Drink and Gossip, Part 4 of 4
Posted on Sat Apr 19th, 2025 @ 5:36pm by Crewman Mateo Gardel & Lieutenant JG Aria Rice & Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark & Civilian Temas Latham
Edited on on Sat Apr 19th, 2025 @ 5:37pm
2,089 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
To Boldly Go
Location: Valhalla Bar, Deck 6, USS Fenrir
Timeline: Day 13
[ON - Continued from Part 3. And, now, the conclusion...]
Mateo let out a quiet snort that quickly unraveled into an actual laugh—low and warm, the kind that rarely surfaced unless someone truly caught him off guard. Team Awesome Force. Of course she had a name for it. And of course he was the heart-of-gold one. That was so wildly off-brand he couldn’t even protest it. He tilted his head, brows lifting as he looked at Aria like she’d just handed him an honorary sash and expected him to wear it unironically. “Sassy with a heart of gold,” he echoed, deadpan but grinning now. “Right. And in the holonovel adaptation, I assume I also miraculously develop abs and an emotionally available personality?” He turned to Gabriel, gesturing between the three of them. “Let’s be honest, you’d get all the slow-motion action shots. I’d be the one yelling ‘wait!’ right before something exploded.”
He reached the bottom of his glass and tipped it back with a final sip before raising it for a refill. “Might as well make it two,” he added dryly, then—without thinking—gestured loosely toward Gabriel. “I mean, one of us already has the washboard abs quota covered.” The words were out before he could stop them, and his face went perfectly still—except for the color rapidly blooming beneath his skin like a sunburn caught in real time. His ears burned. Of course they did. His body loved to remind him when he’d said too much. A blink. A beat. He dragged one hand across his mouth like that might somehow erase what had just escaped it. “Right. Cool. Recalibrating verbal filters.”
Gabriel couldn't hold his laugh back, almost choking on the last of his own drink at the observation. He slung the glass back on the bar as he recovered, motioning for a refill too, even as he shook his head at what he'd said. "What, you mean these?" without further ado, Gabriel tugged his contentious shirt up. Not too far, but enough to show some of the rigid muscles in question. To look at Gabriel in uniform, he was tall but slender looking, more athletic than strong. But he was lean and hours of pent up energy spent on exercise meant he was unexpectedly toned. So why not confirm the rumour when Mateo had accused him so unexpectedly.
Mateo hadn’t expected an actual response—certainly not a visual demonstration. One second, Gabriel was laughing, choking on the last of his drink; the next, his shirt was rising, revealing precisely what Mateo had only half-joked about. And gods, he hadn’t been exaggerating. Mateo froze mid-breath. His gaze dipped reflexively—no, instinctively—and landed squarely on the exposed ridges of muscle, defined and symmetrical, a clean lattice of effort and genetics that made Gabriel look less like a real person and more like a render from one of Mateo’s holonovels. His brain knew better than to stare, but his eyes weren’t getting the memo, caught on the subtle sheen of skin, the flex and release of movement. His mouth might have been open. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t tell if the heat crawling up his neck was from embarrassment or some kind of internal error message blinking red.
This wasn’t in the books. In the books, the love interest noticed the attention, smirked knowingly, closed the distance. There was always a line, a cue, a beat of clarity that told you exactly what page you were on. But here? This was page-whatever with no chapter heading and absolutely no emotional index. All he knew for sure was that his face was burning, his ears were on fire, and he absolutely needed to close his mouth before anyone noticed. Mateo cleared his throat—quietly, uselessly—and turned his focus back to his drink as if it might offer shelter, glass still lifted in his hand, even though the bartender hadn’t refilled it yet. “Right,” he muttered under his breath. “Cool. Okay. Normal.” It didn’t help. He could still see it. Perfect. Just perfect.
Aria laughed, reaching to make a show of tugging Gabriel's shirt down. "Alright, alright, put the washboard away," she teased, her eyes shining. Hell, she liked to look. Gabriel was fab, and she could appreciate his body as a work of art. She could however practically see the heat rising in Mateo's skin and well, she didn't want him to suddenly combust.
Time to take some of the heat off.
"Although maybe I should take a holovid, put it on the Ferengi market..." she winked and looked over at Mateo and then down at herself. "Yeah, I don't have one of those myself. Oh! Buuut..." she unzipped her boots and jumped down, her socked feet hitting the floor. "I got a party trick..." she took a breath and then held her arms out before doing a Plié, followed by going en Pointe, using it to move from left to right before finishing off with a Pirouette. And then she bowed as low as the outfit she wore would allow her.
"Aria here is our Prima Ballerina," Gabriel leant to Mateo, pride underlying the way he spoke about her. Like she was his little sister or something. "Trained for years. It's how she moves so well when we fight, you know? She has this grace and balance the rest of us struggles with. And that tiny little iddy-bitty waist, of course..." he glanced to Mateo, arching an eyebrow before chuckling softly. "We can all wish..."
Mateo managed a strangled sound that might have been polite laughter—or a dying animal—before looking away, fast, under the pretense of adjusting his sleeve. His face was still too warm, and now Aria was doing ballet on the bar floor, and Gabriel was talking about tiny waists with the kind of fondness that made Mateo feel like he’d wandered into a very beautiful, very well-dressed family reunion. His gaze darted down to the rim of his glass. Empty. Still empty. It was probably for the best. He exhaled slowly through his nose, trying to will the flush out of his skin, blinking as if that would somehow reset the internal system error Gabriel’s abs had triggered.
And that was when he saw him. Or rather—found him. As if the crowd had shifted just so, as if the lights had subtly dimmed everywhere but there. A man, maybe a few meters off, caught mid-laugh in conversation. Slender frame, pale skin dusted with freckles like stars against a winter sky, hair soft and tousled with just enough mess to suggest artful neglect. A few loose strands fell across his forehead, catching the warm light above like a painter had placed them there. Mateo’s chest gave a tight, involuntary flutter. It wasn’t just that the man was beautiful—he was. But it was also something else. A kind of magnetism Mateo couldn’t name, a gravity that pressed inward on his ribs, subtle but immediate. His thoughts scattered without his permission. There was something gentle in the man’s face, something quiet and unguarded that made Mateo feel like he’d just read the first sentence of a story he wasn’t ready for—but desperately wanted to keep reading.
He blinked, then blinked again, trying to catalog the moment without staring. Failing, probably. A beat passed. Then another. He leaned slightly toward Aria and Gabriel, his voice hushed but strangely earnest. “Do either of you know who that is?” He nodded discreetly toward the stranger, the words almost catching in his throat. “Over there. By the wall. Brown hair. Freckles. Like he just… walked out of a dream someone forgot to finish.”
Aria stood on her toes and twisted to try and see. She spotted him and in her eyes he looked...sort of normal. Cute sure, but sort of normal looking too. "I mean...no idea," she finally said before she grinned. "You want to meet him? I could just go and drag him over here, you know...would take me two ticks of a self destruct countdown timer."
Mateo’s breath hitched in a way that wasn’t quite audible but definitely real. He snapped his head toward Aria like she’d just offered to beam him naked into the middle of a Federation Council session. “No— I mean, no. No dragging.” His hand came up, palm out, as if to physically hold her back despite the fact that she hadn’t moved. “You absolutely cannot initiate contact. That is…” He trailed off, visibly short-circuiting, then gave a tight little shake of his head. “That is a diplomatic incident waiting to happen.” The words tumbled out faster than he could catch them, sharp with embarrassment but also something strangely earnest. “I—I just wanted to know if you knew who he was, not… not make him materialize at the bar like I’d summoned him with a wish.”
But even as he tried to diffuse the moment with his usual deflection and dread, Mateo’s gaze drifted back to the man. Something about him held his focus, even now—maybe the quiet curve of his smile, or the way he leaned slightly toward his companion, not in a performative way but as though he was genuinely listening. There was a softness there, unguarded and unpolished, and it hit Mateo with the same startling clarity as a sudden melody you didn’t know you’d always needed to hear. He could feel it pressing at the edges of his chest, not sharp like anxiety, but persistent. His fingers tightened slightly around his glass as if to tether himself back to reality. “I just…” he added, softer now, almost to himself, “wanted to look a little longer.”
Aria's eyes softened at that, at how romantic it sounded. She looked over at Gabriel before back at Mateo. "Alright," she said and nodded with acceptance at the words. She'd let him watch the stranger for a bit longer. "I'll let you know when it gets creepy," she added in a soft whisper, barely heard above the sound of the bar, but there was such a gentle and playful note in it that showed she thought it was romantic more than anything else.
She looked over at Gabriel and winked before she took her drink. "And here's to us all, and our hopes, dreams...and another adventure, personal or professional."
Mateo didn’t look away from the man—he couldn’t—but his expression shifted when Aria spoke. Her words settled around him like the hush of a held breath, teasing but kind, permission wrapped in understanding. It should’ve made him flinch—someone noticing how long he’d been looking, how clearly he’d been caught in it—but it didn’t. Not this time. Not with her. A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, subtle and crooked, the kind that couldn’t quite decide if it was amusement or relief. He let out a breath that eased something tight in his shoulders and nodded, slow and grateful. “Thanks,” he murmured, the word soft enough to be drowned by the clink of glass nearby, but it was there. And it was real.
As if on cue, the bartender returned with another Fenrir’s Jaws, setting it gently in front of him with a nod. Mateo accepted it with quiet appreciation, fingers wrapping around the cool glass like an anchor. When Aria raised hers, he followed suit—still half-turned toward the stranger, but tethered now by the small, steady presence of the two people beside him. He didn’t need to say much. The gesture was enough. He lifted his newly refreshed glass and clinked it lightly against theirs, the rim catching the light like a quiet promise. “To whatever comes next,” he said. Not loud, not performative. Just a whisper of a hope, carried forward on the back of a pulse he didn’t yet know how to name.
[OFF]
Crewman Mateo Gardel
Medical Science Specialist
USS Fenrir
&
Lieutenant JG Aria Rice
Security Officer
USS Fenrir
[PNPC - Hanlon]
&
Petty Officer 1st Class Gabriel Stark
Security Officer
USS Fenrir
[PNPC - Blake]
&
Civilian Temas Latham
Teacher
USS Fenrir
[PNPC - Hanlon]
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