Guz Tendi Angst

After a moment, Tendi pulled away. If she was disappointed that Guz was not green apple flavored, she certainly didn't show it, and she looked at the desperate gooey mess in front of her like she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Guz recovered and sucked in a tendril of slime which had bridged the gap between their mouths. She looked up into Tendi's shining emerald eyes, in awe. A thin filament of her own tongue hung from Tendi's lips. She looked beautiful, radiant, shining like some kind of phosphorescent stone.

Guz was speechless. She felt herself sticking in her head, recoiling from the moment and trying helplessly to process the pleasurable exchange that they had just shared. Tendi spoke first.

"Do you, uhm..." she started.

Guz stared back with wide, wet eyes.

"do you *really* like me...? Really?" Tendi said.

Guz tried to speak but the air she was trying to push through her vocal folds got caught up in a sticky mess. She wanted to say "of course I do! isn't it obvious!?" but a glarbled mess of bubbling sounds came out instead.

For a moment, Tendi fell quiet and looked reserved. Her hopeful smile fell into a rejected frown. She looked down and to the side. She started to pull away, but Guz pulled her back. She didn't want her to go, not like this. If she couldn't tell Tendi how much she meant to her *verbally,* then maybe *actions* would speak for her instead. Shakily, she put her hands around Tendi's waist. They softened against her uniform and began to drip. She moved closer. Tendi seemed surprised.

Guz closed her eyes. Before she could open them again, Tendi pulled her hands through Guz's hair and met her lips again. It felt soo right. She melted into Tendi's grasp.

Something about that filament. The way it hung down from Tendi's lip. No. It couldn't have been.

A voice entered Guz's head. "This is how it could be all the time." But it wasn't Tendi's. It was Nexus.

Guz froze. She felt an almost electric pain run through her skeleton as it solidified. She reformed her melting face and opened her eyes. It was just Tendi, smiling softly. Right? She threw Tendi off of her.

"What? Oh my god I'm so sorry if I've misread you, I'm such an idiot, I thought that--" Tendi said.

Guz's skin buzzed uncomfortably. She felt sick. "This is a trick."

Tendi blinked. "What?"

Guz shuffled backwards on the floor. "You're not real. Or, you're being puppeteered by Nexus or something. Or you ARE Nexus."

Tendi's eyes went wide. "Who is Nexus!?"

Guz broke eye contact and stammered out an explanation. She told Tendi about this bizarre space goddex who keeps following her around and putting her through fantasies and trials.

"Oh, like when we were stuck alone on the Cerritos in an infinite expanse of purple goo?"

"Exactly!" Guz said.

"I thought you hated being alone with me, but... you were just annoyed at this Nexus thing, weren't you?"

Guz nodded. "And I just... this is..." this was everything Guz wanted. It was perfection. WHY COULDNT SHE JUST ENJOY THIS? "...this was really nice, and I'm afraid this is some kind of awful mind game."

Tendi considered this, and wiped the mellanoid slime off her face and brushed her hands on her uniform. "We'll go to sickbay, and do a brain scan. And if there's anything wrong with the results, we can check to see if i'm being puppeteered!"

Guz's face lightened up. She felt a little bit of the tension relax from her shoulders. Her skin went from rubber to putty. "ok. let's. do that."

They didn't find anything wrong with Tendi's brain scan. Guz cursed her own stupid mind for ruining everything, and Tendi had wrapped her arms around her and hugged her. There was no interference. She got what she wanted, not because this was a fantasy, but because sometimes beautiful things *do* happen to normal people. There was no catch--at least, not the kind she was worried about--but she began to feel an anger welling up in her. Nexus didn't even have to *do* anything to make Guz suffer. All they had to do was to get Guz to invent her own hell. And that, Guz supposed, was exactly Nexus' particular style of torment.