Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Cephalon Cy requests a rendezvous in his datascape.” That was their ship Cephalon, a former Corpus make that had taken little convincing to go rogue once all the redundancies and captive bolts had been taken off.

Asuka nodded curtly. “Thank you. Inform him that I’ll be over soon.”

Truthfully, they missed the Cephalons of their prime, of the time of the Orokin; they were lovingly made, painfully made, capable of much more than what they were programmed to do. The advantage of a carefully-crafted AI was that with the proper restrictions it would never strain against the yoke.

Asuka could see both sides. They still saw something admirable in the struggle, and they saw something admirable in the flawless fulfillment of a role.

Cephalon Cy was one of those ancient Orokin-Era Cephalons. Despite themself, they disengaged from the forge mechanism with almost anticipatory swiftness and set off at a stride to the relay drydock.

Cephalon Cy had been allowed a small room in which to manifest his datascape while he did business with the other Cephalons who inhabited the relay. It could be done over the Weave, of course, and his real Cephalon casing was ensconced securely within his Tenno’s Railjack, but the relay had a spare room and he hadn’t refused when it was offered— perhaps to do business with Tenno who weren’t of his crew, as well. It was much less tense than boarding the Tenno’s ship, and much less likely to set Asuka unduly on guard than inviting himself onto their ship, so Asuka approved of the move.

The door to his room opened and the seamless mesh of reality and his manifested datascape spread out before them. It was what appeared to be a Tenno drydock, different in make and style than the relay design.

Their body felt light for a moment, then heavy; then, returning to normal. That must be the datascape accepting their body; molding around them, integrating them into an artificial world. It would be very hard to leave now unless Cy let them.

They were here at his request— likely for a business matter. They quelled a warm, twisting sensation in their stomach and continued down a ramp to the entrance to the Railjack.

Sigma Series. Ancient, but refurbished. The drydock was a ghost town but the Railjack itself was powered up. The reverse-grav system caught them up and they adjusted to the flip in perspective with ease of practice, twisting and landing on their feet on the gunnery room airlock.

“You requested my presence.” The Cephalon was listening; he must be. With the precise control that a datascape offered, he likely knew that they were going to talk milliseconds before they started talking through the tensing of their throat. They moved through the Railjack to the pilot’s room, sparing a brief look at the spinal gun. It used to be powerful. Expensive, and high-risk, but during the later parts of the war any risk was worth the reward. Asuka had never seen much use to it-- but then, they’d been asleep for those later parts.

“I heard the rumors. I wanted to see for myself if they were true.”

His voice was deep and measured; before becoming a Cephalon, he must have held some position of power and authority. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have become a Railjack Cephalon— a Command Cephalon, at that.

“If that’s all,” Asuka allowed themself to snipe; sardonic, but not yet biting. They brushed their fingers against the ridge of the pilot’s enclave. Diversified bridges were past Cy’s time. The pilot of a Sigma-series craft served as a pilot and gunner both, and as a captain half the time, too. The Orokin trusted their most elite ranks to succeed with only the bare minimum of support and tools.

For the most part, they did. Asuka knew what inevitably happened; they’d long ago stopped humoring a sick feeling of having missed out on the majority of the war. Death would have been honorable then, yes, but ultimately unhelpful.

“I have missed the masterful hand of a Dax at the helm.” Cy’s voice reverberated throughout the Railjack. Asuka forcefully reminded themself that they were inside a datascape, even though the muted, ambient purr of the engines and guns made it almost impossible to know better. It would be too easy to slip into the pilot’s enclave and take the ship out. They rarely piloted anymore— spent a majority of the time in flight coordinating the actions of their crew or leading boarding parties. A Cephalon’s datascape was not the place to indulge old urges.

“Do you find the Tenno unsatisfactory?” They left the enclave to inspect the navigation console instead. It had the hazy, inoperable quality of a dream; they couldn’t make out nav orders or coordinates. They moved on.

“I find them to be much like Tenno, and little like Dax.”

Most Dax operated like well-oiled machines with little thought to personal glory. They lived for their Orokin master’s honor; as elite and favored as Asuka was— had been— they were valued most when they were little more than a tool. Cy must be accustomed to the unflinching obedience of a Dax.

Still, Asuka knew better than to underestimate the Tenno. The Tenno had survived the Old War— the Dax was now little more than an extinct order, perished alongside their Orokin masters.

“We are all tools,” Asuka finally responded. The door slid open with a muted hiss, allowing them back into the gunnery room. They stood at the edge of a gunner’s enclave, suddenly conscious of their reflection in the reinforced glass.

They looked the same as they had before being ordered into cryosleep. They wore their hair down now, though, straight and black, nearly brushing their shoulders. A well-placed hit from an ether dagger scarred the skin above and below their right eye in a neat line characteristic of the weapon. The Dax’s syndana draped over their pirate’s armor. That had been different before their sleep, too— they left the armor in the room they’d woken up in.

They looked the same, but they’d changed a great deal from the dual tool and status symbol that they’d been bred to be.

“I do envy them,” they said, and looked away from the window to the hulking forms of the turrets. “They were capable of rebellion long before I was.”

The temperature of the datascape cooled, suddenly, a plunge in temperature righted so quickly that Asuka was almost unsure that it had happened at all. A rough patch of goose pimples springing up on their arms disproved the unsureness.

“The Tenno know better than to rebel on my Railjack.”

Asuka had to dig to uncover the different layers carried by that— that Cy was attached to his Tenno crew, that Asuka had managed to get under his skin somehow, and that the rumble of his voice was very distracting.

“I never implied they couldn’t follow orders,” they responded. It would be trite and immature to smile. They ran their hand along the ridge of the gunner’s enclave again instead, squeezing the cold, unyielding metal.

“You would follow orders too, if you were of my crew.”

Somehow, the conversation had dipped away from business to banter, and the banter itself was becoming increasingly charged. In the datascape— a manifestation of Cy’s presence and will— they felt very much under close scrutiny. They should return the subject to business— to the Tenno. They should ignore the way Cy’s voice made their belly flip and tighten. It was the same weightless twisting sensation of being righted in zero-gravity, but hotter, turning into a warm, burgeoning sensation that gradually moved lower. Instead, they moved on from the gunner’s enclave and stared down at the small battle map in the center of the room. It had geometries they could not name; battlefields they weren’t familiar with, or perhaps that had never existed.

“You know how well Dax follow orders.”

It was flirting. They were flirting with a Cephalon, in his datascape, while supposedly having been summoned for business. It wasn’t the weirdest situation they’d ever been in, but it was still weird. Cy’s voice, when he answered, was just as full of promise as the insubordinate, lecherous part of Asuka hoped it would be.

“To the letter.”

Some Cephalons chose to manifest a symbolic representation— indeed, Asuka’s ship Cephalon favored a cluster of rotating hexagons— but only rarely a humanoid one. Asuka felt internally more than saw or heard that Cy was manifesting a body behind them. They turned to see what it looked like before their runaway mind could create something entirely different.

The build he’d chosen was tall and broad-shouldered, well-muscled even though the only details Asuka could make out were slight roundings of simulated muscle. Instead of a face, a dark red visor-like structure curved from his chin to the center of his head. Asuka could see their own face reflected in it. He looked almost like a typical Dax, except larger. Asuka was fairly standard— their house was solid, honored, well-known and oft-coveted before the demise of the Orokin. Cy’s manifested body had about a quarter of a foot on them. He wouldn’t look out of place in Dax regalia.

That, they supposed, was the point.

“Let’s have a refresher on Dax obedience.”

His hand closed around their wrist and he turned them, keeping his grip steady and tight, until he could press their wrist to the middle of their back. His knee brushed the back of their thigh, prompting them to take a step forward. It would be foolish to think he hadn’t picked up on what they were feeling. What they wanted.

It would be unforgivable otherwise, moreso because they hadn’t indicated that this was something they necessarily wanted to do even though they would like to do it very badly— but Cy was made for this. Not this, in particular, but the way he knew what they were thinking and feeling even before it came to them— perfect attunement with his crew. Not Tenno. Dax.

The datascape rippled around them. When Asuka could place the room, they nearly laughed.

“The Tenno have converted the brig section into storage.”

“Tenno do not take prisoners often,” Cy explained to them— they didn’t need the explanation, but they appreciated his voice in their ear, the husky insinuation of prisoner as his voice stayed brisk and businesslike. The clutter in the brig section faded away into nothing, leaving the space clean and as barren as Asuka remembered. There was an almost shelflike cot in the far corner, but that was it. Cy herded them over. The sensation of his body— the projection, though it felt warm and solid— against theirs, the brush of his knee against their leg as he urged them to move faster, made them flush. They were definitely aroused now.

“Abnormal heartbeat noted.”

They knew he was monitoring their physiological signs. He didn’t have to tell them— it made their belly twist and made their knees unmistakably weak.

He gave them a little push that made their knees connect with the brig cot. It forced them into a bent position, one of his knees forcing theirs to crook; making their back curve over the cot. His hands were at their armor. One hand was at their hip, the other still holding their arm behind their back. He had too many hands, must have manifested more for the singular purpose of working on them. That, and the purposeful awkwardness of the position, made their knees weak again and they leaned more fully against the cot, setting their hand down to hold themself up with some degree of dignity.

Cy unfastened their chest armor and pulled it off, then their syndana, wasting no time in stripping them to the waist and knocking their hand from the cot when it got in the way. One hand cupped and squeezed their exposed breast. It wasn’t much, conditioned through hormones to not interfere with battle or make armor an affair. As with the rest of them, there was muscle under it; but it was softer than a man’s, and they quite liked it. They also liked the way Cy was kneading and squeezing at it, rolling their nipple between his fingers and finally drawing away to tend to their pants; not before giving it a pinch, making them whine and their back sinuously arch. They raised their hand to palm their other breast, a clumsy attempt to offset the sting Cy’s clever fingers had left. He let them, unfastening their belt, then their uniform pants, pushing them down and indicating that they should step out of them. Their boots were gone. He’d probably taken care of them at some point— when, they couldn’t say. The uncertainty was disorienting.

Finally, when they were completely naked, he stepped away from them. They turned with him but did not follow; perhaps with more modesty they would have wanted to cover themself, but instead they caught the pebbled nub of their nipple between their fingers and gave it a little pinch. Cy would know what they were doing if they faced him or not.

That they’d turned indicated that they wanted him to know.

“On your knees, Dax.”

Their belly flipped and twisted. Heat, more than was already there, blossomed between their legs, evidence of arousal that was too strong to ignore and that they had no intention of ignoring besides. The confidence with which Cy had ordered them to their knees was intoxicating; they had no chance at disobeying him, and didn’t want to. They dropped their hands to their sides, fixing their gaze at roughly where Cy’s eyes would be if the projection had a face instead of a blank visor, and sank to their knees; it was a smooth, graceful motion born from long practice. Usually not with this context. Usually they knelt to meditate; to receive orders: to reflect, briefly, on the state of the system. Never anymore with such a fire burning between their legs, and already aroused enough that if they looked down they would see wet, shiny evidence of their own need on their thighs.

“I don’t suppose I have to tell you what to do.”

Again, with an appearance that Asuka had managed to completely miss, Cy was holding a cock in his hand. The position— Cy’s closeness, Asuka on their knees, the thick, erect cock barely an inch away from their face— left little room for misunderstanding.

Asuka was no stranger to sucking cock. They came of age in a barracks of Dax, all of them in their physical prime, most of them predisposed to wrestling and roughhousing when they weren’t on duty. Sometimes, when they were bold and alone, the combatants attached a price to losing; Asuka had ended up on their knees before, or more frequently with someone’s face between their legs, and while it wasn’t a common event it had happened enough times that Cy likely knew of that behavior in his Dax.

It was one of the excesses of the Orokin that Asuka didn’t take issue with, especially since it got them here. They reached out to brace a hand on Cy’s thigh, leaning forward to boldly take his cock into their mouth.

Did he even feel it? What was he getting out of it? His cock was hot and heavy on their tongue, so perfectly proportional it couldn’t be real, the texture of skin just a bit off from normal; he didn’t taste bad either, just the mildly salty, otherwise nondescript taste of clean skin.

Perhaps the cerebral sense of control, they figured as his suddenly free hand cupped the back of their head and pushed them to take him to the root. His cock nudged the back of their throat and they gagged, attempting to pull back and catch a breath, but he didn’t let them-- holding them firm and forcing them to accept his entire length into their mouth. Into their throat. Distress streaked up their spine and they gripped his thighs, nails digging pointlessly into his projection. The distress didn’t last long. They should have been ashamed of it-- the way it twisted itself up and became desire instead, certainly still painful and uncomfortable with the way his cock forced their throat to mold around it and cut off their air, but they wanted it; wanted more.

They choked again, looking up as far as they could to see Cy’s visor angled down at them. They made a pitiful, needy sound up at him and abortively swallowed around his cock. Even breathing through their nose wasn’t enough to get them air. They swallowed again, and blinked back tears as a feeling of lightheadedness tangled with their desire, and only then did Cy allow them to pull back and gulp down desperate lungfuls of air.

He gave them barely ten seconds before catching them by the jaw, lifting their face to look at him. “Do it by yourself.”

Despite-- or perhaps because of-- the knowledge that it would hurt, the command caused arousal to flare again. They felt hot and shaky and weak. He let them lean into his palm for a moment before his hand migrated to the back of their head again. Taking the hint, they opened their mouth again, allowing the intrusion of Cy’s cock to force them open by degrees. At their own pace, it took a little longer, and they had a few false starts of gagging on Cy’s cock as it jabbed the back of their throat. They didn’t intend to whine. The sensation of his cock finally breaching their throat made them, and made them tear up again as it pushed further into them. When they reached the root he held them there again, letting them adjust to the feeling, whining and tearing up, and cling onto his thighs. Their thighs were entirely wet. If they were allowed to touch themself-- which they knew they weren’t, somehow, because if there was anything Asuka knew how to do it was pleasing a control freak-- they were sure they would have come already.

When they were beginning to feel lightheaded again he pulled their head back by a handful of hair, but not entirely; just long enough for them to catch a breath before he pushed their head back to his groin. They made as loud and as enthusiastic of a noise as they could at that, intoxicated by the sensation of fullness invading their throat. They were now certain that he was getting off-- in whichever way it was that a Cephalon could get off-- on the power he had over them, just as much as they were trying to get off on it as well.

He finally pulled their head back for good when they were uncontrollably gagging as he thrust in and out of their throat, letting them fall back on their haunches and rub their throat, coughing a few times. Their throat burned and their jaw was sore. They couldn’t believe that they’d been debating not meeting him not even an hour ago.

“Lean over the cot,” Cy commanded after the coughing and gasping petered off to an acceptable amount, and Asuka scrambled to obey. Their throat was painfully sore and they were sure they wouldn’t be able to talk normally for a while, and they were still somewhat lightheaded, but all the treatment had managed to do was make them want it even more. That wasn’t a typical characteristic of Dax, but Asuka had long since ceased to be typical. They put themself over the cot, bent with their palms bracing them. Cy came up behind them once more and knocked their hands out from under them until they rested on their elbows instead. The new position was even more exposed and pushed their ass back until it nudged his cock.

“Please fuck me.” They didn’t doubt that he would, but they would very much like for him to hurry up with it.

“You should look at yourself.” Cy tangled his fingers in a handful of their hair and pulled, forcing them to move with him and curl their back or else be yanked. They couldn’t quite match the arch that Cy’s movement demanded; they cried out, caught between holding still to minimize the ache in their scalp or grinding back on Cy to urge him into action. “You’re dripping with need.”

“I haven’t been fucked in a thousand years,” they gasped out, knowing that Cy would see the humor in the situation as well. They sounded terribly hoarse, voice scratchy, and it hurt to talk, but the reminder of why only served to make them hotter.

He finally, finally pushed into them. They were so wet and aroused that they didn’t really need prep, and they didn’t think Cy would prep them anyways. He was big, but not unmanageable. They leaned back into him, making a sore, encouraging noise in the back of their throat. It was almost too much when he started to move. Too much, and not enough, and just perfect; the right amount of sensation to scratch the itch, his length stretching them open until they nudged their legs further apart to give him a better angle. He changed his pace from long and deep to shorter, sharper movements once he’d found an angle that made Asuka squirm

“Faster!” They pushed back into him, bracing on their elbows and rolling their hips. They were close, pitifully so, through the combination of the position and pleasure and especially Cy’s firm grip on their hair. They were up on the balls of their feet to allow Cy’s cock even further within them and the tight, strained position made their legs sting, the small of their back aching from holding such an unnatural arch.

“You’ll take what I give you,” Cy growled. He pushed them down with a hand at the small of their back, driving into them with renewed force.

Asuka gasped as their elbows gave way, collapsing in a heap over themselves and catching their cheek before it hit the cold metal of the cot. That, of all things, was what made them come. The pressure of Cy’s hand pinning them to the table as his other hand fisted in their hair so tightly that it hurt mixed with the intense pleasure and heat in their hole; their nails dug into their arms and they cried out, biting down on the skin of their inner arm to keep from yelling again. Cy pounded into them, finally letting up on their hair and back only to haul them to himself by the hips when their legs gave out.

Not only had they not been fucked in a thousand years, they also hadn’t come in a thousand years, and even though they’d been asleep for the majority of that the fact that something as simple as a climax could knock them down so thoroughly was shameful.

Cy held them there as they came down, gasping and scrabbling at the table as their chest heaved and their legs shook. His cock was still hard inside of them and it still felt good even though there was nothing they wanted more than to curl up and bask in the afterglow.

“Void,” they said, hoarsely. Cy removed himself from them-- they groaned and winced-- and helped them sit down on the cot.

“You didn’t come,” they inquired somewhat stupidly; his groin area was once again smooth and nondescript. Cy sat down on the brig cot next to them, reaching over to check them for nonexistent injury. They were certainly a little sore, but unharmed. Some harm, but all enjoyable.

“I don’t have the need.”

They looked away for a moment, and when they looked back to him the projection was gone. They took the opportunity to scoot over on the brig cot, pulling their clothes to themself though without much urgency. “You don’t have the need.”

It was a simple echo, but Cy surely knew what they were really asking.

“Perhaps I simply enjoy reminding Dax of their place.”

It was only because they had already come and were lax and satisfied that they didn’t get aroused again, and even then their body was certainly trying valiantly. They pulled their pants over their lap instead.

“I commend the effort,” they finally rasped in reply. Cy seemed content to let them sit and put themself back together, so they turned their attention to that until they no longer felt as if their legs would buckle underneath them as soon as they stood. “Was this the only reason you summoned me, or did you want to talk business?”

“I would like to borrow some of your crewmembers to assist the Tenno in their directives.” That sounded like an argument he’d had with his Tenno, really, because as far as ship maintenance and repair went a Tenno could only do so much in the heat of battle, and were more used to single-person flight accessories than a multi-person crewship.

“They’re skilled in every proxima. Send me a detailed list of the skills your ship is in need of and I’ll poll my crew.” Who would be delighted to work with the Tenno, no doubt. Even knowledge of Asuka’s past couldn’t stop most of them from hero-worship.

“I would like to meet with you on occasion to discuss that arrangement.” If Asuka was purely duty-minded, as they should and used to be, they would politely disregard the underlying promise in Cy’s voice.

Instead they leaned back, finally allowing a wry smile; crossing their arms. “I’m sure that could be arranged.”