service
What Shion found herself thinking about, as the door whispered open to let her into the small room where KOS-MOS's service module was stored, was the combat-model Realians she had sometimes helped service back on the Woglinde. She was good with Realians -- everyone said so -- and she liked all of them, but she had always thought the combat models were so beautiful. Barely split into male and female, a little androgynous even, despite the different uniforms and hairstyles on the male and female models, like pair after pair of clean and perfect twins, or Adams and Eves. There was an innocence to them, too, somehow, like their minds were as smooth and plastic as the rest of them. It made it so it almost hurt you to see them carrying their huge automatic weapons, or kneeling down in unison to fire. It was like arming perfect, cherubic children.
They were beautiful, but they weren't as beautiful as KOS-MOS was. Shion thought maybe nothing could be.
The room was dim; the Elsa was still limping toward the Second Miltian capital on low power, trying to conserve its energy after all the punishment it had taken. KOS-MOS had taken a fair amount herself, and she lay in the service module with her eyes closed, although the lid was still open. The cold blue lights along its sides made the rest of her try to match her hair. Shion stopped at the side of the module, and stood staring into it, gripping the edge tight in her hands. She started to reach out, to touch KOS-MOS, and then didn't.
Twice. In the Proto Merkabah, and then in the atmosphere. That was twice. Shion supposed anyone else would have been thinking valuable company property or powerful weapon or waste of resources, but none of that had ever even crossed her mind. It had just been constant and thudding, no, no, please, not her, not you, don't you leave me too.
At first it was just a sort of impulsive game: seeing if she could sit on the edge of the module, beside where it opened onto KOS-MOS's shoulder, seeing if she could balance there with her legs kicking into midair like a little girl sitting on the kitchen counter. And then somehow it was the first step in a process, and the next step was swiveling herself around in the edge, swinging her legs over to the inside, and the next one was holding onto the edges of the module as she shifted her weight, and the last was an awkward, careful backwards push-up down into the service module with KOS-MOS.
She tried putting her legs inside, on top of KOS-MOS's, but the idea made her too claustrophobic (coffin was actually the word that flashed through her mind, written in dark-red light), and she ended up curling up, fetally, on her side, so that her knees pressed into KOS-MOS's hip. Her head fitted into the hollow of KOS-MOS's shoulder like it was made for it. Now she touched; she put her hand on KOS-MOS's other shoulder, and then across her collarbones, settling just over where a human heart would be. KOS-MOS's skin was not quite warm enough and a little too smooth, without the bumps and oils and imperfections that a person's skin would have. Shion thought the word perfect again, and that one crossed her mind blue and cold. She pressed her palm flat on KOS-MOS's chest.
Looking up, she saw that KOS-MOS's eyes were open and fixed on her. They were red and glowed a little in the dim. Shion gasped a little without meaning to, and then settled her head again and closed her own eyes.
She felt a slight shifting: KOS-MOS turning her head again, perhaps looking away. KOS-MOS didn't speak, not even to ask Shion what she was doing. Maybe that information wasn't relevant to her current mission, Shion thought, and it brought out of her a trembly smile that she had to press into KOS-MOS's cool, alien skin. Then the rest of her was trembly, too, and she pressed all of herself tighter around KOS-MOS, first for a kind of protection, then like a hug, then not quite like anything she could understand.
Just a game. Just a process. Just to see if she could balance on so thin an edge.
KOS-MOS's lips were also too smooth, and a little too -- springy, somehow, not quite yielding enough. They were soft and pliable against Shion's, though, if unmoving, as obedient as the rest of her often wasn't. The inside of her mouth was equally smooth and entirely dry; it was like pressing her tongue into a plastic cavern. She worked it against the lax, spongy tip of the tongue set in KOS-MOS's mouth, trying to make her saliva work for both of them. It helped, a little.
It was only when her knee cramped against metal that she realized that somehow she had ended up all the way on top of KOS-MOS, face to face, straddling her hips. Her stiff uniform skirt was bunching up above the tops of her thighs under the pressure, and for a moment that made her nervous, and then she wasn't nervous about anything at all because then KOS-MOS's hands moved, and lifted, and came to rest with perfect perfect deliberate precision on the small of Shion's back, below where her jacket ended, where the fabric was slight enough that the human warmth of her own skin could burn right through.
Her moan was muffled and explosive against KOS-MOS's soft dry mouth. The textured front plate of KOS-MOS's startup equipment was pressed between her legs, and now suddenly her awareness of it was exquisite, the hard curves gliding and teasing against her every time she moved.
She broke away, gasping, and stared down into KOS-MOS's steady, uncurious gaze. Like arming children, like Adams and Eves who wouldn't even know what it meant to be naked -- She tried not to squirm any more, but her nerves were all at attention now, sensitized and aching, heat flushing down through the hollow of her hips and into the fork of her legs, swelling her apart, hardening her clitoris into a tiny bullet, swelling her, wetting her. She thought of the desert inside KOS-MOS's mouth, and shivered.
"Shion," KOS-MOS said. It wasn't at all startling in the silence. In a way it had felt like they'd been talking all along. Shion closed her eyes instead of answering, but KOS-MOS said nothing else. It might just have been some kind of glitch.
She pressed herself dow to KOS-MOS's body, not kissing her again, just pressing her face into that not quite warm shoulder, and letting her hips fall into a constant weak circle. Her nipples rubbed against the soft curves of KOS-MOS'S chest every time she moved, and for a little while that was enough, and then she slipped her hand between them and kneaded one between her fingers through her uniform, muffling a little cry in KOS-MOS's coolness. The hands were still on the small of her back, steady and still. She held on to that.
Rubbing herself against the breastplate wasn't working very well anymore; the curves were crushing into her uncomfortably as she tried to work into them harder, and she gave up and pulled her hips away, rolling to the side still half on top of KOS-MOS. One of KOS-MOS's hands fell away when she did, trailing down her hip along its path, and she made a small involuntary mewling sound in her throat. It was too late, too much, too hard to think about anything. She scrabbled her fingers up under her skirt, clawing at the waistband of her hose and not finding it, and then in a fit of frustration thrust her hand between her legs, pulled the thin stretchy stuff away from herself, dug her nails in until she punctured it and made a run she could then pull into a wide gaping mouth. Her panties she just pushed aside, and then without thinking or being able to think she seized KOS-MOS's errant hand and thrust it between her legs. Pressing the gloved palm right up against the wet widening line of her lips (deadened by fabric at one edge) she looked back into KOS-MOS's eyes, and the look in them -- calm, detached, almost disinterested -- made her wetter than ever in a huge guilty rush. The glove was smooth but nowhere near as smooth as the rest of her; it had a friction to it that tingled a little, and she arched up over KOS-MOS and spread her legs as much as she could in the confines of the service module, even hooking one ankle over the edge, and rubbed her hips as fast as she could against her captured hand. Her breath sounded impossibly loud, unhealthily rapid, placed against KOS-MOS's steady, soft respiration.
The hand sliding up was probably just the product of her own vigor, but she thought KOS-MOS's two first fingers curled inward of their own accord; it was something to think, at least. Either way, when their tips slipped a little inside her, she bit down on her breath and followed them with her own hand, pushing them inside almost too hard. They both slipped in as though into water, and Shion's back arched like she'd been shot, keening out a high-pitched noise she could hardly credit as her own. She tugged at the ring finger, too, until it got the message, and pushed in below the others almost as easily. Once inside, they all flexed slightly, testing the wet heartbeat cramping they were sheathed in, and Shion bucked and twitched against the pressure with all the strength in her shaking thighs. They were bare inside her, but the glove still tingled against her clit as she pumped and ground into KOS-MOS's hand, impaling herself on her fingers, fucking them as fast as she could go, gasping on every shaky stroke, clinging, digging her fingers into the artificial smoothness of KOS-MOS's perfect shoulder.
She came fast and like an earthquake, jutting and shuddering against the walls of the module so hard it seemed like it might fall over, breathing not at all for one dizzy moment and then too much and with a hurt little cry on every exhale. When she could again she pressed her face above KOS-MOS's shoulder, beside her cheek, into her hair. It had a faint, pleasant chemical smell.
KOS-MOS withdrew her hand at last, still with great and considered care, and left it on Shion's inner thigh, even when she let her legs fall back together again. The hand on the small of Shion's back still remained.
The ship hummed around them. It was so quiet. Everyone was resting on the upper deck, waiting for them to reach the city, pleased with a job well done. Relieved that they were all okay.
"Shion," KOS-MOS said again. This time it was a bit of a surprise. "I require additional time before my repair cycle is complete."
Shion turned her head so she could see KOS-MOS's face again. She was almost afraid that KOS-MOS would look annoyed, but of course KOS-MOS didn't look anything. It was sort of a relief anyway. She smiled, first pushing it, then meaning it.
"Of... of course, KOS-MOS," she said, and struggled to sit up; there wasn't really room, though, and she ended up clambering over the side and out of the module in a clumsy sprawl instead. It hurt a little to stand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to keep you awake."
"Your apology is not required at this time." KOS-MOS's eyes stayed fixed on her face, and it finally occured to Shion to wonder if KOS-MOS had ever stopped looking at her. "I am happy to be of service."
Not just like arming a child. Shion stared at her for what seemed like long moments. Finally, for lack of anything to say, she offered a weak smile instead.
That was apparently enough for KOS-MOS, though, because she shut her eyes again. Taking a deep breath, Shion adjusted her skirt, and slipped back out of the room. They would be there in just a few hours, most likely. She was going to have to change.