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Sandrone did not need to sleep, being an automaton and all. She could operate for many days straight without a drop in performance. Of course, like any machine, she needed to rest from time to time and allow her parts and circuits to cool down from their constant activity. This is why she had a bed: to recharge for a few hours. It was not meant for anything else.
So why did a certain moon goddess use Sandrone’s bed more than herself?
“You have those Kuuhenki that always follow you around,” Sandrone grumbled in the dark room. “So why are you clinging to me so tightly?”
Columbina shifted against her, fingers tracing over the base of Sandrone’s ever turning key. Her dark hair brushed against the underside of Sandrone’s chin as she adjusted her head’s position against the automaton’s collar. Slender legs tangled with mechanical ones beneath the yellow blankets. Were it not for the opening in the covers behind Sandrone so her key could move, she might have begun overheating with how much she was being enveloped.
“I feel safer with you.” Sandrone could hear the typical smile of amusement in Columbina’s whisper. She rolled her eyes and stared at the far wall over Columbina’s head where a bookshelf was bathed in soft moonlight.
“One of these nights I really will disassemble your vocal cords while you’re asleep.” Sandrone couldn’t remember when she had first begun allowing this peculiar arrangement between colleagues. Whatever it would take to make her distractions go away, she told herself, and Columbina was always the biggest one. Usually the moon goddess would drift off after ten or fifteen minutes and Sandrone could carefully wriggle out of her grasp.
Columbina shifted again, pulling herself higher in the bed. Sweet-smelling hair fell into Sandrone’s face as her companion gave the quietest of giggles and sang a few notes against Sandrone’s ear. “Dor- mi- ca- ra- co- lum- bu- la~”
“You’re not even trying to sleep!” Sandrone hissed as she pushed Columbina’s head back down. Feeling Columbina’s lips vibrating against the shell of her ear had sent weird tremors through the fine-tuned wires in her head.
Obediently settling back to rest against Sandrone’s body, Columbina’s hands decided to explore the other harbinger’s back, trailing fingertips up the delicately constructed shoulder blades and along the inside tip of her key.
Sandrone huffed and pushed Columbina’s shoulder in annoyance, jostling her back and forth against her chest. “Just be still, will you! Aren’t you supposed to be sleepy? I don’t have all night!”
Columbina pulled back a little, hands settling naturally at the curve of Sandrone’s waist. She “looked” into the other woman’s eyes with her own closed lids, a content smile on her face. So utterly senseless. “You keep talking to me, dear Sandrone. How am I supposed to sleep with all that noise?”
“Columbina!” Sandrone grated out. “You are so-!” The innocent smile on the goddess’ face like all of this was a pleasant surprise to her, made something inside of Sandrone snap.
“Hm?” was all Columbina could articulate as Sandrone cupped her firmly by the cheek and leaned forward to press their lips together. Anything else she had to say was captured by Sandrone’s mouth, swept away by an artificial tongue. Columbina’s fingers curled tighter into her companion’s clothes, and her legs squished more needfully around her thigh. She followed Sandrone’s lips for a centimeter when they were finally pulled away.
Suddenly all that filled the silence of the room was Columbina’s barely audible panting for breath, yet it and the even quieter heartbeat pattering out against Sandrone’s chest was all that existed in the world. For once Columbina didn’t have anything to say. No comment or poke to get a reaction out of Sandrone. No singing or humming. She didn’t even have her little signature smile, her lips parted and wet.
“Now go to sleep,” Sandrone said in a tone much, much gentler than she meant it to be. She was a very advanced automaton. Of course she had plenty of tactile sensors so she could “feel” the world around her. It was always a secondary sense to Sandrone, but right now the warm, soft body against her was overtaking everything.
Columbina’s arms slowly moved up to loop around Sandrone’s neck and she inched closer to rest their foreheads against each other. Her fluttering breaths played tortuously across Sandrone’s lips. “I want more.”
She might as well have not said anything for all it mattered. Sandrone did not make any move to stop her as Columbina closed the gap and sealed their mouths together again. Why on earth had Sandrone’s creator given her such sensitive lips? And tongue too, for that matter. It seemed like a design defect to be so enraptured by these singular sensations.
“Mmmmm.” Sandrone’s moan of protest and frustration did not sound very authoritative in the back of her throat. It only made Columbina smile against her lips and push her tongue more urgently against Sandrone’s own, coiling and pressing together in the strange theater of her artificial mouth.
Finger joints clicked as they threaded through Columbina’s hair and held her there. Something was wrong with her cooling systems. Everything felt too warm inside of Sandrone’s body. Was her key turning faster? Why? A situation like this shouldn’t require extra power.
Sandrone blinked slowly as Columbina finally turned her face away, breath dancing across Sandrone’s cheek. “I can’t go forever like you can.” The heady words sent a pulse of possessive pleasure down every wire in Sandrone’s spine. She tilted her head so her lips brushed against Columbina’s again, and she knew from mere body language alone that the goddess would readily accept another kiss despite not having recovered from the last.
“You weren’t supposed to like it,” Sandrone muttered, resisting every urge in her clockwork brain telling her to give in to her desires.
“I feel so very awake now, dear Sandrone.” Columbina feathered light kisses at the corner of Sandrone’s lips. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get any sleep at this rate.”
“You are so-” Sandrone broke away from another kiss with difficulty “infuriating!”
Her only response was an exhale of amusement and Columbina’s perfect pink lips, puffy from the feverish making out they had already endured.
The blankets moved atop them as Sandrone wriggled about so she could slide her arm down between their two bodies. Columbina’s strange clothes meant there was a lot of fabric to navigate through, but Sandrone managed even as her attention continued to be tempted. Then she found it.
“Hhah!” The sweet gasp from the girl in her arms echoed through Sandrone’s mind, flicking literal switches and goading her onward. Columbina’s underwear was as thin and sheer as silk, and Sandrone could feel everything beneath it with a mere brush of her fingertip. Already she was inscribing a perfect map into her central core of the moon goddess’ most sacred place.
“Have you ever-?” Sandrone didn’t know how to finish the question.
“You’re the first.” It was not so much an answer as a promise. If Sandrone had a heart, it would no doubt be beating in perfect rhythm with the one pressed against her breast.
Columbina whined, and her slender body arched closer to Sandrone as mechanical fingers began to stroke her. Her hips twitched involuntarily, needing more. Their kisses were sloppier now. Columbina wasn’t able to focus properly and couldn’t control her gasping. It didn’t matter. Sandrone delighted in taking what she could.
It didn’t take long for Columbina to give up on kissing entirely though. Her lips shining with saliva that wasn’t her own slid down Sandrone’s chin before she buried her face in the crook of Sandrone’s neck. The hot, heavy breaths against her shoulder gave Sandrone a perfect rhythm to touch her goddess with. And for once, Columbina’s unearthly floral scent was tinged with the base smell of sweat.
“Sandrone!” Columbina mewled, arms latched tight around Sandrone’s back. No matter how much she squeezed her thighs together from the sensation, Sandrone didn’t stop. Even if she didn’t have the drive, she was hardly oppressed by the human defect of fatigue. She would make sure Columbina wouldn’t be able to easily find someone else to make her feel this way.
“You’re making my finger joints all sticky,” Sandrone grumbled down at the goddess drooling on her collarbone. Surely Columbina knew her well enough to hear how empty the insult was.
No matter how Columbina’s body moved and twisted in Sandrone’s grasp, she continued her assault beneath the blankets. Who would have thought those precise aiming modules could be cross utilized here? Columbina clung to her like a rock in a stormy ocean, whining and moaning her name into her neck.
At a certain point, one of Columbina’s exquisite ears emerged from her shifting hair and Sandrone bent her head down to speak into it. She could feel how sensitive her goddess was getting down below. If she said something Columbina was particularly fond of, it would probably push her over the edge.
Gears whirred in Sandrone’s mind, presenting so many options to make her companion finish. All of them felt far too honest. Besides, would saying something as simple as “I like you” really be the breaking point for Columbina? Well, maybe. She was pretty weird.
“Sandrone, please-!” The pathetic begging made Sandrone’s hesitation evaporate.
She brought her lips as close to Columbina’s ear as possible. “You better not take naps in anyone else’s bed after this.”
The effect was immediate. Columbina’s thighs clamped around Sandrone’s hand to the point she was worried some of the fragile machinery inside might get warped. From the mouth pressed deep into Sandrone’s neck came a low, keening wail of ecstasy, smothered to the point Sandrone felt it in her metal bones more than heard it with her ears. Sandrone smiled in satisfaction at the moonlight filtering in through the window. She’s not yours yet, she smugly thought at the celestial body high above Teyvat.
Time passed slowly as Columbina’s breathing evened out. She remained wrapped tight around Sandrone but all of the strength had left her limbs. Sandrone idly stroked her hair with the hand that hadn’t gotten messy. “You better be sleepy now after everything I did to help you.”
Columbina gave a slight nod against Sandrone’s collar. “I don’t think I’ll wake up tomorrow.” Already her speech was slurred. “Apologize to… Arlecchino and… Rosa…”
Sandrone lay still as the moon goddess fell asleep at last, her favorite harbinger as her pillow. She could get up and work. She should. Extra sleep was unnecessary and a poor allocation of time. But… Well. It would be difficult to get out of Columbina’s grasp. If the other woman woke up, Sandrone wouldn’t get any work done anyway. So maybe just this once…
Columbina smiled softly in her sleep as two familiar arms pulled her closer.