Welcome to the Swamp, I guess. I cycle through fandoms like I'm abusing one of those spinning prize wheel, except the only prize is maladaptive daydreaming and intermittent bursts of fanfiction.
Slowly posting my fics on Tumblr, but they're all on AO3 if that's more your bag! I also have a website! For some reason? You can find it here.
Fanfics tagged with #theswampharpy writes
GUNDAM
I Used to Know You Well (Char/Amuro post-Zeta angst)
Quess Air (Char, Quess, Kamille + depression)
The Way You Taste (Char/Amuro + horses)
Put Me in a Chair, Fuck Me, and Make Me a Drink (Char/Amuro domestic misery)
It's Half Your Fault So Half Forgive Me (Char/Garma at a Zeon Academy dorm party)
A Three-Body Problem (Char/Amuro/Lalah's Force Ghost)
Okay, this scene with Tavington catching fireflies is driving me to drink. Because he uses his fucking fingertips and doesn’t kill it. He catches it, holds it, examines it… and the camera cuts away before we see if he lets it fly away or flicks it away or kills it.
That ambiguity is something that picks at my brain in the case of the extended cut of the Patriot because why was it removed? To avoid humanizing him? Which makes sense. But they could have just as easily made him worse by having him squish it unambiguously.
I need @lyledebeast because my brain refuses to dig out the nuances that I know are here.
I'm responding to this old post but I just watched this scene for the first time and AHHHh.
I really love this moment. It was so unexpected seeing the wonder in his eyes. He's been surrounded by shooting muskets spraying sparks, canons exploding a few feet away. He's ordered houses to go up in flames just for the pleasure to watch it burn. (Does he have an arsonist streak about him actually?)
But here are fireflies. Sparks bouncing around that he's never seen before. Just looks at them with such awe in this quiet moment.
All this bouncing light without a hint of violence attached to their existence and he just reaches out. The fly doesn't fight back. Doesn't sting, doesn't scorch. Tavington holds it gently between two fingers. The same fingers he'd used to pull the trigger and take a life hours earlier. And now he could snap those fingers again and end this light too.
We can assume he does because he's been a butcher and a monster so far in the story. We just don't know for sure and I'd like to imagine he let's it live. If not for the small basic kindness, but because he's a brat and doesn't want to get the bug guts on him.
The deleted scene where prisoners are being *questioned* by Captain Borden. Tavington and another officer are out in a field of flowers and comments "marvelous country, everything grows". I think, as good as he is at it, Tavington is growing weary of war and death. And then he's right back to himself, interrogating the prisoner, a former Martin militia member. I wish they had left that scene in. Ot really gave something to Tavington's character.
Oh my God, Jason just steals every scene that's why they deleted it.
Yeah that really shows how tired he's growing of it. Yes, he wants power and prestige. He'd love to win. But if he could own a chunk of Ohio and go be a lord there, he'd be happy to.
I think if this wasn't meant to be a Mel hero movie then they would have shown more about how Tavington, other than his haughtiness, is no different than how Ben Martin used to be. That violence and push to win is in both of them. Ben Martin got to use it against the Natives and French, but he never had to answer for his same crimes. Instead he ends up running a plantation.
Side note: I hate how that white lady from the plantation looks around at Abigale's house. It's your fault she's living like that??? Ugh
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS 2002, dir. Peter Jackson
War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.
how do you distinguish grey from other colours beyond black and wite?
Distinguishing features of moral beige:
The protagonist is constantly agonising over Hard Choices; however, circumstances always conspire to prevent them from actually having to make those choices, so in practice they're just angsting over stuff they might have done.
The text exhibits a recurring pattern whereby the protagonist seems to to have made a Hard Choice, but new information is reliably revealed shortly thereafter which retroactively establishes that whatever they did was the morally upright course after all.
The protagonist's moral impulses are straightforwardly heroic, except in one specific context which lacks any clear real-world analogue; for example, being prejudiced against telepaths.
The protagonist's actions are consistently reasonable based on the information available to them – they're merely operating on bad information basically all the time due to a bizarre conspiracy and/or a series of increasingly implausible misunderstandings.
The protagonist always ends up doing the right thing (for some fuzzy value of "right"), but, like, they're really grumpy about it.
Summary: When a broken engagement sends Ellie Durant all the way from her comfortable home in Chicago to a Pullman Coach in Hell on Wheels, her only thought is how to rebuild her reputation so she can return to society and escape the Nebraska wilderness. As spring turns to summer, she begins to learn more about the strange place she’s found herself in and about the motley assortment of people who work on her father’s railroad. But Hell on Wheels is, by its very nature, a transitory place and no one who passes through can truly stay. Soon, Ellie will have to decide what path to take away from the makeshift town and commit to walking it.
The windows of the train car had been opened to let a breeze flow through the small space. It wasn’t hot outside, not in the middle of a cool spring, but the bright sunshine against the metal roof had heated the car up faster than it had the outdoors. I sat back in my chair, reading through the most recent newspaper to come from back East with my legs crossed in a way that my mother would have scolded me was unladylike if she were here. But she was not. The newspaper was a week old and the next one wouldn’t arrive for another week, at least. Old news. Always old news. I was flipping through it to see if there was possibly anything interesting on the back pages when the door to the car opened. I looked up, expecting my father or maybe Henri, because those were really the only two people to whom I spoke to anymore. Instead, it was one of the men from the camp who came stepping into the train and closing the door behind him. I lowered the newspaper.
“Miss Durant.” The man tipped his black hat and looked around, as if there could have been someone else hiding in the cramped car. “I came to see your father.”
Of course he had. That’s why anyone ever came to the train, why anyone was even here in this so-called Hell on Wheels to begin with. My father and his railroad. Although, this man did look familiar. He had been here before. I couldn’t remember his name or what he did for my father. He certainly knew my name, although that was not surprising. I was sure that the arrival of Ellie Durant, daughter of the great railroad man Thomas Durant, in Hell on Wheels had spread quickly over the last few weeks. “My father isn’t here.”
“Yeah, I can see that, ma’am. You expect he’ll be back soon?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I uncrossed my legs and crossed them again at the ankles, smoothing out the wrinkles in my pale-yellow skirt instead of looking up at the man. “You’ll have to come back.”
I turned my attention to the newspaper in my hands but didn’t really focus on the words. When I didn’t hear the sound of the door opening again, I looked up. He was still standing here, hat in hand, leaning a little back onto his right foot. He didn’t look like he was preparing to leave or had paid any attention at all to my request.
“I said you will have to come back, Mister…?”
“Bohannon, ma’am. But your father asked to see me and I ain’t keen on runnin’ round camp looking for him only to end up back here.”
“You ain’t keen.”
“No, ma’am, I ain’t.”
The man, Mister Bohannon, kept his eyes fixed on mine, not turning away like many of the other men at camp would on the rare occasions I crossed paths with any of them. But he wasn’t looking anywhere else, either. Just my face. I stared back. He tapped out a rhythm onto his hat with his forefinger and raised his eyebrows. I was the one who finally looked away.
“Well, if you insist on waiting for him…” I didn’t finish the sentence and instead picked up my newspaper. I flipped to the second page and then the third. Of course there was nothing interesting. I could have moved to the other car, to the one that was mine alone with a small sitting area and bedroom, but I refused to get up and leave while this Mister Bohannon was standing there staring. I would not be run out. I glanced up at him.
He was leaning against the wall in the corner, focusing on straightening a section of his hat and acting for all the world like he belonged here.
“What is it you do for my father, Mister Bohannon?”
“I’m the foreman, ma’am.”
“The foreman.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I resisted the urge to sigh. “Yes, but what does a foreman do?”
“I’m in charge of the walking bosses, keep the work moving.” He settled his hat back on his head, apparently satisfied with whatever he’d done to it.
“That’s it?”
“Yep, that about sums it up.” His voice was level, sounding almost bored. His slow, southern drawl was mostly to blame for that, drawing out his words like he had all the time in the world. Like he had stumbled into being foreman of my father’s railroad by accident. Whatever reaction I was trying to pull from him with my questions—and I was not sure what it was I was after—I didn’t get it.
“Well, that doesn’t sound too difficult.”
“No, I don’t suppose it would to you, ma’am.”
I glared at him and went back to reading. Neither of us spoke again until my father appeared and of course I was instantly asked if I didn’t have something I’d rather be doing in my own car instead of having to be bored with railroad business, so I collected the paper and a discarded bit of embroidery and left through the back, closing the door on the voices of both men.
Suppertime saw my father and I seated at the small dining table, eating steaks that Henri had cooked for us. My father was occupied with a stack of telegrams and we ate in silence, until he suddenly set down his whiskey glass.
“Any of the men of the camp bother you and you’re to tell me, understand?”
“Yes, you’ve told me, daddy.”
“I mean it,” he added, pointing a finger at me to drive home the point. “Bad enough you’re out here in this godforsaken place, but I won’t stand for anyone disrespecting you.”
I gripped my fork at another reminder that I wasn’t wanted here. They were constant. But it was not as if I could forget that I wasn’t here by choice. “No one’s said anything to me. Most of them won’t even look at me.” I wasn’t certain if he was trying to avoid disrespect that would be directed at him if there was word that he couldn’t protect his own daughter from the men around camp, or if he was really concerned about the effect it would have on me. The few weeks I had spent here in the west were the most time I had spent with my father in, well, forever, and the only thing I had learned was that I didn’t know him.
“Good. I don’t like leaving you alone in a place like this, but it can’t be helped when there’s business to attend to. But Bohannon, he’s smarter than most. Smart enough not to try anything.” He raised his eyebrows and took a long swallow. “He knows there would be hell to pay.”
Something in my father’s voice sounded almost smug.
“Bohannon’s your foreman, isn’t he?”
“How do you know that?”
I pushed some potatoes around the plate. “He told me. While he was waiting for you.”
My father huffed and I heard him uncork the bottle. “Yes, he’s my foreman. And that’s enough from you about railroad business. You don’t need to be sticking your nose into things you don’t need to know anything about. You’re leaving in a week, anyway.”
I took another bite and the meal ended in silence.
Leaving in a week. He’d said the same thing last week. And the week before when we’d arrived in Hell on Wheels and I’d looked out over the makeshift shanty town of dirty tents in horror. But I knew as well as he did that the scandal that had sent me all the way out here from Chicago was not going to blow over in another week or two. Broken engagements, and the rumors that followed in their wake, did not simply disappear from people’s minds. The worst part was that while I was exiled out here in the middle of nowhere, I couldn’t do anything to try to fix things. All I could do was wait.
The days I spent in the Nebraska territory all ran together. I had learned early on, when I asked about taking a walk or going riding, that my father would not allow me to go far. The short walks I did take were just down the track halfway to the makeshift station we had arrived at, or the other way to the end of the short rail spur that had become my home. There was never conversation with anyone beyond my father, even rare as that was, or attempts with Henri. After my first question about whether there were any other women living here who I could go walking with or visit was met with laugher, I had learned that the only other women at the camp were ones of ill-repute. I also found that I would not be allowed to walk through the camp even if I did want to associate with them. I didn’t.
The same rules went for riding as went for walking: it was always only short rides and only within sight of Hell on Wheels and my father always sent one of the Swede’s men with me. I thought his name was Lacey but I didn’t know and I didn’t ask. Whoever it was, my father didn’t trust him (or me) enough to let us go riding far so I stopped going altogether. I didn’t know who the Swede was, either, other than that he made my skin crawl and that I avoided my father’s train car whenever the man was present.
The result of all this was two weeks spent trapped in cramped quarters watching my father, and the men who worked for him, come and go with barely a look in my direction. Another week passed. Another week-old newspaper. Another seven nights curled up in my bed in my train car with the doors locked, listening to the sounds of men and coyotes. Another stack of letters written to friends back home that I didn’t know how to deliver. Another parade of memories playing across my eyelids when I tried to sleep, an endless repetition of the man I’d planned to marry and his face when I told him I could not go through with it. Of the aftermath.
I was being driven mad. The endless plains around us provided no distraction, no diversion from the bleeding of one day into the next. No woman should have to exist in a place like this, I repeated to myself like a mantra. Not when I should be back in Chicago, going riding or walking or visiting friends. One was recently married and we had planned to settle into our new lives as wives and keepers of our own homes together. My decision to call off my wedding had put an end to that and somehow that had led to being stranded here, where I wasn’t even allowed to walk far enough to keep my body from practically aching with unrest and inactivity. I’d been exiled to a place where I wasn’t even allowed to walk down the nonexistent streets and my former fiance was back in Chicago continuing to tell the lies that had sent me here.
The sun was just an hour or two over the horizon on a particularly beautiful spring morning when I went barreling into my father’s train car, dressed in my riding gear, only to find it empty. I flung open the door and started down the rail line toward where I saw him and his distinctive white hat.
“Daddy, I’m going riding,” I called when I was still a dozen paces away. He was with someone, talking, and the conversation stopped when I interrupted. His foreman. What was he called? Bohannon? It didn’t matter, I was here to talk to my father and I wasn’t going to be put off or dismissed or asked to go move to another car because the men were talking. Not this time. Not again.
“Not now, Ellie.” He waved a hand at me, still looking at Bohannon.
“I’m going out riding, properly. I’ll be back in an hour.”
“I said, not now. We’ll talk about it over dinner.”
“I want to talk about it now.” I crossed my arms. My mother would have said I was being petulant, I was sure, and that just frustrated me more. I wasn’t being childish or spoiled. I was just being driven crazy in a prison the size of a Pullman Coach.
My father sighed and finally turned to me. “Alright, what is it?”
He hadn’t listened to a word I’d said. “I’m going riding.”
“Oh, no, that’s far too dangerous.”
“I’m going.” I crossed my arms. Bohannan sighed and looked away down the railroad, like he would rather be anywhere than here. I sympathized.
“You will not,” my father responded. “You are perfectly safe back in the train, which is where you should still be.”
I glowered up at my father. “I’ve been in the train for nearly a month. It’s only riding, it can’t be that dangerous!”
“Mister Durant, if you…”
“Not now, Mister Bohannon!” My father’s loud voice was sharp in contrast to Bohannon’s quiet drawl. “Ellie, you are not going riding alone and that’s final.”
“But there’s no one to go with me out here!”
“What about that fellow that works for me, what’s his name? Lacey?”
“I don’t like him! And he smells, worse than the horses!”
My father groaned in frustration. “Well, you should have thought of that before—”
“Isn’t there anyone else?” I pleaded. I needed to escape this place, even if it was just a few hours.
“If you hadn’t noticed, I’m trying to build a railroad, not run a riding camp for—”
“I’ll ride with her, Mister Durant.”
My father and I both turned. My father’s face was positively red from being interrupted so much and I didn’t know if the flush on my own cheeks was much better. Bohannon was standing where we’d left him with his hands on his hips. When he had our attention, he spat on the ground. “Men have the day off on account of the rain yesterday. I can ride out with her, make sure there’s no trouble.”
He was looking at my father, not at me. Of course. This wasn’t about me. But that was alright.
“Okay then, go.” My father gestured away with a shooing motion. “Heavens, I wish I’d had a son.”
I flushed and turned away before I could see whatever reaction Bohannon had to that statement. The horses weren’t far and I walked in that direction without waiting another moment. Bohannon caught up with me within a few feet, falling into step beside me with his much longer legs. I didn’t look at him while he saddled the horses. I used the block to climb up onto the horse and we started off.
I broke the silence almost immediately. He was too self-assured, too comfortable, almost smug in how he’d so selflessly offered his presence.
“I didn’t ask you to ride with me, Mister Bohannon, so I hope you don’t expect any thanks.”
“Can’t say I did.”
I glanced over at him. He had a good seat on his horse, leaning forward a little and looking relaxed at the easy pace I was setting. Like he’d been born to ride a horse. “Good.”
“Sure sounded like you were asking, though.”
“I wasn’t asking you.”
“Right. Just for your father to find someone.”
“Yes.”
“Who you like. And who don’t smell.” Bohannon leaned over the side of his horse to spit. “That’s a tall order ‘round these parts, Miss Durant.”
“Every man here smells like horse, sweat, or whiskey.” My white mare stepped toward Bohannon’s bay as I leaned toward him and I adjusted the reins to steer her back straight again.
“You’re in the wrong country if you’re looking for parties and men who smell pretty.”
I gripped the reins tightly and my teeth tighter. “I am very aware of that fact, Mister Bohannon.”
He laughed. I nudged my horse faster with my heels and started off at a trop that turned into a canter as we passed through the tall grass of the Nebraska plains. The ground was still wet so I didn’t push for a full gallop but even at this pace I could feel the wind in my hair and the pounding of blood in my veins. I leaned low over the saddle and gripped the reins and watched the ground fly under the feet of my horse. For the first time in weeks, even with my breath coming short, I felt like I wasn’t suffocating. Like my world hadn’t shrunk to the size of a few train cars, a father who I didn’t know, and the surly voices of men who wouldn’t be allowed into the New York neighborhood where I was raised or the Chicago one that I had, until recently, called home.
Finally, heart pounding, I came up to the low banks of a river and pulled my mare to a stop. The river gurgled over rocks and into shallow pools as it cut its way across the landscape. A few of the pools had trees growing up around the banks and those led into more forested land away to what I thought was the south. Purple buds were still visible on some, while others had already given way to green leaves.
My horse nosed at the shorter grass beside the water and I slid down off the saddle. My riding boots sunk into the soft soil whe I led her over to the water to drink. A little way downstream, Bohannon did the same with his own mount but he didn’t speak. Rushing past my feet, the water looked clear and cool and I was almost jealous of my horse as I watched her swallow mouthfuls. I stroked her neck instead.
“Good girl. There you go.” I patted her neck and stepped back, turning and coming up short when I found Bohannan much closer than I’d left him.
“Here.” He held out a canteen.
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought to bring one and he knew it. I glanced down at the flowing water.
“You wanna join your horse down there, you be my guest.”
“No, thank you.” I took the canteen and unscrewed the cap, swallowing down a few mouthfuls. I handed it back to him. He took it back without a word and turned toward the east where the sun was rising higher in the sky. A few drops of water clung to his beard and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. I stepped out into the grass and let it tickle at my palms. The stalks pulled at the hem of my dress as I moved a little further into the endless meadow. The sun had risen higher and I took off my hat to feel it full on my face. It was warm. Calming. I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed deep.
It was quiet out here. Quieter than the camp where there was always the sound of men's voices, usually yelling or cursing. Horses. Dogs. The roar of the train. The clank of wagons or of wood and steel for the railroad. And it was quieter than Chicago with its noisy street and endless busyness. Here, out in this wilderness, the only thing I could hear was the wind and the calling of birds and buzzing of insects. Grasses rustled by the wind tickled against my palms and I opened my eyes.
“It’s beautiful.” The words fell out of me in a whisper.
“Yeah. It is.” Bohannon’s tall form appeared at my side. His hat was still firmly on his head and it left his eyes in shadow. I had almost forgotten he was there. I settled my hat back on my head and tucked back some yellow hairs that had escaped from my braid. The buzzing of insects became louder as the day grew warmer. More insistent, like they were demanding to be heard.
I wanted to ask Bohannon why he’d offered to ride with me when it was obvious that he hadn’t wanted to, but I didn’t. I heard a cry from somewhere up above and looked up, holding onto my hat as I found a bird circling high above us.
“Is that an eagle?”
“Chickenhawk. He’s got a red tail on him, see?”
“Oh.” I squinted up at the shape as it wheeled overhead. As it turned, I caught sight of a flash of red. “How did you know that?”
“Seen enough of ‘em.”
“Oh.” I watched the bird continue to circle above us. Hunting, probably, for whatever a bird like that ate. I doubt there were many chickens for it to find out here. I picked the head off a stalk of grass and pulled apart the tiny seeds and fluffy strands. The wind pulled them from my fingers.
Bohannon was still standing quietly and I sneaked a glance at him. He was looking out over the hills. He didn’t seem as rough as the other men who I saw around the camp, but I didn’t know anything about him or where he had come from. At least he didn’t make me want to crawl into a hole and disappear like the Swede did. I supposed that being the foreman required more respectability than a common laborer. Maybe he had been with the railroad since the beginning. But he was a southerner, that much was obvious. I doubted he had fought in the war, my father wouldn’t hire someone who had fought against the Union, so maybe he had been in the north for a long time. I opened my mouth to ask when he turned to me.
“Should be heading back.” Then he spat in the grass. My nose wrinkled before I could stop it. Disgusting habit.
“We just left.”
He didn’t answer. Just raised his eyebrows at me again, like he was waiting for me to realize that he was right and I was wrong. “You think your daddy’s not counting the minutes ‘til we get back?”
I turned back to my horse where she had drunk her fill and had begun nibbling at the grass alongside Bohannon’s. She looked rested. I hadn’t pushed her hard, after all. I walked over to her and took her reins in hand, stroking her neck. Her skin shivered under my palm and she flicked her tail at some insect that was buzzing too close. Bohannon wasn’t wrong. One of the things my father did seem to care about, at least since I had come out west with him, was knowing where I was at all times. He would probably lock me up in his safe if he could.
“You heard the man, Daisy. Should be heading back.” I reached for the saddle horn and lifted my foot for the stirrup but on the soft ground and without the mounting block, I couldn’t reach. I tried again.
“Oh, dratted…”
“You need a hand with that, Miss Durant?”
“No, I’ll manage.” I gripped the saddle horn tighter but Daisy was already annoyed with me and she shifted, forcing me to hop along with her until Bohannan grabbed the reins.
“You sure about that?”
“Would you…” I dropped back down on both feet. “Do you have to do that?”
“Do what, Miss Durant?”
“Talk like that all the time.”
“Well, this is the only way of talkin’ I know how to do.”
He sounded so infuriatingly calm, standing there and holding the reins to my horse and just watching me. His eyes were bright on his tanned face, standing out from his mass of black hair, some of it speckled with grey.
“Yes, but you don’t have to…” I let out a sigh. There wasn’t any point. This man had seen me practically beg my father for someone to go out riding with me and here I was refusing his help to even get back on my horse. I squeezed my hands into fists. None of this was fair. And it was turning me into someone who wasn’t me. “You can help me up onto my horse, Mister Bohannon.”
“Well, now I ain’t so sure.” My eyes had barely widened when Bohannan let out a laugh and stepped closer with his hand out. “Come on, then.”
His hand was rough, calloused, and warm when I finally took it and his other palm was on my waist for just a moment before I was safely in the saddle and he pressed the reins into my hand. I adjusted my seat on the horse, and then my hat on my head, and then smoothed my skirts while Bohannon mounted his own horse. I rode up beside him.
Summary: When Doctor Anna's research team is rescued from their remote planetary outpost by the Enterprise, she's unsettled, annoyed, and resigned to spending a week camped out on a cargo bay floor until they reach the nearest Starbase. Then she encounters the ship's First Officer and Anna decides that she deserves some fun and, more importantly, a release.
Just an excuse to write porn about Will Riker.
The evacuation of the research outpost was a blur. Between the time Doctor Eldin made the announcement on the main communication channel and when I finally dumped my bags in a pile on the floor of one of the Federation ship’s cargo bays, less than three hours had passed. Three hours to rush home from my work station and pack up everything I owned, or at least everything that would fit into the suitcases that were hurriedly replicated for us en masse. Three hours to lug those suitcases to the beam up point and hope I hadn’t forgotten anything crucial. And now the contents of those suitcases were all that was left of the home I’d lived in for the last two years.
Everyone must have made it off the planet, because the ship that rescued us had gone to warp and was currently sailing far, far away from the research planet. My fingers shook a little as I lifted my glass and I immediately set it back down. My heart was still racing, which was ridiculous, so I settled for watching the stars fly toward me just on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the ship’s lounge. I didn’t even know what it was all about, really. All I knew was what Eldin had told us: that an alien race was laying claim to the planet and that the entire research station had to evacuate. All one hundred of us. This ship—I thought it was called the Enterprise—seemed massive but even so, they didn’t have the space for all of us to get private or even shared rooms. Instead, the cot I’d been given was in a partitioned area of a cargo bay, in a row with dozens of others. It was going to be a long week back to Starbase 87. At least they gave us curtains. I liked the rest of the research team and living with the same group of people for two years had made us all very comfortable with each other, but even I needed space sometimes.
On the next swallow of my drink, I was pleased to see that my hand had stopped shaking. I hadn’t been frightened, not really. We’d never even seen the alien ship that supposedly was on its way to destroy our entire outpost. But I’d woken up that morning expecting to spend my day running diagnostics on the seismic sensors, not packing up my entire life and making a mad dash off of Albion II. It had been hours of frenzied movement and lots of shouting and I was happy to be sitting alone in this lounge. And I was allowed to shake a little.
I finished my drink. My hair fell in a curtain as I looked down into the empty glass and I pushed it back with a huff. One thing I hadn’t been able to find among my packed belongings was a hair tie and my hair had grown too shaggy and long to be left loose. Ridiculous, really. Like all the rest of this.
“Would you like another?” A waitress appeared across from me as if summoned.
“Do you have any beer? Real beer?” I clarified.
“No, ma’am, I’m afraid we only have synthehol.” She sounded far too happy about that.
I sighed. “Then I’ll take a root beer.”
“Great choice.”
I didn’t think it was, not really.
The door to the lounge (someone had called it Ten Forward) opened and a handful of my fellow scientists came in to cluster around the bar. I turned back to the window. I’d spent the last few hours in the cargo bay sitting around talking with fifty other displaced researches and I didn’t think I could handle any more commiserating. Especially while drinking root beer. The smiling woman dropped a mug off on my table with a solid thunk.
The stars were still streaking towards us and I couldn’t keep my eyes off the windows for long. It had been two years since I’d last been in space. I wasn’t Starfleet, didn’t have the same obsessive love for the stars and space travel like they seemed to, but anyone would be mesmerized by the view I currently had. I picked up the frosty glass and moved closer for a better look. The hum of voices in the room behind me was getting louder and I turned back just in time to see another party walk in through the door. My table was already taken. Everyone was probably rehashing how sudden the evacuation was, how awful it was to not complete the research, how unsettled we all felt. It was all very true. And very unhelpful to continue to reiterate.
“Not drinking with your colleagues?”
Someone appeared at my left and I found the first officer smiling at me. I’d met him, more or less, during the evacuation but I couldn’t remember his name. “No, I’m just enjoying watching the stars.” I held my mug up toward the windows.
“It is a lovely view.” He was looking at me, though, not at the stars, and his blue eyes were twinkling.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been in space. I forgot how beautiful it is.”
“You’re in luck, then. This is the best view on the ship.”
I glanced out at the streaking starlines and then back up at the man still standing beside me with no sign of leaving. “I’m sorry, you’re Commander…?”
“Will Riker.” His fingers were curled around a short glass, filled with something bluish purple, as he stepped closer. I had to tilt my neck back to meet his gaze. “And you’re Doctor…?”
“Right, Will. Nice to meet you, I’m Anna.”
“I hope you’re settling in alright on the Enterprise, Doctor Anna.”
No one ever called me Doctor (not on an expedition full of Doctors) but I didn’t correct him because there was something nice about the way he said it. “Thanks for getting us all out of there. It seemed… close.”
His smile was a little wicked. “Oh, we had a few tricks up our sleeve if we needed them.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. Something about his good-natured attitude was infectious, despite my sour mood. It didn’t hurt that he was tall and his eyes were a warm blue and his beard was full and soft-looking… “I’m glad we didn’t need them. At least everyone got off the planet.” Behind Will, a few geologists from the outpost wandered over to look out the windows just like I had. “Everyone did get off, right?”
“Oh, yes, we evacuated everyone in time.”
“Good, that’s good. Guess that’s why we’re packed into the cargo bay like sedimentary rocks.” I snorted at my own joke but my smile quickly fell and I turned back to the stars. “But we lost so much equipment.”
“I wish we had time to get everything.” He sounded like he meant it. “Did you get your personal things, at least?”
“Yeah. I think so. Most of it.” I sounded as unsettled as I looked, bouncing up on my tiptoes and back down. Nervous energy with nowhere to put it and now talking to the first new person I’d met in years. “It was a lot to pack.”
“How long have you been at the outpost?” Will lifted his glass to his lips and his eyes stayed on me over the rim.
“Two years."
“Two years?” Surprise was evident in his voice and when I turned to look at him, his wide eyes reflected the same. “That’s a long time to be on such a remote planet.”
“There was a lot of work to do.” I shrugged. “And we were getting some really good data.”
“Still, two years on that outpost. It’s not exactly a luxury hotel.”
“It definitely wasn’t a vacation. I would kill for a real bath.”
“A bath? That’s easy to arrange.”
“Oh!” Just like that, the conversation had verged into uncharted territory. It wouldn’t be so bad if Will didn’t have that damn smile on his face or that look in his eyes, like I was somehow the most fascinating person in this room or on this ship. Like he had come and spoken to me individually for a reason.
“What’s your area of expertise?”
“What? Oh, it’s geology.” I sipped the root beer and wrinkled my nose. “Your ship really doesn’t serve alcohol?”
“Sorry. It’s Starfleet policy. The replicators only make synthehol.” Will laughed at the disgruntled sound that escaped my throat and I glared at him, but I couldn’t maintain it. He was smiling at me with something dangerously close to warmth and it was a welcome break from the chaos of the last hours. “So, you’re a geologist?”
“Mmm, yeah, I’ve been researching seismic activity to find better ways to terraform planets.”
“That’s what all the research at the station as for, wasn’t it? New terraforming techniques?” He crossed his arms over his chest, fingers tapping against his nearly empty glass, looking genuinely interested. That was very hard to resist, especially since he was the first person I’d talked to in two years who wasn’t working on the same project.
“Mmhmm. It was a multi-disciplinary project to see how the planet was evolving. Albion II, it’s different. It’s like the natural evolution is accelerated. The seismic activity is ramped up, the weather patterns and climate are always changing. Everything is so much faster than a normal, stable planet. So it was perfect to see how these natural planetary phenomena behave on a shorter timescale, like you’d have with terraforming…” I slowly trailed off. The Commander’s eyes weren’t glazing over (he was actually still watching me with rapt attention) but I was rambling and I knew it. “Anyway. Yes, we were all studying terraforming.”
“Could you find another planet to study?”
“Another planet? Do you know how rare it is to find a planet like Albion II? With the exact age that makes the seismic activity as pronounced as it is? And the influence of the three moons making the tides as unstable and extreme as they are, along with the solar flux from the twin suns? Not even to mention the…” I trailed off again. Will’s eyes were a little wider than before. “Er, so no, we can’t find another one. That was one in a billion.”
“Ah.”
“Sorry. I’m probably not the best company right now.” I bit down into my bottom lip and turned back to the stars. He was handsome. And cute, somehow, and he seemed genuinely interested in the project and I shouldn’t be being rude.
“I don’t mind. But if you’d like to watch the stars alone…” He let the statement hang. A question. An offer to leave me alone.
I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. As long as you don’t me snapping at you.”
“I’ve handled worse.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Worse than a pissy geologist?”
“Much worse.” That grin again. This man was dangerous.
“Well, then… Cheers.” I lifted my root beer and Will clinked his indigo-colored drink against it. The root beer had warmed from my hand and I grimaced, disappointed enough to set it down on a table to the side. “And at least we got two years of research done! That’s more data than I would have had from spending five years anywhere else. And we got most of our files off the station, so I can’t complain.”
“Well, there’s a silver lining.” Will’s eyes flickered over to my abandoned mug and he had the nerve to laugh out loud at me. “What were you drinking?”
“Root beer.”
“Root beer?”
I crossed my arms and huffed. “Well, the waiter said she couldn’t give me real beer.”
Will’s eyes flickered up over my shoulder, looking at something behind me. “That’s because she doesn’t know where Guinan keeps her secret stash.”
“Oh? Secret stash?”
“Our bartender has a few bottles that she’s picked up. But they’re only for special occasions, so she’s very protective.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”
“I don’t mind some trouble.” There was that mischief in his eyes again. I narrowed mine. This was a bad idea.
“Oh, don’t you?” Or maybe not such a bad idea.
“I could do some investigating. Unless you’d like another root beer.”
“I don’t even like root beer,” I admitted. “But this lounge seemed better than sitting in that cargo bay for another minute.”
Will winced. “I’m sorry about that. We don’t have enough spare accommodations for a hundred people, so we had to improvise.”
“No, I understand. And it’s better than being blown up on the planet…”
“But its not ideal. Especially after being stuck on an outpost for two years.” Will stepped a little closer. “Why don’t I see what Guinan has hidden behind that bar, and then we can get away from the crowd?”
“Away from the crowd to…where?”
“Well, if you’re want to get away from your colleagues, then I would love to show you the arboretum.”
My teeth tugged at my lip as I looked up at the Commander, head tilted back to see him. He had no right being as tall as he was. Or for filling out his uniform as well as he did. I ran my tongue over my lip where my teeth had dug into it and then nodded. “I’d love to see the arboretum. Assuming you can find that bottle of something without getting caught.”
His eyes danced as he stepped back. “I’ll see what I can do. Don’t go anywhere.” He had the gall to wink before crossing the room on his long legs, weaving between tables on his way across the room. I watched him for a moment, until he made it behind the bar and grinned at me, and then I turned away to face the stars. The group of geologists over by the window waved me over and I shook my head, waited a beat, and then gestured over at Will across the room. My colleague followed my gaze, looked at Will for a long few seconds, and then waggled her eyebrows at me.
“Marie!” I hissed and she laughed, very loudly, before returning to her conversation. I pushed my hair back from where it’d fallen in my face again and then a hand brushing against the center of my back made me jump. He was back—and holding a bottle of something orange.
“Ready?”
“Yes!” I glanced back at Marie, who was grinning at me and looking far too happy, and followed Will across the room and out the door. The corridor was quieter than the crowded room and Will slowed his pace so I could fall into step beside him. “What did you find?”
He held up the bottle. “I’m not completely sure.” He tilted it to the side and the orange alcohol sloshed against the side as he pulled out the glass stopper. I smelled something close to peaches. “It was hidden in the back, so that should mean it’s good.”
“You really just stole that from your bartender?”
“She won’t miss it for a while. But I don’t want to be around when she does.”
“I’m sure she’ll forgive you eventually.”
“She’s an El-Aurian, so she can hold a grudge for a very long time.”
My pace slowed. “Why is your bartender an El-Aurian?”
Will stopped in front of a turbolift door and held his arm out for me to go first as it slid open. “Because this is the Enterprise.” He followed me inside. “Deck Seventeen. Arboretum.”
The doors closed and the hum of the turbolift was the only sound for a moment. I glanced down at Will fingers where the wrapped around the neck of the bottle.
“So I guess the rule about Starfleet officers not drinking isn’t exactly a hard and fast one?”
“It’s flexible. Especially for the senior staff.”
“Well, that doesn’t seem fair at all!”
That laugh again. “You’re very worried about Starfleet regulations for someone who isn’t in Starfleet.”
“Well… I thought about it.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. When I was in high school.” The turbolift stopped and I led the way out, only to stop and let Will direct us down the corridor to the right. We passed a few officers (science officers, judging by their blue uniforms) but the hallway was much emptier than Ten Forward had been.
“Why didn’t you join? You could have gone into the sciences through the Academy.”
“It just didn’t seem like it would be a good fit.”
“You’re definitely dedicated enough to your work. Two years on an isolated planet.” Will shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it.
“I’m dedicated, I just didn’t think I’d be good at the whole chain of command.”
Will hummed. “Not the kind of woman to follow orders?”
“Only if they make sense. But I love working for the Institute and we partner with Starfleet a lot, but I get to choose what work I do. And I don’t have to wear a uniform.”
I felt Will’s eyes on me at those words. “I can’t argue with those reasons. The Arboretum’s right through here.” A pair of double doors opened and I sucked in a breath as the smell of earth and pine needles rushed out to meet me. I followed him inside, mouth hanging open.
“Those are full grown pine trees.”
“Yes they are.”
My feet pressed into soft grass. “And a creek!”
“The water’s recycled through pumps in the deck below, back to the top of the hill.”
I followed the line of the water feature up from the pool to the small hill where it appeared to flow back down again. “How do you grow trees like this on a ship?”
“Very carefully. And probably using a lot of the techniques your botanist friends were researching. There’s a bench over here.”
I followed Will around the curve of the small creek, over a mounded, grassy hill, and into the shade of the pine trees. Pine needles crunched under foot as he led me to a bench under the tall trees. I sank into it and leaned back against the carved wood. “This is incredible. I’m no botanist but even I can tell this takes a lot of expertise.”
“It’s good for the crew to have real plants and grass, especially on longer assignments.”
“I bet…” I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and breathed in deeply. There were a few other people in the arboretum, including a family with a young boy sitting by the water, but it was still quiet and peaceful. “I imagine some people get stir-crazy after a while on this ship.”
“There’s the holodecks if we want to get away. I have a program I use for fishing. But sometimes you need the real thing.”
I tilted my head to look at the Commander. His red uniform suddenly seemed out of the place among the green plants. “You fish?”
“Yeah. It’s a simulation of a creek I grew up fishing in back home.”
“Where’s home for you?”
“Earth. Alaska. And you? Where are you from?”
“Stratus V. It’s a lot like the Pacific Northwest. At least, that’s what people have told me. I’ve never actually been.”
“To Earth?”
“Oh, no, I’ve been to Earth a few times. Just not to that part of the planet.” Will leaned back with his legs stretched out long in front of him. I followed the line of his thigh up to the bottle in his hand, resting on the arm of the bench. “You think we should open that?”
“Why, yes, Anna, I think we should.”
“I guess we’re drinking out of the bottle?”
His lips quirked even as his brows scrunched together in a disappointed frown. “You think I’m that bad of a host?” And then he was holding two glasses.
“Where did you even…?”
“Always be prepared.” He unstoppered the bottle and poured the peach-scented liquid into the two short glasses, filling them halfway.
“Figures you were a boy scout,” I muttered as I took one of the two. I swirled the glass and sniffed it. It still smelled like peaches but the alcohol underneath was more obvious now. “And you have no idea what this is?”
“Nope!” He clinked his glass against mine. “To the unexplored.”
“To exploring.” I took a hesitant sip. “Oh, wow.” Another larger swallow. It was very smooth. Sweet but just barely. And definitely very strong.
Will swallowed down half his glass and then held it up to eyeball the remainder. His elbow rested on the back of the bench and brushed my shoulder when I sank back beside him. I tilted to face him, taking in his slanted grin and the way his tongue darted out to capture a drop of booze from his lip. “That is very good.”
“I can see why she was hiding it.”
“Oh, I am definitely getting in trouble for taking this one.”
“It was worth it.” I took another sip and let the alcohol settle in my stomach. “This is not how I expected my day to go.”
“What did you have planned?”
“I was going to do some work on my detector system. Make sure they didn’t need re-calibrated.”
“Oh, that sounds—”
“Boring, I know.” I chuckled into the glass and my breath was reflected back up at me in a wave of peaches. “And maybe play some pool in the evening.”
“Pool? That’s a little old-fashioned.”
“The outpost was built fast, so we didn’t have any holodecks or much to do for fun.”
“Hmm… So, what have you been doing for fun the last two years?”
“We play a lot of games.”
Will’s eyes narrowed. “A hundred scientists stuck on a planet playing board games for two years.”
I grimaced. “Basically.”
“You’re braver than I am.”
“And we were supposed to be there for another year!” I tilted my head back against the wood and stared up at the trees and the ceiling beyond. “Can I say something terrible?”
“Absolutely.”
“Part of me’s relieved.”
“At having to evacuate?”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes. “I know it’s awful. We could have discovered so much more. But damn it, I was starting to go a little crazy.”
“I don’t blame you. Deep space missions are hard on starship crews and at least they're out exploring, not stuck on a planet.”
“That’s nice of you to say.”
“I mean it, Anna. Two years on the same station researching the same planet would make anyone crazy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get out of there.”
“Oh, so you think I’m crazy?” I sat up to stretch my lower back.
“You said it, not me.” His cheeks were a little pink as he finished his glass and it was distractingly cute, the way the flush disappeared down into his beard.
I held out my own glass. “Refill?” He finagled the bottle open one-handed and splashed some more of the orange liquor into both our glasses. I hummed in thanks and sat back again, pulling my feet up onto the bench beside me and shifting closer to Will.
“So, what will you do now that you’re free of Albion II?”
“Hmm. Doctor Eldin has been talking to the Daystrom Institute but I don’t know what the plan is to get us back to Earth. But we’ll get there eventually and start doing something with all the information we collected.”
“Not back out to another research station?”
“Oh no, not for a while. The data analysis is being done on Earth, so this’ll be my first time staying on the planet for a while.”
“You’re going to love it.”
“I hope so. I want to explore. I hear Budapest is beautiful.”
“I’ve never been. I can recommend San Francisco.”
“Is that just because the Academy’s there?”
“Alright,” Will admitted with a sheepish grin. “I may be biased. But you’ll have a chance to make it further up into the Northwest while you’re in the area.”
“Maybe up to Alaska.” I didn’t know why I said that but Will’s face lit up and I was glad I did.
“Maybe so.”
I leaned a little closer into the short distance between us, my folded knees nearly brushing against his. He was still smiling at me and I was suddenly off balance so I looked away, down into my glass because that was a safe place to focus. Two years of only talking to the same group of scientists, each of them the type of person to commit to such a long and remote undertaking, and I was much less equipped to handle a man like Will Riker than I had been before.
But I did want to handle him.
“I have no idea what time it is,” I stated, “but I’m starving.”
“Hmm? We must have missed dinner.” He leaned in a little. “We could go back to Ten Forward for something to eat. Or there are some other messes on the ship. Or…” He trailed off.
“Or?” I liked ‘or.’
“Or…” He drew out the word, eyes almost searching mine, as if not sure what my answer would be to whatever he was about to propose. “My quarters do have a replicator, if you wanted somewhere quieter. Less crowded.”
“I think quieter sounds very nice right now.”
At my answer, the corners of his eyes crinkled. “I can make that happen.”
I slid my feet off the bench and onto the thick blanket of pine needles that crunched beneath my shoes. I straightened my pants as Will pushed the stopper back into the bottle, which reminded me to down the last of my drink with a cough. “That’s stronger than it smells.”
“Especially on an empty stomach. Come on, I’ll make you something to eat.”
Roots rose from the dirt on the walk back to the path and I carefully stepped over them. Will’s hand brushed my elbow, as if afraid I’d somehow trip and fall. After a glance at him, and after we’d already left the pine trees for soft flat grass, I wrapped my hand around his forearm and let it rest on the soft fabric of his uniform. He hummed softly and maneuvered us through the double doors and out into the corridor.
His quarters were a few decks away and he ushered me through the door with an easy smile. I stopped just inside, instantly pulled in by the stars streaming by the large windows, streaking endlessly from left to right. The windows ran the length of the living area and presumably down to the right, where I saw the corner of a bed through an arched doorway.
“You have a wonderful view,” I breathed, stepping closer.
“You’re very taken by the stars.”
“Well, look at them.”
“I’m too distracted by something I’m more taken by.” His voice was lower, a little quieter but still easily heard in the quiet space. Just like my responding giggle. He was obvious, so obvious, and it shouldn’t be working but it was and I couldn’t tell if I was annoyed or just as taken by him or both. And the worst part was that the look in his eyes told me he knew it was working.
Then he stepped away toward the replicator along the left wall, setting the half full bottle on the table on his way. “What would you like for dinner?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll eat anything.” I looked around his quarters while Will’s back was turned, taking in the details. A chance to see what kind of man he really was.
“Anything?”
I glanced into the bedroom and then followed him back the other way. “Yeah, I like most food. Steak’s my favorite.” A trombone stood against the wall, looking shiny and well-loved, and the desk next to it held a couple of PADDs but even more knickknacks. Stacks of poker chips, a folded up felt poker mat, a few books on everything from Shakespeare to some kind of Orion romance, and a statue that I frowned at until Will came up to stand beside me, trying to place it.
“Have you ever been to Risa?”
I spun to face him. “I knew that was a horga’hn!”
His warm laughter reached his eyes in a way that told me he never laughed in any other way. “So you do know Risa.”
“I can’t believe you bought one of those.”
“Well, I didn’t. It was a gift.” He turned back toward the glass table and I realized I smelled food when I saw the two full plates. “If you’d like something different…”
“No, this is perfect.” And it was sweet, as he pulled out a chair for me and then sat across from me. I picked up my fork and tested the steak that he’d replicated along with a baked potato and steaming mound of broccoli. “Thank you.”
“And there’s more of Guinan's bottle, if you’re interested.”
I glanced at where he’d set it just within arm’s reach. “No, I think it’s safer if we don’t open it back up.” I picked up the glass of water he’d replicated for me. “But thank you.”
“Thank you for having dinner with me.” He cut into his steak and I busied myself with smashing my baked potato into a mound of sour cream, cheese, and bacon. I held back a groan when I took a bite, but barely. I couldn’t actually remember if I’d lunch before the evacuation order came. The day had been a blur and I was starving and, fortunately, Will was willing to eat in silence until my plate was half-cleared and I leaned back in my chair with a contented sigh.
“So who do you know that bought you a horga’hn as a gift?”
He swallowed a bite before answering with a serious expression. “My captain.”
“Your… your captain?” Whatever response I had been expecting, whether a lover or a friend as a joke, that was not it. “Your Captain bought you a horga’hn?”
“Well,” Will said slowly, drawing out the word with a grin, “I may have asked him for a souvenir.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I was doing him a favor.”
I squinted but didn’t voice the thought that crossed my mind, namely that I was fairly confident that Will had once helped his captain get laid. I shook my head instead. “You’re funny.”
“Am I?” He tilted his head. I bit my lip. His fork clinked softly against his plate as he set it down. Behind it all, I could hear a hum of ship’s engines, pulsing like a heartbeat.
“Yeah. And thank you for dinner. And for rescuing me from Ten Forward.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“It’s polite.”
“Is that why you’re here? Being polite?”
I huffed. “No.”
“Good.”
I sat forward again and picked up my fork to push the few remaining pieces of broccoli around my plate before setting it back down. I wiped my fingers on the napkin and tossed it onto the plate.
“If you’re finished, there’s something I want to show you.”
“Alright…” What could he possibly want to show me? But he cleared up the plates and vanished them into the replicator and I barely shivered when his palm landed warm and solid on my back to guide me over to the couch. He didn’t pull away when we stood in front of the windows and I didn’t either.
“They’re not all stars, you know.”
“What?”
“The warp stars. They’re not all stars. Some of them are comets or asteroids or even smaller particles, caught up in the warp bubble.”
“Really?” The stars, or maybe not stars, kept sailing by and I tilted my head a little to follow them as they zipped past. My hip brushed against Will’s leg and his hand moved to my waist, pulling me just a little closer.
“Yeah. And the blues you see sometimes, or the reds, those are different metals in the rocks burning up.”
I looked up at Will but for once he wasn’t watching me. “I never knew that. That’s where the colors come from? Metals?”
“Yeah. I think the blue ones are copper. Or lithium.”
I traced the path of a blue streak until it vanished. “Nickel burns white so that must be why there’s so many white ones. But how many of them are stars?”
“It depends on how fast we’re going. But not very many.”
“Oh.” His thumb brushed across a wrinkle in my shirt. “So they’re not really stars…”
“I didn’t spoil it for you, did I?”
“No, not at…all.” I stuttered a little as I met his eyes again and I couldn’t figure out when this had stopped being a fun distraction. “Why does everyone call them warp stars, then?”
Will paused, as if considering my question. “Well, it sounds better than warp streaks of burning space dust.”
And just like that, I was laughing again, turning away from the streaks of burning space dust to face him. His arm stayed draped over my hip, a comfortable weight, and I let my fingers trail up his arm to his shoulder because I had been wanting to touch him since we’d sat down on that bench in the arboretum. “You really know how to ruin a moment, Will.”
“Did I ruin it?” His voice was teasing and his eyes sparkled but there was something burning in them, something that made me step a little closer.
“Maybe not.”
“Just maybe?”
“Well… I guess that depends.” I let out a little gasp as he pulled me a little closer, my chest almost touching his but not quite.
“What does that depend on, Doctor Anna?”
I swallowed and stood up straighter, my fingers squeezing his bicep. “On whether you’re finally going to kiss me or not.”
That got a smile that I was sure had broken dozens of hearts, but I didn’t care because the next moment he was kissing me and everything faded away as his lips brushed against mine. The kiss was soft, barely there, warm and almost hesitant and his beard tickled against my skin in a way that made me giggle into his mouth. But, God, he tasted like peaches, and his hand was hot on the small of my back and when I surged up on my tiptoes to deepen the kiss and press my tongue to the steam of his lips, he groaned in a way that sent shivers straight through me and down to my suddenly aching cunt.
Will cupped my cheek and his fingers were gentle but insistent as he angled my chin up so he could kiss me fully, devouring me, and I melted against him. He stepped closer and I fumbled to twine my fingers together behind his neck, steadying myself as his tongue brushed against mine. And damn it, the way he kissed me made me see stars just like the ones that were flying past.
Will pulled back and I took in his blown pupils for the span of just seconds before he let out a quiet laugh and kissed me again. It was just a peck on my lips but I chased after him for more, feeling him hot under my hands. He felt so damn good, his body solid against mine, and the way he groaned again when I nibbled on his bottom lip was addicting. I sank back down flat on my feet, grinning in a way that couldn’t hide anything because why would I want to when he kissed me like that?
“You are dangerous,” he murmured. He tucked my hair back behind my ear and I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into the warmth of his palm when he settled it back against my cheek. His thumb stroked along my jawline and I shivered in his arms when it brushed against my bottom lip.
“Will…” I breathed. His hair was soft and barely long enough to tangle between my fingers and when I did that, he pressed his thumb into my lip and my mouth opened in a silent prayer. He didn’t answer, just kissed me again, soft and slow and lasting long enough to make me finally tug at his bottom lip with hungry teeth before releasing with a whine. I knew he wasn’t teasing but the way he kissed me made me want more—all of him and all at once.
“Fuck, Anna.” The way he said my name, a little in awe and a little desperate, had me clenching my thighs together. He leaned back in and I was panting into his mouth by the time his lips ghosted over my cheek and along my jaw, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the soft skin of my throat. His arms surrounded me and he didn’t stop very thoroughly turning me into putty until he had sucked what was sure to be a bruise against my collarbone.
And I whined when he pulled away.
“So, did I ruin it?”
“Ruin…?” I took a steadily breath but the way his arms still wrapped around me and the hard press of his body against mine was very distracting. “No, I don’t think you ruined it, Commander.”
“Good…” I was half a second away from dragging him into his bedroom that lay beyond the arched doorway when he stepped back. His hands rested heavy on my hips and his fingers dipped below the hem, warm against my skin. Now the touch was teasing, just like my fingers where they played with the hairs at the nape of his neck and trailed down over his chest. “Because I don’t think I’d forgive myself if I’d run you off.”
I pulled him back closer. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
“I knew you were trouble.” His voice was soft, affectionate.
“I thought you could handle trouble.”
“I like to think so, Doctor.” I wanted to kiss that grin off his face.
“Oh, shut up.” I tugged him down to swallow his laugh. “No one calls me that,” I breathed before kissing him again. And he let me. For a moment.
“Alright, beautiful.” Then we were stumbling through the doorway into his bedroom and I didn’t think I could bear it if he stopped again because I hadn’t been kissed like this maybe ever, especially not while being marooned for two years with scientists who knew more about degrees of freedom than they did about fucking. I nipped at Will's lip again, harder than before, and he responded by gripping a handful of hair and tilting my head back to suck on my tongue and the whimper I let out should have been embarrassing but the hardness I felt pressed against my hip told me that Will wasn’t any more composed than I was. So I pushed him down onto his bed and kicked my shoes off while he propped himself up on his elbows and just watched me.
“Computer, dim the lights.”
The room darkened and I left my shoes and socks in a pile, standing hesitantly for just a second at the foot of his bed while Will lay with mussed hair and red lips and eyes that were bright and focused on only me. The bed sank under my knee when I started forward and Will met me halfway, tugging off his shoes before gently pulling me down over him. His fingers carded through my hair, pushing it back from my face so I could lean over him and he looked almost fond before I kissed him as thoroughly as he had kissed me earlier. He almost purred when my lips ghosted back to his ear, before I tugged at his earlobe for just long enough to feel his hands clench on my hips, and then down his throat until the collar of his uniform stopped me from going any further.
“Off,” I mumbled against his skin. My hands found the hem of his shirt and Will helped me pull it over his head. I felt a shiver run through him when my fingers traced a path up through his dark chest hair and I grinned down at him and at the hunger plainly written on his face. I stradled him without a second thought and pressed my lips to the hollow of his throat and down to his collarbone now that the uniform wasn’t in my way, sucking a bruise to match the one I was sure he'd given me. I panted against his skin when his hand returned to tangle in my hair and when he rolled his hips up to meet mine and I felt him press against my thigh, my teeth dug into his shoulder harder than I’d intended.
“Shit, pretty doctor, are you trying to kill me?”
“Sorry.” I soothed the already purpling mark with a kiss and traced my tongue around the dark edges. His hand moved from my hip to squeeze my ass and I nipped at a bare patch of skin, much softer than before, only to earn a swat in retaliation. He was laughing when I settled my palms on his chest and glared down at him.
“You deserved that.” His dancing eyes belied the need that I felt hard against my thigh and the way his fingers dug into my ass.
“You’re a brat.”
His mouth fell open and damnit he was gorgeous. “You didn’t just call me a brat…”
“Didn’t I?” I couldn’t get enough of his mouth, the way his lips moved and his teeth tugged, the way his tongue forced entry and stroked against my mine. I sunk down against him and wished my shirt wasn’t between us as I ground against his hardness, but his hands pushed up under the fabric and over my skin and I moaned into his mouth when his fingernails scratched a track down my spine. “Fuck, please…”
“Anything.” Will kissed the corners of my mouth. “Tell me what you want, beautiful.”
What did I want? I wanted to ride his cock until I couldn’t move or come one more time. I wanted to see his face when he came because I thought he might be beautiful. But I couldn’t say that, so I kissed him again just to have him pull me away with his hands running up under my shirt and he had my bra unhooked before I knew what he was doing. I’d have to tell him later how impressive that was, but right then I was too busy tugging my shirt off over my head and throwing it onto his bedroom floor.
Fingers splayed across my skin and pressed into my ribcage as Will just looked at me. He was panting, his chest rising and falling beneath my palms. “Beautiful.” He sat up and pulled me down to meet him until his lips could reach my neck again. The softness of his kisses against the scratchiness of his beard and the just noticeable calluses on his hands as they stroked my bare back had me writhing in his lap. And when he bit my shoulder, softer than I’d bitten him but still hard enough to make me whine, I rolled my hips against him and realized we were still wearing far too many clothes.
Will must have had the same thought because he gripped my hips and a breath later I was on my back, his thigh pressed between my legs, and his fingers were at the buttons of my pants. I helped him, or at least got in his way while rocking up against his thigh because, God, I was soaked and aching and he’d barely touched me. He got my pants unbuttoned before I pulled him down for a kiss and he had to know what he was doing because he moved just right so his muscled thigh pressed hard against my clit through the ruined fabric of my panties. My back arched and I was very much not in control of the kiss anymore when he ground between my legs again and stroked adept fingers up my stomach and ribs to brush against the curve of my breast.
“Will!” I was whining, not quite pleading, and my eyes were closed or else I’d have seen his satisfied but just as desperate expression. But they were closed and I just let myself feel his thigh grind against my cunt and his thumb roll across my peaked nipple and his lips on mine and the broad expanse of his back as I held him closer. I sucked in a sharp breath when he pulled away with a last peck at my lips but I didn’t have time to catch my breath because he moved down my body and I huffed when the wonderful pressure against my pussy vanished and I found myself grinding against empty air.
He pinched my nipple and I think I growled.
“You going to bite me again, Doctor?”
Damn him.
“I didn’t mean to do that.” I couldn’t stop touching him and it didn’t help that his hair was so damn soft, especially when I curled my fingers through it and he responded by flicking his tongue against my hardened nipple. “Oh!”
He did it again before sucking it into his mouth and I felt just the hint of teeth, nothing more, but just that was enough to have me wrapping my legs around him and arching up from the bed. And he didn’t stop, even when my fingers tightened their grip in his hair. He palmed my other breast, full in his hand, his thumb and forefinger closing around my nipple, and something like “Oh fuck, yes” started spilling on repeat from my mouth. Cold air washed over my pebbled nipple when he released it, wet from this mouth.
“You’re so sensitive,” he murmured, lips still against my skin as he kissed the valley between my breasts and flicked his tongue in a way that made my entire body jolt. “And so damn soft.”
“And you’re…really good at this.”
Will propped himself over me on his hands. “Oh, am I?”
I nodded, too enthralled by the way his hair was absolutely ruined and spiking out between my fingers and by the red tint on his cheeks. “Yeah.”
“You’ve been on a remote planet for two years.” His words were teasing but his voice was rough.
“And it was torture.” His heart was racing under my palm.
He hummed and kissed me in an almost perfunctory way before he returned to his original task, which had been to finish undressing me. “Good thing I’m here, then.”
I lifted my hips for him to pull my pants off and then his thumbs hooked around my panties and…
“You’re soaked.”
My thighs pressed together. Not to hide but because the tone of Will’s voice made my cunt ache with the reminder that I was still so empty. And he was just looking at me like he had all the time in the world, like he wasn’t torturing me right now. I pulled him down over me, my knees bracketing his hips, and worked at his pants, finding the zipper and pushing them down to his knees. He didn’t have a clever comment for that, just helped me with his clothes, until he was naked on top of me. My greedy hands couldn’t take in the contours of his body fast enough before they finally landed on his ass with a tight squeeze that had him grinding his hard shaft against my thigh. His weight pressing me into the mattress was too much, too heavy, and I tugged him closer until he was crushed against every inch of me. I wanted to be on top, to suck bruises into every inch of his skin to match the ones on his collarbone and his shoulder. But he had the same idea because as soon as he landed over me, he sucked marks down my throat and over my breasts while his hands wrapped around my ribs and pulled me from the mattress to meet his hungry mouth.
“Need you,” I managed to raggedly moan after he’d left a trail of marks down over the curve of one breast and had started on the other.
“Wanna taste you first.” Will let me sink back into the bed and kissed down to my stomach.
“Later, you can do that later.” My hands covered his and I tried to pull him up. He just looked at me, chin resting on my hip.
“Later?”
“Yes, later, I want to…I need to fuck you now. Please.” I had never begged for sex before in my life and I wasn’t sure if that was what I was doing now but Will’s expression changed from baffled to fervent and I suddenly didn’t care if I was begging as long as I got what I wanted.
“You need me that bad?” he practically groaned. He rose back over me, hips slotted against mine with one hand on my thigh to spread my legs apart as he settled between them and, fuck, his cock was thick and hard and hot on my skin. And when I rolled up to meet him, the sticky wetness of precum smeared across my inner thigh and Will groaned into my mouth.
“Wanna ride you,” I panted against his lips. “Wanna watch you cum.”
“Christ, sweetheart, you’ve got a mouth on you.” Will shut down any response by devouring me again and I was reminded of how tall he was when he tilted up my chin with his hand on my cheek and thumb brushing my throat so he could move up my body to grind his cock closer to my almost dripping pussy. “Later. You can ride me later. Right now, I want you like this.”
I wasn’t in any position to argue when I chased after his kiss, tugging him closer only for him to slide his hand from my thigh down to my ass and squeeze. “Fine,” I panted. “Yeah. Okay. Good.”
“Good.” And the man was grinning again, like he didn’t have me pinned to his bed with my legs spread and his cock leaking against my cunt. Like I wasn’t finally watching him wrap his hand around that thick cock and stroke his hard length in a smooth, slow motion that left my jaw slack. Like he wasn’t sliding it across my dripping pussy with a drag that made my fingernails dig into his skin and my back arch in a desperate search for friction against my clit.
He groaned when I arched under him and I could see in his eyes the moment when his self control snapped. The blunt head of his dick pressed at my entrance and I couldn’t stop myself from gripping his ass and tugging him closer so that his thick cock stretched the clenching walls of my cunt as he slid inside.
“Fuck, beautiful, you can’t…” Will’s eyes clenched shut and his breath came in short gasps against my temple. “You gotta let me… go slow for you.” He rolled his hips, pressing a little deeper, and something like a whimper escaped my lips before he kissed it away. My eyes fluttered closed and I couldn’t stop my head from tilting back to expose my neck with a satisfied moan when he gripped my thigh and wrapped my leg around his hip and finally fucked into me deeply and completely. He was big, bigger than I was used to, and fuck if I couldn’t feel every delicious inch.
“You feel so damn good,” he mumbled against my cheek as he finally pulled out enough to thrust back in. “Does that…fuck…" The slick drag of his cock against some deep and sensitive spot had me clenching around him and gripping his hip to keep him there.
I finally blinked open my eyes just as he pulled out to slide into me again. “God, Will…”
His fingers laced between mine and his voice was rough when he asked, “That feel good, sweetheart?”
I nodded with a strangled laugh and squeezed his hand. “Yeah. Fuck. Yes.” I wriggled my hips, canting them back for a better angle, and I saw stars again when he eased into me deep and slow. “Oh, that’s… yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Uh huh.” A whimper.
“Yeah? You like me fucking you slow?” Will swallowed my answer with teeth tugging at my bottom lip and I moaned into his mouth when he sunk into me again so slow that I wanted to take it back. Then his hips snapped against mine and I wondered it he could read minds. A slow drag out followed by another hard thrust, filling me so, so full and forcing another whine from my lips. His fingers gripped my thigh and I bucked my hips up to meet him when he plunged into me, wrapping my legs around him. He squeezed my hand and pressed a slow kiss to the side of my mouth and fucked me hard enough to rock the bed.
I lost myself in him.
Fingers laced together with mine, breath warm on my cheek, body solid and heavy on top of me. The heat of his skin. The delicious, almost overwhelming stretch as he filled me in a way I had been aching for. The press of his hand on my thigh when he canted my hip up and thrust into me and…
“Oh fuck, Will, right there!” Pleasure sizzled up my spine and I whined when he pulled out and my cunt clenched around nothing, but he filled me again with a snap of his hips and his hard length drug against that sensitive spot buried deep within me and my fingernails bit into his skin as the sparks of pleasure rolled through me. And he didn’t stop, just drove into me again and again until I was panting against his shoulder in stuttering gasps and burying my teeth in his skin to ground me through the trembling waves of my release.
“Fuck, Anna.” Will shuddered between my legs and plunged into my wet heat as I clenched around him. His thrusts grew sloppy, desperate, chasing his own orgasm until he buried himself inside of me with a growl and his cock pulsed as he shot his release deep in my cunt. He rolled his hips in a final, shuddering thrust and collapsed panting on top of me.
I drew in a slow breath. Then another. The shivers that followed after my climax started to subside. I blinked up at Will’s ceiling and let my hand unclench from around his. When I did, he pushed himself up on his elbows. He looked utterly wrecked, lips parted in a pant, and all I could do was grin feebly up at him with a breathy laugh. Then he pulled out and, Christ, I could feel his cum dribbling out of me to drip past my ass and soak into his sheets.
“Fucking…” Will groaned as he rolled onto his back with his arm around me to draw me close. I rested my cheek on his shoulder. His chest was still heaving under my hand when I trailed my fingers through his dark hair and I felt him shiver under my touch. Neither of us spoke until his breathing evened out and his heartbeat slowed to normal. Then he kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer with his hand warm against my back. “How do you feel?”
I hummed softly. “Tired.”
He laughed and I felt it vibrate through him. “Yeah, me too.”
I nuzzled against his warm skin. I was tired and comfortable and didn’t think I could move after that. I really didn’t want to move. “Mmmph.”
“What was that, sweetheart?”
I melted against him. “I’m gonna fall asleep if I don’t get up.”
“We should get cleaned up first.” He covered my hand with his and rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. “I made a mess of you.”
A strangled mewl caught in my throat. He had made a mess of me. I could feel his cum sticky on my thighs. “I’ll get up in a minute… Clean up before I go.”
“Go?” His thumb stopped its path against my skin.
“Um…”
“You don’t want to stay?”
I finally opened my eyes again. “I didn’t think…”
Will tilted my chin up. “Stay. Please.” His words and his eyes were soft. I yawned.
“Yeah. Okay.”
He smiled and I wondered if he’d let me stay all week. Then he kissed my nose. “Good. Because I promised you a bath.”
Literary Themes: Newtype Bullshit as an analogy for ruined orgasms
Summary: The movement of three bodies through space, each under the gravitational pull of the others, cannot be predicted by any known equation. The movement of Amuro Ray and Char Aznable through life, still under the gravitational pull of Lalah Sune, cannot be predicted (or understood) by any known person.
(Amuro finds Char inside of his dreams and tries to pull him apart to figure out how he broke)
Where was Char?
Amuro could feel him somewhere close by, aching like a bruise where blood had pooled too close to the surface, but he couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see much of anything, just the light that surrounded him. The feeling of Char was everywhere and nowhere and Amuro surged forward, teeth gritted together so hard that they ached. His legs felt heavy, nearly impossible to lift as he plunged forward, pushing ahead into a nothingness that looked the same in every direction.
<<Where are you?>>
His throat was raw as if he had been screaming. Had he been? Was he still? He couldn’t remember, didn’t know anything outside his single-minded determination to keep pursuing his quarry. But he had no way of knowing if he was running or flying or even moving at all.
<<Stop hiding, damnit!>>
The light pressed in on him, seeping into his bones, tugging him down even as it buoyed him up and drove him forward, as if it wanted something from him but refused to tell him what. White light, shimmering in every wavelength as it refracted and pierced him until he didn’t know if it was real or if he had been blinded and now saw only the echo of colors scored eternally into his retinas. Sensation swamped him as he tugged his feet free from whatever held them. It felt cottony, damp, and part of him was distantly aware that he was in his bed, swaddled in blankets in the low gravity of the Ra Cailum. But none of that was as real as the fever that burned under his skin as it pushed him closer and closer to Char.
Char. He was close, just beyond Amuro’s grasp, hovering in the same space from which Lalah haunted his dreams. Maybe she haunted both of them, pulling them together while pleading with them to stay apart, all of them trapped in an orbit that was too chaotic, too unstable, to ever be maintained. Three bodies locked in a doomed dance until they either spun out into the lonely cold of space or collided together and cracked each other apart. Maybe then, after he’d torn Char open and watched the blood and light leak out from his cracks, Amuro would be satisfied. Maybe once he pulled Char apart, piece by piece, he would understand how he worked. If he could just find him.
Amuro screamed his frustration, voice ragged, and the colors around him pulsed and sharpened and there, there, finally, there he was. Amuro moved, the tugging at his limbs gone, and he felt light, lighter than air, lighter even than weightlessness in the confines of a ship. And then he was on Char.
Char wasn’t surprised to see him. He was looking at Amuro like he had been waiting for him. This made Amuro angry and he clawed at any piece he could reach, grasping blindly, too close to the other man to see anything clearly as they rolled through the emptiness.
<<How could you do this? We fought together! How could you try to do this to the Earth? To all of those people?>>
That wasn’t what he wanted to say to Char. Not really. Not here. Not now.
Char landed on top of him, fingers hooked into the fabric of Amuro’s shirt (he was wearing a shirt?), the blue of his eyes leaking out and turning the surrounding light indigo. He was solid, firm, the weight of his body almost real but not quite as he pressed Amuro down. He was still himself—older than before, hair shorter, mouth thinner, eyes flatter—but still the same man. Still Char.
<<You’re better than them, Amuro. But you can’t change them>>
That wasn’t what Char wanted to say to him. Not really. Not here. Not now.
Amuro shoved Char off, pushed him away as hard as he could, but he could still feel hands on him, still feel warm breath, thought maybe they had melted into each other just a little bit from the brief contact all those years before and now they would forever be intermingled. He’d forever feel Char on him, in him, inescapable and permanent, and Amuro wanted to vomit. He wanted to rip out the parts of himself that Char had touched, had crawled inside, but even as he threw Char off, he was already chasing after him again. The light was sharpening, brightening, like they were pulling apart the threads until only the colors remained, and it hurt.
<<How could you do this to me?>>
That was what he wanted to ask and he asked it, but it didn’t matter.
He was on Char, again, hands tugging at yellow hair, and he could feel Char’s hands on him, shredding his shirt (he was wearing pajamas, that was it, was he in bed?). Amuro’s fingers fisted and slipped around the silky strands and he growled in frustration, seeking purchase on anything he could find. But it wasn’t enough.
<<This isn’t about you>>
Char finally answered him and Amuro laughed at the lie that wasn’t a lie. He wondered how deep inside of Char he would have to dig to find the truth, how many layers of lies and half-truths he’d have to peel back and grind away to get at something real. He wondered what Char’s beating heart would feel like. He shook the other man, yellow hair loosed and curling like a clipped halo, until Char's teeth cracked together and blood wet his lips. Amuro could taste it (how could he taste it?) even as Char licked it away and he just shook him harder, watching red-lined teeth revealed in a smile.
Char tasted like blood and whiskey and Amuro wanted to throw up, to run away, to taste more of him, to gorge on Char until he was filled with him and then lie, spent, like a lion soaking up the sun after a kill, coat warm and face stained red.
<<You don’t have to do this>>
Amuro didn’t know what he was trying to convince Char not to do. He shuddered as gentle hands pushed away the shredded remains of his pajamas and scorched a burning brand down his chest, his shoulder aching and radiating fire through his body and through Char’s, melting them together as the blue of his eyes continued to stain the very sky. Amuro thought Char was glowing, leaking out light from his cracks, from his scars, and Amuro started to cry.
<<Why didn’t you come with me?>>
Amuro shuddered as the world began to fall apart. He thought he could distantly hear his name being called, but it wasn’t right, it wasn’t Char’s voice, but it was clear and getting louder and threatening to pull them apart. Amuro gripped Char harder, splayed fingers pressing into him, almost inside him, just another few moments and he would be able to feel him, all of him, cutting through all the layers of rust and scoring and repair stacked upon shoddy repair, and—and then Amuro woke up gasping in his bed with Chan ringing at the door.
Summary: Char's goals at the Zeon Military Academy are simple: Be the best in his class, keep his sunglasses on at all times, and devise a plan to destroy the entire Zabi family while keeping his feelings for Garma Zabi strictly platonic. Simple but not easy, especially when Garma somehow convinces Char to go to a party in Dorm 1 where the alcohol is free and the girls are far too interested in the Zabi Heir. As far as goals go, one out of three ain't bad. Now where are his sunglasses?
Sort of funny, sort of sad, sort of a dive into the deep-rooted psychological horror that is Char Aznable's Mind.
My mother needs an army
But I'm leaving home and I'm scared that I won't
Have the balls to punch a Nazi
Father, what is wrong with me?
"Not in Kansas" - The National
For Char Aznable, the world existed in black and white. There were no shades of grey. There was no color. Ever since he had been a boy, destroying those first gun cannons on his home colony of Munzo before it had been renamed for his murdered father, he had known the path his life would take. The Zabi family had destroyed his home, his family, his parents, so he would make them pay. For years, he had gone to sleep repeating their names to himself. Degwin. Gihren. Dozle. Kycilia. Garma. He didn’t know how long his mission would take or how he would destroy each of them, but he had no doubt that he would succeed.
He didn’t repeat their names anymore. He didn’t have to. The names were scorched into him like a brand. He had shed his own name long ago. He wasn’t Casval Rem Deikun anymore. Neither was he Edouard Mass, older brother to Sayla Mass. Now, he was Char Aznable and he would remain Char as long as he needed to. It had been years since he’d even heard his birth name. Everyone at the Zeon Academy knew him as Char, including his roommate.
He didn’t know if Garma Zabi was what he had expected. But truthfully, he had not expected anything. He’d never put much thought into who Garma was. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered past his last name.
“Are you studying still?”
Char didn’t look up from the notes he was reviewing. “It’s called a Military Academy for a reason, Garma. You’re supposed to study.”
“I was in the library all afternoon after classes. But you’ve been working for hours.”
Char still didn’t look up, but he knew that Garma was twirling his hair through the fingers of his right hand. That prissy tone from the youngest Zabi heir always meant the same thing. Nevermind that Char knew that Garma worked just as hard as he did. How many times had Char woken in the night to find Garma still studying at his desk or passed out asleep on top of his notes?
“You must be a harder worker than I am, then. I procrastinated.” Char added a comment into a corner of his notes to do more research into the ambush strategy they’d reviewed in a military tactics class earlier that day. It looked useful.
“Are you coming? Tonight?”
“To what?”
“To Felix’s room in Dorm One. He told me he invited you.”
Char finally looked up. Garma was leaning against the wall next to Char’s desk, his purple hair wrapped around his finger. He looked up and away as soon as Char made eye contact.
“I don’t remember.” Felix was Lino’s roommate and Lino could be a problem but was usually more of an annoyance. He had known the real Char Aznable back on Loum. He seemed content to skirt at the edges of Char’s sphere ever since Garma had booted him out to a new dorm. That was fine with Char.
“So?”
“So what?” Sometimes Char wondered why he enjoyed picking at Garma so much. It was just so fun to listen to the boy huff and whine under his breath, especially when he was obviously trying so hard to project that Zabi authority that must have run out by the time he was born.
“Never mind.”
He disappeared into the bathroom and Char heard the shower start a minute later. He went back to his notes but his concentration had been broken. The clock in their room told him it was after eight, almost nine. Later than he thought, but it explained why he was so tired. It had been a long day and a longer week and he wasn’t going to get anything else done tonight.
But a party. That was interesting. He didn’t spend much of his free time with the other students. The little of it they had was usually spent studying or training on his own. That didn’t leave time to make friends. The other cadets seemed to like him well enough, from a distance. At least, they respected him. Were possibly scared of him. But beyond Garma and a few others, Char had not formed a connection with anyone else and didn’t feel the need to.
Not a connection. He did not have a connection to Garma. A familiarity. There, that was a better word.
Char stood up and stretched his arms above his head, tilting his head side to side and ignoring the slight scratching of the collar of his standard issue sleeveless top. He was sore from the combat practice yesterday. Three full hours of grappling and wrestling. He had become used to living in constant soreness, though. It was familiar. It reminded him of what he was here for. But he was tired and his body still ached so he settled into one of the yellow chairs in the dorm’s small sitting area. He stared up at the ceiling and let his mind wander.
The shower had stopped. Through the thin walls of the door, he could hear loud conversations. That was usual for a Saturday night. Their schedule had no early required activities on Sunday mornings. Even in a Military Academy, or maybe especially in a Military Academy, people needed to blow off steam. Most of them weren’t used to the discipline enforced here or to the long hours of classes, drills, and training. If someone wasn’t careful, it’d be easy to get wound so tight that something ended up snapping.
Luckily for Char, that wasn’t a problem. He was used to discipline.
The bathroom door opened and Char watched from his chair as Garma emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair was already blown dry and combed through. He rifled through the small closet that held their clothes and pulled out a pair of Zeon-green trousers and the black t-shirt that most of them wore in their off hours. He tugged it on over his fluffy hair. Char looked back up at the ceiling.
“What’s the special occasion for Felix’s party?” Not that Felix Miller needed an occasion to bring out the stash of contraband liquor that Char knew he kept hidden in his room.
“It’s his birthday. And it’s not a party, he’s just having a few people come over.”
Unlikely. “Felix isn’t capable of inviting just a few people. It’ll be half his dorm.”
Garma came into Char’s field of view so Char sat upright to see him better. The Zabi heir half sat against the television stand, legs stretched out. He tugged at a lock of his hair, head tilted to the side.
“Do you think so?”
He almost sounded nervous. “Not what you expected?”
“Well… No, but that’s fine.” He dropped his hair and sat up straight. “It’s the start of our third year. We deserve to enjoy ourselves a little. Cut loose.”
“I suppose we do. Well, you have fun.” Char was fairly confident that Garma had never cut loose in his life and had probably never even said the words “cut loose.”
“You’re really not coming?”
“I think I’ll sit this one out.”
Garma appeared to think for a few seconds before speaking. “You should come with me, especially if it will be a larger group. You’re the Chief of the Third Student’s Corp, you should spend more time getting to know our classmates.”
“So you’re saying that going to this party with you would make me a better leader?”
“Exactly!” Garma pushed off from the wooden stand to pace the few, short steps to the bunks and back. He waved his arm as he spoke. “It’s not just about having the best marks. A leader should be approachable and get to know his men.”
Char interlaced his fingers behind his head and gazed at Garma. “Right. Approachable. More open.”
“I’d be a poor friend if I didn’t insist you come with me. For your own good.”
Even two years later, sometimes Char was taken back to the moment that led him and Garma to being roommates in the first place. Soaking wet, leg fractured, sprawled on his back on a bed of rocks, Garma Zabi had shed every bit of the confident and cocky persona he tried so hard to project and had begun to cry at how pathetic he truly was. Garma had grown in the last two years, Char himself could vouch for that, but at moments like this, Char was reminded of the frightened boy crying in the rain.
But he was also reminded of the boy who had insisted on finishing the course with a makeshift splint and Char’s arm wrapped tight around his waist.
“Let me change. I assume you’ll want to arrive late to make an entrance.”
Char brushed past his roommate, who was doing a bad job of hiding the smile on his face, and went to the closet to change into a black shirt that matched Garma’s own. It was pathetic how much Garma had come to rely on him since starting the Academy. If going to a party with him would make Garma that much more dependent on and influenced by Char, then he’d do it, even if it would be unpleasant.
Besides, sitting around the dorm would be boring with Garma gone. Char readjusted his glasses. Bending over, he pulled on his boots, ran his fingers through his hair a few times, and then opened the door.
“After you.” Char kept a small smile on his face as Garma brushed past him into the hallway.
There were still several hours until the official curfew in the dorm and the connecting corridors between Dorms 3 and 1 were filled with their academy classmates.
“Garma! Char!” A shouted voice reached them from down the Dorm 2 hallway. Garma stopped and Char took another step before turning to wait for Zenna, who was running to catch up with them.
“Are you going to Felix and Lino’s?” she asked. Like Garma, she had chin length hair that she constantly was pushing back behind her ears but, unlike Garma’s, hers was usually a little dull and flat. Char blinked while Garma answered the question. He wasn’t sure when he had started to notice Zenna’s hair. Garma’s was hard not to notice.
“Would you like to walk with us?” Garma was always the leader and gentleman.
Felix’s dorm was on the third floor of the Dorm 1 building and it was already packed full. The crowd parted before them as Char followed Garma and Zenna inside. The volume level dipped as they walked in and he held back a smile. Garma Zabi at a dorm party. Would wonders never cease?
“Garma!” Felix had obviously already brought out his liquor. His pale cheeks were flushed red and his eyes were quickly becoming bloodshot. “And Char Aznable. Lino said you wouldn’t come.”
“I think we’re allowed to enjoy ourselves a little,” Char told him, scanning the room behind Felix. The small sitting area was full of people. The two chairs were taken but the other half dozen cadets in the back of the room were leaning against the table, the wall, and the window. Lino himself was sitting on top of his desk. He nodded at Char and then looked away. “After all, it is our third year.”
Char could feel Garma’s eyes on him but didn’t turn to acknowledge stealing his words from earlier.
“I agree completely. Here, I’ve got…” Felix grabbed a bottle off the lower bunk and splashed a few inches of a dark liquid into two plastic cups. “Here. Oh, Zenna.” He pushed the cups into Garma and Char’s hands and then filled a third one for Zenna. “Look, just kick those guys out of the chairs. Ah, fuck, don’t do that! Damnit, come on, guys!.” He pushed between Garma and Zenna to go yell at someone near the door.
“Is this the small gathering you expected, Garma?” Char asked over the loud conversations happening all around them. He wondered how long it would take for Garma to realize how out of his depth he was, and how very un-Zabi this party was, and go back to the dorm. Maybe Char would stay a while, after.
“It’s better.” Garma gripped his cup and pushed through the small space between the bunk beds and the desks and emerged into the sitting area. Zenna followed, looking more at home than Garma did. She sidled into an empty space in front of the television stand and immediately started talking to a girl who Char thought was in the Second Student’s Core. By the time Char caught up, she’d tugged her friend over to stand by Garma and had already introduced them, crowding them together in the crowded room.
Char leaned back against the window beside Garma and watched, letting his shaded eyes fly across the room. Most of the people Felix had invited were in their third year. The top bunk of the bed had three girls sitting cross-legged on it, laughing about something. The bottom bunk apparently held the stash of liquor and was being guarded by two of Felix’s friends from his home in Hatte. Every other available space in the small room was taken.
“Don’t you think so, Char?”
“Hmm?” He turned back to the conversation that he had entirely ignored so far. Zenna was looking at him expectantly.
“Don’t you think that Garma would be a good tutor for orbital dynamics?”
“You’re doing fine in orbital dynamics.”
“Not for me. For Mia.”
Char’s eyes flicked over to Zenna’s friend who was squeezed in almost on top of Garma and was smiling up at him with an expression that said the nearly empty cup she held wasn’t her first. Ah. Char wondered if she actually needed help with orbital dynamics. Any third year had to be at least decent at the subject or else they wouldn’t still be here.
“I can’t think of a better tutor than Garma.”
Garma’s brown eyes flicked over to Char, unreadable. He swallowed down a gulp from his cup and looked like he was trying not to cough when he turned his full attention back to Mia.
“I’d be happy to help you. We can meet in the library this week.”
“I think I’d learn better somewhere quiet. Maybe your room?”
Char’s cup crinkled a little as he squeezed it and he took a long drink. It was bitter and obviously very strong. Perfect.
He didn’t need to be here. Regardless of what Garma had said, they both knew Char didn’t need to work on anything when it came to how the rest of the Academy viewed him. He was on a tier with Garma alone in academics and was tied with no one when it came to athletics. Rooming with Garma had made him more visible, it was true, but even without that he would have been a respected and admired third year. Having Garma as his roommate just added a touch of awe.
He didn’t have to work on anything with Garma, either. Ever since that day in the rain and the room reassignment that followed, he hadn’t had to try with Garma.
So why was he here?
“It’s really nothing, I’ve always been good with numbers. The real skill is on the battlefield and my First Student Corp is excelling there. They all take direction well.”
Char drained his cup while the conversations went on around him. He didn’t drink, he never drank, but the cup was in his hand he really did not care about whatever conversation Garma, Zenna, and Mia were having. As the Zabi Heir, Garma received attention from anyone and everyone either with the goal of friendship or something more along the lines of what Mia seemed to be after. Which was all to be expected and had actually become much less common over the last several years as they all got to know each other. Garma Zabi the youngest son of Degwin Zabi was one thing. Garma the Chief of the First Student’s Corp was another, though still apparently formidable.
Garma the earnest student who repeated regulations and strategy in his sleep was another thing altogether.
Mia was saying something about the colony she grew up on and how it couldn't compare to Zeon and how she’d love to see Zum City someday if she had someone to show her around. Char could not stand such obvious fawning. Didn’t she know that Garma could see right through facades like that?
Actually, Garma couldn’t and that was why he was friends with Char.
Char drained his cup. Maybe he would go find someone else to talk to. The room was certainly full.
“You don’t look happy to be here.”
Char hadn’t noticed that Zenna had slipped in between him and Garma.
“On the contrary, I’m enjoying myself.”
“Mmm.” She sipped her drink, which was still nearly full. “I’ve never seen you over here before. Or Garma.”
“We’re usually busy.”
“It’s nice to take a break, though. With everything going on.”
A break. Char didn’t need a break. And he wasn’t sure if this was his version of taking a break, anyway. He hadn’t realized it was Zenna’s, either.
“I wouldn’t expect you to be at many of Felix’s parties.”
“Why’s that? Because I’m boring?”
“No, that’s–”
She laughed. “I know. I’m serious about this, about being the best soldier I can be. And that means letting myself have fun so I don’t get burnt out or snap. Like what you said about being allowed to enjoy ourselves. We’re adults, we know how to balance things.”
Funny that what she connected with were Garma’s words, not his own.
Mia giggled loudly, drawing the attention of both Char and Zenna. Zenna laughed along with her.
“Sometimes you need something not so serious, you know? To even out all the work we do.”
“Are you sure Mia isn’t being serious?”
“She just wanted to meet Garma, they’ve barely had any classes together.”
“Right. That was kind of you.”
“I didn’t expect him to be here, so that was lucky for her.”
“What do you do at these parties when you’re not making introductions?”
Zenna nodded over at the table where Felix was turning on a radio that instantly had half the room dancing to whatever fast song started playing. Char stood a little straighter and a little stiffer.
“Dance. Drink. Got into a pushup contest last month with someone from Dorm 7. He was very drunk so it wasn’t much of a contest. It’s a party, you hang out.”
Hang out. That was something that Char had never done. Not without something else in the back of his head, some goal or motive or something he had to accomplish. Some face he had to wear. Whose face was he wearing now?
He went to take another drink and found it still empty. He could tell. He shouldn’t be having thoughts like this.
“You’re right, it is good to take a break sometimes.”
Zenna’s cup was still full but Garma’s and Mia’s were both empty. He plucked the crinkled plastic from Garma’s hand, drawing a startled look, and turned his back on the three to push his way up to the bunk beds. Garma had wanted to come to this party so Char was going to make sure he got the most out of it. If that meant becoming drunk and owing Char for being there to stop him from embarrassing himself, so much the better.
Char wasn’t clear on how any of that works, but he ignored those thoughts.
“Char Aznable.” One of Felix’s Hatte friends filled up both his cups, splashing a little onto Char’s hand as the liquid reached the rims. “When are we getting a rematch with the Third Corp at Lunarball?”
“Whenever you want. We’re happy to beat you again.”
The second Hatte native (Char thought his name was Andrew) laughed loudly. “Yeah, okay, fuck off.”
Char raised a cup in a salute and then steadied them as he returned to the back of the room, skirting around what had become a very small dance floor. He handed the drink to Garma, who glanced between Char and the crowded room and then back on Mia. His brown eyes were wide and his face was flushed, either from the alcohol or the steadily rising temperature in the small room or both. Or from the woman who was now hanging off him arm.
“I thought you’d want a refill,” Char called over the noise, ignoring Mia entirely. Her cup was still empty. Zenna was swaying to the music and moved over a few inches so Char could shift into place beside her. His shoulder pressed against Garma’s and a few strands of that purple hair brushed against his face. It smelled like their shampoo but somehow was better.
Char buried his nose in his drink, turned away from Garma and toward Zenna, and tuned out everything but the music and the warm mass of people pushed against him.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed. He realized that Zenna was funny when she actually talked and she didn’t seem to mind talking without hearing much back from Char. She told him about growing up on Side 4 and about her younger brother who wanted to write music. She told him about the cat she’d had when she was a little girl and Char wanted to ask if it was named Lucifer but that wouldn’t make any sense so he just nodded along. She asked him what he did when he wasn’t in classes and he couldn’t answer because he didn’t know because every minute of the day was a class for him, a class learning what he needed to know to defeat the Zabis.
He looked back at Garma and found Mia swaying against him. He didn’t look back again.
At some point, he followed her across the room to refill her cup and realized his own was empty, too. Getting back to their spot seemed too difficult a task, so he let Zenna pull him up the ladder to the top bunk of the bed. He leaned back against the wall with his booted feet stretched out in front of him and watched the flow of people through the room from his high vantage point. Everything felt a little distanced, a little fuzzy, a little less sharp. Char thought he should be working on something or planning something but he didn’t want to. He thought he should be worried that he didn’t want to, but all he felt was a kind of warmth. The music pressed in on him like a physical thing, working its way under his skin and swirling around his head. He was spinning a little bit but that was easy to ignore. Zenna’s arm and leg pressed against him and she was warm. Around and below him, his classmates were talking and laughing and all of them were moving to the music, either swaying or dancing. It was as if the room was alive, a breathing and living thing, and Char was inside of it.
It was nice. He was still him, still aware of where he was, but it was nice. Char closed his eyes and they sat silently.
“What was growing up on Texas Colony like?” Zenna’s voice eventually came from close beside him.
“Lonely.” He didn’t think about the answer before he gave it.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
A sister, he wanted to say. Little Artesia. Sweet Artesia with her eyes full of tears, losing her coat as she ran after him, begging him not to leave her alone like everyone else already had. Like their mother and father and even Lucifer and then, finally, her older brother walking away from her like it was easy.
“No, I’m an only child.”
“That could make it easier coming here. My brother worries about me. He’s always writing.”
“That’s nice. Having someone to worry about you. I bet that’s nice.”
Zenna leaned her head back against the wall and Char let his sink back, too. He liked Zenna, he decided. At least, she was comfortable to lean against and her hair didn’t smell like his shampoo. He liked that about her.
“You know, you’re not what I thought.”
“Oh?” Char didn’t open his eyes.
“Yeah.” She didn’t elaborate and Char didn’t ask her to. He listened to her breathing settle into a steady rhythm and felt his own match. “Maybe I need to drink with you more.”
“I’d like that.” He liked this warmth he was feeling. He liked being distanced from everything inside of him. He could feel himself coming back to himself and he didn’t want that, but neither did he want to keep sitting here. Part of him knew that this warmth was artificial and that when it left him, he’d be colder than before.
“I want another drink but I don’t wanna get down.” Char held his half empty cup out to her. “Oh, no, I didn’t–”
“I’m done.”
“Thanks.” She took his cup and lifted it to her lips, swallowing half of it.
“I’m gonna go, anyway.”
“Where’d Garma go?”
“Hmm?” He’d forgotten about Garma for a moment. Just a moment.
“I wonder if he’s still here.”
“He’s talking to Mia.” From where he was sitting, Char couldn’t see the space where he’d left Garma and Mia but he gestured in that direction anyway.
“I don’t see him.” Zenna made a very half-hearted attempt to lean forward to look around for Char’s roommate. “Or Mia. Maybe they left.”
Oh. “Right. Yeah, probably.”
“Might want to sleep somewhere else tonight.” She winked at him, a toothy grin on her face. “Not with me. That’s not an invitation. Just somewhere else. Maybe your neighbor’s floor.”
“Thanks.” Char shook his head, suddenly wishing that he was either completely sober or too drunk to know where or who he was. He should never have come to this damn party and now he couldn’t even go back to his dorm.
No. Screw that. He was Casval Rem Deikun and he was not going to sleep on anyone’s floor on account of a Zabi. This Military Academy, this Colony, even the city that Mia had so eagerly wanted to visit, were all named after his father. Not Garma’s. This was his world and he would be damned before he bowed in defeat to anyone.
“Goodnight, Zenna.” Char slid down the ladder to the floor, steadied himself, gave a salute to the smiling woman on the bed, and weaved his way to the door. Outside in the hallway, it was blessedly quiet. He took a few deep breaths as he walked toward the connecting hallway back to his dorm. It was colder out here.
He rubbed his arms as he walked, his quick steps matching his pounding heartbeat. Damned Garma. Char had allowed himself to be dragged out of his dorm to a ridiculous party because Garma was too cowardly to go by himself. Garma needed Char there to hold his hand, to lend him strength even though Char didn’t know where he was supposed to get it from. So instead of being able to get a good night’s rest, Char was drunk and cold and walking the hallways after Lights Out.
He was going to kill Garma.
He snorted. That was the goal, actually. Sometimes he forgot.
Not tonight, though. Tonight he was going to kick both of them out of the room so he could get some sleep. And maybe a warm shower. The killing could wait. He was tired.
He didn’t pass anyone on the way back to his dorm. Well, not until he entered the stairwell. His room was on the corner of the sixth floor. Normally, he liked that. Now, Char cursed every stair he climbed.
He heard something when he reached the fourth floor landing. Someone up above him, small noises that he couldn't place. It sounded like sniffing. He didn’t slow down. If he stopped climbing, he might not start again. Damn the consequences.
He rounded the corner and saw no one up on the next landing. Maybe he’d imagined it. But then he reached the top and came to a dead stop, nearly falling over his own feet as he narrowly avoided plowing right into the man sitting on the bottom stair leading to the sixth floor.
Garma looked up and bolted to his feet, which tangled under him. Char barely got his arm out to catch him before he fell, but Garma instantly pulled back and stumbled back against the grey wall.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. His chest rose and fell as if he was out of breath and his speech was slurred.
“I’m going to bed.” It was a challenge more than a statement. Garma was the reason he was out here, cold and drunk, to begin with. But Garma wasn’t in the dorm. He was in an empty stairwell. “What are you doing out here?”
“Sitting. I left the party early.”
“Sitting.”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
The two men looked at each other. Actually, Garma was glaring. His eyes were red and he continued to sway on his feet but Char didn’t reach for him again even though he looked like he might fall over. He couldn’t smell shampoo anymore. Garma smelled like alcohol and his hair was mussed up more than Char had ever seen it, like someone had been running their hands through it. Gripping it. Char felt something rise in his chest and he wondered if he was getting heartburn.
“Well…” Char looked around. Mia obviously wasn’t here. Maybe she was waiting in their room. But then, why was Garma out here? Was this something about women that Char didn’t know? “I’m tired. Did you…” Char couldn’t think of the appropriate hand gesture so he vaguely waved a hand instead. “I mean, were you going to… I’m not sleeping on the floor!”
There, that would show him. Righteous anger was safely back in place at the forefront of Char’s mind.
“Why would you sleep on the floor? Where’s Zenna?”
Char shrugged. “Still in bed, probably.” She hadn’t seemed like she was planning on leaving the party anytime soon.
Garma turned absolutely red. It clashed with his hair.
“You just left her? What is wrong with you?”
“I… She was fine, I gave her the rest of my drink so she wouldn't have to get up.” Char felt uncomfortably on his back foot in this exchange and he had no idea why. Garma was the one who was kicking him out of his own dorm. He should be the one defending himself, not Char. “Besides, I’m going to sleep in my own bed. Not someone’s floor.”
“Someone’s…” Garma shook his head, seemingly losing the ability to string words together, and took a few seconds to find Char’s eyes again. Char wasn’t sure how he did that, through the sunglasses, but he always did. “Did she kick you out?”
“Why would Zenna kick me out of Felix’s room?” He vaguely wondered how drunk Garma was because he wasn’t making sense. They had gotten wildly off track of the real point of this conversation, which was showing Garma that he didn’t have any power over Char. “Look, Garma, I’m glad you and Mia… Good for you, okay? But you can’t kick me out of my room! I’m sleeping in my own bed so you can just deal with it.” He stepped closer into Garma’s space to prove his point. “I went to that party for you because you didn’t want to go alone when I could have been doing anything else. And then I just ended up talking to Zenna the whole time and walking back here at… whatever time it is.”
“I would have been fine going alone.” Garma still tripped over a few words but the attitude in his voice had returned. Of course, he was focused on that part of what Char had said. He looked off to the side. “Besides, I didn’t stay long any–”
“You practically begged me to go with you,” Char cut in.
“I did not! I thought it would be good for you.”
“Good for me?” Char threw back his head and laughed. “As if I need you to help me.”
“I was looking out for you.” Garma’s voice was getting louder and louder. “You never do anything!”
“Come on, Garma, we both know what you wanted.” Char couldn’t seem to stop himself from talking, from saying things he wouldn’t have said sober. “You wanted to go but you work so hard to be a perfect Zabi, to live up to all your family’s expectations, and getting drunk at a party with girls who want to see what being a Zabi heir is really about doesn’t meet those expectations, does it? You were scared and you needed me there to be your backbone for you, then as soon as you found someone to stroke your…ego, you didn’t need me anymore because all that being a good Zabi nonsense went right out the window. Did Mia thank you for letting her give you a confidence boost?”
Garma slapped him.
Char surged back, hand instinctively flying to his left cheek, staring open mouthed at where Garma was raising his hands again. This swing hit Char’s shoulder, then the other one. Garma punctuated the open-handed blows with a stream of shouted nonsense as he forced Char back.
“How dare you? You fucking… You absolute fucking ass. You bastard. You cocksucking, bitchass, stupid sunglass-wearing asshat from a fucking theme park with your goddamn snidey, shitty attitude and your fucking hair…”
Garma was an enraged vision of purple fluff as he attacked Char.
“Garma, what the Hell is wrong with you? Ow! You spoiled brat, cut it out, that fucking hurts!”
Char was pushed all the way into the corner of the stairwell by the time he finally pulled himself together enough to fight back. He raised his arms to block Garma’s blows which were quickly losing force, making it easy for him to grab his roommate’s wrists and hold them tightly against the man’s heaving chest. Garma struggled against him, a few more expletives dropping from his mouth as he glowered up at Char with so much feeling that Char tried to step back again but couldn’t.
“Let go of me!” Garma shook his wrists but couldn’t break free.
“No!” Char was suddenly much more sober. “Stop struggling, you…” He shifted his grip on Garma’s wrists and tugged the man closer until he was nearly stumbling into Char. “What the Hell was that?”
“You deserved it.” Garma was still struggling but wasn’t exactly pulling away. Instead, he was leaning in to glare at Char.
“I didn’t…” Char trailed off. Maybe he had. Either way, he wouldn’t admit it. But the rage on Garma’s face was slowly falling away, replaced by something sad and almost frightened.
“Char, let go of me.” Garma’s voice was softer this time. Wavering. Char could smell the alcohol on his breath and clearly see the man’s blown pupils. With a start, Char realized his glasses had come off during the fight. He was looking at Garma without the narrow barrier of tinted plastic separating them.
He couldn’t find anything to say.
Garma sucked in a breath and then another. He slowly stopped pulling away and Char felt the muscles in Garma’s arms relax. His breaths came faster, the exhaled air rushing from parted lips and against Char’s face.
“You’re an asshole, Char Aznable. Let go of me.” He didn’t sound like a Zabi anymore.
“Garma…” Char’s grip relaxed a little. “What’s wrong with you?”
A simple question.
Garma bit his lip, pink tongue poking between his teeth. He was so close that his feet were twined between Char’s. He looked like he was thinking, weighing something, eyes flicking from one of Char’s to the other, then to his wrists where Char was holding them just tightly enough to feel his racing pulse.
Char found himself running his thumbs featherlight along the pulse points.
“You were right. I’m not a good Zabi.” That wasn’t what Char had expected. “I never have been.”
“I didn’t mean…” Char stopped talking. What was he doing? Was he really about to reassure Garma Zabi that he was a good Zabi? As if that was something Garma should want? As if Char cared what Garma wanted.
“Yeah, you did. And you were right. I didn’t want to go alone.” Garma adjusted his stance, leaning into Char a little as he found his footing. “I wanted you to go with me.”
“Then what is wrong?” Char’s voice was demanding, punctuating each word. He was used to being in control but, despite being the one holding onto Garma, he had never felt more out of control in his life. If he could get an answer, if he knew why this was happening, then he would be back in control again. His grip on Garma’s wrists tightened.
But something in Garma’s eyes closed off. “Char. Just…Please let go of me.”
Please. Char’s mouth opened and realized with a shock that there was wetness gathering around Garma’s eyes. Because of what Char was doing. He dropped Garma’s wrists and pulled his hands back.
Garma didn’t move, mouth opening a little as he just looked at Char and then down at his red wrists. Red, because of Char. He didn’t like it.
“I’m sorry.” Char didn’t know what he was apologizing for. He didn’t know what was happening. He was still a little drunk, a little sick, and his body hurt all over from Garma’s blows. The night had all bled into a long and confusing mess and he didn’t know how he had ended up here, pinned in the corner of a stairwell with Garma standing between his legs and near tears, both of them simultaneously too drunk and not drunk enough for this night go be going off the rails as much as it was. Only a few hours ago, he’d been studying at his desk.
Char wanted to close his eyes or put the damned sunglasses back on. Instead, he just continued looking at Garma. Waiting. For something.
“You should take your sunglasses off more.”
That was something. Not what he expected, but something.
“What?”
“Your eyes, they’re a nice shade of blue.”
“I… I don’t like blue.” That didn’t even make sense. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he think or focus on anything except for the man nearly pressed against him?
“Oh. They’re nice, though.”
Garma’s hands settled down on top of Char’s where Char had pulled them back to his chest. The contact startled him, the foreignness of touch. And they were cold.
“Your hands are cold,” Char blurted out.
“So are yours. You’re freezing.”
Char needed to get control of this, whatever this was. He needed to direct it back into safer waters.
“Mia already understands orbital dynamics.”
Perfect.
Garma blinked slowly. Char thought he could probably count his eyelashes from here. Maybe not, though. They were very thick. He didn’t think he’d seen eyelashes as thick as Garma’s.
“Who?”
“The…She wanted you to tutor her. We’ve taken that class since first year, she has to understand it.”
“Char, what are you…? How much did you drink?” Garma was looking at him like he was crazy, which was unfair because Garma was the one who wasn’t making any sense.
“I just think the library is a better place to study than a dorm.”
Garma took in a very slow and very deep breath, looking down at their hands where they were becoming slowly more entwined on Char’s chest. He closed his eyes and let the breath out just as slowly.
“Char.” Garma straightened and looked Char squarely in the eye. He looked more composed than he had just a second ago. That wasn’t good. “I barely even talked to Mia. I left right after you and Zenna disappeared.”
Oh. Char felt his chest lighten a little bit. He smiled. That was good. Why was that good? Why did Char care who Garma did and didn’t talk to? None of this was making sense and Garma was becoming far too put together and in control of the situation. Char needed to get out of here because something was going to happen. He didn’t know what, but they were heading toward something and somehow it felt like another fight and Char didn’t want to be here for it. But Garma still had him trapped in the corner.
So Char nodded because that seemed like a safe thing to do. “That’s good. She’s…” He racked his brain for something to say about Mia. He could barely remember what she looked like. “She’s too short for you, anyway. It wouldn’t work.”
Char was never going to recover from this. The last few years, all of his carefully laid plans, every careful strategy, it was all falling about in the sixth floor stairwell of Dorm 3 because Garma Zabi had decided to drag him to a party and then attack him in a stairwell.
And Garma was very close. His hair had become a mess during their fight, more of a mess than Char had even realized it could turn into, and the smell of their shampoo was back and now Char was going to think of this moment the next time he washed his hair and maybe every time after that. Garma’s eyes were red and he was looking at Char with a completely unreadable expression, not that Char was ever that good at reading him, and his thighs were almost touching Char and his stomach and chest absolutely were and somehow Garma had turned things around so his hands were gently gripping Char’s and slowly warming up from their combined body heat. Char hadn’t been in this vulnerable of a position in years and he wanted nothing more than to shove Garma away, scream at him that Garma was the one who needed him, not the other way around, that Char didn’t need anyone to hold his hands like he was some kind of child.
But somehow, every thought rushing through Char’s head slowly settled into one absolute and inescapable reality: he felt safe. Pinned between Garma and the wall, Char felt the same warmth as when he’d sat in the top bunk with the noise of the room swirling around him, but he wasn’t spinning this time. He was very, very grounded. Garma’s body was solid but soft against his, so different from pressing his opponents down into the mat during wrestling bouts. He and Garma weren’t fighting, not anymore at least. This contact was different. It was safe. And the colors… they were bright and full and in so many different shades. Purple and pink and then just chocolate brown eyes that fixed Char with a look that he would never be able to forget even if he wanted to.
Char relaxed.
How good that felt.
His shoulders slumped. His hands still gripped Garma’s but were allowed to rest on his own chest, no longer ready to clench into fists at a moment’s notice. His lips parted as his jaw unclenched of its own accord.
Char hadn’t felt like this since he’d been a child in that too-big house, being held tight for the last time, with his father shouting from the other room about learning to understand each other even when he’d never been able to understand his own family.
But Garma was here, looking at him as if he wasn’t sure if Char was still real, but holding tight to his hands and pressing harder against Char’s entire body and Char let him, because maybe if Garma could crawl inside of him just for a moment then he wouldn’t have to be alone in here anymore.
He didn’t know if it was a victory or defeat when Garma kissed him, but it was a burst of color in the black and white world that Char had been living in for too long and that was enough. It was enough.
I am now a therapist on deep space nine and my job is to sort out the main cast. This is what would happen and how effective I have the potential to be based on their outlooks:
Sisko. Is annoyed about having to go. After session three he is name-dropping me in casual conversations with friends and thinks I am really clever but it's unclear how much of that is really just that I agree with his opinions. 9/10 point deducted because he treats me too much like a friend and too little like a therapist with a job.
Kira. Insists she does not need to go. Twenty minutes into session one she is describing the death of her father in intricate and pissed-off detail. 8/10 because any therapy at all is bound to be better than the status quo.
Dax. 10/10 but she does all the work herself and I begin to doubt why I am even in the room. Really just needs someone to talk at.
Julian. Lies to me the entire time. Asks me out at the end of session one and in a cruel twist of fate I am forced to turn him down in order to keep my job. Does not come back. 3/10
Jake. Talks to me about his dad and then talks to his dad about me and it kind of feels like I'm having a game of chess over the phone with the station captain. He doesn't really need therapy long-term but Sisko keeps making him go. I suggest switching to a by-demand schedule and tell them I am available whenever if something actually traumatic were to happen and Sisko pretends not to hear me. 6/10
O'Brien. Insists he does not need to go. Once he does he spends 40 minutes complaining about absolutely nothing and when I ask him to actually do something difficult he gets annoyed and walks out. Has to be reverse-psychplogied into coming back. 5/10 but only because he has not done a single moment of introspection in his life and if I can't make him at least reflect on his own behaviour sometimes then I am a really shitty therapist. Points deducted because I hate him.
Worf. Insists he does not need to go but folds weirdly quickly when pressured. Insists it isn't working. He's lying. 8/10 I can work with that
Quark. Insists he does not need to go. Changes his mind to get out of some kind of scheme. Is crying 15 minutes into session one and gets so confused that someone seems to care about his feelings to such an extent that he forgets that it's like, my job, and not a personal favour I'm doing because I think he's cool or something. Asks me out at the end of session one. Comes back. 7/10 there's kind of a lot to break down here but I think I can do something about him
Nog. 10/10 and sometimes he brings me chocolates or an apple as gifts before the sessions. He argues that since the replicator is free to use this doesn't count as a gift and the only arguement we ever have is when I try to challenge him on that.
Odo. Promises to try things out of session and never does. Keeps asking me questions about the psyche of my other clients and whether or not they committed murder — notably Quark — and I refuse to answer. He thinks I'm evil because I keep client confidentiality and I think he's evil because he is a cop. Sisko has to ban him from my office. 2/10 and I don't know if it's his fault or mine.
Garak. whenever I try to email him to book a time there is mysteriously nobody by that name living on ds9 according to computer records. 0/10
Rom. forgets what I say two seconds after I say it. Hears what he wants to hear. 3/10 actual cartoon character
Dukat. he talks for an hour without letting me get a word in edgewise but little does he know I've bugged my office desk and this is all an elaborate ploy to get him to admit to seventeen separate war crimes. 10/10 sisko busts into the office and arrests him. Another great day's work.
when i forget to log into ao3 and i have to click proceed to see an adult fic, i actually get a kick out of it. like i am an old timey queen and my bard is apologetic: “gentle lady, dicks doth touch in this next ballad. would you prefer another?” and i give him a gesture of command like, “nay, you may proceed, minstrel. bring forth the tale of dicks”
I accidentally look a mega strong antihistamine instead of my regular anti-anxiety and I'm about to pass out for the entirely of my 8-hour work day because God is cruel and capricious and also I put the bottle in the wrong place
I frequently forget I have a Char Aznable tattoo and then I'll turn my leg a certain way and I'll see that fuckass doing a gay little salute and it gives me life
I never thought of this as funny @theswampharpy - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
