In principio: Alive With You Part 2

Posted on Fri Jul 10th, 2026 @ 3:18pm by Master Chief Petty Officer Julian Trent

2,298 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Prologue
Location: USS Murmansk, Federation staging area around Tagra IV
Timeline: 2374

Continued from part 1

Julian scraped a cube of mango from the skin. The flesh was softer than replicated fruit, fibres catching slightly between his teeth, sweetness followed by something sharp enough to make him breathe in.

Nico watched his face with open expectation. “Well?”

Julian considered the flavour seriously before turning the spoon in his hand. “It tastes inefficient.”

Nico pushed the skin inside out and took a bite, staring at him over the bright cubes of flesh with one eyebrow raised.

“There is an entire stone in the middle which serves no obvious purpose,” Julian continued, glancing towards the discarded centre as evidence.

“It’s a stone fruit, Jules. Sort of how it works…weirdo.” Nico took another bite, disbelief fighting with amusement. “So if you don’t see the point, why did you do it?”

“Because it’s your favourite,” Julian said before scraping another piece from the skin.

The answer came too easily. Nico’s expression softened, but he looked down at the mango before Julian could decide whether he regretted saying it. They ate beside each other, gradually shuffling backwards until their shoulders rested against the sofa and the effort of holding themselves upright became unnecessary. Nico ate to savour, taking his time. Juice ran down his wrist and caught against his lower lip. Julian caught it with his thumb before it reached the edge of Nico’s sleeve, then brought the thumb to his mouth without thinking.

Nico watched him, his own hand still raised between them. “You’re flirting with fruit.”

“I’m flirting with you,” Julian corrected, keeping his eyes on Nico as he licked the last trace of juice from his thumb.

“You look too tired to manage both,” Nico said, though his mouth curved as he dropped the fruit skin onto the plate.

“That sounded like a challenge.” Julian leant closer until his shoulder pressed more firmly against Nico’s.

“It was a medical observation,” Nico replied, turning his face just enough that their noses nearly brushed, his lips curling into a small smile.

“You are not on duty,” Julian reminded him, the words softened by the closeness as he moved his hand to Nico’s wrist, stroking it.

“Neither are you,” Nico said as his attention moved slowly over Julian’s face.

“That is optimistic,” Julian replied, and the words changed something between them.

Nico’s smile faded when his attention reached the faint bruising visible where Julian’s collar had shifted near his throat. They were still close, Nico settled across his lap with the easy lack of ceremony that came from years of knowing exactly where his body fitted against Julian’s, but the warmth in his face changed as he saw the mark. His hand lifted before Julian could move away, fingers pulling the fabric aside while his eyes followed the discolouration towards Julian’s collarbone. “That’s new.”

Julian glanced down at the bruise as though he had not noticed it, one hand remaining loose against Nico’s hip. “Console panel. We had an argument when the inertial dampeners went offline on the bridge.”

“When?” Nico asked, his thumb hovering near the bruise without touching it. He knew Julian’s body well enough to recognise most of the old marks without thinking, from the pale line near his shoulder to the little scar along his ribs that Julian claimed had a better story than it actually did. This was not one of them.

“Two engagements ago,” Julian admitted, keeping his voice deliberately casual as his fingers moved once against Nico’s side. “Or thereabouts. It’s a bit…well, we were doing a lot.”

Nico’s eyes moved back to his face, dark and intent beneath the tiredness which had settled there over the last year. “You did not tell me,” he accused as he narrowed his eyes.

“It was a bruise,” Julian said, trying to ease his collar back into place, but Nico’s fingers held it where it was. He sighed and let his hand drop, allowing Nico to look even though every instinct wanted to make the moment smaller. “Had worse just falling out of bed in my time.”

“You were thrown into a console hard enough to bruise your neck,” Nico pointed out, catching Julian’s hand before it could cover the mark. He squeezed it once, his expression caught between worry and disbelief, his thumb rubbing over Julian’s knuckles with the absent familiarity of someone who had held that hand in bed, across mess tables and in dark corridors between shifts.

“I’ve had worse experiences with other furniture as well, pretty sure you have too. At least it didn’t explode,” Julian replied, offering him a faint smile which did nothing to soften Nico’s expression.

Nico released his collar but did not move his hand far, his fingers resting briefly against Julian’s shoulder before slipping down his arm, following muscle and bone as if he could find the rest of the damage through touch alone. “Anything else?”

Julian’s smile sharpened automatically, the familiar expression arriving before he had decided whether he meant it. “That depends how thorough you intend to be.”

“Jules,” Nico warned, tightening his fingers around Julian’s hand, a brief reminder which carried years of experience with every joke Julian used to avoid an answer.

The smile remained, but the ease behind it did not. Nico shifted across Julian’s lap until they were chest to chest, bringing their faces level again. His dark eyes watched him, the stubble dark against his skin and the hardness of the last year of battle etched in new lines across his face. There was more grey threaded through the hair near his temples than Julian remembered from the beginning of the war, although perhaps he had simply begun looking for it. He knew this face in sleep, in pleasure and laughter, knew the small crease which appeared beside Nico’s mouth when he tried not to smile and the exact stillness which meant he was frightened rather than angry. “Anything else?” he demanded.

Julian ducked his head for a moment to escape the look, his forehead nearly brushing Nico’s shoulder before he sighed and lifted it again. Nico’s hand came briefly to the back of his neck, not restraining him, merely resting there in the place it had found a thousand times before. The smile Julian offered was small and tired. “Two cracked ribs. Healed now.”

Nico’s eyes widened, and his hand dropped to Julian’s side as though the healed damage might still be waiting beneath the fabric. His palm spread carefully over the place, warm through Julian’s shirt, and Julian had to stop himself from leaning into the touch despite the concern behind it. “When?”

“Last week,” Julian said, making the answer sound like a minor scheduling detail.

“I saw you last week.” Nico’s grip loosened, but his expression did not, his fingers remaining curved against Julian’s ribs.

“Briefly,” Julian reminded him, though he knew immediately it was the wrong response. The word seemed to harden something in Nico’s face before Julian had even finished saying it.

“You came into Sickbay.” Nico sat straighter, exhaustion briefly displaced by anger as he stared down at him. “You had cracked ribs while standing three metres away from me. You let someone else treat you?”

Julian watched him for a moment, seeing the memory of it arrive behind Nico’s eyes: the crowding, the noise, the wounded passing between beds while Julian had stood within reach and said nothing. He gave a small shrug, careful despite himself beneath Nico’s hand. “You were busy. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Nico laughed once, sharp and disbelieving, before moving off his lap and standing with his back to Julian. The sudden absence of his weight left the air cool where their bodies had been pressed together, and Julian watched the rigid line of his shoulders beneath the thin shirt. “Yes. I was busy.”

The quiet which followed no longer felt peaceful. It felt as though something had entered their quarters and closed the door behind it. Julian pushed himself upright, feeling the faint pull in his side despite the healed bones, and approached carefully. He moved one hand to the back of Nico’s neck, then over his shoulder, feeling the tension held beneath warm skin and damp fabric. Nico did not turn, but he did not step away either, and Julian let his palm remain where it was. “How long have you been off shift?”

“Two hours,” Nico said, keeping his attention fixed somewhere beyond the viewport. His reflection stared back at them both from the dark glass, exhausted and hollow-eyed, Julian standing close behind him with one hand resting against him as though contact alone could keep either of them steady.

“And you’ve been sitting here since then?” Julian asked, glancing at the boots near the door and the untouched PADD still lying beside the sofa. Nico usually left his boots neatly paired, a habit from cramped shared quarters and years of complaining when Julian kicked one beneath the bed. Tonight one had fallen onto its side.

“I showered,” Nico replied, folding one arm across his stomach without turning back.

“I noticed,” Julian said, letting his eyes move briefly over Nico’s damp hair before reaching out to touch the curls at his temple. The gesture was instinctive, fingers catching lightly in the dark strands before smoothing them back, and for a moment it carried the echo of quieter nights when he had done the same thing in bed while Nico complained about being awake.

Nico looked back at him, irritation flashing through the fatigue. “Congratulations.”

The answer was too quick and too flat. Julian might have met it with something equally sharp on any other day, trusting the familiar friction between them to burn itself out into a smile, but instead his attention settled on the PADD lying face down near the sofa. Nico followed the movement of his eyes and went still. “What’s on that?”

“Nothing,” Nico said as his hand moved instinctively towards it.

“An unusual amount of storage for nothing.” Julian bent and caught it first, straightening before Nico could take it from him. He felt Nico’s fingers close briefly around his wrist, not hard enough to stop him, before falling away.

“Give me that,” Nico said, anger bringing him fully upright as Julian turned the PADD over. The display showed a list of names. They were not medical records but personal messages, some completed and others marked as drafts. Each name had a rank, department and destination attached, along with small notes in Nico’s clipped handwriting, reminders of what mattered about people beyond the manner of their deaths.

Julian’s chest tightened as he read the first few lines. “You’re writing to their families.”

Nico took the PADD from him without force and held it against his thigh, his fingers wrapping around it as if Julian had caught him holding something private rather than painful. “Some of them asked me to.”

“And the others?” Julian asked, though he already understood the answer. Nico had always remembered details other people allowed to slip away. A favourite drink, a sister’s name, the way someone took their tea or the little story they told while waiting for a scan to finish. Even after years together, Julian still occasionally found himself startled by how much room Nico made for other people inside himself.

“Someone should,” Nico said, his thumb moving once across the edge of the darkened screen.

Julian looked down at the list. He recognised two names from Tactical, one from Security and a young engineering technician who had bled out before the damage control team reached Sickbay. He remembered the technician laughing three weeks earlier over a misaligned targeting relay, alive enough then to complain about Tactical blaming Engineering for everything. The memory sat badly against the neat letters on Nico’s screen. “How many?”

Nico’s fingers curled around the PADD. “What?”

“How many messages?” Julian clarified, watching Nico’s face rather than the names.

“Seventeen,” Nico said, but his eyes moved away.

Julian waited, seeing the muscles shift along Nico’s jaw and the careful breath he took through his nose. He reached out and touched the back of Nico’s wrist, not trying to take the PADD again, only offering the contact. Then he asked more quietly, “How many people, Nico?”

Nico looked back, understanding the real question. His mouth tightened before he said, “Thirty-one.”

The number settled between them. Julian knew the official figure: thirty-one people who had died in Nico’s care during the last six weeks, either in Sickbay or before transport could be arranged. He had seen it in the casualty reports, broken down by engagement and department, sanitised into columns because numbers were easier to move through a command system than bodies. He had not thought of Nico knowing each face, the weight of each hand or which voices had gone quiet first. Nico lowered his eyes to the PADD, and Julian’s fingers remained against his wrist. “Three today.”

“You weren’t in combat today,” Julian said, the correction coming before he understood why Nico had chosen that number.

“No.” Nico’s thumb moved along the edge of the device. “They waited until we reached the staging area. I think one of them knew. He kept asking whether we were there yet.” His voice had softened, the anger falling away until only exhaustion remained, and Julian could see the room Nico was remembering in the unfocused set of his eyes.

to be continued in part 3

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