mumbles and moans when her tongue isn’t in his mouth, the Scanulacrum returns to the festivities. He wriggles in between both their legs, kneeling over Scanlan. His hands dip between the valley of Scanlan’s lower back and grazing Pike’s arms. At one point, in a truly Scanlanesque move, he gently redirects Pike’s elbow, grasps her wrist, and lays kisses all down her forearm to her knuckles and the tips of her fingers.
His lips are just a bit cooler than they should be, and goosebumps spread down her arm.
Scanlan moves back, placing either hand around Pike, lifting himself up. His arms are skinny enough that his tendons and veins show a little whenever he does anything more strenuous than lift a cup. She follows a vein with a finger as he stretches back and down, kissing her belly and her thighs and her pussy lips.
With a twist in his shoulders and pushing out his knees, Scanlan reaches back with one hand, grasping for the edge of Scanulacrum’s hips, and pushes up on Pike’s thigh with his other hand, using her to take some of his weight. He licks and mouths further into Pike’s cunt. She is vaguely aware that the simulacrum is using the bedside oil, touching himself with one and and has a few fingers inside Scanlan with the other. And the mage hand fizzles in and out of focus, from massaging her breasts to being an extra hand spreading her pussy lips when Scanlan sucks on her clit.
She’s impressed at his ability to multitask until she’s not thinking about anything.
Pike twists her fingers into Scanlan’s hair, and smooths her thumbs over the points of his ears and the top of his spine, as he eats her out, what she can reach between her thighs. Her eyes catch the simulacrum’s when she realizes that there’s more in the world than just Scanlan’s tongue and the blood rushing to her cunt. The Scanulacrum starts to fuck Scanlan faster and it changes his pace in Pike’s pussy. His tongue stutters and he moans into her. It’s weird making eye contact with him--they haven’t been in this exact position before, with Scanlan lost between them. She partly wonders why it’s not the simulacrum in Scanlan’s position right now, but then Scanlan has never been quiet about how good it is to be in the middle. She briefly imagines herself sandwiched between Scanlan and the Scanulacrum, but it would have to be a different way, like the way they kiss and cuddle, all on their sides together like sardines.
She doesn’t think she has the breath control to do what Scanlan’s doing.
She wants to make the joke out loud. The real Scanlan would if he weren’t so busy, but the Scanulacrum just seems to notice her laugh and grasps her foot that’s resting on Scanlan’s back. It’s oddly cute and for some reason she can’t help herself from saying, “Oh, thank you.”
Scanlan laughs, barely moving his lips off her, so she can feel the vibrations in her fizzled nerves.
Maybe through intuition, maybe through that unspoken communication between Scanlan and the simulacra, Scanulacrum reaches up to kiss her. Scanlan tenses, getting smushed and scrunched between them. He has to take a quick breather on her stomach and she can feel the wetness and want in her cunt. She wants more, needs more.
She urges Scanlan’s head a little as soon as the Scanulacrum leans back, but it’s not necessary. His nose is buried in her bush, sucking again at her sensitive clit in seconds.
It doesn’t take long before his rhythm grows erratic as the simulacrum fucks Scanlan into her, faster and harder. They both start losing control of their sounds and Scanlan breathes heavily between her legs. Pike watches them, trying not to feel just the pulsing pressure of need, wanting Scanlan inside or rubbing her clit or something. The Scanulacrum pushes harder on Scanlan’s hips, who all but stops moving, now gripping her one thigh so tight it hurts. The Scanulacrum’s skinny belly tightens and he makes the same half pained, half surprised face Scanlan usually does as he comes. His strokes come to a slow, lazy stop where he looks like he’s going to collapse under the weight of keeping his head aloft.
So she extends her foot from Scanlan’s back and presses it on the Scanulacrum’s chest. She tries not to push hard. While the simulacra are as skinny as Scanlan, there’s just something about them that feels softer, less meat, less bone. Like there’s nothing underneath. The simulacra are more delicate than Scanlan, and it makes her feel protective. But he’s just as yielding and as firm against her foot as Scanlan would be, if a little bouncier somehow. He gives her a goofy smile, an breathless laugh, and for a second there’s a genuine Scanlan expression in his brightened eyes and she could almost not tell the difference between them.
Except the real Scanlan collects his breath when the simulacrum backs up and, well, exits from Scanlan. The real Scanlan softly bites the inside of her fleshy thigh and Pike jumps, pulls his hair just a little. He shifts them just slightly to their sides, his head half on her other thigh, so he can finger her, instead of holding himself up. His mouth-- his gorgeous and filthy and perpetually active and talented mouth-- finds her clit.
And when she can feel her leg suspended in the air-- she has a mild fear of suffocating Scanlan down there one day if she doesn’t open her legs wide-- quivering from the strain of being held aloft, the simulacrum sits brushing against Scanlan’s back, facing her, and slides her ankle on his shoulder. He looks at her sweetly, interestedly-- at complete odds with the furious build of pressure electrifying the tips of her fingers and nipples and folds of her mound and her clit and the mouth of her vagina-- and gently runs lines up and down her shin. His other hand massages the top knot of Scanlan’s spine, the back of his neck.
When Pike comes, time stretches into white hot blindness. Her eyes are closed tight but she can see a bright aura, like when she casts a spell in the name of her goddess. In the past, and later on, she might reconsider whether Sarenrae would truly appreciate a prayer for her orgasm, but in the moment she can’t think of anything she’s more grateful for. She’s grateful for the immense wanting in her body, and in the onslaught of release, she’s grateful for her blood freeing up her body and the bone deep satisfaction of relaxation and shuddering weakness in her limbs and her cunt.
And she’s grateful for the weight of Scanlan’s body as he pants for breath, collapsing on her breasts when he tries to crawl up to her.
She’s even grateful for the taste of her own sex on Scanlan’s mouth when he kisses her again. His cock is still hard, brushing against and sliding in between her soft, wet, achingly used pussy lips. He reaches a hand down and slots two fingers around her clit, not even pressing hard, and she’s torn between squirming away and pulling him into her again.
And she’s especially grateful that between being fucked by his clone and eating out her out, Scanlan, still tumid and wired, wraps his arms around her and whispers in her ear, “I’m going to make you come until Sarenrae appears right here in our bedroom to tells you to stop bothering her.”
She laughs.
Pike laughs and holds Scanlan between her legs and rolls him over on the bed. She just doesn’t think she could endure one second of teasing. They’re off center and there’s a point where she could easily topple them both off the bed if she leaned too far to the side. But she sits back and positions herself on Scanlan’s dick. He lets out a blissful moan, head thrown back, almost off the mattress, and reverently molds his hands around her hips. Her cunt is still so wet and soft, but sensitive and just the feel of him inside her as she makes a little tilt forward or lift upward makes her breath catch.
Without his mouth occupied, he talks when she rides him. Sweet nothings, she would say, except the words transform from nothings quickly enough into somethings.
He says “Oh Sarenrae” and “Ioun save me” and “Never stop touching me, never leave me” and “I love you, I love every part of you, let me record a song of all the things I love about you.” She’s not sure how literally to take some of the things he says. He doesn’t sing but he does list everything from her “beautiful tits” to her “perfect, adorable chin”; from the “little curls by your hairline when you sweat” to the “comfort of your thighs around my waist, around my face”; from her “buttery soft pussy” to her, just her, “Pike, the only good in the world.”
She takes the words inside her too and decides-- in the flighty way she can’t think straight as the pressure of need fights with the previous flood of relaxation-- that maybe a song isn’t very different from a prayer, at least sometimes. It feels decadent. To have come, to come again imminently, and to hear Scanlan’s praise-soaked, sex-delirious dedication to her.
He can’t sing his not-song the closer he gets to arriving. He trails off and hisses, bites his lip as he tries not to come before her, even though she’s already come once. But he doesn’t like not having things to do with his mouth, with his hands, so she waves frantically at the simulacrum. He leans down closer to them to kiss Scanlan, a last second task Scanlan takes greedily. He pushes his tongue into the simulacrum, holds his head close, a mirror to his own, using his appetite on himself in a way.
Which she would think is funnier if her orgasm weren’t also timed now.
Scanlan moans into the simulacrum’s mouth, that goofy half pained, half surprised face still a little visible, as his body tenses and then relaxes.
She rides him harder because Scanlan can stay hard for a little while after he comes, but not too long. He encourages her this time more with dirty nothings, but he’s flagging. It’s reasonable, all things, considered, but the tightness in her cunt is reaching up and up, and she only needs a few more seconds.
And she thinks it might be the Scanulacrum who does it. Because he kisses into Scanlan’s slack mouth again. There’s possibly a tiny flash of white-purple magic around their lips, and tension surges in Scanlan’s body again. And Pike can grind herself down in just the right way.
Again, it’s like her eyesight is flooded with white and her veins flow and her body expands into release, and she can just fall into a total, if momentary, peace.
She lifts herself off Scanlan and falls gracelessly into the tight space between the two Scanlans. Her limbs are heavy as boulders. She can’t really understand the fullness she feels. Parts of it are raw and overused, but with none of the pain or strain that goes with those sensations normally. Only the livewire exposure and contentment. And the already cooling sweat where her body isn’t lined up with a Scanlan or a Scanulacrum. Without thinking, or possibly muscle movement, their arms sort of snake around her, and she noses into the crook of Scanlan’s neck, feeling around his chest hair.
It’s nice. It’s soft. She could stay like this for a long time. But someone should regain some energy soon, otherwise a crusty gross mess will be one problem. She can think of a few others. Also she has to pee, but if she can cram ten hours of idleness and cuddling, into about fifteen minutes she thinks she’ll be alright.
She doesn’t know how much time passes, but she doesn’t even budge an eyelid until in an unusually croaky, fucked out voice Scanlan whispers, “Next time we’ll have to make a simulacrum of you.”
Impossibly, her blood starts rushing again.
She can feel her heart pounding in her chest and, since they’re as close as skin can get other than being inside each other, no doubt Scanlan can feel it too. She can’t help but imagine another Pike-like simulacrum. Like her but cool to the touch, with nothing inside it’s soft skin, putting politely interested touches on Scanlan, on her. She can’t help reversing what she’s already seen with Scanlan with her-- kissing a face identical to hers but just a little more vacant and smiley, touching her-own-but-not-her-own breasts, having sex with a woman who is not really a woman but is also kind of her.
It’s a very unsettling idea, but also…
“We’ll talk about it later.”
And she pretends she doesn’t notice how smug Scanlan’s laugh sounds or that she knows already that she’s going to try it.
At least once.
~*~