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Not all Intellitrons are equipped with an olfactory system. It's hardly necessary on completely inorganic planets - scent isn't a particularly valuable sense on a world made completely of gears and oil, unlike on organic planets, where an odd smell can mean the difference between poison and sustenance.
But things have changed since the days when inorganics were completely isolated from the organic parts of the universe. Many parts of inorganic society and design have been adjusted to better suit a mixed existence. As such, most modern androids now come equipped with a synthetic method of scent identification.
All of this is to explain why Screwllum stops in his tracks as soon as he opens the door to his home on Planet Screwllum.
The scent is familiar - he has accompanied Ratio through his heats before - but it’s arrived sooner than Screwllum expected.
Perhaps because he’s been stressed recently. The end of semester has just passed, after all, and he’s also completed two large research projects in the past two weeks.
After a moment, Screwllum starts moving again. He closes the door behind him - it locks automatically - and makes his way directly to the bedroom, following the scent, his stride just a fraction quicker than usual.
“Mr. Ratio?” He calls out, his fingers hesitating on the bedroom doorknob. He should announce himself - it wouldn’t do to startle his partner. He pushes down on the handle slowly, giving ample time for Ratio to register his presence. “Veritas? I’m home.”
He pushes the bedroom door open.
The scent is significantly stronger here. It washes over Screwllum like a balm.
When they had first gotten together, all that time ago, Ratio’s unique scent had taken Screwllum by surprise. He’d been exposed to organic creatures of all secondary genders before, of course, both in and out of their mating phases, but Ratio was the first one to have directed all that energy, all that intensity, at him.
Now the scent is relaxing and familiar. Screwllum steps into the room and closes the door quietly behind him.
Ratio is laying on his side on the bed, curled in a large and perfectly circular nest of blankets. When Screwllum had announced himself, his head had popped up - his hair is rumpled and sticking slightly to his forehead with a faint sheen of sweat, and his golden eyes glow intensely in the shadows.
The blackout curtains are drawn. There’s only a small gap between them, letting a sliver of light through, just light enough to see, gold running over the floor and spilling between the folds of the covers, a bright streak falling over Ratio’s pale calf.
“You’re here.” Ratio’s voice is rough.
Screwllum observes. This is pre-heat. Ratio’s heat must not be in full effect. He still has some inhibition, some control over himself.
Screwllum had made the mistake once, during their early days of dating, of going on a long business trip to a far corner of the galaxy without realizing the tail end of it overlapped with Ratio’s heat - he had returned home looking forward to a soft kiss and a quiet cuddle and had instead been summarily manhandled into bed.
“My apologies.” He says, taking a few steps forward, coming to the edge of the bed. He touches his fingertips to Ratio’s forehead - temperature slightly raised, but not enough to cause concern - and measures the levels of pheromones in his sweat - within expected parameters. “My meeting ran long. I wasn’t expecting your heat to arrive this early.”
Ratio’s eyes track him like a predator’s, unerringly gold.
Screwllum knows it is not Ratio’s intention to behave warily. He’d made that mistake during their early days too, thinking that the way Ratio draws away from him during his pre-heat is a symptom of irritation or dislike. Now he knows that his partner is simply trying very hard to maintain his composure.
He chuckles. “Not that it is unwelcome, of course.”
Ratio does smile at that. He relaxes a little. Screwllum lets his fingers fall away from Ratio’s face with a light stroke against his cheek. Ratio finally sits up - he’s mostly nude, wearing only a pair of his usual black boxers. The scent intensifies slightly. Screwllum watches the flex of his pale muscles appreciatively.
“Is there anything you need to do, before…?”
“Before you render me incapable of leaving this room for the next week, you mean?” Screwllum says, with humor.
It’s funny, but Ratio’s intensity, the pheromones pouring off of him like water from a broken dam, makes every moment stretch between them.
Screwllum smiles.
“I did have one brief matter to attend to, actually,” he says. He leans down to kiss Ratio on his flushed forehead. “Would you wait a moment for me?”
Ratio grumbles. He sighs. He runs one hand through his hair and drops back against the covers again, splaying himself out on the bed, perhaps unconsciously - or perhaps intentionally - presenting himself, and then waves languidly at Screwllum.
“Fine, do whatever you need to,” he says, his tone dismissive, but his eyes no less intense. “But hurry up.”
Screwllum tilts his head in acquiescence. He makes his way to their shared closet.
He removes most of his own clothing, leaving on only his shirt, which he unbuttons, and his pants, for the sake of propriety… even though he knows Ratio will make quick work of them once he returns anyways.
He pulls out his phone - he sends a quick message to his aides, informing them that a personal matter has arisen, and that they should make do without him for the next week or so, if at all possible, then sets it to silent and puts it back into his pocket. That will go on the nightstand, just in case.
And then he kneels down on the ground and pulls his true objective out of the bottom drawer of one of the closet shelves.
It is a wooden box. The interior is lined with a specialty scent-blocking fabric. The smell wafts out as soon as he opens the lid.
Screwllum approaches his relationship with Ratio much like he would any other part of his life - as a place to be constantly experimenting, always looking for a gap in his knowledge or a place he can better serve.
Ratio’s heats, while pleasurable and an enjoyable bonding experience, have always been a point of imbalance between them.
Perhaps this is fated to always be the case in relationships between organics and inorganics. Inorganics have no need for physical procreation, after all, nor secondary genders.
Screwllum cannot be the ideal alpha.
This is a point of inferiority for many inorganics who enter into relationships with organic omegas. The case between Ratio and Screwllum was special from the start - Ratio has his own personal hangups about sexual contact, mostly stemming from his obsession with ‘cleanliness’ and ‘purity’, which means that he instinctively recoils from alphas in rut and has never had a physical relationship with an organic being - but there are still gaps between what Ratio’s body biologically craves and what Screwllum can natively provide.
The key word being ‘natively’.
The benefit of being inorganic, Screwllum thinks, tilting the clear vial between his metal fingers, watching the way the clear liquid moves inside, is that there is always potential for additional upgrades.
He retrieves the other item in the box - a deceptively simple-looking metal disk in a clear case - and closes the lid again, sliding it back into its hiding place.
He stands up. He checks his genitalia once - the attachment that Ratio prefers during his heats, functional and ready to be utilized - and returns to the bedroom.
As he walks up to the bed, he sees Ratio tense.
He stops a few steps away.
This isn’t the ideal way to do this. Exposing Veritas to a new scent during the heat might have unpredictable effects on his mood. I would have preferred to introduce it earlier, at a less pheromone-fraught time…
Ratio sits up - his eyes narrow, turning to glowing slits in the low light, and after a moment of searching he zeroes in on the vial in Screwllum’s hand.
“What is that?” He asks, even more blunt than usual.
“My most recent experiment.” Screwllum says, keeping his tone level, even though his entire body is buzzing with excited electricity from Ratio’s obvious and immediate reaction. “You may be feeling a bit of discomfort from exposure to an unfamiliar scent during your heat, but it will pass. May I approach the bed?”
Ratio looks away from the vial and back to him.
“Come over here,” he says, and even though technically in their relationship Screwllum is the alpha and Ratio is the omega, Screwllum has never had any qualms about Ratio giving him orders. He follows, walking up to the bed and sitting down on the edge.
Ratio takes an interest in the vial in his hand. He offers it - Ratio picks it up, turning it over, a spark of scientific interest pushing past the arousal in his eyes.
“Synthetic pheromones?” Ratio asks, sniffing gently at the sealed top. “Alpha, but… not. Unusual.”
Screwllum shifts on the bed. He moves further into the mattress, joining Ratio in the middle.
“Yes. I had it made to my specifications a little while ago. It simulates an alpha scent with the compounds that you dislike removed. On top of that, I requested that the scent profile be matched with yours in a way that would ensure maximum compatibility.”
Ratio glances at him. “Is that why you took a sample of my scent a few weeks ago?”
“Affirmative.”
“Mmm.” Ratio takes a long, slow breath. “Now that I’m getting used to it, I think I like it.”
Screwllum feels a wave of satisfaction suffuse him. “I’m glad to hear that.”
Ratio’s eyes bore into him.
“I think I’d like to try it out.”
Suddenly, Ratio pops the lid off the vial - Screwllum can feel the current running through his eyes fluctuate with surprise, though he doesn’t give any indication with the rest of his body.
“I would have done it more gently -”
“It’s fine. I’m used to the smell already.” Ratio dips one finger into the clear liquid, then lifts it to his nose, scenting it directly.
Screwllum sees his pupils dilate.
Maybe this is working a little too well. He hadn’t thought too deeply about what the actual effect on Ratio would be - only that it would satisfy him.
If Screwllum were organic, his heartbeat would be hammering right now. His breathing would be fast and his nervous system would be hypersensitive. As an inorganic, all of that manifests as an increase in core temperature and power draw.
Ratio’s eyes flick to him. “You got warmer.”
Screwllum’s voicebox falters for a moment. “I suppose I did.”
Ratio caps the vial again - even awash with pre-heat hormones, he’s still conscientious about making a mess - and leans over Screwllum to set it on the bedside table, next to Screwllum’s phone. His bare skin brushes against Screwllum’s clothed shoulder, and then he does more than brush - he reaches out with his pheromone-damp hand to stroke his fingers against Screwllum’s neck, smearing the synthetic compounds against the corded metal there, the liquid getting caught in the grooves and nooks of the alloy.
Ratio pushes Screwllum down against the pile of pillows that makes up the outer wall of his nest. Screwllum lets him. He feels his core temperature rise further - his internal cooling system works to keep up.
Ratio climbs on top of him, straddling his lap, leaning down, pressing his nose into the crook of Screwllum’s neck.
Screwllum’s neck is sensitive. He hadn’t even known this about himself until Ratio had touched him there for the first time.
“Mmm.” Ratio murmurs into Screwllum’s collarbone. Screwllum can feel his breath warming the metal of his chest. “Smells good. Smells better than when it’s in the tube.”
He breathes in deeply. Screwllum can feel the slick of sweat coming off Ratio’s bare body wetting his alloy, the hard and familiar press of Ratio's clothed arousal against his stomach, the pheromones that are so saturating the air between them that it’s like a physical presence.
“When it’s mixed with your scent. Metal and machine oil and…”
Ratio lets out a shuddering breath.
“God, Screwllum…”
Screwllum’s hand comes up to clutch at Ratio’s side. At the same time, there’s a quiet whirring sound - Ratio looks up, pulling his face away from Screwllum’s neck for a moment, and then glances behind them.
“Did your penis just auto-activate?”
Screwllum lets out a sound like a laugh. It comes out distorted. He pauses - he tries to get his voicebox under control.
“That was… not intentional.”
Ratio scoffs out a laugh. He evidently still has presence of mind enough to retain his usual sarcastic wit. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He leans down and kisses Screwllum on the mouth.
Screwllum kisses back. He lays one hand against the small of Ratio’s back - the other comes up to slide against his neck, his thumb mindlessly seeking out the scent gland above his pulse point, under his jaw.
Ratio’s kiss gets messier as time goes on. Eventually he breaks away, chest rising and falling quickly.
“Enough,” he breathes out, shifting on Screwllum’s lap. He lifts himself up and then grinds down onto Screwllum’s synthetic cock - he bites his lip. His cheeks are flushed and pink. “Why are you still wearing clothes? God, why am I still wearing clothes?”
Ratio pushes Screwllum’s trousers aside - he squirms and strips himself inelegantly of his boxers.
“Hurry up,” Ratio pants, seemingly talking to himself more than Screwllum. He laces his fingers around the back of Screwllum’s neck - he pushes his nose into the underside of Screwllum’s jaw, where he’d smeared the pheromones earlier, then licks a stripe up Screwllum’s neck there. Screwllum’s fingers twitch against his waist.
He sinks down onto the head of Screwllum’s cock, his own lubrication easing the way, then whimpers loudly at the stretch.
His breathing comes quick and fast. Screwllum’s internal cooling is already working in overdrive.
“Are you…” Screwllum’s voice falters. “Are you alright, Veritas? Would you prefer me to -”
Ratio shakes his head against Screwllum’s collar.
“Mnnn…” He moans. “Just wait… a moment. Feels good…”
Screwllum rubs a small circle into Ratio’s hip with one hand.
Ratio moves again. He bounces up and down, moving the head of Screwllum’s cock just past his entrance, taking it a little deeper every time.
This is how Ratio’s heats typically start. During his pre-heat, he presents with the typical symptoms of increased arousal and desire, but he retains his critical mind, his rationality, and his lucidity. Ratio copes with the intensity of his physical needs and his percieved vulnerability by taking control of the situation - namely, by climbing on top of Screwllum and satiating himself.
“Fuck,” Ratio gasps, as he takes Screwllum in deeply enough for the head to kiss against his prostate on a downwards stroke, his legs tensing around Screwllum’s waist.
His cock bobs between them, hard and unattended to. Screwllum resists the urge to take it in hand. Ratio can come at least a few times without direct stimulation, he knows - he’s verified himself through firsthand experimentation, testing Ratio’s limits thoroughly until he’d cried and begged - and holding off will make his later climaxes all the more intense.
“Good job, Veritas.” Screwllum murmurs. He applies a little bit of pressure with his fingers against Ratio’s hips, encouraging him to go lower, to take him deeper. “You’re doing well.”
“Fuck.” Ratio bites out. He lets his head fall forward to Screwllum’s neck again. “Don’t say that to me.”
“But it’s true.”
Ratio takes his revenge by pressing his mouth, open, to Screwllum’s neck - he sucks and then scrapes his teeth against the metal, and Screwllum can tell he’s smug at the way Screwllum’s body jerks against him.
Finally, Ratio bottoms out. The backs of his thighs press hotly against Screwllum’s lap.
He lifts up once, then lowers - the sensation is tight and crimson with pleasure against Screwllum’s attachment, which is connected to his nervous system, and it rips a cry from Ratio’s throat.
“Yes, yes…” he mumbles, fucking himself on Screwllum’s cock, his speed rapidly increasing, his patience gone. “Fuck, yes, please…”
This position has its benefits - Screwllum is rather partial to how Ratio looks, bouncing in his lap, his expression pinched with a mix of effort and pleasure, biting his lip to suppress the whimpers that are leaking out from his throat - but the downside is that Ratio’s pleasure is limited by his exertion.
Screwllum assists. He curls his fingers around Ratio’s trim waist and pulls him down firmly on the next stroke. Ratio lets out a sharp noise.
“Screwllum!”
The join between them is wet with Ratio’s slick - the volume is increasing, Screwllum notes, both from the stimulation and from the onset of Ratio’s true heat.
“Harder…!”
It doesn’t take long for Ratio to finish. He doesn’t go all the way down to Screwllum’s knot, so Screwllum doesn’t activate it.
They have a long night ahead of them, after all. Some things must be saved for later.
Ratio collapses against Screwllum’s chest, panting, his body sweat-slick and his hole still clenching around Screwllum.
“You didn’t finish,” Ratio mumbles against Screwllum’s skin.
Screwllum strokes one hand against his hair.
“I should pace myself,” he says, tracing one sweat-slick strand of hair that’s sticking to Ratio’s forehead with his fingers. “It won’t do for me to exhaust myself halfway through your heat and fail to satisfy you.”
Ratio snorts. “You’ve never been lacking in stamina. In fact, you more frequently overachieve in that department.”
Screwllum chuckles.
They lay in silence for a moment, Ratio catching his breath, Screwllum letting his body cool.
Ratio seems to notice the other item that Screwllum had brought back from the closet with him, now set aside among the rumpled sheets.
He picks it up.
“What is this?” He asks, turning the clear case over with his fingers. “It was together with your specialty scent.”
Screwllum tilts his head to look down at the item.
“Ah,” he says. “The second part of the experiment.”
Ratio looks at him, unamused. “If you expect me to participate, you should explain what it is.”
Screwllum reaches up - he wraps his fingers around Ratio’s, where they’re holding the item.
His other hand pulls Ratio’s body closer. Ratio is still impaled on his cock - he makes an involuntary noise as it shifts inside him.
“During your last heat,” Screwllum murmurs, turning his and Ratio’s hands so they can see the underside of the metal disk inside the case, “you expressed a desire for me to mark you, as is typical between organic beings with secondary genders.”
Ratio looks over to him, eyes wide.
“I thought you couldn’t,” he says. He looks back to the item. “But this…”
Screwllum brings their joined hands to his faceplate - he kisses Ratio’s fingers, letting the sparks of electricity play out over Ratio’s skin.
“A custom-made patch that should simulate a mating bite,” he says. “The underside contains an assortment of microneedles - the material it is comprised of has antibacterial properties. The shape of the mark it leaves may be rather unorthodox, but combined with the synthetic pheromones…”
Ratio drops the box onto the blankets and kisses him.
“You engineered an entirely new device just to mark me,” he breathes. “That is… ridiculously attractive.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
Ratio’s eyes are hot. They bore into him like magma through earth. “Hurry up and fuck me.”
Screwllum turns them over. His cock slips out - a wet mixture of Ratio’s slick and his built-in lubricant oozes out of Ratio’s hole, but Ratio doesn’t seem to care about the mess they’re making on the covers.
His heat is truly in effect.
Ratio loops his arms around Screwllum’s neck. He pulls him down onto him.
“Hurry,” he repeats, sotto voce. He arches upwards - more slick seeps out of him - Screwllum’s hand slides further up his thigh.
So demanding.
Screwllum takes the disk out of the case - he attaches it to his thumb and then swipes it over his own neck, where Ratio had smeared the pheromones over him, where their scents had mixed together.
He quickly adjusts the settings on his other attachment. He increases the dimensions slightly, making it longer and thicker, while maintaining what he knows is the optimal curve for Ratio’s satisfaction.
There’s a new idea for an experiment, he thinks. Perhaps, next time, I will adjust the dimensions while still inside. I wonder what noises Veritas would make then.
But right now Ratio is waiting impatiently for him. He leans down to kiss him - then he slips inside again.
“Yes,” Ratio moans, pushing his hips up at the stretch. Screwllum knows he likes to be pushed to his limits - he keeps moving, keeps pressing, even when Ratio’s knees jerk around his torso and his fingers scrabble against his back, futily trying to scrape marks into the metal. “Fuck, Screwllum…”
Ratio doesn’t like it when he stops during his heats. Screwllum pulls out and thrusts back in sharply - Ratio cries out.
“Ah!”
Screwllum repeats the motion, then again - he keeps a steady rhythm, thrusting against Ratio’s prostate with machine-like accuracy, his eyes fixed on the way Ratio’s eyes flutter shut, the almost pained expression of pleasure that twists his face, the way he finally gives up on biting his lips and lets his mouth fall open, whimpering with every thrust.
“Ah..! Fuck, yes, Screwllum! Harder…!”
Ratio is soaking with slick. There’s little resistance as Screwllum pushes in the final section, the bulb near the base of his cock that is the uninflated knot.
Ratio’s breath hitches - he presses his head back, his neck taut with pleasure. His hole seizes around the new thickness of the intrusion.
Screwllum can barely speak. His system is working overdrive - his core temperature is inadvisably high - he’s dancing on the edge of a knife, flooded with possessiveness and desire and full-body pleasure, straining towards the unique kind of completion that inorganics can achieve.
“Do you want me to fuck you, Veritas?”
Ratio’s hole clenches around him. He gasps with ecstasy. His fingers scrape against Screwllum’s shoulder, gripping the metal so hard they must be turning white. “What do you think…!”
Screwllum withdraws, then presses the uninflated knot in again. Ratio’s eyes roll back in his head - a whine chokes out of his throat, thin from the lack of breath - he’s losing himself to pleasure, caught at the peak, forced to hang in that moment right before completion where the need is so intense it’s agonizing.
Screwllum loves him like this. No matter how many times he brings Veritas to completion, it’s never enough. Veritas to him in this moment is more beautiful than the birth of a star.
He fucks in again. Ratio’s back arches. His cock spurts halfheartedly over his stomach, untouched, not quite an orgasm - at the tail end of it, Screwllum raises one hand and squeezes firmly, from base to tip, wet with Ratio’s slick, and Ratio keens so high and so breathless that Screwllum can’t resist stroking again, and again, and again.
“Not yet.” Screwllum’s voicebox is completely distorted. “One more.”
Ratio can’t speak. His hands fall away from Screwllum’s shoulders and fist helplessly in the sheets - his legs clamp so hard around Screwllum’s waist that they would leave bruises if Screwllum were human.
Screwllum draws back and thrusts in again, and again, and again. He squeezes Ratio’s cock so tightly, in all the places and ways he knows are most sensitive, that it’s almost cruelty.
Ratio is still hard. He can give him another.
“Screwllum, fuck, fuck, please…” Ratio finally takes a gulp of air and sobs, tears beading in his eyes, ever muscle taut to tearing with the intensity of the overstimulation, just barely past what his body can handle. They have a safeword - Screwllum knows that the fact that he has not used it means that he can take more. “Please…!”
Screwllum sees how his body is tensing - in a familiar way.
He presses in one more time. He activates the knot - it swells inside Ratio’s hole, stretching him from the inside past the point of sanity, filling him with hot lubricant that mixes wetly with Ratio’s slick. Ratio’s eyes roll back in his head again and he seizes on the sheets, his fingers clutching at the blankets, as he comes for a second time - he spurts over himself and clenches around Screwllum’s cock, soaking the sheets with slick that’s forced past Screwllum’s knot, Screwllum’s hand moving unforgivingly around him, tight and what must be agonizingly pleasurable.
Screwllum presses into him even after the knot has inflated. He pushes it slightly deeper. It tears another moan from Ratio’s mouth.
Seeing Ratio’s pleasure, feeling the way he tightens around him, Screwllum finally gives in. He makes an unintelligble noise unique to synthetically generated voices - he shudders inside of Ratio, feeling the way his internal systems short from the overstimulation, a partial shutdown that resembles an organic orgasm.
Mindless, he presses his thumb to Ratio’s neck, to his scent gland, puncturing the skin with the microneedles.
The scent change is immediately obvious in the air - Ratio jerks under him, noiseless, mouth open, clutching at his side, and comes a third time. His muscles seize and his oversensitive hole clenches again around the knot, leaking slick, and his cock drools an attempt at a third round of spend onto his stomach.
Screwllum falls slack. He lays on top of Ratio for a while, unthinking. Even after his systems have rebooted, he can’t seem to form conscious thought.
“Screwllum.” Ratio mumbles, after a while. He pushes weakly at Screwllum’s side. “You’re heavy.”
Screwllum comes back to his senses. Careful with the patch on his thumb and the place where they’re still joined with his knot, he shifts to take some of his weight off of Ratio.
“My apologies,” he says, quietly. “Was I too rough?”
Ratio catches his face with one hand and kisses him gently on the mouth.
“No,” he says, “though I’m going to be feeling this for the rest of the heat. All my suffering is your fault.”
Screwllum chuckles and kisses him back.
“I’ll endeavor to make up for it,” he says.
Ratio seems satiated - they have a while before he’ll want to go again.
Screwllum takes the patch off his thumb. With some careful manuvering, he puts it back into the case, then observes the area where he had used it to mark Ratio.
“It appears to have worked as intended,” he says, touching the mark over the gland with two fingers. Ratio shudders beneath him. He pauses, then strokes it again. “Do you feel any different?”
“Mmm.” Ratio shifts his lower body against him - is merely touching the marked gland causing arousal? “I feel… more grounded than I usually do during a heat, I suppose.”
“Perhaps an effect.”
“Perhaps.”
“Of course, we’ll need to experiment more to be sure of a causal correlation.”
“Naturally.” Ratio pauses. “Now that I think about it, Screwllum, isn’t it dangerous to test unapproved, experimental devices on your partner?”
Screwllum leans in and presses his mouth to the mark. He kisses it - the tingle of electricity makes Ratio jerk with surprise.
He makes a mental note. Oversensitivity?
“You’re saying you don’t trust the innovations of a genius?”
Ratio huffs and rolls his eyes.
“Unproven? Absolutely not,” he mutters.
Veritas seems much too coherent for the middle of a heat with me, Screwllum thinks, so he kisses against the mark again - perfectly circular, unmistakably inorganic, and uniquely his - and again and again, until Ratio is too distracted to pose any more counterarguments.