Work Text:
When Gurathin returned to the cargo room a few cycles later with Dr. Mensah in tow, I had to stand up and face the wall on the other side of the room about it.
I was pissed off. I had been so sure he would conveniently forget about his arrangement with Mensah when next he got the urge to visit. I wasn't entirely wrong since he hadn't even fetched her—they'd run into each other in the corridors and he'd pulled a face, and Mensah figured out where he was going based on that alone because she's kind of amazing like that, and offered to come with him. And he could have lied or told her he'd changed his mind but instead he just looked a bit miserable and shifty and said, "Okay." And that was that.
And clearly he was waiting for me to be the one to back out and ask her to leave which, fuck you. I would gladly suffer, knowing that he was also about to reap the consequences of his own actions.
(If it had been anyone other than Mensah, I would have left the room already.)
When it became clear that I wasn't going to ask her to leave, or do anything else helpful, Gurathin rolled his eyes and stalked into the room, hunched over with his arms wrapped around himself. Mensah followed behind him.
"SecUnit?" she called out. "Is it still okay if I sit in on… this?"
My performance reliability dropped rapidly with every response I considered to that. Had Gurathin even told her about what we'd been doing? I hadn't.
"How about I just… sit here out of the way and you can pretend I'm not here?" she suggested, perching on one of the crates by the wall. Yeah, that wasn't at all how that worked, since I could see her through two different camera angles even while facing the wall, but it was nice of her, I guess. Sure. We could pretend that was what was happening.
Gurathin took another step into the room towards me, looking even more annoyed. "Look, we can just call it off if you—"
"Dr. Gurathin." I didn't let him finish that sentence. "Get on your knees."
With a soft "oh" sound, he did just that. It was almost immediate, as if his legs had given way beneath him, though his landing was controlled enough to show otherwise. His eyes fluttered shut. Over on the crate by the wall, Dr. Mensah raised a hand to her mouth in surprise, though thankfully she didn't say anything. The fact that this wasn't so shocking that she felt compelled to stop us immediately restored some of my performance reliability.
"Arms by your sides," I added. It took a few seconds longer for him to bring himself to do that, but he managed. Because I'd told him to. I let myself enjoy that a little. He exhaled slowly as he willed himself to relax, sitting back against his heels. Good. I'd need him like that to—ah. I'd fucked up.
I'd meant to go retrieve the tie-down straps from their cubby next, but I realised that the location Gurathin had happened to be standing—now kneeling—was right in front of it. I mean, sure, I could still get into it, it would just involve needing to manoeuvre around him and maybe nudging him out of the way a little. But it would just make it obvious I didn't know what I was doing.
Thankfully, an idea came to me before anyone noticed.
"Dr. Gurathin, retrieve the contents of Compartment 52-B."
Okay, great. That solved the problem, and as a bonus I got to watch through my cameras as Gurathin's eyes flicked open and glanced over to the storage labels of the compartments beside him, identifying the correct one and pulling out the tie-down straps, as well as two long pieces of sturdy but slightly softer white cloth and two carabiner clips. (Look, I have a lot of spare time. I do spend most of it watching media but I'd had plenty of processing space to review the past instances of… whatever this was, and if it was going to keep happening I might as well make adjustments. For efficiency.) He placed them neatly in front of him, then sat back in the posture he'd taken before.
I had to spend a few seconds processing the melty sort of thing that my insides were doing. It was like the opposite of a governor module in every conceivable way—instead of receiving brain-frying punishment for failing to perfectly execute an order someone had given me, it was like getting a reward (somewhere in my abdomen? I don't know) for someone else executing an order I'd given and doing so quickly and neatly and without complaint.
Gurathin's eyes dropped to the floor as he awaited my next instruction, though I noticed his head twitch to the side a couple of times in an aborted movement. I knew he was resisting the temptation to look back over his shoulder to where Mensah was sitting.
"You seem distracted," I said, finally turning around to face him. "Let me assist with that."
He had just enough time to look nervous before I took up one of the pieces of cloth and fastened it over his eyes. He made a muffled sound I couldn't quite parse, like he'd been about to say something and choked it down.
"Something to add?" I asked.
"No, SecUnit."
"Thought not." I took the second piece of cloth and gagged him with it. Gurathin made a soft whining noise around it and his head lolled forwards. I grabbed his hair and pulled it back upright again so I could see it better. Oh yes, this looked way neater than when I'd been doing everything with a single tie-down strap, and as a bonus it looked a lot more like how this sort of thing was portrayed in media. (Dr. Mensah's eyes had gone very wide, and I decided not to think about what that meant right then.) I finished the job with the orange webbing, binding his arms to his torso while he obediently continued to kneel and kept his head upright.
When I was done, I got back up and reached for the final component of my new and improved set-up—one of a pair of simple metal folding chairs I'd borrowed from one of the labs. I opened it and set it down on the floor with a loud clang, the feet of it scraping harshly across the hard surface. It was a sudden and unpleasant noise and it had the exact effect that I was hoping for—Gurathin flinched violently, his heartbeat beginning to race in a kind of terror. (He didn't attempt to escape or ask me what was happening, just tapped my feed. I tapped back. My risk assessment module, which was beginning to complain, shut up again.)
I stood in front of him and admired my handiwork. Bound and blinded, Gurathin's head twitched from side to side as if trying in vain to catch a glimpse of his surroundings. His breathing was rapid and shallow, and his brow was beginning to develop a shiny sheen. It was like that bit in Strife In The Galaxy when the rebel technician gets kidnapped (and then gets tortured by the secret council before being rescued by xer heroic pet bot but that's not important)—but this was actually somewhat convincing. In fact, this might be about as perfect a representation of a human in distress that I could get without actually having a human in distress, outside of fictional media. And unlike the implausible, badly-written mess that was Strife In The Galaxy, I could decide for myself how it played out.
I gave Gurathin a few seconds, just enough for his heart rate to come down slightly, and then I jammed my hands into the straps and hauled him bodily into the chair. He groaned around his gag, more out of a renewed adrenaline spike than any pain, I assumed, since I'd not put him down with enough force to actually hurt him.
It was only then that I realised that his was not the only elevated heart rate in the room. Only moments later, Mensah dropped into our shared local feed. Are you two in communication with each other? she asked. Even in the feed, her voice was that deliberate, heavy calm of hers when she was keeping a lot of emotion under very tight control. Oh crap.
Gurathin was the one to respond before I could freeze up in panic. Yes, Dr. Mensah, he answered, sounding surprisingly clear-headed. Apologies, we'll include you in our feed communication. Good save.
"Dr. Gurathin, repeat your check-in for Dr. Mensah's benefit," I ordered him. We're so fucking good at lying.
I didn't need to see beneath his blindfold to know that he was rolling his eyes at me, but he complied. I'm fine. This is a lot more comfortable than last time.
Okay. Um. Please continue then. Mensah still didn't sound entirely comfortable herself, but she relaxed and sat back a bit, her eyebrows tense in thought.
On the one hand this was good—I was more interested in Gurathin looking like he was suffering than actually being uncomfortable, and I was pleased that my modifications to the scenario were working as intended. On the other hand, they may have been working too well, as I was becoming acutely aware of physical reactions from Gurathin's body that he had previously told me were involuntary and meaningless, but were nonetheless causing my performance reliability to tank.
I opened up a separate, private feed conversation between the two of us. Mensah wanted us to communicate? Fine, but this particular exchange would not be going beyond me and Gurathin.
You appear to be in a state of… Oh, gross, why the fuck was this so hard to say? …arousal.
Yeah, no shit. Well, good to know that Gurathin was still his charming self. It's okay. Ignore it. Just, don't acknowledge it. Please. He sounded almost afraid. I wondered if the presence of Mensah in the room was complicating things for him. It wasn't bothering me so much except for the general sense that my performance was being evaluated, but I felt like I was doing an okay job at whatever I was doing so far. It was probably weirder for Gurathin with all of his messy human feelings. He just seemed so vulnerable all of a sudden, more than he'd appeared before, even once I'd tied him up.
Literally nothing would make me happier than ignoring that, I told him. He snorted, and we both relaxed.
"…I'm glad you're comfortable," I said aloud.
…thank you.
Okay. Anyway. I'd been in the middle of something, and the awkward communication stuff was finally over, so back to it. I picked up the last two items remaining on the floor where Gurathin had placed them, the two carabiner clips. Gurathin's head was tilted slightly like he was listening to try and figure out what I was doing. He'd find out soon enough. I threaded the clips onto the tie-down straps and fastened him to the metal chair, each snapping into place with a loud metallic sound.
"Now you can't go anywhere," I told him. "Just try wandering off and getting into trouble like that."
Because Gurathin's an asshole, he took that as his cue to immediately attempt to stand up, lifting the chair behind him. I easily pushed him back down with a single hand, and put that hand around his throat for good measure. Good point, well made, he said, his voice all wobbly in the feed. He went still and tilted his head back very slightly, as if to give me better access. I kept my hand there with enough pressure for him to really feel it, without cutting off circulation or airflow, while I had to circle back and figure out the latest wave of weird feeling that was happening to me.
So, it turns out that not only do I like it when humans follow my orders, I also like it when they don't but I can make them, and they give up and let me.
It didn't take long for several parts of me to very rapidly go from liking that a lot to hating it, actually. My risk assessment module definitely didn't like it. I made myself feel better by imagining how freaked out the governor module would be if I hadn't borked it. I reminded myself that it was okay if I was liking it because Gurathin certainly seemed to. His face, usually so tense and scrunched up, had gone slack and relaxed, and he seemed to be returning to the state I had nicknamed endorphin soup. Maybe it was kind of fucked up that he was liking it, since there was a SecUnit gripping his throat, but he did. And I liked this. So what parts of me were liking it? The extra fucked-up parts? I felt my performance reliability creeping back down another percentage point.
The fact that I didn't know what I was doing was starting to become very obvious with Mensah in the room. And I could see through my cameras that she was getting uncomfortable again.
"SecUnit, could you check in please?" she asked. "Just for my own peace of mind." I realised I'd just been standing there, hand around his throat, saying nothing, for about 40 seconds. At least Gurathin didn't seem to mind. He seemed pretty blissed out.
"He's fine," I said.
"I'm asking about you, please."
"I'm… fine," I replied. "I was processing…" I noticed Gurathin twitch a bit more into alertness which, no, he was supposed to be relaxed right now. "Shh, not you, stay there," I told him, squeezing very gently to emphasise my point. He went, if anything, even more limp.
I opened a private conversation with Mensah. I was processing my own reaction to Dr. Gurathin attempting to escape, and me stopping him. I think I didn't like that. Or maybe, I didn't like that I did like it. I don't really know what I'm doing.
Um, that's okay, Mensah replied. Even in the feed, she sounded a lot more stressed than she had before. But I think… this is making me nervous. This is the sort of thing where it's best to know what you're doing before you do it. Her heart rate was significantly elevated—not so bad to be the onset of a panic attack, but I realised very suddenly that I hadn't really been thinking of her as a real participant in this. I was forced to now as she continued to speak. We never did have that conversation about whether you'd ever hurt a client when you first, um… She gestured at Gurathin, and my hand still on his neck.
Oh. Yeah, okay, I could see how this looked to her. I let him go.
He's fine. He likes it. I tried not to sound too sulky. I was really tempted to tell her that I didn't even hurt him the first time, just scared him, but I was good and didn't do that because I knew it wouldn't help. Even so, she didn't look very convinced.
"Dr. Gurathin, say what you said to me last time. Tell Dr. Mensah what you get out of this." I reached around his head and pulled the gag from his mouth.
Gurathin's voice was soft and murmury as he obeyed. "I want to feel safe."
My insides went melty again, and it felt as if his words grabbed something in the core of my being, tapping into the very purpose I was created for. I took up the second folding chair and set it down far gentler than I had the first, positioning myself on it so I was very close to his ear as I reached out for every input I could access and spoke.
"The external seals to this controlled environment are holding at full integrity. The atmosphere is at an ideal composition of 21% oxygen, 78% nitrogen, and 1% trace other gases with no aerosol intoxicants present, maintained at 0.98 standard atmospheres pressure. Life support systems are operating at nominal capacity with full redundancy. The internal feed is secure and under the protection of high-tier industry standard firewalls with custom modifications that I made personally. All team members are present and accounted for within the bounds of the perimeter and there are no intruders or uninvited guests. Inside this room, feed space and conversations are further secured with additional privacy walls. There is one other life form present aside from us, benign." (There was a very minor stress response to the way I'd worded that. Oops.) "The life form is Dr. Mensah," I clarified.
"I know it's Mensah," came Gurathin's response, too gooey to be truly annoyed. Mensah pursed her lips very hard.
I continued. "You are restrained and unable to harm yourself or others. You are being watched over by a trusted friend. And there is a SecUnit in close proximity whose current primary objective is your safety and well-being. You are safe, Gurathin."
"Thank you," he croaked, his mouth pursing into a wobbly attempt at a smile. Oh no. It was happening again. I got up and took off his blindfold to confirm, and sure enough, tears were leaking from his still-closed eyes.
"Oh no. Shit. I—I didn't mean—"
"SecUnit," Gurathin said, impossibly gently. His eyes were still closed. "It's all right."
"It is not all right. I fucked up again—"
"SecUnit." It was Dr. Mensah this time, who got up from where she was sitting to come stand close to me. I could practically feel the restraint she was using not to reach out and touch my arm, and I appreciated it. "I… think I understand the emotional overwhelm the other day a little better. I know humans can be very good at downplaying the distress they're in, in ways that aren't helpful to you. But in some cases, crying is a good thing, if the goal is some kind of catharsis or emotional release." Gurathin made a little nodding motion. I must not have looked very convinced by that, because Mensah sighed and reached for another comparison. "You know when sometimes Ratthi cries after watching a movie? It doesn't really matter if it ended sadly or not, he'll still tear up."
My face did a thing at that and Mensah nodded thoughtfully.
"You probably don't find it very appealing, do you?"
"I find it distressing," I replied. "But in those cases I know it's not because I've harmed a client. A—a friend. In this case…"
"You haven't harmed me," Gurathin whispered. "I promise."
"Just give him a little time and space. Gura, do you want to be untied now?"
Gurathin shook his head. Wow, I could have just asked him that last time, couldn't I?
"All right, then." Mensah reached out to stroke his hair and leaned in to place a kiss on his head—very quickly, and it was done and she stepped back before it could start grossing me out, but a fresh wave of tears dripped down Gurathin's face at it all the same. It was deeply awful.
Only, it wasn't, really.
It's hard to explain—it was like Mensah's words had just slotted into place for me, and it made sense now. Of course she wouldn't harm Gurathin. And so these were good tears. It was just like the restraints—the look of distress, not the reality of it. As if something in my fucked-up brain had suddenly been rewired, I realised I now wanted to make him cry, and to watch him while he did. I backburnered that somewhat terrifying thought to process later and sat back down beside him.
"We're watching Sanctuary Moon now."
Gurathin scoffed wetly. "Yeah, okay, I guess you've earned it."
"I'll gag you again if you don't shut up."
"…can we watch one of the ones with the stupid frog alien ambassadors?"
"Fine," I said as I gagged him again. (What? He'd practically asked for it, and the look on his face confirmed for me that it was on purpose.)
For the record, the frog alien ambassadors aren't stupid. (Maybe they seem stupid if your consumption of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon consists of shoving thousands of episodes into your head all at once, I don't know.) But it also turns out that in one of the episodes in that arc, Flight Officer Kogi is framed for a crime and locked up in prison until the colony solicitor can clear his name. I put it on, and Mensah took up a new perch on some of the crates behind us. We watched, as Gurathin sank into a relaxed puddle again and Mensah leaned forward, clearly engrossed despite looking like she didn't want to be, until Kogi's cuffs were released and he was surrounded and embraced by joyous friends and crew (and the frog alien ambassador who believed in him). I unfastened Gurathin's restraints and pulled him free.
"Go get a hug," I told him. Mensah took her cue and practically caught him as he got to his feet a little unsteadily, her arms wrapping tightly around his back. He curled over to rest his head on her shoulder, and they stood there swaying a little while I waited for them to be done.
"Are there blankets?" Mensah asked me over his shoulder.
I reviewed the storage manifest—there were, as it turns out. Not the handmade ones the Preservation humans liked to sleep with, but some printed spares stashed away in case they'd come in useful. Like now. I retrieved a small pile of them, and Mensah managed to get the two humans arranged into a pile of their own, Gurathin wrapped in a blanket, Mensah sitting on another with a third tumbling around her shoulders and into her lap where she coaxed Gurathin into laying his head. It was an arrangement that seemed like something he would die before doing if in his right mind, but right now he looked extremely content and peaceful. Mensah rubbed a hand up and down his arm. I sat on her other side with another of the blankets wrapped around my shoulders, because it looked soft and comfortable (it was) and it felt like I was joining in without having to actually touch either of them.
We sat quietly in our pile for a few minutes until Gurathin took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh.
"Back with us?" Mensah asked.
"Mhm."
I braced myself. She was about to talk about this, and Gurathin and I had brought this upon ourselves by being fucking idiots.
"First of all," she began, "I am so very proud of you both for coming up with this way of meeting each other's emotional needs. I'm just a bit surprised. How long have the two of you been in a relationship?"
"Don't call it that," I said quickly, at the exact same moment Gurathin said an emphatic, "Nope."
"You know SecUnit's not interested in sex or romance or anything like that," he continued, saving me from having to say it. "And I am not interested in them either. With it. No."
"…ah, all right, what would you call this arrangement then?"
I scrambled for something in my vocabulary that would in any way describe whatever this was. Annoyingly, "whatever this was" had become my default go-to for the entire situation, but it really wouldn't cut it any more. "Hypothetical distress scenario exercises," came out of my mouth. Oh no, that was horrible. Gurathin had said something at the same time too—I had to rewind a few seconds to catch what it was.
"Friends with kink benefits," he'd said.
"What??"
"No, no, never mind, I like yours better."
Mensah cleared her throat. "I think, for the most part, you two seem to be on the same page as each other, even when it wasn't obvious to me. Thank you for being gracious with your communication so that I could follow along. But in the case of a strong emotional reaction—"
"The crying thing," Gurathin muttered.
"—right, the crying thing. How did that feel for you, SecUnit?"
"Like when I'm trying to help but the client gets upset in the process." I didn't add that the governor module would absolutely deliver steady low-level punishment in a situation like that, but I guess I didn't need to given the look of dawning horror on both of their faces.
Shit, I'm sorry, Gurathin said in our private feed. I didn't even consider that it might be like that for you.
It's okay. It's not like I got punished now or anything.
"I think the two of you would really benefit from a safeword system, to help you navigate unexpected distress like that, in both directions."
Gurathin sighed. "You're probably right."
I sent him a ? in the feed.
It's like the feed tapping thing we do but more explicit. I'll explain later.
I nodded like I understood what Mensah was talking about. Mensah moved her hand from Gurathin's arm to brush the hair from his face and card her fingers through it gently. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, she seemed really happy. I wondered if they ever got much time together with Gurathin so relaxed. Maybe not.
"On that note, I should let you know that I'm very happy to do this part, if I'm available. I probably won't want to sit in on the actual thing again. I… can understand why it appeals to you, I think, but it all just stresses me out."
"Sorry," I muttered. We could at least have given her a heads up. Well, Gurathin could have. You know what I'm like.
"Don't be. I suspect the two of you are happier left to your own devices anyway. I can't believe I thought you were having 'difficult conversations'—of course that wouldn't be it, would it?" From her lap, Gurathin snorted. "Still, like I said, I'm happy to help with aftercare if you'll let me. I don't meet cuddly Gurathin very often. It would be a shame to let him go to waste." Gurathin squirmed a little, but there was a smile on his face as her fingers gently twisted in his hair. He laid a hand on her leg by where his head rested. "And you know, if I'm not around, you should see if someone else can help—you don't have to go it alone."
I thought for a moment, remembering the first time this happened. "Maybe Professor Bharadwaj," I said.
Mensah turned to look at me, surprised enough to almost seek eye contact before letting her gaze drift above my head. "That's a good idea! I think she would be a great person to ask."
"Or Ratthi," I added.
Gurathin wrinkled his nose. "We're not telling Ratthi. I have no doubt he'd say yes, but he can't keep a secret to save his life. But yeah, I can talk to Bharadwaj."
"What about you, SecUnit? What do you need in the way of aftercare?"
"I do not want or need human contact."
Mensah nodded around a frown. "Sure. It doesn't need to be anything physical, unless you need a recharge or anything. I'm thinking more like… a debrief. Something to help you process what you've done together." I didn't say anything to that—I wasn't sure what I felt about it. Mensah bravely continued. "I feel like that might have been something you needed there, when we spoke earlier. To figure out how you felt about it. Because it's complex, isn't it? You're juggling a desire for control with an instinct to protect, finding where the two meet, how they inform each other. It's all right for that to feel complicated for you, as well as good."
I'm not sure I mention enough that Mensah is my favourite human. I'm mentioning it again now.
"We can talk about this," I said, in the most sarcastic way I could, but she understood what I meant and she tossed her head back and laughed.
"Right, right. And, it's a chance for you to get positive feedback as well, to reassure you that things felt good for everyone."
I felt Gurathin reach out to me in the feed. Even in that virtual space he felt extremely mushy, like it wasn't something he'd do in any other normal circumstance. It felt like he wanted to say something but hadn't yet figured out the words—he settled for sending me images of small, fluffy fauna instead. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with that so I backburnered the channel for a moment. And then I reopened it to look at the fauna because it was weirdly compelling, and when Gurathin smirked I sent him back an obscene gesture, just out of principle. He smirked harder.
"I can go first," Mensah said, when it became apparent that neither me nor Gurathin were going to say anything. "I think you're a very reassuring presence, SecUnit. Even when being a bit menacing. I can see why Gurathin feels so safe exploring all this with you. And I can tell that it means a lot to the both of you." I sat there and said nothing, trying not to let my face do anything. The debrief idea was intriguing to me, and I wanted to think about it some more, but this was starting to feel agonising. "Gura, do you have anything you'd like to share? You should tell it how it was for you."
Gurathin gave a reluctant-sounding groan but he obliged. "It was good," he murmured. Sure, Gurathin. Go give me nothing to work with. He gave a short huff and continued. "You're so aware of everything going on, including how I'm doing, that I can just let go and experience it. And you're clearly thinking about the experience, and getting creative with it, even. I… appreciate that. I like that you're having fun with it." He sighed, a soft genuine smile appearing on his face. "Never thought I'd ever say this, but you're a really good dom."
That freaked me out enough that my buffer responded before I could stop it. "Your feedback is appreciated and will be passed on to management." Embarrassing. Gurathin seized up with a wheeze of laughter and Mensah pressed her lips together very hard again. I retrieved my ability to speak, and then said, "I don't know what a dom is."
There was a moment of absolute silence, then Mensah's face did something terrifying and her voice went stern again. "Gurathin."
I left the room immediately.