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[b][u][center]Smoothing Things Out[/center][/u][/b]

[b][u][center]Part 1[/center][/u][/b]

[b][u][center]For Harute11 and Libra-11[/center][/u][/b]

[b][u][center]By Draconicon[/center][/u][/b]

Large public gatherings were never particularly helpful for Blake’s mental stability. Oh, they were good to go to, and he was sure that a therapist – if he had one – would have recommended that he take the time to be among others to this extent. That said, it was always harder to deal with a large number of voices around him, and that was only made more difficult by the fact that, even in his own room, there were always a minimum of five voices and one silent presence making themselves known.

In fact, they were still chattering with him in the back of his head as they took the elevator up from the hotel lobby, and while they were being considerate enough to keep their mental voices down, it was still just a trifle difficult to think when they were piling on top of each other.

“One at a time, one at a time,” Blake muttered under his breath, holding one hand to his forehead. “Come on, guys. There’s rules for a reason…”

[i]Sorry, sorry. I’m just so…wow, there’s so many people. Some of them are really cute, too.[/i]

That would be Aries, the bubbly social butterfly that never stopped grinning. Like a kid in a candy shop, or worse, a toddler on espresso, sometimes. Kind of adorable, though. Blake got a moment’s view of the happy-go-lucky, gray-furred wolf-fox in his head before it faded, turning into something a little bit browner, something lapine, rabbit-like.

[b]I apologize. My attempts at organizing all this is usually a little more…subtle.[/b] Ptolemy shook his head. [b]I will attempt to pull myself back a bit.[/b]

[i]Oh, don’t worry about it. I like it. I like seeing all of us out. It’s like a convention in here and one out there.[/i]

Blake smiled slightly to himself at Aries’s answer to the whole thing, but it was somewhat true. The fact that they all carried on together was something atypical compared to the rest of the population. He rather liked the time that he enjoyed with the various different personalities, even if they were a little…touchy, sometimes.

Ptolemy, the rabbit, was a little bit more grouchy than Aries tended to be, or at least, he came off that way. Blake and the others knew that he was just rather formal and precise, always focused on getting the exact right phrasing for things if he possibly could.

The conversation shifted again, this time bringing a darker-furred face to mind, dark red fur with bright red eyes appearing in his mind’s eye. Cancer grumbled.

[i]It’s too exposed out here. There’s too many people that might notice that we’re…different.[/i]

“We’re going to be okay as long as we don’t do something stupid,” Blake muttered.

[i]Like talking to ourselves out loud?[/i]

“…Like that, yes.”

[i]Then maybe you should stop talking until we get to our room.[/i]

“We’re not going to our room.”

[i]Where, then?[/i]

He could feel the red wolf’s hackles going up, and it was not dissimilar to the feeling of his neck hair rising up on the back of his head, to the point where he ran his hand down the same spot as if he could flatten it out again. His mental image of Cancer actually fluffed out a bit at that, shaking his head in annoyance.

“We’re going to the bar,” Blake said.

[i]No, we are NOT.[/i]

“We are. It’s been a long day, and we need a chance to relax.”

[i]All in favor?[/i] Aries said, thrusting his hand up. [i]Me! Aye![/i]

[b]Aye.[/b]

“Aye,” Blake muttered.

[i]…Am I the only one that thinks that this is a bad idea?[/i] Cancer grumbled.

There might have been some support for him from Ryder or Toy, honestly, but the former was still sleeping through an enforced ‘calm’ trigger, and the latter was more silent unless they were having fun or needed to come forward while they were out of it. No responses there.

“The ‘ayes’ have it, then,” Blake said with a small smile. “Now…just a favor, guys?”

[i]…What?[/i] Cancer asked glumly.

“Can I have some quiet? Just for five minutes?”

They responded with the very quiet that he had requested, and Blake out a long, slow sigh of relief as his head no longer echoed as badly as the hotel lobby had. It was the first bubble of silence that he had been able to enjoy since stepping off the plane for the convention, and he was going to savor it for as long as he could.

Not that he disliked his headmates. He actually quite liked them, and was happy to have them around. They didn’t make his life harder, but…well, sometimes, he did miss the times when he could have quiet in his head without asking for it.

Well, that wasn’t quite fair. Sometimes, the quiet had been utterly overwhelming, and…well, there were reasons that they were all there, and why he wasn’t alone in his head. It was better to leave it at that.

Blake took a few more slow breaths, looking down at the elevator mirror. While marveling at the sheer slowness of this particular elevator and how it had taken them nearly a minute just to go up two floors, he also saw himself. Brown-haired, yellow jacket, blue jeans; he looked like some happy version of a hipster that had snuck into the convention rather than someone that actually ‘belonged’ there. He chuckled, shaking his head.

“Well, goes to show that this is for fans as well as developers.”

Ding. The elevator finally reached the bar on the fourth floor, opening to reveal a banner. ‘Welcome to Tech-Con 2030,’ it said, and it supported that by having the banner held by floating drones. Not the ones that used helicopter blades, either, but the ones that were actually held aloft by hoverjets, their thrusters carefully directed away from the rather flammable banner after the issues of last year’s convention.

He walked under the banner, making his way to the bar. The glass top that was so ubiquitous with most hotel bars had been replaced by a metal one, which pushed out a hard-light substance from the center that worked as a conveyor belt, sending different drinks to the customers that sat there, homing in on the ID bracelet that they wore as part of the convention. Blake sat down, tapped his bracelet against the bar, and had a menu pop up as a projection.

“Hmmm…”

Flicking through it, he barely noticed that someone else had taken a seat beside him. In fact, he didn’t notice much of anything before he heard a hiss of discomfort. He turned, half-worried that he’d done something –

“Nnngh, stupid lemon…”

Sitting next to him was someone darker-skinned than he was, and with darker hair, as well. Slightly taller, too, which was weird, considering he was used to being about the same size as everyone around him. This other guy was holding one hand over his eye, hissing under his breath, thumping his free hand against the bar and rapidly tapping the holo-screen in front of him.

Hoping to help, Blake reached over and tapped the button for water. A cup appeared almost immediately, and the other guy tilted his head back, pouring it over his eye.

“Are you okay?” Blake asked.

“Mmmph…ow. I’m going to be.”

“That had to hurt.”

“Eh…not as much as – ow, ow…Not as much as seeing a few inventions explode last night. Comes pretty close, though.”

“Inventions?”

“Yeah – hang on. Can you hit that button again, please?”

Blake did. As the stranger poured another glass of water over his eye, though, Ptolemy nudged him from the back of his mind.

[b]He’s hiding something.[/b]

[i]What makes you think that?[/i]

[b]The shirt he’s wearing. He has pulled it up tight, tucked it into his gloves. It is not a fashionable statement, so he is hiding something behind that.[/b]

Now that Ptolemy pointed it out, there was something weird about that. Particularly since the other guy wasn’t wearing anything fancy to begin with – just a simple long jacket over a normal shirt – it made the gloves and tucking in look a bit weird. He cocked his head to the side, watching out of idle curiosity.

That curiosity turned far more active when the stranger tilted back further, pulling his sleeve back by accident, and revealing something that was most definitely [i]not[/i] human skin under the suit.

Blake gasped, and the stranger sat up straight again. The other person pulled his sleeve up fast, covering the fur and rubber that had been exposed, and shook his head.

“Keep quiet, please. I really don’t want a scene right now.”

“I…you…”

“It’s just a rip in the suit right now. Please, just keep it quiet for right now, okay?”

Blake didn’t really have much of a choice. He had too many other voices running rampant through his head right at that moment, and he was spending most of his energy just keeping them from running down to the voicebox and taking control. If a rubber arm was going to cause a scene, so would someone with five different voices popping off one after another demanding an explanation.

So, the two of them both sat in quiet for a moment, with Blake’s arm moving under Cancer’s brief control to order –

[i]A bowl of lemons?! Dude, rude,[/i] Aries said.

[i]He doesn’t like them. Best to be safe.[/i]

[i]Oh, come on. Relax a little bit.[/i]

[i]I am not made to relax.[/i]

That was true enough, though annoying. He gripped his hand when it reached for the bowl of lemons, deliberately altering its trajectory to the underside of the bowl and putting it back on the conveyor belt, muttering an apology for the bartending system about his ‘error’ in ordering it.

The silence stretched on for a few more minutes, the pair of them staring anywhere but at one another. The questions about that ‘rip’ in the other man’s arm abounded, making it hard for Blake to think of anything else. All he wanted to know was what that actually meant, why there was rubber and fur beneath the other guy’s skin, and –

Well, everything, honestly. He just didn’t know how to bring it up. And yet, that somehow ended up being the best thing that he could do.

“Thank you,” the other man said.

“For what?”

“For not making a big deal of…that.”

“I’m…curious,” Blake said, the hesitation more of a pause to allow Ptolemy to give him a good word for it than anything else. “But…well, it’s your body, your business, right?”

“Well, you’re half-right. It’s definitely my business, but it isn’t my body.”

Thump. He’d been about to grab a water for himself when that bombshell landed, and he almost slid himself right off the barstool he was sitting on. He managed to catch himself at the last second, thus creating that loud thump.

“Excuse me?” he managed to ask.

“Um…that probably was a little…heh…”

Shaking his head, the overly-fascinating stranger turned towards him, then offered his hand. Blake took it without thinking, half-expecting to feel something too squishy, or too hard, or too something aside from the normal flesh feelings. If there was any such thing, he couldn’t feel it, which made this man all the more fascinating.

“My name’s Libra.”

“Um, Blake –” He held up a finger as all the others came rushing forward, mentally reminding them that he was in front, that it was his job to be the face. His. Not theirs. Not yet. “I’m Blake.”

“Blake 1?”

“Uh, um, no. Just Blake.” He pulled his finger down. “Sorry. Just a habit when things get a little, um, loud in here.”

“I can understand that,” Libra said, turning back to his third cup of water, the first one that he had actually been able to drink. “All kinds of noise around here.”

“So…you’re an inventor?”

“Well…I try to be.”

“Do they work?”

“Mostly, but the new stuff has a few kinks in it.”

“Wow. Is the, um…”

He gestured at his own arm, about where the rip had been, and Libra nodded. Blake whistled.

“Yeah, well…it just seems right to test it on yourself before you test it on others. Feels mean to do it the other way around.”

“I respect that.”

“Glad someone does.”

“You sound…bitter.”

“Well, maybe a little. I work slower than a lot of people, and that…well, it means that they don’t think that I do a very good job. I’m just more thorough. And I care about what happens to the test subjects. They don’t.”

They doubted that Libra was doing it on purpose, but there was something to this man that was ticking various boxes for them. The fact that he cared about those that he worked with, the fact that he was trying to actually make sure that things were safe before moving forward? That hit Ptolemy’s care for details right there, and made Cancer back down a bit as the guard dog felt like there was something there to be respected, less of something to be feared. Aries found it fun that Libra was able to take lemon juice to the eye and just shake it off the way that he had, not getting upset or angry about it, since it implied a good sense of humor.

And Blake? Blake rather liked the ruefulness that Libra put off, and the fact that the other man seemed to have a sense of shyness as well as friendliness beneath all the stuff going on.

It made him feel like he wasn’t the insane one for wanting that from time to time, and that he should be allowed it.

They sat in silence for a bit longer before Blake tapped his screen, ordering a small appetizer of a veggie dip. He glanced out of the corner of his eye.

“Care to share?”

“What, me?”

“Well…I don’t see someone else…”

“…If you don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“I’d like that.”

Aries was bouncing up and down in the back of his head, the wolf-fox throwing happy little hearts around. The rabbit rolled his eyes.

[b]Jumping ahead of ourselves, are we?[/b]

[i]Hehehe, just because you’re the hopper doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t do that.[/i]

[b]That is not what I mean. Or what I do.[/b]

[i]It’s fun. And besides, it’s not like part of the reason we came here wasn’t to get laid.[/i]

Blake and every other headmate turned as red in the face as possible, and he deliberately had to turn and hide his head until he could rub the blush out of his cheeks. Aries, of course, laughed happily.

“So, um…what is it that you work on?” Blake asked.

“Mostly rubber and liquid derivatives of it,” Libra admitted as the dish came around. He took a carrot and dunked it a few times in ranch before nibbling at it. “There’s been some…surprising advances in that field lately.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like stuff I can’t talk about in public.”

“Really? I thought that all this stuff was supposed to be public. Isn’t that the whole point of the convention?”

“Kind of. It’s also to tell us what we can and can’t show, and what has to be kept under wraps. Except for, you know…special people.”

“Special?”

“…Maybe people like you.”

That little happy feeling in their chest? It swelled that much further hearing that. Maybe it was just the fact that they had been alone for a while before coming to the convention, but the fact that the first person that they’d really taken the time to talk to was this nice was a real shot in the arm. And it made them feel…happy. Warm.

[i]Horny?[/i]

All the headmates pulled out a bonk-bat for Aries’s latest comment, and the wolf-fox giggled, running just out of reach of them.

Most of them. Cancer was faster.

BONK BONK BONK!

#

Despite the bonks from the horny bat, it was clear that Blake and Libra had some chemistry for each other, and that kept growing throughout the conversation. By the time that they had finished the appetizer, they had decided to have dinner right then and there. By the time that dinner was over, they decided to have a small drink together.

By the time that was over, they agreed that they needed to ‘talk further’ elsewhere.

They reached the elevator, and this time, Blake was more than happy to find that it was just as slow as it had been when they used it to get to the bar. Libra smiled in a way that was somewhat less shy, and Blake allowed himself to be swept up in the other man’s embrace. They held each other loosely, then tightly as their lips met.

He kept expecting to feel something different, something less than human, or more than, he wasn’t sure which. Yet, every time that they came together, every intimate moment that they spent touching one another, he never felt anything besides a perfect imitation of what a human should feel like. Gentle lips, warm body, the sort of thing that anyone would want to feel against them, and…

Well, when they were close together, something quite a bit firmer down below. Blake blushed as the kidding, rubbing, almost grinding against one another continued for far longer than a normal elevator ride, the glacial cube making its way up the hotel floors with painful and pleasurable slowness.

They finally reached Libra’s floor, and the other man led them through the hall to his door. Blake barely realized that they’d come to a halt, too busy thinking about what would happen next, and doing his best to quell the arguments in his own head of just who was going to be front for this.

[i]Me![/i] Aries pushed. [i]Come on, it’s been so long.[/i]

[b]It should likely be me. I can study him and tell what he is.[/b]

[i]I can protect us.[/i]

[i]Sorry, just woke up, what’d I – oh, wow, cute guy,[/i] Ryder said, appearing with a grin on his kangaroo face. [i]This is something different…[/i]

And, of course, Toy said nothing. But that was the way of Toy.

Blake managed to keep his front place, however, with just one simple argument. He was the one that Libra knew, and that meant that he was the one that was safest here, because there wasn’t going to be another surprise. None of that for the first night at the convention.

The door shut behind him, and then Libra surprised him.

POP!

The sound of a sudden seal being released was not what any of them had expected, nor was the sight of Libra’s head coming off. The dark-haired head slid forward, revealing more of the gray fur that they’d seen through the gap. One hand went back to a zipper that ran just under the other man’s shirt, and then…

Then…

Then someone else stepped out of the Libra-skin that they had been staring at this whole time. A rabbit, or at least, something like one. It wore a tight pair of briefs, one that framed the bulge that they had been feeling all the way up, and not a one of the headmates were able to take their eyes off the impossible man that stood before them.

Libra turned to face them, a slight blush on his cheeks. The rabbit tossed his ears back, shaking his head.

“Um…yeah. I thought we better, you know, get this out of the way…”

“What…how…”

“Well, um, you know that technology that I said isn’t available to the general public?”

Blake and company slowly nodded.

“Well, that’s one of them. A suit that imitates everything that a normal person is like, and hides what you really are.”

“Are there…are there more like you?” Blake asked, even as the rest of his headmates were clamoring for the chance to speak, thrusting question after question into the queue that he had started putting together for their conversation. “More…non-humans?”

“Oh, lots. I help hide most of them, actually.”

“Where…how…”

“That’s down to other experiments,” Libra said, shaking his head. “Some seriously less ethical ones, but we’ve made do with it. I think my suits are better, though.”

“They’re so…so life-like.”

“And they rip easily, too, as you saw.” The rabbit shook his head. “Well, it’s a feature that I’m still working on improving, so we’ll see what happens with that.”

They were just flabbergasted at the whole thing. When Libra offered them the chance to look at the human suit that he had been wearing, they couldn’t help but take it without the slightest hesitation. They ran their fingers along the inside, astounded by both the quality of the rubber within and the little sensors that they could feel all over the place. No wonder the whole thing had felt so life-like; it must have been picking up temperature readings, muscle tension, and more, replicating it through the outside.

[b]Very good logic, Blake.[/b]

[i]Thank you,[/i] he said, blushing.

“Do you like it?” Libra asked.

“It’s…amazing.”

“…Would you like to try it on?”

“Um. Not yet. In a minute. But…but yes, in a minute.”

“…You’re cute when you’re shy.”

“H-hey…”

He rubbed his cheek, blushing worse at the compliment. The barely-dressed rabbit chuckled, guiding him to the hotel couch and getting him to sit down. He was rather happy for the chance to get off his feet.

As they sat down, he realized that Libra was more than just a rabbit. That tail, at the very least, suggested something foxish to him, and there were probably other things that he wasn’t noticing just then. All he knew was that he was human – albeit a weird human – and the person that he had been kissing so very fervently was, well, not. Somehow, that should have been something that was wrong with the situation, but instead, it just added to the excitement. Blake was trying to sort it out, and so was Ptolemy, but the rest of them were all just going with the flow. Aries was filling Ryder in on what was going on, and –

Oh, it was so much. So very much. Particularly when Libra took their hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Are you going to be okay? I know this is…well, a lot.”

“I – yes, of course.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. I’ve…well, I’ve been – I mean, I’ve seen weirder.”

The slip of his tongue obviously caught the rabbit’s attention, because Libra cocked his head to the side. Blake rubbed his arm a bit, squeezing at the upper part of it as he looked away.

“Look…I can talk about that later, but, um…for right now…”

“Maybe just…hang out a bit?”

“If you don’t mind.”

That was met with all kinds of groans and annoyance from Aries and from the tulpas Ryder and Toy, but that didn’t mean much. The overall consensus was that they had taken a little bit of a step too far, and by a thin majority, it was agreed that sex and further naughtiness and explanations at that moment were a little too much to ask for. The naughtiness would have to wait for another time.

And thankfully, Libra seemed willing to go with that. The rabbit scientist lounged on the couch with him, and Blake leaned against the furry male’s shoulder. The feeling of soft fluff rather than smooth skin was new, different, but nice. He rather liked the feeling of nuzzling into it and having a nice bit of comfort against the side of his head.

When was the last time that he had felt safe cuddling someone? A long time ago, he knew that much. Back before their head was so crowded. Back when there was a little bit less to lose if someone found out everything.

But this time…

[i]He’s like us. He’s got a secret,[/i] Aries pointed out.

[i]That is a fair point. He could be blackmailed,[/i] Cancer said.

[b]That would be taking it a trifle too far,[/b] Ptolemy pointed out. [b]He is willing and kind thus far. We may find it more suitable to proceed on equal footing.[/b]

[i]Who cares about footing? I’m more interested in –[/i]

BONK!

The horny bats were wielded with great efficiency by Cancer and Ptolemy, silencing that thought before it could go further, and bringing a small smile to Blake’s face. Libra looked down at him.

“Something amusing?”

“Just…something I’m thinking about.”

“Care to share?”

“…Later.”

It was hard to not be shy around this man, mostly because he was…good. Not just different, but good, and Blake worried that if he said the wrong thing, all of them could lose him already.

#

They said goodnight somewhere around late evening, though not quite midnight. Blake left, stepping into the elevator to head back to his room, and he leaned against the back of it as it descended. The headmates were quiet, too, probably thinking their own thoughts of how that had gone. Whether it was something that had gone too far or not far enough, though, he could feel that they were all in agreement of wanting more.

Libra was, to put it mildly, [i]good.[/i] The rabbit hybrid made them feel like they were welcome, like there was nothing wrong with them, like they were wanted without reservation, and that had been rare of late.

[i]It could still be an act,[/i] Cancer warned, though not with as much conviction as usual.

They weren’t quite lovesick, but struck by Cupid’s arrow? Most definitely. They sighed together as they imagined his arms around them again, and they were more than a little aroused in a way that they normally most definitely were not. Or at least, Blake was not. The idea of allowing someone to go that far with them, to get to know them that intimately, was too dangerous to even consider most of the time. They had been in various little one-night-stands for a while, assuaging their needs that way, but…

Well, this was something deeper. Libra was already making them feel ways that they weren’t used to, and they didn’t know what to do with it. They needed something…

Something to know it would be safe.

[i]Maybe tomorrow…we’ll find something that he’s doing,[/i] Aries said. [i]See a panel that he’s running or something like that.[/i]

That wasn’t a bad idea, honestly. And spending the convention seeing just what he was like, what he did in public, was a good way to tell what kind of person he wanted the public to see him as.

And if it was so very different from what he projected in private, they would know that it wasn’t safe. If he was genuine in public, however, even if more shy…

[i]Then we know he’s like us,[/i] Aries said, nudgingly. [i]We’ll know that he can keep a secret.[/i]

It was a fair point, and one that all the headmates could accept. It would allow them to hold back on making a judgment for now, waiting until it was the proper time where they would have more facts, and less emotions, to work with.

They got off on their floor, hurriedly making their way to their room. They slipped inside, and the horny side of the head finally had the chance to do what they wanted. Blake allowed them forward, giving them the compromise that had been agreed on. No fun with Libra tonight, but the three of them could do what they wanted with the body provided that it did not leave the room.

As they settled on the bed, hands going all over themselves, Blake settled in a quieter part of the mind. Thinking on the rubber suit had made hm curious. If Libra could hide his inhumanity from the entire world in that so effectively, he wondered if it was possible for them to become something different. The others had come into his head in different shapes, not quite human themselves, and they were very much comfortable in that. Less comfortable in the human body that they all shared, but comfortable as themselves.

[i]What if he could give us a body that looked like how we actually wanted to look?[/i]

It would depend on how good the rubber felt whether they would wear it all the time, but the very idea of having that was enough to make him hope. Blake closed his eyes, even though their body was wide awake, and allowed himself to sleep. The dreams of want followed quickly, dragging at his mind and libido, and even he was rather…enthused, he supposed, by thoughts of being encased in rubber…

Even becoming rubber.

After all, Libra had said that there were various experiments that weren’t on the public market, and being his friend – and maybe more – might actually lead them into getting something that they weren’t technically allowed to have.

BONK!

[i]Hey![i] Blake protested as Ptolemy loomed over him. [i]That wasn’t even a horny thought.[/i]

[b]It was, however, a rather using thought. Let us be better than that.[/b]

[i]Like you wouldn’t take it if it was offered.[/i]

[b]If the price was right.[/b]

He seized the bat and bonked the rabbit back. Soon, the ‘bonk’ fight had spread through all the non-horny headmates, and it was the horny ones that had to deal with the distraction in the back of their head.

[b][u][center]The End[/center][/u][/b]

Summary: Blake and his headmates are attending a convention on technology. They meet someone that might have some rather…interesting tech, and start getting a crush on him.

Tags: M/solo, Off-Screen Intimacy, Human, Multiple Personalities, Series, Rabbit, Rubber, Rubber Suit, Technology,