Chapter Text
In sickbay, Riker politely but firmly plucked the regenerator from Beverly’s hands and said he would see to the acid scars himself.
On the bridge, Riker worked a double shift, smiling and joking with his shipmates.
In Ten-Forward, Riker’s jazz band played on without him.
In a Klingon training program, with a savage snarl, Riker straddled a holo-enemy and snapped its neck with his bare hands.
“Did you see the look on her face?” he asked later, exhilarated, wiping the blood from his beard.
Uneasily, Worf said, “It was a male.”
But Riker didn’t seem to hear him.
And after a shipwide shore leave on Calaris Station, when half the crew came back with alien STIs, Riker helped an embarrassed Donovan weather the crisis with grace, panache, and a whispered, “They’re lucky it’s not Garvonna Syndrome. I had that last year and it was ghastly. Eats up your entire face and dick, like–” He shrugged with a grin. “Well, like acid.”
Later, only when the STI was well and truly under control, the Enterprise’s morale division organized a dance. It took place in the holodecks, naturally, with divisions set in place for officers and non-coms. Civilians mingled freely between the two. In Holodeck Six, where Donovan was stationed, they’d made it up like an Ancient Greek courtyard, with stone columns stretching toward the unpolluted night sky, fragrant flowers dangling in the archways, torches casting warm flickering light over every face.
Donovan stood with his back against the wall, a cocktail glass filled with water in his hand. Guinan, this time, had dyed it blue and garnished it with berries, one of which now bobbed, soggy and wrinkled, at the bottom of the glass. He’d heard a few nasty whispers and received a handful of contemptuous looks from the younger officers when he collected this drink, which was why he’d moved away. From here, he had a good view of the arch, appearing and disappearing every time a new guest stepped inside.
“Good vantage point,” said a familiar sharp voice at his side.
Donovan kept his face carefully blank as he sucked in a breath. He turned to face Ensign Ro.
“I always look for the best vantage point, too,” said Ro, her eyes flinty. She pointed out Lieutenant Worf on the far side of the room. “Worf always takes the best positions. But this isn’t a bad second.”
“Lieutenant Worf,” Donovan reminded her softly.
Ro’s lips quirked into a sneer. She pivoted gracefully until her back, like Donovan’s, was against the wall, and her pointed chin was tucked against her chest. “Are you going to dance?” she asked.
Donovan’s skin crawled. “Are you asking me?”
Ro gave him a hard look: smiling, but not friendly, not amused. “There are a few Bajoran dances we could showcase,” she said almost wryly. “I’m sure you know the steps.”
What answer could he possibly have for that? He let his eyes drift down to the floor, to the soft candlelight playing over the stones. With his eyes unfocused he could almost hear the drumbeat, the traditional Bajoran flute – feel the body heat and see the flickering of the fire – Luvo’s palm against his own, their feet tangling, a bark of laughter as they bumbled right into the flames and kicked up sparks.
Donovan took a deep drink of his faux-cocktail, the bubbles stinging an already-sensitive nasal passage, where the urge to vomit was rising. Ro watched him the entire time, a look of distant contempt in her eyes.
“No one’s ever going to care for you if you keep those walls up, Killer,” she said.
Donovan raised his eyebrows – Ro, of all people, was telling him to open up? – and she was already gone before he realized the tone in her voice had almost been affectionate. For Ro. He frowned into his drink, watching the iridescent blue bubbles burst on the surface.
He shook it off. Here came Riker – a bounce in his step, a grin on his face, eyes alight. He stopped just inside the arch, so close to it that it refused to fade until he stepped away. His gaze skipped over Donovan and landed elsewhere – on Deanna – and then his confident grin softened and he dropped his eyes.
He looked nervous, almost, Donovan thought. He sipped his drink and edged a little closer to the other solitary guest at the dance, Lieutenant Commander Data. They kept up a quiet conversation as Riker roamed the perimeter, making distracted remarks to anyone he passed while shooting shy glances at Counselor Troi.
They were three songs deep before, out of the corner of his eye, Donovan saw Riker take Deanna’s hand.
The music changed. Modern tunes, a few decades out of date to accommodate the older officers, faded into something different. Lutes and drums and one lonely piper, and with a shared smile, Riker and Deanna took the floor.
“What song is this?” Donovan muttered over the rim of his glass.
Data’s eyes flicked upward as he checked his database. “Sir, this is the Seikilos epitaph, the oldest complete musical notation ever discovered on Earth.”
“Greek?” Donovan asked.
“The marble column upon which this epitaph was engraved, known as the Seikilos stele, or sometimes stela, was discovered in what is now the European Hegemony, in present-day Turkey.”
“I see.” It was a slow song, at least to start, with a clear women’s chorus singing in harmony, but as Data spoke, the singing ended and a fast-paced drumbeat took hold. Riker and Deanna circled each other, palms together, matching grins lighting up their faces as the pace increased. “What are the lyrics?” Donovan asked. “My Ancient Greek isn’t up to snuff.”
“The lyrics, sir, are:
“hóson zêis, phaínou
mēdèn hólōs sỳ lypoû
pròs olígon ésti tò zên
tò télos ho khrónos apaiteî.”
Data blinked, his expressionless face like rubber. A Federation Standard translation followed.
“While you live, shine
have no grief at all
life exists only for a short while
and Time demands his due.”
Riker and Deanna were spinning now, their footwork confident and sure, his hand on her waist.
“An epitaph, you said,” Donovan said flatly.
“Yes, sir. The inscription indicates this epitaph was written by a man named Seikilos, in honor of his wife, Euterpe.”
Donovan frowned. “Euterpe… isn’t that also the name of the Muse of music?”
“Correct, sir,” Data said. On the dance floor, the other officers had fallen away, giving Riker and Deanna the space they needed. As the music came to a dramatic halt, Riker lifted Deanna high, her skirts flaring up to hide his face, and there wasn’t even a pause for breath before she slid easily down his chest, her legs wrapping around his hips, her fingers lacing together over the back of his neck.
They didn’t kiss. Somehow, Donovan expected them to. But instead, almost hesitantly, Deanna shifted her grip to cup the back of Riker’s head, her eyes scanning his face as if searching for something. He set her down slowly, a soft click of her heels against the floor.
“Thank you,” Deanna murmured, so quiet Donovan almost couldn’t hear her. “For the dance.”
A spasm of pain and uncertainty crossed Riker’s face, as if he’d never been thanked before. Whatever he said in return, Donovan couldn’t hear it.
“Data,” said Donovan, “who requested that song?”
Data blinked. “Why,” he said, “Commander Riker did, of course.”
Of course.
The commander and the counselor left the dance floor in a daze, their hands locked, but their grips loose. They were out of the holodeck, through the arch, before the music started up again. A momentary disorientation came over them in the hall, where the magic of Ancient Greece became the mundane U.S.S. Enterprise again, and Will squeezed Deanna’s fingers – a wordless ‘stop for a moment’. He leaned against the wall with a laugh.
“Dizzy,” Deanna murmured, following him. She kissed his knuckles as he waited for his head to stop spinning.
“Too much to drink,” he guessed. But he knew that wasn’t exactly it. It was the soft curve of Deanna’s lips, the way the candlelight flickered off her hair and turned the highlights auburn. He stroked her jaw gently, always and forever amazed by how large and indelicate his hands looked against her face. His breath caught in his throat: her eyes on him, her lips just barely parted…
Heart hammering, he leaned down and kissed her. It was too clumsy, too nervous, to be anything but chaste. And at the same time it was more familiar to him than his own body was, since he returned. He pulled back too soon, forcing Deanna to chase him, and turned his face away so that she kissed his cheek instead.
When her palm smoothed over his chest, over his heart, he knew she could sense the nerves. He let out a shaky laugh and pulled her into a hug instead. Easier.
“I feel like a teenager,” he admitted in a murmur.
“I do, too,” Deanna said, her voice muffled against his chest. She curled her fingers at his waist, where normally even the lightest touch from her would tickle him. Funny that he’d never been ticklish with anyone else. Funny that he wasn’t ticklish with Deanna now.
Will didn’t want to stop and examine why. He hesitated, unsure if he could say it. But Deanna read his mind.
“My room?” she asked.
He barely managed a nod. Deanna led him by the hand, one foot in front of the other, until in a sense, it wasn’t the Enterprise deck plating he saw. Every step released the soft scent of Betazed’s black earth after a spring rain; he could almost feel the wet grass crumpling beneath his shoes, the dew drops clinging to his trousers, white flowers that Deanna called ‘misty mornings’ brushing his fingertips as he passed by.
Deanna sensed it. When they reached her door, she turned to face him, and her smile was more full. More real. “You’re feeling better,” she said.
In response – gently, carefully – Will cupped her face and drove her back, until her shoulders tapped the wall and her lips met his. Heat. Touch. Strands of curly hair threaded through his fingers as he pulled her closer and her nails scratched at the back of his neck. And she was so delicate, so small, compared to him.
So harmless.
He groaned into the kiss and caught her bottom lip between his teeth – not really biting, too shy to hurt her, even if some part of him remembered that she liked this. He skimmed his hands down her waist, to grip her hips, and with a deft twist Deanna hooked her fingers in his collar and tugged him toward the bed. Will choked out a hoarse laugh and followed her, scooping her up in his arms just so he could crash them both onto the bed as hard as he could and startle a shriek of laughter out of her. Deanna hit him on the chest, rolled away as he kicked off his shoes – and then she was on him again, pushing him onto his back, running her hands down his arms to his wrists – her lips on his throat, her cheek brushing against his beard.
He buried his face against her shoulder with a hum. A light buzzing in his head moved down to his fingertips, invisible hands sculpting his blood vessels, his nerves, until they were primed for Deanna’s touch and he could barely think. He kissed her – and he saw Arbat that first cold night in the slaves’ tent – and it was sunshine on his mind, long-dormant shadows of their mental bond falling back, receding. He palmed his way underneath her dress, against her bare skin, and when she touched him – it was the Ferengi slaveowner, the butt of her whip against his throat, a slow caress…
No, it was perfect. It felt right.
Their clothes pushed to the edge of the bed. His tongue between her legs, the taste of her pleasure on his lips. A reflexive kick of Deanna’s foot tossing his clothes off the bed; her chest heaving, her head thrown back; a moan of pleasure–
A moan of pleasure. A hard smile. Fingers in his hair.
“Come here,” Deanna breathed, and only then did Will realize that he’d gone still. She was coaxing him up to kiss her, and he was smiling by reflex, and the bed was soft, her touch was soft, her lips … and at the same time, he could feel the titanium plating of a Romulan warbird beneath his knees, taste semen on his lips, thick and alien, too bitter to swallow with your throat closing up.
He kissed her. He kissed her. He liked it. Relaxed. Enjoyed it. Her fingers, her lips, her waist, her pulse, her flat stomach against his, her hip bones hard beneath his palm, her…
“Breathe,” Deanna said.
When had this headache started? Too weak to support himself, Will sank back on the bed, away from Deanna’s warmth. His eyes were squeezed closed, pulses of white light flickering on his eyelids.
“You’re shivering,” Deanna said in a murmur.
“I’m cold,” he managed through clenched teeth. He reached for her blindly, pulled her to him until she was lying on his chest, a full-body embrace that always used to warm him. He took a long slow breath and Deanna reached inside his mind even as her fingers combed through his hair. She tested his limits, touched the hazy cloud of emotion in his head, searched for the arousal that had been there a second ago. Slowly, she started to kiss him again; and absently, Will kissed her back; but even when she moved down his body, when she kissed the base of his cock and made him flinch – a good flinch–
Even then, there was nothing. Will covered his face with his hands.
“Don’t,” said Deanna softly, her accent thick.
“Don’t what?” he said, and his voice came out even, flat.
“Will…” She kissed the inside of his wrist and eased his hands away, forcing him to meet her gaze. Much good that it would do her. Will’s expression was boxed up now, his eyes hooded and cold. “It’s perfectly normal,” she said.
Will huffed out a laugh.
“It is,” she insisted, and she melted against him then, so comfortable, so trusting, that his mask cracked. He wrapped his arms around her by instinct, so she wouldn’t slip off him. And there he froze, uncertain what to do next. She must have felt the knot in his heart. “Whether it’s dryhaxalyn,” she said, and the knot flushed cold, “or simply trauma–”
From a distance, Will heard someone – he thought it was his father – saying: “Or maybe you’re just not that interesting.”
It was quiet on Deck 8 when Donovan left the holodeck, his head still buzzing from too much socializing. He skimmed one hand over the wall as he walked to his quarters, ran his tongue over his teeth to taste the residue of blue dye left behind by Guinan’s “cocktail.”
And as he passed Troi’s quarters, he heard a muffled voice and went still. Donovan held his breath, ears pricked. He was still standing there, his face hot, when the doors slid open and Riker stepped out, his trousers undone, his tunic clutched in one hand.
He looked at Donovan – through Donovan – the same way a Cardassian general had once stared through Donovan’s Bajoran friends like they were cattle. There was no emotion on Riker’s face. Just a pale-eyed calmness that held. He shrugged into his tunic, his old scars only briefly visible, and clapped Donovan on the shoulder as he passed by. The smell of sex clung to his fingers, contradicting what Donovan had just overhead.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Will, he’d heard Deanna say.
But as he walked away, Donovan thought, Riker didn’t look ashamed at all. He seemed fine.