#rikertroi

The devil works fast but autism works faster this is probably like the worst au ever I think, science fiction double feature fr

Pike/Una and Troi/Riker have the same energy

Like, obviously there are plot/context differences but like

Una Chin-Riley 🤝 William Riker

The ethos to their triumvirate, inquisitive, headstrong, closed off about their personal life prior to Starfleet, incredibly respectful of boundaries because they are defensive of their own, protective of their captain.

Christopher Pike 🤝 Deanna Troi

The pathos of their triumvirate, principled, selfless, their empathy is a double edged sword that makes them extremely powerful and vulnerable, avoids getting close to people because thats a big commitment for their empathetic nature.

OH AND!

PikeUna 🤝 TroiRiker

Both have “deeply respectful friendship born from being exes who ended things on good terms” energy. Which is directly canon between Riker and Troi from the get go. While Pike & Una having been a thing prior to SNW is quasi-canon via rumored discussions Rebecca Romijn had with the writer’s room for fleshing out their relationship. Who knows if that’ll ever get answered one way or another?? Lol.

The headstrong half of the ship is a lot more obvious about still being at least a little smitten. Like in seeking out the other for comfort or to comfort them, in personal logs, in other people’s observations. They don’t want their feelings getting in the way especially because they’re coworkers so they stuff it and look elsewhere.

The empathic half of the ship appears to have compartmentalized whatever feelings they have for the other person. Under the guise of there being more important things (even though they still dabble romantically) when really it’s just scary to get attached, let alone reattached. However it leaks through very obviously when the other half is in immediate danger.

They probably should have booked another night in the motel, but their decision not to turns out fortuitous when the forecast changed, predicting snow.

By the time they checked out this morning, the sky was trimmed with grey low-hanging clouds, and the first flurries had started by the time they pulled on the highway. Now it's coming down steadily, the windshield wipers working in steady rhythm to keep the view of the road clear. Ed fights to keep his focus on the pavement -- thankfully, the weather has kept most people home, but it doesn't stop him from thinking about all the things he cannot wait to do when they get home and the order he'd like to do them all in.

Lorraine.

It's all Lorraine. He wants to do Lorraine. They've spent three days in a graveyard in the middle of the winter, freezing their asses off to document a potential haunting.

The results are initially promising, they'll need to come back to collect more evidence. But now there's nothing he'd like to do more than get home, put the car in the garage, light a fire in the fireplace, and do unspeakable things to his wife on the couch with her enthusiastic consent.

Three and a half hours into their five hour drive home from New Hampshire, Lorraine asks him to stop at the next rest stop they pass.

"Sure hon," he replies, hand hitting the blinker when they come up on signs for one about five miles later, pulling them into a fairly abandoned-looking lot. He ushers her inside with a hand on the small of her back, holding the umbrella from the back seat over their heads. They both hit the bathrooms, and he buys them shitty vending machine coffee -- a passable americano for him and a mocha for her, the only thing guaranteed to be sweet enough for her tastes -- while she debates the finer merits of potato chips versus cheese crackers.

He admittedly doesn't pay attention to which one she ends up choosing, dropping the coffees onto a ledge lining the wall of the little lobby they're standing in and pushing himself right up behind her.

"Ed..." she giggles, tapping in her selection.

Nuzzling her neck, he reaches one hand up the back of her long winter jacket, palming her ass.

"Just trying to keep you warm," he murmurs, peeling back her collar to hide a kiss under her hair. "It's cold in here."

"Oh is that so?" she answers, grabbing her (their) snack and shoving it into her pocket, shooting him a look that he does not need to be able to read her mind to know means behave.

They run back out through snowflakes to their car, and Ed doesn't waste any time turning the engine back on and blasting the heat after dropping their drinks into the cupholders. Warming his hands over the vents, he glances a look at Lorraine as she shakes the snow out of her hair and pulls off her scarf.

"Are you blushing?" he asks. She's flushed from the roots of her hair and all the way down her neck.

"Am I blushing?" Rolling her eyes, she takes a sip of her mocha. "You're the one who's been thinking very loudly about how you want to bend me over the arm of the couch since we left the motel."

"I..." He can't deny that. "Well, not just the arm of the couch."

"No," she says, nodding very seriously as she scoots across the front seat towards him. "Not just the arm of the couch. Over the coffee table... and in your lap, or my personal favorite, on my back on the couch cushions, my leg up over your shoulder."

"It's about making the best out of the space you have," he says, watching her eyes flicker from his eyes, to his mouth, to the zipper on his pants.

Lorraine pulls her hands out of her gloves, throwing them down onto the floor. "You've always been very good at that."

"You could have--" He gulps down air as she pops open the button of his fly and unzips him. On instinct, his eyes scan their surroundings. Truly, the rest stop is empty -- it's not one of the ones with a food court or staff, and no one else appears to have stopped here for now. Still, he drops his hand down onto the manual locks on the door, hitting the button and hearing the latches all slide into place with a metallic snick. "You could have just said something."

I could stop.

"Oh," she says, pulling him out of his briefs and stroking him to hardness. "I don't want you to do that." Leaning down, she looks up at him through her lashes. "We're -- what? Ninety minutes from home? That's enough time for you to be ready for round two."

"I--"

Not giving him enough time to even contemplate his answer, she swallows him down.

Grunting, trying to stop his hips from jerking upwards, he lets a hand fall to the crown of her head, fingers carding through her soft curls.

4) Their favourite way to waste time

Okay so I feel like on days where they truly have nothing to do - no new cases have come in, she and Ed have sold enough art and done enough lectures/media appearances to pay the bills, Judy's at school... I think a lot about the whole little couch and armchair set up in Ed's office. That he'll sit in there and paint or research or study Latin translations and she'll lay on the couch and talk to him. I feel like they have a lot of ad hoc bible study and talk about like, church gossip and Vatican politics and real politics. (They both feel like Kennedy Democrats, but were probably very against the Vietnam War.) I headcanon they both like Graham Greene novels. Lorraine likes murder mysteries and whodunnits because it's the one time she can't cheat to figure out the answer. She yells at the TV when she watches Columbo. She and Ed strike me as people who also watch a lot of Late Night with Johnny Carson and the Dick Van Dyke Show.

5) Their favourite type of music

So like, Elvis, obviously, is a winner. Lorraine also gives off very strong like, Fleetwood Mac and Van Morrison energy. Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Beach Boys. She was probably just a LITTLE too old for Beatlemania, more fond of the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, or like, Hall and Oates and the Allman Brothers.

7) Their happiest memory

The day Judy was born was very very hard, like Lorraine often feels out of control of her mind and body anyway, and I feel like Lorraine was probably susceptible to PPD/PPA so the months surrounding Judy's birth are kind of a blur for her. The joy and contentment and fulfillment that came with becoming a mother and being a mother didn't come tied to a single memory.

So probably finding out she was pregnant with Judy, after years of having to surrender that dream to the Lord and be at peace with possibly never having a child. Sitting the doctor's office, her period over a week late when it's always come every 28 days like clockwork since she first got it at 15. Not wanting to raise Ed's hopes, not wanting to raise her own. And it's 1962, so doctors can do a rapid test in their offices now so she's skirted out on her lunch break from working as the parish secretary, tapping her foot restlessly in the waiting room, purse on her lap, waiting for her name to be called. She feels crazy.

She felt the moment of conception - the moment where a piece of her joined with a piece of Ed and ramped up her gift up to 11. She can feel the baby. She felt the moment Judy's heart started beating, and finally convinced herself to make the appointment. But they've been trying for a baby since the night they were married in 1953. It's been nine years.

The moment the doctor tells her that she's pregnant, her world greys out a bit. It feels like sitting on the bottom of a pool. She's not sure how she gets home, but she does, and she knows she can't go back to work. She's on the verge of laughing like a madwoman and bursting into tears. She cooks dinner, because Ed will be home around six from teaching art classes at the VA and they both need to eat.

He doesn't need psychic powers to know somethings off when he gets home, hands and forearms flecked with paint. Setting the table for dinner, his legs give out from under him when she finally works up the nerve to tell him, the CorningWare plate in his hand clattering to the floor. He presses his face to her abdomen, kissing it and thanking God, getting weepy when she drops to the floor into his lap. He's pushing her hair back from her face, laughing and crying and pressing kisses to her cheeks and mouth and nose and forehead.

They eat lasagna right out of the pan, right there on the floor, and talked about baby names for the first time since they quietly tucked their dreams of being parents away a few years into their marriage.

25) How they spend rainy days

Ed likes to paint in natural light, so on rainy days they end up working on presentations and talks and reshuffling case files and how to best talk about them. Usually they end up with their limbs stretched out on each other on the couch in his office, files spread everywhere, notebooks and index cards and sticky notes abundant. This absolutely results in at least once make out session. If it's cold and rainy, Lorraine likes to make something that will take awhile in the oven to cook - she's always been prone to getting chilled, and it's a way to keep the kitchen cozy and warm. Endless cups of tea.

29) How they express love (platonically and/or romantically)

But I forgot the one thing that all counselors should remember. You can't skip to the end of healing.