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Pairing: Mohammad (human) and T’eknet (Vulcan) (Star Trek tabletop RPG)

Prompt: 61; “I love you. I’m completely and utterly in love with you. Please don’t get married.”

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No matter how many times he ran it through his head, Mohammed just couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that he knew he had feelings for T’eknet. They’d known each other for a few years, ever since he got transferred to Stavel Station to help her fathers with their research of the nearby planet. Somewhere between then and now, he’d fallen for the quick witted little Vulcan.

“What do you think of that, Moe?”

Quickly shaking himself out of his reverie, Mohammed turned his attention back to the task at hand and the engine that was nearly fixed, “About what, Sonden?”

“T’eknet. She’s apparently going to be leaving Stavel soon and head back to Vulcan - word is her parents had an arranged marriage in the works that is about to come to fruition,” came the response, the young Denobulan looking at him inquisitively as he held out another tool for the next step in the engine repair process. The human seemed to be frozen over the engine, his eyes staring at it unblinking, not seeing it at all as his mind spun with the new information. When Mohammed didn’t instantly take it, Sonden nudged his companion with it gently, trying to break him out of whatever had made him pause.

Without saying another word, Mohammed ran from the shuttle bay, his tools left in a scattered mess around the shuttle with a clatter. Sonden watched as he left and sighed deeply, shaking his head as a large grin curled across his face before bending down to pick up the forgotten tools, “Took you long enough, you little moron,” he muttered as he picked up where Mohammed had left off.

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Running through a ship had never been a polite thing to do, but at the moment Moe couldn’t care less. He dodged around ensigns, dashed around a medical officer, and gave a quick salute as he bobbed around their Andorian captain. He skidded to a halt in front of a door midway down the corridor that housed the deck crew, punching in a code to request entry faster than he could think, his mind whirling with dashes of memory that always filled him with warmth when he thought of her.

She’d always had a sarcastic remark no matter the conversation, and depending on how he reacted, he could see a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth as if she had been about to smile.

The slight beeping sound inside the room barely had finished sounding before the door whooshed open and he forced himself inside. He looked around the small room wildly, his eyes falling on the room’s only occupant. There was a fleeting moment where he wondered why he’d looked around the compartment as if she could’ve been hiding in a vent.

Leaning over a planter, her fingers - those fingers that could snap a man’s neck without breaking a sweat - working gently at the roots of the small sprig of green so that it could be relocated.

Dark, nearly black, blue eyes looked up to meet his, an eyebrow cocking slightly at his sudden entrance and panting in her doorway. She remained quiet until he took another step into her cabin and the door closed firmly behind him, then turned and continued to slip carefully folded clothes into an open bag on her pristinely made bed.

The look on her face when the news of her sister’s death at the hands of the Romulans - even with Vulcan training, he could see her eyes darken with overwhelming sadness and her mouth tighten as she tried to keep it all tucked away. He could see a tear trailing down her cheek as she’d disappeared into her father’s cabin.

“Has something of importance happened that has made you exert such energies to find me, Ensign Khoury?” She asked, her tone as it always was - emotionless and to the point, as it was with any Vulcan he’d interacted with.

How she’d gone out of her way to help teach another child on the Station that was having difficulties with his studies. No matter what her official duties were, she’d always found time to help him - she kept a copy of his school books on a data pad beneath her piloting station on the bridge.

“I...I heard...,” he paused as his voice cracked. Clearing it and running a hand through his curly hair, he tried again, “I heard you were leaving.”

That day she walked out of her personal cabin with her hair different from any he’d seen on a Vulcan previously - black with deep greens threaded beneath it, nearly long enough to trail across her shoulders. How he’d wanted to run his fingers through it to see if it was as soft as he’d imagined it.

T’eknet nodded, turning to collect her canister of incense and candles that she used for her meditations and packed them in their own separate case for safety, “I must return to Vulcan to meet with my fiancé,” she replied, flicking a look up at him, “is that all you wished to know? Is that information pertinent to your job in security?”

The first time he’d awoken with the vestiges of a dream curling around his head, of him taking her in his arms and gently pressing his mouth against hers, and instead of pushing him away she pulled him closer. He could almost taste her as the fragments of the dream faded away.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and went further into the room, kneeling next to her bed and putting his hands over the suitcases, pausing her packing, then looked up at her - was that shock he just saw flash across her eyes?

The times that were scattered over the last few years where he’d caught a glimmer of humor in her eyes, or a flash of anger if an ensign did something really stupid, or a faint flinch around her mouth if a person she knew well was in emotional distress.

“Don’t go,” he whispered, reaching up slowly as if he was going to caress her face, pausing just short of his skin touching hers, mentally cursing at himself because he knew how Vulcans were about the touching, “please...I...I love you. Completely and utterly in love with you. Please...please don’t get married.”

Please. Please don’t leave me. Please be with me. Please stay with me. Please don’t marry him...marry me.

Mohammad could almost hear the gears in her head spinning at full speed as she tried to compute what he’d just said, her eyes flitting across his face as if searching for a sign of deception with his words or actions. The moments ticked away and each one felt like hours, tearing at his insides as he began to panic with ‘what-ifs’.

She was going to retaliate. Use those hands that he loved to shove him through an air lock. Use that voice he could listen to all day tell the captain that he needed to be transferred. She would turn her back on him and these last few years would disappear into a haze of space dust. She would —

His panicked thoughts were cut short as T’eknet slowly tilted her head so that her cheek pressed softly into his palm, her hand raising to gently press the back of that same hand, holding it to her face. “Ek’ du had tor tor vesh’ ya’akash,” she murmured, giving him a very small and tender smile as she arched a pointed eyebrow at him.

All you had to do was ask.