Work Text:
Warmth
The warmth of the whiskey in her throat. The warmth of the smile on the face across from her. The warmth of their hands across the table as they touch and their fingers deliberately intertwine.
Outside their tiny bubble of warmth, there is almost nothing but the nearly infinite void, colder than death.
But here, in this moment, there is warmth.
And, she thinks, there's more where that came from.
Sweet
They had dessert this evening. Some rich, dark chocolate cake with cream and cherries that Agnes had pulled out the replicator after their shared meal and insisted that everyone should try. Agnes had enjoyed watching their reactions to it, and so had she. She's been discretely observing this new bunch of misfits with whom she has chosen to throw in her lot, trying to glean what she can of them.
A ship and a crew again, after all these years. How strange, she thinks, the way life loops around and about itself, to reach places that are so similar and yet so very different.
Coming back to the present, she finds herself under observation. Eyes meet and they share an amused quirk of the eyebrow at each other.
Her gaze drops and she finds herself wondering what that small smear of chocolate at the corner of the other woman's lips would taste like on the tip of her own tongue.
Would it be sweeter than the bitter darkness that she finds as she involuntarily licks her own lips?
Is the other woman's flush an invitation to find out?
Change
Neither of them is in the first bloom of untouched youth. They both carry scars, and demons. Both have loved, both have lost. More than either can articulate.
Nor are they are new to this particular dance, but the hesitancy remains. The apprehension, the fear, the anxiety.
They've each been in similar places before, but never exactly here, together, as they are now. Because, despite everything, here there is also joy and excitement and the promise of more pleasures to come.
It has surely been noticed how they linger together each night after dinner, chatting and more. How they've taken to walking back to the crew quarters together. Yet even Elnor has managed to keep his commentary to himself.
Everything is different. Nothing remains the same. Change is the only constant. And entropy will get us all in the end.
Yet neither of them could say why it's tonight that a single cabin door slides closed behind the both of them. Together.