LtCmdr Jovenan – Confusion and confession
Jovenan
((Chief Science Officer’s office, Deck 9, USS Artemis))
Silveira: Look, it's clear we mean a lot to one another. And it looks like we have a better time when we don't feel the pressure to express our feelings in words. Why don’t we just let things happen? Let’s just… Just feel…
Every world that fell from his lips was intoxicating. They carried a proposal and a promise of escape from the confines of anxiety and logic to a world where there were only the two of them, and she didn’t need to consider the consequences. His hand on her back was both gentle and strong, pushing her to lean closer to his kneeling body in front of her chair. Their faces were close, so close that she could feel his breath at every word he said. She could so easily place her hands on the sides of his head, feel the warm on his cheeks, run her fingers in his hair and pull him closer. She could take his words and mould the world to one where only the moment of their kiss mattered. Drunk of his voice and drowning in his blue eyes, she could have done that, she almost did that.
But.
She hesitated. She wanted to forget everything else, she could have, and it might have been easier for them if she did. The rational part of her was incapacitated and unresponsive, but the doubt persisted. It felt like she was making a mistake, running towards a bad choice that would hurt everyone involved and cause damage she didn’t know if she could mend. The guilt of violating a non-existent rule rushed like poison in her veins, paralysing her muscles despite the nerve impulses imploring them to bend and permit her to lean closer to him.
Jovenan: I… I want… but I don’t know what to feel…
A moron. That’s what she felt like. Her mind was taken over by fog that obscured the details, and only indecision reigned over the battlefield of emotions. His eyebrow arched.
Silveira: What do you mean?
She leaned away from him, pushing against the hand on her back. After a few seconds, he pulled it away and returned them to the armrest. A new conflict emerged within her, her mind moved at the pace of a snail, except for the thoughts of doubt warping ahead. A part of her was thankful the pressure in her back had vanished, freeing her from his hold and restoring the personal space erected for this unique instant, and yet, the other part mourned the loss of physical contact with him, of the sole anchor supporting her. She opened her mouth, even if the sentences nor the meanings behind them hadn’t yet formed in her brain.
Jovenan: Vitor, I don’t know… I… There were things I needed to say, that we needed to talk about. The things that we said to each other, about our feelings, and the stupid thing I said about being just a replacement to the other Jovenan. But every time we’ve met, I’ve been afraid we’d say those things again and that it would destroy our friendship.
There it was, she had said it. The Talk she had so much dreaded and that she had wished would never come, had come, by her own tongue and by the machinations of her own mind. Seeing the subtle signs of his first reaction through the tears that formed in her eyes despite her fighting them, she knew for certain she had made a mistake, the worst one than she would have done if she had given in to the moment as he had asked: she had hurt them both, now, and she couldn’t take it back.
Silveira: No… Nan please… You shouldn’t be afraid to say anything to me… Please… Sorry Nan but that won’t happen, our friendship is solid and… I am sorry Nan…
His pained, pleading words were a twist to her heart, not because of what he said, but because of what she had made him say. She could finally understand what their empath friends, as she felt his pain as her own. It had hit her deeper than the shrapnel that had hit her in the cave in the Rakantha Province, and she couldn’t see the cut where it had penetrated her skin. It was an arrow that couldn’t be pulled out, fired by herself. She wiped a tear off of her chin before the salty water would hit her so lonely lips.
Jovenan: Now I fear I’ve ruined it anyway, because I think I’ve started to love you.
There was another line she couldn’t take back. She was almost surprised with herself that she managed to say it. It had taken long for her to recognize what she had felt, to understand that it was love that she had felt for him. It was not the kind of love she had felt ever before, not the kind of love she had for her old family back in the God’s Claims, nor the kind for her job nor her other friends, not even the kind that the drunk students in the University had expressed for one another. She couldn’t think a better word for it than love. And it worried her.
Silveira: A what? Wait, what? Your… I mean I certainly am but…
He… He did? Vitor shook his head and raised his hands. Jovenan feared again that he might just walk away, and she didn’t know if she’d want that or hate that, but she couldn’t blame him if he did after what she had done to him.
Silveira: Sorry wait, forgive me but… I… Is that the problem? How? Nan I am pretty sure I am falling in love with you… I mean unless you don’t want to… I know this is confusing, I mean emotional chaos wreck is my middle name… Vitor Emotional Chaos Wreck Stone Silveira…
Even through her poorly suppressed crying, a hint of smile flashed at the corner of her mouth; he never failed at making her feel a bit better. The smile didn’t last for long nor was it wide or deep, maybe not even for him to notice, but it brought a temporary ceasefire to her mind. It was stability, not yet normalcy nor quite a state of catharsis, but an equilibrium of the conflicting emotions, pushing each other aside and blocking any of them to reach the surface.
He was still wrong, he was too strong and too firm to earn that description. She, on the other hand…
Jovenan: No, it isn’t. ::pause:: I… I just don’t know what to do, and I’m, uh, a little scared. You matter too much for me to make a mistake on you.
He closed his eyes and had a breath. She was no longer leaning in towards him, so she couldn’t feel the exhalation against her skin. Her still irrational thoughts cried of fear of forgetting what his eyes looked again. When he reopened them, she found her gaze studying the play of frills and fibres on the blue irises. She didn’t ever want to forget them.
Silveira: Nan… Doubts, fears, questions are normal with these emotions. It’s… It’s like we say… It’s only human… The thing here is that it's mutual… At least it looks like it to me. We have pretty much the same feelings for one another… And… That is good… Right?
She dropped her gaze to her lap. The confusion was unbearable, it devoured her from within, eating away the feelings and desires like nothing but pain had ever done. They had confessed their love for one another, yet she couldn’t even understand what it meant.
Jovenan: I think so. But, I just, I don’t know.
Silveira: OK so… The big question is… Why would it be a problem to fall in love? Is it me? Is it a cultural thing? Is it your first time? Because I don’t want anything better than to answer these questions with you. Which is my way of saying that I am also falling in love with you and I don’t see anything wrong with that. There’s never anything wrong with love.
Jovenan remained quiet, unaware of how long it had been since his last word had left him and before she opened her mouth. She felt distant with her own body and with the reality, like watching the scene play out from afar, on a holodeck or on a screen, trying to forward time or to rewind it so that she wouldn’t need to say anything. Even the weakest of sounds, the smell of the profiteroles and the fibres of her uniform were causing her senses to overload before she forced herself back to the moment.
Jovenan: I… I don’t… I’ve never felt just like this before, no, and I don’t know how to do any of this. When I was on my homeworld, I found out that while I felt, but I couldn’t love like the other Edo do, and the University was the same. I… I thought I couldn’t love anyone, that I could never reciprocate what they wanted. And, I thought this couldn’t be any different. I was afraid that it wouldn’t change, I wouldn’t, or that I would make a mistake, and you would come to hate me, and I would lose my friend.
Her legs tingled, like her bare legs had been covered with tight material with needles. She wanted to run, to shed away the awful feeling, to flee, but she didn’t know if her legs could carry her weight. She moved her hands away, sitting on them, so that he couldn’t see how much they were shaking.
Silveira: Response
Jovenan: You deserve someone else. Someone who can respond to your feelings and who doesn’t cry when they really want to do is kiss you. ::nervous laughter, raises eyes to him:: I just want you to be happy.
Silveira: Response
Quickly, she leaned in and flung her arms around him, planting her head against his shoulder. It was an awkward position considering how he was kneeling in front of the seat she was sitting on, but she didn’t care. There was no longer the passionate heartbeats nor the oppressive thoughts of doubt, just, well, I suppose, love.
Jovenan: Can I say it again? I love you, Vitor Emotional Chaos Wreck Stone Silveira.
Silveira: Response
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Lieutenant Commander Jovenan
Chief Science Officer
USS Artemis-A
E239911J11