STF

Three Isn't A Crowd If You Don't Want It To Be

Posted Dec. 11, 2022, 12:32 a.m. by Major General Charles Tenkiller (Vice-Commander, Colonial Customs and Defense Agency) (James Sinclair)

Posted by Lieutenant Sharah Fayth (Chief Star Fleet Medical Officer) in Three Isn’t A Crowd If You Don’t Want It To Be

Posted by Civilian Yavia Crockett (Nurse - Sacred Heart Hospital) in Three Isn’t A Crowd If You Don’t Want It To Be

Posted by Major General Charles Tenkiller (Vice-Commander, Colonial Customs and Defense Agency) in Three Isn’t A Crowd If You Don’t Want It To Be
Posted by… suppressed (21) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Sharah laughed, “Exactly like that.” It was weird though how his words were exact to her thoughts…Coincidence, with her levels so low there was no way Sharah had accidently given him the information. It would be at least 7 hours before her levels returned to…well her normal. She grinned at Yavia, “Oh…more of his ma’s food!”

“Gotta keep you ladies happy to keep ya here. No better way than my Ma’s cookin’.” he said with a smile as began cutting circles out of the dough and setting them on a tray lined with paper.

Sharah turned to look over at him in the kitchen, “We are happy. Because you are simply you.” She watched him with the dough fascinated. Sharah had very little experience cooking. When she was young her mother had felt it was too dangerous, too many hot and sharp objects. Then when she was on her own she was in Star Fleet and replicators are amazing pieces of technology. So it wasn’t until recently that she actually started attempting to cook.

Yavia looked over at the counter where TK was kneading away at something. Everything they had had yesterday was amazing. She’d enjoyed it all. Especially the paw-paws. Yavia looked at Sharah and whispered, “Do you think it involves paw-paws? Those were really good.”

“You have an addiction, I think.” Tenkiller said with a quick grin over his shoulder.

Sharah laughed, “I have no idea, but maybe, just maybe if you ask nicely he’ll give what’s left.” She turned in her seat and looked at him, wickedness all over her face and turned back to Yavia. “Actually, I know for a fact he’ll give them to you. Something about since it’s our first day here, we are technically still his guests so he has to provide whatever we ask for.”

Sharah

Yavia sat up and looked at Sharah who winked at her. “Oh…oh! That has possibilities.”

Yavia

He stopped what he was doing and slowly turned around. He pointed at them with a wooden spoon and shook it like his mom had so many times at him. “Now you just listen right here… I’m cookin’ breakfast. And unless ya’ll both want your biscuits browned, I suggest you leave the horseplay outta the kitchen.” and he grinned at them and went back to cooking. The air was already filled with the smell of what Tenkiller referred to as ‘down-home cooking.

Tenkiller

Sharah looked between Charles with that heart stopping grin and Yavia with that mischievous twinkle that made your heart race and wondered for the 100th time in less than 24 hours what she had gotten herself into. Whatever it was, was wonderful. She watched as Yavia got up as if accepting his challenge. Sharah grabbed her by the hand and dragged her into the den. “Leave him be. I want breakfast.” The food smelled amazing and her stomach growled loudly.

Sharah

Yavia grinned, if Sharah was hungry she could put off teasing TK for a bit. She followed her into the den and closed the door. Sharah was collecting plates and glasses from the night before and placing them on trays. Yavia walked over and tugged on her hand and pulled her in really close. “You are amazing. And we’re going to keep telling you until you know it like we do and we’ll keep telling you so you don’t forget.” She played with one of Sharah’s curls and bent closer, resting her forehead against hers, her sapphire eyes holding Sharah’s obsidian one. “We’re going to help you figure this out, learn to not have to be afraid. I promise. And when it’s too much and you’re afraid, we’ll be right here.” And before Sharah could look any more on unstable ground she kissed her. Brushing her lips across hers, tender and loving.

Then she let her go and grinned. “Let’s see if we can get him to come in here.” She called toward the door. “Sharah! Don’t you dare! You throw that pillow at me, you’re in trouble!” She followed that by laughter and she picked up a pillow and tossed it hard so it hit the door with a thud.

Whatever other antics Yavia was causing made Sharah shriek and then begin to laugh.

Yavia

There was a pause before there was any response. Then Tenkiller’s voice came from the kitchen. “Alright, listen. The stereotype is women having a pillow fight in lingerie. I’m gonna have to insist that if y’all are gonna play to every cheap, sappy, romantic holonovel in existence… you at least try for a shred of authenticity!” and there was a loud laugh. “And besides that…”

“Pajamas are lingerie!” Yavia called back with a laugh. “Maybe not lingerie you like, but it is!”

The door opened and Tenkuller stood in the doorway wiping his hands and grinning. “Breakfast is served, my loves. Now come and get it.” He jerked his head to the dining room and beckoned them to follow.

Tenkiller

Whatever was going on was not a pillow fight. Sharah was on the far side of the couch watching Yavia with focused playful apprehension. Yavia was standing arms crossed looking like Sharah might be prey. The door opened and when Yavia turned to look Sharah darted across the room and when she was safely behind Tenkiller, as if he would stop Yavia from doing whatever it was she was trying to do, she stopped and looked back at Yavia. “It was not my idea. It was his! His house, his rules, his idea.” She then made a beeline for the table and sat looking like she was totally innocent of whatever it was.

Sharah

Yavia turned, letting Sharah run out of the room. Her look was delightfully determined. “Oh no. It might have been his idea, his house, his studio, but you went along with it. And you were SO convincingly worried he would be mad at you so I would come help you. I told you I was going to get you back. And you my sweet are extremely ticklish.” She laughed as Sharah scuttled away to the dining room. She stopped next to TK and looked up with a grin and shrug. “It kept her distracted.”

She followed him into the dinning room and sat across from Sharah as if nothing at all had happened, until she winked at Sharah, making the other woman laugh.

Yavia

On the table was a feast. Soft poached eggs with bit of grated lemon zest on top (done so the white was firm and the yolk still a bit runny), biscuits and gravy, French toast, bacon, hashbrowns, and sourdough toast with butter and apple butter. Water, milk, and of course paw-paw juice were in small pitchers. The table was round, so no one was at ‘the head’. As they all sat down, Tenkiller looked at V and Sharah and reached out for their hands.

It smelled indulgent, and it smelled even better. Yavia sat there wondering where to start. The eggs of course because he had asked about that. V set her hand in his, and reached across the table for Sharah’s other hand. She closed her eyes with a deep breath that soaked them in and held them close.

Her eyes widened at all the food. They would be too full to do anything other than sleep after all that. She grinned remembering the day before (yep only the day before…that was weird), “There are not 20 of us here. How are we going to eat all of that?” Sharah let them both hold her hands, connecting them all together. It all felt too much, but if it wasn’t, Sharah didn’t think it would be right or whole.

“This isn’t my house anymore. Its ours. And you are free to make your spaces your own. I don’t know how or why or what happened to bring us to this… but I sure as hell ain’t gonna fight it. I meant what I said on the stairs. And once we’re all in the head space to not twitch…” and he chuckled, “… I plan on sayin’ it a lot. And showin’ ya both every day how much you mean to me.” He squeezed their hands and then let go. “V, you go easy on the juice. That’s all we got.”

Tenkiller

Sharah was trying not to twitch too much, but couldn’t help it. It was so encompassing and fast and intense, and so very very unexpected and sudden. She wanted it, all of it. But she was second guessing herself and their safety and her lack of control. Guilt and a lifetime of negative mantras from her own people hounded her.

Charles could tell she was starting to go down old paths. He squeezed her hand and said “Hey… new home, new relationships… new life. You are allowed to be happy here. And you can be you… all of you. Because all of you is what we want. We don’t hide ourselves from each other, okay?

She smiled, but it didn’t completely reach her eyes, and she squeezed his hand back, “Okay.” She was trying, and it was a struggle. Korczak had told her it would be hard and she would remind herself a lot. That’s why she was supposed to repeat that mantra to herself every time she remembered to do it. That was also why she had an alarm set because it was very very easy to forget to do it.

Happiness and Love - fresh, new, exciting, but deep and steady - raced up his arm from where their hands were clasped. Yavia was more careful for Sharah, happiness and a deep welcoming affection. Sharah still looked confused and overwhelmed. Yavia just wanted to hug her, and then kiss her senseless until everything was better. Yavia let go of their hands and winked at him as she filled a small glass with the juice. “I will be very sparing with it.” She began to fill her plate. She was going to try all of it. Eating proved to be slightly problematic with a sore cheek that ached everything food or her tongue hit it.

Sharah started with the eggs and they were amazing and she hummed happy delicious sounds as she ate. She saw Yavia wince once, then again very soon after. She got up from the table and disappeared down the stairs. She returned, placed a gentle hand under the woman’s chin and held the hand scanner to her cheek. Glancing at the tricorder she gasped, “Yavia!”

Tenkiller leaned and glanced at the display. He wasn’t a medical professional, but he wasn’t a bad medic in a pinch. He looked at V and made a face “Damn! Hun! Say something next time, will ya?”

“I was a bit distracted taking care of the two of you. I’m fine, but if you insist just kiss it and make it better.” Yavia stared up at Sharah, her arm wrapped around her waist while she did her thing. It was a small thing and would heal on its own, but she understood that this was Sharah’s way of caring for them.

Yavia

“You forget to take care of yourself. That’s why you stopped doing personal care. You were over extending yourself.” Sharah wasn’t mad or berating her, but concerned. She knew in a very personal way why Yavia did what she did, and how it could eat away at them. The personal risk that was taken because of that driving need to care for others. It was a line easy to stay away from, until it wasn’t.

“You are not fine you have a nickel sized hole in your cheek! When did you....” Sharah didn’t need to be told, it was easy enough to know when Yavia had done that. “Hold still, and if you’re good, then I’ll kiss it.” Sharah was completely unaware of how that sounded as she worked with the small dermal regenerator. When she was done, “There,” she did in fact kiss Yavia’s cheek before sitting down again.

She tried everything, but very quickly found something she liked - Apple Butter on toast or the biscuits. She wasn’t sure which she liked more, but it was divine. She was trying very hard, and failing, to not look like Yavia with the paw-paws.

Sharah

Charles smiled at her and said “Now unlike the paw-paws that I guess I’m gonna have to have shipped in by freight carriers from now on to keep V happy-” and he looked at V and smiled before turning back to Sharah, “- that you can eat all you want of. I make it. My Dad’s recipie. He got it from my Grandm-” and suddenly he froze. That voice… that was MawMaw Tenkiller… he thought to himself. Visions of him as a boy and older woman walking through the woods, looking at plants and animal tracks and birds spilled into his mind. The thoughts were strong and incredibly powerful, Tears filled his eyes and held his napkin up and tried to dry them but they kept coming… a combination of a long homesickness and relief that Sharah and V were here with him. “The circle… those images… holy s#!t… and he looked at Sharah with a kind of awe. “Is that what it is you see? Those images like that?”

Tenkiller

Yavia felt it all…it was really strong and really incredible. So much so it brought tears to Yavia’s eyes. She was beside him in an instant, arms wrapped around him, and just held him. Comfort and belonging and Love flowed over him as she hugged him. She wrapped Sharah in the embrace when she joined them half a second later.

Sharah felt a strong tug around her heart, but she couldn’t have identified the emotion or the thoughts that caused it. She hugged him tightly, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment. Then she took the napkin, but instead of wiping his face she simply kissed the tears away. She looked at Yavia helplessly. She didn’t know what he was seeing or feeling or why. She cupped his face with her hand, staring at him and then shook her head. “I…I don’t know. I can’t feel or hear anything. I can’t see what you are seeing.” It would be hours before Sharah would get any input again.

Was that how Sharah saw it? Yavia tried to get a sense of Sharah’s perspective from all those moments of connection, and then coupled with what she was feeling from TK. She nodded slowly. “I think so, but it is certainly something you two should share later.”

Yavia

Sharah tipped her head to the side. “Wait…I think…wait…” she hurried back down the stairs. When she returned she went into the living room, sat down in the middle of the floor. She placed two rows of colored pencils (warm and cool) on either side of her, flipped open a sketch book and began to draw. Soon papers were laid out on the floor in front of her. They were rough and shades of grey. Unlike the mess in her apartment, these were laid out neat and had an order, but only to her.

The first sketches appeared quickly. She just needed to get them out of her head. Then they became more detailed but not quite finished. Then the work slowed, detail, emotion, color, filled the page. A monster of epic proportions, dark and stormy, clawed hands, waves and wind and storms raged around it, because of it, it dragged her under and reached for images of Yavia and TK.

And image of fear, Sharah’s face being pulled down under the water and away, and an arm holding on and slowly being dragged under with her. Fear and fierce determination.

A circle of hundreds of faces, many that TK would easily recognize, but Sharah had no idea who they were. Another sheet of random images that flashed through the storm ragging outside the circle.

Another from her point of view. Her arms and hands could be seen in the image and their arms, his chest, Yavia’s shoulder. She was held between them, hiding from the rage that flashed around them.

The same image but looking up this time, but the faces around the subject were TK and Sharah. Yavia was watching the monster rage and thrash against some barrier it couldn’t by pass. There was a glimpse of a hand on his shoulder, older, weathered, feminine.

A face, a woman’s face. Older, wiser, with a loving expression, and confidence. Her face was in fine detail and full color. She would be slightly younger than the last time TK had seen her.

She pulled the last sketch from the book and put it down. There were two stacks that she picked up, early, rushed and incomplete. She put them together and tucked them into the back of the book to examine later and either complete or destroy. These were images from other people, from strangers. The others she left on the floor and looked up at them. “This is what I see.”

Sharah

Charles took the pages and looked at them. He nodded as he did “Thats what I saw. What was pulling me…” and his eyes locked on the faces and he smiled. “These are my people, Sharah. My ancestors and my tribe. That-” and he pointed at a face, “- is my cousin. She died in that strep outbreak that took my brothers and sister…” and he pointed to three other faces that were quite pointedly looking straight off the page. “Thats them. Becca. Johnny. Harold, but we called him Harry and he hated it.” He pointed at another, and another. “Wilma Tall Grass. She was a Chief over two hundred years ago. David Red Corn, my mom’s great-grandfather.” He looked at her and smiled. “See? You aren’t alone in this, Sharah. You have more help than you know.” and he looked at both women and leaned back and grinned.

Sharah wasn’t sure how true that was. These were his images. She saw them through his mind. Or…it was hard to tell. Sharah had never had trouble knowing what was her own though and what was others. Emotions got all jumbled and confused but thoughts were always separate. Sharah wasn’t an expert in spirituality and souls. These were all clearly people who had passed on and she had never, as far as she was aware, heard the thoughts of the dead. That made her shiver.

“And I guess they are fans of this little arrangement, too.”

Tenkiller

Sharah did like that though, the idea of being accepted by more than just them. That they were welcomed into a larger whole. But it was very hard to accept. “They were chanting something. I couldn’t really understand it. More like feeling the base speakers at a concert from outside the building.”

Yavia sat down beside him and looked at the drawings. She remembered the demon? monster? thing. It gave her cold chills. She remembered the circle and TK holding onto both of them, and the noise. The one of her trying to hold onto Sharah as she was pulled under was hard to look at. Sharah’s face was so resigned to letting it take her. The picture showed her hand wrapped around Sharah’s wrist. Sharah’s hand was curved around her own but not touching. As if she was reaching to hold on. The picture reminded her that there had been a very brief moment where she had felt Sharah let go, intending to give up to that thing if it would leave her and TK alone. It made her feel sick.

The one of the storm outside the circle was stunning. All those faces, all that…it was stunning how Sharah managed to capture the emotion…love, strength, wholeness, shelter. And then the chaos outside of it. She could hear the noise again.

She looked up at his face, hearing and feeling the happiness over the image and she hugged him. She pointed to the book, “What are the others you put away?”

Yavia

“These,” Sharah pointed to the ones Charles had, “are images I got from both of you. Mostly, it was much harder to seperate them. Some I saw through you and some I say for myself. They are all intertwined and the same experience its hard to say that only either of you or me saw it. But I know they came from one of us. These,” she tapped the book, “came from other people. Part of the noise and the storm. There millions more, but these stood out.” She shrugged a bit. “I will look at them later and if I can release the image I will destroy the sketch. If I can’t, I will work on it some more.”

She pulled out the single image of the older woman from the set. She shared many features with the images of his tribe, so Sharah was certain she was connected with Tenkiller but she didn’t recognize her and she was quite prominent even among the circle. “Who is she?”

Sharah

Charles pulled Sharah close to him, then V. “That is Mildred Tenkiller, my Granny. I heard her voice just after the thing. And I felt her in the circle. I think… I think she is watching out for us. She wants us to be happy.” and he smiled and looked at the two women. “She was always a bit on the unconventional side.” and he chuckled.

Tenkiller

Sharah tucked her feet under her and cuddled into him. She tapped the pictures. “Keep them.” They wouldn’t know, but that was huge for Sharah. She discussed her sketches in therapy, but that wasn’t the same as giving them to someone. And so rarely did she have any that were just hers that she felt she could hold onto. These seemed to bring him joy, the way he recognized and named each one. She truly wanted him to keep them.

“I love unconventional! She’d fit right in, or…we fit right in?” Yavia chuckled softly and stared at the picture, “She looks mischievous. Like she knows something we don’t.” She leaned back into the space between his side and his arm. She pressed a soft kiss to the curve of his shoulder and rested her head there. After a moment she began to laugh. “She’s watching over you? Oh man is she getting a show,” and V laughed harder.

Yavia

He looked at her and scowled. “That’s my Granny you’re talking about there, Crockett.” and then he laughed. “Besides, I’m sure she has the good taste to not watch us all the time.” and he laughed harder.

Tenkiller

Her arm was stretched across him, holding Yavia’s other hand, wrapping him in a hug. Sharah shrugged, “If it helps her to watch over you and know you are happy, loved, and cared for, it doesn’t bother me.”

Yavia lifted her head and looked at the top of Sharah’s head on TK’s opposite shoulder and then grinned at TK as if to ask if he heard what she had.

Sharah

Charles looked at V and grinned. “See, Sharah… we knew you were in love with us.” and he leaned in and kissed her; a deep, full, passionate kiss that left no room to misunderstand just how he felt about her… in any form or fashion.

Tenkiller

Sharah lifted her head to look at him, “What?” Then he was kissing her and she sat there stunned as his statement sank in. In love with them? Was she in love with them? Her mind raced through the evidence that yes she was deeply and thoroughly in love with both of them. Her response, with a soft moan, was slow but intense. Without her empathy, she poured all of herself into the moment. Deep, tender, passionate, and loving.

Sharah

Charles pulled back after a long moment and smiled. “You may not say right now, but I guarantee you don’t kiss people like that unless you you are at least smitten with them.” He looked at V and said “Whaddya think, hun? Think our dear Sharah is in deep smit?” and he laughed and grabbed a piece of bacon.

Tenkiller

Yavia’s eyes danced at a dazed and very smitten Sharah. “Oh she passed smitten weeks ago. You should have heard her. She couldn’t go 15 minutes without your name crossing her lips.” Yavia was suddenly silenced as a biscuit was shoved into her mouth to shut her up. She took a bite, chewed and then washed it down.

“It’s called venting,” Sharah’s face was flushed 5 shades of red. “He was disrupting the care of my patients with his annoying need to show off!”

“I believe your words were ‘annoyingly likable’ with a happy grin on your face. Oh and let’s not forget she walks into the ward every morning and the first words are, ‘Tenkiller here?’ and the answer is no and she’d go pout in an officer for an hour.”

Yavia

“That was not pouting. That was making good use of the quiet before he arrived and brought total chaos with him.” Yavia smirked and opened her mouth. Sharah decided if it worked for them, it could very well work for her. She leaned across Charles, tugging Yavia’s hand till she was only an inch from her, looked her dead in the eye, “Shut up, luv,” leaned in and kissed her. Quick, but full of meaning. Then she sat up, grabbed her toast, “Eat your breakfast, Yavia,” and took a bite.

Sharah

Charles blinked once… twice… and then started laughing. He then started chanting “One-of-us! One-of-us!” loudly. He took a deep breath and then looked at the two women. “So a kinda serious question that I guess we should address.” He took a drink and then asked “So how do we wanna handle this outside’a here? As in… what do we want to tell people? Or are we gonna try and hide it? I will say I ain’t a fan of that approach, but for professionalism purposes I’ll entertain the idea ina discussion.”

Tenkiller


Posts on Oed V

In topic

Posted since


© 1991-2024 STF. Terms of Service

Version 1.15.9