Work Text:
Beginning of fall term:
Darem and Tarima stood next to each other on the turbolift as a handful of other cadets disembarked. They waited, just the two of them, not acknowledging each other.
Then the turbolift lurched to a halt. The lights flickered. Tarima moved over to the control panel and hit the emergency button. It pinged an acknowledgement, and the display flashed a notification that engineering was aware of the issue. She sat down across from Darem.
“I guess someone will help us eventually.” She offered it quietly, resigned to waiting.
“Yeah.” He responded quietly. He hesitated a long moment. “You’re Ocam’s sister, right?”
“Yeah.” She sighed to herself. She was always Ocam’s sister, even here when they weren’t even going to the same schools. Ocam always knew everyone somehow. "I'm Tarima."
“He’s my roommate. I'm Darem."
“I thought Caleb Mir was his roommate.”
“Caleb’s our other roommate.”
“Oh.”
“Caleb gave you your tour of the Academy?”
“Yeah.”
“No wonder you joined the War College.” This startled a laugh out of her.
“Not really, but he is… a lot. Why did you pick the Academy instead of the War College?”
“The War College doesn’t accept students from non-member worlds.”
“Huh.”
“And they don’t let you specialize until third year. I want to be on command track now.” Tarima rolls her eyes slightly. They sit in silence for a while. “Calica tryouts are next week. I’m definitely going to be team captain.”
“I definitely won’t be captain, but I am excited to start playing calica again.”
“You think you’ll make the War College team?”
“Definitely. I’m rated number two in the War College marksmanship rankings.”
“Calica isn’t just shooting.”
“But being a good shot helps.” He shrugs and smiles slightly. “Ocam’s going to be disappointed if he doesn’t make the Academy team. He loves being on a team.”
“He’s joined six different clubs since he got here. I don’t know if he’ll even have time.”
“He’ll make it work. He loves to keep busy.” Darem laughs at that.
“I’d love to be busy right now. Wonder how long we’ll be sitting here?”
“Who knows? If we’re going to be stuck here, might as well do something.” Tarima reached into her backpack and pulled out a hexagonal board.
“You just carry around a kadis-kot board?”
“I was supposed to play against Dzolo this afternoon.”
“Well, let’s play.”
***
One week before the Miyazaki incident:
Darem and Tarima stood next to each other on the turbolift as a handful of cadets disembarked. They waited, just the two of them, not acknowledging each other.
Then the turbolift lurched to a halt. The lights flickered.
“You’re kidding.” Tarima muttered.
“Again?” Darem asked as he went over to the control panel to hit the emergency button. Acknowledgement. Engineering was aware. He looked over at Tarima. “You don’t have your kadis-kot board, do you?”
“Not today.”
“Too bad. A rematch could have been fun.”
“We killed three hours playing kadis-kot, and you kept trying to cheat. I don’t know if I would play with you again anyway.”
“I was not cheating. Those were legitimate moves.”
“They were bullshit moves, and you kept claiming they were legitimate according to Khionian rules.”
“It’s not my fault the Athena’s database doesn’t have the Khionian rules.”
“Well, I don’t have my board with me anyway.”
“Yeah. You said.”
“Where were you headed?”
“Lab session in Stellar Cartography. What about you?”
“Battlefield Readiness on the holodeck.”
They sit in silence for a long moment.
“Can we address that I walked in on you and Caleb yesterday or are you going to be weird about it?”
“I don’t feel weird about it. Plenty of people have seen my tits.” Darem laughed at that, relaxing slightly. “At least it wasn’t Ocam.”
“Because Caleb warned Ocam and didn’t bother to warn me.”
“Seriously?”
“I laid out a set of comm protocols for us at the start of the semester, and he never bothers to use any of them. I know he knows them, because he uses them with Ocam. He is the most infuriating human I’ve ever met.” Tarima laughsed
“You know he’s doing it on purpose to annoy you, right?”
“Of course he is!” Tarima kept laughing. “And you think it’s funny! Because you are under his charms!”
“I am not under his charms.”
“Lies. Your tits were out and directly in his face. That’s under-his-charms behavior.”
“Solid point, Reymi. I may be a little charmed by him.” Darem made a disgusted noise. “Anyone charming you these days?”
“No.”
“Really? Because I heard you were very flustered about Djokovic taking a certain Klingon on a date the other night.”
“I was not flustered. I find Kyle very irritating. Jay-den can do much better.”
“Right.”
“Stop being empathic at me this instant.”
“I kind of can’t.”
“Then I’m just going to think about what your tits looked like until you get out of my head.” Tarima laughed again.
“You’re picturing Caleb’s tits!”
“Nope, yours were definitely the bigger ones from where I was standing.”
“Stop!”
“Do you surrender?”
“Yes! Just stop picturing my head on Caleb’s body!”
***
End of spring term:
Darem and Tarima stood next to each other on the turbolift as a handful of other cadets disembarked. As they realized they were alone on the turbolift, both of them went wide-eyed and rushed for the door. It had already sealed.
Then the turbolift lurched to a halt. The lights flickered. Darem banged on the turbolift door, shouting a long drawn out frustrated noise.
Tarima pushed the emergency button and sat on the floor, not bothering to look at the screen readout. She pulled her kadis-lot board out of her bag.
“Darem, the door isn’t going to open just because you shout at it. Come over here and play.”
“Why do you have that?” He sat down across from her as she set up the game.
“After last time, I always have it, just in case.”
“Tactically sound choice. I downloaded a copy of the Khionian rules to my PADD. I’ll share them with you.”
“We’re playing standard rules, not your made up variation.”
“It’s not made up.”
“Standard rules.”
“Fine. Standard rules.” They began the game. “Do you want to talk about why you’re being weird with Caleb?”
“Nope. Do you want to talk about why you’re being weird with Jay-den?”
“Definitely not. Do you want to talk about why Ocam is being weird with SAM since she got back?”
“Of course I do.”
“Good. He desperately needs our help.”
“Agreed.”