Uncharted Waters II

Posted on Sun Sep 25th, 2022 @ 7:46am by Lieutenant Commander Lyra Cassiel & Lieutenant Commander Andrei Petrov
Edited on on Sun Sep 25th, 2022 @ 7:46am

Mission: In-Between (S1:E3-S1:E4)
Location: Anorra
Timeline: Mission Day 17 at 1600
2627 words - 5.3 OF Standard Post Measure

ON

He had obviously felt her feet on him before she pushed him, but the force still drove him under the water for a bit. He surfaced for a moment, and then dove under to follow her, more curious where she was going than trying for any more horseplay. It was a shame he had had to ruin the mood in order to get her back, but he considered it a fair trade in the moment. He trailed her further down, managing to catch up with her and come to her side. His green mechanical eye glowed particularly in the water.

If Lyra was annoyed, she either wasn't showing it or had already let it go. What Andrei would however notice was in her dive down, she had caught her bikini top and put it back on. She had actually come to a complete stop in the water and was simply floating there upside down and looking "up" toward the darkness of the lagoon below. She spared a glance at Andrei when he joined her, and then simply continued to swim down. Eventually, she found the bottom some forty to fifty feet down, and immediately slid her hands into the sand. She wasn't particularly paying attention if Andrei had followed or not at this point though.

When Andrei saw that she had recovered her top, he decided to abandon her to her exploration and resurfaced. When he got to the surface of the water, he took around the gently moving water, searching for his swimming shorts. He quickly saw them in the distance and made his way toward them. When he finally got them in his hands, he put them back on and swam back toward the shore. He walked up onto the beach, his extremely fit body dripping with water.

For the next five minutes or so, Lyra remained under the water, exploring on her own and not particularly worrying about the reason Andrei had decided to leave her after he had come down to her. Eventually she surfaced and headed up to the beach. In her hands were a few quite exotic looking shells. Walking back up to the towels, she brushed some of the excess water off of her body and wrung out her hair, then took a seat on her towel to inspect what she had found. One looked like a small conch shell, another like a triton shell, but the one that held her interest was a multicolored shell that shimmered, the colors shifting as it was moved in the light.

“Did you find anything interesting?” Andrei asked, laying on his back on his own towel and looking up at the light shimmering through the palms of the three above them. He seemed totally relaxed, his hair splayed out decoratively over the towel, water still glittering in it.

"A few shells." Lyra replied and moved to lie back on her towel, sliding her sunglasses over her eyes and closing them.

"I think we may need to have a talk on what is and isn't acceptable as far as 'us' and other people." He'd opted out of their fun not once, but twice, so moving on it was.

“Oh?” He asked, looking over at her while still lying down. She seemed slightly upset to him, but he was never one to go rushing into a burning building.

"Mm... yes, while it is extremely erotic thinking about you murdering anyone who looks at me wrong, that isn't entirely conducive to being productive members of the crew... nor would it be if I carved up every woman who batted her eyelashes your way." She said with a smirk and reached up to run the backs of her fingers slightly down his arm.

"For example, the good doctor is probably expecting to treat me to dinner at some point here."

“Is he?” Andrei asked, his tone calm. “Perhaps you should tell him to make sure his staff is up for removing a Shashka from his eye.”

He hadn’t seemed to become emotional, but turned his head to her.

“So you want my permission to have dinner with the Doctor, or are you asking about…more?”

"More? What do you mean more?" She asked, her face scrunching slightly and she finally turned her head to look at him.

“I want to know if you feel the need for boundaries to be established.” He said calmly. “What do you mean by ‘dinner’?”

"I feel the need for boundaries to be established because I want you to be comfortable and I would like to hope you'd feel the same concern for me." Lyra offered in turn, keeping her voice level. "By dinner I mean... dinner. Probably in the lounge. The details weren't really worked out. I imagine he might expect more given literally nobody at this point knows there's an 'us', but he wouldn't be getting it."

“I don’t see anything wrong with that.” Andrei said, the back of his fingers finding her arm now. He moved them gently along. “I think a fair rule is that neither of us should go further than dinner, drinks, and flirtation.” He smiled charmingly then. “Anything he touches you with us getting cut off.”

"Not too many drinks though, because I become very horny... and you become very... questionable." She smirked and looked back up to the sky through the palms. "I agree, and perhaps let the other know if we are going to be doing that so there aren't any surprises?" She asked, not making it a demand but offering to see if he thought it was reasonable.

“Drink as much as you like. I’m a fan of horny Lyra. Just don’t use it in the wrong place.” He said with a grin. “And I agree, we can let one another know before we do something like that."

"Horny Lyra is just for you, darling." Lyra grinned and shook her head. "As you said, no quarters, no offices... no other peoples' quarters." She smirked at that and looked at him. "Anything you'd like to cover that I haven't thought of? Holodecks yes or no? Case by case?"

“Case by case.” Andrei said, not sounding particularly engaged in the idea. He wasn’t brushing it off by any means, but it seemed his mind was mostly elsewhere, tethered to this conversation by his will to answer her questions rightly. His eyes moved over hers. “There are some good reasons to go holodecking; training, for example.”

Lyra saw his eyes move over hers, but she could tell by the tone in his voice he was disengaged. She didn’t know why, but she also didn’t particularly like the fact. She considered for a moment, and pulled off her glasses. “Where are you right now, Andrei?”

“Hmm?” He asked, seeming more surprised by the question than confused. After a few seconds of processing, he smiled a bit. “I was thinking about our game in the water. But I was listening to you, of course.”

Lyra very successfully kept the annoyance out of her expression, but it was difficult. In the end, everything they had just said was words and she knew very well that Andrei was capable of lying to her face. Some might have asked why she had even bothered, but the simple fact was that in the end, she didn’t want to hear the excuse of “I didn’t know that wasn’t alright” or “I didn’t think that would bother you”; he would have less technicalities to hide behind should he try to betray her - or her betray him, but realistically…

He didn’t seem particularly used to being called on his drifting attention either given his reaction. She looked away from him then and put her glasses back on. “That’s all, then.” Obviously, he had nothing to add, because he didn’t really care.

Again, Lyra seemed to put off a bit by him being..well…himself. It wasn’t as if she gave it away, but he thought the moment was cute and she was clearly not interested in it. She wasn’t telling him what was wrong and he wasn’t in mind-reading mode, so he turned his head to the palm branches again. A moment passed in silence.

“I’m capable of understanding the boundaries we’ve put in place and so are you.” He said quietly; calmly. “Neither of us is an inch close to stupid. You just think I might be lying to you.”

A flash of a frown and then he pulled himself all the way up into a standing position. He looked down at her, his face showing a reserved sadness.

“You are capable of deceiving me and I am capable of deceiving you. The only difference is…I’ve decided to trust you. And I don’t need to check and make sure things are clear with you, because I know they are.” Andrei said, and then without really waiting for a response, he walked several paces away toward the shore again and dipped his feet in the water. With sand between his toes, he gazed out at the sunny night, taking a deep breath of fresh sea air.

Lyra sighed internally and sat up as he walked away. She discarded the glasses down on the towel next to her and walked after him. Coming up behind him, she slid her arms around his middle. “Andrei, you’re mistaken. I’m choosing to trust you just as I said I would. I simply wanted to make things clear about what the other felt comfortable with.” She moved around him and reached up to place her hands on his cheeks and get him to look at her. “You could have easily said the thought of me going to dinner with another man - or any person - bothered you, I would have made it lunch. Your needs are important to me, darling. You are mine, after all, and I am yours.”

Her hands slid from his cheeks and down to his chest as she lifted up slightly to kiss his forehead, lingering there a moment. “I wasn’t bringing it up because I don’t trust you. Again, I’ve made the choice to do so as you have with me. I wanted us both to have clarity on likely what will be common situations we will face so we can approach them with confidence and not hesitate thinking on if it is alright with the other person. That is the smarter play, no?”

From everything Andrei would be able to tell, her words were genuine and they were, but internally she was of course still skeptical though she absolutely did not show it. Skeptical and suspicious were just the kind of people they were. It would likely fade in time though when actions proved intent. She smiled up at him and reached for his hands.

“Sure, I’m fine with that,” he said, taking her hands in his. “But the only people I’ve been interacting with on a regular basis are my family, you, and the command staff. I think we can discuss things case by case, though, as we said.”

"Well, we have been rather busy with all sorts of adventures lately, haven't we?" She asked and laced their fingers together, stepping up to him so her body lightly pressed to his. She kissed his neck tenderly twice, and then a third time with a bit more passion. "When we manage to untangle our bodies, at least." A smirk tugged onto her lips. His answer had really given her nothing, but that was Andrei. The words had been said and heard, acknowledged in a way, and that would have to be enough. Actions would in the end be where they would thrive or die.

“That’s true.” He said, taking a kiss on her lips for himself smoothly, his eyes flitting against hers, his hands finding her waist. “So I suppose, the best question is, do either you or the doctor wish to tangle your bodies?”

Lyra returned his kiss lightly, and when he followed it up with his question, she kept her expression neutral. All of that talk of trust and the mild hurt she had seen in his expression for… that. “The only person my body will be tangled with is yours, Andrei. I can’t speak for the doctor, but yes I imagine he finds me attractive and would be hoping to have sex with me at some point. Does that matter?”

“No. That means you know the risk. You will be the one who decides what happens between the two of you in the end.” He said, offering an understanding smile at her distaste for his question. It was a surprisingly mature and open handed response from him considering how possessive he was. People detested feeling trapped, he knew, and he understood that imposing some limitations wouldn’t do anything but suffocate her. He didn’t want that. “I know that, if someone wanted to sleep with me and I with them, going to dinner wouldn’t be a great idea. If that isn’t the case for you, then go ahead.”

He was tired of the subject, honestly. It always made him feel like he was under a microscope, being watched for any signs of infidelity. He had truly never been more faithful in his life, but the process of boundary checking was annoying him. But, truthfully, he didn’t know how to do long-term relationships, and he thought this was how it worked. Talk talk talk. He didn’t show his impatience and put on an understanding and comfortable smile. He could be an excellent actor when it came down to it.

“And when you’re done with dinner, come back to me.” He finished, his hands moving gently on her hips, his lips finding her forehead and kissing it slowly.

Lyra was surprised how easily he admitted that him going to dinner with someone he wanted to sleep with was a bad idea, and she found herself musing if he would manage to do dinners with women at all. Either way she would just have to trust him, it was what it always came around to in the end. When he kissed her forehead, she closed her eyes and placed her hands up higher on his sides.

“I’ll always come back to you Andrei.” The words were spoken gently but sincerely. She looked up into his eyes and moved her right and up to his cheek. “Thank you for discussing this with me.” Lyra didn’t pick up on his annoyance in the moment necessarily, but she did have enough awareness to know that this wasn’t a natural conversation for someone like Andrei Petrov to have. She recognized the patience he was choosing to exercise in the moment and engaging with her instead of walking away. For that, she was grateful, and wanted to offer her praise to him accordingly and give voice to her appreciation instead of simply taking it for granted. She appreciated his effort to making things work as the blind lead the blind on a functioning committed relationship.

“Would you like to swim with me some more?” She asked curiously, seemingly content with ending the conversation.

“I would.” He said simply, his hand moving up to grab hers from his side and hold it. They walked together back into the water hand in hand. What the future might bring for them, none could tell, but a moment like this likely wouldn’t come again in a long time unless it was replicated on a holodeck.

END