First (NOT A) Date, Part 2
Posted on Tue Apr 22nd, 2025 @ 2:42am by Crewman Mateo Gardel & Lieutenant JG Riaothren (Ren) ch'Shaorhs
Edited on on Tue Apr 22nd, 2025 @ 3:03am
3,095 words; about a 15 minute read
Mission:
To Boldly Go
Location: Holodeck, Deck 9, USS Fenrir
[ON - Continued from Part 1]
reached for a moss green eel question mark at the center of his plate, assuming he was following protocol since there were no detectable utensils. No one raised their voice or gave him a dirty look, at least he didn't think anyone was, so he felt his assumption had been correct.
The texture was just as he expected a Terran eel to feel. The taste, though, was different.. More earthy, almost mushroom-like, than what he expected something from under the ocean to taste like.
Mateo watched Ren’s hand move—unhurried, confident enough to pass for assured—and noted that no one corrected him. No sharp glances. No murmured offense. Just the quiet rhythm of a culture going through its motions. He gave it another breath, then reached out for a piece himself, choosing a curl of eel nearly identical to the one Ren had taken. It gave slightly under his fingers—slick and springy, the ridges faintly textured like pressed vinyl. The absence of utensils made something in his brain stutter. No barrier. No neutral interface. He didn’t flinch, but his right hand pressed lightly against the seam of his trousers—clean, still his, still safe.
He brought the piece to his mouth slowly, glancing once toward their hosts, then tilted his head back and let the thing settle against his tongue. It was cooler than expected—cooler than the air around them, almost wet with salt. Not sharp or fishy like he braced for, but mellow. Earthy. Like mushroom broth soaked into a kelp leaf and left to ferment in citrus. The flavor unfolded in layers, each more rooted than marine. It tasted like stone and sand and something green that had never needed sunlight to grow. The texture was soft, with just enough tension to resist the bite—a yield that felt thoughtful, intentional, ritualistic.
He swallowed carefully and let his clean hand rest against his thigh, his eyes still lowered. He didn’t speak right away. Just sat with the flavor, letting it echo through his senses like sound in a deep pool. It was strange. Not bad. Just… stranger than he’d expected. And far more beautiful. A moment later, without quite turning his head, he leaned slightly toward Ren and said, “It tastes like wet moss and stone soup. I don’t hate it.” A pause. "You’re doing great, by the way.” It was quiet, matter-of-fact, but there was weight in the words. Not just approval. Trust.
"Thanks," Ren replied in a low tone, "Saying I'm confident is just another way of saying I'm a good actor."
"I've never tasted either of those things you mentioned, so I can't confirm. But it is good."
He took a sip of the sadat, his nose wrinkling, both antennae curling backward. It was thicker than he thought it would be It reminded him of bloodwine with what seemed like a tablespoon of salt added. He fought the urge not not to throw up or get a disgusted look on his face.
Mateo hadn’t touched his own cup yet. He’d been waiting—first for the hosts to offer it, then for Ren to try it, and now for this. The wrinkled nose. The antennae curling back like over-tensed wires. The faint shift in Ren’s throat as he forced the sip down. Mateo watched it all, his gaze subtle but unblinking, like a scientist clocking behavioral anomalies through glass. He didn’t smile exactly, but there was the faintest pull at one corner of his mouth—something warm, nearly entertained. “That bad?” he asked softly, already reaching for his own glass. It shimmered faintly in the cup, a mineral pink that caught the light like watered-down pearls.
He raised it to his lips but didn’t drink right away. He inhaled first—deep, analytical. The scent was sharp, metallic, and almost savory, like sea salt soaked in stone. Then he tipped the cup and let a cautious sip coat his tongue. It was thicker than expected, more viscous than wine, and the flavor bloomed fast: brine, iron, something sharp and herbal that stung the roof of his mouth before settling into a strange, faint sweetness—like moss over granite. His eyebrows lifted. He didn’t wince. But his eyes did narrow, processing. “Huh,” he murmured after swallowing, more to himself than anyone else. “That’s… aggressively interesting.”
He let the cup linger in his hand, the weight of it grounding. His gaze drifted across the gathering—at the hosts with their robe-cloaked stillness, their luminous sage skin in a range of earth-toned hues, and the way they moved: unhurried, measured, almost like they knew how the story would end and were just waiting for the others to catch up. Mateo tilted his head slightly, voice low, meant only for Ren. “Who are they?” It wasn’t a challenge, but there was an edge of need in it—scientific, yes, but also something more personal. “I don’t recognize the species. I mean, I assume you built them, but… did you base them on anyone? They feel—” He paused, searching for the word. “—layered
"I was trying to create something unique, uncommon, so I'm glad you approve. I know I've joked a lot about malevolent merpeople, but I really do find that Earth concept intriguing. Hybrid people that can survive on both land and water. I figured their perspective would be different, so that was my starting point.
I had a roommate my senior year, or part of it anyway, that was half Romulan, half Vulcan, so I tried to mix a little real-world examples in."
"As for the sadat it is pretty gross. At least to me. Do you like it?"
Mateo considered the question for a moment, eyes still on the drink as if it might evolve if he stared hard enough. “Like is a strong word,” he said finally, voice quiet but not dismissive. “But I’m interested in it. That counts for something.” He took another sip, smaller this time, less for the flavor and more for the experience of holding it on his tongue again—measuring the sting, the salt, the strange, slow sweetness that clung to the roof of his mouth like lichen. “It tastes like something that would ferment underground for decades and get passed around at a funeral. Which… I guess is its own kind of poetry.”
He looked back at Ren then, just briefly, his expression thoughtful. “The concept is good. Amphibious, adaptable, built for both pressure and stillness. Kind of brilliant, honestly.” A pause, then a slight tilt of his head. “And the Romulan-Vulcan thing… that explains a lot, actually.” There was no judgment in the words—just curiosity, softened by respect. “You were trying to build contradiction into something coherent. That’s not easy.” Another beat, and a faint smile. “But it’s working.”
As if summoned by the moment, the Speaker returned—robes whispering against the stone floor, hands now cupped around a shallow bowl made of something translucent and fibrous, like pressed coral. He stopped just beside their table, serene and unreadable, and offered the vessel forward. Inside was a swirl of violet and pale blue sand, separated into spiraled bands that pulsed faintly with light. “We ask each guest,” the Speaker intoned, “to alter the pattern before the meal is finished. A single fingertip. One motion. One change. It is how we share memory.” He didn’t explain further, didn’t clarify what it meant to participate—or to refuse. He simply held the bowl out between them and waited, the silence around him deep and reverent, as if the ritual had already begun the moment he spoke.
Mateo didn’t move. Not because he was unwilling, but because something in him understood that this wasn’t his moment to lead. His eyes flicked to Ren—subtle, steady, waiting—and after a breath, he offered, under his breath, “Go on.” Not a push. A thread. An invitation. It carried a note of quiet faith, the kind he rarely voiced aloud. He was still watching the bowl, but the set of his shoulders had softened, and his left hand hovered just slightly above the table, poised but at rest—ready, when the time came, to follow.
Ren had taken another sip of his drink as the Speaker approached. It was definitely something that took getting used to. At least for him, but he was able to keep his expression neutral without forcing it.
His eyes cut between the Speaker and Mateo
He wasn't sure if he should make a subtle or a bold change. Which would be considered proper, which would be considered improper. He hesitated for a long moment. So long that the Speaker's eyes shifted color from slate grey to charcoal grey, and he started to step away.
Ren stopped him with his right hand on the Speaker's green arm. He reached into the bowl, then, with his left and, what was true to himself. A bold move.
He traced his finger down the center of the bowl from top to bottom. The sand shifted, a new color appearing where Ren's finger had been. An iridescent indigo
Mateo hadn’t expected Ren to touch the Speaker. The moment the Andorian’s hand settled against the sage-green skin, a flicker of tension moved across Mateo’s shoulders—quick, contained, like static discharging under his collar. But then he saw what followed. The line drawn—not tentative, not apologetic, but deliberate. Indigo bloomed in the wake of Ren’s fingertip like ink in water, bright and iridescent, too alive to be random. Mateo’s gaze lingered on it longer than he meant to, tracing the path in his mind, replaying it. Bold, yes. But not reckless. There was something reverent in the motion. Something honest.
He didn’t move immediately when the bowl turned toward him. His left hand hovered briefly above the rim, fingers steady but slow, as if the wrong touch might unravel the entire spiral. He didn’t want to copy Ren, but he didn’t want to disrupt the pattern either. That was the challenge—participating without echoing. After a moment, he extended just one fingertip and pressed it lightly into the sand—not through it, not dragging—but drawing a curved line that intersected the outer spiral, like a satellite cutting across orbit. As he lifted his finger, a faint shimmer followed: a soft green-gold, almost translucent, like sunlight caught inside a leaf. Not loud. Not central. But still present.
Mateo let his hand fall back to the table and glanced at Ren, just long enough to make it clear the gesture hadn’t been casual. “Yours changed direction,” he said quietly, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Mine... changed tempo.” Then he looked back at the bowl and added, almost to himself, "I think I like that.”
Ren's eyes drifted from Mateo to the bowl and back to Mateo. His antennae, for once, were perfectly still. "I like that too. I think we have unique styles and attitudes. Unique and at the same time compatible."
"What do you think?"
Mateo didn’t answer right away. His gaze stayed on the bowl, on the subtle shimmer still settling where his fingertip had passed. The line he’d drawn was already softening, blending into the spiral’s flow as if it had always been part of it. It reminded him of watercolor—how pigment behaved on wet paper. How permanence could still feel fluid. “We’re different,” he said finally, his voice low, almost cautious. “But we don’t clash. That’s rare.” He wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or a warning. Maybe both.
He glanced sideways at Ren, just for a moment, then away again. “I think I’d ruin this if I thought about it too hard,” he added, and there was a wry note to the words, but underneath it something real—earnest, even. “So… I’m trying not to.” He rubbed his clean hand slowly against the side of his thumb, grounding himself again without drawing attention. “Compatible’s not a bad word.”
But that word—compatible—looped back in his mind like a song he didn’t know the lyrics to. Mateo’s brow furrowed faintly, and after a short pause, he glanced back at Ren. “When you say that…” His voice was soft but steady. “What do you mean?” There was no suspicion in the question, no defensiveness. Just a genuine desire not to fill in blanks with the wrong answer. His thumb pressed once the side of his middle finger, a grounding tic he barely noticed. He didn’t want to guess wrong. And more than that, he didn’t want to risk offering the wrong thing back.
Ren's answer was almost immediate, but it wasn't hurried. "I believe in a power higher than myself. I don't know who or what that is, or even if it's a who or a what. I am still searching. Exploring."
"But there is a Terran philosophy called Taoism. Adherents of that faith have a concept called yin and yang."
It emphasizes the interconnectedness and complementary nature of opposing forces. The concept suggests the universe consists of duality, where opposing forces like darkness and light, femininity and masculinity, passivity and activity can exist in harmony. It can connect people who wouldn't necessarily come together. Be that friendship, or something more."
"Not that I'm suggesting anything more."
“I’ve read about it,” Mateo said after a beat, his voice quieter now, more considered. “Not in depth. Just… in passing.” He glanced down at the now-settled bowl of sand, where the bold indigo and soft green-gold still glowed against one another. “I think I like that it doesn’t ask you to be the same. Just to… fit, without forcing it.” He said it slowly, like he was still testing the words against his own understanding. The idea made sense intellectually—he could grasp the structure. But emotionally? He wasn’t sure where to put it. Where to put himself.
He looked away, just briefly, and his fingers found each other beneath the table, thumbs pressing rhythmically against the side of his index knuckle. A tic. A grounding habit. Something predictable. “I’ve never really thought of myself as someone people would be… compatible with,” he admitted, eyes still lowered. “I don’t mean that in a tragic way, just—real. I’ve always felt like a... different frequency. Even when I’m trying to tune in, I end up misreading the signal.” There was no bitterness in the words—just an awkward sort of honesty, the kind that lived quietly in the corners of who he was. It wasn’t a performance. It was a truth he didn’t often say aloud.
His gaze drifted back toward the bowl, then to Ren—measured, careful, but open. “So when you say something like that,” he said, voice low, steady but vulnerable, “I want to understand it the way you mean it. Not the way my brain tries to explain it away.” That was the closest he could come to an answer. Not a conclusion. Just a choice to stay with the moment, even if he didn’t have a map for where it might lead.
Ren nodded slowly. He turned to fully face his companion, momentarily forgetting the program running around them. "Your words have weight," he said, "and they have a subtlety just like what you drew in the sand there. And they serve to reinforce my thesis. That we are different but alike."
"I have always felt a need to be connected, to be compatible."
"When we were at the Academy, Jarin and I experimented. It was his idea, I just went along with it. We started seeing other people. No matter how many guys I slept with, and frankly, there weren't that many, no matter how great the sex was, there was no romance, no emotional connection. So it was all empty."
"I only mention that to say it is another way we are different, but not different. If that makes any sense."
Mateo didn’t look at Ren right away. His gaze drifted down again to the lines in the bowl, still faintly glowing—Ren’s bold indigo slash and his own gentle curve intersecting like two opposing currents. His chest felt tight, not in a painful way, but in that too-much-input kind of way. Like a circuit board taking on more voltage than it was designed for. He hadn’t expected Ren to say any of that—not the vulnerability, not the weight of it, and certainly not the casual reference to sex, which lit up something raw and red in the back of his mind. Not embarrassment, exactly. Just exposure. Heat bloomed low in his cheeks before he could stop it, and his body went still in that precise way that meant he didn’t trust his expression to behave.
He nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly. “Thank you for telling me,” he said at last, his voice low and even—measured not to control emotion, but to keep from spilling. “I don’t… really have anything to compare it to.” He risked a glance up, then looked quickly away again, uncertain where to let his eyes land. “I’ve never—” He paused, brow twitching in concentration. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever even been in something I’d call a relationship. Nothing with depth. Nothing that stuck.” His fingers found the rim of his cup again, tracing it slowly, rhythmically. “So, it’s not that I’m hiding anything. There’s just... not anything there yet. I think that’s part of why I get confused.”
He exhaled through his nose, not quite a sigh, but close. “So I’m listening,” he added after a pause, still not meeting Ren’s eyes, but letting the words be whole. “Even if I don’t always know what to say back.” That, more than anything else, was the truth. A kind of offering in return—less polished, maybe, but just as honest.
[OFF - To be continued in Part 3]
Lieutenant JG Riaothren ch'Shaorhs
Assistant Chief Operations Officer
USS Fenrir
&
Crewman Mateo Gardel
Medical Science Specialist
USS Fenrir
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