Dream of Buttercreme
Posted on 09 Mar 2021 @ 12:33pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*)
Edited on on 09 Mar 2021 @ 1:26pm
Mission:
M1 - Emergence
Location: SF Academy/ Flashback 2381
Timeline: between the events of Overcome and Lending Assistance
2187 words - 4.4 OF Standard Post Measure
Even before she collapsed, the world faded. Calliope distinctly smelled buttercreme icing but felt her tongue thick in her mouth when she tried to remark on the scent. She marveled at a sound she thought she was hearing... like a dance hall she had once been in. Yes, it was the Cadet Band playing at one of the Academy Formals...
Calliope hadn't skipped an academy formal since attending. Despite having to hustle so much for grades, she wasn't going to miss out on the social highlights. Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year she'd flown solo— if by solo, one could say with a large group of friends. But this year, her Graduating year, she had a date. As she waited outside the large hall, listening to brassy lines of Jazzy big band sounds and waving to friends as they filtered inside, Calliope pressed her fingers along the side-seems of her cadet dress uniform. At least she hadn't had to fuss over what to wear— that was the entire point of uniforms. Still, she had spent a little time on some shimmery eye shadow and on getting her hair to play nice as thick curls instead of woolen fluff.
"C'mon Cal!" Before looking, she knew it to be Avery, another Operations student. "The band is starting. Orwin's got some trumpet solos, you have to hear!"
"Like we haven't already!" Calliope called back laughing. "He only practices on the balcony until curfew every night! Don't worry, I'll be there in a minute."
Calliope double checked the clock and bit her bottom lip. He wouldn't stand her up, she was sure. Was she sure? Maybe it was a mistake. She'd given the wrong date... or he'd gotten tied up or distracted. Just when she had decided her date had maybe forgotten the time, she spied the unmistakable outline of him in the distance. Not wanting to overwhelm him, Calliope had to fix her feet to the floor and resist the urge to rush up to him. They'd only ever been out together informally, almost always with an armload of studies on hand, but never to anything as formal as, well, a Formal. She kind of had the sense that when she invited him he might have accepted only because declining was more uncomfortable in the moment.
Lance hadn't worn a dress uniform since his own graduation a couple years earlier. It didn't feel like it fit properly, had a couple of creases in awkward places, and felt particularly tight around the groin. It made him a little more uncomfortable than he already was around gaggles of excited young cadets. To think that he'd have to live through this experience a second time...
"You're really striking in the dress uniform," she complimented him. He'd stand out a little— an officer among a majority of cadets. His hair was slicked neatly and it almost looked strange compared to the way he usually was so indifferent about it.
"Striking." He repeated the word, not sure how to process it. Maybe it was good. Or bad. He couldn't make his mind up. "They don't make you wear this on Utopia Planetia. I suspect the closest they get to formal is sending off one of their new prototype deathtraps." He paused, holding up a hand to stop her before she replied. "I know. I know. It's your night. I'll try to smile at least once." His mouth curled up a little awkwardly, but the pain was still there in his eyes.
She was heart-warmed at his attempt on her behalf. Although she was still nervously awaiting her final marks, she wouldn't even be this close to graduating if it hadn't been for Lance. She just took his hand. "Come on, I feel like dancing."
"Oh well I-" He felt the jerk on his arm before he'd finished the sentence. Such as things were with Calliope, he'd learned, she didn't seem to always wait for his answer.
The music was already swinging, literally. The Formal this year was heavily big band themed, with a few recognizable inter-planetary musical works re-scored for the style. Before they were very far into the dance hall, Calliope was already waving to and hugging friends. Right away she wasn't exactly sure how to introduce Lance to them. It wouldn't do to be overly familiar while he was in Officer dress among cadets. Some of her friends simmered down and straightened up. "This is Ensign Quinn," she introduced him. "My..." Tutor? Date? Friend? Calliope realized she hadn't thought this out ahead. She searched Lance's face for help. When he looked mortified she couldn't help herself, "Theoretical Boyfriend."
Cadet Mia Noh chortled and stage muttered. "He's not as theoretical as you led us to believe."
"Cal ditched us so many nights to study with her 'Theoretical Boyfriend'," Cadet Avery explained between sips of punch. "It's nice to finally meet you, sir."
"He *works* with theoretical propulsion." Calliope finally explained her longstanding joke. "He's very much real."
"I'm not really supposed to talk about it..." Lance grimaced.
They all laughed like it was part of an inside joke and they expected he'd follow up with something more mundane about his work, but instead there was an odd series of throat clearings.
Lance coughed awkwardly and shrank back from the excitable and chatty group of cadets. He was fine with Cali having friends, of course he was. But he would never be as at ease and sociable as she was. Instead he just sat back and looked down at the bottom of a glass flute he'd picked up from somewhere.
As he stepped back a few of Calliope's girlfriends caught her up into a playful swing step routine they'd been practicing on the lawn during all of Orwin's trumpet strains. The ladies were a roughly organized line and the other dancers made space for their playful number: all in time the ladies crossed arms and spun one another, swapping partners and making a whole game of it—the lawn practice had paid off in a spectacle of stamina and presentation.
Meanwhile, a more dour Cadet, Vulcan in form but almost gothic in mood— raven haired, raven eyed, and disapproving— hung back from her cadet compatriots and was left standing beside the the solitary engineer. "You've made a grave mistake, sir," she informed him.
Almost certainly, in coming here, he thought to himself silently. He politely blinked at the Vulcan. "Excuse me?"
She raised an eyebrow. "I refer to your tutoring of Cadet Zahn."
This should be good. "Indeed? I'd like to hear your evidence for that hypothesis, Cadet," he answered.
"During my freshman year, while you were yet studying on campus, I once came to your department seeking assistance. You did not even raise your eyes from your work, and commented that tutoring was a disservice to the cadet and the fleet and a distraction and a nuisance to those whose studies were far more valuable than to be frittered on 'lost causes'. I took this rebuff to heart and improved on my own with diligence and perseverance. But since turning me away, you seem to have taken one student, apparently against your better judgement." She paused, eyes tracking the joyous display of her more fanciful companions, while refraining from verbally suggesting the obvious reasons why Ensign Quinn might have aided the exuberant Orion woman.
Lance found himself tracking over to Cali again. She was laughing and enjoying herself with her friends. Their eyes met just for a fraction before his diverted quickly away. "Your logic isn't unreasonable, cadet. And yet you haven't explained your main line of reasoning why you feel that I have made a mistake."
"Tell me, do you think Cadet Zahn truly understands the material? Or has she learned just enough to make marks and fulfill the old adage, 'A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring'? Are you concerned that by not allowing her to fail and select a more suitable career it will lead her into greater peril than she is truly prepared for?"
"Cadet Zahn didn't quote centuries-old poetry at me. Nor did she come to me asking for help with a theory relating to refractal warp geometry physics - yes, I do remember our conversation." He glanced at the cadet alongside him. "Academia isn't everything. And Calliope is wiser than you realise."
"You are right in that I certainly would not characterize Cadet Zahn as 'wise'. Perhaps there is some other definition of the word to which you are referring. Or some aspect of your agreement to tutor her of which I am unaware she offered."
"Mentoring is not only transactional, cadet. It is relational. And Calliope offered me something I'm afraid you could not." His lips curled upwards, remembering his embarrassing incident in the campus cafeteria. He had been so busy with his work that he had tripped and sent a tray of food flying across the room, including over the table of several members of faculty. While so many of his peers had laughed at his misfortune, a green-skinned freshman cadet had rushed very quickly to his aid, and having helped him sort the mess, set on his empty tray her own slice of cake. "She cared."
Care. The Vulcan cadet allowed a moment's pause to regard the ensign. He certainly was highly intelligent and logical, though flawed in his human heart's need for affection. She shook her head at such human weakness and then almost like a vampire at the onslaught of dawn, excused herself, repelled as Calliope rushed over.
Breathless and flushed, but only just begun— Calliope took Lance's hand and gave him a little tug to come follow, her eyes asking for trust.
His initial resistance lasted all of a second, and he allowed himself to be pulled and guided where she wished to take them. She led away from the open dancing, instead to a curtained off food service station, and there among the piles of prefolded napkins, towers of stacked chairs, and a row of pre-cut plates of sweet smelling buttercreme frosted cake, she arranged his arm around her waist and reached up to rest her hand on his shoulder. "Will this do?" she asked.
"Cake will always do," he remarked, a rare smile of approval on his face. She knew him well enough by now to recognise his weakness for cake and sweet treats. That she even knew that was testament to how close they had become, and how she had easily stripped away his guarded nature. He gazed down into her eyes for a long moment. She cared. The words kept coming back into his mind. "Calliope..."
"Lancelot..." She whispered back, moving little side to side with the music, gently trying to unstick his leaden feet.
Once again he struggled to express himself. Sharing feelings was difficult. He winced a little. "This is no good. I could stand here and give you a detailed breakdown of the sub-quantum harmonics of particle resonance in dilithium re-crystallization, or describe the inverse flux feedback on warp fields at high velocities. So why is it I cannot express..." he sighed. She cared. "I care about you."
There was a charged look of delight in her eyes. She had never ever expected to hear him say it. She'd just learned to read when he seemed pleased or content and taken joy from it. If anything, she felt more pleasure in those quiet unspoken moments; now it was palpably obvious how much nervous bravery it took for him to say it out loud.
"I suspected," she said, swaying in his arms. She was basking in the unbroken eye contact, exploring his gaze while lacing her fingers in his. "Maaay-be we don't have to be so 'theoretical', anymore."
Finally - and for the first time all evening it wasn't forced - Lance managed to smile. A genuine one. "It was harder to do than I expected," he said.
She watched the sunrise in his eyes. "Sometimes things become easier with practice."
“What happened to her? Why is she like this?”
Hearing Lance's voice, Calliope tried to focus her eyes, but she could only see soft formless values. She raised her hand to try to touch his face over hers, as if reaching for the surface of a pond she was held under and not quite breaking through to the sky.
Seeing her hand move, Lance grabbed hold of it in both of his and locked them tight around it. "Cali? Are you there? Are you okay?"
"Lance?" The syllable was small, her lips barely parting.
"Cali?" He leaned in closer. "Can you hear me?"
She murmured with a faraway delirium, "Will you go—?"
"Go? Where?" He wondered if she wanted to get rid of him for a horrible second. That she was still mad at him.
"—to the formal?"
He frowned, not understanding. Until he did. He felt relief wash over him. "Yes, I'll go with you." He touched her cheek. "But there had better be cake."
