The most common misconception about Amélie Lacriox is that she cannot feel. This is true in many cases -- wounds do not bring the same agony, harsh words do not trouble her in a traditional sense, and her pity is not swayed one way or another even in the most demanding of times. That being said, it’s less of a sensation of a lack of feeling altogether, and more of a sensation of varying degrees of nothingness.

It stands true that a punch merits a grunt, and that a child in the street will find its way to a piece of bread. It’s less of an awareness of pain, of empathy, and more of a shared understanding. Hits are supposed to cause discomfort, and though she eats only for necessity, she knows that once her stomach would twist and contort in pain when it was empty.

When she meets Genji Shimada, it’s the same thing. Where once she was a vibrant young woman -- a dancer, married to the love of her life -- so once was he a young man; a warrior with a bright soul and dreams to be lived. She doesn’t necessarily feel in the sense as she should, but there’s something familiar about him. There’s a little less nothing.

She doesn’t acknowledge him for a week or two. He’s new, after all, and has many things to learn about the ranks of Talon that she has no hand in. The other recruits teach him up from down, how to act in front of superiors, how to get the most out of his training. Moira and Gabriel stay near his sides, working in close contact with one of their own even as their goals seem to differentiate from that of his original intent.

Moira and Gabriel are broad -- terror, destruction -- bringing down a corrupt society to raise something new and functional from the ashes. Genji is simple. Genji wants something or someone to burn. The ache in him is real and visceral; almost inspiring.

She learns more about him through proxy, conversations had by other members that talk when they think there is no one to listen. As far as Talon members go, Amélie is different. Amélie doesn’t take offense, doesn’t get fired up or angry -- some suspect she has no ability to so much as think for herself let alone go squealing to the big bosses when someone talks treason.

Through them, she learns Shimada is bent for blood from his brother, the one who struck him down. He wants his family to lay wasted in their own blood, flames lapping the temple of luxury and grandeur from which he came. He wants his brother’s head on a pike because now instead of blood and bone he runs thick with plastic parts and wires. He can’t feel, he can’t eat -- he doesn’t find reason to carry on when he is neither flesh nor metal and he rages for it.

She doesn’t feel pity or empathy for him. She doesn’t find it in herself to feel much at all. But she knows he does -- he feels impossibly deep -- and that little bit of less than nothing that has been nestled inside her since his arrival shivers in her chest. That less than nothing in her drives her to the recruit’s quarters, empty while he trains away in the facility, toils for the day he can face his family again.

She looks over his belongings; small things from a faraway land, a few books in uniform Japanese characters that she cannot distinguish, a journal in the same font. She thumbs through it, watching as the handwriting begins neatly but almost always ends scratched a little too deep, erratic. She touches the divots and tries to imagine the rage, the anger. She cannot; the divots feel cold. The emotion has since left it.

The sniper sits on his bed made uniform and tight, tight enough to bounce a quarter off of, and waits for him. She is ever patient; there is no rush. Left to her own devices she combs over her actions lead by a desire she doesn’t understand. There is nothing to gain from it; after everything she will still be just as empty as she was before, But when everything is a wasteland, even a grain of sand can drastically alter the horizon

When Genji returns from training, his posture stiffens. Amélie can nearly feel the change in the atmosphere as the recruit prickles with her placement in his room -- in his space . Not one to forget herself, she stands, smooth and elegant as she has always been even before her procedure and approaches him. He radiates tangible energy and her nothingness recedes a little more, making way to house some of his fury if only it would linger inside her.

Neither of them speak, rather she reaches past his shoulder, poisonous eyes sinking into the red lit behind his irises as she presses the button to shut his door behind him. In their proximity, she can hear the agitated breath whisking in and out of his nose, seconds away from losing his temper behind the miserable dam that holds it back.

Before it crumbles Amélie lifts her hands to his face, warm from his training and almost stinging her icey skin. He goes still, eyes narrowing and shoulders squaring in warning. It’s clear he wants to snarl, snap and bite at her. Don’t touch me. But he withholds; that same deadly and precise patience that he learned in his homeland.

“Are you angry?” She tests gently, the sweet accent of Annecy licking at her tongue as she speaks.

In lieu of response, she can feel a light growl bubbling in his throat, rippling at her fingertips where they lay gently. She parts her lips, nothingness quivering again, falling short of somethingness and driving her onward. She licks across her teeth, bares them slightly so that he can see the sharp glinting canine and tip of her pink tongue.

“To be here in shreds, while your brother runs the strongest empire in the east?” Her hand trails down his jaw, over the expanse of his neck, scarred and jutting with thick tissue. His jaw sets hard enough that she can hear the sharp click of molars locking together. His lip draws back, baring his own teeth in warning.

“Trapped within these walls, a contract signed in what little blood still courses through you, enclosed with the woman who gave you this second chance, but in doing so made you into this monster, neither man nor machine but rather built for a war you are not dependent upon.” She speaks low, fluid and cruel as every visible muscle in him seems to tense. Shame washes over him in waves, not quite overpowered by the fury that pulsates under the armored plates holding him all together.

“You would do well not to speak of things you do not understand.” His response is weighted, thick with the energy it takes him to hold back the words he truly wants to use. He’s becoming warm, his ears tinting red with his emotion and Amélie leans in, invades his space to tuck her lips near his ear.

‘Do not swallow it down,” she begins slowly, crowding her body close and letting her lips tease along the shell of cartilage near his jaw plate, “you can bring to me no harm, Genji Shimada, son of Hanamura, but I invite you to try.”

For a moment, everything is entirely still. The Shimada seems to be thinking through what she’s said, though his energy never wavers. They are at two ends of the spectrum, one writhing with emptiness and the other teeming with overflowing emotion. She can feel the puffs of breath at her ear, tickling the soft hair tied up tight at the back of her head, and then a hand sits at her side, hot and heavy.

The next few seconds move so fast Amélie can barely keep track, which is a feat in and of itself. It triggers her flight or fight response and she only manages to keep herself malleable with the desire to finally know if this is all she is, now.

The Shimada is fast and rough with her, her words still stinging behind metal wires and reminding him of who, or rather, what he is. She doesn’t stop once she gets what she wants, instead she continues probing; little things that leave Genji bristling and conscious of his every design flaw. His scars, his plates, the organs inside pumping unnaturally with the help of the machinery built within him --.

His hand twines once, twice, three times in her length of hair, drags her head back to bare her throat and then he’s digging his teeth in. A soft flick of pain resonates in the back of her mind, but somewhere else something lights in her. It’s mild and nestled somewhere in her belly, warm and stoked by the way his hand gropes at her chest and pulls at her clothes.

It may be just a spark of something, but for a woman who deals in varying degrees of nothingness, Amélie is overwhelmed. That one twinge that seems to coincide with the marks scratched into her neck and the way thick fingers pluck at her nipple under her catsuit leaves her reeling. Sensation. Exhilaration. Something that to you, or I would be only a moments’ interest leaves her transfixed and spiraling.

“You have gone quiet.” Genji observes, though it does not slow him. His hand stays bound tightly in her hair, the other nearly tearing that second skin from her shoulders. She is just as discolored below the neckline as she is above it -- a small fact she assumes he would guess on his own account. He doesn’t take the time to look or to notice, instead using those seconds to feel her. He cups at her breast, thumbs across dark nipples and growls against her collarbone when she moves to rest her hands in his hair.

While her mind seems a few steps behind, her body responds well to the stimulus. That spark that has her feeling more intensely than she has in years spreads down between her thighs, leaves a slick she’s become unfamiliar with and a quivering that she can’t quite place. Genji marks her breast with his teeth, one at a time, unforgiving. He rudely worships the gift given with sharp edges and harsh bruises but Amélie knows the alternative would have given her no purchase.

Her catsuit is mangled and stretched. She will need to repair the stitching and detail if she intends to continue using it with how Genji has mistreated it. He has forced it past her hips, wide and soft, to expose the glistening slit between her thighs.

Now he looks. He uses the grip on her hair to keep her body contorted taut and away from him, instead running a finger through the soft, slippery mess she’s gathered there without ever glancing away from it.

Another wisp of excitement is fanned into her fire at the gaze and soft touch. She remembers a time when she was the center of hundreds of eyes; elegant and envied above all else. She watches him in abject silence, expression still as neutral as ever even as she carefully shifts her legs apart within the leggings of her suit to prop the shine of her cunt open for him.

His eyes are trained on her, from the curly patch of groomed hair above her hairless snatch to the soft jut of her clit and tender lips below, he is fixated. There is a feeling of pride she normally only gets after a clean headshot when the Shimada lets his tongue pass over his teeth, but it’s short lived.

Just as soon as it begins, it’s over. There’s a sharp twist at her scalp and a wet hand at her hip tossing her over onto her front. Her face meets his pillows, legs tangled up in the unforgiving embrace of that catsuit that finds itself locked around her thighs and that hand forces her hips up to meet him.

The fire in her belly sparks, not shame but awareness coursing through her. Genji hovers over her for a long moment before he brings down slick fingers to crack across the swell of her ass. Amélie gives little response, but the noise of shock that escapes seems to be enough to drive the other on. If she could get a good look at him, she would notice the way his lip curls over his teeth, the anger in red tinted eyes and the way he grounds himself just before he yanks her head back with the grip on her hair.

“It is cruel to play with your prey, Lacroix.” For the life of her, she can’t decide who he is referencing, be it her or himself, but she finds the idea of either to her liking. Regardless, she doesn’t say a word, rather lets him bask in the silence he broke and delight in the frustration that bubbles up in him when she doesn’t return his commentary.

The Shimada lets out a sound of frustration, bringing his hand back down across the other cheek and lingering there to grip it tight and pull her open, exposing every nook and cranny she owns. Amélie still stays quiet, though now that dull roll has found an outlet in her heartbeat, increasing the beats per minute even slightly. She shifts her spine, letting it dip low to better and more comfortably accommodate the pressure against her scalp and the angle at which Genji has positioned her. She shifts her hips, waving the supple flesh left, then right shamelessly. This is more excitement than she’s been allowed in so long, it would be a shame for the new recruit to shy off now.

It was a foolish assumption. Genji brings his hand down again and again -- he’s cruel and wastes no time to let her grow accustomed to his pace. After a couple hits he withdraws, pressing two fingers past the clenching rim of her cunt to dive into impossibly soft walls before he’s using that slick make sure his hits sting. Finally the sniper breaks, giving a soft grunt when the hits amp up, bring an intensity to tender skin that she hasn’t felt in quite some time.

This is a woman who has survived torture -- a metamorphosis into an entirely different human being -- and yet still finds herself reaching a peak of overstimulation with the Shimada’s hands on her. There is another uptick in her heartbeat, and Genji withdraws his hand, soothes it across where red meets purple and takes a moment to pull her open on his thumb, using it to glide from clit to the tight sinch of her asshole.

“Do not speak unless you will it.” It’s an order for her, don’t force this interaction -- he wants to earn each lapse in her exterior. She can only shift from knee to knee in acknowledgement, her throat bowed too tightly to respond verbally and he accepts it for what it is.

The Shimada plays with her for a while, circling over her clit, dipping gently into her cunt and then circling sweetly around the other. Amélie can only imagine he’s deciding where to push in; what to breech and spread around him. She doesn’t even notice that he’s somehow undone his codpiece until the impossibly hot blunt tip of his cock is nudging dumbly against the spread of her now sopping folds.

She braces, shifting upright on her elbows to prepare for the plunge when suddenly and all at once he’s buried to the hilt. Amélie lets out a sharp sound -- more of surprise than anything with how well he’s teased and stretched her -- but still the gall of him to --.

Her stomach is warm now, fire taking hold as the Shimada begins to claim what he perceives as his, rutting rapidly back and forth and pressing the head of him flush against the barrier between cunt and womb. There is no time for her to adjust to him, no time for her to prepare herself -- only the sensation of her usually empty core being speared and used below him. It is their agreement -- you can bring me no harm; but I beg you to try .

The Shimada is apt to accept her bargain, finally loosing his hand in his hair and pressing down firmly between her shoulders to settle her face in the pillows. The hair tie has come loose, letting a few of the shorter strands frame across her face, tickling her brow. They are visceral and annoying, but she finds herself restrained, Genji choosing instead now to grip tightly at one of her wrists to achieve the taut bow of her spine.

He continues to splay her open with his free hand, testing the resistance of her second opening with a slick thumb. He presses it past the tight pucker once, twice, three times before he dredges the pad once more through the slick that gathers at the hilt of his rutting cock. Each time he presses deeper, fills her core a little more each time until she whines below him, only the second noise she’s allowed him that evening.

Amélie hasn’t focused on the fire or her heart for many moments now, each having climbed past a point that she was comfortable acknowledging. She can feel the slick dripping from where the Shimada splits her; relishes in the hot burn when he breeches her ass. She’s so overwhelmed with feeling that she’s managed to forget her initial play to even come to him. It’s effective.

Genji has managed to push two hooked fingers into the clutch of her ass, pumps them readily and scissors them apart. He’s fixated, withdrawing to eye his handiwork; the soft gape and flutter of her muscles underneath him. There’s a long moment where his thrusts stutter shallow inside her, and he only makes motion to shift when she releases an annoyed huff and shifts herself.

With that, he lets her go, drawing out of her and wetting his fingers more thoroughly with her slick. Then he’s pumping fingers back inside, this time higher, spreading a part of her she hasn’t ever allowed a human inside. Two fingers become three, three becomes the knuckle of a forth, and then he’s lining himself up, sinking in with more consideration inside her.

The game doesn’t last long from there. She’s tight around his girth, twitching and contorting around him in initial discomfort. He adjusts to his feet, releases her wrist and lets his own hands descend onto her hips to drag her body back onto him.

You can bring me no harm.

And he cannot.

She lets out another sound, not so much a grunt or a sigh, but a moan. His hips jackrabbit, all six inches of cock disappearing and reappearing with every thrust as he angles her just the way he needs to come off.

Amélie’s fingers find their way to her cunt, ring and middle digging in to soothe the emptiness he has left, and ensuring that she drags the broad blunt of her palm against her throbbing clit with each pump inside herself. She has forgotten her nothingness stretched around Genji Shimada whose rage had reduced to a passion where he fucks against her.

He has a few obvious tells when he’s close -- he growls, his fingers tighten against her skin, and he becomes careless and aggressive with his thrusts until he’s dragging her back hard and deep, rearranging her from the inside out.

He’s coming in her, painting her soft walls white when she tips over. She soaks her hand and fingers, buries her face against his linens so that he cannot hear her. Her voice is not for him, and she will not allow him to have more than what she has already allotted.

She has left a smattering of her own come on his bedsheets. There are drips from not only her orgasm but their general play as well. The beads of wet gather on her knuckles until they grow heavy enough to drip on the military grade sheets below them.

Genji finally withdraws once she has finished shivering. He holds her open again, breathless where he hovers over her and watches with rapt fascination as rivulets of milky load trails from the wide gape of her ass into the quivering folds of her pussy. He draws his fingers through the mess of both of them, collecting as much of himself as he can and pushing it into the pliant folds of her womanhood.

Amélie lets him play, catches her breath and clenches around his finger as he shoves his useless spend into her body. Nothing will come of it, but she allows his fascination all the same.

//