The Devil looking through the keyhole

Posted on 26 Jul 2014 @ 12:38pm by Lieutenant Oren Idris Ph.D. & Senior Chief Petty Officer Keval zh'Erinov

3,034 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 7, Arboretum
Timeline: MD06 - 1200hrs

[ON]

Meditation had never come easy to Oren. His overactive imagination and anxiety always made it an almost unachievable goal to maintain a meditative state for more than ten minutes at a time before the 'What if' thought paraded through his brain. Feeling cooped up in his small quarters, the Arboretum felt like a godsend. With his eyes shut, the smell of the plant life and the warmth radiating from the artificial lighting, it almost felt as if he wasn't flying around in space but was instead sitting in the forest outback of his grandmother's house.

That feeling carried Oren through his meditation until two crewmen ran behind him, arguing about the best way to align a dillithium matrix. Startled out of his fragile state, Oren sighed, looking up at the artificial sky as if praying for strength.

Figuring his chances of meditating again were a bust, Oren instead leaned back to lie down on the grass. His first attempt failed as he laid down on a Tribble but, once he put the little guy aside, he succeeded in relaxing.

Keval took a final look at the painting he had just finished. He wasn't entirely happy with it, but then again he never was. Not really. Currently he was alone. His roommate, thankfully was out, which gave him some much needed privacy.

He took a quick sonic shower then and decided to get out of there before she returned. Not that there was any animosity between the two, far from it, but he just wanted to be alone, to think some things through.

After he had changed into a pair of teal cargo shorts and a matching A shirt, he headed to the Arboretum.

He stepped inside and took a nice deep breath of the scented air. He would have preferred it colder, but it was, what it was. He had taken just a few steps when he almost stumbled over a man he had not seen before.

Catching himself just before he tripped he said, "Excuse me."

Oren opened his green eyes to peer up at the owner of the voice. Pushing his bangs out of his eyes, he blinked several times to focus his gaze only to be met with the image of a tall Andorian standing over him.

"Hi!" he said with a smile. "No problem," Oren assured him with as much of a shrug as he could manage from his position but making no move to sit up.

Keval looked down at the other man, the frown he had been wearing when he almost stumbled changing ever so subtly . It didn't change so much as it softened. "You must be new here, I'm Keval. Mind if I sit down?"

Oren's smile widened as his suspicions were confirmed. He motioned to the grass next to him. "Be my guest."

Keval eased himself down into a seating position wearing a neutral expression..

When the Andorian settled, Oren spoke. "You're Keval Graysan, right?" Before the other man could react, he decided to clarify. "I'm Oren Idris. Your friend Jared Nicholas mentioned you."

Keval's started to smile, "That's me. What exactly did Jared tell you?"

Oren thought for a moment about whether to tell Keval the whole truth or just enough of it to satisfy his curiosity. After a moment, he finally decided and said, "He said you were a very nice guy, that you worked in Ops and that you were seeing someone." He was never good at concealing the truth anyway.

Thinking about Elijah always made him feel good. "Well I hope I'm a nice guy as for the other two charges I must plead guilty too Was he trying to set the two of us up?"

Oren nodded with a laugh. "Yes, yes he was. You know how happy, coupled people are. They're so happy they want everyone around them to be that way too, so they try to pair everyone off. He was so eager, he completely forgot you were dating someone," the blond explained. "It was adorable."

"Well I don't exactly know if you could define it as dating. We've been on one official date. Though it was some date, let me tell you."

"Oh?" Oren asked, his expression obviously curious. "Did they sweep you off your feet?" Despite his own lack of luck in the romance department, he couldn't help but love listening to other people's experiences.

"More the other way around I think, I took him someplace I've never taken anyone before. My family's ancestral home. It was in the holodeck but still. And he kissed me. It was his first time to kiss someone. It was, well it was special."

Oren's smile widened as he listened. "That's so sweet. I remember my first kiss. It was so long ago but I remember like it was yesterday. It was a Bajoran girl from my father's dance class, in my kitchen. We both tasted like fruit juice and cookies." Oren chuckled. He hadn't thought of that in ages!

"What about you? Do you remember yours?" He knew it was an odd conversation to have with someone you just met, but the usual pleasantries never interested Oren in the first place.

If he considered it a strange question, Keval didn't address it. "Oh yeah. I was fifteen at the time. It was my best friend, David. I was kind of naive and innocent back then. I didn't know he was gay. Hell, I didn't even know I was. We would sleep over at each other's house all the time and he kept dropping hints, that I totally missed.

"So one day it must have been around midnight we were in the kitchen at my place, watching a holovid. He turned to me and told me he liked me. I called him a doofus and told him I knew that and I liked him too.

Then he said, 'No, I mean really LIKE you.' and then he kissed me."

"Aww...how did you react? Because when Mareh pushed me against the counter and used too much tongue, I crouched down and slipped away on all fours," Oren explained with a laugh at himself.

"Well, he didn't try using his tongue, but at first I pushed him away. More in shock than anything else. And then all the good times we'd had together, kind of flashed through my mind and I pulled him back and kissed him back.

"But I must admit that your story sounds much more interesting. You actually crawled away? How old were you?"

"Fourteen and a half. And yes, I crawled all the way through the kitchen and sprinted out the back door," Oren confirmed with a nod and a hand gesture showing the maneuvering he must have done through his childhood home. "I didn't even know she liked me. She was just this girl in my father's class. Gorgeous, with red hair and multicolored stones in her earring." Oren paused, wondering what an odd detail that was to remember about someone you barely knew. "When I left I went straight to my mother's studio to tell her about my assault. Naturally, she thought it was cute."


"Mothers do think those things are cute." For some reason Keval was a little disappointed that Oren's first kiss had been a girl. That feeling confused him a bit as it really shouldn't have mattered since he had Elijah, or at least the potential of having Elijah, but somehow it did.

"And what about your 'real' time, you know when you wanted to be kissed?"

Oren thought for a moment. "That was...five or six years later. It was my Betazoid roommate at University. I remember it was so confusing. He was just...so smart, and he said so many deep, intelligent things, I just couldn't control myself. I knew he liked me, but I have this strange way of approaching people I like. It's intimidating for me, so I push them away and argue and...it's just embarrassing." Oren shook his head at himself. Truthfully speaking, he was only marginally better at handling attention now compared to back then.

"He could, of course, read me like a book. So, we were studying Statistics one night and, honestly, we were a little buzzed because we'd been studying for, like, six hours. We talked and I kissed him. It was....pretty perfect, actually," Oren finished happily.

"Wow, that's amazing," Keval said, his left antennae curling forward slightly. "I am a sucker for romance and I love kissing. It's a very intimate act. And I am much more into intimacy than just screwing."

"Oh...I completely agree. I could probably kiss and just touch someone for hours without it going anywhere," Oren agreed. "I'm a hopeless romantic too. So much that it's probably a little gross." He laughed, leaning back down to lay on the grass with a sigh.

"But I'm not very good at it. Romance, I mean." He shrugged. "Well, relationships," he amended.

"I don't think you have to be perfect or even good at it really. Not at first anyway. No one is. But when the right person enters your life, then I'm sure it will come to you. You've just not found the right one that's all

"Sex without emotional intimacy is just empty. It does nothing for me." Keval looked down at the other man shaking his head, "sorry, that was probably way too personal."

"It's fine," Oren assured him. "I think that's just how this conversation is meant to go from the beginning." He smiled. Oren didn't generally enjoy talks that clued him in on the intimate lives of other people, but he'd built up a tolerance after so many years. When people loved talking to you, it was only natural for the conversations to get quite personal. "And I guess you could be right." He shrugged. After hearing about how he hadn't found 'the right person' for so long, Oren was getting pretty sick of it.

Keval laid down beside Oren. Close but not too close. "And you're a good looking guy I am sure you'll find someone special."

"Yeah..." Oren just said. Why was it always 'you're a good looking guy'? Was that all? He knew realistically that Keval didn't know him so his looks were all he could judge him on, but Oren was still a little miffed of hearing how good looking he was. That wasn't all he had to offer. Staying quiet for a moment, Oren wondered if maybe it was.

"I hope things work out for you and your guy," he told Keval, pushing his nagging doubts aside.

"I do too," came the response, "I just don't know if he is as ready for a commitment as I am and after the last time, I'm taking things slow. I don't really want to be hurt again."

"I understand. Both not wanting to be hurt and wanting to make a real commitment. Getting hurt is inevitable when you love a lot, I think. It hurts because it matters," Oren said, looking up at the ceiling-sky.

"Yeah, but I know if I don't take a chance, don't try to make it work, then I'm always going to be settling for Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right. I don't want to have to settle."

"I know," Oren said. There was a pause. "Personally, I've had plenty of relationships that felt right but they turned out to be dead ends for one reason or another several years later. Right now, I'm just happy to be single, even if it is a little lonely sometimes."

"Just don't give up, that's all I'm saying. And you know I'm always willing to talk. You know if you don't mind being friends with an enlisted guy."

Oren chuckled at that. "Well, I don't, but we may have to keep it on the down low if any officer types come around," he said, lowering his voice into a stage whisper.

Keval's grin grew a little wider and when he lay back down again this time he was somehow closer. "You know Oren, I think I like you."

"Eh, you're young. You'll learn," Oren joked, returning his grin with a wink before looking back up at the ceiling.

"Oh? and what exactly am I going to learn?' he teased.

Oren tsked playfully at him. "Now, now. If I told you that, where would the fun be?" he said. He kept his gaze on the ceiling but a teasing smile played on his lips.

Keval relaxed and closed his eyes, "Well I wouldn't want you to be deprived of your fun. So I guess you're just going to have to show me."

"One day, maybe," Oren agreed with a sigh, closing his eyes as well.

"Maybe? I was kind of hoping for a promise."

"Only if you're good."

"Well that's setting the bar pretty high, but I guess I can try."

Oren's smile widened with every sentence exchanged until he finally opened his eyes and glanced over at Keval. "Well one of us has to be. I can't change my ways now. Old dogs and whatnot."

"I'll keep that in mind, old man." Keval said. He kept his eyes closed and his hands to himself, though it was only through reminding himself of Elijah that he was able to do that.

"Hey now. Don't they teach you Andorians to respect your elders?"

"You're much too sexy for me to consider you an elder."

Oren laughed. "My, my, Mr. Graysan, you make an old man blush."

Keval opened his eyes and looked over at Oren again. "Well then, I've done my job."

"Is that what you enlisted people do? Flirt with the civilians?" Oren opened his eyes and met Keval's. He smiled mischievously at him. He had to admit, despite the nagging feeling that this wasn't a good idea (Keval was taken, after all), he was enjoying himself.

Keval swallowed hard at his bluff being called. He was going down a road he wasn't sure he wanted to travel. "I don't know about all Enlisted people, with me it's just natural, I guess. But I hope you know you're making this hard for me."

"Maybe you should quit while you're ahead," Oren advised, meeting Keval's amber eyes. "I wouldn't wish to tempt you." He could feel Keval's conflict easily and couldn't help but feel slightly thrilled by it, if a little guilty. To be fair, he didn't feel attracted to Keval in the least but there was something in his mind, egging him on. Something he knew he didn't like but couldn't help. The whole interaction was starting to feel like an out of body experience to him.

For a brief moment, Keval almost gave into the conflict, to the temptation. He was close enough that it would be easy. All he had to do was lean forward, not even half a foot and kiss Oren. No one would ever know.

Except he would know. He hastily stood to his feet. 'Yeah, I think you're right. I just can't do it. No matter how much I want to kiss you.

"I mean is that wrong? I just met you, we've just been talking for fifteen minutes and I am seeing Elijah but I still want to kiss you."

Oren just looked up at him for a moment before sitting up. "It's not wrong in itself, but from what I can tell, it wouldn't be who you are. I don't know Elijah but I know you a little, and I don't want you to have to live with the pain of hurting someone who trusts you."

"So..." Oren's demeanor changed slightly. "I don't want you to kiss me," he half-lied and it was obvious. Although his posture and expression gave his argument strength, his green eyes betrayed him with their honesty. "You're imagining things."

"You're right about it not being who I am. I might be tempted, but I would never hurt him.

But I don't have to be a telepath to know you're lying. You want me to kiss you and you know it. If I didn't have a boyfriend, if you could call Elijah that, you'd have no problem with it. Your eyes give you away."

'Don't they always',Oren thought. "But you do have a boyfriend, so it's of no real importance what I want."

"I do, which means I should be leaving. I should have left five minutes ago."

Oren nodded and then finally pushed himself up into a standing position in front of Keval. The Andorian was taller than him, he noticed briefly, before speaking. "Tell you what. How about I leave?" he asked, looking up Keval. He resisted the urge to reach out and give his arm a supportive squeeze, feeling it would probably be a little too much.

"Sure, if you want." Keval said upset with himself from having let his thoughts wander. He normally wasn't tempted by a pretty face or a hard body, Not at least when he was in a relationship. Was he in a relationship with Elijah? Of a sort yeah. And he didn't want to lose that.

His face got a darker shade of blue, "I guess I will see you around."

Oren's smile didn't leave his face, only softened slightly. "I hope for your sake it'll be in a public place again," he told Keval, moving past him but brushing up against his arm with his gently. He just couldn't resist it and knew he'd regret it later once his thoughts were more scattered.

As Oren brushed by him, there was a brief temptation to grab him and pull him back, but he withheld himself Resolved not not give in to the temptation. "Yeah," he said rather non-committally.

"Bye, Keval," Oren said finally, putting his hands into his pockets and slowly making his way out of the Arboretum.

Keval gave out a brief sigh as he watched the other man exit. Then he laid back lost in his own thoughts.

[OFF]

JP by

Oren Idris, Ph.D.
Archaeologist/Anthropologist
USS Galileo

&

CPO Keval Greysan (zh'Erinov)
Operations officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed