4
She does it out of spite, there's no other way to describe it and that both frustrates and terrifies Nyota. Why should she want to? She is her own woman, belongs to no one, and the thought that in fucking Hiraku Sulu she will somehow anger Len is beyond ridiculous and makes her feel ugly inside even while the man behind her makes her body ripple.
He's good. He's lithe and slim, fast, smooth. Handsome. He wanted her to suck him off without giving any intention of reciprocating and so they found a suitable compromise in this position before Nyota slit his throat. Hiraku had smiled at her daggers, but the man unaccountably had no scars which helped her decide that he wouldn't appreciate any bloodletting. Pity. But she wanted a fuck not a fight in any event. One of his hands trace up and down her spine, counting off the vertebrate, gliding over the bumps and contours; the other is almost too firm on her hip, angling her torso and controlling the rhythm. Nyota muses on this with a wry grin directed at his pillows. Yes, they are in his room and that was probably her second mistake.
He's a pilot—wants to be a pilot, wants to helm the Empire's greatest warships and create a name for himself outside of his family which she finds hilarious since that name got him into Starfleet in the first place. Sulu comes from a long line of officers (middlemen of no great distinction, Nyota could throw in his face if she were feeling particularly capricious) and can name-drop with the best of them. He has credibility and an apparently defined future that she finds equally interesting and presumptuous; no one knows what tomorrow will bring and these days it is foolish to guess. Arrogance, pride: she has her own emotions to deal with.
There were candles already lit when she entered, fat stubs of red and green illuminated with a small blue flame though a mechanical wick, and Nyota wasn't foolish enough to believe they were present for the sensual, enticing air they created. Much like her stockings they serve another purpose and she jerks forward harshly, violently, and hisses like a cat in heat when the first dribble of scorching wax hits her back.
"Fuck!" It's painful and the sing doesn't fade right away, forcing Nyota to curl her fingers into the sheets but not for the reason she expected to tonight.
"That's good, pretty," Hiraku murmurs, pouring another hot ribbon just below her shoulder blades. He may be trying to hide his humour in his panting but her aural sensitivity is better than that and she frowns. Getting off is one thing but humiliation is not a kink to which Nyota Uhura subscribes. At least not when she's the object of it. He's lucky her hair is up out of the way, pulling tightly on her skull, and Nyota concedes this is why he asked so politely she style it that way for their rendezvous and not simply because she has such delicious cheekbones. He's deep inside, thumping something on point, and it irks her when the idea hits that's she has been spoiled by Len's tongue. Len isn't needed or wanted here and Nyota quickly gets her elbows under her, forcefully pushing back against Sulu's hips. Alone she could have come three times already and this tease is getting old.
"That stamina of yours is in dire need of reconditioning," she sneers, rolling her eyes as he sits down on her thighs, effectively stilling her movements.
"I enjoy observing what is mine," he grunts and spanks her ass with a sharp smack, but it is the sudden bite of burning metal onto her right posterior that sends Nyota screaming in indignation. She thrashes and fingers wrap around her neck, pushing her down. "Steady now. This won't take long." He's branding her?! The fucking prick thinks he has the right to burn his name into her skin?! She screeches a Klingon swear into the simulated cotton fibre of his pillow and using her knee in a swift shove rolled them both off his bed. He's still inside her and it hurts them both to land on the floor, but Nyota's on top and jumps up first, pushing pain to the background and focusing on the red rage clouding her vision. Calm, cool, and collected is how to survive but right now more is called for and with one stamp she hopes she has broken Hiraku's ankle. It's doubtful.
5
Janice Rand is the type of roommate she is, if not pleased, satisfied to have. The woman is smart but not in the ways Nyota is smart; there is little competition between them on that front which makes sleeping in each other's presence bearable and moderately safe. They do not run in the same social circles—or what passes as social in the Academy—therefore there is no need for pointed insults or underhanded attempts at cutting each other's self-confidence, self-esteem, or self-reliance to shreds. They can exist within these four walls for this limited span of time, perhaps not pleasantly but civilly at least, and thus when Nyota enters half-naked, tussled and ruffled and smelling of sex and sweat, her features warring with apoplexy, Janice silently offers to remove the dried wax from her dark skin, using one of Nyota's creams to soothe heat-stricken patches of flesh. None of this will be spoken of again come morning.
"What does it say?" Like she doesn't know.
"Pardon?"
"My ass. What does it say?"
"Oh." There's a snort after a moment. "That's a bad tattoo you know. I could have—"
"What does it—"
"Nothing! A scratch really. A poorly crossed 'T'? An 'X'?"
Nyota lifts her chin and blinks hard.
"An 'X'? Like X marks the spot?"
Janice doesn't answer and it's just as well. She'll make an excellent Captain's woman one day, with all that icy hair that falls down to her knees when it's not wrapped up in those ridiculous geometric designs and that head full of logistics and home cooked recipes. Rand's a decent boxer as well. Not gorgeous, but pretty and useful and experienced enough to passively accept the kind of deviance that happens out in the black where the lines of humanity have blurred so much they're practically erased. Nyota can accept it as well; it's not a reason to slice Janice open.
"He did it to Chekov," the other cadet mentions once they are finished and Nyota has moved to her side of the room to slip on a sleep shirt. "Carved his initials right into that kid." She doesn't turn around, just rolls her eyes and gets into bed.
"Pavel isn't a kid. Not with those eyes." She knows better than to use modifiers but the unsaid crazy is present in her tone. And it's true, Pavel Chekov is three steps away from bug-eyed crazy: a genius pushed ahead in his studies, set to graduate the same time as she and Janice and Kirk and Sulu and Len, owning the delicate face of choir boy which could be believed if not for his eyes. Laughing at everything and nothing with psychopathic detachment; Nyota had thought the young man got his kicks screwing the navigation simulators. "I would bet twenty credits he knew what he was doing."
And she hadn't. Fucking great.
"Maybe not twenty credits, but an abstract and outline for Archer's communal survey should do it. A grade of 83 percent would be good."
There was no reason to pretend ignorance to what Janice meant. Favours and silence.
Quid pro quo.
"I can do that."
It didn't matter. Nyota's assignment was already delivered and it ranked a near 99. She was going to graduate at the top of her field. As if there had ever been any doubt.
6
There were thick medical restraints around both her wrists this time, her back arched over the spick-and-span bio bed while Len was giving it to her with tongue and teeth and lips, his usual harsh stubble (as if his face was so cantankerous it wouldn't allow a full growth of beard) rubbing carpet burns on her legs, her new uniform skirt bunched around her waist. They had survived training, four years of growing and re-growing eyes in the back of their heads and learning what it really meant to be a member of Starfleet. They had come together to say goodbye in the only way they could—she, disliking the dark eager circles under Len's eyes finally taking notice of how singularly silver and sterile his med lab. Stainless steel? He had become a collector of ancient primitive medical instruments it appeared and it was surprisingly hard to convince herself that he didn't fit in perfectly with the rest of his mad scientist brethren. It was the track he had chosen wasn't it? To have complete knowledge of biological systems, Terran and other, ultimately in order to play God at the Emperor's whim? Just as she had processed more than three quarters of known languages, dialects, cultures, simply to help bring about their submission to the greater force that was the Empire?
That's what it was all about.
That and the Enterprise.
Which she hadn't received.
Four years of. . .and she'd been passed over.
The wet sounds from between her legs are more arousing than the bonds that hold her in place and Nyota automatically raises her hips again, pushing her core into Len's face where he had buried himself after pocketing her torn panties. His thick freckled arms are using her own legs as leverage, hands moving sporadically to press her abdomen and the sleek muscles beneath. He's pushing her—this doesn't feel like a goodbye, in some sense, with his rough sounds and feverish act, it feels like a punishment—and Nyota doesn't know how much more she can take. Nipples tight and aching for some attention but everything's been below the waist and he's forcing another climax when she'd soaked already; she can stop this and it would be vindictive (and true), but what choice does she have? She could be dead next year from where Starfleet it sending her, transcribing coded intelligence from Romulan data waves out on a barren moon on the edges of the Neutral Zone; there's no point in dragging out whatever this has been between them. This would be the end of her mourning.
"You must. . ." she swallowed to catch her breath, speaking up. "You must get a lot of practice with Kirk to have a mouth that talented. I'm surprised he lets you out of your cage."
He stops licking, pulling away slowly, and it takes every square inch of will power not to sigh at how her juices coat his chin and lips, not to ask him to keep going when it's beginning to get numb down there anyway. His tongue comes out to sweep, tasting her on him and that's just worse; one of his eyes narrowing, the other like to spread neon searchlights up over her prone form and visible portions of glistening, warm brown skin. There is a tick in the corner of Len's nose and he's not happy with her remark. He proves it with a nip to her mound, right through her wet curls and hard on the bone. Nyota kicks him. "What the hell Len!"
He moves to the sink, pushing on the water and leaning down to splash some on his face. Nyota rolls over and shimmies off the bed, moving quickly and close to reduce the strain on her stretched arms. There's a way to get the restraints off if could just focus and stop cursing the world that demanded she be as she is without giving the reward for such behaviour. She's angry and—and sad and that's so useless because nobody cares. The water shuts off. "I hope the five year mission is everything you want it to be," she sneers as she tugs at her bonds. It's unworthy of her but it just pops out. He's the most talented cadet to graduate from medical track in years so of course he's being sent to keep Captain Pike alive and well; anything could happen as the Empire's flagship soars through the galaxy and that sadistic prick is going to need the best. And Jim!—oh it's almost funny—Jim Kirk goes wherever Christopher Pike goes, so they'll all be able to enjoy the war together!
Her thighs are uncomfortable and sticky now and Nyota just wants to go get a sonic and sleep before her transport leaves tomorrow. Janice has already left for parts unknown; maybe she can allow a little emotion to leak out when she lays down.
The arm that encircles her below her covered breasts isn't comforting or alluring. It jerks Nyota back against Len's body, his shirt wet and the face pressed to hers still smelling of her own release. She struggles until the cold blade of a scalpel rests at the dip just under her chin, which obviously freezes her in place better than any words could have. Maybe he's sick of this as well and has decided a permanent solution is in order. It would be so easy, a flick of his wrist, and he has experience disposing of bodies—more so since their first encounter—therefore she would pose no problems.
Maybe she just isn't as good at keeping her opinions to herself as she had thought.
"Think I could put my mark on ya too?" Len asks in a growling drawl and she feels a pinch and knows he's nicked her. "Sorry 'bout that. I jus' thought since someone's already claimed that ass, maybe I could keep your mouth." He slides his hand up and if she looks down far enough Nyota can see her own blood on the edge of his metal. "After all darlin'. . .I put it back together. An' ya won't really need it where you're goin', jus' those sensitive ears." He huffs hot on her neck and Nyota's earlobe is pulled between his teeth, pulled and bitten. She keeps her gaze on the blade hovering by her mouth but soon finds herself pushed forward, ninety degrees to the bio-bed with Len another blanket at her back. She has never told him how much she enjoys the press and mass of his body above her and now certainly isn't the time, not when if the good doctor isn't careful he could stab her in the face, slice her cheeks, poke her eye, or, as he has implied, slit her smile wide open. Nyota can feel his erection pressed against her backside, through his practice scrubs still stained with what will not come out in the refresher. He's been a busy boy.
They remain like that for a while, minutes with Len breathing steadily into her covered shoulder and spread ponytail, Nyota's waist barely cushioned from the edge of the bio bed by her bunched skirt. He doesn't gyrate or thrust suggestively, and it's a torrid sort of intimacy since they have never slept together nor ever embraced but to incite passion. He doesn't hover over her body but covers her fully, legs on the outsides of her own, and he doesn't remove the scalpel from Nyota's sight.
Finally—finally!—Len reaches forward, chest pressing tighter against her back, and opens the restraints he had attached as easily as he could have slit her throat. His hands push down upon the bed near her face and then his heat and his body is moving away. Gone. Nyota counts to three before pushing herself upright as well and tugs down her skirt with hands that she will not allow to shake. He says nothing as she leaves, and even if the words could come Nyota doesn't have to say goodbye. It's all too obvious.
