Chapter Text
It takes a while for Herme to notice that his body is malfunctioning again. Normally, he tries to pay as little attention as possible to the strangeness of his human form— it’s better that way, better when he doesn’t slip into Iron Days quite so often, even if it means blocking things out.
Of course, even once he realizes what’s going on, it’s not like there’s anything to be done. The unusual fog that’s settled over him can only mean one thing, and that thing isn’t any of Herme’s concern. If his body is going into Rut, so be it. The cycles come and go, and he’s not expected to respond to them in any way aside from remaining functional and presentable for as long as he possibly can, regardless of what happens to his physical form.
That’s how it’s always been. He’d work through the beginning stages of his Ruts, remain in operational condition for as long as possible, and the handlers would deal with the rest whenever it became necessary.
So Herme resolves himself to dealing with it the same way this time, as well. Even if he’s with you now, even if his life is different than it’s ever been, you’ll at least know what to do with your tool when its parts aren’t behaving how they should. There’s nothing for him to concern himself with; Master gives the orders, and he merely carries them out to perfection.
By the day after he first notices the strange, hazy feeling, though, Herme isn’t able to suppress his body’s reactions quite as well.
He’s exhausted in a way that he has no other frame of reference for; weighed down with a heavy, uncoordinated feeling in his limbs and a vague sort of dizziness throwing off his balance whenever he moves too quickly. The inside of your home is too hot even when the temperature isn’t unusually elevated at all, and his skin tingles with a strange, crawling sensation that leaves him agitated and thinking much too slowly.
It’s exactly how the Ruts always begin, and Herme despises it. Even though he puts on his usual serene, collected smile and tries to ignore the vague pang of disgust over his incoming uselessness, he knows he’s fighting a losing battle. His body will give out under the strain eventually, and then—
Then, you’ll deal with it however you see fit.
Really, Herme is waiting for that part. Handling himself will be easier when it’s no longer his responsibility to maintain his function. When you decide that he’s too unsightly to keep out, things will be better.
Whether he’s put away to suffer out the Rut before the Iron Days can hit, or whether his mind giving out is what signals that he needs to be removed from service for a while, being shut up in his room until his body’s malfunction is over sounds much more pleasant than what he’s doing right now. But Herme knows that he’s supposed to control himself until that time comes— and the perfect tool would never fail such a simple command.
Unfortunately, his body gives out before you realize what’s happening to him. It’s a slow process over the course of the day, but by late afternoon, Herme is having trouble staying upright. He feels feverish and shaky, and the part of this that he hates the most— the persistent, distracting arousal— is starting to become a perpetual, uncomfortable problem.
Every time he moves, the fabric of his underclothes drags over his genitals, sending shocks of bright sensation through his nerves. Every time it happens, his mind goes a little fuzzier; his limbs a little weaker.
And no matter how much he despises the weakness, the way he succumbs to the urges of his human flesh, Herme can’t fight it.
He makes it through dinner in a haze. Eating is normally a disgusting, much-too-human activity, but this time, Herme barely notices what he’s swallowing. He’s too busy thinking about the wet, sticky feeling against his groin, and the throb of his heartbeat in the organs there.
Maybe halfway through his meal, there’s no enduring it anymore. He has to go collect himself, prolong the inevitable for just a bit more—
“E-Excuse me, Master,” is all he manages to say before staggering off to the bathroom. You call after him, but Herme doesn’t make out the words. He needs to get somewhere private, before you see him falter.
As soon as the door closes behind him, Herme’s legs nearly give out. He winds up hunched over the sink, remaining upright only because of his hands braced shakily against the counter. He fumbles to turn on the faucet, as cold as the water will get— but splashing his face does little good. He’s still shaking. The swollen thing in his pants pulses in time with his heartbeat, and the world spins around him in a swirling, concussion-like blur.
It’s not long before he goes down. The edges of his mind are hazy and weak, and remembering why he shouldn’t just drop to the floor and stay there is getting harder. This will all be over sooner if he just stops thinking, if he stops trying to hold onto his pride as the perfect tool. You’ll be burdened by his failure, but shame hardly matters when everything is too much.
Herme barely feels it when he collapses. One moment, he’s upright; the next, he’s crumpled on the ground and too limp to move at all.
A low groan escapes him. The angle he’s lying at puts pressure on his groin, and that’s making everything so much worse. Lacking the energy or muscle response to move, though, there’s nothing he can do about it.
Time blurs together, after that. In his daze, Herme’s mind begins to wander to you. This whole time, it’s been harder to focus whenever you’re around— when you’ve so much as been in the room with him, his whole body responds with a surreal, shameful eagerness, wanting something that he can’t define. To stay close, perhaps, or to see you safe and pleased.
It’s beyond comprehension, beyond his limited processing ability when he’s like this, but thinking of you leaves him shaking. With no control over how his mind wanders, Herme just wants — wants your touch, your closeness, all of the things that a weapon should have no need for.
He’s not sure how much time he spends there on the floor, a pile of unresponsive flesh and aching arousal, but eventually, the door cracks open.
“Herme...?” your voice calls. “Are you alright?”
The most he can manage is an incoherent groan. Just hearing you has the space between his legs clenching in ways that he doesn’t want to think about, everything throbbing that much worse from the proximity alone. He should be ashamed of his weakness and the unsightly state he’s in, but instead, all he can focus on is how badly he wants you to come closer. To touch him, maybe, or just to sit near enough that he knows you’re there.
You’re beside him a second later, murmuring things that his scrambled mind can’t fully parse. The only thing that comes through clearly is a question of if he can stand— to which he weakly shakes his head.
Under any other circumstances, that would be an admission of failure, and deserving of punishment as a result. Instead, you click your tongue like you’re so very concerned, and manhandle him upright without doing a single thing that hurts. The contact is bright, sharp, like the moment gunpowder ignites, and Herme moans just from the weight of your hand on his back.
It takes some struggle (and your vaguely stern orders to at least try to move), but eventually, you get him sitting up. By now, Herme is flushed and shivering, staring off into space as his whole body heats up more by the second. You’re still touching him, and he never wants it to end.
“What’s wrong?” you ask, lightly prodding his shoulder. You sound worried. “You’re not sick, are you? You just got up and left during—”
And just like that, your gaze lands on the strain in his pants.
You sigh. “Alright, we’re getting you to bed. You’re not going to spend your Rut on the bathroom floor.” It’s said easily, not annoyed or disgusted at all— strange, when every previous response to his body’s malfunction was the exact opposite. This state of being is a problem, and Herme knows it.
Still, you help him stagger to his feet with no consequences. The orders to cooperate soothe Herme’s nerves, in a way— these things are easier when he’s nothing but a mindless object doing what he’s told.
After the ordeal of getting him standing, you help him stumble back to the bedroom that’s been assigned as his. Herme all but collapses into bed as soon as you let him. His legs are still too weak to hold his weight, and all of the physical contact isn’t helping. He can feel his pulse in his groin, pounding and insistent, and it’s only getting harder and harder to think.
The horrible bit of metal embedded in his skin rubs and catches against his clothing with every tiny shift, providing just enough stimulation to leave him twitching and distracted. Just breathing sends sparks up his spine. This is the point where he would normally be abandoned to wait out the worst of the Rut on his own. Even if that meant staying collapsed on the cool, concrete floor of his room and staring blankly at a wall until the weird feelings went away, that was the routine, and he knows to follow it.
But instead, you gently press the back of your hand to his forehead, and frown a bit when just that little touch draws a low groan out of him. “Is this normal?” you ask him, snapping your fingers a couple of times in front of his face to make sure he’s paying attention. “This... the collapsing.”
He has to answer you. Forming words is so, so hard, but following Master’s orders comes before the weakness of his flesh. “It’s... nnh, yes, normal...” he mumbles eventually, barely able to finish the sentence.
You sigh. “I hope you know I’m taking care of you until this is all over, then. I don’t care if it’s ‘unnecessary’. You look like you’re dying.”
Herme doesn’t have the presence of mind to argue. He’s too busy staring at your hands and the soft flush of your lips, mind wandering to stranger places by the moment. He wants your touch back, even if it’s just checking his temperature. There’s no need for you to take care of him, but if it means you’ll stay for a little longer, maybe it doesn’t matter...
. . .
By what he thinks is evening, Herme is feeling worse than ever. You’ve brought him water every so often and tried to make him eat, but his body is still burning all over and wanting things he can’t begin to make sense of. He lies there, limp, and dreams of familiar hands on his skin.
Every time you come into the room, his pulse spikes. Feeling the throb between his legs makes his head spin, and eventually, you notice the delirious little whine your presence alone drags out of him.
You sit down next to him on the bed. “You’re allowed to say no to this,” you start, “but do you want help? Would that make this easier?”
Whatever that’s supposed to mean, Herme can’t begin to process it. He’s tingling down to his fingertips, dizzy enough that the world is slightly spinning around him, and your closeness has heat pooling low in his groin so quickly it almost hurts. Do you mean that you want to use him while he’s like this...? It would make sense. He’s never served that sort of purpose before, but feeling like this, it’s hard to remember why he wouldn’t want to.
He doesn’t know what that would feel like, but it would be relief, wouldn’t it? If you want to do those things to him, perhaps it would even return him to a functional state sooner than waiting it out as he is.
Herme weakly reaches for your wrist, pulls it closer, and nuzzles against your fingers when they’re within reach. “Do what you wish, Master...” he slurs. He’d be a fool to assert his own desires when he’s already malfunctioning and causing you such an inconvenience, but if you want to touch him, whatever mental barrier would have refused is gone.
“...alright,” is your uncertain reply.
The next thing Herme knows, you’re pulling the blankets away from him and slipping the waistband of his pants down past his hips. The sudden lack of confining pressure on his erection has Herme sighing in shameless relief— then whining when his underwear is soon to follow.
His dick pops loose, plopping to the side because it’s too large and heavy to spring upright. A thin, clear trail of fluid stretches between it and his underwear, wet enough that a spot on the front is soaked clear through.
You almost look concerned. Herme knows, rationally, that he’s larger than most in that regard. That the swell of his knot is easily wider than your closed fist, and his length, even soft, is intimidating. But with slick between his thighs and his dick pulsing with need in the open air, it’s hard to think of anything but how badly he wants to be touched. There’s no logical explanation for it, but when he thinks of your hands on his skin...
“M-Master...” he mumbles, voice coming out raspy and weak. He’d reach for you if he could make his body move properly to do it.
You sigh. “I’ll take care of you, don’t worry,” you say.
...and reach out and wrap your hand around him just like that.
Even though your fingers can’t get all the way around his girth, the sudden shock of contact has Herme’s mouth falling open around a lewd moan. When you stroke up, slowly, as if testing how much contact he can handle, Herme finds himself shaking all over, his breath coming sharp.
Placing a steadying hand on his hip, you move again. Up and down. Slow and careful, like you don’t know how much his human form can take before something breaks. Deciding which point of contact to focus on— the gentle, comforting pressure on his hip or the electric pleasure between his legs— is impossible. His brain already feels like something’s misfired, shattered, gone wrong enough that trying to think is a lost cause.
Where his knot is just starting to swell, the stretched, ultra-tender skin tugs at the tiny line of metal there. You haven’t touched that low yet, but Herme is already drooling for it. Instinctively, his body knows that it wants something to wrap around that place and squeeze. He’d be thrusting up into your grip if he wasn’t so uselessly limp. Every bit of friction is another shock.
“That’s good,” you tell him, “just let me touch you. I know it feels weird.” The careful, easy praise might as well be an electric shock.
The praise does something to the inside of his head that feels like static. He’s always been the perfect weapon, but being good for you right now feels better than that other title ever did. Herme groans. You’re moving faster. He’s leaking all over your hand, but the slickness only makes the friction more blissfully intense. Unable to move or do anything to take more for himself, all he can do is lie there and shake under the contact.
A strange, tight feeling low in his abdomen is only getting worse. It’s like something is going to burst, or snap, and he’ll shatter right along with it. His heartbeat thumps near-painfully in the subtle swell of his knot, and you’re not stopping. Thinking is getting harder. Everything is distant and numb, and things like dignity don’t matter at all, anymore.
So what if he’s whimpering like an animal and weakly trying to thrust into your grasp? So what if his body is malfunctioning to the point where even a weapon, a mere lump of iron like him wants ? It’s an inconvenience to you, surely, for him to be so unsightly, but it still feels so very right.
Herme weakly grabs for your hand again. Indulgent, you let him take your wrist and drag your hand up to his face—
There, he nuzzles against your palm for a moment, before kissing at your fingertips. With no idea why he’s doing it (or why it makes everything between his legs throb ), he takes two of your fingers into his mouth to taste the skin on his tongue. Even though you almost flinch away, you allow it. His cock twitches heavy in your other hand. It all feels so much.
When your careful fingers play with the bit of skin at his tip, Herme’s eyes nearly cross. That shock of sensation is enough to have his hips bucking— even with the rest of him limp, fucking into your closed fist is suddenly easy, just so he can take more pressure, more touch.
But soon enough, your touch wanders dangerously lower. After hesitating for only a moment, maybe in consideration of what it will do to him, you wrap your hand loosely around the fat swell of his knot.
The pressure shocks up his spine, nearly painful for its intensity. You squeeze once, slow and testing, and Herme has to let your fingers out of his mouth so he can twist to the side and muffle his howl into the blankets. That tightness in his belly spikes, pulls taut, and when you drag the slightest bit of friction over the piercing, it might as well be scraping against raw nerves. Something finally does break— and Herme shudders all over and comes.
As the deep, half-aching pulses roll through him, his mind goes truly empty. It’s clearer than Iron Days, emptier than he’s been even at his worst, and the unthinking mindlessness feels better than even the orgasm itself.
The only thing in his head is the firm, perfect grip of your hands around his knot, massaging the swollen flesh through every aftershock.
The blank void of bliss can only go on for so long, though. Eventually, that haze of pleasure begins to recede. He still feels half like he’s floating, still dizzy and disoriented, but soon enough, Herme’s body starts to feel real again. And for once, the sense of connection isn’t entirely unpleasant.
You’re still holding his knot. Not tightly anymore, but with a grounding sort of firmness that has him breathing a little easier because of it.
“Feel better?” you ask when Herme blinks his way back to something resembling consciousness.
All he can manage in response is a low, overwhelmed groan.
Every little shift of your fingers still feels good. Weapons aren’t supposed to want things, and yet... Herme can’t fully smother the hope that you’ll do it again. The heat under his skin is less maddeningly intense, now, but in its place is the bizarre desire to curl up close to you and have you keep touching him like this for as long as you’ll possibly allow.
You’re smiling, though, looking fond, and something about knowing that he’s pleased you feels right. Ruts are supposed to be utter misery, nothing but an inconvenience for him and everyone else, but this time, it’s not bad. He doesn’t hate this. The way you make him feel is more of a reward than a malfunction— and that’s undeniable, no matter how his unfocused mind scrambles to find some kind of excuse for it.
Maybe he’s just not thinking properly right now. Undignified and disgustingly human as it is, Herme just wants you to stay by his side.