Work Text:
Knock knock
Amiya stirs. Maybe she had just imagined it?
Knock knock knock knock
No. No, she hadn’t. “One moment”, she mumbles out, sitting up in bed and groggily stretching as she checks the time. She frowns, checking again, and when the clock stubbornly continues to tell her it’s 1AM she starts to run down the list of options. She’s not on call tonight, so that’s not it. If it was an emergency, there’d either be an overhead alert or her communicator would be ringing, so it’s not those. That left a really badly timed personal visit or a prank. She slaps either side of her face to try and rid herself of her remaining sleepiness and stands up, wincing a little as she turns on the lights, and then goes to the door, opening it.
“...Mon3tr? Is something wrong?” She was standing outside Amiya’s room with a soft athletic jacket thrown over a bralette and some boyshorts. Her face was expressionless— she’d explained that she had to learn how to make expressions all on her own now that she had human face muscles for the first time in millenia— but the emote pin she wore was an uncomfortable red flickering to yellow when she saw Amiya. Waves of anxiety tempered with sadness filled the air around her. Lonely. Alone. Need touch. Where is she? My heart aches, why am I alone?
Mon3tr avoids her eye contact. “I— I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t think of anyone else to help me, so…”, her voice trailing off. Unlike her face, her voice was expressive. She was embarrassed to be asking this.
Amiya smiles, glad that this wasn’t some weird prank. “Come in then, I’ll make some herbal tea.”
“...Thank you.”
***
Mon3tr walks into Amiya’s room, experiencing a sensation she had determined through the process of elimination to be “sick to the stomach from anxiety”. She’d decided that she didn’t like it. The aching loneliness was at least familiar, but the nervous energy in her guts she felt around Amiya were less so. She looks around to distract herself.
To one side, Amiya busies herself in a built-in kitchenette to heat up some water for the offered herbal tea. She was wearing a faded oversized shirt from a music festival, and when Mon3tr realizes how focused she is on the bit of her shoulder it exposed, she continues her survey. Against another wall, a tidy desk and workstation. The bed was on the opposite side of the room, several plushes scattered about and sheets untidy from their interrupted use. Another wall— oh. Mon3tr steps closer to one of the walls by the bed to examine it more closely. Amiya had covered it in photographs and other momentos from over the years— here and there, her and the Doctor; candids of the elite operators; a corner dedicated to her and Rosmontis; Kal’tsit at work or overlooking the deck; another with Kal’tsit wearing a serious expression and a birthday hat that Mon3tr recalled with a laugh to herself—
Oh. She brings a clawed hand to her face and pulls it away, looking at the tears shining against the facets of her metallic, crystalline skin. Oh. I’m crying again. She stands there thinking about Kal’tsit, hardly noticing Amiya until she appears next to her, offering her a mug with a vaguely familiar abstract symbol printed on it. The Design of Strife drills? she hazards to herself, taking ahold of the mug in either hand. Amiya looks concerned for a moment before Mon3tr looks down, realizes the mug is hotter than a normal person could handle, and laughs. She lets go with one hand and wipes away some of her stray tears. “I’m fine— really. Warfarin had to stop Gavial from finding a flamethrower when we were doing my physicals earlier this week.”
“Alright, then.” Amiya’s look of concern shifts but doesn't quite go away. Lately, Mon3tr had realized that she’d had a melancholy look to her face that she hadn’t picked up on before. She’d been thinking a lot about it, unsure of why she’d not understood it until now. Her emote pin follows along with her thoughts, a pensive blue face. Amiya smiles, sitting down on the bed and patting next to her, an invitation to join her. Mon3tr freezes for a moment.
“Are— are you sure? I can find some bedding—”
“Mon3tr, it’s fine. Rosmontis is over here all the time too, you know. It’s not the first time I’ve had a girl sleep over in my own bed.”
Mon3tr blushes, still thrilled by her comrades seeing her as a girl and human like them, and a little bit jealous at Rosmontis for reasons she couldn’t quite pin down. “Right. Yeah, you’re right.” She sits down beside her, stiffening briefly again as Amiya reaches out to run her hand up and down her back along the course marked by the protruding black ridges of her spine. She breathes in a deep breath before exhaling. “It’s just that… for all my life, for thousands of years, I’ve never been alone. Even the few times she died, neither of us were properly conscious for that and so despite what she would tell herself, we’d never really experienced what it was like to be alone. And then she cut me off to use the Sarcophagus, and we were back together right before we fought Priestess— and then she— she just— she died without me, Amiya. She set me free and cursed me to be reborn alone!” She’d begun crying ugly tears, her face a mess as her body activated reflexes she barely understood.
Amiya sets down her mug and pulls Mon3tr into her embrace. “It’s okay, I’m with you.” Mon3tr pulls tight against her, and Amiya begins running a hand through her hair. “I’ve lost a lot of people in my life. I cried really easily for months after I lost my parents, and I was inconsolable all week after Theresa died. I’m sure you knew a lot of people before, but Kal’tsit…”
“She was my Kal’tsit.”
“...She was special. To both of us. I still keep expecting to turn around and see her on the bridge or when I pass by medical, and then she’s just…”
“Gone.”
***
An hour later, Mon3tr is flat on her back on Amiya’s bed, taking increasingly steady breaths. All the fluids a human face could produce was another thing she was still getting used to. Saliva was one thing, but mucus— ugh, she thinks to herself with a shudder. At least the gore inside a body didn’t have the temerity to try and leave it when you got upset.
Amiya is sitting up beside her, one of Mon3tr’s hands in her lap as she idly traces a finger along the edges of it. “She’s right… it is soft.”
Mon3tr twists her head to face Amiya. “What?”
“Rosmontis told me earlier about how soft your hands were. I believed her, but it’s different to actually feel them.”
Mon3tr nods. “It’s a reactive material. It gets harder in response to shock— so if I punched a wall, I’d probably leave a crater.”
“Oh. That explains why Blaze keeps asking to train with you.” Amiya runs her thumb over the faceted palm of Mon3tr’s hand for several long minutes, pensive. Mon3tr tries to synchronize her breathing with her strokes, finding the whole thing oddly soothing. “...What about the rest of your skin?”
“Is it reactive?”
“Is it soft?”
Mon3tr blushes and looks away. “Well! You know! It’s skin! It’s supposed to be soft. Girls are soft, you know!” Great. Now you sound like an idiot.
Amiya laughs, and Mon3tr can’t help but look back at her, emote pin expressing purple confusion. “We are soft, aren’t we?” She leans over onto her side to lie parallel to Mon3tr, all while shifting her hand around so their fingers interlace. Mon3tr’s blush deepens as she notices Amiya’s own blush. “It’s been nice to get to know you like this, Mon3tr. She left you alone, but I don’t know that you’d have the chance to change like this without it.”
Mon3tr’s eyes are as wide as her emote pin is a bright, happy green. She’s so close to me. Why is she holding my hand like that? We’re bonding? This is a sleepover, right? But she compared us to Rosmontis, didn’t she? And why do I feel so nervous around her? Why was I crying again? Were her eyes always that blue? Her thoughts race, struggling to cross-reference countless memory file directories before her mouth decides to solve for x for the rest of her.
“Can I kiss you?”
Amiya looks at her, and Mon3tr experiences an exquisite emotional agony as she realizes what the nervousness in her stomach was and why she’d needed the Doctor’s emotional support to meet up with Amiya the other day, after that meeting. And now here she was, having just been asked a question she surely wouldn’t reciprocate on— she had just finished crying her eyes out, fucking hell, why would anyone want to kiss her after th—
In a fluid motion, Amiya is on top of her, pulling her up by the front of her hooded jacket, kissing her on the lips. Mon3tr’s talons decompress on pure reflex before her thought processes crash briefly. Once she recognizes what’s happening, she wraps her arms around Amiya and reciprocates enthusiastically. Eventually— it wasn’t enough— she pulls away. “You were getting too into your head.”
“Oh. Um. Thank you. Can we keep doing that?”
Amiya leans to the side and cradles one of Mon3tr’s talons before gently kissing it and letting go. “If you put these away first, maybe.”
Mon3tr blushes. “Sorry. It’s a reflex.” The talons quickly compact into metallic crystals that then set themselves against her skin. She brings a hand to her lips, still disoriented from the kiss. “I’ve experimented a little with my body alone, but I haven’t had anyone to kiss. It’s nice. It’s really, really nice. Kal’tsit didn’t have nearly enough memories of kissing.”
Amiya looks her over, her own nervousness and embarrassment apparent. “Did… did you want to try more? With a partner?” She glances away from Mon3tr. “I’m not that experienced myself.”
Mon3tr’s pin flicks back to a quizzical blue thinking face. “I thought you and Rosmontis?"
Amiya brushes back some stray hair behind one of her ears. “She’s not really interested in sex, and she doesn’t mind if I’m with someone else, if that’s what you want to know.”
“I guess I just thought you’d have more experience in general? You always seemed popular with the other teens before in the brief times I saw you around them.”
“I think the last time I had truly reliable free time was when this was all still Babel. The Doctor, Kal’tsit, and everyone else did what they could, but a normal childhood was never really possible.”
“You and me both.” Mon3tr reaches out her tail and wraps it around one of Amiya’s hands, firmly tugging her down towards her. “You want to know one thing I don’t miss? Not being able to talk to anyone except Kal’tsit. I can ask anyone for anything now.”
Amiya studies her face. It made Mon3tr feel self conscious again, which wasn’t new tonight, but she was learning new and exciting things that could cause it. “Then ask me. I pick up on so much because of the crown, so I’d rather you ask me with your newfound words.”
Mon3tr’s heart pounds as she reaches up a hand to cup the other girl’s cheek, eyes locked with hers. “Touch me. Please.” Amiya smiles and sits up, unzipping Mon3tr’s jacket and pulling it open. Mon3tr involuntarily shivers as her bare midriff is exposed to the cool air, and again as Amiya places a warm hand against her collarbones, trailing it down until she’s cupping one of Mon3tr’s breasts. She gently squeezes and begins working it in her hand, her eyes wide.
“You really are so soft.” Mon3tr squirms under the gentle but unfamiliar stimulus— she’d touched herself before, of course, but it was different when someone else was straddling you and doing it. She’d have to do more research when going through Kal’tsit’s memories wouldn’t be nearly so awkward. Amused at how she was squirming, Amiya reaches down with her other hand to keep teasing Mon3tr’s chest. “Cute, too. It’s still strange seeing that you’re the same size as me now.”
“Hey now, I’m still taller than— owch!” Amiya pinches one of her nipples, sticking her tongue out playfully.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“...No.”
She stops briefly anyways to pull off her worn sleep shirt, giving Mon3tr a full view of her nude torso. Her eyes drink her in, helpfully flagging various points of interest and at least one cute mole while her medical expertise notes several scars she didn’t recognize and the telltale deformation of her estrogen implant. Mon3tr reaches up towards her and runs a hand along the side of her belly. “No, I want more.” Amiya looks at her and shifts back, unsure if she should get off from on top of her before Mon3tr goes ahead and props herself up with her partially decompressed talons supporting her. She immediately pulls close, nuzzling Amiya’s breasts as she slowly runs one of her hands around, slowly feeling at every bit of skin she can reach. “You know, I couldn’t really feel softness before. I understood it, and experienced it the way a knife or a stone did, but it wasn’t really something for me. Gentleness was just a matter of precision or of the feel of Kal’tsit’s touch. It wasn’t until I was reborn that I realized just how envious I was of all the life that got to be soft, to be gentle, to be so privileged as to be weak.” She breathes in and out steadily, thoughts racing. I feel like I should be upset? That seems like something that should upset me more right now? No, that’s… really not what I want to do right now. What I want—
Mon3tr looks up to Amiya. “Amiya...”
“...I really want to bite you.”
Amiya hesitates— both of them know perfectly well what her jaws are still capable of. She runs her hand through Mon3tr’s hair as she thinks. “Be gentle?”
Mon3tr grins as she kisses one of Amiya’s breasts, savoring her nervous energy and the way she suddenly sucks in a breath as she finds a satisfactory angle and slowly bites down, one of her hands clenching Amiya’s side as Amiya’s own hand grips her hair tightly. It would be so easy to hurt her and simply sink her teeth through so much flesh, so instead she delights in seeing how far she can go without breaking Amiya’s skin or being stopped. Maybe I should keep a count—
“That’s— that’s enough.” She tugs on Mon3tr’s hair, pulling her away with an exhale.
“Did you like it?” Mon3tr looks at the neat ring of sharp bitemarks with smug satisfaction. Her emote pin was a bright, happy green.
“I—” she pauses, focusing on her body. “I think I did? Just… less hard next time. I’m not used to being bitten like that.” Mon3tr nods, then playfully nips at the inside of her arm. Amiya giggles.
“You know, we still haven’t kissed nearly enough yet?”
Amiya slides off from on top of Mon3tr and gets back on her side, facing her. “I’m starting to question if you came here for me to help you sleep at all, Monte."
“We both got distracted.”
“Mhm,” Amiya answers as Mon3tr pulls her close to kiss her.
“Owch— that was my lip!”
“Am I not allowed to bite back?”
“After my heart, are you?” As they kiss again, Mon3tr marvels at the experience and how Amiya’s lips feel against her own. Kal’tsit had kissed her from time to time before, but much of the experience had been lost on her. Her crystalline body didn’t perceive touch in a compatible way to make the experience in itself feel like anything than a simple modulation of pressure. Now though, she had the body of an entire girl before her, and her own newfound girlish shape and sensorium. The heat coming off of her, the sounds, the feel of her under her touch, each sensation logged and tagged for her to review in private later.
“Hmmmm…”
Mon3tr freezes as Amiya pulls away, suddenly anxious. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no, this is nice!”
Mon3tr’s anxiety began to intensify. I’ve been doing badly, haven’t I? She just doesn’t want to admit to it. It’s the same as all my facial expressions, isn’t it? I don’t know how to do them right, I can’t fucking kiss, I’m just moving nonsense muscle groups around and she hates it—
She’s shaken from her spiraling as Amiya grasps her face in both her hands. “Mon3tr, it was fine. I liked it, I really did!” She lets go of Mon3tr’s face and sits up, then pulls Mon3tr upright with her. Amiya reaches out and pulls off Mon3tr’s jacket, taking care to unclip her emote pin and clipping it onto her bralette, the pin flicking from troubled red to yellow, unsure of what was happening. She pulls her forward and kisses her again, Mon3tr’s head spinning, taking ahold of one of her hands and squeezing tight. “It’s normal to be nervous. You’re new at this, and we’re experimenting. I’m not judging you. I still feel a lot of what you feel and it has me almost dizzy.”
Mon3tr exhales, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. “Um. That’s. Good to know.”
“No, the reason I stopped is… well…” Amiya looks away, and Mon3tr finally realizes how flushed she is, how much heat her body is giving off, the bit of embarrassment that’s crept back into her voice. Her grip tightens. “...This has all left me really… excited, and I wondered if you might… want to… help. With that.”
Oh. Oh she— she wants me to—
“It’s alright if you don’t—”
***
Amiya isn’t sure how she ended up on her back, but however it happened, it happened faster than she could meaningfully perceive. Mon3tr looms over her, eyes wide and face expressionless. They had been holding hands, but in this new position Amiya’s hands are pinned down by hers, and her talons have partially unfolded again to support her on the bed. In the gaps of Mon3tr’s hair framing her face, Amiya can make out a ring of metallic constructs spinning like a halo just behind her head. The two stare at each other for a long moment as Mon3tr straddles Amiya, her long, crystalline tail swaying in the air. Amiya can’t help herself; she squirms under her grasp as her body tries to boil over with how hot she finds this, acutely aware of how sweaty she’s started to get.
“I would like that very much.” Her speech is in the practiced, regular cadence she often uses around Rhodes Island. The way she’s obviously trying to fake sounding like Kal’tsit to keep everyone around her calm has been uncanny for Amiya, but at the moment it tells her one thing for certain: she’s trying so very, very hard to sound normal right now. Her emote pin rapidly cycles between green, yellow, and red— she’ll need Closure to take a look at it later.
Mon3tr lowers herself slowly, biting at one of Amiya’s ears before working her way down to her shoulder. “You’re unbearable, you know that?” Amiya says with a shaky voice.
“If you want me to stop, tell me to stop,” Mon3tr replies in that even, uncanny cadence.
Amiya doesn’t say anything, focusing instead on moaning as Mon3tr starts grinding against her erection without bothering to take off either of their underwear. Both of them modulate their techniques to try and keep getting reactions from each other, each little sound and tic greeted with little laughs and smiles. She tugs one of her arms and eventually Mon3tr lets it go, allowing Amiya to reach up and grab her by the hair to pull her in for a kiss before guiding her face around her body. Mon3tr kisses and bites at her; Amiya tries to bite one of her ears back, but finds it’s like biting metal. She sucks in a breath as she comes, but neither of them stops until Amiya finally pushes Mon3tr away much later, exhausted.
***
Mon3tr stirs, internal timer signalling that she couldn’t keep putting off waking up. Thank goodness neither of us are working a weekend shift this week. Beside her, arms around her, Amiya starts to stir, briefly trying to push her face into the back of Mon3tr’s neck before being reminded of the prominent metallic ridges of her spine— she’d conceded to being the big spoon, but had put a pillow between them for the sake of her own comfort.
“Mmmmgh.”
“I can make some coffee, if you’d like.”
Amiya shakes her head. “Not— not yet.” She lays there silently for a few minutes before speaking again. “Did you sleep all right?”
“Yeah… yeah, I did.”
“Good.” Amiya stretches and disentangles herself from Mon3tr, shifting onto her back under the sheets. “That was really nice, but it would also be nice to get to bed earlier.”
Under the sheets, Mon3tr’s tail snakes around one of Amiya’s legs. “I’ll remember that for next time.”
“...I look like I lost a fight.”
“You sorta did, though?”
“You’re so lucky I like to wear cravats.”