Work Text:
After
Soji sits.
And sits.
And sits.
And thinks maybe they’re not coming, that they’ve decided to stay at the Academy, on Seven’s ship. Or Rios’ ship.
Well, it’s Seven’s ship now.
She swipes at her eyes with the back of her wrist and adjusts the table setting in front of her one more time.
And then the door opens.
Before
Seven can tell when Raffi’s about to wake up – body temperature rising, heart rate quickening, breathing rising from the depths as she stirs into consciousness. Seven makes sure that when Raffi opens her eyes, it’s in Seven’s arms, Seven’s face burrowed into the back of Raffi’s neck.
Raffi takes in a conscious breath of realization and rolls over in Seven’s arms. “You’re here,” she says. “It wasn’t a dream.”
Seven doesn’t really know what to say to that – she’s momentarily lost for words. She reaches for a stray piece of hair that’s fallen across Raffi’s face and moves it.
Raffi burrows into Seven’s chest, and Seven wraps her arms more fully around Raffi this time.
And Seven finds her words. “No,” she says. “Not a dream.”
Raffi pulls away just so they can look at each other and pulls Seven’s hand to her mouth. It reflects the early sun, and one of the light rays makes a little pattern on Raffi’s face. “Thank god,” she says. “You’ll never believe the dream I just had.”
“Never,” says Seven, as Raffi bends and kisses the backs of her fingers, then the pads of her fingers, then moves down to her palm.
Raffi smiles impishly. “You’re never going to guess,” she says, as she trails her lips down to Seven’s wrist, then closes her mouth around one of Seven’s fingers, implant side toward her tongue, and sucks.
Seven exhales with just a little force, then raises another two fingers toward Raffi’s mouth. She slides her other hand free and trails it down Raffi’s side, her hip, her thigh. “Even if I touch you here?”
Raffi smirks and trails her tongue, long and wet, across the tritanium back of Seven’s hand. “You might need to be a little more specific.”
Seven leans in and kisses Raffi (a little hard with her fingers in her mouth, but she really wants to kiss her anyway), slides her other hand dangerously close to between Raffi’s legs. Raffi closes her eyes, and Seven feels the vibration across her fingers as Raffi moans. “I’ll show you,” murmurs Seven, and slides under the blankets.
Raffi’s wearing more than usual to bed – shorts and a very flimsy excuse for a tank top, and Seven slides those off pretty easily, grips her thighs, rubs her nose into the slickly wet spot that’s formed in Raffi’s underwear. “I swear to god,” says Raffi, “if you make me wear clothes for another five minutes when I haven’t seen you in weeks –”
Seven digs her nails into Raffi’s thighs to let her know that she does have every intention of hurrying up, pulls Raffi’s panties down to mid-thigh, just enough room to her mouth in there (she smells so, so, so good, fuck) and—
Raffi cries out. Normal.
But also, the door behind them’s opened. Not normal.
Seven’s arms strain as Raffi snaps her legs together, and Seven holds them (mostly) firm to keep her head safe. And knows enough to know that she now needs to remain very still.
“Elnor, did you knock?” asks Raffi.
“No, Raffi, sorry,” he replies.
No sound.
“Okay. Could you wait in the living room please?” asks Raffi.
The door closes, and Raffi flops down into the bed. Seven places a comforting hand on her thigh and comes back up in the cool (very cool – that’s actually why she’d kept the blankets on Raffi) air.
“Raff–” Raffi makes a groaning noise and pulls the pillow over her head. “That happened last time too.” Seven looks at Raffi’s pillow-covered face for a moment, then reaches out for her hand. “Do we do this too often?”
“Never,” says Raffi, muffled under the pillow, and Seven smiles. “We do have to talk about this, though. It’s a different kind of problem.”
Seven pauses, then nods. “So I’m–”
“–also going into the living room,” says Raffi. She pulls the pillow off her face. “I’m sorry.”
Seven touches her hand to Raffi’s shoulder. “We’ll do what we have to do,” she says.
Before Before
Raffi sits across from the Riker-Trois, over a pretty damn good pizza, and next to Beverly Crusher, whose presence wasn’t really announced, so Raffi figures she probably comes around here enough to not need announcing.
Or hell, maybe she lives here. Raffi really would have no way of knowing. Raffi’s never been part of this particular part of JL’s life. He’s made that incredibly clear without ever having to speak.
That said, she enjoys watching their small grins when she calls him “JL”. She enjoys when they talk about poker. There’s plenty of common ground enough between them.
“If Soji’s asked to stay here for a while, that’s great,” says Raffi. “I’m not really sure how that involves me. But I thank you for the trip. It’s a beautiful planet.” One she’d never gotten to see, until very recently.
“Under any other circumstances, we’d be all for it,” says Deanna. “It’s just that it’s going to be important for us in the coming days to be able to drop things and go.” She doesn’t explain why, and Raffi knows not to ask. “Not for long. For a few months. But I agree that Soji needs support and is reaching out for it. She talks about you a lot as well.”
Raffi eyes Beverly, who is absolutely not wearing any kind of Starfleet-type of clothing (it reminds her of the way Seven dresses, actually, Raffi thinks idly – the hardy, fitted pants; the leather jacket; the layers inside), down to the fluffy slippers she’s wearing on her feet.
“Feet,” shrugs Beverly, when she sees Raffi peering at them. “Age. You know. But I’ve always been able to make myself at home here.”
Raffi nods. “Soji and Agnes are living together. They have a place in Osaka,” she says. “And she has all the memories of an adult. Also, shouldn’t she be here?”
“I asked for this,” says Kestra, looking down at her hands. “I didn’t want to suggest that she should live with you if it wasn’t okay first.” Raffi furrows her brow. “Soji talks a lot about you, like Mom said.”
“It might just be nice for her to know that she has another place to stay,” says Will, and Raffi raises an eyebrow. “A bigger support system.”
Raffi relates to Soji, of course. It’s the whole lost-your-whole-family thing. It’s the whole slightly-destabilized-idea-of-reality thing. It’s the whole slightly-messed-up-love-life thing.
She’s been Soji before. Raffi’s trying to work on that.
She looks at Deanna and stares. She doesn’t need to tell Deanna what she’s thinking. Deanna’s going to feel her question before she opens her mouth.
For not the first time, everyone at the table looks at each other and appears to have a silent conversation (or maybe they’re actually having one – Will and Beverly aren’t really supposed to have any of Deanna’s Betazoid-related abilities, but hey, decades of working for Starfleet can give you really interesting interpersonal dynamics).
Deanna looks back at Raffi. “No,” she says, then smirks a little. “But if you’re thinking about it, then maybe you’ve recognized that it could be helpful.”
Deanna wasn’t born yesterday. Raffi wasn’t either.
“I mean, she’s welcome of course,” says Raffi. “That was always the case. I just need for you all to understand that my place doesn’t necessarily have all this space.”
“I think we’ve all seen plenty of space ,” says Will, with a comical wink. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”
Kestra glances between him and Raffi, horrified.
“What?” asks Will. “Raffi can handle a dad joke or two.”
When everyone at the table laughs, Raffi joins in.
Present
Showered and dressed, Raffi takes her place next to Seven on the couch, her hands folded in front of her knees. Soji and Elnor sit across from her on the other couch – she’s added plenty of furniture in for them, which makes the place look better, actually, now that she thinks about it.
“Okay,” she says, looking between everyone. “There are a lot of people in this house – that is not a complaint,” she says, when Soji opens her mouth. “It means that we’re going to need to set certain boundaries.”
“We’ve set boundaries,” says Soji. “I don’t know why we have to have this conversation again when Elnor keeps walking in on you.”
Raffi squints at Soji. “Did you sleep at all last night?”
“No.”
Raffi’s about to inquire further when Elnor speaks. “I’m sorry,” he says sincerely. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to come in during sleeping hours. We weren’t in sleeping hours.”
“Seven’s back for the first time in weeks,” mutters Soji. “We weren’t going to see them all day.”
Seven can feel her nanoprobes rush to her cheeks as they attempt to deal with the sudden flood of heat there.
“Don’t come into people’s sleeping spaces during their sleeping hours,” says Raffi, “keeping in mind that people have very different sleeping hours. Seven, for example, might regenerate in the middle of the day. Also, we don’t talk about people’s intimate…activities.”
“We don’t talk about sex,” says Elnor.
“Sex is not the only intimate activity,” says Raffi. “It could be showering. Or sleeping. Or resting.”
“Were there really no boundaries in Vashti?” Seven asks Elnor.
“There were, but within our living unit, there were less.”
“Were you ever alone?”
Elnor blinks. “Yes. Just because we all had access to each other didn’t mean that we were around each other all the time.”
“Why did you come in this morning?” asks Raffi.
“I missed you,” he says to Seven. “I wanted to see you.”
“You gotta knock, dude,” says Soji.
Seven shakes her head and leans forward. “How did you know when and how to leave each other alone on Vashti?” she asks.
“We had duties,” he says. “We also knew each other very well.”
Raffi looks over at Seven, and Seven knows what she’s thinking – Raffi had spent a lot of time on Vashti. She also intimately understands why Elnor had to leave – there wasn’t a place for him there, the way the Qowat Milat existed.
“So let’s get to know each other better,” says Raffi.
Casa de Raffi Boundaries List
1. Don’t talk about people’s intimate activities (sleeping, sex, resting, meditation/spiritual activities).
2. When in doubt about what an intimate activity is, ask at an appropriate time. When in doubt, leave space.
3. Do not come into sleeping spaces during sleeping/regeneration hours. When in doubt about when sleeping/regeneration is taking place, knock.
4. An unanswered knock is probably means no. Several unanswered knocks is likely indicates a medical emergency.
5. It is probably not a medical emergency, but the probability is not zero.
6. “No” is a complete sentence. So is “I don’t want to talk about that”.
7. Check PADD for rotating cleaning and meal prepping schedule.
8. Communicate availability at least two different ways, if possible.
9. These rules are subject to edits upon unanimous agreement from everyone.
After dinner, Raffi flops down on the couch next to Seven. Through the window, they can watch Soji and Elnor on the apartment’s balcony. Elnor’s teaching Soji to play some kind of game.
Seven wraps her arm around Raffi’s shoulders and waits.
“I was too harsh,” says Raffi. “They’re both adults. They don’t even have to live here.”
“And yet they keep coming back,” says Seven.
“Like you,” says Raffi, with a raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry you’ve returned straight into drama.”
“I came here for you. Academy’s out of term, Agnes and Rios are–”
Raffi groans. “More drama.”
“You just seem to be a stabilizing force,” says Seven. She shrugs. “Outside observation.”
“I’m the stabilizing force,” says Raffi, looking out again at Elnor and Soji. She closes her eyes. “We’re all screwed.”
Seven takes that opportunity to press her mouth to Raffi’s, and the kiss slows everything down somehow, brings everything to a molasses-like drip.
“Maybe we’re screwed together,” says Raffi. Seven smiles against her mouth and kisses her again. “Is this your way of asking me if now can be a sleeping hour?” Seven cups Raffi’s jaw with her hand and kisses her again, more slowly. “We’re going to have to shower again.”
They both look outside again, see that no one’s paying attention to them at all. And they steal away.
Raffi welcomes the walk back into the wall, Seven’s arms around her, her body slick and solid in the sonic shower. She slides her thigh between Seven’s and slides down the wall just a little so that they’re the same height.
“What do you want?” asks Seven, between very tongue-heavy kisses. “And don’t say me. You already have me.”
Raffi rocks her hips over Seven’s thigh. “I want to stop thinking about this morning.”
“You and I remember this morning differently, maybe,” says Seven, gripping Raffi’s hips. “I keep thinking about this morning.”
Raffi sighs into Seven’s mouth when they kiss again. “Maybe you need to remind me.”
Seven leans in, holds Raffi closer, presses her hand to her mound. “How,” she asks, and Raffi moans at the increase of pressure, “do you want to remember?”
“Seven,” whispers Raffi, wrapping her arms around Seven’s shoulders, rocking more insistently. “Just hold me.”
Seven presses her forehead into Raffi’s. Raffi groans as she grinds into Seven’s thigh. “I missed you,” whispers Seven. “I always miss you.”
Raffi purses her lips, lets out a desperate noise, and moves more deliberately, her weight taut and solid in Seven’s arms. When she rolls her head back, Seven kisses her neck, licking and sucking. “Seven,” she moans, and Seven slides her hand down Raffi’s back to support her.
“I wanted to make you shake this morning,” murmurs Seven, as she trails her mouth to the other side. “I could smell you. I wanted to taste you.”
“Do it,” whispers Raffi, and she grips Seven’s shoulders hard.
“Come for me like this, and I promise I will,” says Seven.
When Raffi does, she digs her nails into Seven’s back.
“Bed,” Raffi whispers, trembling.
Seven kisses her temple and takes her.
Seven .
She spreads Raffi’s thighs, her lips working toward…
Seven.
Her tongue traces Raffi’s hipbone. She reaches for Raffi’s hand and holds .
Seven.
She teases Raffi's cunt with her nipple, bites down on her hip.
Seven.
Seven lowers her mouth to Raffi’s cunt, inhales heft and home.
Seven, honey.
Seven laps, licks, works.
Seven, fuck me.
Seven catches Raffi’s knees when they spring up and holds firm.
More, honey. Don’t stop.
She curls her fingers around Raffi’s thighs and holds tight.
Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.
One beautiful, long-fingered hand weaves its way into her hair, pushes her tongue harder into Raffi’s cunt. Raffi’s hand grips in Seven’s hair and pulls.
Seven digs her fingernails into Raffi’s thighs just a little and revels in her wetness.
I miss you , Seven thinks, as she swirls devotion into Raffi’s core. I missed you. I miss you . So much.
Raffi means to return the favor, not that Seven’s expecting anything, but when Seven comes up to hold Raffi, satiated and blissed out, in her arms, they hear just the smallest click in the distance.
Seven tilts her head ever so slightly. “That’s…”
“Soji.”
“And she’s…”
“Sneaking out.”
“Bet she doesn’t say anything to us at all.”
“Did Rios do that when you lived together?” asks Seven.
“He and I had good reason to check in on each other every once in a while, see if we were still alive.”
“You think she can’t take care of herself.”
“I think she is incredibly, incredibly gifted, and might not have the support to deal with what this world does to gifted people.”
“And you’re going to support her on your own.”
“I know I don’t have the right to interfere. It’s just – I worry.”
“I know the feeling."
Raffi rolls over and takes Seven’s hands, cradles them in hers. “You worry about her too?”
“I was her,” says Seven. “I know you’re thinking the same thing, and thank you for being nice enough not to say it."
“The way you turned out, Seven – it’s not a bad thing. I…I love the person you are, okay? I wouldn’t change any of it.”
Slowly, Seven strokes her thumb over Raffi’s cheek, then kisses her, like they have all the time in the world. “I would.” She shrugs. “But everyone who was dealing with me had the best intentions. And still.”
In the silence that follows that, Seven considers the people that could fill it, maybe. Gabe, for sure. Icheb, probably. And she understands all of it a little clearer – the want to guide, the desire to give someone something better than what one knows.
She also considers the futility of it, the inevitability that a single mistake costs this individual everything.
Maybe she was always supposed to turn out this way.
“Hey,” says Raffi. “Where did you go?”
Seven blinks, then pulls Raffi close. “Not far,” she says. “You’re holding on to me.”
Raffi kisses each of Seven’s hands. When she reaches the implant hand, she takes two fingers into her mouth. Seven closes her eyes and tries not to think about how she knows, remembers intimately, the way Raffi’s tongue, with its perfect texture and friction, feels over her body. “We’re going to have to talk to her when she comes back,” says Raffi.
“Okay,” whispers Seven. “Why me?”
“She likes you,” says Raffi, and takes in another finger, tongue winding around implant, slow and rough, and Seven thinks, wants, craves her. “Where do you feel that?”
“In my chest,” breathes Seven. “And Soji doesn’t like you?” Seven’s eyes are closed, but the little jerk she feels on her hand is probably Raffi shrugging.
Raffi lifts Seven’s hands over her head and pins them there, pushing herself up and over to straddle her. “I like you,” says Raffi, and Seven breathes in, arches up, already wants her so badly. “I’m going to hold onto you, okay?”
And then the touch is feather-light across Seven’s breasts, swirling, teasing. Seven lets out a small moan. “I like you too.”
“Where do you feel that?”
Seven shivers, spreads and stretches her legs wide. She feels Raffi’s voice there too, but she’s a little too far gone to bring it up. “My cunt,” she breathes.
The bed shifts, maybe, and the pressure eases from her wrists, just for a moment. Seven’s not really paying attention. She just knows that she has Raffi’s weight on her again soon, and that it feels so, so good.
“And where do you want me?” Raffi asks, her lips and tongue on her other breast, pleasure-electric.
Everywhere . Seven sighs.
“Answer me.”
“My cunt.”
“Louder.”
“My cunt,” Seven moans. Raffi moans too. In effort maybe. Maybe because of something else.
And then Seven’s just full. Warm. Pressured. Pleasured.
It’s not a regeneration night, so Seven’s just watering Raffi’s plant babies when Soji comes in, tearstained. She straightens when she sees Seven.
“Right,” says Soji. “I forgot that you’re…here.” She shakes her head. “Goodnight.”
“Sun’s up soon,” says Seven.
Soji just nods and walks into her room.
“You didn’t ask her?”
Seven watches Raffi dress and wonders how she doesn’t dislocate her shoulder as she struggles into her bra.
“Kind of seemed like a bad time,” says Seven. “It was late. She seemed upset. You think she would have answered?”
“No.” Raffi’s body relaxes and sags. Seven gets up and does the clasp for her. “There’s something going on with her.”
“Besides normal my-whole-life’s-been-a-lie stuff?”
“You don’t feel it?”
“I’m not around as much as you.” Seven turns Raffi around and kisses her. “Also, I never snuck out. I was raised on a starship. If I was leaving without permission, everyone just assumed mutiny.”
“Were they right?”
“You’ve read the logs. It’s complicated.” Together, they sink down and sit on the edge of the bed. “Why did you sneak out?”
“Hookups,” Raffi shrugs. “Usually involving barely legal use of a transporter. Once to watch the ships come and go from Starfleet.”
“You wanted to be there?”
“I didn’t know. I just wanted to see it, without anyone’s input.”
“You think that’s what Soji’s doing? She’s had someone telling her, programming her with what to do her whole life.”
“I’m just afraid she’s not going to know she can go for help. Would you have, back then?”
Seven shakes her head. “I felt very alone. But I think she’ll ask.”
“Why? When did you stop feeling alone?”
Seven looks down at the floor. “When I met you.”
They have orchids in milk for breakfast – Seven’s favorite. Possibly a peace offering for Soji. But if that’s what Raffi means when she makes it, that’s secondary.
Soji looks bleary-eyed. Elnor ponders his food, and Seven, for the umpteenth time, considers how lovely light plays across Raffi’s face. In the morning. In the daytime. Artificially. At sunset. In the fluorescent ship lights.
“Raffi, Seven, how did you know you liked each other?” asks Elnor. Soji stares hard down into her cereal.
Together, Raffi and Seven put their spoons down with a loud clink , and there’s some silence. “How do you mean? ” asks Raffi.
She’s switched to speaking Romulan, Seven realizes. She doesn’t blame her. All of the language Standard has around relationships is a little hard to parse. She and Soji can both understand. Soji’s accent is flawless. Seven doesn’t really think hers is, even though Elnor tells her it’s good. It’s more like using a muscle one hasn’t used in a really, really long time. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth, airy in the back of her throat near her soft palate.
Raffi has two ways of speaking Romulan – one that she’s used for work, that Seven’s only seen once, and then another that she uses more casually, with a different syntax. Most of the lingual indicators around secrecy don’t work with someone like Elnor, who was raised in a culture running pretty contrary to that. But a lot of the words translate better.
“You are devoted to each other,” says Elnor, and Seven remains very, very still. “How did you know you wanted to feel that way? Or felt that way? How did that happen?”
Seven’s cheeks burn, and she feels the familiar nanoprobe rush there. It’s hard for her to talk about this kind of thing, but she feels like she should do something . Raffi must have conversations with them like this all the time. “I found her attractive when we met. And then we knew each other more, and…and…I wanted to spend more time with her.”
If Raffi notices the way Seven feels she stumbles over the words, she doesn’t give her any indication.
“But when did you feel that devotion?” asks Elnor. “When did you decide you wanted to try and be bonded, partners who confide in each other?” He looks around the table. “Is it secret?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Seven watches Raffi purse her lips, and wishes, once again, that they were easier people. “No, honey,” says Raffi. “Sometimes you feel things and don’t know the best way to put them into revelation.”
He actually seems to find that quite insightful. “So you feel it before you can say it,” says Elnor.
“It’s like this,” says Soji, uncharacteristically sullen. She holds two fists out in front of her. “This is your chest, the place you hold your feelings.” She jerks her hands back and forth, then shakes them. “It’s fast, very fast. And inconsistent. Like high-intensity interval training. But for your feelings.”
Seven, Raffi, and Elnor all look at her.
“I don’t know,” says Soji. “Maybe describing the feeling works better than describing the urge or whatever.”
“Why do you ask?” asks Raffi.
“I just don’t understand it,” says Elnor, then goes back to eating his cereal.
Raffi and Elnor are both on a long break from Starfleet Academy, the natural pause between terms. But Raffi still has to go in for meetings. She checks her pips in the reflective surface by the door and looks at Soji, reading on the couch.
“You know you can talk to me about anything,” says Raffi.
“Mhm,” says Soji, without looking up.
Raffi looks back in the mirror, but her eyes are behind her in the reflection, still on Soji.
And then she leaves.
“Why are you and Raffi always fixing things for each other?”
Seven’s in the kitchen on the floor, doing work on some of the atmospheric valves. Elnor perches on a counter. “What do you mean?”
“You fix her houses. She fixes your ship.”
Seven sits up, careful not to hit anything on her way up. “I don’t fix all of her house. All the subspace shielding and stuff – that’s all her.”
“You don’t do it for other people.”
“I do it for Rios.”
Elnor thinks. “Oh.”
Seven cards a hand through her hair. “You going through a thing?”
“What’s a thing?”
Seven thinks. Elnor having a lot of questions is pretty normal. “You have a lot of questions about relationships.”
“Is that not normal?” Seven shakes her head. “Okay.”
“Do you have more questions?”
Elnor shakes his head. “I like you and Raffi.”
“That’s good. I like you.”
“I like you together.”
Seven chuckles and lies back down on the kitchen floor.
Raffi gets home late, past dinner. Seven watches her come in, and when Raffi comes out of the shower, she’s sitting on the bed.
Raffi climbs on and knocks her over when she kisses her.
Seven holds her. “You want me to touch you?”
Raffi shakes her head against Seven’s lips. “I’m so satisfyingly sore from yesterday,” she says. “And this is nice.”
“Okay,” says Seven. “How was work?” Raffi makes an unhappy noise. “You didn’t get to see your friends?”
“That part was good,” says Raffi, and clings to Seven’s torso. “I’m just tired. How was today?”
“You’re tired,” answers Seven, rubbing circles into her back.
“That good, huh?”
“I think Elnor’s going through a thing,” says Seven.
“Being young sucks,” says Raffi. “What kind of thing?”
“I don’t really know.”
Raffi presses her face to Seven’s neck. “Okay.”
Seven decides to shower early, before Raffi wakes up, but Raffi wakes up early, slips into the shower, runs her fingers through her hair, kisses her for the rest of the shower and then helps her onto the bathroom counter and keeps kissing her with her hand between her legs.
Seven pants into her shoulder, after. “What was that for?” she asks.
“New day,” says Raffi. Seven hums laughter into her shoulder. “Also, maybe we’re going about this all wrong.”
“And this is how you’re telling me.”
“Kind of,” says Raffi, kissing her temple. “But also, I missed touching you so fucking bad.”
Seven laughs.
She mostly only laughs when she’s with Raffi.
Raffi’s balcony has a great view, the kind of view that makes it easy to look out at things. And talk about stuff.
Maybe it’ll work its magic here, along with the little sparklers they’re letting go into the air. Space dust, Soji calls it. Raffi knows the real name for it, but Soji’s is so much better.
Or, you know, maybe it won’t work out.
“What’s their name?”
“Huh?”
“The reason you go out late at night and come back crying?”
“None of your business.”
Raffi nods and lets several sparklers go into the air. She watches them float up and up and up. “Harlid.”
“Sorry?”
“The name of the person who I used to go out late for, and the reason I’d come back crying.” Raffi squints at the sky, tilts her head to the side, then smiles. “Well, one of them. There were kind of a lot.”
Soji narrows her eyes. “Okay.”
“Yeah, I did that for a year,” she says, and looks up at the bits of color going up toward the sky.
“Why’d you keep going back?” asks Soji.
Raffi shrugs. “Thought I could make it work, if I just kept going back one more time.”
“Sounds like addiction,” says Soji, then scrunches in her chair. “I’m sorry.”
Raffi shrugs. “It’s not a secret, me."
“That’s not why I keep going back,” she says.
“Okay.”
Soji releases a whole handful of colors at once. The wind catches them, and they form a bit of sparkle smoke, extending toward the sky. “Oram,” she says.
“Hm?”
“That’s their name.”
“Anyone worth bringing by?” asks Raffi. Soji stays silent. “You could, if you wanted. Then maybe you wouldn’t have to come back so late.”
“I don’t know,” says Soji. “I’ll think about it.”
“Your stance is good,” says Elnor. “It translates, see. But your fighting is very brute force, which you can’t do with the sword.”
“I lack finesse,” says Seven, eyebrow raised.
Elnor makes a face. “It is difficult trying to explain this to someone else. I don’t teach often.”
Seven shrugs. “You’re doing fine. I understand you. Do you want to take a break?”
Raffi packed them snacks for their day out – Betazoid fruit, cookies, and a hydrating tea that made Seven raise her eyebrow. But Raffi had said nothing. They sip on that now.
“When I was your age,” begins Seven. Then she shakes her head. “Like, mentally your age. Physically…older.” She frowns. “There was this point when I was interested in relationships. The whole spectrum of them – friendships, different kinds of friendships, romantic relationships. And I did a lot of research.”
“Did it help?”
“It was largely inconclusive. It all made a lot of sense, but I didn’t know how it related to me. So I tried some stuff out.”
“Did that help?”
“It was a terrible way of going about it, but for the most part, it was…educational.”
“But if I hadn’t felt like doing any of that, ever, it also would have been okay.”
Elnor frowns. “Zani used to tell me that too,” he says. “I just kind of want someone who is for me what Raffi is to you.” Seven looks away. “Was that rude again?”
Seven forces herself to shake her head. “Just a lot. Of feelings.” She remembers what Soji did at that breakfast and does it for him.
“What if I never feel that way?” asks Elnor.
“You know Raffi’s not my best friend, right?” asks Seven. Elnor shakes his head, slowly. “My best friend is someone I’ve known for a really long time, who’s known me since I was young. And we’re very close.”
“But not like Raffi.”
Seven smiles, just a little, and she shakes her head. “No, it’s different.”
“It’s just that I’d understand things better,” says Elnor, “if I felt those things.”
Seven shrugs. “There’s a lot of things I don’t understand about interactions with people,” she says. “Might not be the same as you but…sometimes understanding that stuff is overrated.”
“Like what’s happening with Soji?”
“I’m not sure Soji understands what’s happening with Soji. The last time Soji had a relationship with someone, it was programmed, not her choice,” says Seven. “Let it breathe.”
A few days later, Raffi and Seven are making out on the balcony (just a little, sitting side-by-side, only half in each other’s arms, a normal make out), when there’s a knock on the door.
They turn around, and Soji and Elnor are standing there with a bowl of something that looks like very pointy multi-colored popcorn.
“You going out?” asks Raffi.
Soji shakes her head. “It’s uh, shit to hang out with people you don’t want to hang out with,” she says. “Even if it’s something you choose.”
“So you’re choosing to stay here with us,” says Seven. Soji shrugs.
“Cool, “says Raffi. “You all want to come out here?”
Soji looks at the both of them. “Maybe. Can we make a house rule about not being intimate in public spaces?”
“We were barely kissing,” says Raffi.
“That’s not what it looked like,” says Elnor. He sticks out his tongue and wiggles it around.
“Okay!” says Seven, hand up. “We’ll fix them.”
There’s plenty of room on the couch for two – not really enough room for four. Raffi makes a mental note to get another couch. Or just a bigger couch.
But then Seven crams her head into the space between Raffi’s neck and shoulder, and she thinks that maybe this couch is fine.
Soji offers Raffi the bowl of interesting snacks, and Raffi takes a handful. Maybe it’s because of the crunching that she doesn’t hear the door open (it only opens for certain people).
“Oh man,” says Rios, stepping out onto the balcony. “I knew you all had a play house thing going on, but this is a little much.”
“There’s no room on the couch,” says Raffi.
“I already brought out a chair, Raff,” he says, and scooches it in beside them. He sits down and reaches over to grab a handful of snacks. “How’s it going?”
“I’m pretty sure I’m asexual,” says Elnor.
“Coo,” says Rios, between bites of snacks.
“That means cool,” translates Soji.
“Coo,” Elnor repeats.
“I’m assuming you’re doing dinner,” says Seven.
“Nah, I was actually going to see what you all had…wow, Raff. Okay, okay.” He takes another handful of snacks. “After the sunset. It looks nice.”
After
It’s all three of them. It feels weird to sit, suddenly. Soji stands next to the orchid cereal breakfast she’s laid out.
“I heard it was three days long,” she says, voice shaking. “I heard Agnes is…and then Rios…”
Raffi holds out her arms and Soji runs into them. And Elnor and Seven kind of fold around her, like flower petals, maybe. A four-person flower.
“Later,” says Raffi. “We’re all together now.”