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“Really, Claire,” Alara says, stepping up into the chair. Her feet dangle in a faint rhythm over the end, her fingers tapping against the wood. “I’m so happy for you two. Thank you for the invite.”
Alara has to be checked for signs of disease every five hours when she is off Xelayah. It can be exhausting; never a full night of sleep, never an easy morning. She has to have blood taken every two days, has to have her vitals closely monitored, has to receive both a nightly scan and a nightly physical examination in order to ensure her safety. In any other situation, Alara would have declined the invite to avoid the hassle, but—
But it’s Claire. It’s Claire’s wedding. It’s Claire with the scanner and Claire with the needle and Claire’s hands rolling over her stomach and her muscles and her skin to keep her safe and intact. It’s Claire, and it always has been.
It gets lonely, sometimes.
“Oh, of course,” Claire says, releasing the scanner she’d been holding against Alara’s arm. When she places it on the tray, discards it down, and picks up the needle, Alara is reminded of each and every horror, every single damn nightmare she made herself endure in the simulator after the fire.
She thinks back to the sensations---the cool metal of Claire's instrument brushing up and down her stomach as the simulated Claire prepared the vivisection, the way Claire's hands had felt running over her flesh: evil, cold, inviting, warm. She's always wondered if it was jarring to see a false version of herself commit such atrocities; she never got a chance to ask, and it would be awkward to do so now. So Alara tries to bury herself back in the memories--thinking of the false Claire pulling her shirt up to cut her open, thinking of Isaac's speech during their wedding and how the true Claire deserves something raw and real and love-drenched, thinking of everything that isn't Claire's fingers giving gentle taps over the veins in her forearm.
Her eyes close, and flashes of agony strike through her as she feels Claire insert the needle: all of the tests her family put her through as a child in their attempts to "figure out the problem", all of the judgement and every hospital visit and every missed milestone and every failed quiz---
"Are you okay?" Claire asks. "Does it hurt?"
Alara jolts her eyes open. She looks over at Claire, watches her blood give a delayed flow into the vial. This will be her first and only night here; it usually takes nine vials for the testing, but Claire, beautiful skilled Dr. Claire Finn, says she can do it in five, she's just that good. Alara's illness lowers the immune system’s abilities considerably, and who fucking knows what they've got crawling around on the Kaylon homeworld; the extensive tests her presence requires often proves too much for others to handle, but Claire doesn't seem to mind. She called Alara her favorite patient once, and Alara had soared, Alara became one with the stars underneath those words.
The fear melts away underneath Claire's touch. Alara watches the concern in her eyes boil over, watches her head give an adorable, confused tilt.
"No, I just..."
Alara gasps, feels her humiliation transition into - into - into something else, something warmer. She feels her abdomen begin to tingle and flutter as Claire switches out the vials; when the needle in her arm gives a small shift, a moan is pried from Alara's throat, and she grasps the arm of the chair with her free hand so hard that it snaps in half.
"Whoa, Alara. Are you feeling all right?"
"I'm just tired," Alara replies. "Travelling is always hard these days. And, you know how no one likes getting their blood drawn.”
Claire gives a few ghost laughs. The first sounds like an amused agreement; the second sounds like a realization; the third sounds like an idea. Her blood flows even slower through the tube.
“I see,” Claire responds. “Okay. Because for a second it sounded like you were getting off on having my equipment inside of you.”
Alara's heart stills in her chest, and as she stiffens, the feeling of the needle in her vein becomes more and more noticeable. "Wh--what?"
"If you are," Claire continues, the second vial still only a quarter full, "I don't mind."
Her heart reanimates, and hammers. She feels herself grow sick with need, desire like a disease coming back up the throat. She should have declined. She should never have returned. I don't mind. But Alara's desire carries unknown depravities, Alara has only ever seen her wanting as a wickedness; how can she not mind?
"But," Alara protests. "Isaac."
"Isaac tried to sleep with Kelly when I accepted the proposal - don't ask - so I think that if you were getting off on it," Claire says, her voice lowering to a whisper, "and if I were to do this..."
Claire takes Alara's free hand, guides Alara's touch to the waist of Alara's pants, and works the buttons apart. Half full, now, like the stupid human idiom that Alara has never been able to truly understand. She trails Alara's hand beneath Alara's underwear, feels how Alara has soaked through the fabric, and gives a caring grin.
"...then I think we'd be even," she finishes.
"Claire," Alara gasps. Everything floods back in: her resentment and her return home and the way the Orville was stolen from her by her own body, all the months she'd spend trying to impress Claire's long career in the Union, the routine physicals that never failed to fluster. Claire pulls her hand away to switch in the third vial, and Alara's fingers brush against her own clit, her breath heavy in her chest.
She tries to control her breathing, tries to take it slow. It might actually hurt if she doesn't take it slow. Her blood begins to flow out faster, and her touch begins to circle over each sensitive area, safe beneath Claire as she carries herself higher.
"You're doing good," Claire tells her. Fourth tube now. "Almost done."
She won't let herself grow impatient. She's been dreaming of this for years. She can wait. Claire locks eyes with her as the final vial is drawn, their gazes meeting in a fatal planetary collision, and Alara's pace begins to feel like a sick, torturous mock.
When Claire removes the needle and replaces it with the pressure of thick gauze, Alara's mind scrambles. She feels her consciousness begin to punch down on her, the pleasure so overwhelming as her touch is finally allowed to quicken. Hunger, Alara thinks, hunger. Claire places each tube in its rightful place, feeds the samples to their computer for testing, humming a casual tune as she works, as Alara fucks herself faster. She tries not to breathe Claire's name, tries to maintain the self control the Xelayan military had drilled right down in---
"Claire," Alara breathes, and unravels.
