hormonal imbalance

[warpfairy]

They study Klingon. They work out a sleep schedule. They approach Betazed.

They are two days away from the system when Isabella notices something - troubling.

She takes longer than usual to compose herself that morning, and emerges from the living quarters with carefully measured steps, and avoids eye contact.

"Do you," she asks Lalita quietly, "have the ability to fly this class of ship?"

Comments

[warpfairy]

He has a willing experimental partner!

[dream_me_up]

He's not exactly taking detailed lab notes on their successes, but he does have a very good memory. And of course successful experiments should be repeated. For science. The science of fun.

[warpfairy]

They have all the time in the - well, not all the time in the world, but all the time in a week!

[dream_me_up]

They do have all the time in the week. Except for the parts they might spend sleeping, or eating, or grooming themselves.

Lalita does not plan to spend very much time doing those things.

[warpfairy]

Neither does Isabella. Insofar as "plan" is even the word. Her father's species evolved in a desert; she can do without much intake of anything over the course of a week, whether "anything" is a stand-in for "sleep" or "water" or "food". Over this amount of time those needs just aren't going to be competitive with the main one.

[dream_me_up]

Well, at some point during this wake phase - maybe in a few hours - Lalita is going to suggest food. He can go for a week without it, but he'd rather not.

[warpfairy]

She'll let him eat. If he really must. She'll just be half in his lap eyeing him while he does it.

[dream_me_up]

She can be all in his lap if she'd rather!

[warpfairy]

Okay!

[dream_me_up]

Mmm, snuggly lapful. Mmm, food.

Does snuggly lapful want any food?

[warpfairy]

She'll have nibbles. Of food, even. Some fraction of nibbles will be of food.

[dream_me_up]

That is entirely acceptable.



No more food!

Now just snuggly lapful.

Whatever shall they do?

[warpfairy]

How about the extremely obvious thing? They can do that!

[dream_me_up]

They can absolutely do that. They can do lots of that.

[warpfairy]

Good. Isabella really needs to do lots of that right now.

[dream_me_up]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.



Time passes. They do the obvious thing. Occasionally Lalita partakes of food or sleep or water. Mostly he partakes of Isabella.

[warpfairy]

He is soooo welcome to partake of her.

Sometimes she touches his face, but then she makes a brief confused expression like she doesn't know why she's doing that, and stops, and resumes whatever else they are up to at the time.

[dream_me_up]

One of those times, he catches her hand on its retreat and kisses her fingertips.

"Mm?"

[warpfairy]

"Keep almost - telepathing you," she murmurs, squirming.

[dream_me_up]

"You can if you want," he murmurs back.

[warpfairy]

She slides her hand over his face and kisses him and reaches out for his mind.

[dream_me_up]

His mind is full of kisses. And warmth and joy and affection and Isabella, a kind of generalized appreciation for every facet of her existence.

[warpfairy]

Oooh. Oooooooooh. It would be pretty much impossible for her to be more all over him than she was a minute ago, but she will try very hard.

[dream_me_up]

Now he also has specific appreciations!

[warpfairy]

Yummy.

It's easiest to establish contact with hand-to-face, but she can maintain it with any touch, and he has not shown much inclination to make that difficult.