Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side-sim: New Normal

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side-sim: New Normal

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side-sim: New Normal
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
What? A knock? She looked toward the door. She didn’t hear a knock. A chair? Rand only caught half of what he was saying, she was so flustered. He started walking toward the closet and she tried to busy herself looking for the wayward rabbit, and keep her back to Roman while still trying to get another good look at him. She really should be ashamed of herself…maybe later.

She finally spotted Pipkin, sitting on the bed. Rand turned toward her which gave her a nice view of Roman’s very chiseled back. Rand bit back a groan. Really it was his birthday, not hers. And that thought made her turn red again. She had to get out of there.

Roman turned his head, peeking back at her. She was looking again, and turning red. He grinned. His back was as fit as the rest of him and he had no doubt that’s what she was staring for.

Huh? What did he say? The tray was small? She turned back to the table. The desert. “Oh! Umm…I have to get the rest.” And she made a bee line out the door, down the hall and into her quarters. How did she forget the main tray? The door closed behind her and she leaned back against the wall, head back, eyes closed, with a goofey grin in her face. Rand had the horrible thought that any number of female officers would have lived to see that, but she got to because she was dating Roman. She tried taking a few deep breaths to get rid of the furious blush on her face.

When Roman turned around, one hand still on his towel, she was gone. She’d said she had to get the rest, but she was out of there fast. He smiled again. She’d gone anyway, no reason to walk all the way back to the bathroom. Instead he dropped the towel and changed by the bed.

Unbeknownst to Rand, Randy had just walked out of their bathroom, after a shower. Fortunately her brother was more decent, wrapped in a satin robe. Sharing a room with one’s sister your whole life, tended to make you more considerate. Randy took a good long perusal of his sister leaned against the wall, next to the door, eyes closed, in the dark. And she was red enough to light up the whole room, and breathing hard enough to make him think she’d been running laps on deck 6 again. “Well well well, what have you been up to, sister dear?”

Rand’s eyes snapped open. WHAT WAS WITH THEM! Were they ALL hiding in the bathroom today? “Randy?!” She stood up straight and fussed with her skirt for no reason other than nerves. “Wha…what do you mean? I wasn’t doing anything.”

Randy looked at her again and a wicked smile crossed his face. “Sure....uh huh. You look like you were running cross-country from Kirkwall to Dumfries non stop. And since you’re wearing your favorite dress, that’s not likely. Not to mention you are red from the top of your pretty head past your décolletage. You look like that time you walked around the corner and caught the entire boys’ football team taking their jerseys off as they headed into the locker room…” Randy started laughing as he put the pieces together, “Girl! You ran away from him didn’t you! Poor Alden, no man’s ego should have to take that kind of blow. He’s going to think you find him hideously deformed!” Now of course Randy knew Alden was in no danger of thinking Rand thought that, but Randy couldn’t resist the opening to tease her.

Rand shook her head, still a bit dazed, “Nope…he’s not deformed at all.” Randy laughed so hard at the shocked look on his sister’s face when she realized what she said, that he collapsed into a ball of laughter on the floor. Rand absolutely was not going to stand there and let Randy keep picking on her, she was too flustered to keep up. She spun around and was almost out the door, “Ummm…Rand? Aren’t you forgetting something? Unless of course that meal is for me.”

Rand stopped turned around, spotting the dinner tray, that she’d come to get, still on the table. She hurried over, grabbed the tray and almost ran out the door, chased by Randy’s chuckles. This time she was not going into his quarters until Roman answered. She started blushing again, or really blushed more.

Rand

When he heard Rand’s knock, Roman called, “Come in!” He was sitting on his bed, and he could see Rand and her bright red face as she entered, and he couldn’t help but smile again. “What exactly did you expect, coming in unannounced?” He asked, but his smile was getting bigger, he was teasing her. “Or maybe you were hoping to see something?”

~ Roman

Rand was looking everywhere but at him when she came in. She went straight to the table to set the tray down. She glanced, out of the corner of her eye, over at Roman. What did she expect? She turned toward him then, he was dressed, thank goodness, or she would have gotten another eye full. She really wouldn’t mind another eye full. No! Well yeah she would, but she had to stop thinking like that. “Expect? That you weren’t here. I..I…I wasn’t unannounced I knocked!” Rand was so flustered she was stuttering, “I…uh…I…thought you went back to work…after....your PT. uhhh…I…um…thought I’d have to come find you.” Then she turned really pale and then really red in about half a second, from one extreme to the other. “NO!” Truth be told, and if she was honest with herself (and poor Rand was and it showed all over her face) she’d think about this every time she entered his quarters from now on. “N…no…I” she turned back to the table where the food and desert was, “I…it…it’s your birthday. I made dinner and desert for you.” And then she’d walked in on him. At the time she’d just wanted to set the tray down instead of standing there holding it, now…now all she could think about was…Roman.

Rand

Rand was too cute when she was flustered, but Roman had best stop or she might just faint or something. She peeked at him like she was trying not to look and then finally turned toward him. He started to reply, but then Rand started turning colours faster than a chemical test strip, vampire pale white all the way to overripe tomato red. Then she shouted no quite suddenly and he looked up as if she’d startled him, but his smile quickly returned. He could tell from her face she was still thinking about it. She was never not going to. And he was very okay with that. He frowned and thought about it for a moment. “Is it? Yes, I guess it is the fifth. I knew it was coming up. Suppose I forgot, what with everything else lately.” Then he stood, slowly - his leg still hurt - and went over to the tray with the food and lifted the lid. “Shepherd’s pie! Rand, you didn’t have to! Where did you and chef get the ingredients?” He set the tray’s lid back down carefully and, forgetting how flustered Rand happened to be at the moment, pulled her into a hug. He hadn’t even seen the desert yet.

~ Roman

“I might have mentioned I liked Shepard’s pie when I was helping Chef fill out his req forms, and he added the ingredients. But I made the desert.” She wasn’t bragging or looking for praise, she just wanted Roman to know she cared enough to make it herself. Then he was hugging her. He liked it! She wrapped her arms around him, hugging him back. Oh…he was hugging her…and suddenly she was aware of all that muscle under his shirt. Roman was strong and fit, she knew that, but all that muscle…oh really! She wasn’t that shallow, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate it. Then she was breathless.

Rand

He did like it. He hadn’t had good, traditional shepherd’s pie in years. “Thank you.” He said, and then he started grinning that playful grin. He could feel the change in her breathing against him and he knew why. “I am actually wearing a shirt this time, and you are still thinking about it, aren’t you?” His tone was playful, he was still enjoying it. He hadn’t ended the hug, either, he was still holding her, his arms wrapped around her.

~ Roman

She was glad he was happy with what she chose for the meal. She wasn’t so sure about the desert. She remembered him saying once that Jay’s mother had made it and he really liked it.She hoped it didn’t trigger a sad memory. One thing Rand had noticed when helping filter through comms and care packages, was that Roman never got any, unless they were from Star Fleet Command or a scientist on another ship for a consult. So she figured Jay and his family were probably the last people to do anything for Roman at any time, but especially his birthday. She smiled up at him, “You’re welcome.” And then his next words left her feeling like a fish out of water. She stared at him a minute before ducking her head. Her hands come up, between them, to hide her face and the furious blush there. Even though her face was well hidden without her hands. She let out a muffled groan, “Uh huh.....” she knew he had a shirt on, she now she knew exactly what was under that shirt. Then, before she could stop it from slipping out a very very muffled, “too bad.” She groaned again. Could she embarrass herself any worse today?

Rand

He had told her that once, that one time when he was trying to help her sleep, the way she helped him. It was sort of a family thing in Jay’s family, you got one of the deserts on special occasions. They’d made one for Roman on his graduation from secondary school and then again when he got his acceptance to Star Fleet. He got something from Jay’s family every year, on his birthday. Usually just a letter. This year it hadn’t come in yet, that was part of the reason he had forgotten it was his birthday at all. He liked them, but they made him sad, and it was hard to read them. They hadn’t sent anything besides a letter since the incident with the ship. They usually wrote something about the two of them as kids, and then how much they missed them both, and that they hoped Roman was well. Roman would write something simple back, so they knew he’d received it, and that he was thankful they sent them.

Then Rand covered her face, her hands coming up between them. As muffled as it was, Roman heard what she said and his grin got wider. “I’m not sure, I might spill some of that lovely dinner on it, and then I’d have to take it off.” He was kidding with her, but he might have to ‘accidentally’ spill something anyway. He loved her reactions too much.

~ Roman

Rand thought she might die of embarrassment or if she was lucky, just sink through the floor. Roman was enjoying this whole situation immensely, and the way he was grinning at her made her stomach feel like she had a whole swarm of butterflies in it rather than just one or two. She really liked the way he was holding her though, but they if they didn’t move soon it was going to be like that day she fell and he caught her after she broke her foot. If she remembered right, that day had been pretty amazing.
“Eat. We should really eat.” It never even occurred to Rand that it sounded like she agreed that he should spill something on his shirt. She pulled away, disappointed?, and lifted the lids off the the Shepard’s pie and set both on the table along with tea. She left the desert covered; she’d let him find out what that was. She laid out napkins and forks while she waited for him to join her so they could sit and eat.

Rand