PROMPT POST 01

[emmyxogast]

ROUND 01 IS NOW OFFICIALLY CLOSED. ROUND 02 WILL OPEN IN 24HRS.
THIS POST WILL NOT BE FROZEN, SO FURTHER FILLS FOR PROMPTS IN THIS ROUND WILL STILL BE ALLOWED BUT NO NEW PROMPTS WILL BE PERMITTED.
Thanks for a great first round, everyone!

ROUND 01 of the Star Trek: Into Darkness Kink Meme
ROUND NOW CLOSES AT 3,000 COMMENTS

RULES OF THE KINK MEME:

Comments

fill: like a lonely lover's charm [2/4]

[anonymous]

The walk took them back through that seemingly endless field of strange stone sculptures; there was something vaguely technological about the room-sized flat pods like huge tables that were laid out in an even grid of circles, the fact that every other one of them was perfectly level while the rest formed a slightly curved bowl structure, but at the same time Nyota had the undefinable impression that they had been there for thousands of years. In the daytime they’d been as beautiful as you could possibly appreciate while fearing for your life; now, with the sun almost gone, they had a sort of foreboding mystery, seeming to hum with their surfaces still holding the day’s warmth as if they’d absorbed that light and exhaled the night’s brisk dank air.

The bowl-shaped ones had collected a good deal of rainwater, and after some time Nyota stopped to zip off her uniform and wade into one, feeling only a little calmed by the hint of moonlight that bounced off the still warm water. Wordlessly Jim followed suit and they removed their grimy clothes, ringing them out, all the while wincing as the actions brought a new sting to their cuts and bruises. She didn’t need to bother with modesty. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before, even if more often than not it was an affair of lifting skirts and shirts when they were together.

Jim put on his pants and then slung the rest of his clothes in a knot over his shoulder. She was zipping back into her dress with a toss of her wet hair out of her face, and when he helped her down out of the bowl, something passed between them that made her finally speak.

“...How did you know?”

They’d begun to walk again. Jim looked at her. “What?”

“The coordinates. How did you figure them out?”

She could barely see him shrugging in the darkness, and the motion seemed a little too stiff. “I figured if there was any way to guess what your mind would jump to...that cipher was fresh in your mind, and if you had to come up with the lie on the spot...”

She gave a long sigh, some undefinable aggravation knotting through her at the fact that he could be able to even make a lucky guess. After a moment she asked, “And how’d you know I was lying?”

“I didn’t know. If I’d known I wouldn’t have sent everyone else to the other coordinates. But I suspected, and I figured on the off-chance that I was right I’d get the time to at least comm up to the transporter room before some bastard slugged me. But-”

“But what gave you the hunch?” she said with a rougher frustration. “How did you know?”

“...I don’t know,” Jim finally replied, something forced flat in his tone. “Something in your voice I heard...I just knew. I should have ordered everyone to come with me, I should have trusted that.”

“No. You really shouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, cause you have so much goddamn business telling me how to run a crew when you’re lucky I won’t have it in me to report anything about this.”

“Oh.” She rubbed at a sore spot on her hip. “Here we go.”

“Excuse me, Lieutenant,” Jim said with sudden hardness, loudly adding, “You straight-up lied to a higher commanding officer today.”

“Yes, allow me to get on my knees and thank you because-”

“And now you’re giving me attitude?”

She gave a tired bitter laugh. “Please. This is not a reprimand. This is you having a personal outburst, because you’re apparently the only one who’s allowed to throw yourself in front of a bullet. I would have been completely honest if I thought you’d actually put aside your reckless crap long enough to organize hostage contingencies rather than leap down here like some dumbass cowboy and get yourself killed.”

She gasped slightly as he’d pulled sternly at one of her arms to bring her face around to him, the motion taking her by surprise in the building dark. He snapped, “When we got down here, I was expecting you to be a corpse. Have you even thought about that?”