Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chris is lying back in the steaming water, contemplating the ceiling of the Risan bathhouse, when a voice addresses him.

"Excuse me, do you mind if I join you?"

His lifts his head to find the Orion sitting a few feet away on the rim of the pool, looking at him expectantly.

"Be my guest," he says, trying not to show his surprise.  He's been seeing her around the resort for three or four days now--usually stretched out on a lounge reading her PADD, sometimes just watching the crowd, and once, memorably, lying nude in the sun on an isolated terrace where Chris had gone expecting solitude--but this is the first time he's heard her speak to someone who's not an attendant.

If she notices his reaction, she doesn't show it.  "Thanks," she says.  She drops her towel and slips gracefully into the water, going under for a few seconds before surfacing, pushing her wet red curls back from her face.  After a moment she opens her eyes and smiles at him--another surprise.

"I know you," she says.

Chris raises his eyebrows.  "Oh?"

"I mean, I've seen you.  Around, different places.  You interrupted my sunbath the other day."

He blushes slightly, to his annoyance.  "Sorry about that.  I tried to leave without disturbing you."  

She shrugs.  "I didn't mind.  I'm Gaila."

"Nice to meet you, Gaila.  I'm Chris," he says.  "How do you like Risa so far?"  

It's a standard question, but she gives it some thought.  "I haven't decided yet.  It's different than I expected."

"How so?  Not enough reading material?"

That makes her laugh.  "Yes, actually.  I want to learn stellar cartography, but the library keeps trying to serve me erotica.  It's some kind of glitch, I think."
      
"It must be," he says, though that actually sounds a lot like how a Risan library would operate.  

He wants to ask her why stellar cartography, but he's interrupted by a ripple of murmurs and splashing as the lights suddenly dim to half-power.  It's artificial twilight; also known as the signal on Risa that those who want to keep their inhibitions intact have 15 minutes to leave the baths.  

Normally, that's Chris's cue to go.  Night in the Risan bathhouse isn't his scene--at least, it hasn't been.  He spends his evenings in the bar instead.  There's still plenty of alcohol there, but less risk of seeing an Andorian getting it on with a tentacle-creature in the next pool.   

Yeah, he should definitely leave.  

Only--now there's Gaila, looking around her curiously like everything's new and fascinating.  For a second he thinks maybe she doesn't know, maybe she missed that part in the tourist manual.  But then she looks at him, and lifts one eyebrow in wordless question, like a challenge:  Are you staying?

"Oh, hell," he mutters to himself.  There's a heat pooling in his belly that has nothing to do with the steaming water, and to distract himself from it he signals the attendant for more drinks.  A silent waitress appears at his elbow with a tray; he hands one glass to Gaila and keeps the other.

"Cheers," he says, and takes a long swallow.  When he lowers the glass, Gaila's staring at his right hand.

"Starfleet."      

Chris can hear One's voice now, making fun of him for the way he leaves that ring on.  "You say you want to be anonymous," she'd said, rolling her eyes, "but you can't let go of Starfleet, even on vacation.  You might as well get a tattoo."  

"Starfleet, yes," he says.  "That's what I do."  

Gaila nods, as if that explains something--which, if it does, Chris wishes she'd explain it to him. "That's what you're escaping from."

Chris blinks.  "What makes you think I'm--"

"I can tell.  Discontent is a tangible emotion to an Orion.  We feel it kind of--" She lifts her hand from the water and wiggles her fingers, "--here.  When I feel someone's discontent, it makes me want to grasp things."

"I wasn't aware Orions had that capability."  

"But you agree you're discontented."

Chris looks down.  Denials suggest themselves, but it doesn't seem fair to answer an honest question with a bunch of diplomatic tap-dancing.  He does enough dancing for his superiors.  "My work isn't what it used to be," he says.  "Starfleet's changed, or I've changed.  I came here because I thought with some time alone I could figure out how to fix it."

"How's that going so far?"

"Apparently I'm radiating discontent, so I'd say not too well."

Gaila blushes, a rose tint through the green.  "Sorry.  It's not a very fair advantage I have."

He shakes his head.  "Word of advice, Gaila:  Don't apologize for your gifts.  You never know when one's going to be the thing that saves you."

She'd moved closer to see his ring, and now she's closer still.  He realizes it abruptly, how very near her wide blue eyes are to his, just a second before she kisses him.

"What was that for?" he asks carefully, when she draws back for a breath, her lips still parted.  The heat in his belly has turned into a clamor, but he ignores it--at least he tries.

"An experiment," she says.

"I see.  May I ask what kind?"

"I'm going have to decide a lot of things for myself soon.  I need to practice exercising free will."

"You came to Risa for that?"

She smiles. "Can you think of a more appropriate place?"

If he can, he doesn't get to say, because then she's kissing him again, and whatever scruples he's been clinging to give way like a house of cards.  He steadies her hips as she climbs into his lap, her knees on the bench on either side of him, and she's already deftly untying his loincloth when he breaks the kiss, gasping, and presses his forehead to hers.  

"What do you want, Gaila?"  It comes out in a rasp; god damn it, he's not young anymore.

"My freedom," she says softly.

"I think you have it."

She shakes her head.  "It doesn't feel like it yet."

It would take more will than Chris has, maybe more than he's ever had, to stop her, and anyway he doesn't try.  She has him free of the loincloth before he can do more than thread his fingers in her hair, and at the first brush of her body against him he lets out a groan even he doesn't recognize. She's half a second from doing what he hopes to god she's planning to do, when abruptly she goes still.

His eyes flicker open and she's right there, blue eyes with dark pupils, wide open like the depths of space.

"I need your consent," she says.

He almost laughs--not because she's laughable but from the sheer impossibility of this, because he feels broken and something just came loose.  But he doesn't laugh.  Her eyes don't let him.

"You have it," he says, like the damn fool he is; and she smiles against his mouth as the lights go out.

*****