Spoken Sorrows

Posted on Fri May 3rd, 2024 @ 3:10am by Lieutenant Commander Lyra Cassiel & Lieutenant Commander Andrei Petrov

Mission: In-Between (S1:E7-S1:E8)
Location: XO's Quarters
Timeline: Date 2371-10-11 at 2025
3591 words - 7.2 OF Standard Post Measure

ON


The day had sneaked up on her like some sort of predator without her realizing it was coming. Of course the days had passed and though Lyra knew each one, somehow it simply hadn’t hit her until around three days ago. After their mission on Sikaris, things had all been a bit of a mundane blur punctuated by the stress of finding Andrei’s “little black book” and dealing with the complicated feelings that it had brought up, an accidental meeting with Orion on the holodeck, and then the subsequent dinner the three of them had shared in the name of Andrei and Orion “catching up.” It had all tested her and while she knew she was strong, she found herself wondering if perhaps there were some sort of lingering effects from her imprisonment from the Numiri or if her wavering steadfastness was the result of something more sinister.

Being in orbit above another beautiful, uninhabited planet really hadn’t moved her this time; she hadn’t been tempted to go down at all even though she could have easily found the excuse to do so. She had spent one of the nights in her own quarters since she had to work her occasional double shift so that had kept her busy and away, but she couldn’t really find a good excuse to be away from Andrei for the other two. She had been doing her best to keep her feelings contained around him, but she knew she hadn’t been doing a very good job. Perhaps this was just too heavy for her to bear without cracking a bit in the process. Of course she had been loving and affectionate to him, but she had also been distracted. Where she would usually initiate sex with him at least once every couple of days, she hadn’t at all in the past three and while she had of course happily participated in the act, she hadn’t seemed her very enthusiastic self.

She sat up on the arm of his couch wrapped in her throw blanket to ward off the natural chill in Andrei’s quarters. She had gotten more used to it over the weeks of course, though she had never really minded it because she liked having the cozy warmth of being wrapped up in a blanket; perhaps a childish comfort, but one she enjoyed all the same. She was bracing a book between the arm of the couch and one hand while her other hand held her propped head up. She was listless and couldn’t focus - she must have tried reading this page at least eight times and it just wouldn’t stick.

Andrei was sitting at his desk on the other side of the room, his chair leaned back and his eyes on the large viewer behind the wooden semi-circle desk. What was presented there was a void of space with an obstacle course of asteroid which gave the impression they were weaving through at a breakneck speed. He wore a green turtleneck and black pants and rested his hands on the arms of his chair. He was intensely focussed, training himself with the use of his ocular interface. He bobbed and weaved through the course, dodging under a small rock and then, quite suddenly turning and hugging a gigantic asteroid until he’d gotten around it. Finally, he was in the clear, and his hands went up in fists.

“YES!” he said, smiling broadly and doing a small, victorious dance. He had been working that difficult course for a week, using his time to turn his newly-found handicap into a useful asset. It felt good to win, and he instinctively looked over at Lyra to see if she had seen it. He spoke in an excited voice, “Lyra, did you see it?”

When Andrei’s yell intruded on her quiet, Lyra startled immediately and dropped the book from her hands. Her heart was racing, and it took a beat before she realized what had happened. Looking over to Andrei, she watched him do his silly little dance and for once in the past few days she felt a small, genuine smile tug onto her lips. She uncurled herself from the couch and reached down to scoop up the book and place it on the coffee table then pushed up to stand and walk over to the desk. She hadn’t seen it exactly, but it had been on her peripheral vision while she was staring vacantly into the words on the page.

“You finally did it.” She spoke, her tone full of approval despite her momentarily spiked anxiety. “I’m proud of you, darling.”

Lyra was good at saying what she knew she should, and Andrei had noticed that particular ability months ago. Generally, her body could lie too, but they had become close enough that he was very aware of the differences. He assumed, for much of the past few days, that if he asked her, she would just say nothing was wrong. He tried, instead, to make himself available with silent looks and touches. He could tell it wasn’t working.

He removed his patch and reached out to her, gently grabbing her wrist and pulling her down onto his lap. He wrapped his arm around her like she was a little girl and looked into her eyes, his mismatched gray and emerald green eyes sparkling in distinct ways. For a moment, he didn’t speak, but after drinking in her eye contact for a while, he broke the silence.

“What are you reading, Love?”

Lyra slid down into his lap without protest, her eyes holding his gaze with ease. He could feel the extra warmth of her body against his even through both of their clothes. She was wearing one of his old shirts again - he liked it and she found them comfortable. She could tell by the way he looked at her that he was trying to figure out something, and of course her first instinct was to try and bury it deeper.

“It’s called Nossas Fábulas.” She replied, dipping into her native accent naturally and making the words sound beautiful. A simple title, “Our Fables”, but something that used to bring her happiness. She realized she hadn’t really even picked it consciously.

“I’ve never heard of it. Are they Portuguese tales?” Andrei asked, his brow raising as he tried to think of what could be bothering her so much without actually asking. It was possible she would answer directly, but if she didn’t, it would be all the more difficult to get answers out of her.

“Brazilian, specifically.” She supplied and adjusted to lean into his broad, powerful chest. She was by no means a small woman; it had been hard for her to really find a man completely to her taste who could make her feel feminine when she stood next to them or even in more intimate moments, but with his size Andrei certainly managed.

“Tell me about it.” he said then, his hand moving soothingly over her leg in slow, skilled motions. “Which one is your favorite?”

At his touch, she adjusted and nuzzled slightly into his neck. “They are all rather silly, I suppose, and none of them really have happy endings, but I was always very fond of How Night Came, Why the Sea Moans, and How the Tiger Got His Stripes.”

“Oh, why does the sea moan, Lyra? I’m desperate to know. You must tell me!” he said with a smile and a chuckle as he wrapped his other arm around her torso. “Perhaps there’s something to learn in that one, no?”

Lyra chuckled softly herself and shook her head. “I’m afraid not, darling. It is a story about a princess who forgot the faithfulness of a friend and failed her. I didn’t really like that part, but there were three very pretty dresses described in the story. I always told my-“ she stopped then suddenly for just a beat, realized she had, and tried to continue as if she had not, “papai that I wanted the dresses.”

Andrei had heard Lyra’s story from her own mouth, but it rarely came up anymore. He tended to let people volunteer their own information, and had resolved recently that he needed to try and be more thoughtful in general, but especially with her. He was a young man, after all, and had a feeling that he had only just become capable in a way he hadn't been before. She had never talked about her father with hesitation or with feeling. Lyra was neutral on Lyra.

He closed his eyes, enjoying the scent of her hair as she nuzzled his neck. On Banea, he learned she was vulnerable on the outside, and now he was starting to see there must be something on the inside too. He was skilled in breaking, hurting, and making people feel good. But healing was something he’d always left to others.

“Did you ever get them?” he asked, and was amazed by the stupidity of the question the moment it left his lips. Of course she hadn’t. Her father was murdered.

“No.” She replied, simple and gracious in the face of his obliviousness. “It was just the want of a silly little girl anyways.”

She lifted her head and smiled at him. “So when will you try the next level of your simulations?”

“Little girls are supposed to be silly.” he said, ignoring her question in a calm voice. “But they still matter, don’t they?”

Lyra chuckled at that but gave no answer. She moved to slide out of his lap. “Do you want some tea?”

He grabbed her hand and held it. Gentle at first, but tight enough eventually to signal to her that he wasn’t letting her go. His eyes met hers with seriousness and insistence.

“No. I want you to stay and talk to me.”

Lyra looked down at him quietly, her eyes searching his. She had shown too much, she could tell, and she could hear the voice of her mother berating her for it violently in the back of her mind. She sat back down in his lap and slid her arms around him. “What about, darling? The stories?”

Andrei saw it now; how manipulative his beloved could be. He saw it, and he didn’t like it. He wondered what went on behind those eyes, and how many silent worries, thoughts, and resentments she would never voice until it was too late. In that instant, he wondered if it was a good idea to trust her. After all, she really played the game he only pretended to play.

“No, I want you to talk to me about what’s been going on.” he said, throwing caution to the wind. “Can you not tell your lover what is wrong when you’re having a problem?”

Now she was caught. She didn’t lie to Andrei when asked something, but she didn’t offer up information willingly given his reactions in the past any time she had cracked a little. It usually ended with her apologizing to him for things she shouldn’t have been apologizing for and she hated it. She could have tried to lie but she didn’t want to do that, she could have tried to lessen the problem or skirt around it, but he was fiercely intelligent.

Really, she didn’t have much of a choice. Maybe it would be a good thing… she would tell him and see what happened to know if she had to try that much harder to maintain control in the future.

After a few beats of considering, she grabbed a bit of the fabric of his sweater between two fingers and worried it between them. She started to speak, and then realized she didn’t know how to do this well at all. “It’s just… mm…”

She shifted uncomfortably in his lap. “Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day my papai was murdered.”

He had never seen her so hesitant or uncertain, and he knew that right away. As he looked into her eyes, he realized how connected he had become to her, and part of him was genuinely frightened by that. After all, when one gets close to people and starts to actually care, one gets hurt. Always. Despite his desire to keep his own control over himself, his tear ducts mounted a small rebellion and his eyes started to well even though his face was unreadable. No tear fell, but they were close. He tugged her arm gently and raised his hand to her shoulder.

“Oh..” he said, not knowing what else to offer. He refused to sniffle, but squeezed her shoulder firmly. “How long has it been since he died?”

Lyra finally lifted her head and looked into Andrei’s eyes. Seeing what she saw in them left her quite stunned; they weren’t falling, but he was certainly teary eyed. Why? For her? Was it real? Somehow, she managed to keep the suspicion off of her face and reached up with her fingertips to trace his handsome features.

“It will be thirteen years.”

“Oh..” he said again, blinking away the moisture in his eyes. He really was at a loss for words, which was quite rare for him. “I’m…I’m very sorry. No wonder you’re so upset.”

There was a small part of her that was offended he had said she was upset, another that was angry at having shown enough upset for him to have seen it in the first place, and a third part that simply sighed in disappointment at the other two. She was in it now, so she found she may as well continue. “I guess I realized this year is the year I have been without him longer than I had him and it is… affecting me.”

He looked at her, his hands resting gently on her body. “It’s making you sad.” he said resolutely, pushing her in the direction of self-knowledge. If she knew herself, after all, he might be able to trust her. “Right?”

Lyra took a deep breath and sighed it out, obviously loathe to admit what she was about to admit. “It is.” She looked at him then, apologetic, “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think you have anything to be sorry about.” he said, moving his hands up and holding them against her face softly. He leaned in and kissed her forehead then once, and then a second time, before pulling back. “There’s nothing wrong with missing your father.”

When he leaned in to kiss her forehead, Lyra closed her eyes slowly. She wanted to accept his comfort without question, but those inner voices were certainly keeping her on her toes. When he pulled back, she opened her eyes again and placed her hands on his wrists where she held him gently and affectionately.

“Papai.” She gave gentle clarification and a slight smirk. “I call Alexander Cassiel father, and I most certainly do not miss him.”

“No?” he asked, looking at her and recognizing what a basic fact about her this must be. Something was off, and he knew it now. He feared he would see signs of it all the time for now on. “Because he trained you and made you what you had to be?”

“Yes.” Lyra nodded gently, her intense gaze on his. She wasn’t sure what she was seeing there, but she was sure she was starting to not like it. This wasn’t a fact she had hidden or been cagey about, but she hadn’t spelled it out word for word before. It would have been obvious to anyone who had paid attention.

Andrei thought it best to get off of the topic, so he tried to go back to the other one. In the end, though, it wasn’t clear what was safe to talk about anyway. That probably shouldn’t have been the motivating factor when it came to deciding what to say.

“Is there anything that you and..Papai used to do together?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “Something special you remember?”

She considered the question quietly. In her mind’s eye, somewhere deep within, she supposed she considered it all special now given he was gone. It felt pathetic. She reached up to brush a bit of her hair behind her ear. “Do you remember where you took me on our first real date on the holodeck?”

“Of course.” He said, remembering immediately, “your family’s vacation home in Oaxaca. Mingling with holographic nobility, and then the tour. What of it?”

Lyra nodded. “You remember the beach nearby then and the bioluminescent water. When I was young, I liked to sneak out of the house and go down to the water to play in the waves. My mother hated it - she was convinced I would drown. I remember one night my father caught me, but instead of scolding me, he took me swimming out into the water. It started to become something we did often and my mother hated that even more, but he didn’t really care. We would spend hours out there sometimes just playing around in the water or on the beach.”

Andrei smiled at the memory, the image of that gorgeous beach blending in his mind with the imaginary little girl Lyra once cradled in strong arms and laughing as they chased each other through the luminescent water. He hadn’t spent much of his life seeing things through other people’s eyes, and it was a strange feeling, he found.

“Your papai seemed to upset your mother a lot when he spent time with you.” He observed, watching her to see if there was more there.

“Just when it came to the water.” Lyra explained, more at ease now in his arms. “She didn’t like it when he would do anything in the water with either my brother or myself or really even alone, but she was especially sensitive about me. I never really understood why and never asked, but I suspect looking back on it she likely had some sort of incident in the water when she was younger. She never wanted to swim or go out on boats; papai would insist sometimes and she would go if it was for some sort of public appearance, otherwise she would refuse.”

“Fear can live in the heart forever.” Andrei commented, his voice quiet. “And it’s very easy to teach to one’s children. Was your papai afraid of anything?”

“If he did, I never knew. He never showed it.” She kissed his neck tenderly and her eyelashes slowly brushed against his neck. “Our sons will fear nothing.”

“They will fear some things, I imagine. Just a few.” He said, looking at her with a thoughtful expression. “Me, you…and failure.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Lyra chuckled softly against his neck and slid an arm around his opposite shoulder. She didn’t want to debate on the topic - they were years out from children still - but she had a feeling that her definition of failure and his would be rather different. “But nothing else.”

Andrei watched her intently while she thought on the topic, and after she spoke, he gave a pleased and agreeable expression, concealing any thoughts which might be behind it. Instead, his mind shifted to her troubles.

“Clear your schedule after your shift tomorrow.” He said in a quiet but decisive voice. “I’m going to take you somewhere special and we can celebrate his life.”

Her first instinct was to of course sweetly protest and diminish her needs and wants, but she stopped herself and considered the gesture he was making. It was caring and attentive - everything she would want in this moment - and yet it still felt so wrong to accept. With a bit of effort, she nodded and pulled back from his neck so she could look into his eyes.

“Alright, darling. Thank you, I’m looking forward to it.” She leaned in and gave him a sweet, chaste kiss.

“Good.” He said, giving her side a gentle squeeze. He knew she was hiding her sorrow, and he wanted to make sure she understood how unnecessary that was. Andrei wasn’t known for his compassion, but she was the exception, it seemed. He smiled at her with a quiet playfulness. “Now, I’d like to hear more about making the sea moan.”

Lyra smiled and chuckled at his playfulness. Squeezing his hands, she moved to slide out of his lap but it was clear she wasn’t trying to flee. “Well, before I tell you about that, what would you like to have for dinner?”

“I’d like pizza.” he said with a smile, looking up at her. “That should help the general mood, I think. There’s no medicine better than melted cheese and carbs. How does that sound to you?”

“Perfect.” Lyra replied, her smile still lingering as she walked over to the replicator. Truthfully, she did feel better after unburdening herself to him, but she didn’t really know how to feel about that either. She went to the replicator and touched the console to bring up their options.

“Well, once upon a time…”

END