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"Why are we doing this, again?" La'an rested her elbows on the scarred up surface of the old picnic table, watching Una carefully sprinkle the pungent dried greenery into the rectangle of paper.
"We're both on extended shore leave," Una said, although her voice was tight with concentration, "until they clear the rest of the infestation out of the air ducts."
"I still feel like I should be doing something... useful." La'an traced her fingers over the initials carved into the picnic table, jiggling one leg.
"There's only so much we can do while we're on this planet," Una said, and now she was rolling the paper. "Consider it a learning experience," she added, almost as an afterthought.
"Have you ever done this sort of thing?" La'an tried not to sound too... judgemental as she watched Una seal the paper roll.
"Not with anyone else, I haven't. I couldn't ever let my guard down," Una said, and her tone was so matter of fact it made La'an pause and look down at her hands.
It wasn't that she wasn't used to Una being open about her feelings. It was just... embarrassing, the way seeing someone naked was embarrassing. What were you even supposed to say?
"I'll show them fun's funeral," Una grumbled, holding the roll up and squinting at it. "I've seen worse," she allowed. "Considering it's been..." She trailed off, frowning harder. "It's been a long time," she allowed.
"Has it?"
Una gave La'an a Look, and La'an put on her blandest expression.
"Since I joined Starfleet," said Una, and now she was frowning down at the lighter. "Where did you find all of this, anyway?" She flicked the lighter with a click, and it set up a little jet of flame. It was very bright in the light of the setting suns.
"I confiscated it from a cadet," said La'an. "I don't know why they thought they could get away with just leaving it under their pillow -"
"Why were you looking under cadet's pillows in the first place?" Una touched the flame to the tip of the roll up, flicked the lighter closed. The tip glowed cherry red, and a small plume of smoke floated upwards.
"The rest of their roommates were complaining about the smell," said La'an, and then she wrinkled her nose. "Can't say that I blamed them, honestly, that smells foul."
"That's probably a sign of just how good this is going to be," Una said ruefully. She held it up to her mouth, inhaled... and then coughed, smoke coming out of her nose and mouth. She was wheezing, her eyes streaming and her nose running.
"That good, eh?" La'an said, and she was already starting to giggle.
"It's been a while," Una wheezed, and she began to cough again. "Are you going to try?" She held up the blunt, and the smoke was wafting into La'an's face. It smelled... unpleasantly organic.
La'an looked at the wafting smoke, then at Una's face. Then La'an took the roll up from Una's hand, their fingers touching.
La'an's face went warm, and then she brought the thing up to her lips and inhaled.
And then she nearly dropped the roll up as she began to cough, wheezing herself. The unpleasant flavor of burning gingerbread and skunk exploded onto her mouth, and her eyes were watering. "It's even worse than I thought, why would anyone ever do that for fun?"
"You really haven't done this before, have you?" Una plucked the blunt out of La'an's fingers, took another inhale. She didn't cough this time, and the smoke streaming out of her nose and her mouth looked... interesting.
She'd make a good dragon, La'an thought.
"I told you I hadn't," La'an croaked. "Urgh."
Una gave a rough chuckle, and La'an shouldn't have found that as appealing as she should have. There was a slightly glassy look to Una's expression, and she was wearing a little smile.
"The last time I smoked," Una said, "was the week before I joined Starfleet. I wanted to do one truly rebellious, stupid thing..." Another drag, and she held the joint out to La'an.
La'an took the joint back, and she took another drag - smaller this time.
She couldn't hold the smoke in her chest the same way that Una could, but at least she wasn't coughing quite as much as she had been. "I never did this kind of thing," said La'an. She exhaled again, and the burned gingerbread and skunk smell permeated her head like so much mist.
"You never had a childhood," Una said, and now she had the joint between two fingers, and she was looking up at the sky, the stars starting to peek down at them.
Una's knee bumped against La'an's, and Una’s eyes were shadowed in the low light. The smoke from the tip of the joint drifted up towards the clouds.
The two of them lapsed into silence - La’an couldn’t think of a response, and the two of them were comfortable enough with each other that they didn’t need to always be talking.
Things were quiet, as they passed the joint back and forth between them. La’an wasn’t sure if it was having any kind of impact - she was a little warmer, true, but was that from just being with Una? It felt a little bit like she was observing herself, observing her thoughts. She was obsreving Una as well - the shadow of her hair, the elegant curve of her brow, the glitter in her nail varnish catching the light.
They were going to need to find a way to get the smell of their clothes. Ortegas would never let them live it down. It was an odd thing to be considering, but La’an’s mind was… drifting.
“You only sort of had one, from what you’ve said,” said La’an. Her throat was starting to get sore, and her head was beginning to feel light. But was that from the substance, or just from the smoke itself? She had the joint now, and it was almost at its end. “Y’know, it’s funny.” Another inhale, and the burn was almost pleasant. She exhaled slowly, and watched the smoke in the moonlight.
When had the moon come out?
“What’s funny?” Una asked, and she held her hand out for the joint. She took the joint, but the fingers of her other hand trailed across La’an’s palm.
“I spent my childhood proving I wasn’t an augment,” La’an said. “Always afraid of being seen as one. And then…” She trailed off, because she didn’t want to interrupt this quiet, dreamy moment with the grief and sorrow and pain of those memories. “But you were... genetically altered, and you had to hide that too.”
“There is something vaguely philosophical about that, I suppose,” Una said after a moment. “I think that it’s finally kicking in.” She gave an awkward chuckle, leaned forward with her elbows balanced on the picnic table. They were so close now that their noses were almost touching. “Can I try something?”
Why did that seem vaguely suggestive?
If the light had been better, La’an might have been able to see straight down Una’s top. As it was, everything looked faintly silvery now, the smoke between them slowly rising up.
“Yes,” said La’an, and Una gave another chuckle. “You’re not going to ask me what?”
It was definitely the horrible marijuana that made La’an give an actual, honest answer. “I’d do anything you asked, just about,” she said, and she was only now realizing her mouth was getting dry.
“Okay,” said Una, and she was holding the remains of the joint to her lips. “Lean in closer,” she said, and they were so close that her breath was warm across La’an’s face.
It didn’t smell great, but there was a satisfying note to it, in an indulgently organic way.
Una took a final hit off of the joint, and she held the smoke in her chest, her eyes getting wider and watering, her cheeks getting red. Then she exhaled, directly into La’an’s face, and La’an was breathing it in before she could stop herself, holding it in her chest as well. The smoke swirled through her, and when she exhaled, it burned in a way that wasn’t entirely horrible. The knowledge that this had been in Una’s chest was making everything spin, and La’an found herself gripping Una’s hand as she leaned a little more heavily on the picnic table.
“La’an?” Una’s voice was a croak, and it was so close that it ruffled La’an’s eyelashes.
“Yes, Chief?” Her voice was coming from a long way off, and her mouth was dry enough that her own saliva felt like mercury, rolling off but not absorbing.
“How are we going to get back to the Enterprise?”
La’an paused, and she laced her fingers through Una’s, squeezed them. “Very carefully,” she said after some deliberation, and as close as they were, she could feel Una’s lips turning up in a smile,