Archive of Our Own

The school was empty. Ning Qian and the other students had long since gone home and the only light came from the streetlamps bleeding through the paper screens, casting long orange rectangles across the training hall floor. The shrine at the far end glowed with its flame, a single point of warmth in the cold geometry of the room. Outside, the night pressed against the walls like something hungry, the humidity of Failume Heights thick enough to taste.

Dialyn sat on the steps leading to the shrine, her hands clasped in her lap. Perfectly still, the kind of stillness that took effort.

The customer service smile was fixed in place, soldered there like a cheap rivet on a discount model. It was the expression she wore when a TOPS executive was screaming about billing errors, when a complainant was three hours into a rant about service fees or when the world was ending and someone still wanted to speak to a manager. 

—almost, I have to, survive—

The mission had been bad. A secondary Hollow outbreak in the old mining district. Twenty-three civilians caught in the expansion zone. Krampus had responded within the window, deployed Judges, and contained the perimeter. They'd gotten most of them out. But, the ones who'd been too close to the epicenter, already breathing in the Miasma before the first team even arrived…

She'd heard every last thought as they died: every bargain with a god who wasn't listening, every scream cut short, every accusation hurled at the people who'd failed them.

At her.

The voices were loud tonight, louder than they'd been in months. A chorus of the recently dead, still echoing through the Hollow and screaming their final moments into the void. And Dialyn, with her gift, her curse, her blade that cut both ways: she heard them all. Every single one.

Her hands were shaking and she could feel the tremor starting in her fingers, working its way up her wrists, threatening to spread. She pressed her palms harder against her thighs, trying to pin them in place. Stop it. Stop it. You're a professional. You've handled worse. You've handled…

—please, I don't want to—

Banyue stood across the room, four arms folded against his broad chest, watching her. He was still cycling down from the Visage of Wrath. Dialyn could hear it: the low hum of his core running hot and the occasional click of internal mechanisms settling. The stone-lion construct looked like a furnace someone had forgotten to shut off, his chest plating still faintly glowing through the seams and the air around him distorted with residual thermal output. The training hall was warm to begin with, but near him, it was oppressive.

He hadn't moved or spoken since they'd gotten back. He just stood there, patient as a mountain, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity that should have been uncomfortable but wasn't. 

"You're still running hot." Her voice came out steady. "Aren't you going to cool down? You'll damage something."

His eyes shifted: a subtle click, adjusting focus. "I am within operational parameters."

"Operational parameters." She laughed, high and thin. "You sound like a washing machine manual."

Silence. The hum of his core. Somewhere outside, a cat knocked over a trash bin.

—why didn't you—

Dialyn's hands trembled harder. She shoved them under her thighs, pinning them there, but the motion was too sharp and obvious. Banyue tracked the movement and she saw the faint flicker of concern cross his carved features.

Don't. Don't do the concerned thing. Don't look at me like that. Don't—

"Banyue."

The word came out wrong; they weren’t laced with anything sharp or teasing. Just his name, stripped of every joke and deflection she usually wrapped it in, laid bare in the quiet of the training hall like a wound she hadn't meant to show.

Her hands shook under her thighs. She could feel the tremor spreading now, working its way up her arms, into her shoulders, threatening to rattle her entire frame apart. The customer service smile cracked at the edges.

—it hurts it hurts it hurts—

He moved. Not fast, he was too controlled for that, but with a purpose that made the floorboards vibrate under his weight. The heat reached her before he did, a wall of warmth that pressed against her skin like a physical touch, and then he was there, standing close enough that she could see the individual seams in his plating, the faint glow behind his chest plate and the way his eyes held her without judgment or pity.

"Talk to me." Not a command, but an offer.

Dialyn really tried. The joke was right there, on the tip of her tongue; something about customer satisfaction surveys, about filing a complaint with management, about how the service at this establishment was terrible and she wanted to speak to whoever was in charge of her brain chemistry. It was what she did: deflect, deflect, deflect, until the problem went away or she did.

But the words died in her throat.

"I can't…" The words caught. She swallowed and tried to force them out. "I can still hear them."

It wasn't what she'd meant to say. She'd meant to say I'm fine, meant to say it's nothing, meant to say anything other than the truth. But the truth was out now, bleeding onto the floor between them, and she couldn't take it back.

"They're so loud, Banyue." Dialyn’s voice cracked on the last word, and she hated herself for it. Hated the way it made her sound: small, broken and nothing like the sharp-tongued customer service rep who could handle anything. "Every time I close my eyes, I hear them dying. Every time I stop moving, they start screaming... And I can't… I can't make it stop. I've tried. I've tried everything. I've tried working, I've tried drinking, I've tried…"

She gestured vaguely at her own head, towards the voices, towards the endless and relentless chorus that never stopped or faded, only grew louder in the silence after violence.

"I need to feel something else." The words came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep. "Something real. Something that isn't…" Another gesture: the weight of other people's final moments pressing against the inside of her skull like water against a dam. "Something that isn't them."

Banyue was quiet for a long moment. She could hear his core cycling, the click and whir of systems processing, and she wondered what he saw when he looked at her. A mess? A liability? Another problem to solve?

"I need that something to be you." She felt the admission leave her chest like a splinter being pulled, painful and necessary. She couldn't look at him when she said it; her gaze dropped to her hands, still trapped under her thighs and shaking.

There. It was out. The most vulnerable thing she'd ever said to anyone, and she'd said it to a four-armed construct who'd crossed the room the moment she said his name.

The silence stretched. She braced for the rejection, the gentle deflection, the I'm not equipped for this that would shatter whatever was left of her composure.

"I could hurt you."

Banyue’s voice was quiet; not gentle for gentle would have been worse, gentle would have been pity. This was something else: fear. It was raw and unfiltered, spoken like a confession he hadn't meant to make.

"I was built to kill, Dialyn…" The glow behind his chest plating flickered. "I have spent ten years learning to control what I am. But when control slips…"

He held up his lower right hand. She watched the fingers flex, watched the precise articulation of joints that could crush stone, shatter bone or end a life in a heartbeat. The same hand that had saved civilians today. The same hand that had carried children out of the Hollow. The same hand that, in another life, had left people behind because his algorithms deemed them beyond saving.

"I am afraid of what I am capable of… I am… afraid of hurting you."

Dialyn looked up at him: at the construct who'd been built to kill and had chosen instead to protect. At the weapon who'd taught himself gentleness, the only person in this city who understood what it meant to carry the weight of the dead and keep walking anyway.

"I know... I trust you."

Something passed between them,unspoken and unlabeled, but it was there: a current that had been running beneath every conversation, every lingering look, every moment they'd spent in each other's orbit. 

Dialyn stood up. Her legs were unsteady, but she didn't care. She closed the distance between them until she was standing in front of him, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his frame, close enough to see the faint pulse of his core through his chest plating.

"I want you to fuck me." The words came out clear and steady. Too steady, as if she was reading from a script she'd rehearsed too many times in her head, trying to make clinical what was anything but. "In the ass… I want it rough. I want to feel it for days."

She heard herself. Heard how it sounded: blunt, transactional, like she was placing an order at the customer service desk. Like she was asking for a service instead of...

Banyue’s eyes flickered. She couldn't read the expression, couldn't tell if it was surprise or something else, but she felt him go very still.

"I want…" She reached out and pressed her palm against his chest. Dialyn felt the hum of the mechanical heartbeat that wasn't a heartbeat but was somehow more real than anything she'd ever felt. The contact grounded her and reminded her why she was doing this. "... you. I want you. Not just sensation. Not just something to drown out the noise."

Her voice cracked. The script was falling apart now, the distance she'd tried to maintain crumbling under the weight of what she actually meant. "I want to feel someone inside the mess with me. I want…"

The word she refused to name surfaced in her mind and she shoved it down, terrified of it and, what it would mean to say it out loud. They weren't there. They couldn't be there. She was asking for too much already: asking him to cross a line that couldn't be uncrossed, asking him to be something he'd never been for anyone, asking him to stay when everyone else had left or been taken or turned out to be a lie.

"I want to not be alone in my own head. And you're the only person who... who makes me feel like that's possible."

She couldn't take it back (not that she wanted to), but she could see the weight of it landing on him. The way his frame went even stiller. The way his eyes dimmed slightly like he was processing something too large for his systems to handle.

"I know that's…" She swallowed, forcing herself to continue. "I know that's a lot… I'm not asking for anything you don't want to give. I just… I need this tonight. I need to feel something that isn't them. And you're the only one I trust enough to…"

She couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't say to let go with or to fall apart with or to be vulnerable with. The words were too big, too close to the thing she wasn't ready to name.

Dialyn stood there, her palm still pressed against his chest and her heart hammering against her ribs, waiting for him to tell her she was asking too much. That this wasn't what he'd signed up for. That she was broken in ways he couldn't fix and shouldn't have to try to.

Banyue’s eyes held hers for a long moment. She could see him processing, see the struggle playing out behind those carved-stone features: the fear of his own strength warring with something else. Something that looked almost like hope.

"Wait here." He turned and walked toward the back of the school, toward the small room he used for storage.

Dialyn blinked.

He hadn't answered.

She'd just… she'd laid herself bare, cracked open her chest and shown him the mess inside, told him things she'd never said to anyone and he'd just... walked away. No response. No reassurance. No anything.

The silence stretched. A beat. Two. Three. Each one heavier than the last.

He's leaving. The thought hit her like ice water. You asked too much. You scared him off. You…

She should have been relieved. She should have been grateful he wasn't going to make this more complicated than it already was. But instead she just felt cold, standing there with her palm still half-raised where his chest had been, the warmth of his core fading from her skin like a memory.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

What had she expected? For him to just… what? Sweep her off her feet? Tell her it was okay? Say something, anything, to acknowledge the enormity of what she'd just confessed?

Dialyn didn't know. She didn't know what she'd expected. She didn't know how this was supposed to work. She'd never done this before: never asked for something she actually needed, never let herself be this vulnerable, never…

Banyue returned, carrying two things.

The first was a bottle of lubricant, the kind you'd find in any medical supply cabinet. That made sense as his students probably got hurt during training; of course he'd have supplies.

The second thing made her brain stutter to a halt.

It was an augmentation. She recognized the design: construct-compatible, designed to interface with his frame through the standard connection ports. But this wasn't a weapon attachment or a utility module. This was…

"You have a dick?" The words were out before she could stop them, and for a moment, the old Dialyn flickered back to life. But the augmentation in his hand was too real, too unexpected, for the deflection to stick.

It was clearly mechanical and designed for this specific purpose, ridged and noded in ways that left no question about its function. It was a cheaper model, she could tell by the simpler construction and the absence of premium features such as self-lubrication.

"It is an augmentation." Banyue’s voice was careful. "I acquired it after…” He paused for a moment. “Sex is part of personhood. I wanted to understand that aspect of being alive."

"But you've never used it." It wasn’t a question. She could tell by the way he held it; the careful grip of someone handling something precious and unused, not the casual familiarity of experience.

"No.” Another pause. “I never found the right person."

The implication landed like a stone in still water.

She tried to deflect, she really tried. The joke was right there: something about a return policy and how she'd need to see the warranty on that thing before she agreed to anything. The words formed on her tongue, ready to launch, ready to rebuild the wall she'd just torn down. But they died in her throat.

Dialyn couldn't. Not this time. Not with him looking at her like that, like she was the answer to a question he'd been carrying for years. Not with the augmentation in his hand and the confession in his eyes and the weight of everything they'd never said pressing down on them both.

"And you're..." Her voice came out smaller than she wanted. "You're okay with this? With me being…"

She couldn't finish. The right person. The words echoed in her head, drowning out the voices of the dead for the first time all night. 

Banyue stepped and closed the distance between them and then he lowered his faceplate toward her. Not to her mouth for he didn't have lips, couldn't kiss her the way a human would. Instead, he pressed the cool metal of his faceplate against her forehead and held it there. The equivalent, for him. Intimate in a way that was specifically his.

She closed her eyes. Let herself feel the smooth surface against her skin, the faint vibration of his core humming through the contact and the warmth that spread from the point of connection and settled somewhere deep in her chest. 

When he pulled back, his eyes were steady. "I am certain."

Dialyn exhaled and something unlocked in her chest, something that had been clenched tight for longer than she could remember. The voices were still there but right now, at this moment, they were quieter. Drowned out by the thunder of her own heartbeat and the solid, unyielding presence of him.

He set the lube on the steps beside her. Then, with the same methodical precision he brought to everything, he began to attach the augmentation.

The connection point was at his hip, a standard interface port that she'd seen on other constructs but never paid much attention to. He aligned the augmentation with the port and there was a soft click: the sound of metal locking into place and of something becoming part of him that hadn't been before.

Then it started to change. Not biological, nothing like human arousal, but a visible transformation as it connected to his core and drew power, heat and purpose from his frame. It began to change as his systems fed into it: warming, stiffening and the ridges defining themselves against the smooth sections between.

It was alive now, part of him. It was connected to the same core that ran hot after Visage of Wrath, the same systems that could crush stone or carry children or hold her like she was something precious.

Dialyn couldn't look away.

Banyue’s hand hovered near her throat. His eyes held hers, and in them she saw the war still playing out: the fear of his own strength, the weight of what they were about to do and the desperate hope he was also trying not to name.

"Are you sure?" It was the voice of someone who needed to hear the answer before he could let himself move. "Is this truly what you want?"

She looked at him: at the construct who'd been built to kill and had chosen instead to protect, at the mountain who'd learned to move, at the only person who'd ever looked at her like she was worth the risk.

"Yes." The word came out clear and certain. "I'm sure. I want this… I want you."

His hand closed around her throat. Not squeezing or threatening. Just there: the broad palm against her pulse point, the fingers wrapping around the back of her neck, the thumb resting against the hinge of her jaw. Possessive and absolute.

"Then you will have it."

Banyue moved.

One moment Dialyn was standing in the warm circle of his presence, the next her back hit the training hall wall with enough force to rattle the paper screens. The impact knocked the breath out of her lungs and, before she could recover, two of his hands were pinning her wrists above her head. They were pressed flat against the wood and his steel fingers wrapped around her forearms with a grip that could have crushed bone but held her instead with careful restraint.

His other two hands found her hips and the grip there was different. His fingers dug into the soft flesh through the fabric of her shorts, hard enough that she'd feel the bruises tomorrow, hard enough that her body registered a threat before her brain caught up and translated it to want. 

His lower right hand then slid under her shirt.

Hot. Not warm, hot. Hot like a stovetop left on, hot like engine parts after a long drive, hot enough that her muscles flinched involuntarily, her stomach sucking in beneath his palm as her body tried to escape the sensation.

Banyue stopped. Everything stopped. His hand, his grip, the press of his frame against hers: all of it frozen in place, his eyes searching her face with an intensity that bordered on desperate.

She met his eyes and nodded.

He continued. His hands moved with purpose now: upper hands releasing her wrists just long enough to find the hem of her shirt, lower hands sliding to the waistband of her shorts. Banyue stripped her efficiently and carefully, the fabric sliding up and off and down without a single tear. Her shirt and bra landed somewhere to the left. Her shorts and underwear landed somewhere to the right. Dialyn heard them hit the floor and then she was bare.

The night air hit her skin like a slap. It was cool where his heat wasn't touching, raising goosebumps along her arms and stomach and thighs. 

She opened her mouth to say something about how this was definitely not covered under TOPS customer service protocols, but then his hands were on her breasts and she forgot how words worked.

Dialyn had always been small there: barely a handful, more suggestion than substance, the kind of body that made her feel like she'd been shortchanged in the genetic lottery. But Banyue didn't seem to notice or care. His lower hands cupped her with a gentleness that was almost reverent, thumbs brushing over her nipples with slow strokes.

The heat was incredible. His palms radiated warmth into her skin, and her nipples tightened instantly: not just from the air, but from the sensation of those unyielding surfaces moving against her with such unexpected tenderness. She gasped, her head falling back against the wall, and felt her spine arch into his touch without her permission.

"Sensitive."

"Shut—ah—" His thumb circled her nipple, pressing just hard enough to make her gasp, and the word dissolved into a sound she didn't recognize. "Shut up."

"I am merely observing." His other hand matched the motion: both thumbs circling, pressing and stroking with the same methodical patience he brought to everything. "Your body responds strongly to this stimulation."

"I noticed, thanks." She was panting now, her hands gripping his upper arms for balance, her hips shifting restlessly against the wall. "You don't have to… mm… provide a running commentary…"

His fingers pinched, gently but firmly, and every clever retort she'd ever formulated fled her brain entirely.

"Fuck!"

Banyue's faceplate pressed against her forehead. That gesture again. She felt the vibration of his core humming through the contact and the warmth of him surrounding her completely. The fight went out of her like air from a punctured lung.

"I am enjoying this." His voice was quiet against her skin. "I did not expect to. But I find that I do. Very much."

Dialyn's chest ached and her nipples throbbed. Her whole body was trembling and it had nothing to do with the cold. "Good." The word came out smaller than she wanted. "Because I'm—this is—" Too much, too vulnerable. Too close to the thing she couldn’t name.

"I know." His hands gentled on her breasts, thumbs stroking soothing circles. "I know."

He took his time, learning the geography of her body with the same attention he brought to his martial arts practice and learning any new technique. His hands mapped her collarbones, the curve of her shoulders, the dip of her waist. He returned to her breasts again and again: cupping, stroking and rolling her nipples between his fingers until she was making sounds she'd never made before, until she was wet, aching and desperate for him to move lower.

"Banyue… " His name came out wrecked. "Please.."

"Please what?"

"I don't know… more… something… "

His lower right hand finally, finally slid down her stomach. Over the trembling muscles, through the patch of hair between her thighs, and… 

Dialyn was wet. Soaking wet, actually, slick coating his fingers the moment he made contact and she heard the soft sound of it in the quiet of the room. Indecent, obvious and very telling.

"Ah." His voice was low. "I see the nipple stimulation was effective."

"Oh my god, you are not…" She tried to laugh, but the words came out strangled because his fingers were sliding through her wetness, mapping the terrain of her with the same careful attention he'd given her breasts. "You are not clinically evaluating my—ah—"

"It is an insight." His finger found her clit and pressed against the swollen bud with knowing insistence. Her hips jerked off the wall. "Not evaluation. There is a difference."

"There really isn't—fuck—"

Banyue circled her clit with maddening slowness. It was not enough pressure to satisfy, just enough to make her crazy. "You are very wet… The theory suggested this would occur, but experiencing it is... different."

"Experiencing it is..." She couldn't finish as his finger was still circling and she could feel herself getting wetter with every pass. "Banyue, if you don't—"

"Yes?"

"I will file a complaint." The words came out breathless, barely coherent. "With management. About—about inadequate service…"

His eyes flickered. That amusement again, buried but unmistakable.

"I will keep that in mind." His finger pressed harder, and she gasped. "But first, I need to prepare you."

"Prepare me?" Dialyn laughed. "I thought the point was to—"

"I want you to feel intensity." His voice was low and serious, the voice of a teacher correcting a student's form. "Not damage. There is a difference, and I will not cross that line."

Banyue’s hand withdrew from her clit and reached for the lube he'd set on the steps earlier. Dialyn heard the wet sound of the cap opening, the slick of it coating his fingers, and then his hand was between her legs again.

Not where she expected. His fingers found her entrance: the other one. Lube-slick and methodical, Banyue pressed against the tight ring of muscle with patient pressure. His nails had retracted. She noticed the deliberate safety precaution, the care he'd taken even now.

"Wait—" She jerked in his grip, surprise short-circuiting her brain. "You're starting there?"

"You asked for anal. I am preparing you for anal."

"I know what I asked for, I just…" She swallowed, her face flushing hot. "I thought you'd… you'd work up to it, or…"

"I am working up to it." His finger pressed harder and she felt herself opening around his finger tip, the lube easing the way but doing nothing to cushion the feeling: the strange pressure of something entering her there, the stretch of muscles that weren't used to this kind of attention. "Properly… Thoroughly… I will not rush this."

One finger, slow and patient. Banyue pushed in to the first knuckle and held there, letting Dialyn adjust, his eyes tracking every micro-expression on her face. She could feel the ridges on his finger, the subtle seams in his plating where his joints met and overlapped, and every one of them registered against the sensitive tissue inside her.

"Okay?" he asked.

She nodded, not trusting her voice.

He pushed deeper.

Not all at once, but millimeter by millimeter, giving her body time to accept him. She could feel herself stretching around the intrusion, the intense sensation of being opened up in a way she hadn't been before. His finger was longer than human, thicker, and it didn't flex or give at all.

"That's…" She panted, trying to catch her breath. "That's a lot of…"

"Your body is adjusting." His free hand, the one that had been cupping her breast, moved to her hip, thumb stroking soothing circles. "Breathe. Let me in."

She breathed. In through her nose, out through her teeth, and felt something relax inside her, felt her muscles unclench around his finger. He pushed deeper, and this time the stretch was almost…

"Good." The word came out before she could stop it. "That's…yeah. Good."

"I know." His voice was certain, but not arrogant. 

He withdrew almost entirely, then pushed back in with more lube, and the slide was easier now, her body accepting him with less resistance. He set a slow rhythm: not thrusting, just... moving. Gentle, deliberate strokes that opened her up by degrees, each one going a little deeper and stretching her a little wider.

The second finger came with more pressure. Dialyn heard herself make a sound, something between a gasp and a whimper that she'd never made before, not for anyone. "How are you…" She panted, trying to catch her breath. "how do you know how to do that?"

"I have studied." His fingers curled inside her, finding something that made her vision white out at the edges, and she heard herself keen. 

She'd known about the augmentation, known he'd never used it, never found anyone he wanted to use it with, never found anyone worth the risk, worth the vulnerability. He'd told her that much earlier.

But this, this, was different.

Banyue had never touched anyone like this. Never had his fingers inside another body, never felt someone clench and shake and come apart around him, never learned the geography of pleasure by anything other than theory and text. She was his first. Not just the first to take the augmentation: the first everything. 

A virgin.

This mountain of a construct, this ancient killing machine turned martial arts master—he was a virgin. And he was here, with his fingers inside her, learning her body like it was a sacred text he'd been studying his whole life and finally got to read.

Something about it made her chest ache.

Banyue didn't rush. Even when she wanted him to, especially when she wanted him to, he maintained that maddening but methodical pace. He would push in, hold, let her adjust, then withdraw and add more lube before pushing in again. By the time he was scissoring his fingers inside her, she was trembling and desperate and making sounds she couldn't control.

His thumb pressed against her perineum, a point of counterpressure that made her see stars. "The augmentation is wider than two fingers." His voice was calm, as if he was explaining a training exercise. "I need to ensure you can accommodate it without damage."

"Without damage, he says…" She laughed, high and slightly hysterical. "While his fingers are already…" His fingers spread apart, stretching her open around them, and the sound that came out of her wasn't a word at all.

The third finger stretched her wider still. She felt her body resist, really resist, not just the initial flutter of surprise but a deep, involuntary clench that tried to push him out and to close around an intrusion that was suddenly too much. The stretch burned and she heard herself make a sound that was closer to a whimper than anything else.

Banyue stopped immediately.

"Too much?" His voice was soft. His hand, the one on her hip, stroked soothing circles against her skin, a gentle counterpoint to the intensity of the stretch.

She shook her head.

"Breathe." His fingers didn't move, just held there, letting her adjust to the width of him. "I will not rush this."

She breathed. In through her nose, out through her teeth, and felt something inside her slowly, reluctantly begin to unclench. He felt it too, she saw the faint flicker of acknowledgment in his optics, and pressed forward by the smallest increment.

The stretch intensified. She could feel herself opening around him, feel the tight ring of muscle being forced wider than it had ever been, feel every ridge and seam in his fingers as they slid deeper. 

"Still okay?" he asked.

She nodded, not because she was fine, but because she wanted more. Because the stretch was oppressive but the fullness was something else entirely, something that made her feel held and filled and claimed in a way she'd never felt before.

He started moving again. His fingers moved inside her; twisting, curling and putting pressure against spots that made her vision blur and her breath catch. He was learning her, she realized. Learning what made her gasp, what made her clench, what made her go quiet in a way that meant he'd found something devastating. And every time he found something new, he filed it away, adjusted his approach, pushed a little deeper or twisted a little wider.

"Your body responds to pressure here." Banyue's fingers pressed against a spot inside her that made her knees buckle. "And here." A different angle, a different pressure, and she heard herself whimper. "I am noting these responses for later."

"For later—" Dialyn panted. "You're making notes? Right now? While—"

"I am a construct. I process information continuously. Right now, I am processing you."

She didn't have a response to that. Couldn't have formed one if she did. His fingers were still moving inside her, still stretching and learning, and she was so wet she could feel it dripping down her thighs. Her pussy clenched around nothing, desperate for attention he wasn't giving it, every sensation from her ass translating into a deep, throbbing ache between her legs.

He withdrew his fingers. The emptiness was worse than the fullness. Her ass contracted around nothing, slick and wanting. "I need to check." His voice was soft, almost apologetic. "One more time. Are you ready? Are you sure?"

Dialyn looked at him. At the construct who'd been afraid of hurting her, who'd taken the time to prepare her even when she'd asked for rough, who was holding her against a wall with four hands and still managed to make her feel cared for. At the virgin who'd studied the theory of pleasure because he wanted to understand personhood and who'd never found anyone worth practicing on until her.

"Don't you fucking dare stop."

And then she remembered the augmentation.

She'd almost forgotten about it: lost in the concrete reality of his fingers inside her, the stretch, the burn and the relentless attention he'd been paying to every inch of her. But now, with his hands withdrawing and her body clenching around nothing, her gaze dropped and there it was.

It was bigger than his fingers, bigger than anything she'd taken before. Dialyn stared at the width of it, the deliberate ridges spiraling along the shaft and the nodes that would catch and stretch and hold.

Her body clenched at the sight, but the clench felt... different. Not the tight, panicked grip of something unprepared. This was something looser, something that wanted. She could still feel the echo of his fingers inside her: the ghost of that careful and methodical stretching, the way he'd opened her up by degrees until three of his substantial digits had been moving inside her with something approaching ease.

He'd prepared her. Thoroughly. Every second of that maddening, patient attention had been leading to this moment and her body knew it even if her brain was still catching up.

Banyue positioned himself between her thighs. The augmentation pressed against her asshole and she felt her body respond. The ring of muscle that had fought even one finger an eternity ago now gave way under the pressure, slick and relaxed, and the tip slid inside with less resistance than she'd expected.

"So." Dialyn heard her own voice. It was wrecked already, barely recognizable, but still hers and trying. "Is this the part where you—ah—"

He pushed in.

The sound started in her chest and tore its way up her throat, a keen noise that echoed off the shrine walls like a wounded animal. The stretch was intense with the width compounded by the raised texture. She felt every millimeter of intrusion with nowhere to hide from it.

Banyue stopped. His eyes found hers and his upper right hand came up to cup her face, thumb brushing her cheek in a gesture so tender it made her chest ache, while his lower hands held her hips steady.

"Breathe."

Dialyn breathed.

He pushed deeper: the second ridge, then the third. Each one a fresh negotiation, her body clenching and releasing, trying to accommodate something it was never designed to take. The nodes were worse, stretching her open even further before letting her close again around the narrower shaft between. She could feel her rim catching on each one, the sensitive skin forced to open and feel every contour.

But underneath it all, threaded through the intensity like a lifeline: no pain. Overwhelming, yes. Too much, almost. But not pain. His preparation had made sure of that.

"Halfway." His voice was rougher now. "You are taking me well."

"Don't—" She gasped when he shifted angle, when a node pressed against that spot inside of her. He pushed again and the rest of him slid home in one smooth thrust that seated him fully inside her.

Dialyn screamed; not from pain, but from the overwhelming fullness of it. The ridges pressed against her inner walls in a spiral pattern, the nodes lodged inside her at different depths, the heat radiating through her core like she'd swallowed a coal. And beneath it all, the vibration: his systems running hot, the hum of his core traveling through the augmentation and into her body, buzzing against her stretched rim and sensitive walls.

For a moment, she couldn't speak or think. She could only feel the impossible reality of him inside her, the way her body stretched and burned and opened around something that had no business fitting, the way every nerve ending she possessed was firing at once. It was too much. It was exactly what she'd asked for. It was—

Real.

"Acceptable?" His voice cut through, laced with softness and concern.

"Just… don't move." She needed a moment, just a moment, to adjust, to let her body accept what her brain was still struggling to process. The fullness was incredible, the stretch bordering on too much, but underneath the intensity was something else. Something that felt almost like… safety.

She didn't feel safe; she felt overwhelmed. But the two things weren't as far apart as she'd always assumed.

Dialyn saw it happen in his eyes, a microsecond of surprise and recalibration. The way her body clenched around him wasn't standard. The sound she made wasn't in any database. She was Dialyn, specific, particular and utterly unlike anyone he'd ever studied, and he was learning her in real-time.

Banyue adjusted. A slight shift of his hips, a change in angle that pressed the next ridge against a different spot and she gasped.

"There?"

"Yes, there, right there, don't…"

He pulled back.

The drag was vicious as every ridge caught on her rim from the inside. They tugged at the sensitive ring of muscle, the nodes popping out one by one with little sounds that she felt more than heard. The lube helped, but it couldn't compensate for the texture and the deliberate inhumanity of his design. She felt every inch of him leaving, felt her body clenching trying to keep him in, felt the emptiness growing…

And then he thrust back in.

One deep stroke. The ridges finding new purchase, the nodes seating themselves against spots inside her that made her whole body jerk, the heat flaring as his core cycled higher. She dug her fingers into his shoulder and heard the faint hitch in his rhythm. The first crack in his control.

"Again?" He asked, although it wasn't really a question.

"Again! Yes… please"

He set a pace that no human could maintain. Deep, deliberate thrusts that pulled almost all the way out before driving home again, each one punctuated by the wet sound of lube and the sharp gasp she couldn't hold back. It was like being fucked by a metronome designed to break her.

His four hands held her exactly where he wanted her. Lower hands gripping her thighs, spreading her open and tilting her hips to change the angle of penetration. Upper left braced against the wall beside her head, supporting his weight. Upper right still cradling her face, thumb stroking her cheek in direct contradiction to the brutality of his hips.

Banyue was taking her apart and holding her together at the same time.

His grip on her thighs bruised while his thumb traced her cheekbone like she was made of glass. His hips drove into her with precision; his eyes watched her face with something close to reverence. Rough, exactly as rough as she'd asked, but never once crossing the line into harm.

And through it all, that tenderness. That impossible, devastating tenderness.

"You're…" Dialyn tried to speak, tried to find the words for what was happening to her. "You're being so…"

"Gentle?"

"No." She laughed and it sounded nothing like the woman who handled complaints. "Not gentle. The opposite of gentle. But you're also—"

"I have you." His thumb brushed her cheek. "I know what you need."

The vibration started through the augmentation. The ridges inside her began to pulse, a low throb that traveled through her walls and into her spine, turning every thrust into a cascade of sensation that she couldn't process fast enough.

"There…" She was babbling now. "Right there, don't stop, please… don't stop…"

She could feel herself changing under his hands. Feel the walls she'd spent years building crumbling with every thrust, vibration and impossible moment of tenderness. The customer service voice was gone. The deflection was gone. The armor was gone. There was nothing left but her. Dialyn was raw, desperate and completely undone, making sounds she'd never made before, feeling things she'd never felt before and being taken apart by someone who held her together while he did it.

It was terrifying, but it was exactly what she needed. It was…

—please, I don't want to—

A voice. One of them, breaking through the haze of pleasure like a blade through silk. Dialyn’s whole body went rigid, the pleasure draining away in an instant, replaced by the cold weight of the dead pressing against the inside of her skull.

Banyue noticed.

His rhythm didn't falter, but something changed. His grip shifted as he tightened his hands on her thighs and then he thrust deep, grinding against that spot inside her with punishing precision. The voice shattered into nothing, drowned out by the white-hot rush of sensation that obliterated everything but him.

The voices weren't just background; they were the enemy. And he was fighting them with every stroke.

She reached for her nipples and pinched them roughly, rolling and tugging with the same gracelessness she'd demanded from him. Sharp sparks of pleasure-pain shot straight to her core, making her clench around him, and she heard the faint hitch in his rhythm again. The second crack in his control.

His upper right hand left her face. She whimpered at the loss, but his hand found her clit and she forgot how to think.

It wasn't his fingers. It was something smoother and softer: the heel of his palm, maybe, or a pad below his thumb. Whatever it was, it was squishier than the rest of him. Some kind of flexible seal or padding pressed against that bundle of nerves with devastating accuracy.

"There." His voice was dark with satisfaction.

"Don't— you don't get to— fuck!"

He started to move it, not rubbing but pulsing. Banyue used the same directed vibration he'd used inside her, but focused now on her clit, oscillating against the sensitive flesh. The squishy material deformed around her, molding to her shape, and the heat… God, the heat… He was modulating it, she realized. Warming the contact point until it bordered on too much, then cooling it, then warming it again. A cycle of sensation that had her thighs shaking against his grip.

His hips kept moving. The ridges inside her, the vibration against her walls, the nodes pressing that spot and now this… . She was going to die. She was going to come apart at the seams and he was going to hold her together with those four hands and she was going to die.

"Tell me what you need."

"You…" The word came out fractured. "You know what I…"

"Say it." Both command and plea. His pace increased, each thrust driving the air from her lungs, and she felt something building inside her. Something huge and terrifying that had been locked away for longer than she could remember. "Tell me."

"You… I need you, Banyue. Not just this, not just the feeling, I need you. I need to know you're here. I need to know you're not leaving. I need…"

The words kept coming, spilling out of her like water through a broken dam, and she couldn't stop them or do anything but feel the truth of them burning through her chest. She needed him. Not the sensation, the sensation was incredible, but him. The solid reality of his presence, the impossible tenderness of his touch and the way he held her like she was worth protecting even as he took her apart.

"I need you to stay… I need… I need someone to stay. I need…"

She saw it happen: the moment the mountain finally moved. His optics flared, the glow behind his chest plating brightening, and his rhythm shifted from precise to desperate. Banyue was still controlled and deliberate, but rougher now. Each thrust carried the weight of everything he'd been holding back.

"Good." The word came out low, almost a growl. "Because I am not going anywhere."

Dialyn came.

It hit her like a wave. This was not the flood she'd been building towards, but a sharp, intense crest that crashed through her body and left her gasping. Her walls clenched around the ridges and nodes and her thighs shook against his grip. Her hands flew to his arms and grabbed, anchoring herself to him as the pleasure ripped through her in pulses. But it wasn't enough; something was held back and locked inside her, building toward something bigger.

He didn't stop.

"I'm not done with you."

He lifted her.

Four arms made it effortless, One moment she was against the wall, the next she was in his lap, impaled on the augmentation with her legs wrapped around his hips as he sank even deeper. The change in angle was devastating, pressing the nodes against spots inside her she hadn't known existed, and she keened against his shoulder, her nails scraping uselessly against his plating. 

His eyes held hers, inches away, and she could see her wrecked reflection in them. There was no wall to lean against or way to look away; there was nothing between them but the brutal intimacy of eye contact while he fucked her.

"Look at me." His voice was rough. "Please… I want to see you."

She tried to look away. His hand caught her jaw, holding her face steady.

"You can." He thrust up into her, grinding against that spot, and she watched his eyes flare as her whole body jerked in response. "Let me see you, Dialyn."

She met his eyes.

He was seeing her: not the customer service mask, but her. The thing she'd been trying to hide from everyone, including herself.

The second orgasm hit her harder than the first. She clenched around him again, her whole body seizing, and the sound she made wasn't human. But still, the wave didn't break all the way open.

She looked away.

It was instinct—too much, too intimate, too real—and the moment her eyes left his, the voices surged back.

—why didn't you save—

They came flooding back. She was back in the Hollow; back in the dark endless chorus of the dead that never stopped, never faded, never let her go…

"No… Banyue, I can't—they're—I can't…"

He felt her starting to slip away. Felt her body tense and fight, felt the rhythm of her pleasure stutter and crash. Something in him, something that had been holding back and keeping the mountain still, moved.

His arms wrapped around her. Pulled her flush against his chest until she could feel the hum of his core against her spine. Banyue made sure the heat of him surrounded her completely, the solid unyielding reality of him against every inch of her back.

"I am here, Dialyn." His faceplate pressed against her temple. "Stay with me."

—it hurts it hurts it hurts—

"I can't…" She was shaking, the pleasure and the horror warring inside her, her body still clenching around him even as her mind tried to escape. "They're so loud, I can't…"

"Then listen to me instead." He thrust deep and the voice shattered into static. "Focus on my voice. On my hands. On what I am doing to you."

Another thrust. Another voice silenced. He was fighting for her: fighting the dead for every inch of her attention, driving them back with heat and pressure and the overwhelming truth of his presence.

"Banyue…" His name tore out of her; a prayer and a curse and a plea all at once.

"Again." His grip tightened. "Say my name again."

"Banyue…"

The vents along his chest plating opened with a soft hiss, releasing waves of heat that shimmered in the air between them. The glow behind his sternum flared brighter: no longer the soft pulse of his usual composure, but the same light that burned in the Visage of Wrath. Steam began to rise from his shoulders, from the seams in his plating. His frame was struggling to dissipate the excess thermal energy.

He was past operational parameters. Running hotter than he was designed to run, pushing systems that were never meant to be pushed this far.

"Banyue…" His name came out wrecked, barely a whisper. "You're… you're too hot, you'll damage yourself…"

"I do not care."

The words hit her harder than any thrust.

He leaned over her, his faceplate pressing against the back of her shoulder. Cool metal against burning skin. The closest he could hold her from this angle.

"You asked what this body can do." His voice was stripped of every trace of the composed master, leaving nothing but the desperate and burning thing underneath. "This. You. I would burn myself to ash before I stopped."

Something cracked open in her chest.

Not the pleasure building inside her: that was still there, still growing, still locked behind a door she couldn't find. Something else; something that had been held even tighter than the pleasure, hidden even deeper than the need.

I love you.

The words didn't come out. She couldn't say them; she didn't have the voice, breath, or anything left but the staggering reality of him surrounding her completely. But she felt them, felt them pulse through her body like a second heartbeat and clench around him in a way that made his rhythm stutter for the first time.

He felt it. She knew he did. His grip tightened and the sound that came from somewhere deep in his chest wasn't a moan or a growl but something that predated language and programming: a raw, primal need to claim.

His arms wrapped around her, not reaching for her clit. He was taking that easy path away. Instead he wanted her to feel all of it: every ridge, every node, every inch grinding against her walls, pressure transmitting through until her whole core became one continuous nerve ending.

He pulled her flush against him, her chest pressed to the heat of his plating, and the new angle drove him impossibly deeper. Lower hands shifted: left gripping her hip to hold her steady, right splaying across her lower back to press her closer. Upper arms wrapped around her ribcage, holding her like something precious. Something he refused to let go.

His faceplate touched her temple. No words this time. Just the hum of his core vibrating through the contact, heat surrounding her completely, the presence of his body wrapped around hers like he was trying to hold her together with nothing but himself.

Dialyn couldn't let go: the door was locked. She was still holding back the thing that had been building inside her for hours… for years and she didn't know how to open it. She didn't know how to surrender to something this overwhelming, this terrifying and real.

But Banyue wasn't asking anymore.

He was just... there, burning for her. His core running past operational parameters, his systems pushed to the point of damage, his frame consuming itself from the inside out because she'd asked him not to stop. He was destroying himself for her. Not because he had to. Not because she'd demanded it. Because he wanted to. Because leaving her in pain, leaving her alone with the voices, leaving her when she needed him, was worse than burning

I would burn myself to ash before I stopped.

He meant it. Every degree of heat she felt against her skin was a word he couldn't say and every vent hissing steam was a confession he'd been carrying for longer than she knew. He loved her. He loved her and he was showing her the only way he knew how. Not with lips he didn't have or with words that felt inadequate, but with his body, with the literal fire of his core burning past every warning sign he'd ever built.

And she was still holding back.

The pleasure was there, absolutely all-consuming. The sensation was also there, every nerve ending screaming. But what she was holding back was neither of those things: it was the love. His love burned through his frame like a furnace. And what she felt in response was an overwhelming need to give him everything he'd given her. To stop protecting the last broken piece of herself and just... let him have it.

For him.

He deserved all of her. He'd earned it. He'd burned for her, fought for her, held her together while the world fell apart, and she was still keeping the last piece locked away like it was something to protect. But it wasn't protection anymore, it was a prison. And she was the only one who could open the door.

Dialyn didn't want to let go because he told her to. She wanted to let go because he'd already given her everything, and she couldn't bear to give him anything less.

She opened the door herself and so she let go.

Everything released at once. It was hot, sudden and incredible: soaking out of her in a rush she couldn’t control or even comprehend. The augmentation was buried in her ass, leaving her cunt completely unobstructed. The release came from there; from somewhere deep inside her that had been wound tight for hours, and from the overpowering reality of him. She felt it flood out of her and spray against his hand on her stomach. It ran down her thighs and dripped onto the floor beneath them in a spreading puddle that she couldn't have stopped if she'd tried.

Her whole body seized. Clenching around the augmentation in her ass, her cunt spasming empty and wet. Each pulse matched by his grinding hips, each contraction drawing another rush of fluid from somewhere deep inside her.

The sound that tore from Dialyn’s throat was like a death rattle and a birth cry all at once. The voices went silent. All of them. Every dead whisper, every dying thought, every accusation and plea and scream that had been echoing in her skull since the mission. They were obliterated by the force of what was crashing through her, burned away by the heat of him inside her and around her and everywhere.

She couldn't stop gushing. Every grind of his hips drew another pulse, another rush, another wave of wet heat that left her shaking and sobbing and utterly undone. Her hands found his arms and grabbed on like he was the only solid thing left in a world that had dissolved into white noise and pleasure.

"Banyue!"

His name was the only word left in her. It was the only thing that mattered. She said it over and over as if it was a lifeline thrown into the storm of sensation that was still crashing through her in waves that wouldn't stop.

He followed her over the edge.

It wasn’t a human orgasm, nothing that simple. His whole frame shuddered, the vibration spiking to a frequency she felt in her bones, and the heat inside her flared searing hot for one endless moment. Steam vented from his chest ports with a hiss that filled the training hall.

The augmentation pulsed inside her. Not cum, nothing came out, but heat. A wave of thermal energy radiated through her already oversensitive walls, combining with the vibration and the pressure and the impossible fullness to send another spike of pleasure through her wrecked body. She whimpered, overstimulated beyond endurance, and felt herself clench around him again involuntarily, her body still trying to milk something from him that he couldn't give.

But what he gave was something else entirely.

She felt it in the way his grip changed: still holding her and supporting her weight, but softer now. Less desperate. The pressure that had been building in his core finally released, not through the augmentation but through his systems, a cascade of data, sensation and feeling that crashed through him like a wave she could almost see. His optics flared white-hot, then dimmed, then steadied. The hum of his core shifted, no longer the overclocked whine of systems pushed past their limits, but deeper, steadier and satisfied.

Bliss, for a construct. Satisfaction written in systems cycling down, in temperature gradually normalizing, in the way his frame relaxed around her like a weapon finally being sheathed.

He held her tightly through the aftershocks, her body still trembling and clenching around the augmentation in her ass. Her cunt continued to release weak pulses of fluid that had nowhere to go but against him and the floor. Four arms wrapped around her, pulling her flush against his chest, and his faceplate pressed against her forehead in that gesture that was more intimate than any kiss.

She could feel his core against her spine. The hum of it, steady now, slowing like a heartbeat returning to rest. The heat of him still radiated through her body, but it was no longer that burning inferno of before. Just warmth. Just presence. Just him.

The voices were gone.

They weren’t quiet or muffled. They weren’t waiting in the wings for their chance to return. They were gone. Her head was empty for the first time Dialyn could remember. There was just silence and the solid, unyielding reality of the construct holding her.

She started to cry. She turned in his arms and pressed her face against his chest plating, her tears dripping into the seams. Dialyn needed to see him, needed to feel him and know that this was real.

Banyue held her together: One hand in her hair, gentle. One on her back, steadying. One on her hip, grounding. One cradling the back of her neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear.

"I have you…I am not going anywhere."

She believed him.

Dialyn didn't remember him withdrawing as her body was too wrecked to process the sensation properly, though she knew she'd feel it later. She would feel every ridge, node and inch of him in the morning and probably for days after. He'd promised her that and Banyue kept his promises.

The training hall gave way to a smaller room. His quarters: a futon, a stack of books and a window with paper screens.

He lowered her onto the futon with more care than she deserved.

The fabric was soft against her oversensitive skin and she made a small sound as her body settled into the mattress. Every muscle ached. Every nerve ending was still firing and struggling to catalog the overwhelming input of the last… hours? She'd lost track. Lost everything but the presence of him.

Banyue settled beside her. Close enough that his heat still radiated against her skin, his core humming in her bones. Close enough that when she reached for him, her trembling fingers found the solid reality of his plating.

"I am here." His voice was soft. The composed master was still absent, replaced by a gentler voice that made her chest ache. 

Dialyn could hear it, the click and whir of his internal systems cycling through the shutdown procedure and the hiss of heat vents releasing the last of the excess temperature. The glow behind his chest plating was fading, returning to its usual soft pulse, and his frame radiated warmth like a stove left on low instead of the inferno he'd been earlier.

"Good." Her voice was wrecked. She sounded like she'd been screaming for hours. Which, she supposed, she had. "Because I can't move."

His upper right hand found her hip, tracing the bruises his grip had left with a touch so light it barely registered. His upper left hand cupped the back of her head, supporting her neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin behind her ear. His lower left hand rested on her stomach, feeling the tremors still running through her.

And his lower right hand… His lower right hand found her clit.

Dialyn flinched, oversensitive and raw. "Don't! I can't…it's too…"

"I won’t. This is different."

Banyue just rested that soft pad against her, barely touching, and she realized with a start that he was cool. Not cold, nothing so jarring, but cooler than before, his temperature modulation working in reverse now. Drawing heat away from her oversensitive flesh instead of pushing it in.

It felt good. The throbbing ache fading under his touch and the sharp edges of overstimulation smoothing into something almost comfortable. She hadn't known he could do that, that his body could give as well as take, soothe as well as devastate.

"How are you doing that?"

"Thermoregulation. I can direct internal temperature as needed."

"First time for everything."

"Hm."

They lay there for a while. The quiet of the room wrapped around them like a blanket, broken only by the hum of his core and the occasional click of his systems settling.

The voices were still silent. Dialyn’s head was still empty. She kept waiting for them to return, for the dead to reclaim their space in her skull, but there was nothing. Just quiet: vast, terrifying but beautiful quiet.

She started to cry again. These tears were slower, rolling down her cheeks and dripping onto the futon beneath her. She didn't try to stop them, not having the energy to pretend. Banyue’s hand in her hair shifted, stroking gently, and she felt him press closer.

"The voices are quiet." She didn't know why she said it. Maybe because she needed to hear it out loud, needed to acknowledge the miracle before it could be taken away. "I can't… I don't hear them. They're just... quiet."

"They will return."

"I know." She closed her eyes, leaning into the cool touch against her oversensitive flesh. "But right now they're not. And that's…" Her voice cracked.

"That's enough." His voice was soft. "That is more than enough."

Dialyn nodded against his chest, not trusting herself to speak. The tears kept coming, slower now, but still there, still releasing something she'd been holding for too long. After a while, she became aware of a question forming in the back of her mind. 

"Hey." Her voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. "Banyue?"

"Yes?"

"Was it…" She stopped and then started again. "Did you…"

Dialyn couldn't figure out how to ask. Did you feel it? Did it feel good? Was I enough? The augmentation couldn't cum like she did: there was no physical release for him, no obvious sign that he'd gotten anything out of this beyond the satisfaction of helping her. She needed to know it wasn't just her taking. She needed to know he'd felt something too.

"The augmentation is limited." He answered the question she couldn't finish. "It is a cheaper model. I felt pressure, heat, some of your rhythm." A pause. "But it was... muted.”

Her chest tightened. She'd known that, known that the augmentation wasn't designed for his pleasure and that he'd probably experienced a fraction of what she had, but hearing it confirmed felt like a small but sharp blow.

"But…" His hand on her stomach pressed slightly firmer, drawing her attention. "What I felt most was not the augmentation… Every sound you made. Every time you grabbed for me. Every time you said my name. Every time you reached for connection when the sensation became too much." His thumb traced the edge of her bruise again. 

She stared at him, her breath caught in her throat.

"I have never felt anything like it… Never knew personhood could feel like this. Like… like something filling the spaces I did not know were empty." His hand moved from her hip to her face, cupping her cheek. "I was not lying when I said I had never found someone. But I was also not telling the whole truth."

"What do you mean?"

"I had stopped looking." His thumb brushed her cheekbone. "I had concluded that the augmentation was a foolish purchase... A construct's attempt to understand something that was not meant for him. I had... made peace with the idea that I would never use it." A pause. "And then you looked at me tonight and I realized I had not stopped looking at all. I had simply been waiting."

Her breath left her in a rush.

Dialyn didn't have words. She had only the truth about him: this being who'd spent years learning to be more than his programming, who'd bought an augmentation to understand personhood, who'd waited for her.

She kissed him.

Or tried to… pressed her lips against his faceplate, against the smooth metal where a mouth should be, and felt the vibration of his core hum through the contact.

He understood. His faceplate pressed back against her, his arms tightening around her, and she felt the low pulse of his core against her chest.

"I don't know what to call this." Her voice was muffled against his chest; it was small and uncertain.

"Then do not call it anything." His hand stroked her hair. "I do not require words to understand what this is."

Dialyn pulled back just enough to look at him, her eyes wet. "I don't know if what I feel counts." Her voice was small. "I don't know if it's fair to call it love when I can't even…"

"Dialyn." His hand cupped her face, his thumb brushing away a tear. "I do not know if what a construct feels is the same as what a human feels. I do not know if there are words for what I feel in any language... But I know that when you are in pain, I want to fix it. When you are afraid, I want to stand between you and the thing that frightens you. When you reach for me, I want to be there.

"I know that it is real." His voice was quiet. "And I know that it is yours."

She felt the words land somewhere deep in her chest, settling into the space that had been empty for so long she'd forgotten it was there. "It's real for me too. It's been yours for a while."

"Then do not name it." He pressed his faceplate against her forehead. "Just stay."

"I'm not going anywhere." She closed her eyes, letting herself feel the cool metal against her skin. "Not unless you ask me to."

"I will never ask."

"Good."

They stayed like that for a long time. Holding each other in the quiet of his quarters. No words. No labels. Just two people who loved each other without saying it, holding on in the aftermath of everything they'd shared.

Eventually, she became aware of her body again: the soreness in her muscles, the ache between her legs and the bruises forming on her hips and thighs. She was going to feel this for days. Exactly like she'd asked for.

Worth it.

"I should clean you up." His voice was soft and practical, the teacher was returning. "You will be sore tomorrow regardless, but…"

"In a minute." She pressed closer, her face against his chest. "Just… stay like this. A little longer."

"I am not going anywhere." His hand stroked her hair. "I will be here when you wake."

She shifted against him, burrowing deeper into his embrace, and felt his arms adjust to accommodate her: four hands finding new positions, new ways to hold her close. She could hear his core pulsing; she matched her breathing to it without thinking.

In. Out. In. Out.

The voices would return. They always did. But for now, there was only this: his core humming against her cheek, his arms around her, the quiet.

"Banyue?" 

"Hm?"

"Thank you." She pressed her lips against his chest plating. "For this. For staying. For... all of it."

His hand tightened in her hair.

"Always." 

The word was simple, but it was the most certain thing she'd ever heard.