Work Text:
"I'm nearly finished, Jean-Jacques, I know you must be getting impatient. Time always seems its slowest at the end of any undertaking, don't you agree?"
Jean-Jacques didn't answer and Chloé laughed softly.
"I suppose you never were prone to restlessness. Though I hope you appreciate this gift anyway. It's taken a long time to prepare, and I think you'll find yourself more... whole for it."
A image of something red and weeping flashed through Chloé's mind.
She picked up one of the two nearly identical presents she had created for Jean-Jacques and turned to him. He tilted his head toward her in acknowledgement, a quiet wheezing following the movement. She ought to help him fix that. All his joints seemed to click and groan to some extent these days but his head seemed by far the worst. Even jostling it lightly upset the bellows.
The memory of a sharp scream rang in Chloé’s ears. She decided there were worse sounds than wheezing.
"Give me your arm," Chloé said.
Jean-Jacques obediently raised one arm and held it ramrod straight towards her. His sleeve hung a little too long, drooping below where his arm ended, concealing it. With a shaking hand Chloé reached for the sleeve and rolled it up, just enough to see the shining metal beneath. She didn't quite want to touch it, preferring the feeling of his soft coat and the present still clutched in her free hand.
She remembered blood sluicing between her fingers, hot and viscous and cooling far too quickly.
Quickly, Chloé clicked the present into place, her fingers efficiently securing all the delicate mechanisms. Then she pulled his sleeve back down and it no longer hung limply. Instead it ended right below the wrist of the hand she had just given him.
She couldn't help herself, she reached out to run both hands along his own larger one, humming happily at the feeling. It was petrified with the fingers partially curled, thumb flat. It wouldn't be moving either. Stuck forever as it was. The flesh was smooth and hard, even a little withered, preserved with a laundry list of chemicals.
Despite all her efforts the skin had lost its colour, going a sickly black and green around the fingertips and knuckles, and his nails were sunken in as the flesh had pulled back. Chloé had done all she could to make this one part of him as perfect as possible, the flaws were mitigable or inconsequential. Even if it was cold and stiff it was definitely Jean-Jacques. In future she planned some cosmetic touch ups anyhow, painting over the unpleasantness until it resembled something vibrant. Alive.
Something had started turning to dust. She had stopped it, cutting into it with her own hands. She hadn't been able to bear the idea of not having a-
Chloé attached the other hand exactly as she had with the first, the mechanisms for the attachment identical. She lavished her affection on it in the same manner as well, feeling every contour. It made her smile uncontrollably. The smile cracked as she thought how it reminded her of a mannequin but never broke.
"What do you think, Jean-Jacques?" Chloé asked suddenly, rubbing circles into his palm and keeping her gaze locked there.
Jean-Jacques's head shifted with an incomprehensible groan. Then, slowly, he moved his free hand to cup Chloé's cheek. She sighed, closing her eyes and leaning into the touch. His fingers dug into her uncomfortably, stuck in a position not quite right for the motion. She didn't care, happy to hear his voice and feel his skin.
They stayed like that for a long while. Chloé didn't even think to move until her legs started to ache. It was far too pleasant to lose herself and forget. She never wanted to remember.
She sighed as the pain in her feet became too acute to ignore.
"Jean-Jacques, my leg hurts. Carry me?" She didn't even open her eyes as she made the request, nor when he obeyed.
Jean-Jacques was quick to sweep her into his arms, even if he was slightly stiff, impersonal. It was a position his hands were comfortably moulded to accommodate. Chloé fit perfectly in his hold. Like he had been made explicitly to bear her weight.
She nuzzled her head into his neck, ignoring the feeling of frigid, segmented metal and breathing deeply the scent of his coat. It almost smelled more like her than him, but the part that was still undeniably Jean-Jacques made her bury herself even further into his unyielding shoulder. She loved having him so close, all around her, saturating all her senses. She wanted to entomb herself inside him.
Distantly, beyond her repressed awareness, Chloé heard music begin to play. She recognised it. A tune Jean-Jacques had favoured on his accordion. In fact, it sounded very much like Jean-Jacques's accordion.
Chloé dimly registered that Jean-Jacques was the cause of the sound. The music was coming from somewhere very close after all, the squeezing of the bellows and the movement of the keys accompanied by a muted ticking of rotors and machinery right beside her head. It didn't matter that Jean-Jacques's hands were both occupied, it was obviously him playing.
She knew it hadn't been her plan to fix him that way originally. But she hadn't been able to stand lifeless eyes in sunken sockets. Music suited him far better. It was more expressive. She still had the spare parts anyway, they were pretty enough she'd feel bad throwing them away. If she could only improve her designs she could fix Jean-Jacques even more. She might need those parts. Or maybe not. Either way she had no intention of discarding any part of him. Not ever.