i made a soft star trek poster for my soul
A FUNNY THING TO COMMIT one’s life to adventure amongst the stars, and yet still be overwhelmed in awe of the infinite splendor of the universe. For a long while she fell into an absorbed gaze with the slow dying star that Starbase 12 had orbited. Then all at once she had been vividly aware of the faintest of warmth from an even fainter touch of fingers to hers. Scotty. A surge of something that teetered on thrill rushed up from her belly, heated by her heart where it left a flush of deep tawny in her cheeks. There was still the giddy sort of excitement that comes with the blush of new love; the kind of newness where the moments come and do so with a flagrant disregard to the laws of time’s passing. Nyota liked when the moments moved very slowly between them, as they did now; where she felt just breathing each other’s air would sew them to a fixed point in time - like the universe reaching through it’s own vast abyss to present to them something infinitely precious. A moment that they may claim, a rooted plot on the cosmic timeline - to exist always until its radiance burned through until the last stars. Then she says a silly thing. He smiles when she does. He already had a coin. For a moment she thinks he’s magic. Then he says a soft thing. Nyota’s hand entangles with his that holds the coin, it’s metal cool against her palm. Their touch was new, tapered, and discreet. Existing in that space where a kiss shared between them numbers a vanishingly thin amount, but each one committed to her memory as though they’d been with her always. She feels the impulse to commit another entry to those memories and rises slowly from her feet so that her mouth might meet his where finally she kisses him. Nyota kisses Scotty and there’s a beat of swirling silence; like the silence that lives between the death of the star and the birth of the supernova. And here is where they’ll crack open the fabric of the cosmos. Hands moving up and away from his so they could creep featherlight along the avenue of his arms, splaying out flat against his chest, and smoothing the material of his shirt below her fingers. Higher her feet lifted her, deeper her kiss went, and followed by the ascent of her hands to his shoulders; resting finally against either side of his jaw.
The moments between them began disregarding time again, as she was sure she had only just kissed him, yet the swollen ache in her lips suggested otherwise. Just as slowly as she’d risen to meet his mouth did she descend away from it, but held his eyes with hers so she could say, with great conviction in her heart, she answered his question with a much weightier meaning then either might have expected — “Both. Not me. Not you. Us. Both.” She touches her fingers lightly to her mouth feeling that dull ache there, the place where he had been and she could still feel him there; it had struck her why some had described kissing like a kind of fusion. “Both,” she said softer, but committed wholly to what it meant. To Scotty.
"Let's flip coins. Heads, I'm yours. Tails, you're mine."
FACE BREASK INTO A WIDE GRIN. No matter how they flip the coin, it works out in Monty's favor. And Nyota's.
The skin around his eyes crinkle, hues dancing in the pulsing lights of the starbase. Someone thought it was a good idea to have neon light to draw attention to store fronts and galleries.
The station hums under their feet, maintaining its orbit around a dying star. A sight in and of itself but Scotty is trapped by the mischief lining Nyota's mouth.
"Sounds good to me lass. Now, who is doing the flipping?" A hand slips into his pocket as he produces a coin. "You or me?" @haiiling
Weep, little lion man
You're not as brave as you were at the start
selective. kelvin timeline focused. crossover friendly. dash only
To be fair, Andorian ale has a helluva kick.
“ Is it the kick that causes your breath to smell like an old lady fart being pushed through an onion ? ” The statement was, by and far, a jaded exaggeration.
Nyota’s dialectal daggers were more a reflection on her mood soured equally by matters both personal & professional and then that itch of irritation being flared at the Captain’s inebriated need for close-talking. With an abundance of downtime while the Enterprise underwent routine maintenance — there had also been an abundance of close encounters of the Kirk kind. Which normally were welcome. Lately, however, the Lieutenant hadn’t cared much for the company of anyone beyond her own thoughts, duties, and headset.
But conversely and despite the acidity of Uhura’s reply, she turned to Kirk, posture needle straight, with the ghost of something passing as a smirk lifting the corner of her mouth.
She thought of apologizing, but swigged her tepid beer and decided against the notion; given it would have been an unequivocal lie and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura was a great many things, but a liar was not one of them.
D I S C O V E R. THIS WAS A WORD WHICH INCITED from her fathomless ambition; Nyota Uhura had always wanted to be an explorer for the sake of brilliant and beautiful – discovery. And yet there are things that perhaps needn’t be discovered or explored; but should serve as caution to the rest. The consequence of going too far; to toe along the edges of where lingers the apotheosis of fear. The eldritch things that live in the dark parts between the stars – were such nightmares meant to be found? How far can malevolence be explored? And to what end? Nyota drew herself closer, chasing the warmth from him, again finding comfort in that familiar darkness, face pressed into the crook of his neck; clinging far tighter than what would be her conventional grip into his skin. In hushed, slow inhales and exhales she sidestepped Spock’s sentiment about discovery as the idea felt strange and tight in her chest, a concept that did not belong. Instead she followed the invisible equations he drew into her body, a great many she could not guess their beginnings, middles or ends, but she did catch patterns, numbers and the occasional order of operation; it was the secret she kept with his hands, had yet to ever say aloud her hypothesis to what he left etched into her skin. Briefly smiling into his neck, Nyota drew her leg high, sliding slowly through the middle of his – smooth skin against soft, black hair.
It was a feeling she wanted to chase.
But fear is insidious.
It bleeds.
Her hand, that was soft snaking a delicate line up his neck to the tip of his ear and back down again, finally stopped to rest against his chest, smoothing the hair idly with her fingers.
Fear bleeds – bleeding into the familiar darkness she found in the comfort of Spock. The dark of a vacant rip in the cosmos, a singularity of darkness - unquantifiable fear.
“Spock–” his name trembled in her mouth, “ . . . do you think fear is tangible? If it’s observable and quantifiable - couldn’t it be tangible? A sentient thing?”
The question itself sounded like nonsense, she knew it to be true, but there was a context that she couldn’t explain. It was how she knew fear was tangible; it was a cold hand that held sense at the back of her esophagus and reached down and polluted the air in her lungs with which to speak it.
Maybe Spock might draw an equation of numbers with which to unlock the words trapped in her throat.
@fasciinating
“ 𝑾𝑯𝑨𝑻 𝑫𝑶 𝒀𝑶𝑼 𝑵𝑬𝑬𝑫 ? ”
AN ANSWER FAILED HER or at least one that seemed like it would produce any sensical clarity to either of them. The question held an answer so large Nyota wasn’t sure how to respond for several long minutes. In that time, the dark from the room mirrored the darkness that lingered at the edges of her thoughts, a puzzle to carry with her from birth, to this moment, to seemingly the rest of her days.
Uhura did this from on occasion; in these private, silent, intimate spaces she held with him where her mind wandered to the end of the galaxy, gently pulling his hand along behind her, only to stop right at the edge where infinite darkness began.
Back inside of Spock’s quarters, in a far more familiar darkness; that darkness that held no pretense, just as the man of whom she laid her body against. The resolute and unrelenting heat from all of her radiated deep into his skin as Nyota made a brief ascent upward where her head came to rest under the point of his chin.
When the words finally came to her, they came packaged inside of a query; “Spock – what do you think is out there . . . beyond the galactic wall?”
This had not the first instance in which Nyota came to her mate with this question; and very nearly each time the way in which it is asked, the hour of day and circumstance - all different. Going so far to appear as though a non-sequitur - as it did now. Though there was hardly anything random in this question, a question she thought on almost every day of her life from youth.
Not untoward for scientists and explorers, to pose such quandaries and wonder grand and mysterious things; it was that her tone never implied Uhura was asking for the purposes of science or exploration.
It was a secret thing she asked him — with no expectation of a specific answer, leaving it to be little more than a rhetorical question, but far from direct or specific.
@fasciinating
Nyota did a slow swivel in her chair from the comms station, her back needle straight, shoulders back, eyes fixed to the good doctor, unpleasant a gaze though it was. Though it wasn’t meant for McCoy, no. Hardly. No, the sourness that bore itself into her face was for the lumbering Vulcan that had vacated the bridge a little under an hour ago.
A little under an hour ago where she distinctly heard him make the statement he was headed in the direction of sickbay.
The direction of.
This semantical, Vulcan, bastard.
And she wouldn’t be fool enough to try and provoke him with it if only to spare herself having to hear recited the exact semantics he escaped on.
She slowly blinked and the only indication to the ire that crept up her neck was the way she slung her earpiece across the comms counter.
“I doubt you’re wrong, Doctor,” Nyota rose from her chair, “— and I have three guesses where he might be, and maybe you should accompany me, because if I find him first, you won’t have to worry about tracking him down ever again, because he’s going out the fucking airlock,” she hissed in a scathing whisper between McCoy and herself.
" Look. I ain't tryin' to piss you off, okay? But I need to know just where the hell he's run off to. An' I know you know who I mean. Damn fool idiot's probably out there blinder than a bat in broad daylight. "
@haiiling
He will be known by the fox as though he always has.
@fasciinating & @haiiling
PROMPTS FOR LISTENING IN / EAVESDROPPING * assorted dialogue, adjust as necessary
i heard everything you said.
can you make out what they're saying?
hang on. i can hear them talking in the other room.
did you hear that?
how long were you listening?
keep this between us.
you were listening in.
i didn't want you to hear that.
well. now you know the truth.
maybe if you put your ear against the door, we can hear them.
did you catch anything that was said?
i wish i could hear what they're saying.
so when were you going to tell me the truth?
that conversation was private.
how long have you been standing there?
i was going to tell you the truth eventually.
how much did you hear?
it's not polite to eavesdrop, you know.
i heard you mention my name.
what was that conversation about?
why were you hiding that from me?
why can't you just say it in front of me?
it's not the right time to tell you.
this is between us.
i heard you say my name, so i came to find out what's going on.
you can tell me the truth.
i already know what's going on.
there's no point in whispering.
it's too loud. i can't make out what they're saying.
try getting a little closer.
let me try to hear what they're saying.
wait here. i'll sneak up on them.
don't say a word.
be quiet or else they'll hear us!
did i just hear that right?
well, you heard wrong.
that's not what i said.
this is what happens when you eavesdrop.
you didn't hear everything.
you're taking things out of context.
i wasn't listening!
not a peep! you understand me?
i was just standing here, minding my own business.
i didn't hear a word.
that's not at all what i implied.
i'm not sure what i heard.
you heard that, too, right?
i don't want you listening in on any more conversations.
maybe i heard a few things here and there.
tell me what you know.
why are you whispering?
i hate it when you keep secrets from me.