She was trying to be helpful, trying to prepare him, to prevent further damage, he could see that. “There is a temptation having found your mate to just turn them on. I would advise against that. All those suppressed memories, all that pain hitting you at once, could shock your system into a shutdown or worse, should you go after the female unstable, that could have dangerous consequences for both of you. If you choose not to go through with it, that’s your choice. You can keep them turned off but if you’re bonded, you will have the effects of it. I can’t change that. We know how this works. You will crave her and if she rejects it, if she chooses it’s not for her, there will be no turning back for you. It will be her or no one and your systems could shut down permanently anyway. Or you can stay as you are, reject the female knowing that the bond will eventually shut you down.”
Chapter Six
Four weeks later …..
His mind screamed. The pain. So much pain. The damage, the operations, the probing. Unbearable, agony ripped through his mind and body. He knew it was phantom, but it was real so very real. He couldn’t hold back the roar that escaped him. It was never-ending. He tried to hear the Doctor and do what she wanted but he couldn’t get past the flood of memories constantly assaulting him. The layers of pain battering his mind one after the other. Everything he’d endured, everything that had ever happened to him since his emotions and sensors had been shut down, piled onto him. Another memory hit him, a combat injury blowing half his face away and he roared until he was hoarse and couldn’t cry out any longer, collapsing against the wall. Would it never end?
***
Elenor walked in to see Mac in her Doctors office. She felt great. Having worked the programme for the past six weeks, she felt she was finally getting her feet under her at last. With that part of her problems anyway. “Hi Mac, you wanted to see me?”
Mac indicated the seat to her and she took it. Elenor thought she looked worried, upset. “We’ve talked a little about your connection to the Cyborg C. I know you’ve been running the bonding fever and coping with it. How bad is it now?”
Mac was right she had been dealing with it, badly, it wasn’t going away. If anything, as her turmoil over surviving her world eased, it became more intense. Elenor was honest and told her so.
Mac nodded and sighed. “I feared as much. I need to ask you something and I’m not having this conversation lightly. We have a problem. We’re at the point where you might have to make a decision soon. C arrived here four weeks ago, we worked a programme with him to gradually bring forward his memories, his suppressed pain and had strategies in place to help him. And it was going well but now he is …….. struggling with the sudden influx of ……. pain, everything he’s endured over the years.”
Elenor stared at the Mac in horror. She’d read his file over and over again. “You’re not serious? He can’t. What he went through…”
Mac nodded and sighed. “I know. We had no choice but to try. He’s bonded to you. Your DNA was in his blood. As he’s is in yours. We couldn’t risk him coming at you unstable.”
Elenor frowned. “The bite?”
Mac gave her a nod. “His systems would start to shut down soon without the mating connection. It’s how they are, and he has so much history, so much he's not dealt with, if he turned everything back on to pursue you, everything at once, it would be unthinkable and could have shut him down permanently anyway or damaged you both in the process.”
Mac blew out a breath and rubbed at her forehead. Elenor could see she was more than just worried. This was partly her fault. She’d let it happen. “With his permission, we started small four weeks ago when he arrived. We have him in a secure environment. And worked on his control opening up 5% of his memory sensors and emotions. He felt bombarded at first and it took some time to get used to again but in the end, he responded positively and it was manageable. Then he tried for 10%. He knew what to expect that time, so it seemed easier and we worked with him processing up to 25% the following week. That was a little more difficult, but again he seemed to manage it well.
“We worked through what he was feeling and thinking. He appeared to adjust to the emotions and memories, the counselors worked with him, some meds helped too, and the therapists were happy, and we kept monitoring him. Last week we had him open 35% and he seemed to process that well too. The cognitive therapies kicked up a gear to compensate and help him.”
Mac hesitated and Elenor knew this wasn’t going to be good. “I thought he needed a break. Some time to process it all so far, do some reflection and deal with the more complex issues but he wouldn't have it. He wanted to push on. His need of you increased as his emotions came online. He told us he was battling his need to go to you along with the memories and it was becoming difficult. So, this week we moved on to 50% and ……..he’s in trouble Elenor. He lost his grip on it and the flood gates opened. All of it. There’s too much flooding him. It’s all mixed up from what we could tell, from what he’s told us when he could still talk. He’s lost his control on it. Consumed by events and pain that he’s reliving. He’s feeling, sensing, seeing, those things as happening to him right now. They are that real to him and...... it's breaking him.”
Elenor stood she’d heard enough. They were torturing him. “You’ll kill him,” she threw at her across the desk struggling to hold onto her own emotions. “Shut them down, all of them, he was better off without them.”
Mac shook his head. “We can’t and he wasn’t Elenor. Leaving them off would only have killed him if he couldn’t bond with you and that wouldn't have happened if he didn't understand his own needs and yours. He wouldn’t have the chance to be mated to you or anyone else and he understood that. C controls what’s going on in there. I can help him, but only if he lets me, is able to hear me and that’s the problem. We’re trying not let any more harm come to him. I’m trying to save him but we’ve never had a Cyborg who has been shut down for so long, relive so many terrible things. He was responding to instructions, pulling back when needed, holding it together until he could adjust and filter what he was experiencing in small enough pieces, that were manageable, but today, he can’t seem to hear us through the hell of it all.”
Elenor started pacing. That was all wrong. He didn’t deserve to go through all that again. How could he survive it? no one could survive that alone…. She’d done this. She stopped and looked at Mac. “You think I can help?”
Mac nodded. “Yes. You're bonded. Through all the pain, and you should prepare yourself, he is a great deal of agony and I don’t know how he’s still functioning, but he is. He might just be coherent enough, to scent you if we flood his room with air from the viewing room. If you can also talk to him, we can comm that into his room too. Talk about anything at all, just so he can hear your voice. It might be enough to pull him from this darkness. Enough to help him focus, to filter through the pain as he did before. But even so, that alone might not be enough.”
Elenor frown. “What more was there?” Mac sat back in her chair looking at her. Elenor stilled, she knew. Blood and …… sex. She shook her head. “You can’t be serious.” Mac nodded. Elenor stared at her open-mouthed. She wanted her to what? Masturbate and have it comm’d into his room? Her hands started to shake. “Won’t that bond him to me more?” she whispered wringing her hands.
Mac nodded. “It’s likely yes. I’m not asking this of you lightly. This is our last resort. He’s at the point of no return. We could lose him anyway.”
“Not much of a choice is it?” Elenor threw out angrily again. She was being defensive and knew it. She had to take some responsibility for this and to Mac’s credit she’d not mentioned it once. Elenor was grateful for that.
Mac looked at her sadly. “No, it's not. You might do all that and more and still, we might lose him. If you reject him after, we might lose him again then too. There are no big winners here Elenor. I’m sorry.”
***
Elenor looked through the viewscreen shocked to her core. Her Cybo
rg, C, that huge mountain of a man who’d stood in her doorway and owned it, was collapsed on the floor holding his head. Every now and then he would lift his face to the ceiling and look like he was screaming out his pain. Her chest constricted, and tears pricked her eyes. “Is the sound off?” she whispered.
Mac shook her head. “No, he long since lost the ability to vocalize. His vocal cords far too damaged, for the nano’s to keep up.”
Elenor touched the glass. It was unbearable to see him like this. “Turn it all on. I’ll do it.”
“You sure? I might not be able to do anything to stop the bonding further.”
Elenor looked at the man who had been a hero to so many, go through so much pain. She nodded. “Turn it on. He’ll need to see me. Then I want everyone out. Only him and me. I call if there’s a problem.”
Mac nodded to someone in the room and within moments, C sat up a little straighter looking up at the vents. She looked at Mac who gave her an encouraging nod. The viewing screen cleared on both sides.
Elenor swallowed. “Hello C. Do you know who I am…..?” And he turned towards her.
***
She’d been sitting in the same chair talking about her life on the planet for days. Sometimes it felt like he heard her, other times she wasn’t sure. He would lie on the floor or crawl, stand, workout for a bit, then stagger back and hold his head. And all the while she’d kept talking. They brought her food three times a day and a change of clothes each morning. That first day a cot had been brought in for her too. Her days took on a routine, she would nap, exercise then start talking again. In the mornings she would go into the adjacent bathroom, leaving all the doors open and shower, then pleasure herself, thinking of him and their time together calling out to him as she came. Knowing her scent, her cum, would be in the air and flooding his room.
That first morning he’d been at the glass when she’d come back out and for a moment she thought she’d done it, then saw the glazed look in his eyes and the pain return. He went back to crawling in the corner.
Elenor stripped on the second day, he'd barely looked up when she'd come out of the shower that time. So she took to wearing nothing in the viewing room. She knew her scent would be stronger, and he showed more interest. He would see her pacing and follow her with his eyes. Sometimes she would caress herself and ask him to help her. Talk about their time together and how much she’d enjoyed it. He would seem to be listening, be quiet then scream hoarsely out of nowhere.
At times, she would stand in front of the view screen calling to him bringing herself to orgasm in full view of the window time and time again with him looking at her but not really seeing her. Her eyes locked on his asking him to come back. To fight it. To find himself. She would watch him breathe her in and his chest swell to see him collapse again under another assault.
Elenor couldn’t see if she was making any difference at all and her frustration in not reaching him began to unsettle her. What if she couldn’t reach him? But she kept going. She would call to him asking him to come back to her. Asking him to pleasure her, to touch her but nothing seemed to work for long. In the early hours of day six she leaned against the glass, rubbing her chest up against it, her nipples pebbled by the motion. She told him she needed him to fuck her. That she was empty without him. And leaning against the glass, she pleasured herself calling to him asking him to help her. She held her organism off on four occasions finally letting go and collapsing against the glass, telling him she needed him. By the time she was done, she was so exhausted that she fell on to the cot throwing a blanket over herself and fell quickly asleep.
Dreams of home were mixed with images of C, healthy and whole, laughing and enjoying life. Elenor sighed, she knew she was dreaming, as tears flooded into her eyes. He looked so good. So happy. She wanted that for him. She couldn't stop crying, calling out to him and he turned and walked towards her, taking her into his arms. She couldn’t deny it any longer, she liked the feel of him surrounding her. She wanted this male with her. She had missed him. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for bringing me back.”
Elenor woke with a start. It had felt so real and her face was wet. She wiped at it confused how dream and reality had mixed. Then looked around quickly and found C staring at her through the glass. She smiled and tucked the blanket around her, looking back at him. To her relief, he looked in control. “Do you know me?” You look better?” He gave her a slow nod and just kept looking at her. Elenor took that as a good sign. She straightened the blanket and went into the bathroom to put some clothes on and freshen up. Then came out and made some coffee. C’s eyes followed her everywhere. He didn’t loose focus. Elenor tried not to put too much hope into it but he looked good.
She took her coffee and sat down on her chair, smiling up at him. “Good morning,” she told him not sure what to say. Embarrassed now that he was here, awake and could see her. He gave her a nod back and looked at the glass panel, moving his hands around it. She guessed he was figuring out how it worked. He found the air vent and then the speaker. “You have been very ill. There was a moment when Mac thought you were close to shutting down. She asked me if I could come in here and help. We hoped you’d respond to my voice and scent to bring you out of your pain.” He looked at her. “When that didn’t seem to work, I err tried something else but that didn’t seem to work much better, well until the last time I guess....” She mumbled.
“I’m sure you're still in pain but you seem to be able to manage it now. Before, you were lost to it. She didn’t know how else to reach you and thought I might be able to.” He came back to the view panel. “You’re not a prisoner or anything. You chose to go in there if you don’t remember it. Your emotions and memory pain sensors had been turned off for decades for good reason. They were worried that…… having bitten me ……. The bonding might bring it all out at once and your system wouldn’t be able to cope with it. I'd say they were right about that. So Mac was working with you and the therapists to work through bringing them on a bit at a time but at 50% capacity, something went wrong and it flooded you, you were…” She looked for the right words,” …..buried under it.”
He continued to stare at her and not speak. “Your voice cords were damaged before I got here. They said you’d been screaming…..” she whispered, she didn't want to embarrass him. She looked at the door. “I’m sure Mac will be here soon, she will want to see that you’re up and doing better. I should call her, I err told them no surveillance. I’d let them know and to knock.”
He waited for her to look back at him, checking his sensors. They were working. The female’s responses were embarrassment. He replayed his memories of her in this room. Memories of her gloriously naked, stroking herself to come, begging him to finish her. His nails raked down the glass. She stared back at him. “Clothes off, need to see you,” he squeezed out, his voice ravaged. His cock hard and demanding. He wanted this female with a desperation he did not recognise.
He pointed at her, then to the floor on his side. Elenor guessed he wanted to finish what she’d started. If he had all the memories of what she’d been doing …. Elenor got up and pressed the intercom. “Please tell Dr. Navarille that her patient is up and talking coherently and needs assistance.” She turned back and sat back down ignoring his last demand.
Elenor thought she needed to stay on firmer ground. She chose to tell him how she’d got there instead. “After I arrived at the Station, I went to see Mac. I needed her help with working things out in here," she tapped her head, "and she gave me a wellbeing programme. They tell me I have survivors’ guilt and actually resent the Cyborgs turning up so late that they couldn’t save more people and struggled with why I should be one of the lucky ones. It makes a lot of sense to me now and I’m working through a lot of things in this programme. It’s designed to help people like me and I enjoy it and doing well. So when Mac asked me to help try and reach you by being here, ….I said yes.”
He pointed at himself then slowly he pointed at her. Elenor sw
allowed, sure that meant ‘you and me’. “I don’t have all the answers C. I’m sorry I don’t. This worked and I’m really happy about that. But I don’t know what it all means right now.” He gave a slight nod and moved back. Elenor drank her coffee. Someone brought in a table and chair to him and a huge plate of food. Then her door opened, and food was brought in to her too. Elenor thanked the Cyborg and asked for Mac again. On seeing the Cyborg leave her, C went over to the food and sat down. Picking up her knife and fork she started to eat. She could see him wait for her, then he did too. Elenor was relieved it was the first real food he’d had in all the days she'd been there.
C ate through his meal, his eyes on the female who was his mate. He had no doubt about that now. Her scent and cum was saturated in his DNA, her presence had pushed all the bad stuff to one side and she was front and center in his mind and body. He wasn’t sure how long she’d been there. He’d searched his databanks and knew she’d not been there when he’d arrived. For several weeks it had been him, the Doctor and her team helping him. Then as she’d said, he hit 50% of his emotional memories and sensors and an avalanche of pure terror swept through him. And the pain came with it. The memories were hazy after that. He had images of her being naked, talking to him, pleasuring herself, making herself come and the elixir of her cum on the air.
Concentrating on his food he realized he could sense her emotions now. Feel her. Taste her in the air for real, for the first time and it was a revelation to him. He couldn’t help but breath her in with every breath he took. It was what had broken the chains of pain and awakened him from his nightmare at last. She’d been full of desire, happy and crying, calling out to him in her sleep. Dreaming of him. Wanting him and he had smelt her tears and it had pulled him up to the surface needing to be with her. Needing to comfort her.
C- Sizzling Page 10
