Posted by Captain Dante Knight (Commanding Officer) in Knight and Daye: Time to Play

Posted by Lieutenant Natasha Daye (Doctor) in Knight and Daye: Time to Play

Posted by Lieutenant Natasha Daye (Doctor) in Knight and Daye: Time to Play
Posted by… suppressed (3) by the Post Ghost! 👻

Snip

He pushed himself over slightly so that he was physically over her, but raised an eyebrow in question. “But you know the coffee will go stone cold and the bacon sandwiches are better hot, right? I didn’t get out of a warm, snuggly bed beside the woman I love to make coffee and bacon that will go to waste,” he reached out and picked up her cup, bringing it back so she could sit up on the pillows and drink, “so drink up, my little Russian cossack, we have a day full of being together to get started. I feel like going out and spending some time with you, lets go shopping, make the Saracen’s transporters struggle under the weight of things you don’t need.”

“I would rather struggle under the weight of a very determined and agile Italian but I can occupy myself with shoes until later,” she acquiesced taking a sip of her coffee. Dante was right. They could park the old Plymouth into the garage when they got back to the Saracen. Now was the time to get up and get some fresh air.

Looking over to the side table, he looked around for his comm-badge. “Maybe I should tell the ship we are going to be a few days late? Or they can get our things early and we can go on a yacht trip for a couple of days.” Then Dante paused and looked back over to Natasha and grinned. “You know I haven’t exactly been agile since the Academy, right?” He chuckled, “I stopped the yoga classes pretty quickly after I left the Academy, being able to become a human pretzel doesn’t exactly have many uses out in the field. These days it’s determination and deep heat.” Dante smirked and turned back to the side table, rummaging around. “Did you see where my comm-badge got to? I must have dropped it last night during calisthenics.” He rummaged around on the side table more, then leaned over the bed and began to check the floor.

“If we were at home I could tell you exactly where it is. The kitchen table, between the couch cushions, next to the replicator, on the sink in the bathroom, on the floor because you missed the nightstand on the way to the bathroom,” Natasha’s voice droned on as she listed just about every place it could be. “You know you are like a little kid with that thing once you get off duty. You just drop it and go when you are done with it.” She let out a soft laugh and brushed a piece of hair off her face. “You are steely determination and hell on wheels sitting on the bridge but at home…you are just the average schmoe I love,” she said with a sigh. After silently thanking God for this life she had wished for Natasha quickly changed topic.

Captain Knight, CO

“Ohh good Idea. We can also call Kalani and see how Bruce is doing and if that stupid cat dog thing of her is behaving. I know you like her and she probably is the most qualified to take care of him but I don’t trust Ralph,” Natasha grumbled.

“She isn’t taking care of Bruce,” Dante’s muffled voice came from nearly under the bed now, his rear end sticking up facing Natasha as he looked for the comm-badge. “He’s guarding my ship in case she manages to convince my damned Chief Engineer to knock out a couple of decks and build an artificial reef while I’m trying to knock up my Fiancee on vacation.” Dante’s head popped back up and he gave Natasha a devilish grin and wink, “Bruce has permission to take Ralph hostage, or eat him, if needed.” His head disappeared again as he returned to searching the floor for the comm-badge.

“You know that will just generate a phone call and they are still in the dreamy-eyed honeymoon stage; however, they are not at the I am going to do it to shut you up stage. Jarred’s loyalty is still with you…for now,” she gave him a wink. Men did do stupid things for the women they loved. The list of things that held the ‘speak of this under penalty of death’ was long. Over the past fifteen years, Dante Knight had done more stupid things to show his love for Natasha than she could remember. Every one though was because he loved her and her happiness was paramount to him at all times. Maybe that was why she had never pushed hard for the ring or title of Mrs. Dante Knight. She already held it with each silly gesture, heated words, and tender makeups.

Seeing Dante scatter about the contents of the dresser next to the bed slightly irritated Daye. Everything in its place a minute ago and now it was all messy and scattered. She would have to clean that later. “Here here,” she said loosening the band on her watch. “Use my Fernigar Flea,”Daye said pulling off the watch/communication device around her wrist.

This time Dante’s head popped up very quickly, and the grin had been replaced by a surprised grimace. ‘Where the hell did you get that?” He asked her while he let himself slide out of the bed onto the floor, then come to his knees and take the extremely expensive watch. “Did you mortgage my ship while we were on the starbase on refit?” He turned the watch over and flicked the screen on, then looked back to her and frowned. “Am I going to get a call from the Feringinar Universal Collection Kabal Services in the middle of a battle telling me that due to current possibility of damage to their property my insurance excess is going up? Wait, does this model have that thing where it can change your voice?”

“Yes,” she winked. “Renaldo Bartolini,” she said proudly. “I mean what other voice would I pick. If you can’t be there to fix things at least I have his voice saying “Amore mio cosa posso fare per te <My love what can I do for you>.”

He began to flick through the menus as he came to his feet, then picked up his coffee and made to sip it. He had it to his lips and was about to drink when he found the communications menu, and paused for a moment. He could feel the heat on his lip so lowered the cup and licked his lips slightly. “I might have to get the Erewhon communications people to patch me through to the Saracen, these aren’t programmed for Starfleet channels.”

“I had engineering program it to the Saracen so I don’t have to go around wearing that ugly comm badge. I can just use that and look pretty,” Daye admitting picking up a bacon sandwich and taking a bite. The taste of it was amazing. Dante had crisped the bacon to perfection. The bread was soft but the crust had a slightly chewy texture. Each bite melted in Daye’s mouth and she stared at the sandwiches on the plate. As if driven by a force she could not control, Daye wolfed down the first sandwich and spied Dante fiddling with her watch across the room. He wouldn’t mind if she ate his. Some days you were just hungrier than others and it was not like they were banned from room service after a single daily order. Picking up the first half of the second sandwich she chewed slowly trying to figure out what was happening with Dante and the call to the Saracen.

Dante shook the watch slightly, he was having trouble getting a signal of any kind. He spent a few minutes in silence as he flicked over various channels and settings, and then raised his coffee to drink and turned back to Daye. Once again he paused as his eyes landed on his wife to be looking pleased with herself, and the empty plate beside her. Lowering the cup from his lips again, he raised his eyebrow at her. “You ate my sandwich,” he said and put his cup on the side table and slid onto the bed beside her, dropping the watch so it landed between their pillows and letting his lips find hers softly. He could taste the bacon grease on her lips and he smiled gently, his lips brushing hers again as his hand slid over her belly. “Wow,” he said, pulling his head back and looking down at her naked form under the blankets, an amused smirk on his face. “How many sandwiches did you eat baby?”

======================
Control room

“What is it with these two and why is she wearing a Ferngar Flea,” one security agent said to the other. “That watch does everything. I heard the latest version has a site to site transport feature for a monthly cost.”

“Leave it to the Ferengi to come up with something everyone has but put it in a different package and sell it back to you at three times the cost. You think she has the transporter version,” the other security guard asked scratching the scruff on his cheek.

“I don’t know Vern but what I do know is that we can’t take that chance,” he snapped. “Call housekeeping so we can reset again. He made breakfast. At least they will eat the memory wipe drug instead of us having to hit them with another brain wipe scan.”

“Done,” the second guy said as he placed the call for the daily reset of Mr. and Mrs. Knight.

Lt. Natasha Daye medical

A sudden feeling of drowsiness came over Dante as he lay beside Nat and ran his fingers over her full belly, and he couldn’t understand why. He had only been awake half an hour he thought, he had woken, made breakfast and came back to bed. Why he was suddenly so sleepy made no sense to him but he grew worried when he looked at Nat and saw she was asleep, mouth open as if she had suddenly been knocked unconscious. “Nat!” he said urgently, and reached for the watch as he felt darkness overtaking him, pushing it under the pillow in his haste to reach it. Then, darkness.

------------------------------------ Some time later---------------------------------------

Dante awoke. It wasn’t the waking of a man coming slowly out of a deep sleep, but of a hunter who was coming awake at the sense of danger all around him. He didn’t move, and his eyes stayed closed. His senses worked overtime as all of them except his sight worked to pick out the danger before he moved. He knew deep inside him that something was wrong, he shouldn’t have fallen asleep like that so soon after waking. His could feel he was lying on a bed, on his back and the blankets were tucked around him neatly. That wasn’t right, Natasha and Dante’s bed always looked like a warzone every morning with sheets and pillows scattered as if a warp core had exploded, several times, the night before.

Natasha. His senses adjusted and he realized that she wasn’t with him, there was no presence in the bed next to him, no weight on the springs that told him his fiancee was beside him and Natasha wasn’t curled up pressing into him. She had a pathological need to be touching him when they slept next to each other, likely from their years apart where they could only be together via comm and every night that they could, they went to sleep with the comm line on, transferred to a PaDD lying on the pillow next to them. They had slept together even over the vast distances between them every chance they got, and Dante had often sat in the Captains chair on watch at night listening to Natasha’s breathing as she left her comm-line open to him so he could hear her and know she was safe, and she would know he was there when she woke. He knew when she did, her breathing would change, grow shallow and she would give her little, unladylike grunt and swallow before she would sigh, open her eyes and reach for her PaDD with Dante’s smiling face and ‘Good morning you’. Dante knew she wasn’t beside him, he couldn’t hear her breathing and the memory of her lying with her mouth slightly open came back to him.

His eyes opened and he rolled suddenly to his left, there was more of a breeze here, the air was different and he knew he was closer to that side of the bed before he even moved. Landing in a crouch he had taken the blankets with him, gripping them and ready to throw at anyone or anything that wasn’t Natasha. The room was empty, but the light coming through the window to the balcony showed it was early morning. He stood slowly, still watching and listening and his eyes started to take notice of the room. Dante was wearing his pyjamas, and he frowned at that. Dante and Nat always ended up naked when they slept together, and before he fell asleep, he had been wearing only his light silken robe, thrown on provide some modesty and protection from bacon fat.

His eyes moved to the side tables and his eyes took only a second to notice what was wrong. It was tidy, and his coffee cup was gone. The plates holding the sandwiches and Natasha’s cup was also gone. Dante dropped the blankets onto the bed and looked around the room for anything else out of place. The honeymoon suite of the skyscraper looked perfect, just like he remembered from when he arrived, but there was no Natasha. He walked silently to the balcony window and he made himself relax from his tense posture. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to find, but everything was screaming in his mind that something was very, very wrong with this place. Reaching forward, he took hold of the door handles, twisted, and pulled.

The balcony doors opened and bright morning light streamed inside along with the warm and welcoming heat of Erewhon, the sound of birds and the smell of the sea but Dante’s eyes narrowed as he stood in the doorway and looked out at the world from 35 stories high. He took the few short steps to the balcony and looked over, ran his hands over the railing as he stood in that spot and then looked down between his fingers. It was smooth and pristine just like it had been when he and Nat had arrived. The words of ‘Dante loves Tasia’ they had carved like children into the railing on their first night in a show of mid life defiance were gone. His eyes raised again and he breathed in deeply, then sighed. Erewhon had spores in the air native to this planet, and creatures breathing them in felt nothing except a deep and total relaxation and trust that everything was fine. He had noted it when they had landed. It was gone now and Dante had made up his mind.

A sound behind him made him turn around, and he walked back into the room as the doors to the bathroom closed behind Natasha, who had clearly been showering as she walked out and smiled at him, naked, and walking seductively in his direction with her telltale hip sway and half closed eyes that meant she was ready for breakfast while she stretched and held her hands behind her head invitingly.

“Hmm at least you are now awake so that we can have breakfast and see how we can make ourselves busy,” she said walking far slower than needed. She knew his eyes were on her and that is exactly what she wanted.

Dante smiled at her as he moved closer to her, the breeze following him and he noted Natasha’s skin dimpling from the coolness. It was colder than it had been in their room. He also noted that he hadn’t heard the shower running, although Natasha’s hair was clearly wet and he had been able to hear the shower on other occasions. That meant the walls were soundproofed now.

Dante paused before he reached her, and his eyes travelled over her body. Dante knew every inch of her, over their years together since the Academy he knew every bump, every blemish and every mark, and since she had come to live with him on the Saracen they had regained that intimate knowledge every night and every moment of their time together. “Pumpkin, you know I love you right,” Dante said to her as she reached him, and he raised one hand, tucking a stray hair behind her ear and looking into her eyes deeply, but he was frowning slightly in thought and wonder. He moved his hand to her belly and looked down. “How many of my bacon sandwiches did you eat last night?” He whispered to her, very quietly. “You look like you have put on a little weight on the belly, do you feel okey?”

“DId you just call me fat,” she said pushing off his chest some so that she could look into his eyes as he answered the question. In reality, Natasha never took offense to things like this. In fact, she found it rather funny when Dante was brutally honest. Mainly because his comments were meant to sound silly and sarcastic. The brutal honesty was that she could gain 100 pounds and wear granny panties and he would still look at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world. They had been through enough down and dirty moments that he had seen her at her worst. He also had explained long ago that if she asked a stupid question she would get a stupid answer. So the comments of do I look okay for the tenth time she asked were often met with ‘no but it’s not like I am going to trade you in.’

Dante’s eyes narrowed and he looked up again, pulled Nat into him and held her tight, kissing her head so that his lips were close to her ear. He talked quietly but firmly, his fingertips travelled over the soft skin of her shoulders and down her back, the touch being intimate and sensual but his next words were so quiet they made it clear it was all for show and he had other things on his mind.

“omethingsay isn’tyay ightray atnay. eway aren’tyay inyay erewhonyay anymoreyay. usttray emay. oday atwhay iyay aysay andyay etendpray everythingyay isyay inefay. ustjay usttray emay.”

Captain Knight, CO

“Um…ooh dokay oh okay,” she tried to match his pig latin but on the spot like this she could not pull it out correctly. Letting him hold her for a long series of seconds, Natasha’s curiosity began to get the better of her. Rising on her toes she pressed her lips to his ear and after kissing it softly she asked, “Are we role playing here or,” she let the blank for his answer drift into nothingness waiting for his reply.

Lt. Natasha Daye medical

“Later,” Dante said to her and gave her a soft but quick peck on the lips. “Lets get you dressed first, it’s a little chilly in here don’t you think?” Dante hoped those words would alert Nat to the fact he thought something was definitely wrong. When they were on holiday anywhere, her getting dressed and them doing that ‘Later’ were always the very last things on his mind, unless something important came up in the meantime.

“You are looking for me to get dressed,” she said crossing her arms over her chest. “Like put on clothes dressed. Like fabric that is only for me or silk sheets that we fight over and call it dressed,” she pulled the waistband of his pajamas so that his hips came closer to her. Dante was never one to be clumsy but his mind seemed to be elsewhere as he sorta took a stumbling step towards her. This should have struck her as odd but something else seemed far more out of place.

“I get it,” a mischevious grin covered her face as she then spoke. “Does the daye chase you or you chase the daye. I say let the daye chase you out of your pajamas,” Daye bit her lip. Her fingers began to fumble with the string holding them up. “I mean you could have not....tied them…so…tight,” she pulled at the string only seeming to make the knot get tighter instead of looser.

. “Well bugger I guess I am going to need to use my teeth to get that thing loose,” she waggled her eyebrows and wiggled his hips back and forth slightly as she tugged at the waistband. Bending her knees she started a slow shimmy towards the stubborn knotted string. She got half way down before rising up on her toes to kiss his lips. “You want to start the daye off with a bang,” she quoted the old saying Dante teased her with while in the academy followed by another. ” You know I am fast when I need to be so try to keep up,” she taunted him as she ran her hands down his body firmly. Even after all their year together, Natasha always had been attracted to him.

Without mentioning leaving, Dante began to collect a few items of clothing for her and made a show of making the bed, another thing that he, when on holiday, would almost never do as they seldom left it on days with odd numbers. Part of this was because he picked up and fluffed the pillows, as he did so realizing that Natasha’s watch from earlier was gone. He distinctly remembered pushing it under the pillow, and glancing back at Nat, she wasn’t wearing it, or anything except his ring and necklace for that matter.

“Dante,” Natasha yelled throwing up her hands in slight frustration. If they had been on the Saracen she would have checked him for a fever or at least a concussion. “I am right here,” she held up her hands just above her waist. Cupping her hands she tapped her chest. “Stop playing with that pillow!”

Sensing he was not getting her frustration, Natasha moved to sarcasm. “Oh oh oh we are playing charades,” she said motioning to him fluffing the pillow. “Let me guess you are pretending to play the accordion? You are wrestling a boa constrictor that should be my job” she added silently to herself. Then snapping her fingers rapidly she blurted out. “You are spending the day with you grandmothers and imagining to strangle them when they ask why we aren’t married for the eighty-ninth time.”

Turning and moving back to Nat with her clothes, he ran his hand gently over her little bulge in her belly and looked into her eyes. “Here my love, let’s get dressed, have coffee and talk about our day. Is there anything you want to do today?”

“Yes stay in bed. Bed Dante. You me under the covers waking up at noon only to grab a drink and a bag of chips. That is what I want to do today,” Daye threw her hands up. “We never get the chance to be lazy. Someone is always comm calling you so what I want to do today is nothing. No TV. No people. Just us hanging out and napping for the next twenty-four hours,” she was starting to get an annoyed tone to her voice.

With her clothes beside her, Dante began to get dressed himself. It wasn’t loose and holiday style clothing he had or had chosen for her though, it was darker colored and more securely fitting clothing, kind of like what he had worn when going out ‘on missions’ with Kelly way back on the Broadsword and Nat had had to patch both of them up afterwards from their escapades.

“Why are you wearing that,” she asked him glancing at what he had chosen to wear. “I have spent two weeks trying to get you into something other than boardshorts and t-shirts and now you want to look good?”

“Workout clothes,” she held up the pair of leggings and dark athletic t-shirt it was paired with. “Are you saying you would rather get your aerobic workout on the beach instead of inside here,” she gave him a dirty look. “I have seen how you keep staring at me. Are you calling me fat,” she asked staring him down. It was not like she ever cared about a pound or two over the years. Weight was put on but then it came off. This, however, was a little more than a couple deciding to work out more together. “It was also the second time he had commented or focused on her getting pudgy around the middle. “You know what. Don’t answer that,” she held up her hand ready to block any comment that was going to come out of his mouth.

“Ugh,” she groaned letting her feisty run to frustrated and ending in irritation as she grabbed the shirt he brought over and pulling it over her head and half down her body. “You know I tried for two weeks to get you to do anything and all you wanted to do was sit by the ocean and drink a beer in a hammock. Now,” she pulled on her pants, “you are all hurry up or we are missing the tour bus.” As Natasha pulled the pants up to her waist she noticed it was slightly snug. Most snug actually than normal. People tended to put on a pound or two while on vacation but this was a bit much.

Dante looked around the room with his eyes as he dressed, looking for anything out of the ordinary. By now, he was fairly sure the room was real, but the ‘balcony’ was a hologram. He couldn’t explain it fully, but there were too many things that were out of place. The bump on Natasha’s belly confused him as well, she hadn’t had it yesterday from what he knew, and Natasha hadn’t appeared to have noticed it either before now.

Captain Knight, CO

Moving to the full-length mirror, Nat looked herself over and spun around a few times. The south forty seemed to be in order but her midsection definitely looked like she had not seen a sit up in a few months. As her eyes drifted to her north forty they stopped immediately on one section. “Dante,” she said in a slow drawn out speech. “Do I look more.....round,” was all she could say. Her mind was fuzzy like she was waking from a hangover and trying to piece the bits together into a cohesive story. As she spun around Dante would not be able to miss that somehow in the middle of the night a certain fairy had visited that all men dreamt of after the age of sixteen and replaced the tooth fairy.

Lt. Natasha daye medical