An Uncharacteristically Normal Date
Posted on Sun Aug 2nd, 2026 @ 5:50am by Lieutenant JG Alexander Mayweather & Ensign Siat-or-iian Elkovais
Edited on on Sun Aug 2nd, 2026 @ 6:02am
3,642 words; about a 18 minute read
Mission:
ARYL 1X06: For Peaceful Purposes
Location: Torii's Quarters
Alex walked down the corridor at a casual pace, trying to perfect his "I'm not nervous" look as he tried not to sweat through his off-duty clothes. He stopped in front of his goal and rang the chime to Torii's quarters.
From the center of the small open area in her quarters, Torii heard the chime go off and looked at the door in annoyance. The jump rope hit her in the shins as she wiped her forehead with one forearm and wiped it on her shirt. It was probably that newish security officer wanting some more advice, then she could get back to what exercise she could get without running around the corridors and getting in everyone's way. She picked up a towel and wiped her face again as she glanced in the mirror. Yup, shorts and a tank top, that'd be fine. Besides, it's not like whats-his-name had shown anything but professionalism. She hit the activator to the door and gave a neutral smile that froze on her face.
Alex was doing his best to be a gentleman about things, but couldn't help but notice what Torii was wearing, and wasn't wearing, and blushed a bit while smiling at her. "Hey," he said. "Sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if...well if you'd like to have dinner. If you're busy, though, I can leave you to it."
The ears froze into immobility as her eyes focused on the tip of his nose, hers twitching slightly. Torri had thought that it was past her, but the memory of the touch from... Whenever that was came back to her forethought once again and she stayed quiet for far too long. "I'm.." She started, then cleared her throat, "I was just getting some exercise is all, the gym is too crowded most of the time and I take up too much room and I'm famished."
"Well, we could grab a bite in the Officer's Mess, or we could get it to-go and find a quiet lounge to talk in," he offered. "Or, if you want to take some time to freshen up, I could go grab us something and bring it back here for you."
"Um.." The ears from from stillness to flicking behind her, then nearly impossibly forward and to the sides as much as they could, but still couldn't gather more than she could before, "Um... I suppose any of those would be acceptable? Did you have a preference?"
"Yes, but I'd like to know what would make you the most relaxed," he said. "You know, being seen with a lowly nurse may not help your 'tough security' reputation." He grinned and winked at her. "But if we stay here, you don't have to change if you don't want to, so there are ups and downs to all three options. What would you enjoy most?"
'Hiding under the bed.' Torii thought to herself, but saw the benefits and the detriments in the same ways as he did. Her nose twitched again, she didn't smell off, the slightest musk, but hardly detectable to anyone without the nose for it. "I could clear some space here while you go pick us something up, make sure it's presentable?" She offered to him.
"Sounds good," he said. "I'll be back in ten or less." With a grin, he vanished.
Torii stepped back into her quarters and the doors slid closed and she just stood there, feeling her heart beat as she started to realize that she'd just invited him into her quarters for dinner. What was she thinking? She was hardly dressed in anything decent, but then again he'd seen her in much less than this and the green shirt had covered just about as much, so it wasn't like he'd be shocked. But here?
She burst into sudden motion, making two different moves almost simultaneously, her tails twitching automatically being the only thing to keep her on her feet as she simultaneously moved towards her bedroom and towards the scattering of workout gear she'd laid out. "The gear." She told herself, bending down to grab the dumbells that had been sitting there and starting to stack the weights in the cabinet. "It's not like he's going to see my bedroom tonight, so it can stay the way it is." The fact that she dismissed it out of hand as 'tonight' caused her to blush in private as she tidied up the living room area.
Ten minutes later, Alex came back with a large tray laden with several items. He used his elbow and rang the chime again.
This time the door slid open nearly instantly and Torii stood there, still dressed the same way as when he'd left, but a slight floral scent exited the room as well as she bounced on her toes, "Sorry, I had to... Can I help you with that?"
"How about just take one of the bowls," he said. "They had a delicious smelling stew and I managed to convince them to let me have a bottle of wine to go with."
She took the bowl of stew and inhaled deeply from it. There was beef in this stew, with celery, carrots peas and a thick gravy that she could almost tell was thick and hearty. "You're right about the stew, it does smell heavenly." She walked it over to the table to set it down carefully.
He took the much lighter tray and set it down on her table, turning the two wine glasses right side up, and picking up the bottle and corkscrew. "And dessert should be just as tasty," he said, indicating the third, covered dish.
"And what is that?" Her nose twitched again, "Blueberry cobbler!" She pronounced, eyes already focused on the dish, "Blueberries are awesome, you know, small, almost crunchy when firm and fresh and tart!" Then she gave the wine a glance, "But um... Are you sure it's okay to drink that? I'm not worried about being called back to duty, but well.. Feixeians, at least some of us.."
"You are on a half-glass limit," he said. "To be honest, I'm not much of a drinker myself, save for special occasions." He pulled the cork and poured half a glass for her and for himself, then handed hers to her. "To a happy evening," he said, clinking his glass to hers.
She swirled the wine in the glass after clinking them before taking a sip of it. She didn't usually drink alcohol, as she said, the interaction was sometimes very pronounced in some of her people and she was one of those that it affected rather quickly. Of course, this should help settle herself and her nose twitched involuntarily as she sat across from him. His nose had brushed against hers... Intentionally. She took a deeper drink of the wine, "So, stew, would you like to do the honors?"
"Absolutely," he said, laying out a smaller bowl for each of them. He pulled the cover off the stew bowl and took a large spoon he'd brought and portioned some out for each of them. He handed her a set of silverware wrapped in a cloth napkin, and pulled his own apart, laying his napkin in his lap. He smiled at the way her nose twitched and sniffed at the scent and picked up his fork. "So, having never been to your world, I'm curious. What's it like?"
"Fenria?" She asked as she speared a piece of the meat and popping it in her mouth, the sharp front bisecting it initially before it was efficiently torn to pieces as she chewed, "A lot of forests, our cities are next to them because there's nothing like going for a hunt whenever it's desired. The plains are where we domesticated the Havreth, they're a non-sentient meat animal that we use for our primary sustenance, along with the Tothzha, just different flavors and the sort. Not a lot of mountains there, just one major mountain range, and no oceans to speak of, just a lot of lakes. You'd probably think it was overly cold, but our industrial age heated the world up a fair bit, which is why we lost a lot of our fur over thousands of years, but clothing helped and the fur never came back."
"Well I'm sure the local textile industry appreciates having another customer," Alex said, grinning. "And acres and acres of forest sounds beautiful. Good trees for climbing, I'd imagine. A good thick canopy, good place for a picnic near a lake." He smiled at her. "I'm from a quiet town in a relatively small territory on Earth. Lot of fishing by the sea, no forests anymore, but some nice parks and a beautiful arboretum. Forests are only a couple hours away, though. But you might like the old-world charm."
"Fishing is fun, the need to outwit your meal in it's own territory using a disadvantage is thrilling and makes the meal one of conquest and glory!" Torii smiled widely, "You're right, this stew is rather good, we'll have to find out who made it and have them repeat it some day soon. If I were proficient, I'd find some way to do more cooking, but aside from a grill, I'm not that much use in a kitchen. That was one of the things my mate disliked about me."
Alex paused mid-chew and looked at her. He swallowed and took a sip to buy time and clear his throat. "Your...mate?" he said. Past-tense verbiage or not, he was praying he hadn't just run headlong into a brick wall.
"Nosh-us-katin." Torii made a throwing away gesture, "Perhaps I should say 'former' mate. After I graduated the Academy, he expected me to remain on planet with him while taking some sort of ancillary position. We tried to make it work while I was assigned to the primary orbital station, but he just didn't like that I rated my duties higher than him. So, he took our kits and filed for divorce and sole custody. He was a civilian, didn't understand the call at all. But it's people like him and my kits that I'm out here to protect, so that's what I'll continue to do."
An ex and kids he thought to himself. Not a dealbreaker, necessarily, but it added complications. "All right," he said slowly, putting his bowl down. "I think, then, some cards need to be put on the table."
Her ears twitched the tone of his voice changed. It felt more like a warning to her and her ears went halfway down and to the sides, her putting her own bowl down in anticipation of... Something. "What do you mean?" She asked carefully.
"In short? I want to go on another date with you," he said, clasping his hands and looking at her. "I find you attractive, I like your personality and, to be frank, that purr you do is incredibly sexy. I want to get to know you further. However, I do not want to, in any way, cause complications for you with regards to your kits. I know sometimes dating an outworlder can cause...issues. And if your ex is already prickly about you being out here, I don't want to make it worse."
Torii's jaw physically dropped, but she picked it up almost immediately as her left ear flickered forward, then both ears flattened back on her head, "What Husk cares to think about me, I couldn't care less about, He's an asshole who didn't understand the meaning of commitment. Feixeian law is clear in any case, there aren't any complications regarding Stak, Ralli and Alist, because he cannot keep me from them when I'm on planet. Long standing laws regarding military service, even if he won the court battle." There was a growl in the back of her throat, giving him a sense of her feelings about her ex.
Alex nodded, taking that in. Clear law or not, bad blood was never a good thing. Still, he chose to focus on the positive take for the moment. "I take it from your reassurances that you're not against my showing an interest?" he said.
“You made that very clear the other day, as if you didn’t think I’d notice!” Her ears flickered forward fully, then to half cocked, then one by one reverted to full forward again, while the tips of all four tails lashed furiously back and forth independent of each other, “What with the nose rub and the ears, like you didn’t know the level of intimacy that implies!” She chuffed as her ears went through another cycle, ending up forward, but at an acute angle to her head, “The ears… I’m a Huntress! I pick up on things! And then when you came by here at ‘random’ or so you thought I might think, all up with the pheromones as I opened the door and how you pretended not to be interested then…” Her tails went suddenly still, “What do you mean another date? We haven’t had one yet!”
Alex blinked at the sudden verbal onslaught. "First off, I've never pretended not to be interested," he said. "Secondly, if the nose rub was overstepping, I apologize. In most human cultures it's considered...flirtatious, but in a small, cute way." He shrugged. "And third...I asked you to have dinner with me." He gestured to their food like it wasn't obviously sitting in front of them.
"And that's a date?" Torii asked, leaning closer to him, "Where's the consensual agreement to having a date? Shouldn't I have a say in the matter?" Her claws dug into the table at the tips, "You're a human, so you don't know our customs or our courtship traditions and you skipped from Step One to like... Step Four without any of the other steps between!" Her face was flushed red at this point, her ears dancing across her head, flipping about in every direction, a clear sign of confusion in her race, "I'm just so... Ugh!" Her muscles tensed and she launched herself at Alex, hands planting on his shoulders as she landed on him, pushing him down on the bench seating, her atop him, "Do you understand?"
Alex found himself pinned to his seat by a twitching bundle of mixed signals and stared into her purple eyes and felt himself stiffen in defiance. "I asked you to have dinner, you said yes. That was, as far as I knew, consent to be here. If I skipped a step, fill me in on what I missed."
"Of course you had consent to be here, but maybe if you asked if I wanted to go on a date with you?" There was snarl in her voice as she growled deep in her throat.
"Fine," he said, his voice a bit testy. "Will you want to go on a date with me?"
"I thought you said we were already ON one!" she shot back
"Well will you still go on one with me then!" he said, exasperated.
"FINE!" She barked at him, huffing at him.
"Fine!" he shouted back, huffing right along with her. He hadn't even realized it, but his hands had fallen to her hips and they were now incredibly close, breathing hard, and as pissed off as he was, he couldn't stop staring into those eyes. "So do I have to best 'the mighty huntress' in order to keep you interested in my attention?" he said, his tone half sass, half sly.
"No!" She shouted back at him, rubbing her nose against his gently before pushing off of him, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked down at him from her vantage point, "But it wouldn't hurt to at least try."
"Fine," he said, sitting up straighter, bringing them back within nose-rubbing distance again. "But you better remember one very important, very essential, very fundamental thing about me," he said, slowly and seriously.
"And what's that?" She turned her head fractionally, but her eyes still watched his, looking for any sort of duplicity.
He'd brought his hands up slowly behind her as he spoke and while her eyes were locked on his, his fingers expertly took her ears in his hands and began to massage gently. "I'm good with my hands," he said, grinning wickedly.
Torii's eyes opened wide, the bright purple clearly in shock, but she didn't move at first. Her eyelids began to droop and her arms dropped from across her chest, hands landing on his as her entire weight shifted as his hands rubbed the sensitive membrane of her ears, pushing him back down to his back, eyelids starting to close as her arms kept her body from melting against his. Her tails went limp as she slid down his body, then her arms jerked into action, ineffectually trying to push off of him, "You can't just... You can't just grab a girl's... ears... like that..." Her arms collapsed and her head fell onto his chest as a deep rumbling sound emerged.
Alex was glad she was too low to see the smug grin on his face. "I can't?" he said, not letting up as he grinned wider hearing her purr. "Well, all you need do is ask me to stop and I'll stop." He rubbed them in long, gentle strokes, almost wishing he could rub noses again, just to give her what-for.
There was another half-hearted attempt to move, but all she was able to do was to move up his chest by about six inches and to turn her face towards his, eyes mostly closed in ecstasy, "Husk could never do this right... His claws were too... Mmmmm..." She barely got the words out and her left ear flickered once in his grasp, "This should be illegal.."
"Feels that good, hm?" he said, softly. He kept up his efforts and leaned down, rubbing her nose with his briefly. "Well, lucky for you there's no ear regulations between officers," he said, chuckling.
Her eyes opened a bit more and focused on his as his nose touched hers, "You sure you wanna do that?" She mumbled, "It's... Serious. Like, serious courtship, not casual or anything like that."
He pulled his head back a bit and looked her in the eyes. "Then I won't keep overstepping," he said. "You tell me when we reach that point. Deal?" he kept rubbing her ears, however, enjoying the calming feeling it gave him.
"One rule... Can never do this on duty." Torii said as seriously as she could, "Would compromise professionability, give others ideas. Can't let them know my weakness."
"I promise," he said. "Besides, why share my advantage?" he teased.
Her amethyst eyes glinted at him as she forced them open again, "So... What do humans like to do on dates? I presume going hunting small critters isn't one of the things?"
"Not our usual, but I'm versatile," he said. "We tend to spend time together recreationally. Play games together, watch cinema, eat dinner," he stuck his tongue out at her. "Physical intimacy can be part of it as well," he said, scratching behind her ears gently before resuming rubbing them.
Torii had lifted her head while he scritched, seemingly making an effort to change things, but the rubbing caused her head to fall again. "I like all of those ideas, puzzles too." She settled her chin onto his chest again, "And I haven't been laid in... Over five years."
Alex's hands froze as he processed what she'd just said.
Her eyes opened again and head lifted slightly into his hands as she gave him an annoyed look as he stopped.
He went back to massaging her ears immediately. "Well," he said, "when you feel we've reached that stage, I will see what I can do to fix that severe gap in your calendar," he said. "Having seen your good side, I can't say I'm not interested in the prospect," he chuckled, trying to not sound eager but not disinterested.
"One thing you're going to learn about me, Alexander, is that I am direct about my wants and needs and that dating me has it's benefits." She paused, "For the both of us, apparently." Her eyes never closed and met his, "Do you understand?"
"I...think I do?" he said, genuinely unsure if she was propositioning him or not. "I mean," he said, teasingly, "you could be more direct I suppose--"
This time she did raise her head, her ears roughly twitching to stop him from massaging them, "My bed is in the other room, we're not there...yet, and we should be."
Alex blinked, his heart pounding in his chest. "Okay...hint taken," he said.
She rolled off of him and landed on her feet, stretching slightly as one of her tails trailed up his leg, then started to walk towards her bedroom door, reaching for the hem of her shirt and taking it off, tossing it to the side, "Don't make me have to hunt you down."
Alex didn't take his eyes off of her as he kicked off his shoes, then jumped up from the couch and took a leap over her coffee table and their forgotten dinner, running after her.
Alex had one arm around Torii's back, holding her against him, and the other under them, his hand in just the right position to keep massaging one ear. "So," he finally said after they'd laid there quietly for a time, "are we officially dating now or is there another step we need to--" he stopped and almost sneezed as one of her tails whipped around and hit him in the face. He smiled and moved down, rubbing their noses together.
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