So Yesterday
Posted on Tue Feb 10th, 2026 @ 5:20pm by Lieutenant JG Sheldon Parsons & Ensign Tamblem Dravor & Ensign Noah Balsam & Ensign Khrys Ral
Mission:
Port of Call
Location: Cabin 4-11
Timeline: Mission Day 5 at 1701
LOW PRIORITY- PERSONAL COMMUNIQUE
From: Ensign Erik Rhodes, USS Hypatia
To: Ensign Khrysaros Ral, USS Sojourner
Hey Khrys,
So… I’m just getting this out fast because dragging it out would make it messier than it needs to be.
This whole Alpha–Delta thing has gotten way more annoying than I expected. Half the time I don’t even know if a message went through, and by the time you reply I barely remember what I said. It feels like trying to date a ghost with a really unpredictable com-badge.
I’ve realized I want something that actually fits into my day-to-day life. Someone I can actually talk to without waiting for a relay station to line up. And, yeah, I’ve met someone aboard Hypatia who gets that. It just… works easier. I’m not pretending this is some big dramatic thing; it’s just where I’m at.
I’m not asking for a conversation about it. I’m letting you know because it felt worse to vanish and pretend the distance ate the signal.
Bye, I guess. Bye.
End message.
Khrys kept rereading the words, as if repetition might somehow rearrange them into something that didn’t hurt. The message sat on his screen like a dead star, cold, collapsed, and heavy enough to distort everything around it. Low Priority. Starfleet used that label for system updates, for housekeeping memos, for bulk correspondence the computer was allowed to sort through on its own. Erik had used it for this. For ending them.
Khrys felt the shock bloom into something uglier. His hand slammed against the desk before he even registered the movement. A sting lit up across his palm, sharp enough to cut through the static in his skull. He squeezed his eyes shut. Tears teetered, ready to fall. He locked his jaw, sealing them behind pressure alone. Erik didn’t get to have that kind of gravity in his life anymore.
He had sat down expecting warmth, some tender message sent across the stars from a devoted partner. Instead, he’d received an afterthought. A dismissal. A casualty of convenience. His breath hitched once, but he dragged air in sharply until it steadied into something that felt like control.
“Computer,” he said, voice tight and cracking at the edges, “play So Yesterday by Hilary Duff. Maximum permitted volume. Repeat until cancelled.”
The computer chirped obediently, and the first bright, reckless chords exploded through the room like glitter shrapnel. The music vibrated through his ribs, an intentionally frivolous soundtrack to the storm he refused to drown in.
He pushed himself to his feet. His bunk was a monument to a relationship he’d thought was unshakeable, photos from the Academy, arm-in-arm smiles, captured moments of a future he’d assumed belonged to them both. Khrys stared at them, head tilting with a dark little twist, the way a cat studies a fragile object it’s about to knock off a ledge.
Then he tore them down. He ripped photo after photo from the wall, uncaring where the edges bent or how the paper split. Each one fluttered to the floor in a messy, humiliating drift. He moved like a storm on a trajectory, unthinking, unstoppable. The wreckage grew around his feet.
The drawer came next. Erik’s marksmanship team sweater, still smelling faintly like him, like laundry in the Academy dorms, like comfort, sat folded with ridiculous gentleness. Khrys’ fingers curled into the fabric, knuckles whitening. He wanted to shred it. Destroy it. Make it unrecognizable. He couldn’t. Not yet.
He hurled it instead, letting it land among the scattered photos in a heap of memory he no longer owed tenderness to.
Khrys kept going, opening storage bins, shifting through shelves, hunting for anything, any remnant, any scrap, any breadcrumb of Erik that might have lingered. Every item he found met the same fate: the floor.
By the time he paused, breathing hard, the room looked as though a small emotional supernova had gone off at its center. The music kept blaring, defiantly bright over the ruins. And beneath it all, under the anger and humiliation and hurt, something steadier began to form—a thin, quiet filament of resolve waiting to thread itself into whatever came next.
It was the music that drew in Noah. It was louder than usual. It was insistent. And it was oddly Human, coming from the part of their quarters that had a more alien perspective. Noah couldn't place the artist. "Computer, what is the music playing? Artist and era."
"Early Twenty-first century Earth, Former United States of America sector. Artist Hillary Duff." Noah narrowed his eyes at the computer's report back. It didn't feel particularly like Sheldon's taste and his first thought was maybe Sheldon and Dravor were enjoying some privacy. Noah lingered, in his hands was the latest puzzling installment that he and Irynya had found themselves in. He'd decided not to read it before she and he could confab.
Noah moved to the replicator and chuffed a slow sigh. He rubbed his neck. He wasn't particularly hungry, nor thirsty. But he knew he needed to do something. Noah didn't eat his emotions like some. He tended to avoid food then. His first thought was hot chocolate but it didn't even make it past his lips. Tor always loved it and it felt... weird... to drink it right now. "Um." He wavered and closed his eyes in a slow blink. "Tom Yum Nam Kon, broth only, warm, a little cilantro and lemongrass. In a tumbler mug. 470 millimeters." His pale face went alight as the hazy hum of the replicator created his drink come soup.
He picked it up. It was warm in his long hands. Noah went to sit down on the couch but... the song was either really long or was on repeat. Noah rose as quickly as he'd sat. He walked over and rapped a knuckle against Tamblem and Khrys' door. "Hey guys, I-I-I'm home... just... so you know. Your privacy filter isn't up."
Khrys froze at the sound of Noah’s voice filtering through the door, the announcement cutting straight through the whirlwind in his head. Embarrassment hit like a second blow to the chest. Of all the times for his roommate to walk in…
“Computer, pause.” The command cracked out sharper than he intended, and the music snapped off instantly, leaving a hollow, ringing silence in its wake. Without the soundtrack of Hilary Duff blaring at maximum volume, the room suddenly felt too small, too bright, and far too revealing. Khrys scrubbed a hand over his face. His emotions were an unsteady swirl; anger still simmering hot in his veins, sadness clinging stubbornly behind his ribs, and now, layered on top, a heavy, awkward wash of shame. He hadn’t meant for anyone to witness his meltdown, least of all one of his roommates.
He crossed the room in a few long strides, each step fueled by discomfort, and jabbed the door control. The panels parted with a hiss. He kept his gaze low, fixed somewhere near Noah’s shoulder instead of his eyes.“Hey…” The word came out small, rough at the edges. “I… sorry.” He cleared his throat, trying to steady the wobble in his voice. “I didn’t know anyone else was home.” The admission felt like peeling back a layer of armour. His posture softened, just barely, as though bracing for judgment, or kindness, which somehow felt even more dangerous. And in that fragile moment, the absence of the blaring music made everything else seem painfully, piercingly real.
"No it's o-" Noah began. It was clear even to the engineer that something was very wrong. He was cut off a moment later.
The door to the quarters hissed open and Dravor strode in, his gym bag slung over one shoulder, hair still damp from the gym shower. He was in a good mood; solid workout, no crises on his security rounds, and he'd been mentally planning how to properly ask Sheldon out like the engineer had requested. A real date. With actual food and conversation.
"Hey, I'm—" The words died as he took in the scene: Noah standing in the doorway to his and Khrys's room, Khrys's door open, and the conspicuous absence of music that he was pretty sure he'd heard thumping through the corridor on his way in. His eyes tracked from Noah to Khrys, whose face was doing that thing people's faces did when they were trying very hard not to fall apart.
His cocky grin faltered. "Okay, so... not a party, then." He dropped his bag by the door with a soft thud, his usual swagger dimming as he read the room. His gaze settled on Khrys, and something in his expression shifted, still Dravor, but the peacocking confidence dialed way down. "What happened?"
Something inside Khrys bucked hard against the tight hold he’d kept on himself, as if all the feelings he’d been trying to bury had decided they’d had enough. It rose in him fast, hot, sharp, and impossible to ignore. His chest tightened, and his breath hitched before he could stop it.
The first tear broke loose and slid down his cheek, slow at first, but it carried more behind it than he was ready for. The moment it fell, everything he’d been holding back surged forward. The control he’d been clinging to slipped right out of his grasp. His shoulders trembled. His eyes burned. Another tear followed, then another, until he couldn’t tell which feeling was leading which; hurt, betrayal, embarrassment, all tangled and rushing out of him in a way he couldn’t halt.
Whatever makeshift dam he’d built around his heart had cracked clean through. The emotions he’d tried to suffocate were spilling out, messy and real, and he was too overwhelmed to force them back anymore. Moments like this reshape a person, and Khrys is right on the edge of that shift.
Noah's eyes widened. "Oh uh, whoa, okay." And the lankly one moved to try to get Khrys to sit down. He looked at Tamblem and in a terrified moment he wasn't actually which which bunk was whose. Did it matter? The thought was in the mix but Noah tried to divert Khrys to whoever's bunk it was that was closest. "I- uh... not a party... "
Dravor was already moving before Noah finished his panicked observation, his gym bag forgotten at the door. Whatever he'd been planning to do that evening evaporated in the face of his roommate clearly falling apart. "Doesn't matter," he said to Noah, low and certain, as he closed the distance in two strides and positioned himself on Khrys's other side. His hand found the Trill's elbow, grip firm but gentle, the kind of hold that said I've got you without needing the words. He guided Khrys toward the nearest bunk. His own, as it happened, though he genuinely couldn't have cared less. Dravor helped ease him down onto the edge of the mattress, his cocky swagger completely absent. In its place was the same steady, protective energy he brought to security work, but softer, more personal. His friend was hurting, and that was the only thing that mattered.
As the trio had conversed, the main entrance of the shared suite had opened yet again. Given that the door to Khrys and Tamblem's room had quietly swished closed once the Trill had entered, however, the noise of said opening did not carry into that particular room. And for Sheldon, who'd just come off an exceedingly long shift despite having been encouraged to enjoy some downtime, that closed door meant he didn't hear what was happening inside the room, either. Privacy filter or not, whatever conversation had been happening wasn't loud enough to carry through the bulkheads.
He was about to assume that no one was home--an assumption validated by the sight of both bedroom doors being closed--when his long, preening nose twitched much like a rabbit's might. Was that...lemon grass? Nostrils widening to soak in more of the scent, Sheldon nodded. Definitely lemon grass. Which meant Noah, at least, was probably there and had replicated something containing that particular scent. But a quick check of their shared room showed no sign of the computer specialist, so Shelly assumed he'd been there long enough to change, make something to eat, and then perhaps head out to spend time with Iry?
Turning back towards the way he'd come, Sheldon then saw the gym bag that'd been dropped just inside. He hadn't noticed it on the way in but he recognized it as Tamblem's. Which meant his would-be suitor was home. That idea excited him as he'd been anticipating a proper dinner invitation from the Trill. And if Tamblem was home, maybe saying hello in a playful way would spark the invite to finally happen. He grabbed the gym bag, stepped up to Dravor's door, as just as soon as it swished open enough to accommodate, threw the bag through directly at the Trill's bunk. "You forgot this, silly!" he intoned loudly, rolling his eyes.
But that was when he clocked Khrys sitting on Tamblem's bunk. With Tamblem and Noah on either side of him. And...things looked heavy. Emotionally charged. Like someone had died maybe? Before Sheldon could voice the question, of course, time sped up and the consequences of blindly throwing the bag in unfolded at warp speed. The gym bag flew directly at Khrys' head even as all the color drained from Shelly's face, expression aghast at what was about to happen.
Khrys didn't even try to dodge as the gym bag sailed through the air toward him. He accepted it with a quiet sort of resignation, his reflexes dulled by everything crashing through him at once. The bag thudded softly against his chest, and he clutched it there, holding it tight as if it were something alive, something steady he could anchor himself to.
The tears hadn’t stopped. They tracked down his cheeks unchecked, blurring his vision as his shoulders shook. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said, his, typically confident, voice thick and uneven. He buried his face briefly against the fabric of the bag, drawing in a shaky breath before forcing himself to continue.“My boyfriend… ex-boyfriend…” The correction stung as it left his mouth. The word caught on his tongue, snagged by the weight of it. He swallowed hard, fighting for control that just wasn’t there. “He ended things.”
Khrys lifted one hand and pointed weakly toward his personal console, where the message still glowed on the screen; unchanged, impersonal, merciless. “Over a low-priority communique,” he added, disbelief bleeding into the words. It sounded absurd when he said it out loud, like maybe if he framed it that way, it wouldn’t hurt so much.But it did. And standing there, clutching the bag like a lifeline, Khrys looked every bit as shaken as he felt.
Dravor's jaw tightened as Khrys explained, his friend's voice cracking around words that shouldn't have had to be said out loud. A low-priority communique. What kind of coward ended things that way? He caught Sheldon's horrified expression and gave him the tiniest shake of his head, a silent reassurance that the timing was just bad luck.
His focus shifted back to Khrys, and he did the only thing that felt right in the moment. He rested a hand on his roommate's shoulder, grip solid and steady, the kind of contact that said I'm not going anywhere without needing words. "Hey," Dravor said quietly, his usual confidence stripped down to something more honest. "That's... that's really shitty, Khrys. I'm sorry." He let the silence sit for a beat, not trying to fill it with platitudes or solutions. Sometimes things just sucked, and pretending otherwise didn't help anyone. He glanced at the gym bag still clutched against Khrys's chest, then back to his friend's tear-streaked face. "You need anything? Water? A minute? We're here, okay? Whatever you need."
Noah chimed up, "A-a holodeck program where you can rearrange his face for a half an hour?" His look, earnest, was also a bit lost. Noah's background was so... filled with family that did not discuss or display emotions, and it was very hard to fight that. He wanted to do something to help- to fix. He wanted to push away and not see the pain. He wanted to sit there and be uncomfortably uncertain. "I-I'm serious, give me a scan of the message and like... uh... fi- no ten minutes and you can go crazy."
Raising his gaze to take in his roommates, his friends, Khrys felt something loosen in his chest. Warmth spread through him, unexpected and deeply grounding. This was the comfort he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing. Not out here, not on a ship, not after everything that had happened. The idea that it could exist at all caught him off guard.
“Thanks, guys,” he said quietly. The tears still clung to his lashes, but their grip was fading now. His mouth curved into a small, uneven smile. “You’re… you’re all the best.” The hurt hadn’t vanished, it still sat there, tender and real but it no longer felt isolating. For the first time since reading the message, he didn’t feel like he had to carry it by himself.
His eyes drifted back to the open computer terminal, the low-priority message still glowing like an accusation. He drew in a shaky breath and stood, setting the gym bag gently aside as if it might bruise if handled too roughly. Crossing the room, he moved carefully, stepping over discarded memories; photos, a sweater, fragments of a life he thought he understood. When he reached the console, he hesitated for just a moment, then closed it with a soft click. He remained there, hand resting against the edge of the desk, breathing in and out until his composure slowly knit itself back together. Each breath steadied him a little more.
Finally, he turned back to the others. “Would you guys want to go get something to eat?” he asked. There was a beat, and then, with a glimmer of mischief breaking through the lingering sadness, he added, “Maybe we can talk about rearranging Erik’s face a bit more.” This time, the smile that crept across his lips was real, tugging the corners of his mouth upward—fragile, but genuine.
As the bag hit Khrys' chest and was then immediately hugged, Sheldon's eyes went from wide to narrow in a heartbeat--narrow in relief that no harm had been done, but also narrow on his own dumb luck at having yet another potential disaster from his awkwardness glance away from causing any real harm. It was almost as if his accidental barge in had never happened save Tamblem's head shake his way. But at least, Shelly thought to himself, he hadn't made what was clearly a difficult moment any worse.
Standing near the door rather than sitting aside Khrys, Sheldon had watched his best friend and love interest serve well as emotional support anchors. He wasn't sure what he could do on top of that and so debated quietly exiting the room and leaving the trio in their cocoon of care. But as Khrys asked about getting something to eat, then rose to close his terminal, the engineer's lips tightened. He wasn't good at providing emotional support but he could cut and serve a mean slice of pie--thanks, of course, to his days working in the diner when they were on the Adelphi.
"Do you...uh," Sheldon stammered--a sign of his discomfort--"do you like cheesecake? Debbie's been trying her hand at making the Earth kind with a chocolate layer on top. Like, making it herself, not replicating it. And uh," he tried to offer a smile, "I know where her secret fridge is. Wouldn't have to face a horde of people in the diner. We'd just probably have to bring our own forks, napkins, and plates I guess. Could pick some up and have a picnic somewhere?"
Dravor's eyebrows shot up, and a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Debbie's secret fridge?" He leaned back against the bulkhead, crossing his arms. "You know, if Lieutenant Oliveria was still around, he'd probably have that code already. Debbie was pretty fond of the Chief." The comment came out with a knowing smirk, acknowledging the special treatment their former Chief Engineer had enjoyed.
Then his attention zeroed in on Sheldon, and his grin shifted into something more playful, almost indignant. "Wait. Hold on." He pushed off the wall and pointed at the engineer. "Are you saying you've had the code to the food storage unit this whole time and you've been holding out on me?" The mock betrayal in his voice was thick enough to cut with a knife. "Here I've been, living like some kind of replicator peasant, and you've been sitting on homemade cheesecake access?" He shook his head with exaggerated disappointment. "Shelly, I'm hurt. Truly. This is relationship-altering information."
"I'll wait til h-he's asleep tonight, then whack him with a pillow." Noah murmured agreeably. "For holding out on us."
Khrys visibly perked up at the mention of cheesecake, the heaviness that had been clinging to him lifting just a little. His eyes brightened, and for the first time in a while, something close to enthusiasm crossed his features. “Cheesecake sounds amazing right now,” he declared, the words coming out with more feeling than he’d intended. He let out a soft, almost surprised laugh, as if the simple idea of it had cut through the fog in his head. “Cheesecake heist?”
"We could... use the holodeck..." Noah suggested, turning it back toward a picnic, preferring to leave a heist to security and his code-capable boss. Noah had had enough... heists... lately, running through an enemy starship. "Uhh, I could meet you in the holodeck in, um, a few minutes?"
Sheldon--who'd been afraid his suggestion would go over like a wet fart--came back to life some as Tamblem and Noah poked fun and Khrys suggested a bit of heist-action. "W-well I mean," he began with a half-stammer of his own, "crossing Debbie is like daring the Borg to Borg at you. But for this," Shelly cast a meaningful look towards Khrys, "I'm willing to risk re-assimilation. Pretty sure I'll be picking up server shifts at the diner as penance," he explained, some of the color draining from his face at the idea.
"If someone's in there," the engineer looked then to Noah, "feel free to kick them out. Emergency engineering maintenance or something," Sheldon stressed with a smirk. "Tamblem," he turned to the Trill, "you'll be our first lookout. Khrys," he shifted to the aggrieved, "you can be the second. We'll station you both in opposite hall junctions. If you see her coming, stall her. Talking about her outfit always helps," the engineer offered.
Noah chuckled at that, one of his overlong eyebrows rising. "I sense a clogged bio-filter. It-it might take a couple of hours to fix. I'll re-issue them holodeck hours." Noah said as he approached the door. It whispered open in to their living space but he continued through on his mission.
"OK. Ready then?" Sheldon gently chucked a thumb towards the door. "Operation Grand Theft Cheesecake is a g-go, people," he nodded with finality. His stammer tended to disappear with people he knew well, but Khrys was new to him and Tamblem was a love interest, so...all the nerves sometimes. Speaking of love interest, though, Shelly looked again at the Trill as everyone began to move out. "Relationship altering, hmm?" he playfully asked, his lips pursing as an eyebrow arched.
Khrysaros felt the smile spread across his face, unbidden and genuine. It was the kind of smile that only surfaced when friends closed ranks around you, doing whatever they could to stitch you back together without ever needing to say the right thing. It softened the tightness in his chest, easing something that had felt knotted and immovable before.
He took a deep, steadying breath, drawing it all the way in, then let it out slowly as he turned toward the door. His steps were lighter now, less weighed down. Pausing there, he glanced back at them, their heist plan still hanging between them all. His dark eyes warm and a little shiny, but no longer on the brink. “Thanks, guys,” he said quietly, sincerity carrying every word. “For everything.”
=/\= A joint post by... =/\=
Ensign Khrys Ral
Science Officer
Ensign Tamblem Dravor
Security Officer
Ensign Noah Balsam
Computer Specialist
Lt. JG Sheldon Parsons
Assistant Chief Engineer
