This time last year, Ripley was bloody and broken, still mourning the clutch that never was in the hovel they call a home. It's not much better now, living in an abandoned bomb shelter with musty air and candlelight casting shadows on the stone walls, but it's something. Call flinches when Ripley reaches for her face in the darkness. Her wrists are bound in coarse rope, held easily above her head in one of Ripley's strong hands.
"What is this?" Call asks behind a curled lip. "Some kind of alien courtship ritual?"
"Why?" Ripley presses her thumb to the juncture of her throat and leans in close. "Does this feel alien to you?"
Call turns away. "I downloaded everything-" She stops herself short, and Ripley laughs.
"Everything they knew."
The data set was never complete, even Call knows that much. She'd rather not remember the trauma of Ripley's first fruitless brood, and the sorrowful, empty look she carried for days afterward.
"I'm not even human," Call chokes out desperately, not for the first time.
"So?" Ripley drags her gaze away from Call's open shirt. "Join the club."
Their eyes meet and lock like a three dimensional puzzle when Ripley slides her hand across her stomach. The circuitry beneath Call's skin heats like a frying pan, until the second internal cooling fan starts up in a rattle behind her rib cage.
"It won't work," Call announces bitterly, like she's tried.
She scrunches her eyes shut when Ripley nuzzles close, sweat pooling at the nape of her neck. Ripley's fingers dance across her chest, and Call makes a noise anything but mechanical. When she reaches between her legs an untouched process kickstarts from the back of her motherboard. Her panties are wet before Ripley can pull them aside.
She quirks her lip at the shocked expression on Call's face. "What, didn't think they programmed you to fuck?"
Call shakes her head, tears pricking in her eyes by the time Ripley releases her. She sinks to the ground, too choked up to talk, while Ripley hovers impatiently.
"You don't have to-" Call says breathlessly. "You don't have to tie me up."
Ripley carefully unwinds the rope to reveal the raw, chapped skin underneath. She brushes the bruises until Call shudders and tries to pull away.
"Maybe I want to," Ripley says, hypervigilant of every heated touch. She crawls across Call and forces her horizontal. "Safer that way."
Ripley's hair falls in a matted curtain when she lowers her head, hands roaming to her waist, desperate enough that each touch leaves a bright pink fingerprint in her pale skin. Call cranes her neck into a kiss, cautious and crying. Ripley reacts to the tip of her tongue like gasoline on an open flame. She eases onto her elbows with trembling arms, boxing Call in to lick across her palette.
Call pulls away for air, cheeks damp. "Okay," she concedes quietly. Ripley tracks each movement with an undeniable intensity. "I'm ready."
Ripley latches onto her collarbone, impatient and hot, before pressing a smile into her skin. "I know."
