Jarhead Jaunt II

Posted on Thu Oct 19th, 2023 @ 8:09pm by Private 1st Class Cedrik Feng & Ensign Mika Petrova

Mission: In-Between (S1:E5-S1:E6)
Location: Holodeck
Timeline: Date 2371-08-24 at 2315
3735 words - 7.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Cedrik blinked, reaching up with his free hand to rub the back of his head. He was a handsome young man and though the gesture was boyish, it really only added to his charm. “Would you… like to go on some dates with me?”

She cast her eyes down to the ground as he asked, her smile fading.

“I don’t know, can I think about it?” She asked, but then her smile returned immediately. She was hardly a sadist. “I’m just joking. As far as I’m concerned, this is a date.”

“Really?” He sounded quite surprised for a moment then tried to recover quickly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. This is a date. Maybe not a great date… the next one will be better.”

“I like this date. It’s nice to walk with you in nature and see the men you hang out with.” She said, teasing him a bit. “But I believe you that the next one will be better. You’re very thoughtful, and I know you’ll think of something exciting and inspiring…maybe even something romantic.”

“I’m sure I could manage that.” Cedrik said, grinning with a bit of boyish giddy foolishness. “So do you have a certain specialization you’ve focused on in your medicine?”

“Genetics, actually.” Mika said with a grin at his almost silly excitement. “Before I decided to join Starfleet, I wanted to be a pediatrician. That isn’t a concentration the Academy has available, however. Go figure. So I settled for studying genetic manipulation. I’ve heard it comes in handy sometimes, but I haven’t seen a case of it besides Lieutenant Cassiel’s famous transformation.”

“Ah, yeah. I’d forgotten about that.” Cedrik frowned in contemplation for a split second then his expression evened out again. “I can’t really even imagine being in that situation. How terrible that must have been.”

“I’ve never experienced it myself, but I imagine looking in the mirror and seeing a different face staring back at me would make me a bit crazy for the rest of my life.” Mika responded, her mind flirting over the possibility of her familiar face and frame being suddenly replaced with another programmed one. “But, in some ways, it sounds fun.”

Instead of pointing out the reason Cassiel had the procedure done, Cedrik took Mika’s fantasizing at face value as some fun little thing she wanted to do for a weekend.

“Yeah, in some ways, but I think I like my face too much. Yours too.” He grinned down at her.

“Well, aren’t you sweet?” She said with a smile, grabbing his arm tighter once again and feeling his strength and warmth. She could imagine those arms holding her tightly, but she made efforts to direct her thoughts in a more chaste direction. It was difficult. “I wouldn’t change your face either. You’re quite handsome, you know. And you’re..really strong.”

The sexual interest dripped from her voice like sweet nectar. Behind her twinkling brown eyes, there was a shadow of embarrassment, but only a shadow.

“I uh… I work out a lot. That’s most of Shadow Squad’s day.” Cedrik replied slowly, his eyes still focused on her face though his mind was certainly drifting with that tone she used on him. Perhaps he was reading too much into it and he was trying not to, but he was young and prone to his biology failing him still.

He pulled his eyes away and firmly fixed them on the path ahead, focusing hard on the backs of his friends’ heads. “We also have a stupidly strict schedule.”

“I know, I saw that.” She said, stopping suddenly and realizing what she’d said would suggest she had been looking him up. “I heard somewhere…” she corrected.

“Don’t you all share the same room and have a curfew?”

When she tipped her hand with her words, Cedrick’s dark eyes did briefly go down to her while they walked, but wisely he said nothing. He would have been lying if he said it hadn’t given him a boost of confidence knowing she had been looking into his life a bit.

“We do. The only privacy we get from each other is in the toilet facilities and during our few hours of downtime during the evening.” He thought about it for a moment and smiled a bit guiltily. “I’m not sure if our chief might make a few exceptions during breakfast or lunch or not, nobody has asked yet. If he doesn’t I’m afraid we may be relegated to evening dates.”

Mika frowned at that, but didn’t voice her concerns about it. Of course she would like one of the least available men on the ship. She sighed at what he said, but her eyes returned to the way ahead as well.

“Well, maybe your chief will be willing to let you out of your cage every now and then. There’s more to life than just working out, fighting, and getting strong.”

“He probably would for a good cause, and dating a beautiful, kind woman is a good cause don’t you think?” He flashed a charming grin down at her, not really noticing they were starting to catch up to the group of marines in front of them.

Mika blushed. Despite her looks, she hadn’t been complimented much in her life outside of Russian nobility; most people assumed she knew she was beautiful and said nothing. On the inside, she was often ashamed of her body. She believed him on some level, however, and she certainly didn’t intend to let her insecurity show.

“You’re very kind.” She said in a gentle voice, but other than that, she kept silent as they approached the back of the group.

He took in her blush but didn’t miss the slightly off look that came with it; he wondered at the cause, but he didn’t have time to ask (though really, he probably wouldn’t have anyway) as they finally caught up with the group. The marines turned toward their friend and his guest slowly, a few finishing up conversations but the others who weren’t now looking intensely curious. There were a few murmured, polite greetings, but Cedrik didn’t let the moment become awkward.

“Alright, you know Ezra.” He nodded toward the man and then began to work from Ezra then left over each member of the group. “Danny, Ciaran, Taylor, Lawrence, Jesse, Ayesha, and Lucas. Everyone, this is Mika.”

The greetings were a bit more outright now and Mika was met with smiles from most of them, a few wandering eyes from several of the men, and a couple more gave polite acknowledgement but didn’t seem terribly interested.

“It’s nice to meet all of you.” Mika said with a friendly smile, shy and sweet. She gave a noble wave, a sign of her breeding, but was otherwise very meek and quiet. She wasn’t the best in social situations, as she’d already told him. She was quite used to men with wandering eyes and she thought almost nothing of it. “Thanks for letting me steal Cedrik for a little while.”

“Oh that’s nothing, we’re just glad he’s out at all.” Taylor laughed, running her fingers through her short hair then shaking her head. “Didn’t think he’d go for a fleetie though.”

Cedrik rolled his eyes. “You know I work with and under ‘fleeties’ now, right?”

“Our poor lost brother.” Lawrence quipped and pretended to stab himself in the heart over it. “Corrupted.”

“Well, I was told at the Academy that Marines are always looking for ‘a few good men’ because the Fleet already has them.” Mika said in reply to the jokes and jabs. She smiled, barely expecting the joke to land. “Besides, we have softer hands.”

Surprisingly, most of the group now paying attention to her did laugh at the joke. It wasn’t something new for them of course, but they all seemed to be in high spirits and perhaps a bit tipsy, so it wasn’t exactly hard to amuse them.

“Yeah well the fleet is good for girls with soft hands; men go into the marines.” Lucas grinned a wide, pearly grin.

“Last I checked, I didn’t have a dick.” Ayesha spoke up and crossed her arms over her chest, though she was grinning.

“Details.” Lucas scoffed and waved a hand dismissively.

Cedrik sighed, shaking his head, but there was an amused smile on his handsome face.

Mika’s expression remained polite, but she didn’t laugh at the exchange. She was used to such talk, but it had never suited her. She’d always prefered things clean and proper, though it wasn’t because she didn’t like to get her hands dirty with what was real. She looked at Cedrik and his smile and silently wondered how he spoke when she wasn’t around.

There was of course more laughter amongst the group regardless of Mika not laughing. Obviously as a whole, they weren’t overly concerned with her opinion or comfort of the subject.

“So your whole immediate family is in the fleet, huh, Mika?” Jesse finally addressed her. “Did you always want to join up or was it just expected?”

“I wasn’t even thinking about joining the Fleet until I was about fifteen. I was planning to work on Terra in a private practice.” Mika answered earnestly, “my mother didn’t even want me to join. She didn’t even join until we arrived here.”

“So what changed your mind?” He asked, shifting his weight a bit though seemed to be comfortable enough speaking with her.

“My mother was looking for well-connected men for me to marry who were…less than attractive to me.” Mika said with a modest grin. “I needed an excuse, and the Fleet has countless medical opportunities. It was a natural choice.”

She was avoiding the main reason, of course, but it would have to do.

“Gods they really start you noble girls off early for marriage don’t they? What are you, twenty or something? She was looking when you were only fifteen for when you turned eighteen?” Jesse frowned.

“That’s depressing as fuck. How do you even have a chance at life?” Ciaran cut in. He had been one of the ones who didn’t have as much interest in Mika, but obviously he had been listening enough. “Good for you for escaping that. Even temporarily.”

“You enlist in the Marines at 18, you finish school, you start your jobs. It’s a fine time to become a wife and mother.” Mika said, affirming the way of life without reservation. “But I didn’t like my options without my father around. My family was..somewhat disgraced. If I wasn’t going to marry for love, I wanted better than a sweaty old man or some Lord’s second son.”

She turned to Ciaran and frowned, but kindly. She was being more vocal than she was typically comfortable being, but the noble life was the way she was raised, and she knew it built the Empire. She had no complaints about it.

“What I’ve found about most commoners from my life in the military, is that they will envy the nobility’s way of life out of one side of their mouth and praise it out of the other. Marriage is the institution that makes the Terran society strong, and noble marriage is strongest of all. No one would force me to marry any man, but it’s nice to have your family help you pick. It weeds out the…less serious candidates. I prefer it to the other way.”

“Whatever floats your boat, sweetheart.” Ciaran replied with a shrug and seemed content to leave it there.

“Leave her alone, dickbags.” Ayesha spoke up from where she stood, her arms crossed. “Their way of life is different and there isn’t anything wrong with that.”

Cedrik finally spoke up, gently coaxing Mika a bit closer to him, though if he was aware he was doing so was uncertain. He wore a pleasant smile and spoke again. “It would be a boring world if everyone agreed all the time anyways.”

He then looked down at Mika, the smile softening just slightly. “It is getting late and I’ll need to head back to the barracks. Would you like me to walk you home?”

Mika approached at his indication that was what he wanted. In all honesty, she felt a bit uncomfortable with her assumptions being a subject of discussion in this group of friends. She’d been the daughter of a Lord her whole life, but things seldom mattered in the military except at the lowest and highest ranks. She smiled at Cedrik, trying to force those feelings away and finding it easy while looking at him.

“I forgot about your bedtime.” she said, smiling in a teasing way. “I’d love to be escorted. Lead the way.”

Cedrik said his goodbyes to his friends and they had said theirs in return - most of them included Mika as well with the simple “nice meeting you” pleasantries attached. They left the holodeck together and walked in silence for a few moments while they passed various crewmen going about their business. Finally, he spoke up while looking down at her.

“They’re a bit rough around the edges. I hope they didn’t upset you.”

“I’m not a China doll, you know.” Mika said with a grin, feminine and innocent. “I don’t break that easily.”

Cedrik laughed in a charming way. “Well yes, I know that, but I also know marines have a penchant for being able to get under peoples’ skin.”

“I noticed.” She said with a breathy laugh, the tips of her fingers finding his arm and dancing up the muscles again. “I also noticed you don’t seem to have that habit. Or, at least, you don’t seem to have it with me. You can’t really be so different from your friends, can you?”

The question was loaded and, despite her subtlety and gentleness, it was clear there was more being asked. Was he hiding something about himself from her because she was so feminine and innocent?

One of his thick, kempt brows lifted slightly at her question and he glanced down at her while they walked unhurried. “Why couldn’t I be?”

It wasn’t a harsh challenge to her question, but it was a challenge.

Mika didn’t shrink from the challenge in the slightest, though she didn’t meet it with even a hint of aggression. Instead, she grinned warmly and answered the question as if it had been asked gently. She had calmed storms in her life, perhaps more than anyone else on the ship.

“People always become like their friends, Cedrik.” She said simply. “That’s the nature of mankind.”

Cedrik chuckled and shook his head slightly. “Not always.”

He didn’t lecture or continue on with the explanation and instead gave her a more direct answer to her question. “My friends are dedicated to their duty and good people. Are they couth or modest? Of course not, that isn’t their way; but they would die for any member of this crew without a second thought because their honor is important to them. Would you have me be different from them in those ways?”

“No, I wouldn’t.” She said in response, standing beside him in the turbolift, her eyes forward toward the door. She had a smile on, but it was slackening. “But I never said I did. I only meant to observe how different you seem when it comes to interacting with me.”

“I do, of course.” He shrugged, not seeming to see a problem with it. “You’re a woman of noble birth. My father and his father and his father before them through the centuries have always taught their sons to be cognizant of what is said in front of women versus men. It isn’t meant to belittle women, but it is born out of respect.”

He nudged her gently with his elbow. “But yes, I admit I have thrown around lewd jokes; not really my ‘thing’, but sometimes a moment just can’t be missed.”

“Naturally.” Mika said. She herself had never had much need for lewd jokes and, though she certainly understood both sex and comedy, had no experience with the first and very little of the second. She looked at him and winked. It was kind, affectionate, calm, and simple. “Jokes like what? Tell me one?”

Something told Cedrik this wasn’t the best idea, but he couldn’t resist that look she was giving him. They stepped off the turbolift together to continue to her quarters. “Alright…. What do a nearsighted gynecologist and a puppy have in common?”

“Oh, a medical joke..okay.” She said, turning her face away to think about the question for the space of a few seconds. Eventually, not having come up with an answer, she looked at him again, giggling quietly. “I don’t know. What?”

Leaning down, Cedrik spoke into her ear in a near conspiratorial fashion. A slight smirk tugged at the sides of his lips, but more at her giggle than anything else. “A wet nose.”

Mika reacted, at first, with confused silence, but gasped when the realization of the meaning of the joke finally hit her. Her full, glossy lips parted as her mouth hung open and she looked at him, her brown eyes twinkling with the same conspiratorial spirit and a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth despite herself.

“Cedrik!” She exclaimed, clearly trying to contain the fact she found it funny. “You should be ashamed.”

She closed her mouth then and pressed her lips tightly together, visibly smiling now, but fighting it with all her might.

“Mmm should I? I see that smile of yours.” Cedrik grinned then, bringing his face close to hers. “Don’t worry. You can admit it… you thought it was funny.”

Stealthily, he reached down and lightly poked her side to see if she was ticklish enough to break the dam of her laughter.

Sure enough, she was. As he poked her side, Mika erupted into a fountain of giggles, more like a kid who had just heard potty talk than a lord’s daughter or an Ensign in Imperial Starfleet. She placed a delicate manicured hand over her lips, but the laughter kept coming. Eventually she gave him a shrug.

“You’re disgusting.” She said simply, teasingly. Her eyes, though, communicated something else entirely. Her words were always chaste and innocent, but her eyes made her true feelings clear. The attraction was deep and obvious.

“Am I?” He asked, this time more of a challenge though the teasing was there still. He leaned in close to her, his face very near hers and where he had poked her, his hand came to rest instead. “I think you might like that too. Just a little.”

“Maybe a little.” She said, turning her head to the side. The tension between them was growing, and her body was starting to indicate to her exactly how she felt about Cedrik. Her lips parted gently as she looked up at him. “But you should be careful talking about wet noses around me. After all, my mother has spies everywhere and they might misunderstand your meaning.”

“Spies?” Cedrik questioned mildly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean she knows everything.” Mika said simply. “As far as I’m concerned, she always has. Which means I should probably come clean about the bad-boy marine I’m dating before she tells Papa. I’m…very heavily protected…”

Her eyes went wide then, fueled by the energy of her enduring arousal.

“Don’t worry.” She said definitively. “And, umm..please don’t run away. I’ll handle it.”

“Hey,” he began more in earnest, though it was gentle. He used his hand on her side to gently coax her closer. “I’m not going anywhere and I’m not afraid. I get it. I’m an older brother to sisters myself, so I understand the want to protect from that standpoint and I know my parents want to protect them too.”

“No, Cedrik., you don’t get it.” Mika said, shaking her head, a hint of rare fear in her eyes. “My family is..different. I can’t talk about it, but ... You don’t understand.”

She pulled back from his touch then, a frown forming on her face. It had been unintentional, but it had happened all the same.

“I’ll take care of it. Just…just plan our next date, okay?”

On seeing the fear in her eyes and the way she suddenly pulled back, Cedrik frowned. He wasn’t angry but instead clearly concerned - for her. He didn’t try to grab her again and instead let his hand drift back down to his side. “Alright, Mika. If you need help… just call me.”

“I will. But, as I said, I am well protected.” She said, and smiled, her hand finding his chest. She leaned in and wrapped her arms around his solid body, holding him and a tight hug. “You’re very sweet.”

Cedrik immediately placed his hands on her hips and held her firmly to make sure she didn’t press up against him too tightly. He wasn’t unaffected by her proximity after all. He managed a smile that was passably easy and looked into her eyes. “You are sweeter.”

He turned his head and kissed her cheek chastely.

Mika grinned at the kiss and her cheeks turned red, even under her light makeup. She backed up then and moved toward the door.

“Goodnight.” she said as the door opened behind her and she backed slowly inside, her eyes planted squarely on him the entire time she was moving.

Cedrik remained standing smiling where he was, smiling warmly at her until the door finally closed. It didn’t fade as he turned and hustled his way back to the turbolift hoping he wouldn’t be late for lights out.

END