Chapter Text
You know that feeling when you go, oh fuck, for once in my life I am actually having regrets? This was one of those moments.
Join Starfleet, they say. It’s hard enough to get kicked out of Starfleet that you might do alright there, they say. Those idiots underestimated me. Next time I’m only doing anything if they say, join Starfleet, you’ll have fun there. Not that I would be getting a third chance at that once the Captain saw me.
Standing in parade position awaiting inspection by some higher up the greasy pole than thou officer was never a good time to be having thoughts. Like no one would forgive you if you made the entire unit look bad because you were thinking too hard about the unicorn-dog shaped pancake you’d had for breakfast and you burst out laughing, even if it was objectively hilarious. Point in case, my cadet training squad hadn’t talked to me voluntarily ever again after that. No purpose telling them I’d just been trying to distract myself from everything that hurt. Right now, at least I wasn’t laughing.
Ideally, you picked out some thoroughly unamusing square on the wall to stare blankly at so you didn’t look at the officer too much and give them an excuse to have a go at you. Also you paid enough attention to not completely space out while orders were being given and forget to move. You just had to bide your time until the tick box got checked and the whole palaver was over and you could go back to sticking your fingers in the warp core and getting yelled at by engineers or whatever the fuck everyone else did around here. I tried to do that.
Had I already been banned from going near the warp core? Oh yeah, you bet. Sweat was running down my spine. But it was wrongfully, so it didn’t count ‘cause I was being careful for once and I’m not stupid enough to touch weird glowy shit in spite of popular opinion.
Aaaand the Captain was standing in front of me in the line, in his obnoxiously sunshine yellow shirt, all stern brows and steely grey eyes scanning over me. I looked down on him, just slightly. I accidentally met eyes and his widened.
The concealer over his bruised cheekbone was obvious from this close up, how it blocked out his freckles. I straightened up into regulation attention position instead of passable, slightly slouchy inattention position to maximise my height over his. I thought very hard about not worrying at my matching split lip with my teeth.
So yeah. Turns out Val from the bar fight last night looked pretty different in uniform, without the eyeliner, black lipstick or glitter-coated, cropped shirt. And when he wasn’t seething for a fight. I really hoped the same could be said about me. Today my hair was brushed, frizzier for the attempt, and I wasn’t even hungover. His brown curls were tied back in a low ponytail, yet the sunflower printed scrunchie was from yesterday. It was the only part of his appearance that wasn’t now basically devoid of personality; it was that silly detail that had made me long to be friends with him after. Shut up and think professional thoughts, brain.
“Captain,” I said. I couldn’t help meaning Val .
“Ensign.” Matilda .
He knew.
I was so tempted to call him out on it, but I’d made that dumb promise to Ned years ago when they were still my student mentor not to blow up my second chance on purpose, and I couldn’t break it.
This was Val, I just knew he knew. We’d been bar buddies up ‘til about fifteen hours ago before I had to run to make last call for curfew for my first placement on a starship and Val had evidently had to do the same. We’d parted ways gripping forearms and sharing fierce, bloodied grins, already missing what was only for a night. I’d had a best friend and then I’d left him and we were never meant to see each other again, that was how it was supposed to go from the beginning. I hadn’t wanted love then, I wanted a night of the comradery I knew I’d never get on this thrice damned ship that was my only way off this planet and out of my life, and a fight.
Except he was in charge of this shit show instead of a stranger and I was a random fuckup of an ensign barely scraping by. Fuuuuuckkkk. It was exactly why no one believed me anymore when I said I wasn’t causing trouble on purpose, but seriously this sort of shit just happened to me. Had I mentioned I was seriously sweating right now? I was totally going to be sick later with the breakfast I hadn’t eaten this morning.
I’d chosen a bar way out of the usual ‘fleet departure last hurrah drinking circle last night. My civvies were not worn to stand out and sure, the flaming red leather jacket and matching ginger hair did that on their own but they were in the bounds of normal earth fashion. I’d avoided the glowing blue shots everyone else was downing to get off their face like they were about to be banned. I’d tried so hard to be sensible and cautious and most of all not fuck this up because this was important, and yet here I was anyway and maybe it would be better for everyone if I just stopped trying anymore.
I swallowed, breaking the incredibly awkward eye contact with Val to stare at my boots. My regulation uniform boots from the replicator which weren’t as comfortable as my old-style black combat boots. They definitely weren’t as cool.
My world was changing and tipping over and I’d had to find a way to deal with the brunt of the tidal wave of emotions surging through my blood without exploding. Yesterday, I’d had a ship and I was leaving this place, today, who knew.
Not even the fact that Ned was apparently on this posting too could save me, here we were just one in a thousand. Not that I’d seen them since they’d been at ‘fleet academy either. Fuck me, now was not the time to think about how much I missed Ned.
I’d gone looking for the fight. No denying it. I needed to let off steam somehow and I’d never once said I had great coping mechanisms.
I’d marched into that bar, watching for who wanted this as much as I did. It was the type of place that didn’t care where you’d come from and would ignore anything up to property damage before you were kicked out, and smelt of sweat and tasted of flashing warning sirens while serving terrible alcohol on sticky tabletops. I’d gotten good at clocking people this way.
If I’d wanted to flirt with someone, if I admitted it mostly for the two seconds of positive attention before I bailed on them, I would’ve. Was that better or worse than looking for who was most likely to punch me in the face? I wasn’t going to answer that.
Leaning against a wall at the back of the bar, glaring at whoever pushed past him through smudgy makeup, clenching and unclenching his fists like he didn’t know whether he wanted to stay or go, that was the guy I wanted to hang out with. He looked proper pissed off.
The ugly-ass, military-drab-green jacket didn’t go with the rest of his outfit. His shirt underneath, cropped and shedding glitter onto his ripped black jeans, sparkled like he’d come out here to actually have a fun time. A handful of years older than me at best, he had broad shoulders, light brown skin torn by scars, and curly hair that fell out of that sunflower scrunchie and into his face. I loved that sunflower scrunchie.
We got talking. We got fighting. It didn’t matter much over what.
I shoved him in the chest first, light enough to play off as a joke, hard enough to be an invitation. He’d already been braced for it. I saw the glint of teeth against a black lipstick grin in the dim lights before he shoved me back.
Getting hit hard enough to rattle the teeth in my skull and then all the bones in my body as I collided with the floor wasn’t everyone’s idea of a good time, but it was mine tonight. What were a few bruises when I always ached all over? Here, giddy on the adrenaline rushing through my system, drowning out the rest by being bigger and louder and more, it hurt less by comparison.
This was the moment I chased, where a whole star went supernova inside me in the split second between the leap and the fall. It was easy to get a little addicted to that feeling, that it was all too late to have a point in regretting it. I’d laughed as I went down and kept going as I rolled to my feet and slammed Val into the wall. The trick was to forget any moment outside of this one even could matter.
The rest of the bar dissolved into a fight, in swirling lights and shouts echoing off the glasses, as wordlessly we stuck together and watched each other’s backs as we charged into the flying fray.
Later, he’d introduced himself to me as Val. Valiant , I thought.
We’d wound up sitting on the edge of the gutter, on the edge of the world changing, sharing a can of lemonade in silence. We took in the summer night then, long after dusk had draped shadows over the Earth while the warm breeze stirred up street grit and the smell of jasmine. Val’s jacket was lost somewhere back in the bar but he didn’t seem to mind. He’d smeared black eyeliner across his fingertips rubbing at his exhausted eyes. I’d nabbed the cold lemonade can so Val could put it on the darkening bruise I’d left on his face, and he gave me gauze from a pocket first aid kit to mop up my bloodied lip. My heart, left behind in my chest with the rest of me ached. We’d compared messed up knuckles, leaning on each other, shoulder to shoulder. It’d been nice.
The captain stood in front of me, unrecognisable, except I had recognised him, hadn’t I? This was Val, he just wasn’t who I wanted him to be. Did I actually know how to regret yesterday though?
Val was clenching and unclenching his fists at his side; there were pieces of our captain that no one but me had been there to see. There was the entire gaping void of space I’d missed and never would know because he was still a stranger and I was never supposed to know. You weren’t meant to wind your own life around someone elses even for a minute there, especially not when you were me who clung too tightly and didn’t know how to feel halfway. If you leapt, nothing could help you from landing afterwards.
Val’s shoulders softened for a beat before he steeled himself again to be the captain of this entire blasted ship.
“As— as you were.” He stepped back. “Thank you, Engineering department.” He was watching me when he said it and maybe that was what meant something.
He walked away, limping slightly. He had been even before we got into the fight and perhaps that was just Val. It didn’t matter, because he was the captain instead of my friend when we both needed one. He’d been avoiding going to the ship and making it all real like I was.
Then he was gone, sunflowers on sunshine yellow fading around the grey metal corners of a starship.
The good thing about being the scum ranks of security and engineering was you were never going to be on the bridge unless the whole universe was going to hell. And then you’d be too busy fighting or fixing the ship to worry about it, so I would literally never have to see Captain Val ever, and if he wasn’t going to say anything, neither was I.
The ensign next to me nudged my elbow. “What do you reckon of the captain? He’s new, as in brand shiny new badge, ship, crew and all.”
“He’s—” I hadn’t expected someone like that, too much like me to make it. I hadn’t expected Val . “—certainly something, alright.”
At least this posting wasn’t going to be boring.