Nose Dive

Posted on Thu Dec 16th, 2021 @ 1:55pm by Ensign Noah Balsam & Lieutenant Irynya

Mission: Starbase Shoreleave
Location: Gymnasium
Timeline: Mission Day 5 at 1800

[Gymnasium]
[Day Five]
[1800 hours]

The console beeped, and a coach-y feminine voice stated, "Three kilometers. Time, eighteen minutes, thirty-six seconds. Pace, 7.68 kilometers per hour. Heart rate. 144 beats per minute. Blood Oximetry at 89.4%." It beeped again as Noah panted. The lanky Engineer was striding hard, feet hitting the tractor field tread enough to hexagon out energy lines as the field cushioned his blows. A bead of sweat dripped off the end of his nose and he wiped at more drying to ooze out of his hair and into his eyes. His irises were already stained pink from some of his body's salt finding their way into them.

"Increase by-by..." he gulped- but it was really hard to speak. "Up to... zero... zero point four KM..." Noah felt even the fraction of the kilometers per hour's increase and he grimaced and squinted. "Ow..." he said around ragged pants. His shoulders tense he tried to fall back into a runner's pose. He'd never been a great runner, but coming from Enceladus' incredibly light gravity to Earth-standard, he'd had to train his muscles and retrain his proprioception to align to normal gravity and air pressure. Running had been the Academy physician's way to do it.

Noah swiped his naked forearm at his forehead again, and then fought to fan his chest with a beat of his droopy, billowy tank.

The machine next to Noah beeped in acknowledgment of a new runner as a familiar figure appeared in his peripheral vision. Her fitted black racerback tank top and bike shorts left next to nothing to the imagination, but she didn't seem to notice the glances that had followed her over to the treadmill. "Computer, set warm-up pace," a familiar, Risian, voice said, addressing the machine, one arm sticking out and across her body as the other tugged on it. The tractor field began and her feet lightly hit the tread at a slow jog, releasing her arms and swinging them into the opposite position as she did.

"You know," Irynya said to the cadet, "The point isn't to make it hurt."

"Depends," Noah gasped thickly, "What your goal is..." Noah said with a tired glance at his roommate, then back. His skinny legs and arms pumped at his running pace as his console beeped to pass another minute. He double-glanced at the Risian and her attire but he was simply too exhausted to think through that it reminded him of Velocity attire.

"And your goal is to beat your body into submission today?" she inquired the question more of a knowing statement than a genuine inquiry. The Risian's breath huffed out of her in small rhythmic puffs of air as she settled into the warm-up pace--high ponytail swinging side to side behind her. "Or at least that is certainly what it looks like."

Noah looked at her with a sweaty haze to his expression, "You... never tried... to tire yourself ou-ou-out before?"

She shrugged, fingers reaching forward for a shiny black interface where the rapidly ran over the treadmill's controls. The speed on the machine began to pick up pace and with it Irynya's gate shifted to a more intensive jog. For a few moments, the only sound to be heard was the mismatched tempo of their feet hitting the tractor field.

"I have," she finally confirmed, "but in my experience that doesn't address whatever is on my mind. It simply delays it."

Her fingers ran over the shiny interface again, a beep from the computer confirming the input followed by the increased rhythm of her steps a moment later.

Noah's brows popped up under his sopping, slack curls and dropped again. He mulled that over until he finally announced, "Pause," to his machine. The shimmering blue force field under his feet halted, fizzing around the outline of his shoes. Noah stooped to heave a breath, hanging his head down so his shoulder blades seemed sharp. "It was advice," he finally gulped. Noah stepped off the field like a newborn giraffe- ungainly and having to re-adjust to solid deck plate again. He made way and took a silvery towel. The Enceladan mopped at his face.

Irynya ran for a moment longer, her strides picking up pace, feet hitting the tractor field harder as she moved. "Pause," she finally told her own machine, stopping and turning, but not leaving the treadmill. "Someone told you this was a good way to deal with unexpected arousal?" she asked, incredulous. "Has it ever worked?"

Noah scowled at Irynya with a pensiveness. He sniffed straightened and pulled the towel around his neck. The cadet rolled his shoulders back, filled his chest with a breath, and sighed. "Sometimes," he said with a reek of uncertainty. "It was just... strange." Noah shook his head with a huff of lamentation, "It-it's old advice. Run until you can barely walk... cold shower..." he shrugged. "I probably heard it in second-form." Noah ran his fingers and ruffled his curls to try and stimulate drying out his locks.

He moved and sat down. "I-I don't... it's not... normal... for me anyway. It felt like... like when you're twelve and you're afraid because you were tackled in physical education and you got aroused then too."

Irynya picked up a water bottle that was settled next to Noah's machine and offered it to him before snagging her own and sitting next to him. "Cold shower isn't a terrible idea," she said as she settled in next to him, crisscrossing her legs in a lotus. Her knee brushed his leg lightly out of habit--a familiarity in the action meant to elicit a feeling of safety.

"But running until you can't walk... I'm skeptical..." She sighed, hands rising to meet the back of her head while long fingers separated her ponytail in two and tugged, tightening the band against her head. "Typically I find other... methods... are more effective than exhausting ones self."

She tilted her head slightly to look at Noah next to her. "That is a disorienting feeling, though," she commented. "I'm sorry if the joking made it worse."

Noah, knees parted, had leaned his elbows on them while she spoke. His dark eyes were fixed forward on nothing yet were unblinking. "I've-I've heard Orions... their biochemistry is strong and sort of... like endorphins. Relaxing or... or arousing... depending. You-you, I mean, well, my year read about it in Comparative Exo-Biology in year two." He sniffed, mouth twisted, while he fanned his chest again by billowing his shirt. "Not as bad as, um, Deltans though."

The Risian's head bobbed, long ponytail brushing along her back and causing an absent hand to reach back, pulling it forward to run down her front in the position she typically wore it. "Right," Irynya remarked. "You're not wrong. Timmoz's particular musk is... well... it's effective. I had the same issue when I first met him. After a while, it got easier to recognize that it was just because he was Orion and not that he was actively trying to seduce me. I imagine the effect is... similar... for you."

She clasped her hands, threading her fingers together and dangling them out in front of her legs as she rested her elbows on the insides of her knees. "Trust me... if Timmoz was trying to seduce you... you'd know."

Noah's grimace betrayed that his uncertainty was resilient. "I've never wanted to nose dive into someone's armpit like that before..." he mumbled toward his chest, "L-let alone someone I-I never even met before," he chuckled with undertones of exasperation, "Usually... for me... I feel something for someone um, when we've been friends for a while." He glanced at his friend, "It'll go away, right? I'm not sure thinking about your boss' pa- a superior officer- is um, a good thing."

Noah stood up, "I mean n-now that I'm away from it I just feel... weird about the whole thing."

Irynya's head tilted so she could look up at the lanky cadet. Her eyes traveled the tops of long muscled calves up his frame, to slightly stooped shoulders, long neck, and finally to his face. She blinked a moment and sighed. "It will go away," she said. "Or at least your body will adjust and become accustomed to it. It'll tend more toward the relaxing the more you're around him, which can be nice." She chewed her lower lip a moment, seeing to consider, and then, shrugging, added, "Although the other reaction can be nice to if you know to expect it."

Noah bobbed his head, anchoring on the idea that it would go away. It was unsettling. Some people would have ridden it through with ease, he imagined.

Lithe arms came away from her lap and tanned hands braced against the ground as she pushed herself up, snagging her water bottle on her way up. She took a long drag from the bottle, cheeks puffing lightly at the mouthful of water before swallowing hard. "I don't think anyone else noticed your umm... distraction..." she said with a slightly cheeky tilt to one side of her mouth. "And there are better ways to work it out of your system. More importantly, though, would you rather I keep getting together with Timmoz to public places and/or his quarters for now? You should feel like you don't have to worry about any weirdness in your own quarters."

Noah's brows scrunched around the bridge of his nose, "N-no, no, they're your quarters too. He's not... I mean... unpleasant. Just." Noah puffed his cheeks and blew out, "Being around someone that just... r-rawly sexual is strange."

Iry nodded back at that. "Yes. Particularly when they aren't actively trying to be. It's... different." She didn't point out that he had already acclimated to living with a Risian although a teasing part of her wanted to. In reality, she understood that she and Timmoz were about as different as she and Noah. "So... umm... is there anything I can do to... help?" Her eyebrow crooked up there not exactly suggesting something, but also leaving the door to a broader conversation open.

Noah shook his head in the negative, "N-no, I really am fine. I guess I have my first Orion experience under my belt now."

A Post By:

Lieutenant JG Irynya
Flight Controller

&

Midshipman Noah Balsam
Systems Specialist