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Terok Nor - Winter, 2352 - 33rd Year of Deliverance
It starts when she's laughing, he thinks. No, maybe it starts before that. How long before? Days? Months? How long has he wanted to--
He won't think it. He refuses to think it. But he says something else and she says something back and isn't that how it always goes with them? Endless conversations, completely effortless, the kind that he could easily have long into the night, the kind that excuse things he would never allow otherwise: the way his eyes catch on her mouth; the way his blood burns when she touches him, even on accident; the way he'll catch her scent in a hallway long after she's left it and still it will distract him, still it will turn his head, make him look wildly around for her; the way she makes the spots on his neck darken almost permanently, flushed so dark and so constantly that they look more like bruises.
He loves talking to her about everything, anything. So many times he's come back to his quarters long after lights out and had to swallow the urge to send Damar out to wake her so he can ask about her day, tell her about his. Every thought that comes into his mind, he wants to share with her. And that's innocent enough, isn't it? He tells himself it is. She's keenly intelligent, charming, knowledgeable; the perfect consult. It's only natural that he should feel a little fond of her.
(But is he simply fond or smitten? He knows the answer, but he tries not to think it. If he doesn't think it, it isn't real.)
They've been flirting -- is that what it is? He's never been completely sure -- for almost a month. He's almost used to it now, he almost finds it more funny than arousing. Now, it's a game between them, an inside joke, a competition where they see who can surprise the other most, who can make the other laugh the hardest. The physical urges are easy enough to ignore, he tells himself. Stopping the elevator when Naprem makes her newest joke or critique of him, pulling her close, showing her the answer to her newest question -- that would be going too far. It's several bold acts too far for his taste. Flirting -- if that's what it is at all -- is just that. It isn't action. Flirting alone in elevators leaves no evidence. There's nothing anyone can prove if they're only flirting, especially when they're doing it so badly.
But lately that's all just fun, a titillating but simple pastime they can both forget as soon as it's over. They never do it in conversations like these. There's an understanding between them, he thinks. A twin desire to keep this quiet thing between them private and sacred, unfettered with the distraction of sex. It isn't that he wants her any less -- he wants her? Chaos, but he wants her, and he won't think it, he won't -- but this isn't part of the game. This is something else.
He wants-- he won't. But he wants…
"What?" she asks.
"Nothing," he says.
She grins, huffing a little. "It's not nothing. You're thinking so hard you're about to grow a new row of ridges."
He snorts a little despite himself, but he can't say what he's thinking. He won't.
"Looking to get a row like mine?" she asks, scrubbing her forefinger at the side of her nose, still grinning.
"I like yours," he says, and he hates himself for admitting it so easily, even when she grins wider, and turns her face down.
"I like mine too," she says, and she's blushing, and he loves how it colors her cheeks and her ears. The violet, diamond-cut jewel of her d’ja pagh catches the light and the reflection dances over her neck and her cheek.
It's his own fault, really; they're in his quarters, long after light's out, and they've been here hours, talking. He'll have to send her back to the barracks with an escort, which he should've done a while ago. People are talking. Damar's said as much, but he already knew. He's sure Naprem knows too, and he wonders why she allows it. She doesn't seem the type to enjoy being baselessly slandered. He'd only intended to review the plan for the spring summit with her, to go over the numbers. But then he'd asked about her day and she'd mentioned something she'd said the week before about addressing sanitary needs for the female Bajoran workers in Sectors 18 and 27. He'd asked questions and she'd answered thoroughly, and he'd poured himself a drink as they reviewed the shipment records. She'd asked something about Cardassian anatomy -- not flippantly, but seriously, with professional intent -- and he'd answered without embarrassment. They'd segued to his conversation with Glinn Alomar before she'd arrived, then to a spirited conversation about expectations for Cardassian conduct during the Occupation. He'd replicated dinner for both of them, and she'd asked him a question about Central Command that had taken the whole meal to answer.
Then, he'd asked her what she was reading, and she'd told him she was re-reading The Never-Ending Sacrifice , and that, regrettably, was where the laughter had started.
"You're not still thinking about Corac," she says, hiding half of her mouth in her palm. She's so beautiful it makes him speechless for a second -- she short, dark lashes catch the light like dew, and all at once she looks so soft , so unbearably touchable.
He is still thinking of Corac, in a way. He's thinking of how his father has always maintained that he never really internalized the most crucial tenets of Corac, and he's beginning to understand that, in his usual crooked way, his father is right.
Don't think it, he tells himself. Don't say it.
"I'm thinking about how much I'd like to kiss you," he says, and it's an almost out-of-body experience, as though someone else is speaking with his mouth.
Naprem blinks, surprise crossing her face -- but not consternation, he sees with a disgusting amount of relief. He's focused on not feeling, remaining as still as possible, as though it will render him invisible. He tries to slow his heartbeat, almost holds his breath.
"Oh," she says, not sounding dismayed at all. She says it the way she says it when he says something she wasn't expecting, but doesn't disagree with. A pleasant haze dusts her features like starlight; she's glowing a little.
If that weren't bad enough, she says, without enough hesitation, her voice calm and even: "I'd like that too."
He feels the hand of regrets-soon-to-come clamp down hard around his heart.
"Yes," he says with what he can conjure of a smile (but with what feels like a wince), "I thought you might say that."
They sit still for a moment or two after that -- he wonders if that sounded arrogant, but it was honest. He'd hoped she'd be averse, that her disgust could reinforce the loosened rivets of his resolve, screw his decency back to the sticking place. But he'd known, somehow, that she wouldn't be. It isn't her fault, he supposes. She has no one to be faithful to but herself.
Athra, he tells himself, think of Athra. But he can't. He tries, but Naprem is watching him from only a few feet away, and he finds that he can think of nothing else, no matter how he tries.
"Well?" she asks, and she's gentle about it. "Are you going to?"
"I think we both know I shouldn't."
She nods a little.
"You're right," she says. "You shouldn't." But she hasn't taken her eyes off of him. She hasn't moved.
He looks at her. He won't, he thinks. He won't move. Staying still is something he can do. He's never taken action before now; resisting his baser urges is a simple matter. All he has to do is nothing. That's simple enough. He'll simply wait until the moment has expired, until she's gone and he can collect himself. He won't stop the elevator. He won't cross the space between them. Simple. He won't. He won't do it. He won't think it.
But he should know better by now. Naprem stays still, watches him until he's caught his breath, and then, even though he doesn't, even though he refuses, she moves forward.
It isn't sudden, not so fast that he can't stop it. She ducks forward -- and in the end there wasn't much distance between the two of them at all, their knees almost touching, their feet held apart by inches -- and she kisses him, a soft peck of her lips on his, dry and floating, so quick it could be a dream.
He keeps his eyes open, and when she pulls back, hers flutter open. Jade, he thinks, like the thick, mint green rivers that cut through the Bajoran jungles, sluicing over rocks and through mountains, the current so strong it could drown a twelve-man platoon. He catches her cheeks before she can get too far from him -- he needs to know if all her skin is so warm, or just her lips -- he needs to look at her eyes, needs to conduct a thorough study of the color. She doesn't avert them, doesn't duck away. No fear, he thinks. His fearless, rebellious friend -- his beautiful, untameable wildflower.
Maybe he says her name, maybe he doesn't.
He wants to kiss her, and he does.
All her skin is warm to the touch, he finds; her cheeks and the back of her head, the back of her neck. But her lips are somehow warmer than all the rest of her, and the inside of her mouth is warmer still. He kisses her slowly, carefully, sipping slowly from her lips, pressing firmly, sampling her taste as liberally as he dares. Gently, gently, each kiss more exquisite than the last, each sending a bolt of electricity down his throat, over the ridges of his neck. He cradles her face between his hands -- she's so soft , her mouth most of all, and all her skin gives beneath his fingers.
Her hair catches between his fingers; he can feel a little of it on her cheeks, downy and short. He didn't even know it was there, but he can feel his fingers brushing over it, can feel it rise under his touch. He feels her put out her hands for balance, catching on his legs, and he tips his mouth into hers once, twice, thrice. She kisses back as though she's mimicking him, pressing just so, sucking so soft, just enough to keep them together, to follow him back and then forth, just a little.
He breaks from her -- for breath, he tells himself, but he was breathing just fine. Her hands are wrapped around his wrists, her face in his hands, and she's flushed, a strange look on her face. Pleasure, he realizes, with a distinct, nauseating mix of both pride and guilt. She's practically aglow with pleasure, eyes a little misty with it.
He won't, he tells himself.
"We really shouldn't do that again," he murmurs.
"I know," she whispers, but she hasn't let go.
He won't.
"...though I’d very much like to," he says, so only she can hear.
"Please," she breathes.
(He will.)
He kisses her, and her hands move to his shoulders, and it's so simple to give in, he realizes. It's so easy. It's so simple to pull her closer, and then she's not sitting across from him, but crawling into his lap, never breaking from his mouth. He pulls her even closer, and her body fits to his like something he's been missing. She's trembling just a little, not from fear but from excitement, he can smell it, and he's so flattered it aches. A thousand sound arguments ring through him -- he's a married man, a military man, a Cardassian, the Prefect, her greatest enemy -- but all he can taste is her lips, all he can feel is the heat of her against him, all he can hear is the soft sound she makes when he slides his hand up her back.
Years later, Athra will ask him when it started, and he will think of this: his quarters, at his dining table, he and Naprem in the same chair, him discovering her body through her clothes, him meeting her lips with greater and greater enthusiasm but unfailing slowness, so he could savor each kiss, so he could relish in it. He will think of her and her riverwater eyes, her spicy, floral scent; he will think of her heat, her unbearable, wonderful, constant heat, like her blood could burn him through her skin. He will think of her unnameable taste, what it felt like to run his tongue over her thick lips and into her sweet, diamond mouth. He will think of her short, blunt teeth, and how she nipped him once and he laughed, and then she laughed, and they were laughing together, her on his lap and his arms twined around her, her face pressed close to his. He'll think of how it tickled when she laughed against his mouth, how she laughed until he drank it from her lips, and then she made a soft, wondering sound that electrified his skin. He'll think of how, whenever they'd part for breath, she'd whisper, "please," and he'd choke on his good intentions.
But even in the moment, even now, he knows this isn't the beginning. Each kiss is a period on a sentence he'd written in the elevator, and in his office, and in his bed, and in the hallway. Each kiss is a confession to a crime long committed; the unnecessary admission of guilt in a trial he's been conducting against his own honor, a victory in a war he's been waging on himself. He kisses Naprem, and it's entirely on purpose. It's like taking his first breath. It's a relief. He kisses Naprem, and it is everything he refuses to admit he dreamed of. He kisses Naprem, and he wants to do nothing else his entire life.
It doesn't start with this, he knows. He kisses Naprem, and he thinks that it ends with this. This is their conclusion and their commencement, and he only wishes he'd done it sooner.